Will Browar

Wall-Mounted Standby

Will — Sun, 28 Jan 2024 09:51:00 -0500

In 2023, Apple introduced a feature to their MagSafe-compatible iPhones, called Standby. This feature lets you use the widgets from your apps when your phone is:

Magnetically attached to a MagSafe charger or plugged in with a charging cable
The phone is positioned upwards and in the horizontal position
The device’s Lock Screen is on

I currently have 2 MagSafe stands by TwelveSouth that I use on a nightstand while I sleep and on my desk while I'm working. With these stands in places here are some ways I typically use Standby:

On my nightstand I display a digital clock alongside either the weather widget, a charging widget, or my calendar (via Fantastical).
While I'm working I typically leave my phone on the World Clock, showing points that represent the timezones of some of the international teammates I work with.
In both places, I’ll turn on the Now Playing screen for audio books and podcasts that I listen to (usually air playing to speakers or AirPods Pros).

I really love how simple this feature is to use and now I want to put MagSafe stands all around my house. After upgrading my nightstand MagSafe stand to the HiRise 3 Deluxe, I gave the Forté I was previously using to my wife, which—replacing her MagSafe charger—left us with an extra MagSafe puck to spare.

Finding a Use Case

My first thought was to pick up another Forté and find a place to put it in the kitchen, but then—as part of a customer journey—marketing for a different brand had another idea in mind.

I got a marketing email by a company I bought iPhone stands and AirTag cases from, Elevation Lab, for a new product that lets you pin an AirTag to your kids or a piece of luggage. While I'm not in the market for that, it got me to visit their website and check it out. While I was there, I came across something they call, MagBase.

MagBase is essentially a little silicon holder for a MagSafe puck that is meant to live on your desk or another flat surface. It’s designed so you can pick up your phone by sliding it off the magnet, but just as easily, you can pick up both your phone and your MagSafe puck to do things like check your email or respond to messages.

I like that the MagBase is very minimal, and even though it’s designed to sit on a flat surface it gave me an idea on how I can solve a very minor problem, while also giving me another place to use Standby.

A few years ago I put together this little couch-side shelf, and above that I mounted a shelf for more vertical space. Last year, I unmounted the shelf for a few minutes to add a headphone hook to it. I use this shelf while watching TV or playing video games and I usually place things like my iPad and AirPods Pro case on it.

As far as my phone goes, I usually put that on the arm of the couch because I had no other particular place to put it. This extra MagSafe puck helped me find a new place for it, and it looked cool to boot.

The headphone hook sits in the middle of the shelf, so when sitting on the couch there is some room on the wall to the left and to the right of the headphones. The space to the right seemed like a really good place to put a MagSafe puck. Before ordering a MagBase I thought that maybe I would 3D print my own MagSafe mount. After taking a look at some of the 3D printing model sites I found that the idea of mounting a MagSafe puck on the wall wasn't a new idea, and there were several free, really nice models to choose from.

One thing the MagBase had going for it, though, was that it also comes with a USB-C extender. This would be important because the 1-meter distance from the nearest outlet to the place I wanted to mount the MagSafe puck was too short. That got me to go for the MagBase, so I placed an order and it showed up a couple of days later.

I thought for a little bit about how I would run the MagSafe cable around the shelf. I didn't want to drape the cable over the shelf, but if I added a little gap between the shelf and the wall I could run the cable behind the shelf. This wasn’t really my favorite option, so I unmounted the shelf and brought it down to the workshop to see if I could come up with something else.

Channeling a Solution

I took a look at where the shelf mounting hardware fits into the shelf and noticed that the area I routed out for the mounting hardware gave me about 5mm to work with. With the cable plugged into the wall on the left side, I could have ran the cable from the left mount to the right, leaving the cable just under the shelf.

Maybe it was where I was standing, but something else came to mind. Did you know that the width of the kerf on a table saw blade is exactly the same thickness as a MagSafe cable? At least this is true for the blade that came with my DeWalt table saw.

I moved the table saw fence close enough that the blade lined up with the routed area for the mounting hardware. I raised the blade to just about 3-4mm, picked up one side of the shelf, and did a plunge cut from one side of the mounting hardware slot to the other.

I did a quick test of the cable to find that it was a perfect fit!

I realized I had to create an exit point for the cable on both sides, so I grabbed a chisel and diagonally cut out a notch for the cable on both sides.

While doing a dry run with the cable, I also realized that I would need to let some of the cable sit within the routed out area that the bottom of the mounting hardware sits. The problem with this is that a lot of the stability for the shelf is based around clamping down on that area and I didn't want to crush the MagSafe cable to get this to work.

I found a washer big enough to fill up that area and found that if I stack up two washers it was just about as high as the MagSafe cable. I used some hot glue to attach the washers tougher, then onto the shelf. I didn’t really need to do this but this would make it so that when I'm mounting the shelf the washers wouldn’t move around and fall out of place.

After another quick test I was all set with routing the cable from one end of the shelf to the other.

The final step was to re-mount the shelf and then attach the MagBase to the wall. I took one more pass at running the cable through the channel I just made. I made it as flush as I could and made sure the MagSafe puck was the right distance from the shelf to where I wanted to put it.

Fin

This is a DIY situation I really like being in. This is the 4th time I’ve iterated on this shelf area and each time it becomes more useful for my needs. I also like that everything in this project is reversible. As with all technology, a new things comes along every few years and sometimes things just break. If I decide I no longer want the MagSafe puck in this spot, I can unmount it and remove it from the shelf, leaving only the channel and the notch cut out, but hidden in the back of the shelf. Removing the washers should be pretty easy, too.

As I was going through these pictures on my laptop, I placed my phone up on the wall, put on a podcast, and got to enjoy this new setup right away.

Chest Organizer

Will — Wed, 10 May 2023 12:30:00 -0400

We wanted to get a storage chest for our back yard because our kids were spending more time with friends out there and we wanted to make it easier for them to access their toys. Along with the better playing-outside weather, we were doing more grilling and I was looking for a place to store grates, charcoal, and other grill-related tools.

At first I planned on getting a separate storage cabinet for the grilling stuff, but we found a storage chest that was big enough to house everything. The tricky part was keeping everything organized and separating the toys from the fire-related tools in one big, empty box.

This project was a quick one and it helped clean out some of the leftover wood I had laying around. It also let me try out something new on the 3D printer.

Design

The basic idea was to cut the interior of the box in half, based on the size of some of the grilling components. Our grill was a 22-inch kettle grill, so the widest we'd need to go is around 22 inches. The grill we have has a grate with a 12-inch hole that is meant for accessories, like a cast iron plate or wok. It also came with a warming shelf that we used on occasion. We also had some cleaning tongs and matches that needed a place to stay.

On the toy side of things, we have various balls, bats, and catching devices. My kids’ reach is still pretty short, so we wanted to elevate all of the toys so they could easily reach in and grab what they need.

I put together a rough plan for everything so I knew what sizes I was working with, but along the way I changed things up based on where we wound up putting the chest.

As far as materials go, I had a bunch of leftover plywood and pine 2x4s, so my plan was to whip them all together using some glue and some brad nails, then use some oil or paint to seal them.

Grilling Dividers

I had plywood ripped at about 2 feet wide, which was perfect for the height of the chest. I left the height as-is and worked out the measurements along the length to cut it down into the lengths I needed it to be for each piece.

I used some foam packing pieces as a base and a couple of clamps and a long piece of scrap wood as a guide to cut the pieces with the hand saw.

By the time I was done I had cut all of the walls with the hand saw and used the miter saw to cut the smaller pieces down to the right size.

I planned on attaching them all together using glue and nails and I didn't go through the trouble to plan out any fancy joinery as the pieces should be plenty supported for their use. I did cut the smallest divider a little wider and then I use a router to cut a channel into its connecting pieces. While maybe unnecessary, it offers a little more support in the middle.

I went ahead and nailed these pieces together.

Next up I measured out the length and width of what would be the floor of the raised up portion of the grilling side. I cut that down with the hand saw and miter saw and put it aside.

At this point I tested the fit inside the chest and everything was looking good.

I wanted to add a little support to the raised floor, so I made a frame with a 2x4 and nailed that into the floor piece.

With that all set, I nailed the floor into place. Although not shown in this picture, I also added one small 2x4 piece in the corner for a little extra support.

I flipped the piece over and used a rounding bit along the tops of all of the dividing pieces to smooth them down a bit.

Making a Toy Table

Once I had the final size of the grilling side set, I used the remaining room inside the chest to create a platform for the toys.

I cut a leftover sheathing panel down the the right width and length to cover the toy side, then I used some 2x4s to create four legs and then some supports.

I used some 1-2-3 blocks and clamps to hold them up while I nailed the supports into place.

From there I thought about how to get the table in and out and went over to the drill press—which still had the 1½ inch hole saw bit in it from my birdhouse project—and cut a whole on one side of the middle of the table.

I used the same rounding bit on the router to smooth out the hole so it no longer had any sharp edges.

Quick Finish

Just like everything in this project so far where I was using scraps and leftovers I also chose to finish everything with some leftover spray paint. I had a couple of cans of red and black paint, but the black had primer built in so I decided to go that route.

A couple of coats later, I let the pieces dry and then I placed them into the storage chest.

Functional Labels

In the grill side of the chest I wanted to hang a couple of tools, so I needed some sort of hook in the portion that was the full height of the chest. I decided to design and print the hooks with my 3D printer.

I used Fusion360 to create a model that would wrap around the top of the plywood edges with a hook protruding out one side.

The fit came out great and the hook seemed strong enough for the things I would hang off of it.

I also wanted to test out some debossed lettering with my 3D printer, so I made an SVG label, imported it into Fusion360, and cut it into the base of the hook. I figured that if the icon was printed on the 3D printer’s plate it would come out clearer.

There was one part that got a little messed up in the print, but I figured that this was good enough to proceed with, so I made labels for some of the different sections and I printed those out using PLA.

It took a few tries to get the print right and I wound up settling with a couple of pieces that had some errors on them.

The thing I learned here was not to fill up the printing plate with too many pieces. Also, I will still need some more practice printing out text and next time I might consider printing it on a different side or rotating the print 90˚ so the text isn't printed on the plate.

Fin

If I were making a storage chest from scratch I might consider taking more time to focus on stability and finish, but I'm happy with the amount of effort I put towards making this work.

Eventually I plan on taking the platform out of the toy section and I left a little extra room on the grilling side for future accessories. For now this simple project will help keep things tidy for both play time and grilling time.

Solar-Powered Bird House

Will — Tue, 02 May 2023 07:00:00 -0400

A few months ago I created this Mid-Century Bird Feeder and showed the finished photos to some family members. Upon checking it out, my mom made a request: she asked for a birdhouse made specifically for North American bluebirds. My sister was with us and asked for one, too.

I had a bunch of ideas for some cool and colorful bird houses, but after doing some research I landed on a lot of parameters and pointers that make for a successful bluebird house. So I dialed my ideas back a bit and—despite sticking to some standard birdhouse plans—this project led to a new tool and some cool experiences.

Design

In my research I found several great sites that shared the basic plans for bluebird houses. I made note of the optimal dimensions for the inside of the birdhouse and the height of the entrance hole. I also read about a few features you can add to help keep the entrance hole safer from predators, as well as a way to help newborn babies leave the nest for the first time.

One thing that caught my eye was that a lot of makers had added cameras to their birdhouses and bird feeders so they can see their avian guests up close. This was a whole entire rabbit hole that included lots of options, ranging from all-in-one camera kits to some how-to articles for creating your own DIY camera feed. Since this was a gift, I was leaning towards the camera kits that had software that was simple to set up and use.

With that in mind, I left the design of the bird house a little open-ended until I was sure as to what the camera hardware setup would look like.

Technology Testing

I did some shopping around when looking for a good camera kit to use. A lot of makers had something similar to a Wireless Bird Box Camera, so I started my search there. These looked very compact and there were lots of options to choose from.

I liked some of the AI bird feeders, like the Bird Buddy, that include things like bird recognition and activity notifications. However, Bird Buddy didn't sell a stand-alone camera kit and being a bird house, the AI recognition feature would go unused.

I eventually stumbled upon Netvue’s Birdfy Cam and it seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. I liked the idea of using a solar panel as a way to keep the camera battery charged up, so I bought the bundle that included both the camera and the panel.

The camera used a standard ¼ inch mount, so I used a couple of flexible lighting mounts to clip the camera and the solar panel to my bird feeder. I wanted to test the overall experience of capturing clips, streaming, and getting notifications via the app. Here are my general notes:

The software made things really easy to set the camera up and to change options. I really liked that you could flip the camera upside down and set the recording quality.
I liked that you could quickly save clips and that on iOS it created an album in Photos for storing the clips you saved.
The solar panel did its job just fine. While I don’t live in the sunniest area, we still got plenty enough to charge the camera and to keep it charged for the entire time I tested it.
The clips are only 1080p, and I hope one day they offer a camera that lets you record in 4k (even if it only streams in 1080p), however, recording at HD quality was still pretty good and I think most people would prefer better battery life over image quality.

Throughout the day it was fun to see the variety of birds that visited my feeder.

Next up I wanted to make sure the camera would work within the rough dimension of the birdhouse and I wanted to figure out the best viewing distance from the bottom of the bird house to figure out the final measurements.

I used my sketch to cut a cardboard box into a 5-by-5 inch tunnel and placed the camera at the top. With my phone streaming the camera feed, I marked the height that I thought worked the best.

