# Woodworking Tools



## JohnG (Jul 5, 2017)

Most of my woodworking projects seem to start with tool making.



On the right is a 1/2" stub spindle for a shaper that I've never used.  Next is a standard 3/4" to 1/2" bushing.  I took the 1/2" straight cutter in the center and counter bored it so an upper bushing would set in flush.  It took several tries to get the cutter mounted in a 3 jaw chuck so the bore and counter bore would be concentric.  I turned the countersunk bushing on the right to fit the bore and counter bore of the cutter.  Finally there's a machine screw that holds this all together.




Here's the setup on the shaper.  The end of the work piece has been miter cut. A parallel shoulder was cut, and most of the rabbet wasted away.  Several passes with the tool on the stub spindle flatten the face of the joint precisely until the undercut parallel to the shoulder is made when the shoulder hits the stop board.




This is what the edge and face of the joint look like.  A single setup makes both sides of the joint.  In _English Historic Carpentry _this is called a face-halved and bladed scarf joint and its origin traced to the 16th century.  The parts are about 2" thick by 7" wide, and the overall joint is 6" long.



Finally, here is a pair of hammer beam braces with the scarf joint in the center of the curved support.  I've tried several methods for joinery of this type over the years, and this worked the best by far.  The curves are very fair and uniform.  The tenoned joints where the small diagonal meets the curved brace have matching curved shoulders, and these are both hairline tight on both sides--a big consideration for weathering.  I think I knew for a long time this was the right way to do this, and it ended up being easier than I thought.


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## woodtickgreg (Jul 5, 2017)

That's very cool!


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## JohnG (Jul 18, 2017)

I worked in a variety of industrial wood gluing operations, and what I learned affected how I set up my own shop when I started to work with wood veneers.
Good glue rooms start with smooth surfaces.  I use some fiberboard, but mostly I like to veneer on glued up lumbercore so I can cut conventional wood joints.  I made this crowfoot base for a dial indicator to set my planer knives to a uniform cutting circle for the most even knife pattern.


This is a classic mill tool for setting straight knives in cylindrical planer heads.  The tripod base self aligns on the cylinder.  I made this out of a 2" cast iron pipe coupling.  It fits right into my 18" Yates American planer.



Good gluing operations had sturdy presses.


The frame of my big veneer press was welded by 2 millwrights who were maintaining the steam system in a mothballed factory.  They had time on their hands as well as a maintenance bay full of steel destined to be sold as salvage when the factory was finally shut down for good.  To save space, the press is the base for a large work  table.  The press capacity is 3' wide by 8' long.

The big press works off compressed air.


It holds 6 of these twin air pods which I made out of surplus 6", 300 pound test fire hose.  The primitive manifold connects enough pods to match the length of the work piece in the press.  I've gotten good results running the press at 50psi which gives a 5 ton push per pod or 60 tons when all 12 are being used.  I stood outside with a long air hose the first time I brought the press to that pressure, but the frame never budged.

This little drop front desk tested both processes.


I made it to showcase a single piece of yellow birch veneer 1/10" thick by 16" wide by 10' long.  The grain pattern is uninterrupted up one side, across the top, and down the other.  I laid it up 3 ply on a birch lumber core so I could cut the miter dovetails in the top corners and a lot of little tenons for the shelves.  The miter joinery allows for a full radius profile on the front edges which shows off the lustrous finish of birch  but draws the veneer to a feather edge at the glue joint.  



Thanks for looking.  I hope you found something useful or interesting.


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## Dave Paine (Jul 18, 2017)

JohnG said:


> Thanks for looking.  I hope you found something useful or interesting.



Yes I did, thanks for posting.  

I have a lunch box planer which sets the knives is slot so no need for an indicator.  I have a jointer which could use a jig to hold an indicator.

Now if only I could eliminate the snip in my so-called autolock planer which was claimed to not have snipe in the brochure.

I wish I had the room for a vacuum press.  Could be very useful.


