Blended Woodworking

It turns out that wide boards have a tendancy to cup when you mill them up and then let them sit in your shop for a year.  This was a lesson that I rediscovered this afternoon as I tried to smooth the drawer fronts of the tall chest I am building.  The narrower boards for the upper drawers were fairly flat and I had little trouble smoothing them, even with the Lie Nielsen #5 1/2 plane that I was using.  If I can get a thin continuous shaving with that plane then a board is pretty flat.  However, as I progressed towards the lower, and hence wider, drawer fronts the smoothing became more and more problematic.  On the second drawer front from the bottom I gave up flattening the board with the grain and started traversing the board with cross grain passes.  It took a little while since I was taking light cuts, but I got the job done.  As I started on the bottom drawer front it became clear that I was going to need to bring out the big guns.

That is when I decided to resort to my Lie Nielsen Low Angle Jack Plane with a toothed blade.  The bevel of this blade has a series of regularly spaced notches removed such that the remaining metal looks like a series of small chisels or, if you have a better imagination, teeth.  Despite these teeth the blade can be sharpened and used just like any other plane blade.  The advantage of the toothed blade is that you can make a fairly heavy cut with little to no chance of tear out.  The teeth of the blade take small shavings which break easily and prevent large chips from levering up and breaking resulting in tear out.  Toothed blades are especially useful when you are working with highly figured wood or if you are forced to work across the grain.  Since I am building my tall chest out of curly cherry a toothed blade is especially useful in this scenario.

As you can see in the photo above the surface left by the toothed blade has no tear out and is pretty smooth other than the series of small grooves left behind.

Once the board was completely flat I switched back over to my #5 1/2 again and took a few more passes with the grain to finish the flattening and the smoothing.  The first few passes produce a lot of dust and small chips as you knock off the high spots left by the toothed blade.  However, after a few passes you quickly get beyond these ridges and are left with a beatiful smooth tear-out-free surface.

If you are interested in learning a little more about using a toothed blade or you are interested in seeing one in action check out this YouTube video by Deneb Puchalski of Lie-Nielsen Toolworks.  If you subscribe to Popular Woodworking you can also find an article on toothing planes by Deneb in the October 2009 issue.

P.S. In the interest of full disclosure: I am in no way cool enough to be sponsored in any way by Lie-Nielsen Toolworks or to be offered any sort of compensation for such a post.  This is especially true since I am a blog slacker and my postings are infrequenct enough that there is probably no one left who reads my blog.  I am simply a satisfied user of Lie Nielsen tools sharing my experience with the few people that occasionally stumble across my posts.  The most that I could possibly hope for is for someone from Lie-Nielsen to stumble across my blog, recognize me at their booth at Woodworking in America, and offer me one of those nifty little Lie-Nielsen fake tattoo decals for writing such a good review of their products.  Happy woodworking.

-Phil

Yes, I know I said I was going to blog more.  Yes, I know I didn’t actually follow though with that.  I’m sure you know I have my excuses, but I’m tired of starting every post with an excuse.  Instead I will spend more time talking about woodworking.

I have made some real progress on my Chester County Tall Chest lately.  My time in the shop has been coming in spurts, but I have finally finished the case.  Other than nailing in the backboards (which is the last step), the only thing left to do is make nine drawers.  How long could that take?  Yeah, I know.  At my recent pace it could take forever.

I have had the case glued up for a while now, but things slowed down when I got to the finer details of the case.  I was able to make the ogee bracket feet without too much trouble.  Although, I avoided most of my problems by making all of my errors on a trial poplar foot.  I find that it is always a good idea to try new techniques on cheaper wood the first time.  I know that I should have blogged about the process of making ogee bracket feet, but I was too busy concentrating on getting them right.  Next time I make them I will write a post on it.  In the mean time, if you want to learn how to make them I highly recommend purchasing Glen Huey’s book “Illustrated Guide to Building Period Furniture”.  This is a great book and it is made even better by the inclusion of a DVD in which Glen illustrates some key construction techniques, such as making ogee bracket feet.

The real thing that slowed me down on this project (other than a month of 60 hour work weeks, two of which were spent in a different state) was my agonizing over the moulding details.  I believe the original cornice moulding on the Chester County Tall Chest contained a small moulding profile below a large cove.  It is difficult to make out the exact small moulding profile in Glen Huey’s book “Fine Furniture for a Lifetime”, however, it appears to be a bead, fillet, and cove.  During the Chester County Tall Chest class Glen suggested that the class use just a large cove and ignore the smaller profile since he had to use his shaper to get the required profile. 

