end of year and bc final pt 8

Finally done with the bread machine cabinet. I broke down and I went to Lowe's and bought some brass headed screws. Two of them for 1.99 plus 7% tax for a grand total of 7 dollars and change. I also bought some wrong size washers and a new flashlight bulb. Instead of using a brass wood screw I used a round head brass 10-32 screw and I used a double nut to secure it.

I put the door latch close to the knob so that you can open or close the door and secure it without using two hands. I guess technically you can say that it isn't completely done 100%. I am going to let the paint set and cure for a week or two before using it.  This should minimize painting sticking to whatever I stow in here. No matter how I look at this, this is and will be the final project of 2010. I still have my chisel box cooking and I am 99% done on my box for my precision straight edge but even superman couldn't finish these before the year ends.

I wish all a better year then the one that is ending. I hope that everyone who blogs will continue to do so. See you next year.

accidental woodworker

End of year musing

As I think back over the last 40 or so years I am at a crossroads of sorts. Today I found another blog where the author stated that he just started working wood in 2006. He had pictures of his latest project in progress and I was just amazed at the skill level he had demonstrated in only a few short years. His half blind dovetail pockets where absolutely pristine and the finished drawer was superb, even though he dished it stating that it was "gappy". It was "gappy" only if you looked at it with an electron microscope.

This is my crossroads: here I have been butchering wood for 40 years and he has been developing a skill level that I have yet to achieve, and he has done it in one tenth of the time (4 years). What I find awesome as the kicker is he has done this all by hand, as he says he owns no power tools.

I can remember when I first started woodworking and not knowing what a rabbet was or even how to make it. I just knew that it was something I wanted to make on that first project. It was a 3 shelf spice cabinet that had dowels across the front to hold the spice jars on the shelves. I wanted to put a plywood back on it but I didn't know that was what a rabbet was for. So it ended up without the back on it and I mounted it on the wall next to the stove.

I also remember limiting myself to projects that didn't exceed the width of lumber I could buy at that time, which was around 12". I made a lot things this way for years until I learned how to use a jointer and glue boards up to get greater widths. I used the excuse that I didn't have the clamps needed to glue up wide boards. I have slowly learned along the way and  I have made mistakes. Some mistakes I made over and over again and others occasionally, and some again never. Most of my woodworking knowledge has come using power tools and I now what to learn how to do the same by hand.

I am happy with my level of expertise with power equipment and using power tools to build things. I have always used some hand tools over the years but the percentages heavily favored the power tool end. It is only since I have left the navy and begun the civilian portion of my life that I began leaning toward the hand tool more and more. I have the confidence to tackle just about anything as long as I have an electric cord on some of the tools. I know that I can not do with my hand skills what I can do with power tools.

This is my crossroads, this transitional period from power to hand tool use. It involves a whole new outlook and a different set of skills. I have been practicing my sawing skills and I have noticed an improvement but I stopped that a while ago and I haven't been diligent in keeping it up. I tried sawing again last night and I couldn't saw a straight line or even split the pencil line.(back to square one) I was getting consistent results with my sawing before as I kept the last practice board to remind me. I have to slow down and not compare myself to others as it's a no win situation. There will forever be someone doing something I am trying to do effortlessly and with the ease of an angel.

I have to put myself in the position I was in when I first started on this road to working wood. Crafting something out of a pile of wood into something my wife will ooh and aah about. Making things that I use everyday and other things that sit quietly by themselves that I ignore until I see my signature on it. I see that and the longevity I have in it and I am transported back to when I was in the shop making saw dust building it. I have numerous projects like this that I ignore and just accept. They are fulfilling the purpose I made them for. Do they compare to some projects I see in my magazines? No they don't, but I am content with what they look like and I am proud that it is something I made. A lot of these are made out of pine and popular because that is what I can afford. I want to be able to build or have something to build continuously and these woods are affordable. Cherry is my favorite wood of all but it's about 3 times the cost of popular where I live.

Along this journey to hand tool heaven I have to acquire a new set of tools along with the mindset. My list grows and grows in what I want to get but I don't think I will totally go power tool-less. I think that I will keep my planer and jointer and forsake all others.This gives me something to shoot for. I want my half blind dovetails to look like the ones I saw on that blog. I want to make grooves and hand chop mortises to fit my hand saw cut tenons into. I want to then fit my hand planed panels into the groove and then hand plane that door to fit it's opening. I want to someday to be able to make what I can with power tools with just hand tools. Above all I want to be able to walk into my shop and just be content making something whether it is with power tools, hand tools, or a mixture of both. I have to ground myself with what I have right now and slowly move to what I would like to be. Just as it took me 40 some years to get to this point, I must accept that it will take X amount of years to get to the next step. But this time I will know what a rabbet is, how to make it, and what it used for. So the journey will easier and I look forward to it.

accidental woodworker

Who knew?

About three years ago I made this captain's table for my daughter for her new apartment in Chicago where she was going to grad school. She was studying for her doctorate in Chemistry. I couldn't even understand the title of her books let alone what she tried to explain what she was doing in the chemistry lab. As for the table, it was supposed to be for her tiny kitchen and double as a desk to study at. That's why I put two drawers in it.

This is what it looks like now. It is my desk now and I use it most of the time when I write this blog or surf the internet. It is about 43" high and is meant to be sat at with captain chairs, hence the name, captain's table (real clever, eh?). I got possession of it when my wife realized that it wouldn't one, fit in her or my daughter's car and two (she was moving daughter #2 to chicago), the cost of shipping it far exceeded the cost of buying one in Chicago. So I have a stand up desk that I have always wanted albeit not exactly this kind.

The drawer on the left had a defect in it that I filled with sawdust and epoxy. (I really like nature's "defects") I think now that I should have dyed the epoxy black to match the defect better. A lot can be said for hindsight and doesn't only apply to monday morning quarterbacking. I don't know if you can see it in this picture but I tried to match the grain across the front of this desk by making the drawer fronts and the apron all out of the same piece of wood. This piece of popular doesn't have a lot of "grain" in it but in person you can see it. It was something I had not tried before and I was happy with how it came out.

This blog isn't about the table/desk, it is about the drawers and getting them to work smoothly. The box "shells" are made of 1/2" birch plywood with a solid popular wood front applied. The runners and the tip rails are all made out of scrap pieces of popular. I glued thin pieces of maple near the bottom of the sides and the bottom of the drawers so that I wouldn't have plywood to solid wood contact.

I like the thought of solid wood contact and I thought I was being rather clever by using hard maple strips to wear against the popular slides. This worked for while but then the drawers begin to stick and not open or close smoothly. I have always been skeptical of "waxing" drawers and runners to ensure smooth operation. I had not tried it up to this point, but I was convinced that it would be something I would have to do a constant basis, i.e. every other day. A real pain the arse as our british cousins will say.

I have two bricks of wax that I got when I was in the Navy stationed on my first submarine. The sonar man used them for something in the sonar dome. I was friendly with one of them and after one job was done he gave me two extra bricks that weren't used/needed. That was back in late 70's and I still have those two bricks of wax. They have tons of furrows in them from swiping screws against it . This was the only way I had used these bricks up to this point.

