The boards for the Krenov-inspired cabinet and for the door frames are already milled. I have set them aside for a few days to stabilize, after milling them to 1/8-inch above the final thickness.
Now I turn my attention to the spalted maple door panels. The following examples were cut from one board, and show quite different results. Photos 1 to 3, below, show:
Two of the remaining 8-foot boards; I may have to resaw some more specimens cut from these two boards, to see what wonderful treasures might be hidden within.
Resawn board; the two halves placed side-by-side resemble a skeletal, ungainly Don Quixote, from the neck down.
Resawn board; this one has an ethereal quality; maybe wings?
I wanted to share these with you, to show how resawing different parts of a board can yield dramatically different results. Each of these resawn pairs has its own character, its own personality. In the end, final bookmatched pair selection might give the cabinet wider appeal, or no appeal at all. This is one reason I prefer to evaluate several resawn pairs.
Which bookmatched pair would YOU select, and why? I would be interested to hear your opinion.
We have blizzard conditions today: 10°F, and the wind chill factor is -9°F, snow falling to the point we cannot see the end of the driveway 150 feet away.
Edit at 10:02 PM, to add: The local news confirmed we had blizzard conditions for two hours today.
The shop temperature was set to 60°, and the thermostat registered 62°F. Perfect conditions in the shop to start milling the boards for the cabinet door frames, and let them acclimate for a few days.
I selected one narrow black cherry board with nice, straight grain. Don’t want the frames competing with the nice spalted maple I will use for the panels in the cabinet doors. With the jig saw to cut the board into three pieces, keeping track of where each piece belonged, to make sure I could get some continuity in the frames. Then on to the jointer, to quickly flatten one face, and one edge on each board.
Now, to flatten the other face on the boards. But the planer did not want to feed the boards, no matter how light a cut I tired to make. Hmmmffff. Something was wrong. Pull the power plug, as it is time to look into the guts of my planer. I must mention at this point that this is a DW735, 13-inch, 85-pound “portable” planer. Right…
I started to systematically remove covers from gears, and manually rotating parts. Everything was nice and smooth. The blades were nice and sharp. The pressure rollers felt a little grimy - to be expected, but I patiently took the time to clean them until no more stuff came off. Sooooo… What now?
As I concentrated on the hardware stuff too much, I failed to realize the table was not very slick. In fact, the table was just not allowing my hand to glide on the surface. I suspected that the last time we made toys for the Christmas charity event, and I ran some pine through the planer, some pitch got on the table.
Out came the paste wax, and the table felt a whole lot better in just a few minutes. I continued to look around the machine innards, and nothing stood out. The chip chute was clean, no obstructions anywhere. I was very reluctant to run the planer with all the gears exposed, so I assembled it, and tried it one more time.
Now the boards glided through the planer as nicely as when I first assembled it years ago. The table needed a wax job!
Moral of the story: January IS the month my machines need attention - no wonder they have all been cranky lately. They have just been feeling neglected. Routine maintenance for me is always in January, as we start the year.
SUGGESTION: I suggest you take a good, thorough once-over at your machines at least on a yearly basis, and do all the routine maintenance in January. OR, pick YOUR time to do it. But always try to do it on the same month, and as needed.
I love my planer again! But it does require normal, routine care.
Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to the shop to fiddle with my square, saw and pricker.— Christopher Schwarz, Jan. 26, 2008
And so signs off Chris his latest entry, “Fascination with Fore Planes“, which appeared today on his personal blog at Lost Art Press: Blog. From his entry I learned a new word, one that I will start using right away, too - it is both respectable, and fashionable: Pricker. And I love it!
“The smoothing plane marked B 4. must have its iron set very fine, because its office is to smooth the work from those irregularities the fore plane made.”
Joseph Moxon’s “Mechnick Exercises” – 1678 (reviewed by Christopher Schwarz)
This one made my day. I was so happy to learn that 330 years ago no one seemed to worry about making gossamer shavings with a smoothing plane! So, I have quit worrying about it; but I will definitely make it my objective to get better with my hand tools, all of them, including the fore plane, the smoother and yes, the pricker.
