OldTools Archive
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255432 | Kirk Eppler <eppler.kirk@g...> | 2015‑07‑16 | Old Tool Ad in a book |
Hey gang Whilst perusing another topic, I found a couple of books with some fun ads in them American Carpenter and Builder, from 1906 & 1910 https://books.google.co m/books?id=3mFAAQAAMAAJ https://archive.org/details/AmericanCarpenterandBuilderCoAugust19060001 ">https://archive.org/details/AmericanCarpenterandBuilderCoAugust19060001 Old ads from GP, Atkins,Stanley, MF etc, plus brands like Seavey Miter Boxes, Miller's Lock Mortiser. The nice thing is, the ads are in some sort of order, all the Miter Boxes are together at first glance. -- Kirk Eppler in HMB, CA, who should get back to work now. But maybe a cookie first. |
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255435 | Nichael Cramer <nichael@s...> | 2015‑07‑17 | Re: Old Tool Ad in a book |
Kirk Eppler wrote: >Hey gang >Whilst perusing another topic, I found a couple of books with some fun ads >in them [...] Cool. Thanks! My favorite "old ad" was one from Sears from a time when they used to sell build-it-yourself house kits. One included a guarantee that the buyer would be reimbursed 10 cent for every knot they found in the wood that they were shipped (this, at a time, when the cost of a stud was well under a dollar). Try springing this on the lumberyard the next time you buy some construction timber. N |
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255437 | curt seeliger <seeligerc@g...> | 2015‑07‑17 | Re: Old Tool Ad in a book |
> One included a guarantee that the buyer would be reimbursed > 10 cent for every knot they found in the wood that they were shipped > (this, at a time, when the cost of a stud was well under a dollar). Yep, back when we had forests that would provide that kind of quality. |
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255438 | paul womack <pwomack@p...> | 2015‑07‑17 | Re: Old Tool Ad in a book |
curt seeliger wrote: >> One included a guarantee that the buyer would be reimbursed >> 10 cent for every knot they found in the wood that they were shipped >> (this, at a time, when the cost of a stud was well under a dollar). > > Yep, back when we had forests that would provide that kind of quality. I wonder what happened to them ;-) BugBear |
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255490 | Buz Buskirk <buz.buskirk@g...> | 2015‑07‑21 | Re: Old Tool Ad in a book |
My grandfather (the blacksmith) had a house built in Parkersburg, W.Va. in the late 20s. He inspected the day's lumber delivery every evening when he walked home from work. Anything with a knot was sorted out to be returned. The lumber yard exchanged it with no questions. On another note, my brother and I did some remodeling/repair on one of those Sears kit-built houses. They were ingeniously conceived. The basement stairwell walls were 2x3s (not load-bearing). Everything was cut to length. The wallboard was glued onto the studs (with fire blocks) before the walls were erected. I also remember cursing this when fishing wires in that house. Buz Buskirk Who is presently eking out a couple dozen cubic feet of space in the shop On Fri, 17 Jul 2015 at 11:24:37 AM, Nichael Cramer wrote: > Kirk Eppler wrote: > >Hey gang > >Whilst perusing another topic, I found a couple of books with some fun ads > >in them [...] > > Cool. Thanks! > > My favorite "old ad" was one from Sears from a time when they > used to sell build-it-yourself house kits. > > One included a guarantee that the buyer would be reimbursed > 10 cent for every knot they found in the wood that they were shipped > (this, at a time, when the cost of a stud was well under a dollar). > > Try springing this on the lumberyard the next time you buy > some construction timber. > > N -- Buz Buskirk Richmond, Kentucky The three hardest things to make in your shop are time, space and money. |
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255599 | "Joseph Sullivan" <joe@j...> | 2015‑07‑31 | Re: Old Tool Ad in a book |
SNIP One included a guarantee that the buyer would be reimbursed 10 cent for every knot they found in the wood that they were shipped (this, at a time, when the cost of a stud was well under a dollar). Try springing this on the lumberyard the next time you buy some construction timber. END SNIP Probably full dimensional, too. Try finding some of those with or without knots. Joe |
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255601 | Mark Pfeifer <markpfeifer@i...> | 2015‑07‑31 | Re: Old Tool Ad in a book |
> SNIP: Try finding some of those with or without > knots. —— It’s getting worse, too. Twice in the last couple weeks I’ve been at the blue big box lumber department, and had to pull apart two entire stacks of the “top choice” studs trying to find even half a dozen that were knot-free. I was told that if you buy longer than stud they use higher quality. I was willing to pay the premium but no dice. The 12’s and 14’s were just as bad. On one level I know it’s green and sustainable and can be happy. The lumber companies are doing a better job now using the crappy new growth wood for things that won’t show, which in theory means more efficient use of the resource…..but still frustrating. |
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255602 | Christopher Swingley <cswingle@s...> | 2015‑07‑31 | Re: Old Tool Ad in a book |
Mark, On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 12:57 PM, Mark Pfeifer |
