Self Serve, draft Table / Keezer build

After starting my foray into home brewing beer. It became quickly apparent that I needed to keg my beer instead of bottling it. Bottling beer is a tedious and messy experience. But kegging is easy, you don't have to wash  and sanitize 48 bottles. Or fill them one by one with a plastic wand.

But when you keg, you have beer on tap whenever you want! Of course that means that you need all the equipment; Kegs, CO2 tanks, regulators, refrigeration, etc. It can add up quickly, and get expensive. There are some commercial models available, but they'll run you quite a bit. And they tend to just look like a mini fridge with faucets.

I wanted something more custom, that fit just right into a corner of my dining room. I went with the keezer style because it provided more space to fit up to 4 kegs (5 if I usd 2.5 gallon kegs!) So I made my own! The front and sides are painted with a chalkboard paint. It's framed in cherry, and the top is a birch ply wood.

 

An important part of most keezer designs is centered around the "collar". It's used to increase the internal volume of the freezer, and in other designs is what the faucets are mounted too. The original top is placed on top of the collar, and no holes are drilled into freezer itself. I really wanted a nice looking top with a draft tower instead, so my design ended up more complicated. 

The collar was a simple frame of 2x6. With weather stripping stapled to the bottom so that it created a decent seal.

 

Here you can see how the top is mounted to the collar by way of the hinges (Repurposed from the freezer). The top and collar simply sit on top of the freezer, and aren't attached to the facade in any way. 

The facade was a 3 sided box, with a cherry frame surrounding  1/8" plywood. I used an internal wood frame made of 1x2s to help me mount every thing together. It probably wasn't necessary and may have made the construction more difficult that it needed to be. Oh well.

I made a lot of mistakes while making this draft table. I feel like every time I turned around I had miscut something by an inch. It all worked out in the end. But this is one mistake I thought worth documenting. The freezer has a small lip on the top, but the internal dimensions of the facade were about 1/4" too small to fit the freezer lip. I was just lucky enough that I was able to use a chisel and carve out an awful looking groove to fit the lip. Now it fits perfectly!

And here's the first thing I put on tap. It's an irish stout I brewed from a partial mash/extract kit I got for Christmas. We tried it for the first time with a corned beef and cabbage.

Dip Pens

My mom is a very artistic person. She's created a lot of really nice things over the years in a plethora of media. So for this Christmas I decided to make her a set of dip pens. 

Dip pens are an older-but-still-relevant form of putting ink on a page. There are a ton of different types of nibs and inks available. They're incredibly versatile, with a dip pen you can use the exact combination you need to work in your style. Not only that, they're easy to swap out, easy to clean, and easy to maintain.

A dip pen is a very simple tool, consisting of four  pieces: the nib, the insert, and the holder (which is just turned wood and a brass tube). 

The insert is "inserted" into the brass  tube that's glued into the holder. You can buy the inserts cheaply online. The standard size will fit most nibs. It's just a round piece of steel with some claws on the inside to hold the nib. 

The nib is probably the most important part. The holder is about comfort, but the nib does all the work. Which nib does what, is a whole lesson that some one more qualified should teach you. Just Google for dip pen nibs and pick your favorite. 

The holder is where all the fun happens. This is the part we actually get to make our self. It was simply turned on a lathe, and a hole drilled into the end the nib insert will go. For the one pictured above, I wanted to try my hand was wire inlay. It was difficult. I used the very tip of a turning tool to make the groove. In hindsight, It would have been better to make a very narrow square gouge (As wide as the wire itself) and then use that to carve a square channel. I'll write a blog post about that if I ever get around to making one.

The groove ended up being triangular, which meant the wire would not stay in without force/glue. After muscling it around for a long time it eventually worked, and looked pretty decent.

Dice Rolling Tray

A friend of mine wanted my help to build a dice rolling tray. He's very into table top games that requires the rolling of many dice at once. And certain places were selling a similar dice trey for nearly $100. We decided we can do it ourselves to a fraction of the price. 

