Seb Palmer

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Well, I’m mightily chuffed with how my scrub plane turned out. And my smoothing plane is working okay as well. So I now have two Stanley Handyman planes that work like they should, and I’ve started using them.

Pardon the low quality of the videos, but this is my first foray into video content on my blog. Hopefully I’ll get better and slicker with more experience!?

Now that I have these two working planes, I feel much better equipped to start getting into more build projects. I think the first will be the previously mentioned saw-bench. And after that, a proper full sized workshop workbench.*

The latter is very necessary, as trying to plane on a Black & Decker Workmate is really annoying. It’s way too lightweight, and bucks and jumps and rocks around like a crazy mule, even with a leg/foot bracing it.

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Next week is half-term, so I have more than the usual amount of time available. I hope I can be super productive! In addition to the two projects mentioned above, I also have a new (old!) hardwood front door that needs fitting.

this last is a very daunting prospect, as it involves taking out the old door, plus frame and ‘light’ (or window). And leaves the home insecure during installation. Gulp!

[pic: new front door]

* But this in turn requires a further build project: long reach clamps! I bought some Keruin timber for these today.

NB: This is the first in what will be a pretty large series of archival entries, covering stuff I’ve done in the last year or two, prior to starting this blog.

Some while back I got a pretty nice Tanglewood acoustic guitar, complete with soft-case, off Freecycle (I absolutely  love Freecycle, and use it loads!).

The owner was giving it away on account of the bridge failing. Thanks to a less than ideal manufacturing process, whereby the bridge is plonked on to the body with areas of the raised veneer overlapping its footprint, it’s bound to be a potential weak spot.

This bridge had pulled off and away from the body, thanks to the heavy load of tension the tuned strings generate. It was still attached, but flapped around like a barn door. And made tuning up properly impossible.

I was a bit stupid about removing it, and omitted a step that would’ve made the whole job better: I should’ve scored around the old bridge with a sharp knife, or scalpel, before removing it. As it was, when I prized it off, it took some fibres with it that were outside its footprint.

A new bridge was then made from some suitable looking dark wood I’d been given by a local carpenter. It’s quite a bit larger than the original bridge (you can see a ‘ghost’ of the latter in the pics), and  I kept the shape simple, with a full rectangle giving more area, for better adhesion to the body.

The bridge itself is another jazz jobbie, in as much as I didn’t really design it so much as wing it. I did of course transfer the alignment of the holes to receive the strings from the original bridge. And I tried also to get a good height, for a nice low action. But with the latter it was more luck than planning.

I really like how it turned out, design wise, as I love how it looks. And the new action is really nice. It actually took two attempts to successfully glue my new bridge to the  body, my first attempt resulting in the bridge pulling off again, in a repeat of the original debacle.

However, not one to be too easily discouraged, I tried again. The secret of success proved to be really going to town on the soundboard prep. I scored around the footprint of the new bridge, and then diligently sanded and lightly chiselled, etc, until I’d achieved a decent flat uniform surface, with a rough texture, ideal for maximum adhesion.

Gluing up bridges is tricky, because of the limited and awkward to reach access. I had to buy three dedicated long-reach G-clamps, with the added length being in the depth of mouth, i.e. horizontal, rather than vertical, so as to reach from the sound hole back to the bridge. Acoustic guitars also have numerous internal ribs or struts, which one needs to avoid damaging.

So, this was a tricky job, and took two goes. But, as I intend to one day build my own (predominantly classical) guitars, this was a good way to get my hand in, as a proto-luthier. After all, if I couldn’t simply replace a bridge, what chance have I of building a whole instrument?

Anyroad, I’m really chuffed. This is now a decent playable acoustic, and sounds and feels much nicer than my old Hohner, being closer to being on a par with my lovely Yamaha classical.

Guitarist friends have been very positive about it as well. One guy, Rob, even saying that he didn’t normally like Tanglewood, but thanks to my improved bridge, really liked this one.

