Craft Beer Flight : Part 2

So today marked the second day of the project and before I could get started on a side project and that was a Pipe Clamp glue-up jig and I created its own blog entry and you can find it in the link below.

TODAY’S EVENTS INCLUDED

• Made the pipe clamp glue-up jig

• Started to clean up the dried flight blanks that I did yesterday

• One more glue-up

PIPE CLAMP GLUE-UP JIG

I wont go into too much detail on this as I created a project blog detailing the build, but I will say this. After yesterday’s glue-up I was very frustrated both during and after . Glue-ups need a good system and a little rehearsal because my system was flawed it didn’t matter how much planning went into it, it would never be a pleasant experience.

I had researched making this some time ago but it was always put on the long finger and put onto my to-do list, which I never got to do. But because this project had a lot of different parts in gluing it up I tried a method that didn’t work and decided before I move one more step in the current project I needed to get this done.

Anyway the project is super easy and if you have scrap plywood lying around it will not cost anything to make. Its basically a jig that has a front & back with 2 two sides. It can be broken down and stored away when not in use.

Below is the finished image of the jig, but [please feel free to go over to the blog entry for more details, the link is below)

Here is the finished clamping jig

BLANK CLEAN-UP

The boards needed a good bit of clean-up , and the blanks developed a bow in the middle so I tried to address this by turning the 5’ sections on there sides and trying to level it by running it through the table-saw blade, I really dont recommend doing this as it unsafe. But since I don’t have a planer or joiner I had to try something. It came out OK but tomorrow I will need to use my belt sander with some course paper to true the face up a little more.

Below you can see how I left it today

Here is the blanks as I left them today, I have some wood burn to clean up and then start turning these in beer flights, the fun stuff.

ONE FINAL GLUE-UP

The last thing that I wanted to get done today was to glue-up that final blank that I could luckily make after realizing that I had enough scrap pieces left from yesterday, I came up with a flight that is a little narrower but had maple & sapele woods that I could turn in another 2-3 flights.

Another bonus was that I could get to use the new glue-up jig that I just made and man o man was it a much better experience and hopefully will result in a much flatter glue-up than yesterday’s.

You can see some pictures below.

Here you can see the different design in the clamping jig. Most of the blank is maple with 2 contrasting Sapele pieces on each side.

The jig worked an absolute charm

Another picture of the jig in action.

Well that is what I got done today, thanks for tuning in and I’ll catch you again later.

NEXT……..

• Clean up the blanks with some sanding and make sure they are true and flat

• Hopefully I can start cutting the blanks up so as that I can move onto the next step, layout.
  
  

Craft Beer Flight : Part 1

So today I started making the craft beer flights and boy was it a messy start, mainly because I needed to do pretty big glue-ups. They were not widest glue-ups but they sure were plenty long, anyway more about that later.

Today’s Events Included:

• Ripping all the wood on the table-saw

• My Designs

• Glue-up Prep

• Glue-Up

Ripping the wood

So I needed to take all the wood and cut them to the dimensions that I made on my plan, I ultimately wanted a 4-1/2” wide flight and using 3 species of wood which were Sapele, Maple and Walnut. So I needed to take these boards and cut them into smaller strips.

so I installed a rip blade in my table-saw and also placed a feather-board in place so as that the wood piece would move while I was ripping it.

Here is the table-saw set up I made with the feather-board in place

Here is the 3 species of wood that I will be ripping.

Here are all the pieces ripped and came out great as there was no burn marks on the wood as I used a rip blade.

Here is another close up of the boards that were just ripped.

My Designs

So here is the design I came up with I really like the contrasting woods and should come out great, I was lucky enough to make another design by some of the leftover off cuts that I had.

Since I had more maple and sapele left over I could make this design as well its really nice as well. So what started out as making 6 flights I will be able to make 8-9.

Glue-Prep

The glue-up was going to be a little complicated because I wanted to glue up three 5 foot sections all at one time. I wanted a system where I would clamp all three together with dividers between each of the glue-ups and that way I would not need a ton of clamps, but that turned out to be not the most efficient way and I didn’t get one of the glue-ups done. I was using Titebond II and the open time was not long enough to fit in 3 glue-ups so I just did 2.

I really dislike the method I used and really need to rethink my process, I use 3 pieces of plumbing white pipe on top of wooden risers as you can see in the picture below, and the dividers that I used to separate each glue-up were different heights so I couldn’t use clamping cauls, I will know more tomorrow after the glue has set but I think I am going to have a fair bit of surface sanding because I don’t have a planer.

