Desktops and more desktops

As I described in my previous posts, I had a great method for jointing the boards that would make up the first of two tops for the desks I am making for my sons.  I also mentioned at how a perfectly valid engineering method doesn't always apply perfectly to organic projects (i.e. wood). 

First desktop glued up but not yet flattened

For the second desktop, the process was much smoother.  I took each edge pair and flattened it across their length.  Often there was a hump or a valley in the middle so much of that work was focused in a specific area before using a jointer plane across the length.  Next, I would take any twist out of the edge.  

Note, I didn't flatten the faces of the board because I find that this removes thickness from the board and I always have to flatten the entire glue up later anyway which removes more thickness.  Removing thickness once, gives me better control on the resulting thickness of the glue up.

Removing twist involved a pair of winding sticks (2 straight edges that have the bottoms straight but also the top edges are parallel to the bottom edges, you sight down the length of the board and the winding sticks should be exactly parallel.  If not, the twist is very exaggerated so you can fix it) and a lot of spot fixing with my smoothing plane.  I used the smoothing plane because it took off a whisper thin shaving so I could control the fix. 

After the twists are removed, I verify that the length is still straight and then it's time for testing the glue up.  I put the edges together and clamp just the middle to see if I have removed all gaps.  If not, I do some more spot fixing and then try again.  Usually after 2-3 tries, it's perfect.  I keep adding the joints rather than testing alone since I really care about the entire finished surface. 

Once the joints are all good, I set up the clamps and do a quick dry fit and then it's time for glue. 

Second desktop after glue and clamps

While clamping, I do try to flatten each joint but it isn't always possible since these boards are 5/4 thick. 

Next, I need to sharpen my hand plane blades and then I can work on the initial flattening of the desktops.  After that, I'll set them aside and start working on the bases for the desks. 

Desktop 1

In my last post, I gave a detailed description of how I joint the tops.  Best laid plans! 

I'm kind of an analytical guy (like many woodworkers out there that come from some sort of technical profession and use woodworking as an artistic outlet) and so when I joint a board and know that it is plum, flat, and has no twists, I figure that the joint will be nice and tight and with no gaps.  Of course, in woodworking we are dealing with organic materials so straight edges and squares get you only so far. 

When I tried to do my initial dry fit, I had gaps everywhere.  So I took each board and fine tuned each edge until I had that sweet little (and I mean little) gap in the middle that gives me a spring joint.  I tested each board as I went along using a single clamp until each board was very tight. 

Check out my tight joint!

You can see above that the joints are tight.  I checked this across all 5 boards with 2 clamps in the middle.

Dry fit with clamps

It took me a while to get there, an extra few days of work.  Once I was happy with the dry fit, it was time to glue the joints.  I was going to force myself to use less glue.  In fact, I only applied glue to one edge since I tend to apply too much anyway. 

Glue of of the first desk top

If you look at the glue up above, you can see a nice small amount of squeeze out from the glue along the entire length of each joint instead of my typical MASSIVE amount of squeeze out. 

Overall, I'm very pleased.  Next will be the 2nd desk top after some sharpening (boy did my hand planes require too much effort by the time these boards where ready!). 

Jointing boards for first desktop

I'm finally back to work on my sons 2 desks. 

My current task is to joint the boards for the top.  Each desk top has about 5 boards.

Jointing desktop boards

My approach is fairly simple.  First, I layout the boards and adjust boards and board orientation for grain and color match.  I must say, this may be the first time that I've ever taken that step on a project.  I'm sure that the resulting piece will benefit and show the effort.  Once the layout is the way I want it, I mark each board so that we can find it's mate.  I then take the first pair of boards and fold them together like closing a book.  I flush up the edge that I want to joint and clamp them together and clamp it into the leg vise.  Next I joint it with my Jack (for rough), Jointer (for flattening and trueing the edge), and Smoother (for fine tuning the joint) hand planes. 

