Blog Archives - The Wireless Woodworker

Mission Table – Part 2 – Mortise and Tenons

December 1, 2020December 1, 2020
by Tim

Last time we covered the initial design and milling, so let’s get started cutting some joinery! The arts and crafts and mission style furniture is known for its mortise and tenon joints and there are almost 30 of them in just this small table. I’m certainly not going to show you all of them, considering they’re all cut pretty much the same way, but I will mention a few tricks.

The first trick to make things a little easier on yourself is mainly for hand tool users – it’s to size your tenons to your chisels. I used just two mortise chisels for this whole table, a ¼” and a ⅛”, and I set my marking gauge to the chisels size and used it for everything. This makes cutting the mortises a lot easier.

There are a thousand ways to cut a tenon and almost as many tutorials out there, so I won’t get into the specifics of how I saw them, but one of the things I like to do is use deep marking lines and make knife walls. This helps guide the saw and gives me a nice crisp line to pare down to with the chisel at the end.

For the small dovetail on the top rail I just cut the rough shape with a chisel, don’t worry about the saw – nobody is going to see this joint anyway.

I use the same marking gauge to mark my mortises, so I know they’ll be consistent. Again, I won’t go into specifics about the mortising process, there are plenty of tutorials out there that do a better job explaining it than I can, but one thing I like to do is to make a few shallow chisel grooves at first, just to create a little well to help guide you lining up the chisel when you start hammering.

I should also mention my setup – it’s never a good idea to hammer directly in the vise, so I clamp a piece of scrap wood in the vise, then clamp my piece to that, so that the workpiece is over a leg and held tight. I also use the scrap piece as a vertical guide for the chisel to make sure I’m straight up and down.

As I hammer across the length of the mortise I’ll leave about an ⅛” of an inch on both sides so that when I pry out the waste I don’t bruise the ends too much. This isn’t such a big deal on this piece because they’ll be hidden under the shoulders of the tenon, but it’s a good habit. I also have a sharpie mark on the chisel to know when I’m down to the correct depth.

During the test fit – one of the joints was a little bit too tight and a few swipes with a block plane fixed that. If it was a larger tenon I may use a shoulder plane to thin it down some.

And there we go for most of the joinery – I think 28 mortise and tenon joints total and then a single dovetail for the top rail on the front. This should hopefully keep the front from bowing out at all. The tenons on the aprons did overlap a little, so with a block plane I mitered those ends just a little bit.

Now I’m getting ready for pre-finishing with some smooth plane work – notice that I’ve taped over the glue surfaces so no finish gets in the way of the joints.

The next step is the panel joint for the top. If you plane both pieces at the same time it makes this joint super simple – this edge doesn’t even have to be square to the faces since any error will be off-set by the mirrored piece.

To check the fit, just “un-fold” the two pieces and see how they line up. I aim for a very slight spring to the joint that’ll close up with clamps.

I’m going to go ahead and glue up everything before I build the drawer, just because I want that fit to be right. But before I glue everything up, I’m going to pre-finish everything. This is a three step, super easy recipe from Bob Lang. The first coat is Varathane “Special Walnut” stain to darken everything.

The second step is a coat of Watco “Dark Walnut” danish oil to give it a little more tint.

The last step is a coat of amber shellac to warm everything up a bit.

Next time we’ll add some of the internal pieces and finally do the drawer. So that’s it for this time!

Blog

Mission Table – Part 1

October 16, 2018December 1, 2020
by Tim

Today we are going to be starting a mission style end table build. I’m going to try doing things a little differently this time by doing a multi-part video, rather than cramming everything into one, so hopefully you like the format. If so, or not, let me know down in the comments. I hope that this gives a little better insight into the whole design and build process.

The first step is the initial planning and design.

I actually have fairly specific parameters and dimensions for this build because I’m making it mainly to hold a dollhouse for my daughter. My grandfather actually made this dollhouse a number of years ago before he passed away with the intention of giving it to my children, so I think it deserves something special to sit on.

I don’t have a whole lot of criteria for the overall style, the room that it’s going in is fairly non-descript, so I thought this would be a good chance to do a mission style – arts and crafts piece. My goal is to do a Morris chair eventually, so this should be a good introduction.

I use Blender just because it’s what I’m familiar with, but you could use Sketchup or any other modeling program. Obviously this step isn’t necessary if you’re already working off a plan, but I’m putting my own design together, so wanted to try to get the dimensions correct before cutting the wood.

