Posts made by SchreiberBike

Very good stuff. This thread has been fun to watch. Aren't modern rear cogs now on a spider rather than put on individually?

@tayler said:

i cannot see from the model which looks very flash... whether you have sufficient cross bracing/structural strength for it to take a good pounding as it will no doubt?

I'm confident it will take a good pounding. The top is 100mm thick and the legs are 125mm square joined together with tenons and draw-pins. Rather than rails, the back and sides will be made of 18mm plywood dadoed into the legs.

Building has not been exactly smooth. I learned a few things about adjusting and using a power planer during the process. Then I learned how important it is that each lamination have workable grain running in the same direction. That has slowed me down as I've had to buy more wood and wait for it to dry.

Every new project should be a learning experience and this has been exactly that.

I've been cutting wood for the last week or so and I have all the major pieces (legs and top) roughed out. Now I'm starting to plane the faces and selecting which ones to use where appearance matters.

I've also been testing glue-up techniques for the massive laminations. I don't have enough clamps to do it the typical way, so I plan on using screws to attach each lamination to the one before it, then unscrewing and doing the next.

I've found that a single screw creates adequate clamping force (the joint is stronger than the wood) in an oval 3" wide and 10" along the grain. That's going to be a lot of screwing, but the price is right.

Had me stumped until I saw the inside, then it was obvious. That's the best kind of trick.

Some planes are made with double dovetails between the side and the sole. I think it's done by pounding metal around corners. Can't do that with wood. Here's a pic I found on the net.

@unknownuser said:

I predict a ruby script some day that will allow bending as we wish.

That would be awesome, I've played with some boat building ideas and SU isn't the right tool for it. There's no way to identify which curves are possible and which are not. (Maybe there is, I just don't know what they are.)

Great thoughts already. The bench will be stationary and one of the reasons I chose to go with the tool tray in the middle was because I might install air or electrical power there at some point. (My first plan is to to hang air and electric over the bench on reels.)

I've gone back and forth on the form of the bottom. The location where I plan to use the bench is dead flat, and I plan to stay in that location, but who knows what the future might hold. I decided to run the cabinet all the way to the ground for three reasons:

1. I am always loosing things and I wanted to eliminate the possibility of things rolling under the bench.
2. The floor is solid and it seems to make sense to transfer force directly to that surface when I can.
3. It's easier to build with everything oriented to one flat surface rather than the bottoms of the legs against the floor and everything else 1/4" up.

The solution I came up with at one point was to keep everything but the legs off the floor, then after the bench is on its own legs, add trim which would touch the floor. Either way, I do plan to use a "penetrating" epoxy on all floor contact surfaces so that no moisture will be drawn up.

Keep the ideas coming.

I've got a big pile of southern yellow pine (a dense stiff inexpensive American "softwood") acclimating in my garage. I've been doodling plans for workbenches for over a year. I'm ready to start cutting wood.

Please take a look at the model and give me suggestions.

I have the hardware for the vises on hand and I took the measurements directly from them. The drawers in the model are dummies. They will be put in later as three individual units. The top and the legs will be laminated from construction lumber which will be planed down to ~~1.25" thick. The remaining sheet stock will be 3/4" plywood. Pocket hole screws and glue will be used where there are butt joints.

I do want a seriously solid workbench which will last approximately forever. Let me know what ideas you have. The vises are available in detailed and simplified versions in the 3D warehouse.

RuoboShaker10.skp

@remus said:

Just because soem people dont upload their models it doesnt negate the fact that their is a lot of rubbish.

Unless someone cleans it out, you are right that that there will always be a lot of rubbish.

But if the 3D warehouse is going to be useful, it will be because quality models are added. I would like to see people upload more quality models.

@unknownuser said:

Be careful what you ask for John.

Good point. I should have asked my wife first. Maybe I'll move to Canada.

Great Job Coen, One of the nicest "newsletters" I've seen on-line.

@chiefwoodworker said:

Ever since I saw the previous pope's (sorry, I am not Catholic and do not remember his name)casket constructed using dovetails I have wanted to make my own in a similar design. This is a great twist, something to think about, though not for long at my age.

My feelings for the pope aside, his casket was a great statement. It was plain wood put directly into the earth without a vault. The beauty was in the details. Not only was it made with dovetails, but it was dovetails in compound angles. I prefer quiet statements like that rather than carved cherubs leafed in gold.

@remus said:

If you make the geometry a group/component and then apply a material to the group (without entering it) it should colour the back faces as well, is that the sort of thing you meant?

That works. Good trick. At least it works if the entire component is one color.

@tinanne said:

"March madness" makes me think of crazy hat day at school

Hey Tina Anne, Nice hat!

@solo said:

As for speaking the same languages.... I am in Texas and Spanish is gaining in volume.

I've been to Texas, the people who say they are speaking English are speaking a different language than I am. When did "yawl" change from a boat to "youse guys."

Any way, I live in about the middle of the USA, if you all want to meet at my house, that's cool.

With Version 7 coming soon (I think), it's an awkward time to be making wishes. But how hard would it be to make both sides of a surface the same color? The reason this is needed is to keep the back side colors from poking through at corners etc.

In monochrome the sides should still show differently, and if requested one could make the sides different colors.

The other wish I guess is for colors to not poke through at the corners.

Thanks,

I think the first one is plenty good and it looks to be relatively easy to construct. The others appear to be more complex and therefore more expensive. Unless your client has money to burn I'd go with number one.

What kind of cheese is it. I love cheese.

I'll start holding my breath now.

If it supports multiple processors, I'm going computer shopping.

The warehouse does have a lot of junk, but it also has a lot of great stuff. You just have to wade through the trash to get to quality. I think many people have stopped using it because they don't want to associate themselves with the trash. That keeps the average level of quality down.

I put a lot of my stuff up and I hope it is useful to someone somewhere, but I seldom get any feedback.

There's another whole dynamic which I found out about. People (kids) are using the 3DW as a social networking site. Communicating by posting ratings and reviews of models and posting models which are just messages.

As it is, it adds very little value to SU, but if Google policed it properly, it would be a big selling point for SU. It would take a lot of effort though. I'd think Google could write some kind of a 'bot which would do it. I thought Google could do anything.

Bob, Those are fascinating to look over. It's like looking into the minds of the craftsmen who built up those techniques over thousands of years of trial and error, intuition and a bit of science.

I don't anticipate building in timber frame, or even having access to timbers like that, but if I do, I'll know where to go.

Thanks,

I think that's great. I keep telling people that if they put me in the ground in anything more elaborate than a pine box, I'm going to come back and haunt them. (not really).

I'm looking forward to contributing to my planet in a new way.

I think that SketchUp skills are important here, but more important is that you've really got to have an artists eye. You must have years of experience doing figure drawings. That knowledge with good SU technique can make wonderful models, but without that knowledge, I don't think it's possible.