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## wawoodman (Jul 18, 2017)

A vacuum setup doesn't have to be big or permanent. I bought mine from 

http://www.joewoodworker.com/veneering/welcome.htm

Don't let the name throw you. He really knows his stuff!


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## Dave Paine (Jul 18, 2017)

Yes, parts of the vacuum system do not take up much space.  I have a vacuum system for my wood lathe.  I do not have the space for the vacuum press like the original poster has.  I have visited the JoeWoodworker site.  Lots of good information and a good source for veneers.


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## JohnG (Jul 20, 2017)

End snipe in a planer is annoying, especially when you're told it shouldn't be there.  I attribute it in mine to stock riding up and down off the bed rolls which need to be set up 0.015" or the stock stalls.  I get rid of it by planing stock on a sled or backer board at least as wide as the work piece and at least 8" longer.  3/4" fiberboard or sanded AC plywood, sanded side down, work well.  The backer rides up onto the outfeed bed roll before the leading edge meets the knives and stays on the infeed roll until after the trailing edge is past.  This works on any larger planer with bed rolls.


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## JohnG (Jul 30, 2017)

I made a matched set of 6 of these cutters and 2 follower bearings to mount on shaper spindles.



I used the slot geometry of the larger, black cutter on the left but reduced the diameter to work into smaller pattern radii; and my cutters hold the same carbide inserts.  With the inserts staggered these give a smooth cut on thicker material.




I use these with a box jig like this for shaping legs.  The jig has matching patterns top and bottom, and the spindle stack has 2 follower bearings aligned with them.  With the part in place, the jig can be flipped and rotated to shape 2 sides of the leg in 4 passes while always working down grain on a single spindle.  After that, the part is rotated 90 degrees in the jig; and the operation is repeated to complete all 4 faces of the leg.  The auxiliary clamp adds stability, mass, and handholds a safe distance from the cutting.  The leg is located in the jig with dowel holes that are later used in the joinery.  For this tall tool stack, I run the spindle at slow speed right off the line frequency.




I made the legs of this mahogany Ming couch table using this type of setup.  It is based on plate 4 of _Chinese Domestic Furniture_ by Gustav Ecke.  
The techniques I use to layout "fluid" curves are based on CAD geometry I picked up when I designed aluminum extrusion dies.  I wonder sometimes how my work would look to preindustrial craftsmen whose work I admire so much.


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## JohnG (Aug 11, 2017)

I cut a lot of joinery with hand held routers.  I like them big and powerful with precision adjustments.  Then I wanted to cut delicate little aesthetic details.  I wanted a small, light, and maneuverable router but still with some power.
I built this little plunge base to hold an old production line die grinder.





The base is aluminum except for the plunge guide rods which are ground steel drill rod running in hardened steel bushings pressed into the aluminum bridge.  The threaded end of the die grinder screws into the bridge.  The base plate takes standard template guides.  I have several edge fences made of high density polyethylene with the guide edges curved to match the diameters of the follower bearings I use on my shaper shafts so they follow inside radii without wobbling.  

The legs of this dresser were shaped using a box jig.  The raised beaded edge on the legs and apron was cut after assembly.  It took 3 passes with different beading and coving tools in the router to do 90% of the work.  This was the first piece I tried with this tool.






After that, the last 10% was hand work to blend the router cuts and clean into corners.  To my eye, details like this tend to look cheap if they are just made with convenient machine cuts; but my hands are klutzy enough that the last 10% of the work is all I can ask of them without looking foolish.
Thanks for looking.


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## f350ca (Aug 11, 2017)

That makes a great little router John. Small ones are hard to find now. The bases on the trim routers are too small and none of them have the spindle concentric to the hole or base outside. I had a small 1/4 inch Porter Cable I used with bushings to mortise hinges, The fan fatigued and blew up taking out the windings. Can't find one to replace it.

