C'est finis

So the saw till got emptied and I tried to get it down. I failed.

That's not strictly true. If I'd worked at it a bit, I could have done it. If I'd been taking it down or moving it permanently, I would have done it. But when I knew I'd only be putting the thing up again? Nope. I decided to take a risk and hang the doors while the thing was still on the wall.

Three tools made this possible.

1. The Yankee #41 push drill I got from Pennyfarthing Tools in 2008 shortly before I dropped off the face of the woodworking world. It's a thing of wonder and brilliance and I love it madly. Why was it ever let go out of production? It leaves the unwieldy bulk of a cordless battery-powered drill standing. Wonderful device.
2. The flat-topped saw horse (Yet again) on which I was able to stand in comfort and security while I did the job. I have yet to be convinced of the benefit of the traditional narrow-topped saw horse in the workshop. If you're hauling it about on site, yeah, maybe, but wide tops rule here at Alf Towers.
3. The Yankee #135 ratchet screwdriver. They weren't as popular as sliced bread for nuffink, you know.

Every other tool cabinet I've drooled over has put piano hinges on the outside like this, so I went with it. Easy to fit. Yeah, in an ideal world a little rebate to take it would be preferable, but planing a rebate vertically up the side of the till didn't appeal, oddly enough. It looks okay anyway, so that's the main thing.

As a bonus, the depth of the till is just right to take the bow saw, so a couple of brass cup hooks went in for the purpose while I was up there.

Things moved on apace towards the oft-distant finishing line, and taking pictures went out of the window in favour of just getting it done. I almost decided to declare it finished without any door knobs, on the principle that I'd do those later. Then I remembered I still have two doors and two drawers that I have to prise open with my fingers because of a declaration like that, so I decided to bite the bullet and finish every last thing. Another scrap of old window frame was duly found from which to turn a couple of door knobs. First turning for a long time, and an uncooperative tailstock and slightly dodgy grind on the spindle gouge conspired to make it take at least twice as long as it should have. But the end result isn't as bad as it looked like it was going to be at one stage... And yup, I'm afraid electrons were sacrificed for that. No treadle lathe about my person, unfortunately.

I believe I've mused before on the way the fiddly little bits seem to take almost as long as the major stuff? Well holders for certain select saws took a while. By all means imagine me cutting them out with bow saw and coping saw and fairing the lines with rasp and file. Imagine away. Unfortunately I forgot I was being hand tool biased and used bandsaw and drum sander. Sorry, sorry, sorry... I indulged in some fun making different styles of turnbuckle - purpleheart from the scraps box. (Not sure that's what I should call them, to be honest. What's the right word?) and I did use the coping saw for them, if that helps at all.

And there we are. First fielded panelled doors, and first go at making a pair of doors meet in the middle. It's far from perfect - the camera is a happy co-conspiritor in deception - but it doesn't look half bad.

Open sesame!

Another first - using rare earth magnets as door catches. The jury's out at the moment, but we'll see.

Anyway, at last the Wenzloff saws have a proper home where they can be seen - instead of two of them dwelling in their boxes, forever at risk of damage - and all of them hiding their good looks from the appreciative woodworker. Plus there's room for another one, methinks. ;) Even the flush cut saw that did such sterling work with the draw bore pegs has a hook to live on. What an improvement.

So, 'tis done. Even by my standards it's been with me a long time, this quick workshop project. Learnt some things, tried some things, definitely a better woodworker now than I was when I started. And that was its purpose, why it wasn't slapped together with ply and screws in a weekend - although that became a mighty tempting idea once or twice. That and housing all those saws of course. Let us not talk of the other half a dozen on pegs elsewhere, for whom there is no room.

Next up, the bench. Except I'm wondering if first I won't move that tenon saw holder up just a tad. Looks a little low, now I come to see it in photo form...

sTill not done

After a certain amount of Real Life getting in the way, I finally got to levelling up the frames. After trying the Chinese #3 - which made lovely floaty shavings but was too slow; then the #5 1/2 - which was quicker, but then (Aaargh) managed to turn one stile into tear out city on the last pass (Why is it always the last pass?); I turned to a York pitch via the BUPP, known to the rest of the world as the Lee Valley Veritas Low Angle Jack. I love that plane. Honestly, it'll be the #5 1/2 in one hand and the BUPP in the other when they come to put me six feet under. Do I like 2 1/4" wide irons in a jack plane-sized plane? Yessir, I do indeed.

