The look and feel will probably change as I settle on a theme and the over all look. New categories will also be added as we go along.  Have any suggestions?

Watch a video of the build here.  You can download plans here.

New design:

Old design:

-Brian

Click images for full size

The width of the saw kerf is accounted for by using a screw or bolt.  The jig produces very tight fitting dados that can be dialed-in for fit by adjusting the screw in or out.  I think I will keep this jig handy near the table saw!

For a demonstration of how the jig is used, see the video.

I made a SketchUp file and made a template that you can print out and make your own low profile spiral clamps.  You can purchase it here.

Clicking enlarges the image

So I bought a new Cobolt drill bit at the home center and attached a planer knife to a length of board with a few screws (with out the screws the knife could catch on the bit and spin like a lawn mower blade severing a few fingers).  I put a little 3 in 1 oil in the hole and proceeded to drill it out.  After about what seemed like an eternity, I stopped and noticed that only a small amount of metal had been removed by the bit.  And because I have several holes to make, I abandoned this idea.  High speed steel is harder than I thought.   So I might be forced to buy new blades when they get dull.  Thanks Dewalt!

Any suggestions? (other than buying a helical cutter head)

If anyone needs a highly motivated and skilled medicinal chemist (Ph.D.) please let me know.

If you see more plans for sale on the website, well, this is why.

Last weekend I finally had some time to build an idea that has been floating around in my head.  It’s a clamp that was inspired by a Bernoulli spiral.  This will allow you to clamp work to your bench for planing and card scraping with ease.  It worked much better then expected.   See the video.

If you’ve never seen the original prototype here it is below.  It was knocked out pretty quick in order to test the functionality.  It worked well enough to make another.  After getting the idea to use a chisel as a plane iron, I Googled “Chisel Plane” to see if anyone has ever made one before and I was amazed when I saw the Veritas  model.  So it was off to the woodshop to make one (with the Veritas model as inspiration).

This was followed by Chisel Plane 2.0 shown below.  I got rid of the screw and went with a more appropriate wedge and a longer body.

If you’d like to make your own you can watch the video build here.  I also have the dimensions here.

If you’ve made one I’d love to post a picture of it on my site.  A wall of chisel planes if you will. 

I got my first spokeshave this year also.  A Veritas flat spokeshave.  I hope to add a little more shaped work into my portfolio and this baby should do just fine.

My sharpening stone collection use to only consist of as 1000 and a 4000-grit waterstone.  Now I can add to that collection a 8000-grit Norton water stone for that extra fine polish.

I added an additional alignment gauge to my collection with a Starrett Protractor Angle Finder.  I read some really good reviews and one on Lumberjocks which kind of sealed the deal for me.  It looks like it will be a good tool to have around the shop for angle measurements that don’t require ultra accuracy.  For those that require that extra level of accuracy I will probably still turn to my TS-Aligner Jr.

What did you guys get this year?

Solution? I am thinking of elongating the holes in the knives and using a setting jig (yet to be designed) to seat the knives the proper distance from the cutter-head surface.  In theory this should work.  One of my fears is that the pins might be serving two purposes – indexing and holding the knives still under load.  I’m hoping the clamp that secures the knives to the cutter-head is adequate.

Your thoughts??

Picture of cutter-head with knife on w/o clamp and screws showing the indexing pin protruding through the knife.

(click image to enlarge)

The jig utilizes a dial indicator for aligning your table saw and can be made with scrap wood. I think dial indicators are way under utilized by woodworkers. I’m not sure why, but I think some might be intimidated by them. The things you can do with them in the shop is literally only limited by your imagination.

Anyway, thank you FineWoodworking for the write-up and the prize!

I made a stop-block that slides in the T-track on what else but a T-bolt (2 of them). A neat trick that I utilized in my stop-block is that I allowed it to hover over the surface of the sled. This prevents sawdust from getting inbetween the stop-block and the work piece.

I filmed the process I use to square the fence to 90 degrees. If you haven’t watched it yet, it’s worth a couple minutes of your time; I promise!

Feedback encouraged.

Cheers,
Brian

What features do you have on yours that you think I should incorporate on mine?

Thanks!

All of the panels are resawn from 4/4 cherry and are bookmatched. The panels are raised on the inside to allow them to fit into a 1/4″ groove.

I didn’t film the glue-up because I tend to get a little flustered at times. Unfortunately I wish I did film it because it went surprisingly smooth. I did several dry runs of the back section which helped tremendously!

If you’d like to watch the video footage of the build prior to glue-up you can watch the series here.

