I figure everyone should get a bit of a chuckle out of this project. My sister recently moved into a new apartment and for whatever strange reason she had somehow acquired a six foot long piece of bowling alley. Normally I would have just pitched it in the trash, but the grain caught my eye, birdseye! Upon further inspection it was a mix of birdseye, curly maple, regular maple and white oak. So it was acquired, and quickly moved home.

Upon closer inspection I notice a few things…

First off it is nailed, and screwed through with stretchers going across. Hmm, this may be interesting. Well, nothing to do but dive in!

It worked, if by diving in I meant smashing a gasket scraper in with a hammer. The first three are horrible, very tight, each squeaking and squawking as it is removed. I have to hammer a small block in between each, then slowly expand it out. After one hour…

And suddenly it hits me, they are threaded rod...

Yup, that’s right. My 19.2 volt craftsman drill is about to get the workout of a lifetime! I have to say I didn’t expect it to work, but it did! I had to spray each rod with a teflon lubricant otherwise it was burning when it finally threaded out. Ten minutes later…

All apart! It made the loudest most horrible screech, but damn it worked well. One battery too, I figured I’d have burned through both spares. The chuck jaws held up great, good thing it was hardened drill rod.

They seem to be random thicknesses so I will rip them down and try to get a common size. After that I’m not sure… anyone have any thoughts on the best way to go about sticking them back together? I’d like to avoid the threaded rod if possible.

The first thing I did was to extend the handle on the Triton through table adjuster. Well, extend isn’t the right word, fabricate anew would be better. I took some oak dowel, glued a handle and cut the appropriate size matching groove. So now I can adjust my router through the table, a very very nice feature. In all my cutting I’ve run into another conundrum.

Dust Collection. Yup. Evil indeed. So far I’m leaning towards a portable, sound insulated unit with a cyclone barrel for the heavy stuff. A fixed DC system doesn’t seem practical just yet, that and it is cost prohibitive. (And easier to talk the wife into letting me get something she can use on her car too)

Another addition I will be adding is a safety switch with a big paddle on it too. Nothing like having to get eye level with the router bit to shut off the router to make you question the safety level. I spend alot of time at work on safety issues and yet I’m stupid about it at home? Not this hombre!

So that brings me to my future plannings. I’ve decided to take the high road, do it right, and get the right tools and not skimp. It is so very tempting to get the cheapo stuff so I can just do it! But why buy crap twice when you can buy the right thing once. Plus this is a hobby, so no cost/profit justification for me. So here it is, the Plan.

Rouseau 3509 $40 (Ordered)
Incra Lite router System $140
Formica Sheet $20
Glue for said sheet $4
Safety Switch $14
1/2” Template Bit $14
1/2” Profile Bit $14

Shop Vac (Ridgid most likely) $80

Ridgid TS3650 $570
Good Blade $90

Dewalt 2 Speed Planer $520

Jointer (Unknown Yet) $450

So there is a total of approximately $2000. Pricey! This gets me most of what I want, I can function quite nicely at that point. Hell I used to spend that much on cigarettes in 6 months.

Bandsaw $400
Jigsaw $200-300
Spindle Sander $200

There is an additional $800-$900. This doesn’t include the hand tools I’ll be wanting either. My chisels, planes, and sharpening stuff can get me by for now as well. But clamps! The hidden woodworkers bane…

Clamps $300

So there we are, $3200. I have a few options, save, devote a portion of my budget to that. At the rate Im going I’ll get where I need to go in about 9 years. Since I’m salary working more hours doesn’t do much for me. So I’m left with augmenting my income with an additional source.

So, the question is, can I use my woodworking addiction to finance my woodworking addiction?

We’ll save that question for next time.

