Month: February 2016

This is a dust cyclone. This one has the brand name Dust Deputy. MDF makes lots of really fine dust that clogs my shop vac filter quickly. This device traps 99% of the dust before it gets to the filter.

To collect the dust, you have to remember to turn the vacuum on each time. With this device, you plug in the vacuum and the power tool you are using. When you start your saw or whatever the vac starts automatically and when you turn the saw off the vac runs for 7 seconds more to clear the hose and then automatically shuts off.

We got started on the side walls Saturday but we didn’t get to do any more work on Sunday because we went to pick up Holly.

Yesterday all I got done was building this cart. I needed a way to deal with the panel once I took it off of my table. This works great except that there is no provision for pieces smaller than 4′ wide. But it will be useful for moving competed panels around.

This where the power cord that plugs into the wall will run.

We filled the gaps and screw holes with wood filler.

I rounded the turret edges with a 1/2″ roundover bit.

We attached this to help with handling the heavy panels. Barb and I were having a really hard time dealing with the panel once we made it double thickness. I brought a scale to work today and weighted it. 184 POUNDS!!! No wonder we were having trouble lifting it. With the hinged swing attached to the table we were able to tilt it down and then balance it on caster carts, roll it into the shop and spin it around, then tilt it back onto the table to work on the other side.

UPDATE I just found a picture of the back wall that shows that it is only a double layer along the top turret area and at the four spots where the side walls attach. Building that way has two advantages. 1) It will reduce the weight to about 115 lbs. instead of 184 lbs. and 2) It would require one less 4 x 8 sheet of MDF.

We glued the two top sections of the back wall together and I started routing the passage for the back wall wiring.

I was too busy to get any work done on the castle today but I did manage to get some glue and a roller bottle.

The back wall is cut out. I rough cut the turrets with my sabre saw, then smoothed them out with the router. I saw a tip on making templates that said to leave about 1/2″ extra to lead the router into the cut. I did that when I made the template but forgot to make the actual template a 1/2″ longer. On the first cut with the router it caught on the corner and jumped away from the template. Fortunately it just made some small nicks that were easily sanded out. On the other cuts I had to be extra careful when starting the cut but it worked OK. I made a screenshot of the wall plan to compare to the actual wall. It’s made out of 4 pieces that form a 5’3″ x 5’3/4″ x 1 1/2″ double thickness panel with turrets at the top. I need to route channels for wiring, and then glue it together. The wiring will run between the panels so there is no exposed wiring.

I completed the template to use when cutting out all of the turret notches. I made a template for my template by taping scraps of 1/2″ MDF to some hard board. Then used my hand held Makita router to cut the template notches.

This is a screenshot of my Sketchup Plan. I have somewhere between 40-60 hrs in drawing the plan. Mostly because it has been about a year since I used Sketchup and I had to do a lot of re-learning.

I used a fresh 140 tooth blade in my circular saw and a Kreg Rip-Cut saw guide to make my first cut. The MDF is 49″x 97″. I cut two matching pieces of the 3/4″ MDF to  75 1/2″ x 49″. These plus two 11 3/4″ x 75 1/2″ strips will make the double thickness back panel.