Author Archives: OldeToolWorkshop

Have Saws, Will Travel

A few Saturdays ago, I attended the Midwest Tool Collector’s Association (MWTCA) tool meet, and finished acquiring all the tools listed in The Anarchist’s Tool Chest (ATC) book, yea! I can fit almost all of my tools in my traveling version of the ATC, except my saws. So I got to thinking that I currently did not have a good way to store or transport my saws. During the MWTCA tool meet, I saw an old military ammo crate that would have almost done the trick. I did not buy the crate…because I thought it would be more fun to build my own!

On Sunday, my daughter and I went to the local home center to pick up a 1x10x8 board. Before I actually started to cut wood, I needed to prototype the till to make sure it would work for me. I read in the ATC that Chris Schwarz needed to tinker a bit with his design before committing it to wood, so I fashioned a version from scrap wood, roughly following Chris’s design in the ATC. The big difference in mine was that I decided to make it for 7 saws instead of 4. My decision to build a bigger one was based on this reasoning: If I take it to a class that is not saw-focused, I can just load it with the standard 4 saws: Rip, Crosscut, Dovetail and Carcass. If I take it to a saw sharpening class, I can load it up with multiple saws to be worked on. Plus, at home, it will maximize storage.

Here is a pic of my prototype saw till. It is smaller than the actual till, but it was a great proof of concept.

Prototype dimensions are 6″W x 6″H x 3/4″ with 3/4″ saw cuts for the saws and a offset 2 1/2 radius circle. The two till boards are spaced 6 1/4″ apart

After using the prototype till for a while, I designed the box around it, while allowing for some extra room. I made my production till 8″ wide and 8″ tall and made of pine. I made my saw cuts 1 3/8″ apart, keeping the saw handles and blades 5/16″ apart at their closest on each side.

So, here is my saw till. The 3″ radius semi-circle cut in the top, allows the back saws to be level with the panel saws.

Production dimensions are 8″W x 8″H x 3/4″ with 1 3/8″ saw cuts for the saws and a 3 radius circle. The two till boards are spaced 6 1/4″ apart

Below is a pic of one of my finished dovetailed corners of the saw box.

Perspective of one finished dovetail corner with prototype till “inside” it

More to come soon …

-Aaron

Tools, Tools, Tools!

On Saturday the 15th of September, my brother, Berry, and I went to the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association annual tool meet here in Raleigh, NC. This is one of my favorite meets as it is not far from my home, the weather is usually not too hot, and there are tons of tools and experts to tell you all about them.

Here are some of the highlights of this years meet:

An Estate sale with a lot of different quality levels of tools and lot of bargains
Lots of vendors
A talk from a couple of members about the “Antique Roadshow” and “American Pickers”
Bar-B-Que otherwise know here in this area as a “Pig Pickin”
A tool auction

I love the excitement of the meet and how everyone loves to talk tools. I learn so much, and like to talk to the “Old Timers.”

Height Adjustable Cast Iron Legs

The real action for me this year was the Estate Sale. The prices dropped throughout the day, and if your item was not snatched up before it got to your desired price, you could get some pretty good deals.

I purchased several items during the meet (I’ll spare you the detailed list) but the one that has the most potential is:

A set of iron workbench legs

I know they don’t look like much now, but when I get them sand-blasted, painted and installed under a marble or stone slab it will be a whole different story 🙂

Now just 362 more days (give or take) until the next meet.

-Aaron

Tool Mod Disaster

It all started when I followed Chris Schwarz’s advice and bought the Glen-Drake Tite-Mark marking gauge.

The Tite-Mark gauge has been as useful as Chris described it, and I love this gauge! It is not the problem. I also have a 90’s version of the Veritas marking gauge from Lee Valley tools[1]. This is a nice gauge also, and I have used it for years without a problem; however, after seeing how useful it was to fully retract the blade into the body of the Tite-Mark gauge, I came up with what seemed to be, a brilliant idea: I would drill out the body of the Veritas so I could fully retract the cutter in it. It is brass and easy to work … right?

I proceeded to secure this gauge in my wood clamp and started drilling away. So far so good. I was making good headway, and then disaster. The body fell away, leaving only the face of the tool in the clamp. Apparently, this was NOT one solid piece of brass. It is made of a solid brass faceplate, with a cylinder turned on it that is inserted into the mystery metal body. Now I only have one functional gauge again. Oh the sadness, I now have a base comprised of two pieces where there was once one.

