As Al had posted a project yesterday, this is mine. We held a scheduled workshop last weekend Oct 5-6, 2012 (scheduled as a 2 day but everyone got finished in one day) 10 People showed up to make Hand Planes. Ed had gotten wood for everyone (Maple for the body and Purpleheart for the other pieces.

I brought my own wood. The main block was cut as 1 9/16 square by 6” long. I brought a piece of Red Ecuyplus that I got from Ira The sides are a piece of Texas Ebony that I got from Gerald. I used Ed’s Purpleheart for the wedge.

The blade is 1/8” by 1 1/2” by 3 1/2” long. We tempered the blade as part of the workshop. Heating the edge of the pre sharpened blade to cherry red and dropping into some oil and then tempering in an oven at 400 deg for 30 minutes. We had a couple of Worksharp machines to do a final sharpening, but I took my blade to sharpen at home. I left the machines for those who don’t have a machine.

The 3/8” dowel had part of one side cut off to hold the wedge in place. The dowel is not glued in, it is free to rotate.

The heel block is taken from the piece that was cut out for the throat. It does not rest against the blade. It is just to give you wood for your palm to push against.

It was about 5 hrs to make these planes. I took my microwave to cure the glue if anyone wanted to. I and my sons used it, but I don’t know if anyone else did.

We always have a great time at these workshops. The cost was $25.00 per person.

I was bringing back to life a Grizzly table saw that I’ve had buried for about 9 years It was missing everything (wings, fence, blade, washer, nut, plate, dust collector door) I got a fence at a going out of business Woodworkers Warehouse about 8 years ago, some wings at a Grizzly Tent sale.

I setup the blade stops and was ready to make some boxes.

But first I needed a sliding sled.

I’m using a 3/4” piece of Phenolic Plywood 13 layers. The front is 2 X 3” Sapele the back is 1 1/2 X 2 1/2” Sapele. The back is screwed directly to the table surface with 2” stainless screws. The front is bolted on one end and a tempory screw holds the other end until the fence is calibrated at a 90 degree cut then another bolt is inserted at the other end and more screws bring it tight to the Phenolic surface.

I got another piece of Sapele that was the required width to make the jig track flush with the front fence. A third piece of Sapele was attached as a blade guard in the front. Two sliding tracks fit in the table saw slots. The saw cut is a 45 deg bevel.

The fence stops are wooden hinges made with the Incra Hinge Crafter and are attached to the track with brass Toilet bolts and 3 wing knobs. I glued an insert that is tight on the track and keeps the hinge stop from rotating when in use. I made two stops so that one is set for the width and the other for the length. I use the stops on the left of the blade so the first 45 degree cut is made with the hinges in the up position. Then the board is rotated and the knife edge on the cut is off the surface so that it can’t slip under the end stop.

By using two stops it’s easy to make all sides the correct length. One for the width and the other for the length.

The front edge on the stops fit tight against the front fence and is about a couple of thousands long so it slightly lifts the stop when it’s in the down position.

With the 45 degree stop set on the saw accurately I just angle the blade and cut away. everything fits tight.

The spline cutting jig is written up here

I ran across these pictures 7 years after moving out of my NJ home. I have no idea where the rest of the pictures might be.

I made the wainscot out of MDF. These panels were cut with the angle for the stairs and at the top of the stairs it went down the wall on both sides. There was 2 closets, 4 bedrooms and a bath off of the hall. So a lot of cutting was done.

The wainscot had a stile on top and then a homemade bannister made out of Red Oak on the top. The oak was placed on top of all of the wainscoat to give it a finished edge and not the normal MDF edge. The wainscot was all painted white. The Oak was natural even though the rest of the oak trim was stained dark walnut.

It was placed on both sides of the stairs but was not installed in the downstairs foyer. There was really not enough wall to do it there. There would have been a lot of electric rewiring to move the bank of switches by the front door. They were in a place that would have been inappropriate for an intersection of wainscot joints.

I’ve looked and have not found any additional pictures, so you will have to take my word for it. But the house did sale without me having to place it on the market. The buyer just called me and wanted possession in 15 days. So we sold.

