Response To Light

For Lynne’s Birthday I decided I would try to use my woodworking skills to make her something. My initial thought was to make a Tack Trunk. I got about as far as getting the wood but it occured to me that I wouldn’t get it done in time. My fallback position was a Bridle Rack. I had already purchased some Alder which I was going to use to make cabinet doors for the bar downstairs. I also had some walnut that was using for accent pieces I have been making. I thought the combination would be great and I could stain the piece in Camelot’s colors - Black and Burgandy.

I had already planed and jointed the alder but the walnut needed some work. I few weeks ago I traded my Delta TP305 Planer for a Dewalt 734. What difference!!! The Delta had horrendous snipe and routinely ruined my very expensive wood (In wood working tools are half the battle. In my eyes, wood is expensive so defects caused by equipment is unacceptable). The Dewalt has very little snipe and the surface is smooth as glass.

After cutting the walnut into 1.5″ strips I ran them though the router table to create a nice profile. I also tilted the table saw to 45 degrees to bevel the inside edges of both the alder and the walnut strips. It’s a subtle detail but it adds interest while viewing the piece. Next up I created the miters for walnut strips. Miters are a bit tricky if you don’t want to have any gaps. You do each one individually. In this case I did each one a little over and then dialed it down until they fit precisely.

While the walnut is already a dark wood I wanted it to appear black so I stained it multiple times with Minwax Ebony stain. I wanted to stain the alder in a burgandy color. In Home Depot, I saw a stain called Red Mahogany which looked like it would do the trick. On my practice piece, it looked more brown than red so back to the store I went to try something else. The only thing that was close in color was an all in one stain/poly called Bombay Mahogany. I have used this on another project in the past and didn’t like it. It’s much better to deal with the stain and then the poly. However with Lynne’s Birthday coming up the next day, there wasn’t anything else that was close so I bought it. The one thing I didn’t do due to time contraints was pretreat the wood with conditioner. The all in one has a tendency to be very blotchy and the conditioner helps with this. Sure enough when I went to stain it, the finish came out very blotchy. Oh well, I could finish it properly later. After a couple coats on all of the pieces, it was time to put it together.

A year ago, I bought a Ryobi biscuit joiner on sale. I tried it on a couple of test pieces when I bought it and couldn’t get anything to fit properly. But that was year ago and I had just watched the New Yankee Workshop. Norm made it see very easy so I pulled it out to try it again. While working with my test piece I realized what was I was doing wrong. I was starting the cutter while also trying to press it in. This caused the biscuit joiner to travel along the wood instead creating nice holes for the biscuits. Start the cutter first and then insert it, there were no problems after that.

Glue up of the pieces, put in the biscuits and call it a day. I had just enough time to line up holes for the hooks, get those installed and wrap it up before Lynne got home from work to start her birthday festivities.

Long Bridle Rack

Actually there was quite a bit of work to do after I gave it to Lynne. I sanded it and then restained it making sure to get a more even coverage. I also gave it three coats of poly to give it a nice sheen while also adding to its protection.

As easy as I have made it seem while writing this, I made several mistakes. Non of the clamps I had would let me clamp the piece properly while glueing up so one of corners didn’t come out as even as I would liked. The biscuits I had were #10’s but I created #20 holes which are slightly larger. It was only after looking over the joiner that I realized you could set it for different sized biscuits. If time permited I probably should have put a few more coats on the walnut to make it blacker.

All in all it was fun project that didn’t take too long to make. The finished project looks as good as any store bought rack that I have seen and I’m quite pleased with the end result. More importantly Lynne is very happy with her present.

Short Bridle Rack

One of the things I have found that really helps is to create a test piece along with the final result. This gives you the opportunity to test jigs and settings before doing something with your expensive piece of wood. In this case the test turned out just as nice as the long rack.

As always the picture doesn’t really capture the color or vibrancy of the real thing. In terms of color it looks identical to the longer piece but no matter how I took the picture it came out redder. Oh well. I tried!

Enjoy!

I bought an Xbox360 last February and I have never looked back. The games are amazing. There are always interesting downloads. And it fits in with the theme of our family room.

The day after Christmas (Boxing Day for Canadians), my Xbox360 died. It was a slow death to be sure. It worked for a bit and then would hang. Wait awhile and then it would work for a bit. Then it would hang. Finally I experienced the Xbox360 Ring of Death. I look on the ‘net for answers but nothing seemed to work. I finally called Microsoft.

I like Microsoft but their support for this system. The first call I waited 30 minutes and didn’t get anyone. The second call after going through all of their diagnostics and being on the phone for two hours, their computer system died and they could not create a case number. The next day after being on the phone for an hour, they were able to get me a case number but I needed to call back the next day to confirm my address. I was originally told they would send out a new Xbox360 and I would return mine when the new arrived. This sounded odd but maybe this was their way of making up for the horrible customer service I had received so far. I confirmed my case number the next day and all was well. Three weeks later I still have no console. I finally decide to call back. They have the case number but nothing has been sent out and they have no record of my address. It turns out they send you a box. You put your Xbox into the box and send it to them. They then send you another console.

This is ridiculous! First to have the console die in less than a year (and trust me I am absolutely not alone here). Second to have spend hours of my time just trying to get this fixed or replaced. And then to have wait what is going to amount to a couple of months without my console. It makes me wonder what’s going to happen a year from now when the warranty has run out and it decides to die again.

Microsoft get your act together! And get me my *()@$#*)(*@# Xbox360!!!!