I was surprised to find that, as I started, I couldn’t even view the website because the hosting company had updated some software without updating all the requisites so the site didn’t even work!  Sigh…

In any case, if you’ve been one of the ones who have been checking in, I apologize for letting this languish and will try to do better in the future!!!

The tricky part about Knife Hinges is that each blade of the hinge must be precisely mortised into the top and bottom rails and the top and bottom edge of the doors and there is no adjustment for positioning (unless you make the mortise oversized).  The blade is flush with the wood surface and the only part that is exposed is the pivot.  Each pivot has a spacer which precisely defines the top and bottom gaps for the inset door.  For appearances sake, the right and left gap of each door should match the top and bottom gaps.  Therefore, the door is sized to fit the opening with this small gap at each edge of the door.

With the hinges I’ve purchased (5/16″ Brusso hinges) the spacer is 0.048″, halfway between 1/32″ and 1/16″.   This means that the hinge positions for the right and left hinges must be precisely 0.048″ from the right and left legs, respectively AND, even more tricky, the center two hinges must be positioned 0.024″ from the center of the rail AND must precisely line up with the corresponding mortise on the opposite rail.

WHEW!

As I thought about what technique to use to make these mortises in the quarter sawn oak rails I realized that each mortise is identical to each other.  Some are mirrored, but the dimensions are identical.  Further, trying to chop out a mortise with a 0.048″ end wall or a pair of mortises with a 0.048″ wall between them, I knew that chopping with a chisel wasn’t an option.  That meant the best way was probably routing.

My first thought was to use my CNC Router to make a jig for a hand held router, but then, after a flash of light! I knew how to make these mortises!

The rails are 40 1/2″ long so I couldn’t cut all mortises in one pass (the CNC router is limited to 24″ of travel).  However, since the mortises on the top and bottom are identical but mirrored, it would be easy to design the pattern to cut TWO mortises at once with the two rails clamped together face to face!

Further, with the two rails perfectly aligned, the top and bottom mortises would be perfectly aligned.  AND if I took shallow passes on the cutting, then there was a good chance that the thin end and center wall could be maintained.  Finally, the FOUR center mortises could all be cut in one pass so the hardest alignment should be easy.

So, here ya go…

Here is the prototype, just to make sure the pattern and technique would work.

You can see the center mortises precise cut in the two rails.  Here is the fitting of the hinges to the mortises:

To fit the rectangular hinge, I needed to trim the 1/32″ radius corners.

Here are the two hinges mounted back to back. The spacing is exactly 0.048″!!!

Now it was time to do the REAL rails!  Here are the oak rails (with first coat of tinted oil) with all the mortises cut.

All eight mortises have been cut. Unfortunately, I messed up cutting the center mortises!!!

When I set up the rails to cut the center mortises, I reloaded the CNC program and forgot to tell the CNC software that the cutting bit was already mounted.  When I began the alignment to the center of the rails, the software tried to move the router lower than the bit would allow and I needed to realign the bit after it got pushed in slightly.  Unfortunately, I didn’t tighten the collet well enough and, while routing the first set of center mortises, the bit slipped and cut the mortise about 0.088″ deeper than it should have!  Pooh (this is what I said at the time, I’m sure of it…)

Ok, the secret to ‘fine’ woodworking is knowing how to cover your mistakes…

The two center mortises, one deeper than the other. In the foreground you can see a piece of oak that I machined to exactly 0.088″ thick…

Here are the two mortises repaired with the fillers. All mortises are back to the same depth and, after the glue dries, the excess will be trimmed off and stained. No one will ever know ;-)

To make the hinge mortises in the doors, the CNC router would be difficult since the mortise is cut into the ends of the 18 3/4″ stiles and I’d have to jury rig some kind of reliable mount with most of the door hanging under the modified CNC base plate – Yuck!

Instead, I used the CNC router to make a routing template that could be clamped to the door and hand routed with the trim router.  Here is the jig I made.

The CNC router cut the 1/4″ MDF sheet with mirrored openings for the top and bottoms of the doors.  The extra holes were used to temporarily screw 1/4″ bolts used as guide pins to align the center clamping block.  This gave me a reference edge for the face of the door and allowed the guide to be perfectly aligned when clamped.

Here are some underside views of the Jig.

