To start with, I grabbed a piece of Home Depot special mystery softwood. I figured that it would be good practice because it sucks. If I can cut reasonable dovetails in that, I don’t have much to worry about.

I crosscut the wood with my new bowsaw blade. I like it. A lot. Trimmed it up on the shooting board with a low angle block plane. I laid out the pins first this time. No particular reason. I don’t really have a preference. The little Zona backsaw makes a really fine kerf. $6 well spent. The pictures came out a bit fuzzy. I will have to work on that. My camera is only 15 or so years old and doesn’t have a macro. Sorry. I guess I will have to either take them from further away and crop them or get a better camera.

The little light lines next to the pencil marks are the kerfs. Pretty tiny. These saws have a really thin plate. I sawed out most of the waste with my new bowsaw that I built from a Grammercy kit. Then I trimmed up with chisels. The first time I cut out the tails, I didn’t bother to mark the waste. Oops. I cut out all the wrong pieces. Oh well. I flipped it around and marked out again. This time carefully marking the waste.

I didn’t bother to lay the tails out that carefully with a knife. I just went with a 0.5 mm mechanical pencil. I still need to improve my lighting and clear off my workbench.

The first time I put it together, I thought it was odd that the edges didn’t line up. Then it hit me. I had put the tails board in backwards. Flip it over and tap it together. Good to go. Overall, I am happy. I could trim it up a little cleaner and leave it a bit proud to leave something to trim flush. As it is, the joints are even and square.

My next project will be to put a depth stop on my plow plane. That or give my #45 one more chance to redeem itself. If I get things organized a bit this weekend, I might go pick up some lumber to make some tool trays that will become drawers in a tool cabinet. That will help a lot in getting things put out of the way so I can clean off my workbenches.

This is what the Grammercy hardware looks like:

I picked up a metal lathe a while back and finally took it out of the packing crate. The lathe is a little 7×10 from Harbor Freight. I decided that my first project would be to make another set of pins for a bow saw. It is pretty simple but, hey, you have to start somewhere.

The first attempt was with some mystery aluminum alloy from Home Depot. Total disaster. As I was turning the second end, the metal failed from me pushing too hard. Basically, it was mush. That’s ok. I didn’t expect it to be perfect the first time around.

I went by to get some lumber for another project and thought I would try again. I picked up a piece of 1/2 in. hot rolled steel rod to try out cutting something else. This was a lot stronger but it is a lot harder to work with than the aluminum. Then it came time to slot the blade holder. My hacksaw was not up to it and I ended up cutting the slot out crooked and messed up the blank.

Third time was the charm. I had done some dumpster diving and pulled some pieces of 6061 Aluminum from the scrap bin at work. A world of difference. It cut really well and was strong enough to support itself without bending. I left the handle end a bit longer than the Grammercy set and cut the slot for the blade with my multi-tool and cleaned up with files.

I rank it pretty high on the fun scale but unless you really want to practice on a metal lathe, I really suggest buying the hardware if you are going to build one.

I hate my Stanley 45. It is the proverbial jack of all trades and master of none. The adjustments suck. The seating for the cutters is pitiful. It chatters. The screws shake loose unless you crank them down too tightly. It doesn’t track well. The skates on the body are too sharp and hang on everything. It is hateful to use. I can hardly wait until I get a decent plow plane. It is the most frustrating tool that I have ever used. It is almost easier to just cut grooves with a chisel. It is one of those tools that has so much promise and you keep trying and trying to find out what it is really good for and it falls flat every time.

My Stanley 66, on the other hand, is amazing. It is supposedly for holding scrapers for beading and reeding but much like Clark Kent, that is it’s mild mannered disguise. It has an alter identity. With the “other” cutters, it is one of the most wonderful small routers available. It gets into the tightest places, it actually rides it’s fence. You can actually adjust the fence from the top without tools. Unlike other small routers, it has nice big handles that you can hold and turn and it goes where you tell it You can lift one side and take a lighter cut and work your way down to full depth. The cutters don’t stick out as far as other routers and don’t hang and twist off in other directions like other routers. The cutters are cheap and you can make them whatever shape you want.