Side:

Inside:

The Nu- in the drawing above stands for ‘Nucleophile’ and is what starts the chain reaction. It is normally water (specifically the OH in H2O). In super glue accelerators the Nu is the nitrogen atom of an aniline (aniline dyes ring a bell?) which is a much stronger nucleophile than water (that’s what makes it an accelerator). Using too much accelerator will make shorter polymers and potentially a weaker bond. Use sparingly!

Cyanoacrylate comes in handy for me most often when fixing small imperfections in wood (cracks, knots, etc.) by applying a dilute (thin) solution of cyanoacrylate in the crack and applying a small amount of sawdust. After it’s sanded you can barely see the crack when done carefully. For this I usually buy a thin solution already pre-made from ‘INSERT FAVORITE SUPPLY WOODWORKING STORE’ and use as is. You can make your own by taking a thicker solution and diluting it with acetone.

Cheers,
Brian

If you’d like to share, you can upload your files here. After I receive a few files, I plan on making a separate page where they will be categorized and available for download.

We’ll see how it goes…

So my question is to those that use them.   What circumstances require that you use them?

1) Thou shalt not stain cherry: This one I have no problems
with. I love the look of natural cherry and I like how it
ages and gets darker with time (patina). I use to cringe when
Norm would slather his stain concoction all over his newly finished
cherry master piece. But, I think I can cut him some slack
because he taught me a lot of what I know about woodworking via the
tube.

2) Thou shalt like Maloof style furniture: This one I have a problem
with. Yeah, that’s right! I said it. I can not see having a Maloof style piece in my house. It wouldn’t fit in with my style. But, do I think the furniture he produced was beautiful? Absolutely! I like how his joinery flowed from one piece into the other. It’s just that that kind of piece doesn’t appeal to me to have in my home. If I ever make a Maloof style piece it will be to see if I can, to
challenge my skills, not to own the piece. I’m glad I got that off my chest. I feel better now.

3) Thou shalt learn to make hand cut dovetails: This one is still on my to do list. I have a nice dovetail jig and I can whip off a router made one like it’s no ones business, but the hand cut dovetail still eludes me. One day I’ll learn to cut them by hand!

4) Thou shalt own at least one hand plane: It took me a couple years before I bought my first hand plane because I didn’t really understand there
place in woodworking (naive). But now that I am a more seasoned woodworker, I don’t know how I got by w/o at least one. Now I only own two, but I have my eye on a few others I’d like to get. Yeah, it can be an addiction I hear; a slippery slope.

5) Thou shalt never place drinks on the table saw: Placing a drink on my table saw is a big ‘don’t do’. :^) I think it’s hard for the non-woodworker to understand this one. I have a very faint ‘ring’ on one of my table saw wings that I received while I was away. Until tools are made from all stainless steal
(won’t ever happen), we must be constantly vigilant of the dreaded rust. Ok – there’s five. Do you have any that should be on the list? Chime in.

As a chemist, if I were dealing with a reagent in a laboratory setting, I would purge the can after each use with either nitrogen or argon.  Unfortunately, I don’t have cylinders of these inert gases laying around.  There are products on the market that do just this, but they don’t appear very cost effective to me.  An interesting approach that I read about on the net involves adding marbles to the can after each use in order to displace the air from the can.  I have also read of woodworkers using ‘dust off’ sprays which are composed of difluoroethane, which should also work to do the job and is readily available and cheap.

What method works for you?

Do you prefer the types that focus on a particular technique or jig or do you prefer the type that involve an entire project? Or both? Personally, I enjoy them more when the podcaster focuses on a technique. They can usually go into more detail and really dive into it.

What do you prefer and why?

(Click to enlarge images)

Although I mention that the second angle is 51 degrees in the video, it is actually 55 degrees according to my CAD.

If you’d like to make your own, I plan on posting the dimensions tomorrow. See the video!

Cheers,
Brian

After looking at it, I thought maybe the iron could be replaced by a chisel. Then, I thought that maybe I’m not the first to think of this. Guess what? I’m not. After a google search for ‘chisel plane’, I found the one by Veritas. So, off to the shop to make a prototype.

Here is my prototype:

It works ok, but it is difficult to set the depth of the iron (chisel). If you try and take off too much wood it will chatter like crazy.

I think I might try and develop this a little more. I might be on to something.?.

All you need to do is enter in the board dimensions for the piece and the price for the piece will automatically fill in. My lumberyard prices get cheaper as I buy more lumber and this is automatically reflected in the price column. You will need to modify these prices for your lumberyard on the ‘Lumber_Prices’ tab.

Because we can’t always buy a 4″ wide board when we need to, you always have to account for waste. I try to estimate at least a 25% waste percentage. For example if I need 30 board feet of cherry I will most likely end up buying close to 37 board feet.

I plan on creating a spreadsheet for each new project before going to the lumberyard. This way I can file the estimate away and compare it with the actual lumber bill. My pricing estimate will most likely improve with each trip to the lumberyard.