About 3 months I got a little frustrated when I tried to pull out a drawer and it stuck and chattered all the way open. I wanted to introduce it my workshop flying program but I resisted the temptation. Instead I finally decided to wax the drawers and resigned myself to doing it every other day. After I waxed the drawers they flew out of their openings. The resistance and chattering just melted away to nothing. I knew it would help but I was surprised by how well it worked. Kind of made me not mind waxing them daily.

That was 3 months ago and I still haven't had to re-wax the runners. I haven't had to do the dreaded daily every other day wax job (no wax on, wax off here). The drawers still work as good as the day I first did the deed. Each and every time I open and close them I am amazed that such a simple task got such great results. I know my bricks are beeswax but I think there is something else in them. It doesn't look like the beeswax I use for my planes. I really don't care whats in them, they work and I will use them on other "wax" jobs as they come up.

accidental woodworker

New chisel box

First let me say that we got a ton of the white crap overnight. Started shoveling at o'dark 30  and I got done over 3 hours later. I guess I should be thankful that it isn't snowing anymore.  The one thing that I really don't like about the snow is that after this deluge, I won't have anywhere else to put more of the crap. It just might take till summer time to melt the mountains I have now. Enough of the snow talk.

My current chisel storage won't do for the chisels I got from LN. The LN chisels are of a socket design and the chisels currently residing in the cabinet are of a tang design. You really shouldn't hang socket chisels by the handle - they just might try to do the bounce test on you. So because of this I decided to make a box to hold them and put them on the bench and use them that way.

This is the starting point. I hate miters and I hate doing miters. I never have good luck cutting, fitting, and gluing them up. Being as I am a stubborn, mule headed SOB about some things and miters are number one on the list, I try to use them for projects like this. If I screw up the miters I really don't care 100% about it. This is just a shop project not something going upstairs where the real people can ooh and aah about it. Practice, practice, practice and more practice should make each succeeding one easy and better. Right?

I tried using #10 biscuits to reinforce the miters on this. I had to modify my biscuit jointer in order to make the slot for the biscuits. I couldn't get the proper adjustment with the stock fence. I added a 1/2" piece of masonite to the fence and I was able to position the fence to give me the slot where I wanted it. The biscuits really helped to hold everything together when clamping the joints. Without them the clamps just push/pull the joints out of alignment.  This is where 99% of my frustrations with miters comes in. As you tighten one clamp the opposite side moves out of alignment.

This is the first time I used biscuits for miters. I usually glue up one corner at a time, unless I am feeling adventurous and have lost my sanity and then I try all four at once. I did this first because I have a 1/4" ply bottom and I thought it would help hold everything somewhat together as I clamped up. Wrong. It was just as bad for the most part (the ply is slightly undercut in both width/length). I remembered reading somewhere about someone using a biscuits to hold the corners in place as you clamped.

I am glad that I tried it first in some scraps. My first cut blew right through to the outside face. This is why I ended up making the auxiliary fence for the jointer. This allowed me to cut the slot farther back toward the inside of the miter. I also had to cut one corner off the biscuit so it wouldn't bump into the slot for the 1/4" ply bottom.

It's jig time again. This is the start of a slot spline jig for the corners of the chisel box. Made it out of scraps of ply and masonite I had hanging around the shop. Just used glue and screws to hold it together. I didn't expend a whole lot of calories making this jig. I fully intend to take the screws out of it and file it away in the great big circular file under garbage once I am done with it.

 

I am pretty  much satisfied with this box so far. The miters are nice and tight and even on all four corners. Hooray! I cut 3 spline slots on all four corners and I have glued the splines in and  set it aside to set up. I think I have solved my mitering problem. I like these results and a miter is way better looking than a simple butt joint. Clamping this up was straight forward and frustration free. The biscuits do an awesome job of keeping the joint from shifting while you clamp.

These are the chisel holders. The ends of these are end grain so I used 5 minute epoxy to glue the ends on.
The lamp is supply heat (I shut it off to take the picture) as epoxy doesn't like cold and with heat you can accelerate the curing process. After it has set I'll clean these up and trim them all to about the same size.

This box is a little big for storage of my LN chisels. I have already thought of another way to store them (less than half the current size) but I am committed to this design for now. This is going to be what I will use and I think that in the future (maybe when pigs fly) I'll make a another one. Will post more as I finish more.

accidental  woodworker.

Happy Holiday greetings

A quick post Xmas note wishing that everyone got what they wanted from Santa this year. As this year winds down to nothing and a new one is ready to begin, it is my new year wish that every new project in the new year be mistake free and all that you had hoped it to be. I'll be posting my presents from Santa in a later post.

We are bracing ourselves for a rather severe forecasted snowstorm here in New England. We didn't have a white Christmas but it looks like we will have a white post Christmas. It's snowing now and the heavy stuff isn't supposed to come for a couple of hours yet. As I get older I like this white crap less and less, a white Christmas included. Bah humbug to snow.

Spent a few hours in the shop yesterday and today. I am trying to finish up a storage box for my new chisels. Made good progress and I will post pics and etc tomorrow.

Again, happy after Christmas merries and an early wish for a happy new year.

accidental woodworker

How the top goes on or bc 7

This is how I put my tops on. I've been doing it this way for going on 6-7 years and I have yet to see anything fail on me. It all starts with these:

These are threaded inserts, 10-32 screws, and heavy duty fender washers (about an 1/8" thick). You have to use a 5mm allen wrench to drive the insert into the wood. I used a  17/64 drill bit to make the holes for the inserts but this isn't carved in stone. It depends on the type of wood (how hard/soft) you drilling the insert for.

These inserts are strange in that you use a metric wrench to insert them and then use an english threaded screw in it. In this case 10-32, but I have seen these available for larger and smaller screws.

 You make a 1/2'" hole in the corner blocks. This allows for seasonal movement and it also lets you to pull the top down to the top of the cabinet. I then put the cabinet on the top (upside down) and align it carefully. Once this is done I mark the location of the inserts by using the same drill bit I used to make the 1/2" holes.

This is a representation of what it will eventually be. I tried using thinner fender washers but they tended to dish, these just grin at you. This fender washer diameter is more than large enough to span the 1/2" hole and still move with the top as need be. Now I don't have to worry about driving a screw right through the top. I have to worry about drilling a hole too deep for the insert and blowing through into the top. These inserts are really strong and you can pick the cabinet up by the top. I wouldn't do this is if the cabinet weighed a ton, but this one is really light and not a problem.

Here she is almost done. The top is on (not screwed yet) and the hinges are installed. Got lazy when I did this step and I didn't use the spacers I made when I planed the door to fit. You guessed it, I made the hinge side gap too wide. (It looked good) When I did check it with the spacers, they fell right into the cabinet.So the consequence of this is that the latch side of the door needs a teeny-weenie back bevel to close properly. Since I have to do this, I am going to put a stop at the top of the door. As you close the door the top of it tends to lean into the cabinet and a stop will kill that. I also have to make a shelf for the interior and I think it will be ply or that piece of 3/4 masonite if it's big enough.

This is the knob for the cabinet. Over the years I have glued these in their holes. I have screwed them in their holes. I have tried to nail them in their holes and all I got for my efforts was reaching for the knob to open something and the knob coming off as I pulled on it. If it didn't come off, it would just spin and giggle at me. I have since started to glue and wedge them in place. Don't have a lot of longevity with this plan of attack, but it has a long history behind it.

