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These holdfasts have served me well of the last 32 years, I used them a lot when I re-sawed guitar sets by hand with a rip saw, they have never failed me. I do own a pair of Gramercy Tools holdfasts, I use them to clamp down a miter box I use for cutting kerfing strips of guitars, but I reach for and use those old holdfasts on a regular basis.

“Your book is next.” These welcome words greeted me a few days ago as I opened my email. Megan Fitzpatrick is my editor, Lost Art Press is my publisher, and my book may see the light of day sometime soon. Sure, there’s still lots of editing and formatting for Megan to do, but it’s begun in earnest now.

One of my favorite new techniques that I learned during the book-writing process was boiled joints. I’ve written about them before, but here’s a clip from my talk at the Working Wood in the 18th Century conference at Colonial Williamsburg a few weeks ago, showing how they’re done:

Video

I just this week learned how to edit videos. This is my first, and I’m rather surprised at how simple and fun the process is. Maybe more will come.

The post A Favorite New Technique first appeared on Elia Bizzarri - Hand Tool Woodworking.

Even on a treadle lathe, the roughing gouge throws off tons of thick shavings

Roughing out is the first thing you do on a lathe project, when you take a square piece of wood and turn it round. You want to do this fast. Surface finish is not that important, although you don't want a disaster. Since the wood is square, you are at least starting with interrupted cuts.


l-r: 1" Continental Gouge, 3/4" Roughing Gouge, 1/2" carbide insert tooling

I have three tools that I can use for roughing out (above).

A continental gouge. If you look at early catalogs, you'll see that essentially they offered two kinds of tools: what we now call the continental gouge, and a typical spindle gouge. Mine is a 1" continental gouge.

A roughing gouge. This is the standard tool people use for roughing nowadays. I have a forged 3/4-in roughing gouge. I also have a much larger one that is really overkill and too big for a machine of this power. This tool is forged because of its size. Ashley Iles and other companies also make machined roughing gouges in smaller sizes.

Insert tooling carbide square edge scraper tools that can be used for roughing as well. Many people prefer the insert tooling carbide scrapers because the learning curve is easier. I bought this tool and a few other carbide insert tools because I've gotten a lot of questions about whether they could be used on a treadle lathe.

In truth, I have a fourth tool that can be used. If I wanted to, I could use a regular spindle gouge and it would work fine - though slower. I left the spindle gouge out of the demo because I would use it only if it were my only option.

A roughing gouge is the most popular tool for this purpose but the question is: for a treadle lathe for which makes the most sense.

l-r: scraper, continental gouge, roughing gouge
In the picture above, you can see the results of all three tools with the tool used underneath it. All this work was done with each tool in under a minute - maybe even under 30 seconds. I developed a sense of how fast they cut - and we can see the quality of surface they leave behind. I used all tools with about the same amount of pressure and force. But not enough to overwhelm the machine. The wood is soft maple.

From left to right:
The carbide scraper. My least favorite tool of the three, because it leaves such a rough surface. But it was dead easy to use. You take the tool, you hold it horizontally, and just feed it with moderate pressure, and it wastes away the material. It's exactly what a roughing tool is supposed to do. My only complaint is that there are splinters on the edges of the cut. On harder materials, I would guess it works better; on softer materials you would have a worse, rougher surface.

The continental gouge is historically the oldest design of the group. It is basically a wide, shallow gouge with a slight curvature to the face of the gauge. This particular one is one inch wide and a joy to use. The tools roughs out well and is very easy to control. While not as fast cutting as a roughing gouge, it allowed me plenty of control. The final surface was pretty good. It's also a versatile tool because you can do a lot of finishing cuts with it.

The three quarter inch roughing gouge on the right differs from both a spindle gouge and the continental gouge in that its front is sharpened straight across and the sides go up high and vertical, so they can slice interrupted grain cleanly. The tool profile is more of a "U" than a gentle curve. What you get is a tool that produces very thick shavings very quickly, and makes short work of turning a square billet round. It also is a very reliable tool in that you don't have a sense that you're about to fall off the edge of the Earth or anything like that. It certainly cuts faster than the continental gouge. As you can see, it leaves a reasonably clean surface.

I think the Continental gouge is a very versatile tool. Even when you're not roughing, it takes nice wide shallow cuts. But in terms of actual roughing, the roughing gouge is the winner. I just didn't like the square scraper: the surface it left is rough. I didn't feel the need to use a scraper since I didn't have trouble with the gouges.

If I were a more experienced turner than I am, I would follow the roughing gouges work with a skew chisel to create a perfect cylinder with a perfect surface. Neither the continental or roughing gauges really chew up your surface, so there's not much material to remove to get something perfect. Since I'm less than experienced turner, I find having a fairly decent cylinder from the Continental gouge to be actually quite nice.

