Tool Trays, Work on my Joiners Chest

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

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

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

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

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

Getting a Handle On It: Socket Chisels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stanley #78 Rehab

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

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

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

New Lathe!

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

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

Coffee Table: Fin

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

Blacksmithing and a Problem

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

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

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

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

It Starts: The Roubo Build, Legs

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

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

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

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

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

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

Giornata in Reclaim: Key Shelf

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let There Be Glueing

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

Simple Shelf Instillation

Drilling the screw holes, I love this little eggbeater.
 

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

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

Simple Shelves

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

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

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

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

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