Shed / Woodworking — Leave a comment
23
Nov 16

MOAR WOOD!

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Yeah, it was that time again.
What happened was that I put one of the ash boards I’d bought last time and had intended for use in panels on the cot… into the wrong pile of boards for crosscutting when I got home (you have to do the first rough crosscut on the day you bring them home if you only have a tiny 8’x6′ shed to store them in. 16′ boards just won’t fit in there 😀 )
End result, I now get more of one project than I thought I would, but I needed more ash for the panel. Oh well. Off to Quinns again 😀

And if you’re buying one board, you might as well get a few so I picked up some more poplar and some beautiful sapele when I was there (16″ wide boards! No knots! Half the cost of walnut! Of course I bought some 😀 )

While I was at it, I also swung past Power City and picked up their smallest oil-filled radiator (you want a sealed unit like that, an open oil-free one would choke on the dust and shavings, and you don’t need a big unit as it’s a tiny space that you’re just trying to keep literally above 0°C so the condensation doesn’t freeze on the tools and cause rust).

img_9935aYeah, you don’t want fan heaters or gas heaters or anything that could be an ignition source in here 😀 
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Works well though – it was 6°C outside at the time. That was 30 quid well spent. Now I can feel my fingers when working in the shed again.

Also, I’m back to my storage problems again…
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That monster of a sapele board is just awesome (hell, I don’t even have a plan for how to use it yet) but it’s being painful to store. Rearranging and tidying up required…

Woodworking — Leave a comment
22
Nov 16

Sapele

Last time I was at the timber yard, they gave me a small offcut of sapele to play with.
I now know this was that “first free one” famed in drug dealer PSAs…
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Just look at that grain!


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Also got to use the lidl chisels a bit after sharpening them. They came with flat backs along the first few inches in all bar the widest one and that only needed a minute or so of work; they take a nice edge and hold it reasonably well and they fit my hands fine. For less than a tenner, that’s a damn good bargain.

Sidecar Cot / Woodworking — Leave a comment
15
Nov 16

Bucket list

Well, *I* think it’s listing a bit to the side. Might need another screw.

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Still, it gets the pencils and marking knife and some smaller things up off the bench.

Finished prepping another 48″ length of walnut for the frame, but the waney edge on it meant it wasn’t useful as a 48″ length. So I guess it’s going to be one of the front legs and two feet of spare walnut. Oh well.

Then I figured it was high time to get some practice in for the joinery on account of having only cut joints in pine before now and having new tools to try.

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Okay, all marked up for a half-inch tenon. This is the kind of joint we’ll have in the box section at the base of the frame, so large tenons would be a good thing and the shoulders don’t have to take very much strain at all, they’re mostly for alignment. An ash pin (as opposed to a drawbore) might be a pretty addition to it, just for contrast. Might test that later on. For now, sawing with the new japanese saw…

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My sawing needs some work. Hmmm. But that saw’s lovely to use.

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Fair bit of cleanup needed here with a chisel or a shoulder plane (a lot of which is down to markup errors, some of which were linked to the offcut being an odd off-square shape). But it’s better than it was in pine when building the bench. Now, time for the mortice. I’ll use the blue tape trick…

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All marked up. This is the point where I realised that somehow, despite setting the gauge off the width of the chisel, the tenon is not a half-inch wide, but just over. I think pencilling in the lines might have distorted things slightly. That or the offcuts weren’t quite square 😀

Cut the mortice out with the firmer chisel using the Paul Sellers method.

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Holy crap, but walnut is fun to work in compared to pine. I was dreading doing twenty or so of these, but this was genuinely satisfying fun. And, one slip while cleaning out the bottom of the mortice aside, it was a pretty clean job.
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And it fits nice and tightly, exactly as it’s supposed to. Granted, the pieces weren’t square so the shoulder line is a bit off on the other face, but nonetheless I’m happy with that.

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