The Woodshop Bug

More Boards

2012-02-05T13:38:00.004-05:00

What I've been working on: another maple cutting board, this time with an embellishment. The reason that one of the walnut runners goes all the way though is because my router slipped towards the end of the cut (due to operator error, nothing wrong with the machine), and ended up cutting all the way through the board.

Completed Stool

2011-12-30T11:42:00.005-05:00

Well it's been exactly 4 months and 2 days since I last posted- but I haven't stopped woodworking. I wanted to finish up the stool project and I just rushed ahead with it, instead of documenting it thoroughly. So here it is:
This year as a Christmas gift, I made a small cheese board, from the wood that I rescued from the city dump. It has walnut runners dadoed into the bottom.

Conductor's stool update

2011-08-28T13:01:00.010-04:00

Well it's been a long time since I posted, but I've been away and rather busy. I was in central Europe for a couple of weeks, then a short stay in New York City, then another week on lake Ontario. So far this summer has been very good. This is a picture of a festool saw being used in a construction site in Dresden, just thought it was funny that they would use this for construction. When I stepped into my shop for the first time in two weeks, I discovered not only rusty tools (even though I oiled them up before I left), but that a bird had gotten into my basement shop, pooped everywhere and died. This was disgusting.

New York was fun, even thought I didn't get a chance to visit Tools For Working Wood, I spent some time in the Met, saw some Nakashima furniture, the skyline from the roof, and the cemetery that Bernstein is buried in.

The lake was very nice as well, we did lots of walking, reading, and canoeing. We did visit the MacLachlan Woodowking museum, but it was very small, and I wouldn't really reccomend going out of your way to see it.

For the conductor's stool, as I write this, the final phase of the base glue up is setting. I first glued the side assemblies, then the two sides together. This minimized the amount of rushing around and panicking I had to to get the base all glued up.

It's Here!

2011-07-02T17:25:00.004-04:00

Another power tool has crept into the shop, somehow avoiding the hand-tool force field. This is the first hand held power tool that I have ever bought in my life: the Bosch Colt palm router. I don't know if owning this tool officially takes me out of any hand tool cults, but I certainly hope not. I bought this tool because of the ease in which it accomplishes tasks not fitted for hand tools, such as stopped dadoes, dadoes in general, and things such as breadboard ends. These tasks are doable by hand (I've done them before), but are tedious and time consuming, and often don't turn out too well. So far I have been very impressed with how it runs (or gallops), I did some research online and most agreed that this palm router is the one to have. I ordered some whiteside bits, and bought the router from Lowes. Lowes was having some kind of special, so I got a free upcut spiral bit for free. I hope that this tool will allow to me to work faster, so I can get more projects done.

68 days...

2011-06-29T17:02:00.005-04:00

...is the number of days in which a single new post has not appeared on this blog. That's slightly embarrassing. I am inspired to write this new post because it was requested by one of my readers as a place to go when they have real work to do (and want to avoid doing it). Because one reader is the significant majority of the people who know about or read this blog, I feel it is my democratic duty to write a new post.

I have continued to work on the stool project, I am learning that making every joint a through mortise and tenon is not speedy, but will be worth it. I tapered the legs on the bandsaw, cleaned them up, and cut the upper joinery (which I don't really seem to have a picture of). The lower stretchers I clamp in place and trace the front scribe line using the legs. Completed sub assembly:

I also was distracted by some boards I cut a while ago that had been peacefully sitting in the corner until now. I decided to make a clock; the main wood I believe is maple with some kind of stain in the middle (if anyone knows what this is I would love to hear from you, if this helps, it smells reminiscent of defecation), the dots are walnut pegs, the hands are wenge. To mill this horribly cupped piece of wood I first flattened the concave side, and then took it to the bandsaw, referencing off the flat side. I am pleased with how it came out.

And if there happens to be a particularly astute reader he/she may be wondering on the mission lamp stand that I had blogged about previously. Well here's the situation; I called a local electrical store and had them order the appropriate part. They said they would call when it came in, which was going to be about two weeks. Now I don't know if they just forgot to call me, or if that lonely lamp harp is really sitting somewhere in a box, presumably being shipped via Andean llama, and has not arrived. In this situation most people would just call the company and inquire on the part's status. In classic woodshopbug fashion however, I have forgotten which electrical company I ordered it from, and am too lazy to call around to make any inquiries.

Later this week I am BUYING A NEW TOOL, so stay tuned.

Conductor's Stool

2011-04-22T15:30:00.003-04:00

My next project is a stool, made from walnut. I made a prototype, out of some luxurious pine, and have begun breaking up a large piece of 8/4 walnut.

Shop Tour

2011-03-23T13:32:00.006-04:00

What Has Been Going On?

2011-02-27T15:39:00.003-05:00

Nothing much. I seem to have been hit with a combination of lack of shop time and lack of shop projects, so there really hasn't really been much activity in the shop. I have been working on finishing up a large maple cutting board, and a lamp base for a stained glass lampshade, whose hardware hasn't come in yet, so it is unfinished. It was made using left over walnut from various projects (one benefit of doing different projects out of the same wood species.

Shop Upgrades

2011-01-08T12:07:00.002-05:00

Believe it or not I have actually been much more busy during December than it might seem.

I remade the moving dog part of my wagon vise, making it more robust, and with a better fitting dog. I really should have made the block using lamination the first time, it was much easier and is more precise.

I also figured out a way to play my ipod through an old boom box we have, which makes a much bigger sound.

For christmas I got some woodworking gifts including a 3" granite surface plate. When not in use it is good for adding extra weight to my bench.

I also discovered that the lower thrust bearing for my bandsaw guides has completely seized up, so I will need to replace it, possibly today.

Small Holiday Gifts

2011-01-07T22:11:00.000-05:00

This year for christmas I made some knives for gifts. I only have pictures of two for now, but I will post some more pictures later. The top is made of african blackwood, the bottom is cocobolo.

New Wenzloff Website

2010-12-01T22:26:00.000-05:00

A while back I made a saw using a kit I purchased from Wenzloff and Sons. While I had no problems getting exactly what I wanted, Wenzloff and Sons has a new and improved website, and I am very impressed with the information, and options available. I think that every small tool company should have a site as good as theirs (hear me St. James Bay tools?). Without this being a shameless plug for a quality sawmaker, they are also offering $20 off of all shipping until December 15.

Folding Knife Kit

2010-11-11T16:26:00.000-05:00

For a gift, I made my sister a folding knife. I bought the kit from KnifeKits.com, which was $25 plus shipping. Here is a pictorial of the assembly process:

Small Update

2010-10-06T17:30:00.000-04:00

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted very much lately. This is due to the fact that unfortunately I have had barely any time in the shop recently. Today I am recovering from oral surgery and cannot do much. But I have taken some pictures for your perusal- enjoy.

Newly turned on heater that makes woodworking in upstate Ny winters possible.

Wood that I have cut.

Almost finished butternut music bookshelf.

New Grizzly grinder ($35 including shipping!).

Left end of bench.

Right end of bench.

Drill chuck I cut out of an old cordless drill that wouldn't hold a charge.

Allows me to use small diameter bits with my drill press.

Better Drift Adjuster

2010-09-06T16:59:00.000-04:00

I know that you're probably all tired of more bandsaw stuff, but I thought that I would share my method of improving my fence. Before I had used washers to shim the fence, but I began to find those annoying and coarse to use. So I tapped a hole for a thumbscrew into the t track. I can now correct for drift with almost infinite angles.

Homemade Log Milling Tutorial

2010-08-26T21:57:00.003-04:00

Due to popular demand I have videoed my process of how I go about turning a small log into lumber. In this sequence I am using a 6" diameter sycamore log, which is smaller than I usually do, but honestly it was the best log that was at the dump. First I drive two screws into the side of the log to hold the log to the sled. Note that I am using a scrap piece of wood as a spacer to lift the log up above the clamps that are holding the jig to the bandsaw table.

When I build a new and improved version I will build the auxiliary fence wide enough so the clamps will not interfere. This jig is made from old particleboard drawer, and the frame of a old screen door. The sled (which also doubles as a resaw fence) slides along a track. The base can be adjusted for drift and the log's size.

The blade I am using is Highland Woodworking's Woodturner's 3/8" Bandsaw Blade (105" length). The jig is aligned with the blade to cut where I want it to and is squared to the fence bar which has been adjusted for drift.

I have a video of the first cut, I apoligize about the quality, I was having problems uploading the non-condensed version. It's not the most scintillating, so I understand if you skip to the end.

After a flat face has been established I reference the newly cut face off a fence, in this case my regular bandsaw fence because this log isn't wide enough to need a tall resaw fence. Note how in the beginning the log bucks a little. This is caused by the log not resting securely on the table. I should have flipped it around to cut from the other side, which would've been more stable.

With the lumber cut I paint the ends with latex paint and sticker them for drying. Also I was sure to clean most of the sawdust out of my saw because the wet sawdust will cause rust on unprotected parts. Even from this small of a log quite a bit of sawdust was made.

Home-milled Wood

2010-08-25T16:52:00.001-04:00

In case anyone's curious I have posted pictures of some wood I have cut so far on my bandsaw. I'm hoping to go get some more logs later today.

Wood

I also have a picture with the new guide post installed.

Nicer Photos

2010-08-15T18:39:00.000-04:00

I decided that I should take some nice photos of my side table. They turned out okay, not bad for the first time with a bedsheet in the doorway.

