I was dying to make something for my daughter. I came across a neat toy plan at furnitureplans.com. This is a version of Noah's Ark. It is made from red oak and was my first test drive of the new jointer and planer. I really found the limitations of my little delta bandsaw on this job. It's going to have to go before I do anything bigger.
This plan was several pages of measured drawings and patterns. As it was constructed of layered laminations of the hull and was two symmetrical sides, I decided to gang up the sides and make two pieces at once on the bandsaw. This led to ultimate demise of my little saw as it wasn't prepared to cut 2 inches of red oak. I'm sure if I knew anything about tuning it, at that point, I might still have it.
After making the pieces and sanding them on the spindle sander, I realized that the tolerances of joining the sides to the centre spline were greater than what I had allowed for when bandsawing the pieces. I got clever, and after gluing up the sides, I decided to run them across the jointer to flush the ends up. This worked great, except when I joined them together, the top didn't fit anymore. Rather than cut the top, I used a trim router and template to cut a rabet that the top fit into.
This little piece has a gazillion little animals all scroll sawed out of red oak. That was really not fun to do. I have a crappy scroll and occasionally the blade would grab the piece of wood and pound it into the table at an excessive rate of speed until I could turn the saw off. I tried a bunch of different blades, but ultimatly got to work on a Dewalt scroller and realized my saw is crap. I've tried tuning it, but it's just not a great saw.
The ark is finished with three coats of watco danish oil and holds a premium spot on the mantle in our family room.
