Background on this piece. This is the Italy “boot” in neon mounted to Walnut with engraved text. It is to commemorate a family vacation I took to Italy this year with the engraved text coming from sayings that we picked up from the trip.

Some detail on the process. The bending of the glass tube took roughly 15 hours over the course of a week. The Walnut was purchased rough, planed and jointed at the makerspace to get the boards square, and glued up into a panel. The panel was then cut down to size and run through the drum sander to even out any imperfections from the glue up. The engraved text was designed using inkscape and imported into CorelDraw for printing on “Katy Perry”, the 30W laser cutter. This panel was at the max cutting area for Katy Perry at 32″ x 18″. The cut took nearly 6 hours to complete. A box was constructed for the back of the panel to be used for concealing the electronics as well as a mounting point for the French cleat.

Total time to complete this piece was roughly 50 hours over the span of 2 weeks. Total material cost including glass, transformer, wood, stain, filling the tube with neon gas, and time on the laser cutter was roughly $200.

This isn’t a blog post about modular synthesizers. This is a blog post about a wooden box. The wooden box pictured above is one of the first projects I’ve worked on at the Makerspace, and it’s the first wood project I’ve worked on since making a wooden trinket in shop class in high school. If I actually used a table saw back then (or any power tools), I have no recollection of it. I’ve always been more adept with a keyboard, mouse, or soldering iron than power tools, but I have been trying to expand my horizons over the years. Still, this was a more ambitious project for me than soldering together the electronic modules contained within.

The plan

Designing the box
Armed with a little bit of knowledge from the woodshop training (Thanks Steve!) and some mounting hardware to define the inner dimensions of the box to be, I went to work. I fumbled around with the “rails” which the modules eventually are mounted to, lining them up with some scrap plywood, marking things, measuring, deciding how the pieces will have to align so the front and sides look clean and consistent. I drew a diagram. A really bad diagram, but a diagram nonetheless. This diagram contained all the information I wasn’t going to rely on myself to remember. It’s pretty scrappy, and reviewing it now barely makes sense, but at the time it was enough to convince me that I was ready to start cutting wood.

Cutting the wood
I’m not going to lie, the prospect of using the table saw for the first time was a little out of my comfort zone. I once again put some time into watching videos and learning more about safe table saw operation. It probably looked silly, but with the saw powered off I rehearsed the movements I would need to make to cut my plywood to size. After a few such rehearsals, adjustments, and different configurations of where to hold and push the board to achieve the movement I needed, I was feeling pretty good about my first cut. I am typing now with all 10 fingers, success! By cut 3 or 4, I was cutting with confidence. The compound miter saw made the rest of the cuts after I had my plywood at the correct height for the 4 sides of the box.

Checking the dimensions

I aligned all the pieces of my box, tested that my hardware would fit, and to my surprise everything lined up… approximately. I made a few minor adjustments, tested, and knew it was now time to attach everything together.

Pocket hole details

Joining the box
I watched some videos a couple of years ago about pocket hole joinery, and thought maybe it would work for this project. It has the benefits of leaving the exterior faces of the box clean from screws, and also creates a very strong joint. What appealed to me the most about the process though is the involvement of a pocket hole jig. The pocket hole jig allows you to clamp your wood in place, and then helps guide a drill bit into the face of the wood to make holes for screws. Once the holes are drilled, you simply clamp two pieces of wood together and put a couple of screw through them. This was great for a beginner since everything I needed came with the jig kit, the appropriate drill bit, screws, and instructions. I did a few tests on some scrap wood and found that going very slowly was the key to getting a clean screw hole in the plywood. The process was pretty fool proof since the jig ensured screwing at the correct depth and angle. It made very short work of joining the box together.

The enclosure and the pocket hole jig.

Finishing the box
At this point, I considered the box to be mostly done and was ready to write off my first wood shop test as a success. I was happily noodling around with my electronics, and I built a little confidence in myself to make bigger and better things down the road. After a couple of days with the enclosure I started to notice the plywood chipping at the ends and that it was awkward to carry around. I decided to finish the box to protect the wood and add a handle to make it easier to carry. The faux-leather handle was easy to source on ebay by searching for “guitar amp handle,” but similar to cutting and joining wood the concept of applying a wood finish was foreign to me.

Left side: unfinished plywood. Right side: Danish Oil (Medium Walnut)

I did some searching for beginner friendly wood finishes and found a general consensus that Danish oil is a very easy to apply and attractive finish. Danish oil can be applied rather haphazardly, a couple of times if necessary until you reach your desired color, and doesn’t require any additional sealing. I watched a couple of videos, but ultimately just went with the instructions on the Watco cannister I bought at Home Depot.