Bandsaw Fence Drift Adjustment

2010-08-07T12:28:00.001-04:00

Edit: I have now posted my improved way of drift adjustment here.

When I posted about my homemade bandsaw fence, I neglected to show how I compensate for drift. In order to slightly adjust the angle of the fence to the table I add (or subtract) shims, in this case washers, in between the table and the t-track.

Homemade Bandsaw Fence

2010-08-05T09:53:00.001-04:00

I made this rip fence for my bandsaw using 5/16" T-slot track (2'), T-bolts (2"), cam clamp, thumbscrew thingies, and T-nuts. The T-track is screwed to the front of the table using existing tapped holes. Edit: Later I posted about how I adjust for blade drift here. The fence has a detachable auxiliary fence (the white part) so at some point I can make a low profile fence, and maybe a high profile fence. The white fence pictured here is about 4" tall. As you can see I use the cam clamp, and a knob to secure the fence. In the future I will replace the knob with another cam because I find that the knob's rotational movement occasionally causes the fence to shift when I am tightening down. The wooden bar on the far end of the table is to support the fence when it is off the table. Later I added the miter slot cut-out to the T-track.

Next I added a brush to the wheel. it is made from a old nylon brush. Everything is epoxied together.

Wenzloff Saw Kit Completed

2010-07-21T13:40:00.003-04:00

I finally completed the handle for the Wenzloff tenon saw kit. It's bubinga with some coats of Watco's oil/varnish mixture. I am very pleased with the results. Bob Rozaieski made a great video of making a handle for a Wenzloff kit on his podcast. These kits are a great way to buy quality saws at a great price, provided that you are willing to make the handle.

Man vs. Log

2010-07-15T11:07:00.008-04:00

Edit: later I built a better log sled here

With the riser block installed and the bandsaw's height capacity increased to 12", I did what I probably shouldn't: actually use the full capacity. I wanted to take a log and turn it into usable lumber. So I went down to the local log dump and took (stole?) a maple log that was about 3' long and 11" diameter. After I took it home I realized that it was way too heavy to maneuver onto my bandsaw. So I had to cut it in half. The only problem is that since it was too heavy for the bandsaw, I was going to saw it by hand. Did I mention that it is 11" and maple? To add to that, the only saw that was coarse enough is a 12" long saw we use to cut down our Christmas tree with. So after getting shirtless and flexing my muscles for the neighbors, I began to cut. It took a really long time. Eventually I got to a point where all was cut except for a 4" diameter core section. So I bashed it with a rock and broke the core section. Before I started milling I painted the ends with latex paint to reduce moisture loss through the end grain.

To begin milling lumber, there must be one flat face. This can be achieved by a number of ways. I chose to make a jig that rides in the miter slot and is screwed into the log. Once the log is split in half, a high resaw fence can be used to make the slabbing cuts. Make sure your fence is correctly adjusted for drift. My resaw fence is part of my log sled. The blade I used is Highland Woodworking's Woodtrner's Bandsaw Blade, which is specially designed for cutting green lumber.

After the lumber is cut I weigh it and write the date and weight on the end. Every couple of months I will weigh them again. When the weight stops dropping I will move them inside where I will continue to weigh them. One they stop losing weight inside they can be used for some projects. Right now they are stacked and stickered under my porch with a cinder block on top to try to resist warping. This was not a total victory over the log however. Even though the log was reduced to slabs, it got in some good hits. While slabbing the second half one of the bearings in the middle pulley (the bottom one in this photo) seized up. After ordering some replacements from McMaster, the saw was up and running again. Here are some of the boards I cut:

Grizzly Riser Block Install

2010-07-10T11:38:00.005-04:00

Shortly after I bought my bandsaw I bought and installed a Grizzly riser block. I didn't know if it would fit my saw since my saw is not a grizzly saw. First impressions were not great as the instructions were crumpled, but everything else was packed nicely. It didn't really matter since I had already read the instructions online.

To begin installation I stripped down the saw, and unbolted the bolt that connects the top half to the bottom half of the saw. Then I dropped in the riser block, after drilling out the paint that was in the bottom holes of the riser block with a 1/4" bit. After this slight modification the block fit very well.
Then I placed the top half back on and slipped in the long bolt supplied with the kit. Then I reassembled the saw which included putting in the new blade guard on the left side of the saw. This is well made and fit nicely. The one thing that I knew wouldn't work was the replacement guide post, as the one supplied with the kit was round but the one I needed was a hex shaped post. Other than that the kit worked very well. After this I ordered a blade from Highland Woodworking that is specially designed to cut green wood. Why green wood? Stay tuned.

Video on how to install a riser block:

Shop Additions

2010-07-06T12:45:00.003-04:00

A while back I bought a bandsaw. Some readers might be surprised because "aren't you the all hand-tools guy?" Well there are certain things best not done by hand, for example resawing. The saw is a small 14" 3/4 HP import that I bought used for $170.

The next thing is a stand for my drill press. This was on my list as I got tired of kneeling down whenever I wanted to use it. It's made of 2" x 4" construction lumber. The drill press base is offset because I realized after I built the stand that the center of the drill press's gravity should be in the middle of the stand.

The third and final project was to make a lumber rack. It too is made of construction lumer as well as leftover wood from a packing crate.

Workbench Improvements

2010-07-05T11:57:00.004-04:00

After seeing Christopher Schwarz's post about his latest workbench, I was inspired to make a tool rack on the back of my bench. It's made of poplar with a 3/4" gap. I also added a shelf to my bench which was on my list for a long time. It's made of 1"x 10" pine that I bought at Lowes for about $9. The shelf sits on two pieces that are screwed into the front legs (for the front one) and to the side stretchers (for the back one). Now why didn't I just screw both of them to the legs? Well since I still want my bench to be knockdown, in order to take out the shelf first when breaking down the bench, the shelf will have to rotate and then slide out the side of the bench, so the shelf stretchers cannot be the same size as the interior dimension of the legs. If they were I would have no clearance to rotate the entire shelf. If this sounds confusing to you, don't be worried because it's really not that big of a deal. The individual shelf pieces have a 1/2" wide rabbet so they can be ship lapped. Each shelf piece is nailed in the center with an about 1/16" gap in between each board (use pennies as spacers).

Side Table- Finished!

2010-06-26T09:05:00.004-04:00

With the top done, I moved on to securing the top to the base. I used low profile wooden buttons in the front, and glue blocks with enlarged holes for the back. With that done, I moved on to the finish. For the first two coats I used a mixture of 1 part oil+varnish, 1 part varnish, and 1 part mineral spirits. This creates a wiping varnish with a little bit of oil. For the base I added one coat of pure wiping varnish. For the top I added 3 more. I think that overall the project came out pretty well, there are some imperfections, but they are pretty minor. Here is the table next to its "sister" table.

Table Top

2010-06-24T09:02:00.003-04:00

For the table top I am using two boards about 8" wide each. First I match the grain in the best way possible, and then I joint the edges and glue them together. Then I flatten and smooth one side, and just flatten the other side. This side will be the bottom. In order to lighten the look of the top, I put some bevels in. They are marked out with pencil, and then just planed to the line. Start with the two sides that are cross grain first.

Drawer Build

2010-06-13T19:55:00.006-04:00

With the runners glued in, I began to work on the drawer itself. I first selected a nice piece that will become the drawer face. Then I planed the edges it until it fit exactly into the drawer opening. Then I planed the sides so they would both glide smoothly on their respective sides. Then I cut a back piece to exactly the same width of the drawer front, but it is about 1/2" narrower. This allows the drawer bottom to slide into position. Then I set the distance for my plow plane' fence (with 1/4" blade) to exactly the same width as the back piece. Then I always reference the fence against the top side of the drawer parts. This makes them line up perfectly. The dovetails are the cut, thorough ones in the back and half-blind ones in the front. Make sure to space the tails so they cover up the groove in the front. After the drawer is done gluing, I plane the outsides until I have a smooth fit. The drawer bottom is made from 3/8" thick poplar. It has a 1/4" rabbet in it that allows it to slide into the drawer. When rabbeting thin sock like this, put some sort of batten across the top of it to keep it flat. For the knob I had to turn my own using my bungee lathe I posted about a while ago. Luckily all I had to do was rough it out as the tenon on the end allows me to chuck it into the drill press for easy sanding. The knob hole was drilled on my drill press so I could use my 1/2" forstner bit. The knob is glued and wedged in by a small rosewood wedge. The drawer is finished with shellac, except for the drawer front which was varnished.

Whoops

2010-05-30T13:30:00.004-04:00

I realized that I haven't shared what I've been up to in a while, so here goes. Here is epoxy tinted with black acrylic paint that is filling a knot hole in the breadboard shelf. The breadboards were made using the same technique that I used for the stretchers. The ends have a groove, and a matching mortise for the breadboard tenons. The ends are also slightly longer than the shelf so they can be mortised into the legs. Here is a shot of the mortise being drilled in a leg. It was later squared up. Before assembly I made some small mortises in the inside of the stretchers.

These will accommodate the buttons that will affix the top.

This is a picture of the dry fit, which is very important.
And a picture of the actual glue-up: I did this in two stages, first I glued the long stretchers in, then after they dried, I glued in the back-stretcher, the front drawer runner, the other thing that goes above the drawer (that's the technical term for it), and the breadboard shelf to the legs.

