This entry is about my travelling tool kit.

I bought this case to take some of my tools to my WW classes. After much agonizing I have concluded that if I am going to achieve anything WW while in the US I need some of my basic tools with me. Luckily I am traveling with my 5 year old son, who gets a full baggage allocation.

What am I putting in it, glad you asked.

Chisels, marking tools and compass, small compound square, small engineer’s square, larger engineer’s square, rulers, scraper, dividers, small adjustable bevel, marking gauge, marking knife, shoulder plane, block plane, mallet, coping saw, fret saw, Japanese saw (with interchangeable blades), dovetail gauge, paring block, pencil marking gauge and spoke shave.

I am also taking my honing guide, framing squares, and diamond honing block.

I cannot take too much more because the case will be too heavy to carry or even move.

I will be buying some tools while I am there to supplement this lot and to add to my collection at home.

So any thought on my selection.

Doug

Now for those of you not from Australia, we have this strange employment concept called ‘long service’. Essentially after each 10 years with the same employer (full time) you get 3 months paid leave. Now a lot of my co workers save this up (my boss has 3 lots) for their retirement. No way I say. So I am off to see sis for 8 weeks, yea ha.

The plan is to have an intensive WW experience combined with some travel. Most of the time I am in Georgia, north of Atlanta. But I have a week in Philadelphia, a weekend in NYC, and a short trip to Orlando.

I hope to do some courses, meet some LJs, do a lot of woodworking, and any other WW thing that comes my way.

So I am looking for suggestions. I will be bringing a small tool case which will be featured in the next edition of this blog, and I do have some thoughts about what to do. But please send me any suggestions or refer this to anyone you think might make me a cup of coffee over a few wood shavings.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Doug

If you are travelling from Australia, make sure you take some cash to the factory as it will break your heart to walk away with nothing. A $245AU shoulder plane cost me $195US, with the dollar for dollar exchange rate. I bought a spoke shave as well and a couple of small items and the lovely young lady on the counter threw in a t-shirt for free. I would of loved a tour of the actual factory but my son was asleep in the car. But they have the tools set up in the shop front and you can play as long as you like. Also there is books and DVDs as well.

The visit to the Centre for Furniture Craftsmanship was just a drop in but it is lovely with a great gallery as well. The campus is magnificent and the workshops look great (from the doorway). One day I will have the time, freedom and money to visit and do some actual work.

On this trip I also dropped into Highland Woodworking in Georgia and Woodcraft store in Alpharetta Georgia. These are also worth a visit, if for no other reason than to chat to the staff.

My understanding of the current situation is that no trees are allowed to be felled, except in exceptional circumstances. This means new timber comes from secondary harvesting. A story I have heard (not sure of truth) is that secondary harvesting includes recovery of stumps from the bottom of lakes formed when dams were filled. Secondary Harvesting also includes removing limbs that are in danger of falling and cleaning up previously felled timber on the forest floor.

Here is some information about Huon Pine.
http://www.forestrytas.com.au/shops/ist/pages/special-species-timbers/huon-pine

Anyway I have scored two good sized pieces. My mum went on a holiday with her partner to Tasmania. While there, they did a bus tour and there was another woodie on the bus. Being my mum, she regaled this poor fellow with her son’s various woody achievements. As soon as they got to Strahan, this fellow grabbed mum, dragged her into the local mill and convinced her to buy these pieces. She wont tell me how much she paid. Pricing for the timber can be as much as $4000 / cube.

Now I just have to agonise over what to make from it.

Picked it up two days later. I think I did pretty well and this is going to improve the WW out of sight.

It is missing nothing, except for the pipe that connects the guard to the extraction.

Doug

BTW

This exact saw sells new for about $1200. Woo hoo
Don’t ask, and you will never receive.

I was out the other night at Hash House Harriers. No. This is not a version of the infamous AA. For those of you who have not heard of Hash, it is a group of like minded individuals who have an interest in running and drinking (not necessarily in that order). It is international and has been around since just after WWII (hence we have had the name far longer than the drug).