The raised panel cutters were a 3-wing cutter and were plenty dull after cutting all of that mdf. I got it sharpened and now use it for my Shaker Candle boxes. It was a Shaker Style Router Bit set on the stile and rails and on the MDF.

Many people on LumberJocks have designed and created their cutting boards. And I’ve often thought about making one.

But, I just came into close proximity of my first cutting board.

This was made over 40 years ago. Back in the day when we didn’t care if we had sharp knives hanging off the side where children could reach them.

I had come into possession of around 20,000 Bd Ft of hard rock Maple at the astronomical price of 2 cents per Bd Ft. This wood was sitting in a salvage yard and they had 2 Million Bd ft of this stuff. I had been paying 4 cents a bd ft, until I offered to take an entire stack. He then quoted the price of 2 cents. So I spent the next month moving moving a 3’ X 3’ X 3’ cube home in the back of my van. Each cube was about 300 Bd FT.

I made a lot of toys that I sold at flee markets and school craft fairs.

But I also made something for the house.

The top is 22” X 22” and the center is 6” thick the outer apron is 9” thick The legs are two laminated pieces 3” x 3” As you can imagine I had to put casters on it.

The finish is what I understood was the finish for the real chopping blocks in Butcher shops at the time and down through history.

The finish is melted paraffin and then ironed in using an my wife’s electric iron. I’ve since bought my own, or she since bought a new one.

We had this cutting board in our home for close to 30 years. My son who is/was a professional chef wanted it in his home, so he took it. He had it for a few years.

He was then moving into an apt in New York City when his wife went in a Medical Fellowship in the city. So the cutting board was inherited by my youngest daughter and her family. They had it for a few years.

Then they were doing some remodeling in their kitchen and floor space came a little tight so it was inherited by my middle daughter and her family and it’s sitting in a 100 Yr old house in Maryland.

We had a birthday party for a couple of my grandchildren and so I had my camera and took a couple of pictures of some of my early woodworking and my ”First” Cutting board.

Enjoy

For Christmas my wife gave me a handsaw. She said that she wanted to get it painted with something woodworking.

So then she gave it to my daughter whe finished the saw and then gave it to me on my birthday.

I then took the saw and made a mounting plate to mount the saw.

So given all of that processing, it is finally finished.

The backer board is a piece of Maple Burl that I got about 4-5 years ago. I wrote about it in one of my wood gloates You can see in the last two pictures how the color streaks have moved around because of the burl in the tree. The sap path was not very straight.

The saw has been painted with sections for each of the family members. The left roller coaster is Karrie and her family. There is room for one more car but she said no way.

The merry-go-round has my oldest daughter Missy She is professing that no more will be allowed to get on that ride.

Then there is the tent for my wife Linda and me along with my son Daniel and Dave

The Ferris wheel is my daughter Rebecca and her clan. It would take a lot of work to add another car to that ride.

The final section is my son Martin He’s not been very active on LumberJocks but I figure some day when a place is available for a shop, he might get started. Marty has been a Chef in New Jersey, Philadelphia and New York. His wife Elizabeth is a hand Surgeon so work safely so you never have to visit her.

I want to thank the family for all that they have done to make my life so enjoyable. And thanks for the Christmas/birthday present.

God bless you all.

A contest was started in January on Garden Tenders. You were suppose to post a picture of a Fairy Door. The contest ends at the end of this month.

The contest was started without any prizes, just a good natured posting of pictures. I offered MsDebbie a prize to be given to the winner. So then it became an offical contest. The owner of the web site kicked in a $ prize for second place.

You’ve got 2 days to signup as a member of Garden Tenders and enter your picture. The winner gets to pick your choice of one of these 3 boxes.

I made 4 Shaker Candle boxes and gave one to my wife and one for the contest so I’ll hold the other two for some special occasion. My son saw a box that he remembers as being similiar to one of these in a NY museaum store and they were asking $400.00 for it.

I guess I need to get into the Museum Store business.

