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hmm......

I made this lazy Susan thing when I had my workshop in Westerly. I don't remember using it at anytime after that but I broke it out today. It is perfect for spraying the finish on the pic frame.

so much easier

Being able to spin the frame instead moving the shit can helped with getting a consistent finish applied. One headache with the rattle can was it would sputter intermittently and spit blobs of finish. The artist brush was used to smooth them out.

missed one

There was a tiny blob below the miter's heel on the left. I had made one last eyeball and I caught it. I checked all the toes and the insides corners for build up and found none.

finishing the prep

Filled in all the gaps between the the shelves and the sides. Sanded the tops of the shelves but not the bottom - didn't see the need to expend calories doing them. 

Lowes run

I only had one length of this molding which was not enough for the base. I also had to get a sheet of 1/4" plywood for the bookcase back.

hardwood panel

Lowes didn't have the same plywood I had used on Miles's bookcase. It was this or A/C construction plywood. It will be painted so it doesn't matter what it looks like. It does feel stiffer and stronger then Miles's. It also didn't splinter on one face from being sawn at Lowes which surprised me.

ouch

I have got to get this out of the workshop and into the boneyard. This is going to be a PITA to build up with putty. And it will probably go south just breathing on it.

base tails

Last step of the day was to get the base dovetailed and checked for fit on the base.

off the saw

It doesn't bother me that the dovetails won't be visible. I don't think there is a better way to join two pieces of wood at 90°.

almost

The chamfer on the sides and front is done and the back stop thing has been glued in cooked. The putty work I did in the AM had been sanded smooth and was ready for primer. I will wait until the AM, eyeball it one last time, and then apply the primer.

two coats

I am happy with the two coat coverage. I couldn't see any pencil marks or primer anywhere on the back. After dinner I will give the back a 3rd and final coat and in the AM I'll start on the front face.

accidental woodworker 

I came across a piece of furniture online recently that immediately caught my attention.

It was a French country style, hand painted three drawer chest. At first glance, it looked beautiful. The proportions were attractive, the painted decoration looked professionally hand done, the distressing on the drawer fronts and side panel gave it that old worn appearance, and the whole thing had the sort of character that makes you stop scrolling and have a second look.

https://www.shopfad.com/french-country-hand-painted-wood-accent-chest-3-drawer-distressed-storage-dresser-s-29252.html?currency=AUD

Then I started looking at it properly. And something didn’t feel right. The photographs looked fake, because they were fake. It was AI generated furniture.

Now, I’ve been working with wood for a very long time, and when you’ve spent thousands of hours looking at timber, joinery, paint, finishes, new and old furniture, you develop a certain instinct. You start noticing things that other people might not notice. To an untrained eye, like the one looking at the pictures in that link, it looks like the real deal. That’s exactly what my daughter, who sent me the link, thought. She wants me to make that and a million other things. If I had multiple customers like her I would be very comfortable.

This particular piece started bothering me because it had that strange quality that I’ve noticed in a lot of AI generated images. Everything looked right. But somehow, nothing looked quite real.

The wood grain looked painted. The painted decoration had the appearance of an illustration rather than brushwork. The distressing looked attractive rather than accidental. Even some of the construction details seemed more like an artist’s interpretation of furniture than a photograph of an actual cabinet.

That got me thinking about something much more important than whether the image was made with AI. Would I actually receive the furniture shown in the photograph? Because we’ve seen this sort of thing before. Think about McDonald’s. You see the advertisement and there’s this magnificent hamburger sitting there looking like the finest meal you’ve ever seen. The bun is perfect. The lettuce is perfectly positioned. The cheese hangs over the edge just so. Everything is beautiful. Then you order one. And when you open the box, you look at it and think, “Where the hell did that come from?” The photograph sold you the idea of the hamburger. It didn’t necessarily show you the hamburger you were going to eat. And I wonder whether we’re heading towards exactly the same situation with furniture.

Imagine you’re looking for a beautiful hand painted chest for your home. You find one online. The photographs show a gorgeous piece of furniture sitting in a beautifully decorated room. The timber looks wonderful. The painted flowers are perfectly arranged. The distressing is exactly where you would expect it to be.

You click “Buy.” A week or two later, a large cardboard box arrives at your door. You open it. And there it is. Except it isn’t. The proportions are slightly different. The paint doesn’t look anything like the photograph. The distressing is either almost nonexistent or looks like somebody attacked it with sandpaper. The timber doesn’t have the beautiful grain shown online. The painted decoration looks like it was printed rather than painted. And suddenly that beautiful photograph means absolutely nothing. This is where I think consumers need to start asking a very simple question before buying furniture online:

Is this photograph actually a photograph of the furniture I am going to receive?

A photograph can be heavily manipulated without being AI. Colours and lighting can be altered. Backgrounds can be replaced. Timber can be digitally enhanced. Imperfections can be removed. And of course, AI can now go much further. It can create an entire piece of furniture that doesn’t physically exist. It can create the room around it, the lighting, the wood grain, the decorative painting. It can create the scratches and distressed finish. And it can make the whole thing look absolutely convincing, at least to an untrained eye, and that’s most of the population. That’s what concerns me. Because furniture isn’t a hamburger.

If I spend $100 on a meal and it doesn’t look like the advertisement, I’m annoyed. If I spend $1,500 on a piece of furniture and the actual item bears little resemblance to the photograph that convinced me to buy it, that’s a completely different kettle of fish.

And there is another problem with hand painted furniture. Hand painted furniture is supposed to have variation. Every brush stroke is slightly different. The amount of paint varies. The distressing varies. Timber varies from board to board. Even two pieces made by the same person won’t be absolutely identical. That’s normal. But that shouldn’t become an excuse for showing consumers something that isn’t representative of the product.

If the photograph is an artistic representation, say so. If it is a computer rendering, say so. If it is AI generated, say so. If it is a photograph of a prototype and the furniture supplied will vary substantially, say so.

There is nothing wrong with using computer generated imagery to show what a product might look like, Lord knows the car industry has been doing that for decades. What bothers me, what I question, is whether you’ll get what you see. You’ve seen the billboards and picture advertisements for cars that look really flash, beautiful clean crisp interiors with super dark windows and flawless paint work.

Yeah it is fake, it was always fake. The car was modelled in 3ds max or Maya and rendered into real, true, photorealistic imagery. Those models were made by insanely talented human beings pulling and pushing individual vertices, applying real world textures, lighting, and shadows. But here is the thing, what you saw in the advert is what you got in real life.

What you think you will get today with this AI generated furniture might be the burger you get from McDonald’s. Personally, if I were spending serious money on a piece of furniture like this, I would contact the seller before ordering. I’d ask one simple question:

“Are these photographs of the actual furniture being supplied, or are they computer generated or rendered promotional images?”

