I was hoping to share this on the MWA Podcast this week. Alas, we didnt manage to record an episode (next week and the week after we will). In the mean time, I wanted to be sure to share two (2) great upcoming woodworking events.
 |
| Chirs current shop stool. |
The first is Chris Wongs Shop Stool Build Off. Chris of Flair Woodworks is building a new shop stool and he has invited everyone to build along with him. You can read more about the build off here, on Chirs site. You can also follow the stool making madness live on twitter on Jaunary 25, 2014. Just follow the hash-tag #SSBO.
Another great event coming up is the Furniture Project, February 21 -23 at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston. The Furniture Project (formerly the FurnitureExpo) is a great event conceived to introduce custom furniture makers with a buying audience. It shares show space with the New England Home Show.
 |
| Show attendees admire Mortons table. |
Each year the Furniture Project chooses a project and invites all furniture makers to make one and enter it for display. Accepted pieces are then shown at the Furniture Project. This year, the project is a Chimney Cabinet. The rules, available here, are minimal and allow for lots of creativity.
 |
| Jim Ashley, Michael McCoy & Chuck Bender at FurnitureExpo 2012 |
If youre anywhere near Boston, Id highly recommend attending the Furniture Project and even entering a Chimney Cabinet if you can. Ive attended before and friends such as Morton, Rusty and Rob Bois have displayed there. Its well worth attending.
Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.
Read More..
I’ve been wanting to play with dye for a while, so I figured that Stephen’s Step Stool would be a perfect project to experiment with. Before putting any dye on the stool itself, I tested a few dye mixtures on a sample board I had sanded with the stool. I tried General Finishes and TranstintBlue Dyes. While the General Finishes is ready right out of the can, the Transtint needs to be diluted. I tried one dilution with denatured alcohol and one with a .5 lb cut of shellac. All three (3) were ragged onto the sample board.
 |
| Three dyes, almost the same coloring. |
When they dried, I had a hard time distinguishing them. They all seemed about the same color blue and the small difference there were seemed more to be the wood grain than the dye. I decided on Transtint in shellac since the shellac didn’t raise the grain like the water based General Finishes dye did and unlike the Transtint in alcohol, the Transtint in shellac provided a seal coat at the same time.
 |
| The finished dye. |
I ended up applying two (2) coats of blue tinted .5 lb cut shellac. The second coat not only made the blue color richer, it also allowed me to rub out streaks and other imperfections in the initial coat. Though the coloring wasn’t perfect it was still really cool and I’m quite pleased with how it came out.
As a finish, I’m applied 4 coats of General Finishes Arm-R-Seal, as per the method Marc describes in his A Simple Varnish Finish DVD. It’s a simple method of rag applying an oil/varnish blend. The results are good and hard to mess up.
 |
| The finished stool. |
With the finish on the stool went into Stephen’s room and it was time to get to those pesky Christmas projects. Now, what was it I’m supposed to build . . .
For all of the Step Stool posts, click here.Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.
Read More..
I made Stephen’s Step Stool from Douglas Fir. Our big box stores do not carry the fabled Southern Yellow Pine, so I settled on our local (not-so)equivalent.
I laid out the parts between the knots on the boards and cut them using my jig saw. Because the 2”x12”s were 10’ long, I cut them on the floor using scraps of wood to hold them up and provide blade clearance.
The 2” x 12” we used was wider than my 8” jointer so I flattened the faces with the planer alone. Once each piece was cut to length there was minimal bowing. The pieces were first fed through my planer with their concave side down. They were then continually passed through the planer, alternating faces between passes, until the board where reduced from 1½” to 1” thick.
Stephen proved a great help during the milling as he was able to keep an eye on the ClearVue cyclone attached to my shop vac and let me know when it began to clog. Planing ½” of thickness off of 11½” wide boards made about 45 gallons of chips.
After thicknessing the boards I finished milling them by flattening one edge on the jointer and then cutting to width on my table saw. Once milled and dimensioned we stickered them and called it a night.
 |
| Dry fitting before joinery. |
The following day I cut the dovetails using my Keller 2200 Journeyman Dovetail Jig. Some of the boards had cupped slightly, but I was able to clamp them up tightly and the dovetails cut reasonably well.
 |
| Milling the pins. |
Then I glued the front and rear sections of each side together using Nexabond glue. Since using it in my clamp rack I’ve been impressed with Nexabond’s performance. Hopefully +Christopher Adkins will mail me my WIA Nexabond soon.
While the glue on the sides dried, the remaining pieces spent the night re-stickered.Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.
Read More..
When I removed the sides from their glue up, I found that the left side had cupped slightly.
I took all of the unassembled pieces, both cupped and flat, and sanded them to 220. This may have been overkill as I still hand plenty of post assembly sanding to go, but I wanted to make sure that I didnt have to do any initial smoothing after the stool was assembled.
 |
| I pre-routed the edges I wouldnt be able to reach after assembly. |
When the pieces were sanded, I marked out the edges I wouldnt be able to reach with a router after assembly and rounded them over with a ¼” radius round over bit. I was careful to keep well achoice from the joinery. This meant that there would still be rounding and smoothing to do by hand after assembly. That’s the price of ensuring that the joinery wasnt damaged and that rounded edges on the assembled pieces flowed together properly.
Unfortunately I only had time for sanding and I wasnt able to assemble the stool. The pieces spent one more night stickered.
 |
| By the time I was ready for assembly, this side had cupped severely. |
The following day, when I finally did get to assembly, I found a wicked cup in the left side. After thinking about it for a few minutes I dug out my Woodpecker Aluminum Camping Cauls and used two (2) to force the left side close to flat.
 |
| The cauls forced it into almost flat. |
Close to flat wasnt exactly flat and the boards hadnt been exactly flat when I dovetailed them either. This resulted in the assembly of the dovetails requiring a little quick paring and some additional persuading with a large rubber mallet. I used Tightbond III in the dovetails for its open time and clamped them up overnight.
 |
| All glued up. |
In the morning, the tear out from the last minute tail adjustment was obvious.Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.
Read More..
Alas, I was no Last Minute Elf. I tried to have two (2) projects done before Christmas. One still sits — barely started — on my miter saw wing. The other, having been finished on Christmas morning, now sits in my Mother’s kitchen. I’ll regale you with the tale of the frame once o finally build it. Here is the tale of the Wine Rack.
Design
When I had decided that I wanted to build a wine rack for my mom, I began by looking at other racks. I did most of my looking on Pinterest and created a board of the designs I liked.
Read More..
