Category: Woodworking

Kitchen Island (finally progress)

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Mortise in one of the table legs... four mortises per leg for a total of 16 finished

I do kind of feel a bit silly bragging about progress on one of my woodworking projects right after a post about a house project that will keep me from the workshop for a week or so. But I’ve never really worried too much about looking silly. Or feeling silly.

I was able to get time in the workshop over the holiday break. I had parts for the kitchen island milled sitting in the workshop for a couple of months, so it seemed time to finally start working on that project. At least before I started another project (yeah, okay, Will’s room got me there).

The island will be a pretty simple. Four legs. Four aprons. And four stretchers near the bottom supporting a shelf. That means there will be four joints on each leg, each requiring a mortise.

I marked out each mortise with a marking gauge, and drilling out the waste on the drill press.  The mortises were cleaned out using a chisel.  Each mortise didn’t take too long to make once I got in the swing of things.  I could finish one of the smaller ones in about 7 minutes, and one of the larger ones in less than 15 minutes.  I’m sure that will get faster as I do more of them.

I have a couple of lessons learned:

1. If the stock has been sitting around a while, re-mill each piece to ensure it didn’t change shape over time.

2. Cut all the mortises first. Sketch out all the locations of the mortises with a pencil before marking with the gauge. I wound up starting to drill out a mortise in the wrong spot.

3. Regarding #2, patching a mortise in the wrong spot takes some skill to get so it isn’t obvious. Skill that I don’t have. So, it is sometimes better to be lucky than good (okay, probably not in this case), but at least I was lucky and the patch is in an area that shouldn’t be obvious.

4. I don’t really like my marking gauge. I think that a better marking gauge is in the future. The marking gauge I have is difficult to set up for a specific mortise thickness (at a given distance from a face of the panel.  I think a better method is to use a single marking gauge (vice a double one) and a spacer block to get the correct mortise (and tenon) thickness.

5. Do the mortises first. I don’t know what I was thinking cutting a couple of the tenons before I finished the mortises. Must be the ADHD. This is what you get if you do that:

 

Haunched mortise and tenon with the haunch socket being too deep for the haunch. Luckily the haunch won't be visible - it will be covered by the table top

 

I could definitely spend more time marking out the joinery before cutting it. I have Robert Wearing’s book, “The Essential Woodworker.” He gives what looks like a pretty good method for marking out the joinery – I think I’ll do some review before my next project.

Small Projects

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Ben showing off one of his completed Christmas projects

I’ve had a couple of evenings and a full Sunday to work on small projects in the workshop. Some of the projects are my (continual) reorganization of the workshop, and cleaning up from house projects.

But I was able to get some work done. The boys and I worked on their Christmas projects. We almost ran out of time to finish them – it has been a busy month and they are missing two weekends in a row here.  We get lots of time after Christmas, but that doesn’t help with the Christmas projects.

My friend, Mark, has been over and we have been working on his drunken cutting boards. We should be able to finish his boards tomorrow – then it is time for me to make my boards.  They will have to be “after Christmas” presents.

Last weekend I built two sets of Jenga blocks and boxes. One was made from sapele (or mahogany) and the other from cedar. The sapele on is pretty heavy – we have to play it on the floor or risk hurting people when it collapses.

Will working on one of his (and Ben's) Christmas projects. No one likes to sand, but it is a needed evil.

I’ve been building a better (now my third try) clamp rack in the workshop. The last one wasn’t bad, but took a lot of wall space. I’ve also been trying to add some insulation – just enough that my kerosene heater will be able to warm up the space.

It is starting to look like I’ll have the entire week off next week.  Lots of time to finish the kitchen and get some workshop projects done. Susanna is still waiting on an island for the kitchen.

Small Projects

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The new exterior light on the corner of the workshop.

Today finally felt like a normal Sunday. It has been crazy busy her over the past couple of weeks, between my work travel, hurricane Sandy, and holidays. Today we had nothing planned save a few errands to run before lunch.

I decided to take an easy day. I had no major house projects to work on, so I decided to finish up a few small projects around the shop.

The first project was to replace the spotlight on the corner of the workshop.  I had installed a motion sensor light several years ago, and it no longer worked. I decided to use one of the RAB lights I had left over from the garage and put it on a timer.  I picked up a dusk to dawn timer switch. The timer adjusts for sunrise/sunset and will turn the lights on at dusk and off at a fixed time, and back on in the early morning until dawn.

