See you all in September

Thank you all for your support, happy summer holidays, from me and Scrapy!

DIY floor lamp with a drill and a jigsaw from Skil

Skil sent to me a cordless driver and a jigsaw. I decided to make a limited power tools project using mostly those two.

So I made this organic design floor lamp out of MDF, plywood and led stripe.

First of all I used a charcoal pencil to draw the organic shapes to the sides of my lamp.

I then opened up the entry holes for the jigsaw using the cordless drill.

I  then used the jigsaw to cut out all the curved forms.

I gave all the pieces a nice sanding.

To diffuse the light coming from the inside of the lamp, I used canvas which I cut to size and stapled it in place.

I used corner clamps to hold the four sides of the lamp temporarily in place.

I used the drill to create pilot holes and then joined all the sides using screws.

I then used a clamped 2x4 as a fence to cut a piece of plywood for the top of the lamp. The jigsaw cut at a straight line with ease against the fence.

I nailed the top in place and sanded it.

I also used the jigsaw to cut a piece of plywood for the bottom. When cutting across the grain I added blue masking tape to reduce tear-out. 

I then mounted a hole saw in my drill and cut out four circles to act as my bottom’s legs. I passed a screw threw them, clamped them with butterfly nuts and chucked them on the drill. Then I used the drill as a lathe to sand them all evenly.

I also cut out four squares to act as blocks for the upper part of the lamp. I glued and nailed them in place.

I made a pilot hole on an oak dowel and screwed the bottom in place. 

I cut out a led stipe and secured it on the dowel with zip ties.

I then connected the power supply for the leds and screwed it on the bottom of the lamp.

I added cardboard pieces between the canvas and the MDF sides. This way the canvas had a small distance from the MDF. With that kind of masking, I was able to paint the inner sides with a small brush.

I then used a roller to complete the paint job.

At this point my lamp was ready. I am really happy with the way it came out.

I want to thank Skil for sending me those awesome tools. They performed really well on the project.

You can check them out here:

www.skileurope.com

Skil Masters 2899  cordless drill: http://www.skilmasters.com/general/en/mastersocs/tools/1355/1275/new-tools/cordless-drill/

Skil 4581 jigsaw: http://www.skileurope.com/general/en/diyocs/tools/1204/969/jigsaws/jigsaw/

www.diy4beginners.com

Also check the hush-tag #skilhelps on social media.

How to make a DIY animation toy

I made this classic “put the fish in the bowl” toy, using scrap plywood pieces and a dowel.

First of all, using a compass and a ruler, I designed the handle of the toy. 

I used my hole saw to cut the circular parts and then cut the rest on the bandsaw.

I used my drill press to drill the holes that would receive the wooden dowel. 

I sanded the piece. I also rounded over the edges with sand paper. I used a marker as a sanding block, to sand the round parts of the piece.

I then again used the hole saw to cut out a ring. The inner circle of the ring was cut out on the drill press for more accuracy.

I then cut the ring to the appropriate thickness on the bandsaw using also it’s fence. I used a pencil to keep my fingers away from the blade.

I then cut a piece of dowel and created a small hole on it, on the drill press.

I designed another circle, drilled a small hole in the middle and added a small nail on a piece of MDF to act as a pivot point. I used this quick and dirty circle making jig to cut that circle on the bandsaw.

I then cut a notch on the circle using the bandsaw and glued the dowel in there.

I applied a coat of white surface primer to everything. After drying I sanded the pieces and added a another couple of coats.

In the first side of the circle I drew a minimalistic fish symbol and on the other I drew a circle.

I added string in the spindle and attached it to the ring.

At this point my toy was ready. 

In order for the toy to work you have to rotate the spindle in order for the string to be wrapped around it. Then you pull the ring and the spindle starts to spin fast. 

The toy is based around a principle of the human vision called “ metaisthima ”. With the speed of the rotation the brain sees the image of the circle and the fish as one. As a result you see a fish in the circle.

I hope you like that project.

How to make a DIY knife from a file

I had an old file and a scrap walnut piece in the shop and I decided to make a woodworking knife with them.

First of all I cut the file to a basic shape using my angle grinder.

I then moved to the belt sander and started cleaning the file marks a little bit and also creating a basic bevel on my knife’s blade.

The steel of a file is really hard. In order to soften it I heated it with fire. While still hot I was able to move the blade to the drill press and drill out two holes for the brass pins of the handle.

I then reheated the blade until it was red hot. I cooled it down fast by dipping it in water. At this stage the blade was hardened. 

To give the blade a little flexibility it needs to be tempered. Other wise it might break really easy.

To temper the blade I put it in the oven in 220 degree Celsius for about two hours. After that the blade should have a kind of  blueish color.

I let the blade cool for a few hours and then moved to the belt sander again to clean it up. During that process, I constantly cool the metal with water to prevent it from losing it’s hardness.

I traced the back of the blade on a scrap walnut piece and created a groove to receive it, using a sharp chisel.

I cut the basic shape of the handle on the bandsaw and used the first piece to trace the second one.

I made holes on the wood to receive two brass pins on the drill press.

Because the brass dowel I had was a bit big, I used my drill press as a lathe and using a file I reduced it’s size until it fit in my handle’s holes.

I then used two part epoxy glue and clamps to glue everything together.

I cut the excess pins on the bandsaw. I also used the bandsaw to rough shape the handle.

To shape the handle I used several techniques. I hand sanded it with a sanding block, I used a spokeshave for the outer curve, a chisel for the excess epoxy and the belt sander with a fresh belt.

I finished the handle with a couple of coats of teak oil that revealed the beautiful grain pattern of the walnut.

At this point I sharpened the knife using my two grit oil stone. I polished it on the drill press, using polishing compound on a small leather buffing wheel which gave a razor sharp edge to my knife.

My file knife was now ready, I hope you liked it!

How to make a DIY toy truck

It’s been a while since I made a toy, so I decided to make this car out of a few pieces of plywood I had in my shop.

First of all I made a rough sketch of my idea. I then designed my templates in illustrator.

I joined two plywood pieces together with double sided tape and used spray adhesive to glue the template on it.

I cut all the pieces on my bandsaw. For the inner cuts I made entry holes on my drill press and cut them out on my scroll saw.

I used WD40 to remove the templates from the wood.

I gave all the pieces a sanding with a sanding block.

I began glueing the pieces together. I also used a few nails here and there.

I clamped everything until the glue dried.

I then used my block plane, to round over one edge of a scrap spruce piece.

I cross cut it with a handsaw and a miter box.

I then glued two spruce pieces in the back of my truck. Those pieces act both as reinforcements and seats.

I then glued the bumpers in place. I used a hole saw to cut two pieces to act as lights and glued them on the front of the car.

I also used a hole saw to cut the four wheels. I clamped them together using a bolt and two butterfly nuts. I mounted the whole piece on my drill press and used it as a lathe to sand them all flush with a sanding block. I also used this method to created a rounded edge, to all the wheels.

I sanded everything again and filled all the gaps with glue and sanding dust.

I made the holes for the wheels. I glued only two wheels to the edges of two dowels.

I gave all the pieces a coat of white primer. I sanded afterwards and then applied another coat.

I sprayed a few coats of black on the wheels.

I masked the bumpers and the lights with blue tape and applied a few coats of orange spray paint to the truck’s body. 

I then glued the rest of wheels. Cut the dowel flush with a flush trim saw and added a few shots of black paint to the exposed wood of the dowels.

I finished the piece with a few coats of clear varnish to protect the paint.

My truck is ready, I hope you liked it!