This is my first “major” project that is beyond anything small and simple. I had nothing but a circular saw, corded drill and hand tools to make it with and I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

When I started I was stuck with a bit of a problem. I have no sawhorses or any other way to handle large stock such as 2X4s. I had to balance them on a small tool box and a beer cooler! To make sure the cuts were straight I clamped on a piece of maple for an edge guide for all my cuts. The process was tedious, but all my cuts turned out great. Cutting the MDF was a bit more troublesome, my blade had alot of tearout. If I foresee myself working more of that stuff I’ll definitely get a finer toothed blade.

As to assembly my clamp collection is limited to I had to get extra creative with workholding devices to keep everything square and stout. Much to my amazement it turned out square! For fasteners I used GRK fasteners. A bit on those babies, here’s a link to the media section on there website. These little babies are awesome. I could buy a box of 100 construction screws for $3.50, I bought a box of 100 2 1/2 inch GRK’s for $6.50. I knew I wanted something that I had more trust in and if I had to remove a panel I wanted a screw that wasn’t designed for a single use in. They pre drill themselves, have corrugated threads, cut there own counter sink and use a star drive. They lock down TIGHT!

Once I had the frame built I started in on the MDF. This stuff is a mess! My dust collection consists of a broom and a mini shop-vac. I had alot of cleaning to do at various stages. My cuts weren’t as nice as with the 2X4’s, but I didn’t have a fine tooth blade. I cut the top, put a 45 degree miter on the back, and cut a matching miter on another panel to go on the back. I used a few 2X4’s to square it up when glued, when it set it all got screwed to the frame.

The rear panel is for a horizontal router mounting carriage Mark Mclaughlin wrote into the plans. Once I get a good feel for it I’ll add that feature later. For the time being the router is mounted with cap screws to the top, once I get my insert plate in I’ll install that. (Rousseau)

I’ve done a few test cuts, really like it so far! I had to add the dust collection port that came with the router to the fence, this thing is messy! I’m really going to have to explore some new dust collection methods beyond my mini shop-vac.

All of my tools performed great except my jig saw. It is a Black and Decker so now I’m in the market for one of those puppies. It cuts compound angles right now, most frustrating. I’d love a Festool, but I’ll probably get a Freud or a Bosch. Anyone comment on that?

It’s snowing hard here, another 3-5 inches forecast tommorow. So here’s a little buddy my wife made in the backyard for those of you without snow! I can hear an ore boat on the bay sounding the fog horn, be one bad day to be on the lake today.

There you see a Stanley block plane, small Stanley hand saw, and a piece of granite. The block plane will be functional with some loving on the jig. The saw is to replace my japanese pull saw until my new one arrives from Woodcraft. The one I have now is losing teeth (an Irwin pullsaw), though I can’t fault the saw, it has done everything from treated lumber to hard maple and ironwood. The granite block is so I can try the scary sharp method. I like my waterstones, but a mans gotta keep an open mind! (The granite stone was in the seperates box and costed me $2.00, as far as my straight edge can tell it is perfectly flat)

This is the stool that I am refinishing for my wife. It has solid walnut legs with a veneered surface on the side panels. It has one coat of Zinnsers seal coat right now, quite shortly it will have a coat of polyurethane. I plan on two more coats of poly, and then a hand wax polished finish. My darling wife will be responsible for re-upholstering the seat. So I’l post one picture once it is back together, and a second once she has the top done. It will replace a hideously ugly painted floral metal chair in our bedroom. I can’t wait till that ghastly thing is gone to the scrapman!

After choosing a stain (no stain or dyes at all) I decided to try out the new foolproof finishing method they listed in FWW. It starts with shellac, then three coats of polyurethane (and two doesn’t cut it!) and a final coat of polished furniture wax. I split the veneer into two, one side got the shellac and three coats of poly. The other side got the full treatment with the polished wax as well. The end product ends up looking pretty much identical, the feel is just silkier with the waxed surface. (Any other benefits anyone can list?)

To make this more interesting, I got the two pieces mixed up when I put them onto my desk. To the naked eye they both look identical, they are too small to get a good smoothness test too. Let’s see if we can guess which is which!

One finished piece at 40X.

