80 degrees in the shop today

Spent the better part of Sunday helping my dad replace all four sets of pads on my mom's car.  It was such a nice day we didn't let the fact that the last mechanic to go at the car had successfully stripped about half of the lugs with an impact driver making them borderline impossible to get off bother us.

I ran out of 3/8 inch dowel and did not feel like running to the store to buy warped to crap dowels.  I found an article on woodgears.ca about making your own dowels with a simple wooden jig and an old yet sharp chisel.  I had some extra oak for the jig and an old chisel, it took me about 30 mins. to make and adjust the chisel just right and then I had some 3/8 inch dowel.  I'm planning on making one's for 1/4 inch dowel and 1/2 dowel and never buying box store dowels again.

Making the dowel cut, the jig works a lot like an old school pencil sharpener shaving off the excess wood and is quite mesmerizing to watch.

Working on a new design for a marble machine for kids.  This is the beginning of a fairly simple camshaft that will move a marble up a set of stairs (pistons).  These are going to be a modified version of a design I found on www.scrollsawworkshop.blogspot.com for a machine that moves marbles.  It was a good starting out point for my design.

Camshaft in place with the pistons for moving the marble set on top.  This still needs some tweaking to get it working exactly how I want it.

After the first washing there was still some unpleasant smells coming from all three deer skulls for my chandelier, which means there's still some organic material on them that needs to go.  One of my least favorite things to do is clean skulls.  1.)  The smell is worse than roadkill and unavoidable.  2.)  It is a ton of work and once you boil them your still only a little over half way done.  I've only ever cleaned a couple skulls before but I have a new found respect for taxidermist's or anyone who does it themselves.  Because besides my interest in anatomy there is zero fun in cleaning these things

Two skulls in the pot.  Nothing like your parents having a ten year old turkey fryer they only used once and never plan on using again, because they are perfect for simmering deer skulls.

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82 degrees in the shop today

 Attempting to turn these three deer skulls into a chandelier.

Test run of the positioning and angles needed for the skulls.

Once I knew the angle, I sketched out the chandelier arm design on some pieces of reclaimed 1 1/2 inch oak from some old pallets.

Testing how the skulls fit on the wooden arms.

Adding decorative brackets to the wooden arms that hold the skulls to extend the height of the chandelier.  Added pieces of 1/4 inch round rod to the decorative brackets.  Reinforced the wooden arms with 45's and solidified the whole thing in place with 1/2 oak dowels.  Testing squareness and alignment with a center dowel.

Detail of wooden brackets with 1/4 round rod.

Wooden frame about finished.  Hanging from the ceiling to start aligning skulls and layout wiring design.

Initial testing of the balance of the chandelier with the slightly different weights of the three skulls.

Skulls temporarily taped in place.

Skulls taped to the wooden arms, but later to be attached with pre-drilled holes in the bone and 1/2 dowel.

Next, Final cleaning for the skulls before permanently mounting to the wooden base.  Drill holes in the wooden arms to place lights and wire everything up.

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95 degrees in the shop today

These windows have not been open in at least 20 years.  After lots of scraping, swearing, sweating, and a close encounter with one very pissed off wasp I managed to get both open so there is at least a breeze with these high temperatures.

Cutting some dado's in an old shutter to make a record display case.

Finished shelf . . . holds over 100 records.  A neighbor gave me some pallets that I busted apart to finish off the shelf with a pallet wood top. 

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65 degrees in the shop today

Don't see this enough these days.  In reference to Made in the USA

Finished up the table I've been working on.  No screws or nails.  Put together with mortise and tenon joints and walnut dowels.

Some table process shots.  Hand-planing the table top. Table leg tenon. And Before and After hand cut butterfly inlay's.

Test run of my homemade Matthias Wandel Finger joint jig.  (www.woodgears.ca for the plans for this jig and a ton of other awesome stuff).  These are 1/4 in. finger joints and they ended up fitting perfectly together after I ripped this board.

In case you ever wondered what the inside of an old skool chaise lounge looked like.  This was one of the most uncomfortable pieces of furniture I ever sat on and after cutting it apart to see it's inner workings . . .well it all makes sense.

Cutting out parts to some table legs for next project.

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45 degrees in the shop today

Putting some finishing touches on my Matthias Wandel jig, hoping to test run it this weekend.

Trying to un-jam this cash register that I very successfully jammed.

Starting to sand and oil the ole stock pile

Changed out the bottom of the printing press drawer table with new bracing because I never like the old one.  Pretty happy with how the angles turned out.

And changed the bracing for the wine rack as we never liked that either.

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