A co-worker asked me to build him a hand plane for his and this is the result. I was originally going to use a piece of Bloodwood or Redheart, both woods that I love to use, for the body but I couldn’t find a piece that wasn’t dry enough, and ended up with this piece of East Indian Rosewood. The blank was rough sawn when I got it so when I planed the one side and found that red-ish orange “eye” on the cheek I was pleasantly surprised. The plane is built following the Krenov style, but after gluing the body back together I decided to put the tote on it. I used a half inch cherry dowel as the cross pin and a maple wedge and with some of the scraps I made the adjusting mallet for him. I didn’t finish it with anything but suggested that some tung oil or linseed oil would be a good idea.

I finished another hand plane the other day, this time I tried a Japanese style pull plane. The body is maple with a rosewood wedge. I got the blade from a cheap bench plane I bought from Harbor Freight that I ground the adjuster slots off of. I carved the mortise out with chisels, I had to work on the bed a bit to get it flat and square, but now it’s giving me good shavings. I champhered the edges except for the sole to make it more comfortable to hold.

I’ve really gotten into making tools. I’ve made several hand planes in the past and when I decided to make my toted plane, I was searching for different pictures to work on the design. While searching I came across an online article at Popular Woodworking.com by Nick Engler about a scraper plane he built out of scrap wood he had around his shop. So I figured I’d try to make one. I used mostly maple with some curly walnut for the sides and a piece of rosewood to set the tote angle better. Sadly the angle adjuster doesn’t work that well. I used an extra block plane blade I had laying around for the blade and it produces some nice shavings, in the case of the first picture, in rosewood. It was fun to make, and I may make another later on using a larger blade, but for now I’m pretty happy with this one.

EDIT: I meant to put the link to the article in here and I forgot, so here it is.

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/article/scrapwood_scraper_plane

So, I have a Starrett six inch double square. And any of you who have a Starrett square know they are great squares but they come in a card board box. Always seemed kind of cheap so I decided to make a new one. It matches the case for my combo square set I built a few weeks back. It’s made from maple with walnut accents. as with the other cases I plan to use a few rare earth magnets to keep it closed.

So, I built another case to replace the ugly plastic one that a tool came in. This one for my Combo Square set that I’ve had for a few years. The original blow molded thing was always ugly and cumbersome. The one I built is smaller and pretty (if I do say so myself). It’s made from maple and walnut. I made the box a quarter inch to short for the ruler to fit so I had to cut some recesses on the sides so it would fit, two turn keys hold it in place on the lid and the other parts are held in place when the lid is shut. Finished with tung oil, all that is left to do is the closing mechanism, I’m thinking a few rare earth magnets.

I have had this dial caliper by GENERAL for a few years now. It’s a nice one for a cheaper plastic one, and it gets the job done. Well the original case that it came has been about to break for some time now and I figured I’d make a new one for it, give me something to do on the days I have to be at the school but don’t have any classes to teach. I took the holder from the original and reused it in the new one. The case is maple and mahogany. I found that I needed a little spacer (1/16 of an inch) in order to make have the holder work properly so I glued up some thin strips of maple with a mahogany strip in the middle and sanded it to thickness and used a scroll saw to cut the openings for the clips and recess for the head and glued it to the holder before gluing the whole thing in the box. It took a little extra tweaking but now it works as well as the original, and looks a whole lot nicer too. I plan to get some rare earth magnets and use them to hold the lid shut.

So, it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything here. This is the latest project that’s filling my free time. I have a new job teaching woodshop at a school for children with learning disabilities and on my free time I started this set of hand planes. I decided to build them using abutments on the cheeks instead of a cross pin ah-la Krenov style like I’ve done before. I had some two and half inch square hard maple stock that I ripped down the middle, then using the layout lines from The Norse Woodsmith’s plans on building a traditional Coffin Smoother (http://norsewoodsmith.com/content/building-traditional-coffin-smoother) I cut the bed, abutments and mouth using my table saw with an Incra 1000SE miter gauge. The bed is set at 50 degrees. The tote was shaped by hand with rasps and files then sanded to 220, it sits in a mortis in the body The block plane was an after thought really. I wanted to do a low angle block plane but the bed angle for that is usually set at 12 degrees with the bevel up, usually ground at 25 degrees giving a cut angle of 37 degrees. I was able to cut a 12 degree miter but it would have made it difficult to wedge, so I decided to cut the bed at 30 degrees and place the bevel down. I built the block plane the same way as the Jack plane, two halves that got glued together. I had to work on the bed of the block to get the blade to sit perfect and give me nice shavings. The plan is to attach a rosewood sole onto both plane bodies and when that happens I’ll upload some more pictures. So, what do you do when you go through the trouble of building a set of nice hand tools, you make a case for them. The case is maple with a rosewood detail. A set of holders are attached to the base of the box to hold the planes in place and one on the lid for the block plane since it is narrower then the jack. I also plane to replace the mahogany wedges with rosewood to match the soles at some point. When the soles are attached I will do the final finish sanding and chamfer the edges to make it comfortable to use.

