Writing Table Progress

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

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


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

Pembroke Table-Hinged Top

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

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

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

Checking the fit and motion of the leaf side.

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

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

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

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

Quick Project- Hook Knife

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

Pembroke Table Class 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More of the same.

A double square is a happy-maker.

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

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

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

Waterbury Pembroke Table Class

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

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

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