Being a woodworker gives you an advantage. A beautiful photograph cannot fool your eyes. You know the difference between real wood and something that doesn’t look right. You look at the photo and instantly your trained eye says, hey, there’s something odd about this piece.

You can’t fake wood, we woodworkers have been trying for years to do just that and have never succeeded. Nature wins every time, hands down. At least for now.

The technology is getting remarkably good, though. That’s why I think this is going to become a bigger problem for people buying furniture online.

We’ve spent years learning not to trust real estate photographs of houses, where they famously use the fisheye lens to make the room look much bigger than what it actually is. Now we’re entering an era where the photograph itself may not have originated from a camera at all. And perhaps the most important lesson is this:

Trust your gut and don’t buy the photograph

Before spending serious money on something you found online, find out whether the photograph represents an actual physical product. If it doesn’t, ask to see photographs of the real thing. And if the seller won’t show you one? I’d walk away. Because when I’m buying furniture, I’m not paying the price of a burger. I want to know that what arrives in the truck is the same bloody thing I saw in the photo.

This will be my last workshop--most likely. I'm taking pictures as it comes together because once It's up and closed in the evidence of construction will be mostly hidden. We didn't knock this one together stick-frame fashion as in most times past and for economic self-build speed and reasons. I'm thinking fifty-year lifespan and then another fifty. Maybe the outer cladding will go but not the inner superstructure.

The mixer truck hooks up with the pumping truck to deliver concrete to the footing first and later on the slab.

The building base is 200 metres to the front of the house we've been building all the furniture for and there is only a narrow entryway on either side of the house so everything has to be moved by mini diggers and such. You cannot believe how much concrete and brick we have taken out to green-up our footprint but we have persevered.

We didn't build on pads but poured concrete footings dug down two feet and block-built on top of that to ground level. Within this, we packed several inches of concrete-ready hardcore ready for the big pour to come, over a waterproof membrane and then 4" foil-backed insulating foam for heat retention long term. The final layer will be screed, tamped, levelled out and trowelled smooth.

The steel reinforcement is in place ready for the last pour of slab concrete.Concrete is down and awaiting the cure time to resume working..

Anchor bolts all around the building walls.

4" of foil-backed insulation on top of the concrete replete with waterproof membrane to stop any rising damp.

Now comes the superstructure. Maya, the architect suggested twelve inches packed with insulating solid foam inside the six-inch studs followed by a skin of 2" foam inside and then even more sound and heat insulators you can see below. There is one more layer to come and that will be the one-inch wooden cladding.

This is a neat sandwich of layers insulating the inside from the outside and the outside from the inside.

The inside of the building is now separated by an insulated stud wall, double skinned with plasterboard both sides for sound dampening so that the office stands separated from the workshop studio. My workshop has evolved and in some measure morphed to what I like the most. We need to both film and make at the same time. This morphing was intentional when we started teaching through videography and stopped hosting hands-on classes. I also stopped having other woodworkers working in the same space (except for Hannah who will be back soon), I got rid of my machines and the excess of support equipment that comes with that. I actually make in a space the size of a single-car UK domestic home garage. That averages about 18 feet by 10 feet--it's enough to make any piece of furniture you might need for an average home. The picture here is somewhat deceptive because half of the space is for video work and not my making space per se.

It looks bigger than it is but there is lots of breathing space and the ceiling is high, even with the track lighting for filming in place.

When we are done with the walls, the sound insulation will be such that you can't hear sawing planing and general hammering outside of the building. I will always have a bandsaw, not a big one but one that's more than adequate, for downsizing large or thick sections of wood. My 14" (I downsized that too from a 16") will readily cut through 12 inches of any temperate hardwood I might ever choose to use. By the time all the skins are on, and the insulation fills any gaps, they feel as substantive as solid stone and brick. Stainless-steel anchors, screws and bolts run through different levels be they vertical or horizontal. Maya is the founding architect of Studio 13 Architects who behind this building, and she really has delivered over the past few years.

I'm impressed but new and emerging products that enhance architectural builds like mine.

Today I saw the electric-opening skylights go on top of the three openings in the office. The insulated doors and windows will go in hopefully in the next few days. Being dried in leads to plastering, plumbing and electrical work. Everyone was in on Saturday this weekend and made inroads to keep the show on track. Nothing is ever too much trouble.

The roof lights needed to be operational without winding sticks, so these cables operate the opening and closing remotely.

We've successfully worked in small spaces for most of my work life though I have had large versions. The big shops were for multiple occupancy by staff, other makers, friends and then for teaching hands-on classes with twenty or so workbenches, tools and machines I no longer need because of not hosting classes. Time does not permit hands-on classes any more, so I can't justify wasting space and the cost of it now.

What does matter and keeps me going is my teaching. I'm not sure if that will ever wane nor my making creatively either. I don't make to sell as in times past and for most of my life. I can also see myself making another prestigious piece or two if my interest is piqued . . . maybe.

I have only done something like this once before where I used four different woods and four different dovetails to create a sampler box. I took the idea from sewing samplers and carving samplers where different stitches or different carving techniques were put into a single item as exemplars of the options and learnings.

And of course, we, for our part, have kept video filming in the occasional quiet spots all too rare but enough to keep you fed with new and ongoing content. This is our latest project for box makers to create different types of dovetails in a single box.

I have a few carved works for sale – poor timing on my part, seems like every woodworker in America spent all their money in Iowa this past weekend. Two boxes and a carved panel. I’ll start with the small box.

Email me if you have questions or would like to purchase any of these – PeterFollansbee7@gmail.com

SMALL CARVED BOX
H:6 1/2″ W: 14 1/8″ D: 8 3/4″
$1,000 includes shipping in US.

Many years ago I saw a small box attributed to Thomas Dennis of Ipswich. After recording its features and dimensions, I took to making these little boxes when I had small, leftover bits of riven oak. Later I found published examples of a few more small boxes made in his shop, so it was not a one-off thing. Nor is it in my shop.

Complete with a till inside:

Mine differs from the period examples in a couple of ways. Glued & pegged rabbet joints rather than nailed. Wooden hinges instead of iron ones used on the period boxes. But all handmade, riven red oak for the box, white pine lid and bottom. I carve the ends/sides as well as the front – the period boxes are blank on the ends.

CARVED BOX
H: 9″ W: 23″ D: 13 3/4″
$1,500 plus shipping in US

This one is a more typical sized box for period work. The front pattern is loosely based on an English box I had seen in a photo years ago. The side carvings are lunettes also based on English work. Red oak box, white pine lid & bottom. Like most of my boxes, glued & pegged rabbet joints, wooden cleat & pintle hinges. Bottom nailed on with handmade iron nails. Lidded till inside.

Linseed oil finish. Single-board pine lid has molded edges and gouge-chopped ends. Completed with punched decoration.

Last one for now:

CARVED DEVON/IPSWICH-STYLE PANEL
H:15 3/4″ W: 13″ D: 5/8″
$775 including shipping in US.

