Norse Woodsmith Blog Feeds

I’ve got a 12-inch radial arm saw down on the first floor of the barn, but it has not seen one second of activity since it was moved here thirteen years ago.  I’m just not doing anything that makes it necessary.  However, on the second (main) floor I’ve got a 10″ chop saw that gets used regularly to make long boards shorter for whatever reason.  For some tasks I use the cross-feed sled on the table saw but far more frequently I’m just chopping something up.

One of the great features of the chop saw is that it is quick and easy.  One of the lousy features is that it made a huge mess even when I hooked up the “dust collector” outlet to the shop vac.  Even when everything was hooked up properly sawdust went all over the place and it required a local cleanup with every use.

I finally got tired of this nuisance and made and installed the lowest possible tech solution, which reduces the sawdust cloud by about 99%.  I looked through my mountain of boxes piled up on the third floor and found one that fit my needs.  Equipped with a utility knife and a roll of masking tape I fabricated a box shroud to fit over the back side of the saw, complete with a port for the shop vac hose.  At this point the only thing missing is a fitting to glue to the portal for plugging in the hose, but even with just a rough hole cut in the side of the box the collection is magnificent.

The five volume compendium "Turning and Mechanical Manipulation" by Charles and John Holzapffel started with Volume 1 in 1846 and ended with Volume Five in 1884. A planned sixth volume was never completed. The series is a treasure trove of hand tool technology. Volume Four, on Plain Turning, and Volume Five on Ornamental turning are the bibles of their field.

Unfortunately the Holtzapffels, both father and son, may have been great tool makers but they were crappy writers of how-to books. In the time between their era and ours, "how to" instructional books have become more engaging and and much more than just a recital of facts. And of course, the act of writing a book - whether in the 19th century or today - doesn't of itself confer an engaging writing style. As a matter of fact, most Victorian books I have plowed through are pretty turgid. I can claim the honor of having read all six volumes of "The Morning Chronicle Survey of Labour and the Poor" a a groundbreaking 18491850 newspaper investigation into the living and working conditions of the British working class mostly written by the crusading Morning Chronicle journalist Henry Mayhew. I found the section on Billingsgate Fish Market to be particularly evocative and engaging - nearly two hundred years later, you can still smell the fish. Later in that section Mayhew notes that the description of the fish market section was contributed by his colleague at the Morning Chronicle: Charles Dickens.

But back to Holzapffel. I realized that in order for me to understand treadle lathes, I would need to plow though Holzapffel's description of using a treadle lathe - possibly the only instruction on using a treadle lathe specifically with hints on treadle speed, how to stand, and other treadle specific info - however turgid I found his prose.

I found it tough going. Too much of my time was spent getting lost in the text (in a bad way). And then I had a brainwave: what would happen if I took the important bits of the text and fed it into the AI chatbot Claude? I asked Claude to take the text and turn it into modern English. And it did - and wow, what a massive improvement. So here ya go. I don't have the time to do the entire book - you can if you want to; it's pretty easy - but here is what I hope is the first section of something useful. The PDF is also posted on the Gramercy Tools Treadle Lathe product page.

One important point. I look at this modernized version as a inexpensive translation. One wonderful feature of the modern internet is that Google and many services will do an instant language translation for you. The translations are rarely perfect and may miss the nuance and discernment that a real translator can provide. However, it's hard to imagine how a niche project like modernizing inaccessible language in a classic woodturning text could ever be economically viable, so having a starting point is great.

A note on the text: As I wrote in a previous blog, "softwood" in this time period included all the furniture woods, including oak. "Hardwood" referred to like Ivory, Rosewood, Ebony, and Boxwood. Meanwhile, a lot of modern forms such as roughing gouges hadn't been invented or named yet and so are not mentioned in the tools section.

Here is the link to the modern version of chapter seven.
and here is a link to the entire volume four in all its glory.

PS We used to stock reprints of all five volumes of Holzapffel but slowly they have gone out of print. We do have a single copy available of Volume Two which covers construction, action, and application of cutting tools and the machines derived from hand tools.

I’d like to share my process with a series of pictures to illustrate the process. I’d be interested in hearing from other framers who make their own frames and moldings. Basswood begins with 5/4 stock which I try to get at least 7″ wide. A combination of hand planes and a power planer will yield material that is about 1 1/16″ to 1 1/8″ in thickness. I hand plane every surface of the boards after cutting them to rough length and finished width. For this profile I wanted a slight chamfer on the edge which was cut with a low angle block plane.

To support the painting I cut a 1/4″ groove on the inside of the piece about 1″ from the top surface. Plywood (1/4″ thick) is eventually glued into it to support the painting and strengthen the corners. The corners are strengthened further with a face frame sized biscuit. Miters are cut using my shop made jig on the tablesaw and the frame is glued and clamped overnight. In the clamped picture you’ll notice a spring clamp in each corner; there is another piece of plywood on the backside to strengthen that — I know: overkill!

I keep projects glued up over night and check for any misalignment, glue, scratches, etc. before starting the finish process — it is so easy to miss them; don’t ask me how I know!

The first step to the finish process is to use Zinsser Seal Coat shellac on every surface. Once dry I lightly sand with 400 grit paper. Next up is taping off the top edge to apply a flat black paint to the inside of the frame. I tape down about 1/2″ from the top and use latex simply because it’s easy to clean up. Once that’s dry, the black areas are taped off so that the gray burnisher/sealer can be applied. Prior to applying the slow set size the frame is buffed with 4/0 oil free steel wool. In my experience, whenever an area is taped off for gilding it’s best to press the taped area down firmly and remove the tape right after gilding. I used to wait until the size was completely set (24 hours or so) but that could result in a jagged edge. By carefully pulling the tape off before the size has set I find that any leaf that wants to rip off can usually be pressed down while slowly pulling the tape off.

