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About Archive Photos Books Woodworking Search Feeds


TROY KITCH

 * Great essay from Noema. We Need To Rewild The Internet
   
   → 8:15 PM, May 6
   

 * I’m working on a solution to convert my old iMac G4 into an iPad stand. Still
   in experimental phase.
   
   → 7:45 AM, May 5
   


 * SEWING MACHINE TABLE CONVERSION, PART TWO
   
   I recently completed my project to turn an early 20th century sewing station
   into a 21st century internet station. I used sapele for this build (second
   only to walnut as my favorite handtool wood to work with). Here is some
   documentation so I don’t forget what I did.
   
   
   SECURING THE CABINET TO THE CAST IRON BASE
   
   I made a simple base from a scrap piece of bubinga I had laying around. It’s
   held in place by two walnut dowels I hand cut (pounded out with a dowel
   plate) to fit through the existing cast iron screw holes where the base of
   the old treadle was held in place with big screws. These dowels go through
   the screw holes and into the wood where I drilled some holes. My aim for this
   project was to complete it without any screws or other hardware, so these two
   dowels and two top dowels I document later are what keep in solidly locked in
   place.
   
   
   BUILDING THE CABINET
   
   I had to join two boards to have the width I needed for the base and sides.
   
   Each side was cut at angles to match the angle of the cast iron sewing
   machine table base.
   
   The base of the cabinet was a simple square, thankfully no angles.
   
   The sides were joined to the base with dovetails, I used a variable width
   just because I had never tried to do differing widths before. Turned out
   well.
   
   This cabinet is for computer bits that get warm, so I wanted to maximize
   airflow, so I left the top open, held in place with two dovetailed arms in
   the front and back to keep it mechanically solid.
   
   Here’s the first dry fit of the cabinet frame.
   
   
   THE INNARDS
   
   My design was for two shelfs to hold a wi-fi router, a 5-port ethernet
   switch, a Hue hub, a Synology, an outlet extender, and a big ol’ UPS power
   supply (I have 9 total items to plug in, including some equipment that will
   be placed on top of the table and on the floor next to this table), but I did
   not want to see a crapload of cables. So I decided to make an angled back
   panel to hide the UPS and cabling. Here’s what the inside of each side looked
   like before the cuts.
   
   The shelf dadoes were easy enough to saw, chisel, and router out, but the
   angled grooves were a challenge. I couldn’t saw the edges of this groove
   given the length and angle (at least I couldn’t figure out how to do that),
   so I slowly and carefully cut out these angled grooves with my hand router.
   The angled grooves are cut to fit a 1/4 plywood back with some wiggle room (a
   bit wide).
   
   I used the offcuts from the overhang of the shelfs shown here to use as
   supports in the back. These thin pieces are used to give me a place to attach
   ties to keep cables tied nicely up. I liked this solution because there was
   is no waste and the bars on back will serve a useful function.
   
   Here’s a view of the back to see those offcuts in place.
   
   I decided to use 1/4 plywood for the back angled panel — used mainly to hide
   cables. So I needed to make holes to pass the cables through. The first
   attempt at my plywood back failed. I hand chiseled out openings to run cables
   through. It came out nice, but after I completed it, I tripped after removing
   it and it snapped in half. Oof. So my second iteration was done using the
   only power tool in the project: I used a cordless drill and a Forstner bit to
   cut out six holes to run cables. This was a better solution, overall.
   
   
   PUTTING IT TOGETHER
   
   I drilled holes in the top of the cabinet so I could attach walnut dowels to
   hold the top in place, using the existing openings in the cast iron frame to
   keep each dowel locked in.
   
   Here’s the dry fit. The medallion on the top shelf you can see below on the
   top shelf was mounted to the cast iron sewing machine; I was able to
   delicately remove it and place it here.
   
   A close-up of the medallion, just because I think it’s cool. We lived in
   Kaiserslautern, Germany, for seven years (where we picked up this sewing
   machine table at a flea market), so this is a touch of something special for
   us to see this mounted here. We’ve been lugging this table around for about
   two decades, but never had space for it. I was about to give it away, when
   this project idea came into mind. I’m happy that I found a way to turn it
   into useful furniture.
   
   I finished the cabinet with Osmo top-oil, because I’m lazy with finishing and
   like that I can just rub it on, it looks nice, and it dries fast.
   
   The back of the cabinet, showing the slide-in 1/4 panel with holes for
   cables. I left this panel unglued so I can easily slide it in and out. This
   was a critical decision, as I aligned the holes so they were hidden behind
   the shelves, and a few of the cables I had to fit through were too fat to get
   past the shelves, so this made it easy to move it around to get cabling set
   up. The holes are also good to promote airflow, I figure, as well as the open
   top. I also may someday need to add more holes, so now that’s easy to do.
   
   
   FINISHED BUILD
   
   Here’s what it looked like in place, without anything in it.
   
   And here is the back that goes against a wall, with all the cabling hooked
   up. It ain’t pretty, but I don’t have to look at any of this, it’s all nicely
   hidden behind the panel.
   