The same piece at 100X.

Now for the other piece at 40X. Talk about a huge difference!

And at 100X.

The second set of pictures almost look wet, so they get my vote for the ones without wax.

This is the unfinished side at 40X. Almost reminds me of beef jerky.

The unfinished side at 100X. The fibers stick out and appear as the unfocused squiggles you see.

There it is folks, one more batch under the scope!

I figured I would make a blog that gave one starting point for everything I’ve done so far with the microscope. I did some testing today and I think that I can make my metallurgical scope work for wood. So, as per Blakes request, I will try and get various stages under the scope.

But first, links to the first two in the saga.

Chisel before sharpening

Chisel after sharpening

I had to do some rework on the microscope during lunch today so that it would handle a surface that is mostly non-reflective. A traditional microscope passes light through a sample. A metallurgical microscope reflects light off of the metal, and that is what I see. So it works really good for a chisel, and not to shot for a rough cut piece of timber. Since I couldn’t use the internal light, I had to mount a LED luxeon lamp to the outside to give a “glancing” light which seems to pick up the wood quite well. Below are a few test pictures.

All are pieces I grabbed off of a few pallets, so oak, maple, and pine. The pieces were either cut with my pocket knife, or simply pulled off. The pine knot is interesting as one side was embedded in the wood, while the other was cut.

This is the maple at 40X. Unfinished piece, rough cut with a pocket knife.

And the maple at 100X, due to the iregularities in the surface I had a hard time getting a good focus.

The oak at 40X, no clue what type of oak.

The oak at 100X.

This is the back side of the pine knot. All that is visible appears to be sap!

The back side of the knot at 100X.

This is the front side of the knot at 40X. It looked perfectly smooth, almost a sanded look to the naked eye. Though microscopic tearing is noticable at this magnification. It became rather featureless at 100X magnification so I didn’t include it. The green is paint splatter from a marking operation.

There it is folks, more to come in the future.

C

Now I’m not saying that the education I’ve gained here passes up what I would get at Inside Passage, or College of the Redwoods, or the east coast equivalents. But, the exposure to methods, thoughts, ideas, styles, woods, and most of all the enthusiasm that a large group of people who truly enjoy what they do brings is priceless. I can read a post from Frank, see the beautiful prose and the passion of working wood. Then I can see a beautiful box from DocK. Then I can read a discussion about powered carving bits, something I know absolutely nothing about.

Now think how amazing it is to get this many views, to learn of so many techniques and methods to work the common denominator we all love. Wood.

Picture if you would an apprentice in a 17th century workshop. He will learn from a small, select, and extremely talented group of people. The styles will be limited to one particular area, the instructions and critiquing will come from a small group of people. He may hear of methods used in a far off land, or see some small pieces of tropical woods, but overall his work will be similiar to those who taught him.

Today the internet is part of my apprenticeship into woodworking. Instead of one or two guildmasters I have hundreds, thousands. I can be inspired by Frank, read the prose, feel the wood sing in my heart and yearn to hold it in my hands. I often times just click the “Roll the Dice” tab on the front page and see the beautfiul work before me. In those short few minutes I can be exposed to so many wonderful works of art that it is stunning. Especially interesting is MsDebbieP and her tours, travels and general happy thoughts.

Of course there are parts of the apprenticeship that are lacking, the hands on, right there beside you type learning. The critiquing, which is an essential thing in any work. As it stands I am my own worse critic, but when I do something wrong I don’t have that experienced master to scold, but also point out the deficiencies and provide the solutions. Our internet culture has a difficult time accentuating the nuances of conversation, the slight nod, or wink that can lighten a conversation. That essential of body language is difficult to get across on the net, so we strive for politeness to counter the far crossed emotions that can’t be portrayed.

So now I sit here, inspired, interested, and enjoying myself.

Thank you Lumberjocks and Lumberjockettes.

What do I need?

• What rate do you consume pads?

• How many tools can you sharpen per pad?

