How To Make A Sewing Room Cutting Table

Description

In this episode of the House of Hacks, Harley takes you on the journey from idea to finished product to show how to make a sewing room cutting table.

You might also like the video How to Make a Sewing Table

Sign up for a 30-day free Audible trial and get 2 books that are yours to keep, even if you don’t continue past the trial. (Affiliate link)
The Art of War by Steven Pressfield (Affiliate link)
Atomic Habits by James Clear (Affiliate link)

About

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Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the House of Hacks' values, here’s a playlist for you.

And here’s the most recent video.

For a written transcript, go to How To Make A Sewing Room Cutting Table

Here's a list of the tools I use.

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 4.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"

Contents

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:01 Overall design
• 2:10 Initial Construction
• 2:55 Resistance
• 4:29 Habits to overcome Resistance
• 5:14 Final Construction
• 5:50 Finished product

Transcript

Introduction

I have had that cutting table top for more than 20 years since before we moved here. And it's really hard letting go because I've had it so long... But, I'm getting a much better one and I'm can't wait! It's happening today!!

I think she's pretty excited there! That was some unplanned video that I found when I was reviewing the footage.

If we’re just meeting, I’m Harley, that was my wife, and this is the House of Hacks where I make stuff out of a variety of materials.

In today’s episode we're going to be looking this cutting table that I made for my wife’s sewing room. It's primarily woodworking, but I also want to touch a little bit on some of the resistance we run into when creating things.

In a previous video, I showed how I made a table for my wife’s sewing machine out of largely recycled materials. In this video, we're going to be doing the same for her cutting table.

Overall design

The ends are filing cabinets that my previous employer was throwing away. And they're attached to a base that's primarily 2x4s and some plywood. This serves to hold the cabinets together so they don't move around and also to provide a little bit of a toe kick.

The cabinets were designed to go underneath desks in cubicles, and so they're designed to have things attached to the top which works perfectly for this application with the table top.

Back here in the middle, my wife wanted to use these cabinets that were designed for maps and blueprints. And here we can see see they’re stacked together, they're a couple inches taller than the filing cabinets on the end, so the design will have to account for that.

Since this table is right behind her sewing machine work area, she wanted this one corner to have a cutout in it to accommodate her serger. That adds a little bit of complexity to the overall design.

So, I took some measurements, got the materials and started to work.

Initial Construction

I started with an 4x8 sheet of plywood. This was several inches larger than I needed on both the length and the width and so cut it down to size.

As I did this, I sliced it off in thin strips. I then glued and tacked these strips to the bottom side edges of the table top to give a little more substance for the edge banding to attach to. I mounted these a little bit proud of the edge so when the glue dried, I could use a router bit to make the edges flush.

My wife has some poplar trim in her sewing room, so I cut some banding out of this for the edges to:

• improve the looks,
• protect the exposed plies of the plywood and
• to tie the different elements of her room together.

I then glued and tacked the banding to the edge of the top.

And then the project sat.. and sat… and sat.

Resistance

I ran smack dab into what Steven Pressfield in The War of Art calls “Resistance.”

Eventually I did get going on it it again.

Steven Pressfield sees Resistance as an invisible inner force that keeps us from exercising our genius, from doing the thing that we were born to do. In the book. he talks about the various forms this can take and different ways of overcoming it.

As a Christian, I don’t know that I completely agree with all the things he talks about. In particular, he talks about praying to his Muse. That doesn’t fit within my faith framework.

But the part about Resistance being a force opposing the creative process does resonate with me. He seems to see it as an impersonal force within ourselves that we have to overcome. I’m not sure that’s the whole story.

I believe we are each made in God’s image and part of that is being imbued with creativity. We’re creative because He is creative.

In what follows, I don’t have any scripture for this. It’s based more on general spiritual principles than direct scriptural support, so don’t take it as doctrine. It’s just musing on my part.

I think Steven is right in that there may be psychological, internal reason we face Resistance when creating things. But I can also see Resistance as being a tool the Enemy of our Soul uses to keep us from doing the very things that God has created us to do. He's always trying to stymie God's plans and purposes in our lives. I think this may be one of the ways he does it.

I suspect it’s probably some combination of the two, both the psychological and the external, and the ratio probably varies from one person to the next.

Habits to overcome Resistance

I started a new job at the beginning of the year and now have a longer commute. To make use of that time, I subscribed to Audible and have listened to a number of books that have been on my reading list for quite a while, The War of Art being one of them.

