Sand Table Assembly

The sand table was assembled and used for East Kingdom battle planning during the Pennsic War this year. I completed the parts just before leaving on vacation, stained them in camp during the first days I was there, and then assembled them into a sandbox on legs the following day. Here are all the parts, ready for assembly:

The key pieces where the legs, which I had pocket screwed together with the Kreg pocket hole jig. Each leg has a shelf that makes assembly easier and helps support the weight of the sand. Each of the side pieces has a ledge that is glued and screwed on. These sit flush with the top of the leg shelves, and the sides screw directly to the legs:

The addition of a lower stretcher makes the table side stable:

The second side slides into place much like a puzzle piece:

Installing the additional sides and stretchers makes a solid pedestal for the table:

A plywood bottom slides in to create the sandbox:

Five bags of sand filled the box:

A plywood top makes a functional table when the sand table is not in use.

The project was a success. The only thing that needs changing for next year is more or better sealant for the box (especially the lid). Moisture from the sand caused the table top to curl upward a little at the corners, and made the bottom swell enough that it took some force to knock it out at the end of the two weeks. Both of those problems should be corrected after a year of dry storage.

Kreg Pocket Hole Jig / Shop tricks

My new "cool tool" was bought specifically for a project: a Kreg Pocket Hole Jig. I'm not keen on glue and screw construction, because it seems like cheating, but this time I had a temporary table to build for use outdoors. Pocket holes seemed like the right idea.

I had never used one of these before, but after this project I'll feel comfortable using it whenever it is needed. And it was a GREAT purchase: the jig works like they say it will work, and the precision was in all the right places. The drill bit is super sharp (I think you really could cut yourself on it pretty easily) and fits with perfect clearance into the jig. The table legs went together quickly and seem super sturdy. I may comment further after the table has spent two weeks outdoors.

Notice the two silver containers in the front. My wife buys Lush bathroom products, which are super expensive as soaps go, but they do tend to give her these little silver canisters. These fit perfectly into the spaces of the box, and keep some screws with the jig.
First: no, I am not actually ripping this board this way, that would be dangerous. The saw is just perched there while I took the picture. As part of the project, I had to cross cut some boards that were too long for my bench.

Two clever things (I think) are going on in this picture. First, the pink thing under the board: this is some foam insulation left over from siding the house. It gave me a sacrifice table to prevent damage to my bench. Even though the bench is functional, not beautiful, saw cuts in the surface would be a problem. This trick worked beautifully.

Second, notice the baby gate in the background. I don't have an outfeed, saw horse, or any other dedicated table extension, and I knew I needed something. The baby gate became my table extension: it adjusted to the height I needed and had a surface I could clamp to the board I was cutting. This worked great, and until I have another solution I won't allow that to be sold or given away.

I'm off on vacation for the next two weeks, so no posts from me. I'm hoping to catch sight of a spring pole lathe and some coopering while I'm gone. We'll see what happens. I plan to take a picture of the table once it is set up, and if I manage that I'll post when I get home.

Until my return, may your the saws of your enemy be dull.

Moving Fillister and Painting Project

As my big summer vacation approaches, I have less time to write. There is such a limited time to complete the projects I have. So I'm going to let pictures speak for me. First: the moving fillister arrived. Perhaps the blades need honing, as Patrick said, but they are the sharpest blades I've ever received on a used tool. The previous owner obviously used this tool, and cared for it well.

Second (and unrelated to woodworking): I've been working on the new shield (someday I'ld like to try making one of these using bent laminated wood, but right now it is T6 aluminum that has been curved with an English Wheel and covered with glued-on canvas).

I'll be working on this for a few more days, finishing the painting, shellacking over it and rigging it to fit comfortably on my arm. The painting you see took me most of yesterday afternoon. What remains is painting the white areas with the finish paint (what you see is the gesso) and touching up of some of the lines. I'm really happy with how this looks; it will be a shame to see it scuffed once I put it to use.

Fettling a Jointer Plane

My shop contains few working power tools. I'm not really a Neanderthal, but the shop has developed accidentally with an emphasis toward hand tools. This is partly because of my penchant for getting things used or free, and partly just bad luck.

