Old Picture. You can see my Greene and Greene Thorsten table that was entered in a LumberJock challenge.

New picture.

The counter top is from the old cabinet. i plan to put down Corian. I’m doing it myself so I’ll do some fill-in first until I get the shop emptied a little.

I built one upper cabinet and one lower cabinet. A lot of other wood has been cut and the pieces needing veneer have been mostly covered. I was attempting to determine the math to be able to do the rest of the cabinets easily. The pieces (I hope have all been cut large)

The veneer is Eucalyptus Burl from Australia that I bought on eBay, and Yellow Birch that I got in New Jersey.

The doors are assembled as a unit and are then cut apart to make 2 doors. And the design matches the design for the end panels.

The desigh is Greene and Greene with my cloud lifts and the Ebony pegs.

My plans are to have the white sap wood stripe across the top of all of the cabinets and all the rest to be heart wood that is pink. The veneer and the yellow birch both have a pinkish cast.

The base has not yet been created for the bottom of the base cabinet. And the drawer fronts have not yet been created. I’ll probably wait until all cabinets are built and installed before I make the drawer front.

These cabinets are 24” wide and were made to match the ones that were there previously.

The finish is Conversion varnish that is a varnish that requires a catalyst just before spraying. The finish dries to allow sanding in 20 minutes so it can be recoated quickly.

These cabinets required a quart of finish so I probably need a couple more gallons before I’m finished.

I’ve got lots of pictures and I post some blogs of the construction and the jigs that I created. And I’ve got lots of building to do.

I assembled it and brought it over to the deck and trimmed up the straight bench and the curved bench so that they fit in the corner of the deck.

I then went and got the trim router with a 1/4” roundover (got to make it kid friendly) and a sander to get rid of the saw marks, saw cuts and roundover where the trim router won’t reach.

I did the edges on both surfaces of the benches and sanded both of them.

Here are the finished benches.

and from the back.

Now she’s asking for a ceiling fan.

Planter boxes next.

I failed to take pictures of the straight bench being made, but, here it is.

The seat is 14 1/2” wide (4 – 1X4’s) The straight bench was designed as 5’ long, but then trimmed to final fitting. So it’s a little longer as sitting here. The legs are 2X4’s 17” long with a 3” rail at top and bottom with 1 1/2” tenons on each rail. So all 28 legs have mortises on each end and 28 rails were made 6” long with a 1 1/2” tenon on each end. The shoulders were cut on the table saw and the tenons were trimmed with the bandsaw. They were glued together with Gorilla Glue. The aprons on the bench were 2X4’s screwed to the legs with 3” screws. The legs on the straight section were 18” apart. Giving 4 legs covering most of the straight section of the bench.

Now on to the curved bench:

I wanted the bench to have the same curve as the deck. Which was 22’ radius. I just layed the board on top of the deck and drew a line to give me the first curve. The seat slats were 1 X 4 on the straight bench but I started with 1 X 6 on the curved bench. The curve turns out to be a 1 1/4” movement in a 4’ section. So with the deck just touching the edge at the 2’ mark the ends are marked at 1 1/4” in. I cut the 8 slates needed for the two curved benches ending up with a curved 1 X 4, really a 1 X 3.5”. The 4 boards ended up being the same as the 14.5” of the straight bench. The curve was cut on the bandsaw.

The aprons on the curved bench were also made curved. I put the appropriate marks on the edge of a 2 X 4 and cut then out. I then glued and screwed them to straight 2 X 4’s

They are then changed placed and you end up with this.

I then started putting the legs in place.

I then carried it to the deck and placed it in position so that I could identify the cut lines.

The piece of the curved apron was cut off and the bench repositioned.

I then layed the curved seat slats on the bench. I knew that I needed some long seat slats and some short seats slate. Here you will notice that I installed and trimmed them in the wrong position.

Easiily fixed. trim another 1 1/2” off the length of the curve bench.

A little clean up.

and

AS of right now they are not screwed to the deck, but they are quite stable because the L sections are screwed together.

1 straight section already made, 1 more curved section to go.

Have a great night. Were ordering Pizza.

So here are the details:

I mentioned earlier, I believe in the first blog of this series that I installed a GFCI circuit breaker in the fuse panel and i was having problems where it kept tripping whenever i put a load on the circuit. Even a load as small as a Dusk to Dawn switch with nothing else.

