There’s No Word Like “Done”
Measure not the work until the day’s out and the labor done. – Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The woodworking community spills most of its ink in discussion of process. We talk about what tools to use and how to use them. We talk about choosing woods. We talk about what joints to use and how to create them. We talk about finishing – what finishes to use and how to apply them. Only rarely do we spend much time talking about objects made from wood.
But let’s face it, we can hand cut the best dovetails or sand a glass finish with our whizbang Festool sander. Unless we actually complete a project, however, most of it is meaningless. This is hard for me to say as much of my motivation to be in the shop doesn’t come from the need for an object made from wood unless it’s shavings and sawdust. I just like carving up wood. I like the feel of it, the sound of it (the reason I work mostly with handtools) and I enjoy the serenity of it. Nevertheless, if I never produce anything I would question my sanity. And it does feel good when I actually complete a project.
I’ve talked about the creation of a set of bathroom wall cabinets from my gleam-in-the-eye concept activities with SketchUp and, along the way, I’ve discussed steps I’ve taken to remove wood from wood until the remaining wood resembled parts of a cabinet. I’ve talked about assembling those pieces into cabinets. If you missed all that excitement (?) you can find it here.
Finally, however, the cabinets are done. I haven’t presented the finishing steps as they were conventional. I applied some boiled linseed oil to achieve an ‘older’ color from the cherry, waited a week, and then applied a couple coats of General Finishes Arm-R-Seal polyurethane. I used this because these cabinets were going into the moist environment of a bathroom. For the same reason I use porcelain knobs on the doors rather than my more typical wooden door pulls. The doors are held closed by small magnets. They’re held to the walls using French cleats.
I apologize for the photograph. The bathroom is very narrow. I’m standing in the bathtub to take the photo and if you look in the mirrors you can see behind me the next job in the remodeling effort – tiling the bathtub wall area. If they made bath tiles from curly maple I might be more interested in that job but not by much I’m afraid. I still have to create a shelf under the center mirror. It will reflect the same curve as the top and bottom of the cabinets. I’ll dado the shelf into a decorative backplate to complete the scene.
So there you have it; the work is done. I’m satisfied, or at least as satisfied as I ever am. Mostly I’m thrilled that I can move on to the next gleam in my eye.
Cheers — Larry
Making A Simple Outdoor Table – Pt 2
Do you ever have one of those moments where you wonder “This ain’t right.” I’m having one of those moments right now as it’s clear that it’s taken me longer to take photos, edit/size photos and to write about this project than it did to build the table. “That ain’t right!”
But here we go with part two of this saga. For those who missed it, you might want to read part one first. At this point the legs are built/assembled and the long aprons connect pairs of legs.
Finishing the Table Base
I cut the short aprons and planed them both to smooth them and to fit them into the notches in the legs. What’s important in this step is that as you fit each end of the apron into its leg, do everything in your power to get the apron square with the leg in all directions. This will determine whether your table base is square or not.
Once you’re convinced the pieces will fit together, it’s time to glue/screw the base together. At this point it starts looking like a table.
If you’ve taken the time to study the design you can see that I have made an error. I forgot to cut the dados in the long aprons that hold the cross-pieces to which the top planks are attached. I was just glad this table wasn’t made of hard maple as cedar is easier to chop. I marked out the dados using a cutting marking gauge, cut the dado sides using a carcase saw, and carefully chiseled out the waste.
Whether you do this at this stage or before you assemble the base, you should work from both sides to avoid tearing out one side. Fit the cross-pieces to the dados and the base is complete.
Adding the Table Top
The top consists of five 1/2″ x 4″ x 36″ boards. I crosscut the boards to length using a handsaw but ripped them to width using my table saw. I laid them out on my table with 3/16″ gaps between them and centered the base (inverted) on them. I attached the top boards with screws through the base cross-pieces using a “hybrid” approach. I predrilled the holes with an electric drill, countersunk them with an eggbeater drill, and then drove the screws with a Yankee spiral push screwdriver. If you haven’t used a push screwdriver for driving screws, give one a try. It’s my favorite way to drive screws.
I used a beam compass and marked out an arc that fit each end of the table. I believe it was around 11″ radius but I just set the beam to ‘looks about right’ and used it on both ends of the table. Then, with an ancient Craftsman jig saw I rounded the table top ends. It gave me a good reason to dust off the jig saw and it was probably feeling neglected anyhow.
