Easel and Chalkboard

[Cliff]

I've been meaning to try to build one of these for my wife's shop for about a year. Then Jay Bates did one and had plans. Looked easy enough so I bought his plans and decided to take a stab at it. I was going to use poplar but then realized I had plenty of air dried ash that was probably not going to be useful for anything else due to it being improperly dried. At $1/bf, I didn't care. 

I don't have a domino, so I had to choose a different joinery method. I honestly don't understand how to do mortise and tenon when your piece is angled so I opted for dowels. I've never used them before for joinery. But I bought a doweling jig the first month I started woodworking, so I figured why not?

Ash board - 10 or 11 foot long, 14 inches wide, 5/4 thickness.

After tons of milling, I had the easel pieces sized up. And I do mean tons of milling. The wood was badly warped. Unfortunately I misread the cut list and rough cut all the strips to 2" when the easel pieces were supposed to be 2 1/2" final width. But since it's ash, it should hold just fine. 

 

I cut the 5 degree angle on the top and bottom of the legs, and on the stretcher pieces, then did a test fitting. It was pretty perfect, though in the pic the board is not level on the table saw because the wing dips down on the back. I was pretty proud of this matching up the way it should. This stayed perfect and life was wonderful from here on out. (no.) And btw I'm hoping that cleaning the blade will take care of some of the burning you see on the pieces. It does it on every wood pretty much, not just ash, though it does it much worse on ash and purpleheart.

 

Since my pieces were the same width I figured the doweling jig should be easy sauce. So I marked a line and drilled my holes.

 

Something definitely went wrong and I absolutely can't figure out what it is. My boards all met properly, so I know it's my joinery that is off. All I can think is that there was wiggle room in the jig to cause my stuff to not line up properly. The bottom stretcher fit better than the top. 

Here is a closeup of the top. I'm really not pleased with this. Hoping I can at least make it look better with sanding a card scraper. But long story short, gappy joinery won't be fixed by sanding. However it will be covered up by the chalkboard, which I start tomorrow.

[Cliff]

Nothing but cleanup, trimming the shelf, sanding and finish left. 

[wtnhighlander]

Looks great, Cliff!

[Woodenskye]

Nice job cliff. 

[Coop]

Cliff, it finished out looking great. I hate dowels, especially a bunch off them. In your case, angles other than 90* would really screw me up. I built one similiar using half laps and used dowels to pin them and it was pretty simple to do

[Cliff]

23 hours ago, K Cooper said:

Cliff, it finished out looking great. I hate dowels, especially a bunch off them. In your case, angles other than 90* would really screw me up. I built one similiar using half laps and used dowels to pin them and it was pretty simple to do

Yeah I agree. Half laps would have been better I think. I'm happy to try something new but man I don't handle it not being perfect very well.

[Chestnut]

Nice work cliff this is really cool. Did you switch woods half way through because the close up of the joinery gone wrong looks a lot like oak. I really like the chalk board, i miss chalk boards. White boards are OK but chalk is better, i think it's the sound.

[Cliff]

9 hours ago, Chestnut said:

Nice work cliff this is really cool. Did you switch woods half way through because the close up of the joinery gone wrong looks a lot like oak. I really like the chalk board, i miss chalk boards. White boards are OK but chalk is better, i think it's the sound.

Nope it's supposed to be Ash. I had never seen ash before I bought this 50 bf, but the guy I bought it from said it looks pretty similar to oak and he was looking at the boards and goes, "in fact, I'm not 100% sure this is ash, I hope it is." 

So.. If it isn't, then I'm not knowledgable enough to tell the difference!

[Chestnut]

Ash doesn't have medullary rays like oak does.

From our friend at hobbithouse This is more what ash should look like. Another big indicator is smell. Ash does NOT smell like oak.

At $1 a BF if it's hardwood who cares. In your situation though it stinks that it moved so dang much.

If you care hobbithouse and wood database have good articles on ash and oak. They are very similar but easy to separate once you know the difference.

 

[Eric.]

Yeah I agree with The Nut...sure looks like oak to me.  Tough to tell without closeup pics but if I had a gun to my head I'd say white oak.

[Cliff]

Well that is certainly interesting, because he did NOT want to sell his oak for $1/bf. 

[Chestnut]

Just now, Cliff said:

Well that is certainly interesting, because he did NOT want to sell his oak for $1/bf. 

Hum sounds like the guy should get better at identifying wood before he goes into the lumber sales business.

[Isaac]

45 minutes ago, Eric. said:

Yeah I agree with The Nut...sure looks like oak to me.  Tough to tell without closeup pics but if I had a gun to my head I'd say white oak.

Would you guys stop putting guns to poor Eric's head already?! Dudes gonna have a heart attack and we need his advice.

Also, I like using dowels for the self centering, and because I don't have a domino.

That being said, going for angles like that is tough, how did you handle aligning the jig for drilling, eyeball? seems like that could be the error source right there. I'd have been tempted to pull it apart and ream out the holes on one side to give it some play and just get it fixed up with clamps. Not exactly the classiest solution, but this joint won't see much stress, would probably be just fine.

[Cliff]

1 hour ago, Chestnut said:

Hum sounds like the guy should get better at identifying wood before he goes into the lumber sales business.

