JKM Woodworking

My most recent medium-to-big project was very frustrating. I had to quit working on it. When tidying up I found these pieces to an older project and decided to put them all together. The project is for a small table or plant stand.

pine legs and basswood aprons

I had made four small legs out of yellow pine, and four trapezoidal aprons out of basswood. I fitted them with dominos and then I set them aside for . . . eighteen months.

I wanted to carve the guilloche pattern that Peter Follansbee demonstrates. I have since gotten his book, Joiner's Work, which includes pictures and instructions. One lesson is to work with the natural curve of the gouges. So I walked some gouges around to see what size circles they would make.

circles made by #7 and #5 gouges

Using a compass set to these sized I drew out the pattern of overlapping circles. In the next picture I've skipped a few steps. The first apron I held in a handscrew.

first one in progress

The next three I lined up and carved all at once. It would have been easier to just carve one long piece and crosscut it into four smaller pieces afterwards.

the next three

I did most of the carving with three gouges. There were some places I went left when I should have went right, or went under when I should have went over, etc.

I decided to apply shellac before gluing up. It's not easy to apply shellac to these carvings. I usually wipe it on with a cotton rag, but a rag can't get into the tight spots. By the end I was flooding the recesses with a squirt bottle and using a cheap brush to thin it out and spread it around.

flooded whorls garnet on the left, blonde on the right

The basswood aprons got three coats of garnet shellac. The pine legs got three coats of blonde shellac. I chose blonde shellac to match the tiled top which I previously made.

I found this in the back of a drawer.

I glued one apron to two legs with titebond genuine hide glue. After doing this twice I added the two remaining aprons to complete the assembly. Sometimes when clamping an angled joint the clamps want to slide off. These clamps stayed in place but the blue ones sometimes left impressions.

glued and clamped

You can see in the above picture and the following one how the tops of the legs are angled upwards. This is because the legs are splayed.

top doesn't lay flat because the corners of the legs are lifted

To flatten them I lay a saw across the tops of the two aprons and slowly cut across the leg:

flattening in line with aprons

The bottoms of the legs or the feet are also angled, but it seemed so minor I didn't bother addressing it.

the feet aren't flat either

All that was left was to attach the top. Since the top is plywood there is no worry about wood movement. I added one pocket screw to the backside of each apron.

It would have been smarter to do this in the beginning. base screwed to top

Tile Top Table or Tabouret

10 1/4" square top, 16 1/2" high

Yellow pine legs with basswood aprons

front view angled view

Last episode we left off with the outline drawn. I drilled multiple holes inside the lines and then worked on cutting them out. I used a jigsaw as my coping saw wasn't deep enough. In exchange for the increased dust and noise, it worked a lot quicker.

coping saw can't reach to the middle jigsawn

I also made ogee curves on the bottoms of the sides and on a toekick. My bandsaw has a wide blade which isn't ideal for tight curves, but it can get close if there are relief cuts.

relief cuts before bandsawing cut close to line

With all the shapes and curves cut out, I tried to file the rough edges smooth. My favorite files are the Lee Valley 'Milled-Tooth Files' but they don't fit everywhere. I don't or can't make the edges perfectly smooth, I just try to even out the rough spots.

some of these were the cheapest money could buy 20 years ago using saw teeth like a file to get into the corners

During the sneak peek I didn't like the overall shape or appearance. It seemed too top heavy, or the top shelf cavity was as large or larger than the bottom. So I cut 1.5" off the top.

the top fell off

The tabletop is just over 1" thick. I rounded over the edges. I tried using one of my new molding planes which worked ok on the long grain and not so well on the end grain. I mostly made the roundover with a #4 plane and used the molding plane as a gauge to check my progress.

wide molding plane for thick tabletop roundover corner

For fastening I ordered some 3d (1.25" long) cut nails. As this may be a porch table I went for galvanized. I could have used different lengths for different parts of the project, but didn't want to order (didn't want to pay for) multiple sizes.

3d rosehead nails from tremont this is why we practice. 7/64 was too small of a pilot hole.

