When building doors for our Chicken Coops, we use a biscuit joiner. Now 99% of the time we use #20 biscuits for our work.  But while building the models for our Monster Mayhem display I had to switch to small #0 biscuits. And when I put the tool back, I left it at that position (since I’d be building more models).

Unfortunately, Evelyn didn’t know that, and when she went to make some speed carts for the base of Monster Mayhem — well, she was a bit pissed off. She made the cuts, all at the wrong depth.

This little adventure reminded me when I went to fasten some 5mm panel for some coop doors. Ka-thung! Boy, that nail seemed to go deep. But I kept going. Only later realizing that the 5/8″ brads I thought we in the tool were actually 1 1/4″ brads we use for the coop core frames. That door was nailed to the bench!

So, what to do about the situation. Well, sure, always triple-check everything. But when a tool is set up a certain way 99% of the time you reach for it, and use it, without thinking twice. Almost always use #20 biscuits. Almost always use 5/8″ brads. Except when we’re not.

To help, I borrowed an idea from the aircraft industry: Remove before flight. The idea being that if a tool is left in a “non-standard” configuration, and you put it back (because you know you’re using it later for the same task), let the other person know — or let yourself know, if you forget. On aircraft, this is done with little flags. So I used the same idea.

Here, I’ve just finished cutting dados into some 1×2 material. The slot / dado is where some wiring will sit for our models. Because it’s deep, it’s done multi pass. And I left the tool in the “high” position. If I forgot that, I tried to cut another piece, it would (best case) bog down the router and (worst case) throw the material across the room (been there, done that).

Here, I’ve left brads in the nailer, but don’t know what size. So I flag it:

If I had left the biscuit joiner in a non-standard position (say, a #0 biscuit cut), I would flag it:

All those flags are are some plastic spring-loaded clothes pins with a piece of old red t-shirt tied to them. Nothing fancy, but something that’s easy to remember and easy to spot.

So now if I see a tool with a red strip attached to it, I know that it’s in a non-standard configuration (different brads, excessive depth, high speed, etc). It’s an easy way to remember in a shop where we quickly move from one task to another.

He needs a home. Old neighbors left him (a year ago). Then someone was taking care of him, but over the past week he’s been very needy. So I think that whomever was taking care of him moved away. An outdoor cat, but craves to go inside. I’ll have to build him a condo.

Here’s how you turn your garage into a TV. A SONY, of course.

The theme this year is Monster Mayhem.
Think: 1950s Japanese Godzilla movies.

Here are some early shots of work in progress:

Above we see Evelyn working on our version of Godzilla and Gamera. Godzilla is about 4 feet tall and over 4 feet wide (including his long tail). The “core” of his body is about 26 inches across. Gamera, the one Evelyn is drawing in the photos, is 3 feet wide and about 22 inches tall.

Here’s Godzilla taking a walk outside:

The figures are being drawn in charcoal and chalk pastels on 5mm thick plywood. Why plywood / 2D? Well, if I told my story in order it would make more sense:

See, we’re trying to make a scale model diorama of a fight scene. Instead of trying to make a lot of complicated, and difficult to store, 3D models, we’re going back to a neat papercraft art form. A sort of 3D Decoupage. (You can find some example on this most excellent site: Canon Creative Park). We will be laying 2D models (monsters, buildings, etc) to give a depth of field without all the depth.

The goal is to have all this stuff fit on a platform about 8 feet wide by 2 feet deep. Here’s a scale model (of a scale model) Evelyn built out of paper (using her CNC paper cutter). It will give you an idea for what we’re going for.

The above model is 1/4 scale sized to our “full sized” scene — so 1 foot in this (which is the height of Godzilla) is 4 feet in the final product. The final scene, of course, is a scale model itself — we don’t quite have room for a 164 foot tall Godzilla. And yes, we have exact measurements for all the characters. Evelyn is an Engineer, after all.

Most of my daily conversations and projects have been happening less on this blog and more on places like Google+ and Facebook. (Though, to be honest, much less on FB recently.)  For the benefit of those not found within those walled gardens, I wish there was some sort of social media aggregation software. Heck, I just want something that will take my FB and G+ posts, bundle them up, and auto-publish to my WP site. Or, at least, make it easier for people to view content from G+ or FB without having to become a member. Like RSS feeds or something. Maybe it exists. I dunno.

