Dave T's Blog at LumberJocks.com

Bench #4: Ready to finish

Dave T — Wed, 19 May 2010 04:40:32 GMT

Well here it is. Ready to finish. Didn’t turn out quite the way I expected, had to make a couple of design modifications due to (no better way to put) being stupid and not taking 5 minutes to double check for square before quitting for the day. DOH! A simple clamp adjustment would have been all it took, but NO NO NO my mortises and tenons all looked nice and tight so I left it. So to makle a long story short the seat did not fit right and I had to make a modification. 1) moulding to hide the gap, 2) no compartment under the seat.

Lesson: to save kicking yourself in the a$$ later take a couple extra minutes to make sure. Good thing I’m not selling this one.

From Deacon's bench

I’m almost too embarassed to post it, but here it is anyway.

From Deacon's bench

By the time it’s in the house and my wife has her bears on it, won’t even notice it. But maybe I learned my lesson.

From Deacon's bench

Thanks for looking.

Bench #3: Today's progress & minor design changes

Dave T — Mon, 10 May 2010 03:18:49 GMT

This project is coming along quite nicely. I am surprised how quick it’s coming together :). Today I finished the mortise I forgot to clean out, finshed fitting the mortises and did another dry first. before continueing. Everything fit pretty well. So on to shaping the top rail. Did my layout and everything and was talking to my wife about the project, well lo and behold she has a little bit of an idea. She has some candle sticks with stars on them and she thought we should continue that theme to this bench. I found a picture of a decoration on a web site and printed it for the basic shape. Then laid that out in the center of the top rail. Here’s the result after the first star is cut.

This is just a pic of the scroll saw.

The second star cut

And all of them cut with a little sanding. Not perfect, a few goof ups while cutting them out. Overall not too bad.

Once that was done it was on to cut the curve and sand it. Here’s the result of that operation. It’ll need a little bit more shaping once it comes out of clamps.

At this point I started sanding just to make life easier after assembly. I realize I made another slight goof. Actually kind of a big goof. I found at the bottom of one of the sides that there were some defects that looked pretty bad. Fortunately the defects were right in the middle of the side panel. Great, I can lighten the look of the side panel by making a semi-circle cut out to make “feet”. I didn’t get any pics of that unfortunately, but you can see in the clamp up pictures you can see the cut outs. Once the cuts were made I smoothed them out and went on to sanding. Next is glue up. Here’s a couple of views of it all in clamps.

As always thanks for reading.

Bench #2: Tenon's and first dry fit

Dave T — Sun, 09 May 2010 17:18:27 GMT

With the rocking chairs out of the way I can now move on to items on my honey do list. Made some good progress yesterday. All the tenons on back rails and bottom aprons.

When I cut all the mortises I missed one. I roughed it our, but didn’t finish cleaning it out (the one on the left in the picture
so I have one more mortise and tenon to fit. With that said I did a dry fit.

Thanks for reading

Kids Rocking Chairs commision #3: The end is in sight

Dave T — Mon, 03 May 2010 05:04:08 GMT

I’m really excited now, the end is in sight. All 3 chairs are assembled, and sanded. I put the first coat of finish on them tonight before calling it a day. I think I am pretty glad to see them go, I’m getting burnt out on chairs now. They have been fun and challenging to build, but I am ready to get back to square projects for a bit, or as square as I can make them anyway…ROFL. I can understand how so many get hooked on turning. These chairs have been my first wood turning experience and it’s been a lot of fun. The guy I get my lumber from actually gave me some small chunks he was splitting that looked like might have some interesting grain for candle sticks or something. Pens maybe as the next addiction…?

The finished chair pics will be posted in my projects once I am done with the finish. As always thanks for reading

Morris Chairs #9: Getting ready to upholster (finally)

Dave T — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 05:28:49 GMT

The wood working part of this has been done for awhile. I’ve finally got moving on the upholstery. Had a couple of local shops come out and look at the chairs to do the cushions. Lots of nice comments, but high estimates on the cost of cushions. One was close to $500 per chair, ouch. Needless to say it was put on the back burner for awhile. After a few weeks of walking by the chairs every day I thought I would check back with Woodsmith where I got the plans to see how they did their cushions. Lo and behold they have a video on the web site of exactly how they did it. DOH why didn’t I look there first right? Now the fun begins, look for local sources of foam, and fabric. Found a couple of places and a couple of fabrics we like. One is a faux leather, very soft and nice to the touch. The other is traditional fabric with a really simple pattern. Next on to the foam. I was figuring a few bucks for the foam, well I got a little sticker shock at the price of high density upholstery foam in these stores. After recovering from the shock, started looking around on the internet at foam again this past weekend. Found all the stuff I need minus said fabric and it should be here this week. Still ended up being a little more pricy than I was expecting, but more reasonable anyway even with the shipping costs.