• What do you pay for your pad?

Of real interest would be how many inches of tools width you can sharpen per pad. So if you exclusively use 1 inch wide chisels, and you can sharpen the chisel ten times on an 8X11 sheet, that is what I need! That will allow us to get sharpening area per square inch. So if we use the 1” tool reference, 1 inch face depth, and ten repititions, we get 10 square inches of chisel sharpened on 88 square inches of pad, or 8.8 in2 of pad to sharpen one square inch of chisel.

On the flip side I need some more numbers on japanese water stones. Of real interest is how many times can you sharpen before you need to true the face, and how many times can you sharpen a chisel on a waterstone before you wear it out? For cost I am going to use Lee Valley prices, if all else I will do the same with pads.

So far here is how it is stacking up as a ballpark until I get some more info…

Micro Abarasives Corner, or… “Scary Sharp”

Veritas Sharpening Jig $58
Granite Plate $10 from the local big box
5 – 220 Grit 8X11 $10
5 – 15u (1000grit) $10
5 – 5u (2500 grit) $8.25
5 – .5u (9000 grit) $8.25

For a total of… $114.50

In the opposite corner in a kimono…

Veritas Sharpening Jig $58
220/800 Stone $30
1000/4000 Stone $28
8000 Stone $46.50
Sic Truing Plate $25

For a total of… $187.50

So we are left with Scary sharp being cheaper by $73 dollars, assuming pads on average including shipping cost $2 each, we can use another 36.5 pads before we price match, unless the waterstones have a life less than that.

Anyone want to chime in with some numbers?

I spent about 35 minutes with the Veritas Mk2 jig. I started with the 1000 grit side and moved to the 4000 grit side. At the end I’ll post some pictures of the factory finish that came on the chisels.

This is the blade edge at 40X, notice that even when cleaned up there is still some rough edges?

Here it is at 100X, the rough edge becomes much more evident.

And finally at 400X, due to the light the rough edge appears slightly better, but it is only from the fact that we can see the rounding, or rather can’t, my scope only shows reflective surfaces, and since a radius isn’t reflective I may or may not pick it up, in this case I can’t without rotating the chisel.

This is the bottom side showing a corner (40X), notice the “frosting” on the edge? I think it is either from the slurry building on the edges, or me placing uneven pressure on the front/back strokes slightly chamfering the edges.

Here is the bottom at 100X. If you look close you can see ghosting of where I haven’t fully cleaned up the old grinding marks, even though with the naked eye it looks perfect. The speckles might be corrosion or dried on grinding agent.

Bottom of the chisel at 400X. Multiple directions of grind evident.

A side view at 40X, a fine point is evident though barely.

Factory bottom at 40X, much closer and it lost any definition of size.

Factory edge at 40X. So rough it was actually difficult to focus on it, plus the reflection was too low for any good detail.

I didn’t get the opportunity to put it onto the comparator but for measurement our machinery is only good to +/- 2 minutes, so we are within the range of the machine tolerance. I would have to send it to a metrology lab to get exact results. However I did put the face of the chisel on a profilometer which registered as 1.8 Ra. Or, .0000018 inches (Ra is the arithmetic average of the absolute values of the profile height deviations from the mean line, recorded within the evaluation length).

As I add more stones and chisels I plan on comparing them and will post results.

C

In case you aren’t familiar with the Veritas Mk2 gauge (see here for blog entry). It clamps the blade and adjusts both the angle of the main workhead and uses a colored sliding gauge to set the angle. Now I was fairly skeptical of the ability of this blade to hold the advertised angle. So I magnetically clamped my chisel into the optical comparator and, with a preliminary check, it appears to be with 2 minutes of 25 degrees. What does that mean in english? .03 degrees, and also the capability of the optical comparator! Or, .0002 over a 3/8 face. So in a perfect world you have to hone .0002 of material off each time you clamp up the chisel. Not too shabby, I’ve seen far more expensive machine tool equipment be more out of whack than that little dandy, very nice Lee Valley!