The sides are Ambrosia Maple. The streaks are caused by an Ambrosia Beetle that burrows into the tree. Sometimes you see two holes where theve got an entry and then have an exit hole. How they are able to burrow so close is hard for me to understand. After the Ambrosia Beetle is done a fungus invades the tunnel. The black fungus in seen on the sides of the tunnel. As sap goes up and down the trees over the years then a colored streak is developed in the wood. They are quite a show piece of dramatic wood structures.

The top is made from some Maple burl that I got in a wood gloat around 4 years ago.

The splines are cut from some Eucalyptus from Ira. The Bees Wing grain of that wood is not visable on these small pieces. But its a beautiful pink color.

I made 4 Shaker boxes for my adult children for Christmas, but I didn’t make one for my wife.

She let me know about that. But, I told her that I only had cut wood for 4 boxes and I could make hers anytime and not for Christmas. That seemed to keep the frying pans in the drawer.

So here is the box that I made her.

This is some Ambrosia Maple that a few pieces had some burl and some tiger maple stripes. Her box doesn’t have any of that. Just a nice distinctive Ambrosia maple stripes.

This wood is caused by the Ambrosia beetle. He/she burros into the tree and back out. Many time you will see two holes close to each other. An entry and an exit hole. Later a fungus invades the tunnel in the tree and leaves a blackcoating on the walls of the tunnel.

As sap goes up and down the tree it causes the colored streaks in the wood. Some of them can be quite long. I’ve got some pieces of stump wood that is almot totally colored.

The spline is some Eucalyptus wood that I got from Ira. It is a beautiful pink color. You cannot see the bees wing pattern in these small piece of wood but they are beautiful.

Because the sides of this box are only 3/8” thick I was only able to make a single spline and not a double spline like I showed in my Christmas Boxes.

The top is Maple Burl that came from one of my wood gloats about 4 years ago.

All 4 corners of the box have matching streaks. This was made from one board that was resawn to give the pieces for the 4 sides.

Well I got a few Shaker Candle boxes made up for the family. Our family Christmas is later in Jan so I got a little extra time to get them finished.

What that really meant was I could taker a longer time putting on the Gel Poly top coat. I turned the heat on in the bathroom in the shop and let the finish cure without having the smell in the house.

I made 4 boxes from Ambrosia Maple. I picked up this wood almost a 1,000 days ago. I finally starting to do something with it.

The burl tops was picked up a little over 900 days ago. I’ve made a couple of items with the burl but I thought that I’d share some with the family.

I used my new spline jig to cut the splines for the corners.

All of the boxes were built with all 4 corners matching. Where you resaw 1” wood and then wrap the box where the Ambrosia grain goes around the corners

The splines were made with some 1/4” maple and mahogany. I glued it into a 3/4” thick piece then I cut 1/16” slices off the blank to make the spline.

I assembled one mahogany box to try out the splines. That’s the mahogany box on the left. When I did that I found that the spline almost became invisible. So the rest of the mahogany boxes had straight maple splines. The darker boxes are 3 Mahogany and 1 Sapele. One of the Mahogany boxes was given as a door prize at the Mason Dixon Woodworkers banquet.

One of the Maple boxes has been sent by Pony Express to my son The rest wil be given to my daughters at our Christmas party.

I made a new jig to also cut the 45 deg corners. I guess I need to post that project also.

The front of the box was made 1/16” wider than the other pieces. I cut the groves that the top slides in and then I cut the front grove off and then glued it to the top. That way the box has a more finished look.

I thought that I’d make some name puzzles this year. I probably have made them for my children, many years ago – but I don’t remember seeing them in the last 25 years. My two younger children don’t have any and my grandchildren don’t have any.

These were items that I made over 40 years ago when I lived in St. Louis. They were a great seller and paid for all of my woodworking equipment and other “Man Toys”

I made them out of Red Cedar because 1) it was readily available – A sawmill in St Louis cut only Cedar. 2) It was easy to cut, 3) It was easy to sand. 4) It smelled good and 5) I didn’t have to finish it because – #4.

