As I’ve mentioned before, one of the things that keeps me from splurging on new tools is space. Case in point, I’d love to own a plow plane, but I have absolutely no idea where to store the thing so it won’t get dinged constantly.
Maybe I could make a lidded box to keep it safe. Maybe I’ll make a plow plane myself so I don’t care if it gets dinged. Maybe I’ll just suck it up and keep using a compact plunge router.
JPG
I think I first heard the expression when I read the Fellowship of the Ring for the first time as a teenager: “Shortcuts make long delays”. I always took that expression to heart and I try not to cut corners in my woodworking (other than breaking the arrises). Sometimes, though, shortcuts make sense.
For instance, I rarely cut through tenons. Unless they are for a specific design element, or the wood is particularly thin in the first place, through tenons just aren’t necessary They look cool, and I guess a through tenon might add strength in the right situation, but why do the extra work if you don’t have to? For that matter, why cut a full length stub tenon when a shorter stub tenon will do just fine?
Test-fitting the side rails for tight fit between the shoulders and the legs.
On the mini workbench, I had cut some 1.125 inch tenons on the side rails (see above). Then I looked at the thickness of the legs themselves (1.5 inches) and the position of the rails (flush to the underside of the bench) and determined that a .75 inch stub tenon would be more than sufficient. A .75 inch tenon would translate into a mortise that I could chop in a single pass back and forth, saving time overall. So I hacked half an inch off each of the tenons.
It’s not lazy; it’s efficient.
The side rails will still do their job with the shorter tenon (i.e, keeping the legs rigid and square front to back), but that’s more a function of the tight fit between the tenon shoulders and the leg than a function of the dept of the mortise.
Stub tenon or not, that’s a tight, square fit. And yes, I keep my miter box on the floor.
Speaking of shortcuts, I have also decided I’m not going to mortise the front and back rails into the legs. Instead, I will half-lap and screw them into the insides of the legs, mainly because I’d like the ability to remove or re-position the slatted shelf if necessary in the future. Mortising those rails into the legs would make that much harder. Plus, it will save me a bunch of time (and I really enjoy the ease of cutting half-lap joints).
So next time you’re planning out a woodworking project, think long and hard about any available efficiencies. I’m not saying scrap the corner dovetails on your tool chest in favor of nailed rabbet joints (although that would be perfectly fine if done correctly). But I am saying don’t go overboard if you don’t need to do so.
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This weekend, I finally made it up to Vermont to grab the remainder of my lumber and I am so glad I did.
In addition to the reclaimed pine (which I left up there for use in a kitchen table for my mother), I apparently had a sizable amount of hard maple and red oak, some dimensional cherry I had forgotten about and (most amazingly) a couple board feet of 12/4 ash that must have been off-cuts from my dining table project. Not to mention another 40 board feet or so of pine siding off-cuts (more dovetailing practice!). I’m fairly confident that I won’t need to buy any new lumber for a while.
One of the more interesting finds was a set of four, shaped pine legs that were set aside from the bulk lumber.
Super random!
At approximately 23″ tall, I think they were part of an abandoned side table project (which in all likelihood began as shaping practice). I’m happy to re-purpose them (and some of the pine siding off-cuts for rails and tabletop) into a little table. It will be a nice little project for my week off.
JPG
Working on a couple different planing-intensive projects has brought to my attention that I had somehow ground most of my plane irons and chisels out of square. Again, I blame my Work Sharp 3000, which I really like but have never really gotten the hang of fine tuning. If anyone is aware of a how-to for micro-tuning a Work Sharp 3000, please send me the link.
So, the last couple days I have been hand-grinding everything back into square. I had to dust off my coarser diamond plates, as well as a wide-wheel sharpening guide that I’ve had for a long time, but abandoned a while ago when I picked up one of the eclipse-style sharpening guides. My reasoning was the narrower wheel on the eclipse-style guide would make tipping a plane iron (to create a camber) easier. It also apparently made tipping a chisel without realizing it easier.
I also made another bench-hook style holder for my plates because I am sick of wiping slurry off my Milkman’s Workbench.
So going back to the wide-wheel sharpening guide with greater stability makes sense for re-grinding square. I could certainly do it with the eclipse-style guide, but I’d rather eliminate user error altogether (which got me into this mess in the first place).
I do add micro-bevels by hand, though, so there is plenty of opportunity for user error slightly later in the process.
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It’s rather beautiful out today: 50 degrees and rainy. I love Spring in Southern New England. I can turn off the HVAC and leave the windows open and keep everything at a cost-free 66 degrees (this works in Autumn as well).
This morning, though, I woke up with a start to the sound of the wind and rain. I have some fresh lumber acclimating in my apartment and I wondered if the humidity seeping in through the open windows would affect the wood.
Without so much as a Google search, quickly shut everything down tight and went back to bed.
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I’m not immune to mistakes. No one is. Someone once said (I’m drastically paraphrasing) that the sign of an accomplished woodworker is the ability to hide the inevitable mistakes.
Sometimes, mistakes are minor and can be easily corrected. Sometimes, you start chopping mortises on the wrong side of the benchtop for the mini workbench you’re making for your niece and nephew.
