glue-containing grooves

Here's a trick I used today while working on my workbench stretchers:

Look closely to see a shallow groove outlining the glue area's perimeter. Also shown is the tiny plane I used to do it.

I wanted to use the glue-up to create a rabbet, laminating two boards offset from each other. I didn't want glue seeping out on that side to keep it clean. So I made a small groove to contain the glue by catching a little squeeze-out. I used a little convex palm plane since I have one handy, but if I didn't have that I might tilt a shoulder plane and make a couple passes with the corner. I am sacrificing a little strength near the edge by doing this, so there's a trade-off. In this case there is an enormous amount of glue area so it's worth sacrificing a small amount of strength to make a clean joint.

Two notes in case you want to try this:

1.) Spread the glue well, and try hard to put the right amount on, since the grooves only catch a little. Spreading it with a card really helps you see where it might need more to wet both sides. Experience helps a lot, here.

2.) Clamp near the grooves first. This will force the glue out the other side.

Quick tip: clamps help transport lumber

I discovered that if you have a roof-rack, you can affix boards to it very quickly using a [quick] clamp. This saves time fooling with straps & rope. Just make sure it's tight and won't wiggle.

Taking a couple of french cleats over to a friend's house for installation (on his car). We just saved 5 minutes we can use to decipher concrete anchors at the local home center.

You might still want to use one strap as a safety. Make your own decision on this. I'm not guaranteeing it's safe in every case and you must take responsibility for your own decisions--but this has worked well for me on a half dozen occasions.

how to mess up your dovetails

I came across these old photos from when I was making my anarchist's tool chest, and thought I should share some of the mistakes I made while learning a lot of techniques.

But there are already too many blog posts with contradictory information telling you how to cut nice dovetails, so I'm going to tell you how the mess them up:

Use a jack plane with a heavily cambered iron to surface your lumber, then decide that's good enough. Do this on the inside surfaces to ensure visible gaps.

Crosscut your lumber after surfacing. This means more work to get out large cups & bows, so you definitely won't have energy left over to get out a smoothing plane.

Warm up your sawing arm with some haphazard cuts.

Decide that dovetails are first class cuts and waste lots of time making knifewalls, even though the angles don't really matter on the tails (assuming tails first)

If that takes too long, decide they are second-class cuts so that you still waste some time with knifewalls.

Orient the board so you are cutting against the grain. (Actually I was using a dozuki, so this was the right way).

Train your eye to see square by looking at an engineer's square from the wrong direction. Don't "undercut", because it might be considered "cheating"

Cut the tails way inside the lines so it doesn't fit right off the saw.

Fuss with the joints a lot so you have plenty of opportunities to go past your lines.

Glue it up with the minimum of clamps so that the glue has a place to go.

If you're cutting grooves, make sure they go out through the end (this is from a different project)

Repair the blemishes with a few small slivers of wood and some glue, or if the gaps are small, just hammer the endgrain until they disappear. Flush plane them and they'll look fine. I'm serious about this one--it's easy to repair dovetail problems.

...but you can still point out your mistakes to anybody who sees the tool chest.

You can also point out your mistakes to the whole internet.

And don't paint over them so you can keep pointing out your mistakes.

But seriously, you can fix all this and they will come out great. The important thing is to make the attempt so you have the opportunity to succeed.

drawbored breadboard ends, step-by-step

If you saw my earlier post, "extrapolating myself into unknown territory", you might be curious if my experiment with drawbored breadboard ends actually worked out. So far, it seems to have. If it explodes in the future, I'll mention it here.

I photographed to entire process to share. More info about this project is available by using the "purple_bar" tag.

This process starts after the joinery has already been cut, which means 5 haunched tenons and mortises in a groove to match. I've already drilled 3/16" holes (one for each mortise/tenon) in the yellow board on the drill press before where the photos pick up the process.

First, I tap the breadboard end in place.

Using the same brad-point bit I drilled the hole with, I make a mark in the tenons. One light tap is perfect. Deep marks will interfere with subsequent steps.

I removed the mortised-board carefully using this slender pry bar.

This takes a little time to do without damage, but it's easy with a nearly-sharp pry bar.

Finding the marks can be difficult, but holding the end piece up next to it helps show where to look.

The original mark has been highlighted with white pencil. Here, I made a new mark, offset towards the tenon shoulder. This is the crucial step for drawboring. The offset is about 1/16" in this case.

Drilling holes, following the new marks. For a relatively clean exit-hole, spin the sharp brad-point fast, and push down gently. These are 3/16" holes, using the same bit as I used for the yellow end-piece. Eyeballing vertical is good enough. 