Greg


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## JohnG (Aug 22, 2017)

I had this small press built for an R&D project at a window and door factory.  The welded steel frame is heavily reinforced with 4" thick laminated strand lumber, a densified composite made from aspen fibers, which is also used for the platens.  This came out of an immense press in Minnesota, the largest I ever worked with.  I was developing millwork applications for this material in the early 1990's. 




When we were done with the project, the maintenance manager tossed the press out; and I brought it home.  The 20 ton hydraulic jack produces a glue line pressure of about 100psi over the 14" x 38" platen area.  For comparison with a vacuum bag press, that is about 7 times atmospheric pressure.  I hung the small space heater on one side.  I cover the press with a tarp and heat it to about 90 degrees when I use thermosetting glues, which I prefer for curved laminations.  In this picture the lower platen has been replaced with a laminating form to make serpentine drawer fronts out of 11 plies of 1/14" sugar pine millwork veneer.

The curved laminations were used in this walnut veneered dresser built from measured drawings in _The Encyclopedia of Furniture Making_ by Ernest Joyce.  I cartwheeled the veneer match; and I think the swirling, curly grain sways back and forth in a way that compliments the curved form.




The edges of the laminated  drawers are concealed by a fine walnut cock bead.




Traditionally, the bead should cover the entire top edge, but I like to cut a recess that leaves 2 or 3 plies intact at the back edge so the bead is seated against a shoulder as reinforcement against being bumped loose.  That requires a very accurate match between the curve of the draw front and the shaped edge of the bead.  The laminating process produces uniform curved parts, but they spring a bit from the press block.  I found it helped to make the machining form for this starting with a laminated part rather than right off the curve in the press block.

John G


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## JohnG (Sep 10, 2017)

I built this little grinder to hone tools with curved edges that would cup my oilstones, which I like to keep very flat. It's built around a 2" pipe T fitting bored for the shaft bearings with the flat belt drive in the center.  I made the 2 wheels as sandwiches with a stable wood composite core and 0.080" aluminum skins.  I glued a scrap of rubberized conveyor belt onto the sanding belt contact wheel and a Goodwill store heavy leather belt onto the other, rough size out.  I used West system epoxy, and it held to all those materials very well.  I charge the leather wheel with very fine Clover compound.




I thought I might start carving with hand tools and use this to sharpen little gouges, but that hasn't worked out yet.  I've used this to put the final edge on moulding knives for shaper heads.  
The green plastic wheel is the type of jig I've worked out to grind accurate and identical curved profiles into knives which are used in pairs.  The knife steel is held in a slot on the underside.  The wheel is crowded to the grinder just a bit, and as material is removed it settles onto the table of the tool rest at which point material removal stops.  The tool rest transfers from the bench grinder that removes almost all the steel.




This shows the underside of the jig with one honed knife in place and a matching knife on top.  This type of cutterhead is used in left/right pairs on clockwise and counter clockwise spindles so curved edges can always be worked downgrain.  The stop and clamp in the jig reverse to cut the second pair of knives which are shown mounted in the spindle in the middle.  On the right is a curved knife in a vertical orientation.  I usually make a double, overlapping cut with this, cartwheeling the work piece to get a wider cove profile than I could make in a single pass.  I must caution anyone interested in cutters of this type that they have a well deserved reputation as hazardous tools and must be used with robust fixturing and safety  barriers.

This door has raised panels with curved edges that would be made with the first set of tools.  I built this a very long time ago with what I had a the time.  I like the design, but I've never been completely happy with the quality of the details.  I'll be building a replacement this winter with these new knives.




This buffet has a coved moulding in its base made with the vertical knives.  It's veneered in quarter sliced cherry and has a top made from solid surface countertop material.




Thanks once more  for looking.


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## JohnG (Sep 20, 2017)

I built this little grinding fixture to sharpen 3 wing shaper cutters and 2 flute router bits on my surface grinder.




I turned and ground 2 spindles, one with a router collet and one with a 3/4" diameter shaft for shaper cutters.  For small 1/2" bore shaper cutters, I use an auxiliary spindle in the 1/2" router collet.