Of course, I liked the details of the original moulding and was unwilling to compromise.  I own a harlequin half set of hollows and rounds (although I am eagerly awaiting a half set from Clark and Williams).  I planned to use this set, although as I began to examine my number 2 pair of hollow and round planes I realized that one of them had been ruined by an idiot who decided to file the mouth open by about 1/4 inch.  This might work on a softwood, but I wasn’t even willing to try on a piece of curly cherry.  Of course, this decision was made even easier by the fact that the plane iron in the plan was bedded at a skew angle and was badly misshapen relative to the sole profile.

Instead I decided to resort to router bits.  In order to achieve the profile with router bits I was forced to make the cornice moulding in two pieces.  I made a thin flat piece that mounts against the case and routed a bead and cove separated by a fillet.  If you are interested, the exact bit that I used was a Whiteside R3209 bit.  I made the large cove on the tablesaw as a separate piece.  The difficult thing about the cove molding is that to make the bottom portion blend with the small fillet of the bead and cove profile I had to cut the bottom of the cove down to just over 1/16 inch in thickness.  This was not a fun process and it made the profile very thin at the bottom which allowed the piece to warp slightly.  This is not a problem once it is glued and attached to the bottom piece of moulding, but it makes cutting the miter a bit more interesting.  Making the cove separately also means that you have to miter two separate pieces instead of just one.

Overall, I am happy with how the cornice moulding turned out.  Although, I am still eagerly awaiting my set of hollows and rounds from Larry and Don so that I have more options when it comes to moulding profiles.

I am hoping to be able to make some rapid progress on the drawer construction and the finishing process.  I would like to have the piece done in time to display it in the Society of American Period Furniture Makers booth at Woodworking in America.  I have yet to commit yet, but if I can make some good progress this week I may volunteer and give myself a real deadline.  WIA is only a month away.

I will try to provide a post showing some details of the drawer construction for this piece in the next week or so.  My wife has also been working on a project or two lately and I am hoping that she will write a post or two.  At least then I might be able to establish a little continuity with my blog.  Stay tuned, and hopefully my next post won’t start with more excuses and apologies.

-Phil

It has been entirely too long since I have written a blog post.  It has been about four months now.  What’s worse, it had also been that long since I had any meaningful shop time.  Not that I have been lazy.  I have just been stuck doing other chores.  Over the last month or two I finished a large retaining wall project (actually it is almost finished),

got all the plants put in my veggie garden,

and even managed to lose 25 pounds on a new diet and exercise routine. 

(Sorry, no semi nude muscle pics … for now)

Luckily, I am done with most of my serious chores now and I plan to spend quite a bit more time focusing on woodworking.  Last week was my first opportunity to get back in the shop.

My job has been really busy thus far this year.  It finally started slowing down a little in the past month … or maybe the warmer weather has prompted me to start refusing to put in the overtime that is probably still required.  Regardless, last week I took a week long vacation from work.  I had planned to go camping with my parents; but nasty humidity, high temperatures, and thunderstorms virtually every night last week prompted us to cancel that trip.  As a result I stayed around the house and spent quite a bit of time in my shop. 

Now instead of a woodworking slump I have a blog backlog.  I have done a lot of things that are worth sharing, but to avoid a ridiculously long blog post I will only focus on one of my recent endeavors – a pizza peel.

A few months ago I started baking my own bread.  I am somewhat of a foodie and I am always interested in trying out new things at home.  As I got more into baking I realized that I needed a pizza peel to get some of the larger loaves into and out of my oven.  Yes, I plan to use it for pizza too. 

I had planned to purchase a pizza peel, but one night while I was banished to my shop while my wife had some friends over I had the epiphany that many of us woodworkers have from time to time - Pizza peels are made of wood, I can make things out of wood, I should build a pizza peel.  I got as far as selecting some nice Walnut (kindly given to me by a friend), cutting it out, milling it, and glueing it up.  A few weeks later I once again wandered into the shop, cleared off the cobwebs, and proceeded to cut it into the rough shape of a pizza peel.  Finally, about a week ago I cleaned up the bandsaw marks, rounded the edges, and planed some suitable bevels on the front edge.

Partly because I didn’t take many photos during the build, but mostly because this is a fairly simple project, I will spare you further construction details and skip to the more difficult aspect – the design.

My pizza peel is approximately 16 inches across and 18 inches deep.  The handle adds an additional 15 inches to the length and is 1 1/2 inches wide.  I chose the width of the plate based upon the size of my baking stone which is also 16 inches wide.  I wanted the length of the plate to be slightly longer than the width to provide ample room to slide loaves/pizzas on and off the peel.  The length of the handle allows for a two handed grip which helps when lifting larger loaves that may weigh several pounds.  The pizza peel also has more heft than your typical balsa wood peel since it is made out of walnut.