With the base done, I turned my attention to the drawer. First I glued some runners onto the inside of the stretchers. I also put in some drawer guides. These have a small rabbet that allows me to trim after they are installed by only using a block plane on its side. If there was no rabbet, I would have to use a plane whose blade extends the entire width of its body in order to get right into the corner.

Mike Wenzloff Saw Kit

2010-05-07T20:22:00.005-04:00

A while back I ordered a saw kit from Mike Wenzloff. After some helpful emails he helped me decide what exactly I wanted. I ordered a 16" tenon saw kit, with about 11 TPI (I can't remember the exact toothing), sharpened rip. The entire saw including shipping, sharpening, and saw nuts, was $75, which is an amazing bargain.

When it arrived it was 100% worth the wait that is associated with most custom made tools. As you can see, my kit came with 3 saw nuts, the saw blade (without the holes drilled in it), and a pattern for the handle. The quality on this is amazing, especially considering the price.

I have a piece of nice bubinga that I might use for the handle, but right now, I'm going to focus on the side table project, though I might be able to fit in making a handle for this beast.

Mike Wenzloff's Web Site:
http://www.wenzloffandsons.com/

Shelf Glue-up

2010-04-13T21:32:00.004-04:00

To make large panels, you have to either buy stock that is wide enough, or you must glue two (or more!) boards to make a wider one. For the shelf, that is exactly what I did. First I flattened one face, and squared one edge square to the flat face. I do this to both boards. To do the glue-up, I have the flat faces facing down on another flat surface (in this example, my saw bench) and put some clamps across the joint. The small clamps and holdfast help keep the flat faces from moving and potentially bowing of cupping. After the glue is done drying, I flatten the face that I flattened before, to make one flat face on the panel. Then I scribe a line of desired thickness, referencing off my flat face, and plane to the line. Finish up with a smoothing plane.

Measure Once, Mark Twice

2010-04-07T12:36:00.006-04:00

Relative dimensioning is a very important concept. When I make my design, I know that my final product will not have exactly the same dimensions as my design. No one cares if the side stretchers are exactly 18", or if they are 17 61/64" long. The eye will not notice this. The eye will notice gaps however. This is why I measure once, and mark twice. First I measure out the distance between tenon shoulders for the left side stretcher (18"), and then I lay the right stretcher next to it and mark a line next to where I just marked. This way, I have two stretchers with the critical dimensions identical. I do this for most of my components, usually measuring once with dimensions from my plan, and then transferring these marks to other components. When you are doing this you must keep track of your reference faces, and only reference off them. This will ensure consistency. A reference face is a part of a board (ex. the face, the edge, the end) that you know is exactly flat and square to the other reference faces on the board.

Using the techniques explained above, I got a lot done on the table. I started with the legs, sawing them out, and then planing them down to 1 1/2" square. As you can see, I didn't notice a large crack in one until I cut it out, which annoyed me because it's a lot of work to cut them out.
The leg to stretcher joinery is fairly straight forward, it's all mortise and tenon. To make the tenons, I tried out a new method. First mark a heavy line for the shoulder. Then pare away some material to make a vee groove. This makes a very clean shoulder line when you go to make the crosscut shoulder cuts. The line for the shoulder is transferred all around the stretcher (remember to only use the reference faces to reference your square). Then I make the shoulder cuts and chop out the bulk of the waste with a chisel.
After the waste is chiseled out almost to the line, I switch to the router plane and make light passes to reach the line. This is one exception when you can work off a face that isn't a reference face. To cut the back of the tenon (on a non-reference face), you can reference the router plane's sole against the face, because the tenon will be trimmed again later.

This makes a very nice, consistent, and square tenon.The mortises in the legs are drilled out and cleaned up with a chisel.

New Mobile Site

2010-04-04T15:00:00.002-04:00

I just created a mobile site for my blog, if you're on a iPhone or whatnot, you should be able to read my blog easier. It should automatically redirect you if you're one such a device. Let me know if you don't like it.

Next Project!

2010-04-02T18:17:00.004-04:00

For my next project, I will be building a shaker-style side table. Here is my design, it will have tapered legs like the front right leg in the sketch. I'm still experimenting with what taper looks best, I think that I will try a more subtle one. I have mapped out where all the components will come out of the boards, and have broken down and stickered the boards. For this project I tried a new lumber supplier that is much closer to my house. I have never seen so much lumber in one place before. It was so much fun, they had outbuildings full of all sorts of stuff. The only thing I didn't really like was that the boards were kind of hard to sift through to find one I really liked. I bought two 1" thick walnut boards, and one 8/4 walnut board, and one board of poplar. The widest board I will use for the top and shelf, and the thick walnut will be for the legs. The leg board is really nice, it's almost perfectly riftsawn, and even has a subtle curl to it. Unfortunately I had to cut it by hand, which took a while. I started by gluing the panel for the drawer together. It is a spring joint, and I simplified the glue-up by doing it on my wagon vise. This keeps everything flat.

Small Coffin Smoother- Part 2

2010-03-27T15:44:00.000-04:00

As I left off, the plane was gluing. While the glue set, I worked on the rosewood sole. This involves cutting a hole for the blade to protrude through. I took some pictures, but someone (who will remain unnamed) deleted them. I'm sorry, because not only did they include visuals of what I'm trying to explain here, they included the answer to life, the universe, and the reason that my Pb & J sandwich is always squished.

To begin I drilled a series of small holes where the mouth will be. Then I connected them with a fret saw, and filed them flat. It is essential to leave the mouth too small, this can be opened up later. The bed angle needs to be worked into the back of the mouth opening. I made a ramp with the same incline as the bed angle, and used that to guide my chisel to make the cut. Leave the entire sole oversize, that can be trimmed down later. The sole is glued onto the body (after the surfaces have been smoothed and flattened) using epoxy. It is very important to align the parts accurately. I drove really small nails into the plane body, and clipped the heads so the protruded out about 1/16". This reduces the amount the sole will shift while being glued. Let the epoxy set according on what open time the package says. I didn't, I un-clamped it too soon, and the epoxy failed. So I had to re-glue the corner that came off.

The wedge is a nice looking design, but a hassle to make. It is at 10 degrees, to match the other angles. I sawed the angle out, and used my float (carefully!) to smooth the mating edges. With this done, I shaped the top portion using chisels, my float, and sandpaper. After the wedge, the plane is essentially done, I shaped the sides into a coffin shape, with a block plane and finished up with sand paper. To ensure crispness of all the details, I sanded first, and then cut the long chamfers with a spokeshave, and the short chamfers with my float. I flattened the sole of the plane with sandpaper and gave it two coats of oil.

Now onto the fettling. I was having problems with shavings just bunching up, and not being fluffy and nice. I opened up the throat area, removing any material that might have caused bunching, and tried it again. Definite improvement. Then I tried opening the mouth slightly and bingo! Nice easy planing. Here is a group shop, so you can see its size. It's really small. I can't tell a really big difference between this plane's resultant surface and my Stanley #4's, but it is a handy size, and works pretty well. One thing I don't like is the weight. I have to press pretty hard down onto it in order to get a good cut. But for a first wooden plane, not so bad!

Leather For Workbench

2010-03-20T15:50:00.003-04:00

I added some leather to my leg vise, and to my dogs. I can tell that the gripping power is much improved. I also built a new shooting board. It is more robust, and has a low friction plastic strip screwed to it so the plane's side will slide smoother. And lastly, I cut off part of my wagon vise hand crank because I was tired of it protruding above the bench top. That's all for now, I have to figure out what to do with all of this leftover leather.

Instant Bungee Lathe

2010-03-17T22:00:00.005-04:00

After seeing a post on the Woodworking With Hand Tools blog, I was inspired to make my own end-vise lathe. I found this article all about making and using this kind of lathe. Here is what I made: As you can see, the bungee cord is strung parallel to my bench, with the power cord tied to the middle of it. The power cord (blue in my lathe) wraps around the piece being turned. The cord goes through the gap for the wagon vise and is attached to a foot pedal. There are two wooden dogs with blunted screws that pinch the workpiece.
Before I built this lathe, I thought it would be inefficient, as you can only cut on the down stroke, but in reality you develop a nice rhythm.

The piece I am turning is dogwood. Be sure to at least make your piece into an octagonal shape, otherwise it will be too rough.

I would like to make some improvements to my set-up. First I want to make a better tool rest. I also want to make a more substantial foot pedal mechanism. I also want to experiment with different kinds of rope for the power cord (my current one is nylon, which I've heard is slightly slippery).

To see more videos of pole lathes in action, see Robin Wood's Youtube Channel.

New Podcasts

2010-03-04T21:20:00.003-05:00

I watch all the free woodworking videos that I can get my hands on, and am very pleased that the world of high-quality woodworking podcasters is slowly growing.

Rob Bois has recently added the videos from his blog to iTunes. For me, this simplifies video watching considerably. He is in the process of documenting a cherry jewelry box.

Another podcaster who I've been watching is Bob Rozaieski over at the Logan Cabniet Shoppe.
He has been documenting a Porringer Tea Table build- all with traditional hand tools. He also has some great episodes about different types of tools, and how to use them.

These are two more woodworkers who are nice enough to take the time to film, edit, and post videos in their shops. Be sure to check them out!