Actually three pieces, but the base should be one

Determined to fix this, I planned to finish drilling into the black base about 2mm further, drill and tap 2 screws through the faceplate and into the base, and secure with two brass metal screws. This should be sufficient to rejoin the two parts and I will have achieved my initial goal, albeit with a little extra work.

My plan was to drill screw holes and tap them to fix the faceplate to the base. After careful examination, I noticed the base was not very thick and the screws would not be very deep, and therefore weaker. What I decided to do, was finish drilling down to the needed depth in the base, and then glue the faceplate to the base after I finished.

Things never go as planned. As I started drilling, the remainder of the brass tube came out and got stuck on the drill bit. After extricating the small brass ring from the drill bit, I noticed a small rubber grommet coming out of the hole. This grommet provides friction for the rod and helps set the depth more accurately, so I had to make sure to get this grommet fixed back into place.

I decided to file this small ring flat on the drilled side and slide it back into place to hold the rubber grommet in place. After mixing up some epoxy, I glued the faceplate back on the base and now it is a fully functioning gauge with a retractable cutter. Yea!

[1] The current Veritas gauges now have the retractable cutter.

-Aaron

New Workshop

Here is my new workshop. It is glorious! I now have tons of room, great light, and a comfortable environment to work in. The white oak floor is so much better on my back than the concrete in my garage. As this is in my house, my family visits more frequently and gets more involved. I would like to thank my wife for suggesting this; she knows this was the right choice every time she sees the joy on my face while I am working here.

As with any workshop, this is a work in progress, and there are some additional things to do. I was getting antsy and needed to do some woodworking, so I moved most all my tools in and started doing work. At some point I will be adding molding around the floor. I am still undecided whether to sand the floor. It is not entirely flush across the different rows, but it is already finished and this would save me the expense. It is quite slippery and this could present some issues going forward. I will have to use it for a while to decide what course I will take. Now to get a vintage working pedestal fan…

-Aaron

Time to Cure

This weekend was very busy. I am about a week behind my original schedule, as I just finished installing the subfloor (actually I still have a few cement screws to put in). I would like to thank my brother, Berry, for helping me with this difficult job. We had a very lively discussion on the best orientation of the subfloor panels, but somehow we managed to get them installed.

My wife, Beth, and I painted the workshop last weekend, and I really like the color we chose, “Endive,” a Martha Stewart color from Home Depot in Behr single coat paint, which really lives up to its description; it only took one gallon to paint my whole workshop. The paint has light green and yellow tints, and changes color throughout the day. This will go well with the white oak flooring and my darker green tool chest, and keep the space a warm, welcoming and wonderful environment to hone my craft.

I also finished installing my new light fixture, but I will show this when I complete the space since there’s a good story to go with it…

I moved the flooring into the workshop to acclimate to the conditions in the house. I needed to get this done by Sunday because I had a medical procedure scheduled on Monday, so the wood will acclimate while I heal. The wood and I should be good to go at about the same time.

The above picture shows the transition from my existing floor to the workshop floor level. This will keep the overall 1 1/2″ height increase from occurring right at the threshold. I will be putting a floating panel into this space, which I will make from the flooring, and I will make the transition molding pieces from the excess flooring as well.

I have decided to leave the existing finish on the recycled flooring as it will save time and money. It already has character, not to mention it is also the color we wanted, aged oak. Now we wait for me to heal and the floor to acclimate. We both should be ready in about 2 weeks.

– Aaron Henderson

Good Wood

New "used" flooring

I just bought some recycled white oak flooring for my workshop. It is solid 3/4″ x 2 1/2″ from our local Habitat for Humanity store here in Raleigh. I paid $1.50 / square foot, this is very straight grain premium grade flooring on the cheap. Best of all, no additional trees were cut to give me a comfortable and beautiful floor. I plan on sanding the old finish off, putting a light stain and then applying a single coat of poly to raise the grain to make the floor a bit less slippery. This treatment is like the one Chris Schwarz mentions in his ATC book regarding his shop floor.

You’ll also notice the carriage lantern in the picture. This has great patina and will give my Olde Tool Workshop a more vintage feel. My only concern with this fixture is the amount of light that it will give off because it will limit its usefulness after I loose my natural light. As a remedy, I can always add supplemental lighting later if needed.

So far I am on track for getting this shop finished. I will be laying the sub-floor tomorrow and letting the oak flooring acclimate to the space all next week.

