Woodworking in a Tiny Shop

This is the culmination of the wooden screw rabbit hole I've been in for several weeks.  It started from a Worth marking gauge I was given some years ago, the screw from which didn't fit the inside threads in the fence very well.

It all started from this

It turned out that the inside threads were the problem - they got wallowed out a bit and the screw would no longer hold.  So with my experience a few years ago making larger wooden screws and with the help of some online videos, I figured out how to make threads of the appropriate size: 3/8" major diameter at 10 threads per inch (3/8" - 10, for short).

To pull it all together, I made a new marking gauge.  The major challenge with this one was making the wooden thumb-screw.  I'll get to that in a little bit.  But first, I made a prototype marking gauge fence from scrap wood to see if I could create inside threads through the top and extending to the mortise that houses the beam.

I needed the prototype marking gauge to be at a specific height in the threading box, so I planed a scrap piece and super-glued the fence to it. Then ran the tap through the fence to make the inside threads.

And it worked very well.  Here's the original wooden screw in that tapped hole - a nice snug fit.

Later I made a fence blank from walnut and repeated the procedure on the real thing.

Here's the walnut fence getting threaded

and I got a nice fit here, too

The walnut took the threads pretty nicely

Next I tested a 3/8" diameter piece of walnut to see how well it would take outside threads.  I had soaked it in mineral oil for a few days, and it worked out pretty well.

Testing a 3/8" walnut dowel for outside threads

And it fits an inside thread nicely

With that adding confidence, I laid out a wooden screw on a walnut blank.  I was careful to lay out precisely to keep things aligned.

Laid out the shape using the original as a guide

Then sawed and rasped the to-be-threaded end a little oversize and tapped it through a dowel plate for a fairly accurate 3/8" diameter.

The extra material on the right in the above picture is so I could mount it in the threading box.  I formed that into a 5/16" diameter so I could use one of the couplers I'd already made (I realize that might only make sense if you had read the previous posts about threading small diameter wood).  Then I cut the outside threads and tested them in the walnut fence.

It fits nicely and it locks the beam solidly!

I cut off the extension on the back end and shaped the thumbscrew head similar to the original.  I also cut off about 1/2" of threads so that there's only about 1/8 to 1/4" of threads above the fence when the screw locks the beam.

At this stage, there's just a little shaping to do and then some coats of shellac.  Like my last marking gauge, I added wax to all outside surfaces, except the bottom of the beam.  That exception will help ensure the beam won't slip in its mortise during use.

It's looking like a marking gauge

I added measurement lines on the side of the beam that is visible to me (a right-hand dominant person) when in use.  I find the lines very useful on the original Worth gauge, and I don't know why more marking gauges don't have this feature.

I laid out these lines carefully - they go out to 6"

Almost forgot to mention - I made the pin from an old 3/32" drill bit.  It was annealed (though it was still very hard after annealing) with a torch and sharpened using a drill and hand-crank grinder.  It was a little loose in the 3/32" hole in the beam, so I bent it a little bit and now it holds well.

And here is the glamour shot.  When the screw is tightened, the beam will not go anywhere.  It clamps as solidly as a rottweiler on a postman's leg.

It's a beauty

I'm done with wooden screws for now.  It's time finally to move on to other things.

Last time, I had some success threading 1/2" dowels and fitting them into 1/2" wooden nuts.  I had used a three sided box with dadoes that housed blocks.  One block holds a machine screw and nut with a specific pitch.  The end of the screw was modified to hold either a dowel ready to have outside threads cut, or a tap ready to cut inside threads in another block.  Another block simply gets an inside thread cut into it or it houses a cutter to cut an outside thread on a dowel that is fed into it.

Here's the box set up to cut outside threads on a dowel

After some experimentation, I made some improvements.  First, I wanted to angle one of the sets of dadoes so that the cutter mounted to it would cut outside threads at the proper pitch angle.  For the 1/2" - 8 threads and the 3/8" - 10 threads that I'm working with, this angles turns out to be around 5 degrees.  Without this angle, the V-shaped threads cut into a dowel would not be symmetrical: one side would be more vertical and the other side more angled.

This shows the angled block to account for the pitch angle. The previous picture shows a straight-across block.

Second, I realized that my outside thread cutters were cutting a much wider thread than I want due to cutter angle and geometry.  So I modified the cutters to make a narrower cut (no pics of that).

Third, I made improvements to the methods of connecting the screw to a dowel.  Originally, I had used a piece of rubber hose and hose clamps, but these tended to slip.  Later, I made wooden couplers that used set screws to lock the screw and dowel in place.

