Shop built tools, part 2

There will probably be many parts to this series. I actually had a chance to work in the shop 2 days in a row. I cleaned up the hickory blank that will become mallet head some more on the band saw and have the 4 sides mostly smoothed with a hand plane. In the process of cleaning up the hickory blank I noticed that the hickory blank isn't think enough by itself. I am going to sandwich the hickory between some walnut.

The hickory blank is on the left and the walnut on the right is being planed flat.

Shop Built tools

Last night I started making a wooden mallet. I cut a blank from a piece of hickory to shape the head out of, and milled a plank of cherry from a piece of fire wood. I am going to make the handle from the cherry. I can't say these are hand made tools since I used the band saw, but I did get one side of the cherry board smoothed using my hand planes.

Small Project

With limited shop time and limited supplies on hand I am trying to come up with some ideas of things to make. One item I am going to try to make soon is a wooden mallet. I think I should be able to make one from the smaller pieces of wood that I have been able to harvest from the fire wood pile. After I make it then I could use it with my chisels instead of the rubber mallet I have used while playing with the chisels. Also it would be project where I could practice making mortises. I was thinking about using walnut for the head, cherry for the handle, and some maple to pin the head on the handle.

I would also like to make a marking gauge that could be used for layout.

Garden Fencing

I know this supposed to be a wood working blog, and this does kind of belong here. Gardening with a 3.5 year old can be difficult. They don't remember to watch where they are stepping, and have a tendency to step on plants. Last year we put down straw to make paths showing where it was safe to walk which helped some. Also I dug a hole in one corner and our daughter would play in it while we worked in the garden.

This year we decided when laying out the garden to give our daughter an area of her own. To start with this was marked out by some stakes and a purple rope. I mentioned to my wife that I should build a fence to define the child safe area and she liked that idea.

Saturday morning I built the 3 sections of fencing that can be seen above. I think it looks nicer than the rope and everyone seems happy, except I was told by my daughter it needs more sides and a gate. That will probably be next weekends project.