Under bed storage : Basic trundle

I suppose most houses in India have the same problem as I do : Too little storage space. A lot of our winter clothes (Vellore actually has no winter) lie in suitcases that are pushed under the bed. Gradually they go deeper and deeper under the bed, until the day I swim deep in the dust and fish the box out, only to find that it does not have the piece I am looking for.
I have the same problem in my make  do workshop where I would like to store items under the bed. (My present work area is our guest room, permission for which my wife has so graciously granted). So after looking at various trundle type storage units on the web, I decided to make a basic one.

There is nothing to it actually. It is an 10 mm MDF board with 6 small wheels screwed underneath. The advantage of this is that the items will not get scratched, and pulling it out is far easier.

The under side of the trundle with six wheels. My son is hiding behind it.

My little daughter trying to push my son off the trundle. It makes a good toy

Under bed storage with at trundle

The trundle with some boxes that will finally roll under the bed

 I plan to use a similar model for my gas cylinder and for my rice storage container some time in the future.

Wooden castle blocks

This is a set of wooden castle blocks made as a gift.

Wooden castle blocks

The inspiration was the set of wooden blocks from Down To Earth available here

Wood : Actually not sure. This was called "country wood" by the lumber people. An inexpensive wood. It was initially about 1.5 inches thick, that was smoothed in the lumber mill to about 1 inch thick.

Design : I made the gate, two towers and four wall pieces, drawn freehand. I made one entrance piece, two towers and four wall pieces. The towers and entrances required added supports to prevent them from toppling over easily.

Wooden castle blocks : The entrance with a door. Required Supports

Wooden castle blocks : The wall pieces 

Wooden castle blocks : Tower pieces : They required supports

Cutting : With a Skil Jigsaw.

Smoothing : Rounded over the edges with a rounding over bit on my router table.

Windows : Drilled a hole with a 9 mm bit and used a jigsaw to cut it out.

Supports. I rounded over a cuboid of the same wood and sliced off a small bit using the table saw. The two are supported with a screw inside, the head of the screw is covered with a plug of the same material.

Sanding : Very little needed on the surface. There were burn marks that hand to be sanded off for which I used a flexishaft with a sanding attachment.

Finish : Clear varnish wiped immediately after applying. There must be a better way to do this but I am learning this. If the finish comes off I will have to re apply this.

 Finished product: This can be rearranged to make a circle or a wall of castle.

Wooden castle blocks

Wooden Toy Sword

This is a toy sword made for kids in the age group 5 years or so.

Wooden sword from finger jointed rubber

Wood : finger jointed rubber, 18 mm thick. I had a long waste piece that determined the total length.

Cutting : Using a skil jigsaw. The corners were rounded over using a rounding over bit on my router table.

Finish: Well I do not know how long this will last but i used virgin olive oil and rubbed off the extra. I will post updates on how this fares. I wanted everything to be natural.

Final Product : I probably should have made a pair. This is a very basic sword with no detail, but I suspect that in a kids eyes, a long stick, this sword and the most elaborately detailed one are equal. Kids.. the great levelers...

My son Arpit with the wooden sword

Wooden Dominoes

Wooden dominoes

Well I decided to make wooden dominoes. It was to be a gift.
A lot of my inspiration was from Mathias Wandel's dominoes. He made it look so easy.

Failed attempts
I tried using 10 mm  thick beading. However the beading was slightly uneven and also was slightly warped. I gave up on it. I also tried cutting a whole block of neem, but my table saw blade was not high enough. I finally used a beam of wood that I cross cut.

Wood : Padauk wood (Padag) wood. The lady who owned the the local timber mill was very helpful. I asked her for the darkest wood she had, and she fished out this wood. It was nice and red. I got this planed at the lumber mill itself as a long beam about 2.5 inches by 1.5 inches or so. I planned to use this such that I could cut a cross section of the beam and get a single domino. I actually misjudged the size a bit, and had to trim down each domino later. But that was not so much of a problem.

Cutting the dominoes : I used my home made circular saw made into a table saw. I also had a simple cross cut jig to help me cut the dominoes. It worked pretty well.

My son Arpit enjoys vacuuming cleaning up sawdust. Seen here is my table saw

and the cross cut jig. The long belt of sandpaper that I used to sand paper the
dominoes is also seen.  

