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The results of the LumberJocks Summer 2008 Woodworking Challenge are out, and my step stool managed to get 21st place!
What? You’re not impressed? Well I’m happy with it. And I don’t think my daughter minds either.
P.S. In all fairness, my entry was certainly not the 21st best one out of the 58 submissions. I do think that my active participation on LumberJocks has helped. I’ll take it!
Note: This project has been entered in the LumberJocks Woodworking Awards Summer 2008 Challenge, under the “One Man’s Junk” category. I in no way expect to win, but I’m pumped to have been able to submit an entry!
My buddy found a mattress “pallet” (pine?) from an Ikea bed (see the pic here) discarded on the side of the road, and passed it on to me. I was happy to take the opportunity to make something out of a wood that wasn’t a tropical hardwood (about all I can find here that’s reasonably priced). The wedges for the tenons are from scrap hardwood that came off an old cabinet.
So here it is. This one was a “speedy” project, only taking me about 40 days as opposed to six months for my last one. The stool was made entirely with hand tools. I finished the box with a couple coats of BLO/varnish/spirits, followed by a couple more coats of varnish/spirits. You can read about the building of this stool in my blog series over on LumberJocks.
Tools used: ryoba saw, coping saw, Stanley #4 plane, spokeshave, cabinet scraper, chisels, combination square, and a carving chisel (to accentuate the lines in between boards).
It only took six months…
Rather than do a double-post (with LumberJocks) like I normally do, I thought I’d just provide the link to the project page in LumberJocks for this box, since it presents the material better than I could here. So click the picture above to see the full-size pics and read the post!
This weekend my family went with a fellow church member to a sister congregation located among one of the minority indigenous communities. Our purpose was to provide them with a couple chalkboards – one for the sanctuary and one for the Sunday school room. I brought all the tools and the chalkboard paint, and our friend arranged for the plywood to be delivered.
The first step was to cut the sheets down a bit. I didn’t have enough paint for two 4×8 sheets, so I cut them both down to 3×6.
Next step was to sand them down. The sheets felt halfway there, so I just went with one round of 150 grit, and another round at 220 grit (the grit recommended by the paint can). To be honest, I probably should have done this myself, since I’m not sure how well this was really sanded. I mean, it was their first time sanding anything, most likely. But I was happy to have community involvement and a little break.
The kids seemed excited about all the activity, so I gave them some 60 grit sandpaper and one of the cutoffs (that’s my daughter in the purple shirt).
Next I measured the holes for mounting the chalkboards to the wall, and drilled them with my great grandpa’s Millers Falls bit brace. That thing never gets old.
Next to apply the paint. You’re supposed to put it on one way (like vertically) for the first pass, and then the next coat going the other way (horizontally). It was hard work, and I never felt really good about getting complete coverage.
In the end, though, the boards looked adequately covered and fairly even. They still seemed a bit rough, making me once again question my decision to totally delegate the sanding. But still, the paint should do its job and I hope that the chalkboards will get some good use. Thanks for reading!
Commenting on my latest entry and picture, Betsy over at LumberJocks pointed out that step stools normally have angled legs. And it didn’t take too long browsing the step stools posted on LumberJocks to show me that yup, the legs really should be wider at the base than at the top. Makes sense. So I glued one more board on the legs and here’s what I’ve got:
After I do the dovetails, I’ll cut a nice gentle curve from top to bottom on the outsides of the legs. I think I’ll also cut a curve out of the middle of the base, too.
Next step: Sanding and Dovetails!
Today I had my first real shop time since Mothers Day. I finished my wife’s box just in time to give it to her, but I still hadn’t put any finish on it. So today I started by putting on the first coat of oil/varnish/mineral spirits. Once I did that, I figured I’d start something new. I had no idea what I’d do. It was a good feeling, one of anticipation.
I decided that I wanted to take a little break from the kempas I’d been working with since the beginning of the year. My buddy is a runner, and occasionally picks up old furniture he finds by the side of the road. He found this mattress platform from Ikea that someone was throwing out, and passed it on to me. I’m assuming it’s pine:
I decided to rip all the staples out and then figure out what to do with the boards. With a potential move in our near future, I needed to do something that I would be okay with giving away, should we not have room for it in the move. I decided upon a step stool for the kids. My idea is a very simple stool, with dovetailed joints and a middle support (what’s that called?) that will be joined to the legs with wedged tenons. This way I can do as little wood prep as possible, speeding up the project and still giving me some challenges in the way of joinery.