Under side of the jig with slot for clamp.

Here is the jig clamped to a door.

Finally, here is the result of mortising the door with hinge inserted into mortise.

Finished Mortise with hinge inserted.

The “Good News Is”^[1] that I learned how to take care of this kind of problem a few years ago at a woodworking school in Hertford, NC.^[2]

The trick is to ‘refill’ the compressed wood cells (AKA ‘Dent’) with steam and they’ll inflate back to original size (more or less) and goodbye dent.  The photos below show the Before and After using the technique.

As you can see in the first photo, the dent is very pronounced and easily seen if not corrected.  My choices were:

1. Sand the leg until the dent disappears – not a pretty choice as the whole leg would have an obviously large depression.
2. Fill the dent with some kind of wood filler – this might work, but, over time, the filler would separate from the wood and fall off leaving an even worse appearance.
3. Drill out the dent and plug it – this could work, especially since I’m painting the vanity and don’t care about grain matching.  Unfortunately, being at the LHV, I didn’t have any plug cutters with which to make a plug.  Still a possibility, but only if nothing else works.
4. Steam the dent away…   What the heck?  It’s easy enough to try and I can always go back to choice #3 if it didn’t work.

Only problem was, to steam out the dent, I needed a clothes Iron.   Once again, our neighbors, Phil and Mary, came to my rescue and loaned me one.  Phil, being a curious guy and always ready to learn a new trick, decided to observe the process.

To steam out a dent:

1. Lay out the dented piece on a stable surface – one that won’t care too much if it gets wet.
2. Place a thin cotton cloth or, in this case, I used a folded over piece of Scott’s Rags in a Box, over the dented area.
3. Dribble a bit of water onto the cloth, making sure the surface of the wood is wetted.
4. Place an Iron, set to its highest heat setting, onto the wetted cloth and press down until the steam stops rising (no longer than this or you risk charring the wood).
5. Lift the Iron and the cloth and see how much of the dent remains.
6. Repeat steps 2-5 until the dent is sufficiently gone or no further progress is made.

After the wood dries, you may find that the dent has shrunk even more.  However, if you’ve wetted too much of the wood or repeated too many times, you may find that the area around the dent has swollen a bit.   If this happens, try to resist the urge to sand the swollen region flat.  If you do sand it, you may find that the area develops a depression after the wood dries completely.

That’s it!  Vanity Leg salvaged!

Time to make the floor mounted receptacle support.

Now I had lots of choices for mounting the receptacle boxes:

• I could go utilitarian and use angle iron – Too ugly and tough to get rid of sharp edges that tend to wreck shins.
• I could use surface mount boxes – too expensive and I’d have to cut large holes in my nice new floor.
• I could mount the electrical boxes directly on to the floor – hmmm, sort of ugly and takes up a lot of floor space.  Easiest to do, however.
• Or… being a woodworker, I could make some out of wood!

Yes, this last one appealed to me.  However, I soon found out that, with the shop only partially unpacked, it was a very interesting case of using tools and techniques modified by ‘what was available’.

The choice of wood was easy, the task didn’t warrant an expensive wood and I have plenty of flooring cutoffs I had saved.  This would complement the flooring and ya can’t beat the price!

Task 1 was to use my thickness planer to mill off the ridges on the underside of the flooring.  While the thickness planer is one of the tools that requires a floor mounted receptacle, it runs on 120V so an extension cord worked just fine.  The planer stand hadn’t been assembled yet, but I used my trusty hydraulic lift cart as a temporary stand.  This task was completed in short order yielding 8 pieces of 5/8″ uniform thickness.

The next step was to rip these to remove the tongue and groove.  Since the Table Saw required the 220V Extension cord, it was time to get my 18″ bandsaw back into action.  This made sense anyway since the ‘design’ called for using the BS to cut some curves.

Getting the BS ready took a little more time than expected.  Sitting idle for more than ten months apparently allowed the saw dust in the blade guide bearings to ‘settle in’ an some of the bearings wouldn’t turn at all while the remaining turned with some effort.   Fortunately, soaking in Mineral Spirits cleaned out the gum and the saw dust and I was able to recover these.