So, here’s my entry for the “Nothing New But the Glue” challenge. I’ve turned a wood ring before, but this was the first time I tried the inlay. Starting with a piece of Bloodwood I had, I drilled a 1” plug out of it as a blank and attached it to a face plate to turn. After getting the shape roughed out the way I liked I turned the groove in to the center of the band about an 1/8” wide and about a 1/16” deep. I then took a strip of 1/8” maple I had left over from a previous project and sanded it down along it width to make it just over 1/16” thick by 1/8” wide. I used a piece of copper pipe I heated as a bending iron and steam bent the maple into a ring. I had to be careful while bending and wripping it to keep it from cracking. Trimming it to the right length was the next challenge. I didn’t want to trim it to short. I used making tape wrapped super tight around the whole ring as a clamp to hold the maple in place while the glue dried. The next day I finished turning the outside shape, the inside, then sanded to 600 and applied the finish. I used about 5 coats of thin CA glue to make a nice tough finish, lightly sanded that then polised it to give it the final shine. I made a jam chuck to sand and finish the end I cut off the face plate.

So, this was a bit of an experiment. I’ve had this left over piece of maple that from stat to finish has been a joy to work with. Being green, it turned very well with little to no tear out, even with it being very figured. The wood started out almost white and difficult to see any of the grain, but once a finish is put on it, the figure really pops out and takes on a light brown and grey cast in areas. The real experiment with this piece though was the bark. After applying several “coats” of thin CA glue to soak in and secure everything, I cut the blank and there was a patch of bark about 2 inchs long on one side. I had hoped for a larger piece of bark remaining when I was finished turning, but had to settle with what you see here. I’m not disapointed though, I’m still thrilled with the results. Once rounded off, I used a skew to get the final shape, applied a little more thin CA glue (particularly at the bark) and finished it with friction polish.

I’ve got a little more of this wood left with the bark on it still, and I plan on doing a few more of these.

These were a lot of fun. I’ve been wanting a new carving mallet for a while now and when I got my last shipment of lumber I finally had my chance to make one. The delivery driver used a length of 6/4 quater sawn white oak to stack the lumber on when he was unloading it. Now, it wasn’t in the best shape (it had a few splits and some deep gouges) but it wasn’t all that bad. I planed it down and glued two pieces that were about 4 and a half inchs long together to make the head of the carvers mallet, mounted it on the lathe and went to town. I drilled a 3/4 inch hole in the base and made a handle out of a squared off piece of the same oak and glued it into the head. To help keep it from splintering I ended up soaking the head with thin CA glue and sanded it after it dried then decided to dress it up a little with the burn lines.

The carpenters mallet I decided to do on a whim. Using more of the same piece of oak I glued two 4 inch piece together with a thin strip of Bubinga in between them. After the glue dried I turned it down to a diameter of about 2 inchs and drilled the hole to attach the handle. The handle was a bit of an experiment because I decided to try some off center turning to make the handle oval. After rounding it off, I offset the grip side by 3/16 of an inch, turned one side, then off set it again to the other side then centered it back up to sand. I finished it in wipe on poly and attached a leather pad with contact cement to each side of the head to keep from maring the surface I stirke.

My wife asked me a few days ago if it was possible for me to make her some knitting needles. Luckily I had a copy of the Spring ‘09 issue of Woodturning Design. In it is an article by David Reed Smith about turning knitting needles (if you don’t have or read the issue, you can read the article here at Smith’s website http://www.davidreedsmith.com/Articles/KnittingNeedles/knitting_needles.htm). My wife wanted a set that was a size 13 (9 mm diameter) and were longer then standard needles. The typical needle is anywhere between 9.5 to 10 inches long, these are 14.5 inches, 17.5 inches with finials. I started with a piece of 7/16 square Rosewood (don’t know if it’s Indian or South American) I love working with this stuff, smells so good. I don’t have a collet chuck for my lathe, so I used my Nova without the jaws. I pretty much followed the directions that Smith writes in his article. I tell you this, I’m going to be investing in a collet chuck soon, I didn’t hurt myself with the Nova, but I did touch it a few times and it scared me. The finials were fun, but a little tricky. I had a weak spot on the second needle and it snapped off just past the square section, I squared off the end and drilled a hole to glue in a new piece to make a new finial. It broke again and I had to cut the square section off and had to drill into the shaft. This time I drilled a smaller hole (3/16” this time instead of 1/4”). Another great thing about this rosewood, the joint is practically invisible.

