Display case for a model steam engine

I decided that it had to be possible to change the glass without destroying the frame, so the strips for the frame ended up being a bit more complex than if it would be assembled with the glass in place. I have some glass of 2 mm thickness and some of 3 mm. if the steam engine had been larger, I could have used the thicker glass, but I am afraid that it will look clumsy, so I have decided that the frame should be made for the 2 mm glass.
The idea is to keep the glass in place by means of a small angle shaped strip of wood that can be tacked into place by means of some small tacks or screws.
I doubt that I will ever need to change the glass, but it will give me great satisfaction to know that the possibility is there even for my successors if the glass should ever break.

The frame for the glass is built up using a home made profile that looks kind of like a W.
At first I tried to make a concealed mitered dovetail - that didn't work out. Then I tried to make it like a concealed tenon joint. That didn't work either. So finally I sawed the pieces in 45 degrees, and glued it up using the most unreliable end grain to end grain constellation.
The things were held in place by masking tape which is not blue on this side of the Atlantic, but more like a light yellow or cream colour. Anyway it works the same way.

After several hours of drying time (6 hours) I glued up the posts of the frame. These hold the upper and lower part together and they add some normal long grain to the intersection. So my hope is, that it will help to keep it all together. After all, it is not the most stressed piece of furniture so I expect it to hold just fine.

Yesterday was my 40th birthday, and I got some really nice presents. I had ordered some of them myself, to help my wife, but it was still a pleasant thing to open them. A Veritas skewed rabbet plane, some wood wax from Dictum due to the excellent review from Brian: http://toolerable.blogspot.dk/2013/02/using-polissoir-and-meeting-snakeye.html
and a book: Das Zimmermannsbuch, a reprint of a carpenters book from 1895 (in German).
My father had bought a nice old Japanese plane and a 1200 grit water stone.

After the guests had left, I decided to try out the Japanese plane which was sharpened and ready to go. After a little fiddling, I produced some nice shavings. I wondered if it was possible to make them thinner, so I fiddled some more.. And suddenly I made the most fantastic ultra thin shavings. And the smell from the larch was incredible. So actually a really nice way of ending a birthday.

One of the frames showing the W shaped profile.

The post being inserted from the left to give an idea of the assembly method.

The complete glued up frame

The blade of the new (old) plane

The first shavings

Better looking shavings

What the Romans did for us

Well, the Romans did a lot of different things that still has some influence on the society of today. Aqueducts, roads, the Latin language, and not the least: The Roman numbering system.

Whenever I finish a project, I like to mark it, to remember myself of when I made this particular piece of work.
For some reason I have become a fan of the Roman figures. Possibly because I have seen them being used on some old timber framing, and because they are fairly easy to make using a chisel and a mallet. At least for the next 77 years, after which you are going to need a hollow chisel to continue with this numbering system.
In my opinion it looks equally well in a small size on e.g. a chest, or large and bold on some timber framing.

It is difficult to describe the feeling when a build is finished. If it was in a movie there would be some nice music and perhaps a special light setting. In the workshop there is usually silence. But you feel it is a special moment.
After a long period of dreaming of your project, pulling yourself together to actually start the project, carrying on with the project and finally finishing it. You and the project deserves some type of formal ceremony. In my shop this is the moment when I find the mallet and the chisel of the appropriate size. I pause and then I mark the piece. When the figures (letters actually) have been added the project is really finished.

The idea of the Roman system is that you add the single figures. If a smaller figure is in front of a larger one, you subtract it from the larger one, and add the remaining figure to the others.

M = 1000
D = 500
C = 100
L = 50
X = 10
V = 5
I = 1

2013 = MMXIII = 1000 + 1000 + 10 + 1 + 1 +1

2014 = MMXIV = 1000 + 1000 + 10 + (5 - 1)

So until the year 2090 = MMXC, you are able to write the year using only a normal chisel and a mallet or a hammer.

Timber framing in the stable, 2011

The inside of a tool chest (2012)

The front of the workbench (2013)

Milling wood

Gustav have finished the holders for the obstacles for the horses to jump over. And I promised him that we could make some new booms as well.
The old booms were some 1x2" strips that I had, but they were soft and flexed when mounted on the holders.
I decided that the new booms will be 3x3", and the plan is to make an attachment that will allow me to make them octagonal using the sawmill.

The following is a description of how I mill wood, to use for my various projects.

The sawmill is powered by my old Volvo BM 400 tractor (diesel), the PTO shaft is connected to an angle gearbox from an old grass cutter (for making grass for silage).

The sawmill itself is a BMR 900, and old Danish sawmill with a circular blade of 900 mm diameter (36"). The sawmill can handle wood of up to 8.5 m (roughly 28 feet), and a it has a maximum riving capacity of approximately 12". So the wood can be of a diameter of up to about 16", since normally you don't split it right down the middle anyway.

The log is hoisted onto the sawmill by means of a

manually operated chain block and a home made

crane beam.                                                            

The log is positioned on the moving table and is

secured by means of some small wooden wedges.

The first cut is made near the edge of the log.

Note that the fence is retracted all the way.   

This is how the log looks like after the first cut.

The log is then rotated 1/4 of a turn, so the flat 

side is facing down. Then another cut similar to

this one is made, so the log has got two flat sides

meeting in a 90 degree angle.                               