Sorry, no woodworking projects recently. It’s summer in Austin and my shop/garage does not have air conditioning. It’s been a brutal summer, with weeks on end with temps 100+. So, no fun to be in the shop, even the night is still too hot — 90 at 11 PM.

Even if the heat wasn’t so bad, the shop was. Bad, that is. We recently cleared out our storage unit and a lot of stuff ended up in the garage. We’ve now stored what we wanted to keep, given away the stuff we don’t need anymore, and Evelyn gave everything a clean sweep. Just in time, as we’re ramping up for Halloween. This year’s theme: Monster Mayhem. A scale model of Tokyo, with Godzilla and friends.

I’m hoping that things cool down a bit. I have a heavy duty tool stand to put together and a new mini-mill to play with. Unfortunately, it’s been sitting there, baking.

We have a small (1 small car) garage which houses our shop. In total square feet, our shop is fine. The trouble is that we also build chicken coops — and they take up a 3′ x 6′ footprint — therefore, we have to keep the front 1/4 of the shop clear as a work / lumber storage area. So, we have to be clever about tool placement and storage.

There are a couple of dedicated stations for frequently used tools (ex. the bandsaw, drill press). Hand power tools are stored on a small bakers shelving unit. The big Makita Miter Saw sits on its own rolling cart (still need to build out its proper in/out-feed fences), etc. Recently, my collection of proper hand tools has been growing (ever so slightly), which means new storage solutions.

I have a rule of thumb about tools, materials, and parts: KEEP THEM VISIBLE

How many times have I rooted around the shop to find a glue gun I forgot I had. Or had made due with another tool when a better solution was in the shop, but hidden and forgotten about. This not just important with tools, but also materials. It’s critical to keep your materials “out there” so you can always be reminded of what you have. I know this can be difficult, but having all those tools and materials out there in front of me often sparks new ideas.

Now back to the till…

A saw till is a storage unit, usually for large hand saws. It keeps them safe, organized, and available. I’m mostly a power tool guy, but I do own some hand saws which were owed a better storage solution than a nail on a wall. Here you can see how the dovetail saws (these are Veritas) as stored:

It’s a frame made out of 1×4 pine, with some dowels (or, in my case, a ripped piece of pine, rounded over), and another piece of pine with slots to hold the blades. There a bunches of ways of doing this — I built this till for a very specific use, storing these Veritas saws.

After building out the unit I found I had space toward the top that wasn’t being used (where the blades slide under). Instead of wasting that space, I tacked on a chisel holder:

As a bonus, the top is flat, so I can store other stuff behind the chisels (that blue container, which holds some spare bits).

But I could not neglect my two (I know, only two?) planes. So, the bottom area is for storing them. (The till was sized to hold a #5 Jack plane and at least 5 dovetail saws.) here’s how everything looks:

The Jack is an old Stanley we found in Puerto Rico, rusting away (and still needing a rebuild). Above it is a Veritas DX60 block plane, which was pretty much perfect out of the box. Those Canadians do know how to build hand tools.

You can also see that I have space to hang saws on the outside — the left side has a small Japanese utility pull saw–frequently used, the other side has a Japanese Ryoba (two cutting edges).

I so liked how the saw till came out, I decided to make a matching unit to hold a couple of common screwdrivers and hammers.

An important design note on the screwdriver section: I tilted it at a pretty significant angle (I’d guess 30 degrees forward). Two reasons for this. First, it saves a LOT of space. Second, it makes getting the drivers out a LOT easier. If you are building screwdriver storage, try tilting it outward. It makes a big difference in space used and ease of use.  (In the middle you’ll see that I can also store mechanical pencils here, along with a Japanese nail set.)

My Incra rulers were feeling a little neglected, and my second-hand rules too, so I repainted my measuring device storage area black (for contrast, and I had it on hand). Twelve and eighteen inch rulers hand from the bottom, and a 6″ Pinnacle centering rule sits in the middle. (I love that ruler–so sturdy and a handy length. You can get them at Woodcraft.)

