But… I finally got some courage, and cut the carcass down so I can pick up on this project, and move onward and forward with it.

So, in short, everything is still dry fit, and parts can be taken apart. I cut off the pieces that will make the doors (still in “1” piece). I cut the dadoes for the the bottom divider, and drawers supports, and the rabbets for the backs on the front (back of the doors) and the back (back of the box):

when I first cut the dovetails it was summertime, and now I think the dovetails absorbed some moisture, and got really tight, when I tried to take the dry-fit apart, the side of the box broke in half (it’s hard to see in the pic, but it’s there) I’ll fix that once I glue up the carcass/main box.

All in all we had counted 8 (+1) Lumberjocks (with Daniel’s Wife being the +1 – definitely a +!) it was really nice she came):

Special Thanks to Tim (tpastore) for setting up the use of the Lexington Guild House. it is a very nicely setup place where guild members have a full shop at their disposal. I would also like to thank the Lexington Association of Art for letting us use their shop for our get together.

Additional Thank you is to Rockler, who contributed 4 sets of Bench-Cookies for this even which were raffled at the end of the day, and here are the happy winners:

these look really great for routing work on the workbench and similar applications.

The day started by touring the shop, which is a fully equipped shop with every needed (220v) tool, central cyclone DC, and several work benches so that several people can work simultaneously. We made sure those workbenches are heavy duty enough for us lumberjocks by spreading our foods/drinks/snacks all over them and utilized them as dining/conference tables – they seem to be able to handle THAT much stress… nicely done.

The day developed into a show-tell circle around the workbenches where we shared where we’re from, what we do for work, and what kind of woodworking we do. I personally learnt more than enough new things to last me until next year. it was a real treat to have such a friendly, positive, and open social discussion with others who share a similar passion.

We also got to tour the rest of the building which includes 2 galleries, and other guilds activity rooms. the current exhibition that is being displayed in the main gallery was quite remarkable. we even found Tim’s wood business card holder being used to …well… hold business cards of one of the artists… if you’re in the neighborhood – I definitely recommend to stop by and check the exhibition out.

We continued with the share/swap of things, I think some of us got some really terrific new toys to add to the collection, while others brought back with them some terrific new stories, and connections.

I came back home with a few pieces of pen blanks (I don’t have a lathe, but can use them for knobs/drawer-pulls, and similar small accents) that Len (Dusty56) brought for everyone. I got 1 Bloodwood blank, a couple of Brazilian Rosewood, and of course – some Purple Heart blanks… after all, gotta stay true to the LJ Name…

Thanks for everyone that came – Tim, Ellen, (does that qualify as Tim Allen the tool man? lol) Daniel and Joyce, Chelle, Kate, Charlene (Shar Lean), and Len. Without you, it wouldn’t have been as fun.

Hope to do this again soon.
Sharon.

P.S. for all those who attended and have pics and want to share them – post them in the comments :) – and if I mispelled/butchered you name – sorry… PM me and I’ll edit it – please!:)

I would also like to thank Rockler for stepping up and sponsoring us with some goodies that will be raffled between the LJ attendees. Thank you Rockler!

This really presents the same great customer service, and positive experience I’ve been getting from Rockler.com and the Cambridge, MA store all along. Thanks Again!

Now, We have a bit of a set back in regards to food restrictions, no show stoppers – but it appears we are not able to conduct the “pot luck” we had hoped for, and no proper lunch settings – only snacks and drinks of sorts. I would really have liked to have everyone for lunch time rather than have people scatter around, or come later – but there are several places to eat around Lexington, so we can either group up and go grab something to eat somewhere, or eat before/after/go-grab-a-bite-and-come-back if someone is hungry during the day.

I suggest we can each bring a bag of chips/bagels/popcorn/drink and just have snack-type buffet.

SO!

The Date: Sept 19th 2009, Noon

The Location: Lexington Woodworker's Guild (click on the link for directions and the Guild’s website)

The Plan: wood wood wood! (be nice).


Everyone is welcome to being their current projects/jigs/other for a show’n’tell with everyone else.


As Suggested, If anyone wants to bring stuff to trade/swap – this would be a great opportunity for that.


