After much tweaking that’s the best I could come up with for me…. I look busy.

More »

During this mornings regular flea-market hunt I scored my second Bedrock, a 605c. Broken lever cap, but all the wood is solid and not much rust.

Guy was asking $30 and wouldn’t budge. I walked away at first (I usually get insane deals at this flea market). But after I realized I would happily pay $30 + $15 for shipping off of ebay I slapped myself and went back.

Here she is sitting in front of my only other bedrock find, a type 2 #604 (a nice $4 deal that one with a missing lever cap )

Based on Bob Kaune’s Plane Type Study it looks like she is a TYPE 6 1912-1921

More to come as I document the cleanup and restoration….

More »

So I’ve had this #7 that I got with a broken tote. I glued it back together with titebond and it snapped a couple of uses later. I cleaned out the glue and tried gorilla glue… Broke again….

I’ve been using it for 6months with a broken tote so I made one last attempt to glue it back together and while applying clamping pressure I managed to break it in an additional spot.

Finally I decided to try my hand at making my own. It wasn’t near as bad as I though it was going to be.

First I glued a template to some rosewood.

Then it was off to the “tailed devils” for the first part of it’s construction.I justify this to myself because I needed a good first project for my new Christmas present Jigsaw…. and I hate braces!!! (Note for you non woodworkers: Most serious hand tool users consider it a borderline religion and the use of electrons a sin.)

I’ve never used rasps before so this was a learning process. I was shocked at how fast they work!!!

It’s certainly not perfect, in fact it already looks old due to some dents and dings of mistakes with the rasp, and the fit isn’t quite perfect.

But I’m happy with the first attempt and I finally have my jointer back. Finished with BLO, Shellac, and paste wax. Took about 2.5 hours of work.

More »

This is my first “furniture” project out of hardwood and using traditional joinery. I started tinkering around with woodworking a little over a year ago and after a very intense first 6 months of learning and rehabbing old tools I managed to burn myself out.

Well fall is coming to an end and it was time to bring most of our herbs inside for the winter. (It’s impossible to beat fresh Basel, Sage, Oregano, & Rosemary). I decided at least one of the plants this winter would have a proper home and the best way to get back into woodworking was just get into the shop and start something.

I had a stack of 4/4 walnut and ash sitting around and I started this design thinking I would use that. After initial Sketchup design I decided that 4/4 wouldn’t be enough for legs and I didn’t want to do a glue-up with ash. I still wanted to use a contrasting wood so off to the hardwood dealer.

I found a nice 11′ 8/4 piece of cherry and having never worked with cherry I figured it would be a fun wood to play with.

My shop is pretty small and most of it is occupied by a workbench and a table-saw, so I take a very hybrid approach to woodworking. I start by breaking the stock down  into major chunks with a crosscut pull saw and then proceeding to square and flatten one side with a #5 & #7c hand plane.

I then take the half squared stock over to the table saw and rip it parallel to the jointed edge & in the case of the legs also ripped the other face parallel to the jointed face.

This process leaves me with jointed and squared stock  for the legs and a top ready for glewup. Once I glued the top up I again used the #5 & #7c to flatten the rough face and get it thicknessed properly. I have a power thickness planer but it’s just too much of a hassle to get out and set up for such a small project.

For joinery on this project I am using mortise and tenons for everything. Not having a power mortiser I utilize a drill press to clear out most of the wood and then switch to bench chisels to square up and clear out the mortise.

Once all my joinery was cut I glued up the project in 2 stages. I made 2 sub assemblies of the sides and glued them up using the top to dry fit them so that I would make sure my joinery was aligned properly.

I decided I would use a pinned through tenon on the bottom just because I thought it would look cool. The pins are made out of a ebony pen turning blank. I re-sawed them with my dovetail rip saw and shaped them on a couple of pieces of marble tile with sandpaper affixed to them. (my hand tool sharpening setup)

I smoothed all long-grain with a Type 2 Stanley #604 with a Hock blade (best investment you can make on an old smoothing plane). All end-grain was sanded to 220 grit.

I finished the project with a coat of Boiled Linseed oil. After it cures for a few days I’ll go back and apply a couple of coats of shellac and some past wax. Because this isn’t a constant use table It won’t need thick film coat on it but I do want to give it a bit more protection than just a coat of BLO will provide.

