Sunday, November 8, 2015

Door Trim in Three Parts

Well, there were actually a lot more than three steps.  But these were three big ones:

1.  First, I had to make a miter sled.  I sawed solid wood shims and glued them as "runners" to the bottom of a sheet of plywood.  Then I sawed halfway through the sled, and mounted the plywood beams I built to the sled top, at exactly 90 degrees with respect to each other, and at 45 degrees with respect to the saw kerf now in the center of the sled. 
Special thanks to Charles Hurst and Kristina Arnold for his "gravity clamp" innovation.  Also, thanks to Chester Cornett (I actually saw it in MOJ before I heard Charles name it).
Now, a piece of trim, clamped to the beam and run through the saw, will be cut at 45 degrees.  Two pieces, each cut on opposing beams will make 90 degrees.

Then, I had to figure out how to create a fence for my router and determine the depth of cut on some scrap pieces. 



2.  Then, I used an angle grinder to cut and grind the bricks flush to one another, so trim can be layed smoothly overtop of them. 
I also used the angle grinder to cut away some of the old plaster that was too thick, and too near the doorway on the inside. 
This plaster will be replaced in the spring by yours truly.  It was a dirty job.



3.  Then, I could rout and joint the trim boards and try to mount them to the wall.  Do you remember that totally crooked, assymetrical header beam that is holding all the bricks above the door up?  Well, here is the crooked shim board I cut and planed in order to get my trim boards to lie flush against it.
 

And, voila!  The door is now permanently part of the wall, and the gaps have been sealed. 




The next step is figuring out how to mount the decorative reeded panel that will inlay in inside of the door jamb, making it, and mounting it into the jamb.  I have transported rough-sawn boards back to my shop/apartment in BG to work on/develop this from home.  When its 80% done, I'll try to put it in.  That will likely happen after exam week. 

This was a big week.  Thanks for reading.

NS





Sunday, November 1, 2015



I’ve been working on some projects that allow me to work at home (in Bowling Green) on the Gardner House Project. 

The main goal of the semester has been to finish installing the door.  The door is in the house (picture to come) and is in use and lockable.  That was one of those should-have-been-a-small-job-but-was-really-a-massive-job types of jobs. 

I’ve been working the past few weeks at developing the infrastructure in Bowling Green at my apartment to allow me to turn these rough black walnut boards donated by Charile Williams into moulding trim that will seal the open spaces between the wooden jamb and the repaired brick wall.  We’ll use spare shake shingles to shim the spaces between the bricks and jamb to create some more pressure and tension.  Then, we’ll close the opening with wood trim, flush against the masonry (fingers crossed).    

A few weeks ago I built the bench.  This is a view of the crooked board, with my hand held planer that I used to make the board straighter on top


This weekend I used my two new jigs (built last weekend) to try working up a piece of the walnut, to see if I can do it.  First, I used my power hand planer to take down the largest and most out-of-square parts of the boards.  I took about an inch off one end of the right side. 


Then, I set up this jointing jig that I learned about on the Youtube Channel “Rockin-H-Woodshop,” and used my new table saw’s blade to skim about a 1/6th of an inch off the right side of the board.  I checked to see if it was straight and it was!  About 1/32” off one way or another.  I used the newly “square” side against my fence to rip the rough side.  Then, I flipped it back around and ripped off my “mostly square” side with the ripped side against the fence.  Now, I have a straight 1X6!  Awesome!


The jig is bolted onto the fence with recessed 3 inch hex bolts.  I took the moving blade up into the wood fence, half buried so that some of the blade was showing.  Then, I glued a 1/16 inch strip of wood along the behind-the-blade end of the wood fence-face.  The wood strip allows the wood to run evenly (and safely) along the blade/wood fence even though 1/16 of an inch has been removed.


I also put my new cross-cut sled to the test.  If this sled worked, then I could feel good about using my table saw as the principle saw for the upcoming deck-building project.  I could also then justify spending a half-day building a similar miter sled for the table saw, and eliminate the need (for the time being) to buy a miter saw.  



The sled works great and makes totally square cuts.  Because I’m using a jobsite portable table saw and not a permanent cast iron table saw (about $1500 in cost difference) it’s a lot harder for me to set up stop blocks for repeated cuts (my table is small) and this sled is really only safe/efficient for making cuts on shorter, non-eight-foot pieces of wood.  So, I’m working up my pieces into rough lengths with my handheld skill saw and finishing them with the table saw.  Seems like a good compromise.  I learned how to build the miter sled and cross cut sled from Wood Working for Mere Mortals (Steve Ramsey’sYoutube Channel). 

This week I also bought a router and practiced making cuts.  I’m shopping for the appropriate bit to match the Gardner House’s patterns, and hopefully, we’ll have square boards with decorative patterns by the end of the week.  Also, I fixed the generator again this week, as well as my undependable angle grinder.  With some luck, I'll have finished cleaning up my rough brick edges on the door by the end of the week.  Installation may have to wait until after exams…we’ll see.

Thanks for reading!

NS

Community Open House

Thanks for stopping by the Gardner Historic House blog! If you'd like to visit the actual house, now's your chance.

The Gardner House will be open to the public THIS SATURDAY, September 27, 2014 from 9:00am to 3:00pm. SEE YOU THERE! For more information, go to
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We look forward to seeing you there!