OT. Why retired CNC techs should not build furniture

[Vancbiker]

Scraping in a maple slab desktop. Too much time on my hands.

 

[dcsipo]

Scraping in a maple slab desktop. Too much time on my hands.

Get a proper plane? a block even for finishing it is the wrong tool .


dee
;-D

 

[Vancbiker]

Get a proper plane? a block even for finishing it is the wrong tool .


dee
;-D

It'll be fine... only looking for a couple points per inch.

 

[twr]

Kevin find yourself a cnc lathe to play with instead!!! HAHA

 

[ewlsey]

Wood? God lord man. I was hoping to see a riveted aluminum monocoque...

 

[Jashley73]

This is funny... At the last job, we had an ex-machine tool service tech working in our maintenance area. (To service & maintain our production CNC's) Really sharp guy. He told me about a dining table & chair set he made from red oak, and how he used a cabinet scraper to get the table top dead flat & straight.

Funny thing is, he couldn't have picked a worse wood to make perfectly straight & flat. Unless the top was 100% perfectly quarter-sawn, it's going to move with the seasons, and probably more than any other wood species. If he's lucky, it be flat one day a year...

 

[Vancbiker]

......Funny thing is, he couldn't have picked a worse wood to make perfectly straight & flat. Unless the top was 100% perfectly quarter-sawn, it's going to move with the seasons, and probably more than any other wood species. If he's lucky, it be flat one day a year...

Yeah, wood is pitiful stuff to work with. This slab started out 3" thick, was sawn nearly 2 years ago and stickered and stacked under cover. Had ~1/4" bow across the width and one would have thought it should have been pretty well dried out. After sitting in my shop for ~6 weeks, it warped an additional ~1/4". It's settled down pretty well now, but I'll bet tomorrow morning running my flat plate over the top will show some new high points.

Really though running the plate over it is just for fun. Straight-edge checks are close enough. A 12" jack plane did 99.99% of the work. Will finish it off with a few hours of sanding before staining, sealing and top coating.

 

[Jashley73]

You know what a Jack Plane is. You're ahead of 99.99% of everyone else.

 

[Guest]

Don't feel bad at least it will be visible. I made some custom plumbing fittings for a drain on a custom shower. I made sure the they had a 16 finish or better inside and out, they were going down in at opening in the foundation of the house and the shower built on top of them, never to be seen. I have also caught myself working with standard framing grade studs and plywood while using protractors and large vernier calipers when tape measures and plain eye sight would produce the same result to the naked eye.

 

[richard newman]

Sorry to tell you this, but your slab is nowhere near dry yet. Rule of thumb is 1 year per inch of thickness for air drying, more for thicker stuff. And that just gets you to ambient outdoor mc (moisture content), which here in NY is about 12%. I'm thinking it's pretty moist out your way, so it's probably significantly higher. And then you need to bring it in to a heated space to get it down far enuf for indoor furniture. Again, here in the Northeast we like it to be 6-8%.

But if you can tolerate some curvature, what the hell, it's just a table top, not a surface plate

 

[Bobw]

You know what a Jack Plane is. You're ahead of 99.99% of everyone else.

Whats a Jack Plane??? I want to be part of the 0.01%.

 

[Jashley73]

Whats a Jack Plane??? I want to be part of the 0.01%.

I'm sorry Bob, but you wouldn't understand...

Jack plane - Wikipedia

Disclaimer - Don't click unless you have some time to waste.

 

[yardbird]

Wondering couldn't you shove it back and forth under a big fly cutter? Looks good to me though.

My attempt at furniture below.

Brent

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...s-permanently-310882-post2643970/#post2643970

 

[rons]

The plane direction should about 45 degrees to what looks like the straight grain. Less chance of tear-out.

A scraping plane or a simple scraper would be better.

I made a heavy duty scraper from 1/8 thick steel, 1.5 x 6 inch. File the 1/8 edge so that the point is in the middle with 5-10 degree sides.

I use one of these: Using a Scraping Plane

The Stanley 80 is even better: Sharpening #8 Cabinet Scrapers

I took the blade holder out of the one in the first link and made this:

 

[Vancbiker]

Wondering couldn't you shove it back and forth under a big fly cutter? Looks good to me though.

Believe me, I wasted lots of time thinking of ways to get the slab under the spindle of my knee mill. Could have done it except that my CNC is too close to the knee mill so I ran out of room.

My attempt at furniture below.

Brent

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...s-permanently-310882-post2643970/#post2643970

Great thread! I love the steel chair.

My neighbor was over and said "You must be enjoying working with wood on this project since it is so much easier to work with than metal". I was dumbstruck. Easier??? I could'a welded up 10 similar sized tables in the time I've spent effing around with this.

 

[KilrB]

Wondering couldn't you shove it back and forth under a big fly cutter? Looks good to me though.

My attempt at furniture below.

Brent

http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...s-permanently-310882-post2643970/#post2643970

Or, you could do it like this ...

Repair Shop "Edgar's Furniture" - YouTube

 

[Perry Harrington]

The plane direction should about 45 degrees to what looks like the straight grain. Less chance of tear-out.

A scraping plane or a simple scraper would be better.

I made a heavy duty scraper from 1/8 thick steel, 1.5 x 6 inch. File the 1/8 edge so that the point is in the middle with 5-10 degree sides.

I use one of these: Using a Scraping Plane

The Stanley 80 is even better: Sharpening #8 Cabinet Scrapers

I took the blade holder out of the one in the first link and made this:

View attachment 197232

That's not a scraper, THAT'S A GRADER!

 

[yardbird]

Retired must mean you have lots of spare time so let's see it?

Brent

 

[Monarchist]

Whats a Jack Plane??? I want to be part of the 0.01%.

Any aircraft that has been commandeered by hijackers, of course!

Happy now?

 

[Monarchist]

Believe me, I wasted lots of time thinking of ways to get the slab under the spindle of my knee mill. Could have done it except that my CNC is too close to the knee mill so I ran out of room.

Guess I "split the difference" around 35 years back. Cheated by starting with a pair of Bally's better commercial Maple laminated slabs. Got a nice mix of straight, curly, birdseye, fiddleback, etc. grain to 'em, too.

One was 60-thou thicker than the other when set edge to edge.

I set a decent router to a bit less, 'checkerboarded' a grid across the thick one, then sliced-off the 'islands' that had supported the router's baseplate with a sharp wood chisel.

Cheated again by belt-sanding that underside of the pair with a beast made to do hardwood floors. Finished the top with touch-up of a smaller belt-sander.

Too lazy by half to use a plane, Iyam.

Made two grievous tactical errors:

1) Put a row of steel dowel pins down the longitudinal glue-line when I SHOULD HAVE used a rib or tongue-and-grooved 'em. Or even just a bareback glue-line, as Bally had done with all the other joints.

2) Worse yet, put a steel pin at each end of the cross pieces that finished each short-end. Those, too, should have been allowed even more 'float' - MUCH MORE, as the grain was at right-angles.

Predictable result is that best sealers I could apply or no, by year ten the pins had started to rip the top apart, and by year 25, bread-crumbs could be disposed of by brushing them toward the cracks!

WAS going to just cover it with laminate.

Have to say I have now been shamed out of that.

I shall have to repair it instead.

"Round tuit" on backorder..... as usual..