This is were I stand on this as of 22 Dec 2010 @17:30. I got the knob glued/wedged and the latch side planed. Now that has to be primed and painted yet again. I can't find my strippers that has the cutter for the 10-32 screws and may have to buy another one. Might as well bite the big one and buy my brass head screws at the same time. It is too much of a pain in the rear end to try and cut something as small as a 10-32 with a hack saw. I am not going to meet my imposed Xmas deadline but I can keep a promise of not posting about this until it is finished.

Have a great christmas and I hope Santa is good to everyone, bad or good. I may or may not post again until after the holidays.

accidental woodworker

quickie post

Just a quick note from me. This blogging bug has definitely bit me rather hard right on the ass. I just can't seem to stop myself from writing away and it does not even have to be about woodworking. I think I do keep it loosely associated with it though. This is kind of strange for me because I am an introvert (see my picture in the dictionary) and I don't like talking to people I don't know or have just met. Woodworker's seem  to be an exception to this rule. I guess I am doing my talking through what I write in my blog.

Been blogging away for a couple of months and the only comment I have gotten so far (other than my wife's verbal ones) is one from the Village Carpenter. Kind of starting to feel like a mushroom growing in the dark waiting to be picked. This is not exactly uplifting but at the same time isn't going to slow me down. It could be that I just don't know how to do the comment thing (number one the list). I have posted more than a few comments on other blogs that caught my eye but I must say quite a few didn't make it through the gauntlet of security checks. I'm a pretty fair woodworker but I suck at the nuances of posting, commenting, and checking for comments and most everything else with blogging. Help menus don't help when you don't even understand the "help menu".

All that being said, I was reading the new blog from MS Bickford, plane maker. It's called Musings from big pink. Very interesting in what he has posted so far. He has gotten a hold of my limited attention span and has me wishing I had a shelf full of his planes.

Let me tell you why.First I know there would be a learning curve in obtaining the skill to produce results with his planes, but I'm itching to give it a try anyway. There have been numerous times I have tried to make a profile for a moulding with my router and there was just was no way of doing it. You can only stretch the capabilities of a router so far and then there are limits of the router bit profiles. You can tilt the bit and change it's orientation to the edge but you still have the same profile.

Enter MS Bickford and his wonder planes. He has profiles that I don't think you could get even with a shaper and custom ground knives. You may be able to get some of them but not all. There are ways he shows using his planes to get unbelievable profiles. It might seem like a lot of steps and repetition, but the results speak for themselves. What could be more enjoyable then an hour or so of producing shavings right down to the finished result. No screaming routers whining away and no ear protection is needed here. Just you, your skill, and a piece of wood that will become what you make it to be. You could even play a radio and hear it while you worked.

I still have reservations about spending this kind of money for wooden planes. A starter set which could be all you'll ever need, starts in the thousand dollar range. Ouch! I would spend it without a second thought if I were sure what I bought wouldn't warp and change with the seasons. It's a torturous decision you have to make.

On the one hand I love the profiles you could concievable produce (over and over) and then there is the question of stability in the wooden plane. Once the wood shape changes due to seasonal movement (the plane blade isn't going to change), you basically now have a paper weight. A nice pretty, expensive, woodworking themed paper weight.

I had the opportunity to buy some profile planes when I was last in Maine but didn't for this very reason. I think now that I will the next time I go back that way. Most of what I saw was in the 10 - 30 dollar range which isn't going to bankrupt me. The fancy profiled planes were a little more but still reasonable.  I did see quite a few were the blade profile looked like it matched the plane body. So my thinking, (warped as it is - get it?) I'll buy a few of these and see how they do in my shop for a season or two. I still have my metal body planes I want to buy from LN first. Another something to throw into the brain bucket for storage and stewing.

accidental woodworker

bread cabinet pt 6

Has it really been six posts for this? I think snails could work and complete this faster then I am going. The Xmas deadline is certainly going to fade into the mists of history.

Here it is still undone and several steps left to go before I can put the bread maker on the top. I didn't get lucky with the painting. I tinted the the primer hoping that I could get away with one top coat but the top coat was streaky so I had to put a second coat on. The door has one primer and one top coat. I can only top coat one side at a time so it's going to be a few extra days just to complete that.

This is my brand on the underside of the top. I still have to get a handle on gauging the right temperature to brand at. (My practice piece looked good) I noticed something about the brand now that I have used it a few times. My wife didn't notice it at all and I only noticed after I was admiring the first branding I did. It's a moot point as I have already signed off on it and the money has exchanged hands. The difference is the plane handle is on the right and the "curly cue" goes from bottom left to the right. The plane handle should be on the left and the "curly cue" should be top left to bottom right. This is what I put on my drawing but I think it got swapped somehow when the reverse image was made for the branding iron. I would plane in this direction being right handed so I should just shut up and not be so anal about it.

The glue spot right above the branding is going to stay. I used to obsess about things like this to the point of getting ulcers but now that I am older I just let it go. The old guys didn't worry about what was not a show surface at all.  Just look at the interior of a piece of furniture made before electricity. You'll probably be as amazed as I was when I looked at it. They were alright with and now so am I.

I found this shaker knob already stained in my collection of them. Since I like color contrasts, I think this will go nicely with the black hinges and the green of the cabinet. The turn button will compliment the top which I left natural also. Still haven't found the brass screw or more to the point I think it is insane to pay $3.39 for 6 brass screws when I can get a hundred of the same for about the same money. If I go this route I'll have to wait for mail order to come in causing another delay.

Almost there and on the home stretch. Hang the door, attach the top, install the knob and turn button and another project will be done. Debating whether or not to put some kind of stop on the top of the door. Right now just the bottom of the door (the bottom shelf) is stopped. I don't think it will make any difference and it's something I can add later if need be. I hope that my next post on this is the finished product.

accidental woodworker

continued dribbling

Last night I was again engaged in one of my favorite pastimes, reading blogs. As I was going through them wandering rather aimlessly and I found myself reading old blog entries by Sir Chris. I am especially looking for one he wrote about sharpening his scrub plane blade. Anyway he was writing away about furniture styles and he wrote that (this is the gist of it) that some woodworkers prefer arts and crafts furniture because it is all right angles and straight connections. There are basically no curved connections/work in the style.

Now let me say that I like arts and crafts furniture a lot. I also have a great affinity  for shaker furniture. That being said, I think I like these styles of furniture not because they are straight and basically have no curves but because they are clean, simple, and uncluttered. I like federal style furniture too and I wouldn't mind a few chippendale pieces to populate my house. As I thought about this I came to realize that I like it because it appeals to my sense of "un-ornamentation". I don't like victorian furniture at all but I like victorian houses. It comes down to clean and simple lines for me (so what gives on the victorian houses?).

Federal furniture has inlays in it's design as does arts and crafts. Roycroft and few other makers inlayed what I would readily identify as "arts & crafts" motifs in them. Federal furniture for the most part is simple and clean. It doesn't have lots of curves in the aprons of tables, etc. It is basically a rectilinear in form and a lot of legs are tapered. I really like spade feet and this is definitely not arts & crafts. The inlays I have seen on this furniture I wouldn't consider overly done or garnish.

