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DIY for Homeowners

When a DIY Project Doesn't Go According to Plan...

12/23/2020

2 Comments

 
text by Vicki     Sign up here to join our weekly email newsletter! ​
We rarely label a project quick and easy but we WERE going to label this one as such. BUT, this very simple project was anything but that due to a series of mishaps!

Read along. Have you ever had a project that was just one roadblock after another? Do tell!
Greyhounds wear muzzles in the kennel to keep each other safe.
Every retired adopted greyhound comes with its kennel muzzle. Greyhounds aren't aggressive dogs, but when they get excited and want to play they can and do nip at their greyhound friends. Greyhounds have very thin skin so the muzzles are worn to protect against accidentally injury. Steph wanted to display Mac's and Tosh's muzzles AKA, Freestar and Victoria, their racing names, to honor their racing history.
Retired greyhounds living their best post-racing life!
Retired greyhounds living their best post-racing life! By the way, they sleep a lot--about 22 hours a day!
Cutting the board for the display board to size on the Makita battery powered miter saw.
We sourced two boards of the same thickness from our scrap pile. Both were already finished so that would save time. One was a little longer than the other so Steph cut it to size on the miter saw. Actually if we had had three boards of various lengths we could have staggered them for a rustic look and there would be no need to cut them!
The spilled glue was easy to clean up from the Surebonder silicone hot glue pad.
Uh oh!!!! Who didn't tighten the glue lid? What a mess, but we had put down the silicone mat so the glue did clean up fairly well.
We keep baby wipes in the garage for just the reason. They work well to clean up glue messes!
We keep baby wipes in the garage for just this reason. They work well to clean up glue messes!
Using a Rockler silicone glue brush to apply the glue to the display board.
Now, we can finally glue up the boards. We first roughed up the edges with sandpaper since the boards had finish on them. I used glue from the spill and used a Rockler silicone glue brush to coat the edges.
Using DeWalt clamps to hold the boards tight while they dried.
We clamped the boards and allowed it to dry.
Adding coat hooks to the display board to hold the greyhound muzzles.
Time to mark the placement of the hooks. After putting the hooks into place it was clear something went wrong as the right one was not even with the left. Steph removed the right one, remarked it and attached it again--this time with success!
The greyhound muzzles in place on the single coat hooks which are screwed into the display board.
Look closely at the hooks--they are different! That is why they didn't line up the first time around. Tip: if you're reusing hardware, make sure it matches!
These OOK branded sawtooth hangers are easy to apply as they have a built in nails.
These OOK branded sawtooth hangers are easy to apply as they have a built in nails.
Cleaning the greyhound muzzles with Arm & Hammer baking soda.
Along the way we noticed the muzzles smelled really, really bad especially Tosh's AKA Victoria. I washed them both first but when that didn't take care of the smell I placed them in plastic bags with baking soda and left them in the sun for a while. The baking soda seems to absorb the smells. Tosh's needed a second round of the baking soda treatment.
The greyhound jumped up on the table to see what the noise was from the Cricut Maker.
Tosh is so different from Mac. Tosh is very curious about new smells and sounds and the noise of the Cricut Maker was no exception! She had to jump up to see what was what. Fortunately, nothing was damaged or knocked off the table by the curious pup!
Adding vinyl lettering that was cut with the Cricut Maker to the display board.
Steph added some Cricuit cut vinyl to the display board.
Hanging the display board on the wall.
Steph added some hooks to the wall and the display piece was ready to hang.
A simple display board to hold a bit of greyhound history.
All done! A simple display board to hold a bit of greyhound history.
I like the idea of displaying things that have history to them and incorporating them into my home's decor. We did something similar with an old file cabinet that was my dad's. I didn't want to keep the entire thing, but I decided to deconstruct it and keep just the front of one of the drawers. It now has a place of honor in the garage and it makes me smile and think of my dad every time I see it.

How to you display important keepsakes? Do you hide things away in storage or keep them on display?


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FYI: We are not professionals, and we don't claim to be. This is what we found worked for our project. Yours may need a little different approach. Safety first!

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2 Comments
Tim
12/24/2020 10:22:04 am

Ahh, the most fun game of all, the leftovers matching game. I usually buy things I know I’ll use again in bulk packs, just like the hooks you show. Trouble is, then next time I need them, I have the same problem, where I find one or two, but never as many as I need, and then they aren’t the same. Naturally, I can’t find the dozen or so I should have left over. Then you go digging through things, trying to find that place “you definitely wouldn’t forget” that you put the stuff, maybe scrounge up one or two more, and they somehow aren’t exactly the same either. The upside I suppose is the times I find the entire bunch of leftover from a bulk pack of whatever, it’s like winning the jackpot.

Some thoughts from doing similar projects for other folks that may come across here. I like to clamp edge-glued boards first together, and then to a flat surface like a granite slab or similar to help with any possible warping and keep everything flat (I like to use cheap I beam levels as cross members if needed for this “flat-clamping”. This does open up gaps in any not-perfect-90 joints however, so somewhat depends on the look you’re going for. If you want solid joints without gaps, that wouldn’t be a good method, but could be used initially to identify gaps, and then use a jointer or plane to fix them up. Or, clamp just the edges and use a thickness planer afterwards to get a flat surface. Or, the easiest option, glue and clamp both edges and flat, and then use putty or a line of extra glue or other filler to fill the gaps. That does assume you are sanding the finishes piece and/or refinishing, otherwise the filled gap may stick out like a sore thumb. As a later rio states, if you do fill a gap or have a gap, that also means not great glue contact in that joint comparatively, so consider using pins or some other joining material to reinforce the glue joint (partly why I use glue as a filler on this type project.

For the ends, I’ll cut to a rough but long length first, then glue, then do a final cut on the miter or track saw across the assembled piece so that all the ends are perfectly together. Again, depends on the look you’re going for, having slightly different board lengths may actually be preferable for a more rustic looking wood, and cutting after gluing takes that away.

Sometimes after gluing/clamping I’ll use angled 23ga pins from the back just to help keep everything together in case a clamp fails or things move slightly, doing so has saved my bacon a few times when things accidentally got hit while still drying. Or as above, it can serve as reinforcement to potentially weaker joints.

The main thing is know what you want it to look like ahead of time, and tailor your methodology to achieve that look. If you are going to put a new finish on the wood, you have more leeway in what you do first. If you want things perfectly square all around as if it’s one piece of wood (like one might do for a cutting board or benchtop), that’s a similar but slightly different workflow. Even different thickness or warped boards can still be glued to give interesting effects, or ultimately planed down or similar to be as if they weren’t different at all, it’s all up to what you want the project to look like in the end!

Reply
Steph
12/28/2020 07:57:37 am

Thanks for sharing Tim!

Reply



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