I cut a hole in the cardboard and stacked up a couple of 1-2-3 blocks at the bottom of the model to get an understanding of what the height of a nest or some eggs might look like.

From there I had finished up my plans and started gathering materials to build two birdhouses.

Building the Base

I wanted to use cedar for the birdhouses as it holds up well without any finish. I know the sun will eventually fade the color a bit, but I still picked pieces that had nice grain patterns and as few knots as possible.

I picked out lumber that was close to the width in my plans, and I trimmed down the rest of the pieces as needed.

I had figured out the height for the sides and the front and the back, so I used the miter saw to cut two piles—one for each birdhouse.

There was a slight color difference between each pile of wood so I decided that throughout the whole project I would try to keep the wood from getting mixed between each pile. This way each birdhouse would look more cohesive than if there was one or two pieces that had a very different grain pattern.

Once I had the walls done, I set my miter saw to a 30 degree angle and cut the diagonal top of each of the side walls.

I set my table saw to a matching angle and cut the tops of the front and the back down to match the side walls.

Because I was planning on using wood glue and brad nails to join the walls together, I wanted to give the bird feeder some extra support by cutting some rabbets into the bottom piece. To do this I first cut a deep cut onto the sides of the piece, then flipped the piece onto its side, adjusted the fence, and did a very shallow cut to trim off the hanging slice of wood.

I did another cross cut to add a trench into the front and back walls at the height to match the bottom piece.

I didn’t get it quite right the first time through, so I wound up trimming things down a little bit to fill in some of the gaps that showed up when I first put it together.

Once I got things to fit, I tested out the bottom and things lined up nicely.

WiFi-Enabled Roofing

With the walls and floor cut to size, I did another test of the camera position.

This time I had to factor in where the camera’s antenna would need to go, as well as to make sure I had room to plug in the cable for the solar panel.

I grabbed the back wall and used my router to create a channel for the cable to to live in, as the camera plus the cable wound up being about a ¼ inch too tall.

At the top of the channel, I used a slightly larger cutting bit to create space for the antenna to stick out the back of the birdhouse.

My plan was to mount the camera onto the roof and make it so the roof could be pulled out without disturbing anything going on in the bottom of the birdhouse. I don’t think any bird would tolerate any disturbance to their nest, so this gave better access to the camera in case some technical support was needed.

I still had to figure out exactly how to mount the camera to the roof, but I did know the dimensions I’d be using for the top piece.

The lumber I had wasn’t wide enough to allow for an overhang along the sides the birdhouse, but luckily I had a really long and narrow piece of scrap cedar laying around. I cut the strip down to the same length of the roof piece and then glued two strips onto either side of the main piece.

After cleaning up some glue drips I ran the roof pieces through the planer to smooth them down and to get them to the thickness I wanted.

Once again I tilted the blade on my table saw and did a cross cut to match up the angle on the top and bottom ends of the roof pieces.

Speaking of Access

One of the things I remember from the birdhouse we had when I was growing up is that every year we would clean out the inside of the birdhouse to get it ready for the next bird who would come and make it their home. To do this we had a hinge on the front panel of the birdhouse and we would lift that up for access to the inside.

I wanted to add some hinges to the left side panel so you could open it up like a cabinet door. I wanted to avoid a big latch on the front of the birdhouse, so I decided to try using a magnet to keep the door shut throughout the year.

At first I thought I had picked out a strong magnet and a metal plate that would do the trick, but after actually getting it screwed into place I realized that the screws made it so the magnet wouldn't get close enough to the metal plate to provide a strong enough connection to hold the door on securely.

I wound up finding better hardware with a bigger magnet, more surface area, and recessed screw holes that make the screws flush with their surface.

I used a chisel to widen up the holes used for the original magnet.

Door Groove

To make it a little easier to open up the door, I wanted to use my router to create a groove along the bottom-front of the side door. While I didn't have a router table, I did have a guide attachment to my router that got me pretty close to a router table fence.

I lined up fence, turned the router on, and then slowly dropped a test piece onto the bit and pulled it across the guide.

To my delight, this worked as planned! I grabbed the side door pieces and carefully repeated my movement until I created the groove at a few inches in length.

Ventilation

While I was working on the sides, I wanted to add some air holes to the top of each side for some extra ventilation. I wanted to drill holes in the shape of a circle using my drill press. While I know you could use a compass and some lines to map out the coordinate for each hole, I chose to go the visual route using a drawing app on my computer to add points to a circle and I printed that out a few times across a piece of paper.

I taped down the paper to the wood and used a center hole punch to mark where each hole would go.

I pulled the paper off of the wood and drilled each hole where the marks were made.

I cleaned up the holes a little bit, but I knew that I would eventually be sanding these pieces so I could come back and fix them along with that step.

Extra Support

At this point, because of the door, the base of the birdhouse was in the shape of a U. I wanted to add just a little extra support but I didn't want to get it in the way of the roof or the camera. I found some scraps from my previous cuts and created a mortise and tenon joint to hold them into place.

This was my first time doing this kind of joint and while it wasn't perfect, using cedar did make things easier because the wood is so soft and easy to cut with a chisel.

I used a vice to help cut the tops of the tenon side of the joint and then used a drill press and chisel for the mortise.

Hello, Benchy

At this point in the project I had been thinking about different ways to mount the camera onto the roof piece. I originally planned something out with a series of wooden pieces, but I wanted to make it easy to take the camera out if for some reason it could no longer be of use.

This was one of many little problems I wanted to solve in projects like this and it just so happened that I work with lots of folks who are into 3D printing. Our discussions over the years have had me interested in getting one, but they always seemed like they require a lot of work to get it up and running and maintain it over time.

I discussed the current state of 3D printers with a few people who have had experience and started to look into Prusa’s MK3 kit, but a friend of mine redirected me to the relatively new Bambu P1P. The P1P was a little bit cheaper than the MK3, but it promised faster printing speed and it seemed to be a little more accessible to 3D printing newbies like myself.

I took a chance and ordered the P1P—on the day before the similar Prusa MK4 was announced—along with a bunch of random PLA Basic and PLA Matte colors. In about a week the printer had arrived and with very little effort I had it set up and in about 20 minutes I had printed my first Benchy.

While I was waiting on the printer to arrive I looked into a couple of apps, Bambu Slicer and Fusion360. Fusion360 has been in the maker community for years and I had first heard about it for making woodworking plans. On the one hand it is very accurate and using things like User Parameters sounded like a great way to plan out woodworking projects, however, I found that I could get by with some simple sketches for now.

For 3D printing, however, that accuracy is important and Fusion360 is an amazing tool. If you search for Fusion360 tutorials on YouTube, this video is likely to come up—for good reason because it does a really great job of going over the basics:

Following along with what I had just learned, I created a bracket in Fusion360, then sent that over to Bambu Slicer. to prepare the print.

Since I hadn’t spent too much time with the printer yet, I had stuck to a lot of the default print settings. I printed my first design and tested the fit with the camera.

I had picked up a few ¼ inch screws and had to use a little pressure to get it to fit into the bracket, but for the most part it had fit and confirmed the size of the bracket would work.

I jotted down a few notes to make revisions, then I decided to test the strength of the bracket. Within seconds the side of the bracket snapped and right away I realized where support was weak.

I went back into Fusion 360, made the adjustments I had written down, and then added some support along the length of the bracket.

After printing out this revision I could tell right away that this was more solid. I had a few more minor tweaks to make and printed out a new revision. This time I switched to a beige-colored PLA that I got for woodworking projects.

I used the camera to figure out where the bracket would need to go onto the pieces of wood that would be attached to the roof.

I drilled a few pilot holes and then used wood screws to screw the bracket into place.

Assembly

At this point all of the wooden pieces were cut and ready for sanding. I knew I wouldn't be applying a finish to the wood so I went with 120 grit paper to smooth things down. I left the inside a little rough, as that might help the birds move around inside, and then I used a 220 grit for the final sanding on the outside pieces.

I grabbed my wood glue and used my brad nailer to assemble the floor and the walls. Keeping in mind the width of the door, I used glue and a clamp to assemble the mortise and tenon support.

After this dried I did one more round of sanding around the outside where needed.

For the roof, I lined things up and clamped down a piece of wood to use as a guide while I measured out the location of the roof pieces.

I used some wood glue to hold the roof pieces together, then carefully drove a couple of nails in from the inner part of the roof. While the glue may be enough to hold it together, the nails add a little extra support.

I re-added the magnet hardware to the door and the front wall, then use clamps to hold the door onto the side of the box. I mounted a couple of brass hinges along the back of the birdhouse. I used brass because it's weather resistant.

While the hinge and the magnet worked well to keep the door shut, I decided to add a couple of eyelet hooks to the bottom of the birdhouse. These could act like a lock by using a string or a small zip tie to hold them together.

One of the things that is highly recommended for bluebird houses is to provide young birds with something to grip their talons on as they try to climb out of the entrance for the first time. I used a rotary cutting bit to create some grooves beneath the entrance.

Another recommendation is to strengthen the entrance hole to avoid wear and to keep predators from scratching their way in. I found some 1½-inch plates and screwed those over the entrance holes.

With that, both bird houses were assembled and ready for delivery.

My mom lives nearby so her birdhouse could be hand-delivered, but my sister’s birdhouse would need to be shipped out of state. I reused some packing materials and did my best to secure the birdhouse in place. Because of the battery and extra weight, I had ordered her camera to be delivered directly to her as a separate package.

Fin

This project was fun in that this is the first time I was building two copies of the same thing. For the most part they came out identical, but there are a couple of places where the second time I did something I felt like I did a better job with it. I think that all comes with learning new things and making small improvements as you go.

This project also got me into 3D printing and since getting the printer up and running I've printed a couple dozen models off of sites like Thingiverse and Printables. I also started creating some more custom things in Fusion360 and I'll write about those in a future article.

As far as birdhouses go these are by the book, with a little added technology included. I learned that building a birdhouse can be super simple and scrappy, or super complicated and detail rich if you want them to be. As long as birds like them and can safely raise their family and send them on their first flight, then it’s a win.

Epologue

Speaking of winning, the research for this project also led to a really cool opportunity.

Because I had recently purchased a camera from Netvue, I received an email about a birdhouse product that they were working on that just happened to have its own camera situation. The product, called Birdfy Nest, had a lot of similarities to the general measurements in my birdhouse design, but they also include a camera on the outside so you can see birds as they enter and leave the birdhouse. It's also got a few nice features like a wire mesh floor and some nice ventilation holes on the roof.

The email was a call for testers and after applying and waiting a few days I was selected to join the testing program! This means that I’ll be getting my own Birdfy Nest to set up and try out, in exchange for providing feedback to the team behind the product. I’m really looking forward to setting it up and seeing if I get some birds of my own. After building my own birdhouses, it’ll also be cool to see how they’ve done things differently and I think it’ll help in providing feedback based around my own experience.

Making More Headphone Hooks

Will — Sun, 02 Apr 2023 07:00:00 -0400

In late 2020 I made my own holder for the pair of headphones that I was using in all of my WFH Zoom and Teams meetings. This design fit the curve of the headphones and the spacing between the wall made it easy to return the headphones to their home, just as easy as it is to remove them for use.

Since then, I designated a couple more pairs of headphones that each serve specific purposes around the house. I bought a pair of wireless gaming headphones that stay in the living room and don't stray too far from the couch. Also, as a Christmas gift for the family, I bought an electric piano and reused a pair of wired headphones as monitors so we can learn and practice on the piano without disturbing everybody in the house.

Both headphones are resizable and are generally around the same size as my office pair, so I wanted to reuse the design of the original hook, but change the mounting setup to fit each location.

Design

In 2018 I added a thin shelf next to our living room couch for a place to store my iPad and charging cables. I wanted to keep the gaming headphones in the same general area, so my thought was to hang the new hook off that shelf. I also had some scrap left over from the shelf so I could match the wood to make it a cohesive piece.

I originally wanted to use a piece of wire or some sort of metal connected to the shelf and driven into the back of the hook to hold the headphones up. It had to be strong enough so the headphones wouldn’t move or fall off.

Because I knew the thickness of the shelf, I could get a way with making this hook a little deeper than my previous hook design.

The piano lived in another room in the house and next to it was a three-shelf, rolling utility cart made of metal. We had an extra hook with a strong magnet on it that would be perfect to attach to the cart, so I thought I could bend the hook on it and use that to hold up the wooden hook for the piano headphones.

Being near a shiny black electric piano, I thought this would be a good place to use a black polyurethane finish that I had used on my side table. At that point it didn’t exactly matter what wood I used, but I quickly got an idea for that.

Revisiting a Classic

So the wood for the gaming headphones was already selected, but for the piano I thought this would be a great use of scraps from an actual piano, since I had a bunch of that laying around already. I pulled out a piece that was around the right thickness, but I would need to cut it down to a workable size.

The wood used for the piano felt like it was generally strong but not too dense. It was easy to cut and shape. I wasn’t sure what type of wood it was made out of, but it would make since if it was made from fir or birch as that’s what a lot of pianos were made of at that time.

I used the original headphone hook to figure out the size and then cut down the scrap based on the direction of the wood grain.

On the gaming hook I wanted to cut the wood down to create the least amount of wasted material, so I marked and cut it down to the length of the original hook, with the plan to double it up with a glueup.

I cut the gaming hook again in the middle, then turned it around so that the wood grain wood match up when I laminated it. I wanted the seam to live where the headphones sit so when you look at the front face of the hook you wouldn’t see where the pieces were glued together. This all worked out well and the dimensions fit the wider band of the gaming headphones.