I started with the top because I knew the dimensions I needed to match the dollhouse. I also knew how high I wanted it, so adding the legs was easy, but getting the proportions looking right was tricky. I played around with different leg thicknesses until I got something that I think should look nice, then started adding some other elements.

I knew that I wanted to add a drawer, but with the short table I didn’t want it too tall, so I played around a little bit with the apron height. Then finally, because this is a mission style piece, I added in the slats on the sides and played around with the number and width of them.

Once I was happy with the overall proportions, I cleaned up the mesh a little bit off camera and did a few renders to show off the final design. Overall I think it looks nice and should fit the need well – it’s always interesting to see how 3D models look in real life, so I’m excited to get started building.

With all the pieces cut to rough size, I work on planing everything down to their final dimensions. This step is quite tedious, so I typically don’t do this all at once, but rather as I need the pieces. This part is in real time so you can see how long it takes to get a couple of flat faces and a square edge. For this small piece, which is one of the front rails, it takes about 4 or 5 minutes to get close enough.

I normally start with a couple swipes of the jack plane with a cambered iron to get rid of the saw marks, then switch to the jointer plane to get a nice flat face. If you listen to the sound that the plane makes and also look at the shaving to make sure I have a full length, full width shaving, then I know I have a flat face.

Once that’s established I mark the thickness with a marking gauge and flip it over to plane it down to final thickness. I actually don’t need a 4-squared board for this piece, so don’t really bother checking the squareness at this point – it’s fairly close, which is all I really care about.

As I plane down to the right thickness you can see that I’m constantly checking the marks both by eye and by feel. Sometimes the marks can be hard to see, but as you get close to the marks you can typically feel the gauge line. You know you’re pretty much done when you get little strings on the corners of the face.

After a quick square check, I mark the flat faces and move on to the next one.

That’s it for the first part and if you found this section a little slow, hopefully the joinery and assembly in the next part will be a little more exciting.

Blog

The Shaker Side Table

August 9, 2017August 9, 2017
by Tim

One of the quintessential first woodworking projects seems to be a small side table. Some call these side tables, some call them end tables, plant stands, night tables… I have no idea what’s correct, but I’m sticking with side. Feel free to disagree. I’ve never made one so I think it’s about time.

I decided on a classic shaker design, mainly because it fits in with the style of our house, but also because the Schwarz did a great DVD for Lie-Nielsen a few years ago showing the build process step by step. His design has nice elegant lines and should last a lifetime – even with those tiny legs.

The basic side table form is such a great project for the novice woodworker because there are so many different options. As I was building it, all of the different joinery options became apparent. I went with mortise and tenons for the leg-to-apron joint, but you could easily do pegs, dominoes, or pocket holes. The same thing for the drawer construction – I went with dovetails all the way around, but you could do any number of different options. If you want to work on your turning you could make round legs, you could carve them if you want to get crazy, or add fancy moldings. The relatively small scale also makes it approachable from a hand tool perspective. This wood didn’t touch a machine until I turned the knob on the lathe.

Shaker designs generally look nice in most domestic hardwoods – Chris made his out of Maple… I’m going with Cherry – pine may also be a nice choice.

Selecting the right stock for the different pieces actually makes a big difference to the final look of the piece – I had no idea. For the legs you want nice straight grain lines on all four sides – Chris calls this bastard sawn, I call it rift sawn – I’m not sure if there’s a difference. The main thing is that you don’t want cathedrals on any of the leg’s sides interrupting the flow. On the other hand, these cathedrals add some nice interest to the aprons, so if you’re using plain sawn lumber like I am, save these center sections for the aprons and drawer front.

The 18” square top requires some more thought. I don’t have any 18″ wide cherry, but do have some 10” wide stock that I’ll use in a panel – you may have to use 3 pieces. To avoid a harsh line in the panel you want to aim for straight grain to straight grain along the edge. You could also do a bookmatch here if there was something interesting going on.

I didn’t film a lot of the finishing process – mainly because if I think if it’s boring to do it must be really dull to watch – but I did a few tests on some scrap cherry and decided on a thin coat of medium walnut danish oil with a shellac polish – my preferred top coat. I finish everything off with some paste wax.

I’m really happy with how everything came out. The cherry is maybe a little splotchy, but nobody except me will ever notice. It fits in with the house really well and is something I’m happy to take credit for when people comment.