Imitation silver leaf always needs to be sealed to prevent it from tarnishing, my preference for that is Platinum Blonde shellac made from flakes. Since the paintings for both of these frames have a blue palette the shellac was tinted with French Ultramarine Blue dry pigments. To tone down the garishness of the silver leaf it was lightly buffed with 4/0 steel wool prior to airbrushing on the shellac, you can see the difference it makes in the left photo. After the toning was dry, cotton pads and Liberon clear Black Bison wax was used to rub out the shellac and add a slight sheen.

The final step of course is to install the artwork. Holes are located and drilled through the plywood using a 1/4″ forstner bit. I’ve found that the forstner leaves a clean hole which allows for any slight adjustments. Number 6 screws with washers are used, the hole size allows for slight adjustment. My process is to use spacers to center the painting and then locate the holes from underneath the frame. They are pre-drilled with a gimlet and the art is attached with the screws, snug at first to allow any adjustments in case the painting is slightly out of square; this does happen sometimes! One thing I like about the depth of the frame pieces is that the D-ring can be installed so that it isn’t visible from the side. In the picture showing the back view you can see the gusset that is glued into each corner.

So there it is, my process for floater frames which I’m happy with as is my wife and her gallery. Are there any other frame makers that use a similar process? Like I said earlier, Las Vegas doesn’t have a thriving art scene so there are few that I can share frame making with.

The Abraham boys and their posse are at it again and Handworks 2026 is barreling down the pike.  It will be Friday and Saturday of Labor Day weekend, in the lovely village of Amana, Iowa.  I’ll be there again close to dead center of the Festhalle, hawking my wares such as they are.  Polissoirs, beeswax and shellac wax, videos, and original c. 1765 Roubo prints, etc.

It’s the most amazing tool festival of hand woodworking you will even encounter with visitors and makers from around the globe if the tradition holds.

I’m already ramping up my truckload of stuff to take with me, at the moment creating a pile on and under a workbench I will be taking and making wax processing part of almost every day from now on.

This just might be my last long road trip other than family priorities.  We just don’t have the oomph for drives like that anymore.

 I had my annual peepers check this AM. Got there at 0730 for my 0830 appointment. I went early because Rte 10 gets nutso with rush hour traffic. It worked in my favor because at 0740 my annual exam began. An hour later I was driving home with 20/20 vision. It seems like every year the exam takes a wee bit longer and they add new tests and checks. Hopefully that is what it is and not because I can't remember what happened a year ago.

chest attached to the base

I used two screws on each bearer to secure the chest to them. 

not rocking

Happy with this. I was expecting some rocking because the base had a teeny bit of twist. Maybe the chest pulled it straight but it doesn't matter. The chest is tight and flat to the bearers and base ain't rocking.

moldings

Got  the four moldings sawn out over the lengths needed. This is as far as I got in the AM session. My peepers were dilated and I was working with sunglasses on and it wasn't working. I couldn't focus and see clearly so I went upstairs and did the crossword and sudoku puzzles.

up side of the lid

Got the first coat on the lid and it didn't pop like I thought it would. I like the sapwood and the black grain lines. There are black gum pocket/lines on the back stop too. Subsequent coats of shellac should pop this.

sizing the moldings

The molding under my finger is a test piece. I used it make sure the front molding is positioned dead on the corner.

yikes

I had seen this but I thought it was a black gum pocket. The peepers still weren't operating at 100%. The screw was too close to the edge and caused the bulge.

fixed

Squirted some glue in to the crack and clamped it shut. I'm lucky with this fix because the molding will hide all of it. 

first one done

Got the first molding set, checked, then glued and nailed in place. The plan is to repeat this for the two short ends. The last one I will trim/fit between the short open ends.

got 3 attached

Fitting the last long molding in place was batting next.

sanding stick

Used a 120 grit sanding stick to sweeten the miters. The corners of the chest after planing and sanding were slightly off 90°. 

sigh

Over corrected my trimming and the last molding is short. This gap is too wide (and ugly) to ignore. I have one more piece of molding left to replace this one.

the problem

This short side molding is a few frog hairs short of the corner. I pulled this one off and used the last long molding to get a new short side one.

new molding

Got the left corner tight.

ditto for the right side

Happy with the fit of the miters on the back. Glued and nailed it off and with that the moldings were done.

hmm.......

This was the molding I had dyed the bare wood and I can see a color difference between this and the other three. Got lucky because I wasn't pay attention as to where this molding was going. If it had been at the front I would have ripped it out and replaced it with a new molding.

decided

My choices were to rip out one of these to match the 1 1/2" square leg. Instead I'm going to knock these two down to 1 1/2" because they are the exact same length.

done

I got one leg blank for any oops that might bite me on the arse.

done

I got all the parts needed for this bench/stool/plant stand. Four legs, 6 rails, and one stretcher for the bottom rails . The board on the right is an extra rail, again for any potential oops.