Trimming them. I used a stop block on my cross cut sledge to trim all dominoes to the final size.

Sanding : I got fine saw marks on the cross cut surface. These lines are not so important when one is making something large. But for dominoes they really stand out. So I had to sand both sides of the dominoes. I tried my orbital sander but this was not fast enough. I wished I had a belt sander. I finally went to the local store and bought one meter of sanding belt paper. I fixed this on my table with two clamps and then sanded the raw domino on this. This was useful as I was able to apply my body weight on the domino thereby hastening the process. I sanded along the grain and used finer sand paper to get a smooth finish.

Template: I used microsoft powerpoint to get an accurate size of the domino with the spots. I printed out a whole set of double sixes. I then cut them out (actually my wife and son did this) and stuck them on the blocks.

template for dominoes that I printed out from Power Point

Making the spots : I used a drill press and a 6 mm drill bit to drill the holes. They were not really accurate but were passable. I then sanded off the paper.

Drilling the domino holes with a drill press

Using a plug cutter, I cut out plugs of thin finger jointed wood.

Cutting domino plugs from finger jointed rubber with a plug cutter bit

Arpit enjoyed counting the small plugs. A total of 150 or so were needed.

I stuck the plug into each of the holes and then sanded them flush when dry.

Unfinished dominoes in  different stages

Center line : I made the center line with a file.

Finish : Clear varnish. But I did not want the glossy look so I wiped off the varnish immediately after applying it. It gives a dull finish.

Wooden domino box

Box : I made a box out of finger jointed wood. I tried some techniques for the joints. I was able to round over the edges using my router table.

Finished product : I liked the contrasting colors that I was able to get without any stains. I have to work on my box making skills. The dominoes topple well. However they are not perfectly square so you cannot stack three or four of them vertically one over another.

Wooden dominoes in box

Name plates

These are small name plates that I made as gifts.

Some of the wooden name boards made as gifts

Wooden Name Board

Material : 6mm Plywood.

The Names : I drew the letters free hand and then cut them out using a scroll saw.

The base : A wavy edge is always easier than a straight border, and I feel also looks better. This was also cut with a scroll saw, the proxxon DS230 E

Painting : Each side needed about two coats minimum, and some three of enamel paint. I did not use primer and wood putty. In retrospect I possibly should have to get a smoother finish I noticed that the first coat takes about 12-16 hrs to dry. The subsequent coats are faster even drying in four to five hours.

Wooden Name board

Hanging the picture : Using a drill press I drilled guide holes on the top of the name plate. Into this I fixed small hooks with a bit of fevicol . A pilot hole is a must to preven the plywood from splitting. I used a bit of fevicol to ensure that the screws did not come out as my smallest drill bit was not small enough.

The wire : I would have gone in for the usual GI wire (galvanized iron) that is readily available. However when I was at the hardware shop I noticed some different gauge copper wire that was more beautiful and also would not rust. It also feels a little easier to use.

Final impressions : These are easy name plates to make. It takes a bit of patience to wait for the paint to dry though.  

Router table

There is a lot of routing that I plan to do, and I always wanted to mount my router under a table. While I toyed with the idea initially of adding it to my own table saw table, the post by Indranil made me realize that building a router table was not that difficult.

The table : Rather than make a whole table from scratch, I decided to start with an existing table. I used a singer sewing machine table that costs about Rs 1500 or so. It is really advantageous as it  has a square cut out on the top for the machine. This square was just big enough for my Black & Decker KW 900 EKA router. I needed to two wooden beams to support the weight of the router however as the existing knobs were not made for this kind of a situation.

The surface of the router table. The square piece was already cut out.

Fixing the router. I removed the plastic base plate and drilled four holes arbitrarily on to the metal part of the router. Placing the router on the underside of the wooden piece I marked out the holes and drilled the holes in the wood. I also traced the outline of the base plate of the router and routed out a depression of the same area on the underside of the wood. This decreases the effective height of the wood and also helps the router sit snug in the wood. four nuts and bolts were placed from the top to hold the router in place. In this configuration the router is attached to the piece of wood but the wood can be removed.

The under surface of the router table. The router base fits into a grooved area to decrease the height lost.

Fixing the base : I fixed the base on to the cross bars with two bolts to make sure the base does not move.

