After moving from a 100+ year old house that had four fireplaces to a duplex that had none, my wife and I were trying to figure out where to put our Christmas stockings. During the discussion, I had a stroke of genius (or maybe not…but I like saying I had a stroke of genius, so cut me some slack, OK? ;) ). I would build a rack that would hold our stockings. I figured it would be a simple project that would use wood I already had on hand. After Christmas, it could serve as a coat rack for our son to hang his jackets on. We have a tree-type coat rack, but it’s a little tall for him to use, so this is really going to serve us well.

It measures 24” long x 6” wide and made out of 4/4 pine and painted to match the trim in the living room. The hooks came from Lee Valley. The bevel on the sides was done completely by hand with a 100 year old block plane. While it’s not without flaws (I see them constantly), my wife and mother both don’t see them. To me, that has to be the guage to use, since I’ll be the harshest critic of my own work.

I hope you all enjoy it. I know I had fun making it and look forward to it having years of service in our family.

Being a hand tool guy, and a guy who loves rehabbing old tools, I figured this was the ideal project for me. Now, in truth, it didn’t turn out as well as I planned, but it was still a good start.

The best part of this project was probably my son’s presence. He even did a bit of the planing (just hand tools folks…no power planers here). He loved it, and I enjoyed telling him what I was doing. Made me feel like the Wood Whisperer for a second there ;)

The saw vise legs are made of white pine, and the jaws are red oak, both purchased at the local BORG. So yep…I WAY overpaid. The joinery is just some brass screws I picked up hoping for some style points there. It was a neat project, but I made mistakes. The biggest is detailed in my blog, but I learned from this one, and I’m sure I’ll learn from the next one too.

So please, be kind ;)

Until I get my shop fully up and running, I’m stuck doing tool rehabs as my projects. This one is my Disston D-8 panel saw. The medallion dates it’s manufacture sometime between 1896 and 1917. Obviously, this makes it a very old saw. What is really cool about it is that it still retains most of the etching on the blade, but unfortunately I wasn’t able to get that with the camera.

The blade was scraped with a razor blade to break loose as much rust as possible, then sanded with 220 grit and mineral spirits to start with, then I upped the grit on the sand paper to 320, still with mineral spirits. The handle was in pretty good physical condition, but the wood tone was just blah. A little BLO fixed it up, and now it’s absolutely beautiful. Apple wood is definitely a lovely wood!

The etching on the blade prevented me from taking this one down to bare metal like I did on the back saw I posted recently. However, I will probably give it another run at some point in the future. This one, coupled with the back saw, put blisters on my fingers in placed I hadn’t imagined I could get blisters! I’ll have to come back at some other date and see what else I can do.

Also, I plan on using a trick to help the etching using gun bluing and sand paper to make the etching look more like it did originally. Hopefully by then, I’ll be able to actually take photographs of the etching!

First, it is a woodworking tool, and the wooden handle needed to be refinished. The first photo is the before pic, and the second one is the after shot. In the original, the gaudy red stripe that someone had painted on the tool doesn’t show up that clearly, but it was obnoxious. I knew it had to go. So, after rehabbing the blade, I took some 220 grit sandpaper and sanded most of the handle. After that, I put on a coat of BLO and it helped. I can see in this photo what I missed though. Honestly, it looks better in person! ;)

I’m not to crazy about the wood tone though, so I may take it down to bare wood again at some future date and stain it to match my Disston and Diamond Edge saw handles. OCD? In a woodworker? Never!!! ;)