Skin on Frame Canoe

 I started working at a canoe shop this spring, and while I was brushing up on the technical aspects of canoes to better be able to articulate the merits of various canoes with customers, I stumbled upon the skin on frame building style.  Naturally, I decided that I should make one.  I have a bad habit of losing steam partway through a project and never finishing it, but hopefully this is simple enough in the construction that I can keep chugging along to the end.  So far I've purchased 5 furring strips from the lumberyard, a couple of which I've ripped down into gunwales and a keelson.  I've "dry bent" the two ends by ripping many 1/8" strips and laminating them with glue around a simple plywood form.  I may do the same thing for the ribs, it may be easier for me than building a steam box and toying with that.

 Above you can see the gluing of the scarf joint that joins the keelson (the strip that runs down the center of the canoe) to one of the ends.  It's a simple 5" long lap joint.  After the glue is dry I will probably drill a couple of small dowels into it for reinforcement, and maybe whip the whole joint with cord.

Below is the selection of tools I used to make the scarf joint.  This project so far has required very few tools, which is good for beginning boat builders looking to avoid a huge investment right away.

This is my simple form.  It was originally a shelf inside one of those recycled canoe shelves made from the ends of busted canoes.  The shelf didn't fit right, so I rescued it from the trash and drilled a couple of holes.  I decided I was pleased with the curve, so simply used it as-is.  I'll make a different form for the ribs since this is for a 38" wide Old Town, and my boat is going to be 32" at the widest.

Frame and Panel (and spoons)

 Here's a photo of a frame and panel that I've been working on the last couple of days.  The frame is Cherry with the panel in Curly Maple with bug stains.  The Maple came from the pallet stack at the lumber yard about a year ago, I don't know whether I posted much if anything about it then.  It's been sitting in my basement since, and is dry enough to use now.  I chopped the 1/4" mortises with my Narex mortise chisel and used my Ryoba to cut the tenons, and I got quite a bit of use out of my Veritas plow plane for the grooves and rebates that allow the panel to sit flush with the top of the frame.  For the cross grain rebates, I scored deeply with my marking gauge (pin filed into a knife edge) and ran the first dozen passes carefully to preserve the visible edge.  This worked out fine, and saved me have to make or buy a rebate plane.  The Veritas only works for rebates up to about 3/8" wide (the widest blade), but that was fine for this application.  For a wider rebate, you could simply plow a groove and then use a bench plane to remove the relish. 

On the panel is a collection of spoons I've been accumulating the last couple of weeks, most in Black Birch.  I've been building up a collection to bring to a couple of stores, and after reviewing the terms on Etsy again, I'm considering selling some there as well.  This was my first time using Black Birch for anything but walking sticks as a kid, and it's interesting to work.  It's harder than the Paper Birch I'm also using, and the grain is a little more distinct.  Most of these spoons are made from vertical grain wood, split radially from a small log.  A couple are made from bent or straight branches.  I found one branch that worked nicely so that I ended up with some curly grain in the bowl.  Overall I'm pleased with where the spoons are going.  They're getting closer to the spoons I've been trying to create from the start.  A new hook or two would help me get the inside of the bowl right, I still only have the small radius Mora hook.  I'm talking to a blacksmith friend of mine about a couple of ideas.

Here's a picture of me with the panel, to get a feel for the size of it.  It's about 18x18", not including the untrimmed ends.  I'm thinking this would make a nice little tabletop.  Some finish will help the grain really show up, and I'll probably let it sit in the sun to darken the Cherry up a bit.

Attempted Wood Plane, Camping

I've had my eye out for a good old plane iron for a while, and finally a couple of weeks ago I came across a wood bodied Jack or Try plane that wasn't in great shape with a good laminated, tapered iron.  After I bought the plane and an axe, I gave him back the body and just left with the blade.  Maybe he can sell the body to someone looking for a mantle decoration.

After I ground the iron, sharpened the bevel and got the back into satisfactory condition I started working on a body made from some Red Oak I saved from a house I worked on over the summer.  I've been curious to try a Japanese style setup for some time, so that's where I started with my layout.  The body is about 12" long, with the blade bedded at 45 degrees, or a tad less because of the tapered iron.  I think I might scrap this body, the Oak is really brittle and even being careful I ended up with quite a bit of breakout in front of the mouth.  The shavings aren't too bad, but I don't think it's worth trying to go any further with fettling it.  I might try again with some Cherry or Maple that I have.

