The Greenhorn's initial sawing season 2019-20

[richhiway]

Stay warm. already down to 10 here at 8pm. 

did you ever see "french cleats" be a good way to try out the table saw.

wranglerstar on you tube has a vid on them I think.

have a good weekend.

[Old Greenhorn]

 Yeah, 12° out now and continuing the decline since 2am, the wind held at about 20 MOH and up today which made things cooler. I got home and had about 30 minutes daylight. SO I changed quick and pulled apart the 2 woodpiles and pulled the stuff I need for the 2 projects I want to start NOW. (Enough of the cleaning building and hanging for a while) One pile was easy, but all the wood is frozen and had a little ice on some of it. Heavy slabs and just in case I grabbed a few 2x2's in case I need to make some legs, but they are not in the plan, maybe a side job. The other pile, the cover had blown off in the back and I didn't see it. The pieces I wanted were frozen together solid. I almost gave up, but I managed to yank and drag them out. Man my fingers were just frozen. I mean like I had been camping all week and was out of dry gloves. I got it all inside and tried to warm my hands. I know cold and working in it, so this upset me because I finally got my fingers to the point that they began to hurt. It happened very fast, 40 minutes. I could not break apart the boards that were frozen together. But the shop was heating up, so I stood them up, dumped some more oil in the tank, had dinner and went back out. Finally got the frozen boards broken apart and stood them a little closer to the heat, but not too close. The heat is off for the night anyway now.
 So I carried the two slabs upstairs and laid them on the bench and stared at them.


 
I have two slabs about 5' long, 2-1/8" thick and roughly 18" wide. The rough plan is to make a coffee table that can be knocked down and transported or stored flat. So I am going to make my first attempt at a wide through tenon with two wedge pegs on each end. One slab gets cut in half for the legs and the other is the top.



 

I am really new at this. (OK, I have no clue, I am working from what I have learned here on the FF.) I laid out a center line on each slab based on the width at each end, then I could lay out the end cuts square to that line and so that I could visualize it better, I laid out the lines for the tenon cuts on one end to look at the proportions (and I adjusted them based on what I saw), (boy, you lose a lot of table surface to the tenon! This will wind up being a 4' table.) I am going to have to go at this slow and think everything through at least twice. Yeah, I know there are a bunch of ways to attack this and I think I sketched most of them, but I settled on a compromise to keep it simple and raise my chances against putting 20 or 30 hours labor into some pretty pieces of firewood.
 It's a 3 day weekend. I am going to do my best to get this roughed out. The mortise scares me a little. I will have to dig out the chisels and put a hone on them. Wish I had a corner chisel. ;D
 And now the temp is down to 11° and it's gonna be cold in the shop tomorrow morning.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I like the use of the ceiling space for storage but I can't see enough of the bracing to feel warm and fuzzy about that much weight overhead. I use lots of knee braces and such for my shelves and such but I am sure they would be in your way there. 

   How is your rack fastened and supported?

[Old Greenhorn]

How is your rack fastened and supported?

Agreed, it's a little hokey. but holding :D. The box hangers are secured into the roof trusses with 3" screws and I hung my 182 pound frame from each to test before moving on. There isn't a lot of wood up there, even though it may look like it. the vertical opening is only 10" or so. I built these quickly with the intent of taking them down once the loft is a little more cleared out and I can make something better. Also, that last loft will wind up being the real lumber storage area and these may wind up being a place to hold just the stuff for the current project, so just a few pieces in it.

[Old Greenhorn]

So today I went back to school. It has been a long time since I used a chisel to try and hold a straight line and I never was very good at it on my best day. Certainly I have never attempted a 2" x 10" through mortise in RO. So I cut the legs up to size then laid out the mortise lines. I set up the drill press to whack through with a 1-1/2 forstener bit and rough it out, then after searching for my chisels and finding most of them, then finding my stone, then finding my mallet, I started whacking away. Trying to get the feel for the chisel and how it cut best and remembering how to best work with the grain, and how to get a flat surface across the grain. It all take some patience and I didn't have high hopes, so I took my time and worked away.



 

I made a boo-boo about halfway through and got too close to the far side and broke out 2 pieces.


 

One I found and glued back in, the other is gone and will have to filled with epoxy. I need to epoxy anyway because there is a hairline crack running up the center line of both pieces and it needs to be strengthened. Probably a very minor drying split, barely visible.
 After about 4 hours of messing around and chiseling, I wound up with this:


 

I took an hour break to contemplate what I had learned and rub my shoulder which was a tad sore from all the pounding. This is taking WAY too long I thought. So I went back out to start the next one and tried something different. I am never a fan of plunge cutting with a circular saw, especially in hardwood, since I nearly got hurt doing that when I was in my 20's. But this newer blade I have cuts pretty good, so I tried that method. It took me about an hour to make this one nearly complete except for fitting.


 

But I made a boo-boo here too. When I was cutting with the saw I focused on the wrong line and overran the correct line.


