Projects

Fetch the Board Stretcher

Happy New Year, everyone! I realized I missed my usual “6am Eastern on New Years Day” post. I think that’s because I went to an actual party and didn’t get to bed right at 730pm like I have for as long as this blog existed. But anyway… 

A while ago, I obtained an old growth slab of what I believe is Slash Pine (one of the species of Southern Yellow Pine) from a reclamation sawmill. It’s about 16 inches wide, 90 inches long, and after flattening is still a solid 3 1/2″ thick. It’s mostly flat at this point, anyway. I actually made an impromptu router sled because it’s so damned hard (the resin long ago crystallized and, between that and the barn grit in the checks, it was eating O1 steel for breakfast). This slab will make a wonderful workbench top once I laminate a fascia board along the front edge and square the ends, though. 

And after I fill all the nail holes and bolt holes with tinted epoxy offscreen.

Another workbench, you say? Well yes, of course. I’ve been working on my 8 foot maple Nicholson which I made in the thick of the pandemic. It’s got the nicest leg vise I’ve made (it’s angled, uses a cog and screw instead of a pin board, and opens and closes very smoothly). But I’m kind of over front aprons again; it makes using bench dogs in the top too difficult, even if the apron is great for edge planing long, wide boards. And I have just the one workbench at home after giving all the others away. A second wouldn’t hurt. 

This new bench will be in the Shaker style, like at Hancock Shaker Village. Leg vise, tail vise, sliding deadman, some drawers underneath. In fact, I’ve already made the leg assemblies. But unlike the Shakers, this bench will knock down (like a Moravian workbench). And I have a linear bearing and a 1 1/2″ hardened steel shaft to use as a parallel guide for the leg vise instead of a pin board (or even a cog and screw or crisscross). McMaster-Carr is the best. 

When making the recess for the linear bearing, though, I didn’t have a good way to make a 2 3/8″ hole. So I chopped it out octagonally. And it was scruffy and didn’t fit well and I had to shim it. All of which ate at my brain and caused me to set the whole project aside for a while. 

I’ve finally come back to it. And it still eats my brain. 

This is just not the quality I’m used to producing.

And what is a fellow to do when a bad bench installation is ruining a good time? Cut the offending portion of the leg off and add some wood back on, of course. About that…

First step was to saw off the offending area and square up the end grain. And also dig out and prepare an offcut of the same species that has a decent grain match. If I had access to a Festool Domino, this would essentially be the end of the process. Four dominos and some glue: Bob’s your uncle. 

My workbench is an absolute mess as I do a few renovations.

But absent a Festool Domino, how does one join two boards, end grain to end grain? Finger joints are probably the best option, because of the large amount of long grain gluing surface. For a hand tool guy like me, that’s essentially a bridle joint. I think in this application, it would be strongest if the mortise was in the remaining leg and the tenon on the added piece. I almost made bridle guides, but that probably would have taken longer than just sawing and paring. 

Now to saw down the sides of the mortise.

Once the mortise was nicely pared to the lines, I roughed out a tenon and finessed it to a friction fit with a router plane. Remember to ease the inner parts of the mortise to leave room for glue on the mating surfaces. A dry fit looked like so:

It was at this point when I realized the offcut was actually from the same board as rest of the leg. Fortuity!

Will a 1″x1″ tenon (with 7/8″ mortise walls) be strong enough for a front leg of a workbench, even with TiteBond Thick & Quick PVA? Fuck if I know. But this is poplar, which doesn’t split easily, so I think I’ll be okay. I plan to add a trio of 3/8 oak pegs as reinforcement along the length of the tenon, which should help. Maybe a couple of metal mending plates too just for luck. But I think it will be strong enough, even without pegs, as long as whatever parallel guide I use for the leg vise doesn’t bear just on the new wood. 

Hopefully I can find the stain I used for the rest of the leg too. 

To be clear, I almost bought a Festool Domino today. But I’m glad I stayed strong and didn’t. Not that having a Festool Domino is bad; I just kind of enjoy doing things the hard way. And I do think this fix is a good solution and should stand the test of time. 

Or not. Fuck if I know. 

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Just Right

Things are weird right now. Well, now and for like the last couple of fiscal quarters. But one of my happy places is casual dovetailing with whatever scraps I have hanging around. Often, that casual dovetailing ends up in a toolbox which gets gifted to a friend or loved one. This one, though, I’m keeping for myself.

Why does everything look like a casket?

This particular tool chest is for outside woodworking, so one of the important things is making sure the rot strips hold up. So I went to the MAX with some sort of plastic that is used in boat building. They’re pretty slick when sitting on engineered surfaces, but they work great on grass and concrete. Plus they (and the stainless screws) will never rot away.

That’s a lot of nails!

The inside of the chest is pretty utilitarian; essentially, it’s a gentleman’s chest. The well is big enough for both a No. 7 and a No. 4 or No. 5 bench plane, and the saw till holds one back saw (a carcass saw) and one hand saw (a modified Simmonds that I cut 4″ off the toe and re-toothed at 11tpi rip cut). I also added a sliding till for holding chisels and marking tools, although a combination square sits on top of the saw till at the back of the well.