Harvey Ellis was a designer who worked for Stickley and changed the designs Stickley had been using. Harvey introduced curves into the design of the furniture. I like curves in my work but I don't like the Harvey Ellis curved work. I like my curves to be a lot more subdued and less pronounced. There was a big shift in what Stickley made before and after Harvey came to work for him. The form I think became less clunky and overly massive in form. I have three catalogs of Stickley furniture that my wife gave me as presents. Two are before Harvey worked for him and one is after and you can see a difference immediately between the three catalogs.

For the most part I like straight and I like a lot of spindles. My bed has multiple spindles in both the headboard and foot board. There are 62 mortises in both of them, all true mortises 1/2 x 1 for the spindles and 1/2 x 2 1/2 for the stiles. My morris chair has a billion spindles in them too. Rectangular and straight without curving. I have seen beds/chairs with multiple spindles and one or both stiles were curved. The curves I have seen were a little too pronounced for my taste. I wouldn't mind it if the arc was a whole lot shallower.

I like the taborets that are in my Stickley catalogs. This is a french word for a table. A circle is the mother of all curves. No starting point and no ending point, you can't get any more curvy then this. I have four of these in my house and I have given away at least that many as presents. Two of them have the lower stiles that are half lapped and their bottoms are slightly curved. They are not made of  quarter sawn oak. Several are made of poplar, a couple from red oak (plain sawn), and my favorite table - walnut. I got this piece of walnut from a conference table that my last job was tossing. It was the base of the table and had been painted a red mahogany wanna be color. I stripped that crap off  and found what became my walnut table.

All of these tables have "spindle legs" for lack of a better descriptive word. I have plans for a few more of these tables that the legs are wider (5") and they have cut out designs in them (rectilinear again). I found them in the public domain on google books and I have since found them on the WK fine tools and Evenfall Studios blogs.I have some quarter sawn white oak for these (I have enough wood for two tables) and they are my next project (maybe).

Do I use curves in my work? Yes I do. Does this mean I like what I like just because there is an absent of curves and curved connections? I say no it doesn't. I think my tastes in what I like are the product of my DNA and why is blue my favorite color and green my wife's? Why am I fascinated with furniture made 200 years ago? Why can sit all day long and watch my taped Normie episodes from 20 years ago and hold back going to the bathroom because this is the good spot ?

My morris chair doesn't have a curved back. It reclines and adjusts for 3 positions but is not curved. I made it out of poplar (stained poplar at that) and from what I have read, poplar doesn't bend all that well. Could have cut it in strips and glued it up on a curved form but I didn't do that. I ended doing a straight back because I made my seat about 6" deeper than a lot of plans I looked at. I did this because I wanted a big cushion for my back and it was, in my opinion, useless to do a curved back. I have grandiose plans for another morris chair with a smaller standard seat, and a curved back, all  made out of quarter sawn white oak.

 My last point is that my morris chair does not have curved armrests. I admit I do like the look of them but my practical side kicks in and raps me upside the head. Where are you going to put your drink? Do you want to play catch the sliding glass game and the ottoman is too far away to put your book on as you get up.  Also, and more importantly, where are the cats going to sit and stare at you waiting for another kitty treat?

accidental woodworker

Bedtime Reading list

I've been reading "The Art of Joinery" by Joseph Moxon (the PW edition by Sir Chris) at night for the past week or so. The writing isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I originally had flashbacks to my high school Canterbury Tales and Beowulf language nightmares and how am I going to make any sense of this?Not the case here, the language is cleaned up and Sir Chris gives an analysis after each topic along with deciphering the odd words. Still it's a little dry (it's the 1600's) but at the same time interesting.  An oxymoron working here?

The object of this post is my paring chisels. I have seen Roy Underhill use them repeatedly on his show and Mr Moxon writes about their use in his book. Made me look them up as I had started to flatten their backs and hone their edges (on the tormek grinder) but then I stowed them away in their box again unfinished. Other mountains to climb were beckoning.




Here they there are in  the ubiquitous boxes of mine, 3/4, 1/2, 3/8, and 1/4" sizes. I have used these chisels maybe three times since I bought them. Even though these were sharpened on the tormek, I know I can polish and hone them further on my water stones. Haven't done that yet, but I can at least at this point in my woodworking journey, I realize that they aren't really sharp. Maybe subconsciously I realized that something was wrong with them (or more likely me), and that's why I never used them.

On a whim I then dug them up and tried to use them. I took the 1/4 chisel and tried to make a groove with the grain in a scrap piece of poplar. I was surprised at how easy it was to make the groove. I had expected it to be difficult, even though I was working with the grain. Granted these chisels aren't as sharp as they could be, but nonetheless, in a short time I had a groove cut. Fairly straight and consistent in width for about 6" or so.

Mr Moxon writes about using a firmer chisel first to establish the shoulders of the dado, then clean it up and refine it with the paring chisels. I don't have firmer chisels and I did my whole groove with the paring chisel. I tried a second groove but this time I defined the shoulders with a mortising gauge. Does make it easier to guide the paring chisel through the cut. Should have taken pictures of what I had done. Next time I'll do it.

My other try out of the paring chisels was trying to widen  a dado I had made in a piece of 3/4 pine. My first cut I wandered off into the meat of the board because I hadn't expected it to be so damn easy to take a little sliver off.  With the piece secured to my workbench I tried using the grip Mr Moxon recommends in his book but I found it  unnatural and awkward for me. I ended up using my left hand to guide the chisel and the pushing I did with my right hand (I was working on widening the groove). Maybe with more practice and totally going the hand tool route this grip will become more natural.

Anyway it was an eye-opening experience for me. Some of the mystery of how the old guys did what they did with just hand tools is evaporating. With some practice the skill will develop on it's own. Throw in some patience and a little more patience and slow down my wanting to charge into a project at 1000 miles a hour, I can see myself doing this. I am still amazed when I see a piece of furniture that is a couple of  hundred years old and realize that that craftsman didn't have power tools. What I am marveling at was accomplished all by hand.

accidental woodworker

Saturday morning round up

Spent a few hours in the shop this morning working on the bread cabinet and couple of other projects. I had already gone to home depot and got the primer and I had found the top coat I wanted for the cabinet yesterday. So I saved some money there. I got the door and cabinet painted, inside and out, and tomorrow I'll put the top coat on. I am hoping that I will be able to get away with just these two coats but sometimes pine and the paint you are using aren't always on the same page. I am lucky as this pine is all clear, I don't have to deal with knots. But if there had been some, I would have sealed the cabinet with a coat of shellac first. I've had good luck with sealing knots so that the don't bleed through later on.

 Here she is all primed coated, inside and out. Murphy struck again just as I was going to upload these pictures, the battery in the camera went dead haven't been so lucky getting a replacement for it yet. Since most people expect money for the battery, and I have none, this makes it difficult to complete any transaction. Oh well.

This is going to be the turn button for the bread cabinet. Quick and easy job on the 12" sander. I was going to use an extra black screw from the hinges but it's way to short. I would have to counter bore the hole deeper or use thinner stock for the turn button and I find neither option do-able. Decided to use a round head brass screw and I am having a difficult time finding one at the mom&pop hardware stores around my house (there are 3). I guess the only solution is going to be a trip to Lowes or Home Depot and pay a billion dollars for a package of four.

