POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?

ChazzC said:
Beautiful wood - please share after it's finished (& done :) )
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awhile back I posted about a couple of walnut trays I resawed out of a slab. They showed some promise when they were cut...
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But when I got through the finish, what I have used before successfully (equal parts boiled linseed oil, mineral spirits and wipe on poly) the walnut came out so dark the grain was somewhat obscured. Oh well, it still looks pretty good, just not what I was anticipating.

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I got a great deal on a Rockwell EFI drill press, really a brute. What is impressive is the Z height...and that's needed because it came with drawers full of MT3 and MT4 taper drills, which are huge. So I found that I had to fairly frequently reposition either the head or the table, and cranking either was relatively tedious. About then, I got an ad from Vevor for a Bridgeport X axis power feed, for about $125. I've paid about 3 times that much for several X axis and Z axis units from other suppliers, and frankly they all looked identical, with the same pretty useless instructions. Seemed like it was worth a try to adapt that to the table on the drill press. Here's a look at the drill press:

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It seemed like a straightforward project to bolt the drive onto the crank shaft, and I suppose it was, but there were issues. The table hand crank drives a worm that runs an idler gear that mates with the vertical rack on the center column, and it has a slight angle built in, measured at 3.5 degrees in one axis and about 0.3 degrees in the other. I made an adapter block to compensate for that, and after a surprising lot of fiddling to prevent binding, and to get the right replacement shaft dimensions, and to get the right shim placement, it works really well. It has plenty of power to move a very heavy table, a Heinrich(?) vise and whatever is on it.

Here's what the result looks like:

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Yep, it's a little goofy looking, lacks a hand crank, but wow, it works. Perhaps I'll machine a more elegant adapter block someday, but it seems unlikely.

A feature that I need to add is the upper and lower travel limits. It's not clear exactly how to do this, but that's a good project in itself.
 
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Winegrower said:
But when I got through the finish... Oh well, it still looks pretty good, just not what I was anticipating.
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This kind of post makes me nervous.

I have a slab table project coming up. It's a once in a lifetime slab.

I'm concerned about screwing it up as that project gets closer. Going over what finish, stain or no stain, leg design, edge treatment...

Will the kids just screw it up with something like a sharpie, or fingernail polish, or a knife...
 
dkemppai said:
I have a slab table project coming up. It's a once in a lifetime slab.

I'm concerned about screwing it up
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I'm thinking that the slab will show a lot of end grain...that's probably what my problem was. It just takes a lot of finish and looks pretty dark. Maybe there are ways of prepping the wood...anybody have advice for us?
 
Winegrower said:
I'm thinking that the slab will show a lot of end grain...that's probably what my problem was. It just takes a lot of finish and looks pretty dark. Maybe there are ways of prepping the wood...anybody have advice for us?
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yes, DeWaxed shellac.. I use zinsser sanding sealer, I cut it using denatured alcohol to 1:1 or more depending on what I am looking for. It's a good way to prevent too much stain from getting into your wood. I use it especially for blotchy woods like pine, maple... but sometimes you want the effects, like on figured maple. It does look like endgrain so you will have to seal, sand, seal, sand, and then try.
 
In very general terms, almost all oil finishes will tend to blur or muddy delicate tones in wood. They do provide us with that immediate satisfaction of seeing the colours jump up, especially when the oil is still wet and glossy, but then as it soaks in to the surface those distinctions tend to get less pronounced and the wood takes on the more matte appearance. They also tend to darken and continue to darken as they age. They’re easy to apply though, and that draws a lot of followers.

Thinner finishes, like shellac for instance, take way longer to build but do not discolour with age and tend to create a “brighter” and more lively finish. Often the depth achieved on a piece of figured wood from a thin finish such as shellac is astounding. But good shellac finishes take days and sometimes weeks, literally, to build. I just finished a whole room worth of trim with just shellac — it took nearly two months. And there’s a decided level of skill to get things right, it’s not a thing you pick up right away.

In the middle somewhere are the varnishes which give us a good film formation with decent brightness but they do tend to be thick, physically, and can easily look like plastic. Not everybody wants that look, not does it look good everywhere.

With all of them, the more time spent on surface detailing the better the end result. Sanding is a long and tedious process, my old shop teacher used to say, and it is. The finer you sand to the more lively the surface will be. One something like a walnut, 600 is easily the order of the day to bring out the nuances in figure. Softer woods don’t benefit from this as much, but harder and more dense species do — maples, walnuts, ebonies, etc. Depending on the piece, sanding all the way up to 600 can be mind-numbing to say the least!

In the end it’s a lot about what you like or don’t like about a look that can lead you to a certain finish. And it also comes down to the ability to do the finish as well — not everybody wants to spend eons sanding or spend $100 on a good varnish brush. Most of all though, we learn by trying and making mistakes and discovering what it is we like about a certain look and how we can find a way to get there.
 
Don't be afraid of Shellac, it's easy to apply, dries quickly. What @francist is talking about is next level finishing. Build ups that take a while are usually a french polish type of finish. Where you are rubbing the shellac on with a rubber, and oil usually MS.. it's time consuming and meant for fine furniture..
 
We wet sand with the anise oil being the wet part.

Small fibers loft when wet, the sanding cuts them off.

When dry the stubs lay back down creating glass smooth and clear grain.

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk
 
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