I completed the prototype of the UHMW shooting board over the weekend. It is made mostly of MDF (with a hardwood fence and bench hook) except for the UHMW runner. Additionally, I experimented with using rare-earth magnets to allow the miter attachment to be easily attached and removed to change the shooting board from 90 to 45 degree operation.
The UHMW runner seems to be a success and works great…the rare-earth magnets are too weak to hold the miter block tightly enough in place, so I supplemented them with hardwood dowel pegs in the miter block and holes in the base. It now holds tightly enough. So, one successful experiment out of two isn’t too bad. This week I will experiment with the operation of the board a bit and report back to this blog. Photos to follow.
I also completed the two desk tops this weekend by cutting the four slots for the ebony splines into the edges of the tops with a slot-cutting router bit. The tops are now "complete" and will be stored until the rest of the desks are done. The ebony trim will be added to the tops after they are mounted on their bases.
I then made a jig to allow me to route out the inlet details on the legs of the desks and routed one leg as a prototype. The jig works well. I now need to cut 16 legs from the rough mahogany and then route them with the detail on all four sides each.
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About mattsanf
Matt Sanfilippo is the Chief Partnership Officer (CPO) for the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Co-Director of its Engineering Research Accelerator. In this role, Matt coordinates and enables strategic and sponsored research opportunities across the college, and stewards the development of proposals for major research opportunities along strategic themes. Additionally, he enables collaboration among the college's research institute/center executive directors, and industrial and government relations personnel in the pursuit of opportunities with industry, federal and state governments. Before becoming CPO for the College, Matt was the Senior Executive Director for Research Initiatives, the Executive Director of CMU's SII (Smart Infrastructure Institute) and ICES (Institute for Complex Engineered Systems), and Associate Director of PITA (Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance) and RAMP (Research for Advanced Manufacturing in Pennsylvania).
Before CMU, Matt was Managing Director of Applied Technology for Michael Baker Corporation, an engineering and energy services firm. Matt managed Baker's technology division including Geographic Information System (GIS), software and web development, multimedia, virtual reality, visualization, Global Positioning System (GPS), mapping and surveying services. Before joining Baker, Matt was an Innovation Director for Redleaf Group, a Venture Capital/Operating Company focused on information security, supply chain and mobility solutions. While at Redleaf, Matt managed technical due diligence for seed-stage investments and coordinated relationships between Redleaf and their partner companies. Prior to Redleaf, Matt was CIO of GZA GeoEnvironmental Technologies, an infrastructure engineering firm, and operations manager for their Internet start-up that focused on web-technologies for health and safety and manufacturing metrics.
Matt is on the board of Larson Design Group (LDG), past Chairman of the Board for the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden, current board member of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation (PHLF), current Vice President of the Sewickley Heights Gun Club (SHGC) and former member of the Information Sciences and Technology Advisory Board for the Pennsylvania State University Beaver. Matt is also former Vice President of the Pittsburgh Chapter of the Association of Internet Professionals and former Vice President of the Board of Trustees for Baker Combined Charity of Pennsylvania.
A Learning Adventure in the Workshop 