Wood Notes

Today

2008-07-20T04:30:00.001-07:00

As planned I installed the stiffening blocks today. Lots of drilling and screwing... The fixing cleats are sitting just losely in the mortises. Before I will screw them in, there is smoothing ahead - lots of. So, where's that honing compound?

Yesterday

2008-07-20T02:26:00.000-07:00

I glued the table - rails to legs and top frame, followed by sawing off the horns, smoothing and leveling.

The stiffening blocks are made of German beech. I drawed the shapes on a board, cutouts, holes and angles marked. The center hole was drilled on the drill stand before the pieces got out of the board by the jigsaw. Happily enough I have a plane or two. The corded saw doesn't work square.

Fitting in the stiffening blocks today...

Evening Come

2008-07-17T11:43:00.000-07:00

Shop days are good. The work progresses rapidly. I did some cleats to fix the table top. I did that by sawing alot. I used the dovetail saw, the rip backsaw, the small tenon cross cut saw and the big one with 13 tpi...

The evening come, an assembly kit laid on the bench. It lacks the profile batten. That's the job for one of these days...

Status of the Day

2008-07-16T11:13:00.001-07:00

Today's progress after an hour shoptime ends with a dry fit of legs and rails.

Legs Mortised

2008-07-01T08:16:00.000-07:00

Two things about mortises I think are worthy considering. First beginning a new mortise near to oneself, chisel faced as in the photo, it is important to make a small cut, just one maul tap at the marking line, in red here. Why? Levering out the chips to come, there is not much room, because these chips are compressed and the first one will pull out the very end. Now the one tap cut is a release cut, it will stop the tear out action exactly at the cutting line.

Another thing is square side walls. Most carry them out by putting a square or a mirror at the right place. I like to elongate the mortise markings as in the photo and align the chisel's blade edge to one line by eyeballing. This gives me consistably squareness. In the photo the chisel should be moved a tad to the right. Now all mortises are done, let's face the rails. There is some planing ahead...

Going On

2008-06-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

The legs are shaped, brought to length at one end - the foot. Let's mark the mortises and set them up as they will be in the table later on. Just to be sure each marking has its correct place.

Mortising with the Robert Sorby 1/4 inch sash mortice chisel. The maul worked fine, it is a fantastic tool. The mortises are not placed central in the leg, but on its side. The rails will be flush with the legs. I chopped the mortises as usual with a variation. In order to prevent twisting of the rails, I wanted the mortises to be haunched and thought it be smart to make them secret haunched. Why? I'm not sure anymore, it was tempting to try out and let stay a tad more wood on the legs' upper ends. I used a guiding block with fence clamped to the leg to asssure the correct angle of 45°.

The last times, the Sorby chisel often chipped out, so today I ground it back at 27° on the Tormek and honed a 35° microbevel on the edge. No chips after two mortises, I was stunned by the good result.

Square Legs

2008-06-23T09:25:00.000-07:00

Judith Miller published an excellent encyclopedia on period furniture. I dived into it and came up with an early 18th century George II table leg (plate 108/109 New Forms). It has a quadrangular cross section with one side relieved. Without saying I will adopt further elements of the style to my table. It reasonably well goes with the colonial book shelf.

First I cut out a pattern on 3 mm plywood and transferred it to a test dummy, the second one. I then took the draw knife to rough out the shape. It is a #7 from the Swiss tool smith Fitzi who has retired last year or so. It confirmed to be the tool of choice for the curvature too. I had in mind the LV rounded spokeshave, but its sole has a radius too wide.

So the tools of refinement were a block plane, a rasp, a file and I avoid - 240 grit paper. Luckily enough I made a scrap piece, it has several severe dings. Working a draw knife demands practice and full concentration. The real legs hopefully won't get battered...

These Legs

2008-06-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

What do you think? You know, I bore in mind a woman's legs when I turned the first shape this afternoon. Mh. Please do not consider the finish, nor the Nürnberger, nor the fact that the contours are soft nor... all the details. Just the shape. I went wrong, the leg isn't well balanced. The upper part - that between the mortise piece and the bead - is too long. It is too gracious. That won't fit a man's sofa table, right? Even Mex turned away...

Let's dive into shapes, where's my Furniture Encyclopedia?

Now

2008-06-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

Now again, definitely a long tad later I come back to my sofa table in spe. Today I had an hour of shop time and rabbeted the table top frame. Nice work again of the Ulmia moving filletster. With the help of some tool friends, which are the Sorby paring chisel and its sash mortise companion I fitted the mortises to the tenons. The frame comes losely together, sits tight if clamped. No glue now, I want to have the frame in all its separate parts, as there will be one or two braces to be worked under it. So up to the next step...

Legs come next, that means, some planing by hand and corded thicknessing followed by turning. Finally I will have to determine the legs' shape. Should I think of women's legs? Let's see...

