I thought I was done.....

Murphy has struck again. I thought that I would be all done with my saw benches. But the dreaded cut line reared it's ugly head and dare I say it, yes, I cut on the wrong side of the line. I should have, could have, but didn't mark the waste side of the line. The cut ended up being about a 1/4" shy.

There's the culprit. This is the brace for the wide angle side of the bench. Because of the errant cut, this piece of wood is useless. There is nothing I can do to salvage this and maybe use it somewhere else.

Bench #1 is done. Mine is a tad different then Jim's bench. I really didn't want to make an exact duplicate of his saw bench. I drilled a hole in the top for a hold fast. Underneath I glued and screwed a piece of scrap to add some meat for the bench hook. I drilled this hole with my auger bits and brace. The hole is square side to side but off along the long axis. The hold fast still works, wedges/loosens alright, so I'll leave it as is for now. Maybe later on I might have to fill it and re-drill.

Had a little bit of blowout at this end from cross cutting this with a handsaw. I'm pretty happy about the brace fitting around the leg where I also had some blowout from planing it with my 073. For construction grade lumber I think the joinery came out very acceptable. I used 6 2x miller dowels to secure the brace to the side of the top here. The length is just over 35" and its just shy of 8 1/2" in width and 19" tall.

This is the opposite end of the bench and the leg on the left isn't quite flush with the top. I didn't notice it until I took it out of the clamps. The bench is a little wobbly but on the uneven concrete floor of my shop I don't I'll notice it.
One more trip to Lowe's to get a 2x4 to make another brace. Hopefully my short term memory will retain my latest faux pas and mark the waste side of the line. For now it's off to the shop to sharpen the tools of the trade.

accidental woodworker

Hadn't planned on this....

I was down in my shop not planning on doing anything. This is the cleanest it's been in months and I was just admiring how clean everything was. My only intentions at this time were to just look around and basically do nothing. There was one tool hanging out that needed to put away, so I put it into the cabinet that it called home. That's when the trouble started. I pulled out another tool (my inch caliper measuring thingy) that I have been thinking about making a new holder/box/container/thingy for it.

I had dropped the empty case some time ago and in picking it up I stepped on it and the top broke in two. I've been using it this way for about a year now. I had started to make another box a couple of times before but never progressed beyond making a few drawings. Well yesterday, I progressed beyond that.

I used the foam cutout as my pattern to make one in 1/4" mdf. I just to have to tweak the fit a tad before calling it done.

All done. A couple of minutes spent with a  file and it fits like a glove. I am surprised at how easy it is to file mdf to a line.

This is the start of the box. After cleaning up the shop I found some window parting bead stock I had bought a few years ago. I made this box with mitered corners. My band clamp has metal corners which made it easy to tighten up and glue this small box together.

All done. Before I glued it up, I had made a rabbet along the bottom edge. I put a piece of 1/4" ply here. The top is a piece of 3/4" pine I also rabbeted it (3/8 x 3/8) on all four sides and inserted that into the top. Right where the box and lid meet, I cut a shallow 1/8" groove all around the box. Into this groove I put strips of 1/8" padauk. After this dried, I planed a bevel on the lid. Put on some surface mounted hinges and a clasp on the front.

All done but not without me-steaks of the rib eye variety. I put the clasp on the wrong side of the box. The hinges and clasp positions should be reversed. Because of this the caliper is facing the wrong direction.  The other me-steak was I when I cut the box apart. I made the lid portion bigger than the bottom portion. That's why I have the lid laying up against the fence in this picture. All and all, even with the me-steaks, it will still provide protection for my caliper. Besides I can probably step on this one and if it breaks, I can fix it. Hard to do that with plastic.

accidental woodworker

one of my least favorite......

Just got reading a few blogs that I look at every morning and I'm stewing a tad. Been reading about the new issue of PW June issue that has mailed and I still don't have mine. It's in the stores but I thought subscription owners got it first. But I digress and rant while the real purpose of this entry is to write about one of my least favorite things -  cleaning the shop.

This was the state of my shop since the first of this new year. Every horizontal surface has something on it. This includes the floor. I had a book full of excuses as to why I was avoiding cleaning it.

This is the worse area of the shop. It seems everything that wasn't needed ended up here. I'm lucky here where I live because if I can fit it in my garbage can, they'll take it away. Wasn't enough of an incentive to clean this up at that time.

