On 10/26/2020 11:36 AM, wrote:
On Mon, 26 Oct 2020 09:33:32 -0500, Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet
wrote:

So my wife has full access to our upstairs for her quilting studio. We
have laminate flooring in that area and she has a main sewing desk with
two sewing machines which is eight feet long and five feet wide in the
center, To save the laminate floor we have a 5x5 sheet of 1/2" Baltic
birch plywood under and out from the middle of the desk.

Well, she keeps driving her chairs off of the 5x5 when she scoots over
to the drawer area on both sides to the desk.

So I decided to add wings to both sides of the 5x5 sheet.

Well, she decided for me.

Yet a new job for the Shaper Origin.

To add the wings on both sides of the 5x5 sheet I decided to use bow
ties to hold the wings in place. This meant carrying the 5x5 sown
stairs and out into the shop. We both hate this task as it requires
attention not to go tumbling down the stairs. But we managed.

I decided to rip the 5x5 in half and use some of those bow ties to
rejoin the two halves and no the two half sheets are much easier to
carry up and down stairs by one person, me.

So here are the bow ties, 6 of them for the task. I finally received
the Shaper Work Station, a jig for holding small parts and it really
works well for cutting/milling small parts. The bow ties are 40mm x 100mm.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lcb112...in/dateposted/

One of the bow ties and a trial run of the mating halves.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lcb112...in/dateposted/


The bottom of the bowtie cut is a waste backer? IOW, its not undercut
in any way.

That is correct. However one of the test cuts, the one with the
relatively flat bottom, was just a pocket. I thought I was going to
have bottoms on the female side of the joints but later decided to go
all the way through.





And the trial fit of the parts.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lcb112...in/dateposted/

And finally the results of where all of this was going.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lcb112...in/dateposted/

Did you put felt or some other backing on the plywood to prevent it,
or abrasives caught between, from scratching the floor?

No. This area is mostly an area that only gets thread all over the
floor. FWIW the original 5x5 piece has been up there for about 6 years
with no issues of anything getting under there. She runs a robot vac up
there periodically.


Since I' working at home much of the time (increasing more soon), I
have a similar problem. My floor is carpeted so when I roll off the
plastic chair mat it's rather like driving off the road into a corn
field. I replaced the cheap plastic wheels with 3" wheels on much
better swivels but even the chair mat creates divots the chair doesn't
want to climb out of. I was thinking about one of the glass ones but
at 500, I stopped thinking.

Yeah! The Baltic birch does not really blend well in appearance but it
holds up very well with plastic and rubber swivel wheels and foot
traffic. Actually better than I expected. I thought it would wear
through in spots but not at all after 6 years.

I will add that I did finish with General Finishes Arm-R-Coat followed
with a coat of Briwax wax.




FWIW the receiving/female halves of the joints in the upper trial fit
links were cut exact. I had to tap the bow ties in place, and this was
much too tight for this application. I wanted to easily disassemble for
future moves.

The last picture, showing the end result, were with the pocket halves of
the joint, were cut .009" over sized so that the wings could be easily
lifted and removed from the bow ties.

As a side note, I clamped both the mating panels together and cut all
female halves of the joints in one step to insure proper registration.


My wife is happy!

In the end, that's all that counts.



More points going into my bank! ;!)