One other thing that was fun about beginning this project was that with so many boards available to me, I got to practice selecting good boards for the piece based on grain pattern. I don’t know how well I did, but I was fairly happy with it. Here’s what the top of the stool will look like (before glue-up):
I could have picked a more similar piece for the middle, but I dunno, I kinda liked the pattern so figured I’d sandwich it between the other boards. Fun to actually have quartersawn boards for once. There’s a first for everything!
Today I was able to glue up the top, and then I glued up three more boards which will be the legs (after the glue dries I’ll cut the board in half for each leg). I’ve been pretty much following the Golden Ratio for the dimensions, so the top is 8″ x 13″ and the legs will be 8″ x 8″.
Question: When dovetailing the legs (would it be more appropriate to call them ‘sides’?) to the top, should the top have the tails or the sides?
More to follow as I make progress!
With my wife’s box, I felt like I had to agonize over every single little step. I needed something I could just “throw together” without worrying too much about how it looked. I just wanted to build something, and for it not to take months. Enter the chisel box.
A chisel box doesn’t have to look nice. It’ll rarely leave the shop. Nevertheless, I found myself caring a little too much about it, and had to keep reminding myself, “It’s only a chisel box” as the project went on and things kept going wrong. First the pics, then the lessons learned. Click on a pic for a full-screen version.
Lessons Learned:
- Use the pencil! If you noticed, the halfway decent chisel (if I do say so myself) which I woodburned onto the front of my chisel box is actually on the back. Way to go, Eric, for botching which side you thought the front was when you woodburned it on! (The box was glued together and I hadn’t cut the lid off yet.) It’s only a chisel box.
- Use a flush-cut saw to do flush-cut work. I thought I’d glue the two end pieces on a bit too long and then cut them flush with my saw. Well you can see the graze marks on the back of the box where the set of my saw caught the box. It’s only a chisel box.
- Support plywood when screwing into it. I didn’t have a drill bit small enough, so I couldn’t pre-bore my holes for the screws (hinges and clasp). When I drove the screws in, it started ripping apart my cheap plywood. I had to glue and clamp it back together, further complicating a simple project. It’s only a chisel box.
- Don’t go all overkill with the nails. I didn’t know what length nails I’d need. I was afraid that butt-jointing plywood with tiny nails wouldn’t be strong enough, so I went with bigger nails. In a couple spots, I got too close to the edge of the plywood and it’s bulged out a little. Don’t ask me why I didn’t use screws. I don’t know. It’s only a chisel box.
All in all, I’m happy with it. It holds my chisels securely with a minimal amount of wood (important considering I have to lug them overseas and back). It looks okay. And I learned a lot even though it was a simple project.
Back at the end of January (yes, 2008), I said that I wanted to make, and I quote myself, “a simple dovetail box.” I planned to make it for my wife. I don’t think I really expected to finish it by Valentine’s Day, but I did expect that it would be done for her birthday (mid-March). That came and went, leaving me with Mothers Day as my next target date. As I finally figured out how to do the lid, it all started coming together very quickly, and I found myself on Mothers Day Eve with a great chance at being done. So here we go:
First off, the hinges. This was quite tricky. First time with hinges, and you’d think I’d have done some research first, but nope. I carefully pared away the mortise for the hinge until I had each one on top and bottom at about 1/16″ deep. As you can see, I’m working at night with just a desk lamp. The kids’ room is just on the other side of those windows, so I can’t use the big bright lights.
Then it was the moment of truth. Sheesh, it seems like near the end of the project, every single thing is a moment of truth. It’s nervewracking. I did read about how easy it is to mess up brass screws, but I didn’t have any steel ones that size to bore the hole with, so I folded over some duct tape and drove the screw in with the tape protecting the screw. I think it worked!
At last. The final moment of truth. Screwing on the other side of the hinges, and seeing how the lid mates with the box. Actually, I had to do a little bit of tweaking (which does not mean I bent the hinges) to get it to mate well, but it did! It’s not perfect, though; the lid is just a bit too far forward, but the sides are flush. I can live with that.
So here are final pictures of the box as I’ll present it to my wife. After I finish it (oil/varnish/mineral spirits), I’ll post it on my Projects page and I’ll give a rundown on how it went overall, what I learned, etc. In a nutshell, though, I’m happy with it overall although there are many things that went wrong and I had to fix – and the fixes don’t look all that great in my eyes. But more on that later. I’m proud to present this box to my amazing wife for Mothers Day, and I’ll also present to her this series of posts so she can see how it came together. Here’s the box!
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.
- 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.
- Repeat previous step for frame piece #3, and then lastly with frame piece #4.
- 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!
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