Going thru the Punch List...

Every time you juggle numerous projects at once, you are going to leave some small details for later for the sake of expediency. And even if you, by some miracle, managed to go thru only one project at a time. You are going to leave some unfinished things till later. It's just the way it is (for me anyway).
Say I'm not the only one ? :-)

So eventually, it is time to pony up and face them one by one...
Under the umbrella of my ongoing shop re-organisation, these are all the projects I have currently on the go or still on the drawing boards that requires my attention:

Plane till project
- Need to apply finish to the joiners plane dividers DONE
- Need to secured them in (check longest wooden joiners) DONE
- Need to finish last dividers in second row till, still bare wood DONE

Bench maintenance project
- Need top flattening
- Need planing stop installed

Saw bench project
- Need proper height determined 16 or 19 in??
- Need to adjust feet in consequence
- Tweak holdfast holes for better gripping action (they are working, albeit a bit sticky)
- Find a place to store the removable fence DONE

Moulding Iron sharpening jig project
- Figured out best height for use
- Modify accordingly

Sharpening board project
- Apply poly on wooden parts DONE
- Attach gripper mat with its cleat (still on the fence on this)

Plane till No 2 project
- Apply finish to dividers DONE
- Secured to wall DONE
- Install dividers & load with planes DONE

Saw till project
- Figured out profiles DONE
- Joinery IN PROGRESS
- Machine back beaded boards
- Make drawers
- Make saw dividers (Oak, stained)
- Make saw handle resting board

Sharpening station project
- Finish design
- Power tools purchases?? (Power honer and WS3000)
- Rehab bedside table for a temporary sharpening bench DONE

Bottom cabinet for tool chest
- Get the wheels ON ORDER

Swivel Caster w/Brake, 2" x 2-1/2"(40kg) 00K21.21 $6.40 ea (4)

- Figured out optimum height (subtract 2-1/2 in for casters)

Bob-On-Bench project
- Start requirements
- Inspect parts already done years ago, do they need rectifying?
- Finalize design for base

Drilling storage cabinet
- Start requirements
- Finalize design

Who me a procrastinator? I wrote the book on it once, but never quite finished it :-)
Perhaps you would be thinking, why don't I just finished one before moving one to the next one?
What would be the fun in that?? Besides, did I ever mentioned I get bored easily :-)

If I was growing up today, I would probably be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and whatever else, a touch of  Obsessive Compulsion Disorder (OCD) perhaps :-). Thankfully, I am fully grown up now (just don't ask my wife, she may disagreed on that :-)

Bob, catching up slowly with all the projects I am juggling. Oh, I know what else I need to .....Squirrel ! :-)

Figuring the sides profile of my saw till

Its all about ellipses...

Ellipse are fun to make, so simple once you understand the principles involved, a major and a minor axis are all the measurements you need to make one.

There are numerous ways to make one, including some fancy jig or as simple as a string between two push pins, but really its all about the same two axis, major and minor.

In my case all I need is a quarter of an ellipse.

Desired side profile. You can see that it is made of two 1/4 ellipses of different sizes.

Drawn slightly crooked, but you get the idea.

So all I have to do, is to figured out my axis to fit on my piece. I also have to keep in consideration the height of my piece and where my two rails will land on the profile. Purely for aesthetic reasons.

That should be easy, so off we go gather cardboard, push pins and some strings...

I got corrugated cardboard, and some more of my mint flavoured dental floss. Heh, don't laugh, that stuff is cheap, we both go for clean up twice a year, and they give us that stuff every time :-)
Now, I will admit that corrugated cardboard and dental floss is probably not the best stuff to try, but that's what I got, so...

After some experimenting, this is what I figured out my dimensions would be.