The fixture moves on a dovetailed steel slide made out of 1/2" and 1/4" cold rolled plate.  I didn't have a milling machine when I made this, so I rough cut the 45 degree dovetail surfaces with a hand hack saw and ground them on this grinder.  The center slide is a couple of thousands thinner than the sides, so the table is supported at its outside edges for maximum stability.




The slide is set askew on the magnetic chuck with a 10:1 rise to run ratio, so moving it 0.001" gives a cut depth of 0.0001".  I've been grinding steel cutters at 0.0002" to 0.0003" depth of cut.  The fine thread feed screw runs through a long nut and will push or pull the slide.  The dial indicator gives a direct read on the movement.
The spindle turns in composite pillow blocks that were unused spare parts for a decommissioned paint line.  I don't think they were intended for high precision applications.  The spindle is ground very slightly oversized, and I'm very happy with the feel as it is rotated.  The knurled knob locks the spindle in place.




I have a lot of cutters to sharpen.  The small steel cutters on the right are old, and I didn't have a good way to grind them before I built this fixture.  Many weren't much good anymore due to poor sharpening, and I spent a very pleasant day restoring several.  They aren't durable enough for long runs; but their small size lets them get in and out of quick little cuts, and now they do that very cleanly.





The curved feet on this cherry buffet were cut in a box jig using small diameter steel shaper cutters.  It takes a rapid in and out motion to not burn the cut on the way in--cherry is prone to this--or tear things up by cutting past the point where the grain reverses at the bottom of the curve.  The little lancet points on the bead moulding need a small diameter cutter to get a distinct return detail.


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## JohnG (Oct 15, 2017)

Chinese joinery makes extensive use of  tenoned miter joints.  I made this matched pair of 45 degree miter gauges for my table saw to cut these.




Each steel angle iron has its outside faces milled flat and square.  The top surface of the bottom leg is also milled flat and parallel to the underside of the bottom so a triangular steel plate can be solidly bolted and pinned to it.  This assembly pivots on a ground shoulder bolt threaded into the slide bar.  The long base between the pivot and the screw adjustment at the back end of the slide bar sets the angles very precisely. 

The shoulder cuts for the tenons are also made on the table saw.




I've used commercial tenon jigs for table saws.  The Delta Rockwell jig is very solid, but I never liked having my hand over the saw  blade to tighten the clamp.  This jig slides against the rip fence rather than in the miter gauge slot.  I use a stop on a magnetic base against the back side of the rip fence and make fine adjustments with feeler gauges.  The clamp screw telescopes into a steel tube, and the clamp handle is way back from the blade.
The jig shields my hands from the saw blade, which can be set quite high; and I feel very safe using it.




Since I wanted to cut shoulders for mitered tenons, not just square ends, the clamp pad can be swung all the way around to cut left and right miter cuts.  The jig face and clamp pad are aluminum plates secured with brass machine screws.  There's no steel to nick the saw blade.





This is a corner joint for the legs on the Ming table I showed above.  2 mortises are cut first on a hollow chisel mortiser.  Then the miter cuts have to align with the bottom ends of the mortises and meet exactly along the diagonal line of the leg.  Finally the shoulder cuts are exactly even with the inside edges of the mortises and make a corner right at the diagonal in line with the miter cuts.

I started out admiring this furniture for its looks.  When I started to make it I found the geometry of these joints disorienting at first.  Then I found out how unforgiving they are since neither the tenons or the miters have any give to them.  Finally I saw how this combination made the joints very rigid.  Hopefully some will share my enthusiasm for this furniture tradition.  Thanks for looking.


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## JohnG (Oct 27, 2017)

This band saw fence has a dovetailed steel slide with rack and pinion adjustment.  When I'm setting it up for very accurate resawing, I use the same magnetic base and feeler gauges that I use with my table saw fence.  The fence is attached to the band saw table with a single ground shoulder bolt in reamed holes so it can pivot to exactly match the saw line of the band blade.  Thin kerf resawing blades have very little set and will rub and drift if the fence is off in the least.




