I appreciate your looking/reading and your comments/input.

The butt joint is probably one of the most degraded and misunderstood joint in woodworking, yet it is the easiest to make. It can also be a very strong joint if done properly and used in the right application.

A butt joint generally is one board’s edge placed against another’s face.

A butt joint needs a mechanical fastener, such as a nail or screw (generally in conjunction with glue) to work.

One thing that I always found when I taught beginning woodworking was that people made deciding how to decide how to determine where to insert the fasteners for the joint an adventure. It was surprising how many people take the long road when the short lane was the easiest to take. They measure on the front side where the board is, then they flip the board over and mark that measurement on the outside then add the thickness to know where to drill a pilot hole. This creates a lot of room for error and frustration.

The easiest way to determine where to put your fasteners is to do all the marking from the inside.

Make sure your board/shelf if square to the face board.

Then mark both sides of the board’s outline.

you can then mark the location where you want the fasteners to be placed.

You can then drill the holes from the inside. Make sure you use a backer board to keep from having some splitting on the outside/face of your board.

If I am going to use nails to fasten my boards – I like to use a nail spinner. The spinner, with the appropriate nail inserted, essentially drills the nail into your board. Generally using the spinner makes it so that you do not have to drill a pilot hole for the nail.

The spinner can be purchased from Lee Valley. I’ve never seen one at the box stores, but then I’ve not looked recently for one becuase I only need one!

If you are going to use screws to fasten your board you MUST drill a pilot hole or you risk splitting your wood. There are bits that countersink and drill the pilot hole at the same time.

The butt joint is definitely a good joint if done properly. This shelf was done with all butt joints and nails.

Some day soon (yeah right) I might put a finish on it.

Other alternatives for fasteners besides nails and screws are dowels and biscuits. I’m not set up to show those though.

Butt joints can be made stronger by using shallow dado’s to fit then in or using a cleat to sit them on. I would not consider using a butt joint with only glue—- it always should have a mechanical fastener of some sort. This joint, used in the right application is a very versatile joint to use. It should not be overlooked or frowned upon. It can hold a good amount of weight depending on the thickness/length of the board.

So that’s my tip for the day. I hope it’s not been to simplistic and that it helps someone along their woodworking journey.

I appreciate all your encouragement!

I’m thankful for the support my fellow LJ’s have been giving me by reading and responding to my blogs.

So onto today’s “tip.” As we all know making/marking a line to use as a guide to cut your board to final length is quite important. If you don’t mark the piece, you have no idea or are just guessing where to cut.

I use a Sharpie to mark out my rough cuts. Some folks use chalk. But I don’t like chalk just because it’s messy and reminds me of Mrs. Walker and her obsessive compulsive need to have a student every morning and every afternoon to clean her chalk erasers. Soooo I have a deep seated aversion to chalk. :-)—- Actually while the Mrs. Walker story is true, I just don’t use chalk. The Sharpie is just more convenient for me.

For my actual cut line I like two methods. A plain pencil line. I make a mark at the end of the square (or at the mark I’m using with a tape).

Then I flip the square around and place my pencil tip onto the line.

Then I slide my square up to the pencil and make my mark.

Another method is to use a marking knife.

A utility knife, like what I used here – is ok—- but a marking knife is a better option. I just could not find my marking knife to do this little tip blog.

When I use a marking knife to score a line I like to use this little tip I learned in a class. Because the scored line is essentially a “knife wall” you can use a chisel to make a “trough” to place your saw blade into before you cut.

I had to blacken out the chip for it to show up in the picture.

You can now use this chipped out portion to slide into the tooth of the blade and you’ll get a perfect cut every time.

Now onto the argument about cutting on the line, on the left of the line or to the right of the line. Take the pencil line or leave it. We woodworkers sure have a lot of questions. Well here is the definitive answer (ain’t I humble??) I take the line—- almost. I like to leave just a hair of the line.

OK – that’s all I can muster today. I hope it’s not to simplistic and maybe just a scooch helpful to someone.

Good health and happy sawdust making to you.

If you learn nothing else, and you should something else, learn this——use the same measuring tool throughout your project. When you are rough cutting this is not such a big deal. But when you get to the “this is where I want it to be” cutting, if you start with one ruler and end with a different, the chances are good that you will have different sized pieces. To check this—go to your shop and pick up two or three tapes, rulers, etc. and compare them side by side, chances are they are different. This difference goes to quality of what you buy. Rules with painted-on numbers are generally going to be less accurate than stamped numbers. A $2 tape will be less accurate, generally, than a $20 tape.