In between getting shellac on the cherry chest I'll start working on the new project. I'll be doweling this like I did for Leo's desk. I will use the 6mm dowel jig I just bought for my Dowel Max jig.

accidental woodworker

Here are the dozen hand-blade scrapers that I use. In upcoming posts, I will discuss usages, techniques, and how to sharpen them.  These are all steel in the hardness range of Rc 48 – 52. Most are Lee Valley. Lie-Nielsen and Bahco are similarly very good. Thickness dimensions are inches/mm. Top photo, left column, top […]

I love tales like this.  I knew of an instance in some southern swamp where they discovered an ancient sunken cypress trunk that was so valuable the salvage company had around-the-clock guards protecting it until they could find just the right buyer who had just the right project.  I vaguely recall it went to a developer who was going to use it in all the public spaces is a huge skyscraper somewhere.  I think the dimensions of trunk were 48+” diameter at the top and 180-plus feet long.  That’s a mighty big tree.

I’d heard the asking price was $7 million.

Many years ago back in Maryland we had a micro-burst that uprooted a number for mature tulip poplar trees, the largest of which measured 24″ in diameter at the first branch, which was at the 60-foot mark.  I was unable to find a sawyer willing to deal with it, so given the cycle of life it has now gone back to the earth.

Saint Thomas shrine

Tresoor / dressoir for Castle Hernen

Medieval toolchest

Strycsitten

Savonarola folding chair

14th century X-chairs

Sedia tenaglia

Turned triangular stool

Sella curulis

St. Thomas / St. Joseph bench

Scapradekijn / hanging cupboard for Amsterdam Castle / Muiderslot

https://thomasguild.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-scapradekijn-for-muiderslot-part-6_15.html

15th century bench

installing the hinges

I always try to do my hinging the same way. Which means chopping the hinge gains on the wider board/part first. Then repeat for the other (thinner) one.

stop and move on

A big chip out happened the first lid hinge - I super glued it and clamped it with a piece of blue painter's tape. While it set up I chopped the other hinge.

yikes

A hinge is MIA. I spent an hour searching the house retracing my steps trying to find it and nada. I almost bought another set of them from Horton Brasses. Hint - look at the far end between the vise faces. The MIA hinge was hiding there.

nice touch

Horton sends steel and brass screws with their hinges. However, I had two strikes against them already. The first is they are phillip head screws and secondly, they are too long. They aren't too long for screwing into the chest but they are for screwing into the lid.

I tried ordering some black oxide, #4 x 5/8, flat head screws and nada. In fact I was ordered a lot of screws to get above the minimum and they only had two of the 9 screws I tried to order. I ended up buying brass, flat head slotted screws off the internet. It was site I hadn't ordered from before.

no help

I had no #4 x 5/8" screws in any flavor and the #5 x 5/8" screws I had were too big for the hinge countersink. I'll have to wait for the screws to come in. 

yes they are 3/4" long

I thought of clipping/filing the screws down to 5/8" but nixed it. I'll cool my heels and wait. Once they come in I will paint the heads black.

prepping for shellac

All the woodworking is done except for attaching the back stop on the lid. The glue joint on the underside of lid wasn't flush. A few strokes with the card scraper and it was.

swagged hinges

I made both gains the thickness of the leaves which left me with this big gap. I expected that and to lower it I will trim the gains on the chest until I get a gap I like.

handle template

Drilled the holes for the handles now rather then after the shellac was done.

better looking tear out

The grain on the front at top reverses three times along the length. I skewed a #3 and got most of it to look presentable. I followed that up with a card scraper. I didn't get it all but enough. I stopped because I didn't want a hollow in the front between the chest and the lid.

sneaking up on it

The gap I wanted needed about a 16th to go bye bye. Used the router plane to sneak up on that - took me 3 plane and checks before I got there.

almost there

I was slowly reducing the gap but I didn't like this one - still too wide.

done

Trying to avoid the lid becoming hinge bound. That would require adding shims to the gains which was the opposite direction I was going in. I'm happy with this one. The lid is laying flat on the front edge and the angle from the back to the front is a frog hair off 90°. (It sill may get sucked down some when I screw the hinges in place too.)

first coat of shellac

I like watching the first coat of shellac pop this cherry. I can't wait to see what it looks like with 5 or more coats slapped on it.

last of the woodworking

I had 3 coats on the underside of the lid and set the back stop in place. I used a couple drops of super glue along the length to hold it in place while I screwed it off.

last one

Five screws and a few drops of super glue secure the back stop. All the woodworking is done. The oohs and aahs will commence after the last coat of shellac is on.

easy oops fix

I forgot to remove my center line pencil mark on the back edge. Shellac is very forgiving with something like this. Card scraped the pencil mark and put shellac on this and it disappeared like it was never there.

3 coats on

Got four coats on the underside of the lid. Next batter up is marrying the chest to the base. Then I'll attach the cove moldings and finish applying shellac to the chest and lid. I should be snapping glamour pics on tuesday (for Wednesday's blog post?).

couldn't get it to flow

The cathedral grain doesn't flow around the chest in one direction. I tried to do it but it wouldn't work out. I wanted the sapwood on the outside of the chest and couldn't get the cathedrals to cooperate. 

next project

Most of these scraps of cherry have been hanging out on the tablesaw and they have to go. I think I have enough here to make a small table/bench/plant stand. 

leg stock

The two bigger ones are too big for this project. The thinner one is 1 1/2" square and I think that fits better with the overall scale of what I intend to make. I'll start on it after the chest is done.

