Popular Woodworking Magazine has a column entitled “I Can Do That.” They are projects using dimensional lumber from home improvement stores that the beginning woodworker can complete in a weekend. The November, 2011 issue has a simple tool tote pattern. It also has helpful information for the beginning woodworker such as how to most efficiently do a through mortise and how to properly hold a chisel. I use one 1X8X8 board for this tote, and was pleased with how it came out.
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I finally finished the workbench in my shop. My shop is tiny, a 10 X 10 room in the house. The workbench fills one wall at 8 feet long. Because the workshop is small, I built a shelf the length of the workbench to store supplies and tools on.
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I am building a workbench for my wood shop. It is more of a counter, really, to be made with 4 X 4 posts on each end and in the middle, with 2 X 4s as the scaffolding, then one inch plywood on the top and on a bottom shelf. Not as nice as a beech or hard maple work bench a la Christopher Schartz, but what I can afford. However, I have to make 24 mortise and tenon joints. Since I do not have a mortise machine, that means drilling and chopping out the waste with a chisel. This is going to be a long few days, but I should have a sturdy work space after I am finished. At least, that is the plan. And, as a side benefit, I will be getting lots of practice at making a fundamental joint for woodworking.
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This kitten is about to discover that garden fairies may not have teeth and claws, but they can still fight back when disturbed. This is cut in 1/8 th inch maple finished with mineral oil.
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I am not sure what this is supposed to be, but it reminds me of the Isle of Man Coat of Arms. This pattern is executed in poplar and is also from Sue Mey.
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I asked Sue Mey, a South African Scroll Saw pattern designer, for some pendants that were not religious. She sent me several, including this Southwestern lizard. I think that it came out very well in poplar.
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This giraffe puzzle is made of ash. It came from the book Animal Puzzles for the Scroll Saw by Judy and Dave Peterson. This is a nice book I get a lot of patterns from. They sell well and if made from thicker wood can stand up as well for display. It is published by Fox Chapel Publishing.
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I made this for a friend. It is poplar with maple top and bottom. The drawer pull is an exotic wood scrap from the scrap pile. Actually, all the wood is from the scrap pile. Just an illustration of the maxim, “woodworkers don’t have scraps, we have smaller and smaller pieces of wood.”
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Sometimes you think better while your hands are busy. I built this little tabletop catapult, a trebuchet, Sunday while I was thinking. I found that 1)I reaffirmed that I am not a very good carpenter, and 2)when I build a man sized catapult I will know a lot more about how to build one correctly. I am now in search of a counterweight that is 3.3 lbs but small enough to fit comfortably on the arm and rotate around at high speed. The plans look like they call for a lead weight and were for a science class where such a thing might exist. I don’t have one, though, so am looking for something similar. Then I can see just how far this can chunk something. Now that I better understand catapult construction, I plan to build a 7 foot high one to chunk small fruit across the pasture. That will be this spring’s project, though.
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I have finally gotten all of the junk and bookcases full of books out of the wood shop to be. Now I just have to build the counters and tool cabinets, and it will be ready to go. Of course, the counters and tool cabinets represent a lot of work, so it isn’t that simple.
This is a very small bedroom, about 10 X 10. One wall now has the wood bins and shelves. One side has the closet door and a book case for my woodworking books and magazines.
I am planning an L shaped counter, with one leg 8 feet long and the other six feet long. I am building it three feet high and two feet wide. For now, I will use plan old 1 inch plywood, 2X4s, and 4X4 lumber to build a cabinet with a shelf 1 foot off the ground and the top will be three feet tall.
The short end will hold the scroll saw, drill press, drill, and orbital sander. That is the power tool ghetto. The rest of the tools will be in cabinets on the wall.
Of course, this is going to take me a while to build, because I am slow and because I have to get the wood a little at a time. It takes me twice as long to do something because I am learning as I go. At least when I get this all done, I should be a better woodworker!
