bench

as part of my art making preparedness plan (or AMPP if you like to abbreviate things) i decided i needed a small and at least somewhat mobile workbench that was still robust enough to take a beating so i wouldn't need to consider building a new one for a long time. and as part of my router table plan (that's the RTP) i cut a spot for a router table insert. here are some pictures:

here are all the legs stacked in the ultimate clamp-up machine at the shop (that's my dad's buisness shop, not the garage). it originally had iron handles that you spun to tighten each clamp, but those have been replaced by those little wing jobs that are tightened with a pneumatic motor. usually i try to avoid using the bigger tools at the shop as i don't want to be in the way of the real work and i don't want to get too dependent on tools that i will never have in a smaller shop setting. but this is the right tool for the job and they weren't using it at the moment.

i also glued up the top in the big ol' clamper. because it is just wider than even the largest tools at the shop, i flattened the surface by hand. i could definitely see where a larger #7 or #8 jointer plane would have worked better, but my #5 did a respectable job. all i had to do was completely and evenly remove all those pencil marks...

and then the surface would be flat. of course, the closer you get to flat, the more material you have to remove to get it flatter. this picture is from about half way through the planing step. because it is a workbench, i stopped well before i got to "dead flat" and even left a lot of tear-out made by the plane. i finished with the belt sander in an attempt to remove some of that tear out and got a surface that i find acceptable.

then i routed out a recess for the router insert (that blue metal thing).

and used some screws to level it out.

after the top was finished, i built the apron out of poplar and attached the legs. then i spent about a week living with it, deciding how i wanted to take care of the racking issues (i.e. wobbly-leggedness). i decided to go with a strong plywood toolbox screwed on to rails installed 6 inches below the apron, along with lower foot rails on the short dimension. now i have a pretty tough table that can be packed up flat. too bad it still weighs a ton.

wooden spoons and beeswax

the lady friend decided recently that all the wooden spoons in her house were gross and worn out. so we fixed 'em up! it was also a good excuse to make a new batch of my homebrew wood finish that i label as "soft wax."

here's the basic idea- melt some beeswax. stir in a measure of citrus oil. cool. done.

here's some specifics- by blending citrus oil into beeswax, you get a softened wax that can be applied with a rag and some elbow grease. then, as the citrus oil evaporates, you are left with a nice satin wax finish. maybe not the most durable or perfect finish, but a quick, all natural, easily rejuvenated one.

i think 2 parts wax to 1 part oil, by weight, is a good place to start. melt the wax in a double boiler made of the storage jar and a saucepan, turn off the stove (the citrus oil is super flammable!) and stir in the oil with a stick. seal the jar and let it cool. if you keep it closed between uses, it will stay soft a really long time.

note: don't try to make more wax in the same jar as you don't want to heat the oil. remember, even though it is made of fruit, the oil does give off more vapors when heated and those vapors are not particularly good for you, even when they aren't on fire.

so here are the spoons (and a cutting board) to be fixed up. we sat down with some files and sandpaper and our freshly minted wax and got to work.

and voila! can you tell from the pictures that they are better than they were before? because they are. promise. after a few days to cure, they are ready to resume service. anyway, i haven't used my wax on cooking spoons before, so i'm interested to see how they hold up. i also coaxed sarah into letting me finish a couple with a corn oil and citrus mix as a point of comparison. hooray for human test subjects!

also note: there are other recipes for "natural spoon oil" and the like online which i, personally, would avoid. mineral oil is a petroleum distillate and therefore doesn't fit my definition of natural. still, we have no proof that my solution is any better. so there's that.

files

for some reason, even after they have had an owner, files never have handles. just pointy metal tangs. but this is a problem i can solve! turned maple; shaped beech on the right.

marking gauge

this is another post about adding important elements to my toolbox (with the secondary goal of getting some much needed practice). so be warned.

it's essential as a woodworker to be able to mark lines repeatedly and accurately. all my life, i have accomplished this with a carpenter's square and a sharp scribe or pencil. and that's perfect for a lot of applications, except for when it's not. the main advantages of a gauge are that it cuts the wood fibers so that a cleaner cut can be made and that it can be used with one hand, thus speeding things up considerably. also, it's the kind of tool that all the old woodworkers, both european and japanese, would surely have. and when have a bunch of dead craftsmen lead you wrong?