I had the most difficulty deciding on the thickness of the peel.  I ended up selecting a thickness slightly under 5/8 of an inch.  I originally considered making a peel with a thick handle and a very thin plate.  I didn’t like the look of some peels that had another piece of wood laminated to the handle.  I originally left the pieces at 7/8 inch and considered hand planing the plate to a thickness of 3/8 inch or so.  Then I came to my senses and realized that was way too much work for a pizza peel!  I ripped the boards back apart and planed them to a compromise thickness in the middle.  (Confession time – my pizza peel is actually 15 3/4 inches wide after ripping it apart).  Now that it is completed I am actually pretty happy with the thickness.

I planed a top bevel on the front of the plate about 3/8 of an inch deep by about 1 1/4 inches wide.  On the underside of the plate I planed a bevel about 1/8 of an inch deep by 1/2 inch wide.  The thickness of the peel at the front tip is slightly less than 1/8 of an inch.  The smaller bottom bevel allows you to retrieve the bread/pizza without having to tilt the handle way up in the air.  Here is a profile view of the front of the peel.

I debated on whether or not to put finish on the peel, but decided that it would be a waste of nice walnut to leave it unfinished.  I decided on two coats of General Finishes - Salad Bowl Finish.  I wanted a non-film, food safe finish that could be easily cleaned up or re-applied as the pizza peel wears.  The air dried walnut took on an entirely different look after finishing.  It is so much more beautiful than the typical steamed walnut that you typically find.  I need to design a project in walnut in the future as an excuse to buy some more air dried walnut.

Finally, I drilled a hole in the handle and placed a thin strip of leather through the hole so that the peel can be hung up for decoration.  My wife requested this feature, but as the peel is pretty large I have no idea where we would be able to hang it in the kitchen.  Hopefully it doesn’t end up on a wall in the living room.

Hope you enjoyed the post.  I will try to write again soon.  I have been in the shop at least a few hours every day for the last 10 days, so I think I am on a roll again.  As added insurance, I canceled my DirecTV subscription a few days ago just to make sure I don’t get distracted.

-Phil

Have you ever found your self in the midst of a woodworking slump?

Over the past month I have definitely been in a woodworking slump.  The only woodworking that I have done is trimming down some closet doors on my tablesaw for some friends.  I haven’t even finished oiling my shooting board.  Granted, the outside temperatures have barely crossed 30 degrees in the last month, so it hasn’t exactly been good weather for finishing.

I think the main factor responsible for my slump is all of the overtime I have been putting in at work.  I am in the midst of a large project and the schedule thus far has been pretty brutal.  When I get home I am tired and stressed and it is hard to motivate myself to go out and get to work in the shop.  My new daughter has also been making it difficult for me to get into the shop.  She is awfully cute and I find myself spending a lot of time after work just sitting on the couch and holding her.  (At least this is a good excuse)

Finally, I also have a woodworking related issue.  I have lost all of my momentum on my projects.  I set aside the Chester County Tall Chest (CCTC) to finish up the crib.  Now I am out of the groove and picking it back up is difficult.  It is especially hard since I feel pretty good about the project and I am starting to get worried that I will make a mistake and screw it up.  I thought it might help to start on a new project to get back in the flow of woodworking.  I was excited about the tool cabinet project, but finalizing a design is always difficult.  I am also somewhat reluctant to start a new project with all the wood for the CCTC strewn around the shop.

Today I finally decided that I needed to try to put an end to my slump.  I spent about 3 hours in the shop this afternoon.  I started out by cleaning up the shop.  I always find that it is easier for me to get work done in a clean shop.  However, you can’t leave your shop too clean.  So once I had finished cleaning up, I cut a practice set of dovetails.  

The devotails turned out pretty well, but there were one or two slight gaps.  They could have been much worse considering the pitiful amount of shop time I have put in recently. 

My plan for this week is to finish my shooting board and then restart the CCTC project and try to gain some positive momentum.  If you don’t see any posts by next Monday feel free to leave some derogatory comments to motivate me.  Wish me luck.

If anyone has any experience with woodworking slumps and has any recommendations on how to overcome one, leave me a comment.

-Phil

The shooting board that I have used for the last few years is fairly pathetic.  All it consists of is a piece of 3/4″ MDF with a cleat and a fence.  There is no chute for the plane to ride on, the board is a little  too narrow and a little too shallow, and it is pretty darn ugly (unless you appreciate the look of unadorned MDF).  Although it is functionally adequate, it is basically the Yugo of shooting boards. 

This shooting board is one of the last holdovers from the dark days in my woodworking career when I did most of my woodworking out of my apartment’s one car garage in Redondo Beach.  I have included a picture of my first workshop below to put you in the right frame of mind.  Note the sole electrical outlet on the left wall which powered both the two light fixtures (which were actually a shop upgrade), as well as any other power tool I used in the shop via the orange extension cord laying on the ground.  Also note my first workbench which consisted of two 3′x4′ pieces of MDF screwed together and attached to 2x4s which fit into the top of my sawhorses.  I did have more tools than this picture shows, but I had to keep them in the coat closet of my apartment and bring them out to the shop when I wanted to use them.  I didn’t trust the padlock on the wooden garage door to keep them safe and the humid, salty beach air pretty much guaranteed that they would rust overnight regardless of whatever space age rust preventer I applied to them.

