TWD Shop

Finishing the Honey/Jelly Cabinet

2012-01-16T10:59:00.004-05:00

We've finally gotten to painting this cabinet. We're using The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Company's Tavern Green, with a top coat of boiled linseed oil. This paint is awesome. Unlike modern paints it doesn't smell like chemicals (it has a pleasant lime/earthy smell) or have VOCs, it's completely friendly and cleans up easily. That alone makes it a great product for our uses because we do the finishing in our living room.

This is the paint partly dry, that's why it looks so streaky, in actuality there is still some streaking and the texture of the wood shows through, but that's another reason why we like it. Milk paint has character that a latex paint glosses over.

And here's a color shot so you can see what color I'm actually talking about. We installed the door and oiled it, it might need another coat of oil. The top is going to be soft maple, which I have to pick up when I get the lumber for the dining table. I'll post another update with the finished piece soon I hope.

#8 Hollow Plane with Wedge Fitted

2012-01-06T17:45:00.002-05:00

Yay! I finished putting handles on two of the floats I just made today and had to work on the #8 that I was working on. I'm almost at the point where I can spend most of my shop time on planes. Very exciting for me.

It's by no means perfect, but I'm surprised at the fit for my first completely fitted wedge. I have a long way to go though, I took apart a 1/4" dado plane last night, one with a wooden friction fit depth stop. It's an amazing piece of work, the stop itself is perfectly square and parallel in all four sides and the mortise is equally well made. I expected the mortise to be undercut, and it wasn't. I hope to be that skillful one day.

Jelly Cabinet Progress

2012-01-02T12:11:00.003-05:00

The girl had work today so I'm by myself. I did some prep work so that when she gets back we will be ready to chug along on a few things.

First off was flattening the glue joints and jointing one edge of the door. I love this bench by the way it's amazing compared to some of the "things" I've worked on in the past.
The back boards will have beads and champers, I filed the scratch stock and ran a test bead on a board to ensure the thing was set correctly. I still have to bust out the side rabbet to chamfer the quirk.
And we clamped the legs on to get an idea of the piece. I've been contemplating different ways of attaching the top, I think I'll glue corner blocks where the sides and legs meet and screw through those. There will be a small amount of cross grain glueing going on, but I don't think it will be an issue, only 1 1/2 inches or so at either end will be cross glued.

Small Jelly Cabinet

2012-01-01T17:19:00.003-05:00

In need of more pantry and some dish space, and after having seen some images, my girlfriend absolutely fell in love with some small jelly cabinet type pieces. So while at the yard, getting wood for the bed project I also got some mineral stained pine for cabinet we would one day make.

My girlfriend is a great sawyer, just mark the lines and stand well back.

Laying out the shelves, this tree was kind enough to space it's rather large knots shelf widths apart. We got the whole carcass and shelves out of one 11 foot board with some goodies left over.

The shelves turned out prettier than the sides, their staining was a little more regular and a bit more tasteful.

Showing us a rough mock up of the piece.

Now one with the back boards. There is a hodge-podge of woods in this thing. White Pine (I believe) for the sides and shelves, poplar for the door and two of three back panels and some Radiata Pine for the legs. April is largely the stylistic director of this piece (I'm offering the technical support) and plans to go with a two-tone cream over green milk paint job, which I think will look awesome. I think a wash of shellac (Krenov calls it polish) would do well on the shelves to make for easier cleaning.

Workbench Updates

2011-12-31T12:24:00.002-05:00

Here's a quick update to the bench build, as you can see I've got my end vise chop installed and dogs made. I agonized over spending holiday money on nice brass dogs or other tools, in the end I went with wood dogs and spent that $40 on other goodies which should be arriving soon.

To keep my organizing going I built a quick and dirty chisel rack and installed a french cleat for more storage bits as I get time, I think a small chest of sorts will go on the cleat providing two or three little cubbies, two thin drawers and a shelf for finishing or sharpening things to live.

Secret Project Revealed

2011-12-26T09:59:00.004-05:00

Now that Christmas has come and gone, I can reveal this project I've been working on so vigorously. It's a backgammon set for my parents, inspired largely by the board built by Jameel Abraham. Here is the finished board.

Sometime soon I'll be starting another one for myself, but I've got a few things to finish before that happens.

Secret Project

2011-12-19T12:48:00.004-05:00

So I couldn't resist posting a bit about the secret project, I don't think I'm in danger of giving it away though as I'm only giving the outside shot...

This is half, by the way. Any guesses yet?

Six Planes

2011-12-12T23:33:00.004-05:00

Three pairs of planes to be exact. #2, #4 and #8 Hollow and rounds, in beech. I'm rounding out a short set of H&Rs 2-12 evens. I have a nice pair of #6s and #12s and a few odd larger sizes, I have some cherry blanks for #10s but I'm on the fence about those.

Here they all are... after making a template for sawing the throats, I couldn't wait to start. I sawed the 8R and made two wedges then migrated back to my other super secret project. The #4s are from the same blank and have gorgeous ray fleck. I have to make a few more floats and finish my 1/10th chisel before I get too much farther on these.

This air dried beech is fantastic. I love how it works.

Secrets, Secrets are No Fun, Except...

2011-12-05T20:21:00.003-05:00

When without them, you'd spoil a great surprise. So this post will be light on the details, I'm keeping it vague because the future recipient has been known to frequent this blog on occasion.

Now that that's over with, here is some of the progress on a new project, I know there are other projects currently unfinished, but I'm working on it. There is only so much a guy can do with that pesky full time job getting in the way all week. This is to be a hammer veneered, well "thing" since we're being vague.

First up is the French pattern veneer saw I built using some scrap beech and old sawplate. it's filed with the 15/60-60 tooth configuration that Gramercy Tools has on their veneer saw. I'm sort of amazed at how quickly and cleanly it cuts.

Here is my sawing station to cut wedges of padauk veneer. The thick wedge in the foreground is a template to guide the saw, the walnut is a straightedge and the board there is just trash to keep from cutting into the bench top.

All of my veneer is from Certainly Wood, which was a wonderful and painless way to by the small amounts I needed for this project. I spent about a half hour on the phone with the guy talking about my project and what to look out for, and talking about the pros of different cuts and my species selection.

A stack of wedges and the Veritas Apron plane I love, and use to shoot the edges of the parent sheet before I saw off the individual wedges.

The last photo is a sample I did to test the methods I was reading about. It is a piece of rift pine, cross banded in poplar then veneered with holly and padauk with a taped joint. I goofed and tried planing it when it was dry, the padauk tore out hideously on the reverse side. It actually ripped up a whole chunk, which frustrates me, this was going to be a wonderful little sample. Oh well.

Sharing a File

2011-11-30T17:28:00.003-05:00

Tom Figden posted a really cool toolbox from a guy at LumberJocks on his blog. I thought the joinery ware really cool so I decided to model it and post photos here. I can't figure out how to host something like a SketchUp file that you could download and view on your own, but if you know how let me know, because I think that would be a good thing to be able to do here.

Well, It Works

2011-11-27T19:04:00.002-05:00

It's just about finished, I just have to install a face vise, add chops and dogs, and nail a tool rack on the back. I've got the rack made up I just need some big honkin' wrought nails to make it look right.

Boring the waste out for the top/leg joints. There are five 1" diameter holes drilled 2" deep for each of four tenons. My 1" bit takes 40 turns to get to a little over 2". For those of you who aren't so handy with the math, that's 800 turns of the brace for the 4 morti. Don't get me started on the dog holes.

I also did a bit of rearranging, there is loads more space in the work room now. Even more space will show itself when I build a lumber rack next weekend. The wood under the bench needs to go.

And another one cleaned of tools.

Momentum

2011-11-25T19:08:00.004-05:00

Due to the Tool Chest, Pembroke Table, odds and ends and jigs I've been working wood almost every waking hour that I've not been at work for the last three weeks. Today I made major headway on the workbench, it's now something to look at.

The bench is made completely of reclaimed Radiata Pine and measures 21" wide by 60" long. The top is 3" thick and will sit about 34" off the floor. I quickly decided to add 2" to the legs this morning so that I could be sure that I didn't go to small on the height. I may have to cut the legs down at a later date to make planing easier, or I may add a carpet to the floor in front of the bench for comfort. I don't know how that will effect the fit.

The plane in the photos is a #7, next week's project is going to be a wall mounted lumber rack, maybe I'll also get to some tool storage that way I can clean up the shop and get ready for the real projects.

Tool Chest Part 2: Drawers

2011-11-20T21:57:00.007-05:00

This is how I began my Saturday at around 8:30AM. There is much to be done today. The major task is to build the drawers. Poplar should be nice to work with, but these are the first half blind dovetails I've cut since I first learned how, and my very first time building a drawer. Should be fun right?

I started by patching a gap that opened up in the front, right of the bottom board. Here the glue is setting and I'm trimming the patch flush.

I've modified Mario's original plan, by doing bracket feet on all corners. The plain ogee shape was replaced with what I think would be called a cove-fillet-bead in some naming traditions.

Though it looks like I'm hiding. I'm actually aligning the spacer blocks to ensure the till bottom seats level with the case.

Taking a very accurate measurement for the drawer front, these need to be tight to begin with, so sizing them correctly in the beginning is important.

Careful measuring paid off, the fronts fit nicely and the presence of the chest looks great to me. I'm really into the oval pulls which I'll write about in a separate post.

After the fronts have been set into the case, the next step is to orient the grain direction on the sides then mark and trim them to fit their respective openings. The plane here is a Stanley Bailey #4, I just had it surface ground by Tablesaw Tom, and I'm amazed. It looks, and functions like a NIB premium plane. Now I need to spend some time rehabbing the wood and fasteners on it. Give Tom a look, his prices are reasonable and his work is top notch.

Mario is a huge fan of dovetail templates, they certainly have appeal, but I'm still unsure if I like the method for everything. I'm using his here to mark out the side material so that I can gang saw the tails for the drawers. I'll get the work done faster this way, and the dovetails will be identical for both drawers. Two big pluses in my book.

There's that Veritas Gent's Saw again, the fine teeth has some trouble in the 1 1/4" of drawer stock, I should have used a carcass saw instead.

Fret sawing the waste.

After gang sawing the front and back tails (didn't I mention these were to be fully dovetailed drawers?) the sides are put into their respective openings. I still managed to mess one up forcing me to ditch that side and re-cut a new one.

Setup for pairing the baselines, the drawer sides are 5/16" thick and measure 2 5/8" wide.

Pairing the baselines with a James Swan 1/8" (possibly sash mortise chisel) it is very finely ground and very sharp. It's my favorite piece of steel in all of PFW, they will not part with it though. I tried, so if you've got one message me. This thing falls through the little bit of poplar remaining in the tails.

Marked out for the half blind pins.

That looks like a drawer doesn't it? I was very proud at this point. I had a few fit just off the saw too. I'm hooked on drawer making, it's a little fussy but really rewarding.

The next few shots are of the disassembled drawer, just prior to gluing.

I finished the first drawer at around 5:30pm or so. I finished the second drawer at about 8pm and then banged out this little sliding tray for one of the drawers. What a long day, but I can honestly say I feel really accomplished. I'm very inspired to work right now, resisting the urge to keep working was hard. The voice in the back of my head said "You finished the task you set out to this morning, go home and don't risk screwing anything up." I've never worked a 12 hour day on such work before, but it wasn't arduous at all, I loved it.

Arts and Crafts Tool Chest

2011-11-14T09:05:00.006-05:00

If you're on dial-up, I'm sorry. This holds the record for my most picture laden post ever. I started a tool chest class at the furniture workshop last weekend. I've been acquiring some really nice tools and really needed something better than this wine box to store them. I've got one chest from my grandmother already, and I plan on racking a bunch of my tools in the new space. This chest just seemed too sexy of an option to hold some of my prized tools though.