For example, I would love to have a working jointer, but the little bench top model I bought for a "bargain" was setup incorrectly by its previous owner, and so far I've been unable to release the blades to adjust them properly (the man must have been a beast, because those screws are not budging, even after multiple WD-40 and Kroil applications). There's no point in trying to joint with blades that are set out of square.

I believe learning a task with hand tools teaches me more about power tools than learning it with power tools teaches me about hand tools. This may or may not prove useful some day, but I've been betting that it will. Hand tools also fettle more quickly than power tools (are power tools fettled?). My band saw, for example has much larger parts and labor requirements before it works to a fine standard than a any bench plane will.

So when it came time to glue up the bench tops for my bench project and I had a choice between driving the three hour round trip to my friend's house to use his power jointer or spending the time fettling my jointer plane and doing it by hand, you can guess which one I chose.

The plane had promise, but it needed some help.

My sole aim was to have both sides of the mouth in the same plane. Right, well even if the puns are unintended, I wanted to make sure the front and back of the mouth would contact any board I'm flattening. To ensure that, I made reference marks in front of and behind the mouth using a Sharpie and started flattening the plane on my "reference" surface.

The reference surface is a cutoff piece of marble that I got free at from a local granite counter manufacturer. It works well as a flattening surface and is heavy enough to hold a length of Klingspor Gold Cloth Roll under the ends using just gravity as an adhesive. The Klingspor sand paper is fairly expensive, especially at this width, but it is so worth the cost. It can be torn to an appropriate length using just a straight edge, it has a good tooth, and you can vacuum it clean and keep using it for quite a while.

With the plane assembled—no blade of course—I planed the surface flat on the sand paper. Here it is: flat enough, with just a hint of the mark left at the front of the mouth (all of that is in a scratch pattern that would take ages to sand flat, so I called it "flat enough").


The blade had apparently been sharpened and polished by its previous owner on a grinder with a felt wheel. Even though it looked good with a finely polished surface, it wasn't good. I had to flatten, square, joint, and resharpen the blade to get it going right.

I'm not going to comment on how this was done, except to say that I don't have a grinder (remember my lack of power tools?) so almost all of this was done on the Gold sandpaper. Ages ago I had purchased a sharpening jig from Lee Valley, and this made it easier to redefine the bevel at the correct angle. I also acquired a really thin metal ruler last year, which made polishing the back of the blade much easier than it might have been: I used the David Charlesworth trick of laying the ruler on one side of the oil stone to hold the back of the blade at a consistent angle and focus the polishing on the end of the blade. It was the first time I had done this, and it worked wonderfully. I'll cheerfully do it again when flattening plane blades, which don't get used as reference surfaces.

After honing on the oil stone, I hoped for the best. And fine, frothy shavings emerged. Success. I was ready to start jointing.

Research on Waterproofing Wooden Furniture

I'm working on a pair of knock-down benches on a design by my friend Sean. These are being built with the ash I purchased last fall. I've finished gluing up the tops in one big panel that will be ripped down for two bench tops and one or two stretchers (as yet to be determined) Once the cutting gets under way, these should come together in under a day.

Since the benches are intended as camping equipment, and last year's two-week camping trip included 6 consecutive days of rain, I need to waterproof these appropriately. Some quick research turned up a couple sources.

First, from the U.S. Government, I found a short piece on finishing wood for outdoor use. This one sticks with traditional Big Box finishes—paints, stains, and varnishes—rating them on appropriate use. This gave me some thought: did I want to paint the benches, as this article suggested. Not really. And Ash wasn't on the list of recommended outdoor woods. Hmm.

So I started thinking about wooden boats, and my trip to Mystic Seaport last year. What would a boat builder do? Assuming that a boat builder would use ash in the first place. I turned up two more sites of interest: one about spar varnish and the other about a homemade polymer coating. As intriguing as the homemade option is, I think I'm planning to track down some spar varnish. I found three brands that seemed promising: Sutherland Welles, Man O'War, and Z Spar. I think one of these will end up on the benches.

If anyone has suggestions or cautions on finishing these benches correctly, please chime in.

The Promise of Pinch Dogs

This week I conducted a quick experiment: I jointed a couple of warped scrap bits to see how the pinch dogs I received last Christmas would work. The first thing I learned is that pinch dogs want roughly even surfaces: I knew they could go around corners (for mitered joints or more difficult multi-angle glue-up), but it didn't seem likely that they would work on the ends if the surfaces were not relatively coplanar.

