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?

Six Planes

Three pairs of planes to be exact. #2, #4 and #8 Hollow and rounds, in beech. I'm rounding out a short set of H&Rs 2-12 evens. I have a nice pair of #6s and #12s and a few odd larger sizes, I have some cherry blanks for #10s but I'm on the fence about those.

Here they all are... after making a template for sawing the throats, I couldn't wait to start. I sawed the 8R and made two wedges then migrated back to my other super secret project. The #4s are from the same blank and have gorgeous ray fleck. I have to make a few more floats and finish my 1/10th chisel before I get too much farther on these.

This air dried beech is fantastic. I love how it works.

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.