The slide is made of ground steel plates bolted and pinned together, except the fence plate itself is aluminum attached to the steel angle behind it with brass machine screws.  The 2 knobs turn bolts against the side edge of the saw table to pivot the fence into alignment with the blade.




The saw is a 20" Davis and Wells from the 1950's or 60's--a simple, sturdy machine.  I set it up primarily for resawing by increasing the motor to 3 HP, slowing the blade speed down to about 3,000 fpm, installing Wright guides, and adding the small cyclone for dust collection.




The front and top of this birch chest with swirling grain are resawn veneer.  A 1" board gave me 5 pieces of 3/32" veneer and a 6th thicker piece for the edge bandings.  The drawer sides are also resawn just over 5/16" thick.  The open frame shows the drawer sides as inset panels.  I'm very fond of yellow birch, both as a tree and as wood.  There's a bit of it in my woods.


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## JohnG (Feb 4, 2018)

I have several ways to make slot and tenon corner joints.  This setup on a shaper is the most accurate and reliable, but it takes a while to set up.




It uses 1/4" chipper cutters from an 8" diameter, 1 1/4" bore dado set.  These stack on a spindle I made for this small Yates American shaper.  It's a heavy machine for its size.  The spindle is steadied by an outboard bearing in an overarm support.  I run this cutterhead at 3600 rpm, as slow as I can get this spindle to run, with 3hp behind it.  The sliding table is 1/2" steel, 18" x 18".  It's very heavy, which inspires confidence that it's not going to kick back on me.  I've found the pneumatic hold down is less likely to vibrate loose than a mechanical clamp.

Here's the setup with the hood removed.  You can see the end stop which sets the depth of cut behind the cutterhead.  The machine is not run like this.




This is the complete set of tools I made for this operation:  On the left is the spindle which sets into the taper and drive lugs of the machine spindle.  Next is the overarm turned over to show the bearing pressed into it.  The rear support post is salvaged and reworked from some scrapped old machine. The end stop rides on the right hand fence guide pinned to the machine table.  There are 3 shims matched to the 0.270" cutting width of the dado cutters and some thin shims to fine tune tenon cuts.  These are sitting on the sliding table which has a guide bar in the miter gauge slot and thin plastic slides under it.  The back stop pivots for miter tenon joints.





There is extremely accurate face registration and depth of cut.  There can be some tear out at the back shoulders, so the parts are still about 1/8" wide when the joints are cut to allow for a clean up pass on both edges.




The joints in the birch chest in the last post were made this way.  
I hope you found this interesting and useful.  Thanks for looking.


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## JohnG (Apr 25, 2018)

The tool perched like a propeller on top of this set up stack is an old style 2 wing panel raiser which cuts the beveled edge on door panels.  The body of the tool is simply milled out of cold rolled steel bar stock, and 2 hss cutting edges are braised on.  They aren't made like this anymore.  I've always liked the results I got with this tool.  It cuts very cleanly when it is sharp, especially on the end grain bevels.  I've always hated sharpening this tool, and I'm here to put an end to that using the small CBN dish wheel mounted on the grinder shaft.  I've turned the riser block under the cutter to get clearance for the grinding wheel and bolted cutter and riser to a sine plate.  With all kinds of squares I'm going to align the edge, which has both shear and rake angles, square to the table and in line with the feed motion.




I'm only going to use this set up once to make a permanent angle block.  I rough cut the bevel in this steel block on the horizontal band saw with the block screwed to a piece of wood miter cut to the tilt angle.  I had to grind it down about 0.015" on this setup to get the face smooth and flat.  




Here's the grinding setup with the cutter and riser block bolted to the bevel block set square across the magnetic chuck.  One wing is done, and years of haphazard hand sharpening is replaced with a single clean face.  The 150 grit CBN wheel cuts like a dream.  I did a post a few years back when I rebuilt the cross feed screw on this grinder to get the action very tight, and today is payday for that.




