Popular Post h3nry Posted February 21 Popular Post Report Share Posted February 21 I need a cabinet to store assorted bits of sheet music and random paraphenalia for instruments ... It's going to have a couple of drawers on top and cabinet doors below. I'm hoping to give it canted corners and maybe a serpentine front ... the design is anything but fixed yet, but hopefullt it will all come out of this stack of sapele ... Now I have to put my new saw to good use and start cutting these down to size ... time to get busy 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted February 21 Report Share Posted February 21 Sounds like this is going to be an interesting journal! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted February 21 Report Share Posted February 21 Looking forward to the trip! Thanks for sharing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark J Posted February 21 Report Share Posted February 21 Any preliminary design sketches you can share? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post h3nry Posted February 21 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted February 21 This photo is a big part of the inspiration ... but with some differences ... I want to replace the lower drawers with cabinet doors ... and I'm thinking of making panelled sides ... I think I'm enough of a glutton for punishment to include the serpentine front. Veneering will just be the drawer fronts and panels. It may or may not end up looking similar ... making it my own design is all part of the fun. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark J Posted February 21 Report Share Posted February 21 And here I was thinkin' you were making some kind of shop furniture or utilitarian piece. I should have known better. That will be a lovely piece. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post h3nry Posted February 21 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted February 21 Well, you all know how it starts ... deciding which board get used for which parts ...then lots of milling ... Jointing was pretty easy, these boards were all pretty straight and square to start with. Ripping was somewhat less work this time thanks to the new bandsaw ... but my trusty old Disston feels a bit betrayed. finally, since the bandsaw doesn't leave a finish cut, I still had to mark a line amd plane down to it to get all the parts to width ... That should be enough wood for most of the carcasse ... next to cut these boards down to individual parts. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Coop Posted February 22 Popular Post Report Share Posted February 22 If I had to rely on my hand planing skills to get a straight edge, all of my builds would have live edges. Nice job @h3nry! 1 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post h3nry Posted February 22 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted February 22 Before going any further ... let's not forget the most important tools in a handtoil workshop ... the sharpening stones. I use traditional Arkansas oilstones, and sharpen freehand ... I just like it that way. I keep the strop out on the bench and chisels get stropped every use. Planes tend to get sharpened on a use basis, but since I tend to pick up chisels randomly during the project, they might as well all start out freshly sharpened. This is probably the last picture I'll post of sharpening, but something needs sharpening every day, so it's part of my ritual. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark J Posted February 22 Report Share Posted February 22 I like the clamp hold down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted February 23 Report Share Posted February 23 @h3nry,from the stone positioning, it appears you use a side to side stroke, relative to your body? Was that difficult to master? As I think about it, it seems like that direction may be easier to maintain the correct angle free-hand, and let you legs manage the motion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h3nry Posted February 23 Author Report Share Posted February 23 yes, by rocking side to side on your legs, you can keep the upper body locked in position holding the blade. I just skew the blade on each stroke so that I'm always grinding the same direction down the bevel. I think it is a technique I picked up from a Chris Schwarz video. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post h3nry Posted February 23 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted February 23 Just cutting boards to length... I bought the boards S2S, so there wasn't much surfacing to do ... just a quick pass with the smoother. And now I'm ready to start some joinery ... 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post h3nry Posted February 24 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted February 24 The sides and back get grooved for panels Since the bottom frame will be the floor of the cabinet, the panel needs to be flush with the frame, so will sit in a rabbet. Next will be a lot of mortice chopping. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post h3nry Posted February 25 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted February 25 Chopping mortices ... after marking out locations, first cut a really shallow mortice using bench chisels. just enough for the mortice chisel to register against: Then bash away on the mortice chisel ... I still have a hard time getting the mortices truely vertical, so I generally have to pare away one side slightly after chopping. The bottom frame with the rabbet needs a bit of extra work before chopping the mortices Finally I have mortices cut for the back and horizontal frames. There are still some more mortices to chop when I make the side frames. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark J Posted February 25 Report Share Posted February 25 Seems like it would take a week to make all those mortises by hand. I'm impressed, it looks like you "chopped" that out in a day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h3nry Posted February 25 Author Report Share Posted February 25 Chopping mortices is one of the noisier woodworking tasks I do. I live in a townhouse and I fear that the sound of bashing with the mallet could disturb the neighbours ... I don't want them thinking that my woodwork is constantly noisy, better if it's just a rare day ... and if they've gone out skiing for the day ... it's a good opportunity to get as much noisy stuff done as possible. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hammer5573 Posted February 25 Report Share Posted February 25 I great to observe a true craftsman at work! Sapele is a great species. Nice straight grain, hard but not too hard and looks great with a finish. Good luck and I’ll be watching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post h3nry Posted February 26 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted February 26 Cutting tenons today ... I don't have a shoulder plane, but keep a sharp chisel with a 20 degree bevel just for paring end-grain to make sure the shoulders are flat. I kind of got on autopilot wen cutting all the tenons, and forgot that the stiles on the side frames needed haunched tenons on account of the groove, so accidentally cut too deep through the haunch ... fortunately I realised my mistake before I cut the haunch off completely. The bottom frame also got special treatment on the tenons ... I could have cut the rabbet on the rails, but decided to leave the rails alone. and put the work into the stiles instead. The frames for the carcasse are now starting to take shape ... 