Anyway, the BUPP breezed through the job. Yes, so I had to remove a fraction of rust from it with one of those excellent Garryflex blocks first (it's been a while, for heaven's sakes), but you'd never know. Which is good, because someone with a rusty BU jointer on WoodNet ended up being sent a replacement body by El Presidente, and nothing will get me tapping another hole in a BU jack body just because some Canadian dude takes customer service to extremes like that. Nosir. ;) Anyway, whispy shavings, flush joints, wipe on a speck of shellac, yadda yadda:

So the rails are rather more noticeably different that I'd expected, but that may be partially because the panels aren't as noticeably stripy as I'd expected. In other words I'd assumed the whole thing would look like the patchwork it is, and instead it's not nearly as bad as it should be. But no matter, press on regardless.

Except now I have the twin horrors of

1. Emptying the saw till in order to take it down to fit the doors. And...
2. Hanging doors.

I don't like hinges. In truth I've not had much chance to acquire the taste for them, but the limited experience I do have is not encouraging. I have an indecent amount of piano hinge, so that's going to damn well get used, no matter what. Other than that, my plan is... fluid. If anyone has any wise words on the matter before I start, the comments box awaits you with open arms. No rush - I can feel myself hitting a wall of prevarication... (ETA: Or, as a commenter notes, perhaps I meant procrastination. Knowing me, I may well yet manage to indulge in both ;)

Draw Bore Bore

Caution: Many pictures and musings follow - not all of them necessarily relevant to the main event. For a no-nonsense guide to draw boring, see either Woodworking Magazine Autumn 2005 (also available in book form) or the Forgotten Hand Tools DVD.

Right, first let me be quite clear about this; I've never done this before. Not even a practice joint. This whole project is one great big practice. And yes, I was bricking it. I came very, very close to just saying "Drawboring? Never heard of it. Pass me the Titebond and a shedload of clamps and we'll speak no more of such madness."

But I didn't. Instead I scanned and printed the one page summary of the steps, pinned it up on the wall over the bench for easy reference, offered up the necessary incantations to the tool gods, and...

...did the first door without taking a single pic. I focused on the job, and I think I was better for it. Took one corner at a time, concentrated, and then took the risk of taking pics of the process for the second door.

So, first up I set the ever-present 4" double square to 3/8" and marked off where the pegs would end up going in the stiles. Then I got out the Stanley #803 hand drill, AKA eggbeater or wheel brace. Being as how I wasn't quite the novice I was before the first door, I realised ganging up the stiles and doing all the holes in them in one go made sense. If I'd have an off-cut long enough to act as backer to limit the breakout on the reverse, I could even have dispensed with having to move them and reclamp for the other end. But I didn't, so I had to. No great hardship, to be honest.

Now the #803 and I go back a long way. Approximately 28 years in fact. Not this 803 though; this one was left behind in the house my brother moved into, and he passed it on to me in a pretty sorry state. I cleaned it up, replaced the gear wheel with one from a 803 that was only good for parts, refinished all the woodwork, and quite honestly I think he then rather regretted giving it to me... No, the 803 I used in my formative years was my dad's - he still has it in his ready-use toolbox - and I spent many an hour boring pretty aimless holes in scraps of wood at the bench in the garden shed. Up 'til now I was pretty sure I had nothing to show for those hours, except the long-gone shirts forever marked with the tell-tale marks of the gear wheel. Not so. It was only quite late on in this boring adventure that I realised I hadn't checked to see if I was boring at right angles, so I checked. I was. It had come quite naturally to me, like knowing my times tables. Both habits were painfully learnt at an early stage and both, apparently, stick with me still. It was a good omen.

Please take note of the carefully set out tools for the job in the background. Watch as they become less and less organised...

Now the march of the metricated system being what it is in this fair land, I didn't have a 1/4" brad point about my person and had to use a jobber bit instead. Not a problem really, as long as you punch the point you want to start the drill at to discourage it from wandering, but not helpful for marking the centre of the bored hole on the tenon. I pondered, then remembered I had an extra long brad point bit of 1/4" that I've used on the lathe. Bingo! Hopeless for actually drilling the hole, but ideal for marking the tenons - which I duly did.

Then following the instruction, I marked the off-set at 1/16" to 3/32". I started at 1/16" on the first joint, but it didn't seem quite enough, so went to a bare 3/32". I think, in hindsight, maybe a full 1/16" might have been better. Could I really be that accurate? Well... Oh, all right, probably not. A girl can dream.

Whacking in a punch at the appropriate point, I drilled the tenons on the rails. The oak scrap back-up reduced the breakout a bit.