Staining in the paint room

I sanded the box by hand and then brought it into the paint room to apply the oil. I did a quick test on the inside of the box, and determined I was OK with how the oil interacted with my plywood. I did a couple of applications on the rest of the box and when I was happy with the look I wiped it dry with some rags I bought from the same section of Home Depot that I found the stain. 24 hours later, the box was dry. A few holes in the top with the drill press and the handle was on in no time!

Conclusions
I hope to build a bigger enclosure for my synthesizer, since this one is already full! It only took a few days to complete the enclosure, and I’m sure I could recreate it with half the effort using what I learned during the process. Sure, I could have spent some time at the belt sander to get everything flush, and if I would have finished the piece right away before carrying it around without a handle I might not have ended up with chipped edges, but overall I’m very happy with the final result! I’ll definitely be making more things out of wood in the future.

Being able to acquire skills that help you push your interests into new directions is one great thing about the Makerspace. I never would have attempted this project without having access to the equipment in an environment where I could work through things at my own pace whenever I could find the time or inspiration struck me. There are always other people around willing to offer advice if you get stuck on something, and since everyone is there to learn and build things, everyone benefits from helping each other out with whatever knowledge they bring into the space.

What started as an attempt to make a brick pattern cutting board, ended up as a “random” pattern with curly cherry ends. The side grain board consists of walnut, cherry, and maple.

The process started by gluing a sandwich of (2) pieces of roughly 3/4″ walnut for every 1/4″ of maple of cherry or maple. One of the ends only received only one piece of walnut.

The assembly was un-clamped and ripped into (4) pieces using the table saw. They pieces were glued together again with another piece of cherry or maple in the middle. The side with (1) walnut was flipped in each column to create an brick and mortar like offset pattern.

I added curly cherry ends to increase the size of the board. These ends are face grain instead of side but since they won’t be seeing the knife much, it shouldn’t be an issue. A healthy dose of drum and random orbital sander was subsequently applied.

The board was soaked in mineral oil for (6) hours and finished with a beeswax and mineral oil mix.

Here’s a video overview of the physical doors themselves and how we plan to open and close them with air valves.

This is a joint project, working on this with my brother-in-law, Fred. The doors are between his garage and workshop. Fred has been working on the doors themselves, the wall and framing, and mechanical connections. I’ve been working on figuring out the software, controls, and electronic magic that will drive everything.

The physical doors themselves are done, except for paint. Fred has also been making a pretty neat frame for the garage side. He cut alternating widths of wood and then glued them together for the nice light-colored wood on the inset of the planks that will frame out either side of the door. A similar piece will cross the top of the door.

I got all the main components – Arduino, breadboard, relay board, 12V power fuse panel, and air valves themselves all screwed to a piece of plywood. At this point, it’s not pretty, but it is functional.

We have a nice industrial door control with OPEN/CLOSE/STOP buttons on it. Those are momentary on buttons, but through the power of the Arduino, I can make them be whatever I want. I started with a Button Tutorial, and then modified it to suit my purposes, and added a Delay(1500) command after activating the air valve. That way, the valve will stay open long enough to fully open or close the door, even if the button is just pressed for a moment.

I programmed the pin for the STOP button to test out a sequence to open the door, pause (long enough for a person to walk though,) and then close the door. It seemed to work pretty well. If the timing is wrong for the real-world application, all I have to do is simply change the delay times. (It will also need a safety. We don’t want the door closing on a person!)

At this point, the basics of the control panel are working. The STOP button is just wired up as a “stand-in” for a single button we already have installed on the garage side of the door. It’s a capacitive touch button that lights up either blue or white with internal LEDs. It’s a neat looking button, but it’s only a SINGLE button. So, it needs to have functionality to both open AND close the door. I’d also like to explore using a variable in the Arduino that states whether or not the door is open, and then changes the functionality of that button based on whether the door is open or not. The air cylinders themselves also have built-in position sensors, which would be neat to use possibly as both a safety AND a “Is the door open or not?” sensor.

Here’s a video clip showing all the components actually working together. At this point, if the panel was simply mounted above the door, and air connected between the compressor and air cylinders, we would actually have functioning doors.

I don’t like the look of how the air valves and tees are held together right now. I was able to find some not-too-expensive push connectors (similar to PEX Sharkbite style) for air, which might make it a little easier to connect all the air components and look cleaner. Once I really have everything finalized on what’s going on at the breadboard, I also need to decide if I want to pull the breadboard out and replace it with a custom circuit  board. One thing I DO need is a simple way to connect the tiny pin connectors to the larger wires going to the buttons AND provide strain relief. For the moment, I just used staples to nail the 18 ga lamp cord wire to the plywood and then made the electric connection with alligator clips. What would be the BEST/CLEANEST way to do this? Some sort of small screw down terminals?