If I were doing smaller work, my guess is a less aggressive Continental gouge might be a better choice, although all of these tools come lots of sizes, including pretty small tools meant for pen turning. If I only had one roughing gouge, I wouldn't want one too much smaller.

The most important takeaway from this experiment is that - as in most areas of woodworking - many different options work, provided that the tool is sharp. While there are cases in turning where something won't work well - for example, using a spindle gouge inside a bowl - overall you could do an awful lot of turning with just a spindle gouge and either a roughing gouge or continental gouge (just make to it easier). The most important thing I did during this test wasn't learning some secret technique handed down by turners since 1642. Rather it was making sure my tools were sharp and of the correct geometry when I sharpened them. I am spending time at the lathe nearly every day and as my experience grows and my technique gets better, my turning is naturally improving. I am going faster with far fewer catches and slip-ups.

The continental gouge on the left is ground with the nose sticking out slightly. The roughing gouge on the right is ground square

 The bookshelves I made for the grandsons are done. I just have to apply the shellac. It won't be finished today. Tomorrow I have a PET scan at the West Roxbury VA at 0800. I don't think I'll be getting any shop time on wednesday. I'll have to get up at oh dark thirty (0430) to catch the shuttle from the Providence VA to the West Roxbury VA. Don't know zip about when the shuttle returns to Providence?

one down, one to go

Came back to the shop after dinner and got all the Miller dowels installed. A final sanding, knock back the arrises, and this will be ready for shellac.

I like it

I added another dowel on the shelf. When I had glued it up I had to clamp the middle of the shelf to pull the end in tight. Added a dowel in the middle to keep it that way.

surprise

Got two 6mm fine nuts and one 6mm fine wing nut. I wasn't sure that ACE sold metric fine threads and the wing nut totally surprised me.

nope

There isn't sufficient room for the wing nut. If I tighten the big screw down as far as I can, I then can't turn the wing nut. I liked this option because it is toolless.

10mm open end wrench

I have had this wrench for a bazillion years and I have absolutely no idea why. Finally have a use for it - it is the size needed for this nut. This worked and the iron didn't slip/loosen/change when I used it on the back slat mortises. I tossed the wrench in the box with the router.

not my best

Three of the mortises were slightly oversized, it would seem I didn't reach under the back slats enough when I marked them. The back slats weren't snug. One back slat wasn't self supporting on the cheeks but was on the top/bottom. This one will definitely need Miller dowels to keep it together.

hmm.......

The shelf was self supporting - the right one gave in to gravity. The clamp was to ensure that the shelf fully seated in the dado at the front.

the worse one

A piece of oak veneer (the thickest I have) it just a frog hair too thin. The top/bottom of the slat will pick up the end but gravity wins. I'll glue this in when I glue up the bookshelf.

glued and cooking

The center bar clamp on the shelf didn't pull in the ends as much as it did on the first one yesterday. In spite of the loose back slats I didn't have any headaches gluing and clamping this up.

chamfering the feet

I let the bookshelf cook for a couple of hours before I took the clamps off and installed the Miller dowels. I forgot to put the veneer in but the back slat swelled and the gap closed up. Unexpected, but I'll take it and move on smartly.

done

A little premature but they are done and will be ready to go when I make the desks.

pretty good match

The sizes of the parts are all identical. I used the end of the first one to layout it out on the second one. The only thing that isn't the same is the back slats on 2nd bookshelf are a 1/4" closer to the back edge of the ends. On the first bookshelf the front edge of the back slats is aligned with the back edge of the shelf.

The three frames are at the Frame it shop. Based on what I saw in her shop, I'll check on them at the end of the first week in March.

accidental woodworker

 My truck failed the state inspection. I knew that was going to happen because I had long crack in the windshield. What I didn't know were the problems with the control arms and the back brakes plus a few other minor headaches. Total estimate is $1600 but that is dependent upon how bad the rear brakes are. 

shelf dadoes first

The goal was to get this glued and cooking today.

done

Three coats on the back and four on the front. They are ready to go to Maria in the AM.

left one self supporting

I've come a long way since I starting chopping dadoes this way. I had to plane the underside before it fit. Better that than a sloppy, loose fit.

ditto for the right one

I got both of these to seat fully and especially at the front. I had to clamp them to close them tight.

sigh.....

This router works well for getting the slat mortises to the same depth as the dadoes. However, today it would not stay set - the back screw would loosen and the depth of the iron would increase. The solution is to put a nut to help and hold the iron where it is set. The headache is the locking screw is metric. After faffing about I finally figured out it is a 6mm fine thread. I couldn't go to ACE because the truck was in the shop and my wife was off doing her dead people stuff. I'll come back to this in the AM.

it worked

Used my two small routers to get the dadoes and slat mortises to the same depth. The depth ending up being an 1/8" deeper than I wanted them. Not a big deal but it was an annoying hiccup.

side by side

The left one is for the grandson(s) and the right is the request. The biggest difference is the size of the shelf. I am going to try my best to make both of the ones I'm making for the grandsons to be the same.

side view

The end heights are about the same but the width is 2" more on the left one.

hmm......