We drew wood sets out of a hat, I had helped Alan pick and mill wood for these earlier in the week, I was delighted to find that my number won the set I'd been lusting after, with some dark brown stripes, cream and wormholes. What a good start!

This is the layout of the case, the sides, face, lid front, and drawers have been taken out of the same board sequentially. Milling is an exercise in cautious work, but it pays off.

Dilly-dallying trying to read some really worn marks. Okay back to work.

Dovetailing. This saw should look familiar, this was a breezy job compared to the blanket chest.

After sawing the tails, a fret saw knocks out the bulk of the waste. Note the twist in the blade, to allow the frame to clear the stock, the "back" end of the blade is twisted slightly (very slightly) more. This is so the blade will never dive under the baseline on the back side where I can not see. I've never undercut a baseline with the fretsaw by doing this. and I've started cutting it very close at times.

After the bulk is out paring commences, here the corner of the chisel is used to flick away material down to the scribe line, leaving a shelf for the chisel back to rest upon whilst paring.

Same thing for the front.

All of the tails have been cut, and I've started on the pins. This was the end of the first day.

Baseline pairing for the pins, there's a lot more room to see which is nice, it's a good contrast to the tighter confines between the tails.

After a test fit, some tweaking of the pins was needed. I'm borrowing Mario's Grobet detail file, which I like a lot. It cuts beautifully, and is perfect for fitting these parts. Weird grain direction can cause a chisel to dive or tearout the small amount of material needed to be removed for a good fit. While I'm mentioning files, Alan let me use his 7" Auriou modelers rasp... I want one. it's amazing, and the cut is so smooth. More penny saving I guess.
Smack them home.

Tight, mostly. I'm very happy for this being my third (second major) dovetail project. I can't wait to get my bench finished so I can do more of this.

Sexy hardware. These are Brusso knife hinges for the lid. My students laugh or giggle when I talk about hardware or details being sexy, they just don't know. Many of them just don't understand my Daed Toolworks desktop backgrounds, I can't figure that one out.

Part of the handwork involved with fitting the hinges. I really enjoy fitting hardware.
How's that? I will want to replace these with flat head screws. I'll dig through my hardware boxes and see if I have some.

A fellow student supervises as Alan leads a CA repair to a small crack in the tail due to tight joints and some over-eager smacking. Moisture expansion didn't help.

It came out pretty well I think. I get some crap for sticking with hide glue blindly. But I've really taken to heart what some people like Stephen Shepard have said about hide glue and furniture. I try to avoid it at all costs, even if it makes me an old timer (hoping it does).

We met last Wednesday night to do some more work, but I don't have pictures of that, I'll have another update this weekend when we complete the build. I'm excited to share a set of jigs I built specifically to make nice recessed pulls in the lid and drawers. So don't go far.

Veritas Gent's Saw Review

2011-11-08T23:05:00.006-05:00

Last Friday I went to the Furniture Workshop, to finish the last few operations on my Pembroke Table. While there I eyed some new goodies just unpacked on Alan's bench, two pairs of Lee Valley's Veritas Gentleman's Saws. Alan liked how they handled, and the smoothness of cut, then invited me to test drive them.

The Arts and Crafts Tool Chest class was starting soon, and since I've not yet finished the dovetail saw kit my girlfriend gifted to me, it sounded like the perfect opportunity to test out the saw.

Layout for the baselines, on wide stock like this, I'm not a huge fan of the combination square, I find that it moves a bit. But a marking gauge is a little less than ideal.

Here is the 20 TPI rip saw in use, it's light and easy to control, and much more comfortable than other gent's saws. I had never liked a gent's saw grip before this one.

A little more drama, I've also started sawing English-style. By dropping the saw handle to establish the front kerf, then let that kerf guide the sawplate down the back side.

The saw is also thin and tracks well, but is still thick enough to fit a fret blade inside.

The pared tails...

And the wetted down practice joint.

I like this saw, it's affordable, and preforms exceptionally out of the box. If I didn't have a dovetail kit to finish I'd buy this saw for my small stuff dovetailer. That being said I think the crosscut version would be welcome addition to my arsenal. I'll have to work with that one some more too. I'm happy so see Veritas doing more great work, I've come to expect them to put out something built amazingly well, function to a high degree and at an affordable price.

As a matter of clarification, no I was not paid or coerced into writing this review.

Canadian Finger Joints

2011-11-05T08:54:00.001-04:00

I had, had to share this. It's too funny.

Wooden Planemaking

2011-11-04T18:04:00.003-04:00

An old illness has burned back with a fury. Planemaking. It's here to stay too. I've ordered a scarce copy of Whelan's The Wooden Plane: Its History, Form and Function and got a copy from New York on inter-library loan, because I was too impatient to wait. Between working on the bed I've taken moments to begin work on a miniature rabbet plane.

After final trimming it will hardly be 5 1/2" long. It will be 3/8" wide.

It's made of beech and boxed in Brazilian Cherry (at least that's what the scrap piece I had was supposed to be. Janka says it's very hard around 3000 if I remember correctly. Boxwood comes in at around 2900 so I think this will work, assuming it's stable enough to use. I can't wait to trim to fit.

Bed Project: Footboard

2011-10-30T13:32:00.005-04:00

Here's the completed footboard, it still needs come shellac, but it's otherwise good to go. These are my first drawbored joints, even with a crazy slightly misaligned offset on the one side the pegs drove all the way in. These joints are tight, I'm a huge fan of this.

I'm also very pleased with the color.

Staining with WD Lockwood Dyes

2011-10-29T17:01:00.003-04:00

The bed that I'm working on needs to look older. A few coats of shellac and a waxing wasn't going to cut it on this project. I also didn't want to get into the smelly gel stains and varnish combinations that look really awesome on oak, seeing as I'm locked in the apartment with this stuff now that the weather is cold.

While milling the lumber I spoke with a guy by the name of Les Katz, who is a really imaginative woodworker, and he suggested water based dyes. Some of the reasons for were inexpense, ease of use, water based, available in a wide array of colors, and the ability to layer and mix them for really cool coloring effects. I got on the phone with Lockwood and placed an order, which shipped and arrived Monday by the way.

Here's what I came up with...

Here are the two short legs, one is finished with the dye the other only has the base coat of yellow.

Pembroke Table-Leaf Support Aprons

2011-10-28T17:11:00.005-04:00

Here follows the next phase of the Pembroke Table class at the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop. It's been a long 7 weeks so far, I'm itching to get this thing home, but really enjoyable. I get to leave a day of teaching to practice the craft and get taught myself. It's a nice change of pace, not being the one everyone looks to for an answer like my day job can be.

Fairing out the curves on the leaf support with a rasp, a card scraper followed and removed the tool marks.

Alan's fixture for sanding the finger pulls, I think it would have been fun(er) to carve them with a gouge, but I've been catching enough hand-tool flack from some of the class that I'll make this exception.

I forget what I was telling Mario at this point, but I'm sure it was really important.

Aside from being a cool shot of hands, this is an important step for me. I'm going to cut the dadoes by hand, in this step I'm measuring the range of motion the corner of the leaf moves about. This is so I can make the dado deep enough so as not to bind.

Cutting the dado sidewalls with a gorgeous old backsaw.

What a nice reveal? The three knuckle hinge board is not the right one though, the grain doesn't match.

Well it opens, and it stops at 90 degrees to the apron. How sexy is that?

Action planing.

I'm sighting down the apron to see if the leaf support sticks out proud of the sides, it does a little bit, I think the inside of the hinge needs to be relieved a plane stroke or two.

The finished sides awaiting the next step. That's the wonderful #604C with a Hock iron I used to do my smoothing. I love this plane, it's fantastic.

Yeah, I got oak. What's it to you? This board has some of the last pieces I need for the bed build. I did some color sampling today, I'll post tomorrow about that, glorious fun those W.D. Lockwood dyes.

Building More of a Bed

2011-10-22T20:05:00.006-04:00

Here's where my day started, I've got a test tenon here to layout the knockdown fasteners and check how the riven pins fit the bit I'm intending to bore.

If I was an "ar-tiste" I'd call this Transformation of a Riven Peg. I'm not, so this is the steps in making really strong pegs for drawboring. On an artsy note I really like how the Swiss Army Knife came out it's color and wear.

View of the cramped quarters occupied by the knockdowns.

And the plate used to rive the pegstock. it's a piece of 5/16 mild steel with a 3/16" 1/4" 5/16" 3/8" and 7/16" diameter holes. It can't be hardened, because it's mild steel (insert drivel about chemistry) but that's no matter. It's attached to a chunk of D.Fir 4x4 with 5/8 holes bored under the cutting holes.

A mockup of the bed, I've still got work to do before I drawbore the short sides together, namely breaking the edges, smoothing and dying the parts.

All packed up and ready to take home. Good thing this project is almost over, I've been tiring of carrying one stick of lumber into and out of my apartment for the last few weekends. After moving the lumber for the workbench two or three more times I'll be ecstatic to work on smaller items like the molding planes and kumiko.

Building a Bed

2011-10-19T19:49:00.003-04:00

Sleeping on a futon is an excellent motivator for building a bed, doubly so when your girlfriend keeps asking when the bed will be finished, triply so when you have a pile of wood begging to become a workbench.

So here's the progress.

Here you can see some of the marks telling me where different depth morti go and which faces are the show faces.

The Veritas knockdown fasteners I ordered came today, along with some other goodies you'll learn about soon.

Pembroke Table-Long Aprons with Leaf Supports

2011-10-19T09:32:00.004-04:00

Here are the two boards for the long aprons, in the upper left there's a 7/16ths Nurse mortising chisel I brought for show and tell, and a print for a batch of hinges I've been asked to make.

Alan instructing on the finer points of setup blocks, here one sled setting and various blocks allow repeatable cuts for the two-knuckle leaf support and three-knuckle fixed apron.

Freeing the waste in preparation for pairing.

Pairing to the scored baselines in the new Moxon Vise, these will be sold through Tools for Working Wood I hear. They use the same hardware as the TFWW bench on bench, are make of laminated maple, and are very nice to use. The movable jaw is cambered which grips work amazingly, I think suede would be an even better addition to these. Keeo you're eyes out for these, they are awesome. If I've goofed and spoken too soon, my apologies Joel.

A closeup of the baseline pairing. Mahogany works very sweetly.

More of the same here.

Teaching my girlfriend how we pair to baselines at PFW, the same technique is used for dovetails as well.

Once again doing things the harder way, instead of mitering the corners for hinge clearance, I'm rounding them. This is done to the front side of the fixed (three knuckle) portion.

First a chamfer is chiseled in at 45 degrees just outside the circle line. Then about 4 more chamfers are made on the resulting arii, this is most of the waste. Following that a little file work and sanding results in something like this.

Thanks Mario, for taking pictures again, interestingly enough he's got a bunch of experience shooting work as well as tools, it clearly shows.

Setting up the New Home Shop

2011-10-14T18:50:00.004-04:00

It's been a long time coming, but the day is finally here. I'm building a workbench, and I have a space to keep it that has a window and hardwood floors. My girlfriend an I just moved to a new place, and we agreed that using the master bedroom as a sewing and woodworking room i.e. our craft room. Why do you need a big room to sleep in? We debated, momentarily about making the living room our studio, there was more space, three glorious windows that get morning sun; however if we had company if would be odd to shuffle them all into the back bedroom to hang out.