My cheap knock-off Stanley 95 clone (from AMT, anybody remember them?) is another special purpose plane that is really nice to have. It is not a plane that you use that much by itself but it is a great little secret weapon. Get ready to edge joint and make a couple passes with it to set the angle and then pull out the jointer. I can’t say that I would buy one of the new remakes at the premium price but if you find one that is cheap, don’t hesitate. Snap it up quickly.

Well, I got that off my chest. Have a great night.

I made another bench. Well, not quite the same as my workbench but very similar. It is going to give me a place to put some stuff. I am deciding right now but it will probably hold my mortiser, my wet grinder, and my baby drill press. I am really playing musical chairs with my tools to make room for the latest addition. Not totally woodworking related but I picked up a little metal lathe to add to the workshop and it is going to get the table where my mortiser is.

I hate working in disorder though. It makes it hard to think straight. I was trimming the tenons for my new bench and after I finished, I realized that I had the perfect tool for trimming them but since it was buried in a pile of stuff, I didn’t even think about using it. Instead, I took off all the guides from my rabbet plane and used it for a shoulder plane. It worked but it really was not the best thing I could have used. A long time ago, I picked up a wooden badger plane and it has sat idle for many years. It would have been perfect for trimming the tenons. Well, next time.

I am also no longer unhappy with my bandsaw. We have come to an understanding. A while ago, I had put a riser block on it and ever since then, I have had a horrible time getting good cuts off of it. Well, at dbhost’s suggestion, I went ahead and upgraded the tension spring to a Carter Cobra Coil. It was a good suggestion. The saw cuts well once more. I did have a problem and need to upgrade the set screws for my guides though. The cheap ones that came with the saw have a tendency to loosen up if they are not cranked pretty tight. The bottom thrust bearing had come loose and wasn’t turning, I reached in to move it out for re-adjusting and really burned my thumb badly. What a surprise. Who would have known that metal being rubbed by a moving steel band would get hot?

The most fun has been getting set up with planes. I posted my first one as a project but I have been busy making more. It is a lot of fun and they are so fast to make. I have become addicted to them. They feel so much better to use than my iron planes. I used my iron scrub plane last weekend and it felt so alien. Tonight’s project was to make a wooden scrub. I used a curved iron that I had picked up at the flea market years ago. I chopped off the blade with a Dremel and made a plane body last night that I wasn’t happy with. I made it a new one tonight that was a lot nicer. It took a grand total of about 2 1/2 hours including glue up. I think the next ones I will make will be some different sized hollows.

I will probably use the rest of this week to do some little jobs and then get ready for a big push on the weekend to get some more stuff done.

The first orphan is an old Stanley 45. One of the old pretty ones with the filigree castings. I finally broke down and took a look to see if it was salvageable. It was in pretty sad shape when I got it. I don’t even know why I took it in. It wasn’t complete. I already had complete one with all the cutters. It doesn’t really even have any parts to salvage. It is a basket case. I took one more stab at it and went for the Evapo-Rust. Well, the verdict is in. It’s a goner. Maybe it I will keep it around just for decoration. I hate to get rid of it.

The next orphans are siblings. Sometime in the past I picked up some pretty diverse Starrett measuring tools. The big one I love but I would never consider buying a new one. It is one of the big folding 24in builder’s squares. You know the one. Built in protractor head, 2” wide blade. Way too expensive. Well, I hate to say what I paid for it. Someone might call the police. That one is a bit hard to read but it is so nice that I will make do. It is actually my go to ruler. The first one I reach for. The questionable ones are the 12 in with the square head and the center finding head. The smaller 9 in with just the protractor head and one of the baby 4 in adjustable squares. Well, all the little ones finally got the cleanup. They can be used for straight edges and squares but the blades are probably never going to be legible no matter how much cleaning I do. So, I have some of these little squares that you really can’t even read the markings. Will I get rid of them? Hardly. I kind of think of it as the island for broken toys on Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer. They were once expensive precision tools. They deserve more respect than that.