Here's an early experiment with 5/16" tap cutting inside 3/8"-10 threads in a block.  The machine screw has 3/4"-10 threads and the coupler is made from plastic tubing, hose clamps and a split wooden ring to adapt the 5/16" dowel to the 3/4" ID plastic tube.

Now is where I get into 3/8" diameter screws with 10 threads per inch.  I use a 5/16" dowel for cutting inside threads.  In earlier experiments I just drilled a hole through a 5/16" dowel and stuffed a cutter in the hole to make a tap.

The little cutter was made from a steel hinge, rectangular in cross section and fit tightly into the round hole drilled through the dowel.

That worked, but after the first use, the hole got wallowed out and the cutter wouldn't stay in place.  So I decided to try a different way to hold the cutter in place.  This method uses a set screw in the end of the dowel to lock the cutter in place.  But as you'll see, there were issues.

Drilled, tapped and put a set screw in the end of the 5/16" dowel. Before tapping the hole, I fit the dowel into a 5/16" hole drilled in scrap. This kept the dowel from breaking apart as I tapped.

Made a new cutter from an old 1/8" drill bit

After annealing, it shaped easily with hack saw and files

But after a few times tuning it into a (hopefully) new nut, it was destroyed. This one was made from relatively soft red alder.

I made another 5/16" dowel from beech, hoping the harder wood would hold up better.  Then I ran it through another 5/16" pilot hole and it worked without getting destroyed.

Got the sample 3/8" screw through the nut

Some success!

The threads were very tight.  I'm pretty sure the problem lies in the profile of the external threads on the screw.  I'm using a 60 degree cutter, but I think the angle at which it is presented to the 3/8" dowel makes the effective angle greater than 90 deg.

After working on cutter geometry a bit, I got back to the screw to dowel connection.  The coupler is a block of wood with a 3/4" hole on one end and a 3/8" hole in the other.  Then I drilled a hole through the coupler and the 3/4" screw, as well as through the coupler and the dowel.  Both are pinned with wood pegs.

The new coupler has a 3/4" hole on one end ...

... and 3/8" hole on the other end.  After the screw and dowel are inserted, a hole is drilled down through both and pinned with a small wooden peg.

First tried a very dry beech dowel.  It worked, but the beech didn't take threads well

I had soaked these two red alder dowels in mineral oil for a few days ...

... and this one took the threads far better than the dry beech.

Fits in the tapped threads in a block

But there's a problem: a flat spot with barely any threading

It turns out that the 3/4" screw is not sitting in it's block perpendicular to the block.  It's probably a few degrees off 90, so I shimmed the nut in the block and got it somewhat better.  The result of this problem is that the back end of the threaded piece wobbles as it is fed into the cutter and one side of the dowel gets much less threading than the rest.

Look at the difference in how these two took threads

Finally, I broke down and bought a couple things to help the situation.  The first was a 5/16" brass rod to make a new (practically indestructible) tap.  Similar to the above beech tap, it has a hole drilled and tapped down the center to take a 10-24 set screw.  The cutter for the tap is housed in a 1/8" hole drilled through the diameter of the rod.

Brass rod drilled and tapped - carefully to keep it centered

I also purchased a 12" length of 3/8" - 10 lead screw.  This was much easier to deal with than the large 3/4" screw.  And it also fit into tapped holes I had already made in blocks that fit the threading box.  And because the threaded blocks were aligned properly, the lead screw has very little runout.

Brass tap on left and 3/8"-10 lead screw on right.

The lead screw and brass rod have shallow drilled spots to allow the set screws to engage them and hold them tight with no slippage

And this worked out great - got a nice thread in the block that fit the screw well

Well established 3/8"-10 inside threads

And here's where it ties back into the thing that started this rabbet hole.  The marking gauge that got me thinking about small diameter wooden threads is shown in the next picture.  The threads on the wooden screw fit perfectly in the tapped holes.

The wooden screw that started this rabbet hole fit perfectly!

With this success, I'm making a new marking gauge: one that holds the beam in the fence with a wooden screw.  And I'll share that next time.

Man, I had a lot of trouble writing this blog entry.  It has been tough trying to come up with a coherent story.  But here goes.

Last week I had taken a 1/2" dowel and, after careful layout, used a square file to file about an inch of threads into it at a pitch of 8 threads per inch.  Then I made a wooden nut and was able to screw the threaded wooden dowel into it.

