Shop update #18 (3-14-18)

On Saturday my father and I installed a security door for the front of my house.  It started sprinkling about halfway through the install so the rest of the day was shot for any kind of woodworking.

On Sunday my son and I pulled out all the frame pieces for the snake cage stand and mapped out all the half laps that needed to be cut.  I showed him how to install the dado stack in the table saw and set it up to make the half lap joints in 2×4’s.  He watched me make the cuts on some test pieces and I showed him how they go together and how we were going to make the frame.  At that point he went back in the house and I cut all the half laps out of the 2×4’s.  I wasn’t paying attention on the 2nd 2×4 and cut the dado on the wrong side.  I compensated for this error by cutting one dado on the opposite side of one leg.  When I cut that dado I didn’t notice that we had made 3 marks instead of 2 and cut the dado too big.  I cut another piece of half lap to fill in the gap.

After lunch my son came back out out and we glued and stapled all the half laps together.  I am going to come back later and add a screw to each half lap to play it safe.  The front and back leg assemblies have been finished.  I plan to add the cross pieces this week and hopefully have it ready to add the sides and doors this coming weekend.