I found something that will turn brass black - Birchwood Casey Brass Black Metal Finish. Heating brass doesn't turn it blue/black but this will. Coming from Amazon tomorrow.

accidental woodworker

My son asked for a desk or table, as all he has in his room is an end table that's too small to use a chair with. I had saved some ideas and thought this would be a good match. The inspiration is from Bill Hylton's Country Pine Furniture. My son helped with most of the steps.

photocopy from the book

The only wood that I had enough wide and thick pieces to use was maple. I think that's a good choice as it should be hard enough that it won't easily get impressions, as compared to poplar, pine, sycamore, etc. Most of the maple is curly. Curly maple looks nice but I am hesitant to handplane it because it tears out so easily. Not many handtools in this project.

marking out soft / curly maple

We marked out the pieces leaving room for snipe. The widest pieces can be used to make the lid and the aprons. The thickest pieces were 1 3/4" and will be legs. All of these pieces were sent through the thickness planer at least a couple times to smooth their faces.

nice and smooth

Some of the maple had bug holes. I do not find them delightful. I fill them with clear superglue and scrape them level later.

we can't have holes in our desktop!

The first step was to glue up the lid and cut it to size. The lid is large and heavy. I have concerns about it staying flat. Breadboard ends would be a good idea, and what are pictured in the plans, but it will be easier to go with battens. I'm also worried that if it slams shut it might break along the glue line. Maybe I can add some of that toybox hardware that keeps lids from slamming.

two wide pieces to make the lid

After the lid's size is set, the base can be made to fit. The base has four legs and four aprons. I am using dominos for all of these joints.

The side aprons are slanted. For these angles I followed the plans. I cut both sides at once on the bandsaw so they would match. After they were cut I set a bevel gauge to match the angle, in case I needed to transfer it to other pieces later.

the side aprons are angled

I needed to make angled cuts on the tops of the front legs. I crosscut these on the bandsaw after tilting the table to match the bevel gauge.

side apron mating with over-long leg that needs to be cut tilted table to match

Then the front apron needed a matching angle on its top edge. This was a rip cut with the same angle.

the front apron needs to be beveled to match

The long taper of the legs were also cut on the bandsaw. I have a plywood sled and leave the edges hanging over the side as I push it through. On one leg I cut the tapers on the wrong sides. We had planned on the ugly faces being on the back, but I had to rotate that leg 90° to make it work, so the ugly side will be more visible.

long tapering cuts on bandsaw

Before gluing the aprons and legs together I tried to smooth everything. In the next picture you can see my tools:

planing scraping and sanding

The card scraper is used for 90% of the work. A smooth plane or #80 scraper can help for the larger bumps or ridges. I also use a hand sander, mostly for the corners and edges.

Before gluing anything together we applied one coat of transtint Honey Amber and then handsanded back. This is supposed to add some depth to the curls.

applying transtint in water don't crank down too hard

I glued up the short, angled sides first. After this I decided to add pins, as I wasn't sure glue alone would hold everything together. Not all of these joints are square and flat and flush and tight. So I drilled 1/4 inch holes and made 1/4 ash pins, as I have done a couple times before. The pins in these tenons were not drawbored, which saves a couple steps.

split ash to make pegs hammer through a series of smaller washers

Later the front and back aprons were added to complete the base. In the picture the base is resting on the bench with the legs hanging in the air.

four legs and four aprons

next day AM session

I checked the base for rocking and immediately was annoyed. The top was rocking a teeny bit and the bottom twice as much. Spent my first ten minutes getting the top and bottom to be rock free again.

new bearers

Didn't have any cherry so I used pine. They are snug fitting and dry - no nails or glue. Before I commit to this I wanted to make sure it is going to work.

first fit was good

The bearers felt snug and they held the weight of the chest on them. No rocking which put a happy face on me. Took the chest out and put it back in again and it was rocking.

not rocking

Checked the chest but it was still laying flat on the tablesaw. I was getting the heebie jeebies about this base and chest ever getting married.

a happy sigh

The far left corner is down - that was why it was rocking again. Evened the bearers out and checked the chest and no rocking.

baby steps

The plan was to nail the bearers on, no glue, and checked the chest for rocking. 

oh what a relief

Bearers nailed on and the chest is dead flat on them - zero rocking.

hmm.......

Leaving the nails in the bearers. I didn't want to risk pulling them off, applying glue, and then nailing them back on. 

screwed the bearers

I added screws to the bearers one at time. After screwing one on I checked that the chest still wasn't rocking. Got them all screwed off and the final check of the chest still had no rocking. Much joy and dancing in the streets of Mudville commenced and lasted for hours.

cleaning up the base

There were a lot of shallow tear out spots that the sandpaper wasn't removing. I had to use a card scraper to finally remove them. I used a #3 only to flush the pins/tails at the end. I didn't want to risk tear out planing the entire length of the sides.

shellac and black dye

Trying this to see how it will look on the cove molding I dyed yesterday.

not black enough

This is the back side of the molding that I didn't dye. I guess I was looking more for this to be a deep black like it was paint.

the dyed side

I don't like this look at all. I thought some of the red oak would peek through but it isn't. This molding doesn't look like wood to me.

from ACE

I  had to make a grocery store run and ACE is in the same parking lot. $10 for a pint can of cherry dye.

cleaning up the chest

This took a lot of time and a ton of calories. Used the #3 to flush the tails/pins on the corners and sanded the chest after that was done.

hmm........

