She Has Left The Building

Finished and in Place:

Closer:

I'm glad it is done.

ken

The Fat Lady Enters Stage Left

The cart is close to a done deal. I have to install the drawer pull and maybe add two or so more coats of oil finish. Then after I do a little rubbing on it, that suckers is out of the shop.

The cart's legs are White Oak, aprons, shelves, stretchers, and drawer box are Cherry, the bottom of the drawer is Honey Locust, and the pull is Sepele.

It has been a good build with only mostly minor mistakes and screw ups, most of which only I or another woodworker will see.

Next up are a couple of vernacular chairs and I'll start on a new portable Moravian workbench for this fall's PNW trip.

ken

More Kitchen Cart

This past weekend was a good shop weekend with few interruptions and little need for running the streets. It is amazing how much can be done with several hours of uninterrupted shop time.

The cart is close to finished. All that is left is finishing and installing the drawer. The drawer box is made and awaiting glue once the bottom is finished. The drawer also needs a front and handle/pull of some kind.

My first thought was a Baltic Birch plywood bottom for the drawer but after thinking about the span I decided to go with a solid wood bottom. I found a Honey Locus board that was almost perfect size in the wood pile. Simple cut it in half, glue the two parts together, run a rabbet around it, maybe relieve the thickness a little and I have a bottom. The only problem with the plan is one end of the Honey Locus board had a curve, little wind but it was a little spaghetti like. I'll pull it out of the clamps in a sec and see if it is useable.

The bottom board in clamps with the drawer box:

The other question is what to use for the drawer front. I've a couple of candidates. One is a matching Cherry board and the other is some of the last of my South American Walnut. I expect I'll go safe and use the Cherry but with oil the South American Walnut turns a rich very dark brown. A really pretty wood with a oil finish.

The cart with the first coat of Danish Oil and the two drawer front candidates:

I just pulled the bottom out of the clamps, it has a slight wind but there should be good thickness left after clean up. I believe it is a go.

ken

 

Kitchen Cart Out of Clamps

I just removed the clamps from the kitchen cart, like Ralph will note, it didn't talk to me as they came off. With the exception of one joint, one of the lower (shelf) stretchers, every joint is tight. The lower stretcher joint isn't bad, just not as tight as the others. Stuff happens, I may or may not try to hide it.

One more photo of the unfinished cart:

I had planned on taking some photos of the joints before glue up but no joy. MsBubba was helping and she has a short attention span with all things shop and once the glue up started there was no time for photos.

Ralph and I think Andy asked for some construction detail.

In the above photo you can see some of the joints, click 'em to big 'em. The three aprons have double tenons with a shoulder and a web between the tenons. The front top stretcher is dovetailed and the bottom one has double stub tenons. The bottom stretchers have a single tenon and are grooved to hold the bottom shelf slats. The slats have a tongue to fit the groove and are not glued in.

The mortises were chopped with the trusty 1/2" pig sticker. The tenons were split out and cleaned up with the router plane. Stock prep was by hand with only the reference/show faces finished. In other words pretty conventional construction and also quick and dirty.

I've drawer stock rough sized and a big hunk of Hard Maple for the top still in the truck bed. Once MsBubba is awake I'll prep and make the butcher board top out of the Maple. If I can keep the day off running of the streets under control this sucker should be finished before the weekend is over.

ken.

Lumpy and The Kitchen Cart Glue Up

If your shop doesn't have a "lumpy" get one.

MsBubba helped with the kitchen cart glue up, with out MsBubba and lumpy I would have been in deep do-do.

I had a couple of joints that froze tight and I couldn't get enough clamp pressure on them to pull 'em tight. Lumpy to the rescue, a couple of whacks did the job. This was the first glue up MsBubba has helped with. The look on her face when I first whacked the cart with lumpy was priceless. You could see she thought I'd lost my mind and it was time to call the funny farm.

Anyway here the cart is in clamps. I picked up 17.5 board feet of Hard Maple to make the top tomorrow. a quick drawer, install the wheels and that sucker is done....The fat Lady is warming up back stage.

For The Folks Up In The North Woods :-)

Driving home from work at noon my truck's thermometer read 82F/28C. Not too shabby for the second week in Feb.

I love the desert Southwest even in Aug.

