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6 July 2017 at 11:27 am #313551
Without wanting to get into an argument, a square is essential, a combination square is useful. In my neck of the woods, at any one boot-sale you will find several try squares that can be had for a couple of pounds, whereas good combination squares are much rarer. It took me years to find a good combination square, during which time I did stacks of work with fixed squares.
For me the most useful features of the combi square are the mitre, and its ability to square in restricted spaces.
Get what you can get.
5 July 2017 at 10:37 pm #313544That’s a good list really, nothing jumps out as poorly chosen or an unnecessary expense. I haven’t read all the comments so apologies if I’m going over old ground.
Combination square is v. useful but a used try square will do everything you want in a simple desk project probably for a fraction of the cost. Just make sure it’s square, doesn’t matter how good the brand is if it’s been dropped every day in a lifetime of use.
Ideally skip the workmate, but if you don’t have the space, money or time for a proper workbench yet at least accompany it with a couple of sturdy sawhorses, maybe one as a “sawbench” which is somewhere between a big sawhorse and a very small bench. Alternatively I will try to attach a design for a “portable bench” from The Practical Woodworker, Bernard E. Jones (a fantastic book, it’s well worth getting a copy). Caveat: I have not built this. For fine work a proper bench is essential though.
For sharpening, I would say a coarse oil stone will be best for occasional re-shaping, removing chips etc., but for everyday honing I’d go for diamond stones. They’ll give you less hassle. I’m not talking about dia-sharp £100 stones, google “Faithfull 4-sided diamond stone” to see what I mean, if you can find an equivalent wherever in the world you are I’d go for that.
Here’s a recipe for dirt-cheap clamps. 3×2(ish) timber, two blocks of wood screwed to said timber about 1″ further apart than what you want to clamp, folding wedges matched to the gap provide the clamping force. They don’t give you a huge amount of pressure but I have used them to great effect before, and they cost about a tenth of the cheapest clamps I’ve seen.
Smaller chisels as others have said – 1/4″, 3/8″ and a big one (1″-2″) probably if you go into the desk first, 3/4″, 1/2″ and a big one if you decide to build a workbench first. But a full set is indispensable so all five ideally.
Furniture tops are usually fixed to their frames with screws (indirectly), so some method of screwing and drilling (bought or borrowed) will be needed at some point. A cordless drill would be a good first power tool buy, you will see Paul using them in plenty of videos, but not an essential starting tool.
Here’s the rub, you need a mallet to make a mallet. If you can borrow one, great.
The rip panel saw is probably unnecessary. A rip tenon saw will do short cuts, and long rip cuts will be too much for a panel saw which will usually have similar teeth to a tenon saw. I use a 4tpi rip saw for boards right down to 3/4″ thick, I would recommend the same. If you can’t find one that’s suitable, either stick more or less to the dimensions of the wood you buy, or get someone else to dimension it, or get ready for a lot of huffing and puffing because ripping with the wrong saw is very hard and slow work.
Good luck, I hope you catch the bug!
Matt
- This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by chemical_cake.
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You must be logged in to view attached files.5 July 2017 at 8:55 pm #313542Philipp J had it bang on in my opinion. A jointer, thicknesser and bandsaw are such good value for the labour they save that I consider them essential to my work. Stock too wide for the thicknesser is ripped down, machined, re-glued then hand-planed or sanded (unless it really must stay full-width, or it’s just one board or two and not worth setting things up, then I will hand-plane from rough). I’m a joiner with a mix of site-work and commissioned work that I do in a small home workshop.
Cordless drills too, don’t usually think of them as power tools but I suppose they are. Several’s handy so you can leave one set up permanently for driving screws.
The other tool I couldn’t live without is a track saw, i.e. a circular saw guided by a straight track, for dimensioning sheet goods. A good one with a good blade will cut perfectly square, straight, smooth edges ready for joinery off the saw. Save’s my edge tools being used on ply or MDF.
Routers are so versatile that they’re probably verging on essential, in particular the bearing-guided cutters make short work of many tasks involving curves that would be very time-consuming with hand tools alone and probably impractical for the inexperienced amateur.
Most useless power tool in my opinion is the handheld electric plane, I don’t miss mine at all, even less when I see other people using one.
Of course if your aim is to pass the time in the evenings productively, at your own pace, and without annoying the neighbours, no power tool is “essential”.
- This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by chemical_cake.
