Tuesday, October 1, 2013

unidentified plane

I've had this plane for a some time now and have never gotten it to work very well.  A a few days ago I just felt like farting around in the shop so I took it out and gave it some effort to get it tuned up. Unfortunately it was to no avail.  I smoothed out all the contacting surfaces and toyed around with all the possible adjustments but no matter what the blade won't rest fully flush with the top surface of the frog.  Patrick's Blood and Gore was informative and brought up the fact that there were a great deal of imitations of the genuine Stanley original.  The casting and subsequent machining of the mating surfaces seems inferior to other Bailey planes I've got.  You can see in some of the pictures that even after sanding there is still some "pitted" looking sections where the paint remains. However there is no rust or evidence of rust.  The paint on all the metal parts is in good condition but again seems low quality and rough. The big question is whether or not this is the real deal or a knock off that will be infinitely frustrating to get in fine work condition?  What marking, if any, would I expect to see on a Stanley of this style? It measures 8in long by just over 2.5 in at its widest.








Sunday, September 22, 2013

Workbench addition

Well I finally got around to adding some storage to my workbench.  I built the box awhile ago but was putting off the drawers for some unknown reason.  This addition serves a few very nice purposes.  First of all it will hopefully help me keep a tidier shop will having my hand tools close by.  It will allow me to get rid of an old worn out work surface that wasn't doing me much good, unless you count collecting clutter a useful purpose.  And finally, it will add some much needed heft and weight to the bench so it doesn't skid around when I'm doing some serious planing.  You can see the sand bags underneath that had been serving this purpose.


I just got some handles that I still need to install. I've also been spending some time building some custom inserts to organize things.  So far only one of the drawers is done with my smoothers, block plane, chisels, and a removable tray for some small stuff that I always seem to have to hunt for.  I'll update with more pics as things progress.  




Sunday, May 12, 2013

Boulder Birding Big Day report

In one word... disappointing. It was cold, windy, and practically no birds.  It took us the full 4 hours just to see the dozen or so birds that you see in the city park on a nice day.  Oh well, can't win them all.  Hopefully the nice weather forecasted for this week will bring them in.

Topping it off

Last but not least is building up the crown moulding. There was plenty of farting around getting it cut and dry fit but we'll just skip to the final assembly. The dentil moulding just got fastened right to the top of the carcass.


The next step was to build up some framing that the crown moulding would attach to. This framing also serves as a foundation to fasten the top down.


Finishing but not Finished

One of the big dilemmas with this project was matching the color between the solid oak and the plywood.  I tried a number of things from staining, boiled linseed oil, amber shellac and combinations of all of them.  I finally decided on a mix of two different stains for the plywood and just a coat of BLO on the solid wood. This is a very short explanation of what a hassle color matching was. Next time I'll be going straight to using dye instead.  I'm not too familiar with dye but I understand that this would have been a great application.  Well, live and learn right.


























Because I colored the two different materials differently it was tricky deciding in what order to color and assemble the shelf.  I ultimately decided to color all the parts before assembly, which in turn led to some other details to deal with. Namely, getting good glue adhesions between mating pieces. I didn't think glue would have adhered well to oiled wood so this was easy enough to address with some blue tape.




Thursday, May 9, 2013

'Back' in business

The next step was a pretty straightforward one, just a simple frame and panel assembly for the back of the case.  Since this whole assembly is going to be fastened to the case I just used biscuits to join the frames. I also used biscuits to align and fasten it to the shelf carcass.  When it's all said and done I think the case will have plenty of strength despite the shortfalls of biscuits.  I also used a few pocket hole screws where they would be hidden.


Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Bookshelf visits the dentist

One particular detail of this project I was excited about was the dentil moulding. I'll admit I was a little intimidated but once I got started it was a breeze.  The biggest headache is figuring out the spacing of the "teeth" so that your mitred corners work out.  The mitre gauge jig was simple as can be. Just like one you'd use for finger joints along with the dado blade.  The next step was to get the blade just the right height so that it didn't cut into the roundover on the piece.  So after dialing it on a piece of scrap pine I went to town on the oak and bada bing. Super easy way to add a classical detail that looks great.






 This last picture jumps ahead but shows the moulding installed. It illustrates nicely what I meant about the corners working out. You don't really want to end up with a sliver of a block or worse yet a groove right on the corner.




Up next is the construction of the back panel.

