Filing your mouth

I got my older Stanley 5 1/2 some years ago in poor condition.  I rehabbed it to be a user and it has worked very well but there was always an issue that I knew I would have to face someday:  there was substantial pitting on the back of the blade that would end its useful life prematurely and that is what happened last week.

Pre-1939 5 1/2s have an unusual 2 1/4" blade, so it's difficult to find a replacement.  I ordered a replacement blade and chip breaker from Ron Hock but, when it arrived, it wouldn't fit.  Basically, the blade was too thick to fit through the mouth.  When you retracted the frog enough for it to fit, the blade would ride up on the back of the mouth (the frog was positioned behind it).  I called Ron on a Saturday and he called me back promptly.  There is one type that has this problem.  He offered to take the blade and chipbreaker back or to instruct me on filing the back of the mouth to make it fit if I was willing to.  I was hesitant about my ability to do it well but he assured me that it isn't too difficult, so I gave it a shot.  The back of the mouth is vertical and you basically file the top back closer to the angle of the frog.  I did it, it worked, and the plane performs beautifully.

There's a philosophical question about whether you should be modifying a vintage Stanley plane and I understand that some might not want to but I don't know what the alternative is.  I am not aware of a thinner replacement blade in this unusual size.  Lee Valley, for example, doesn't offer them.  I have a Hock blade in my #7 and I like it.  This is a user that I got at a garage sale for $20, rusted and covered with grime.  As far as I understand, my modification wouldn't interfere with using an original blade if I ever found one, which is highly doubtful.  To me, it is better to have a tool that is in excellent working condition as a result of a modest modification than to have an original sitting on the shelf.  Hey, some of my friends have replacement knees and they're still their same old cantankerous selves.  Still original even though they've been modified.

Woodworking while camping-the next iteration

We camp in primitive Forest Service campgrounds more than 30 days a year and I really enjoy woodworking outside in such beautiful locations.  There's always a heavy, rugged picnic table in the site and I take advantage of it by clamping a bench raiser to the top and laying out my tools on the seat.  I went through several iterations before I settled on what worked for me.

I made a nice portable tool chest but it has proven to be unsatisfactory.  It is heavy and awkward to get out  and put away every day in the confined space where I store it, it slides around on the move and it takes up a lot of space.  I decided to come up with something different.  Scratching my head, I noticed something about my "bench:"

When it's turned over, there are two compartments that are about a foot square each.  I decided to make two boxes that would fit in them so they would be secured in transit and conserve space.  Dividing the tools up would make the boxes easier to handle and, as often happens, I came up with a crazy idea.  What if I made the tops of the boxes a shooting board and a bench hook?  I have been carrying them anyway so this would let them do double duty and save space.  Here's what I came up with:

Each box contains a top tray...

and space for larger tools in the bottom:

They aren't big enough for saws, so I made a separate till for them:

Everything together is quite compact:

I consider this what auto designers call a development mule and, with 20/20 hindsight would do some things differently but they seem like a step forward and I look forward to getting some experience with them.

Power tools for mostly hand tool shops--a drill press table

I recently posted about the three power tools I would want even if my shop were small.  One of those is a drill press and the post got me to thinking about an improved drill press table.  I made one years ago that was serviceable but it had numerous deficiencies.

Here is what I have come up with:

Yes it is underwhelming but a lot of design effort went into it to get the dimensions just right.  There are so many points of adjustment on a drill press table that I learned the hard way it's important to make them easily and conveniently accessible.  In addition, you need to be able to lift the table off at times.  I also found that I wanted the table to be quite wide.  These considerations are what drove these dimensions.

The shelves and the brace across the front enhance rigidity and provide a convenient place for accessories that I want to keep at hand like hold downs and bits.

Another thing I did was extend the t-track beyond the rear of the table.  This allows the fence stops to sit behind the table.  You need access to the crank that raises and lowers the table but you also want as much distance between the chuck and the fence for wide work pieces as you can get.

  

 Finally, I made a long fence with an embedded t-track.  This is convenient for side stops.  The fence is not attached to the back stops so they can be angled and the fence can be moved to one side or the other.  In the past, I found that the torque generated by some operations moved the fence.  My way around this is to have the two back stops and to clamp the fence to the table as well if I am doing something that will generate substantial torque.

This is a very simple design but I am extremely happy with it.

