The Wheezycab

[PigFish]

8 hours ago, BTWheezy said:

@PigFish thanks Ray. It’s kept me sane-ish during the stay home mandate, so the patience has been a fair trade.

Regarding the holes, it seemed a practical requirement for airflow.  Perhaps not aesthetically ideal, but again...a fair trade!  Thanks for the kind words. ☺️

Don't get me wrong, airflow is important to a humidor that works. You had to do it... I just said to myself... 'oh my God no... not to that beautiful veneer...!'

Not working much with wood anymore, plastics are so much more easy to hack up for pragmatic purposes without emotion!!! Again. Beautiful job.

You should bondo up your mock-up, paint it in black lacquer and put your accessories in it...

Cheers, Ray

[BTWheezy]

Saturday morning update...

If you looked closely from last night’s post, you might have noticed that the walnut hole plugs stuck up quite a bit.  While watching Better Call Saul last night, I was trying to figure out how I was going to get the plugs flush with the top, with as little damage to the already-smooth top.  In the past, I’ve taped around a plug to protect from the trim saw blade, but with 36 plugs to deal with, taping all of them would’ve been a bitch.  Then I had an epiphany:  I had some plastic document folders, which are very thin, yet very sturdy. Perfect for the task.  I feel smug.

1.  Prepping the saw guard.

2. In action.

3. Hit the plugs with a super sharp block plane to further clean them up.

4. Top sanded, taped, and finish applied. Came back to previous state very quickly.  Hell yeah!

5. Close-up of the walnut plugs. 
 

Next is weather stripping, door ball catches, and hinge adjustments.

 

Final update for Saturday...

The rest of the afternoon today wasn’t much to photograph. Lots of fussing with weather stripping, and also the ball catch for the doors.  The satisfying thing is that the humidor is snug as a bug in a rug, and I’m really happy with the clearances on these full-inset doors and drawers. Getting a uniform clearance on all gaps is tricky AF, and it came out nicely.
 

1. Weather stripping and female side of ball catch.

2. Male side of ball catch.  You’ll notice a little spacer, which was needed to accommodate the stripping.

3. Also really happy with the visual result after putting in the spacers on the base.  From most angles, the cabinet looks kinda like it’s floating. Cool effect IMHO. ?

Tomorrow is humidification system from Aristocrat, and also drawer organization touches. 

[mtd057]

Beautiful, just beautiful! 

[Sorrowful]

Amazing job!! I'm sure plenty of us would be willing to pay dearly for something of that quality.

 

You should try and sell the design to Herman Miller or something

[rckymtn22]

Outstanding!  Awesome work. 

[BTWheezy]

10 hours ago, PigFish said:

Don't get me wrong, airflow is important to a humidor that works. You had to do it... I just said to myself... 'oh my God no... not to that beautiful veneer...!'

Not working much with wood anymore, plastics are so much more easy to hack up for pragmatic purposes without emotion!!! Again. Beautiful job.

You should bondo up your mock-up, paint it in black lacquer and put your accessories in it...

Cheers, Ray

The Dispassionate Craftsman!  ?

So Ray, I’ve watched your vids and know you do a fair amount of humidor work.  If not wood, what do you build humidors from?  It can’t be plastic...can it??  Also, what do you use for a 3D printer?

The prototype is definitely sticking around. I have a place in mind for it in my home office.  Or I’ll send it to @Habana Mike for auxiliary purposes.

- Brian

 

On 4/17/2020 at 6:12 AM, ElJavi76 said:

@BTWheezy Bri when you're done here are you going to have a tally of total man hours you dedicated to this project? Curious, cause the piece looks stunning. A real work of art/love.

@ElJavi76 - just did the math.  Estimating about 150 hours so far.  Yes, a labor of love. ??

[Connoisseur Kim]

It's just getting nicer and nicer! Will you put CC boxes in the bottom of the Wheezydor?

나의 SM-N950N 의 Tapatalk에서 보냄

[BTWheezy]

For all the tradespeople out there, hats off to you.  Just spent a pretty full day on my side and back, getting the humidification system done.  It was basically like working under a sink for 6-7 hours, and I KNOW I’m gonna be paying for it tomorrow. ? 