  

You would think that the hardest part of this build would have been the mitered frame. You'd almost be right. I had recently calibrated  my miter saw to do the tak board and hadn't touched it since. That made the frame a cake walk. The hardest part was getting the bottom to lay flat. The wood as we received it was pretty badly warped. At 1/4" it was pretty thin, and so prone to warping. But I hadn't expected it to be this bad. The bottom was assembled by gluing three planks of wood side by side. They were hobbled together more like it. Because of the warping they did not glue together straight we were a little worried about it, but I had a plan. Once the glue was done drying, it actually turned out very easy. The bottom was glued onto the frame, clamping out down with enough pressure to make the edges lay flat to the frame. Then the bottom was belt sanded flat, and any imperfections are minor, and on the bottom. The inside will be covered with leather liner, so all the inside imperfections get covered well. All in all, I think it turned out really nice. 

Tak board

A friend of mine had a birthday recently, and I was on a roll working on things in the garage. I decided to continue that energy and build him something. 

I was pursuing around the internet, when I stumbled upon a website selling these fancy made tak boards for $700. I thought that price was outrageous, and gave me the idea to try and made my own.

Now mine isn't quite as nice as the $700 version, but it turned out better than I had hoped. The secret is having the right tools. 

Obligatory finish pour.

 The two big pieces were turned on a lathe. They're a little bigger than I would have liked. But you live and learn :)

The Tak board was constructed by ripping 6 strips of two separate types of wood. Gluing them edge to edge, then cross cutting at a precise width to make squares.

Since checker boards are difficult to get right, any minor mistake in the sizing of any squares will cause glaring errors in the surface where the four corners are meant to line up. I decided to add some flare between each of the squares. The idea was to lessen the visibility of the mistakes. Turns out, it really classes up the board and subdues the Ridgid square nature that is a checker board, into something more pleasing. 

In-between each strip during glue up, there is sandwiches three layers of veneer, two white woods, and paduk.

 

The board was framed to give it some body and substance. I thought about adding some form fitting foam into the game board to hold all the pieces. But I discovered too late that the frame was not deep enough to totally accommodate the larger pieces. My wife croche'd a bag instead and it was perfect.

The star of this project was the cross cut sled I built for my table saw. It is an invaluable tool for safely and accurately using a table saw. It prevents the working piece from moving, which reduces kick back. And makes it easier to cut exactly where you intend to. I used the sled to also cut 60 game pieces it a relatively short amount of time, and with near perfection. 

 

Tobacco pipes

While camping earlier this year, a friend of mine mentioned that he thought pipe smoking would be really cool to try sometime. I thought about it and realized that there was no reason I couldn't make my own tobacco pipes to share with the group. So that's what I did. 

The three dark pipes are made with walnut, the light colored pipe with straight grain is cherry, and the curly grained pipe is briar. 

According to everywhere I read, "briar" is the correct wood for a pipe. It's hard, absorbs moisture, and is very flame resistant. I think it's a gorgeous wood. But it's very expensive. $20 for enough wood to make a pipe. 

I'm a little disappointed with how dark the walnut turned out after I finished it. Oh well.

Next time I'll take more pictures of the build process. I think the process for drilling these, and the process for making the long curved wood stems is worth documenting. The next few pipes I'm making will be out of briar, and a special one out of morta.

Wood Boxes

This is the first box I've ever made. I just jumped right into it, with whatever tools and knowledge I happened to have at the time. And I didn't have many of either, but it turned out really well regardless. Which I think is a testament to the philosophy of "Just do it". What have you got to loose?

I bought a scroll saw. And my first idea was to try and make a box with my new tool. I patterned the scroll work from an image of Mount Timpanogos.  But I used a blade that was too large, and I wasn't able to capture the correct level of detail. I was still happy with it though.

 

I bought this wood called "Birds eye maple". It's maple, with a lot of little marks that look like birds eyes. I thought it would look awesome as a moon, so I built it into my design. I thought the legs of the box would give it a modern look. But instead it came out a little more rustic that I would have liked. I learned later that a "modern" design has angles, and curves. Not just square legs.

My little brother commissioned several ring boxes from me. He had created several rings in his gun smithing class, and thought that they would make great
Christmas presents. I've never made a ring box before, he sent me a design and I took my best whack at it.

