100% handmade clock.......

This is the third clock like this that I have made. The other two were close to being all handmade but I missed it on both of them when it came to the rip cuts. Today I overcame that shortfall and I did all the cuts, rips and crosscuts, by hand.  Along with the sawing I also tried out a new chisel I bought.

the stock

This is a 1x8x6' pine board. I'll get the sides, top/bottom, cross rails, and the panel out of this. The first cut is the sides. The next two cuts will give up the top/bottom and the two cross rails.

 Why am I making another clock? Practice. My first clock was ok and I made improvements on the second one. With the third one I am improving still. I am going to make all the rip cuts and do a better job on my dadoes this time around.

cutting out the sides

sides, top/bottom, and cross rails

1 1/2" Ashley Iles chisel

I got this 1 1/2" chisel from the Best of Things. I plan on using this only for making dadoes. I've had it for a month and today I get to road test it. The back of the chisel still shows some grinding lines and it has a wooden handle made of some wood I can't ID.

not to bad looking

quick honing on my 8K japanese stone

quick stropping and ready to road test

I am going to have to come back and finish sharpening this chisel properly. Now I'm too impatient and I want to see what this chisel can do.

knife line done, ready to try out the chisel

knife wall made ok - crosscutting one end of the sides square

I have to remove the bow in the stock next

stock flat, marked and ready for ripping

sides and a top and one cross rail done

 I made both of these rip cuts with the 7 pt ripper on the bench. I had to apply bees wax to the saw plate when I was ripping the sides apart because the saw was binding in the kerf to the point where I couldn't push or pull it. Seems my stock is a tad case hardened to go along with being bowed.

rip carcass saw

the bottom and a cross rail

the cut off of the 7 pt ripper

cut with the rip carcass saw

I got a much cleaner cut with the rip carcass saw. I was also able to split the pencil line from top to bottom. The only problem I had with this rip carcass saw was I forgot a couple of times that this saw has a spine on it that is a tad bigger then the kerf. It lets you know right away you're trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

marking the sides to width

scrubbing most of the waste to the scribed line

getting the sides parallel in width

getting one edge of the cross rails square and flat

too much to scrub off - I'll rip it with my carcass saw and plane it square

two sides, two rails and two caps

These are the toys I used to get my stock prepped to this point. To get the stock to this point took me a little over an hour. I am getting better time wise at making these clocks.

ready to make some dadoes with my new chisel

all the dadoes almost done

Using a wider chisel makes doing the dadoes easier. I am getting a straighter dado and everything else is much the same as when I used my 1" chisel. This chisel was sharp enough to make these 4 dadoes but I did notice that on the last dado it was starting to lose it's edge. This chisel is thinner in the blade and a lot lighter than my LN or other bench chisels. None of that seems to effect the ability of the chisel to cut cleanly. I'm sure it'll do much better once I sharpen it.

I also didn't have a warm and fuzzy feeling about the conical shape of the handle on the chisel. I thought it was too fat at the top. After using it to make my dadoes I changed gears on this. The handle shape I liked and it turns out it isn't too fat.  It didn't feel unnatural no matter which way I held the chisel in my hand as I used it. If I remember correctly, The Best of Things has a 2" chisel that I just might have to buy now.

dadoes done and my grooves too

I got a lot done today and there isn't much more left to do. I am going to put a molding detail on this clock like I did on my second one. I faced glued some 3/4 pine to form the big block. I also have a piece of the cove molding and I'll make the third piece of the molding with my beading plane. 

It's looking like I'll have another clock by the weekend.

accidental woodworker

"Many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."

Thomas A Edison

plane totes......

Last week I was reading a blog post by Rob (at the Heartwood blog) he had posted on plane totes.  He compared plane totes and knobs made by Bill Rittner to LN totes and knobs. I really hadn't given much thought to totes/knobs other than what looked good and what felt good in my hands.

Bill Rittner knob and tote in cherry

Lee Valley knob and tote

I had Bill make this replacement set soon after I got this jack. To my eye, the LV tote looks like it's undone. Like the person making it went to lunch and before he could finish it someone scooped it up and sold it. It's way too squat and upright for my tastes. I can go either way with the knob from LV because I actually like it better than Bill's. I prefer the low mushroom type knobs that Stanley made too. I got both only because I wanted the knob and tote to be the same.

LV tote

Besides me not liking the look of this tote, I think it's too small also.  It disappears in my ham hock hand. And I did not like the upright stance I felt went pushing the plane with this tote. The whole feeling of planing changed dramatically for me when I replaced the LV tote and knob with Bill's set.

this one is perfect

Of all the planes I have, I like Bill's tote the best. It doesn't disappear in my hands and it's silky smooth everywhere. I especially like how the horn fits right into the space between my thumb and first finger.

The only problem I had with this set is the knob broke. There is a threaded insert in the bottom that is threaded onto a stud on the front of the plane that operates the mouth opening plate. After a couple billion loosen and tighten cycles it quit playing. This isn't a fault of Bill Rittner, it's the insert and the fact it's screwed into end grain. It was gonna go south eventually. I fixed it by putting it back in and using epoxy on the threads. Been quite a while since then and it's still holding up.

LN tote on my 4 1/2

This tote is very similar to Bill's tote. The LN one is a tad bit smaller, but the other lines and form are almost the same.

not quite as much room on this tote

The last difference between the Bill and LN totes are the LN totes have a flat on both sides of the tote. There isn't a real hard line showing that but you can see if you put a ruler or a straight edge on it. The tote on my LN 51 has the same tote as this 4 1/2 with the same flats on it. You can't do the ruler trick on Bill's tote because it ain't flat.

