Bike Cable Lid Support - Woodworking Tip #23

For a cyclist a broken brake cable just means longer stopping distance. For a pilot a broken elevator cable means landing, look mom, “no hands,” using flaps, power and trim for pitch control. For my lady a broken jewelry box lid support cable meant holding the lid with the left hand as the right hand sought the day's adornments. Really, not bad: after 29,251 cycles this bike cable lid support broke, though not the cable itself. The cable pulled out of its crimped ring connector on the lid. It was easily replaced with a fresh piece of bicycle brake cable and a new ring wire connector.

Using Soss hinges, as I did, on this walnut and cherry jewelry box with a full-width earring tray and music movement, the hinge itself provided no lid support. Furthermore, the full tray under the lid allowed no space for a scissors lid stay.  A light cord or chain tends to either get kinked or ends up draping outside of the box.  The solution was found in of all places my cycling ditty box. Taking a brake cable I cut the nipple end down to about 6 inches, threaded it through a diagonal hole in the support dowel for the earring tray and crimped the end to an uninsulated ring wire connector. The ring connector was then screwed to the underside of the lid. The clearance of only 1/16” between the tray and side of the jewelry box still allowed the cable to slide by, though during this recent repair I relieved the side of the tray slightly to permit even easier movement.  If you use a rail instead of dowels to support the tray the diagonal cable hole would go through it.

The barrel nipple at the end of the cable hits the bottom of the box when the lid is closed and neatly slides forward along the bottom of the box. The real beauty of this system is that the bike cable is rigid enough to have no tendency to fold or kink. Surprisingly, little pressure must be exerted on the felt as it appears completely unmarred even after 29,251 cycles.  There you have it:  a synthesis of two of my loves, cycling and woodworking, for my love.

To view all previous Woodworking Tips just type "woodworking tip" into the search box at the top of the blog's first page.  

SketchUp Success for Woodworkers -- Woodworking Tip #22

The 22nd woodworking tip is:  buy this book and use it to learn SketchUp!!

And yes, here I thought I was the only woodworker graduate from Columbia. Turns out I was wrong, for David Heim, one of my fellow alumni, is not only a fine fine woodworker, specifically wood turning, but also one of the country's leading experts on the use of the 3D modeling program SketchUp as applicable to furniture making, cabinetry and all the other lovely objects made from wood. SketchUp is a complete drawing program, useful not just to woodworkers, but to interior designers, architects, landscapers, city planners, etc. What David Heim has done in his excellent book SketchUp Success for Woodworkers recently published by Spring House Press is extracted and tuned the aspects of the program which enable woodworkers to produce attractive, realistic 3D models of their ideas, designs and projects.  (At this point I have finally stopped my word processing program's constant urge to turn SketchUp into ketchup.)

If you stop reading here, my advice to you woodworkers is get David's book and learn SketchUp! While you're at it also visit his online shop at Etsy:  www.etsy.com/shop/DavidHeim  to see some of his beautiful turnings.  You can also buy his book through his Etsy shop.

So how does design happen? Starting to learn SketchUp got me reflecting about the evolution of the design tools I've utilized throughout my woodworking career. Now please don't ask why I still have this, but it all begins here:

Back in the day, while the girls were sewing and muffining in Home EC class, the boys were combating Sputnik by taking Mechanical Drawing. I don't think this was an elective either; it was a manly skill.  The main object of the course was converting some fanciful 3D object, often resembling the parapet of a Medieval castle, into front, top and side views. A lot of your grade depended on placing a dotted line where superman's Xray vision would have detected a change in form on the opposite side.

