How to get your power tools sanctioned

Politics starts at home. My wife and I both share the  responsibilities of the finance portfolio. However major investments (aka woodworking power tools) have to be budgeted for, scrutinized and first seen to be cost beneficial. Here are some of the tips that can help you speed up getting all your dream tools sanctioned.

1. Your birthday. If you have not been celebrating your birthday, start now. Within reasonable limits you can claim a power tool for your birthday. Keep in mind that you must be ready to shell out a reasonably similar amount for future birthdays for others in the family. You cannot be seen as one who consumes maximal resources. Upside : Easy to justify. Downside. Future financial implications can be scary.

2. Accompany your wife shopping. On every shopping trip abstain from purchasing the same amount as your wife. On the trip home perhaps it will dawn on the family that you have bought nothing for yourself. With a sigh say " O yes ... perhaps some other time" or perhaps say " I am a man of few needs..." etc. What this does is prime everyone when for the time when you ask for your table saw. Upside : Works with sensitive members of the family. Downside : If they catch on to your strategy you can go broke very fast with nothing to show for your efforts.

3. Make kitchen items. Be quick to put up every nail in the kitchen. Make shelves for pots and pans, masala racks and the works. Offer to make a kitchen table. Then suggest that a table  saw would help to make a really good kitchen table. It is worth a try.

4. Never pretend anything is easy. Do not undervalue your efforts, even to hammer a nail into a wall. Talk about good workmanship, the art of woodworking etc. Build up an aura about your work such that you are perceived as a good carpenter. A good carpenter deserves his tools.

5. Involve your family. Carpentry should not be your hobby. It should be the sacrifice you make with your time to help the family. Do not spend your time shut up in the workshop (if you have one) and leave your wife to take care of the kids. If you do so you will gradually be asked to do "something useful for a change". Instead promise your kids that they will be able to use your tools when they are older. Let them use some of your harmless tools such as spanners, or waste block pieces. Let them watch you (at a safe distance of course). Involve everyone in the process of hammering a nail. This is family time. Hammering, bonding. Let someone hold the chair, someone hand you the hammer, someone switch on the switch for the drill, and hopefully someone else clean up. This makes your fun, fun for the family. You just may get your power tool.

6. Think big. Talk  big. Of course you can make a bunk bed if you had a table saw! The chic furniture you saw in the shop is something you could make... of course if you had the right tools.  Once you say this repeatedly you may actually get what you ask for just to see if you can actually do it.

7. Let your wife see your blog posts before you post them. You would not want her to stumble on posts like this by accident would you!

8. Use your tools! There is no chance of buying new tools if you have not used your previous ones. This is common sense.

Wishing every potential woodworker the very best as they prioritize and plan how they would buy their tools. 

How to hammer a nail into a wall

Well I must accept that although this post is titled "how to hammer a nail into a wall", in reality I would not use a hammer and actually not even a nail. However this is often the most common thing one has to do to hang up things around the house, be it a calendar, a clock or some painting.
What you will need is a drill, a good masonry drill bit, water, wood piece or plastic anchors, screws and a screwdriver. If hammering a nail is the DIY thing you do most of the time, then it is probably helpful to keep the whole set of things in a small bag.

PVC Anchor

To begin with determine if you are going to use plastic anchors or the traditional wood piece. Plastic anchors are much easier to work with and are hopefully easily available even in small towns. If not pick one up in a larger place when you can. If you need to use wood, using a knife gently shave off the wood to get a taper so that it fits into the hole.

Masonry drill bit 

Choice of drill bit : Use a masonry drill bit. These are different from wooden or steel drill bits. You can identify them by the slight extra bulge at the tip. Chose a drill bit that is a little smaller than your plastic anchor. As you drill the hole may become a little wider than you expect.
Drill : Preferably a hammer drill. It is noisier but quicker, especially if you are drilling through good quality cement.

Wood/Steel drill bit

Precaution : In days of concealed wiring and plumbing make sure that you are not anywhere near water pipes and wires. The last thing you would want is water gushing out of your hole or getting electrocuted. If you do not  have access to the plans (as would be the case of most people), make an educated guess, looking at where the junction boxes are, the switches are and avoid these tracks. Be careful when drilling in a bathroom. Do not drill in the line just above a tap.

Mark the point where you want to drill and drill away. Now you can drill quite deep if you are not careful. A simple way of determining the depth you should drill is to place a small piece of tape on the drill bit as an indicator of depth. If your house has good cementing, the first bit of drilling is usually the most difficult until you enter the brick.
Water : I do not know if this is good practice, but this works for me. I do not have a very powerful drill. I stay in a house where the cementing is so strong that it is so difficult to drill into the wall. When I feel I am making no headway, I dip the tip of the bit in water and insert it back into the hole. This kind of makes the drilling wet. Only a little bit of water, two or three times and I am able to drill a hole.
Place your plastic anchors into this hole. Screw in the screw using a screwdriver to the depth needed.