Here, I'm using one of these WoodTek bits that are meant to cut sideways. First I get it spinning fast in the eggbeater drill. I didn't do this to the center hole, which can stay round.

With the bit spinning, I tilted it back and forth. I Leaned over further on the holes further from the center hole, so those will be wider slots. This method provides lots of leverage, but one must tilt slowly to avoid jamming the bit.

Now, back to vertical. I push sideways in each direction to finish making the slot. These slots are the crucial step for breadboard ends, so humidity changes don't ruin the project later.

Don' forget to brush away the chips! It sounds stupid, but missing this step would cause big problems. 

Next I tap the end piece back into place, using the center hole for horizontal alignment, since it is still a circle. These holes will not fully align in the other dimension though, so the peg can pull it tight.

Easing the offset holes with drawbore pins. Nail sets also work for these small holes (both shown). A little push and twist from each direction is all it takes. I might be able to get away with skipping this step, but I'd rather not find out the hard way I can't.

Next I prepare the pegs by rubbing paraffin on them. Not necessary, but an effort-saver. These pegs were formed earlier by pounding purpleheart through a dowel plate. Note the slight taper on the left end.

Driving those pegs home! That blur is my hammer. The tapered tip snakes through the offset holes and pulls the joint tight. It should hold well for a long time, and without glue.

For a minute, I forgot to flush cut the pegs on the bottom.

After a little surface prep, I am satisfied with the way this looks.

This is starting to look like a bar!

Bartender's view.

extrapolating myself into unknown territory

Today I'm drawboring some breadboard ends on a bar top. I've drawbored before (once), and I know I need slots to allow the wood to move, so the logical conclusion is a slot that is offset from a hole.

If you aren't familiar with drawboring, this won't make much sense, but there are plenty of good videos explaining it out there on the web. A little peg is going to squiggle through offset holes, holding the yellow stick over the purple tenons. Simultaneously, the width of the hole in the tenon will accomodate the purple board as it gets wider and narrower with the seasons. At least that's the theory.

See how the hole doesn't quite line up? That's the key to drawboring.

I think it's going to work, but I've never actually seen these two combined. I'm going with a very small offset just to be safe.

Incedentally, those Woodtek drill bits that are meant to cut sideways work superbly in an eggbeater drill. You need to get it spinning fast before applying sideways pressure (it's similar to handsaw technique), but then it is so controllable that I doubt those bits will ever see the inside of a power drill chuck again.

Large excuse to practice

Matt keeping it square, and keeping it from crashing to the floor.

Recently that I've made an effort to develop my woodworking skills. I've got several ambitious projects in the works with little room for error. And that's why I'm about to sing the praises of simple, quick projects. I'll take any excuse to practice.

My friend Matt approached me about helping him build a cat-tree recently, and we knocked out the main structure in a couple of short work-days. The one being replaced had a structure of cardboard, plastic, and termit-barf. It was designed to last for 3 months. We decided to build something that would last at least 3 years, so we decided to use metal and termite food instead.  Since it's all going to be covered in rope and carpet though, we had a lot of leeway. Solid but rough was the goal for the project.

It doesn't look much like a tree.

But solid, precise and fast is the goal of the practice. This is a perfect change to get a lot of practice. For most of the cuts, we marked them square and cut to two lines with a hand-saw--quickly. We both improved our skill & confidence with a saw without having to resort to marking 100 lines on one practice board (a wonderful method of practice, no doubt, but not one that yields a useful object).

We also tried using paraffin on the screws at one point when we needed to be quiet near a sleeping baby. Not wanting to make electric-motor-sounds, or loud screw threads squeaking, we twisted the screws past a hand-held chunk of former candle, then pushed them home with my Yankee screwdriver. This was mostly fast and quiet, but occasionally neither.

Being a cat must be fun.

In addition to driving screws and sawing wood, this was also a perfectly good opportunity to practice all sorts of simpler skills: Wood selection, screw staggering, alignment/measuring, squaring/structure, efficient work sharing, etc.

Also, getting something as large as this done in a short time is very satisfying, no matter how simple.

I guess I'm coming around to the conclusion that rough projects are very relevant to fine woodworking, if approached with some of the same care. Also, try doing the quick and dirty version of a new skill, and see how bad it really is. I find that it demystifies processes and removes the temptation to procrastinate before eventually doing something the "right" way.

I expect you will see more simple projects from me in the near future as I get all the practice I can.