   And here is the finished piece in place and in use with all the gear hooked
   up and running. There are only two visible cables: (1) the power plugged into
   the wall that goes to the big UPS and a black ethernet cable that runs to my
   desktop computer so I can be hardwired. The ONT for my new fiber network
   enters the house and is mounted on the wall directly behind the sewing
   machine table. The cast iron well where the sewing machine was mounted on the
   top of the table is covered by the printer, but it’s holding a hidden Anker
   5-port USB hub with the cables poking out behind the printer for charging
   various things. The shredder and a corner light behind the shredder on the
   floor, along with a HomePod on the desktop, are also all connected up here
   behind the table without any visible cables. I’m pleased with how it turned
   out.
   
   → 7:28 AM, Mar 30
   


 * SEWING MACHINE TABLE CONVERSION, PART ONE
   
   I am embarking on a quest of sorts to “recycle” an old sewing machine table
   I’ve carted around from move to move and held in storage for something like
   15 years. My goal is to turn it into a hub in my computer room to store a
   UPS, a laser printer, a Synology, several hubs, a modem, a router, a 5-port
   switch … While tastefully arranging lots and lots of cables and power cords
   and allowing for good air flow. This will sit next to my computer desk at the
   point where I’m having fiber installed in a couple of weeks, so I’ll be able
   to hardwire my computer and keep all the associated network and associated
   gear neatly in place next to it.
   
   Not sure how this is going to turn out, I’m designing it on the fly and
   relying on a sketch. Today, I got things started.
   
   I began by disassembling the sewing machine table, which was quite an effort.
   I’m keeping the parts I don’t use in the hopes that I can use them elsewhere.
   There is some very interesting hardware here that I’m certain I find a use
   for in future projects. I’m thinking of mounting the foot pedal as part of
   the back cabinet “wall” for air flow, maybe to route some cables, and because
   I think it will look cool.
   
   The first step is to create a lower bar to hold the eventual shelf that is
   going to be housed inside the iron frame. This is a scrap of bubinga. I will
   hold this in place with two dowels inserted into the lower screw holes of the
   iron frame.
   
   The next step is to make the dowels. I’m using walnut here, pounded through a
   1/2 inch dowel jig. Turns out 1/2 was a bit too large so I had to shave them
   down to a proper millimeter size to fit the screw holes.
   
   Next, I drilled holes in each end of the bubinga bar to house the dowels.
   
   Here’s what it looks like rough assembled.
   
   Here’s a front view. The cabinet I’m going to build will be mounted on this
   bubinga bar at the bottom. At the top, the cabinet will be held in the frame
   by two wedged tenons.
   
   Next up I needed to join two 8 foot lengths of sapele so I have boards wide
   enough for the project. This is an image of joining the edges.
   
   And I glued them up so I’m ready to start cutting out the cabinet pieces
   tomorrow.
   
   I sketched out a rough plan. I think this is the right kind of project to
   sketch out the basic idea but figure out the finer details as I go along.
   This sketch shows a side and front view. The cabinet will taper to fit the
   shape of the table. One thing I haven’t figured out: I want the UPS to sit on
   a shelf that faces the back wall. No idea how I’m going to do that at this
   point.
   
   → 9:35 PM, Mar 2
   


 * WENGE PENCIL BOX
   
   I finished up a gift pencil box for a friend. I have a bunch of lapel pins
   that I use for these projects. I cut off the back of the pin and then carve
   out a place to inset the pin into the box. Makes for a nice keepsake.
   
   For this project, I used wenge for the sides and walnut for the bottom. I
   challenged myself to cut the smallest dovetails I’ve ever attempted and it
   was indeed a challenge. I almost scrapped this project to start over because
   I had so many problems. This is the completed box from the front:
   
   And from the top, showing the walnut bottom:
   
   I was originally going to make a sliding lid for this project, but that
   didn’t work out. I cut grooves for lid, but I cut them too close to the top
   of the box, so the top edge split the first time I tried to slide in a lid.
   So I improvised and shaved off the top grove to make it an open box. For the
   box top corners, I used a chisel to make little bevel edges so it looks like
   I planned it that way. I also had a heck of a time with the tiny dovetails.
   When I started this, I was thinking “I wonder how small I can go with
   dovetails?” Well, this is apparently as small as I can go with my experience
   level.
   
   A few items of note for this project:
   
   I used a Raamtang vise made many years ago. As I do many smaller projects, I
   find myself turning to this tabletop vise quite often. It’s a very useful
   appliance.
   
   Planing the thin pieces took some creative work holding on my Nicholson
   bench.
   
   This is the setup I used to mark the tails. The hardest part about working
   with this wood: I could not see the lines, the wood is so dark.
   
   When I was cutting the dovetails to the line, I used blue tape to mark where
   to stop since I had so much trouble seeing my lines. I used a Dozuki saw to
   cut the dovetails and it worked very well. I think I prefer using this saw
   over my western dovetail saw.
   
   A few holidays ago, I got this set of very tiny little chisels because my
   wife thought they were cute. I’ve never had occasion to use them until now! I
   felt ridiculous, but I couldn’t otherwise get at some of the places with my
   smallest regular-sized chisel.
   
   Fun project, but looking forward to the large bookshelf I’ll be building
   next.
   
   → 2:33 PM, Feb 17
   

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