Installing Turf Block Pavers

I park one of our two cars in the back yard.  There's no driveway, I just drive it up over the curb, across the grass street strip, over the sidewalk, and through a gate.  Classy, I know.  I only drive the car about once a week, and it's only a temporary thing until I get a new garage built or something.  I've been temporarily doing this since 2007...

The part where I drive across the grass strip has worn into a couple of muddy ruts, so I looked into some paving options.  Poured concrete would have been the easiest and cheapest, but turf block / grass block is less obtrusive, easily removable, and doesn't create runoff.

Before

The blocks are 18" x 24" x 3-1/2", and I got them at Mutual Materials in Clackamas for about $8 each if I remember right.  I laid them out and scored the ground to mark the locations, and excavated down about 7" from a levelling board I laid across the area.  Then I laid down several inches of 3/4"-minus crushed rock, and packed it down with a hand tamper until it was 3-1/2" below my board.  A little 1/4"-minus on top gave me a layer to set the stones into.

Excavation

The stones had to be cut to make a clean fit in the 7' long strip.  I cut them with a $20 "turbo" diamond blade in an old 7-14" circular saw I keep for this kind of rough work.  Trying to cut masonry with something other than a chisel was a new thing for me, and aside from being a dusty mess, it was a piece of cake.  Advice from a newbie to anyone trying this:  cut the top / show face of the masonry first, about half way through, and then flip the stone and finish the cut from the back.  The last bit always breaks off, and you don't want that to be a corner on the top.  And just go slow.  Let the saw find it's own happy cutting speed, and don't push on it.

Cutting the pavers with a diamond blade in a circular saw is easy

I filled the holes in the pavers with compost and soil, and I'm going to plant sedum in them.  It will take the summer heat and drought better than grass.

Finished Turfblock Strips

DIY Angle Gauges for Cutting Drywall

You don't have to be that accurate when cutting a piece of drywall / gypsum board / sheetrock.  Within 1/4" is usually fine.  Mud and tape covers a lot of evils.  Fitting pieces in odd-shaped areas like angled soffits or ceiling transitions, or anywhere in an old house can be a real challenge though.  When I refinished our baby room, I don't think there was a single square corner in the whole job.  After cutting a funky piece based only on the dimensions and finding it was off by over an inch, I went down to the shop and made these.

Three foot angle gauge for drywall

Simple but effective lock mechanism

They're nothing more than a couple strips of thin plywood, held together with a short carriage bolt and a wing nut.  I glued a patch of 160 grit sandpaper to one of the pieces at the joint, which really helps them lock together when the wingnut is tightened.  I made two sizes to accommodate my work, one about 3ft long, and the other about 18 inches.
To use them, just hold them up against the corner you need to fit, and then lock the angle.  Lay the gauge on the piece of drywall and mark your cuts.  By taking angles at all the corners and making sure all the angles and side lengths were correct, I cut a lot of weird triangles and trapezoids to very close tolerances.  Super handy.

Lathe Stand and Storage Cabinet

I needed to turn a utility item yesterday, and that got me thinking about finally putting my lathe up on a proper stand.  Right now, it lives on the floor of my basement, and I groan and lift it up onto my bench when I want to use it.  And that's assuming there's a clean spot on my bench!

One problem with my basement shop is that the concrete floors are not level.  Everything slopes to a floor drain, which will be great when there's a leak, but a pain otherwise.  The shop is also quite small, so mobility is a must.  This stand needs swivel casters so I can scoot it around, and adjustable feet for stability on the floor.  Unlike the manufacturer's stand, this thing should also have quality storage.

[fast forward a couple of weeks]

The main carcase is a box of 3/4" plywood, 27-1/2"h x 34"w x 12".  It's built with simple rabbet joints at the corners, glued and screwed together.  The left side has a drawer at the top for little things, and below that a cupboard with adjustable shelves for chucks, wrenches, and other accessories.  On the right is tool storage.  For now, a simple vertical rack holds all the tools I have, but in the future I might have to modify this for more capacity.  It might also be nice to have some sort of rack to use to set tools when I'm using them, instead of just shoving them under the lathe bed in the chips.