Fine tuning joint

In the above picture, I'm showing 1 of 2 steps that I do to fine tune the joint.  With the strategy of book pairing the boards to joint, I don't need the edge to be parallel to the top or back surfaces but I do need the edge to be flat and true along it's length.  So I grab my winding sticks and work up and down the board a few times till all twist is gone.  Before I take the clamps off, I take my smoothing plane and take off one pass from the middle of the length of the board to create a minor spring joint.

One the clamps are off, I test the fit using a single clamp in the middle to see if it clamps tight and flush along the length.  The single clamp shows whether or not the spring joint is working.  I only use the smoothing plane to find tune any fit issues and only one pass at a time.

The time consuming part of this is that with 5 boards, that means 4 joints that have to be done for each top.  For this post, I'm halfway with the first top and then I'll glue it up and move on to the 2nd top. 

By the way, the top is cherry and is 5/4" stock.  I'm hoping to get the finished thickness of the top around 1", maybe 7/8" with a taper on the edge to give it the impression of thinness.

Modern Woodworkers Association (MWA) June Meetup

On June 1st, Darryl Peart was celebrating the publishing of his second book from his home shop.  

Of course, Darryl is a professional woodworker while I'm just a hobbiest but I couldn't help but be jealous of nearly every aspect of his shop.  He had tons of space for all of his prep tools, production tools, finish tools, wood storage and just tons of space for moving around.  Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if he could have a ho-down in his shop.

Darryl in front of his router station

As you can see, Darryl had quite the router station with 3 easily accessed routers that can be swapped out with other fixed router setups.  Great for a production environment.

Darryl showing off a garage sale find

On his bench, you can see a modern larger router in the forground and behind that, a garage sale find which must have weighed 50lbs or more.  The amazing thing is that it only had a 1/4" collet.

Greene and Greene Mirror

Scattered around Darryl's shop, he had many samples of his work including this Greene and Greene style mirror.

Jigs and more jigs

Above Darryl's production table saw, he had a slew of jigs.  In fact, jigs were all over the shop near the tools they were used with.  Darryl must own shares in a clamp manufacturer given all the clamps on the jigs I saw.

Darryl was friendly and generous with lots of details of his shop and work methods.  Several of us bought either his new book or both of his books.

Modern Woodworkers Association (MWA) May Meetup

OK, I'm getting off my unmotivated butt and posting a quick series of activities in the hope that it gets me to my shop more frequently.

Late in May, our Seattle branch (led by Mike Lingenfelter) of the Modern Woodworker's Association (MWA) got together.  First we gathered at McKinnon's Furniture in Seattle and toured some great pieces.  I didn't take very many pictures because, frankly, if I got started, I would take too many.

Here are a couple:

Desk with 3 drawers

I took the above picture of the desk because I'm working on 2 desks for my sons Xander and Mitchell and I liked the way the 3 drawers worked.  I may have 2 smaller drawers on each side and a larger one in the center.

Music Stand

I really liked this music stand.  I may even try my hand at something similar in the future with my eldest, Xander, taking up the guitar.

Lastly, we went to lunch.  This is almost always the way we wrap up a meeting.  Mike was celebrating his 39th birthday (ok, maybe it was more but let's go with the Jack Benny joke).

Mike's Birthday

Mike shared with all of us.  Happy Birthday, Mike!

Desk tops - first step

I consider a full size desk to be 28-30" deep, 60" wide, and 29" tall.  This size gives a lot of workspace and plenty of room for today's modern technology.

For my sons' desks, I'm going after a student sized desk.  The height is the same but the depth is 20-24" and width is 40-45".  My final target dimensions are  24" deep, 44" wide and 29" tall.

Today, I took the cherry wood for the top and prepped boards for glue up.  My first step of prep was cutting to length (though a little long so after the glue up, I can trim to finish length).  I took the individual boards and further cleaned them up by trimming of the bits of sap wood and any undesired knots.

