I've made a couple sets of salt and pepper shakers using the Woodcraft Salt and Pepper Shaker kit and am writing up this list so I tackle items in an order which is close to the simplest.

I'm also going to list the equipment I used. There was more than I would've expected as a newbie, and sometimes “simple” projects end up requiring quite a bit of equipment. In this case, you can get by with less, but having all this stuff makes it pretty quick and easy.

Equipment

• Nova chuck with 70mm jaws
• Nova chuck with 50mm jaws – any Nova chuck comes with these
• Nova chuck with Pin Jaw Set
• a 60 degree live tailstock for steps 1-8
• a ⅜” spindle gouge for roughing
• a ½” skew for everything else.
• tailstock drill bit chuck, or morse taper for 10mm hex shank forstner bits
• 1 inch Forstner bit with extension
• 1⅜ inch Forstner bit
• 1.5 inch Forstner bit

Steps

1. Install the chuck with the 70mm jaws on the lathe, and secure a (roughly) two inch square by 4 inch long blank in the jaws.
2. Rough the blank to about a 2 inch diameter.
3. Bore a 1⅜” hole ¼” deep in what will become the bottom.
4. Bore a 1” hole through the middle of the blank.
5. Get the bottom close to the correct outside size. You can see the walls of the 1⅜ hole, and they should be at least ⅛-¼ thick. You can always turn it down more later, but you need the bottom to fit in the 2 inch chuck for the next step.
6. Switch to a 2 inch (50mm) contracting chuck and turn the piece around.
7. Bore a 1½” hole 3/16” deep in the top using a Forstner bit. If it looks like the hole will be off-center, try repositioning the workpiece.
8. Rough the top down to about 1¾”
9. Remove the workpiece from the chuck and insert the tube with medium CA glue. It's helpful to have the top of the tube protruding about ⅛” above the bottom of the 1½ inch bore so the epoxy won't run inside the tube.
10. Put the shaker top into the top of the workpiece with epoxy, making sure not to get any inside the tube.
11. Once the epoxy has had a chance to cure, put the shaker onto the pin jaws on an expanding chuck with the bottom end on the chuck.
12. Finish turning the outside to the final shape. You can get the top edge pretty close to the shaker insert, as the inside is reinforced with epoxy. I aim for a little over 1mm thick on the wood outside the shaker top.
13. Sand and finish the shaker on the lathe. I used tung oil and shellac friction finish, with a final coat of carnauba wax.
14. Blow out the dust, pop the stopper into the bottom and then carefully finish the bottom edge of the shaker. I typically sand it on a piece of sandpaper and then apply a couple coats of shellac.

#technique #woodturning

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This is the description of how Alton Brown recommends to butterfly a chicken. I don’t entirely agree with it, as it’s pretty easy to end up with some breast-meat that’s underdone, but if you don’t mind overcooking the dark meat, it works pretty well. The classic technique is what I use. Originally written January 2006.

Ingredients

• One broiler/fryer chicken – roughly three pounds

Directions

• Wash chicken, remove giblets and pat dry.
• Place the chicken on its side on a cutting board, and use a pair of shears or a boning knife to remove the spine from the chicken.
• Flip the chicken so it’s breast-up and cut out the keelbone, which is also known as the breastbone.
• Press the bird flat, like a butterfly.
• When cooking the bird on a grill, start it skin-side down and place a couple bricks (wrapped in tin-foil) on the bird to keep it flat. Cook for 12 minutes.
• Flip bird, put the bricks back on, and cook for another 15 minutes or so, until done.
• Let chicken rest for at least ten minutes before serving.

Preparation time: 2-3 minutes

#recipe #technique

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This is the description of how Jacques Pépin recommends to butterfly a chicken (its technique #145 in Complete Techniques). I find it works better for me than Alton Brown's method, but I skip the steps to secure the leg. I originally wrote this in January of 2006.

