Home DIY

If you don’t want the woody wood look what about using osmo white oil to bleach out grain / knots. Or Formica on birch ply with an exposed edge grain. Or 10mm solid surface (corian) laminated to 24mm birch - if you 45 deg edge route the ply it would look thinner. Depends where you are putting it but if it’s against a wall and for two - support it with three hay (or IKEA copy) trestles (one in the middle). Or look at skinny metal drawer cabinets too. ?

Or these guys ?

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJyG7DVDb6Y/?igshid=iib8v3oxawbl

+1 for Titan, bought one for ~£40 5 years ago for hoovering up rubble whilst doing up my house and it's still giving it the big suck as my only vacuum.

If people want a wet and dry vac, Lidl have there’s in this Sunday for £30, planning to buy one for the workshop as currently using my big barrel dust extractor to vacuum which isn’t particularly efficient

Something to bear in mind when it comes to these vacs that have a blower function, the blower is the exhaust post, which means when you are using in vacuum mode you are going to still get a jet of high velocity air blasting out of the side of it. If using to clean a workshop, you are going to simultaneously disturb and launch any settled dust in its wake out into the air - a problem if you have fine dusts lurking.

Yes. use bags and fit the filter.

Started making a desk top today, copying the @Soul herringbone desk.

Discovered that my table saw is skew af, and the riving knife is a liability.

In straightening it up, I discovered it's all but impossible to square the blade to the table, as somewhere along the line the chassis holding the saw to the tabletop has been bent. So I didn't bother, as I can square it to the fence well enough.

I just took the riving knife off, as it was bent & again, all but impossible to make parallel to the blade.

I did make a zero clearance insert, though, and built a fence & zero clearance base for my chop saw (as I won't be able to make a usable cross-cut sled on the table saw).

In hindsight, I should have cut the radius first, then cut the straight bits - as it is, I'll have to feather in the curve with a bit of sanding.

Next up - squaring up the miter saw & chopping up the strips into 4x1 lengths, then a whole lot of gluing up.

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Do you need my address for when you finish it?

Nice! Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Doing mine, I ended up using a piece of wood and a clamp to put pressure on the fence to make that square. The blade to the table was easy enough.

Sold my table saw now though. Will be getting a new one in a couple of months so looking for recommendations.... @Hovis ?

When it gets a bit warmer, I’m going to sand mine back again, fill some of the gaps I’ve noticed and spray on a varnish finish (it was brushed last time).

What did you glue the herringbone on top of? More ply? I guess that way you get layered top and edges?

Maybe glue a splitter in lieu of the riving knife?

Big question. All depends on what kind of work you're doing, how much space you got and what your budget is. For me personally, I had decent space and mostly working on furniture so I went for a cabinet saw with a cast top. If I were doing it again I'd look at older sedgwick, wadkin type saws with the aim of being patient. I have a 30 year old kity which I'm pretty happy with. It's current sold as a scheppach precisa 3.0 which is more or less the same machine. I dig the sliding table, a real luxury that has rendered my mitre saw obsolete for everything other than construction work.

Few tasks this weekend.
First

Slightly broken floorboard. Have gone into basement and taken down insulation. Current plan is to use an old 27mm thick bit of beech I have left over from another project to brace perpendicular to the boards, across 2 or 3 boards to either side of the broken one. Sound good?

Second issue

The radiator pipe is too close to the floor board so every time we walk past it the metal creaks. Unfortunately this is on our kids bedroom and it creaks when we walk in and out in evening. They are light sleepers.

I was thinking I'd just want to file back the wood somehow but not sure how best to go about this.

Wedging some of that janky rockwool between the pipe and floorboard might stop the creak.

Could try some baby powder (talc). I've had some success with it but sometimes it takes a little while to work.

Given your huge disposable income you should consider the Festool CMS system. I've had one for 15 years and it's pretty decent.

Ha. There’s a fund. The main issue is space.

I was maybe hoping something more akin to a job site saw with folding wheels etc might be workable.

Thats the best excuse to get a lockup/workshop ;)

The CMS system is transportable, foldable and you can replace modules with router/circular saw or belt sander. All of which can operate on their own. It has a sliding carriage so functions as a mitre.

You don't want to cut 8x4 sheets on it though, that's for the track saw. It's good for trim and smaller pieces. Really depends on what you are thinking of doing but it's a great alternative to the foldable wheelie ones from the other main manufacturers. I think Triton do a similar system.

Otherwise the big units that Hovis mentions are mostly for static use, unless you are setting up a permanent workshop I'm not sure how useful they would be.

i think i'd like professional help (lufguss nods as he finally admits it), but i don't know exactly who can provide this service.

basically, the front of our house, including the garden and drive, is slightly impractical for us, a bit dilapidated, and visually meh. but my wife and i have little design nous between us.

what we'd like is some kind of design/architecture/landscaping? consultant who can take our considerations, as well as the style and age of the house, and produce some sketches and maybe guidelines that we can implement over a couple of years, bringing in landscapers and builders as necessary to fix the wall/drive/garden/porch/house front.

is that a thing? someone who knows enough about gardens, architecture, design and construction

an architect with experience/expertise in domestic renovations and gardens, or an architect and garden/landscape designer who will work together. (they should both know relevant design and construction as part of that expertise)

How should I be scribing a new cill (I already have it) to fit in here? Scribe on to scraps of plywood, cut them out and then use them to scribe the line back to the cill?

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I often make them in 5mm ply or thin MDF, sometimes start with a paper template and transfer it to thin board. It's still a job with a saw and plane to get a really good fit. The transfer stage gives you a chance to tidy everything up once you know it fits.

It helps if you plaster the walls flat and sloping in slightly each side! Looks like the decor is already done though.

Sometimes you can chisel a channel for the board on either side and fill to the face of it. The join shows less there than it does on the board face.

And all day today (apart from a run out to get more glue) glueing them.

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I've finally finished cutting up little bits of wood. What a lot of not much fun and sawdust.

Tomorrow, the glue up starts.

Did you glue to the base at the same time as gluing the pieces when you did yours?

I'm wondering how to make this less of a fiddle.

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Landscape Architects are a thing out here, there too?

Thanks, but damn, I already filled in the channels where the old one came out (took a chunk of the corner with it) but I could always channel a bit out again. I think they do taper in slightly towards the window so that's a plus. The whole room may get new plaster at some point so it can always be covered over then if I do bodge it.