The anxious woodworker, hoping not to mess up. You can tell that by the perspiration...

Behold, the off-set hole. Looks quite a lot, don't it? Yeah, I was worried.

Enter the coachbuilder's drawbore pin. Honestly, I have to ask - why are they made with the handle in line like a chisel? It works a treat with a T-handle, and surely it's easier and cheaper to produce a short square shank? Oh well, no matter. I'm very happy with this design, and will clean up the others ASAP.

Gratuitous shot of how tight that shoulder is...

The knife came out to taper the ends of the pegs a little more. Note how less organised those tools are getting...

Because the pegs weren't all as round at the end as I'd have hoped, I didn't whack them all the way through, but rather trimmed them off on both sides. Cue the flush cut saw from Lee Valley. Long-time readers may remember that the arrival of two lovely Wenzloff & Sons saws was accompanied by this saw. It kind of got overlooked in the Oooo-Ahhh stuff and I really haven't had cause to use it since I got it anyway. It was bought solely on the basis that it was the one that won the test in Woodworking Magazine. Oh, and because every other one I've tried has been a disappointment; to such an extent that I resorted to cutting things flush with a backsaw and spacer, and trimming back (a lot) with a chisel.

Well once I'd got in the way of keeping the blade flush and stopped trying to move my thumb with the action of the saw, I positively flew through the job.

It did exactly what it's supposed to do and needed just a light pare flat - and that only because I like doing it. Not a mark on the surrounding wood. Wonderful. I like this saw very much indeed.

So the panel was slipped into the frame, and I hope to goodness I allowed enough room for expansion. If the thing's gonna explode, it'll have done it today, 'cos it's been wet enough to make me wonder about a change of career to ark building.

Anyway, the other joints were finished up and I had a second complete door on my hands. With horns. Those were sawn off with the half-back (Have I mentioned how much I'm coming to like that saw lately?) I really need to work on my photo backdrops though; not nearly enough olde worlde wooden floorboard and strategically-placed tool chests and workbenches in the background. Those buckets are my rubbish bins, for heaven's sakes. And the Maxi's just, well... rubbish.

So did you notice the missing ingredient? No glue. Yup, I didn't glue the joints. It's another opportunity to experiment, so I thought "Why not?" Everything seems as tight as a drum, and it reduced possible complications quite a bit. We'll see if I come to regret it. Or thank my foresight if, even now, those panels have exploded everything...

Anyway, drawboring. I like it. I can see why it fell out of favour, it being an extra step that took time and was largely unnecessary as adhesives have improved. It's also decidedly "country" in style. I can think of quite a few woodworkers who'd absolutely do their nut about the slight gaps I've got on the off-side of some of the peg holes. On the other hand I needed no clamps, I could have gone onto the next stage of cleaning up with a smoothing plane straight away if I'd been so inclined, and there's something very satisfactory about a mechanical joint like that. I'll certainly be doing it again. Oh, and kudos to Chris Schwarz - I followed his article and got the right result first time, even allowing for operator error (i.e. Me). That speaks for itself really.

Preparation

Heavens, but I hate preparation. Scraping and sanding the panels was excessively tedious - and it may be that I wasn't quite as diligent with it as I usually am. I started out with the best of intentions, but that mix of *cough* "mahoganies" is a bugger to scrape. Or rather some of it will, but other bits simply won't. And suddenly it dawned on my the things are riddled with old screw and nail holes anyway, so I laid down my tools at "good enough". It pained me, it really did, but I will get this project finished this year come hell, high water and a little bit of tear out.

While a coat or two of shellac was doing its thing, my mind turned to planning ahead to putting the things together. In the continued spirit of using this project to do things maybe I haven't done before, I bethought me to try this drawboring lark that The Schwarz is so keen on. I applied myself to the article on same in Woodworking Magazine from Autumn 2005 (Really five years ago? How can it be?!) and cast my eye over the relevant bit of the Forgotten Hand Tools DVD.

Then watched all the rest of the DVD, just because.

Primed and ready - and once again wondering about asking the Glasgow Nail Co. for a quote on some cut nails - I fished an ideal piece of straight-grained oak out of the scraps box to make some pegs. It's very dry, must have been in there at least as long as that WM article is old, and probably survived at least three scrap throwing-out sessions. It was meant to be.

Lopped off some suitable lengths with the 13.5 ppi back saw that came with the wrong but wonderfully comfortable handle that I tried to replicate and failed. As saws go, it's a total dog. Cuts beautifully. Then used the wide Chinese chisel I have handy in the rack to split off the embryonic pegs. Yes, they look weird as all hell, but actually it's a pretty nifty chisel.

