Full Chisel by Stephen Shepherd

A discussion over at Wood Central Hand Tool Forum talked about woodworking and what was more important the Journey or the Destination.  Or the process verses the product and which provided the most rewards.

That got me thinking and you know where that leads.  Some argued that it was the journey that provided the most enjoyment, using their tools with their skills to do the work and to learn from mistakes and from others.  Then there were those (fewer in number, no surprise) that thought that it was the destination was of more importance.  Whereas the journey was only incidental in getting the finished product.  It wasn’t the tools it was what the tools made that was the reward.

This dichotomy has been around for a while, I am not sure why we need dichotomies other than a single chotomy is rather boring.  We as a species do like to organize things and put them in categories and have labels and like things neat and tidy, well some of our species.

I thought about both sides and both arguments, I considered the journey as well as the destination, the process and the product.  I initially thought that I was a more process oriented craftsman and that the product was secondary, yet important because that is where money is made.

People that do woodworking as a hobby generally (and I dislike generalizations) are more process oriented where making the project is more fulfilling than the project itself, although it has some significance.  People that do woodworking as a profession are more concerned about the end product as that pays the bills.

Here is my take on this issue. (I do woodworking for a living and it is also my hobby, I don’t have a life).  I can not make the distinction between the journey and the destination.  When I am in the process of building something (the journey), I can not fail to consider the outcome (the destination).  I actually start at the destination , what I am going to be building and the idea of the final product is in my mind, sketched on a piece of paper or from a photograph or other source.  

So I begin my journey at the destination and at that point consider how I am going to build what is in the queue.  I plan my journey only after I have a good understanding of where I intend to end up.  In my case the journey and destination are not separate.   Even if the terminology is different I can not consider the end result, the product without understanding the process.  Although I have designed things that in the end were difficult to build, I try not to do that anymore.

 I do a fair amount of repair and restoration work and in that case the product (destination if you will) is already there and it is just the process or journey.  I also make reproduction furniture and tools and existing examples are around to copy.  So by examining them closely I am able to discern many of the techniques incorporated in making the piece as well as discovering what tools were used in the process.  The latter by the marks they leave.

For me the process is inextricable from the product, they are not the same thing and I can’t consider one without considering the other.  And then some will just say that I do things backwards.

Stephen

I make my own, well, rulers that is.  I will get to that in a minute, what got me thinking about this was a post over at Logan Cabinet Shoppe about over-rated thin shavings.  An excellent discussion about focusing on something that is of little importance, namely the shaving.  People treat these thin gossamer shavings as something wonderful, while I view them as something I am going to have to sweep up later.

The only shavings I am interested in come out of my spile plane, they are thick, have a nice curl and I can actually sell them.  Handy for starting a fire, but more often sold as a home decoration.  These shavings are important and I save and sell them.

I could check my shavings with a wire gauge (the only tool I have that can measure that small), but why would I really care if my shavings are .0001, I don’t think that matters, what matters is how the wood looks that I have just removed that shaving from.

Now to my point, I make my own tools including layout tools and rulers.  Here are a couple of rulers I have made along with the tool I use to make them.

The top item is the stamp used to make rulers.  The center ruler is a standard 12 inch ruler, the lower ruler is a centering ruler, marked out from the center.  I didn’t think I needed to include the gnomon.

It is inspired by an original I had seen from an old box of tools belonging to a friend of mine and made this ‘copy’ of the original about 25 years ago.  It is made of a piece of mild steel 1/4″ thick and 1″ wide and 6 inches long.

I start by carefully marking 8 equal spaces (1/8″) along one edge with a sharp file.  This is a starting place for the hacksaw to make the cuts down just under an eight inch.  I then use a triangular file to carefully sharpen the marking teeth.  I didn’t quite get everything just right the first time and found I could move the arrant tooth with a cold chisel, so after a bit of fettling I got the marks in the correct location.  I kept checking with a metal ruler to make sure it is the correct length.

I then filed off some of the teeth to delineate the 1/2, the 1/4’s and the eights, the last being the shortest.  This gives a visual as to where the individual marks are, the ends are the longest, then the halves, then the quarters then the eights.

