My wife got paint on my Emmerts turtle back pattern maker’s vise while painting some of her chalk boards…..
C’mon man. Dont mess with a guy and his tools. Luckily it should clean up.
Category: Workshop
Modern Moxen Vise
A few months ago I wrote about how I attached a Micro Fence to my Bosch Colt plunge router. The link is below:
The tool works great but I wished I had some sort of guide system to make routing tenons even easier. Then one day as I was cleaning up my shop, I came across a Popular Woodworking magazine I had stashed away. The issue was from Oct, 2012 and in it was an article about making an improved Moxon vise the writer called Gizmozilla. When I saw it I thought to myself “oh yeah, I forgot about that thing”. I stashed it away because I was planning on making it some day and since that I had the Colt plunge router, now would be a perfect time.
The writer of the article, Kenneth Speed, used maple to laminate a beam that was 3 1/2″ square by 4 feet long. I knew that was a little too big for me since I was using a small trim router instead of a big plunge router, so I milled a 4×4 to 2 1/2″ x 3″ x 3′ long.
I then built the trough system that would guide my Micro Fence fence. This was the most difficult part of the project because I needed to make sure that the trough of my fence was loose enough for my router to move freely, but not too loose that it would create slack completely defeating the purpose of using the Micro Fence. After a couple of attempts, I had the right thickness to make it work.
I then had to route a couple of grooves in the beam to accept T-tracks that I bought from Rockler. Those things didn’t come cheap as I paid nearly $20 a piece for them but I wanted to have adjustable stop blocks the same way Kenneth had. I also attached feet to the ends by laminating a couple of 3/4″ scrap plywood together. I have a couple of holes drilled through my workbench about four feet apart so I can hold the fixture to my bench with a couple of hold fasts.
Kenneth used store-bought knobs to hold the stops tight to the fixture but, I wanted to try to make my own so I grabbed some scrap maple, a 1 1/4″ hole saw, and drilled out six plugs to create little knobs.
Once the plugs were cut, I traced around a 1/4″ nut with a pencil and gently carved out the inside with a 1/4″ chisel.
After the area was all carved out, I inserted a nut and shaved three sides of the circle on my disc sander to create a soft triangular-shaped knob. Once all six knobs were made, I used some five-minute epoxy and glued the nut inside the knob so it wouldn’t slip out during use. The bolts that they are threaded to are nothing more than 1/4″ carriage bolts with modified squared off heads to pass through the T-track.
Kenneth used Jorgensen hold-down clamps and a fancy caul system to hold the wood to the fixture however, I wanted to keep the fixture as simple (and cheap) as possible so I simply use a couple of Jorgensen F-style clamps to hold the wood to the fixture.
Everything looks good but I needed to see how well it worked. I took a couple of pieces of scrap wood and placed a loose tenon over the joint and marked where I wanted the tenon.
I transferred those marks around the edges of the wood so I could then gauge where the router needed to cut. I also marked the “face” on each piece so I knew in which direction the piece needed to be place on the fixture so that the face of the boards would line up evenly.
I set the stop blocks where they needed to be and made a test cut while placing the face of the work piece on the inside of the fixture. Everything looked good on both pieces and fitted together nicely. This joint was super fast and easy to create!
The beautiful thing about using the Micro Fence is that if I do need a thicker tenon, I simply use the brass stops on the sliding bar of the fence to limit the travel of the router on the Y axis.
I now have accurate three-dimensional cutting availabilty using this fixture. The fence stops act as the X axis, the Micro Fence guide rails act as the Y axis, and the plunge router base acts as the Z axis.
Much like Kenneth’s Gizmozilla, the fixture can be used as a regular Moxon vise for cutting dovetails by hand or with a power router when I use my Keller Dovetail System.
This was a super simple fixture to make and it has already been very useful in my shop building a couple of outdoor benches. I’m sure it will be the most valuable jig/fixture I have ever made.
A post from my phone
I made this post from my phone to show my wife you don’t need a computer to have a blog.
My Shop Assistant Isn’t Very Helpful
Yesterday while changing the blade on my band saw, one of the little knobs that hold the top and bottom doors closed, fell out of my hand onto the floor.
