Woodworking

Pegged mortise and tenon joinery. I put together this nerdy video of the process. Had a great time building it.

It was time to purchase new blades for ShopFox 1723 15-in. planer. I started thinking about the price of sharping the blades and the price of a spare set of blades and then wanted to see what sort of price I could get on a spiral cutterhead. I’ll be honest with you, I’ve wanted one for a while now. I loved the idea that you didn’t have to replace the entire blade, only the cutters that needed it, and you didn’t have to do that until you had turned each three times, so you had a lot of life available on the cutters. When I looked at the Grizzly site for replacement heads, there were three options available to me. Two were Grizzly’s and one was from Byrd. After reading the review here on the Byrd, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go with it. Yet, there were other positive reviews. I remembered one of the guys at work mentioning he upgraded his Grizzly with a spiral head, so I asked him what he had. He gave very positive reviews of the Grizzly H7655 he bought. As I was comparing the three, I could tell little difference between the H7655 and the T10128 (except price) and one had 72 cutters vs. 74 cutters. Hmmm… Then I saw them highlighting the German cutters on the T10128. I thought I read it came from Germany. In fact, until it arrived at my door, that’s what I thought. Then I opened up the package and saw the Made in China. Huh? So, I went back to the website and reread the description again. Oh! The cutters were made in Germany. Erm… OK, so what’s the difference between the T10128 and the H7655?? Got me! After kicking myself in the pants for spending extra money I probably shouldn’t have spent, I opened the box and looked at all the cosmoline on the head. So, I broke out the mineral spirits and toothbrush and spent about 20 minutes getting all the cosmoline off the head. The result was quite good. Next, I started reading the instructions for assembling. Just my luck. I didn’t order any replacement bearings or gaskets for my ShopFox. So, the next morning I called Shopfox and they directed me to Fastnal to order the parts. Knowing the ShopFox is just a Grizzly with a paint job, I found the parts I needed and called Grizzly and order the parts. Two days later I had parts and could really start taking the planer apart. Once I got the gearbox open (it was a lot harder than I expected), I started putting on the new bearing on the new cutter head. I had issues putting it on, so I wrapped the head in heavy paper and put the unit in the freezer. The next morning, I was able to coax the bearing to fit properly. The only downside to putting the unit in the freezer is all the moisture that started collecting on the unit. I kept wiping it down, but it was still much cooler than the surrounding air, so moisture keep accumulating. I then broke out my heat gun and kept warming up the unit enough so it stopped sweating. I spent a little time trying to get all the gears back into position, but after a few minutes it all went into place. I was glad I bought a new gasket because when I took the gearbox apart, it fell apart. I turned the unit on the side and started filling the gearbox with new gear oil. That was until I realized that was a bad move since there were four openings at the top that allowed the gear oil to pour out…. grrr… Now I had a workbench covered in gear oil. Man, I hate the smell of gear oil, now I’m sure my shop will smell like it for months. After cleaning up the spilled oil, I put the unit back into the planer. I finished buttoning her up, then came the moment of truth! I grabbed a scrap of mesquite I had laying around and fired up the planer. First thing I noticed is how much quieter the unit was just spinning. Then I fed the wood through the planer. I intentionally left my ear muffs off. Holy cow, I couldn’t believe it. While I don’t plan to make a habit of not wearing ear pro

A few days ago I posted photos of my new TOOL bench. My old WORK bench was just too big for the new garage-shop, so I made this. I really like it. Just took an old desk I got at Habitat for Humanity, raised it up on milled 2×4’s. Glued a layer of ¾ plywood on top and then covered top in hardboard. Fitted the wood vice, drilled the dog holes and made a saw blade storage section in the deep drawer. It is right behind my Unisaw, so I keep all the goodies for the saw right behind me……… real handy. The “gentle” woodworkers on TV gave me the idea of tacking the sanding pads to the end. That also works great. When gluing, finishing, etc, I lay a piece of hardboard white-up on the top of the table. Works great. And, in the back there is plenty of room for me sitting on a high stool……..opening runs the entire width of the bench. Great. I have a retractable power cord mounted on the ceiling and plugged into one of the overhead garage door electrical outlets. The cord drops right down onto the table. LOVE THAT. I keep telling my self I should stain the legs to match the table, but that little project will never make it to the top of the “do” list. $ 10 for the desk$ 10 for the 2×4’s$15 for ½ sheet of plywood$10 for the hardboard$ 11 for the wood vice (school district surplus on-line auction) Total 50-60 bucks. Best……….. Bruce

