French cleats

 I have been making a few holders for various tools, time to hang them up on the walls.

But how?  There are various ways to go about it.  In the past 16 years or so, I have been using perf board with custom wooden holders. But this time I want something I can easily remove the holders yet be very strong.  Hence French cleats.

Nothing new, been using them to hang all my tills on the walls, but this time I will be using a row of evenly spaced cleats, in a bid to maximized wall spaces and give me enough adjustability.

After some experimentation, settled on a 2 inch spacing as such.

Each wall cleats would be 2 inches wide, spaced 2 inches apart. 

the top most part is simply squared, not cut at an angle like the cleats. 

 That is to provide both support and lockability for the fixtures.

Of courses all these cleats parts required a 45 degrees rip cut, definitively NOT something I would entertained doing by hand.  Easy job for a table saw, but my Unisaw remains power less, need to bring in 220V in garage.  Normally I would just make a run to the hobby shop and ran them thru, but, in this Omicron wave, travels are restricted, so stay home and come up with a plan D.

The other, little thing was, where is my wood coming from to make these, do I have any suitable?  Yes and No, but nothing more than a few quick passes in the planer would suffice, to make some out of some rough strapping's boards.  Of course in my tight garage that required some re shuffling of equipment sharing footprint inside.  All of which required the garage door to be open, so needed some good weather.

Equipment shuffled, ready for the weather

All that to say, that today, it went up to 11C inside my garage with the door opened most of the day.  I got her done.

Completed with planer, re shuffled equipment.

Snow blower and emergency generator must remain accessible by door.

Yes, I got a new blower this year, well 2021 :-)

Here is a mostly pictorial record of how it went.

This is the space under the Boring till.

I want to reorganize it better and recycled those holders

This is part of the space under the window.

The scraper holder, bench cookies and my daily work board 

will also migrate to French Cleats.  

The boring bits till will be redone later

All these holders will be recycled to French cleats.

There are all currently set up for peg board.

Earlier this month, I made a quick holder for my hammers, 

modeled loosely on the one I used for my mallets.

I cut the parts while doing a supervisor shift at the wood shop.

The parts are not assembled yet

Back at home I glued and screwed the parts together.

I only used two of my three support brackets.

Now for the wall cleats .

 I want my finished cleats to be 2 inches wide, I also want to protect the fragile knife edge by cutting it back about 1/8 of an inch.

So I am ripping them at 45 degrees at 2-1/8 inch wide, then cut back to 2 inch by cutting off a part of the lip.

Since I am currently unable to used the Unisaw, 

I used the small bench top saw that came with Jean ;-)

That wide cleat I used to check my angle was a left over from hanging my tills previously

Ran into issues with my feather boards.

The T bolt on the red one were not wide enough to capture the table saw miter gauge slot.

My yellow magnetic one did not work, table is cast aluminum, not iron. 

Had to resort to my old standby's, wooden ones with a clamp

My initial production.  I rejected two because of blown out knots and made new ones.

They were all cut at 2-1/8 inches wide, both wall and fixtures ones.

I later recut the fixtures one to 1-7/8 inches and the wall ones at 2 inches.

ending up with a flat at the end of the thin lip.

Armed with a few pieces and a some cardboard,

 mock up how the fixture will land on my proposed

spacing layout of 2 inches.

That set up give me a 4 inch adjustment from rows to rows.

Also used this mock up to figured out minimum width 

of back board required to secured narrow holders.

I got help from Rudy with this project.

You give me a treat and I will not take off with one of your parts :-)

 

And that is where I stand now.  I have confirmed my settings and am almost ready to install them, but first sanding and...

Bob, who is keeping busy at home

Day two on the Hall table

Last nite, I sneaked back into the shop and put more tool holders up on the wall.
These holders I made years ago for a previous shop, but I kept them.  I had them modified in another shop to be held on my pegboards, by screwing L hooks into the back, spaced for the pegboards.
On the holder for my scraper burnishers, I removed the hooks in the back then screwed it on the side of my plane till, using its original screw holes.

Had to remove a few things on the till side to install it

For another to hold chisels, screwdrivers and etc, I left the hooks then tried just drilling two holes in the wallboard. Then I just rotated the holder as if it was thru pegboard. Took some finagling, but that worked.  It did not took long to load it.

Add a picture with a led flashing candle and a carving

and we are done :-)

Back to the hall table, first order of business was to cleaned up last nite mortise walls then checked for squareness before fine tuning my dummy tenon blank to fit.

Problem was, took me a while to find were I put that small Veritas square, which is just the right tool to check for squareness.  Looking for it, I of course came across many tools which I took back with me for storing in my tills, which also meant cleaning up the small joiner chest, so it could close, and...

