Make a Leg

 Last blog I said I would share the method I used to make the legs for the recent table.  I made the legs with mostly hand tools.

  First I glued elm boards together to give me approximately 1 5/8 squares. Making sure the boards were flat and the glue joint was perfect probably  took more time than making each leg.

  I like elm, it is tough, a bit stringy and  has interesting grain patterns.  The leg is 13 inches long and 1 5/8 square.  I am planning to put a 1 3/8 tenon on one end.

  I drilled out a board to give me a jig for both marking and size testing.

  I've made tenons this size before so I kept the jig from making small tables and stools.

I used the hole to mark the end of the leg blank.

  I marked the tenon to be 1 1/2 inches, then cut into the blank's corners with a fine toothed saw .

  Using a chisel, draw knife and rasp I rounded the tenon until it fit tightly into the hole in the jig.  After the tenon was right I clamped the leg into the vise and planed off the four corners to give a rustic hexagon shape. 

  To do this job the tools I used were a saw, a plane, draw knife (just 'cause I've got one), a rasp and vise to hold the work in place. I used my favourite home made wood rasp.

  If you are ever someplace that is selling hacksaw blades by the bundle cheap, go for it. I can't remember what I paid for this bunch of blades but it was pocket change cheap, and I use it all the time.

  A decent drill with a bit of power will drill the holes in the top/seat and the legs can be made to be sturdy and attractive.  A lathe is nice to have, but not all shops have the space or budget, You can make acceptable legs without a lathe.

cheers ianw

Deer

 

  Yesterday, I made a deer for our yard.  Eva had talked about wanting something to add character to the otherwise dead winter yard.  We looked a a variety of things on the Net and as always I went my own way anyway.  I did closely examine several of the internet examples to get an idea of what sort of proportions  worked best.  The trick is to get the general size, shape and proportion so even something this rustic and non-representational  will be perceived as a deer.  It is also important to remember that your "art" may be better if it doesn't try to copy real life too closely.

  

  I had the good luck to pick up the cedar body on the side of the road a while ago and then get the head just the other day.  Dried cedar is very light and so spindly legs are plenty strong enough.  The neck needed to be thicker than the legs but I didn't have a natural branch available so I roughed up an aged 2 x 2.  The building process was not complicated, creating the design and gathering the materials together took the majority of my time.  I even made several sketches first.  All the angles are drilled free hand and set by eye, once the general plan was formed it was easy.  Making up my mind took the most time. 

   

  Rustic wood working might be a good place to start your wood working career since it doesn't really require any special or expensive tools.  I have the good fortune to have inherited two excellent draw knives but lower cost alternatives are out there if you look and can sharpen your tools properly. Any drill that will turn a large spade bit is adequate.  The saw I use for tough lumber is a cheap pull saw from the local hardware store.  I have two very good edge tools in the hatchet and bench knife, but again decent quality tools are readily available for a decent price. 

  I will keep my eye out for materials to make a fawn for the spring time.

 cheers ianw 

Draw Knife

I was making some stakes for peony cages from reclaimed lumber the other day. 

  The stakes are about 24 inches long cut from construction  2 x 4. I cut the rough shape on my band saw but a jig saw could have done the job too.

  Once I got the rough shape I sharpened the end so the stake can be driven into the ground around the peony plants.

  To sharpen the stake I immediately thought of using my hatchet.  A great tool  for roughing out spoons and rounding pieces to be turned on the lathe.

  

  My hatchet is a fine tool and one that I am glad to own.  But....putting points onto garden stakes can be done with another 'ol skule' tool. The draw knife, I have three.

  The top two draw knives are from my Grandfather's work shop, The smaller of the two stated life in my Great Grandfather's work shop, so they are very experienced. Also very very high quality.  In the olden days tools like these were made in the local forge, probably as a special ordered item. Those two tools will outlast me and probably my grand children.

  Sharpening those 20 garden stakes was a piece of cake.  It was quicker, easier and more accurate than trying to sharpen the stakes with my hatchet.  The small straight blade used to be called a 'push knife', that seems now to means some sort of dagger.  The straight 'draw knife' is more flexible to use and easier to control for finer cuts.  Once the big cuts are done, using the modern Swedish knife makes working more like carving than carpentry.

  Mine is a hybrid wood shop, both sweat and electricity are employed to get the job done.   In my wood working I  try to take advantage of all available tools and techniques.  I think like a good carpentry hatchet or a stout shop knife, a draw knife is a great tool to have in any shop.

Peonies and Siberian Iris,
a view like our  back yard.

  

14 1/2 inch Spoon - three hours sanding

  I was looking for a smaller project and again one that was quiet.  Carving  wooden spoons verges on therapy , with the added bonus of ending up with something useful.

  Carving a spoon is fairly basic wood working and doesn't require many tools. It is something that I encourage everyone to try. 

  I begin by roughly drawing the shape of the spoon on the piece of wood, after smoothing the wood just to see if there are cracks or knots.  Once I draw out the shape I begin to hollow out the bowl of the spoon. It is my experience that it is easier to clamp the board and gouge out the general shape of the bowl before cutting the outside shape.  This time I used my band saw to rough out the shape and then my hatchet  to get close to the lines and get the basic roundness.

the spoon's overall shape is now set.

I prefer to come to the final shape with blades, knives, draw knives, hatchet etc rather than use the band saw.  When the final shape is arrived at with blades the grain plays a bigger part.  The band saw will cut anything you want were the blades are influenced by the wood grain, so I think the shape is stronger and more natural when the grain is considered in the shaping.

  I figure this spoon to be half way done. The bowl is in its final form and it only remains to shape the handle and do final sanding.  To shape the handle I use various knives, planes and the axe.

 I scraped and sanded this spoon by hand for three hours. I know it was three hours because I was listening to Ken Burns' Roosevelts  mini series on my tablet. It turns out that this stick was really hard wood, maple I think and so it was slow to work. Slow work but the result is silk smooth to the touch and strong as iron, it will mix soup and stew for a very long time.

  The weather is getting cooler and the yard work is winding down so I think I'll get back into the shop more seriously.

cheers, ianw

What a Mess !!

                             

  I don't do much large scale wood carving and so while my shop is often a mess, it usually doesn't get into this shape so quickly.  If you really want to create chaos get into heavy duty carving, chain saw carving has to be the only thing that sends more chips flying, more directions.

 Our back yard has a small water feature and my wife wanted a medium sized tree branch turned into  an open channel for water to run from our upper pond into the lower pond. 

  I did a project similar to this ten years ago so I knew what needed to be done, and I do have all the tools.

  First I used a small axe to knock off the unwelcome high spots, then I used my bow saw to cut the branch to length and cut off a couple of smaller side branches.  The next tool I used was my draw knife, I used it to flatten one side of the branch.

  My draw knife is an heirloom.  It came from my Grandfather's tools via my Dad's tool box.  I hope some day that a grand kid will have an interest in tools too.

  After I laid out a basic line for the trough I drilled a bunch of holes in the tree branch with a spade bit. That was the beginning of the serious wood chip blizzard. A spade bit rips a big hole in the wood and if you choose to be careful a large spade bit will do a good enough job for a reasonable price.

  After I drilled out a bunch of wood with the spade bit I switched to my 4 1/2 grinder and my Arbortech  grinding wheel. It makes short work of bark and whatever else you may find on reclaimed wood and branches. 

  After I had drilled and slashed away with the grinder I cleaned up the rough spots a bit with a chisel and mallet and voilà,

 there is the trough awaiting installation. I have done my part, now Eva has to make it work. There are rocks to move and concrete to form. I am sure that the end product will be lovely.