This shape is growing on me. Most of my previous ones I made the tops on the ends parallel to the bottom.

finally understand this

When I first got this I had a ton of problems setting the angle. Yesterday and today it just fell into place for me. The key for me was to make the lock handle the reference. DUH.

oops

Made a me-steak here. I should have sawn the angle first and then the cutout for the legs.  I was able to 'fix' it. I sawed the angle and sawed the cutout again.

worked

I had to saw the back half of the cutout again. Rasped and sanded it smooth. No need to go nutso here because it isn't visible.

for the Miller Dowels

This worked well on two builds. I'll add this step to future ones going forward.

goal met

Glued and cooking. I might do the Miller dowels after dinner.

Lowes run

When the shop called with the good news about truck, after I picked it up I went home via Lowes. Picked up  two, four foot 1x12s. Sawed out a clear section from one board to be the shelf for the 2nd grandson's bookshelf.

the ends

As I did with the first grandson's bookshelf, I didn't thickness the ends to 9/16". Instead I labeled the reference face as the inside. The opposite face I just flattened. I didn't attempt to make it parallel to the reference at all. I think it looks good having the ends as the anchors being a wee bit thicker than the other parts. 

left side laid out

If I didn't have to deal with the truck issues today, I might have gotten the dadoes/mortises chopped today. I don't anticipate any hiccups betting it glued and cooking in the AM.

accidental woodworker

 The little guy on my right shoulder says the Pats will win. It is 1644, Feb 8, 2026. I don't know how good the Seahawks are. I only saw a partial game of theirs. The Superbowl has come a long, long way. I still remember Superbowl I 59 years ago. I was only 12 at the time and I wasn't a sports nut. Fast forward to now I'm still not a sports nut and if I can't watch the game I'll survive.

2nd bookshelf

I guess making these again isn't like riding a bike after a bazillion years. I remembered some things and brain farted royally on others. Got both ends of the shelf to be self supporting. At least the woodworking didn't go south on me. 

Lost the rest of the pics for this blog post. The camera SD card has been acting up for a couple of weeks, mostly giving random card errors. Tonight after the first pic I got another card read error when I tired to post the 2nd pic. Couldn't clear it and I got the same error in my two laptops and the shop computer. 

So I went back to the shop after dinner and snapped a couple of more pics to finish the blog post for the AM. I tossed the SD card in the shitcan while I was there. I've been using this one for a couple of years and SD card have a cycle life limit.

2nd bookshelf

Got 3 coats of shellac on the bottom and I should be done with it in the AM.

One thing I did on this one was once the dadoes and mortises were done, I drilled holes for the Miller dowels. No more placement/layout headaches. Got everyone of them right on with no me-steaks.

one of two more

Decided to make two more bookshelves, one each for the grandson's desks. Initially I had enough scraps to make them. I used my last Gurney's sawmill 1x12 for the ends and the slats. I am making these a little bigger than the 2nd replacement one so it will hold school books.

two of two

Got the ends and the back slats. I'll come back to this one after I get the first one glued and cooking.

toast, extremely burnt toast

These were the shelves for the two bigger bookshelves. However, when I was thicknessing the 2nd shelf, I couldn't remove the twist. I see sawed back and forth with it. I would remove some but not quite enough. Plane it a little more and check for twist and see that it was worse than before. It finally got to a point where I was chasing my tail in circles. 

The right one (the 2nd shelf)was cupped and twisted. This board was case hardened I think because I had a difficult time cross cutting it to length. I went back and checked the first one and it had cupped, not as bad as the 2nd one, but enough for it to be unusable.

I had one board I had thicknessed  a month ago to 9/16" that I used to make one shelf. I'll have to make a run to Lowes to buy a 1x12 to get another shelf.

getting there

I had forgotten about these two frames. Glad I noticed them because I still can get them done before tuesday. Monday the Frame it shop is closed but it opens on tuesday. I'll bring them and the brown one then.

Got lucky with the Super Bowl. My digital antenna picked up NBC which is broadcasting it. This was the second time I watched broadcast TV with the digital antenna. I quit cable TV over a year ago and I haven't missed it. Now I watch You Tube and Amazon Prime Video.

accidental woodworker

It's been several months now that I've had problems with Unplugged Shop, the site to which many of us go to read woodworking blogs.  For long stretches the site doesn't update with current blogs, and when it finally works again, it's short lived and then doesn't update for another while.

