Posts Tagged woodworking

New place, new woodshop

Posted by therider in Hobbies on January 23, 2010

My workshop - Jan 10

We moved to a rented house in the beginning of 2010. One of my two roomies moved out of the old place, and the rent looked pretty steep, so we found a 3br house for a little less. Besides the fact that all of us craved for some open space, the 2-car garage was a pretty good motivation to move my lazy ass.

It took us no less than a week to move and set up, but now I can say that it was totally worth the labor and pain. No more stair climbing nonsense, and my garage woodshop next to the kitchen is a total bliss.

Among my tools, I have only added a wood lathe and a bandsaw. As luck would have it, the lathe was my own over a year back and the current owner would not sell it but trust me enough to let me use it on rent. Could not find a good deal on craigslist so I rented it for 6 months. Who knows if my bowl turning passion will still be active or not. The bandsaw was a great find, and it makes me feel like I got a pair of scissors to cut wood in arbitrary shapes. Pretty darn fun.

Amazing how a little more space can fire up so much energy. I have taken up a little bit of acrylic painting as well, and anxious to see where it takes me. Painted my first 16×20 canvas last week and right now making a 24×24 hardwood canvas for another painting I have in mind.

Hope the creative energy stays on for a while. More later…

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Woodwork project: Desk-side shelf

Posted by therider in Hobbies on October 25, 2009

Shelf upgrade equivalent to 10GB from 1GB ! Recessed notches to prevent slip outs

I am not a neat-freak but chaos beyond a certain point seems to hurt my productivity and mental peace. My first serious woodwork project was an utility shelf, barely 6″ deep, 2 ft wide and 6 ft tall, but it served me very well for the last three years.

Recently, easy access to everyday things has been an issue, since Priti loves to do origami and by now we have a lot of them lying around. So I decided it was time to upgrade. Nice excuse to play with the tools for a few hours.

I came up with a 6 ft tall, 2.5 ft wide and about a foot deep storage with 3 fixed shelves and 4 adjustable ones. About 5 hours of back breaking labor but the feeling of extra space is so nice that it makes me compare to an upgrade of 1gb to 10gb of RAM !

For those who want to make one, here is a cut list:
1. 12″ wide white melamine panel with pre-drilled holes for shelving: 6ft x2 (I bought two 8 ft long panels since there was no 12 ft)
2. 12″ wide solid white melamine panel: 30″ x3 (bought one 8 ft panel)
3. 12″ wide pine panel: 30″ x4 (bought two 6 ft panels)
4. 1/8″ thick handypanel for backing board: 3 pieces of 24″x48″, then cut each to 24″x31.5″

I used pocket joinery and glue to fix the 3 melamine shelves first. The structure at this point is not very rigid, it can shear, leading to joint failure since melamine is not very dense. For the extra rigidity, the backing boards are glued and nailed behind. The adjustable shelves got notches cut where it sits on the metal spoons, to prevent an accidental slip out, by an earthquake or otherwise.

Oh and the total cost of wood from home depot: $80. Satisfaction of building a quality storage shelf for our daily use: priceless.

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