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Benches & Chests

This is where we don't want anything but evidence of your finest wood butchering in all its glorious, and photograph laden glory. Bring your finished products or WIP's, we love them all, so long as there's pictures, and plenty of 'em!

Re: Benches & Chests

Postby Peter Sefton » 16 Sep 2014, 20:55

Kirk your planer guard is fantastic what a shame the design never took off.
The story of your Grandfathers fingers is not an unusual one. It is so easy to push wood with your fingers on the backend of the board but very easy to leave them behind!

If your looking for centre rules they are available in the UK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c9IXrl9CoM
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Re: Benches & Chests

Postby TheTiddles » 16 Sep 2014, 21:20

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Last edited by TheTiddles on 02 Nov 2014, 13:42, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Benches & Chests

Postby Halo Jones » 17 Sep 2014, 12:36

Re the planer guard. I understand the design is very different from what is usually seen in the United States but am I missing something as this looks exactly like the planer guard on my much smaller Elu EPT1151 P/T.

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Re: Benches & Chests

Postby kirkpoore1 » 17 Sep 2014, 13:22

Halo Jones wrote:Re the planer guard. I understand the design is very different from what is usually seen in the United States but am I missing something as this looks exactly like the planer guard on my much smaller Elu EPT1151 P/T.

H.


I'd be interested in seeing a picture if you could post one. The Surty guard is (or rather was) pretty common on industrial machines, but was never used on smaller hobby-scale machines that I know of, probably because of the extra expense.

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Re: Benches & Chests

Postby Rod » 17 Sep 2014, 13:51

The Incra is £27 ( I know the holes are very useful but I cannot always find my propelling pencils), the Whittam Co want £5.65 postage plus £6 handling plus VAT!!
I might make a trip to Axy as they sell a 24" one too for £7 - only Imperial but that's not an issue for me?

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Re: Benches & Chests

Postby kirkpoore1 » 21 Sep 2014, 04:59

I got a lot more done today. Not as much as I'd hoped, but certainly more:

First off was putting the piercework on the bench legs. This involved some drilling, routing, and then (gasp!) a little hand carving. After marking the drilling points, I drilled through the legs with a 1-3/4" forstner bit:
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Then on to the overarm router to bevel the holes:
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Finally carving the triangles (or whatever they're called) outside the beveled edge but within the overall circle made by the beveled holes:
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Here's the finished trefoil:
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Next step was putting a lip and curved edge on the chest and bench tops. This was all shaper work, starting with a straight cutter to make the eighth inch deep lip:
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This is a 1" tall cutter on a half inch spindle. The machine is a Delta HD shaper from 1946. It has only a 1 hp motor, but that's plenty for this work. After changing the cutter to a round-over, and ran all the tops face down, with this result:
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That was pretty much it for machine work today. Except--for sanding. And sanding. And even more sanding. Fortunately, since sanding is almost as boring as watching paint dry, I only got one picture:
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This is on my 1950's era Boice Crane spindle sander, the second smallest machine in my shop but a real workhorse.
Wait--make that two pics, here sanding the rails on my Powermatic belt/disk sander:
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I sanded all the faces to remove the machine marks, and then sanded, planed and scraped the edges to do the same. No pictures of this, alas. Major tools here were my pair of hand held belt sander (no switching paper), plus hand planes, spokeshaves, and a 1" chisel for scraping.

Finally, I put a first coat of boiled linseed oil on everything so it would soak in well overnight. Well, almost everything--I'd missed sanding the chest leg pieces. So those will wait until tomorrow, but here's the rest drying:
Image
It's so much easier to pre-finish if you can get away with it.

More later.

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Re: Benches & Chests

Postby Rod » 21 Sep 2014, 06:54

All those lovely machines - makes it look so easy but I'm sure it's not - I'm not jealous at all!

I see some of the pieces have knots/holes in them, do they sell OK -a bit of character?

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Re: Benches & Chests

Postby 9fingers » 21 Sep 2014, 08:09

A good productive day Kirk!