One thing I did learn about this stamp is that you can’t just start stamping and moving the stamp to the next location as it will end up too short.  This is caused by the taper on the outside teeth and they tend to pull the stamp too close resulting in a ruler that is too short.  To compensate for this I mark out each inch on the ruler blank and mark it with a cold chisel (sharpened) on the inch marks.  This gives a positive register mark to align the stamp for the next inch.

And why do I have rulers marked in 1/8″ increments only?  Well I know that 1/16″ is right in the middle of the eighth mark and anything less than that I just don’t care about.  I make furniture by hand and measurements in the hundredths or thousandths are meaningless.  I make tools and those fine measurements are equally meaningless.

Very fine measurements are only good the moment you make them as wood is hygroscopic and will take in and give of moisture regularly, so tiny increments are irrelative.

Stephen

After all he invented the pendulum, plate tectonics and wave theory, in the 17th century.  It mostly has to do with frequency and that is determine3d by the length of the pendulum and to some degree its mass.  More importantly where that mass is located.  The usual location for the weight is in the bob, near the swinging end of the pendulum shaft.  Now why would I bring this up?  Well it all has to do with the wall clock I made.  Remember the one I have to move the mechanism and dial down.

I had put the mechanism on the back board a while back in order to offer some protection to the works before I built the clock case.  While on the board, I could not slow it down enough to keep proper time, it ran too fast.  The wire extension did the trick, but upon ‘completion’, the works needed to be dropped, the extension removed and the bob adjusted all the way down.  Still running a bit fast I was in a quandary.

 So I called the Professor (of Mathematics and Physics) and posed the question of how to slow down the pendulum?  Could I add weight to the bob?  He paused, mentioned an oncoming malady effecting his head and grabbed a math book to check his thoughts.  Then a physics book, then an interesting solution.

He suggested an increase in the gravitational forces directly under the clock would do the trick and could be accomplished with a small amount of a neutron star material.  I asked him to send me some, he said yes but that I would have to pay the postage.  Well, we thought it was funny.

Adding mass to the bob will only slightly decrease the swing.  What is important is the location of the weight.  He said by reducing the weight of the SHAFT of the pendulum would slow it down.  That to me was counter-intuitive, then I thought about John and James Harrisons work with heat compensating pendulums in the early 18th century.  John Harrison eventually was rewarded for his resolution of the problem of determining longitude at sea by developing the first chronometer (actually two movements that correct each other).

Because part of the shaft is wood, I can remove some of its mass by gouging wood from the back side and I think I will add some lead shot to the bob, it is hollow on this movement.  I actually have about 5/8″ below the bottom of the pendulum and could add a smaller extension, but I like the placement of the bob where it is, so I am willing to play with the physics and math.  I should have paid more attention in school.

Stephen

This is an interesting reproduction tripod table.   R.G. KITTINGER SHOPS - NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y.  It was probably made in the early 20th century, there are slotted screws on the piece holding the top.

They actually saved the two pieces that broke out between the two dowels.  The couple that owns this table also owns the Child’s Rocking Chair, mentioned earlier.

Made of mahogany and glued together with HIDE GLUE.  The repairs were easy, cleaned the surfaces of dust, coated everything with liquid hide glue and put it back together.  When doing repairs it is important to do them as soon after the damage as possible, so the breaks are sharp and fit back together well.

I clamped a small wooden C-clamp across the leg to give a purchase for the other two clamps, a wooden cam clamp and a small iron adjustable clamp.  All surfaces needing protection had a piece of soft wood to prevent marring during clamping.  With everything snugged up, I used a wet rag to remove the glue that squeezed out.

I will give it a coat of Moses T’s Reviver and it will be ‘good as old’.

If I were going to make a tripod table, I would either make a jig that fit the leg like the above C-clamp to give a purchase or have a notch in the leg (in extra wood, cut off later) to allow a good seat for the clamps.  But then if I were going to make a tripod table I would use sliding dovetails instead of dowels and there is no need for this type of clamping.

Stephen

Well as promised here is a picture of the tools I use.  I do not have a set of steel graining combs at this moment, I need to order another set.

The round brushes at the top are the type used in the nineteenth century, oval and flat brushes are later.  The only flat brushes in the nineteenth century were for graining.  The larger round brushes have bridles on them to hold the bristles tight.  As the brushes wear, the bridle can be removed for additional life.