The box sits on 3" swivel casters, but there are outrigger legs at each end with feet that are screwed down to level and support the stand when it's in use.  I've had this idea for a while, but this is the first time I've built it, and I'm very happy with the way it works.  I haven't tried turning anything big and wiggly like a green bowl blank, but without adding a lot of mass to the stand, this is about as solid as it gets with the legs screwed down.  Here's how they're made.  The feet were cut from a 2x8.  I put a fancy curve on them so you can tell I'm a classy gentleman, and they are screwed to the side of the carcase with six 2" construction screws, with the bottom about 1-1/2" from the floor when the stand is sitting on the casters.  There's a 3/8" tee nut inserted into the bottom of the outrigger leg, and then a carriage bolt threaded up from below through the tee nut and up through a 3/8" hole through the leg.  The head of the carriage bolt becomes the foot, and I glued some rubber feet to the bottom of them for better grip on my concrete floor.  I used flat tee nuts with holes on the flange, instead of the kind with the spikes you hammer in.  I fastened them into a shallow 1" mortise (made with a forstner bit) with #4 screws.  The close fit of the bolt thread through the wood hole above the tee nut is intentional and adds to the rigidity of the foot.  They were a little tough to turn at first, since the tee nut is never perfectly aligned with the hole, but a little wax on the threads and the action is just right so they don't tend to turn on their own.  On top of the bolt, I locked two nuts together, and then turned some little 1" dia. x 3" handles out of walnut scrap.  I drilled a 5/16" hole about 1/2" deep near one end of each handle, then used a chisel to enlarge that to a tight-fitting hex shape that I simply whacked onto the locked nuts with a mallet.  No glue needed.

Dust collection at the lathe can be tricky.  The big shavings make up most of the waste, but sanding especially can generate finer dust.  I take a two-pronged approach here.  I like to hang a 2-1/2" dust-collector hose right on my tool rest post.  That does a good job with most of the fine stuff because it's close to the source and pulling a lot of air.  Some shrouding and another dust-collector inlet underneath the lathe catch most of the big chunks that tend to fall.  I also made the top overhang the cabinet about 1/2" so the debris that does escape doesn't wind up in the storage area.

Another consideration is a spot for a swing-arm lamp, either on a bracket behind the bed, or behind the tailstock.  Hm.

Dining Table

I didn't finish in time for Thanksgiving.  I got pretty close to having the structural work done, but the finishing took me another couple of weeks.

I used Watco 'Natural' to deepen the look and finish the base.  I considered using straight boiled linseed oil, but Watco is the same thing with some kind of varnish resin added, so I think the soft fir will wind up a little tougher.  A couple of coats leave the wood looking pretty natural while providing some protection.  The top got several coats of Zinnser clear shellac.  I probably should have just used a polyurethane varnish, but shellac is easier to fix when the inevitable happens.

Finished Trestle Dining Table

Dining Table: Trestle Structure

The support trestle is all made out of old Douglas Fir framing lumber that came out of our house, which was built in 1911.  Roof rafters were 2 x 4 and will live on as the stringers and legs, a 6 x 6 porch post will become the feet, and a 2 x 6 joist from the bathroom floor will become the horizontal brace.

The stringers (aka battens) were made and attached several weeks ago, as I flattened the top.

Mmmm.  Lead-based paint.

The big post that became the feet was coated in nasty old paint, had a ton of nails in it, and has been sitting out in the weather for a couple of years.  Even in that condition, I couldn't throw out a big chunk of clear lumber like that.  First I pulled all the nails (one I couldn't remove got driven in deeply with a nail set) and used a thrasher ebay jack plane to clean off the paint and flatten the surface.  The wood was wet from a few rainy days, so it kept the lead dust down.  I cut off a couple of 26" lengths with one of my grandfather's old hand saws, and then ran those through the power planer to clean them up.  After deciding how to orient the parts to hide most of the defects, I used the band saw to rip down the foot blanks to 3-1/4" x 4-1/4" x 26".

Ah, the irony.  I'm not a masochist.  That stock is too long to crosscut on the table saw.

To make the curved shape of the feet, I spent some time designing patterns on hardboard, then used that to draw and cut a couple of test pieces on 2x6 lumber to show my wife and refine the shape.  Once I got to something we were happy with, I used the template to draw the shape on both sides of the foot, and then cut off most of the waste on the band saw.  I used a hand saw and chisels to make the sharp arrises where the flat top transitions to the curve.  A paring chisel took off most of the remaining waste, and then a little quality time with the oscillating belt sander smoothed things out.

Shaped Foot

The legs are glued up from two 26" pieces of 2x4, with a 1/4" strip of walnut between them as an accent.  Final blank size is 25-1/2" x 1-5/8" x 7".

Roughing out mortises at the drill press

I put a 1/2" x 1-1/2" x 6" mortise in the stringers.  I made one with a brace and bit followed by chisel work, but roughed out the second one at the drill press with a forstner bit.  The quality is the same, but the drill press is quicker.  The foot got a larger mortise, 3/4" wide by 1-3/4" deep, because there's a lot more to work with on that part.  Matching tenons were made in the leg blanks, cut close with the table saw and fine-tuned by hand.  I have a Lie-Nielsen rabbet block plane that is my go-to tenon tuner.  It can even be flipped over and used to clean up the shoulders if the wood is nice.