Finally, there are the orphan chisels. No, not the good set or one of the partial sets. Those are easy to explain. I picked them up one at a time in mind of building a user set and one upon a time I used to use them to fund my tool habit. The ones I am talking about are the oddballs. The ones that I have no idea what, if anything, I will ever do with them. Come on, what on earth does anyone do with a 2” wide gouge Clean out wagon hubs? Or a 2” cranked neck paring chisel that someone put a ferrule on it but never sharpened? Why would someone put a ferrule on a crank neck paring chisel? How about the 16 inch long socket chisels. No, this is un-handled length. With handles they would be at least 22 inches long. There is a 1- 1/8” gouge, 7/8” gouge and a 7/8” chisel. NOS that has never been sharpened. Minty fresh. They are gorgeous, but what on earth will I ever do with them? Who knows, maybe someday I will build a timber frame house….. Oh, and one last puzzle. What about the 16 inch long 1/4” mortise chisel. What on earth would anyone do with one that long and narrow? Woodshop defense? Jousting? 9 inch deep mortises in 3/4 material? Seriously,If you were doing big stuff, you would cut wider mortises to match the stock and not little 1/4” wide mortises. What would anyone use one for? Why did I get it? (Besides the obvious answer that it was cheap.)

Well, you made it to the end. I admire your persistence following along with my rambling. I was just sitting here and it was bothering me so I figured I would purge it out of my system. Next time I might try to figure out why I have 9 block planes and 8 spokeshaves.

The only construction I have left to do is to pin the tenons and glue on the pad feet. Stick a fork in it. I flipped it upside down and lag bolted the top to the frame and have it marked out for the mortise to inset the vise.

I don’t know how far I will go in finishing it. I never intended it to be a piece of furniture so anything I will do for finishing will be purely for preserving and guarding against moisture. I might paint the base. I still have a can of bright yellow and bright red Rustoleum to coat it with. I will see how I feel about it once I fill the rest of the knots and spend some quality time with my random orbit sander.

I tried several techniques. I tried some with just a chisel and mallet chopping style. That was fine as long as I was only going about 1 in deep. For the full depth, I went hybrid. I went around the margin of the mortise with the plunge blade on the multi-tool, and then split out the waste. Flip and repeat working from both faces toward the middle. Worked very nicely. Once I went around the mortise with the multi-tool, I was able to hog out 1/4 to 3/8 inch wedges with the chisel. Went in bevel down and chopped 2/3 of the mortise from one direction and then turned around and went towards the other end. I did one test with brace and bit but the augers I have don’t grab well enough in the cedar 4×4 to mess with. They have the fine screws for hardwood.

Next will be cutting the tenons for the crossbeams. The end is near. I have to get busy as my other projects are piling up though. Oh well.

Saturday, I got the leg units for my workbench made and the cross beams cut to length. They were easy to put together and get glued up. Just a lot of handsaw and chisel work. Kerfs every 3/8 in or so and then chop out the waste and trim level with a chisel. Glued them up and filled some knots with epoxy. The only thing left is to mortise the legs for the crossbeams and make the tenons on the crossbeams. I will probably just cut the tenons on the band saw and be done with it. Should take a grand total of maybe 15 -20 minutes for setup and marking and another 5 to actually cut them. I am only going to take about 3/8 in off each cheek to form the tenons. Not your most sophisticated joinery. Once I get those made I will be able to mark up and cut the mortises. I have not decided yet if I will pin the mortises with dowels or just go straight glue. The pins would probably be overkill.

Sunday was the day to make up the top. A while back, I had a water leak in the ceiling of my garage a while back and I had to tear out some sheet rock to fix it and have had a ragged hole left to remind me. It’s on my to do list, but pretty far down. A few months ago, I picked up a HF knock-off multi-tool that was on sale for like $30 or so to clean up the edge of the hole and cut the sheet rock for a patch. Well, it has been sitting in the box since I had bought it and I thought about it when I went to cut the clearance for my vise. I was seriously impressed. I had no idea that they were so viscous. I put the straight plunge blade on it and used it to cut out the corners for the cut outs on the second and third layer of ply. It just sinks in and leaves a nice clean cut. This really changes the game for making the mortises for the cross beams. I was planning on using my Sawzall but this is so much more civilized. Nope, it never even crossed my mind to chop 1×3 inch through mortises through 4×4 mushy cedar beams by hand. I do have a big frame saw with a thin blade that I could have used to saw out the waste out on order but it seems to be taking its sweet time getting here.