I had a wide piece of quartersawn oak that was just stunning. Just over 13″ wide. I couldn’t very well cut it down to be part of a box, but I had no large frame-and-panel work coming up – so I knew one day I’d carve every inch of it. The scale was perfect for one of these Devon/Ipswich style carvings. I mapped it out, carved about 1/3 of it, intending to take it to a class I was teaching to use as a demo piece. Then forgot it when I packed the car. Came home from the class and finished it off.

This panel bears some relationship to the wainscot chair made by Thomas Dennis that’s at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. I combined elements from that piece with other related works to compose a design that is recognizable as belonging to that group, but is not a direct copy of any of it. Here’s 2 details of the panel

and the bottom half

 

oops

It would appear I made a me-steak in the order of operations. I should have routed the rabbet for the back before I glued the shelves in. I can still do it, it will just take a little more time and involve a little chisel work.

leveling the back of the frame.

The goal I had in mind for the frame was to get the primer coat on it. First I had to level and flush the back miters. I couldn't do the front ones because I would have planed into the beads and flattened the top. Instead I sanded and feathered those joint lines by hand.

back frame

Nailed and glued off the top and the sides and then trimmed/fitted the bottom leg. I was close to getting the primer coat on. I had to add some wood putty to a bead that had a chip missing. It was in the corner and it was too visible and had to be built up.

planed the miters

Initially I was going to nail and glue the back frame together off the saw. However, a couple of corners were long and it was easier to plane them then to try and saw off a thin sliver of wood.

flushing the corners

This probably won't be seen once the frame is hanging the wall. But I used a shoulder plane to even the toes of the miters.

prepping the bookcase

Decided to put 3 Miller Dowels into the ends of each shelf. A quick sand with 120 and 150 grit and this side was done. Wash, rinse, and repeated for the other side.

first coat of primer

Did the back first and once it was dry to the touch, flipped it and did the other side.

two hours later

Got primer on the front face and sawed out the front and sides for the base. Getting the base together is on the A list for the AM/PM.

hmm.........

Eyeballing the bookcase thinking of what is next on the hit parade. Before I can apply primer I have to complete all the woodworking first. I got the back stop thing ready to glue on - that is something that has be installed before primer. After that I have to rout a chamfer on the sides and the front. The base doesn't interfere with applying primer and can be done separately. I should be done with this, primer and top coat, before the next weekend.

accidental woodworker 

Some Influencers work more silently to say the more. The sway of words gently put lift the spirits in ways and sways that swerve away from the shoutings of the disingenuous who so negate the power of art's reasoning. This post is not directly associated with woodworking so much as the woodworker I am. The union and synchrony of two arts collaborating, bringing the essentials of two lives together, no matter how briefly undertaken, matches the murmuration of Starlings at dusk; no one can walk away from the event and forget what they witnessed. These works of art, the Lost Words, exemplify deep care and concern in too many ways to speak of here. They remind me of my working. The opposition of those who think not much at all and then the support of those who, though often unable to express themselves, know inside their very being that, well, things are going quite badly wrong and speaking out about it is not negative but highly sincere. Reading and looking through these pages made me grateful that caring people put two arts together to speak out more loudly yet without anger and shouting down with the loudest voice. Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane have risen in wings that murmur the sounds and sights we need to hear and see.

Murmuration is an art form in flight, one of those phenomenal scarcities where starlings in the thousands, hundreds of thousands and sometime even millions, voluntarily rise spontaneously to swell the evening sky with twists and turns en masse without colliding though wing tips touch and in their swirling, unanimously shroud the earth, blot out the descending sun and rise to spread and expand their magnificence in stunning displays of aerial flight and by self-protecting sways confuse birds of prey to prevent them taking even a single one of them. Murmuration, when you stand in its presence, hear and see the wing beats of 500,000 small birds unify in the sky above you, holds within itself the essence of onomatopoeic strength. It sounds like what it is.

I went to the Weston library after the prompting of a murmuration of a friend 5,000 miles away in the USA. My spirits were lifted on the day of my visit. I hope that you too can feel the prompting of a murmuration. I don't generally encourage selling things too much on my blog, but this book should best be owned by others to dip and dive in flights of true inspiration.

Back at the bench this morning, planning the week with everyone first, writing my next book now, now that my autobiography is with my editor, I'm faced with my own murmuration but not with the support and mass of a million wing beats, just the gentle fanning of the flames in the silence of a singular workspace at a lone bench. But the love of making and teaching spurs me on all the more. Murmuration has grown since my first posts on different platforms. I hear we're reaching over a million woodworkers, nearly two million each month now. You have the wings of flight, my friends, so keep striving for your own murmuration!

 

didn't forget

Molded the front edge of the 3 shelves. There is no way that this could be done after the shelves were in place.

hmm.......

I have run into this hiccup before. After eyeballing it I think is should have put the end of the dado behind the back edge of the notch in the shelf. Will I remember this tidbit the next time I do this.?

glued and cooking

I am going to let this cook until the AM. The 'hole' at the notch got a lot smaller. Decided that I'll fill in the smaller 'hole' with wood putty.

picture frame

Got the frame parts out of a scrap leftover from the Leo's bookcase. I will mold a 1/4"bead on the outside and a 3/16" bead on the inside of the frame. I can't do anything else with the bookcase so I'll knock this frame out.

ouch

I have had problems with the 3/16" bead lately. This bead was against the grain but it is real ugly looking. This is the worse tear out I've gotten with beading, with or against the bead.

ta da

The original mat for this had a 3" border which I think was too wide. The drawing has also faded and I can see the outline of the mat. I'm going with a thinner width of about an 1". I am leaning towards a black mat also. The original one was white as was the frame. There wasn't any separation between the frame and the art work.

dry clamp was good

I initially went into panic mood on this because with the dowels installed, one corner was wide open. I rearranged the sides and it came together perfectly. Don't understand why that happened. I only used one dowel at each corner. There wasn't a lot of room to get two dowels at each miter. I may add a spline on the toes later - depends on whether or not I get a warm and fuzzy once this is out of the clamps.

glued and cooking

I'll let this cook until the AM. If I feel the need to have two dowels on each miter I'll make another frame. I have a lot of scraps to use to make more than one more if necessary.

Feeling a wee bit better today. No queasiness or nausea to deal with which was nice. The tiredness was kind of still there but I didn't feel like I had to lie down and take a nap constantly. The shortness of breath is picking up and I'm learning how to deal with it. It is annoying but there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

accidental woodworker

I’m teaching about Japanese woodworking tools at Handworks 2026 at the Amana Colonies in Iowa this weekend. Here’s what my classroom looks like. Looking forward to today!

Sometimes bits split and it's nothing you did. Do you bin all the work to start over or do you repair? On this project, I would have had a major loss in work and wood. I decided on a patch.

