Tag: woodworking

DIY Walnut & Oak Desk with Adjustable Base

Nick Momrik4 Comments

It was time for a new desk for my home office. I ordered this TOPSKY desk base on Amazon for $220.99.

Over the years, without success, I’ve tried to stand some while working. Hopefully a motorized adjustable base will encourage me to stand for certain tasks and even if I can do a couple of 20-30 minute sessions each day it’ll be a big help.

I got to work processing walnut boards and white oak flooring.

There was a lot of jointing, cross-cutting, ripping, planing, more ripping, and trimming. I’m excited to use that box of off-cuts to make an end grain cutting board or two! I felt like the key to this build was going to be the glue-ups. I started with sections of 9-10 pieces and ended up with eight of those.

I ran each section through the planer, with the help of some shimming for a couple, to flatten them. I made a temporary sled to square up the sides to the faces.

To help assemble the sections, I used a couple of biscuits on each glue joint.

I glued up two sections at a time, which gave me four bigger sections. Then I glued up two of those at a time and one final glue up.

I drilled and put in all of the bolt inserts, which will attach the top to the desk base.

I took three passes with the router to put a big chamfer along the bottom edge.

With a jigsaw, I rough cut out a spot in the back to pass cables through. Then I did some sanding to smooth it out and added a chamfer with the router. Here is it, viewed with the desk bottom facing up.

Due to the base’s cross support, there’s was limited depth for drawers, but there was width for them. I took some old kitchen cabinet drawers, chopped them in half, and closed them up with scrap plywood.

Then I worked on what I’m calling the drawer box even though it’s not a box. I also cut top rails from hardboard and oversized drawer faces from walnut. Grabbed strips of walnut for face-framing and glued together pieces of oak to make drawer pulls.

All the sanding! I went through 80, 120, 180, and 220 grits on the top and sides of the desk.

Time to put some finish on, which is always a favorite step to see how it’s really going to look. It was my first time trying out a hard wax oil and I used Bee Nooba Wax from Bumblechutes. It was very easy to apply and I’ll definitely be using it on future projects. I applied one coat to the bottom and three coats to the sides and top.

Then it was back to the drawers. I stained the “box” black and ended up having to trim some things to fit better around the rail of the desk base. I sized the drawer faces, made oak handles with 10° angles, assembled everything, and applied finish.

It turned out great! I can’t wait to see it in our new house later this year!

Network Rack Supports

Nick Momrik3 Comments

We’re having a house built next year and it’ll have ethernet ports all over. I’ve already started gathering equipment and setting up a network rack cabinet (from Amazon), so I can start playing around with the stuff in our current house over the winter. The rack will do the job fine, but it’s not super high quality. Since the components usually only mount to the front rails, the heavy equipment can sag quite a bit in the rear. I cut and stained a couple of pieces of scrap wood.

The UPS is the heaviest piece of gear, so it’s mounted at the bottom of the rack. I used a couple of pieces of VHB tape to stick the support beam to the rack floor. The rear of the UPS simply rests on that piece of wood.

The other support piece mounts to the rear rails with washers and screws, propping up the back end of the switch.

Simple and effective improvements.

Homemade Christmas Ornaments – 2023

Nick Momrik3 Comments

After getting married in October, of course we were going to center our ornament around that this year. We took some leftover pieces that didn’t get used for the kitchen backsplash, glued two together, cut it to size, rounded the corners, softened the edges, and added a couple of screw eyes.

We bought two different colors (hard to tell in this photo) of twine and tied a square knot. Obvious symbolism.

After having a Cricut for almost two years, we finally cut vinyl on it.

A little super glue gel to attach the knot.

Then we sprayed three coats of lacquer to help set it and hopefully hold on to the vinyl better.

We also have some bonus ornaments this year. I drilled a hole through one of the golf balls Brandi had made for some twine. The other two were Huichol art we did on our honeymoon in Playa Mujeres. Can you guess who did which one?

Making ornaments is a yearly tradition for us. Check out 2021 and 2022.

Another Blanket Ladder

Nick Momrik1 Comment

Back in November I made a ladder for our fireplace and Mom commented on my Facebook post.

So I whipped one up for Mother’s Day. Very similar process and dimensions. I used pieces of old oak flooring and stained it.