A comfortable shop in winter

Compared to many areas, our winter temperatures in Portland are quite mild, highs averaging in the mid forties during the day with lows in the mid thirties at night, but I still struggle to be comfortable in my garage workshop at this time of the year.  The cold air return comes through the garage which keeps it about 10 degrees warmer than the outside temperature, but this is still too cold to be comfortable.  It's a three car garage (that never sees a car) which makes space heating difficult and expensive.  Most of my time is spent around my bench and I have thought about enclosing this space but the layout of the garage isn't suitable for this.  What to do?

For some years, I have been eyeing this quartz radiant heater from Lee Valley.  They say it is a top of the line commercial product and its price of $319 reflects that.  I decided to give it a try and the results have far exceeded my expectations.  I bought the smaller one because it has the same output and has an eight by ten footprint, just right for my bench and surrounding area.  Here are pictures of the unit and its footprint with the lights turned off to show its coverage:

 It's only 15 1/2" by 4" and it does cover the area claimed.  You can mount it safely as I have because the heat is radiant and directionalized.  It's mounted high because it is best not to look directly into it.  I tend to work from the opposite side of the bench and it feels like standing in the sun.

It's hard to believe, but I am comfortable working in the shop when the ambient temperature is forty degrees.  I think it's because the benchtop is warm, the tools are warm and my hands are warm.  It's also a really good environment for glue-ups.  I also like the fact that when it gets up to the high forties I can open the garage door and work in natural light.  Right now I am doing some carpentry projects and this is a great feature.

It's too early to tell how durable it is, but I am really happy with this heater.

More boxes

I have made no secret of my disinterest in making dovetailed boxes but, as luck would have it, my two granddaughters were here for the holidays and asked me to make them each a box.  How are you going to turn down 5 and 7 year old little girls?  So, reluctantly, I made two cherry boxes with sliding lids.  Nothing to see here, except...

My wife had an idea.  Why not use Scrabble pieces to put their names on the lids?  I liked it, and that's what I did, sticking them in place with epoxy:

For whatever reason, I decided to make a couple of larger shop boxes from some bigleaf maple scraps for something I'll write about later.   The world doesn't need another blog post about making boxes but there is one aspect that may be of interest.  Here they are under construction:

To escape the clouds and cold rain in Portland, we spent a week at Morro Bay in southern California.  The weather was absolutely fantastic, near 70 each day.  After hours at the beach and riding my bike, I came back to our campsite for some woodworking.  Even I enjoy making boxes under these conditions. 

Some tools

There are some tools in my shop that I haven't shown or talked about but that I really appreciate, in part for their quality and in part for the story behind them.

The first one is a Starrett 2" no. 20 square:

This tiny square is so handy that I use it daily.  It's great when dovetailing, jointing edges and a host of other tasks.  It belonged to my father-in-law and, while I have treasured it, I didn't realize what a precision tool it is, accurate to .0001" per 6" and made of hardened tool steel.

There is a story about the next two tools.  I was driving somewhere when I passed a garage sale and noticed there were a lot of tools in the open garage, so I stopped.  There were two machinist's tools that I was admiring when the seller came up to me and told me I needed them, asking if the prices were reasonable.  I said yes and that they were great tools but that I am not a machinist and would have limited use for them.  He said his father-in-law would have wanted them to go to someone who liked them and he would take $30.  Sometimes, rarely, it pays to be nice.

The first is this Helios vernier caliper, which is very well made.  I have a dial caliper but I really don't like it and use it rarely. Sometimes you don't know you want a tool until you have it.  I have found this one to be a great tool that I use everyday.  It has simultaneous fractional and decimal scales and is surprisingly precise, more than enough for woodworking.  This and the little square live in my apron.

   
The second tool was a Starrett no. 230 micrometer that is essentially NOS, complete with the original invoice and packaging:

I really have little use for this but I am amazed at its quality and precision.  I will maybe use it to measure the set on saw teeth but I can't think of any other use I have for it.  Nevertheless I really like it and am very glad to have it.   These vintage tools from a bygone era, whether for machinists or woodworkers, are wonders.

Chinese stools

Two years ago I made some saddle stools which have turned out to be very satisfactory in use.  They are comfortable, sturdy and durable.  It's a classic american design, at least that is what I thought.

