The Inquisitive Woodworker

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.

I had plans to finish the Small Benchtop Bench this weekend, but I must have angered the woodworking gods somehow.  Because the last couple of times I’ve worked on it, things haven’t gone well.

When I last worked on the bench I was attaching the face vise.  I cut a couple garters out of some 16 gauge steel I picked up at a local “big box” stores.  They are good for somethings, but not much these days.  I recessed the garters into the main chop using my router plane.

I first screwed the garters to the vise and scribed the outline of the garters with a marking knife.  Then I just went to town with the router plane.  It worked really well, and it didn’t take that much time.

After attaching both screws and hand wheels it was time to give it test run.

The action was anything but smooth.  The screws were rubbing on the garters, even though I made the holes oversized.  Also when I attach the hand wheels, I wasn’t very careful.  The wheels weren’t square to the surface of the chop, so they rubbed in places as you turned them.  I kicked myself for not being more careful.

Knowing I would have to reattach the hand wheels, I started to rethink what I made the garters out of.  I was concerned about metal on metal contact with the screws, garters and possibly the wheels.  I then thought I could use some Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWP).  So, I went by my local Woodcraft store and picked some up.

I made some new garters out of UHMWP and set out to reattach the hand wheels (square this time).  This is where things really started to go wrong.  I was drilling the first new hole and about halfway through, the bit snapped off!  I was drilling through the hand wheel and the screw at the sometime.  Now my wheel was essentially pinned to the screw, and for the life of me I couldn’t get the bit out.

I decided to drill through the bored hole in the hand wheel.  My plan was to drill down through the top of the screw until I met up with the snapped off bit.  I thought from there I could work it loose.  That didn’t happen.  I knew I would have issues try to drill through the snapped off bit, because they are made of very hard steel.  As a last resort, I tried to drill through the bit.  That sucker wasn’t going to give up!  Then I went just a little too long.  The metal sleeve inside the plastic wheel heated up and the plastic wheel came loose!

I eventually got the wheel off, but it was toast.  Luckily it wasn’t that expensive.
Knowing I would have to buy a new one, I decided to go with all steel this time.  I also went just a little bigger, about 5” in diameter.  When I was using the 4” wheels, they seemed a little small to get the rotation I thought was needed.  I still want the wheels to be below the surface of the bench, and 5″ is as big as I can go.

Because I had drilled down through one of the screws, I needed to mill the screw down again.  Last time I went over to my brothers to do this, because he has a small milling machine.  I didn’t want to run over there again, so I rigged up a simple jig on my grinder.

It worked pretty well.  I drilled a ¾” hole through a piece of oak I had lying around.  The screw fit snugly through the hole.  I just slowly move the screw in and out, while turning it, and kept lowing the tool rest.  Once I got to about a ½” I was done.  Lots of sparks were flying during the grinding.  Not something you see very often in a woodworking shop!

After that I just need to fit the new garters to the chop.  I had to recess them a little deeper, because the UHMWP was thicker than the steel I was using.

I do have a new plan for attaching the new hand wheels when they come in.  I think I can avoid snapping off another bit halfway through again.  I hope they come in before next weekend, I really want to put this project to rest!

Things have been a little busy in the Lingenfelter household lately.  I haven’t had any time to post and even less time to working the shop.  I have made some progress on the mini-bench.  I’m to the point where I have attached the face vise.  The hand wheels aren’t turning that smoothly, so I need to troubleshoot that problem.  Once that is fixed, I only need to drill a few dog holes and we will be cooking with gas!

Lately I’ve been doing some research on the Greene & Greene style.  I think there are a few projects I would like to do in this style.  In researching this topic I came across Darrell Peart, who is an amazing craftsman who builds in the Greene & Greene style.  You can find him over at www.furnituremaker.com.  I recently picked up his book and it is incredible.  I haven’t finished the book yet, but when I have I will post a little write-up on it.