Long story, short: I left Chris a Comment, thanking him for making my day with his review of this old book. After all, if they did not worry about thin shavings in 1678, why should I worry about it today? I will simply set my B 4. iron very fine… I can already see a much larger duty for my scrapers on a daily basis from now on… and maybe even my drum sander, followed by the scraper. I agree: It is an obsession with these large tools!
As I mentioned in the last post, I solved the mortiser problem when I found misaligned halves of the fence on the machine. The photo below, second from the left, shows the results I am able to get now, after installing a wooden sub-fence that gets around the alignment issue with Edges #1 and #2.
As I now finally focused on the actual build of the Krenov-inspired cabinet, I started what I normally do between projects. Some clean-up was definitely required, or I would keep tripping on things on the floor, in the aisle, on the workbench, on the outfeed table, etc. And, of course, I had to do some tool sharpening, to make sure I can get nicely defined, sharp edges on various parts of the cabinet.
This is my favorite honing guide-it is available at Amazon, and through toolsforworkingwood.com. I use it to help me keep the proper tool angle on the diamond stone and later, on the abrasive paper, using the Scary Sharp technique. While not perfect, it is inexpensive (well under 20 bucks), and allows me to quickly put a sharp edge on chisels and plane blades.
I used to shudder at the idea of having to make something sharp - but no more. I am not as efficient as others might be at sharpening, but I can get a sharp edge quickly and reliably to make me happy. Of course, the Wolverine grinding jig is not too far away from the bench, and I will use it to square a plane blade, and then follow with the Scary Sharp treatment.
I chuckled at myself this morning, when I received via e-mail the January 23, 2008 Popular Woodworking weekly Newsletter, from Glen D. Huey. The third item in this issue was “Honing Guides - Which One is Right For You?”; it contained a link to a PDF file to the entire article - one of the guides pictured was the model I own. The PDF file is available only to newsletter subscribers. The excerpt caught my attention immediately, as it contained a photo of the four honing guides evaluated by Christopher Schwarz in the magazine’s February 2008 issue, pages 70-74. On page 75 appears a rebuttal from Joel Moskowitz the owner of toolsforworkingwood.com, on “Why You Don’t Need a Honing Guide”. Both articles, the one by Chris Schwarz, and the rebuttal by Joel, are required reading if you, like me, are not the best free-hand tool sharpener in the world. As you expect, Chris was on the money with his comments that the honing guide I use is not the best, but it is cheap; he does a good job pointing out the positive and the negative points for each guide.
In the following photos I show some of what I did today.
Photos 1 and 4: My regular Scary Sharp setup
Photo 2: I show off the nice, square fir of the tenon and mortise joint on a prototype door, with the nice shadow line I was aiming to get.
Photo 3: Trying out my ancient shoulder/rabbet plane on the shoulder of a stile of the recently-made prototype door.
OK, I am no longer tripping over stuff, and (some) hand tools are sharp. Maybe I can start on the cabinet, right after I pick up granddaughter #4; her three older sisters will go skiing this morning. I will be posting the ups and downs, ins and outs, so stand by.
I am still working on the prototype doors for the Krenov-inspired cabinet. I know - when will I get this done? Soon, I hope. Took some time out to fix the slop in the tenoning jig on the table saw; then I was unable to machine square mortises on the rails using the Delta hollow chisel mortising machine. It was one thing after another, and then the weekend arrived.
Weekends are a time to relax and to get the body batteries recharged. I took care of recharging mine this weekend, but maybe not fully.
Something was nagging me, subconsciously and, at times, very conscioulsy. On Friday I was unable to get the stiles perfectly aligned to the rails, using mortise and tenon joinery. Friday night I left the shop after cutting the first set of mortises on the rails, and the tenons on the stiles. A little background: For this cabinet I reversed things - the rails extend all the way to the edges of the doors. And it looks terrible when the edges of the stiles are not perfectly aligned to the edges of the rails, especially since I have designed the stiles to be inset about 0.030″ on the outside of the doors, to provide a shadow line.
Nagging… Something had changed with this machine, and I could not figure out what. Time to step away. Late Friday afternoon is not the time to start fooling around trying to solve this.
