Woodworking in a Tiny Shop

The trials with the prototype arm bow gave me some confidence in making the real arm bow.  I had originally drawn the arm bow on a big piece of paper, but I knew that wouldn't be good enough to cut out a template from.  So I went to the craft store and bought a $2 piece of thin translucent plastic that would be thick enough to use.  This was the first time I used this stuff and it worked well.  I drew the shape with a large homemade compass and a sharpie marker, then cut out the shape with scissors.

Two planks that will make the four pieces for the arm bow. This used to be a cutting board that someone was getting rid of. These started about 1 1/8" thick, planed down to 7/8".

Here's the template laid out on a blank. The pencil is in the area marked out for the lap joint.

I cut the parts out a bit oversized for later trimming. Here's the lower part of the arm bow ready to be half-lapped

And then the upper piece will be glued on

The lap joints came out good and tight and I got to use a plane that I bought early on in my hand tool life and rarely use - the shoulder plane.  A nice plane, but probably not one of my smarter purchases.

Marked the waste carefully to avoid mistakes

Squaring an end of the left arm and then of the center piece

Using that squared end to mark the half lap on the center piece

Then sawed away the waste ...

... and cleaned up the surface with router plane. There's an off-cut supporting the cantilevered end of the router plane.

Using the shoulder plane to get a nice straight, square shoulder

Then, using the first half of the joint to mark for the second half

Gluing one of the half laps.  Note I didn't use the special clamp blocks that I posted about earlier.  Rather, I just canted the clamps a bit to help pull the joints tight.  It worked well enough.

And after planing the lap joints flush, here's gluing on the upper piece

After the glue dried, I shaved down to the lines and cleaned up the arm bow.  The next step is boring the holes in arm bow and seat, but I'll wait until next time to cover that.

So I've got the seat, legs and arm/back support sticks prepared.  The next part to make was the arm bow.  I figured I'd do a prototype to work out the kinks.  With a prototype I can use mismatched and totally unsuitable woods.  This arm bow is made up of three pieces (eventually it was five pieces).  The middle piece is a 1 5/8" thick chunk of redwood and the rest is 3/4" red oak laminated to make pieces wide enough.  The parts are joined using barefaced tenons on the redwood piece and the oak is glued to that, kind of like a lap joint.

Redwood sitting on the arm bow template with two angled ends

The ends have had a 3/4" thick section removed underneath

The oak was glued into the removed section (big rabbet?), creating that lap joint

You can see in the above photo the special clamping blocks that pull the joint together as the clamp pressure is increased.  These worked OK, but the adhesive-backed sandpaper that was supposed to keep the blocks from sliding didn't work perfectly - the adhesive slipped.  But in the end it worked well enough to get a good glue joint.

Here's the (mostly) shaped arm bow

And here it is roughly in place, positioned using the arm bow drilling jigs

Unfortunately, it seemed like the arm bow was way too short.  It started out 10" along a centerline from the inside curve at the back to the tips of the arms.  I half-lapped on another 3" piece to make the arms 13" deep.

An extension piece on each end added 3" to the arms (shown before shaping)

The next step was to figure out how to bore the holes through the arm bow, in a direct line to where the holes in the seat need to go.  I had laid out the hole location in both the arm bow and the seat.  The key to getting the chair together is to get the arm bow holes to line up with the seat holes.  I noodled about this for quite a while and tried a few things before I got it right.

First idea: using a straight stick from seat to arm bow to align the auger bit to. The right side of this stick (where my finger is pointing) is aligned with the  arm bow hole and seat hole locations.

Using this method, I had to place the bottom of the stick a distance forward of the seat hole location that was the same as the distance from the arm bow hole location to the front of the arm bow (about 1 1/4").

Boring a hole in the arm bow, lining the bit up with the stick

I also had a mirror on the workbench giving me a view from a right angle to see if my bit was lined up with the stick

But this method left too much to chance, as evidenced by the arm bow holes not coming close enough to being in alignment with the seat hole locations.

My next idea was to use a special stick with one end pointed so it could sit in a small hole (made with an awl) at the seat-hole location.  The upper end of the stick had a glued-on extension to help point the auger bit.  This also wasn't quite right.