This is a pile of Radiata pine, purchased from Atlas Wood Products, their website is really minimal, but they are great people and they have a huge assortment of wood. All of it is reclaimed from pallets. These particular pieces were once large ties for industrial pallets, ulgy sounding, but there are some gorgeous beans in there. We started surfacing some of the boards for the top, I'll post a picture of the top soon as I can get to it. I was in a rush to load all this wood upstairs before it got totally soaked by the rain.

This is wood enough for tops and legs, perhaps some stretchers for myself and a friend of mine, built like a Rubo/Holzappfel hybrid. Stay tuned, we will be reglazing some really cool diamond pane windows in the next week or two, putting the workbenches on hold. Would that be of interest to anyone?

This is a shot of the tool corner of the room, which is also project lumber storage for three different pieces so far. Tomorrow I'm going to the LN event, I'll also be picking up bed oak, so add another project to the list.

Pembroke Table-Leg Work

2011-10-13T18:25:00.004-04:00

Here are my legs, nice huh? I've marked the locations of the morti as per Alan's request, so there are no goofs while boring out the morti.

Here I am using the horizontal boring machine, with and solid carbide slot drill to bore the waste, this is a piece of tooling from the metalworking field. It's so named because unlike most other metal cutting endmills it can cut all the way to the center of the cutter, most can not. Thusly, it can cut slots, because it only has two flutes it also has more chip clearance.

The slot drill leaves a fantastic surface, however it also leaves a half-round at the top and bottom of the morti, April was in attendance and we spent a few minutes squaring the ends. What?! you round your tenons? Shame on you. (It doesn't matter, I just like square better, sharp corners not looking like they were made by machines you know.)

One guy in the class (with whom I banter about the judicial use of electrons with) brought a lovely (well looks lovely) LN #212 scraper plane with him. He couldn't get it to work, after some fussing and lack of regard to "the instructions" Mario got it singing pretty sweetly on a piece of gnarly Sapelle.

This weekend will be a busy one, I'm gathering materials for the bed build, a workbench, a kitchen table and traveling to Hearne Hardwoods for another LN handtool event, I'll be talking to Raney of Daed Toolworks about a plane, and I'm tickled.

Stay tuned for lumber haul photos and notes about the bed design.

Pembroke Table-Finished with the Top

2011-10-06T18:23:00.009-04:00

This past week was number four, meaning we are halfway through the process, by the end of class my top was pattern routed, the spurs were carved in, and the edges were scraped smooth. I have a little tweaking to do on the rule joint, so that it closes all the way.

Drawing in the intersection lines for the spurs, the router leaves a 3/8" radius that will be carved into a sharp corner.

Pairing the curve with my lovely sharp 1" TH. Witherby, I like mahogany.

Careful cuts here, any f-ups will be painfully visible on the piece any time the leaves are up. We don't want that.

Finished spur, details like these tell you than this table has handwork in it, there is just no way to do a sharp inside corner like this with powered machinery.

Scraping the edges down, there is a bit of tearout that even the spiral downshear bit couldn't deal with. This will clean all of that up.

Here we are after about 12 hours of work, not bad. The surface is pretty good, sanded to 320, though there is a spot where an errant glue drop or chip dented the surface. I might try steaming it out. I've seen that done with good success.

On a completely separate note, one of my students recognized a picture I have of a Mike Dunbar double Windsor I have in my office (I have a lot of machinery prints, etchings from the Centennial Exhibition, and furniture photographs about), apparently her friend took a class with Dunbar in Philadelphia a few years ago and loved it. Damn, missed the boat on that one.

Writing Table Progress

2011-09-28T20:53:00.002-04:00

This post was inspired by a few things; firstly, I'm moving soon and I will need to build a workbench in the new place to be able to do much working so time is running short, secondly, I've had a fair number of machine-using posts in the last few. It's about time to hit the handtools exclusively in a few posts.

My after-work session resulted in two short aprons and the back apron, planed four square to 3/4". I got to spend some quality time with my #7 and Jack, and I'm really happy with the results. This mahogany cuts really well and had beautiful color and grain.

I do have some worries though, the boards I hope to use for the top have a bit of wind, and they are only about 13/16ths of an inch thick. I don't think I will get the 3/4" top I was shooting for. Hopefully I can wind up around 5/8" otherwise I'll have to look for different mahogany for the top, which sucks, because this stuff is NICE.

Pembroke Table-Hinged Top

2011-09-27T22:59:00.003-04:00

Tonight's goal, get those brass things in the mahogany. Cake. Just pay attention to the marked lines and don't overshoot your depth.

This is the mortise laid out with a knife, the hinge and the primary chisel for this work a 1/2"ish Buck Bros. tanged firmer. I like this chisel and I have three more in in varying sizes I need to restore and rehandle.

Mario graciously took a few process photos, which I'm thankful for you get to see some of my face and have some more interesting shots. On this mortise I've already cut to rough depth with a chisel, then cleaned and leveled with a router plane. The Starret #237 is there to make sure I don't overcut with the chisel work.

Checking the fit and motion of the leaf side.

Checking to see if it rocks or is held up on the notch which houses the hinge barrel.

It does, a touch, so I'm shaving down some of the notch.

All mounted up, the rule joint looks good. My quirks do not meet the tightest out of the class one is spot on, so I'll need to do some shoulder plane work to even up the gap.

The odd looking table, to make the leaf and top parts line up is a sensible way we will screw a template to the underside of the top and pattern route the whole thing. I wish I could use a bow saw, files and scrapers, but Alan and Mario would get a little bit too exasperated with me I think. I'll kill some electrons to keep from rocking the boat, I'll stick with my hide glue though.

Quick Project- Hook Knife

2011-09-24T20:30:00.003-04:00

Ever since I saw Robin Wood's work a few years ago, I've wanted to do something as simple as split up some birch logs and carve a few spoons, a few things stood in my way at the time, not having nice and recently felled wood, and not exactly having all the right tools. Well I started to fix the latter today, I made a hook knife, which is used to carve the bowl of the spoon and work into other curved areas on woodenware.

Everything starts with a sketch, in unfolded and bent side view.

After cutting out a rectangle and grinding the profile it was time to cut the bevels. The best way to hold small parts like these is to attach them to a board, stick, refrain from parting from the parent bar etc. seeing as I had 1" wide O1 to work with I mounted it to some scrap ash for filing.

The technique used for filing is Drawfiling. This is accomplished by holding a file perpendicular with both hands, with the tang facing the right and pushing the file. Used this way the teeth act similarly to a card scraper and make smooth surfaces. I like finish filing my bevels this way.

After annealing the thin O1 is hammered at a black heat over a wooden dowel into the arc shown here. I've only got a few photos and a rough idea how these are used so I'm guessing pretty hard on the shapes and sizes here.

After the oil quench and tempering we have a dark straw color, this leaves a harder blade, but I think it will hold up okay, time will tell.

I have a fair amount of grinding to do on the inside, I was cautious about how much material to leave for the heat treating, now even that thin line of hard steel is seeming like a mountain of work. Tomorrow morning I hope to finish it up and get a razor on it.

Pembroke Table Class 2

2011-09-21T21:02:00.002-04:00

Last night's class was a real fun one. As they say we are building this table backwards. That is to get the complex shape of the top to meet the legs perfectly, we will completely build the top first, then fit the undercarriage to it. We cut the rule joints and started to lay out the positions of the hinges.

This is the top from the display piece, it has an amazing satin finish ant i really like the shape. Approximately 35" long and 32 wide I believe.

A mock up of the hinge fingers, these are mahogany on the real thing.

Sets of wood laid out for best color and grain match. There are 11 of us in the class.

Here's my set, my top is glued with liquid hide, everyone else has PVA, I can't stand the thought of PVA and it's future irreparable nature so I tend to never touch the stuff. Unless it's for cardboard mock-ups or quick and dirty jig work, even then I'll use hide sometimes.

We got a fairly lengthy instruction sheet on setting out the rule joint according to the hardware. It's fussy stuff but without the right spacing you wind up with a poorly supported table joint, too much gap, or binding/squealing when operating the leaf.

My lovely girlfriend is taking bits of the class with me and offered to shoot some photos, this is setting in the knife line that defines the outermost edges of the hinge. These are marked from a center line across the width. The hinge will be numbered, placed and the other edge of the mortice knifed in.

More of the same.

A double square is a happy-maker.

There are the Rule-Joint hinges, as you can see due to the manufacturing process there is a slight taper, I was feeling antsy and decided to measure just how much. The long leaf has a .0101" taper per inch and the short a .0168" taper per inch. The plan is to route a flat mortise and shim the thin end of the hinge with cardstock, I don't know if I like this yet. I'm going to experiment setting a hinge and using a specially made jig to get my router plane on the correct angle. Yes I expect to catch some for this, but I build for fun and I like being this fussy.

Walter Poole or some other similarly initialed fool decided he was important enough to be on a hinge, I don't think he deserves a spot on my hinges so I removed him with a machinist's scraper. Asaide from one goof there isn't even enough material missing to look like I fussed with it.

Finally here's a shot of the de-"WP"ed hinges in a sawdust and ammonia filled bag working on some patination. By the time next class rolls around it should look like I stole hinges off my grandmothers table, unlike some people they will be new.

Waterbury Pembroke Table Class

2011-09-17T20:54:00.000-04:00

It's been a while, oops, however I have started work on a project that will keep me posting at least weekly for the next eight weeks. You guessed it, I'm taking another furniture building class at the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop. As I like to call classes I take there, my apprenticeship (long overdue, I've been wasting time since age 14) I'm excited. This one is a mahogany Pembroke table, I hadn't been a fan of these, but I think that was largely due to only really having seen Federal tables with bandings, stringing and a whole lot of veneer-work. I fell in love with the top and am excited for the technical challenges of the rule joint, hinge, rule-joint hinge mounting etc.

I'm light on pictures, okay I have no pictures yet, but on the first class we milled up all the lumber for the top center glue up, and the leaves. We stacked off cuts for the apron stock and the mysterious 8/4 for the legs was not present. I suspect they still have it on order considering it's an 8 week class. I couldn't bear to glue up with PVA, so I went in the day after with some liquid hide, to make my top glue up. Mario busts my chops over this, but I'm fine with that.

Here's a shot of their showoff table. Nice.

Mahogany Writing Table: Beginning

2011-08-17T21:34:00.004-04:00

This is a gloat, I scored some nice old mahogany from a guy clearing out his dad's garage shop. Looking at the stuff he tinkered with, I'm flabbergasted at what he might have used this nice stuff for. Mostly though, I want to hope that he was saving it for me. There was a 12 foot board of heavy 4/4 about 8 1/2 inches wide. This will become the apron parts, drawer fronts and some levels and other glitzy little things/tools. There was a 7 1/2 foot board of 4/4, 10 1/2 inches wide destined to become a two board top...I didn't realize until I cut the boards for the top, but this is quarter sawn. Excellent.

Here is a shot of the wide QS offcut, I've planed it a bit to see how it looks. I'm a happy camper. There is about 4 foot of the 8 1/2" wide behind it along with some other scraps.

Here is a scrap piece trued up with the jack and jointer (I broke down and brought my #7 down to my apartment, I just couldn't keep working without it) very smooth, very shimmery. This particular scrap will become a brass bound level.

Here is the 1/4 scale mockup of the desk... I'm borrowing heavily from Mario Rodriguez's Providence Writing Desk, I'm not sure if I want to do the same edge or moulding details he has, and I'm going with inside taper legs over his sabers. For reference the top will measure 20x33. I will also be using this as part of my model making class. We do a project on scaling dimensions from a photo, and building a scale model. This will be my teaching model. I have drawings and calculations to show along with the model. I like building a new piece for every class as it keeps me from getting bored with the same piece semester after semester.