The OF that was going to help with the kitchen cart glue up came down with a bad back yesterday so I'm either going to do it alone or enlist MsBubba. With MsBubba it could be even more fun than with the other OF. I'm not sure I'm brave enough.

ken

Kitchen Cart Ready For Glue Up

I've a couple of really exciting photos for todays post, two views of a pile of sticks waiting for someone to glue 'em together.

The joinery is finished and the kitchen cart is ready for glue up. There are enough parts and the finished cart will be heavy enough I decided to ask a friend over to help in the glue up.

Here are the sticks:

From the other side:

Exciting no?  If you look at the background there's the lath, vac, shave horse, and lumber storage. Big whop.

I really should make a video of the glue up, two deaf, hard headed OF's with bad backs trying to fit together the puzzle before the glue sets. Hilarity should ensue. BTW, my first plan was to use hot hide glue but even though Tucson is warming the open time would be pretty short so I decided to just go with Old Brown glue....that should cut down of the fun factor.

ken 

Planing White Oak

It's magical, the sound and feel of a well set up and sharp iron on wood.

I'm cleaning up the parts of the kitchen cart in preparation for glue up. I'm using one of my favorite planes, a type 9 41/2 with an after market Japanese laminated cutter and a OEM cap iron. It sings on White Oak, it doesn't get much better than the sound and feel of a sharp iron on wood.

The only problem, if it is a problem, one leg between sharpening is about all you can expect. White Oak is pretty tough on the iron. That's the bad news, the good is the Japanese blade is easy and quick to bring back to a perfect singing edge.

ken

Biscuit Joiner and Flat Head Syndrome

If you need to make some quick and dirty sheet good cabinets there isn't a much quicker way than either pocket screws or a biscuit joiner. I've both kinds of cabinets in my shop. I've always felt my shop furniture was there to function, not to show off my skills. And either pocket screws or a biscuit joiner will get you functional cabinets very quickly.

Pocket screws, not the pocket screw system, I use all the time in the shop. They are good self tapping screws. The biscuit joiner is pretty useless and just sits there taking space and collecting dust. At least that was the case before I had my latest bout of flat head syndrome.

A little back story. Up until recently I've always made wood cleats to attach table top to base. They are cheep to make, just a little scrap wood, and I think look good good. Not that anyone other than another woodworker would look at 'em. The only problem with using them is they are a little labor intensive with the making of the cleats and chopping the required mortises. Even that is not a big problem, I'm not a production shop, I build furniture because I enjoy the process but a month or so ago I needed to ship a table with the top off and I was afraid the skill level and knowledge of the receiver might not be up to attaching the top with wood cleats. I remembered "Z" clips do the same thing as the wood cleats and were pretty much a no brainer to install.

I made the required saw kerf with the Table saw and sent the table off with a package of "Z" clips. It must have worked because I received no complaints. The only problem was I wasn't real comfortable with the full length saw kerf down the table's aprons. Now comes the flat head syndrome: Shortly after sending the table off I noticed the biscuit joiner sitting on a high shelf gathering dust and thought "self, why not use the biscuit joiner to make the saw kerf".

Of course I did the usual back patting and fist pumping thinking I was brilliant and had discovered something new. Of course, wrong sawdust breath, as usual I'm the last to know, I've spent most of my life riding in the short bus and this was just one more time.

BTW, a biscuit joiner makes a really quick, easy, and strong way to use "Z" clips for attaching a table top.

ken

Pattern Maker Chisel

I'm making stub tenons/tongues on the bottom shelf slats. It would be worth having a pattern makers chisel for no other use than making a groove for the saws crosscut. Throw in cleaning up the cheeks and shoulders and I don't know how I managed to work so long with out one.

These Sorby's are really sweet, light with a very thin flexible blade and a Boxwood carver handle. The blade is easy to sharpen and holds a good edge. I know I sound like an infomercial and it is easy to spend other people's money but do yourself a favor and get a couple or three from Sorby. I know LV carries them as well as Amazon.

BTW, the kitchen cart is coming along. I've two more slats to finish, cut the grooves for the "Z" hooks to hold the top, clean up the show faces and glue the sucker up.

ken

MsBubba's Kitchen Cart

I'm making progress on the kitchen cart. Most of the joinery is done, I just need to make a couple of grooves in the bottom short stretches to hold the shelf slats and make rabbets in the slats to fit the grooves.

