Hand Tools

It’s been a banner year for the Barn Clan, with grandson #3 born in February and grandson #4 born last Friday, giving us quite the inventory.  As the fates would have us all the grandsons live within five miles of each other, so Grandma Barn is always ready for a road trip.

Good thing Grandpa Barn has bins of tools ready for the new hands.

 I thought I had turned the corner but I was wrong. So badly wrong. Late in the afternoon the cold I thought was on its way out returned with a vengeance. The cough was back triple worse, the snot locker was clogged again, and my throat hurt. I guess it is going to be a few more days of feeling miserable.

is it an omen?

All of the taps are starter ones. Not a single bottoming tap in the lot. Could it be a hint of the quality of them? I don't anticipate using this much so it may last me long enough to leave it to the grand kids.

great chart

Lists all the British Standard threads. Everything needed to tap a hole and thread a screw.

back side

Same info for imperial threads. There is also British Standard thread for 47 1/2° - didn't know that existed. All the drilling info is in metric - no imperial.

hmm.....

As much as I like chopping the waste, sawing most of it and then chopping is the way to go on this cherry.

done

Got all the waste chopped. I checked all the sides of the tails square to the face. I still have to clean up the baselines and the corners before I mark the pin boards.

This was all I did today. This little outing exhausted me. I felt like I had worked hours while it was barely 20 minutes. Having a cold sucks big time when you have the urge to make sawdust.

missed it

This is on the outside face on the top. This must have happened when I knocked the waste out. At least I didn't have this headache when sawed the waste.

accidental woodworker 

But not my very, very personal ones. Over the last few decades I’ve accumulated more woodworking hand tools than perhaps I should, but there again, it’s all been for the best of reasons. I have written to books, fifty articles for magazines, and then a thousand blog posts. Factor into that a thousand video episodes...

Source

Using the Hackett Sub-Sea 3.2ton hoist to raise the new(old) timber racks. The Hackett winch is British engineering at it's best, it works, it has to; designed for undersea work on oil rigs etc. Old faithfull, timber trolley, plays a crucial role also. 

Fine adjustment with a larch beam and oak block fulcrum, on the trolley, to get the bolt holes to line up.

Manual handling with safety and confidence in your tools. Love them; they deliver again and again.

 Started to feel normal today. Coughing less and I'm no longer hacking up globs of puss. I think I'll be back in the shop friday - at least that is what I am shooting for. If nothing else I will go there and just sit and watch You Tube.

done

Got the other side tail waste cut out. No boo boos and no expletives expended. More importantly no over cuts.

 

hmm.....

I expect that I will have gaps on the baselines. For some reason I assumed that since I removed most of the waste I could chisel directly in the knife line. I was wrong as I saw the chisel move backwards when I struck it. Oh well, I have a container of cherry sawdust to make wood putty with.

came today

Got my British Standard Whitworth tap and die set today. The box is MDF but is still nicely made. 1/16th up to 1/4 inch.

hmm......

There were 3 starter taps. I was expecting at least one bottoming tap but I can chase the threads with what I got. There was something in the threads and I got the tap to run in/out freely through both holes.

die holder

Both screws went through the die without any hiccups. It felt a little loose but there were no hindrances running it in/out.

tap holder

This is a simple tap holder. Considering what I payed for this set it fits. The quality isn't shouting at me with the paint on the tap and die holders being questionable. The tap holder worked and held the tap securely in spite of its looks.

clear and clean

Got my hopes up because the tap cleared out something in the threads. The fit was loose but not as loose as the die with the screws.

toast

Badly burnt toast too. The threads are clean on the screws and the spokeshave but the screws spin freely - neither one would tighten and stay there. I don't have any ideas on how to restore the threads that I can do in my shop. The only red neck idea that popped up in the brain bucket was to fill the threads in with JB Weld and tap it again.

accidental woodworker

 Feeling a little better today. I think I peaked and I'm on the downhill slide to getting better. Sore throat is gone but I'm still coughing and hacking up globs of slimy, sticky crap. Still no AM or PM shop time. Maybe by the weekend?

hmm.....

I thought of the blue tape last night during a a fit of coughing. One problem I've had in the past with using a coping saw was over cutting. Either into the side of the tail or below the baseline. I put the tape 3 frog hairs above the knifed base line. I'll have to carefully gauge cutting toward the side of the tails.

ta da

Survived the first sweeping coping saw cuts. Felt stronger today too, not as weak as I felt yesterday.

done

Still have to saw the opposite end but I didn't want to push my luck. I'll saw them tomorrow.

accidental woodworker 

I’ve just started building a new solid-body electric mandolin, haven't done one for awhile.  I’ll be documenting the process in a series of YouTube videos. Here’s the first episode: hope you find it interesting.

