Industrial shelving for my fish tanks that also converts to a work space for two of my sewing machines. I installed shelves at a clients house a few weeks ago, and another guy working there remarked how he wished he had space for shelves like that. The fool. There Is ALWAYS space for shelves. As for the CNC, I’m trying to get ahold of the Lab Tech in UNO’s CNC facilities, so far though, no dice.

Please pardon my terrible misspelling. To keep your pockets from sagging, cut out a rectangle of interfacing the same width as your back pocket lining, and iron it on directly over the resulting slit like a band-aid. People with darts should go ahead and take care of it now, I generally iron (right sides together) along the center dart line, and baste it together along the solid lines. Then I iron the little flap towards the center and topstitch with a heavier thread very close to the edge. It should look something like this:

Now we can assemble the pocket it self. When it comes to applying facing to pockets, I like to add a strip of bias tape (optional!) along the edge to add interest. Cut the bias tape the same width as your back pocket facing, and baste it 1/4″ in along the edge of the right face. Then press it downwards, and align the resulting piece at the same point as the original, about 2/3′s of the way up. Topstitch along the bottom edge, next to the bias tape:

For the half welt, cut two rectangles from the strip of fabric we’ll use for belt loops and apply interfacing to the wrong side. Iron them in half the long way, and baste them along the bottom edge of the lining. Your resulting pocket should look like this:

Turn the back of your pants over, and give everything a good press. Then align the center of your newly formed half welt (right sides together) with the center of the slit, hopefully this is the dart you just made. Start 5/8″ in, and (backstitching!) stitch until you are 5/8″ away from the other side like this:

Then turn the whole thing over, and make those > < shapes with a sharp pair of scissors, deftly cutting until you are just about to the corner. Be careful not to go over.

At this point you should be able to pull all of the back pocket lining inside the pants, and iron it flat. It may take a great deal of jimmying, so be careful not to rip the > < corners. With the back welt inside, iron the top flap up just above it, and the side triangles out < > so everything is square.

Take it all to the sewing machine, and topstitch along the bottom to hold it all in place. Beautiful (if I do say so myself…)

Now fold the back pocket lining up to the top of the pants, the facing should cover all of the welt. There are a couple of ways you can finish the edges, If you have a serger, I highly recommend using it here, otherwise just use the zigzag on your sewing machine to keep the edges from unraveling. In any case, be sure to go over the edges again with a straight stitch for added strength, and capture both sides and the welt.

Return to the outside, and topstitch around the rest of the pocket, backstitching at both ends. Repeat for the other pant leg (I have been known to just go with one, so I promise not to look down on you if you decide to quit here) and congratulate yourself, you’ve just completed one of the most difficult tasks in sewing, The Half Welt, second to only The Full Welt!  Now on to part 3 (Should I be posting these in reverse order?!)

It all starts with a pair of shorts, tired and worn. I’ve done a lot of clothes cloning in my day, and I can honestly say the only way you are going to replicate these in any great detail is to tear it apart at the seams, quite literally of course. I use 3 different tools for this task, seam rippers for  back stitching, scissors to remove any serging, and an x-acto knife for the chain stitching.  Plain seams can be taken out easily enough by hand. In any case,  you’ll want to divide those shorts into as many unique pieces as possible. You may notice that the two sides are symmetrical, so feel free to quit once you’ve dissected the first pant leg.

You should end up with a part list that looks something like this:

Pant front (1)

Pant back (4)

Side pocket (2)

Side pocket facing (3)

Back pocket (5)

Back pocket facing (6)

Waist band (7)

and possibly Belt loops, Fly pieces, Back pocket welt, Etc… (8) Don’t worry about anything that’s not included in the first seven. After everything is accounted for, go ahead and iron them flat and remove any fuzzy stuff. I’m always amazed at the amount of dirt work pants can hold, even after repeated washings. You’ll need to go to the store and get a couple of things here if you don’t have them already. For these shorts, I purchased 1 yard of fabric (1 1/2 should do it for most average sized people), 1/2 yard of pocket lining, 2 spools of heavy duty thread, an 8″ zipper, interfacing, and a button.

With your pin cushion handy  lay the fabric out flat (still folded double) and place your pants/pocket facing pieces on top. Make sure everything fits, and is aligned with the grain before you start to pin. Sloppy planning here will break you, so give everything plenty of room. Start cutting out the fabric 5/8″ from where the seam (not the edge!) that you removed was. For the waist band and belt loops, I usually cut out 3 1/4″ and 1 3/4″ strips from the leftovers you see on the right edge. Repeat this procedure again for the pocket and waistband lining.  *If your shorts do not have the attached fly facing (the 2″ rectangle you see sticking out of the j that is the “front crotch” in the lower left hand corner), go ahead and add one now, It makes life a lot easier*

There you have it. You’re shorts are ready for sewing. I’ll continue in parts 2 & 3 later. Blogging is hard work.

I started with a couple of paper prototypes, and ultimately settled on a rectangle that was 2×4″. This would allow me to squeeze the  most out of my plastic sheeting while still covering all of the area that generally gets bashed in. I considered aluminum sheeting as well, but I was afraid that the edge might bind against the book, so I decided to play it safe.

Once all of the plastic had been cut to size (I had to use a heavy aluminum guide with a rubber grip to keep it from sliding) I started playing around with the diagonal cuts to see what worked the best. I ended up going with a double score, because the thickness of the book didn’t allow the plastic to lay flat, and I wanted a fairly sleek profile under that paper bag.

Here you can see the pattern that I used, The large cutting matt with 45 degree markers worked great under the translucent plastic. I cut the notch out of the top where the scores meet, and then creased each line individually.

