Bottle Holder is Finished

Last night I Got the Hickory bottle holder done. After the last 2 coats of shellac had plenty of time to cure/dry I gave it a light sanding with some 400 grit sand paper and then applied a coat of finishing wax. I will try to get some pictures in better lighting.

Here you can see there is nothing holding it up, it's balanced.

 This was a fun project, I think its neat that this came from a tree I cut down.

 I recently picked up an insert plate to build a router table.  I plan on getting started building the router table top once i get done rearranging my shop.  I bought a large shelving unit and I am  rearranging  everything else to make it fit.

Bottle holder progress

I mentioned in the previous post that I had applied 2 coats of linseed oil to the hickory bottle holder, Last night I applied 3 coats of shellac.  Here is the after photo.

 This photo shows the color the linseed oil brought out in the hickory. Both of these pieces have shellac on them.

 Next the bottle holder will be sanded lightly with 320 grit and then I will apply 2 more coats of shellac.

While waiting between coats of shellac I worked on the marking gauge I am building. With a little more work I was able to get the beam to slide through the fence.  I decided to try tapping threads into the fence to lock the beam in place.  This worked out quiet well, I just need to get a brass bolt to replace the plain bolt I had on hand.

 Next I worked on getting the knife ready.  Its is a xacto knife blade that I filled and sanded some.  I need to figure out the best way to cut a hole in the beam that will allow the knife to be inserted and wedged into place.

#50 Spring has Sprung

This is my 50th post to this blog.  The last few months the Number of views has grow greatly.  I am amazed with the number of views, in less than a year there have been more than 2100 views.  Thanks to everyone who has visited.  I am enjoying sharing what I have been working on.

Spring official started on Tuesday, but we've been enjoying spring type weather for a little while now.  Trees and flowers are in full bloom, and the grass (weeds) is growing like crazy. I finished mowing the yard for the first time this year yesterday.  I plan on starting to apply shellac to the bottle holder tonight. Over the weekend I applied 2 coats of boiled linseed oil which gave the hickory a warm glow.

Wood from the Past

My Grandma has been cleaning out her garage and the garage that was Grandpa's shop and has found several boards for me.  I went by last night and picked them up, the biggest of the boards was this Cedar 2x10 that is 8' long.  I wire brushed a lot of the dirt off the board but then I needed to plane the rough sawn board to get a look at the wood.

Here is the stack of the other boards, it's a mix of walnut and cedar with maybe a few other types of wood in there.  I am brainstorming for a project to build with this for Grandma.

Pallets and a gift

I am going to try and build a cabinet for the back porch to hold my cast iron cookware and other grill related goodies.  I am going to try and used as much recycled/reclaimed lumber as possible.  Which means pallets need to be broken down to "harvest" lumber from them. I got one pallet taken a part and after cracking half the boards and wasting a lot of time I have decided to cut apart the rest of the pallets and not try to pull them apart.

I also spent a little time working on a birthday present for a friend. I had a chunk of hickory I milled out of a piece of firewood. My friend's kitchen is built from hickory so I decided to make a wine bottle holder.  It's a simple project.  I still need to sand it a little more and then apply some finish, but here is how it looks now.

Marking Gauge in progress

While sorting through the free wood I picked up last week I had the idea to make marking gauge and set a few pieces of walnut aside for it.   I cut out the marking gauge with the band saw and then planed the faces smooth.

 I used a drill and cleared most the waste before chiseling out the mortise for the beam to go through.

 It needs a little fine tuning on the fit. I am going to have to make sure that the beam is square with both faces.

I plan on using a xacto knife blade instead of the marking pin a lot of older marking gauges use.

Free Wood

I recently joined Lumber Jocks and met another wood worker who lives near me, he said he was cleaning his shop and had some smaller scraps I could have if I wanted. So I went and picked through the scrap pile yesterday and this is what I came home with. It is mainly Walnut and Cherry. That is my 4' long by 2' wide workbench under that pile.

 Here is a close up of the walnut.

 Here is a close up of the cherry.

 He was also kind enough to give me these cherry boards

 and this nice walnut board.

Hand Cut Dove tails, take 2

Back in July I made my first attempt at hand cut dove tails.  Since I have recently sharpened my chisels I thought now would be a good time to give dove tails another try. 

I cut the tails first, this is the tail board before I cut anything. It's hard to see in the picture but all the layout is done with a knife.

 This second attempt was way better than the first, and this is a very solid joint. But there is a lot of room for improvement.  

 After I showed the pictures to my wife, she ask "can't you make those with your router?"

Sharping made easy

I had been trying to sharpen my plane irons and chisels free hand which wasn't giving me the results I was looking for.  So I finally broke down and ordered a honing guide.  I ordered a simple one that clamps onto the sides of the plane iron or chisel.  I also ordered some 1200 and 2000 grit sand paper. I use spray adhesive to attach the sand paper to a large piece of glass. With the honing guide holding the blade at a constant angle it was fairly easy to get the plane iron very sharp.

Here is the sharpening set up.

I think this is the sharpest I've ever been able to get any blade.  The plane worked very nicely with a sharp blade.