 
 
So I guess I have another spot to drop some epoxy. ;D
 The second one actually trimmed up more true and square than the first even though I didn't have much to trim. That last photo is before I did the finish pass with the chisel. Fitting it all up will be where I really got some lessons I am sure.
 Tomorrow I will start on the tenons and hopefully I won't have any mistakes with the saw again. I haven't even thought about the peg holes yet or how to make the pegs.
 It does feel good to start making something again and having the space to work in without working on saw horses. Even if I am making a mess of this first project, at least I am retraining the muscles and remembering things I have not used since my Dad taught me as a kid but I never put into real practice. I heard his voice in my head more than a few times today.

[btulloh]

Good to see a project taking shape after all your work on the facility. You're gettin' to be a woodworker, whether you wanted to or not!  Gotta love that sawdust addiction. 

Would you like a couple suggestions that would make chopping those mortises a little easier?  I'll share a couple techniques if you're interested. 

Keep up the good work!

[Old Greenhorn]

Bring it on. Always trolling for ideas! 8)

[btulloh]

Layout the mortise with a knife. That allows you to register the chisel in the scored line. Very precise that way and easy to hold a straight line. To help see the line, just go over the scored line with the pencil point. It'll track right in your scored line. 

It's pretty standard practice to chop a through-mortise from both sides, going half way from each face. Just layout the mortise on both faces. In this case, you've got a square end to reference off of. Obviously it needs to be accurate. 

Chopping from both sides keeps from splitting out on the bottom side and it's just all 'round better. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Yup, tried to do all that stuff. I scored my lines by going around with the 1" chisel, but the knife would be faster. I was trying to work through from both sides, but got too close because it was cutting so well. :D I did layout both sides. I have the procedure, now it is the skill to apply it where I fall down. ;D These are all the lessons I need to learn..... that hard way.

[richhiway]

Clamp with a waste board under it to the bench. 
Helps with blow out. Router works good to. then just finish up with a chisel.
Looks good.

[Old Greenhorn]

Not a bad day at all out in the shop. I started with cutting the first tenon end and as everybody says, you fit the tenon to the mortise, it's easier and now I know why.   I did do some adjusting to the mortise where I could see high spots but mostly made the tenon fit. It felt really good when it slid home.


 
Of course in continuing my education, I quickly re-learned why straight & square cut lines are so important. So I have to do some careful cleaning and squaring with a chisel to make the end fit better.


 
These two chisels show roughly where I intend to put the pegs. I am still figuring on that and looking for a drill the right size. I may have to use an auger bit.


 
The second end went faster than the first, but this used the first mortise I had completely chiseled out and the mortise required still more cleanup. But boy it sure felt good when I slid that second end on and hoisted to beast onto the floor.


 

Still all rough, I have lots to do before we get close, but the function is there and it is solid even without pegs.


 

I may let this sit and dry some more for a week or so because it seems like I am seeing new small cracks and splits showing up and I want to get epoxy into all of those the help firm it up. Wish I could afford that west system stuff, but not yet. I am also thinking about shortening this a bit (its a little high for a coffee table, the wife says) and possibly adding a stringer across the bottom for stability. I think I will wait on that decision until I get the pegs made and installed.

[WDH]

If the peg is angled and the peg mortise is angled to match, When you tap the wedge home, it will pull the pieces together tightly.  If you glue the peg in, it will be solid as a rock, but you might want it to be able to be taken apart if I remember correctly.

This walnut bench has the angled peg and mortise. 



 

[richhiway]

Looks great.
Nice walnut bench too.
I like the wedges.

[richhiway]

I don't know how long you air dried those slabs. 
I bring my indoor benches in the house and let them get down to the ambient moisture before I finish them up.
Most of my air dried gets down to around 12% it's drier then that indoors.

[richhiway]

 

 
Here is the one I am working on now. Probably be an outdoor bench. Tough to dry those cookies without cracks.

[richhiway]

 

 
If you look close you can see wedges driven in splits in the tenon to tighten. This is glued. I know you want to be able to take yours apart, the wedges tighten it up nice.

[Old Greenhorn]

Boy, I tell ya, you go out to dinner and come back to find all this neat stuff! So working backwards: Richhiway, yeah I am amazed you got those cookies to dry without cracking, that is quite the piece of artwork you have there, nice Job.
 Yes, I do have to check the MC on those, I had confused them with the dry ash I had, the ash was dry, these were not so much. ;D

 WDH that bench, which looks like a pretty fine table to me, is a bit above my skill level for now. I had thought about angled mortises, but discounted it right away because I knew I would screw it up. :D Beyond that , yes, I planned a taper on the wedges to lock it up. I figure and end hole at about a 10 angle should work. Yes, I planned to have it so it can break down and be transported in the back seat of any passenger car. Kind of like a Rustic IKEA kit (tm).

[Old Greenhorn]

Well in terms of actual work, today wasn't exactly a barn burner but I made progress and feel good about it. Yesterday when my wife came out to look at the progress she remarked that I had all these scraps around that I could make 'stuff' out of. She went on about how if I am planning to sell at craft shows I should have a bunch of inexpensive small stuff to sell for cheap because it draws folks in and adds up in sales. What I would call 'hobby woodworker junk'. She kept going on a grabbed a block that came out of the tenon cut on the coffee table and gave me 3 ideas on how I could make something simple to sell. I know she is trying to help, but I had other ideas and didn't want to make 'bird houses and such'. Still, to keep her quiet (and play a little with the new table saw ;D) I made one of her ideas for her this morning. Apparently it is a smart phone holder or tablet holder. She says she needed one, actually two. SO I did that. She thinks I can sell them for 6 bucks. (P.T. Barnum was right!) 2 minutes on the table saw, 2 on the sander, wipe it over with Danish Oil and it's done. I guess I can make a few and see if anyone wants them.