After looking at these chairs sitting in the basement collecting dust for the last 4 months I can’t wait to finish them and have a seat :)

Bench #1: The idea and project start

Dave T — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 05:15:34 GMT

This is going to be a small display bench to fill in a small wall between the dining room and living room. Not really designed to seat a person, more for display items (ie. my wife’s dolls or bears, something along that line). I drew up the plan in Sketchup, it’s going to be about 34” in height floor to top rail, about 26” wide and 13” deep. The seat will be hinged and a small compartment will be framed in under the seat. Have no idea what is to be stored there, but I am sure something will find it’s way there.

I’ve modelled it after a deacon’s bench.

So far I have all the pieces cut to rough size and the mortises on the sides cut. Started cutting the tenon shoulders tonight before I called it quits.

Kids Rocking Chairs commision #2: 3 more

Dave T — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 05:02:48 GMT

The client liked the prototype and wants 3 more. So I have been working on this lately. Have all the pieces turned and fitted, made a couple of small changes from my prototype per the clients request. Finally into the home stretch on these and getting them all assembled. Chair 1 and 2 are still in clamps, chair 3 I have to remake the crest rail for. Had a couple of goof ups I just couldn’t fix on it.

Chair 1

Chair 1

Chair 2

Chair 3

Kids Rocking Chairs commision #1: Kids Rocking Chair - Almost finished

Dave T — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 05:07:17 GMT

This is my first commisioned piece. No in progress pics on this one, but it’s almost finished. 2 coats of Tung oil finish on it so far. It’s a close replica of the antique chair the client brought to me. The only thing I really changed was the arms. The original arms were not very sturdy and had broken across the grain a couple of times and had been repaired.

I actually built 2 different chairs. The first one had square legs and wasn’t working. I’ll beef that one up and give it to my youngest grand daughter. During the original building phase I ended up buying a lathe. Great timing. After some experimentation I ended up turning the legs, back pieces and arms. Turned out not too bad for my first real time turning.

Thanks for looking

Morris Chairs #8: Latest update

Dave T — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:10:27 GMT

Where I left last time was promising pictures of the free standing frames.

Here we’re actually starting to look like chairs. Not just a pile of sticks. I think the worst part was getting all the spindles in their respective holes and getting everything to stay put while I put the clamps on. I most certainly need more clamps. Long story short we made it through and measurable progress.

Yesterday (Sunday) I worked on the arms. I have decided partly due to the lack of time and mostly due to the lack of clamps I have decided to use Woodsmith’s angled arm instead of the bowed arm. I have my first commision piece that I need to finish by the middile of December and here we are middle of October already. UGH. Here I have glued the blocks on the front end of each arm piece.

And here is the angle layout. Can’t see it very well due to the flash unfortunately.

I missed taking pics after initial shaping at the band saw, but stood each arm on edge and cut the angle on the front. Here I have final shaped the arms with my belt sander and a block plane, then laid each arm on the chair for the picture.

After this step, I drilled the holes in back of the arms for the adjustment pin that will allow the back of the chair to recline. Once those were drilled the plan calls for lightening the look of the arms by cutting an angle off the back. This called for a trip to the band saw and some smoothing with a block plane. Now comes the real fun, the through mortises on the arms. I am sticking pretty close to Woodsmith’s plan here for simplicity and time sake. The tenons on the leg only go part way through the arm and then is capped with a smaller piece that has the traditional pyriamid shape on top. Before I quit yesterday, I was able to get the mortises roughed out at the drill press. Tonight I had a couple of hours in the shop and got the 2 mortises on one arm completed.

Hopefully by the end of the week I can have the remaining mortises completed and can start moving on the to the corbels and the back. Then find somebody to make the cushions once I have my final dimensions. I have no confidence in my upholstery skills.

Morris Chairs #7: Standing frames

Dave T — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:29:31 GMT

I’ve been slack in documenting my progress. Sorry to all of those following this. But after much drudgery cutting the side slats and the related tenons 68 in all and some assembly difficulties we have standing frames. I’ll get some pictures of the frames and latest progress tomorrow. Tonight I started milling up my last oak boards for the arms and the back.

Morris Chairs #6: Update for the last few days

Dave T — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 05:03:59 GMT

Since my last post I’ve gotten a couple of maintenance tasks accomplished. A crude, but temporarily functional router table was tuned up (made sure flat and insert plate was level) and sharpened a couple of my chisels. Thursday, I got the router table clamped to the table saw and flush trimmed the leg veneers. Here’s my temporary router table. Eventually I am going to build Norm’s router table, but in the meantime…

Next I cut all the front leg blanks to final size.

