Norse Woodsmith Blog Feeds

My Japanese Plane talk at Woodworking in America 2025

I’m super excited to have the chance to present at Woodworking in America again this year. WIA is one of the premier national woodworking events, and I’m so glad it’s back. The click-baity title of my talk this year is “Japanese and Western Planes: The Common Ground”, which is really an excuse to talk about cool things regarding Japanese planes and planes in general. I’ll also be covering how to avoid tearout when planing, Japanese or otherwise, so that should be useful even if you’re a committed Stanley user.

Woodworking in America will be on Fri-Sat Oct 10-11 at the Iowa State Fair Grounds in Des Moines, IA. Looking at the other presenters, this will be a terrific event, and I’m honored to be included among them. There’s also a great selection of vendors who will be there as well.

There’s still time to get a discount. Use code SAVE10EARLY for an additional 10% off your ticket when purchased before Aug 31. 

Hope to see you there!

hmm......

A bit of an experiment to see how it would go. The thought of the router tipping on the thin muntin bar wasn't far from my mind doing these two bottom lites. The first run wasn't too bad but the second one on the opposite side was the worrying one. I survived it by going as slow as pouring molasses in winter. After a bit of contemplation I jumped in with both feet and did the rest of them.

2nd potential hiccup

Wasn't sure how well the chiseling on both sides of these would go. I sharpened the chisel before diving in. Whatever chiseling stress there was it didn't seem to matter. The corners are clean, crisp, and square.

survived

No weeble or wobble - no divots on any of the muntin bars. It took a while but I got it done hiccup free.

done

All the corners chiseled and I'm happy it is over. The biggie is I don't have to make another door.

one of two hiccups

Two chips popped out when chiseling this and another corner. The knife lines from the half lap layout were the cause. Glued the two of them back on with super glue. 

sneak peek

I like the door and the lites. I measured the small and large one lites and all were within a 16th of each other.  I don't like the top front rail of the cabinet. I think I made that too wide. I made it that wide for a molding but it will allow me to put a large one there.

top

Made the top oversized by 2+ inches on all four sides. A lot of wiggle room that is dependent upon the size of the planned molding.

base

The base is 3 1/2" high and it will wrap the four sides. This way the cabinet can be positioned so the back can be visible.

ready for dovetails

I sized the base so that is will be an 1/8" inch more in the front/back and side/side inside measurement. The gap will be hidden with a cove molding.

oops

This is the door stile I screwed up and I was going to try and get molding stock out of it. Forgot that there were three 1 1/2" mortises in it. I did get one piece long enough to use to make moldings.

cove molding

This is a 1/2" cove molding and I just realized today that the other 3 cove molders I have are also 1/2". This one is too small to use as the molding under the top. 

4 profiles

I like the two top ones but again I feel that these are too small to go under the top. The two coves on the bottom are toast. The left one is uneven and the right one is tapered. Glad I experimented first with the molding planes. I'll need to make a few more practice runs to get the feel for them.

I like this one

Totally clueless as to what this is called. I have something to say about the width of it and I can use that to size it to fit the underside of the top. This one is in the top two choices.

a 'S' curve molding

The 2nd one in the top two. I like this too because I can vary the height of it. However, I'll have to practice more on making it. The left side is a bit higher than the right side. In other words I have a wonky looking tapered S molding. The ends will be mitered so it has to be a consistent thickness end to end.

what I wanted

I found it - my large cove molding plane. This is my preferred molding for the underside of the top. This one looks decent to my eye. It isn't tapered and it is acceptable in evenness from left to right. However I think this plane was made for stock thicker then 3/4". The bottom edge of the cove is awfully thin and the plane hadn't bottomed out yet neither.

I really don't want to buy any moldings but I may have to. All my other choices for molding planes is limited. Most of them make too small of a profile and I need (IMO) a large molding for under the top.

ready for the tails

I've been using the Moxon vise more and more for dovetailing. I used to do single tails (like this base) in the face vise. But lately my back has been protesting doing them in the vise. I don't have my back talking to me when I use the Moxon vise.

last pin chiseled away

Just had to clean up the pin sockets and do a dry fit.

dropped over easy peasy

Got the fit I wanted - there is roughly a 16th gap all the way around.

left over moldings

I will use the cove moldings for the hiding the gap on the base. The quarter rounds to the left of them are too big for the glass door lite rabbets. I'll be making a run to Home Depot because they have a nice selection of small moldings, smaller than what I have here and the prices aren't prohibitive. 

patterns

I made most of these patterns after I got out of the Navy in 1994. I made them after seeing them in a book on colonial furniture. I only used four of these and all were for a bookcase I had made for my daughter Wendy. Time to pick one for the cabinet base.

the winner

Looks better than just a simple half round into a straight run.

accidental woodworker

Shortly after I got my first house, my Dad came for a visit and brought me this old iron vise and said “you’re going to need one of these.”  He was absolutely right.  That vise has been a fixture in my workshop for nearly 30 years now.  Out of all the old tools I own […]

Have my techniques in dovetailing changed? Yes, of course. Many of my shop techniques do indeed change over time. I like to refine, alter, and upgrade most skills.   For dovetails, I adopted important techniques from the outstanding David Barron. He has 51 videos on YouTube at David Barron Furniture. Many are directly for dovetail […]

muntin bar layout

The center vertical muntin bar is fitted. In the batters box are the 3 horizontal muntin bars. I was apprehensive about marking this layout because the vertical muntin bar laid across the center one. Upcoming was a half lap, two notches, and tenons. All dependent upon how well I did the marking times 3.

none fit

I would rather deal with a too tight, non fitting half laps, then one that is sloppy and loose. The center muntin half laps are ok, it is the horizontal ones that are too small. Notches and tenons after tweaking the half laps.

after a bit of fussing and tweaking

I got the half laps done. Overall I'm pretty happy with my results. I didn't see any gaps on the front face but a few popped out on the back notches.