My side pieces are 32 in long, take off 5 in for the bottom drawers and another 5 or so for the bottom of the larger ellipse to start, that give me 22 in to play with.
My smaller top ellipse is roughly 9 in from the top and 3-3/4 in in from the outside edge
At that point I draw another 1 in to separated both and that give me my starting point for the bigger one. Now the fun part start. You may want to get a bottle of Aspirin, and a calculator to follow along...Or if you are really old like me, dust off your slide rule :-)

Bear with me its really not that complicated, it just seems like it. :-)

Long axis 9 in square = 81
Minor axis 3-3/4 in square = 14.0625
Subtract both 81-14,0625 = 66.9375
The root square of 67 (lets keep it simple) is 8-3/16 in long
That is probably an area where metric would be easier as in, it would gave you whole numbers, but, sorry, I am a staunch Imperial kind of guy! QE II was my Commander in Chief after all :-)

Now where is my bottle of Aspirins?

That dimension we just got (8-3/16 in ) is the radius of our major axis for drawing our 9 in ellipse
Draw a line 16-3/8 (twice the length of our 8-3/16) and put a push pin on each end
At the center, draw a perpendicular line 3-3/4 in long and now the real fun start . We need to figured out how long a string we need to hit that 3-3/4 in when the string is taut.

It takes some hit and miss trial to get the string length right

So here's how you do it:
Holding one pin with your free hand down into that corrugated cardboard, because it keep getting loose in no time and screwing up your careful measurements, you hold the other one with your knee, while balancing that bottle of Aspirin in your other hand and pulling the string taut with that same hand. All the while, do not forget to stick out your tongue out of one corner of your mouth and twist it slightly (trust me that help)

Now try to trace that %#@& ellipse without the string riding under the plastic body of the pin, hitting the steel shaft, because that's not where you took your careful string measurements from, remember? NO? take another Aspirin, you need it!

Once you somehow, by the grace of God, managed to draw what look like an passing Ellipse, all you have to do is cut out one quarter of it. Oh, did I mentioned that you did not had to draw the whole thing but only a quarter? If not, blame the Aspirins

Repeat the same procedure for the larger one with the following dimensions
Major radius 13 in and minor 5 in .
169-25= 144, square root = 12 (yes, I purposely picked numbers to gave me whole numbers)

See, there is nothing to it. In no time you would be drawing ellipse with your eyes closed, and your hands tied behind your back, pencil in mouth...promise!

Small ellipse done, making the larger one.

Did I mentioned that dental floss knots are kinda slippery??

Carefully cutting your @#% corrugated cardboard quarter Ellipse, 

you can now try them on for size

Phew, thank God for Aspirins, I now have my two quarter ellipses and I can finally visualize my shapes and finalize (??) my desired profile. Oh, yeah, trust me, I am not cutting any more #$^@ ellipse, these would have to do :-)

The profile is of course off by 5 in since it is sitting on top of the top shelf.

My wife made a remark about my frown line on my forehead, when present it usually indicate that my blood pressure is up, so she asks me if I forgot my meds this AM? No, I did took them, but I suppose they were no match for ellipses :-)

I think I will finish my joinery on the side pieces (Dovetails, open mortises (2), rabbets) before cutting the shape. Just to make it easier to hold the pieces while working on them.
Then it's off to my bandsaw in the garage to cut my profiles then some clean up and should be ready for assembly.

Once assembled, the next part would be to make the beads ship lapped boards for the back. Could have use plywood I suppose, but it is a rather large exposed surface, rather make it look nice :-)

Bob, satisfied with whatever small progress I made on the saw till, and made a small dent in my other projects punch list...Now looking for a cold beer, I need one, oh yeah! :-)

Yard work and some more polyurethane coats

It is getting pretty hot and humid around here, quite a shift in weather. Our furnace as been off for a little while, only to be fired a few hours in the morning to take the morning chill off.
Well since yesterday, I think that the AC units will go up soon from their storage...
If we stay here for a while, I can see a heat/cooling pump in our near future...

