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Monday, August 4th, 2003
Motivation is in short supply over here... I eventually got myself down to the basement this evening, looked at the wood and decided I did not want to chop any mortises. It was not such a bad thing though -- I realized I could mark all the joints at one go, which ended up taking about a half hour with all the futzing around I was doing. Tomorrow night I will start chopping. ... Also I got some guitar practice in tonight; I worked out what I think will be a pretty convincing picking pattern for "While my Guitar Gently Weeps."
posted evening of August 4th, 2003: Respond
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Thursday, July 31st, 2003
I did some more work on the window seat tonight, finishing off the rear half of the frame. The mortise and tenon joints came out very nice, and without too much effort. I see from my referral log that a lot of people are coming here looking for window seat plans; while I don't have any plans to offer I can tell you it's pretty straightforward design, all you need is a simple frame with two flat pieces of wood on it -- see my first post for the design process and some rough drawings. And if you have questions about it, send me an e-mail -- I'd be glad to help if I can.
posted evening of July 31st, 2003: Respond
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Monday, July 28th, 2003
More work on the window seat tonight, cutting out pieces for the rear half of the frame. I got a little worried when I was cutting the verticals, whether my planned seat height of 16" was adequate. Someone from WoodCentral thought it should be higher; and Bill from CJWA advised me to make the seat level with the window sill -- at 16" it is several inches below the window sill. I went back upstairs and looked at the space again, and decided to stay with the planned height. Two free-standing chairs that are in the bay window now are 16" high, and it is very comfortable to sit on them. It also simplifies things a great deal not to have to worry about the window sill. Before dinner, Sylvia was helping me in the wood shop. When I started sawing wood, I offered her to sit on a stool by the bench and watch, but she was not into it. "Can I have a little saw?" caught me a bit off guard -- I generally give her a small, non-dangerous copy of whatever tool I am using; but up till now that has not included tools with sharp edges. Looked around for a bit and then I realized, a mill file is exactly right: it has serrations, makes a rasping noise when you draw it across wood, and is not going to draw blood if you hold it wrong. So I gave it to Sylvia, and she had a good time sawing wood with it until we went up for supper.
posted evening of July 28th, 2003: Respond
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Sunday, July 27th, 2003
Finally began work (in at least a nominal sense) on my window seat. I measured and cut two story sticks tonight, one for the front of the frame (about 95", square ends) and one for the back (about 48", mitered ends), and marked the alignment between them. I think in the end, using story sticks is actually aiming for a higher degree of precision than is needed in this project; and certainly higher than I am going to attain. There are all kinds of things to deal with along the lines of, the floor is not level, the walls are not square; so it would probably make more sense to just work direct from the tape measure. OTOH story sticks is a really useful technique, one that I am not yet totally familiar with; and I build few enough projects that it is good to practice techniques that I want to develop, even if they do not fit exactly to the current project A "story stick" is just a scrap piece of wood cut to a particular dimension of your project; you use this stick to mark the dimension on the relevant pieces rather than measuring it out on each of them. This helps ensure that pieces which are meant to be sized alike really are, and generally guards against error. In addition, you can mark key points on the story stick, such as mortise locations, to be transfered to the work pieces. The reason the sizes I give above are approximate, is that I marked and cut the sticks from the actual size of the bay window where the seat will be located, rather than with a tape measure.
posted evening of July 27th, 2003: Respond
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Saturday, July 26th, 2003
Here is an inventory of home improvement projects I want to work on: - Window seat: which I have, ridiculously, still not begun working on; but today I bought some lumber for it and cleaned up my shop, so I have no excuses left...
- Paths in the front yard: I have the slate, I have the tools to cut it; I am hoping to do these paths in the third week of August, when I will be on vacation.
- Path next to the house: Really the same project as the above, I just don't think I have enough slate right now to do it. I want to see how the first path goes before I schedule the others.
- Backyard patio: Again, waiting to see how difficult this slate laying stuff really is.
- Stone at base of side porch: This is going to be pretty complex and I have not really planned yet how it should look.
- New steps for side porch
- Breakfast nook
- Bookcases for Ellen's office: Ellen is breathing down my neck on this so they may come before the breakfast nook.
- Bookcases for living room: I've had an idea for this since we moved here...