About

2008-05-14T12:56:00.000-07:00

No, I'll never forget about the japanese saws, let it be ryobas, dozukis, katabas, temagoris or maebikis. They all have one merit. They pulled me to handsawing. But I never succeeded that much. It always lacked a tad. My temagori was fine, I could sit in the saw teeth myself, pulling and fihting, the game always was chance. I have to avoid I changed the sides. I'm European, maybe it is the reason, I got on well with a western saw. Western saws were a revelation to me, they are great. Look at this pic - a tenon:

I followed the markings, no problem there. Mike, the saw I won, is a little dull, I have to admit. And the holy cow, I do not appreciate to sharpen it. I guess, you have to leave the continent - big smile on my side. No, being serious again, I'm - despite read knowledge - astonished on the backside of the cut. You saw the top, the front and it will leave you the back straight - without any look at it:

The saw cut always follows the marking. I don't know why, but it always is accurate, if you use a western saw. Let it be. Finally I have to admit I failed to the japanese saws. What I have to acknowledge is, I made the shoulder cuts prior the rip cuts in order to release the latters. Hey, it works okay. Delimitations are more accurate, depth is reached more easily.

More a tad later...

Folies

2008-05-13T03:23:00.000-07:00

Working on the table top yesterday I discovered some advantage of collector's behaviour. Some time ago I ordered a 2 inch bench chisel from Sorby and because the paring chisels looked that cute I went for a 1 1/4 too. I sharpened it, hang it in the cabinet and - forgot. Til yesterday when I was choping 1/4 inch wide mortises. Having to recut a side I grabbed for the LN bench chisel, it was too thick, far over 1/4 inch for my 5 cm deep mortice. Now that was a great moment having in the pocket my paring chisel - flexible blade, very thin, ideal for paring into the depth. So folies have a their good sides and I will never again blame me for Lustkäufe again.

Sofa Table Starting

2008-05-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

No time for tools anymore, a whole day - Labor Day - has to be spent on a bigger project. The first pic shows the American cherry I got last week. 4,20m long and 27mm thick - some nice boards I tought. One thing though, cherry tends to have small inclusions of bark. The latter often ends into cracks. Thank God I bought enough :-)

Second pic shows the rough blanks of the legs. I paid attention to chose a plank that got me bastard grain on the legs without much resawing. Bastard grain runs from one edge to its diagonally opposite counterpart. The legs - well the planed part, not the turned one - will look uniformely, not changing grain frome one face to its adjacent one. On the pic the good planks are those 4 on the right, the other three on the left will be test dummies...

There is weekend ahead :-)

Fitting in the Door - Halftime

2008-04-27T13:43:00.001-07:00

After some shortage in shop time, I got finally 2 thirds of the tools fitted into the door. More than half of the space is filled, I will add a rack for diverse tools, marking gauge, combination square, hammers, squares a frame for the spokeshaves etc. I'm quite dissatisfied with the saws' display but now they take up less room and reach into the gap under the japanese chisel frame of the main cabinet. The best solution I could figure out. I'd like to add my eggbeater drill, it is very handy. Maybe under the saw rack?

Tool Cabinet Again

2008-04-19T11:18:00.000-07:00

There is a little work ahead before I can start with the sofa table. I have all these wonderful tools cluttering my work space and hiding where they shouldn't. So I decided to change the interior of the tool cabinet door. I threw out the saws and will install a chisel board the next days. Let's see if all the tools go into that tight space saws included.

Yes, the left part of the tool cabinet. There are many tools, mh...

Planing Rabbets is Fast.

2008-04-15T09:40:00.001-07:00

A friend has to be convinced. It is fast to plane a rabbet, sometimes it is even easier than corded routing. Look at the video and you will see. I used a new Ulmia with a wider fence. The rabbet is 7,5 mm wide by 5mm deep. The board is 70 cm long. It took a minute to establish the rabbet. Sure it will be less fatiguing to work on 20 rabbets with a router...

The result is fine, the rabbet is square and consistent through the length.

Mirror - last one

2008-04-04T05:05:00.000-07:00

The mirror hanging on the wall, I wonder if the upper knobs aren't too big. Mh... Nonetheless. The upper rail has a knot midway I wanted to pick up in the lower peg board. Next project is ahead, maybe it'll be a sofa table in colonial style. I'm not sure yet. Let's see...

Mirror - third one

2008-04-03T04:37:00.001-07:00

This morning I turned the 3 tiny knobs on the lathe, same method I used when I made the big ones. A wooden MT2 made up for a missing chuck.
I turned no shoulder on the knobs, looking at the pic you'll notice why. The profile is sloping, a precise work compensated for the missing shoulder. The mirror frame hangs now, it only awaits its mirror...

