The Inquisitive Woodworker

The last couple of days haven’t been that productive.  I’m working on the legs and apron for the small table project.

The tapers on the legs aren’t as perfect as I would like.

It’s not as noticeable in the photo, but where the taper starts at the top is inconsistent.  I could probably get away with it, but because of another failure I think I will just do them over.

The next failure was with the apron glue up.


When I was working out how thick to make laminate pieces, I did a few test cuts.  I then cleaned up the cut face with a hand plane.  In the test pieces I had figured out the right thickness, including the amount of hand planning needed to clean up the cut face.  When I did the final “production” cuts, the pieces ended up a little thicker than I had planned.

I went ahead with the glue up any way.  I think the added thickness of the laminates made it difficult to press everything together.  What I didn’t notice until this morning, was that the center piece of the mold had rocked up during the clamping process.  This meant the bottom part of the lamination did get proper clamping pressure.

The first picture shows a gap in the middle of the lamination.  I might let that one pass, but the other one is on the outside lamination.  This gap will also be near the end of the apron, once I cut the excess off.  This is a total do-over.

So, off to the local hardwood supplier to pick up more lumber.

If every failure is a learning experience, I should be a genius by now!

For my birthday back in May I bought myself a new router (Bosch 1617 2.25 HP) and new router plate from Incra.  Today was the day to finally install them.

I had an “older” router plate installed on auxiliary wing on my table saw.  The size of the new plate doesn’t match current opening, and as you can see it has seen some use.  So the table saw wing needed to be replaced.

I chose to go with Phenolic Plywood, which I was able to find at my local Woodcraft.  This stuff isn’t cheep, a ¾” x 24” x 48” was $59.  It is a very nice grade of plywood, but I think Woodcraft has quite a markup on this stuff.  I’ve seen full sheets for about $98.  Dark green was my only color choice, but it looks pretty good.

The original material used on the wing, wasn’t quite ¾” and this plywood was right on ¾”.  The plywood stuck up just a little above the cast iron top.  I had to cut some recesses where it sat on the mounting tabs.

I just used a Forstner bit to remove about a 1/16” of material.  It worked out nicely.

Next it was time to cut the opening.  When I bought the router plate, I also bought a template for cutting the opening.  When I installed the original plate, I had some difficulties.  So I thought the template was worth the investment.

The template really did make quick work of cutting out the opening.  I’m glade I bought it.

Once the rabbet was cut, I drilled holes in each corner of the material that needed to be removed from the center.  I then used a jigsaw to remove the material, leaving the rabbet for the plate to sit on.

I set the depth of the rabbet to a little more than the thickness of the new router plate.  That way there was no possibility of it being higher than the surface of the plywood.  I then used the leveling screws to set the level flush with the top

The plate went in without much of a problem. Although, there was slightly too much play in the opening.  Not much but just enough to cause a problem.  In the upper left corner of the plate, there is an offset cam that locks the plate into the opening.  Because of the extra play, the cam really didn’t engage.  My solution was to add something in the corner to give the cam something press against.

The screw worked really well!  The screw was adjustable, which allowed me to set just the right amount tension.

Even though I bought a router plate for my model of router, it didn’t have a hole for the above the table adjustment the router had.  After locating the position of the adjuster, it was an easy task on the drill press.

Overall it was a pretty easy install and should a nice addition to the shop.

When I started my blog 1 year ago, I wanted to post something at least once a week.  Well, I fell a little short on that goal, but not too far off.  I’m happy that I have continued with the blog.  So many blogs fall to the wayside, only after a short period of existence.  I never had high aspirations that I would draw huge numbers of readers, but there are a few of you out that return to see what I’m posting.  For that I thank you.