Years later when I took up professional woodworking, home computers, let alone drawing software, had not yet been invented, and thus dredging up this old junior high school skill proved most useful. At this point we call it "drafting."  I found myself even building drafting tables for myself and customers as well as gathering a nice collection of those green plastic Staedtler templates.  These templates helped me learn such important things as curves are French.  Still the plans did not appear all that different from those in 8^th grade:

Continuing on: thanks to the urging of our son Josh we were one of the first families on the block to own a computer, a handmade XT. Fast forward years later Josh has opened his bicycle trailer and accessory business BikeShopHub and required a CAD-CAM program to operate a ShopBot CNC tool in the manufacture of his novel bicycle travel case the Cello. The Cello amazingly converted a BOB one-wheeled bicycle trailer into a travel luggage box for not only itself but also the bike that pulled it! The chosen program was bobCAD-CAM (ironic, but no relationship to the trailer company), and thus thanks to my son I myself moved to the next stage in design: computer aided drafting using BobCAD-CAM. Without question the greatest benefit of CAD was what I call “dimensional integrity,” no more struggling with finest line on a triangle scale to extract a particular dimension or carefully adding up a series of dimensions to verify sums. Any part of a plan could be measured, and the numbers were precise, perfect, always added up!

So now I have reached the latest stage in the evolution of my design career: starting to learn SketchUp using David Heim's excellent book SketchUp Success for Woodworkers. My first recommendation and his too is to pass over the online program and download SketchUp Make 2017 (still available free as of this posting). Then with program running follow David's clear step-by-step instructions: from choosing a template to setting up your first file to learning the basic tools to creating your first board. He is easy to follow. The centerpiece of the book, his four rules for success, makes enormous sense to anyone who has ever encountered a table saw and attests to his major investment in both mastering and adapting SketchUp for fine woodworkers. What I particularly like about David's approach is that he walks you so very carefully through the SketchUp learning curve. I would not expect to become adept overnight, but you could not have a better guide.

Perhaps only second to the joy of creating, for a custom fine woodworker, is the joy of working directly with your clients, getting to know them and their vision of the environment they desire to inhabit. Yet with few exceptions the difficulty has always been offering a clear picture of what exactly they were commissioning. Shop drawing and blueprints are generally insufficient in this regard. Once I even had to build a piece completely over again because I could not see the “picture in the head.”

I only wish I had had a tool like SketchUp throughout my career. I could have then offered to clients a fully 3-dimensional model, built in the chosen woods and with the right stain color, something they could “walk” around. In the later chapters of his book David explains how you can import any wood grain or texture to your model or even render it realistically. Clients are always finding photographs of some piece or environment they like, and you will even learn how to initiate your design using one of these. Both client and creator benefit. You will be able to push, pull, stretch, shrink, reshape, add components, subtract components until the picture in your own head is achieved.

Afterword: SketchUp and computer assisted manufacturing (CAM)

Though in most cases I did not use the CAM side of bobCAD-CAM, occasionally it came in very handy especially when both precision and duplication were required such as cutting the triangular solid oak countertops that formed this 15-sided customer service center. The screen shot of the bobCAD-CAM file used to cut these on ShopBot is pictured above along with the finished product. SketchUp Success for Woodworkers does not cover using SketchUp files (.skp) to operate CNC machinery, but a quick look on the web indicates that conversion to CNC files is possible. I am no expert on drawing programs, but I do know a good guidebook when I see one. David Heim's book is the first place to go if you want this powerful tool in your tool bag...happy sketching!

Double-Sided Sandpaper -- Woodworking Tip #21

I'd say at this point in my woodworking career I've folded 17,635 pieces of sandpaper for the purpose of hand-sanding. By hand-sanding I mean just that, nothing more than hand and sandpaper. Technically, of course, using a sanding block is hand-sanding, but so often more precision is required for such tasks as smoothing a joint, removing a blemish or scratch, especially smoothing curves or contours, etc. Nothing like fingers and a little piece of folded sandpaper does the trick. Doubling the sandpaper by folding it in half seems natural and provides better purchase. Years ago I thought wouldn't hand-sanding be easier if the two smooth sides were not always slipping and sliding about? This could be accomplished merely by gluing the fold together. As is often the case with our own best interests this fine approach to sanding was defiantly deferred. Until last week. I finally took the typical quarter sheet strip of sandpaper (2.75”x 9”) used on a standard sanding block, cut it in half, creased the pieces in two, sprayed the backsides with light duty adhesive and then folded the tacky surfaces together.  Voilà!  Using three sanding block strips I made a half dozen of these all at once.