With the glue up done, I traced the original hook to draw the outline onto each piece.

I used the table saw to cut them down to just about the height of the final hook—leaving a little extra material knowing that I would be sanding it down to the curve shape.

Following the process of the original hook, I cut down the pieces and used a belt sander to get a rough shape. Then I used a handheld sander and 220 sandpaper to smooth out the curve.

I used a drill press to create the mounting hole for the piano hook, based on the hook on the magnet.

For the gaming hook I tried experimenting with a few different materials. I started with a thick piece of sculpting wire, but found that to be too flexible. I tried bending a wire hanger but found that to also not be a great fit. As I was looking around my workbench I realized I had collected a ton of allen wrenches over the years, so I selected one of the shiny ones and cut it down with a hacksaw.

I used the drill press to drill a hole at the size of the allen wrench into the back of the wood piece. I took the shelf off of my wall and drilled a hole into the center-rear of it.

Matching Finishes

I still had the same wipe-on poly that I used on the original slim shelf, so I mounted the hook without any glue so it would stand up freely, then I wiped on the finish. I let that dry and added a second coat later.

I also did a dry mount of the piano hook onto the magnet so I could wipe on the black poly mix.

I attached the magnet to the top of a jar and repositioned it based on what side I was finishing. I started with the back and did just one coat there, then made sure to eliminate bubbles as I covered the front and the sides. I really liked how you can see the grain of the original piano wood behind the shiny black polyurethane.

Mounting in Place

I mixed up some strong, thick epoxy so that once they are mounted the hooks wouldn't move or reposition themselves. This was especially important for the gaming hook because it would be attached to the bottom of the shelf and there was no other support to hold it into place.

I used the point of a wooden skewer to guide the epoxy into the holes, then after putting the metal mount in I wiped off the excess epoxy while it was still viscous.

I wanted to make sure it was straight so I measured and aligned it so the hook was flat in both directions. Once I had that down I moved it aside to a place where it wouldn’t get bumped or moved while it was drying.

While some accuracy was important for the piano hook, I just had to do a little bending of the magnet’s metal hook to get it lined up. The metal was pliable but strong enough to hold up the pair of headphones that would go on the hook.

I dropped some epoxy into the back of the piano hook and then connected the magnet to it.

After it dried I moved it over to the utility cart to make sure that the angle would be flat when attached to the cart.

Fin

The design for the original headphone hook works well and I use it every day. Reusing that design made it just as easy to remove and store the new headphones. During the process of this project I realized that I have a ton of pairs of single-purpose headphones (one for mowing the lawn, one for playing drums, etc ...). So far these are the only ones that warrant creating hooks, but if I ever need to get a new pair for something, I know which design I’m coming back to. 🎧

How to Build an Upright Grand Piano

Will — Sat, 01 Apr 2023 07:41:00 -0400

When I work on a maker project I usually like to take a lot of photos and write up a blog post to document the process. This is usually done within the weeks following the project because at that point a lot of details are fresh in my head and I can recall the new things I’ve learned along the way.

Today I noticed a folder full of images on my computer from a few years ago. It contained photos of a piano, and with this being a maker blog, I can only guess that at some point I had made my own upright grand piano 🤷‍♂️

I don't recall much, so here's my best guess at how it all went down:

Getting Framed

Pardon my dust. My first step in this process was to get the back portion of the piano all done. As you can see here it looks like I started with a frame and some beams for support.

The frame looked easy enough to manage. Just needed to hammer a few things into place and we’re all good.

Piano Heavy Metal

Okay so I am still fuzzy on what exactly happened here, but I definitely remember this piece—and so does my back.

One thing about pianos is that you need this heavy plate of iron to hold up to the intense amount pressure the strings put on it. This is like the skeleton of the piano, providing the structure that everything else is built around.

So I flipped the backing frame over and set in some guides to support the iron plate.

A perfect fit.

Next up came adding the tuning pegs. The pegs went through the metal plate and into a piece of wood that was predrilled with holes for each peg.

I remember starting off screwing these by hand, but I found the right drill bit to use and that sped things along greatly.

I guess you can order just about anything online these days because I got this box full of perfectly sized piano strings.

One important thing to note here is that messing with piano strings on a piano is no joke. Although the metal plate is strong, you can feel the tension change as you loosen and tighten sections of strings. For this next part I made sure to wear eye protection, gloves, and long sleeve clothes for protection.

With the strings attached to the pegs, all I had to do next was lift the piano up onto its feet. Up you go!

To make it easier to move the piano around, a pair of handles were added to the back.

The Key Takeaway

So what’s a grand piano without a set of 88 black and white key? And what’s a set of keys without a place to put them?

First things first, a tray and support structures are added to to the frame of the piano.

Within the tray go a bunch of pegs that are used to hold up the keys. The keys sort of do a balancing act on these pegs.

Just like the strings, I got a box of keys over here. Shipping must be great around here because these are perfectly organized!

Next up came the module that contained all of the hammers and the connections to the keys.

That is set in place and a keylid is installed to protect the keys when not in use.

From there, a cover with some sweet carvings on it is added. I’m just going to assume that I did these carvings. Like freeform sketching, but in wood.

And from there I guess we're done...?

Fin

So making a piano probably wasn’t all that hard to do. If you have a free afternoon to spare you can probably follow this guide and throw one together for yourself. Happy pianoing 🎹

Okay, so here’s the thing. When we bought our house it came with this piano. While my wife and I thought this was a bonus, that we’d fix it up and hire a tuner to come in and help us get it working, it turned out to be a much larger undertaking than we thought.

The piano was unplayable and several of the keys were misaligned. I took apart the piano enough to find that a lot of the leather straps that connected the keys to the hammers were so old that many of them had disintegrated. A few key pieces of wood were cracked—maybe damage caused by moving it at one point. We didn't know the history behind this piano but it seemed like it was moved into the house by the previous owner but that it hand't been used in decades.

First we tried to figure out what it would take to fix it. Lots of parts would need to be sourced or custom made. There were so many parts that were worn down that it seemed like we'd be replacing a lot of the internals. The cost and the time commitment were a lot for a couple that just gave birth to their second kid.

Our next step was to find a new home for the piano. I posted on Facebook groups and online marketplaces and found that not only did our piano not gain any interest, but there were also many other folks struggling to offload pianos that were in even better shape than this one. Local organizations that resold donated furniture only took working pianos and the local music-related organizations I checked with didn’t want to fund the repairs or tuning needed to get the piano back into working condition.

We decided to get the piano out of the house, but the only way to remove it would be to tear it down into pieces the garbage collection would take. I found a friend who just happened to be looking for a set of piano keys for a project so I gave those to her, and the heavy metal iron plate went to a guy who takes metal scrap to the junkyard. As far as the wood in the piano goes, I still have a lot of it and have used some of the support frame as part of my work bench and for a few other things.

It would have been cool to get the piano working again, but during the teardown process I got to learn a lot about the inner workings and the details put into a piano like this. I can imagine the people who originally put it together took several weeks to get all the precise mechanics in the right place. Here are a few more shots I got before demolition to appreciate some of the piano’s details:

Video Backdrop

Will — Sun, 06 Nov 2022 21:32:00 -0500

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we brought home our laptops and did what we had to do to create makeshift offices around our houses. For a while I spent some time at the dining room table, until eventually cleaning out enough desk space for a computer setup in our spare, first-floor bedroom.

Before we started working from home, we used this space as a craft room. A pair of tables against the wall provided me with a place to set up a monitor and keyboard. While not the most ergonomic setup, it did the job for what we thought would be a very temporary working situation.

As part of my job, we had regular Microsoft Teams and Zoom meetings, so I had spent a good amount of time on camera. One thing that bothered me was that the room behind me looked very busy (this was before Teams had perfected the art of the live blurry background). I wanted to find a way to simplify things, but in a temporary way where we can move things out of the way when it wasn't needed.

I ordered a shoji screen (a Japanese-style room divider) on Wayfair and set my webcam up in a way that I liked. For a time, this setup worked fine, but eventually I started a new job that was fully remote, giving me a push to set up a permanent office space.

In doing so, I got a new desk that I placed in the middle of the room—giving me a view towards the window. Behind me was a blank, white wall, so I decided to move the shoji screen against the wall, as both a place to store it, and to also bring back the video backdrop. The room divider fit just fine, but when my desk was raised into a standing position, you could see about two feet of the wall above it.

I want to stress that this ... is the least important ... problem ... ever.

But still, I wanted to fix the gap, as now the room divider that was supposed to remove webcam background distractions became a distraction to me.

Maybe a more practical reason to change things was that vacuuming the office meant hitting the shoji screen, and I also wanted to avoid any unnecessary wear and tear.

Design

Anyway, I needed to get the room divider up off the floor in a way that was sturdy and out of the way. I thought of hanging it, putting it on a shelf, or just propping it up on a couple of legs. This was the kind of thing where I had no pressure to work on it, so I’d come back to thinking about this problem as it popped into my head. At one point, I thought about how our slatted coffee table was assembled and that became the inspiration for where this project would go.

I needed a way to hold up the shoji screen, so I thought I’d start with the idea of a really tall, slatted shelf that was mounted on the wall. In essence, it would be made up of slats and some sort of mounting brackets.

I had already built a different shelf for the room using some solid poplar, so I decided to stick with the same wood to match. I bought enough to create 1-inch slats that would be spaced about .4-inch apart.

For the mounting brackets my plan was to pick up some pine or some other, cheaper wood, but I found some leftover 3/4-inch plywood that I thought would have no problem serving as a structural base. I figured for about 70-inches wide, I would be fine with 6-8 plywood brackets. If I were using metal, I could get away with 3.

I didn't want to have to deal with finding the wooden studs in our walls and then basing the placement of the brackets on them. I also wanted it to be easy to take the shelf down if I needed to. Using French cleats seemed like the obvious solution. I also happened to have enough plywood to make the cleat and the brackets out of one piece of scrap.

Cutting the Slats

Making the slats seemed pretty straightforward. I took two boards to the table saw and ripped them down into 1-inch pieces.

This gave me about 16 slats to work with. I planned for 15, so I had one extra on hand.

I purposely cut the boards lengthwise first. This let me inspect the ends and line them up before cutting them down to the correct length. I don't know that this added much to the process, as I expected there to be rough starts or tear out, but I didn’t run into any issues with my cuts.

The Part You Don’t See

I planned the depth of the brackets based on how much room I had between the wall and the other furniture in the room. I also wanted to make sure there was enough material to provide enough support for the slats, as well as enough material to hold everything up on the French cleat.

I cut the plywood boards down to the right length, and ripped them to the right depth. I then held them together with a series of clamps and used a dado blade to cut out some room for the shoji screen shelf. I then used the dado to do the bulk of the cutout needed for the French cleat.

I swapped out the tables saw blade and rotated it to about 45° to the left. I grabbed the longer portion of scrap plywood and cut out the cleat. I then brought the blade down to where I thought it should be to cut out the angled portion.

Unfortunately, I left the blade a little too tall and was off by about half an inch. I wound up getting the correct cut, but it came out sloppier than I had hoped. I was a little concerned with the structural integrity of the brackets and my thought was that I should go ahead and redo them, but I decided that if I could get things lined up right and felt that they fit well on the cleat I would leave them as-is.

I used a cutoff from the cleat to check it out and things lined up just as I had hoped. I decided to keep going with them.

To hold the slats into place, I wanted to use the dado to cut grooves into the brackets. I did a couple of tests to see how deep the grooves should be and to dial in on the width and the spacing.

Once I had that figured out I marked up the first bracket and clamped them all back together into one solid block.

For the most part, cutting the grooves went smoothly. I used one of the slats to check things as I went. A couple of times I moved the fence on my table saw to slice off a millimeter, but the initial measurements all seemed pretty close.

Tear out happened on the end piece but I made extra brackets so it could be sacrificed if needed.

Testing out a few slats really started to let me see what the end result would look like.

The Part You Do See

One little detail that came to mind as I was working on this is that I didn't want the brackets or the French cleat to stand out when you looked at it. The wall this was going on was just plain white, so I thought that if I could paint the cleat and the sides of the brackets white they wouldn't be all that noticeable.

The front of the brackets were pretty noticeable when you looked head-on, so I wanted to paint those, but I also wanted to leave the raw wood surface to glue the slats on. Cutting the grooves in one big block gave me the idea to run painter’s tape along the length of the groove, then cut between each bracket to make it so the tape could only be found in the surface of the grooves.

This took a long time to do, but it was a matter of working slow and steady to get it right.

With all of the tape in place, I took the brackets out to the garage to paint them with some spray paint. Again, I was using some leftover cans of white spray paint and primer, so I did enough coats to get the front of the brackets where I wanted them to be, and painted the sides and the cleats with what I had left in the cans.

You know those videos on social media where the caption is "Satisfying" and it’s a video of someone pressure washing a sidewalk? This wasn’t exactly as satisfying as that, but it was pretty cool to remove the little pieces of tape to find that my plan all worked out just as I had hoped.

Mounting Troubles

So I had done all the work to make the slats and brackets and the only major thing left was to assemble everything.

I had thought about how I was going to attach the slats to the brackets and I felt although glue may hold up fine, I’d like to either screw or nail them into place to give this piece more support as I was mounting it or carrying it around.

I didn't want to show screw holes or nails on the front, so I thought about using my brad nailer to drive a nail through the back of the bracket and into the slat. If I had lined things up right, I could use glue and then have about a half inch of nail helping to provide support to all the slats.