The middle one was dyed on the bare wood. The other two I put a seal coat of shellac first before applying the dye. The middle one is dark but not as splotchy as the top and bottom ones are. They are also lighter. The cherry dye IMO doesn't look like cherry. I think I like the red oak dye was a better match for cherry. Regardless I am going with the cherry dye as is for the cove molding. It will be a contrast between it and the chest cherry.

it worked

Made a template for the handles and tested it on a piece of scrap pine.

back stop

Rounded over the top edge on the front and back to soften it. Got the hinges laid out and stopped here for the day. My wrist was hurting probably from the  RO sander work I did. I'll get the hinges done in the AM. After that is done I can attach the back stop to the lid.

accidental woodworker 

For the last eight years, Hannah has worked alongside Paul as his mentee. As we move, she has cleared her things from the workshop, but there are two pieces she has no room for and would much rather see go to someone who will love them than put into storage. Paul offered to share them here.

For the background to the move, and for the workbenches Paul is also letting go, see his post here.

Both pieces are entirely hand made, using hand tools for around 98% of the work.

Craftsman-style rocking chair in oak, £300

Hannah's Craftsman-style rocking chair in oak. She is asking £300, though Paul reckons it is worth at least double that.

Sofa table, £300

A sofa table of Hannah's own original design, again beautifully made. It really has to be worth £2,000, but with no space to keep it she would rather you grabbed a bargain at £300.

How to buy a piece

I have four hand-made workbenches that have served their purpose, and they need to find new homes in the next few days. Over the years I have given away a dozen benches, along with tools and equipment, to organisations supporting people with different abilities and disabilities and with other health and wellbeing needs. Those were the benches from my hands-on classes. Like the airlines, though, I can only carry so much excess baggage, and these four must now go.

Here is what is available.

The two "video" benches, £300 each

Two of these are the benches I built to film the bench-building series in my garage workshop (they were both built at this time, but we don't recall which one was actually built on camera), so they carry a little fame with them. Both are little used, and both have excellent, barely-worn Eclipse 9" quick-release vises fully installed and ready for work.

They are very similar in size: about 5' 4" long (give or take an inch), 3' 2" high and 27" deep. One of the two has a tool stow that adds 7" to the width. Both are made from good-quality kiln-dried construction studs, and they are robustly strong and weighty enough for any kind of woodworking you care to name.

The New Legacy bench, £300

This one comes from my New Legacy School of Woodworking. It is 5' 6" long, 23½" deep and 38" high, and it is very robustly built to last a lifetime of woodworking.

The roof-timber bench, £300

This last one has a different story. While the first three benches here were made by my own hands, this one was made by John, whom many of you will know. It is built from the Scots Pine joists and beams taken out of my own house when the builders put an extra room into the loft. It departs a little from my usual English joiner's workbench: the stock is heavier, there are twin tenons on the cross rails, mortise and tenon throughout, and a dovetailed drawer. It is exceptionally well made. It measures 5' 4¾" long, 26½" deep and a little taller at 38¾" high.

It is well worth £1,000, but I will settle for the first £300.

Add a set of hand tools, £150

I can also supply a set of hand tools, well suited to anyone pursuing hand-tool woodworking, to go with any of the benches. The set is well-used but highly functional, freshly sharpened and ready to go to work. For £150 it comprises:

• Two handsaws
• #4 and #5 bench planes
• Combination square
• Coping saw
• Dovetail saw
• Tenon saw
• Layout knife
• #78 router plane
• #80 scraper
• Set of chisels
• Chisel hammer
• Sliding bevel
• Dovetail template

How to buy one

A non-woodworking post – but it has a hand-made 19th century door in it. Some friends & I often chat about the birds we see around the neighborhood and in one of those conversations recently they re-told me a story of a door in their house. It came out of an old house here in town about 50 years ago. Though I had heard the story, I hadn’t seen the door until this spring – of didn’t remember it anyway.

As far as that sort of thing goes it’s a nice, but pretty common, white pine door. Shiplapped boards, clinch-nailed battens. I like how some of the boards taper in width – that’s a nice feature. Its original configuration was from a house-to-a-shed. I don’t know what went on in that shed, but someone kept notes written on the door about the weather and comings and goings of nature – 

Here’s what I can read from the middle of that section:

1890

Bluebirds Robins + Blackbirds 

10th of March ______ _____ ___

First Crickets Aug 7, 1890

First frost of the Season Sept 25

Crickets on Oct 10 [Rainy? ???]

   “           “     “    16

First Snow flurry Nov 11 1890

These notes are scattered all across the top half of the door. Some legible, most less-than legible. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the format – one year is here, the next is elsewhere.

On the top cleat are some notes from 1886 – then right under them 1891

top cleat

I can’t quite make out the top line but just below that is:

“First white frost of [the season?] – with the date just past the nail head – “Sept [21?] 1886
Heavy freeze Oct 4 1886″

Then right below that a line setting off the next entries for 1891

“1891 Robins and blue birds Mar 15
Crickets heard first time on Aug 9″

It goes on – but that photo cuts it off right there…it spills onto the next photo. “Frogs Mar 20 Crickets….” [illegible]

So – if you’d like to help decipher what’s written on this door, I’m all ears. I shot large photo files – and if I’ve done it right you can view and/or download them – but you gotta have a dropbox account…

I wasn’t sure of a way to create downloadable files here on this blog – and I gave up trying.