Next was cutting the back leg blanks. These I had to leave a little long because the tops are arngled to meet the arm. So squared them up and left them long.

Next up the front legs needed tenons. Mounted a dado blade in the table saw and cut the tenons. Here’s the result.

On to the back legs. Not overly difficult, but multiple steps and angles. First angle the miter gauge and setup a stop attached to the rip fince. This will define the first shoulder of the angled tenons.

Once all the first shoulders on each piece was cut I swung the miter gauge in the other direction to define the second shoulder.

To conclude Thursdays’ session I cut the back legs to final length. Today I started the side lower rail mortises. First was layout, got that pretty well under control. I setup my mortisers, but came across an issue. When I put my half inch chisel in, I could not get the chuck tight enough. In the oak it just could not keep a hold on the drill bit. The arm action on it, is not easy or fluid like it should be. The spring on the arm is strong and I couldn’t do more than 2 cuts with it. If I hadn’t gotten this from my dad’s shop I would be chucking it in the dumpster. Maybe I can refurb it one day. Here’s the mortiser.

In comes the drill press and forstner bit.

After some chisel work on these mortises here is where I stopped for the day.

More shop time tomorrow!

Morris Chairs #5: Little steps.....

Dave T — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 04:48:10 GMT

A little shop time is better than none. Here are a couple of pics of where I left off yesterday.
One of the veneer issues (the knot looked nice and tight and I thought it would be ok, so much for thinking).

And the stack of parts for the sides of both chairs

Spindle final size (as mentioned I cut 74 of these little suckers 5/8 square by 12 3/8”)

On deck for today. Finish fixing veneers on the legs. One more piece to glue YAY. On to the next step. According to plan in Woodsmith, instead of making 136 1/4 X 1/4 mortises (34 per side for the 17 spindles) they cheated and cut a 1/2”X1/4” groove in the center of the rail pieces and then stuck a filler strip in the groove with 1/4” notches cut evenly spaced. Looks like I need to make a jig. Take a piece of flat scrap and screw it to the miter gauge. Before I get too far along I might as well cut the end notches first since I know their dimensions, so I set up a stop block on the one end of the newly attached miter fence.

And make a test cut. Here’s a closer few

Ready to continue, calls for 1” between the shoulders of the notches. So I mark 1 inch over from the existing cut in my fence and line it all up. Before going further I dig through the trash can for a little piece of cut off to fit the first notch to use as a key. Once I got the cut off trimmed down a little to fit the notch in my fence I glued it in place in the notch and made another test cut.

And the end result

Next session, hopefully I’ll get the legs trimmed up to final size and start on the mortises. Maybe need to work on my chisels a little before I get that far though, they are all pretty dull. I received Rockler’s scary sharp beginner’s kit a few weeks ago. Came with several grits of adhesive backed wet/dry sandpaper, piece of glass and a honing guide. I tried it out on a junk chisel and got some pretty good results thanks to the honing guide. I don’t have a good set of bench chisels yet, just a few of Sears’ better ones, but they’ll be 100% better when I get a good edge on them.

Thanks for reading.

Morris Chairs #4: Side pieces cut to size

Dave T — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:49:45 GMT

I didn’t get as much shop time as I would have liked to over the last couple of days, and the time I did spend I had to fix a couple of leg veneer whoopsies. Somehow through the repition of glueing the veneers on the 8 leg blanks, and all the pieces laying around I got myself confused on 2 of the leg blanks and glued the veneers on the wrong faces…DOH. Oh well plane cut them back down to the right size and cut new veneers and reglue. Problem # 1 solved. Trimmed up the veneers on the non screwed up legs and found a couple of the glue joints had opened up. I’m thinking maybe due to not enough clamping pressure or maybe I didn’t use enough clamps to pull it tight. So I cut those veneers off and started the process over. The leg blanks look much better now. While waiting for the glue to try on these I was able to cut all the spindles (74 of them to be exact). I only need 68 for the 2 chairs (17 per side), but I figured a few extra wouldn’t hurt. I then was able to get the upper and lower side rails cut for the sides.

Tomorrow back to work, but maybe can sneak a couple of hours in the shop when I get home in the afternoon to make some head way.

Thanks for reading.

Morris Chairs #3: Leg veneers and jointing

Dave T — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 04:58:17 GMT

Didn’t get as far as I wanted to today, but here is what I got done.

First glued up the last 2 leg blanks. Jointed and squared up the 6 I glued up yesterday. Ended up with a nice pile of planer shavings that filled the dust collector.

Now off to the veneers. Ok, I haven’t resawed anything really thin before and it’s been a while since I’ve used the band saw. Actually I haven’t used it since I bought the Kreg fence at Christmas, so need to do a little tune up to make sure all is running order. After some adjusting and test cuts on scrap I’m ready to resaw. Pulled out my jig I made and set it up, made more test cuts in some scrap from the bin. Here’s my setup.