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curlyoak Posted February 26 Report Share Posted February 26 h3nry, Exceptional work. Can you talk about your training or experiences that brought you to such a high level. Thanks for sharing! Thanks 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post h3nry Posted February 26 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted February 26 On 2/26/2024 at 2:28 AM, curlyoak said: h3nry, Exceptional work. Can you talk about your training or experiences that brought you to such a high level. Thanks for sharing! Thanks Thanks for the compliment, but I don't really consider my work particularly high level, a close inspection of my furniture will reveal faults and flaws everywhere. Fortunately it's only me and a couple of other friends who also know their woodwork who ever notice. I take inspiration from people like @joe mendel who occasionally posts here, and blows me away every time with the quality of his work! I started woodworking accidentally ... I wanted to buy a nice furniture-quality wooden music stand, but I just couldn't find one for sale. My googling turned up someone who custom made them (for what at the time I thought was an expensive price, but I now realise it was very reasonable for custom woodwork) and a photo of a beautiful piece on some site called "woodwhisperer", which I realised was home-made and not possible to buy. So I decided to try making my own too ... So I literally sat on the floor of the hardware store pulling out sticks from their paltry selection of hardwood trying to remember my junior-high woodwork classes, and putting a design together, I then bought the wood, a chisel saw and plane ... and gave it a go. It's not the music stand I'd build today if I were to make another one, but I was surprised at how good it turned out, and thought I should try making some more things ... and that was the start of the slippery slope. My next project was also made out of S4S oak and plywood from the hardware store, but I also started watching you-tube and reading about woodwork ... came to the realisation that using predominantly hand-tools was what would work for me, so I started buying old tools on eBay.. I also started playing with sketchup to experiment with designs. And I think this is what helped me realise that even a complex piece of furniture is really just an assembly of simple components ... and even a complex component is just an assembly of simple cuts to a block of wood. My first real project made from rough lumber with proper joinery (rather than just butt joints) still turns heads as people enter the house ... but it is mostly just straight square pieces of wood joined together. However, the design has structural weaknesses that I'd avoid today, the mitres aren't tight, there's gaps in my veneering, the drawers aren't very square, and one of the legs has a big patch spliced in where I nearly destroyed it with my clueless incompetence ... but few people notice. It was an ambitious project that I suppose was meant to test whether woodwork was something I should persevere with or not ... but, most importantly, it did get built! One big hurdle I had to get over was accepting that what I do is not perfect ... this is especially true with hand-tool work where learning to cut and plane straight and square takes time and practise (and I'm still not perfect) ... but "perfect" is the enemy of "good enough" ... and "good enough" is, well, good enough ... as long as people say "ooh that's nice" when they see it and it fulfils its job as functional furniture, then that's good enough. I only make about one piece of furniture a year ... and always like to add something new if possible. The hall table looks kind of "boxy" ... so the use of beads, mouldings and tapers was what I looked at to enhance the shape of the next project. And with a little practise, I also got the confidence to add some string inlay too (although the piece would have been built without the inlay if the practise had been unsucsessful). I've posted most of my projects here to share my progress, and equally learnt from what others also share here ... as I said, there's nearly always some new technique challenging me, there's always flaws in the design, there's always a few gaps in the joinery, there's always grain patterns that didn't match properly etc etc etc ... but that's just the experiences I use to learn ... so far, despite all their flaws and problems, each piece has been "good enough" ... and that's good enough for me. I hope that this project will turn out to be no exception ... indeed the flaws are already creeping in, ... the M&T joints aren't perfect, so I've got a little tidying up to do to make sure the frames are flat and square before starting the joinery to assemble the carcasse. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtnhighlander Posted February 27 Report Share Posted February 27 Nice summary of your experience, @h3nry! Are you generally able to source lumber that is close to the 'straight, square blocks' that you form into elegant furniture components? Even using more electric than muscle power, I find that milling raw lumber into suitable chucks to begin with is inordinately time consuming. But it seems to be the only way I can get nice material around here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post h3nry Posted February 27 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted February 27 On 2/26/2024 at 6:43 PM, wtnhighlander said: Nice summary of your experience, @h3nry! Are you generally able to source lumber that is close to the 'straight, square blocks' that you form into elegant furniture components? Even using more electric than muscle power, I find that milling raw lumber into suitable chucks to begin with is inordinately time consuming. But it seems to be the only way I can get nice material around here. Yes, milling lumber is a time consuming process ... I normally buy lumber S2S, and this sapele is all pretty straight without much bowing or warping in the boards, so the amount of milling needed is less than truely "rough" boards. I really don't like having to take twist and cup out of boards, so for larger components I do pick through looking for the straightest and flattest boards. I normally don't thickness a board until I need it to match the thickness of other components ... like today, all the frames were made wth the show faces flush, but because some of the boards had slightly different thicknesses, the back face wasn't all flush. I don't particularly care what the thickness of the frames is, just as long as it's uniform ... so I only had to plane down to thickness the boards that were standing proud. 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post h3nry Posted February 28 Author Popular Post Report Share Posted February 28 Time for some dovetails to hold the carcasse together ... The back and stiles on the top and bottom frames iare set into rabbets ... Not quite perfect ... but I think good enough for now ... ANd I have something that is starting to resemble a cabinet. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gee-dub Posted February 28 Report Share Posted February 28 And a very nice looking one too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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