Router lift : I use the diamond shaped car jack, that gives me remarkable control of the router. There is a small ledge on the table on which the lift sits. a slight rotation of the car jack and the router blade goes up or down as you wish. Before I rout I lock the position of the router.Shown in the picture is a temporary fitting. I plan to fix a car jack below and place a small wooden piece above it to provide a uniform force. 

Car jack used as a router lift : Works very well for fine adjustment.  The router has to be locked before use though.

Fence : Made from water proof ply, reinforced to keep it squre. I still have to perfect this.

The Finished  Assembly :  I have yet to attach a small hole for the vacuum assembly. Attaching a normal Eureka Forbes vacuum cleaner prevents dust flying all around the room. Routing without a vacuum is very dusty. The lower shelf will need some support in the middle as it will warp downward with use. I have to make that sometime. In short this was a nice project to make as I already had the table, and all that was required was  a little drilling. 

Final assembly of the router table. Fence not shown. 

Convert a circular saw to table saw - 2

I have a skil circular saw. There are things that only a table saw can do and so I had tried to convert it into a table saw by mounting it underneath a plank of wood. My initial experiment was detailed in an intial post here   but I never really used that as it was too much of a problem to set up and not stable. I needed to go in for a more solid structure.
I used my old computer table that I was using as a work table. I had already drilled the holes in the circular saw. I marked the holes and drilled them. I routed a counter sink holes on the top.
I carefully marked out the place for the blade and routed a through hole through the table top. The next step was to fix the circular saw with nuts and bolts from the underneath.
My table is not straight. So when I need to make a cut I use a straight edge parallel to the blade. I have also routed a groove parallel to the blade that i am going to use for a cross cut jig.
The maximum theoretical cutting height is about 4 cm, less when I use a makeshift cross cut jig. If i want to extract more from the blade, I will have to thin down the top or make a special base plate that fits precisely
in the table.

The table is shown below in the place where I plan to do scroll sawing. I move it to a larger area for using the table saw.

I also plan to attach my router to this table to have one multi-function table. Not because I like the multi- function, but because of space constraints.

The work table with the circular saw attached. This can do some of the work of the table saw. The table is in the area for scroll saw work.

When the blade is lowered I use the table to fix the proxxon scroll saw as I have a space crunch.

Proxxon saw with vacuum attachment fixed over the retracted blade .

Circular saw fixed with bolts from the underneath. One hole was drilled too near the corner and needed washers.

The feed in area is too small, only about one foot. My next table top will have a larger feed in area

Circular saw fixed in with nuts and bolts

Counter sunk holes and the parallel groove (parallel to the blade)

Blade is perpendicular. Max cutting height  only 4 cm

Flexishaft

Flexishaft attachment for drill

This was a gift I received from my brother. It is a flexishaft attachment for a normal drill. Fixing it was a little counter intuitive as I feared that  the entire shaft would rotate. However it fits well into the normal drill and only the bit at the tip rotates.  I fixed it up on to my old drill. However I later plan to fix it on to an old grinding stone motor.

I find this very useful for sanding small curved pieces. The counter sink bit is a real bonus. There are lots of other stone bits. In short a fantastic tool to have. I plan to do some intarsia now that sanding has become quite easy.

Bosch GBH 2-18 RE Rotary Hammer Review

Why did I buy the drill
I had an old drill that I had bought for about Rs 900 or so. It was supposed to be an impact or 'hammer drill'. It served me well for its lifetime. Apart from the knobs slowly breaking, a problem I faced was that the drill would not progress through the wall. I tried all sorts of bits, even dipping the bit in water. However I soon realized that the problem was with my drill. It did serve me well for wood, but was not good enough for  good quality cement or concrete.

Types of drills.
From information I have gleaned over the net, there are three types of drills.
1. Normal/Rotary drills  : With just a motor.
2. Impact drills (sometimes called hammer drills or impact drills)
3. Rotary hammers

The price increases in that order. A normal drill can be got locally  for less than Rs 1000. Many are available as 'tool kits' which include the drill, and a lot of hand tools. Impact drills start near Rs 2000, and rotary hammers about 4500 or so and more.