I made 6 of these birch doors when I remodeled the house a few years ago.  This is a European style of panel door, and I think it is a more contemporary look than stile and rail doors with lots of little panels.  The larger panels need the wide edge bevels that this cutter produces for visual balance.  Birch takes a beautiful polish when it is very smooth, especially on molded details; and that's where all this work ends up.  Hope you found something you enjoyed here.


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## JohnG (Jul 8, 2018)

I had to back up a bit to start this project.  I built up the rim of this honing wheel with 2 layers of thick leather, rough side out.  Now I'm turning it to a bullnose edge with a 1/2" radius router bit in the tool post grinder.  The back edge is done, and the wheel has been turned to do the front edge.  I wasn't sure this would work.  The grinder had to work hard, but it cut the leather cleanly.  I expected the cloud of leather dust but not the odd smell.




Here the bullnose wheel is mounted in the buffing machine and charged with 280 grit clover compound. The flat wheel on the right will do convex knives but can't get into the hollow of a concave knife.  The bevel edge knife steel fits snugly into a dovetailed slot on the underside of the jig which rocks back and forth in its cradle.  Most of the material is removed on a bench grinder, then the setup is transferred to the buffer to polish the edge.  This type of setup has produced very accurate knife profiles for me.




The knives are mounted in matched pairs in the cutterhead.  The outfeed hold down is pulled back to show the knife profile.  




I built this fence 30 years ago to make small moldings, and it is one of my most useful tools. The incline is 4:1, so 8" travel of the lead screw moves the fence sideways 2". I'm making about 60 feet of birch molding with a lozenge profile, convex on both sides.  After the first pass I added the auxiliary wood guide to match the molded profile and then turned the pieces end for end to mold the second side.  Each side then got a finishing pass taking off 0.015".  The cross section must stay very consistent for this to work, and this easily holds plus or minus 0.005".




Before I started the joinery I honed this hollow chisel to cut many little mortises.




The lattice pattern requires 4 different corner joints, lots of each.  The curved faces can rock a bit in the fixtures when the end work is done, and I haven't figured out how to keep little twists from creeping in; but they also turn the mitered corners from flat lines into little folds with a much richer look.




The completed project is this lattice headboard.  I took the pattern from a 400 year old couch shown in _Ming Furniture in the Light of Chinese Architecture_ by Sarah Handler, and my hat is off to those old Chinese guys who did this with hand tools.  I built this room and the Palladian window behind the bed in 1987.  I'm no longer up to large projects like that, but I can still manage small and fussy.




Thanks for looking.  Hope you found something you enjoyed.


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## middle.road (Jul 8, 2018)

Amazing...!


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## .LMS. (Jul 8, 2018)

Speechless at the beauty!


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## Guyton (Jul 8, 2018)

Wow. Nice work and great ideas.


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## TerryH (Jul 12, 2018)

Incredible work. Thanks so much for sharing the process. Amazing.


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## JohnG (Dec 8, 2018)

I built this little overarm router using a Stanley industrial router motor and a base salvaged from a scrap factory machine.




I made the cross and longitudinal dovetailed slides from 3/4" cold rolled steel bar stock, milled and ground.  The cross slide is adjusted with a lead screw, but the vertical and longitudinal feeds use racks and pinion gears suited to the higher feed rates needed in wood cutting.  There's also a pneumatic feed for the vertical slide, but I haven't used it much.  I made the machine to do very accurate, small joinery cuts.

This tapered dovetail and miter joint is used in Ming chairs and tables.  It's well illustrated in _Chinese Domestic Furniture_ by Gustav Ecke.  It wasn't high on my list of things to try.  Then I was told we could not possibly expect a Christmas visit from our granddaughter unless there was a new and very sturdy railing on the stairway to the guest room so she could be safely carried up and down.  I thought of this as a way to attach the railing to the wood brackets that would hold it off the wall.




I cut a plywood shim tapered 1/16" per inch and used it to rout the jig for the tapered notches in the back of the railing.