Cheers Gary

 For over a week I've been coughing on and off all day. My first dark thoughts were it could be lung cancer. However, last night I woke up with a sore throat and a clogged shut snot locker. Thoughts are lighter now and it looks like I got my first cold in years. I feel like something a stray dog left on the front walk and you step and slide in it. I didn't even feel like doing anything but I did go out for my monday breakfast. I bought a bunch of side dishes for thanksgiving after I finished eating.Looking like I won't be strolling post lunch for a few days.

felt better

I went to the shop around 1300 and looked around. It was just as I left it. I can't imagine not being able to work in the shop. Not an idea I like but it is just for a few days.

had to do something

I felt like a kid just making one saw cut. Realized that I was too weak to do anything else. If I had I probably would have screwed it up. Maybe tomorrow I'll finish sawing this first tail waste.

accidental woodworker 

This has become a bit of a tradition here at Giant Cypress.

This is one of the best Veteran’s Day songs ever, even if it was written for Australia’s version of today.

God bless our vets, all of them.

You do not have to look far to see how ridiculous timber prices have become. What used to be an affordable hobby is now something you really have to think twice about. For hobby woodworkers like you and soon myself to be, the cost of a few decent boards can easily rival the price of a good hand plane. It makes you stop and plan every project carefully because waste just is not an option anymore.

A lot of people like to blame it on transport costs or limited supply, but let us be honest, that is not the real story. There is no shortage of trees in Australia and the mills are still running. The problem is corporate control. Big companies have taken over the supply chain from start to finish. They have bought up smaller mills or forced them out, and with fewer suppliers left they can charge whatever they like. And they do.

This sort of manipulation is not limited to timber either. It is happening across the board. The world has become greedy. Corporations are driving up the cost of living while pretending it is all about inflation or supply issues. Sure, wages have gone up, but only on paper. The reality is most people are barely scraping by. A one bedroom apartment can cost around seven hundred dollars a week, and once you have paid rent there is almost nothing left for food, electricity, or anything else, let alone a few nice slabs of timber.

For many woodworkers that means adapting. Some are turning to recycled wood or salvaging pieces from old furniture and building sites. Others are experimenting with new species or milling their own logs when they can. It takes more time but it is satisfying work. There is something special about bringing life back into an old piece of wood that most people would have thrown away.

Maybe that is what is keeping woodworking alive. In a world ruled by greed and profit, this craft still gives you something real. The feel of a sharp chisel, the smell of fresh shavings, the rhythm of a hand plane, these are things money cannot buy.

So yes, timber is getting dearer, and everything else with it, but true woodworkers will not stop. We will adapt, just like we always have. Because at the end of the day, woodworking is not about what you can afford. It is about what you can create.

 

lid stay

I had left the lid down for two days and no sticking. Put on my largest chain as a lid stay. This will snap off if you are too aggressive when opening as it has snapped on me before. I know from past experience that if the lid falls back free and clear, these hinges will also get ripped off. I'll tell my sister to be careful with this.

the dovetail chisels

The largest chisel I'm sharpening is 1 1/4" and I'll use it on the pins. I don't try to to match dovetails to chisel sizes. That is why I need 5 to whack out these pins and tails.

sigh

When I hit the waste to remove it, it took a chip with it on exiting. Stopped chopping to super glue the chip back before I lost it.

a work out

Chiseling the tail waste was like chiseling stone. If this had been pine I would have whacked it out an end in less than 5 minutes. Doing one end took me almost 20. On the other end I removed most of the waste with the bandsaw. I stopped here for the day so I can think on how to best do the other board.

I had made a dovetailed cherry cupboard a few months back and I don't recall the chopping of those tails/pins being this difficult. I will say that bandsawing most of the waste made chopping what was left easier. I'll have to decide whether to bandsaw them or to use my coping saw. Both have their own potential hiccups.

hmm......

The slope is a two frog hairs off square. With pine I wouldn't worry about this little bit but with this rock hard cherry I have to fix it. I checked and trimmed the tails square to the front face. Killed the lights here to go watch some football.

accidental woodworker 

 I bit the bullet hard and ordered the Whitworth tap and die set last night. Amazon says it will be here on monday. I got it because I have 4 record plow planes that have Whitworth threads or at least I know that they aren't imperial threads. I also found my Whitworth thread gauge. Luckily I had bought another one before I remembered I already had one. The downside to this is I'm not 100% sure that chasing the threads will help but I'll find out in a couple of days.

end panels

I was surprised at how well the grain matched on the glue ups. One side (left board) sticks out but the right one is much better. Cleaned up the joint line on both faces with the Stanley #80.

made a left turn

I thought about this last night right up to hitting the rack. I couldn't reconcile the overhang on the ends - that kept looking like elephant ears on a red headed step child. I am now making a dovetailed box to house the drawers. On the first plan I was going to house the ends in stopped dadoes. I made the length a few frog hairs shy so I can plane the drawers to fit.

hmm......