The second afternoon project was to work on the door to the second floor of the workshop. I have a kerosene heater for the workshop, but without a doorway to the second floor, all the heat escapes from the first floor workshop. I still have a little more work to do on the door, but it is getting closer. I pulled one of the antique doors that had been in the workshop loft. I’m not sure I like the painted door in the middle of unpainted plywood. Maybe next summer I will paint the plywood walls.

The new door to the second floor of the workshop.

Workshop night – lots of small projects

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Finally it seems things are back to normal. Or course it seems that normal isn’t very normal these days. Susanna didn’t have to work tonight, and I was able to get out of work at a good time (don’t worry, the next couple of days will make up for it at work  – followed by a quick trip to the Bahamas for work).

A quick project completed in the workshop. A coin holder/display made from scrap cherry.

I had a couple of quiet hours in the workshop. I had been building cutting boards a a group project in addition to a bunch of house projects. The workshop was a mess. Sawdust everywhere. Tools blanketing all the horizontal surfaces.

The first project was to clean up the workshop, put tools away, and vacuum the floor.

I then took an hour to make a coin holder that I promised to a friend – I have an opportunity to give it to him tomorrow, and I had been stalling building it. But coin holders are quick to build, and I finished it with a coat of shellac followed by a water based topcoat.

Over the weekend I had picked up 24 white banquet chairs for a little more than $2/each (no point in renting them for the wedding if I can buy them for less than the cost of renting chairs). A couple of the seat cushions had come unattached from the chairs. Ten minutes of work, and all of the seats were attached.

Banquet chairs with seat cushions reattached. Ready for me to bring them to the loft for storage (when I'm not feeling lazy).

It is nice to finally be able to spend an evening getting the shop put back together, cleaning up and putting away tools.  I still need to spend some time sharpening chisels and hand planes, but that is another night.

Two weeks ago I sent off one of my backsaws (a Disston 12 inch backsaw, 13pts) to Matt Cianci at the Saw Blog to get it sharpened. He received the saw and tonight gave me his estimate to get it sharpened. In 4-6 weeks I should have it back, cleaned, polished and sharpened as a sash saw (should be good for both ripping and crosscutting).  I took a saw sharpening class from him last year, but don’t sharpen saws enough to be fully proficient at it. I would rather cut wood with the saws and pay him to sharpen them.

Drunken Cutting Boards (part 2)

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Second set of cutting boards complete - photo by Benjamin Wang

It has been a very busy couple of weeks. I have too many projects going on around the house and workshop right now. I am making progress on all of them, but it would be nice to have a couple more get completely finished.

The cutting boards are moving along. It is a learning experience as they get made. I made a set of them for my cousin’s wedding, but haven’t yet made any for our own house. I’m also walking a group (one at a time) though making the boards.  It is a lot more nerve wracking to be helping someone else on their project. However, I think we will be able to get 4 cutting boards each (two pairs) from the lumber I ordered. There may even be enough for a spare pair – in case we mess up one of them.

The first step was to glue up the maple into panels big enough for each board. That was done in the first drunken cutting board posting.  James Russell and I made up the first half of the blanks, and we made the first 4 boards.  Benjamin Wang and I made the second set of postings (and Ben took pictures to document the steps).

After the glue-up, we paired up boards – one of the purpleheart and one maple. The boards were squared up on the tablesaw, and planed to the same thickness. The boards were taped together with double sided tape. Ben figured out to use blue painters tape first to prevent the double sided tape from leaving residue on the wood – based on a suggestion from a worker at one of the big box stores.

Two pairs of boards matched for cutting - photo by Benjamin Wang

The pairs of boards were then run through the bandsaw and cut into wavy strips.  The cuts were then very carefully sanded to try to remove the bandsaw marks without changing the shape of the cuts.

One pair of boards after the first cut and sanding - photo by Benjamin Wang

After the boards were sanded, we carefully separated the pairs, and placed the boards back on top of each other in the same order they were cut, with the maple on the top and the purpleheart on the bottom. We then took every other strip of wood and swapped the top (maple) with the matching bottom (purpleheart) to give the first part of the wavy pattern.