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I was asked about finishing delicate fretwork. Ask ten scroll saw artists how they finish their work and you will get ten different answers. I am allergic to varnish, lacquer, and shellac. I also use my dining room table as my wood shop. This means really flammable stuff is out, particularly during the summer when it is 100 degrees outside on the porch. [click to continue…]
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I received this plane as a gift. The tag says: “Early 1900′s wood plane. From old Hines Farm, Euless, Texas.” There is no maker’s mark I can see and as far as I can tell, this was made by an individual. It seems to be made out of the oak that would have been locally available, but it is hard to tell without damaging the wood. There is a patina of age and use on it. I failed to photograph the sole, but it is flat and the mouth is still sound. There is a bit of chewing from the iron sliding in and out but not bad. [click to continue…]
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This is made from 1/8th inch thick redwood. The wood was an off cut and I bought it from the sale table at Wood World in Dallas. It was so fragile that I had to turn the saw blade speed all the way down and go very slow so it didn’t shatter. The posts are brass rods, and the base is poplar. I treated the whole thing with boiled linseed oil, and it really brought out the beauty of the redwood. The pattern, by Wayne and Jacob Fowler, appeared on page 36 of the September, 2009 issue of Creative Woodworking and Crafts.
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I have had David Finck’s book Making & Mastering Wood Planes: Revised Edition
for a while. I also have the book Tool-Making Projects for Joinery and Woodworking: A Yankee Craftsman’s Practical Methods
by Steve A. Olesin that includes how to make a plane. What had me stymied was the idea of fabricating the plane iron. Cutting a blank from an old saw blade was tough, and without a bench grinder to square it up and sharpen it, futile.
Finck talks about using iron that is soft, then tempering it with a torch. Not really something I can do. And of course, then you need the bench grinder to put the initial angle on the bevel. I looked at new plane irons, but they were more money than I had. So I put that idea away for a while. It never really went away, though. Then I got Chris Swartz’s The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.
Not only did Schwarz talk about which planes were important and how to use them, he has a list of sources for tools in the back of the book. In addition, he talks about how to buy old tools without loosing your shirt. One of the vendors he listed, Joshua Clark, specializes in user grade used tools. I explained what I wanted to do and for $30 including postage, got two very nice plane irons, with chip breakers. They are wide, 2.25 inches and almost 3 inches, and perfect for a jack plane and a joiner plane. Joshua sent them to me for inspection after sending pictures that were very clear. The irons were exactly as they were pictured, and Paypal is our friend.
I have glued up a block of maple that is hard as a rock to use for the jack plane. I am making it without power tools, which means it is slow going. Finck assumes you have a band saw, joiner, planer, bench grinder, and all manner of toys that I lack. So a panel saw, block plane (my grandfather’s) and a lot of elbow grease will have to suffice. Hopefully soon I will have pictures of a working jack plane.
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I never realized how much work building a set of shelves could be. I finally finished them. Now I am sorting a mountain of wood that has been on the floor of my study for about five years. I am finding all sorts of hidden treasures, but it is a lot of work. I need to get everything out of the way to finish turning the study back into a study (as opposed to a woodpile with a desk sticking out of it). Then I can work on building a counter with storage space in it along one wall of the new wood shop, and tool racks above that.
I am debating what wood to use for the counter top. Plywood is cheap, but I do not know if it will stand up to that kind of use. And, you can’t plane it true without cutting into the next layer. On the other hand, there is no place to buy wood such as beech or maple in this area. I would have to drive 75 miles one way to get that, and have a pocket full of cash. No sawmill within a day’s drive, just so you know. I live on the post oak saannah in the middle of nowhere. However, FedEx and UPS know where I live.
Any suggestions on choice of wood? Any ideas for reducing cost?
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My Mom had asked for a purple martin house for Christmas. It took until mid May to get it up. We didn’t have a telescoping pole, so Dad fixed a hinge to hold two landscape timbers together. This would allow us to lower the house once a year to clean it out. Except that the hinge is bending in the wind. We are going to have to attach a guy wire to it to support the house in the wind.
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Sometimes you do not get to see the finished product installed, especially when it is a bat box or bird house. This one, though, is at my parents. My Dad and I installed it. The mesh below the box makes a pouch and catches the pups or old bats who lose their grip, giving them a chance to climb back up to the house.
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I feel like I have not been doing much woodworking but have, actually, been hard at work. I am changing my library into a woodshop. First I had to move enough bookcases out to make room for the lumber strewn about the house. Next I built a system of bins to hold the scraps. They are rather rustic, but they were built with wood I had on hand.
