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In this update I add the taper to the table legs and glue the table together

Tapering table legs by hand is very easy. First I mark out the bottom of the leg 1/4" in on all four sides, giving me a 1" square the final thickness for the bottom of the legs:

Then I just mark a pair of lines from that square up to a point just below where the bottom of the apron will fit against the leg and I have my taper

Then I simply use coarsely set planes to hog off most of the wood above the lines. Then I mark the other faces and repeat. Once I've got all four tapers cut in roughly I use a finely set smoothing plane to pretty them up

Tapered leg next to an untapered one, the difference seems small on paper - 1 1/2" square at the top to 1" square at the foot - is quite dramatic when seen side by side

A couple of shots of the table with the tapered legs, this was the final dry fit before gluing it up:

The table before tapering the legs - much chunkier!

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Cherry Lamp Stand Jr.
Entered: 2011-07-27
Edited: 2011-07-27
Type: woodworking

A few weeks ago I re-arranged some furniture and moved the little cherry table I made back in '08 from the "library" to the living room. After a couple of weeks I decided I liked the change but realized it would look better if the little table had a mate so over the July 4 holiday I started a new one.

This is an interesting project because it's a copy of something I've built before and documented my progress pretty well at the time. What that means is that I get to directly compare my progress week for week between the two builds. As to be expected I'm running several weeks ahead of 2008 me and am generally doing a higher quality of work, three years of experience and tool acquisition will certainly speed things up!

This is a pretty simple table - four legs, a top, three sides and a drawer - but it has some subtle design elements that give it a very elegant and sophisticated look, in the classic American Federal Period style. The legs taper on all four sides from 1 1/2 inches square at the top to 1 inch at the bottom, the aprons are flush with the legs and the veneered drawer front is banded with thin cock beading that stands proud of the face, adding subtle shadow lines and depth.

To get the aprons flush with such thin legs it's necessary to use single shouldered tenons, otherwise you risk weakening the legs. The above photo shows two of the sides with their mitered tenons. They are mitered like that so when they meet inside the leg they don't get in each other's way. Cutting them this way, instead of leaving them short enough so their mortises don't intersect, gives you an extra 1/4" of tenon length or so which makes the joint much stronger. This is very common in table construction.

How the parts come together, not glued yet. There are a number of imperfections visible in these photos, all of which I'll be able to easily correct right before or after glue up. Some 'errors' are actually there on purpose, the not-flush areas are left that like on purpose to be planed flush after gluing the table up. This allows a little margin for error for planing away other scratches. Also - and this is one of the things I love about using hand tools so much - it's actually easier and faster to 'fix' the not flush areas after assembly than it is to try to get them perfect beforehand. Just a few swipes with a smoothing plane and it'll all be perfect.

Here's the whole thing dry fit

and with it's top on (not attached yet, that comes last)

The top. This top is actually three boards and I'm quite proud of it since it's virtually impossible to tell where the glue lines are. Compared to the first table this is a major improvement. In fact this is probably the biggest improvement in the process, I've really gotten much better at panel glue ups since I built the first table. I'm not talking about the technical ability to glue the boards together but the skill in finding just the right way to line them up so the top looks seamless. It's a tricky thing to do well and I'm proud of the results I can get now.

I'm about three weeks of on and off working into the table now. Three weeks into the first table I had only just gotten all the parts and pieces ready to start the joinery. So I guess that means I'm, uh, winning :)

Full list of all posts on both tables

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To my biggest fan...
Entered: 2011-06-16
Edited: 2011-06-17
Type: workshop

Several years ago I ordered a really spiff looking antique electric fan from eBay, it was in pretty dingy shape but it was obvious it would clean up well and be something special. Sixteen inch blades in solid brass, heavy cast iron housing, heavy steel base and a highly stylized, art nouveau inspired blade guard. A real masterpiece of industrial design made circa 1920 by the Peerless Electric Company. I was very excited when I got it and even more so when I plugged it, turned it on and watched as the blade spun up. Unfortunately the excitement lasted but changed from a "wow this is so cool" kind of excitement to a "this thing is going to fly apart and kill everyone within a hundred yards" sort of excitement. When it got up to speed the thing shook and rocked so bad it came close to walking off the counter.

After changing my shorts (I scare easy) I proceeded to take it apart to try to figure out what was wrong. Turns out one those massive brass blades was bent at the hub and at the time I had neither the skills or tools to do anything about it. So I put the fan back together and put up on a shelf where it sat, mocking me for about five years.

So sad

Well five years of woodworking and fixing up beaten down old hand tools has taught me a lot about working with old brass and iron and added considerably to my stable of machinist tools (in that I actually have a few machinist tools now, up from zero) to bring to the problem. Since I was winging it I didn't photograph all of the repair process so I'll try to briefly describe how I fixed the blades. First I laid the blade assembly hub flange down on a flat surface so each of the blades was standing off the bench by about half an inch. Then I took a pair of inside calipers and set them to the distance between the benchtop and the tip of a blade. Then I carefully rotated the next blade over the calipers to check to see if it was on the same plane as it's neighbor. Three blades matched, one was too high by about 1/8" I repeated the test several times on several points along the blade until I found the exact spot of the bend, not in the brass blade but in the arm of the steel hub it was riveted too. I couldn't grip the hub in my small machinists vise (or any of my wood vises or clamps) without damaging the blades at first so I took a short section of 3/4" copper pipe and put it in the center of the hub right before clamping. The little bit of pipe allowed the vise jaws to clear the blades and still grip the hub securely. That gave me the grip and leverage needed to carefully bend the hub arm back into alignment (a little bit at a time with frequent checks) until all the blades matched the caliper setting exactly.

