Friday, August 9, 2013

Vibrant Fence Project

* Update 6/5 *
Thanks to all of you who voted up my Project. Little did I know this would go so great
A shout out to 'BeachBum Living" on Youtube, he was my inspiration for this. Visit his great Restoration Page.

Thanks again !
**********888

I wanted to brighten up my pool area, and thought I would share this actually cheap and easy project. Not much to it, but I love the colors each day as I walk out to work, or sit contemplating life. This was actually a fast project with high reward value. The possibilities are limitless. Your Garden, the side of a house that is dull, Pool, who knows, have fun!

Time: 

2 Hours  (or long enough for the paint to dry)

Cost

Under 65$ for this 10' section, paint and screws. 

Items Needed.

1.  Buy 21 Fence Slats. You will find them in the Lumber Section. They are sold seperate to replace broken fence's.
* Find one with Curves, this makes the over all look nicer I think   1.99 cents each

2. One box of 1 1/2" wood screws  (250 count)  6$

3. Paint:    As many colors as you wish. 8$ a Quart. Flat Outdoor Paint tinted to your favorite colors.

4. Paint Trim Tool.  1.89 cents  to help you keep the paint of the adjoining board.

5. Hand Saw or circular saw. this wood cuts very easily, a simple hand saw can do the trick.

6. Screw Driver or Drill with screw bit.  

7. Cheap Paint Brust   5$   I don't suggest foam as these boards are very rough grain and foam would catch and snag

8. Lumber to secure or simple screws.  I used a 10' Spruce board x 12" high.  2$ a foot.   I needd two of these. The 2nd Verticle board was 5' high. You can often get creative, just ask the sales person at home depot etc. I could have also used a 2x4, it would have worked just as well at 3$ each.   Get Pressure Treated as this is outdoor.


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Rough wood: Milling it square & fixing defects - made at Techshop

milling - intro.jpgI start most of my woodwork using rough cut and reclaimed wood. In addition to being cheaper and having more variety, I love rough wood because it's fun transforming messy, plain looking boards into beautiful objects. But before any of that can happen, I have to get the boards flat, straight and square. This instructable is a reference for how I do that, along with tips on how to fix specific defects in wood and how to store the lumber after it's milled.

There are many ways to get wood flat, straight and square - but for this instructable I'm going to stick to using the power jointer, power planer and table saw. I'm fortunate to have access to all these tools at Techshop, San Francisco, so I take full advantage of them. I'll start with an overview of the general process of jointing and planing, then I'll show how to use the jointer and planer to fix specific defects that commonly occur in rough cut wood.

For those without the money to buy all these tools, or the shop space to house them, there are other ways. My favorite woodworking podcaster, The Wood Whisperer, has a great episode about this topic - Episode #6 - The Jointer's Jumpin. He not only talks about the method I will show here, but also demonstrates how to use some other power-tools, including handheld routers, router tables, and the table saws by themselves. You can also use hand planes to clean up wood very effectively, but I'm not yet familiar enough with that technique to write about it.

As always, I'm still a relative newcomer to woodworking - if anyone has any corrections or additional information, please share it in the comments. Just keep the criticism constructive.

Wood defects.jpegWhen buying wood, remember that it came from a once living tree, and continues to act 'alive' even after being cut up. In the face of moisture and humidity wood can swell, shrink, twist and warp in all directions. Everything from reclaimed junkyard wood to the most expensive tropical hardwood can develop the same common defects that get in the way of woodworking projects.

I'll start by talking about the general process of face jointing, edge jointing and planing wood, then I'll talk about how to identify and fix specific types of wood defects, and finally I'll talk about how to treat and store freshly milled wood.


Before touching the jointer and planer, the first step is to examine the wood, looking for twists, cups, bows, crooked edges and checks. Most boards will have some type of warping or defect, and any given board can suffer from one, two, three, or all of these problems. The best defense is to choose quality boards from the lumberyard to avoid extra work or wasted wood. But even severely warped boards can often be salvaged.

Twists, cups, bows and crooked sides can be fixed on the jointer and planer. The last problem, checks, cannot be fixed. To deal with checks you can either cut away the ends of the board with cracks in them, or choose to fill them with something like wood putty, colored glue or epoxy.

Right now I'm going to give a general overview of using the jointer and planer, then later on I'll address how to identify and fix each type of defect.