The underside, showing the rudimentary web frame and drawer, it's only really important for my purposes to have one drawer actually function, I build both webs before I decided to do one drawer so, oh well.

Yes the drawer opens, you have to push it from inside, making small pulls that look worth anything are difficult to do, so I draw details like that on with pencil or fine pen depending. I have samples of a lot of things built in chip board, full drawer boxes and drawers, sliding panels, raised panels made from corrugated cardboard etc. They all go into a box as display samples for this one project.

Making Progress: Key Cabinet Door

2011-08-08T21:40:00.002-04:00

Today I got some more walnut, The bit I or board I had left from cutting the case has too much sapwood to look nice. I milled it and ran grooves for the glass. Sorry I don't have a picture of that setup, but basically you dial in the fence to cut the groove you want in two passes, on both faces. What results is a really nice groove perfectly centered in the stock.

The first photo is cutting the tenons in the stile for the top rail. The sled I'm using only has one fence, the tenon is 1/8" thick, 1 3/16" long and 1 5/8" wide.

A slight trip with my new to me Record #073 (1 1/4" shoulder plane, Jeff), results in a perfect friction fit.

Clean.

With all the joints cut I had to mock up the door. I've been asked two things consistently with this piece: why are the rails and stiles "backwards", and why are they such interesting dimensions? The rails & stiles are backwards because there is going to be a shelf, I didn't want the stiles to "cut" into the shelf visually, as the shelf will go about 5/16" below the top of the bottom rail. The widths of the components are such that they are co-planar with the frame parts of the back.

The pine strips are just to mock up the muntins, I'll do another post about the various arrangements I'm considering, this one is winning so far.

For all the careful considerations above, I've goofed here and there. I cut the top and bottom a little close to the case sides and also a bit to tight in the front. This means I'm loosing out on the opportunities I gained by doweling the case, which in turn makes me wish I'd thought about that a little more or dovetailed the case. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled with the project, but it's not as refined as I could have gotten it. Perhaps that comes from working alone, I have no one to call me on these things, I'll do a debrief and post-design the things I think this should have had. I'm so close to glue-up...

1. Cut and fit muntins
2. Fit lights
3. Glue door
4. Install shelf
5. Trim, fit and hinge door
6. Glue case, then back onto case
7. Make and mount hangers

Keepsake Box: Dovetail Excersising

2011-08-07T12:49:00.004-04:00

After building a bench on bench to make the crappy Horror Freight "workbenches" my landlord loves (don't ask why) into something passably useful for serious cabinetmaking, I couldn't wait to dovetail. I was positively itching. I had some scraps around and Googled "dovetailed box" for some inspiration. I found some in a box by Rob Cosman. I think his are way overpriced, along with his ridiculous solid surface saw totes, but the box looks alright.

The woods are spruce and butternut for the case, poplar bottom and a spalted beech lid. Finish is (surprisingly, hah) shellac and wax.

I've also build a plywood drawer box to practice building and fitting drawers into. I'm excited to get on that, but my first order of business will be to work on the door for the Key Cabinet. The order for antique glass should be here any day, and I don't want to waste any time ~~on the cabinet I've been building since March .~~

Finished Blanket Chest

2011-08-02T11:11:00.002-04:00

Here is it, shellaced, waxed and full of stuff.

Bench On Bench

2011-08-01T19:01:00.003-04:00

After brushing on the last coat of shellac, and getting ready to wax and assemble the blanket chest I started a very important thing, thinking about the next project of course.

After working on a real bench for a whole week, getting used to the bench on benches at PFW I really felt I needed to invest in some serious benching to progress further. While I'm still stuck with my landlord's "benches" I can at least tackle dovetailing and other workholding with this...

Okay, it's not as sexy as the bench on bench at the bottom of THIS page, I want. But it will do the job admirably. I've also started thinking of new projects, and ordered the piece of antique glass I want for the Key Cabinet, so after today I feel great. I'm also in touch with Mike Wenzloff about trouble-shooting my assembly of the backsaw kits I bought a while back. I really need a this fine dovetail saw and cross cut backsaw for some of the work I have planned.

Blanket Chest: Ready for Finish

2011-07-30T15:47:00.002-04:00

I've started finishing the blanket chest lid, mostly because I couldn't wait, but my girlfriend got really excited about the project and want's to help. I'm very excited about that.

So here are the early morning photos of the finished, albeit lidless blanket chest. By the way, the lid looks fantastic with three coats of shellac and wax.

Blanket Chest Day 4

2011-07-28T19:03:00.001-04:00

Most of the pieces are cut, tomorrow is assembly!

Blanket Chest Class

2011-07-26T20:34:00.004-04:00

Dovetails, a lot of dovetails. That's one sentence to describe the class at the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop I started on Monday. They call it "a dovetails tour de force" with 80 inches of dovetails in the whole project. The chest itself is beautiful, the primary wood is butternut, which saws and chisels amazingly. The moulding and breadboard end are of quartersawn red oak which, I'm told, will age well with the butternut. My practice dovetails were great, and I'm very happy with my progress thus far.

These first few photos are of the practice piece, it's only about 9 inches long, and has 4.5 tails...that's only half of one side.

Look at those tails, we are taught to scribe heave baselines. This makes it easy to "flick" away material to create a shelf of sorts to pare from. It makes a great difference on the show side I feel.

My fret saw usually starts leaving a lot of waste on the left side of the board towards the end when I'm in a good groove I have this little bit left. If I can get to this consistently, I'll have alot less paring to do.

This is the end of the first days work, all parts cut to length, practice DT's cut, all tools sharp, tails cut on the back and tails laid out and sawn on the front board.

I got to work quickly this morning, getting the first side pared and test fit. It's great! by the end of today I had the back and sides fit, all I have to do is cut pins on the sides for the front and I have a case! I'm very excited.

American Trestle Picnic Table

2011-07-23T15:53:00.002-04:00

My parent's commissioned a picnic table, mostly because I refused to let my mother by one of the heinous pieces of garbage Home Depot thought was a picnic table. It had those stamped metal framing plates for rafters, and hinges for christ's sake. I told them I'd build one, and set out to find a design. That was when I found Schwarz's table and loved it. The top will be a more utilitarian three board affair out of fir.

T.H. Witherby Restoration

2011-07-22T17:53:00.005-04:00

Restoring a tool to it's former glory is a very rewarding thing for me. It's better than building a new project, better than showering. Heck it's even better than scoring a crispy #9, NIB for $2 from the rust hunt. Well maybe not on the last one, I'd love that too.

But still, I love restoring a tool, it's the matter of taking something perhaps missing a handle or deemed mostly unusable by most people (even better if everyone says "What the hell is that?") and returning it's dignity by cleaning it up, getting it's parts back together and letting it serve the job it once performed. Objects have a soul in this way, call me crazy, but I think they look happy, after being pressed back into service.

All this started after some time on the lathe creating a beech handle for a 1" TH Witherby bevel edge firmer chisel. The overall length is 13.5 inches.

Key Cabinet: Frame & Panel Back

2011-07-19T18:25:00.004-04:00

Today was a great milestone, the back of the cabinet is finally finished! I brought the gorgeous Sitka Spruce stock I'd milled for the frame, which will be bridal jointed. This spruce was graciously donated and comes with an inspiring pedigree. It was hand bucked from fallen trees, split and carried out of Alaska on foot. It truly is amazing stuff to work, planed surfaces glimmer. The panel is a piece of 4mm PlyBoo, which was a bear to work, even a finely set plane tore out huge slivers, only a cabinet scraper could tame the piece and get it to size, the back is beveled to fit a one-eighth groove. for scale, the bottom rail is 3" wide.

The panel is pre-finished with two coats of clear lacquer and wax. I'm not sure what the rest is going to be, perhaps a homebrew oil/wax type finsh. I want something that looks inviting to the touch, and not too glossy, yet something that will dance light around on the inside. Now I have to start on the door, walnut and glass maybe a spruce muntin or two?

Dovetail Marker Pcitures

2011-07-07T10:26:00.000-04:00

As promised more pictures. I did some metal stock research and found a great source for some brass bar. I've prototyped version two in wood and I'm liking them a lot.

Dovetail Marking Gauges

2011-07-06T21:45:00.000-04:00

Today I built something I always wanted, a dedicated dovetail marker. This was spurned by some boredom and the (re)finding of some bits of brass bar I'd milled square way back when I had a small milling machine. I debated about practicing peined double dovetails, but didn't exactly have the right stock for it. If there was some steel plate around, I would have loved the look of those.

I've got two markers, one is a 1:7 and 2:9ish with cocobolo, and a square and 1:7 marker with ebony. The blades are all 1/8" inch brass and are capable of laying out DTs on 1" stock. Now for the sexyness. I didn't get a good picture of the finished markers, so I'll post them tomorrow when I can shoot them in the sun.

I can't wait to bring them to the Blanket Chest class at the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop in a couple of weeks. I'm intending to do a production run of these, so if you're interested leave a comment with a slope you think should be produced. I favor the square/slope version.

Stick Stool

2011-06-28T17:12:00.000-04:00

At my sawmill, I picked up a piece of superficially water stained, 1" birch about 5 inches wide and 50" long. I had been wondering what to do with it, I made some cross cuts and edge glued two boards together to make a wider plank. I flattened it and started fitting and wedging pine legs into the birch.

The lines on the top in the second and third pictures were possible shapes for arcs on the edges, they all looked like hell, so I went without. The top is a bit square to look good with curves on the edges. I think this turned out well for the first stick joined piece I've made, but I wasn't the happiest with the leg joints. I think using a tenon cutter (tapered? taper reamer too then) would help the fit.

The finish is mineral oil (I had linseed upstairs, but only remembered that was my intention when I started soaking the top with the cheap stuff, cool) after that dries I'll wax the top too.

Picnic Table for Father's Day

2011-06-19T07:01:00.000-04:00

I borrowed some of Schwarz's work from the Autumn 2006 issue of Woodworking Magazine, to build a picnic table version of the American Trestle Table, the cover article. It's made out of mostly clear D. Fir salvaged from the borg's rack of 2x12s. The leg pieces are the wrong size, so I have to use some left overs, to mill more parts, that's been holding me up.

I've gotten a bit farther than the photo's suggest, I've cut the two dadoes that magically turn into a mortise when glued face to face, and glued the feet and top braces together. I still have the longer legs to cut and glue, the joinery for the top braces and stretcher, then I can assemble. There will be benches too, modeled after 17th century "forms", a hard-to-google bench build by jointers of early American furniture.

Key Cabinet: Back Mockup

2011-06-12T12:53:00.000-04:00

Here is a mockup of the cabinet, with pine frame for the back. I was originally thinking something darker for the back, but I think I will stick with pine, or maybe ash for these components. I will be keeping the Bamboo plywood panel and shelf I think.

Concerning the Craft

2011-05-30T10:33:00.000-04:00

Books are an important thing to us, we have the opportunity to spread ideas and learn new things. Whether they are techniques books, essays, plans, or accounts they let us listen to dead or far flung voices.

Right now I'm reading two books on the craftsman as a figure and way or thinking. They are, Richard Sennett's The Craftsman, and Matthen Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft. Both of them are really good book thus far.

I want to get a bit further into them before writing some reviews, but I just couldn't wait to say how wonderful it is to hear someone else (in the mass media) speaking passionately about the value of manual work.

Key Cabinet: Rabbeted Carcass

2011-05-28T18:38:00.000-04:00

I've done a bit more work on the cabinet, the through and stopped rabbets for the frame and panel back are done. Now I'm just waiting on a McMaster order for some 1/4" delrin rods. These will be to dry fit the carcass together and work on it, whilst still being able to disassemble it easily. I had an issue using only 2 dowel pegs per side/end, three of the 8 peds broke during disassembly and I had to nervously drill out the waste... I don't want that to happen again and can't use a waxed peg because it's to be a glue joint.