The issue with this approach arose when I tried shooting a nail through a test piece. Being that this plywood was made up of five layers of alternating material, I realized that driving a brad nail through the sides of the compacted layers was unpredictable and required much more PSI than it would have if I were driving the nail through a solid piece of poplar.

If I had thought about this before, I would have certainly done more tests and would have started with a different approach. So I thought about alternatives.

At first I thought about drilling a hole into the back of the brackets and then lining up the brad nailer to fire into the gap. Not only did this not prove to be effective, but it also led to more inconsistency.

I took a look at how my coffee table was mounted and I noticed they used screws to hold the pieces on. Ultimately I think this would have been the best approach to take, but I landed on using glue on all of the brackets, along with brad nails into the front of the slats that were connected to the outer two brackets.

I decided to settle on this approach because both ends of this shelf are hidden behind other things in the room. Since this project is all for me, I can live with that.

The next step was to dial in the PSI for the air pressure needed to drive the brad nails in while being flush to the slats. My test piece got quite a workout throughout this project.

I went through the process of squaring off the brackets and attaching them to the slats. This all went pretty smoothly as I worked out the spacing and double-checked things against the cleat.

I had to get a little creative during assembly, though. I had to move everything out of my wood shop and up onto our exercise mat to give me enough room to assemble everything. Since I had them handy, I used some ~50 pound weights to help secure the glue onto the slats.

I moved things back into the wood shop to give the slats a coat of wipe-on polyurethane. This was the same finish I used on the existing shelf and I was happy to see the final color of the wood match up pretty well.

While that was drying I measured and leveled off the French cleat. I used some extra brackets to help double-check my work and to make sure the cleat was in the right place to hold up the shoji screen. After that I secured it to the studs in the wall.

I lowered the backdrop shelf onto the cleat and moved everything into place. Things just fit perfectly. I left about half an inch at the top of the shoji screen to give it a little room to move (or if the house decides to settle). I also had lucked out that the depth worked well with a nearby utility cart. Even the spacing of the brackets was right on in that it gave me access to the one outlet on that wall.

The one thing that wound up as a happy accident is that I had an LED light strip along the floor and I had considered it to be a low priority. If I had to remove it because it no longer fit then I would do that and find another use for it.

What I found is that not only did propping this shelf of the floor give me more room to tuck the light strip underneath, but it also have this really cool effect where the light would taper off between the gaps of each slat.

This wound up being a superfluous cherry on top of an already unnecessary project.

Fin

This project was more an exercise in trying to figure out how to make this work than it was about its reason for creating it. I’m happy with the end result and it makes me happy to know that I can figure out and execute something like this—learnings and errors included.

Almost as happy as I am to know that my backdrop on Teams is no longer out of place 🍱

Mid-Century Bird Feeder

Will — Sat, 06 Aug 2022 10:22:00 -0400

School’s out and my son’s teacher proactively provided a way to fend off summer boredom by sending home a Summer Bucket List filled with ideas of things to do to. On that list there were items like "Make a root beer float" and "Read a good book". The one that got us really interested was to "Make a bird feeder". My kids get excited when we pick up project kits from Lowes and Home Depot, so this seemed like it would be a fun project to do together.

Design

So there are lots of ways to go about making a bird feeder. We looked around and found plans for classic bird feeder designs that could be made with just a few planks of wood and some hobby glass. We also found lots of one-off designs on places like Etsy where makers used materials like glass or 3D-printed pieces to create some really detailed pieces. One of the trends that I liked was bird houses and feeders that reflected modern buildings or homes.

As a fan of mid-century style furniture and architecture, I really liked the idea of using angles and the use of different materials to create visual impact. In our case we planned on doing everything with wood, so we thought we'd use different color stains to achieve the look of using different materials.

We planned on using cedar and glass for the whole thing. We designed it to have a roof that comes off where you can pour bird feed into a hopper that dispenses it through a gap at the bottom. We designed in a perch to give the birds a comfortable place to stand when coming in for food.

Glue Up

To construct the bird feeder I picked up about 16 feet of cedar. I had a few feet left over from a previous project, so I had a little extra on hand as well. The roof and the base of the feeder were designed to be about 2.5 planks wide, so I used the miter saw to cut out 6 pieces at equal length.

I recently got a planer and used this as an opportunity to test it out. I ran the planks through to smooth out the top and bottom of each piece. I cut down two pieces to the half size and then lined up all of the pieces I'd be glueing up to see how they’ll fit. I marked the tops of both glue ups and then used a biscuit jointer to cut out slots for biscuits.

I applied an even layer of glue to the edges and used a set of parallel bar clamps to glue the planks for the top and the base.

Even though I used the parallel bar clamps I found that both pieces were a little uneven. Since the thickness of these pieces didn't have to be precise, I ran them both through the planer one more time to smooth out the surfaces.

I wanted to base to be nice and sturdy, but I wanted to roof to be a little lighter, as well as a little longer (to account for the angle), so I used the planer to cut the roof down to about 2/3 the height of the base. I then used the table saw to trim the base down to it’s final length.

First Floor

The hopper would be made up of a three-sided box with horizontal cuts that butt up agains two vertical pieces that hold the glass in place. I drew the plan for this on the base so I could check things like the miters as I went. I also wanted to route out the space for the planks so the base would help in holding them into place.

At some point I came across a router edge guide and set it up to work with my router’s plunge base. This way I could line up my cutting pieces, start up the router, push it down and make cuts at a clean line, at a precise depth.

This worked fantastically well.

I used a chisel to clean up the corners and used a cutoff to test that the width of my cuts.

Angles on Angles

To get the height I wanted for the box we needed to do another glue up. After the glue dried, I used one piece in a dado blade set to cut thick, flat dados lengthwise.

Starting with the middle of the box’s three pieces, I rotated my table saw to 45° and used a cross-cut guide to make the cuts for the box. For the sides, I made one cut and then planned to use the miter saw to cut the flat edge to of the pieces to size.

This is where I made a mistake.

If you look closely at the photo below, you can see where my dados didn't line up. I made the angle cut on the wrong side, so the groves didn’t line up and the grain didn’t match.

At this point I should have started over, by redoing the glue up, then re-cutting the dados, then re-making the cuts. However, I decided that if I can make a good 45º cut on the two side pieces I'd keep them as-is and work around the mixup. Luckily things went smoothly in the angled cuts, so I moved forward from there.

When I started thinking about the design for this, I envisioned myself sketching out the proportions to get a feel for what the design would look like, then taking that into something like a vector drawing app, or even something like Fusion 360. There I could work out all of the angles and get exact measurements to work from.

Or I could just wing it all.

I opted for the latter and at this moment needed to make a decision on the main angle that determined the rest. I visually lined up the side of the first floor box with the roof piece until I got an angle that I liked. I marked the angle and then used a straight edge to draw that on the box piece.

I took the box piece over to the miter saw and carefully lined it up. I used a stop block to make sure I could repeat the cut again on both side pieces.

I took the side pieces and placed them in the grooves of the base, then took the top piece and placed it along the top to verify the angle looked good. I felt like this first cut was spot on!

As far as the back side of the box goes, I could have cut it on the miter saw and left it flat, but as a challenge to myself I marked what the matching angle should be and used the table saw to cut down.

The two front sides of the hopper were meant to change up the grain pattern to give the design a little contrast. I took two more pieces of wood and planed them down to be about a half an inch thick. Then I took my time and used the miter saw to cut down the angles for the bottom of the pieces. Where possible I used clamps so I could use one cut on both pieces at a time.

I went back to the feeder base and routed out grooves for these side pieces. I also took the two sides of the box with the mistaken miters and used the table saw to cut in 90 degree rabbits that lined up with the two vertical side pieces.

After testing the fit, I set up my router edge rig again—along with some clamps—to cut out the grooves for the glass.

The last step was to match up the final angle at the top and use the miter saw to make the cut.

As a bonus detail, I noticed the angle of the roof looked a little unfinished, so I used a quick square to line up and match the edge of the base. After another adjustment of the table saw, I made the cuts to the front and the back of the roof.

With the hopper pieces all cut, I started the process of staining them. A few years ago I bought a few different colors of this stain and polyurethane mix and my kids and I thought that this would make a good color combination for our feeder. We used a lighter, redder color to show off the dado grooves, and a darker color for the horizontal sides of the hopper.

I wanted to stain the side pieces first because I didn't want to make any mistakes or messes during the staining process. I made sure to avoid staining any side that we planned on gluing together or to the base.

Dowel Movement

The perch was designed to be super simple. I had a hardwood dowel on hand (I think it was made of red oak), so I based the perch around the size of that. I started with a couple scrap pieces of cedar and cut them down to size. I used a drill press with a forstner bit on it to cut out holes on each piece.

I used a dust collector part to help draw out a rounded angle at the top of each piece. I then took this over to the belt sander, thinking this would be an easy way to get the rounded edge. This proved to be harder to do on a belt sander. It seemed like a better job for a disc sander or a band saw.

To smooth out the edges, I clamped both pieces together and manually used an orbital sander to sand them down.

I cut the dowel down to size, put a little wood glue on each end, then attached it to the base pieces.

I put a little glue on the bottom of each perch base piece and lightly clamped the whole perch to the feeder base. I then used a brad nailer to drive a few nails from the bottom of the base up into the perch base.

With the perch fastened into place, I used some boiled linseed oil to coat the roof and the base of the feeder. A friend of mine 3D printed a set of pyramids that can be used to help in drying pieces like this. They come in handy when you want to coat the top and bottom of a piece.

Again, I avoided applying oil onto any area that was going to be glued to another piece of wood.

Construction

With all of the main pieces ready to go, I started the final assembly.

I was thinking about how the hopper would work and in order to avoid having a bunch of bird seed that doesn't make it to the front of the feeder, I used some scrap to cut and place a ramp along the back side of the hopper.

I used glue and the brad nailer to put it all together from the inside to avoid any visible nails on the outside.

From there I started gluing the pieces into place. While each piece of the hopper would be glued together, I also drove nails up from the base into each of the sides to give it some extra support.

With the base in place, I started to think about how to keep the roof on. After a few different ideas I settled on attaching a flat piece to the roof that matched up with a support beam inside the hopper piece.

I cut the piece to fit the width of the hopper, then cut it into two part. I attached the larger part onto the roof, then attached the smaller beam to the sides of the hopper.

I used the brad nailer at an angle to give the beam some extra support.

I was thinking about the process of filling in the bird feeder, a well as what might happen on a windy day, so I attached a chain to the support beam and the roof, as well as added a short dowel to act as a place to hang up the chain to keep it out of the bird seed.

The final piece for the hopper was the glass. I had bought a glass cutter and a few pieces of glass to work with.

This was my first time cutting glass, so of course I watched about a dozen videos on YouTube on how to do it. While most of the videos said the same thing, one tip from this video, in particular, was very helpful: After you score the glass with the cutter, placing a dowel right below you break line helps to create a clean cut.

I forgot about this tip and in my first attempt I had to break off the glass in a couple of places, making the cut uneven. When I did use the dowel the breaks were perfectly flat and precise.

With the glass cut out I placed it into the hopper. As cool as this looked, after I took these photos I realized that I needed a bigger gap at the bottom of the hopper so I wound up with a gap of about 3/4 inch.

The final step was to attach the mounting hardware to the base. I got this mount at a garden store along with a long pole and a base that you screw into the ground. I used a post leveler that I got for putting in a mailbox and used that to level out the pole.

Fin

This was a fun project and it gave me and the kids a chance to spend some time together in the wood shop. While the kids role was mostly to watch and learn, they helped contribute to some of the design choices along the way. Both the birds and I agree that these kids have great taste. 🦜

The A Cappella Book

Will — Sun, 07 Mar 2021 09:54:00 -0500

My history with The A Cappella Blog went from being the friend who hangs out with the crew, to being the unofficial photographer (for the shows I could make it to), to the designer/web developer who established the look and feel of the site and its printed materials. My friends Mike Chin and Mike Scalise handled the things they were good at—writing, coordinating people and events, reviewing a cappella shows—and they trusted me with the brand and other visual things.

In the early 2010’s my day job consisted of developing interactive Flash components and client websites, and while I got to contribute to the direction of the designs I was working with, I had almost entirely made the shift over to development and the production side of things. Working with the Mikes on ACB gave me a place to use my background in graphic design and to dabble in the things I was excited to see my design colleagues do on a daily basis. When the opportunity to lay out and design The A Cappella book came along, I was excited to be a part of it.

Cover Design

To be honest, I don’t think I had given enough thought into what the cover should look like. The Mikes and I had thrown around a few concept ideas based on things that we liked, but our favorites ideas looked a lot like what other blogs or writers were doing. I specifically remember liking the idea of creating a microphone sculpture out of paper and shooting that, but the choice to do a single microphone alongside the title had been played out.

The banner image for The Lone Microphone, another music blog that was active in 2013.

At some point we settled on the idea that since this book was tied so closely to the website that we could design the book to match the website’s current look and feel. At this point, we had some nice photography to work with and had established this look where the image at the top of the page would get cropped over a gray background and the colors that highlighted the image would be blurred and faded into the content below. It was all based on some fancy javascript and canvas work we were doing on the website at the time.

While we didn’t exactly know what the photo at the top of the cover would be yet, we had started down the road on a concept showing the Mikes in the audience at a performance or somewhere on stage like they would be when hosting an event. With our goal to create a cover that would get the concept of the book across to potentially Kickstarter backers, we found an empty theater and did a quick photo shoot.

