A Learning Adventure in the Workshop

Idea for Planer Manufacturers

Quick idea for bench-top planer manufacturers...

Put a power switch on BOTH the front AND back of the planer (or on the top ).  In my one-man shop, I am always starting the board through my planer on one side and then walking around the planer to get it on the  other.  Then I want to shut off the machine, but the power switch is back on the front. 

Small thing, but annoying.

Newly turned woodcarver's mallet and pepper grinder

I've managed to spend a little time in the shop over the past two weeks and "turned" out a couple of small projects (pun intended).

First is a woodcarver's mallet.  I needed a traditional round faced woodcarver's mallet for an upcoming hand-cut dovetail class that I will be taking at Ernie Conover's wood shop in Ohio.  He recommends this style of mallet (rather than a square faced carpenter's mallet)  in his tool list for the class, and I just couldn't see buying a mallet when I could make one.  Besides, I wanted a tradition lignum vitae wood head, and you can't buy those easily now-a-days.  Hard maple seems to be norm for purchased mallets these days unless you get one with a man-made material wrapped head.  Ernie does not recommend those due to "bounce."

I turned this one with a hard maple handle attached to the head with a  wedged through tenon.  The head is made from Argentinian lignum vitae wood that I got from the local Rockler.  I was surprised to find a large enough block of the lignum for this project.

The wedge is a scrap of ebony, and then I buffed on a carnauba wax coating.

The mallet is about 10" long with a 3" radius at its widest point.  It weighs 20 ounces overall.

Turning the lignum was easier than I expected given its incredible density.   BUT....don't try and saw through it  with your delicate Japanese hand saw.  The teeth of the  saw with lose the battle with the wood.  Don't ask me how I know.

Below is my first attempt at a pepper grinder.  I turned it from Kingwood and then buffed on a carnauba wax coating.  I used a "crush grind" ceramic mechanism for the internals.  This type of mechanism allows for you to adjust the grind from the bottom of the mill, so that you do not have to have an adjustment know sticking through the cap.  I found the mechanism to be first-rate.

I enjoyed doing the mill, and will likely do more of these.  They are fast , fun and useful.

 

Worksharp 3000 - Repeatable Sharpening

I received a WorkSharp 3000 for Christmas, and so far I am very impressed.  Since the Worksharp has been reviewed to death in woodworking magazines, this will be a short post.

I've tried a number of sharpening methods and most recently converted from water stones to the "Scary Sharp" method.  I have been very happy with the Scary Sharp method (as well as the water stones before them), but both method methods required setup time and labor.

The Worksharp seems to be a good way to implement a Scary-Sharp-like method as a faster "power sharpening" method.  Because of its integral jig, it has a totally repeatable sharpening angle.  This makes it very, very fast.   You can quickly sharpen a chisel without setup, etc. 

I don't think that the Worksharp makes my tools quite as sharp as water stones, but they are very sharp, and more than sharp enough for general woodwork.

My only real complaint is that the Worksharp can only sharpen plane blades up to 2", so my larger plane blades will not fit in the jig.

For around $199, I think that this is a good machine at a good price.

Galootaclaus 2007 sighting in Sewickley, Pa

Galootaclaus (who is apparently from Armadillo Works in Texas), dropped a package off on my porch again this year....As I said last year,  if you don't know what/who Galootaclaus is, I recommend that you join the OldTools email list and find out.

When I opened the package, I found a plethora of galootish tools!  A very nicely made reproduction Stanley Odd-Job (gold thing with the ruler), a patented old-tool that looks like some sort of unusual screw driver made to look like Mickey Mouse (I will look up the patent to see the purpose), "The Handplane Book" by Garrett Hack (not shown) and a beautiful galoot-made router plane.  What a haul!

See below:

Thanks Galootaclaus!
Matt

PS...after further research....

Apparently, the unknown tool above is not a "Mickey Mouse" tool as I called it, but it is known as a "Snoopy Tool" or DZUS Tool and it is used to remove panels from aircraft.  This one appears to be fairly old.

Cool!

Pilliod Machinist's Tool Chest

I recently had the VERY good fortune to have an acquaintance "give" me a machinist's tool chest and tools that were his grandfather's.  He says that his grandfather was a machinist in Detroit, but that is all he knows.

The chest is marked "Pilliod Company, Swanton, Ohio" in gold lettering on the front of the bottom drawer. The chest is oak.  The finish appears to be original and is in very good condition. It had a leather handle on top that is almost completely worn away.  The chest has 5 drawers of varying sizes with green felt liners, and the entire chest has a removable wooden front with a lock.  The lock and key still work.  It also sits on a base, but I do not think that the base is original.  It appears to be poplar and pine and not oak.   A couple of the drawers have some separation/cracking at the joints, but I can fix those fairly easily.

