Rain?? RAIN !! OMG -- *&%$^ RAIN!!!!

 
    Well, Tuesday night the weatherman said we had a pretty good shot at rain today starting in the late morning.  He also predicted that the lows could even be in the upper 70's and I was overjoyed!  Finally the temps were going to be a bit lower so I could spray shellac on the boxes and lids that I have been waiting to do.  Sure enough, at 6am the temps were just as he'd predicted and our usual blue and clear skies were cloudy and gray.  Since I don't like to disturb the neighborhood before 7am or so I had breakfast, read the paper, and then headed out to the shop.  After preparing the area on the side of the house with drop cloth, turntable, sawhorses, and boards to hold all of the parts I proceeded to tack cloth everything and prepare the air brush and shellac.  Must admit, I was feeling good!!
      I sprayed the bottoms of all the lids and the insides of the boxes and went back into the shop to work on hinge mortises.  Things were going fine when I started hearing the pitter patter of our much needed rain.  My first instinct was great, we're in a drought situation and really needed this --- then it hit me, I had 4 lids and 8 boxes out there with a fresh coat of shellac on them!  I moved pretty fast in spite of the knee I that had just been shot with rooster juice to get them indoors.  Probably muttered more than my share of "non-family friendly" words but it was a bit of panic.  In spite of it all, I managed to get them dry and finished by the days end.  Here they are inside with 5 coats of shellac on them:

Done & Drying

     The way I was able to conquer the weather was to make a temporary spray booth inside the shop, just inside the roll-up door.  This way I wouldn't get the overspray all over the shop or Diane's car but still have enough air circulation Here's what that looked like:

Makeshift Spray Booth

 
     With the garage door open to the street I didn't want to leave the shop unattended so found plenty to do to keep busy.  The one thing carried over from yesterdays jig making session was to fine tune the depth of the router and cut the mortises.  Worked great! Since I was planning to spray the shellac I didn't want to make too much sawdust so this was done while I was waiting for the rain to evaporate from the boxes and lids.

Mortising the Large, Urban Ranch Box

This was another case when I was really glad I had my bench on bench.  So much easier doing this type of work at a higher level.  My workbench is about 38" from the ground and this portable bench raises the work another 9 inches.  Speaking of the work bench, the class I was going to teach at WoodItIs didn't have enough people sign up so it won't be held.
     My procedure for the shellac is to spray 2 coats about 45 minutes apart and then let them dry for a few hours.  Everything is then lightly sanded with some 400 grit paper and wiped of with a tack cloth prior to being resprayed.  I generally put an additional 3 coats on them, spaced about 45 minutes apart. Once the shellac has cured at least a week it'll be rubbed out and waxed.  Since I was in the process of finishing,  I didn't want to raise any dust so it was time for that wonderful, quiet handwork.
     The large Urban Ranch Box (pictured above) has a tray that is about two thirds the width of that box.  Since it is pretty large I decided it would be a good one to divide in two.  The first step is cutting the stopped dado to accept the divider.  This will house the divider and is located above the groove for the bottom.  Approximately 1/4" wide, 1/4" deep, and 3/4" tall.

Lay Out of Divider Dado

     The outside of it is outlined with a the 3/4" chisel for the sides, the 1/4" wide for the top and then removed with a 3/16 wide chisel.  With the soft pine it was fairly easy going provided the chisels were as sharp as possible.

Stopped Dado

     Once they were both done it was time to make the divider piece.  Like I mentioned, no power tools on this operation due to the shellacking process and it was great to work without the noise and dust of the power tools.  Once the divider piece was cut to rough size, a marking gauge laid out the 1" size required.

Divider Ready for Planing 

     You can see how the divider with stopped dado looks.  Although I darkened in the scribed line so it would show up in the picture, the neat thing about using the marking gauge is that it will "feather up" when you're almost to the line.  That's the term I used with my students, not sure if that's the correct term or not but it got it's point across to them.  If you look closely at this picture you'll notice a very thin sliver of wood, that's what I refer to as feathering up:

Feather: Lower Left and Upper right

     Here's the tray almost ready for assembly.  Still need to sand the inside and then it'll be ready to go.  That'll be the first thing I'll do in the morning.