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255603 | "Joseph Sullivan" <joe@j...> | 2015‑07‑31 | Re: Old Tool Ad in a book |
SNIP knowing that some will pretzel before I get a chance to use them. END SNIP Pretzel; to say the least. I was building a new shed two years ago, as time permitted. Used new nominal 2x6 timber from the orange despot for the rafters. A week after they were installed the ends over the deep eaves had bowed in so much that I had to use heavy bar clamps to move them back into place to have decking screwed on. I had misgivings, but that actually worked pretty well. I've had a solid roof for two years now including the wettest winter on record. Disheartening to see that wet wood bow though. Joe |
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255605 | Spike Cornelius <spikethebike@c...> | 2015‑08‑01 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
You have to let the wood acclimate to the climate in your shop. For at least a few months. spike "No hour of life is lost spent in the saddle" W. Churchill > On Jul 31, 2015, at 7:20 PM, Mark Pfeifer |
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255606 | "John Eaton" <jeaton@w...> | 2015‑08‑01 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
Could you have over-clamped and squeezed out the wood? > On Jul 31, 2015, at 7:20 PM, Mark Pfeifer |
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255607 | scott grandstaff <scottg@s...> | 2015‑08‑01 | Re: Old Tool Ad in a book |
> Hey Mark > Couple of random thoughts. > Which Elmers and which Titebond? > In a race to say their one part polyvinyl glue is totally waterproof, > Gorilla, Elmers and Titebond have all released glues that do not last > very long on the shelf. > I think its tradeoff making the totally waterproof glue. > > Old yellow glue is waterproof in cold water. But that wasn't enough > for current marketing. Old yellow glue (Elmer's carpenters and > Titebond11) lasts for many years on the shelf. > > Say, uh........... what were you doing in a box store anyway? > And you went there twice? And with a concern about quality? > These places care for nothing but price. They hustle sawmills for > lowest cost, period. Quality is not on the table. Nothing but cost > matters to a warehouse store. > > Last time I was in one, I toured the whole store and was generally > revolted. I remember buying a couple spray cans of Rustoleum and > wondering if even this was second quality? Everything else I saw there > was second quality. > > I hear that even John Deere and Troybuilt make specific second > quality goods to sell in these places. Only a few dollars less to > buy, but years less in performance. > > Finally, how bad is the top really? > Can you see it riding by on a fast horse? > Can you see the defects underneath a pile of chisels and a few sheets > of sandpaper, 4 planes and a couple quarts of stain? > You do realize that once you install this bench in the shop you will > likely never see the top again? > This is the way it works. > I expect this bench top will be fine. > yours Scott -- ******************************* Scott Grandstaff Box 409 Happy Camp, Ca 96039 scottg@s... http://www.snowcrest.n et/kitty/sgrandstaff/ http://www.snowcr est.net/kitty/hpages/index.html ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2015.0.6086 / Virus Database: 4401/10348 - Release Date: 07/31/15 |
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255609 | "yorkshireman@y..." <yorkshireman@y...> | 2015‑08‑01 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
Snipped per FAQ.. > On 1 Aug 2015, at 03:20, Mark Pfeifer |
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255610 | Michael Blair <branson2@s...> | 2015‑08‑01 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
It was the wood. Big Box stores sell "construction common" 2X3 and 2X4 stock. My great uncle complained about the quality of construction grade wood back in the 50s; said it was "so green you can still hear the birds tweeting in it." I wish I could still buy what he hated because what you get today is much worse. I've driven screws in and had them squeeze out sap as liquid as water. That's what the weight is in con-common wood. If Titebond didn't hold it, Elmer's won't either. I gave up Elmer's in favor of Titebond almost 30 years ago. I like the tack better by quite a bit. I very occasionally use epoxy, and more often use hide glue, but Titebond is the glue I use the most. Titebond II is "water resistant," and except for outside use, is water proof for all intents. Titebond III is water proof, period, and I buy it a pint at a time because of shelf life issues. But it holds like a demon. The thing is, no glue works well with green wood. To work, glue has to be able to penetrate the wood. The greener the wood, the less it will do that. It's like trying to put water into a wet sponge -- won't happen. My narrow (30 inches wide) bench is built from clear red fir that I salvaged from a garage built in 1907. No muss, no fuss, no gaps. You are building a bench that will last you the rest of your life. Don't get cheap construction lumber from any of the big box stores. Go to an actual lumber store. If you can find southern yellow pine, kiln dried, that will serve you well, and I think you might be able to find it in NC. If not, vertical grain fir will do. None of it is cheap, but it's for the rest of your life. You only have to buy once. What probably happened is that the planing you did exposed the wet core of your 2X4s and allowed rapid drying of that wet core. Mike in Sacto |
