At the request of my girlfriend, I have been busy making a wooden cutlery tray out of Pine - my first commissioned piece!
As with the small toolbox I used box joints for the sides and chopped mortises with a chisel for the dividers to fit into. This time I made sure I used an aesthetically pleasing number of fingers for each side of the corner joint.
Unfortunately, my clamps were not big enough for glue-up, so another online trip to Axminster tools was in order to buy three Sash Clamps. Also unfortunately, the three clamps and some glue I was buying didnt come to the £50 required for free postage.
Soooo ... I was forced to purchase one of these.
I have a feeling that I will be using this little shoulder plane a lot, it will definitely be handy for my next intended project - a Coffee Table using Mortise & Tenon joints.
The major lesson learnt from this project is not to use too much glue. The squeeze out stuck the wooden blocks I was using to the project and I had to separate them with a chisel. The small scar on the facing side in the photo will be my reminder. Luckily, the cutlery tray has been made to fit tightly into a sideboard draw and the mark wont really be seen.
Im learning so much and gaining confidence with each small project, another few projects with increasing complexity and size and I will be ready to buy some decent wood such as Oak. It can be quite frustrating using Pine, especially Pine that has been rescued from the dump!
Well this one is of the same design but I have used Makore as the handle wood. I have included some end grain photos of the handle so you get a better idea of the amount of work that goes into achieving a quality finish. That also goes with the shaping of the bevels on the brass hardback. It takes a lot of time to do this by hand and I sometimes curse the extra effort required, but it does add that extra flair to the final look of the saw.