A 1/2" x 8 tpi screw into a tapped hole

The method of making the nut involved a block with an angled kerf cut in it, into which a metal plate is inserted to engage the spiral slot sawn into a 7/16" dowel.  The dowel was fitted with a cutter which, when rotated in the block, can cut inside threads in a workpiece that is clamped to the block.

The tap without a workpiece

The tap with a workpiece ready to get an inside thread

A couple years ago, I made some larger diameter wooden screws and nuts.  To cut the external threads, I made a screw-box based the one in Roy Underhill's "The Woodwright's Workbook".  But this time I'm trying something different.  A guy named Paul Hamler has a YouTube video where he shows his method of cutting wooden threads for miniature plow planes that he makes.  I'm particularly interested in what he shows at about the 22 minute mark.  In this blog post, I'm borrowing some ideas from that video.

Like last post, I'm working with 1/2" diameter dowels for outside threads, 7/16" dowels for making inside threads, and I'm making 8 threads per inch.  This method takes advantage of a large 1" diameter metal bolt that happens to have 8 threads per inch.  By attaching a wooden dowel to the bolt and running the bolt through a captive 1" x 8 tpi nut, I can advance the dowel at the proper rate to cut 8 tpi threads.  And I hope to be able to cut both outside and inside threads!

This block helps capture the nut

First, I had to find a way to attach a dowel to the bolt.  I started by hacksawing, drilling and filing a 3/8" slot, about 5/8" deep, centered in the end of the bolt.  Holy crap - that was a lot of work!  Then I made a wood block with one end shaped to fit in the bolt's slot and a 7/16" hole in the other end to secure a 7/16" dowel.  Both connections were pinned with wooden pegs.

3/8" wide x 5/8" deep slot cut into the end of the 1" screw

Wood block shaped and later pinned to the bolt

I had to give this a try, so I clamped things to the workbench and gave a trial run.

A trial run at cutting inside threads

The dowel was fitted with a small cutter

And after a few passes, iteratively increasing the cutter's depth, it worked! Here a 1/2" x 8 tpi wooden screw was turned through the new nut.

After that, I realized I could more simply attach the dowel and bolt by filing a couple of flats on the dowel and pinning that directly to the big bolt.  The two flats were made 180 degrees apart on the end of the dowel, so that it would fit into the bolt's slot.  A 3/16" hole was drilled through the bolt and dowel to hold the dowel in place.

Attaching a dowel to the massive 1" x 8 tpi bolt: note the hole drilled down through bolt and dowel, pegged with 3/16" dowel

I also made a three-sided box with dadoes on opposing sides to house blocks that hold the different items needed for cutting threads.

Here's a box with captive 1" x 8 tpi nut.  One of the other slots in the box will house a block with a cutter to cut the threads in a dowel.

The nut is recessed into the block and secured with a cover

The next thing I needed was a method to attach a V-cutter (for cutting outside threads) to a block that the dowel is fed into.

Here you can barely see a clamp for the cutter.  The clamp is just a small piece of hardwood with two holes for bolts to tighten it against the cutter. T-nuts on the back of the wood block provide purchase for the bolts.

Here's the cutter clamped to a wood block, starting to cut some threads

An action shot shows the shavings coming off the dowel

The resulting screw threads in some (very soft) redwood

But it fits the internal threads of the test block

Here you can tell I decreased the outside diameter of the dowel too much. It made for a fairly loose fit in the nut.

On another test piece, made of harder wood, after cutting the threads I chucked the dowel in a drill to file the threads for a better fit in the nut

Ready for a test fit ...

... and it fits great!

Top is the screw that I filed by hand.  The other three, from different woods were cut with the rig shown above.

This is getting too long (again), so I'll add one final thing.  I made a nice improvement to the clamp that holds the cutter for outside threads.

A block holds the cutter and a set screw in the back can advance the cutter

Here's the cutter, the clamp block and you can see the hole for the set screw

In use, an Allan key turns the set screw ...

... advancing the cutter from not cutting ...

... to cutting deeper and deeper with each pass

End note: after all this, I found that you can purchase "lead screws" of a more reasonable diameter and the right thread pitch, lead screw nuts, and couplers that would handle the job of attaching the screw to the dowel much more efficiently.  Oh well, I guess I like to do things the hard way - with stuff I already have on hand.

A couple weeks ago, I made a new fence for an old Worth marking gauge.  In the original, the beam of the gauge got clamped in position using a wooden screw through a tapped hole in the top of the gauge's fence.  The screw was about 3/8" diameter and about 10 threads per inch.