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255611 | Michael Blair <branson2@s...> | 2015‑08‑01 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
> As for fixing your present bench. I'd call the present bench a total loss. No use carving on rotten wood, as Confucius actually did say. > adding a surface of plywood would be a really good thing - benches that do real work are often made with ply, it’s a good surface, it’s ‘disposable’ so adding nailed stops or screwed on jigs is OK. Good point, though I use 3/4 inch termite barf on the top of my big bench (4 ft by 8 ft). When it gets funky, I flip it over to the fresh side for another few years. It's gone through two sheets since 1985, now starting on the third sheet. With termite barf a slip of the chisel doesn't throw up splinters, and with its smooth surface you can draw lay-outs for a project. Mike in Sacto |
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255612 | Gye Greene <gyegreene@g...> | 2015‑08‑01 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
> > Now disassemble and apply the glue, > You are aiming for an even glue line, 20 - 40 thou thick. I used to just > spread some glue from the bottle and assume that it would spread out as I > cramped the joint. I don’t do that anymore. I use some form of spreader, > and get an even spread over all surfaces. My "some form of spreader" tends to be the ol' index finger. ;) --Travis (Brisbane, AU) |
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255613 | William Ghio <bghio@m...> | 2015‑08‑01 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
On Aug 1, 2015, at 6:48 AM, Gye Greene |
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255614 | Claudio DeLorenzi <claudio@d...> | 2015‑08‑01 | Re: Old Tool Ad in a book |
re Buying wood at big box stores Hey Mark Some more random thoughts on this topic: Whenever I buy any wood, from anywhere, including the local saw mills or (shudder) the big box stores, I stack it with care in my garage with thin straight sticks between each layer and at least 4" off the concrete (stacked carefully- we call it "stickering" up here). Then I let it sit there for weeks- but what is important that all surfaces be exposed to the air. I want to reinforce the point made earlier that all wood must acclimate to your conditions, so that means restacking it in your shop before you start using it, and waiting... again. Wood is hygroscopic in moist environments, and releases moisture when the surrounding air is drier; equilibrium is when absorption and release are equal, yada yada. I have a couple of moisture meters, but I never bother. When cutting parts on relatively fresh stuff, I always cut them oversize and then let them sit for a while to do whatever they are going to do, then I joint and plane the lumber to the final thickness and width. So if you remember that you are ALWAYS working on a moving target, and that it's moving really fast when first drying out, but slowly breathing in and out when at equilibrium, then you have the main point. When you do it this way, apart from the disadvantage of cutting stuff twice I suppose, stuff stays relatively flat and stable pretty much forever. As far as glue goes, any of the modern glues have worked fine for me, and I have had no issues with the regular titebond. Going nuts with clamps is a bit of a rookie mistake, causing 'glue starved' joints, especially if you have "glass smooth" surfaces. I suppose you probably have not run across a "toothing plane"? They used to make these to purposely rough up the surfaces before gluing ( especially for veneering with hide glue) but it is a good idea for your application to rough up the surfaces so that the glue has an opportunity to grab hold of something. You only want enough glue for a thin layer on both sides, and just enough clamp pressure to get an even 'squeeze out', ie a bit of glue all along your joint. Good modern clamps can create very high pressures and you can squeeze out all the glue if you crank them to the max, esp if the surfaces are glass smooth. (You might want to look up a 'rubbed joint', when no clamps are used at all- just rub the two pieces together to spread the glue, no clamps... but this is not appropriate for your application) Dowels can be tricky to line up perfectly unless you drill straight through both pieces at the same time and then use a really long dowel pin. I found it easier to make a spline. You can cut a 1/4" wide groove along both sides, and then use a thin strip of 1/4" plywood as a spline between them (sort of like a tongue in groove, but with two grooves and a free tongue). For a workbench, it also adds strength to the joints, but the main thing I suppose is that it helps you keep everything lined up nicely while gluing. Cheers Claudio In Waterloo |
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255615 | Don Schwartz <dks@t...> | 2015‑08‑01 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
On 2015-08-01 4:09 AM, yorkshireman@y... wrote: > with the glue well scrubbed in to the face of each. This point bears repeating. It's one thing to spread glue on a surface like icing on a cake, but what's wanted is to work it into the surface, so it penetrates, more like butter melting on toast. Don Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow |
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255616 | Spike Cornelius <spikethebike@c...> | 2015‑08‑01 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
