Mini Plane Finished

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

In Love

So capturing my love of metal and tools for working wood. I've stumbled upon some amazing Preston Bullnose Rabbet Planes...I want to make copies, badly. Adding another thing to my list of tools and things to do. It's ceaseless.


I also really love this Record #076 I think brass? reproductions are in order, time to track down someone willing to make castings/water jet components.

"Planing"

Okay so I really am planing, but just for practice. I reclaimed this 2x10 from some engineers down the hall attempting to make a ?!?!!? something or 'nother... Anyways it had some cupping so I took my jack (#5, jeff) to it.

So I know I have about a zillion things wrong here... table too low, too much overhang on the bench hook (I'm supporting the board with my knee for full length cuts) but I got a reasonably flat surface given the lack of actual woodworking space. By the way I'm in our school studio. The shop is closed for the semester and I'm waiting for paint to dry.

Part of the infatuation (compulsion?) is with the character of the shavings, they vary depending on the skew depth and grain it's amazing to watch. I've gotten much better at setting and changing the blade height and lateral adjustment. On this board I see the benefit of a chambered/edges-knocked-off iron, I've got little corners in my step-overs.

Action shot, thanks to my girlfriend for the photos, (she even wanted to plane some) :)

Lastly, one of the artistic shots of the shavings my girl started taking, I like them, I think one will become my backdrop.

Gunstock Scraper

I finished and tuned my gunstock scraper today, made of Cocobolo and Maple with brass screws. The blade is made from an old craftsman saw.

Tools I've Made

This isn't everything, but it's a good assortment of what I've made/like to make. I have part of a large frame saw (for resawing) for me, a walnut bow saw for coping blades for a friend, a marking gauge, a beader with two fences, a small cheek saw (for planes) in the works, a hand countersink, spare handle, and two chisels I forged out of concrete nails and finally a panel saw that I cut down to carry in my knapsack to class.


Here's a shot of the spare handle, I think I'm going to forge a few single bevel skew chisels and handle them with these. I have about 18 more blanks ready to be planed like this (I'll cover that in another article). The maple is from some cut up science lab table that found it's way into the shop. I was inspired by the Swiss Made chisels I saw at Woodcraft. The countersink in the background is just a regular straight shank 6-flute job you find in any hardware store. the handle is spalted maple from the firewood pile turned on a pole lathe.

Detail of one of the chisels, I like forging little tools out of concrete nails, they are high carbon and easy to heat treat. Because they are so small I forge on my tiny anvil (railroad track) and work with about 5 at a time. 15 minutes can leave me with about 7-10 blanks.

The last two shots are joints on the framesaw. The top is how the arms attach to the handle the bottom is how the blade block attaches to the handle.