Any of you with graphics wizardry might be able to improve the photos to bring out the writing. The earliest date I’ve seen is 1872, latest maybe 1894 or 5. I think this link will bring you to a folder of 30 or so photos. If you can transcribe stuff, key it to the photo’s number

I tinkered with the brightness & contrast on this section from the 1870s

1870s

the bottom third I get:

“Crickets Aug 1st 1877
” heard distinctly on
Oct 15 1877 after a very Warm day”

Anything you have to add, leave a comment or send an email – PeterFollansbee7@gmail.com

That’s right, sometimes cleanup is the exact opposite Christmas.  Usually in the aftermath of a deep cleaning and reorganizing of the barn I find that I suddenly cannot find something I need.  In the “Before” I knew exactly where that thing was even if the overall spatial composition was more similar to a maelstrom.  But at least I knew where item X, Y, or Z was.

Yesterday I needed to sew something up but could not find nor remember where I put the stinking sewing kit.

Grrr.

Samtsirhc indeed.

 I went back to the shop after dinner last night intending to spend a few minutes checking out the base/chest rocking issues. Those few minutes morphed into almost 2 hours. One thing led into another and I lost track of time. Figuring out why things were going south on marrying the chest to base started to consume me. In the end I still didn't have a clue as to what was going on. 

Instead of adding the pics from that session to tomorrow's post I am writing it up as a separate post for today. As soon as I post this I'll be returning to that headache and commence doing battle again.

the problem

The base has a teeny bit of twist over the sticks both top and bottom. IMO it is no where close to causing the headache with the chest and base being married. I was starting out first by checking the base and the chest for twist.

the flatness check

This is my preferred way to check for flatness and the chest ain't a rocking on either diagonal. I also checked with the sticks and they said no twist too.

hmm.......

Thinking about this I thought that maybe there was a hump on one or more of the bearers. There wasn't, all four were flat and straight.

light assist

I even shined a light behind the rule and no light peeked out on any of the four bearers. 

hmm......

Thought I had found the problem. Two corners had one above the other and two were the rule hit. I evened the ends were they met but that didn't make the rocking go bye bye.

one of the high corners

Both of the high corners were where I had the veneer. I really thought this was the fix boys and girls.

it wasn't easy

Of course where I had to remove some wood was against the grain. One corner torn out and looked ugly.

sigh

I had to shim the ugly torn out corner so the rule lay flat across corner to corner. Got zero joy when I put the chest on the base. If anything, the rocking was worse then before.

checking the offset

Next check on the hit parade was checking the bearer offset from the top of the base to the bearer. It was off less than a frog hair 360 in a few spots.

hmm.......

Clamped the chest to the base. The clamps pulled it flat and tight to all four bearers. I could see and feel them pull the twist out of base onto the chest.

no joy again

The chest ain't rocking on the base but the base is rocking. It wasn't rocking as bad as the chest unclamped but enough to be annoying.

back to square one

Starting over by checking and removing the twist on the base. I wanted to go forward from here with a known, good flat base.

the final check

When doing this I saw that two of the bottom corners weren't square in one direction. Squared those, flipped it and kept at it until there was zero rocking on the tablesaw. Repeated it for the other side. Base was now flat and not rocking on either the top or bottom.

removed

The bearers came off without any problems. I thought with them being glued that they wouldn't come off as cleanly as they did. The reason why I didn't extend the bearers from side to side was I didn't have any scraps long enough for the long side. When I replace the bearers again I will do that.

hmm.....

Still surprised after seeing this pic how easily this cleaned up. I used a card scraper to remove the glue residue. 

last check

According to the straight edge the top of the base is flat, straight, and all in the same plane 360.

hmm.......

This is not the look I was expecting. I put on a 2nd seal coat of shellac and once it was dry, I wiped on the ebony dye. I was hoping that it would be more dark and black. Maybe I can boost that happening with adding some black dye to the ebony?

accidental woodworker

 

I stuck to the plan

After dinner I went back to the shop and glued up the 2nd base. It was twisted a bit so I clamped it flat to the workbench. I wasn't expecting it to do anything but when I took off the red handled clamps, the base stayed flat on the bench. Nothing moved or shifted when I did that. Sometimes you get lucky.

cleaning up the base

It probably wasn't necessary but I planed and rasped the base cutout smooth.

it fits

I had built in wiggle room, R/L and F/B. However, it seems I added a wee bit too much R/L - it was 3/16". But that is what the cove molding is for - to cover any gaps between the base and the chest.

blurry pic

Just as well that this was blurry because the tails on this base have some of the ugliest gaps I have seen in many, many moons. This blurry corner had the worse looking ones.

the other end

This corner looks better but it still ain't good IMO. I will use it and shim all the gaps.

the best corner

This is what I was expecting to see on all four but that didn't happen boys and girls.

homemade putty

Gathered up some cherry sawdust and mixed hide glue with it. I filled in all the small gaps with this that didn't need a shim.

bearers done

I glued and screwed the bearers to the inside of the base.  I will screw up through them into the bottom of the chest.

too high?

The bearers are 5/16" down from the top of the base. That puts the plywood bottom a few frog hairs below the top edge. Not that matters much because the cove molding will hide it. In the pic it looks high to my eye, but in person it doesn't.

bottom on

I nixed just screwing the bottom on and instead I glued and nailed it. Flushed the edges of it to the chest.

lid sized

The lid is a 1/2" oversized on the front and sides. I may knocked that back to 3/8" because I'm not exactly in love with this amount of overhang. 

needs shims

I had 4 pin/tails to shim on this end. The other end I had to do 6. Overall I used 14 shims to close up gaps. 

shim stock

I picked through my cherry scraps and used those that closely matched the chest. The japanese dozuki did extremely well sawing the thin shims I needed.

more homemade putty

I shimmed what I could but there were still a few gaps that looked ugly. 99.9% of them were on the tails. I only had to fill two spots on the short ends.

the cove molding

The first step is to put a thin coat of shellac on so the dye doesn't end up splotchy. I put one spoonful of shellac into the container.

hmm.......