The Elephant Ear sponge is used for burls, I also grain canvas to look like leather and the sponge work for that as well.  You will notice that I don’t have a feather in my tool arsenal.  People would ask me about that all the time as sometimes the painting and graining is referred to as ‘feather graining’, and there is some association with feathers being used for marbleizing, but I have not seen any old grained pieces that were done with a feather.

The large flat brush it a mottler that is used dry to manipulate the graining to blur or mottle the grain.  Can also be used for the subtle cross graining of interlocking wood like ribbon mahogany.  I also have a wavy mottler that is used for the same purpose.  Its advantage is that it doesn’t leave a straight mark like the flat mottler can.

The roller with the wire handle is used to add flame grain to oak graining.  This simulates the medullary rays of quarter sawn white oak.  Oak graining is done with a slower drying glazing medium made from thinned down spar varnish.  I prefer McCloskey Marine Spar Varnish in Gloss.  I buy the gloss because it does not skin over as fast as the semi-gloss or matt versions.  I can also make it semi-gloss or matt by adding whiting (calcium carbonate).  This is a subtractive process.

The varnish is thinned with a bit of boiled linseed oil and turpentine to which I add burnt umber dry powdered pigment.  It is applied to the surface with a brush or rag, the surface just needs to be covered with a thin coat of the graining medium.  I then will dip deeper into the jar and get some more pigment on the brush or rag and make a few streaks of darker color.  I might also wipe a bit off of certain areas to imitate natural changes in the wood. 

I then go over it with steel graining combs, first straight along the surface and then a second pass at a slight angle.  This makes a very real looking oak.  You can also manipulate the combs to introduce curly grain as well.  I always hold the combs skew to the surface, much like using a hand plane.  Once I am happy with the look I use the flame grain roller to introduce the quartersawn flecks.  The roller squishes the graining medium out of the way and the lighter base coat shows through.  I may then work over the surface with a mottler to further enhance the look

The brushes on the lower left are all pencil-over-grainers.  The one in the center is a shop made version taking a cheap bristle brush and removing a lot of the bristles.  They are called pencil over-grainers because in the nineteenth century small round paint brushes were called pencils.  I can use these to apply graining (additive) or I can use them to manipulate the graining medium (subtractive).  I also hold these at a skew.

By skewing the combs or brushes, you can vary the spacing of the lines.  Combs are worked over the entire surface from one end to the other with the comb in contact the entire time.  The over-grainers are not used in that way but only periodically touch the surface, so there are no solid lines on the surface.

The rollers on the right hand corner are called ‘Checkering Rollers’ and are a series of serrated wheels with spacers and are used in an additive process for putting on very fine grain lines.  They are used in conjunction with a brush that charges the wheels with graining medium and transfer long dashes along the surface.  The one on the far right is a new model, they are available in a couple of sizes.  The larger checker roller is an antique from England and has a much looser axle, so it will go over moldings, this is a sweet tool, I had to pay a lot for this one, cost me $85.00.

There are other tools out there, Badger brushes, floggers, etc.  I have seen people use floggers but haven’t bought one for some reason, I probably should have one as they are a neat looking brush.  They are used to manipulate the grain, they have long loose hairs or bristles that flop around as you flog the surface.

Stephen

Bob at Logan Cabinet Shoppe suggested that I do a blog post on painting and graining.  Good idea, so here is a description of the process of painting and graining.  It is also called faux bois (French for False Wood) and marbleizing (to imitate stone) and another process called scagliola (an Italian term for something), which is actual ground up stone in the work.

 It actually takes me longer to properly prepare and paint a piece than it does to do the actual graining, which goes quite fast.  The surface should be smooth and the paint applied in the direction of the ‘intended’ grain.  So for cross banding you would apply the paint in that direction.  This will add to the overall look of the piece.  It starts the process by adding a slight texture to the surface, it is more of an optical thing rather than a visual one.

I use only oil based paints (no latex) on my pieces as I want them to last.  I also use an alcohol based paint, the advantage of this is that it dries in minutes.  It is just shellac, alcohol and dry powdered pigments.  In the nineteenth century paint was sold by the pound, indicating that it wasn’t liquid.  Dry powdered pigments can be purchased at any ceramic/pottery supply house and are finely ground.  Do be careful as some of the pigments can be dangerous, red lead, chrome yellow, etc.