Over the weekend, I engaged myself with family stuff, plus some reading and computer work. As I did this, I kept adding to my mental list of things to look for in the mortising machine on my return to the shop. Of course, I could have had the doors and the cabinet box built, had I just forgotten about the machine. But I will be needing it for several other projects this year; so, it was OK to take the time to solve the puzzle. And, besides, it WAS the weekend.The key turned out to be Edge #1 and Edge #2 in this photo.
THE LIST:
Remove the riser block, and start with the column on the table, as shipped from the factory several years ago.
Check that the chisels are square to the base. And check that the alignment does not change as the chisel height changes.
Check that the table is flat.
Check that the fence is flat, and square to the table.
Check and double-check all bolts, to make sure nothing moves when plunging the chisel into the workpiece.
I had (just about) exhausted all possibilities, so this afternoon I went to work on THE LIST. The riser block came off, and I replaced the column back on the table. The chisels were perfectly square to the table on all sides. The table was flat. Both sides of the fence were flat. But Edges 1 and 2 were not aligned perfectly! BINGO!!! Sliding the workpiece left to right was smooth; when I was sliding it right to left, the edge of the workpiece “caught” Edge #1 - son of a gun!!! Had something happened to the fence, and now it was not perfectly flat? More importantly, WHAT to do to fix the problem?
Solution: Install a sub-fence that straddles both sides of the fence.
Cutt-off rack to the rescue: I had a piece of red oak the same width as the prototype rails and stiles, so I simply screwed this to the fence. Delta has thoughtfully provided one hole at each end of the fence - or maybe THIS was the reason for the holes, i.e., to allow installation of a sub-fence, to correct misalignment problems? I probably will never know.
I do know one thing: My rails and stiles ARE perfectly aligned now. I don’t have to sweat THE LIST any more. Problem solved. Now, to build the cabinet. But, finish the prototype doors first, to make sure the dimensions look alright in this cabinet. THEN build the real thing. I guess I just prefer to build prototypes, to work out the kinks in the joinery, etc. But, recently, I have had to work out more kinks in my machinery than in anything else.
I promised myself there will be no more kinks this week. I hope I can keep this promise.
As I started to make tenons and mortises for the Krenov-inspired cabinet, I noticed too much play in the fit of the bar that guides the tenoning jig in the miter slot of the table saw. Hmmm…. First, the mortising chisels needed sharpening and some fine tuning, and now this. Well, it had be done.
In this episode I show how I adjust the tenoning jig, to get the absolute minimum play (others call it “slop”) I can possibly get in the miter slot. If not properly adjusted, and with too much play, it becomes a difficult and trying task to get tenons that fit properly in the respective mortises. Why? Too much play leads to variations in the thickness of the tenons; this is a most important parameter in the mortise & tenon joint.
Before going any further: The episode numbering sequence might seem screwy. But this episode is a continuation of Jigs - The Series, which I started with Episode 5, “A Wonderful Featherboard”. I opened that episode by announcing it would be “all about jigs”, and did not follow through - that is, until now. I expect several more episodes on jigs will follow - so, leave me your suggestion(s) in Comments; I have many jigs in the shop - your suggestions will help me prioritize which jigs move to the front of the line.
I have received several questions over the last four weeks (via e-mail), asking: “How do you capture the computer screen, to generate the videos you make to illustrate the designs/modifications, using your 3-D modeling program?”
My answer: I use Camtasia Studio 5, a product from TechSmith. I let TechSmith tell the story of what this nifty program is, as follows (from their web site):
So, what IS Camtasia Studio?
The smart, friendly screen recorder and more.
Imagine being able to show exactly what’s on your screen to anyone, anywhere. Imagine that it’s easy. Now you’ve imagined Camtasia Studio.
With the smartest screen recording tools on the planet, Camtasia Studio makes everything from training videos to PowerPoint presentations to lectures look better, reach more people, and pack more punch. Which makes you look even smarter, too.
I especially like the last sentence above…
I purchased this screen recorder to develop some tutorials in Corrosion Engineering, my specialty, from 25+ years in this field. I am glad I got this tool, as I can now produce videos that document, inform, and teach woodworking techniques and procedures. Woodworking has been my passion for many years, and now I get to enjoy it more than I ever have at any time in the past.
As many of you have seen, I use this product to document procedures and techniques, and modifications in the design of my woodworking pieces. I have called the 3-D program my “visualization tool”; Camtasia allows me to share the results with you. I use it this way, the simplest way to get results; but it can also create fully interactive tutorial sessions, with quiz sections, Q&A, etc.
