Monthly Archive

When I asked for feedback on how to glue up the frame pieces for the lid to the box I’m working on, Luis had suggested that I not glue the miters, but rather chop little mortises in the miters and glue in some floating tenons. The only problem is that with the size of my miters, they would have to be very tiny mortises, and I just didn’t have it in me to do it. So here’s what I came up with: “T Keys”. I decided to run grooves down the length of the mortise, create the key slot, and then cut little t-shaped pieces (of the lighter-colored sapwood that I used for the inlay) which would fit right in. Follow me as I show you what I did (all pictures are clickable for full-size):

First, I put a connected miter joint in the vise and cut the outside lines of my groove and key (to match the thickness of my mini chisel). And yes, I know my pieces are banged up. They’ve been in the shop too long without being worked on, and have fallen once or twice. I’ll probably chamfer that out.

Next, I put the pieces miter-up in the vise and, using the notches as my guide, I cut down the length of the miters (I didn’t measure how deep, but it was close to 1/4″ I guess).

Enter my new allen chisel. I put the mini chisel bevel down and, using the bend in the wrench for leverage (worked nicely), I hogged out the wood in between the cuts.

Next I figured out how wide I wanted my keys to be. I have no idea what the rule of thumb is, but my keys will extend about 1/2″ each way from the corner. I then marked and cut down to a line from that point perpendicular to the miter - the depth of my keys. Following that, I hogged out the key slot with my chisel (using a mallet this time).

And that’s it! I now have t-shaped slots in all four corners. We’ll see how it actually comes together later.

I’d been thinking about how to cut the slots in my box lid for the miter keys. The narrowest blade I have is my 1/4″ chisel. Actually, I think my mini router plane blade is a touch smaller than that, but would still have cut far too wide of a slot. So here’s what I came up with: the allen chisel. My idea was to simply (simply, ha!) grind a bevel on an allen (or hex) wrench and then hone it up on my stones. I don’t have a grinder, so I had to do all my grinding with a file.

Well, it wasn’t actually quite that easy. First, I realized that when you grind the bevel on a hexagonal wrench, the “meat” of the bevel is wider than the cutting edge. This would make for a pretty sloppy groove. So what I had to do first was to grind the sides of the wrench to square the edges, essentially making it rectangular at the front. Then I could grind the bevel. I tried to estimate a 25-30 degree angle, and when I measured it with my Starrett protractor, I was pretty close. I just needed to touch it up a bit and I was in business. Take a look:

Honing the allen chisel was a bit unnerving. My stones cost a lot of money, and I didn’t particularly like dragging a little tiny blade across it, making little tiny grooves. Also, on two occasions I raised the “handle” just a tad too far and made a couple mini divets in the surface. Great. Needless to say, I didn’t put a microbevel on this sucker. Here’s another pic:

Someone told me that an allen wrench isn’t tempered or hardened or whatever, and that as a result, it wouldn’t hold an edge. I figured no problem, I’m only using it for a few inches of grooves; it should stay sharp enough for long enough.

Stay tuned for the next post to see the allen chisel in action!

After talking about the most embarrassing tools I own, I thought it would be good to get my mind off of these purchases by talking about my favorite tools in the shop. Feel free to add yours in the comments, or on your own blog (and post the link in the comments).

3. My Irwin chisels. From what I hear, Irwin chisels haven’t lost much of the original quality that their predecessor Marples provided. And I love ‘em. Use ‘em all the time. The best thing? If I ever do run out of blade (unlikely), or lose one, I can get me another for $10-$20. They’re pictured here in my chisel box in progress.

2. My great grandpa Rudolf’s tools. My great grandfather came to the States in 1913 (at the age of 17), and made a living as a carpenter. Last year, my dad gave me any and all of his old tools that I wanted, and I took a lot of them here to Malaysia (the rest I took a rain check on). Pictured is a Stanley Victor #1105 jack plane, a Stanley #60 1/2 block plane, and a Millers Falls #772-101 bit brace. They’re by no means in mint condition, but they’re still perfectly functional and it feels special to be using them.

1. My Guyokucho 9 1/2″ Ryoba (for Hardwoods). Sorry for bumping you to #2, Grandpa Rudolf, but this saw has changed my life (woodworkingly speaking, that is). They say that tools don’t make you a good woodworker; all I know is that this ryoba makes me look like a good woodworker, so I’m not complaining. You can’t argue with my pics showing how clean it cuts and how fine the kerf!

Last month, I posted about my adventures in hand-cut veneer. I was pretty proud of myself for how well it turned out; I felt a bit like David fighting Goliath (Goliath being the giant hurdle of working without power tools) and cutting off his big fat head.