30 minutes work and it looks like I hardly did anything at all to this iron. I plan on shining it up so it will be pretty to look at. Time to implement plan 2-b.

custom holder

Working on something like this with one hand sucks. It is almost counter productive. I can only work on half of it and then switching to work on the other half. Not being able to use my dominant hand exclusively hurts too. With this simple jig the iron is captive and not going anywhere. I am able to employ both hands to work on it. The walls are scrap pieces of cherry a few frog hairs thinner than the iron is.

better

Draw filing the iron resulted in much better results over sanding it. Quicker too but it still ate a lot of time.

20 minutes of work

Not done yet but looking so much better. There is a defect at the bottom of the iron that is being a problem child. I wasn't able to draw file it entirely away.

2nd jig

It was shine time and trying to move this back and forth on the sandpaper wasn't working. Way too difficult/awkward to keep downward pressure and moving it with just my fingers. This worked way beyond my expectations and I moved through all 8 grits in less than 10 minutes on both irons. 

up to 180 grit

The jig held up with zero hiccups. The little tab was the Achilles heel but it performed like it was a rock.

done

Not a mirror shine but I'm satisfied with what I got. The jig fits in the bigger irons but it is a loosey goosey fit. I'll make another one when it comes time to shine them up.

glamour pic #1

Still haven't tried to mold a profile with it. For now I'll keep it somewhere in the shop where I can eyeball it as tool candy.

finally

This is the fifth layout I did. What I wanted was to have two large dovetails R/L of center with two smaller ones at the outside edges. Initially I couldn't wrap my brain bucket around it. I could see it on the brain's main projector but couldn't translate it to plywood template. I don't know why this befuddled me like it did but working it out on the plywood template saved my butt.

half pins sawn

Before I chop the tails I need to sharpen and hone my chisels. They are probably good enough to chop pine but not cherry. I'll do that in the AM.

accidental woodworker

For those who only know me as a woodworker, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that I also love Magic: the Gathering. I’m in my mid 40’s and my first pack of Magic was Unlimited (and I still have the Savannah I opened in it). I largely play Mono White (Life gain or Midrange) […]

all cherry

I have a cherry veneered panel that I can use on the 3 drawer thing upcoming. All the visible surfaces will be cherry. Should be enough here to do the two drawer and one drawer enclosures.

came yesterday

I bought 4 more no mortise 3/4" hinges from Lee Valley. Bought this scraper too. I could have used this on the last miniature hope chest. It would have worked well on the cove molding on the base.

made a command decision

Decided to put one drawer on top of the two drawers beneath it. The bottom drawers are about 9" front to back and the single on on top will be about 5 1/2" front to back and roughly 10" right to left.

bottom glue up

The joint line on this side was almost dead flush and I made this one the reference face. There was also a wee bit of a cup that I flattened. 

hmm.....

Got a small hollow here that I couldn't plane off. Fingers crossed that when I run it through the lunchbox planer it will disappear. If not it won't present a problem because it will be hidden under the drawers.

it is flat

Twist free too. I have a flat face to run through the lunchbox planer.

done

It took less than an hour to run all the boards through the lunchbox planer. All three are dead nuts 3/4" thick.

done

The OVELOE spokeshave is done. I didn't try it out but I think it looks nice. I will sand the irons until the are shiny. This may end up being a 'just for looking at' tool.

sigh....

The screw on the right is spinning and not tightening down. It looks like the the screw was badly rusted and was derusted. The threads in the spokeshave are partially occluded. My imperial 1/4-20 pitch gauge lays perfectly in the screw threads. However, when I tried to chase the threads with a 1/4-20 imperial tap it wouldn't go. Much to my surprise, I found a Whitworth tap and die set on Amazon for $60. Still sitting on a fence about whether or not to buy it.

sigh again.......

