The second time around

As I had mentioned some time ago, I was debating about whether or not to start over on the drawer box sides of the +Tom Fidgen  designed bedside table that I am building for my wife.  I had just replaced a less than stellar $10.00 home center back saw with a pair of Veritas carcass saws.  These sides being wider than the upper rails, I figured the new saws would make a bigger difference here while I could still make use of the narrower upper rails I had previously cut.  And so, with the top and bottom now at the proper thickness, it was now or never.  I wanted to have both sets of rails done and dry fit so than I could take more precise measurements before cutting the top and bottom to length.  And so it began. I cut the lower rails again, to rough length and began the layout and cutting.  I set my marking gauges to the three different measurements required and struck my lines.  To ensure nice finish cuts, I then struck my lines with a chisel and relieved the cut on the waste side of the lines to give my crosscut saw a firm track.

Cut lines struck and relieved on the waste side.

With bench hook in place, I then picked up my crosscut saw and cut the shoulders of my tenons.  The new saws cut so nicely, I had to be careful not to over cut into my tenons.  I left both rails long, so I did the layout and cutting on one end of each, leaving plenty of room to correct any errors on the far end.  Two shoulders cut, time to move to the vise for the cheeks.

Cutting the shoulders.

Being a cautious man, and knowing my limitations, I always leave my tenons a bit thick, I can always fine tune them with a shoulder plane later.  As yet however, I have not found a way to put wood back, short of gluing shims on, which then leads to trimming anyway.

 

Cutting the cheeks.

Again, the new rip saw was a joy to use.  The tracking and accuracy of the cut was amazing.  In the future, as I get better, I am pretty sure I will be leaving less extra thickness on the tenons.  Perhaps it is true that you get what you pay for when it comes to tools (I know, a lesson that I should have committed to memory long ago).

At that point, it was time to clean up.  All of the planing and cutting had produced a decent sized pile of shavings and I had to safely stow all of the tools that remained on and around my bench.

Even clean up is easier in the hand tool shop.

The rest of the night was a blur.  By the time I finished in the shop, my wife and I had to rush to get ready.  Despite a little snow and freezing rain, we had a 30th birthday party to attend.

Happy 30th Steven!

It was a very full day, and we were certainly grateful for so productive and happy of a day.  But, we were also grateful to finally lay down for a good night's sleep.

Next up, some odds and ends and plans for the weekend.  Thank you for stopping by.

 

 

Procrastination comes to an all too brief end

Having tuned up the hand planes, I really had no good reason not to make use of them.  I hadn't worked on the +Tom Fidgen bedside table I am building for my wife since before our snow apocalypse and our winter illnesses.  With the planes ready to go, it was finally time to thickness the board that would become the top and bottom of the drawer box.  My first step was to bevel the edges of the board down to my 1/2" scribe line.  My first several passes would be cross grain, so the chamfer would eliminate a lot of ugly tear out and much smoothing and scraping later on.

This photo shows the chamfers and the first overlapping passes of the jack plane on 2/3's of the board.

I was very happy with the stock removal achieved by my newly cambered jack plane blade.  Certainly the effort required was greater than if I had just plugged in my thickness planer, but so to was the level of fulfillment from doing it by hand.  I took my time and monitored my progress, and the process went along very smoothly, pun intended.  I am relatively new to some of the hand work, learning as I go.  But I will say, I really enjoy the pace of hand work, and more importantly, it is a pleasure.  The sounds of the shop are relaxing, almost meditative.  Good music and the sound of plane, chisel, and saw are much preferable to the whine of electric motors.

Nearing the scribe lines for the finished thickness.

Finished with the jack plane.

 

As I neared the scribe lines, I switched to the jointer plane, also newly ground and honed, taking my passes with the grain.  The results were just as gratifying.  By the time I had flattened the board and brought it down nearly to the scribe line, I was amazed by the finished surface.  A truly sharp blade and focusing on grain direction made the job both easier and a better finished product.

Stock removed, board flattened.

Unfortunately, the photo is a little out of focus, but this is the finished board with no smoothing, scraping, or sanding.