The grip provided by the well-attached double surface allows use of every bit of the sandpaper right to the edges and corners. Five of these double-sided sandpapers proved sufficient to rough sand very effectively 10 of my wooden teaspoons. Even the hardest part, sanding the bowl of the spoon, went quite smoothly. While this specialty type of sandpaper is produced commercially, it is not commonly available. Gluing your own is quick, easy, inexpensive and right out of your own stock of sandpaper. In this case I am using Norton ProSand 180 grit, one of my own favorites. My regret is not doing this with piece #1 vs #17635. Try it yourself; you will be pleasantly pleased!

Tapering Legs with a Miter Saw -- Woodworking Tip #20

To an open mind the woodshop is a cornucopia of novelty.  A new approach, an improved jig, a shift in methodology all provide considerable joy.  Tapering, as an example, is typically accomplished with a sliding jig on a table saw.  I would usually make a quick jig out of 3/4” plywood for the required angle...never did own one of those new-fangled adjustable tapering jigs. Given the commission, however, of making short solid maple tapered legs for a couch, the thought of pushing a small block of wood into a table saw blade set 4” high did not seem appealing. The idea occurred to me of using a miter saw to cut the tapers as shown below:

 

Rather than rotating the blade to the desired angle, cut a guide board to the correct angle.  Use the horizontal vice to hold this piece firmly. The saw blade is simply locked on a 90º cut (see above photo). The leg stock is then placed against the scrap wood angle and secured with the vertical vice pressing down upon a wooden bridge between the leg stock and another scrap piece of such a height that the bridge is roughly horizontal.  With this set up cut one of every pair of tapers for however many legs you need.

The next step is to rotate the blade toward the left the number of degrees of the taper angle.  By flipping the guide board forward to back you can use it to set the blade precisely.  Clamp the guide board back in its original position adjusting it left or right as necessary.  Place the cut side against the guide board and cut the opposite side of each pair.  Really, this is not as hard as it sounds and becomes obvious when you do the set up.

Voilà...you have a short tapered leg.  Do realize that a sharp blade on the miter saw really helps as your machine struggles to cut through some 8” or so of hardwood!

Glass as a Cabinet Scraper -- Woodworking Tip #19

I first encountered the use of glass as a cabinet scraper in the Chelsea studio of the Greek artist Michael Lekakis. Michael was a brilliant postwar abstract sculptor working primarily in wood, his works shown in preeminent galleries and museums on both sides of the Atlantic. The glass was a surprise to me. Its use often provided the final finish to his wood sculptures as he had an aversion to sandpaper as far as I could tell.

Scraps of glass are plentiful and easy to come by from framers, hardware stores, glass businesses, etc. I use pieces roughly the side of a 3x5 file card, big enough to put two thumbs on without having to worry about the precision placement required by texting. The glass is drawn toward one at roughly a 45º angle give or take. Few furniture makers have the skill to create that perfectly hooked burr on the edge of a metal scraper, but here 8 very sharp edges are immediately available. They make lovely curled little shavings. They do not dull easily, but once they are, toss the scraper into the recycling bin. The photo shows the glass scraper in use to trim the edge of a drawer for a good fit. If using a glass scraper on a large surface the corners will need be rounded, sandpaper works, thus preventing possible scratches.

I have used glass scrapers with great success most all of my career and am hardly the only woodworker to do so, though the practice does not seem widespread, deserving of further dissemination.

Missing Stile Home Library -- Woodworking Tip #18

Home libraries have certainly populated my woodworking career, and though my design preference for small shelving units is the Hungarian Shelf; when the collection reaches a certain size books just feel better “housed” rather than “shelved,” cozying themselves with walls on five out of six sides. When used on a huge wall there is something disconcerting, upsetting, precipitous about Hungarian Shelves...some number on the Richter Scale being conjured.

