davepolaschek

May 13, 2020

I started my shop time today cleaning up the walnut I glued to the pine rack for the braces. I used a spokeshave to get the lengths consistent and round over the ends, as well as to surface plane the walnut. If I skew it enough, nearly 45 degrees in some cases, I could plane even against the grain and get it fairly smooth.

With those smoothed, I wanted to clean up a few spots of tear-out, plus remove the pencil lines that were still on the pine. I cut a card scraper to make a narrow tip, filed the edge square, and scraped things pretty.

I also used a knife and my new scraper to clean up the edges of the slots.

With that done, it was time to test fit things. All of my sliding dovetails were a little fat, so I tested each one, then adjusted it either with the dovetail plane or a chisel. The dovetail plane earned its keep here, since I still had the fence set to the right depth, so in most cases it was just a matter of making a pass or two and then everything fit.

The one down side of the dovetail plane is that it's apparently easy to rock it a little, leading to sliding dovetails that are thick in the middle and thinner on the ends. Nearly all of my dovetails were fat in the middle. Oops!

With the three horizontal pieces in, it was time to test the fit of the carcass. I popped one end of the top on, and it fit well. Then I looked at the other end, and the board was ½” too long.

Crap.

I figured out what I did wrong. I had bad math at some point, and the inner shelves that are dovetailed into the sides are 38” long. The dovetails are a half inch on either end, so the outsides of the sides are 38 ½” apart (everything is ¾” thick). I cut the top and bottom to 39” initially, thinking I'd trim them back once I'd tested the sliding dovetails for the shelves, but then I cut the dovetails on the carcass because I was eager to try the mitered dovetail corners.

So now I'm cutting a half-inch off the end of the tail boards and re-cutting the dovetails. At least it's pine, and I've got a lot of scraps, so when I need small pieces to patch up the old dovetails, I can do so.

And that's today. I got one corner re-cut, and I'll finish the other tomorrow, then I can test the five uprights that divide the areas between the drawers. It looked to me like I managed to line everything up, but if I have to move a sliding dovetail socket a quarter inch or so to one side, I think I'll be able to do that without weakening things too much.

Plus my veneer gets here this evening, so I'll be able to finish the top shelf too. First time veneering! Wish me luck!

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Contents #woodworking #storage #surfaceCleanup #testFitting

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May 12, 2020

Spent the past few days with a mix of yard work and thinking about how to reinforce the rack that'll hold the braces. With the grain running across, the slots cut into it leave some very weak tongues, which will be almost certain to snap off over time. I've seen this happen with my chisel till, and I'm going to have to rebuild that at some point.

So I thought a bit, and dug through my various piles of shorts. I found a chunk of walnut and decided that running pieces of that from front to back under the tongues would strengthen them in compression, and then I could put some veneer on top (running the same direction) to strengthen the rack in tension. Or looking at it another way, I'm making plywood, with a dang thick core.

My first few test pieces went well yesterday, and I finished cutting them and gluing them up today. I'll give the glue time to dry overnight, and I can plane the ends smooth and chamfer the edges of the holes nicely tomorrow morning. And some 1/16” thick bubinga veneer I ordered should be here in tomorrow evening's mail, so I can glue that onto the top on Thursday.

I also finished cutting all the sliding dovetail sockets today, and will do a test fitting of the carcass tomorrow. I may be able to glue up some sub-assemblies, but we'll have to see how the test fitting goes.

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Contents #woodworking #storage #lamination #reinforcement

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May 7, 2020

I started cutting sliding dovetail sockets in the horizontal bits today. More of the same, but I had a little blowout on the third socket I was cutting, so I glued that back together and decided to work on the part that will hold the braces.

I started by laying out marks 3½ inches apart, and drew marks four inches from the edge of the board (or 3½ from the other edge). Picked out the 12/16 bit, chucked it in my brace, and started drilling holes. I picked the ¾ inch bit because it had relatively sharp spurs (I think I touched them up before we moved), and it's big enough to fit the brace I was using into. The fat part of the handle is closer to an inch, but if I have to enlarge the holes a little bit later on, I'll deal with that then.

With everything laid out and drilled, I took my square and drew lines more or less to the edge of each hole. If I was off a little, I didn't worry too much.