The base coat is always the lightest color of the finished graining.  Now this base coat can be quite bright, I have grained mahogany using a bright orange base coat and it turned out very nice.  The bright or lighter base coat reflects through the over graining and adds ‘artificial depth’ to the work, making it more convincing.

Speaking of convincing, here is when the 6 foot rule applies.  If I were to paint an exact copy of a wood like walnut or mahogany, it would only look good from a foot or two, beyond that it looses definition.  What you need to do and what is of the utmost importance is to make the wood a cartoon or caricature, rather than an exact copy.  The grain is exaggerated, so that when viewed from a distance, the first thought is that it is real wood and they never give it a second thought.

I painted and grained an example of walnut that was convincing at 2 feet, but from a distance it just looked brown, not at all like wood.  Years ago, I had a painted and grained Gondola chair in the window of my shop, it had a mahogany crotch painted on the seat.  A fellow stopped by and said that in his 40 years of woodworking he had never seen a piece of crotch mahogany like that one.  I turned the chair over and told him he still hadn’t.  He was surprised.

There are two types of graining that can be done after the piece is painted.  There is the additive process and the subtractive process.  The first adds the graining to the painted substrate with brushes and rollers, this is how I do most of my graining.  The second removes or subtracts the graining medium from the painted ground work, this is used mainly in graining oak.  For the first process I can use the alcohol base paint to make the graining medium.  For the second process I use spar varnish, thinned with oil and turpentine with a pigment (burnt umber for most, black iron oxide for rosewood).

 The tools required are few and most can be easily made in the shop.  I do have some specialized tools made just for graining and they are commercially available.  As for the pigments, I have a limited pallet that works for everything I have ever had to grain.  Black Iron Oxide, Red Iron Oxide (in lieu of red lead), Yellow Ocher, Burnt Umber and Zinc Oxide (instead of white lead), are the main pigments.  I also have a small bottle of Prussian Blue that I can use for blue or green, which I seldom have to make.

I will take some pictures of my graining tools and post them in my next post.

Stephen

I got the clock dial finished, the minute marks, circle and Roman Numerals are all done with Iron Gall Ink.  I used the same liner that I did on the glass for the gold stripe.  I have a compass that holds a liner (inker) and used that for the circumscribe.

I carefully located the dial by taking a square off the center of the clock hands on the movement.  I transferred these marks to the sides and top and bottom.  I carefully positioned the new dial in its proper orientation, marked the two struts and screwed it into place.  I then shut the door to take a look.

Well, I screwed up.  I didn’t notice that the entire movement and dial were mounted too high in the clock case.  Fortunately I had added an extension to the pendulum that was about an inch long.  I had done this to put the pendulum down further in the case.  Well there goes that idea.  So I merely lowered the entire movement, it only had two screws, the gong, it had one screw and the two small brass screws that hold the face.

It took about 20 minutes to correct the problem.  I had all the holes located vertically in their correct location it was the horizontal position that was off by 3/4″.  So I set the calipers to three quarters of an inch and removed the dial, movement and gong.  I then used a square to line things up and with the calipers transferred the hole straight down 3/4″.  I then put it back in place, added the rest of the screws, two extra in the movement and two more in the gong.

I had to adjust the pendulum down, I had plenty of room on the adjustment and have the clock keeping good time.  I will check it tomorrow but I am sure it is fairly close to being ‘on time’.

Stephen

I was just too lazy to make a sticking board, I should make one some day but I so seldom do sash moldings.  However I need some, so I had to make it.

I set it up on the edge of my workbench, having removed the crochet from the front edge as it interfered with the fence on the rabbit plane.  The three holdfasts are holding the ‘clips’ I made on scraps of wood that hold the stick on the very edge of my workbench.

I used a mortise gauge to mark the rabbit as well as the front to mark the narrow front edge of the sash molding.  The molding in the middle of the bench by the shavings is the finished profile.  What I noticed when I was planing both the rabbit and the front is that the score lines produced a bit of fuzz as the plane gets down to the line.  Interesting method of telling when you are done.

I made a couple of ‘clips’ to hold the molding by the rabbit once it was shot.  I also discovered that the clips hold the molding from the other side once it is formed, but there isn’t any reason to, unless the rabbits need to be worked on again.