I thought this screw was ok but I was wrong. After the left screw went south I tightened this one down again and it after 1/8 of a turn it started spinning too. Both of them are toast. Might be enough for me to hop down off the fence now.

knife nicks

It is nice to finally mastered rolling the burr on this. The wispy shavings put a smiley face on me. There were 6 rows of knife nicks to remove. Had to wash, rinse, and repeat for the other two boards.

settling the design

Eyeballed the overall look first. Thinking that maybe the single drawer could be for watches? I am also thinking of making a tray on the top of the single drawer.

lots of hmm......'s today

I don't like this little semi circular piece of grain here. I cut it off shortening the drawer front to 10" right to left.

box nails

These have to go. I won't be able to plane the sides to fit the drawers. I am going to attempt to get the fit but I would rather have the option to plane to fit too.

it works

I have seen this technique for removing nails in countless restoration You Tube vids that I watch. It worked well with a minimal amount of fussing and relatively little site damage.

tapered nails

Replaced the box nails with wooden japanese tapered nails.

not too bad

The drawer on the left I did first. The one on the right was the last one. I lightly sanded both with a 80 grit sanding block. Used a screwdriver initially to pry up the head of the nail and then removed it with the diagonal cutter pliers.

got the length

I left an inch on each end with scraps for the end panels and the center divider. 

brain fart

The end panels aren't wide enough to use in the orientation I want. If I use the end this way, end grain will be facing out front and back. If I flip it 90 face grain will be facing out but it won't be wide enough. One more glue up to do.

more thicknessing to do

I left the piece to be glued to the end panel a few frog hairs thicker. I will flush them after the glue ups have cooked.

done

I left the knife line when I flattened this for wiggle room. It isn't that important that both end panels be within one to two atoms of thickness with each other. They aren't married to anything and the dadoes for them will be individually done based on each one's thickness.

glued and cooking

Not thrilled with the color difference but this is what I had to work with. I will put the shorter board at the back.

haven't forgotten this

I've been thinking about this one and made another command decision. No drawers, it will be a enclosed book shelf (or display) now. This way I can use 1x12 stock without having to do any glue ups. Three adjustable shelves and a 4-6 inch raised base will complete it. I'll start on this once I'm done with the 3 drawer thing.

accidental woodworker 

Of course, some timber will not rive. This yew log is one example. It's just too gnarly. The wedges need help from an Alaskan chainsaw mill. Interestingly, the chainsaw also needs help from the wedges, to stop the chain binding. A perfect marriage of the old and the new, the hand and the machine. Rivers Joinery, old and new, mobile workshop, comes to you.

The log has been sitting around for 4-5 years in the dry, so it's fairly well dry itself.

It's been a while since I've used the Alaskan, and a dormouse, or similar, has tried very hard to stash it's hazelnut inside my chainsaw side case. 10 out of 10 for determination, but you never came back for it!

Each board is more beautiful, as we go down the log. Not much use for timber-framing, but it might make a nice table, or two.

When the early settlers came from Europe, they brought with them a mindset shaped by scarcity. Europe had already been stripped bare of much of its ancient forests. Centuries of shipbuilding, heating, and farming had cleared vast stretches of oak, elm, and yew. By the time they crossed the oceans, the old growth that once blanketed Europe was mostly gone.

Arriving in the Americas and Australia, they saw endless forests and thought they had found an inexhaustible resource. They felled the trees with the same habits that had already destroyed their homeland, cutting without thought for renewal, burning without a plan for regrowth. Tree farming was unheard of. The concept of managing forests for future generations simply did not exist in their worldview.

What followed was predictable. The great stands of cedar, oak, and mahogany in North America, and the towering red gums, blackwoods, and huon pines of Australia, were taken until there were no giants left. Many species that once grew thick and wide have vanished entirely, and those that survive no longer reach the same size because they are cut before maturity.

The tragedy is that it was not ignorance alone, it was greed and a short-term way of thinking. Forests that took hundreds of years to form were erased in decades. We inherited their mistakes, but we can still learn from them. True respect for timber starts with understanding what it took to grow and what was lost to bring it into our hands.

first coat

I could almost get away with this one coat but I'm going with a 2nd one.

a little bit of surprise

This was the spot, a divot, that I filled and when I sanded it it looked like a portion of it had fell out. It is invisible as to where it was under the first coat. Happy with how well the paint coverage performed.

last look over

I double, triple checked/looked the two over three times. No holidays and I couldn't see any casting defects anywhere through the paint.

done

Two coats and tomorrow I'll be able to put the OVELOE spokeshave together. I'm still thinking/researching on how/what to do with getting the profile fixed on the lamb's tongue spokeshave.

time to vacate the boneyard

This is the lingering headache of making things and having limited space in the boneyard. This has to go upstairs into my wife's office. I was not looking forward to doing it. I've been putting it off for a couple of weeks but today I put on my big boy pants and got it moved.

