Serving Tray

2021-06-05

I made a small serving tray to hold my teapot and cup. The design is from Fine Woodworking, which I adapted to use only hand tools. I also made a few other minor design choices that altered from the plan.

The completed tray.

Here's an overview of the build process:

The frame of the tray is simple, as you can see here. The colored dots are used to keep track of what goes where.

Another view of the rough cut. The plans call for an 18 or 20 inch long tray, but I reduced the size to 16 inches so it is a perfect fit for my teapot and cup.

Here is a detail of the cuts. Once the lines are sawed, I use a chisel to pare down to the lines and square off.

In order to clear out the joint, I sawed a bunch of lines so it’s easy to chisel out the waste.

And this is the rough fit for the top cross pieces.

I used my combination plane to cut 1/8 inch grooves in each side, which is where the panels will fit. The grooves are cut quite deep so that the panels have room to shrink and expand freely.

Each side is angled from top to bottom, which gives an elegant look. I did this with a jack plane.

To cut out the handles on each side, I used a dovetail saw to make a series of cuts and then chiseled them out.

A detail showing the chisel work.

Here are the completed handles.

Each handle is wrapped with blue waxed cord I got from the Maine Thread Company. I’ve only recently discovered how easy it is to wrap cord and I’ve been wrapping things all over the house!

Then I fit the panels. The ends of the ¼ inch panels are rabbeted to fit in the side grooves and shiplapped for the inside edges so no gaps will show with expansion or contraction.

Here’s the dry fit. The plan called for grooves on each end board, as well, for the panels to fit into. I didn’t do that. My panels just butt up against the ends, which I think will work just fine for my needs. This alleviated the need to do a really tiny 1/8 inch stopped groove in each end.

And the glue up.

Now for the scary part: for strength and appearance, small brass pins (1/8 inch diameter and ¾ inch long) are set into each corner of the tray. Here, I’m preparing to drill. It was tricky to figure out how to hold the tray firm.

And then I drilled 16 holes to fit the pins: 8 on the top and 8 on the bottom.

Here is the detail showing the pins in place. I applied three coats of Osmo satin clear TopOil.

And it’s done!

Shaving Horse Build

2021-05-06
The completed shaving horse. I had a large black walnut fall in my yard, so I wanted to create some spoons from the Greenwood. I needed a shaving horse to hold the limbs for the carving work, hence this project. In a nutshell, you site on one side and push against the bottom bar to hold the work piece. The top where the work piece goes has a sheet of leather to keep the wood from moving around.
  • Here's the complete project.
  • Holes are drilled to fit the adjustable arms.
  • A view of the base in assembly.
  • The block is used as a wedge.
  • Each leg has a recessed mortise to fit the cross bar.
  • Here's what the underside of a leg looks like, attached.
  • A finished leg.
  • The mortise set-up.
  • Each leg, assembled.
  • Cutting the cheeks.
  • The hardest part was probably getting the feet angle correct.
  • Planing with the #7.
  • Preparing the stock.
  • A lot of sawing...
  • The start point.

Japanese Joinery Square Build

2021-05-06

Here was a challenging project from a few years back that I neglected to post. It involves some difficult joinery.

It looks great from the side.
But the joinery in the back is not so nice. It's functional as a square, though, so I'll take it.
The project was mostly an exercise in chisel work to clear out the wood.
The arm of the square showing the joinery. The curved handle was cut with a bow saw and smoothed out, no big deal.
The handle after cutting out the mortise and dovetail, with the completed arm in the background.

Duck Head Business Card Holder

2020-08-02

This is a weird little item, created from a bit of walnut I had no idea how to use: I friend gave me some duck body and head blanks. As I'm not a carver, I'm still figuring out how to use these. For one duck head, however, I decided it was a nice shape for a business card holder. I made this for a colleague who transferred to a new job. As we work for NOAA's National Ocean Service, it occurred to me that the duck head shape had a bit of an ocean wave flare to it. So that's what I hope it evokes.

Here's the starting point: a duck head blank. In the background, you can see the bodies I have yet to decide what I should do with.
The duckhead was a bit too thin for a stable card holder, I reckoned. So I added walnut strips to the front and back. It adds a bit of complexity, but I was determined to make this work.
Cutting the notch for the cards was just a matter of eyeballing it.
And cleaning it up with some chisel work.
I added a nice bottom wavy curve.
And sawed it out. The final shaping was with my files.
Here's a view of the final card holder. I got ahold of a lapel pin from the place where we work, cut off the back, then cut out a hole to fit it nicely.
Here's the front view with some sample cards. I think it turned out quite well!

Simple Ulu Handle

2020-08-02

Woodcraft sells a simple Ulu knife kit. A while back, I picked up five of them because they were on sale for something like half off. Not much to these. Just a blade and some optional rivets. The only mildly difficult part is creating the tiny little mortises where the handle will sit.

I neglected to take a photo when creating the 3/64" deep mortises, but it's pretty easy to do with a tiny chisel. I could have used a tiny router plane. Someday, I may pick up on of those.
After I rough cut the shape I wanted with a bow saw, I switched to my miracle files from Auriou (as I call them) to shape it well. These files are expensive because they are handmade in France. They are worth every penny.
Nothing fancy, but functional. This handle is from a scrap of bubinga. I made it extra thick and nicely rounded, as it was a gift for a person with large hands.