[fatman51]

Cleaning, finishing the band saw stand, carpentry, and making pestles

I took a look at my project lists this morning, like I do every Monday, and picked out a something that had been waiting a while. It was a carpenter project, custom exterior stair rails. I went out to my shop to take a look around and decide where to start. I decided that before I went outside in search of material, I needed to clean the place up. As I vacuumed the planer shavings out of the base of the band saw stand,

I decided to finish the case and build the drawer that I had planned for the stand before I got started with work.

Each leg was built 2 degrees off plumb, out from the center, and I built the drawer the same way. I filled the drawer with the stuff that belonged there and was happy that said stuff would not be buried under planer shavings again.

While I was cleaning the shop up from that project, I heard a truck outside. My friend, and neighbor, needed help with his shop project. His shop is a 20 by 60 building that he moved with him the last time he relocated.

The building has an interior wall that is structural. This wall had separated from the rest of the room on one side and was leaning 2 inches out of plumb.

The interior of this wall is not sheathed so I screwed a 2×2x16 inch block to the XBX on the outside corner where the wall was leaning out, another to the adjacent wall, which was sheathed on the inside, cut the obstructing nails that had once held the two walls together out of the way with a Sawzall, used a pair of clamps to pull the corner back together, and fastened the corner with 3 inch deck screws.

I did not take any pictures.

I went back to my shop but before I could gather materials for my intended carpenter project, a guy shows up at my door hoping that I might make him a couple of pestles. Visitors are welcome but unusual because I am not exactly in an industrial park. My shop is off of the beaten path inside of an old trailer house. My work generally comes through referral. As it happened. the man, an older guy who grows much of his own food, had heard that I made kitchen utensils. I do make kitchen utensils, and I decided to put off the general carpenter work.

He uses glass bowls and did not want me to make him any mortars so I decided not to clean off my 10er to make 2 pestles.

We figured out what he wanted, one out of birch, and the other out of alder, I suggested several more suitable hardwoods, but he wanted what he wanted.

I found a clean scrap of alder, laid out one side of the first pestle, cut it out with the band saw, laid out the next side of the block and cut it the same.

I did not cut the round end completely out because I still needed the layout on the adjacent side.

I smoothed the sides with the stationary belt sander and used a 7/16 round over to shape the corners. This gave me a perfect circle at the small end of the taper to guide my work on the disk sander. In no time, I had a conical pestle with round ends, which I completed shaping by hand with sandpaper. It did not get an oil finish, so I burnished it with a clean leather stropping wheel and moved on to the birch pestle which had a different shape.

I did not find a scrap of birch in the shop, so I looked for something in the yard.

Mmm, lets grind up some pesto!

That block could have been any number of woods but birch and alder both have distinct smells. The sawdust told me I had guessed well before I even examined the fresh sides.

I cut out my block and laid out two sides the same just as I had on the other pestle. I rounded the blank on the router and finished shaping with the sander, sandpaper, and a scraper.

 

[MLWilson]

Cleaning, finishing the band saw stand, carpentry, and making pestles

I took a look at my project lists this morning, like I do every Monday, and picked out a something that had been waiting a while. It was a carpenter project, custom exterior stair rails. I went out to my shop to take a look around and decide where to start. I decided that before I went outside in search of material, I needed to clean the place up. As I vacuumed the planer shavings out of the base of the band saw stand,

I decided to finish the case and build the drawer that I had planned for the stand before I got started with work.

Each leg was built 2 degrees off plumb, out from the center, and I built the drawer the same way. I filled the drawer with the stuff that belonged there and was happy that said stuff would not be buried under planer shavings again.

While I was cleaning the shop up from that project, I heard a truck outside. My friend, and neighbor, needed help with his shop project. His shop is a 20 by 60 building that he moved with him the last time he relocated.

The building has an interior wall that is structural. This wall had separated from the rest of the room on one side and was leaning 2 inches out of plumb.

The interior of this wall is not sheathed so I screwed a 2×2x16 inch block to the XBX on the outside corner where the wall was leaning out, another to the adjacent wall, which was sheathed on the inside, cut the obstructing nails that had once held the two walls together out of the way with a Sawzall, used a pair of clamps to pull the corner back together, and fastened the corner with 3 inch deck screws.

I did not take any pictures.

I went back to my shop but before I could gather materials for my intended carpenter project, a guy shows up at my door hoping that I might make him a couple of pestles. Visitors are welcome but unusual because I am not exactly in an industrial park. My shop is off of the beaten path inside of an old trailer house. My work generally comes through referral. As it happened. the man, an older guy who grows much of his own food, had heard that I made kitchen utensils. I do make kitchen utensils, and I decided to put off the general carpenter work.

He uses glass bowls and did not want me to make him any mortars so I decided not to clean off my 10er to make 2 pestles.

We figured out what he wanted, one out of birch, and the other out of alder, I suggested several more suitable hardwoods, but he wanted what he wanted.

I found a clean scrap of alder, laid out one side of the first pestle, cut it out with the band saw, laid out the next side of the block and cut it the same.

I did not cut the round end completely out because I still needed the layout on the adjacent side.

I smoothed the sides with the stationary belt sander and used a 7/16 round over to shape the corners. This gave me a perfect circle at the small end of the taper to guide my work on the disk sander. In no time, I had a conical pestle with round ends, which I completed shaping by hand with sandpaper. It did not get an oil finish, so I burnished it with a clean leather stropping wheel and moved on to the birch pestle which had a different shape.

I did not find a scrap of birch in the shop, so I looked for something in the yard.

Mmm, lets grind up some pesto!

That block could have been any number of woods but birch and alder both have distinct smells. The sawdust told me I had guessed well before I even examined the fresh sides.

I cut out my block and laid out two sides the same just as I had on the other pestle. I rounded the blank on the router and finished shaping with the sander, sandpaper, and a scraper.

Don't you think you'd better get to work on those stair rails? I swear.

Woodsmithery: The sport of the easily-distracted.

 

[fatman51]

Cleaning, finishing the band saw stand, carpentry, and making pestles

I took a look at my project lists this morning, like I do every Monday, and picked out a something that had been waiting a while. It was a carpenter project, custom exterior stair rails. I went out to my shop to take a look around and decide where to start. I decided that before I went outside in search of material, I needed to clean the place up. As I vacuumed the planer shavings out of the base of the band saw stand,

I decided to finish the case and build the drawer that I had planned for the stand before I got started with work.

Each leg was built 2 degrees off plumb, out from the center, and I built the drawer the same way. I filled the drawer with the stuff that belonged there and was happy that said stuff would not be buried under planer shavings again.

While I was cleaning the shop up from that project, I heard a truck outside. My friend, and neighbor, needed help with his shop project. His shop is a 20 by 60 building that he moved with him the last time he relocated.

The building has an interior wall that is structural. This wall had separated from the rest of the room on one side and was leaning 2 inches out of plumb.

The interior of this wall is not sheathed so I screwed a 2×2x16 inch block to the XBX on the outside corner where the wall was leaning out, another to the adjacent wall, which was sheathed on the inside, cut the obstructing nails that had once held the two walls together out of the way with a Sawzall, used a pair of clamps to pull the corner back together, and fastened the corner with 3 inch deck screws.

I did not take any pictures.

I went back to my shop but before I could gather materials for my intended carpenter project, a guy shows up at my door hoping that I might make him a couple of pestles. Visitors are welcome but unusual because I am not exactly in an industrial park. My shop is off of the beaten path inside of an old trailer house. My work generally comes through referral. As it happened. the man, an older guy who grows much of his own food, had heard that I made kitchen utensils. I do make kitchen utensils, and I decided to put off the general carpenter work.

He uses glass bowls and did not want me to make him any mortars so I decided not to clean off my 10er to make 2 pestles.

We figured out what he wanted, one out of birch, and the other out of alder, I suggested several more suitable hardwoods, but he wanted what he wanted.

I found a clean scrap of alder, laid out one side of the first pestle, cut it out with the band saw, laid out the next side of the block and cut it the same.

I did not cut the round end completely out because I still needed the layout on the adjacent side.