I’ve never been a big fan of these knobs because they are so small, they slip out of my hands every time I hold them, but they do work. Just my luck when the knob hit the floor, my dog Bentley ran over to it like it was a toy and started playing with it, sticking it in and out his mouth like a ball. After I was finished changing the blade, I asked Bentley were the knob went. He just looked up at me like “what knob?” I spent a half an hour looking for that stupid knob all over my shop, underneath all my benches, tools and everywhere else in the basement. I keep my shop floor pretty clean so it shouldn’t have been too hard to find a piece of black plastic.
Without that knob, It’s hard for me to keep my top door of my band saw closed. I had to settle with some crappy little nut until the knob reappears (hopefully soon). All I know is if Bentley poops out a little black triangle in the next couple of days, I’ll know where the knob went.
Beware of PayPal
I was getting lunch today and handed the cashier my PayPal debit card to pay. She handed it back to me saying it was declined. I thought it was odd since I knew I had some money in it when I sold a bunch of tools last month. When I got home today, I went online to see what the problem was. Some asshole in Brazil got a hold of my account information and started charging a bunch of charges to AUTO POSTO and Rodeo Bar in Brazil under my account.
I immediately called PayPal to dispute the charges. There are a total of ten charges in the past two days and the bastard took $587.00 from me. PayPal told me that they filed a dispute on my behalf and I should get my money back within a couple of days. They also cancelled my card and will send me out a new one tomorrow.
I can’t figure out how the hell someone got my account info. I’m very careful not handing out any of my information to anyone under any circumstances and my PayPal password is not a simple one. I keep thinking about odd things that happened to me in the past few weeks and how someone could have gotten info from me. The only thing I can think of is a few weeks ago, a guy in Brazil with zero feedback placed a bid on one my auctions, then emailed me asking to cancel the transaction. I went into eBay and cancelled it a few days later but can’t figure out how he would have been able to get my account info from that. It may be just a coincidence but I’m done shipping international in eBay. So if you sell on eBay and have someone with zero feedbacks ask you to do something for them, don’t.
I think it’s bullshit that PayPal didn’t freeze my account when the first transaction came through from brazil let alone ten. Any other credit card company would have blocked my account immediately. Once I get my $587.00 back in PayPal account, I’m withdrawing it immediately and sticking it in my bank.
Making loose tenons
I recently outfitted my Colt plunge router base with a Micro Fence and I plan on using it a lot so I need a way to make a lot of loose tenons quickly.
When making the tenons, I grab some scrap maple I have lying around, rip it down to 3/8″ on the band saw and plane it to size on the planer.
The router bit I use is 1/4″ spiral up cut bit so the tenon stock needs to be 1/4″ in thickness to match the mortise.
Once I have the tenon stock sized, I run a veneering plane over both sides of the work piece to plane grooves into it. The grooves will give the glue a place to spread so that the tenon will fit in the mortise snuggly.
The router bit I use creates rounded ends in the mortise so I run the beading part of a 1/4″ beading plane over the tenon stock to round its sides.
Making the tenon stock is done, but now I need to cut them to length so I decided to quickly build a table saw sled with some more scrap wood.
I took a piece of 1/2″ plywood about 15″ long and laid it over my table saw with wooden runners in the dados of my table saw. I made sure the plywood was square to the saw and quickly glued and pinned the plywood to the runners.
I then cut up a 2 x 4 to create the front and back of the sled making sure that everything was square. The sled is not pretty but I don’t work for Woodsmith Magazine so I’ll skip the hard maple and cabinet grade plywood when building jigs. As long as it works, it’s fine by me.
I marked 3/4″, 1″, and 1 1/2″ lengths on the bottom of the sled to act as quick reference marks for certain sizes of tenons.
In no time at all, I can cut a multitude of precisely fitted tenons and store them in sandwich bags for easy storage.
Adding a Micro Fence to a Bosch Colt plunge router base
After the last month of cleaning and selling a bunch of antique tools on eBay I bought last fall, I was finally able to get back in the shop. For months I’ve always had a Festool Domino on my wish list but for the nearly $1000.00 for one, I never pulled the trigger. So after cleaning out my router cabinet one day, I came across the Micro Fence I bought about ten years ago collecting dust. I bought it for my Porter Cable laminate trimmer and had intended to use it for inlay work. Needless to say I never used the damn thing as I don’t do inlay work. So I got the idea of using it with a Colt plunge router base for routing mortises for loose tenon joinery.
