hand tools 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!

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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.

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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!

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The Step Stool

August 25, 2016December 18, 2016
by Tim

There were a few things I wanted to accomplish with this project and I found a perfect design in an old Popular Woodworking book by Glen Huey. My daughter is just about 18 months old now and loves to ‘help’ out in the kitchen, but isn’t quite tall enough to reach the sink or counter, so she was in need of a step stool. We also encourage her to read her books or play with dolls when we’re preparing for dinner, so thought she may enjoy a place to sit when she’s not helping. Finally, I just installed some 42″ cabinets and the top shelves are too high for my wife and I to reach, so ideally we are in need of a step stool as well. This nice little step stool converts into a cute toddler bench, perfect for small children wanting to help in the kitchen.

I used all hand tools for this little project and it turned out quite nice. This is a nice short project that allowed me to practice some basic hand tool skills and use up some scrap wood. You can take a look at the build process here:

The wood used is all cherry finished with a coat of boiled linseed oil and a few coats of shellac. I’m using these beautiful wrought heads nails from Tremont to hold everything together, but you could use anything you’d like (the plans call for plugged screws). I also found some decorative carriage bolts for the ‘axle’.

It works really well actually. My daughter loves flipping the step up and down and uses it as both a bench and step stool. She’s still a little small to reach everything on the counter, but she can at least see what’s going on up there and put some things in the sink. She definitely knows that it’s her piece of furniture, so my wife and I have trouble using it when she’s around, but I think it serves it’s purpose very well and I can see it being in use for a long time.

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Packing Box – Complete!

June 4, 2015January 23, 2017
by Tim

The packing box is complete! I’m really happy with the way it came out. Have a look at some pictures of it below. It’s going to be used as a toy chest, so figured I’d throw some pictures of it in use too!

This project was following Thomas, from Lost Art Press’ “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker,” as he makes his first project. I went through pretty much the exact steps that he does during the construction (I don’t have a birdcage awl and I glued my panel, but other than that it was identical) process, using only a handful of basic hand tools:

This was an interesting project for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s obviously a simple project, so it was actually a challenge to slow down and focus. Once I realized that I wasn’t in a hurry to have a completed project, I was able to focus on the construction and all the little details that I would have missed or glossed over otherwise. I’ve never taken the time to use a marking gauge to lay out my nails or screws before, but I did on this box, and the result is great.

Secondly, I don’t think that I’ve ever followed someones construction directions quite so closely before. If I was just given the plan for this box I probably would have constructed it differently and would have been happy about trying to figure out how to do something for myself. However, following Thomas’ directions forced me to do things a little differently, so as much as these are basic things, it just pushed me out of my comfort level just a little bit.

I love the old school look of this box. It looks like it should be used for TNT, or something from ACME (appropriate to use it as a toy box!). I really want to make a couple more of these to use them as storage in the shop. Maybe with a few Dharma Initiative logos on the side (for all the Lost fans)!