Mitered Tray with Stopped Dado Divider

Oxymoron: Softwoods can be Harder to Work than Hardwoods!

   
     This is a discussion that I'm sure many other woodworkers have had.  It seems as if the opposite should be true but you'll find that it may be more difficult to cut softwoods cleanly than it does to work with hardwood.  This is especially true when it comes to hand cutting joints or mortises for hinges.  At our last Sin City Woodworkers the focus was for the members to bring in various jigs that they had either bought or made and share them with everybody.  One of the members brought in a very complicated and technical jig for routing the recesses for butt hinges and although it did the job, getting there was definitely not half the fun!  Anyone who's ever used small butt hinges knows how temperamental that process can be.
     As luck would have it, the Urban Ranch series of boxes I'm working on now need those small, brass, butt hinges.  They are 1" wide and since the pine I'm using is 1/2" wide there is very little, if any) room to make a closed mortise.  This is where the frustration set in.  No matter how I went about scribing the outline of the hinge, the thin piece remaining towards the inside of the box would split off.  Marking gauge, sharp chisel, marking knife ---- made no difference.  I gave in and decided to just mortise all the way across but since I'm using inexpensive hinges from Lowe's they're pretty thin so there isn't even 3/16" of depth required.  By the way, I discovered all of this on scrap pieces of pine.
     Combined with my frustration and the memory of the hinge jig brought to the meeting I recalled how we'd make a "quick and dirty" jig to hang doors when I worked construction in the 70's.  At that time it wasn't real common to have pre-hung doors so we'd make a quick U- shaped piece, tack it on the door and jamb, then use a router to rough it out.  Figured that should work equally well for this operation.  Here's what I came up with:

Hinge Mortising Jigs

     I'm using 1" and 1 1/2" hinges so needed both sizes.  In the foreground is my test piece and it shows I need to lighten the cut just a little to increase the gap between the lid and the box.  The first step was to hold a piece of MDF upright and cut the opening for the hinge on the table saw.  Here I'm almost done, notice the hinge laying there?  That's used to make the opening exactly the correct size, carefully make your cuts as you sneak up on the measurements.

Tablesaw to Cut Opening

      I used a piece of Walnut to attach the jig to, any scrap of wood will do.  Before that though, I cut the piece of MDF so there was the same amount of jig on both sides of the opening, in this case I used 1 1/8" as the distance I wanted to attach the hinge from the edge of the box.  This way, if the edge of the jig is lined up with the outside edge of the box they'll line up during assembly.  You could also draw a center line for the hinge and then use center lines on whatever project you're making to line them up.  When you attach the piece of MDF to the strip of wood, position it where you want the hinge to be on the box.  If you're cutting the mortise completely across the box it doesn't matter as long as you can cut the entire thickness of the box.  If you're making a housed mortise you'll need to calculate where the mortise will be located on the edge.  I used a brad gun and a spot of glue for that step.
     Here's how it all works together:

Jig in Use

     First line up the edge of the jig with the edge of the box.  Then cut the mortise with a short, 1/2" straight dado bit with a top mounted bearing or any other size you have.  Since the box and lid were made as one and then cut apart you can be assured the hinges will line up.  If the hinges were of Brusso quality you'd probably be better off making more than one pass to cut the recess but these inexpensive ones aren't mortised very deep at all.  The only down-side to this jig is that you need one for each different size of hinge.  Since most of us probably use the same style and size of hinges for what we usually build that shouldn't pose too big of a problem.

I'm Going to Start with a Riddle!

       
     What possible connection could there be between this picture:

1950 Ford

       and this one?

Contour Box Lid

  
     Give up?  It's a stretch to solve that one!  That's me with my very first car; a 1950 Ford 4 door sedan with a flathead V-8.  I talked my Dad into towing it home before I even had a license, it cost me $10.00 at the time but didn't run.  I had my license about 6 months later and the car was up and running.  The connection -- it's the sanding block in my hand.  That's the same one I used to completely wet sand that car by hand before painting it a Cadillac Mist Green.  That car was one of six I had before I turned 18 and enlisted in the Marine Corps.  Also had two motorcycles (BSA & Triumph).  I loved buying cheap, working on the engine, then sell it and move on to the next project.  Definitely kept me out of trouble, most of the time.
     I'm working on two boxes of Curly Maple and decided to call them Contour Lines,  here's why:

Contour Lines Lid

     If you've ever looked at a topographic map you'll recognize and understand why I'm calling them Contour Lines box.  I usually use 320 wet/dry paper to apply the first coat of Danish oil and didn't want to lose the crispness of the corners.  I remembered where the old, hard rubber block was and figured it's the perfect way to work the lid.  I'll also be using it for applying the top coats.  The boxes for these have finger jointed construction and used up the last of my curly Maple.