Point one end with a knife, then to the LN dowel plate (You can hear the teeth of the anti-posh-tool folks grinding from here). I've had it for years, it's proved useful, I'm glad I have it. Anyway, I started with the 5/16in hole first, then to the final 1/4in size. Worked a treat.

Of course I really also need a draw bore pin too, if I'm to do the job properly. Luckily no pound notes need be harmed in fulfilling that need, as I managed to actually find the coachbuilder's draw bore pins from the set of tools I picked up a couple of years ago. And yes, I'm absolutely sure that's what they are now; the taper seems to correspond with Joel Moskowitz's description here. There's a pair in one size and a single one that's slightly smaller. I opted to clean that one up for the job.

The (obviously user-made) handles on the other two were a little loose, and I was able to shift the pin a little and found a clear maker's name - W Baker, London. A scan of my usual sources found nada, zip, zilch, nowt. Nothing daunted, I bethought me of the trade directories that are online. A few happy hours spent perusing same and in the 1884 Business Directory of London found a William Baker of 96 Pembroke Street off Caledonian Road listed as a tool dealer. And a needle maker. And as an awl maker. I believe that's our boy. Happily the dates ties in with many of the other tools too. Huzzah.

Now to see if it'll do the job, and whether T-handles don't make rather more sense for the task - which, in theory, I'd have thought they must do.

Panel Games

And off we go again. What? You didn't think I'd suddenly get a job done in a couple of weeks that's taken over three and a half years to get this far, did ya? We like to really savour a project here at Alf Towers...

For the panel gauge enthusiasts (and it seems to be something of a niche interest) I can report I instinctively ending up pulling it, and that fluid design of stock seems to lend itself to all sorts of grips. I like it, but as I thought, the beam is too heavy. But it worked, and that's the main thing.

As hoped, a combination of cutting to width and length eliminated most of the worst areas of screw and dowel holes. Still a few left, but we'll call that "character". If I was loaded and stupid I daresay I'd be paying someone extra to add them to something in MDF.

Talking of three and a half years - it's not quite that from thought to action, but the panel raiser finally had its change to shine. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't brilliant. The fence still needs tweaking; a more comfortable rear grip is rather an urgent necessity; and the reversing grain I encountered suggests that a pair of panel raisers isn't necessarily a luxury.

I also need to work on the nicker it seems, but nothing that can't be cleaned up. And it was something of a buzz to see the profile appearing so uniformly. An element of smug "I done dat" might have crept in...

A bevel on the reverse side (done by eye, and leaving me wondering how a non-plane-user would have done it) and - blessed relief - the panels fit in their designated homes.

A certain amount of scraping and sanding required before I can finish them (Did I mention the grain reversal?) but it's all starting to come together. In fact I'm going to have to stop putting off thinking about how I'm going to hang them. Bugger. I hate hinges...

In other news, a few updates to the website, and rather overdue at that. Please check the homepage for details.

Seeing double

Right, second panel planed up and garnet shellac applied (don't want any mad difference in colour or nuffink by failing to do to one what I did to the other, do I?). If you look at the far edge, you can see where it does wonders for dealing with a rather dismally grey area of timber. You can also get an idea of the screw/nail hole issues mentioned before. If I plan sensibly, the majority of them will be cut off or planed away. If I cock it up, don't be surprised...

And both panels offered up to the saw till. Orientation is subject to change depending on a) Changing my mind, and b) Making a mistake when I finally make up the doors.

So next step will be to cut and plane them to size, and then find the panel raiser. Hmm, that might be fun...

Meanwhile, thank you for all the comments and suggestions on the workbench. I may not be saying much, but I'm soaking it all up and inwardly digesting. Keep 'em coming, if you have 'em.

Shavings!

The astute reader might have noticed that, while this blog is now active again, it's been lacking in what you might describe as an essential ingredient. There are generally four of them in this blog, in no particular order (except, possibly, frequency):

1. Rust
2. Indecision
3. Whinging
4. Woodworking

The first three have all been present and correct, but actual torture of dead tree? Not one jot. Well I finally decided I'd had enough of Nos.1-3 inclusive and woodworking had to happen, and soon. As it happens I dropped out of the Wunnerful World of Woodworking in the middle of a project. You'll need a long memory for this one - the last meaningful entry on the subject was in January 2008.

Mind you, the first entry on it was in January 2007...