I got several very positive comments both here and over on LumberJocks. The comments made me feel like even though I am still brand new in the craft, that there are already some things I can do well. One comment in particular (from Luis) still rings in my ears:

You are an excellent sawyer!!

There are a lot of areas in woodworking where my brand new skills are quite raw - including sawing. But knowing that experienced woodworkers see promise in what I’m doing has given me more confidence in attempting new things.

Tonight I needed a thin strip of wood for my chisel box. It will be glued to the inside of the box lid and will rest against the chisel handles to keep them pinned down when the box is closed. None of my plywood was thin enough, so I said, “Guess I’ll have to just cut a strip myself!” Telling myself, I’m an excellent sawyer! I jumped right in, grabbed the only scrap left of the wood I was using for the interior, and started in on it.

When I was done, I had a strip of wood that was 3/64″ all the way down. And when I sized it up where I needed it to go, I had cut it way too thin! So I’ll have to mix and match the woods after all. Oh well, it’s just a chisel box.

But tonight was a lesson in confidence. Kaleo recently passed on advice from one of his instructors to “trust in your hand tool skills” and not to worry about screwing up. Confidence goes a long way. And so do compliments, so let’s all keep encouraging each other as we all progress in the craft!

This post was inspired by one with a nearly identical name over at Modern Woodshop. It seemed worthy of being classified as a meme, so let’s all join in and share our own personal embarrassments. If you do, be sure to credit Dave for the original idea (or comment on his site).

As for me, I don’t own all that many tools yet, so I have had fewer chances to make dumb purchases. While Dave has six tools of which he’s embarrassed, I only have three. And here they are:

3. Bevel gauge kit (via eBay). I wanted a bevel gauge. On the one hand, I didn’t want to pay out the money for a vintage Stanley; on the other hand, I was being a little too snooty galooty to go buy a new Stanley from Home Depot. I compromised by getting a kit - something I could make with my own two hands without really needing any real skill. Well something got screwed up in the assembly (go ahead, blame me) and the blade isn’t tight - even with a shim. Well, it looks nice hanging on the wall anyway.
2. Local chisels, scraper, wooden bench plane and spokeshave (okay, I’m lumping a few tools together here). These things are not embarrassing in and of themselves; what’s embarrassing is what I tried to do with them. The chisels, plane and spokeshave (Chinese made, poor quality) were as dull as any other you might get right out of the box, but I thought they were sharp and was frustrated by how poorly they functioned. And the scraper? I had read somewhere about how great scrapers were at smoothing the surface of wood, so I bought one. A paint scraper. And you know what? It didn’t really do squat to smooth my surfaces. Go figure.
1. Craftsman 14.4 volt cordless combo. This included a drill/driver, a dustbuster and a circular saw. The combo came with two batteries, and good thing! Each one held a charge for like 20 minutes it seemed. It was even worse (as you might expect) with the circular saw. Speaking of the circular saw, when I got it out of the package, the blade spun the wrong way! After searching the forums (and being berated by “real” woodworkers for buying Craftsman), I figured out that the wires were crossed between the motor and the battery receptacle. Easy enough to fix. Upon returning to Malaysia, I found that the batteries are just about entirely shot. All in all, a hideous purchase. I still have them, though I don’t use them at all anymore. My ryoba and bit brace do just fine; as for the dustvac, well I’m doing hand tool stuff now so it’s more contained and easily swept up.

On Saturday and Sunday I had a good several hours of shop time - my first decent shop time in a couple weeks. But instead of getting back to work on my wife’s box (finish, dang it!), I had to take care of some other business: rats.

The back wall of our house faces an alley which is about the size of a single lane. Being an alley, it’s got lots of trash (mostly in cans, but…). Rats come to eat the trash, and then cats come to eat the rats. When the cats come to eat the rats, the rats run for cover. Apparently, our house is in the Lonely Planet (Rat’s Edition) as a good place to be safe from cats - and to poop. The rats don’t eat anything in our house, and they don’t destroy our house at all. They just come in, poop, and leave (when it’s safe). And who could blame them? Check out the back door of my shop, complete with inviting rat hole:

That rat hole is actually a drain hole. The drain hole is handy for when you’re dumping buckets of water on the inside and mopping and stuff. It’s less than handy when you want rats to stay the heck out of your house. But it’s not just the drain holes. Here is the same door from the inside, with the door closed:

Does that door look like it’s going to keep rats out? No way. So what I did this past weekend was to cut a strip of plywood to screw onto the bottom of the door, essentially extending the door to the floor (minus a centimeter). I also cut a little square of plywood which I spraypainted white and epoxied onto the outside of the hole (again, allowing a centimeter for actual water drainage).

