Craftsman Tool Cabinet.

So I started out with just one block plane, of course, it was a POS home center Stanley, the one in the picture with the red palm rest. I added to that with a better block plane, then a pretty good made in England Stanley No. 4. This was followed up by a couple of small shoulder planes and a Stanley No. 80 scraper plane. I picked up a couple of antique Stanley planes, cleaned them up and sharpened the blades and they cut okay. But then, I made the mistake of trying out a well tuned Lie-Nielsen block plane, I finally realised what a high quality plane could do. That started my downfall, a low angle L-N block plane, a L-N block shoulder plane, these planes rocked. I made my first wooden plane last spring and with a nice blade it cut surprizingly well. At IWF this year I ordered a Lee Valley low angle smoothing plane and a scraping plane, both of which are awesone right out of the box. Well the downside of all this is that now I have nowhere to keep all these tools except a drawer that is now too crouded and I'm afraid that they will be damaged. So now I'm making a cabinet to hold all my prized hand planes.

I'm using Chris Schwarz's plan from Popular Woodworking's Arts and Crafts Furniture Projects book but changing it some. My Lee Valley scraper plane is wider than the cubbies that he called for so I adjusted them so two cubbies are 4 inches wide and I made up for it with two smaller cubbies that will fit my No. 4 plane and my L-N block planes. I also used quartersawn white oak instead of Cherry because thats what I have plenty of in my wood supply. I haven't decided yet how the doors will look but I think that I'm going to change the look of the top.

I glued up the stock yesterday after planing it to the appropriate thickness. Today I unclamped the stock and used the smoothing plane to flush the panels. I then cut the panels to size and started on the dado's for the cubbies and dividers. At the end of the day today I had my first dry fit, you'll notice that the cubbies on the left are wider than the ones on the right. Below the plane cubbies will be 4 small drawers and 2 larger drawers. I plan to add a rack for my fine chisels inside one of the doors and a holder for my Gent's saw on the other. The drawers will hold my marking guages and knives, my files and rasps, and other tools that are banging around in the one large drawer now.

I've learned that hand tools are an important addition to a powertool shop and that quality tools make the difference. What I'm trying to teach myself, and this is hard, is to slow down and take my time. I've always worked quickly and I think that sometimes what I need to do is to not rush through a project, but slow down and work more on precision. My projects come out looking great but there are pieces and parts that could be better, probably no one knows this but me, but it does bother me. So now, for me, I want to slow down and take my time with each and every part of a project.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Albert Einstein

Stickley Footstool, Part 3

The Stickley footstool is finished and in place next to the extra large Morris chair. I finished it to match the chair and used matching fabric for the cushion. Pam was very happy when I bought it into the house and immediately curled up with her book in the chair.

One of the most rewarding things about being a woodworker is making high quality furniture for your home. I'm slowly filling my home and those of my friends with furniture that I've made. You can't find furniture like this in most stores and if you do you can't afford it. It gives me a huge amount of satisfaction to take rough boards and transform them into fine furniture.

As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it. - Mahatma Gandhi

Meditation Bench

This project is a meditation bench for my friend Jameela, its so a person can maintain a comfortable posture during extended mediation. I had no plan for this but I wanted an oriental feel so I added a cross stretcher with a slight arch and mitered ends at 10 degrees. After doing some research on the Internet I found that the seat should be angled at 10 degrees and the front of the bench should be between 6-7 inches. I had a nice curly maple board that was just long enough to get the seat and both legs out of in my stash. I cut the legs with a 80 degree angle on the top with the front 6 1/2 inches tall. I laid out for two through tenons in each leg and a notch for the mahogany cross stretcher. I cut a bevel on the top of the cross stretcher and cut notches to mate with legs.

I fit the cross stretcher in the legs and tried to visualize the best arch for the bench, I decided to start the arch on the outside of the miter and run it all the way across the stretcher.

I used an adjustable bow to lay out a pleasing looking arch and traced it, I cut it with the bandsaw and cleaned it up with a flexible sanding block.

The arched cross stretcher in place. I was very happy with the results. Now the hard part starts.

I didn't get any pictures of the process but I laid out the mortises using the tenons. I drilled out the waste and cleaned them up with some sharp chisels. Curly maple is a form of hard maple and its very difficult to cut and pare but if you take your time and are careful you can get good results. I eased the edges of the maple with an 1/8th inch round over bit but left the mahogany edges square.

I trimmed the tenons with a flushcut saw and cleaned them up with a block plane. I finished the top with a card scraper. I finished the piece with several coats of natural Danish oil and two coats of satin carnuba wax. I'll let the next few pictures speak for themselves.

Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering. Some suffer too much, others too little. - Buddha

Stickley Footstool, Part 2

I spent this weekend finishing up the Stickley Footstool, I decided that since it was just a single drawer that it would be faster and easier to hand cut the dovetails instead of setting up the Leigh jig for half blind and through dovetails. Well... I underestimated how difficult it would be to cut the half blind pins in quartsawn white oak. My first attempt turned out great, nice tight fit and everything, the second side however was sloppy, so I gave up for the afternoon on Friday and walked away.

Saturday morning I cut a fresh drawer side out of poplar and carefully lined up the pins and gave it a good whack with a mallet. This left a perfect impression of the pins on the tail board. I carefully cut out the tails and had a perfect fit, I may switch and use this method to begin with instead of cutting the tails and marking them on the pin board. I ran a groove around the bottom and inserted a 1/4 inch plywood bottom for the drawer.


From all the pictures I've found of the original the edges of the legs seem rounded over, so I installed a 1/8th inch quarter round bit in the router table and ran the leg sides and ends. I inserted 1/2 inch plywood into the grooves at the top and bottom and glued up the sides. Sunday I removed the drawer and footstool from the clamps. I trimmed the pins flush on the drawers with a low angle block plane and sanded everything smooth. Next comes the finish and some antique hardware that I picked up last winter in upstate NY. Instead of rapping the edge of the stool in leather and using tacks like the picture of the original I plan on upholstering a piece of plywood with 4 inch foam to fit inside the top.

"He has achieved success who has worked well, laughed often, and loved much." Elbert Hubbard

Limbert Fern Stand, Felicia's table

This nice little table was delivered to Felicia Day today and being the sweetheart that she is, she wasted no time in unpacking it while taking pictures and making up a funny little comic of it.
If you are at all into online gaming you might know her as the writer/producer/actress responsible for the award winning Webshow The Guild now in second season production. Or if you, like me, are a Joss Whedon fan, you might know her as Penny alongside Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, or as Potential Slayer Vi, in the final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Felicia is IMHO the most websavvy, online connected actress in Hollywood, she's in the top 50 of people followed on Twitter. Felicia also is in many comercials and tv shows and movies. Basically she's a very talented woman and a working actress, plus she's really cool and geeky.

She tweeted (its going to be a word soon like googled) that she was going to the New Media Expo and I knew that Marc and Nicole were going there so I asked Nicole to get a picture for me, which she did, Nicole is so awesome. Nicole helped me get in touch with Felicia and I told her I was making a Limbert Fern table for my blog and that I would like to send it to her is she was interested. Felicia wrote me back right away saying that it would fit right into her 1925 Spanish Colonial and to please send it.

I'm not usually someone that sends emails and stuff to celebrities but Felicia seemed so nice, and from reading her website and blog I saw that she reads the same books as I do, our politics are the same, and she likes old houses. I think though the thing that made me really think that I wanted to contact her was her blog post about having a dream about Reese Whiterspoon, if you've read it you'll understand, by the way Felicia, Reese has a house here in Charleston, if you come to town maybe we could go stalk her together.

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

Stickley Footstool, Part 1

NOTE: Please be aware that the picture to the left is of a reproduction made my Kevin Creedy, I had thought the picture was from an auction catalog, it was also a Limbert, not a Stickley. I stand corrected.

This project is based on Stickley's "Smoker's Footstool", I guess back in the day when Dad got home he'd want to sit in his Morris Chair and puff on his pipe, basically smelling up the house and exposing his kids to the dangers of second hand smoke. Luckily things have changed somewhat in the hundred years since its debut and hopefully Dad's aren't smoking in the house. So I'm going to rename this "Reader's Footstool" as the drawer is a good place to keep your book safe and at hand.

I started with one board of 8 inch wide 4/4 quartersawn white oak and one board of 8/4 quartersawn white oak. I cut two lengths 18 inches and two lengths 15 inches. I jointed and planed the 8/4 inch stock to 1 3/4 inches thick and ripped 4 legs 1 3/4 inches square. I then ripped one of the 18 inch pieces to 1 1/2 inch, 4 inches and 2 1/4 inches for the top rail, drawer front, and bottom rail.

If you zoom in on this image you can see the cabinet maker's triangle that keeps the woodgrain aligned, this will help me keep the grain on the drawer in place with the top and bottom rails.
You will also notice that I used a dado blade to cut 3/4 inch long, 3/8 inch thick tenons on the ends all the sides but not the drawer front.