In other news, I went camping a couple of weeks ago up in New York, right by the Canadian border with some friends.  The high for the weekend was about 5 degrees F, with nighttime lows close to -20.  A few days before we went out one of the guys that's local to the area went in with a chainsaw and cut several piles of standing dead Ash and Oak for the fire.  I think we went through just about all of it in the two nights we were there.  We walked in a mile or so, most of us using sleds to carry our gear over the 8" of snow.  I took three axes, my Gransfors carving axe, my 3.5 pound Snow and Nealley, and a 3.75 or 4 pound antique on an experimental handle.  The antique ended up splitting all the wood for the weekend, since my S&N is ground pretty thin and would just get stuck in logs, and no one else brought a big axe.  The experimental handle on the antique is Maple, with the growth rings oriented perpendicular to the way traditional wisdom says they ought to be.  My reasoning for trying that is that most wood splits more easily across the growth rings, and the way growth rings are oriented in a common axe handle, it seems that they would be more prone to splitting.  Anyways, the handle did alright, but toward the end a large section split off.  I think Maple is perhaps not the best axe handle material, and the cold also negatively affected another guy's axe handle, so perhaps that was a factor in this case.  Either way, I think it merits some more experimentation.  Maybe sometime I'll put together a proper scientific test.

My camp:

Mahogony Square

A couple weeks ago I was at the lumber yard picking up materials for work when I spotted an unusual piece of wood in the box of bunker wood (the junk wood used to keep good lumber off the ground).  My suspicions were confirmed when I picked it up and looked closer: a 3x4 of Mahogony (I can't tell which sort)!  I could see it was glued up of two pieces, but still respectable pieces.  I have been curious to see how it works, since I've heard that it's a good handtool wood.  The piece I have is quite light, maybe lighter than a similar piece of White Pine, and the grain is pretty distinct.

I first ripped it down the glue line, leaving me with roughly a 2x3.  A  square seemed like a good simple project to get a feel for the wood.  I ripped off a vertical grain piece for the blade, and used the original rip for the stock.  I sawed out the sides of the bridle joint, then chiseled the waste.  This wood is pretty soft and easy to saw, but the end grain also crushes fairly easily with chiseling and even planing.  It's hard to get a good polished finish on the end grain with a plane like I'm used to with the other woods I've worked.

I did a better job of laying this one out than my old one, so it was really square right away, without any fiddling.  I ran out of time so I didn't glue it, that will come later.  The proportions look funny to my eye, but as long as it works I don't really care.

I also bought an inexpensive micrometer a while ago, and I have been measuring some of my plane shavings.  I can get my block plane to take a shaving as thin as .001 (one thousandth of an inch) but no thinner.  I haven't seen the thinnest I can make with my #8 yet, but I bet I can match the block plane.

It's Been A While

It's been a while since my last post.  Once Spring kicked in, work picked up, so I've been working a fair amount.  I've been goofing around with spoons a bit, but nothing worth posting.  I've also gone on a couple of camping trips, spending time with my friends, running and biking quite a bit more than in Winter.

This week I'm going to be heading up to Chester, New Hampshire to participate in the covered bridge project that the Timber Frame Guild is putting together.  It will be a 9 day project, during which an entire covered bridge will go up.  I'm really excited.  I've started to put together my packing list, which includes all of my tools and maybe an extra shirt or two.  I had the thought that it might be handy to take my Underhill-Roubo bench, but I don't think it would be that useful.  It would also be very difficult to get into my little car.

In the next couple of days I will probably be spending some time sharpening, oiling, and tuning up all of my tools, or I might wait until I get up there since I'll be a day early.

For this project, I just bought myself a nice new RazorSaw 10 1/2" dozuki blade and a 220/600 grit 2x6" DMT plate.  Looks like I might have bought a blade that's not compatible with the handle I have, though, so I might have to whip something up.

That's all that's happening for now, I'll try to stay on top of this blog more.  I'll definitely be taking some pictures at the bridge project, so keep an eye out for those in the next couple of weeks.

Oh, and the bandsaw I got broke right after I bought a nice new 80" resaw blade, didn't even get to put it on.  If anyone wants to buy the blade (or the saw for parts, for that matter) drop me an email.  The carriage that the top wheel rides on snapped in half, old cast iron...  Most of the other parts are in good shape though.

Dovetail Transfer Trick

I learned this trick from one of Roy Underhill's books and I think it deserves to be spread around a bit.  This is the first time I've used it, because I usually forget until it's too late. 