teeny bit proud

The ideal joint would have it flush on both the front and back. The front face is dead flush but the back is less than a 32nd off. Since the front is flush and that is more important than the back, I'm leaving this as is. After it glued and cooked I will plane the back flush.

notches done

I chiseled all the notches splitting the pencil lines. Need to make tenons before I can check the fit.

splitting the tenon cheeks off

All the cheeks split off easily and cleanly with a chisel. 

wee bit proud

The fit of the muntins in the notches is good but all of the horizontal ones are proud. I don't understand it because the half laps are flush on the front and almost on the back along with the tenons laying flat in the bottoms. I tweaked the tenons by removing more with a router and dropped it some more but still not flush. Another thing I'll leave as is and plane flush after the glue has cooked.
 

smiley face on

The layout/chiseling was spot on and the muntin bars dropped into their notches without any hiccups.

sneak peek

I like the look of the lites but after seeing it I think I could tweak it some more. I would only use a top and middle horizontal muntin bars - leaving 3 graduated lites. Baby bear at the top followed my Mama bear in the middle, and Papa bear at the bottom. Something to think about if I make another one of these.

glued and cooking

A productive AM session and goal met. Door is glued and cooking and I'll be able to play with it when I get back to the barn after my lunch time stroll.

notch gap

Out of 8 notches I had to fill gaps on 3 of them. This is the last one to be filled with a wooden shim.

flushing

No hiccups with the flushing. I didn't get any tear out planing the muntins where they terminated in the notches - planing from with the grain to across it. However one muntin bar didn't cooperate and I got some tear out due to reversing grain. I was able to smooth that somewhat by planing in the opposite direction.

hmm......

I had planned to do the rabbets on the back side with the electric router. But seeing how many I had to do and the narrow width I had for the router to sit on, time to back up and implement plan B.

plan B

The plan is rip out the rabbets and glue and nail them in place. I made these muntin bars differently than I did the book case doors. On them I made the vertical and horizontal muntin bars thinner and secured them on top of the rabbets. I applied the front face of the muntin bars with a thin piece of stock completing the rabbet. I need a bunch of 5/16" x 7/16" 'rabbets' with plan B.

4 long ones

16 short ones

Got two extra long ones and a boatload of the short ones. I can oops quite a lot before I get bit on the arse.

planing gauge

This is what I will use to smooth the bandsawn face down to. 

Houston we have identified a problem

My idea wasn't thought out fully. If I add the 'rabbets' it will make the front of the muntin bars too wide. It will also be unbalanced because there are only two added 'rabbets' per lite. I thought of checking this just before I was going to kill the lights.

back to the electric router

This rabbeting bit is already set for the depth and it will cut a 1/4" rabbet. They should leave a 3/8" center shoulder on each muntin bar. I still have a mismatch in that there will be different sized rabbets in each lite due to the rabbet I did before. Dealing with that won't be too big of a headache as the next step would be to start over and make a new door. Hope to say that ain't happening boys and girls.

I'll deal with this in the AM.

accidental woodworker

With the majority of the bass guitar’s design work resolved, it’s time to start work on its body. I’m using an unusual combination of Tasmanian blackwood and Spanish cedar. Let me show you………………..

Made good progress on the glass door cabinet today. Door is half done and I put a decent dent in getting the muntin bars done. Happy with how this coming out. There isn't much more to do. I'm sure the door is going to consume the most time to finish this cabinet. I ordered the hinges from Horton Brasses and they should be here the first of next week. Hinges don't fill me with dread anymore. I'm looking forward to knocking them out easy peasy.

door rail measurement

The door is isn't dead nuts square. It is off about a 32nd which isn't that bad. I decided to make the door oversized by a 1/8" in the width and height. That should be sufficient wiggle room for trimming and fitting the door to the opening.

dowels

I have never doweled a door of this size together before this. Four dowels in the top rail and 5 for the bottom rail. I didn't screw this up and drilled the all the holes correctly.

set up and rock hard

All of the holes I filled in with the epoxy were all still proud. None of them had sunken or dripped away. Flushed them with a blockplane and touched them up with some 120 grit sandpaper.

dry fit

hmm..... it would seem that I made the door a 1/4" wider than the opening. Not a big deal because I made all the stiles and rails a 1/8" wider. 

glue up time

I thought doing this glue with yellow glue might be a PITA due to open time. I wasn't sure that I could get glue on all the dowels and in some in the holes before the glue froze. I managed ok and no hiccups. Did the dowels/holes on one stile, added the rails, and repeated it on the other stile. Worked well and nothing froze and I got a got a nice line of squeeze out on all four corners.

center rail

This rail is dry - no glue or dowels. It is to help keep the stiles from bowing in/out and from twisting during glue up.

glued and cooking

I clamped the the top and bottom over and under to keep the rails straight into the stiles. I also made sure that the door was laying tight against both clamps. Trying to fix a door that is twisted is like trying to put socks on a pig. 

bottom front rail

This front bottom rail ended up proud of the bottom of the two sides. Used my big LN blockplane and frequent checks with the straight edge to flush it.

door stop

I'm thinking of two more door stop possibilities. Maybe another full width one at the bottom and a partial one on the stile where the knob will be. The partial one is a definite maybe because it will also have the magnetic catch to keep the door closed.

muntins

I made the muntin bars 7/8" wide and 3/4" thick. Still running how to do the muntin bar rebates for the glass through the brain bucket. Going with wide muntins to help stiffen the door. 

asymmetrical layout

The top and bottom muntin bars are 7" high with the two between them about 13" high. I may change the height of the top and bottom after the center vertical bar is installed.