Ha-hum. So putting aside the maturity of said project, have you got it yet? Yes, it's the saw till. What's that? You assumed I'd finished that off during the ensuing years months? How little you know me. Should you need to refresh your memory of The Story So Far, click on the "saw till" tag at the bottom of the post and it'll bring up all the relevant posts for your delectation and delight. Or, in my case, mild horror. Go on, I'll wait.

While we're waiting, I'll show the other reader my new workshop dustpan and brush.

Funky, no? And, amazingly, made in England. I know! Gasp!

Oh, are you back? Right, so up to speed. Frames for the doors made, panels for same glued up in the ever-delightful Plano Clamps. And there they've been ever since, until now. First step - check the workbench is still reasonably flat using the extremely useful Veritas aluminium straight edge. It is. Huzzah. (Oh, and let's keep a tool count going here, just for fun. Thus - 1)

Next step; lose the worst excess of stock to reduce my planing exertions. It's a trifle warm in the w'shop, as ever in the summer months, so this is wise. Strike a knife line across both ends to ensure a clean cut - combination square and marking knife (2 & 3). Then onto the saw horse with it (4) and just for kicks and giggles get out the Wenzloff & Sons half-back (5).

This is me using it in cloaked mode... Look, it's a beautiful saw, you really don't want to ruin the composition with a rather warm woodworker in a galoot hat, trust me.

Now looking back in this blog (which I had to do as I went through it tagging all those saw till posts) I was reminded that I wasn't much grabbed by the half-back when it originally arrived chez Alf. Its looks, I liked; in use, not so much. Well, I must have been in the wrong frame of mind or the burr needed taking off the teeth or something, 'cos I like it just fine now. Just fine. Gerroff,-it's-mine fine. Grrrrrr.

It's going to have to be a really big coffin with all the tools I intend taking with me...

Where was I? Oh, yeah, right. So next we plane. This is a task for a jack, and a dash of ingredient No.3 rears its ugly head. Which jack plane? Oh my, the indecision. I looked at the panel - little bit of a step at the glue line, but nothing major. I rule out the razee jack with the aggressive camber quite early on; that'll just generate more work. Low angle jack then? Well yes, except I think it's currently got the shooting iron in it and I'm not 100% sure I know exactly where the other ones are just at the moment. The Stanley #5 1⁄2 with the 2 1⁄4" iron from the toolchest it is then.

I haven't really looked at this plane for, well, years. I was taken aback a bit; it's really not in terribly great shape. I'd forgotten I'd had the mend the crack in the rear tote, the sides and sole are pitted quite a bit, there's only about 30% of the japanning left and the lateral adjuster is loose and floppy. But it has a Hock replacement iron, that repaired rear tote virtually throws itself into your hand it's so comfortable, and its proportions are just right. I'd actually forgotten how much I love this plane

So sprinkling hearts and flowers to left and right, I fell in love with it all over again. We'll probably be fixing a date soon... Oh, and that's 6.

Look, ma, top of the worl- er, I mean - Shavings!

At this point I found myself greatly comforted, because it all came back to me like I'd never been away. This was by no means guaranteed and I didn't much relish the thought of re-learning it all again. But nope, I overlapped my strokes, I roughly checked the panel was flat across the width with the edge of the plane, I used the flat workbench top to do the rocking test to ascertain where the twist might be. Folks, I even remembered where my winding sticks were! (7)

As an added bonus, in the intervening time of course the wood had changed colour, giving me a ready indication of where the low spots were.

On the other hand, I had to make sure I didn't confuse them with the marks left by the bars of the clamps. A disadvantage of the intervening months...

Enjoying myself as I was, I may have got carried away and finished both sides of one panel with the Quangsheng #3 (It was on the bench - it seemed churlish to spurn it. And that makes 8) and maybe I happened to have some garnet shellac flakes dissolving in some meths, and maybe I might have just wiped a quick coat on for the hell of it, and maybe I offered the panel up to the saw till just to get the vaguest idea of how it might look.

And maybe I stepped back, looked at it, and saw that it was good. Despite all the old screw holes, dowels, etc...

Then I swept up the mess (9, 10 & 11 - broom, dustpan and aforementioned funky brush), dusted off the planes (12 - L-N-a-like dusting brush), sharpened the irons (13 & 14 - two stones, no honing guide) and gave them a wipe with some camellia oil because they'd earned it.

Then I went in for a drink, 'cos I reckon I'd earned that. And no, it wasn't camellia oil.