The workbench area is somewhat better. I was forced to clean this area as I worked, but I did the bare minimum. Again, I hate horizontal surfaces. I don't put things away as I am done using them. As time goes on even my horizontal surfaces disappear and I am forced to put things away.

The table saw and immediate area cleaned up. All told it took me 4 hours and 3 garbage pails to get to this stage.

 This is the area behind the saw table and it took 2 garbage pails to haul away all the crap here. My whole body was singing songs to me. Later that night even my eyebrows got into the act and started to hurt me.

The final ta-da picture. Now that it's done, I'm wondering how long it will take before it's a festering sewer hole again. Cleaning my shop, even after each use, runs neck and neck with pulling out my nose hairs with pliers. The green garbage can in the picture is the one I hauled up the stairs three times. It is more 1/2 full now. You'd think that this would incentive enough, along with the body aches, to clean up on a regular basis. Nay, nay, I say moose breath. I am brain dead in this area.
I do like the shop clean. I can find my tools in their respective homes. One thing I try not to do is re-arrange where I keep my tools. I broke this rule this time and took all my power that I kept on the floor behind my bench and put them on the wire shelves by my table saw. I am trying slowly to remove my dependence on power tools. I don't think I'll totally remove the dependence, but I can lessen it. Out of sight and hopefully out of my limited ability to recall where I put them.
For I will just enjoy the clean shop and try not to think of the past and what the future holds.

practice makes .......

Made a practice run before I committed to the real thing. This way I can avoid any surprises and figure out work arounds.  One thing did pop up and that was I had to make an extra notch for the gusset on the end of the bench on the bottom of the brace. It was just a little chunk that had to be taken out.

I started by sawing a whole bunch of lines from edge to edge and a few crossing cuts because I was feeling festive.

This is after I whacked out the waste with a chisel. I tried to do it so that I left the saw cuts still visible. This way I had some guidelines when I hit it with my 073.

All finished with the 073. This piece of pine I used to practice on splintered a lot going across the grain with the 073. I had to clean up some with a chisel.

The practice fit looks pretty good at the top here. On the bottom there is a gap of about an 1/8" but no one is really going to see it. I looked at Jim Toplin's pictures of his saw bench and there is a gap on both of his legs at the top. I don't think he cut a taper but instead just made a straight consistent depth dado. I think I'm ready to tackle the real thing. This whole practice joint from layout to final fitting didn't take me more 15 minutes. I should be able to knock these out maybe in 1/2 hour or so.

As an aside, the pictures of Jim's saw benches show that his are made of 2x4 and 3/4 stock. His plans show that the bench is made entirely of 2x stock.

accidental woodworker

the latest additions to the shop......

Been busy the past two days working on my saw benches and I am almost done with them. I made the ones from Jim Toplin's new book "The New Traditional Woodworker".  Jim doesn't give measurements or the angles on the legs. He writes that it should 3-4 feet in length and the height should come to the top of the knee cap. At first I was little miffed that there weren't more in the way of measurements, but as I was drawing the bench out full scale I saw the light so to speak. This is my sawbench and Jim is just presenting what he had made and now it was up to me to make mine.

I made the final angles on my legs 20 and 10 degrees. At first I tried 5 degrees on one leg but I thought it was too shallow. I had also initially used 30 degrees for the other one, but this angle was way too much. The splay of the legs would have been ridiculously over extended on that side. Once I had decided on these angles I started going to town on cutting everything out.

I bought 2 - 2"x8"x8' construction lumber from Lowe's and I think it's spruce. I made my top 7" wide and not quite 36" long. I notched for the legs 3 inches in from both ends.  After the gussets were glued on, this left about a 3" overhang. Just right for grabbing and moving, and ample real estate to clamp something to. I tried to make this entirely by hand but I didn't. My rip saw is still at Bad Axe waiting to be un-kinked and sharpened. So I made the concession and made just the rip cuts on the table saw. Would have had pictures of the process but my battery not only quit, it died completely. I had to go and buy another one.

