Author: The Apartment Woodworker

The Apartment Woodworker is a weekly blog with insights, projects and tips for making the most of woodworking with hand tools in confined spaces.

An Oft-forgotten Step

There is much in the process from a pile of lumber to a piece of furniture. More than just stock preparation and joinery, anyway.

Although each are integral unto themselves.

One of the most important steps to my creative process is initial parts layout. In any piece where the grain will be visible, before any lines are scribed or joints cut, I always lay the pieces out on the bench and read the grain. Then I arrange the parts in a way that is (i) most aesthetically pleasing and (ii) works for any unique considerations in the piece.

Like this.

From past experience, I know the vertical pieces in an assembly like this should be the most stable pieces. This means the four straightest, tightest grain boards become the stiles of the side frames. Once assembled, these two frames will then be joined with several cross rails, which (together with the tops of the frames) should also be as stable as possible. Whatever is left can be the lower rails and the drawer runners.

Assuming everything is joined squarely (a big assumption, sometimes), the piece then has the best chance of resisting twisting after final assembly. And it doesn’t hurt that the cherry in question is as dry as anything I’ve ever worked with.

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Stuff. And, also, Things.

Much of my free time lately is spent straightening and squaring dimensional cherry. Some of it is making silly food service. And a good chunk of it is sharpening.

Although I may claim a solitary New Year’s resolution, I in fact have many goals for 2016. Many are centered around using up the rando wood I have accumulated these past few years. Among other things, I hope to:

make the lower shelf for the dining table (and also clean it up a bit from two years’ use as a workbench). Soon enough I will have a real workbench and the table can finally assume its true destiny.
build a new frame for my computer desk. I plan to keep the same overall design, just make it better.
build a new moxon vise, with threaded wooden screws.

And I think that’s ambitious enough for now. Back to that cherry!

Whoa! We’re halfway there!

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Basic Project: Sushi Tray

As a new segment here at The Apartment Woodworker, I will be documenting some of the smaller projects I find interesting and which I think are good for skill-building. I’m not one for CAD, so the focus will be on the (sometimes extremely) limited set of hand tools these projects require. There may be basic cut lists as required, but most of it will be rough dimensions.

This isn’t about teaching people how to woodwork. There is a body of instructional material out there far better than I’m capable of producing. Just Google “Paul Sellers the three joints” and go from there. The goal here is to inspire people to pick up some hand tools and make something, without breaking the bank on a tool collection or materials. So without further ado:

I love sushi (specifically, spicy salmon rolls). I’ve always wanted wood sushi trays (I see them called “geta”). So I recently decided to build a prototype. I like this project because it requires friction-fit dadoes, which are my favorite joint to cut. Mine was built from scraps, so I’ll make more as I have the materials.

As far as first tries without plans, it’s not bad.

It’s true that similar items retail for under $20 each on Amazon.com. But you know what also costs under $20? An eight foot select pine 1x 8 from the home center, and you can get four trays out of a single board. You’ll need some food-safe finish (like butcher block oil) and food-safe glue (like Titebond II), but that’s still about half the cost of paying someone else to make you a set of four.

Use harder, food-safe cutting-board woods if you’d like, but they probably aren’t necessary for the amount of abuse these will take. That having been said, everyone has allergies, so go with whatever food-safe wood works for you. And regardless of wood, I also like to surface plane every board I get from the home center. I have no idea what kind of gunk it’s been exposed to, so I always feel more comfortable with clean fibers showing.

The essential tools for the project are as follows:

1/2 and 3/4 chisels, plus mallet
No. 4 or No. 5 bench plane
9-14 TPI Rip cut saw (panel or tenon is fine)
Combination square and marking knife
Tape measure
Sandpaper
Food-safe glue (I used Titebond II)
Food-safe finish (I used Goddard’s butcher block oil)

Optional tools (which will make the work easier) are:

Router plane (any size will do)
Wide chisel (1″+)
Shooting board (if you don’t have one, walk away from this project right now and make one)

The top is made from a 15″ length of 1×8. The feet are made by ripping a 7.5″ length of 1×8 into thirds and squaring everything up with a bench plane (you need two feet per tray). There is no magic to the height of the feet, but anything between 2″ and 3″ should be fine. For aesthetics, the feet are slightly longer than the top.

