Bow Saw

Above is a bow saw I made this weekend with the kit from here. I had purchased these parts awhile back but never got around to making it. The saw is made out of hard maple with the toggle being out of cherry. The finish is Watco Danish Oil with a couple of coats of Shellac. The handles were the biggest challenge as I do not have a lathe so they were formed with the bandsaw and files. Hence, they are not perfectly round.

This will be functional as a coping saw. I will probably use it the most when I attempt handcut dovetails to cut the waste out. Regardless, it was fun to make and will be nice to have around the shop.

I also ordered the kit for a spokeshave from Lee Valley. I will hopefully be making this in the next few weekends. Although, next weekend will be very busy as I am taking a handplane class at Woodcraft with Chris Schwarz, the editor of Popular Woodworking and Woodworking Magazine. I have learned a lot already from reading his articles. It will be very exciting to meet him in person and learn some new skills.

Sawbench

I read about this sawbench a few months ago and wanted to make one for the shop. It would be very helpful for various tasks that I can do with the handsaw vs. pulling out the big heavy miter saw. I can also use it as a stool for my tall cabinets or for chiseling pieces of wood.

Also, my wife wanted me to make plyo boxes for when we workout at home and this can function in that capacity also. Although, I think I will make an actual plyo box and then can use the two of them for assembling projects.

I did not sand it or clean up the wood so please ignore the glue drip on the leg.

Here are a few pictures.

Coffee Table for a Friend

A close friend of my wife is going through a split up with her significant other and has a 10 month old baby and no furniture. She recently moved into an apartment but has little furniture. I hate to see anyone going through this so I offered to make her a coffee table to help out during this difficult time.

I made it out of 2x4's and 2x10's from the depot and cost about $25 total. I just glued up the 2x4 to make the legs thicker. Did M&T for the apron's and glued up 3 2x10's cut down for the top. Finish is Amber Shellac and paste wax as I had some sitting around. Here are a couple of pictures before I deliver it.

Thanks for looking

Projects and more Projects

I have not posted in a bit as I have been busy making sawdust. I have a number of projects currently brewing in my garage shop.

First, the local woodworking group has set up three groups to make end tables. Our group is making a Greene & Greene style table...very cool. One of the members of my group was very nice to sell some cherry wood so that we can each make our own table. I have the pieces cut but no pictures yet.

Second, I am making a saw bench which is a handy tool in the shop. It is a small low bench that helps with using a handsaw (the kind with no electric cord), chiseling and a number of other items.

Third, our friendly lumber provider, Oakie, had a bunch of hard maple billets (2 5/8" x 1 1/2" x 8 ft) and the oak was finished drying. So last weekend I picked up more wood. The billets I will use for bench's, cutting boards and other items. The white oak may be used for book cases. It is quarter sawn and flat sawn showing off some beautiful grain.

I will try and post some pictures soon. I just have been very busy lately with work.

Completed Side Table

I finished the table today. I decided to change the finish slightly as I found this article in Fine Woodworking. I did not follow the article exactly but used it as a guideline. After the one coat of BLO mixture I did a coat of clear Shellac and Paste Wax. The article used amber Shellac but I decided to use clear as it will show the maple figure much better.

There were a number of mistakes along the way but overall I was able to hide most of them and learned a great deal. Here are a few pictures of the finished product.

A Busy Sunday

Cutting the Tenons
The next step was to cut the tenons. There are many ways to do this this. I decided to take a scrap piece and use the table saw to determine how much waste to remove. I do not have a tenon jig so I determine the correct height of the blade and made several cuts to remove all of the waste. This worked well but did create a lot of dust which always gets to me. I might use a different method in the future due to the dust.

Once they were cut on the table saw, I then had to clean them up. I started with using my block and shoulder plane to clean them up. One issue I noticed is that I was taking off more wood on the side closest to me and I had a little bit of tear out on the ends. After a couple of tenons I then decided to use my chisel to pare in from the end. This worked much better. I also had to clean up the mortises slightly but was able to get them all to fit. Some are not as pretty as others but it will work.

Here is a picture of me cleaning up one of the tenons.



Cutting the Table Round
After the tenons were complete I decided to cut out the table top as I had the half inch blade already installed on the band saw. To do this I had to make a jig. Luckily, I had a scrap piece of plywood and a runner that fit perfectly in the miter slot.

I first measured out the narrowest part of the top and then found the center point. I then measured the same distance from an opposite edge and crossed the lines to drill a pilot hole on the back side of the table. This hole will ride in a dowel attach to the jig.

To make the jig I measured the distance of the miter slot from the blade and attached the runner with a couple of wood screws. I then marked the distance for the center point and drilled a hole and attached a dowel.

Here is a picture of the jig.



I then placed the top onto the jig, turned on the band saw and spun it around for a perfect circle. My wife came out to the shop to hang out and took the following pictures. Otherwise, I would never be in the picture.