I got my chisel set complete now. Got the 1/4 and 1/8 on Friday.   These are 1, 3/4, 1/2, 3/8, 1/4, and 1/8" sizes (and 1/2" skews). LN also offers the 1/16" in between sizes to these  (this is my final set). I am going to finalize how I what to encase the chisels and make the surrounding structure. If I don't like it it's going to have to do for the interim. I don't want these rolling around loose anywhere in the shop. At least for now I don't have to worry about these playing the bounce test with Mr Concrete Floor.

I made this box out of plywood and I intended to keep it as a plain plywood box,  but it morphed into this. I first covered the plywood edges and then the sides. The sides looked lonely so I covered the top. I played around with the top and put a little recess area in it. Just trying something new I hadn't done before. I also cut and fitted all the pieces by hand - no power tools at all, other then cutting the strips on my table saw. I trued and fitted all the edges and miters with my shooting board and block plane. I have been using a shooting board for about 6 months or so and I am happy with the results I am getting with it.

This is what the box was made for. It's the holder of my precision  12" straight edge I got from Lee Valley. I took the advice I got from a post about it from Evenfall Studios blog. It's also because of this post I got the granite flattening stone. Didn't do to good of a job of planing the interior surfaces true. I still have a habit of rounding down on the end of the planing stroke. It'll keep my straight edge secure, which is the purpose of the box, but it won't fit in the cabinet I storing it in. I'll have to find a new home for it somewhere.  Does have a hole for hanging it but I really needed to make a box for it. This way I got to feed my "box" habit and it'll keep the shop dust off of it. Just finished this yesterday. Went scavenging for some hinges and a clasp and this is what I found. (been sitting around for about 6 weeks unfinished). The last thing left to be done on this is to get a piece of 1/2" foam to put in the inside upper lid. This will keep the straight edge from flopping around when the lid is closed.

This is my last in between project I made while working on the morris chair I finished last month. Since I can't stand for extended periods of time I thought I would make a shop stool. Got some scraps together and this is what I came up with. All poplar with oak for the lower rungs. I wish now that I had splayed the legs out in two directions rather then just one. I think it would have made it look better and look more stable? My concrete floor is about as smooth and level as a state 5 sea.

Anyway it's a moot point as I don't like sitting and working. I am viewing my work from a different angle/height and I can't reach across my bench. I have found using this seat to be unnatural for me due to the way I  like to work. I have always stood to work whenever I can and I only sit out of  absolute necessity. Even my desk is a stand up one that I using right now to do this blog. So I have a stool if the need arises but lately it's been the place mat for my planing jigs.

accidental woodworker

My workshop

I found a new site today (www.lumberjocks.com) and the site is incredible. I was looking at the projects for few billion pages (there are over 27K of them) and I switched to the workshops. I've been boo-hooing for a while because my last shop was 24 by 36 and I now have this 11 by 22 with a little  L-shape portion. I was crying because I had no shoes until I met the man with no feet. No matter what, there is someone out there worse off then you are. Look at some the workshops on this site. No more boo-hooing  on my part.

This is what you first see when you come down the cellar stairs and turn and look into the shop. On the other side of the table (on the left) is the quasi laundry/boiler portion of the cellar. The other side of the red thing is my "den". Outboard of the router table I keep most of my shop supplies, screws, hinges, nails, nuts, bolts, etc, etc. I got these after the last job I had was tossing them and I have more of them but no place to hang them. If I can fit it here, I stuff it here. One heads up - I have a Hitachi M12V router in the table and it is not a good choice. They use an electronic feedback circuit to maintain speed/torque and it doesn't have enough testosterone for the job. I have replaced the power diode in it twice. Being a former electronic tech I am saving money doing it myself other wise it's 90 big ones just for the part  and the service charge around here is about another 70 or so.

This is my chop saw station with it's added storage below. I put it on casters so I could get at my tool cabinet behind it. I keep a lot of tools I don't use that often in here. The white thing in the picture is my freezer. Another object I have to put up with and share my space with.

This is the left side of my shop and currently heaped with scraps and sawdust. I have a ledge here on the right of the picture. I use the front portion for keeping my Leigh jig , drum sander, Tormek sharpener, and plywood scraps. I also have an air cleaner here. Its the only spot in the shop I can put without it being a head knocker. It's not an ideal location but it does work - I can see a difference in the amount of dust throughout the shop when I use it. I haven't spent a great deal of time cleaning it as I have spent what time I have working. I think I have an ironclad excuse - I'm having my right hip replaced next month and I can't put the hours in the shop working that I want. Rather spend what I can do working a project and not cleaning.

This is looking from the right side over to the left side wall. Table saw and band saw and my bride's open shelving. I don't like this as these shelves are just a dust trap. I would rather have closed cabinets here but it's another project that's on the crowded back burner to be done. Notice how the table saw has become a horizontal black hole when it's not in use.

This is the bench portion of the shop on the right side of the cellar. I lose space here because whoever built the house didn't put a foundation out to the very front of the house. It's a tad crowded but it's better than some. I don't feel bad after seeing a shop on a back porch that was 6 by11.

I use this space under the bench for keeping my planes and such. I know that Sir Chris wouldn't approve of this, but you have to maximize what you have.

These are my six cabinets and tool storage underneath. I built these cabinets in my last shop and they had a cabinet underneath them . It was one long cabinet (8' long) with six drawers and six doors, all built in place. When I moved from there I had to leave it (I was moving by myself no help). I was able to take the uppers because they were all individually built. The drill press is tucked away in the corner with it's own storage cabinet. All of the stuff I keep in here is related to drilling somehow.

This is the left side of the right side of the shop as you look at standing on the left looking to the right. Make sense? Then explain it to me. This is my sanctuary from the world. This is where I go to recharge and relax. Some like to unwind with fishing or maybe model building but for me it's just going to the shop. I don't even have to be making anything. I can just be here and read or think about the next project and maybe even do a rough sketch or two. I even find it therapeutic to clean up and organize the messes I have left behind.

accidental woodworker

Xmas came a little early

Since Santa said I was such a good little boy all year (yeah) I got one present early. Well actually it took me the better part of 5 months to save my pennies to get this. I have been jonesing for one of these for years and I finally have one.  This is what the main part of it looks like.

This is my personal stamp(branding iron) for what I make. Here it sits in all it's glory amongst the gray sludge crap residue from my last sharpening adventure. It's a bit bigger than I wanted it to be but the company said this was the minimum it could be based on my design. It's about 2" square and I wouldn't compromise on the design that would have made it smaller (and cheaper). I bought this stamp first and the second half was this.

This is the heat supplier for the above stamp. The white box is a temperature controller for the heating element,(just a rheostat). It took about twenty minutes to heat that blob of brass sufficiently to brand a piece of 1/2" birch ply (my sharpening stone box). The company stated that different woods need to be branded with it's own temperature. A little experimentation is going to be in order. Again, beware the gray sludge crap from sharpening. This stuff does not clean up with clean water and rags. This stuff is here to stay until it wears away.

I had seen the electric "handcrafted by" branding irons before but I was never thrilled by them. I don't want to sound snobbish but I see them as being very pedestrian and not something for me. I had an idea even back then of what I wanted (it was a saw and hammer design). I am glad that I waited and got what I really wanted.
 .
 I while back I read a blog entry by Sir Chris on the WK fine tools site about a stamp he had gotten as a present from his wife. The maker of the stamp was Mazzaglia Tools. I came real close to buying one these but I held back because this stamp is meant to leave it's impression in the end grain. This limits, in my opinion, where you put your mark and who can see it readily. So because of this I did a search of the WWW and landed on the Infinity Stamps website. They sell stamps and branding irons for just about any type of material.