I smoothed the sides with the stationary belt sander and used a 7/16 round over to shape the corners. This gave me a perfect circle at the small end of the taper to guide my work on the disk sander. In no time, I had a conical pestle with round ends, which I completed shaping by hand with sandpaper. It did not get an oil finish, so I burnished it with a clean leather stropping wheel and moved on to the birch pestle which had a different shape.

I did not find a scrap of birch in the shop, so I looked for something in the yard.

Mmm, lets grind up some pesto!

That block could have been any number of woods but birch and alder both have distinct smells. The sawdust told me I had guessed well before I even examined the fresh sides.

I cut out my block and laid out two sides the same just as I had on the other pestle. I rounded the blank on the router and finished shaping with the sander, sandpaper, and a scraper.

Honestly… shoulda got to them a while ago. You got that right! very easily distracted.

 

[robscastle]

Cleaning, finishing the band saw stand, carpentry, and making pestles

I took a look at my project lists this morning, like I do every Monday, and picked out a something that had been waiting a while. It was a carpenter project, custom exterior stair rails. I went out to my shop to take a look around and decide where to start. I decided that before I went outside in search of material, I needed to clean the place up. As I vacuumed the planer shavings out of the base of the band saw stand,

I decided to finish the case and build the drawer that I had planned for the stand before I got started with work.

Each leg was built 2 degrees off plumb, out from the center, and I built the drawer the same way. I filled the drawer with the stuff that belonged there and was happy that said stuff would not be buried under planer shavings again.

While I was cleaning the shop up from that project, I heard a truck outside. My friend, and neighbor, needed help with his shop project. His shop is a 20 by 60 building that he moved with him the last time he relocated.

The building has an interior wall that is structural. This wall had separated from the rest of the room on one side and was leaning 2 inches out of plumb.

The interior of this wall is not sheathed so I screwed a 2×2x16 inch block to the XBX on the outside corner where the wall was leaning out, another to the adjacent wall, which was sheathed on the inside, cut the obstructing nails that had once held the two walls together out of the way with a Sawzall, used a pair of clamps to pull the corner back together, and fastened the corner with 3 inch deck screws.

I did not take any pictures.

I went back to my shop but before I could gather materials for my intended carpenter project, a guy shows up at my door hoping that I might make him a couple of pestles. Visitors are welcome but unusual because I am not exactly in an industrial park. My shop is off of the beaten path inside of an old trailer house. My work generally comes through referral. As it happened. the man, an older guy who grows much of his own food, had heard that I made kitchen utensils. I do make kitchen utensils, and I decided to put off the general carpenter work.

He uses glass bowls and did not want me to make him any mortars so I decided not to clean off my 10er to make 2 pestles.

We figured out what he wanted, one out of birch, and the other out of alder, I suggested several more suitable hardwoods, but he wanted what he wanted.

I found a clean scrap of alder, laid out one side of the first pestle, cut it out with the band saw, laid out the next side of the block and cut it the same.

I did not cut the round end completely out because I still needed the layout on the adjacent side.

I smoothed the sides with the stationary belt sander and used a 7/16 round over to shape the corners. This gave me a perfect circle at the small end of the taper to guide my work on the disk sander. In no time, I had a conical pestle with round ends, which I completed shaping by hand with sandpaper. It did not get an oil finish, so I burnished it with a clean leather stropping wheel and moved on to the birch pestle which had a different shape.

I did not find a scrap of birch in the shop, so I looked for something in the yard.

Mmm, lets grind up some pesto!

That block could have been any number of woods but birch and alder both have distinct smells. The sawdust told me I had guessed well before I even examined the fresh sides.

I cut out my block and laid out two sides the same just as I had on the other pestle. I rounded the blank on the router and finished shaping with the sander, sandpaper, and a scraper.

Dont worry about the stairs as you say they are just a distraction

Concrete cancer there goes another one!

Soon I will have a completly wooden set!!

 

[fatman51]

Repairing my antique basswood drawing board.

I cleaned up my shop after work today, intent on gluing the plane tote pattern I printed from the Lee Valley website to a scrap of wood to make a permanent pattern, thanks goes to terryR for Shop Log 20. http://lumberjocks.com/terryR/blog/47745 . Unfortunately, my printed pattern was off scale, .9487 to 1. Rather than fiddle with he printer settings and hoping for the best, I figured out the scale and grabbed my old drawing board from the closet in my shop. This decision wrecked my plans to make knobs and totes because I found the old Hamilton board to be in a bit of disrepair and I decided to fix it instead.

This basswood drawing board is an antique, made by Hamilton Manufacturing Co in the first part of the twentieth century. I purchased it at a flea market when I was in college along with an old David White instrument.

The David White came in the wooden box shown along with a tripod head, but no legs. I made the tripod out of maple. it has brass and stainless fasteners. The bolsters at the base of each upper leg section are aluminum, and I shaped the foot spikes out of galvanized electrical conduit.

The red paint was not a mistake or a lapse of judgment. I wanted the the tripod to be easy to see and find when I set it up in the field. It is common practice.

There were several blank prints with the board, which provide a clue as to its age.

(it says: 1941, by McGraw Hill)

The board was still in good shape when I made this drawing. I wish I would have dated the document, I am sure I did date the final tracing, but the arena I drew the Judges stand for is now a parking lot, so I guess I have not looked at the board in a while.

After my trip down memory lane I carefully disassembled the board. Most of the glue joints were separated completely. One was about half gone and I helped it along. There was one solid glue joint left, and I left it alone.

Once everything was apart, I carefully scraped the antique glue from the old joints. I tried to avoid sanding for risk of rounding the edges, but I did have to sand 1 joint. I could still see the faint marks left from a rotary planer of some kind, but that is not a good clue of the board's age because Hamilton was using such machinery by the 1920s. It seems like I read that in a Hamilton Manufacturing Co advertisement in an old Sweets engineering resource catalogue but I could not find it.

With the joints clean, I reassembled the board one piece at a time, using modern wood glue. I was careful to keep the pieces flat and lined up at the edges. I slid the dovetailed steel straight edge that runs up each side for the tee square on each board as I progressed. As I reassembled the board, I wiped the excess glue off with a weak solution of bleach water to destroy the mildew that had infected the surface of the wood. I gave each segment about twenty minutes to tack up before adding to the next.

When the glue was set, I swelled or filled, nicks, gaps, and dents and carefully sanded to 220 with the random orbit sander, finishing further with my sanding block.

I do not think the board ever had a finish, but I gave it a coat of Watco cutting board oil and it will get another coat to protect it from any further mildew.

Once I have washed the case I will spray it with Scotch Guard to keep it from letting moisture through and then I will be able to store the old board without worrying about it. I will try to add a better picture once I have applied the last coat. Though plain, it is a nice looking board.

 

[fatman51]

Repairing my antique basswood drawing board.

I cleaned up my shop after work today, intent on gluing the plane tote pattern I printed from the Lee Valley website to a scrap of wood to make a permanent pattern, thanks goes to terryR for Shop Log 20. http://lumberjocks.com/terryR/blog/47745 . Unfortunately, my printed pattern was off scale, .9487 to 1. Rather than fiddle with he printer settings and hoping for the best, I figured out the scale and grabbed my old drawing board from the closet in my shop. This decision wrecked my plans to make knobs and totes because I found the old Hamilton board to be in a bit of disrepair and I decided to fix it instead.

This basswood drawing board is an antique, made by Hamilton Manufacturing Co in the first part of the twentieth century. I purchased it at a flea market when I was in college along with an old David White instrument.

The David White came in the wooden box shown along with a tripod head, but no legs. I made the tripod out of maple. it has brass and stainless fasteners. The bolsters at the base of each upper leg section are aluminum, and I shaped the foot spikes out of galvanized electrical conduit.

The red paint was not a mistake or a lapse of judgment. I wanted the the tripod to be easy to see and find when I set it up in the field. It is common practice.

There were several blank prints with the board, which provide a clue as to its age.

(it says: 1941, by McGraw Hill)

The board was still in good shape when I made this drawing. I wish I would have dated the document, I am sure I did date the final tracing, but the arena I drew the Judges stand for is now a parking lot, so I guess I have not looked at the board in a while.

After my trip down memory lane I carefully disassembled the board. Most of the glue joints were separated completely. One was about half gone and I helped it along. There was one solid glue joint left, and I left it alone.