  

 I am certainly not a stranger to hand tools.  In some form or function, I have used them my entire adult life.  But I also realize that I am just beginning the journey of learning.  This will be my first major project completed with only hand tools ( I have done several with mainly hand tools).  I have a lot to learn, but I am having a lot of fun reading, watching, and actually practicing the craft of woodworking.  Each new skill that I acquire makes the journey easier and more productive.  I am also learning that every operation is important and they are all connected.  For instance, sharpening.  I always assumed I had mastered sharpening.  After a few years in my early twenties, believing that chisels came sharpened and stayed sharpened (I laughed typing that), someone set me straight.  Apparently I wasn't alone, because before the internet, it wasn't very easy to locate quality stones.  After much reading, trial and error, and practice, I got pretty good at getting a seriously sharp edge on chisels.  Especially narrower blades.  Enter this newest phase of my woodworking life.  Plane blades.  Yet again, I find myself climbing a little bit of a learning curve.  I probably spend longer than some, and may not be a successful as many more experienced workers.  But I am beginning to see the results of my efforts, and I am greatly enjoying the satisfaction of mastering (or trying to) each new process and procedure.  More importantly, the quality of my work is advancing every time I go into the shop.  I enjoy the work, and I look forward to a lifetime of learning.  That said, if anyone has any suggestions or advice, I would be thrilled to hear from you.  I also hope that you will follow along with my progress as I document my journey here.  And to those of you who work so hard to find time both to work in the shop and blog or produce videos, thank you for sharing.  Your efforts are very much appreciated.

Continuing on the bedside table

Today, I'll pick up where I left off with the last post.  Having successfully executed the dovetail sockets on the top of all four legs, it's time to turn my attention to to the mortises and grooves for the stretchers and drawer box on this +Tom Fidgen design.

Joinery rough cut on the legs.

I started by laying out all of the mortises.  That went quickly and without incident.  I then sharpened my 1/4" mortising chisel and went to town on the upper stretcher mortises.  Again, being pleased with the results, I began on the lower stretchers.  I could have cut the groove the full length of the joint first, and then come back to the deeper mortises.  Instead, I cut the mortises first, thinking that i might then cut the groove between them with the Stanley 45 set up as a plough plane.  The mortises went very smoothly, but, by the time I was ready for the groove, I settled for scoring with a bench chisel and cutting to depth with a router plane.  I think the whole deal turned out fairly well.

Having finished the mortises, I turned my attention to the stretchers themselves, uppers first.  I ripped them to width and crosscut them to rough length.  Planing followed, adjusting the width to finished dimensions and removing all of the saw marks.  I laid out the finished length and tenons with a marking knife.  I then established the shoulders with a two inch bench chisel, relieving a small v-groove on the waste side of the piece and moved in with the back saw to cut the tenons to rough dimensions.  I will tailor each to its mortise later.  Finally, I cut a side bead, top and bottom on each, using the Stanley 45.

Upper stretchers:cut, planed, and beaded.

Same deal with the lower stretchers.  These are wider though, so two tenons connected by a tongue.  And we will forego the beads as these will be dovetailed to the top and bottom of the drawer box.

Lower stretcher:cut to rough dimensions and ready for layout.

Same procedure here as top stretchers: one side finished.

I was able to nearly complete one of the stretchers before I had to shut down for the night.  Today we are expecting snow and/or a mix with freezing rain.  Sounds to me like the perfect day to sequester myself in the shop and hopefully make some major progress on the table.  We will see if my plans stand up to reality.  Wish me luck, and as always, thank you for taking the time to visit, I hope to see you again soon.

Moving forward on the bedside table

In the last post, I planed the legs to size.  Moving forward, it was time to cut the front aprons to rough dimension.  I had previously laid out my cuts on a 1x12 to maximize wood use.  I used my rip panel saw and a couple buckets.

I think my next project should be a sawhorse or two.

