# My little slice of heaven under our Pergola



## Bergstrom (Mar 14, 2009)

Looks great Gus! Did you keep the dust hood up for taking the video or is that normal? I could never figure out how to bypass that, the only time it would rise up was for a tool change.


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## Gus Dering (Oct 14, 2008)

ApgarNJ said:


> Looks great Gus, did you do all the pavers, plantings/beds etc? That is a nice pergola! I rarely get time to work on my own home. I really like that area. I hope someday we have an outdoor space to enjoy. We have plenty of room outside,just need more time.


No, I did not do the landscaping. That is the first project i have ever completely turned over to another professional. I am so glad I could do that and even happier that I did. he is a great guy that lives just down the street. He is the real deal. Start to finish in two weeks, no headaches or drama. The wife is happy so i am too.:thumbup:



Bergstrom said:


> Looks great Gus! Did you keep the dust hood up for taking the video or is that normal? I could never figure out how to bypass that, the only time it would rise up was for a tool change.


There is a button on the control panel that lifts the hood. 

After cutting the knee braces I figured the collector was not getting the lion's share of the shavings anyway, so I kept the hood up and shot some air in the kerf between passes.

I thought you would be the one to ask me about the spoils board.:whistling


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## Bergstrom (Mar 14, 2009)

Gus Dering said:


> No, I did not do the landscaping. That is the first project i have ever completely turned over to another professional. I am so glad I could do that and even happier that I did. he is a great guy that lives just down the street. He is the real deal. Start to finish in two weeks, no headaches or drama. The wife is happy so i am too.:thumbup:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I haven't gotten to that yet... I thought I'd start small and work my way up :laughing:. You know you're kind of a slave driver with that cutter. The side loading sound was making my teeth chatter.


PS what gives with the spoil board? :whistling


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## Gus Dering (Oct 14, 2008)

Bergstrom said:


> I haven't gotten to that yet... I thought I'd start small and work my way up :laughing:. You know you're kind of a slave driver with that cutter. The side loading sound was making my teeth chatter.
> 
> 
> PS what gives with the spoil board? :whistling


Geez, I ran that bit at 60% of the limit too. The length must be taken into account I suppose. Any slower and I thought it would get hot with such a small chip load. What do I know? I never did anything like that before.:laughing:

The spoil board is my creation for small solid stock parts. It has through holes in it that have counter sunk rubber air stoppers for the area where there is no part.

The idea was to apply direct vacuum pressure to the part by through boring the spoils board under the part. You can see the black stoppers next to the part for the area not in use. The spoil board was made with the machine. It seems to work pretty good.

How did you hold down small wood parts?


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## SAW.co (Jan 2, 2011)

Gus Thats awesome right next to the rope mantle.:clap::clap:

The tailent here is insperational.


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## Gus Dering (Oct 14, 2008)

SAW.co said:


> Gus Thats awesome right next to the rope mantle.:clap::clap:
> 
> The tailent here is insperational.


Don't lump me in with Leo. He is the bomb when it comes to the crafty stuff. If you don't believe me, he will be along in a minute to let you you know who is who around here.:laughing:

Thank you for your kind words. I have used my daily allotment of thanks button activity.:whistling


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## Bergstrom (Mar 14, 2009)

Gus Dering said:


> Geez, I ran that bit at 60% of the limit too. The length must be taken into account I suppose. Any slower and I thought it would get hot with such a small chip load. What do I know? I never did anything like that before.:laughing:
> 
> The spoil board is my creation for small solid stock parts. It has through holes in it that have counter sunk rubber air stoppers for the area where there is no part.
> 
> ...


 
It was rare to come across something that was finished on both so I would screw the unfinished side down to a larger base and offset the Z axis according to the thickness of the base....just don't cut through the screws, I never did :whistling 

Some guys use the onion skinning method and it works well for 2 sided parts but it adds an additional machining step :furious:


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## MSLiechty (Sep 13, 2010)

LEVELBEST said:


> Everything looks GREAT Gus, except you need to ditch the Weber and upgrade to a Big Green Egg. You won't be sorry, I promise!



Or better yet a Traeger!


ML


Nice photo esseay Gus. Keep em coming.


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## healdman45 (Jan 31, 2008)

Looks awesome!


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## RTRCon (May 20, 2007)

Very nice.. Your backyard looks great.:thumbsup:


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## Brutus (May 29, 2007)

Don't let Mrs. Brutus see this or she will want one too!

Great work, man. Wishing you many, many good beers... I mean years sitting under it.


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## Inner10 (Mar 12, 2009)

LEVELBEST said:


> Everything looks GREAT Gus, except you need to ditch the Weber and upgrade to a Big Green Egg. You won't be sorry, I promise!


Get a Primo, Eggs arrive smelling like dirt and tacos. :laughing:


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## Gus Dering (Oct 14, 2008)

Bergstrom said:


> It was rare to come across something that was finished on both so I would screw the unfinished side down to a larger base and offset the Z axis according to the thickness of the base....just don't cut through the screws, I never did :whistling
> 
> Some guys use the onion skinning method and it works well for 2 sided parts but it adds an additional machining step :furious:


I have done all of the above. In fact the beam ends on this pergola had to be "onion skinned" because the working depth of that bit is 3 1/2" and the 4x8's were milled to 3 3/4". 

I'm not crazy about fasteners to hold down parts for the obvious reason you brought up. Plus it takes time. 

I'm supposed to be able to choose between onion skinning small parts or tabbing them. I tried recently to tab some parts and could not get Cabinetvision to do it. I'll have to do a full blown investigation into that.

The amount of holding power to a part with this direct suction spoils board is very impressive. I could improve it even more if I routed a fan of small grooves out from each hole a couple inches or so.

The thing that you need to be careful of is getting large chips into the vacuum system. There is a filter to catch them but not a great idea to make a habit of letting it happen.


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## mgb (Oct 31, 2008)

Very very nice. I was impressed initially by the first few pictures. 

Then once I saw all the machinery/dove tail joinery for the beams 
The most I've done is half lap.


Love that you really limit the amount of fasteners required. Splitting the posts was a sure way to avoid any headaches with the wiring.


Kinda OT but
Last pergola I did we had a 60' x 12' section spanning in front of a coffee shop. Loaded the 25 or so 3x8 Fir timbers on top and secured everything. Accidentally covered a couple wire traces. Electrician couldn't deal with it so I had to go back and drill thru a few joists beams. Embarrassing trying to line up the new hole with the one below I received a fishing tape to the eye. Luckily it went into my tear duct, and that the hook on the end was taped up. Still makes me shudder, needless to say I wear safety glasses a hell of alot more now.


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## redwood (Dec 5, 2007)

That really is a piece of art, Gus.

Please stay up in Santa Rosa. I'm in the Santa Cruz mountains, and I don't need your competion.

I've posted some of these before, but these are for your enjoyment. I would imagine that you would appreciate them. They were done with a CNC system by a sunglass designer.


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## Gus Dering (Oct 14, 2008)

It took a while but I got my butt to finish this thing.

It brings me great pleasure to have our close friends feet under this table.:thumbup:


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## Kent Whitten (Mar 24, 2006)

That is beautiful Gus.


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## WarnerConstInc. (Jan 30, 2008)

what kind of wood is it?


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## Gus Dering (Oct 14, 2008)

WarnerConstInc. said:


> what kind of wood is it?


 Western Red Cedar


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## WarnerConstInc. (Jan 30, 2008)

Gus Dering said:


> Western Red Cedar


I though it was cedar but, you never said.

and you are a cabinet man.:laughing:

or robot programmer.:whistling:laughing:


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