I added 3 spoonfuls of the alcohol from the brush container into the spoonful of shellac. That should thin it so the dye goes on even. I don't think the cove molding is pine but it looks like poplar to me. I don't know if this molding will act like pine does when it is dyed.

two of the choices

The plan is to dye it with red oak first. The right one didn't look like the cherry at all. After the red oak has dried I will apply another coat of shellac as a sealer. After that has dried I will apply the ebony as the 2nd dye.

happy with this

The color came out more even then I expected. It also doesn't look that bad against the cherry. (BTW when I was at Lowes there wasn't a drop of cherry dye in the store.) After dinner this will be dry and I'll put on the ebony. I want this molding to stand out from the cherry and that is why I'm using a dark ebony as the top coat dye. I'm hoping that the red underneath will peek out too.

hmm........

The chest is rocking in the base. The chest isn't rocking sitting on the bench. I stacked up some veneer on the low corners until the chest stopped rocking on the base.

it went south

Took the chest out of the base to super glue the veneer stack together. Put the veneer stacks on the bearers and put the chest in place. It was rocking again. Less than two minutes before it wasn't. WTF?

The chest lays flat on the tablesaw with zero rocking in any direction. Under the sticks it shows zero twist too. The bearers show a little twist but I don't think it is enough to cause the amount of rocking I'm seeing. I'll have to set this aside for now and think on it for a while. 

back thing doo dad or doo hickey

I have a book on furniture styles and the names of the parts of them. What I don't have is one thing that has anything like this. I like the look of it on the lid over leaving the lid flat and unpopulated. A back stop is what I came up with to call it.

accidental woodworker 

I found a handful of pictures from thirty years ago. The drawings were still there. A mid-sized chest made from mesquite with some accents in walnut. The pictures had faded a little but were representative of my early designs back in the 1990s. I enjoyed the memory of making them, yes, but what I enjoyed the more was driving my 1951, one-ton flatbed Dodge truck onto the million acres of land to harvest the mesquite trees in a wilderness only a handful of people might ever know. I could drive that land all day and never meet a soul nor be seen by one.

The forty-year-younger Paul Sellers in Reagan Wells, Texas, in and around 1989.

My work as a furniture maker through the decades has taught me patience. At fifteen miles an hour in the desert amongst the yuccas and prickly pears, the dry heat, and the uniqueness of Texas living 30 miles from the nearest gas station and shop, it took me two hours of solid driving to reach the oasis of mesquites that thrived in an isolated cluster of a thousand trees. The frond-like leaves hung with the long mesquite pods as I pulled up to harvest. 41º with no breeze for cooling my sweat, and my body felt like an invisible brick wall, and I knew very clearly of the dangers of being where I was in such isolation. No cell phones, and no one knew where I was. I lived for days like this, felt nourished by the unpretentiousness of it. I related to the sense of belonging to nature. It was a selfish element that paralleled my younger days of solo rock climbing, free-climbing the rock faces of my youth and early twenties.

Harvesting your own wood in the wilderness desert of Texas is an unparalleled experience close to whitewater rafting and free-climbing solo without ropes and technical gear.

The places I spent the day in meant caution at every turn I made. The wildlife of poisonous snakes, spiders, and scorpions mostly lay hidden beneath shaded rocks, but not always. The snakes needed heat to warm the blood, and some could move at great speed. Truth was, I'd rather have the snakes of the desert than the snakes I once knew living in the big city of my youth, Manchester. Coyotes and javelinas might surprise you with sudden noise and screaming squeals when you least expect them, but they would never really bother you, but a wild boar and the odd scream of a mountain lion needed great caution. You watched the herds of longhorns in the distance or a group of whitetail deer who seemed ever cautious of possible danger. I liked these warners too—ears pricked up, tails flicking, heads turned all at the same time. And all this for a couple of trees. But was it really? Pitching yourself against dangers for a prize of raw wood has given me memories I would never regret. My two Echo chainsaws were something of a safeguard as well as a danger. But I was once awakened to a danger I had not realised. I'd placed my running chainsaw down to tug at some branches and free the stem, and when I went back to it, the largish rattlesnake had cosied up to it for the warmth and the vibration of it.

I was 39 when I built this chest.

The prize of a finished design is always a fond memory. The above chests came from my earlier harvesting days. I held onto the wood for four years before I made these pieces. Driving through the four gravel river bottoms with two mesquite logs just as the sun was setting is tied up in fond memories and the two chests. They were both delivered with one in a corporate office entryway in Houston now, and the other in someone's home, if they are still there.

Now that I am in my approximately 4,000th day of organizing, reorganizing, cleaning and tidying the barn I am qualified to declare that Cleaning is Christmas.  Unlike my friends MikeM, Ripplin’ John and MartinO I am not by temperament nor habit fastidiously organized in my physical surrounding.  This means that combined with my forgetfulness about the details of my surroundings, organizing and cleaning reveals “new” contents of the barn that in truth I had forgotten either 1) that I even had them, or 2) where I put them, sometimes in a “special place.”

