Air return vent grille

[phil]

Ive been working away at my baseboards so I will include some pictures of that first.
I installed the first one which was the longest at 19 feet. the second two longest are here.
Ive put about 1/2" thick strips on the back of them , so that when I put wainscot they won't get buried flat. so you wont end up seeing the strips.

one is made from 3 pieces joined together , the other is one piece of wood and that one will have an air return vent cut through it.

[phil]

here are some pics of the vent grill I made. someone gave me some brass so I had some 1 inch strips and some L shaped stuff.

I bent up the frame and joined the ends , then cut the 5 vertical pieces and soldered them in place.

then cut the angled slots on my tablesaw using a masonary blade.

then moved the two end pieces as they had been soldered near to the middle to allow me to cut the slots without cutting the ends of the thing.

then I installed the flat pieces and soldered it all together.

Its pretty heavy, solid brass. I could glass bead blast it or maybe darken it with a chemical to give it patina. but i think ill just make it removable and install it and move foreward now. I want ot get the baseboards installed, then I can work on the wainscott. I roughed out the recycled floor to a consistent dimension and removed the T and G but stopped when I got it to that because the next step will be to cut it to about 1/4" thick .. I'll continue with that when I have the walls a bit more ready.

I filled all the old nail holes and some dark marks in the baseboards, picked out any remaining paint specks, gave it a couple coats of danish oil and turps. I can build more finish later and they will darken up, but at least they have some finish for now. I like to do all that with them removed so I can stand up and work on them .
my cat used to like to go walking around in the air return so at least she will stay out of there now

Ill cut a hole in the baseboard and allow about an inch on the bottom so I dont have to interrupt the quarter round along the bottom edge, but you get the idea.

[Gothichome]

Well that looks great Phill. In keeping with the A&C ethos of hand crafted. And you can’t get more hand crafted then doing it yourself.

[PaulJohnson]

Phil - they look great!
The pre-planning with the back strip was brilliant and many times an overlooked detail.

My son is the metal worker in the family. He keeps offering to teach me to weld and do other metal work.

Awesome work! Please keep showing pics.

P.S. looks like we may have the same vintage cabinet saw

[Lily left the valley]

It looks really sharp, phil. Nicely done.

I love the wavy grain bits in the wood as well.

[phil]

the longer one had a nice sort of quartersawn grain pattern, so I'm putting that one near the front entrance with the vent grille in it , It was sort of a shame I had to shorten it a lot. the other is 3 pieces put together, but it will go behind where there is normally a couch so the joinery won't really be noticeable. I sort of had to chop them up a bit to get rid of the old outlet holes, I figured a plug would have been more noticeable than just cutting a chunk out.

the grill wasn't too hard. nothing but a hammer and a hacksaw and a block of metal to pound over the bends, soldering is dead easy. Throwing caution to the wind, I still use lead solder.

Where I was liberal with the flux on the brass parts, then heated it turned copper color. brass is made with copper so I guess it brings the copper to the surface for some reason.
I thought of just doing that to the whole thing and it would look like copper. I could have polished all the bits brilliantly before I soldered anything, but just decided that if it looked like it had a little patina it might tie in ok and I knew that if I did polish it all the soldering would have discolored it and I;d be chasing my tail.. so I left it like that anyway.. It's the sort of thing you see and dont really pay too much attention to.


yes my unisaw is fun, I really like it , James also has a similar one of same vintage, the base is a bit more art deco looking than the newer ones. Mine is a right tilt , most are left tilt. I dont really have much preference. bit different when I rip triangular pieces. I got mine through a government auction, but where I work they had lots of them ,but they slowly all got replaced with General saws and then again with commercial grade saw-stop saws. i added the beismeyer fence. I fix them all so I see the issues. The sawstops aren't bad. General went out of business and General International had the same green, they looked similar but made offshore, they were junk and they went belly up. The unisaw is obsolete too , technically, but there were so many that you can keep them going. they are a good choice for us who aren't into spending thousands but want a decent saw.

the radial arm saw is also delta / rockwell , same quality except upside down It has two beams so it sort of articulates to cut any direction across or along the table whereas most radial arm saws only pivot near the pipe. I dont use it a lot, good for miters and trimming long ends. I can put things on the end of the motor shaft like a chuck and that will do other weird things that you'd never consider using a radial arm saw for. someone welded steel wheels on the stand which I hate. Ill cut them off again. Like the unisaw it pretty much has to be disassembled to move anywhere because it is so heavy. I wouldn't mind some sort of cheap portable for things like cutting up wood for firewood outside or fixing the fence..


in there there is also a 10" bandsaw, thickness planer, 6" jointer, stationary sander , spindle sander which I hardly ever use. I just got the dust collector and I made up an air cleaner with that big blower that just recirculates my air through basically a furnace filter. I have a rigid shop vac that I actually use a lot to catch dust and to clean up. I have a liittle back room with a upright drill press and a 9" metal lathe. bench grinders. I have an AC welder and a oxy acetylene. usually I can take stuff to work to weld though , Its a bit cramped and lots of wood so I don't do a lot of welding in my basement. it would be good to have two rooms. one for metal one for wood. at least my little machine room contains the chips if I use the lathe..
I have a coupple of adjoning rooms one is my hardware department and I keep al lmy wire plumbing bits nots and bolts , car parts etc, the other has a bunch of old radios and related parts that need restoration. i set aside an attic room where I plan to do radio restoration bench work so I can have all my meters and stuff set up there, and store some of the ones that are restored. there is a door there to under the front porch , a typical cold pantry for storing food mostly full of stuff like paint, metal bits transformers, motors etc. like with wood I collect scraps and shapes of metal then when I wan to make stuff I can get inventive with what I have there..

im a bit crowded , I have a lot of fir in there that I need to use up so right now I sort of have to drag stuff around to select what machine I use.
I put the tablesaw on a base that holds the legs of the table, sits on nylon pads, so I can shift and turn it but it's stable. wheels never work for me, too crowded.

I put a router under the tablesaw fence. you can see my makeshift fence clamped there just for the rouundovers. I have a few other routers that aren't attached to the saw so I leave that one there and it's out of the way.

one wall I made cubbyholes, for electric tools saws, routers, stuff like that..

I built a pretty decent bench but i have so much stuff it's a real challenge for me to keep the top clear. I started working on a super old stuffed armchair and Ill get back into that but I didnt really have a good spot to shuffle it into for storage so it occupies my bench and my cat likes to accompany me so I make her comfy on it ; -)
I put a big old sterio down there with a cd player and big old speakers so I can crank it up and drown out the saws .. get some music therapy...

part of my cleanup plan is to make these baseboards and install wainscot up to about eye level in my living room, then top that with a 6" shelf, then i wanted to make a shelf around the living room about 18 inches from the ceiling so I can display radios and stuff , clear some space.. i had a little open closet to hang visitors coats and stuff by the door so Ill rebuild that with a shelf up high as well.
If I can use up some wood I have stored in the basement that will also help. I just dont want it outside because its at a good stable humidity now. more ideas than time but it keeps me busy when I want to be..