For these larger libraries I have often used the “missing stile” approach as above, leaving the stile off one side of each vertical bay. Each subsequent carcass slides behind the stile (vertical) on the one already placed giving the whole library the look of having been built in place. I have used this system successfully even in series of six bays. The resulting junction of the stile and rails is resolved in one of three ways: the rail is either of considerably less thickness, its end is curved, or, in the case above, beveled.

No matter which method, from a design perspective, the library also avoids a kitchen cabinet look wherein rails and stiles are sanded flush. One hint with this method is not to glue the back in its dado, thus allowing ever so little racking, if required, when the carcasses are screwed together.

Tip published in Fine Woodworking

Woodworking Tip #12 from the Flying Circus Studios blog, "Presquare" Large Glue-ups, was just published in the August 2012 (No. 227) issue of Fine Woodworking magazine in their "methods of work" column, page 16.  I don't think you can see this column online, but if you are not a subscriber to Fine Woodworking, you can receive a 14-day free trial membership to their online edition and services by clicking on their website FineWoodworking.com.  Their hand drawn sketches of the tips are a pleasant alternative to photographs.  I began my own subscription to Fine Woodworking about a year after it commenced publishing in winter 1975, bought the few back issues that I had missed and now have the complete set, which makes a superb woodworking reference resource.  The Taunton Press has done a very fine job with this magazine through the years and keeps it nicely up-to-date with the latest developments.

See also our shop at:  www.etsy.com/shop/FlyingCircusStudios

Woodworking Tip # 17: TOPCOTE for Hand Planes

Your hand planes will really take off if you spray the bottom with a layer of TOPCOTE by Bostik.   I had used this product for years to clean, seal and reduce friction on the beds of my table saw, jointer, planer, etc., but then one day I sprayed it on the bottom of my jointer plane pictured to the left.  The results were scary, as if the plane now had some propulsion of its own!  Try it, and you will be a believer.  I have concluded that most of the resistance in pushing a hand plane is the dynamic friction of the sole and not the cutting done by the knife.  Polish the sole thoroughly after application.  Other woodworkers have certainly discovered this too, though Bostik does not include the suggestion on their TOPCOTE can.   It is certainly a very effective use of this excellent product.

Woodworking Tip #16: Slot Height for Hungarian Shelves

Judging from continuing traffic, lots of folks have viewed my method for fabricated the wedges for Hungarian shelves, and I thought it would be helpful to include a post about the appropriate slot height to use for these 2 degree wedges.  Make the slot about 1/16" bigger than the thickness of the shelf.  In this case the shelf was just over 3/4" with finish, and the slot height is a smidge more than 13/16."   Most hardwood is planed to 25/32," and so use a slot height of 27/32."  Pine is typically 3/4," slot height 13/16."  I recommend a slot depth of 1" to 1 1/4" to insure plenty of purchase for the wedges.  Hungarian shelves are definitely one of the niftiest shelving systems.  Happy New Year!

15 Woodworking Tips

Woodworking Tip #15 -- Pseudo Tabletop -- a way to maintain proper alignment of a table top and it's base during fabrication

Woodworking Tip #14 -- Norse Fasteners for Tabletop --  using these very strong and adaptable fasteners to attach a table top to its base

Woodworking Tip #13 -- Doublesticking Drawer Faces  --  a method to keep drawer faces properly positioned on a drawer while the two parts are screwed together

Woodworking Tip #12 --"Pre-square" Large Glue-Ups -- a major helping hand in maintaining the squareness of a structure or carcase while the final glue-up is done

Woodworking Tip #11 -- Curvaceous Corners -- a decorative and error-concealing treatment to solid wood edging applied to plywood shelves

Woodworking Tip #10 -- Traction for Plywood -- keeping extra weight over a pickup's rear wheels while still allowing the space required to transport plywood sheets

Woodworking Tip #9 -- Wedges for Hungarian Shelves  -- a quick way to make wooden wedges for Hungarian shelves or most any other purpose

Woodworking Tip #8 -- Anti-Skid Miter Gauge -- preventing lateral movement of a piece of wood placed against a miter gauge and enhancing safety

Woodworking Tip #7 -- Doweling Jig Stability -- a sure method to keep a doweling jig from tilting while boring a dowel hole in end grain

