Preparation and Maintenance

We went down to Kettering for a very pleasant evening to see the new year in with friends Tony and Les and since than have not done much at all.

Karen’s car was not fixed until Friday so all the week has been spent setting up the dovetail jig, routers and cutting timber for the skylight

Popped down to T-A on Saturday  to see if everything OK and pick up stainless steel screws and a few tools.

Started to assemble the skylight but didn’t get too far as more timber was needed

 

It is slightly larger than the old one so as not to have a lip running round the bottom which I believe to have been part of the problem

This time there are to be four opening lights to allow for extra drainage between and being smaller the shuts should be more rigid – apart from them being thicker and jointed using stile and rail joints reinforced with dowels

There will be a variety of joints – already we have dovetails on the corners, dowel and screw at the centre edges and biscuit joints on the centre ridge.

This is definitely the job for the next few days/weeks.

Yesterday it was down to Glenmere Timber at Market Harborough to get plenty more sapele and ash – I’m told we are having shutters to replace the curtains in the lounge- blimey I thought I was retired.

Today was just pottering about in the shed, firstly to sharpen the saw blades and then make a jig for the table saw to make it easier to do the tapered cuts need for the skylight. In the planning I decided on a 1 in 3 slope to allow rain to run off without making the skylight too tall – this works out at 18.4 degrees. To ensure all angles match I used bits from the off cuts from the end boards to mount a leftover piece of oak flooring with bolts through the rip fence on the table saw.

The next problem is that when making thin stock you run the risk of the leading edge dropping down the gap between saw blade and face plate. To this end I made a zero clearance face plate from some 6mm acrylic

Not sure as I like seeing the blade spinning around under your hands – think I may make another in some opaque material or spray the underside of this one.
This entry seems a bit disjointed but thats the way my head is spinning at the moment, trying to sort which joint would be best for each item and how best to overcome any possibility of error. The last skylight caused a great deal of problems with it leaking so badly that I am determined that this one will not be the same.