There are two dadoes on the underside to accept the feet. Because the top has a 2:1 ratio, for symmetry I started the dados 2x their thickness from the outside edges (in this case, about 1.5″). Each dado is supposed to be 1/4″ depth, but if you’re like me, you always end up deeper because of errant depth chops on the sidewalls. If you have a router plane, awesome. If not, pare the dadoes with a chisel (and go slow, being careful about uniform depth). None of the above measurements are requirements, but I have found that dado depth probably shouldn’t be more than 1/2 the thickness of the top piece.

And be sure to label your parts.

Break the corners everywhere (except where the feet fit in the dadoes) with a plane or sandpaper. A bead of glue on the floor of a friction fit dado is more than enough for a permanent joint. If you need to, drive the feet home with a mallet and a piece of scrap and leave them for an hour. Then lightly sand the top, clean off the dust and finish all over with a thick rub of butcher block oil (the pine will be thirsty). After a wash or two, reapply more butcher block oil to the top face. It should be good for many uses after that. And if you used a PVA glue, it should be dishwasher safe.

And that’s it. Repeat as many times as you like.

Congratulations! You now have practice hand-cutting open dadoes, which you will use in woodworking forever. And the trays are quite multi-purpose, working just as well for cheese and crackers or as coasters.

I hope this has been informative. If not, keep it to yourself.

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The Clamp I Use Most

Apartment woodworking is mostly about making due. But that can be said about much of woodworking. And finding the right tool for the job is important regardless of square footage.

The clamp I use the most is not a clamp at all.

I’ve talked about alternative clamping styles before. I’ve even showcased the machinists granite slab as a clamping apparatus before. The reality is, sometimes a heavy, flat rock is much easier than an actual clamp.

When (for example) I need to glue back down some face grain that split while cutting a dado, I could use a parallel jaw clamp. Or I could just put a big rock on top of it. More times than not, I opt for the latter. Because if I’ve done my job and my joints are square, weight is as good as mechanical clamping pressure.

Speaking of dadoes, these are for a three-board sushi tray from leftover pine. If the sizing is okay (about 7″ x 15″), I will likely make a couple more from a tougher wood.

No stopped dadoes, this time. My masochism knows some bounds.

Have a great weekend, everyone.

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I am a Terrible Hypocrite

But what else is new?

Less than a week after swearing off the old planing slab, I decided to rehab it anyway. I need a suitable work surface for the upcoming workbench build, and it just so happens that my best option had been lurking in the background of the shop.

It also just so happens that I need a pair of sturdy sawhorses as well. So when I stumbled upon some awesome internet plans for Japanese-style saw horses, I knew it was time to get the slab back in shape. After flattening and straightening by hand (seen above), the slab was skip-planed to just over 2 7/16″ thickness.

It’s been almost a year. This thing had better not move anymore…

With a usable work surface of 71 1/4″ x 12 1/4″ (net of the heavy roundovers hiding some edge fracturing that occurred during flattening), the slab is not quite full size for a Japanese-style workbench (at least not according to this article). But it should be good enough for preparing the legs and rails for the new workbench. I even reinstalled the inset vise.

In lieu of a joined planing stop, I utilize an aluminum planing stop like the one I currently use on my smaller maple slab. I also think I’ll skip the sliding dovetail on the cleat and just friction fit a cleat into a dado (with some beefy screws as reinforcement). Seems like the sensible thing to do.

The planing stop is not yet hack-sawed to width.

One day, I may lag bolt the slab to a trestle base and add a tool tray, but in the meantime, I just need some Douglas Fir 4×4’s for the new saw horses.

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New Year’s Resolutions

There are (literally) big things in store for 2016 at The Apartment Woodworker. I have only one New Year’s Resolution this year.

And it rhymes with “Killed a Teal Smirk Wench”.

I always meant to build a frame for the original planing slab. But after standing in the corner for so long, it needs so much reflattening it would be less than 2.25″ thick. Not nearly enough for a stout benchtop. Plus it’s only 13″ deep and 70″ wide. I see it being reclaimed to make a dedicated sharpening station or something like that.

