09 September
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In Desk Shelf, Shelves, Woodworking
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So I was really just at a low energy setting this weekend, and it was one of the first rains of the coming winter and even just looking at the shed was making me tired, but I have been wondering about something with the design of Calum’s shelves/desk thingy, which is whether or not to put a backing board behind/between the top two shelves. It’d stop stuff falling off the back of those shelves, give a larger contact area with the wall, and stiffen up the whole carcass; but it’d change the look of the unit quite a bit and the joinery might get complex unless I cheated and used a router to carve out a rabbit for the panel.… Read the rest

03 September
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In New Toys!, Tools, Woodworking
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So I recently had a birthday and bought myself a present that I’d been thinking about for a few years but had been putting off because spending a chunk of money on a small thing is usually painful and if you’re not going to be doing something long-term, a bit of a waste, but I finally convinced myself that this making stuff thing wasn’t a fad, so after some advice from the pros I went off to one of my usual sources for new tools and bought…

A red box!… Read the rest

02 September
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In Desk Shelf, Woodworking
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So I decided to go ahead and shape the front curve today, since it was going to be awkward to cut and might be noisy so it’d have to be a weekend job really.

Why is it awkward? Well, the plan is to make the first rough cut with the bandsaw and then to get down to the line with the compass plane and the board is long enough that swinging it around through the bandsaw inside the shed would be awkward and would probably need the door open and the plank sticking out at some point.… Read the rest

01 September
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Not much time in the shed today, but enough to make a start. First, new toys!

So some catches to help with the mod to the Dewalt extraction hood (I think I have everything I need for that now, I’ll get to it soon), an incredibly cheap handplane ($4.30 from Aliexpress delivered) which is more to play with and laugh at than to seriously try to use as a tool, and two interesting tape measures.… Read the rest

25 August
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In Desk Shelf, Locker, Tools, Woodworking
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So, been sick. Children, they’re basically walking petri dishes that deposit germs on you. Anyway, back to it today. And nothing fancy, nothing terribly skillful, just milling timber to rough thickness.

Retrieved the mitre saw stand I bought from lidl a few weeks ago out of the attic, set it up, and mounted the Dewalt to it, spent a while faffing about with the mounting screws discovering that I’d fastened it down using the screws that are for adjusting the infeed and outfeed tables that are built into the thicknesser and had to re-mount it (turns out the thing won’t mount to the lidl stand quite perfectly because it’s too wide, but it’s stable enough to work).… Read the rest

25 August
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In Food
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So I think I’ve gotten the pizza recipe down to “yeah, this’ll do” levels.

Looks good after two minutes in the oven…

And a good crumb structure and base. Grand.

Recipe:

I usually make enough for four pizzas at once.

In the bowl of the stand mixer…

  • 325g warm water (40C if you want to get all fussy about it, “not hot enough to kill yeast” if you don’t)
  • 10g of yeast
  • 20g of honey

And give that a quick stir with the whisk and leave it sit for ten minutes so the yeast wakes up and starts its thing.… Read the rest

06 August
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In Desk Shelf, Shed, Woodworking
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So the walnut panel glueup went as well as I had hoped. The clamps did deform slightly – I need to do that trick of Paul Sellers and stuff them with wood – but the panel came together reasonably well.

There’s a step in the middle where one of the boards bowed though, of just over a mm, so there was some flattening to do before worrying about the surface much.… Read the rest

05 August
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In Desk Shelf, Tools, Woodworking
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So it’s a weekend afternoon so if there’s a more civil time to use a planer, it involves taking a day off work. So to the shed!

First up, fitted the DRO to the planer. Slightly fiddly, and it does still bind a little so I’m sure it needs tweaking – or I could just remember how this is for roughing work only and how it doesn’t matter all that much and never touch it again 😀

It’s within 0.1mm after a very quick calibration.… Read the rest

04 August
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In Tools, Woodworking
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Not done a tap in the shed in nearly two weeks now. Between work kicking up a notch and a short holiday away, not been near the place.

You might wish you were here, but it’s hard to know where “here” is…

 

On the way back, I did get to browse around The Carpentry Store for a few minutes, but alas they don’t carry Ashley Iles so I couldn’t try out those dovetail chisels.… Read the rest