I sanded to 600, and used Mylands High Build Friction Polish as the finish. From start to finish, it took me about 45 minutes to an hour for each needle. This was fun, and I plan on doing more of different sizes.

Shortly after starting here I made a parting tool from an old jointer knife. I used a spare handle that was here in the shop and it worked ok for a while, but the hole in the end was cracked and the tool would slip out of it very easily. So, I decided that it was time to make a new handle for it. I had a left over hunk of walnut from the chess set I just finished that was long enough, squared it off, and chucked it in the lathe. After I got it round I drilled a hole in the end to receive the tang I ground on the tool. I also used my tenoning jig on the table saw to allow the tool to fit further into the handle. Using my cone tailstock I was able to place the handle back on the lathe between the centers and first cut the tenon at the end to receive the ferrel, which is just a piece of 3/4 inch copper pipe. I then began to shape the handle. Using a wire I burned the decorative lines on the high points. Sliding the ferrel back on I was able to clean the edge up with a scraper (great thing about copper, like brass it can be turned with lathe tools). I used wipe on poly to finish the handle and epoxy to fix the tool and ferrel to the handle. From start to finish this probably took me about 30 minutes to do, but it was a whole lot of fun.

This is my first attempt at a chess set that wasn’t a kit. I based the design off of the duplicator templates that are available through PSI, though I didn’t use a duplicator for these pieces. They are made from Walnut and Hard Maple. They are a little less than an inch and quarter in diameter and range from about an inch and a half tall for the pawns to three and a half inches tall for the king.

To assist in the repetition, which is always the most difficult part of making a chess set, I used a technique that I read about in the September/October 1990 issue of American Woodworker. In the article, wood turner Rude Osolnik describes how he makes custom scrapers to cut the bases and tops of the different pieces and uses a gouge or skew to finish off the shape. His pieces have a very modern style to them where I chose to go with a more traditional style on mine. Making the cutters is pretty ease, just very time consuming if you’re using high speed steal like I did. The last photo is of the cutters I made. I used an old planer knife and cut it into about 10 inch lengths. So I didn’t have to make 6 different tools, I decided to grind a different cutter on both ends of each piece and made a handle with a slot in it to hold them snuggly while I turned.

For the knights I left the top square and did a compound cut on the bandsaw using the knight pattern from PSI.

It takes some work to get the results you like, but once I figured out the optimum position for the cutter to reduce chatter, I went from about 50 minutes apiece from start to finish to about 30 minutes per piece.

This was fun, and now that I’ve got the hang of it, I’ll try making a different set of cutters for a more modern style set like Rude’s.

Here’s a link to the article if you’d like to read it yourself:
http://books.google.com/books?id=jfsDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=chess+set+turning+american+woodworker&source=bl&ots=tVqZJthTVL&sig=eI62Ed9WT32IcpFFLNp9JZNyMHU&hl=en&ei=11tXS8-LK4-Z8Aa7rMG7Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=&f=false

This is it, my first official commissioned piece. My mother asked me to make two chalice and patten sets for her church based off of the last set I posted here. The main difference between these and the last one I did, the chalices are taller and the cups are bigger. Other then that, they are pretty much the same. I threw the cups on the potters wheel with a “tennon” on the bottom, fired and glazed them. I turned the chalice bases and pattens out of walnut. The wood is finished with Mylands High Build Friction Polish.

My wife asked me to make a memory box for someone very close to us who passed away last summer. She found pictures of what she liked and asked me to do one like the one she found. I don’t think I”ll do another box with this style of box joint. She wanted the walnut to surround each pin. Now I know these types of joints can be done with a Leigh or even the Porter Cable Omni Jig, but not having the right bits at the shop I decided to improvise. I lined each panel with 1/16” veneer of walnut, set the dado in my table saw to cut a 3/8” gap with a 1/4” pin. I glued 1/16” veneers on to the pins to reduce the gap to 1/4”. As any of you who’ve cut box joints using a dado set may know, the spacing is never perfect, I did have to adjust a few of the pins to get the box to fit together. The lid is walnut with a quarter sawn white oak. I wasn’t thinking when I measured the box for the lid. I wanted to have it a 1/4” all the way around smaller then the box and forgot about how to hinge it, so I had to add two little pieces on the back of the lid to allow for them. The final size is 10” x 12.5” x 5”. She thought it was perfect.

I’ve decided to enter this into the Winter contest. I’ve always liked the idea of useing contrasting woods for added effect. You can see that on several of my projects. Contrasting color can add so much to the esthetics. Here, the accents around the pins highlights an area that normally wouldn’t be noticed and helps to define them. With the lid the walnut helps to highlight the quartered white oak and, with the mitered cornors allows the viewer to focus on the grain patterns in the wood. If this box were just oak, or walnut, it would be a rather boring piece (in my opinion), but with the contrasting colors it brings out the best in both woods.