It is definitely time for a shooting board upgrade.  Especially after my wife bought me a Lie-Nielsen #9 for Christmas.

I constructed the base and platform of my new shooting board out of authentic baltic birch plywood which I purchased from a local cabinet supply shop in 5′x5′ sheets.  I have experimented enough with the cheap chinese plywood crap that they sell at the big box stores to know not to waste my time.  Although the plywood has 13 plies and looks tempting upon first inspection, it invariably warps into the shape of a potato chip as soon as I unload it from my truck and bring it into my shop. 

I designed my shooting board to be roughly 18 by 18 inches with a 3 inch wide chute.  I wanted a fairly large shooting board to support wider and longer boards, but I didn’t want my shooting board to be so large that I was better off adding legs to it and turning it into another workbench.  This design will allow me to shoot a board that is 10 inches wide.  Anything wider than this and it is probably easier to clamp the board end grain up in a vise and plane it normally. 

I cut an 18″ by 18″ piece for the base and a 15″ by 18″ piece for the platform and glued them together with the pieces flush on the left hand side.  When the glue was dry I made a couple of light trim passes on the table saw to make all the sides flush (We already established that I could be a bit anal in the last post).  I added a small groove in the left side of the chute to catch any dust or splinters that could otherwise build up between the plane and the edge of the platform and cause the cut to go out of square.  The easiest way I could think to do this was to use my plunge cut festool saw with the blade set to protrude about 1/16 – 1/8 of an inch below the level of the chute.  I know that the picture below may cause me to lose all credibility on the hand tool forums, but it was the best solution that was available to me.  My site is called Blended Woodworking after all.

After adding the groove I set aside the base and began working on the fence and the cleat.  I had a large piece of flatsawn 8/4 hard maple that I milled up and turned on edge so that the fence would be quartersawn in width.  I made the fence 1 1/2 inches tall by 2 inches wide.  I wanted a taller fence so that it would support thicker boards while shooting without the risk of spelching.  The cleat was made from a piece of hard maple similar to the fence, but the size and dimensions aren’t really critical so use whatever you have on hand.

I attached the fence using 1/4-20 insert hardware so that it could be removed or tweaked slightly to square it to the chute.  I drilled 9/32 inch diameter holes in the fence to allow 1/32 inch of play after the fence is installed.  To adjust the fence for square I clamped a combination square to my plane and held the plane against the side of the chute.

I transferred the hole locations to the top of the platform using a 9/32 inch transfer punch.  Transfer punches come in handy in numerous shop situations and they are pretty cheap.  Next time you place an order with Lee Valley add a set to your cart.  After transferring the hole locations I drilled 3/8 inch diameter holes for the 1/4-20 inserts.  I find that adding a small chamfer to the holes with a countersink keeps the wood from splitting out and makes it easier to start the inserts straight in the hole. 

I prefer to install the threaded inserts with a T-wrench from Woodcraft.  The one problem with this method is that it seems to only work with the inserts purchased from woodcraft.  I purchased some inserts from Rockler when I was building the crib and the T-wrench actually split the inserts before they had been fully recessed into the wood.  Rockler also sells a tool for installing these inserts that is basically an extra thick flathead screwdriver bit with a pilot rod to center it in the insert.  The baffling part of this tool is that the flathead portion is actually wider than the insert which prevents you from driving the insert flush to the surface of the wood.  This effectively makes the tool useless for most applications.

Once all of the inserts are installed you can use your square setup to adjust and attach your fence.

In the future I plan to construct a miter attachment for my shooting board so that I can true miters.  The miter attachment will basically be a large right triangle that attaches to the shooting board fence.  I will drill holes horizontally through the fence and add threaded inserts to the back edge of the triangle.  This will allow the mitre attachment to be easily added or removed as needed.

I still have to add a few coats of Minwax Antique Oil to the shooting board and a coat or two of wax to the chute before I put it into full time use.  In the meantime I will get back to designing my tool cabinet.

-Phil

When my wife and I were looking to move to Cincinnati from Southern California we told our real estate agent that we were looking for a house with a three car garage.  We knew that our new house would need space for a workshop and we were planning to utilize the garage as our shop space.  My current company flew me to Cincinnati for a job interview and my wife and I attempted to find our future house in the two days following my job interview.