I'm probably not allowed to use this image, so I'll just say it's trademarked and thank them for the use of it.

In addition, my blog doesn't seem to be included anymore on the Unplugged Shop aggregator.  I've contacted them about it to get reinstated, but I don't know if anyone monitors that site anymore.

I don't mean to be an ingrate because this has been a free service that they provide and I truly appreciate it.  I can only imagine that it takes more work than I realize to keep it running.

Does anyone out there know what is going on with them?  Please comment if you do.

out of the clamps

Everything looked ok - joints were tight and it felt solid. It was laying dead nuts flat on the workbench too. 

layout for the Miller dowels

Two in each end of the shelf and decided to put two in each end of the back slats.

spider sense was tingling

Something wasn't as it was with all the other bookshelves I had made. The alarm bells starting waking up when I saw that the back slats weren't parallel to the back edge of the ends. Not being parallel made it a wee bit more difficult to layout for the Miller dowels.

not bad

Why can't I saw an angle like this when I try 45s? Thought of this to use as a gauge stick to layout the Miller dowels.

yikes

At least this dowel boo boo came out on the bottom. I went 11 for 12 and the mishap was because I picked the wrong pencil line.

hmmmmmm........

This is definitely ain't what I had done with the other bookshelves. The top slat is too forward and not parallel to the back edge. 

toast

I rounded the two front corners and I did them too much. A portion of the round got buried in the dado not to mention there is a )&^@%*_Q_)#@^*_Q)*% gap.

not right

Instead of the shelf titling backwards, front to back, it tilts down, back to front. That means whatever is put on the shelf ain't staying there. Now it has gone from toast to burnt toast and charcoal.

confirmation

The CDs are staying in place but they look odd. It is only 7° but it is easily seen. I can't give this to anyone because of my bone headed, brain fart me-steak.

nope

Tried to salvage this by sawing the bottom legs. That idea fizzled and died because the legs aren't long enough. Thought of adding pads to them and that would have worked but I nixed it. The top slat being inset too much ruins any attempt to salvage it. I will saw off the slats and the shelf and reuse them for another bookshelf.

2nd bookshelf

These bookshelves don't require a lot of stock. Got all that I needed from the scrap pile. It is a wash, rinse, and repeat of what I did yesterday.

layout

Did it right this time. The shelf and back slats form a right angle (at the back and the front). The tilt of the shelf comes from the 7° angle on the bottom. On the first one I had laid out the shelf at a 7° from the front edge and also had sawn the bottom at a parallel 7°. If I had left bottom square to the front/back, it would have worked.

ready to be chopped

Made and caught a potential me-steak on the left end. I initially laid out the slat mortises on the front edge rather then the back edge.

maybe

Didn't get any paint on these today. I stayed in the shop until 1540 and I might get these painted after dinner.

It had snowed on friday overnight and it snowed 3 times today. The driveway and walk got shoveled twice but nothing after the 3 dump. I'll deal with it in the AM. The shoveling outings cut into my shop time and I wasn't able to complete the 2nd bookshelf. Should be able to wrap that up in the AM.

accidental woodworker 

 Today I finally did some woodworking. It was a blessed relief after playing with paint and shellac for seemingly a bazillion years. It was a request project of something I went nutso making several years ago. I still have 7 of them in my house that I use. It was like riding a bike after a bazillion hiatus, I didn't forget how to do it.

done

The brown frame finally got a check mark in the done column. I noticed this poster on a few You Tube vids I saw over the past few weeks. I will bring this one to Maria tomorrow and the black frames next week.

sigh

Two coats of black and it needs one more on the interior. Three coats on the green and it needs at least one more. 

all three

The white vertical lines are the bare plywood peeking through and shaking hands with me. The sides still don't have complete coverage. I expected the plywood to cover better than pine but both have dismal coverage.

raking light

No shellac today. I did one last eyeballing and I saw some white in raking light on the arris of the bevels. Only this frame needed some paint but I'll wait and apply shellac to both in the AM.

the request

I had brought two of these to my niece's house when my sister came up for a visit. She asked if I would make another one for her. This one is perfect for CDs/DVDs or even paperback books.

the measurements

These measurements are not carved in stone. I'll gather up stock from the pile and the size of them will have the final say. 

need four pieces

3/4" stock is too thick for this CD/DVD/bookshelf so I'll thickness the stock down 9/16". First step is to untwist, straighten, and flatten one face and square one edge to it.

done

Got a reference face and reference edge. Two of the boards had humps and no twist. The other two were relatively flat but with some twist.

knife lines

I don't have much to remove - not quite an 1/8". I like to darken the knife lines so I can gauge my progress.

done

Two ends, one shelf, two back slats and one extra for an oops. Took me a little over 30 minutes to plane the five of them to 9/16" (~14mm).

hmm.......

