Today I began a little reverse engineering project for a friend. He saved a sofa from the junk heap, but it was missing one cushion support frame. I told him it shouldn’t be too hard to make a matching one. So here’s what the original one looks like:

The width of those outer boards is pretty close to 2″, so I figured it would just take a couple rips of a 2×4 to get these parts. I ran a line down the 2×4 with my marking gauge (although it’s never satisfying trying to cut with the grain), out comes the ryoba, and let the show begin!

As you can see, I have zero clamping options with my current setup. How do you go about resawing with a handsaw anyway? I started on one end and changed to the other end when it got too difficult. My saw stayed with the line on the top, but on the bottom it was a different matter. Here’s a shot of the bottom of the board after I finished my resawing. Notice how I had to stop in mid-cut and just finish coming from the original direction. Oops.

Needless to say, it don’t look so hot.

Because I need to cut some 1/2″ mortises in this 3/4″ wood, this gack left me with too little room to work with, so I’m going to have to scrap this attempt.

If any of you have any tips on resawing with a handsaw, I’m all ears! But in retrospect, here’s what I think I’ll do differently:

1. Clamp a board on either side of the board I’m cutting, aligned with my line. The boards will act as a guide for my saw. As long as I keep my blade flush against the clamped boards, my line should be straight.
2. Position the board straight up and down and just cut down from top to bottom, rather than along the face of the board. Seems like I’d have a more consistent cut that way. If I have two boards clamped on the outside, the whole apparatus would probably be heavy and stable enough that I could just pin it against the bench with my other arm while sawing.

Way back in January, I said that I wanted to make something before building my workbench, and I said (here comes a direct quote), “What better project for my beginner skills than a simple dovetail box?” Yes. I said the words “simple”, “box” and “beginner” in the same sentence. How little I knew. So here are some reflections on my 6-month journey into box making, and some lessons learned:

1. Find something you do well, and build your confidence off of that. Once I bought my ryoba saw, my sawing skills improved tremendously. I cut one of my dovetails with it to break it in, and liked it right away. I took a stab at sawing veneer by hand, and nailed it. I got more and more confident in that one area of my woodworking, and it made me more confident overall, even in other areas where I’m not yet very proficient.
2. Start with a plan. I had a vague idea of what I wanted, but you really need something a little more concrete than “four walls, a top and a bottom.” That’s pretty much all I had. If I had actually sketched out a real plan with ideas on how I was going to join, say, the bottom to the walls, I would have been much better prepared for what was to come.
3. Start with something big. I had wondered aloud when starting this project if doing dovetails with 1/4″ thick wood would be too tough for a beginner. Turned out that the dovetails were easy compared with all the other complexities in the project - many of which were enhanced because of the small size of the box. As some of you saw, I had to make a chisel out of an allen wrench because my 1/4″ chisel was too big for some of the things I needed to do. I felt like I was making dollhouse furniture sometimes. It’s no wonder my very next project was a step stool with really big dovetails and “regular”-sized joints.
4. Listen to feedback. As I wrote this post, I re-read all of my entries, and the comments that followed each one. It’s really neat to see things that I ended up doing in this project because of suggestions from you all. In a way, this box was a community project!
5. Don’t sweat it. As Russel on LumberJocks wisely commented, “Flaws are merely an expression of character; a reflection of the path to completion. They are not necessarily a bad thing, and in this case they are an example of tenacity and acquired experience.” Amen.

Thanks again, fellow woodworkers, for all of your encouragement as I brought this project through its various stages to completion. While I have no desire (at the present time) to build another box this small, I do hope to build more boxes in the future. I’m sure that many of the lessons I learned here will make it a much smoother operation.

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!

I know, I know. Juvenile title. I can’t help it.

So it’s time for the wedges. By the way, I followed Ian Kirby’s technique as described in Woodworkers Journal (October 2007) and in a bit less detail on this website. First, to cut the kerfs in the tenon. Kerfs should be less than 1/4″ from the edge of the tenon, and should stop about 1/8″ from the shoulder. Likewise, when you open the mortise so it angles out, the opening should begin 1/8″ in from the inside of the mortise, to better support the angled tenon.

Next, to cut the wedges. Wedges should be the same width as the tenon, and the length should be that of the kerf you just cut, plus 1/3. The gradient of the wedge should be 1:8. If you’ve got a sweet ryoba like mine, these tiny wedges aren’t hard at all to cut. By the way, in keeping with the spirit of the contest in which I’ll be entering this piece (One Man’s Junk), the wedges were cut from this block of wood which used to be a supporting rail for a drawer on my “bench” (really just some cabinets). Dug it out of the scrap heap for this project.

Now I’m ready for the glueup. As always, I did a dress rehearsal first. Good thing, too - I realized that when I wanted to set the stool on end to hammer in the wedges, I needed a well to house the tenon on the opposite side, which was about 1/2″ proud of the side. Thus my little setup there.

Glueup accomplished, though not quite as quickly as I would have liked. For the wedges, I applied glue on each side, pushed them in as far as I could with my fingers (not very), and then tapped them in with a hammer, using light taps at first and alternating between the wedges. When the wedges are all the way in, the striking sound changes to that of hitting solid wood.

After several hours, I went back into the shop to trim the wedges. After my last experience trying to flush cut with my ryoba (where I kept grazing the project with the saw), I used this cereal box to protect the piece as I cut the excess off the tenon. The thin material helped me get pretty close to flush. I then followed up with my chisel, paring carefully while keeping the back of the chisel flat against the wood.