While looking at Darrell’s web site, I saw he was teaching some classes over at The Port Townsend School of Woodworking, which isn’t too far me.  I tried to sign up for one of his 2-day classes, but it was filled up ☹.  I’m on a waiting list to see if I can get in.  The ironic thing is, Marc “The Wood Whisperer” just posted he’s taking a weeklong class from Darrell Peart, at William Ng’s School.  I can’t wait to hear about his experience with the class.

This weekend is looking good for some shop time.  I hope to be able to post some pictures of the mini-bench soon.

Some of the nicer newer planes made by Lie-Nielsen and Veritas are made from Ductile Iron.  They say Ductile Iron is much stronger, and can withstand a drop to a concrete floor without major damage.  The problem is I would never want to test that claim!  Well leave it to Chris Schwarz to take a hammer to a couple planes, to test these claims.  It’s a little hard to watch but very impressive.   Have a look at his video as he hammers away.

I needed a break from all of the dovetailing I’ve been doing and practicing.  I thought I would start on the Baby Bench I talked about a little while ago.

Over the past couple of weekends I started to work on the bench.  I’m using whatever wood I had in my woodpile.  The top is Douglas Fir.  The legs of the base are Hard Maple.  The cross piece along the back is Oak and the vise is Mahogany.  It is a very diverse bench ☺.

I didn’t take step-by-step pictures this time.  I just want to be in the shop without any distractions.  The bench is almost done, but I thought I would show how the vise will come together.

In the first picture you will see a threaded rod and a couple of nuts, sitting on the bench.  I ordered these from McMaster-Carr.  The threaded rod is 3/4”-6 ACME threads.  I order square nuts, so they would be easy to recess into the vise.

I also ordered 2 hand wheels for the vise, but they haven’t come in yet.  I plan to go over to my brother’s this next weekend, to work on the screws and attaching the hand wheels.  My brother has the metal working tools I don’t have.  I need him to cut the threaded rod to size.  We then need to mill threads off the ends, so the hand wheels can be attached.  We will also need a couple garters (large washers) to attach to the chop.  I will document this process, once I have had a chance to visit my brother.

The joinery for this little project gave me a few issues.  I used mortise and tenons for the legs.  Cutting the mortise and tenons in the Hard Maple was a real challenge.  They don’t call it “hard” maple for the fun it ☺.  Trying to chop the mortises by hand was beyond my skill level at this time.  It was like chopping into granite!  So it did the bulk of the work with my router and table saw.  I did cleaned up the cuts with hand tools.

I was planning to use a through tenon for the back stretcher, but seeing how much trouble I had cutting the ones on the legs, I decided to rethink that joint.

I settled on a large half-lap dovetail on the ends.  These I did cut my hand.  The Hard Maple still caused me some issues.  The Maple and the Oak won’t give at all.  The joints weren’t as tight as I would have liked.

Even though they aren’t the neatest and tightest joints, these guys aren’t going anywhere!

I think I will leave the bench unfinished.  I don’t plan to do any gluing or finishing on it, so I don’t need any protection from that.  Once I get the screws cut and the hand wheels attached, I’ll give the bench a test run.

How do you become good at something? Practice, practice, practice.  This holds true for woodworking, as it does for:  sports, games, cooking (Bar-B-Q!), etc.  I don’t do my own Bar-B-Q, and I don’t mean grilling in the backyard.  There are some things I just leave to the professionals.

This last Saturday I had a fun day at our local Woodcraft store.  Rob Cosman was there teaching a hands-on class.  The course outline was:  Sharpening, Hand planing, Dovetails, and Mortise and Tenon.  Rob said this would generally be a 3 day class.  We had to cut something, so we voted.  It came out to something like this.  Dovetails and Hand planing I think were tide for 1.  Then Mortis and Tenon, then Sharpening.

Rob paused for a minute.  He then said, one the most fundamental skills needed for hand tool work is sharpening.  Without a solid understanding and the skill of sharpening, your work will suffer.  Who could argue with that?  He then took a brand new plane blade from a Lie-Nielsen plane, and had it perfectly sharp in about 3 minutes.  Rob does all his sharpening freehand, no jigs.  After seeing how quickly he was able to sharpen that blade, it was a skill I wanted to have.

