New workshop
I renovate and organise my new workshop. Renovation of ancient bench is detailed here.
Old woodworker's table
I’ve finished refreshing my new workshop - old furniture thrown out, holes in walls puttied and painted cinnamon-red, electrical connections organised. Time to move in with tools and stuff!
Peter has left me his old woodworker’s table. It was mounted under roof but outside, exposed to weather and varying humidity and in rather neglected state.
I fell in love with it instantly! Finally a proper woodworking bench! It was convenient to have it outside for dirty jobs but I’d rather take it into workshop and build some temporary table here for occasional dirty jobs.
Legs to the bench turned out to be in better condition.
Wooden vices are operational but need some love to shine again.
I like how worn-out this thing is but I don’t like dirt and spilled paint all over the place so I’ve decided to sand it to reveal clean wood but without excessive patina removal.
Orbital sander with 60 & 80 paper, some hand sanding in corners and the bench started to look even more promising. I noticed that there are at least 4 types of wood used to build it: pine, some hardwood for vices and pegs (Acacia? Beechwood?), mahogany in tool-rest cavity and walnut for vice screws. All quoter-sawn so even though it stands outside in weather it did not deform nor split.
For proper cleaning I needed to disassemble the big vice.
Cover plate is nailed with wooden nails, formed as teardrops. I even found a shim inside!
To release the screw one needs to unlock wooden lock plate. Neat!
Sanding took one day but once finally done it was followed by oiling. I use a mixture of cold-pressed linseed oil, turpentine and rests of Epifanes varnish. This mixture is in fact leftover after few seasons of varnishing: I don’t clean my brushes, I dope them into turpentine to remove most of the varnish and then put them in a jar filled with linseed oil. Here they wait until I need them again, staying soft and ready for action. At such occasions the oil mixture gets usage and is replaced by clean and fresh oil.
Soaking with oil took few hours until wood didn’t want to drink more. I cleaned the excess with cotton rag (doped into water afterward to avoid risk of self-ignition). It turned out really well.
Legs were disassembled, cleaned and also oiled.
Vice mechanism was cleaned, oiled and assembled back.
Leg joinery requires 3 wedges to lock all components together. They were missing so I made new ones from mahogany offcuts.
To remove the bench from its current place I built a cart matching bench’s height above the ground. This way, with a bit of help from my girls, I could transport the bench closer to workshop.
Lowered onto steel-pipe rollers could be then pushed into the workshop.
Finally connected with legs it matched perfectly and sits now in it’s new place.
Wooden screws got soaked with oil and cleaned but I didn’t sand them. I’ve decided to leave their worn-out surface as a sign of time and usage. I like how they look. They were soaking oil like sponges!
All assembled and ready for another 100 years of usage!
Small jobs for winter evenings
Few years ago I bough this copper can for storing lamp oil onboard. Useful nice thing, looking good in the cabin and making life easier when re-filling oil lamps on Meritaten. However - this one has a flaw: it leaks oil via bottom-side seam. Not much but it gets wet during few days and smells.
Since it was brand new I sent it to Toplicht for repir or replacement. They tried to repair it with epoxy but it still leaked. Replacement was not possible as this is not produced anymore so they simply have no more in stock.
In the end they proposed me a generous re-found if I want to keep it. Basically I got it for less than half-price. Fine - I can fix it myself!
Initially I thought of brazing it with silver but after consulting Toplicht they talked me out of it - it turns out that copper is covered with transparent varnish, to protect it from oxidation. If I apply flame to the bottom it will destroy the protective film. If I could remove the paint from the whole can I would go for it - after all I like copper green patina - but it seems like a daunting job and chances are it will look ugly with partly removed finish.
Instead I decided to seal it now with brown Sika. Non-cured Sika is solvable with oil so I needed to thoroughly clean the lamp and de-grease it. Then I left it for several weeks to allow what remaining oil is there to evaporate. Finally this week I found time to finish the job.
I masked the surrounding areas with paper tape, to make clean cut-out for coming Sika seal.
Then followed Sika, squeezed in and rubbed into the seam, leaving thin layer on surrounding faces for better adhesion. Before it cured I removed the tape to avoid risen edges. Turned out very nice.
To further reinforce this seal - and as a protection to the can when it bumps around on the boat during sailing - I added rubber ring on top of un-cured Sika.
After curing, on the next day, I checked that rubber sits firmly, glued to Sika. I’m yet to check if it became finally oil-tight but in case it still leaks I’ll just reinforce the seam with more Sika.