Mirror - second one

2008-04-02T14:37:00.000-07:00

Got the frame done on AFD and am shaping the peg board now. I used my #6 fore plane with heavy camber after establishing the cross section of the profile and went on with the standard angle block plane from Bernhard - well LN. Some tearout persists but will give in tomorrow by the only sight of my scraper card. The board will have 3 pegs for holding key bunches and small stuff alike. The lower pegs will be tiny, tiny... See you on the lathe.

Mirror - first one

2008-03-31T13:31:00.000-07:00

Sure it'll be Shaker style and it'll fit the entry room. My inspiration comes from Ch. Becksvoort's book - The Shaker Legacy - last page on which you find a pic. I added two pegs on the styles, but more of that later on. First there are the styles with the mortises, made with an 8 mm Sorby sash mortice chisel, a wonderful tool... I fiddled around a bit in order to make the rabbets for the mirror. As I like big deep fences on rabbet planes and alike, I came up with this solution, fixing one style with the Veritas hold down and a conventional clamp, the workpiece losely on it, the stop being a thinner board held in the front vise.

The rails got some fancy tenons, the tricky part was to cover the planed rabbet. The recess had to be chopped out with a chisel. I like those parts of the work.

To be continued...

Une cache pour la sonnette

2008-03-29T02:54:00.000-07:00

There is one friend who when stepped in to my home, rised his sight to his upper right, shook his head and used to say: - As long as you won't cover that odd plastic bell and that butt ugly transformer with all the wires, you won't have finished your home. Well, this week I remedied to the spot. I dovetailed a box and covered it with a frame on which I dadoed 6 slats. The dadoes are set at45° to the edge. Mike's saw worked like a bombshell.

Fitting the slats to the frame, one at a time on the shooting board with the #9.
The slat frame is fixed like a table top. Four mortises catch four cleats screwed to the frame.
And here it is in all its beauty :-) The bell's new walnut cover. I invited my friend to have a mug of coffee. Curious what he will say...

Done

2008-03-09T09:51:00.000-07:00

Today I finished the paintwork in the entry room. I'm quite satisfied with the argile colour shade.

The next job is in sight, some odd plastic covers of the house bell will profit from hiding it to the world. There is framework ahead.

Some dimensions of the pegboard: The Shaker hooks are 3 inches by length. This way the coats touch the wall merely slightly. The dome and the end of each peg are a tad smaller than 1 inch. The board itself measures 9 cm in width, 23 mm in thickness and the tree boards come up to a length of almost 4 m. I fixed the boards with 5mm strong and 60mm long brass screws. The two beads are 3/4 inch wide. There are 11 pegs all in all in the boards, 7 on the 2 m long piece and always 2 in the sides.

Finally finally finally

2008-03-02T14:36:00.001-08:00

After some block plane strokes the miter looked fine, just plane frome top to bottom, don't do it from edge to edge...
The knobs were to be installed. I sawed off the tapers, sorry Beat, and sawed in a kerf.
This is what the kerf is for, a wedge.
That finds its place...

Some pictures will follow a tad later, maye at the end of next week. I have to repaint the entry hall.

Inbetween

2008-03-02T14:23:00.000-08:00

As promised...
I worked the edges with the #212...

And mitered one end with my old lady backsaw...
As she hasn't that strong and long back anymore I had to attak from both sides...
Which finally gave this result, not fine but nothing one couldn't remedy with the help of a decent block plane...

to be continued...

Finished

2008-03-02T13:56:00.000-08:00

You know, it is that simple. Some planing, some turning, some drilling, sorry just a joke.

Today I got finished the new Shaker peg board. I started with the last of three boards and scratched in the profile - a side bead. Scratching was good, as my #45 had a problem. I discovered that the half inch iron was presumably self made. The skates are thicker than the hollow of the iron allowed. It was redundant sharpening the iron and flattening the skates. But who knows about the tools new job. As Rob Lee told me, an additional feature of a tool can diminish its "value". How right he is.

I dodged to the LN 66, good for this wild grained american walnut, it needed some effort not in comparison to a plane or a tailed router. The profile seemed to success beautifully if I could go this tad deeper, the fence prohibiting this cut - except for the last photo session , sure what else.

But, but, but, as easily seen the #66 isn't a perfect tool or its craftsman isn't working it corretly. Some passes brought along bruised side walls. The side rabbet #98 helped to remedy.

to be continued...

New Tools

2008-02-27T11:57:00.000-08:00

Just for Urs - an update of tool additions of the recent past. Let's look at it from top to bottom. On the walnut board a brush - natural horse hair what a difference. Then the most impressive tool I got to get - a maul, perfect for chisel work. Never a striking tool felt better in my hand. The Boggs concave spokeshave follows, it will help bringing forward my next project. Two mortice chisels from Sorby and a LN squirrel tail plane with curved sole. On the left side, a plane brush I thought I'd never get, but ... never order by phone, it will raise the bill in terms of seconds. Finally a Record # 077A I won. I forgot to photograph the new Tormek T-7 a real help in woodturning tools' sharpening. That's it, nothing more, just those.