For a first attempt at resawing thinner stock, I think I ended up doing pretty well. Had a little bit of a tough time leaving my line and had some wave. Good thing I left it a little thick (or tried to more precisely), so I could flatten it back out on the jointer. Did run into one snag though. During my resaw operation I see sparks, ut-oh this can’t be good. The screw holding the guide block in next hits the table and the block is falling out of it’s enclousure. So I stop mid cut to fix that and to get things running back on track. Guess I didn’t tighten it down enough after making my adjustments during tune up. (Mental note: check to make sure adjustments are tight next time before turning on the tool). Here’s how I ended up with the veneer.

Told ya I had some waves. LOL. Next is glue up to the leg blanks

I’ve lost count now how many legs I have the veneer glued on now. I do know I have more to do. BUT (slapping forehead), as I was matching pieces of veneer to the blanks I realize some of the veneer pieces aren’t wide enough to cover the leg. Ok crap I need to cut 2 more pieces of veneer. So continue on with glue up. I knock a couple of pieces of veneer on the floor with a clamp. No big deal right? HEHEHE, my trusted shop companion Buddy the Golden Retriever decides Oak tastes good and sneaks outside with those pieces in tow. Before I can even yell at him, those pieces are splintered in the lawn. Shit, now I have to cut 4 new pieces of veneer. And I thought I had everything planned out just right. HAH fooled me.

Last, but not least I was able to get the rest of the pile sitting on my bench face jointed.

Plan for tomorrow is to go to Hershey Park, so no shop time tomorrow. Probably be Sunday before I can get back in the shop.

Thanks for reading

Morris Chairs #2: Rough cuts and leg glue ups

Dave T — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:04:25 GMT

I decided to go with the chair in Woodsmith Oct/Nov 2004.

Not too much exciting yesterday. All of the parts were rough cut and I started glueing up the leg blanks. I have 6 blanks glued and 2 more to go.

Here’s the rough pile for the legs

Glue up

And finally a stack of parts, this is where I left the shop yesterday.

On deck for today. Finiish the leg glues ups. Mill the veneer to hid the glue line on the legs, finish rough milling. We’ll see from there.

Thanks for reading.

Morris Chairs #1: Lumber purchased

Dave T — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:56:26 GMT

We’re changing an unused portion of our finished basement into a reading and TV area. The room is almost ready, the nightstand is out of my shop so now it’s time for furniture for this new space. Our personal tastes lead more toward Arts and Crafts, so a natural choice for seating are Morris chairs. I’ve been wanting to build one for awhile and have several plans from magazines and books. All are the same base design of course, but slight variations. I haven’t decided exactly which plan I am going to use, but am leaning to the one shown in the Oct. 2004 issue of Woodsmith. I am going to build 2 chairs and I think matching foot stools.

I bought the lumber on Saturday. The biggest variation on the Art & Crafts idea is quartersawn white oak. I am going to use White Oak, but not quartersawn. My sawyers prices are hard to beat and he doesn’t quartersaw. So I’ll take the best looking and straightest grain for the best faces and will have to plan accordingly.

My last blog ended up as a dead end as I forgot to continue the series. OOPS. My plans are to keep up with this one.

Thanks for reading. Any and all comments/suggestions welcome during this whole process.

Foyer Table #1: Idea

Dave T — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 05:22:38 GMT

This is going to be my first blog series on one of my projects. In advance thanks for looking! I have a base idea I want for our living room furniture. We currently have table (GASP) bought from a low end furniture store. They are ok, and in good shape but well me being me I need something I made in the living room. Well low and behold I just finished a side board for the dining room. What’s next my wife asked? LOL silly question! I was going to start a second night stand to mirror this one href="http://lumberjocks.com/projects/8467">
After a lumber inventory I don’t think I have enough cherry. After a little bit she starts talking about a table to go by the front door. Well my light bulb goes off and here is where I am at with my design.

Special thanks to DaveR for the tutorial and hand holding going through his Sketchup tutorial. This is just a rough idea at this point and I am probably going to end up doing some design on the fly. You can probably tell where I am going with the design. It’s pretty much typical arts and crafts, I am still debating on the vertical slats between the side aprons and the possibility of adding a drawer in front. The only big difference from traditional arts and crafts design is going to be material selection. I really like the cherry and walnut combination from the night stand and that’s what I have in the rack, so I think I might continue that on this piece with the top and the shelf made from walnut, the legs, aprons from cherry. The slats when decided upon are still up in the air, maybe walnut. I think that will be a design choice for when we get that far.

Thanks for looking and any comments or suggestions welcome.

Dave