It's not always something we did and wood always has some unanticipated idiosyncrasies that cannot be mitigated for. Beech, maple, elm . . .easy-peasy! Mahogany is good 90% of the time, but then there are some fibrous aspects to it, short grain, reverse and spiral grains that, well, they just split off if you even look too long at them.

The weakest points on dovetails are, well, the points of the shallow angles. On this dovetail, the splits went in a highly obvious place.

I cut a similar corresponding shape from a scrap of the same wood. Only the angle needs to match, nearly but not necessarily exactly.

And just a sawn surface will suffice, too.

PVA glue will work well, press firmly with the finger and hold for a few minutes before letting go. Leave it to fully dry, overnight is best.

Saw off the excess once the glue is dried. . .

. . . from both end and face.

Pare down flush as needed.

The finished appearance when done.

 

hmm........

First thing in the AM I checked the squareness of the carcass. I had squared it up yesterday and left it as is overnight to cook. The left side, top/bottom, was square. The right side was a wee bit off. Not much and visually I can't see it.

the top secured

The top was glued down in spite of me having  doubts it would be. I had used hide glue for this and the top was down tight to the sides. I used four Miller dowels on each side.

need to remove this to the line

I didn't notch the sides to fit in the top stopped dadoes, instead I dead ended the sides into the ends of the dado. I purposely left it long so the sides would be tight against the ends. I had thought of sawing it off before I glued and nixed it. Decided it was better to leave it long and then plane it off. It is/was only an 1/8".

checking

I still have to rout a rabbet for the back so this needs to be straight and flat from side to side. 

hmm.......

Got it straight and flat but not square. I had to plane it by going from the right to the left which screwed up me eyeballing square. Corrected that boo boo but around the center was a brown knot where the grain swirled. So that spot is ragged and torn out and I'll have to smooth it out. The router bearing will just follow it and rag out the rabbet.

shelves

I sanded the shelves with 150 grit on both faces. I will apply primer next and 150 should be good enough for that. I had also sanded the inside faces of the carcass before gluing it up.

first one fitted

The left end fit snug but the right end I had to plane and check the fit 4 four times before I could seat the shelf in the dadoes.

hmm.......

I have yet to see a defect like this before. It isn't a pitch pocket and it is unusual looking. Wonder what caused it? Regardless this is on the back edge and will be removed when I saw the shelf to width.

took a while

Got all three fitted and it took a while. Got a good fit and I might help things out by putting Miller Dowels in the ends for just is case. Can't remember if I had done this for Miles's bookcase.

dry fitted

Clamping the bookcase improved the square a little - didn't remove it but it helped. With the shelves clamped I marked the front edge for the notch.

notches

It is only a 1/4" and it will be inset from the front edge of the bookcase about 1/8".

needs a frame

This is the drawing that daughter #2 wants me to make a frame for. She wants it to be the same as the frame I made for the bumblebee orchid pic. Not a problem and I might whack this out before I get back to the bookcase.

Didn't get much done today. I had wanted to get the shelves glued and cooking but it didn't happen. Yesterday I felt queasy for most of the day and so tired I could barely keep my eyelids open. I hit the rack before 2100 and didn't roll out until a little after 0600. 

Felt a little better this AM but only marginally. The queasiness was almost gone but I still felt tired. I was dragging in the shop taking seemingly forever to do things in hours that took minutes. I actually nodded out after lunch too. I haven't taken a nap in the afternoon since I don't know when. 

I'm still coughing and having fits but they are shorter in duration and not as frequent. The chemo cocktail side effect is helping there and I appreciate it. I hope it keeps at it until my last cocktail on the 21st.

accidental woodworker

 

hmm.......

Whacking out the shelves and it wore me out. I got short of breath on all three before I had sawed 1/2 way across. Got it done and marched on smartly.

the top

I barely had to plane a frog hair off on the joint line. I had fussed a wee bit when I glued this up getting the joint line flush.

brown knots

This is the top and I went back and forth on whether or not to put it aside and make a new one. I soaked the knots on both faces and after it had set it all of them felt smooth to the touch. 

prepping the shelves

I planed a reference edge and squared one end. I will saw it to length and width after the carcass is glued and cooked.

stopped dadoes

Router work is in the on deck circle.

ouch

I did a horrible job knifing the dadoes on this side. This is the worse one of the three. The furthermost line to the right is the one I need. It was a comedy of errors doing this. The square wasn't tight to the edge and the blade slipped as I knifed. I would like to say it was the knife wandering off into La La Land but it wasn't. Spoiler alert I dodged the bullet on this.

hmm........

I had soaked the errant knife lines with super glue before I chopped the wall. I took my time on that and went super duper slow and the wall ended up intact end to end. The opposite wall won't be a problem at all.

happy face on

All three shelves are self supporting, even the one with a bazillion knife lines.

feel better about it

The knife lines I soaked with super glue felt smooth. I couldn't feel any ridges or bumps. It was flush feeling from the wall going to the left.

done

All the dadoes are done and to depth. I had two more to do for the top and then I would totally done.

marking the top

Clamped the spacer and got the overhang R/L the same on the top. Made my knife nicks and put the top on the workbench to chop the dadoes..

not quite

The left side slipped down perfectly but the right side is throwing a hissy fit. I tried tightening the clamps and that did nothing. After I took them off the top dropped down onto this side. The dadoes came out clean but the fit is loose. I'll secure the top to the sides with Miller Dowels.

Mr 18" Starrett

The combo square says that the inside of the carcass is square. All four corners said I'm 90. The diagonals were less then a 16th off. I was expecting this to fight because the top wasn't really secured because of their sloppy fit.

ok

I made a story stick for the length of the shelves. Shelves 2&3 agreed but #1 was short by almost an 1/8". I checked the top corners and they were square so I next checked the side for bowing but nada. They I saw that the dado on this side wasn't down to a 1/4" depth.

Made good progress on the bookcase these past two days and I should be done with the woodworking and slapping paint on it this weekend hopefully.

accidental woodworking

In 2021 I published my guide for getting the two bevels on narrow plough plane blades dead on 30-degrees and 25-degress and 90-degress dead across too. You read that post here if you're interested. There is also a video on YT here too. Chisels are different because they always taper from the cutting edge to the handle and chisel makers use different ratios.

If, like so many, you have struggled to get your narrow or thin chisels with a pristine square and accurate angle on the bevel you are the same as almost everyone. I developed this style of honing guide for my narrow plough plane irons described above but this one I developed for thin chisels-it's slightly different, I think it will be the best honing guide for narrow chisels you will ever use bar none. It's also just out as a standalone YT video on my channel here. Please subscribe and Enjoy!

My guide for narrow plough plane blades published in 2021, but this blog version is slightly different.