Here is the Heroic Trio, mounted to studs in the walls. (I need to make some of those fancy french [?] wall bracket setups, but too many things are above that on my to-do list.) I’ve even space for a bottle of glue (top of hammer one) — Evelyn found that at a local Korean market. It’s for storing sauces, but is perfect for glue.

I’m happy how everything came out. Not only do they look nice and professional, but they also (more importantly) keep my hand tools at hand.

I’ve been looking at digital pianos for a while now. Since I wanted something I can learn piano on, a couple of things were important. First, it had to be full-sized (88 keys). Second, it had to have “real” piano action (with full-sized keys). Third, it had to fit into my budget. I ended up with the Casio CPD-100 digital piano. It had good reviews (excellent for learning) and felt a lot more real to me — even comparing it to digital pianos twice its price (I had my eye on a couple of Yamahas). It’s not a synth, so no whiz-bang functions, but it should be a good instrument to learn on.

The piano is pretty big — about 52″ wide and 25 pounds, so I needed a sturdy stand. I didn’t feel like spending $50 on “X” metal stage stands, and the wooden stand from Casio was $120, so I decided to make my own. I went with a shaker bench design, increasing the leg height to 24″. This give me a keyboard height (to top of keys) of 28″.

In the above photo, the top is 52″ long by 12″ wide. Legs are 24″ tall, 12″ wide. The stretcher is 44″ wide and is a 1×4. The lumber was cut to length on my big Makita miter saw, then cutouts done with my Bosch saber saw.

I actually built the stool first, because I wanted to work through the plans and figure out any tricky parts:

The stool top is about 20″ wide. Legs are 18″ tall. I didn’t cut the parts as carefully as I should have (especially the stretcher part), so the stool was not as strong as I wanted it to be. To compensate I added that lower reinforcement. It’s not the best, but it will do.

Here are the two of them together. All sanded up and waiting for a glossy black paint job.

To save money, this project used glued up pine 1x12s. I got them at Lowes for about $15 a board. So, the total cost of lumber was about $30. The downside of using these pre-glued boards is that they aren’t stain friendly — they’d look a bit weird. However, an opaque paint job avoids that issue. (You can get stain-ready boards, but they are more costly.)

If you’d like to make your own, check out the plans at Popular Woodworking. The “Mud Room Bench” is part of their “I Can Do That” series of plans — woodworking projects that don’t require a ton of skill or a lot of expensive equipment. Highly recommended.

Check out the plans (including PDF) here: Mud Room Bench at Popular Woodworking

My “Summer Reading List” has been getting a bit long, with Post-Its everywhere. So, I decided to pull out an old Palm V that my friend mailed to me a while back. As my brother Dave would say: Perfect for what it does. It’s small, it’s light, and it still works after 10 years. Take that, smart phones.

Anyhow, I did have a problem with the Palm Desktop 4.1 software and the Palm 5. The digitizer kept getting out of whack after every sync. I tried stuff like Digifix, but it didn’t do anything. Finally, I ran across this post. It worked for me, so I thought I’d repost:

The bad digitizer function most likely is result of the desktop version you are utilizing.

Starting with version 4.1 and newer the problem began to appear, for users with the original bundled version that upgraded and those that utilizied the download for new desktop installs.

The UPDATE folder created during the install provides OS updates to th eunits automatically, and unfortunately the updates inclduded are not friendly or compatible with the V and Vx models, (only)?

To correct, with My Computer, locate the \Palm\Updates folder and rename to WrongUpdates.

Then since you already have hotsynced, locate the \Palm\[truncated user name]\Backup folder and rename to OLDbackup.

Then HARD Reset the Vx to clear all contents and confirm digitizer function restored.

Now perform a Hotsync, selecting same user name as the backup folder was renamed. This will establish the correct folder structure and new backup folder with the correct system files and preferences. And post HS the digitizer should be yet functional.

Digifix is an utility employed by many handheld users, V and Vx especialy, it will be beneficial if another compatibility isssue arises with a third party app that can occur.

Forgive the slow posting. Our summer vacation turned into an exercise in illness, and we’ve both been sick since late June. With any luck, health will return, and with it innovation.