A quick test back on the fan and huge improvement over the first tests years ago. So it was time to start restoring the old thing to it's former glory, which was still a lot of work. I repainted the blade guard, the motor housing and the base. I polished all of the brass including the blades, the Peerless badge on front of the guard, the bearing oiler and several brass screws and nuts. I also polished all of the unpainted cast iron surfaces and steel screw heads as well which was gratuitous and likely not at all period correct for the original fan but I was on a roll and I think it looks nice :-)

Electrically all I had to do was replace the main power cord, everything else was still in fine (and safe) working order. I cleaned up the bearings and the rotor axle. I replaced the old grease in the rear bearing with a high quality lithium grease. The front axle/bearning is lubed by some kind of spring loaded wick oiler, essentially a brass cup filled with light oil with a wick and a spring that screws in the motor casting and keeps the front bearing lubricated. I cleaned that, polished the brass cup and refilled with 3-in-1 oil.

Rotor, all of the nuts, bolts and screws removed, plus the oiler cup and the rear bearing in the little tray.

Here's the open motor casting with the stator exposed. I've sanded down the base and the motor casting for repainting in this shot

Better shot of the stator windings. This section of the the motor housing is a single piece casting. Hat's off to the pattern maker and foundry crew, this is fantastic workmanship

One big sadness I still have with this great old fan is that it was built with oscillator gearing installed which was removed at some point in it's long life, probably cannibalized for another fan. Where the oscillator cover/controls should've been someone had replaced with a plastic bottle cap that more or less fit the opening:

This was, of course, wholly unacceptable so I had to find a replacement. Finding an actual replacement gearbox wasn't practical (though if I find one at some point I will install) so instead I went to plumbing aisle of the hardware store and got one of these:

and turned it into this:

If you're careful and patient you can turn softish metals (cast iron, brass, copper etc...) on a wood lathe using ordinary HSS turning chisels. That cap took about six hours over two days total to turn down to size and polish. Totally worth it.

To polish the blades I sanded them clean with 180 grit paper and worked my way up to 600 grit and then finally to a buffing wheel charged with tripoli, which is the same treatment the non-painted cast iron got. For the painted parts I sanded with 180 grit until all the loose paint flaked off and the rest was nicely scuffed. Then I applied a coat of Rustoleum self etching automotive primer and 2-3 coats of black automotive enamel, from rattle cans. If I do something like this again I'll take more care in the priming stage to sand and flatten the surface with multiple coats of primer before going to the paint, for smoother final surface.

One thing I had to worry about in this restoration was lead exposure. The original paint was almost certainly lead based and there's a good chance that the brass used throughout was alloyed with a small amount of lead as well. That's one reason I didn't completely strip the old paint off, don't want to be breathing that dust in. While working the brass I wore gloves and wet sanded to keep brass dust out of the air.

After about three weeks of work it's finally done!

And here's a short video of it running to give and idea of how powerful the old thing is and how much air it moves.

It does still rattle a bit due to wear on the brass sleeve bearings the rotor rides in. Fortunately they are removable and I might have new ones machined for me at some point but for now it's perfect for a shop fan.

Some gratuitous pictures with the flash on to show off the shiny:

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Table and bookcase
Entered: 2011-04-17
Edited: 2011-04-17
Type: woodworking

I recently built two smallish projects very quickly, a small open back bookcase and a small trestle table. Each one took a little less than two weeks from start to finish which is pretty damn quick for a guy working alone evenings and weekends by hand.

First the little table:

This is basically the same trestle table from Woodworking Magazine, vol. 6 but scaled down by half. The design and joinery are identical but my table is only 40" wide, by 15" deep by 15" tall. Double every dimension and you'll have a really nice dining or picnic table.

This particular table is built with 8/4(*) poplar for the legs, feet and top braces, the stretch is 4/4 poplar. This is a very, very old table design going back to at least the early middle ages (European) and the joinery used is definitely overkill. The legs are joined to the feet, and the stretcher to the legs, with through tenons that are both drawbored AND wedged I also glued them but I honestly don't think the glue is really adding much at this point. The braces are attached to the top of the legs with pinned bridle joint Of everything I've built to date this table will probably last the longest, a few hundred years easily. No really.

The top is a kind of nasty S. American wood called cumaru. This wood is as mean as they come. It's hard, heavy, has a high silica content (so it dulls edge tools very quickly) and has interlocking, reversing grain that is a total bitch to plane smoothly. On the other hand it's a stunningly beautiful wood that finishes very nicely with a little boiled linseed oil and shellac and it's just the color I wanted for the table and the few boards I had of it were the perfect size for the top.

