I almost didn’t make it to the workshop tonight. Although it is Tuesday night, it feels like a Monday night. Maybe that is because Susanna and I went out to dinner with some friends last night. Maybe it is because Susanna is feeling sick tonight and went to bed early. Hopefully she will feel better tomorrow. But back to the workshop – I get distracted and if I’m not careful I won’t finish writing about the topic I had intended to write about when I started.

I finally found the energy to head out to the workshop after I had suggested that Susanna put on “Sex and the City” which I didn’t want to watch. Nothing like a bad TV show to motivate one to find something better to do.

I cut the last tenons on the kitchen island tonight and dry fit the base. It is turning out okay. Not perfect. I can see where the joints aren’t as tight as I would like them to be, but I need to finish this project and move on. I also could have done a better job picking out a couple of the pieces of wood for the project. I have enough lumber sitting around, I shouldn’t ever compromise and use a less than perfect piece for a visible part of a project.

I have already glued up one side of the base. Now I have to drill the holes for the drawbore pins.Drilling out the white oak was overheating the “cheap”” drill bits I have and not leaving a clean hole. So, I am waiting for a new 1/4″ drill bit from Lee Valley.  I ordered a carbide tipped brad point drill bit.  The bit is not cheap for drill bits (it is nearly $20 for a single bit), but reviews said that they are well worth the price.

Next furniture project will have to be out of something more forgiving than white oak. How about cherry?

I was finally able to get time in the workshop today. I have been a bit sidetracked with renovations to Will’s room over the past two weeks. One thing that has helped is trying to do two hours of work a day on the room. On the week nights, that gets progress done on the room. On the weekend, that allows me to find time to do other things without feeling guilty.

I was able to complete my two hours on the room by lunch today and take some time in the afternoon to head out to the shop. The weather has been crazy – it is mid-January and 50 degrees out.

I am making progress on the kitchen island. I have all the mortises done, and half of the tenons cut.  Today I decided to build a planing stop. One of the frustrations with the workbench I have is holding the work while I hand plane. In the past I have put a board across the bench and clamped it on. That works fine if I am planing only in the direction of the grain. If I try to plane cross-grain, I need to fully clamp the work in the bench.  It is a pain in the butt to always clamp and unclamp the work.

That leads me to the planning stop/bench hook I built today. I’m not sure if it is traditional, and time will tell how well it works.  I took a 48-inch long 1×12 piece of pine and attached a board to the front (so it will register on the front of the workbench).  I then took some thin stock (or rather made thin stock – about 1/2-inch thick) and attached it to the back and left side of the top of the board.

So far it seems to be working as planned. It makes cleaning up the long pieces of wood for the kitchen island much easier.  It also gives me a nice board to chisel on and not worry about chopping up the top of the workbench.  I suppose if I need to work on any pieces longer than about 44-inches I’ll need to build a new stop.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.