A Bench Update

Short post today...to those of you who are tired of reading my ramblings you are welcome. 

The bench is coming along nicely.  I have the tenon on the top cut so that I can add the end cap eventually.

A rather large hand cut double tenon. 

I used a plow plane to establish the shoulders

this was more accurate for me then trying to saw the shoulders.

I then used a 1 1/2" chisel to create the rest of the tenon.

I have also started the dog hole strip.  Cutting all the dog holes by hand is a long process but a lot of fun.  I start with some simple pencil layout lines.  Then I knife in the lines on the top surface where the cut will be visible on the finished bench.  I then use a chisel to make a first class saw cut notch (this helps create a cleaner cut line as well as guide the saw.  I cut the two side walls then use a chisel to waste out most of the material.  I finish off with a router plane to achieve a uniform depth.

I am now about half way through the dog hole strip.  Once I get the remaining dog holes knocked out I will glue on the backer and then glue the whole piece to the rest of the top.

And now because it has been a long time since I posted some random pictures here are more from my travel to Italy a few years ago.

Now I am off to enjoy the sweet sounds of the Tragically Hip and the awesome weather we have for march (stupid global warming).

Cheers

Hans Christopher

Back In the Swing Of Things

This past week I went back to college, or at least I tried to.  A strike by the school's support staff has made going to classes very difficult.  Benefit of this was an extra week of summer vacation, and some more shop time.  Some nice additions to the shop this week include my first set of handsaws, my first marking knife and a new quality combination square.

I am very exciting about the two new saws.  With the addition of them there is almost nothing I cannot do now in the shop with only hand tools.  The two saws are a Pax rip saw and a panel saw.  Pax saws are hand made saws in Sheffield England and have been since 1776.  The saws are amazing, they are sharp and follow a line well (when user error does not occur).  Now with these saws I can break down rough stock which is the first step any project.

I also purchased a Starrett 6' combination square, and wow is it ever a square.  Previously I have been working with an old home centre 12' square, and it worked but not like this new one.  This square is  rugged it is built like a tank and  ready to work.

And finally I got my first marking knife.  This was not a necessary purchase, marking a joint with a pencil or an utility knife works just as well, but as hand tool woodworker having a marking knife is part of the tool kit, and I just like buying tools.  All of these tools I purchased from Lee Valley.

With the purchase of the two new saws I now have need for a saw bench so I can properly use my new saws, so I have begun work on one and will keep you updates as it nears completion.

Below are a collection of photos from my Italy trip.  These images are all of Statues within The Vatican.  Enjoy.

Cheers
Hans Christopher

What's Coming Up The Roots

OK sorry for the delay in posting but I was sick one day and then got backed up with work and I am still getting the hang of my posting schedule.  So let me start there with explaining what I hope to do with these posts.  My plan is to post 7 times a month, 4 Sunday posts and 3 Wednesday posts.  The mid week post will be a smaller post usually on some random topic I can think of and demonstrate.  And the weekend post will be a following of what ever project I am working on at that time.

So what do I have planned.  For people other then myself I have a few refinishing projects to do, some of which are already started some of which are still to begin.  One cool project that is both for myself and for others is a hall bench.  I am sure as time progress more projects will arise.  However the projects I have planned for myself really get me excited.

First every month from September to December I plan to build one hand plane a month.  Three wooden planes in the krenovian style.  I have recently finished reading David Finks book Making & Mastering Wood Planes which I would recommend as a read to anyone interested in wooden planes.  I plan to make three wooden hand planes.  Which three I am not entirely sure of yet but I would like to make a smoother for sure. I would also like to make a jack plane, I do own a jack plane already but because jacks are so versatile that multiple jack planes allow for multiple plane setups that allow for more efficient productivity.  The final plane I am not sure of yet, I am considering a spokeshave,  yes a spokeshave is a plane, or some specialty plane such as a rabbeting plane or a grooving plane.  However it is the fourth and final plane that is really exciting to me and also a little terrifying.  I would love to make an infill plane either a smoother or a jack plane.  Not sure if this idea is foolish or brave, maybe a little of both but I am excited to give it a go.

Besides that plane making I plan to make a tool box based on Tom Fidgen's cabinetmakers toolbox featured in his book Made By Hand.  Also inspired by Tom is a dedicated sharpening bench, and the final project for myself that I plan to build over my Christmas break is to build a traditional workbench... with a twist.

I hope to bring everyone along on my woodworking journey over the next four months and beyond.

This week sees the end of my most recent project, the project that started this entire blog.  The cabinet door comes to a conclusion.  This past week so the panel get its final surface prep with the use of smoothing planes, card scrapers and sandpaper.

