simplest 45-degree planing cradle

I have seen a lot of devices for holding boards at a 45-degree angle from laying flat on the bench, but all required a tablesaw to build quickly. Here is what I came up with when I was planing tapered octagons for stool legs recently. It's easy to make with just a handsaw.

Planing cradle shown in lower right hand corner (the thing with the v-notch)

All I did was cut a 90-degree "V" out of a strip of wood, which holds the board at an angle. This took about 2 minutes to lay out and cut. It maintains the angle securely and nothing more. I drilled a hole in it and hung it on a peg near the bench for re-use.

I still needed more conventional workholding to maintain the board's position. This could be dogs, a planing stop, battens, etc, but in this case I used a handscrew clamp and another board to shim it up, because I was working on the bottom face of my bench-in-progress, and I don't have much workholding.

Why do any of this?

To turn these:

Three square-stock leg-blanks. Also shown: the rest of the adjustable stool in the background, and my note reminding myself of what the shoulder lines are so I could resume later. 

...into these:

Three tapered legs, made only by layout and planing. Oh, and a carcass saw if you count the fact that the tenon shoulders have been cut already.

Making tapered legs is the kind of work that a jack plane makes easy. I would not want to try to get this to work on a tablesaw or bandsaw.

That's all for now. If you missed the summary of this stool, check it out here, or see all my completed projects.

A useful mallet-making tangent

I was chopping out a giant sliding dovetail for my workbench endcap, when my chisel mallet broke again. I really didn't feel like trying to get the pieces glued together for the third time, so I started making a couple malletts to replace it. Two is a good number of mallets to have, because if one breaks, you can still bash mortise chisels to make another one. Since I was starting from 1/2 a mallet, one of mine was made with a wedged dowel in an auger hole for a handle.

busted commercially-made mallet, surrounded by 2 new mallets.

I had a short length of 2" x 2" maple available, so that's what I used for the heads. My widest mortise chisel is 1/2", so I made the handle out of 1/2" thick maple. I traced and carved a shape for the handle, and traced the orientation of the wedge-shaped top on the maple block, in the orientation most comfortable. Rounding the handle made it quite comfortable, even as narrow as it is.

Gluing leather onto the slightly domed face. Hide glue seems to fit rhe bill.

I domed the face a little with a block plane, and glued two thicknesses of leather on it. And rounded the back so it won't look like a hitting face.

Completed mallet.

Double thick leather was needed for the right kind of thud.

Here is the other mallet I made. The handle was originally about a 20" length of 3/4" poplar dowel (because that's what I had), but it had an unpleasant vibration until I cut it down quite a lot. It works well as a short mallet.

While I was sidetracked anyway, I made this planing stop. It was useful for making mallet handles.

This weird looking design actually has familiar ergonomics. Instead on cutting the face at an angle, the handle curves down at an angle. Either way knuckles stay just above the bench in use.

Not quite a Nicholson

I have been struggling with a mess on my workbench for a little while during some shop reorganization, but today I found myself looking at a clean bench and realizing I have never posted about it. You may be familiar with the Nicholson style bench as popularized by Chris Schwarz, and nicely demonstrated by Mike Siemsen. This is basically the front corner of that set on some sawhorses. It's a fraction of a Nicholson ("Farthingson"?).

This bench-top is completed by some adjustable sawhorses, a spare plank, and lots of ballast.

Many woodworkers with voices on the internet sound like they speak from experience when they recommend figuring out your working style before building a fancy bench. Well, that's what this is perfect for. It's actually my second bench. The first one taught be a lot, but was too rickety and really meant for a child.

This one came about because I needed something I could make in a hurry and clamp to a kitchen island to provide a stable place for me to work with 3 friends. I soon realized I could put in on sawhorses and have a temporary bench better than what I had. I am planning on getting around to building a "Roubo" style bench in the near future (that's what the ballast is for), but this is really a perfect & simple way to get on with some projects while learning my preferences. Adjustable height sawbenches really take the cake.

And it couldn't be simpler to build. I screwed some 2x lumber together in an L-shape, then went over it with my jack plane (be sure to sink those screw-heads). I used some small blocks and screws to hold the benchtop to the sawhorses, and used an extra board for more surface area (not leveled with the main top).

Even the dog holes are easy, thanks to a healthy dose of procrastination. I used a marking gauge and dividers to lay out dog holes, but I didn't drill any except the few I needed at the moment. Whenever I need a dog hole that's not there, I grab my brace. I've been using this for over a year now, and there are still dimples in the front waiting for an auger to come along and make them [w]hole (sorry--punning is a disgusting habit). I just haven't needed them in that spot yet. And it's not tiring at all to drill one or two holes at a time.

I've got no vises (or even a crochet), and I do occasionally want for them, but for the most part this bench is great. 3/4" holes are incredibly versatile when aided by the vast array of accessories available today. A thicker top might be nice for holdfasts, and vises would make certain operations faster. I've figured out the bench height I like. So essentially I'm able to work efficiently now, and I know exactly what features I want in a more permanent bench.

You can do a lot without vises. For the picture I loaded it up with pretty much every accessory I have.

The best part is that I can store it on a lumber rack if I need to get it out of the way.

I recommend this bench design if you are just getting started, and you like the idea of being up and running in a couple of hours.

Heck, you can always turn it into a full-fledged Nicholson later if you have a free weekend.