Never use a hammer on a screw

PVC Anchor snug in the hole

Hammering a nail directly into a wall rarely works. I find screws better as they can easily be taken out. Nails may rust and break on taking them out. If you are using wood instead of a plastic anchor, hammer the wood in. Using a chisel or a good side blow cut off the extra wood piece.
Do not hammer a screw. I personally feel hammering a screw is the mark of shoddy workmanship.
If you do have access to stainless steel screws use them wherever you can. They are more expensive but will not rust.
Precaution : Do not attempt to hammer a nail into very old buildings where the plaster is chipping off. As you drill you will make a large embarrassing hole in the plaster.

The final screw

Hang it  up

Jigsaw blades - more than meets the eye

When I first purchased my Skil Jigsaw, the hardware owner told me that it had  three bundled blades -  for wood, metal and a thin blade for curves. I was thrilled. Ever since I have been collecting jigsaw blades in my trips around Vellore and Ludhiana. Most of them come as multipurpose sets.
However I recently came across a Bosch catalogue  that details the various types of blades and their uses. There really is more than meets the eye and I suppose a carefully chosen and well maintained blade will be really worth its price.
Now to find someone who can actually source the blades. One thing I have learnt is to never be satisfied with what your local hardware guy can provide, as he will always provide the blade or tool that is fast moving and cuts or functions average. 

Dremel 2505 bar clamp

Dremel 2505 clamps 

This was my first purchase of bar clamps. I think they are also called quick release clamps. I decided to go ahead with the purchase after reading Indranil's post on his blog The Indian DIY and Woodworker.  The only one that I could identify for purchase online in India was the Dremel 2505 clamp. This came as a set of 2 which I purchased from Mach Power Tools, Chennai.
I must say I was very pleased with their service. They had an online chat support, and this helped clarify doubts. They responded well to phone enquiries and the person on the other end was able to clarify my doubts. Besides they shipped by first flight courier and I got the clamps in three days. That really is something. Here's to more dealings with them.
The clamps are small but provide sufficient grip. The rubber ends prevent damage to wood. I was able to clamp a piece of wood on to the dining table and drill out holes using a circular bit. There was no damage to the table. They are very easy to use. My four year old son  also uses them as a toy to clamp things that he wants.

A key chain holder

We always seem to have more keys than we have locks. Most of them end up in a box in a cupboard, but for the ones we actually use, this was a simple key holder. There is nothing to it actually. It is a piece of teak wood beading with hooks placed in it at regular intervals. The beading is screwed on to the wall with two screws (counter sunk to accommodate the heads). Each of the hooks needed guide holes to be drilled in first though. This piece is very easy to make. It has a nice simplicity about it too.

Simple Bookshelf

When we moved into our new house one of the first things that caught our eye was a large empty space.We assume this was meant for a TV, but we already had a TVstand that we did not want to dispose of. Therefor this large empty space was left unused. It was too high and too deep to be wasted on one layer of books or decorative items and so we tried to build a small bookshelf.

To make this I used the one foot wide block wood strips that I still had. I used three initial strips to make a H shaped structure. I screwed in the horizontal piece from the sides using three screws per side. Once the H shaped structure was made I measured out the width of the empty space and then made a wooden piece of that length. I fixed this on top of the H shaped structure again using screws from above. As I used thin guide holes the screws were quite firm. I thought some sort of partitioning of the top would look nice. I had curved pieces of wood that were remaining from the curves I cut out of the children's table. I placed these on the top and screwed them in from below to get the two curved partitions on the shelf.
To get the finish I used primer, metal putty to fill the big holes and finally wood putty to get a smooth finish. I think used two coats of a brown glossy paint.
The finished bookshelf now houses CDs, books, cassettes and our little fish tank with our lone goldfish 'inky' in it. It actually holds a lot of books. We understood how much it holds only when we removed all the books and stacked them on the table.
I now have a half a litre of brown paint to finish off in addition to the purple and pink.

