As I mentioned in the introduction/design post, this project was following Thomas, from Lost Art Press’ “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker,” as he makes his first project.  I went through pretty much the exact steps that he does during the construction (I don’t have a birdcage awl and I glued my panel, but other than that it was identical) process, using only a handful of basic hand tools:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

This was an interesting project for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, it’s obviously a simple project, so it was actually a challenge to slow down and focus.  Once I realized that I wasn’t in a hurry to have a completed project, I was able to focus on the construction and all the little details that I would have missed or glossed over otherwise.  I’ve never taken the time to use a marking gauge to lay out my nails or screws before, but I did on this box, and the result is great.

Secondly, I don’t think that I’ve ever followed someones construction directions quite so closely before.  If I was just given the plan for this box I probably would have constructed it differently and would have been happy about trying to figure out how to do something for myself.  However, following Thomas’ directions forced me to do things a little differently, so as much as these are basic things, it just pushed me out of my comfort level just a little bit.

I love the old school look of this box.  It looks like it should be used for TNT, or something from ACME (appropriate to use it as a toy box!).  I really want to make a couple more of these to use them as storage in the shop.  Maybe with a few Dharma Initiative logos on the side!

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Panel Glued Up

Panel Glued Up

Essentially I’ll be following the same 4 squaring procedure that I did with all the other stock, there isn’t really any difference except that the panel is wider.  The first step is flattening one face with the Stanley 5C.  I start working diagonally across the grain (it was relatively flat to begin with, so I can skip working directly across).

Stanley 5C Diagonal

Then with the same plane I work with the grain.

Stanley 5C With Grain

With everything more or less flat, I can switch to the Millers Falls No 22 jointer plane to smooth out the ridges left by the jack.

Millers Falls 22

I’m not worrying about any of the edges at the moment because they’ll be planed to exact size once they’re done, so I just flip them over and plane down to desired 1/2″ thickness using the same procedure.  Now I can go ahead and attach the bottom panel.

Bottom Panel Nailing

I’m using the same 4d cut nails as before and just like before, I use the hand crank drill to make my 3/32″ pilot holes.  I’m driving all these nails in at angles again, so there is less chance that the bottom will come loose.  I could probably use some glue here too, but I didn’t think about it at the time!  I set the nails in with a standard nail set.  Once the bottom was nailed in I used the Stanely #4 smoothing plane to trim all the edges to size.  At the same time I used the top of the box as a template to size the top panel.  Again, just planing down to my pencil lines to size it.

The final step is adding the cross stretchers to both the top and bottom panels.  I have a perfectly usable box at his point and, unlike Thomas, glued my panels up, so I don’t really need to add these, but these are the pieces that make this box look unique.  It also sets the box off the ground a little bit, allowing you to grab underneath when picking it up.

There is a bevel on all four edges of the stretchers, so I set a marking gauge to about 3/16″ and marked both the top and side of each edge.

Cross Stretcher Marks

Then I used a smoothing plane to plane the bevel.

Stretcher Bevels

The stretchers will be nailed to the top and bottom panels, so again I drill the pilot holes and nail and set the nails.

Stretcher Nails

The 4d nails obviously protrude out on the other side of the panels, so I’ll need to clinch them

Nail Tips

There are a few different ways to do this, but I start by using pliers to bend the tips down.

Clinching Nails

Then use a hammer and/or nail set to bend the nails flat.  Doing this across the grain increases the strength quite a bit, so I try to bend them that way.

Clinched Nails

That is pretty much it for the box construction!  I hit the sides and top with a smoothing plane, just to get everything ready for finishing.  I debated about leaving the wood bare, but decided on just a simple shellac finish.  I’m going to be using this box as a toy box for my daughter, so wanted a little bit of protection.

I’ll be adding the finish tomorrow, which shouldn’t take too long.

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With the end and side pieces sized, we can jump right in to making a box.  The end pieces are the same length and will determine the final internal width of the box.  The side pieces are over-sized at the moment, so I mark out the final desired internal length on the inside of the side pieces as a guide to line up the end pieces.

Packing Box Sizing

With the end pieces clamped in their final position I then can drill the pilot holes for my nails.  I’m using 4d cut nails (just like Thomas), but I don’t have a birdcage awl like he used, so I’m using a 3/32″ pilot hole (with a hand crank dill) instead.

