Hand brace wall support

After some other things to tackle related to our boat, three weeks of vacation in the beautiful Nova Scotia, and going through an hurricane there, here I am finally back to some woodworking.
First thing I did was to finish my workbench extension so to have a bit more space to occupy (or to mess with).

My last workbench extension.

I now need a support on the wall to hang my hand braces. I have 5 of them and I want to get them properly stored and easily reachable. So back to the drawing board I came up with this plan:

The current plan, front view at the top,
each side view at the bottom.

I will build this from some unused pine boards I already have. The back board will be made from a 16"x36" laminated board, top and side will be pine 1"x6". Top and side will be assembled using dovetails and the assembly will be pegged to the back board. This will be a good opportunity to try myself to dovetails for the first time. Brace supports will be length of 7/16" peg.

My brace set.

First thing is to ensure that I will drill straight, so I need to build a guide to help drilling holes in the back board. I have a Stanley #59 doweling jig but I cannot use it on a board as is as it is intended to be set on a beam and not on a board. I will use a piece of scrap wood marked with center lines on both axis onto which will come the doweling jig. The piece of wood will be drilled through and will be clamped on the back board.

Stanley #59 doweling jig and the needed material:
a piece of scrap wood and a cold one

After having checked that the piece of wood is perfectly straight and square, I carefully marked center lines.

Center line carefully marked.

I then set the jig onto the piece of wood at the cross point then drilled a hole with a hand brace.

The jig set right on the cross mark...

... this will allow me to drill straight
 on the board. 

I marked the board with crossing lines where the holes for the dowels will be drilled so to set the jig right on spot.

Cross marks on the board to center the jig.

The jig is simply held in place using a C clamp and set in order to align lines on the board and lines on the jig.

...ready to drill

The jig in place for the first hole...

It did not take long to have the 10 holes done.

Holes drilled and ready to receive their piece of peg.

Next step is to take care of the needed pegs. I cut 10 length of 4"3/4.

10 pegs, each 4"3/4 long.

I then beveled each dowel end that will go through the board and rounded the other. I used a convenient tool for this, a simple pencil sharpener.

Using a pencil sharpener to bevel one end of each dowel.

Lastly I glued each dowel on the board and ensured they all are at the same depth using a depth gauge.

Checking dowel depth.

The dowels glued on the back board.

I will next tackle the shelf that will go on top of the board.

Vintage tools: Millers Falls No2 hand drill.

A while ago I found a Millers Falls No2 hand drill for a cheap price on EBay so I jumped on it. For few months it was just sitting on a shelve waiting for me to wake up. The drill is in correct condition but the handle shows some dirty green paint, maybe the previous owner used it to blend his paint stock, who knows!

Can you spot the green paint on the cap?
That flowed all over the handle

I started by disassembling the drill in pieces so to clean and lubricate gears and to restore the handles.

The main wheel is in good shape, teeth are not showing any wear, just some grease gunk.

The main wheel is in good shape.

I sanded the handles so to remove that ugly green paint. I am not sure what wood has been used but there was a reddish stain below the green paint and varnish.

One handle sanded.

After cleaning handles from dust I gave them a coat of red mahogany stain.

Handles after a coat of red mahogany stain.

Following the stain I applied 5 coats of amber shellac as a finish.

The handles after their 5th and last coat of amber shellac.

After having oiled properly all gears and bearing I put everything back together.

The final result.

Now, restoration purists and tools lovers, stop reading further as what follows may hurt your feelings.

When I started that restoration I found out that the main handle was loose. The handle was retained to the drill body by a pin, and after different tries I have been unable to remove that pin without risking to damage the handle but I needed to make that handle firm on the body. To do this I used a big hydraulic crimping tool, that I normally use while making battery cable to crimp cable lugs. I selected a pair of jaws that were just a tid smaller than the handle metal ring and I crimped the handle on the drill body. While not a conventional way of doing it this perfectly made the trick and the handle is now firm to the body.

The handle crimped on the body.

This is a very nice drill and I already like it very much. It will join my No 5 in the workshop.

No 2 and its little sister No 5 altogether.