And there we go! You can see in the following picture that I opened the mortise a bit unevenly, the bottom showing more of a gap; at least I did it the exact same amount on both sides so it’s uniformly off. I can live with that. Ian Kirby’s wedged tenons show the same amount of gap in every single one, and I actually liked the gap and tried to do it. He never does say in his article how much to open the mortise, only to open it “a given amount.” Thanks dude. Very helpful.

So that’s it! I’ve since done my final sanding and have applied my first coat of finish (oil/varnish/spirits). I’ll do another coat or two of that before finishing up with a couple coats of just varnish. And then I’ll post it in my projects section!

When I was contemplating my curves and complaining about my coping saw, Marco suggested that I could easily make a curve by first making a series of cuts, and then cutting the waste away with a chisel.

I had learned that technique at Homestead Heritage (Waco, TX) but hadn’t yet had enough confidence to try it. It seemed too easy. But doing the curves for the supporting piece, I decided to give it a go. So here is the piece after I’ve made my cuts:

And here it is after my chiseling:

I pretty much just chiseled until the kerfs were barely noticeable any more, and then I took out my trusty spokeshave and smoothed it out. Outside of really needing to watch the grain flow, this was a pretty simple technique!

After I posted about doing my first hand-cut mortise and tenon, Scott over on LumberJocks wanted to see how I chopped my mortise. He said, “The only time I tried to chop a mortice I left most of a 1/4” chisel broken off in the wood.” Well, when I read that, I kind of freaked out because I hadn’t considered that I could have broken my blade! But I decided to trust in what I was taught, and to remember that I had, indeed, done one successfully. So I decided to keep at it for my second mortise.

First, I marked out the mortise. I figured out where I wanted it, and then measured the top line with a pencil (exactly 3″ down from the base of the pins). I marked that spot with the chisel by pressing it firmly into the wood. After measuring the height of the tenon, I did the same thing on the bottom. Then I connected those outer borders with a marking knife:

I then positioned the chisel slightly in from one of the edges, with the bevel facing the other direction.

Next, I raised the chisel to 90 degrees and gave it a good strike with the mallet. I levered the waste out by lying the chisel down toward the bevel. Here’s a pic:

And here’s the video of me doing it:

After going the whole length of the mortise, I turned the chisel to face the other way and went back, doing the same thing. Then I flipped the board over and started on the other side of the mortise, doing two passes. Before too long I punched through:

At this point, it’s probably safe to hog out the waste by chiseling down the side walls, although I just kept going as I was, ending up with this:

You notice that the side walls need to be cleaned up, and also the length of the mortise extended all the way out to my marked lines. In the next pic, I’ve cleaned up the sides and just needed a little more on the top and bottom.

And there’s my mortise! You can see in the last pic below that it’s far from seamless perfection. But considering that the tenon will be wedged, and that decent-sized dovetails are securing the sides to the top, I don’t think this joint will experience much stress.

Thanks for following along!

From all the feedback I got on my end grain finishing problem, Kaleo’s had the biggest word (oxidization) so I think he’s right. :^) However, I couldn’t bring myself to apply his solution, which was to sand the box down and then to put a finer grit on the end grain. Actually, my wife instantly vetoed any solution which involved removing the finish I already had on it. She loves the box, and isn’t concerned about the flaws.

But I had to do something. So here’s what I did. First, the before picture:

First, I swabbed on some mineral spirits with a q-tip and then “scrubbed” it with the other end. I don’t know how effective this was at removing the varnish. By the way, I also did this on the tail on the top.

Then I ripped some very narrow strips of sandpaper from 60 or 80 grit all the way up to 360. I numbered them so I wouldn’t screw up the order.

After sanding all the way up to 360, here’s what it looked like. You can see that the one above it, to which I had applied mineral spirits (but didn’t sand), doesn’t look considerably better, if at all.

Then, using the q-tip, I applied some straight BLO to the center one, the one above it, and also one test tail on the left middle (which hadn’t been sanded nor stripped with mineral spirits).

It turned out that all three tails looked the same. It didn’t matter whether it had been sanded, stripped or anything. So I promptly q-tipped BLO on all of the end grain. And here’s how it turned out:

All in all, I’m very pleased with the results. Sure, it’s not immaculate. But the color is much more uniform, and I think Amy will be very pleased. My last resort was going to be to use a black magic marker. Why not?

So now all that is left is to apply a single coat of BLO to the inside of the box. During my initial applications to the outside, I flooded it with my oil/varnish mixture to the extent that you can see it some on the inside. So a single coat of BLO on the inside should regulate the color of the wood. Should.

P.S. Amy does like the smell of BLO - I checked that before deciding what to do about the inside.

Today I was able to do both tenons for the supporting rail (rail? stile?) for the step stool I’m building. It’ll be a through tenon and have wedges when it’s done. I also had time to do one mortise today.

This one looks pretty fabulous, if I do say so myself. However, TOTAL DISCLOSURE: The other one didn’t go as well. My line on the cheeks weren’t very straight so the tenon narrows at it nears the shoulders. This, my friends, is not good. I might not need to fix it, though, since there probably won’t be any wobble. The direction it would wobble will be held in check by the dovetails. The only force really being put on this rail will be along the top and bottom of the tenon, and not on the cheeks.

Still, if I sense movement once I’ve done the second mortise and dry-fit it together, I may glue a shim on at least one of the cheeks and re-cut it to be more square.

All in all, a good day in the shop.