After trying a few options, we laid out what the cover could look like and prepared to make a few mockups.

Because the iPad had been around for a couple of years I put together an e-book mockup, and since we expected to distribute more of the printed version of the book I wanted to create a printed mockup and photograph that as the main Kickstarter image. Because we only needed to show enough of the book to get the idea across, I had designed a cover and spine in the proportions that we planned the printed book to be.

I had found a book that I had read and no longer needed and thought that we could glue the cover design onto it for the mockup.

I printed out the cover design and used the physical book to guide my scoring marks and trim cuts. I used some mounting paper to adhere the design over the book’s existing paperback cover. At this point we had a good enough representation of the final product to begin advertising the campaign on Kickstarter.

Kickstarted

Just like the work on the website, the book was a labor of love for me and the Mikes. We didn’t expect to make a lot of money on the book, but we did want to cover a few costs to help with the book’s production. We turned to Kickstarter and set up a campaign that would get advertised to readers on the website.

During the campaign we sort of hit readers over the head with a Kickstarter campaign widget in the sidebar of the website. This led readers to the campaign page that included a video that we had shot at the time we had done the cover photo shoot. Just like working on the mockup of the book cover, I had learned a lot about shooting and editing video from the people I had worked with.

After some promotion on Facebook by the Mikes, the campaign was successful with just a couple of days left to go.

This had meant that the work on the real book was ready to begin. As we made progress with the book, we kept Kickstarter backers and the site’s readers up to date by replacing the campaign widget one that linked to the latest news about the book.

Book Photography

While the Mikes were writing the content for the book I worked on the design of the cover. The layout didn’t change too much from the mockup design, but we decided not to go with a photo of Mike and Mike on the cover. I shot a few photos of microphones or other stage elements and we took some time to think through ideas while going to shows and working on content for the site and the book.

On the site we had taken photographs of collegiate groups performing and we had a collection of photos that we had begun using on the site or in promotional material.

I don’t think we ever considered using any of these as we wanted the book to feel like its own thing, but in these photos there is a common look that you get from the type of stage lighting used in college theaters and auditoriums.

Since we had connections to a local college theater, we decided to get some friends together to do our own photo shoot that would be set to look like a live performance. I had purchased some LEDs and work lights and set them around the stage, we had asked our friends to come dressed in black and white dresses and slacks, and I directed and shot the cover using my Nikon 300s.

The thing I was going for in this photo was to capture the moment just before a song starts where someone in the group has just played a note into a pitch pipe and was just dropping it back into their pocket. Because the book was for students and performers working on their craft, the idea was that they might recognize this moment of calibrating the group, even if the audience wasn’t fully aware it was happening.

It was intended that we focused on the hand and the pitch pipe, and all of the folks in the group would be cropped out or blurry. We avoided using any specific school colors and tried to make it feel like we could have been capturing any group in the collegiate a cappella world.

The one thing I wish we had done was get more diversity into the photo. One of the great things about seeing groups from around the country—and sometimes around the world—is that the members come in all shapes and sizes. We were lucky to gather some close friends who gave up their time to help us out, but given the chance to do it again, I would have tried harder to get folks who better represent the people we were meeting.

One little Easter egg that I don't know too many people caught is that to fill in the crowd of people on stage, Mike Scalise—alongside his then girlfriend, now wife, Amy—made it onto the cover.

Designing the Content

For the entire run of The A Cappella Blog the articles were set in a serif font and san-serif was used for things like captions or sidebar content. We kept that going for the book by picking from a print typeface that we felt was easy to read over longer chapters. Each chapter had a title and some included black and white photos to illustrate the topic. The book spanned about 275 pages and the last 60 pages were made up of a snapshot of the website’s Group Directory section, detailing the names and makeup of all of the groups we had been keeping tabs on over the years.

The book was laid out in InDesign and it was created for the size that we would be printing it in. Using master pages, inline images, and paragraph styles made it easy to update the content of the book or the Group Directory pages as changes would be made.

During this process I had printed a few pages on my printer, but to really test its readability we had ordered copies of the printed book and waited to get those before making design revisions.

On Demand Printing: The Good, The Bad, The Weirdly Cut

From the get-go we determined that we'd have a digital edition of the book and a printed edition. Because we planned on self-publishing the book, we would have to do all of the work to print, store, and distribute copies. To make this easier, we decided to go with Amazon’s print-on-demand service. It would digitally print your book and ship it to the buyer on a per-book basis, or in small runs.

Using Amazon meant that the profit on the book was slim, but we had decided that the goal was to distribute the book and that making money on it was secondary. This on-demand setup allowed us to set it all up and run itself while we focused on going to shows and creating other content for the site.

This also meant that the quality of the printing was in Amazon’s hands, so we took some time to do some test runs and iterated design tweaks until we landed on the quality that we were happy with.

The first thing we did was send the first draft of the book along with the mockup cover to get a feeling for the size and print quality. The quality of the interior pages was great and the cover was something like what we had expected from digital printing at the time.

After that we had taken the final cover photo and made some updates as we dialed in the final layout. At one point we created a version of the cover that let us see what the main photo looked like at a few different brightness settings.

After one last proof, we finalized the design and focused the rest of our time using the mockups to proof the book and focus on content updates.

One thing that was a result of using Amazon’s on-demand printing service was that when we went to order the final copies of our books we noticed that some of the books were cut incorrectly. While we had bleeds in place to accommodate variations in cuts on the front and back faces of the cover, the issue was that it looked like the book was settled on a slant when the book was cut so the whole book was crooked if you looked at it from its spine. When working with a local printer or book binding company, I'd expect their standards to be high enough that if you asked they would have corrected this. Being Amazon we had given up on the idea that they would reprint and resend the book to us and we had let it go.

Fin

Working on the A Cappella Book was another random design-related thing I’m glad I got to do. While I'm happy creating websites, it was a fun exercise to work on a tangible item that occupies real space. Just like everything I did for The A Cappella Blog over the years, I appreciate the Mikes giving me the chance to be a part of it.

The A Cappella Book had gone on sale for the past 5 years, and as of this writing we’ve decided that we accomplished the goal we wanted with the book and it’s now made available as a downloadable PDF. You can read it by downloading the PDF on The A Cappella Blog website.

Headphone Hook

Will — Sun, 01 Nov 2020 18:23:00 -0500

Working in 2020 means making whatever space you have available your base of operations. When buying our house, we knew that the extra bedroom on the first floor was to become some sort of office, but after moving all of our stuff in it became the room with all of the unpacked stuff, and a couple of desks. Since we've been working from home so much this year, we’ve taken some time to spruce our little office up and make some quality-of-live improvements.

One of those updates was to add in a set of metal pegboards, by a company called Wall Control, for some easy-to-get-to storage. This gave me the goal of getting some stuff off the desk, including my everyday headphones.

Design

The pegboard works with standard pegboard hooks, but you can also buy flat hooks that go into slots along the surface of the pegboard. I like these because they are easy to move, but once you get them on they stay in place. The thing about these hooks is that if I were to just hang my headphones directly on the hooks they would absolutely ruin the material of the headband part of my headphones over time.

As far as things you can buy go, I've seen some hooks that go under the desk and stands that sit on top and most of them have some sort of flat or curved hook that contours to the shape of your headphones. I decided to take a block of wood, create a rounded edge to rest the top of the headphones on, and attach them to the flat pegboard pegs.

The Things You Learn in Wood Shop

After cutting the wood down to the height I wanted, I used a 6 in. bit as my guide and drew the cut line onto the wood. I then walked around my basement shop and tried to figure out what tool would work the best to take a rectangle and cut it down to a smooth arch. I recently got a drill press, so I thought that maybe I’d drill a bunch of holes close to the line and then cut away and sand it down from there. Looking at my table and miter saws, I thought no way is that happening.

I didn’t actually have wood shop at my high school, but in college I had a 3D design course in RIT’s well-equipped wood shop. There we had access to a band saw—which would have been perfect here—but I also learned how to use a belt and disc sander. While I know it would be cheaper to just buy a headphone stand, I used this as an excuse to pick up a belt sander that I had been thinking about getting for a couple of years.

It didn’t take long to get dust flying and for the piece to begin to take shape.

Next up I got a couple of the pegboard pegs and measured and cut them to the depth I wanted them to be. I used a vice to hold them still and slowly cut them down with a hack saw.

Going back to the wood piece, I measured out and drew guides for the pegs to where they would be inserted into the back. I figured the drill press would give me a straight cut down into the wood, so I got a clamp and fired it up.

I drilled one hole at the top and one at the bottom of the guide, then I drilled through the middle and then used a screwdriver as a chisel to cut away the middle portion. After a quick dry run, the pegs fit perfectly.

Sanding Surprises

As I was sanding down the wood block with a finer grid sand paper, I noticed that the color of the wood started to change. As if there was a dye or stain already on the wood. I bought it from a lumber store that often reclaims wood, so I wasn’t super surprised, and in the case of this piece I sort of liked the change in appearance right where the headphones would lie.

The wood was already on the dark side, but I still wanted to finish it, so—after a touch of stain conditioner—I reached for one of my two favorite finishes: wipe-on polyurethane.

The red color and the pattern had a sort of grilled salmon sort of look.

After a little epoxy in the holes, the pegs were secured and all that was left to do was wait for it all to dry and cure.

Fin

This was a super simple project and it’s about all I could get to do these days. It’ll be a nice addition to our newly organized office space.

Cornhole Boards to Reduce Boredom

Will — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 16:37:00 -0400

These days we're spending a lot of time at home. A lot. Pretty much all of it really.

To give the kids a reason to get outside and have a little fun, I put together a cornhole set using some 2x4s, plywood, and spray paint. It's a pretty simple build and there are lots of plans available online, so I found one and got to work.

The Hole in Cornhole

It starts with two 2x4 foot plywood boards with a six inch hole centered nine inches from the top edge. I picked up a six inch hole saw bit and drilled a hole into each board.

The hole saw bit did a good job at creating the holes but the edges felt a little rigid, so I used a rounding bit and routed out the top and bottom edges. I also routed the top of the plywood to soften the edges and smooth down the corners.

The frame was made up of 4 pieces of 2x4. I screwed the frames together and then screwed pilot holes into the plywood tops.

I countersunk the screws to keep them from poking out and affecting gameplay.

Feeted

The feet are where I strayed from the instructions a little bit. I didn’t have bolts on hand to create the foldable feet many of the guides included, and while a ten minute drive to a nearby hardware store is usually how I would remedy this situation, I wasn’t going to throw on a mask and make a trip in this case. Thanks, SARS-CoV-2.

Now worries. I cut the feet down and screwed them in without using any glue. This way I could replace them when I have the bolts handy.

I know I could use geometry to figure out the correct angles needed to cut the feet so they'll lay flat on the ground. Several plans noted the correct angle, as well, but I used this method that involve a spool of twine and a pencil:

Flip the board upside down and place one of the 2x4s that will be cut for the feet into one of the corners of the board.
In this case, measure 12 inches from the bench and mark the side of the 2x4 closer to the corner of the frame.
On the same side of the frame, but at the other end, place one end of the string under the board and pull the spool up and over to the mark on the 2x4.
Mark where the string intersects with 2x4. From here you can put the string away.
If you have a miter saw that’s angle can be adjusted, you can use the markings to adjust the saw to make the cut.

After cutting the feet down to size I screwed them into place. I flipped the frames over and sanded them down to remove any rough spots on the top and the sides.

Paint, My Nemesis (but Maybe Not So Much This Time)

I wanted to paint the boards but didn’t want to go with the triangle pattern I’ve seen in many of the plans. I got the idea to do a racing stripe from some Matchbox cars the kids have around the house. I had some red and black spray paint around along with some leftover white paint and primer.

I painted the top and sides of each of the boards with the white paint/primer mix. I had just enough for one coat so I didn't do the bottom or the feet.

For the racing stripe I wanted to alternate black and red on each board, so I taped up all of the sides and taped off the areas where the black paint would eventually go.

I started with the red paint because I thought that Black paint would do a better job at covering up any stray red paint.

After a couple of coats with the red paint, I peeled the tape off of the tops and took a look at the results.

After the red paint was dry I covered it up with masking tape in preparation for the black paint. This was an easy thing to do because I was working with straight lines. I can see needing to take a different approach if you were to create more complicated shapes or curves.

I sprayed the boards with two coats of black paint and waited for them to dry.

Shortly after the second coat, I took the tape off and took a look at the result.

I’m not always a fan of working with paint, but I’m happy with how these turned out. There are a couple of places where the lines didn’t match up correctly, but for the most part they achieved the look I was going for.

Now the black and red paint wasn’t an accident. Thanks to the Wirecutter, I found a set of eight cornhole bags in red and black. These are pretty simple bags but they seem durable enough to withstand the wear and tear my kids will surly bring to them.

After letting the boards dry over night we gave them a quick play test.

Fin

Being such a simple build it was nice to work on a quick project in these times where my free time is at an a minimum. This is the first project I’ve done this year and it was nice to take some time away from programming and thinking about work to build something for my family. I also got some help from my older son and it was awesome to spend some time showing him a thing or two about paint and woodworking.

I’m really looking forward to spending more time in the shop and I have several projects in mind that I want to tackle when I can get to them. For now I can’t wait until our lives can go back to normal and when the risk of getting COVID-19 is behind us. Until then we have a new outdoor game to help us pass the time.

