Friday, October 22, 2010

Mounting the drill press work light


When it is overcast or late in the afternoon, the boys and I have often felt the need for better light while using the drill press.  Now we have one; thank you, Lord!

I bought an inexpensive movable light downtown a few weeks ago.  The light itself and boom assembly are made from steel and look to be fairly sturdy, but the original mounting base was plastic and deformed easily if you repositioned the boom.  Plus, there wasn't anything convenient to clamp the base to on the drill press or the wall behind it.  So, it was time to make a sturdy mounting base for the light.

David Rocha, age 11, is only attending school two days a week these days, because the teacher has gotten fed-up with him.  Unfortunately, he has behaved badly in school this year and we have been unsuccessful in correcting his insubordination and rebellion.  So, for now, he is doing chores around the farm and doing homework on the days that he doesn't attend school.

David Rocha
I decided to have David help me make a new base for the light and install it.  He responded well to the one-on-one attention, particularly because he got to see and use a few power tools.  He's a very immature and often reckless kid, though, so I had to be careful to keep him out of trouble...

For example, the first thing he did upon walking into the wood shop room was walk over and turn on the lathe.  The lathe had a large, partially completely practice spindle chucked up.  That got my attention!  He had only seen the lathe with a sanding disc attached before - and had sanded a few things on it.  But he wasn't aware of the hazards of sticking your hands in the wrong places with a workpiece mounted up, etc.  After I told him not to turn on the equipment without permission, I showed him how it works and gave him the chance to make a cut with the roughing gouge.

We selected a couple of pieces of sapan (a South American hardwood, also known aromata or blackheart) to make the base.  Using the joiner, planer, and table saw, we trued them up and cut them down to size.  I had a bit of a panic when the planer nicked a couple of small nails that had been buried in the 4x4 piece (it was part of some used posts from a porch that had been donated), but upon checking the cutting blades, we found no damage.  David loved the action and noise of the big machines, feeding the planer and receiving boards that I fed through the joiner and table saw.

After the mounting plate and block were cut out, I decided to dress them up using a chamfer bit with the router.  So we set up the simple router table and cut small chamfers on the plate and larger ones on the block.  David hadn't seen the router before and was amazed at how nice of results it produced with very little effort.

Then we sanded the components and drilled holes for mounting and assembly.  We experimented on some scrap wood to determine the best size hole for inserting the spud from the boom assembly so that it would turn in the hole, but not be too loose to hold its position.  I did all the marking, David did all the drilling.  We clamped everything down because sapan is a rather hard wood and requires lots of force to cut it.

We used glue and four big wood screws to secure the block to the mounting plate.  

Finally, it was time to mount the whole thing on the wall. I thought we might spend and hour on the project, but it took more like two.  David had to leave to do some homework, so I drilled the holes in the wall and mounted it next to the drill press.  David posed later for the picture of the finished project.  We both felt like we had accomplished something useful and fun.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Building a second floor


We need a better way to store the spare beds and drawers that have been camped out in the workshop for quite a while now, so we got busy making a temporary wooden floor to provide the needed space.

A group of boys including Arley and David Rocha, Alex and Anderson Mora, and Fabian Perdomo,  were thrilled with the idea of building something that involved nails and hammers and saws.

So we leveled up some fence posts as support beams and got busy nailing down some spare 1x8 lumber to form the floor.  We ran out of the 1x8s, so used some 2x4s to finish up.  All the lumber was eucalyptus, so after a half-dozen successive bent nails, I suggested they get the drill to pre-drill the holes.  That helped, but they still managed to bend a few more nails...

 Here are some pictures of the work in progress. 


Once the floor was finished, then we hoisted up the packages of bed parts that we had banded together.  In the days prior, we had repaired and organized the parts into complete sets.  For the heavier packages, we used a rope through a block attached to the roof beams.  Of course, once the work was done, that particular apparatus became a whole new source of interest and activity.  Fortunately, no one was injured in the ascents and descents.