     While I was working on these I also completed the large and small boxes for the Urban Ranch series.  Figured that since the finger joint jig was set up, might as well be efficient and cut these as well.  If you recall, those were designed in honor of the gallery that's holding the box show, The Urban Ranch General Store.  The most difficult step to these boxes is beating them up to achieve an aged look.  To that the collection of nuts, cotter pins, and chain is used.  Have to admit though it is kind of cleansing to beat the #*(^%(%$* out of them!

Distressing to Create the Aged Pine Look

     It just goes against my sense of quality but I know it's good to add the character to this series.  It seems that after using block planes and the cabinet scraper to work all of the surfaces smooth you shouldn't be beating them up.

Trimming Finger Joints Smooth

     The first coat of oil was applied this afternoon and they will be distressed but smooth, no splinters or tears allowed here.  One of the fun things I get to do on these boxes is decide exactly where in the board the parts will be cut from.  With the first box, I just happened to step on a knot that fell out and was inspired to use it as the knob.  Didn't happen to have the same luck on these so I decided I'd just have to cut my own.

Knob Strategy

    The box on the left is the completed, medium sized Urban Ranch and you can see how that knot/handle almost looks like a branch.  Pretty ironic, usually you try to avoid knots in your work but in this case I was looking for them!  What I did was to take the piece you see in the vise and cut an angled yet square cut.  The back of the knob has to be smooth so the Gorilla glue can make a good bond.

Temporarily Taped in Place

      All that was left was to cut a shape that seemed "knob like" with a jig saw and then chamfer and smooth the edges to make it touchable.  Here you can see the way the knots and grain was selected for the front and lid of this small box.  I've always seen faces, animals, trees, whatever in the grain patterns of wood which is probably one of the reasons I'm so fascinated with wood in general.

Miter Sled & Finger Joints

     Any of you that are also teachers know that the profession usually doesn't give you that immediate gratification.  On occasion I do run into former students and they tell me how they enjoyed the industrial arts or construction classes I've taught them in the past.  Keep in mind though that these were students from grade 6 to grade 12.  Since retiring and now teaching the occasional class plus giving private lessons the things I've taught to adults give me quicker feed back.
     As an example, I had a fellow woodworker take some one on one instructions on how to set up, sharpen, and use a hand plane.  That's one of the basic hand tool processes for those of us who aren't infatuated with machinery!  He shared with me how he had made a bracelet holder which needed to be oval in shape.  He started with a round form and by using the hand plane he had so carefully sharpened and tuned up was able to achieve the required shape.  Some of it still needed sanding because he wasn't able to get the plane in all of the places.  When I saw him last night he told me about that and how the planed area took the finish much better than the sanded area.  We had talked about that; a surface cut with a sharp plane versus one that's been abraded with sandpaper will have a sheen to it.  He shared that with me and I could sense his excitement and pleasure about conquering the plane.
     That brings me to the Urban Ranch Box I'm currently working on.  It's made of common, knotty pine from the local big box store.  Even that though will respond to the plane.

Surfacing the Inside

Sizing the Top on the Shooting Board

     This is an instance where as the builder and designer of the piece I can choose the lumber and decide where it will look the best.  This is the largest box of the series and will feature a full size, lift out tray.  A good sharp plane will have no problems with the knots and sap found on this fairly common lumber.
     Leroy also makes boxes and at our Sin City Woodworkers monthly meeting last night, the focus was on different jigs and fixtures we use in our craft to make work go smoother and safer.  He brought in his miter sled that he uses on his tablesaw.  We got to talking about the box making procedure and he mentioned having to set up the stops so that each piece would be sized accurately.
     The first rule of box making is that opposite sides of a box must be exactly the same size for your corners to be nice and tight.  Another important consideration is that you want the grain to flow around the box in a continuous manner.  In other words, if you cut a long side first your next piece will be a short side, then another long, then the last short.  You can't set a stop for the long side and cut both at the same time.  There are several solutions, one is a hinged stop that you can flip up or down depending on the piece being cut.
     Here's the solution I use to overcome this problem.  My miter sled is fairly short but sized for what I want to do.  After setting the sled on the tablesaw I slide the rip fence towards it.

