Linux on an iPad

I recently “upgraded” an old 2009 Macbook Pro with Elementary OS, a fantastic Linux distribution. This led me down the distro hopping path, exploring way too many different Linux distros on my primary 2013 Macbook Pro using Parallels.

Then it occurred to me that to try out Linux on my iPad, just for kicks. Turns out it works great, provided you have a tool to run virtual machines and a Luna Display adapter. Above is a screenshot of my iPad displaying Pop! OS via my Macbook. Maybe this isn’t the most useful thing in the world, but it’s pretty cool to use my Apple pencil on Linux.

As an aside, my forays into Linux have been so enjoyable that I’m strongly considering switching to a System76 machine when my Macbook Pro kicks the bucket. I hope to hold out until System76 launches their first in-house designed laptops.

Ergodox EZ and Arrow Keys

I bought an Ergodox EZ Glow ergonomic mechanical keyboard in 2019 and I’ve grown to love it. It took me some time to adjust to a split keyboard, and even more time to nail down my personalized layout across three different programmed layers. The unmarked keys on the board did not take as much time to adjust to as I thought they would. I purchased the black model with Cherry MX Brown switches, and upgraded to Blue Zilent switches and gray/blue keycaps. Dreamy.

But after months of using this keyboard, there was one thing I could just not get used to: switching layers to get to the arrow keys. I never realized how often I use arrow keys until they weren’t easily accessible. My solution was to get a tiny six key customizable keyboard from TechKeys. It fits perfectly in between the two keyboard halves. In addition to the arrow keys, I programmed the top left and right keys with an extra shift and space, because it’s often quicker to tap the tiny board when arrowing around. I think it’s an amazing set-up.

Now I just need to get some custom keycaps for the tiny board. I’m currently using leftover keys from my Vortex Race 3. Why two mechanical keyboards? I have a standing desk station and a sitting desk station. I use the Vortex while sitting, the Ergodox while standing. Excessive? Perhaps. But the Ergodox is not the easiest keyboard to move around, so this works for me. Plus … I just love mechanical keyboards. It’s a bit of an addiction.

Sloyd Bench Hooks

I made some handy bench hooks based upon the teachings of Sloyd (which I don’t know much about, but discovered is quite an interesting thing). Actually, learning about Sloyd may be the most interesting thing about this project. Anyways, these bench hooks are really useful to hold wood of different lengths on the bench for, say, cutting dadoes, or to hold up long pieces level when crosscutting on the hook I use for sawing, or for holding wood for paring.

slab of hard maple — I started out with a scrap of hard maple. Bad choice. This made a quick project into a several day project, because the wood was like granite.

I cut out 12″ blocks and surfaced all the edges with a hand plane. Then measured 2″ from each end, marking the center points, then drew a line from that point to the far corner as seen here. Once I had the layout, I sawed in a bunch of relief cuts with a carcass saw.

two sloyd hooks in rough form — Here’s a shot of the two hooks, with the surfaces ready to be chiseled out.

Finished surface of one sloyd hook — Here is one finished surface. To get to this point, I chopped out the sawed parts with a bevel-down chisel, then pared down to my line with chisel and block plane. You can see the unfinished bottom surface here. This is a rinse, repeat operation for the other surfaces.

Finished bench hooks — To finish off the hooks, I rounded the corners with rasps, so it’s easy to hold with the hand. I also used a card scraper to get the show surfaces as flat and smooth as possible.

The hooks seemed a bit slippery, so I lined the bottoms with cork (secured with hide glue). Now they’re ready for use.

Fly Rod/Reel Case Build

Over the past few months (July-September 2018), I created a display case to hold a fly rod and reel for the Potomac Valley Fly Fisher club, of which I’m a member. The fly rod/reel this case is designed to display is raffled off once a year. The person who wins the raffle gets to use it for one year. The prize comes with a small book to log fishing experiences. At the club’s annual banquet, the person who used it for a year gives a short presentation of his or her experiences.