I reset the dado blade to 1/2 inch and ran a dado 3/4 inches from the top and 1 3/4 inches from the bottom on all four sides that will later receive 1/2 inch plywood. I used a bow to draw a nice arch on the bottom of all the sides and cut them on the bandsaw, cleaning up the sawmarks on the spindle sander.

Sometimes its just faster and easier to use a handtool to cut the shoulder's of the tenons, I could have used the bandsaw but I've found that it tends to over cut and leave a notch in the board, so I prefer the gentleman's saw.

I layed out the mortises to leave me with a 1/2 inch of leg sticking out past the sides. After installing the 3/8th inch mortising chisel and squaring it to the fence I aligned the fence so that if I ran each leg outside face towards the fence they would all be aligned correctly. Remember that the drawer face isn't mortised the whole width of the side but just for the top and bottom rail.

With the mortises cleaned out a little hand fitting with a shoulder plane gives the tenons a perfect slip fit. Here is the first dry fit, the next step is to cut the plywood top and bottom, install drawer guides and make the drawer. This project will be the perfect companion for a Morris Chair or anytime you want to just kick back.

"No man is good enough to be another's master." - William Morris

Limbert Fern Stand, Felicia's table.

Here is the completed Limbert Fern Stand for my friend Felicia. Its all glued up and sanded and ready for the finishing to begin.

But before I start finsihing its time for a little branding, I like to put my logo in a place that doesn't show unless you really look, this one is under the top. My brand is heated up with a propane torch and tested on scrap pieces of oak, once its hot enough I carefully place it and press firmly, there is no second chance here.

My finish process for an authentic Arts and Crafts look isn't simple and it isn't fast, but it looks great compared to original period pieces and it really "pops" the ray flecks in the quartersawn white oak.

Sand piece to 150 grit and clean with tack rag or vacuum.

Wipe a good coat of dye on, for this piece I chose Transtint Medium Brown dye in water, be sure to cover all sides and keep dye from puddling in corners and at base. Leave to dry for at least 24 hours.
Lightly sand to remove raised grain with 220 grit, avoid oversanding especially at corners and edges.
Pad on a 1LB cut of amber shellac or sanding sealer.
Using a 320 grit sanding pad gently rub surface, clean with tack cloth or vacuum.

Apply Brown Mahagony Gel stain being careful to not cover too large of an area because once dry its very hard to wipe off. Once the gel starts to haze rub it off with a clean lint free cloth, I prefer old T-shirts. This gives you a warm rubbed in look. Let dry overnight.

Pad on 2-3 2LB cut coats of amber shellac, I tightly fold a square of T-shirt material, then soak it in the shellac and squeeze out excess, rub it in until it starts to drag then let dry. The coat of shellac should dry in 30 minutes or less. Repeat until you get the build you want.
Again, using 320 grit sanding pad gently rub surface, clean with a tack cloth or vacuum.
Take a few minutes to go over the whole piece with your clean hand, checking the surface for any rough areas or holidays.
Using a clean square of T-shirt rub in a thick coat of Watco Dark Liquid wax. Avoid plain or light colored waxes as these may leave white residue in the pores of the oak. When the wax is dry buff it out with a clean square of T-shirt.

Let the wax sit and "harden" for a few days then its ready to take in the house or in this case, ready to be shipped across country. Hope you enjoy the table Felicia, it should fit right in with your old house.

"True art expressed in its simplest formula is merely use made beautiful" - Charles Limbert

I met NORM!!!, oh yeah Marc and Kaleo too.

I wasn't going to do it, really I wasn't, but Nicole convinced me, "Look its not that long a line" she said.

I took a couple of days off from work this week and cashed in some hotel award points to go to the IWF this week in Atlanta. Seeing all the really cool machinery and tools was awesome, but the reason I went was to meet and hang out with two great friends that I've talked to and watched just about every weekday since I first met them a year and a half ago. Not growing up in the internet era its strange to have people in your life that you have never shaken hands with or hugged but still you feel close to. Of course many of you will know I'm talking about Marc and Nicole Spagnuolo, the creative team behind The Woodwhisperer. Two nicer people you will never encounter, I caught up with Nicole and Marc on Thursday at the Festool booth where Marc was demonstrating tools to a rapt crowd and Nicole was making sure the live webcam was up and running and chatting with the regulars in The Woodwhisperer chat room. Nicole greated me with a warm hug and almost right away turned to the mic on her laptop to announce my arrival to the chat room "Tree's here" she says, my screen name of course is TreefrogFurniture, better known in chat room shorthand as Tree. We stood around and talked, yes not chatted, but actuallly spoke to each other, while Marc answered questions to all the Festool lusters. Once the last straggler leaves Marc steps over from his little stage to shake my hand and say hi but then is almost immediately pulled away to answer another question. Those Festool guys keep him busy.