This stick has a point in line with one side and an a triangle-shaped extension at the top end

Here's another method I tried.  I'm trying to line up the holes in arm bow and seat using a ruler and square.  This also wasn't the answer.

After trying several things, I realized that I could line up the bit in this direction (left and right in this view) fairly well by eye. But I still needed something to dial in the front / back lean of the bit.

It took a few days for this to gel in my mind, but here's the solution. The stick has a point at the bottom end (left in pic).  The two extensions that are glued to the stick are 5/16" different in width.

With this stick, the upper extension can rest against a 5/8" auger bit, bringing the bit in better alignment with the seat hole location.  The width of the two extensions was large enough for the stick to clear the arm bow when in use.

The stick in use.  It's not easy to see in this picture, but the bottom of the stick has a point sitting in a tiny hole at the seat hole location.

Note that the auger bit has to align well with the edge of the upper part of the stick

Finally I was getting holes bored in the correct alignment!  Most of the arm bow holes were bored before getting this stick right, so they're not aligned properly.  This arm bow was a prototype, so I'll be making another, and that'll be in another post.

Last time I wrote about the legs and seat.  Still much to do with them, but this post is about the sticks.  This chair will have 12 sticks - 6 long and 6 short.  I'm using red oak that I got from a neighbor's kitchen remodel.  I looked for pieces that had straight grain along the edge and cut on the face along the grain direction to get pieces that followed the grain fairly well.

Note the slanted direction of the grain.  There's a pencil line along one of the grain lines. I cut along those lines to get straight grain pieces.

Some reasonably straight-grained pieces squared up to 3/4"

Here's a stick sitting in a cradle waiting to be planed. Lines are drawn on the sides to plane down to.

Planed to the lines to make them octagonal

Then take off the corners with three scrub plane strokes to make them almost round

The short sticks will get 5/8" tenons on each end, so I put them through the rounding plane that I made a few months ago.  I did a test run first with a test piece and that was a good idea because the tenon came out at an angle from the rest of the stick.  For that test piece, I clamped the stick upright in a vise and turned the rounding plane onto it.  I found that I really need to put the rounder in the vise and turn the stick into it, concentrating on keeping the stick in the center of the rounder's entrance.

Taking a long stick to 5/8" diameter.  If I started the rounding plane this way, the end of the stick might be angled.  I had to start the sticks as shown below.

The test stick (above) has an angled tenon. The one below is nicely centered.

Rounder in the vise, stick being rotated into it. I can see whether or not the stick is centered in the opening.

Turning a long stick into the rounder, concentrating on keeping it centered in the opening

Here's a close-up, where I can see the even gap all around the stick entering the rounder

The sticks were to have a small bulge, centered between the arm and the seat.  After rounding the tenons of the short sticks, I used a scrub plane, then a block plane, scraper and sandpaper to smooth the curves.

Here's the short sticks (and one long stick) shaped

A curved scraper removes most of the remaining facets

Later I'll taper the long sticks above the arm from 5/8" to 1/2".  So far, this has been the easiest and most fun part of the project.  I've run into issues with making the arm bow and boring the holes through the arm and into the seat.  But that's a story for another post.

I have Chris Schwarz' "The Stick Chair Book" and particularly like the Comb-back chair.  A few months ago, he showed a variation of his chair in a blog post that he (unofficially) called a "short-back" chair.  It's very similar to the Comb-back, but with a shorter back section.  I've wanted to build one since then, and I'm finally taking the time.

As always, I'm trying to make this with materials I have on hand.  Because of that, some parts might not have the dimensions of Schwarz' chair, but I think that'll be OK.  For instance, I'm using some table legs that I got from Freecycle.  They're not tapered octagonal, but tapered round.  And the diameter at the large end is a little smaller than called for in the plans.

The legs, one has had its finish shaved off

I don't know what type of wood these legs are made of.  It could be a softwood, not sure.  But the grain is reasonably straight and I'm sure they'll be up to the task.  I'll get back to the legs later.