Woodworking Tip #6 -- Magazine Storage -- a small addition to shelving for magazine storage that keeps all the issues parallel and vertical

Woodworking Tip #5 -- Velcro's New Coat -- an obvious way to use a PSA sanding disc on a sander equipped with a hook and loop type pad

Woodworking Tip #4 -- Level Biscuits -- attaching a line level to a plate joiner in order to keep a biscuit slot parallel to a board's surface when the joiner's bed is unsupported

Woodworking Tip #3 -- Old Sole Eraser -- a cheap and usually available "eraser" to clean sanding belts or discs

Woodworking Tip #2 -- Corner Cut Outs -- a method to assure equal multiple corner cut outs using a table saw sled

Woodworking Tip #1 -- Precision Chops -- pushing a miter saw to the same precision slices produced by a knife trimmer

Woodworking Tip #15: Pseudo Tabletop

The Table ("The Table") shown in my Oct 27, 2011 post has legs that are flared outward at two degree compound angles.  The resultant complex  sizing and positioning of all the pieces would have been a complete nightmare without a CAD program.  Further, to facilitate and check the registration of all the pieces during the fabrication I built a pseudo tabletop as shown to the left.  In each corner was placed a removable dowel.  As the top of each leg has a permanent dowel installed, the pseudo tabletop, with its dowels removed, was used to insure proper positioning of the leg assembly during glue-up.  This light and easy to manipulate board made it simple to insure that the finished tabletop would be parallel with the compact trestle base.  Then, with the dowels in place, the pseudo tabletop was used to position the holes which were bored in the table's brace rails and received the dowels glued in the top of the legs.  It was also used to set the spacing between the brace rails.  The dowels are merely to keep the legs in position while Norse latches provided the clamping force between the legs and tabletop, see:   Norse Fasteners for Tabletop.

Woodworking Tip #14: Norse Fasteners for Tabletop

I always design my larger, heavier tables so that the top and base can be separated, which greatly facilitates moving, repairing, refinishing, and even, heaven forbid, storage.  Last week's post (Oct. 27, 2011, The Table) shows my latest and fastest, perhaps strongest, methodology employing 4 Norse SXR latches and "J" receivers (norse-inc.com).  These stainless steel latches can exert up to 200# of clamping force, far more than is needed to keep a table and its base securely together.  Dowels glued in the top of the legs keep the alignment correct.  To my mind the latches are also beautiful and the mechanical engineering superb.  I have used Norse latches in other applications.  For instance, their fully mortised Type 2 fasteners attach the sectional pieces of my home dining booth:  flyingcircusstudios.blogspot.com/2007/05/blog-post_17.html.   In this case no hardware whatsoever is visible.  Also visible in this picture are the cushioned glass retainers that hold Chris Norlin's stained glass work (ravenseyeglass.com) in a circular rabbet and beneath the 1/4" plate glass "trivet" embedded in the table's top, stout enough to place even your big casserole of lasagna.  The light box has been removed to show these details.

Woodworking Tip # 12: "Presquare" Large Glue-ups

I've found that when it comes to large glue-ups such as wall systems, shelf systems, drawer web frames, even smaller cabinet carcases, it helps a great deal if two of the pieces are already set and firm at right angles.  Really, it doesn't matter which two pieces are "preglued" before the entire carcase is glued-up, for the fact is, having a built-in "framing square" makes the final assembly so much the easier.  Pictured here an actual framing square is clamped to the side of a shelf unit to the keep a shelf square in its dado joint, though the concept would work with biscuits, dowels, or most any other type of joinery.  The bench clamp holds a stiffening stick to prevent any inaccuracies due to measuring square off a concave or convex surface.  Once the glue is set, this pair of pieces will make the larger glue-up much less unwieldy.

Woodworking Tip #11: Curvaceous Corners

I have made a small modification to several recent library shelf systems that consisted of fixed plywood shelves within face frames.  The modification  adds both a touch of elegance and considerable visual interest to what is otherwise a simple design.  A small radius roundover is routed on the end of the shelf edging at the corner that meets the stile, as shown.  Also, making the edging slightly larger than the thickness of the shelf adds a look of solidness and a tiny bit of strength, here 1" edging on 3/4" shelving.