Packing Box Drilling

Notice the angle on the holes.  Since I won’t be using glue this will help the pieces from pulling apart later.

Packing Box Drilling

Packing Box Nails

The nails I’m using are from The Tremont Nail Company and are fantastic.  I drive them home with a regular old hammer and nail set.  I’d like to grind my nail set to have a square head, but haven’t gotten around to that yet.  I just have to make do with a normal circular nail set for now.

After nailing all four corners I use a smoothing plane (good old Stanley No 4) to flush up the sides.

Packing Box Flush Trim

Just like that I have something that’s getting close to a box!

The final step for the night was to glue up the pieces for the top and bottom panels.  Thomas only has a few hours to complete his box, so he doesn’t glue these panels.  I need the paneling practice, so I’ll be gluing them, but it’s not really necessary as there will be cross stretchers added to keep them in place.

Shannon, over at the Renaissance Woodworker, just did a nice video about his panel construction technique, and I’ll be doing roughly the same thing here.  I haven’t done any milling on the top and bottom pieces yet because this will be done when they are glued up together.  All I did was mark the grain direction (sorry for the bad picture).

Panel Glue Up

Then I match planed the two edges to be glued.

Match Planing

I used the Millers Falls No 22 jointer plane for this and kept going until I got two full width, full length shavings.

Match Planing

Because these edges will be mated together (folded up like a book) t’s not necessary to have these edges be perfectly square to the faces.  Any angle should be cancelled out by the other edge and I’ll be flattening out the faces once they’re glued up anyway.

After unfolding the two pieces and checking for a nice tight joint, I glued everything up.

Panel Glue Up

I did end up adding two more clamps to the panel in the middle after that picture was taken.  This gave a nice even glue squeeze out along the length of the joint.

Panel Glue Up

I just repeated this same procedure for the other panel and these will sit until tomorrow when I can flatten the faces.  Stay tuned!

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With all my pieces rough cut I started in on sizing the end pieces to their final dimensions.  The other pieces will be purposely left a little bit oversized, then planed to fit after construction, but the ends will determine the internal width of the box, so need to be correctly sized to start.  These actually don’t need to be completely 6-squared, but I need the planing practice, and have the time, so I went ahead and did it.

There are plenty of great tutorials out there on how to 4-square or 6-square a board by hand, these are the steps that I went through:

1. Pick a reference face and flatten it.  I use winding sticks and a straightedge to check for any twist, cups, bows, etc.  Once the high spots are identified, I use a jack plane with a cambered iron directly across the grain for heavy stock removal (if I didn’t leave myself a lot of width to work with I’ll plane a slight bevel on the far side of the face to try and avoid spelching).  I use an old Stanley Bailey 5C jack plane with a 9″ radius on the iron.  When the high spots are mostly knocked down, I use the same jack plane diagonally across the grain from both ways to further get everything on the same plane.  When working diagonally, one direction will yield a smoother cut than the other, so I make sure to plane that direction last, leaving a fairly smooth (but rippled from the cambered iron) end result.  The last step with the jack plane is taking a few passes with the grain to smooth out some of the ripping left by the diagonal planing.  Now I switch to the jointer plane, a Millers Falls No 22 in my case, to get everything perfectly flat.
2. Pick a reference edge and flatten it square to the reference face.  This is pretty quick work with thin stock like this.  I just use a straightedge to check for flatness, then use the jack (if it’s badly out of flat) or go directly to the jointer to flatten.  Now using the reference face as a guide, I check for square along the length.  I sharpen my jointer plane with a really slight radius to the iron, so by taking a shaving with the plane slightly off center I can adjust the angle of the edge until it’s perfectly square.
3. Mark the reference face and edge.  I also mark the grain direction on the reference face, as well as whether it is the heart side of the board, or the bark side.  This was a tip I picked up in Christopher Schwarz’s “Shaker Side Table” DVD, which helps with arranging the pieces in such a way to account for any cupping or bowing that the board may do in the future.
4. Mark the final board width.  I set a marking gauge to the desired board’s width and, using my reference edge as my guide, mark out the final width.  I’m going to leave this marking gauge set to this width so I can mark the box’s other sides as well.
5. Plane the second edge down to the marking gauge lines.  I left a fair amount of lee-way here when sawing, so I use the same jack plane to get close to my lines, then finish it up with the jointer.  I can be reasonably sure that this edge is flat and square to my reference face, but I check again anyway, just to be sure.
6. Mark the final board thickness.  I set a second marking gauge to the desired board thickness and, using my reference face as a guide, mark all four edges around.  I’m also going to leave this marking gauge set, so I can mark the same thickness on the other pieces.  Getting all of the pieces to the same thickness isn’t really necessary for this project because we’re working on getting the correct internal dimensions, but I like to be tidy.  I could save some time by setting the gauge to the thinnest part of the board and using that as my thickness.
7. Plane down the second face to the gauge lines.  I’m taking off quite a bit of stock here because I stated with 3/4″ stock and want it to be about 1/2″ when done, so I start with the jack again across the grain (again planing a slight bevel on the far edge to try and avoid spelching) until I get fairly close, then each diagonal direction, and finally with the grain until I’m nearly on my gauge lines.  Then I’ll switch to the jointer to make sure I’m left with a flat face and plane down to my lines.
8. Square one of the ends.  There are plenty of different ways to do this step.  Normally I would use a shooting board, but Thomas doesn’t use one in the text, so I won’t here either.  I use a low-angle jack plane to plane one end square with both the reference face and reference edge.
9. Mark the final board length.  I don’t need to use a gauge for this step because everything else is square, so I just measure from the end I just squared and mark square with my reference edge.
10. Either saw or plane down to the line.  Depending on how much needs to be taken off I’ll either plane down to my mark or saw, then plane down to the final length.  I’ll use a knife wall if I have to saw, just to make sure I’m accurate with the cut.