1/2" plywood

The bottom isn't going to be visible and short people won't be able to see the top. Either way both are getting painted and that will hide what type wood it is. Glued and nailed both of them in place with 1" brads.

top done

The top overhangs on 2 sides because neither the top or the bottom is square. 

flush trim bit

This plywood is a )(@&%&)@Q&%*)(Q@_ to hand plane. Decided to flush the sides and front with some electrical help.

no twist

It looked flat/straight to my eyeballs but I wanted confirmation. The sticks said that there is zero twist in the door on the either face.

a wee bit proud

3 of the 8 rail/stile connections were a bit proud. Scraped the glue off first, then knocked most of the proud off with the block plane, and followed that up with 120 grit sandpaper.

what a mess

I had planned to do the rabbet in the door from the git go with the electric router. I couldn't come up with a game plan for doing the stopped rabbets by hand that I liked. After listening to the router scream and the mess it made in the shop maybe I should have brain stormed a wee bit longer.

last corner squared off

The rabbet is 1/2" deep and 3/8" wide. 

vertical muntin bar

The ends will be buried in the top and bottom rails about 3/4". That should be enough to provide a secured glue joint and keep the muntin bar from twisting.

will it fit?

 

Got the tenon and the notch chopped without incident.

hmm.....

Top was too tight and I had to plane the top outside faces before it fit in the notch. I didn't make the tenon long enough. The bottom face of the muntin bar needs to be flush with the face side of the rails.

it fits

There is slight gap at the top and bottom where the muntin bar shoulder meets the rail. I will epoxy a shim in them when I glue the muntin bars in.

less than 16th

I purposely marked and sawed into the waste side when I did this. I thought I would end up having to trim it to fit but I got a couple frog hairs worth of a gap to deal with.

I'm hoping tomorrow that I'll be done with the muntin bars. So far it is going much quicker then I expected and with no screw ups. Fingers crossed that joy continues in the AM.

accidental woodworker

Ever since I got this book, I have wanted to make a joint stool from a tree. The grainy picture alone should give you an idea of how long ago that was.

The book is Make a Joint Stool from a Tree by Jennie Alexander and Peter Follansbee. Although I wrote a review here back when it first came out, I never got around to building the featured project until now. The reasons for my delay were manifold, but they mostly came down to (a) lack of trees, and (b) lack of a lathe.

Then about five years ago, the tree problem was solved for me when we took down a 100-year-old oak tree in my front yard in Alabama. It yielded a small pile of straight, clear, white oak boards, some of which I cut into 2X2s that I expected to make into legs for chairs or stools once they dried.

I brought all of the stock with me to Ohio when I moved here, and now the wood is at 12-15% moisture content–quite dry enough to build with. Along the way, it got mixed in with some red oak that I harvested that same year. Both woods are ideal for this project.

I still don’t have a lathe, though. Fortunately, Alexander & Follansbee provide guidance in their book for making shapely joint stool legs without a lathe, and this is the result:

For a first attempt at this form, I’m happy with it. The legs are white oak (well, at least three of them are) and the stretchers are red oak. The top is cherry. All the stock is from wood that I got right from logs. It was a fun project, and I will definitely make another one, even though I will do a few things differently next time around.

I’m not going to indulge a build-along instructable post here. If you want that, buy the book!

Rather, in this post and its sequels, I’ll walk you through several elements of the process that I found especially interesting, as well as some problems I needed to solve, some of which went beyond the scope of the book. So consider this post a small tribute and supplement to Make a Joint Stool from a Tree.

Layout

If you’ve only every built furniture with right-angles, the joint stool is a good introduction to angled mortises and tenons. But because the legs splay only in two directions (as opposed to chairs whose legs often splay in all four directions), the angles are simple to visualize. There is only one angle.

The challenge, however, is determining the exact length of the stretchers. The distance between the tenon shoulders on either end actually determines where you should cut the mortises. It’s hard to describe why, but as soon as you start building the stool, you’ll see what I mean. If that distance between the shoulders is a bit too short, then the stretcher would want to sit too high. If it’s a bit too long, it would want to sit too low. So you have to lay out the locations of the stretchers very precisely.

That doesn’t mean you have to do it with numerical measurements, though. After giving the problem some thought, I grabbed a big board out of my scrap pile. (It was a drawer bottom I had mistakenly cut to small.) On it, I drew out the angles and used the full-size diagram to lay out the angles and the locations of the joints, as well as the precise length of each piece. I planned for the legs to be 23″ long when finished, and everything else was gauged from that single dimension.

I departed somewhat from the dimensions of Alexander & Follansbee’s stool, which is shorter than mine and employs a 6:1 angle for the legs. Mine is more like 12:1. Because it’s a taller stool, the splay angle needs to be shallower. As long as the legs extend just a little bit beyond the top of the stool (when seen from above) it will be perfectly stable in use.

With the full-size template, I was able to cut the stretchers to the proper length and mark the tenon shoulders right from the legs–no measuring required. I’ll set the template aside for when I decide to make more of these.

Sixteen Mortise and Tenon Joints

Yes, there are 16 mortises to chop. That’s a lot. I cut them all by hand.

But I found that after my first few, I got a lot faster. The process was not nearly as laborious as I had imagined.

I considered removing the bulk of the waste with a Forstner bit on the drill press and squaring up the holes with bench chisels. It would perhaps have been a little faster to do it that way, but I don’t particularly enjoy squaring up round holes, and the air-dried oak cut really well under the mortise chisel. I’ll do it this way again.

Sixteen mortises are cut to accept sixteen tenons, which did not take nearly as long to make, thanks to some tricks recommended by the book.

Normally when cutting tenons by hand, you first saw the cheeks and afterward you saw the shoulders. But with this method of construction, you saw the shoulders first.

You also intentionally undercut the shoulder on the back of the stretcher, as you can see above. That way, the shoulder on the face is guaranteed to pull up tight against the leg with no gap. That does mean there’s a slight gap in the back of the joint, but no matter. The joint is quite strong enough.

