Cleaning... Again...

Time to clean the shop again.  Lots of dust, scrap, misc stuff tossed around because that desktop took up so much room for so long...  Then back to models.

Tools wish list...

Some stuff I'd like to add to my collection:

Dremel lithium ion cordless rotary tool.  I love my old corded Dremel, but it would be nice to be able to leave it in an attachment for a project and have another to do other things with. 

Small compressor. I was tempted to pick up the small 3 gallon compressor Home Depot had for $49 over the weekend. Lack of space led me to pass...

Dremel SawMax. It looks cool, and I'd like to have a small power saw.

Craftsman C3 LiIon batteries.  My last NiCad is for all intents and purposes dead.  I have too much invested in C3 tools to switch to Ryobi's offering, although some of the Black Friday deals were tempting...

Bandsaw, drill press, router/table, 10" variable speed disc sander (MicroMark) Lack of space, again to have these in the shed.

I was able to find cutting blades for my Great Planes power planer on eBay for a good price - less than retail!

Bed is assembled!!!

Well, I finally got to assemble the loft bed over the weekend. A couple things I ran into...

1) following the instructions *should* yield better results.  Drilling holes exactly where told resulted in some screws being too close to the edge of the attached piece for comfort. I redrilled several holes during assembly and now have some empty holes to fill. If I was to build another, I would leave the drilling until final assembly. 

2) standard matresses are thicker than the instructions would have you believe.  For a standard mattress, lower the bed deck by 4-5 inches.

3) I probably should have cut pieces to fit during assembly, disassembled, and then sealed.  I didn't realize just how far off the instructions would be. Prefinishing the parts made it more difficult to adjust on the fly.

The desk is in the shed with its 3rd coat of polyurethane drying. Should be ready by Saturday.  Once that's done, I'll install a work light under the lower bookcase shelf, mount the power strip to the leg, and add any little refinements that the boy has requested.

And soon, I'll have my little workshop back to do other projects!

 

Desk top

The desktop is the last part of the lift bed project.  It's 21x41 plywood, 3/4" thick. Iron on edge, with 2x2 stiffeners on the bottom.  It's been assembled and sanded, 2 coats of polyurethane on the bottom.  It needs another coat on the bottom and then 6-8 coats on the top. Should be ready by next weekend. I'll start assembling the bed tomorrow...

Loft bed

One piece left to cut- a brace for the bottom of the desktop. I will begin assembling next weekend.  I the meantime, I'm beginning work on an Estes Astron Elliptic and quite possibly a Quest X-15. The X-15 had a creased body tube, which has been shipped on Tuesday. 

Updates...

The loft bed parts are almost complete - the only part needed is the desktop.  I'll be using 3/4" Birch ply with many coats of polyurethane...  I did, however, do quite a bit of cleaning in my little workshop this week. There's almost enough room to work now!

Loft Bed

Because of the rain, it's been really slow going on the loft bed. 90% of the lumber is cut, drilled, and sanded. About 75% got 3 coats of Minwax Fast Drying Polyurethane. I'm hoping to have the rest cut, sanded, and finished by the end of next week so that I can assemble (with the help of the boy) the weekend of October 19-20. 

Tools

I use a *lot* of tools.  The vast majority of my larger power tools are Craftsman - table saw, cordless tools (C3 19.2 volt), scroll saw.  The only issue I have with the Craftsman tools are the batteries for the C3 tools - 3 of the 4 NiCads have died, and #4 is on it's way out.  I'll probably buy some LiIon batteries for the tools, just because I have so many of them.

The most used power tool on the hobby side is my Dremel rotary tool.  It's extremely versatile and well worth the investment.  I also really enjoy the Dermel Multi-max.  It saved a lot of hours the last time I installed a Pergo floor.

There are a few one-offs...  Ryobi compound mitre saw, Shopvac, Skilsaw circular saw.  I even have a few Harbor Freight powertools - they're cheap.  They have been solid performers for what I do, and the build quality seems OK.

My wish list includes a router and table.  No room in the shed, though.  Oh well...

Hi there...

Well, since I started posting stuff at my Cub Scout blog, I figured I'd post some stuff about the projects that I'm working on.  A little bit of background:

I have 3 kids, so a lot of projects are kid related.  Speaking of kids, mine are involved in:
Scouting
Piano
Band
Chorus
Hockey
Gymnastics

What this means is that some projects take quite a while - most weekends are spent shuttling kids between home and practice/lessons/rehearsals.  Other time is spent working on the general house stuff.  Like laundry, cleaning, cooking, etc.

I build model rockets and model airplanes.  Be warned... some I've been working on for years
I have *very* limited work space for larger projects.  My main workshop is an approximately 9x9 shed.  It is heated though, for the cold WNY winters.  Some larger projects can only be done in the summer.  Most of the rockets that I build also go without paint until spring.

Current projects are:

Model airplane - Craftair Mystique trainer from the 1980's.  Almost ready to cover.
Model rockets - Estes Mega Mosquito (needs sanding and paint), Estes Mosquito (needs paint)
Woodworking - Loft bed for the boy.  Currently most of the wood has been cut, about 1/2 has been sealed.  Let me tell you  - it's tough to find a decent 2x2x8 in Western NY.