My family didn’t see me between Thanksgiving and Christmas because I was making puzzles. I’d sit in the house with a stack of orders, A stack of wood and my alphabet (see picture 1). The sawmill cut all of their boards at 6” wide (at least the ones that I bought) My caps were 3” tall and the lower case letters were 2” tall. All of the lower case were my own design. I needed them chunky to be able to cut the interlocking parts of the letters.

I’ve made many as wedding presents where I’d interlock a big heart as I connected the two names.

The problem with making two names is finding a way to interlock them. Hopefully you have tall lower case letters that could be used to hold the upper name and to lock to it. (I, h,b,d,f,t).

If you look at the second picture, you see that Kevin is supported off only two letters in the lower name. To put Kevin on the bottom gives no additional tall letters. If you can see the trailing letters of Kevins name is sagging because of the saw kerf. What I’ll do to fix that is take a small piece of wood and glue it on the interlocking piece of the “V” where it fits into the “I”. That will take the sag out.

The third picture has some additional tall letters, but it required me to give a small amount of additional space between the letters of the upper name and to spread them out to hit all of my anchor points.

On single layer names, I don’t have that kind of problem. The saw I used in St. Louis was a Sears (Craftsman) 80” bandsaw. I welded my own bandsaw blades and I used 1/16” 32 teeth metal cutting blades. I could almost run it into a cut and then turn the wood around and bring the blade back out the same cut. The blades were very fragile. I would get maybe 1 hr life before the blade would shatter into 50 pieces because of metal fatigue. I would usually weld up about 20 blades at a time, some of those were rewelds where the weld would break before metal fatigue would set in. I was buying salvage bandsaw blades in 100’ coils I also went through a bunch of 1/8” blades also when I was cutting puzzles in 2” thick maple.

I was charging 75 cents a letter and I was getting about $25.00 per hour. I was pretty fast in my processing. That included the drawing on the boards, cutting and sanding all cut edges. I drilled the centers of a, o,b,d. The capital letters had a small hole and a jigsaw to cut out the middle of those letters.

I’m not as fast any more. I figure I’d probably need $3.00 a letter to do them now.

A car mfg approached me to made them for every dealer of their car. I don’t remember the promotion but I did make them a master that they then used to cast them out of plastic.I was always thinking of faster and easier ways of doing this. I approached a Mfg of Lasers, before they were popular. But the cutting is by burning and I didn’t want black edges on the letters.

So this year I’m back in business for about 20 names. My wife keeps dropping new names on my list for some of her contacts.

I need to remake 2 names because of splits in my wood and wain that I didn’t notice when I drew the names. But I’m retired, I’ve got the time.

This is part 2 of the Mason Dixon Toy-making effort for 2011.

The first is a Dinosaur rocking “Horse”. I finished putting the rockers on 50 of them on Wed. Other people did a paint touch-up where I was a little light on some places. They also painted the eyes. To do the eyes I took a Forstner bit and ground the center out so that we would drill an outer ring. They then painted the inner part and came back and painted a black pupil in the middle.

The platform was cut on a big circle jig on a band saw, I routed the upper surface using a jig and a pattern router bit to make it flat in the center so that the platform boards could be screwed and glued down. The Dino was screwed to the platform using 3” – 5/16 Lags I found that the easiest to put in the lags was using one of the new cordless Hammer type drills. I used a hex shank – 1/2” socket and drove the screws into the legs. The legs were all pre-drilled through it’s platform so the spacing would match.

The game toy was made with 3/8” popular 2 X 2” square. The painted dots were drilled with a hole plug cutter and were drilled about 1/16” deep. They were then painted with paint pens that you can buy at craft stores. Colored Sharpies might also work.

The third picture gives you to coloring necessary if you want to make a few of these.

The instructions show the shape that needs to be made and contains these words.

“Can you arrange the wooden tiles so that every colored dot matches the corresponding dot on the adjoining tile???”

A small platform was made to hold the tiles and a dowel was inserted through the center of each tile to keep them in place.

We made 119 Dinosaurs and 150 Matching Tile game.