Once everything was apart, I carefully scraped the antique glue from the old joints. I tried to avoid sanding for risk of rounding the edges, but I did have to sand 1 joint. I could still see the faint marks left from a rotary planer of some kind, but that is not a good clue of the board's age because Hamilton was using such machinery by the 1920s. It seems like I read that in a Hamilton Manufacturing Co advertisement in an old Sweets engineering resource catalogue but I could not find it.

With the joints clean, I reassembled the board one piece at a time, using modern wood glue. I was careful to keep the pieces flat and lined up at the edges. I slid the dovetailed steel straight edge that runs up each side for the tee square on each board as I progressed. As I reassembled the board, I wiped the excess glue off with a weak solution of bleach water to destroy the mildew that had infected the surface of the wood. I gave each segment about twenty minutes to tack up before adding to the next.

When the glue was set, I swelled or filled, nicks, gaps, and dents and carefully sanded to 220 with the random orbit sander, finishing further with my sanding block.

I do not think the board ever had a finish, but I gave it a coat of Watco cutting board oil and it will get another coat to protect it from any further mildew.

Once I have washed the case I will spray it with Scotch Guard to keep it from letting moisture through and then I will be able to store the old board without worrying about it. I will try to add a better picture once I have applied the last coat. Though plain, it is a nice looking board.

By the way, I have no Idea why Hamilton Mfg. made their drawing boards out of such soft woods as basswood and pine, but when I looked it up they seem to have been be quite proud of the fact. Maybe they were going for light weight. As it does not grow here, I have only ever used basswood for repairing guitars.

 

[fatman51]

Bench Planes!

With over 100,000 avid or prospective woodworkers on this site, I would not be surprised to learn that there are fifty thousand blogs about bench planes. We love our bench planes, we like to use them and we want to talk about them.

As of recently, I have 8 of them in use, which is 2 more than normal and 6 more than I usually need. While I learned about making cabinets and furniture young, I have done far more general carpenter work in my career. In my truck I carry a 9 inchish smoothing plane, a 14 inch jack plane, and two block planes, often the Millers Falls no 75 and the venerable Stanley 60 1/2. I also carry a belt sander and a power planer but I use the bench and block planes when the task is better suited for them. Used to using them in the field, I fell out of the habit of using anything else in my shop. Lately, I have been doing a lot more in my shop and I have found myself dusting off the others enough that I decided to put them into shape.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my power planer collection too, but there are a lot of things that are better done, and done better, with a bench plane.

The spiral cutter of the old Stanley door planer does a nice job for jointing, but they are a door planer and they came in a door hanging kit along with a router base and hinge templates. (my little one came with a spare base and a second router motor with base) Planing doors is where they excel. They can't smooth because of the way they are made, but I digress.

In the last blog of this series I fixed my drafting board so that I could sit at my bench and draw a bench plane tote, based off of the schematic that I downloaded from leevalley.com. The end result was a hybrid between the Stanley design and the Fulton, with a couple of changes to fit my big fat hands because it is no fun to run a jointer that you can only grip with two fingers.

I did not draw the knob, but I based the fore plane knobs on the Fulton design because they were Fulton made planes. I made a Stanley-ish knob for the jointer. Somewhere in the middle of this process, I went and dug around in my old truck(it has a work shell and things can get lost back there for years) until I came up with an old Stanley no 5C that needed some restoring. after some cleaning it proved to have a very pretty rosewood knob and a like tote that I can't even grip because it is too small.

Here are a few pictures of the work. I used Ipe.

I traced my drawing and cut out a pattern. I traced out the totes on my piece of Ipe that is 1 1/16 inches thick. (the finished totes are 1 inch thick) I cut out the totes on my bandsaw and sanded them to shape with my spindle sander. I routed the edges with a 1/2 inch round over on my router table. I sanded and polished the totes by hand down to 500 grit, oiled them with mineral oil and polished them dry with cotton and saw dust, finishing them with watco cutting board oil. The finished pictures follow the knobs.

I had to glue up pieces for the knobs. I have decided that the best method for gluing Ipe is to let it set outside on a pallet for fifteen years and dry out. If you do this it will glue fine with any wood glue as long as you clamp it tight. I turned the knobs between centers and finished them the same way as the totes.

I had to clean rust and green paint off of the old no 5c. I did not sand all of the varnish off of its knob and tote and I am still deciding if I want to coat them with cutting board oil or wait until I build a tote that I can use.

the old stanley with it's original rosewood knob and tote

More pictures of my humble collection. There are no fancy bench planes here. I have honed medium to no camber on the no 4-sh smoothers, medium and light on the Jacks, heavy camber on the fore, very lite on the jointer and almost none on the 3-ish smoother. From 3 to 8 the makes are Shelton(8 1/2×1 3/4, screw adjust on frog), Stanley Defiant No 4c(thanks to fellow lumberjocks for helping to identify this in the forum), Craftsman(9-1/4 inch), Fulton(10 incher), Stanley(No 5c, patent applied for 9-92 on iron), Craftsman/Fulton no 05, Fulton No 06c, Stanley/Bailey No 8c(screw adjust on frog, pat applied for 9-92 0n iron, patented (looks like) April 02, Aug 02 on body behind frog.

The knobs and totes that I replaced.

If you made it this far, I thank you for indulging me. I would welcome any educational pointers and suggestions from all of you wise and knowledgeable bench plane using and restoring folks out there.

 

[MLWilson]

Bench Planes!

With over 100,000 avid or prospective woodworkers on this site, I would not be surprised to learn that there are fifty thousand blogs about bench planes. We love our bench planes, we like to use them and we want to talk about them.

As of recently, I have 8 of them in use, which is 2 more than normal and 6 more than I usually need. While I learned about making cabinets and furniture young, I have done far more general carpenter work in my career. In my truck I carry a 9 inchish smoothing plane, a 14 inch jack plane, and two block planes, often the Millers Falls no 75 and the venerable Stanley 60 1/2. I also carry a belt sander and a power planer but I use the bench and block planes when the task is better suited for them. Used to using them in the field, I fell out of the habit of using anything else in my shop. Lately, I have been doing a lot more in my shop and I have found myself dusting off the others enough that I decided to put them into shape.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my power planer collection too, but there are a lot of things that are better done, and done better, with a bench plane.

The spiral cutter of the old Stanley door planer does a nice job for jointing, but they are a door planer and they came in a door hanging kit along with a router base and hinge templates. (my little one came with a spare base and a second router motor with base) Planing doors is where they excel. They can't smooth because of the way they are made, but I digress.

In the last blog of this series I fixed my drafting board so that I could sit at my bench and draw a bench plane tote, based off of the schematic that I downloaded from leevalley.com. The end result was a hybrid between the Stanley design and the Fulton, with a couple of changes to fit my big fat hands because it is no fun to run a jointer that you can only grip with two fingers.

I did not draw the knob, but I based the fore plane knobs on the Fulton design because they were Fulton made planes. I made a Stanley-ish knob for the jointer. Somewhere in the middle of this process, I went and dug around in my old truck(it has a work shell and things can get lost back there for years) until I came up with an old Stanley no 5C that needed some restoring. after some cleaning it proved to have a very pretty rosewood knob and a like tote that I can't even grip because it is too small.

Here are a few pictures of the work. I used Ipe.

I traced my drawing and cut out a pattern. I traced out the totes on my piece of Ipe that is 1 1/16 inches thick. (the finished totes are 1 inch thick) I cut out the totes on my bandsaw and sanded them to shape with my spindle sander. I routed the edges with a 1/2 inch round over on my router table. I sanded and polished the totes by hand down to 500 grit, oiled them with mineral oil and polished them dry with cotton and saw dust, finishing them with watco cutting board oil. The finished pictures follow the knobs.

I had to glue up pieces for the knobs. I have decided that the best method for gluing Ipe is to let it set outside on a pallet for fifteen years and dry out. If you do this it will glue fine with any wood glue as long as you clamp it tight. I turned the knobs between centers and finished them the same way as the totes.