I actually use my Narex spare chisels and my Veritax spare carcass saw.

All in all, I think I’ve hit the right balance with this tool box. Some prior versions didn’t quite work out, for various reasons. But this one is easy to carry, holds the right amount of tools, and best of all, it used up the last of my Driftwood paint from General Finishes and cleaned out some of the scrap pile. I didn’t get a good shot at it, but I also got to use a few pieces of scrap cherry as battens along the edges of the lid to keep it flat.

The lid is the nicest piece of pine in the entire build.

So if you’re wondering why it’s been so long since I last posted, it’s because I’m rather displeased with the new wordpress blocks system. They’ve removed some basic functionalities that I’ve relied on since the beginning and it’s so dumbed-down it’s clearly meant for non-facile folks. It takes far longer to do basic posts and I’m really sick of it. They even got rid of the click only autofill on tags. It’s fucking bullshit.

If anyone has a recommendation for another platform, let me know.

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In Praise of Dadoes

Sometimes it feels like the only joinery I cut is dovetails.  A distant second to dovetails are dadoes (a/k/a housing joints).  And the mortises and tenons I cut for the ash sitting bench felt like the first I’d done since building my workbench, and the first for furniture in years.  I

n my view, dadoes are the easiest (and most satsifying) joint to get right.  You can even cut the dado overly-tight and later fix the mating piece to fit.  The thunk of a fully-seated housing joint is a beautiful thing.  And it can be a very strong joint, in the presence of glue or nails (or both).  

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An overly-tight joint works quite well in compressible pine.

Whenever possible, though, I will use a stopped dadoes for the show face of a piece.  A through-dado is just fine if it won’t be seen (either on the back of the carcase or covered by a face frame) or the piece isn’t fine furniture.  But on the show face, a through-dado looks too much like a mortise haunch to me.  No matter how perfect it is, I’d rather have the clean shoulder line.

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Isn’t a dado pretty much a shallow mortise with a shoulderless tenon, anyway?

The trickiest part, I find, is the act of fitting the mating piece into the final joint.  Boards can cup between dimensioning and assembly.  Driving a cupped board into a straight dado is a recipe for brusingt the surrounding face grain.  To combat this, I clamp on a caul to flatten the mating piece.  After it’s seated, the dado itself will hold the board flat.

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Dovetails typically do this work without need for a caul.

On an unrelated note, I’m deciding on whether to paint the wall cabinet before I glue it together.  I wouldn’t normally, but I’m using latex (not milk) paint for this one.  So working out the kinks on the underside of the bottom board before assembly is probably a good idea.

Probably.

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Needing Something More

It’s a magic thing.  Starting from 7 linear feet of home center 1×12 eastern white pine. Adding the plane, the saw and the chisel.  Then ending up at the finished piece.  In this case, a 14″ x 30″ x 7.25″ wall cabinet, with through-dovetails at the corners and stopped dadoes for the shelf.  It is as perfect as I am capable of making.

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And perfect for hiding in a bathroom corner behind a door!

But it looks a bit plain to me.  I can only imagine how drab it will be when painted grey to match the vanity in the bathroom.  Rather than shape the sides, though, I may spruce it up with small molded face frame.  Or perhaps just an applied moulding on the shelf.  In any event, something I can do with moulding planes.

It feels like everything I make is square and flat.  Maybe it’s time I learn to cut compound dovetails.

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A Brief Flashback

My post the other day reminded me that I never actually posted this.

Once upon a time, as a supplement to my Milkman’s Workbench, I made what I called a “planing slab”.  It was 6 feet long, 13 inches wide and about 2 inches thick (after several flattenings), with a Veritas Inset Vise on one end.  It clamped to my dining table with angle iron, just like the Milkman’s Workbench.  And now, it has reached its full potential.

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Yes, that’s a second Japanese-style saw horse as well.

I had always meant to add a cleat to the underside so it could function like a Japanese-style workbench.  Nothing fancy, like the sliding dovetail shown in the source material.  Just dado and glue.  I used PVA, so I’m pretty sure it’s permanent.

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So tight, it needed clamp persuasion to seat.

The most important thing I’ve learned in this process is that the coefficient of friction on douglas fir is not significant.  A layer of adhesive-backed sandpaper on the underside of the slab in front of the cleat or (better yet) on the tops of both sawhorses does wonders to keep the slab in place.  A couple of F-style clamps holding the cleat tight against the front saw horse also work.

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Holy Roman Hurricane Nuts

If you haven’t picked it up yet, I highly recommend Roman Workbenches, published by by Lost Art Press. I don’t have a suitable board at the moment, so I plan to scour the home center for a nice 2×12 (either 14 or 16 feet) and give one a try. I’ve never made a staked bench before, but after the Mortise and Tenon Magazine roman workbench build along, I’m inspired.

In the meantime, I did add a little Holy Roman magic to my existing workbench, in the form of a hurricane nut for the crochet screw.

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I never did remove the old vise nut from the failed face vise.