But on to my main point, the pictures! I used this chisel for about 20 minutes last night to pare some end grain. There was some pushing, a few whacks with a mallet, but mostly light use. The wood was hard maple, or as I come to like to call it, rock maple.

First a few reference photos to put it into perspective. This is the lettering on the top that says “Made in Sheffield England.” (The HE in Sheffield more particularly)

That is at 40 times magnification.

100 times magnification

400 times magnification

Now the chisel itself, I did the back, the cutting edge and the side.

Chisel and micro bevel at 40X

Chisel and micro bevel at 100X

Micro bevel at 400X

Bottom of the chisel near the cutting edge at 40X

Bottom of chisel at 100X

Bottom of chisel at 400X

Side view of the tip at 40X

Side view of the tip at 100X

The 400X of the side did not turn out, the edges had too much light and I believe I didnt have it perfectly square as I had some ghosting on the image.

So what does it all mean? First off you’ll notice that this looks horrible, like a glacier went through. With the naked eye you can see your reflection on the chisel with no discernible scratches. I start using a 1000 grit water stone and move to a 4000 grit waterstone, no nagure stone though once I get it I’ll try it. Slight rollover is noticable in the photos as well, a knot strike maybe?

As a comparison I’m going to sharpen the chisel tonight using my normal method and then put it back on the microscope so we can get a before and after photo. I’ll also put one my Irwin chisels that I haven’t sharpened yet on there to show the “factory” edge.

I also plan on doing a repeatability study with a chisel in the future. I’ll sharpen it, then remove it from the fixture and resharpen it, see how well it repeats. If how it did this time is any indicator, it is a beautifully accurate piece of equipment.

I’d also like to do an econometric study on using the scary sharp method versus waterstones. So, if you have use the scary sharp method (I don’t) and would like to give me some info, please pipe up!

Enjoy folks, if you folks like stuff like this I’ll try and post more in the future.

C

I’ve spent the last few evenings working on my core skills. Marking out, cutting, fitting and basically getting used to how certain things behave. This includes trying out my new Bosch CS20 circular saw, which was an awesome experience. With the Bosch I decided to rip some hard maple and try my hand at some dovetails. I’ve watched various videos, gotten a feel for what was required, and even did the five minute dovetail as listed in the new FWW.

I wish my dovetails in the hard maple turned out as well as ole Franz Klaus makes it look on youtube. The first set I was beyond frustrated. I became woefully aware of the inadequacy of my chisels. They are now relegated to a back spot on my bench and after a great deal of searching and planning I decided upon a set of Irwin Marples chisels. I know, not exactly Lie Nielsen chisels, but compared to what I had they are beautiful! I was almost going to hold off, and buy one or two commonly used sizes of Lie Nielsen chisels but I can’t justify the cost… yet. I’m also looking at buying a few from Japan Woodworker, so who knows.

But back to the dovetails… after getting the Irwins, spending about an hour on the 1/4” chisel and 1.5 hours on the 1/2” chisel they were ready and damn sharp. I couldn’t believe how it cut, I was simply amazed. With my old chisels I would beat, gnash, hammer and smash on those chisels and they would tear even right off the stone. I didn’t need my hammer once when I used these chisels. I was amazed, what had been daunting was now a pleasant task.

So now that we know my tools are up to par it became obvious that I wasn’t. I won’t bother posting pictures, but basically I made a 6” by 3” box out of hard maple. It has dovetails, or at least something that approximates it. But to my credit the last side I cut fit nicely, and only had slight gaps. But, I’m learning, and that’s what matters.

But, to my method of design. When in school, (Michigan Tech) I had to use all sorts of drafting software. Everything from Autocad Lt, to full blown Catia. 2D simple, to 3D elaborate. Since I don’t have a few thousand to dump on solid modeling software I have switched to… Sketchup! This little baby is nice, it is simple, and I thoroughly enjoy time spent designing. I’m learning now the proper way to go about laying things out so they can be resized easily.