The first thing I had to do was retro fit the jig to work with the plunge router base. I had to custom make the bar that attached the base to the jig so I used a piece of scrap maple I had lying around. I went to Lowe’s and bought 7/16″ round bar stock and fitted them into the sliding section of base.
Next I threaded the rod and reamed the holes with a 7/16″ 14 TPI tap and die set. Took me a while to get that done because everywhere I looked, didn’t carry both the tap and die. I ended up buying the die at Menards and the tap at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts. A big pain in the ass.
After the base had the bar installed, I lined up the Micro Fence to the base, marked where the holes went and threaded those holes with a 5/16″ tap.
The finished piece was tight and clean with the Micro Fence able to come into full contact with the plunge router base.
I got lucky as the handle from the base was able to extend all the way down without touching any part of the Micro Fence. The distance between the handle and the brass screw is about 1/32″.
Once I got the fence to work, I quickly realized that the center hole on the base was too big to work with plunging mortises into end grain as the work piece would literally fall through the hole. So I had to buy a piece of 1/4″ acrylic plastic and make a zero clearance insert for the base.
The base worked well but the only caveat is that when routing, there is no place for the chips to escape the hole. I have to plunge a little bit, then vacuum or pry out the shavings from the hole, then deepen the cut. Not a big deal to me as I always turn off the router in between depth settings anyway.
The Micro Fence works well but thought it would be nice to add a little light so I could see what I was doing better. I stumbled upon this little book light at Half Price Books for $5.00 and hoped I could get it to work on the router.
I snapped off the piece that slides in a book, grabbed some double stick turners tape and stuck the light on the back of the router. The thing works perfectly. Like it was made for the tool. It has an easy touch on, touch off switch which makes it slick to use.
Now I just needed to put the tool to work to see how it performs.
After cutting a couple of loose tenons, I laid out where I wanted them on the piece to be mortised.
A couple of reference marks and some quick passes with the router, I got a perfect fit. I think this will quickly become one of my favorite tools. Not as slick as a Festool Domino but for the price of the plunge router base at $100 and an unused Micro Fence, I think it’s a really good bargain.
A Puppy and Woodturning Don’t Mix
I just hope I can clean him off before my wife gets home.
My new shop dog
I got a new shop dog for Christmas. He’s a Goldendoodle named Bentley. A mix between a Golden Retriever and a Poodle. He’s cute as a button but a handful. Keeps biting everything he sees but he’s just a puppy so he’ll grow out of it soon.
He should provide me with years of loyal companionship. I just wish my cat would warm up to him.
Merry Christmas.
My Wife’s First Tool
My wife Anita has been repurposing old furniture and selling it in an antique store the past few months and often the repurposing requires upholstery work. A few days ago I was out-of-town and the upholstery stapler she was using kept failing. She called me on the phone and told me the driver would not retract when she shot a staple out of it. The stapler was a twenty-five year old Senco J tool that I bought for $5.00 when I worked for Senco so the fact that the driver gave out was no surprise. I told her that they probably don’t make parts for it anymore and she would be better off just buying a new gun. So she ends up going to a local Senco dealer and buying a SFW09 for $110 and she was back in business.
She uses the gun to upholster chairs with new fabric. This cloth is nothing more than a 10′ x 12′ painters drop cloth she bought a Lowe’s for $5.00. She washes the fabric then paints words on it with stencils. The result is quite impressive with the seat looking like it was upholstered with expensive $35/yard fabric.
The chair is for her sewing desk she’s been working on the past few weeks. The desk is the same desk I wrote about a few months ago about having to remake the feet.
https://mvflaim.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/repairing-a-desks-legs/
The desk was painted with chalk paint and the top was painted with enamel. She originally stained the top which I thought looked nice but she didn’t so she redid it. Regardless it still came out really nice with the total cost of the desk and chair under $100.
This how the feet finally turned out. As you can see, you can’t even tell they’ve been remade.
As far as the J tool goes. It was connected to the compressor but the compressor wasn’t on. So as she kept firing staples, the compressor gradually ran out of air and it prevented the driver from going back up into the piston. Oh well, at least now she has a gun that will last longer and give her more power than the old J tool. Oh I forgot to mention, I’m not allowed to touch her new stapler. : (
MVFlaim Furnituremaker 