These dados, including the stopped ones were cut on the tablesaw with a 6" dado stack. The stopped dado required the use of stops and was pretty simple to do. A bit of chisel work finished the corners. The gap you see is the result ov some cupping in the top and bottom boards. I'll have to plane this little hollow out before much more can happen.

I'm still happy with it and cant wait to start on the back, I'm still not sure whether I should use walnut, QS white oak, or birch for the frame. Bamboo will still be the panel I think.

Key Cabinet: Carcass Dry Fit

2011-05-18T21:20:00.000-04:00

The time has finally come, today I made the drilling jig needed to bore the holes for dowels and get the case together. I'm really excited.

Next up, rabbeting the back, cutting the back and door frame components and starting the fitting. I'm still debating about a shelf/drawer. Thoughts on that?

Key Cabinet Progress

2011-05-01T15:53:00.000-04:00

I spent some time in the shop today gluing up a shooting board for my new jointer, which works better than I could have expected on end grain. I also spent some time edge jointing and smoothing the inside faces of the walnut boards for the key cabinet. Here's the pictures from this morning.

I'm very happy with this jointer, I've planed a number of woods walnut, pine, cherry, Brazilian cherry, sapele, beech, red and white oak. The only problem I ran into was on the beech, it is some very tough stuff.

Krenovian Jointer Plane

2011-04-28T17:28:00.000-04:00

After browsing through every page of the Inside Passage School of Fine Woodworking website, I discovered several things...

-I love the Krenovian style and methodology
-Dowels don't seem as icky as I once believed
-I want to make some knife hinges and wall hangers
-Grain "graphics" as they call them, and rift sawn wood are incredible
-I'm building a small jointer plane, I must have this for shooting small long grain pieces and other trimming tasks.

That let me to browse some of my wood collection (don't worry I use it) located in my office. At the end of my workday Monday I snatched up a piece of beech I've had for some months and ripped it into a body and sides, I did the rest of the work at home. The iron is a Lee Valley replacement blade for a Stanley #60 1/2. in O1 steel. I have another identical iron, destined for a small smoother or gutter plane for coopered doors etc.

The pins, wedge and cross pin are made from East Indian Rosewood, turning stock from eBay. The pins are split and whittled to shape. The finish is orange wax, with High Gloss Formby's finish on the wedge. The mouth is super tight and even, I love the colors and contrast. I've gotten some great test shavings and surfaces, but I still need some time in the shop with it before another review. Enough yap, here's the proof.

The color is significantly more orange, and the rosewood is richer in person. I'll fiddle with the lighting during the workshop use photoshoot. All in all, I'm extremely excited about the first Krenov plane I've built.

Continuing Work on the Key Cabinet

2011-04-19T12:09:00.000-04:00

The basement in my housemates shop is finally cleared a bit, I have some room to work now. I don't have all my tools in the new space, but I have enough for this small project. This post is mostly to keep me writing and working, as I've written very little in the last few months.

This first picture I'm almost embarrassed about, it's not fine furniture, nor really complicated. Just little 4mm X 14mm X 60mm strips, six of them, two each in mahoganies of different vintages. They are samples for an instrument maker to test harmonics/vibration durability of the different ages of mahogany. They were fun, and allowed me to practice working to tight tolerances, most of the measurements are within .02mm, for those of you like me who only work in inches, or to scribed components that equates to about .0008" or a little less than half the thickness of a sheet of common computer paper).

Nextly, here is a shot of the lumber cut and resting for the key cabinet (Blk. Walnut) and a pair of Krenovian shop bents (sawhorses, Ash). The little junk on top of the left hand pile is an assortment of sticker stock I cut out of the scrap ash from the bents. More to come, today I resawed some pine to mock up the door and muntins when the time comes.

Design Process: Part II

2011-03-19T10:59:00.000-04:00

Krenov and others working in his style has had a huge impact on me recently. Both, in terms of aesthetic sensibilities, and in the mindset of the woodworker. Here follows the finished cardboard mock-up of the Walnut Key Cabinet. This photo shows the actual view a six foot tall individual will see of the hung cabinet.

The size is approximately 18" tall, 11 3/4" wide and 7 1/4" deep. The case will be of walnut shown below, the frame and panel back will be QS white oak, with mabye white pine or beech for the panel. I think there will also be another thin rail 2/3rds up the back panel with pegs in it. This is, after all, a key cabinet. I think. The case will also have a drawer, hidden by the door, I'm not sure what wood that will be yet, maybe white oak also.

These next two pictures are of the mock-up building, very simple tools and materials. I love paper mock-ups. These are the same techniques I teach in the first project of my model making class.

I really love the grain in this board, it measures just over 7 1/4 inches wide and about 8 foot several inches long. I wasn't intending to buy walnut when I visited the lumberyard, but I couldn't resist. There were two other walnut boards
I could have gone for, and a gorgeous 8/4 spalted maple slab...I should have gotten it. It's probably gone now. Live and learn.

Design Process: Part I

2011-03-08T23:52:00.001-05:00

After reading through Tom Fidgen's book Made By Hand, again, I was inspired to start designing a wall cabinet around this one waney edged board I picked up a few months ago. I did a few thumbnails and then started to build the thing in SketchUp to see the proportions work out. Here's a look at a few of the drawings. The one on the left is the front face of the cabinet, I'm imagining the door is fumed beech with glass and mullions. I've also got thumbnails of the mullion arraignments there too, I like the asymmetric ones I guess... Six lights looks good to me, but not for the feel of this cabinet, it's too house-like in this instance. I also like the dramatic feeling in an irregular angular layout. I'll need to build some mock ups to solve that question.

I'm pretty happy with the case at this point, but I'm still not sure on a few things, the location of the shelves/drawers/dividers and the arraignment of the lights. I'll make a mock up out of cardboard with interchangeable parts to live with the arraignments in real life. Stay tuned.

Back into the Swing

2011-02-27T09:38:00.000-05:00

It's been far too long since I posted last, I've been settling into a new job and a new place and I haven't had a ton of time for the shop. I also Don't have all my tools in the new place, I'm renting now. All of my stuff still resides at my parent's house for the most part.

The good news is I'm settles and I'm getting back to work. I'm starting small. I've been taking some router table workshops at the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop, which have been great. And yesterday I went to the Woodworking.com show in Summerset, NJ with one of my college buddies.

The show was alright, I don't think it would compare to Woodworking in America, but it was great to see the Felder/Hammer group and the antique tool dealers had some amazing things. Minty planer gages, circular planes, wooden squares and a ton of chisels. I came home with a nice early English Marples 1/4" chisel, and two awesome pigstickers, one is 3/16th the other is 1/2" the prices were pretty great, and they are in really good condition.

I also grabbed a Norton Waterstone set, and some pen blanks for Pentel Pencil conversions. I've been using the scary sharp method, I've been impressed with the Shapton stones at the Philadephia Furniture workshop, so I'm going to give them a go.

Dwell Video about Our Corian Project

2011-01-25T21:32:00.002-05:00

During my senior year our design class worked with the DuPont material Corian to express beauty in various ways. Of over twenty projects a select few were selected to show in Philadelphia's Center For Architecture during Design Philadelphia. Umote, my sushi serving tray was among nine items selected for this show, and also featured in a video published by the popular design magazine Dwell. Enjoy the presentation about our process, I'm very happy with the video they put out. I'm also excited that they were able to include my clip about the manufacturing of my sushi tray.

P.S. I'm the guy with the short hair, grey button shirt, and the lip ring.

Pencils, I'm now a pencil turner...Oh boy

2011-01-05T23:01:00.000-05:00

As you may or may not know (you will now) I have had a love affair with lathe since sometime in October in 9th grade. Woodturning, metalturning, ornamental work, threadcutting etc. it's all cool. I've read, tried, jigged and watched a lot about lathes, I even have plans to cast a small treadle lathe and offer kits in various stages of completion, (long term project, don't hold your breath). The one thing I'd never had an inkling to try my hand at was pen/pencil turning, that is until one fateful day in Buffalo. Now I'm hooked. Not because pen turning is a fad (maybe it is I don't know) or that I need a pen (they have stores for that). It's that they are so tricky to do.

While waiting for a barrel trimmer (tool used to trim the ends of pen blanks flush to the brass tubes, Jeff) I ordered, I was getting antsy. I wanted to make a wooden writing implement, I wanted to use CA as a finish and practicing on scrap wasn't cutting it. I found Don Ward's Pentel Conversion Article and decided to make the tools/mandrel/jamb chucks needed and give it a shot.

I figured out you don't just give a tiny-thin-walled-wooden-tube-with-three-different-concentric-holes a "shot". You give it, much breakage, deliberation, assessment, coupla' colorful words, and three shots. Then you figure it out.

The only thing I did substantially different from the article above was to use a blank about 1" longer than needed and glue it to the jamb chuck I made earlier. I also reverse the setup from the article, using the Morse taper mandrel in the tailstock, and the other mandrel in a chuck (or second Morse taper I guess) in the headstock. That means I drive the blank from the butt end and instead of a live center I use a waxed steel mandrel (acts like a dead center, without splitting the thin wall) on the tailstock side. The steel part is the rest of the 5/32" drill bit as described in the article. Enough talking though time for pictures, if memory serves this is a piece of Cocobolo.

A trip to Buffalo...means more tools.

2011-01-03T20:11:00.003-05:00

So there seems to be something magical about Buffalo, NY. I'm sure it's some combination of the blistery weather, enjoyable company, and holiday cheer that has me heading home with a bunch of new goodies.

I'll talk about them in turn as they come up in the next few posts, but what I'm really excited to share is the Sorby Micro Spindle Set. It was on sale at Rockler, and I had gift money to burn. I wanted something for doing small work, as fortune would have it I'd also fall into pen turning in the store and I think it will really show it's colors there. I also grabbed the micro hollowing tool in addition to the spindle set. Here's a picture,

Also in the picture is one of several pen kits I picked up, eagle eyes will notice the pen kit is from Woodcraft, while I mention Rockler earlier. I stopped at Woodcraft on the way home, they had Euro pen kits on sale, and I don't discriminate.

I've written a full review, with a video over at Sawmill Creek if you care to look at that.

Finally Back

2010-12-20T22:27:00.000-05:00

Well it's been a while, I've been inundated with projects, one a big table for a client I got through my Aunt. It's made of cherry and took me way longer than I thought it would. I drove up to NYC with my buddy to deliver it. Here's the shot...

The next is of a Nostepinne, a tool used by knitters/crocheters and other yarn workers to make center-pull yarn balls. This is turned from puprplehart and finished with several friction coats of shellac and wax. I can post this now, even though it was a Christmas present for my girlfriend because she likes to open her gifts early, there's no lost surprise now.

This was a really great turning project, and I'm very happy with the finish on it so I can't wait to make a few more of them. I also checked out some great woodturning books from my library, Woodturner's Bible and Course in Woodturning (Free from Project Gutenberg, btw). Both are excellent books, CiW has some particularly great shop drawings for a wide array of practice cuts and projects.

Turning for X-Mas

2010-12-09T17:49:00.002-05:00

I wanted to let you know that I'm not dead, I've been really busy finishing up the semester, grading, and working on this table I'm building. I've gotten on the lathe with some nice wood, and really got my finishing down. I'm proud of the piece, but I can't post it yet, as it's recipient reads here occasionally and I don't want to ruin the surprise. Stay tuned for the unwrapping as it were.

Frame and Panel Cherry Table

2010-11-17T17:36:00.000-05:00

Here are the images for a table I've been commissioned for. I'm excited as it's my first full fledged commission, and I've gotten to buy a few new tools to help build it.