This will be an end table that my darling wife will get. It is one of the first projects I laid out. I plan on using hard maple for the entirety and if I’m feeling spunky I am going to do a bit on inlay work on the top.

Next is a workbench design I’m playing with…

Here is a work surface I plan on adding against one wall. I am in dire need of storage space.

The thing I really love about sketchup is the ease it allows. You could ask me for the workbench file, I could pass it along and you could modify it in minutes to fit your needs. The collaboration it allows is simply amazing.

Speaking of collabaration… If anyone could send me the info on how to add my files to the Lumberjocks repository I’d be more than happy to.

In the next several days I’ll be chopping my maple into some more manageable sizes and then off to get it planed. I thought about using a hand plane… but I have no scrub plane and the time would be too much otherwise.

Also on my mind is a Krenov style handplane, but I’m still researching that.

And again, thanks for all the info folks!

The first task I had was deciding what major tools I would want. I’ve managed to get it down to a Table Saw, Band Saw, Jointer and Planer. Possibly adding to this a small benchtop lathe and a scrollsaw. I’ll cover each one, give you my thoughts, and see what you folks think.

The most major tool that most folks have in the shop… The Table Saw.

This has been my most difficult decision. I have swung between many extremes on this piece of equipment. I’ve scoured the advice, read more “First Tablesaw” threads on every forum, and have quite possibly learned that this is the most dangerous question to ask a group of woodworkers. The advice I always saw was, save and only buy the best cabinet saw, save and buy a used cabinet saw, or buy the best contractors saw you could. To limit the first two, I don’t have the space for a cabinet saw, and in my neck of the woods the odds of finding a good used cabinet saw is slim to none. So thats leaves number three.

To remind folks on my criteria… Cost, Space, Function. While I would love a Sawstop Cabinet Saw, I do not have the cash, space or need for such a fine piece of equipment. It is quite simply the Lamborghini, Stradivarius or Mona Lisa of table saws.

My logic has led me to either a Contractors Saw, or a Portable Table Saw. The first I had in mind was the Ridgid Cast Iron Top Contractor saw. The price is $550 at the big box store. I liked the fact that it is stout, comes with a mobile base, and is cast iron. On the downside it is still big, and even if I can move it my space is limited. The other option is the Bosch 4100. This little guy has a riving knife, one feature I really like the sounds of, can collapse down, appears to be quite portable and has the ability to add some factory upgrades. These being some zero clearance inserts, outfeed and side support tables and a digital rip gauge. The price is about $599 for the basic saw with a gravity lift base.

Today I drove and attempted to get a good look at a 4100 and the Ridgid saw. Unfortunately all I found was the older 4000 series but I did get an excellent look at the Ridgid contractor saw. If the newer 4100 series is equal to, or better then the 4000 it is indeed a nice saw. This is not to cut down the Ridgid saw at all, but once I laid hands on the collapsible unit I realized it is the saw for my space.

So one of my first purchases will be a Bosch 4100-09 If in the future I think I need, or want any of the add-ons I can get them, or make some of my own.

On the topic of band saws I am a bit more up in the air. I want something beyond a simple table top unit. So I’m thinking a 14” bandsaw is probably in my future. On this I have been eyeing up the Grizzly 14 . I’ll probably add a resaw fence and keep some portable outfeed tables on hand for large stock.

Grizzly also has my eye on a jointer as well, in this case the 6X24 Bench Top Jointer. I would love to have something with a larger capacity but for my space and budget it isn’t in the works. This unit runs approximately $250 with freight.

For the planer I think I’ll go with the Ryobi lunch box planer. It is a no frills, no bells or whistles piece of equipment. It gets mixed reviews around the net, but for the most part it seems you can’t go wrong for the price. I may forego this piece of equipment for the immediate future and use a friends or a family members. I’m still up in the air on this. How much use time to you folks get out of the planer and would you consider it absolutely essential?