After cutting out the vise clearance, I glued up the top. Out comes my bucket-o-clamps and my bowl of deck screws. Clamps all around and deck screws in the middle. After 3 hours in clamps, I take them all off and take out the deck screws. Well, most of them. 4 will be a permanent fixture in there somewhere. I lost the head on them when I put them in. I really need to back off the torque setting on the driver. Oh well. Now with the top all glued up, it is a serious chunk of wood. With it up on saw horses, I was not able to put any noticeable bend in it. Nice and solid. With the edge banding glued on, it’s not going anywhere.

After that, I put on the last layer of hardboard for the surface and cut out the edge pieces for the top. I was going to run over to the store to pick up an edge trimming bit for the router but I realized that it would take longer to get dressed and go pick it up than it would just to trim it off by hand. A few minutes with the block plane and everything was nice and even. I also decided that one of the the next projects on the list will be to make a stand for the miter box. A couple of the miters are a bit off on the length as I got used to the setup. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a bit of filler but a better workstation will help that a lot. Once I had the edging cut, I took off the hardboard and glued and screwed the edging to the ply. The hardboard will float. Maybe. I might tack it in place with a bit of hot glue or counter sunk screws on the corners.

So, as it stands, the punch list for finishing the bench:

Fit the cross beams
Finish cutting out for fitting the vise
Glue feet on the legs
Chamfer or roundover edges
Lag screw the top to the legs
Sand and finish
Attach the vise
Drill the starter set of dog holes

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Right now, I have the leg modules sitting in clamps I don’t have the mortises cut out yet though. That will be tomorrow once the glue sets up and I trim off the filler I just finished with. I cheated on the joinery for the ends. I just cut a dado on the cap pieces and epoxied them on. I still had some left over from my last boat and it doesn’t keep indefinitely. I might as well use it. I also filled a few knots and the boundaries of the dadoes.

I moved the rails down a bit on my model since I last thought about it. I probably will not make built in storage under the bench. Once I thought about it, the storage I had originally planned would get in the way of the bottom ends of the holdfasts. I can put some smaller storage across the stretchers that is removable.

Once I get the base put together, I can glue up the top. I am going with 3 layers of 3/4 hardwood ply with a sacrificial 3/8 in tempered hardboard on top. I will put an edging of 3/4×3 1/2 pine around the edge of the top to dress it up a bit.

The bottom piece of ply I will have to cut out clearance for the vise. I might have to take a little bit out of the next sheet but I won’t know for sure until I get everything lined up and see how stuff fits.

I am also going to add some feet to the legs.No real reason other than I thought it looked better that way.

So, unless anything comes up with the rest of the build, this is what the final bench will look like. I have not really decided on the edge treatment for the base though. I am waffling between just putting a radius on them or chamfering them. That will be the last thing I do before I put the top on though so I have time to think about it.

I had finished the frame and finally got around to making the handles tonight. Well, I was trying to make the handles tonight. I finally got my 4 jaw chuck for my lathe. Apparently, there is going to be more of a learning curve than I was expecting. First of all, I am paranoid of getting a tool hung up in the chuck so I stay away from it. Somehow when I am doing stuff that has a risk of biting me, I go extra slowly and carefully. I ended up turning the handle shorter than I was planning because I had not calculated the extra stock needed to avoid the the chuck. That’s OK. It was close and livable. Once I had the handle turned, I wanted to try out the other new Jacob’s chuck in the tailstock to drill the handle for the blade fittings. For some reason, I expected the headstock chuck to hold the stock more firmly than it did and I knocked it off center. Well, scratch that idea. I take the handle to the bench and drill it by hand. Yep, I wander off and have an off center hole.

