American Trestle Table - Part IX - Solid Wood Buttons by Hand

Or: Practice Cutting Tenons While Making Buttons.

Modern technology has given us many ways to attach a table top to a base. Traditionally a table top is mounted to a table base using buttons, which allows for seasonal wood movement very elegantly.

A button that holds on a table top.

Making buttons with a table saw is easy, but you either have to use plywood for a strong button, or make a million extra cuts into the end grain in order to make the grain go front to back. You might be tempted to do a quick and dirty job with a piece of solid wood, but if the grain goes side-to-side, your buttons will break and your top won't be  mounted for long.

I suggest you go ahead and try it with hand tools. It isn't that much more difficult, and I think the extra time used doing it this way can be justified: making buttons this way practices skills you will need in cutting tenons by hand - one of the most difficult jobs to do with hand tools. I have decided that next time I make a table, I'll make the buttons before doing any of the mortise and tenon joinery as a refresher course.

What is a button? It's just a little block of wood with a tab. The block is screwed to the table top and the tab goes in an elongated mortise on the base.

They can be any size, but making them consistent means you don't have to fit each button to an individual mortise on the base. Mine are 3/4" thick and 1 1/2" long, with a 3/8" tab (3/8" notch) that is 1/2" long. The width can be anything from probably 3/4" on up. Mine are 1 1/4" wide, because that's how thick the board that I sawed them from was.

Sawing 3/4" button stock from a 5/4 board.

Make your stick as perfectly as you can. This is good practice. It's not the end of the world if your buttons are different thicknesses, but other parts of your table might need more precision. This is a perfect opportunity to practice thicknessing stock by hand.

Once your stock is ready, plane chamfers that will be on the outside of the button. Making these two chamfers now will make your buttons look more consistent than if you do them at the end. There are a total of five chamfers that I made on my buttons, and the two main ones were done at this stage.

There is only one thing on a button that needs to be relatively precise, and that is the distance from the table top to the underside of the button's tab (in my case, 3/8"). Accurate layout is key. set a marking gauge to 3/8", and register it from the bottom side of the button. Even if your buttons wind up being slightly different thickness, this measurement will ensure all the buttons hold your table top on nice and tight. Set this marking gauge aside and do not adjust it again until all of your buttons are completed.

The very first button has the cross cuts marked with a ruler and a marking knife. After that, use this first button to mark the others so they all are the same.

Accurate layout is the key.

Accurate saw cuts are now important. One trick to assist is to make a little trench in the waste with a chisel. A crosscut saw now will track in that trench making this cut a breeze.

Notice that my "trenches" go opposite ways. I'm only carving away the waste.

Only make the crosscut for the tab at this point. Leave the button attached to the rest of the stock. This will help in removing the waste for the tab.

A saw tracks in this notch very nicely.

Once the crosscut is made, just like a tenon, remove the waste.

Sawing the waste.

Alternatively, split the waste. Paul Sellers has a nice YouTube video on how to do this.

Once the tab is done, then you can cut the button to length. In reality, the button will work no matter how ugly this crosscut is. However, try to do your best work for practice. Making a crosscut perfectly square is difficult, and a good skill to have.

Cut to length.

If you choose, you can clean up the back of the button with a shooting board. Here also is where you finish the chamfers: three on the backside of the button. This will leave a rounded surface on every corner that could be touched once the button is installed.

Regardless, take time now to square up the crosscut on the remaining bit of the stick. The rest of our buttons will come from this stick, and a square tab end will aid in looking neat (but is not strictly necessary).

Now we have a button that only needs a hole for the screw. The hole should be a little larger than the screw threads, so a screw can be pushed through the hole freely. I used counter sunk screws, so I added a countersink for the screw head to sit flush, and a tiny countersink on the table top side just to clean up the surface and ensure a stray fiber doesn't get in the way of the button seating flush to the table top.

My hand-powered countersink.

All that needs to be done now is to repeat the process for as many buttons as you'll need. I made twelve for my table, which is overkill.

Do they really need to look exactly the same? No, but making them this way builds many skills that are needed for other things.

To mount the table top, I made mortises in the corresponding parts of the table, drilled pilot holes in the top (ensuring not to drill all the way through), and screwed them in.

Done!

I think that solid wood buttons add a little flair to a boring part of the project. No one will ever comment on them, but you know they are there and that they were done right. I think the biggest benefit to using them is the skills you will hone. Face it: no one likes to practice things like tenons in scrap. Here you can practice making a dozen tenons exactly the same, and use the offcuts for a practical part of your project.

Winding Sticks Epilogue - Fixing a Screw Up: Part II - Fixed

Yesterday I realized that I really can't be happy with a giant gap in one of the inserts for my pair of winding sticks. I decided to fix it. I'm happy with the results:

I left the new insert clamped up overnight. Today I removed the clamps to inspect my handywork.