I have way too much time

2010-03-01T17:15:00.002-05:00

Workbench Tips and Updates

2010-03-01T16:35:00.004-05:00

After working with my bench for a while, I have made some minor changes to it. First I added thin maple springs to my dogs, which is something that I had been meaning to do for a while, but I hadn't gotten around to doing so. While working on my coffin smoother (which is almost done!), I cut my hand on the edge of my vise chop. Apparently the chamfers were too sharp! So I rounded over the top edges of my chop (except for the side that clamps the work). You can still see some blood on there. Next, I drilled another holdfast hole near the left end of my bench. This I will use for doing tasks such as chopping out dovetails an mortises. When I do tasks such as dovetailing, small stock dimensioning, mortising and tenoning, I like to have different stations set up for different tasks. As you can see in the photo, I have the right end of my bench with different stations. From left to right: shooting board and plane, bench hook and crosscut saw for crosscutting, wagon vise for face planing. In this photo I have the right end of my bench set up for dovetailing. I have a piece in my leg vise, and a piece ready for chopping on the left. The holdfast is in the new hole.
I also made some purchases. I bought a Hock plane blade for my #4, some forstner bits, and a small float. Here are two 1/4" holes drilled by the forstner bit, and a twist bit.

And finally a new project! This is a rough design, I think I will go with the leg on the front right. It will have a drawer, and possibly breadboard ends. I'm not sure which what wood I'm going to use, maybe walnut, cherry, or soft maple.

Wooden Coffin Smoother

2010-02-26T12:10:00.008-05:00

So how many projects can I have going at the same time? Ummm...

Taking a break from the small smoother because I lost a drill bit that I need, and I won't be able to replace it for a couple days, I started a new project: a coffin smoother. It's inspired by the Philly Planes Classic Smoother, and by Bill Carter's Wooden Planes. I am using the rest of the plane blade from my infill plane. The construction will be exactly like Derek Cohen's Jack Plane tutorial. Be sure to check out his writeup because it's much more comprehensive than mine. I'm using walnut with a rosewood sole. To begin, I cut out the pieces for the center of the plane. Since I don't have thick enough wood, I'm laminating two flatsawn pieces to make a quartersawn piece. This center piece must be slightly wider than the width of the blade you're using. For the side pieces I resawed a quartersawn piece so both boards were 1/4" thick.Using a marking gauge strike a mark 1/4" from your reference face (the side that is flat) and plane until you hit the mark.

Then I cut the bed angle (50 degrees), and the wedge angle (60 degrees). (Whoa cool shoes!) The bed must be dead flat and square. I used a block plane and finished up by lapping it on sand paper. The front piece is then excavated to provide space for the shavings to escape. I made some saw kerfs, did some chopping and cleaned up with my new Iwasaki float. The wedge-holding-thingys are then undercut with a flush cut saw and waste is pared/filed out. Then I glued it up, and left alone. Stay tuned for part 2, where I will probably do some more stuff.

Back Story on the Shave

2010-02-20T11:46:00.007-05:00

A while back, I bought a small wooden spokeshave blade with the intention of making a spokeshave. I bought an gabon ebony blank, and went to work. I worked on it on and off for a while. One thing I have to warn any wooden spokeshave makers is to not use such a hard and unforgiving wood (such as ebony) for your first shave. At one point I managed to crack the entire front portion off, luckily I was able to repair it seamlessly. On the other hand it makes such a nice shave, the ebony is very hard and dense, so it beautifully takes a polish. This was the first time I had used ebony like this, so I wanted to make sure to not mess up the finish. So I consulted my fellow galoots on woodnet to see what they thought. Here's what they came up with:
What Finish for a Ebony Spokeshave
I chose to go with a combination of buffing, shellac, and wax. This is a picture of the finishing products used. A buffing wheel charged with brown tripoli (it looks green because I had been using green honing compound prior to the tripoli), dewaxed shellac, and wax. Technically I should include alcohol because I used it to thin the shellac, but I forgot. First I sanded the shave up to 600 grit. Then I buffed it with the tripoli, until it looked good. Then I put on three coats of about 1 part 2 lb. cut clear shellac to 2 parts alcohol, buffing in between. The final layer is a coat of wax, also buffed. I'm really happy with this finish, I plan on using it on more tools.

Now to the blade. The blade comes dull. The bevel and the bottom do not totally meet at the cutting edge as can be seen by this highly advanced drawing:
This is what is wanted:To achieve this you must grind away the excess to make the sharp point. I did this freehanding it on my grinder. This is a drawing of the most desirable situation. Usually on a conventional blade I would do this step with my honing guide and coarse diamond stone, but the spokeshave's threaded posts prevented me from doing any serious grinding on the bevel.As you can see, this makes the non-beveled side become like a hollow ground blade on a conventional blade like this:

The advantages of the hollow grind are that it reduces the amount of steel that needs to be taken away to sharpen, which makes the process quicker. After doing this to the bottom of the shave blade, I was able to achieve a sharp edge.

The blade I bought from The Japan Woodworker came with a photocopy of David Charlesworth's article on making a spokeshave. Unfortunately they didn't actually photocopy the entire thing, so I had to go to the library and rent the book the entire article is in. I also used this article by John Gunterman. Both were very helpful.

This tool will prove to be very useful in upcoming projects.

More Pictures

2010-02-17T20:08:00.000-05:00

Ebony Spokeshave

2010-02-15T20:10:00.000-05:00

Just photos for now.

Saw Bench

2010-02-13T14:59:00.003-05:00

One of the "secrets" of fast hand sawing is having your work elevated at an optimal height. This may not seem like a big deal, but it really makes a difference. This is my saw bench I made out of construction lumber. The short bottom stretchers are drawbored, and the long stretchers are wedged through tenons. The legs slip into the top, and are pegged with 1/2" oak dowel. Note the artistic license I took by creating the two saw cuts on the left. The top has a 3/4" hole drilled for my gramercy holdfast. The hole is situated so that the pad falls on the top of the leg, which is the strongest part.

Infill Plane Blade

2010-02-09T22:00:00.003-05:00

I got the blade and cut it out, using a carbide-grit hacksaw blade, and refining the shape with my diamond stone. It took a long time. The blade has a 25 degree bevel, with a 30 degree micro bevel. It was slightly wider than 1.25", so I sanded the sides down to be slightly less, in order to allow for lateral adjustment.

Fillister Plane

2010-02-06T13:10:00.005-05:00

I bought this plane a while ago, but haven't gotten around to posting it here. It is a wooden Hoey and Taber skewed fillister plane. This means that it can cut rabbets, and rabbets across the grain. The blade is skewed to make it cut smoother, especially across the grain. It has a strip of boxwood at its long edge (called "boxing"), a brass depth stop adjusted from above, an adjustable fence, and a nicker to score the grain prior to cutting it when planing cross-grain. So far I've only used it one project, and it works pretty well, but I'm still getting the hang of using wooden planes. This plane was the reason I made my plane adjusting hammer. Here are some shots of what it cuts:

I also looked up the planemaker's adress, it appears to be a HSBC bank. Too bad it's not still a planemaker's shop.

Tissue Box Cover

2010-01-31T17:55:00.003-05:00

Last Christmas I made my sister a small box. I also made my aunt, uncle, and cousin a cover for a tissue box. It's all 1/4" thick quartersawn red oak, all from Lowes. In the second picture you can see where the sides were glued together to make a wide enough piece. The top and small sides are glued down the middle. Here are the pictures of the box in its new home. Thanks for the pictures Victor.

Plane Drilling Jig

2010-01-17T16:17:00.002-05:00

I made this jig to accurately hold the plane parts together as I drill into the sides for the screws that hold everything together. The sole goes on the top, the sides are clamped to the sides. The middle piece is exactly the same size as the interior if the plane.

The base piece gets clamped into the drill press vise like so:

Making a Lever Cap

2010-01-16T13:58:00.006-05:00

I roughed out the lever cap, first cutting out the bottom of it, at an angle, to reduce work later. I cut from both ends because I'm not very good at hacksawing to a line. Then I used coarse, and fine files to shape the round-over, then sanding through the grits to 600. Then I feather cut perpendicularly to the curved shape of the top half of the lever cap, and sawed out the waste with a fret saw. Then I used a round file to smooth the concave curves, and a flat file to smooth the convex curve (at the top). I used the edge of a triangle file to cut the step by the cap screw, this is a purely aesthetic choice, since in my opinion, if everything had been co-planar, it would have looked boring. To be able to sand into the tight corners, wrap a piece of sandpaper around a file. This is a trick I picked up from reading Karl Holtey's blog.

After the cap has been uniformly sanded to 600 grit, I start the polishing. I took a 1/2 diameter piece of oak dowel, and made a split in one end, about 1" deep. The I took a thin strip of paper, and folded it over onto itself. This I applied veritas honing compound to, since I don't have a nice real wheel yet. It worked fine. The hole for the cap screw is drilled for a 10-24 thread.
Derek Cohen's write-up about lever cap making.

Some posts of Karl Holtey's Blog:
Window to my Workshop #7
Window to my Workshop #8
Window to my Workshop #21

Drill Press

2010-01-03T14:39:00.002-05:00

I finally bought a drill press, it's been a tool on my list to buy for a long time. It will likely be the only stationary power tool in my shop, besides a hand held drill and a grinder. It has 12 speeds and a 5/8" chuck. I've already used it to drill into brass, and it works very well. I need to make a stand for it however, as squatting on the ground isn't very fun.