Ripping a board on two five gallon buckets is definitely easier than on my bench, as it was made more for assembly and power tool work.  However I did have to remain very conscious of the length of my saw blade and the location of the floor.  Eerily, after I mentioned +Tom Fidgen  yesterday, his second book "The Unplugged Woodshop" (which I had ordered last week) was waiting for me on the porch when I got home.  And, even more eerily, one of the projects presented in the book is a sawyer's bench.  This could be on the agenda very soon, but the book is a wealth of interesting projects.  I may decide to do a simpler saw bench for the time being and try my hand at the kerfing plane or frame saw first, but I digress.

After ripping out the aprons, I crosscut them apart and started laying out the joinery. These aprons will be held in the legs by a housed dovetail recessed in a slight dado.  I cut the notches on both ends, and began laying out the dovetails.

One apron ready to go, the other ready to cut.  In the back left, you can see the dados cut in two of the legs.

The stock was cut to the rough size of the dovetails and then shaped with a bench chisel.  Despite my worst fears, cutting the dovetails really wasn't terribly difficult even considering how soft the pine was.  Once I determined to take my time and be careful, the process really was fairly painless.

Close up of the tail.

Once I got both aprons dovetailed, I moved on to the legs, and a chance to use my new dovetail saw on a real project instead of scrap.  I hadn't ever done half blind dovetails before, so this was going to be a learning experience.  Again, I went slow, cut to my knife-struck lines with the saw and removed waste incrementally with a chisel.  By number four, I am happy to report that I had really gotten noticeably better.  I wish that I had gotten a better picture, but hopefully this will suffice.

Dovetail socket.

 At that point, it was time to call it a night and spend some quality time with the family.  Tomorrow, I will continue on to some more joinery on the legs.

Thanks for visiting .

A long weekend, and another pleasant distraction.

As this past long weekend approached, I got to thinking.  Every morning for the past month, as I got out of bed in the dark to squeeze in a morning walk/jog, I was greeted by the sound of my wife's favorite lamp rocking away on her bedside table.  I certainly don't want to wake her at that unpleasantly early hour.  And more importantly, I really don't want to be the cause of a lamp catastrophe.  The lamp itself is an older one with three or more glass pieces in a metal frame.  I'm sure it's not particularly valuable monetarily, but since she loves it, it deserves a better home than the rickety old department store table it currently lives on.  Ah ha!

About a month ago, I purchased a copy of +Tom Fidgen's "Made By Hand"  Of all the beautiful projects that he chronicled in the book, the one that spoke to me the most (and instantly: the cover photo and the ethic he espouses on his website are the reason I purchased the book) was a small side table.  More importantly, when the book arrived, my wife agreed with my assessment.  I knew that I would build the table eventually.  Enter my early morning revelation about a cheaply made,quasi-wood side table currently inhabiting the space next to her side of the bed.  I knew that the project was beyond my current skill level, but I also knew that I would never gain skill by staying firmly within my woodworking comfort zone.  And it was a long weekend after all.  So a new table went to the front of the line on my bench.

The bulk of the stock that I will need.  And the coffee that I needed to get moving.

I came up with a compromise.  Based on the space that I would have to work with,  my desire to make the table my own, and knowing that this project was a stretch, I decided to make a full scale mock-up out of pine.  This is my opportunity to practice the skills required, work out all of the measurements and joinery, and hopefully finish with a table that will make my wife happy until we can find the perfect wood for the final version.

With my fingers crossed, and my heart in my work, I'll document the journey here.

My legs cut to length.

I was able to find some 2x2's for the legs, so that it wouldn't be necessary to glue up stock.  Of course the final dimension of the legs will be 1 1/4" square, so out came my old Stanley No.8 to plane the legs to finished size.

One leg down, three to go.

During the process, I noticed some issues with the plane.  To make sure that my legs were square and smooth, I checked my scribe lines often, and accounted for any small errors as I went.  That definitely made the process take longer, but I think the slower pace will actually help me achieve better results.  And besides, isn't that one of the reasons we all decided to use hand tools?  Working at a different pace?  Being more in touch with the feel of each piece of wood as the fibers yield to our imagination and take on the shape we envision?  A couple of blisters later, and my legs were all planed to final thickness.

All the stock that wasn't a leg.

In my next post, I'll share the beginning of the joinery.