I loved the idea of a crushed stone inlay. A ring box was the perfect chance to try it out. I used epoxy as the filler.

After I finished the ring boxes for my brother, I had this great idea for another one. I agonized over the design, and I started to doubt whether it would actually turn out. all in all, I think I am happy with it.

At this stage is where I started to seriously doubt my design. I thought the crushed black stone in the background was way too shiny. And the texture was way too different from the wood.  But at that point I was stuck, and there wasn't much that I could do to fix it. So I pressed forward with my original design, hoping that maybe it would turn out better than I expected.

  

And it did! Once I mixed it with epoxy, and sanded the stone down, it mellowed out, and I was really happy with the final design. I used tiny magnets in each of the corers to keep the top on. And I used the birds eye maple again as the background moon. 

Bachelor Party Humidors

2/25/2017 The first one is finished!! I used walnut for the top , and lacewood for the body. I used my vinyl cutter to create a stencil to etch the glass on top. 

This box took me over 15 hours. Most of the time was spent cutting out the grooves for the quadrant hinges, and trying to fit the top to the body. The two parts were built separately, which I have learned is the much harder way of doing it. Next time, I'm going to build the whole box, then use a table saw/band saw to cut the top off. That way I know it will fit perfectly. I didn't want to do that though, because the planks of wood that I have are rather narrow, which would have made the box narrow.

You can see the quadrant hinges in this pictures. They took a little while to get them lined up properly, and the grooves routed out. But they were worth it. I think next time I will epoxy the hinges down instead of relying on the screws.

 

The inside is completely lined with cedar, so that it will handle the constantly humid environment without too much risk from rot and mildew. I was very impressed with how well I did lining up the seal. It fits perfectly, and the box has held its humidity for several days now.  

Knife Making

Over Thanksgiving break, I got it in my mind to make knives. I thought it would be an awesome combination of metal working, and wood working. And ease me into the world of metal working. Plus, the end product would be something I could use, and give away as gifts. 

When I first started researching this hobby, I wanted to use the fanciest steels, and I thought I could do the heat treating with a oxy-propane torch and a bucket of water. Oh boy, was I wrong. But I'll get to that. 

Turns out, profiling the steel turned out to be fairly easy. I bought myself a Dewalt 11 amp, 4.5 inch angle grinder. And a bench grinder. With those I could draw my shape onto the steel with a sharpie,  cut out a rough profile using metal cutoff disks. And then using low grit flap disks to bring the profile of the blade to exactly what I had envisioned. 

The hard part, as you can imagine, was shaping the blade's bevel. I found it nearly impossible to create perfectly flat grinds. They always turned out to be slightly convex. Maybe this is something I need to over come with further practice. Or maybe I could up my file game. But I really don't like the kind of scratches files leave in the steel. They are really hard to buff out later. However I know this could be easily solved if I bought the proper tools, like a belt grinder. But until then, I will have to make do with my angle grinder and files. 

These are my first knife blanks. The top is made of 1080 steel, and the bottom is O1. I have yet to actually heat treat the O1 blade, as my furnace is a little unstable. But I can heat treat 1080 with only a little trouble

This is my first fully finished knife. It's a gut hook, specifically designed for fishing. I over tempered the steel, causing it to be softer than I had hoped. However, this means the blade will be very durable for hacking through the bones of fish with nothing more than a rock as a cutting board. 

I really wanted to add a kitchen knife to my repertoire. I even knew what profile. Behold my Santoku vegetable knife.

 It has a single flat grind as is typical for Japanese knives. I had heard about the superior cutting performance, so I had to see for myself. Notice the ugly grooves. The goal of these grooves is to help vegetables to not stick to the blade. They didn't turn out as I had hoped, and I later saw a design that simply drilled holes. The next vegetable knife I make will have drilled holes. But I will note that I love the cutting performance of the single bevel. My diced onions have never been finer. The single right hand bevel causes the blade, when used by a right handed cutter, to cut towards the left, which counteracts the natural tendency of a double beveled blade to move towards the right hand side when cutting thin vegetables. I've also realized why most kitchen knives are made with stainless steel.