Not all the details are in there, because some of them weren't finalized yet. Also some details have changed, such as the stile arrangement. Which is now like it is below.

Inspiration and Skill

2010-11-17T17:21:00.000-05:00

My girlfriend just sent me this link, I'm in love. I want to commission some hardware, I want to visit.

The name of the company is P.E. Guerin, they specialize in decorative hardware and fixtures and were founded in New York City in 1857. It's the oldest dec. hardware firm in the US and operates the only foundry in NYC. I simply must visit.

Making the Best Butter

2010-11-07T22:11:00.001-05:00

I haven't talked about this side of my life much on this blog as it's about woodworking, but food is one of the all important aspects of [my] life. I've got particular convictions about eating, one of which is cooking from scratch. I leave out all the other parts for now...

This is a photo of a mostly empty cream container, and butter. Now you may be more familiar with the piece of butter on the left, it's paler and rectangular. The butter on the right? Well that's something you can't just buy in the store, it's home made butter. It takes very simple tools (or fancy traditional ones if you're a woodworker) and only about 10 minutes.

Basic instructions are theses: Take a pint of heavy cream (mine is organic from a local creamery), let it sit out at room temperature for 6-12 hours, pour into quart sized mason jar, shake (steadily not violently) for three or so minutes, it should clump and start to look like well butter, drain off liquid (you can save this, it's buttermilk, great for omelets, biscuits etc.), wash with cold water, dump into bowl and work with the back of a spoon to remove the extra water/buttermilk, then salt to taste.

The butter in the picture is about a third of the butter made, my guess is $6 of cream got me 3/4c of buttermilk and a half pound of butter. You may notice that the butter is very yellow, this is from carotene in the cows diet, usually butter is yellower in the spring with better food and paler in the fall/winter. I know this cream comes from well fed cows, and is free range... making the best butter I've ever had.

I don't think I'll be buying butter from the store anymore, making it is just too easy and infinitely tastier, plus now I have an excuse to make all kinds of specialty butter making tools. Let the fun begin!

Working with other Materials

2010-11-01T20:29:00.000-04:00

In the first semester of my senior year in college we partnered with the Philadelphia based C.H Briggs office to work with a material called Corian. You may know it as a solid surface counter top material made by DuPont.

Anyways the material is really cool (for not being wood), in all seriousness I thought I would hate due to its lack of cellulose, that wasn't the case. It was amazing stuff. It can be heat formed, printed on (in a process called dye sublimation), glued with special glue, cut with a CNC etc. Signmakers use rather extensively I've noticed. Our task was to work with it and find new uses for the counter top material. Because of its properties I knew I wanted to do something with food. I also knew that heat forming it was a process I was going to love.

I had about a zillion ideas, but didn't hit my stride until I chose a food culture to work with. I chose sushi, it had a lot of positive things going for it, sushi is about plating, it has tradition, it tastes awesome. Here is what I came up with after about 4 months in the design process...

Okay that is just the rough mock-up out of foam-core, with foam stand-ins for actual sushi. I'm liking it so I went ahead and built molds in CAD then cut them out on a CNC routing machine. Then I threw some Corian blanks into the oven and got the hydraulic press ready and SQUISH, here's the final thing...complete with freshly dead fish.

I have mileage left to go on my ideas for this process, and I'll be posting about those products as I get them ready for production. Also check out this great write-up about our installation on the Surface&Panel blog.

Gramercy Tools 12" Rip Carcass Saw Build

2010-10-20T23:17:00.000-04:00

I found someone on eBay selling a Gramercy Tools 12" carcass saw kit, I bought it. After testing one at my dovetail class I was sold.

Tote cut, and the slots cut for the plate and spine.

Shaping the tote, on a refinished bench, I just added a layer of plywood and a brace to prevent sagging.

Put together, shaped and just a little left to finish.

Great tracking, and the build only took about an hour. Now I've got a new saw! It's going to come in handy for a new project I've got cooking.

Dovetail Class at PFW

2010-10-17T21:04:00.001-04:00

I went to school at Philadelphia University, and I now teach at Philadelphia University...little did I know that not 1 mile around the corner from campus lay the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop, run by Mario Rodriguez, and Alan Turner. This past weekend I got some help on my dovetails, all I can say is that PFW is a great school and their style and teaching methods are great. Here are some photos from the class.

Here's a shot of the teaching space, benches with Record vises and bench on benches. I got to use all kinds of new tools, the Gramercy Dovetail Saw , Veritas Dovetail Saw, and the Lie-Neilsen Dovetail Saw. I also used Shapton water stones, which were pretty cool. They out a great edge on chisels and plane irons really fast. I do have to say though, my favorite tool of the whole class was the Gramercy 12" Carcass saw... I fell in love with it. I need to have one. I have a commission coming up so I think I'll spring for it. I also loved the LN bronze No. 2 plane...super sweet.

Here's a shot of my space, I had to build a few tools, including a cutting gage, a marking knife a fret saw, and some chisel and plane rehabs.

Here's my first set of through dovetails, I have a bit of a gap, but I'm otherwise very happy with how they came out.

And here's the set of blind dovetails, we cut today. I had a chisel slip on the left side, and my houndstooth baseline is a little rough. I'm still happy with them.

I also left with a Starret double square...I love this tool too.

Making a Butter Mould

2010-10-06T20:10:00.000-04:00

One of my other passions is eating good food. I define good food as organic, mostly raw, free range, and entirely homemade, even the little details. In preparation for Thanksgiving I'm making a butter mould to make individual pats of butter that I'll make from scratch.

Butter molds, at least the round ones are simple, only three pieces. I haven't done research into buter mold makers or what they call the different parts so I'll make it up as I go along. First I turned the Bell that's the cup looking part. It's 2" in diameter and 1 1/2" high. The cavity is 1 1/8" deep and tapers from the wide end to a square shoulder, there is also a 1/2" through hole in it's center. The Press has the impression in it. and tapers for a close fit around it's molding edge. Lastly there is a Plunger which is used to press the Press and butter mold out of the Bell. There is a blind hole in the Press to register the Plunger. On a traditional butter mould, I think the Plunger would be longer and it is threaded into the Press.

The Bell and Press are turned from sugar maple, the Plunger from cherry.

I had a staggering amount of ideas for what to carve into the Press, I went with a pentagram, which is a symbol of nature, the elements, and also found on an antique butter mold I didn't buy. I think the mold is too plain, and plan to turn a ring around the outside of the pentagram when it dries.

Here are the finished pats of butter, it took some experimenting, and reading of arcane butter moulding passages to learn that slightly chilled butter and moulds primed in ice water make removal about 1,000,000Xs easier. I still have to figure out a method of packing that reduces air gaps.

Etsy Store Finally Running!

2010-10-02T17:11:00.000-04:00

So I've been a member of Etsy (a Handcrafted ebay pretty much) for a number of years now, I've had some things for sale, completed some Alchemy listings (where you bid to make buyers projects), but mostly let it sit empty. Well not anymore. I listed some of the bottle stoppers I was working on a few posts ago. I'm far from a fully stocked shop, but this is as good as I've gotten for a long time.

So please hop on over via The Link and take a look at my "for sale" work. Maybe even buy something? Thanks for looking.

2,000 Pageviews, wow.

2010-10-01T09:59:00.000-04:00

I wanted to say thank you to everyone following, browsing or mistakenly accessing my blog. I've been having a good time writing on it; met some very good people and learned a lot. I've got a lot more going on soon which I can't wait to post about.

Thanks for reading,
Trevor Walsh

Working on a Fret Saw

2010-09-30T21:05:00.000-04:00

In preparation for my handcut dovetails class turned the parts for this fret saw. I still have to figure out the hardware for attaching the blade. I've done two versions already, and I think I have it figured out. I just have to get some brass sheet.

It's turned out of cherry, no real plan other than some photos of antiques. I like how the inner stretcher came out. My only regret is that the top arm is a little fat and less attractive than the bottom one.

Sycamore Score, and What I've Been Up To

2010-09-21T18:15:00.000-04:00

I was driving from school to my other job (very close) to get some work done during my two hour break between classes. I took a wrong turn, there are three turns that all go to the same place and they all look similar. Oops. Lucky for me some surgeons were taking down a beautiful sycamore. They let me take some, unfortunatly I didn't have a giant flatbed and the ability to take a huge burly (figured) sycamore trunk to a sawmill I know. Damn.

I sawed this guy down the center, and painted the ends. I'm hoping I'll get to take it over to my bosses shop, he has a large resaw capacity Rikon, to QS it into boards and turning blocks.

I really like the wave this piece has, there is some reaction wood, so we shall see how it goes. I got it split and painted within about 4 hours of it coming down so I'd hope things are off to a good start.

Here is a shot of what I spend my Sunday morning on, they are maple and rosewood. I start by cutting blocks and drilling for a 3/8" pin. Then glue the pin and let dry. Then I turn, finish with beeswax, polish and glue a drilled cork on. I cut about 85 pins from dowels in a little miter box I made to cut two 1" long 3/8" pins for my class, I just used one slot and cut 2" long pins. The corks get drilled in a special chuck on the lathe. A wooden block turned round, with a #8 cork taper cut into it spins in the lathe, With the machine running a cork is forced into the chuck with a block of wood. The block applies even pressure and allows you to adjust the cork for runout. Then drill and presto! I drilled 50 corks in about 20 minutes with this technique.

Moulding Planes and an Endevor

2010-09-15T18:42:00.000-04:00

A group of mixed hollows, rounds, two rabbets and some other moulding planes, sitting along with a generously loaned copy of "Wooden Planes in 19th C. America" at my new (read, cleaned) planemaking bench. I've got a sash moulder, and covette, 7/8th and 1" rabbet, a pair of #'s 5, 6 and 12 H&R, a #2R, a #8R, a spare #6R and some unmarked without irons. They will become the base of a quarter set of H&Rs I'm building, the ones missing parts will be practice for fitting irons and wedges.

Using illustrations and photos from Wooden Planes in 19th. C. America, I recreated this planemaking vise. It uses two different sets of wedges to hold planes in different orientations for the various operations. It's very easy to maneuver around the vise and change the position of the plane within it.

I cut the U section out of a split pine 2x12, it's about 15 inches long and 6 inches wide. The channel in the center is approximately 4" wide and 7/8 inches deep. It runs the full length. While you night be tempted to mortise this section don't, the gap under the end, clamping blocks are useful for blowing chips and sawdust out of the mating surfaces. I cut the channel with a plow and cleaned it up with a #78 rabbet plane sans fence.

The clamping ends are oak, and the wedge (sort of visible on the left hand side) is also oak. The wedge meets the end piece at a taper (not the taper of the wedge) like a french cleat so that the wedge can't be pulled up and out of contact. The plane I was working on here is going to become a #10 round, it is made of cherry. I've designed my H&Rs with shallow champers and deep notches, I still have to design the wedge profile, but I think a round finial with a curved return is going to be my preferred design here.

It's working out really well, I still have to make a few more floats and other tools but I'm pretty much set for planemaking. I'll work mostly in cherry and maple because I have quite a few plane-sized blanks ready to go. I also love how cherry looks in plane form.

After a few H&Rs I plan to make some snipes-bills, boxed and sprung moulding planes, rabbet stick (for window sash), and sash coping planes. I plan to sell some of these odd planes, particularly matched sash and coping planes.

He Can't Be Serious, More Chisels? Yup.