You cut the tails first, then don't remove the waste.  Line up your boards and slip your saw into the kerfs, taking a couple of light strokes in each.  This is the most accurate (and foolproof) way that I know of to transfer dovetails.

In the photo I'm using a small modelmaker's saw, because the blade is thinner than my carcass saw, so there is no friction in the kerf (which can cause small movements in the top board).  You can just as easily do it with the saw you made the original cuts with, though, if you are careful to clamp the board down solidly. 

Outdoor Workshop 2.0

Today my mom came up with an idea for a nice outdoor workshop for me, since I had mentioned moving my workshop back outside soon.  Today I got off early from work, so we decided to go ahead and get started right away.  This is the back of the house, right next to the corner where it meets the side.  We are putting in a brick pad and retaining wall (on the right where the bank is cut in) for a nice clean workspace, no mud and no ruining the grass like in the Fall when I came home. 

The pad is being built to serve as a floor for a nice high quality 10x10 foot tent that we have.  Not one of those sissy easy-up tents.  This thing is all aluminum pipe and heavy rubberized canvas top.  My preliminary thought was to bring up my bench and tools, and set up my full shop out here.  Now I'm reconsidering a bit, having thought of the effects that frequently fluctuating humidity could do to all my stuff, including kiln dried or even air dried furniture lumber.  It would all be covered, and I'm planning on tarping the sides when it rains, but I'm not sure what could happen.  Maybe some experimentation is in order.  My new thought is that I might just leave my finer shop downstairs and use the outdoor shop for coarser stuff; greenwood working, spoon carving, and maybe some timberframing if I get brave.  I'll see what happens.

The nice thing about landscaping is that it's big work.  All gross motor, throwing-rocks-and-logs-around kind of work.  There's something particularly satisfying about this sort of thing.

Fun with chainsaw:

This is what happens when my mom comes up with a project and wants me to help:

Potentially the least safe clothing option for chainsaw use?  (I am wearing hearing and eye protection, so I'm not completely senseless).  On a more serious note, you can see that my right leg is thrown back, and that I have almost my entire body out of line with the saw bar.  Even though I have to use my eye to line up the bar with my marks, I move my head  out of the way soon as I know that I'm tracking straight.  The basic premise here is the same as with any tool: stay out the way in case you miss.  Predict where the tool is likely to go, where it could go if something surprising happened, and then throw in an extra margin when you can.  With a knife, that means keep your hands out of the way of the cutting edge.  With an axe, this extends to your whole body (particularly legs in the case of a glancing blow).  You get the point.  Also keep in mind what can happen in the wood.  It's a dynamic material (think of bundles of cord, and what would happen if you cut into one under compression and tension). 

Today was also the warmest day of the year so far, a balmy 75 and sunny. 

Working on Wide Boards

The way I cut my boards to final length may be unusual, or it may be very common.  I really don't know because I don't remember ever reading about how anyone else does it (though I haven't read very many of the classic woodworking texts).  Anyways, this is how I go about it:

I typically rough cut an inch or two oversize, depending on how my material works out and whatever other factors are in play.  Then (if not already done) I will joint one edge and shoot one end of the board off of that.  I pull my measure from the shot end, mark for square and saw about 1/16" over.  This allows for a little slop in case my saw has had a few too many to drink.  I then shoot to a hair shy of my line, being sure to reference off of the same edge.  This makes sure that my two ends are parallel, and square to the face edge.  Once I have all the pieces that are to match through this process, I carefully line them up to see how they compare.  I adjust their length with a few more passes of the plane until they match perfectly.

In the photo above you can see that the 14" wide panel for the bottom of the DVD cabinet I'm building takes up just about my whole shooting board.  Luckily I didn't have to make a new shooting board for this project, but if it were any larger I would have.  With longer planks like this, you can see that I have a couple of boards propped under the end to keep the board flat on my shooting board.  This takes a lot of strain out of the left hand, and lets me focus on shooting.

Below, you can see the trouble in flattening and smoothing a 14" wide panel on an 11" wide bench.  Luckily it's not that much overhang, so it's manageable.  I opened up my vise some to provide support, and used my Veritas Wonder Dog to secure the panel against my planing stop.  This allowed me to use my #5 Jack diagonally across the grain to bring down the hump, and then I had no problem using my block plane to smooth things up.

Where I did run into trouble was on the other side of this panel, where I had to plane out a dish.  I ended up getting rid of the Wonder Dog, and planing straight on each edge of the panel into the stop.  I simply shifted the board back and forth to support wherever I was planing.

