14/7/2014

I have a few of these Marples & sons cast steel centre bits that lost it’s centre pin (for the lack of a better term) somewhere between the late 1800’s and the present day. You might remember a post where I fashioned a so called Brace Bit Birdcage Awl from one of these bits some months ago. In the photos below you will see a centre bit that is still completely functional and one that I converted into a marking all-rounder. By this I mean a tool that is compact (can be carried around in my custom made leather shop apron) and functions as a marking knife as well as a birdcage awl. If you click on the pictures they will open up in a larger format, which should help to explain how the shape of the cutting end would accomplish the all-rounder status. I wrapped some leather around the shank for a comfortable grip.

 

30/6/2014

A post on an interesting winding stick design on the Lost Art Press website, got me as far as to finally build a proper set. It has been on my list of things to do for quite some time, but given that my major project for 2014 is a 18th century workbench, there are a host of shop made tools waiting patiently to be designed and made. The first picture below shows the design that Chris Schwarz discussed in his blog last week. I liked the idea of the holes that helps to see the high corners when using the sticks looking into a light source. I have found that it becomes a bit of a challenge to see the far stick while looking towards a light source. I used a combination of the designs in the pictures below, which I found on the net.

 

I used beech and Kershout for contrast purposes. This piece of Kershout is incredibly hard to the point were I had a hard time to plane it, even with very sharp irons. I made two beech dowels which were glued and tapped through the centre of both sticks (pictured) to make it easier to located the sticks in the middle of the board being checked for wind.

Here I chiseled out small triangular areas to be filled with epoxy mixed with black acrylic paint. The idea is for the two triangles to make it easy to line up your sight down the centre of the sticks while using it.

I used the setup below to mark out the shape of the sticks on the end grain to provide me with a guide while shaping it by means of the table saw, hand planes and sanding planes.

Sticks after a confrontation involving my table saw.

The various gadgetry I have made over the years that attach to my assembly table amde it fairly easy to shape the sticks using a #5 Bailey Jack plane and a Nie-Nielsen small block plane (based on the Stanley #102).

Here I used the mentioned concoction to inlay the small triangles.

The final surface preparation were done with shop made sanding planes and sandpaper on glass.

 

A few coats of Tung oil followed by Wooddock and we have a set of je ne sais quoi-esque winding sticks. In the final picture you can see it hibernating in a custom made (by moi) leather sleeping bag.

 

 

29/5/2014

Recently my wife and I decided to re-upholster a couch I restored some 15 years ago. We decided to use leather. While thinking through the tools and steps needed I realised that I do not have a monster needle to do the buttons. I found an old file handle and a piece of steel that did duty as a guide for a router’s fence in a previous life. I drilled a small hole about 30 mm from one end, countersunk it on both sides and sharpened that end. For the purpose of the couch we used this crude tool with a plastic handle.

Once the couch was finished I drilled another hole in the part of the shaft that will end up inside the handle and tapped a small nail through it. Epoxy was used to fix it within the old file handle.

 

10/6/2014

‘Makeshift’, in this particular case, means I ‘made’ it myself and the fence can ‘shift’ to the appropriate position needed. Of course it also alludes to the fact that the original idea was to fashion a ‘proper’ makeshift (as in temporary substitute)  panel gauge as I needed one for the next phase of hand planing the twin-top of the 18th century workbench I am in the process of building (to the correct width) and did not want to waste too much time in building it. The problem is, as soon as I start thinking about an easy way to produce a makeshift tool, my obsessive compulsive urge to overdo it, kicks in. In the end, it becomes a major mission to design the best looking je ne sais quoi-esque panel gauge the world has ever seen. I rarely (if ever) succeed in this quest, but it does not stop me trying, as it usually turns out to be an enjoyable challenge.

In the end I consulted the file where I saved quite a few pictures of different panel gauge designs and articles on how to build one. I ended up picking the design seen in the picture below as a starting point. I found the picture on the internet ages ago and unfortunately did not make any notes on the company or person who designed and made them.

 

With this mechanism in mind I started playing around with a few ideas (freehand) on paper as you can see below. The shape I felt could work (if explored a bit more) was the one in the top left hand corner.

That night I sat down with a few drawing aids and explored the options thoroughly by using quite a few of the new skills I learned from the brilliant Lost Art Press book entitled By hand & eye (George R. Walker & Jim Tolpin). I finally settled on the shape below.

 

16/6/2014

On Friday afternoon I managed to find a Piece of Kaapse Swarthout (main body of the fence) and 5mm (thick) strip of Ysterhout (for the surface that slides against the work piece). I also combined these two for the adjustment knob. These parts were glued up over night.

Next I found a nice straight grained piece of Assegaai for the stem. Some fiddling with a couple of off-cut wedges provided a safe way to fix the small piece to the assembly table before cutting the groove with the router.

It was then sized on the table saw, hand planed to near perfection and fed to the table saw again to cut the bulk two small rabbits. The rabbits were finished off (3 mm x 3 mm) by hand using the my rehabilitated #78 rabbit plane.

On Saturday morning I started on the fence. First task was to drill the hole for the insert nut.

The shallow dado (3mm deep) that is meant to accept the stem was cut first. I used Robert Wearings trick to first created a groove using your chisel and using that to guide your saw for precision work. After using my carcass saw to cut the sides, I proceeded to remove the waste using a router plane. Once the dado was done it made it possible to saw the sides of the areas meant to accept the brass guides. Again the router plane and a chisel made short work of it.

In order to liberated the actual fence from its mother, so to speak, I drilled out the areas pictured and cut the rest with the band saw.

The knob received the following treatment. I used epoxy as adhesive and added black acrylic paint to it for the infill work.

On Sunday I started shaping the brass guides.

Then back to the fence for some file TLC, followed by fixing the guides into position and a coat of tung oil.

I fashioned the blades out of a piece of this heavy hack saw blade. It is surprisingly hard steel and about 2 mm thick. As you can see I shaped the cutting edge with two different angles and put the bevel on opposite sides, which means that between the two blades I have 4 different cutting options depending on which blade is selected and how it is mounted.

It is the first time that I thought of using this technique to tidy up and shape a knob. It worked like a charm.

Here I added two thin Ysterhout spacers to align the bottom of the tem perfectly with the bottom of the brass guides. The ysterhout is also extremely resistant against wear. The wedge that keeps the blade in position is made of Tamboti.

Last night I quickly did the final shaping of the stem …

 

 

… and Bob’s your Uncle, Ted’s your Auntie … one ‘makeshift’ panel gauge with je ne sais quoi!

 

 

I decided to fix the spare blade to the back of the gauge and it ended up having a nifty function to act as a hook to keep the gauge from falling from it’s new little home on my tool rack.

 

 

Panel gauge in action.