OK, I’ve moved from issues to being in good shape. The glue-ups of both necks turned out great. My next step was to thickness the headstock. I used hand planes to do this. Given that both necks are maple, it took awhile and I had to monitor grain direction to make sure we had smooth [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Saws’
Scarf Joint – Attempts 2 & 3
In an update to my last post I told you all how the joint of my first attempt did not turn out. Fortunately, I ordered an additional Birdseye Maple Neck Blank so I could try it again having learned that I need to verify the joint on both sides of the neck. I also ordered [...]
Guitar 2 – Scarf Joint
OK, I’ve begun the 2nd guitar in ernest. I started with the neck. When building a guitar neck you need 3 basic elements. The neck body. This is where the fret is on up to the 14th fret. The headstock. This is angled down from the neck body by about 15 degrees and is where [...]
Wood Prep Shots
Here is a shot of all the hand processed maple boards that I have for my standing laptop desk. As you can see, I have the top glued together (still need size but I want to wait till the desk frame is together). I also have the legs with taper and now they are marked [...]
Progress on my standing laptop desk
The next post should have some pictures. Having never built a project entirely by hand, I had no accurate idea of how long any particular step was going to take. Once I got started I realized that any guess I had was far off (by orders of magnitude). I think I compounded the time problem [...]
Standing Laptop Desk – Tapered Legs
I’ve been making progress over the week. It’s been very slow going. After roughing the dimensions of the legs, I wanted to get them more exactly square, plummed. This takes a long time. After that, I wanted to get the tapers done. This took figuring out which legs will be the front and which part [...]
Prepping Legs
As I’ve indicated in past posts, the Standing Laptop Desk is an experiment of sorts. I am planning on doing the entire project using hand tools (no power other than muscle). I decided to start with prepping the legs. The legs will be 40″ long and as close to 2″ x 2″ as I can [...]
Small Epiphany – Dovetails
In my daily (ok, not daily but nearly so) practice of hand cut dovetails, I came together with a finished practice joint that was very tight. I still had one small gap (I’ll talk about that in a bit) but the sides were very tight. In the cutting of the sides of the tails and [...]
Unremarkable Shop Time
I know that I haven’t been posting recently. My problem is that the time in my shop IS happening but it’s kind of dull and tedious (at least from a blogging point of view – I’m actually enjoying the time). You see, my situation mandates that I have a strongly adhered to budget for my [...]
New Tools
I suppose that a woodworker may never have enough tools so it’s never really news when a woodworker gets some new tool. I feel like I’m approaching a place where I can get increasingly choosy about which tools I get and when. I have a nice selection of saws, chisels, hand planes, measuring and marking [...]
Re-sawing by hand
As I move more and more of my woodworking to using hand tools, I have to try and experiment with different elements and techniques of hand tool applications. My latest attempt is re-sawing boards which is most commonly done with band saws. I have an increasing collection of saws. I have a bow saw that [...]
Dovetail practice
Just a quick post. In addition to the mortise and tenons, I have continued on with my dovetail practice. I hope I’m reaching a significant milestone because I cut one of my best dovetails yet. It was tight (except for one small corner) in all places. A joint like that would be one that I [...]
Mortise and Tenon Practice
I’ve been practicing Mortise and Tenon joints for the past couple of days. I’ve found some things out about hand cut Mortise and Tenon joints. Shallow mortise/tenons are easier to keep square Conversely, deep mortise/tenons are much harder to keep square Deep mortise/tenons can be tuned a bit to make square after they are cut [...]
More dovetail practice – oak
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I have taken a path to practice hand cut dovetails. In the first round, I worked with poplar. Now, I’m down the path of using oak. My first attempt (back before Thanksgiving) was a disaster. I had forgotten how easy it is to split oak and I did split [...]
Woodworking with my son
Xander, my elder son, is ten years old. He’s in a gifted program which he goes to one day a week. Part of this gifted program is that he must do a year long research project which culminates in a presentation at the “Experts Fair”. He’s picked How to be a Video Game Designer and [...]