With the shoulders cut, you then cut the tenon cheeks. But you don’t saw them. You just split them off.

I remember the first time I saw Peter Follansbee do this–on an episode of Roy Underhill’s show The Woodwright’s Shop. I was almost mad at him for making it look so easy. But it IS easy. First split off about half the thickness of the cheek. Then set your chisel in the layout line and split that part off. Check the fit in the mortise, and pare off any bit that remains too thick.

This method works because the wood’s grain is very straight. It’s been split out of a log, after all, not sawn out any which way. So the wood splits pretty straight. This also works because the joint won’t be glued together. The real strength of the joint will come from the drawbore peg that will lock the two pieces of wood together. But we’ll get to that below.

Because the mortises meet inside the leg, the ends of each tenon must be trimmed so as not to bump into each other when the frame is assembled.

I did the work roughly with a drawknife.

And yes, this leg has a stray saw cut in the top. It doesn’t affect he integrity of the joinery, so I just left it. The book guides readers away from perfectionism and reminds us that it is perfectly acceptable to leave tool marks, layout marks, and even small flaws in the work, long as those things don’t compromise the structure or ruin the overall form.

Drawbored Mortise and Tenon Joints

There are lots of good tutorials on drawboring, and the book covers everything you need to know. But it doesn’t hurt to show how it’s done, because it’s genius.

I first bored 5/16″ holes through the mortises about 1/4″-5/16″ from the edge. The lower stretchers each got one hole. The upper ones got two holes on one side and one on the other. The holes mustn’t intersect.

Insert the tenon in the mortise and use an awl to make a mark slightly off-center, toward the shoulder of the tenon. That last part is important. You are intentionally going to bore holes that don’t match up, but that are slightly offset from one another, and the direction of offset is critical to the success of the joint.

Pull the tenon back out and bore the holes where you marked them. I repeat: on the tenon, the hole must be offset toward the shoulder. How far should they be offset? The exact distance doesn’t matter. Make it about the thickness of a half-dollar coin.

Thus, when I assemble the joint and drive in a peg, the offset holes will pull the joint up very tight, and there will be enough friction in the offset holes that the peg will never work loose.

Drawbore Pegs

I bored 20 holes in 16 joints, so I need 20 pegs.

Because the whole joint will depend on the structural integrity of these pegs, the stock should be chosen with care. The grain should be dead-straight all the way through the peg, and the wood should be as dry as you can get it–ideally drier than the stock they’re being driven into.

I found some off-cuts about 5″ long. These were from the end of one of boards I cut to make the stretchers, so they are at least as dry as the surrounding wood. And because boards tend to dry out more on the ends than in the middle, I can expect these pegs not to shrink on me.

To insure the grain runs straight for the whole length of the peg, they must be split out, not sawn. For successful splitting, don’t try to split narrow pieces off thicker pieces. Instead, split your stock in half, then half again, until you are close to the size you need.

Using a chisel to split the wood will inevitably make the split want to run out because the chisel edge is flat on one side and beveled on the other. So once you start the split, set the workpiece loosely in the vise and pull the chisel back a bit toward the flat side, as you see above. That should straighten out the split.

On a sacrificial block, use a chisel to carefully shave down each peg to a slight taper. You may have to turn them end-for-end at first to remove the bulk of the waste safely.

This looks much more dangerous than it is. Oak works particularly well in this way, especially when your chisel is perfectly sharp. Other woods may not shave so well in this way. I’ve tried making pegs like this from hickory, for example, and that was noticeably more difficult.

On each peg, you’re aiming for a nice, long taper. The peg should drop easily into a sample hole but not go all the way through.

On a few of these pegs, I used a spokeshave to finish shaping them.

Notice the peg is nowhere near round in cross-section. That’s intentional. It is better to leave the pegs somewhat square, or hexagonal, or octagonal in cross-section, as the corners will grip better in the surrounding wood. It is also a good idea to shave the tip to a dull point so it can slip through the offset holes.

It takes a while to make enough pegs for the whole project. You may wish to make one or two extra, in case one turns out to be a bit too thin or breaks unexpectedly when you start tapping it in.

Assembling the Joints

Woodworking is a curious process. You start with a pile of wood, and you work steadily for hours or even days making cuts and planing surfaces and shaping joints, and for that whole time, you still have what looks for all the world like a pile of wood.

Then, suddenly, in just a few minutes, that pile of wood comes together into a recognizable form. What was a heap of seemingly random bits of material is now a stool or a cupboard or a table. It’s almost magical the way it happens.

The assembly is the fun part, especially since assembling drawbored mortise-and-tenon joints is a relaxed process. You’re not worrying about clamping things up before the glue sets or anything like that. Because there’s no glue, there’s no hurry.

I assembled one end, then the other, and finally connected them with the remaining stretchers. Tap in the pegs just a little bit at first, until you’re sure each piece is in the right place and everything is coming together as planned. Then go around and tap the pegs further in to snug up the joints.

I did have a bit of trouble making sure that the pegs cleared the opposite stretchers when they came through the backs of the joints.

I had left the insides of the top stretchers quite rough, since they will be hidden and out of reach of anybody’s fingers. They vary in thickness quite a bit, since there was no need for them to be a regular thickness. As long as they don’t obstruct the drawbore peg, they’re fine.

So back to the pegs. How far do you hammer in the pegs? Well, I just tapped each peg in with a hammer until it stopped. If you’ve done this before, you know what I mean. Once you stop feeling the peg advance, and the peg has come through the back, and the shoulder of the stretcher is snug up against the leg, you should stop. You’re done. Some pegs will go in father than others.

Then I trimmed off the pegs with a dovetail saw.

I sawed off each peg. The easiest way to do this without marring the surface of the leg is to rest the spine of the saw on the surface and saw carefully so the teeth don’t touch the surface. This leaves the pegs just a little bit proud of the surface. You can trim them flush with a chisel if you like. Or you can just whack each one with a hammer to set it flush. The hammer method is faster.