New Year, New Saws

2010-01-02T13:54:00.003-05:00

Recently I bought some saws, a tenon saw and a carcase saw. I also completed the handle for my half-back saw. As you can see, I have polished the saw in the center. The dovetail saw I bought when I first started woodworking. It has a large chip in the blade, but it still works okay. Sometime I'm going to buy the Gramercy dovetail saw kit. Both of the new back saws are Spear and Jackson. The one with the brass back has a leapfrog stamp, and has an etch that says that it was made specially for T E Jay Tool Merchant, Chichester. I'm going to re-handle the carcase saw, but no the tenon saw(the brass-backed one). The carcases' handle it not very comfortable, and plus, I can make a handle that will be like this!

Small Infill Plane

2009-12-31T13:00:00.004-05:00

I decided to finally build a infill plane. First I made a mock-up, to see if it will be usable. Here's the first version.

Reading Derek Cohen's writeup about building the Brese Small Smoother kit got me wondering about shavings clogging in the throat. So for the second version, I moved the back infill backwards, and put a radius on the back of the front infill. This increases throat size.

Right now this is probably what I'm gonna make. To follow the entire thread, go here.

Christmas Gifts

2009-12-30T20:17:00.003-05:00

This year I built a maple box for my sister, and a quartersawn red oak tissue box cover for my Aunt and Uncle. I don't have a picture of the oak box, but I do have a picture of the maple box. Both boxes are dovetailed using my $4 Japanese flush-cut saw. The maple box has a sliding tray.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

2009-12-24T16:31:00.002-05:00

Thanks to everyone for reading, I apologize that I haven't posted for a while, but I have been hard at work on making gifts for tomorrow (I'm not even done as I type this).

Hope you and your family have a peaceful holiday season.

Making a Plane Adjusting Hammer

2009-12-04T18:21:00.004-05:00

After I started using my new fillister plane, I decided I needed a real plane adjusting hammer. This is what I came up with, not exactly a groundbreaking new design, but easy to make and works well. The head is made of 1/2" brass rod, with a 1/2" long ebony facing on one side. The ebony is attached by a machine screw that is tapped into the brass and the ebony. This is where a bottoming tap comes in handy. Unlike a normal tap, which doesn't have complete threads towards the front end of the tool so that the tool can be started easily, the bottoming tap has threads that go all the way. It is used after the normal tap has threads established. This allows threads to be cut all the way to the bottom of the blind holes, thus making it the strongest possible. The two pieces are joined with the addition of epoxy. The I drilled the hole for the hammer's tenon. This is tricky because the hole must be drilled into the curved side of the brass. So I took a piece of scrap pine, drilled a 1/2" hole in it, and a perpendicular 3/8" hole that intersects the 1/2" hole. This guides the drill bit and prevents wandering. I aligned the hammer head up with hole and drilled it out. After letting the epoxy set, I trimmed down the ebony, using the brass rod to reference my chisels off of. I domed each face of the hammer with a file. The head gets polished to 600 grit.The handle is black and white ebony, made into an octagon. When making an octagonal handle, it's best to rough it out with something like a block plane, and go back later with a smooth plane and clean up any tearout. Use a very thin cut, and a sharp blade. the handle is about 7" long. I formed the tenon that goes into the hammer head, and planed a taper into the top to make it look better. Then the hammer head is epoxied on, and the whole thing got three coats of shellac.

What I've Been Doing

2009-11-21T11:56:00.004-05:00

I have been woodworking since my last post, I just neglected to post anything. I've been working on a sawbench, it is modeled on Christopher Schwarz's saw bench, and also on my normal bench. Instead of the legs that slant outwards, mine go straight down, as not to interfere with the saw. The top will be 32" long, and 20" tall.

I also have been working on my sawhandle. It's getting along.

And finally, I won a much needed fillister plane off ebay. It has some problems with the blade however, and I will most likely have to make a new blade. The current one works, but not as well as it could.

Shop Made Grooving Planes

2009-11-05T18:07:00.002-05:00

Got an email from FWW yesterday with this in it.

Shop made grooving planes

Workbench-Finished!

2009-10-29T19:51:00.003-04:00

I apologize for not posting earlier, the workbench has been done for at least a week. So here it is. Note where the bench is. This weekend I plan on moving it to the far side of the room, and adding better lighting back there. I will post more pictures soon.Now what's this, pills in the shop? No, it's a jojoba oil applicator made from an old pill jar and a old t-shirt. Works great, but may raise some interesting questions...

Leg Vise

2009-10-12T12:57:00.006-04:00

For my workbench's front vise, I went for a leg vise. This is simple and cheap to make. Mine has a 2" thick hickory chop and a old vise screw I got for $8. I made the slot for the parallel guide bar, but some how it ended being way too big, and the bar was too loose. To fix this I clamped it to a large square block of wood, and then put a bunch of slow-setting epoxy in, and some wooden wedges. Ater it dried, I pegged it. It doesn't look great, but it is stout. Since my wooden screw is so beat-up, I decided to use a system first shown on Jameel Abraham's Blog where the guide bar slides on two small wheels, thereby taking the load off of the screw. (He later turned this into one of his products at Benchcrafted, the Glide Leg Vise.) I used small caster wheels that I cut from swiveling casters. The first one I installed was the one behind the leg, it is not adjustable. Since my side stretcher is so low , the wheel is mortised directly into the leg. The front wheel is in a wooden bracket which allowed to adjust it up and down to achieve optimal results.

In this photo, the back wheel is not visible, because it only sticks out about a 1/16" from the stretcher. The location is marked by the protruding nut.

To drill the 2 1/4" clearance hole for the screw I used a hole saw. I had never used one before, and discovered that it works much faster if there is little pressure. The chop could be drilled all the way through, but the leg was drilled from both sides. The garter, the piece that locks the screw in so that when it is released, the chop will travel backwards, is made from 1/8" thick aluminum (it's blue from layout liquid). Since the garter slot is not flush with the shoulder of the screw head, I had to mortise it in. The extra space to the top of the garter is essential. This allows it to be installed and uninstalled.

The nut for the vise screw is lag bolted in. The location is very simple to mark, just tighten the whole thing down, and mark.
I left the chop a little long so I could trim it flush with my bench top. At first I used my LN low-angle block plane, then my Stanley #4, both with poor results. Then I used my Stanley #6, which worked perfectly. It is a very solid tool, and I think that the weight helped give it good momentum to push through the cut.

Sliding Deadman

2009-10-11T16:32:00.004-04:00

The sliding deadman's job is to support long boards on edge by either resting the board on a peg or a hold fast. To make mine, I flattened a pine 2" x 8", and rabbeted the top, 5/8" from the front. There is a matching groove in the bottom of the benchtop that is 5/8" from the edge, and 5/8" wide. It is also 1/2" deep, which is the deepest my plow plane goes. This poses a slight problem, as most plans I've seen have the deadman come out by deepening the groove, and having it slide up and then over the bottom. This is why I made the tongue removable, by two screws, I didn't want the tongue to be less than 1/2" long. The bottom track is shaped like a 'v', if I had made a groove, it is likely that sawdust and shavings would have collected in the corners, and not allow the deadman to slide. The bottom 'v' groove was very hard to make, I chopped it out with a chisel, and other tools.

Wagon Vise

2009-10-03T15:43:00.003-04:00

For my end vise I decided on an wagon vise. I think I could have gotten away with out one, but I thought it might be nice to have. Benchcrafted sells a very nice version of a wagon vise, but I just don't have that kind of money. The screw I used is sold through Lee Valley as a veneer press screw. It is pretty simple, the screw pushes a dog block which has a runner that slides in two slots under the bench. This screw was tricky. The flange, the part that was supposed to mount onto the dog block, has no holes or anything that allows it to be attached easily. So I made an oak piece that slips over the flange and is screwed to the dog block. Now I need to head over to the kennel for some dogs...

You Should be Blogging

2009-09-15T18:13:00.002-04:00

99 posts ago I wrote my first post to the woodshopbug. I have had a lot of fun. I have become very famous (Brad Pitt invited me to one of his parties, but I turned it down since it was a school night) and have learned a lot. The reason I started was that I couldn't find a good blog on exactly what I am interested in. (I have since- see Notable Woodworking Blogs at the right of this page.) So this brings me to what I want you to do. Go to a blog host; wordpress, or blogger, and start. I use blogger because it's the first one I found, but I think that with wordpress you can make a more complex page. Either will be fine. Then start writing about what you do in your shop. Unless you stop woodworking (gasp!) you will always have something to write about, and therefore have no excuse for not posting.
The only tips I can think of about posting are to try to include pictures (in-action ones are even better, but not anything dangerous), don't go off in long rants, keep it concise, and proof read your post, spelling counts. Lastly send me an email about your blog,(thewoodshopbug@gmail.com) and I will link to you, which is not that big of a deal, but it's a start.

Making Toothed Blades

2009-09-09T21:22:00.004-04:00

In the recent Popular Woodworking, there was an article about using toothed blades (see Deneb Puchalski demonstrate them here) and got to thinking how that might be a useful tool, but all ones they were selling were upwards of $60. That's a lot more than I wanted to spend. So I decided to make one. I used a .035" thick 1" diameter cutoff wheel(part # 4550A121 at McMaster-Carr) with a 1/16" arbor. I then shimmed the bed (where the glass is), until it was about 1/32" away from the edge of the wheel. I turned it on and let it rip. I didn't get the teeth in very far, but I think it is enough. I think I could maybe make the teeth more evenly spaced if I used some sort of indexing system.