Migration update

The ridiculously late spring has made it seem like the migration is progressing very slowly, but after looking at some old lists and checking eBird, things aren't what they seem.  Things are relatively on time.  I've been sneaking in some birding before work lately and haven't been seeing much new but I'd expect lots of warblers to be showing up any day now.  There have been a few clear nights and sunny days in a row so the birds couldn't ask for better migration conditions, except maybe a strong south wind.  I sure hope things pick up by this weekend because I'm leading a group for Boulder Birding Big Day up at Boulder Lake Dam. Its a great event that I haven't missed in years and there have been times in the past that it was the first day of the year that I saw many species.  Hopefully the weather is good and the warblers are plentiful.

A short list of current species:
swamp sparrow
ruby-crowned kinglet
yellow-rump warbler
horned grebe
brown creeper
hermit thrush
I thought I heard both chimney swifts and mourning doves but didn't see them.
There are other ubiquitous species out there that I just take for granted not on the list, eg. blackbird, song sparrow, robin etc.

Monday, April 15, 2013

First migrants of the season

Well the weather would indicate otherwise, but the calendar and the birds biological clocks say its spring.  One of the surest signs of early spring is of course the Robin, which I saw and heard singing from a treetop out my back door. I hope he doesn't mind eating old berries for the time being because the first insects of the season are still a ways off. His time will be easier to pass if he happens upon some fermented berries to catch a buzz from, which is not uncommon this time of year. I've also seen a couple of Merlins around the neighborhood and more and more Canadian geese everyday.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Continued progress on bookshelf

Things have been moving along on this project, as much as they can in the few hours a week I get in the shop these days.  The plans called for lots of pocket holes, including for holding the edging on the front of the shelves.  I don't have any particular problems with pocket hole joinery.  It's quick, easy, strong and so on, but  just not what I'm looking for in this project, especially not where you would seen them at all.  I do plan on using a few by the time the project is done, but carefully placed where they'll be totally hidden.  What I decided instead is to use some hardwood splines to attach the edging and stiffen up the shelves.  A little work at the router table led to some nice results.  I left the edging just proud of the plywood so I could use my hand plane to smooth it out to and seamless finish.




Next thing was to get going on the face frame.  In order to do that I needed to dry fit the case together and get things squared up.  Once I got a small army of clamps in place I started laying out the frame pieces, got them measured and cut to size.  When it comes time to assemble this I'll be making use of the aforementioned pocket hole screws.  The last step I tackled to this point was the plinth blocks.  The plans called for a dedicated router bit but I wasn't going to fork out the dough for a bit that would see little to no use past this project.  I just decided to get creative with a couple of bits I already had.  I used a couple of different set-ups at the router table and ended up with a decent end result.









Monday, February 18, 2013

Holy sheet, plywood

After calling around town I found a good price on some oak plywood and they were nice enough to cut the sheets in half to fit in my car.  It's really nice stuff but I'm afraid the color match isn't so great. I'm going to have to try some different things with oil or stain to try for a better match.  It's always a gamble mixing real and plywood.

I spent some time this weekend breaking down the plywood the rest of the way.  The next step was to cut some dadoes for the fixed shelves and the top. I would have loved to use the dado blade in my table saw but I'm just not set up for crosscuts on six foot shelf sides.  I did consider building a crosscut sled for dadoes but I just didn't want to take the time and have to worry about storing it.  Luckily the plywood is actually very, very close to 3/4 in so I was able to use the router along with a guide. 




The extra little piece of hardboard on the router is to keep it from rocking off the straightedge guide, worked great. The next task is to get the edging mounted to the fixed shelf, cut the dadoes for the shelf standards, and get the case glued up.  Then its on the the real wood framing and the crown moulding and other embellishments on the top. 

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Bookshelf Build-along

I'm getting underway on a bookshelf for the in-laws new place.  I've been wanting to build something like this for awhile now, but for my own house. It's going to be a mix of "real wood" red oak and some plywood.  It will give me a chance to use up some nice rough sawn boards I've had laying around for about a year now.  I'm working off a plan from Woodsmith magazine. I'm looking forward to trying some new things like the crown and dentil moulding. 




So far I've gotten most of the milling done.  The lumber was really rough so I had to spend some time with the hand planes getting one side flat enough to send them through the planer.  After a couple of sessions at the planer, and watching sooooo much nice lumber be turned into chips here's where I'm at now.  





It turns out that one of the boards has some really nice striping to it. Not too often you see that in red oak. My next steps are to  start practicing some dentil moulding and get the plywood. Hopefully I can find some good plywood that will compliment the real wood nicely.