I had to clean rust and green paint off of the old no 5c. I did not sand all of the varnish off of its knob and tote and I am still deciding if I want to coat them with cutting board oil or wait until I build a tote that I can use.

the old stanley with it's original rosewood knob and tote

More pictures of my humble collection. There are no fancy bench planes here. I have honed medium to no camber on the no 4-sh smoothers, medium and light on the Jacks, heavy camber on the fore, very lite on the jointer and almost none on the 3-ish smoother. From 3 to 8 the makes are Shelton(8 1/2×1 3/4, screw adjust on frog), Stanley Defiant No 4c(thanks to fellow lumberjocks for helping to identify this in the forum), Craftsman(9-1/4 inch), Fulton(10 incher), Stanley(No 5c, patent applied for 9-92 on iron), Craftsman/Fulton no 05, Fulton No 06c, Stanley/Bailey No 8c(screw adjust on frog, pat applied for 9-92 0n iron, patented (looks like) April 02, Aug 02 on body behind frog.

The knobs and totes that I replaced.

If you made it this far, I thank you for indulging me. I would welcome any educational pointers and suggestions from all of you wise and knowledgeable bench plane using and restoring folks out there.

John, don't throw the old ones out. You'll think of some use for them.

 

[DonBroussard]

Bench Planes!

With over 100,000 avid or prospective woodworkers on this site, I would not be surprised to learn that there are fifty thousand blogs about bench planes. We love our bench planes, we like to use them and we want to talk about them.

As of recently, I have 8 of them in use, which is 2 more than normal and 6 more than I usually need. While I learned about making cabinets and furniture young, I have done far more general carpenter work in my career. In my truck I carry a 9 inchish smoothing plane, a 14 inch jack plane, and two block planes, often the Millers Falls no 75 and the venerable Stanley 60 1/2. I also carry a belt sander and a power planer but I use the bench and block planes when the task is better suited for them. Used to using them in the field, I fell out of the habit of using anything else in my shop. Lately, I have been doing a lot more in my shop and I have found myself dusting off the others enough that I decided to put them into shape.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my power planer collection too, but there are a lot of things that are better done, and done better, with a bench plane.

The spiral cutter of the old Stanley door planer does a nice job for jointing, but they are a door planer and they came in a door hanging kit along with a router base and hinge templates. (my little one came with a spare base and a second router motor with base) Planing doors is where they excel. They can't smooth because of the way they are made, but I digress.

In the last blog of this series I fixed my drafting board so that I could sit at my bench and draw a bench plane tote, based off of the schematic that I downloaded from leevalley.com. The end result was a hybrid between the Stanley design and the Fulton, with a couple of changes to fit my big fat hands because it is no fun to run a jointer that you can only grip with two fingers.

I did not draw the knob, but I based the fore plane knobs on the Fulton design because they were Fulton made planes. I made a Stanley-ish knob for the jointer. Somewhere in the middle of this process, I went and dug around in my old truck(it has a work shell and things can get lost back there for years) until I came up with an old Stanley no 5C that needed some restoring. after some cleaning it proved to have a very pretty rosewood knob and a like tote that I can't even grip because it is too small.

Here are a few pictures of the work. I used Ipe.

I traced my drawing and cut out a pattern. I traced out the totes on my piece of Ipe that is 1 1/16 inches thick. (the finished totes are 1 inch thick) I cut out the totes on my bandsaw and sanded them to shape with my spindle sander. I routed the edges with a 1/2 inch round over on my router table. I sanded and polished the totes by hand down to 500 grit, oiled them with mineral oil and polished them dry with cotton and saw dust, finishing them with watco cutting board oil. The finished pictures follow the knobs.

I had to glue up pieces for the knobs. I have decided that the best method for gluing Ipe is to let it set outside on a pallet for fifteen years and dry out. If you do this it will glue fine with any wood glue as long as you clamp it tight. I turned the knobs between centers and finished them the same way as the totes.

I had to clean rust and green paint off of the old no 5c. I did not sand all of the varnish off of its knob and tote and I am still deciding if I want to coat them with cutting board oil or wait until I build a tote that I can use.

the old stanley with it's original rosewood knob and tote

More pictures of my humble collection. There are no fancy bench planes here. I have honed medium to no camber on the no 4-sh smoothers, medium and light on the Jacks, heavy camber on the fore, very lite on the jointer and almost none on the 3-ish smoother. From 3 to 8 the makes are Shelton(8 1/2×1 3/4, screw adjust on frog), Stanley Defiant No 4c(thanks to fellow lumberjocks for helping to identify this in the forum), Craftsman(9-1/4 inch), Fulton(10 incher), Stanley(No 5c, patent applied for 9-92 on iron), Craftsman/Fulton no 05, Fulton No 06c, Stanley/Bailey No 8c(screw adjust on frog, pat applied for 9-92 0n iron, patented (looks like) April 02, Aug 02 on body behind frog.

The knobs and totes that I replaced.

If you made it this far, I thank you for indulging me. I would welcome any educational pointers and suggestions from all of you wise and knowledgeable bench plane using and restoring folks out there.

Nice job on the new totes! You could use the old totes as handles for push sticks.

 

[BurlyBob]

Bench Planes!

With over 100,000 avid or prospective woodworkers on this site, I would not be surprised to learn that there are fifty thousand blogs about bench planes. We love our bench planes, we like to use them and we want to talk about them.

As of recently, I have 8 of them in use, which is 2 more than normal and 6 more than I usually need. While I learned about making cabinets and furniture young, I have done far more general carpenter work in my career. In my truck I carry a 9 inchish smoothing plane, a 14 inch jack plane, and two block planes, often the Millers Falls no 75 and the venerable Stanley 60 1/2. I also carry a belt sander and a power planer but I use the bench and block planes when the task is better suited for them. Used to using them in the field, I fell out of the habit of using anything else in my shop. Lately, I have been doing a lot more in my shop and I have found myself dusting off the others enough that I decided to put them into shape.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my power planer collection too, but there are a lot of things that are better done, and done better, with a bench plane.

The spiral cutter of the old Stanley door planer does a nice job for jointing, but they are a door planer and they came in a door hanging kit along with a router base and hinge templates. (my little one came with a spare base and a second router motor with base) Planing doors is where they excel. They can't smooth because of the way they are made, but I digress.

In the last blog of this series I fixed my drafting board so that I could sit at my bench and draw a bench plane tote, based off of the schematic that I downloaded from leevalley.com. The end result was a hybrid between the Stanley design and the Fulton, with a couple of changes to fit my big fat hands because it is no fun to run a jointer that you can only grip with two fingers.

I did not draw the knob, but I based the fore plane knobs on the Fulton design because they were Fulton made planes. I made a Stanley-ish knob for the jointer. Somewhere in the middle of this process, I went and dug around in my old truck(it has a work shell and things can get lost back there for years) until I came up with an old Stanley no 5C that needed some restoring. after some cleaning it proved to have a very pretty rosewood knob and a like tote that I can't even grip because it is too small.

Here are a few pictures of the work. I used Ipe.

I traced my drawing and cut out a pattern. I traced out the totes on my piece of Ipe that is 1 1/16 inches thick. (the finished totes are 1 inch thick) I cut out the totes on my bandsaw and sanded them to shape with my spindle sander. I routed the edges with a 1/2 inch round over on my router table. I sanded and polished the totes by hand down to 500 grit, oiled them with mineral oil and polished them dry with cotton and saw dust, finishing them with watco cutting board oil. The finished pictures follow the knobs.

I had to glue up pieces for the knobs. I have decided that the best method for gluing Ipe is to let it set outside on a pallet for fifteen years and dry out. If you do this it will glue fine with any wood glue as long as you clamp it tight. I turned the knobs between centers and finished them the same way as the totes.

I had to clean rust and green paint off of the old no 5c. I did not sand all of the varnish off of its knob and tote and I am still deciding if I want to coat them with cutting board oil or wait until I build a tote that I can use.

the old stanley with it's original rosewood knob and tote

More pictures of my humble collection. There are no fancy bench planes here. I have honed medium to no camber on the no 4-sh smoothers, medium and light on the Jacks, heavy camber on the fore, very lite on the jointer and almost none on the 3-ish smoother. From 3 to 8 the makes are Shelton(8 1/2×1 3/4, screw adjust on frog), Stanley Defiant No 4c(thanks to fellow lumberjocks for helping to identify this in the forum), Craftsman(9-1/4 inch), Fulton(10 incher), Stanley(No 5c, patent applied for 9-92 on iron), Craftsman/Fulton no 05, Fulton No 06c, Stanley/Bailey No 8c(screw adjust on frog, pat applied for 9-92 0n iron, patented (looks like) April 02, Aug 02 on body behind frog.