The year in review

Recently I was thinking how little I felt I had accomplished in the last year.  Then I started to look back at what I posted over the last year, and felt much better about what I accomplished.  I attended my first weeklong woodworking class with Christopher Schwarz.  I attended a great hand tool event, Best in the West.  I started the mock-up of the small hall table, where I did my first bent wood lamination.  I made a couple Silverware Trays as Christmas gifts.  Although, I still have a couple more to finish!  I built the Small Benchtop Bench, which was a very fun project.  I attended a 1-day class with Rob Cosman, who is an amazing teacher.  I hope I can take more classes from Rob.  I built a bathroom cabinet for my brother.  Although I used very few hand tools on this project, it was a very stratifying project.  Then to top off the year, I visited the Port Townsend School of Woodworking.  I met 2 great woodworkers there Tim Lawson and Jim Tolpin.  You often hear woodworkers are the nicest people and these guys were no exception.  Tim and Jim took time out of their busy day, to show my wife and me around the school.  I’ll be heading over to the school for a class in August.  With that kind of list of accomplishments, how could I have thought I hadn’t done much woodworking!

In the near future
Things have been pretty busy lately, so shop time has been a little scarce.  The good news is I will have a week off the first part of July.  I work for a great company and one of the benefits we have, is the company shuts down for a week around July 4!  We also shutdown for a week around Christmas!  My wife and I don’t have a lot plans for that week, so I should have a lot of shop time coming up!  I have some new tools I really want to try out and post about.  I also want to finish the small hall table I started around the end of last year.  I also have some new books and DVDs I want to share.  I hope this extra time off will give the time catch up on some posts.

Earlier last week my wife and I took a short vacation over to Port Ludlow, Wa.  Not too far from Port Ludlow is Port Townsend, which is another place we love to visit.  Port Townsend has great food and shopping.  They also have a nice Jazz Festival every July.  For the woodworkers out there, there is also the Port Townsend School of Woodworking.  The school hasn’t been operating that long, and was founded by Jim Tolpin, John Marckworth and Tim Lawson.

Previously I had said I was going to be taking some classes at the school and since we were going to be in the area, I thought I would see if I could stop by and have a look around. I sent of an email to the school and received a quick response from Tim, saying he would love to show me around.

After arriving in Port Townsend, we set up a time with Tim to meet at the school.  We were a little early getting there and as we pulled up, Jim Tolpin was outside unloading some wood.  He welcomed us to the school and started showing us around.  The school has a very nice set up.  The bench room is equipped with some nice Sjöbergs workbenches.  Some of the classes I have taken at other schools have had some pretty rickety benches.  It was nice to see some stout benches for a change!  Then Tim arrived and Jim had to excuse himself, we was preparing some hand planes for an upcoming class he was teaching.

We then spent the next hour or so talking wood with Tim.  I have to say, I have one of the best wives there is!  She might not had been as excited as I was, but she enjoyed the time there.  She found the conversations interesting and may have asked as many questions as I did.!

Tim talked about the future of the school, and asked questions about what kind of classes I like to take, and which instructors I would like to see come to the school.  He said they are still a somewhat new school and are trying to figure out which classes are going to work.  One of their goals is to pull in the new woodworkers, and really give them a taste of the craft.  To make things a little easier on the beginner woodworker, the school has quality hand planes and other tools the students can use.  Having some of these tools is primarily due to a very generous gift form Lee Valley (Veritas).  Tim said they have basic hand planes for each bench, so the students dont have tos share during the classes.  Also, they had many of the “specialty” planes Veritas makes, including the new Small Scraper Plane that just came out.

Tim knew I was signed up for some Greene and Greene classes with Darrell Peart.  He told me that the Hall brothers, who worked with the Greene’s had done some work in Port Townsend.  After the tour of the school, we fold Tim as he took us to one of the houses the Hall brother’s had built.

The house is still a private residence, so we were only able to view it form the outside.  I believe they worked on this house before starting their collaboration with the Greene’s.   Tim also told us about an amazing wooden boat builder that we should visit, but our time was short that day.  We will have to add it to our list for our next visit.

Even though our visit was relatively short to the school, it was the highlight of the trip for me.  My wife had just as much fun on the trip, visiting 3 Scrapbooking stores!

These days it seems like everyone is coming out with a new Dovetail Saw.  Now Rob Cosman - “The Dovetail Master” has thrown his hat into the ring.  Spending a lot of money on a tool, that I can’t try out first can be a difficult decision.  That’s why I was so lucky to have had a chance to try out a prototype of Rob’s saw earlier this year.