Another one I listened to is Atomic Habits by James Clear. I found it interesting that some of the things James talks about in forming habits dovetail nicely with some of the strategies Steven talks about in overcoming Resistance.

If you’re interested in using your drive time, or chore time, or any other time where you could listen to a book, sign up at the Audible link below. It’s a 30 day free trial where you get two audible books that are yours to keep, even if you don’t continue past the trial period. Or if you’re already an Audible subscriber, there’s a direct link to both these books below too.

Final construction

Getting back to the project, under the plywood, the table top has a skirt that is boxed in on each end.

The boxes serve multiple purposes:

• they add rigidity to the whole top,
• they provide a mounting spot to attach to the cabinets and
• they fill the space difference between the two types of cabinets.

The bottom of the boxes are made with a thinner plywood and have t-nuts in them to attach to the filing cabinets. The thinner plywood also acts as a top in the serger cutout.

After it was all assembled, I painted the main field and then put a polyurethane top coat over the paint, the edge banding and skirt.

Finished product

With a little help, putting it in place was simply a matter of taking out the old top and placing the new one in its place. And a bolt on each corner keeps it from sliding around.

Join me in this video where I show how I put made the table for my wife's sewing machine. And down here is a playlist of other sewing room related projects.

Thanks for joining me on our creative journey, long as it may take some times.

Now, go make something.

Perfection isn't required.

Fun is!

Compressed Air Vacuum Cleaner - An easy DIY project

Description

Need a small vacuum cleaner for tight spaces? Have an air compressor handy? In this episode of the #HouseOfHacks, Harley shows how to make a DIY compressed air vacuum cleaner out of some junk parts and a couple fittings from the hardware store.

Skip to the project build.

Related videos:
Make your own manometer.
Dishwasher replacement.
Why a new air compressor.

Here at House of Hacks we do tutorials, project overviews, tool reviews and more related to making things around the home and shop. Generally this involves wood and metal working, electronics, photography and other similar things. If this sounds interesting to you, you may subscribe here.

If you’re interested in learning more about the House of Hacks' values, here’s a playlist for you.

And here’s the most recent video.

For a written transcript, go to Compressed Air Vacuum Cleaner - An easy DIY project

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0 by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: "Rocket"

Transcript

Do you ever have a small mess in the shop that you need to clean up?

Something that may be in an out of the way place where a big shop vac can't get to?

Or maybe a big shop vac is too much power and you something that doesn't have quite as much suction?

Well today at the House of Hacks we're going to make our own DIY vacuum cleaner.

That uses compressed air as a power source.

[Intro]

Hi. Harley here.

Today at the House of Hacks, we're going to make a DIY vacuum cleaner that runs off compressed air.

Now, compressed air may not necessarily be the most intuitive thing to use to make a vacuum cleaner with.

So, we're going to first talk about the physics of how this operates and then we're going to get into the making of this vacuum cleaner with just some surplus parts that I had lying around and a couple fittings from the hardware store.

If you're not interested in the physics and you want to get right into the build, there's a link in the description below that will take you directly to that part of this video.

Now, let's take a look at the physics.

In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, there was a family named Bernoulli that had a number of prominent mathematicians and scientists who contributed to our better understanding of the natural world.

One of these people was Daniel Bernoulli who recognized that in a fluid system, as the speed of the fluid increases, it's pressure decreases.

He published this discovery in a book on hydrodynamics in 1738.

This principle is used in many of our modern devices from airplanes to computer disk drives.

Later in the 18th century, along came Giovanni Venturi.

He was a man of many accomplishments and among his achievements, he applied Bernoulli's principle to a device consisting of tubes that demonstrated the effect of pressure differentials.

In 1797, he published a treatise on hydrodynamics wherein he described this effect that was eventually named after him, the Venturi Effect.

This picture illustrates what happens.

When air goes through these tapered tubes, as the cross section of the tube decreases, the speed of the fluid must increase. And as Bernoulli's principle indicates, the pressure must correspondingly decrease.

When a U shaped tube, known as a manometer, is connected between the slower moving fluid and the faster moving fluid, the pressure differential causes the gauge's fluid to rise on the low pressure side and drop on the high pressure side.

This low pressure can be used in many applications, from the gas furnace that heats your home to the hose attachment to drain your waterbed to the vacuum cleaner we're going to make today.