Voilá. I’d include a how to on paper bag book covers as well, but I think my blog has enough lameness points for one day. I’ll post an update at the end of the school year to see how it did. Cheers.

I’m told to expect a lot of splitting, but I still think it’s worth a shot with proper pilot holes and taps. A prototype will be in order once I get this one working. I finished attaching the end panels to the base today, which was probably the most frustrating portion of the build. Once you hit this part, the size of the objects inhibits you from just slapping them together with clamps, and you’ve got to think ahead. My only consolation is that this build is just temporary.

Here’s everything though. Seeing it all together, I’m starting to fell less crazy for taking this on. The 700 dollars of buyers remorse I’ve racked up this far, is fading into oblivion! We’ll see how I feel after the next 700.

*I would like to make a correction from a previous post.* After discussing with my father the problem I was having with the fit of the bearings, he explained to me that yes, they are supposed to be that tight. He suggested cooling the leadscrew and heating up the bearing to get them on, and even showed me the special bearing removal tool in our miscellaneous drawer, (that I would not have know existed otherwise, but exists for precisely such purposes). Fortunately, the bearings are still very tight, if not that tight. Unfortunately when I asked McMaster about it, they went ahead and shipped me new ones… then billed it to my account. Looks like I get to go to the post office tomorrow! At least my shrimp are happy.

I got new fish, but I don’t know their names. The cool thing about Tetras is though, you can just make them up, because they’re made up anyways. The Kissing Gouramis I had in there before, were not only uprooting everything, but about to outgrow the tank after one month. To CRAIGSLIST with Ye! Is Ye capitalized? I also added 10 ghost shrimp. I figure feeder fodder, and algae control wrapped into one 33 cent package. W00t.

The angles were next, I cut them at the chop saw (going very slowly), and then carved the notches out at the table saw, using a spare end piece to keep it at 45 degrees. To get the drill press to sink the holes in the right place, I used a punch awl to make an indent at the markings and let the bit home in by itself. Then I cleaned it all up with a set of files…

And used the same WD-40/waterproof sand paper method to get rid of the scratches.

Roundup. When I went to put the bearing on the X gantry, I discovered that it’s inside was a hair to small to take the leadscrew (the calipers revealed it to be 31/64′s). Not wanting to damage my $60 investment, I again, used my 320 grit. Best 2.99 I’ve spent yet.

From here it was just a matter of bolting everything together. I have neither the skate bearings, nor the anti-backlash nuts yet, so the project kind of hits a standstill. Not a problem for me though! I have plenty of other things to do with starting school, and finding out where that DAMN CRICKET IS IN OUR BASEMENT. Such is life.

After googling tap prices, I decided just to go with wood screws for most of the joints. I think there was a fair amount of consensus at CNC Zone as well. I turned on the drill press to discover the light had burned out, so I took the opportunity to make the shop a little more green…

It took me another two hours to get everything drilled accurately.  I ended up buying a General Adjustable Circle Cutter from Ace so that I didn’t have to buy forstner bits in 3 different sizes. It did a surprisingly good job, better than a butterfly bit, that’s for sure. I’m using double sealed bearings with a retaining ring from McMaster (the ones I bought by accident), So I needed both 1 3/4″ and 1 59/64″ holes. Good luck finding that last bit otherwise.

I did not want to shell out more dough for 3/4 HDPE adjustment blocks, so when someone on CNC Zone suggested using TREX artificial decking (an HDPE/sawdust composite) I jumped at the chance to try it. I don’t think anyone has done this before, because it’s $30+ per board, but I was fortunate enough to have some lying around from another project. I will let you know how it goes. I noticed in milling it that the scraps tend to collect…

So here I am at the end of day 3, Y Gantry fully assembled and everything else drilled and cut out. The bearings and leadscrew arrived just last night, but i’ll need the anti backlash nuts before I can put the X and Z axis’ together. My to do list gets smaller every day!

I had a pretty good idea how I was going to go at this thing from the start, having butted pieces of wood together before, I knew that this was not the best way to get a stable platform. Norm on New Yankee Workshop seems fond of dado joints, but in lieu of a dado head for my table saw, I stuck a 3/4″ bit in the router, and had at it, ripping a groove every 7.5″.

Then I took the board over to the table saw (I’m using 3/4″ MDF here, adjusted accordingly to 1/2″ MDF in the plans by the way) and cut the rails to their proper width, checking for consistency throughout.

After learning the importance of a good first cut, things went fairly smoothly. A quick google on “gluing MDF” revealed that it’s important to apply a first coat of glue, this is wood glue, not gorilla glue mind you, and let it dry for 30 minutes so the subsequent second coat is not sucked into the wood leaving you with no stick. I did just that, and then with a little jimmying and a rubber mallet, eased the intermediary pieces between the rails, popped a nail in both ends, and clamped them up tight.

Because the rails on the routing table are so close together, you will find it difficult to nail the spacers in once you get more than 2 rails together. My workaround for this was to make 3 sets of 2 rails, then add the seventh rail to a set of 2 as in the picture above, leaving two sets of spacers un-nailed. This gives you a finished nailing pattern of |n|u|n|n|u|n|. With enough glue, I’m sure no one will ever need to know my dirty little secret.

I decided just to go ahead and screw the end piece on, perhaps in later builds I will dado that as well, but I found myself more than ready to move on to the next step by the time I got here. I moved the finished bases down to the basement to dry out. Nothing spells humid like a Nebraska summer.

This one is a couple years old by now, but I’d like to post it anyways. The whole thing was completed in under two weeks (2 strings of 40 per day) as sort of a grand valentine’s day gesture. It hangs in my girlfriend’s room, and I’m happy to report that things are still going spiffingly.