I made this template because I don't think spatially very well. This little doo-dad did it's job of keeping my layout the way it should be. This is actually the 4th one I made.  The other three were practice runs and for me they were worth the calories I spent sawing them out. Jim Toplin doesn't tell you how to notch for the legs on his sawbench. I borrowed this idea from Sir Chris's book "The Workbench Design Book". I also got to try my router plane out.  I made of bunch of saw cuts, whacked those with a mallet, and cleaned it up a little with a chisel. Then I put the router plane to work to level notches. I sawed the notches on both legs as one and used my record 073 to clean up the cut. I then ripped the legs out on the table saw and then I planed them to fit the leg notches individually.

I have two of these bevel gauges and this is the first time I can recall ever having used the two of them at the same time. I also found that one of them is flawed and has been down graded to crap. You can't see it that well in the picture but the black body protrudes beyond the blade. This causes the blade to not lay up against the angle you want to duplicate. The resulting angle runs out from the top to the bottom as a result. Or is it from the bottom to the top?

The black line on the right here isn't all pencil. Made the pencil line to scribe the angle so I could true it up with my 073. There is a slight gap at the bottom on the right. There is another gap on the left side too. I noticed the bevel gauge wasn't laying up true on the leg after I had glued the gusset on. On the second bench I doubled, triple checked the angles with a scrap of wood that I cut on my miter saw (powered). I cut the angles with my cross cut saw and cleaned the edge up on my shooting board with my jack plane. The rabbet I cut with rabbet plane (workout). My first one sucked and I had to plane a little deeper because I didn't check as I was planing to ensure that I was doing it square . If I do it again, I think I might try and cut the rabbet out with saws.

I made (or will make) all the connections using Miller Dowels. It won't get done today because I ran out of them. I used Ix (have lots of these) on the gussets and I plan on using the 2x size (had only 8, need 16) on the leg connections to the top.

I still have to shave the millers flush. The block of wood on top is going to be used to add some support for a hold fast. It will add some meat for the hold fast to wedge against. Don't know how well it is going to work because this wood is soft. Other than this, all that is left to do is make a brace for the legs with the biggest angle and brace on the top on the short angle leg. I don't know what the real purpose of this brace is for. Doesn't seem like that it's needed to me. It's going to be an exercise put on because the of the ten degree splay on the legs. Haven't quite figured out how I'm going to do this, but I do know that I will practice on a piece of 3/4 stock first. I'll have pictures of that because I bought a new battery.



accidental woodworker

making drawer stock.....

I was going to start my hand made cabinet but I don't have enough stock. My 1x12 pine boards weren't as numerous as I thought. I only had one and 2- 1x8 pine boards. Rather than wait to buy more stock and do nothing, I decided to make the drawer stock.

I used a 10 pt cross cut saw and I was a little surprised at how rough the cut was. I also have a 11 pt crosscut that the previous owner must of loved because there isn't too much steel left at the heel. I'll try that one next time.

 I followed the cut to the outside of the line and tried to stay parallel with it. Towards the end of the cut I ran outboard somewhat. I think it was a case ocular inversion due to the moon phase. I split the line on the second cut because I wasn't taking a picture of that one.

Just a couple of degrees off square. I thought I was pretty good at this sawing. However, before I wasn't really concerned about dead nuts square and the such. Funny though, the cut is square for the first 2-3 inches, then it starts to run out. Technique needs works.

I started the flattening by going straight across the board with my wooden jack. This plane has a very heavy camber in the blade and it will hog off chunks of wood with very little effort.

The second step for me is to use my #6 record diagonally from both directions. I used the #6 because these boards are short in length.

After the diagonals are done, I set the blade for a lighter cut, and go end for end. I check for flatness by laying the plane across the board and looking for light leaks. I'm not looking for dead nuts flat here. I am just looking for reasonable flatness so I can run this through my planer.

All the boards are reasonably flat enough to run thru the planer. This is the resulting pile of shavings I got. My bench is 35 inches high and after just doing this little bit of planing my arms (triceps) are singing songs. Before I can even think of doing an entire 4 square operation, I'm going to have plane at more comfortable height.





I have show what this plane can do. I think it's the greatest invention since ice cubes. This end grain here is a little coarse (big rings) and it took some extra swipes to get it smooth. I did other pine end grain but the rings were a lot tighter than these. Haven't tried a hardwood yet.

It took me 7 swipes to get it to this stage. The shavings on the board is the last one and you can see thru it. I don't think I would like to do ten or so end grain plannings, but one or two, especially if they are going to show, this is the tool for the job. It will also square up the edge at the same time.
It's supposed to be in the 70's today but rainy. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to plane my boards.


accidental woodworker

first one all done.....