The seat is taken from the top of a table someone was getting rid of.  It's softwood laminated together and there are several knots.  The tabletop was about 1 3/8" thick, a little thinner after I planed away the finish.  I wanted it to be closer to 1 3/4", so I glued on some 3/8" strips to the bottom.  These strips will be hidden nicely later when I chamfer the lower edge of the seat.

When laying out the seat, I ran into some potential issues with knots.

Bottom of seat with initial layout sketched

But look where this knot ended up!  I don't want to have to bore through that for a long or short stick, so I reoriented the seat and started again.

Here's the seat top after reconsidering the orientation. That big-ass knot is now near the eraser end of the pencil and the spindle deck is clear of knots.  No doubt it will be a pain when hollowing the seat, but I'll deal with that when the time comes.

Bottom of seat - here's that big knot now.

Twenty five bucks!  And I could've gotten more stuff for that same $25, but I just can't handle too much "stuff" around the shop.  These things are REALLY grungy and have not yet been cleaned up.  Here's the haul.

A small box of tools

And all laid out

The Stanley #5 is far from a collector's item, but it alone is worth $25.  And then the Starrett combination gauge with square/45 degree, protractor and centering heads is worth far more than that!

The #5 is probably a type 16 to 19, though I can't tell for sure just yet - I'll investigate further when I've cleaned it up.  It has "VICTORY" and "MADE IN USA" written on the iron, indicating post WW2.  It's also got a bogus excuse for a replacement screw at the front of the tote.  The depth adjuster is black plastic or hard rubber - possibly leftover parts from the shortages during WW2.  I have a feeling it'll clean up to be a nice user.

Stanley #5, type 16-19 (probably)

The Starrett combo gauge will also be a nice user.  I really love Starrett stuff.  The ruler needs a bit of work and the three heads are gnarly with dirt and oil and sawdust, but I'll get to that stuff later on.

L. S. S(tarrett). Co. Athol Mass. U.S.A.

I was really hoping to find more than one auger bit, but they said somebody had just walked away with a bunch of them.  This one is 11/16" ("11" stamped on the square tapered shank) and the lead screw and spurs look to be in good shape.  And it's from Jennings, not Russell Jennings or any other combination of Jennings.  Not sure that says how old or good it is, but I think it'll work like a champ.

C. E. JENNINGS & CO.  No 10 (it took a while to find this marking)

Next is a Stanley #51 spokeshave.  I've got a couple of #151 (or equivalent) shaves with the two depth adjuster nuts, but I've never had one of these older style without the adjusters.  I realize that the adjusters were a major improvement, but I couldn't just let this spokeshave sit there, so I added it to the box.  The blade says "STANLEY" and both the blade and body say "MADE IN USA".  I'll see how well it performs later.

Stanley No 51

Then there was this little pair of pliers/cutters, Stanley #84-120.  It says JAPAN on the other side, so probably made in the 60's to 80's.  But they are in great shape and I needed something like this.

Stanley pliers

Then there were the files.  The little box of Nicholson (made in USA) files made my eyebrows jump when I saw it.  At first I thought it was a box of triangular needle files for sharpening very fine saws, but each file is different.  I have some similar files and I use them all the time.

Box of Nicholson files The tangs have stamped: NICHOLSON - USA and "2XF" (double extra fine?)

Bottom to top profiles: round, oval, thin diamond, square tapered,  half round with safe other side, flat tapered and triangular

The other files I grabbed include a Grobet riffler-type file, two triangular files (a 4" double extra slim Nicholson made in USA and a 6" slim taper file of unknown make), and a knife-edge file.

A few files

Lastly, there were a couple of triangular sharpening stones, one fine and the other a bit more coarse.  You never know when these might come in handy.

Triangular sharpening stones

All for 25 bucks.  I don't always get the chance to get out to garage sales, but this one was fun.  I could have spent a couple more hours there just looking at all the stuff.  There were two scroll saws - one by Dremel and one Craftsman.  There was a Craftsman bandsaw/sander (huh?) - I'd love to get a bandsaw, but this one didn't seem to be that solid.  There was at least one powered grinder.  And so much more.

All for now.  Maybe I'll post later about cleaning some of these up and trying them out.

