Day 1: Monday, February 22, 2010

When we were visiting our son, daughter-in-law and eldest granddaughter for Christmas, DIL asked me to build her a small cubby type cabinet to house her scrap booking materials. Needless to say, I agreed.

Her instructions were:
1. Make it anyway you want, it doesnt have to be pretty
2. Use cheap wood, I'm just going to paint it.
3. The cubbies have to be at least 12" wide by 12" deep to hold her colored scrap booking paper, and
4. If you can, make it so that it can be wall hung or sit on a shelf.

I asked: Would you like it to have drawers for pencils, stencils, scissors, etc?

She replied: Yes, but only one that goes all the way across the cabinet.

Since I finished my last project yesterday, I figured, there is no better time than now to get started on the next one. A trip to HD and Lowes looking for 'cheap' wood proved to me that all they carry is cheap wood and it's way overpriced. So, I came home and dug through my wood pile.

There I found a 108" long x 21" wide by 1" to 1-1/8" thick piece of Sapele and a 36" by 7" x 1.5" piece of tiger maple and a couple of pieces of curly Sapele wide enough and long enough for drawer fronts. I have plenty of hard maple laying about that can be used for the drawer body and bottom. Any way, here are a few pics of the materials with the rough surfaces removed.

I figure I can make the case out of the sapele and the drawer front out of the figured maple. I will use my 'down time' in Boston to work up the design. Hopefully Neil, Tommy, Justin, Rick Scott and Eli can give me some good ideas

FYI This project is my "practice" run before building the Tool Box.

Wish me luck.

Bruce

Update: DIL (Ana) came home. She likes the idea BUT, she would rather that I use the curly sapele for the drawer fronts instead of the curly maple. I will post a pic of the curly sapele a little later.

Day 2, March 5, 2010 Update:

After a great trip to Boston and a hard week at work, I left work early today to come home and get a quick workout with my hand planes. The wavey sapele for the drawer fronts needed flattening. After about an hour it was pretty flat, but still needs more smoothing.

Process:
1. Mark the surface with pencil lines

2. Start rough rough cutting with my 606 bedrock, making diagonal then cross cuts.




3. Joint the board with my 608 and check for low spots with a straight edge. Came out pretty good.

4. Make a pass lengthwise with the 4.5 HAF Smoother... Just made one, it needs more. Here it is with a rub of Mineral Spirts.


5. Gather up the plane shavings then clean and put away my planes. Here's the small pile of shavings...

Given the time tomorrow, I will make some more passes with the LN4.5.

This is going to be a fun project.

Bruce

Bruce,
Nice stuff. I am sure you are just like me right now. Your mind is filled with things to do and attempt to try after that little trip up north. Keep the updates coming.

Hey Bruce.......its about time you got back into the shop although it took me until Wed to feel rested.

That looks like real pretty wood. That one board shows that dark veiny swirl. With the recession, I've been able to purchase wood from guys resonably priced. Probably have more solid lumber on hand then I've had in the past 15 years. I do have some of the sapele you are planing so I'm curious what the final finish will look like.

N

Day 3, March 6, 2010; Update:

It's a beautiful clear cool dry morning here in Florida. No better climate for a good work out. I've spent a good bit of the morning hand planing my Sapele plank for the cubby. It will probably take me a few days.

Here's what I started with.

After about 20 minutes with my 606 I managed to take off some of the saw mill marks, but not many. I'm being very cautious so as to not tear out any pretty grain that I hope is hiding under the dark surface.

After 30 more minutes, I made a little more progress. This board looked flat, but it's not.

After taking a breakfast break, I went back at it. After another 45 minutes or so, the board looked at me and I smiled. Hidden treasures are revealing themselves.
Here's the long view. I probably have at least another hour with the 606 before I pull out the 608 to joint this surface.


Do you like plane shavings as much as I do? Well, if the answer is yes, lust over these:

One thing I know now is that I am woefully out of shape. Yes, my hands and arms are tired.

Hopefully, I will be able to get back to it later this afternoon. I have to remove at least another 1/8" to remove what appears to be nail head dents that run the full length of the board.
Enjoy your weekend.

Bruce

DAY 4, March 7, 2010 UPDATE:

Got home from work and decided to attack the plank one more time to remove the saw marks and other machine impressions (looked like nail head dents).

Here's where I left off yesterday. Still need to hit the low spot in the center and towards the far end.


Next it was time to pull out the 608 and start to really flatten that top from end to end.