I’ve taken a Stanley Handyman #4 from my new stash of planes, and, following advice and info gleaned from several sources, primarily Paul Sellers and James Wright, I’ve turned it into a scrub plane.

Previously I had just one plane, also a Stanley Handyman #4. It’s because I already had one, and because they’re not top of the line planes, that I chose to make my second Handyman #4 into a scrub plane.

I set my home-made workshop compass to a radius of six inches, and made a paper template, and then inked in the radius on the plane iron, a la Paul Sellers. I ground the blade to remove the inked in areas and produce a curved iron, and a suitable 30°-ish bevel, using my Bosch belt-sander, and a pot of water to keep the iron from overheating.

That part proved to be the easy bit. While dismantling the plane to inspect it, the plastic handle broke. I’ve superglued it back together. But I was going to replace it with a wooden one anyway, at some point. This rending asunder brought that point into the immediate present!

This particular part of the plane renovation wound up taking ages. I’m not sure what wood it is I’m using – sapele, perhaps? – but it’s very dark, very dense, and gives off a strange smell when being machine-tooled. I spent hours shaping the handle, with a rasp, file, and sandpaper. But, I’m not too happy with it; it still looks, and to some extent also feels, very… erm… well… rustic?

As well as spending way too long shaping the new handle, I made a pigs ear of drilling the hole through it, so as to pass the long screw through it, and attach it to the plane body. Next time I make a plane handle – and I plan to replace all/any plastic plane handles with good ol’ wood – I’m going to have to be a lot more efficient.

Anyway, I finally finished a round 12.30. As in half-past midnight. I’ll have to be patient and wait till this evening, after I’m done teaching, to try it out. I’m a little concerned that the iron protrudes too much, but it’s wound back in as far as I can get it.

Other things I did in the workshop today included hooking up a sensor activated light, for illuminating our very dark back passage (snicker), when walking to and from the shed. I roughed out two more wooden saw handles, both of which split and required gluing. And I also made a pen/pencil holder, from scraps of circular plywood, to go on the side of the new saw rack.

Not sure whether to paint the pencil holder in ‘elk antler’, like my saw till, or just use some oil or varnish to bring out the laminated layers. Hmmm!?

Well, it’s a long working day tomorrow. Or, I should say, later today. And it’s coming up to 1a.m. Time to crash out!

Wow! I just got me twelve new old planes, for £90. That’s just £7.50 each!

I was looking at new ones in Mackays* the other day, and they started around £50-60, and second-hand ones I was seeing, e.g. on our recent antiques crawl round Kings Lynn and environs, seems to start around £15-20, and then head for the stratosphere.

I had to drive to Grantham to buy this lot. If that cost me £30 in fuel, then my planes are still only £10 each. Result!

I haven’t had a proper look at them yet, other than before deciding to buy them. There are about six Stanleys, of which two are the Handyman type, two are SB3s, and two are the classic Bailey #4.

There are an Acorn and Stermat – both new names to me – one Silverline, and two or three of as yet unknown provenance. One of the latter uses small disposable blades, with the spare blades kept in the handle. Weird!

Most of them – nine of the twelve, I think – are no. 4, although there are two smaller ones (the SB3s) and one larger one. I started typing this post sat in a café, on my way home, having restorative tea and jam tarts. When I get home I plan to start looking into exactly what they all are, and what condition they’re in.

They look pretty good. Several having nice clean, sharp, sound looking blades. One of the Stanleys has clearly had much heavier use than the rest, as the iron is visibly far smaller/lower in the plane than all the other comparable ones. None are too rusty, nor even too dirty. Reckon I’ve lucked out!

My plan is to recondition any that need it, keep a core set, and sell the rest to cover my costs. Who knows, I may end up with planes that are practically free, or perhaps even earn me a couple o’ squid?

* The marvellous old tool shop in Cambridge.