Got the layout done for the shelf and back slats. All the angles  are 7 degrees. This is something I screwed up royally more times than I care to recall. Usually I would saw the bottom angle in the wrong direction. Another favorite screw up was laying out the mortises for slats either on the wrong side of the layout line or laying out the mortise too high or reversing it with it mate on the other end piece. No layout me-steaks today but that was because I double, triple checked my self a bazillion times before committing to knifing the notches and mortises.

hmm......

Thought out loud to myself and had a good conversation and decided to wait on this one. I sawed the angle correctly and before I saw the cutout for the legs, I want to make sure that I don't cut into the notches for the shelf.

shelf dadoes done

Got these whacked out just before the lunch bell rang. 

mortises done

These can be difficult to do because they are only 1 1/4" long. I don't have any routers that will do a flat bottom from top to bottom (or bottom to top). There is a web in the middle that I have to use a chisel to flatten and check with a sliding square. BTW if I made the back slats 1 1/2" I do have a router that would make a flat bottom easy peasy.

dry fit

Two of the back slat mortises are loose and one is sloppy. The other pieces are snug and they are holding it together.

it is square

The depth of the mortises and the shelf dadoes are the same. The length of the back slats and the shelf are the same too. That is what helps to get and keep the whole thing square.

ends are square too

Initially the ends weren't square. I clamped the shelf and that pulled the ends tight and seated the shelf in the dadoes - then it was square.

glued and cooking

The plan is to let this cook until the AM before taking the clamps off. 

Miller Dowels

The plan is use two dowels in each end of the shelf and one dowel (maybe two) in the ends of the back slats. That should help and keep everything together and tight. I have had two of these bookshelves come apart between the ends and the shelf. Fixed those with Miller Dowels and no headaches since.

1/8" Baltic Birch plywood

Got this from Amazon for $53 and change for 12 pieces. 12" wide and 24" long and I know I paid more than this the last time I ordered some. Says it is from Woodpeckers but I'm not sure if it is the same one that makes the Red Aluminum stuff.

came today too

I bought 3 of these pigments, black, blue, and green. Two came today and one is coming tomorrow. All 3 are from the same place so I don't understand why the broken shipment?

pulled the trigger

There were two things I always had on my person when I was in the Navy. The first was my ID card and the second was a Buck 3 bladed pocket knife. Still have an ID but the Buck is taking a dirt nap over 25 years ago. 

My wife had given me a gift certificate from Lee Valley and I got this knife. Bigger (longer) than my Buck and it is probably illegal to carry this on my person. I'll keep it in the shop and use it there. I'm really interested in seeing how well this keeps an edge.

accidental woodworker 

Consider the strength of the end to side-edge joinery which we have put into three categories: mortise pair and free tenon, Domino, and dowel.  When did you see a properly made joint fall? I never have in my work. The dowel joint gets the most criticism regarding strength. Let’s discuss that. As an example, consider […]

Every winter brings about some damage to the waterline for the hydroelectric turbine, a/k/a the penstock.  Usually this is because a tree branch has fallen on some of the 1100′ of 2-inch Schedule 40 PVC, which is cheap but gets really brittle when cold.  I knew from the very beginning that replacing some of the PVC every Spring would be an issue but just accepted it as the cost of doing business. Last year was great, I had to replace and patch only two little sections.  2015 was the worst as I had to replace 600-feet of pipe.

Except for the last thirty feet all of the penstock is above ground.  I did originally get an estimate to burying the entire penstock well below the frost line, but the >$75k+ price tag was a bit much.  My hydroelectric system is more of a hobby than anything else, at least until the EMP or CME or some other grid-down calamity, so that wasn’t in the cards.

This damage was peculiar because it was a compound spiral fracture which is only supposed to happen as a result of water freezing in the pipe and bursting it.  Since I drained the system in November this damage was a head-scratcher.  I am not looking forward to surveying the entire length of pipe once the snow and ice are gone.

I am now rethinking the penstock altogether.  Rather than sticking with PVC I am going to check into industrial irrigation polypropylene line which is continuous and much more forgiving to the forces that bust the PVC.  Since a pressurized/enclosed water line can run down to about -15 degrees maybe I could even keep it running year-round.

Stay tuned.

Elm is one of our more unusual hardwoods in that its whole infrastructure, though reliant on the same essential working components are the same as all other trees, the outcome of what its capillaries transport from root hair tips to leaf tips is a wood that’s not like any other. That’s why I say it...

Source

 Another boring day in the shop mopping the finishes for the frames. I think I'm done with the big frame, thankfully. The two black frames will probably be done on saturday. So that means it will be next week at the earliest before I get them to the Frame it Shop. Fingers crossed on that happening.

ready for shellac?