- Dining room table: Again, I've had a very clear picture of this kicking around my head for about nine months now.
posted evening of July 26th, 2003: Respond
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Saturday, July 12th, 2003
I spent much of this morning and afternoon pruning bushes in our front yard, and came to really enjoy it. This is something that I am doing without investing any research in it, trying to go purely by instinct. (Plus I got a little advice from my father when he was here, and from the tree surgeon who worked on our big maple tree.) Figuring out which branch needs to come away and tracking it back to the appropriate separation point can be quite pleasurable. And trimming the hedges was really fun, like giving someone a haircut.
posted afternoon of July 12th, 2003: Respond
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Friday, July 4th, 2003
No, I'm not talking about 3.1... Today I rehung the first of the stuck windows in my house; there are about 5 in all, plus several that open and close but with a lot of resistance. Since I could not find actual, step by step instructions anywhere on the web or in any books I looked in1, I thought I would write them out here. These instructions are only for windows with weights inside the frame; and specifically for windows built just like mine. I'm sure there are many variations on old window design; if you're taking yours apart and run into something different, you're on your own. The first thing is to remove the sash molding. This is the rounded piece running up and down the side of the window frame, which holds the lower sash in place. ("Sash" is the thing that has glass in it and slides up and down.) The way to take this off is, first run a utility knife along where the molding joins to the window frame, i.e. the middle of the concave curve there; this will score the paint so that it does not chip during the next step. Now drive a chisel into this joint (assuming the molding is nailed on, not screwed) to force the joint apart. Once it is apart, use a crowbar to detach the molding. If the molding is screwed on, you will need to unscrew it first; this will probably be a huge hassle as there will likely be multiple coats of paint on top of the screws. It is a good idea to take both moldings off; being lazy, I only did it on the side where the weight was off, and this worked alright. Note: William Duffield, of the Woodcentral Hand Tools Forum, recommends using two 1" putty knives, instead of a utility knife and chisel. One of them should be sharpened at the end. You will be able to run the knives along the joint and find the nails, and only pry where there are nails. This should significantly reduce the damage done to the molding. Now you need to get access to the inside of the window frame. The way this was set up on my window was, underneath the sash molding was a screw holding a segment of the frame in place; once I undid it that piece came away. I have no idea how standard this setup is. Inside the frame will be a weight with a chain attached to it; the other end of this chain is supposed to be attached to the sash. Remove the chain from the weight -- this should be straightforward -- and thread it through the pulley at the top of the windowframe. Your pulley may be stuck in place by old layers of paint -- mine was -- I do not think this is a big deal, the chain will just slide over the wheel instead of turning the wheel. Thread a nail or paperclip through the end of the chain, so you can leave it alone at the top of the pulley and work with the other end. Go back to the access hole in the frame, and fish out the chain, and reattach it to the weight. Put the weight back inside the frame. Now you need to put the chain back onto the sash. Examine the other side of the sash (assuming that the weight was only off on one side) to see how it is attached. The way mine was on, was it threaded through a hole in the wood and then hooked on to a spring which was larger than the hole; the spring sat in a mortise in the side of the sash. Once both sides have their chains attached, you can put the sash back in its track, and nail the moldings back on.2 What I did next may be totally unconventional, I really don't know. At this point, the window slid up and down but, like several others in my house, it did not slide easily. This is particularly a problem for Ellen, who can't get some of them to move at all. So I just coated the sash track with bowling alley wax, and slid it up and down until it moved easily. I don't know how long this will last, but if it is still moving easily in a couple of days, I am going to do the same for my other resistant windows. Otherwise I guess I need to try something else... ----- 1 -- to tell the truth I found several step by step guides to rehanging a window; but all were extremely non-specific, along the lines of "1. Take off the moldings. 2. Take off the sash. 3. Take off the sash cords. 4. Put it all back together." -- with accompanying full-color pictures that added nothing to the written instructions. 2 -- Several books recommended reattaching the moldings with screws, so that it would be easier to do maintenance in the future; this strikes me as ass-backwards thinking. Everywhere in my house where there are screws on an exterior surface, they are covered with many layers of paint and hugely frustrating. (The screws which held the piece of the window frame in place above were underneath the sash molding, so not painted.)
