Adjustable Throat, Big Mouth, and other Plane Talk

Tight Mouth, Small Throat = Fine Shavings

     During the scrub plane demonstration I did at our last Sin City Woodworkers Meeting I mentioned that the scrub plane has a very large mouth or throat opening.  The is to allow the thick shavings to pass through the plane.  You can see a short video of the scrub plane in action if you click on the SCWW link.  You may remember that on the initial cuts with the scrub plane it had a "clogged throat" and there was a picture there to illustrate on a previous blog.  The plane above is a Lie-Nielsen Bronze # 4 1/2 smooth plane.  It features a very small mouth and the throat opening can be adjusted as shown here:

Frog Adjustment

     The beauty of this set up is that the frog can be moved forwards and backwards without having to remove the blade. The screwdriver is pointing to a locking screw, there's another one on the other side.  After you loosen them the frog can be adjusted with the large screw in the center.  Why do this?  The smaller the opening (mouth) on the bottom of the plane is the, more support and pressure there is on the board.  Since the plane is pushing down on the surface around the cut, there is less tendency for the grain of the wood to pull up and tear.  You can see by the shavings that came through the throat, these are some pretty fine shavings from that piece of African Mahogany I've been working with.
     This adjustable mouth is a nice feature to have on your plane.  With the smooth plane it's the frog that's being moved back and forth to adjust the mouth opening.  On block planes the section of the sole in front of the blade can be moved with an eccentric lever to change the mouth opening.  There was a little confusion during my demonstration about which is the mouth and which is the throat.  I thought it was pretty clear in my own mind until we started talking about it!  I remember it this way; the mouth is the opening while looking at the bottom of the plane and the throat is where the shaving travels through.  It's not a major point but just keep in mind that the small mouth will only allow thin shavings through the throat.  By contrast, a large mouth will allow huge shavings through the throat.
     Here's a comparison between the smooth plane and the scrub plane:

Mouth Comparisons

     The mouth of the scrub plane is so large you can see completely through it, that plane can take off a lot of wood in a hurry!  The function of the smooth plane is to smooth out that final surface of the board after  the scrub and jointer planes have done their work.

Radio Weave Tutorial -- Wine Cupboard Doors

Doors Caned & Drying

     You know that you can only say: "I've never done that before" one time?  It's my goal to be able to say that about all kinds of things -- my so-called bucket list keeps on growing!  This is my first attempt at laying woven cane into the back of a door.  I've used spline to attach woven cane into chairs and shelves but this project needed a clean appearance without the clutter of a spline.  So far, so good; let me take you through the process.  In the back of each door there is a 3/8" x 5/16" rabbet.  The rabbet is to lay the radio weave in and then a strip of wood is pinned on top of it.

Bench Hook, Miter Side

    Since I ran out of Mahogany I made the strips from Smoked Poplar, figure that will add a bit to the inside of the doors.  To cut these small pieces to size, a bench hook was my choice.  Bench hooks are something I think should be in every woodworkers shop.  Very safe and easy way to cut small pieces to size.  Granted, this one is "over-kill" with dovetails but I wanted the practice!

Ready to Start

     To protect my bench I clamped a plastic bag to it.  A 23 gauge pin was ideal for attaching the strips and Liquid Hide glue was the glue chosen for this job.  This type of glue can be removed with a vinegar solution should the cane ever need to be replaced.  The first step is to soak the cane for about 5 minutes.  I was surprised to learn that this cane is actually made of paper!

Anchor one End

     After soaking, remove the cane and shake off the excess water.  Now center the cane and then crease it into the rabbet on one end.  It's easiest to pull out some of the excess strands that run parallel to the rabbet.  Once that's done, run a bead of glue in the corner, hold the pre-cut strip in position and pin it into place.



 

Opposite End and First Side

After following the same procedure and pulling it tight, the opposite end is secured.  I did the best I could to line up the strands with the door's edge but not perfect.  Actually I feel it looks better -- more of that hand crafted look and it's really not that obvious.  I really like the look of this product, I get all of my caning supplies from Franks Cane and Rush Supply in Huntington Beach.