the tough spot

I have to get it up these stairs, turn to the right and go up three more steps. The last obstacle before my wife's office is getting past the end of the counter and the refrigerator.

done

The hardest part was over and no marks, scrapes, or dings on the cabinet. I went up one step at a time, resting after each one. I left it in the living room and when I got back from my post lunch stroll my wife had in it the office and partially filled.

new project

Thinking of a small cabinet (?) with these two drawers. All cherry and I will have to glue up stock for the bottom or for the top. Most likely it will be the bottom because it is a two board glue up.

wow

The twist is four lines and that is the most I can recall seeing. The plan at this point was to remove the twist and based on how thin it ends up, decide then whether or not it is still usable. I'm shooting for a thickness of 3/4".

flattening

Cherry isn't as easy as pine but it still reasonable. I couldn't take the heavy shavings with the #6 like I could with pine. After flattening with the #6 I checked it with the sticks and 95% of the twist was gone which surprised me a lot. I was expecting to see a lot of twist still left to remove.

twist free

Smoothed the board with the 5 1/2, the #7, and finished with the #3. This is ready to be fed through the lunchbox planer.

the top

This board was basically twist free. I just had to deal with a slight cup and then a hump in the middle.

hmm......

I'll let this stock relax overnight and let them do any stupid wood tricks. 

resawn cherry

Not quite equal - I thought I had eyeballed the middle before pushing it through the bandsaw. This is for the top of the two drawer cabinet. Thinking of putting one, two, or three smaller drawers on the top?

drawer front

Flattened two of them to the same thickness plus a 2nd set. The first one is book matched, the 2nd set isn't.

nice

Besides the grain sloping down, the area above it shimmers a bit. This will really pop with a finish. The top one is rather bland compared to them.

1/2" cherry

Remembered that I had some 1/2" stock I had bought several years ago. Got two boards wide enough for the small drawer enclosure.

hmm.....

I don't know what the boards on the left are. The right board is mahogany and I thought of using either of these for the small drawer fronts. I'll probably stick with all cherry for the show surfaces. Drawer sides and backs will be pine.

accidental woodworker 

Opening up the panels glued up the night before is always a thrill for the students to see their work coming to fruition.

The next step is to trim the fields to make them good rectangles for the banding followed later by the borders.  A variety of veneer saws were at work, ranging from pricey French saws to inexpensive Japanese ones.  They all work.

The perimeter banding was applied and adhered with 192 gws glue, and the banding held in place with aluminum push pins that are surprisingly similar to those used by craftsmen 250 years ago.

Throughout the day and overnight, if a panel was not being worked it was placed in front of a box fan to drive off as much moisture as possible, to harden the glue under the parquetry.  That strategy was somewhat successful.

Thus endeth Day 2.

done

It took over an hour to sand, and clean up both spokeshaves. The JB Weld didn't stay 100% in the voids I filled. Enough of it stayed and I'll elevate it after the first coat of paint has dried.

hmm.....

The right iron profile is way off on the right. The flat on the profile is gone and it is beneath the bottom of the spokeshave base. The left one is a better match - the left one is going to take a lot of work to make it right.

ready to hang

Maria had these ready for me when I got there. I think they look great and they serve a purpose other than tool porn. They show the breakdown and parts of everyone of these hand tools.

back hall has a blank wall

This is the only blank wall space left in the house. It is enough for the four frames I want to hang here. Three of the four large frames are going on this wall.

more free space on the opposite wall

One large and one small frame will populate this wall.

not easy

It took me quite a while to hang the four frames because this heebie jeebie ladder placement. I made sure the door to the right was shut tight and latched. If I had fallen from the ladder I didn't want to end up in the cellar. I took my time and if anything felt off I stepped back and changed it. Ate up a lot of time but I got them hung without hurting myself.

not even

The middle one and right one were kind of close - level across the top. Instead of trying to get them even across the top I staggered them. They drop down about a 1/2" from each other. The hanger wires on the back weren't all positioned at the same point on each frame which made trying to hang them from a level line I drew maddening to do.

hmm.....

 Space between the two for more frames.

orphan

I wanted this to be with the other 6 on the right. Not enough room no matter how much I tried to shrink the frames to fit the space.

something to read tonight

Been waiting on this for a while. The durability and coverage of milk paint, IMO, is better than any latex paint available. Making my own on a need to use basis is appealing too.

 accidental woodworker 

Here is the shop-made fence that I have been using since well before the current manufactured versions became available. It works very well for planing a board to a straight, 90° edge. Here is how to make it. Start with settled dry wood. I used quarter-sawn walnut with a straight, even grain. It is 11” […]