The small bench is complete. We’re going to use this for putting on / taking off shoes in the mudroom. It’s been an interesting hand tool project, and I’m happy with how it came out. The main issues I had with assembly were some small joinery gaps, but I fixed these with hide glue and matching sawdust, and those gaps are not noticeable in the end. I have to say I’m not crazy with the sapele choice for the aprons, in retrospect. In the right light, the sapele looks kind of orange, so I think that’s what is bugging me. But it will mellow with time and I think it will age nicely.

I’m really happy with how the grain shows in the walnut, and the top of the bench really in particular shows some interesting light/dark contrasts with strong gray streaks. I also added a slight bow to each long side of the bench top, which gives the top a gentle tapered (subtle) curve at each end. I finished it with Osmo Polyx-Oil.

Here are some final assembly shots:

Here’s a shot documenting the tenon cuts for the legs.

And the mortises for the bench top.

I tapered the legs on the inside to help give the bench a slimmer profile from the front.

I locked in the knots on the bench top with some 5-min epoxy and it worked well. Since I just needed a little bit, I used the epoxy that I use for fly tying. I did this so that the knots don’t crumble over time.

Here’s the dry fit of the frame.

And here’s some shots of the final bench after glue-up and finishing:

And here’s what I started with for reference: some old, incredbily warped slabs of walnut … and a new sapele board for the aprons. This transformation of chunks of wood to useable furniture is just magical to me. With some simple tool work and a plan, amorphous slabs can transform into something useful and beautiful.

Making progress on the walnut bench. I’ve cut most of the mortise and tenons to connect up the legs. I’m using sapele for the aprons. This is the rough cut of the aprons using my rip and crosscut handsaws.

This image shows all of the markup for the tenons. I mark the lines deeply with a wheel marking gauge and then trace the lines with a pencil so they are easy to see.

And here are the cut tenons … couple of hours later. I used a carcase saw to first cut the cheeks, then cut the tenons out. Afterwards, cleaned up with chisels to ensure the lines were straight.

Then I started on the mortises. I marked it up so that the aprons will be flush with the edge of the walnut legs. The hand drill is used to cut out most of the tenon waste, then chisels to clean them out and square the edges.

And … an hour or two later, all the mortises are cut in the legs.

Here’s the dry fit of the bench, but the top is just sitting on top. In other words, I haven’t yet cut the mortise/tenons to attach the top.

Next, I moved on to the front/back apron design. I decided to go for a big wide curve. To create that curve, I attached a string and pencil to my shop bents, then moved it to the right distance to get the desired arc. It took some trial and error (need to hold the pencil straight and taut) but it worked well. As you can see, I dressed up for the photo shoot to document the work.

Next, I decided to create a nice profile so it wasn’t just a plain curve. I marked out proportions that looked nice to me by marking up three 10mm sections with two 5mm steps, and then using the base of a marking gauge to draw some circles until I liked the look of it. While I typically use English units, I often switch to metric for mark up for things like this because for me it’s just easier.

I started out using my bow saw, but I soon decided to saw to the line in segments across the curve just to help get rid of waste as I cut with the bow saw; cutting out little sections makes it easier for me, at least psychologically.

Here’s what that looked like about halfway through:

After it was roughed out, I started getting closer to the line with a spokeshave. Once I was happy with that, I moved on the fancy profile.

There may be better ways to do this, but this works for me. I cut down to my lines with my carcase saw and then use my files to finish the job. Here’s the before:

And the after:

And the following is the front apron all finished up. Next, I need to do this for the back apron so it matches. I think I’ll just leave the short side sapele aprons as they are (squared off), but I want the front and back to match, even though the back of the bench will be against a wall (it’s going to be a bench for the mudroom to put on shoes). It may not always be used in this fashion, so it should look good from any angle. It’s getting close to completion!

My wife asked if I could make an extra-long shoehorn because she’s having some knee trouble. So I knocked out this project in an evening and it was a lot of fun.

I grabbed a scrap of cherry and roughly cut it to size using a rip saw and a spokeshave. Then it was mostly an exercise in filing.

I had a small shoehorn (store bought) to use as a reference. It occurred to me that this is kind of like spoon carving, but easier because there is no “front spoon edge” (so to speak) to a shoe horn, so I could just file it right down to get the desired shape. I had my significant other test it out several times to ensure I got the shape just right. The hardest part was ensuring it was as thin as possible at the edges of the “spoon,” but still strong.

I shaped the handle with block plane.

And finished it off with some Osmo wood wax, then wrapped the handle with blue waxed cord. I also added a loop to the end to hang it up out of the way. The lovely cherry wood grain was a happy accident. I had no idea that beautiful grain was hidden in that scrap of wood.

So I went on vacation after my last post about the bench build, and this weekend I finally got around to flattening the funky boards. I used my scrub plane for the rough work, which made it bearable. Next step: come up with an actual plan to make a bench…

I’m starting a new project to do something interesting with two warped and oddly cut walnut slabs I acquired … of unknown age and provenance. They must have been rejects from some long ago project and then shelved in a barn?

Here’s an edge-view:

And laid flat to get a sense of how NOT FLAT these boards are:

I have never worked with wood that is this funky, so it’s going to be a challenge to flatten them. So far, I have cut each to length, getting rid of the worst (most warped) parts of each slab. I have started flattening one of them. It’s going to take time, clearly.

I started with a scrub plane to get rid of the worst of the peaks:

And moved on to a #6 fore plane:

That’s as far as I got this evening. Time to sharpen blades before I continue. I plan to have two flattened boards and a plan to make a bench within the next couple of days. Details are still being worked out.