The cart is together so I can measure the slats and determine which and where the rest of the joints need tweaking. Make a Hard Maple glue up top, a drawer, clean up all the show faces, and install the casters before the fat lady sings.

With my schedule for the next couple of weeks it may take a couple or three weeks to finish. Still it is good to have the heavy lifting done.

Some photos, the colors are off, I tweaked 'em as much as I could without really going into the Photoshop weeds BTW, BTDT for years and no longer have the energy or need. The legs are White Oak and the stretchers are Cherry.

Front:

Side:

These colors are close but a little yellow:

As always....Click 'em to big 'em,

ken

 

Changes To West Wall

In my never ending quest to pack 10 lbs of stuff into a 5 lb bag I've made a couple of slight changes to the west wall (right side of main bench) of the shop.

I moved the chisel rack down and to the right to make room for a new plane shelf below the upper plane shelf. Not much of a change but for now it makes enough room to hold the new plow planes as well as a few of the overflow (read unused) metal planes that were stored elsewhere. I expect a couple more plows to show up and maybe a fillester or two. In that case the unused metals will go back to the previous hidey hole.

I've been making storage boxes for some of the lesser used chisels, I don't really like that solution because they become out of sight and never used. The problem is finding wall space for either cabinets or racks. 

I guess the real answer is to sell off a ton of tools and stop buying new ones. And yeah, I get a big picture of that. I did sell close to $600USD of chisels, saws, marking gauges, and planes a couple of weeks ago and it didn't make a dent in the storage problem and about the only thing that will stop the buying is retirement, maybe.

When you fall off the wagon the ground is hard.

ken

I Like Old Tools

I just don't like rehabbing "em. My love of old tools as MsBubba would tell you ain't because I'm cheap nor is it because of some hippy dippy notion of connection to the past. It is simply the fact a good tool from the late 19th to early 20th Century will usually work better than its new replacement. That is not always the case but in general it is a good rule.

If you have ever spent any time looking at Russian aircraft you will see many copies of Western aircraft. Usually poorly executed copies, like the designer saw the Western aircraft several years before he/she put pencil to paper but close enough you can recognize the lineage of the design. I think many modern tools suffer from the same fault. The manufacture makes a tool that looks like one of the old ones and usually makes 'em "better" but missed some of the details that make using the tool a pleasure.

It's not that modern tools are poorly made because most are beautiful works of art but, there that damn but, they miss some of the important details. LN planes are a perfect example if compared to a early 20th Century Bailey pattern plane. The Bailey plane was light so you could use it all day with out tiring. The irons were thin, made of good HC steel and had a good balance between edge retention and ease of sharpening on any available stone. The chip breaker is much better for controlling tear-out than any of the modern back irons. The need for a moveable frog while the iron is in place is selling the sizzle instead of the steak. I'm not picking on LN, they make beautiful planes but I believe they missed the mark in making a working tool. Full disclosure, I own most of the LN planes, all sit gathering dust.

Chisel are the same story, come on, a paring chisel made of A2 steel? You have to be kidding. For that matter any chisel made of A2 is less useful than one made of HC steel and hammer forged. For a hammer forged chisel, for the most part, you have to go back to pre-war chisels or .Japanese chisels. I will not go into balance and feel but hold a pre-war Marples chisel and then hold almost any modern chisel and you will understand.

Joinery planes such as plow, fillester, or rabbet are much the same. The old wood stock ones, if you can find or fix, just work better.

OK enough for now....I'm back on my meds.

ken

Plow Planes

I've been posting about my adventures buying wood plow planes off eBay and a little on fixing  and correcting problems with the plows. There is much happiness in Casa Chaos tonight. The postman left the next to last plow from eBay. I have one more to come next week. Most of the plows no matter the cost have needed some work to function as a user plow. In fact cost and appearance have had little to do with the amount of fiddling needed.

Today's arrival was the exception, it cost a couple of pennies and it is a beautiful plow made by Edmond Carter Troy, N.Y.. Not a clue when but I my best guess is near the turn of the Century, and it came with what I expect were the 8 original cutters made by W. Butcher, Sheffield in a tool roll no less. All I did to the plow was put it together and sharpen one of the irons. It worked perfectly. What a joy a good wood plow is to use.

Not the best photo because of the backlight.

From the front.

And the bottom line, how good is the groove.