The other day, a friend invited me to lunch in the tea room at the Portland Chinese Garden.  When we went to our table, I was surprised to see this:

When the waitress saw me taking a picture of it, she told us that it has been in continuous use for 100 years!!  I believe that it was made in China like almost everything in the garden.  It has 12 through mortises, which probably explains why the curved legs have held up so well.  It has a heavy finish so I can't tell if the legs are steam bent, but I don't think so.

This may be a future project, although I think I will add a curve to the outer edges of the seat, similar to the seats on the ones I made.

Woodworking in a small space

I often think about woodworking in a small space, in part because I am older and think that at some point I may be forced to downsize from my three car garage.  I also think about it because my sons, like many other younger people, live in major metropolitan areas in unbelievably expensive houses with one car garages.  One of the great strengths of hand tool woodworking is that it works so well in these circumstances.

Woodworking in a small space certainly works best if it is centered on hand tools.   I definitely think that a Moravian portable workbench is the way to go.  It is the consummate design if portability and compact storability are priorities (and right up there even if they aren't).  I am also a big fan of tool chests, particularly in shops that aren't climate controlled. I like to reserve wall space for shelves and windows.  The bench and chest would store away easily and quickly in an extremely small area.

The problem with a hand tool only workshop as far as I am concerned is that it requires laborious and tedious manual stock preparation that I don't want to do, mainly because I am lazy and impatient.  Specifically, I avoid long rip cuts, resawing and planing to thickness by hand.  I reject the assertion by some prominent woodworkers that relying on machines for these operations numbs the mind and destroys the soul.  I want machines to do this work for me and think of them as mechanical apprentices.  If you like to do these things by hand, my hat is off to you.  I don't.

What big power tools would I not live without if at all possible, even in a very limited space?  Three, in order of importance:

1. A very high quality bandsaw.  I had a mediocre one from a major manufacturer that I rarely used, then I sold it and my tablesaw and got a good one that I use a whole lot.  It is just so incredibly versatile, it's quite safe, and it takes up only about 4 square feet of floor space.  If I had just one big power tool, this would definitely be it.  I think it's worth it to spend the money to get a really good one if you can.  3 hp., excellent guides, close tolerances, rigid...  Yes, one like this is expensive, but it is a lifetime tool.
2. A good lunchbox planer.  Yes you can plane everything by hand but I don't want to and buying lumber planed to the right thickness is far too limiting.  It isn't absolutely essential because you could resaw with the bandsaw and then finish plane without too much trouble but I'd still like to have one.  Mount it on a cabinet and you have room for storage below.  A lunchbox planer is good enough.
3. A basic drill press.  I could definitely do without a drill press but I really like it and find it handy for a lot of things.  They take up very little floor space.  Doesn't have to be real big or real good.  A benchtop one mounted on a cabinet that housed the planer below would be fine. 

These three tools on mobile bases would store in a dozen square feet of floor space.  Just think about how extremely compact this entire, highly capable workshop would be when not in use.  Two feet in front of the back wall of a one car garage would do it for the bench, the chest and the power tools.  I could be quite content in a workshop like this.  I wouldn't even need the planer and the drill press but I would be very reluctant to give up the bandsaw.

It's true that the hand tools and these three power tools add up to a fair amount of money and the hand tools should come first.  All of them together cost a lot less than many people spend on other hobbies.  I could still have fun with only the hand tools.

I find this very encouraging.  Hobby woodworking is in decline, in part because people have limited space and the skills aren't taught in schools anymore.  Make it as easy as possible.

The completed windmill. Yet another tangent

With the propeller finished, I made a very basic windmill to attach it to and accommodate a vane to point it into the wind.  It felt like something was missing but the moving scenes of whirligigs don't appeal to me, so I cast about for something different.  Yes, another dubious brainstorm.  Walking up the sidewalk one night I noticed the solar powered lights along it.  Aha.  I cut off the stem and attached it to the middle of the windmill (at the balance point so the weight wouldn't matter).  I really like it.  The light shines through the blades and looks like a beacon.  People seem to believe that it is powered by the windmill, an illusion I like.

It is 7' in the air at the front of my driveway so it really stands out.  I am hoping that white oak with several coats of spar varnish will hold up to all the rain we have here.