The knobs and totes that I replaced.

If you made it this far, I thank you for indulging me. I would welcome any educational pointers and suggestions from all of you wise and knowledgeable bench plane using and restoring folks out there.

Yes, Thank you John. I'm in need of several totes. I appreciate you posting this.

 

[fatman51]

Bench Planes!

With over 100,000 avid or prospective woodworkers on this site, I would not be surprised to learn that there are fifty thousand blogs about bench planes. We love our bench planes, we like to use them and we want to talk about them.

As of recently, I have 8 of them in use, which is 2 more than normal and 6 more than I usually need. While I learned about making cabinets and furniture young, I have done far more general carpenter work in my career. In my truck I carry a 9 inchish smoothing plane, a 14 inch jack plane, and two block planes, often the Millers Falls no 75 and the venerable Stanley 60 1/2. I also carry a belt sander and a power planer but I use the bench and block planes when the task is better suited for them. Used to using them in the field, I fell out of the habit of using anything else in my shop. Lately, I have been doing a lot more in my shop and I have found myself dusting off the others enough that I decided to put them into shape.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my power planer collection too, but there are a lot of things that are better done, and done better, with a bench plane.

The spiral cutter of the old Stanley door planer does a nice job for jointing, but they are a door planer and they came in a door hanging kit along with a router base and hinge templates. (my little one came with a spare base and a second router motor with base) Planing doors is where they excel. They can't smooth because of the way they are made, but I digress.

In the last blog of this series I fixed my drafting board so that I could sit at my bench and draw a bench plane tote, based off of the schematic that I downloaded from leevalley.com. The end result was a hybrid between the Stanley design and the Fulton, with a couple of changes to fit my big fat hands because it is no fun to run a jointer that you can only grip with two fingers.

I did not draw the knob, but I based the fore plane knobs on the Fulton design because they were Fulton made planes. I made a Stanley-ish knob for the jointer. Somewhere in the middle of this process, I went and dug around in my old truck(it has a work shell and things can get lost back there for years) until I came up with an old Stanley no 5C that needed some restoring. after some cleaning it proved to have a very pretty rosewood knob and a like tote that I can't even grip because it is too small.

Here are a few pictures of the work. I used Ipe.

I traced my drawing and cut out a pattern. I traced out the totes on my piece of Ipe that is 1 1/16 inches thick. (the finished totes are 1 inch thick) I cut out the totes on my bandsaw and sanded them to shape with my spindle sander. I routed the edges with a 1/2 inch round over on my router table. I sanded and polished the totes by hand down to 500 grit, oiled them with mineral oil and polished them dry with cotton and saw dust, finishing them with watco cutting board oil. The finished pictures follow the knobs.

I had to glue up pieces for the knobs. I have decided that the best method for gluing Ipe is to let it set outside on a pallet for fifteen years and dry out. If you do this it will glue fine with any wood glue as long as you clamp it tight. I turned the knobs between centers and finished them the same way as the totes.

I had to clean rust and green paint off of the old no 5c. I did not sand all of the varnish off of its knob and tote and I am still deciding if I want to coat them with cutting board oil or wait until I build a tote that I can use.

the old stanley with it's original rosewood knob and tote

More pictures of my humble collection. There are no fancy bench planes here. I have honed medium to no camber on the no 4-sh smoothers, medium and light on the Jacks, heavy camber on the fore, very lite on the jointer and almost none on the 3-ish smoother. From 3 to 8 the makes are Shelton(8 1/2×1 3/4, screw adjust on frog), Stanley Defiant No 4c(thanks to fellow lumberjocks for helping to identify this in the forum), Craftsman(9-1/4 inch), Fulton(10 incher), Stanley(No 5c, patent applied for 9-92 on iron), Craftsman/Fulton no 05, Fulton No 06c, Stanley/Bailey No 8c(screw adjust on frog, pat applied for 9-92 0n iron, patented (looks like) April 02, Aug 02 on body behind frog.

The knobs and totes that I replaced.

If you made it this far, I thank you for indulging me. I would welcome any educational pointers and suggestions from all of you wise and knowledgeable bench plane using and restoring folks out there.

Thanks for the encouragement. Thanks for the idea with the push sticks, Don. Certainly BurlyBob, I am glad if i posted something helpful! I wish I had taken more pictures of the build.

 

[fatman51]

Making my own backsaw

I have been reading blogs and articles recently, by people who make their own hand saws and decided to make one of my own for no good reason. I made a good heavy duty twelve inch 11 tpi rip filed back saw. I made the back out of a heavy piece of lawn border,bluing it with a propane torch and motor oil. I made the blade out of an old wrecked hand saw that had a kink that I did not feel was worth trying to pound out. I watch for these at flea markets because wrecked saws are an inexpensive source for saw hardware and scrapers. My new saw blade is 30 thousandths, a little thick for small dovetails, but good for an aggressive rip filing. Coming up with my own design, which does resemble a common saw tote, I made the handle out of a piece of poplar figuring that I would copy it with a harder hardwood on my next saw.

I love this saw! I have been using it every day and I am pleased with what I have made but I have determined that I will never make another handsaw from scratch. While purchasing a saw or saw kit can be expensive, websites like Blackburntools.com sell pre cut saw blanks with a varariety of sizes, teeth per inch, and pitches availiable for a very reasonable price. Now that I have done it, cutting the saw teeth in with a file was enough of a chore that I would rather not do it again if I can help it. I appreciate that other lumberjocks make their own saws and do a very nice job of it. I respect their talent and patience. It took me many hours to learn the skill of cutting saw teeth and another hour or two to shape the teeth and complete the job once I had it figured out. Fortunately I have a stash of antique saw files and the file I started with is still sharp, but I would hate to wreck an irreplaceable file by making saw blades that are inferior to those which I can purchase inexpensively. I enjoyed making the handle and the back but I will let a saw maker cut my saw teeth for me in 0.20 thousandths saw blanks for the rest of the saws I want to make.

I cut out the handle with the coping saw because I was working lat at night and I did not want to bug the wife.

I used my little polish made two speed breast drill to start the cut in the center of the handle. I do not know much about this particular tool. I do not know id it was cheap or expensive or even who made it, but I do know that the language on the box is polish, because the wife's family is polish and she recognized the language. The tool does work well.

The nice thing about coping saw blades is that one can remove the bow and leave the blade stuck in the workpiece while they resume cutting from the other direction.

I did not make a pitch guide because I can control my file well enough to control the pitch, but I did need to use a guide block to help with teeth spacing, so that I would cut the teeth where they belonged. once i had all of the teeth cut, I jointed the saw with a twelve inch single cut mill file, set the saw up in the vice properly, and filed the teeth with a six inch double extra slim taper file, until the flats just disappeared, skewing the file in the direction of whichever tooth needed the most material removed.

I ordered a bag of saw handle screws from Amazon. I do not have a close up of the teeth, but they came out alright. The new saw does look rather like an antique, however

 

[MLWilson]

Making my own backsaw

I have been reading blogs and articles recently, by people who make their own hand saws and decided to make one of my own for no good reason. I made a good heavy duty twelve inch 11 tpi rip filed back saw. I made the back out of a heavy piece of lawn border,bluing it with a propane torch and motor oil. I made the blade out of an old wrecked hand saw that had a kink that I did not feel was worth trying to pound out. I watch for these at flea markets because wrecked saws are an inexpensive source for saw hardware and scrapers. My new saw blade is 30 thousandths, a little thick for small dovetails, but good for an aggressive rip filing. Coming up with my own design, which does resemble a common saw tote, I made the handle out of a piece of poplar figuring that I would copy it with a harder hardwood on my next saw.