Cleaning up a bottom leg tenon with a L-N rabbet block plane.  Haven't cut the narrow shoulders yet.

The cross brace is just a 2 x 6, planed down to smoothness.  Big 4" x 4-5/8" long tenons were shaped on either end, fitting into 1-1/2" x 4" through mortises in the legs.  Those were carefully chopped from both sides, since the edges would be visible in the finished piece.  After fitting the legs to the cross brace, a tapered 1/2" x 1" (to 3/4") through mortise was made vertically through those for tapered walnut tusks to hold the assembly together.

Drilling for the mortise that will hold the tusk tenon (in background)
that secures the leg to the horizontal brace.

A few more details:  the ends of the horizontal brace's exposed tenons were rounded off at a 5" radius, and 1/4" was removed from the bottom of the feet to leave square pads on the ends.  Most edges were eased or slightly chamfered with a block plane, to prevent splintering and keep the incidence of damaged shins to a minimum.  The stringers and feet were glued onto the legs and that's all the permanent joinery on the base.  Bam.  Done.  Now these parts can get out of the way while I finish the top.

The big question now is, will I finish in time to use this table for Thanksgiving dinner?  My family's not coming up until Saturday, so I've got a couple extra days.

Choosing a water heater

Like everything else in the world, picking a new water heater requires an unreasonable amount of research and nail biting.  Here's a taste, based on a friend of mine's situation.  It should be pretty easy to plug in your own numbers for usage and utility rates to do this for yourself.

Some terms:
Sorry for the units, all you socialist users of the metric system!
BTU: the amount of energy it takes to heat one pound of water 1˚F (aka British Thermal Unit)
1 kWh = 3412.3 BTU  (common unit for selling electricity)
1 therm = 100k BTU  (common unit for selling natural gas)
1 gallon of water weighs 8.35 lbs.
EF: efficiency rating - tells you how much incoming energy makes it into the hot water.  Manufacturers like to bs around with this.  For example, I believe they ignore any electrical consumption made by a gas appliance.

First, estimate your usage.  For my friend, I figure one shower a day (10 min @ 2.5 gpm @ 105˚F) uses about 20 gal of hot water (the rest of the 25 gallons used is cold water mixed in the shower valve).  1 load of laundry average per day = 4 gal in her high efficiency front loader. Dishes, hand washing, etc. takes another 10 gal.  So, 30 gallons a day.

How much energy is that?  The average incoming cold water is about 50˚F here.  If the tank is set to 120˚F, that's an increase of 70˚F, and that 30 gallons weighs 250.5 lbs.  70 x 250.5 = 17535 BTU per day.

Electric
The most basic electric water heater has an efficiency rating of about 0.90, and putting a thicker layer (3") of foam insulation gets them up to 0.95 pretty quick and cheaply.  Note that the EPA no longer gives Energy Star certifications to any electric tank models except for the heat pump hybrids.  The bottom line is it's too easy to get right close to the theoretical maximum EF of 1.0, so they don't feel like they need to reward anyone for that.  Given how many people and programs base their buying on the Energy Star label, I think that's a mistake, but anyway...  So, I'm looking at a 40 gallon model with a 12 yr warranty at Lowe's for $450.  Nothing fancy.  At EF 0.95, this model will consume 1974 kWh per year.  (17535 BTU / 0.95 = 18458 BTU input needed per day...  18458 / 3412.3 = 5.41 kWh / day...  5.41 x 365 = 1974 kWh / yr).  Our electricity is 0.11 per kWh, so operating cost is estimated at $217 a year.

Natural Gas
A very basic gas water heater is only about EF 0.59, but it's easy to find them up around 0.64.  Energy Star models have to exceed 0.67, and the highest efficiency models get up to 0.70.  I'm looking at a 0.67 Energy Star, 12 yr warranty model at Lowe's for $570.  This model will consume 95.5 therms of natural gas per year.  (17535 / 0.67 = 26172 BTU input per day...  26172 x 365 = 9,552,649 BTU / yr...  divided by 100k = 95.5 therms / yr)  Our natural gas is $1.08 per therm, so operating cost is estimated at $103 a year.

