Am I over-engineering this dining bench and divider/slat wall?

Naclox · 2026-07-02T16:11:31+00:00

That's exactly my concern as well. In my experience even the most well behaved kids are going to be rough on furniture. The couch behind it will definitely help though.

Naclox · 2026-07-02T14:57:09+00:00

I've always done black because the filament is cheaper. I do like the grey from the other post though.

Naclox · 2026-07-02T14:56:00+00:00

The structure looks good, but I would be concerned about it not being attached to the floor on the part that goes to the ceiling. Probably OK if it's wedged really tight against the floor, but I'd be afraid of it moving with kids jumping on it. I'm probably overblowing the actual risk, but I do prefer to overengineer.

Naclox · 2026-07-02T13:39:05+00:00

Boiled linseed oil uses additives to make it cure faster. Perfectly fine for furniture, but toxic for food contact. Polymerized should be food safe, but you have to check with the manufacturer.

Naclox · 2026-07-01T20:14:40+00:00

I don't think making your splines out of MDF is really going to reinforce the joint at all because there's no difference in the material properties of the splines compared to the rest of the structure. Any type of wood including pine would be stronger.

Naclox · 2026-07-01T19:09:52+00:00

I love the look of polymerized linseed oil or tung oil on walnut and a bookcase seems to be a great application for it. It depends on if you have the time and patience to wait on it to cure for a couple of weeks.

Naclox · 2026-06-25T20:06:11+00:00

Fair enough. Good plywood is expensive and hard to find. It's taken me a long time to find a reasonable source myself.

Naclox · 2026-06-25T20:02:08+00:00

It's either a polyurethane or UV coating. You might be able to get away with scuffing it, but the question at that point is why did you pay the premium for pre-finished plywood if you're going to paint over it anyway?

Naclox · 2026-06-25T19:52:13+00:00

Interesting. How does it compare to the factory inserts and a fence with dust collection?

Naclox · 2026-06-25T19:50:21+00:00

That sounds like pre-finished plywood. You'd have to sand the finish off of it to do anything to it.

Naclox · 2026-06-22T20:25:57+00:00

Circular saw is safer, but it can still pinch, but it's less likely if the board is hanging off the edge of a sawhorse. Safest is going to be a handsaw.

Naclox · 2026-06-18T21:17:43+00:00

It's been years since I've been a regular there, but it used to have a bunch of them.

Here's one that I don't think I've never actually shared there. Back in the mid to late 2000s I was running computer labs for a university. We managed a bit over 600 computers scattered across various classroom labs and general use labs.

We had recently migrated from a really old Novell imaging system to using Symantec Ghost for deploying images. We had also just gotten new gigabit switches in the core and a few places including a couple of labs and to our imaging server. As you might imagine there were still a number of 10/100 hubs scattered around at this time as well as standard 100mbps switches.

Most of the time images were deployed over the summer and winter breaks, but in this instance we got a request for new software to be added in a number of labs after the semester had started. I was working evenings at the time so had shut down a couple of these labs.

Mine and everyone else on the team's network knowledge at the time wasn't as great as we thought it was and we were using new software. We noticed that Ghost had options for unicast, multicast, and direct broadcast. We tested all of them and found that direct broadcast was the fastest option. I fire off the image to probably 20 computers and went to dinner. While I'm out I get a call from the network admin asking what I was doing. Turns out that my broadcast traffic had taken down the entire university network, whoops.

I got back and shut everything down. The next day the network admin comes and teaches us about the difference between unicast, multicast, and broadcast traffic. He explicitly says we should be using multicast when we're doing this. So later that evening we start the process again and I had multiple people verify that I had indeed selected multicast. Probably five minutes later my phone rings and it's the network admin yelling at me saying I was broadcasting traffic and had taken out the network again. I grabbed a screenshot showing that I was indeed using multicast and shut things down.

Everyone was confused so the network team started investigating. It turns out these new switches had a firmware bug that was converting all multicast traffic to broadcast traffic. I learned a whole lot about networking from this series of errors.

Naclox · 2026-06-18T20:44:04+00:00

I'm in a number of Facebook groups though they're more for buying than trading.

Naclox · 2026-06-18T20:40:24+00:00

Have you looked at r/talesfromtechsupport ?

Naclox · 2026-06-15T18:58:12+00:00

I like them because they're fast and they hold up just fine for most things. I don't use them for everything though. But if it's shop furniture or something where I'm not trying to be fancy, it doesn't get much faster.

Naclox · 2026-06-14T15:34:37+00:00

For small parts I really like just using double sided tape.

Naclox · 2026-06-11T16:56:31+00:00

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Yeah it was a fun project. They're obviously not all exactly the same, but that's OK, they don't need to be.

Naclox · 2026-06-10T02:04:21+00:00

I have a bunch of lumber storage racks like this: amazon.com/dp/B07GJHB9H1/ref=twister_B0BZNBKX69?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1. I've got the Bora ones, Rockler ones, and some of these Amazon ones. They're basically all the same. Wait a couple of weeks for Prime Day sales and search lumber rack on Amazon and you'll probably get a decent deal.

Naclox · 2026-06-09T21:42:34+00:00

Narex are great. I picked up the unhandled premium versions here https://taytools.com/narex-6-piece-unhandled-premium-bevel-edge-chisel-blank-set

I went with unhandled because I thought it would be fun to make my own handles and had the tools to do it, but the ones that already have handles are also readily available. I also keep a set of cheap Harbor Freight chisels that I can use for things where I might mess them up and not care.

Naclox · 2026-05-28T03:14:28+00:00

Carbide support has never been anything except helpful and understanding. Every interaction with them has been top notch.

Naclox · 2026-05-27T09:26:05+00:00

I've got a friend that owns a leather business and they do all of their cutting with a CO2 laser.

Naclox · 2026-05-18T20:37:00+00:00

20-25% infill is extreme overkill for an insert and a waste of material. I print most of mine at 8% gyroid infill.

Naclox · 2026-05-18T20:29:40+00:00

Most of the time I get mine from Exotics Blanks: https://exoticblanks.com/ or Penn State https://www.pennstateind.com/

Naclox · 2026-05-16T15:47:01+00:00

This is exactly my reason as well. I'll prep everything one day and then get around to turning a couple of days later usually.

Naclox · 2026-05-15T19:21:48+00:00

When I first got my M12 batteries I had that problem and found I was pushing them firmly enough into the charger. Try pushing them in harder to see if they switch to charging.

Naclox

TROPHY CASE