I love this saw! I have been using it every day and I am pleased with what I have made but I have determined that I will never make another handsaw from scratch. While purchasing a saw or saw kit can be expensive, websites like Blackburntools.com sell pre cut saw blanks with a varariety of sizes, teeth per inch, and pitches availiable for a very reasonable price. Now that I have done it, cutting the saw teeth in with a file was enough of a chore that I would rather not do it again if I can help it. I appreciate that other lumberjocks make their own saws and do a very nice job of it. I respect their talent and patience. It took me many hours to learn the skill of cutting saw teeth and another hour or two to shape the teeth and complete the job once I had it figured out. Fortunately I have a stash of antique saw files and the file I started with is still sharp, but I would hate to wreck an irreplaceable file by making saw blades that are inferior to those which I can purchase inexpensively. I enjoyed making the handle and the back but I will let a saw maker cut my saw teeth for me in 0.20 thousandths saw blanks for the rest of the saws I want to make.

I cut out the handle with the coping saw because I was working lat at night and I did not want to bug the wife.

I used my little polish made two speed breast drill to start the cut in the center of the handle. I do not know much about this particular tool. I do not know id it was cheap or expensive or even who made it, but I do know that the language on the box is polish, because the wife's family is polish and she recognized the language. The tool does work well.

The nice thing about coping saw blades is that one can remove the bow and leave the blade stuck in the workpiece while they resume cutting from the other direction.

I did not make a pitch guide because I can control my file well enough to control the pitch, but I did need to use a guide block to help with teeth spacing, so that I would cut the teeth where they belonged. once i had all of the teeth cut, I jointed the saw with a twelve inch single cut mill file, set the saw up in the vice properly, and filed the teeth with a six inch double extra slim taper file, until the flats just disappeared, skewing the file in the direction of whichever tooth needed the most material removed.

I ordered a bag of saw handle screws from Amazon. I do not have a close up of the teeth, but they came out alright. The new saw does look rather like an antique, however

Are saw handle screws different from other screws, John? I see the pictures of your completed saw, and I'm thinking, it looks just like the one I have that I spent ninety bucks on. Which, by the bye, is the only Veritas tool I've ever convinced myself to buy. It has a screw head on the bottom of the tote that I have no idea what it's for. What is "lawn border." And, please 'splain "bluing".

 

[fatman51]

Making my own backsaw

I have been reading blogs and articles recently, by people who make their own hand saws and decided to make one of my own for no good reason. I made a good heavy duty twelve inch 11 tpi rip filed back saw. I made the back out of a heavy piece of lawn border,bluing it with a propane torch and motor oil. I made the blade out of an old wrecked hand saw that had a kink that I did not feel was worth trying to pound out. I watch for these at flea markets because wrecked saws are an inexpensive source for saw hardware and scrapers. My new saw blade is 30 thousandths, a little thick for small dovetails, but good for an aggressive rip filing. Coming up with my own design, which does resemble a common saw tote, I made the handle out of a piece of poplar figuring that I would copy it with a harder hardwood on my next saw.

I love this saw! I have been using it every day and I am pleased with what I have made but I have determined that I will never make another handsaw from scratch. While purchasing a saw or saw kit can be expensive, websites like Blackburntools.com sell pre cut saw blanks with a varariety of sizes, teeth per inch, and pitches availiable for a very reasonable price. Now that I have done it, cutting the saw teeth in with a file was enough of a chore that I would rather not do it again if I can help it. I appreciate that other lumberjocks make their own saws and do a very nice job of it. I respect their talent and patience. It took me many hours to learn the skill of cutting saw teeth and another hour or two to shape the teeth and complete the job once I had it figured out. Fortunately I have a stash of antique saw files and the file I started with is still sharp, but I would hate to wreck an irreplaceable file by making saw blades that are inferior to those which I can purchase inexpensively. I enjoyed making the handle and the back but I will let a saw maker cut my saw teeth for me in 0.20 thousandths saw blanks for the rest of the saws I want to make.

I cut out the handle with the coping saw because I was working lat at night and I did not want to bug the wife.

I used my little polish made two speed breast drill to start the cut in the center of the handle. I do not know much about this particular tool. I do not know id it was cheap or expensive or even who made it, but I do know that the language on the box is polish, because the wife's family is polish and she recognized the language. The tool does work well.

The nice thing about coping saw blades is that one can remove the bow and leave the blade stuck in the workpiece while they resume cutting from the other direction.

I did not make a pitch guide because I can control my file well enough to control the pitch, but I did need to use a guide block to help with teeth spacing, so that I would cut the teeth where they belonged. once i had all of the teeth cut, I jointed the saw with a twelve inch single cut mill file, set the saw up in the vice properly, and filed the teeth with a six inch double extra slim taper file, until the flats just disappeared, skewing the file in the direction of whichever tooth needed the most material removed.

I ordered a bag of saw handle screws from Amazon. I do not have a close up of the teeth, but they came out alright. The new saw does look rather like an antique, however

Yes, saw screws are different and the only affordable source that I know of is these on amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Neck-Hand-Replacement-Screws/dp/B000G33PA8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1447864068&sr=8-1&keywords=saw+handle+screws

Lawn border is any product made or used to define the perimeter of a lawn. In this case I have some scrap pieces of heavy duty cold rolled powder coated sheet steel or bar that is 14 gauge or 0.0781 (5/64) inches thick, that was made for that purpose. I cleaned it up, cut it to size, folded it with a pair bar folding tools, available from Harbor Freight, and blued it.

I am not the primo bluing expert, but I do use the process occasionally because it is an in expensive way to finish homemade hardware. There are lots of videos on Youtube. But, tak clean metal, a steal cake pan, a heat gn or a propane torch, and some motor oil of ant weight. coat your clean steal with oil and heat it up until it changes color.
do not heat it red hot. You can recoat and repeat if you like. I set the bar across the edges of the cake pan and then pushed into the pan when I was done to cool it in the spilled oil. I have found that shiny cold roll, 3 in 1 oil, and a heat gun can yield a beautiful gold tone. One can also order chemical bluing products from Amazon and jst follow the instructions that come with the kit.

I think you did well to purchase your Veritas saw. The one piece handle and back design is different from traditional designs and I think that screw you mentioned is both important and different from regular saw tote screws. The Veritas saws are made with quality 1095 spring steel, a little too hard in my opinion, (brittle and hard on files) but the best choice available from steel mills as companies like Disston and Stanley Metal Works have not rolled out quality saw steel for decades. Veritas does a very good job with their saws and you can order the correct, quality file from Lee Valley or Blackburn to sharpen your saw. The Nicholson files from the HD are so bad that one might convince themselves that they can not master saw sharpening. I have not ruled out purchasing the three piece set of , to borrow a phrase from Millers Falls tool collectors, "Buck Rogers" back saws from Veritas. They are every bit as good a saw as I can make out of blanks from Blackburn. It depends on how much time I have to make my own, what I can spend, and how much I like my own handle design as I continue to use the saw I made.
Interestingly, I own one veritas tool, a marking gauge that was a gift. It is an attractive marking gauge and very "marky" but I seldom use it. I was fortunate to have begun collecting tools as a child when quality tools were still being sold at the family owned lumber yard a block away from my families home and shop. The owner operators were so generous as to sell tools to me and my brothers at cost. I would hate to have to pay the Lee Valley price for good planes and Chisels in today's market.

 

[fatman51]

Making a guide for my Makita D handled routers

I like these routers. The D handle allows for controlled single handed operation of the tool while holding the workpiece with the other. I have 3 of these routers and none of them came with a guide. I wanted a guide for one of them the other day and found myself wishing that I had ordered one, as I was not able to put off the project until I could get one. I decided to order 2 and make 1 so that I could use the router I wanted to use on the project at hand.

A radial arm saw will do a nice job of cutting 3/4 aluminum bar. A radial arm saw will also do a nice job of mangling one's workpiece, its fence, its blade, its arm, its post, its carriage, its windings, and especially its operator, so don't try to cut 3/4 aluminum bar on your radial arm saw at home. It is neither a safe nor a wise practice. Fortunately, I cut my bar and my 1/8 aluminum sheet on my radial arm saw without all that much drama. My saw and my fingers are still sound.

Once I had cut out the plate to double the guide back under the router base, I laid it out and cut a 2 1/2 inch clearance area for the bit with a hole saw and a hacksaw.

I used 5/8" by 1/2" aluminum channel to make the guide edge. I set it up carefully in the vice to be sure that everything was aligned parallel, straight, and square. I used 8 1/8×3/8 pop rivets to mount the guide edge to the guide body plate.