After a couple of table saw and shaper cuts to make 2 shoulders on each bracket, I cut the dovetail on the long side of the miter.  This cut is parallel to the edge.  It's an up milling cut, so there's some tear out.  I precut a bit of the end shoulder with a chisel. 




Then I made a preliminary cut on the tapered side using the same shim to set the taper.  This is a climb cut, so it is very clean at the end; but I was worried at first about kick back.  The rack and pinion feed gave me really firm control of the feed rate, and this went very well.




The test fit has only partial engagement, so the end of the taper cut doesn't need to be cleaned up yet.  Knowing the taper makes it easy to measure the gap to the shoulder and calculate the cross feed adjustment of the table for a tight fit.




Here's the finished bracket and railing.  The tapered dovetail is glued and reinforced with a blind screw through the bracket into the railing.  I like that the grain of the railing face is free of screw holes.




Here's the original staircase.  The end of the new railing joins the old in the upper right corner.  When we put on the addition with the guest room on the second floor, splitting the stairs so it went 2 ways saved the space a hallway would have taken up.  




Hope you found this enjoyable and best holiday wishes to all.


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## francist (Dec 8, 2018)

Very nice! Is that yellow birch or something else?

-frank


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## JohnG (Dec 9, 2018)

Yes, it's yellow birch.  I'm near the western edge of its range, and I can buy it at local sawmills.


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## JohnG (May 20, 2019)

When I started working with wood veneer, I bought the little Fiskars rotary razor at a fabric store.  It makes perfectly clean cross cuts; but it wobbles a bit, so the cuts are not perfectly straight, joinery quality.  I thought a sturdier version might work better.





I made this heavier tool to follow a straight edge with the guides on either side of the razor wheel.  There's about 0.005" clearance so the wheel spins freely.  The axle and height adjustment are in the cylinder on the back side.  There's 3 sets of fine threads to hold it all together with knurled surfaces to adjust everything finger tight.  The handle came off a sliding patio door.





The height adjustment is a much smaller version of the mechanism used in old double arbor table saws.  The arbor is mounted in an off center bore in a larger round shaft that sits in the outer bore.  Rotating the outer shaft raises and lowers the height of the cutting wheel so it just kisses the table under the veneer.  I was taking a chance here, but the friction in the bore fit will hold the height adjustment with just finger tightening the knurled retaining ring. 





I ground the rotary razor out of a worn out small slitting saw.  I like having tools I can sharpen myself.






This little walnut shelf is the first piece I made using this tool.  It is veneered with a 4 way diamond match centered on the top.  That center line front to back is what this tool does.  The effect works best with obliquely figured veneer that wants to tear out like crazy when you cut across it.  





The woodgrain is continuous over the mitered top corners and down the sides.  I really like the balance and symmetry in this piece, and I'll be using this technique more.  Thanks for looking.


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## JohnG (Jul 16, 2019)

I had some time for a small project.  I bolted the frog from one of my woodworking hand planes to the sine table on the surface grinder.  I trammed it side to side and then end to end, truing it with a shim and adjustable parallel.  Then I took off about 0.005" to get it flat and smooth.  This is the surface that the blade seats against.  With the surface precisely ground, I find I can seat the blade very tight against the frog and still make fine adjustments to its position.



This was the last step in restoring this #7 Bedrock jointer plane.  I've surface ground the sole flat, stripped and repainted it, put in a Hock blade and cap iron, and made the closed handle out of birch.  I modeled the handle on a Norris smooth plane that fits my hand very well, but I made the grip more vertical so my forearm rests right down on the base of the plane and pushes straight forward.  I just use this plane on edges, and I thought this grip would help keep it vertical without tipping side to side.  I think someone who has shaped a rifle stock might see what I'm trying to do here.