Did some clean up in there, it was overflowing

And now that the cover close, you just knew 

it was begging for something to be put on top :-)

Opened up the spokeshave tray to find, 

and round up a few more of my spare blades.

Still no sign of that gauge... but...

Found the other part of my Veritas small plow, which I have yet

 to put back together  after its modifications at the factory.

Ok, finally found the tool, got my walls quickly cleaned up using a large  1-1/2 inch bevel edge chisel, then using my Veritas 1/2 inch measuring block, I made sure I had a good fit.

Found it...

Squaring the ends of the mortise were easily accomplished using a block of wood clamped on my line.  Then it is just a few taps with the1/2 inch chisel to do it.

Once satisfied, I then trimmed my dummy tenon plug, made sure it went deep enough, and repeat same mortising operation as before. I trimmed my dummy plug a bit narrower than the mortise length, so I could wiggle it out without damaging my walls

Dummy plug in place, ready to mortise from the other side

It would be easier if the dummy tenon plug was a different colour than the wood I am mortising.

You can just make out the dummy plug peeking thru

A little while later, I had two legs done (8 mortises) and a new mess on my bench to clean up.

Now what did I do with my other leg blanks??

These are the tools I used for my mortise layout and checks for squareness after. 

I did a quick sand and strop on my 1/2 inch chisel, what I'm doing with it, is murder on the edge :-)

The first time I reach in for a tool in there the carving fell off, 

then I knocked over the picture. Both are banned from that spot

I stop there, and finished putting away a few more things I dragged out, looking for that square earlier.

 First order of business was to lower my mallets holder, it is too close to the Boring till

Before, my bigger mallet does not fit anymore, this is the small guy

After, more than enough room

I think I may have to look for more holders somewhere :-)

My two legs are joined together with the dummy tenon plug

Bob, who should have his tenons done next time... whenever that would be
IF I find my leg blanks.. a suivre.

Time wait for no one...

Funny, you would had thought that in retirement, you could have all the time in the world to yourself so that you could do anything you ever wanted to do, now, but....Ah yes, there is that little thing called life, and it waits for no one.  So buckle up and enjoy the ride :-)

The view from my favorite chair, but we are getting ahead of ourselves...

We have been getting quite a few frost warnings recently, so almost every nite that means covering plants and etc. hoping to get to harvest it one last times before the frost gets it.

We did not quite got the tomatoes in time, they froze and had to harvest them green and make chow with whichever ones could be salvaged

Carrots are so lazy, they won't grow tall if the soil under them is too hard :-)

Talking of freeze, it was about time to turn back on my furnace. Last year it was ridiculously expensive to run and it was very noisy. It was never drained properly after two previous repairs, getting worse and worse.  Big air bubble somewhere, not very efficient :-(
A good friend of ours who happened to be knowledgeable on HVAC, boilers, gas fitter and etc came to have a look at my system. After cursing whomever put this thing together not in the best form, he proceed to drain every branch's of my system thoroughly. Then shown me how to do it.

Work quietly like a charm and I am sure it would be much cheaper this season, Thanks Neil!!

I am now the Vice President of my local Rotary International club, in Middleton. It's a learning curve but very interesting. keep me busy for sure. Then there are two other clubs which I am secretaries and others which I am just an ordinary member thank you very much, I am a tad busy...

This past Week End it was Thanksgiving in Canada. (in the US it was Columbus day, they celebrated Thanksgiving later).
That meant, the usual annual ritual of regluing vintage factories' built chairs, which fall apart every season with our dry/humid cycle.  New fangled flat pack chairs assembled with an Allen key don't fare much better, keep those keys around!!!

One of these days, the plan was always to make my own, hence why I endure this annual ritual of chair fixing. If only I found the time :-)

This year I gave them a further disassembly and re-glued most joints, should hold better than last year minimal glue ups.

They pretty well always opened up at the round mortise/tenon or dowels

The corner screw blocks are falling off, they have some remnants of glue on them

That is an offset turned tenon, and not a dowel.  

Good thing or it would not be very strong.

My repaired chairs production for one nite.

Others await in clamps. Next a temporary table extension board

For Thanksgiving my son Matt came over and we worked on another version of a laptop board for him.
At his last visit we cobbled together a prototype with a few adjustment (width of legs) to get a feel of the design idea.

He decided to ditch the legs idea and simply make a flat board, with spacing under the lap top for ventilation. We also reduced the overall size of the board compared to the first prototype.