I kind of felt like they were busy at the Festool booth so I wondered around the exhibit hall the rest of the afternoon seeing what kind of cool free stuff I could pick up and stopping back in every so often to talk with Nicole and chat with my friends in the chatroom, I even tried to get into the webcam shot so they could see what I looked like finally. We were hoping to be able to catch dinner but the corporate guys had other plans and, after all, it is a work week for Marc. To tell the truth, I wasn't feeling my best and it all worked out for the best, I hit the couch in my hotel room, got some much needed rest and ordered Chinese. Friday morning we met at the Powermatic booth, well booth is too small a word for these things, think, football field. This seemed a much more layed back event for Marc and Nicole, kind of a meet and great instead of a product demo, giving us a better chance to hang out and talk. Many of you will recognize Kaleo Kala who got a chance to come at the last minute talking with Marc and Nicole.

We got the chance to walk over to the CNN center for lunch with a really cool rep from Jet Tools. After walking back over to the hall, did I mention how huge this place was, I again went on walk about and picked up a few more free shirts and at the Delta booth I won a precision router edge guide, luckily I have the router it goes on. I lucked out by walking up to the Delta product demo area just as Scott Phillips from The American Woodshop, was starting a demo of the all new Unisaw, it was me and a few other guys standing there while Scott gave a very in depth hands on demo of the saw. I won't try to describe all the things I saw at the show, I'll leave that to Marc, I'll just tell you that I walked about 20 miles around the show, new cool things are coming out in woodworking machinery, there are HUGE machines out there for production shops, and if you want to fill out your woodworking swag wardrobe, this is the place to do it.

Friday night Marc and Nicole hosted a meetup at a local sports bar and I met some of the nicest people all brought together from The Woodwhisperer site. I had a great time talking with two young couples that lived a few blocks from each other in Atlanta but didn't know it, we talked woodworking, tools, Olympics, and many other things. The food was good, the beer was cold, and the people were fantastic, thank you Marc and Nicole for hosting this event.

I have to say that Marc and Nicole are two of the nicest, most geniune, people that you'll ever want to meet. Nicole is just as cute and sweet as she seems in Marc's videos and on the chats. I can imagine that spending four days at a huge woodworking show isn't on many women's list of things they'd enjoy but she seemed to be having a great time everytime I saw her. She made sure that all the tech was up and running and took the webcam on walk about just so the viewers could get a look at the hall, all the while keeping up a running commentary. She's like your best friends hot little sister that was really smart, but could hang with the guys and probably kick your butt at any video game. Marc is just Marc, he's got the same sense of humor that you see on his videos but when its time, he puts on his game face and is all business about explaining the tools. Honestly, I'm not sure this guys owns a pair of long pants, at the Festool booth, all the corporate guys were in uniform, long dark pants, longsleeve matching Festool shirts, Marc, shorts, The WoodWhisperer t-shirt, five o'clock shadow at noon, its him, take of leave it. You meet him and you know you can hang out with this guy, and you can tell by talking with him for a few minutes that he know's his stuff and you'd like to spend some shop time with him too.

I had great time, I saw some machines I wanted, I got some great new t-shirts, I met some really cool people, and I got to spend some time with two very good friends. Oh yeah I met NORM!!!

"The things I make may be for others, but how I make them is for me."
— Tony Konovaloff

Limbert Fern Stand

This is a nice little fern table that is based on the Limbert #244 fern stand. I've seen a lot of pictures of reproductions but I haven't been able to track down a picture of the original. I do have a couple of Limbert catalogs but they are all drawn, no photos. So while the dimensions are correct I can't call this an accurate reproduction. I've made five of these before and its one of my favorite forms. I like the long sweeping legs and the subtle in curve at the bottom of the leg. The top and middle shelf are both 12 inches in diameter, the picture on the left has a top at 14 inches by request of the customer.

This is a nice quick little project it can be completed in a weekend, but of course, the finishing takes a few days due to drying times. You need some nicely figured Quartersawn White Oak that is at least 7 inches wide. I had previously made a template for this form that you see here. I cut 4 pieces of QSWO 28 inches long and traced the pattern making sure to line it up on a square side.

Before I cut the outlines on the bandsaw I had to run a 3/8 x3/8 inch rabbet along the straight edge, more on that later. With all the legs rough cut I used double sided turner's tape to hold the pattern to the leg. I learned the hard way not to try to cheap out and save tape by trying to tape it to the pattern and reuse it. The pattern shifted and I lost one leg on a previous build. I used a pattern routing bit on the router table to finish the shape on the legs.

