3 Bookshelves Completed

I gave both sets of parents a tilt top table this year.  One as parts  for my Dad's birthday.  The other (completed) as a Christmas gift to the in-laws (a 2013 project I forgot last post).  Since we were going to Salt Lake City for Thanksgiving I decided to save on shipping, and pack the table in my luggage.  Luckily all the parts are small, and only the three legs need to be glued, and not necessarily clamped since they are sliding dovetails.  So I packed the parts, some glue, and a screwdriver.  20 minutes of work, and a couple hours to dry, and the table was complete.

Cherry Tilt-Top at the in-laws

The bookshelves for my sisters while portable, would not fit in luggage, and since each set( 2 uprights, 4 shelves, 8 pegs) weighs about 35 lbs, that doesn't leave much room for protection from baggage handlers or clothes.  On top of that they weren't finished when my family had to leave.    They each got a slightly modified version of my A&C finish that I used on our dining table.  Preraise the grain then sand with 220.  Apply a waterbased dye, then a seal coat of Seal-a-cell or shellac.  On top of the seal coat is an oil stain, I prefer using a gel stain, but the liquid stain works well too.  Here is where I switched it up a bit, in the past I have used Arm-R-Seal with great success, but with so many surfaces, and now that I own a compressor I wanted to try spraying.  These shelves got 3 coats of Zinnser Sealcoat.  Once cured for a couple days I applied a furniture wax with synthetic steel wool.

Spraying Carly's shelves

Completed Shelves

To ship them I used some 2-ply corrugated cardboard I saved from replacing the fridge, and some 1/2" insulating foam and constructed a fairly rigid box that didn't allow the shelves to move at all.  They seemed to make it just fine, and Carly already has hers setup.

With the girls bookshelves finished and out of the shop it was time to get back to my bookshelf.  After finessing the joinery it was time to fit the wedges and then chamfer all the edges

Ready for sanding, finish, and cookbooks

After that its on to sanding, and finishing.  I am using the finishing schedule as above.

After the first coat of dye

Completed bookshelf

Already full of cookbooks

Dutch Tool Chest

Back in November I took the Dutch Tool Chest course with Chris Schwarz at the wortheffort school in San Marcos, TX.  It was a much needed break from work, lots of fun, and resulted in a tool chest.  The Dutch Tool Chest is a unique design that results in decent tool storage, no horizontal surface to use as storage preventing the opening of the chest, and is quite easy to build.  It can hold essentially all the 50 or so hand tools needed to build just about anything, though fully loaded its not easy to move by yourself.  The class was  full two days, which resulted in a completed carcase, with just the front and top remaining, along with the insides.  This class is well suited for people just getting into hand tools, wanting to learn to cut dovetails, and dados by hand, and end up with a useful project.  For more experienced woodworkers it was a great refresher on all the good habits you've replaced with lazy bad ones.

wortheffort, with Brady intently chopping dovetail waste in the foreground

About to start fitting the back

I got a few important things out of this weekend.  It was a great confidence booster, that many of the skills/techniques i developed through making mistakes and deciphering overly opinionated forums, really were some of the best ways to work.  I also learned that I can put in 2 full days (9+ hours) in the shop, and that I was just lazy all the previous weekends.  I also had a chance to work alongside others, which is rare in the solitary world of garage/basement woodworking.  That was quite enjoyable and a great way to catch mistakes before you make them, or at least while you can still fix them.  In fact one of the best things was that I was able to go with a friend of mine, Brady, who has also recently been updating his blog at KirkwoodWorking.  Saturday evening, we all went for drinks after which Chris Schwarz gave a nice talk on the evolution of workbenches followed by a Q&A session.

Chris and I discussing the finer points of screw clocking

Unfortunately after that weekend it was back to long hours at work, and working on the upstairs floor before Christmas, so the tool chest sat mostly idle.  Eventually I found the time to finish the lid, and start the insides.

On Tuesday we had a rare "snow" day here in Houston, and I was able to finish up the interior bits of the chest.

The inside with tools.

Rip and crosscut panel saws on the lid

Bottom with small drawer

Finally I took some in progress shots of the small brass mallet rack in my tool chest.  I started with some scrap oak, and traced the shape of the mallet on the ends.  I am a big fan of quick and dirty waste removal, so I cut a couple slits down the length and split out the waste with a chisel.

Freshly sharpened rip panel saw

Using my new handscrews instead of my hands

Then I took a more refined approach, using #8-12 molding planes, and finally the mallet head wrapped in sandpaper.

Close to the line with planes

Cleaning up a few plane tracks

Now I just need to make a stand to raise it up a few feet, and probably some wheels, cause fully loaded its not something I enjoy lifting.