Blog

Restoring a Vintage Chisel

January 23, 2017
by Tim

Chisels are without a doubt the most useful tool in a hand tool woodworking shop (other than your own hands!). Whenever I’m in the shop I always have a chisel either in my hand, or within arms reach. I flop back and forth between new and vintage chisels and don’t really have a preference as long as they’re sharp, so I’m always on the lookout for a good deal. I came across these two massive chisels at a local flea market and picked up both of them for $0.50 – a nice bargain considering the steel was in great shape.

The chisels are marked G.I. Mix and Co and were probably made around 1900-ish. They are both bevel edge socket chisels, one a 2″ and the other 1-1/4″. Neither one came with a handle and the steel was a little dinged up, but absolutely no big deal for a user tool. Here is a video of the process I go through when restoring a chisel – including getting the steel back into shape, turning the handle, and adding finish:

And some glamour shots of the completed project:

If you prefer not to watch the video, my normal restoration process for a chisel goes a little something like this:

Get rid of the old busted handle (if still attached)
Hit all the metal with a soft wire wheel on the grinder
Let them soak for a night in Evapo-Rust
Rinse them off well and immediately oil, then use the wire wheel again to remove the black oxide rust residue and oil again
If needed, repair/file the socket
Rough grind the bevel
Clean with Mineral Spirits, then TCE (wear gloves!)
Blue the metal – I do three coats. First coat applied with cotton balls, second applied with a gray scotchbrite pad, third applied with 0000 steel wool, and a final buff with paper towel
Turn the handle
Add 1 (or more) coat of stain/filler and buff across the grain after it has dried to a paste (~15 mins)
When completely dry, apply 4 coats of Tru-Oil, rubbing with 0000 steel wool between coats
When dry, rub out with 0000 steel wool and paste wax
Sharpen the chisel blade and get to work!

The products I use during the video are as follows:

Evapo-Rust

Brownell’s TCE Cleaner/Degreaser

Brownell’s Oxpho-Blue

Stock and Stain Filler

Birchwood Casey Tru-Oil

I hope you enjoyed the latest video and if I’ve helped you refurbish an old chisel please feel free to let me know!

Blog

The Frame Saw

June 28, 2016October 16, 2018
by Tim

I love nearly every part of working in a wireless wood shop and that includes most of the initial milling of rough lumber. The one part of hand work I don’t enjoy so much is re-sawing. I typically buy most of my lumber in 8/4 thickness, so for any projects requiring thinner stock I need to resaw it down to the correct thickness. I enjoy scrub planing rough lumber, and even like flattening boards by hand, but when it comes to re-sawing I find it mind numbing and boring. Maybe it’s because while planing I’m constantly thinking about the grain direction, but when sawing all I’m doing is trying to keep saw between the lines – boring. What I would like to do is get this process out of the way as soon as possible, but with only an 8 tpi hand saw, it tends to take quite a lot of time – not any more! Enter the frame saw:

The saw plate and hardware is the 31.5″ frame saw kit from Bad Axe Tool Works and the design is based on Tom Fidgen’s frame saw from The Unplugged Woodshop just elongated to fit the lengthened saw plate. The wood is 8/4 Ash that I had leftover from the Workbench build just quickly finished with an oil varnish blend (equal parts satin varnish, BLO, and mineral spirits).

Construction was pretty straightforward and is just like you see in the pictures. The two side supports are connected to the top and bottom with a dual mortise and tenon joint. No glue was used (the tension on the saw plate gives the strength needed), so I can tear it down and store it flat if need be. I spent quite a lot of time on shaping the handles, which angle backwards and downwards, because I wanted it to be comfortable. I used a plane tote as a template and set out with a few rasps to shape it.

I’ve only used it a few times since completion, but I’m really happy with the way it turned out. The handles turned out great and as much as I want to get through this part of milling quickly, I could comfortably use this for hours. It just eats through wood and makes fairly short work of smaller re-sawing tasks. I’m still practicing sawing in a straight line – it is very difficult to steer once the kerf is set, but adding a shallow kerf with a hand saw (I’ll be adding a kerfing plane at some point) makes this much easier. I also don’t plan on sawing veneer with this saw, so for coarse re-sawing tasks the accuracy isn’t completely necessary.

Blog

5 Things to do when you can’t woodwork…

March 9, 2016December 18, 2016
by Tim

If you follow me on Twitter you know that I’ve been sidelined from serious woodworking for a few weeks now with a broken thumb.