Earlier this year I took a class from Rob, at our local Woodcraft store.  Besides being a very fun day of dovetailing, Rob had a prototype of the Dovetail Saw he was going to produce.  You can find all of the details about the saw at his site, including a video where Rob talks about the saws features.  One feature that might not appeal to people, is the martial Rob chose to use for the handle.  He is using a resin compound, like Corian for the handles.  When he said that in the class, I thought “why did he go and do that”!  Then I used the saw and felt the difference.  I like the wood handles I have on my saws now, but the resin handle on his saw was “fatter/thicker”.  It felt so nice in my hand.  I quickly overcame my issue of the resin handle.  Getting a chance to use the saw, made it even easier for me to decide I wanted one when they started to ship.  The saw has some weight to it and is well balanced in your hand.  It cuts fast and smooth.  It was my birthday a few days ago, and I got some cash as a gift.  So, Happy Birthday to me!
Rob is offering the saw with two different handles, Granite and Bone.  The Granite really doesn’t appeal to me, so I ordered the Bone handle.  At the Woodcraft store he had a Black handle that looked incredible.  I wish he offered the Black handle.  Not sure how soon the saw will arrive, but I will post something as soon as it does.

Over the past month or so, I have had a chance to use the mini-bench.  It was well worth the time and effort to build.  Working on a project piece in a more upright stance isn’t just comfortable it’s more accurate.  I’m finding my quality of work has improved.

The face vise is working great.  The hand wheels on the vise are working fantastic!  I’m actually thinking about using hand wheels on my main bench.  The dogs on the mini-bench are also working great.  I’ve even used my holdfasts on the mini-bench, and they worked great!  It’s hard to find anything I would what to improve on this bench.

As a woodworker, it didn’t take me long before I wanted to design something unique that was my own design/style.  I soon found out, trying to design something new and unique is a very daunting task.  This is especially true, if you haven’t had any formal design training or experience.  I kept trying, but it was like having writer’s block.  I soon realized, I had nothing to build on.  Sure I had seen just about every style of furniture out that, but I really hadn’t “studied” even one style in depth.

A style that really didn’t interest me was Greene and Greene.  That was until I read the article “True Greene & Greene” by Gary Rogowski, in Fine Woodworking #203.  This article opened my eyes to Greene and Greene.  Seeing what Greene and Greene was really supposed to look like, changed my view of Greene and Greene.  I had seen what was being called “Greene and Greene”, but in reality I was seeing watered down, blurry “photocopies” of Greene and Greene.  Which is another reason a study of a style is always needed.  Just seeing a piece that someone calls a certain style, doesn’t mean you are seeing a true representation of that style.

Gary’s article lead me to several important resources, a couple of which are:  The Greene & Greene Virtual Archives and Darrell Peart.  The Virtual Archives is an absolutely amazing collection of Greene and Greene photos, drawings and other documents.  I have spent a few hours just skimming through some of the information.  A more detailed search and exploration of the archive is needed.

Along with Gary’s Greene and Greene work, Darrell Peart is another craftsman that builds in the Greene and Greene style.  Darrell has written a fantastic book on Greene and Greene design elements and how to incorporate them into your design, “Greene & Greene: Design Elements for the Workshop”.  An interesting coincidence, Darrell lives in the Seattle area not too far from me.  I’ve contacted Darrell through email, and he is a very pleasant person.  He welcomes visitors to his shop, and I hope to arrange a visit soon.

Darrell also teaches classes.  I’m currently signed up for 2 of his classes over at The Port Townsend School of Woodworking.  I’m signed up the Greene and Greene Details II in August and the Greene and Greene Details I in December.  The August class is far enough out there, I don’t know I can wait for the December class ☺.

So the point to all this Greene and Greene talk.  For me to develop my own design sense and skills, I feel I need to explore different styles of furniture in more detail.  I plan to start with Greene and Greene, but not limit myself.  That means exploring a wide range of resources and opinions on a topic.  Then reproduce or “imitate” that style.  I want to truly understand a given style and its elements.  From there I feel I can build on my own design sense.  They say there really isn’t anything new, just new arrangements of what has already been done.

Today was spent tuning up my table saw and setting up my new miter gauge.