Out came the hand saw (it was late and children were sleeping) and I cut down the longer board to roughly the same length as the shorter board. Then I smeared both edges with glue and started pounding in pinch dogs.

Thats when I learned that this tool could benefit from a little help when being applied. I would have liked to have a couple straight pieces of wood clamped together on each end of the work piece to keep the boards in the same plane. It also would have worked better if the boards were lightly held in place on the bench and had not been cupped (and therefore more like a rocker than a pedestal).

Even with these challenges, I managed to clamp the boards using these glorified staples, and set the assembly aside to dry. That was Monday night. When I came back to it this evening, I set it on the bench and it looked like the picture at the top of the page. The joint looked tight in spite of the trouble I had during glue up, but the rough cut surfaces and misaligned edges could be hiding the reality.

To get a closer look at the joint, I planed the surface down until the joint was revealed. Sure enough, the pinch dogs had done their job and held the joint tight. If you look closely at the picture below, you might see the joint, but it is tightly glued. The holes are visible where two pinch dogs held the joint together on the surface, but there will be many projects where that holes like that will be concealed. I expect to use these for the bench project I'm working on now: the holes won't be visible on the underside of the benches, and I've rough cut the stock long enough that I can trim off the ends after glue up.

Pile of Boxes and Warping Lid

I went to an event that had a marvelous door prize: 18 boxes made by my friend Sean. These were intended as prizes for a tournament, but there were only 23 entrants total, so almost everyone went home with a box. These boxes were made from some of the ash purchased at the same time as my stock pile.

As a member of one of the tournament teams, I came home with one of these boxes. It sat in my front hallway for the last four days, looking pretty. But now that the heat and humidity have returned to normal levels, the lid and front side are starting to cup away from the box. In part, I think this is a case of grain orientation; in part, a case of excessive moisture. I've taken the box into the basement and lightly misted it with water on the cupped sides. I've also cracked the lid to get the inside drying faster. I don't know if either of these actions will help, but it's worth a try.

Now I'm worrying about the benches I'm making, and hoping that the better treatment of my lumber (painted ends and tarp over top) will mean less moisture content. I did some research to see if you can figure moisture content without a meter, and found a method for calculating moisture content with an oven and a scale.

Perhaps I'll try it before building my benches.

Counting My Blessings

I'm blessed with a very full life and a variety of interests. As a result, nothing gets as much attention as I would like and woodworking shares its favored slot with many other pursuits. This week's schedule illustrates what I mean:

Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Drive to upstate New York to camp and engage in some medieval armored combat and socializing with friends.

Monday
Work on the dovetailed box, but also mow, weed, and edge the lawn, play kick with my nephews, cook for and clean up after a barbecue, shower the kids, have family movie night, and facilitate bed time (a time consuming endeavor included in every night when I'm at home).

Tuesday
Work followed by Karate training. Home and showered by 10 p.m.

Wednesday
Work followed by medieval armored combat practice. Get sucked into the end of the Red Wings and Celtics games. Home and showered by 2 a.m.

Thursday
Work followed by Ballet pickup (daughter 1) followed by bed time. Maybe glue up that box at last.

Friday
Work followed by family movie night followed by packing for the weekend.

Saturday
Drive to even further upstate New York for my grandmother's 90th birthday party. Socialize and camp the night.

Sunday
Socialize, take down camp, and drive the five hours home. Maybe start bevelling the box lid and cutting the thumb notch.

I suppose this explains why my list of completed projects seems so short and my list of planned projects seems so long. I think about woodworking quite a lot, but I can't do much of it: too many other things compete.

Dovetailed Box - Progress Report

I continued work on the box as much as possible this weekend (amidst a two day camping trip, yard work, and a barbecue):

• All sides of the bottom, and the insides of the box sides have been finished with two coats of tung oil finish and a coat of lightly buffed wax.
• My maker's mark has been stamped in the bottom.
• The profile on the top sections of the box sides has been beveled. One of the bevels is slightly steeper than the other two, but trying to correct this would just cause problems. It looks fine as it is.
• I cut pine blocks that fit the tail fingers of the ends. These will be used to protect the box from the clamps I will use to set the box square and keep it that way until dry.
• I set out the clamps and set them to the right size for the project, cut a paper cup (both for a glue dish AND glue spreaders), and laid out the parts: ready to glue (possibly tomorrow night).