Modicum of chuffidness

Now I did warn you that the door panels are turning out to be a little on the Technicolor side of things, didn't I? No danger of missing the join lines on these babies... Actually the colour's a bit off - very poor light over the weekend.


The only thing to be said for them is that at least they'll match - each other... I tried all sorts of combinations, but this worked out as the best way to avoid as many of the old nail holes as possible. Hey, it might look good - who knows? I'm not really that fussed about it, to be honest. 

However, that's the extent of my progress on the doors. The combination of having to go up country on Thursday, plus a hefty dose of The Voice of Conscience arriving in the inbox on Friday afternoon, means it'll be shelved until next week now. Given that I wouldn't be able to get the panels planed up, moulded, finished and fitted in the time available, it seemed a bad idea to get some of it done, only to leave a big gap before completion, during which time the wood would probably move again.

Perhaps unusually, my Voice of Conscience had a Canadian accent and enquired how things were going with the article I'd volunteered to do. Ack. What was I thinking? Never volunteer! But the deed was done in a moment of weakness, and I've been dragging my heels ever since for one reason or another. This is a Bad Thing and my guilty conscience was warbling in my ear about it as well. So I bit the bullet and managed to get the practical part done while the first panel was going off in the clamps. Workshop multi-tasking, I hear you ask? I know; virtually unheard of. The theory was typed up while the second panel was in the clamps, proving that my usual output is pitifully small for the amount of time spent.

But fear not; it wasn't all efficiency. Possibly only I could get side-tracked from a side-track, but I managed it. I devoted considerably more time and effort to an aspect of the article than it warranted. It'll probably not even make it into the finished product, but nevertheless I took the time to cut my first mitred dovetail. Not secret mitred, I hasten to assure you - I'm not insane. No, one where the end dovetail is mitred at the end to either conceal a groove, to run a moulding round uninterrupted, or just for neatness.


As ever, my dovetail guru is Mr Rob Cosman; in this case his "Advanced Handcut Dovetails" DVD. I did exactly what he said and here's the result:

Allow me a little modicum of chuffidness. I've been putting off trying this joint for ages, terrified of the mitre, and I confess I came over all smug when it went together so well. (I'll probably pay for that smugness with 2 or 3000% interest soon enough) I'd show you the join on the edge too, but the pic was out of focus. No, really! Honest! Look, I'll take another one tomorrow and prove it, okay?

Edit: as promised.


And yes, it is the same joint. I amputated it to free up the remaining board length for other things.

And before you ask, I don't think "chuffidness" is a word either, but what the heck. For non-Brits, a definition of the root may help. Or maybe not...

The slipper fits

Okay, looks like I can get away without a major design opportunity, so pressing on with trimming and fitting the tenons. Thought I'd have a shot at the router method - no, not that kind of router. When I've come this far? How dare you... There's a design or two out on't net for "tenon routers" that basically put a great big base on the thing, the idea being that you heave down on the end of it that's on the work, which'll stop it tipping. Instead of that I just used a piece of scrap the same thickness as support. Previous trials of this router method haven't been that great, but this time it went brilliantly; I'm inclined to credit the Veritas's closed throat giving one less place for the tool to dive. Talking of which, I read someone on a forum somewhere who said they couldn't see how anyone could find anything to complain about with the Veritas's knobs. Ha hum... Still can't like them; not keen on handles that angle the focus of your efforts away from the seat of the action and, alas, that's just how 'tis. Like the rest of it okay.


Then on to cutting the haunches, which I'm sure is the wrong order to do things, but never mind. I doubt the end result will enable anyone to tell the difference. And the "old" Wenzloff comes out to play. Ack, I'd forgotten how well its handle fits my hand. How could I have thought the tenon was perfect? This is perfect. And the tenon... Notice the early Philly Plane there? I'm assuming it'll be worth thousands at some point, but, heck, I'm still using it.

A bit of judicious tweaking and it all comes together. And they're square. And they're the right size.

And the rails look like a completely different wood. Humph. 

Oh well, the assorted colours of the boards I have lined up for the panels should distract from that okay... I went through a small debate about cheating like crazy, 'cos I happen to have a piece of MDF (spit, cough, choke) that would be just right and I thought maybe painted to match the outside of the carcass...? But then I bethought me, "Self, the rest is real wood. You've been good and done proper woodworking thus far, don't spoil it for a ha'porth of tar". To which I could only reply, "Self, s'good point. Plus I'd quite like to use the panel plane." And thus both of us set to work. If I'd known I'd end up with so much disparity of colour I might have gone with the paint... Jointing and gluing up these multi-coloured toothpicks to make the panels is a joy to come.

