handwork saturday.....

I hope that I never tire of the magic of watching a joint unfold. I spent the entire day doing handwork and I ended it by chopping stopped and through dadoes. How well these joints come out is entirely dependent upon how well I use my tools. It's definitely a feeling I want to keep experiencing for as long as I can. I also spent a part of the day doing a few other odds and ends that always seem to crop up.

still flat

I only need one flat reference face for my kerfing saw plane. I flattened and smoothed the rough sawn face because that would make it easier to scribe a line after I saw these in half.

Lee Valley imperial small precision square

UPS would not leave this even though I signed the slip they left. My wife went and got it from the UPS depot for me.

fairly thin

This square was thinner than I expected it to be. It still feels solid and not like a strand of over cooked spaghetti. LV also offers this in metric.

why I bought it

I have a lot of squares but none of them will do this. I could have used this when I did my layout for the DVD shelf I made. I have 12" square in this style but it isn't square on the outside or the inside. This is the only use I can think of for this and it is well purposed for that.

ready to kerf the first one

one done and the other in progress

rip sawing them in half

It is the middle of December and I'm in the shop in shorts and a T-shirt, sweating buckets of the stuff. I can't believe this weather but I'm not complaining about it. Any time I can work up a sweat in the shop in December I'll take it.

first one done

I don't think there is anyway to avoid that nasty bit of ??? in the middle. I sawed this one in a vee shape from both sides to the middle and I then flipped the board 180 and repeated it until I had it sawn in half.

a little better

I did this one a bit differently. I still sawed at an angle from both sides down to the middle but I also sawed straight across. On the first one I did it mostly with angled sawing. It looks like adding sawing straight across gave better results.

ready to thickness

scribed a line on all four pieces

I am going to plane all of these down to 5/16". It's a bit thick for this but I don't want to go any thinner than this. I don't have an adequate stop for planing anything thinner than this (that I like using).

one down and 3 to go

done

The four of these took me about 30 minutes to do and less than an hour start to finish. If you are looking for something to raise your heart rate, do this. And you'll soak a T-shirt with sweat too.

no shellac today

 My paint job turned into a sawdust magnet. The feet and the top were covered with bits of wood and sawdust. By the time I got all of that cleaned off I had a  bunch of rubbed out spots to repaint.

holder while the paint dries

I'm going to let this set up until tomorrow. The first thing I'll do with it is put a coat of shellac on the painted ends.

holder for my new square

it's new home in cabinet #2

I wanted to put this with my other squares in cabinet #1 but I didn't have any room. I also didn't want to rearrange the squares on that door to make room for this. Since I doubt it's a square I'll grab and use every time in the shop, it'll be ok here.

hard akansas stone

I had just finished sharpening the iron in my 51 and I thought I would try flattening this stone. I have read about using diamond stones to flatten these but I had never tried it. Both of my arkansas stones are glazed and the diamond plate didn't seem to have issues with this. Even though it looks like crap it was still cutting the arkansas stone. I have a nice hollow in the middle to flatten still. Not only do I have this to do, I have the other side to do too.

I didn't finish this because I wanted to start on my bookcase. I cleaned the diamond plate and it cleaned up with just water. I will come back and complete this later. One problem I see with these stones is the width of them. They are narrow and the iron from the 51 overhung on both sides of it. Might be that these will be only used for chisels.

not working

My bookcase sides are 11" wide and it was taking forever to square them up on the shooting board. The end I started with was out of square a strong 1/8" and I gave up trying to do it on the shooting board. I think the width of the board and amount it was out of square was too much for the shooting board. I found it was quicker and easier to scribe a square line and plane down to it. That is what I did on the ends of the shelves and the sides.

3 tries

I wanted a shallow cutout like the first inner line is but it might not happen. That divot wasn't eliminated until the 3 arc was swung. Even then I only got 99% and there is a little piece that remains. One thing I don't like about the 3rd arc is that it is too close to the dado for the bottom shelf. I may still go with the original arc as the divot will be on the inside and bottom of the bookcase.

After I did this layout I marked and chopped out the stopped dadoes for the two book shelves. This time I didn't forget to allow for a step on the shelves. I am also doing the same through tenon detail I did on the bookstand.

layout for the through mortises

I like using this 1-2-3 set up block for layout especially on two sided layouts like this one.  I centered the through mortise on the sides but it'll be off center on the shelves.

show side of the through mortise

I learned from the bookstand that in order to get a well defined, crisp, and clean looking mortise walls on the show side that knifing it first helps a great deal. Knifing the layout lines greatly minimizes chips and blowouts.

stopped dadoes and through mortises done

show side of one through mortise

knifing does give good results

I had one mortise give up one little chip. The problem area with these is the corners where the cross grain side meets the end going with the grain. That is where I got the chip out. I am hoping that when I do the clean up I'll be able to plane it out.

Tomorrow I'll try to get the shelves and the tenons fitted. That is iffy as some friends are stopping by but I don't know when. I don't want to be in the middle of something like this and have to stop. I may pick this up on Monday and play with the puzzle stuff instead.

it's 1630

I put these to sticker here about 1000. A couple of these looked like they were bowed then, but now they all appear to be flat and straight. I only need 1 puzzle, would like 3, and I have the possibility of 8. I'm keeping my fingers crossed until tomorrow.

accidental woodworker

trivia corner
What is the longest river in Europe?
answer - the Volga

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