Shop update #64 (1-16-19)
This week was all about making plaques for my son’s Cub Scout Pack. 3 of the leaders have finished their Wood Badge training (the highest training available for adult leaders) and the pack wants recognize all of their hard work.
I finalized the design and got it OK’ed on Tuesday night and then carved the first one out on my CNC machine on Wednesday night.
Thursday night I had to make a trip to Home Depot and pick up some 1 x 12 boards as the ones that I had were not long enough. I had to sort through about 20 boards but I finally found a 4′ and a 6′ board that I could use. I cut down the 4′ and was able to get 2 good 16 3/4″ x 11.25″ boards out of it once I eliminated all the knots. I then carved the second plaque out of one of them.
Friday night was all about relaxing and playing poker with friends so no woodworking was accomplished.
Saturday morning I carved the third one and then used my router table to put a decorative edge onto all of the pieces. As I was setting up the router table it started to sprinkle so I had to move it from my large workbench on the side of my house to the picnic table under our back patio. By the time I was done routing them all it was pouring down rain.
Because of the rain and the cold weather I was unable to use spray paint like I normally would. I had to use acrylic paint and paint them all in by hand. This took much longer than I would have liked but I was able to get them all done by the end of the day and inside the house to dry.
Sunday morning I carved my logo into the back of each piece and then took them outside and sanded them with my orbital sander.
Once the sanding was complete, I gave them a coat of golden oak stain and set them out to dry for a couple of hours.
Once the stain was dry, I was able to give them a total of 3 coats of gloss spray polyurethane with a light sanding between coats.
Before putting everything away for the night I cut that last 6′ 1 x 12 down into 4 usable pieces for future projects.
I let the finish cure for a couple of days and then gave the plaques a good rubbing down with some paste wax and steel wool on Tuesday night. They will be given to the recipients at the monthly Pack Meeting later tonight.
