More Lap Desk Work

Finally back home now, I got to work installing the hinges and attempted a monogram carving in the lid, I'm happy with how it came out, but need to order some other carving tools to make the process a little easier. I could only find some #3 by 1/2 inch screws for the lid hinge leaves, now I have to nip and file them down to fit.

I also got materials to solder up the hasp, but I'm still working on the design. In the hasp drawing I think it's a bit too wide, and perhaps the slot is too far down.

Table and Stick Chair Progress

Here's some more on the two projects that will inhabit my kitchen in the near future. First up the chair seat.


Lines drawn in a grid on the surface help me to visualize the compound curves of the seat. I do this with all sorts of shapes to illustrate form to my students too. Try it, it's surprising how much more informative a surface becomes with simple lines on it.


This photo shows the centerline particularly well, and with it, the basic contour of the seat. I've done most of the scraping, but there is still sanding to do. After a coat of primer, I'm sure to find high spots that I've missed and I'll need to do some more carving and sanding.

Here is one of the legs, primed and painted with the undercoat. I couldn't wait to see how the paint showed up. Right now I'm laboring through the morti, 8 2" deep 4" long and 1/2" wide holes are big, I'm just using a huge mortising chisel, instead of boring and paring.

Welsh Stick Chair-Drilling

If you're not familiar with Peter Galbert, or his blog Chair Notes, I suggest you check it out. Since about a year ago when I started compiling project photos for Windsor/stick chairs I've been following him, and today it paid off in a big way. This post, has a great explanation of sightlines and computing the resultant angles based on orthographic views. I'd also much rather do some geometry than bust out the trig.


I'm shooting from the hip here, doing something like what Krenov called composing. Working this way is really nice, compared to a very regimented project working by eye and your sense of relationships. It's like sketching with a solid piece of wood.

Hole Digging

This post has nothing to do with digging, holes, dirt or any of that. It's more of a phrase that sums up my relationship with my project list. I finally started working on a pair of Welsh stick chairs, a form I've always wanted to build.

Half of my morning was spent going through several different photos of seat shapes and drafting out one that looked good. The sight lines are my best guess so far based on examples I've seen. I still have to come up with the final angles along those lines though. The blank is a glue up from 8/4 poplar. The board I bought was a bit too narrow, I wound up having to glue a 2x2 turning blank and a piece of 4/4 to get the seat depth needed. This may wind up looking like dog meat, but it should do well as practice.

A shot of the seat with all the sight lines. I'm sorely tempted to buy the LV tapered reamer, though I'll have to build a tapered tenon cutter as the small diameter for the leg joint will be 7/8".


One shovelful of dirt did make it's way into the hole though. Yesterday, amid other work I managed a few more coats of shellac and the fitting of the leaf supports. I'm so happy with this project, it came out great. If you don't recall, this was a project I started in November at the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop.

Finishing the Honey/Jelly Cabinet

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

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

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

#8 Hollow Plane with Wedge Fitted

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

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

Jelly Cabinet Progress

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


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

Small Jelly Cabinet

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


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


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



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

Showing us a rough mock up of the piece.

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

Workbench Updates

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


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

Secret Project Revealed

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


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

Secret Project

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

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

Secrets, Secrets are No Fun, Except...

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

Sharing a File

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

Well, It Works

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


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

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


And another one cleaned of tools.

Momentum

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

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


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

Tool Chest Part 2: Drawers

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



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


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



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

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

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

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


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

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

Fret sawing the waste.

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

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

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

Marked out for the half blind pins.

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



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


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