This took me about 16-18 hrs total over the course of 2 1/2 weeks. (mostly an hour or so every other night plus a few hours on each day on the weekends). Overall I’m pretty happy with it… There are a few mistake but I learned from all of them and only had to remake one piece.

The design turned out fairly good, in my opinion. The only part I’m critical of is the through tenon on the bottom stretcher extends way further than the top, so it can never be put into a corner, and the balance seems a bit off.

I like the look of the contrasting wood but I’ll have to not go too crazy with this contrasting wood thing or our house will end up looking very busy… 1-2 species of wood per room max.

More »

I’ve been using a regular hammer for everything. But my family gave me a set of Ashley Isles chisels for Christmas and there is no way I’m going to even tap those with a metal hammer. I really need to get a decent rip Ryoba (my Marples one got use on too many construction projects, great for cutting PVC pipe, but pretty dull now, and this flush cut saw is NOT the right tool for this). Handle out of walnut.

Head and wedges out of purpleheart.

Head is about 5 1/4″ across and the whole thing weighs 1lbs 13oz. BLO on the head. Handle is BLO, Shellac, & past wax. I think I’ll make a smaller matching one tomorrow; shoot for around 1lbs and maybe a head that is around 3″- 4″ across.

More »

I have a very small and dank shop (11×16 with a good chunk taken out by a furnace and my wife’s pottery wheel she doesn’t use right now). But with just a table saw, router and a good selection of hand tools I’m having a lot of fun.

I got into wood working about 6 months ago as I wrapped up the renovations on my house. In 6 months I’ve learned just from videos (esp wood whisperer and some PBS) and the woodnet forum. Here is my first project (other than plywood). A jewelry box for my wife out of curly maple and purple heart. Has a lot of oriental influences. Hand jointed all the rough 4/4 stock with my #7c. Re-sawed thickness with table saw (really need a band saw).

It’s kind of rough in places and I’m not sold on linseed oil as the proper finish for curly maple. But I’m happy for my first real project with real hardwoods. (But I hate hard splintery purple heart, now I need to re sharpen everything.) Made the top, raised panel style, by passing it perpendicular over my table saw blade with a wooden sacrificial fence clamped perpendicular to the blade.

Mortise and tenon construction with router and chisels and hand saws.

More »

I realized early on that I needed a bench. I don’t have time to build one right now; so I should probably just wait on building a real bench.

And here is my cheap bench. 2x 3/4″ MDF connected to the wall. 2 rows of dog holes and a planing stop that slides into them. It works surprisingly well… Hand tools: #3, #4c, #604 type2, #5, #7c (waiting to be renovated: Sweetheart #5c, early #3, and a #6). Yes I have lots of Marples: My home depot keeps putting it on sale since it doesn’t say Irwin. (I think I have some Ashley Iles chisels under the tree right now ) The rest of my small dank shop… but I have fun in it. (panning left to right)

Anyway, thanks to all the knowledge on the woodnet.net forums. I’m only in my 20′s and I think I’ve picked up my hobby for life.

More »

After must reading and looking into my budget to get started I settled on the Tritrix Design by Curt Campbell for my HT setup. (I love the price range and I can start with a 2.1 then 3.1 to 5.1 eventually).

First of all I want to say thank you for such a great resource as the HTGuide.com forums. I’ve been lurking there mostly and reading but have ask a few questions and got some great help. My current set up is a new 52″ Westinghouse LCD (amazing set for the price). a Media Center PC, a PS3 for Blueray & an inexpensive slightly older Pioneer 5.1 receiver. I just finished remodeling half my house and am just starting to get into some woodworking and furniture making. (speakers are the first project so I can do our new TV justice). So after getting much inspiration from all the great photos there I decided to try something a bit different for TriTrix. I have a box and a half of bamboo flooring left over form redoing half our house (Most of the floors are Ash but we redid our closets in Bamboo). I didn’t want entirely bamboo enclosures. So I decided on hardwood sides and bamboo face and top. I spent some time trying to decide on the wood for the sides. In the end I decided I didn’t want to deal with allocating for hardwood expansion and contraction in a speaker design. So plywood it is…. but I want to round over some of the edges so I need to edge it in hardwood strips. So all my decisions made it was time to start. So with most materials in hand already I started on this last Wednesday. Step 1: I need to join some of the flooring strips to create a solid bamboo piece for the top and front faces. So using my router as a joiner I squared up the sides of the flooring (flooring strips have a bevel between the strips usually, so I also have to get that off so that you don’t see the seem).