The first day of our search we must have looked at close to twenty homes, and out of all of those homes one clearly stood out.  The garage space wasn’t the only reason we chose our current house, but it did play a significant role.  I remember waking into my garage for the first time and envisioning all the things that I could do with it.  One of the things that clearly stood out were the two large windows on the north side of my garage.  I knew immediately that I would place my workbench up against that wall.  The other thing that I knew immediately is that I would have to build a tool cabinet to hang between those two windows over my bench.

My shop has come a long way since I first moved into my house.  I ripped out all the drywall, added a 100 amp subpanel and numerous electrical outlets, insulated all the walls, added some nice flooring, and replaced the garage doors.  However, I still haven’t got around to building that tool cabinet. 

I do have a cabinet in my shop that was left by the previous homeowner.  I believe it was a leftover reject from the kitchen cabinets that were installed in my house.  I found the cabinet lying in my garage when I moved in.  One of the tenons on the face frame was too small and the joint had failed.  I fixed this issue with a good deal of epoxy and hung the cabinet off to the left of my bench area.  I keep a good deal of my tools in this cabinet, but since it was designed for plates and bowls rather than tools it is a less than ideal solution for handtool storage.  Whenever I pull a tool out it tends to live on my bench for the remainder of the project.  This is okay at first, but by the end of the project I barely have any room on my workbench to do any woodworking.  I finally decided that enough was enough and over the last week or two I have started the initial design process for my tool cabinet.

I started my design process by measuring the space above my workbench and between the windows to determine the size constraints of my tool cabinet.  I knew that I didn’t want the tool cabinet to block out any natural light that comes in from those windows, so the cabinet width (with the doors open) would need to be less than the 70 inches between the windows.  I also knew that I wanted to mount my cabinet in the middle of the wall space with two doors so that it would be centered on the wall when open or closed (So I’m a little anal, get over it).  From there I attempted to determine the height of the cabinet based on how high I could reach above my bench and how much space I wanted to reserve above my benchtop.  I decided that I wanted my cabinet at least 18 inches above my benchtop which is about 34 inches high.  Since I could reach a little over 7 feet high I decided that my cabinet could be close to 3 feet tall.  

Since I have spent a lot of time recently reading George Walker’s blog and watching  his videos on traditional design I knew that I wanted to shoot for a cabinet design with pleasing proportions.  George argues that the proportions in traditional designs were typically based on simple whole number ratios.  (There is a lot more to design than whole number ratios so be sure to check out George’s writing.)  As I experimented with different ratios that would fit within my space constraints I decided on a cabinet size that was 30 inches wide by 36 inches tall when closed.  This is a 5 to 6 ratio and as you can see below I think the proportions are fairly pleasing.

Based on these proportions, each door is 15 inches wide by 36 inches tall.  Therefore, when the doors are open the cabinet dimensions are 60 inches by 36 inches.  This is a 5 to 3 ratio which is also fairly pleasing to my eye.  It fits well within the 70 inch width between the windows,leaving about 5 inches on either side of the cabinet so that it doesn’t overwhelm the space.

Once I settled on these proportions I began to experiment with tool layout to make sure that these dimensions would actually work.  As luck would have it, my Lie-Nielsen bench chisels fit almost perfectly across the width of one of the door openings.  I also experimented with laying out my planes inside the cabinet and I think that they will all fit nicely and will leave enough space for some drawers and cubbyholes underneath them.

Since I don’t want the cabinet to protrude too far over my bench I am currently planning to hang my planes near vertical in the cabinet.  I know that I want to be able to store a few of my block planes in cubbyholes within the cabinet, so I think the depth of the cabinet back (not including the doors) will be around 9 inches.  This is also plenty of room to clear my plane blades and handles if they are stored near vertical.

Since I will probably have the doors open most of the time when I am working at my bench, I can make them fairly deep without compromising the space over my benchtop.  However, since I don’t want to waste all of the premium wall space on either side of the cabinet, I need to make the doors shallow enough so that when they are open there is still room to hang tools on the wall on either side of the cabinet.  I am currently leaning towards a door depth of around 4 inches.  This will leave approximately 5 inches behind the door which I figure is enough space to hang up some braces, saws, etc as long as they are parallel to the wall.

Clearly, I still have a lot of work to do in designing exactly how I will lay out and store my tools within the cabinet (as well as on the walls surrounding the cabinet), but I already have a lot of ideas.  For me, it was important to make it over that initial hurdle of establishing some design constraints to bound the problem.  I will share more of the design as well as the building of the cabinet as work progresses.  If you have any comments or suggestions feel free to share them since I would love to hear your ideas and feedback.

-Phil

My apologies to those of you who keep checking my blog only to find the same post and pictures of my new baby daughter.  It has been a long couple of weeks adjusting to life with a new baby, but I think I am starting to get back to a place of normalcy.  Not that my life looks much like my life before my daughter arrived, but at least my new life is starting to feel like normal.  This isn’t a complaint.  I love being a dad.  But there’s no point pretending that being a dad is easy.