Now I am working on the shelves that will hold the lumber for my projects. You can buy shelves for lumber, but they are expensive. These will be build out of pallet slates for the supports and three purchased 1X12X8s for the shelves. Cutting the panel slates into the appropriate lengths was time consuming with a panel saw, but that is done. Now I am constructing the actual supports. This involves screwing sets of slates together into L or T shapes for stability. Then the boards go on these supports, and the whole thing is screwed to the wall. I hope to have that completed in a week, then can put some order into the wood pile.
Then I can move out the rest of the books and build a workbench, cabinets, and the other needed storage for my shop. Finally, I will have a place to work other than my dining room table. Then I just have to get the tools to make the things I want, or make the tools, depending on what they are.
So, this is my summer project — build a workshop. What are you working on?
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I have heard it said that woodworkers do not have scraps, they just have smaller and smaller pieces of wood. I have lots of small pieces of wood. I do not have a fireplace since I would rarely need one — it is often 80 degrees in January. That means designer firewood is out. I am moving my library to make my smallest bedroom into a wood shop that will primarily be using hand tools. The exception will be the scroll saw, drill, and random orbital sander, at least for now. The table saw will be dragged outside to use, as it is too messy to use in the house.
As part of that move, I am constructing wood containment devices, better known as scrap bins. I am using materials on hand, so they are a bit rustic, but they do hold the small pieces of wood. Now I just have to make the time to sit and sort the wood into the appropriate bin. My puppy, who is about six months old, loves to “help” me by catching flying pieces of wood and chewing on them. I am teaching her the difference between my toys and hers, but it is slow going.
Here is a picture taken on my cell phone (insert sheepish look here) of four of the bins. The other four all all the smaller size — 2 ft. long, 2 ft high, and one ft. wide. How do you deal with your small pieces of wood?
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I have a dog who is an Australian Cattle Dog, a red heeler. She had puppies by a travelin’ man, who appeared to be a lab with a curly tail. Well, the puppy, Star, is already larger than her mother and Star is only 5 months old! I have always kept my bread on the top of the refridgerator, but it is appearent the way Star is growing that is not going to be safe much longer.
I built a breadbox to solve that problem. It is more of a bread safe, but it does keep the dogs out of the bread. I put a latch on it, since Star is smart enough to figure out how to open it otherwise.
Here is Star and the breadbox. Star was not able to get into the bread, although she investigated the box and tried.
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I finally, to the vast relief of my friends, finished the shaving horse. They were really getting tired of hearing about it. The good news is it is entirely of wood, all of which was found or was harvested on my property. It actually functions, too. The bad news is it looks more like a deer after a car accident than a horse. Oh, and the puppy keeps stealing the wooden cotter pins to chew on — got to fix that.
Anyway, here it is from the top. The seat and one log came from trees felled by a small tornado after a storm. The rest of the wood was from oak saplings I cleared because they were in the wrong place. Here is the bench, before:
The plans called for between 52-58 inches. This is about 40, but the plans were for a tall man, not an average woman. It has four legs. In order to add stability, the legs are at an angle and are tapered inside. I built a taper from osage orange I cut from my property. I learned a lot about cutting mortise and tenons, mostly what not to do.
When I finally got the bench done, I started on the actual holder for the wood. I split a sapling and used that for the sides, used parts for the top, pivot, and bottom, and then used the scroll saw to make cotter pins . I actually did almost all the work by hand with hand tools. It took much longer, but I learned more.
So, from the torn wood, we get the shaving horse, er, deer:
The detail on the joints is in the picture below.
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Sometimes in woodworking, especially at the beginner level, you learn a lot from your failures and difficulties. I seem to have signed up for a college class in these with the shaving horse bench. First, I broke a tenon off in the mortise because I was too rough, so got to drill another hole. Now I have one leg fitted and installed. I have cut the tenons on two other ones and they await sanding to final fit. The last one, though, is a problem.
The wood is very hard and I am having trouble cutting the tenon. I want badly to finish the bench so I can do the top assembly and start using the bench. I am sure if I knew more I could get this done easier, but I suppose I am learning a lot in the process. At least, that is what I keep telling myself.
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One of the wonderful things about woodworking is the way you can bootstrap your way to better and better tools and in the process learn a great deal about the craft of woodworking. I am transitioning from doing scroll saw work almost exclusively to working on bigger objects. The first stop to a new fence, for example, is a shaving horse so I can cut the bark off the oak posts. Then they will not rot as fast.