The lumber above is enough Douglas Fir to make four post legs (each approx. 4.5″ x 4.5″) and four rails (each approx 7″ x 3″), with much left over for appliances and such. Only the bottom 6 boards are actually new; the rest are just for weight while the new boards acclimate.

More details to come, but for now, it’s a month or two of refining the design while waiting for dry wood. When the time comes, I will hit up the home center again for Douglas Fir 2×4’s to laminate an approximately 84″ x 21″ slab top.

Happy New Year’s, everyone.

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Merry Christmas and Whatnot

In these United States of America, whether or not you actually celebrate Christmas, you likely have it off from work. My family does celebrate, and my office is closed, so I will spend most of the day driving around my tiny slice of the cosmos. First having lunch with my parents and my one extent grandparent at my aunt and uncle’s house, and second going to dinner and presents at my brother and sister-in-law’s house. With woefully little time in the shop.

We have a rule in my family: if you don’t ask for it, you don’t get it. My Christmas wish list was pretty much just woodworking hand tools. I’ll post the tool-pron later once I’m back in the shop (read: home).

Happy Holidays to everyone.

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Would You Believe It?

Crossing another one off the list is such a great feeling. I’m very pleased with how the plant table ended up. It was my first experience with Milk Paint, but it certainly won’t be my last.

I have since touched up the drawer sides to cover the exposed wood.

Start to finish, each coat took about an hour to apply. First, a thick base coat of Seagull Grey (which got me a strange retweet from someone on Twitter who apparently retweets every bird-related tweet; very meta). Second, a thinner top coat of Antique White. Both from General Finishes, purchased off Amazon.

It’s a smaller piece, but it’s quite open, which meant full coverage on every surface, both inside and out. Only the drawer has any bare wood, as it would not have fit the runners with the extra thickness from the paint. A good problem to have, I guess.

Milk Paint is easy to apply, dries quickly and seems to be rather forgiving. A light touch with 320 grit knocked down the nibs and I even got a bit of a distressed look around the dovetailed corners.

I have much of both colors left over, so I expect several upcoming projects will be Seagull Grey or Antique White.

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I Think She’s Ready for a Paintjob

After much delay, the drawer for the dovetailed plant stand is done. It’s about time, too, as the table has been finished for a while.

It’s so hard to get things done.

I think part of the delay was caused by apparently sharpening the 1/2 inch blade on my router plane slightly out of square. That made the rabbets on the drawer a PITA to get perfectly parallel. In the end, the glue up/nailing took some coercion.

Biggest Rock is Best Rock.

The drawer fits snugly on the sides, with no wracking whatsoever. I imagine it will wear down against the runners overtime , so I set the nails slightly. The vertical fit is not so perfect: about 1/16 inch between the top of the drawer and the underside of the tabletop (due to removing the slight twist in the fully-assembled drawer).

But the balance is good, even when fully-opened.

I don’t have a picture, but the 1/4 inch birch ply drawer bottom fits into a groove I plowed with my router plane. It was also a PITA, but you make due in an apartment woodworking shop with what you have. The router plane fence attachment worked fine, but the fence itself could be wider. I’ll attach a wood extension.

I ultimately decided against adding a veneer to cover the rabbets, partly because of laziness but mostly because the piece will be finished with Milk Paint. I think a base coat of Seagull Grey, a single top coat of Antique White, and some paste wax will do just fine.

It’s a function piece, after all.

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Something Different

On Sunday, I went to lunch with a friend in Fairfield, CT. On my way back to the car, in front of a shop along the strip, there was what I’m calling an antique wine press.

If not antique, then rather well distressed.

Looks pretty old to me.

I found the joinery to be quite interesting. It looks like all the dadoes are hand cut to fit the metal parts and the long rails, and everything is reinforced or secured with through bolts.

Accented stopped chamfers for a bit of flair on an industrial setup.

Also, each of the cross-supports on the top of the frame appear to be mortise-and-tenon joined into the long rails, and then also cinched with long through bolts. I didn’t get a good shot from underneath, so I’m not quite sure how the lower shelf is secured.

You can really see the hand-cut joints from this angle

Does anyone know anything about these? I should have checked for a patent number on the metal part, but I was too focused on the wood joinery.

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