Lots of people struggle to get the same levels of accuracy on narrow chisels and the looks frustrate them. Obviously, it makes very little difference to the chisel's functionality unless it's a long way out. Long term, I will always suggest you develop your freehand skills for sharpening because speed in the zone is important. This guide should take about ten minutes to make, no more and that's because it's quick and simple to make.

The taper between some chisels will vary, and you might need to make alternative guides or wedges if you have different makers or even the same makers with different tapers.

Any wood will do, I used a poplar scrap. One piece for the main guide at 6-8" long 1" by 7/8", but that's more just what I had to size rather than critical. The second piece, for the wedge, is 4 1/2" by 1/2" square.

Somewhere near the mid-section, strike a crisp cut line at 30-degree using a sliding bevel with a sharp knife. This line goes across the one-inch face.

I know, I see it, I'm half a degree over...

The taper on your wedge can be whatever you want but the shallower the wedge the better the retentive friction quality. My wedge starts out 110 long and tapers from 4mmto 10mm before cutting to length later.

Place the chisel and the wedge against your 30-degree knife line and mark the second angle with a pencil. Four of my MHG chisels are the same taper, so one guide will suit all four small chisels I need it for. I have found this method and guide works well up to say 1/2" chisels if you want to alter the sizes of your guide.

Square the extremes of the two lines on the adjacent faces on both sides of the workpiece.

Set a marking gauge to 7/16", shallower than the width of the wedge, and mark a depth line on both sides to cut down to.

Saw down the two angled lines as tightly as you can and then as close to depth lines as possible. These walls need to be dead square as the chisel and wedge will be aligned and pressed firmly to them.

Chisel out the waste, working from both sides and after first removing the bulk of the waste, work down to the final gauge line.

If you have a router plane, then use that to establish the seating level, otherwise straight off the chisel will work fine enough.

Slide the wedge and chisel snugly in the recess.

Take a straightedge and mark the angle, making the wedge short of the bottom as shown.

Saw the angled end of the wedge.

The wedge is wider than the depth of the rebate. Clamp the two in the vise with the top face of the wedge aligned with 30-degree wall and plane to the sole of the holder.

Your holder is ready for use.

How To Use Your Guide + Useful Tips and Options Too

We have a couple of options. You can load the whole holder assembly 'upside down' in the vise, squeezing the wedge and holder in the jaws as shown below...

A good flat file will establish or initiate the first bevel rapidly.

...or you use the holder to hold the chisel on the surfaces of the diamond honing plates or other abrasive like wet and dry. A 10" flat file usually works provided the chisel steel is not super hard. It's an option to use the vise hold for the whole assembly as shown which allows you to use the flat file to establish the first level of abrading.

Even on a 1/16" (2mm) chisel I get pristine results. This picture shows the initial filed bevel before honing to finer levels.

I prefer using the diamond plates so I can work through the three grit levels. In my case, they go to 1,200 starting at 250-grit, then 650-. You can polish out with abrasive compound on a wooden strop with no leather and trailing the cutting edge so it doesn't dig in if you want, that can take you up to 10,000 in a heartbeat but on such narrow blades it's really not necessary.

I have diamond surfaced paddles and they work great. The wet-n-dry option of paper abrasive is less durable for long-term use.

Coarse filed bevels come out truly square and dead on 30-degrees. This filed bevel cuts excellently, but it's still preferable to got to finer levels of abrading, and it takes only half a dozen rubs to get a highly polished finish so may as well go the whole hog.

Also, I never use the double-bevel or so-called micro- or secondary-bevel method. I use the single macro bevel of near 30-degrees or a macro-camber on wide cutting irons and chisels. However, for those that want a secondary bevel, just load the chisel against the steeper bevel, tighten the wedge and give the chisel edge a couple of rubs on the fine plate only and the result is as show below.

If you do want a micro-bevel you can.

Once you have established the coarse bevel level, you can tap the chisel to send it through an extra fraction for more honing as shown here.

To remove the chisel and wedge, shock them loose by striking the end of the holder a couple of times.

Using the end of a steel rule to press the blade against the bottom of the recess works well.

Inking in the 30-degree angle saves confusion as to which angle is which when installing the chisel.

A cross-pein hammer is advantages for tightening wedges

See how the cross-pein aspect slips in nicely to the end of the wedge for tightening.

It’s 4am and again I wake to the sound of the alarm clock ringing, that same flat, monotonous drone. My body knows the drill before my brain does. My eyes open wide and fast, and instantly, without giving time for anything to process, I’m up and walking briskly towards the alarm to shut it off, the floor tiles are cold under my feet the whole way there. It’s too easy to reach over and shut the alarm off from the pillow, so I keep it far enough from the bed that I have to get up to silence it. If I lay there thinking should I get up or sleep another five minutes, I’d be snoring and falling straight back into a second, deeper sleep within minutes. When you wake properly, on your feet, that’s when you really feel how tired you are. It’s another cold morning, and the tiles are cold enough under my feet to wake me the rest of the way as I walk towards the shower.

I shower, get dressed and pour myself a hot cuppa, wrapping both hands around the mug the way I always do. I’m greeted again with those familiar morning songs from my feathered friends as they prepare for their day, a few calls, then more answering back. I often contemplate how they go out with empty bellies and come back with full ones by the end of the day, which reminds me a fair bit of us.

I enter my workshop and I’m greeted with that familiar aroma of freshly cut and old, well acclimated timber, the two smells sitting together in a way I’ve stopped noticing most mornings but catch again on a day like this one. It’s going to be an exciting day, I’m putting the bookshelf together for the first time. My son’s excited too, he comes into the workshop to get updates on the progress, hovering near the bench with that look he gets. I tell him he’d be more excited if he waited until the very end.

I look at my work. I run my eyes over the carving one more time, checking for anything I might have missed, any spot I left too shallow or a leaf I never quite finished rounding.

When I’m satisfied all is good, I do a dry fit up. It’s always a good idea to do a dry fit up before the actual glue up, a rehearsal, a chance to see if everything will actually sit together the way it’s meant to before there’s glue involved and no going back. I try to fit the first top shelf and, aargh, as expected, I’ve made the dadoes too tight. I now have to plane the shelves down to fit. I start by planing only a small section near the end of each shelf, wanting to keep the thickness on most of the material, taking the shaving off in thin, careful passes so I don’t overshoot and end up with a sloppy fit instead of a tight one. After planing only two boards down, everything fits snugly and the bookcase comes together with a bit of gentle persuasion but no real fight. I’m confident the case is ready to glue. I gently pry it apart again, careful not to break anything in the process, and set the pieces out in order. I have my white glue ready and my clamps laid out within reach. I’m now ready to glue this case together.

