This coming weekend I'm scheduled to demonstrate handtool use at Overland Tools in Kansas City. This is part of a membership drive for the Kansas City Woodworkers' Guild.

I decided to make a simple picture frame from some air dried walnut I recently acquired. It is rough cut walnut and has been setting around for some 20 years. Unfortunately when they milled it they were a bit stingy on the thickness so most pieces are closer to 3/4 in the rough state. A few are a robust 4/4 though. The price was right no matter what the thickness.

Anyway, did the flattening and thicknessing by hand. However to make my life easier in the long run I used my power planer as a thicknessing gauge with two very light passes. And because I'm still not a great sawyer when it comes to long rip cuts I opted to use the table saw to help me conserve my material a bit. But all the final dimentioning for width will be by hand.

The finished frame will be 19-1/2 x 23-1/2 and just about 15/16 thick. I'll add a bead around the outside edge with a Stanley #45 and the #45 will make the glass rabbet too. The miters will be cut by hand in a home-made miter box and then trued up on a shooting board.

Tonight, after finishing up the milling of the stock I made the miter box. That was all hand work. Two long rips and some planing to make the bottom, fence and cleat. Then carefully mark out for the left and right miters and just for good measure, a 90 slot too. I'll use the same saw at the demos I used for kerfing the miter box.

Here's the stack of rough walnut. A few boards on top are 4/4 while most are 7/8 or even 3/4.


And a trashcan full of shavings from the initial stock prep.


And three sticks of walnut ready to go.


The miter box is pretty straight forward, the front fence/cleat holds it to the bench and the back fence references the work. Even used a few cut-nails to hold the fence and cleat on this one.


The test cut on another scrap of pine is pretty darn close to 45 degrees so there won't be much truing needed on the shooting board.




Left to do before the weekend is to touch up the jointer and smooting planes along with the beading blade I'll need in the #45 and rebuild my sticking board because the one I made about 6 months ago for a similar frame in cherry has long since been dismantled and its parts recycled for other jigs or test pieces.


Here is the cherry frame I made about 6 months ago in a similar fashion. One of these days I'll get around to cutting glass for it!



The corners are splined with cherry inserts. I plan to spline the walnut version with walnut. The finish on cherry frame is just BLO with wax over the top. Probably the same for the walnut frame once it's done.

RW, Nicely done. I really like the cherry and the profile. Are you going to put a picture of a penquin in the frame?

The cherry frame was (is) intended for some artwork sent to me by my 3 year old nephew. I should request a penguin motif for use in the walnut frame...

Very nicely done RW.

Isn't it amazing how using mostly all handtools, tends to take you away from it all and make time just melt away. Plus you come away very satisfied with your work.

Tonight was sticking board night. This is not to be confused with the much more popular pot sticker night.

Cross cut a wide pine board to about 3' then rip off a 2" strip. Clean up the sawn edges and fix the fence at just under 2" from the edge of the board. Add a screw at the far end to act as the end stop and done.

Quick test with some scrap pine and the #24 blade in the MonkeyWard 45.

The blade needs some touch up from 6 months ago. While the plane is in near mint condition, unfortunately the blades were stored in their cardboard box and it got wet before I acquired the plane. So nearly all the blades have some degree of pitting. In the case of this beading blade it is mostly confined to the business end. A quick touch up with some 800 or 1000 wrapped around a dowel followed by a hone on a bit of folded leather and it will be just fine again. Minimal tear out in the pine but it felt like it should be cutting better.




One could use the end-vice for holding the stock but with multiple pieces to work a sticking board is a better idea. Just clamp in the appliance and suddenly gravity and friction are your clamping buddies to hold the workpiece.

And remember, your hands have different jobs to do. Right hand on the plane tote, pushing forward only, no downward force. Left hand on the fence/skate and pressing the fence into the workpiece. No downward force or forward force for the left hand. A good warm up exercise is to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time.

I've been meaning to follow up on this post. The demos went well, lots of people asking lots of questions. Even my #45 survived being knocked off a bench to the ground with mo more damage than a little dent in the corner of the wood fence (which I need to replace anyway).

Haven't got the frame done, need to shoot the miters but off the saw using the freshly made miter box, they closed up pretty well as you can see from the photo.

Maybe in another month I'll get to the shooting and glue this thing together!

(Didn't feel like opening up the editing software to fix the flash vs. no flash color shifts. Meh.)

Nice job

Looks good and sounds like you had fun. I am in the market for a 45 to fix up with my kids, always a good time to teach and learn. Thanks for posting and all the pics.

There are plenty of 45's and all the bits and pieces out there. If you are using eBay, be patient and don't overbid. There will be another along shortly.

Then learn to sharpen the blades and be patient with the gizmo. It does some things very well, others it does OK and still others shouldn't be attempted.