In the case of the shaving horse, I am using a plan that requires the tenons inside the bench portion of the project to be tapered. This is done with wooden chairs and some other things. A pilot hole is drilled and then a taper or reamer, the name seems to vary, is turned in like a corkscrew to create the correct taper.
As you can imagine, there is not much call for this any more in Texas, if there ever was, or even in the United States. The examples I found were either shop made and not for sale or proper copies of old ones designed for use by people in those living history places. These were priced accordingly — very expensive. I do not do “very expensive.” Not, at least, without months of scrimping and saving.
Since I was working in oak, I decided to make a reamer out of a harder wood that grows wild on my place — osage orange, or bois d’arc, as it is called around here. It is very hard and very durable. It also has thorns and was used to make hedges to keep livestock in before the advent of barbed wire, which makes harvesting it a bit dicey.
Very old bois d'arc tree
bois d'arc wood (osage orange) waiting to be cut
I cut a sapling down that was about 2.5 inches in diameter. Here you see a picture of an older tree, and the sapling once the bark had been peeled off. The bark pulls off easily and can be removed in strips and woven into rope or cord. The Native Americans used the limbs for bows and wove bowstrings out of the bark, hence the local French name meaning “bow wood”.
To construct a reamer, you need a cone that is approximately a foot long, with one end a point and the other end two inches across. This forms a 12:1 taper, which was suggested for this use. Some people use a 6:1 or 8:1 taper for chairs. I have not gotten into chair making yet, or other furniture.
reamer and left over wood
finished reamer or taper
Cutting a cone out of a cylinder with a bow saw is not very easy. You cut a wedge in one dimension. Then you stand that wedge on its’ side and cut another wedge. A vise would help, but a stopping block and a C clamp does in a pinch.
Once the cone is cut out, it must be sanded smooth. Use one of the pieces left over to craft a handle and drill a small hole through the top for that. I cut a kerf into the cone and set a coping saw blade in it anchored with epoxy as a scrapper. Then I burned the size measurements into it so I didn’t have to keep measuring.
Does it work? Yes and no. I did not get the cone perfectly cone-like when sanding, so it is a bit bumpy turning it. The coping saw blade is really too fragile to scrape iron oak, but a hacksaw blade is too wide to fit. I ended up using it more like a ram, tapping hard with a mallet, to make the hole taper. That worked, but it took a lot of effort to wiggle the reamer free after doing that. Wacking on the other side or the reamer is out because it would break the point. So, maybe some design flaws for a wooden reamer, but it did perform the function it was supposed to and now I am working on making the tenons for the legs. The bois d’arc wood is very pretty, too, but stains everything it touches when wet.
As a bonus, the pieces I did not use are serving as wedges for splitting logs.
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I enjoy using hand tools. I am building a shaving horse to use in cleaning the bark off oak poles. They will become fence posts, furniture, and other things. When building the shaving horse, the legs are set at a slight angle so they are more sturdy. They are also tapered so that the weight of the occupant pushes the seat down into the legs and makes that sturdier, as well.
I managed to make the angled pilot holes for the legs, only to realize I had no way to make the tapered holes. I looked for the taper tool online, and found one picture of it and one place that sells a reproduction of one for $60. Wow. From the picture, I realized it is a cone of wood with a dowel running perpendicular to the cone. That is used to turn it into the hole. A blade or scraper is embedded in the tool with just a bit sticking out.
The wood needs to be hard, preferably harder than the wood you are using for the chair, seat, or whatever. Well, that meant oak was out, as that was what I would be reaming with the taper. I cut a small osage orange tree, or bois d’arc as we call them around here. The wood is very hard and it has thorns. Settlers in the area made hedgerows of them to keep in cattle. The heartwood has an orange tint, and oxydizes to the bright yellow of a smily face. It also stains everything it touches when wet.
I am still working on this tool, and hope to have pictures of the finished product soon. Cutting a two inch by one foot cone out of a 2.5 inch by one foot sapling with a bow saw is interesting. I have one dimension cut and have the other to go. I also have a hacksaw blade to use as a scraper.
Stay tuned for the further adventures of making the taper.
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I am a master gardener, member of the Garden Writer’s Association, photographer, and woodworker. I write on almost any nonfiction topic and have had some unusual experiences that contribute to that...
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