I got the last coat of black paint on both this AM. Since then I eyeballed them every half hour or so. No dust nibs to raise my blood pressure and no holidays neither. I'll let them rest and I'll put on shellac starting in the AM. 

yes it if finally done

I didn't feel that way in the AM. After I had applied what I thought was the final coat of shellac, I saw a big waterfall drip on the left long side in raking light. I had to scrape it with a mini card scraper. Initially I had sanded it and slapped some shellac on it. That did absolutely nothing to hide/cover the drip. Scraping it did and much thanks to shellac as a finish. The shellac I applied after that melted and blended in seamlessly.

hmm.......

I painted these four at 0800 and at 1500 the green ones were still a wee bit tacky. The black one dried to touch in about 15 minutes. The green frames have two coats on them and they definitely need at least one more. I expected this being a dark colored paint, that two coats would do it. I was wrong boys and girls.

I found 4 places in Rhode Island to buy hardwoods. Only one had 4/4 cherry (no 8/4) in stock. The other three only had 8/4 slabs. That would have worked for the legs but too thick for the rest of the needed stock. It is looking like I won't be able to avoid driving up to New Hampshire. Highlands has 5/4 and 8/4 cherry in stock. 

accidental woodworker 

 I have two projects in the shop, one done and the other almost done. Both of them combined are being a Royal PITA. The two of them are hogging about 40% of the available shop space. It is impossible to walk around the shop where they are. I also have to be super duper careful moving stock around so I don't hit either one.

The bookcase is the one that is finished and it won't be leaving until my wife brings it to North Carolina. I would put it in the boneyard but my wife is rearranging things there so it sits in the shop for now. 

The frame for the wood poster is the one I want to be done with. At least with that one I can bring it upstairs and leave it in the living room. After this frame was glued up it has been difficult (&@%Q(_%&#@Q^%*)_+)_ to ignore. It is tippy and it would fall off whatever I had it laying on. It will be a huge relief to have it out of the shop ASAP.

hmm......

I didn't happen boys and girls. I thought I was going to be putting a check mark in the done column with these two. There were a ton of dust nibs on both sides of both of the frames.  My workbench is under the living room and walking there showers the frames with dust etc etc. Another Royal PITA. 

Sanding the frames with 320 initially didn't work that well. I had to use a mini card scraper first to remove the nibs and flatten them. I also went a wee bit postal scraping a few more drips in the corners I missed previously. And there were a few more paint build ups along the edges from the last application of paint. After the scraping I sanded the frames, front and back, with 320 grit. That evened and smoothed out the finish.

prepping

I had 5 colors to pick from for painting these shadow box frames. I chose green because it was high gloss enamel. The other choices were either satin or semi gloss. I'm leaving the backs natural with shellac. The rest of the frame will all be painted green.

3 green and one black

The frames on the right are green and the bottom left one is black. Same thing with the back natural and rest black. Not sure what or if I'll use this because it is an odd size that doesn't match standard small photos.

3 down, 1or 2 more

I got 3 on the back and that is done. The front has 3 coats and I'll put on at least one more. I'll check on it in the AM and decide then whether or not it will need another coat.

This is all I got down today. With limited space to maneuver and waiting for shellac and paint to dry I couldn't get much done. I'm still on the fence about driving to New Hampshire too. I've been searching on line for closer Hardwood sellers without any success. It sucks pond scum that Highlands isn't open on saturday anymore. 

accidental woodworker

I started this blog in 2007 to share and talk about my woodworking and guitar making. I am very grateful that my blog has been on the two best woodworking aggregators: Norse Woodsmith and Unplugged Shop. Thanks to them the word got about my work.

The other day, I noticed that Unplugged Shop didn’t share my last post and took down the previous post on their website.  Since this happened I have noticed that the number of visitors to my website are down. I  submitted a request to have my website appear on their aggregator, I haven’t heard back from them. 

I wonder if the AI robot that assists their website doesn’t consider a guitar maker to be a “woodworker”? Is it because I don’t make stick chairs or turn bowls anymore? And that I don’t post much “how to” about guitar making? I’m a little baffled by Unplugged Shop’s action.

I hope that norsewoodsmith.com continues to share my and other woodworkers blog posts, I am very grateful for that old school aggregator. Thanks!

I've just added to the store three interesting chisels. By "three" I mean I actually only have three. The story behind them is interesting, hence the tale.

English toolmakers make two kinds of of "mortise chisels": the oval-handled mortise chisels of the sort that we stock by Ray Iles, which are designed for deep mortises and are tapered front to back so they can loosen themselves in a deep joint. The second kind are sash mortise chisels, which have parallel sides and round handles. They were used for shallow mortises, specifically window sashes. The advantage of having parallel sides is that they are simply less expensive to make. There's no real advantage for registration or anything like that.