This has certainly put a halt to my project list, so it got me thinking, “What’s a woodworker to do when he/she can’t woodwork??” There are always some times when this is bound to happen – could be weather related (cold temperatures in an un-heated shop?), or time of day related (2am and your spouse, kid, roommate, neighbor, dog, etc… is sleeping?), or situation related (moving houses and everything is packed?), or, God forbid, health related? There are all sorts of reasons that could leave someone wanting to woodwork, but unable to. Luckily I’ve been able to scratch my woodworking itch in a few other ways. The following is a list of a few things I’ve been able to do with my shop time, what do you do to satisfy your woodworking habit when you can’t actually work wood?

Design – I’m sure that I’m like a lot of people in that I tend to jump into projects quickly sometimes. Oftentimes that means that I run into some sort of hiccup during construction, whether that be needing more lumber, or supplies, or maybe cutting things in the wrong order. These things could probably be eliminated with better planning and design. Not being able to get into the shop, but still having some time available, allows you to plan through the entire project on paper first, hopefully catching any issues that may come up during building.I typically start my design process by writing down the purpose or goals of the project, then doodling some design ideas in the shop notebook.
If it’s a detailed project then I’ll take the next step and model out the finished piece in a 3D modelling program. I use Blender because I’m more familiar with it, but Sketchup is a common one as well.
During the modelling process I may run into things that I didn’t think of, or problems that may come up during construction (like the need for mitered tenons on the above workbench design), so I’ll make sure to jot down these notes in the shop notebook as well. Now I can make a cut list or build plan if needed.
Watch Videos/Read Books – You certainly don’t need me telling you that this is something to do in your woodworking downtime. There is so much content available now that there’s never been a better time to be a woodworker. The Ipad normally serves as my source for woodworking material, but I went old school recently and dug out some old issues of Fine Woodworking, grabbed some DVDs off the shelf, and got to it.
Clean – I try to make it a point to always give the shop a quick cleaning at the end of the day – put the tools away, sweep the bench/floor, etc, but over time it can still get pretty dirty. If you’re able to get into the shop and need a low noise or low calorie count activity, then doing a full cleaning is great. I can grip just enough with my right hand to hold a broom and my shop has never been so clean. It’s also a great time to organize the tool box, shelves, drawers, etc. My shop will never be as clean as Klausz’s, but it’s a good way to get into the shop!
Buy Tools! – Woodworkers generally don’t need any excuses to buy new tools, and I don’t normally give advice to buy anything, but the truth is that there are normally always purchases to be made. Sometimes these purchases require quite a bit of research, so this non-woodworking time is perfect for this. Other times, especially when following the advice of number 1, you may run into tools/supplies that will be needed for the next project. Getting these in advance will make sure you don’t have any shipping delays while working on your project.
Visit Museums or Historical Sites – Finally, one of the last things that I plan on doing during my hiatus is visiting the Winterthur museum. I’m fortunate to live only a few miles from the grounds in Wilmington, DE, so this works out quite well for me. If you have any interest in period furniture making then I highly encourage you to check out nearby museums or historical sites. They will often have sections on antique furniture and may even let you peek underneath if you have a willing tour guide! For some possible locations head on over to the Society of American Period Furniture Makers – SAPFM.

That’s my list of things to do when you can’t woodwork – what’s yours??

Blog

The Workbench – Finishing Touches

February 29, 2016August 9, 2017
by Tim

After the last post I was left with a mostly complete workbench and certainly use-able. All that was left was to install the vises and a few other odds and ends. I started with installing the shoulder vise, which was simple because I had already bored all the holes and installed the nut. This is a Veritas Shoulder Vise screw and is a little long for my small vise opening, but bearable for the time being. I may try to cut the screw length down eventually.

The total opening capacity is about 4″, which is fine for probably 90% of what I typically clamp in there. I can always use the large leg vise on the other bench if I have something bigger than that. The chop is 1 1/2″ thick red oak and is maybe a little overkill. I could probably thin that down to 1″ and get a little more opening capacity, but we’ll see how this works out for now.

Up next was the tail vise. I’ve never had a tail vise before and typically just use battens and planing stops, so I didn’t want to go all out with this. The main thing that I wanted a tail vise for was fenced plane work (plow planes, rabbet planes, etc.), so I wanted something that could put the front row of dog holes as close as possible to the front of the bench. The Veritas Inset Vise fit the bill nicely and was really simple to install. I just had to bore out the cavity for the vise and drop it in.

The front row of dog holes is about an inch and a half from the front of the bench and I made a simple little jig to help me bore them out and to make sure they were all in line.