Side Table Slim

Will — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 22:54:00 -0400

Sometimes you just need a little extra room to put things. In my case, I needed a place to put a drink, some remote controls, and my phone while relaxing on the couch. Based on the dimensions of our living room, purchasing a side table wouldn't leave us with much room to walk through the gap between our couch and chair, and while a coffee table may do, with small children running around, we didn't want to introduce another obstacle into our living room.

I had the idea to sort of build a shelf next to the couch, it would be about 5-6 in wide and the top would sit just below the arm of the couch. I've never built furniture with a drawer before, but one would be really handy to hide the collection of device-specific remotes that are rarely ever used.

Being against the wall, you would see the back, top, and front so the design of the sides wasn't important. I wanted this shelf to fit between the wall and couch without any gaps, so I made sure to cut out space at the bottom so I didn't have to worry about running into the molding that runs along floor.

Cutting and Constructing

There didn't need to be much to the interior, but I had to consider the height of the drawer and how that would affect where I put support pieces. One things that I wanted to make sure I got right was that the drawer looked like it was tight and flush with the front piece, but not too tight that it was hard to open and close, so I cut out the lower front piece and the drawer face, and confirmed the rest of the dimensions still worked.

As far as material goes, I wanted to make sure the top was still solid, even though I planned on painting everything, so I used some left over maple from my stool project. I didn't have enough for the back and front, so I used plywood for those and the interior.

After cutting everything out and doing a quick dry run, I started gluing and screwing everything into place. I added two pieces of wood to the inside for support, but I cut their width to be a little narrower than the top, front, and back. This let me inset ¼ in. plywood for the sides.

The upper support also became a container for the drawer to sit in, so I put everything together based around the height and depth that I planned for the drawer.

Before securing the top, I decided to add another feature to the shelf to accommodate some electronics I tend to use on the couch. I knew I wanted to add a qi charger and found one that was small and minimal. I've seen some really nice pieces of furniture where the charger is embedded into the bottom of a thick piece of wood and the idea is that you would route out a very thin layer of wood and the charger would charge your device through the wood.

While I would love to figure this out someday, I wasn't confident that I wouldn’t screw up this shelf trying to make that happen. I wound up routing a space along the top and embedding the charger into it. I ran a hole through the top and ran the cord down into the interior.

I also popped a couple of hole in the back where I could run a laptop charger and a Lightning cable to charge an iPad.

To get everything right, I did a dry run of the electronics. This let me decide where to pop a hole in the back to run power out to a nearby outlet.

Fingers in the Saw Blade

Up until this project, I had never made a drawer or attempted to create something with more advanced joinery, but I have had enough wooden furniture to know that dovetail and finger joints are true methods for creating solid drawers. I went with finger joints as a way of dipping my toe into the water.

After measuring and cutting enough pieces for 2.5 drawers, I took all of the pieces over to my friend, Ian’s, place where he had used his Glowforge to make a finger joint jig that helped make sure we could accurately—and safely—cut the finger joints out on a table saw. This helped to make sure all of the joints were correctly spaced and our setup avoided tear-out when cutting with a dado blade.

After getting all of the sides home, I cut out a bottom and glued everything together. I made two drawers just in case one of them didn’t work out, but they both turned out great. The second drawer currently houses a mix of LEGO bricks, crayons, and play dough in our kids’ play room.

I wanted to personalize the drawer pull since this was a piece of furniture that was tailored specifically for me, so Ian used the Glowforge again to cut out and engraved a few faces for me that I inserted into a metal pull base.

My first attempt was to round the edge of the face down and to dip it into a clear epoxy to give it a glazed look. I bet I could figure out the right way to do this now, but back then the edges were sanded a little uneven and air bubbles took away from the look I was going for.

I eventually wound up using one of the other faces that were cut out and engraved from some walnut. After using some epoxy to secure it into the metal base, I screwed the pull into the drawer.

I painted everything, ran all of the wires, and installed the shelf into our living room. I knew that someday I would upgrade some of the electronics, so I made it easy to unscrew the sides in case I needed to pull the cables out.

Fin: Part I

This side table serves its purpose while taking up as little space as possible. As always, there are things I might consider doing differently (like embedding the qi charger into the top in a different way), but I learned a lot in making the drawer and it was really nice to design and build something so simple that I use almost every single day.

I Heard You Like Shelves so I Made a Shelf to Put Above Your Shelf

A few weeks after completing the side table, I realized that I could use a little more room for things like my iPad or laptop when they weren’t in use. While they fit just fine on the side table, I realized I could add a small shelf to make use of the space on the wall above.

To find a material that fit my style I went to my local lumber store and found a beautiful piece of bocote hardwood. I didn’t know the history and rarity of bocote at the time, but it's color and grain pattern were exactly what I was looking for.

I knew from my experience using ipe that hardwood like this requires careful cutting and routing, so I took my time and marked and double-checked the measurements of each of my cuts.

I planned on making a shelf that could hold my iPad, so I used a ¼ in. round nose router bit to cut out a groove that would hold the iPad in place. I made the groove long enough so if I ever got a bigger iPad-like device in the future, I’d be covered. I also cut out a second groove that could fit an Apple Pencil or another thin device.

I picked out some mounting hardware that could hold the shelf flush to the wall and used a cross cut sled to cut the back edge of the shelf to fit around the mount.

Since I planned on using the shelf mainly for my iPad, I used the rounding bit and the cross cut sled to cut out a place for a Lightning cable to rest when it wasn’t charging my iPad.

All that was left was to do some sanding and apply a finish. I didn’t want to change the color of the Bocote too much, so instead of using something like boiled linseed oil, I used a clear wipe-on polyurethane. It got a little darker, but it only helped to bring out the wood grain even more.

Fin: Part II

This shelf is very simple, but every time I take the time to look at it I appreciate the look and the feel of the material.

The Letters

Will — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 20:47:00 -0400

When our first son was born we decorated his room with the letters of his name by ordering a set of modern, wall-mounted letters online. When we were expecting our second son, we also planned to put his name up on the wall, but instead of buying the letters, we decided to make them ourselves.

My initial idea was to use a laser to cut the letters out of layers of wood and acrylic. The wood would be against the wall, painted white, with keyholes hidden and cut out of them so they could be hung on the wall. A thin piece of translucent acrylic would be adhered in front of 2 or 3 layers of ¼ inch sheets of wood. The acrylic would give the front surface a glassy look just like the old white iMacs, or EVE from WALL-E.

I really wanted the edge of the acrylic to be cut flush to the edge of the wood, but I realized the challenge would be to get the acrylic to stick to the painted wood. I don't have much experience using acrylic and my guess is that even with something like acrylic cement, getting it to stick to the paint in a clean and attractive way might be an issue.

I discussed this idea with my friend, Ian from Roc City Laser, and we came to the idea of using epoxy as an alternative to acrylic. I hadn't cast epoxy before so I really liked the idea of testing it out for this and future projects.

Part I: Material Test

Easy Casting

My first step was to get some experience mixing and working with a two-part epoxy. Because epoxy is very expensive I picked up a small kit of EasyCast for my first test.

The two-part kits usually contain the epoxy in one bottle and a hardener in the other. When the two combine, the chemical reaction hardens them and cures into a solid piece.

I remember hearing a tip about reducing wasted epoxy by measuring out the volume of your mould using water and marking your mixing container for both parts. I was planning on using a silicone mould of some LEGO-like figures, so I started by filling it in with water, then I poured that water into a measuring cup. It came to about 3.5 oz., so I rounded up and measured out 2 oz. of water and poured it into a mixing cup, marked the cup with permanent marker, measured out another 2 oz., added that to the cup, then marked the cup at the new level.

I followed the mixing instructions to fully combine the epoxy and poured it into the mould.

Because I've seen makers embed things in epoxy, I grabbed a couple of actual LEGO pieces and used a bamboo skewer to lower them into the mould. What I found was that the pieces did not float or stay suspended, but they did stay put once they sank to the bottom of the mould. I'd still like to figure out if there's a way to hold the items in place, but this wasn't an important part of this particular test.

I picked up a heat gun and used it to pull up as many bubbles as I could. It was difficult to get the bubbles from the bottom of the mould, but I wonder if it would help to only pour a thin layer, use heat to pull out the bubbles, fill in the rest of the mould, then remove the remaining bubbles.

I had to take a moment to appreciate the glow of the UI on the heat gun. This looked just like a light-up effect from a movie.

The epoxy took about 24 hours to harden enough where we could pop them out of the mould. I popped out the first one, then had my assistant pick out the rest.

The figures standing on top of a performance of Radio, Radio by Elvis Costello and the Beastie Boys.

My first impression is that these looked great. I can see where I had poured too much or too little and how the meniscus from each affected the backs of the figures. The EasyCast did not seem to completely harden, but instead it's almost like a very hard rubber. The bubbles in some of the corners were noticeable on the larger figure, but not as much on the smaller figures.

At this point I was convinced that the epoxy would work, so the plan was this:

Use the laser to cut three layers of letters out of the wood
Glue up and paint the three inner pieces for each letter
Glue up and seal the outer pieces to create moulds to pour the epoxy into
When the epoxy would dry, slide the epoxy out and wet sand it to a perfect, shiny finish

Ian used his Glowforge to cut out the letters from ¼ inch plywood. We created two variations of the letter "W", and one rectangle that might represent the thickness of one of the letters.

I glued up the letters into stacks of three, and glued the moulds into stacks of two. After a quick sanding I painted the letters with spray paint and let them dry.

I used silicone to seal everything up. At this point it might have been a good idea to test the moulds by pouring water through, but at the time I didn't think about doing that.

I ordered a big kit of two-part marine epoxy and hardener. I figured I would use it all for this project or if I had extra I could use it for future projects.

I also ordered a blue, glow-in-the-dark pigment for fun. I wasn't planning on using it for the letters project, but since I'd be testing out the new epoxy I thought I would play around for some other projects I have in mind.

I mixed the epoxy to test my moulds, but I also wanted to do a test for sanding the epoxy, so I poured another round of the LEGO-like figures.

I planned to wait about 24 hours for the epoxy to harden, but they were dry enough to take out around 18 hours later.

I took out the figures and had some fun testing out the glow-in-the-dark look. The pigment worked really well!

The larger figure looked awesome and after a good charge in the sunlight or with an LED, it can glow for hours.

Unfortunately the moulds were another story.

A lot of epoxy leaked out of the letter moulds and they became very messy. Also, I wasn't confident I would be able to wet sand the epoxy without messing up the layers of paint.

My plan relied on the pour to go smoothly as it would be very hard to repair issues with the paint after the fact. I could have kept working towards a solution, but we were getting close to our due date so I decided this wouldn't be the way we would do the final build.

This still might not be a terrible idea, but if I were to try it again I would look into making my own rubber mould from the laser-cut letters, pouring the epoxy down into the mould, then finding a way to place the letters on top of the epoxy in the moulds.

Part II: Pivot

With time running out, I decided to go much simpler for the final solution.

Design

The idea of using the Glowforge to cut layers of plywood into the letters was still the plan, but I wanted the do something unique for the top surface. Ian had suggested doing epoxy inlays and I really liked that idea, but it still had its own set of challenges that would need to be tested out.

I was looking through some of my old photos for ideas and came across the surface of an object that had a halftone pattern cut into it. It's super simple, but I really like the textured look and since we were planning on using the Glowforge for the cuts, adding an engrave step to the top layers would be super easy to do.

I designed the files and sent them along to Ian with one cut layer and one engrave layer.

Production

I picked up a large, 4x8 sheet of ¼ inch plywood and got it to Ian. He brought me back a couple of test letters so we can see how deep the engrave should be and to see if the size worked. They looked fantastic.

With a few minor adjustments, the plan was moving forward and Ian put together a quick test piece to see how everything would come together. I used this to test out the spray paint to make sure the engraved pieces would fill in correctly.

Ian cut out and engraved all of the letters and dropped them off. The engrave looked great and the letters all stacked nicely.

Between Ian's suggestion and hearing a tip about buying wood glue in bulk, I bought a GlüBot and a gallon of wood glue. Ian also recommended silicon brushes to apply the glue. The cool thing about these is that you can just let the glue dry and peel it off very easily.

I did a quick dry run to make sure all of the letters lined up and that I had them all right side up.

My original plan for the keyholes was to use a keyhole router bit to cut into the back of each of the letters, but Ian had the idea to use the laser to cut the keyholes into the bottom two layers. This design worked perfectly when it came time to hang the letters.

Most of the letters were made up of flat edges and corners so lining them up was very easy. The “O” on the other ̦ was a little harder to line up and this would have been an issue when getting to the glue up step.

When cutting out the “O” the laser left a small mark on the inside piece in the same spot for each layer. This was super helpful lining up the layers in the dry run.

I used a technique I see in a lot of tabletop glue up where I took a pencil and made a squiggly line on the outer edges. Between the squiggly line and the marks on the inner cut I was able to put the letter back together quickly when it came time to gluing the layers together.

After gluing all of the layers of the letters together and waiting for them to dry, I sanded down all of the edges. While the Glowforge cut the edges very flat and accurately, I wanted to remove a little bit of the burn mark to make it easier to apply white paint later on.

You can see the burn mark coming off when sanding with 150 grit paper.

I applied a thin layer of wood filler around all of the edges. This filled in a couple of gaps that the plywood had, but it also flattened out the very small gaps between each layers.

After sanding down the wood filler, I painted the letters with spray paint and let them dry over night.