The first week or two with my new baby was mostly a blur.  I would wake up in the morning planning to get a whole slew of things done, but before I knew it the sun would set and it would be time for bed, with little or nothing on my list accomplished.  However, over the last week or so I have been able to spend a little bit of time in the shop and I am hoping that this trend will continue to improve.  I am currently working on a new shooting board to go with a Lie Nielsen #9 iron mitre plane that I received for Christmas.  I have also started designing a wall hung tool cabinet for my shop.  I am tired of always having my workbench buried in the tools I am using and I think it is time to build a suitable tool storage solution.  In the next few days I will try to post some pictures of my new shooting board setup as well as some details regarding the design of my new tool cabinet.

In the interim I thought I would at least post some new baby pictures for those of you that are tired of looking at the previous photos.

The picture below was taken on Christmas Eve when Alyssa was about one week old.

This next picture was taken a couple of days ago when Alyssa was about three weeks old.

Stay tuned.  I will try to post something that is actually related to woodworking in the next few days.

-Phil

At 5:49 am on Wednesday, December 16th my new daughter, Alyssa Katelyn Hirz, was born.  She is 7 pounds, 10 ounces and is 21 1/4 inches long.  I am happy to report that she is a healthy baby and Melinda (my wife) is doing well.

As you can clearly see she is adorable.  It only took her all of two minutes to have me wrapped around her little finger.

I can already tell that my life is going to be different from here on out.  Case in point, it is tough trying to write a blog post at the hospital while running on 4 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours.  Still, when I hold her I know it is completely worthwhile.  Thankfully, things are starting to settle out and we are hoping to be able to go home today.

-Phil

With the crib completed and my new daughter arriving any time now (my wife’s official due date was today) I am trying to keep myself busy by knocking out some basic shop chores.  I don’t really want to get involved in any major projects right now since I probably won’t be getting much shop time for the next few weeks.  So I figured that I might as well get my shop and tools ready for that next major project. 

After completing the crib and spending some time working on my Chester County Tall Chest project there were several of my tools that were in need of attention.  I generally prefer to do most of my sharpening in long sessions between projects or even during a project if a number of my tools get dull. (Although I will stop to sharpen a dull tool if I need it while I am working).  Today ended up being one of those long sharpening sessions. And since I was doing so much sharpening I decided to take a few pictures to share my sharpening process.

I like to see how different woodworkers sharpen their tools (this is a definite sign of a woodworking geek).  Sharpening isn’t terribly complicated, but there are a lot of subtle details involved that, if overlooked, can lead to inconsistent and disappointing results.  In watching other people sharpen I have picked up various methods and techniques that have helped me to refine my process and become a better sharpener.  Hopefully in sharing my sharpening process I will be able to pass on a few of these tricks to others and help them to improve their sharpening techniques.

A couple of quick caveats before I begin.  There is not necessarily a “right” way to sharpen.  Different people have different preferences and different circumstances may call for a different approach.  I am simply sharing my personal preferences in a general sharpening scenario.  In addition, when learning how to sharpen it is best to choose one approach and stick with it for a while in order to get a feel for sharpening.  It is possible to spend a lot of money looking for that magical item that will make you a good sharpener.  The fastest way to improving your sharpening skill is to spend time practicing with what you have.  With that said, here is how I do it.

I start my sharpening at the grinder if I have any serious nicks or if I have resharpened several times since the last grinding.  Today I didn’t have any serious nicks or dings, but I had sharpened some of my chisels 5 or 10 times since the last time they visited the grinder.  I like to re-grind my tools so that when I go to the stones I only have a small micro-bevel that I need to polish.  The larger this bevel becomes the longer it takes me to get a sharp edge.

For a standard re-grind I use an 8 inch slow speed grinder and a Norton 3x wheel.  I got one of the Norton 3x wheels about a year ago and I really like them.  They cut fast and clean and yet generate significantly less heat than any other wheel I have tried.  I have a Wolverine tool rest since I also do some turning from time to time..  If you don’t intend to do any turning then a standard 6 inch high speed grinder with a less elaborate tool rest system will work just fine.  I also own a slow speed Tormek water grinder but I generally don’t use it for taks like this since a standard grinder is so much faster.

It can take a little while to get the hang of using a grinder and it is a good idea to practice on some junk tools (or even a hunk of weld steel from a home center) before offering up your nicest tools.  The trick is to use a light touch and keep the tool moving across the wheel to avoid grinding too much in any single area.  This also helps to avoid heat build up.  I tend to grasp the underside of the tool reast with the fingers on my left hand while I move the tool across the edge with my thumb.  My right hand supports the tool and provides slight guidance, but most of the control is applied with my left hand.  Since my left hand is anchored to the tool rest I can keep it steady and make very controlled movements.  It is also a good idea to keep your fingers close to the edge of the tool so that you know when the tool is getting hot.  If it is too hot to hold stop grinding and let it cool so that you don’t brun your hands or the edge of the tool.  Check your progress frequently to avoid overgrinding and to give your tool a chance to cool down.  True your grinding wheel frequently with a diamond truing tool.  As grinding wheels glaze over they cut slower and generate more heat.