Drilling a 1/8×3/8 blind hole into the guide mounting block, I used a 1/8×1/4 pop rivet to secure and hold the body plate to the mounting block while I drilled and countersunk 2 #21 holes and tapped the block for #10 by 24 flat headed machine screws to attach the mounting block securely to the body plate.

I cut a 14" long piece of 3/8 cold rolled round bar to use as the guide rail. 10 mm would have worked also, but I live in the United States. I drilled a 1/2 hole in the mounting block for the guide rail and 3 #7 holes in the mounting block, which I tapped to 1/4 28 for allen head set screws. Two of the screws serve to secure and align the split bushing(1/2" OD, 3/8" ID, not clearly pictured) within the guide block and 1 to compress the split bushing to lock the guide block into position on the guide rail. The split bushing prevents the set screw from digging into the guide rail and creating burrs that would hollow out the guide rail hole in the mounting block.

Carefully rotating the round stock against my cordless portable band saw blade, I cut a snap ring groove 1 inch in from the end where the guide rail mounts to the router base so that the guide rail seats into the mounting bracket on the router base without protruding in too far and interfering with the router bit.

Everything came out square and straight. I think it looks pretty cool too. I will probably make a couple of 1/2 inch guide blocks out of hardwood or plastic and secure them to the guide edge so that I do not have to worry about streaking finished edges with aluminum, but other than that, it is done. It worked great for my purpose, which was cutting 18mm rabbets and dados because someone used Canada's measuring system when they manufactured the sheet goods I used on my last project.

 

[MLWilson]

Making a guide for my Makita D handled routers

I like these routers. The D handle allows for controlled single handed operation of the tool while holding the workpiece with the other. I have 3 of these routers and none of them came with a guide. I wanted a guide for one of them the other day and found myself wishing that I had ordered one, as I was not able to put off the project until I could get one. I decided to order 2 and make 1 so that I could use the router I wanted to use on the project at hand.

A radial arm saw will do a nice job of cutting 3/4 aluminum bar. A radial arm saw will also do a nice job of mangling one's workpiece, its fence, its blade, its arm, its post, its carriage, its windings, and especially its operator, so don't try to cut 3/4 aluminum bar on your radial arm saw at home. It is neither a safe nor a wise practice. Fortunately, I cut my bar and my 1/8 aluminum sheet on my radial arm saw without all that much drama. My saw and my fingers are still sound.

Once I had cut out the plate to double the guide back under the router base, I laid it out and cut a 2 1/2 inch clearance area for the bit with a hole saw and a hacksaw.

I used 5/8" by 1/2" aluminum channel to make the guide edge. I set it up carefully in the vice to be sure that everything was aligned parallel, straight, and square. I used 8 1/8×3/8 pop rivets to mount the guide edge to the guide body plate.

Drilling a 1/8×3/8 blind hole into the guide mounting block, I used a 1/8×1/4 pop rivet to secure and hold the body plate to the mounting block while I drilled and countersunk 2 #21 holes and tapped the block for #10 by 24 flat headed machine screws to attach the mounting block securely to the body plate.

I cut a 14" long piece of 3/8 cold rolled round bar to use as the guide rail. 10 mm would have worked also, but I live in the United States. I drilled a 1/2 hole in the mounting block for the guide rail and 3 #7 holes in the mounting block, which I tapped to 1/4 28 for allen head set screws. Two of the screws serve to secure and align the split bushing(1/2" OD, 3/8" ID, not clearly pictured) within the guide block and 1 to compress the split bushing to lock the guide block into position on the guide rail. The split bushing prevents the set screw from digging into the guide rail and creating burrs that would hollow out the guide rail hole in the mounting block.

Carefully rotating the round stock against my cordless portable band saw blade, I cut a snap ring groove 1 inch in from the end where the guide rail mounts to the router base so that the guide rail seats into the mounting bracket on the router base without protruding in too far and interfering with the router bit.

Everything came out square and straight. I think it looks pretty cool too. I will probably make a couple of 1/2 inch guide blocks out of hardwood or plastic and secure them to the guide edge so that I do not have to worry about streaking finished edges with aluminum, but other than that, it is done. It worked great for my purpose, which was cutting 18mm rabbets and dados because someone used Canada's measuring system when they manufactured the sheet goods I used on my last project.

That's great, John. And to think that I paid almost $200 for a Microfence that I rarely use.
You've probably seen my setup for my Sliding Miter Saw (I don't have a RAS), which I clamp to a hollow door laid across a couple of trash cans.
Canadians. They do like to complicate things, don't they.

 

[fatman51]

Making a guide for my Makita D handled routers

I like these routers. The D handle allows for controlled single handed operation of the tool while holding the workpiece with the other. I have 3 of these routers and none of them came with a guide. I wanted a guide for one of them the other day and found myself wishing that I had ordered one, as I was not able to put off the project until I could get one. I decided to order 2 and make 1 so that I could use the router I wanted to use on the project at hand.

A radial arm saw will do a nice job of cutting 3/4 aluminum bar. A radial arm saw will also do a nice job of mangling one's workpiece, its fence, its blade, its arm, its post, its carriage, its windings, and especially its operator, so don't try to cut 3/4 aluminum bar on your radial arm saw at home. It is neither a safe nor a wise practice. Fortunately, I cut my bar and my 1/8 aluminum sheet on my radial arm saw without all that much drama. My saw and my fingers are still sound.

Once I had cut out the plate to double the guide back under the router base, I laid it out and cut a 2 1/2 inch clearance area for the bit with a hole saw and a hacksaw.

I used 5/8" by 1/2" aluminum channel to make the guide edge. I set it up carefully in the vice to be sure that everything was aligned parallel, straight, and square. I used 8 1/8×3/8 pop rivets to mount the guide edge to the guide body plate.

Drilling a 1/8×3/8 blind hole into the guide mounting block, I used a 1/8×1/4 pop rivet to secure and hold the body plate to the mounting block while I drilled and countersunk 2 #21 holes and tapped the block for #10 by 24 flat headed machine screws to attach the mounting block securely to the body plate.

I cut a 14" long piece of 3/8 cold rolled round bar to use as the guide rail. 10 mm would have worked also, but I live in the United States. I drilled a 1/2 hole in the mounting block for the guide rail and 3 #7 holes in the mounting block, which I tapped to 1/4 28 for allen head set screws. Two of the screws serve to secure and align the split bushing(1/2" OD, 3/8" ID, not clearly pictured) within the guide block and 1 to compress the split bushing to lock the guide block into position on the guide rail. The split bushing prevents the set screw from digging into the guide rail and creating burrs that would hollow out the guide rail hole in the mounting block.

Carefully rotating the round stock against my cordless portable band saw blade, I cut a snap ring groove 1 inch in from the end where the guide rail mounts to the router base so that the guide rail seats into the mounting bracket on the router base without protruding in too far and interfering with the router bit.

Everything came out square and straight. I think it looks pretty cool too. I will probably make a couple of 1/2 inch guide blocks out of hardwood or plastic and secure them to the guide edge so that I do not have to worry about streaking finished edges with aluminum, but other than that, it is done. It worked great for my purpose, which was cutting 18mm rabbets and dados because someone used Canada's measuring system when they manufactured the sheet goods I used on my last project.

Thanks Mark. I think it should do the job. The next time I build one I might do a couple of things differently. 12 can be divided cleanly by 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. 10 can be divided cleanly by 1, 2, and 5. 4×12=3×16=2×24=191.92 centimeters. I certainly I do not see the advantage. The handy thing about the scms is that it is easy to stash outa the way. The unhandy thing is that it is hard to pronounce an acronym for "SCMS" there are no vowels. I have never been willing to spend the money on a micro fence, as cool as they are. I have found that I can do precise enough work without measuring to the nth or setting my equipment up like it belongs in a machine shop. In the other hand, it would be really cool to have a lathe and a milling machine in my workshop. I might need more room and more money.

 

[fatman51]

Finally got to those stair rails

Earlier in this series I mentioned a set of stair rails I was supposed to be building for one Mrs Customer, a couple of towns away from my town of Laporte. I got distracted by any number of things and just got back to them this week.

The previous stair rails were built to match the existing porch rails. They had deteriorated sufficiently that they had become a hazard and Mrs Customer wanted them replaced in the same style, as her porch rails are in good shape.