I shake the glue bottle well. Sometimes I pour the glue onto a scrap piece and mix it by stirring, since it’s important to mix the glue properly, something I picked up from watching Japanese craftsmen. I squeeze the bottle gently, controlling the bead as it runs out onto the mating surface, and I’m met with that distinct smell of the glue I’ve relied on for the last two years or more. Before that I only used hide glue. I take a brush and spread the glue evenly through the dado, making sure to reach every part of it. Some people like to spread glue on both pieces. When I’m satisfied it’s done properly, I insert the shelf that corresponds to the number I marked on the dado, since that dado was cut to suit only that one shelf. I pick up a large 20oz rubber mallet, the kind you’d find in an automotive repair shop, and hammer the end in, working quickly along the row, hammering each shelf until it’s fully seated, the mallet giving off a heavy, dull thud each time it lands.

I spread glue as fast as I can through the rest of the dadoes on the other timber, then pick the whole thing up, a low grunt escaping me as my back muscles start to strain under the weight. I line up all the dadoes to the shelves, tap each one part way home with the side of my fist, then hammer them fully in. I grab the clamps, working quickly, I don’t want the glue setting on me, even though I’ve got longer working time with white glue than I ever had with hide glue. I position the clamps carefully, checking their alignment, making sure they sit straight and not crooked, so I don’t end up pulling any twist into the case as they draw down. I hear the familiar creak of the joints as I tighten the clamps and everything seats fully into the dadoes. There’s some bowing along the side boards, but the clamps take care of that as they close in. The worst of it is over, and I let out a breath, the bookshelf finally starting to look like a bookshelf and not just a pile of parts held together by hope. I check for square with a tape measure, comparing the diagonal from corner to corner against its opposite, since a case is only square when both diagonals match. Both come back the same. I let out one more breath, and a smile spreads across my ageing, weathered face. Everything is square, and the job’s a good’un, but the day is young, far from over. Then again, it is over for now, there’s nothing more I can do until the glue’s fully cured. Just as well. I could use a break from it all.

Disclaimer: I changed the title to encompass all three traditions. We all know Konjic carving is specifically Bosnian, grew out of Ottoman influence, and carries genuine Islamic geometric and arabesque motifs. It makes sense why the title includes all three.

Learn how to install a Wooden Screw, Heavy Duty Workbench Vise on your Woodworking Workbench Summary: What is the best way to install a heavy duty workbench vise? A traditional wooden vise can be installed by carefully laying out and chopping a shallow mortise for the

 The bowling alley project is dead in the water. I thought I had some maple left over from a step ladder I made but I didn't. I had one 5/4 board that was too thin and not long enough. So I pivoted and started on the bookcase for grandson #2. I do have a couple of projects in the queue from daughter #2 but I'm waiting on her to send them my way.

Kreg pocket hole jig box

This is done. I got the last coat of shellac on it (4th) and it has a check mark in the done column. I will leave the lid propped up for a couple of days to let the shellac set and harden.

3 flat boards to start with

The first two I dug out were cupped and not suitable for the sides, top, and bottom. I will try to use one of them for the base. Unfortunately I don't have any clear boards left. All of them are peppered with small brown knots.

prepping

Planing my reference edges and faces first. From them I'll saw them to width and length.

need a dutchman

This is going to be a painted project but paint will not stick to a pitch pocket. I thought it was shallow but I was wrong. BTW this doesn't extend out to the opposite face.

done

I used a 3/8" thick dutchman and it sucked up a 1/4". I didn't knife it carefully enough because I have a gap on the inboard edge I'll have to deal with. This will be at the back of the bookcase too.

the top

1x12 pine is only 11 1/4" wide and I need a board that is 11 3/4". I don't like gluing skinny width boards to wider ones. I glued on a 3" board and I'll saw it to the final width by taking it off the wider board.

filling the gap

I packed the gap with super glue and pine sawdust. I will check it in the AM and give it a second helping if needed.

brown knot work

Brown knots can and will shrink and possibly fall out. I soaked all the knots with super glue and then used the putty knife to push it down into and around all the knots (on both sides). I thought of covering them with dutchmen but nixed it. The superglue and paint should hid them all.

almost

The bottom of the bookcase is dovetailed and the top of the sides are in a housed dado in the top. I am use to four corner dovetails I laid out tails on both ends of this side. I caught it when I checked that the layout triangles on the sides and the bottom agreed.

barely

I had to move the Moxon to the left because the workbench foot was in the way. If this hadn't worked I would have piled some boards on the bench and clamped the Moxon down on them. I have a couple of stools in the shop that I could have stood on to saw the tails and pins.

hmm.......

Not going together off the saw. I made the pins a wee bit too fat. Did the same for the left side too.

rasped them 3 times

I didn't have much to trim and I prefer to use a rasp for taking off a few thin frog hairs. I find the pins keep their angles and squareness better than I can do with a chisel. It took 3 dance steps of rasp and check before the sides mated with the bottom.

spacer

Got the sides seated and squared off the bottom. I sawed this piece of 1/2" plywood to the distance between the two inside faces. I will clamp this to the inside at the top when I knife the sides to the top housing dado.

shelf layout

I am trying to make this a clone of the first bookcase which I think is Miles's. I'm not shooting for an exact match but a visual one. When I made Miles's bookcase I had made a me-steak when I chopped the housing dadoes. Chopped on the wrong side of the knife line changing the spacing. I'm keeping the mistake spacing for Leo's bookcase.

double triple checking

Making sure that the dadoes line up and they do. I have made some bone headed me-steaks laying these out in the past. No such hiccups today but I still have to chop the dadoes starting in the AM.

wow

I had come back to the shop a little after 1200 not intending to stay long. I had looked at the clock and was surprised by how late it was. I got into the flow of things and time just slipped by me. No hiccups with the chemo cocktail I had yesterday. I felt good today and I wasn't coughing much neither. I hope tomorrow will be a good shop day too.

accidental woodworker 

I had my 3rd chemo cocktail today with my final one scheduled for the 22nd. So far I still haven't experienced any of the scary side effects. Fingers crossed that holds true for the last two. One thing I'm looking forward to is today and tomorrow is the chemo has knocked down my coughing (and fits) significantly on the previous two infusions. So far today I've coughed but have yet to have a 5 minute fit of it.

I left before 0800 to have blood work before my appointment. I didn't get back to the barn until a little after 1200. It made for a long day and the delay was with the blood work. The doc didn't get the results until after 1000. I guess I'm lucky with only one more to go. The other patient in my room was going into his 8th month of chemo. Needless to say I didn't get a lot of time in the shop.

nope

I had intended to return to the shop after dinner last night but didn't make it. I was bone weary tired and kept my butt cheeks molded to my desk chair. There isn't anyone holding a gun to my head to get this done.

first glamour pic

This done for all intents and purposes. The top needs one more coat of shellac but you don't know that just from looking at this pic. Got the cup pull install with no hiccups.

cup pull

This oil rubbed bronze is running neck and neck with polished brass. IMO I thought brass wouldn't look good against all the white of this poplar. I got the cup pull from Lee Valley and no screws come with the pull. I used black oxide, oval head #6 screws I got from Blacksmith Bolt and Rivet Supply. The color match between the two of the is perfect.

side glamour pic

My wife likes this because the wood is white but mostly because there isn't any pronounced grain on the legs and slats. The shelves not only have grain they have green streaks in them (which I like). I had to put something in this that I liked too. This is going to North Carolina to live in daughter #2's house.

half lapped shouldered dovetail

I like how this looks. There is just enough color difference to highlight it a wee bit. Even the plug fits and doesn't stand out (at the bottom left corner of the drawer).