Last post I had completed the main box.  This time it's on to the upper tray and drawer.  For the tray, I made the depth (front to back) a little more than 1/16" less than the inside dimension of the box.  It's length is about 3" shorter than the inside length of the box.  This was to allow a drill to stand up on the floor of the upper compartment and still be able to put the tray in place.

The 3/8" thick tray components dovetailed

... and test fitted into the box

Made a handle / divider that fits into stopped dadoes in the ends. The handle is 1/2" thick to add a little comfort when picking it up.

Close-up of one end of the handle / divider

One corner of the tray with cleaned up dovetails

Glued up the dovetails first, then later glued on a 1/8" plywood bottom with some creative "clamping"

It fits!

I made the height so it would stick up 1/8" from the box upper edges

I just love fitting drawers to openings.  After the drawer front and back were fitted to the opening and the drawer sides to the depth, the drawer was dovetailed together.

Fitting the front into its opening

Fitting the left side and getting its length directly from the box

The parts in relative position

Marking the sides with a triangle

... and the front/back with a triangle. I sometimes use a double triangle so I don't confuse it with a reference edge mark

Dovetails complete

I had another decision to make.  Do I plow grooves for the 1/8" plywood drawer bottom, or do I glue the bottom to the underside of the drawer?  I did a little test groove in some scrap to help with this.

1/8" groove with some scrap plywood fit in place

First, my 1/8" plow iron is a bit wider than 1/8", and the plywood is a little less than 1/8", so the fit was sloppy.  Second, if I inset the groove 3/16" or 1/4" from the bottom edges, I would lose 5/16" or 3/8" of useable space in the drawer.  So I decided to glue the plywood to the bottom of the drawer.  But since I sized the drawer components precisely, I had to remove the thickness of the plywood from the drawer parts.  On the drawer front I used a rabbet so that the plywood would not be seen with the drawer closed.

Here, I've glued the dovetails together and also glued the bottom  to the drawer, using the metal toolbox as a clamp again

Then I cut out a bit of the front to form a finger pull

And lastly I could do the final fitting all the way inserted (before the finger pull I had no way of pulling the drawer back out!)

Added a couple coats of shellac

And here it is partially loaded, ready for work

This was a really fun build.  It's solid as a rock, but a bit heavier than I might have liked.  But that's OK.  It's built for a purpose and I think it'll serve that purpose well.

Last time, I ended up with the main carcass like this.

Two ends dovetailed to the bottom, horizontal divider joined to the ends with multiple 1/2" x 1/2" through mortises and tenons

I decided to fit the front and back panels into grooves.  The front panel is shorter due to the drawer opening below the divider, so grooves went near the front edge of the divider as well as near the front edges of the ends above the divider.  For the back panel, the bottom and ends were grooved near the back edges.

Putting a 5/16 groove near the front edge of the divider

Rabbeting three edges of the front panel - homemade rabbet plane at left, restored skew rabbet plane right

I didn't get a picture, but to fit the back panel, the toolbox bottom got a groove near the back edge. Later, after the bottom and ends were assembled, the groove showed as a hole (on the outside of the carcass) that I had to fill in.  That is one of the few things about this build that I didn't like - the filler pieces don't match the grain very well and it's fairly obvious (at least to me).

In addition to the groove in the bottom, the ends received grooves near their back edge from bottom to a height equal to that of the grooves for the front panel.  I had laid out the dovetail joints at the bottom corners of the carcass so that the grooves would not interfere with the joints.

The left end.  Note the stopped groove (shallow mortise) on the near edge. The groove at the far edge goes all the way to the bottom of the end piece.

One further note: I had originally made the horizontal divider as wide as the ends and bottom.  But for the back panel to fit, I cut off 5/8" to allow the inset panel.  When figuring out how much to cut off the divider, I dry-assembled the toolbox after the rear grooves were cut in the ends (and before the back panel was put in place.  I marked with a knife where to cut the divider directly from these grooves.

Once the panels were fitted, I was able to do some shaping on the ends, as well as the handle.  Then a dry assembly showed it was really starting to look like something.  The glue-up followed shortly after a couple rehearsals.