Making It Knockdown

2009-09-06T12:17:00.006-04:00

I realized the necessity of making a knockdown bench about halfway through the design process. Otherwise, I would never be able to get the bench out of the basement. For a bench to be knockdown, the goal is to turn it into 5 pieces, the top, the two side assemblies, and the two long front stretchers. Also the bench has to be just as stout as its non-collapsible counterparts. I bolted through the legs into the front stretchers, where I have a matching nut embedded in it. That was the easy part, but the problem was still how to attach the top to the base. At first I planned on making through tenons, like the traditional Roubo (see this stunning specimen), but then reality set in. So I decided to make a sort of cleat system that is bolted to the underside of the bench. I have completed this, and it works very well, I made 1" long and 2" square tenons on the top of the legs, but they were probably unnecessary.

Most of the ideas were from Christopher Schwarz's free chapter on knockdown workbenches.

One year Anniversary!

2009-08-27T21:16:00.003-04:00

I just realized that the one year anniversary of thewoodshopbug has come and gone. Awesome. I'll save the mushy sentimental stuff for my 100th post (two posts from now).

Czeck Edge Kerf Kadet- Review

2009-08-25T22:15:00.006-04:00

A marking knife is a simple tool- or is it? My first marking knife was an craft knife. This worked pretty good, but had an old dull blade, and was not long enough to mark in between dovetails. So then I made a marking knife that I blogged about in February. That was okay, an upgrade from the craft knife, but it had two major flaws. The first is that the tip of the blade was rounded, not pointed. At the time, I didn't realize it was that important. With a pointy blade, less of the knife has to be in the work to scribe the same depth of a cut as a rounded tip. This enables the knife to not stray from where you want to mark as much because it's less likely to follow the grain. The second flaw was that it looked terrible. Okay not that big a deal, but it annoyed me.

So now we come to the Kerf Kadet. Mine is in Macassar Ebony- $41.95. Let's start with the blade. It's 0-1 steel and is 1/32" thick and 1 5/16" long. This is a very nice set-up, all bevels are very crisp. The blade cuts very cleanly.

The handle's grain is more visible that I expected, never seeing this ebony before in person. It is very striking(no pun intended) has a great shape and has a very attractive finish. The bronze ferrule is very nice too.

Shown here are test cuts in pine and walnut.
A good marking knife is very important in the shop; it's more accurate than a pencil, and will even help you saw straighter. I highly recommend the Kerf Kadet from Czeck Edge. It is available from Czech Edge, and Craftsman Studio.

P.S.-shoutout to cornell dairy customer!

The Legs Are In

2009-08-18T17:44:00.005-04:00

The top is all done, dogholes are cut, and tenons are glued and pegged with 3/8" oak pegs. I made a lot of progress on the bench's undercarriage, the legs are mortised into the top with 1" long tenons, those blocks coming out of the top of the legs will be lag-bolted to the top. They too are mortised to the legs. The legs in the rear photo might look weird. That's because I goofed and on the right, I made the mortise's edge at 16" from the end (correct), but the left one was 15" (incorrect), so the stretcher was offset in order to be parallel. I bought some 2" hickory for the vises. I also bought some more tools, a LN 102, and these microplanes, which I used to shape this handle (which is still in progress). That's all for now, I am now going to focus on the wagon vise.

Refinished #6

2009-08-07T17:40:00.006-04:00

I recently bought and refinished a Stanley #6. I used the techniques illustrated in these three sites:
Plane Fettling
Rex Mill Hand Planes 101
Hand Plane Restoration
Pictures from before I started are here-Ebay

Bench Work

2009-07-30T19:58:00.007-04:00

I did a lot more work on my bench, I crosscut the beams to length, and chopped sixteen 7/8" wide, by 1 1/2" deep, by 2" long mortises. It was fairly easy, I just drilled two 3/4" holes, and chopped out the rest. The pine was pretty soft, so this went along quickly, and I didn't worry about bruising the sides, as they won't be seen. I then fitted the 8 loose tenons, they are white oak left over from the footstool project. I then turned to the dog holes, 3" from edge to edge of each other. They are 1" square, and angled slightly towards the wagon vise. Here's how I make their doghouses.
Two sawcuts, another saw cut, another sawcut, chiseling out waste, then cleaning up with router plane.Since it is cross-grain, it is best to use a V-blade, but mine isn't very sharp yet (more about that in another post), so I used the 1/2" straight blade, and scored the corners of this dado with a knife.
More distractions-Gramercy Handlemaker's rasp with hand cut teeth,
-1/4", 3/8", 1/2", and 5/8" #50 cutters that I got from ebay for very cheap, and they were practically like new. I highly recommend their seller-gandmtoolsales.

Today Was a Good Day

2009-07-18T14:08:00.005-04:00

Alternate titles:
Power Tools Are Fast
On the First Week of Christmas( I made up lyrics, but they didn't make the cut)

Today was a very good day. I got my top milled, (thanks to Chris) and my package from Lee Valley arrived. I also got my hair cut, but I don't think anyone really cares. The beams turned out even nicer than I thought, Chris was kind enough to mill all the boards really well. They turned out to be about 3" thick, and about 5" wide. Perfect!
Just as we were coming home, my fedex package arrived. (Side note, free shipping until the 19th from Lee Valley.) I got rulers, router plane blades, a dial caliper, a book, letter+number stamps, protractor, plane blades, countersunk washers, and some dehumidifiers.
I took the beams to the shop, and figured out an orientation for the boards. Check out the streaking on this one piece-

Stanley # 50 and Drawer

2009-07-12T17:13:00.003-04:00

At an antique mall, I recently spotted a Stanley # 50 beading/plow plane. I expected it to be way out of my price range, but it was marked at $26, which is an okay deal, only that it was missing its beading depth stop, normal depth stop, one nicker, and all of its blades. When I disassembled it I lost the other nicker. Damn. The only parts I really need however are the depth stop and the blades (duh). I've ordered some off ebay, and they should be coming soon.

Since I haven't really been doing much woodworking recently, I decided to make a drawer for practice. It's all made of pine that I re-sawed from scrap from my workbench, and about 1/2" thick. I think it turned out well, except for a couple of things. First, I glued the drawer front on upside down. The other goof-up was less controllable: there were some gaps in my dovetails. I made the drawer-bottom grooves with a chisel, but this turned out kind of raggedy, but not too bad. Now I have to think of something to put in it...

One more piece of news, with all the dovetail chopping, I managed to bend my chisel, which is my favorite chopping chisel- it has great balance and sharp side corners. I don't know why this would happen.

Half-Back Saw Blade

2009-07-03T17:19:00.007-04:00

I had a old saw blade kicking around for a while, and I decided to use it. I've always wanted to make a backsaw, but I hate cutting teeth. Also I didn't know if what I had in mind for a spline would work. I decided to make a prototype. It actually worked! There was only one problem, the saw blade was funckily shaped, too thin and short for a panel saw, too thin for a tenon saw. So I made my own saw: a cross between a table and a halfback saw. To begin I had to take off about 2" from the top of the first part of the saw. I did this with a thin cutoff disk in a drill, guided by scrap wood, all in a vise. Then I cleaned up the edges with a small grinding wheel, and roughly cut the transitional curve with a hacksaw, refining with the wheel. Then I cut the profile at the end, refining with files. I then moved onto the spline. It is cut out of a brass door plate. Leif Hansen has a very good write up on bending splines, and an alternative way(by lamination), is shown by Tim Hoff. The final way, that many modern companies use, it to mill a slot in solid brass, but that is impossible to do without proper tooling. My method is very simple, and requires little tooling, or jigs. I first cut out the brass approximately 1 1/4" by 5", and scored a line down the middle (the tip of a spade bit works very well for this). This is not to make a place where the back will start to bend, it is just a guide for bending. Do this on what will be the INSIDE of the back. To start the bend, use a brake, a nifty metal bender, or simply put the brass in a vise, the top of the jaws lining up with the scribed bending line, and bend it slowly using pliers, working from one side to the other. With a slight bend established, I moved to the metal working vise, using the clamping pressure to bend. The next few shots are what it looks like after a while. Now the brass is ready for hammering, an anvil is handy, but not essential, I used the flat area behind the jaws of my metalworking vise. Medium hammer blows focused at the top do the trick. With the back bent, I tapped the spline off so I could work on it, beginning with the end detail, and flushing up the bottom. I then moved on to cleaning off dents and scratches, this took a long time. With the back polished to 220 grit, I cleaned off rust from the saw blade, unfortunately it was pitted, and did not all come out. Some advise: use a rust-free blade to save yourself much trouble. I then hammered the spline back onto the blade, starting at the handle end, making sure not to make anymore scratches or dents, and then polishing to 600 grit. Now all that's left is the handle.

As always a great saw resource-Old Ladies

Workbench Legs

2009-06-19T15:14:00.006-04:00

I've been working on my workbench, I have all the legs made! Each leg is laminated from 3 pieces, except for the last one which is only two pieces. That one will be in the back right corner. After the glue was dry, I leveled each leg out , and jointed it. The front stretchers will have to wait to made once the top is done, they are too long to work on my bench.
I also purchased a router plane. It is a Stanley #71 1/2, less fancy than the 71, but whatever. It has a beautiful patina, the nickel plating is gone, and underneath there is a bronze-colored plating. It only came with one blade the 1/4", so I will have to buy some new ones. I know that Lee Valley sells them. The other bad thing is that the cutter adjustment wheel is made poorly, the tapped hole is off-center, causing the wheel to bind up when turned. To fix this, I filed the cutter's slot, making it bigger. This causes more backlash, but at least it works smoothly.

