SUMMER CRAWLS...

From La Crosse to Belle Cote

















Offcuts of Khaya from the boat building days welcomed me home to my shop on the coast. I left the city behind, those garbage-strike-dogs-days of summer...
Timing you know, really is everything.

What better time or place to unwind and decompress from the year we just had. Of course 'we' in this context is referring to my hand tools and I.
I kicked open the door to my shop in late June to a dusty old table saw, stuffed to the nuts with sawdust and splinters-
"Did I leave it like this?"
It's hard to remember now, leaving last year in such a hurricane of circumstance and curiosity. Unanswered questions that were left to unfold, pages and pages (my book is finally being printed as I write this!)

Full circle now returning like the seasons or an ocean; the seafood alone...my God, I keep turning around expecting to see Santiago drifting into the harbour. Three different varieties of potatoes this year and lots of wild berries from the field. Fresh cherries picked from the limbs just footsteps from our door, our bellies are full while the company of good people and great friends are the real attractions around here.

Summer has crawled away like a quota-crab pushin' and lerchin' just to follow the tides. Down off the strand for another year passing- I'll think of him next week while I motor back to the city near the lakes; Upper Canada where more friends and projects are patient, in a shop full of Oak for my door project waiting.























Last week from Wisconsin, a parcel arrived with 100% recycled packaging...that in itself is worth a few words around here! The Bad Axe arrival, saws from a friend- seriously adding fuel to the burning fire of a perfect summer now crawling to close.

I'll fill you in on all of the details next week...

Thank you for waiting.

Last Minute Door Update

Cutting Tenons

















I was just dumping my digital camera getting ready for summer vacation and realised I had some pics of the tenons being sawn for the door project. I'm using my 14" Rip saw and my 12" carcass both by Lie Nielsen. Here is some of the progress.






















To begin a nice deep scribe line with my favourite marking gauge establishes the tenons width; in this case they're all 5/8" thick, 3" deep and the rails being cut here are just under 7" wide. The Quarter Sawn White Oak is hard and unforgiving so make sure you have sharp tools when working this kind of wood. I'll go back and forth over the pieces to get these lines as deep as the small cutter on the gauge will allow. The base lines are all established with my engineers square off of one reference edge and then one reference surface.

















I begin each cut with a small kerf at the far side of the piece and then slowly establish the straight line across the piece using the back heel of my saw plate. I can bear down and get a nice deep kerf established with this method of using the heel of the saw where the teeth remain the sharpest. Once the kerf is adequate I begin the sawing; I saw down until my back saw just about bottoms out and then I'll rotate the work piece in my tail vise and continue on from this opposite side.
















You'll notice in the video below I'll use my Ryoba to finish off the cut to the required depth. From here I get out my miter hook and another bench hook to support the Oak and cross cut to the shoulder line. Again I'll slowly begin the kerf using the heel of my saw plate and work my way down into the cut. Finish sawing with the work piece back in the tail vise and the Japanese pull saw to complete.

















I'll do all of the rails and moulions for the entire door before I mark the pieces to saw the haunches in the tenons. In the shot above you can see the first haunches are cut in the small moulion. It's one slow step at a time in the Unplugged Woodshop. Enjoy the process and try to split these lay out lines. The video below will show the procedure...as always, I was spinning some vinyl...Neil Young's, 'After the Gold Rush' one of his best and still one of my favourites. To get a good idea of the time line to complete this one cut you may notice by the end of the job the record needed to be turned over! Ahh the joys of vinyl. Cheers!

Taking a Break

Home to the Island...Cape Breton

















Over an ocean and over a sea
Beyond these great waters, oh what do I see?
I see the great mountains
Climb from the coastline
The hills of Cape Breton, this new home of mine
Oh they come from the countries all over the world
To hack at the forest, to plow the land down
Fishermen, farmers and sailors all come
To clear for the future this pioneer ground
We are an island, a rock in a stream
We are a people as proud as there's been
In soft summer breeze or in wild winter winds
The home of our hearts, Cape Breton

These words are taken from Kenzie MacNeils 'The Island'