I presume that you won't be using any glue to assemble now that all the parts will be oiled.

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Re: Benches & Chests

Postby Wizard9999 » 21 Sep 2014, 13:04

Rod wrote:All those lovely machines - makes it look so easy but I'm sure it's not - I'm not jealous at all!

I see some of the pieces have knots/holes in them, do they sell OK -a bit of character?

Rod


Given his incredible array of equipment I reckon at then of all this Kirk will show us that all the pictures were taken on a 1952 Hasselblad 1000F :lol:

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Re: Benches & Chests

Postby kirkpoore1 » 22 Sep 2014, 03:38

Much more work done today, but again not quite as much as I'd hoped. But first some catching up:

Rod: Yes, figured sells better than plain. However, in this case i did glue a patch to the inside of one of the chest side pieces. The remaining piece is just a little too flimsy.

Bob: No oil on the glued parts, which are limited to the mortises and tenons on the benches. Even there I'm not really depending on the glue long-term. Instead, what will hold is the wedges in the tenons, with a little support from the pegs in the rails. More pics below. The benches themselves are extremely strong. One has been run over by a pickup truck and I was able to repair it with a dutchman in the top plus a new rail, and another one was the only piece of furniture to survive when a tornado obliterated my sister-in-law's house.

Terry: Nope, it's a Canon Powershot A510 from 2005, and until this morning the friggin' clock battery inside was dead. I finally got a new battery today so I don't have to reset the time every time I turn it on.

This morning I started by cutting dadoes in the chest legs to hold the bottoms and the tills:
Image
After further sanding and oiling, I set the parts aside to concentrate on the benches.
First off was to get the tenons ready to be wedged. Here I'm cutting a slot in the tenons of one leg:
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This slot is fairly close to the end-side of the tenon so the wood will bend that way. The twin-screw vise makes this much easier since the leg can be held near the cut point and is fully supported all the way across. This is my secondary bench, and is really too light for this vise. But it works for now.

Then some test fitting:
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The tenons fit well, but the legs are less splayed than usual. However, since they're both about the same, they'll work.
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The rails were a little too wide, so I took about 3/16" off by ripping on the table saw. Hey look--a 1930's American saw with a riving knife! Who'd a thunk it?:) (It's an Oliver 232 14" saw, by the way.)

Ready to assemble:
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Wedging:
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Pegging the rails:
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Sawing off the tenons:
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You have to stay out of the way of that saw when it breaks through the cut. That dozuki is sharp!

After the first bench, I repeated the process on the second one. Then after dinner, I went back out and started assembling the first chest:

This chest is entirely nailed together with cut nails. These have to be pre-drilled to avoid splitting the wood, but hold quite well. Here's a side being pre-drilled:
Image

On this particular box I'm using cast iron handles and sheet steel (allegedly forged) strap hinges from Lee Valley. I usually get hinges and handles from my blacksmith, but I'm down to one set and they'll go on the other chest. I put the handles on before assembly--it causes some cleanup issues, but the hammering is less of a problem done this way.
Image

Clinching the nails:
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These will never pull out. In fact, if you've made a mistake and have to move a handle, they're a major PITA even then.

Putting the sides on the chest is tricky, because nothing wants to hold together. I use a couple of long clamps to more or less hold the legs on the bottom:
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The bottom acts sort of like the brace on a bow saw--tension on the ends with a post in the middle.

Then it's a matter of nailing:
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I use a clamp to try to reduce the splitting changes. It mostly works.

And that was pretty much it for the day:
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Here's more of the inside of the chest, showing the dadoes for the till to be added later:
Image

Of course, none of these are done. The benches need to have their feet leveled on the belt sander, using the table saw top as a reference surface. Then more finishing. The chest needs the side overlaps sawed off. I leave them long to reduce splitting, but now they have to be hand-sawed off while avoiding the handles. After that I'll add the top, and see if my plans for the till work out. I've never done one like this, so I'm not sure how well it will go.

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Re: Benches & Chests

Postby Rod » 22 Sep 2014, 04:13

Does the blacksmith make those nails or are they from a supplier?

