Hemlocked

£ 4600

Reclaimed Hemlock planks and planing beam mock-up.

These reclaimed planks of Hemlock were once part of the Queens Wharf here in Toronto, Ontario.
The original structure was built in 1833 and cost then, the town of York about £ 4600. Incredible.
Named for Queen Victoria, it stood for generations until quite literally, the city landscape grew up and out of the shore line itself, leaching out into the shallows of Lake Ontario until the wharf all but disappeared through time.
In 2006 while digging a massive sub-structure development, a graveyard of these precious beams were unearthed, dismantled and eventually salvaged. Perfectly ‘pickled’ due to the minerals found in the shore line soil.
Grey and green hues with wonderful old growth rings and grains.  What an honor and privilege to work with this truly unique material. Over the past four days I’ve managed to finally make some shavings and wanted to fill you in on my progress.
This new design will be my attempt to reflect the story of this Southern Ontario shore line while capturing the modern, urban silhouette that only can be Toronto. A truly unique opportunity to create a truly unique piece of furniture.
The cabinet once complete will be displayed here in down town Toronto and will be available for sale. Details to follow.
Here are some quick pics from the week.
cheers!

Straightening the grain.

panels glued

side panel

between the lines

coopered door

Two by two they're glued...

monday morning

times a tickin'
 

When your weekend begins in Utopia, ( seriously, have a look for yourself )
and ends in a Fathers day on Sunday, you’ll find that life is good indeed.
But man if an extra hour would fall my way this week I’d be grateful.
Sometimes Monday comes too quickly and I’m into the wood shavings again with the old salvaged elm 8″ x 8″.

Winding it Out.

What a difference you’ll find working with old growth wood.

So much heavier and denser- I think of it as the real McCoy in a harvested tree from a hundred and then some years ago!

Sounds like a tune eh?

; )
The elm has been downstairs all week in the wood shop and it seems to be getting along quite well with its new neighbor, namely the 2″ x 8″ quarter sawn white oak.
They’ll be working with one another for hopefully the next few hundred years.
In other wood shop news I’ve been drawing a hell of a lot lately and the pencils are shortening at a rapid rate.

So much to do in June I must run now…cheers!

Scribe Lines.

A Toolchest from Estonia

when form and function meet

I received a letter from Tõnis Arjus in Estonia this past week and included were these great shots of his new tool chest.
I absolutely love what Tõnis did with the design. It looks like he took some of the aesthetic elements of my Cabinetmakers Toolchest and mixed it with the size and storage options of my widow maker with drawers, tills and a deep lid to house some hand saws. Excellent work Tõnis and thanks for sharing.
Here are some of his comments:
Hi Tom,
I’m writing from far away Estonia and sending your way some pictures of my version of a toolbox. I was inspired by your design but reconstructed it to satisfy my needs… I added a drawer, two tills hanging above my planes and also a deep enough cover to place some saws. I still have some details to make, like the saw and chisel holders… I used American oak and local birch. I really like how similar in color the birch’s end grain and oak are. The finish is teak oil and wax, giving it an extra silky touch.


I started woodworking in January, setting up an extra space I found in the basement of our apartment building.
The goal has also been to use hand tools only, mostly because I needed some analogue, smaller scale work to be done, to balance my everyday job as an architect….Y
ou can see my first two tables along with my latest architecture stuff here on my blog: www.tonisarjus.wordpress.com
Cheers and thanks,
Tõnis Arjus

Cross Cuts

so yeah, the timber…
Canadian Salvaged Timber to my own back yard.
two cross cuts, no big deal, what? 20 minutes work…make it 35.
I wasn’t doing anything anyway.
; )
happy Bang 7 ~ peace out.

TIMBER

CANADIAN SALVAGED TIMBER


Inner city lumberjacks?
Purveyors of history using wood as their medium?
Sure, that sounds about right and will suffice as an introduction for now.
I’m sure I’ll be mentioning them more often now that I finally found them and stopped in !
If you frequent the King st. West, Lee Valley Tools store here in down town Toronto, ‘my local’ if you would, then maybe you’ve noticed a sandwich board on occasion out front on the side walk?
It says something like ‘timber and slabs for sale’ and has a picture of some seriously large pieces of wood along with a map to the location of this reclaimed wood shop.
Well, to make a short story longer, every time I noticed the sandwich board would be a day when I was too busy to get somewhere else!
I’m happy to say I finally found the time to visit this inner-city mecca for salvaged wood here in Toronto.
Canadian Salvaged Timber I say it’s damn good to meet you~
Finally, a convenient location where the sky is litterally the limit for salvaged and reclaimed material.
‘Every stick has a story‘ and if that’s not their motto then it should be ! ; )

I picked up some 8″ x 8″ elm that came out of an old timber barn here in Southern Ontario. I’m planning on using it for a work shop project and will keep you posted as it unfolds.
Added to that was an arm full of 4/4 Hemlock that was literally dug-up from the Queens Wharf area here in down town Toronto. This wood is truly unique because it has been ‘pickled’ through the decades, sitting for the better part of 100 years and ‘stained’ by the minerals in the local soil.
It has this incredible naturally occurring patina of silver clay tones and earth-green hues. One of a kind wood for a new cabinet design. The Hemlock will be a nice mild wood for working with hand tools and I’ll keep notes as I go once the project gets underway.
I think a misconception about working with reclaimed timber is consumers tend to think the final designs have to be large and/or heavy pieces suitable only for enormous living spaces.
A thick slab with ‘live edges‘ used in a dining room setting or in an office board room would be a perfect example where this large scale furniture really excels. Now on the opposite end of the spectrum, I’ll be using it in my own small work space and offering a piece of furniture that would suit an urban live or work environment where space is a consideration.
As the designer and builder it’s my job to find a way to use this precious material to the best of my abilities while celebrating both the history of the wood itself while trying to bring forth the ‘real life’ story that gets written through the wood and my own hands and heart working together.
If you build furniture or you’re just on the hunt for a ‘one of a kind’ piece of wood, try Candian Salvaged Timber, you may be surprised at what you’ll dig up.
Cheers!