If I make another one of these it will have adjustable shelves. That is the only thing I would change. This fixed shelf looks ok but I like the ability to change the shelf spacing based on what you want to put on it. The reverse of that happens with this arrangement.

hmm........

This is the large half pin after sawing off some of the height. I don't like skinny half pins because I don't think that they are strong enough but this size is over kill. It is almost the size of the tail.

got around to it

I leave this chisel on the workbench and use it for the odd things that I don't want to use my #1 set of chisels. Its only draw back is this chisel will not hold an edge for long and the bevel edge chips just looking at it. But right off the stones it works flawlessly.

hmm......

The hinge holes don't line up. I had left the hinges on when I applied the shellac and that wasn't the correct thing to do. I couldn't get the holes/hinges aligned in any orientation of the lid. The big me-steak was the right hinge went south on the express.

ouch

The right hinge warped, bent, cupped, and bowed all at once. I guess I abused it too much clamping it in the vise to drill the pilot holes. I shitcanned the both of them and I'll be using two new ones.

next project?

I've had these bowling pins for 6-7 years. I had started to make it once and abandoned it. Thinking of making it for the grandsons. Not sure if they will use it though. Miles is into anything trains and Leo is a baseball nut. But this will take a couple of shop days to do and give me a chance to think of what next to make.

makes me sad to look at

I really like the look of these marking gauges. It has been years since I used any of them. I had stopped using them because the head/fence couldn't be secured. I went nutso using them before I realized the head was slipping and moving as I marked with them. I tried all three again hoping the summer had swelled them but no joy there. 

All three slipped and moved just like the three bears. The baby one moved too easily. The mama bear one moved with a little pressure. Papa bear almost worked but I couldn't mark a line all around the end of a board. You can't use a marking gauge that won't hold its head when set.

nope

I had put a U bent piece of metal under the screw to help it bite down on the arm and stay stationary way back when. It didn't work then when I first tried it and today it didn't disappoint me again. I cranked down on the screw and marked the end of a board. No dice, as the line didn't line up on two faces. Did it again and I could see the fence moving slightly as I marked around the board. BTW this was the mama bear marking gauge. Still pretty looking but useless as marking gauges IMO.

accidental woodworker

The alarm goes off at 4am.

My eyes snap open and for a moment the room is completely still. Like a soldier waking to the sharp sound of a bugle, I’m out of bed and heading for the shower before I’ve properly thought about it. The floor is cold under my feet the whole way there. There is no hesitation. I’ve been doing this long enough that my body seems to know what comes next before I do.

Early morning is my favourite part of the day. There is something special about being awake while the rest of the world is still asleep. The house is quiet, the streets are quiet. My workshop patiently waits for me in silence, somewhere out there in the dark.

Outside, I can hear the birds beginning their morning songs, a few thin notes at first, then more of them answering each other. To me, it is better than music. I stand there listening while the kettle rattles and starts to hiss, steam curling up past my face when I pour it. I wrap both hands around the mug to kick start the day, feeling the heat move into my fingers, then step outside and breathe in the cool morning air before heading into the workshop.

As soon as I open the workshop door, the fresh morning air begins to mix with the aroma of timber, that particular smell of sawdust and shavings that’s sat in there overnight, faintly sweet, a bit like standing inside a freshly cut tree. It’s still dark outside. There is something about walking into a workshop at that hour, when the rest of the world is asleep, with nothing but the smell of wood and the task ahead. That’s the part of the day I look forward to most.

I know there is a long road ahead of me, and I don’t want to waste the day.

Most cabinetmaking shops start around 6:30 in the morning. But in a hand tool woodworking world, that’s too late unless you’re retired. Every board has to be prepared by hand. Every joint has to be cut, grooved and planed to fit precisely. There is no machine waiting to do the work for you.

My motto is simple: every detail takes as long as it takes.

So I start early.

Usually I’m in the workshop somewhere around 4:30 in the morning, and I’ll keep working until around 5pm. Seven days a week is not unusual when I have a project like this in front of me. There is a certain rhythm to it. The early morning, the quiet workshop, the sound of hand tools in use, steel on wood, the small grunt of effort you don’t even notice you’re making anymore. Long hours await me as I work my way through one part of the bookcase after another.

Today, however, the work is going to be a little different.

I’m going to carve both sides of the bookcase.

I had spent some time previously looking at antique bookshelves and noticed something interesting. The sides were generally quite plain. The decorative carving was usually concentrated on the front, and even then it was often quite restrained, a flower perhaps, with a few petals and some foliage worked around it. Nothing too elaborate.

That makes sense when you think about how these pieces were made. Carving is slow work. The more detail you add, the more hours disappear into it. Most antique bookcases didn’t need much more than that.

But this isn’t an ordinary bookcase. This one is being made for my son.

I stood at the bench with that thought for a while before I picked up a tool, one hand flat on the cold, unplaned side panel, feeling the grain run under my palm. I’m not making this piece to satisfy a customer, or to get it finished as quickly as possible. I’m making it because I want him to have something that was made by his father, something that can sit in his home for decades, and maybe get passed on again after that, still carrying a little piece of the person who made it. So although the antique examples might have left the sides plain, I decided that mine would not be. I was going to carve them. And this is where the real work begins.

My son and wife had recently returned from a trip through Bosnia and Herzegovina. They’d travelled all over the country, but there was one place in particular I’d asked them to visit for me: Konjic, a small town on the Neretva River, tucked in among mountains and dense green forest. I didn’t care about the scenery. I wanted to see the woodcarving the town is known for.

Konjic has a long tradition of hand carved furniture, with patterns that are immediately recognisable. Geometric shapes combined with stylised flowers, leaves and interwoven forms, filling panels and borders with a rhythm that almost makes the wood look woven. Triangles become diamonds, diamonds become stars, and simple cuts repeated over and over create patterns far more intricate than any one cut would suggest. They found the museum where some of the old furniture is kept, and were surprised to learn the tradition is still alive, some of it modernised, but a lot of the old patterns still being carved the same way they always were.

When they got home, my son showed me the photos he’d taken, dozens of them, patterns from every panel and border he could find. I sat at the computer that evening, the room dark except for the screen, and went through them one by one until I’d found the ones I wanted.