After reviewing his new design we went looking around my shop for a few suitable wood scraps to built it.  I wanted to make sure he had a finish product to take back with him, so in order to go faster, we went to the base hobby shop to rip our pieces to width and crosscut the long pieces to rough length.  The smaller ones for creating the open grid were all cut using a stop block and we made a spacer block for ensuring an even spacing at glue up.
After about half an hour of work we had a start to our glue ups.

Glue ups are started. We proceed in sections to have 

an easier time ensuring the proper spacings later on.

Saturday, after supper we went back to the shop and assembled all the sub-assemblies together for the final glue up.
We used a variety of  coloured woods, Walnut, Padouk, Mahogany. These being thicker than my long pieces (Oak, Pine, Maple) it was easy to ensure they all line up using a square. Having used a spacer to previously glued the spacers we ended up with a straight line... on the inside.

Next morning, as soon as he got up at the crack of 10, we went back to plane, sand and crosscut it to size.

After planning it

Then ran thru the drum sander, cross cut using the sliding crosscut table,

We then decided to cut the outside corners round on the disk sander and relieved the front edge.

The spacer block we used is seen in the background

Then back home with plenty of time for the rest of the family to arrived.

 Rudy has the visit of his girl friend Diva, Jean's mother poodle.

 After diner and most of the guest left, I put on the finishing touches on Matthew's lap board.
Cut and installed the upper spacer to retain the lap top in place. Gave it a good sanding all over, broke the sharp edges to ensure it is comfortable (a complaint with the prototype :-)
And he had a finish product to take back home with him.

Sized for his lap top, with a bigger space on the right for the mouse.

The open grid is to improve air flow and reduce heat build up.

Would that work? That would be our bright way of thinking anyway :-)

Woods used are from T-B

Oak, Walnut, Pine, Mahogany, Curly Maple, Padouk, Pine, Walnut and Oak

In between all that, I had Matt fixed some issues I was having with my PC.   Following my recent crash, he rebuild my system with SSD drives but I no longer have access to Microsuck Office suite.
Don't feel like ponying up the $$ for new version and dislike Win 10 anyway, so...
He got me going on compatible Freeware (Thunderbird, Apache, Open Office etc.)
It works and it open my older MS files, but there are of course small glitches with some of my more elaborate Excel contraption's. (I know, using a DB would be easier, but...:-)

Some days I feel like ditching PC and going over the MAC World, but I hate their monopolistic tendencies and would lose my son's PC knowhow and support.  Linux? Getting too old to learn new tricks.  Maybe I should just dust off my old Commodore 64 :-)

With this project out of the way, I was reminded that I am supposed to work on her sister project.
A small hall table for their house.
A while back, got the idea sketched, figured out the dimensions  and got the wood.
Its been cut to rough sizes and acclimating in the living room for a little while.
Lets just say, it is safe to say, it is acclimated to its new surrounding, time for the next phase :-)

But of course, before I can get to it, I need to make room in the shop on my bench which meant clearing out the top.

One of the thing on it was that small collector's spoon rack which I thought could make a great bit holder till.  But I also thought that the spacing could be better and  I should make a new one with custom holders because the ones on it  are too small for my bits shanks and bla bla.

Well at that rate it may be a while, so why not just recycled the damn thing now instead of building a better one??

Start to cut each holder spots to fit the bits 

Then screw to the wall, loaded with some of my brace bits

Does the job, why wait any longer??

Tempus Fugit

It is located off from the boring till because of the necessity 

of hitting the studs for my screws (2). Now what to do with the remaining space?

Dusted off this board I made a few years back to try keeping at hand, my most used bench tools.

Found a pack of NOS Stanley brackets, complete with screws to put it up.

And similarly, it is located to hit the studs

Then I decided I need a place to store nearby my panel gauge. So looked for a suitable piece of scrap wood and made a quick holder to add on the side of my boring till.

Drilled a hole, well, more like chew a hole using a center bit 

which is in bad need of a tune up :-)

Reduced the size to width to fit between the drill bit till and the boring till.

Then traced a complementary silhouette of the gage head

Cut using my hand cranked Delta Boy's saw

Before cutting the other side, cleaned and lubricated it

Done

Quick work with a spoke shave and a rat tail rasp

The panel gauge in its new location.

Starting to look like a shop again, progress, slow progress

Which bring us to the present time, the pieces for her sister hall table are now resting on my bench and would soon becomes the promised object :-) A suivre.

Meanwhile, I am still finding more stuff to add to my draft on moulding planes, I"ll get to it eventually.  

Oh and the yard, and the grand kids, Rudy, Jean and, and… Where do the time go in retirement? 

It's one of life mystery … :-)

Bob, time challenged but loving it