I started out with a nail stop as the regular planing stop doesn’t work on the edge of my bench.  The nail was alright but bent and then was in the way.  So I removed it drilled a hole, made a countersink and inserted the screw.  It worked alright but the stick would occasionally not catch.  So I put some decorative notches around the top with a triangular file.  The end result was much better.  And when it is not in use it is screwed down to below the bench surface.  But handy, just unscrew to any height and it is ready to go.

While I usually don’t use metal planes, I did use this Stanley No. 289 to do the rabbits.  I also used a skew rabbit plane.  The wooden skew worked great but it needs to be reground as it has a nasty secondary bevel that just looks bad.

I am still unsure where my I. GREEN moving fillister plane is, it is in one of those boxes I have yet to unpack, or I would have used it instead of the Stanley.  But the Stanley does a good job.  One thing I did notice is that the nicker needs to be in the safe position so it doesn’t nick the board, as it is with the grain so not necessarily.  I started with the nicker out and found that it road over knots, the nicker lifting the plane at the hard spots.  Once the nicker was out of the way the plane worked just fine.

Stephen

Here are a series of photographs to show the nature of this small repair.  The birch Dutchman had been fit and glued into place and allowed to dry overnight.

The next day with the clamp still in place I began to shape the wood down to match the original turnings.  I did the top first which was a problem as the handle of the chisel was too long and the seat of the chair interfered with some of the work.  I also used a small chip carving chisel to remove the excess.

Then I focused my attention to getting the bottom side of the bead shaped.  This was easier as I was able to get full use of the chisel.  But under the arm it was tricky and I used a combination of the chisel and the knife to get it to shape.

 It was useful to look down the length of the turning and see the protruding new wood as after I had it first shaped and looking good, by sighting down the turning I saw that my bead was too fat.  It also looks bigger when it is white and smaller after it is finished, it is an optical thing.

I did some minor filling with hot shellac stick, then sanded and gave it a coat of liquid shellac.  I then started with the pigmented shellac to darken the color.

I started with burnt umber then followed with black iron oxide.  I then shot on a couple coats of shellac, followed by some vigorous brushing and it was done.  Well I thought, upon inspection I noticed two small holes that I must have missed when using the hot stick.  Instead of firing up the alcohol torch, I went to the grease pot and scraped out a bit of beeswax/tallow mix and pressed it in the holes.  A touch of black iron oxide, another shot of shellac and it was done.

Stephen

P.S. the is my 200th post since starting my blog!

Sometimes as woodworkers we are required to fashion things out of metal.  That is the case with the hanger for this clock.  It is not an off the shelf item and most old examples appear to be shop made, there may be factory versions but I haven’t seen any.

These are the tools I used to make the iron (probably mild steel) wall clock hanger.  I do use shears to make cuts, but I don’t drill.  Instead I punch the holes, again most examples of sheet iron work, the holes appear to be punched which is much faster than if it were drilled.  I would pound the iron flat as it is distorted when punched.  I used two fine round files to smooth up the edges.

The rectangular ‘green’ block is actually an off-cut of maple that I use to back up the punch.  You can see the little plugs of metal embedded in the end grain of the block of wood.

 I used this harness vise (Gary from Toolemera straightened me out on this ’saw vise) to hold the piece while I made the slot with the small round file.  After the slot was punched and cut with a cold chisel and flattened, I shaped the inside holes.  The two holes for the screws were punched then I used a metal countersink and brace to counter-sink the holes to accept the heads of the wood screw.

I used the small shears to rough cut the outside profile then using the large round and flat file to get the metal to the final shape.

Stephen

I have repaired this chair before and it was broken again at the site of the original damage.  It wasn’t that the repair didn’t hold it was that an adult fell on the chair and broke it in a slightly different place from the original damage and subsequent repair.

I squared out a space at the location of the lacuna and fashioned a piece of birch, matching the original and glued it into place.  It is at the arm socket, so the Dutchman needed to have a space for the hole.  It didn’t take too long to make the replacement piece.

I use the classic rope and toggle to make a tourniquet to clamp the pieces together while the glue dries.

After the glue dries, I will shape it to match the turnings and give it a coat of pigmented shellac to match the original.  The chair is birch and I don’t have much of that wood around, so I used part of the whorl on the old spinning wheel and it was just big enough to make the patch.