Continental Europeans have never really cottoned to the oval bolstered mortise chisel. Instead they use are very large sash mortise chisels, which are typically tapered front to back. These tools have round handles, which makes them harder to register and use - but they are less expensive to make.

The great American tool company Stanley, which made all sorts of wonderful chisels, never actually made a real mortise chisel, sash or otherwise. So imagine my surprise when one of the owners of my local hardware store (more in that later), told me he had something special to show me - three Stanley sash mortise chisels, made in France and England, probably in the late 20th century. These sash mortise chisels are not in any of my catalogs. And I only have three in metric sizes. If you're interested, you can click on the product description here; if you act fast enough, you can actually buy them. They are perfectly good great tools, properly hand forged. When I say hand forged, I don't mean by hand banging on an anvil. I mean, with a power hammer, with a human organizing the blows. It's a real skill.

Before we go back to the history of the chisels, let's talk a bit about this hardware store. Warshaw Hardware Store on 3rd Avenue between 20th and 21st streets in NYC is run by its third generation, Eddie and Carl Warshaw. It is typical of the small neighborhood hardware stores that used to be all over New York City. It has everything. In other words, when I need 1/4"-20 bolt 1/2" long I can order a box from McMaster and have them the next day or I can go into Warsaw and buy three 1/4"-20 bolt 1/2" long for probably about a buck. For a tinkerer, and a guy trying to run a machine shop, this is a godsend. Your sink breaks, you need a weird washer: they got it. The fact that they are conveniently located is a godsend.

Back to the chisels. If you're running a hardware store for three generations, the chances of finding stuff in weird corners of the shop is 100%. So Eddie called me and said that he had found these chisels, had no idea what they were for, and thought of me. Did I want them? Of course I was intrigued. So I stopped by I took a look and saw that they were sash mortise chisels, which made no sense.

Eddie said "In the 1990s, one of my distributors went out of business and we bought their entire inventory. Over the years I sold everything but these chisels because they're not really our thing and they ended up being pushed aside."

I'm guessing the chisels are from around the 70s or the 80s and were sitting in the distributors warehouse a long time. They might have been a marketing experiment by Stanley, to import some of the more woodworking friendly tools that were available in Stanley Europe into the United States to see if they would sell to hobbyists here. Apparently they didn't.

In case you're wondering how I know that they are forged and handled mostly by hand, it's because the forgings aren't perfectly symmetric, a mark of an open die not a complete drop forge. When you hand forge chisels, the balance isn't always centered correctly on the tang. To address this problem, when you put the chisels into a handle - the job of the cutler - you compensate so the chisels weight is perfectly balanced and symmetrical. But visually it may be off slightly - and that's the case with these chisels. The mark of somebody paying attention. Two of these chisel still have their fancy store hanging display hoops on.

 Temps here about have been in the single digits overnight and barely getting above 20F/-7C during the day. Today it hit 37F/3C and the snow mountains actually melted a wee bit. My happiness will be that what we have piled up along the driveway will melt before I get whacked with another storm.

almost

There were a few holidays on the brown frame that I had to touch up. The black frame has two coats on the back and one on the front. I will have to wait a couple of days for the paint to cure out before I put any shellac on them. The goal is to get the 3 frames to Maria on saturday.

toast

This is the second 5x7 shadow box and it is toast. It is twisted too much to plane it flat. The first one was twisted too but not as bad and I was able to flatten it. I had to make another frame.

nope

This was the 3rd panel I made for the frame and it was also the 3rd frame that was twisted. I thought I could keep it flat while I glued it but nixed it. I didn't want to chance it going wonky on me.

last one

The 3 previous failures were all 1/8" birch plywood. All of the plywood panels were visibly twisted. The frame wasn't strong enough to straighten it. The final panel is crappy 1/8" plywood from china. It was flat and the dry fit laid flat on the tablesaw. Glad it worked because I ran out of both the birch and chinese plywood. 

I'm dreading buying more 1/8" plywood. The price had jumped a lot the last time I bought some. With the way prices are spiraling upward, I'm sure the plywood will be higher too.

hmm.....

Couldn't get this setup to work. The clamps would not clamp on the flat of the red 45. I tried 3 different clamps and nada. I wanted to use these because I could see if the clamps twisted the frame with pressure applied. Onto plan #2.

Plan #2 was the band clamp. I eyeballed it all over a bazillion times making sure it was seated down fully on the metal corners. I thought maybe the band clamp caused the twist in the previous 3. Maybe, but 2 were definitely due the plywood being twisted.

splines

I noticed when I tried to twist the frame flat, one of the miters broke apart. Wasn't expecting that at all. I put two splines in each miter on the first frame.