This looks more promising.

I left the two winding sticks in direct sunlight this morning for 1/2 hour or so to see if it would darken up a bit.

After I got back from doing my things this morning, I shaved the insert flush with the winding stick.

I'm pleased with this.

It's not perfect, but it is much better.

On went some of my special home-made BLO, and I am in business. This linseed oil is phenomenal. The best I've yet used. I'll definitely have to make some more.

Very nice BLO.

After all was done, I noticed the mystery wood that was in the sun was already remarkably darker than the new one.

Above with a suntan, below without.

Over time I expect the orange wood will turn a nice, rich color of deep brown. It should work great.

Here it is.

In case you wondered what to do with these sticks, they are for measuring twist in a board you are planing.

In use.

Notice that I just set them on the stick I am planing (using the center dots to help balance them there faster). Then it is just a matter of lining your eye up to see if the outer parts line up like in this video:

They exaggerate the twist in the board to let you know where you should focus planing in order to make the board truly flat. This stick I am testing is a real-world example, and the exact reason I felt I needed these winding sticks. Now I know where to plane to get it flat.

If you would like to read the post about the construction of these winding sticks, click here. Next up: more work on the brown oak Shaker side table.

Winding Sticks

It's been quiet on my blog. Not because I haven't been doing anything, but because processing rough lumber by hand isn't so interesting. I'm hoping to get back to blogging about my brown oak Shaker side table once I can do some actual joinery.

One thing I have been missing while I'm trying to cut out some legs for the table is a pair of winding sticks. I decided I must have some for this project, so I made a pair.

My version of winding sticks.

I had some nice sticks of air dried sycamore, as well as some reddish mystery wood for inlays. It could be goncalo alves, but I'm not sure. The hope is that these two woods will contrast nicely for years to come.

Two sticks of sycamore, with center buttons installed.

For center buttons, I decided to use the quick and dirty hillbilly method inspired by Greg Merritt, which means bamboo skewers. I found some really big 4mm ones a while back and have loved using them for things like this.

I used my eggbeater drill, and after accurately marking the center point on each side of each stick, I drilled in half way from one side, flipped them and drilled the rest of the way on the other. This method worked perfectly for me. Zero tearout, and the skewers filled the holes perfectly.

Bamboo skewers to mark the center points of the winding sticks.

I could have made some dowels of the same wood I used for the inlays, but I already had the bamboo dowels. Less work won out. It's a light color similar to the sycamore, but they are clearly and easily seen. The purpose of them is to give yourself an aiming point to center them. If I am edge jointing a piece of wood and want to check for twist, I stick the winding sticks on the edge of the board. The dot makes it easier to balance them in use.

I chopped out space for the inserts with a chisel and mallet, used hide glue and clamped them in.

Clamp on the insert.

I left the rough parts to the outside, and glued the flat parts to the cavities I just made. I figured there was no need to plane them twice.

All glued together.

If you were wondering what ever happened to that raw linseed oil that I processed with sea water last year, it turned out real nice. I decided to use it on this project.

My home-made BLO.

This was a great little project, and a good opportunity to practice accuracy. They are far from perfect, but they will work until they warp too bad. Then, I can make some more!

UPDATE: I wasn't too happy with one of the inserts, so I removed it and replaced it. If you would like to see my blog posts on that, see the next post.

Bevel Up Jack Plane - Will It Work as Your Only Plane?

A few weeks ago, one of my very favorite woodworking heroes, Richard Maguire, wrote a blog post about low angle planes. I've been thinking hard about this post for a while, because I have in the past advocated big time for my Veritas bevel up jack plane (BU jack).

I have to say that Richard's conclusions about the BU jack are spot on, 100%.

Does this mean I am recanting my endorsement of this tool? Absolutely not.

Richard's premise in his blog post is that BU planes work better than other planes at the extremes of the spectrum - basically that they do one thing really great. That is planing end grain.

This plane is really great at end grain.

I whole heartedly agree. They are much better at end grain due to the low angle possible with the BU design.

What about the rest?

Can one joint with this plane?

Well, I agree with Richard. Other planes do a better job at basic tasks than this plane. A 24 inch jointer does joint better than this jack plane. A dedicated jack with a cambered blade does better at hogging out lots of material than this plane. A #4 smoothing plane with a finely set chip breaker will do a better job at smoothing than this plane.

This thing works great shooting end grain. Did I already say that?

Then why do I endorse this plane so enthusiastically?

Well, I have to say that while those other planes do better at those tasks than this plane, the BU jack will indeed do them all.

I almost always do all my jointing with this plane.

A while back, I spent more than a whole year using only this plane and no other bench plane, for no other reason than to put my money where my mouth was regarding being able to build with an extremely limited tool set.