Step 2: Once I had 2 strips (per speaker) ready it was time to glue them up.

Step 3: Sand off the finish that was put on the flooring at the factory. (dang this finish is hard to get off, still got some more to work on).

Step 4: Bevel layout on the 3/4″ MDF that will back the bamboo.

I did all my cutouts with a Jasper circle jig after this, but forgot to take pictures (also didn’t want my camera in the workshop with all the MDF dust). 06-02-2008 at 10:42 AM: Step 5: Starting on the side panels… Decided on red oak hardwood ply because it was easy to match the hardwood side strips to it. (It was an easer grain pattern to match than Baltic Birch). Spread some wood glue and get ready to clamp.

Step 6: Square everything up and clamp it down (1/2 of 1 panel finished, 3 more side panels to go after this one)

Got one of the crossovers finished and tested

Speakers mounted in the MDF

Tested, and wow they sound so much better than my Altec Lancing even without the box (no low end of course). But they are so much clearer sounding!!! Makes the Altec’s sound supper “muddy”. I think I’m going to have to replace every speaker in my house. (I think the kitchen is next)

Dang I’m hooked. More to come, stay tuned. 06-03-2008 at 06:28 AM: Step 7: Got the ends glued on for a complete panel last night

And got steps 5 & 6 done on 2nd panel. and got the 1st panel sanded down to 220 grit this morning. Now I just have to repeat #5-7 on 3 panels so I have my sides ready for routing and staining. (may be no pictures for a few days as I just duplicate stuff I’ve already done, yay for duplication/production) 06-09-2008 at 08:39 AM: Well the sides are finished. I spent the week finishing up my glue ups and then used plane to flush the hardwood strips to the plywood.

Next I routed the edges with a 1/2″ roundover bit.

I sanded them down to 220 grit and prepped the surface for staining with a 1lbs cut of Shellac to promote even stain absorption. I also finished the lower half of my bamboo fronts but for some reason my router died on me. It was working fine, then I went and changed bits and it wouldn’t start up. After I tinkered around a bit with it (mostly just taking it out of its base, blowing it off and shaking it around) it started working again. I routed for a while then changed bits again and again it won’t start. I think there must be a loose connection in there. Of course the allen wrench I need to disassemble the motor is the one I’m missing form my set. So I’ll have to pick up a new set today and try and get it working. 06-11-2008 at 06:40 PM: I’m making strange 5-legged creatures in the workshop. Got the fronts all glued up with the bamboo…. and (not pictured) the the miters cut for the top bamboo panels.

Also got the sides stained and 3 coats of a 2lbs cut of Shellac.

About ready for final glue up… finally 06-19-2008 at 08:19 PM: Wow it’s only been a week since I posted, feels like a lot longer. A lot happened…. Well my router switch bit the dust… looking back it was right after I bought some new chisels and a plane. (I’m starting to think it was in rebellion). Because…. I needed to do a couple of finish cuts so I went and bought a couple of Japanese saws to start working with, and guess what rebelled next? Of course, my table saw up and died. Well it was an old Delta bench top model that they still sell for only like $100 and I think it was older than me. So anyway I’m in the market for a new table saw, I think I have it narrowed down to a RIGID 3660 or a Delta 36-980. Let me know if anyone has any advice in the $600 range. Ok, back to speakers… I hatted the color of the sides and that’s the Minwax Mahogany (about the darkest thing they sell). So I stripped the side panels back to bare wood and started playing with Water Based Dies. FYI I love these things, you can get them as dark as you want, and mix any color you need. I highly recommend them. So sides are redone, got the x-overs finished and in…

And I just finished testing them and gluing them up

Tomorrow I’ll finish sand them with 600 grit (I have a seal coat of water based poly on the sides), and start applying the final finish coats of Shellac. Well I’m done, for now. I have grill cloth and was going to make some grills to cover them but my wife said she kind of likes the look of the the drivers…. and I’m feeling lazy.

More »