OK, to make this, I have some scrap tubing I scavenged off the old dishwasher that I replaced.

Here's some water line and some drain line, I think. This might be water supply line. I don't remember right now off the top of my head.

I have an old T-shirt that was in the scrap bin.

I've got a blow gun for my new air compressor that has a nozzle on it.

I've got an old 2 liter pop bottle.

And I've got a T fitting and an L fitting.

So let's get making this.

OK, the way this is going to work is we have the blow tube that will connect into the end of a piece of flexible pipe.

The flexible pipe will have the T connector on it.

The bottom of the T connector will have this black pipe that will we'll use as the vacuum hose.

And the other side of the T will be the discharge that everything that is picked up by the vacuum will go through as well as the compressed air as it is escaping.

That will go through a tube that has the L bracket on it and the other side of the L bracket will have the bottle on it with a hole cut out to let the air come out so it doesn't escape and all the debris will collect in the plastic bottle.

That's the theory anyway.

[Time lapse of build]

[Example of use]

If you like workshop related projects, like making vacuum cleaners out of some trash and a couple parts from the hardware store, or other things made out of wood, metal, electronics, photography, things of that nature, hit the subscribe button down below and YouTube will notify you next time I upload something.

Until next time, go make something.

Perfection's not required.

Fun is!

How to make a rustic table top

Description

Have some reclaimed wood? Need a rustic table top? In this episode of House of Hacks, Harley shows a simple way to make a DIY rustic table top using reclaimed wood. A nice thing about doing a rustic table top build is you don’t have to be terribly precise, which allows you to move quickly. The reclaimed wood table top made in this video was done in a couple hours. It’s primary purpose is for product photography, so it doesn’t need legs or finish. If you wanted to use this in a living space, you’d want to spend a bit more time on it to finish the edges, put a sealer on it and craft some legs.

Subscribe for more DIY videos.

Watch my most recent video.

For a written transcript, go to How to make a rustic table top

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com

Transcript

Today at the House of Hacks we're going to make a rustic table top that can be used for a variety of purposes.

[Intro]

Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers.

Harley here.

A couple months ago, I helped by buddy Rich install a new backdrop wall in the studio that used some reclaimed wood.

You may have seen this in a couple of the videos last month.

Well, he wanted to create a table top to do product shoots with using some of this old reclaimed wood so it kind of matched the wood backdrop.

So today we're going to take some of that left over wood and combine it with some wood I scavanged from a built-in cabinet that was in the studio space before we tore it apart and combine that together to make this new table top.

In our case we want the table top to be portable so we're not going to put any legs or anything on it and just set it on available surfaces when we need to set it up.

But if you want to do something like this, you could use it as a end table or a coffee table or something of that nature.

Let's get started.
I first vacuumed all the loose dirt, sawdust and miscellaneous things off the fence wood.

Then I sorted the boards into an order that looked nice.

Next I glued and nailed each board onto the plywood substrate.

I trimmed the uneven edges off with a circular saw.

And gave it a final vacuuming to get all the sawdust off.

So this is what the table looks like setup in the studio.

And here's a test product shot using it.

If you're going to use this idea in a living space, you'd probably want to finish it off with some sort of Verathane or something just to seal it in.

Keep the splinters out of your hands. That sort of thing.

And you probably also want to put a edge banding around it to just trim it off and finish it.

For the purposes of this project, we don't need to do any of that.

The way it is is plenty sufficient because it'll never be in an image and you won't see it.

Until next time, go make something.

Perfection's not required.

Fun is!

How to quickly make a simple door knob trim plate from left over materials

Description

In this project tutorial, Harley shows one simple way of making a trim plate for a door handle. Most door hardware is pretty standard, but occasionally some hardware may leave unsightly holes in the door. Today at the House of Hacks, we use some left over material to make door trim plates to cover ugly, unused mounting holes.

For a written transcript, go to How to quickly make a simple door knob trim plate from left over materials

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing"
Incidental: "Cool Rock"
by Kevin MacLeod at Incompetech

Sound effect: living-room-light-switch by alienxxx at FreeSound

Transcript

Today at the House of Hacks we’re going to go from this … to this.

[Intro]

Hi Makers, Builders and Do-it-yourselfers. Harley here.

Just a quick reminder, if you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the House of Hacks channel for more videos like this one. And click “Like" if you hoard left over material from projects with the hope of using it sometime in the future.

