Wednesday, 20 February 2013
Tic-Tac-Toe Board Game
Christmas was fast approaching and I have set a goal to make at least one heirloom quality item a year for Christmas as a family gift, starting the previous year with the wagon. This was built in one day using maple and red oak, as well as 3/4” dowels from a big box store.
This came from an idea I saw online of similar design. Starting from one piece of 1X3×36” maple plank, I glued the maple planks cut down to about 3.5” with 1/4” red oak strips between them, and waited for the pieces to dry. I used the new quick drying Gorilla Glue to speed the build up. I forgot to mention, this was built on October 31st, and I wanted to be finished before the Trick-O-Treaters came. I started the build at 10am, and finished by about 5:30pm.
Once the glue dried, I used my table saw to rip across the panels. I planed to use the kerf of the table saw to help make sure it was completely square when I placed the strip of 1/4” red oak between the next pieces. This made for a nice nine framed squares for the tic-tac-toe board.
While this was drying, I went ahead and drilled the holes for the dowels. I estimated the center and used my battery powered Ryobi hand drill and drilled the 3/4” holes for the dowels. I cut the downs to be about 3” long, and glued them into place. I only eyeballed the holes, and unfortunately they were not all straight up and down.
Next, I cut out 3” squares using a plank of maple and also drilled holes in the center, but this time I drilled the holes to about 1” wide to allow the piece to fit well over the dowels. I then used my table saw to cut the corners off six pieces to make the “O’s”.
I used my jig saw to cut the notches to make the “X’s”.
Since I have a toddler and a newborn, I figured that inevitably they would stick the pieces in their mouths, so I finished everything with a coat of butcher block oil and wiped it dry.
I was not there this year to see the kids open up this gift as I was/am forward deployed, but my wife assures me that they loved it.
This project cost me about $45 dollars. It should last a long time.
Crafty Puzzles
searching for pattern 4 drawer puzzle table
On the projects page, I found a posting from Kram79 for a four drawer puzzle table. I would like to get the plans for this project. I have tried to reach Kram79 through his facebook page and direct email with no success. Does anyone else have those plans or know where I can get them? Thanks for any help you can give me.
Crafty Puzzles
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
The Original Saw Company RAS
I was in woodcraft over the weekend (for the first time, I’m new to this game). There were some pretty amazing things in there. I was drooling over the powermatic machines and the like and the festool beauties, and who can forget the incredible sawstops.
I noticed on the side there was an Original Saw Company Radial Arm Saw. What an incredible piece of machinery that was! My brother wouldn’t even go near the thing, but it intrigues me quite a bit.
Now I know that in life I don’t think I will ever buy one, unless the little wife can just see the argument that we don’t need to pay the mortgage or for food or whatever other useless things there are in life and just buy cool wood working tools. But, my main question is if any of you have used one, have one, seen them in action, blah blah blah. I looked online and could only find the website, I know that they were started by two fellas from Dewalt, with the original design for the RAS. But I was just wondering what kind of Van Damage that kind of machine can do.
I know that there are some strong opinions about RAS’s, but I am more interested in what you guys think about these incredible machines. Any thoughts would be great.
And if you have one I would love to see a video of how that sucker works.
Crafty Puzzles