My new sliding miter saw has a depth stop, so I used that to the dados and cleaned them up with a chisel. Can you spot the huge mistake though? I marked and cut the dados the same way in both sides of the ladder. Since everything is on a 10° angle, I couldn’t rotate the pieces to work, and ended up with two left sides. Milled up a board for a new right side, which went much quicker.

Alphard Club Booster V2 and a DIY Rack/Shelf

Nick Momrik1 Comment

I prefer to walk golf courses. It’s great exercise, gives me time prepare for shots as well as reflect, and it’s faster than riding. I bought a Clicgear 3.0 three wheel cart in 2011 and with some minor fixes over the years it’s worked great.

I’m not getting any younger and I want to keep walking as long as I can, so I’ve thought about a motorized push cart. Then I came across the Club Booster V2 by Alphard (save $50!), which converts your own push cart into a motorized one. The reviews were awesome so I ordered a refurb unit for $647. Here’s my first test after assembly.

I was impressed, but the dragging front wheel while turning didn’t work very well, so I quickly ordered the Swivel Conversion Kit for $89. The kit replaced the front wheel with an axle where the original back wheels mounted to make it a four wheel cart with a swivel front. It makes a huge difference for maneuverability and stability.

By the time I finished my first nine holes I felt very comfortable controlling it. I’ve played two 18 hole rounds and this upgraded cart let’s me play faster and leaves me fresher for the back nine. I’m surprised how much energy I save not having to push the cart. I’m thinking about doing a detailed review post.

There were two problems though. The parts took up too much floor space in the garage and looked messy. I also forgot to take the wheelie bars for the first round I played.

I needed some type of rack to keep things organized, help me remember to grab everything, and make changing easy. I thought about having slots for the axle or something to prevent the unit from falling to the floor. After cutting a piece of plywood and laying things out, I realized a simple shelf with holes for the wheelie bars is all I needed.

Just what I needed. I love a quick build.

With a motor this is a vehicle for my golf clubs, so it needed a name. I’ve been struggling to think of anything, so I asked ChatGPT.

Those are some good ones and I chuckled. Brandi’s idea was to call it R2-D2, but I don’t like reusing a specific name. I like the style, so I settled on CB-V2 since the unit is like my own droid.

Nitrile Glove Dispenser

Nick Momrik2 Comments

As I was finishing my closet reorganization I couldn’t help myself and had to make something. I have three sizes of nitrile gloves.

This gave me an idea based on plastic bag organizers I’ve seen on Facebook Marketplace.

I made a quick sketch, took some measurements, and grabbed plywood scraps.

It was a simple construction, using wood glue and pin nails to hold it together. I did screw on the back in case I ever need to get inside. I carved in the letters with whatever bit was on my rotary tool.

The top and bottom were made long so I could screw the unit in place.

I did finish organizing and cleaning the closet, so here are before and after pictures.

I’m glad that’s done. Time for some non-shop projects.

Ryobi Tool Storage

Nick Momrik4 Comments

I’ve been keeping my Ryobi cordless 18v tools on some shelves on a wall next to a drain pipe.

As you can see, I outgrew the area. I also had several sanders in the drawers of my sanding cart and even more tools in a box on the floor.

Look at that picture again. Wouldn’t that wall be a great place for cordless tool storage? It’s not in a weird location, is further away from the big tools that make all the dust, and in reach while working at the assembly table.

I took down the vise shelf, chopped and cleaned the plywood, and installed it on the wall entering the shop.

After taking down the nail bins I took the opportunity to spread them out on the backer board since I have more vertical space in the new location. Then I moved the nail bins around the corner, under the rest of my bin storage.

I had a blank canvas.

Before building anything I had to figure out tool arrangement, so I marked out space on the floor to match the area of the wall.

After gathering all of my tools I messed around with layouts and tool groupings.

When I had something I liked, I started making shelves one row at a time.

As you may have noticed from the photos, I kept changing things as I went, and there were a lot of iterations I didn’t get pictures of. When I was about 80% done with everything I remembered I had the rotary tool and my Armor Tool Auto-Jig Pocket Hole System stored in the drill press press cabinet. I definitely wanted both tools out in the open where I’ll be more likely to use them. All of the changes were worth it; every tool has a place and I love it. I’ve been wanting something like this for years.