200+ board feet of sapele and cherry and I’m ready for some new projects. First up: a new end table.

My new keyboard set-up:

Here's a weird little project that took only a few hours and solved a unique problem. Here's what my computer keyboard set-up looked like before my project:

Backstory: I use an ErgoDox EZ split keyboard with an Apple trackpad in between (yes ... I use a trackpad and a mouse, for reasons). One problem: I'm pretty particular about my keyboard layout, so I like to have the angle of each side of the keyboard and the wrist rests just so. But each wrist rest and each keyboard half are free floating so they are always moving around. This is especially annoying when I need to move this stuff out of the way to clean underneath, or to use my secondary mechanical keyboard. Another problem: the trackpad in the center is too low, weirdly placed, and is just not great. So I came up with this odd thing:

This was an interesting little challenge to create using hand tools. But it was worth the effort. Now when I need to move my rather elaborate keyboard set up out of the way to clean underneath, or when I want more desk space for a non-computer task, or to switch keyboards, I can quickly set things back up with the exact spacing and angling I want. I start by placing the wrist rests:

And then place each keyboard half against the wrist rests:

And then place the trackpad on the raised, angled stand in the middle. The cable that connects the two keyboard parts tucks neatly under the trackpad. I wanted to keep this as minimalist as possible, so I made it so that the trackpad front edge rests on the stand, but it's angled so that the trackpad back edge rests perfectly on the keyboard edges. This is the minimal width to fit the trackpad and the spacing is just right (for me) for typing. It is very stable and feels solid.

So I'm going to use this for a few days and make sure I like it, then I'll finalize everything, glue it up, give it a coat of Osmo. Based on a few hours of usage, I think this will be a good solution. Everything lines up just so and it just takes a few seconds to get all assembled. It also looks much neater.

So I purchased the metal hardware to build a frame saw and kerfing plane from Bad Axe Tool Works. This was, for me, an intimidating project to build these tools using only hand tools. The plans I used are from Tom Fidgen's The Unplugged Workshop. The plane, in particular. Here's how that went.

I started with a small slab of Koa. It’s a special plane, so I decided to use some of the special wood I had bought when I had lived in Hawaii. I printed out the plan for the plane body at actual size and traced it out. I placed the plane blade here so I could better visualize what I was doing.

Here’s what it looks like all penciled out.

I cut out part of the body with a Carcase saw and my bow saw. Then came the scary part: carefully drilling out the holes for the special screws (forget the name of these) that would hold the blade in place.

You have to drill two holes on each side so that these screws sit flush. Not easy to do with with a hand drill, I discovered.

Here’s a View of cutting the inside handle hold with my bow saw.

And then some heavy and tedious filing to get everything down to the lines and smoothed out.

The threads in the plane body and the threads for the bolts are created with a thread cutter.

And here is how the screws are made for the arms. I used walnut because it’s pretty easy to work with, relatively speaking.

Rough cut for each wooden bolt. Then file them out to round them.

The completed arms with the bolts. These fit into the plane body like so, using the threads I created.

The most terrifying part of the plane build was cutting the kerf to fit the blade. It had to be perfect, so I created a jig to guide my saw and went really, really slow.

So I created this fence for the plane and glued it up, then realized I had made a terrible mistake. It’s way too thick. It needs to rest against the blade, but this fence hits the plane body and was a total fail. Not sure how I got to this point, but there it is. So what to do?

I could have started all over with the plane fence, but I decided to salvage it. So that’s why you see these interesting light colored things that look like joints that don’t joint anything. I installed a proper smaller fence arm. I tried to make the mistake look like a feature and not a bug. Here, you can see the blade is installed.

A view of the final plane from the another angle.

Here it is in action, cutting the kerf on a board that I’m going to resew with the frame saw. The wooden bolts lock the fence in place to get the desired line.

And that kerf gives you a good line all around the board to help keep the frame saw cutting true.

The result is resawed boards that are far better than I’d get than without using the Kerfing Plane.

So I purchased the metal hardware to build a frame saw and kerfing plane from Bad Axe Tool Works. The plans I used are from Tom Fidgen's The Unplugged Workshop.

Here's my documentation for the frame saw build.

Here’s a small project designed to hold a utility knife, presented as a going-away gift for a work colleague. It’s the smallest box I’ve ever made and was an interesting challenge.

Here’s the documentation:

I started with some ¼ inch walnut I had leftover from other projects. I used my combination plane to rabbit an edge, which will hold the base and the lid.

I cut the pieces to size with my carcass saw and then squared up the cut edges.

The dimensioning was all done by sight, using the knife case as a guide.

While I used the combo plane where I could, I still ended up doing a lot of fine chiseling, especially on the crossgrain little pieces.

Using the combo plane on such a small piece was a real challenge for figuring out how to hold the work. Here, I use the birds mouth and holdfasts.

Here are all the sides of the box. I didn’t do any fancy joinery, just rabbets and grooves.

The sliding lid of the box has an inset NOAA pin, where we work. This is a lapel pin, so I snipped off the back and removed the frog.

Creating the inset hole for the pin was a slow process, using carving tools and a ¼ chisel. I used a similar process to create a small thumb-sized divet on the other side of the box lid.

The glue up. Again, this is just grooves and rabbets. I figured it was a display box and wouldn’t be subjected to a lot of stress, so the glue would be adequate.

Here is the final box. The lid slides out. I tried to keep it a bit tight on the lid so there was a bit of tension, and then waxed the inside grooves. The walnut box is finished off with Osmo. Some of the edges are a bit rough, but I thought that was OK as it matches the rustic or rugged feel of a box that holds a utility knife.