Woodworking! (Day 3)

Here is something I haven't done since shop class in high school.  I believe it was in grade 10, when I last worked with wood, I built a clock.  You only new it was a clock because of the clock components that were provided to me.

For today's task, I asked Mike to help me out.  I was looking to build something a bit simple, and useful.  I ended up settling on an end table that would sit next to my couch.

He drew up the blue prints and got the wood needed.  At 10am, we arrived at his place and got started!  My first task involved using the miter saw, I was to divide up the wood. After that involved using the table saw to make the legs and aprons.  We then used the brad nailer to keep the legs together as we used a miter joint, on them. I will just personally add, that the brad nailer is pretty bad ass, I was a bit afraid that I'd end up nailing my jacket to a piece of wood.

Once we did that, Mike then tapered the legs, he had created a jig for use on the table saw.  After that we drilled holes into the aprons and legs.  Once that was completed, we ended up using one of Mike's many sanders (8!) to sand down the legs, and take out some of the corners.  This will help prevent the wood from splintering. After that, now was the time to glue it together, we placed some dowling into holes a long with some carpenter's glue.

Then, we had to keep it together.  Luckily Mike had plenty of clamps, he also had some amazing framing clamps that helped retain the shape we wanted.  While that happened, I got a chance to use the router for the top of the table.  The result's were pretty awesome.

We did run into some problems when we placed the aprons around the legs.  They didn't line up, Mike had a solution, sand it down!  Mike was able to use his belt sander to smooth it out and make it flush.  Sadly we couldn't finish the table, as we could fix a few things as the glue was still a bit wet.  All that was left was to sand a few of the bits to make it flush, then attach top to the legs.

Overall it was an awesome experience, felt good to make something with my hands.  I still have all my fingers, so it was a success. I felt very much like a kid, making something with Lego, I really liked it.  I would like to love to make something else next time.

I learned a lot today, too much to list really.  Mike has taught me a lot, learned all kinds of things about how to get the wood to do what you want. Way's to fix mistakes. Way's to use different machines.  One rule seemed to follow a lot of jobs I've worked in such as:

• Let the blade do the work, don't force it.  This reminds me of when I was working as a cook, how you never force the blade to cut, you just let the weight of the blade follow through.  

My tip!

• Don't wear black when working with wood, my jacket was covered in saw dust by the end of it.

I want to thank Mike and Sam for putting up with me for 7hrs while we worked on the table and feeding me!  Also to Lexi for showing me how gross her outside toys are.

Total Cost = $30