Ready for a 6" Piece

     After mitering the first end I put in an MDF spacer.  It's identified and says that if my fence is locked at 9" and the spacer is butted up to it I will have a piece 6" long.  To make the next cut all that needs to be done is to switch to another spacer:

Spacer for a 3 3/4" Piece

     Each piece will need to have the smallest amount cut from it to have the miter go the correct way, that's what those small scrapes on the upper right are.  I've laid the cut pieces on the sled so you can see how the grain will flow around the box once it's assembled.
     If you have a larger sled and the pieces you plan to cut won't extend off the end like they do on my short sled you can easily clamp a stop block to your sled for the longest piece you need.  For an example, suppose you want a box that measures 8" x 12".  Clamp a stop block to your sled for the 12" piece and make your first cut.  Next, make a 4" long spacer to put between the piece being cut and the stop block and you'll have a perfectly sized, 8" piece.

     Very Important Safety Note

Do not leave the spacer in place when you make the cut, remove it before cutting.  You should never use a miter sled or the miter gauge that comes with your saw in conjunction with the rip fence.  It'll bind and you'll end up with a piece of wood flying back at you at about 100 mph!

The Urban Ranch Box

     As I've been writing, I'm gearing up for a show of custom boxes that will be held at the Urban Ranch General Store here in Las Vegas.  If you're ever in the vicinity it's well worth a visit.  Durette has an incredible collection of hardware and an eclectic mix of home accessories in her studio.  Anyway, in honor  of her store I've created what I'm going to call the Urban Ranch Box.  I plan to make them in a small, medium, and large size but started with a size in the middle for the prototype.
     Since it's a ranch store it's only fitting that the wood used is what you may have actually found in an old general store.  I choose Knotty Pine for these and am using finger joints stay true to the character of that era.  You would have found Knotty Pine boxes for anything that needed to be shipped and the finger joint, aka box joint, would have been used for it's strength.
     Using a finger joint jig the pieces had all of the joinery cut and dados to house the top and bottom panels:

Ready for Assembly

     The green tape is put into the corner to minimize clean up of any excess glue inside of the box.  After the glue dried the next phase is to trim the fingers which is easily done with a low angle block plane:

Trimming the Fingers

     The only thing you need to keep in mind is that you can't drag the plane back over the edge of the box.  Even with it's low angle there's the possibility of chipping the grain.  Here too you can see the raised panel for the top of the box.
     Now came the hardest part of this project for me -- giving it some age!  If this was really a box from the General store era by now it would probably be pretty beat up so out came the weapons of destruction!

Beat Out Your Frustrations!

I must admit though it's kind of refreshing to whack away at the box and give it some age and patina.  Also difficult because I really admire and try to achieve a smooth, lustrous piece of wood.  Need to have some exceptions to the rule!
     To make a lidded box this is the easiest way.  The box is assembled with the top and bottom in place and then they are separated.  This can be done with either the bandsaw or the tablesaw with the tablesaw being my preferred tool to use.  The problem you can run into though is that as you're making the last cut, the kerf may close up and you end up with an uneven mating surface.  My technique is to make a full depth cut in the long sides of the box but then lower the blade so it only cuts a bit more than two thirds of the way through the short sides:

Close Up of Short Side Cut

By leaving that small amount of material on the short sides there's no risk of the lid and box closing in on itself leaving you with an uneven cut.  All that's left now is to take a flush cutting saw to complete it:

Separating Lid from Box

Which leaves you with a small piece of material that's easy to plane flush with the rest of the surface:

Just a bit of Planing

     At this point the brass hinges are soaking in some vinegar to age them, I've fashioned an interesting knob for the box and it's had it's first coat of Danish Oil.  This box will also have a sliding tray to double the storage room.