Next Project

The Next project is to be a communion table for a local church. The material is to be black walnut. The design will follow Craftsman styling. The table is to be nearly 8 feet long.

The Twelve insets are to represents the Apostles.

The text inset of "This Do In Rememberence Of Me" is to be Birch.

The legs are 4 inches square at the floor.

The drawing was done with Google Sketchup. I highly recommend using this tool for rendering projects.

Also shown is the raw lumber for the project.

Lots of planning remaining on the cutting diagram before I make sawdust out of this material.

Cheers,

Making the Bed Knobs with a Jig

Ok so here is how I made the bed knobs.

Yes it is possible to buy them - but that is no fun.

I am also not talented enough to make them by free hand turning. Time for a jig!

Have a look at the picture and note the jig I made to pivot my router around the center of rotation on my lathe. The diameter of the ball is set by the hole I place the pivot bolt into and the depth I set on the router.

I start by mounting a block of wood to the faceplate on the lathe. Using a gouge I rough it to a cylinder that is slightly bigger than the ball diameter that I need. These where 4 inches. To give the router a break I knock off the end of the cylinder to a 45 degree - eyeballed to a level where I know it is not into the ball volume itself.
Ok so far?
Next, I set the jig pivot and router depth so that the end of a 1/2 inch dia straight bit is about 1/16th greater than the finsh diameter needed. Note the bit is fairly long - about 2 inches.
Move the jig at the arc position shown (zero degrees) up to the end of the cylinder and tighten the jigs clamp (not shown) to the lathe bedway.

Start the router while holding it in position. Start the lathe on a relatively slow RPM setting. Now slowly arc the router/jig on its pivot from 0 to 90 to the limit you can go on the jig before it is limited by the lathe head. This is the rough cut. Arc back and shut all down. Repeat another pass with the router dropped the remaining 1/16th for the final cut.

This is what the turning looks like after arcing the router.

After this stage I use a parting tool to reduce the shoulder down to a small cylinder. In this case it was about 2 inches about 1/2 inch long.








I drilled a hole in the top of the bed post of equal diameter to the cylinder I parted off at, glued the ball in place and thats it! All done other than cleaning up the chips. Balls of fun! Till next time - Cheers.

Bedknobs and Painted Wood

This project was inspired by a need for a bed for my daughter and suggestions a fellow woodworker at the office recommended.

Most of my projects are stained wood - Oak, Mahogony, Cherry etc. This is my first painted wood project. It was a blast to do the woodworking and this time out grain from a visual perspective was not a big deal. The painting was a blast as well. I used an airless sprayer and shot it with gloss latex. The overspray still present in my garage is a reminder that I need a spraybooth setup. Yet another project!

The foot and headboards are made of fir 4x4s and 2x4's covered with Lowes' "whiteboard" and pine tongue-and-groove panel board. The rails are plywood with leftover oak cap rails. Yes I painted over good oak material. Another work buddy dropped of a ton of oddball oak sticks that came in handy for this project.

The bed bolts together with a homemade bolt-and-pins mechanism. The bedknobs where made with a ball turning jig I built for my lathe. This was a fun project. More to come.....