posted afternoon of July 4th, 2003: Respond
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Saturday, June 21st, 2003
I started taking measurements for the window seat I am planning to build in our sitting room's bay window. I have pretty well in mind what the thing should look like at the end, what I mainly need to do is take the measurements from the space. I have linked to the images as separate files because they are big, and I don't know how to reduce them. Here is a floor plan and front elevation: layout.jpg The height of the seat (which you can't see because my scanner clipped it off) is 16"; I measured that height from a chair that feels comfortable. That is also good because it is a little over an inch short of the bottoms of the window sill moldings which will be above the seat. (I didn't draw the windows in to this plan but there are three of them, in the places you would expect them to be.) So, good: the length of the seat will be 94", and the width -- oh, now I see my scanner trimmed that off too -- the depth of the bay window is 36", and the depth of the part that is 94" wide is 14"; so I am thinking 32" is a good width for my seat. At 32", the front of the seat will be recessed a bit into the bay. I want to build the seat as a frame of 2X4's and 4X4's, then cover that with hardwood -- 1/2" thick on the face and 3/4" thick on the seat. I'll use moldings in two key places -- the transition from the seat to the face, and the transition from the seat to the wall. Here is a plan of the frame, with rough dimensions written in: frame.jpg And here is a plan of what the molding will look like (I have drawn in the window sill molding above the seat here): profile.jpg I am trying to capture the Victorian style of my house in the profile of the seat. I did not draw the doors which will be in the face, because I have not figured out their dimensions yet; there will be two. I am thinking about cutting gingerbread into the doors to echo the house's eaves but I'm not sure about it -- I don't have a scroll saw and it would be a fair amount of work. The baseboard molding in the room, which will be matched along where the face meets the floor, is about 4" high. Update: Here are some comments on the design from WoodCentral folks. They have convinced me to go with hinged holes in the seat to access the storage area, rather than doors in the face -- these will be easier to install and to use. I am nixing the idea of scrollwork in the face, too much work.
posted afternoon of June 21st, 2003: Respond
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Thursday, May 29th, 2003
Tonight I screwed together one wall of the sandbox and planed it fairly smooth. On the way home I had an idea for how I could avoid needing to worry about the squareness of the through holes (see below); I would re-mark those holes on the bottom of each board and drill from the bottom. As it turned out this seemed like too much work so I just drilled from the marks I made yesterday; and it seemed to work fine. My idea for planing was that since I am not particularly worried about straightness, I could go straight to the smooth plane. I tried this out and it seemed to work pretty well. The douglas fir planes pretty easily except where there are knots; and my ECE smoother can handle the knots. I got one section of really bad tearout when I was starting out; but it is on the inside of the sandbox toward the bottom (where it will be quite covered with sand), so I am going to leave it and figure noone will ever know. I will need about 12 cubic feet of sand for this, which it looks like will weigh ½ ton. I am thinking I will get the sand in two trips but I will contact dad to check if that is a necessary precaution. Update: Yep, Dad thinks it would be a good idea to take two trips.
posted evening of May 29th, 2003: Respond
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I'm building a sandbox for Sylvia and I came up with a pretty neat technique for marking the screw holes. The sides of the box are going to be 2X4's screwed together to make a wall 3½" wide and 7½" tall, with a 2X6 on top to provide a wider ledge. Reducing sanding work requires that I get the boards aligned as well as possible when I am screwing them together. There is an offset in the length of the boards so that the walls will interlock at the corners. So: I made a story stick as long as the length of the walls, excluding the corners. I marked the stick with 6 points, 3 pairs of points about an inch apart and roughly equidistant along the length of the stick. I used my marking gauge to scribe a line down the center of each board and marked the end which will be going into a corner with an "X". Then I transferred the marks from the story stick to each board, working from the end with no "X"; one of each pair I marked "x" and the other "o"; the "x"'s are to be screwed into and the "o"'s are to receive the heads of screws. Each top board got only "o"'s, each bottom board only "x"'s. Now I'm all set to go! The only worrisome point now is that the through holes, those that receive the head of a screw, need to be quite square to the surface of the board. I was thinking I would use the drill press here but on second thought that does not seem to make sense. I believe I will just try my best with the hand drill.
posted afternoon of May 29th, 2003: Respond
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