Coffee table - Done

After having glued the table base, remains for me to glue all table top parts together and do the final top to base assembly.

There is nothing much to say about gluing table top parts, just that I needed to be fast to be able to assemble all parts together in one shot. So fast in fact that I did not took any picture. Anyway not much to see.

After cleaning the dried glue, I opted to simply glue the top on the base.
After short session of intimacy with some sand paper to finalize the top, the result was this:

The final result.

I like the contrast between the darker legs and lighter top.
At the end the mitered joins on the top were not too bad.

Mitered joins ended not too bad.

However some mistakes are still visible on the side.

Some gap in the join...

I created that gap while chopping out the waste. The back of the chisel pushed on the angle and crushed the soft wood... some lesson learned.
Another lesson learned is that I love cedar, I love its smell, I love how it looks... However it is a bitch to work with because of its softness and fibers, better to be sure to use very sharp tools.

I will later put few coats of boiled linseed oil on it as the final finish, but for now time for a glass of wine to test the table!

Saw sharpening - First hands on experience

Few weeks ago I got my hands on a saw vise in correct condition but since then it was resting in my workshop waiting for some time for me to set it up and play with it. This weekend was the right moment.

I don't know exactly the brand of this vise but it is very similar looking to Wentworth saw vise.

This saw vise is looking like a Wentworth.

I made a simple wood support to fix it to my workbench at the desired height, low enough to allow me to look over it if standing up and high enough so I can sit on a stool to sharpen a saw.

My saw vise setup.

Before starting anything I read a lot of things regarding saw sharpening, from different sources, included some writings from Daryl Weir from who I got some really sharp saws.

In order to play safe my first try was a rip saw as crosscut saw teeth are more complex to sharpen. I selected a Disston D8 that I got for few bucks to play with.

Looking at it, it was clear and obvious that the teeth, while in good shape, were not of the same size at all so my first step was to use a file and a Veritas file holder for jointing the saw teeth.

Using the Veritas file holder for jointing the saw teeth.

After a dozen of strokes the teeth were showing a shiny flat tip.

Jointing the teeth to the same height.

That saw got 10 tpi to I selected a 6 inches X-slim taper file to sharpen it.
To set and control the file angle I used the Veritas saw file holder.

Before starting I set the saw blade so only a minimal part was protruding above the saw vise.

The saw blade set in the vise.

I started to stroke each other teeth from right to left (so from the heel to the tip), 3 strokes per teeth. It took me around 15 minutes to reach the saw tip. Then I switched the saw in the vise and did the same to the remaining teeth. Overall it took me 30 to 45 minutes to complete the whole blade.

Not easy to take a picture of the saw teeth!

After trying the saw I am pretty happy with it but I need more practice before trying to sharpen a crosscut saw. It was a nice experience and I have a bunch of backsaws that needs to be sharpened to improve my skills, much more fun ahead.
Some lessons learned while sharpening that saw was that first I prefer to do it standing on my feet so I can look to the saw from above. Second, a small level on the Veritas saw file holder would be a great addition as an easy way to visually check that it is handled correctly.

Coffee table - part II

After having prepared pieces for the table top as shown in my last post I needed to cut the some mortises for the final assembly.
After careful measurement I used the marking gauge to trace where the mortise will be cut as well as the center line.

Mortised marked ready to be cut.

Like before I used my hand brace to remove most of the waste so I just need to cleanup the mortises with a chisel.

My hand brace and depth stop setup.

For final sizing of the tenons I used one of my router plane, this is a very easy way to get a uniform tenon size.

Using the router plane to clean tenons to size.

A last dry fitting and the top will be ready to be glued.

Last dry fitting.

Next comes the table base. First thing to tackle was to cut all required pieces to length, so 4 legs cut from 4"x4" and 4 pieces for the apron cut from 2"x4". My miter box saw was just tall enough to cut through the 4"x4" so I used it to get a square cut.

The saw blade is just tall enough to cut through the 4"x4".

This time I had some great help to do all the cuts as my beloved wife wanted to try my miter box!

My beloved wife at work with the miter box.