This one may replace my beloved Sandusky as my goto plow, at first use it is that good.

ken

It's All Ralph's Fault

As I posted several days ago Ralph over at Accidental Woodworker posted about his Record 44 troubles and I mentioned wood stock plows in a comment. Anyway cut to the chase, I've been obsessed with wood plows since. That inter tool collector I defeated several years ago came back in spades.

Right now I have three new plows to go along with the old work horse Sandusky and three more in transit plus two with bids out that I expect will be mine in a couple of days. That is the bad news, the good is all but two cost about the same or less that the shipping to get 'em to Tucson.

Here are a couple of less that $25 USD + postage plow planes. Both are wedge arm, I guess that makes them cheaper but truth is for some uses I like the wedge arm plows more than screw arm plows. Wedge arms are a little easier and quicker to set but are also easier to knock out of adjustment.

The plow on the left will eventually need one of the arm wedges replaced and it came with an iron that is much thinner than my Marple irons. I adjusted the wedge and the skate to work with the thicker Marple irons and it works like a champ.

The plow on the right needed a little more work. Its wedge didn't fit. I'm sure there may be a plow with a wedge less than 5/8" wide but I haven't seen one. This one's wedge couldn't have been over 1/2" wide. Needless to say it would not secure the iron. It's arm wedges were also funky in one of the wedges wasn't wide enough to wedge and it had a stick to help it hold and the other was not the correct shape for an arm wedge. Bottom line to get the plane to work properly I had to make a new cutter wedge and two new arm wedges. All three wedges were made from some Cherry scraps.

Both planes are now good users.

BTW, one of the plows in transit has a full set of original irons and the other has four irons with it. They cost slightly more than postage to get 'em here :-).


I'm still beavering away on the kitchen cart. The major joinery work is finished except for that needed for the bottom shelf and a single drawer. Both will be reasonably easy. The bottom shelf will use shallow double M/T joints and the drawer a dovetail box with a front. Because the cart will be in the kitchen and who knows what kind of crap will be in the drawer I'll use full extension metal slides on it. 

From the side:

Now it is just finding time to finish.

One more thought: These are some of the best fitting large M/T joints I've made. I think some of it is I've slightly changed how I mark and chop mortises. Instead of trying to chop perfect walls I've started marking the mortise slightly wide and chopping in the middle of the marks. Then placing a wide paring chisel into the marks to finish the mortise walls. Works great, thanks to Joel at TFWW for the suggestion.

ken

An OF's Night of Stories

As I posted the other day I'm doing the initial Sim training for an old friend/crew member and his partner. We finished the training yesterday morning and all they have left to do is the Type Ride Flight Test in a couple of days. Last night we had them over for whisky and hamburgers.

Of course after the hamburgers the whisky led to "there I waz" and "can you believe this idiot I used to fly with" stories while we set around a fire on the patio. Some of the stories included flying a dead Muslim and his family to catch a 747 out of KJFK not too long after 9/11 and riding on a 2X6 plank in the back of a Cushman trike, after midnight, through the jungles of  Columbia, with about $10,000 USD cash in my pocket for 5 or 6 miles to clear customs.  Both times Arturo was as jumpy as the cat in a room of rockers. It was a damn good night and even MsBubba enjoyed the stories, mostly because she figured in many of 'em.

As we were saying our good nights, MsBubba said "There were a lot of stories I've never heard before". After all these years that doesn't happen often, most of the time it is an eye roll and "there he goes again".

ken

Kitchen Cart and Other Things

Slow but some progress being made on the kitchen cart. Work gets in the way of life most of the time. This week is interesting, one of my clients was my F.O. for several years back at the turn of the Century. He, Ms.Bubba, and a Paramedic made up the flight crew for most of the fights durning that time. BTW, it was the best job I had in over 40 years of flying. It didn't pay very much and was long hours but the folks in back needed you and appreciated what you were doing. Not once on any of the med evac flights did I hear a complaint about no WSJ on board or no fresh milk (never cream or half and half) for their coffee. You were flying people in need not privileged assholes.  Sorry for the digression, I loved what I did and it allowed a poor, dumb, West Texas farm boy to see the world. There is no way it could have happened without the privileged assholes.

Anyway back to the kitchen cart. Here's a photo of the top socket for one of the long stretchers. The bottom long stretcher will have a couple of small double M/T joints.