That's a good days work.

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Re: Benches & Chests

Postby DaveL » 22 Sep 2014, 07:26

Kirk,
Looking at the chest, how are you going to get the bottom of the till into the groove, now the sides are nailed on?
Regards,
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Re: Benches & Chests

Postby kirkpoore1 » 22 Sep 2014, 13:37

Rod wrote:Does the blacksmith make those nails or are they from a supplier?

That's a good days work.

Rod


Lee Valley coming through again:
http://www.leevalley.com/US/hardware/page.aspx?p=40387&cat=3,41306,41324
They're the type A nails on this page, 1" and 1-1/2". I think they're made by Tremont Nail, which started in 1819: http://www.tremontnail.com/
Not cheap--$12.30 a pound, plus shipping. Or Tremont Nail will send you a 50 pound box for a little over $400.:)

Dave:
I should be able to put the bottom into the leg slot and in the vertical side's dado as I slide it into place. At least, that's the plan--we'll see how it works.

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Re: Benches & Chests

Postby Andyp » 22 Sep 2014, 14:28

I now need an excuse to try those quatrefoils. I had moderate success with trefoils earlier this year. I guess the drilling points for the quatrefoils are taken from the corners of a square rather than a triangle for the trefoils.
I am not brave enough to try the carving bit yet.
I do not think therefore I do not am.

cheers
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Re: Benches & Chests

Postby Phil » 23 Sep 2014, 05:17

Kirk, very interesting thread and very nice work, they look good!
:eusa-clap:

Cheers
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Re: Benches & Chests

Postby kirkpoore1 » 29 Sep 2014, 03:33

OK, I didn't manage to work on these over the weekend. Fortunately, I did get them almost done during a couple of nights last week, even though I couldn't post until now. I assembled the second chest, then trimmed the side overlaps off with a couple of handsaws (a tenon saw and a dozuki). Then i had to plane the ends flat to finish:
Image
Fortunately, some projects are big enough to stand on.

Next were the tills in the chests. Each side had a 3-1/2" long, 1/2" wide vertical slot made on the overarm router, while the matching end had a 1/4" dado across done on the RAS. Each of these was 1/4'" deep. I cut the till parts out, and on the till end cut another 1/4" dado, this time using the shaper. On the till bottom ends, I used the shaper to mill a rabbet on the underside, leaving a 1/4" tab on the end. I rounded the ends a little bit to allow assembly like this:
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I start by putting the bottom tabs into the two dadoes, with the bottom at an angle. The fit was a little tight and required some more hand planing.
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After both tabs are fully engages in the dadoes, I tap down the till end.

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And in place. The till bottoms are oak, like the rest of the chest, but the till end is ash, because I had a scrap of half inch ash laying around waiting to be used.

Next were the hinges. I had only one pair from my blacksmith, so I used an older set of Lee Valley strap hinges for the other chest. The Lee Valley pair were straight, so I had to bend them to make them fit the box. For that, I have a little brake that fits on my vise with magnets--another Lee Valley gizmo:
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You put the hinge in place, and tighten:
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And you get a perfect bend:
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Of course, with something this light I could have beat on it with a hammer, but that would have been worse for the paint and for the vise jaws.

Here are the hinges placed before nailing:
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Normally I put them further apart, but with the till in the chest they have to here.

With the chests assembled, I went back to the benches to level the feet on the belt sander:
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I used the top of my shaper as a reference surface. Leveling took a couple of minutes each.

And here we are:
Image
They still need more finish, but structurally they're complete.

Here's a comparison of the forged hinges and handles vs the commercial variety:
Image
Forged on the left, Lee Valley cast on the right.

Image
Again, hand-forged hinge on the left, and the Lee Valley hinge on the right.
The current price for a pair of hinges (Italy) and handles (China) is $43. My friend the blacksmith charges me $45 for a set (Minnesota). Which do you think I prefer?:) Note that there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Lee Valley product, and I've used scores of them. But for a $2 difference, I go local now.

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