If anyone is interested in anything that other’s might have – feel free to post it here and ask if anyone might have something that would work for ya’


I will be bringing my laptop and will conduct some one-on-one one-on-several tutorials using Sketchup if anyone is interested, and if so – bring your questions, or models if you have specific requests.


I will also keep a list of LJ’s that showed up (also be used for the raffle) so please sign in when you get there!


Hope to see you all there soon,
Sharon.

As it happened, a day after It broke, I found a Stanley #6 fore plane on craigslist, and as luck had it – the guy was a few streets away from me. NICE. I figured I’m gonna go with a #6 that might be more suitable for jointing and planing surfaces flat than a #5 (although capable for the task ,is not as heavy and not as long), and since I also have a #4 for smoothing – I should be good to go.

I knew I would have to do some work fighting rust and restoring the plane as it was not being used and was purchased at an estate sale, but at $20 I was willing to take on that project (heck – the buck bros cost me twice that much for cheap material made plane).

here is what it looked like when I got it:

After reading sIKEs’ review of the Evap-o-Rust for removing rust (no harmful chemicals, easy on the skin, safe, and effective) I stopped at a local autozone and picked up a small bottle for ~$10 (with taxes). I wish they came in bigger bottles, cause it was kind of a PITA to try and soak an entire body of a #6 plane in a container so that it’ll be all soaked inside. I couldn’t find a container big enough – so had to resort to using a trash bag, and try to have the liquid contact the plane on all sides). it did a really swell job:

This is actually the 2nd attempt, as after the first attempt of soaking it with Evap-o-Rust and then washing with water/soap to clean them off, I noticed the parts developed flash-rust which I didn’t quite like. so I did it again, and this time- I didn’t dry the parts after the soap/water, but instead, sprayed them with WD-40, and then wiped them clean. worked great.

I also used a coffee filter to filter the dirty Evap-o-Rust back to it’s container. (this is after the 2nd run, so there’s less rust/left overs in the filter, as this is actually the 4th filter I ran through)

After dealing with the rust, it was time to replace the tote handle.

I decided to use a piece of curly maple that Len (Dusty56) gave me when he visit me in June. this was just the right usage for that piece as I’ll be seeing that and admiring that maple every time I woodwork – Thanks Len!!!

so here is the blank I started with (after cutting it roughly on the bandsaw):

the ironic thing is that I’m planing the blank for the tote -with the plane that it’s going to be installed in – quite a nice cycle of life.

the nice thing about hand planes – is that unlike power tools – you can actually plane and mill small pieces such as this one quite safely and quietly.

next – was glueing the template from Lee-Valley (Thanks LV) on the blank:

followed by rough bandsawing the shape:

After that, it was some shaping it with a rasp, and finishing it with wipe-on poly that I mixed:

Back in business!

eventually I would replace the front knob as well when I can turn, but for not this is workable.

working with this #6 made me realize how junk the Buck-Bros was… it was made of light cheap materials. this one is hefty, and heavy, everything is well made, and when it rides the wood, it’s stable, and does the job on it’s own with minimal labor on my side. works like a dream…

Thanks for reading,
Peace.

EDIT: per requests – here is a close up on the tote, I’ve had my shares of errors with it (chipped the top when drilling for the rod – which I glued in place, and fixed, then I milled the part too thick, and tried to fix by bandsawing down in thickness- throwing the center hole off center… I kinda fixed that one, but the hole looks off center, then in the 2nd to last coat of poly I didn’t wipe off after sanding with 600grit, so the next coat was ‘dirty’... maybe one day I’ll strip it and refinish…) but without further ado – here is the tote:

I’ve seen these questions raised on several threads, and for many years didn’t know the answer to these myself. I just stumbled upon the “answers” which reminded me of the questions, so I figured I’d post it here for anyone that might be able to use it. I stumbled upon these on Lee-Valley website which is a golden fountain of knowledge if you know how to find it (some of their articles and tips are not visible, nor easy to come upon unless you stumble upon it by chance , or really searching hard for it).