So even though the gas unit costs more, it should pay for itself pretty quickly, and the savings is more if you use more than the fairly minimal amounts in the examples above.  But of course there are other things to think about.  All-new installation of a gas unit can be very expensive.  It needs an exhaust vent (chimney), or for some models they can vent via a plastic pipe out through the wall.  Gas units are dependent on both the electricity (fans, controls, igniter) and gas utilities to operate.  Electric just needs electricity.  Electric units have no moving parts, and are much less complicated.  They also are very cheap to repair (replace an element or thermostat) and the little bit of energy that they do lose ends up in your house.  We live in a coolish climate, so the extra heat is a good thing for eight months of the year.  Gas units dump all their excess energy out the vent, and they also poke another hole in your house's building envelope, requiring installation of a motorized vent damper if you don't want air flowing through the stack when the unit isn't operating.  Electric heaters are much less likely to cause explosions if you happen to spill something flammable near them, and the carbon monoxide hazard is zero.

Dining Table: Battens and Breadboard Ends

The two parts of this table that keep the top flat are breadboard ends and the two battens that also form the top of the trestles.  First I flattened the underside of the top, using a Veritas Bevel-up Jack (blade at 40˚) and my Stanley No. 4 smoother.  Fir is a pain in the ass to plane, in my experience.  High quality tight grained old-growth stuff isn't so bad, but this construction grade crap just loves to tear out, and it tears really deeply.  It's not possible to simply fix it with a scraper because you'd have to dig a crater.  With my No. 4 tuned to the limit of my abilities, I wound up with a couple of really ugly patches.

Evil Tearout

I guess I didn't resort to back-beveling the blade, so my cutting angle was no more than 45˚, but anyway the point I'm getting to is that I decided I needed a new bevel-up smoother.  Going on my old rule of buying as I need (and I need to flatten this big table top), I got the full-size Veritas BU Smoother that shares blades with the other two of their BU planes I've acquired over the past few years.  It's heavy, and it's a real workout to push it with a 50˚ blade in it, but so far it does seem to handle the tough grain reversals better, and it's much quicker to set up than my #4.  The end grain of a couple of knots does some funky things that were handled better by a lower pitch blade, but I'm going to patch those on the top, so I don't care.  I could plane around them anyway.

Rough old framing...

With the underside flat, I started making the battens.  When I remodeled our upstairs bedroom, there was quite a bit of 2 x 4 framing that came out, and I kept nearly all of it, despite the nail holes and mortar and other crap I have to deal with.  Here's why.  Look at that grain.  They were using these trees for construction lumber 100 years ago!  These are rough-cut timbers, measuring pretty close to a full 2" x 4", so I can get real lumber out of them.  I think I've got enough to make all the framing for the trestle if I'm careful and don't screw up.

...Is tight-grained Douglas Fir

I drew out a nice cyma and made a hardboard pattern.  I then traced that out on the pieces and shaped them to the line with bandsaw, spindle sander, and some hand tools to clean up the details.  I attached them to the underside of the table top with metal figure 8 connectors to allow for movement.

Final shaping of the battens

The breadboard ends are cherry, cut from 5/4 stock, which was barely thick enough.  I flattened the ends of the top with a jointer plane run across the grain, so it would join nicely with the flat breadboard pieces.

5/4 Cherry breadboard stock

To make the cherry end pieces I trued up the faces and one long edge of a piece of 5/4 x 39" x 4" stock, then I used a dado stack blade on the tablesaw to cut a 1/2" x 3/8" wide groove in the edge.

I used a router with a 3/4" straight bit and clamped the cherry end board as a straightedge to cut a long rabbet 1-1/2" wide x ~5/16" deep down the entire length of the end on each side, leaving a single huge tenon 3/8" thick.

With dividers, I marked out six 2" wide sections to leave full length and cut the material between to leave a 1/2" tongue, using a coping saw and sharp chisel.  Then I marked out the location of the 1-1/2" mortises from the tenons on the top and made those with a 3/8" auger bit followed by some chisel work.  The depth gauge in the lower left of the photo is very handy when checking mortises.  That one is a General 444 that I found at a garage sale for a couple bucks.  I usually set it to my tenon length plus 1/32" or so and slide it along as a go/no-go gauge.  A small high spot somewhere in the bottom of a mortise can be a real hassle.

Test fitting and tuning the tenons with a rabbet block plane got the ends in place.  I tend to make my mortises, cut my tenons a hair fat, and tune the joint by adjusting them if necessary.  I'm going to radius the ends, but not until final assembly.

A couple of suggestions:  take a small piece of scrap and put the same dado as in the end piece.  You can see the one I made from a chunk of 2x6 in one of the photos.  Then you can go along and test that dado against all the individual parts of the top until you get the same fit everywhere.  Trying to test fit the whole thing at once doesn't really work because you can't tell where it's tight for sure.  Leaving the stock over length is very very handy when it comes time to knock the end off during final fitting - otherwise there's no place to apply the mallet to remove it and you're kind of stuck.