The next day I played around with Rob’s approach to sharpening.  I still have some practicing to do, but I was getting some good results.  Not perfect yet, but enough to encourage me to me continue.  In that vain, I have taken all my sharpen jigs and boxed them.  Not that any of them really worked that well anyway.  Having the jigs gone, I will force myself to learn to sharpen freehand.  Practice, practice, practice.

In the class, Dovetails took up most of the time that was left.  My sample corner came out about the same as some of my recent attempts.  The nice thing about a class like this, you get firsthand help.  The tips and critiques Rob gave, were amazing helpful.  With more practice, I can see that my skill level should rise quickly.

Today, I had some time after work and shop wasn’t too cold, so I practice some sawing.  One of the exercises Rob had us do, were a lot of vertical cuts.  You are practicing the perpendicular cut across the grain, which is so important on the tails.  You are also practicing a vertical cut, which is very important on the pins.  I thought I would take this exercise, and cut a few rows each night when I get home from work.

Here are 3 rows I did tonight.  The order I cut them is from top to bottom.  You can see I was very ambitious on the first row.  My lines were pretty close together.  I spread the lines out on the others, so the lines would be easier to see.

The first row, I cut from right to left, on the left side of the line.  The second row was cut left to right, on the right side of the line.  The last row was another right to left.

If you can make the lines out, I’m a little better when I cut on the left side of the line.  I still have some work to do, on getting the cut perfectly perpendicular but I’m getting there.  One of the tips Rob gave, was to establish a shallow kerf across the end-grain then stop.  Pausing after you make this kerf, allows you prepare for the vertical cut.  I found this technique very helpful.

Most of my vertical cuts came out pretty well.  Although, part of the vertical cut is cutting to the baseline and not going past.  Here I still need a little practice.

My goal it cut a lot of these rows, over the next couple of weeks.  If you add up just what I cut in these 3 rows, how many full dovetails would I have had to cut?  Quite a few.  The other skill needed for dovetails, is chopping to the baseline.  I also plan to do some similar exercises for my chisel work.  Practice, practice, practice.

Today was a holiday for our company, so I got to spend some time in the shop yesterday and today.  I’m trying to finish up those Silverware Trays, I was going to give away at Christmas.  Better late then never.

I completed one of them today, minus the finish.  I have all four corners on another one done, and all the tails cut on the last two.  I hope one more day in the shop will finish up the last 3.

For the most part it came out pretty well, with only a couple mess-ups.

You will see a small chamfer on the top of the sides.  A chamfer wasn’t called for in the design.  When I laid out the curve on the top, I misaligned the template so the curve came down too far.  A small part of corner stuck out as a result.  I just couldn’t leave the corner there, so I chamfer the edge.  It doesn’t look too bad.  I’ll pay closer attention to the other 3 I haven’t finished yet.

Speaking of the curved top, to got use one of my Christmas presents to clean up the curved tops on the ends.

I picked up a Lie-Nielsen Brian Boggs Spokeshave (flat bottom) as a Christmas present.  I have to say it is a very sweet tool.  It feels very nice in your hands and cuts like a dream.  I used a slight skew cut and it produced a very smooth cut.

The dovetails turned out pretty nice over all.  I did have to do some repairs in a couple places.

It seems I have the most problems with baselines and the shoulders on the tail-board.  These seem to be common problem areas for “beginners”.  I think I’m improving on the other trays.

I did my best on the close-ups.  I think I need to get some good lighting to improve my close-up pictures.  I hope this will improve in the future.

I’ll be getting some expert help on my dovetails this coming weekend.  Rob Cosman will be at our local Woodcraft, and he will be teaching a hands-on class this Saturday.  Myself and another fellow LumberJock will be at the class.  It should be a fun day.