On to try number two. Off comes the chuck and back in goes the spur center. I turn the handle again. This time, it comes out nice and I get ready to drill it again. This one makes the first one look perfectly centered in comparison. The grain of the wood I am using is hard and squirrelly. Sometimes you get away with it and sometimes you don’t. This time was one of the times I didn’t. It will make a nice file handle though.

By this time I am running low on stock from this piece of ebony big enough to turn but I do have some smaller rectangular stock and say “Fine. I am going to have a beveled rectangular handle instead.” A perfectly acceptable solution for the handles. The bow saw police won’t come knocking at my door if I don’t have turned handles on my saw. I drill it and shape it and put it on and it looks fine. Great. Lets test it out.

Well, I lace it up and the blade is a bit loose so I go for one more turn on the windlass. I hear a little crack and sproing! Off goes a part of one arm. Apparently, there was a kink in the grain that I had not seen and the grain was running at about 45 degrees to the arm on that segment. Wonderful. I have a little pile of sticks instead of a bow saw.

Now, I don’t feel too bad about it. I would rather find out now before I glue in the hardware. I will just start over and build it again. It was a lot of fun to turn again. I had not used my lathe for about 8 or 9 years and I forgot how quickly you go from raw stock to finished product. So many other things with woodworking take so much time for stock preparation and measuring and marking. On the lathe you just stick the wood in and go.

Lessons learned:

Don’t use wood that is so highly figured. I love the Texas ebony I was using. It is really gorgeous. What makes it so pretty is what makes it wrong for this application. A thought I could get away with it by beefing up the arms. Obviously, I was wrong. Next time I will use nice boring straight grained wood. Maybe some Pecan.

Practice new equipment on test pieces and not a real project. Yes, I really knew that already, but I thought I could get away with it “just this time” because I wanted to play with the new saw. Nope, didn’t get away with that this time either.

Extra stupidity credit:

The one thing I failed to mention in all this talk about the hardware drilling part of this sad saga. It was totally avoidable. I used to turn more often and have some of the more unusual equipment on my lathe. The live center I have in the tailstock is not a normal live center, it is a hollow center. All I had to do was take out the center pin and I could have just stuck a drill bit through the tailstock and drilled a perfectly centered hole. No muss, no fuss. I just wanted to try out the Jacob’s chuck. Sigh.

Well, that is it for tonight’s shop time. I might go out one more time and vacuum up the chips so I can start fresh in the morning. I finally got my vise and want to unbox it to get the mounting instructions to see what I need to get started on the new workbench then off to bed for me.

It is beautiful. It is a tool shrine. But seriously, how do you work out of it? I need a chisel. Here, let me take out two saws, get the chisel, put the saws back, work, take the saws out, put stuff back in, put the saws back. You either spend the whole day shuffling stuff back and forth or end up unloading the chest to get started for the day and then pack it all in just before the whistle blows to go home.

I tried one of the little tool boxes like Roy Underhill has in his books.

!

Mine was even smaller but by the time you get some tools in it, you would need a forklift to move it around the shop. I can’t even imagine what it is like with one of the big ones that would actually hold a real set of tools. Shove 50 lb tool tills back and forth to get to the stuff you want. What do you do if you need to move it? Unload it, move the chest to the new place in the shop, then load it up again? It is for sure you are not moving it around to bring it close to your work. Accidentally leave it open and you will have to spend a couple of hours unloading and cleaning out shavings and sawdust. Keep it closed and you loose the convenience of having the tools at hand.

I realize that you could put casters on it, but lets see how that works out driving over a pile of wood chips and plane shavings. You move it to sweep underneath and you drag the shavings back and forth under the wheels and the plane shavings all wind around the axles. Not too practical.

I think that they were more geared toward deterring tool theft. Lets make it too heavy for someone to haul off. It sure makes it easier to track down the culprit though. Well, officer, since they just walked off with a 800lb box of cast iron, steel, and wood, I would either suggest searching the emergency rooms for someone with a hernia or go look for the Russian Olympic power-lifting team.

