Twins!

I have finally finished the twin to the shaker end table I have previously built and posted about here.  The first table is on the left and the new one on the right.

The pair of tables look great in my living room and I am very pleased with how they turned out.

One change I made is the finishing schedule.  On the original I did three coats of satin arm-r-seal poly on the whole project.  But after a few months of use I was worried the three coats might not be enough on the top. So on the new table I did three coats on the whole project and a total of six coats on just the top.  I liked this change so much I added three coats to the original table as well so that one also has a total of six coats on top.

A Visit to Winterthur

Over the summer the family and I headed out to Winterthur.  WInterthur is the historic home of the Dupont fmaily which has gardens and a museum.  They have a decent amoutn of furniture on exhibit and two nice woodworking exhibits, one of which is the Dominy shop.  The Dominy shop is an intact woodworking shop that was discovered undisturbed since the 1900's.  For woodworking this is a great place to visit.

This display is a full tool chest including the chest and its contents.

These are two furniture examples that were displayed with the tool chest, I cannot recall if they related.

These are two 17th century carved pieces.

The next display we looked at was the Dominy shop.  It is very cool to see a period shop fully setup as it would have been at the time.

These are some patterns used in chair making.

 Here were some really nice pieces that actually came out of the Dominy shop.

This was a very fun trip that had a good bit of woodworking history.  There is much more to see at Winterthur than the woodworking exhibits, but of course being a woodworker I found these the most interesting.

Shaker End Table

This is my most recent project.  It is a shaker style end table based on the one shown in How to Build Shaker Furniture by Tom Moser.  I altered the dimensions so that the top is larger at 22"x22" and the carcass enlarged proportionally.  The height is also shortened to 22".

As you can see I also changed the drawer front to curly maple and I used a satin nickel knob rather than a turned cherry knob.

The primary wood is cherry, the drawer front is curly maple, the drawer sides and back are poplar and the drawer bottom is pine.

For the finish I started with 1 coat of tung oil, followed by two coats of garnet shellac.  Finally, I coated it with 3 coats of General Arm-r-Seal satin.

I am very pleased with the way this has turned out, so much so I am currently working on this tables twin.

Building a Sawbench

I needed a saw bench in my shop that worked.  So last weekend I ripped apart my existing saw bench and used that material and some other 2x4's from the home store to build Chris Schwarz's saw bench shown here.  I liked the finished product, it is pretty stable, heavy enough and a good height.  So this weekend I decided to build another to match so I have a pair of these.  Having a pair will be nice when breaking down long boards.

First few words about my old saw bench.  It was just poorly designed, by me.  It was about 4 ft long and the top consisted of 2 2x6 boards side by side with about 3/4" space between them.  I thought this would be useful for doing ripping, in reality I never used it for that, it was just awkward to use it that way.  Plus, it was too long and too wide.  But all of these items I could have dealt with and just made the next one better, but this bench also had a fatal flaw, it was unstable.  I didn't splay the legs, so it was prone to tipping.  Oh well, I know better now.  I wish I had a picture so you could see what not to do with your saw bench.

Now before I start with the build along portion I want to just go over the items I did a little different from Schwarz's plan.  I didn't dress any of the 2 by material for this, I just used it as I got it from the store.  I could have dressed these boards and this would have turned out a little nicer, but the truth is these are pretty utilitarian pieces and I would expect them to get chewed up eventually, so to me it wasn't worth the effort.  So when I looked at Schwarz's plan I had to adjust the joint measurements for the widths of these boards.  One other thing I did differently, is I used no glue.  Sure I could have, it might have been sturdier, but I just nailed it together with 2 1/2" wire finish nails, and these seems pretty sturdy so far.

The first step is to cut all of the pieces to length.  I used a 2x6 for the top so it ends up 5 1/2" instead of 5" wide.  Here is everything cut and ready sitting on the exiting saw bench.

Next, I marked out the joints for the legs to the top.  First, I cut the 10 degree shoulder at the bench hook.

Then I cut the the face of the joint also at a 10 degree angle.  This is the same as cutting a tenon. I cut it half way from one side then flip the board over and finish the cut from the other side.

Next I nail all four of the legs on.  I'm using 2 1/2" wire finish nails for this project.

Next I cut the joinery for the two short leg supports.  These are basically cut the same way as the  joints shown above.  Then I nail those on.  Then I cut the notches in the long stretcher to attach to the short leg supports.  I toe nail these into the short supports.

Finally, I flip the bench over and plane the tops of the legs flush with the top using a fore plane.  Here is the pair of saw benches.  

All in all maybe 2 hours elapsed to build this one, the first one took a little longer.  These benches will be nice addition to the shop.

Resawing Boards

For a doll bed I am making I need to resaw some 1 inch thick boards in half so I can make the bottom. These should finish to about 3/8 or just a hair thicker if my sawing is good.

To resaw the boards first I mark the center of the board all the way around so I have a mark to follow.  I use a marking gauge and then go over my line with pencil so its easier to see.  

I then clamped them in my leg vise and angled them so that I am sawing on the diagonal.  Here is the first board starting to be sawn.

The next step would be to flip the board around and saw at the other side to form a triangle, and continue in this way until you need to flip the board over and start on the bottom side.

I apply so wax to the saw periodically to keep it running smooth.  However, sometimes the board will cause the saw to bind a little in the kerf when you have the full saw plate buried in the board, in that case I add a wedge in the kerf.

I had to resaw 3 boards about the size of this one maybe 8" x 24".  And here is the finished product.

The saw marks won't be too bad to clean up on these with a fore plane.

When resawing boards with a hand saw you must take care to follow your lines on both sides of the board, this many times means stop sawing and check your progress frequently.  When you get off a small amount is fixable and a large amount could ruin the piece.  The other part that requires extra care is getting your saw kerfs to meet when you are flipping the board to saw the different corners.  When these kerfs don't meet up it is tough to fix without losing some thickness from the finished pieces.  Getting the kerfs to meet up every time takes some practice.  As you can see above mine weren't perfect, but this is good enough.

All in all it took about 15 minutes from beginning to end, this include measuring/marking the center and stopping to take a few photos.