When I took over the shop here at the Arts and Crafts Center, the departing shop manager was showing me around. When we were in the tool store room, he showed me the old Marples bench chisels that they had. Saying that they were pretty much junk. The shop had purchased a set of Two Cherries to replace them. So they just sat there, getting used occasionally for odd jobs where we weren’t to worried about damaging the tool.

Looking for something to do in my down time, I decided to go through the pile of about 15 or so chisels and pull out the ones that were in better shape and see if I could clean them up and restore them. I found a set of 5: 6 mm, 10 mm, 16 mm, 20 mm, and 26 mm). They all looked pretty much like the one in the second photo when I started, slightly corroded and on a few, someone had ground the backs, so I had to spend a lot of time lapping them.

First thing I did was use some 320 grit wet/dry sand paper that I taped to a piece of plywood and wet sanded the backs, tops, sides and side bevels (I was a little bummed to loose the “Made in Sheffield, England” that was etched on the top, but what can you do). After sanding I polished them with my diamond honing stones. I then ground new bevels using our Tormek grinder. They are now the clean looking set you see here and they are sharp enough to shave with.

Once I had the chisels clean and sharp, well I just couldn’t just toss them in a box or a drawer so I decided to make a storage box for them. Made from some scraps of 1/4” and 1/2” birch ply, I made the support from a piece of maple and to keep them from sliding around inside the box when it’s closed I put a piece of foam-core to press into and hold the handles.

Though it seems kind of boring to spend so much time (about 5 hours total) cleaning up some “junk” tools, and then making a box for them, it was fun and rather meditative to do the repetitive tasks of of lapping and sanding and polishing and grinding and honing. Maybe I’m crazy, but I had a good time working on these tools and the box.

I got the idea to try this style of bowl after watching a demo by master wood turner Mark Supik (http://www.marksupikco.com/ ). When my wife and I moved in to our house, there was a nice little peach tree in the front yard. Sadly, a few months ago a storm came through and blew it over. So, it was off to Home Depot to rent a chain saw (which is always fun to use anyway) and cut the tree up into manageable pieces. Upon looking at the exposed heart wood I decided to save a few of the larger pieces (only about 6 inches in diameter) and see how things looked. Well, this is the first project I’ve made with what’s left of my Peachtree. It’s really not very useful for anything other than looking at because of the small base. I was a little disappointed that the base split the way it did, I even put it in a paper bag with a bunch of the shavings hoping that it wouldn’t split. I tried reinforcing any cracks I saw with CA glue to keep them from spreading. After it dried, I sanded it smooth and finished it with Watco high gloss spray lacquer. I still have a bit of the tree left, now I have to try and figure out what to do with the rest of it.

I got the plans for this project from http://www.woodturningonline.com/index.php. In these plans they show a drilling guide that you can buy that allows for a nice easy drilling of the holes for the earrings to hang, but I figured I’d just mark where to drill the holes while it was on my lathe using the indexing pin and just drilled it my hand. This was fun and I plan on doing more of these with the hopes to sell them.

So, as you fellow wood turners know, when cutting out a bowl blank you are left with the corners as waste. Well, I decided to use that waste and see what would come out. This was the corner off of a piece of maple that a buddy of mine turned into a bowl. It didn’t look to special when I first got the wood, just looked like a piece of white plain maple. It wasn’t until I started to put the finish on it that all the detail in the grain just popped out. It’s a little over 4 inches at its widest point and only about an inch or so tall. It was an interesting project, but I ran into trouble with trying to chuck it. The tennon was only able to be gripped by two of the jaws of my chuck and popped out of the chuck a few times. I ended up having to sand the bottom smooth and glue on a sacrificial block that would fit in the chuck and then it turned great. The next difficult task was to sand it. With the two sides cut away like they are I had a hard time sanding it on the lathe and ended up having to do it by hand. It’s finished with lacquer.

So, here’s a little project I’ve been planning to do for a few weeks now. I was at woodturningonline.com, they have a lot of great looking project “how too” articles for the lathe there, and I came across this: http://www.woodturningonline.com/Turning/Projects/knives.html and I thought, “Hey, I’ve got a few hobby knives kicking around, I should give that a try.” And this is what I got done yesterday. It’s made from a piece of birch that my dad sent me. I ran into some grain issues, but then you always do when there are knots and cracks involved. I used CA glue to reinforce the cracks but I didn’t have the gel type to fill the cracks, so there are some small holes near the tip, but I don’t mind. It sanded up real nice and took the finish great. Like the calligraphy pen I did, this was another test in finial turning. I put some facets on the back end to help keep it from rolling off a table, but when I do this project again, I’ll try to leave the bead a bit higher so the facets actually sit better when placed on a table.