Glibertarians.com 2018 Archive

Author: I. B. McGinty

  • Working Your Wood with McGinty – Picnic Table

    Working Your Wood with McGinty – Picnic Table

    It’s time for another woodworking project. Back in the spring a coworker and I headed up to his family farm to cut some cedar planks with his chainsaw sawmill. Apparently the mold or something from the cedar trees affects the apple trees they are growing so they have been cutting down the cedars. They had a nice big tree and I was able to get 5 planks that are 2 inches thick. You would never be able to find this at a lumber mill, and I got it for free so I am grateful for their generosity. I wanted to make a picnic table with the 3 planks pictured below, but I settled for two planks that I cut to 15 inches wide.

     

    Planks

     

    The plan was to have a live edge on the table, but due to how the slabs milled up I settled for a part live/straight edge combination, with other parts of the edge being sanded down cuts from the chainsaw. The 80 grit paper really smoothed these out so it looks like a live edge.

     

    Edge

     

    These planks are fairly heavy so running them through my table saw would have been difficult. I ended up buying a Makita track saw with an extra track to cut boards like this or to break down full sheets of plywood. The tracks connect fairly easily and I found that they were in a straight line when I placed my 6 foot level against them:

     

    Level

     

    Side note: if you are doing any framing, hanging doors, or leveling cabinets, I highly recommend getting a 6 foot level. I think I bought this model by Johnson to help with building a deck at a previous house, but never got around to it. So yeah, I have a 6 foot Johnson…level.

    The tops only needed a little bit of sanding to knock down the milling marks, and the result is a nice rustic look. The right side is a single pass with 80 grit paper on my orbital sander, and the left side is what it looked like before.

     

    Sanding

     

    Since the table will be outdoors I used pressure treated pine to make the frame. I wanted the table to be 30 inches high, and with 2 inches being the cedar, a simple X frame that is 28 inches high and 28 inches wide will suffice. Enter geometry and trigonometry:

     

    After about 2 hours of trying to remember this shit from 20 years ago, and messing up the cuts on the 2×6’s – not once but twice, I figured I would just draw the dimensions on my workbench and get the angles and measurements from there:

     

    It’s a little hard to see but I just used my chalk line to draw out the 12×16 inch bases for the benches, and the 28×28 inch bases for the table. Once I had the board lined up how I wanted, I drew a line along the edge of my workbench and then used a sliding bevel to figure out the angle. This then comes in handy for aligning the miter saw as the angle worked out to be in between 25 and 26 degrees.

     

    Sliding bevel

     

    Many cuts later I had the frames for the benches done, and added a couple of supports in the center that make it nice and sturdy. I used deck screws and stainless steel lag bolts to secure everything:

     

    The tabletop was similar to the benches, but I wanted the slabs to have a floating look to them. Once everything was put together it’s solid with no movement:

     

    The space in between the slabs is big enough for those plastic flower boxes, which I figure can be used for flowers or to hold ice and drinks (sort of a table top cooler). But if you wanted the slabs closer together there’s only a handful of screws to undo for them to be adjusted. There is also a few inches of room to make them bigger if needed as well.

    After a little more sanding and rounding edges over, here is what they looked like before finishing:

     

    I decided to try my hand at filling the holes with epoxy resin. After watching a half dozen videos and practicing on a scrap piece I figured it would work – mix it, spread it, and hit it with a blow torch. Kinky. Here is one of the bigger holes close up:

    It took a few rounds of the epoxy to fill the holes…

    And I found a 2018 penny to put in the hole above…

     

    For the top coat of epoxy I just smeared it all over using my hand (wearing a glove). I tried a 6 inch putty knife, but using a hand allowed me to get the epoxy in the hard to reach places.

     

    I gave the top a sanding with 120 grit, and then 200 grit sandpaper. Then, I put one additional coat of epoxy on it. The finish is okay, and there are a couple of sticky spots even a couple of weeks later. I’m not sure if it’s a spot where the 2 parts of the epoxy didn’t quite mix together well or what. I decided to put a few coats of spar urethane on the benches, which turned out a little better, even though there are some brush marks. Plus the benches are smooth and slick so it makes moving around on them easier. Here is what the final product looks like:

     

    I like the epoxy better than the urethane since it leaves a high gloss finish, and more of a contrast between the sapwood and the heartwood. But the urethane is much, much cheaper. Now to finish the Murphy bed.

     

  • Working Your Wood with McGinty – Building a Murphy Bed – Part 1

    We finally got around to sprucing up our basement which doubles as a bedroom when my dad visits. He doesn’t do stairs all that well and since the garage and basement are on the same level it’s easier for him. There is a full bathroom down there as well so he has everything he needs. When he’s not visiting it doubles as an orgy room. Just kidding. Maybe.