Ingredients

• One broiler/fryer chicken – roughly three pounds

Directions

• Wash chicken, remove giblets, and pat dry.
• Place chicken on its side on a cutting board, and cut through the backbone on one side of the neck with a sturdy knife.
• Pull the chicken open and separate the backbone by cutting on the other side of the neck bone, down to the tail.
• Place the chicken skin-side down, and flatten it with a meat-pounder.
• Remove the shoulder bones that stick up by cutting at the joint.
• Remove the rib cage from each side of the chicken.
• (optional) Make a small cut at the joint which separates the thigh from the drumstick. Don't cut all the way through, but you can cut down to the bone.
• (optional) Cut a hole through the skin between the point of the breast and the thigh.
• (optional) Push the tip of the drumstick through the hole to secure the leg.
• Cook on a grill or in a broiler about 15 minutes per side (at 450F).

Preparation time: 5 minutes

#recipe #technique

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Another type of grain filling is when you’re finishing and have some small imperfections, either from tear-out or from pores in the wood. Ideally, you fix as many of these problems as possible before applying any finish, but sometimes things don’t work out perfectly. This is also basically the method used in French Polishing (though that uses rottenstone rather than sandpaper as the abrasive).

Note that all of the pictures here show about 1 square inch of surface (2.5 cm square), so you can get an idea of the scale of things.

In a Russian olive bowl I’m working on, I had a tiny bit of tear-out near the center of the bowl, as shown above. This wasn’t obvious until I got some shellac on the bowl. I’m going to fill this using shellac and a bit of sanding dust (which is probably going to be mostly shellac, as well, but will include some wood dust).

First I sand very lightly with 400 grit sandpaper. Finer will work, but will take longer. Coarser will leave visible scratches. I try to sand across the depressions, so sanding dust will be deposited in them, but I’ll also use a circular motion when I’m starting because it’s quicker and lets me see what direction will work best.

Then I put a drop of oil (I use tung oil, but linseed oil will work, too) and 4-5 drops of shellac on a piece of folded up cloth. Old t-shirts work great.

The shellac I use is roughly a one-and-a-half pound cut. That is, I dissolve about 2 oz of shellac flakes in 12 oz of alcohol. You can use a heavier cut, but don’t go any lighter.

I rub this mixture onto the sanded area, also working across the tear-out. If you go with the direction of the tear-out, the cloth will tend to pull the dust back out, which is not what you want. You also don’t want to rub enough that the new shellac starts dissolving and removing previous layers of shellac. The idea is to build up the shellac, filling the voids. The oil is there mostly so that the partially cured shellac doesn’t “grab” your pad and get messed up as you’re adding a new layer on top of it (and partially dissolving the previous top layer). A little lubrication goes a long way towards making things work smoothly.

You can also see that the weave of the t-shirt has gotten filled with shellac. I typically use a fresh piece of t-shirt each session, because once the shellac is dried in the fabric, it won’t flex to follow the contours of the surface. You don’t want it dipping into every hollow, since you’re trying to fill those, but you don’t want it stiff as a board, either.

This is a fairly slow process. But each iteration you can see a little progress.

And at some point, the dust is almost entirely filling the voids, and not sitting on the surface. That means you’re getting close. The dust will compact as it gets wet, leaving a smaller void, but the results can look pretty darned good.

My take is that this is almost good enough. I think I’m going to varnish this bowl, which will flatten out the finish a little more, so maybe one more bit of sanding will do the trick. But I’m going to let the shellac cure for a while and then look at it and see. That will also give time for the little bit of oil present to cure, which will make for a tougher finish.

#technique #woodworking

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This is a moulding for the edge of a piece of wood that livens it up, and is fairly quick and easy to do. Working in pine, I can create a linear foot of beading in about ten minutes, including time for stropping my gouge.

For reference, here’s what I’m referring to as barrel moulding.

The barrels in this case are three times as long as they are wide. Beaded moulding is typically the same length as width, and bead and barrel moulding alternates the two, but the technique is the same for all of them.

First you need to make a bead on the edge of a board. I generally do three beads, and then cut the interruptions in the middle one to make barrels, which I think looks pretty good. I make these using a Lie-Nielsen #66 beading tool with an appropriate blade, which in my case is a double reed profile, set up so one of the reeds is right on the edge of a ¾ inch board. I repeat the profile going both directions on the board to make a total of three reeds, with one in the center of the board. Note that multiple manufacturers make beading tools, but you can also make a scratch stock that will do the job.

With the beads or reeds on the edge of the board, mark off the length of your barrels. As I said earlier, I like a 3:1 ratio if I’m going to make them uniform length, but other ratios work. Just set up your dividers and make marks a consistent distance apart down the length of the board.