I have seen several magazine articles about benchtop benches over the years.  These little benches go on top of your workbench, to raise your work to a more comfortable height.  When I first read about these benches, I really had no interest in them.  They seemed unnecessary.  Now that I have been cutting more dovetails, I find that my back is getting tired from bending over.  Maybe I’m just getting old, I’m also having problems seeing my line too ☺.  I thought if there were a solution I would give it a try.
I looked at a few designs I found out on the Internet and in magazines and came up with my version.

It’s about 24” wide and about 14” deep.  I haven’t decided on the height yet.  I will have do a mockup to see what height will work best for me.  I suspect it will be around 10” or 11” high.  The large round things on the front of the vise represent the hand wheels I will use.  When I designed the bench, I wanted the top these hand wheels to be below the top of the bench.  I didn’t what them getting in the way while I was sawing.

The bench will be camped to the benchtop when in use.  You will see some short “stubs” on the base that sticks out the front.  This small stubs can be used to clamp it to the benchtop, along with clamping between the legs.  The front of these stubs are inline with inside face of the vise.  I wanted to be able align the beach easily with the front of my bench.  If I’m working on a long board, I wanted to be able to take advantage of the clamping surface on the rest of my main bench.

I designed in a few mortise and tenon joints in this little bench.  I could have designed a slightly simpler bench that bolted and screwed together, but I wanted to practice on my mortise and tenons.  I will hand cut and chop these joints, when I build this little bench.

I plan to order my hardware from McMaster-Carr or Carr Lane.  They both carry the Acme threaded rod I will use.  Along with the nuts and hand wheels I need too.  I priced them out and it’s not really that bad.

This will most likely be a Spring project.  I still have to work on those Silverware Trays and the small hall table I started.

I received the latest newsletter from Lie-Nielsen last night and they have a couple new tools that just came out.  They aren’t new flashy planes but a couple of tools that are hard if not impossible to find these days.

The first is a set Drawer Lock Chisels.  These are very specialized chisels that I haven’t seen for sale, except for antique ones.  There is a nice video on YouTube that shows how they are used.  Now I just need a project to justify buy this new tool!

The other new tool is a pair of Drawbore Pins.  Again an almost impossible tool to find these days.  I have used the Drawbore technique on a couple of my projects.  This technique makes an incredibly tight and strong joint.  Because I couldn’t buy any Drawbore Pins at the time, except for expensive antiques, I had to make mine.  I followed an article Christopher Schwarz wrote on the subject.  You can see the blog I wrote on making my pins over on Lumber Jocks.

The newest DVD from Christopher Schwarz and Lie-Neilsen is:  The Workbench “How to Design or Modify a Bench for Efficient Use”.  The DVDs produced by Lie-Nielsen are always of high quality and full of good information.  This new DVD featuring Christopher Schwarz talking about one of his favorite subjects (workbenches) is no exception.

If you have read Chris’s book “Workbenches: From Design And Theory To Construction And Use” or fallow his blog, you know Chris views the workbench as a tool for the woodworker, especially the hand tool woodworker.

When working a piece of lumber on a bench, you need to effectively hold your lumber so that you can work:  the faces, edges and end grain of a board.  Chris points out that many bench designs fail at one or even two of these requirements.  He gives suggestions on how to work around these issues, if your bench is deficient in one of these areas.

Chris demonstrates how you work each surface of a board, on a verity of bench styles.  He also shows several jigs and fixtures you will use with your bench.  He show and explains how a holdfast is used.  The holdfast I feel is the most useful tool you can have on your workbench.  I have a couple of the Gramercy holdfasts.  They might not be the prettiest, but they work great and are not that expensive.

Much of the information in this DVD will not be new to some people, but the DVD does have a lot of good information.  Also included on the DVD are a couple reprints of workbench articles from Popular Woodworking Magazine.

One last thing I will share with you is a quote Chris made, that struck home with me.  I believe he said it was a Japanese saying:  “Don’t fear slow, only fear stop”.  He was referring to his journey in workbench design, but it really applies to a lot of areas.  Being somewhat new to woodworking, the journey can seem long and slow at times.  As long as I never feel like I’ve stopped learning, my journey should be a long and rewarding one.