Shaping an end

A first dry assembly

And then with glue and clamps

I ended up adding a couple more clamps after this.  I saw that the bottom dovetails had not quite closed up.  Another clamp and a few hammer blows got them seated.

I also glued strips to the interior of the front and back panels that would support the tray.  These 3/8" x 5/8" strips were positioned so that their top edge was 3 1/4" above the floor of the upper compartment.  That allows 3 1/4" of vertical space below the tray - just enough for me to fit my battery drill in there.

Gluing in the tray support strip. The wooden block in there was used to set the height of the strip.

Next time I'll write about making the upper tray and the drawer.

As a reminder, this is what I'm working on.

The plan

It's a relief having the design part behind me.  I'm not much of a designer and I'd rather be building stuff.  Like all of my projects, it started with getting stock to size.  I estimate that about 70% of my project time is spent in stock prep.  This is all by hand - but I'm starting to see the day coming when I'll have to rely on a bandsaw to help me.

Resawing a board that will become the front panel

Once the bottom and ends were dimensioned, I started dovetailing.  Tails are on the ends and pins on the bottom to resist coming apart if there is too much weight in the drawer.

Laying out the tails on the end boards

Sawing out the waste

After cleaning up with a freshly sharpened chisel

Marking the pins with pencil before fitting the pieces together

After a test fit, I can tell this pin is too tight by the smeared pencil marks

First corner fitted, after some judicial paring of pins

Joint cleaned up (not yet glued)

Here's the setup I used to clean up the tails and pins. I rarely use the slot in my benchtop, but it came in handy here.

Next on the list was to fit the horizontal divider.  I took the shoulder lines from the bottom piece, as their shoulders need to be perfectly aligned.

The joint marked out

It might not be evident from the picture, but the sides have five 1/2" x 1/2" mortises marked.  The divider has the matching tenons marked.  Since my marking gauges won't reach as far as I need for this application, I had to get out my panel gauge for the markings further from the reference edge.

After boring and paring the mortises and sawing and chiseling the tenons a first test fit shows a nice result.

I had left the tenons 1/16" long to be flushed with the surface later, but I thought I'd leave them proud on the finished toolbox.  Not sure it'll go well with the flushed-up dovetails just below, but if I don't like it, I can always flush them up later.

And here's the box (so far) dry assembled.

Bottom and divider assembled with ends

Next time I'll write about fitting the front and back panels, doing some shaping and gluing up the box.

I've been volunteering at a local "Repair Cafe", where several volunteers try to fix stuff that people bring in.  The items can be anything from computers to little toy trucks, vacuum cleaners to jewelry - it spans a wide range.  So far, I've been bringing some tools in my red metal toolbox, but each time I use that toolbox, I have to dump out all of the tools that I definitely won't need and add a bunch of tools that I might need.  This is kind of a drag, so I though I'd make a wooden toolbox specifically for the repair events.

Here's a rendering of what I'm thinking.

Front View

Rear View

My initial thought was to have a drawer at the bottom, a lift-out tray in the upper area, and a space under the tray for more storage.  There is a horizontal divider that separates the drawer section from the upper section.  Since the drawer needs something to stop against when it is slid into its opening, the panel on the rear is full height.  But with the drawer opening on the front, the front panel is only partial height.

So here's where I had to scratch my head about the design of the toolbox.  It has to do with the joinery and wood orientation.  I'm planning to dovetail the box together, but I had to decide how best to do that, and how it might complicate the rest of the piece.

My first thought was to dovetail the ends with the bottom, in which case the grain of the ends would run vertically.  Alternatively, I could dovetail the ends with the front and back - here the grain of the ends would have to be horizontal.

I didn't like the second idea because if the grain on the ends was oriented horizontally, a good jolt to the handle could easily split off the top of the end pieces.  I'm making this out of soft wood and I don't think it would be strong enough in that orientation.

So I chose the first option, with the ends dovetailed to the bottom so the grain of the ends will run vertically.  This also simplified the joinery of the horizontal divider to the ends - the grain will be compatible and I decided to use multiple through mortises and tenons at each end.  That left me to figure out how to attach the front and back panels.