So, how does it perform?  Pretty well, could be better.  The bronze bearings and thrust washers work very well, offering minimal resistance.  The blades are rectangular and a more aerodynamic shape would be better.  The main thing though is that I made the blades quite narrow for aesthetic reasons.  Compare them to the blades on the lawn ornament I have that turns so well:

They have much more surface area, looks like about double.  I think this is the major issue.  I like the looks of the narrow blades so well that I am willing to put up with it.

Windmills v. 2

Dissatisfied with my first effort to create a wooden windmill propeller because it took a strong wind to get it turning and was clunky, I decided to do some research and I learned two things.  For a windmill, apparently, the shape of the blade isn't all that critical because the main benefit of an efficient airfoil is reduced drag for a given amount of lift (long story).  Drag increases with the square of velocity and the propeller won't turn very fast.  Second, the pitch of the blades should apparently be quite low.   It appears something around 10 degrees is about right.

I needn't have bothered with the research because I could have just walked into the front yard:

This little thing made of plastic and nylon fabric spins like crazy in barely perceptible winds.  The blades are very thin and they are affixed at about an 8 degree angle.

At this point I had a brainstorm.  The angled slots that whirligig makers use don't seem like a great idea to me, more something that takes advantage of a dado blade and a tablesaw jig.  They aren't suitable for an eight-bladed propeller.  I dimly recalled a windmill I made as a small child with Tinkertoys.  Why not just drill holes in the hub and use a short dowel to attach the blades?  I cut out a round hub with a holesaw then drilled eight evenly spaced 3/8" holes around the perimeter.  Then I created a flat on a part of some short 3/8" dowels that I would use to affix the blades.  Doing it this way allows you to easily attach the blades at any pitch angle you want.

This one minute video shows it turning up with a fan set on low about 6' away. Since my camera records at 30 fps and the blades appear stationary at speed, I think it is turning about 225 rpm. The main thing that appears to hold it back is that the bronze bushings are .252" and the stainless steel shaft is .242" so it starts to shimmy a bit. This is fast enough anyway.

I'm satisfied with this so I'm going to move on to the next step.  If I were going to experiment further, I would try different pitches to determine experimentally what angle works best.  I would also use my spokeshave to shape the blades into a better airfoil, which would produce modest improvement via reduced drag.

I think this method works pretty well with hand tools.  It's definitely a challenge to drill the holes accurately and I might try to come up with some sort of fixture if I make more hubs.  A hole saw works with a brace or an electric drill.

Holiday gifts 2018

Each year, we try to give friends and family a small handmade item along with an Oregon product.  This year we decided on hazelnuts, or filberts.  The US is the third largest producer of filberts after Turkey and Italy and virtually all of the US crop is grown in Oregon.  I wanted to help the local farmers out because hazelnuts are caught up in the trade war.

That meant that some sort of small dish or box would be a nice item to accompany the hazelnuts, but I have grown tired of making and giving dovetailed boxes.  One day I got one of my infamous brainstorms.  I went out to the firewood pile and selected nice looking douglas-fir pieces with a wide live edge.  Then I split them out with an ax so they would be approximately 3" deep and 6-8" wide.  Cut about 12" long, this would form the outside of a box. I jointed the bottoms flat but left the split edges and long sides as is.

To create the bowl, I hogged out a lot of the waste with a large forstner bit, which gave me nice rounded corners.  Then I used a chisel and gouge to remove the rest of the waste.  With a wiped-on finish, they're done:

These obviously don't suit everyone's taste but I like them.  They are quick, easy and fun to make, so a dozen isn't a big deal.  I have come to dislike the commercialism of holiday gift giving and think a handmade item better reflects the spirit of the season.  However modest, "I made this for you" is special.

Videos from some interesting craftsmen

This post is going to be a little different because I want to share some videos from some other craftsman, one of which is woodworking and one isn't.

The first is the Engels Coach Shop in Montana.  He restores or reproduces heavy horse-drawn wagons, makes wooden wheels etc.  Right now he is making very heavy wheels for some spanish cannons from Puerto Rico.  They shipped him a large pallet of mahogany and he is making every piece of them from scratch using hand tools and machines, many of which he designed and made himself.  It is absolutely fascinating to see how he does it.  Here is one of the videos in the series about installing the felloes:

He is a very straightforward guy who shows you how he does his work step by step.  The accuracy he achieves with basic tools and machines is amazing to me.

The next one isn't woodworking but instead is by a retired guy in upstate New York near where I grew up whose retirement hobby is to recreate a  line-powered machine shop driven by steam.  Here is a video in a series about restoring a vintage steam engine.