My Lee Valley order should also be a joy to come on Monday (yes all you folks waiting for your bits and pieces - the end is nigh). Alas, I must now be firmly on the radar 'cos Parcel Force have nabbed me again (for VAT but not Import Duty? How does that work then?). That's, erm, two out of three, I think. Sheesh, pretty high percentage if other claims are to be believed. Heigh ho. Note to self: move to Canada and go broke more locally... ;-) 

Wenzlovian Onslaught

Long-term inmates of my Musings are probably aware that it's usually at the tenon stage of operations that Cold Feet kick in and the lure of bandsaw or, more likely still, the WoodRat becomes more than I can bear. My claim to Neanderthalism is laid bare in the glare of reality as a pathetic fraud and I try not to catch the eye of any tenon saws in the vicinity. It's not just lack of will-power and the moral fiber of limp celery, although it's that too; the WoodRat is just rather good at tenons and I'm not.

Of course I'm not good at tenons 'cos I never give myself the practice, do I? Well part of the point of taking trouble over trivial workshop furniture is to use it as more meaningful practice of skills and techniques than just a stack of off-cuts turned into a smaller stack of off-cuts. So far I've been Good and jointed the boards, rebated for the back, hand dovetailed the carcass, ploughed the grooves for the door panels and chopped the mortises. Unaccustomed resolve set in and I'd be damned if I wasn't going to do the tenons by hand too.

And that's why progress has halted - while I worry about it and generally put it off. People might have asked me whether I put on this prevaricating, cowardly persona for the benefit of this blog and Comic Effect. They might have asked me that, but they haven't. Perhaps it's all too obvious it comes naturally...?

Anyway, there's another reason for doing it "proper like". Previously the only tenon saws who's eye I haven't been meeting have been of the old, cheap, slightly undervalued persuasion. But now, gentle reader, I have A Wenzloff. That's not a saw you wish to avoid the eye of; no sir. So let battle commence.

Thus I marked up the rail stock, started with the half-back and sawed all the pieces to length. The half-back and I are not entirely au fait as yet; I'm assuming it's going to be one of those slow-burn relationships and we'll end up never to be parted. As things were a little fraught I went a little shy of my line and decided to take the extra step of shooting them to final length. Behold, another opportunity to point out the benefits of knifed line over pencil. See where the knifed line is clearly seen round the perimeter of the planed end? Still a bit to go though.


Once that was done, on to all the tedious and lengthy marking up. Occasionally I feel a modicum of guilt about a slight obsession I have with marking and measuring tools, but then I remember that getting the marking right is half the battle and I feel better. In that vein I, erm, recently invested in a set of TiteMark mortise blades for the cheaper Axminster Tite-A-Like gauge - never yet found a mortise gauge I'm really happy with and thought what the heck... I know, I know - I have Too Much Stuff. Actually I went with the tip to use the scoring blade and one mortise one and I think I may prefer it. Time will tell; possibly another slow-burn.

Where was I? Oh yes, the sawing. Let me say right away that the tenon saw is Nice and absolutely no slow-burn needed for this one. I shall enjoy using it - lots and lots. And indeed here it is in action. Early on I was (sensibly cautiously) generous in how close I was sawing to the line; not because of the saw but rather the sawyer... By the end I was getting pretty good, say it I shouldn't; thus demonstrating that they don't say "practice" for nothing. Well "d'uh". The wriggle on the saw is a scribble of wax - see? It really is A User. (And before you ask, yes, it's a crosscut and you could, fairly, point out that I have probably a "few" tenon saws filed rip I could have used for the cheeks. But they're not long rips, and the saw was calling me...)


It was a bit odd at first though. There seemed to be some funny effects going on; the work looked a little strange. Then it dawned on me - it's the reflection in the blade Chris Schwarz and people are always going on about. The majority of my saws aren't nearly as shiny as this one, or else simply not big enough to reflect so much. Well I felt a bit of a fool, I must admit - and frankly wasn't initially terribly convinced that it was helpful so much as distracting.

Sheesh, that apron looks shocking. If you look really closely towards the bottom of this action shot you can see the sawdust falling away from the Wenzlovian Onslaught.


Time moved on and once again a switch to arty black & white was called for. Alas, the woodworker is slow and the days short. The woodworker's also messy. Ack, terrible habits I get into... Anyway, by this stage I was confident enough with the saw to be hitting the line and in danger of getting carried away enough to cut the tenons off in my enthusiasm. Luckily I didn't and stopped short of a Mortise Chisel Shortening Incident type of disaster. Phew. I was also starting to make use of that reflective blade and Scales Were Falling From My Eyes in that respect.