I have an old powermatic model 66 that I am thinking of getting and fixing up. It is green. It is in good condition with just some rust from about a year of neglect. It has the old style round rails on it. It also has the big extensions to give a much larger table to the right of the blade. How good or bad is this fence system to use and are there any special considerations I should note in using it? I am trying to figure out how much I am going to have to put in the saw if I get it to make it a good saw. It is 3 phase so I know I am gong to need a converter and that is about $400.

Here’s a stand I made for my hot glue gun to end messes. Only two 3/4” plywwod scraps and a tin can required. Finally done. More photos and all construction details on this page of my blog. No more drops, no more mess. Yess! Best, Serge http://atelierdubricoleur.wordpress.com

Mallet turned using Ipe and lots of epoxyDovetailed handle into two pieces of Ipe,Burned lines into wood on the lathe using wire.No its not a wine bottlenice heft and hopefully it won’t blow apart like my previous Ipe mallet.Used only titebond III on that one.

Two sticks hinged at one end and divided by arbitrary sectors provide maths free measurements. As shown, divide a workpiece in four equal parts, for three hooks as example, by setting the 8 values of the tool on the corners of the workpiece, then take measurements between the two 2 values with a stick or a compass divider and apply four equal parts to the workpiece accordingly. More photos and all construction details on this page of my blog. Hope it could help! Best, Serge http://atelierdubricoleur.wordpress.com

I’ve just completed “Standard” mandolin V (i.e. this is 5th mandolin built to this design). If you wish you can read a totally independent review of Standard III by its owner here-Standard III reviewSo, number V has: American Black Walnut back & sides with maple bindings,American Black Walnut neck with maple laminations and carbon-fibre reinforcement stripsEuropean Spruce soundboard with a bound soundhole,You may remember that I’ve introduced a thin black line around the soundboard? Looks good eh?Rosewood, compound radius fingerboard with MoP dots & side markers, and wide gold evo fretsBurr Walnut head overlay with Golden Age tunersIt has an open-pour shellac satin finish.I really like the look of this one and it plays very well too: I only wish I could play better so that I could do it justice in my demo videos! And here is that video:It’s on sale now at 770 GBP which includes a Hiscox case; shipping for the mainland UK is an extra 30 GBP. If you’re interested in owning this mandolin, contact details can be found on my web-site.Nava Website