I put the board in my face vise and started sawing. I was using my Veritas tenon saw, as it had enough reach to make the cuts without bottoming out the back. It's filed hybrid, and I'm cutting pine, so it made pretty short work of the cuts.

Once that was done, I took my knife and chamfered the edges of the slots, and used my spokeshave to chamfer the front edge of the board. Then it was time to sweep up for the day and go start cooking dinner. Hopefully tomorrow I can finish up the remaining two shelves and ponder putting the carcass together.

I also should think about some sort of reinforcement on the board that'll be carrying the braces. Three inches of pine between holes will probably mean that I'll snap something off eventually. Maybe I'll start tomorrow by digging through my scrap bucket and see what I have that I can glue under that board with the grain running front to back to strengthen things up. On second thought, I think I have some heavy veneer somewhere, so I may detour to unpack a few boxes and see if I can find that.

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Contents #woodworking #storage

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May 5, 2020

Today was dovetail day, and I'm still not done, but I made a lot of progress.

As I'm doing mitered shoulder dovetails on the carcass (to practice them for the bookcases I'm building next), I took my time laying them out and cutting them. Spent all morning just cutting the tails.

After lunch, I headed out to the shop to cut the pins. That went pretty well, so I got started on the sliding dovetails for the shelves as well. They're not super hard, but I took pictures along the way, so I'd be better able to remember what I did and any improvements I found along the way.

First step is to layout your lines. Make sure the width is the width of the narrow part of the dovetail (cut in part 1 of this blog).

Then saw the two angled lines. As with normal dovetails, start on one end, then angle to the other end. I started on the near side, since it was easier for me to see.

After cutting the two angled lines, cut a straight line between them. This will make is easier to chisel out the waste. Note that the depth of this line you're sawing is your depth-gauge, so try to cut it to the line, but no further.

Then chisel our the waste. I did half from the front, turned the board around and did another half (to ¾ of the final depth) from the far side, and about an inch to full depth, then turned the board around again, and finished up from the front.

And that's where I finished the day. I still need to saw out the ten sliding dovetail sockets for the vertical pieces between the two shelves, and also the slots to hang the braces in. And I need to cut rabbets in the rear of the sides and top for the back, so there will be a couple more entries before I'm finished with the carcass.

Thanks for following along!

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Contents #woodworking #storage #slidingDovetails #joinery

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April 30, 2020

I was asked to finish moving my tools from the garage to the shop the other day, so I did that. Still haven't found and unpacked all of my tools, so I took a little detour to build a dovetail marker so I could lay out the dovetails nicely. In the course of making that, I needed a bench hook, so I slapped one of those together, too.

I think I can start laying out the dovetails now, but since I'm planning on doing mitered dovetails (as practice for the corners on the bookcases I need to build), I might need to study up on those first.

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And the next day, further detour to make a clamp rack.

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Contents #woodworking #storage

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April 28, 2020

I looked at my braces as I was unpacking, and discovered I have four, plus a couple eggbeaters, plus another brace I've bid on on eBay… It's time to build a till. Also, I'll have a place to keep my bits if I do that.

So the first step was to get out the graph paper and sketch out what I think I'll need. I figure I'll eventually have braces of 6-14 inch sweeps, probably doubling up on 8 and 10 since they're more common. So I sketched a till that could hold those plus a couple eggbeater drills.

This is a first for me. Most of the time I just start building and then realize afterwards that I've underbuilt, so it feels kinda weird making a plan, but I think I'll survive. Also, the Bad Axe magnet is handy for holding my plan to the whiteboard so I don't lose it in a pile of sawdust.

Given that, I decided I'd use pine I have on hand for building my bookcases. I've got a lot of S4S 1×8s, so I started with those. That should give me enough depth that I can put doors on the till and still get a 14 in there. Plus it means my existing boxes of bits can fit in the cubbyholes at the bottom.

I started by cutting boards to length. All of my lumber on hand is cut to 4 foot lengths, so it worked out pretty well. The 38 inch long pieces had an offcut that gave me two pieces that were not quite 5 inches long, so I was efficient in my lumber use.

I've also got a new ECE dovetail plane so I've decided I'll put the shelves into the case with sliding dovetails and put the uprights between shelves with sliding dovetails as well.