The top and bottom boards were then (being careful to keep them in order) separated. We then added thin strips of cherry between the pieces and glued up the boards.

 

One board (of a pair) ready to glue up with cherry strips between the pieces - photo by Benjamin Wang

The boards were clamped up and left to glue overnight. The next day, we cleaned up the boards, cutting off the excess cherry, and planing the boards (carefully) to a standard thickness.

A pair of boards glued up drying. Each person is making two pairs. Photo by Benjamin Wang

The next step was to again pair up the boards and repeat the cuts in the other direction. We didn’t get any pictures of this step.  I’ll try to photograph it when I make the next set of cutting boards.

Overall, this hasn’t been a terrible project. It takes a couple of hours for each pair of boards to be made, and each set we make gets a little easier. I can’t take credit for this idea and method – I got it off a posting at lumberjocks.com.

Time Zones Suck (and other random thoughts)

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We took a short break to observe the ArizonaMemorial on our short run on Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

I would like to think the reason that I’m awake late on a Saturday night (ok, early on a Sunday morning) is that Susanna and I are out enjoying a rare weekend night where the boys are with their mom. That isn’t the case.  I’m sure if it were, I would have better things to do other than write on my blog.  Heck, even on a slow night like this, I have better things to do than write on my blog.  Like sleep. This is one of the joys of shifting one’s body 6 time-zones. My sleep schedule is all screwed up.

One would think that flying back to the east coast after a week in Hawaii would cause me to stay up late and sleep in late (i.e. stay on Hawaii time). A red-eye flight from Honolulu to Dulles last night allowed me to get a full nights sleep and wake up at a reasonable east coast time. But it is rough sleeping on a plane, so I’m never fully rested. Second, my week in Hawaii was spent underwater on a submarine, which never helps one get on a fixed time-zone. So here I am boring all three of my blog’s readers with my musings on my sleep patterns. Yes, I know, I found something more lame than woodworking to write about. Well done.

I have started running again. I’ll see how far that goes. I have slowly built myself up to 5k runs – and my knees feel it. Hopefully I can lose a couple of pounds which will make the runs easier on my legs.

I also ordered lumber online for the first time. I had ordered some small pieces from eBay in the past, but never the wood for a full project. I am planning on building several cutting boards (drunken cutting boards) with some of the guys I work with. The plan is to use purpleheart and maple squares, with cherry accents.  I’ll post pictures of the build here. I ordered the material from Bell Forest Products the week before I left for Hawaii.  The package arrived while I was gone, and I opened the boxes this evening. The lumber looks great. There wood is clear and straight.  The iPhone pictures don’t do the wood justice (thought the purpleheart isn’t quite purple yet – it will age to purple in the sunlight).

Purpleheart and maplefor cutting boards.

Now time to head back to bed. I’m sure I’ll have to reclaim my place and move Tucker to the foot of the bed.

Tools that I like (the saw bench)

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Ben's Saw Bench

Some of the most useful tools in my workshop are the tools that I have built. The “saw bench” is one of the tools that I use almost every time that I am in the shop. I have three currently in the workshop. One is sized for me to use when using a hand saw to cut lumber. Two are a bit shorter so the boys can use them. They are simple to build and used lumber I had sitting around the shop.

The primary purpose of the saw bench is to hold a piece of wood at the proper height for cutting. They are also good for using as a step stool to reach the top of the shelves in the workshop as well as a seat to sit on when taking a break.

They aren’t too difficult to make. A quick search on the internet will turn up a bunch of easy plans. I would suggest that a matched pair of these would be useful in any shop. The first one I made was built as a project in the first semester of the Hand Tool School. The last two were inspired from Popular Woodworking’s traditional saw bench article. I didn’t add the ripping notch at the end of the boys’ benches – I suspect that they will use them more like a traditional workbench for a while.

Copied from a Disston publication: Disston Tool Manual for School Shops, ©1927

Tools that I like (Universal Bar Clamp)

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Univeral Bar Clamp

If you go to a woodworking store, such as Woodcraft, you can find a plethora of bar, pipe and parallel clamps from companies such as Bessey, Jet and Jorgensen. They range in price from $30 to $45 each. If you go to a box store, such as Home Depot, you can find a pipe clamp for under $20 (plus you have to purchase an appropriate sized pipe to finish the clamp).