I hope you download and find the spreadsheet useful. If you have any questions or comments please let me know.

Cheers,
Brian

I hope to have the part 2 video posted sometime tonight.

-Cheers,
Brian

I decided on Greene and Greene for the style for the frame and came up with a design. I plan on banging this out tomorrow from cherry and ebony. Comments suggestions?

This definitely shows faith in ones invention.

What is a solvent?   In the simplest of terms, a solvent is a liquid that dissolves another substance (liquid, solid or gas).  The best way to understand solvents is to think of them in terms of ‘water-like’ or ‘oil-like’.  You could also apply the old ‘like dissolves like’ saying.  This simply means that greasy solvents prefer to dissolve greasy substances (solutes).  There is even a scale to describe if a particular solvent or chemical (in its purest form) will be oil (nonpolar) or water-like (polar).  This scale is known as the ‘Partition Coefficient‘ or ‘P’ and is usually presented as its log form (logP).  The greasier the substance (more oil-like) the larger the logP.  Because some solvents are actually mixtures of many different solvents, a logP can not be assigned.  But, we can still get a feel for their ‘greasy’ or ‘water-like’ nature of the solvent from experience (you could obtain a logP for each component).

For the chemistry and math daring:
log P = log [octanol]/[water]
In simple terms it is the log of the ratio of its concentration in octanol or water after shaking the substance in a flask filled with equal parts of octanol and water.

Probably the most common woodworking solvents are mineral spirits, naptha, toluene, turpentine, ethanol, methanol, isopropylalcohol, lacquer thinner, and the ketones acetone and MEK (methylethylketone).   All of these solvents could be ranked according to their water or oil-like nature and the pure-form (non-mixture solvents) solvents could be assigned a logP.   When choosing a solvent it is important to estimate where the solvent falls on the scale with regard to its hydrophobic (literally ‘water fearing’) nature.

Hexanes -> (Naptha – Mineral Spirits)->MEK->Acetone->Methanol->Water

–>Decreasing hydrophobicity (Increasing hydrophilicity)–>

At the extreme, ‘greasy’ (hydrophobic) end of the spectrum are solvents like mineral spirits (composed of a mixture of greasy hydrocarbons like hexanes), turpentine, and toluene.  While at the other extreme end are solvents like water, methanol, ethanol and isopropanol (listed in order of increasing LogP or increasing hydrophobicity).   Because the alcohols are more hydrophilic than mineral spirits (the other end of the spectrum) they are better suited for dissolving more hydrophilic substances such as analine dyes (like-dissolves-like).

Solvents that are somewhere in the middle of the scale are the ketones such as MEK and acetone.  Acetone has a logP of -0.25 so it prefers water slightly more than oil (around 2-fold more).

Aside from considering a solvents water-like or oil-like nature, the boiling point is also important.  For example isopropanol (82 C) has a higher boiling point than methanol (65 C) or ethanol (78 C) and will evaporate slower.  If this is important to you then choose accordingly.

I’m not suggesting that when choosing a solvent for a woodworking purpose that we get too analytical when thinking about their properties; this would just bog you down.  But, I think we should at least try and keep their “rough estimate” properties in mind when choosing a solvent for a particular task.

Cheers,

Brian

Enter here.

Check out more 3D images of my shop here.

Picture Below is in 3D (you need red/cyan 3D glasses)

Update: I dedicated a page to ‘Godzilla’ the Horizontal Mortiser here. I included a few in process pictures and useful links.

I still need to come up with a solution to keep sawdust from getting on the shafts in the X,Y tables. This needs more thought. If you have an idea please let me know. Thanks!

I loosely followed plans by Woodgears.

I used sintered bronze bushings and polished steel shafts for the X,Y tables instead of drawer guides. The drawer guides I originally used had too much vertical slop to be useful. I was a little worried that the rods and bushings idea wouldn’t perform ok, but I am pleasantly surprised. Like most of my jigs, Godzilla will most likely evolve as I use it and see where it can be improved. One thing that I know I might modify already is the X,Y travel lever. I might add a separate lever for the Y-axis motion.

Y-axis positive stop:

One of the two X-axis positive stops:

(Compare the picture below with the CAD design in the previous post to see where I’m going here.)

I used a 13/16″ forstner bit to sink the 1.25″ long bushings. They are held in place with a washer over the flange which is secured with a screw. One concern I have is that the wood fibers that hold the sintered brass bushings will wick out a lot of the oil. I will have to wait and see if this becomes a problem or not.

I plan on protecting the rods and bushings from saw dust by wrapping the edges with a strip of wood and maybe weather stripping? I’m not sure how to do this yet.