I used a cutoff to mark where the nails would go. Then drilled small holes from the inside face through the dados. Then I drilled the full sized 1/8" pilot holes from the outside. Later I would dry fit and drill the remaining half of the pilot hole into the shelves. I preplaced the nails with just their tips poking through before gluing up.

scrap to layout nail locations

For finishing I used tie dye. I made a sample board of blue tie dye with one coat, two coats, or two coats followed by oil. I chose #23, "Cerulean Blue" with two coats, without oil.

sample board. bottom row has oil which does not look good.

It was difficult to apply the dye to the filed edges of the curves. In some places the wood was too rough for rags and foam. In other places it was too tight to get something in there. For the flat surfaces I used a cotton rag. The dye did not penetrate well into the grain, which I guess is a characteristic of woods like this (sassafras).

dye detail after one coat

I was having problems due to the dye applying unevenly in some areas. I realized it was due to not planing/scraping/sanding fully. So if some of the areas look streaky or splotchy, I think it's more my prep work than the dye.

hand plane tracks. I should've cleaned up more. unplaned (dark) vs planed (light)

I used about 4-6 fluid ounces of dye. I bet that comes out to less than 50 cents.

dye and brushes and rags

I'm not sure if this will be an outside table. If so I don't plan on putting any top coat on. If it ends up living inside I may apply lacquer or wax.

I did all of the dying before assembly. I didn't want to be wiping into corners. I glued up with tite bond II. First just the two sides and two shelves. All of the joints are end grain to long grain. I coat the end grain with glue twice. After nailing there was no need for clamps. I inserted the toekick and top rail to keep it square.

nailed and glued

I added strips to double up the back of the shelves. This is so when I nail on the backboards I am aiming at a wider target. They probably were not necessary. I also glued and nailed the toekick and two top rails.

doubling up the back of the shelves I was hesitant to nail so close to the edges

The top is fastened with screws going up through the top rails. Since the top and the sides are the same species and same orientation I didn't need to make slots or allowances for movement.

with top, without back

The back slats are made with leftovers from resawing. They are less than 1/4" thick. I fastened the two outer boards and then traced and sawed the middle board to fit. They are butted together without grooves or rabbets. I did glue the outer boards to the sides. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

Sheikah Table

23" tall, 18" wide, 17" deep

side 1 front side 2 back eye to eye

I had a stack of short pieces of sassafras and it was like a geometry puzzle to see if I had enough to make a little table. I took measurements and made drawings trying to eke it out.

enough to make a small table?

Alas I made a trip to the lumberyard and picked up another piece to make sure I had enough.

this will be enough for comfort

About the time I was doing this I noticed my porch has a bunch of junk on it and no place to store it, so I thought this might make a good porch table. Sassafras is on the list of durable woods that can take some weather. If that doesn't work out it could be a nightstand, side table, or whatever.

The design of the table is simple, with two shelves only and no drawers or doors.

it's a start

Some of the stock is 5/4 or 6/4 thick, allowing resawing into thinner pieces. My bandsaw fence is only ~3" tall, and it came with this roller to keep the lumber pressed against the fence. They work ok. In the next picture I am resawing 9" wide 6/4 thick sassafras. I also resawed some 5/4 stock. This gives a range of thicknesses from less than 1/2" to over 1".

fixin to resaw resawn pieces

After running these boards through the planer I assembled them into panels. I made the top first, as its size would determine the size of the case. The top ended up 19" wide and 17" deep. I made the case a little smaller to allow an overhang on three sides.

top panel glued, marking back edge to plane

There were four glued up panels: the top, two sides, and one long shelf panel I later crosscut into two shelves. I used titebond II instead of my regular hide glue, as it may be exposed to the weather.

match planing to get a good glue joint

For now I plan on nailing the shelves through the sides. Unlike my shamrock magazine stand I added dados to house the shelves. I mark one line and cut with a batten, then use a spacer to cut the second line. The bulk is wasted away with a chisel and a router plane cleans up the bottom. If the shelf doesn't fit I mark where to plane a little off the underside of the shelf.

sawing one wall of dado with a batten router plane cleans the bottom after chiselwork mark where to relieve the underside of the shelf

'Sheikah' is from a videogame, The Legend of Zelda series. The Sheikah characters have this eye symbol that is on their clothes or in the background. I'm going to pierce it through the sides of the table. I printed the symbol out on multiple sheets of paper, then traced through the paper onto the wood. This doesn't work on harder woods, but it worked on sassafras which the wood database says has a janka hardness of 630.

there's gotta be a better way to do this tracing through paper to make impressions into the wood

Here is a quick assembly to see what it will look like:

sneak peek

I think I will make some changes, but nothing major. I still have to cut a toekick rail and two rails to go across the top. So far I've glued up four panels and made four dados. It felt like more than that.