Not sure yet if it's a bad thing to do, but I attacked this part of the job by planing across the width of the board along its entire 9 foot length. The 608 slid through it pretty well. Needless to say, I piled up a mess of shavings.

Sure did make a nice pile of them.

After cleaning them all up, I did a flattness check using the edge of the 608. FYI, the bright sun is directly behind the plane. Other than at the ends of the board, there were no light leaks... Woohoo.



Tommorrow I will attack it some more with the LN4.5 Smoother. I'm hoping that after some smoothing, the 'waves of grains' will really pop. Keep your fingers crossed and away from moving blades.


Have a great week.

Bruce

DAY 5 Update: Saturday, March 13, 2010:

After spending about an hour touching up the plank with my jointer plane, I called a friend and asked him to come over to help me rip it to a rough width. Shortly thereafter he arrived and gave me a hand. The 6" strip we ripped off will be used as the horizontal partition above the drawer. Then, using a cross cut sled, I sequentially cut off chunks of the board for the left end, top, right end, and bottombottom.

I then went over each chunk with my jointer and smoother before passing them through the planer. The chunks I cut to rough length for horizontal partition were passed over the jointer and then run through the planer. All the pieces are stacked and I will let them acclimate for a few days before I do any more work.

DAY 6 UPDATE, 14 MARCH 2010:

Well I went out into the shop this morning and noticed that the night shift didn't show up. After a little clean up it was time to make an attempt at spring jointing the stock for the bottom of the cubby. My first attempt was less than adequate. My joint gaps were on the ends and not in the middle. Attempt #2 was better. Managed to create gap of a heavy 32nd in the center, about a 64th a quarter of the way in from the ends, and the last few inches of the ends were light tight. After brushing on some glue to the board edges, I used one clamp to pull it all together, then let it sit for a few hours. Here's how it came out.. The edge jointed boards will be used for the bottom of Ana's cubby.

While the glue was drying I took the time to do some more clean up on the side, top, and mid section materials. They look really good wiped down with mineral spirits. There were re-stickered and I will let them sit for a couple of more days before I cut them to finished size and lay out all the DT pins. .

Thanks for looking.

Bruce

Day 7 Update, March 15, 2010:

After letting the glue dry for 24 hours, I cleaned up the joint seams with my block plane and gave it a quick pass with 120 grit paper. This is how my spring joints came out. This pic was taken after the wood was splashed with some mineral spirits.



After receiving a couple of PMs from our friends here, I decided to listen and allow the stock to acclimate at least until this weekend.

This piece will be the bottom of the box, so I am not too concerned about cleaning up any hand plane marks on either face. Neither of them will be seen.


Bruce

Day 7 Update, March 15, 2010: Part II

I think it was John Wayne who said "If you are going to be stupid, you better be tough."

Well, I am stupid and not tough.

Fortunately, I am resourceful.

While I was out in the shop today I realized that I misscut the stock for the top of the cuddy. It's just a wee bit short of my original design concept. Since there is no feasible way to STRETCH wood, my recovery plan is to build the cubby with half-blind DT's vs through DT's and to use a thinner vertical divider. That should enable me to make each of the paper trays wide enough to work and still allow me to use the materials I prepared.

I will let you know how things work out. Wish me luck.

Bruce

Day 8 Update: 23 March 2010..

Eli and jlS.. thanks for the SU7 help. Here is my first attempt at using it. It's a pretty good renditing of my idea for Ana's scrap booking cubby.



Anyway, after letting my wood acclimate for a weeks, I did finish rip it and then do some final smoothing. Here's a snap that wifey took of me actually working in the shop.... She normally does not come in when I have power tools running....

It's 4:10 AM and I'm off to work.. See you all in about 13 hours....

Bruce

Good pics.

You allow your wife to come into your shop?!?!? What's that about! That's our space.

Good fix! Switching to half-blinds is very clever and can literally never be noticed as a mistake. That's a real "design opportunity."

Eli

Barry,

My normal practice is to TURN OFF all of my power tools when she enters the shop. WE had an event once when she "distracted" me while I was using an overhead router. It took the tips off of 3 fingers on my right hand. Fortunately, it all grew back. Still it left an impression. And to be candid. It was MY FAULT for allowing it to happen.

Bruce,
I'm sure you figured out I was busting your chops about the Boss coming in the shop. To be honset the wife and I have a clear understanding when the tools are running don't bust through the door and ask for something. She's pretty good at it.

Of course, what started this whole understanding wasn't. she came rolling into the garage when I was doing something, i can't remember if I had a tool running or not, she scared the crap outta me. I fussed her out. up one side and down the other. needless to say it worked.