Stephen

This is something I have been wrestling with for quite a period of time and for some reason this morning I had an epiphany.  When putting stripes on furniture or glass in this case, there is always a problem with starting and stopping the line.  Even using brushes it is the same problem, but it is more common using the liner and a straight edge.

The first thing is that the straight edge be slightly elevated above the surface so as not to cause the paint/ink/varnish to wick under and bleed out on the surface where it is not wanted.  Now I have learned a lot of tricks over the years and have even used tape to mask, but it may suffer from the wicking problem.

A friend of mine that painted bill boards uses tape then talcum powder to dust the tape, then brushes it completely away.  It gets caught up on the adhesive of the tape and helps make a dam to prevent the paint from bleeding under the tape.

Well the problem I have is that when starting and stopping, there is always a large blob before the line gets good.  Generally, I just let it dry then using a sharp knife I cut it back to its proper line, usually not a problem but it does take some time.

As you can see the line on the left has big blobs where it starts and stops.  And on the right you can see that I have started beyond the starting place and finished beyond the finish point, putting the blobs outside of the area of interest.  Nice thing about glass is that I can just scrape off any problems which is what I did with the entire line on the left.  I then re-did the line going beyond the starting and stopping points.

Here is the finished clock door with the gold stripe.  It is painted on the back side, reverse glass painting and needed to be cleaned up at the corners.  I used a sharp wide blade chisel to remove the excess paint.  Any residue remaining was easily removed with alcohol.  The paint is an oil based gold paint.  I also used the chisel to straighten up a couple of crooked parts of the lines.  I just pushed it up and left it, from the front it looks almost perfect.

 Tomorrow I am going to try to use tape on the starting and stopping points on a painted surface to see if I can eliminate the problem I have when I paint stripes on painted furniture, which I do a lot.  The ‘blobbing’ problem doesn’t seem as bad on painted surfaces, but I must remember the chisel trick.  I think the glass is so smooth that it causes the blobs to spread more than a painted surface.

Stephen

I have had this for a while and finally got around to doing the repair.  It is a candle stick made of Olive Wood from the Holy Lands and has sentimental value to the owners.  There wasn’t much to work with as it broke at its thinnest and weakest point.

Notice the tiny dowel on the gnomon, made of a birch dowel which I recycled from some rock sugar candy, that I am fond of and save the sticks as they make fine small dowels.  I did have to shape this one down a bit to fit into the tiny holes.

Because of the fracture, there wasn’t a flat enough place to start drilling and the very hard nature of the wood and the very small neck I had to get the hole right in the center.  A conventional bit wouldn’t work, so I had an idea.  Sometimes that is a good thing. 

I took a small sharp square point awl and worried a hole in the center of the neck on both pieces and gently reamed a hole.  The advantage of this is that starting with a little hole, it is possible to ream it to the center if it drifts a bit.  This is a slow initial process until the hole is centered and enlarged to a certain diameter.

That diameter is the outside diameter of one of my brad awls with a double beveled chisel point.  I keep these sharp so I grabbed one the proper diameter, it was one of my smaller brad awls and begin to make the hole deeper.  But as you can see by the dowel, the holes are not that deep, so it didn’t take that long.

Using the brad awl produced a hole that was straight as it only cuts on the tip and doesn’t enlarge the hole, as it is getting deeper.  I then applied an ample amount of hide glue to all surfaces, took less than a big drop.  I then placed it together, the break almost disappeared.

Using hide glue gave me the option of not clamping this until the glue dries.  Hide glue will shrink as it dries and the joint is very tight to start with and clamping needs to be perfect and this was a bit too delicate.  I thought about tape but dispensed with that idea and just let it sit, it will be ready on the morrow.

I put a coat of paint on the tin clock face today, it was flake white artist oil color paint thinned with turpentine.  Now, this paint is illegal today, and old enough that I had to use a scrap of wood to dig it out of the tube.  But it blended up nicely and put a good opaque coat of white on the tin dial.

I also cut the glass for the clock case today.  It was salvaged from an old window sash and it is old glass, a few nice ripples.  I do have an older piece, more seeds, real wavy, but too thick, therefore too heavy for a clock case door.  I will save that one for a larger project.  I removed the putty from the sash and was able to save the zinc triangle glazing points, which I will use to hold the glass in the door.  I will not putty the glass as it is not an exterior application.