The original from the Worth gauge

For the new fence, I used a machine screw and a threaded insert.  But it got me thinking (again) about wooden screws and nuts.  A couple years ago I finally had success making wooden screws and nuts, but the diameters I was working with were much larger than this (the smallest was 13/16").  So I thought I'd give it a try.

My plan was to start with a screw having 1/2" major diameter and 8 threads per inch.  A 3/8" diameter just seemed too small for now.  Using 8 tpi, (1/8" thread pitch) makes the numbers come out nice.  I started with a 1/2" square blank and on each face, I knifed and penciled lines every 1/8".  The lines on each consecutive face were 1/32" offset from the prior face.  After planing the workpiece round, The lines were still visible and I could connect them with pencil.

Ready to connect the layout lines and get filing

After filing the threads with a square file

This worked fairly well, but I still needed to see if it would fit into a nut with the same thread pitch.  For the nut, I first tried using the method I had success with a couple years ago.  I made a block with a 7/16" hole (the minor diameter of the screw) through a face and then cut a saw kerf in an edge at an angle down to and a little bit into the 7/16" hole.

You can see the 7/16" hole through the front face, as well as the slanted kerf at top of the block

The kerf fits a slim card scraper - you can see the scraper extending into the hole just a little bit

That 7/16" diameter stick in the above picture has a shallow spiral kerf sawn into it.  This stick was laid out very carefully and sawn very carefully.  This was the second try - the first was made from a very porous wood that was clearly not suitable for this purpose.  The one above is maple.

The first attempt got destroyed in use.  There is just not enough meat around those kerfs to withstand a little stress.

A little below those threads, I drilled a 1/8" hole and fashioned a tiny cutter, which is just press-fit into the hole.

The cutter can be seen here - it's got a (roughly) 90 degree point

In use, this spiral-kerfed piece gets placed into the block (the block with the 7/16" hole and slanted kerf), and the slim card scraper engages the kerf.  As the cylinder is turned, it gets pulled into the block and the cutter can cut an inside thread in a workpiece that is clamped to the block.

Here's the cylindrical piece engaged with the card scraper in the block. Note the spacers taped to the front of the block.

Here, I've added a workpiece that had a 7/16" hole bored through it. The block and workpiece are clamped in a bench vise.

In this view from above, you can see the spacers allow you to see between the workpiece and the block.  This way you know when the cutter exits the workpiece as the cylindrical piece is turned.

At first, the cutter is barely showing as you turn it through the workpiece.  After retracting the cutting cylinder, you advance the cutter and run it through again.  And again.  And again ... until the threads are well formed and deep enough.  For threads this size it only takes a few passes.

Here are the internal threads that were just cut

And the screw fits!  Success!

Well, so this post doesn't get too long, I'll end here and pick up next time with a second method.  I'm fairly excited about it because it doesn't rely on the spiral kerf cut into the cutter stick.  Maybe eventually there can be some success with 3/8" diameter sticks!

About 12-15 years ago, I met a man on a plane who noticed I was reading a woodworking magazine and we struck up a conversation.  Short story shorter, he ended up surprising me by sending a few tools that he was no longer using.  Among these was this marking gauge labelled "Worth", a name I didn't and still don't know anything about.  EDIT - an internet search came up with a thread on a "Garage Journal" forum where people identified Worth as being a brand from Bigelow and Douse Hardware of Boston, MA.  They further noted that the Worth tools were probably manufactured by Peck, Stow and Wilcox (Pexto) for the hardware store.

The Worth marking gauge

It had a wooden screw to clamp the beam in place, approx 3/8" x 10 tpi

Like many similar gauges, the wooden screw had become loose as the wood fibers were worn away.  Also, the mortise hole in the fence wasn't a great fit for the beam, so this gauge has been sitting in a drawer for a long time.

At first, I addressed the beam looseness problem by putting some blue masking tape on the beam to get a tighter fit in the fence.  Obviously not a long-term solution.  Then I thought about putting a threaded insert in the screw hole and using a metal thumb screw.

Brass threaded insert

It turned out that the brass insert was still a little loose in the hole, so I decided that I'd make a new fence.  If I was making a marking gauge from scratch, I'd mortise the fence first and then plane the beam to fit just right.  For this one, I wanted to use the Worth's beam, both for nostalgic reasons and because I like the scale printed on one side.  It was a little tricky to make the mortise just the right size to fit the existing beam.  I ended up using a caliper to measure the beam's width, locked the caliper at that measurement, then stabbed the inner diameter measuring fingers of the caliper on the new fence to mark for the mortise walls.