So there it is for now! Next entry I’ll try to talk about my first project, and my method of design. (Sketchup)

Thanks folks and I truly appreciate your input. Oh, have a Happy and safe New Years.

Hope all have had a wonderful Christmas. Mine has been hectic but overall a great year. I’ll keep it brief as it is late…

I received two notable woodworking gifts this year.

The first is a Bosch CS20 Circular saw. A circular saw has been on my list as a future purchase and I had no clue I would be getting one. It came from my grandfather and all indications so far show it to be an excellent piece of equipment. It is stout unit and I look forward to making some chips!

The second is a gift from my little sister, a Kreg R3! I’ve been waiting to start my first project until I got this. I know there is alot of mixed feelings on this style of joinery but I’m willing to give it a hearty try.

So until next time folks, be safe, stay warm, and Happy Holidays!

Casey

When in college, while dirt poor, I use to get the Lee Valley catalogs and sit for hours on end neglecting homework thumbing through those beautiful catalogs. There is a special sort of beauty in something that not only is functional, but graceful as well. Now, I can actually begin to purchase some of these amazing products.

At one time I thought that a product must be of high enough quality to accomplish a given task otherwise it would not be purchased and hence the company would get no profit so another, better product would take its place. I now know how wrong I was.

I purchased a Lee Valley MKII sharpening system and have spent the last 5 hours of my day using it, enjoying it, and most of all marvelling in a quality tool. The blisters on my hands have taught me that my chisels, while sharp, are junk. That my plane, while sharp, is extra special junk. (The only reason I’m not still using it is the blisters really started to hurt)

Though the saddness and embarassment of trying to sharpen a $2 chisel on an $80 jig is evident, it is also awe-inspiring. I have never worked with japanese water stones, again, a thing of beauty. The old oil stones stamped with “Kennametal” that I have been using or the Norton stone even sounded harsh, cut slow, and were messy. This japanese stone is smooth, almost purrs, and cuts like it should be plugged in!

The jig itself is massive. I should have been able to guess at the size, but it is beefy! It sets up quick, and cuts beautifully. With any quality chisel I think that I would be able to put a mirror edge on it in under 2 minutes. But my chisels took a bit longer, but here is a picture…

The waterstone is set on a pad that would normally be used to line cupboards with, it held it like a rock. I’ve read that you can actually use a pad like that with a router… anyone comment on that?

So now I plan on purchasing the Lee Valley chisel set, and begin plane hunting on Ebay. The new Shop & Tools special issue of FWW lists a bunch, so that’s my goal!

The intent of this blog is to track my entrance into the world of woodworking. There seems to be a gap between the people who are just getting into woodworking, and those who have been enjoying the hobby for ten years. So, this is my attempt to fill some of that gap. You’ll get to watch me make mistakes, buy some bad tools, and hopefully you’ll learn from my mistakes.

First off is my mission statement, the “why am I doing this?”

I need an outlet.

I work as a manufacturing engineer for the largest remanufacturer of engine valves in the world. My job has many exciting details, but I found that I need an outlet for using my hands. I design a great deal of things, write alot of work instructions and such but others do the hands-on. I am much happier if I come home and play in the garage for an hour then if I didn’t.

At this time I have some basic tools and one not so basic tool. I’ll get into this in a paragraph or three. To explain my tool purchasing philosophy I’ll put down a quote…

”It’s unwise to pay too much, but far worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, all you loose is some money – that’s all. When you pay too little, then sometimes you loose everything, because what you buy isn’t able to do what it was bought for. Common business practice makes it impossible to pay a bit and to get alot – quite simply, it can’t be done. If you accept the lowest offer, then you would be wise to insure yourself against the risk you run – and if you do that, then you can afford to pay for the better product anyway.”
John Ruskin

So here I am with more ambition then I have cash. I must walk a line of compromises. I have a sizable set of student loans, house payment and such to pay off but at the same time I will try and get the best tools for my situation.