We had our furnace serviced today, and I figured I better start early to rake the back of the yard and then to cut the grass front and back, before the high temps shows up. By the time I finished, it was about time. Between the heat and the darn mosquitoes, that I have somehow pissed off, I was dreaming of smelling poly fumes in my cool shop...Yes, that bad...:-)

So today, very little shop time except for the occasional rub of another wipe on poly coat. Should be done shortly. Tomorrow and this weekend we have company, so today I am on house clean up duties :-) I don't think that my saw till is gonna see any progress except to make decisions on profile?

Bob, in between bathrooms clean-up :-)

A proper base for my tool chest

Another in a continuing series of long overdue projects...

My tool chest is currently resting on a large Rubbermaid container. Although it is doing the job, it is ill fitting and ugly, it deserved better.

I am not quite sure of the final height yet, the current one on this plastic container is OK, but I need to experiment to find my optimum height. It should not interfere with material resting on the bench, so it cannot be taller, yet it should be high enough for me to have easy access to the tools within without too much contortions or bending, that is a back killer for me.

One of my requirement is that the whole contraption fit under the plane till. I will also put the base cabinet on wheel for ease of storage. So those wheels height need to be factored in. I should get my wheels first.

The Schwarz published a timely article on a similar bottom chest for his Dutch tool chest.
This will be my starting point for my design. I hate to waste the space under, so I may incorporate accessible storage within. Removable front panel, drawers? Not sure yet.
My designs evolves as I get nearer construction and try various experiments.

Image from Chris article referenced.

The bottom chest depicted is my starting point.

As I mentioned earlier, I need some sort of compact tool chest for travelling. So either that small joiner chest or build a Dutch tool chest. One big limitation of my current small joiner chest is its small length, preventing storage of longer handsaws and jointer planes.  Panel saws and Stanley No 6 fit within, so it is not really a deal breaker. Yet there are times when  I wish I could bring my saw bench and handsaws on the road.

So I may built that bottom unit with a future Dutch tool chest in mind?? Who knows?

Slow day today, not much shop time and just applying poly to a bunch of pieces...
Slowly working on my projects punch lists.

Bob, now juggling 4 projects, time to finished some :-)

My new Apple watch with the big fonts for the old man.

Thankfully I got the Air model, so it is a bit less weight :-)

Revisiting my sharpening station plans

A little while back, I posted about my initial requirements for my upcoming dedicated sharpening station. I have yet to figured out how I am going to keep it to a manageable size to fit in my shop, but I just got a revelation!

While waiting for such a beast to materialize, I built a dedicated sharpening board. I tried hard to keep the size down, in order to keep it portable, but nonetheless, I used it and its always in the way or need to be moved somewhere else around my shop.

In preparation for the joinery work on the saw till, I had to once more moved it, but I want to keep it accessible so it could be used.

With the ongoing paint work that was going on with the plane till No 2, I was running out of flat surface to put it on. That's when I re-discovered a previous unfinished project that fit the bill nicely.
Drawer need finish trimming, it is a bit sticky right now, need a new door to install, my coped door blew a corner (raised panel was a tad too tight fit) and put on the back panel, secure the top, put a finish on it, hardware and Tada!.. Almost done I'll say :-)

It is a bedside table cabinet with one drawer and a bottom door. It just so happened that this is the actual project that we used at the wood shop when we run our yearly course to attract new members.

Yes, some of my brightest ideas comes to me after a beer :-)

We used it to teach them going from rough lumber to finished dimensions, making cut list, gluing up larger boards, rabbet, dado joinery, dovetail (with a router jig, sacrileges! I did mine by hand of course) Coped frame and raise panel door on the shaper.
It is a good intro project to cover a multitude of operations, teach them how to safely used our machinery and keep the cost down.

About 3 years ago, me and a friend decided to go thru the course together, as a way to get ourselves back into the shop and woodworks. It was a fun time, we were the only two male students...and class's clown... well, Dave, not me :-)

My friend is now the vice-president of the club, and I am the secretary, so I guess we stick with it :-)

My sharpening board fit nicely on top and it gives me storage in the drawer for all the small ancillary stuff, like honing guide, jig, angle setter etc.