Mortise chopped and upper and lower facets shaped for the curved top and bottom surfaces of the beam

At first, the fit seemed a little too loose, but after some shellac it fit very well.  Next, I bored a hole through the top, down to the mortise.  I had shaped and placed a stick in the mortise so that I wouldn't blow out the mortise's top wall.  The threaded insert went in that hole.

You can see the insert within the mortise

I used a leather punch to make this plastic "coin" (?) so that the thumb screw would not damage the top of the beam

I get a good solid grip of the beam when the thumb screw is tightened

Then the screw was cut down to length.  To make the thumb screw more comfortable, I inset the "thumb hold" part of the screw into two small pieces of walnut that were carved out to fit the thumb hold and then glued together.  It was then shaped to make a much more comfortable grip and look a bit more like the original.

The new thumb screw next to the original

After shaping the fence for comfort, I gave the parts a few coats of shellac, then waxed all but the bottom of the beam - that's what gets pressed against the lower mortise wall when the screw is tightened and I don't want that to be slippery.

So I now have a nicely working marking gauge.  It looks a little funny being two-toned, but I got to preserve some of the gift I was given and give it new life.

Glamour shot #1

Glamour shot #2

BTW, I changed one thing in my fence from the original: there is more meat below the mortise in the walnut fence.  I like having that extra bearing surface when using a marking gauge.  The original had less than 5/8" of bearing surface to reference against a workpiece.

This post will be considered by some as an intellectual exercise only.  Maybe it's for math geeks, like myself.  There are simpler methods to do what I write about.  I'm all for simplicity, but I like the math.

When I want to put a curve on the underside of a chair rail or a table apron, a simple method is to place a clamp at either end of the intended curvature and bend a stick (or ruler) to the desired "bulge" of the curve.  While this method will give attractive results, the resulting curve will not be exactly circular.  The stick bends more at it's center than at its ends.  And it may not bend equally both sides of center.

Marked lines 1" from ends, and placed clamps near those marks

Centerline marked and 1 inch "bulge" marked from lower edge

Bend a stick to the "bulge" mark, and draw the curve

Here's the resulting curve

Here's an example, same as in the above pics.  Suppose I have a 20" x 2 1/2" rail and I want to put a circular arc on the underside.  I want the arc to start 1" from each end of the rail and I want it to extend up into the rail's front face by 1".  So that's an arc 18" wide with a 1" bulge.

Using a little math, I can calculate that the radius of the circle that gives the appropriate arc is 41".  I can then use a stick (or piece of string) of that length and a pencil to lay out the curve.  I'll write more about the math below.

This stick will allow arcs up to approx. 48" radius

One end has a shallow slot to run a pencil in

You can put a screw anywhere on the stick for whatever radius you need. The screw tip exits the bottom side, and it is used as a pivot point for drawing the arc.

Here, I'm using the radius jig to mark the arc on the workpiece. Note that the screw has to be in line with the centerline of the workpiece.

The two methods give very similar results, so it really doesn't matter which you use.

You can see the slight difference in the two methods

But if you're doing a smaller piece, say an arc only 6" wide, then that bendy stick won't bend in that tight a space.  That's when it would be easier to use a radius stick.  For those smaller pieces, I can use my homemade trammel points to create the arc.  I'll show that below.

Another place where drawing a circular arc has come up is when laying out a camber on a scrub plane iron.  I recently made an iron that was 1 1/2" wide and I wanted a 1/16" bulge at the cutting edge.  For this iron, I simply filed a curve to get it close.  But if I wanted to be more precise, I could figure out what the radius of that curvature is and make a template.  Turns out it is about 4 1/2".

Cardboard template, 1 1/2" wide with centerline drawn

Homemade trammel points

Setting the distance to 4 1/2"

Drawing the appropriate arc on the template

Measuring the resulting bulge - it's about 1/16"

Comparing the template to the plane iron

OK, now here's the math part.  It has to do with right triangles and the Pythagorean theorem.  I'll start with the example of a table apron, which I want to put an arc on the bottom edge, starting some distance in from each end and rising up a certain amount.  In the picture below, points A and B are the ends of the arc, and C is a point centered between them.  The width of the arc I'll call "w", so the distance from C to B is 1/2 w.  The bulge of the arc is the distance from the lower edge of the board to the highest point on the arc.  I call it "b".

The workpiece with arc drawn.  The arc has width "w" and height "b".

Now I'm going to zoom out so you can see the rest of the picture.  The arc drawn on the workpiece is part of a large circle, whose center is at point O.  The radius of the circle, given by distance R, is the distance from point O to any point on the circle.  I'm using point B here.