I also had to make a trip to the local big box store to purchase more clamps as the clamps I had were too short so I got the Bessey Pipe Clamps and a couple of 24” black pipe pieces. After I finished for the day I started researching better clamping set-ups If my shop was a little bigger I would just make a clamping table but since that is not possible I found another method which is portable and can be broken down and stored away when not in use. I think I am going to make this tomorrow and probably make a few different rail sizes depending on what size clamps I will be using at any specific time.

As you can see its a front and back rail with stretchers on either side, he notched out half circles to accommodate the pipe clamps, The stretchers are help together using a half-lap joint and when not in use can be just pulled up and the jig can be stored away.I think I will make mine the same but I will add different sized stretcher depending the size of clamps I will be using, they usually range from 12” - 36”. Click here for the website I found this on.

Here are the white PVC pipe that I have nesting in some scraps, but didn’t work great because the scraps kept falling over.

The idea of the white pipe was that it gave the work-piece a flat surface to sit on, and it also afforded me to add height to the glue up so as that I could place clamps on the bottom and top surfaces of the work-piece.

Here is the final pieces with all the glue applied, I will not be doing this again. But we live and learn.

I really do like the patterns on the flight and think they will be really nice when finished.

That’s all I got done today and thanks for reading.

NEXT

• Build the pipe clamp glue-up jig… I might need to get some plywood but I am not sure if I have enough scrap to get this done.

• If I have enough time I need to do some surface sanding on the 2 glue-ups I got done today and I would like to get the other glue-up completed hopefully using the new jig.

New Project : Portable Sharpening Station

Ever since I was working on the hand plane restoration projects I didnt really have a good set-up for sharpening my tools, and I recently spent a lot of money on certain tools to help me sharpen properly such as the Veritas MKII honing jig and I also purchased 2 DMT Diamond grit sharpening stones (Course and fine) I need to buy 1 or 2 more stones in the future but these will do for now., and I finally bought a strop kit that I need to make its basically a piece of honing leather and compound to use on polishing my sharpened tools. Anyway I needed a way to store all of these tools and went about designing one on Sketchup.

CONCEPT & DESIGN & RESEARCH

After doing some research online I came across countless projects that were used for sharpening stations, some were very elaborate and some were simple.

I wanted a sharpening station that had the following features:

• Small & Portable

• A good comfortable working height

• Storage for the stones and accessories.

Here is my Sketchup design for the box. The top of the box is a removable tray that houses the sharpening stones and beneath the tray is a storage compartment for all the stones and accessories. I used finger joints to join the box frame together.

While researching online I found a YouTube video where Johnny Brook @ Crafted Workshop made a sharpening station, this is where I got the idea of a Tray with imlayed inserts to hold the bench stones, he also used a CNC machine to mill out all the patterns to use to hold the sharpening stones, I do not own a CNC machine so I have to come up with my own idea on how to remove this material, I’ll probably use a plunge router freehand or make a template to guide the router. I have included his video below.

I also came across another YouTube video from Steve Ramsey @ Woodwroking for Mere Mortals, his video shows you how to make a Finger (Box) joint jig for the tablesaw and I figured that I would use this joint to make a box. I have included his video below on how he made the jig and its also the jig I made for this project. Its not fancy in anyway but its quick to make.

So with these Youtube videos I had my concept complete and its what I brought to my Sketchup software so try and finalize a 3D model of the station.

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BOX (FINGER ) JOINT JIG

So before I even started making the sharpening station I needed to make this jig and figured I would make and test it out and have it ready for that part of the build, I think it took me all of 15 minutes to make the jig, 5 minutes of which was looking for a suitable piece of scrap lumber. I settled on a 1x6x22 piece of plywood I had and I also need 1/2” x 1/2” sqaure dowel that was used a register that I used in the jig. If you want to look at a video of how to make this i have posted it above, where Steve Ramsey made it.

Finished jig, I have it screwed onto the miter fence. You can also see the 1/2” stacked dado blade in the saw, and also see the square dowel used to register the piece as you work on it.

Here you can see it in action.

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GETTING STARTED: PARTS

This is where I get started with the station, I used my 1”x6”x6’ piece of poplar to start cutting the box parts, using my cut-list I ripped and crosscut all parts to their final dimensions. There are 4 parts that make up the box as you would think there is 2 sides a front and a back piece.

Here is the poplar length of wood that I used for the box.

Here are the 4 pieces in their correct orientation, I am deciding what faces to have have on the outside of the box, I usually try to wrap the grain around the box but because I was doing box joints , this didn’t matter as much as it normally does, anyway its only a shop project

SOME LAYOUT WORK

Usually when I am working on joinery I always mark out with pencil what I need to do, and to help simplify things when it came to using the jig I marked out all the pieces that needed to be removed, so using my marking gauge and straight edge I made all the marks, and placed an x on everything that was getting removed.