On the lower stretchers, I sawed off both ends of each peg. (It hurts a little bit to see your hard work on the peg come off as waste, but you get used to it.) On the upper ones, where they won’t be seen, I left the pegs long on the inside. Just a little something for the conservator to appreciate.

Once the stool was assembled, I leveled the feet. You can do this very precisely by hand. I also chamfered the feet with a spokeshave so they won’t split in use.

As you can see in the photo above, I’ve added chamfers and a lamb’s-tongue detail to the legs in order to break the sharp edges and lighten the structure visually. In my next post, I’ll show you how it’s done.

 About 49 (wowie?) years ago while I was in BEE school (basic electricity and electronics) in the Navy I was late for school one day. There were 11 other late comers all in a line being drilled by the Master Chief as to why we weren't where we were supposed to be? I was 4th in line and 3 previous all said the alarm clock didn't wake them up. When he got to me I told him I had no excuse I wasn't where I supposed to be at the time I supposed to be there. Me not having an excuse threw him for a loop and he  asked me if I would do it again. I told him no because I didn't like the idea of having to stand here explaining why again.

When the Master Chief got done he let me go and kept the other 11. I was the only one to own up to being late with no excuse. All of them blamed their problem on alarm clocks. That was the only time I was late or missed an appointment until today. I woke up at 0705 having a podiatry appointment at 0730. I couldn't get a hold of the clinic until 0816. Embarrassed to have to make that call and reschedule. I don't oversleep often and I certainly didn't think I would do it today. I'll blame it on being 70+ years old and not setting the alarm clock.

last dry clamp

Got all the biscuit slots done and did a dry clamp to rehearse for the real one with glue. Did it twice hoping that hiccups would bite me on the arse.

needed two more

I forgot the biscuit slots for the bottom front rail. The backer was to allow something for the entire fence of the jointer to rest on. Without it, almost half of the fence was hanging out in the air. This is a pic of the top front rail slot. I found I hadn't done the bottom ones on the dry clamp run.

glued and cooking

Got this done just before the lunch bell chimed.

hmm......

Checking to ensure that the door stiles have lots of wiggle room.

hmm......

Happy with the diagonal report - less than a 16th off from each other. Repeated the same for the back.

sneak peek

There is a base coming for this that will raise it up 4-6". Haven't decided on a design for it yet but it will be something simple.

side sneak peek

I just realized that with the back I did this could be viewed as finished from all four sides. There won't be a need to bury the back up against a wall.

with home made filler

I was going to buy some Bondo to fill in screw heads and biscuit slot ends but then I remembered this. Epoxy and silica dust will work just as well and save me a few $$$.

over filled

I am not sure how well this will stay in place. This will go vertical and the filler may flow out with gravity helping it. This epoxy also takes 24 hours to set up and stays workable (from past uses) for at least 45 minutes. I'll find out in the AM if I need to do another round.

accidental woodworker

Making and using shrink pots for grain and food storage is an ancient practice. In one of the greatest woodworking books, Woodworking in Estonia, Ants Viires, dedicates several pages (89-95) to it. In various regions of Estonia, these containers were … Continue reading →

out of the clamps

There is a slight gap at the shoulders. The cheeks are tight and gap free. I planed the the two arms flush. 

one point for the home team

The wooden square is still reading 90 degrees according to Big Red. And it still read 90 with the legs switched.

smiley face on

Found my Union saddle square on the tablesaw fence this morning. I almost bought one last night from Lee Valley and I'm glad I didn't.

cross brace

Laid this out based on the brace and arms being 3/4" thick. After I laid it out I realized that I had planed 1/8" off the legs. So I ran a second gauge line on the brace above the pencil line to compensate.

nope

I have a bazillion routers and none of them had a base plate long enough to span between the shoulders. The LN rabbet blockplane worked flawlessly after removing the bulk of the waste with a chisel.

too small

The LN rabbet blockplane wouldn't fit and I reached for the Record 073. I didn't bother to check doing it with a router plane.

first dry fit

The brace is a wee bit proud. It is a strong 16th shy of being flush with the bottom. Did a second leveling of the brace half laps.

still reading 90

I didn't get the top flush but I was ok with that. I stopped once I had removed 1/2 of the brace half lap. The brace doesn't have to be flush with the legs top or bottom.

clamped and cooking

I screwed the half lap on the legs on both sides but no screws for the brace. I am going to rely solely on the glue to keep it together.

ring box

This doesn't look too bad with one coat. The 'white' on the box sides doesn't show much evidence of a finish. Another coat in the AM and then a coat of wax. I am going to give this to my sister Donna.

don't remember this

This was kind of square, only a few spots needed to be knocked down. The pine is beat up a bit and there was a split on the end of one of the legs. Both legs were also out of square on the face. I could see it without needing to check it with a square.I must have made this just to see if I could do it. I don't recall needing a square of this style or need.

fixing the split

There is a partial rabbet on both legs for 3-4 inches at the ends. Can't think of any reason for them which makes me think this was an experiment. Maybe I knocked this out when I went nutso and made a boatload of wooden squares?