i started with the same base woods as i used for the mallet- mostly because they are available, but also because now my tools match and that's kinda cool. after cutting the arm piece, i punched a mortise through the end where the blade will be set later. (the quality of cut made by the mortising machine is surely lacking but it is a hell of a lot quicker than cutting a mortise by hand.) then i cut a rabbet for the brass wear plate. for the body of the gauge, i hand cut a big ol' mortise which took quite a while as i wanted a tight fit that still allowed the arm to slide easily. here's a test fit:

next, i drilled a hole for the set screw and tapped it using a standard metal tap. i've heard that using a tap can leave a bad thread in wood and that a shop made tool is the way to go but i've never had a problem using this guy in hardwoods:

then it was just assembly. screw in place:

and the cutter that i ground from a piece of tool steel (i have since decided should be facing the other way, but that's easy enough to fix when it's held in with a wedge):

and there you have it.

i've already found some flaws with my design, mostly regarding the size of the pieces, but i will spend some time with it, and once i really know what i want from a marking gauge, i'll give it another shot.

bailey #5

using a good hand plane is a wonderful experience. a sharp, well tuned plane will lift a continuous wood shaving thinner than a sheet of paper with much less effort than you would expect. it will leave a near mirror surface without dust and with only a low, satisfying "purr" to be heard. a dull plane, on the other hand, takes all your effort and turns it into a ruined board so that you can use more effort with a loud and dusty sander to get what is still an inferior product. maybe that's why a good plane can run upwards of 200 smackers.

lucky for us, they've been making good planes for a long time and old ones can be found all over the place. a good friend of mine gave me his grandfather's #5 stanley bailey plane. it was in pretty reasonable shape when i got it- a little rusty, some paint globs on the handle, a chipped blade- but no cracks in the casting or anything like that.

 
a plane like this is definitely worth the repair effort. i used an article in fine woodworking #216 as a guide and now have a beautiful, functional, long lasting tool.

after removing as much rust as i could with naval jelly and then washing all the parts in alcohol to remove any remaining grime and moisture, i got to work on the blade:

this was the original condition. there is at least one big chip in the blade and the cutting edge has been rounded from sharpening. i ground down the bevel to get past the chip:

after some grinding, the chip is still visible on the right side. after a little more grinding, i set to work on the 1000 grit water stone:

the honing jig locked on to the plane iron was a great and rather inexpensive purchase. the wheel on the back keeps the blade at the correct (25 degree) angle. i spent way too much time working the blade down before deciding to take a step back and clean up the body of the blade on fine (320 then 600 grit) sandpaper. i then restarted the sharpening process on a 600 grit oil stone. after stepping back up to the 1000 grit water stone and finally the 3000 grit water stone, the blade was in pretty good shape:

i could have gone farther and gotten a completely flat, mirror finish. but i'm lazy and i gave up once i got to a rather flat, somewhat reflective finish. i then cleaned up the chip breaker on some sandpaper. before:

after:

the plane body was still quite flat, so i just lapped it over some fine sandpaper to take down a few high spots and remove some bits of paint. then i gave everything a light coat of camellia oil to prevent rust, tuned it up, and made some test cuts:

that's good enough for me!

chisel mallet

i've been working on building my tool kit lately- mostly because i want to be able to transition smoothly from my father's shop to my own work space when the time is right (i'm really hoping the time will be right around mid-may. but we'll see.) i'm also trying to get back to a heavier and more continuous project-load in all areas (both art and various crafts) as well as build and hone my somewhat rusty and limited skills. thus, i have started assigning myself little workshop projects. the first of these projects was a small chisel mallet.

i started with a little chunk of some very hard, heavy, tight grained wood that i scavenged from a friend's scrap pile. i bet it is teak, as he is a sailor, though it could be one of many exotic hardwoods that i don't have experience with (i try to stick to more local stuff when i buy material) (ed: he says it is probably ipe). for the handle i found a scrap of maple.

i cut a piece from the block for the mallet head and then cut a flared through-mortise by drilling out the excess and then bringing the walls to relative flatness with a bench chisel. the front and back of the mortise flare about an eighth of an inch from bottom to top- this will be important later. i cut the tenon on the handle on the router table and then cleaned up the shoulders with a chisel:

then the handle got a quick spin on the lathe and a couple of notches in the tenon:

then i mounted the head and drove wedges into the notches to lock the pieces together (remember that flare i mentioned earlier- that's so the tenon will have room to spread).

see-

finally, i cut the wedges flush with the tenon, rounded the bottom of the handle with the stationary disk sander and carved a maker's mark into the head:

in the end, it was a good little project. i really do need practice cutting clean mortises (did you see the tear-out in the second to last picture? i sure did) and nice, tight shoulders, and i haven't done much spindle work on the lathe. oh, and i got a nice little hammer out of it- just the right weight for controlled joinery cuts.