End grain chopping board

Xmas time again. This year seing I've the equipment, I'd have a crack at an end grain chopping board for mom. 

I started with some hardwood off cuts which was cut into about 2" thick strips then glued back together end grain up

Next, the board was cut into 2" strips cutting 90 degrees to the glue lines. 

And glued back together. 

Pine boards that had packing tape on them to avoid the glue sticking to them were used top and bottom to keep the strips aligned. 

Next I made a mdf template and routed the design about 6mm deep into the wood and cut the board in half along the design on the bandsaw

I routed out the waste with a flush trim bit on the router table. This bit followed the first routed pattern. 

I had multiple A4 sheet size light and dark veneer which was cut into strips 3" wide and glued in a overlapping pattern 2 veneers thick. 

The newly glued veneer was sandwiched in the board 4 veneers thick or about 6mm. 

Then whole process was repeated for the other veneer. 

Then trimmed to size on the table saw and planned flat on the jointer. 

Mineral oil was used to season the board and done! 

In retrospect, I should have not overlapped the pattern as it didn't line up exactly the same when glued back together. I still don't understand why that happens. Also I had to trim more off the ends then I would have liked due to it looking faily crap with the colours not lining up, and I ended up with a couple of gaps right at the end of the Lamentations. 

Pretty happy with the end result for a first time, and mum really liked it.

Til next time. 

A shop vac for the shed

Other Al: whatcha go there Al?

Al: ummmm did you read the title or look at the pic?

Other Al: Nah putting my feet up, was gonna do it later. 

Al: sigh. Well what we have here is a 20l shop vac wet / dry vacuum. 

Other Al: cool! Does it suck?

Al: you bet! The last cheap vac I used had less suction power then an under water sealed drainage unit off suction. This is right up there with a dyson. 

Other Al: great! Any cons?

Al: only that it doesn't have the ability to plug a power tool into it, and it will start when the power tool does. If we were in America this would be a quick trip down to a big box store and $20 later we'd have a small box that could sort that right out. But Australia being the nanny country that's not gonna happen here.  

Other Al: soo yah sort it out?

Al: of course!

Al: said box doesn't exist in 240v that I could find and costly and difficult to build from scratch, so I moved the power switch to the handle, not pretty but works fine. And only cost $10 for a 10m extension lead to cut up for the wire and some electreral tape. 

Other Al: nice solution, maybe one day you'll build a voltage sensing box.

Al: yeah, I'll add it to the list. Right under building a CNC machine. 

Al: till next time. 

Christmas special!

With my partners birthday late in November and Christmas just after that, I decided to build some Christmas presents for her.  She really gets really excited by Christmas. My opion? Bar humbug!

First up, an advent Callander. 

I'm no where near creative enough to come up with a design, so I pinched this one. 

http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/videos/advent-calendar-pt-1/

This was by far the biggest PITA to build that I've ever attempted. 

I had to hand make 50 tiny little nails for the doors. 

25 tiny little stained dowels for the handles

And at least 5 million dado joints. 

It's supposed to look kinda of like it has just snowed on it. 

I was too cheap to buy 3different colours of proper paint, so I choose some kids craft paint. It's washable is written in large letters on the front of the bottle. Great I thought, if j's kid ever vomits on it, it'll come right off with a damp cloth. Nope. What they really mean is it will ALWAYS be able to wash off with water, even if it has dried! Didn't realise that bombshell till I tried painting a coat of white over the green, it just mixed the white and green together! 

Oh well, at least now I know. 

The other point of interest is the numbers on each of the door. I used a stencil to pull that off, haven't used one of those since bob hawke was in power.

Next up. 

I found a 7ft Christmas tree. The box it came is sucked, so I built a better one out of 6mm MDF, pine supports and finished it in wrapping paper. It was quite fun and quick to make. 

The only wood of wisdom I have is don't use any water, oil, or blood based adhesives. It look great when the paper is applied, but the paper being well paper adsorbes the water then contracts as it dries and leaves giant wrinkles in the paper. I ended up using an aerosol spray adhesive, that worked well.

No present is complete without a bow, and what better then a wood bow!

This was made from pine and a mystery wood. Ripped some super thin stripes on the tablesaw and attached in the centre with hot gule, and a red button added for good measure. 

That's enough Christmas to last me a decade. 

Till next time.