When I took a woodworking class at the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking, they had rows of aluminum bar clamps. They were “Universal Bar Clamps” by the Dubuque Clamp Works company. You can buy the clamps from several online retailers, including Woodcraft. You can also save money and purchase them directly from the manufacturer (USA Clamp Company). The main page of the company’s website is not working, but the pages for the clamps works. I called them this week, and they said that they took the front page down because they were swamped with orders, but they will ship clamps if I order directly from them.

The clamps are great. They don’t have as much clamping pressure as a traditional pipe clamp, but they have enough for most purposes. I will probably use the pipe clamps to glue up the thick top for the kitchen island, but that type of glue up is the exception. The universal bar clamps sit flat on the workbench, and the aluminum doesn’t stain the wood. To top it off, they are made in the USA.

Several years ago I split an order of 10 of the longer clamps (48” clamps I believe – I don’t have one of them in front of me right now). The only drawback is how long they are. That is a lot longer than I need for most glue-ups. So, this week I ordered 10 of the 24” clamps to split with one of the guys I work with.

Another Tuesday Night (Cleaning the Workshop)

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Susanna has been working most evenings for the past two weeks.  She heads into work before I get home, and returns about when I would normally go to bed.  So, I’ve been staying up later than usual. So, I’ve been a little tired when I get home from work. The boys are at their mother’s house tonight and tomorrow night, so I was planning on taking some time to get ahead on projects in the workshop after dinner.

The back wall of the workshop - I need to rearrange and reorganize the storage on that wall this winter.

I couldn’t get motivated to actually make sawdust today; instead I spent some time cleaning and organizing the workshop. The shop is now about as clean as it ever gets – which means I’ll have to start working to make it dirty again.

I rearranged the workshop this year, and am in general very pleased with the layout. There are two problems with the shop currently.  The first is that I don’t have a good place to store the wood that I am currently using for a given project.  The  second is the back wall of the shop. I think I need to rearrange the storage on that wall a bit to make the space more useful.  I’m still not sure how I would arrange the back wall. Maybe I’ll move the lathe to the back wall, and move the storage shelves to fit where the lathe is currently.

The major improvement I made to the workshop storage this year was the hand tool storage wall.

I am still tweaking the hand tool storage wall, but overall I am very happy with it.  I’m also pretty sure I’ll continue to add small improvements to my hand tool storage as I use the workshop.  Tonight I added a second shelf on the left that holds my “guest tools” – or the loaner tools, so I don’t have to loan out my good hand tools.

Another Completed Project

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Will trying his saw bench out for size - it is a little tall for him, but he will grow into it.

Over the past couple of years I have learned that I am not good at finishing projects. Looking back at my life, it is something that I have always suspected about myself. It isn’t something that is always easy to admit to oneself though.  I love the thrill of starting something new, but usually anything worth doing takes long enough to finish that it is no longer new and exciting.  Once a project is no longer new or exciting it is easy to put it aside to start a new and exciting project.

I have done that when renovating my house.  Ben’s room took years to finish, and that with help and encouragement from both my dad and Susanna.

I have done that in the workshop.  This past summer I added the last remnants of several unfinished projects to the fire pit.  They included a carcase from a storage shelf I started years ago before moving to Preston, pieces to a bed I was going to build for Will or Ben, and a section of maple butcher block I had glued up for a carving board.

I’m trying to limit the number of projects I have going on at one time.  This summer saw a few too many.  Two projects in the workshop (an island for the kitchen, and a saw bench for Will), a push to get the sailboat in the water before the water freezes, and painting the house trim.  Thankfully, Susanna has taken over the painting.  Unfortunately, I am still waiting for trailer parts to arrive in the mail – which makes it tempting to start a new project. But, I’m trying to focus on finishing projects.

The pieces from Will’s sawbench had been sitting around the workshop for a couple of months.  The boys were gone last week, and Susanna worked every night, so I had lots of evenings free.  I cut the last joinery out on the sawbench and prepared all the pieces for assembly.  I could have finished it last week, but since it was a project I started with Will, it seemed better to wait until he returned to finish it.

This morning we assembled the bench, and now I have one less uncompleted project hanging over my head.  Now to move on to finishing the other projects I have going on before I start any more.