Well it's been a busy few weeks around here and I'm getting through the door build. I have all of the mortise and tenons cut with the panels and mouldings to go. My original plan was to finish the door over the next week or two and then head East to Cape Breton for a much needed summer vacation. My client has informed me that they're doing some major basement renovations on their home and won't really be needing the door for at least the next two months so he suggested I leave when ever I can and finish the door when I return at the end of August. So with that, I'm putting the build on hold and heading back home to Cape Breton this weekend.
The photo above is looking down from the highlands towards Cheticamp, a small Acadian village a short drive from our home. We actually do all of our grocery shopping here and some of the spalted Maple I used in one of my book projects came from this area.
It's been a great year, the 13 projects I made, six which make up my book that'll be launched in November. Made by Hand, Furniture Projects from the Unplugged Woodshop for those that didn't know already. I've actually been doing alot of re-shoots and re-writes trying to make it as good as I can throughout this past month. I'm really looking forward to getting it out there and getting some feedback on the projects. Each book will included a free DVD titled 'A Beginners Guide to Hand Tool Essentials'
The book, as I understand it will be available in hardcover through most online book stores such as Amazon and the like. If you're interested I'll be offering some pre-orders here in the late summer/early fall, these will all be signed copies and include the DVD as well as a bonus music CD I recorded awhile back. It will also have a bonus project section offered only to pre-order customers. It's basically an extra chapter with a new design that didn't make it into the original text of the book. I'll keep you posted on the details.
As for the next few weeks I won't be blogging as often, being in a rural setting doing all of those summer time things we do up here as Canadians; fishing and swimming, hiking and drinking beer... it'll be rough getting to a computer to write! (not from all of the beer but from the lack of a high speed internet connection out there)
So with that I wanted to say thanks for all of the support and comments everyone has been leaving over the course of the winter book project and now into the spring and summer seasons. The door project will be completed when I get back for those who were interested in following the process. I'll keep you posted on the summer time festivities and will hopefully be announcing some other cool news and projects for the fall.
It'll be a buzz getting back home to the old boat shop full of my power tools...after the 'hand tool only' year I've had I'll probably go all power-tool-crazy and start making lots of dust and noise! I know I have an angle grinder and brand new carving disk back home that's never been used...maybe some sculpted seats in a slab of heavy Maple...something for around the camp fire perhaps? I'm also looking forward to seeing my timber frame all stacked and waiting to be worked on some more. I have quite a pile of maple and beech that should be pretty dry. This will get rough milled while I'm out there and make the trip back here to the city for future projects come the fall.
Like I said I'll do my best to keep everyone up to date on my projects-so with that, have a great summer and happy shavings.
Cheers and thanks again!

Woodworking in America

Registration is Now Open








Big news for anyone wishing to attend this years Woodworking in America Conference; registration is now open!

The scheduled events provide in-depth explorations of subjects important to woodworkers and are brought to you by two of the most trusted names in woodworking information—Popular Woodworking and Woodworking Magazine. Presented by leading experts in the fields of woodworking, tools and furniture, the Conference sessions are useful and informative (and also a ton of fun!) for woodworkers of all skill levels and interests. In addition, the Marketplace area lets you try out the newest woodworking tools, talk to their makers and find the right equipment for your workshop.

I hope to see you there!

Mark Harrell

aka ~ Bad Axe Tool works

















Here's another quick update from Mark at Technoprimitives. He recently sent me some new pics and an update on his back saws. I've been lucky to be able to correspond with him over this past year; to watch as he gears up to launch a new business is an exciting thing for sure. From the initial ideas of his logo and etchings to the spectacular medallions and environmentally friendly packaging I wonder what it takes to make this kind of leap of faith into a market that is really a niche to most. I've often thought about how Tom Lie Nielsen must have felt 25 years ago, when he first left the security of a day job to begin his own dream...a boat load of courage and a whole lotta love besides the sheer talent it takes to manufacture a top quality hand tool. Then to turn this ideas into a reality, a flourishing business-especially through this past year of economic uncertainties. If Marks saws are anything like the magic he puts back into the vintage hand saws he's been refurbishing these past few years then I really don't think he'll have any problems. Maybe I'll be blogging about him and all of his success with Bad Axe Tool Works in 25 years from now!
Stay tuned...

Chopping a Haunched Mortise

This is not Paul Simons Door

Well I'm busy as hell and goin' crazy like a bag of hammers...chopping out the mortises these last few days I don't have time for a full blog so I thought I'd post a video with a few minutes of real time working. The quality is 'Blair Witch' shaky and the audio track is my old record player in the corner...I was listening to Graceland-Paul Simon's wonderful album from way back when? How old am I now? This is one of the best parts of a hand tool shop, being able to work and listen to records. Bet you can't say that over the deafening drone of a table saw!
In this clip I'm chopping the haunched portion of the mortise using a massive Hirsch Mortise Chisel,(by the size of these things I can only assume they're manufactured in the magical land of Giants where everyone has hands like silver back gorillas.) Then I establish the depth of the haunched portion with my Veritas Large Router plane. I clean out the waste with a swan neck chisel from Henry Taylor in England and some paring with a large Japanese bench chisel. I think that covers it...sorry for the rushed post but I've gotta keep going on this.
Cheers.