I have been told to clean the glass before I cut it which I did, I thought.  I cut the glass while it was laying on a piece of slate from a pool table (I wanted a flat surface), made the marks and adjusted the straight to the offset of the glass cutter.  I use an old diamond point cutter and put a drop of oil on before each cut.  I made the first cut then when I lifted up the glass, I noticed it had paint speckles on it and it still cut just fine.  I made the other cut then scraped off the paint and putty on two edges.  I cleaned it with turpentine, then alcohol, then water.

I will put the gold strips on the inside of the glass tomorrow, I would have done that today, but forgot my liner.

Stephen

As you may well know shellac is bug poop, the exudation of a bug called Lacca lucifera that lives and dies on the twigs of fig trees.  It was introduced into Europe in the 1600’s or earlier with some confusion to Oriental Lacquer, hence its name.

Well it is collected and processed and we get it in all forms from ready made to its most basic form seed-lac, well stick-lac is cruder but it is difficult to acquire.  Seed-lac contains bug parts, parts of the fig tree, hair and other stuff and is shellac in its purest form.

While it is popular to filter or ‘de-wax’ shellac in an attempt to improve it, I think this is largely a waste of time and a waste of part of the properties of shellac.  Why de-wax?  It is not like it is beeswax or paraffin or carnauba that will interfere with gluing and finishing, it is a different kind of wax.

A square of cheesecloth, several layers thick is layed out and a small quantity of seed-lac is placed in the center.

The four corners are brought up together and trussed up with a piece of jute twine and secured with a couple of overhand knots.  This is all the filtering I need, it keeps out the twigs and bug parts.  And this will be disposed of when finished, it can go into the garden, be composted or burned.

After just a few minutes in alcohol the essence starts to go into decoction, producing a rich color.  Shellac was originally used as a dyestuff for its red amber color.  It was then adapted as a finish and soon someone found out how to French Polish with the stuff.  It was also the first ‘hairspray’ and is used in food as ‘confectioners glaze’, food grade of course.

Notice the thick and creamy stuff on the bottom.  This is what it looks like after it has had a chance to sit and precipitate, overnight.  I stir the stuff up prior to using, but I do not ever filter this wonderful stuff out.

There are a variety of ways to apply shellac, brush, pad, fad but here is one that works great and is quite traditional.  It is a mouth atomizer and it allows me to spray the shellac onto my work.

Mouth Atomizer

Stephen

Exercise your right to vote or not.  Vote early, vote often.

The background is a copy of an original political poster of the mid nineteenth century.

Stephen

Here is the catch, or planing stop based on the Moxon illustration.  I found an old broken wrought iron nail that was just the right size for forging up a board catch.  The catch is then inserted into my wooden planing stop.  I can remove it when not in use.  My intentions is to make another wooden stop without a hole and keep these together, as the little iron catch could be easily lost.

I heated it up to a bright red heat and forged it to shape.  I used a cold chisel to make the splits then used a triangular file to work in between.  It took 5 or six heats to get it right, then I worked it over with a file to remove any sharp edges.  I also sharpened the teeth to engage the wood.

The first piece I planed was a piece with a miter cut on one end.  The catch held the square end fine and I was pleased that it also held the piece by the miter on the end.  I tried it all directions and I am glad I finally made one.

It is important to make it from wrought iron as it is soft and will cause much less damage than if it were made out of steel.  Steel, even mild steel can be hardened but it is impossible to harden the wrought iron like steel.  I did heat the whole catch up to cherry red heat and allowed it to cool slowly, insuring it is as soft as it can be.

 I also managed to make the mortises in both the clock case and the door of the clock.  I then give them a coat of paint.  I will grain it to imitate mahogany .  I still have to paint and number the dial, find some old glass and give the works a good cleaning.

I also had the help of Mike Moore Jr. who shot this video.  After looking at it I realized I should tighten the toggle tension another half a turn to avoid the blade jumping at the start.

Cranked Dovetail Bow Saw  

Stephen

There was a recent discussion over at WoodCentral on the Hand Tool Message Board about the cranked bow saw blade used for making dovetails, well at least the pins.  I first saw the blade in Salaman’s Dictionary of Woodworking Tools and put an illustration of the blade in Shepherds’ Compleat Early Nineteenth Century Woodworker in 1981.