With your marks made, you’ll need a #11 gouge the same width as the beads or reeds you’ve made in the board. This is also known as a veiner and has a u-shaped profile. My ¼ inch veiner that I use for making these beads has been modified with rounded wings or edges so that it doesn’t cut as far into the wood as it would with square edges.

I start with the gouge almost flat on the bead, with the cutting edge about a sixteenth of an inch (or a millimeter) back from the mark for the edge of a barrel.

Then I rock the gouge forward and into the wood, ending with it fully vertical.

Repeat this down the board, and you’ll have something that looks like the following.

Now go back and do the same in the other direction. As you rotate the gouge up, you’ll get a small amount of wood pushing to the sides. If it’s too much, start a little closer together for the two cuts. After you’ve gone both directions, use a #1s or #2 gouge (also known as a skew) to clean out the waste.

Here’s a photo showing all the stages from start to finish of making the barrels.

From left to right, that shows: cut one direction; cut both directions; cleaned out the corners with a #2 (skew) gouge; cut the second time from the left and right; and finally, cleaned out the second time.

I find that I have to go along the length of the board twice. If I try to do it all in one pass, the edges will be rougher because I was taking “too big a bite” at once.

Once I’ve been up and down the length of the board twice and cleaned out the waste with a skew, I use a chip brush I chopped shorter so the bristles are fairly stiff. This one has also been used for applying kakishibu, which further stiffens the bristles and gives them a reddish tint.

Once all the waste is brushed out, you’re ready to finish. Thanks for looking!

#woodworking #technique

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A while ago I read about kakishibu, a traditional Japanese finish mostly used on softwoods.

Since the one English-language book on kakishibu is out of print, and the author doesn't have any more copies, I decided to order a bit of the fermented persimmon juice and see what I could see.

I had a small box I had built to hold some clamps. The box was made with poplar sides and a birch top, and the poplar had an unappealing shade of green that I wanted to modify. I left the bottom of the box untreated, so I could look back to compare that with the sides that I treated.

Immediately after painting the box with a layer of the kakishibu, I noticed two things. One was that the reddish tint did a great job of modifying the greenish cast. I like it! The other thing is that, being water-based, it raised the grain of the box.

So I sanded the box lightly with 400 grit sandpaper, then applied another coat of the kakishibu, and set the box outside in the New Mexico sun for a couple mornings while I worked on other things in the shop.

That was quite a difference! They say that kakishibu will continue to darken for a month, but after just two mornings (about 6 hours) it looks a lot more appealing than the plain poplar (scroll back to that first image...)

And after two more mornings of sunshine, the color of the box has darkened a bit more, but it seems to be slowing down. I'll keep an eye on it for a couple more weeks, and maybe add another photo, but I'm sold on kakishibu, at least for covering up the green that poplar shows. And it looks pretty good on the birch top of the box, as well.

#woodworking #finishing #technique

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I’ve had a couple people ask me my technique for filling the open grain of wood with a contrasting color, so here it is, with a few pictures. I also have a writeup on using shellac to fill grain or minor tear-out in a surface.

First, grain filling is usually only necessary when working with a wood with very open grain. Ash and oak are good examples. But sometimes you will want to fill the grain on a wood like mahogany or khaya. It’s the same technique in both cases.

First is to get the wood sanded smooth, and then to thoroughly wipe off the sanding dust. If you’re filling the grain of the wood with a contrasting color, having that grain partially filled with wood dust from the same wood will lessen the effect. That doesn’t mean that’s not an appropriate technique in some cases, it’s just not what I’m describing here.

If you see that some of the pores still have dust in them, or perhaps even if you don’t, brushing (with the grain) can remove even more of the dust from the pores, leading to a better fill. Both a nylon brush and a wire brush will work, though the effect is different. Thanks to @bento@tinnies.club for suggesting using a brush, which I forgot to mention here on the first edit.