 

flushing the brace

I'm not doing any round overs or other design on the ends of the legs. I want that part to stay flat so I can put a clamp on it.

top front rail

Placing this rail as is and the door will be an insert one. This rail will also provide the space to put a molding and not interfere with the door opening/closing. It will also shorten the length of the door stiles which should increase them staying straight and flat.

bottom rail

I don't want this one to be the same as the top rail. If it was it might be a pain in the ass to lift things over it to put them in the interior and to get them back out. There shouldn't be any stress on either of these rails. All they are doing is keeping the sides parallel top to bottom.

oops

I don't use biscuits that often anymore and I screwed up setting the height of the biscuit jointer. I initially had set it for 3/4" thinking the jointer saw blade would centered on 3/4" thick stock. I was wrong again and it worked as it should when I set it for 3/8" - now it was centered for 3/4" stock.

glued and cooking

I wasn't going to glue a biscuit in this errant slot but changed my mind. I'll do the correct slot in the AM.

biscuits laid out

The sides will get attached to the back with a biscuit every 7-8". I was hoping to get that done today but it didn't happen boys and girls. Maybe tomorrow where I should be able to get a rough idea on the height/width of the door. The stiles for that still eyeball straight and flat. 

accidental woodworker

Going into wildness alone is a high-demand aspect of my personal woodworking journey. Would I do it now, now that I am nearing 76 years of age? And would I do it as back then, without a cell phone, when cell phones were yet to be invented, and the internet was still mainly in the...

Source

Frontispiece from the book Woodwork (The English Sloyd) by S. Barter ND C.1890

I studied woodworking for a little bit at the New School and then for years at the now defunct Craft Students League. Not only did I learn essential woodworking skills, I met lifelong friends. My interests eventually led to my founding Tools for Working Wood as well.

So I can be sincere in recommending woodworking classes (or indeed classes focusing on any craft that interests you). Trial and error is by definition mostly repeated error, so having a teacher whose methods and results excite you can make learning much more efficient (and fun).

Where can you learn woodworking in the NYC area? Here are some great options for instruction. Many of these schools also offer opportunities for shop rentals, one-on-one instruction and club meet-ups.

Note: We are not guaranteeing that this list is comprehensive. We are very familiar with some of these schools, others less so. Some have comprehensive offerings; others specialize. We arent endorsing any specific school or methodology. We do think not everyone teaches or learns the same way and it is hard to judge the effectiveness of a program.

When folks ask us when we will be offering the Rietveld chair class again (never, sorry to say) or other classes we have offered in the past, we give them the list below. If we left your school, or class off of this list please let us know and we will add you in.

By the way, just because we have put the kibosh on offering formal classes does not mean that we are no longer offering instruction. We will continue to host instructional events such as our Festool demo event, Festool Fest - and in fact we are hosting this two- day extravaganza again next month: Friday, September 12th and Saturday, September 13th, from 12 -3 pm both days. For more information, please click here.

(In no particular order)

Makeville Studio 125 8th St Brooklyn NY 11215 917-873-5542
https://makeville.com/

Bien Hecho Academy
Brooklyn Navy Yard, 63 Flushing Ave, Bldg 3, Suite 1103, Brooklyn, NY 11205 646-875-8075
https://www.bienhechoacademy.com/

Makerspace NYC - Brooklyn
Brooklyn Army Terminal, 140 58th St Bldg B Unit 1C, Brooklyn, NY 11220 718-273-3951
https://www.makerspace.nyc/

Makerspace NYC - Staten Island - contact Makerspace Brooklyn above

Fashion Institute of Technology - Continuing Education
Furniture Making Classes, FIT CCPS, 227 West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001
https://continuinged.fitnyc.edu

Nihonsan Tools
300 7th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215 929-724-4027
https://www.nihonsantools.com/classes

Make Good Traditional Handcrafts
https://www.makegoodwood.com/classes/

Astoria Woodworkers Collective
1210 Astoria Blvd, Astoria, NY 11102 971-373-5248
https://www.astoriawoodworkers.org/classes

Craftsman Ave
117 11th Street Brooklyn, NY 11215 929-266-3494
https://craftsmanave.com

Sawkill Lumber
1 Troy Ave Brooklyn, NY 11213 917-862-7910
https://www.sawkill.nyc/woodworking-classes-brooklyn/

Training programs:

Brooklyn Woods 621 Degraw Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217 718-237-2017
https://bwiny.org/brooklyn-woods/overview/

Local classes, provided you have an expansive idea of what constitutes the local area:

CT woodwork (East Patchogue, NY)
https://www.ct-woodwork.com

HUDSON RIVER MARITIME MUSEUM (Kingston. MY)
https://www.hrmm.org/adult-classes.html

Philadelphia Furniture Workshop (Philadelphia)
https://www.philadelphiafurnitureworkshop.com/

New Jersey School of Woodwork (Washington NJ)
https://www.njsow.org/

Peter's Valley School of Craft(Layton, NJ)
https://petersvalley.org/

The Wood Joint (Long Branch, NJ)
https://thewoodjointnj.com/

Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking (Manchester, CT)
https://schoolofwoodworking.com/

Make Haven (New Haven, CT)
https://www.makehaven.org/about-us

The Nautical Arts Workshop (Deep River, CT)
https://www.thenauticalartsworkshop.com

Brookfield Craft Center (Brookfield, CT)
https://www.brookfieldcraft.org/

Plumier Foundation (Saltsburg, PA)
https://plumier.org/shop-talk/

 

squaring them up

The plan was to square the bottoms of all three and then get the height adjusted and finally square off the tops. It didn't go as to plan. I couldn't get the bottoms of the sides to read square. I could read square from one long side and the opposite one was slightly off. Just enough to be annoying and needing attention. 

I went back and forth seemingly forever trying to adjust this. I ended up sawing the long sides (parallel) on the tablesaw. When I had measured them the sides were a strong 16th off from top to bottom. After I got the sides parallel I had to square the bottoms again because both ways were off.

Now I got square from both sides. Then I got the length of all three the same and finished by squaring the tops.

making the battle plan

Decided to use biscuits to attach the sides to the back. I'll biscuit one side and let it cook before doing the opposite one. Got both sides dried squared here to get the length on this top front rail. Switching from dowels to biscuits and screws (?) to attach it.