Then, to feel like I was actually still a woodworker, I did most of the cuts for a simple plywood chisel box. That’s a plywood box for chisels, not a box for plywood chisels. Heh. It’s mostly done; all that remains is to shape the interior blocks that will support and hold the chisels, and then to glue and nail the thing together. Nothing fancy - just something that is secure and uses the absolute least amount of wood possible (since these things occasionally travel and need to be light). I’ll post pics when it’s done.

Following the lead of Dave (of Modern Woodshop), I’ve jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. So if you want to get periodic updates (once or twice a day) via your web browser, email or even cellphone, head on over to my Twitter profile and click on the Follow button! (You’ll have to register, I believe.)

Click on my profile link for a sample.

Somehow word has gotten out about my interest in woodworking. Who knows what message people are getting, though. “So they tell me you’re a carpenter,” they say, or, “I hear you’re good at woodworking.” Um, no. But regardless of my actual skill level, it doesn’t stop people from asking me to do things for them. I’m actually backlogged with projects, most of which I’m doing for free. It’s also giving me good experience, for which I’m thankful. Here’s what I have on tap:

• Fix two benches, a bookcase and two cabinet doors. I finished it this morning. Compensation: A couple hours in a nice air-conditioned room.
• Build a frame to support a sofa cushion. It’s supposed to have two, but only has one. So I’ll reverse-engineer it and build a matching one. Compensation: a dozen pine bed slats (4″ or 5″ wide).
• Repair the wooden arm of a large sofa. Done.
• Build/fashion a chalkboard for the church building of a minority indigeous people in the highlands. I’ll just be using a sheet of plywood and some chalkboard paint, and figure out something nice for the frame.
• Construct a plywood “boat” (2-dimensional) with an oar to be used in a figure skating routine. I think I’m going to turn this one down. Too weird.

Oh yeah, and I might want to actually build something for our own use, too!

Okay, so I finished my panel grooves in my lid frame, and in the next day or two, I’ll glue up my lid. I’ll tell you what I’m planning to do, and could you let me know if anything sounds funky? Please refer to my previous post for some background, if needed.

1. I’ll run some glue down the grooves of two [adjacent] frame pieces, and on the two miters I’m connecting. Wait a few minutes for the end grain to soak up some of the glue, and then reapply some more on the miters. Holding them up against a square, assemble the two frame pieces and insert the plywood into the grooves. At some point I need to put some masking tape on the outside of the frame, but I’m not sure when that will happen.
2. Repeat previous step for frame piece #3, and then lastly with frame piece #4.
3. Not sure what to use to clamp something this small. I was thinking of using some twine to wrap around it (like a band clamp), and then tighten the knot with a stick or pen or something. Kind of like tightening a tourniquet (not that I’ve done that). Is this necessary? I’d hate to have to make a jig just for this, but even more, I’d hate for my frame to just fall into pieces because it’s not glued right.

Thanks for any feedback you might have. Stay tuned!

Well it’s been a while since I’ve had time to work on the box for my wife. But with Mother’s Day coming up soon(ish), I really want to get crackin’ on it. I have several things to do, some major and some minor. So I started with the minor. Sanded the entire box (minus lid) and glued up the bottom. The bottom simply fits (a bit snugly) into the rabbeted walls, so it’s not the best solution. But as I think I said earlier, as long as my wife doesn’t drop something heavy into the box, that bottom shouldn’t be going anywhere. I used glue only in a few spots along each end, so the sides will be able to move. It’s the best I could do at this point, as I just want to get the box done.

Now for the major stuff. The stuff that I can’t afford to screw up because I really don’t have it in me to make new parts. The gut check stuff. The lid.

My lid is still in four pieces - mitered with an inlay on the interior edge. My task today was to create grooves in the interior edges, into which I’ll glue a plywood panel. Then I’ll custom cut a slightly thick veneer to glue on the top and bottom of the plywood. For the top, I’ll either go for a flush fit, or perhaps a slightly proud piece that chamfers down to meet the inlay. On the bottom I think I’ll have it recessed a bit from the frame, and chamfer the inlay to meet it. You may recall that I already did my hand-cut veneer, but the plywood that I glued it to was too thick for the mitered frame.

So here’s what I’ve done so far. I had time for two of the frame pieces. You can see the first veneered panel in the background. I cut the outer lines of the groove with my ryoba saw, and then ran my 1/4″ chisel down the middle until I got to the right depth (about 3/8″).

When I inserted the panel, it fit so nicely that I grunted/shouted, “This is awesome!” My wife heard me and thought something had gone wrong. On the contrary…

So. Good progress today. I figure another hour or so for my obsessive-compulsive self to do the other two pieces. It’s a bit stressful marking and cutting these narrow pieces, but so far so good.