Like this time.
I’m fortunate to have left the lamination for the mini workbench a bit thick, so I have some leeway to skim 1/8″ off the other side to clean it up.
I left it a bit rough because it was supposed to be the underside.
So all in all, no harm no foul. And, for the record, no one would ever know, had I not mentioned it.
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It occurred to me the other day that I’ve never actually used the lateral adjustment lever on any of my hand planes. One of the first woodworking videos I ever watched was Super-Tune a Hand Plane by Christopher Schwarz and I guess I got in the habit of doing all blade adjustment by hammer tap.
I think I stole this one from my father’s toolbox.
Given all the smoothing and shooting I’ve been doing lately for the mini-workbench project (both with my No. 4 and my No. 4 1/2), I have gotten quite a bit of practice at resharpening and plane setting. One thing I noticed is that my plane irons were apparently ground out of square (I blame the wide blade attachment on my Work Sharp 3000). After some clean-up in that respect, getting perfect set after a resharpen is much quicker.
I’ve also been more diligent about lubricating the plane sole (see the beeswax above).
It’s the little things, I guess, that increase efficiency.
JPG
Practicing what I preach, I took a few hours off this weekend and hand-prepared some leftover pine paneling for joinery.
Pine paneling off-cuts from my cousin Gary are my main source of casual dovetailing stock.
I forget sometimes what a joy to work generic pine can be. Fluffy, flat-sawn white pine planes nicely, saws easily, shoots smoothly and produces the tightest dovetails I’m capable of cutting (mostly through fiber compression). And any slight cup in the boards definitely presses right out when the dovetails close.
Apparently the lighting makes the pencil marks look like terrible gaps.
The above box is about 18″ x 12″ and will probably serve no real purpose. It’s not the right shape for a bench top chisel case and much too small for any meaningful toolbox, so I will probably just glue and nail it to a base and give it to someone for use as a junk tray (for recent mail and receipts and such).
Even I’m allowed a “look at this thing I made” post once in a while.
I haven’t yet prepared the base, but I’ve got about 24 board feet of select pine for an eventual tool-chest project from which I can borrow when I get some time next weekend. I also need to smoothing plane off the pencil marks and flush the joints, but I’ll get to that next weekend as well.
Come to think of it, I’m going to the Mets game on April 19 (a Matt Harvey start, weather permitting), so maybe it will be the weekend after next.
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A while back, I decided to abandon super fine sharpening stones because my 1200 and 8000 grit diamond plates had worn unevenly and were ruining my plane irons. After much consideration, I have relented and picked up another 1200 grit plate for plane iron sharpening.
I did so not because sharpening only to 600 grit didn’t get the job done. On the contrary, I would defy anyone to notice the difference from a more highly polished iron.
I reacquired a 1200 grit plate because I was removing far too much material during routine sharpening. Even a couple of swipes to dress up an edge was eradicating the slight camber I put on my irons, turning routine sharpening into a grinding-level ordeal. Micro bevels became nigh-impossible and the ruler trick was rendered useless with the heavier grit.
I will say that all my irons are flatter than ever after two months of sharpening only to 600 grit, but I am hoping that the finer stone will bring routine sharpening back to an under-two minute endeavor. And that’s the point, right? Making it easier?
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Sticking with the theme from Michael’s guest spot last week, let’s talk about preparing rough stock for joinery.
One of my most favorite things to do in the world is plane a piece of wood S2S (i.e., Surfaced Two Sides) by hand. Going from rough stock to two perfectly straight, perfectly square sides entirely by hand is such a joy. A face mark, then a square mark and some arrows to indicate grain direction. Onto the next board!
And the pile of boards grows almost as quickly as the pile of shavings.
One of my least favorite things to do in the world is plane a piece of wood S4S by hand. Going from two sides perfectly straight, perfectly square to four square entirely by hand is such a pain. And that is why I still own and often use a thickness planer (it lives at my parents’ house), even though I do mostly hand tool woodworking.
Ready to load into the car.
On thicker stock like the above Douglas Fir which is for a miniature workbench for my niece and nephew (more on that another time), it is so convenient to send the S2S boards through the thicknesser to clean up the remaining sides. Then just a quick smoothing plane to take out any plane marks and I’m good to go. On thinner stock, I’ll actually thickness just one face (making it S3S?) and use the traditional method to square the final side.
Top piece is S4S straight out of the thicknesser; bottom piece is S3S(?) and ready for ripping/final squaring down do the gauge line.
I quickly came to realize that when thicknessing it’s imperative to know grain direction. Tear-out from power planing is so much worse than tear-out from all but the heaviest set hand plane. That’s why I’ve gotten into the habit of indicating grain direction on all my S2S boards. Keeping track of which way to pass a board through the thicknesser can mean the difference between a light pass just to square up a side and having to mill down another 1/4 inch to get to clear grain (or, even worse, having to mill another board entirely).
My thickness planer may be an hour and a half round trip drive away (plus the time for milling), but it ultimately saves me time and frustration. And that is good enough for me.
JPG
The Apartment Woodworker 