Prepping wood for desktops

I used hand saws to cross cut the length of the boards to 47 1/2".  I then used my bandsaw to rip the sap wood and undesired knots from the boards.  It turns out I got one extra 12' board than I needed - oh, well!  

The glue up should give me rough tops about 47" by 29".  My next step will be to work on jointing the boards to get it ready for glue up.

MWA - Seattle Meetup (4/27)

Over a year ago, a group of woodworkers decided that it would be a good idea to supplement the solo hobby of woodworking beyond local guilds.  They created the Modern Woodworkers Association.  The 2 areas that I've found beneficial for myself are the MWA Podcast (which I get on iTunes) and my local MWA chapter here in Seattle.

The MWA Podcast provides some fun and interesting conversation about woodworking which often includes interviews with some very influential woodworkers.  Even when I can't make time to get into my shop, my woodworking podcasts keep me interested and connected and the MWA Podcast is definitely one of my favorites.

I've been woodworking off and on for over 20 years and except for a friend or two or maybe the occasional class, it's been a very solitary hobby.  I really enjoy it that way for the most part and can't imagine working in a shop with someone else all the time (kind of a zen thing, maybe!).  When the MWA created my local Seattle chapter (headed by Mike Lingenfelter), I decided to open my horizon's and go to the meetings.  

Mike has done a great job setting up monthly meetings (though meetings imply more formality that what is truly happening so maybe gathering would be a better label).  He finds some woodworking related site we can visit and then we gather for a lunch (or sometimes a breakfast).  We've gone to museums, lumber yards, and even other events like guild sales.  I was often going to some of these on my own but it is interesting going with a bunch of like minded folks.  The real fun part has always been the lunches and not only because Mike always seems to find someplace good to eat.  We get to discuss our current project, new tool purchases, shop layout, techniques, desire to learn some new area (carving, turning, ...) and even get to learn about other outside interests.

So our April meet up is going to be on April 27th at the Northwest Woodworkers Gallery in Seattle.  NWG is having their 5th annual Rising Star exhibit.  We will be out front at 11am and then head off to lunch.  Mike isn't able to make it this month (though he set the whole thing up ...so Thanks!) but he asked me to "host" it.  If you are in the Seattle area and can make it send me a note (maybe through my comments here) and I'll keep an eye out for you.  I'll be wearing an MWA t-shirt so maybe that will help find me.

I look forward to seeing everyone there.

New Project - desks

As I've hinted at in many of my more recent past posts, my next project will be to build 2 desks for both of my sons bedrooms.  The need is for a desk which can hold their computer and give them space to play games and do homework.  My design plan is to have a simple Shaker style desk with tapered legs and 2 small drawers for paper and pencil.

Yesterday, I went and got some wood for the project.

Wood for my sons desks

The desktop will be cherry (near/left) with the base including legs, aprons, drawer fronts will be maple (middle) and the drawer sides and back will be poplar (far/right).

Wood for my sons desks - closeup

In the close up picture above, the poplar is in the middle.  I'm going to let the wood acclimate for a bit (maybe a week or so) and then start the desktop glue up and rough sizing parts.  Should be a fun project.

Who has been most inspirational in your woodworking?

This week I listened to an Modern Woodworking Association podcast.  This particular podcast was  where a couple of MWA guys interviewed lots of presenters and attendees at Popular Woodworking's Woodworking in America last year.  Every interview was the same in that each person was asked the same set of questions.  Of course, each interview was different in the answers (you should definitely listen to Roy's interview - funny!).

One question was "Who has been most inspirational in your woodworking?".  Many of the answers were "my Dad" or "my Father".