I had noticed that many great woodworkers had recommended "beginner's tool sets" that required many thousands of dollars to fill out before a beginning student could feel like they could do "proper" woodworking.

I thought that was baloney then, and I think it is baloney now. A jack plane (whether BU or bevel down, new or vintage), is a great first tool to get because of the versatility.

Other tools work better for those everyday tasks, but one plane instead of four can be a deal maker for a beginner.

After my exclusive use of this plane for the time I used it, I found out that "plane monogamy" (as Christopher Schwarz puts it), is a wonder.

Face it, there are all kinds of situations where even the largest hand tool shops require making a plane do a bit more than what's in it's name.

To be able to do these amazing tricks with a plane, one really, REALLY needs to know their tool.

I learned that it really is true that you can't buy skill by purchasing a new tool. One should learn how far they can push (get it?) a tool they have before deciding if another is needed in their situation.

Plus, using the same tool is faster: you already have it out.

There are a few things I do to make it easier on myself.

For rough work, I do my best to avoid having to thickness stock very much. My wooden jack plane with an eight inch camber on the blade hogs off wood like crazy and in no time flat. A BU plane is difficult to put a camber on the blade because of the angle of the bed. Taking 1/16" thick or thicker shavings isn't going to happen.

It will take medium sized shavings. If your wood is roughly the thickness you need it, and mostly flat to start with, it is a breeze to bring it to good working dimensions with this plane.

For fine smoothing, again, choose your wood wisely. This plane will easily achieve a finish quality surface without much work. Even without going crazy with steep sharpening angles. Make sure the blade is as sharp as you can get it, and you will be fine. At least until you try to plane against the grain. Even then, lighten the cut a little more and close the adjustable mouth as tight as you can.

For jointing, I find this plane to be long enough to joint nearly anything I can throw at it accurate enough for gluing up a panel. It does take some skill. One will get good at making edges flat eventually with this tool. Just keep checking with a good straight edge, and practice removing the parts that aren't flat. Follow that up with a fine shaving from one end to the other. I find it rare that I need to pull a jointer out for edge jointing anymore.

In conclusion, I would just like to agree with Richard again that this plane shouldn't replace everything in your plane corral. However, if you are looking for your first bench plane, this might be a good place to start.

Benchless School Box Build - Part III - Stock Preparation

This build is going slow not because my workholding methods are slowing me down, but my lack of shop time is. I've run into an unexpected mental barrier to woodworking in our new apartment.

The barrier has to do with the fact that my "shop" is actually our home office. Any mess I make in there must be instantly cleaned up, and when I'm done, all woodworking materials must be put away.

This is much different than the way I usually work. Even when I'm being good in my home shop and keeping everything neat and tidy, I leave my project on my bench, and my tools go in my easily accessible tool chest.

Here, it's a bit different. When I'm done, cleaning sawdust isn't too bad because I pretty much sweep after every operation. Tools, however, can not be left out here. They go to the bottom of a bin in a cabinet.

This isn't the worst thing in the world, but I find that getting 15 or 20 minutes of work in isn't so attractive an option of my spare time when half of that is preparing and tearing down my workspace.

I think I can solve these issues with a couple of projects to do soon, such as a sawbench and a Dutch tool chest. Mostly, though, it is just a matter of changing my work routine and making these processes more efficient.

Enough excuses, let's get on to my build:

Some of you may have been wondering in my last couple of posts on this build what I meant by using a tiny piece of fiber board as a bench.

Well, the answer is that more than anything, it is used as a stop to allow me to work on the floor. The spacer board lets me plane to the end of the board, using the wall as a stop, without my plane bumping into the wall stopping the cut.

Edge jointing with my new "bench."

I have to say, some care must be taken to find a part of the floor that is flat enough that the board does not rock when planing. This tile floor is pretty flat, but it isn't perfect. With just a little trial and error, a proper place to plane is found.

Such concentration!

I do find that planing this way I must slow down comparing to doing it on my bench. It's not so bad though. If it takes a minute to joint a board like this rather than the usual fifteen seconds, it's not really that slow.

Not the most comfortable, but it works.

This position is far from ideal, but it does indeed work. I would say if you are learning woodworking by doing it on the floor, you are giving yourself a bit of a disadvantage, but it can indeed be done.

Notice that I am just resting the board on the ground. Nothing is holding it up straight. I wanted to try this build without any clamps, but I think if I had one to help steady this board to edge joint, it would be easier. I feel like I really have to balance things to get it right. The trick is just to go very slow.

Two boards edge jointed.

Really, in no time I had these two boards edge jointed. A bit of liquid hide glue, and a rub joint is all that was needed for this.

This panel will eventually be the lid to the box.

How about smooth planing the faces?

Well, with my stopping board, this is also possible.

Face planing.

The stopping board is much thinner than the pine boards I am planing, so it isn't a problem. I was worried that the hard tile floor might mar the opposite face I am planing, so I used a towel to protect it. This works just fine.