The Bill tote is ovalish and there aren't any flats on the tote at all. It's a subtle difference between it and the LN but it pays off in how it feels in my hand.

my oldest plane - #4

I went looking at the totes on the rest of my herd and I started with my oldest plane.  This plane is from the 1890's and it's tote is like Bill's in that is doesn't have any flats on it. It's smaller but it has that ovalish look and it feels good in my hand. And it has the low mushroom knob that I like.

jumped to my #7

This is a post WWII plane. The tote is a painted hardwood and I don't know what kind of wood it is. I was expecting this tote to have flats on it like my LN planes but it wasn't so. It isn't as ovalish as the #4 but it still feels good in the hand. A little better then my #4 only because it's bigger. This tote also leans forward a bit more than my #4.

L to R - LV, LN, stanleys #4-#5-#7

1970's vintage piece of crap Stanley

 This was the first handplane I ever bought. Now that I have some older Stanleys, LN's and LV handplanes I can see that this plane isn't much better than a paper weight. Look at that hideous plastic tote. To me it's not much better looking than the LV tote. At least the LV has wood as a plus point, plastic owes the scale 10 pts from the git go.

surprise

This tote is ugly and plastic but surprisingly, I like the way it feels in my hand. Especially the little hoobie-do down at the bottom where my pinky finger resides. Somehow I doubt that anyone is gonna replicate this in cherry and offer it for sale.
 
I follow Bill Rittner's blog and I was surprised when I first saw that he was offering replacement LN totes and knobs. My initial thought was who would want to replace a LN tote? I might do it now that I compared Bill's tote side by side with the LN tote, and also with my herd of Stanleys. It's not a huge difference and I doubt that I'll lose any sleep if I don't do it. But there is no mistaken the feeling of the Bill Rittner tote compared to the others in my hand.


accidental woodworker

new stone drawer and a lid support......

I got the drawer for my diamond stones done and I have one less project taking up space in the shop. I made this drawer out of 1/2" cdx plywood. It's not going to be seen and it's a shop drawer, so why spend the dollars on good plywood?

I had to make the drawer shorter than I wanted to because the back vertical dado I made for the back of the drawer broke off.  You never know where the voids are in this type of ply. The loss of length didn't hurt me to bad, I can still fit everything in the drawer I wanted to.

side slides on and a false drawer front

 I am using the bottom of the false drawer front as a grabbie thingie to open and close the drawer. No knob or handle. This is the only piece of scrap I had in the shop that was large enough to do that.

I have to fill this gap

a piece of 3/4 plywood fills it nicely

The drawer hangs off the metal rails and this back cross rail and the one in the front is secured to the underside of the bench. I used 3 2" screws in each one and I don't think I'll have to worry about this falling off.

everything fits

These stones are heavy and as they are here in the drawer they are almost impossible to pick up and take out. My first thought was to drill a hole on one end and put a piece of string through it so I could lift it up and take it out. I ditched that idea because I think the string would annoy me somehow by getting in the way as I used the stones.

idea #2 uses this piece of scrap

finger room

I put the scrap up close by the front and I can get my meat hooks underneath the stones and easily get it out. I'm not terribly fond of this idea and I may revisit the string one. With this setup here, I can't put my japanese stones on top of the diamond stones like I wanted to (drawer won't close). I don't like having the japanese stones in the front of the drawer.  I'll have to wait and see how this shakes out and maybe I can come up with something that doesn't involve string.

closed up

fully extended

This is a full extension drawer guide but my drawer is longer then the guides. That's why the back of the drawer is still buried under the bench.

saw guide

I got the drawer front about an 1/8" back from the edge of the bench. I didn't want it interfering with the saw stop or the saw.  Now my stones should be dust free whenever I have to use them now.

Next up is a lid support thingie I made for my branding iron box. I broke it out to brand the drawer box that I just finished and the lid flopped back. That isn't a good thing because it puts a strain on the screws and the hinges. Time to make a support and see if I can do it all by hand.

piece of scrap poplar will make a good support

I marked the scrap for the notch and some sawing and splitting is the next batter.

splitting didn't work

I did my first split about 1/2 way and it ran wild and split off unevenly. Time to start over and saw this notch out on the other end..

good fit on the notch

looks better than a plain rectangle

I have one more saw cut I want to make. It's the pencil line and it'll reduce the bulk of the support and make it look a little better to my eye. I was going to cut this out on the bandsaw but I changed my mind and I tried something else.

enough holding power

I got a piece of scrap underneath this so I don't saw into my workbench top.  I was surprised that the bench hook supplied enough oomph to hold this securely while I sawed it.   I did it all hand made.

almost square

I am slowly getting close to plumb when I cut. This looks square but it's about a 1/2 a tad off of 90.  I'll take it and I cleaned it up with my chisel dead nuts.

one more saw cut and it's done

The big angled cut I made before this small angled cut was fantastic compared to this one. It was badly out of square. I sanded that out and rounded it over with some sandpaper on my workbench.

done

No more lid flopping back now that I have a lid support thingie. The only down side to this is that it'll cause the box to stick out and not lay up flush at the back. Where I stow this box that isn't a problem but it's something to keep in the back of the brain bucket.

accidental woodworker