The biscuit operation didn't happen. I didn't have enough to do the sides but it worked to my advantage. I hadn't sanded the inside faces of the three panels yet. That was next and I only sanded it with 120 because this is getting painted.

need a bigger square

The black ones work for keeping the ends square but I don't have anything for the middle. I didn't feel like making a road trip for biscuits so I made a larger clamping square.

oops

I sawed the half lap on the bandsaw, wrong. I thought I had set the fence (with 3/8" set up bar) so the half lap would be strong. I positioned the set up bar so the blade was past it by strong 32nd (wrong way). I should have did it so the blade was a 32nd the other way. I'll plane the two legs flush after the square has cooked.

only need the outside

Dry clamped to see if this was feasible. This will work - I'll be able to glue the half lap and clamp it while also clamping the wooden square to Big Red.

yikes

Where is the missing tool? FYI - it is my Union 90 square. Lost an hour scouring the shop trying to find it and nada. I even emptied two shit cans sifting through them to check I hadn't swept it up. I couldn't find it after spending over an hour searching. On the flip side of the coin, the shop is swept clean and tidy now. I'll give it a few days before I buy another one - I use this constantly and the Blue Spruce one I have is too big.

accidental woodworker

This is the first in a new series of “Bass Build” videos that I’m making. I’ve been wanting to build myself a solid body, short-scale bass guitar for a while and now’s the time! If you’re a regular visitor to my blog, you would have noticed a few bass side-projects in amongst all the mandolins. In that case, you’ll remember that I restored a vintage Kay bass about a year ago and that’s been the inspiration for this one’s design. In this video I look at designing the bass and solve the problem of a getting a bridge with a narrow (17mm) string spacing.

 What a miserable way to spend more than half a day. At 0830 I was at my local Firestone tire store because my driver side rear tire wouldn't hold air. While I was there, I noticed the passenger side rear was looking soft and sad. To shorten my tale of woe, I got back to the barn just before 1400 - $497.37 lighter with two new rear tires, OUCH, OUCH, and OUCH again. I wasn't expecting to spend this much and it will put a serious dent in my discretionary $$$ for fun stuff this month and maybe a part of september too. 

after dinner last night

Went back to the shop to glue that weird hiccup on the edge of this ass'y. It looked good after the clamps came off. I could readily pick out it still and I'll have to use some putty to flush it. Paint will hide any evidence of it after.

afternoon session

Stayed late in the shop today to have something to show for it. Clamps off and used the LN 102 to knock down the high/proud on the rails/stiles.

too much twist (?)

I'm not sure if this came from me when I clamped this. I do know that I didn't check the glue up to ensure that it was laying flat/tight to the clamps. Regardless I will have to deal with it.

bottom

Not as bad as it is at the top but I still have to flatten it out.

better

There is almost nothing here at the middle rail. The plan percolating in the brain bucket was to try to spread this out across the width of the back. I didn't want to take all the wood off the uplifted side stile.

it is working

Definitely had to remove more on the left side than the right but I think I balanced it pretty good overall. I didn't go nutso trying to get it flat +/- an atom or two. I concentrated on outside 1" getting that flat between the left and right stiles.

stopping here

Nothing is married to the face side of the stiles. The outside edges will be secured to faces of the side rear stiles so it is only important that these two surfaces are square to each other.

dead square

The back panel ass'y is dead nuts square. The diagonals were barely off the width of a black division line on the tape.

back

The two sides are pretty good on size, both width and height. The back is 1/8" taller than the sides. Not sure if I want to leave it and plane it square after the sides are attached or plane it off now. I got time to figure it out.

sneak peak

This needs something at the front to help hold it together. A rail at the top and bottom to keep the sides from folding inward or falling outward. Just thought of another issue that has to do with the door. Should it be a overlay or insert door? I had planned on an insert door but an overlay door would be easier than an insert one.

door stock

The two long ones are the stiles and they look straight and flat to my eye. Fingers crossed that they will still look the same in the AM.

muntin stock

This should be more than enough for the muntins for the door. I even have extra for several oops if need be.

garbage and ....

The left one is the plywood I got sunday from Woodcraft. Two thin veneers for the outside faces with a single ply between them. 6mm plywood on the right, 5 plies. Two thin outside face veneers with 3 plies between them. Should have bought the 6mm and sanded/planed it fit the grooves. Sigh.

insurance

The bottom rail for the door is 3 1/2" wide and got two of them. Got two top rails at 3" wide. All of them look flat and straight for now.

maybe

I might be able to use one or two of these as a back stile. One of them has a groove so that one isn't a good candidate. 

wonky

All three of these are straight and flat until this short area at the end where it wanders out into left field. I didn't measure it to see if it is long enough because I didn't want to find out they were a 1/2" short. 

needs some attention

The back bottom isn't square and one side ass'y is out of square at the top. Tomorrow I'll square up the bottom edge and set the height too. I'll then saw the two sides to match it. The top and bottom rails are an 1/8" wider - the top at 3 1/8" and the bottom at 3 5/8". I did that to allow for trimming and squaring things up.

accidental woodworker

Recently the Venn Diagram of Life had enough overlap that I was able to address the problem of the blanched finish on the sill/shelf of the new bay window in the dining room.  As you may recall, I trimmed out the window with antique cherry I had in my stash, and sealed the shelf with epoxy because there was a 100% chance that Mrs. Barn would be using it to hold plants.  In order to unify the overall appearance of the window and shelf, I glazed the veneered pine shelf with an oil stain to match the cherry.

It looked grand until I varnished over the glazing with P&L 38 that then blushed overnight as it dried.  I mean, the kind of blushing when we were spraying cellulose nitrate on a muggy July day in South Florida.

A reader wrote to tell me that an amine component of the epoxy hardener was the culprit.  Despite several efforts to mitigate the whitened surface it remained in place, leading me to the inescapable conclusion that the oil varnish and the oil glaze underneath it had to come off.

The time for that to occur had finally arrived and the combination of a low-odor stripper with the open windows inflicted minimal affect inside the house.  A very small test area worked well, a larger test area confirmed my path of execution.