Resawing the face frame stock down to 3/8"

After the door was all prepped for finished I moved on to the face frame for the cabinet, a very easy task in comparison to the door.  I started by resawing some maple stock and then dimensioning it to the appropriate size.  Then like on the door cut some mitres and then shoot the mitres on my shooting bored (have I mentioned how much I love that bored).  Then a little glue and its also ready for finish.

Planning to final dimension

The finishing process started with finding an appropriate stain that matched the existing vanity.  After finding the perfect colour I applied it using a foam brush.  I let it soak in for about 10 minutes then using a clean Cotton rag I wiped off all the extra.  The final step is to apply the polyurethane.

The Finished Door and Face Frame

So with that I come to the end of the first project I have blogged about.  Till next time

Cheers

Hans Christopher

Patience Equals Perfection

So it has been a week now since I announced that I have made the move to hand tool only woodworking and I am loving it.  The transition is a little cumbersome, having to find homes for some of my machines was difficult but worth it.  The amount of space I have now is amazing plenty of bench top room to work and another whole surface just to put pieces done and do some assembly.

So what has gone on inside the shop this past week, a fair bit but unfortunately not as much as I had hoped.  Lets take a look shall we.

The first post of the blog had me explaining the process of making a bead molding for a door frame I am working on.  This week sees the completion of all the parts ready for final fit and finish.  I began with the raised panel.

Cutting the rabbets to define the tongue to go into the rail and stiles and the edges of the raised profile.

Using a molding plane cut the profile in the long grain and end grain of the panel.

Using my Veritas Bevel Up Jack Plane with a 50 degree iron i smooth panel.  Then using a card scraper I clean up the tea rout and the finally hit all the profiled areas with some 180, 220 and 320 sandpaper.

A few notes about the raised panel.  For my first raised panel it's not bad, saying that there is lots of room for improvement and I look forward to showing everybody how I make a profiles using molding planes.

The next part of the project was getting the mitres on the rails and stiles to fit nice and tight.  I cut the mitres using a sliding compound mitre saw (I made these cuts before I went all hand tools) and they came out poorly.  The mitre was very close to a perfect 45 degree however every cut had a bevel making a tight mitre very difficult.  Luckily using hand tools I knew how to correct this issue.  I used a shooting board and my jack plane to shoot the mitres to get some nice fitting joints.  However I did have to build a mitre shooting board first, not a hard process.  If people wanna learn how I made the shooting board leave a message in the comment section below, and saying please helps.

A ugly open mitre (looked worse in real life)

Shooting the mitre

nice tight closed mitre (looks better in real life)



And the nice shooting board I made so worth the 3 hours it took to make

While using the shooting board something to remember is to be patient.  The first couple of cuts I made i had the plane set real heavy and tried to rush resulting in a very harsh and sudden stop of the plane, hurting my wrist and marring the work, so as with all woodworking patients pays off.

So starting tomorrow I can begin the final assembly and then all that is left is to put stain and finish on it.

And a few more pictures from my trip to Italy.  Enjoy.

Till next time cheers.

Hans Christopher

And We Are Off

I have done a fair amount of work for my family, my parents bathroom (still need to get that medicine cabinet done), my own bathroom (which only got the finishing touch last week) and last Christmas I did a fireplace install that I must say is pretty cool.  One of the coolest features of the fireplace is the custom mantel I built for it.

This is the second fireplace mantel I have built and what makes this one special, at least to me is that its all about the wood.  No stain, no profiles and no finish just good wood in a natural state. 

The mantel is effectively a box, simple butt joints with biscuits added for alignment.  The only real work that went into the mantel was to flatten one face and joint one edge of each of the five pieces that made up the box.  This was necessary so that when I cut the pieces to length and used my biscuit jointer I had straight flat edges to register from.The end result is a red oak box that seems to float on the stone wall.

In other news...I have some non woodworking pictures to post here.  I know this is preliminarily a woodworking blog, and don't worry it is going to stay that way, I do however have a love photography and this blog offers a good outlet for my amature picture taking shenanigans.  These three pictures (out of a set of nearly 1200) are from a school trip I took to Italy 3 years ago.  Enjoy.

Stayed tuned for more pictures and woodworking blogging.  If you listen carefully the next blog post you read may carry an important message with it, so stay tuned.  Thank you to the guys over in the woodwhisperer community,  if anyone has an interest in woodworking I highly recommend http://thewoodwhisperer.com/, for all the support you great people are giving me the strength to carry on with this little endeavour of mine.

Cheers