Once I’d settled on the patterns, there was only one thing left to do. I opened QCAD and started drawing, the mouse clicking under my hand while lines built up on the screen, curve by curve, until the photographs had disappeared and I was looking at clean geometric lines I could print out and transfer to the timber. When I carve, I don’t redraw the pattern onto the wood. I glue the printed drawing straight onto the board. There’s little point spending an hour transferring every line by hand when the drawing’s already accurate on the computer. The paper becomes my carving pattern, and from there the real work begins.

I start by gluing the paper to the timber with spray adhesive, the smell of it sharp in the air for a second before it fades, working it down carefully from the centre out with the flat of my hand so there’s no wrinkle or bubble trapped underneath. The paper goes slightly tacky and cool under my fingers as it sets. When it’s smooth, I stand back for a second and look at the pattern sitting there on the raw wood, waiting, and then I pick up the V tool.

The V tool is the one that outlines the design, the irregular curves of the floral pattern, the veins running through each leaf. I set the edge against the paper, rest the corner of my palm on the timber for control, and swing the mallet. Each blow is slow and steady, cut deep, because this will be a relief carving and the depth I put in now is the depth I’ll have to work with later. The mallet makes a flat, dull knock against the chisel handle, over and over, a small jolt travelling up through my wrist each time, and by the time I’ve worked my way around the first flower there’s a fine skin of pale shavings gathering at my feet and a faint ring in my ears from the knocking.

Once the outline’s cut, I switch to a #7, 20mm fishtail gouge and start establishing the background, cutting away the timber around the design so the flowers and leaves begin to stand proud of the surface. Curls of wood peel off with each pass and drift down onto the bench, catching the light from the window as the morning brightens outside. It doesn’t have to be that particular gouge. Any size or shape that suits the carving in front of you will do. The main thing is you take your time and let the shape tell you where to cut next, rather than forcing a shape onto the wood that isn’t there yet.

With the background roughed out, I round over the arrises and start shaping the leaves and flowers as best I know how, running my thumb along each edge as I go to feel where it’s still sharp and where it’s started to soften into a curve. There’s no formula for this part, no measurement to follow. You look at what’s in front of you and use your judgement, a little more taken off here, a curve eased there, until the petals start to look like they’re actually resting against each other instead of just sitting flat. By the middle of the afternoon my forearm has a low, steady ache running through it and there’s a warm patch on my palm where the mallet’s handle sits, but it’s the kind of ache that tells you the work is going somewhere.

The last thing is the background itself. I texture it with short, close strokes, so the surface around the carving catches the light differently to the smooth, shaped timber of the flowers and leaves. Run a finger across it and you can feel the difference before you can see it, rough against smooth. Without that contrast the whole design goes flat and the eye can’t find its way through it.

When it’s finished, I brush mineral turps over the paper, the smell of it sharp and clean, and watch it curl and lift away on its own, no scraping, no risk of scuffing the carved surface the way I’ve seen people do it on YouTube. A wipe with a paper towel clears whatever adhesive is left behind, the wood underneath pale and slightly damp where the turps has been. One thing worth knowing: turps won’t stop the finish from taking later, but if you’re going to glue that area afterwards, either keep the turps off it or let it dry fully first, otherwise it can interfere with the glue. Denatured alcohol is what I reach for instead, when I need to clean an area before gluing, since it won’t touch the spray adhesive enough to lift the paper but it will clean a surface without leaving anything behind.

Now that both sides are carved, I’m ready to glue the bookcase together.

I know you’re itching to know how long it all took, and I’ll be honest with you because there’s nothing shameful about taking your time when you’re making something by hand. Everything took about a week for this first stage. That included planing both sides, though I only needed to flatten one face of each board completely, since that was the face where the dadoes were cut. Then there was chopping out the dadoes, followed by carving both sides.

A full week of work. I stand back at the end of it with my hands still smelling faintly of turps and timber, shoulders loose for the first time all day, and picture him running a hand along that carved edge one day without knowing exactly how many hours went into it, just knowing his old man made it.

I’d say the job’s a good’un.

It’s now ready for the glue up.

I updated my Guitars Currently Available page!

I added "Violante", guitar #50 to the list which will be available later this year! I will post updates on this guitar as I finish it!

The Lorenzo Frignani #221 guitar is now listed on Reverb!

First things first, remove the top, this usually requires breaking most of the top into pieces.

cooked

I resisted the urge to come back and play with this after filling the supper pie hole. When I sawed off some excess the half pin it left was a wide half pin. Due to that I wanted the box to cook overnight in the clamps to strengthen those corners.

sigh

Made another boo boo, brain fart me-steak. Sawed the groove wrong again. Didn't I just do this a couple of days ago? I'm not going to fill this.

sigh, again, and again

I made this boo boo when setting the fence on the tablesaw. I'll fill this one in because it is on the outside face. At least I caught it before I got to the other end.

the lid

Got lucky that I found two scraps of New Zealand pine to make the lid. It isn't my preferred way as I like one board lids but this is a shop box. A two board lid will keep out the dust just as good as a single board lid.

two options

The bottom is overkill and too large for this lid. The top one is doable.

nope

This hinge isn't swaged (not a deal killer) but this does kill it. There is no countersink for the screws. The screws when tightened down would be proud of the hinge leaves. That means the hinge will not fully close even with a generous mortise for the hinge.

right one is the winner

I wanted to use the left one but the screws in the box and the lid would have been too close to the edges. BTW these are both 90° stop hinges which makes them borderline acceptable.

needed some work

The hinge is sized for a #3 screw but all my #3 screws are flat heads and this needs a round head. Drilled it out for a #4 RH.

pilot holes

Used a numbered drill for the pilot hole. My smallest fractional bit was too small. This is about all I use this eggbeater for. It excels at it and the only annoyance is the chuck needs help to open and close.

box prep

Planed the four sides leveling and flushing the pins/tails. Filled in a couple of gaps and once it has set I'll sand it.

hmm......

I had to reset this hinge. The barrel was below the top of the box. The hinge on the opposite side has its barrel sitting less then a frog hair above the top. As is the lid would have protested when opened/closed.

it works

Used a scrap to check the swing the of the hinges. I used tape and the truncated lid swung freely. Both hinge barrels are inline now.

3 hours later

Sizing the lid. I barely had enough overhang R/L but squeaked by. I ended up with the R/L with a couple of frog hairs overhanging with the front of the lid being flush with the front face.

done

Whacked out a quick finger grabbie thing. I had thought of putting a catch but nixed it. No need for it IMO. This is ok for giving a place to open the lid with thumb or finger.

last step

Used the sanding sticks to smooth the end grain ends. Next batter was slapping some shellac on it.

3 coats

I steel wooled between each coat. I'll do that for each coat I put on from here. I also ran my fingers across the top to make sure it was still flat and smooth. 2 more coats and this should be getting a check mark in the done column.

accidental woodworker