I’ve still got 12 more Dino’s to spray green and put rockers on 65. But we will get them finished before Dec 1st. The paint is a mix and is very thick. I’ve got to pressurize the paint pot to 35 lbs to get it to go up the hose to the paint gun. I’m using a Harbor Freight gun that has a 4’ hose between the paint canister and the gun. It doesn’t atomize at all but the paint dries fairly smooth.

The runners were cutout of 2 X 10 and we could get 4 out of each section. We would make the first cut and then put a 2” spacer in and move the board up and cut again. another spacer another cut, Until we got them all cut. The body, legs, seat were all cut from 2X6 and 2X8 as necessary. The platform was 1” popular.

This is three of the 11 or so toys that we are making this year. We make around 110 of each toy so that we have around 1200-1300 toys to give away.

Our toys are distributed to 25+ charities that they then give to disadvantaged children at Christmas time. Our toy giveaway day is the first Sat in December.

We are wrapping up the last toy now. I’m spraying the rocking Dino and have about 1/3 left to do. Hopefully this week will get them all finished.

I brought one home for the family to see and it has already disappeared.

The 4 car train was a project that we didn’t price out by actual labor hours. It took around 8 months to complete this toy. When you only work 1 day a week and you are painting all those parts. It takes a long time. We may not do this toy again.

The tow Truck was a toy that someone drove by our shop and left one of his son’s toys and asked if we might want to make them. We’ve had the sample for 2 years and finally got it built. It is made from Sapele and 2X4 and 4X4 lumber.

The 1920’s Reo is the second year that I made this toy. I made last years in my shop and planned to make 150 this year. Last year we gave some of these to our contributors (individuals and companies) So I planned to keep a few back for a future year thank you. I cut all of the wood for this car, but ran into time constraints to get them assembled. Another of our club members ask if he could do any Assembly, so I delivered all of the parts to his shop. Pete and a neighbor John did all of the drilling and the assembly. The fourth picture is his delivery process for about 2/3rds of the cars. They were made with Mahogany for the engine, Sapele for the frame, fenders and trunk. The radiator and the lid on the trunk was made with Teak. The seat was a combination of Mahogany and Sapele

The tow truck was also assembled by Pete and John

The jigs that were used to make the fenders were posted on Last year

I hope to post some of the rest of the toys in another posting.

My daughter just bought an old farmhouse and they are setting up to plant flowers and a vegetable garden.

I had some wood stacked on sawhorses in front of my shop for about 4 years and so I thought I’d build her a Potting Bench.

The wood was identified by the sawmill owner as Atlantic White Cedar. I’ve got some additional wood that looks the same and their father who was the sawmill owner called it Cedar Cypress. Cypress trees lose their leaves in winter, Cedar trees don’t and they said that this was Cypress and they kept their leaves so it was called Cedar cypress. They used it for years as shingles and barn repair wood on their and their neighbors farms. So I’ll call it something.

The wood has a cedar smell and it is quite oily, definitely an outdoor wood. I can’t believe that the scrap that I had left wouldn’t even fill a shoe box. The planks were 1X6 X 10, 1X8 X 10 and 1X4 X 10.

The bench is 47” long and 24” wide. I used 6 planks across the top 2 surfaces and they were 1 X 3 7/8 with a 1/8 gap. I used Gorilla glue to glue it together because of the wood oils and also the outdoors environment. The legs were 2X4 premium treated lumber that is treated with Thompson’s water Seal so they are light in color instead of the green tint. The legs were joined together with bead lock loose tenons at the joints. I used 1/2” tenons. They were made with beech lumber about 10 years ago. I made a bunch of different sizes and use then as needed. I used Titebond 3 for the glue on the joints of the tenons.. Each end was made with 1 – 8’ 2×4. The front was 32” and the cross pieces were 15”, The back leg was 36”. The legs were 22” across and the top is 24” On the bottom shelf the top overhangs by about 1/4” on each side on the top the overhang was 1 1/8” on each side.

The top shelf assembly is glued and screwed but it is not glued where it attaches to the bottom carcus. Just screws. So it can be taken off if desired. The upper shelf supports are offset from the lower shelf supports so that screws could be driven through the shelf into the support.