I prefer to sharpen using a jig, so I grind a primary bevel that is a few degrees shallower than the secondary bevel I intend to put on the tool.  For example: I grind my tools at approximately 25 degrees if I intend to use a 30 to 35 degree secondary bevel and 20 degrees if I am going to use a 25 degree secondary bevel.  The exact angle is not terribly important as long as it is less than the angle of my secondary bevel, so I typically just eyeball it in reference to the pre-existing bevel on the tool.  I will grind this primary bevel almost up to the tip of the tool leaving just a sliver of the original polished bevel.  If you grind beyond this front edge then you are shortening the life of your tool.  Grinding all the way to the edge of the tool is only necessary when you have a serious nick in the edge.  

The picture below illustrates how far I typically try to grind.  As you can see there is just a tiny amount of the original bevel remaining.  I went just slightly too far on the right side of this chisel,  but not far enough to be a problem.  When I hone my secondary bevel I will easily be able to sharpen past this and create a bur.  Hey, I never claimed to be perfect.

I mentioned before that I prefer to sharpen using a jig.  Specifically, I like using the Veritas Mk. II Honing Guide, although I also have a small Richard Kell honing guide which can be handy for certain chisels such as my Ray Iles OBMC chisels or extremly narrow chisels which tend to be taller than they are wide.  Although I prefer to use a jig I can also sharpen by hand if necessary.  There are many tools that just don’t practically lend themselves to sharpening using a jig.  With that said, using a jig is nice because you can precisely control the bevel angle and get a repeatable setup every time.  Also, if you are having an off day it is hard to screw up too badly if you are using a jig.

I use a set of Shapton professional water stones (1000, 5000, and 8000 grits) for my sharpening media.  I also own a set of Norton stones (1000, 4000, and 8000 grits) and would have no problem recommending them as a cheaper alternative.  The advantage of the Shapton stones is that they are harder and longer wearing and do not require soaking before use.  I flatten my stones regularly using a DMT coarse/extra coarse duostone.  The DMT stones do a great job and I have had mine for almost five years and it is still going strong.  I have heard that the Shapton diamond lapping plate is great, but at over $300 I am unlikely to find out for myself any time soon.

I start sharpening my secondary bevel on my 1000 grit stones and sharpen until I can feel a burr all across the edge.  This typically happens in 10-20 strokes at this stage.  Once I can feel the burr I will wipe off my tool and the wheel of my guide before moving to the next grit.  If you don’t wipe between grits it is possible to contaminate your finer stones with coarse particles from the previous stone.  These can leave deep scratches in your edge that can leave marks in your work or cause your tool’s edge to break down prematurely.  When your secondary bevel is small you can skip from the 1000 grit stone to the 8000 grit stone, but as this bevel grows it is best to use the 5000 grit stone as an intermediate step.

I start sharpening on my 8000 grit stone with 10 to 20 back and forth strokes.  After this I will make a few strokes on the back of my tool on the same stone.  (Never drop back below your highest grit stone once you have performed the initial flattening of the back).  Then I will make another 5 to 10 strokes on the bevel all pulled towards me, followed by another 1 or 2 strokes on the back of the tool.  I will alternate back and forth in this manner using fewer strokes each time. 

After finishing on the 8000 grit stone I will once again wipe down my tool and the wheel of my jig.  I examine the edge of my tool and make sure there are no stray scratches.  At this point both the secondary bevel and the back of the tool should appear mirror-like (although the mirror reflection may still be slightly dull or hazy at this point).  With the tool clean I will use a piece of leather to strop the edge (this will generally take your surface to that bright mirror finish).  I use a horse butt strop from Tools for Working Wood.  I use the rough side of the strop with extra fine green honing compound.  I will take 1 or 2 light passes on both the secondary bevel and the back of the tool.  Be sure not to press too hard at this point as it is easy to dub over the edge, leaving it in worse shape than before the stropping. 

The final step in the sharpening process is to apply a light coat of a non-drying vegetable based oil such as camellia or jojoba oil.  I used to use camellia oil, but have recently switched to jojoba oil since it is a domestic product and can be found a little cheaper.  It is supposedly slightly thicker than camellia oil but I haven’t noticed much difference in use.  I did, however, notice that it turns into a wax like consistency at cold temperatures (It was around 15 degrees at my house last night).  The camellia oil didn’t seem to be affected by the colder temperatures.