If I were working something much wider (but still not wide enough to reach across to the back of my tool well), I could clamp a 2x4, 4x4, or whatever else would be necessary into my leg vise, and if needed secure it against the other leg with a holdfast or bar clamp, depending on the thickness of the piece.  This would effectively  give my a wider solid benchtop to work on.  I think for my next bench I might for a wider bench top, but I'm not sure yet.  I suppose it will mostly depend on what I end up doing more of when it's time for a new bench.  In an ideal world I could have a couple of benches, like Tom Fidgen, one like this, and then one with a really wide solid top for working panels and for assembly.  In an ideal world I would also win the lottery...I suppose I should stop complaining.  Haha!

I also decided that smoothing this big panel would be a good job for a cardscraper, so I made a couple real quick from a dull impulse hardened Japanese saw blade I had laying around.  I cut the blade into two pieces, ground most of the teeth off, more-or-less jointed the edge, ground a roughly 45 degree bevel on one side, polished the flat side on my sandpaper setup to 1200 grit, polished the bevel to the same (bringing it closer-to-but-still-not-quite-90 degrees), and put them to work.  They worked pretty well, but I still feel like the finish isn't quite as gleaming as I get off a sharp plane.  I need to make myself a nice comfortable wood bodied smoother.  This block plane is simply difficult to hang on to.

Once I had the parts for the primary carcass cut, I stood them up to get an idea for how the thing would look.  It should be pretty nice when it's all said and done.  The boards are all three feet long, to give you some scale.  This nice thing about having a low ceiling is that I can brace the thing together by applying a spreading clamp against the ceiling joist (difficult to see in the photo).  So I think that brings the tally to one benefit of low ceilings, five thousand reasons to still hate them.

Using Biscuits Without a Biscuit Joiner

As I was preparing to glue the two boards together for the bottom of the DVD shelf, I got a little nervous about such a wide board with only glue to hold it together in the middle (even though I know the glue joint is usually stronger than the wood itself, bla bla bla), so I decided to reinforce it with some biscuits.  I considered making some biscuits (or would they be splines if I made them myself?), but decided I wanted the expansion properties of commercial biscuits.  I bought a bag at Ace, measured the thickness, and chose a 3/16 slot would be close enough to the standard 4mm of a biscuit cutter.  After jointing up the two mating edges (with the boards clamped together in my vise), I set my plow to cut a groove down the center of the boards, and referenced off of the face edges to make sure everything was consistent.  I made sure to stay a couple inches in from the finished length of the board.

Because I wasn't cutting all the way from end to end of the board, my plane cut an arc-like groove, and couldn't reach the full depth even in the center of the groove.  I took my 3/16 mortise chisel and deepened the groove appropriately, checking to be sure my biscuits would sit approximately halfway in the groove.  

After a test fit, I loosely filled the groove with a handful of biscuits and plenty of glue, and clamped up with the two clamps I have that are long enough.  Hope it's enough!  I'm not really too worried.  Once the glue is set overnight, I'll crosscut, shoot, and start laying out for dovetails.

If I used biscuits more often (and I might, now that I have some), it might be worth investing in a biscuit joiner.  It would make this whole process (which took probably 15 or 20 minutes) a 60 second procedure, after plugging in.  As it is, though, for the occasional use this method works well enough, and it means one less tool to buy, store, and maintain.  Also, I like to avoid the noise and dust of power tools when I can, in my small shop.

Tool Cabinet Update

I finished up my tool cabinet last week, but forgot to post anything about it.  I cut some 1/4" Luan plywood for the front panel, which works well enough.  The door tends to sag a bit, because I only have one dovetail at each corner.  I put a little glue in each of the joints, but it doesn't seem to be helping.  No big deal, really, the door just rubs a bit when I close it.  Outside of the glue I put in the door joints, there is no glue in the carcass of this cabinet.

I stuck the wood bits to the door using some contact cement, and realized too late that the bottom block for holding my adjustable square is too high to allow the stock clearance below the wood square.  I guess I'll just have to make a small wood square to take it's place.  I put some small screw-in hooks on the lower block that hold my sliding bevel and my marking gauge.  The block for my carcass saw was cut out of a chunk of 2x Doug Fir with my 12" bowsaw, and trimmed to fit with a chisel and knife.  I'm thinking I'll eventually move the chisel rack up about 8 inches and put a few drawers under them.  I'll also be adding a second chisel rack in front of the mortise chisels for my couple of bevel edge chisels.  The plane tray is attached with hinges, allowing me to easily access the void behind it (currently storing my plow plane).