The definition of a hasher is ‘a drinker with a running problem’. Anyway look it up, they are everywhere.

Back to the story. I was talking to a mate at HHH the other night and he asked me what my next Woodworking purchase is to be (San Miquel is a Cabinet Maker)(did I mention that when you join HHH they give you a Hash Name). Anyway I told San Miquel I was in the market for some dust extraction and he said he had a Festo (now known as Festool) Dust Vac that has been sitting in his workshop for 4-5 years not working.

So a quick trip to the workshop, another trip to my mum’s partner who is a electrician, and yet another trip to the local woodworking tool shop for a hose and ‘Wa La’ (not sure if that is how it is spelt). A photo speaks a thousand words.

Sizing
Sizing the verticals was done on the jointer, table saw and thicknesser. The jointer was used to get two side straight and at right ankles to each other. The dimension for the width of the vertical (that is from the side, not the end) required that it be about six millimetres (about 1/4”) less than the width of the rails. But the depth could be as big as the stock would allow. Because of this there was a substantial amount of material that needed to be removed to get the prescribed width (rails minus 6mm). So it was decided that rather than make mulch out of this we would use the table saw to remove it. First though I used the thicknesser to create a consistent thickness to the piece so the off cut would be consistent too. Using the table saw I was able to remove this in one pass. The result of all this is I have some 8mm x 80×1500 lengths of New Guinea Rosewood to use on a box or something.

The sizing continued by running the 4 verticals through the thicknesser to get a consistent depth to all of them. Lastly they were cut to length using the cross cut sled and a stop block.

The Verticals
The verticals incorporate half of two different mortice and tenon joints. These are the tenons to attach the verticals to the rails, top and bottom; and the mortice to house the stub tenon on each end of the two stretchers.

The tenons on all four verticals were marked out and then the shoulders cut on the table saw with a cross cut sled and stop block. The length wise cuts for the tenons were done using the bandsaw and a back rest set at the depth of the shoulder. Because all shoulders are the same depth all four cuts on each tenon were cut this way. So now, except for a bit of clean up paring the tenons were done.

The stretchers are positioned high enough to give the necessary strength but low enough to be used as a shelf. The measurement I came up with is 250mm from the floor to the bottom of the rail. The rail will be 69mm wide by 125mm high, with a ledge on the inside of each to take the shelf. The shoulders of the stub tenon will be 23mm on the top, bottom and the sides, with the tenon being 15mm long.

To cut the mortice for this tenon, I marked the position of the mortice on the face of the vertical with a mortice guage and marking knife. I then drill it out to 17mm deep using a 20mm forstner bit. These holes were then cleaned out using a hollow chisel morticer. The top and bottom shoulders of these mortices will get their final cleanout with a paring chisel because getting these in perfect allignment is essential because they allign the stretcher.

Last thing today, I marked the position on the reverse side of the mortice in the vertical for the tensioning bolt to be drilled into the back of the mortice.

Sorry no photos. Nothing all that interesting to photograph anyway. I am hoping by the end of my next full day, the stretchers will be done, and a dry fit of the rails, verticals and stretchers will be behind me as well. At a guess, I think I am a bit less than half way there.

Let the chips fly. Be well.

Another student at the class I go to is making the traditional bench. Wedged tenons to hold the verticals to the rails. The stretchers have through tenons with wedges to hold the stretchers tight to the verticals. He is also going to have a twin screw tail vice and a front vice. This sounds like a lot of work for something that is likely to get a lot of knocks and scrapes.

Finally, my overall aim is to be able to reproduce the quality I am achieving in class at home, so I thought a good starting point is have a similar bench to work off. Sooooo, my bench is going to be an exact copy of the benches in class. That is; top rail, and bottom rail supported by two verticals at each end of the bench. Between each vertical is a stretcher. That means two stretchers at the same level (forming the support for a shelf). The top will be laminated but no bread board ends and no apron. Lastly there will be a 230mm Dawn quick release vice at the front left.

Here are my working drawings.