Then I was reminded of a ‘fix’ I had installed in the BS when I first got it – the top wheel bracket fit too loosely in its guide and I had installed some shims to keep the wheel from wobbling.  I guess moving the equipment dislodged the shims and I had to ‘re-invent’ the ‘fix’ before I could use the saw. Finally, after much searching, I was unable to locate the guide for the BS fence.  Kerry serendipitously found a cutting guide clamp that fit well enough on the saw to provide a reliable and relatively easy to use fence.

So, within minutes (after hours of messing around, looking for stuff) I had 8 uniformly wide boards, ready for final dimensioning.  4 of the boards were merely cut to length on my Miter saw – a key tool all along.

The remaining 4 boards had to be cut with a matched curved profile. This was the fun part.  Finally a bit of woodworking…

I rough cut the first one using a template I printed from my Sketchup model of the mount.  I simply taped a cut out of the paper template to the board.   Once I had the rough cut, I used my Oscillating Edge Belt/Spindle Sander to smooth and even the edges and curves.  I was pleased that I hadn’t lost my touch and was able to finish the curves easily.

Using this first board as the template, I marked the remaining three boards and rough cut these on the BS.  At this point I would have normally used the first board as a routing pattern on my router table and gotten exact matches on all four pieces.  However, since the ‘old’ router table had been mounted on the wing of the Table Saw and was removed to tuck a portion of the jointer under the TS wing AND the ‘new’ router table hasn’t been built yet…   I decided to try my skill at matching the pieces using the sander.  Again, with a light touch, taking my time, I was able to get a good match between two pairs of boards and I was ready to assemble and, finally, get power to the Table Saw.

So here are the results…

Now I have power to the Jointer and Table Saw so that I can easily and accurately rip those boards I need to make the receptacle mount… Oh wait, that’s already done.  Hmmmm, maybe I’ll rip the last piece of flooring for the office…

Having neither of these things, then the next best thing is to CAREFULLY construct the pieces as sub-assemblies that you can lift and try to construct the entire item in piece wise steps.

Here is how I assembled the Crane Hoist I’ll need to assemble other Big Ass pieces of equipment in the future…

The Crane Hoist un-assembled. Very nicely packed!

After assembling the two ends, the tricky part was attaching the overhead I-beam to the end bases.  I could hold one base vertically in the workbench vise, but didn’t have anything solid or stable enough to hold the other base exactly the right distance from the opposite end.  Plus, trying the hold and align the long I-beam while trying to attach bolts to one end was definitely not a safe prospect.

However, recognizing that the triangle formed by the I-beam and one of the bases would be solidly stable and that I could probably manage to lift HALF the weight of that sub-assembly (the other HALF of the weight would be borne by the floor and Workbench), I decided to start with this:

End Base attached to I-beam

I rested the I-beam and the top of the End Base on the Workbench to assemble these together.  Note the two F-Clamps on the left side of the Workbench.  These serve two purposes.  During this step, they keep the I-beam from sliding sideways and potentially falling off the Workbench during assembly.  They also hold a couple of blocks of wood to the bench.  These will be used in the next step…

Base and I-Beam rotated to partially standing position.

Once the I-beam and one end are assembled, the assembly can be rotated to a partially standing position.  Note that the blocks of wood, clamped to the Workbench, keep the end of the I-beam from sliding off the end of the Workbench.

With this setup stable, it was a simple matter to roll the base so that the I-beam was, once again, aligned with the length of the Workbench.  Again, note the blocks of wood keeping the I-beam from sliding off the end of the Workbench.

Beam, Base assembly aligned with Workbench

Note that the free End Base is now held upright in the Workbench vise, ready to attach the Beam assembly.

Another view prior to assembly.  Note the F-Clamp holding the post of the Base solidly into the vise (I didn’t want any mishaps).

End Base ready to attach to Beam, Base assembly

With this setup it was then very easy to lift up the end of the Beam and, given the rollers on the attached base, align the end of the Beam with the Base held in the vise.

All pieces 'connected'

I only inserted one bolt and loosely attached the nut, but this was enough to provide a pivot point (all the weight was borne by the two bases, not the bolt) so…

Ends aligned for final assembly.

I just needed to rotate the end attached to the beam until the beam was aligned with the second base, bolt it down, and…

Done!

New 1/2 Ton Crane Hoist

Note Hard Hat, ready to use!