Hang Time

I wanted to make sure the spacing and alignment of the letters were correct before putting them up onto the wall, so I found a large piece of paper and laid the letters out on top of it.

I started by drawing both the ascender line and baseline guides onto the paper.

My wife, who is the resident designer, kerned the letters and helped me line up the keyholes on the backs of each letter. We did this by tracing the letters, holding the paper up, and popping a hole into the top of each keyhole.

With the keyhole markers in place, I leveled and taped the paper onto the wall. I marked the wall and used a screwdriver to create some pilot holes. With screws in the wall, the letters were ready to hang.

Fin

Even though the original plan for this piece turned out to be very different from where I started, I'm happy with the final outcome.

Working with the epoxy really sparked some ideas. With all of the extra epoxy I now have, I'll probably get started on them sooner than later.

The Glowforge really helped make this happen in that it allowed me to experiment and come up with several options and quickly see how they would work before spending hours committing to one solution.

I just hope my son enjoys these letters as much as I enjoyed making them for him.

Shoe Wrangler

Will — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 00:00:00 -0400

A few years ago my wife and I went to IKEA and bought TJUSIG: a modest shoe shelf and organizer. Back then it was just the two of us and—while we had plenty of shoes to fill the two-level rack—it served us well for years.

Then we had our first child and his shoes required space on the shoe rack. Now we're just about to have our second child and the limited space of this shelf is officially a problem.

TJUSIG

A new shoe organizer would help us better use the space that TJUSIG occupied, and building our own set of shelves would allow us to tailor the organizer to fit the particular sizes of shoes we typically wear.

Design

We broke the design process down based on a few important factors.

First, the space we had to work within was just the height from the floor to the light switch on the wall, and between a door and a wall outlet. Ideally we would stay within this size when considering how things will fit on top and at the sides of the cabinet.
We wanted to utilize the metal bars from TJUSIG, since those provide a way to allow snow and water to drop down into a drip tray, below. To avoid having to cut down the bars, the inner width of the cabinet would be fit to their length.
We have a few common dimensions in our shoes, so planning out the vertical space between the shelves was pretty straightforward.
My wife has a lot of flats, so we decided to build in some cubbies to pack them in even more.
Our kids‘ shoes will only get bigger over time, so instead of designing the shelves for toddler shoes, providing a few different sizes would allow us to use this organizer for years to come.

While the primary use of the organizer was to store our shoes, I wanted to use this opportunity to solve another storage problem we had. I often leave my messenger bag and my son’s book bag on a nearby chair or on the floor because we had no specific place to put them. Since we’re no longer restricted to two shelves, I wanted to use the top of the organizer as a dedicated place for our bags.

Making Plank

I went to my local lumber store to look for wood that would be visible at the top of the organizer. Normally I would look for planks that just need to be cut to length and glued up, but I found two great pieces of walnut in the bargain bin that look like old scraps or maybe they were unfit to sell due to the uneven surface.

The first thing I did was even out the rough edges by using a table saw method I learned from a Jimmy Diresta video.

First, you find a flat piece of wood with a flat edge on at least one side.
Straighten up and attach your board to the flat piece so that it hangs over the edge that’s opposite the flat edge.
Keeping the flat piece up against the table saw fence, slide the fence over to move the rough edge past the blade to the size you would like to make your first cut.
Cut through and make your first flat edge on your rough board.
Detach the board and move your guide piece aside.
Flip or turn your rough board around so that the new, cut edge sits up against your fence.
Slide the fence over and trim off the other rough side.

From here you could cross-cut off the ends to flatten them out, but I didn't need to do that just yet.

Next up, my friend, Ian, gave me a hand in planing the boards to remove the rough surfaces. I didn’t mind having the bottom remain rough, but I really wanted a smooth, even top and I had to make sure the remaining wood was thick enough to glue the boards together.

Once the boards were planed, I used biscuits and glue to join the boards together.

For my first time doing this, I'm thrilled with the results.

Going forward, I think I'll find myself using this method more often. I might have passed on the chance to use walnut—to use a cheaper wood—if I had to buy these boards at full price.

When the glue dried I measured out the length that I needed for the top of the organizer and used my circular saw to cut the boards to length.

While shaping the top, I also did a quick test to see which finish I would like to use. I have some wipe on poly and boiled linseed oil handy, so I tested them both. In the end I went with the linseed because it looked like a more even finish when it seeped in. I only used one coat of linseed oil and I like how it looked.

I set the top board aside and started working on the rest of the structure.

Production

Cutting the Sides

I took the techniques I learned from my previous project for routing out grooves for shelves and applied them here.

I started by measuring out the shelves and the placement of the metal bars onto the inside piece of plywood.

The front and back bars on TJUSIG had inserts at each end to attach bolts to the base, so I drilled through the front and back placements on my inside piece.

I then used my ½ inch cutting bit to route out about ⅛ inch deep circles for each metal bar.

With the same depth setting in place, I used the ½ inch cutting bit to route out grooves for each of the three shelves.

I flipped both boards over and countersunk the four holes for the metal bars.

A quick test of the countersunk holes showed the bolts would be flush when the bars are attached

Cubby Grooves

I had cut the boards for the shelves and measured out the placement of all of the cubby dividers.

I attached my new ¼ inch cutting bit and used that to route all of the slots for the cubbies.

At first, I was doing things like trying to measure the distance between the round edge of my router to the edge of the bit to calculate the distance of the guide to the cut. But I wound up making this quicker by holding my guide piece up against my speed square, lining up the router bit to the cut, then moving the guide in until it touched the edge of the router. Normally I would think this would be inaccurate, but in practice it worked pretty well.

I did a quick check to make sure all of my grooves lined up

I wanted to make the sides of the organizer the thickness of two pieces of plywood, so I planned to glue an outer piece to each of the inner boards. For extra support I predrilled some countersunk holes and matched them up into the outer pieces.

I did a dry run of the shelves and once I had confirmed that everything lined up I installed the metal bars by lining them up and screwing the bolts into the inner side boards.

I then glued up the two sides with their outer boards.

After letting the sides dry for a bit, I glued all of the shelves into place and ran some long clamps in the front and the back to hold everything into place.

Because the cubbies weren't as deep as the sides, I screwed a thin piece of ¼ inch plywood onto the back of the shelves.

Cubby Dividers

Okay, here's where I made my first mistake. I knew that I would be painting the cubbies at some point, but my plan was to put all of the wooden pieces together, then paint the entire organizer at once. In retrospect, I could have taken the time to paint the cubby dividers separately, then glued them in pre-painted. I don't know if this would have caused a mismatch in the painted finish, but I have a feeling it would have sped up the paint job immensely.

Such as it is, I had cut all of the dividers and glued them into place. I clamped the shelves vertically to lock the cubbies into place.

Trim

Since I was planning to paint the organizer white, the wood that would be painted didn't need to match, exactly. This was great because I had a bunch of extra maple from a failed glue up that I really didn't want to see go to waste.

I roughly measured out how much I would need to cover the top and front faces of the organizer, then cut them to width.

I then raised my table saw blade and used my push sticks to carefully cut each of the pieces down to a consistent ¼ inch.

To make sure every piece fit as perfectly as they could, I measured and cut each piece down as I went.

This allowed me to go slowly and clamp as I went. Speaking of Diresta, I might need to follow his advice and pick up a couple more clamps each time I have a big project. The pace of this part of the project could have been greatly sped up if I had maybe four or six more long clamps.

Creatively clamping to distribute the force as much as possible

Another thing I did to make sure the sides were as strait as I could get them was to let the trim hang over the sides just a bit. I then took an edging bit and used my router to cut the trim right to the edge of the side board.

If you look closely at the shadow, the trim is uneven over the side board

Paint‘s Double-Edge

Other than the walnut boards for the top, some new rollers, and the paint, I didn‘t need to purchase anything to make this project. I had a ton of scrap or wood set aside for future projects that could easily be replaced. Since I planned on covering everything in paint, I didn't have to go to the trouble buying new wood that would match.

However, I'm learning that paint is messy to work with and—in this case—takes the finely crafted details and makes them look chunky and unrefined. Granted I wouldn‘t claim to be good at working with paint and the paint I‘m using may not be the right choice for this kind of project (for example, I probably should use several passes of spray paint instead of brushing on acrylic).

Anyway, I did my best to hide drips and to cleanly paint each cubby and shelf. I used a roller for the larger areas and I tried using foam brushes for the corners and smaller areas. Being my first time using the foam brushes, I was happy with how well they worked, but I can‘t say I prefer them over brushes, just yet.

I took the back off of the organizer and painted that separately. This worked out well because with so many corners in the shelf and cubby areas there were many drips that I had to tend to and clean up. Painting the back separately turned out smooth and fit nicely back into place.

After putting the back on, I took a look at the painted piece and realized that with so much white, the organizer looked a bit chunky. I wanted to put in a pop of color that wouldn't clash with the orange wall that the organizer would sit in front of. Because our orange wall was already an accent wall that was meant to pop on its own, I thought that using a lighter, yellower color would hold up well.

I rolled on two coats of paint and once the back was dry I screwed it back into place.

Metal Work

While waiting for the paint to fully dry, I took some time to clean everything up and put on some final details.

First, I had to clean up a few smudges of paint off of the metal bars. I tried doing this in a few ways, but the material that worked the best was some steel wool that I had laying around.

Speaking of IKEA ... Around the same time as our trip to buy TJUSIG, we picked up a few sets of folding wall hooks—also known as BJÄRNUM. We‘ve used these hooks in other areas of the house and decided these would work well for hanging book bags onto the bare sides of the organizer. With those in place, the piece was complete.

Fin

This piece is pure function over form, but it solves a problem in a way that‘s tailored specifically to the needs of my family, in our home, at a price that you just can‘t beat.

With a new baby on the way, finding time to work on project like this may become scarcer and scarcer, so before I take a break from these larger projects, I‘m glad I got a chance to put the learning I‘ve done over the past couple of years into good use.

My favorite thing was realizing the ability to take rough wood and turn it in to a smooth, seamless surface. This opens up a new approach to deciding on materials to use and I‘m looking forward to seeing what I can do with this in the future.

The Closet: A Series of Photos

Will — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 11:48:00 -0400

Bed Lights

Will — Sun, 15 Apr 2018 11:38:00 -0400

My wife had a solution to a problem that arose when we upgraded my son from a crib to a twin-sized bed. The issue was that the headboard we had bought sat too low and leaned up against the wall. It was possible to mount the headboard onto the wall, but we wanted to have the ability to move the furniture in the future. She suggested rising the headboard up, adding some shelves along the side, and adding a light strip to use as a nightlight.

Design

The design started with a frame made up of 2x4 beams. Plywood would be used for the top, the sides, and the shelves. The length was based on the shelves being inset from the headboard so they would be seen only from the sides of the bed. The height of the top shelf was set a few inches from the top of the headboard so toys and books could be placed up there without worrying about them falling over.

Routing for Shelving

The tops and sides were pretty easy to cut down on the table saw. I cut the sides in an "L" shape as part of the support that holds up the headboard.

I haven't added shelves to a piece before so I watched a few YouTube videos for suggestions and decided to route out a groove for each of the lower shelves. To avoid tear-out from the plywood I clamped both sides together and used "sacrificial pieces" on the edges.

I used a scrap piece of wood to figure out the width of the shelves.

A longer piece of scrap was set up as a guide for the router.

Guiding the router.

Having the extra pieces also helped in letting me test the thickness of the route before making an actual cut. I could adjust the guides if the cut was too tight or too wide.

Building the Frame

Because the frame didn't need to be created first, I was able to decide the length of it after seeing how the top and the sides fit together. I used a couple of scrap 2x6s to add to the support that holds up the headboard.

The Shelves

The shelves were cut to be flush with the top shelf so now that the frame was in place, I could measure and cut the shelf pieces down. For a little bit of detail, I routed out the bottom edges of the shelves.

The grooves I cut for the shelves fit perfectly, so I dropped in some glue and clamped the shelves into place. I made sure they were squared off as I adjusted the clamps.

When the glue dried I tested the placement on the headboard and everything was starting to look good.

Light It Up!

While I had the shelves sitting on top of the headboard, I marked where the light strip would go. I wound up using a Philips Hue LightStrip because I already had other Hue products in the house. This allows me to turn the lights on and off automatically around bedtime.

I routed out the back of the headboard to the length of the light strip. The light strip has its own adhesive on the back, so I cleaned out the groove and slowly glued the light strip into place.

To help make sure the light strip stays into place, I lightly clamped a board on top of the light strip and let it sit for a few hours.

Paint Job

I used the same glossy white paint that I used on my stool project, so I followed the same process as I did before.

I used a basic primer/paint combination as the foundation for the paint job. I did a couple of light coats to make sure I had a smooth surface before the final coat.

Putting the final coat shined and looked exactly like I hoped it would. This paint takes a little longer to dry but it did a good job at smoothing itself out.

Assembly

While watching the paint dry, I prepared for the final assembly. This included one large lug at the top, four more around the corners, and a eye bolt anchor used to help keep the headboard from falling over in case the bed gets moved.

I moved everything up into my son's room to put it all together there. I found that the headboard wasn't quite flat so I found there were some small gaps between the shelves and the headboard. This could have been mitigated through some sanding of the shelves earlier on.

I didn't grab a photo but I also screwed some supports into the headboard just below each of the lower shelves to help hold them up in case they get leaned on. The bond provided by the glue is very strong, but this will help hold the shelves up just in case.

