I’ve hit a big milestone. I’ve got the majority of the frame dry fitted. I still have a piece under the drawer on the front and then 2 lower/inner cross members for additional stability. As most woodworkers can do for their projects, I can find a ton of issues with it but over all I’m [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Skills’
Brace and bit
I think that I mentioned when I was practicing mortise and tenon joints a few months back that I tried both the 100% chisel route and the method that first uses bit and brace followed by chisels. This early experience was very sloppy. At the time, I wasn’t exactly sure of the cause of the [...]
Double Mortises
OK, as a newb to hand cut mortises and tenons I’m pushing the envelope by doing double mortises. I know, it’s crazy. All in all though, I’m pretty happy with the results.
Standing Laptop Desk – First Mortise and Tenons
OK, today I finished my first mortise and tenons on the Standing Laptop Desk. Only 20,000 more to go. OK, maybe not that many but looking at it from the beginning makes it seem that way. I’ve shown some practice mortise and tenons in previous posts but I was still kind of frustrated with them. [...]
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 [...]
What a mess!
OK, as a woodworker I have a chore that I’m responsible for once in a while. I need to empty the dust collector bag. It’s not a fun chore and boy does it make a mess – even in the best of times. Having had a dust collector, I’ve often put it off too long [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Mortise and Tenon
I decided that I should mix some Mortise and Tenon practice amidst my dovetail practice. The real reason, is that I have done machine cut mortise and tenon but not very well. Since this was a different technique given that I’m cutting them by hand, I was hopeful that I could do much better. I [...]
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 [...]
Another new tool – Brace and hand drill
Yesterday, I made a post about getting a new tool (which arrived today). I forgot that I had also ordered a Hand Drill (eggbeater drill) and Hand Brace. As I move to using hand tools, this is a new set of tools that I’m excited to use and experiment with. I have hand drills and [...]
