Saving space with moveable footings

These are examples of a few tools that I could have mounted to a workbench, but I instead mounted to a chunk of wood (or plywood). It's then simple enough to clamp it to a bench.

Saw vise, clamped to a workbench I used to have.

Crummy drill-based lathe, mounted on a chunk of two-by-something

Grinder mounted on plywood. This one has a built in dog.

Universal vise, hanging by it's dog hole

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.

durable plane iron marking method is handy for bevel-up planes

I have a small collection of plane irons that swap between three bevel up planes, as needed. I really like this approach because it makes it easy to get the right cutting angle in any situation. But this also means keeping track of which iron gets sharpened at which angle. I was using a so-called permanent marker in this capacity for a while, but they aren't what I would call permanent on a shiny steel surface that comes in contact with oil and water regularly.

Marked plane blade with wooden stylus. The large number has just been done with bluing fluid. The small, half-faded number is from a "permanent" marker.

So, I landed on the idea of using bluing fluid. The procedure is pretty simple, but there are a couple of easy ways to screw it up that I have learned how to avoid. Here's the procedure:

Marking my box full of blades takes only a few minutes.

1. Get some liquid bluing fluid.
2. Clean the plane blade thoroughly in the area you want to mark. You can polish up with an abrasive if you want to be sure it's clean.
3. Make a stylus by sharpening a stick of wood. Cut off the very tip so it has a little width, matching the line you want to make.
4. Write with the stylus. You'll need to dip it in the bluing fluid often. Avoid the temptation to soak the whole stick. I understand it's nasty stuff and not something i would choose to get on my skin, plus you don't want o make a puddle where you are trying to write. The fluid goes on clear, and turns the surface nearly black in about 3 seconds. Be patient and careful, because this won't erase without an abrasive.
5. Clean the fluid by dousing in water. You don't want to wipe off the bluing fluid with a rag, because you'll most likely end up with a smudge instead of numerals. I like to take it over my sink, start the water on high, and then put the blade under the tap in one fluid motion. That way the fluid is long gone before it has a chance to discolor the surrounding area.
6. Prevent rust by thoroughly drying the blade and applying oil or another rust preventative as you normally would.

My box of blades would be excessive for one plane, but it serves these 3 nicely. I often pop a high-angle blade in the jointer to avoid tearout and save the smoother some work. The jack plane is my primary shooting plane, so it often holds something with a low angle.

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.

Veneer folder

I finally decided to keep my veneer protected and out of the way with this folder. It's made out of two sheets of plywood. The hinges are denim folded over several times and screwed into the plywood. Small blocks of wood distribute the force of the screws. I chose this method because it gives the folder a flexible capacity. This took me about an hour to make, and now can sit on my lumber rack.

small lumber rack

 

Here is a lumber rack that I made over a year ago now. It has proved very useful for holding offcuts and all manner of small pieces. The trapezoidal shape and different lengths of dowels make it very flexible.

lumber rack, holding 2' - 4' boards

1" dowels are removable.

Construction was fairly simple. I stacked pairs of 2x4's on each side, and tilted them at a 15 degree angle. I put lag bolts through where each side happened to cross in front of a stud. Also, I screwed it to the cieling beam and a horizontal rail on top of one of the built-in worktables in the workshop.

Main supports are attached to the structure of the house wherever possible.

1" holes at regular intervals hold various length oak dowels, which can be swapped or removed as needed, depending on what is being stored at the moment.

This rack can hold a lot. In this picture you can see where I put a horizontal member in the frame with extra dowel holes.