Jatoba Table Part I

I was recently contacted to build a rather large table top for a friend of a friend. After a visit to my favorite exotic wood supplier (Houston Hardwoods…I’ll do a write up later) he settled on Jatoba. Jatoba is commonly called Brazilian Cherry but is not actually part of the cherry family. Jatoba is often used for flooring, tool handles, athletic equipment, furniture, and is twice as hard as oak and extremely dense and heavy. It is hard on tools so I will need to have all my knives and blades sharpened after I finish the project but it should make an incredibly durable table top. John (the future owner of the table) recently returned from Saudi Arabia where he purchased a dual pedestal table base designed for a massive 9′ by 4′ table top. I’ll be doing this write up in multiple parts as I work on the project over the next week.

Materials:
~75 board feet of rough cut jatoba.

 

Tools:
Required

• Table Saw
• Planer
• Jointer
• Biscuit (plate) Joiner
• Lots of Clamps
• Router with 1/2″ beading bit (for edge detail only)
• Pocket screw jig (could use a counter sink bit)

Mill Work:

The jatoba comes rough cut. This means that there is still bark on the wood and none of the faces are true (flat) or perpendicular/parallel.

The first step is to mill one face of the wood using a planer. After milling one flat surface turn the plank over and run it through the planer again. This ensures that these two faces are parallel to each other.

Now that two faces are flat and parallel I moved over to the jointer to true up one of the narrow edges. By holding one of the flat surfaces against the fence and running the edge over the cutter head I’ve ensured that the edge is true and perpendicular to the faces of the board.

Now holding that newly milled edge against my rip fence I cut the opposite face on the table saw. Now all the edges and faces are flat and parallel/perpendicular.

I still need to run the cut edge through the jointer to remove the saw chatter (marks left by the vibration of the saw blade)

Even though the saw chatter is very minor it still affects the seam between the planks during the assembly of the top.

Before Jointing

After Jointing

Now to layout for the biscuits that will be used to strengthen the seams during assembly. The first step is to lay all the pieces out as they will be during final assembly.

I’ve also made sure that the wood is laid out in such a way as to match the grain along the seams as much as possible. Once I decided on the finial layout I marked the position of all the biscuits. By marking across the seam while they are laid out I know that the pieces will assemble easy during glue up.

Next, I cut all the biscuit slots.

Finally time to glue the parts together. I chose TightBond III for this project for it’s long work time and superior strength. After coating all the surfaces with glue and inserting the biscuits it was time for lots of clamps!

This is the first two of what will ultimately be a five plank wide table top. The glue is still drying as I type this so that’s all for now. I’ll post more as I complete this project.

Way to go Rangers!

I work at a school that is not really known for it’s football program. While we are one of the top ranked public high schools in the state of Texas, 0ur football program was so bad that in the 7 years I’ve worked here we’ve had only 2 winning seasons. Many of those were 1-2 win seasons. All that changed this year. With a new coach now in his 3rd full year, a quarterback (Derek Carr) who has a famous brother (David Carr former #1 draft pick for the Houston Texans), a running back with great numbers (Chris Lenoir 1572 yards/25 TDs), and a linebacker (Kyle Hoke) whose dad coaches the Houston Texans the Clements high school Rangers are in a position totally new to them. Going undefeated in a district that includes another state semi-final team (Hightower high school) the Rangers are now 13-0 with last weeks 31 to 27 win over Stratford Houston. That leaves 8 teams in Division II 5A: Abilene, Hebron, Pflugerville, Longview, Clements, Katy, SA Madison, and Smithson Valley. Clements will take on Katy next week in what promises to be their toughest match up yet…Good Luck Rangers!

Must see TV

I’m a huge Mythbusters fan. The science teacher in me really loves the experiments they set up and the tinkerer in me is jealous of all the cool things they get to build. Combine that with the fact that I grew up watching TV in the 80’s and the stage is set for what could be one of my favorite episodes ever…

Mythbusters take on MacGyver!!!

I’m so pumped for this…there have been so many requests for this on the fan site but the producers of MacGyver were not releasing the rights…well that changed! They haven’t released the air date yet but as long as they test the one where he uses chewing gum, his leather jacket, and the veneer from a wooden chair leg to make an explosive and break out of a jail cell I’ll be happy…

What are some of your favorite MacGyver moments?

Create Virtual CD-Rom Drives

Warning – Boring technology content ahead…

This one was pretty interesting. My sister-in-law works at a preschool that has a small computer lab (8-10 computers) and 10 or so educational games that the kids play. Here’s the issue…

1. The games are all on CD-Roms
2. Every game requires the CD to be in the drive to play.
3. The kids are not allowed (nor are they old enough) to switch discs.
4. The school owns one copy of each game per computer for a total of close to 100 discs.
5. The kids may play 3-4 different games during their time in the lab.
6. One teacher (my sister-in-law) has to switch out the discs each time they switch games.
7. Copying the files to the hard drive (even installing the game that way) does not fix the problem…they still get an error telling them to “Insert CD to continue”.