All of the top surfaces were screwed down by the use of glue strips on the brace supports underneath and then screwed up into the surface planks so there are no visible screws in the decking surface. All screws were stainless screws 2” in length.

The plugs that I used on the back to assemble the shelving were made from Spanish Cedar and were glued in place using epoxy glue. Again to get a good bond on the oily wood.

The plugs were one of those “Measure once, Cut twice” moments. I thought the screw holes were 9/16” and so I made 60 Spanish Cedar plugs in that size. While trying the first one I determined that the plugs needed to be 3/8” so I had to make another 60 plugs. The plugs are all end grain. I drilled the plugs into the end of a board held in a vise and then cut off with the bandsaw. And, then drill again. Throw away all plugs with a flat side. You know the concept of make busy work.

The boards were all ripped to size using a bandsaw with a carbide blade. The surface needed only light sanding.

The plans came from Kitchen Gardener Archive January 1998 Issue #12.

I changed the size to 48” long because my daughter wanted to use it in a small greenhouse.

Lumberjock rydonmf posted a similar one here

I hadn’t seen his until I was almost done and I went searching on LJ for potting benches.

A couple of years ago a fellow Lumberjock Scottb posted a project of some small bowls that he made,

I sent him a message and asked if I sent him some wood would he make me a couple of them.

This week two bowls showed up in my mailbox along with a couple of Christmas Ornaments that he turned.

Both bowls are made from Maple Burl one with a walnut stripe and the other with 2 yellowheart stripes and 1 Pink Ivory.

His ornaments were made with Red Oak and Walnut.

Thanks Scott.

The Mason Dixon Woodworking Club in Delmar DE had a Shaker Workshop this past weekend. We had about a dozen people take the class. We usually hold a class every year. If you go to the web site and click workshops you can see pictures for the same workshop in previous years.

The first year we had John Wilson teach the workshop, Since that time our leader has been Ed Nock Other Lumberjocks who took the workshop was Jack Dalton , and Al Hendershot

When I told my wife that I was taking the workshop she wanted to know why because we had about 4 sets of the Oval Boxes. But, this year we were also making a Shaker Carrier, If we wanted to.

So I went to just make the carrier. Usually the workshop is a 2 day workshop. I wanted to get completed in just one day. So I veneered up a bottom of Waterfall Bubinga on 1/4” Baltic Birch. The piece was 9” x 13”. The box is the size of a #7 Oval box with a carrier handle.

I bent the band and placed it in the drying chamber. I took it out after a couple of hours and sanded the base to fit the oval shape. After I got that fit, I cut the handle length.

I finished up the attachment of the base to the side and the handle to the side, at my shop. We use square toothpicks as wood nails. I did some testing and I found that a #44 drill bit as the pilot hole for the wood nail was the correct size. Driving the nail through that size hole formed it into a circle. A #45 was too too tight and the nail hung up and a #43 left the nail with flat sides.

I finished it with Deft brushing lacquer, that I thinned and sprayed.

My wife was very happy with it.

The owner of the shop that we were using made 4 carriers out of Walnut. They were beautiful. I’m going to resaw some Walnut wood and make me some of them also.

I was Dover Window and Door today, they are a giver of wood for our toy making that the Mason Dixon Woodworkers undertake for underprivileged children for Christmas.

I was talking to the man who glues up the doors and windows and he was showing me the machine that they use to cure the glue joint. It’s a hydraulic press that presses the sides and ends to make sure the item is square. He then cleans up all of the squeeze out glue with a paint brush and water and he then presses a wand over the joint for 10 seconds. It cures the glue in the joint using heat and electric waves.

He then takes it out of the press (after less than 10 minutes and places it on the table and hits the other side of the joint while it’s on the table. Window finished gluing up and glue cured. This is a white PVA glue.

He said that he has also used an electric soldering gun to heat up a joint at home and he also suggested a heat gun to heat the wood to cure.

So I came home to experiment.