As for the dovetail plane, it's pretty slick. It took me a while to get the fence set correctly for a half-inch deep sliding dovetail, but once I did, I spent more time grabbing a new board and whacking the holdfasts to hold it down than I did planing. There's a little spelching on the pine, but I lightened up the cut a little and that took care of the worst of it. The plane was usable out of the box, but would have benefited from a few minutes honing the blade, especially since I was working on pine.

I put the dovetails on the ends if the boards and called it a day. Tomorrow I'll start joinery on the carcass, and hopefully get the dovetails cut in the four exterior joints and maybe get started on the sliding dovetails for the shelves. We'll see how it goes!

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Contents #woodworking #build #storage #shopFurniture #plan

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In April of 2020, I started building a till (or cabinet) to hold all my braces, bits and other tools for boring holes. I kept track of the progress as I built it, which went until May of 2022. Here's the notes from the journey (all dated, so you can see how long various things took me).

1. Planning and Cutting
2. A Little Detour
3. Dovetails and Sliding Dovetails
4. Horizontal Bits
5. Reinforcement, Part 1
6. Cleanup and Test Fitting
7. Reinforcement, Part 2
8. Recutting the Bottom and More Test Fitting
9. Gluing it up
10. Back and Cleat—Hanging it up
11. Starting on Drawers
12. Resawing the Drawer Sides
13. Another Day, Another Drawer
14. Drawer Cleanup
15. More Drawers
16. Last Drawer Boxes—Odds & Ends
17. Fitting out Drawers
18. First Drawer Done—Starting on the Second
19. Small Drawer—Batwing and Forstner Bits
20. Small Drawer—Spoon bits, Countersinks, Plug Cutters
21. Last Drawer Insides
22. Cutting Drawer Fronts to Size
23. Starting to Finish the Drawer Fronts
24. Shellacking the Drawer Fronts
25. More Drawer Front Finishing
26. Drawer Pulls on—Mostly
27. Door Frames
28. Gluing up the Doors
29. Finishing the Doors
30. Hanging a Door
31. Second Door
32. Adjusting the Doors—Putting on Latches
33. Hammers on the Door

#Contents #buildBlog #woodworking #build #storage #shopFurniture

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When I got to the point where my next big project was my brace till, I needed to cut the dovetails for the corners of the carcass, and couldn't find my dovetail marker. Rather than completely wing it, I grabbed a scrap a katalox and set up my shooting board at 14 degrees (which is darned close to 1:4), and then found a piece of elm to put that katalox into. A couple cuts with the saw, a little trimming with a knife, and a dowel later, I had the marker mostly done. Glued it up, then did a little practice carving to label it so I won't get confused later. A coat of oil, and it's ready to go.

Looks like I need to practice carving serifs some more, but otherwise I'm happy with it.

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Contents #woodworking #tools

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I tried an experiment with cosmetic-grade Titanium Dioxide on walnut, and it wasn't super-impressive. My thoughts were that I will definitely need to fill the grain in the walnut first if I'm going to retry that. And TiO2 is soluble in linseed oil, so sealing it into the wood with that isn't especially good. Shellac might work better. Or CA glue.

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This is a collection of notes – I haven't done a lot of kolrosing other than on my baby bowsaw but I've collected a bunch of references I don't want to lose.

• Basics of Kolrosing from Del at Pinewood Forge
• Color Kolrosing
• White on brown kolrosing
• Chinkin-bori and with other materials than gold – the Japanese is 沈金彫り
• Martin Adburg actually tried Chinkin in Japan. He says polyurethane is tricky, since any blemishes or minute scratches will hold the gold dust, messing up the design (similar to what I saw with TiO2 on walnut). Traditional Japanese is red or black lacquer, and there are a number of scribers that are used to scratch the surface, but just a simple point will do the trick. Similar to engraving boulle marquetry, but it's definitely scratching the lacquer surface rather than cutting.
• Martin also suggests that an epoxy finish might work. Nitrocellulose lacquer might work too, or a harder varnish.
• Another link from Martin: chinkin technique
• And the Echizen Lacquerware Cooperative (where Martin and his wife did their workshop when they visited Japan).
• urushi / lacquer techniques

I expect next time I try, I'll try a shellac or lacquer surface, rather than naked wood as one does with kolrosing, but I might also try some tighter-grained woods with coarser pigments. I think there's a lot of decorative possibilities here.

#woodworking #finishing

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