Sharpening the Mortising Chisel

2009-06-12T19:31:00.003-04:00

I finally sharpened my mortising chisel, I had been waiting for a package from the Japan Woodworker (in retrospect I shouldn't have expected fast delivery from a company on the other side of the country). I bought a DMT 335 8" x 3" diamond stone, and a honing guide. I know that the honing guide might be controversial, but for sharpening, there are two options: buy a honing guide, or use a grinder for a hollow grind. I have a grinder. It is noisy. It is messy. Now I have a honing guide.
The diamond stone, I don't think is so controversial, it works great, and is very reasonably priced. I use it for truing up waterstones, and for grinding a primary bevel. Here is a group photo of my sharpening arsenal:
The water bottle is very important, it speeds up sharpening by a lot. I play trombone, so I have this bottle floating around. Someday I'll upgrade my bevel gauges, something better than balsa wood would be nice. I also made a jig for repeatable settings on the honing guide, I post that in a later post.
This all brings me to the project at hand; the mortising chisel. I first lapped the back, then worked on the bevel. The bevel was tricky, it was chipped, and had a curved bevel, the opposite of a hollow grind. using stones would be too slow, so I switched to my grinder. I ground the bevel until there was about a 1/16 flat area at the tip, since I have a 4" wheel I didn't want to make too weak of an edge. At this point, I discovered that I have a laid-steel blade, which is a blade that consists of two steels. The harder one is at the bottom, and the softer one is at the top. This is not common in modern western-style tools, but this technique is still used in many Japanese edge tools. The rest of the bevel was then ground at 35 degrees.

When Blogs Die

2009-06-07T22:12:00.000-04:00

Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest

Hot Dog Handle

2009-06-04T19:52:00.003-04:00

Recently I was practicing my shooting technique(no, not on the neighbor's dog), but I noticed that my hand kept rubbing uncomfortably on the wing after a while. So I decided to make a handle like the one Lie Nielson offers. I used the idea of Derek Cohen's. Mine is different in that I don't have a lathe, so I only shaped some of the thing. The handle is shaped like an "L", part of the leg has a large kerf(made with my panel saw). This slips onto the wing.

Mortising Chisel Handle

2009-05-13T18:56:00.004-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I bought an old mortising chisel with apple handle blank off eBay. It was from hendo304200, who sells lots of chisels, and turning blanks (which often sell for low prices, nice). On a suggestion from Stephen Shepard, I decided on a octagonal handle. Surprisingly this turned out to be the hardest partthe finished shape looks like something a kindergardener might draw with a ruler. Since the handle has a socket, the first thing I did was clean up the end, where some idiot had been using the chisel without a handle. I used a small grinding attachment in my drill, and ground off the mushroomed steel. I then attempted to make a octagon. Giving up on that, I moved on to the important part, the mating part. Basically, I sawed shoulders, as I would for a tenon, and then roughed out a cone with chisels. I then scribbled on the inside of the socket with a soft pencil, so when I trial fir the handle, I could see the spots that needed trimming. This entire process was surprisingly easy. For the top, I slightly made a slight domed end. The handle has Formby's Tung -Oil finsish, which is a oil-varnish blend.
Handle making articles

Non-power(no lathe)
Rehabilitating Old Chisels
Rehabilitating Old Chisels(it's different, I swear)
Rehandling An Oval Bolstered Mortice Chisel

With a lathe
Making Chisel Handles
Making Chisel Handles(again, it's different, these authors need some new titles!)
Making Tanged Chisel Handles
Chisel Handle with Leather Washers
Socket Handles

Workbench Update

2009-05-02T12:24:00.002-04:00

Here's what I've been working on. All the major rip cuts are done, one of the wide boards is the deadman, the other is two stretchers. I cut everything with my most coarse saw, which happened to be crosscut(not in any pictures, sorry). For the leg and stretcher laminations, I built some clamps. They are just square boxes I screwed together with 2 wedges. The slope of the wedges is about 1.75":15". They work suprisingly well, with the wedges pounded in place, I cannot budge any of the boards, not even at the ends. It will be interesting to see how the do with glue.

Holdfasts

2009-04-19T10:57:00.005-04:00

I just got my pair of Gramercy holdfasts. I took advantage of all Gramercy tools being 10% off, ending 04/30/2009. This is for Tools For Working Wood's 10 anniversary. I envy my grandchildren who can take advantage of their 100 anniversary.

I tried the holdfasts, and they work great.

Marking Gauge

2009-04-18T19:18:00.005-04:00

I have wanted to make a new marking gauge for a long time. My first one I built was sub-par. For my marking gauge #2, I wanted to fix the first's shortcomings. This is one thing that is very important in toolmaking. To know what you want to make, and how you don't want your tool to perform. The problem is that you probably won't get it totally right the first time. So what do you do? Do you buy more fancy materials, or do you just live with the tool that works, just not as well as it could? As a hobbyist, sometimes I can't justify making a new one. Prototypes sometimes help, sometimes not. Back to the marking gauge, my old gauge locked down securely, but the "blade" was a sawn-off nail that wouldn't stay in place, so the gauge didn't mark a clear line. Also, the body always seemed too shot to register well on the work. In the new gauge I fixed these problems.

To begin I selected a 3/4" thick board about 6" long. I cut a rabbet for the wear plate, and then trimmed the body to final length: 4". I made a mortise, for the arm, and for the traveller. It is very important to make the arm oversize, and then to plane it down to a fit where it slides smoothly with no play. The locking mechanism is illustrated in the picture. Both the nut and thumb nut are epoxied in, the nut embedded is not. this means that when I turn the thumb nut counter-colckwise, the traveler will travel away from the plate of brass. The wear plate is secured by 3 steel screws that were filed flush. The blade-holder is crude looking, but works extremly well. There is a small groove cut in the end of the arm. This holds the blade and prevents it from moving left to right. The center screw in the brass clamps the blade in. The blade is a old jigsaw blade.

Plane Lateral Adjuster

2009-04-11T17:44:00.003-04:00

The lateral adjuster was made in place of a old pressed-steel one. It is made from a brass push plate used for doors, I picked it up at an architectural recycling store. Bring along a magnet to determine if the piece is solid or brass-plated. The adjuster is made from 3 parts, a circle, a long piece, and a semicircle. They are all glued together with epoxy, and held in position by a screw tapped into the frog.

It's a block plane, sorta

2009-04-10T17:18:00.005-04:00

This blog hasn't exactly been known for hot breaking news, but I see Lee Valley has introduced a new product, the small scraping plane. I'm sure reviews will follow it at the usual sites.

Veritas® Small Scraping Plane

Toolcase: Finished

2009-04-05T16:29:00.004-04:00

For the finish, I used high-gloss tung oil, and paste wax. All of the walnut got 3 coats of oil over 3 days. I use a t-shirt as an applicator. For the wax, I use a t-shirt to wipe on a layer, and let it sit for about 30 seconds. I then buff it out. I didn't oil the painted portions, even though the paint package says you can, when I tried, I failed, so I only rubbed on some wax.

I apoligize for the not-so-good photos, I went outside to get some better light than the weird creepy light of my basement, where this piece will hang.

Bad Description

2009-04-03T16:56:00.003-04:00

Nothing woodworking related just funny(to me). I just checked my statcounter, and on the recent keyword page someone came to my blog searching for "bad description of a woodshop". I think that pretty much sums this blog up, bad(ass).

More Workbench Materials

2009-03-31T18:47:00.002-04:00

I went out and bought some construction lumber for the base today. I really wanted the 12'' x 16' pieces, but the wouldn't fit on the car. They're mostly 8" wide, and 10' long. One is 10" wide. I 'll find a better place for them and let them acclimate while I work on the top. I also cut about 2" out of the leg vise screw. To splice the screw, I drilled matching holes and used a dowel as a floating tenon. I then pegged the dowel so it wouldn't break. On the left is the piece I cut out. It has no threads on it at all.

Plane Restoration

2009-03-20T12:41:00.002-04:00

To begin, I disassembled everything, and cleaned out any dirt I could get to. I sanded the levercap, starting at 220 grit. If the cap is not too bad, I'll use a higher grit to begin with, as it makes less work later. With that done, I move on to the circular parts. Here is the setup I used for everything circular. The adjustment wheel is fastened to a piece of threaded rod. With all the cosmetic work done, I started on the performance enhancers. The frog's face must be flat. I lapped it on the edge of sand paper on glass, in order to work around the lateral adjustment lever. The bottom of the frog and its mating surface on the body must be flat as well. I then worked on the body, lapping the bottom and sides. The blade that came with the plane was not square ground, so I reground it and sharpened it. The last thing that must be dealt with is the chipbreaker. The front must be an airtight fit with the back of the blade. To ensure this, I sanded the leading end at an angle.

I then took it for a test run. Not bad for 1 1/2 hours.

Latest Purchases

2009-03-18T18:15:00.003-04:00

Here are some things I just got. The first is a large bench screw, it's 24" long, has a 2" diameter and is 2 tpi. As you can see in the photo, it's threads are very chipped, but I plan on cutting the worst bit out. To fill the large cracks, I used epoxy. I'll use it for a leg vise. Because the screw isn't extremely smooth, the parallel guide will be on rollers, as stolen from Jameel Abraham. The plane is a #4, type 8(I think). I bought it off ebay, and it isn't quite what I expected. I planned an buying a plane with all the parts, just really crappy, so I could overhaul it and not feel bad. This one has about 95% japanning, and it's handles are really nice, therefore I will only touch the metal, and electrolysis is ruled out(it will bubble the jappanning).