Exterior Wooden Door Part Two

A Closer Look at Mortising using a Brace and Bit

I had a few comments from my last post and thought it would make sense to answer them here. Been busy this week so I apologise for the delay. To start off with, no...I won't be publishing the address of my clients home where this door is destined so you can do a 'drive by'...they may not think that's such a good idea! :) As for a template, I tried to get some shots of the one I made; sorry for the quality but with the low ceiling in the basement shop I can't get the entire template in one shot so I'll try to sketch a diagram for my next post. I basically just cut out a piece of luan to match the finished door size and then carefully drew to scale all of the elements of the finished piece...joinery, rails, stiles etc... I was asked about the process I've been using to cross cut the rails with a inadequate size back saw. I actually took a few approaches to this and will describe it here; for the bottom rail as well as the mid-locking rail I started the cut on the board edge to establish a square kerf on either side. I then proceeded to make two passes working in from each surface. This worked well and the edge kerfs gave a track for my back saw to follow. The upper rails are thinner in width so I just made the two surface cuts meeting somewhere in the center of the board. When I lay out these lines I'm careful to work off of only my reference face and edge to keep things as accurate as possible. Once the sawing is complete I'll use a large paring chisel when it comes time to square off the end; if I was working with thinner stock then this would be accomplished on my shooting board but for 1 3/4" stock I prefer a chisel to say a low angle block plane. (Just my personal preference-either way works.) I hope that explains the cross cut system I follow; I should say that I used my bench hook as well as my miter hook for these large timbers...you can see my set up in the first photo. I considered my saw bench and did a test cut with my panel saw but with my limited shop space and the nature of this Oak I had better results with my large Lie Nielsen back saw. (still waiting for the 'Bad Axes' to arrive...won't be soon enough!!) With everything cross cut, ripped and surface planed square I lay out the mortises. These will be 5/8" thick and range from 2 1/2" to 3" deep. They all have 1" deep by 1" wide haunches but will be later cut down when the door panels get introduced. The 3" ones are on the stiles and wider lower rails and the 2 1/2" for the top 5" rail. The upper window rail gets a relatively shallow 1" mortise. I actually started with that one to get into the feel of the Oak and get a rhythm for the work. I have a great old Millers Falls brace I cleaned up about 4 years ago and it's been my daily user ever since. It's a standard 6" sweep but I don't have any issues with this smaller size. A sharp, straight bit really helps as well and I'm using a vintage Irwin auger bit I purchased for a couple of dollars at a local antique dealer. It only has one spur and is a perfect size...9/16" so I'm left with a small amount of waste to clean off the inside cheeks of each 5/8" mortise after drilling. This is a good thing-I'd never want to use a bit the exact size of my finished mortise due to the slight tear out and human error involved in the process. Even after I clearly define a center mark to register my bit some holes seem to drift ever so slightly. I figure this is mainly due to fatigue and mind meandering while performing the task. A reader mentioned using a brace with a 10" sweep...I would love to find one sometime; I can only assume it would make this process a little less demanding on the arm muscles but again, my old Millers Falls seems to be up for the challenge. When starting out the hole I'll check for plumb with a small engineers square placed along side the bit. I'll slowly get into the wood fiber and check again on the opposite axis. Begin working down and stop frequently to remove the waste. I just blow this off and never have to back out the bit. I should also mention my elaborate system of depth gauge...the ball of blue tape around the bit is it...nothing could be simpler. I should probably drill out a long piece of wood and cut it to length again placing it on the bit while I drill...this would indeed result in more accurate depths but these mortises don't have to be exact. Close to about 1/32" but not exact. It's only end grain meeting down there so as long as they're deep enough I don't worry too much.
The following is a quick clip of my process...one thing to notice is which hand I'm using where. I'm right handed so this goes at the top of the brace; I think the natural tendency would be to use your stronger arm for the turning motion but this is inaccurate. Use your leading hand to hold the brace secure and square and your other hand to turn. A bit of practice and you'll be reaching for the 'ol brace all of the time.

"Unplugg the drill and wrap your hand around the words of working man..."