On their site you can buy a stamp (you hit it with a mallet or hammer)  that would leave your mark where ever you basically choose to (end or long grain). In my case I was told by the techie that my design would not work as a stamp struck by a hammer. A big part of the reason why is the little curly thing I have coming out of the plane's mouth. I didn't want to change what I had designed so I bit the bullet (real hard to stop from screaming) and I bought the head first and the temperature part second. I could have gotten a stamp with a different design that would have cost less then what I paid for either one of the two separate purchases I made.  All said and done, I am happy with this and I won't have to buy another one in my lifetime. This should survive a bounce test with Mr Concrete floor.



This is my brand. The latin phrase in the inside of the plane translates as "My best effort". I  signed my first piece of furniture (before electricity) with my initials with the little "curly cue" along with the month/year. I did it with a sharpie and then applied whatever finish I was using over it. I've been doing it this way since that first time but I always thought of doing it better (more permanent). As you can see I am not the greatest artist and this is pretty much the drawing I faxed to the company to make. The plane, I think, could have been a tad wider and longer with the handle being a tad smaller. The proportions are a little off but it's not going to be on the 6 o'clock news and it serves the purpose - marks it as being made by me.

I have to get a number stamp as I only have a letter set sans numbers. I want to stamp the month/year next to my initials after I brand something.  Lee Valley has some good prices along with three different sizes (all in mm) of  number/letter sets. Writing of mm I just recently found out that the chisel set I have been using since I helped build the ark with Noah, are in millimeters. I had always ass-u-med that they were english measurements. It had never occurred to me to measure these at all. I did so only after I bought my replacement LN chisels and  was comparing  the differences between the two sets. But this is the topic for another dribbling blog.

It looks the sharpening stone box is my first branding and the bread cabinet is going to be the second. I already know that I am going to brand the underside of the top. I can figure out the right temp on the pine scraps from the mountain on the floor before I brand the top. Now if I will just remember to write it down somewhere because my memory is as porous as a sieve.

accidental woodworker

Ooops

As I was wandering aimlessly around the dung heaps of wood scraps and dust I am calling my shop I looked over at my mortising cabinet and saw something I said I had never done before. Holy bat turds Robin!

This is the object of my awakening and notice that I have cleverly hidden the pile of scraps and mountains of sawdust in front of it on the floor. You can just make out some kind of  drawing/lines on the door and this is what I said I had never done before.

I had used this piece of masonite to do a full scale drawing of the shaker stool I made. I had totally forgotten about it when I blogged I had never done such a thing. I wonder how many other brain cells holding memories I had that died due to a lack of oxygen. Everything is there, even the little curvy part where the top stile (rail) meets the front leg. Couldn't raise the saw blade high enough to get this in for the bridle joint. The only way I could have done this  is with a hand saw. Since I don't have a decent rip saw (I only have my old construction ones) it didn't happen but I now remember now that I purposely made this panel to save this drawing. It sucks to get old and not be able to distinguish cracking bones from cracking wood. Anyway it did some good to do a full scale drawing like this  for this project, but I don't envision myself doing this on every project from on now(or should this be "now on"?).

Made this cabinet for the express purpose of holding my mortise machine.It got real old, real quick, lugging this up onto the workbench to use when I needed it.The original cabinet for this was an old metal  roll around printer cabinet my last job was tossing, that I have since tossed. (I am still not adverse to dumpster diving) This is at the right height for me - I can look down and see where the chisel is going without a backache at the end of the job. The bonus is I get extra storage out of this. The bottom has two pull out full extension drawers (100lb glides) and it keeps the dust out of the interior. The only point that  riles me is the casters I put on them, two fixed in the rear and two 360's in the front. Makes it a little frustrating to move around as you basically have to steer it. With my space constraints I should have put 360's on all four corners. This would have made it like sports car to maneuver.

box to hold sharpening stone

same box to hold sharpening stone

I made this box to hold my sharpening stones as I use them to keep the sludge off my bench. Went to poly them up and found my can had skinned over and partially hardened. Must have had this for while sitting and waiting. I like to use these little projects to test ideas and do a little skill honing. I mitered the corners on this (I hate doing miters!) both on the sides and pine strips are glued to the top to hide the plywood edges. I purposely made the top strips too wide and then I pared them flush to the sides (inside and out) with a 1" chisel. Hard to see but in two spots it's a little raggy (I don't think this is a word)  and I dug into the top ply of the plywood. It's a practice piece, so I don't really care that much. I was more concerned with boosting my skill with the chisel. Thinking about doing the same idea for my granite stone except I'll to have to figure out some way to get handles on it.

So I now have to get some primer, color coat paint, and poly to finish up this and the bread cabinet. Twist my arm all you want, I'm not going to Lowes or Home Depot and wandering aimlessly through the tool departments drooling like a St Bernard dog on a hot july day.

accidental woodworker

more dribbling

Even though I am working on the bread cabinet I have always had something else going on at the same time. As one project is stopped because of something in the clamps or it's a time out to figure something out, it keeps me busy. I think this is from my time in the navy when I didn't have a lot of time to devote to woodworking. So when I could get shop time I would try to maximize it by having two or three irons in the fire at once.

These are my newest toys from LN. Still waiting for the 1/4 and 1/8 inch chisels and I don't know when I'll get them. LN had emailed me after I had ordered them that and told me that they aren't in production yet. I can wait as I still have my old set to use in the interim. I bought these one at time with the exception of the 1/4 and 1/8 ones, so I have to figure out how to stow them. Right now they reside on my bench and I have move them constantly. Time to remedy this now before they all try the bounce test with Mr Concrete floor.
This is going to be a box for these chisels, this is just the head scratching stage here. Just trying different layouts and ideas. I think I will keep this, add sides of solid wood, and a panel top lid. All the handles (the largest diameter) for the chisels are all a little different. The one inch is about 1 3/16 and the 3/4 to 3/8 are about 1 1/16, with the 3/4 being a tad larger than the others. Don't know the 1/4 and 1/8 as I haven't gotten them yet but I assume that they'll be about the same. I also put my 1/2" skew chisels in here along with a long chisel handle. These LN's are a little shorter than the ones I normally use, so I got the one long handle for a little extra length leverage and control.

This is my current chisel and some saw storage. The yellow handled chisels on the top left were my practice chisels for sharpening. I got these at a tool store for a dollar for the three of them. They don't hold an edge for more than minute after being sharpened (that's why I got them for a dollar). I have beaten the snot out of these while I practiced my sharpening technique and now that I am done with that, I use them as glue scrapers.

The bottom left are my chisels that I use all the time. I've been trying to remember when I got these but I can't. I am sure I got them during my "Roy Underhill" phase when I imagined myself building a house out in the woods and all the furniture in it with just a hatchet. They don't hold an edge all that well but longer than the practice ones. They don't compare to the LN's at all. These still have milling marks and the LN's are clean. The LN's  just scream quality at you.