My friend Rich expanded and renovated his photography studio earlier this year and, in the process, door hardware was changed.

The previous hardware left behind some holes that Rich wanted an easy, cheap solution to fixing and/or hiding.

His studio has kind of a chic industrial look to it and I had some left over material in the scrap pile that gave me an idea.

I made a prototype, showed him, he installed it and loved it. Later in the week we made several more to meet his needs.

Let's look at how we did this.

For this build, I used:

• some left over sheet metal,
• some marking tools,
• some cutting tools,
• a smoothing tool,
• some bending tools,
• and a hole cutting tool.

I started with some left over galvanized sheet metal.

This is supposed to be used for heating ducts that I had left over from a home remodel project several years ago.

I cut off a piece an inch wider than we wanted the covers and long enough to cut out four more with room to spare.

Then I cut off individual squares from the long piece.

I filed the edges to remove any burrs.

Next I measured 1/2 inch from each side on the corners, drew a diagonal line through the intersection and cut off the corners.

With the corners cut, I used a small metal brake to fold over 1/2 inch on each edge.

Then I used a hammer to finish the fold by flattening it out.

A center finder gave me the center of each piece, giving me the position to drill a hole using the circle cutter.

This wasn’t the best tool for the job, but in the end got it done.

Not without a bit of mishap though.

And it did generate a bit of heat.

Afterwards, I realized I probably should have used a couple drops of cutting oil.

Also, I probably could have used a lathe tool blank to make a custom cutter that might have worked better.

But the holes still got cut, albeit with more force than finesse.

Once the holes were cut, Rich took them to the studio and installed them.

This was one of those small details that, if it wasn’t done would look bad, but in place, hardly is noticed.

All together, this took about 90 minutes to do 4 plates and didn’t require any new materials, just scraps left over from a previous project.

I’d love to hear in the comments how often you do projects using left overs? Are you like me and have a stack of materials for unknown future projects?

If this is your first time here at House of Hacks: Welcome, I’m glad you’re here and would love to have you subscribe.

I believe everyone has a God-given creative spark. Sometimes this manifests through making things with a mechanical and technical bent.

Through this channel I hope to inspire, educate and encourage these types of makers in their creative endeavors.

Usually this involves various physical media like metal, as in this case, wood, electronics, photography and other similar materials. If this sounds interesting to you, go ahead and subscribe and I’ll see you again in the next video.

Thanks for joining me on our creative journey.

Now, go make something. Perfection’s not required but fun is!

How to make a sewing table

Description
Take a couple filing cabinets, some shelves made out of 2x8s and a 2x4 and end up with a new sewing table.

For a written transcript, go to How to make a sewing table

Music under Creative Commons License By Attribution 3.0.
Intro/Exit: "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com
Incidental: "Airport Lounge" and "Backed Vibes" by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com

Transcript

[Harley] In this episode of the House of Hacks, I'm going to be making a table for my wife's new sewing machine from mostly recycled materials.

[Harley] Hi makers, builders and do-it-yourselfers. Harley here. My wife Diane is joining me today as a special guest.

[Diane] Hi. Harley recently got me a new sewing machine and serger.

[Harley] The new machine is designed for quilting and is much larger than the old one.

[Diane] So we had to make some changes to my sewing room for a new workflow.

[Harley] Part of these changes was to make a new table for her sewing machine.

[Harley] This project used mostly recycled items. My employer had a bunch of old stuff they were going to have a scrap company come in and haul off just to get them out of storage. They gave employees first crack at these items so I picked up a bunch of file cabinets designed for cubicles. We used two of them in this project for storage and support on one side.

[Diane] Almost 30 years ago I made some shelves out of 2x8s. They served their purpose well but no longer fit our needs, so we cut them up and used them as the top and one side. A couple 2x4s, bolts and washers were all we purchased. The total project cost was less than $16.


[Diane] Here are the highlights from that project.

[Highlight reel]

[Harley] I hope this project inspires you to use things in slightly different ways than they were originally intended to meet changing needs.

[Diane] Obviously if you need to build a sewing table, what you have available will probably be different from what we had, but perhaps you can find something appropriate to accomplish your task.

[Harley] Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this overview, I'd appreciate knowing about it with a "like."

[Diane] If you have any thoughts or questions, Harley would love to hear them in the comments below.

[Harley] Until next time, go make something. it doesn't have to be perfect, just have fun!