Zoomed out pic shows the complete circle with radius drawn

Another radius is from the center, O, to the point at the top center of the arc, drawn straight up from the center.  That radius is made up of two distances, the distance from O to C, and the distance from C to the top of the arc.  The latter of those I've already called "b", the bulge.  So the distance from O to C is a radius minus the bulge, or R-b.  Triangle OCB is a right triangle, so from Pythagoras, the sum of the squares of the two legs (legs are the sides of the triangle making the right angle) equals the square of the hypotenuse.

R^2 = (R-b)^2 + (w/2)^2       (the symbol ^2 means squared)

R^2 = R^2 - 2Rb + b^2 + (w^2)/4

And simplifying, we get:

2Rb = b^2 + (w^2)/4, and then

R = (b^2 + (w^2)/4) / (2b)

So to draw an arc with a certain width and bulge, you can calculate the radius of the circle that describes the arc and use a stick to draw the arc.  I've put this formula into an Excel spreadsheet.  If you want to do the same, type the following in an Excel sheet:

=(C4^2 + (C3^2)/4)/(2*C4)

In this formula, C3 is the location in the spreadsheet where I entered the arc width (not half width, the whole width).  C4 is the location in the spreadsheet where I entered the bulge.

Here's a picture of what my Excel sheet looks like (replace the word "Iron" with "Arc")

The example shown above has an arc width of 18" and a bulge of 1".  The resulting radius is 41".

Here are the details for the other example of this - shaping a plane iron with camber to make a scrub plane.  It works exactly the same way.

The plane iron drawn in gray, with markings like the earlier example.

Here's the upper end shown closer up

Using the spreadsheet for an iron that is 1 1/2" wide and giving a 1/16" bulge, I get a radius of 4 1/2".

The cambered iron example

For anyone who is actually interested in this stuff, if you can't figure out how to get the formula I wrote above (shaded in yellow) to work in your own Excel spreadsheet, contact me using the "contact me" gadget somewhere on this blog page.  Specify that you want the radius spreadsheet, because I've got another spreadsheet for a different application and don't want to send the wrong one.

Scrub plane from 2022

Body, wedge and blade

The iron, as found

I had no idea what type of steel that iron was made from, and really didn't know if it was any good at all. It was thick - about 7/32" thick. When I made the plane, I hardened and tempered the iron.  I've used it a bit, though not a huge amount, and it seemed to be cutting well for a short time, but needed sharpening quickly.  Last year after using it a while I noticed some chips in the cutting edge.  Apparently the steel wasn't a type one should use for edge tools.  Either that or I messed up the heat treatment.

If you look closely, you can see the chips in the edge

Another view from bevel side

The plane has been sitting on the "rehab shelf" for several months now and finally I'm getting the chance to do something about it.  I tried reheat-treating the iron and got it to cherry red and nonmagnetic, but after quenching in oil, a file still was able to bite into it, so the heat treatment clearly didn't do the job I intended.  Time to punt on that iron.  I had a chunk of 1/8" thick O-1 steel of the same width as the old iron, and I shaped it, hardened it and tempered it.

Old iron and new one ready to be shaped

I drew a 1/16" bulge on the end and filed the shape

Then mounted it in a vise at about 25 deg and filed the bevel. I followed that with the hand-cranked grinder.

Shaped the back end similar to some other irons I've got

Here's my heat-treating setup

The iron warped a little from heat treating.  The front 1" of the back side was hollow and it took a long time to get it flat.  The bevel side had a belly at the front 1".  The rest (not hardened) stayed flat.

The old iron had a more severe camber on the blade - about 1/8" bulge over the 1 1/2" width.  In practice, I never used the entire width of that iron because it was just too much wood removal.  The new iron I shaped to about 1/16" bulge over the 1 1/2" width.  That's about a 4 1/2" radius for anyone counting.

But because the new iron is thinner, I needed a thicker wedge.  Instead of making a new wedge, I glued a piece of wood to the underside of the existing wedge and planed it down so that the wedge would sit in the throat at the right location.  I thought I used the same wood, but apparently it's not because it looks much different.

Gluing a piece of wood onto the underside of the wedge

It looks a little funky, but it'll be functional

Here's the thing about the wedge.  It needs to be fairly precisely shaped to provide a good fit of the wedge/iron to the plane body.  But almost as important as that (and probably equally as important for other types of planes) is the fit and final location of the wedge's fingers.

Here's a pic of the unfinished wedge from a few years ago. Note the angled shape of the end of the fingers (left).

