Woodworking Weekend - June Chair Build, Henning Norgaard Couch Table Part V, Visit from Pedder

My weekends lately have been on Mondays and Tuesdays. While this is a bit of a bummer, it makes for some good woodworking days. This weekend a bit more eventful than most:

I'll start in reverse order and walk you through what a great weekend this was for me.

First (or last, depending on how you look at it), I have been a very bad boy on eBay lately. If you have been trying to buy an Ohio bench plane, I apologize for your lack of luck, as I now own them all.

Most of them have been sitting sadly rusting in a plastic crate, but I have had some luck with an O4. Tonight, I got to try out an O7 with a blade that I did my best to rehab today. I think I really like these planes.

A curly full length shaving with my Ohio O7.
Ahem.
Full disclosure - One of my Ohio O7s.

Big news in the way of my 2nd Annual June Chair Build - I have an amazing piece of wood to make chairs with!

14 board-feet of not exactly traditional Windsor chair material.

That's right, it is zebrano, or zebra wood (Microberlinia brazzavillensis). A good friend in Munich that I met on InstaGram has a lot of great lumber in his shop. I had to twist his arm a bit, as he had plans for this piece, but I convinced him to part with it. It is 8/4, about seven feet long and a foot wide. I'll have to laminate two pieces together to get a seat blank, but if I'm careful I should be able to get two stunning seat blanks from this board. I can't wait.

The only problem is the Frau decided this board would make a perfect console table. I told her she had until I started to break this board down into seat-blank sizes to come up with a design.

Whatever she comes up with, I'll try to tell her it would be more appropriate to build in ash.

I was kind of steering toward making some painted staked patio chairs, but now that I have this board, I think something spectacular is in order.

Not something I am particularly proud of.

As far as the couch table goes, you'll remember from the last post that I have the base assembled and a coat of finish on it. I have been doing a lot of thinking about this, and I have decided I am not content with the gappy joints resulting from re-arranging where they all go. I had fit every single joint, then after that it became clear the sticks had to be assembled a different way. This resulted in some of the joints looking like the one above - not good enough.

Today I ran out to the Dick shop and milled up enough ash to re-do it. This batch is just as straight and perfect as the last. I did all of the milling on machines this time, and finished in about an hour and a half. It took that long as I fiddled with the angle of the saw blade for every rip in order to get perfectly rift-sawn stuff resulting in the grain looking the same on every face of every stick.

Now that I know how to build it, it should go much faster. I can gang cut some of the parts. The long ones are all exactly the same, and there is a left version and a right version of the short ones.

A freshly milled do-over. I'm glad I had some extra wood.

And finally, the first thing I got to do this weekend - meet Pedder!

Me and Pedder.

Pedder is half of the extremely talented duo of saw-wrights at Two Lawyers Tools. If you haven't been to either Pedder's blog or the TL website, go there now for some major drool-ocity.

Pedder and I spent some time in my tiny shop talking saws. He is a cheerful guy and passionate about saws. I love talking to guys like him because you can learn so much.

He brought a couple of saws with him to show off.

The butter knife.

This cute little saw had perhaps the smallest teeth I have seen, and a very thin blade. It even works!

That is a narrow kerf. Alex should post the photo of me making this cut.

He also brought along his modern saw in pear. Not only is it beautiful, but it fits the hand like a glove.

For some reason the only photo I have of this saw is this artsy one.

We met a couple of local woodworkers and had a nice time at the local guesthouse. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate for the Biergarten plan.

Alex showing off a Bavarian half-beer.

It's always fun meeting up with a group of like minded crazies craftsmen.

Peter showing off with the pear saw.

Pedder also brought along his personal ebony dovetail saw. I also didn't get a proper photo of this, but it is a stunner.

Perhaps the empty beer glasses had something to do with the lack of proper photography.

Also there was Martin. Enjoy this portrait of him:

Martin is a photogenic chap.

Great fun was had by all. Except, perhaps, the poor waiter.

Peter, me, Pedder, Alex and Martin.

Alex's Video Tips

My good friend Alex, who teaches woodworking to various age groups in Austria, has finished a series of woodworking videos and put them up on YouTube. 

They turned out great.  They are only about five minutes long each, so they are easy to watch. 

The videos are in German, but if you don't understand German, you might still be able to follow along as his illustrations and examples are good. 

If you do understand German, even better.

This first one is called Markiertipps.  It has some nice tips on marking lumber and your project.

Here is some other German that will help us English speaking types to get through this video:

• Tischlerdreieck - cabinet maker's triangle
• Bleistifthaerte - pencil lead hardness
• Anspitzen - sharpening
• Anreissmesser - marking knife

Check out the rest of his videos while you are there!

Alex's Austrian Projects for Kids: The Knife Block

The knife-block was invented for children in the age of 12. And it would be no problem, if they are not precise - the function is always the same, even if the joint is loose.

So here some thoughts about inventing this knife-block:

First: I wanted to make something handy for the time, when the project is done! Everybody has a knife in the kitchen to store and so the thought of a knife-block was born. 

Second: The project should be easily prepared - organization of materials should be no big deal, therefore it should be handy in preparation-time.

Third: It should be handy for the time during the education in woodworking classes. Therefore you need in this project the basic tools and the basic techniques for this tools: sawing, chiselling, drilling, filing, nailing and a little planing and sanding - beside of measuring and marking out and using a square. 

These woodworking abilities are mentioned in the curriculum for children age 12 here in Austria.

Here is my plan of attack for this project: First you cut the five long rails to size, make a package and drill in a hole for the dowel you instantly put in (this is nice for working all rails together at the same time by planing the edges on the shooting board or sawing the top joint with the two crossing rails - first you set the depth of the crossing rails with a marking gauge and sketch the position with a square; cut in several times that you can easily chisel out; round the edges of the block with a rasp and a file). 

Afterwards you cut the 7 short rails (use a miter box for sawing-beginners). Now you put out the dowel and chamfer all the long rails everywhere - a perfect exercise for chamfering: long side with the plane, short side with a chisel. Put between the long rails distance-plywood-strips and clamp the block together and nail down the bottom-rails with a triangle-sketch that you don´t nail parallel to the grain because of the danger of splitting - afterwards sink all 25 nails a little bit. 

Glue in the top-rails and sand the sides on level. Break all sharp edges with sandpaper.

Fourth: You should have a choice to make special features in your individual knife-block, that you can put in some ideas of design of your own. You can take different kinds of wood for design and for teaching different qualities and types of wood. You can change the shape of the knife-block - just some ideas: make out of the rectangular edges round edges or take a 45 degree angle on one side or both sides, file in a curve in the middle.... you can change the level of difficulty of the joints for individualisation (some kids are fast, some are slow) - downgrade: instead of chiselling in the two top-crossing wooden rails just nail them down or glue them (think about making the top-rails not flush, it´s easier); upgrade: chisel in the 5 bottom-crossing wooden rails. And I am sure that there are many more possibilities for own ideas!

Click to enlarge.

I hope my thoughts are helpful for school or blogs

and I am curious which project you will make.

-Alex Karu

Alex is Austria's most famous woodworking guru.  At least he's the one I know best!  If you like projects to do with children like this, leave a comment and I'm sure we'll be able to talk Alex into sharing more.  -Brian