That’s it…fini! This would be a good project for those taking early steps into furniture making. I enjoyed the project as it came together so quickly. Though I did use an occasional power tool, mostly I used handtools and darn few of those. The simplicity of the joinery allowed me to create it in 4-5 hours and it could have been done more quickly by someone more interested in “quick” than I am. I painted it light blue to match the chairs I made. Have I mentioned how much I hate painting and how bad I am at doing it? Anyways, here is a view of the table frolicking in its native habitat.
Cheers — Larry
Shelf-making Without a Neander-buddy
I’m getting back to my bathroom vanities project and decided to make some shelves. I need 6 of them and they’ve got to be 12 1/2″ x 4 1/4″. I targeted a thickness of 5/16″. This last dimension was the most work.
Once upon a time I had a frame saw that did a decent job of resawing by hand. Sadly, when I built it I built it too light and it broke. So here I was faced with the need to resaw 3, 13″ long, 4/4 pieces of cherry. This is when I start wishing I had a Neander-buddy. Those of the power tool set call them bandsaws.
I find it sad that I bought into the “buy a table saw first” dogma when I started in woodworking. Nothing wrong with table saws and if you’re never going to develop hand tool skills this advice probably makes sense. But if you can handle a hand plane and quickly true edges, a bandsaw provides much more versatility, in a lot less space, and it’ll do it more safely than will a table saw. When it comes to resawing, a bandsaw is THE tool to use if you’re going to burn electrons. I have a baby bandsaw that I’ve used in my modeling work for decades but it’s not up to the task of resawing 4 1/2″ cherry.
Enough of the whiny lamentations over a tool I don’t have. I cut three 13″ pieces of cherry from a 4/4 board. Above you can see two of those boards and two shelves that result from the burning of many calories. I did the resaw steps with an old Spear and Jackson 5 tpi rip saw. I think it’s time to put it in the vise and sharpen it as it was slow going. Maybe I’m just getting old. Who am I kidding. I am getting old. Where’s a Neander-buddy when you need one?
Once I had divided the boards I shoved the resultant planks through my thickness planer, taking them to 3/8″ and finished up getting them truly flat and smooth using hand planes. Here are the finished shelves.
Some day I may buy a Neander-buddy but right now I think I’m going to build a new frame saw.
Cheers — Larry
My Adirondacks Have Left the Building
What does this photo represent?
Several things, I suppose. It suggests that:
- My Adirondack chairs are finished and ready for the butts for which they were intended.
- I need to build a table for the pretzel bowl.
- I need a pretzel bowl.
- Clearly I’ve got to figure out how to get grass to grow in an area that’s been compacted by a huge glider/swing that has sat there for a couple decades.
But this photo says something of far greater importance to me. It says, in “shouting to the rafters with glee” fashion, that these chairs are no longer in my shop. They’re no longer in my way. I’m a happy guy this day.
Cheers — Larry
Orbital Sander Is Too Slow For Hand Tool Guy
My last post described me turning to my electron burners to make some Adirondack chairs. There is no doubt in my mind that I saved a lot of time ripping boards with my table saw rather than cutting the same hundred feet with a handsaw. As I said, this was a project about the end result so I sacrificed the enjoyment of the process to get it done.
Well surprise surprise. I learned something about myself and about tool choices. We all have a feeling for how long something should take us to accomplish something. I think this is why a lot of power tool guys think they work so quickly as we don’t tend to count set up and clean up in our time estimates. But I had to chuckle to myself after I saw what had happened in my shop and I thought I’d share it with you.
I had a significant pile of pine pieces that I needed to smooth on both sides prior to assembling the second and third chairs in this series. As I did with the first chair, I took my Bosch orbital sander, slapped a 60-grit disk on it and started making noise. After about 1 1/2 hours I was, maybe, a bit more than half done with this when I said to myself, “This would go faster if I’d just plane the surfaces.”
And that’s exactly what I did. I grabbed my #7 and a smoother and went to work. It took less than 1/2 an hour to finish up my pile of parts. Planing was sooooooo much faster that I regretted not thinking of it earlier. To make the comparison more clear the boards that had been planed were also shiny smooth, whereas those treated to my orbital sander would need another go with 120-150 grit.
In the end, I could have saved myself at least 2-3 hours by planing the parts for the three chairs rather than using a sander. I can’t say if this would have completely offset the handsaw vs table saw time difference but it sure would have taken a huge chunk out of it. Interesting… at least I thought so.
At this point the 3 chairs are ready for paint, and just like it was planned, it’s supposed to rain for the next two days.
Cheers — Larry
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