Disturbing Discovery

While working on my current project, I discovered something a little disturbing about myself: I like to beat up furniture.
Could be work stress or other things influencing my furniture agression, but doggone it...getting medieval on wood is FUN!

Here are some progress pics. I'm trying not to go overboard with distressing, but this cupboard hasn't seen the last of me yet. That lower left corner is looking a little "rounded corner/craft store"-ish, so it might require a little hammer time.

Oh yeah...say hello to the Village Calamity, little cupboard. Say hello.

Portable Chisel Rack

Rather than build a permanent chisel rack for my tool cabinet, I wanted one that would double as a holder when taking woodworking classes or giving demos. So, I built this chisel holder based on one I saw in a ww book which had feet that would keep it stable on a benchtop. Then I built a little shelf with a lip and installed it in my tool cabinet door. A simple turnbutton keeps the holder from tipping forward.

In order to keep the chisels standing upright rather than banging into the walls of the dividers, I glued foam inside each cavity. Upon completion and having placed all the chisels in their respective slots, I realized an unfortunate design flaw. Sitting on a benchtop, it's a little unnerving staring down at all those razor edges pointing up at you. Hence, the chisel booties.

If you decide to build your own portable holder, you might consider shortening the height of the front piece to allow for an open section at the bottom. That way you can point the business end downward and still see which chisel is in each compartment.
Another thing—I cut all of the dividers an 1/8" short and only glued the top half in the dadoes. That way, the dividers are always flush with the top of the holder and can still move with the seasons.

Dadoes By Hand

Like everything in woodworking, there is always more than one way to tackle any step. For cutting dadoes, grooves, and rabbets*, you can cut them with a table saw, router, router table, or by hand. If you want to make them by hand, you have a few choices there as well.**

While cutting dadoes for my current project, I chose to use my Lee Valley router plane—an impressively engineered and well-designed tool that is a joy to use. Before plunging in with this tool, you have to first define the outside edges of the dado. I used an exacto knife, but you can also use a handsaw. To use an exacto blade, make several passes along the edge of a ruler and start with light cuts with the plane until you have defined the shoulders, otherwise the blade might tear out some wood running with the grain. As the plane reaches the depth of cut established by the exacto, deepen the shoulder cuts again with the exacto before proceeding with the plane. Continue to alternate these steps until you reach your final depth.

If you don't have a router plane, you can also remove the waste with a chisel and check the depth as you go to ensure a flat channel. I would chisel bevel down in this case to best control the amount of wood removal.

In the last photo, the rabbets were made with a table saw (the ones with burn marks) and the dadoes were made with the router plane. Two boards are laying side by side, so the rabbets look like a wide dado in the photo.

*Dadoes are channels cut into wood that run across the grain. Grooves are channels cut into wood that run with the grain. And rabbets are channels cut into wood that run along the outside edge of a board.

**There are more handtools you can use to cut dadoes, grooves, and rabbets that are not listed here. That's another post!

York Ag & Industrial Museum

Today, my partner and I toured the York Agricultural & Industrial Museum. The museum houses vast antique collections of various industries including farming, pottery, woodworking, machinery, dentistry, weight lifting, wire mesh, grist mills, as well as antique cars, a conestoga wagon, a trolley car, an early 2-passenger airplane, WWII items, and many other
things.

Here are a few shots of the woodworking section. Notice anything odd about these exhibits? In most cases, you can walk right up and touch things. The displays that were cordoned off had chains that were so close to the display items, you could still touch them if you wanted to. I of course did not, out of respect for these well-cared-for artifacts.



And what was my partner doing while I was keeping my hands off the precious collections?

(Hint: look inside the red truck's driver's seat.)

Cupboard Progress

Spent some more time in the shop tonight and worked on the Ephrata Cloister cupboard. Handplaned the boards, chopped the half lap joints and cut all the boards to size except for the rails (the pieces above and below the door) and the door itself. What a great way to spend a Friday evening!

Ephrata Cloister Cupboard

Work has been stressful lately, so I did myself a favor and went out to my shop last night to start a new project. I chose something simple, something that I can pick away at as I find a spare 30 minutes, and something which requires a lot of handtools. Using handtools is instant therapy.

I have visited the Ephrata Cloister 3 times, and each time, I can't take my eyes off this hanging cupboard*. I find it very charming with its rough joinery, wooden hinges, and unfinished wood. It looks a bit like something you might find in Bilbo Baggins' house. You aren't allowed to take pictures at the Cloister so I found an image of it, along with outside dimensions, in a book.

I've been saving some pieces of wormy chestnut for just the right project and this seemed like a perfect match. I milled all the lumber and started on rough dimensions for the door, which required the use of handplanes, spokeshave and pocket knife. I'm trying to be as authentic as possible to try to make it look like the original. What a fun project! I can feel the knots in my neck subsiding already.

*Hanging cupboard built c. 1750-1760.

Rosehead Dowel

You can easily replicate the look of a rosehead nail using a wood dowel, thereby adding another visual element to your project. Rosehead nail photo is top left.

Tap your dowel into a predrilled hole of matching diameter and leave about 1/8" protruding. Put a piece of paper next to the dowel (the paper serves to protect your work surface) and hold your chisel bevel down while starting at the base and chiseling upwards. It's sort of a scraping technique. Work your way around and don't try to remove an entire side with one swipe so you can make subtle changes in the size of each facet. The rosehead nails I've seen all have 3 facets but maybe you've seen others. At any rate, it's an easy technique and instantly gives an aged look to your piece.

Woodworking Carol

A friend emailed this to me:

(Sung to the tune of Joy to the World)

Joy in the shop
The dovetails fit
Was it luck
or this new saw?
Let every tool prepare some room
and I'll get on the net and I'll get on the net
and order and order some more new tools!