Opposite Side Secured

     After the first side was secured I found it easiest to flip the door around so that the side was closest to me.  This made it easier to put pressure against the strip as I nailed/pinned it in place.  Notice that all of the long strands of the radio weave that run parallel to the edge are removed.  This makes it easier to crease into the rabbet.  All that remains is to let them dry for a good 24 hours and then trim those ends with a utility knife.  I put them in the house so they will dry quicker.


 

     The remainder of the shop time was spent making the French cleats that will be used to hang the cupboard.  The upper portion of the doors needed a door stop so that was designed and glued on as well.

Making Progress

     After a few more battles with the African Mahogany I just had to put things together to remind myself that yes; I am making progress!  Todays battle was with the crown molding I made.  Really something that in a piece 1/2" thick and less than 24" long it can develop such a warp.  I needed to remake a piece of it but once I secured it down with screws and glue I'm sure it won't go anywhere.  It was very difficult to measure and cut accurately when it would either bow up in the middle or the ends -- crazy stuff.  Also squared the corners of the inset area where the caning will go.  Anyway, here's something material to look at:

This is a three quarter view showing how the bottles will be supported inside.  Obviously, the doors are not attached.

There will be space for four glasses below.

Although somewhat dark, this shows the color of the Mahogany better.  Not quite as washed out as it is in the other picture which I took on the kitchen island.  The inside of the cupboard has been shellacked about 4 times. That's a pretty accurate photo of the completed finish.

Since I'd never worked with a paper based cane I wanted to experiment.  I made up a sample door out of some Poplar and experimented with it.  I like the look of it, has a more contemporary look than the traditional woven, reed caning.  This is called Radio Weave.


If all goes well tomorrow I may be ready to do the actual doors.  Need to hang and adjust them first so I'm looking forward to a productive afternoon after Church.

African Mahogany vs. John -- I will Prevail

   
     I hate to make concessions when it comes to the quality of my work, I suppose that's part of my perfectionist and rigid personality.  This African Mahogany is really testing those traits.  I'm not sure if it's just this particular board or what but today continued with its' share of problems.  First of all though, the initial part of the crown is now installed to both cases.  This was created using the bronze beading tool and I shared some of the problems with that in my last blog.  When you're a one man shop you need to improvise on your procedures if a third hand isn't available.  That occurred as I started to attach the crown.

Third Hand for Crown

To properly fit the crown you really need to hold the front and both sides at the same time and then measure and mark them too!  Kind of tricky so what I did was to make a elongated cut with the biscuit joiner into the cupboard top.  I wanted to have some free play so I could clamp it loosely while setting one end piece exactly where it belonged.  This was then marked and cut and the process was repeated for the other side.  Once everything was the correct size, the front was clamped tight and the sides were glued and held in place with a 23 gauge pin.  Now I could concentrate on gluing and clamping the front piece.  Once that was secure I used another clamp to hold the sides together.  The only hassles here is that one of the pieces I beaded yesterday decided it wanted to warp a bit more than I thought it should so it was remade.
     The next step was to prepare the doors for the Radio Weave caning I plan to use.  This requires a 3/8" x 3/8" rabbet cut into the back side of each door.  Easy enough with the proper router bit mounted in the table and off we go.  I didn't want to risk any damage so made the cut in 1/16+" increments.  Things were going okay until the 3rd. pass on one of the doors -- the side of the door ripped off!!  All of a sudden, this is what I was looking at:

Inside of Door Frame

     Now what to do!  I could hear myself telling my students that: "the difference between a good woodworker and a bad one is that the good one has learned how to hide his or her mistakes".  Now I needed to practice what I've been telling them for all these years.