Then I look at some of the stuff that people design to hold chisels. Something like this is really cute:

Yeah, but how many times a day do you knock that over and have chisels all over the floor? Where do you set it? Do you nail it down on the bench to keep from knocking it over? Do you pick out the two small chisels on the right only to have it overbalance and tip over with the heavy ones on the left? I have paring chisels from 1/8 to 2” by eighths, a set of 10 Japanese chisels, firmer chisels, mortise chisels, a couple of slicks, a set of gouges, and a few carving tools. Should I set them all up around me like some weird, silent pipe organ?

Then I see something like this and wonder, who comes up with this stuff?

Hmm, let’s hide the blades so we can’t even see which chisel is which. Let’s stick up all the handles on the end of the bench so we can’t even use that side of the workbench which also just so happens to be where the vise is. How nice. Don’t these people ever work with something that has a board longer than 10 inches? Let’s see how that works out when they are building an armoire with 6 foot long stiles and you have 4 of them up on the bench, chopping mortises and dovetails, and cutting groves for the panels. By the way, notice the lack of chips and shavings? Where are all the other parts and tools? What are we doing here, just sitting around doing dovetail demos? What bizarre parallel universe is this picture from? Not the one where I live.

As a side project for my last big build, I picked up a one of the least talked about power tools, a sewing machine. Not a little dainty one for sewing clothes but a manly chunk of cast iron and steel that punches through multiple layers of heavy canvas and webbing with ease. I started sewing some tool rolls to hold chisels and such. That way I when I want a chisel, I just reach in and grab a roll that has the set. No more playing a deadly game of pickup sticks digging out the one I want. No more ruined files from them rubbing against each other in the drawer. No more resharpening because the chisels banged into each other and nicked the edges. Nice, neat, movable packages.

The sad thing is that sometimes it feels like I spend more time organizing and caring for tools than making anything with them.

I am building a bow saw to use the hardware and blades for the Gramercy Tools 12” Bow Saw that they sell at http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com. They sell the complete saw, or just parts to make your own and provide a nice set of plans.

Well, I finished the main frame but I am waiting for the pins and blades. Also, I decided to stop fighting my lathe’s spur center and pick up a four jaw chuck so my handles are on hold also. To test it out, I knotted a cord as a stand in for the blade and tested it out with the toggle windlass. I went a bit overboard and happened to have a spool of 2.8mm Dyneema line from my sailboat. This is really tough stuff. It has a breaking strength of 1200 lbs for something thinner than an average shoelace. Anyway, when I tightened it up, it was great. Nice and stable. Strong, simple and effective. My favorite criteria.

So, sitting around tonight, I decided to take the plunge. I have another frame saw that I was sort of happy with but it really didn’t tighten up very easily. It came with a threaded rod and a wingnut that never really wanted to tighten up well on its own without a lot of coaxing.

I took out the rod, cut notches to hold the line in place, cleaned up with a small rasp and laced it up with some of the same line. I cut off a piece of scrap for the toggle and tightened it up. Amazing. It is like a different saw. A few turns of the toggle and the blade is nice and tight. Backing off a couple turns and to relieve the tension when it is not in use only takes a couple seconds. A world of difference from stopping to find some pliers to hold the cap nut so I can turn the wingnut without the whole thing turning. The only thing I have to worry about now is not overtightening. With several strands of this line, I could easliy snap the saw, so I take it pretty easy with it.

I guess what it boils down to is that sometimes when they make an “improved” tool, it really isn’t always that much of an improvement. Sometimes you get something that is almost what you want and then, with a bit of messing around, you make it into something that you really like. Sometimes, the only reason we can afford something or the manufacturers can stay in business is by not taking those last little finishing steps to make it usable right out of the box. I don’t know if this is a bad thing though. Maybe we are just too used to pre-packaged solutions.

