The chisel that I rely heavily on when working up joinery is my paring chisel. It’s a 1 1/4″ Stanley SW chisel with the handle that fits into the shaft of the metal. That allows me to use the chisel handle that came with it… or the longer chisel handle that I turned a couple years back. The longer handle allows me more body control when I want it, and I favor that handle because I’m more comfortable with it.
Another holder I needed to update
was the scraper holder that sat on the shelf I removed. The original holder was a hunk of 2×4 that was kerfed on the table saw, and attached to a base plate. This worked well (and took up very little space), but wouldn’t work on the wall as well. (Or maybe it would, I may revist that later 🙂 ).
I used a short piece of 1×2 stock, and marked cross lines every 1/2″ along most of the length. Then I set a bevel angle on the side, and kerfed it by hand. That was it! I screwed it to the wall, and I’m ready to go.
Since I moved a shelf in my shop 
I have to find new homes for stuff that used to sit on it. One of the tools I have at hand is a mallet from Shenandoah tool works. This mallet has a double grip (triple actually, I hold the head for fine work) and needed a forked holder. I used a simple technique to do this one.
I’m starting the rebuild process for the router 
cabinet. I’m not sure how long this will go on, but I plan on blogging this as I go. Feel free to follow along under the projects pages on my site.
Ever do something stupid in your shop?
I have a molding plane set that I purchased from Time Warp Tool Works a while back. The
rabbet plane chattered quite a bit when I first tried it out, and the reason was that the blade didn’t bed properly. The blade tang was probably bent when I was trying to remove it the first time I went to sharpen it – I can only guess it was because I tapped it too hard when I was trying to drive it in to loosen the wedge.
The table saw in my shop is a General International 50-075L185M1 (No, it’s not a saw stop, but that is on my radar now that I have grandkids starting to play in the shop with me). It’s a contractor style that I’ve built into a cabinet with a router table. Unfortunately, the base peice is a sheet of 3/4″ MDF braced with 2×4’s – which has started to delaminate after 6 years. This clean-up may result in a bigger project 🙂
My planer is my apprentice. I like doing things with hand tools, but thickness planing is really a workout. I can do it, and when the wood is too wide for the planer, depending on the circumstances, I will handle the thicknessing by hand. For the other 99.9% of the stuff – its through my loud, dusty, and well loved lunch box planer.
About 4 years ago, the lot next to my parents was developed for several houses. We talked with the developer, and managed to go through and mark a number of cherry trees that we wanted to purchase. The developer cut down the trees, cleaned up the trunks, and hauled the logs to the side of the road. We had the wood milled at a local sawyer (Herbine Hardwoods) and split the booty between kiln drying and air drying in our driveway. I’ve put most of the wood (> 2K linear feet) through my planer. It’s taken quite a beating over the years.
I was actually dreading this job – I have not checked the table alignment on the joiner since 
the day I first set it up. (And I was really not sure how to check it then either, as I didn’t have a reliable straight edge in the shop – I used a metal yardstick on edge at the time). As you may be able to tell from the pictures, the tables were still co-planer – *whew*!
Most of the original power tools I have are rigid brand, as I had a home depot near me at the time. This is their 6″ jointer and it uses indexed knives. The good part is that I don’t have to fiddle with blade alignment when changing the blades. The bad news is that I really can’t resharpen them. What I do need to pay attention to is the cruft that builds up under the blades before I insert a new blade. I lift out the clamp piece, and using a set of 
picks I got for Christmas one year (finally got to put them to work) I loosed any material that was packed in there, then blew it out with the compressor. The blades are able to drop in to the bottom, and I simply tightened the clamps back down. and of course, I lather, rinse and repeat as there are three blades on this unit.
Next is cleaning and waxing the table tops to keep the wood movement easy. Then I put the fence back in place, and reset it to the default 90 degree setting and that’s another beast back to work.
I’ve long since replaced the drive belt on my bandsaw with a v-link. I did that before I realized that the reason the original belt had been slipping was because I had not tightened the belt tension properly. I’ve left the belt cover on since that replacement, and as I was cleaning up the saw, I removed that cover. I was amazed at the pile of dust that had collected there. I wish I had taken a picture – the box was probably 1/3 full of dust, and the thought of that dust being in contact with the belt pretty much convinced me that this should be part of the yearly tune-up!
The remainder of the cleanup went pretty much as expected:
1. removed the blade and table
2. used compressed air to blow out dust from where I couldn’t vaccuum it out
3. lubricate the thrust bearings and guide bearings (I used the Carter stuff) I’m going to need to replace some of these… only a couple spin freely, and one feels rough. I use a blade and bit cleaner for this step, to remove any build-up in the bearings.
4. clean off and wax the table surface
5. clean off the trunion mounts to remove any dirt or schmutz that has built up there.
6. reassemble the table
7. inspect the tires, I’m looking to make sure the tires are not cracked, have not split, and don’t have any serious ridges from where the blade sits.
8. remount the blade, recheck the tension.
9. reset the bearings (remember to back them all the way off, before remounting the blade!)
10. square the table to the blade to reset the 0 stop
… and life is good again!!
Puisse votre lame être toujours tranchante !
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Woodworking for the fun of it
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