Children's table

After making a high chair, the next item on the agenda was making a baby table. This was meant for our son to write, draw and do other developmentally correct activities. Besides I could only buy half a litre cans of purple and pink paint and had about three fourth of them left behind after making the high chair. I had pieces of block wood lying around still and had to use them up

To make the top : I used some a remnant of old laminate covered ply. The laminate was chipped in some areas and so I enthusiastically decided to remove the entire laminate. It was not an easy task. Armed with a hammer and chisel on the balcony floor I went to work chipping of the laminate. It was not an easy task but the laminate was eventually removed. This left a lot off unevenness that had to be made smooth with wood putty

side view of the table

Under side of table showing cross bars

Final assembly

To make the sides of the table I cut a 1.5 feet by about 4 feet piece of block wood in half. This gave me two pieces of about 2 feet high and 1.5 feet broad. I drew some free hand curves on this and cut them out using a jigsaw to give it a curved look.

For the upper cross bars I cut out a 2 inch wide strip of blockwood and divided it into two.

Table in use 

The lower cross bar was about 4 inches wide. Almost all the wood was about 1 inch thick blockwood.

The inial holes were drilled through and I used 1.5 inch wood screws to fix them. Counter sinks had to be drilled using a larger drill bit.

One tip that I have realized is that if one scrapes the screw on a candle and gets some wax on the screw, it lubricates the screw and decreases the work of screwing in. I cannot remember who told me this though.

Two screws each for each side of the upper  cross bars and three screws for each side of the lower cross bar and the frame was made. 

I then screwed the top on to the frame, making sure that all the screws were inserted through the cross bars from below.

Once the final piece was assembled, I opened out the whole project, individually primed, puttied and painted two coats of purple and pink paint.

Well I suppose misuse is better than disuse...

I made the putty using the putty powder that I think is some kind of chalk powder and dissolving it in white enamel paint. This was a bit difficult as block wood has a lot of holes. The best thing to do I think is to fix a bit of beading to cover the holes in the section of block wood. I asked my local hardware guy if he could suggest some ready made putty. He suggested the one used for cars. This is available as a paste and is not very expensive. I got a tin of it and it hardened fast, and was easy to fix all the holes. The only drawback is that it did not sand smooth. The smoothness had to be ensured while spreading and unlike the traditionally made putty, when I sanded the metal putty, I would get uneven patches. I therefore ended up filling the holes with car putty and using traditional putty over it to get a smooth finish. I could have avoided all the puttying by covering the table with laminate, but I have not worked with laminate as yet.

The final table is quite stable and matches the previous high chair.

Of course developmentally correct activities are difficult to enforce. We use the table to keep our telephone on. My kids stand on it when given the opportunity.

A simple baby chair

Come babies come the need for a high chair. Fisher price plastic booster seats were an option but I have the habit of saying "I can build it so no need to buy it" for many things

my wife proposes so this time I had to actually get down to doing it. I used one inch block wood.

A few curved cuts with the jigsaw gave this a 'modern' and quasi professional look. Those who have not used a power saw may think that curves are tougher than straight cuts. How ironic! Two flat pieces served as the base and the back, fixed in with one and a half inch wood screws fixed in with guide holes and counter sink holes.

I do not know more about the wood other than this. This was also some left over wood from home

carpentry. The teddy bear 'Mr. Fundoo" served as a dummy for the project.

To get the legs I cut a long piece of block wood into two inch strips using a jigsaw. A circular saw would have been more useful but I did not have one at this point in time. The cuts were not very straight. These were then fixed with nuts and bolts at an angle on both sides of the chair.

A similar piece served as a cross bar in the front and the back. The chair was a bit wobbly. A little b it cut out from one leg and then another ensured that it was stable. However one thing I noticed was that even professionally made chairs were wobbly as my floor itself was not perfectly level.

Once the whole chair was assembled, I dismantled it. Applied insecticide, primer, putty and then paint in that order. We used purple and pink for the final colors. I then reassembled the pieces.

For the surface a transparent PVC sheet was used. This is expensive stuff but I had a piece lying around. A curve was cut in for the stomach of the kid.

Around the edges I fixed some PVC beading that provided a raised edge. I screwed the beading in from the underneath in addition to glue. To ensure a fit I used door magnets attached to the sides of the chair. It was

possible for the kids to kick off the plate and so I attached a hook at the back of the PVC surface that fixed it on the chair. Now my kids do not kick of the hooked surface. They first unhook it and kick it off.

However this serves the purpose. They cannot be left unsupervised on the chair as they can get out of it.

I have also not go the time to fix a harness or belts on the chair for safety. But it works.

This piece was simple to build in regards to skill. There are no complex joints or cuts. It just required patience, patient family members and attention to detail. I did replace the iron nuts and bolts with stainless steel ones later on.

For my second child we bought a fisher price booster seat. I know I could build it ...