My very first hand cut, dovetailed, box. Not yet glued here and the joints are kind of gappy. I am pleased with my results here. I know that I am only going to get better at this. The box is sitting on what is going to eventually become the lid.

All glued up and the joints closed up pretty well. There are slight gaps on some of the half pins (3) and a couple of the pins - tails aren't completely closed up. I signed this and I am going to keep on my workbench to remind of what's possible.

My record 405 box has a plywood bottom and top that is glued and nailed in place. It doesn't look that bad, so I decided to glue/nail a plywood bottom on my box. Ended up with a void in the plywood showing along with a little piece of the half pin blown off. It doesn't look good but some moldings will hide this.

I made these moldings with the Record 405. They're a 3/8 bead I cut on the edge of a board and then I cut them out with my freshly sharpened rip saw. I then put them in a sticking board and planed them down so that they were all about the same size. The rip cut was pretty much straight. However, I need a whole lot of practice with ripping plumb to the line. Sure glad I allowed a lot of waste to plane off.

Got the lid and moldings on and I'm calling this done. Got the branding iron warming up to mark the bottom. The lid is a leftover piece of scrap that I made my first practice beads on with my new record 405. I have also been using it to chop out my DT's. I left the bead on and cut the lid so that it overhangs the sides (1/8") and front (3/16").

You can see the joints closed up a lot when compared to the unglued pic of the box. The lid is flush with the back and the hinges are surface mounted. Have no idea what I am going to use this for. For me this is going to be like the first dollar bill merchants frame and put by the cash register.

This is the first project that I have made that is almost 100% hand made. The dovetails were done by hand as were the moldings. After I cut the moldings from the board, I planed them to size, cut the miters by hand, and fitted the corners with my shooting board and jack plane. The only power tool I used was in the cutting of the plywood for the bottom and the lid. I had planned on cutting the lid by hand but force of habit took over. I cut the plywood bottom and then the lid next without thinking. Some habits are hard to break. In my defense, I did square up the lid with hand planes.  I am really starting to like my veritas edge trimmer. This tool is great for planing the edge of a board smooth and it does it awesome job of leaving an incredibly smooth surface on the edge grain. I am also getting better at using my smoother as I want to get away from using sanders. I just bought the LN 4 1/2 smoother because it has the 55 degree frog. Sir Chris just wrote in his blog that LN is making the 55 degree frog for the #4 plane now. Wish I had know this a couple of months ago. I prefer the #4 over the 4 1/2 for smoothing.

I have some left over pine that I am thinking of using to make a wall cabinet with a glass door and a drawer(s). I will be shooting for 100% handmade on this project, even if it ends up being something different.

accidental woodworker

couldn't wait........

Should have continued practicing making DT's on one corner but I am too impatient. Rather then cut the next piece of scrap pine for practice, I decided to make a small box.

It's going to be overall a small box and already I can see the sides are way too thick. Something like this would look better in 1/2" thickness or thinner. Also made a me-steak - I didn't scribe my lines deep enough. Some lines are a little too light. Something I'll have to double check before I put the scribe away.

Cutting the tails. I do much better with my sawing on the right side than I do sawing on the left side of the jig. I'm sure that if the magnet wasn't holding the saw up close the cut would be horrible. Still don't like japanese saws. Tried my LN dovetail saw- didn't work with this jig (too small). I'm looking into getting a japanese DT saw with a spine. Maybe a stiffer saw will help with my sawing. (I know I said I hate these saws)

Halfway through one side of chopping the tails. I chopped one side completely, then flipped the board and did the other side. Getting used to cutting to the line on both sides.

Here I have to re-knife my scribe lines (I just did the half pins on the ends). While I was doing this, I decided to make a vee cut to guide the saw in cutting the waste off for the half pin.

Made my version of the honing "stone" that was in the last issue of American Woodworker. Honing the chisels made a difference I could see and feel. Doesn't take much either, just a few swipes and then it's off to the races.

I put the saw up against the jig and then I try to split the pencil line and saw on the waste side. This is what I did for my practice DT's the 3rd time around. I am cutting out the pins here, no need to do this with tails in my opinion. I am going to try a practice DT starting with the  pins first. Maybe I can then weigh in on if you should do pins first or tails first.