LumberJock Richard Williams stated that he wished that he was closer so that he could find my problem. Without me paying his plane fare from Las Vegas I did the next best think. I asked him for his phone number so I could call. He replied. I called.

I told him all of the things that I had tried and that had failed. He suggested a couple of things to try. Verfy that the bare ground wire was not touching the white wire anywhere in the circuit. (I didn’t think I had that problem) Replace the buss bar that was in the circuit sub panel. (Mine was very rusty). This discussion was going on in a 3” rain storm, so I was not too interested is stepping outside at that moment.

The next day I was returning home from taking my son to school, and I was running the circuit through my mine. One of the things that Richard has said was that a GFCI breaker is measuring the amount of current that was going through the black (hot) wire and then checking that the reverse of that was going through the neutral wire (white) of the other wave of the alternating current. (These are my words and not necessarly his exact words). I was wondering in my mind about how that was working on the circuit that I had installed.

I then realized that I might have hooked it up incorrectly. (I had never read the instructions, Because I assumed that it was hooked up the same as a regular circuit breaker.) I had hooked up the black wire to the GFCI breaker. I was suppose to also hook up the white wire to another terminal on the GFCI breaker. I had failed to do that. So what was happening was that any load that I put on the black wire was not being offset through the white wire, because I had not attached it to the GFCI breaker.

When I removed the white wire from the buss bar and attached it to the correct terminal on the GFCI breaker, my circuit worked as designed. The Dusk to dawn switch does not trip it, a light bulb does not trip. (I have not put my finger across the terminal to see if it does trip it. Like a SawStop you hope it works)

Once I got all of the electric wiring problems I screwed down the final two deck boards

I cut the angle off the deck to match the sidewalk around the Solarium.

I measured the curve for the end of the deck. I found that it was a 22’ radius. So I had my wife hold the tape measure and I inscribed the curve with a pencil. I then used my Bosch Jigsaw to cut the curve to the line that I had drawn.

We set up a table and chairs and had supper tonight on the deck. It was chilly but we didn’t care.

The supervisor checking to see if we left any scraps on the deck. (As if anything would get as far as the deck surface when he’s hanging around)

So now on to the benches.

That was something that I forgot, and i was planning to write about when I made the posts and enches.

When I was at the big orange home supply center I saw some new treated wood. It’s by Thompson’s, its called Thompsonized wood

The wood was not the normal green treated wood. It’s more of a natural color wood treatment.

This post is treated wood.

The price is about the same as the green treated wood. In fact when i went into the store to buy it I found that the green pressure treated wood was in the same compartment as the thompsonized wood.

According to the advertisement. Their Southern Pine treated wood is available at Home Depot east of the Rockies, the redwood treated wood is available west of the rockies, and the Jackpine treated wood is available in Canada.

I also found on the web this site. Sounds great. They say its the future of treated wood. Timbersil

Three sides are glued together and the forth side will be attached with stainless trim screws, which have a smaller head. They have square drive.

The posts are 8’ long and are 83” above the deck to the top of the wooden post. In the uphill side the post is about 12” in the ground. One the downhill side the post is on top of the ground, but a solid post is inside the hollow one and is sunk into the ground to give it a little more support.

The problem that I ran into was a short sighted item on my part. I made the post and I attached it to the deck. When I went to put the light fixture on top of the post, I realized that I failed to put the 45 deg cut on each corner. So it was a chisel and a tap of the hand palm to cut off the corners. It was about 2 hours of work to do that job.

My youngest son was in a play at school so the day ended early. Post attached but the fixture was not yet in place. So it was back to finishing it today.

Day 6. So here is the fixture and the lamp globe.

I guess a little story is due at this time to tell about the fixtures.

When I lived in St. Louis I met a gentleman that had about 50 of these fixtures. They were take downs from the streets of St. Louis. He wanted about $10.00 for each of them. I bought 2. The city was replacing the fixtures that were installed in 1923 with some of the new Hi Pressure Sodium lights. Some how I never installed them at my home in St. Louis. So them sat in the boxes in the basement. I them moved to New Jersey. Lived there for 25 years. For some reason I never installed them at my home in Ringoes. I then moved to Delaware. My wife wanted a new deck and she was looking at metal light poles. I’m a LumberJock, I don’t like metal poles. Then I remembered the St Louis light fixtures, sitting in the boxes in our garage. I suggest to my wife about using those lights. She was enthusiast about it. Of course it was my job to get them installed.