To cut the tenons on each pieces of the box apron I choose not to make any kerf on the saw line to put my sawing skills to test. I must say that I have been surprised to find it easier to cut the tenons without that kerf. Following the line was quite easy.

Sawing tenons along the marked line.

For the mortises on the legs I used the usual way of removing waste using the hand brace and then cleaning the remaining with a chisel.

Cleaning mortise waste on one leg.

I started the table base assembly by gluing one leg with one apron part using polyurethane glue.

Each leg glued with a piece of the apron.

When the assembly was dry I then glued all the pieces altogether.

Table base assembly.

The base forms a 17" x17" square so the top will overhang the base by 1/2" on each side.

Weekend exercise: mitered bridle joint

This weekend my wife asked me for a small low coffee table to be used outdoor on our fire pit deck space. More than a coffee table I guess it will be mainly used as a wine table.
The table will look more or less like this:

Wine table first draft.

For this project I choose to use some western red cedar, first because it holds well outdoor but also because I like the way it looks. The table top will be composed of a square frame made with 2"x4" enclosing a center part. The legs will be made with 4"x4" and the box apron again with 2"x4".
Overall dimension will be a cube of 18"x18"x18".

So I started by a challenge to myself and took the opportunity to test my skills (if any) by creating the top frame using hand cut mitered bridle joints. It will be the first time I try to make these fully by hand and I am not sure about how it will go or how much easy (or difficult) it will be, especially that red cedar is not the easiest wood to work with. It is quite knotty and very soft so without sharp blades it is crushed more than cut.

After having cut four 18" long pieces for the table top frame, I started to work on the tenoned parts. I marked the 45 degrees angle as well as the tenon thickness on both sides and ends. I then used my Stanley miter saw to carefully make the 45 degrees cut on each sides.

Cutting a 45 degrees angle.

I was very careful to not cut past the correct depth so not to damage the tenon.

Often checking the depth of cut.

Being right handed I used a C clamp to hold the board while cutting the opposite angle.

Using a C clamp to hold the board.

The Stanley miter box made a nice and clean cut right on the line.

Clean cut.

Next step was a bit more difficult, this was the first time I tried to cut the angled tenon using a tenon saw.

Cutting tenon using the tenon saw (obviously).

That tenon saw blade was just high enough for the cut.

First side cut, not perfect but not too bad.

... and both sides cut.

Not perfect, the tenon is a bit narrower at its
base and will need adjustment

After a bit of cleanup of the cut with my chisel and shoulder plane I got a first piece done.

First part done, 3 to go.

After the second tenoned frame part I started to tackle the corresponding mortised parts. First step was to cut the two pieces to length with 45 degrees angles on each end. There again I used the miter box.

Two pieces cut to length at 45 degrees.

After having marked the mortise I used my tenon saw to cut each side of the mortise.

Sawing each side of the mortise.

For the first piece I used a chisel to chop out the waste, it was quite time consuming and not very clean in that soft cedar.

Using a chisel to chop out the waste.

For the second piece I used my coping saw to cut out most of the waste and only had to chop the last remaining. This was much much quicker than chopping out everything with a chisel.

Now that all frame parts are cut I did a quick dry fit to see the result of my little exercise.

Dry fit, not too bad but far from perfect.
I will need some more work on these joints...

At first sight the result was not too bad but not perfect either. Two of the joints are acceptable but two of them are really not good. I will need some rework to make these tighter. This will come later on but for now I need to tackle the central part of the table top.
I changed my mind since I started. The initial plan was to make a plain central part with board assembled using tongue and groove. Finally I opted to use boards with 1/4" space between them. As this small table is meant to stay outside, the space between the boards will allow any rain water to drain.

I started with a 5"1/2x1" board. I needed to cut two length of 13" and to re saw them in two.

Re sawing the board in two with my Canadian Disston.

 After a bit of planning I ended with 4 boards, each being 13" long and 2"7/16 wide. Each will be spaced by 1/4" and will have a 1" tenon at each end, what will give me a 11"x11" square in the middle section of the table top.

After cutting the tenons I finally got all my parts ready for fine tuning and assembly.

All table top parts ready for fine tuning and assembly.

Next I will need to assemble the top and work on the legs and box apron.