Inside the plane's throat, at the bottom of the wedge abutments, the abutments angle toward the plane's sides.  This provides a ramp for the shavings coming off the iron.  It's very tough to get a good photograph of the wedge fingers and the plane body's lower abutments, but hopefully you'll see what I'm getting at.

Looking through the mouth, you can see the wedge and lower abutment. A close-up image is next.

The red arrow points to the lower abutment that angles toward the plane's side. The yellow arrow points to the wedge finger (note it is two-tone - both light and dark colors are the finger).  The finger's angle should line up with the abutment's angle.

I took a couple shavings off the underside of the wedge until the fit was just right.

Well, that's it.  The new iron fits great and the wedge holds it securely.  I put a little BLO on the wedge's added-on bottom and the scrub plane is back in business.  I'll report back if this new iron is not performing as I expect it to.

This is a project I've been thinking about for quite some time.  We have a little step stool in the kitchen that helps my wife reach some things on higher shelves.  But she has to reach to the floor to grab it and move it.  I don't know where I first saw a design like this, but having a tall handle seems like a great idea for a kitchen step stool.

It'll look something like this

I made this out of the red oak I got from a neighbor's kitchen remodel.  The handle is about 30" tall, the step is 8 1/2" wide and 12 1/2" long and is 9" off the floor.  The joint between the step and the low upright (front legs) used dovetails.  It's been a few months since I dovetailed anything, and I felt a little rusty.

Tails cut and waste chopped

Pins cut and waste chopped out

The fit wasn't perfect.  I filled a couple of small gaps after glue-up.  For the joint between the step and the tall handle, I used multiple (roughly) square mortises and tenons.  I left the tenons about 1/16" proud, because I like the look.

Handle board below, step above, marked and ready for cutting

Another view.  The left/right extents of the mortises and tenons were marked with a panel gauge, referencing off the same side (edge)

Mortises in the handle piece were first bored, then chopped to the lines

Checking for square inside walls

Looking pretty clean

The tenons came out pretty good, still a little paring to do here

Got a good fit

Added a rail under the step.  Through tenons.  The tenons were offset from center of the rail so that I could leave more meat on the handle piece between the mortises for the step and the mortise for the rail.  A curve was added to the rail's underside later.

I wanted to add something for visual interest (and so my wife might like it), so I cut out a heart shape at the top of the handle.  The heart doubles as a hand hole.  I practiced with scrap first, and that was a good idea so that I'd get a good heart shape on the real thing.

Practicing on scrap of same width

Making a template: two overlapping circles of 1 3/8" diameter, from the bottom of those circles, mark down 1 3/8" along the centerline.  Then join the outside of the two circles with a slight curve to that point.  The larger heart is 1/2" offset from the smaller one.

The heart/handle came out pretty good

Next was shaping the handle piece and creating feet.  The handle had gentle curves starting 1" above the step and ending a couple inches below the heart.  The feet were made by cutting out a half-ellipse, 5 1/2" minor axis and 10" major axis (only half the major axis length was used because I'm using a half-ellipse).

Template used to mark out the shape on the handle

Handle sides shaped - awaiting the half-ellipse for creating feet (no pics)

Before gluing up, I did a few dry-runs to figure out my clamping strategy.  The glue-up went fine, but it always looks so silly with all those clamps in place.  There's a lot going on in the picture below.  They're not seen in the photo, but there are two pieces of scrap placed between the front feet and back feet.  They are the exact length as the distance between the step's two shoulder lines - the dovetail side and the tenon side.  These pieces were placed between the feet so that the joints would stay square when clamped up.

Those deep-reach clamps extending out left and right are clamping the rail to the underside of the seat.  I made these many years ago from plans in Wood magazine (I think), and they really come in handy at times.

The glue-up

These cauls were used for clamping the multiple tenons (top) and the dovetails (bottom)

I'm happy with the result.  The dovetails look pretty good and the the through tenons fit well.  The following pics are after a first coat of shellac.

The dovetails and through tenon of the rail

The multiple mortise and tenon joint, with rail tenon on the handle side

And the final product:

First coat of shellac applied

I've got three coats of shellac on now, and I'll give it another coat or two tomorrow (but not on the underside).  Time will tell if it gets used in our kitchen.  It's intended to replace (or be in addition to) a step stool that has huge sentimental value to my wife.

I probably wrote the same thing last year, but it seems like I didn't do enough woodworking in 2024.  As I look back on my posts, here's what I got.

Projects

I started out the year strong with a really attractive box to hold tea bags.  The project came out great and my wife loves it.

Tea box in mahogany (or some mahogany imposter)

Then a neighbor gave me a bunch of red oak from their kitchen remodel, so I made them a two-step stool from that wood.  I was quite happy with how it came out.