Squarely

NEW FROM LEE VALLEY TOOLS

New Precision Square from Veritas

Do you keep a 6″ inch metal rule close at hand while in the wood shop?
I do, every minute.
There’s one in my tool tray, one in my apron pocket, another one over on the sharpening bench for the Charlesworth ‘Ruler Trick’.  Point is I have more than one and I keep them handy for all sorts of quick little measurements and the like.
This week I started using the new Veritas Precision Square and I think it’s my new favorite steel rule. ( er, square..)
It is milled with the same accuracy of an engineers square (0.001″ per inch of length).
All four edges are ground, and both faces are graduated on the inside and outside edges. The Imperial version which is the one I have is graduated in 32nds on the 3″ leg and in 16ths on the 6″ leg.
It’s convenient to keep close at hand and would imagine it convenient for setting up or adjusting power tools.
If a small steel rule was on your list of things to get then you may want to consider this one as well.
Available from Lee Valley Tools for $24.50.
Cheers!

To the Teeth...

in the hand saw valley

5 1/2 rip tooth on the left and an 8 point x-cut on the right. The Disston D-8 duet.

This week I’m shipping saws and receiving saws, some for review and some for wood class work and student aids. I’ve been teaching sawing techniques this week and last, ( thanks again Dave ), reading about saw design through history and into more recent years, speaking at lengths on saw design with actual hand tool manufacturers and if that wasn’t enough I’m working out details on some new hand sawing ‘items‘... ( more on that over the summer )
You could say I’m up ‘to the teeth’ and enjoying every minute of it.
The shipping portion of my week involves panel saws destined for Southwestern Wisconsin.
I did an over haul on these two beauties last week and thought I’d share it with you. After putting in the elbow grease I’ve decided their worth sending out to get ‘dressed by a professional’.
I do enjoy ‘putting the file to the plate’ and sharpening my own hand saws when they need it. My rip saws aren’t too bad ..??.. but cross cut tooth geometry is a little more complicated and I’m the first to admit my saw sharpening isn’t my strongest point.
It’s something I practice but felt these two worth the extra effort.
They’re antique Disston D-8′s and both family saws. They had fallen into that dark place under the stairs and in bad need of some work.  They’ve been on my to-do list for years and years and I’m happy to finally see them again and anxious to get them back to work. I’ve held onto them as ‘family heirlooms’ but never took the time to set them up. That changed.

Disston D-8 after 3 decades unused. Rusted and tarnished but lots of life left in it.

The 5 1/2 ppi rip saw was my Uncle Johnny’s. John Pier who lived on Keltic Dr. in Sydney River, Nova Scotia. He was a WWII veteran and growing up we were very close to him and his wife, ‘Aunt Ivy‘. When I was young my father and I would visit Uncle Johnny’s basement work shop and now thinking back you could have filmed horror movies down there!
The low ceiling clinging cob webs on bent nails, a few bare light bulbs to accent the jars of food preserves, empty and now recycled into storage containers nailed to the floor joists above holding ‘sets’ or ‘collections’ of nails, fasteners and other unimagined horrors. Uncle Johnny and Aunt Ivy both died during my first year of middle school. Johnny died one night while I was at a ‘social event’ on Argyle st. in the Ship yard area of Sydney. It was Grade 7, I still remember that night like it was yesterday.
He used to wear a Tartan vest, a nice old guy with a big belly and big smile to go with it.
Funny, I had a Tartan vest for a few years…

The second hand saw is also a vintage D-8 but filed at 8 ppi, It’s a bit of a mystery in that it either belonged to my Grand Uncle, Stan Wadden from Matilda St. in Whitney Pier, or it came from my wife’s side of the family who also had Wadden’s. I don’t remember when or where I got this one. The initials almost look like FW. ?

A second Disston D-8 from a family member. I'm a lucky man indeed.

Nelson Wadden, ( my son’s namesake) was my wife’s grand Uncle from Wadden’s Cove on Cape Breton Island. This was where a couple of my old hand tools came from. He was a fiddle player and lobster fisherman. I got to meet him a couple of years before he passed away in his little work shop in the back yard next to the vegetable garden. You can see the initials end in W but I’m not sure about the first. Looks like an F but still need to figure out the origins.
Interesting that Johnny’s was made at Disston Canada and the other in Philadelphia, USA.
That is what’s leading me to think my wife’s side of the family due to her connections in Massachusetts. The mystery will continue for now.

Here’s a photo journal from last week. I’ll call this bit, 
‘How to prepare an old hand saw for another generation of work.’
Isn’t that just the best feeling in the world?
; )
A hand saw resurrection.

Cheers!

Rust Never Sleeps while I'm confident the 'green slime' took a few years off of my life, it did a wonderful job at removing the rust and wear from the saw plate.

Creeping along through the green and the grey.

Shining like a new dime.

5 1/2

Close to home.

8 ppi

Brotherly love.

The toxic avenger.

Made in the USA

After a little brushing and sanding I trace my fingers to fine tune the fit for my hand.

Both sides.

Lest we forget. I carefully deepen the initials using an awl before the final finishing.

ACHTUNG ! Purists close your eyes-; )

One for Uncle Johnny

Working through the oil and wax.

Ready for sharpening.

The resurrection.

Still there after the rusty vinegar bath.

Ready for another generation working wood.