My method was to brush on some low odor paint remover, cover that with aluminum foil, and let it work its magic for about three hours.

At the end of that time the foil was peeled back and the now-dissolve varnish and stain scraped/wiped off slicker’n cat snot.

My original plan was to introduce a colorant into a new application of the varnish to achieve the same cherry tone, but the fact is we like the contrast so much I am going to leave it looking just the way it is.  I’ll rub out the epoxy finish and call it “done.”

old bookcase

This is the only project that I made with divided glass lites. I have made several cabinets with glass doors but all were made with one piece of glass. I made this 10+ years ago(?) and I eyeballed it to see how I did it. I had been thinking about it for for a couple of days and nada. Once I saw this the light bulb finally came on.

glazing putty

I put on rabbet all the way around on the inside. Then I put in the glazing bars - two pieces, a front flat one and an thin inside one. The panes are held in place with glazing putty and glaziers points. I want an unsymmetrical arrangement of lites for the current cabinet too. Now I have a starting point for making the current door.

hmm......

Yikes! This is a screwball type of a hiccup. I only found it because it stuck a sliver of wood into my index finger. Now that I'm typing this I realized I totally forgot to fix it. I'll have to make sure that I do it in the AM.

happy face on

Fiddled a bit more on the tenons and did a dry clamp up. Happy with how all the rail/stile connections look. Any misalignment I'm sure I can easily feather out.

width measurement

I thought both the upper and lower width were dead nuts.

I was wrong

 Almost a 1/8" difference, but how? I checked it again and I hadn't fully seated one of the sticks in the groove. Checked the two of them again and now they were dead nuts on.

height sticks

Didn't make the same mistake with the height. I put the top measurement on one side and the bottom one on the other face. The top panel is 1/8" taller than the bottom one. 

experiment time

I want to use a dowel joint but I wasn't sure how to do it with the dowel max jig. It is a 'T' joint. The first part was easy but the 2nd mating one made me feel like I didn't haven't an IQ with double digits.

hmm.....

My jury rigged test failed. I don't know how I ended up with this offset. I was feeling a little smug before I saw this. When in doubt, RTI (read the instructions) as the last resort.

T joint instructions

These were initially as clear as mud. I read them a bazillion times and nada - I was still clueless. One thing I couldn't reconcile or understand was the drawing on the right side page. 

5.67mm plywood

I set aside the dowel max and made a road trip to Woodcraft. There was one 30x30 6mm plywood panel but it was too thick at 6.43mm. I bought a 1/4" thick 24x48 plywood panel that measured this. The panel edge plies look liked complete garbage compared to the 6mm edge plies. However, it fit snug and is self supporting. The other bonus is I got all 4 panels out of this with some box making stock left over.

dry fit

Got a good fit with all four panels. I checked for square measuring the inside of the panels and all said I was square.

glued and cooking

Met my goal of getting the side assemblies glued and cooking. I'll start on the door tomorrow. I think I will only saw out the stiles and rails. I won't make it until I have the sides and back together. I'll need to have that to get the final size for the door.

ta da

Finally figured it out. Turns out the drawing and the instructions don't tell the complete story to do a 'T' joint. You have take one part of the jig apart and put it back together so you can drill the dowel holes in the face of the mating piece. Nice feeling to see the joint come together correctly.

the 'T' joint place

I have been thinking about using this joint at the top front of the cabinet. Still undecided about whether or not to place it horizontally or vertically.

it will work

As I was looking at the placement of the rail (above pic) I thought that the jig wouldn't fit for the 2nd part of the 'T'. The excess horns did a job with my head making me think that it wouldn't fit where it should. I was wrong and the proof of the pudding is the jig placement itself.

accidental woodworker 

My son asked to build a bookcase. I countered with a shelf mounted on a wall or a headboard with cubbyholes, which we settled on. We took measurements and I drew rough plans.

rough sketch

We used what I call 'cruddy pine' reclaimed from my house. Most of it is 1x10. We picked a few, waved a metal detector over them and then fed them through the thickness planer.

mostly planed vs unplaned cruddy pine

Crosscuts were made with a handsaw or bandsaw, and rip cuts were made with the bandsaw. All of the joints are 90 degree butt joints with pocket screws.

mostly power tool project but some hand tools case before upright dividers back view, top is not deep enough to cover case

The above picture is trying to show that the top board is not wide/deep enough. This was addressed by adding a backer board to add 3/4" of depth. I also ripped a little off the back of the upright dividers to allow room for a 1/4" plywood back.

My son asked to spray black paint like he remembers when I made the small dresser. For that project I actually rolled on india ink and then sprayed clear lacquer. So for this project we rolled and brushed on india ink and then sprayed zinnser sealcoat.

ready for 'painting'. back, top, and case india ink allows grain to be visible in position to connect rails. back not installed yet.

For a lot of woodworking bed plans there's discussion about how to set the rails into the headboard, and what type of hardware to use. Our project was easier, as the bed uses metal rails. We put the rails up to the headboard, marked where the slots were with an awl, and then drilled holes for bolts with nuts and washers. One of the holes had to be adjusted a little because I hit a pocket screw on the backside.

mark position of rails for mounting holes awl marks for starting holes through bolts, back view

My son did well, he even used power tools more than I expected. I'm a grown up and think the bandsaw can be intimidating and the planer is disturbingly loud. We also used a power drill, impact driver and paint sprayer. And some basic handtools like a saw, hand sander, saddle square, awl, etc. He likes smacking the holdfasts. And the 'painting' was relatively fun.

rails and back installed

This was built on an accelerated schedule. Not like my solo projects that take weeks or months just of planning. The whole thing took 3-4 sessions. There were chances for lessons like "It doesn't have to be perfect" or "That's OK, we'll work it out".

finished