This is a subject about which I know almost nothing but it is fascinating to me and I really look forward to his videos.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.

Windmills

I have seen a number of videos about whirligigs recently and they got me interested in creating something similar.  I'm especially interested in the windmill portion of them.

From what I have seen, whirligig makers start by making a hub with slots cut in it to hold the blades.  Some say that 35 degrees is the best angle so that is what I used.   I wanted 8 blades, so the slots are narrowly spaced.  To make it, I cut out an octagon, used my bandsaw to define the slots and then chiseled out the waste.

I chose long thin blades, thin for looks and long for more surface area presented to the wind.  Here's what the propeller looks like:

It is 22" in diameter and way overbuilt (the blades are 5/16" thick), which makes it heavy and therefore difficult to start because of inertia.  I'm going for a traditional windmill look rather than a whirligig so that's why it is much larger than normal.  Because of the weight I needed a stout shaft, so I cut off the head of a 1/4" stainless steel bolt and epoxied it into the back of the windmill.  The propeller shaft rides in some little bronze bearings I found.

Before someone else says it, this isn't an efficient windmill; it's primarily decorative and designed to look good to my eye.  This was confirmed when I tested it with a fan.  The blades are quite thin.  Because of it's mass, the propeller takes a while to spool up but this inertia also keeps it running at a fairly constant speed in a variable wind.  It runs surprisingly true and doesn't seem to be grossly out of balance.  The bearings are new and I don't want to lubricate them until after I apply finish so I suspect it will turn more freely in use.

This windmill would be great if I lived on the coast but I'd like to come up with one that would turn in a light wind.  It needs to be lighter and the blades can be thinner by half.  Wider blades would be better because they have more "lift" but I like the look of the thin blades.  I did some research and it appears that the 35 degree pitch isn't right because the blades "stall" in light wind.  Surprising to me at least is that scientific research shows an angle more like 5 degrees to be optimal.  The latter presents a whopping 22% more frontal area to the wind.    This creates a construction issue because the adjacent slots won't clear, so some new way of making the hub is necessary.  A 4-bladed windmill wouldn't have this problem but I like the look of 8 blades.  I have an idea, although this is starting to feel like my stool saga.  In my defense, I did end up with a unique design that works very well.  :-(

Stickley sideboard, part 5

When I put the Stickley sideboard aside last spring, the carcase was done and I only had the drawers left to make; with the arrival of fall, it was time to get back at it.  As I wrote in the last post, the drawers went well and it was time for finish.

I made this for my son and his wife and they prefer dark stains.  They're not my cup of tea but the original was dark so I didn't object.  Dark stains are tough because they show every imperfection and tend not to absorb evenly; at least that's my experience.  Pre-stain conditioner is recommended but I like the color differences that result from not using it, so I didn't.

Here's the result:

Building this piece only increased my respect for Stickley and Ellis.  There are many small details that I didn't appreciate until I realized how they contribute to both form and function.

Trombones and dovetails

When I was in high school, I was a very good trombonist but not a great one.  I had plenty of talent and a good instrument, but I didn't practice consistently.  Take the summer off and it feels like starting all over in the fall.

I have this same problem with dovetails.  I don't cut dovetails often enough that I retain muscle memory and top-of-mind feel for what I am doing and I find it very annoying to spend time practicing every time I want to.  I was facing exactly that issue as I prepared to make the drawers for the Stickley sideboard.

By coincidence, YouTube recommended a video to me about a new dovetail guide.  It looked intriguing and is only $35, so I decided to give it a try.  When it arrived, I decided to cut a quick practice joint to get a feel for it and, to my surprise, it came out great. This is straight off the saw and as close to a 5 minute dovetail as I'll ever get.

The guide is made from urethane (like skateboard wheels etc.) and has two embedded magnets on each side.  There is one side for tails, two for pins and one for right angle cuts.

It is extremely fast to cut dovetails this way because all you do is mark the baseline and add some tick marks on the top for the layout.  As you can see, it is translucent and that helps to position it accurately.

The cuts for the half-pins were dead on with no trimming at all.  One thing that is a bit unusual is that, unless you are ambidextrous, you end up cutting tails from both sides of the board but that didn't end up being a problem.