Next is to mix up the grain filler. I use either black or white Wunderfil by Rockler, and then add dyes to the white if I’m after a colored fill. I dilute the Wunderfil with water 50-50 so it’s fairly thin and will flow into the pores of the wood. Some wood fillers need to be diluted with oil, which isn’t as easy to use. Today I used blue milk paint mixed with white Wunderfil. I mixed up the milk paint normally, then mixed that with white Wunderfil with about equal parts of each. Then smear the grain-filler on the wood. I generally put on blue gloves and use my hand, but if you’re working on a flat surface, you can use a squeegee. The important thing is to go across the grain so the fill is pushed into the holes and not wiped back out.

In many cases, after you give the fill a few minutes to dry, you’ll notice that the grain has opened back up, and can take more fill. If that’s the case, apply a second coat over the first. I almost always need a second coat, but it really depends on the wood and what kind of fill you’re using. Safer to apply a coat you don’t need than to leave some pores unfilled, though.

With the second coat on, you want to wait for it to dry. A half hour is generally enough with Wunderfil, but more time won’t hurt. Once it’s dry, you sand back to bare wood, but be careful not to overdo it and sand away all your fill, too. I generally will sand with 400 grit sandpaper, but finer will work too.

At this point, you can begin finishing. I’m going to use a homemade friction-finish made from shellac and tung oil on this pen, so I’ll apply my first coat of tung oil and then wait overnight before moving on to the friction finish. This will give the fill and oil a chance to cure a bit, and makes it less likely the finishing process will pull the fill out of the pores.

You can see how the oil brightened up the colors. If there are spots that aren’t filled completely, you might need to apply more fill at this point (and then sand it back again later), but I generally try to do any more filling before putting on the oil. Sanding back will be messier and the fill may not adhere very well to oiled wood.

Once the blank has had time to cure (at least overnight with tung oil), continue with your finishing regimen. For me, that’ll be two or three coats of an oil and shellac mix, applied at the lathe, and buffed with a cloth so the heat speeds the curing of the oil. That finish will get another day or so to cure before I handle the piece too much.

#woodworking #technique

Techniques

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Originally written May 2, 2018

I couldn't find anyone describing how to cut dovetails for non-square corners, so I decided to write this up. This trick will work for any angle dovetails, but you'll have to change up the workholding jigs.

This is a description of how to cut dovetails for a 135 degree corner. This is the angle used on an octagonal box (if all the angles are equal). They're not perfect, and there's probably a better way to do it, but this is the best I found.

My first try cutting 135 degree dovetails used no special workholding. I just threw the pieces in the vise and started cutting. I cut tails first and I cut them pretty much as normal, except with the end of the board at a 45 degree angle, so they were pretty easy.

The pins were fairly straight too. This is feeling easy!

But the fit left something to be desired.

So I sat and thought for a bit and decided that maybe I could use a square piece in the corner, all tails, and put pins on the edge pieces that would go into it, and then cut the 45 degree angle afterwards. It couldn't be any worse than the previous attempt, could it?

Well, that worked okay, and I might end up trying that method again, but I'll have to think harder about the grain direction in that corner piece when I do.

So I tried again. Third time's the charm, right?

I cut the tails square this time, just like you would on a normal dovetail. I even gang-cut them two at a time.

Then I cut the pins on a board with the end angled 45 degrees using a jig I made for the purpose. I made the 45 degree end on the board using a miter jack before cutting.

Those came out pretty good I think. They're a little gappy where I went astray with the coping saw while cutting out the waste, but they glued up solid.

Hopefully someone else will learn from this and find it useful. To get the boards to look good in the corner, just make the corner piece (the walnut in the above photo) 0.7 times as thick as the edge piece (the ash). The example I show has the walnut thicker, and the corner looks kinda goofy to my eye.

#technique #woodworking #dovetails

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Over time, wooden planes wear unevenly. Rookies to using them will tend to take a heavy cut at the start and end of a pass, which will tend to leave the bottom of the plane somewhat convex (which means no matter how you adjust it, the plane will be more aggressive than it should be). And just normal use will tend to make a plane slightly concave (which will mean no cut at all until the plane is set very aggressively, or unless you push down hard enough to flatten the plane out a bit).

In either case, the first thing you need to do is get the length of the plane flat. If everything else is right with the planes, you can use the hollow to flatten the round, and vice-versa. It's best to try and get the round close first, as this can be done with a bench plane if need be (you'll get a faceted bottom curve, but that's easily corrected).