My current miter gauge is an Osborne miter gauge, like the one Norm uses on his show.  When I researched miter gauges, about 4 years ago, I settled on the Osborne.  I knew little about what I wanted and needed, and if it was good enough for Norm it should be good enough for me.  After using it for these past 4 years, honestly I can say I really don’t like it.  It’s very difficult to get an accurate setting, outside of the few preset stops.  Also, recently I started to have problems getting a perfect 90° cut!

So I started to recalibrate the miter gauge, and found it would not stay square.  I discovered the problem was in the locking screw/bolt at the rear of the gauge.  The way you adjust this gauge, you loosen a top nut with an Allen Wrench then turn a offset hex nut.  This allows you change the “squareness”, by a small amount in either direction.  You then tighten up the top nut to lock it down.  The problem I found, I couldn’t tighten that top nut enough to hold it square.  Even a small amount of pressure on the outer arm would knock it out of square.  If I tried to really tighten down top nut, I would move it out of square while tightening.  Something was wrong, so I tried to contact the manufacture.  After a couple unanswered emails to the Osborne Company, I felt it was time to look for a new miter gauge.

I did quite a bit of research this time.  A few things I was looking for were:  it needed to accurate, finer setting for the desired angle, and a reasonably long fence with a stop.  There were a few that met these requirements.  Although, I kept coming back to the Incra miter gauges.

A fellow woodworker I know has the Incra 1000SE, and he is happy with his.  I was able to see the 100SE up close and give it a try.  I was pretty happy with its quality and features.  The 1000SE has stops at every 5°, plus a few other common angles.  This would have been fine for my needs, but Incra has come out with their new 1000HD (High Definition).  It has stops at every 1° (or 180 stops).  It really wasn’t that much more than the 1000SE, so I splurged.

I won’t bore you with the steps it took to set it up.  If you plan to buy one yourself, the instructions that come with it were very good.  I will say it was pretty easy to set up, and dial it to 90°.  Along with setting up the miter gauge, I took the time to check my table saw alignment.  I did this quite awhile ago when I first got my table saw, but have learned some new things about table saw alignment.  It was a good thing I checked, because it needed some work.

Awhile ago, I talked about Hendrik Varju’s DVD “Revelations on Table Saw Set-up & Safety”, and I still think this is the best instructional DVD out there on table saw set up and safety.  Hendrik’s approach is a little different than most, but in his DVD he shows and explains why he does things the way he does.  I was convinced by his arguments and have started to implement his style of table saw operation.  In the photos you might noticed the miter gauge is set up on the right side of the blade.  This is one of Hendrik’s deviation from “mainstream” table saw conventions.  The other is how the blade is aligned.

Normal wisdom says to get the blade perfectly parallel with the miter slot.  Hendrik argues this is nearly impossible to achieve, and because of blade runout this is not desirable.  Hendrik advocates canting the blade .003” to .005” from front to back.  The back of the blade is canted to the left.  This is one of the reasons he sets his miter gauge to the right of the blade.  When making a cut this way, you can stop your cut without having to go past the full length of the blade.  Then when you turn your saw off, you have eliminated the possibility of the runout causing the blade to wobble and nick your work piece.  This used to happen to me a lot, but not anymore.

I’ve only scratch the surface of what Hendrik covers in his 5 DVD set.  I highly recommend the DVDs to anyone who is new to table saws or wants to learn Hendrik’s approach to setting up and using a table saw.

Today I got started on a built-in bathroom cabinet for my brother.  He’s remodeling one of his bathrooms, and asked if I could build him a custom cabinet.  This cabinet needs to go into an odd shaped area in the bathroom.  So the cabinet isn’t something you can pickup at one of the big box stores.

The cabinet will be about 62” high, 20” wide and 22” deep.  The cabinet will be divided in half.  The top half will have a couple shelves and bottom half will have a pullout for a clothes hamper.

Because of the size of the cabinet I will be using plywood for this project.  I have to say, I really don’t like using plywood.  Not that I dislike plywood, it’s I’m really not setup to work with large sheet goods.  My strategy, for my shop, is to break the sheet goods down with a circular saw.  Then cut the rough sized pieces to their final dimension on the table saw. Even this is difficult in my shop.  I have to move everything out of the way, and then work on the floor breaking the plywood down.  I’ll stop whining, someday I’ll have more room ☺.