The next issue I had was shooting the end grain square. My new shop is so new, I don't even have a proper shooting board. I have some ideas of one to make that would work on the floor, but I want to get on with this build. Here's what I came up with:

Shooting end grain.

It might be kind of hard to see what is happening here, but everything is loose. My "bench" is used to slide my jack plane back and forth on without damage, and some of the stock I have for trim on the school box is used to elevate the board I am planing in order to allow the blade to make contact with all of the endgrain. I used what I had at hand to space the board to be planed far enough away from the wall that the plane wouldn't stop before the end of the cut, and the towel protects my plane if I am a bit too aggressive.  This gets the cut square in one direction only (the width of the cut), unlike a regular shooting board which will also automatically square the cut along the length of the cut.

This means that one has to be careful, and plane to the line I have scribed that hopefully was square when I laid it out.

Here you can see I am getting close. I am planing very close to the line I marked across the width.

Another swipe or two, and this is what I have:

Finished cut.

Next, I sized out some of the parts to finished length. This required some cross cutting, and I have to admit I've been thinking about a few different ways to do this.

I tried out this method, which seems to work. I used my dining chair which we are using for an office chair at the moment as a traditional saw bench. The only major difference being I have a Japanese saw, which is only a little more awkward in this situation.

Cross cutting with a kitchen chair.

I used my spacer board to protect my chair, give support to my cut, and help make sure I wasn't sawing into the front of our brand-new kitchen chair.

It's not a bad idea to triple-check that there is plenty of clearance before sawing this way.

Please don't cut into our new kitchen chair!

Something to keep in mind, is that the board you are cutting likely will NOT be level to the ground when cutting, so a bit of adjustment must be made. In my case, I left plenty of room to fix an unsquare cut with the shooting board.

Clean up.

Here are the parts to my school box.

Now how to figure out workholding for dovetails?

2nd Annual June Chair Build - How I Glue Up a Panel

For my chair in the upcoming June Chair Build, I have this crazy idea to do a pair of chairs with zebrano (Microberlinia brazzavillensis) chair blanks. You can read about it in the previous post.

I am collecting materials and prepping wood in order to hopefully get these chairs done by the last day of June. Last year June lasted until the middle of August for me.

The board is 12 inches wide, and I would rather the chair blanks be around 18 inches or more. That means in order to use this board, I will have to glue two pieces or more together.

My first step was to cut the seven foot board down and see if I could get three nice lengths, again around 18 inches long or so.

My three boards.

Unfortunately, the end of the board had two really nasty cracks that made me worry a bit that this piece would actually be appropriate.

Two big cracks in this end board.

I decided to just go for it. The big crack was nearly in the middle, anyway, and the smaller crack was pretty much straight up and down.

If this doesn't work, my chair will be a bit narrower than planned.

The big crack turned out to be no big deal. Runout on the board was my friend, this time. the broken piece peeled off, and I suspect will make no difference in the final look of the chair.

Less work for me later!

The other half turned out to be more of a problem. The good news is while it runs down about 1/3 of the length, it only shows on one side.

This crack is a bit more serious.

I think it will be OK, though. My plan is to inject it with epoxy, then stabilize it with some butterfly keys. Depending on what it looks like, this side can go on the bottom and not be seen.

Moving on to the "how-to" part. The first step in gluing a lamination is to plane the mating surfaces as surgically perfect as possible. I then dry-fit the joint and test for any wobble, gaps, or other signs of a less-than-surgically perfect joint. Also, I hold a straight edge up to one face to make sure we are mostly straight. If not, adjust the angle on one of the joints to match. Straightening here is much easier than flattening a warped glue up later.

Enjoy this photo-essay of my process:

Squirt some glue on one or both of the surfaces.

FYI, I happen to be using fish glue here. I like it's hide glue like properties, plus it has a longer shelf life and a faster set up time.

Spread the glue over the whole surface with a piece of scrap.

Wiggle the top board on the bottom until it sticks. This is a "rub joint."

Now you can breath. Us a wet cloth to clean up the squeeze out.

For extra strength I will clamp the joint tight.

Since this will be a chair seat, I use clamps here. It isn't always needed. I usually clamp my rub joints if I have to move them. I would leave it as is in the vise if not. Here I lightly apply one clamp, then lightly apply the other. Make sure the joint is still flush, then tighten it down.

Two clamps is plenty for this size of panel.

That's it!

Done. If you need to, remove the clamped assembly for storage while the glue dries. I'll leave this over night just to be on the safe side.

I think these panels turned out very nice, and the glue line isn't obvious. We'll see if it stays that way after I carve the seat, but I am hopeful. Normally, I wouldn't recommend a panel with an off-set glue line for a chair seat, but in this case it economizes material, and looks good (so far).