If you have a convex plane, mount it in your bench vise, sole up, with the iron set in the plane, but retracted enough that it won't cut. Use the matched plane to take shallow cuts off the middle, planing from toe to heel. If the planes aren't matched, this will begin to match them.

If you have a concave plane, concentrate on the ends of the plane. It shouldn't take more than three or four passes unless your plane is way out of shape.

If you had corrected a round with a bench-plane, use the hollow and roll it slightly side to side to knock off the facets from that process to make a nice smooth curve.

After a few passes, retract the blade for the matched plane, set the wedge again, and wrap the bottom with some sandpaper (120 grit has been a good starting point for me) and sand to get the plane bottom correct.

The important thing is to set the blade in the plane body before adjusting it so the plane won't be warped from its normal use-state. This applies to both the plane you're reshaping as well as the plane you're using to reshape the other.

If the curve of the plane is off (they seldom are by much), simply rotating the other plane while leveling the length of the bottom will get you closer to correct, since the curves are circles.

Once you have one plane (probably the round) good, change them around, and mount the hollow in the vise, and flatten its length similarly, first with the plane, and then with sandpaper.

To check the curve on the plane (once the length is flat), I use an auger bit of the appropriate diameter to compare against the hollow. My good augers will give me a pretty good idea if the curve is wrong on the hollow. If it is, I will mark the high spots with a pencil, then use the matching round to plane off the high spots. Once the hollow is correct (according to the auger bit), I use it to make sure the round has the correct curve. Small adjustments here! It's highly unlikely the curve of the plane sole will be too far out of whack, unless you're changing it (which is more advanced than I'm covering here). More likely is a small ding in the sole that you can usually ignore unless it's too near the mouth.

With the wood correct on both planes, it's time to start sharpening the blades. I have a couple synthetic stones that I got from Razor Edge Systems which don't require lubricant. I keep them flat with a diamond plate, and the coarse stone works well for establishing bevels and making sure the back of a plane blade is flat. For the hollow blades, I use slip stones.

For a hollow or round, you want to do about 60% of the work on the back of the blade. This is pretty easy, since you're just making sure it's flat. Don't do “the ruler trick” or lift the tang of the blade, just make it flat on the stone.

For the bevel, I start with a known-good plane body (see above) and use a marking knife and layout fluid to paint the face of the blade, and then mark the correct curve on it. If the blade is WAY out of shape, I'll take it to the grinder and grind to that curve 90 degrees from the back, and then grind the bevel by hand, but I've only needed to do that on about one blade out of ten.

Other than that, it's just sharpening. Just make sure to establish the correct curve first, then worry about the bevel. And try not to use the same track on the stone every time so you have to flatten your stone more often. About 30 degrees will be fine for the bevel in almost all cases. If you have a hollow-ground bevel (from a grinder), you'll want to lift the tang of the blade just a hair while sharpening the bevel because that's the way the geometry works. Matt Bickford's book (see below) has pictures and an explanation.

Once the blade is sharp, use a strop to keep it touched up. I've got a set of hollows and rounds that I'm slowly getting back in service using these methods, and I haven't had to sharpen the blade on any of them a second time yet. But every time I use one, I'll give its blade a couple passes on the strop just to make sure the edge stays nice and sharp. And it gives me practice adjusting the blades so I get better at that.

And if you're serious about this, buy a copy of Matt Bickford's Mouldings in Practice and read chapter 14 of that book. It's a much better treatise on maintaining hollows and rounds from a guy who has a ton more experience at it than I do.

Edited to add: my buddy Kent found a three-video series for those who learn better from videos than from words.

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Techniques Contents #woodworking #mouldingPlanes #maintenance #technique

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This is a collection of things I wrote about various #woodworking and #woodturning #technique I've figured out over the years. I don't claim to be an expert, but I've made enough mistakes that I'm not a complete beginner, either.

• Cutting 135 degree dovetailed corners
• Grain Filling
• Grain Filling with Shellac
• Making barrel and bead moulding.
• Making Salt and Pepper Shakers
• Matching & Maintaining Hollows and Rounds
• Playing with kakishibu, a fermented persimmon-juice finish that's traditionally used on softwoods in Japanese woodworking.
• Turning with the Bedan
• Wood Stabilizing

#technique #contents

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