At the top back are my Japanese sash and dog leg chisels. I haven't tried to sharpen these for years and consequently I haven't used them for years. My biggest fear with them was I didn't have a honing guide they would fit in and my first attempt to free hand sharpen them I got less then desirable results. I tried to sharpen the 3/4 dog leg and I sharpened a nice slanted edge in it. Works for getting into the left side of a corner but it's intended purpose is negated somewhat. So now that I am a sharpening guru, these are on the "to-do" list.

 Been thinking about changing my storage. I have six cabinets about 14" wide and deep and about 24" high that I stow a majority of my tools in. As I am slowly trying to go the hand tool route, I need a better way to store my tools now. This is going to have to wait because I have just got way to many things I want to do and not enough time, money, or resources to accomplish any of them. Do I do this or make a new workbench? Do I make the sideboard my wife wants or make a new workbench?  Do I make a saw till and rearrange storage or make a new workbench? As you probably figured out, making a new workbench has my limited attention, but money and resources (and the fact I have a decent bench) this will have to wait.

accidental woodworker (changed to this because my wife said who besides geeks (like me) know latin?)

bread cabinet pt 5

Yesterday was a pretty productive day for me. Got just about everything done that I wanted to accomplish and it didn't take the entire day. Had a few hiccups but what is life without a little surprise now and then?

She's all done and ready for paint, which I can't find. Thought I had a quart of primer somewhere. The door is in the inside and I put a hardboard (masonite) panel in it. Putting in a solid panel would have taken to long and would have required a lot of fussing and fitting. The 1/4" groove I made wasn't exactly true, straight, and 1/4" along the length. The top isn't secured yet as it is easier to paint the cabinet and apply the finish for the top separately. Got a little to over zealous in planing the door (it's an insert) and it ended up being way too small in width. I had to glue a strip on the hinge side of the door and then I planed it again, but this time I checked the fit frequently . Also found that the hinge side runs out of square by about an 1/8" top to bottom. Planes are great for fitting boob-boobs like this.

When I planing the rail/stile junctions flat and flush, one of them had a screw sticking out in the joint (from the corner block). As I was planing it I hit it but I thought it was a glob of glue. Kept on planing it and after a couple of more swipes decided to hit the joint with a scraper and found the screw. It was only a one round fight where Mr Screw met Mr A2 plane and Mr Screw won.

This is the resulting fun show. It took me the better part of  3 hours to get the scratches out of the bottom of my block plane. I still have two faint ones in the adjustable mouth plate but they are going to stay there. After I got done with the plane I started on the blade. My brand new honing jig that I was using only for the third time, went south - the wheel froze solid. Sure glad that I had my old one from years ago.

The plane blade edge looked like a serrated knife. Like I said between the plane bottom and getting rid of the serrated edge on the blade took me 3 hours. Once all that was done it took no time at all to sharpen and hone the edge of the blade. Thank you Mr Screw for allowing me to indulge in my favorite past time.

Got another shop project to do and that's some type of sharpening bench. I got gray sludge sharpening crap all over the bench and they it doesn't clean up at all.  I made a little box  of sorts to hold one stone as I use it. Still have to put a bazillion coats of poly on it yet. That's the first part of the equation and the second is doing something about the granite flattening stone.

I went a little crazy when I bought it - should have gotten the two inch thick stone but I thought that the 3 inch would be more mass and not as easy to move when in use. So I now have a 40 pound hunk of granite I have to make some type of container for. This thing makes a billion gallons of gray sludge crap in about two seconds when used to flatten water stones. Most likely I will have to make something to contain this as I just don't have the real estate for a another bench that will take up space. I don't like moving things around for an hour to work.

This is it for today. Its football time almost and it's the only sport I will watch  all day long. It's still looking good for the Xmas deadline.

accidental woodworker

bread cabinet pt 4

Here's the picture that I lost from post #3 on this saga. I still haven't figured out how I lost it but I am not going to lost any more sleep over it. I am sure that eventually even an old dog like me will learn it.

It's now Saturday morning and I just finished gluing up the other side along with the bottom shelf. I will let this cook for a while and then glue on the front rails (or is stiles?). I can never remember which is which. I was told just think of railroad tracks and you'll remember which is which. Well sports fans, both the sides and the top/bottom look like railroad tracks to me. Another mystery of the universe: exactly how did these terms come about?

Here she is cooking away, all square and happy.

Here's the bottom plywood panel glued in. I didn't put biscuits on the sides because as usual I thought it through in my mind and when I started to glue it up after the dry fit, I promptly forgot all about it. Give me credit for noticing it after I was checking it for square. So now I have to figure a way to secure this shelf so it will take some weight. I am leaning toward putting a modified glue block on the front inside corner of the two rails. You won't see it and if I run from the bottom of the shelf to the bottom of the rail (along with the back being dadoed) I shouldn't have any problems with sagging etc. I'm not too keen on nailing or screwing through the sides into the shelf. Might change this thinking as I now have a supply of cut nails and I don't mind these nail heads showing. (Never nailed into plywood - might have to experiment a little first.)

This is just one of four ugly biscuit slots I have to hide. Cut these in error mostly because I didn't put my "X's" on the spot to get the biscuit slot. This is the back and won't be seen at all so I can live with this. Fill them in and paint them and they'll be difficult to see.

One other problem is the proportion of the cabinet is out of sync (to my eye) because of the way I put it together. It should have been like corner boards on a house where one width on one is shortened by the width of the other one, so it comes out the same for both. Again it's on the back and won't be seen anyone to notice or criticize. I won't have this problem on the front due to I haven't cut the front rails and stiles to final width. Even with it being painted I will still be able to see it and I want the show side to be as close to 100% as I can make it.  I am hoping to finish, at least all the gluing, today and maybe paint tomorrow.

accidental woodworker

bread cabinet pt 3

This is an update as I really haven't done much on it except to scratch my bald spot a little. I changed the original way I was going to put this together because of the mixer being asked to be stowed here also. I was going to put a rabbet down each edge of the back and then sit the sides in them. This way I could put a dado across the sides and back and it would have hidden them. This would have held the bottom shelf on three sides and  the front door would have closed against it.

I used plywood for the bottom shelf and I covered the front edge with a piece of pine about 1/4" thick. It sits a little proud of the sides - I will plane it flush after I get the opposite side glued on. Instead of a dado on the sides I plan on using biscuits and the back sits in a shallow dado. The front rails will be glued and biscuit-ed to the (side edges) bottom shelf and this should be more than enough support for this. Looks like I should have enough room for a second shelf.

I had a second picture (should be here) but I don't know what happened to it. Like a lot of things with blogging I just don't have a clue. Working on this site and trying to do different things can be very frustrating for me. If I want to feel as smart as a box of rocks, I try to do something new. At least I know how to type and don't peck at the keyboard, although my wife types this way almost as fast as I do.

Back to the cabinet - by changing the glue up I changed the size of the top. The piece I glued up for it will now barely cover it side to side. There is only about a 1/4"  hangover as I lost an 1 1/2" in changing how the sides mate with the back. Another happy accident as Bob Ross the painter would say.

So now I have to glue up another panel to put on the top and maybe I can use this one as the second shelf.  My mistakes with this little, simple, and easy project are really mounting. I also screwed up my biscuit slots. I got confused as I didn't label the sides and back and I ended up cutting slots in the wrong edge on the sides which at the time I thought was the back. I filled that mistake in with biscuits and then planed them flush. Lucky for me that they will be on the back of the cabinet and hidden from view. Good thing I am painting this, biscuit slots are real ugly when left natural. So this is where I stand as of now and the Xmas deadline doesn't look like it's going to happen.