Front panel attachment

It's a little hard to see in the picture, but I've put a groove near the front edge of the horizontal divider, as well as on the vertical ends, that will house the rabbeted tongues on the front panel.

For the back I did the same, grooving the bottom and end pieces to house the tongues of the back panel.

Back panel attachment.  Note that I had to make the  horizontal divider narrower to allow the back panel to fit.

Putting the groove in the bottom forced me to adjust the dovetail spacing.  The groove will show on the outside at the ends of the bottom, so I moved the rear-most tail in a bit (and adjusted the other tails accordingly) to allow the groove to fit fully in the end pin.

A couple other notes here.  In the first picture above, you can see the upper tray is not the full length of the interior of the toolbox.  This is so I could fit my battery drill at one end standing on the horizontal divider.

Lastly, I'm making this mostly out of reclaimed pine/spruce/fir.  The thickness of most parts will be 5/8" to give a compromise between weight and strength.  The horizontal divider will be 1/2" thick.  The handle will be 3/4" thick oak - with the curve in the handle, I didn't want to risk a break due to lack of strength of soft wood.

I'm interested in feedback on the design.  Do you have any comments on how the front and back panels could have been attached differently?  Also, for the drawer shown in the first picture, I need some way of keeping it in place (and not sliding out) when it is closed in place.  Any suggestions?

At a recent show of the PAST Tool Collectors, I bought several centre bits.  I'd been curious about these for a long time and wanted to see what they're about.  And the price was right - 12 bits for $12!

Before anybody gets all worked up, I'm using the British spelling of "centre" just because it's how I've seen it written most of the time.  And because it makes me giddy.  I don't know this for sure, but I suspect that these bits were not used as much in America as they were in England.  Please correct me if you know otherwise.

The line-up of centre bits.

Note that the holes that these bits cut are not (or are no longer) standard sizes.  I wonder if they ever were.  The sizes (in 16ths) and makers (with all markings) are, from left to right:

• 4 1/2 / 16     No markings
• 5 / 16           No markings
• 6.5 / 16        R.M. DIXON / HERMITAGE WORKS / SHEFFIELD
• 9+ / 16        W. CHANCE & SON
• 9.5 / 16        T.E. WELLS & CO. / CAST STEEL
• 13.5 / 16      E. COOPER / IRONMONGER / CHESTER
• 15.5 / 16      No markings
• 15.5 / 16      W. MARPLES & SONS (with flower? or clover? logo)
• 18 / 16         R.M. DIXON / HERMITAGE WORKS / SHEFFIELD
• 19 / 16         J. ASKHAM (this may be an owner's mark)
• 20+ / 16       No maker mark, but "AR" and "1 1/8" possibly stamped by owner
• 21 / 16         T.E. WELLS & CO. / CAST STEEL

In his writing for "The Woodworker", Charles Hayward notes that these bits are best suited for shallow holes.  Especially when boring into end grain, the center point can follow the workpiece's grain, leading to a curved or crooked hole.  That problem was solved when spiral auger bits came around, as once the perimeter of the spiral section enters the hole, it keeps the bit from wandering.

Shannon Rogers did a nice video on centre bits that tells a more complete story, but I'll mention a few things here.  First, lets talk geometry.  The following pic shows a typical bit.

Cutting lip at left, center point, and spur at right

For these bits to work properly, the cutting spur has to be longer (closer to the wood) than the cutting lip is so that it scores the wood before the cutting lip starts removing the bulk of the waste.  In this picture, the spur is up to a line on the paper, but the lip is a few millimeters lower.

This pic shows a bit with cutting lip equal to the spur. This bit will not cut a clean hole as is, so I had to file the lip down a bit.

Here, you can see the spur has scored the perimeter of the hole.

As the bit goes deeper, the cutting lip engages to remove the waste.

Sometimes you get a nice spiral shaving

It's easy to sharpen these bits, but it's also easy to sharpen these bits incorrectly.  It seems like most bits in the wild had not been sharpened properly at some point in their lives.  Lets start with the cutting lip.