I tried it with both western and Japanese saws and found the former much better.  The magnets are strong enough that my Japanese saw wouldn't work without applying downward pressure on the handle.

So, is it a good idea to use a guide?  Certainly if you are a beginner it is.  I'm not but I still found it very useful for two reasons.  It's very fast for those of us who would otherwise mark out the pins and tails.  Second, if you haven't cut dovetails in a while it is a very good way to re-establish muscle memory and remember those little things that make a difference.  I found myself sawing with a very light touch.  If you are cutting a lot of dovetails I think you could use this for awhile and then cut the rest by hand.  I am not bothered by using a guide and I think I will keep using it.

The guide doesn't work for half-blind pins but I still found it useful for making the drawers because you can cut out the tails very quickly and precisely and, of course, you can use it for the dovetails on the rear of the drawer.  They came out well:

I know that using guides is frowned upon by some and I respect their position but I don't feel that way.   A plane is a guided blade, a shooting board is a guide...

Portable workbench, v. 2.0

After we finished building out the cargo trailer as a camping trailer, I had one day before we were to leave on our field trial and I knew I wanted to do some woodworking.  Dissatisfied with the portable workbench I made last year, I wanted to come up with an improved version.

For a larger portable bench, there is no doubt in my mind that the Moravian workbench is the way to go.  My failed attempt of last year helped me to better appreciate what a truly great design it is.  Watch this brief video of Will Myers assembling it in 60 seconds.  Very stable too.  Amazing.  Not something I could make in a day, though, and somewhat larger than I had in mind.

I had just one day to build something compact that could be clamped to a picnic table.  This isn't as farfetched as it may sound; you may remember Chris Schwarz's "milkman's workbench" from a few years ago, although it isn't tall enough and I didn't want any vises on mine.  Most picnic tables are 30" high, I like to work at 36", so I had in mind something about 6" tall and around 16"x36".  Standing at my Nicholson workbench thinking about this, it struck me that a scaled-down version of it without legs would fill the bill nicely.  I had some dry 2x6s on hand, so that's what I made.  As you can see, it fastens to the picnic table with c-clamps, although there a variety of ways to clamp it down:

With the clock ticking, I wondered what to do about a vise.  I knew that I wanted a Moxon to sit on top, just as I use at home, but I wanted a considerably smaller version.  I had an old one that used F-clamps sitting on the shelf, so the first thing I did was cut it down to 16".  I didn't want to use F-clamps, but looking around the shop I had a brainstorm (possibly because I had seen it somewhere before but I can't remember).  I picked up a wooden handscrew, sawed the screws in half in the middle where the threads change direction, then cut the jaw on either side of the barrel nuts.  These became the twin screws for my vise:

Using the barrel nuts allows the jaws to skew and it was very fast to construct:

It works much better than I expected, though it does only accommodate workpieces up to 6/4 and it is 12" between the screws, but that's enough for a portable vise in my opinion.  Of course it can be used directly on the picnic table if I choose but I generally like to use it on top of the bench so I can stand straight when I saw.

I didn't have a lot of time left and I still had to figure out what to do about tool storage, so  I salvaged the "drawer" from the previous version of the portable workbench and used some scrap pieces of plywood from the trailer project to make a case for it:

The three pieces stow away for travel in a compact space.  All in all, it works quite well and I'm not sure I could have done a lot better in one day.

Fall is in the air

My summer hiatus was longer than usual this year for a variety of reasons.  The primary reason is that I took on a major woodworking project that I didn't think would be of interest here.  Specifically, we purchased a cargo trailer and built it out as a camping trailer, complete with a queen-size bed, a throne room and lots of storage.  Surprisingly,  it turned out better than expected (I was making it up as I went along) and has attracted a lot of interest.  There are a fair number of baby boomers who, like us, camped in tents for years but are ready to expend a little less effort and be a little more comfortable without going into a full-fledged RV.

I have been reading the blogs from the Unplugged website regularly and commenting sometimes.  To me, it appears that woodworking blogs are in decline as there are many fewer posts than I used to read.  Many of those that remain are commercial.  That's too bad, as I really enjoy reading about what other amateur woodworkers are doing.  Of course, I am in no position to complain as I haven't been posting either.  My pageviews had been trending down and I wasn't getting a lot of comments which, along with being preoccupied with other pursuits, were factors.  Finally, I just didn't feel like I had a lot to share that would be of interest.  I'm ready to get back at it.