Thanks for looking and comments are welcomed.
Brian

The top table will move freely on the top two steel rods and the bottom table will do the same (on the bottom rods). The bronze bushings should slide like melted butter.

I have finished the table and X, Y travel lever. I am going to continue to modify the lever mechanism (I don’t like what I came up with), but this one will work fine until I solve other issues. I also finished the depth of cut (is that X or Y?) positive stop.

One problem that keeps bugging me involves my X and Y bearing system described in a previous post. If I make too aggressive of a cut in hard wood, the router bit will either lower or raise slightly as it cuts. The up or down movement depends on the cut direction. The movement is coming from the X,Y tables. This is a problem that would not have occurred with a good set of ball bearing drawer guides.

I’ve tried fixing this problem by cutting a kerf in the upper portion of the rails. I then bent a metal clip into a Z and screwed it down to the table from one end and slid the kerf under the other end. This seemed to lock the table down ok, but if you pull up on the table there is still a small amount of flex.

Got any suggestions? I might need to re-visit the drawer guide method, but with a higher quality guide. Rockler sells an under drawer mount guide that might work.

It has very smooth X, Y and Z travel. I need to work on the levers that control the X and Y travel and the mortising table next.

It’s coming along nicely!

An in progress pic:

-Brian

Next I need to work on the structure that will support the mount. Matthias of Woodgears graciously gave me a copy of his horizontal mortiser plans (thank you Matthias!). I plan on using them as a nice reference throughout the build.

If you’d like to build one of these I highly encourage you to buy a set of his plans. They are extremely detailed.

I want to make it out of stuff I have laying around hence the use of roller skate bearings. I also HATE following plans so I am making up the details as I go along.

I’m not sure if the bearings will stay tight with extended use, but time will tell. I might have to scrap this idea if they don’t perform well.

The rails are thicker than the bearings so the load from above will be on the rails, not the bearings. I plan on waxing the bottom of the rails.

First tier:(There are two runners, but only one will be guided by the bearings. The adjustment lever will be on the left side so this should be ok.)

Second tier:(This time I am using two rows of bearings. The tier will be pushed forward from the left side.)

Complete x,y axis:

So far so good. More to follow.

I came up with a very simple solution. After realizing how simple the solution was it baffles me why I never made one of these sooner. It was one of those hand to forehead moments. Anyway, below is a picture of my ‘scraper holder’. It’s made from 1″ scrap cherry with saw kerfs running its length.

Anyway, I hope someone finds it useful.

Cheers,
Brian

In the piece of wood shown in the diagram above, angle A is the cut error caused by having a misaligned miter gauge. If A = 0.1 degrees and the adjacent side (Adjacent) is 5″ then the opposite side (Opp) will measure: 0.009″. The formula is Opp = Adjacent X Tan(A).

An error of 0.009″ would be difficult to discern with a square (at least for most woodworkers). This is why some woodworkers will use something called The ‘Five Cut Method’ when squaring a miter gauge using scrap wood. I should add that when squaring a miter gauge or table saw sled using the method I describe here you don’t need to use the ‘Five Cut Method’ or scrap wood in the process.

The angle error can quickly add up when the piece is mated with other pieces in the project which also contain angle errors which could spell disaster. As the side, Adjacent, gets longer the error gets even larger. For example, an Adjacent side measuring 12″ would equal an error of 0.02″ (angle A = 0.1 degrees).

So what is the take home message from the above? When checking for square using a ‘good quality square’, it can be difficult to discern an error of 0.1 degrees, especially if you are using a small square or checking a board with a short ‘Adjacent’ side (remember the error is enhanced as the adjacent side gets longer.

What’s your take?

When faced with a difficult task in the woodshop or one that requires repetitive cuts, a jig can usually save the day. We woodworkers can use our ability to…well…make stuff to our advantage. Jigs can usually be made from scraps laying around the shop in a few hours or less.

I get my inspiration for different jigs from the internet and woodworking on-line stores. It usually isn’t that difficult to make a ‘store-version’ jig at home simply by looking at the pictures on-line. You can save a bundle of money and gain a huge amount of satisfaction from making it yourself. Plus, you get to make it exactly the way you want it (ok, not every time). I like having the ability to modify my jigs to my taste, a task that can be difficult with a store bought jig.

I have heard from some woodworkers that they’d rather not waste their time making a jig that they could buy. I can understand this when it comes to production shops where time = money. But for the hobbyist, it just doesn’t make sense to me. We hobbyists are in this for the fun of it (supposedly) and part of the fun is making your own jigs. What’s your take?

Since making my cyclone I have acquired a factory made version and you can read my review here.

Feel free to comment on the cyclone below.

Mine is the one pictured on top (DX-60)

I’m on the hand plane slippery slope…

-Brian