I took two craft sticks (Popsicle sticks), put glue on 2” and overlaped the ends. After 30 seconds it came apart easily. I then carried it into the house. wrapped one piece of masking tape over the joint. (There was a slight bow that kept it from having full contact).

I put it in my wife’s microwave for 10 seconds. I took it out, the wood was warm the tape pealed off easily and I tried to rotate one of the pieces of wood and they started to come apart. So I stopped.

I took another two sticks, put on my 2” of glue, wrapped it with one wrap of tape and microwaved it for 20 seconds. Unwrapped the tape and tried to rotate one of the pieces. You can see in the picture that the wood broke. That was after 20 seconds.

I then came back to my computer and picked up the sample that I had microwaved for 10 seconds and it was now fully cured and would not come apart. that was after 10 seconds of microwave and about 3 minutes of cooling down and curing.

So if you need to do some gluing on pieces that you can’t clamp, Use some tape to hold them together and hit them with a microwave.

My microwave might be about 1000 watts. Small cheap microwaves might be 300 watts or so, so do your own testing as to how much it might take to get it cured.

Good luck.

I know I’ll use this sometime in the future.

Revision #1 after 15 minutes of posting.

I picked up the piece that had been microwaqved for 10 seconds and twisted it again. It started to delaminate where it originally seperated. This might have been that the glue was semi cured and when I left them the glue didn’t rebond. It cured and was seperate. I could put my fingernail in the crack and I was able to seperate the two pieces. So they were cured but not fully set up as strong as a bond that was glued and clamped.

I then took the piece that was microwaved for 20 seconds. I got a knife blade at the glue joint and was able to pry them apart with the exception of one small piece where the wood came apart.

So test #3 is now underway. I microwaved for 20 seconds and I’m going to let it cure for an hour or so. The glue squeeze-out is soft after the 20 seconds. Kind of like a 2 -3 hour timeframe. It’s not like an over-night dry time. Even on the sticks that I pried apart the glue was still soft to the fingernail. That might be why it has failed. The semi cured glue is holding it inplace but it’s not fully cured.

These pieces don’t move so I’d have no problem with doing additional assembly if this was a part of a larger project.

I’ll update with the results of further testing.

I’ve made these a couple of times and taught a class at the Mason Dixon Woodworkers

I find that sanding blocks are like pencils. You can have a box of them but when you need them they cannot be found.

Since I had wood already cut from the class and since I couldn’t find more than one of my old ones at the time I needed them.

So I made 4 more this week. The base wood is mahogany with Walnut sides. The tops are all maple. two were capped with some figured Walnut, One with Sapele and one is solid spalted Maple.

The line to the previous class has all of the measurements for making these. It has all of the steps that we followed in the class.

The background panels are being taken to our Shaker Oval Box class tomorrow. I’m going to use these for bottoms for some carriers.

The bottoms are Quilted Maple, Waterfall Bubinga, Walnut Burl, And a burl from Oregon Madrone Burl.

This is from ShopNotes 112.

Our Mason Dixon Woodworkers had two workshops on the making of these Scraper Shaves. Our workshops were held on Feb 4 and another one on Feb 5, 2011. Since a good many of the members of our club are retired (You know 6 Sat, and 1 Sunday a week) We decided to hold two complete workshops. One of Friday and 1 on Sat. We had about 25 different people attend.

It was the best attended workshop that we’ve held. The shop had around 14 people each day and it was starting to get crowded, but, it was well received and everyone had fun.

The wood for the handles was cut by Ed Nock and the blades were cut from Untempered Tool Steel by Miller Metals in Bridgeville DE. They had a CAD Laser cutting tool that cut out the blades for us. We had a tour of their facility about 2 weeks ago and an impressive setup.

They have the metal delivered one day, cut it the next and deliver it to the customer on the third day. No inventory, no storage, truly just in time. No separate quality control experts, just the machine operators.

The workshop was set up to make one scraper shave with a flat blade. The cost was $25.00 if you wanted to make an additional one then they were $10.00 each. There were patters for 4 different profiles. A flat, chamfer, small curve and larger curve.