In his defense he stores his lumber in an open-ish barn. So the wood all is dirty/colored and hard to see without sanding or something to see the grain more clearly. I can basically only identify red oak, walnut, cherry and pine so I'm of very little help. 

 

40 minutes ago, Isaac Gaetz said:

Would you guys stop putting guns to poor Eric's head already?! Dudes gonna have a heart attack and we need his advice.

Also, I like using dowels for the self centering, and because I don't have a domino.

That being said, going for angles like that is tough, how did you handle aligning the jig for drilling, eyeball? seems like that could be the error source right there. I'd have been tempted to pull it apart and ream out the holes on one side to give it some play and just get it fixed up with clamps. Not exactly the classiest solution, but this joint won't see much stress, would probably be just fine.

I made measurements, marked a line then lined it up with the line on the outside of the jig. 

To tell the truth I think I would benefit from a few weeks of practice joinery. M&T, dowels, lap joints, etc. My technique seems flawed in most instances.

[Isaac]

I need more than a few weeks practice myself, so take this with a grain of salt.

First question, does your jig let you drill both holes at the same time? It looks like you marked each dowel with its own line, so I'm thinking not. For my jig, I can do two holes at the same time for smaller sized dowels.

 

Are you sure the four lines you drew were parallel, or at least we're the two on each side parallel? If not, the dowels can be working against each other.

 

The challenge is getting the jig set perfectly four times. It is easy when you can register off the flat surface, as in 90 degree connections. For skewed, that is asking a lot more. 

31 minutes ago, Mike. said:

Yeah and ash is (slightly) more desirable than red oak.  

My dining table/nook are made of Ash. I love it. I've heard it said oak is a poor mans Ash.

[JosephThomas]

Ash is a lot more desired down in southern california...I think it's partially because we have plenty of oak around, and the nearest source of ash out int he rockies is suffering from the ash borer. As a consequence, the ash prices are pretty awful here for what you get. It was $6 something /bd ft last I checked, which is putting it up with white oak, hard maple, sapele and others in terms of price.

[Cliff]

21 hours ago, Isaac Gaetz said:

I need more than a few weeks practice myself, so take this with a grain of salt.

First question, does your jig let you drill both holes at the same time? It looks like you marked each dowel with its own line, so I'm thinking not. For my jig, I can do two holes at the same time for smaller sized dowels.

 

Are you sure the four lines you drew were parallel, or at least we're the two on each side parallel? If not, the dowels can be working against each other.

 

The challenge is getting the jig set perfectly four times. It is easy when you can register off the flat surface, as in 90 degree connections. For skewed, that is asking a lot more. 

My dining table/nook are made of Ash. I love it. I've heard it said oak is a poor mans Ash.

I see, that is a good point, I thought it would be easier, but it was deceptive on me. I bet I can drill two at once, if I put the right size thing in it for the 3/8" bit. Or maybe I have to buy another one of those things. Good advice man. I think I wasn't using the jig properly. I bet there is an indexing thing somewhere in my garage as well for it. 

[rodger.]

As for the burning, if you use a rip blade (24 teeth) you should reduce the burning significantly.

[Cliff]

 

As for the burning, if you use a rip blade (24 teeth) you should reduce the burning significantly.

I am having a hard time pulling the trigger on a dedicated rip blade. I might have to though.

 

Cliff - Apologies if someone else suggested this earlier but another strategy with the dowels on parts that thick is to use a through dowel.  Basically clamp the hole thing together, drill right through one piece into the adjoining piece and then stick the dowel in and trim off the excess. 

Overall it looks good.  I tried hidden dowels exactly one time.... for a reason  

 

That is a great suggestion. I really need to remember to come ask questions here before I mess stuff up, not after.

[rodger.]

 

I am having a hard time pulling the trigger on a dedicated rip blade. I might have to though.

It's well worth it.  I use the rip blade 75% of the time, and use a combo blade for mostly plywood and sled work.

I also got a flat top grind, so it would double for spline and drawer bottom rebates.

[Coop]

Pug, what is a drawer bottom rebate? The groove in the front, back and sides?

[rodger.]

 

Pug, what is a drawer bottom rebate? The groove in the front, back and sides?

Yup, the groove for the bottom to fit into.

[SawDustB]

It's well worth it.  I use the rip blade 75% of the time, and use a combo blade for mostly plywood and sled work.

I also got a flat top grind, so it would double for spline and drawer bottom rebates.

I have to agree. I don't bother if I'm only ripping one or two cuts, but it really reduces the strain on the saw and less burning. I bought a relatively inexpensive one (Dimar woodpecker series) but it's worked great for me.

[Chestnut]

Cliff Get a rip blade i have a combo and a rip blade. The combo burns on me when ever I'm too lazy to pull it for the 1 odd rip cut. I've now just bullied myself to change the blade no matter what. It takes very little time.

[Cliff]

I'm looking at Rip blades.. anyone know the difference between the Freud red perma-shield blades and the industrial? The industrial has the same kerf size I have now, so I want to stick with that but they have so many different blades I'm not sure what the heck I'm supposed to be using. I have the Fusion p410 right now.