Fin

Homemade Push Sticks

Will — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 11:34:00 -0400

We didn’t have shop class in high school, but when I got to college we had a 3D design class that gave me exposure to tools like the bandsaw, table saw, and a few other things that are happy to take your fingers off. In that class, we learned a few tricks to keeping yourself safe, such as using two pieces of scrap to hold the wood you’re pushing through a band saw or table saw, to give you a safe distance from the blade.

One of the things that got me started in making with wood is the bevy or YouTube videos and maker blogs out there. People in this community are willing to share their ideas and it’s easy to find several approaches to the same problem. The topic of push sticks was no exception.

I learned about a few different styles, but being most comfortable with the two sticks approach, I found this video by Matthias Wendal to a be a great guide in making my own push sticks.

What I like about this design is that it’s ergonomic and it keeps your hands far away from the blade, but you get the control of two hands.

Design

I started with some leftover oak I had tested for another project. The oak seemed hard enough that I could rely on its sturdiness, and it wasn’t too heavy either. One of the things I don’t like about it was how grainy it is, but in this case that could be a good thing by offering more grip on the handles.

I didn’t realize until later that Matthias included his design on his website, so I found a frame on his video of when he was working with the design and kind of drew it freehand onto some scrap cardboard.

I used an exacto and box cutter to cut the shape out and matched it up to the wood that I had already cut down to size. This allowed me to kind of preview the handle and to confirm that this design was what I liked. I traced the cardboard onto the first piece and made a few slight adjustments.

This project was a great excuse to pick up my first jigsaw. A bandsaw might be even better for this kind of project, but the jigsaw worked just fine.

I cut out the first stick.

This gave me an even better idea as to the final weight and balance of the push sticks. With a few more adjustments, I outlined the first piece onto the second and cut it out with the jigsaw.

What I learned by doing it this way was that even though both sticks came out similar in sizes they’re off by just a little bit. I think it was just because it was like taking two passes at the same design. It doesn’t bother me, but if I were making these for someone else, I would redo them. I made these push sticks before my step stool project, but if I were to make these again, I might try clamping the wood together and cut both pieces at the same time as I did with the sides of the stool.

The next step was to route off the hard edges. I routed everywhere except the front where the sticks make contact with the wood.

Finally, I put a hole in each handle in case I wanted to hang these up, then I sanded them down.

Fin

These push sticks work really well and I keep them right on the side of my table saw, so they’re easy to grab when needed.

I’ve seen many more videos by Matthias since then and this is by far one of the tamer projects he’s done. He takes a very engineer-like approach to a lot of his work and his YouTube channel is chock full of useful tools and woodworking techniques.

L

Will — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 11:32:00 -0400

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of my aunt and uncle, I asked Ian from Roc City Laser to put together a simple piece that could either stand up on a desk or be hung up on the wall.

Design

Ian had some leftover ipe that he had gotten from scrap day at Jimmy DiResta’s shop. It was a beautiful piece of hardwood that had some heft to it.

This time I started right in Adobe Illustrator and planned everything around a 5 in. square. The design is simple but the risky part was that we planned to engrave the wood first, then cut it and route out the corners. To help with the cutting, we put a score line around the piece, so I had a guide to cut from.

I planned to use boiled linseed oil again, since I liked using it so much it in my last project. I knew it would get darker, but it really changes the color on this wood to a redder, richer brown.

Testing out boiled linseed oil on ipe.

Cutting, Sanding, and All of That Stuff

After I received the engraved piece from Roc City Laser, I took it down to my shop and made the cuts around the sides on the chop saw.

NOTE: While the Glowforge is an awesome cutting device for thinner wood, we didn't have the time or stomach to attempt to cut through this piece with the laser.

Wow—this wood is dense. I barely made it through the first side and the surge protector connected to my shop tripped from the electricity my saw was pulling. It happened two more times before I could make it to the other three sides.

This wood is very sharp when cut. It could seriously slice your finger if you move it along a freshly cut edge. Because this wood is so dense, sanding by hand takes a while, but it's amazing how little you take off compared to sanding softer woods. I felt more like I was buffing or polishing the wood as I made my way through different grits of sandpaper.

Routing wasn't a huge issue. I decided to round out the corners of the piece instead of creating a rounded edge along the sides. Again, because the wood is so dense routing seemed to work better when it was done slowly.

The last step of the process was to apply the boiled linseed oil. I applied three coats on this in total and I was amazed at how much richer it looked when the oil seeped in.

The Cover Up. Dun Dun Dunnnn

Stepping back for a second: I took it slow and steady and the cuts all looked good, until I noticed a small chip in the top. I've seen a few tricks to avoid chipping when cutting across the grain, but because the test cuts turned out so well, I didn't think I needed to take precautions. Rookie mistake? I think so.

You'll notice in the photos below that the chip doesn't show up. This is because I Photoshopped them out when prepping to send these photos to Roc City Laser to share on social media. I'm not afraid to admit to a mistake that I've made and there's no avoiding it if you look at the finished piece, but I didn't want my error to distract anyone looking at the fantastic work that Roc City Laser did on this piece.

Next time I’ll try a sawdust/glue mix to see if that will work as a filler, or maybe see if I can salvage the tiny piece from the chop saw. Another lesson learned.

Fin

One Small Step

Will — Wed, 06 Sep 2017 11:15:00 -0400

Two things came together around the same time: my son was learning about washing his hands and needed a way to reach the bathroom sink, and my friend, Ian Auch, started up a local laser engraving shop, Roc City Laser. I planned on making a basic step stool out of 3/4 in. plywood and just painting it white, but the idea of engraving the steps took this project into a whole new direction.

First: Finish

This occurred around the time when I started learning and playing around with various finishes. Ian—who is always learning and seeking out new ways to craft things—told me about some success he had using boiled linseed oil as a finish.

Boiled linseed oil on maple (left) and sanded plywood (right)

With linseed oil in mind, I started doing some tests to see which wood looked the best with it. Although linseed oil made the plywood shine and it brought out the grain and the edges, the surfaces had this yellowish look that I wasn't a fan of. I wound up testing it on a scrap piece of maple, and I knew right away that was what I was looking for.

From there I decided the steps would be made of maple and the color of the sides would be of some sort of dark stain. In the past, I used some brush-on stain/poly mixes that look great, but clean up is a big hassle. It made testing stains on smaller pieces take more time than I wanted to spend.

I picked up a couple of cans of rub-on stains and some disposable rags (think extra thick paper towels). I really liked the color of Miniwax's Jacobean on the plywood. It has this nice chocolaty brown hue.

Pairing maple with boiled linseed oil with Miniwax Jacobean stain

Hiding Screws

Ian had also introduced me to the idea of using wood plugs to hide the screws used to support the steps. This made a lot of sense for this project because I wanted the strength of wood glue and screws to hold the stool together, but I didn't want any little fingers getting cut or stuck anywhere. As with most purchases, I started researching reviews on The Sweethome and picked up their top pick for a Japanese-style pull saw, the Shark 15 in. Carpentry Saw.

First attempt at plugging a hole using a dowel

To get the plugs to work, I picked up a dowel that matched my 3/8 in. forstner bit and followed these steps:

Punch and drill a pilot hole where the screw will be placed
Use the fostner bit to drill a hole about 1/4 in. into the drill hole
Countersink the inside of the hole a bit so the screw will be flush
Drive the screw in to attach the pieces of wood together
Cut a small piece of the dowel down to at least 1/2 in.
Put some wood glue into the hole (especially on the inner walls of the hole)
Place the dowel into the hole and wipe off any excess glue
Wait for the glue to dry, then use the saw to cut the dowel as flush to the wood as possible
Hit the dowel with some sand paper or a hand sander to flatten it to match the side of the wood
if you find any gaps around the cut, use some wood filler, let it dry, and sand it down to smooth out the area

After cutting and sanding the plug was smooth with the surface

Design

Earlier this year I picked up a 10.5 in. iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil with the intention of using it for projects like this. I found a great vector-based drawing app, called Graphic, to lay out the design of the stool. At this point I had already decided on some sort of space/rocket theme, so I decided to make the front of the sides of the stool rounded to follow the curves of a rocket ship. As for the measurements, I looked up a few step stool plans online to get an idea for what works and what is safe.

Placing the steps into position

Using a flexible ruler to draw out the curve

The design of the ship blasting off and the footprints at the top were a mix of inspiration and practicality. I had just finished listening to the audio book of The Martian and I loved the detail Andy Weir used to be so descriptive about the equipment and the suits that his characters used on their mission.

I designed the top step to include the kind of footprints you might make in the soil of Mars while walking around. When it gets engraved it provides some tread on the top step to make it a little safer to stand on, and it also indicates to my toddler where he's supposed to stand on the step. Spoiler alert: he totally uses the footprints to guide where he steps.

A sketch of the rocket blasting off

The idea for the rocket blasting off and the starry night scene followed and at that point I had decided to keep the natural wood color on the steps but to go to a spaceship-white finish for the rest of the stool. Not only would that give me a chance to try out a glossy, oil-based finish, but it would contrast better with the dark floors in our house.

I worked with Ian to figure out how to design the engraving art for the Glowforge and wound up doing the majority of the design in Graphic, on the iPad. Then I exported the designs over to Illustrator to clean up some pathfinder issues and to finalize everything.

The final art sent to Roc City Laser: black = deep engrave, blue = shallow

Because the laser is precise and can handle multiple engraving depths, I made sure the engrave of the rocket and the footprints were deep enough to add some tread to the steps, but the cracks and some of the stars got a shallower depth to give a little variation to the engrave.

Roc City Laser dropped off a depth sample to give me a couple of options to choose from

Testing out the final finishes: boiled linseed oil and oil-based white paint (ugh ... those brush strokes)

Once we had tested out the engrave, I cut, routed, and sanded the steps and delivered them to Ian. A few short hours later the engrave was done and he had sent me this shot.

Hot off the Glowforge

I was super excited to get these home and I got right to finishing. First, I used a conditioner to prep the boards. Then I applied two coats of boiled linseed oil. I know linseed oil should be mostly water resistant, but I also applied two coats of rub-on polyurethane to add some extra protection—hitting the boards with 1000 grit sandpaper in between coats.

The test piece with boiled linseed oil applied, next to the raw, newly-engraved board

The steps after the first coat of boiled linseed oil

Constructing the Rest

Putting together the sides of the stool were pretty straightforward. Once I did the initial cuts on the table saw, it helped to clamp together the two sides and move the clamps around as I cut out and sanded the edges. I wound up cutting everything out with a jigsaw, but this made me really wish I had a bandsaw in the shop.

I drilled out the holes for the plugs and routed the sides to smooth off the sharp edges. It really helped to lay out the boards earlier because I used the outline to route out the sides while stopping where the steps would go. This would leave a flat edge in the right spots.

Once the steps were screwed into place, I had glued the sides of the board between the steps and used a couple of pocket holes to secure it to the top step. I also used a few screws to fix it to the back of the bottom step, as well.

I glued in one more piece of wood towards the bottom back area to help add a little more support between the sides.

Just before putting in the plugs, all of the wood has been assembled

Painting: My Nemesis

I did several tests with the oil-based paint that I picked up. Each time I had some brush strokes or some areas where the paint would look droopy, so I wasn't super confident going into the painting step. Regardless, I taped up the steps and clamped the stool to a board and put on the first coat.

In my tests I found that if I started with a coat of primer/latex mix, it stuck better with the oil-based paint. This is something that I wasn't sure about, based on people online stating that you should start with an oil-based primer and never mix the two. I tried it anyway and found that this primer sanded really well and helped to fill in the gaps on the edges of the plywood.

The final coat was done with a gel-based, glossy white paint by Glidden. I don't know how to compare this mix with regular oil-based paint, but it did a good job at smoothing itself out and I really like the bright white surface it makes when it cures.

It took about two days to fully dry, but to my surprise one coat did the job. I'll confess that if you look really closely there are some small areas that aren't perfectly smooth, and one brush stroke that didn't smooth out completely. It kills me to get to the very end of a piece to make these kinds of mistakes, but I'm otherwise happy with how the paint turned out.

Fin

I learned a ton of small things with this project. People on YouTube and sites like Tested are a constant resource that I keep going back to for inspiration and to learn new techniques. I hope by making this blog, I can help add to the resources that other people use for their inspiration.

This step stool changed completely from my original plan thanks to the Glowforge and the expertise of my friend, Ian Auch. When he gets Roc City Laser up and running, I'm hoping to work with him some more to create projects like this.

Just to throw this out there, a few people have asked if they can purchase a stool with this design, but I'm reluctant to build something that's so tied to the safety of other people's children (I'd hate it if a child fell off of the stool because it wasn't balanced or engineered for safety). On the other hand, if there's any interest is buying steps engraved with this design so you can build your own stool, I'd be happy to talk about it.

Luggage Highlights

Will — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 14:10:00 -0400

When you're waiting at baggage claim, you see all sorts of ribbons, flags, and stickers that are used to help travelers find their luggage amongst the ever growing pile on the conveyor belt. While preparing for a family vacation, my wife and I wanted to make a new set of luggage tags that stood out. Our friend, Ian from Roc City Laser, just received his Glowforge and a bunch of their Proofgrade materials. He offered to make us some tags out of their orange acrylic, so we quickly put something together.

We came up with a very simple, color swatch-like style. They're big enough to be noticeable (especially with the bright orange material), but small enough that they never got in our way.

I'm happy with how these came out, but if I ever did a second version I think rounding the corners a bit would be a nice touch that we didn't think about in the first run.