And the large bottom cabinet could hold my power honer or WS3000, if and whenever I buy them?

It has a couple drawback, first of all, it is a tad low and would kill my back quickly using it standing in front of it. That could be remedied by putting it on wheels and using a chair in front?

It is of course too small to put on grinders and all on it, but I need a place to leave my sharpening board set up, ready to go, so I think I will try that set up for a while, see how it goes.

I can however clamp my small hand grinder on the side of the sharpening board, so I should be all set for a while, until I get around to build a dedicated sharpening station.

Once I do that, I think I may re-purpose this cabinet for a mitre saw station (to accommodate one of my 3 mitre saw boxes)

Bob, getting "inspired" and coming up with new bright ideas...:-)

Plane till No 2 completed

Awaiting paint to dry, back has been cut and primed/painted also and the French cleats are ready.
Once dry, the back will go on, and it would be hung by the bigger plane till
   

Back on, screwed, and French cleat is screwed and glued.

Should be strong enough...

Up on the wall, at last...

It is just resting on the French cleats, not screwed in the wall yet.

Also need to put in the bottom spacer on the wall, it is just friction fit right now.

Still need the dividers to receive a coat of oil finish

But at least now, I can really visualize the saw till space and scale. Now would be a good time to figured out my design on the saw till side pieces.

I just put in the two side pieces with the top shelf piece in the dadoes. Without the bottom piece which would be dovetail in the side pieces, hence I have the correct height

I need that to finalize my middle rail location, the height of the handle rest bar, and final height  of till. I have decided that it would be  OK to go past the plane till a couple  of inches in order to make a different edge treatment look OK beside it? But I need to visualize it in situ, before I commit.

My longest handsaw and back saw (mitre saw) resting on a 4 in piece 

A selection of backsaws

I think I will keep that height, past the plane till, and center the middle rail, 

the top one would be flush with the top. Right now they are cut at 4 in wide, maybe I'll reduce the middle one to 3 in ?

Now I need to figured out my side profile. I'll do a cardboard cut out to experiment.

In the mean time, I can start the dovetail joinery on the bottom part and the side pieces.

One thing that I am wondering are the drawers (3) height location, are they too high to be useful?

Bob, still refining his design on the fly.

Saw till progress

All my required stocks has been glued up, and machined to size, dadoes joinery done, the parts are now back home, awaiting the dovetail joinery and the thru mortise & tenons, rabbets, all to be cut by hand.

My saw till in kit form, some assembly required :-)

In the end, I did not recycle my left over piece from the plane till.

I haven't decided yet what shape I will put on the sides.

In preparation, I cleared the spot on the wall next to the original plane till that started it all

I just put on one of the French cleat resting on 2 screws on the wall, 

to get an idea of the size. Yah, it is going to be big :-)

This is going to be one big wall of tools. I really like the look of it shaping up. I can easily spent a couple beers watching it at the end of the day, to take it all in. Ah, the life of a retiree :-)

Plane till no 2 has been cleaned up, awaiting its coat of primer, then paint.

Must also coat the dividers with finish,.

At the same time, I'll attend to the unfinished ones for the other plane till

 and the joiners plane dividers pieces on the ramp part. 

Managed one last thing on the plane till today, got a new can of primer and started on it
That's when I realized, I somehow forgot about making the back piece today, oops!

Who says weekly flyers are no longer useful?

Joinery is next
- Dovetail bottom of till
- Thru mortise for back rails
- Rabbets for back boards
- Dry fit
- Glue up

- Make beaded boards for back

- Make 3 drawers (thru & half-blind dovetails)
- Make handle rest board
- Make saw kerfs boards (2) (oak)
- Make backing board (ply) for behind drawers

- Prime & paint
- Install French cleats
- Put up on the wall, done!