Lower Stretcher Profile and Half Lap
To complete the lower stretchers I had to cut the half laps and profile. The half laps I did on the table saw marking the distance and depth. This was not too difficult.

To complete the profile I had to change the band saw blade to a 3/8" blade and I made some practice cuts. I then made the cut and used the fence once I did one profile to cut a straight line to the next profile. I also attached the both stretchers with two sided sticky tape and cut them at the same time.

The profile came out ok but did need some clean up. I used a bastard file along with the waste pieces and a hand made sanding block to clean them up.



Upper Stretcher
The final step was to cut the dovetails for the upper stretchers. I first cut the tails on the stretcher by marking them and cutting a small line in from the side. I then found it easiest to use my chisel to pare down the tail rather than cutting it.

Once complete, I marked them on the legs and number each one. I then used my hand saw to cut the lines and the drill press to remove most of the waste. I then had to use my chisel's to clean up the rest.

Once again, the first couple did not come out as good as the last two. Luckily these are hidden from view as they are not the prettiest.

Here is the table stand ready for the tenon pins, glueing and sanding.



And how it will look with the top (Not attached yet)

Legs and Mortises

Today I completed the legs and cut the mortises for the table. The legs are 1.5 inches square so I had to glue up two pieces of soft maple to obtain the correct thinkness. Everything glued up well except for one leg shown below. This had a seem that was visible so I cut a thin piece off one side and face glued it over the seem. I then planed the edges down even.




Once that was complete, I used the power planer to plane down all four sides of each leg the same thinkness, hand scraped off the planer marks and cut them to length. Here are the legs completed and ready for the mortises.



I then determined which sides of each leg I would want facing out from the table. Once figured out, I marked the mortises with a T&M marking gauge and used my marking knife to cut a line to be used as a guide for my chisel.

Once marked, I made a small jig for drilling out the holes. I used a 1/4 inch forstner bit so I could pare down to the line. Also, I marked a line on the jig of where to start drilling and clamped a stop block. I need to make a drill table at some point that would also be an outfeed table for the band saw but this will suffice for now. Add it to the to do list.



Here are the legs drilled out and ready to be cleaned up with the chisel. This is the first time I have done Mortises. The first one came out ok but I did get much better as I progressed. One tip is to place the chisel on the marked line and when hammering down on the chisel to pry the chisel away from the line. This way you make a nice square mortise without compressing the edge. Overall I think they came out ok for a first time.





Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to complete the lower and upper stretchers and cut the top into a circle. We are getting close to be completed. The mortises took much longer to do than I had anticipated.

Argh....Tear Out

I had spent some time trying to find three boards that would look good for the top. Unfortunately, when I started flattening the boards I realized there was so much twist in the middle board that I would have to remove a considerable amount of material. My choices were to either rip down the center of the middle board resulting in five boards of odd shapes or to select a new board. There were not many boards that match up but i did find one that will work.

Once the boards were flattened and edged on the jointer and planer I then looked to see how they fit together. They were slightly off so I cleaned them up with my jack plane leaving a very smooth surface and they fit together great. I then glued them up.

The problem came when I went to clean up the top. The boards were slightly off so I grabbed the jack plane and planed the top so the glued edges were smooth and removed all of the benchtop planer marks. Unfortunately, I ended up with some tearout in a couple of spots....Ugh. The tear out seemed fairly deep so I asked a couple of forums on what to do. I received great advice and ended up tuning up my card scraper that was sitting in the bottom of a bunch of tools. The thing worked great at removing almost all of the tear out and any scratches or ripples. Here is a picture of the top. I still need to make a jig for the bandsaw to cut the top into a circle.















My next step after completing the top is to clean up the legs of the table. Once that is complete I will cut the mortise and tenons and half laps in the lower stretcher, cut the arch in the lower strecher and do the dovetails in the upper stretcher. Still a lot to do but I was able to make great progress over the last two days.

Arts & Crafts Side Table

I am currently building my first real piece of furniture for the house. I came across this side table that would make a great plant stand for my wife.

It is a really cool project as it incorporates a fair amount of hand tools as well as machinery. There are a number of first for me on this project such as dimensioning rough sawn lumber, dovetailed upper strechers (that are luckily hidden for any mistakes), through tenons, arched bottom stretcher, round table and on and on.

Below is a picture of the pieces I selected for this project. I marked out each piece allowing an inch or two for waist.














I then cut the boards down to make them much easier to joint and plane.

















Finally, I used the jointer and planer to flatten the lumber and square the edges. It was exciting to see the what was hidden below all of the saw marks when it was surfaced. I also used my jack plane to smooth out the surfaces and give a final edge on the top for glueing















I will post more as I make more progress. So far everything is going great. It is also really nice to finally have most of the tools required for woodworking. It makes life much easier and the hobby much more enjoyable.