Making a Lever Cap

I roughed out the lever cap, first cutting out the bottom of it, at an angle, to reduce work later. I cut from both ends because I'm not very good at hacksawing to a line. Then I used coarse, and fine files to shape the round-over, then sanding through the grits to 600. Then I feather cut perpendicularly to the curved shape of the top half of the lever cap, and sawed out the waste with a fret saw. Then I used a round file to smooth the concave curves, and a flat file to smooth the convex curve (at the top). I used the edge of a triangle file to cut the step by the cap screw, this is a purely aesthetic choice, since in my opinion, if everything had been co-planar, it would have looked boring. To be able to sand into the tight corners, wrap a piece of sandpaper around a file. This is a trick I picked up from reading Karl Holtey's blog.

After the cap has been uniformly sanded to 600 grit, I start the polishing. I took a 1/2 diameter piece of oak dowel, and made a split in one end, about 1" deep. The I took a thin strip of paper, and folded it over onto itself. This I applied veritas honing compound to, since I don't have a nice real wheel yet. It worked fine. The hole for the cap screw is drilled for a 10-24 thread.
Derek Cohen's write-up about lever cap making.

Some posts of Karl Holtey's Blog:
Window to my Workshop #7
Window to my Workshop #8
Window to my Workshop #21

Drill Press

I finally bought a drill press, it's been a tool on my list to buy for a long time. It will likely be the only stationary power tool in my shop, besides a hand held drill and a grinder. It has 12 speeds and a 5/8" chuck. I've already used it to drill into brass, and it works very well. I need to make a stand for it however, as squatting on the ground isn't very fun.

New Year, New Saws

Recently I bought some saws, a tenon saw and a carcase saw. I also completed the handle for my half-back saw. As you can see, I have polished the saw in the center. The dovetail saw I bought when I first started woodworking. It has a large chip in the blade, but it still works okay. Sometime I'm going to buy the Gramercy dovetail saw kit. Both of the new back saws are Spear and Jackson. The one with the brass back has a leapfrog stamp, and has an etch that says that it was made specially for T E Jay Tool Merchant, Chichester. I'm going to re-handle the carcase saw, but no the tenon saw(the brass-backed one). The carcases' handle it not very comfortable, and plus, I can make a handle that will be like this!

Small Infill Plane

I decided to finally build a infill plane. First I made a mock-up, to see if it will be usable. Here's the first version.



Reading Derek Cohen's writeup about building the Brese Small Smoother kit got me wondering about shavings clogging in the throat. So for the second version, I moved the back infill backwards, and put a radius on the back of the front infill. This increases throat size.




Right now this is probably what I'm gonna make. To follow the entire thread, go here.

Christmas Gifts

This year I built a maple box for my sister, and a quartersawn red oak tissue box cover for my Aunt and Uncle. I don't have a picture of the oak box, but I do have a picture of the maple box. Both boxes are dovetailed using my $4 Japanese flush-cut saw. The maple box has a sliding tray.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

Thanks to everyone for reading, I apologize that I haven't posted for a while, but I have been hard at work on making gifts for tomorrow (I'm not even done as I type this).

Hope you and your family have a peaceful holiday season.

Making a Plane Adjusting Hammer

After I started using my new fillister plane, I decided I needed a real plane adjusting hammer. This is what I came up with, not exactly a groundbreaking new design, but easy to make and works well. The head is made of 1/2" brass rod, with a 1/2" long ebony facing on one side. The ebony is attached by a machine screw that is tapped into the brass and the ebony. This is where a bottoming tap comes in handy. Unlike a normal tap, which doesn't have complete threads towards the front end of the tool so that the tool can be started easily, the bottoming tap has threads that go all the way. It is used after the normal tap has threads established. This allows threads to be cut all the way to the bottom of the blind holes, thus making it the strongest possible. The two pieces are joined with the addition of epoxy. The I drilled the hole for the hammer's tenon. This is tricky because the hole must be drilled into the curved side of the brass. So I took a piece of scrap pine, drilled a 1/2" hole in it, and a perpendicular 3/8" hole that intersects the 1/2" hole. This guides the drill bit and prevents wandering. I aligned the hammer head up with hole and drilled it out. After letting the epoxy set, I trimmed down the ebony, using the brass rod to reference my chisels off of. I domed each face of the hammer with a file. The head gets polished to 600 grit.The handle is black and white ebony, made into an octagon. When making an octagonal handle, it's best to rough it out with something like a block plane, and go back later with a smooth plane and clean up any tearout. Use a very thin cut, and a sharp blade. the handle is about 7" long. I formed the tenon that goes into the hammer head, and planed a taper into the top to make it look better. Then the hammer head is epoxied on, and the whole thing got three coats of shellac.