Spice up the wife...

[John Rumm]

I have been messing about in the workshop again:

(first draft, so expect typos etc)

[Jonno]

John Rumm scribbled

The H&S alarm goes off at seeing the rack, particularly the drawers behind the cooker hob.

[no_spam]

My spice rack was made in a couple of hours from scrap SYP and dowel and fixed on the back of a door:

... it works well but not as pretty as yours.

There are a couple of interesting jigs there: one for cutting the box joints and also the "sledge". It would be interesting to have a few more snippets about them ...

[Andrew Mawson]

In one of my Buy-to-Let flats they refused to install a replacement gas hob as there was a blanked off socket in the wall behind - blanked with the usual pvc blanking plate. Had to replace with a metal one

btw nice work, but good luck dusting out the scroll patterns on the ends :)

Andrew

[John Rumm]

How are they worse that reaching for something on the shelf that was there before (and is 10" above the hob anyway)?

[Jonno]

John Rumm scribbled

I'm wary of reaching over saucepans. It's something I'd avoid. If you're happy, then it is obviously not a problem.

[News]

In message , John Rumm writes

Very pretty, but on the bottom row, you have all the green tops together. Could we have the top row organised with the black and brown tops together, please? Oh, and in alphabetical order :-)

Lovely job, John.

[Martin Bonner]

You do know some of us hate you, don't you?

At least SWMBO never reads usenet so she will never see how pathetic my work is.

(Or, with my tongue removed from my cheek, Wow! I wish I could do stuff like that.)

[tabbypurr]

Oak is fuel. Surely you know you should live in an all ceramic house with no soft furnishings.

NT

[whisky-dave]

you could probabley use a laser cutter to get those shapes now wouldn;t be difficut if you knew how to use the software.

[jkn]

But they are the *key* to the whole piece!

arf...

J^n

[John Rumm]

Yeahbut, it adds a nice smoky flavour to things ;-)

[John Rumm]

I think yours is pretty neat actually... holds plenty as well!

You I can do...

I have written bits about them in the past, but its probably spread over several different projects. What kind of stuff do you want to know?

I could do a "how to make" type article, although there are plenty out there on youtube etc already. (IIRC William Ng has done a very detailed one on how to get the setup of a cross cut sledge absolutely bang on).

The finger joint jig at its simplest is just a variation on the theme of:

Mine was originally built for doing 1/2" fingers, but then I realised if I did an extra saddle to drop into it, it could double up as a 1/4" version as well. (the only downside with the way I did it, is I don't have much cutting depth left with my 8" dado blades, so can only do 1/4" joints on thin stock.

[John Rumm]

;-)

Tis partly why I write some of these things up in the hope someone finds it useful, either as a source of ideas, or for some tips and tricks.

(not only that, people often have comments on how I could have done it better/different!)

[Tim Lamb]

Desperate for something to criticise:-) I thought of how difficult it might be to find something in an eye level drawer but then thought perhaps that explains the low mounting position.

What spice pots we use are stored on cascaded shelving in a wall cupboard.

Nice job. I have a 200 year old Oaks worth of scantling and planks in my barn....

[no_spam]

I hadn't heard of a crosscut sled until your write-up - are there any advantages compared to a crosscut carriage? I mostly use a Bestcombi

2000 (like this which has a crosscut carriage.

Aha! So the extra pieces on top are to adapt the 1/2" jig for 1/4" joints - light dawns. My dado cutters don't fit the saw spindle so I've used a Woodrat for comb/finger/box joints but have had difficulty getting good joints. You've jogged me into thinking it might be time to make an adapter for the spindle - another job on the list ;-)

[tabbypurr]

exactly.

NT

[John Rumm]

That's what I would normally call a sliding table. Very nice to have and way better than using a mitre guide in a slot on a normal table saw. However its a subtly different thing from a sledge, which is nice to use since the whole work surface on both sides of the blade moves, so you are not leaving the cut off bit behind...

A sledge also makes it easy to do repeated non through cuts - say when kerf bending wood.

If you have a sliding table, then I would guess its less "necessary" than I is for a normal table saw.

Yup... I was just being lazy, to save making a separate jig.

One of the advantages of having a saw made in 1948... elf'n'safety had not got involved yet ;-)

[John Rumm]

far from eye level for me, although much closer for SWMBO I guess. Its easy enough to simply pull the whole drawer out, fiddle with its content at a location that suits you and then stuff it back when done.

That sounds handy... decent timber is silly money these days which does rather curtail some of the fun.

[Thomas Prufer]

"But, but, but -- it's too small already!"

I like the f-holes.

I might have used a different finish, because oiling may be affected by the cleaners that take off the grease film that gets on everything near an active hob. (But then cleaner-proof finishes might look plasticky...)

Here's my spice "rack", a drawer actually.

Made by a chippie friend. It shows how makes drawers: He makes a lot of these to a price, so uses birch multiplex, and a 4mm blade in a table saw for the join. There's a rebate to hold the bottom, made with the same blade. There isn't much in the way of critical adjustments, so no jigs, just a test piece, and a few taps to the fence to get it ok. Glue the corners, clamp with two clamps, tap top level, flip drawer over and immediately put in the bottom with small torx, and the bottom holds the drawer square. No glue on the bottom, because it binds. He'd whip up dozens in an hour or two.

Detail of a corner:

*Fast* & no frills. Looks good in multiplex, less so in solid wood.

And if you'd like to do drawer joins in a more traditional way, really fast, here is something to aspire to:

May require practice:-)

Thomas prufer