Saw Bench

One of the "secrets" of fast hand sawing is having your work elevated at an optimal height. This may not seem like a big deal, but it really makes a difference. This is my saw bench I made out of construction lumber. The short bottom stretchers are drawbored, and the long stretchers are wedged through tenons. The legs slip into the top, and are pegged with 1/2" oak dowel. Note the artistic license I took by creating the two saw cuts on the left. The top has a 3/4" hole drilled for my gramercy holdfast. The hole is situated so that the pad falls on the top of the leg, which is the strongest part.

Infill Plane Blade

I got the blade and cut it out, using a carbide-grit hacksaw blade, and refining the shape with my diamond stone. It took a long time. The blade has a 25 degree bevel, with a 30 degree micro bevel. It was slightly wider than 1.25", so I sanded the sides down to be slightly less, in order to allow for lateral adjustment.

Fillister Plane

I bought this plane a while ago, but haven't gotten around to posting it here. It is a wooden Hoey and Taber skewed fillister plane. This means that it can cut rabbets, and rabbets across the grain. The blade is skewed to make it cut smoother, especially across the grain. It has a strip of boxwood at its long edge (called "boxing"), a brass depth stop adjusted from above, an adjustable fence, and a nicker to score the grain prior to cutting it when planing cross-grain. So far I've only used it one project, and it works pretty well, but I'm still getting the hang of using wooden planes. This plane was the reason I made my plane adjusting hammer. Here are some shots of what it cuts:


I also looked up the planemaker's adress, it appears to be a HSBC bank. Too bad it's not still a planemaker's shop.

Tissue Box Cover

Last Christmas I made my sister a small box. I also made my aunt, uncle, and cousin a cover for a tissue box. It's all 1/4" thick quartersawn red oak, all from Lowes. In the second picture you can see where the sides were glued together to make a wide enough piece. The top and small sides are glued down the middle. Here are the pictures of the box in its new home. Thanks for the pictures Victor.

Plane Drilling Jig

I made this jig to accurately hold the plane parts together as I drill into the sides for the screws that hold everything together. The sole goes on the top, the sides are clamped to the sides. The middle piece is exactly the same size as the interior if the plane.


The base piece gets clamped into the drill press vise like so:

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.