I placed an X on all parts that were to be removed using the box joint jig

Here I am using my marking gauge set to the thickness of the work-piece which is 3/4” this measurement determines the height of the cut.

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FINGER JOINT JIG TIME

For step by step instruction on how to use the box joint jig, Steve Ramsey from WWMM has it all laid out on his site, I just mimicked how he did, you get the instructions using this link below

This was my set-up

DRY ASSEMBLY

I always do a dry assembly to make sure all the parts fit nicely together and another reason is to rehearse how and where to apply clamping pressure. So now that all the finger joints have been cut its time to see how everything fits together, to be honest there is a little bit of work to clean up the finger joints because of the glue squeeze out but that is later.

Here is me doing a dry assembly no glue yet because there are a few more steps before I glue it up.

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THE CLEATS

The cleats are what I am using to support the removable tray that will hold the sharpening stones, these cleats are very simple. They are basically 3/4” x 3/4” x length of the front and back pieces, I need to pre-drill them on the drill press and attach them to the front and back pieces. To aid me in this I used a piece of oak to use as a spacer block so as that when I position the tray its flush with the top of the box that way I will not be hindered when atually sharpening.

First I went to the drill press and using a forstner bit I drilled 3/8” diameter holes and then came back with a 3/16” drill bit to finish the holes with screw holes that way when I screw the cleats into the box I will not run the risk of splitting the cleats or the box parts. I also need to do this part before the glue up because I would not be able to fit my drill/driver to reach the angle of the screws.

While I was at the drill press I also decided to drill all holes for the project on the box pieces because I will be attaching the base with screws and glue and I will be returning to add wooden plugs to cover the screws. (more about that later)

“Here are the cleats receiving their 3/8” diameter holes for the screws.

Here I am working on one of the sides, using smaller diameter drill bit to make through holes. Its so much easier doing this now than doing it after the box is assembled.

Here is the step before I actually screw the cleats in place, there is not much room and I thought it better to do this now than later, its always important to layout the steps of assembly that way you wont be pulling your hair out try to figure how to screw the cleats in place after the box is already assembled.

Using a spacer block to determine where to place the cleat so as that the tray is flush to the top and will not interfere with the sharpening of tools when I am actually using it. Everything looks fine so I screwed 4 screws into each cleat, overkill I’m sure but at least I am assured that it will never move.

I used a scrap piece of oak that I had to make sure the top would be flush, I also used a level to make sure. It all looks fine.

THE SIDES

So before I get to working on glueing everything up there is still a few things that need to be done, sometimes its easier to get shaping and milling done before the glue up and in this case I need to add a few features to the sides before I do that.

I wanted to add a finger relief in the sides to aid me when I needed to remove the top tray to get access.

To create the arc that would be convenient to use I used a sanding sleeve from my spindle sander to draw a semi-circle half way down the length of the sides, this center it from the left and right sides, and since I was going to use my spindle sander to finish sand it I thought what better way to get a best curve.

I took the sides to my band-saw and gang cut the semi-circles out together and then smoothed them out on the spindle sander, as an after thought I decided to use my palm router to add a rounder on the cut outs as they were a little catchy and I didn’t want to scratch myself when I placed my fingers in there to remove the tray.

Here you can see the spindle sander sleeve that I used to create the arc. I used double sided tape to stick both sides together for the cutting and sanding parts of this step.

Here is the spindle sander sanding both sides to remove all the milling marks left by the band saw.

I am using my palm router to add a 1/4” round-over to the cut outs and all the splinters were gone, in hind-sight I should of used a backer board to the left & right sides of the cut out because that wood was not supported when the router left the cut I had some tear-out but nothing that cant be fixed with some sanding.

Here is the cutouts after I used the router on them, do you see the tear-out, no biggie it happens from time to time.

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BOX GLUE-UP

After all that the box is finally ready to be glued up, as I said before I did a dry rehearsal before actually applying glue so I had an order in my mind as to how to complete this process.

I applied glue to all surfaces of the finger joint except on the faces that would be see on the outside of the box, that is why this joint is very strong, its not as strong as a dovetail joint but it close enough for what I need it for.

I used a total of 8 clamps to glue this up making sure I was in square as I need to add the top tray and base after this has dried, out of square would be a disaster

Here is another view of the glue-up

A close up of the box joints, they do look nice but I will have to clean them up after the glue sets.

That is all I had time for today, thanks for reading

NEXT

• Cut the base to size.

• Cut the top tray to size

• Rout all the recesses for the sharpening stones in the tray, wishing I had a CNC machine at this moment in time lol.

• Make handles for the sides

• Apply a finish.