Reaching for my plow plane:

Getting Going

Woohoo!  Yesterday my friend and I drove up to Renwood Lumber in Southwick Mass.  We picked up about 35 board feet of mostly Curly Maple, and one big board of plain Soft Maple.  This will go into the DVD cabinet that my friend commissioned.  I am working on finding a way to resaw the 6/4 stock into 3/4 boards.  I got a steal of a deal on the wood (about $2 per board foot) because I picked my boards out of the pallet stock.  Mostly 8 inch wide boards, with a couple of 4 inch wide boards.  Right now I have it stickered in the basement, waiting for me to start hacking it up.

Storage Solution and a Plan

Up until an hour ago, this is what the shelf against the back wall of my shop looked like, but the box of small scraps was on the bottom shelf.  That poor little cardboard box has been overflowing with little nearly-useless bits of nice wood for quite a while now, and spilling out onto the floor.  Yesterday I finally did something about it and made a drawer for that bottom shelf that would hold plenty of scraps (as well as the small scrap metal box on the shelf in the left corner).  I elected to use some of the wide Yellow Pine boards I got the other day, so I cut the pieces to length, shot the ends, laid out some half blind dovetails on the front and regular dovetails on the back, and went to work with the saw and chisel.  Because this is a piece of shop furniture and I don't really care about appearances, I went fast and the joints show it.  I would have just nailed the thing together, but I needed the practice on half blind dovetails (I've only cut one on some scrap before).  I did nail the bottom in with some cut nails, because I don't have a plow plane (which will need to change in the near future).

The completed drawer in it's new home, being very useful:

 In the above photo you can also see a few things that could be interesting, depending on your interests.  On top of the shelf I have two boxes, the bottom of which holds several axes.  The top box holds my Narex mortise chisels, my Lee Valley scrub plane, my Lee Valley carcass saw, and I have my two favorite axes resting on top.  There is also a plate of glass that I set there to get at something else.  The top shelf holds all of my glues and finishes, which doesn't really amount to much, but there it is.  The middle shelf (from left to right) holds my stapler, the dremel, a box of various drill and driver bits, a box of timberlock screws, some half-finished spoons, and a tackle box holding all of my screws and nails.  To the right of the shelf I have all of my hardwood, mostly Maple that I milled myself, but also a little Cherry and a couple pieces of some mystery wood that could be Mahogany.  Just out of the picture on the right is my hot water heater.

A friend of mine approached me about building a storage solution for her DVD collection, which is currently about 320 strong.  I have been drawing up ideas based on 400, to allow for some growth.  We met up last night to see which of the ideas she likes most, and we settled on a fairly basic frame and panel design.  This unit will end up being about 68" tall and about 36" wide, so it will be no small thing.  Right now we're leaning toward Cherry for the carcass and a high quality plywood for the panels, with glass in the doors.  The curved sides are due to the distortion in my camera lens, all the lines are supposed to be straight.  I'm thinking I'll aim for the main carcass pieces to be 3" wide on the face, with the door frame about 2" wide.  On the scale drawing it looks about right to my eye.  I think I'll want to use knife hinges to keep the clean lines on the front, but I'm not sure what to do about pulls for the doors yet.  Maybe a couple of those things that allow you to press the door in, and then it springs out.   I'm definitely going to need a plow plane for this project.

Finished Picture Frame

I finished up the picture frame the other day and delivered it. To finish it I glued the joints together, gave it a few coats of Danish Oil, and matted the picture.

Below are a couple pictures of a new beam I made for my marking gauge, in an attempt to cut out the rabbets in the frame, but the Cherry was too hard and brittle for that idea to work. I made the blade from a hacksaw blade, which it turns out is a little on the flexible side. The blade kept bending out and following the grain. At some point I'll make a new blade out of some thicker steel.

The nice thing about this style of marking gauge is that it's not too difficult to quickly whip up a new beam if you have a special need. I'm considering making a couple of beams with pins set for my most commonly used mortise chisels. It might get done in a couple of years.


The other day, I also finally took the time to grind on my hook knife. It's the Frost small diameter hook knife, which I got over the summer. I sharpened it up then, but I was never 100% satisfied with the grind that it had. It performed well enough, and got the job done, but it was getting dull again so I figured I might as well do a good job as long as I had nothing better to do for a few minutes. Hook knives are difficult to grind, but not impossible. I ended up thinning out the grind right behind the edge, which reduces the resistance the edge meets in the wood. I'm much happier with the knife now, but I'd still like to get a hold of one of Del Stubbs' hooks. Those things are beautiful.