I have made several of these blades and as a matter of fact I made two this morning and took some pictures.  These are 11 ppi band saw blades, not the greatest blades in terms of set but the number is good and the steel is good.

This is the setup in the vise, this is a shorter vise than I have used before by 1/2″, this one is two inch.  I heat the blade to cherry red to remove the hardness, allow it to cool slowly and it is annealed.  I then heat the blade between the marks, use chalk or soapstone to mark the blade in the center, and place it in the vise as above.

 This is the first bend, which I do with a small square face hammer, then heat the blade again and pound it over until it is about 45 degrees.

I heat the blade up again in the vise, be careful as the vise does get warm.  I then beat the blade flat over on the top of the vise making the 90 degree bend.  I use a brad punch to drop the teeth at the heel down to the vise top.  I then work over the teeth with a brad punch (nail set) to get some set back to the teeth I have just hammered.

I then sharpened up the teeth as needed and it is ready to go.  It is not that hard, you can use a forge or a gas torch to heat the blade, a vise and a square face hammer and nail set.  You will also need a triangular file to touch up the teeth.

Here are the two blades I made this morning, it took less than an hour to make them.  I had intended to make only one, but the first one is cranked the wrong way.  Make sure you are bending the blade in the right direction.  I had one in my bow saw in front of me and still got it wrong.  The odd angles of the blades is normal, when put under tension in the bow saw it straightens out.

I don’t harden the blade again after I am finished, because I don’t think it was that hard to start with.  Now while most of the work I do is in pine, it works well on poplar, so I am not too concerned about hardening the teeth again.  The first part of the blade is rip, when I do touch up the teeth at the bend I do put a bit of an angle to them, I also whet the entire blade, both sets of teeth to insure a smooth cut.

The hardest part of making the blade is getting the crank in the right direction.  Give it a go, it is easy.

I had problems putting up this post, I got dumped a half a dozen times and thought it might be an omen, but I don’t believe in omens.

Stephen

I finally have something for sale, the first offering is a pen and ink Drawing of a Cabinet Shop by Clinton Whiting.

I will have the Note Cards with illustrations of Tools including workbenches available soon.

The location is there on the right under Pages-The Full Chisel Store.

Stephen

Happy Halloween.   It is also the anniversery of the death of Harry Houdini and National Magic Day.

Stephen

In Henry Mercer’s Ancient Carpenter Tools, there is a plate from Moxon, 1703 which is inscribed by hand on the plate.  There is one tool, which I think is mis-labeled, and I don’t know what the original text calls this particular saw.

It is called a ‘Compass’ Saw and somehow I don’t think that is correct now that I have made one.

I used a special chisel made by Richard MacDonald, a Master Woodcarver, and is made from an old saw blade of some sort.  I drilled 1/16″ diameter holes in the end-grain of the handle to define the narrow mortise for the tang of the saw.  I then used this chisel to remove the intervening pieces of wood and finished up the socket for the tang of the saw blade.

I am not sure of the construction of the original but this is my version of that saw.  The handle varies instead of being turned it is octagonal tapered, matching my other straight handled saws and chisel handles.  Moxon also shows this shape handles on the chisels and gouges in the same plate.

It does not appear that there was a rivet or anything else holding the tang of the blade into the handle.   I used a cold chisel to upset some barbs on the tang to hold it into the handle.  This will allow it to be removed when it needs to be sharpened again.

I sharpened it rip and it is ever so slightly breasted.I can only cut a straight line with this ‘compass’ saw, well maybe a really large curve, but for now, I will be using it for dovetails.  A friend has already expressed an interest in purchasing this saw and it is not even one day old.  I may have to make another.

I also smoothed up the edges of the clock door.  Sometimes it is handy to have a very long shooting board.  I puttied it where needed and filled the exterior of the clock case.

And during the 4 and a half hours in the shop today I also managed to almost finish the spinning wheel.  I applied a coat of shellac, did some touch ups with pigmented shellac and put it all together.  I still have to attach the treadle to the base, drill a hole in the bottom of the pitman and lace it to the treadle and run the string around the wheel, bobbin and pulley.

Now that I have it shellacked, I like the look and have reconsidered the pigmented varnish.  A little more shellac and I think it will look great.

Stephen