While we are on tapes, you know that little metal tip – you know the one—its the one that moves in an out and you are convinced that can’t be right. Well think again. The tip is supposed to move, the movement helps to compensate for the thickness of the tip itself.

The tip is designed to pull out away from the tape for outside measurements and in toward the tape for inside measurements – such as the inside of a case.

The inherent problem with the tip on these tapes is that they get loose over time. Generally because we are abusing our tapes. Would you do that???? Me neither. The more they loosen the less accurate your measurements. If you use that loose-tipped tape to measure an opening and then use a tight-tipped tape to measure your stock—- you are going to be unhappy with the result.

To compensate for the loose-tip/tight-tipped issue I was taught to start my measurements at the one inch line then add an inch to whatever I finish with. I don’t know about you, but I hate that tip. I always have a hard time remembering to add an inch. It’s not a hard concept, but sometimes it can be a hard concept to put into practice. Additionally, sometimes you have to stretch the tape beyond your arm’s length, then what? How do you keep that tape at the one inch line and still stretch yourself to the point you need to measure to? You can do what I do with the steel rule (keep reading) :-) It’s still not my favorite way to measure anything.

Think about this to, if that tip were not there you could not hook it on the end of a board and keep it there while you are stretching it out to make a measurement.

I prefer to have a longer steel rule for most of the larger jobs. This accomplishes a couple of things. First, I’m not wrestling with a tape – keeping it hooked on the end of the board, while stretching it and then marking my line. Secondly, I don’t have to flatten the curved tape to get an accurate measurement. The steel rule is always flat.

Now you say, but I like that hook because a steel rule can slip off the end or slide in on the board and then I’m off again. I solve this generally by using a small clamp to hold the steel rule in place. Takes about 10 seconds to clamp it and I’m assured that the rule will not move. Yep you can do this with the steel tape when you want to use the “start at the one inch line.”

Now that you have the measuring worked out——how about the marking your measurements?

I can’t run out of tips,,,, so that’s tomorrow!

Thanks for reading. As always, your additional tips and suggestions are welcomed to be posted here. I’m doing this blog for fun and to keep my mind in the game while I’m healing up. So anything you can do to aide and abet my endeavors is always welcomed.

Oh – I also welcome controversy—- if you don’t agree with me, please say so. Really. :-)

1) It’s important to recognize which face is the best face. Sometimes this is difficult to decide depending on the sheet you pick. In this instance you need to decide which is the one you want facing out and mark it clearly so you don’t spend time deciding over and over. Other times it’s very easy to decide.

2) Once you know the best face you can decide how you plan to cut it.

2A) If you are using a circular saw—- put the best face down.
2B) if you are going to use a table saw – put the best face up.

The difference is in the way the blade turns. On a table saw the blade exits the board going down therefore any chipping, in theory, will be on the bad face.
With a circular saw the blade exits on the up cut – therefore the chips will occur on the top of the board.

3) Mask the cut line with tape. Tape can keep the fibers of the veneer from chipping. I use the blue painters tape, but a cheaper alternative is the clear packing tape.

3A) make sure the tape is securely on the board. If not, there is a potential that the tape can get pulled off and into the blade making quite a mess.

4) Instead of tape, you can score the ply with either a knife or there are special scoring sets that you can buy. I find a good utility knife will do the job.

4a) you can also score the ply with the saw blade itself. Set the blade just barely over the top of the throat plate. Just barely. You want to take off just a smidge of the veneer. The issue I find with this is that you are having to run the board through the saw twice, which creates twice the room for error.

5) a full sheet of ply can be heavy—- get help or cut it down to more manageable sizes before doing your final sizing.

6) Thin 1/4” ply can become a missile very quickly. This is because it’s very flexible and if you are not careful to keep it flat on the table the saw blade can pick it up and toss it back at you. I generally set my blade a little higher on the thinner ply than I would normally. I am actually more inclined to cut 1/4” down to smaller sizes with a jig saw before final cutting on the table, I’m more likely to have better control.

Well that’s all I can think of off the top of my head. I’m sure others will have more tips, and they are welcome to post them here.

Thanks for reading.

So here I am cleaning up, picking up tiny pieces of wood, shavings, etc. Underneath it all is this miserable looking piece of sandpaper.