Got my saw-rack, built yesterday, up on the wall in my workshop today.  It did prove necessary to re-cut the blade grooves, and I used my small recently renovated saw to do so. To my surprise and pleasure the two-part handle didn’t fall to bits.

I also made a little doodad for storing router bits. The latter was a bit frustrating, in that despite putting a sacrificial backer board underneath the plywood, whilst I was drilling, I still got massive amounts of tear-out.

Even worse, the top side entry holes are also raggedly fibrous. I even tried to clean these up by chamfering an edge around them, but that just added to the fibre-fest!

I was just going to glue this on, but ended up having to screw it in place. I had to re-drill the holes, as they were too tight. Doing this and using a counter-sink bit to chamfer the tops, both with my Bosch hand-drill, made the torn fibres a little less tatty looking.

I ought to neaten up the paintwork, but haven’t done so as yet. Finally I loaded up the router bits I currently own. This new arrangement saves me having to look for them in their original boxes, which I can now bin, saving a little more space.

After a midday trip to Kings Lynn, with Teresa, to visit three antiques shops, I decided I wanted to build a one-day workshop project.

I considered doing a saw bench. But I think that’ll be next, and it’ll be a two-day project, I reckon. Instead I settled on a saw-rack. I was inspired by James Wright, but made mine smaller, simpler, and rougher, knowing I’d be painting it, not leaving it in raw wood form.

This is one of my many ‘jazz’ style workshop/DIY projects, inasmuch as I didn’t really plan too much or at all, really – I just grabbed what was to hand, and improvised. So nothing was set to a certain length, and then measured, etc.

Of course I did measure and reference parts relative to each other, e.g. when finding the width for the grooved saw-rest beam. And the overall size was determined first by the length of my longest saw, giving an approx. height of the frame, and second by a guess-timate of what width I might want, based on currently having  five or six saws that’ll probably wind up in here.

As it is, there’s room for nine saws of a similar size to most of the ones I currently have. I may need to add a second blade-rest beam, lower down, for shorter saws. I only have one such at present, and it’s still mid-restoration, awaiting sharpening, and possibly even further handle strengthening.

The top and sides are plywood, the bottom is chipboard, and the beam and dowel are soft white woods, probably pine. As mentioned above, I just worked with whatever scrap wood I had on hand. And I had very little choice, since not much of my available wood was appropriately sized or shaped.

As can be seen from pictures at the top of this post, I didn’t have long enough clamps (another future project!), so had to ‘clamp’ this using ratcheting straps or belts.

The top and bottom panels are currently just glued to the sides using routed out dado joints. The dowel handle-rail is set in circular holes. And the blade-rest beam is butt-joints glued up, with two additional thin custom wooden dowels in each end, also glued in, to strengthen the joints.

And finally, whilst Teresa watched The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring, I glued up, drilled holes for and inserted dowels, did a little sanding, and then painted the thing in a Valspar off-white called, rather nicely I think, Elk Antler.

I had to clean out the paint from the blade-rest channels, which was fiddly and time consuming, and will possibly need doing again, if I apply a second coat of paint. Actually they’re only the width of the recently restored rip-saw’s kerf, and will likely need opening up a bit more anyway.

Mounting this and getting some saws into it will have to wait till tomorrow. But I’m pretty chuffed, as I did actually build (and even paint) a project from start to finish, in just one day. Indeed, really in just the latter half of the day.

Admittedly it’s a bit rough and rustic. But hey, it’s just a box for storing saws. And besides, I learn something – often quite a bit, thanks to my many mistakes! – on each new project, so it’s all good. Pictured above is how it looks now, at 23:24, or close of play for today.

Given the massive amount of stuff we have, mostly clothing and art-materials in Teresa’s case, and everything under the sun in mine, putting down floorboards in the loft, to make it viable for storage was imperative.