In all, I'm happy with the progress, but I'm anxious to finish so I can move on to the bench project. I want the benches for Mid-July for a test run, and I don't have much free time between now and then.

First Quality Ash: Surfacing Reveals a Treasure

Back in November I wrote about picking up what I hoped was top quality ash (firsts and seconds). It was rough cut, so even though my first impression was that it was a bargain at 95¢ a board foot, I couldn't be sure. This isn't a great shot, but here's what it looked like then:

A few weekends ago I pulled about 5 boards for a bench project (more on that later). I marked out the lengths I needed for rough cuts and set to work jointing, chopping, ripping, and planing. When the work was done, I was very happy with my purchase. Here's what those 5 boards look like now:

I don't know what I expected, but this is better than I imagined. The wood has been in the shop acclimatizing for a couple weeks. I'll soon start glue up for benches that are real furniture, but break down entirely. These will replace the cheap folding camp chairs we have to replace every other year.

Chuck Bender's New Blog

I just stumbled across a blog by Chuck Bender, who runs the Acanthus Workshop. He has started posting step by step as he builds an Oxbow chest. Already in the two main posts Chuck has introduced a couple of techniques that had not occurred to me, including the modification of router bits to create a custom profile, and erasing part of a profile with a well set straight bit.

The blog is called Parings - A woodworker's journal. Check it out.

Dovetailed Box #4: Dulled Chisel and Mis-cuts

Last night I retreated to the shop to work on box #4. I hope to complete this and two others before the end of June. The first two joints went incredibly well, but joint number three has become an opportunity to learn.

Lately I've been cutting tails first, and this box is no exception. I checked the tails for square and fixed any that were off. Then I marked the pins using an Xacto knife (a recent Fine Woodworking review rated this as the best value in marking knives. The reviewer was right: an Xacto works brilliantly, especially compared to the mechanical pencil I had been using).

At this point I felt good. The pin layout looked great, with crisp lines. The waste areas were marked to prevent my making more tails where I needed pins. I had even caught an error made during initial layout, where I had marked the wrong side match up on the end piece. This could have been a disaster, resulting in an Escher box with two bottoms.

In fact, the first cut looked great: I had matched it exactly to the knife line and followed the inside edge of the marked pin exactly. A moment's satisfaction and I was ready to make the second cut. That's when I realized: I had cut on the wrong side of the knife line. I didn't cut waste. The joint was guaranteed to have a saw-width gap there, just waiting for repair.

I could have quit then, but I hate to stop work when I've just made a mistake. It leaves me sour, and depressed. So I calmed myself and planned out how to patch this with one of the waste pieces. Then I settled in to complete the pins. The rest of the night brought some challenges, but nothing as painful as that initial miscut. I finally had to stop when I realized the chisel was dull. I'm not sure how I managed it, but I must have knocked the cutting edge into the holdfast. There is visible flat spot on one side, but the rest of the edge looks good. Tonight I expect to be sharpening for a while to get that out. Now I wish I already had a grinder...

Fixed the Front Door Lock

Sometimes there's just time for life and all woodworking becomes a fix-it project. This morning it was extremely cold and our front door lock wouldn't lock from the outside. I looked at it and decided that the wooden door had contracted enough that the strike plate was plate was no longer positioned properly. Wood movement in action.

Thanks to a short conversation with my brother's neighbor, a professional carpenter, I thought I understood shimming well enough to fix this quickly. I removed the strike plate, cut a thin piece of cardboard (about 1/16" thick, and 1/4" wide), put it into the position under the corner of the strike plate nearest the door. In theory, this would create a fulcrum to force the holes of the plate closer to the door. I screwed the strike plate back in and turned the lock. Turns out I had the mechanics right: the door locks now and I did it all before breakfast.

We'll see if I have the opposite problem when it gets warm out and the door expands.

Sketching with Wood: Temporary Walls

Today I helped Michael Dowling build part of his Medicine Wheel installation art exhibit. To create the space, we assembled temporary wall sections and stood them where they were needed. I do this almost annually, and find I feel like I'm sketching with wood, because it is so fast and loose. The structure is temporary; it doesn't need to meet building codes; so we make it all out of strapping and hardboard, as shown above. The strapping is screwed together into a rigid frame, and the hardboard is tacked on with wire brads.