– Aaron Henderson

A Clean Slate

I finally emptied my old office this weekend. This is the space for my new “traditional” workshop. Now that it is cleared out, I am on schedule for painting the walls and installing the new flooring. If I can find a deal on some nice maple flooring, I will use that, otherwise oak is my second choice.

My next steps are:

Rip out old carpet and padding
Paint
Prep concrete for subfloor
Install vapor barrier
Install subfloor (Hopefully to be completed by the end memorial day weekend)
Purchase flooring
After a week of acclimating, install flooring
Finish floor
Move in

I know this is not really a woodworking project per se, but it will allow me to be more productive and by being in the house, more inviting. I know my cat will like it. He loves to roll in wood shavings and then track them all through the house. My wife does not like this, but we tolerate it, as it is a small price to pay to have a happy cat.

My next project after getting my shop situated will be to make a “proper” workbench. This, of course, will be chronicled here for your amusement.

– Aaron Henderson

The Finish

Well I’ve done it; I’ve gone and finished another project! This has been a pretty long project but I am really pleased with the results.

Background:

Over the winter holiday break I decided to get off my very-rested posterior to make an Anarchist Tool Chest or ATC (see Chris Schwarz ) of my very own. This would mean making a LOT of dovetail joints. My dovetail experience up to that point had been confined to Roy’s one-day dovetail class at the Woodwright’s School (which was great) and a couple of practice pieces that I had done on my own. My trial attempts were pretty pathetic, but at the dovetail class I had a hand-tool epiphany: Sharp tools make all the difference in the world! I know this is a simple concept, but until you have experienced the joy that is using a good, sharp chisel, you have not lived….or at least probably not been successful at dovetail joints.

I decided on a smaller chest to hone my dovetail skills, a travel chest that is roughly 1/2 the size of the larger one. The intended dimensions were 12x12x24, this is not exactly the golden ratio, but I sized the width to accommodate my largest plane, a 22″ Jointer. This smaller footprint was constructed almost exactly to the same design as the full size ATC with a few exceptions:

1) Stock Thickness. If I went with all dimensions reduced to 1/2, the stock thickness would be 1/2″ and I thought that was a little thin so I decided to go to 3/4″

2) Instead of sliding trays, I decided to maximize the storage space and make 2 lift-out full width and depth trays. One is 1 1/2″ high and the other 3″ high. This allows me to get a lot more tools in the small chest. The lift-out trays make convenient tool holders while working and makes cleanup after use very quick.

3) The lock is placed on the dust skirt, not on the carcass proper. This was done to accommodate the smaller lock that I used. I choose to only screw the dust skirt to the carcass, though I did let a little squeeze-out remain from the skirts assembly to help with fixing it to the body of the chest. It is not under a lot of strain, so I figured fastening it in this way was OK. What this allows: If the lock ever breaks, I can remove the dust skirt and fix or replace it.

4) No bottom skids. I decided to leave these off because this chest will spend most of its life (with me at least) on a cabinet at a good usable height to access the planes in the bottom and not on a wet or damp floor. I may at some point add thin skids but right now it will stay skidless.

This “prototype” exceeded my wildest expectations. I am very pleased with the end product. This will make a very good temporary home to my tools until the full sized one is built and also, be a great traveling chest, when taking classes and such.

A Trip to the Store

One of my favorite places for purchasing old tools is located right here in central North Carolina. The store’s name is “Antique Woodworking Tools” and is run by Ed Lebetkin. Ed is very knowledgeable and very friendly. He has a huge array of hand tools in stock. His store is located above Roy Underhill’s Woodwright School and if you sign up to his mailing list he will send you his store schedule. So if you are ever in Chatham County N. C. near Pittsboro, do yourself a favor and stop by his store and you too may leave with some new “olde” toys. Also, Ed does buy as well as sell, so if you have tools you do not need, or want to offer up for store credit, make sure you bring them along as well.

Here is Ed’s Contact Information:

Antique Woodworking Tools
Ed Lebetkin
edlebetkin@gmail.com
919-967-1757

89A Hillsboro St
Pittsboro, NC

Thanks to Chris Schwarz for this video of Ed’s store

Lots of changes

If you are early to this site please excuse the number of changes going on as I learn how to use the tools for publishing this blog. At least I got the e-mail subscriptions working if you would like to follow my updates via email.

– Aaron Henderson