The last knife I have made as of yet I did not really design for a purpose. I just really liked the sweeping curved lines. This time I tempered it correctly.

Each and every steel knife needs to be heat treated once the profile and bevel have been ground. The idea is that the steel will become very hard, so as to hold an edge better. To do this properly, one needs a forge that can reach around 1500 degrees, and hold a specific temperature for an arbitrary amount of time. I built one, it's a venturi propane forge. But I'll leave the details for another blog post.

Time for a garage shop upgrade

When I first bought the house. The only thing in the garage was a set of really poorly constructed shelves. I wanted this place to be a workshop, so I needed a nice work bench, and plenty of storage options. The first iteration, I made a work bench that was way to large, that sat right in the middle of my work area. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but it quickly became obvious the bigger isn't always better. You can kind of see that workbench in the bottom right of the first picture. 

Eventually I realized the need for a second, taller work bench, and even a peg board. I screwed some 2x4 into the wall, and then the peg board into those. That way there is some space behind the peg board to run wires and for the "Pegs" to fit. I added a few more shelves in the corer, and I was sitting pretty. The shop was awesome. 

Until I realized, the that work bench still was just way too large. And it took up a lot of floor space, while not giving my any of that space back. Since the work bench was so large, I could not even reach the whole thing from one side.

So in came the need, and design for my third work bench. It was made the same height as the other work bench under the peg board. But this one came with many features I felt would come in handy. 

The work bench is split into two separate pieces that can be separated. And they're connected in the middle by a platform that is sunken down below the bench top just enough for a miter saws table to lie flush with the bench top. This way I can use both benches as an in feed and out feed table. As well as separating and moving them if there is ever an occasion where that would be ideal. 

The right hand bench has screw holes meant for an under mounted router, so that it can be used as a router table. It's also got holes with t nuts so that a fence can be installed and held in place when using the router table.

 

Unfortunately the above picture doesn't have it, but I installed a paddle switch that was wired to an outlet that the router plugged into. So I wouldn't have to reach under the table to start and stop it. As well as a big red safety switch so I can cut the power in case something goes wrong. 

Coffee Bar with Built-In Kyoto Coffee Dripper

After I built my dry bar, I felt like my kitchen area still wasn't complete. The coffee equipment took up too much bar space, and too much counter space. Shortly after I realized this, I came across a cold brew coffee maker known as a "Kyoto Coffee Drip Tower". I was enthralled with the look and the idea of it. But they were very expensive. I shopped around a little bit, and discovered that I can buy the glass, make my own stand, and it would save me $200. So that's exactly what I did.

 

I combined my two ideas into one. I made a coffee bar with a build in space just for the coffee driper to sit. It was integrated beauty. 

 

I had to turn 12 dowels on my lathe. The pattern was fairly simple, but I have very little experience with turning. I had hoped this would be a good learning experience. I feel like they came out pretty well, and fairly consistent.

I have always wanted to make some sort of furniture out of black steel piping. It really lived up to the hype. It is easy to use, and has that very nice look to it. I was impressed. Note to self, next time buy the long sections and have it cut at home depot. It's significantly cheaper that way.

The depth of the counter top was a little short, which causes the legs to be a bit too close together. I had to secure it to the wall to prevent it from being too tippy.

1911 grips

I own a 1911, and the existing grips are plastic beige and boring. Since I practically have an entire wood shop in my garage, I figured "Why not make my own grips?". And that's exactly what I did.  

These were surprising really easy to make. All it takes is a 1/4" thick pair of scales, and a belt sander to shape them. The hardest part of these, however, is drilling the holes. When I did these, I had only a hand drill available, and it drilled very imprecisely. so I spent a lot of time with sandpaper wrapped around a stick trying to hand fit the grips to the gun. It was a pain. I have since bought a drill press, which should make the process easier, and produce higher quality grips. The through hole is  15/64" and the counter bored hole is 9/32". The wood is purple heart.

These grips are meant to resemble the insignia for the first cavalry division. Made with yellow heart and wenge.