 Got the pins sawed and chopped out. The end shot of the box put together. It stays together, two of the corners are real tight and the other two are tad loose. Kind of a gappy here but they tightened up some once I put the clamps to them. Didn't close up 100%, but enough.

Time for a critique. 1. I like this jig. 2. It is helping to improve my sawing technique. 3. I don't like japanese saws. 4. The saw with this jig is too flexible. 5. The saw needs a back to stiffen it. 6. I'm getting better chiseling to a line. 7. My sawing of the half pin waste is ok, but still needs improvement. 8. Sawing with shooter's eye sucks. 9. I'm not making mistakes laying out pins/tails. 10. My box isn't 100% crappy, maybe only 60%. 11. I can't think of an excuse to buy more tools for dovetailing. 12. The small knurled screw on the jig's sliding fence needs to be a lot bigger. 13. This jig will only do 14 degree dovetails. 14. Hopefully I will be able to make cabinet grade dovetails before I am eligible for social security. Or die, whichever comes first.

accidental woodworker

Practice dovetails, round 3......

Round three has come and gone and there are many more rounds to come. However, I am closing in on making this woodworking joint. I did read the instructions for using this jig finally. I don't agree with all I read and I did the cutting they way I was comfortable with. The instructions relate that you should line up the jig exactly on the pencil line for cutting both the tails and pins. There is an offset on the UHMW plastic covering the side of the jig of about 5 thousandths of an inch. The instructions don't tell which side of this to line up on.

My thinking on the subject is this: When you cut the tails (which I did first) it doesn't matter whether or not you are aligned with the pencil line. These are going to be the initial cuts from which you will use these cuts to mark for the pins. It is the how you align the jig when you cut the pins that is going to be the proof in the pudding so to speak. On my first set of DT's using this jig I confused myself and I cut on both sides of the pencil line, but there were two pins/tails that I did align the jig on the pencil line. The joint wasn't tight at all. On the second DT's I tried to cut on the waste side of the line and the resulting was still too loose.

One curious item in the instructions is that they state they you shouldn't make your first dovetails in a softwood. The instructions state that it is easier to make your first attempts in a hardwood. All three of my attempts so far have been in pine. Most of the trick dovetails I see on you tube (and the instructional ones too) are usually done in pine. Since I don't have any hardwoods (that I want to use to practice with), I'll stick with pine. I have a lot of scrap pieces I can practice on.

#3 all chopped out and awaiting the moment of truth. I cut the tails first and them used them to mark the pins. I then put the jig on the line loosely and then put the saw against the jig. With the saw caught on the magnet I moved the jig over into the waste side of the pins until the outside edge of the saw was aligned/splitting the pencil line. I then tightened the jig down made my cut partially into the waste side of the pins.

Halfway home and I can already tell that this one is a huge improvement over my last two attempts. This joint is going together with hand pressure only and is going to stay there once all the way home. I am feeling pretty good about the progress I am making. Each one has been a little bit better than the last one. Still have a ways to go but I'm real happy with myself at this point.

Driven home and I think I would call this a low quality shop joint. There is good contact between the pins and tails and I know I could glue this without using clamps. The joint is sufficiently tight that clamps wouldn't be needed. The only thing wrong with it is the gap at the bottom of both the pins and tails. When I marked the thickness of tail and pin boards I did it as close to actual thickness as possible. Being a tad foolish here. I didn't want to plane the pins/tails flush. On my next attempt I am going mark the boards so the pins/tails are a tad proud. Hopefully this will eliminate
 the gap I have on attempt #3.

I have all three of my attempts on the back of my bench. I think it's nice that I can see what my progress have been, crappy, not so crappy, and no longer 100% crappy. I don't think I am going to bother learning how to use the fret saw to get rid of the waste for the pins/tails. It will be good practice for using my chisels and I really don't mind doing it this way.  I also know that I am a long way from reaching the end of my journey. I am only doing one corner in DT's. To make a box I will have to make 3 more DT's, a groove for a bottom, and some kind of top.  This is what keeps my interest up. There is always something new to learn. I have learned a great deal by reading the blogs and watching you tube videos. A couple of more practice DT's and when I feel comfortable with that, I'll try to make a box.

accidental woodworker