So when i started on the second pole. I remembered to do the beveling while on the ground. So I took the pole to the workshop and did the beveling while being held in the vise.

And then testing the fixture while still in the vise.

It seems to me that these fixtures are cast bronze.

I had some bulb fixtures that fit in the holders. They seem to have disappeared. But not a problem because they were made for the big base bulb, and I planned to use compact florescent bulbs.

So I made a metal bracket from a hurricane strap from the building supply.

I then screwed a socket on top of my homemade bracket.

The bracket was screwed to the holder.

So here is the first post with the lamp shade all washed and the fixture all washed, The light is really on but it doesn’t show.

So I hurried to get the second post installed and all hooked up. My wife is sitting on her deck looking at her lights. We sat at the table and ate dinner tonight.

And from the yard, looking back at the deck.

So my wife got busy and cleaned all of the tools off. Plus they are forecasting rain tonight.
The supervisor checking out the crack that are forming between the boards.

The deck with the curved edge visable.

On to day seven.

About 1 week ago I was in the office in the shop and I heard a loud hissing. I went to find out what it was. The safety unload valve was dumping air from the air compressor tank. The compressor was running and it was not shutting off.

The safety valve was doing what it was suppose to do. Keep air compressor parts from flying all over the shop. Some how, some way the contacts welded shut on the shutoff switch. I moved the lever down to shut off the compressor and it didn’t shut off. I had to pull the plug.

I opened the drain plug and emptied the tank of air. I then unscrewed the air switch after unhooking all of the electric lines and the header-unloader air lines. It was tough to unscrew. It was installed before the motor was placed on the compressor. I finally got it off and looked to see what was the problem. Once I pried the switch contacts apart the switch worked fine (manually).

Today I took some fine Emory cloth and sanded the contacts. *I used a 6” extension pipe to get the switch up where I could reinstall it. I then found that the air line from the compressor to the tank was hitting the switch where I had placed it.

So off to Lowes to buy some 1/2” flexible copper pipe and some fittings to replace the main air pipe and a new line for the header-unloader valve. (Since I moved the switch the pipe was now longer that before, and in a different place. It took 3 trips to Lowes to get all of the correct replacement parts and then to get it installed.

The compressor was turned back on and pumps up fine. It was now 2 PM and the heat of the day was shinning on the deck. I opted to wait. I moved the wood into the workshop for the lamp posts and was ready to start that when I saw my dust collector. I planned to call Grizzly about it. I wanted to replace the top bag with a pleated cartridge with paddles.

So I called Grizzly, it turns out that the pleated cartridge is a direct fit on my dust collector. So $200.00 later it’s on back order until mid June. I guess this will be a Fathers Day Present.

My son Dan and I then went out and installed the missing planks on one side. I also did a rough cut on the curve so that I can make a jig that will follow the curve and put a pencil mark on the top for a cut line to really to be cut later.

So here it sits as of now.

I placed the next to last board in place to see how much space I have left. The left and right seem to be about equal.

So if I hadn’t messed up on my first measurement of the 2X6 ’s being 1/8” wide on each one, being 5 5/8 instead of 5 1/2, Over the 33 deck boards that is 3” in width that I hadn’t counted into my measurement. I would have had the correct amount of space on each side and been almost a full board on each side.

“Measure Twice and Screw once”.

No chocolate strawberries tonight, no coffee. I guess I need to make my own.

You can see my 20 ft pipe clamp that I’m using to compress all of the deck boards and take out the woofs, and the bows that always seem to show up after your get the perfect boards home. So much for hand picking.

Everything was going well until I got close to the edge.

Of course I was planning to stop here until I did the electric for the lights. BUT, I put a tape measure on the space and I found out that the space was different than I had calculated.

I measured the board and they are 5 1/2”. I mean they are always 5 1/2” Because I bought a 2 X 6. BUT, after you get 24 boards screwed down and you find that the measurements are not panning out, you check one more time. “Let’s see measure twice and Screw once” These puppies are 5 5/8”, they probably are going to shrink to the 5 1/2” size. Meanwhile my deck surface is 3” wider than I estimated for the number of boards that are installed. So what is going to happen is I’ll have a half board on each side.

Not a big problem, but not as designed.