To get me started on this rod/reel case, I was provided with some photos of a similar box from a fly club in Pennsylvania. That rod case has been in circulation since 1963! I like to think that the display case I made will also be in circulation for many decades to come.

a stack of unfinished walnut — Before: I started out with a stack of tongue and groove walnut panels. These are offcuts and rejects donated by a neighbor used in an 80s project to panel a living room in walnut.

finished case — After: this is the completed case, showing the interior.

finished case - exterior — And here is the completed case, showing the interior.

The following is a log of how I made the case. What this doesn’t show is how much trial-and-error was involved in the process. I spent a lot of time testing out different ways to hold the rod and reel in place, in particular. It also doesn’t show how much help, guidance, and inspiration I received from fellow woodworking members from the Hand Tool School.

Stack of walnut boards ripped and planned. — I used a 5tpi rip saw to cut the boards in half and to cut off the tongue and grooves. Then I used a #7 plane to get the panels to proper thickness.

Cutting boards to length with crosscut carcass saw. — I used a crosscut carcass saw to cut the boards to length.

cork liner on base panel — The bottom of the case was lined with cork, which I glued on.

cork liner installed, showing rabbets on side panels — Once the cork liner was in place, I measured the total thickness of the bottom panel. I then used a plane to get the total thickness to 5/16″. This is the size of the blade I used to cut the grooves for the side panels. To cut the grooves, I used a Veritas combination plane.

Paper sketch of dovetail set-up — I sketched out the dovetails on paper before I started cutting. I decided to go with half-blind dovetails. I used two dividers because one is set to step across the end grain and the other was set to mark the distance from the edges.

End panel with pencil marks for dovetail cuts — I marked out the tails first, then cut them out with a dovetail saw and 1/4″ chisel.

marking out the pins — Once I had the tails cut, I marked out the pins using a dovetail knife. I secured the bottom panel here in a Moxon vise.

sawing pins of dovetail — This is a shot of cutting out the pins. For half-blind, I cut at a steep angle down to my lines.

Chopping out pins with a chisel — Then I chopped out the pins with a 1/4″ chisel. It was a delicate, time-consuming affair.

Rough half-blind dovetail fit together — Here’s one corner completed, showing the half-blind dovetail up close. I color code each part of the project so I can keep track of how the different pieces fit together. Note that I also cut my grooves through because it’s just so much easier. I plug the groove holes at the end of the project and they are barely visible.

carcass assembly — This shot shows all the dovetailed corners connected up, without the bottom panel inserted so the bottom grooves are visible.

A rip saw and a thin strip of sapele — Next, I started working on the lid for the box. I used sapele for the mitered frame of the box lid, mainly because I ran out of strips of walnut! I cut the strips of sapele to size with a rip saw.

cutting miters — I used a miter box I made in 2017 to cut the mitered corners for the box lid frame. Here, I’m using a Bad Axe tenon saw.

using a plane to finish edges of panel — This is the inside panel of the box lid, which will be framed with sapele using mitered corners. Here, I’m using my #7 to finish up the long edges.

shooting ends of panel — Squaring up the edges of my panel using a shooting board.

box, all dry fit together — And here is the box with everything dry fit, showing the completed box lid with the miter frame in sapele and the panel in walnut.

fly rod laid out on bench — Next up, I had to figure out how to secure the rod in the box. Here, I’m laying out the rod sections on scrap wood to see where to place the inserts in the box that will hold it in place. I used sapele for the inserts (to match the mitered frame of the box lid) because I thought it balanced it out nicely with the contrasting walnut.

And here are the inserts that will hold the rod. I used double-sided tape to hold the rod pieces in place on these blanks, then used a pencil to mark out the lines. I used a marking gauge to figure out how deep to make each groove.

filing out the rod holding grooves — I used Auriou rasps to file out the grooves to hold the rod in place. These rasps are expensive, but they are so worth it.

tapping thread in wood — For the center insert that goes in the box, I threaded the wood. Why I did this will be apparent in the next photo.