For the back row of dog holes I added 4 holes, spaced roughly 2x the reach of my Lie-Nielsen hold fasts apart. The furthest left front and back dog holes are inline with each other.

Other little finishing touches were a tongue and groove pine bottom shelf:

An oak tool rack across the back, which is really handy. I prefer a tool rack like this to a tool well, but that’s just personal preference:

And finally a cheap $9 Ikea work lamp. The Tertial Ikea lamp comes with a screw type mounting base, but I just screwed it to a scrap piece and stuck a 3/4″ dowel on the underside so I can move it around in different dog holes.

It’s a great little lamp actually and reaches right across my smaller sized bench.

The only things left were to cut the top to length and do some final shaping of the shoulder vise. I may add a light finish to the top, but as of right now I’m enjoying the raw look. Have a look here for all the final pictures and the very first The Wireless Woodworker video!

Blog

The Workbench

February 29, 2016December 18, 2016
by Tim

The workbench build is complete! See my first ever video and some final pictures of the bench. Links to the construction blog posts are at the bottom of the page.

Completed Workbench

Shoulder Vise

Front Dog Holes

Top and Tool Rack

Shoulder Vise

Bottom Shelf and Joinery

Reinforced Front Leg

Workbench Side View

The Workbench Build – Part 1 – Initial Planning

The Workbench Build – Part 2 – Design

The Workbench Build – Part 3 – Rough Construction

The Workbench Build – Part 4 – Joinery

The Workbench Build – Part 5 – Finishing Touches

Blog

The Workbench – Joinery

February 15, 2016
by Tim

Now that all the rough milling, sizing, and laminating is completed we can finally get started on some of the joinery and assembly for the workbench. All the main joints are drawbored mortise and tenon construction, so let’s get started sawing and chopping!

If you remember from last time, I made all the legs and stretchers the same size. To make life easy on myself, I’m going to do the same thing for all the mortise and tenon joints. With my legs and stretchers all cut to size, I marked out the 12 tenons needed ( 1 x each of the 4 legs, 2 x each of the 4 stretchers). I used my 1″ chisel to set my mortise marking gauge, then roughly found the center of one of the legs, and marked my gauge lines referencing the marked reference face. The tenon cheeks are pretty much the same size, but it shouldn’t matter as long as I always reference the same face.

Now I get started sawing, cutting the two vertical lines first, then working in from each side. I did all of these cuts with the Lie-Nielsen rip tenon saw.

When the lines were all cut, I check for squareness, then trim up the tenon as needed with either a shoulder plane, rabbeting block plane, or chisel.

After all the tenons were cut, I had a nice set of 24 blocks for my daughter. She loves them!

Now it’s on to the mortises, which took quite a bit more effort than the tenons. I used the same mortise gauge to mark all the mortises towards the bottom of each leg (again, referencing the correct face). The bulk of the waste was removed with the brace and 1″ bit, then everything was cleaned up with that same 1″ chisel.

As you can see from the below picture, my mortises meet in the middle. No problem really, just means I’m going to have to miter the ends of my tenons a bit.

With the base sub-assembly complete and test fit, I clamped it all together, the flipped it over to mark the mortises on the underside of the top. It’s not a perfect size, it’s actually a little bit narrower than the top, but the important thing here is to get the front legs in line with the front of the top. I don’t really care if the back legs are flush with the back of the top.

Same procedure as before – bore out most of the waste…

then clean up with a chisel.

Now for a test fit!

It looks great, so I’m going to go ahead and drawbore the leg sub-assembly together. The pegs are about 1/2″ in diameter, with a healthy 1/8″ of drawbore action. This seemed to cinch everything up nice and tight. I’m using glue for these joints, but won’t for the top joints. If I ever want to take it apart I should just be able to drill out the top pegs to remove the legs.

Before I flipped everything over for the final time, I added a little support for the shoulder vise. I’m not sure if this is really necessary, but makes me feel better if I ever want to put something heavy on that section.

There we have it – flipped over and almost ready to go!

It was a bear to flip over, so I’m hoping I only have to do that once. The top of the top is obviously a bit messy with glue squeeze out, but a quick flattening did the trick there.

At this point I have a perfectly use-able workbench and I’ve got to say it’s a great size. It fits exactly where I was planning, and isn’t too large that I can’t move it around when I need too, or too small that it moves around when doing heavy planing. Now all that’s left is to finish up the vises, add some dog holes, and do some final finishing touches. Until then, I’m enjoying the bench so far!