Project plan

Sunday, January 26, 2014

Its Not Nice To Screw With Mother Nature

So I spent the summer tending my garden.

My old man was a gardener. When I was a kid, he bought a house that sat on a huge parcel of land and turned half of it into a vegetable garden. The property came with a bunch of apple, pear and cherry trees, as well as trestles full of grapes, raspberries and blueberries. He then added just about every type of vegetable that would grow in this climate.

I cant tell you how much I hated that garden. Every spring he would push me to till the damned thing, and every spring I would have to hear the, "When I was your age working the farms..." yarn that drove me nuts.

Fast-forward fifty years and there I was, willingly hanging on to a rotor tiller, whacking up the sod in my back yard, merrily turning it into a vegetable garden. I removed the sod, broke up the hard clay earth, mixed in sand and added sheep and cow shit to make it as comfy and cosy as I could for tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, corn and carrots, including a bit of a herb section to round it out. I weeded that bugger two or three times a week, spent a fortune watering it, spent hours trimmed things, staked others, and even made a couple of very cool looking tomato cages to make it all look more interesting and inviting. By the beginning of August we started to get a few juicy samplings as the plants started to come into maturity. This, of course, only served to make me work harder at it. I started pulling weeds more often, turning the soil between the rows bi-weekly and even started talking to them, although none of the rude buggers answered.

Come mid-August, I looked out the window overlooking the backyard and saw this...

I had noticed before I started that our property sat lower than our two neighbours, but didnt realize how low until we had a horrendous rain one Saturday afternoon. When the 5" of water finally disappeared, only two tomato plants and the impatiens that bordered it all survived.

I remember standing there, looking out that window at this lake that was once my garden patch, and hearing my old man laughing...

Peace,

Mitchell

Buffet

Heres the situation:

We need a small cabinet, or sideboard
I have my parents old buffet
It needs a lot of work
It has been waiting patiently for over twenty years
It is too long for the spot we have for it

So, I got to thinking, why not shorten it while I fix it? How hard could that be? What a great idea!

Now I know what you are thinking. Youre thinking that is a major undertaking and will certainly take much, much longer than just fixing the buffet. Well, that is what you should be thinking, and if you are not, you too have no time reality. You should probably see someone about that - dangerous thing - bound to get you into trouble.

Anyway, youre right - it will take longer. But Im going to do it anyway. Life is too short to worry about saving time. (See what I mean about getting you into trouble...)

Heres a shot of the existing buffet:

And heres a mash-up of my first idea:

But it was still coming out too large, so I think I might go the asymmetrical route with the doors and create something along these lines:

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, heres the label on the back of the buffet:

The Ebert Furniture Co. started out in Philadelphia in 1854, then moved to Red Lion PA, before shutting down in 1959. Im not sure how old this particular buffet is, I always though it was from the 1940s, but my brother says it used to be our great grandfathers so maybe it is older?

I think it will be nice to get this back into use.

Table assembly

I started assembly on the kids table last night. I used a 1/4" spacer to recess the aprons back a little from the edge. In hindsight I should have recessed them back about 1/2" because one of the legs split a little when I drove in the pocket hole screw. Its not too bad and it is up at the top of the leg so you wont see it under the table top but it is still a bummer. The legs are also bowing in a little so I will probably put in a cross brace on the inside angles.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Its Wanderful Part 3

After I spokeshaved the first blank into a dowel, I regrouped and took a full size sketch I had made based on Kenneth’s photos and made copies. Then I took the copies and the remaining four (4) blanks down to my Dad’s shop. I glued on the sketch copies and fired up the band saw (mine doesn’t quite run right now). When I was done, I was left with four (4) square pieces of wood that had the rough in and out nature of the wands.

Two (2) wands fresh off the bandsaw, and one post rasping.

I took the post-bandsaw blanks home and started to make them round. I began with my spokeshave on the thin, long business end of the wands. This quickly knocked down the corners and the round shape began to emerge.

The wonderful Shinto Rasp.

Next I began rasping. The rough shaping was continued with my Shinto rasp set up in course mode. By holding the rasp at about a 75° relative to the length of the wand and working my way up and down the length while tipping the rasp back and forth over the wand I was able to get all three (3) sections of each wand relatively round. They weren’t perfect, but as they are hand made by eye, they were just the right combination of uniformity and uniqueness.

A wand, post rasping, and the wonderful Auriou rasp I used to fine
tune the work of the Shinto.

I cleaned up the initial rasping with the Shinto set up in fine mode and for the final shaping I moved to my Auriou rasp. I used it to clean up the inside corners and edges as well as create the recessed area in the middle of the handle portion of each wand.

The four (4) wands, ready to be freed
from their bases.