Cap Iron (for Bevel Down planes)

So, how much should the blade protrude from the end of the cap iron for planing applications?

for smoothing and working with figured wood – the blade should protrude about 1/64” from the end of the cap iron, to give a very fine, and light shave before the shavings contact the cap iron and curl upwards.

for rougher cuts, and faster material removal, the blade should be set 1/32” – 1/16” from the end of the cap iron – the more it protrudes, the rougher and faster the material removal will be, softer wood can take a rouger cut, while hardwoods might cause the plane to choke, so a little trial and error is required to get a feel for it.

Lever Cap

How tight should the Lever Cap be set? and this also relates to the question: can blade adjustments be made when the lever cap is locked? or do I need to unlock the lever cap to make those modifications?

The Lever Cap screw should be tightened down 1/4 of a turn after it makes contact with the cap/blade. This creates enough pressure for the Lever Cap to hold the blade securely in place, while still allowing enough freedom for the adjustment screws to push the blade in/out and lateral movements. In this case – it is not necessary to unlock the lever cap in order to make changes to the blade positioning (in/out, left/right). the adjustment screws and lateral adjustor should move freely, as should the blade (although pressed firmly against the plane’s frog/body).

if the adjustment mechanisms are hard to use when the blade is locked in place – then either the lever cap is locked too tightly, or the adjustment mechanisms aren’t clean. be careful as putting too much force on those might break them off.

Special Thanks to Lee Valley for putting out this info out there for anyone to use.

Edit: here is an illustration of the handplane which shows the Lever Cap (which holds the blade to the plane) and the Cap Iron, which on Bevel down bench planes curls the shavings and controls the penetration of the blade in the wood:

When I took on the Bowling Lane Workbench project, I knew I’d have to reorganize the work space a tad bit (ok, more than just that). Especially since I also got the planer which takes considerable space, I knew things would have to be moved around to give me room to walk/stand, and work comfortably and safely.

the new workbench now resides where my medium/longer (anything that wouldn’t fit in the short lumber storage) lumber used to stand on edge. so a new place for those had to be setup.

I used rubbermaid modular storage rails and bars. we had used those in the past for our desk stations, and since we moved back to Boston it was just sitting unused in the basement, so I figured I’d put this to use.

I installed the bars on the beams uaing 3 1/2” drywall screws (for added holding power into the studs), and use 24” supports to hold the lumber. it holds quite well so far, and I’m going to limit how much I put on it as I’m not sure if this might be an overload on it or now (it looks ok though, and it used to hold quite a bit of weight before). I also placed the brackets so that the planer can fit underneath, and maybe in the future, I’ll also fit the (to be built) router table under there:

This really cleared some major real estate space in the garage, and I’m able to move freely and work on each station safely and without scraping my shins now – which is really nice :).

Thanks for reading,
Peace.

As it gets to the details, things take longer to think through, plan out, cut…mill…glue… and finesse. this time it’s the leg vise Chop, and although not completely finished (still need to trim, round off, and apply BLO), it’s construction is done.

I was originally planning to use one large 10/4 board for the chop, but I didn’t have anything of that size that would work well. the only part I had was mahogany, and it’s not as hard as the rock maple, and I didn’t think it would work well for a vise jaw which gets abused, and needs to counteract pressure. I decided to use the bowling maple strip cutoffs, and laminate them to form the chop:

The lamination wasn’t as thick as I wanted, and I also wanted to give it an accent and something ‘different’ so I resawed the cutoff piece from the endcap (of the top) into 1/16” strips for the next step.

I cut a curve in the chop, which keeps the top of the chop as wide as possible (for clamping purposes) but narrows the bottom so that it’ll be easier for me to drill for the drawbore pins. Also the bottom of the chop doesn’t really need to be wider then the bench leg anyways. I then used the cutout curved parts as cauls and glued the 1/16” mahogany strips to the maple lamination:

I did one side at a time but glued all laminations at the same time. for future reference, I should prepare the veneers better- they weren’t uniformed and smooth enough, which caused some minor gaps. in this case, nothing to worry about -I just want to get this thing done, the errors can be easily fixed at a later time.

After glueing the veneers on the curve I repeated the process for the straight edges while making sure it’s butted against the curved veneers. I also mortised the chop and drawbored the (milled) maple parallel guide:

this time I drilled the offset holes for the drawboring – in the RIGHT place… lol. (I actually had to make sure, so that I don’t repeat the same error again).

