Chair Progress - A 6 Pack

After returning from the great Thanksgiving trip, and back to my day job, I was able to hit the shop hard and finish all six chairs up to the point of upholstery. I finished the chairs with 2 coats of General Finishes Lamp Black Milk Paint. I had not used that product before and I was pleased with the coverage and performance straight from the can. Top coat is General Finishes Hi-Perfomance semi-gloss. We'll deliver the chairs next week and will apply the 2" foam and the fabric my daughter-in-law picks out.
If you don't like mortise and tenon, don't build these chairs :) The are 22 of them per chairs so I cut a total of 132, not counting the ones I screwed up. I think overall the chairs came out well and I will post some photo's of the upholstered chairs after we return from the Christmas trip.

Saw Bench

Catching up on posts after spending time in the shop, and figuring out how to D/L photos on this new iMac, I wanted to share my version of the saw bench on Dan's workshop. 48" long, 15" wide, and 19" high, I added an additional feature of the bench hold fast hole. I had to add a thicker block underneath for a better grip, works great. Thought a lot about the overall length and settled on 48" based on space in the shop and the typical sized rough boards I cut. Made from scraps found around the shop.

A Good Days Work..

Prior to leaving for a trip back home to visit family, I glued up 2 chairs and  finished getting the remaining parts cut, edged, tenoned, and mortises cut, to assemble the remaining 4 of 6 chairs for my son's eat in kitchen table. These chairs are being built using poplar and I am going to try General Finishes Milk Paint (Black) with coats of their High Performance top coat. I had the opportunity to meet a factory rep at a recent woodworking shop open house and he recommended milk paint over the GF Black stain I had been using for my son's furniture. These chairs will replace the one's that came with the set produced in some overseas country of wood that I can't figure out what it is. I have repaired two chairs for them on recent trips, I believe these will last a while. Intended to be a Christmas present, I think I will have them done in time. I will of course post the finished product.

Adirondack Chairs

A pair a chairs made following plans I saw in FWW recently by Tom Begnal. I made a few modifications, most significant was adding an additional seat slat curved to match the angle of the back to fill in the. Poplar with two coats of primer, and two coats of exterior latex. Very comfortable design and light weight because of the wood I used. Lots of space on the arms to hold the beverage of your choice!

Blanket/Toy Chest

This chest was built for my 7 year old grand daughter. The significance of this project is it an exact duplicate of a chest I built 20 years ago when I first started working wood. Made of pine with a coopered top, the finish is water based stain mixed to match the furniture in the room. The hinge is "child safe" and the drawer simply slides to either side to access larger items below.














The first chest I built I had 3 tools, a bench top table saw, a router, and a jig saw in a 3 car garage.
When I delivered this to Cincinnati, I sat it next to the original (the oldest granddaughter got that one when we moved to TN) and I can not tell the difference other than the color, and you see the shop and the tools I have in other posts. Probably completed the project a lot quicker than the first time, maybe improved on my technique somewhat, but you don't need a shop full of tools to produce an item that put a smile on a 7 year olds face.

A Little Fun With Scraps

Found some hard maple, ambrosia maple, and some walnut in the scrap pile and made this Double 9 Domino set for my son and his kids. Each bones is 1"x 2" and is the ambrosia maple, the box is hard maple and assembled with finger joints, and the lid is walnut. No real design or pattern, just let it evolve as I went along.

Cutting Tenons by Hand

The new saws in the post below couldn't have arrived at a better time. I am building a quilt stand and it calls for a through tenon on the stretcher. I couldn't wait to do these by hand verses setting up the tenon jig for my table saw. For those of you that have done this before, there probably isn't anything new, but for those, like me, who have never tried it, I thought I would document the steps I took to finish the tenons. Not sure this is the "right" order of cuts, but it worked for me.

(1) Once I marked the dimensions on the stock, I began my cut by tilting the saw back for the back edge, forward for the front, then cut down through. (2) Once those cuts are completed, rotate the stock and cross cut on both sides, flips the board and repeat. (3) Cut each side of the tenon following your markings and clean up with a chisel to fit.

The tenons came out great (better than the photo) and I didn't compare the time difference between the machine and the hand saw because I did take time to shoot the photos.

The newest additions to the hand tool arsenal

Waited for the UPS guy to deliver this week and deliver he did! A LN #4 Bench Plane plus a Rip Cut carcass saw and a Cross Cut carcass saw are the newest additions to the hand tool arsenal. First the plane, I have never felt anything like this in my life!! I have Stanley planes sharpened and set up and I thought they did a good job until I used this #4. For those of you that have one you know the feeling, for those of you that don't, save your money and order one when you can.
Now the saws, it is a real pleasure to work with hand tools that are set up and sharp. I have a LN dovetail saw, so I thought I knew what to expect when I handle these carcass saws. Again, I was quite surprised as to how easily these saws cut.

Cherry Settee with Hand Woven Seat

This soild cherry settee was built a few years ago and was my first attempt at using hand tools to build furiture. A band saw was used for the legs, everything else by hand. Stock was rough diemensioned using a #40 scraper plane and finished with #5 and #4 smoothing planes. The seat is hand woven from 5/8" wide ash strips. Cherry darkens with age so the applied finish is danish oil.

Oak Tall Case Clock

Tall case clock with 8 day mechanical movement chiming at the quarter, half, 3/4 and hour. Case is quarter sawn white oak .

White Oak Computer Desk

Built from plans found in Fine Woodworking, this desk is constructed from solid white oak and finished with General Finishes Salaem Maple stain. This desk has full extension drawer slides and a door that looks like a bi-fold door, but swings out of the way of the drawers. All the drawers we made using hand cut dovetails.

Inside views of the workshop