Back Side of Door Frame

     My decision was to continue cutting to the required depth on all doors but leaving the damaged section alone.  The damaged door was brought into the house where it's warmer to repair.  By using a thin piece of wood as an applicator and carefully spreading the ripped piece apart I was able to put glue into it.  Then it was  tightly wrapped with tape, kind of a band aid for wood:

Lumber Band Aid

   

   I'll allow this to dry over-night and then use chisels and a small router plane to complete this rabbet.  As you can see the router will cut round corners, these need to be squared off with chisels as well.  I'm definitely keeping my fingers crossed that I won't have any more battles with the African Mahogany!

African Mahogany not my Favorite!

    You know, life is a learning experience and the longer you live the more you experience!  Some good, some not so good, but if you learn from them it's all good.  I've worked African Mahogany before and used it for the panels of a pistol case -- no problems although I recall that the grain did reverse in places which made it tough to plane.  Maybe the wood was more stable because I used it as a fairly large panel.  I took the last wide piece that was remaining and started to bead the details for the top, crown molding:

Crown Profile

My thought was that keeping the board wide and then ripping the piece off was a good plan.  Well, the first problem was that as I got towards the middle of the board, the beading tool started to chatter.

     That problem was overcome by clamping the board midway and working a section of it until the profile was complete, moving the clamp and continuing that process until the board was completely beaded.
     Once the first piece was complete, I ripped it to 1 1/2" on the tablesaw and repeated the process for the second cabinet.  Felt pretty good about that until I took that piece to the tablesaw.  That piece curled up like the letter C in two directions -- completely unusable!  The only option then was to rip a piece to the correct size first to make sure it was stable.  This one was so it was beaded and ready to install.  I'm going to let both of them "rest" for a while to make sure they are stabilized.

     All I can say is that this wood is beautiful but ...... unstable with a lot of internal pressure built up that makes it move as you start cutting the boards to size.  It could just be that this particular tree had lots of stress built into it from wind shake, hurricanes, or who knows what!  I do think it will turn out nice because the pieces that I've pre-finished with shellac are looking good.

Doors Assembled

     Well, the morning in the shop started with the bench looking like this:

Ready for the Hand Work

     Yesterday I had cut all of the mortises with a hollow chisel mortiser and also cut full tenons on each of the crosspieces for the four doors.  No matter how careful I am, it's still easy to get confused as to which piece goes to which door.  The tenons all had to be sized to fit the appropriate mortise, they are all haunched.  Since they are as close to being the same as possible due to the machine set-ups from yesterday it meant that once I set the measuring/marking tools up it got to be almost like a production job.  I prefer to saw on the auxiliary bench, easier on my old back!  To size the tenons and cut the haunch I use the dovetail saw.  After doing all eight of them, here's what I had:

Ready for Sizing

     At this point they are all ready to be customized to fit where they belong.  What's required is a bit of chisel work to fine tune the haunch or the mortise.  The tool I utilize the most to adjust the tenon cheeks is a rabbet block plane:

Trimming Cheeks

     This tool works the best for me, I know you can also use a rabbet plane to accomplish this and although I've tried it, this is my choice.  Just support the piece on a bench hook and take whatever off of the tenon until it fits.  All four doors were assembled before noon and one of them seems to have a bit of a twist in it.  This African Mahogany has really been a bear to work with so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I won't need to make another door from scratch.  Decided it was much too nice of a day to stay in the shop so headed out to Red Rock for a nice, two hour hike.

Machine Work aka Noisy & Dusty Operations are Done

Door Parts   Mortise & Tenon

     Most of the shop time today revolved around machine work.  The first step was cutting the parts required for the door.  You can see the uprights on the bench in the background with all of the mortises done, as far as machining goes.  In the foreground is the tenoning jig and all of the cross pieces for the doors.  I always machine these parts ever so slightly, oversized.  Then it's a simple matter of cutting the tenon to fit it's mortise exactly with a dovetail saw and a rabbet plane.
     Earlier this morning the wine glass holders were machined and attached to the shelf.  Like the other interior pieces for the Wine Cupboard, these too will be shellacked before installation.  The rat tail latches came in the mail on Saturday and I'm hoping the hinges arrive soon.  If all goes according to plan the doors should be assembled tomorrow.