The solution is to create virtual CD-Rom drives and mount (copy) an image of each game disc to it’s own virtual drive. There are a number of products to help you do this but one of the easiest (and free) versions is MagicDisc (download here). This software allows for the creation and management of up to 15 virtual drives. To get started you first need to uninstall any games that you wish to run this way. If it was originally installed from the real CD-Rom drive it will continue to look for that. After creating a virtual drive you will reinstall from there. This technique can be used for any CD or DVD (assuming you have a DVD drive) not just games…you could keep “Weekend at Bernie’s” loaded up all the time without carrying the DVD around. That’s probably a bad example cause who doesn’t keep “Weekend at Bernie’s” around all the time. Once everything is uninstalled you need to download the software from the link above (they have both 32 and 64 bit versions) and install the software. Once installed you will see the MagicDisc icon in the system tray.

Right click on the icon to access the MagicDisc menu. By default one virtual drive will have been created. If you need more click on “Set Number of Drives” and choose the number you need – up to 15.

As soon as you select the new number your computer will detect and install new hardware…one for each virtual drive.

In fact if you look under “My Computer” you will see all of the additional drives…the computer in this picture only has one physical optical drive.

Next we need to create our image files…think of these as copies of the discs although you won’t see each individual file. Do this by right clicking on the system tray icon and choosing “Make CD/DVD Image”

You’ll be prompted for the source of the image (make sure you have the disc in the CD-Rom drive at this point). You’ll need to choose a location on your hard drive (or network) where you want to store the image (I made a directory on the root of c:\ called Games and stored all the images in there. You will also need to name the image file…pick something that makes sense like the actual name of the game or movie…

After you’ve created the image remove the disc from the drive. Now we are ready to mount the image. This is the term for loading an image onto one of your virtual cd drives. Right click on the system tray icon and choose
“Virtual CD/DVD-ROM>Pick a drive letter>Mount”

You will now be asked to choose an image file to mount…navigate to where you stored the image you created earlier and select it.

After you select the image you will see a verifying image progress bar and when that completes it will autorun the disc (if the disc supports that). At this point you can install the game or watch the movie or any other functions just as you would with the actual disc in the computer…in fact it will show up under “My Computer” just as it would if it were a physical disc.

This will persist if the computer is rebooted or even if MagicDisc is closed. To remove an image select the drive from the system tray icon and choose “Unmount” or you can select “Unmount All Drives”. You can alway remove virtual drives by changing the drive number.

Hope this helps someone else out there!

Annie’s New Book Shelf

Well, as part of the continuing process of getting ready to squeeze another little girl into the room with Annelise, Monique asked for a book shelf that could fit between the two closets and match the armoire and bed that I built when Annelise was born. (I’ll do a write up on those one day…) We looked at a lot of different store bought options but they were all too expensive (the only ones we liked were over $250) and none of them really matched the existing furniture. I don’t exactly need much motivation to start a new project in the shop but this one looked especially fun as it could be completed in a day or two and not cost much money (we spent about $25 plus paint). Monique helped with the design (it was her suggestion to offset the height of the shelves) and the rest of the design was based on the existing armoire and bed. If the details details interest you, read on…if not, just enjoy the pictures (click on any picture for a larger view).

Materials:
I built the project out of MDF (medium density fiberboard) as it is cheap, easy to work with, smooth, and takes paint very well. The only draw backs to using MDF are weight – MDF is very heavy (makes for a stable bookcase) and poor edges. The cut edge of MDF is very soft and rough. To address this I covered the front with a solid wood (white pine) face frame. This not only fixes the aesthetics but protects the shelf front from toddlers with hot-wheels. I primed the entire unit prior to painting with Kilz brand spray primer. This stops the MDF from absorbing so much paint and provides a uniform color to the top coat. The top coat is an oil based interior paint. This is a little harder to work with then water based paints but I have yet to find a latex paint that is anywhere near as durable as oil based finishes.

Tools:
Required

• Table saw or Circular saw with straight edge guide
• Table saw with dado cutter or Router with straight cutting bit
• Band Saw or Jig Saw (only needed for decorative base trim)
• Router with Chamfer bit or tilted Table saw (for detail on top)
• Router with ogee bit for base trim only
• Clamps
• Brad Nailer (recommended)

Mill Work:
After cutting the pieces to size using my table saw (and band saw for the decorative bottom trim) I changed the blade to a stacked dado head cutter. This is basically a stack of blades called chippers that can be configured to cut groves or dadoes of varying thicknesses (1/16″ – 7/8″ in 1/64″ increments).