     

    While the basement is big enough to have a queen size bed laying around I always liked the idea of a Murphy bed since it would free up floor space when the bed isn’t needed. They make hardware kits for a few hundred dollars, and really only a few hundred dollars of wood is needed. However, I thought about it some and figured I could build it with just 4 bolts (3/8ths thick) and use some of the ¾ inch plywood I had in the back of my truck (that was supposed to go towards a different project). I did make a run to the lumber yard for some poplar, but if I had to buy the materials instead of using what I had I would buy ½ inch plywood for the bed frame and cut the poplar down to ½ inch thickness as well. Since the poplar is 13/16ths thick a thin blade on a band saw would do the trick in splitting it into 1/2 inch and 1/4 inch thicknesses. The leftover ¼ inch thick pieces would then be perfect for some of the trim work later on. Unfortunately, I don’t own a band saw (yet…) so I made do with what I had.

     

    I started with the bed frame, ripping the poplar down to 2 ½ inches and cut to length. Then I used my super handy Kreg pocket hole jig (*sticks out hand for a kick-back from Kreg) and screwed everything together. No glue needed as the frame will get glued to the plywood:

    This is a view of the foot end, and the two areas that are “notched” in are where the fold down legs will go.

     

    After I glued the frame to the plywood, I used my super handy Makita track saw (*sticks out hand for a kick-back from Makita) to shave off any proud edges so that the sides of the frame would have a nice even surface to glue to:

     

    Here is what the bed frame looks like with the sides glued on:

     

    The other end is the head end, and I wanted some type of built in headboard that also doubles as a support for the mattress when the bed is folded up:

    Other than a couple of screws in the sides it’s just glue holding the headboard and the brackets to the frame. The mattress we bought is really light (20 pounds?) so this is plenty strong.

     

    Also, I glued a piece of scrap I had that was ripped to 45 degrees to brace the corners which are also just glued together:

    For the case, the ¾ inch plywood is definitely needed as this will support the head end of the bed when it’s down, and the entire thing when it’s folded up.

     

    I cut dadoes on the sides where the back will attach with my super handy Makita compact router (*still waiting on my kick-back Makita!) then pre-drilled holes to make it easier to glue and screw to the back:

    I still managed to get glue all over the place while trying to attach the sides to the back. A nice, slow drying, gel type of glue would be awesome (*sticks out hand for a kick-back from Tite-Bond for the genius idea) as the regular wood glue just ran down the sides in the few minutes it took to assemble it. Perhaps construction adhesive for subfloors or even liquid nails might work better here (*retracts empty hand). Hopefully I’ll remember that next time.

     

    Here is the case with the sides attached:

     

    The top was glued all around, but just screws on the sides. The clamps really made for a nice, solid fit:

     

    So after the case was built I took out my tape measure to check that the inside was big enough:

    63 ½ inches.

     

    Next I checked the width of the frame:

    61 ½ inches. Huh. So I’m off an inch and a half. I’m not sure where I gained this extra inch and a half, but it’s a hell of a lot better than being an inch and a half short.

     

    So I decided some wood blocks that go where the bolts mount the frame to the case would do the trick:

     

    So here it is assembled in the up and down position:

    There is a lot of trim work still to do and some kind of safety latch to hold it in the upright position is needed, so I will save that for part 2.

  • Working Your Wood with McGinty

    One of my good friends is having a baby (essentially a zero sperm count is not the same as a zero sperm count) and I asked if I could build something for the new baby. This is the same one I asked about a scotch recommendation for, and thanks to all that replied. Ended up with Macallan 18 year. Anyway, they asked for a changing table so I did some research into a design and came up with a 3 drawer dresser topped with a tray that holds a changing mat and sections for diapers, wipes, ointments, and anything else they may need to grab.

    Off to the lumber dealer I went for some slabs of poplar:


    Lumber from a lumber yard typically isn’t in your standard 2×4 or 1×8 format. It’s sold in board feet, where 1 board foot is 12 inches by 12 inches for a 1 inch thick board. The thickness (or thicc-ness if you prefer) is measured in quarters, so a 1 inch thick board is 4 quarters, 2 inches is 8 quarters, and so on. So now you have to do some math (math is hard!) and figure out how much board-feet you need. The boards pictured are sanded and trimmed so that they are 13/16ths thick and about 10 to 11 inches wide. Knowing this I figured I would need about 50 board feet.

    The lingo would be “I need 50 board feet of 4 quarter poplar in 8 foot lengths.” Basically a dime bag.