Good to hear your fingers didn't get taken off. I bet that opened her eyes (along with yours) about the dangers in the shop.

nice thread Bruce...

Yeah, I knew you were busting my chops.....and yes I laughed.

Bruce

Thanks Tommy. As you might have guessed, I took 'Design License' to modify the tool box plans for Ana's cubby. In reality this project is giving me practice on skills and techniques that should make my tool box build easier when I get to it in June.

Bruce

UPDATE: March 27, 2010: It's been a slow week on the cubby, but I have made some progress. Thanks to some help with SketchUp, I was able to figure out my 'final' dimensions. This morning when I got home from work I figured on firing up the Table Saw and cross cutting the side pieces to final length. Well, I tried, but the TS motor would not start. Finally, after a few hours of trouble shooting my electrical system, I discovered the problem. MURPHY RULES!

Having had problems with the electrical extension cord, I checked it first. When I put my DVM to it, one of the 'hot' poles was not energized. That led me to performing a 'continuity check' on the extension cord. After a litte tightening of the female end contacts, I put it together and tested it out. Still no power to the saw. My next step was to check the switch on the TS... I found one loose wire in the switch and tightened it, reassembled the switch and tried to run the saw again. Still no "start". Ok.. now it was time to check the power to the wall outlet that I plug the extension cord into. Found that it had one lead with no juice. Of course, I had to take it out of the wall to test it. (MY DVM probes were not long enough to get down into the plug itself). That made me go check the breaker. It operated fine, but sure enough, one pole on the breaker was at 0 Volts. The other was 120V. So, I opened the main breaker to that panel, did a Zero Voltage check, then pulled out the breaker and cleaned it up. I also cleaned up the breaker box bus bar the breaker connects to. After reassembly of everything I tested the saw again... HUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMM. 3 hours to test and fix the power. 2 minutes to cut the wood. Now that everyting is cut to size, I will take some time to lay out my DT Pins this afternoon. Laters guys.

Quick question. Wouldn't it be better to chop the plank up into rough size pieces first and then flatten each piece individually? I would think that flattening the entire plank first then ripping and/or cross cutting off pieces would release so much tension in a board that wide that it would render your initial flattening useless. Also, cutting parts to rough size (+1/2" W, +1"L, +1/4" T) first would have maybe precluded the mistake of cutting parts to finish length too short. I'm not being critical of your efforts, I applaud your efforts and your ability with a hand plane. Just presenting a different view. ?

Peter,

The plank was too wide to flatten on my 6" jointer before sending it through my planer. Hence, I used my hand planes to flatten one side. Then, with the help of a good friend, I cross cut the sections to rough length and passed them through my 15" Jet planer to mill them close to the final thickness. After letting them acclimate, I gave them a few more passes through the planer, then finished them off with my LN #4.5 HAF Smoother and card scrapers.

FYI, I actually enjoy the quiet exercise of hand planing wood. It's about the only real exercise I get these days....

Bruce

Nice work Bruce. I figured you didn't have a large capacity jointer and that was why you took the route you took. I just meant, Take the rough plank, then cut out all of the parts to rough size from it. You could use a band saw or a circular saw. This would get it down to parts of a manageable size. Then flatten and plane down to 1/8" to 3/16" over "finish" or desired thickness. Sticker up the parts and allow them to acclimate. Then re-flatten and plane down to finish thickness. Anyway you got there and I guess that is all that matters, no sense in beating a dead horse. The above procedural order is what Lance taught us at NBSS and it really assures you are working with parts that are as flat as they are going to get. And you are right, planeing by hand is absolutely one of the true joys of woodworking. Being able to get a board flat by hand takes careful analysis, persistence and skill. It also shows a great passion for the craft. Peter

UPDATE: April 14

Well guys, it's been a slow haul here lately. Working a 5 AM to 630 PM shift 7 days a week has pretty much kept me out of the shop. However, last night I did manage to rough cut out the pin waste on one end of one side piece. Hopefully tonight when I get home from work I will have the energy to do the other end.

work safe rat, working tired is good way to get hurt.

UPDATE: May 24th... Well, it's been almost 6 weeks since I got some time to play in the shop. Yesterday I had a few hours off, so I went out and cleaned up the pins on the sides pieces of the cubby. Sharp chisels and the paring blocks really made the job easier. I won't get back to it for about another week when I'm on vacation. When I do, my next task is to lay out the tails and cut them.

Rat