Clamps, and fleck.
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I found some boards with terrific fleck!
— Al Navas
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I had almost enough clamps
March 16, 2010 By
Failure of finger joints on a closet rod
March 9, 2010 By
The setting: A nice, quiet dinner with a little music in the background. A wonderful meal on the table, fresh out of the oven. And then, a terrible sound, as if a small avalanche of snow is falling off the roof to the deck, and onto the ground below.
Sandy and I looked at each other, nodded as if saying to each other “…could be the cat in the living room…” Sandy actually said it. We continued eating our nice meal. Forward three hours, time for bed, time to put some clothes in the hamper in the closet. The entire left wall of clothes is on the floor, the result of a failed oak rack – the failure occurred at the finger joints:
Failed finger joint.
Here is the interesting part: Once opened, the joint showed no evidence of glue ever having been applied on any surface:
Failed joint exposed.
How could this joint have survived the weight of two huge, fully-loaded shoe racks, plus the weight of heavy clothes? Even more amazing: This part of the rack, about a 3-foot span, was held in place by less than 1/2-inch of a very small screw actually in the wood. I remember putting up the rack in a hurry, as a permanent installation at least seven years ago, and not even wondering about this deficiency…wow!
The repair: I ripped a 1-1/2 inch wide strip, 1-inch thick piece of white oak, rounded all four corners, and installed it using T-straps with three screws to the top part of the rack. The screws securing the new rack are just over an inch into the white oak. I think this repair is likely to last a good while longer than the original.
— Al Navas
I cheated on my knife
March 5, 2010 By
I cheated today (by the time you read this, it will be tomorrow). I cheated on my knife. And I don’t regret it…Shouldn’t I feel guilty? Or should I feel sad? As a matter of fact, I am happy.
If I have but a few pins to make to pull a joint tight using the drawboring technique, I use a good, sharp knife, or a sharp chisel, to create the tip. It is this tip that allows the pin to snake through the offset holes in the tenons:
I use either chisel or knife to prepare the pins.
Now, the cheating part: Faced with preparing upwards of 20 pins, including a few spares, I scoured the shop until I found an obvious solution – an electric pencil sharpener:
Pencil sharpening technology to the rescue!
I found out that oak is very hard on electric pencil sharpeners. The electric version would not run at all after doing about 12 pins. I scoured the shop again, looking for something that might work. Back to very old technology, the trusty mechanical sharpener – I felt like I was in grade school again:
Older technology proves more reliable...
Using old and modern pencil sharpening technology I was able to finish preparing the pins in a fraction of the time I allotted. The electric model gets a reprieve from the trash can, as it worked fine again after the motor cooled off; who knew these actually have thermal protection?
Is this more than two flinks of pins?
I now have a nice bunch of pins, ready to do their drawboring thing on some mortise & tenon joinery. Whew! Thank-you, pencil sharpeners! Now I have a new question: What is a group of pins called? Is it a gaggle of pins? Or would a group of 12 pins be called a flink?
This is the last time I cheat on the knife – honest! Why am I taking such drastic measures? Because I found a much better way to prepare the pins!
— Al Navas