During our camping trips, I watched a lot of woodworking videos on YouTube and noticed that a video attracts astronomically more views than a blog of comparable quality does.  It's probably a sign of the times; people get their information these days from watching video rather than reading.  In some cases, I think there is a good reason for that.  I have picked up valuable tips from watching these videos that the author doesn't even mention; I just notice something they do and think it's a good idea.  Most times, though, it just seems like there is a much bigger audience for video than written material.  Dunno.

I don't want to make videos so I am going to stick with blogging and I hope you do too.  I think we can encourage each other by commenting but there is one issue I'd like to highlight.  My personal information has been compromised so many times by large corporations that I just won't give it out unless I absolutely have to.  Some blogs require you to share personal information like email addresses in order to make a comment and I just won't do that.  I have no idea if other people feel as I do.  I don't ask for any personal information in order to comment on my blog; comments are moderated so I can read them before they are published, mainly to filter out all the crude advertisements that bots post.

Once I finished the trailer, I turned my attention to woodworking while camping.  It is so pleasant to sit along the ocean or up in the mountains and work away that it is one of the main things I look forward to.  The portable workbench I made turned out to be unsuitable, a cumbersome attempt to combine a workbench and tool storage.  I am totally convinced by OK Guy that a Moravian portable workbench is the best solution (it is a fantastic design) but I just don't have the space for it in a small cargo trailer, so I went back to the drawing board.  Small size is possible because I will always have a stout picnic table available when I use it, so it doesn't have to have legs and can get necessary mass from the picnic table.  Standing in my workshop pondering this, the answer was right in front of my eyes:  I wanted to build a Nicholson portable workbench.  I'll show it to you in my next post.

Stickley Sideboard, Part 4

With spring weather finally having arrived, work on the sideboard has slowed to a snail's pace.  There are just too many things to do outside.  I have however made some progress.

The drawer's are supported by what Chris Schwarz calls a "web frame:"

It's made of a secondary wood, poplar in my case, pine in his.  It is glued to the front stretcher and rests on cleats along the sides.  There is a gap along the back to allow for seasonal wood movement (recall that the grain on the sides is vertical).  An unusual drawer divider is fastened to the front of the frame and the bottom of the top front stretcher (removed in this picture).  It is also fastened to the rear stretcher.

The grain is vertical so it will move with the sides.  This is new to me and I will be interested to see how it turns out but, in principle, it seems like a good idea.

The carcase is just about done.  All I have to do is put in the bottom shelf and attach the top.  While I was working on this, the offcut from the curved front stretcher caught my eye:

The original has a rectangular backsplash but this just looks so good to me I am seriously considering it.  The rectangle is just boring:

I'm torn because I really want to stick close to the original Stickley design.  I wonder what Harvey Ellis would say.

Stickley sideboard, carcase glued-up.

The carcase is glued-up so you can now see some of the construction details that are interesting:

The only major hiccup was that I cut the curve in the front stretcher upside down.  The reason is quite complex:  when a board has an arrow on it pointing up and you turn it over, it points down.  :-(   In this case I got lucky and it still fit.

I deviated from the plans in a major respect.  They call for the legs to be 2 1/4" by 1 3/4", the wider dimension to the sides.  This is because the outside of the legs are supposed to taper to 2" at the top and to 1 5/8" at the bottom.  I don't like the idea of a 1/4" taper on the top at all and I decided not to do it.  I also don't see why the bottom has to be that wide.  Therefore, I decided to make my legs 2" square and taper the bottom to 1 1/4", a slightly more pronounced taper on the bottom.  This is a matter of taste and I like my choice.
 
As I mentioned previously, the sides are somewhat unusual in that the grain is vertical, therefore parallel to the legs and flush to their insides.  Simply glued in place, they are flush to the inside so the drawers can slide against them.  This has a lot of advantages as the top and sides will move together.  As I wrote before, I am not that concerned that the stretcher is perpendicular because, as you can see, there is plenty of room between the sides and stretcher for the legs to flex.

Before the top can be put in place, the support structure for the drawers has to be put in place.  The plans call for a "web frame," something new to me.  Basically a rectangular figure eight attached to the carcase, the drawers run on it and it supports a center divider.  The center divider is screwed to the top stretcher as well.  To make things easier, the top, dovetailed stretcher isn't installed until the web frame and the divider are in place.