3 hours later

Normally I would have waited until tomorrow but I had to check it out. The frame is laying flat on the tablesaw. There was zero rocking on any of the corners.

splines

I used red oak veneer for the splines. I'll be painting both of the 5x7 frames. I didn't do any lay out for the splines - I just eyeballed them. 

came today

I like reading history like this. The book on the right was published in 1984 and the second one in 1992. I did a cursory page check and both books are different. Both are still about New Jersey toolmakers and not just woodworking tools. I especially like reading the ads. It is like reading a foreign language even though it is my native english. 

accidental woodworker

Last week I talked about life working wood that few might know today. A journey through youth to adult life, maturing through migration to live and work as a maker in the USA. No one could have imagined my life. Not one ounce of it would have matched anything of their world, nor any other...

Source

Any time I rehab an old tool, I think about whether or not to leave as much patina as I can.  In the past I've been more in the camp of trying to make it look like new, shining up the brass and other metal parts and cleaning the wood thoroughly.  Lately though, I've been more apt to just make it useable and keep it looking like it is 100 or more years old.

With this old moving fillister, though, there was enough work required to get it fettled properly that I decided to clean it up all the way.  This is a #68 Sandusky moving fillister plane that initially looked like it was in pretty good shape.  The only thing obviously wrong was that the nicker iron was missing.

Overview

Markings on the front

Close-up of the right side showing depth stop and the dado that should house a nicker

The heel end stamped with former caretaker H. W. Campbell

The 1 5/8" wide iron was in pretty decent shape

This shows the angle of the cutting edge required due to the skew of the iron in the plane

There was a little damage to the aft end of the boxing - not enough for me to worry about

I started with the body of the plane, specifically the sole.  I was mainly checking to see if it was flat, but what I saw was a HUGE amount of twist!  I had to plane that out and it didn't take long.  Then I looked at the right side, which I wanted to be square to the sole.  It too had a HUGE amount of twist, so I planed that out, too.  Planing those two surfaces and making them square to each other had the additional benefit of crispening up the corner between the two.

Plane held in vise upside down, winding sticks showing twisted sole

Plane lying on its left side and winding sticks show twist on right side

Got both surfaces twist free, flat and square to each other

While I was planing, I also flattened the fence (only the face that mates with the plane's sole) and made the edge that rides on the work square to that face.

Squaring up the fence

Cleaned up the brass inserts and screws

Planing the surfaces that I did leads to predictable consequences.  First, since the fence is now a little thinner, the screws holding it to the body bottomed out in their holes before tightening the fence completely.  I didn't want to deepen the screw holes, so I added washers that would bear against the fence's brass and that fixed the problem.  But now the screw heads protrude just a little bit beyond the bottom of the fence.  Not really a problem - it just doesn't sit upright as stably as before.

Second, planing the right side of the plane body made it so that the dado that would hold the new nicker iron was not as deep.  Before planing I had measured it at .137" deep.  The steel I'm using to make a new nicker is .125" thick, so I thought I might have to use a shim to get the cutter to be at the level of the plane's surface.  But I planed enough off the right side that the .125" thick nicker would have been proud of the surface.  I ended up routing the bottom of the dado to make the cutter level with the surface.

The dado for the nicker.  Note how it is tapered in its length as well as its depth, getting wider at the bottom.

Some notes about how to make a new nicker

Getting the nicker close to the right shape

But because I planed the right side of the body, the nicker sits too high

So I used a small router to deepen the dado.

To complete the nicker, I hacksawed and filed a notch that allows one to remove it from the plane

Then shaped the cutting edge on the grinder

Then heat-treated and tempered it and gave the edge a final honing

The plane's rabbeting iron didn't need too much work.  After removing any rust with abrasives, I reshaped the cutting edge to mate well with the plane's sole.  Another consequence of planing the right side of the body was that the iron now extended too far out the planes' side.  So I had to grind and file that back to be in line with the plane's side and the nicker.

You can see how much the iron extends past the planes' right side (top in photo)

Grinding a new cutting edge was tricky due to the angle of the edge

You can see the laminated iron in the bevel

First test cut: rabbet cut along the grain - nicker removed

Second test cut: nicker used here to cut a cross-grain rabbet

A couple of test cuts gave nice results.  But I really had to be diligent about pressing the fence against the workpiece when cutting with the grain to avoid getting a rabbet of tapered width.  The small test rabbet cross-grain using the nicker was great.  It really worked well.

After all the work was done, I gave the wood two coats of BLO.  It's been drying 2-3 weeks now, and here's the final product.

Glamour shot

After I use it a while, I might find that the wedge needs work to fit better.  There's a slight gap down near the iron's cutting edge.  It didn't seem to affect the test rabbets, but I'll keep an eye on it.