This is why you run the rabbet on the legs, I call this joint the "crazy rabbet" its an elegant way to join all 4 legs. Popular Woodworking used this joint building a version of a Limbert #238 table.




Here are the legs dry fitted for the first time if the stock is straight and square and your cuts are true, you can put it together like this using the "crazy rabbet" without any clamps for a dry fit. I used the off cuts from the legs to glue up 2 blanks for the tops.

Once the glue has dried on the blanks I used a trammel to mark a 12 inch diameter circle then took them to the bandsaw and cut just proud of the line.





Placing a shop made circle cutting jig on my tablesaw and installing a 1/2 inch spiral cutting bit I adjusted the jig to 6 inches from the bit. I drilled a 1/4 inch hole into the center mark of the top and the shelf careful not to drill all the way through, and careful not to drill in from the best face. I placed the circle blank onto a 1/4 inch bolt that protrudes through the circle cutting jig, and adjusted the jig so that the bit was clear from the wood. I usually remember to cut a little closer to the line of the circle in one spot while at the bandsaw so that the bit can spin clear. I then carefully rotated the blank slowly around until complete, I then move the jig slightly closer and repeat until the circle it complete. This operation is tricky and if the bit catches the grain it can tear off a chunk or even more scary it can grab the blank and spin it. When I'm rotating the blank I keep my right hand pressing down to control it and carefully move it around with my left hand. I use the back of the table for this operation so I have a lot of table between me and the bit.

The final dry fit after sanding showing the rabbets, no pressure or clamps used here.






Another view of the bottom showing the shelf inserted. One thing I didn't show is that shelf has 4 cutouts to match the cutouts on the legs.

The final dry fit with the top placed on. A little glue is all it takes to complete the table, at which time I'll clamp it till it dries. The top is held on with a few figure 8 table irons, or if you want you can drill a 1/4 inch hole in the center of the top of the legs and use a dowel and a little glue, the top is small enough that wood movement shouldn't be a problem. This little table is great for a corner to hold a vase and flowers, or a fern if you really want....



"I would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to have things I am not able to appreciate." - Elbert Hubbard

Sometimes a River.

Sitting on a big rock looking down at the Colorado River as it runs past Moab, Utah, I put in my earbuds and find one of my favorite songs on my iPhone:

I was cleaning the ash from the fire
and putting the party away
helping out all of my lost friends
to see the light of day
I was feeling the wind through the windows
Sometimes it crashed through the wall
seems like it comes out of nowhere
there's no warning at all
chorus
sometimes a river
sometimes a river runs dry
sometimes a river
sometimes a river runs high
I was making my way through a movie
finding it hard to decide
sometimes it hits without warning
and turns me over inside
making a stab in the darkness
wearing a hole in the floor
suddenly everything changes
your not the same as before
sometimes a river
sometimes a river runs dry
sometimes a river
sometimes a river runs high
you danced in my dream in a white dress
I watched from the top of the stairs
I woke up looking to find you
but you were not there
17 hours of driving
but that's not a surprise
the worlds all heavy with traffic
they never were good at goodbyes
no we never were good at goodbyes
sometimes a river
sometimes a river runs dry
sometimes a river
sometimes a river runs high

By, The StringCheese Incident

Siting there taking it all in I thought about how the river is a metaphor for life, and how much I liked listening to this song while sitting next to the river watching the water flow around and over rocks. The water seems to move around and over the rocks effortlessly while to get up on this rock I had to fight gravity and the heat, but then I realized that the water wasn't fighting gravity but was being pulled along by it. While it seems like the rocks are permanent, the water wears them down grain by grain.

I wanted to create a piece of furniture that brings these concepts and memories into my home. I've seen tables with river rocks inlaid into them so that's an easy addition to the design. I've often thought that Curly Maple with the grain and the curl looks like water flowing, and I have some very nice Quartersawn White oak that's a nice mellow brown just like the terrain along the Colorado River.

The QSWO is 5/4 and the Maple is 4/4, instead of using an inlay or veneer I'm planning on cutting a wide dado on each side of the "river" and overlaying it on top of the Maple. I'll cut curves in the QSWO that will be the banks of the river and route a round over along it. I plan on carving a recess to hold the rocks so that it looks like they are sticking out of the water. The grain on the maple will represent the currents of the river and the curl the rapids. This is the concept put together in a small scale. The River will run between two banks. I can only hope that the design I have in my head can be be translated into wood.

sometimes a river,
sometimes a river runs dry.
sometimes a river,
sometimes a river runs high.

The StringCheese Incident