My current paroxysm of tidying the joint is just such a reality.   Sometimes the revelations are mundane, such as, “Oh, that’s where I put my favorite utility knife.”  Other “discoveries” are more meaningful.  Just a few days ago at the Plane Wellness shindig I was commenting to someone there that I was running low on the shellac wax I had ordered several years ago directly from the factory in India.  I was lamenting(?) the fact that I might need to send another big pile of money there to restock if I was going to continue using and selling shellac wax for more than another few months.

So, there in the corner tucked behind one of my workbenches were two full cases of shellac wax.   Enough for two or three years of consumption.  Suddenly that was one less thing I needed to worry about.  That alone made it a good day.  The cases were so embedded in the space (I had to actually cut the boxes apart just to extricate the contents) that I clearly placed them there before I built a storage cabinet and placed the workbench in its current location and then put stuff on top of them.

Then, as I was taking inventory of my polissoirs and packaged waxes underneath the workbench I use for that purpose, I found two full cases of the 190 proof grain alcohol I use for mixing spirit varnishes.

At this point all I have to do is persuade myself that cleaning is something I need to habituate myself toward.  Yeah, good luck with that.

Now I just have to concern myself with the fact that my polissoir maker is struggling with some health problems that are disrupting his broom-making output.  Yikes.

hmm.......

In pine this would have been a nice looking, deep rosebud. In cherry I can't feel even a hint of a depression from the clamp head. I'm pretty confident that these will disappear once I plane and sand the chest.

making cove molding

This is a 1/2" round nose bit and the cove molding it would make is too small. This is roughly about a 1/4 of being able to cover a 3/4" width. 

a bigger size round nose bit

The cove is bigger but still not big enough. I have a larger round nose bit but it is 1/2" shank and I don't have a router table for the plunge router. This road is a dead end.

hmm.....

I have two small cove molding planes - both of them are 3/8". The profile looks to my eye to be a wee bit too big. But the headache is and was, trying to run the plane on cherry. First I had to fuss for a bazillion years trying to get the plane to take a good shaving - not too shallow and not too heavy. A kind of Goldilocks and the three bears story.

Got that sorted out but I couldn't get a consistent cove on the entire length. The lead in wouldn't develop the full profile no matter what I tried. Decided that was ok as long I added about 6 inches of extra length for the lead in. But when I checked my cherry scraps I didn't have anything long enough to do that. Sigh.

I tried both molding planes and I wasn't happy with what I made with either one of them. I know both work well and make good moldings in pine but with the cherry I have it was garbage. Another big hiccup was the available cherry I had wasn't straight grained. It was mostly cathedrals I would have to plow through. Nixed this and decided on buying and dyeing ready made cove moldings.

working on the base

Molding problem solved so I moved on to making the base for the chest. I didn't know it here yet that I had a major brain dump that would bite me on the arse in the PM session.

not happy with this

I can remove some of this defect when I saw the half pin but not all. Thinking that I will plane a chamfer on the outside edge to remove what is left over.

I like this

If I flipped the board all this would disappear. The opposite face is 99% clear. I want this be facing out so I'll deal with the defect after the base is glued and cook. This is why the defect is on the outside face.

tails laid out

I did two tails at the corners vice one big one. I didn't like the look of a single tail and two didn't look crowded or too small.

one of 3 that came today

I saw these squares on a Fireball You Tube vid and pulled the trigger on the two pack. You can also get a 3 pack or buy the 3 sizes individually. I have a poor record with miters and I think these may help a wee bit.

hmm......

These 45's are substantial. They are made out of steel (?) and it is almost a 1/8" thick. They aren't flimsy feeling and have some heft/weight to them. Both sides have scales on them. I don't know if they offer them in metric. They are made for metal working but I can envision them working with wood with no problems.

I got half sizes

The big square is twice the size of the smaller one. Both will layout 45's, 22 1/2, and 90 degrees. The inside corner is rounded but the flange was dead square when I checked it with my 6" square. 

cove moldings from Lowe's

I got lucky as there were only 4 of these left. I hope my estimation won't bite me on the arse. The plan is to stain these and I have a few ideas percolating in the brain bucket with that.

hinges and handles

Bought a black oxide hinge for the chest from Horton Brasses. The bail handles I got from eBay for $42 including S/H. eBay is the cheapest price I've found this style of handles. 

grandson's art

Leo did the xmas tree when he was 3 years old. Miles's is on the right and he did his a couple of months ago. I hung them on my wall cabinets and snapped a pic of them. I sent it to their mother so she could show it to them. Both are waiting to see them hanging in the shop.

I'm learning

Chiseled a relief on the tails before I tried to dry fit the base.

yikes

This is not what I wanted to see at this point. Go back to the 5th pic and you'll see the boo boo that I totally missed. The long base pieces are short - they are on the inside of the short ends rather than out to the outside faces of them. Real big sigh.

one point for more

Got the short sides correct - so I get one of the two points available.

1 1/2" short

There is no way to fix this mostly because you can't stretch cherry. I can't see repurposing this for something else neither.

hmm.....

I got lucky finding enough wide scrap to get a new base from. This one is about a 1/4" higher and I'm keeping it as is. 

tails laid out

It was a strange feeling after finding my boo boo. I didn't have the urge to give it flying lessons. I'm getting better at dealing with my brain farts I guess.

stayed late

Tails sawn and ready to chop out the center waste. I plan to return to the shop after dinner and get the tails/pins chopped, dry fitted, and glued up and cooking. I want to keep moving on this and get it done ASAP. 

the store bought cove molding

I like this look and the coverage it will have on the base. The molding definitely needs some help color wise. It is too stark of a difference between it and the cherry.

accidental woodworking