The Craig’s List ad said there were some old woodworking tools. That’s it. No pictures, no heart-throbbing prose. Still, the garage sale was in an older neighborhood. And close by in case it was a bust. So I fired up my Chili-Red Mini and motored on over. Five minutes and $5.00 later I walked to my car clutching a Disston 16” backsaw, some brass screws and brass l-reinforcing thingies. The saw cost me 300 pennies. A bit of sleuthing on the Disstonian Institutes Website revealed that the saw was born between 1878-1888 per its medallion. Here’s the prize of my quest: As grungy as it looked, I was very happy overall. The top horn was split off but I figured I could find some apple wood to mend it. A Horny SituationIn the interests of expanding my rehab skills, I decided to fix the horn. And to ensure an aesthetically-pleasing repair, I sought out two vintage handles. But that didn’t work out too well. The aged applewood didn’t pair well with either of the two donor handles. So I set them aside to wait for another handle repair. The horn would stay as it was. The RehabI gave the sawplate the usual rehab as I’ve detailed here and here. HandleAfter experiencing a “glassy” look from the use of polyurethane finishes I decided to go with BLO followed by wax. That’s it. I like the natural feel of the wood in my hand. BLO + plus was works pretty well. SharpeningThe original tooth line suffered from calves and cows so I had some evening out to do. I also tried adding some slope to my sharpening for the first time. Here’s the finished rehab. The TestingThis baby has some pleasing heft to it. I also like the longer, 16” length versus my 12” Disston backsaw. I find it easier to keep it true through the cut. And the longer length allows for a longer stroke through the work piece. And here’s a look at the cut finish. So all it took to add a nice user to my saw next was a five-minute drive, three dollars and two fun-filled rehab hours. Not bad for a 125-year old saw. I wonder if 125 years from now (c 2138) some woodworker will get as much pleasure from finding this treasure as I did. I can see her driving up to the garage sale in her fusion-powered Mini Cooper (some things never go out of style.) “I found it among some other tools on a table,” she’ll say to her husband. “And I only had to hand over three $1,000 bills!” Her ever-supportive husband is sure to reply, “What a steal sweetie!” ###

I’m in the middle of an oak trestle table build for my son & DIL, and currently just finished gluing up the top. The top is made from three 17” wide boards, purchased at a local saw mill, and the owner was gracious enough to provide S2S for me on this purchase, as I mentioned to him that my planer is limited to 13”. Even though the top boards are surfaced to 3/4”, I know I’ll need to plane & scrape after glue up to remove all machining marks, so I want to get these two joints as close to perfect as possible without and ridges along them. Making this somewhat difficult is the fact that they are not perfectly flat, having set in my “shop” (a term I use with tongue in cheek – my wife insists it’s a garage, her garage to be exact) for the past 5 months or so since secured. How to do this, especially with my limited resources. First there is glue up with many long cauls: nah – to much extra work needed in making the cauls, buying the wood, protecting these from sticking to the top.So then there is dowels, easy to install, but tricky to get matching holes in the correct place, especially since I do not have a dowel hole drilling jig. I priced one, that then eliminated this procedure, probably won’t ever use it again.Spline, easy to make, a simple 6 ft long strip of wood 1/8” thick and about 3/4” wide. But what about the slot for this?, cut by hand with a plane could be difficult, might wander. Besides, I think a full length spline might be overkill for a one time simple alignment. Actually, I didn’t want to make the splines – by hand.Biscuits! That could be the solution. Priced a biscuit jointer, Nope!, won’t ever be used again, so why spend the money. However ….........If I were to make my own biscuits, and insert into a slot, that might be the solution. So I broke down and purchased a 1/8” slot cutting router bit (which I could possibly use again) with an arbor & bearing. Took it home to experiment with it, and see how it cuts.It cuts alright, fast & furious, and can takeoff on me rather easily. My concern wasn’t so much the length of the slot that this runaway produced, but rather any deviations in locatiion with respect to board thickness. To alieviate this, I added a plywood stabilizer to the router, similar to what I have seen posted as a circle cutter (see phots), and set a one gallon 7 pound bucket of paint on it when in use. This created nice straight slots of exactly 1/8” thickness.Now for the biscuits. I spotted several of those free paint stirring sticks lying in the “shop”, and much to my surprise, the Home Depot sticks are exactly 1/8” thick, and fit the slot with slight pressure upon insertion. NOTE: not to knock Lowe’s paint sticks, but they fit rather loose, being too thin.So now I have slots & biscuits, on the cheap, which suits me fine as there is a good chance I not need to do this again – after two dining room tables for family I’m swearing off such large project. Did you ever lift a 42” X 72” X 1” oak slab? Think I’ll stick to more manageable smaller projects from now on.The following photos with notes show the results, could come in handy for any other thrifty woodworkers looking for a one time alignment problem: Layout of the biscuits on the paint stick, with view of router & stabilizer; Test fit of a biscuit; Biscuits are 7/8” wide; Jointed edge of boards; Final results;