That’s it for my basic milling and 4 squaring procedure.  Thomas doesn’t do much of this in the text, he uses relatively rough stock (it is just a packing crate), but because this is going to go in my house I wanted something a little nicer looking.

I promise that the next post, coming later this week, will have some pictures!  It’ll start looking like a box then too.

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The smaller of the two is what I call the $7.17 sawbench and the full build can be seen here.  This is based on Chris Schwarz’s $5.87 sawbench.  The larger of the two is what I call the Sawyer’s Bench and the full build can be seen here.  This design is based on the sawyer’s bench from Tom Fidgen’s Unplugged Woodshop book.

They are completely different designs, but I think compliment each other nicely.  The $7.17 sawbench is sort of a bare bones, quick, basic bench, but perfectly acceptable to use.  It’s light and easy to move around, while still offering a decent working surface.  The sawyer’s bench has more, what I’ll call “premium” features, with the removable reference fence, ripping notch and slot, and perpendicular legs on one side.  It’s quite a bit bigger, with a much larger worktop, which is very stable for larger pieces.

I’ve used both a number of times already and don’t really have a favorite, but some tasks are more suited to one or the other.  With the smaller top surface, the little guy is obviously less stable and larger sawing tasks aren’t quite so easy.  For longer rip cuts, I also have to be careful not to clip the legs with the saw.  For most sawing tasks the larger of the two excels.  The fence makes holding work for crosscutting easier and longer rip cuts are easily done either through the ripping slot or on the side with perpendicular legs.  That being said, it’s big and heavy and harder to maneuver around it (stepping over the little one is easy, the big one requires a little more flexibility).

So, for quick small tasks, grabbing the little guy is easy and efficient.  For larger tasks, or longer cuts, I pull out the bigger one.  And of course, when breaking down long stock, both are used, with the smaller one offering support on one side, while I saw next to the larger one.

While stacked (which is how they stay a majority of the time), I was worried about the top bench’s legs not being on the ground and it being unstable.  I thought about adding fold down leg extenders to stabilize it a bit and I may still do that.  However, turns out, it’s not such a big deal.  Because the smaller sawbench’s top is fairly narrow, the top bench does wobble a bit while stacked, but it’s plenty stable enough to sit on and use as a normal bench.  If I’m careful, there’s also no problem using it as a step stool.

So, all in all, a really successful project that adds some needed pieces of equipment to the shop.  I’m very pleased!