Well, that would be done for that project, there are a few more coming up...

Bob, starting to see the end of his shop re-organization...maybe :-)

Finishing work on Plane till No 2, then Saw till

The plane till No 2 came out of the clamp pretty good, there is just one spot where I did not see and could have use a clamp to close up my dovetail vertically in one corner, about 1 tails, no biggie, still is plenty square and the dividers lines up, I'm happy.

Today I attend to the  boards for the saw till, glued up some more, should have all my pieces accounted for (?) and made the French cleats for both till cabinets, they are the same width.

A quick touch up with planes follow by a light sanding, will complete the work and it will be ready for its first coat of prime, awaiting its lovely "Inhibited" colour :-)

I also made some more dividers, these 8 I got were my spares for the other till, and one was stained a darker colour, which I did not went for, so, could uses some more.

That is about all I have plan for the day, my back is now killing me....

The last thing to do for the plane till, is the back panel, which would be primed and painted before going on.


Bob, who should have Plane till No 2 up shortly and Saw till will start in earnest soon.

Honing guide setting jig finished and Plane till No 2 is cooking

First up to bat today was finishing my honing guide setting jig. I set up my mortise chisels in the guide and checked the angle flat on the slab of polished stone, once the bevel is flat on it and the chisel is well seated in the guide, wheel contacting solidly the tile surface also, that is the angle I want to reproduce.

Narex, 25 degrees

Pigsticker 30 degrees

I then simply push the set chisel in the guide against the setting jig and install the stop against it..

Using my Veritas angle checker I measured both my Narex mortise chisels and my pigsticker chisels since they both had different bevel angles.

The Narex are ground at 25 and the Pigsticker at 30 degrees.
My stop blocks are labelled to avoid confusion; Narex and Pigsticks.

The final touch was to attached the thin spacer to kick all these preset angles about 2 degrees for a micro bevel, if so desired. I did not do as recommended by Chris and give the jig a French Polish, but I did used mint flavored dental floss to attached it! Hope this will do, to appease the Schwarz :-)

Next it was time to finished the joinery  on the Plane till parts.
It is kind of useless trying to balance a long board on a small one, so I simply secured the top and bottom boards in turn vertically to the bench and use my Bessey corner clamp to hold it at 90 and securely to the other board.

I shine my bench lite under to help set the baseline.

The short board is held at 90 degrees, I checked with a try square

I use a pencil line which I then just split or leave the line when I saw with my dovetail saw.

I found the secret to blade longevity with these thin fret blades, is to not let the blade overheat too fast, or it then become stretch and bend. I then stop after about 3 sockets, let it cool off a bit then resume.

Slow and steady win this race.

Got my chisels sharpened and the joinery finished, now its time to do a dry fit, and check how the planes will fit. Last minute chance before I glue it.

Yes, they fit like I thought, good to go.

Just to make sure it does not get out of skew on me, I'll put in 2 dividers in each row while it is being clamped.

If I get these 8 dividers slots to align, the rest will for sure and that is my primary objective, not necessarily perfectly square. Reasonably square for sure, but I can always tweak the outside of the cabinets with a few judiciously placed plane's swipes. Results; the dividers will go in without problems, it will fit squarely to its mate's till, and it will look like it is straight ...from across the street :- )

Once dried, it will be cleaned up with my plane and chisels as required
Next it will be primed and painted, the same color. Remember its name?

How could you forget, such a name ? :-)

I still think it is a bit pale, I would like it a tad darker perhaps... but its OK, its growing on me, either that or I'm not noticing, my wife reminds me sometimes that " I am so observant!?"
Oh, you got an haircut?? :-)

Next, I need to cut and install one part of the French cleats on the wall. I want to make the bottom of this till in line with the larger plane till.

The remaining space on top of my new till to the top of the bigger till will be occupied by my upcoming saw till.

Now it is time to turn my attention back to the saw till.

Bob, thinking ahead to the next project after the saw till ... :-)