Using a Concrete Edger

I poured another set of curbs for a new fence I'm building along the east side of our property.  Using an edger to put rounded corners on a concrete job is the easiest thing to make it look professional.  The key is to wait until the proper time to use it.  Too soon and the shape doesn't hold, too late and it's very difficult to work.

Basically, I fill the forms, level them off and then float them with a metal trowel, then go away for a while.  The amount of time depends on the temperature.  It was about 45˚F when I did this job, so I waited about 50 minutes and it was still plenty soft and workable.  In the summer, it might be less.  Usually about 15 minutes after you pour and screed and whatever you do initially, there's some water that bleeds up out of the concrete.  Don't touch anything while this is present.  Wait until it soaks back in, then give it a few more minutes.  If you start the process and the surface is still really soft, you can always come back later.  You want the consistency to be a little softer than modeling clay.

Start by digging in with the trailing corner to define the edge of the concrete

I use an edger in two steps.  First, I hold it up at an angle and drag it against the form to define the outer edge of the curb and create a track for the tool to follow in the next step.  Then I lay it down and use it to float and shape the surface.  Just apply light pressure and slightly lift the leading edge of the tool.  It's really pretty easy.  If the concrete is still pretty fresh, you can float up a lot of water and make the surface soupy.  Stop and come back in a few minutes if this happens.  Just work it until the shape is defined - and stop, or the cured surface will wind up weak and crumbly.  If you want to float it really smooth, come back when it's firmed up a bit more and give it a final pass.

Then lay the edger down to form and float the surface

New Turning Tools from Glen-Drake Toolworks

Lie-Nielsen's Hand Tool Event came to town last weekend.  It's a great place to play with all their offerings, and ask questions about maintaining and using them.  I got some solid advice on sharpening small blades, and bought one of their small bronze spokeshaves.  What a sweet little tool, especially compared to the crappy Kunz (Stanley knockoff) I have at home.  I also made several cuts with their thin-plate dovetail saw, and now lust for it even though I have a perfectly functional Veritas model.  It cuts like a shark with lasers attached.

Anyway, there are typically also other vendors there, and Glen-Drake was one of them.  Kevin Drake was demonstrating some new spindle turning tools he's developed, and I'm definitely intrigued.  There are six of them, two sizes each of three types:  a rectangular-shaft skew, and round-shaft skew, and a round-shafted chisel ground with a bevel on top and bottom, like a non-skewed skew...  He calls it a duckbill.  That's it.  No gouges.

Kevin Drake demonstrates his turning tools

The tools are short, only about 14" long, more than half of which is handle.  The business ends are stout, and made of O1 steel instead of HSS that's the standard for turning tools these days.  The steel is tempered differently along it's length to make the shafts tough and strong, and the cutting end hard and sharp.  O1 is generally regarded to give a keener edge than A2 or HSS, although I think most turners will have to rethink their sharpening methods.  These tools are meant to be sharpened like a carving tool or bench chisel - shaped once in a great while on the grinder, and maintained with regular light honing on a stone.  The payoff is the smooth surface right off the lathe.

I ordered the smaller of the rectangular skews.  All the tools are around $80, but he said that's some kind of introductory pricing.  After I get it and have a chance to play with it, I'll do a little review.

...

I like it.  I'm no expert turner, but I use my skews quite a bit.  I've got a Sorby that's my go-to tool; tough, not particularly sharp, fairly cheap HSS tool.  I'll use it for roughing some blanks, and the coarse shaping of larger parts.  Where I really like this Glen-Drake skew is for fine shaping, slicing with the tip, and putting a nice smooth finish on a cylindrical or tapered part.  I keep it sharp and clean, and that's how it performs.  When I have a catch with a skew, it's usually the kind where the edge catches and spirals back along the workpiece, not the digging in the point and punching out a deep wedge type.  I have far fewer of those with this skew than with my Sorby, for whatever reason.

Cutting Concrete with a Regular Circular Saw

If you're nervous because all the contractors are using big expensive specialized saws, I'm here to tell you it's easy.  Just go spend $25 on a 7" diamond blade, put it on your regular circular saw, and slice away like you're cutting thick lumber.  If you have a nice saw, you might want to just buy a relatively cheap new one, or get a nice new one and retire your current one to rough work, because the motor will be eating a fair amount of grit.  I just cut up some pavers, and it was a piece of cake.  I was hesitant and thought such a cheap solution wouldn't work, but it worked great and the only issue is the amount of dust it generates.  Work with the wind at your back, wear a mask, and  use eye protection.  That's not some kind of liability disclaimer, just realistic advice.

There are three types of blades available at the borgs:  continuous rim, segmented rim, and "turbo".  I used the turbo type because it's supposed to be the best compromise between fast cutting and smooth cutting.  Just make sure it says it's for dry use or it won't last more than a couple of minutes.  You can also get the blades in smaller sizes for angle grinders and the like.

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