The chest is "full" of L.S. Starrett tools.   The tools are in very good condition, but have obviously been well used and taken care of for many years.

My acquaintance says that he was told that the chest dates about 1915, but has no way of knowing.

Does anyone know anything about Pilliod?  I looked in the archive for the OldTools mailing list, and an email to the OldTools list in 1998 from Chris Berger had the following information about Pilliod:

"The letterhead contained the following:

Established 1896
THE PILLIOD CABINET COMPANY
Furniture Manufacturers
Swantown, Ohio  43558
Telephone 419-826-3540
(I tried this phone # for the heck of it and it is no longer in service)

The envelope also was stamped:

THE PILLIOD CABINET COMPANY
Pilliod of Alabama, Inc.
Pilliod of Carolina, Inc.
105 - 117 Woodland Ave.
Swantown, Ohio"

Not much else about this company seems to have been discussed on OldTools.

If anyone has any other information, please let me know.  I will post whatever I find about this company to the blog for others that may be looking for this company in the future.

Thanks for the help!

Above photo is the chest with the front cover open.

Cover closed (lock still works)

Logo on front of bottom drawer

Tools contained in drawer #3

#2

#1

#4

#5

Sawbench Complete

I completed construction of a traditional sawbench this weekend based on a plan from Chris Schwarz in the new "Popular Woodworking Hand Tool Essentials" book.   I made the bench out of scrap construction grade 2x10 material with plywood braces.   I drilled a hole in the top for my Gramercy Tools holdfast. It was a quick and easy project (except for cutting my thumb on my flush-cup handsaw while cutting the hardwood pegs...just because the saw is a hand tool does not mean that it is not really sharp!)

I like the design and utility of the bench.  Its primary feature is that it is 20" high,  a very good height for using traditional western saws.  Not too high, not too short.   The "V" in one end of the top allows a thin workpiece to be supported on both side of a cut.

I will be using this bench to experiment with a couple of old Disston saws that I recently purchased on eBay.    Eventually, I want to learn to sharpen hand saws, but that is a project for later.

New Rasp Handles

I took a short break from the desks this weekend to turn a couple of tool handles on the lathe.  The top one is an Auriou rasp and the bottom one is a Gramercy Tools rasp.

I used a piece of Tulipwood for the Auriou and some Osage Orange for the Gramercy.  I polished them on the buffer and put on a coat of wax for finish.

I could never understand why such high-end rasps as the Auriou rasps come with such crappy handles...it always bothered me.   I think that it looks better now.

The Gramercy handle was OK, but it also looks better now.

Learning the Spokeshave

For some reason, I've been intimidated by the spokeshave in the past, and really haven't used mine much.  I figured that since I'm not a chair maker (yet), I really did not have much use for one.

Over the past few days though, I've needed to true-up and smooth out the gentle curves that make up the bottoms of the drawer faces on my G&G desks.  I had been using sandpaper to do the final fitting of the faces to the drawer openings (after having cut the drawer faces by using pattern-routing on the router table), but sanding is slow going, messy, and not much fun.

I reached for my spokeshave, and took a few easy passes, and whammo!  The  drawer front was finished.  Smooth, gently curved and ready for use.   Spokeshaves are good for cabinetmaking too...if you have curves.

The spokeshave is remarkably easy to learn and use...much easier to learn than traditional planes.   No need to be intimidated like I was!   I see many more uses for this tool now that I have made my breakthrough.

The more woodworking that I do, the more that I appreciate hand tools.  As these desks have progressed (over the past year or more), I find myself reaching for hand tools more and more...and killing fewer electrons...and the work is coming out better!  Some times that old ways are the best (but nobody better touch my Dewalt thickness planer!!!)

Manifest Destiny

I just returned to the shop after a short beach vacation.  The first order of business was to clean-up the shop from the completed grill-cart project and transition back to working on my two Greene & Greene desks.  Its time to build the desk drawers.

For at least the twentieth time, I tripped over one desk and then banged another as I tried to maneuver the two nearly completed desks around the shop...the shop is just too #&*# tight for working on two desks at once.

Then it happened.....I snapped....my wife and kids had taken the dogs on a walk...I was alone in the house...there, hidden under a pile of saw dust and desk parts was a tool of destruction....my reciprocating saw.....

I grabbed the saw and minutes later an old wall that divided the basement roughly in half  was gone....a pile of scrap and debris on the floor.   I had time to clean-up the destruction before  my wife and kids got home. The basement almost looked normal....but the workshop had grown by 25%.

Plane Till

While waiting for the glue to dry on another project recently, I made the simple "plane till" shown below. I used some scrap birch plywood, cherry and mahogany scraps, some glue, and here it is.

The purpose of the till is to keep the planes and hand tools that I use most frequently "at hand."  The till is screwed at a slight angle to the surface of one of my workshop's side-tables so that it cannot fall over.  So far, I find it very useful.