Some of the recent developments…
The past week or so I’ve been busy in the shop and busy outside the shop. Here are some of the recent happenings.
For the sake of full disclosure…
I had to fiddle with the alignment of my table saw blade again (in relation to the iron tables), my first adjustment was just slightly off. Thankfully I already knew exactly how to change the setting so it went much quicker. Once my table saw was sorted I then had to make corresponding adjustments to my crosscut sled. Seriously daydreaming about buying an incra fence… but for now I’ve worked out the kinks.
A brief and simple project got tackled next
My mom has a room in her house with two closets…

The closets look like this. To the left of this closet on the far side of the room is another exactly the same- missing it’s doors.

We had a home center cut the plywood doors to size. For the handles I simply traced them and routed to my lines free hand. I used my new dewalt trim router kit.

I happened to have most of the hardware. The problem was, the hardware I had would show on the good side of the door. I searched for other rollers, but they all seemed to be oriented this way. I imagine the track inside the closet is non-standard.

So I did the best I could in such a situation. I drilled many holes into the top of the door, creating a slot to fit the roller inside the door- effectively hiding it from view.

Here’s the hardware part way in- chips were impeding it from seating properly at this point. To fasten it, I drove dowels through the door and the holes in the metal plate. (not pictured)

I flushed the dowels and the result had the desired effect- you can’t see the hardware on the show faces. My mom will be the one to sand and finish these- I’ll be too busy in the next while.
Next project… a chest
My nephew sure is getting a lot of mileage out of me in these early days as a woodworker. I have been saying yes to these projects (toy trucks, a toddler sized table, and now a toy chest) because A) I love my nephew very much and B) I could use the experience more than the cash at this point. I also have been creating these projects with wood I got for free- so it doesn’t cost me more than my time. THAT said- I will not be doing freebee projects for anyone but my nephew. And at that, I think this is going to be the last one for a long while. His first birthday is coming up and I’d like to make the deadline- we’ll see. June 3rd is awfully close.
I found some closet doors that I want to re-purpose. I cut them down so that I have a frame and panel section to use as the front and back of the chest.
And finally… a possible first client!
One of my classmates from woodworking school contacted me recently. She referred a possible client my way. I met with said client this past weekend. All is going well so far. The project would be for a built in bookcase along one wall and if all goes well with the project there are several other projects to be done. I have yet to calculate the amount of labour involved to tabulate an estimate. I’m meeting with my client tomorrow to hash out more of the dimensions and details of the built in. I’ll update soon when I have more info, but in the mean time I’m super excited about it! Let’s hope it pans out!
‘Til next time, happy woodworking. Thanks for reading.