I like to apply the oil to a rag which I keep in a small ziploc sandwich bag.  Over time the rag absorbs enough oil to be almost perpetually moist.  It is then easy to apply a light coat of oil to your tools without having to get out your spray bottle and spray everything.  One additional advantage to using a rag like this is that if you become a famous woodworker you may eventually be able to sell your rag on ebay to make some extra cash.

-Phil

I can’t believe that it has almost been two months since I posted to my blog.  I think the first few weeks of neglect were mostly due to my desire to get the crib completed before my new daughter arrived.  The crib has been completed for almost a month now, so clearly that excuse doesn’t apply to the entire period of neglect.  The lack of posts for the last few weeks have been due to a combination of working overtime at my job and my fussiness over my crib photos.  

When I finished the crib I brought it upstairs to the babies room and assembled it.  My wife, Melinda, then took over and added all of the cutesy baby bedding (a mandatory accessory for any crib).  It wasn’t until after the crib was in place and ready for use that I realized that the location of the crib was probably the worst place in my house for a photograph.  It sits in the corner of an upstairs bedroom with one central light fixture and a north facing window.  My only hope of getting a good photo was to wait for a bright sunny day.  I got my shot a couple of weeks ago, but later decided that I didn’t like the photos.  Luckily, this morning I had a second chance.  So without any further babbling and excuses here are some pictures of the finished crib.

The crib is made entirely out of hard maple.  The top rails are curly hard maple for some added flair.  There is also some subtle curl in the legs.  The front of the crib is 38 inches high which is short enough to allow my wife and I to easily bend over the front rail.  My wife and I are tall so the front of the crib is fairly tall as well.  I have seen some cribs with a front as low as 34 inches.  The back of the crib is 46.5 inches tall which is really an arbitrary dimension chosen for looks.  The crib is 30.5 inches deep and 55 inchels long from edge of leg to edge of leg.  These dimensions were chosen to ensure that the mattress fit snugly inside the crib.  The gap around the edge of the mattress should be less than half an inch to keep your baby safe.  The spacing between the crib bars is 1 7/8 inches.  Crib saftey codes dictate that the maximum width between bars must be less than 2 3/8 inches.

The finish is five coats of dewaxed super blond shellac which I applied using my new HVLP spray gun.  Each coat was sprayed on as approximately a 1.5 pound cut.  My wife and I sanded the entire crib with 400 grit sand paper between each coat.  After the final coat of shellac I rubbed out the finish with 0000 steel wool lubricated with Behlen’s wool lube.  I contemplated applying a coat of paste wax at the end but decided against it since I was concerned about possible harmful chemicals in the wax residue.  I figure that in matters like this it is better to be safe than sorry.

I built the crib using knock down hardware for ease of transport and storage, and so I could get it out of my shop and into the baby’s bedroom (Assembled it is about 1 inch too wide to fit through the doorway).  I used three 1/4-20 inserts per leg to attach the sides to the crib.  You can see one of the hex head bolts in the photo above.  The sides of the crib are also tenoned into the legs of the crib, although they were not glued.  Most of the structural support is provided by these tenons and the knock down hardware only holds the sides to the legs.  This design would make it difficult to convert the crib to a child’s bed in the future, but that wasn’t one of my design goals for this crib.  I was more concerned about making an exceptional crib with no compromises to the structure or design.

The mattress is supported by a web frame made of poplar.  1/4-20 inserts are screwed into the sides of the web frame and the bottom rails of the crib sides.  I made four six inch long brackets out of 3/16 x 1 inch weld steel that I picked up from a local home center.  I drilled holes into both ends of the brackets, ground a pleasing shape on the ends, and chamfered all of the edges with a file.  I applied a couple of coats of shellac to the brackets to keep them from rusting.  The brackets allow for two mattress height settings.  The crib is in the high position (as shown in the photos) when the bottom of the brackets are attached to the sides.  The crib is in the low position when the top of the brackets are attached to the sides.  In the low setting the mattress is about a foot lower and the top of the mattress is just above the bottom rail.  Sorry for the lack of photos but I would have had to remove the mattress to get a decent shot of the brackets and the web frame.  The brackets are positioned in the center of the side bars which make them difficult to see.  This is a good thing unless you want to take a photo of them.

I had a few periods of frustration during the construction of the crib.  Almost all of them were related to the sides of the crib and the curved top rail.  This feature was really a hassle, but I am glad that I included it now that the crib is finished.  Overall I am really happy with how the crib turned out.  There are obviously a number of small flaws here and there that I seem to point out any time a fellow woodworker stops in to look at the crib, but I think this just part of the inherent sickness that curses almost every woodworker I know.  I hope you like how the crib turned out.  If you have any questions feel free to email me or leave a comment.  

It is a good thing that the crib is finally finished since my wife’s due date is only a week away.  Hopefully my next post will be introducing my new daughter to the world.

-Phil