Of course the tenons aren't actually done. Those sensibly, cautious cuts earlier will need some trimming. Quite a lot, in some cases. Hmm, now which technique shall I use for that...?

I was writing the above when news came through that a friend had passed away after a long battle with cancer. Christopher Whaite was a meticulous and talented woodworker, model engineer and clock restorer, and was the primary cause of my taking up this excellent craft of ours. He gave me a ten minute primer on sharpening a scraper, a whole stack of veneer offcuts and set me on the road away from balsa wood boxes (thank heavens). Over the years I'd tell him what I was doing and he'd ask for detail - and I mean detail. It was excellent discipline; made me think so much more about what I was doing and why. If anyone ever gets anything useful out of my whittering about woodworking, ultimately you can thank Christopher for it. I didn't see nearly enough of him, or learn nearly as much from him as I could have; and the world's a most definitely a poorer place without him.

I'd dedicate these prevaricated tenons to Christopher - but I don't honestly think he'd want them...

Daily Grind

The demise of the Marples sash chisel has provoked a flurry of interest in the comments box. I was indeed a Bad Woodworker and levered when I should not have, but the more I think about it the more I feel the chisel was an equally Bad Chisel and gave up the struggle with rather disappointing ease. The irony is that as a side issue I was hoping to prove that you don't actually need an Oval Bolstered Mortise Chisel to successfully mortise. Hmm, maybe you don't, but old ham-fists here probably does...

Anyway that chisel isn't escaping that easily, and a lengthy spell on the hand grinder creating a fresh bevel on what is now a considerably chunkier cross-section seemed penance enough for me. (Tapered blade, see? So now it's not only shorter but a bit sturdier too.) At about halfway I was already flagging...

... but I persevered and got there in the end. Naturally I had to do further back polishing; when I did it originally I'd allowed enough up the blade to last my lifetime, which is now to be found on the shortest mortise chisel blade in the Western World. D'oh. Oh well, I'm not so sure I don't slightly prefer the shorter tool to be honest. No, not that really short 1" one - this shorter one!

Thus, albeit a trifle gingerly in comparison with my earlier cavalier attitude, I finished the mortises. Now I'm worrying whether I should have a centre rail too...

And finally a few pics to better clarify my brief comments box description of my mortising method. I'm not exactly sure why I settled on this particular one over the many others out there, but it's the one I tend to gravitate to every time. An alternative or variation is to bore the relief "cut", sometimes called the "Maynard" method after an article in The Woodworker, popularised by first Jeff Gorman and then Chris Schwarz in Woodworking magazine (Spring 2007 issue - excellent mortise & tenon-centric issue btw). The idea is to give somewhere for the waste to go. If you bore you can, of course, go full depth and subsequently chop full depth too. Or in my case break through the side of the stile due to my usually reliably unreliable hole boring... Chopping, Alf-stylee, goes more like this:

The intrepid woodworker is standing to the left, looking down the length of the stile so as to facilitate keeping the chisel, and thus the mortise, at 90°. First cut is with the bevel facing you, slightly "in" from the eventual end of the mortise (this allows for the "crush zone" where the chisel is inevitably levered against the end of the mortise and would ruin the end otherwise). One brisk tap.

Hell's bells, that looks deep; it's not really, just the wood is soft-ish. See where the area from the cut to the real end of the mortise has broken off slightly when the chisel was removed? S'one reason why you want knife or gauge marks. If that was just a pencil line then the wood would likely have splintered off beyond the finishing point; not a disaster in this case, but not neat and not good practice. In this case, because the end mark is at the bottom of the groove, I used the chisel itself to mark the line.

Now the chisel is turned round with the bevel facing away and slightly angled to cut towards the hole.


And the result; a v-shaped hole, into which subsequent waste can go.

All the subsequent cuts are bevel facing away, gradually getting deeper.

About two thirds done now, and you might be able to make out the changes of depth. By the time I got to the end I was chopping full depth. Then it's just a matter of turning the chisel round so the bevel's facing again and chopping your way back to the other end again. A paring chop (maybe two, depending on how generous you needed to be with your "crush zone") at each end on the knife line to finish up and 'tis done.


S'not probably the best way or the easiest way, but (thus far) it works for me so I'm not about to fix it :-)  No doubt the more knowledgeable will point out all the places I'm going wrong despite all I can do to stop them...  ;-)