Here is a picture of the finished project - the new floor in place (above the bicycle parts cabinet) with the spare beds stacked up on top.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

New life for an old filing cabinet

Often, those back-burner projects just never seem to get done.  Case in point, we've had a filing cabinet in the shop for at least two years now, waiting to be painted and fixed up.  There always seems to be something else more important to work on...

But I finally assigned the project to John Egson Fonseca back in March.  He started removing the rust and paint with a wire wheel on the hand grinder, but after several aftnoons, he tired of the work and the project lost momentum. 

So, the file cabinet has been sitting around in the shop for months now.  Here's a picture of John painting a door latch (hanging on a wire) , with the cabinet half-done in the background...



So, I decided to get this project moving again a couple of weeks ago.  I asked another of the older boys, Einer Posada, to help John get this cabinet painted.  The carrot was that they would learn how to use the spray gun.  Actually, John has had some experience with using the gun, but Einer had none.  So, we removed the drawer slides and other bits and pieces and.they got busy sandblasting the interior of the cabinet.   

They thought they were done at several points, but then we'd look again and find some other nook or cranny that had some nasty rust hiding out.  The process was a bit trying, but like I told them, if we don't do a good job of preparing, applying the paint won't matter.  The rust will pop out again and ruin the whole project.


We found during this process that the steel would actually rust overnight when it was bare.  So, after a hard morning's work removing new rust, it was finally time to let the paint fly.

I had carefully explained beforehand how to operate the controls on the spray gun, how far away to keep the gun from the piece, etc., but in the end, they had to learn it all by doing.  It's too much instruction to take in well without a little practice.

Einer and John took turns applying paint. I decided to spray the inside of the cabinet, because of the difficulty, and because we were short of time.



By the end of the quart of paint, the cabinet was looking much better.  They had the predictable problems of runs here and there, but really it turned out well.  And since it was just a primer coat, all the little errors can be rectified while sanding for the next coat of paint.

The boys were exhilarated by using the gun and figuring out how to control it.  I enjoyed seeing them experiment and make corrections.  They weren't so excited about cleaning up the gun afterward, but that's just the way painting is....lots of preparation, a little painting, and lots of work cleaning up.

So, the filing cabinet is now one step closer to getting out the door of the shop!  Stay tuned for the next installment...who knows when....

Friday, October 1, 2010

Making Egrets from PVC Pipe

This week, the boys and I got busy and made 10 white egret figures to be sold at a fund-raising concert for the benefit of the IMC ministry.

We've known for quite a while how to make these figures, but just hadn't just hadn't put the pedal to the metal until now.  The man that taught us how to make these beautiful figures of a white egret cut from PVC pipe was Henry Van Barneveld from Canada.  Henry makes them every now and then to sell at craft fairs.  They really are attractive and fairly simple to make. 

The 2008 Canadian team, l to r, Stu, Scott, Jack, and Henry
Henry, and three other members of Zurich Mennonite Church in Ontario, Canada, came to Granja Peniel in September 2008, where they worked for more than a week making many improvements to the workshop.   Thanks, again, Henry, and the rest of the team, for all your help and support - it is still paying dividends!


Fabian Perdomo cutting, Anderson Mora and David Rocha holding the pipe.
 The first step in making the birds is to mark out the shape on a 3-foot long piece of 4" PVC pipe, using a pattern.  Henry left us two patterns to use, one large size and one smaller one.  Then we cut out the shape using a jigsaw.  Sounds easy enough, but if your technique is poor, the plastic just vibrates and won't cut...

Then the boys drill holes for the eyes and mounting screws.

And apply some heat to bend the plastic into a shape more representative of the bird...

Finally, glue on the eyes with some hot silicone...

Duvan Guayara drilling the hole for the rebar spud
And cut some short logs to mount the birds on, attaching three wraps of white rope near the top and a rebar spud to stick into the ground....

And you're ready to send them off to market.  Actually, the marketing here is the hard part...so far we only sold two of the birds, even with a rather low price of $20,000 pesos (about $11 US).  Apparently, Colombians haven't yet arrived at the point of appreciating yard ornaments?

But the boys and I had some fun making them, and they are strikingly beautiful.  Perhaps it will just take a while before they catch on, let's hope!