Normal drills just rotate. Impact drills rotate, but the rotating thingy (not sure of the exact technical term) causes a small forward movement of the whole chuck at a very high rpm. In a rotary hammer the forward movment is by a piston. Often a rotary hammr requires a special bit such as an SDS plus bit. This bit can move forwards and backwards within the chuck. A rotary hammer is more powerful for drilling to concrete.

As I already had a drill that could drill through wood, I decided to go in for a rotary hammer. I decided that I had had enough of struggling to get through walls. In fact I used to shy away from drilling on the wall due to the difficulty. Skil has a rotary hammer drill 1715 which is available for about Rs 4300. This has three modes, drill, hammer + drill, and only hammer mode. I decided however to go in for the bosch GBH 2-18 RE as I thought this would be a good lifetime investment. I have skil tools but an not very happy with their precision. The bosch  drill does not have an "only hammer mode". The only hammer mode can be used to chip away tiles etc, something that I may only rarely do.

Purchase : From Mach Power tools Chennai. I was pleased with their prompt service. There was however a delay in the part of my local first flight courier office. I hope this is just a one off thing as my local courier has delivered well before

First impressions : 

Bosch GBH 2-18 RE Rotary Hammer box

A good box. The box reasonably robust and seems to suggest an intent to last as long as the drill it houses. IT is also spacious enough to keep the drill, drill bits, spare chucks as well as other items. Nicely compartmentalized. Now it may seem irrelevant to talk about a drill box, however these things really make a difference while working.

Bosch GBH 2-18 RE Rotary hammer

A nice long cable. I have not exactly measured it, but it is much longer than my earlier drill.

Drill stop : A good one. However care has to be taken while using the drill stop in the hammer drill  mode, as the drill bit moves forward by at least half an inch. This has to be taken into account.

SDS plus masonry bit

Use in concrete : A  breeze. Melts through all walls, pillars, cross beams. Yes just  as the song love portion number 9 says  :  I did not know if it was day or night. I started drilling every spot on sight... I tried out the wall, the concrete pillar, as well as a concrete cross beam over the window. It was very very easy, with no strain at all.

Chuck with SDS plus adapter

Use in wood :  A special SDS plus adapter  is needed for this. I purchased this separately. There was nothing great in its used in wood that sets it apart from other drills.

Final impressions. I think a rotary hammer is very useful tool to have. It simplifies making a hole in a wall. It can be used as a normal drill too. I wish it came with at least one SDS plus bit, but that will have to be bought separately.

Wooden animals and figures

Wooden animals made from 12 mm finger jointed rubber wood

These wooden animals were made from 12 mm finger jointed wood. They were just the right thickness so that they can stand upright. I used some figures that I saw in a scroll saw book scroll saw basics, with a few  modifications. I used a proxxon DS 230 E scroll saw. Cutting through the wood was a little slow, but otherwise this was a very simple project. A little bit of sanding was required for finishing. Such kind of figures can be extended to make a farm set, along with trees and houses or a zoo etc. I drilled a hole right through for the eyes. Also shown below is a set of people.

Wooden people made from 12 mm finger jointed rubber.

The complete set of animals and figurines

An Indian DIY forum

For those who have not stumbled upon the site as yet, please check out DIYable.net which is an Indian  DIY forum, which has people from varied hobby and DIY interests.

Wooden toy planes

This was made with finger jointed rubber. I used 12 mm finger jointed rubber. I cut it out initially into a piece about 4 inches by 12 inches to facilitate cutting with the scroll saw.
I got a general idea of the plane from a picture online and drew the body freehand. The wing was fixed in a groove below the body of the plane. It is possible to fix the wings in the center of the body but that will be a little more difficult.

Wooden toy plane

The wings needed thinner wood. 12mm is the thinnest wood available in finger jointed rubber. To thin this out I cut a thin strip of this wood into two thinner pieces  with my 'table saw'. Although I tried to get two equal pieces I ended up with a thicker and thinner piece. The thicker piece went for the wing. This may be about 4 mm thick. The thinner piece went for the propeller. It may be about 2 mm thick.
I initially made wheels that could move, but they turned out to be too brittle. As these planes are made for kids who may be quite rough with them I thought just a cut out would do.
The propeller : Screwed on to the tip of the plane. The hole in the propeller has to be a little larger than the screw so that it rotates. Screw it in just short of tight so that the movement is smooth with minimal wobble. I put a little bit of glue on the tip of the screw before screwing it in.
All joints for the wing and the wheels were with fevicol and reinforced with headless nails. I found out that I could cut the headless nails with a cutting pliers to get them of the right size.