I do have a power jointer, which does a great job, so this hand tool only takes a few passes to improve the surface quality of the glue joint--a subject on which I admit to obsessive- compulsive disorder.  I like invisible glue joints with a fit so tight that the line of glue is too thin to be seen.  It's a difference of a few thousands of an inch which no one but me may notice, but I am compelled to try.
Hope you found something useful or amusing here.


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## woodtickgreg (Jul 16, 2019)

Some of my hand plane collection.


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## JohnG (Dec 4, 2019)

I built a left/right pair of these guards for my double spindle shaper starting with some reclaimed steel U channel.  I milled out a curved edge in the bottoms so the sides could project to straddle the cutterheads.  The curved rim is laminated white oak veneer.  It pivots freely on the back axle and is spring loaded at the front to press the workpiece against the machine table.




The machine is used to make curved and profiled wood parts.  The part is clamped to a jig which rides against a bearing on the spindle.  A stack of profiled cutters machines the edge.  With deep profiled cuts in hard wood, very firm pressure against both the spindle bearing and machine table is needed for accurate registration of the profile details, smooth surface finish, and protection against kickback.  This door rail is being made with an old set of hss tipped cutters.  They don’t hold an edge like carbide or stellite, but they cut very clean when they’re sharp.




The cutting tools are a matched left/right set so they can always work downgrain with the wood fibers rather than against them.  Convex curves are worked from the center towards the ends, and concave curves are worked from the ends toward the center.



The convex edge of this rail is done, and the concave edge is half worked.  Most problems occur in the middle where the cuts overlap.




Joinery against curved rails requires curved end grain cuts that match the curve of the rail, made with a counter profile or cope.




Raised panel edges require heavier spindles and large diameter cutters. Left- and right-hand cutters will both be set to the same diameter on this spindle, and then one will be transferred to the other.



The raised panel jigs work upside down.  The profile is cut on the underside of the panel, so most of the cutterhead is under the table.  This is potentially a dangerous cut when the cutterhead is engaged before the jig makes contact with the spindle guide bearing.  The slightest retrograde motion will cause it to grab and kick back very powerfully.  It’s important that there be no lateral play in the guards.  The end grain cuts are always made first so the corner details will be crisp.



The end product is this entry door made of yellow birch. It's a replacement for a door I built years ago which suffered from exposure to weather before I added the porch overhang and storm door.  Birch complements a design that has the right balance between flat surfaces and molded edges, straight line and curves.  The wavy grain takes a beautiful polish when it is worked smooth.  This gives the curved and molded lines a rich look as they catch the light.








Hope you found something of interest.


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## JohnG (Apr 27, 2020)

Most of my metalworking is building tools I use for woodworking, but I’ve been thinking about making special hardware for my furniture.  This is a concealed hinge for a fall flap desk.  It’s simply made from cold rolled rod.  It could be made with a drill press, but a vertical mill does a nicer job on the counterbores where the ends of the 2 cross pins sit tight against the long rod.




The long rod turns in a full-length hole in the flap which starts with a groove cut by a convex grooving cutter and then back filled to fit snugly around the bar.  The slots for the pivot pins allow 90-degree rotation.  The pins slide into holes bored in the front edge of a shelf and are cross pinned to hold them in place.




The lower doors and flap have concealed hardware.




Without exposed hinges, the mitered bead details on the case edges and doors give a very clean look.  I cut the inlay in the top with the small air router I made.  This is the first time I’ve tried this and I thought if I screwed it up it would be less noticeable on the top.  The case is walnut, and the contrasting inlay is African makore.




The desk surface opens to a flat work surface with a flush joint and small gap between the shelf and flap.  The only signs of the hardware are the 2 small cutouts at the pivot pins.
	

		
			
		

		
	




The desk will go in our guest room. It’s intended to hold a laptop computer such as our children and their spouses bring with them when they visit.  It will be such a convenient place to set one up that they won’t be left lying all over the house.  I wanted this piece to look like a really big iPhone—sleek, self-contained, very simple lines, minimal neat details.


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## DavidR8 (Apr 27, 2020)

That is beautiful work! Elegant proportions and great choice of material


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