 

Now the fence is set to the desired thickness of the

finished board which is 3" in this case. The log is   

positioned so it is resting on a flat side, and the other

flat side is against the fence.                                       

 

Now the narrow board is 3" thick, and

it will be parked on the table beside the

saw while another one like it is being    

made                                                      

Now the board which is 3" thick is    

placed flat on the saw mill. The fence

is once again set to 3" to make the boom.

 

If the off cuts are a little wide, I will usually rip them

in order to make them more suited as firewood (then 

they need no splitting). In addition to this it produces 

some more sawdust which is used in the stalls for the 

horses. If the size of the off cuts permit it, I normally 

try to make a board e.g. 1x4" out of it.                         

 

If it is hardwood (elm), which I would like to use for

making furniture, then there is a small pause in the    

process (2-3 years) to allow the wood to dry.              

 

Putting children to work.

As the strict father that I am (according to my children), I require them to participate with some chores for 2 hours every day during the teachers lockout.
This has included adding white wash to the walls of the stable, helping with fire wood, washing the cars etc.
Normally I make a working list at breakfast, and they can choose from some different jobs.
Painting, moving firewood by use of the ATV or raking the riding court are all popular jobs. White washing is not popular, neither is sweeping the barn.

Gustav and Laura Emilie are painting a barn door.

Asger moves firewood using the ATV.

Fnug has helped by checking if the paint is still wet.

Display case continued, and making stuff for the hide glue

I finished the recess to the base plate for the model steam engine.  Then I tried to mark the location of the screws on the bottom of the base plate onto the wooden foundation, so I could drill some holes in the correct locations.
I also marked the outline for the well for the flywheel.

The holes were drilled 2 mm oversize, so it theoretically was able to take up any inaccuracies in my marking. The holes for the well were drilled to the exact width of the corresponding square hole in the base plate i.e. 18 mm wide.

I brought the foundation to my small drill press, and decided to use some of the Forstner drills I purchased for another project some time ago. I have a feeling that I bought those drills too cheap, because they aren't very good. But they have been adequate for my use so far.

Some way I managed to malposition 5 out of the 6 holes which is quite a lot below my normal standard. The problem was that I didn't measure, but used the actual base plate to lay out the locations. This was not possible to do super accurate, and I made myself believe that it would be OK, but it wasn't. It doesn't matter a whole lot, since I could make the holes fit by chiselling out where the screws touched the wood. And nobody will see it unless I take pictures of it or they take out the steam engine from its display case. Which is unlikely to happen.

Gustav wanted to make some holders for obstacles for the riding course, he likes to jump on the pony, and I think it is a good idea to keep the hide glue fit.
The holders are made out of some 2x4" larch with some small pieces nailed on to hold the boom (I don't know if it is the correct word).
I helped him by sawing out the pieces so he could concentrate on measuring and marking the wood. He then drilled pilot holes and nailed on the small holders. He learned about leverage, since he had to use a bolt cutter to bite a bit of the nails so they wouldn't protrude on the back of the post. At first he tried to bite the nails holding halfway on the handles, but that was hard. Using the full length of the handles helped.

The foundation with the holes drilled (the upper right one had the correct position)

Concentration.

The engine base plate fits nicely in the recess.

Display case for a model steam engine

I have started routing out the top of the foundation, to make a recess for the base plate of the steam engine.
I am using my old fashioned router plane for the job. It is so wide that it can ride on the sides of the foundation.  The plan is to drill out the majority of the waste for the depression in which the flywheel is hidden. Then the depression will be cleaned up using a chisel and holes will be drilled for the various screws that hold the column, cylinder and bearing supports to the base plate.

I still need to determine the best way of making the frame for the glass, so it will look good.  I might even go the safe way and make a test using some left over scraps of larch. I thought about gluing the frame together, but then it will be impossible to change the glass if it ever breaks. So the current idea is to make some sort of system where a small strip will hold the glass in place.

I am expecting to get some Dictum wax for my birthday present, so the goal is to use it for finishing the display case. The reason why I am expecting to receive something this specific is because I ordered it myself, but I haven't yet opened the package.
The package could also contain a book: Das Zimmermannsbuch (a reprint of a 1895 carpenters book) and most likely also a Veritas skewed rabbet plane.  So it is exciting to see if SWMBO will give it to me for the birthday, or if it is for Christmas.

Tomorrow during the daytime, the most energy will probably be directed towards cutting up an elm that was downed 4 days ago due to some very hard winds. It was already dead because of the Dutch elm disease, but I think I might be able to use the lower part of the trunk to make some nice boards.
The rest of the tree will be split into firewood and stacked in the shed for drying.

Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country

Today we participated in the major clean up day on our island. I explained to the boys that an American president once said: Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. And this also applied to things such as voluntary community service which you can actually participate in even if you are only a child.

The weather was really nice, so we had a lot of talking as we picked up plastic, empty cans, paper, cardboard and bottles etc. from the side of the road.
It very quickly turned into some competition about who could find the most and both the boys really enjoyed it.
We talked about the dangers of broken glass for dogs and other animals, and how long some materials would stay in the nature before being degraded.

I once saw a TV interview with a woman from a development country, and she had seen a small film from an industrialized nations dump site. She said that if they only had such high quality garbage in her country, she could better make a living out of sorting the garbage compared to what could make of it at that time. It made an impression of me, that what we see as waste is considered a resource to others.

But I suppose that I feel the same way regarding pallet wood and scrap metal.

Anyway, it feels good to have done a good deed for the environment and the nature. And in addition to it having had some real quality time with the children.