Michael uses the hardboard as one type of canvas, painting or otherwise decorating the surface ahead of time in his studio. The frames are assembled on site, and the prepared hardboard sometimes has to be attached in a specific order. Once panels are assembled, we start placing them where they belong, screwing the panel edges together and bracing the tops by attaching strapping braces either to other temporary wall panels, or to the gallery structure.

I'm always amazed at how sturdy this becomes, when the panels are initially such flimsy material. Picture it as a sort of live Sketchup session, with these panels as components. Fun, and a great way to work off the Thanksgiving turkey.

100 Board Feet of 4/4 Bandsaw Milled Ash

Last night's adventure was a lumber run to Ashby. I brought $95 with me to purchase project wood at what promised to be a great price. The choice was between 200 board feet of 2nd, or 100 board feet of 1st quality Ash. Sean and I arrived a little bit later than expected and the light was fading, but there was enough light to see piles of drying lumber everywhere: a kind of wonderland for woodworkers. All of it was bandsaw milled to 4/4 (if only there had been some 8/4 and 12/4, but beggars can't choose).

On looking at the 2nd quality lumber, I could see there was much more splitting than in the 1st, and for the projects I have in mind 200 board feet would be much more than needed. So I bit the bullet and paid a little more than twice the price to get 100 board feet of first quality ash. On getting it back to the barn, I could see that I had made the right choice: Sean picked up 300 board feet of the 2nd, and while it was great quality, there were plenty of knots and splits to work around. There is very little splitting and almost no knots in my pile.

The picture above is what $95 got me: a little bit more than 100 board feet all stickered and in out of the weather. There are two boards that look to be 12" wide, five or six that look to be 10" wide, and most of the rest are over 8" wide.

From what I've seen, Ash isn't the prettiest wood, but I might be surprised when the milling and shaping is done. I'm keeping an open mind, and will choose the finish depending on what I see when the work is done. Paint is on the list of possibilities.

17 Board Feet of Maple: Furniture Build-Off

What can you do with 17 board-feet of maple? The idea intrigues me. Could you build a bench like the one shown here? A glass topped coffee table? A side table? A bookshelf? A wall cabinet?

For those who don't know, the board foot is a rough wood measure of 12 inches x 12 inches x 1 inch of wood. You don't need to keep those dimensions, though. You can halve one dimension and double another, for example. So one board foot could be 12" x 12" x 1", or 24" x 6" x 1", or 12" x 6" x 2", or many other combinations with the same volume.

With that in mind, 17 board feet could be a 17-foot long, 12-inch wide, 1-inch thick plank, or a 16.5-foot long, 6-inch wide, 4-inch thick post. It sounds like quite a bit of wood, but you won't be building an armoire with it, or a chest of drawers, or a dining room table. This puzzle has infinite solutions, but limited size.

Why am I asking this today? Because I stumbled upon the Fine Woodworking Furniture Build-Off and it captured my imagination. This is a challenge I would love to meet. I'm adding it to the Someday Maybe section of my project list, and even if I don't participate I'll remember the principle: a limitation can be inspiration.

Photo courtesy of the Wikimedia commons and Aaron Morse

My New Three Project Limit

At Zenhabits.net Leo posted his Haiku Productivity principle of working just three simultaneous projects. The principle makes sense to me: three woodworking or shop upgrade projects should be numerous enough to keep me actively moving forward yet few enough to keep me focussed rather than overwhelmed.

I've updated The Drawing Board to allow only three current projects, and I've dubbed them "The Three Graces" because all wood shop projects deserve mythical stature and renaissance charm. Anyone who has paid attention to the project page in the past will notice several projects formerly on my Current Projects list are now in Someday Maybe. These include the inkle loom prototype, woodcuts 2, bed repairs, and dovetailed candle boxes. I'm sure they'll all be taken up soon, but not until one of The Three Graces has been completed.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and copyright Mak Thorpe, 1999.