The following picture shows a cutting lip from the side.  There is quite an angle on the underside of the lip (top side in the orientation shown).  This clearance angle assures that the leading edge of the lip is what cuts the wood.  Many centre bits are sharpened incorrectly by filing the underside in such a way that the leading edge can't cut the wood.  If you were to file in the direction my fingers are pointing, you might get a sharp edge, but you would also create a new bevel on the underside and the heel of that bevel would contact the wood before the cutting edge can, rendering the bit useless.  One should only file the top side of the lip, with only slight work on the underside to remove a burr.

Note the angle on the cutting lip

The correct thing to do is to file the top of the lip.

Red marker on the top of the lip will help gauge progress

Red marker removed, feel for burr on underside,  remove the burr and the lip is sharp

Now take a look at the center point.  It is actually a three sided awl, with each corner a cutting edge.

In this close-up, you can see two facets of the center point

In Shannon's post about these bits, Bob Rozieski commented that when these center points are not sharpened evenly on all facets, you can change the diameter of the hole that the bit cuts.  If you think about it, it's the lateral distance between the center point and the cutting spur that determines the hole diameter.  Some of mine were cutting holes pretty far off of standard sizes.  I'll have to take a look at the center points to see if anything more can be done to get them dialed in to cut proper diameters.

Here is a picture of the other side of a bit, showing the third facet of the center point.

This third facet started out  in plane with the rest of the back of the bit

I noticed that on most, if not all of my bits, this back facet is slightly convex along its length.  That probably puts the very point more in line with the central axis through the bulk of the bit.  My thinking is that would result in a truer hole.

The last part to sharpen is the cutting spur, seen at left in the previous picture.  Its leading edge is towards us in the picture, and its top point needs to be filed to a sharp cutting geometry, without reducing its length.  Too many bits have been ruined by sharpening the spur poorly.  Never file the outside of the spur, as that will change the diameter that the bit cuts.  Only file the inside concave curved area, but be careful not to go so far as to reduce the length of the spur.  Small round files or sandpaper wrapped around a round (cylindrical) object work well for this.

One thing I'm not sure about is an aspect of the cutting lip.  Shannon reports that the outside of the lip starts cutting before the inside does, thereby creating a slightly domed surface in the hole you're cutting.  The bits I have are all over the map on this point.

Note the difference in angles of the cutting lips.

The bit at left would cut as Shannon states, with the outside of the lip cutting first.  But the bit at the  right would have the whole lip cutting at the same time, leaving a flat bottom.  Did different manufacturers make them with different geometries?  I don't know.  Did they all start out looking like the one on the left and then some get filed improperly to look like the one on the right?  I don't know.

That ends my treatise on centre bits.  I don't know if I'll pick them up instead of my auger bits.  But if I need a shallow hole and don't have to get an exact diameter, these might just be the ticket.  I'll end with pictures of the maker stamps.

T. E. Wells

R. M. Dixon

W. Chance & Son

(Wm?) Marples & Sons Looks like an owner once filed a waist in the shank, maybe to fit their brace chuck

E. Cooper

A neighbor asked if I could make something so that their cat wouldn't have to eat their food at floor level.  She wanted something about 12" long, 7" wide and 4" tall.  I made this in the same way I made a step stool a few years back - just two sides and a top, dovetailed together.  The only wrinkle is that the legs splay out at 11-12 degrees.  But the dovetails aren't complicated - you just have to put that 11-12 degree angle on the edges of the top when laying out.

The pet food stand

Here you can see the splay of the sides (a.k.a. legs)

The wood is pine that used to be my FIL's bookshelf.  It had different color heartwood and sapwood and I got the color to flow from top to legs.

Note the colors

The cutout in the legs that forms the feet is a half-oval.  I used the two-nails-and-a-string technique to lay out the oval, then cut it out with a coping saw.  The sides of the legs are also angled bottom to top for a nicer look.

The top has gently curved edges.  The dovetails came out nice.  As usual, could have been better, but I'm not complaining.

One end dovetails - had to contend with a minor knot

Other end dovetails

It's finished with a few coats of shellac.  My neighbor might choose to paint it, and I'm OK with that.  This was a simple little project, but fun nonetheless.  It's always good to practice with dovetails.