What do I mean by that? While I would love a complete Festool set, it is beyond my budget and for the most part beyond what I need. For now. Ten years from now the odds say that I will accumulate a few. But while getting started without even a full set of drill bits to my name is tough, trying to get it all at once is impossible.

But, here’s my tools.

Hand tools first.

Here’s a close-up.

Here we see my new mallet! Also some layout tools, hand brace, my horrible plane, forstner bit (Freud) and Marbles Knife. Also a pullsaw, I definitely want a better one of these, it works excellent. The plane is a big box purchase, and out of the box it is horrible. After a few hours with a mill, surface grinder and stones it does a decent job. A full plane set is in my future. Not Veritas or Lie Nielsen, so maybe bargain shopping? But the Buck Bros or Menards equivalent is crap.

Another close-up.

I included my router bits here just because, well, I don’t have many. More marking tools here, files, clamps, and chisels. The chisels interestingly enough are the cheapest chisels I could buy at Menards (think Home Depot but cheaper and lower quality). We needed a set to beat on at work, so we purchased those for I think 6 dollars. After we beat them for a bit we noticed that the steel was actually not bad, just not heat treated. So we went and put a heat treat on the tips and lo-and-behold they came out at exactly 64 Rc. A bit hard, but workable. They warped, bad, but a bit on the surface grinder took care of that. I have a Veritas sharpening jig (MKII) coming soon and nicer chisels are also in the works. The router bits come from Woodcraft, the starter set and I just got them yesterday. They look really nice, and the very limited cutting I’ve done so far has turned out nice.

Now for the power tools…

Please, refrain from laughter. You have to start somewhere and if the difference is buy B&D or buying nothing at all… well, you have to have a drill! The sander, upon first inspection seemed neat. It has a removable pad and can random orbital sand and detail sand. The dust collection unit is horrible and I will get a nice sander one of these days. The drill spins, not much more I can say about it. The jig saw was on sale for $25, so I picked it up. It cuts, slightly off center and crooked, but it’s a cut!

The router though… my first real power tool. I have done about 4 linear feet of routing with it, but man it is nice. Everything is exactly where you’d think it would be, and I hardly know anything about routers! One of my planned tool upgrades is either purchasing a table or making my own for this beautiful work of engineered art.

My goal is to eventually have all my tools on par with that Triton router.

My other neato goodie…

My woodrack! Currently filled with hard maple. It went together simple and quick, very pleased with it. I checked out Tritons Australian website and alot of the products they show look extremely clever and well done. If the quality is on the same level as the router they will become the gap bridger between Dewalt and Festool.

Last picture, a workbench, with a warning below.

My first workbench, and definitely my last of this type. It can’t clamp well, anything you cut, sand or rout on it is amplified by 30 Db do the lack of rigidity and it likes to slide. But for now it will clamp lightly, and hold things as long as it is light duty.

I was asked by Dadoo what my next project is, and it will be a maple workbench. At this point in the game it is the second most critical upgrade I need to make. The first being a table saw.

Right now it is looking like the Ridgid contractor saw with the cast iron top. My uncle has one and he speaks highly of it and I speak highly of him, so A = A. But I am also looking for a good used saw also, with my limited funds if I can get the same level of saw (basic, upgradeable with better fence and miter gauge) then I will be extremely happy. But good old table saws seem to be scarce, at least for a price that its worth assuming the risk of a used piece of equipment. But I’m looking!

So if you are near the UP of michigan, and have a nice saw you’d be willing to sell, heck, any tools for that matter, please let me know! I’ll keep you folks up to date on my upgrades and plans. A few future plans are my $100 assembly bench, maple workbench, 3 under-table cabinets (one of which will be sound deadened) and an outfeed table. As far as finished goods, a bookshelf, night stand and Wood Whisperer Cutting board.

So here we go folks, time to turn my 12 foot by 20 foot garage into a Woodshop!