If you are interested in pursuing it further, please contact TechSmith. I am not associated with the company - I am simply a happy customer!
Edit to add: I learned just a few minutes ago that the TechSmith people will be in San Francisco at MacWorld, January 14-18. It looks at if some of you will have a chance to meet the Camtasia people in person.
In an earlier post I showed a cabinet I “built” using eCabinet Systems software, to match the design of an existing Krenov cabinet.
In this episode I show the changes I have made to the same cabinet, to adapt the design to something my client has in mind. Other than editing the video to remove long pauses, I show the modifications to the cabinet to:
Add shelves and partitions
Change the size of the boards I imported - I show the “cuts” made to fit the space available
Additional changes to achieve a more balanced design
On purpose, I left in the video mistakes I made while using the software. Let me know if you catch them . I left these in to show how easy it is to recover from a mistake - it is easy to forget specific steps if one has not used the software for some time.
To keep things moving and to keep you from getting (too) bored, I sped up the video by a factor of 3. I also did not narrate the video, to prevent additional boredom. Instead, I used sub-titles to describe what was happening.
As I get ready to make prototypes of various components of the Krenov cabinet I shared with you a short while back, I realized my mortise chisels needed some care. As I prepared the 1/4-inch chisel, it occurred to me that it was an opportunity to share with you how I tune my chisels, to make it more pleasurable to use them on the mortising machine. On the left is the cabinet I used to determine if I could develop a working model of a Krenov-style cabinet in eCabinet Systems software - I am modifying this model into a design I will build.
The procedure I use to tune the chisels is not new, and it is very simple if the “proper” tools are used to create a sharp edge. This is how I do it:
I use the Rockler 3-piece mortise sharpening set - it comes with two diamond-covered abrasive cones that put a nice bevel on the inside surface of the tip of the chisel - for the smaller 1/4 inch chisel I prefer to use the cones on the drill press. It is essential to use speeds lower than 300 RPM, to prevent glazing of the abrasive surfaces on the cones:
Remove the machine marks on the outer surfaces of the chisel. This will give a better finish on the face of the mortise. It also helps the chisel to slide smoothly as it makes the cut. I do it using 150-grit sandpaper on a smooth and flat surface, such as the cast iron on the table saw. Always use the same number of strokes: 20 to 30 strokes should be sufficient.
Finally, remove the burrs that form on the very tip of the chisel, using a diamond stone. I like to use 10 strokes to remove the burr.
That is all - you should have a nice, sharp chisel to allow you to make the mortices without overheating the chisel tips. If you keep them sharp, you will prevent overheating and burning; overheating is likely to make your mortise-making experience miserable.
You can read a good article by Bob Lang of Popular Woodworking here. I have not used a file to notch the inside corners of the chisels, as Bob does. I will try this if I run into chip-clearing issues in the future.
I have received several get-well wishes for my wife, who is recovering from total knee replacement surgery. I posted about this earlier - you can view that post here. This is an update.
I picked her up at the hospital and brought her home Sunday afternoon. She walked from the truck to the house and into bed on her own, folks. She has always been a trooper, and a tough cookie. She has been doing well since returning home; the road ahead may be tough for her, due to physical therapy, but we are both certain she will pull through this in great shape once more. She has even managed to sneak to her desktop computer to check e-mail and other stuff - using her walker, and on her own. If I have to judge from previous experience with her last knee surgery, the walker will be history about this time next week.
Thanks for all your thoughts and get-well wishes. She appreciated them all!
My name is Al Navas, and I live in NW Missouri with my bride of many years.
We are both woodworkers who love to be in the shop together, sharing wonderful times. She is a woodturner, and also carves and does pyrography. I do what many call flat work, which includes jewelry boxes to blanket chests; armoires to entertainment centers; church altars to prayer kneelers; custom cabinets to rustic furniture.
In our spare time in the shop we make toys, bird houses, etc., for our granddaughters. In late 2007 we finished serving as officers for the St Joseph Woodworkers Guild.
. I left these in to show how easy it is to recover from a mistake - it is easy to forget specific steps if one has not used the software for some time.