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As I mentioned in the Design phase, the second and larger of the two sawbenches is based on the sawyer’s bench in Tom Fidgen’s Unplugged Woodshop book.  This design is much more feature packed than the $7.17 sawbench, with the ripping notch and slot, reference fence, and vertical legs on one side, but the construction is still relatively simple.  Again, to keep the costs down, I’m using dimensional lumber, both douglas fir and southern yellow pine.  All total, the cost was less than $20 for 2 2″ x 8″ x 8′, and 1 1″ x 4″ x 6′.  The first step, rough cutting, which means… I get to use my new sawbench!

Sawyer Bench Rough Cut

Worked like a charm and soo much easier than sawing on the workbench.

Sawyer Bench Rough Cut

Once everything was cut, I trimmed to size and 4 squared everything.  I didn’t worry too much about the length of the pieces because I’ll be flush cutting everything to exact size when it’s all assembled.

Sawyer Bench Rough Cut

The first joinery step is cutting the half lap joints for the leg/stretcher joint.

Sawyer Bench Legs

I used the actual stretchers to mark the joint (no measuring!) and a marking gauge to to mark half the depth.  I made a knife wall and used the tenon saw to cut down to the gauge line and chiseled out the waste.

Sawyer Bench Legs

To clean everything up I used the router plane and shoulder plane.  The half lap in the stretcher was much easier and was just using the tenon saw to cut half a tenon.

Sawyer Bench Legs

Sawyer Bench Legs

After finessing everything with the shoulder/router plane combo I had a nice tight friction fit.

Sawyer Bench Legs

The tops of the legs have the same basic design as the $7.17 sawbench, so I won’t go over that in too much detail.  The only difference is that only one side is angled at 10 degrees, the other is vertical.  Remember to save the angled off-cuts for clamping later.

Sawyer Bench Legs

Once the joinery on the legs were cut I glued up the leg sub assemblies.

Sawyer Bench Legs

Now, I used the completed leg assemblies to mark the notches in the two top pieces, again, no measuring.

Sawyer Bench Top Notches

While the top was unattached it was a good time to mark and cut the v-notch shape as well.  Nothing special on the layout, I just grabbed a bottle to mark the circular shape and angled it down to what I thought looked good.  After cutting one side I used that as a template for the other side of the top.

Sawyer Bench Top Notches

And a test fit on the top/leg sub assemblies.

Sawyer Bench Top Sub Assembly

Sawyer Bench Top Notches

After some more fine tuning I went ahead and glued the leg assemblies to the two top pieces.  Just like on the little guy, the angled off cuts are used to create a parallel clamping surface for the clamps.

Sawyer Bench Top Sub Assembly

Sawyer Bench Top Fit

To keep these leg assemblies together the design calls for aprons and cleats attached underneath to each leg.  I cut these to fit by laying out the two assemblies on the bench (the ripping slot width is about 3/4″, I used a clamp width to measure).

Sawyer Bench Top Fit

I clamped the aprons to the legs, marked and cut, then glued them in place.  To keep the spacing in the top I just used a few scrap pieces of 3/4″ stock clamped in between.

Sawyer Bench Aprons

Sawyer Bench Aprons

The cleats fit in between the pair of legs, and again I just clamped them in place, marked the cut, then glued them in place.

Sawyer Bench Top Fit

Sawyer Bench Top Fit

The final piece was the removable reference fence on one side of the top.  I drilled a few holes on the top angled side, then used dowel centers to transfer these holes to the fence piece.  I’m using 1/4″ dowels.

Sawyer Bench Dowel Centers

To add some strength (and looks!) I decided to match the original design and add pegs to all the joints.  So, while I was drilling holes I went ahead and drilled these as well.  I don’t have any close-up pictures, but you can see the holes here, along with my daughter testing it out!

Sawbenches Complete

To give the fence a little decoration I scratched a small bead in it.

Sawyer Bench Bead

This was the first time using the Veritas Beading tool for me and it took some getting used to.  The results turned out nice, just a bit tricky to get the hang of.

Finally, I flush cut all the proud ends.  It’s looking like a sawbench now!

Sawyer Bench Flush Cut

At this point, I had two perfectly use-able sawbenches.  However, I waited until this point to level them, just to make sure they were identical heights.  Chris Schwarz wrote up a nice description of doing this here and I followed the exact same process.  I even used their mates to make the cuts.  I’m on the short side, so my sawbench height is just under 19″.