I made all four, One with the supplied wood of Tiger Maple and the other three were with my own wood, Persimmon. I used Goncalo Alves for the insert on the two curved scrapers and with Indonesian Rosewood on the two straight bladed scrapers.

DustyAl, Ed Nock and myself were the LumberJocks who attended.

I used poser sanders to get the regular profile and then 6 hours of hand sanding to smooth up all of the rough edges.

They were sanded to 320 grit and I used a new finish Bush Oil. It was a Christmas Present from my son-in-law. I saw the Bush Oil also being sold at the Woodworker Shows. It did a breat job.

Al Thanks for reminding me. Thanks to Pat Lemely for the use of his shop for the workshop and Thanks to Ed Nock for doing all of the preparatory work and leading our workshop.

I made a total of 16 of the Andy’s palm Boxes. 4 of them have been posted as their own project and I thought I’d lump the other 12 into one project.

Not that they are minor and I didn’t want anyone to go “Not another one!”

These boxes are Tops 2 – Yellow Heart; 2 – Zebra Wood; 2 – Lace Wood; 2 – Purple Heart; and 4 Paduke. I actually thought that the board where the Paduke came from was a Red heart board. It was a piece from a pallet and I planed one surface and it looked red and has stayed that way for about 4 years.

It wasn’t until a cut off a chunk and resawed it that I found the orange color. It’s the piece of wood sitting on top of the figured Cherry. It doesn’t look like Paduke from that view.

The Zebrawood ends that some of the boxes have came from a couple of pieces of Zebrawood flooring about 6” long They were 2 1/4” after I cut off the tongue and grove they were 2” high. They resawed to under 3/8”. I kept the groving on the back of the flooring and made it visible on the outside of the box. 2 of the boxes have Maple Burl ends, a few have Goncalo Alves ends and a few have Cherry ends. The fronts and backs are Figured Sapele and Goncalo Alves

The finish is Brazilian Rosewood Nut Oil (Penofin) about 3 coats and I’d rub them down with the damp rag a couple of times in between to spread any that was not soaking in the same.

Zebrawood top and ends Sapele front and back

Paduke with Zebrawood ends and Goncalo Alves front and back.

Yellowheart Top with Zebrawood ends and Goncalo Alves front and back.

Again and again, I’d like to thank Andy for posting the Tutorial and some tips on making these boxes. I’ve probably got a few more to make because my wife is always asking for some gift for some purpose. These can be made up ahead of time for those short notice times.

These will all be given to my girls at the family Christmas (on New Years) The boys get 1920 style Reos.

I saw an interesting story on TV last week. Olds (the man) started another car manufacturing business after he sold the Oldsmobile (the Car) to General Motors. He called the car company with his initials Ranson E. Olds. REO

This box is made from Big Leaf maple Burl that I bought 5-8 Years ago. I resawed the burl and was planning to make some clocks. That was not done and this wood was just laying around

The front and back is Goncalo Alves and the ends are Cherry.

It is finished with Brazillian Rosewood Nut Oil (Penofin). I wanted to try the Deft Lacquar but the temp of the shop wouldn’t allow it. This oil dried fine.

I want to thank Andy for the Tutorial and some tips on making these boxes. The wood on this box is all 3/8” thick except for the top. It’s a little thicker.

I’m a little concerned about the size of the top. I left all of the burl sections on the front but it overhangs 1 1/16” at the widest spot.

It’s impressive when you look at the top but when you look at the total box it overwhems it.

This box is made from Big Leaf Maple Burl that I bought 5-8 Years ago. I resawed the burl and was planning to make some clocks. That was not done and this wood was just laying around “So you snoose you Lose”.

The front and back is figured Sapele and the ends are Cherry.

The burl was big enough to give me 3 1/2” slices and each slice will have enough for about 7-8 tops. So I should be able to make a few more of these if I desire.

It is finished with Brazillian Rosewood Nut Oil (Penofin). I wanted to try the Deft Lacquar but the temp of the shop wouldn’t allow it. This oil dried fine.

I want to thank Andy for the Tutorial and some tips on making these boxes. The wood on this box is all 3/8” thick except for the top. It’s a little thicker.