Wooden sea plane

This was a kind of seaplane. I used stainless steel screws instead of headless nails. However I did not like the look of steel on what was otherwise a wooden finish. It is not a replica of any plane but just a free hand drawing.

After cutting out with the scroll saw there is a bit of sanding to be done to smooth the edges.



I made three such planes, with slightly differing profiles. I like the look of finger jointed wood as it is, that is unfinished. It does not seem to stain very easiliy.
To protect it (if the planes last) some protective clear coating will have to be painted on. Overall this is an easy scroll saw project to undertake for a beginner.

Three wooden planes made from finger jointed rubber with a scroll saw

PROXXON DS 230/E review

Buying the Proxxon DS 230 E was a decision we took after a lot of thought. This is one of the few available scroll saws in the market. It is available at UMS technologies. They basically are dealers for aeromodelling equipment. They are suppliers of Proxxon products too.

Proxxon DS 230 E is a small but efficient scroll saw

My experience with UMS. 
I paid the scroll saw from the website only to hear that it was not possible to buy proxxon products via the web. UMS refunded the money and actually quoted lower than their web price. Service was reliable and they answered all my queries over phone, but were a little  slow in answering emails and processing. So if you deal with UMS be sure to call first, ensure that products are available in stock and that you can actually buy them, and plan a little ahead. 

Unboxing the Proxxon
The instructions on the proxxon are very sketchy on assembly. However if you are going for a scroll saw chances are you will be easily able to figure out what screw goes where. It did take me some time to assemble it.

The blade change. 
This is difficult. The screw to clamp the blade is way inside the box and has to be accessed with a long allen key. This cannot be done blindly. One has to peer into the side, carefully place the allen key and then twist. This is inconvenient. Secondly if the blade breaks, it is not so easy to get the broken bit out of the lower grip as it is not so accessible.

The lower blade grip is deep inside the machine and needs a long key

While making blind cuts, it is necessary to drill a hole into the wooden piece and place the blade through it. As changing the lower end of the blade is next to impossible once it is through the wood, I usually keep the lower end clamped, bend the blade and put the upper end through the hole. This is fine for small pieces of wood. However for larger bits of wood, the blade guide with the roller gets into the way. There is no way to move it away. It can only be lifted vertically. So If I were to be making  a large piece, I would have to improvise or detach the blade from the bottom every time. 

Blade guide that has to be lifted up to move out of the way 

Blades
Proxxon provides 5 blades with this. They seem good quality, but I did not really use them. I had a bunch of local blades that I had picked up and used these. The DS 230E has an adjustment to utilize even small blades. Though possible this requires removing three scews each time. What I finally did was to move it to the position of the smallest blade. I break my local blades to reach this size.

Blade holder can be lowered or raised by removing these three bolts

Performance :
Great. Very silent, very smooth. There is a tension screw on top, and  a small bellows. One fault I found was that the bellows tend to jump out and get stuck outside the casing if the tension is too much. This could have been avoided. The motor does not seem very powerful, and cutting trough one inch hardwood is slow. However cutting through veneer and 10 mm ply is a breeze. The variable speed is a nice feature. The machine has to be screwed on to a large base if you do not want it to jump around due to vibrations. The whole machine is very light.

Features : A fence. Really really useful. It is straight and helps you cut straight. There is also a miter  attachment for cutting angled pieces. This is also quite useful. I need to make a few mini jigs to optimize its use. There is a slot to store the blades and one to store the key. I do not use either of these.

Final Impression : Though not the easiest machine to use, with practice blade changes become easy. So it is not really a problem. The machine is smooth, reliable until now and cuts clean. It is worth the cost if you are going to use it. It is wonderful for making decorative pieces and children's toys. There is a cheaper alternative from Aaren Relipower that is less than half the cost, but this has to be pre ordered and there is a waiting time of more than a month. I have not tried it out but it looks similar to the proxxon with fewer features. Overall I feel this machine is a good buy if you are looking for a small, reliable scroll saw in India.

Small house, picket fence and gate made from veneer strips