Lockdown S1, E...I need a drink (Sunday, April 26)

1. Along the lines of the coronavirus, and tradespeople...

2.  Getting things laid out...getting my head straight.

3. Adding 2 more fans (total of 4), which required some new wiring.  Bob Staebell at Aristocrat hooked me up with more of the specific plugs, which was awesome. 

4. Not in my element here...this took an hour-plus, but all 4 fans are spinning!

5. Mount plate for my additional fans.  Cut out an arc along the middle for full air flow.  Used a coping saw. 

6. Two of the 4 fans.  Ready to roll.

7. The smaller fans are mounted bottom-up, shooting air from main cabins to top drawer compartments.  View from the top.

8. Same thing, but view from bottom.

9.  Building shelves for the humidification reservoir.  

10.  An L-bracket on one end, and a block tacked to the side provides ample support. Had to factor in clearance for the sliding shelves.  All good. ??

11.  Shelves installed, reservoir fits perfectly.

12. This was pretty much the entire day...getting the system laid out, then getting all the wiring done and trying my best to get clean wiring.  Happy with the result though. 
 

Thanks again for following along.  There’s probably only a few more updates. It’s getting really close!

- Wheezy

[...]

Hi Brian,

Wouldn’t you want the humidifiers to be on the lower drawers so they can slide out for easy refills? The drawer space is lost anyway...

[GVan]

Agree with Jeanff.  Not wanting to second guess anything you are doing -- you are a way more talented woodworker than I struggle to be.  But, I do have a custom cabinet humidor that was made up for my office.  I absolutely love it and also (after construction) had to install 4 - 50 cfm DC fans to circulate the air.  Had a problem with the bottom of the humidors being about 4% more RH than the top -- something about water being heavier than air ????  Lastly, installed my Cigar Oasis in the bottom left hand corner with the fans blowing air in a circular direction up the left side and down the right side.  Definitely fixed the variance in RH now its less than 1% (assuming I can even measure it that accurate).  

My next fix is to install the Cigar Oasis on a pull out drawer.  It's a real pain to remove the Spanish Cedar cover that hides the CA and then try and pour distilled water into it without spilling.  About every other time I have a small spill to clean-up.  Plus it's just a hassle reaching into the humidor and would be much easier getting the CA past the doors.  Picture included below so it's easier to follow my description.

Whatever you decide -- Wow, what a project and impeccable implementation!

[BTWheezy]

@Jeanff and @GVan - thanks for the feedback, especially when based on experiences. I’ve never built (nor operated) a humidor this size, and I’m certainly not a humidification system expert.  I’m thinking about how to do the reservoirs on a sliding shelf, particularly with the power going cable back-and-forth (albeit infrequently).  I’m also going to call Bob from Aristocrat about reservoir placement to get his thoughts.  I really appreciate your thoughts/experiences BEFORE I get this thing seasoned and loaded up.

Maybe there will be more than a few updates to go!  ?

- Wheezy

[...]

With a long power cable slinging from the cabinet’s side (loose or on a soft spring), movement could be accommodated ...

[BTWheezy]

Got the humidor out of the shop, and into the house.  A ’uuuuuuuge step towards production (Trump says so).  ?  

Filled the reservoirs, plugged in the power supply...and things ran perfectly for about 30 seconds.  Then  Reservoir 1 promptly shat the bed.  No humidity/airflow on the left side.  ? I called Bob today, and he was super cool...said “Well, looks like you won the fan lottery.  Every once in a while, a defective fan gets out into the wild.  I’ll send you a new one today.”  Within minutes, I had a USPS 2 Day Air notification.  He is aces.  We also talked about airflow, reservoir placement, fans, etc. He answered everything based on his experiences.  So...the result will be moving the reservoirs to the middle, placed directly on the shelf for easy maintenance, and better airflow.

A mini-update...