Then I got to work on the table. I made a jig to put my holes in at 2.5° off the vertical. That was stupid. It didn't help much and the first hole I put int the wrong place because I was sighting down the hole carefully lining up on my mark only to find out later that it wasn't my mark, it was a tiny crack that looked just like my pencil line. :D SO I pitched the jig and drilled my 2.5° by eye, it turned out to be more accurate. (Machinist mojo right there. ;D)


 
So pay no attention to that extra hole (or the man behind the curtain). I will epoxy fill it in, then insert a shiny penny with this years date just under the surface and it and call it some kind of proof of production year thing. Then I had to start making pegs which I cut off on the table saw at the 2.5° (I dunno, it's half of 5° and seemed about right to my eye) then worked on the belt sander to make them match the holes. Initial results weren't too bad.


 
So I cut a handful of pegs and went to town on the belt sander. I moved the holes out 1/4" on the second side to get a better fit. With trimming, adjusting, and fitting, eventually I had it all roughed together and set it (all 90 pounds of it) on the floor to see how stable it is.


 
Holy cow, those 4 pegs make it solid as a rock. I don't see any need to add a stringer. I sat on it and wiggled my skinny butt back and forth and it doesn't move at all.
 Then my son stopped by and I got distracted. I did a little rough sanding to smooth out the live edges and give me time to think about the next step. I do want to trim up one edge on a joint to make the fit better, but I think we will move onto the sanding stages at this point.
 So, not a bad end to the weekend. I do have to say I love working in the shop now and being able to walk up to a machine and use it without moving other stuff out of the way. Having the tools out and available is another big plus and having ready places to put the tools out of the way (and not on the floor) is also most pleasant.
 It's funny, 25 years ago, if I had drilled that hole in the wrong place I would have been SO angry and likely throwing things at the wall. It would have ruined my weekend and I would have quit for the day. But this time, I just laughed at myself (after I muttered just a few bad words). What are you gonna do? I am finally finding some peace in this work, even if I am not very good at it, I am really enjoying it. Considering all the things on this project that I have never done before, I think it came out fairly good.
 I know regional markets vary WIDELY, but what do you folks think a table like that would be worth to the average buyer when it is all finished, urethaned, and shiney? I have a number in my head, but am curious what others think. When it is done I believe I will have about 30 hours in it.

[Nebraska]

$400.00,  just my guess, because I bet the next one takes you a bunch less time. Looks good can't wait to see the done product.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah Nebraska, that is just about the number I had in my head 400-450. Of course, you have to find someone who sees it the same way and therein lies the rub. :D
 I too am anxious to get this close to finished. I just have the one little trim to do on one end to make it more flush and square. One delicate cut with saw and chisel, then we start sanding.

[doc henderson]

that wood and project turned out great.  Pricing is tuff, the folks who love it, may not have 400 bucks to spend.  plenty will start at your price and try to work you down.  we would do the same.  I like the penny idea.  adds some character and prominence.  be sure and add in cost of materials so ...$400.01    

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, bearing in mind what you just said, I thought I would start at 450 and let it sit for a while to see what the responses are. Yeah, gotta include the coast of parts and supplies.

[Nebraska]

I think you'll sell it faster than you think. Just takes the right eyeballs to see it. Take it to your music festivals you work set it up and use it. Or make a smaller version for camping,   Folks will see it and ask, if it's against the spirit of the event to sell stuff you can say ...."I will be at Joe Bob's craft fair in blueberry county with several more example's of what we create from salvaged forest products. Here's my card I own Blue Stone Wood Creations.  ;D
The penny is for authenticity for when its an antique.
Oh obviously it's much easier to tell someone else than get it done yourself....(poke directly at myself) it looks to me like a fun  project... If wife and I ever get to the point we can walk away from this life and get a little Airstream to pull around or a big slide in like Jarheads, I think I need a version  of that with maybe a couple of peg collapsible stools for breakfast and coffee in the mornings.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Awful pretty bench you've got there. You mentioned sanding to smooth out the live edge. Why? Was it that rough or punky wood or something? I recently used a wire brush on some old LE cherry I had where the sapwood was punk. The wire left the LE look but removed the punk down to solid hard heartwood.

[Old Greenhorn]

WV, I pretty much do as you suggest. I do not remove the effect, just the hairy cabrium that will stick up through the finish or flake off later. I use fine pads on a palm sander and stay true to the original surfaces. There are a few areas where a cant hook may have gouged it and I smooth those a little too. I like softening the corners to blend them toward the mating parts, but generally, it's a light touch. I am thinking of little kids bumping their heads on the corners so I round everything smooth but I stop way short of rounding off the live edge.