    Step one is to cut up the boards into widths I needed for the frame. Then a few passes through the planer to get it to 3/4ths of an inch. I check with a caliper and can get it close, and I think I planed the boards to 0.745 inches. I didn’t want to use screws so I cut a bunch of tenons and figured out where I needed a corresponding mortise. Don’t get me wrong I don’t have a problem with screws, and love a good screw as much as the next guy. Something like a 4 inch cabinet screw for example will really hold. But I thought mortise, tenons, and glue would hold it just fine. Here is the frame and one of the side panels:


    Then I added the other panel and frames and glued everything together:


    The sides are recessed panels, and the spaces for the 3 drawers are 8 inches tall – enough for a good 7 inches of drawer depth.

    The top was made with 5 to 6 inch wide boards with tongue and groove joinery, because every groove deserves a nice fitting tongue. It shouldn’t be too tight or too loose, it should just slide right in. Here it is being glued with the frame in progress:

    The top for the changing mat was the most difficult to figure out since it was all dadoes, rabbets, and glue:


    Everything needed to be precise and when I dry fit the pieces it went together great:


    But something happened when I put the clamps on it and when the glue dried it ended up with little bit of a warp to it. Not enough to make me want to redo it, but it’s close.

    The next step was to make some trim for the base that coordinated with the panel sides. I made a jig that would allow me to make repeatable cut outs with a router, and I used a ½ inch dado bit set to a ⅛ inch depth. Basically just the tip. They came out really well and only needed a little bit of sanding and some squaring of the corners with a chisel:


    The next step was to make the drawers taking into account the thickness of the drawer slides. I used a bunch of 3/4 inch plywood scraps I had lying around and used a type of locking rabbet joint to hold everything together:

    Somewhere through the course of time ¾ inch plywood stopped becoming ¾ inch plywood and became 0.7 inches thick. This ended up making the drawer box a smidge short. Basically, I cut the depth of the groove at ⅜ inch when I should have made sure the remainder of the groove was ⅜ inch and the groove depth was more like 0.32 inches in depth. What sucked is that the process of cutting the rabbetts was one of those “1 hour of setup, 5 minutes of cutting” jobs with the table saw. Rookie mistake and I used some flat washers to shim the drawer slides out a bit.

    Since the plywood edge would show I glued a thin strip of wood on it so it would look nice. They make these long rolls of thin veneer strips with glue on one side that you just iron on. I used a chisel to cut the ends at 45 degree angles so it looks like the box was made with mitered corners:


    A note on chisel sharpening – sharpen your chisel as often as you can. If you can get someone else to sharpen your chisel that’s fine too. Maybe on days when you’re home with nothing to do, whip it out and give it a good sharpening. It only takes a few minutes and you’ll be really glad you did when you’re finished. Don’t rush the job either, just nice, slow strokes.

    After some sanding and trimming of pieces that were a little too proud (proud is woodwork-ese for “sticks out too much”) it was time to spray the first of two coats of primer. I use a shellac base primer that you can spray right out of the can – no thinning needed. I also use a cheap Harbor Freight HVLP sprayer for everything. The 1.4mm tip leaves a smooth finish and it only costs  $15. I have used siphon feed and pressure feed guns but I felt the finish wasn’t as good. If the Harbor Freight gun ever craps out I will just buy a new one, but I clean mine in between uses and it’s worked great for a few years now. The first coat will often lift the grain and create a rough feel to the surface so I give it a little rubbing with some 200 grit sandpaper. Just a little rubbing as you don’t want to take off what you just put on. Just enough to leave a smooth surface. Here is the final result:

    The frame and drawers are a cream color and the blue color is hopefully a cheese eating surrender monkey, I mean French Country tone. I’m not good with colors, but this is pretty close to what I envisioned the final product to look like. Time to go work some more of my wood.

     

     

     

  • “Write to your congressmen,” they said. “It’ll be fun,” they said.

     

    “Dear direct, lineal descendant of the impenitent thief on the Cross, that happens to represent me in Congress…”

     

    After the Parkland school shooting, I decided to write my elected officials. This is out of character for me because A) I hate elected officials and B) I’m not that great of a writer. My arguments or points are not conveyed clearly. What I wrote was meant to suggest there is perhaps a better, or at least different way of educating children that doesn’t leave them as easy targets. I don’t think I conveyed that point, but I also wanted to avoid rambling. Anyway, I received 2 responses, one from a Republican and one from a Democrat. I also come across a little bit like Judge Napolitano, whom I enjoyed reading most of the time, but some of his articles got a little redundant at times. Here is what I wrote:

    “The recent school shooting has brought out the calls for action. The arguments are the same on both sides, “ban assault rifles” on one and “protect my rights” on the other. Which one is correct? Do we ban assault rifles and guns altogether? Do we repeal the second amendment? Who will enforce the law? Will there be a massive policing and forced confiscation? One only needs to look at history to see that will not go well and would likely be the end of America.