1.  Out of shop, into the house!  Not the final resting spot, but allows for household temp for seasoning.

2. Reservoirs filled.  System plugged in and running (at least the one that didn’t crap out).

3. Minor modification on top shelves for full airflow when reservoirs go to the middle shelf.

4.  I guess it’s a product of our temperate climate in Seattle, but the hygrometers were dead on with the set-point of the Aristocrat “set and forget” system, and they’ve held steady since Monday morning.  Bob said 3-5 days should get a well-constructed humidor seasoned, maybe a bit more depending on original moisture content of the wood. Dishes of baking soda in all compartments to neutralize any odors.  Just smells like Spanish cedar at this point!

5. One thing I’m re-doing is the fans.  All 4 that are in use right now are pretty noisy.  As the final home will be in my home office, I want to keep the decibels to a minimum.  Ordered a bunch of Noctua premium low noise fans to swap out the originals.  A friend who’s into building gaming PCs said these are the ones he likes best.  Quiet work horses.  ??
 

 

 

[inter4alia]

I think it will be bittersweet for many of us when you are all finished. It will be great to see the final product (fully stocked, I hope) but I will certainly miss your posts and watching your progress. Top notch stuff all around! 

[StogieSteve23]

30 minutes ago, inter4alia said:

I think it will be bittersweet for many of us when you are all finished. It will be great to see the final product (fully stocked, I hope) but I will certainly miss your posts and watching your progress. Top notch stuff all around! 

Well said.  

[El Presidente]

2 hours ago, inter4alia said:

I think it will be bittersweet for many of us when you are all finished. It will be great to see the final product (fully stocked, I hope) but I will certainly miss your posts and watching your progress. Top notch stuff all around! 

We will find a special spot for the thread ?

[rcarlson]

There's something off. . . 

[BTWheezy]

12 minutes ago, rcarlson said:

There's something off. . . 

Yeah, it’s probably the guy who wrote this comment!  ?

For those who weren’t following *quite* closely enough, @rcarlson was busting my chops because I didn’t line the airflow holes with Spanish cedar veneer.  For the record, I gave it a try...but it was an abject failure.  Yet, the chop-busting continues.  ?

[rcarlson]

11 minutes ago, BTWheezy said:

Yeah, it’s probably the guy who wrote this comment!  ?

For those who weren’t following *quite* closely enough, @rcarlson was busting my chops because I didn’t line the airflow holes with Spanish cedar veneer.  For the record, I gave it a try...but it was an abject failure.  Yet, the chop-busting continues.  ?

 

[BTWheezy]

On 4/26/2020 at 6:37 PM, Connoisseur Kim said:

It's just getting nicer and nicer! Will you put CC boxes in the bottom of the Wheezydor?

나의 SM-N950N 의 Tapatalk에서 보냄
 

Hey C-Kim, yes boxes will go in the bottom, and odds and ends go in the drawers.

Talk to you soon,

Wheezy

[Connoisseur Kim]

Hey C-Kim, yes boxes will go in the bottom, and odds and ends go in the drawers.
Talk to you soon,
Wheezy

Thanks Wheezy! It looks even more epic than ever! Can't wait to see Wheezydor filled with CCs!

나의 SM-N950N 의 Tapatalk에서 보냄

[SenorPerfecto]

Slap a Tainos head on it and fill it with 100 Behikes, and it’ll sell for $200k at the ‘Fest!

[BTWheezy]

5 hours ago, SenorPerfecto said:

Slap a Tainos head on it and fill it with 100 Behikes, and it’ll sell for $200k at the ‘Fest!

I can handle the Tainos head easily.  I’ll enlist @bundwallah to make 100 wooden-dowel Behikes, then we wrap them in cellophane, and we should be good to go!

[Puros Y Vino]

11 hours ago, BTWheezy said:

I can handle the Tainos head easily.  I’ll enlist @bundwallah to make 100 wooden-dowel Behikes, then we wrap them in cellophane, and we should be good to go!

I can guarantee the draw on them will be horrible.

 

[rcarlson]

2 hours ago, bundwallah said:

I can guarantee the draw on them will be horrible.

 

Drybox?  Perfecdraw?