New Blade and Continued Adjustments

I've continued work on setting up the Radial Arm Saw, and it is getting close to complete. On Wednesday morning I picked up a new blade (8 1/2" thin-kerf finishing blade, appropriately from DeWalt) and I'm anticipating the first cuts (which will be on the MDF for the sacrifice table top).

Last night I continued adjustments to the machine so that it will be precise in its cuts. First, I adjusted the 90° setting by pulling out my combination square, releasing the clamp for lateral adjustment, and carefully aligning the blade trajectory with the square. I think this came out well, but we'll get to test it once the sacrifice table is on.

Then I started making the first of two horizontal blade settings: front to back. This took a while because I misunderstood what Wally Kunkel was describing in his book, Mastering the Radial Arm Saw. I found the three allen screws on the yoke, loosened them as described, and spent a while wondering how this was supposed to modify the angle from side to side. Once I realized that I was supposed to be monitoring the front to back angle, I could actually judge my progress and I got the saw blade lightly touching the reference block on both front and back, as shown in the photograph above.

Next (and perhaps last) I will be adjusting the side to side angle so that the horizontal blade setting will parrallel the table in all axes (plural of axis, not plural of chopping implements). Hopefully I'll get some time Sunday after our camping trip.

Woodcut Preparations

Against all expectations, woodcuts top my project list. My friend, Bill, offered his printing facilities and his help in creating some type-height blanks (.918199 inches tall). Boxwood, Pear, or Pine are commonly used, and another friend, Sean, offered a piece of boxwood.

The boxwood turned out to be a bit narrow for the blank size I intended. I cut the board in half, jointed the sides, and glued the parts into a plank of adequate width. I found hand jointing a little tricky: what seemed like a a slight crown kept appearing at the center of the boards. After about an hour of planing, testing, swearing, and planing some more I thought to check for wind. Sure enough: either the board started with wind, or I had introduced it. That turned out to be most of the problem. The next day I breezed into the shop, spent 10 minutes on glue up and was done.

Building the Radial Arm Saw Table

One common reason why woodworkers don't like their radial arm saws is the condition or quality of the table being used for a worksurface. Gauranteed, if the saw has been used more than a few times, the table top has saw kerfs in it that compromise its flatness and functionality. A well-built replacement table eliminates that headache and adds to the usability of the tool.

Construction started yesterday on the table for my radial arm saw. The design comes from Wally Kunkel's book, How to Master the Radial Arm Saw, which can be found at www.mrsawdust.com.

Here's a summary of the construction: one 3/4" and one 1/2" layer of best quality plywood laminated together with steel supports epoxied into cut slots—this adds rigidity to the table and has the added benefit of keeping the layers lined up. On the front section, where saw kerfs generally become a problem, glue or tack down a replaceable layer of 1/4" MDF.

Properly done, the sub-table should be flat and rigid enough that the table can be used as a reference surface (just like on a table saw), and the MDF skin protects the structure and allows easy repair whenever the surface gets too dicey for accurate work.

Knock-down Stool by Mike Lyon

Check out this knock-down stool, designed and built by Mike Lyon. This is a beautiful piece of design and workmanship. Since I'm planning to build knock-down furniture for camping (beds, tables, and chests) the method of assembly is especially interesting.

My other major inspiration for knock-down furniture is Viking Bed Design.

1/4" Hardboard: extinct?

The local big box stores have stopped carrying 1/4" hardboard. It now seems to be a choice of 3/16" hardboard or 1/4" MDF. So I've substituted 1 @ 2' x 4' x 1/4" MDF on the list of radial arm saw table parts.

Radial Arm Saw Table

With the help of my friend Sean, the parts list for the Radial Arm Saw table is complete:

1 @ 24" x 48" x 3/4" Finnish Birch Plywood
1 @ 24" x 48" x 1/2" Finnish Birch Plywood
1 @ 24" x 48" x 1/4" Tempered Hardboard
3 @ 6' x 1/8" x5/8" Steel Strips
Bottle of Wood Glue (at last, something I have just lying around)
2-3 packages of 2 part Epoxy.

I also need to check how the old table is attached. I might need 4-6 threaded inserts for mounting the table. The list is the easy part: now I need to run around getting all this stuff and put it together.

Project Lists: The Drawing Board

Over at Blanchard Creative Woodworks I saw an idea I liked: The Drawing Board, where current and prospective projects are listed and updated as they are finished. Scott seems to have tired of (or forgotten) the update of this feature, but I thought it was neat.