This is probably the 4th of these I've made

In April or May I modified our silverware drawer with a nice organizer.  This has worked out nicely.

The top level slides back to reveal the lesser-used items in the bottom

In May I had a request from a neighbor for a pet food stand for their cat.  It was a simple three-sided "box", but I made it a little more complicated with angled dovetails.

The neighbors really like it

I didn't write about this one during the year, but in May/June I made a couple of Roubo phone stands for family who were visiting.

Woodwork complete, awaiting a finish

In June, I made a wooden toolbox to carry tools to the "Repair Cafe" that I volunteer for.  This was a really nice project and it came out great.

It has a lift-out tray, storage under that, and a drawer at bottom

My most involved project last year was a Schwarz stick chair, completed in July.  It was very challenging to build, but it came out great.  Still, it's not as comfortable as I thought it might be.  And more than one person has tripped on the front feet, which stick out a bit too far.

The Schwarz "short back" chair

My last project of any importance was a stool for the granddaughter.  The woodworking was easy enough, but my wife did a really spiffy job painting it.

Stool for Felicity

Tool Making or Rehab

Knowing that I was going to make a Schwarz chair sometime during the year, I had to figure out how to make a rounder plane.  After some prototypes, I made one for 5/8" and one for 1/2" tenons.

5/8" rounder plane for making cylindrical tenons

As further preparation for making the chair, I bought and rehabbed a couple of auger bit extensions.  Unfortunately they were too large a diameter to fit my needs for the chair, but I'm still glad I got them. One was pristine when I got it and the other needed significant work to get it working right.  As it turned out, I found another one with the appropriate diameter a couple weeks after I finished the chair.  So I'll be ready when the next chair project comes around.

A Craftsman (above) and a Stanley #180

I finally got a chance to pick up some centre bits for a brace.  I had wanted to try these for a long time.  Now, if I can get my hands on some spoon bits, much of my boring fascination will have been satisfied.

A dozen centre bits

At a few estate and/or garage sales, I was able to score a few new-to-me tools.  They have all been rehabbed and are nice additions to the shop.

From an August garage sale

From a couple of August or September estate sales

Lastly, in October, I made a cap-iron screwdriver from an old steel hinge and a scrap of wood.  Just today (end of December) I used it for the first time.  I guess that shows how much woodworking I've been doing lately.  But I really like the screwdriver - it fits the cap-iron screw perfectly in my Stanley planes.

Looks and feels great

Miscellaneous

The only thing I have for this category is my early December tour of the Museum of American Heritage.  Actually it was a tour of the warehouse where they store all the items that they rotate in and out of the museum.  MOAH is in Palo Alto, CA, but the warehouse is in San Carlos.  It was fantastic - there was so much stuff, and woodworking tools were only a small part of it.

This post drill was just one of thousands of items at the museum warehouse

Well, it was a pretty good year after all.  Here's hoping 2025 will be even better.  Happy New Year everybody!

In early December, I had the great fortune to be invited to see the warehouse of a local museum, the Museum of American Heritage.  The museum itself has interesting exhibits that rotate a couple hundred objects in and out periodically. But the exhibits pull items from the warehouse, which is jam-packed with thousands of vintage items.

I only took pictures of the woodworking items, but there was so much more.  From a wooden-framed bicycle made during WWII metal shortages, to the original calculators, to a punch-clock machine from the company that would later become IBM, it was unbelievable.  I wish the lighting had been better for taking photos.

A couple of post drills

Here's a better pic of the one on the right. I love these things.  Even got to turn it a bit.

A saw set - probably a Stanley #42, not sure

Two spoke pointers - one of them was huge!

Poor picture of a large and LONG T-handle auger

Vintage Shinto rasp - and I thought these were a fairly new tool design

A couple of wooden plow planes

Top shelf has drilling tools and wrenches. Middle shelf has various wooden planes and side rabbet at far right. Bottom shelf has a Stanley 45?, Stanley 75 and Stanley 39 dado plane.

Check this out: an old powered jointer with a wooden frame and tables. Never seen that before!

Stanley #113 circular plane (compass plane)

This is just a sample of the woodworking stuff that I saw.  I also saw a treadle scroll saw, several braces, more planes and other items.

Woodworking was only a small proportion of the overall warehouse.  Everything else was fantastic and fascinating as well.  And I never would have known that it existed.  I wonder how many other small museums (with large collections) exist in other towns around here - or elsewhere for that matter.  If there are any small local museums in your area, by all means check them out.