As I was building, it was so handy to turn around and grab a tool or a battery that was already in its place. No more walking over to the other area and reaching around the corner. Little things like the magnetic strip for bits and accessories make a big difference too. Another bonus is this project used a bunch of odd scraps I had in my wood collection.

Are you a Ryobi fan? What are your favorite tools?

Tool Pegboard Reorganization

Nick Momrik2 Comments

I’ve had a bunch of pegboards in my shop for over five years, and I’ve figured out what works and what doesn’t. I love that a lot of my tools are in direct view and can quickly be accessed. I didn’t love a few areas that I go to frequently though. The first wall I wanted to tackle looked like this.

The main problem was the hammers. They’d become crowded and it was a pain to pull one out when it was second or third in line. I moved all of the other tools up on the wall and lined up my hammers on the assembly table.

After taking measurements, I cut up oak pieces from my old kitchen light box. This storage shelf came together pretty quick and has room for even more hammers. Now I can quickly grab any hammer without disturbing the others.

Here’s the updated wall.

The next wall to the right was making poor use of space, especially since I don’t grab some of the saws very often. Take a look and see they were nearly occupying half of the wall. The files never worked well on those individual hooks either, which always pulled out of the wall.

By moving stuff around I was able to get several more saws, like my Japanese pull and coping, as well as other tools up on the wall.

Over to the right again was tools used primarily for measuring and alignment. In February of 2018 I made a shelf for the squares, which has taken up way too much space. I really liked the grooves in that shelf, but the squares weren’t secure enough. Here’s how the wall looked before I touched it.

I reorganized everything else first and then made a new shelf that was longer so I could add slots in each groove to drop one of each square’s legs down.

Huge improvement and look how much extra space I have for more tools! I need to get myself a nice set of chisels.

Last up was the pegboard on my bench.

I’d been using four of the pegboard holders made for screwdrivers here and don’t care for them; the holes are too big and the spacing is too wide. All you need is scrap plywood with holes drilled in it, which allows you to run two deep and have plenty of expansion room. I also made a holder to store the wood carving set that had been unopened in a box buried on the bench for years.

So much better. Now I can tackle the reorganization of my shop closet.

Workshop Dust Collection 2.0 Part 2

Nick Momrik2 Comments

Over four years ago, I modded a Harbor Freight dust collector and closed the post by saying…

I’ll have to create some adapters for tools with dust ports smaller than 4″, though the hose kit did come with some for use with 2.5″ ports. Now that I have a system with enough power I can build something around the miter saw.

I think it was time to finally knock this off my todo list!

My table saw cart got dust collection built in, I set something up for the jointer, and my planer has an easy connection, but the rest of the major dust creation tools have been neglected far too long. Each machine needed a dedicated solution that was easy to connect to the main line or I wouldn’t bother to use any dust collection at all. I pulled out some hoses I picked up at estate sales years ago and bought couplers and connectors that would fit the main line.

The band saw was a quick solution by using a coupler and a reducer on the port at the back.

My sanding cart has three machines, four dust collection ports, and five places to sand. Three of those ports are the same size and after cutting away some excess plastic on a hose it was the perfect fit. I zip tied the hose to a bracket on the back of the station and routed the hose out to the bottom front. It’s easy to swap the small end of the hose from port to port. My spindle sander had a larger port, so I used a coupler and another old hose, feeding it under the drawers as well. I can easily connect the main line to either hose.

Some fittings on another hose got my new miter saw all set. Time will tell how well dust collection works here because miter saws are notoriously bad at it. I may have to build a shroud of some kind behind the blade.

The final hose got a fitting to work with my random orbital sander, track saw, and circular saw. It’ll remain a portable hose I pull out to use with those tools or for corner clean up around the shop.

Even though I’m never more than a few steps away from the dust collector, having to go back and forth to turn it on and off was a nuisance. I’d seen several remote control solutions for $50-100, which always seemed like too much, so planned to build my own. Then a recent Amazon search came up with a $13 product so I bought one. It works great!

Feels good to finish this project. I’m looking forward to breathing less dust and not having to clean up as much.