I am going with only once vise. I have ordered a knock-off patternmaker’s vise from woodcraft. I used to have one of the AMT vises on my old bench and wished I had started with it. My current “so called” bench has some really cheesy vises and it is worse than not having any. They rack and slip. They don’t meet up evenly with the top of the bench. It is an exercise in frustration. I am also going to drill a whole series of holes on the top and on the skirt front for holdfasts.

The footpads and top rails are doubled up 2×4s on edge and the rest of the frame is plain 2×4 lumber with 1” for the tenons by 1/4 in taken off all around. Nothing pretty or complicated. A radius on the front of the footpads and top rails to have less to stub your toe.

Enough description, lets get started.

Basic through mortise and tenon with a 4’ x 2’ top. The top will be bolted onto the top rails through the skirt. Not pretty but no real sense in making it hard to access to take the top off. Gravity will go a long way in making it stable. A quick sneak peak under the edging and you can see how it will be made up:

Three sheets of 3/4 hardwood ply or MDF (undecided at this point) and topped with a replaceable 1/4 piece of tempered hardboard on top. It is tough, smooth and easy to not get attached to. After my last one of hard maple that I laminated, flattened by hand with scrub plane and jointer, smoothed and finished, it pained me when it would get dinged. No more for me. This bench will be a tool and not a piece of furniture. It is going to get banged around with some metal work as well.

The bottom sheet will have a cutout for the back end of the vise:

I am actually going to put storage in mine. Probably drawers. like this:

I might splurge and do some hardwood for the skirt around the edge. Less likely to splinter when abused.

If you are interested, I have shared out the model in google’s 3D warehouse.

The nice thing about starting over is that you don’t have to make the same mistakes again. The first time around, I went down the list of tools that the magazines and books told me I needed to make stuff. Table saw, bandsaw, jointer, a few routers. The usual stuff. I also had the “rust fever” and had a pretty impressive collection of hand tools. You know the routine, all the bench planes from #2 to #8 including the 1/2 and 1/4 sizes. (OK, there were some duplicates as well, but they were different types) Chisels, spokeshaves, saws, adzes, combination planes, circular planes. I had to have a leg vise and anvil to sneak in a little toolmaking as well. How about an Woods adjustable tenoner? Come on, you gotta have one of those. I built the big maple workbench with the tail and face vises on one side and a patternmaker’s vise on the other. Did all the the dovetail templates and such. Been there. Done that.

I have just about finished collecting the startup set of tools and am getting organized. This time around, instead of having a dedicated shop building, I am working on one side of a two car garage. This will present some serious storage and workflow problems. Just to add to the difficulty level, I will be working around a small boat on a trailer that lives on the same side of the garage. Kind of like adding a full twist to a dive to get more points.

Power tools this time around will be secondary. Not because I have some idealized notion of the “purity” of hand tools or some such silliness but because simply, I don’t have space for them. Without dust collection they make more of a mess than I want to deal with and they are noisy too. The whole list of power tools is: A 14in HF bandsaw with riser block, A HF lathe, a cheap Ryobi miter saw, and a hollow chisel mortiser that I am on the fence about even keeping since it is pretty worthless unless I set up a better fence and hold down system. I also have a little portable router table to use until I get a better one built. Throw in a few portables like a circular saw, a wet grinder, and bench top drill press and you have the whole picture.

For hand tools, I have mainly chisels. Mmmmm. Chisels. Yummy. Mortise chisels, firmer chisels, beveled paring chisels, a new set of Japanese chisels, gouges, a couple of bruzzes (sounds so much sexier than corner chisels), a couple slicks, and a few miscellaneous spares such as offset paring and some stray carving tools. Saws consist of a small frame saw with wide blade a la Tage Frid, a couple of carpenter grade Japanese pull saws, and I am currently building a turning saw that has been a lot of fun. Throw in a couple holdfasts, draw knives, and measuring and marking tools and that is it except for the planes.

I have a few remaining metallic planes but I have been happiest with the wooden ones. Simple and effective. I will build a couple more but the ones I have are a mixed bag. An old wooden jointer. A pretty Harris Tools badger plane (anyone remember them?). A little kit built Krenov style with brass sides and a Hock blade, an old Stanley scrub plane. A few block planes, scrapers, and spokeshaves and such.