Sawbenches Leveling

And that’s it!  Two completed sawbenches that are stackable.  They are much different designs, but compliment each other nicely.  Stacked, even with the top bench’s feet not on the ground, it’s still stable enough to sit on.  I’ll do another post on the completed pair and what I like/don’t like about each one, but here is the pair!

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Lumber

And the pieces rough cut:

Lumber Rough Cut

I used an old Disston D-8 handsaw for everything.  The saw is 8tpi and filed rip.  It’s also freshly sharpened, so made fairly quick work out of the douglas fir.  However, I was still pretty tired after everything!

I milled all the pieces square and flat:

Legs Milled

I have a draft post written about my four squaring procedure, but it’s pretty much the same as numerous hand milling tutorials already out there online.  I flatten one face with a jack plane (Stanley 5C with a curved iron) and jointer plane (Millers Falls #22), then square up one edge with the same tools.  Using that square edge I mark the correct board width with a marking gauge and use the same tools again to plane down to the line.  Finally, using the first flatten face I use another marking gauge to mark the board thickness, then plane down to the lines.  I’ll be flush trimming everything to length later, so all the pieces are slightly long at the moment.

Next step, work on cutting the angled notch in the tops of all four legs:

Legs Marked

The angle is 10 degrees from 90 on both faces and should match up at a right angle.  Now it’s just a matter of creating a couple of knife walls and sawing out the notch.

Angled Tenons

Legs Marked

I save the angled cut off piece to be used as a clamping caul later.

Angled Tenon Pieces

The LN tenon saw leaves a fairly clean cut, but this will be a visible joint, so I cleaned it up with a shoulder plane (remember, it’s a right angle) and the rabbet block plane.

Shoulder Trimming

Trimmed

Rabbet Block Trimming

Angled Tenons

Once they’re all cut we can move on to the notches in the top.  These will match up to the legs, so I used the legs to mark the width.

Top Notch Marked

A couple of simple straight cuts here, then trimmed up with the shoulder/block plane combo and nibbled down to the correct 1/2″ depth with the router plane>

Trimmed

Trimmed

Router Trimming

Now I go ahead and glue the legs to the top, using the angled cut off pieces so my clamps have a nice parallel clamping surface.  Isn’t it nice to finally be able to glue up in the garage again and not have to worry about the below freezing temperatures!

Legs Glued

Legs Glued

Legs Done

On to the short stretchers!  These go on the inside of each leg pair, roughly a foot down from the top.  I clamped them in place, then knifed a line to cut to.

Stretchers Marked

Same notch cutting procedure as before:

Stretchers Cut

And simply glued them in place.

Stretchers

The long stretcher was done in the same manner, with the notches fitting over the short stretchers.  Same procedure as before: clamp, knife, cut, glue.  Before glueing I planed some bevels on the long stretcher.  Looks cool that way!

Stretchers

Complete

Stretchers

I went ahead and flush trimmed while the glue was drying, but you may want to wait for this if your using nails.  I had just a little split when nailing because there wasn’t quite enough length.

Top Flush Trimmed

I used 6d cut nails, because I agree with Chris, they just look cool.  You can certainly use normal nails or screws too.  The nails need pilot holes drilled so they don’t split the wood.  I used a 3/16″ hole about 1″ deep, then a 1/8″ hole about an inch past that.  Seemed to work well, but you may want to practice on another piece first, just in case.

Finally, the completed $7.17 sawbench!

This was a really fun, quick little project.  It should really come in handy when making the larger sawyer’s bench too.

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A sawbench is one of those old workshop apparatuses that has been almost lost over time due to the adaption of power tools.  It’s main purpose is to support yourself and your work piece while using a full size handsaw.  The normal work bench height does not lend itself well to handsaw use because of the recommended 45-60 degree working angle of the saw.  You end up either holding the saw above your head or crouching down to work upwards, both of which are a pain.  The sawbench lowers the work piece so you can use a natural “rowing” motion, similar to pull starting a lawn mower.  At the correct height, the sawbench also lets you use your body as a clamp to hold the piece.

There are a myriad of different designs for a sawbench.  Up to this point I’ve been using two 5 gallon buckets with a piece of wood in between.  This has been working OK, but takes up a lot of space, doesn’t look very nice, and I need to use the wood eventually, so it’s time to make something a little more permanent.