21 August 2016 at 1:58 am #139526From what I’ve seen, the typical solutions to this problem would be either to put legs at the four corners – which might be out of the question if you don’t have thicker stock – or apply a face-frame. Alternatively, you could stop the housing at front and back so that it only reaches full depth in your rails, then notch out the frame so that it either isn’t housed in the uprights at all or perhaps very shallow – maybe 1/16 – just to resist movement.
Hope that might be helpful.
Matt
- This reply was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by chemical_cake.
4 August 2016 at 12:30 am #139069Traditionally you would avoid stressing some glue joints, but with modern glues and clamps it’s probably not an issue (assuming a well-made joint of course). Besides, the rail is there to resist racking forces and the weight of the user is transferred straight through the legs to the floor so the glue joint isn’t stressed anyway.
I’d crack on without any worries.
Matt
3 August 2016 at 3:30 pm #139042No doubt a frame-and-panel lid would be less likely to warp.
The design of the lid on the joiner’s toolbox makes no attempt to limit wood movement, except covering the end grain – it’s basically a great wide board floating in free space, and only careful acclimatisation to its home and selection of stable stock will help. I guess they did warp often but as utilitarian pieces it wasn’t a big issue.
All the best,
Matt
3 August 2016 at 1:35 am #139018Could the floor be uneven? If the whole box is flexing that could stop the lid fitting.
If you re-make and stick with the same construction, the best method to limit thickness loss would be to rip the existing lid into strips, re-true, re-joint and re-glue.
It shouldn’t be too hard to bodge the fit, by planing the skirt on the lid and using a rebate plane to trim the stop on the main box you could split the stock removal to limit its visibility.
Matt
28 July 2016 at 11:13 am #138880I’m with Matt, pare across the grain if you’re having trouble with tearout. Sharpness helps, taking baby shavings as well, but a chisel is a wedge and in some cases you can’t counteract this effect.
Matt
27 July 2016 at 11:35 am #138852Good clean work, a nice elegant looking tool.
I’ve picked up a few old panel gauges and don’t get on with any of them, always seems to be too much leverage on the end of that long stem. Which is not to say they don’t work, but using them is tense and prone to error. I suspect it’s partly stems that are too slender and flexible, and partly wear that has left too much slop in the stock mortise. I hope your experience is better than mine!
One bit of advice – all my three panel gauges have been spelched on the stock by the wedge, so you might want to put little bevels between the stock faces and the wedge bearing surface.
Matt
24 July 2016 at 5:25 pm #138771Did you make the doors or cabinet first? Conventional wisdom says cabinet, but James Krenov – master of curved doors – preferred to make the doors first.
The pine should look nice under oil.
Matt
22 July 2016 at 7:30 pm #138756Perhaps the trim was added later, to bring an old piece up to date? I’m dead keen to see it now, any photos? Might help with suggestions as well.
Just to clarify – the piece is still together, and the nails are keeping it this way? Or is it apart, and you just need to get the nails out?
For my tuppence, I think I’d punch the nails all the way through. This would be particularly useful if your dovetails are nailed through the pins into the tail board. You can use a parallel-sided nail punch or pin-pusher, or a biggish nail with the point filed flat to do this. Once the wood’s apart the nails are either driven below the surface, forever entombed, or pulled out with pliers/pincers if the head is above the surface.
If you try to pull the nails out, inevitably you need to dig a hole either side of the head in order to get your pliers onto it so I think punching is almost certainly going to cause less damage. As a previous poster said, they have to be lost-head/finish nails or brads/pins for this to work.
Matt
22 July 2016 at 6:48 pm #138755That’s a great photo, and the frame complements it well. It’s hard to tell the scale – how big is it?
Matt
19 July 2016 at 1:03 pm #138609You must be very fond of coffee!
I was thinking the other way – why can’t the front board be vertical? Then no dovetails of course. In fact you may as well just use glued butt joints.
You can’t cheat wood movement, and 17″ is really too much.
Matt
19 July 2016 at 12:49 pm #138607Don’t know exactly what the formulation of Minwax is, but many paste waxes can be dissolved with white spirit (US mineral spirits). So perhaps try that before giving up on the finish.
I’ve had the same thing happen to me with Briwax that I put down to putting too much on, the harder waxes want just the thinnest film and I had been used to a softer brand.
Matt
19 July 2016 at 12:41 pm #138605Interesting, I wonder why that should be. Must try it next time I have any maple.
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