Wooden plaque

One of the first (well of only few) woodworking projects that I undertook. This was planned as a gift. It was three years in the mind and about six months to make as I worked on it in very small bits of time and redid it a few times.

It is a verse from the Bible (Psalms 33:11)

The base was Vengai wood (or Irulai wood), I do not remember. The wood was a little larger than 2x1 feet and 1 inch thick. I got it from a local lumber mill in Vellore. I got the surfaces planed in the mill itself. (The wood looked horrible initially and I was quite disappointed as this was my first wood purchase. The grain was revealed in all its beauty after planing). The curved edges were cut with a Skil Jigsaw. I somehow thought that curved irregular edges were more appealing.
The first thing that I did was to apply some pesticide like chemical that my local dealer told me about. I applied this with a brush.

I wanted a dark background and so I stained it with rosewood stain. This was applied with a bit of waste cloth in about two or three layers. The grain became more pronounced, but the finer details were lost. It however got a richer look.

I must mention that as this was my first project, I experimented a lot and had to redo things many times. One of the first things I did was to apply sheenlac wood polish over the stain. To my horror all the stain came off. So hey presto, I had to remove the whole thing and do this all over again.

I then tried some 'sealant' that someone told me to. The stain came off again. It was back to sanding (with a Skil orbital sander) and reapplying the stain all over again.

I finally used clear varnish. All my heroics were in the balcony of my studio appt, out of the sight of my kids and ensuring that the smell did not overwhelm the whole house.

I read off the net that one has to sand the varnish and reapply. So I faithfully did so. Varnished and sandpapered it. With fine sand paper 400 grit (the finest that I could get locally).

However a horrible problem that I faced was dust settling on the varnish. Dust, insects, leaves you name it all had an uncanny ability to land on the freshly painted piece. It actually looked better after the sandpaper. After sandpapering even with 400 grit the sanding lines were visible. I thought I would use some solid wood polish to get a final luster. However this did not provide the finish I wanted and after two or three layers of polish I realied that what I had was a finger print magnet. I wanted to remove the polish. I could not. So hey presto back to square one to my wife's disbelief. Sanded, and repolished etc.

Finally after about six or seven coats of varnish the base looked good. There were a few dust spots on it but I could never get a dust free environment. So the dark base was made.

To get the thin wood for the lettering I used a light colored pine veneer that another local plywood shop had a bit of. However this was too thin and the color was not to my liking. Besides the letters did not cut fine. I thus stuck a light colored laminate over it with fevicol. I had some left over pieces of this laminate from some carpentry work done in my parents house. This laminate plus veneer was thick enough and cut well.

Well now to the cutting. I always thought this would cut fine with a hand held 'U frame saw' or a 'fretwork saw'. I purchased one for about fifty rupees. But lacking a vice, and holding the piece of wood in one hand and trying to use the thread like blade to cut out a letter was almost impossible. It took me about half an hour for a letter, and the blade broke numerous times. It was frustrating. I wished I had done the letters first.

I looked up scroll saws. There was a Skil scroll saw available in the US for about 100 dollars. It was not available in India. The local hardware supplier did not have any idea what it was for. When I described what I wanted to do I bystander said that 'Sir, that is professional work, you cannot do it...' or something to that effect. This only furthered my resolve.

I finally got a workaround. I purchased some scroll saw blades in bulk from a hardware store, and converted my skil jigsaw into a scroll saw. To do this I drilled a large whole (about half an inch in diameter in a long plank of waste block wood. I dismantled the jigsaw and fixed it over the hole so that the thin blade would pass up and down through the hole. I then used this as a scroll saw. It was crude. The blade bent easily, broke easily but was way more effective than doing this by hand. I was able to cut the letters out with this arrangement and prepare them for pasting.

After all the letters were available I pasted them on with fevicol. I was aware the fevicol was just sticking the letters on to the last layer of varnish, and with time this would fall of, so these had to be nailed down. I used thin headless nails.

Now hammering a nail is an art. Every second nail bent. Some and to be broken halfway. A few of the letters split and had to be hammered individually. Eventually the whole thing was assembled. Two hooks behind and A GI wire between it helped to hang it up.

This piece was designed keeping in mind a similar piece that had been designed by uncle Ian Robson from Bangalore. He is one of the best professional woodworkers I know. I tried to copy his finish and his attention to detail. His carpentry has survived in our home for twenty years and is still as good as new. Literally. I have only childhood memories of him and the work that he used to do, and we have kind of lost touch, but hope to renew our friendship some time in the future. Thanks uncle Ian for these wonderful memories.

I have always loved woodworking and have gradually started doing some stuff. I came across a very nice blog by Indranil here today

http://indiandiy.blogspot.com/