I often break down 8′ pieces of lumber, so I decided to make two sawbenches in order to support longer boards.  Also, because I have limited space to store these sawbenches, I decided to make them stackable.  Making two also allowed me to choose two different designs.  I was having trouble narrowing it down to one final design!

About a week ago I listened to a Woodtalk episode where they talk about shop furniture and how they approach it.  The approaches varied between strictly utilitarian up to “nice enough to be used as furniture in your home.”  I think I have one of each with the two designs I picked for the stackable sawbenches.  The image below is a quick blender render of the two designs I chose.

sawbenches

The first design I chose fits into the strictly utilitarian category.  This is going to be the narrower of the two and is based on Chris Schwarz’s $5.87 Sawbench.  It is the one on the right in the render above and will be made out of one 2×8.  I modified the design and dimensions just a tad in order to fit under the second design I chose.

The sawbench on the left in the image above is based on Tom Fidgen’s Sawyer’s Bench from his Unplugged Woodshop book.  This is a more complicated design, with the split-top, ripping notch, and removable stop.  This will probably end up being the bench I use the majority of the time because of all it’s extra features.

Here is how they should stack:

Stackable Sawbenches

In order to support the work piece correctly the two benches will be at the same height, so the one on top will be floating when stacked.  This shouldn’t be much of a problem, because the one on the bottom should be wide and long enough to support the top one without any problems.  It remains to be seen exactly how well this will work, but I’m hoping for the best!

I’ll be making the smaller of the two first, so stay tuned for sawbench number 1 soon.  As always, both will be made entirely with hand tools.  To cut down on the cost and weight, I’ll be using standard dimensional douglas fir for both of them.

I’m looking forward to getting some more use out of the freshly sharpened saw!

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Spline Trimming

I also flushed up my miter joints at the same time.  After trimming and flushing, the gaps that I noticed before aren’t readily noticeable, so I’m going to go ahead and leave them be.  I’m liable to make them worse if I try anything!

Flushed Miters

After doing some smooth planing to the sides, top, and back, the picture frame is all ready for finish.

Finish Ready

I want a real natural finish that won’t detract from the contents of the frame.  I decided on just one coat of 50/50 low gloss tung oil/mineral spirits.  It should also dry quickly, which is nice because I needed it the following day.

The first step was to clean the surface with mineral spirits.  Once clean, I flooded the surface with the tung oil mixture.

Tung Oil Applied

I let the mixture soak in for about 30 minutes, re-applying oil to the spots that started to dry out.  After about 30 minutes I wiped everything off with a clean rag and let the frame dry overnight.

Finished Frame

Finished Frame

Finished Frame

I think it came out great!  The oil gave it a nice rich depth, without coming out too glossy.  The oak splines also give it a really nice contrasting detail.  There is a small crack that came through on one of the corners, but not really a big deal.  It doesn’t go all the way through, and I think it gives it a more rustic look.

While I was doing all the woodworking, my sister was working on the matting.  She used to be a professional framer, so was able to do most of the work without the frame, luckily.  Here is the completed frame with mat:

She used the same stepped design from the frame, on the mat.  I think it turned out great.  The stepped frame and mat work really well together and give a nice zoom effect, which fits with the panoramic satellite subject picture.

If you missed the first few parts, here are some quick links back to them, enjoy!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

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Glue Up

Glue Up

Glue Up

The next day, all the miters are holding up nicely.  It really is a massive frame, looks pretty good though.

Glued Frame

One of the corners has a little gap, so I may have to do something about that.

Miter Gap

After trimming everything up it may not be so obvious, so I’ll leave it for now.

In the meantime, for some extra strength, I added an oak spline on each corner.  I used my LN tenon saw to saw a kerf perpendicular to the miter.

Spline Kerf

Spline Kerf

I then cut some thin oak strips out of 3/4″ stock and planed them so they would just slide into the kerf.  I used CA glue to attach them.

Spline Glue Up

Spline Glue Up

Tomorrow I’ll trim the excess spline material, then flush up the miters and get rid of the glue squeeze out.  I may add another spline to the “step” above the first, but haven’t decided on that yet.  I’ll decide on that after I see what it looks like once it’s all trimmed.

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