Check the fence - the jointer fence should be adjusted so that it's 90 degrees to the jointer table, has enough room to fit the wood being worked, and is locked down so it doesn't move during operation Set the cut depth for very shallow cuts - I usually take 1/32" - 1/16" cuts. Jointing is very fast, there's no need to hurry by taking deep cuts. Save the deep cuts on the jointer for other tasks, such as shaping bevels or tapers and cutting rabbets. Place the wood on the jointer so that the grain is facing the same direction as the cut (closeup diagram). There is a saying to remember this - "pet the cat". Think of petting an animal, they are happy when you pet the same direction their fut naturally grows, but get angry when you pet them backwards. Cutting a board against the grain doesn't make it angry, but it can cause dangerous kickback and tear out chunks of wood. Some types of wood (curly wood, burls) don't have one grain direction. For these types of wood, just take very shallow and careful cuts. Turn on the machine and let up come up to full speed Keep steady pressure on the front and back of the board throughout the cut, it's nice to use a push stick (pictured) that can both hold the board down and push it forward at the same time. But keep your hands away from the cutters - imagine a small bubble just over the cutters themselves and don't touch that space. Continue to cut just one face until it's flat, then move onto edge jointing
Why use a jointer + planer, why not joint both faces? - Jointing both faces would make both of them flat, but not parallel. If both faces aren't exactly parallel to start with, then jointing both of them will only reinforce the existing defect. Jointing one face gives you a flat reference to use for the planer - the planer will cut the second face parallel to the first. Don't joint wood shorter than 12" or thinner than 3/8" without special methods for workholding Keep hands away from the cutters - imagine a ~3" bubble all around the cutters, and avoid that area. If using push sticks for downward pressure, lift up the push sticks as they pass over the cutters. If material gets stuck, don't push it - stop the machine, extract the material and try again - perhaps with a smaller cut If your planer has a power-feed, be careful when feeding the board into the planer. Sometimes the power rollers can snap the board down against the table very hard - don't keep your fingers under the board.

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Revamped rocking chair with re-used insect screen ribbons.

IMG_4164.JPGA few years a go we bought a nice old rocking chair at a flea-market. After scrubbing off a very old, thick and ugly layer of brown paint, sanding and adding felt to the legs it served it's duty in the living room. When we got some other chairs for the room the rocking chair moved outside to the veranda. The Dutch wet climate and winters freeze did a quick job of cracking the wood and crumbled the woven seat. Our new dog we got this year did a last good job on that seat.

So time to revamp this rocking chair, because summer is coming!
After removing the remains of the seat, treatment with a steel brush, some sanding and a little bit of glue in the joints I gave it a three layer coating of oil.
Then the difficult part came; the weaving of a new seat. I had a disposed and incomplete insect-screen with a nice colorful look kept for this purpose. I thought it wouldn't be hard to try the same technique as was used with the rush on the old seat. I was wrong, because of the trapezium form of the frame and the width of the ribbons that didn't work. I tried it according some instructions found in some old books I have (I've got quite a big collection of how-to books and other instructional stuff) and instructions found on the internet.
Then I was inspired by this Instructable (thank you Katvanlew!) and decided to just weave it in some sort of herringbone pattern (as in this video on youtube, however I made my own variation). I'm quite pleased with the results so, let those pleasant warm and long summer-evenings come for some rocking rest!


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Show Us Your Best Automator Workflow

Automator for Mac OSX is a scripting solution that lets you create simple actions, then bundle them into workflows to automate repetitive tasks. Perhaps the best part is that once you've got a workflow, you can package and distribute it as a standalone app. We'd like to see what you're doing with it.

We've shown you how you can use Automator to do all kinds of interesting things. You can quickly quit all running applications, automatically delete a DMG file when you eject it, and even get multiple Dropbox accounts running on your Mac. Now, it's your turn. Show us your best Automator workflow below.

LaMP Teaches You a Foreign Language via Movie and YouTube Subtitles

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Upcycled Faux Forged Silver Cuff Bracelet

This is my very first instructable, I hope you enjoy it!   It is really a very easy DIY, uses free and inexpensive materials, and it is light and fun to wear.  If you like it, please vote for me in the Jewelry Contest by June 13th.  Thanks.

I love to make something out of nothing. I guess I have always been into Upcycling - even before it was cool. I make a lot of my own Jewelry, much of it from salvaged items, and things I find at garage and estate sales. I am an avid Angel collector, so many of my pieces are Angels.

I came up with this method of making "Faux Forged Silver" while trying to make some prop Roman spears out of dust mop handles for a Passion Play at our Church.   I used the Aluminum foil tape to make the spear heads, but they were just  too smooth & shiny. After crumpling and aging them, they looked just right.  I immediately decided to make jewelry with the same method and I have been doing so ever since.

My first projects were an Angel Pendant and a Bracelet similar to the one I am showing here. I get compliments on these pieces from complete strangers almost every time I wear them.  If I have time, I will try to create another instructable for one of my Angels.

FYI:  My instructions are on the photos as well as below them. Click on the smaller pics to see the enlarged version.


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