Here’s my tip for the day. No matter what brand/type of sandpaper you use—- don’t push it. In other words when you use up a piece of paper, throw it away. Don’t overwork yourself by trying to stretch the paper just a little bit further. The only thing you are stretching is your project time. The grit on sandpaper only lasts so long, when its gone, its gone. The paper backing is simply not going to do the job. Don’t be cheap just get out another piece of paper. You’ll get your project done faster and probably better because you won’t get frustrated with the lack of progress in your sanding stage.

It’s like in baseball—when you try to stretch that single into a double, 90% of the time you get caught. Don’t get caught – get a new piece of paper.

With that said, you can stretch your paper dollars by doing a few little things. First – one thing we all do is wrap paper around a block to do flat surfaces and sometimes different shaped blocks to do contours, etc. This leads to the problem that you only use about 1/3 of your paper, then you get all these little pieces with nothing to use them on.

One way that I’ve started to use to sand with is to take that same piece of paper and the same block of wood and make it into a four sided block. I end up using more of the paper and I don’t wrestle with it staying on the block.

Use spray adhesive and apply to each side of your block and you now have a 4-sided sanding block. Double sided tape would also work but the spray is cheaper, although it does smell.

Let the adhesive dry for a few minutes before you start sanding. Once the paper is used up you can throw the whole block away or peel off the paper and re-use your block. I generally throw the whole thing away since it was scrap anyway.

I’ve also have heard that you can re-use grit 80 for 100, 100 for 150 etc as you grind down the grit. I think that’s just trying to stretch your dollars a bit to far. Then you are also taking time to decide if that one piece is good as which grit,,, not worth it to me.

So guys and gals there’s my little nugget for the day.

So let’s suppose, just to humor me, that you have been commissioned to build a new royal throne for Queen Elizabeth. And not only that, but you’ve been given the grand honor and immense responsibility to build this new throne out of the last remaining piece of Transalvanian Ugbuga wood. This is a very rare wood indeed. Can’t screw this up, no can go to big box store to get more———no can go to Rockler or Woodcraft for more either. Soooo no mistakes—- OK???

You are moving along so well, the Queen is going to be pleased. You are ready to apply your finish and YIKES—- right in the middle of the center——you know the piece the Royal Head will be resting on as she ponders the wonders of all those people who adore her and will never have the money she has——there’s a stray sliver. Oh the horror of it. You have to find a way to repair the sliver because you can’t take it off or you’ll have a large divet that the Royal head will not appreciate. But to complicate matters this sliver is too small to get glue under it to fix it. What to do, what to do.

OK – getting bored with my rambling yet???? Sorry—- it’s my only entertainment.

Well we’ve all have had this happen—- probably not with that rare Ugbuga wood.

You’ve got a sliver something like this.

It’s pretty small – yet large enough that you can’t take it out. Now how to fix it. The biggest problem with little slivers is how to get glue under the sliver without lifting it up so far that you take the chance of breaking it off.

Getting the glue bottle’s tip under it is next to impossible. You could use these little squeeze bottles

to put some under it, but it’s still a bit messy. Using your finger to try to jab some glue under it is also too messy to be practical.

What you need is another sliver! I have used very thin paper, such as a store receipt, but sometimes that’s not stiff enough. So one of the best things that I’ve used is a small, very thin, piece of an offcut. Something like this.

Apply a little dab of glue onto the end.

Slide it under the sliver, getting a good coating under the sliver.

Then clamp.

Let dry – sand and finish the project.

So I hope this helps you save a piece of very important wood someday. And when it does, please remember me——- :-)

I’m not sure exactly what I am going to do. But I thought I’d start this little blog to keep at least my head into the woodworking world. I thought I would just put some general musings and thoughts and maybe some good tips or two that I find along the way of web surfing.

So while I may get the thread and needle moving I’m planning to pepper you with stuff that I learn by reading books and surfing the net. Perhaps I can help with that one tip that makes your project go a little easier. Nothing earth shattering I’m sure, but it will keep me in the woodworking universe. So get ready Lumberjocks——

I have a cat—- this cat——-

There are three things this cat knows for sure. One is when I’m coming with the flea drops – she runs like mad. Second – she knows when I have chicken and runs to me fast. And third – when I have a camera. I don’t think I have a decent picture of her.

Callie is 21 and is fast approaching the end of her 9th life. I’ve always said when the time came I would make her a special box.

Callie has bad timing. I’m not allowed in the machine shop right now and my right arm is just this side of useless for woodworking. Does not bode well for making a box, let alone a decent box.

