Showing posts with label you. Show all posts
Showing posts with label you. Show all posts
Monday, February 10, 2014
Before You Reach for that Dovetail Saw
Before you reach for that dovetail saw there are a few tools that you should think about first. These can make laying out dovetails a whole lot easier in the construction of traditional style drawers. Lets take a look at some of them. 
The very first step when building drawers once you have your stock all milled square, planed and ready to go is to determine where your drawer bottom will go. Instead of taking a pencil and drawing in a line I take my Small Plough Plane by VERITAS and actually cut a shallow groove into the bottom inside pieces Im using.
This leaves no question as to where my drawer bottom goes and eliminates some room for error. Now that I have my drawer bottom marked in I can take my marking gauge and scribe in the material thickness.
This gets me a little closer to a perfect layout. I use the Tite-Mark Marking Gauge which is unique in having a micrometer adjustment system. Once I scribe the material thickness I reach for my Skew Block Plane. I use the Lie-Nielson version which is derived from the Stanley 140 making this next step the famous "140 Trick" I set up the plane to take a shallow cut across the end of my pieces following the depth of the scribe line I had just made with my Marking Gauge. This only takes two or three light passes and establishes a tiny shoulder that will help in my lay-out to cutting perfect dovetails. 
Once this small shoulder is cut I get my dividers and lay out my dovetails on the drawer side pieces. Cris Gochnour recently wrote a great article in Fine Woodworking about this technique. Now once we finally have our dovetails laid out we can reach for our Dovetail Saw and start cutting. When it comes time to transfer our tails over to the pins that tiny shoulder we cut into the drawer sides will hold our front and back pieces right where we need them. No chance for mistakes by eyeing things down through the tails. So next time you want to make traditional style drawers and reach for a dovetail saw, first think about a few other tools that will make this process more enjoyable and achieve far better results.
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The very first step when building drawers once you have your stock all milled square, planed and ready to go is to determine where your drawer bottom will go. Instead of taking a pencil and drawing in a line I take my Small Plough Plane by VERITAS and actually cut a shallow groove into the bottom inside pieces Im using.
This leaves no question as to where my drawer bottom goes and eliminates some room for error. Now that I have my drawer bottom marked in I can take my marking gauge and scribe in the material thickness.
This gets me a little closer to a perfect layout. I use the Tite-Mark Marking Gauge which is unique in having a micrometer adjustment system. Once I scribe the material thickness I reach for my Skew Block Plane. I use the Lie-Nielson version which is derived from the Stanley 140 making this next step the famous "140 Trick" I set up the plane to take a shallow cut across the end of my pieces following the depth of the scribe line I had just made with my Marking Gauge. This only takes two or three light passes and establishes a tiny shoulder that will help in my lay-out to cutting perfect dovetails. Once this small shoulder is cut I get my dividers and lay out my dovetails on the drawer side pieces. Cris Gochnour recently wrote a great article in Fine Woodworking about this technique. Now once we finally have our dovetails laid out we can reach for our Dovetail Saw and start cutting. When it comes time to transfer our tails over to the pins that tiny shoulder we cut into the drawer sides will hold our front and back pieces right where we need them. No chance for mistakes by eyeing things down through the tails. So next time you want to make traditional style drawers and reach for a dovetail saw, first think about a few other tools that will make this process more enjoyable and achieve far better results.
How Did You Spend Your 4th of July
We are aboard Gypsy Rose on this hot 4th of July morning.
She sails beautifully.
Connie and I are loving it.
She was taking pictures on launch day and did not get in much sailing time
but today we will be out for several hours.
The temps today will hit 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
Thats why we dressed in light colors to beat the heat.
Here is Connie, my smiling beauty of a wife with her sailing gloves on.
39 years together and we are still best friends
Gypsy Rose is a very unique and vintage looking boat
and
we can already see that she will attract attention
wherever we sail her.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm............Pirate Island??
A board sailor out enjoying the wind and waves.
Lots of flags out today.
I for one love the USA!
Back in the slip and the weary but happy sailors head for home,
only 10 minutes away.
Shes a little beauty.
Thank you for visiting my blog.
I look forward to reading your comments
and hope you have happy times ahead.
Happy sailing everyone!