It is suppose to warm up to almost 40 tomorrow (today was only 31) which means the shop should be adequately warm so I can glue up another panel and glue the other side on. Updates later, film on the 11 o'clock news.

fortuitus lignarius

quickie dribble

As I am sitting here at work waiting for a mickey's hands to align at 7 and 12 signifying work start time I am doing a slow burn. I am thinking of customer service and treating the customer with respect and not just as a dollar sign that can be ignored if it isn't shining bright. I don't like being ignored and shuttled aside just because I am not throwing wads of money at you to buy something. Sometimes I just have a question or two and I expect (you can gasp here) an answer.

The background is this: I have the older Delta mortising machine and the fence ass'y broke. It's that round shaft with a right angle hunk of metal forming the fence. Anyway my fence bent up when I was trying to extract my mortising chisel from the wood. It bent right up (I wasn't paying attention to that) and cracked and split. No biggie, I will just call delta and order another one. Called delta and was told that there isn't a replacement part for this and it was no longer available. This helpful person then hung on me like I was done so he could get back to doing some real serious stuff. First how do you justify not making another part like this? Then how do you expect to stay in business with tech support personnel like this? (I bought a Steel City mortiser)

Second part of the story: I had bought a replacement mortising table from Rockler a while after I bought the mortise machine. Like all great projects this simmered for a while and then faded into the black hole of un-done projects. Fast forward to the broken mortiser - I can now put the mortise table from Rockler on and keep on trucking. Found it, dusted it off, and did a quick inventory and determined that it looked like I had everything but how to put together.

No biggie, I fire off an email to Rockler and get a response. The response didn't answer my question about the instructions so I shot another one Rockler's way. I explained my problem in detail with the mortiser and the fact that I had bought the table 3 years ago (from Rockler) and now I needed to use it, could  you send me the instructions. Didn't get a response to this email. I emailed them again and again, no response. My impression of this - I wasn't buying anything, wasn't spending a dime on anything, screw you figure it out yourself.

I will most likely never buy another thing from this company. I try my hardest to be supportive of american and buy american whenever I can but being slapped up side the head like this doesn't make me feel that way. I now buy what I would have from Rockler from Lee Valley. This is a Canadian company that sells almost everything Rockler sells for about the same price, but in my humble opinion has much better customer service.

Two instances of customer service from Lee Valley. I had bought a cutesy little plumb bob gizmo and I destroyed it by pulling a tip off when it  was supposed to be screwed on/off. Called Lee Valley and explained the problem and that I wanted to buy another one, they sent me one free, even though I insisted that it was my fault and I was willing to pay for another one. The second great customer service moment came when I called to order a part for my 12" combo square. I had lost the center post that holds the ruler. This was from a square I didn't buy from them and they sent me the part free. This ladies and gentlemen is what customer service is.

Lie Nielsen is another company that has (in my humble opinion again) customer service with capital letters.
I email them questions all the time and they have always answered everyone of them. This takes time, effort, and money on their part to do but I think this company realizes that selling a product involves a lot more than just taking some one's money. I believe firmly that what you do with a customer after the sale is just as important as what you do with the customer before the sale.

Although this happened to me a while back every time I go to the store and the cashier ignores me while talking to some one else and I get an exasperated look from them when I "ahem", I am reminded again of customer service and how people just don't get it. Treat people as you want to be and pay attention to the person giving you money because if that person wasn't doing it, you wouldn't be standing there ignoring them and talking to some else. Or how about wandering around a store looking for something and watching the people who work there scurry away from you and look busy doing something else. Again people, take your collective heads out of your collective asses (or at the least pull down your zipper so you can see) and help the customer. If they aren't buying, you ain't workin'.

Now that I am sufficiently worked up it's off to work and my turn to do customer service.

fortuitus lignarius

Bread cabinet part 2

Got a monkey wrench thrown in the gears last night. The bride read the blog and wants the bread cabinet to  also hold the mixing machine. I don't think it's going to fit so my choices then will be "merry Xmas" have a cabinet as a present, keep it as is and use it elsewhere, or make another one. Before all this happens I have to finish it. (I'm leaning toward make another one.)

 Here are back and side panels drying by my 90 year old boiler. It will raise the temperature here  up to about 75 degrees while the rest of the cellar stays about 58-62. I used 1/4" masonite for the panel inserts and a 3/8" stub tenon, and I glued everything together. Haven't had much success with gluing just the stub tenon and the panel floating. The joint  has always failed at the tenon on me. The only 3/8 tenon joint I have made with any longevity is the cope and stick profile from my router bit set. So I now glue the panel insert if it's ply or masonite and I have yet to have a failure. I made another faux pas when I made this in that I didn't check that all the boards were the same thickness. Should have, would have, could have, but didn't.

I feel a good excuse coming on for buying a set of 98/99 side rabbet planes. Some of the grooves were a tad under a 1/4" and I had to block plane the panels here and there to make them fit. I wouldn't mind buying old but I am not a collector and I intend to use what I buy. I don't care if the japanning is almost complete or the tool shows almost no wear. This is one big  reason why I don't like buying old tools. It's because of you pin head collectors buy them to display and totally negating their intended purpose. Enough ranting on with the show.

Here I am gluing in my strips to cover the joint. I left it a little proud as I am a firm believer in "you can always shave a little more off, the real trick is in adding a little more".

Here they are after a couple of swipes with a 1" chisel. I am going to put a rounded curve on these so most of the strip will be eventually be cut out. I intend to leave about 1/4" beneath the bottom rail and round it down to about a 1" wide foot.

This is my final playing of how it's going together. By doing it this way I maximize the amount of interior space (thinking mixing machine) and it still satisfies myself that it won't fall apart (major headache). I bought some black butterfly hinges and I have a bazillion shaker knobs that I can play with and pick and choose from. I am going to use a wooden spinner and black screw (the hinges have two extras). This is the plan for now but that could change as I progress. I am going to glue it up with biscuits and glue, as it's a long to long grain glue line, should not be a problem. I still have to figure out how the bottom shelf is going to be done. It's going to be plywood with a pine strip glued on the front edge because you'll see that when the door opens. (I just hope that I remember this before I glue it up.)

Do you think that old guys would have used plywood?  I use it wherever and whenever I can. With ply you eliminate a lot of solid wood problems and as long as the edges are covered, who can really tell it's ply? I made parts my coffee table and end tables with ply.  I used birch ply and solid maple and its very hard to tell that the aprons/rails are birch ply.  The tops and legs are maple and I covered the bottom exposed  ply edge with cock beading. I haven't figured a satisfactory way for me to cover the exposed edge on a round plywood table top. I absolutely will not use iron on banding and I don't like the look of a scarf joint for solid wood banding. Picky, eh?

I would rather use solid wood for a table top over plywood. I do admit that, to me at least, I don't like the marriage of a solid wood edging and plywood. To me the joint screams out loud what it is. I try to use plywood so that it ends up buried in the project and I don't have to worry about exposed edges.

I will post again when I have to cabinet glued up and the door made and hung.

fortuitus lignarius