I also went to the big box store to purchase a 20 Amp ground fault circuit breaker. $54.00 lighter in my pocket I brought it home.

I took the circuit panel apart, Took my “Gold Plated” GFI circuit breaker, put it in and it popped. Wait a minute, that’s not suppose to happen. I put the old circuit breaker back in and it worked fine.

(Scratching head, Ponder, Ponder) I know, take the wires apart and see where the trouble is.

Problem, The box where the wires came out of the ground are under 3 deck boards, OK the drill has a reverse. Take up the boards. Lay on my belly on my “New Deck” open the box, untwist all of the wires.

Turn on the circuit breaker, OK the buried wire to the box is OK. The new wire I put in is under the deck is OK. The problem is the wire that is buried to the duck pond.

Pause!!! Wife just stopped by with chocolate covered apples slices and strawberries. You will have to wait while I eat. She must be liking her new deck. She’s not worried about the problems.

They were good. Excellent.

I regress. I also mentioned the duck pond.

4 babies that we got at Easter time. We usually raise them to let the foxes, raccoons and hawks take them. That’s not the plan, but that’s what seems to happen. The two that we had last summer gave us some great eggs, until something had a hankering for duck. We usually let them run around the yard when they get big. We do put them back in the cage at night. Daisy Duck, a jet black one last year thought I was her mate, when I walked close to her she’d squat down on the ground. I’d pick her up and when I put her down she’d look at me and I guess she was thinking, “Is this what sex is suppose to be like!”

Back to the deck.

I took all of the wires apart at the duck pond. The ones buried to the shed caused a problem. Wait the ones to the yard light caused a problem. Today is not my day to fix all electric problems. So untwist all of the wires so I can close up the box under the deck and I’ll worry about the ones at the tree and shed later. These lights all worked great until I put in a ground fault Circuit breaker. So there has got to be some bleed through some where.

Circuit breaker stays on, Put back down the deck boards that were removed. Pack up all the tools. Put the batteries on the charger.

Tomorrow is toy making day. Nothing to be done on the deck.

The deck is placed just outside a small deck that goes between the screened porch and the Solarium. We have a spa in the Solarium room.

The deck is basically 16’ X 16’. It’s 14 feet to the beginning of the curved edge. One end is tapered to match the sidewalk that goes around the house.

I’m using deck blocks that are just placed on the ground. No digging involved, except in my case I had to dig to make the blocks level. What you could do is stick a 4X4 in the top of the bolck and cut the 4X4’s level. In that case no digging.

I got a day laborer to help place the blocks. The 65 yr old knees do do well getting up and down and leaning on knees all day. We set all of the blocks on the first day.

The blocks are placed in rows 24” apart. I’m using 2X6’s as my deck surface. If you use 5/4 wood then you need the block rows 16” apart. The cost is greater using 5/4 lumber. You use more blocks and the deck boards are $3.00 more expensive. The blocks are not suppose to have more than 5’ between them in a row.

I used 2X6 as my frame and for all of the edge boards. The curved boards are 5/4 that I was able to bend with the help of some pipe clamps. All of the edge boards are screwed with 3” screws into the ends of the joists. The curve section had 2X6 stub joists screwed onto the last joist.

I then used some plastic conduit to mark the curve. Put screws on each side of the conduit at the end and one in the middle. I shaped the curve to what looked good and marked it on the joist sections. I then cut them off to the marked line.

The deck surface will be at ground level on the outer right corner.

It sits on the existing deck, at the house side.

It is actually a little off the cement on the solarium side.

The job is being overseen by my “Construction Supervisor”

The plywood is being used to lay on as I did the electric work.

When we bought the house there was a tree in this spot and a light went up the tree. Last year i noticed that the tree was leaning. This year a took the electric off the tree and I just pushed it over. Cut up all the wood. Now a deck is sprouting in its place. The electric is now being rerouted to the edge so that if I need to get to it, It will require removing a couple of deck boards.

The plans are to use a rope light across the edge of the deck where it meets the old deck and the sidewalk side. We are creatures of habit. I didn’t want us to fall and not remember that the deck is now there when it used to be grass.

My helper Dan, my son, is helping to screw down deck boards.

You will notice that we are using pipe clamps to pull all of the deck boards tight together.

I wonder how do i get 17’ pipe clamps. The wood is quite wet so I assume that the cracks between the boards will appear as they dry.

The supervisor back again. He never leaves for long.