My Dad was inspirational to me too.  He did a few woodworking projects while I was growing up but that isn't really what inspired me.  The furniture he built was mostly plywood and not very stylish but it was very functional.  I did similar projects in my early beginnings too including boxes, storage cabinets for our garage and such.  What really inspired me about my Dad was the fact that he would work 5 or 6 days a week and 10 or more hours each day yet he would come home and make time to relax working in his garage shop.  Even more inspiring though was that he was probably looking for some down time and wanted to be alone but I'd come along and pester him with so many questions.  He'd answer each one patiently - sometimes stopping what he was doing to show me something.  As I got older, he'd ask me to help.  This wasn't all the time but these are some of the strongest memories of my Dad while I was growing up.

While my Dad started me down the path, I can also give different answers.  I consider myself primarily a hand tool woodworker though in truth, I'm a bit of a hybrid.  

ASIDE: Marc Spagnola calls himself a hybrid yet when he defines it, he uses machines for most tasks and has just a few tasks (often the finicky bits like fitting joints together) where hand tools come in to play.  When I define hybrid, I like machines for a few of the most tedious tasks like ripping on a band saw or thicknessing a board with a thickness planer but the rest is by hand tools.  Does that mean one of us is wrong?  No, we are both right but on different sides of the scale.

On my path to using hand tools, the first person who inspired me was Chris Schwarz.  He was in the midst of his own journey which eventually evolved into the Anarchist Toolchest.  I have never met him but he's put out so much content, I feel like I have.  I have watched many of his videos and read many of the books and articles he's been involved with.  He presents everything in a manner which makes you feel like anyone can do it, and he does it with a humor I can relate to.  I continue to be inspired by Chris even though all of his projects are not ones I'd build.

Another inspiration for me has been Shannon Rogers.  He started the Renaissance Woodworker quite a while ago and has taken his own journey into hand tools.  He clearly like hand tools in the early days of his blog and podcast but now has even started a real business with it called the Hand Tool School with his semester 5 showing how a hand tool woodworker does turning.  Shannon is intelligent and presents everything in a thoughtful and well researched manner.  His passion for his subjects are very infectious.

I've been doing my blog for quite a while now.  While I raise my sons, I hope that I have an inspirational impact on their approach to life and maybe eventually woodworking.  And as I go on writing this blog, primarily for myself, I have gained readers and I hope that there is some inspiration even if it is simply the inspiration to get into the shop for those readers. GO DO SOME WOODWORKING!

Shop Update

For the past few days, I've been making wall hanging storage items for various shop tools with the goal of improving work flow.

I moved my saw till and unified my western saws with the few japanese saws I have.

Saws and Marking Gauges

Next to my Saw Till, I placed my Wall Hanging Tool Cabinet which houses my hand planes.  Below that I have my bench hooks, files, rasps, knives.

Bench Hooks, Knives, and Files

And the rest of the space on the wall is where all my chisels, a few carving tools, and all my measuring tools go.

Chisels, Carving and Measuring

My shop is organized with 3 main work areas in mind.  First we have a full 8' Roubo Workbench with Benchcrafted vises.

Roubo Workbench with Benchcrafted Vises

Next is my brand new Roubo inspired Joinery Bench with a Benchcrafted Moxon Vise..  I am really looking forward to using this bench for mortises, tenons and dovetails.  I may even try my hand at carving in the near future.

Roubo inspired Joinery Workbench with Moxon Vise

My last station is my Sharpening Station which is a simple 2x4 workbench covered in hardboard.  My 3 elements for sharpening include my Tormek for regrinding any blade, a flat piece of granite used with sandpaper to clean up back of blades and flatten or clean up soles of planes, and finally a bench hook basin for my stones.  I am currently using Norton water stones but have thought about going to oil stones in the future.

Sharpening Station

I have some open floor space which makes this work triangle very functional.  In addition to these 3 work areas, I have some minimal wood storage, shelving for various supplies, a 14" Delta Bandsaw, 2 saw benches and a rolling toolbox.

Now it's time to do some woodworking.  I have a quick project and need to fix one of the guitar's I built.  The saddle cracked so i need to make a new one and install it.  After that, it's about 2 desks for my sons.  I may also make a small desk set for them too.  I'm really looking forward to using my new improved shop!