I am making this bench out of New Guinea Rosewood. The reason for this is that it is going in an outdoor courtyard and Roy assures me that it will resist the weather well. I also considered Kwila. Here is the rough sawn timber for the rails and verticals, as I got it. The slab for the stretchers can be seen behind.

The first day of work resulted in the rails being pretty much finished. This involved:
1 Cutting to rough length by hand x 2.
2. Ripping these 2 down the middle. This gave me 4 rough rails.
3. Using the jointer to flatten a side on each.
4. Using the jointer to make another side flat and square to the first.
5. The thicknesser was used to make size the timber. Some rough sawing marks were left on one side of some of the rails. This was because to removed them and make all the same would have made them to thin. These marks will either be against the floor or against the underside of the top.
6. Then I used the table saw with the cross cut sled to cut the rails to the exact length.
7. Next I marked the mortises. There are 8.
8. Using a spade bit I drilled out these mortises. These are not through mortises, they go about 3/4 of the way through the rails.
9. Lastly I used a hollow chisel mortiser to cut out the mortises.

The only other thing I did on the first day was rough cut the timber for the stretchers by hand. New Guinea Rosewood can be a bit wet. By rough cutting it, it will dry a bit better before it is dressed to size . Here is how it all looked at the end of my first day.

For those interested, this timber cost me $160 Australian and I have yet to buy the timber for the top .

The Cubby has progressed significantly over the weekend. The reason why the Australians never gave up the Monarchy is we get to celebrate her birthday with a day off. Not like we need a reason to have another public holiday, but it is nice. So anyway, not only did I get to spend Saturday with my son cruising the shop (mum wanted to sleep), but I went to WW classes on Sunday, and finished off with another day off on Monday to work on the cubby. Woo Hoo. Funny thing is it is not actually her birthday, I think it is April and it clashes with Easter, so we celebrate it in June. Whatever.

Unfortunately, I was trying to progress the cubby a bit too quickly and it got a partial coat of Claret.

You would not think soo much blood could come out of your thumb.
Classic mistake. Bit of wood needs removing to fit it in, chisel handy, grab the piece, grab the chisel, push chisel, wood comes away, chisel into the thumb. Oh well. Not bad enough for stitches.

I will try to get a better photo tomorrow.

There will be more parts to this project and as I make them I will add photos. Glue up will happen when all the bits are finished.

Have fun.

By the way, the dovetail joint on this project

is the first dovetail joint I have ever done. A bit rough but hey, nothing a bit of wood filler wont cover up.

So any guesses as to what it is. Here is a hint. ‘It is useful’.

Hehe

Finally, after looking at all the timber pieces I have in my shed and thinking what am I going to do with them without something to size them, a thicknesser. So off to the the Timber and Working with Wood Expo. Checked out all the stands with thicknessers, only to realise there was very little about. A bench top thicknesser was in my price range, but I thought that money would be better put aside till I can buy a decent model. What to do? What to do? Of course the answer was talk to the brother in law.

Rang him up and the conversation went something like. “You know that thicknesser of yours?” “Yeah”. “I was wondering if we could come to some sort of arrangement”. “Yeah, sure”. “What would you like for it?” “I would like you to come and get it out of my shed”!!

Woo Hoo.

So this afternoon I went to his shed and loaded up this LEDA Brand (Never heard of it) bench top thicknesser.

Needs some TLC. The lifter bars are a bit rusty and the blades need looking at, but for zero dollars it was a bargain.

You never know unless you ask.

And here it is, ta da.

Aint she a beauty. :))

Specifically, I am hoping to get some serious low down on Thickness Planners. At this point, my workshop does not have much space. A bench top thicknesser could be used to joint the width of my timbers using a supporting frame and of course to thickness a piece. Combined with the cheap table saw I already have, I should be able to do some limited sizing of some of the salvaged timber I already have. So here comes some bread boards, boxes and maybe a tool tote as well.

Should also look for a cheap metal detector as well.

The digital camera will be there with me, so I will post some images if anything interesting is apparent.

Cheers