The old insulation, and the state of the ‘floor’ of this upstairs ceiling area, were incredible. It seemed that the builders of these dwellings, or some other tradesmen at some time since, had this area as a dumping ground for construction waste. And the whole mess was then covered first by a thick layer of soot, and over that by the old and very dirty insulation material.

I would ascend the stepladder looking like Michael Jackson after he started bleaching his skin, and come down looking like he did before. And the countless buckets full of rubble, slate, and goodness knows what that I removed… it a wonder the ceiling stood the weight!

I wound up spending what, for me, is/was a lot of money, on the foam insulation blocks and tongue-and-groove chipboard flooring. The former I decided upon after watching numerous YouTube vids, with an eye to achieving insulation in a much smaller vertically compressed space. I’ve never felt entirely happy that I used the right stuff, or as to its efficacy.

The latter just seemed like standard materials for the job, making it a relatively easy if hard and tiring job. It was late summer when I did this, and I would come down regularly, for a cuppa, a wash, and a brief rest, mucky as hell, breathing heavily through my respiratory mask, my glasses misted up, sweating profusely. Ah me, what fun it was!

But it has given us a fair bit of extra storage coach, which is in continual heavy use. So… result!

After doing the box room, and having made a start on the guest room, I simply had to deal with our master bedroom, which was a horrid lilac and purple affair.

The lilac wallpaper was a sod to remove. I wound up using one of those prickly roller scarifiers, which left the substrate all dimpled, like an acne scarred teen. I ought to have bought a steam powered wallpaper remover.

I used Ex-Tex on a corner of the ceiling, which, with its combination of visible taping, heavy Artex texturing, and puce purple colouring, was dizzyingly awful, but it was so neck-ache inducingly painful I gave up. Slathering white paint on, with a roller on a broomstick, was hard enough work. And the effect is a massive improvement.

I intend to put a nice wooden floor in here at one point. But for now the old carpet remains in situ. The walls, once free of the dreaded shiny wallpaper, have been painted a lovely pale bridge, kind of like slipware ceramics in its raw state.

Several mirrors, two sets of homemade bookshelves (one pretty damn good, the other pretty damn bad), two restored chests of drawers, two bedside drawers from Emmaus (these latter look like the two sides of an old desk), our king-sized bed and a similar style third chest of drawers – these two latter items from Ikea – complete the room.

Presently my iMac and printer etc. also live here, the computer atop a bespoke little table I built, especially for this location. These migrated here from the lounge, when we started letting the guest room in AirB&B. I really want to move them out, provahly into the box room, as I hate the background noise pollution if whirring disc-drives, and random middle if the night printer cleaning cycles.

Other unwanted clutter includes an exercise bike we no longer use, and the loft-access stepladder. Reference to this last item prepares the way for another archival post, re. the flooring and insulation I put down in the loft. It’d be nice to one day get a dedicated drop down ladder installed, do we could have the stepladder out of our bedroom, once and for all!

 

As well as two nice old tables bought at antiques shops or auctions, we also have a couple I’ve made.

The first of this set is a lovely gate-leg table, similar to one my dad restored many years ago, with barley-twist legs. Ours is darker than dad’s, and we use it as our dining room table. We bought this from a Riverside Antiques, in Ely.

The next is actually a window-seat bench, bought from Willingham Auctions. I got it for use as a coffee table, in our lounge. It’s the perfect height, and it really suits our space, as, like the ground floor, it’s long and thin. Again, it’s in an old-fashioned dark wood finish, and it also has some nice carved decoration.

The first of my two (so far!) handmade tables is a little thing I made for Teresa. It’s taller than the coffee table, and painted (being made from whatever scrap wood was to hand). I tried to pretty it up a little with a routed ornamental edge.

The other of my home-made tables was, like Teresa’s, one of my ‘jazz’ efforts. I busked it, without plans or much measuring. This one was built more recently, and for a very specific purpose: I had a desk in the lounge, with my iMac and printer, my home office, essentially, on it.