Regardless, you have to do what you have to do. This box has been made with butt joints and screws and a lot of sweat. All the parts are hand cut and the only thing that was electric was the light and the drill to make the countersink holes for the screws. I was fortunate that I had extra pine plugs from some of the Adirondack chairs that I’ve done so did not have to deal with making those.

It’s hard to do a lot of things with only one hand and then you put on top of that the one hand you have is not your dominate hand. But where there is a will there is a way.

Sawing the square parts was no big deal. Just took a long time. I used my shooting board to even up the edges the best I could. The screws pulled up the sides pretty well.

Where it got tricky was doing the trim and the hinge recesses.

This is how I did it.

I used my bench hook that has a 90 and 2 45’s cut into the fence to cut the trim to rough lengths. I could not hold the pieces tight enough with my right hand so I clamped a block against the trim and to the fence. Cut the one side then moved the set up to the other side.

It worked pretty well. I just went slowly and I did not have much trouble with the set up moving on me. The fact that the trim is only about 1/4” thick soft pine, really worked to my advantage.

Shooting the miters was easier than I thought it would be. I used carpet tape as the strength to hold the pieces in place. This required setting the piece a little further out on the board than I would have normally done and then I ended up having to lift it up and replace it on the tape a couple of times. It worked pretty well for the left side.

The right side miter was done basically the same way, but I turned my shooting board around so that I would pull the plane like a Japanese style plane. That also worked ok, but it was not as easy as the first side.

Chiseling the recesses for the hinges has been the toughest part so far. Looking back I should not have recessed the hinges at all. But I started it I needed to finish it.

Holding the chisel was a problem. I could hold it with my right hand and strike the chisel with the mallet in my left. But the vibration from the strike HURT. I don’t mind something taking a long time to do, but HURT is not good. I’ve got enough of that. So what’s a girl to do. Make a “jig” of course!

I started with just holding the chisel with the clamp, but the clamp was slipping, so I added tape to the chisel to make a rougher surface for the clamp to grip onto. I didn’t have to hold the clamp to tightly, but still the first couple of blows HURT. So I went to the kitchen and got my hot glove – that gave me plenty of padding.

This set up was really good to do the straight portions of the recess. Notching the outline was a piece of cake. Chipping out the material was a bear though. That took forever. Doing the straight cuts down to make chips was ok, but slanting the chisel to chop out those little chips was a tall order. It took about three hours per hinge leaf because the chisel kept slipping out of my clamp and I’d have to reset it. I still have one more to go.

I did not cut grooves for the bottom. I simply took scraps and made a “shelf” of sorts to lay the bottom on. These were put on with glue only. I figure that’s strong enough. The box only has to hold up long enough to get buried. The bottom is just a piece of 1/4” mdf cut to size. That was really easy to cut by the way. I plan to sew a small pillow to put on the bottom for Callie to rest on. Sewing is the easiest part of the whole project. No sweat involved with that.

The lid has to be sealed shut or the pet cemetary won’t bury her. This is another reason I should not have done hinges, but oh well. So I plan to screw the lid shut and put trim over the screw holes. I’ve got the trim precut and still have to drill the holes.

I also plan to finish it off by rounding over the edges with the block plane. Planning left handed so far is no picnic. I don’t know how you lefties make it. Everything is harder left-handed.

But long and short, this is for Callie, so I don’t mind the work. It’s worth it for her.

I’d like to make a nicer box, but that’s just not going to happen unless she manages to get healthier soon and last until after I get to feeling better.

I’m pretty happy with how the box is turning out. I’m grateful that I’ve been learning hand tools, because without them Callie would be buried in one of those plastic boxes and that just does not seem right.

So that’s the story of Callie’s box. Thanks for reading.

Long story short though——they are going to send me a new plane! Now some would say that that is what should happen. And probably so. But I didn’t have to ask. I would have lived with the solution, after all, you can’t even see the washer under the knob——you’d only know it was there if I told you. All I wanted was a solution, not necessarily a new plane. Not every problem deserves a new product. This just shows the level of customer service at Lee Valley exceeds most expectations.

Next time I need a woodworking tool – I’ll be shopping at Lee Valley.

I like this plane because it excels at the edge grain issue, but also it’s great for shooting small parts for my miniature things.

Anyway—- that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

This is the 62 low angle jack plane.

This is the plane that I’ve really looked forward to getting. It’s the 102 iron low angle block plane.

This plane is small, light, but sturdy. The best thing though is that it fits my hand very nicely.

When you have small hands and do small projects, it’s nice to find a good quality tool that works for you. I’m looking forward to making some shavings with my new toys.