Next up is a little bookcase:

The case was just big enough to cause lighting problems on the bench for photography but still small enough to take out to the deck.

The case is 36" tall, by 24" wide by 12" deep, 3/4" thick Southern Yellow Pine. The top is dovetailed to the sides and each of the three shelves is fitted inside a stopped dado and toenailed to the sides with cut nails from the bottom. Each shelf is nailed twice on each end, one in the front and one in the back. This adds considerable mechanical strength to the joint and will prevent the shelves from sagging under a load. It's also historically accurate even for fine furniture. After the glue dried I did a quick strength test - I stood on the bottom shelf for a bit. All of my 170lbs right in the center and it didn't budge any that I could notice. While that might seem like overkill, for an open backed case like this with no face frame it's important to get as much strength as you can out of every joint since the design is inherently vulnerable to racking (side to side) stresses. Empty this case will deflect about 1/2" from the side to side if you put your hand on top and push, but that's mainly because pine is a very springy wood. This is also finished with linseed oil and shellac.

The case is an original design but is vaguely in the Shaker style. The blue streaks you see in the wood are a natural defect caused by a fungus that gets into the wood after the tree has been felled, carried in by insects. The front of the two middle shelves are natural edges, meaning that they still have the shape and texture from the outside of the tree. I've been saving that board for years with the intention of using it for shelves to show off the edge :-)

What all this is leading up to is a new TV. Huh? Last month Newegg had a really good deal on a 40", 1080p Toshiba LCD TV and free three day shipping to boot. I've been wanting to my old 27" CRT TV for quite a while now and this Toshiba set had all the features I wanted for a really good price. Since I was a little drunk when I read the sales email I ordered it without thinking through where exactly I put it. My "wall unit" style entertainment center won't accommodate a set this big and I'm not done building my Entertainment Console of Doom yet and it's going to be at least three more months before I finish it, assuming I don't interrupt myself with more side projects and other distractions. Well leaving the TV boxed up wasn't an option, nor was leaving it setup in front of the old TV on a workmate...

As soon as I sobered up I started work on the table and the living room looked like this for a while:

Which is all well and good functionally but for some reason 'Dueling Banjos' kept playing whenever I turned on the stereo, I think from the redneck factor. To dial back the Cletus look I built that book case to hold all the AV gear:

The goofy looking bearded guy on the TV is Chris Schwarz, editor of Popular Woodworking magazine. He wrote the article with the plans for the table and I learned how to toe nail shelves from his DVD "Forgotten Hand Tools"

I'm still going to finish the Entertainment Console of Doom at which point the book case will actually be used for books and little table will, actually I'm not sure what I'll do with the table. It's a good size for a coffee table but I already built a really nice one so this little guy might be for sale in a few months.

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* That's 2" thick or eight quarters of an inch. Hardwood boards are measured in quarters like that 4/4 is one inch, 6/4 is one and half inches etc... I have no idea why. My workbench top visible in these pictures is 12/4 white ash.

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Day of the Duck
Entered: 2011-03-13
Edited: 2011-03-13
Type: workshop

Instead of going out and doing something traditionally fun I stayed in last night and took apart a duck. My original plan was actually to try battering and pan frying it, like chicken. The thought process behind that idea was that I'd never tried that with duck and it's hard for something to not be delicious when battered and fried. Then I remembered that I had a recipe for duck breast prosciutto and once the charcuterie door was open I ran with it and decided try doing the legs and wings confit. What started out as a plan to make a quick fried dinner has now turned into a week long adventure. I'll try to post updates the same day or the day after I take pictures on project duck.

Clockwise from top left: duck breasts for the prosciutto; wings for the confit; duck fat for the confit; legs for the confit; the breast tenders for dinner.

The prosciutto is going to be the easiest of the batch. I packed the breasts in kosher salt and stashed them in the fridge. After 24 hours in the salt pack I'll rinse them and then hang them to dry in the magic fridge.

For the confit last night I dredged the legs and wings in salt, cracked black pepper and fresh thyme (from my garden). They need to rest in the fridge for 24-48 hours. Then they will slow cook (180 degree oven) in rendered duck fat for about eight hours. After cooking overnight in the fat the whole pot is transferred to the fridge to rest for a few days. Finally the finished duck is removed from the fat, lightly saut�ed to crisp up the skin and finished in the oven for a few minutes to heat all the way through. I've never made a confit before, though I order nearly every time I see on it a menu, so I'm excited to see how my first attempt comes out.

This afternoon I'll need to spend a few hours rendering the fat I saved from the duck for cooking the confit. I've got a feeling I'm going to come up short but fortunately I have a couple of pounds of pig fat in the freezer for just such an emergency. It pays to be prepared :)

After several hours of work in the kitchen on that duck this is all I saved for my own dinner:

I saut�ed the breast tenders and tossed them with some arugula and goat feta, add a splash of olive oil and red vinegar for an excellent little salad.

For the curious I bought the duck at the Urban Harvest farmer's market from the nice folks at Oaks of Mamre farm.

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