I bought two lots of planes from an estate sale. One was for metal bodied planes and one was wooden bodied.

new additions

I decided to leave them on the bench until I processed them, rather than put them away and forget about them. So I walked past them for a month until I got around to it.

I already had a few planes but almost always used the #5 or #7. They just worked the best. I did have #3 and #4 planes which should be used as smoothers, but I never really trusted them. I merged my old planes with the new ones and first decided which ones to get rid of. I don't need three #6 planes.

metal bodied planes wood bodied planes

The non-keepers I will try to sell or if they are low value I will take them to the thrift store.

eclipse plane - not a keeper defiance plane - not a keeper

There was one I thought was a frankenplane:

doesn't look quite right

The levercap was textured, which I assumed meant it was taken from a transitional plane. Also the body had "STANLEY" instead of "BAILEY" and there was no number anywhere. Looking it up I learned it was a stanley "Foursquare" which I had never heard of. Not a frankenplane after all.

The metal bodied planes I brushed the dirt off of and sharpened the blades. I was most interested in the others. The transitional and wooden planes were mostly new to me. I'd wanted molding planes and now had a few. I couldn't wait to try them out. I tried planing profiles on basswood before even disassembling or sharpening them.

This #24 transitional plane works surprisingly well:

transitional no 24 works better than my #4

There were two planes with almost the same profile, one was marked "5/8 Ogee":

Deforest, Birmingham I should've tilted it.

There was a small variety of types:

Plow plane; Moseley & Son, London round? Tongue plane; A Mathieson & Son, Glasgow & Edinburgh

Now that I have a tongue plane it would be nice if I could set up one of the plow planes to make complimentary grooves.

3/8 beading plane? hollow

Satisfied that they actually cut, I then disassembled them, cleaned them a little and tried my best to sharpen the blades.

some required more work than others

And now my bench is clear.

My son asked to build a bookcase. I countered with a shelf mounted on a wall or a headboard with cubbyholes, which we settled on. We took measurements and I drew rough plans.

rough sketch

We used what I call 'cruddy pine' reclaimed from my house. Most of it is 1x10. We picked a few, waved a metal detector over them and then fed them through the thickness planer.

mostly planed vs unplaned cruddy pine

Crosscuts were made with a handsaw or bandsaw, and rip cuts were made with the bandsaw. All of the joints are 90 degree butt joints with pocket screws.

mostly power tool project but some hand tools case before upright dividers back view, top is not deep enough to cover case

The above picture is trying to show that the top board is not wide/deep enough. This was addressed by adding a backer board to add 3/4" of depth. I also ripped a little off the back of the upright dividers to allow room for a 1/4" plywood back.

My son asked to spray black paint like he remembers when I made the small dresser. For that project I actually rolled on india ink and then sprayed clear lacquer. So for this project we rolled and brushed on india ink and then sprayed zinnser sealcoat.

ready for 'painting'. back, top, and case india ink allows grain to be visible in position to connect rails. back not installed yet.

For a lot of woodworking bed plans there's discussion about how to set the rails into the headboard, and what type of hardware to use. Our project was easier, as the bed uses metal rails. We put the rails up to the headboard, marked where the slots were with an awl, and then drilled holes for bolts with nuts and washers. One of the holes had to be adjusted a little because I hit a pocket screw on the backside.

mark position of rails for mounting holes awl marks for starting holes through bolts, back view

My son did well, he even used power tools more than I expected. I'm a grown up and think the bandsaw can be intimidating and the planer is disturbingly loud. We also used a power drill, impact driver and paint sprayer. And some basic handtools like a saw, hand sander, saddle square, awl, etc. He likes smacking the holdfasts. And the 'painting' was relatively fun.

rails and back installed

This was built on an accelerated schedule. Not like my solo projects that take weeks or months just of planning. The whole thing took 3-4 sessions. There were chances for lessons like "It doesn't have to be perfect" or "That's OK, we'll work it out".

finished