The next step will be to get stuff organized and in a usable state. After being stored for so long, much work is needed to fight off the rust monsters and get stuff sharpened and organized. I have started some and will start making a list of things to do. The next big item on the list is making a new workbench. My current one is a dinky piece of *%& that will become the new stand for my lathe. It is not that bad but the vises are pretty worthless, it doesn’t have a thick enough top for holdfasts to work well, and I hate the tool trough. Quite possibly the worst feature ever invented for a workbench. What I am going to build will be pretty small as workbenches go. Kind of half way between a joinery bench and a real work bench. More on that later.

In this one, I would not even want to try pins first. Tails first all the way in Sketchup. This is the first time I used Photobucket and the images are a bit odd sized to match the forum. I will fix them as I get stuff figured out.

Ok, you want to make a piece the length and width of your stock:

Take the end where you want to make the dovetails and right click to get the menu and select divide. You will want to make one more piece than you want tails. This extra segment will be for the two half pins on the ends.

Now, draw another line for the other piece’s thickness across the face. In this example, I chose 3/4 inch.

We will use several tricks here. The segments represent the center for each dovetail except for the ends. We want the points between the tails instead. Select the draw tool. When you move the cursor along the line, a little green dot will show up for the endpoints of the line and a little blue dot will show for the midpoint of the line. We want the midpoints. Draw a line from the midpoints straight back to the thickness line from each midpoint. Now you need to decide how wide the exposed portion of the pin will be. I chose 1/8 in this example to give me some room for the kerf of the saw. From each midpoint line we drew, draw another segment 1/2 that distance away from the point. When I drew the first one, I entered 1/16 manually from the keyboard for the length once I started from the first point. After you enter the first segment, Sketchup will suggest the 1/16 in each segment you make each time you get close to that distance away from a point on the line. It will usually show a small red dot when it is suggesting. Watch for the little messages that come up while you are moving around.

Now select the protractor tool and we will make some guides for the actual dovetails. Select the offset points on the side of the midpoint line and move the cursor along the axis matching the direction you want and then click to start measuring. The line will change to the color of the axis you are on when you are going the right direction. Once you click the direction, move to the left or right depending on which way the dovetail is sloped and manually type in the angle of the dovetail. I chose 7 degrees for this example. This shows where the actual dovetails will be on the piece.

Now delete the midpoint lines. They will just be in the way and you don’t need them any more.

Select the draw tool and draw a line from the edge to the thickness line along each angle guide from the protractor tool.

Now we are done with the angle guide lines so delete them too.

Now delete the lines to make the dovetails continuous with the rest of the piece.

You can also delete the half tails now. They will just be in the way.

Use the push tool and extrude the thickness of the stock. Be sure and hit the control key first to tell Sketchup to make a new surface instead of just moving the one you had already.

Now select all (Control-A or from the menu ) and create a component. This will be how we are going to make the pins from the tail piece.

Draw the second matching piece for the pins board. You can do it from the end like I did or you can also do it from the inside.

Use the push tool to extrude the stock thickness. (Again, I used 3/4 in.)

Now select the tails board we made into a component and hide it to get it out of the way.

Select the entire pins board and make a component from it as well.

Unhide the tails board and select both components. The pins board and the tails board. Now take the intersection of the two pieces. Either from the menu or right click and select intersect selected. This will create a set of lines where the two pieces connect and will create the pins. The will not be on the pins component though. Hide the tails board again to get it out of the way. Select everything and explode it (break up the component) and then select everything again and recreate the pins component.

Select the pins component and select edit component. Now we can begin deleting the extra pieces that would be filled in by the pins. This will leave some of the faces missing on the sides of the pins.

Select the draw tool and connect the corners on the inside of the pins to fill in the missing faces. Tidy up and delete any unnecessary lines. Exit the component and get back to the whole drawing.

Unhide the tails board and move things around to see how they fit together.

Put the pieces together and start working on the next pieces. Once these two pieces are made, you can use them by intersecting them with the other components to create the remaining corners of the piece.