Stanley # 50 and Drawer

At an antique mall, I recently spotted a Stanley # 50 beading/plow plane. I expected it to be way out of my price range, but it was marked at $26, which is an okay deal, only that it was missing its beading depth stop, normal depth stop, one nicker, and all of its blades. When I disassembled it I lost the other nicker. Damn. The only parts I really need however are the depth stop and the blades (duh). I've ordered some off ebay, and they should be coming soon.


Since I haven't really been doing much woodworking recently, I decided to make a drawer for practice. It's all made of pine that I re-sawed from scrap from my workbench, and about 1/2" thick. I think it turned out well, except for a couple of things. First, I glued the drawer front on upside down. The other goof-up was less controllable: there were some gaps in my dovetails. I made the drawer-bottom grooves with a chisel, but this turned out kind of raggedy, but not too bad. Now I have to think of something to put in it...


One more piece of news, with all the dovetail chopping, I managed to bend my chisel, which is my favorite chopping chisel- it has great balance and sharp side corners. I don't know why this would happen.

Half-Back Saw Blade

I had a old saw blade kicking around for a while, and I decided to use it. I've always wanted to make a backsaw, but I hate cutting teeth. Also I didn't know if what I had in mind for a spline would work. I decided to make a prototype. It actually worked! There was only one problem, the saw blade was funckily shaped, too thin and short for a panel saw, too thin for a tenon saw. So I made my own saw: a cross between a table and a halfback saw. To begin I had to take off about 2" from the top of the first part of the saw. I did this with a thin cutoff disk in a drill, guided by scrap wood, all in a vise. Then I cleaned up the edges with a small grinding wheel, and roughly cut the transitional curve with a hacksaw, refining with the wheel. Then I cut the profile at the end, refining with files. I then moved onto the spline. It is cut out of a brass door plate. Leif Hansen has a very good write up on bending splines, and an alternative way(by lamination), is shown by Tim Hoff. The final way, that many modern companies use, it to mill a slot in solid brass, but that is impossible to do without proper tooling. My method is very simple, and requires little tooling, or jigs. I first cut out the brass approximately 1 1/4" by 5", and scored a line down the middle (the tip of a spade bit works very well for this). This is not to make a place where the back will start to bend, it is just a guide for bending. Do this on what will be the INSIDE of the back. To start the bend, use a brake, a nifty metal bender, or simply put the brass in a vise, the top of the jaws lining up with the scribed bending line, and bend it slowly using pliers, working from one side to the other. With a slight bend established, I moved to the metal working vise, using the clamping pressure to bend. The next few shots are what it looks like after a while. Now the brass is ready for hammering, an anvil is handy, but not essential, I used the flat area behind the jaws of my metalworking vise. Medium hammer blows focused at the top do the trick. With the back bent, I tapped the spline off so I could work on it, beginning with the end detail, and flushing up the bottom. I then moved on to cleaning off dents and scratches, this took a long time. With the back polished to 220 grit, I cleaned off rust from the saw blade, unfortunately it was pitted, and did not all come out. Some advise: use a rust-free blade to save yourself much trouble. I then hammered the spline back onto the blade, starting at the handle end, making sure not to make anymore scratches or dents, and then polishing to 600 grit. Now all that's left is the handle.


As always a great saw resource-Old Ladies

Workbench Legs

I've been working on my workbench, I have all the legs made! Each leg is laminated from 3 pieces, except for the last one which is only two pieces. That one will be in the back right corner. After the glue was dry, I leveled each leg out , and jointed it. The front stretchers will have to wait to made once the top is done, they are too long to work on my bench.
I also purchased a router plane. It is a Stanley #71 1/2, less fancy than the 71, but whatever. It has a beautiful patina, the nickel plating is gone, and underneath there is a bronze-colored plating. It only came with one blade the 1/4", so I will have to buy some new ones. I know that Lee Valley sells them. The other bad thing is that the cutter adjustment wheel is made poorly, the tapped hole is off-center, causing the wheel to bind up when turned. To fix this, I filed the cutter's slot, making it bigger. This causes more backlash, but at least it works smoothly.

Sharpening the Mortising Chisel

I finally sharpened my mortising chisel, I had been waiting for a package from the Japan Woodworker (in retrospect I shouldn't have expected fast delivery from a company on the other side of the country). I bought a DMT 335 8" x 3" diamond stone, and a honing guide. I know that the honing guide might be controversial, but for sharpening, there are two options: buy a honing guide, or use a grinder for a hollow grind. I have a grinder. It is noisy. It is messy. Now I have a honing guide.
The diamond stone, I don't think is so controversial, it works great, and is very reasonably priced. I use it for truing up waterstones, and for grinding a primary bevel. Here is a group photo of my sharpening arsenal:
The water bottle is very important, it speeds up sharpening by a lot. I play trombone, so I have this bottle floating around. Someday I'll upgrade my bevel gauges, something better than balsa wood would be nice. I also made a jig for repeatable settings on the honing guide, I post that in a later post.
This all brings me to the project at hand; the mortising chisel. I first lapped the back, then worked on the bevel. The bevel was tricky, it was chipped, and had a curved bevel, the opposite of a hollow grind. using stones would be too slow, so I switched to my grinder. I ground the bevel until there was about a 1/16 flat area at the tip, since I have a 4" wheel I didn't want to make too weak of an edge. At this point, I discovered that I have a laid-steel blade, which is a blade that consists of two steels. The harder one is at the bottom, and the softer one is at the top. This is not common in modern western-style tools, but this technique is still used in many Japanese edge tools. The rest of the bevel was then ground at 35 degrees.

When Blogs Die

Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest

Hot Dog Handle

Recently I was practicing my shooting technique(no, not on the neighbor's dog), but I noticed that my hand kept rubbing uncomfortably on the wing after a while. So I decided to make a handle like the one Lie Nielson offers. I used the idea of Derek Cohen's. Mine is different in that I don't have a lathe, so I only shaped some of the thing. The handle is shaped like an "L", part of the leg has a large kerf(made with my panel saw). This slips onto the wing.

Mortising Chisel Handle

A couple of weeks ago, I bought an old mortising chisel with apple handle blank off eBay. It was from hendo304200, who sells lots of chisels, and turning blanks (which often sell for low prices, nice). On a suggestion from Stephen Shepard, I decided on a octagonal handle. Surprisingly this turned out to be the hardest partthe finished shape looks like something a kindergardener might draw with a ruler. Since the handle has a socket, the first thing I did was clean up the end, where some idiot had been using the chisel without a handle. I used a small grinding attachment in my drill, and ground off the mushroomed steel. I then attempted to make a octagon. Giving up on that, I moved on to the important part, the mating part. Basically, I sawed shoulders, as I would for a tenon, and then roughed out a cone with chisels. I then scribbled on the inside of the socket with a soft pencil, so when I trial fir the handle, I could see the spots that needed trimming. This entire process was surprisingly easy. For the top, I slightly made a slight domed end. The handle has Formby's Tung -Oil finsish, which is a oil-varnish blend.
Handle making articles

Non-power(no lathe)
Rehabilitating Old Chisels
Rehabilitating Old Chisels(it's different, I swear)
Rehandling An Oval Bolstered Mortice Chisel

With a lathe
Making Chisel Handles
Making Chisel Handles(again, it's different, these authors need some new titles!)
Making Tanged Chisel Handles
Chisel Handle with Leather Washers
Socket Handles