    What if there was something we could do that did not infringe on the rights of law abiding citizens, but at the same time protected our children from gun violence in schools? Would we do it? Would we at least entertain the idea?

    A school is made up of children from a wide range of backgrounds. Some children are smarter than others, some struggle with certain subjects, some are gay, some are athletic, some are of a different religion, some would rather be doing other things. This diversity is great in any society, but as humans we tend to mock something we view as different. We do this as children and adults. I’m not a psychologist so I don’t know why we do it, I just know it happens. The aforementioned types of children just want to be accepted like everyone else, and when they are not they are made to feel inferior in some way. This may be the cause of emotional issues that lead to these tragedies.

    So what if there was a school for your smart child, or gay child, or disinterested child (this was me) where they can be around others like them or get specific help in an area of interest? What about a school for children that have an interest in and accel at science, art, dance, sports, music? Would that not lead to a more confident child to be surrounded by others like him or her sharing similar interests and activities in an environment of encouragement?

    Now here comes the most outrageous part – what if these schools were not run by the government but were private schools that the parents could pick and choose to send their kids to? Private schools are too expensive one may offer as a counter argument. I would then counter “What if they weren’t?” How much money does it take to educate a child, $1000 a month? What if it was $500? That’s getting in the car payment range. $250 A month? Less? How can this be done? The good news is it is already being done. It is called the Free Market. As consumers we pick and choose where we spend our money, so why not apply that same concept to education? Parents are already asking for vouchers and a choice in schools, this would open up that possibility to every parent. Educators would then meet this demand with a supply of education, and competition would bring prices down to a balance of cost versus product, or value. We see this in everything else we buy, so why not apply that same concept to education and treat it as a service provided by businesses? Should we at least entertain the idea that there may be a better way?”

     

    First response:

    “Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the devastating attack on students and faculty at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. These are terrible events for our nation and we must find appropriate ways to respond.

    On the afternoon of February 14, 2018, former student Nikolas Cruz opened fire on students and faculty at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, killing 17 people. Students should be safe at school and those with mental illness should have their needs met. Here are 3 things we should do to help prevent these kinds of attacks:

    – We need to enforce the laws we already have on the books. The means making sure U.S. Attorneys and state and local law enforcement officials have the resources they need to keep guns out of the hands of people are not supposed to be able to buy or possess a gun.

    – We need to make existing background checks more effective. This is why I’ve cosponsored Senator Cornyn and Senator Murphy’s legislation – the Fix NICS Act – which helps ensure that federal agencies and states get information about individuals who should be prohibited from buying a gun into the national background check system.

    – Finally, we must continue to help the large number of Americans suffering from mental illness.

    Last Congress, we passed two new laws to help do that. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides federal dollars to states and school districts to help meet the needs of students with mental health disorders. Along with ESSA Congress passed the 21st Century Cures Act which makes it easier for those suffering from mental illness to get the care they need and encourages early intervention and the use of the most up to date and evidence-based treatments.

    People with good mental health are not causing these incidents, so if we can find ways to diagnose and treat people with mental health issues, that will be an actual solution to the problem. I’m grateful you’ve shared your reactions with me and will keep them in mind as we move forward.”

     

    Second response:

    “Thank you for contacting me about gun control.

    Mass shootings happen in America far too frequently. Yet Congress has refused to do anything to reduce gun violence, even ideas Americans overwhelmingly support.

    House Republican leadership has not allowed a single vote on any gun legislation, even Republican bills, that would reduce gun violence. Democrats even organized a sit-in last Congress to try and force a vote on gun legislation. In fact, Republicans are trying to loosen gun laws. They rolled back Obama-era regulations that limited gun ownership for people with mental health issues. The House also voted to make it easier for veterans who have serious mental health conditions like PTSD and schizophrenia to own a gun and allow people from out-of-state to come into Tennessee with concealed weapons, even if these outsiders have had no training or background checks.

    Whether it’s increased security at venues, expanded background checks, allowing objective federal research on gun issues, banning bump stocks like the ones used by the Las Vegas shooter, or even banning military style weapons and high capacity magazines, we should begin seriously debating ways to minimize risk.

    I am a gun owner and have my concealed-carry permit. But almost all the gun enthusiasts I know think that Congress can take sensible steps to try to reduce gun violence.

    Thanks again for reaching out to me.”

     

    Clearly neither of them read what I wrote, and I probably ended up on a list, but I avoided profanity and insults.