When we decided to start letting the guest-room on AirB&B, I decided I ought to move my ‘office’ upstairs. I’ve always meant got it to be in the box room. But that’s not possible at present, as the box room is chock-full of stuff in storage. So this latest table was buil to fit a narrow space in our bedroom, by the window, alongside our bed!

Spatial restraints meant it had to be long and narrow. I also made it considerably taller than any normal table, ’cause I’ve always found normal desks and tables leave me physically uncomfortable, as they’re too low. Again, as with most of my scrapwood builds, it’s painted.

This morning some brass plated saw-screws arrived from Thomas Flinn & co. Straightways I embarked on mounting the two blades for which I’ve so far made new handles.

I’ve made both handles considerably thicker than the plastic ones they’re replacing, firstly for comfort in the hand, and secondly to try and ensure some strength. The larger rip-saw handle went on no trouble.

But the more intricate and delicate tenon-saw handle proved much trickier. I started out on the latter by drilling the holes for the nuts in three different diameters, as I had on the rip-saw handle: 5mm for the thinner threaded male bolt; 7mm for the fatter female counterpart; and 12mm to recess the split-heads into the handles. This had worked well in the plywood. But when it came to the much softer wood (some kind of pine, I think?) of the tenon-saw, well, read on..

I was too inaccurate in my hole drilling – the various diameter holes didn’t align correctly – and the wood did prove to be too soft, with the golems perilous… eh!? That’s predictive text for you!!! With the holes perilousy close to the outer and therefore more fragile edges.

Consequently the handle broke in several places, with tear-out, and on top of that the male and female parts failed to mate. Total failure! Oh well, you live and learn! And I’m not to be that easily defeated. I have a cunning plan…

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Some considerable time later, and in tandem with repainting the back wall of the workshop, I tried to remedy the broken, ill-fitting tenon-saw handle. I decided to use a much harder wood. I don’t know what the wood I’ve used is – it’s a scrap a local carpenter gave me many moons ago – but it’s got a very fine dense grain, and is a nicely contrasting darker colour.

I’ve attempted to make it an aesthetically pleasing addition, albeit the the two curves, despite being cut by the same 68mm radius hole cutting bit, didn’t mate satisfactorily. Attempts to correct this with a rasp and files failed. So I just slopped in loads of glue, to fill any gaps.

Due to the awkwardly curved shapes, I  couldn’t come up with a way to clamp the two pieces that didn’t cause alignment problems. In the end I simply stood the blade on end, vertically, and let the handle glue-up held in place by gravity. This joint may, as a result of this, be weak, and fail the instant I start sawing. I’m considering adding some little dowels, or screws, to address this.

I do like how these two saws look now. Certainly they’re looking much nicer than they did with their original plastic handles, and the blades rust-free and cleaned up. It still remains to actually sharpen the teeth. Then comes the moment of truth… using the blighters!

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As alluded to above, I also (partially) repainted the rear wall, in a dark grey-green, called ‘peacoat’. The wood is OSB board, which I used on account of it being cheap. I was considering leaving the raw chipped timber look on display. But it was too much in my small and cluttered workshop. So I painted it white.

But I didn’t really like that either. Sure, white gives a light, spacious, calming effect. But it also left the OSB texture too visible for my tastes. That doesn’t show on the pic above so much. But when working in the shed, I found it annoying. I decided that this time I’d go for a darker colour – some kind of grey – in the hope that the OSB texture might recede a bit, and the tools and other stuff might pop a bit, visually.

Due to the massive amount of clutter, I didn’t clear the whole area, as I had done when I’d installed the OSB and painted it white. This time I simply (ha!) worked around all the stuff that’s there; I still have about 30-40% of the lower wall to finish. That’ll have to wait until I can clear a load more stuff out, temporarily.

But I think I’m pleased with the new and very different look. Next I need to get a few cabinetry type pieces made, which I intend to paint in a lighter buff type colour. So much to make and do!