I also have a rather large fuse panel mounted on the plywood. It was free, and I already had it. It supports many separate circuits, but for this project, a single DC fuse would probably be fine. I’m also using a bit of an overkill 12V power supply. I’ll want to replace that with a simple wall-wart. Lastly, the Arduino is running from USB power. I’ll need to solder up a 12V DC barrel connector so that it can run off the same power as everything else. I think we will make a switched electric outlet, and plug the wall-wart in to that. If the system is ever not working right, just switch off the power and manually open and close the door as needed.

I’ll definitely want to hang out with the guys at the Makerspace sometime soon talking Arduino, specifically how to integrate some more sensors and get feedback used to activate the doors fully automatically.

-Ben Nelson

Some great information on using a router table from Rockler is available here:

• Router Table Basics

A great video for absolute router beginners, Steve Ramsey also has a bunch of other great woodworking videos:

• Router Basics  router tables start at about 6:45

How to make a picture frame using a router table, another Steve Ramsey YouTube video:

• How to make a simple picture frame using a woodworking router

An overall pic of the router table.

A tight picture of the top of the router table showing slots for clamping jigs, fence, and anti-kickback devices.

A close up shot of a craftsman router mounter under the router table.

With the compound miter saw and table saw, I transformed three 6′ long pine 1″ x 12″ boards into the necessary 150 pieces! The rack holds 60 bottles, so I cut 120 10″ x 9/16″ x 3/4″ pieces. These are connected to 26 uprights that measure 18.1″ x 3/4″ x 1.5″, which are connected to 4 horizontals that are 52″ x 3/4″ x 1.5″.  Note that a spacing of 3.1″ is sufficient for wine bottles, but 3.35″ is the minimum for most champagne bottles.  The 3.35″ width also holds half bottles and just barely holds 12 oz beer bottles.  Also note that for strength reasons, the 10″ long pieces need to be cut along the grain, not across it.  Here are all the pieces, just before I nailed them together:

It took about 1.5 hours to cut the pieces, and 1.5 hours to assemble them. Note that I used a nail gun and 1″ long, 18 gauge nails for most connections, except the uprights to horizontals, where I used 2″ long nails.  Check out the completed wine rack, made from $25 of wood and nails, in use!

So I decided to make my own. Because I wanted to drink beers on my porch and tell kids to get off my lawn.

With no further ado:

Figure 1: My Porch Before, During, After

Step 1: Find Plans.

I’ve never used any Ana-White plans before, but I found these that seemed reasonable. After some review though, I found the cutlist sucks so any of the pieces with angled cuts are listed at final dimensions rather than initial rough cut dimensions. Namely the angled stretchers need to be cut long (34″ish) and then angled. Same goes for the back legs (~22″) and the 2×2 arm supports (~28″). So do your own due dilligence before slicing all your lumber up.

Step 2: Cut All the Lumber

Pine sucks and I hate paint. So I went with Cedar.

Figure 2: Rough Cedar from Menards

Figure 3: Cut to Size and Length

Figure 4: Apply Belt Sander

I recommend using a belt/drum sander on any of the rough cuts to give it a cleaner finished look.

Step 3: Follow Directions (Assembly)

Aside from the cutlist, the plans are straightforward and easy to follow. I built the sides and back as assemblies because I couldn’t transport a completely assembled chair in my car.

Figure 5: Side Assembly

Figure 6: Chair Back Assembly

I deviated from the design a bit as I didn’t feel like using a jig saw, so I just set the miter saw for 45deg and lopped off each corner of the back (which you’ll see in the final assembly pictures)

Figure 7: Starting Assembly

I transported the large pieces back to my apartment so I could put it together on-site. I don’t have any pictures of the middle steps, so it kind of jumps from here to completely assembled. Read the directions, you’ll know what to do.

Figure 8: Assembly Done (Structural Testing)

Ta da. A chair.

The beer made up for the sunburn.

Step 4: Finishing

Like I mentioned above, I don’t like paint. So I winged this phase of the project.

I like oil based finished to bring out natural color, so I grabbed a can of Danish Oil. Cedar is naturally rot and insect resistant, but since I had some spray Spar Urethane lying around I figured a coat of that couldn’t hurt either. Lastly, because I like the texture of wax finishes I applied Paste Wax to any of the upright surfaces where you’d touch the chair in normal operation.

Figure 9: Done!

I applied the Danish Oil  by hand, which was a pain, but worked out well enough in the end it seems.

Step 5: Build a Second Chair

This second one is a little better finished based on some in-process learnings from the first chair. I picked up a countersink bit to help clean up the exposed screw holes and tried a little harder to be symmetric and even with the holes as well.

I need to either build a table, or figure out a way to add a cupholder feature. (But so far the porch itself works fine)

Step 6: Fin

Each chair was something like $41 for material not including screws, glue, and finishes and took approximately 4 hours to cut, assemble, and finish.