I set up to cut a 3/4″ thick dado 1/4″ deep. The blade height above the table controls the depth of the cut. Once the cutter was configured I milled out all the dadoes in the sides and middle of the bookcase.

Most of the dadoes in this project are full dadoes that run from one end of the board through the other side. The top however fits on the uprights using a blind dado (sounds like a blues singer). This is a dado that stops before the end of the board. Because the blade is round you end up with what is called “run-out”. This is the shallower unusable portion of the blind dado.

There are a number of ways to address this issue. I could use a sharp hand chisel to “square up” the run out, I could simply round off the end of the board that fits in this dado, or (as I’ve chosen to do in this design) the run-out can be hidden. Dealing with the run-out is easy. Figuring out how to cut this dado is the tricky part. Because the dado stops before the end of the board I had to figure out when to stop cutting without being able to see the blade (while cutting the blade is hidden under the board). To address this I put a piece of tape on my table saw’s rip fence and marked the highest point of the blade on this tape. Then on the back of the board I was cutting I marked where the end of the full depth dado cut needed to be. When I cut the dado I knew to stop when the marks lined up.

With the stacked dado cutter installed I next milled a rabbit in the uprights (blind dadoes and rabbits…getting weird). A rabbit is a ledge (or half a dado) cut into the edge of a board. In my case this was to receive a thin 1/4″ thick rear panel to act as the back of the bookcase. I didn’t want to just attach this piece to the back of the shelf…I wanted it recessed into the bookcase.

To cut a rabbit on my table saw (man that just sounds wrong) I needed to slide my fence on top of the blade so that only one side of the blade would be exposed. To do that I used a sacrificial fence. This is just a piece of wood attached to the metal rip fence. I slid it in place with the blade down. With the table saw running I carefully raised the blade into the wood and was ready to cut the rabbit.

The finial bit of milling to do was to put a chamfer (bevel) on the front and side edges of the top. I used my shaper (just a big router) with a chamfering bit and ball bearing guide.

Assembly:
After cutting and milling all the pieces I was ready for the fun part…putting it all together! Step one was to dry fit (no glue) all the pieces together and make sure everything fit. Next I assembled the bottom shelf between the uprights using glue (I like Tight Bond II) and 3/4″ brads toe nailed (these name get sillier and sillier but this means nailed from the inside at an angle…hides the nail and holds the shelf at the set angle while the glue dries). Of course I used a speed square to make sure every thing was perpendicular.

Next I installed the center upright and both shelves using the same technique and wiped up all the excess glue so I wouldn’t have to deal with it later.

You can see from this rear picture that the shelves stop at the edge of the rabbit. This will allow the back to slip in and attach to the back edge of the shelves later with staples.

You can also see from this front view that the bottom shelf has a lip to receive the solid wood face frame.

The last bit of assembly before allowing the glue to dry was to attach the top using glue and 1 1/2″ brads. After some dry time, I attached the face frame to all the upright edges and across the top of the piece using glue a few 1″ brads (the face frame is 1/2″ thick) and lots of clamps (the center and shelf trim is not shown here).

Here you can see that blind dado run-out from earlier just visible behind the top face frame. This remaining gap will be hidden by crown molding.

The finial step of assembly was to attach the crown molding (maybe I’ll do a post on cutting crown molding later) and bottom decorative trim using glue and brads. The corners are mitered (cut at a 45). After attaching everything I used some sandable wood filler to cover all the nail holes.

After a good sanding I took the unit outside to spray on a single coat of Kilz spray primer.

Another light sanding and I was ready to paint. I used an oil based paint applied with a nice natural bristle brush. Two coats later…

I also painted the back panel at the same time. It was much easier to paint without the back installed. After the paint dried I installed the back using 1″ narrow crown staples. Now it was Monique’s turn to load up some books and decorate the top. Here is the finial version of our $25 bookcase.

5th Annual Halloween Outreach

Five years ago our church encouraged all the community group leaders to host Halloween block parties in their front yard. The idea was to get the church involved where the people were and not go hiding in some parking lot for a “fall festival”. As our pastor Chuck put it, “we don’t value ghosts and goblins; we value people…and candy”. It has become a great neighborhood outreach for Monique and I and our community groups. Every year around the start of October our neighbors start asking if we are going to have our block party again. I really love the opportunity it gives us to get to know our neighbors a little better (and the candy isn’t a bad perk). This year we gave out 238 hotdogs with all the fixins, 321 cold drinks, at least 100 pounds of chocolate, and 82 cans of play-doh. When people ask why we get to tell them that this is just our way of showing God’s love for them in a practical way.

The Hotdog Shack

Nothing like hotdogs, soda, candy, and….JUMPING!!!

Yes the windmill turns…