The first order of business was to go pick up the plywood.  I don’t buy my plywood at the big box stores, anymore.  Instead I go to where they sell real lumber.  I have a couple choices in my area, today I chose to go to Crosscut Hardwoods.

I decided to go with some “shop grade” maple plywood.  Because the cabinet will be a built-in, you will only see the inside of the cabinet.  The doors and face frame will be ebonized (black), so I didn’t think a ”higher end” plywood was needed.  We’ll see if I’m right on this aspect.

After getting back from the lumber store, I started to break the sheets down and get things to rough size.

To attach the sides to the top, bottom and middle shelf I’m going to use Locked Rabbet joint.  As most people will learn, when you buy ¾” plywood, it’s not really ¾” it’s a little less.  The last time I built a cabinet like this, I bought a special router bit that was suppose to match the smaller thickness of plywood.  In reality, plywood varies, and at times this special router bit cut a dado that was too tight.  You just can’t win when it comes to plywood.  To get around this, I chose the Locked Rabbet instead.  I can cut the dado portion of this joint to a known width (3/8”), then cut the mating rabbet to match the dado.

I’m using a router to make this joint.  I decided to knock together a jig to help guide the router while making the dado cuts.

I just used some leftover plywood pieces, to make the jig.  I chose to put runners down both sides on this jig.  In the past I have had a few mishaps when I’ve only used a single straightedge.  The router can pull away from a single straightedge so easily.

You have to be pretty precise when using 2 runners.  You don’t want the router to bind up in the jig, if the 2 runners aren’t absolutely parallel.

I took a few passes for each dado.  The jig worked out pretty well.

Tomorrow I’ll start to cut the rabbets in fixed shelves and maybe play around with some finish samples.

Today I had time to put the finishing touches on the Small Benchtop Bench.  The replacement hand wheels came in early this week, and it was hard not having time earlier this week to work on the bench.  I’ve had a couple stalled projects lately and I really wanted to complete something.
The first order of business was to enlarge the bore through the hand wheels.  I have a machinist vise for my drill press, it’s not used that much but came in handy today.

The vise allowed me to align the wheel somewhat precisely, to enlarge the center bore.  It was quick work to drill out both hand wheels.

Next I needed to drill the through hole, for the pin that will run through the hand wheel and screw shaft.

This is where things went wrong on the first set of wheels.  This time I drilled through the hand wheels, then marked and drilled through the shaft of the screw.  No chance of snapping off the drill bit this time!

After attaching the hand wheels, it was time to test the smoothness of my new design.  It was exactly what I was hoping for!  The wheels spun freely and smooth.  I was so excited I let out a whoop.  My wife opened the door and asked what that noise was!  She saw the smile on my face, then she laughed, closed the door and allowed my to savor my victory.

Now that I finished that last major step, it was time to drill some dog holes.  I wanted a way to keep the dogs in the face vise out of the way, but still be able to retrieve them when they were needed.

I drilled the dog holes in the face vise, about an inch deeper than the length of the dogs.  I then cut a window in the vise that intersected with the dog hole.  I cut the window on the inside of the vise, so would be hidden.  I thought about having the window on the outside, but decided the inside would work just as well.

I drilled a few dogs on the top and did a light sanding to remove pencil marks and to ease the edges.  I’m quite please how it came out.

The clamping force I get with the vise is quite strong.  I lightly pinch the bench in my wagon vise, and add a clamp to the bench.  It’s quite secure and doesn’t move.

I designed the bench, so that if I line up the front of the feet of the small bench with the edge of main bench, the inside face of the small bench is inline with the main bench.  If I’m working on a large piece, I can take advantage of the clamping surfaces of my main bench.

The bench dogs allow me to secure larger pieces to the top of the bench.

The primary reason for making this bench was to raise the work piece to a more comfortable height, when doing tasks like cutting dovetails.  It will also be useful when I use power tools.  I can see when cutting mortise with a router, the added height will make this task easier too.  Over all, I think this will be a nice addition to the shop.

This weekend I will start a new project.  My brother has asked me to build him a cabinet for his bathroom, which he is remodeling.  It will be a somewhat large cabinet, so I plan to use plywood on this project and a lot of power tools.  It will also need to blend in with a vanity he has purchased.  The vanity is “modern” in style and black.  So, I will give ebonizing a try.