"Woodworking" Tip #10: Traction for Plywood

Transporting hardwood plywood from Spellman Hardwoods to the shop in Flagstaff's wintry conditions is made safer with the help of my tube sand carriages.  Two homemade L-shaped carriages are screwed to the bed behind the wheel wells thus permitting the entire width of the bed to be utilized yet providing extra weight for traction.  The hook shown can receive a tiedown to secure a second tube, making a total of 240# of stable weight with no obstruction.  Of course, full tanks of gas, as every pilot should know, weigh in at 6# per gallon, not to mention prevent condensation.  Coupled with two studless Michelin Latitude tires my venerable 2WD F150 feel like a 4WD, but what transfer case can be dumped into the Flagstaff clay come spring to help loosen things up?

Woodworking Tip #9: Wedges for Hungarian Shelves

Judging from traffic (see Dec. 13, 2009 post) there is a fair amount of interest in "Hungarian shelves," and though this system is very simple to construct, the required wedges deserve some consideration.  I cut these oversize, about 4" in length, to make insertion and removal a cinch and to provide easy thickening by merely shortening at the pointy end.  Use a precision cutoff blade, and set the miter saw at one degree.  Cut the block of wood with the grain, of course, so that the point has square corners, and then flip the block over to make the next cut.  The resulting wedges will thus be 2 degrees, an excellent angle for locking the shelves in place.  Stock shown is 8/4 to correspond with the width of the vertical standard.  Little practice is required to make nearly identical wedges, but if they vary slightly it matters little.  When the wedges will show, such as in upper shelving, they would probably look best finished to match.  Nonetheless, they possess an aesthetic of their own worth displaying.  See also: Slot Height for Hungarian Shelves

See also our shop at:  www.flyingcircusstudios.etsy.com

Woodworking Tip #8: Anti-Skid Miter Gauge

Coat a piece of 400 grit sandpaper with spray adhesive, stick it to your miter gauge(s) and trim the excess sandpaper off with a razor blade.  The sandpaper provides just the right amount of resistance to prevent the workpiece from slipping left or right and gives a surprising amount of security to your grip.  You won't even find yourself renewing this anti-skid mat very often as the sandpaper really does no sanding.

Woodworking Tip #7: Doweling Jig Stability

Most doweling jigs, in this case a "Dowl-It," lack stability when resting on a narrow piece of wood, a typical end grain situation as in the photo.  To insure that the jig does not tilt in any direction and the drilled hole is perfectly perpendicular, I employ a device.  Just tighten the jig on the piece of wood, lower the wood into a vice until the jig evenly contacts the top surface of the vice and then tighten the vice onto the wood.  The jig is totally secure now despite being attached to a piece of wood with a quite narrow surface.

Woodworking Tip #6: Magazine Storage

This feature works extremely well in keeping bound magazines upright, parallel and straight rather than becoming a huge accordion.  A partition is added to the shelf, in this case set in its own groove and about 2/3 the width of the magazine. The thickness of the partition is equal to the difference between the magazine's thickness at the spine and  leaf edge, times the number of magazines between partitions.   Don't do the math.  Just stack some magazines and determine the right number by trial and error with a piece of the partition laying on the leaf edge.  Your collection will look beautiful, and the need for boxes is obviated.  The issues are easy to remove as well.

Woodworking Tip #5: Velcro's New Coat

When the good guys at Woodworker's Supply offered to send me a sampler of their Black-Max ceramic sanding discs, it was a no-brainer to accept.  Thing was I received 5" PSA discs, but my sander pad is hook and loop.  The adaptation was as easy as first attaching a disc of real fine 320 grit H&L sandpaper, then sticking the new PSA Black-Max disc to it.  This worked even better after some of the grit got peeled off by the adhesive.  Thing was too I was working on a deck instead of furniture, but the Black-Max ate through beams and balusters like there was no tomorrow.