Picture Frame

The picture frame is coming along slowly. I don't know if it's the Cherry or the way it's sawn relative to the grain on some of the pieces, but I'm having some trouble with chipping out. Part of the problem is that the joints I cut leave some very weak sections of end grain standing out there all alone, but it seems to be more fragile than it ought to be. I've chipped pieces off while initially sawing the joints, planing for width, and trying to cut the rabbet on the back to hold the glass and picture. I've glued all but one back on (I lost it), and I'm trying to figure out what to do about the missing one. I don't have enough to make a whole new stile, and trying to glue a patch on and cut it to fit didn't work out. I could bevel the whole outside of the frame, but I tried that on one of my test joints and I don't think it would look right with this frame.

Framesaw

I decided on an open mortise and tenon for the corners of the frame, and ended up cutting two of them a tad on the loose side, so it was tricky holding the frame together and fitting the blade by myself. I took the saw for a test drive resawing a few feet of 2x4, and it worked okay. Better than anything I already had, but it wanted to wander in the cut even when I couldn't get the blade any tighter.

Framesaw Pieces

I snagged a clear 2x4 from work the other day for the stretchers of my framesaw, and first rough cut a length about 40 inches long. I planed it a little to smooth and even out the surfaces. Then I marked off 1.5" all around the four sides, and clamped it upright (checking for level) to the front of my bench. Then I used my cheap Japanese crosscut saw to rip down the lines. I would lay the saw flattish on the face and draw the kerf down the line, then do it on the opposite face, then clear out the wood in between. This way the saw tended to (but didn't always) follow the kerfs, staying straight in the cut.

You may notice that my batten is clamped at the end of my bench because in it's usual place the board I was planing would hang off the end. This worked well, and saved me having to drill out holes to accept the pins on the batten.

For the Maple arms (made from a 6/4 quartersawn Maple board), I first squared the edges, then marked off the same 1.5" lines and ripped. This time I used a combination of my cheap crosscut saw and the rip side of my cheap Ryoba. I hate that the perfect tool for the task at hand is so often the one that I'm building. It took me almost an hour to make my two rip cuts through the Maple. I could have scrubbed the 3/4" off the side of one of them, but I didn't want to waste the wood.

Just for fun, I decided to do a rudimentary strength test on the Maple bars. I placed a stool near my bench and used a Maple bar to span the distance, with only about 3/4" at each end. I put my full 190 pounds on the center of the bar and bounced up and down, with no noticeable flex. I think these will be fine for the saw. When I performed a similar test (with the stool moved farther away) with the mystery wood bars, they were also very stiff (though not quite so). This saw will probably end up being a little overbuilt, but with my history of breaking tools, I'm not concerned about it. Next move is to make the hardware!


As a sidenote, this morning I ran in an "un-race", the 42nd Tradition Run 5k with my crazy Canadian friend graham. I'm the one with the green hat. We elected to run back down the course for a nice round 10k.

Shooting Board and My First Dovetail Project

The shooting board was made by gluing up another panel as in the previous post about the subject, gluing and finish nailing them together, and nailing the fence on. I also applied some Ultra High Molecular Weight (slippery) tape to the part the plane rides on. It's very handy to have, it makes squaring up and fine tuning the length of boards much easier.





For my first dovetail project (I've cut a dozen dovetails before on scraps) I decided to go for a simple box that I can use to transport tools or the like. I started by cutting the stock to length, shooting the ends, and removing the tongues on the long edges (these boards came to me ship-lapped). To remove the tongues I split/cut them off with a knife, then planed the edges square.

After that, I marked off the baselines with my knife marking gauge. Next step was to lay out the tails, not that it did me much good. I think I hit the line twice on the whole box. They still work fine, but they don't look as nice.


Saw, coping saw, then chisel to the baseline.

You can see the advantage to using a marking gauge with a knife on this soft pine in these pins. The baselines look fine once the joint is assembled, but if you look at the endgrain, you can see that it's all torn up.

I started losing my patience trying to get the edges of the bottom boards to match up so I could glue them into a panel and set the bottom inside the frame. I ended up just nailing the boards to the bottom with some cut nails that I saved when I helped pull out an old hardwood floor over a year ago.



When I was cutting the pins on the first end board, I cut to the wrong side of the line so they are very sloppy. I corrected the issue on the other end, but they still aren't spectacular. The nailed-on bottom and a couple of judiciously placed finish nails have the whole thing more-or-less ship shape. It's good enough to lug some hammers around in anyways.