Center insert with holding arm — This is the center insert with the threaded hole. I used a brass thumb screw here from McMaster-Carr to attach a small swinging arm. This arm keeps the four rod sections held firm when locked down.

making a dowel — Next, I made a 1/4″ dowel, which is used to hold the reel in place in the box.

dowel attached to box, used to hold the reel — Here is the dowel attached to the inside panel of the box. I glued a small rare earth magnet to the end of the dowel. For the reel, I’m holding it with a reel seat blank, in which I also glued a magnet. When the reel seat is slid down onto the dowel, it locks in place with the magnets so to hold it securely in place.

Interior of box with rod and reel in place — Here’s what it looks like when it’s all put together, with the rod and reel locked in place.

chisel cuts for butt hinge mortise — Now all that’s left i installing the hardware. Here, I’m cutting a mortise for a butt hinge. I used Brusso hinges for this project and they are worth the money. I started out with some gentle chisel cuts. The depth of the hinge mortise is set with a marking gauge.

router plane for butt hinge — Then I used my router plane to smooth the bottom of the hinge mortise after I chiseled out most of the waste. I slowly crept up on my lines and dry fit the hinges many times to ensure a tight fit.

butt hinge in place — This is one of the butt hinges in place after the mortise was completed.

All hardware in place — And here is the box with all the hardware attached. In addition to the butt hinges, I installed small box ball clasps from Woodcraft to hold the box closed. The chain support is from Rockler.

completed box — I finished the box with two coats of Osmo wood wax.

Making some Sloyd hooks today. My mistake was choosing a scrap of hard Maple. I’m getting a workout. #handtoolschool

Finished my fly rod/reel box! I’ll soon post a “how it was made” article, for posterity.

I finished the box with two coats of Osmo wood wax.

Fly rod case coming together. I’ll do the inside parts next. #handtoolschool

And here is the box with everything dry fit, showing the completed box lid with the miter frame in sapele and the panel in walnut.

Been out of the shop for awhile, so decided I better start with some practice half blind dovetails before doing it on my real project.

Some ugly bass bugs to try out this weekend. #notfoundinnature

Shooting Board

So I needed a new shooting board. My old one was created over a year ago and I skimped and made the fence with douglas fir, which didn’t hold up well at all. Plus, it just wasn’t that well constructed and I wasn’t able to get great results with it. As I’m about to start a project which will require lots of shooting, I decided to do this now.

So I did a search for “shooting board designs” and came across this one, which is a plan I didn’t purchase (but the photo on the page was enough to inspire me). I made the base with good plywood and the fences with hickory lined with wenge. The guide is also wenge. I choose hickory because I have a lot of it left over from my bow saw project. I choose wenge, because when I visited the Lie-Nielsen shop and saw their demo shooting board, it had wenge incorporated in it, and the person working there told me that wenge is a good choice because it stays true. That was enough to convince me, and I happen to have wenge.

I thought I was going to have buy some parts to make a detachable miter fence, but then it occured to me that I already have a couple of featherboards for a router table that I NEVER use, so I could steal the hardware from that and use it for my project. By chance, I already had a couple of longer carriage bolts that fit perfectly:

So here is the completed shooting board without the miter fence:

Here it is with the miter fence:
And here it is on edge, in storage position (added a groove in the front to snuggly hold the miter bits.

I did some test cuts today and it’s great. I’m quite happy with it. One thing about it: the board is smallish. Not a big deal for squaring an edge with long pieces because it’s easy to stick in some support on the bench. But when shooting miters on longer boards, the ends are going to hanging in the air of the table. So the way I’m dealing with that is with my shop bent. I didn’t glue up the top piece in my bent so it can be removed:

The “standard” height of it lines up with my bench top, but I can swap it out for different heights. So now I just need to make a new top piece that is a few inches taller for when I need to support longer pieces for miter cuts. As an aside, I made the bent this way because my other small bench in the shop is a different height, so I have a top part that matches the height of that for those times I need to support things on that surface.