After that, I placed the chop in the slot for the parallel guide, I took the hole-saw drill-bit I used to make the hole for the vise screw in the leg, and placed it in the hole in the leg so that the bit protrudes toward the chop, then I pushed the chop all the way flush with the leg, aligned it properly, and from the other side, tapped the drill bit so that it’ll mark the chop where the hole should go. I took the chop out, drilled the hole for the vise screw where it was marked, and installed the hardware:

action is still not smooth (not the screw, but the parallel guide has friction against it’s slot), I never used a leg vise before, so I’m not sure if that’s just to be expected, or not. I’ll try to plane the parallel guide in height so maybe it won’t have as much resistance. other than that – when this thing closes it’s like an Alligator jaws – it grips like there’s no tomorrow.

next I’ll round off the top and bottom, and plane the top flush with the table top, chamfer the front edges, and coat this with boiled linseed oil like the rest of this bench.

Edit: OK, I was able to round off the top and bottom of the chop, plane it flush with the top of the bench, chamfer (with a ) the edges, and put a couple of coats of BLO (1 more to go):

I also planed the parallel guide in height slightly, and rounded off it’s edges so that there’s less material in contact with the top and bottom of it’s slot – it now slides in and out much much smoother, with a coat of paste wax it would be even better.

On the same note – talk about timing – I just found a pair of rollerblades that someone threw away – I’ll see if I can incorporate the wheels like Jameel at Benchcraft did (although these are bigger wheels then skateboard wheels… so maybe I’ll have to look for something smaller)

you can plainly see the tearout and large gaps between the mating parts, and the misalignment on the bottom tail and it’s socket.

Obviously the ‘proper’ way to do things is to keep on practicing to finesse and perfect your joinery. BUT, learning to fix and clean mistakes is also a skill worth having for those times when things just ‘seem’ to happen.

This is a workbench, and the dovetail does it job – just doesn’t look too nice. I could have left it as is, and it wouldn’t make any functional difference, BUT. I preferred to clean this up, and accomplish 2 things:

1. have a nicer looking bench and dovetail
2. learn a new skill, and see if my theory would prove itself to be useful.

my idea seemed to have been fruitful!

Since the gaps are in endgrain, I figured it would be easy to blend cutoff pieces since endgrain does not have grain patterns that would be broken by a patch. what I did was slice cut off pieces of same material into small wedges, coat them with glue, and pound them into the visible gaps:

(in this photo it’s actually the 2nd filling of the remaining gaps after the initial filling of larger gaps)

once dried, I pared the excess material off, and planed/trimmed the endgrain flush with the tails:

Some of the fillers can still be seen and could be fixed a bit more/better, while other fillers are completely invisible. after a little more planing and scraping this looks even better, and after a coat of finish this one is good enough for the workbench – maybe in other situations I’d push for a tighter look, but for this purpose I am very satisfied with the result – hell of a lot better then the starting point.

Hope this can be of help,
Peace.

The Date: Sept 19th 2009, Noon

The Location: Lexington Woodworker's Guild (click on the link for directions and the Guild’s website)

The Plan: A Get together with a woodworker’s flavor.

More Details:

We are not allowed to BBQ on site, but can bring already cooked/made food. I was thinking about doing a ‘personal’ food swap – we’ve done it in other forums and it was quite successful – the idea is that everyone makes a personal family dish or something in the spirit of one, and brings it over, and we can all get a taste of everyone’s cuisine, can be an appetizer, a main dish, or a desert – all fair and square. but we’ll have to make some list so that we won’t run into all deserts… (although not a bad idea to some).

What do you think?

Everyone is welcome to being their current projects/jigs/other for a show’n’tell with everyone else.

As Suggested, If anyone wants to bring stuff to trade/swap – this would be a great opportunity for that.

If anyone is interested in anything that other’s might have – feel free to post it here and ask if anyone might have something that would work for ya’

Please Post a comment on this thread if you plan to attend. post “Will be there”, or “Tentative” so that we can get a head count and can plan accordingly.

Also please post any ideas to make this event better.

Hope to see you all there soon,
Sharon.

P.S. I was also thinking about presenting the Guild with some Lumberjocks “Thank you” plaque for letting us use their facilities. anyone got an idea for such a thing (link/pics to similar things)?