debor054

Part 1 Part 2 Ok ... next comes the leg bracing for our stools. Each stool will have a lap jointed brace across each pair of opposing legs (I'll call it a 'side brace') and a longer single brace that runs down the center that is lap jointed into the side braces. Make sense?.... Hmn... maybe better explained in pictures. First, the lap joint sockets need to be marked in the legs. After marking out using the knife and being careful to get the complimentary 10 degree splay angle in the correct direction, I pared the cut lines with a chisel, before making three cuts per socket to help allow the waste to be easily removed with a chisel. Two stools with four legs each, times three cuts per leg equals twenty four cuts to be made just for half a lap joint. What seems like an easy process seems to take me a lot longer than I think it will. It's easy to kill a few hours and not achieve an awful lot of progress... Using the vice to hold the stock flush with my marking lines, I use...

The continuing saga... Part 1 This is the hardest part of this project, at least in my opinion - Cutting the legs accurately to produce a ten degree splay to the legs. The first thing was to group the eight legs into two lots of four for each stool matching the grain of each set and deciding which would be the visible outward face of each leg, hiding knots and other nasties on the inner faces. Setting my bevel gauge to 100 degrees to give me my 10 degree splay angle (90 + 10 = 100), I began marking out the legs. unfortunately, I got so engrossed with concentration I didn't take any pictures to fully describe the process.  In addition, I didn't think to limit my marking with the knife as I squared the lines around the legs, resulting in unnecessary marks on the show side of the legs - doh! I will plane and sand them away before assembly. Luckily I noticed the error of my ways before starting the second set of legs and limited my marking to only those lines to be cut. With the m...

I am finally motivated enough to get myself back in front of the bench and actually build something - about freaking time! As you (regular readers) may well know, one of my 2012 resolutions  was to ' sell some of the things I make '. Well this has been achieved by selling my Rustic Stool  and has given me incentive to make a few more to sell. Mainly, to recoup some of the money I have tied up in timber . The session began by discovering my bench top was no longer flat, maybe due to the arrival of Spring and the warm weather we have been having lately or my bench repairs  I did a short while ago? Either way, before anything else could happen it was time to warm up with my trusty no#6 foreplane and a straight edge. Once the top was vaguely flat, I also remembered I had yet to re-drill the dog holes to make the bench usable. A few minutes later I was ready to finally begin work ... no I wasn't. As I haven't been doing much wood work lately, I knew things would need...

Richard Proenneke  Using only hand tools to build his life in the Alaskan Wilderness. I just had to share this video, it's got everything from log cabin building, to furniture making and even some spoon carving - and all with only very basic hand tools. Amazing!... Two other films about this remarkable man are also available to view.

Another quick and dirty 'project'...and still distracted by the gardening bug. We needed a small bench on which to germinate our seeds indoors and then later put outdoors as the weather warms up. I certainly wasn't going to pay the ridiculous garden center prices, especially on something that might exposed to the weather!  So ... An afternoon's work, a handful of basic tools, an old broken pallet and some pieces of recycled wood from the dump for the legs and a £1.35 bag of screws later... Our 'new' seed propagation bench was born. These are the tools used, a square, pencil, gimlet (i love gimlets), screwdriver, chisels and a small saw. It's not built to last a lifetime and it's not pretty ... but, It's functional, almost free and it was a great way to spend an afternoon! Broken and discarded pallets can be a readily available and free useful source of wood, so keep your eye out for them!

As mentioned previously , my poor little bench recently decided to give up the ghost and collapse on me. Until, I get round to building a proper bench, I have decided to make some 'improvements / repairs' so I can at least carry on working wood. It's been ages since I have actually built anything useful!.... Anyway, the first thing to do was to lower the bench height by a good few inches. I have always found it hard to get some weight squarely over the plane and pushing sideways rather than downwards increases the lateral forces being exerted on the poor little bench frame therefore increasing the racking. The bench felt quite a bit more stable immediately the legs were shortened.  Next, add some bracing... I had some pieces of wood  that were perfect for the job! With the four braces added and reduced height, I could really feel the bench frame start to stiffen up. One of the biggest annoyances with this beginners bench has been work holding. All the dog holes are some s...

Just a quick post... I have been playing with my new Axe  and 'carved' a basic cooking spatula and kitchen spoon. Neither of which are finished yet, so this is more of a progress report really.  The wood is from a small Ornamental Cherry tree that I cut down from the garden a few weeks back and is soaking wet green. I don't really know much about Green Wood Working (yet), so I imagine I have to leave things to dry out before they can be finished? Any advice from readers would be appreciated! The cooking spatula is functional from a 'Bushcraft' perspective but that's about it! I should have paid more attention to the small knots, the main one causing problems is on the side and there is another tiny one in the center of the 'blade' - A lesson learnt. Once the wood has dried out I will try and sand a finish on it and oil it properly. As for the spoon, well these pics are straight off the axe I haven't touched it with a knife yet. I have tried to keep t...