I will post my progress with it.

Secret Project

2009-03-08T12:30:00.009-04:00

I apologize for not blogging more about this, but I figured that I would do a really nice job the next time, and I wasn't sure how this would turn out. Here it is, a Stanley #3 Handyman. It was my grandfather's. All the parts are clean or polished, except for the lever cap. There isn't much I can do for it. For any eagle-eyed readers who have already noticed, yes, there is no lateral adjuster. That is because I made one, but I haven't installed it yet.
In use, the Handyman is lighter than my Groz #4(which is even heavier than my Miller Falls #5). Its frog does not have alot of contact area, so under certain circumstances, I got slight chatter. Otherwise, I really like it, the handles had been painted, I scraped that off and exposed the beech handles underneath, and what I really like is that the tote is about 1/2" taller than my #4, which make it much more suited for my hand.

RexMill Handplanes 101

Blue Phase

2009-03-07T15:59:00.004-05:00

The case is all painted up, now all I have to do is install the hinges, and the tool-holders. I actually went out and bought a bunch of nice screws, but they are either too short or too long for what I need them for. Darn.

Roubo in Sketch-up

2009-03-01T10:05:00.005-05:00

This was my first project I have modeled on sketch-up. In this model I have left out the crochet, but on the real thing I will add one. all the dark gray parts will be ash. the 4 top pieces will be held together with nine blocks that will be like large floating tenons. They will be pinned through. The wagon vise uses 4 ash rails that the traveler moves on. On the facing sides of the traveler, I will have two blocks of ash slightly below the surface. I hope this will allow me to clamp some pieces there. I made the legs dovetail/tenon into the top so the bench can be disassembled. The lower front stretchers also will be bolted into the legs.

Sketchup for Woodworkers

Workbench Height

2009-02-18T15:50:00.003-05:00

To determine the height of my workbench, I put the beams on saw horses, and nailed in a stop. I then propped up the pieces until the planing felt right.(I also did some other things, chopping, etc...) I came up with a height of 33". The small fact that I could be alongside the work helped so much, and has made me really pumped for this thing to be done.

Update on surfacing, I did the other beam today, it only took me an hour.

Planing Rough Lumber

2009-02-17T17:01:00.005-05:00

The beams have been resting for a while, and I figured it would be good to flatten out 2 sides, so they could be on the bed of whatever cutting machine I decide to use. I will then use the sawn portions facing up, and the rough planed sides will be next to each other. Since I have two 7' pieces, that's 4 sides I need to do. Furthermore, to ensure the top is at the maximum thickness, the side I have to plane is really rough(the beams aren't square). In the end, this will give me a top 20" wide by 3" thick by around 78" long. I've done two sides, and it takes about 45 minutes for each side. There's probably an easier way, but this is all I could come up with.

For photographic purpuses, I will start on a new side, and only work on the first 2'.

To plane, I set the beams on saw horses. I nailed two small nails into the horses, and clipped their heads off. These grab the work.First, I begin with my block plane and take off the extreme high spots.Then when I can, I move to my jack plane. At first I had a blade ground straight, but it became horribly chipped after a while. I took this opportunity to give the blade a large camber.More work.
And finish with a jointer plane. I know that there will be some low spots, but I can live with that, since this won't be the top.

Prior to planing, I made sure to remove all the nails, and unsurprisingly, I found cut nails, which was kinda cool.

My advice to someone making a bench, is that it's worth the extra money to get lumber in better shape, even if it's just construction lumber. Also if you don't already know it, Shannon Rogers is building a roubo bench as well(a lot nicer than mine), over at his podcast The Renaissance Woodworker and Jameel Abraham has built an excellent bench, and documented it all at his blog. (And of course I can't leave out the author a great book on workbenches, Chris Schwarz at his many blogs, Lost Art Press, and Woodworking Magazine. His blogs provide an abundance of links, and information on benches.)

Bevel Up Plane-Finished!

2009-02-14T18:34:00.004-05:00

Finally, it's finished!

But now, where I left off.

For the lever cap, I decided against a keyhole, instead I just drilled a clearance hole.(This is why it took me so long to finish, my 3/16" bit stopped working, and I got a new one today.) The threaded rod was epoxied into the sole, and the bottom is lapped, though the flatness is not quite what I want it to be, but I'll do some more later. The blade was sharpened, and the board was planed.

An interesting project, I'll post more later on about its performance, and how I like it, and how I would improve on it.

Making Thumbscrews

2009-02-07T17:04:00.004-05:00

For toolmaking, thumbscrews are often needed. Unfortunately, they are often not readily available. So I make my own.

My procedure is as follows:
Obtain thumb nuts and matching screw(brass, flat head).
Countersink nut slightly, this is because the top of the nut is already countersunk, but not at the correct angle, see photo #2.
Epoxy nut to screw, so that the screw head is firmly jammed up against the nut(the head is on the top of the nut, the screw extends towards the bottom).
After the glue is done, clamp assembly in machinist's vise, so the top of the nut is flush with the jaws, but the head protrudes.
File or cut away the head until it is flush.
Sand away burrs and make sure head is flush.

Now, you could either leave it at that, or the shoulder can be removed.
To remove the shoulder, saw on four sides the part where the desired knurling meets the offending shoulder.
Cut down on all sides and break away shoulder.

The screw right below the knurled head is not square, and messy.
Clamp down drill, chuck assembly in, and, using a file, remove the square portion.
Also, sand screw while it rotates, this makes it much better looking.
Also the thumb nuts I buy have a straight knurling(only up and down), but I prefer a square or a diamond knurling(diamond is really the best, but I can't make it), so while the screw is spinning, I make small grooves using the edge of a triangular file. Make one end of the file rest on something, this helps to steady it.

Here you see, from left to right, a shouldered screw, and two un-shouldered screwsLeft to right; screw without a correctly countersunk nut, screw with countersunk nut, and a total mess-up.
This way is definitely not the only way to go:

-Use this other tutorial

-If you know anyone who has a metal lathe, get them to do it for you.

-Buy them:
Rockler
McMaster Carr
Philp Edwards
Veritas
I think also St. James Bay Tool Co. sells them

Marking Knife

2009-02-06T17:39:00.007-05:00

This knife is made from a jigsaw blade. It is loosely based on this design. since I didn't have anything suitable for a ferule, so I cut a slot in a 1" long piece of stainless steel rod, and glued in the blade. That worked fine except the rod was wider than the blade, and there were ugly gaps on either side of the rod. So I glued in 2 pieces of brass, and flushed them up. I then drilled and tapped a hole in the opposite side and glued in a screw. I chucked the screw and knife blank into my drill, which was champed down, and turned it slowly, so I could sand and polish it while it spun.
The handle is not so pretty, but it works.And now for another teaser...

Bookmark of the Week

2009-02-01T15:56:00.002-05:00

This is Wayne Anderson's site of amazing planes he makes and sells.

As you might have noticed(or not), I forgot to post a link last week. I am now making it official, that the "Bookmark of the Week", may not be every week.

More Grinding

2009-01-31T13:41:00.004-05:00

I made a new toolrest, it's a piece of steel angle with a slot cut in it. The wingnut tightens it. It also has a piece of ply screwed to it for extra support. Here's also a picture of a blade for a marking knife I made. It's still a little rough, and I'll post more about it later.

Mini Square

2009-01-30T14:50:00.001-05:00

One of the first projects I made was a oak and aluminum square, it was okay, except it wasn't square. This little square is made from brass(from a door pus plate), and wood. The pins ade screws I threaded in, and cut off flush. The clothespin is for scale. Because the bottom ot the body is not square, it appears that the blade isn't square either. It is, honest.

New Grinder

2009-01-29T16:52:00.003-05:00

After obtaining the proper hardware for the grinder, I put it all together. Since prior to assembly I had worked it all out, it felt like a kit. The base is plywood and has a 3/4" thick spacer on it, and a large block next to the motor(drill). This is all lag-bolted from the bottom. The drill is screwed on to the large block on top. The tool holder is made from three pieces and is all screwed together. I really don't like it, but the nice wing nuts I had bought for it, the matching bolt was too small. Next time I'm at the hardware store I'll by some hanger bolts, and make a more usable rest. I've tested it, it's loud(I can't hear my radio) but works fine. It's pretty slow speed, though I've already blued a blade up(nothing important). The only thing I'm going to change is the tool-rest, and to make the switch more permanent. Besides those things, it's pretty solid.

Toolcase Part 7

2009-01-28T13:10:00.003-05:00

I have changed the layout since the last post, because the chisel holder ended up taking up more space than planned. The chisel rack is a piece of walnut 1" x 3/4" x 8". The holders are each 3/4" apart. For the Japanese chisels, the slots have a bevel only on the top, back. This keeps the chisels from falling out the front. I also did this same strategy for the long 1/4" chisel. For the long 1/2" chisel, I cut out space for the ferule, and the bottom. I then used a countersink bit to allow the flange of the chisel rest in it. This also makes the chisel not fall out. For the rabbet plane, just a piece of wood in the shape of an "L". For the bevel-up plane, I cut out two small pieces that hold the top of the handle securely.