So I'm going to give it a try, using this single blog entry, originally entered on January 5, 2007. I'll add a permanent link in the template, and use the lists below to track project ideas and completions during the year. I'm using four lists, that track things using David Allen's method from the book Getting Things Done. (A really great book for organizational thinking in day-to-day life). Don't blame David if this doesn't help me be productive: it's incumbent on me to actually use these lists ;)

SPECIAL PROJECT

• Project Plan for Basement Remediation (outstanding repairs/upgrades)

THE THREE GRACES (CURRENT PROJECTS)

• Workshop Reorganization and cleanup
• Knock-down Camp Benches
• Dovetailed Box with Sliding Top

NEXT STEPS
• Finish vacuuming of Basement
• Layout glue up for bench tops and sides
• Glue up the box
  

WAITING FOR
• Inspiration ;)
• Scheduling of machine repair time with Sean

SOMEDAY (MAYBE)
• 17 Board Foot Furniture Build-off
• Viking-style Double Bed
• Bed Repair
• Woodcuts II
• Inkle Loom Prototype for Production
• Dovetailed Candle Boxes
• Medieval-style Cross Bow Prototype
• Hazardous Materials Cabinet
• Fibonacci Gauge
• Traditional Workbench
• Level/Repair Basement Floor
• De-Stink Toolbox (replace felt?)
• Piano Bench
• Built in Desk for Dining Room
• Mailbox for Front Porch
• Double Bed
• Single Bed for GIT #1
• Mastermyr Chest Recreation
• Router Table
• Tool Chest
• Kitchen Pantry Shelves (built in)
• Screen/Storm doors (side and back)
• Shooting Board
• Pallets for Starting Seedlings
• Frame to Prevent Animals in Garden
• New Roof Ring for Ger
• Frame and Panel Ger Door
• Knock-down camp table
• Knock-down 6-board chest
• Frame and hang new award scrolls
• Upgraded drill press table

COMPLETED
• Radial Arm Saw table built, installed, and levelled
• Repaired wooden bansai jigsaw puzzle
• Repaired wooden stick horse
• Woodcut block print I
• New Doorsill and Header for Ger Door
• Large Dovetailed Box
• 2 Small Dovetailed Boxes
• 17th Century American Box
• Turned Mallet
• Turned Awl
• Inkle Loom
• Combination Beater/Shuttles

Hand Planing End Grain

I'm building two boxes for Christmas and spent a good part of today preparing the sides for half-blind dovetails. These were all milled, ripped, and chopped at my brother-in-law's shop, where there are plenty of working power tools, but I needed to be sure the surfaces were prepared for accurate markup.

I checked the lengths of all the side pieces and discovered that somehow the ends for both boxes were off by about 1/8". I suppose I could have swapped them to use the longer ones together and the shorter ones together, but I had already matched the pieces for good grain and color so I decided to modify the lengths until they matched.

Initially I clamped the parts for each box together and hand planed until they were
the same length. Then I realized I had managed to plane them out of square (more on how I did that in a minute), and had to go back to correct that. If you've never done this with a hand plane, there are a couple of tricks that help.

First, make sure that the blade is properly set for parallel. Hopefully your plane has an adjustment lever for this, like mine does, but if not you will have to do this some other way. This was the source of my problem: I have been experimenting with a looser lever cap so that adjustment of the blade is easier and more accurate. Well, it turns out I had made the lever cap too loose and my fingers were moving the blade by gripping it while I planed. Tightening the screw that secures the lever cap by about 1/8 of a turn fixed that problem. I had no more unexplained deviation...

Second, when correcting a problem like I had, start on the high side of the surface and plane progressively across it. By placing the plane mostly off the board edge I was able to re-establish a (very small) square surface and work it across the width of the board until the full piece was square. This is much easier than it sounds,
and when I was done the ends were the same length and square to the reference surface.

That experience led me to check the sides, which were thankfully the same length, but when I checked them for square I found evidence of run out from the chop saw... More hand planing of the end grain took care of that fairly quickly. I'm now ready to mark and cut the dovetails next time I'm in the shop. I'll decide when I get here whether to cut pins or tails first. Right now I'm leaning toward the tails.