2010-09-13T15:50:00.000-04:00

Well, when you come across a 1" Wetherby BEC for $2, a 1/2" Foulton socket firmer for $1, and a 1/2" B.S. and W. Co. (or maybe it's P.S. and W. Co. can't tell) for $.50 you have to get them. Even if you have to steal a dollar from that 5 year old staring at you rooting through piles of ferrite and carbon.

Then when some guy'll take $8 for a 2" slick ('nother hard to read'er) blade with some mushrooming and a pair of calipers (not shown) you should grab that too.

This morning I turned an oak handle for the slick, I finished it with straight beeswax on the lathe. I grab a big hunk, and hold it against the spinning part, until I get a decent coat. Then I take a rag, cotton tee shirt works best, and holding the ends like I'm buffing a shoe, buff the wax. The friction from the rag melts the wax and forces it into the pores, after a while the wax really makes it's way in and shines up really good. Then move to a clean portion of rag to take off any extra. After a while, your rag has enough built up wax in it to wax and buff parts as is.

The bottom tool in the above photo is an edge float for planemaking. Which will be the topic of my next post.

Stanley #47 Gages

2010-09-03T13:53:00.000-04:00

Finally worked out a deal with the hardware store to secure a quantity of these Stanley #47s. A depth gage for auger bits. I only have a limited quantity and many are owed to OldTools list members. I may have some extras, comment if you'd be interested in one.

A Bit about the Why

2010-09-01T07:55:00.000-04:00

I woke up this morning thinking about a lot of things; I thought about the debate between Art, Craft and Design, one of my favorite topics in design school. I thought about how my life might go ( a little heady for 6 AM but there you have it), and I thought about why I do what I do. Why am I compelled to make things? Man is a toolmaking animal, I guess a cupboard, shelves, a coffee table might be considered tools for living right? I'm not so sure it's as simple as that but it's a strong link to me that ties all creative efforts to a common cause in my mind.

Then I thought about a quote in the PW #182, in the Clark & Williams article, on page 39 Schwarz quoted a line by H.D. Lawrence. It said, "Things men have made with wakened hands, and put soft life into are awake through years with transferred touch and go on glowing for long years. And for this reason, some old things are lovely warm still with the life of forgotten men who made them."

I was floored. This touched on something I'd thought about a long time ago. I wanted to build things, put a little piece of my life in them, and build them well so they would last for generations. In that way I would in the spirit of the "transferred touch [of life/passion?] live on long after my death.

How inspiring? I need to go to the shop. Right now.

Tool Trays, Work on my Joiners Chest

2010-08-30T18:30:00.000-04:00

I started building a tool tray for my joiners chest last night. I got the grooves plowed, and the side supports nailed in place.

This morning I cut a dado for the separator/support. Then cut the miter dovetails, they are okay, but I'm proud of the first wholly dovetailed thing I've done yet.

Here's a shot of the empty tray, the bottom is cedar closet liner. Some grain on it is really clear and nice. and it smells good.

The underside at the midway support. I've tacked the bottom to the support and driven (with my small push screwdriver, that I just got bits for) brass screws through the sides to hold things together.

Now I just have to figure out where I'm fitting what. Only chisels on one tray; marking, measuring and other small goodies in another? Squeeze some measuring tools in the chisel tray? Chisels on top or marking tools on top? Who knows? I might just pressure fit the dividers to try it out and see if I like it the way it is.

Getting a Handle On It: Socket Chisels

2010-08-28T21:59:00.000-04:00

Today I decided to get cracking on some handles for a group of socket chisels I've had waiting for me. On the top, left to right is a 2 inch Buck Brothers BEC, a 1 1/2 inch Buck Brothers BEC, then three Stanlet No. 750s in 3/4, 1/2 and 1/4 inches. The 1/4 is horrifically abused, a long 15ish degree primary bevel? WTF is that? I may grind it back to remove this mark which will leave me about 2 inches of usable blade or try to find more 750s for the set. I'm going antiquing tomorrow so I'll wait to handle that and see what turns up. Below those are two that I handled earlier, a long 5/8 inch Craftsman paring chisel with some chips, and an unmarked 3/4 inch former.

The handle stock is a bunch of blanks cut from a maple science lab table that found its way into our school shop, pretty grimy and wild I wasn't going to use this for anything else. Blanks were cut months ago when I found the wood. I have two stiles, longer and skinny and shorter and thicker. Using this v-block hook, I cut a rough tapered octagon on the blanks.

I don't care if it's not perfectly symmetrical, as long as it has 8 sides it will be comfy and work.

The first buck I get to cheat on, it still had a "handle" on it, I took most of the tenon measurements from it. You need the depth (measure with a drill bit), the large diameter (outside calipers), and the small diameter (drill bit again, or guess and check). I use outside calipers because it's faster than using inside and transferring them to outside and I have to fit the tenon to the socket anyway, make it a touch oversize and you'll be golden.

Now the easy part, strike a baseline for your shoulder and cut the major and minor diameter, bam you have a tapered socket. I've done these on the lathe, and by hand. The lathework is simple spindle turning two your two diameter measurements, followed by a skew to fair the transition. By hand I like to saw the large diameter depth all the way around then chisel and file the taper. Either way will get you there, what you're looking for is something that mostly fits the socket of your chisel like so...

As you can see there is a bit of a gap, this means the socket hasn't bottomed out yet. This could be from any number of things, irregular side walls on your socket, irregular tenon. a too-fat portion etc. Fortunately they are all easy to fix, mark a spot on your handle so you know where it will orient to the blade, and lightly tap it down. Then pull the tenon off, if your chisel is older there will be enough dust/rust/grime to mark the tenons interference spots, if you're doing this with brand new chisels or they are too clean, wipe some soot in the socket and try again.

Here you can see some light spots indicating where to take off material, lather, rinse, repeat until a little gap remains. Then hold the chisel by the steel and slam it butt down into a stump or other mass until it seats fully, have a little gap so that the tenon can compress and move into the socket a little more.

The end product. The only thing left to do is to trim the taper so that it blends into the taper of the ferrule. Then bevel the end (if you don't plan on hitting it with something) or cut a tenon for a hoop and fit the hoop (for say bih heavy duty whackers).

After all was said and done I scraped the handles with a shard of glass and wiped on some mineral oil. They look amazing and rustic and I can't wait to do more.

Stanley #78 Rehab

2010-08-27T17:09:00.000-04:00

While on vacation my eBay account was kind enough to win me this SW 78 (rabbet and fillister plane, Jeff). The photos were blurry, only two pictures, and not of the interesting parts we need to see. I had enough hints to think this was going to work out great so I put a low ball bit in and won.

It arrived the other day, but I had errands to run and teaching took up my time on Thursday. Today I set out to do a bunch of sharpening and rehabbing. I cleaned the body in soapy water and made new sandpaper "stones" by glueing various paper grits to pieces of Corian and birch ply. I think I have to switch adhesives, my paper buckles. I'll try Super 90 next. I'm getting pretty good at sharpening freehand I like it better because there are less "things" involved than guides and all of that. It also builds confidence in the eyes and hands I think. I have some sole lapping to finish, and the nicker doesn't sit nicely in its various positions.

I'm in love with this plane, the 78 is comfortable, works beautifully and looks great. I'm going to be selling the Moving Fillister I posted about, if your interested contact me. Actually I'll be selling all three in that photo.

New Lathe!

2010-08-23T17:28:00.000-04:00

As luck would have it I had some disposable income waiting for something good to come along (read: didn't get a chance to put a LV order in) I saw that woodcraft was having a sale, on lathes and chucks. Lathes are one of my favorite tools and one of the only powered tools I really enjoy using. Luck also drove my girlfriend and I to Allentown to meet a mutual friend, 8 minutes from a woodcraft store. This is called fate. Picked up the Rikon mini-lathe and the Nova chuck spent time with the friend, then drove home. This morning I rearranged my shop a bit and set up the lathe. I'm in the process of sawing out a bowl blank to try on the chuck, I haven't used a chuck or WoodWorm yet so I'm very excited.

Below is a shot of my current workspace, boxes are smothering part of the shop in front of the metal lathe but I'll sort it out soonly.

Coffee Table: Fin

2010-08-23T17:14:00.000-04:00

After looking at it in the room, the pulling of the color wasn't such a big deal.

Blacksmithing and a Problem

2010-08-14T11:22:00.000-04:00

Here is my small forge setup, I use if for small items, hooks and knives etc. Today I made a holdfast, a knife and the body for a nail header. I plan to make some hand wrought nails and brads for projects to be totally authentic. Maybe I'll sell some on Etsy.com, more about that possibility some other day.

I followed the Schwarz on this one, reading about holdfasts was interesting, and I'll have to make more before I find something that works perfectly. The knife is there too. He's been sitting around waiting to be finished for a while.

The holdfast in a chunk of the leg offcut, approximating my future benchtop. I bored several different holes. This one, that's holding pretty well is 11/16th, the holdfast is 5/8 dia. I have some 3/4" square barstock and I want to forge that into an octagon 3/4 across flats and see how that holds. I might need a little larger hole for the depth I have. More fiddling.

Here's the coffee table all finished, sort-of. It looks good huh? Actually, I didn't realize the paste wax was going to pull some of the darkness out of the stain, so it's too light now to match the room it's for. I have to strip it down and refinish it. I think I'll fume it, tried, true and old. I think I'll have more luck with that.

It Starts: The Roubo Build, Legs

2010-08-08T18:33:00.000-04:00

Alternate titles for this post included: Four-Square a Tree; Paul Bunion was a pansy, he only cut the tree down; This must be what shaping a keelson is like etc.

Anyways, here is the first of the pair of salvaged 6x8s I'm going to make the legs out of. Because they were salvage my saw-guy won't touch them, I was going to have 6x6's cut. Then I figure, why not use 6x8s? Why not make a triple tenon (maybe)? It will only harm someone when it a) falls on you b) drag a (few) unsuspecting friends over to move it to my future house or c) when I die and someone else inherits it. I'm hoping to teach and bequeath my tools/shop to a grandson someday.

A shot attempting to show how good I am :), then again they are legs, they don't have to be perfect, I'll throw it on it's side when built and square the leg faces to eachother and the top when I'm done.

I was so excited I just kept working after dark, I only worked about 2-3 hours off an on to square and cross cut each beam. Very happy so far. I was using a black crayon to mark and label the beams, I really like the crayon, planes off, marks well, doesn't leave a trace.

I love the scrub plane, so happy I bought it. It's one of my favorite tools.

To give you an idea of what it will be like. The legs are spaced at their approximate positions, and the 6' rule shows the size of the top. I'm making the top out of laminated New Zealand Pine, which I can get new from a lumber reclaimer nearby. Now I'm not sure whether to laminate 4x6's or 1 1/4x6s for the top. I think the thinner boards and more laminations will give a more stable top. We'll see what the grain is like. Cost on the 4x6 is insane, $1.50 a running foot. That means a 6ish by 20" by 6' top, read MASSIVE will cost $45 plus glue. Awesome.

Giornata in Reclaim: Key Shelf

2010-08-07T12:40:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I found out we are traveling to the city to visit my cousin, who just bought a house. It's to be a big party for the whole family. My mom is bringing him a blender, I'm going to make a wall shelf inspired by Dan's Candle Till. Ever since I saw the first post about resawing 1x8s into 1/2 inch boards I wanted to do something like that, well I got my chance. After about 5 sketches I came up with something small enough to be finished in time. I know the woods and colors in his place are deep red/browns, so I'll use some of my 100 year old mahogany for accents.

A quick search turns up this hunk of 2x8 cut from the center of the tree giving perfect vertical grain, there are some grey sections on the edges, but inside of that is a nice 3 inch wide strip with tight, straight, clear grain. After two smacks with an axe, I have my rough plank.