It was a fun exercise in shaping, and it’s pretty symmetical.  All while posing a smaller chance of damaging my nether regions. The screw spins freely (with a generous helping of beeswax) and clamps down tightly.  I’ve actually been using it as my main vise for some small dovetailing.

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Way less pokey.

Also, the bullet catches for the DIY bench dogs finally arrived, and although I was a little off in my drilling, they work just fine.  Using the dogs, though, made me realize that I need one more holdfast hole, on the far left of the bench.  I conveniently have one more bullet catch and some extra dowel.  Crazy how that works out.

But more on that another time.

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Something Borrowed, Something Blue

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably already seen the finished crochet.  I’m very pleased with how it came out.  The screw holds like crazy and the EWP wedge doesn’t seem redundant.  But if I could do it again, I’d screw the wedge in from the outside.  I’ll have to remove the crochet to replace the wedge.

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Still no screw handle.

I struggled a bit with the placement of the crochet relative to the rest of the bench.  I finally settled on centering the screw over the leg, so the screw functions an awful lot like a shoulder vise.  Holdfasts in the leg, at 9 1/2″, 16″ and 22.5″ below the benchtop, respectively, support the work.

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I used 6″ 3/8 lag screws, and I think I burnt out my cordless drill in the process.

I did not incorporate a sliding deadman into this bench and I’m starting to think I should have.  I could retrofit one or make a moving deadman that locates on dog holes in the lower stretcher.  But I have another, more elegant solution in mind.  I need to do some patent research first.

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As of right now, I’d need a clamp to keep the right side from sagging.

All in all, I’m calling this one a win. It works.  I didn’t waste any materials.  And it didn’t take that long to throw together.

Now to make that screw handle.

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That was Easy!

So it only took about an hour to knock together the bulk of the new crochet.

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Still haven’t made that screw hub.

Before I bolt it to the benchtop, however, I’d like to test a theory.  Crochets without screws work via a wedging action.  Even though mine has a screw, I’d still like to test out a wedge.  So I’m making a softwood insert.

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This is not the actual insert, but you get the idea.

I’ll likely just nail the wedge in place.  If it works, great.  If not, I’ll pry it out.  And when it wears out, I’ll pry it out and replace it.  And wear out, it will, because it’s Eastern White Pine, a species I picked over Douglas Fir because it won’t mar the work.

Does any of this sound crazy?  It’s starting to feel crazy.

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Getting on with it

Having admitted defeat, it only took me a little while to literally and figuratively pick up the pieces.  After salvaging the wooden peg on the failed face vise for use as another wooden screw, I had a choice: put the jaw aside for a rainy day, or use it right away.  Well, you know what they say: nothing gets the blood flowing like hand-ripping American hard woods of greater than 2″ thickness.

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Or, whatever.

I ended up with a board that is 3.25″ wide, 18.25″ long and 2″ thick.  A single pass through the thicknesser to clean up the saw cut and all that’s left is to cross cut it and glue it up.

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I’ll figure something out for the board with the holes.

What am I making, you ask?  I’m making that crochet, with the wooden screw.  Like I should have the first time before wasting five hours on a face vise that doesn’t hold.

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So far I’m at about 30 minutes, including the ripping.

All that’s left to do (after easing the corners) is drill and tap the hole in the beam and pre-drill for the lag bolts which will mount it to the face of the benchtop.

I’ve got a surprise planned for the hub on the wooden screw.  Much more understated than the last time.

But that will have to wait for now.

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Glamour Shots

Does anyone remember glamour shots?  Those airbrushed-to-all-hell personal photos that could make anyone look good?  They were like the Barbara Walters interview of photos.  I’m sure they still exist, because human vanity still exists.

I ask for a very specific reason (and the title of this post is not arbitrary).  I finished the front vise on my new workbench.  And it’s beautiful.

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Soft focus and natural light only.

Aesthetically, it’s everything it’s supposed to be.  The lines are clean, the color match on the jaw and hub are fantastic, and the walnut handle offers a nice contrast.  And look how perfectly it cinches down to the benchtop!

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There is even a bit of wain to give it a rustic look.

But looks aren’t everything.  Truth is: the vise doesn’t work very well.  There is too much play in the maple guide peg, so the vice wracks in all directions.  It works okay with wide stock that can sit on the screw and the peg while I work an edge, but it’s useless for cinching narrow pieces at the top of the jaw.  It also works okay as a crochet for very wide stock that extends below the bottom of the law, but the maple peg wedges itself in the guide hole (like a holdfast) and it’s a pain to free up.

Could I find a metal collar to tighten the guide hole, or otherwise fiddle with it some more, and make the vise work better?  Probably.  Will I?  No.  It’s a sunk cost at this point.  I can re-purpose the jaw for something else and there is nothing wrong with the screw (although I would bet the hub gets trimmed down before it sees use again).  There’s a reason the vise nut is attached to the bench with only hide glue.

One of the hardest things in woodworking, and in life generally, is admitting failure and moving on.  My attempt at a completely wooden front vise has failed.

My heat gun and I are moving on.

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