Ralph awoke my inter tool geek with his posts on his Record 44 plow plane.  Curses Ralph :-), you are costing me tons of tool money. For awhile now I've given into a Marples chisel jones which isn't too bad because finding the chisels made during the period I want is a slow process and the cost is low. This one is bad, I'm obsessed with wood stock plows and fillisters. Although for the last buy shipping cost more the the wood stock plow plane. Some of the others I don't want to talk about.

Photos of some of the plows to come later,

ken

Kitchen Cart

MsBubba wants a roll around cart for the kitchen, of course the answer is "yes dear: how big?" Turns out she wanted one to hold most of the small kitchen appliances, with a couple of drawers and a work surface top.

A couple of weeks ago, or maybe more like a month because of the Houston trip, I dug through the wood pile and found a 12/4 hunk of White Oak that was long enough to use for the legs and enough 5/4 Cherry for the upper aprons. I think there is another board or two of the Cherry to make the lower stretchers and shelf. If not, I'll find/buy something.

The project was kinda put on hold for Flu recovery after returning from visiting the Grandpeanut and the kids, but for the last couple of weeks I've been beavering away. At least my version of beavering away, on the cart.

All the upper mortises are chopped and the associated tenons  have been made. The Cherry was well behaved and the tenons split out very easily with only one cheek needing sawing. The last couple of days have been spent fitting tenon to mortise and I'm down the the last mortise/tenon fit when I shut the shop last night.

A couple of photos, not that you can see much other than my usual messy bench and shop.

Marking the tenons:

Fitting tenon and mortise:

Still a way to go. The bottom shelf will be open, a couple of drawers that I expect will be mounted with metal drawer slides, and a glued up Maple top. I think I'm out of Maple so a trip to the wood store is coming up.

My plan once the cart is finished is to build another travel bench for use during next Fall's PNW trip as the last travel bench has morphed into a sharpening bench.

ken

Sam The Shop Dog

Sam the Wonder Dog often becomes Sam the Shop Dog when he wants a rawhide bone. He has learned a sure fire method for getting his bone. First is positioning exactly where I need to stand for what ever process is next, be it working on one end or the other of the bench or sharpening iron. Once in position he will lay down taking as much floor space as possible. Then once I step over him he sits up and gives me the "doggie eye" until the bone is produced. Works every time, the damn dog is smarter than I am.

Here he is enjoying this morning's work:

ken

Paring Chisels

If you want/need a new paring chisel there are not too many options. Sorby, Narex, Blue Spruce and Japanese are about it for new, otherwise it's boot sales and eBay for used ones.

I have not tried chisels made by Blue Spruce because Blue Spruce uses A2 steel for their blades. For my use A2 has two problems in a paring chisel. The first, A2 doesn't fit my sharpening methods and the second problem is not as great but still a problem with paring chisels is A2 working best with bevel angles of greater than 30 degrees. Except for the A2 I expect the Blue Spruce paring chisels are very good.  The blade looks to be very thin and there are a number of handle options. Maybe some day I will try and fall in love but not today.

Narex chisels tend to be bargains with none of their paring chisels over $37 USD when I checked Lee Valley's site.  This is personal preference but Narex handles are big and clunky. I just can't get comfortable holding one. Of course YMMV. The other "problem" with Narex paring chisels is the thickness of the blade, I like/want a thin pattern maker's blade for paring use.

If you like Japanese chisels the "push" chisels from many makers can be very good paring chisels. I have a number of Japanese push chisels and use them often.

The paring chisel that tickles all my chisel G spots are from Robert Sorby. Sorby paring chisels have a wonderful long thin blade like a turn of the last Century pattern maker's chisel and is made of a HC steel that is easy to sharpen and holds a good edge. The boxwood handle is both pleasing to the eye and hand and the chisel has near perfect balance. If you can't tell I really like Sorby paring chisels.

A couple of photos of some of the Sorby chisels with some Japanese push chisels:

We have lost or almost lost a couple of chisel types that I find very useful. The first of course is the paring/pattern maker's and the second is firmer chisels in both bench and paring styles. About the only firmer style bench chisel I can find is made by Narex and no one I know of makes a firmer paring chisel. While I'm glad Narex is making a firmer bench chisel they have the same problem all Narex chisels have, a handle only Shaq could love.

BTW, a roll around kitchen cart/work surface is on the bench. Photos when I get just a little farther along in the build.

ken