At this point the wands were shaped, but still attached to square stock at the butt of their handles. The square stock had been left to allow them to be clamped in my bench vises.

Time to cut.

I cut the square stock off using my Veritas Carcass Saw. I then went back to the Auriou rasp and made the final shaping to the butt end of the handles.

The four wands, ready for finish (not for cutting).

Once you finally get there, do you often find the scary part of a project actually wasnt so bad?

Its Wanderful: Part 1

Its Wanderful: Part 2

Q A Shavonda A Home Full of Color

Today Im super excited to have the fun and talented Shavonda from A Home Full of Color on the blog! Shavonda has a beautiful home with plenty of personality, color, and a great eclectic mix!

I adore her recent hallway transformation! Painting the ceiling coral really makes the space!! Her kitchen redo is also fabulous, make sure to pop over and take a look! or maybe her aqua bookshelves - I cant decide, They are all SO good! :)

Take it away Shavonda!

Hi Everyone! Im Shavonda and I blog over at A Home Full Of Color. Thank you all so much for letting me hang out with you for a bit today and thank you Sarah for having me. Im sure I dont have to tell you guys how awesome Sarah is. I just love her work. Shes definitely one of my blog idols and its an honor to be here. For those of you who arent familiar with me I have an affinity for colorful, eclectic interiors, glossy furniture, old houses, giraffes, and the Dallas Cowboys! I also a little obsessed with rearranging furniture. Here are a few other tidbits about me....

Egg Nog! I know a lot of folks associate it with Christmas, but the minute my grocery store gets it in stock Im all over it.

I like using candles, fresh flowers or a plant, and art to freshen up a room. Art is such an easy and commitment free way to decorate a room. Candles add warmth and flowers and plants give a room life. More info here.

Without a doubt my biggest fail has been our first attempt at adding a chalkboard wall to our kitchen. I learned that MDF boards + liquid nails + indecision = holes in walls. I also learned how much rebuilding a wall sucks. Drywall is definitely something I will pretty much always leave to the professionals.

And though I HATE painting cabinets, I love what a couple coats of paint did for your hallway and kitchen. More info here.

Im totally in love with kilim.

and suzani.

I absolutely love Emily Henderson. I adore her use of old and new in spaces. Shes really great with mixing color and pattern. I also love how you can pretty much always find something a bit unexpected in her spaces.

Dont you just love that coral ceiling!? So perfect in Shavondas space! I really want to try that sometime!! (hopefully well have a house soon so that I can paint till my hearts content!) And the black and white stripe with gold campaign hardware really makes the space - love love love it!

I too love eggnog!! YUM!!

Thanks so much for sharing today Shavonda!!

If youre new to Shavondas blog, make sure to check out her home tour and projects page!!

Owners Marks

So Ive been thinking about owners marks. In my shop, its mostly the older tools that have owners marks, and the older the tool the more sophisticated the owners marks tend to be.

I think some pictures might help me explain what I mean, so heres a sample series in reverse chronological order - newest first.

Yellow paint - not really a mark, but I suppose it does its job (in a very unaesthetic way):

A simple set of initials stamped into the cheek of a metal bodied bench plane:

Initials stamped into a saw handle - not exactly done neatly:

Carved initials, also in a saw handle - done by hand and I like the style given to the "L.A.L.":

Initials and last name done with a dedicated stamp - and S.C. RANDALL took the time to neatly align his stamp (Ive got a few of his, and they are all stamped very neatly - he obviously cared:

Three stamps on a British Plane - T. TURNER (maker), T. ATKINSON an owner with a simple dedicated stamp, and J. LONGBOTTOM, most likely the earlier of the two owners judging by his much fancier stamp:

And finally, an adjustable sash plane made my T.J. MMASTER & CO. and owned by J.A.V.C., with neatly stamped oversize initials, and C. FITZGORGE with fancy stamp:

On this one, I think that the J.A.V.C. stamp is the older of the two, as it seems Fitzgorge was purposefully avoiding over stamping by using the angles. Which is also interesting, as some owners seemed to be trying to annihilate the names of previous owners with almost violent over stamping.

One thing I am curious about is if anyone is marking their tools today. I have a branding iron that I use to mark my shop products and larger tools I make, but I have never made or used an owners mark. Its a little funny that my initial reaction is not to "hurt" the antique tool by adding my mark to it, when it is the recorded history of owners that makes the tool so fascinating to me. Why shouldnt some future owner look at my mark and wonder who I was and what I might have made with that tool. I mean, all the owner marks on the tool where contemporary at one point in time.

Ive been thinking about making an owners mark stamp, but to be honest, I dont really have an idea on how to go about it. Im not sure how to carve a tiny version of my name in some kind of metal stamp. Any ideas? Has anyone done this?

Friday, January 24, 2014

Wood projects for beginners

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