Steve and Connie.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Has It Ever Happened To You
How many of you have encountered the "What the #$!@???"
This situation doesnt happen very often, Im sure, but I dont think there is a woodworker out there who hasnt had to face it once or twice over the course of being involved with this hobby. Some, like me, face it more often then they would care to admit.
You head out to the shop, or wherever it is you do your woodworking, to put the last finishing touches on your latest project, or part thereof. If it is a difficult one, your chances of meeting up with it are far more likely than with the simple builds. The more hours you spent on it, getting to the point of being near completion, the higher the chances. You walk in and more than the project is waiting for you. You anxiously look at the result of your hours of toil and...wham!
This situation doesnt happen very often, Im sure, but I dont think there is a woodworker out there who hasnt had to face it once or twice over the course of being involved with this hobby. Some, like me, face it more often then they would care to admit.
You head out to the shop, or wherever it is you do your woodworking, to put the last finishing touches on your latest project, or part thereof. If it is a difficult one, your chances of meeting up with it are far more likely than with the simple builds. The more hours you spent on it, getting to the point of being near completion, the higher the chances. You walk in and more than the project is waiting for you. You anxiously look at the result of your hours of toil and...wham!
"What the blankety-blank-blank was I thinking?"
There is no other way to describe it; you come face to face with the fact that the job that you spent so long designing and so lovingly creating, actually looks like shit!
I ran into this with the mount for the Stanley No.10½, the one I had pondered about for the last year, the one I spent a few weeks on tweaking the design, the one I spent the better part of almost 7-days building and refining, and the one I posted pictures of for the world to see here on my blog.
The day after I posted those photos I thought I would take an hour or so to finish up shaping it and getting it to the point where I could finish sand it. I walked into my office, looked at it, and actually thought my wife had snuck in during the night and changed it on me. The proportions were out of whack, the slider hung out the end like a mis-placed shirt-tail, and the brackets were silly and incorrectly placed. I couldnt believe I could build such a thing, let alone design it.
My first thought was to modify it, but that wouldnt help the proportions, so I knew coming up with something different was the only way to go. Because this cabinet includes a small work area at the top of its base that will, hopefully, be used often, these tools have to endure a bit of shaking around and stay in the mount when they do. That was the reason for the sliding dovetail lock, but I started to think I may be over-building here. I tried a few experiments and found that it didnt take much of a lean backwards to keep the tool from falling forward. I then calculated that if I keep the tool from moving side to side, a ½" lean over a 2½" base was enough to hold it in place through anything short of a hurricane. I was surprised, given I built the cabinet itself with a ½" forward lean over its 6 height. I did this to counter the weight that the tools add to the back wall of it. With this new information, off I went to make some sawdust.
The mount I decided to make was for my Stanley 72, and this is what I came up with...
I ran into this with the mount for the Stanley No.10½, the one I had pondered about for the last year, the one I spent a few weeks on tweaking the design, the one I spent the better part of almost 7-days building and refining, and the one I posted pictures of for the world to see here on my blog.
The day after I posted those photos I thought I would take an hour or so to finish up shaping it and getting it to the point where I could finish sand it. I walked into my office, looked at it, and actually thought my wife had snuck in during the night and changed it on me. The proportions were out of whack, the slider hung out the end like a mis-placed shirt-tail, and the brackets were silly and incorrectly placed. I couldnt believe I could build such a thing, let alone design it.
My first thought was to modify it, but that wouldnt help the proportions, so I knew coming up with something different was the only way to go. Because this cabinet includes a small work area at the top of its base that will, hopefully, be used often, these tools have to endure a bit of shaking around and stay in the mount when they do. That was the reason for the sliding dovetail lock, but I started to think I may be over-building here. I tried a few experiments and found that it didnt take much of a lean backwards to keep the tool from falling forward. I then calculated that if I keep the tool from moving side to side, a ½" lean over a 2½" base was enough to hold it in place through anything short of a hurricane. I was surprised, given I built the cabinet itself with a ½" forward lean over its 6 height. I did this to counter the weight that the tools add to the back wall of it. With this new information, off I went to make some sawdust.
The mount I decided to make was for my Stanley 72, and this is what I came up with...
I just wanted to get this one image up to show those who thought, "What the #$!@ was he thinking?"
Peace,
Mitchell
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