There were a couple of reasons for the poor condition of the rails; one was just weathering, as they looked to have been painted from the start with latex paint, which does not protect as well as oil. The other problem was settling of the stairs away from the porch sufficient to damage the rail and create a 1 inch gap between the top step and porch floor, with a drop of 1/2 inch, which Mrs customer also required me to fix. An engineer in the neighborhood determined that the stairs had settled all that the were likely to settle and that there was no reason to underpin or mud jack the steps, which would get expensive. So I ground the concrete landing to meet the top step, cleaned out the gap, filled it with a piece of cedar and some mortar patching compound, and painted the cedar gray.

Interestingly, she is thinking about having the entire porch slab ground to match the landing area.

I built the new rail on the same pitch as the previous rail, about 30 degrees, and painted it to match the other rail but I made a couple of key changes with the intention of increasing the lifespan of the stair rails by a decade or two.

The previous railing was made from Douglas fir, painted with latex exterior deck paint. The pickets that served to attach the rails to the brick posts were redwood. I replaced the four redwood pickets with Ipe. I replaced the doug fir with treated. I chose treated over redwood both for economy and because, if dry when painted, it holds paint a little bit better than redwood when exposed to sun at our altitude. I should point out that redwood can last twice as long as treated lumber, but the Ipe will probably outlast the brick. Because treated lumber from the HD is pond dried, I let the material rest in the shade all summer and fall so that it was dry when I painted it.

I coated the rails with valspar exterior oil based primer for oil and latex paints. The oil based primer bonds and protects better than latex primer, especially when thinned with BLO, which I did. Prior to assembly, I gave the wood three coats of primer, sanding each coat smooth. I partially assembled the rail and painted it with the exterior latex provided by Mrs Customer, installed the rail, masked the brick, applied painters caulk where necessary, filling the screw holes, let it cure, applied caulk again where it shrank, and painted the final coat of latex.

I used led shields and no 12×2-1/2 flat head wood/sheet metal screws to anchor the Ipe pickets. I took care to be sure that the rails were level, plumb and parallel, relevant to the stairs and one another. I used 2-3/4 inch epoxy coated, finish head, self drilling deck screws waxed and installed on layout in predrilled holes to assemble the rails.

All in all, I think they turned out well.

Now that this is done, Mark can quit giving me Grief about getting after the stair rails and I can move on to the next couple of blogs in this series, Mr Customer's reading table project which I first addressed in my posted reading table project.

 

[MLWilson]

Finally got to those stair rails

Earlier in this series I mentioned a set of stair rails I was supposed to be building for one Mrs Customer, a couple of towns away from my town of Laporte. I got distracted by any number of things and just got back to them this week.

The previous stair rails were built to match the existing porch rails. They had deteriorated sufficiently that they had become a hazard and Mrs Customer wanted them replaced in the same style, as her porch rails are in good shape.

There were a couple of reasons for the poor condition of the rails; one was just weathering, as they looked to have been painted from the start with latex paint, which does not protect as well as oil. The other problem was settling of the stairs away from the porch sufficient to damage the rail and create a 1 inch gap between the top step and porch floor, with a drop of 1/2 inch, which Mrs customer also required me to fix. An engineer in the neighborhood determined that the stairs had settled all that the were likely to settle and that there was no reason to underpin or mud jack the steps, which would get expensive. So I ground the concrete landing to meet the top step, cleaned out the gap, filled it with a piece of cedar and some mortar patching compound, and painted the cedar gray.

Interestingly, she is thinking about having the entire porch slab ground to match the landing area.

I built the new rail on the same pitch as the previous rail, about 30 degrees, and painted it to match the other rail but I made a couple of key changes with the intention of increasing the lifespan of the stair rails by a decade or two.

The previous railing was made from Douglas fir, painted with latex exterior deck paint. The pickets that served to attach the rails to the brick posts were redwood. I replaced the four redwood pickets with Ipe. I replaced the doug fir with treated. I chose treated over redwood both for economy and because, if dry when painted, it holds paint a little bit better than redwood when exposed to sun at our altitude. I should point out that redwood can last twice as long as treated lumber, but the Ipe will probably outlast the brick. Because treated lumber from the HD is pond dried, I let the material rest in the shade all summer and fall so that it was dry when I painted it.

I coated the rails with valspar exterior oil based primer for oil and latex paints. The oil based primer bonds and protects better than latex primer, especially when thinned with BLO, which I did. Prior to assembly, I gave the wood three coats of primer, sanding each coat smooth. I partially assembled the rail and painted it with the exterior latex provided by Mrs Customer, installed the rail, masked the brick, applied painters caulk where necessary, filling the screw holes, let it cure, applied caulk again where it shrank, and painted the final coat of latex.

I used led shields and no 12×2-1/2 flat head wood/sheet metal screws to anchor the Ipe pickets. I took care to be sure that the rails were level, plumb and parallel, relevant to the stairs and one another. I used 2-3/4 inch epoxy coated, finish head, self drilling deck screws waxed and installed on layout in predrilled holes to assemble the rails.

All in all, I think they turned out well.

Now that this is done, Mark can quit giving me Grief about getting after the stair rails and I can move on to the next couple of blogs in this series, Mr Customer's reading table project which I first addressed in my posted reading table project.

Marvelous work by a terrific workman, John.

 

[fatman51]

Finally got to those stair rails

Earlier in this series I mentioned a set of stair rails I was supposed to be building for one Mrs Customer, a couple of towns away from my town of Laporte. I got distracted by any number of things and just got back to them this week.

The previous stair rails were built to match the existing porch rails. They had deteriorated sufficiently that they had become a hazard and Mrs Customer wanted them replaced in the same style, as her porch rails are in good shape.

There were a couple of reasons for the poor condition of the rails; one was just weathering, as they looked to have been painted from the start with latex paint, which does not protect as well as oil. The other problem was settling of the stairs away from the porch sufficient to damage the rail and create a 1 inch gap between the top step and porch floor, with a drop of 1/2 inch, which Mrs customer also required me to fix. An engineer in the neighborhood determined that the stairs had settled all that the were likely to settle and that there was no reason to underpin or mud jack the steps, which would get expensive. So I ground the concrete landing to meet the top step, cleaned out the gap, filled it with a piece of cedar and some mortar patching compound, and painted the cedar gray.

Interestingly, she is thinking about having the entire porch slab ground to match the landing area.

I built the new rail on the same pitch as the previous rail, about 30 degrees, and painted it to match the other rail but I made a couple of key changes with the intention of increasing the lifespan of the stair rails by a decade or two.

The previous railing was made from Douglas fir, painted with latex exterior deck paint. The pickets that served to attach the rails to the brick posts were redwood. I replaced the four redwood pickets with Ipe. I replaced the doug fir with treated. I chose treated over redwood both for economy and because, if dry when painted, it holds paint a little bit better than redwood when exposed to sun at our altitude. I should point out that redwood can last twice as long as treated lumber, but the Ipe will probably outlast the brick. Because treated lumber from the HD is pond dried, I let the material rest in the shade all summer and fall so that it was dry when I painted it.

I coated the rails with valspar exterior oil based primer for oil and latex paints. The oil based primer bonds and protects better than latex primer, especially when thinned with BLO, which I did. Prior to assembly, I gave the wood three coats of primer, sanding each coat smooth. I partially assembled the rail and painted it with the exterior latex provided by Mrs Customer, installed the rail, masked the brick, applied painters caulk where necessary, filling the screw holes, let it cure, applied caulk again where it shrank, and painted the final coat of latex.

I used led shields and no 12×2-1/2 flat head wood/sheet metal screws to anchor the Ipe pickets. I took care to be sure that the rails were level, plumb and parallel, relevant to the stairs and one another. I used 2-3/4 inch epoxy coated, finish head, self drilling deck screws waxed and installed on layout in predrilled holes to assemble the rails.

All in all, I think they turned out well.

Now that this is done, Mark can quit giving me Grief about getting after the stair rails and I can move on to the next couple of blogs in this series, Mr Customer's reading table project which I first addressed in my posted reading table project.

Thanks Mark, that means a lot. She is happy with the job. Or at least I hope that she is, she waited over a year for me to get over there with them. I certainly hope her steps don't continue to settle and mess up my work.