This billet has enough wood for two of these small shelves, all perfect grain. I'll cross cut, flatten, joint and resaw into the three boards I'll need.

It doesn't take too long, though I wish I was finished with my 29 inch framed ripsaw, hanging just out of the shot. I also with I was finished with the Moxon twin screw vise and the Roubo, but hey. I've noticed my sawing is much improved since the beginning of the summer.

Bookmatching the back boards, I was cutting this board already to practice resawing when I stopped to design the shelf.

My three boards, sides on the top flattened and ready to go.

The small shooting board I made to take on vacation came in handy making the parts, it's so easy to cut and square with these simple tools. Why did I wait so long to make them? Using a fairing stick to draft the curve. I want to make a tapered asymmetrical fairing stick too. I've decided to use pinned rabbets and butt joints, the sides are just over 5/16ths and the bottom 3/8ths. The pins will be toothpicks.

Glue after about an hour of sawing chiseling and planing. I take a break to get ice cream.

I forgot to take pictures of scratching the moulding, carving the peg and assembling the rest of the parts, but here is a detail of the pins, header and peg. I like the contrast in the mahogany/pine and face/endgrain colors, particularly in the endgrain of the toothpicks.

Full length shot in the table, I hope it matches his space well, and that he likes the style.

Let There Be Glueing

2010-08-06T15:07:00.000-04:00

I've reached a major milestone, no not image number 1220, but I've finally finished all the work for the frame and glued it up. It went pretty easily though I'm a touch out of square in the horizontal plane. Just a few more parts to make and finish, they time to fiddle with finishes in an attempt to match my parent's den woodwork which is pine stained a deep brown/red that has aged a lot and taken on some blackening from the fireplace.

Simple Shelf Instillation

2010-08-04T17:53:00.000-04:00

Drilling the screw holes, I love this little eggbeater.

Marking the holes with a birdcage awl, then drilling and screwing into the drywall with these awesome anchors, they can screw right into drywall, brick, stucco, cinder block etc. with a 3/16th pilot and hole 250lbs. each (except in drywall). I can't find them online and I don't have the box anymore, but I'll post a separate write-up on them later.

Finished product, with the tools used to lay out, drill and hang the shelves. I can't say enough about those fasteners. I've only ever used mollies or drilled through to studs but these things are great. (No I didn't get payed to say that, I wish)

Simple Shelves

2010-08-02T11:24:00.000-04:00

I started by cross cutting the tops to length and sawing/chiseling the dadoes.

Then I laid out the cavetto shape on the supports. I only drew one, nailed the waste together and sawed both supports at once.

Sawed out on my new Saw Bench with a fine coping saw blade.

"Wrong" dovetails for the stretchers. I'm proud of the fits here, no chisel work!

Finished shelf, one with pegs one without. I'll post pics tomorrow after I install them.

Sawbench Finished

2010-07-31T17:50:00.000-04:00

Now I have a place to put my D-8 thumbhole ripsaw, sweet. Aside from that it's gappy, bust solid, and level.

Coffee Table Dry Fit

2010-07-31T17:47:00.000-04:00

Dry fit, it's taken a while, but I'm finally here. I have to flatten the top, make shrink buttons, and chamfer the edges. Then I can glue an finish. We've opted out of a drawer due to certain clutter tendencies my mom has. That certainly simplifies everything for me.

Coffee Table Part 4 Drawer parts and Top

2010-07-21T16:39:00.003-04:00

Sitting on the mocked up frame are the rest of the pieces needed for the project. Three boards to be glued for the top, the bottom long rails, front long apron, and a piece of maple on top for the drawer box.

Here are halves of the drawer bottom, 1/4" poplar being rub glued with hide. I heard about this technique from the Logan Cabinet Shop in an episode on the Tea Table, and I really like it.

Coffee Table part 3.5

2010-07-19T18:18:00.002-04:00

Because I only did a bit of work today before I got hired in the lumber department of HomeDepot, and ran over there to pickup some maple and poplar for the drawer, pine for a pair of shelves my grandmom wants and the Aug issue of Popular Woodworking featuring a sweet Roubo... oh an sign the paperwork I need to actually work there...

Here is the coffee table mocked up, I say that because the long bottom stretchers under the shelf aren't there, and I still have some fitting and front apron/drawer to do, before I can say that it's a done frame.

My free time will take a dive now that I'm employed, but a budding furniture-design/builder-wanna-be-shop-teacher has to earn his money somewhere.

Coffee Table Part Three

2010-07-18T15:03:00.003-04:00

I started today with parts that I cut a few days ago, these are the mortises for the apron. I'll get a better picture that shows how the parts fit together inside of them in the next post.

The end rail, the end of the tenon is mitered to fit against the other tenon inside the mortise.

Okay, I cheated, I'm using a DeWalt and a sweet little forstner bit to rough out the mortises, I was afraid of the screw biting through the other side. I like this method of mortising over all chiseling, it's much faster, and doubly so with a powered drill.

My lovely girlfriend, who was in the shop coppersmithing some jewelry, stopped to take this photo of my and the finished end. It's really hot here, so I'll be working less frequently than I usually try to.

Coffee Table Progress

2010-06-15T01:14:00.002-04:00

Today I did some work on the coffee table. It was late, but I had been doing housework all day so I needed to do something fun before clocking out. I chose to joint and glue up the bottom shelf of the table. Doing this jointing on the floor might seem odd, but worked fairly well (I don't have enough bench space) I moved most of the power tools into the boiler room, now that I've worked with hand tools I like them much better.

These are the boards after trimming and glued up, the grain isn't all that similar but it's the bottom, so I wasn't going to be picky. The pipe clamps are from "Horror" Freight with pipe from the Borg, cheap and great workers, can't beat it. I'm using liquid hide glue, partly because I'd like to be as traditional as I can and partly because I like being old school. Show me something that was "done-like-this-back-then" and I'll try it, just because it's not new (even though LHG is).

The last think I did around 9pm tonight was to cut out some oval Shaker box templates and finish one of the forms. These seem fun and handy, so I'm going to build forms and get materials together to experiment. I'm putting together some small things I can make in a little apartment with a minimum of tools/noise etc. for my anticipated move to rural PA for grad school. I hope to get some items on my Etsy, which I promise will get updated. Someday. I'll post when I list things there.

Mini Plane Finished

2010-05-31T18:54:00.000-04:00

Victoriously standing on some conquered wood, ironically walnut. This little guy is made from walnut if you recall the earlier posts about the build. Also this one. There's still some fettling to be done, he chatters and but and the blade needs a better edge.

Here's the signing of the iron. the iron might be too short, It's a bit hard to adjust. I might remake one that's longer.

Practice Double Dovetails

2010-05-31T16:32:00.000-04:00

Here is the first set of dovetails I've ever done, I want to build some infills modeled after Speirs and Norris style planes. I know I know, finish things on the list before adding more. I just can't help it. I ran into some problems with the size, I didn't have enough overhang for the peening, and because the tails were so small I couldn't get my file into the joint to form them properly. Lessons learned.

Sawbenches

2010-05-28T17:29:00.001-04:00

Here's my Borg haul, I raided the cull lumber pile for wood for my sawbenches, lot's of 2x12 and 2x4, mostly nice looking. The girl rang it up as "green" colored, $.51 per piece. Awesome. The paint and stain is for a deck and siding I'm redoing at a friend's house. The guy there said they aren't allowed to stock 4x4 doug. fir at their store, only cedar and pressure treated, isn't that stupid, I got some 2x8's to rip and laminate for the legs.

I didn't grab a picture of ripping the 2x8's and cutting to 20 inch segments for the bench, it's not nearly as bad as you think, I had some problems with the set on my D-8 rip, it's a little fine for softwood I think. So I used my Marples Ryoba, which I really like. The rip cam be described as, "butter".

Clamping strategies and motivation to build these from Bob Rozaieski during his workbench build. Yes, that's a picnic table. It racks a little, but it's so much more fun to be outside in the sun rather than being in out cramped, particle board "bench-ish" area in the basement.

Here's the first leg, the other front leg is clamped and drying in the 4 Jogensons I picked up two weekends ago. There is going to be quite a hodgepodge of joinery in this bench, mostly so I can practice different joints, these are really the first non dado/rabbet joints I've done all by hand, there are some gaps but I hope by the second bench they will be much better.

Coffee Table Design

2010-05-27T14:35:00.000-04:00

Here's a coffee table that I'm being commissioned to make for my parents house. It's 18 inches tall, 42 inches long and 18 inches deep. White oak, with some sort of dark finish, maybe fumed? There are still some details, like the drawer to figure out. It's styled after some mission furniture they looked at getting back in February.

Here it is with the top and shelf removed. M&T joinery throughout, what do you think of the runners for the drawer? I think they are a little unorthodox, but simple and easy to do. The legs are 1.5 inches square btw.

Lastly, here is a cut-away of the leg/rail joint. The rails are 3/4 inches wide. After this gets built, I need to design a matching entertainment table.

Quick Stanley #75 Rehab

2010-05-22T18:12:00.000-04:00

I stopped at a barn sale today, the sign was for last weekend :( it didn't matter I still walked away with cool stuff, he's having another sale next week. I can't wait.

I got 4 old Jogenson handscrews and a Stanley #75 Bullnose rabbet plane, keeping with the animal theme here's a little squirrel tail (I'm making a thicker iron and integral lever cap for this) my grandmother gave me as part of my graduation gift (also got some crazy small drills and a jointer's toolbox. I'll do a write-up, don't worry.)

Here are the ground (sorry no pic yet) and masked parts ready for some poor mans japaning. The original japanning was about 85-90% but I like fresh and clean looking so... Someday, when I have a sandblast cabinet and I experiment with actual japanning, I'll refinish all these tools I've faked. But that won't be for a while.

Now with paint! Yes that's a Q-tip for keeping paint out of the screw hole. It was fun, lapping the sole and sides plus painting and dressing the iron a little bit took little over an hour. It was a fun short project to do considering I have some big things ahead of me: Building a coffee table and entertainment table for my parents, building a kitchen table for a friend, about a zillion tutorial/toolmaking projects, a saw till, a plane till, selling my tiny horizontal mill after I get parts off of it for my tiny lathe, and selling my SB 9A and tooling/material/spare castings when I don't need it to rebuild the little lathe. Whew. I'm tired already

Bench Chopping Block

2010-05-21T20:33:00.000-04:00

I've made this chopping block to protect my (future) workbench, because right now it is prettier than the particle board workbench we have now. It's a 3/4" maple plywood board laminated to a little longer 3/4" MDF board and a maple block glued in for chopping or paring operations that could use a stop.

Like this, paring part of the wedge for the Mini Plane, I used liquid hide glue with the "rubbed joint" method and no clamps. I really like the hide glue, I've talked about it with some full time production furniture makers and he hates the stuff, I wasn't sure but gave it a shot. I like it, I guess it's the weird-archaic-old-schoolness of hide glue that gets me. That and you can take it apart.

Mini Plane-Shaping, Iron and Wedge

2010-05-21T15:46:00.000-04:00

Cutting the 1/8" 1095 steel plate to size. I buy it in 8"x 12" sheets I cut the one down to manageable strips before I left school. After this I file the edges square and fit it to the plane body. I also lap the back.

I've got candles on my workbench, I use them to light blowtorches etc. I blackened the back of the iron and set it in the body, set the wedge. Now I can see exactly where I need to remove material. It's a little slow going, and I have some more to do. The bottom shows what it looks like after the first markup.

Here I'm profiling the wedge into something a little more comfortable. just done with a chisel, I like the look, and keep Krenov's words about how it should just be comfortable in mind as I pare.

Here we are, all that's left is to grind the bevel on the iron and harden it. Then some fettleing and wax and we're done.