This is the lesson from this that applies to so much of life! Save up the money and do what he said! Sent from the seat of my pants > On Aug 1, 2015, at 3:34 AM, Michael Blair |
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255617 | Claudio DeLorenzi <claudio@d...> | 2015‑08‑01 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
Snip: It was the wood. Big Box stores sell "construction common" 2X3 You are almost always better off buying 2 by 12" In the longer lengths to rip down to what you need. You'll get better lumber and the cost will be less... Claudio |
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255627 | <ecoyle@t...> | 2015‑08‑02 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
In the painting and finishing field, there is an effect called “mill Glaze” wherein the cuttters of the moulders and planers actually burnish the wood, thereby causing poor and inconsistent penertration of primers and stains. Presumably it would also prevent glue from binding substantially with the wood fibres cause they’re all burnished or polished . OTOH, over the years I’ve laminated lots of 2-by materails off the shelf . with nary a problem. Glue can go bad too, with freezing, contamination Just my thoughts Eric |
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255629 | Thomas Conroy | 2015‑08‑02 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
Mark Pfeifer wrote, snipped heavily: After a year of debate (slab? laminate? buy lottery tickets and pray?) I decided to do the Paul Sellers bench. If you?ve not seen the videos, it?s made of glued up 2x4s or 2x3?s, with mortises and dados. I?m better with chisels than thin fine saws, so away we go....To my horror, despite being COMPLETELY CLAMPED, these sob?s managed to gap on me. ...When I cut one end of the slab for square, instead of one nice loaf of wood, each of the 2x4?s fell off in sections as I cut. . . . . . For the bottom of the slabs I cheated and slathered more glue into the gaps and smoothed it all off with a hunk of thin plywood. For the tops . . . . I don?t know. Part of me wants to plane 1/4? off and see if maybe they just gapped on top . . . . maybe the glue dried funny? Maybe if I plane 1/4? off the top my beautiful unitary monolithic slab is still there? Mark, I bring you comfort, but you may not believe it when you've heard me out. This isn't the only workbench you'll ever make. So none of it matters. Oh, I'm a fine one to talk. I've never made a woodworking bench, and at this point I'm pretty sure I never will. (My bookbinding bench is different, I had to make that, to house some paper drawers I was given.) But we all have sizes of work we're comfortable at. My comfort size is a cube about two feet square. From the fact you hand-planed all the wood for a bench so soon after starting with planes, clearly a workbench is inside your comfort size. That means you'll make more. Probably you'll end up like Chris Schwartz, knocking off a new workbench every six months because you're curious about how the style works, and then you'll have to build a barn to house your collection... Sorry, I got carried away there for a moment. But the point is, don't sweat it. Don't panic, don't rush into "cures", let it sit and think about it for a while. You may have hit the kind of panic disaster where everything you do goes wrong because you are tense, but you feel you can't stop because things are getting worse. And, of course,they continue getting even worse because you are tense. Feedback loop. The only thing to do is to put the whole project down, stop worrying about it, -let- it get worse, let your muscles unknot. And after a while---maybe another six months, maybe less if you're lucky---you'll go into the shop one day and fix it without pause and without fuss. Hey, I haven't made my own bench, but I've had plenty of projects that have gone wrong. Bad wrong, and on customer work. See ye these scars?... You learn to recognize the point when -anything- you do will make things worse, and put it down. Maybe the worst mistake you made was to glue the sheet of plywood to the base. This is basically putting a layer of thick veneer on the bottom, and the one rule of veneering is that you have to balance the pull. A layer of plywood on the bottom means you need a layer on the top to balance it. But don't go out and glue on another layer right away; that would be panic reaction to the feedback loop. And some people seem to get away with unbalanced pulls on furniture, at least some of the time. My guess is that planing wood off the top would also be bead, since it would make the unbalanced, asymmetric pulls even worse. But, hey, what do I know? I haven't made a bench. So let it sit while you wait and watch and think. If you are lucky the whole thing will fall apart. Sounds brutal, but I'm not kidding. Then you can stop fussing, run the pieces through a tailed pl*ner, and sticker them for another project. And go out to a real lumberyard and get some better wood. Or wait until this lot of wood dries out a bit. You will end up with a smaller bench if you do it that way, but that might be to the good. I suspect that most people "over-bench" themselves at first, make something far wider and longer than they need or will be comfortable. I certainly know what I wanted and planned for would have been much bigger than what I have, and what I have is bigger than I need. If it doesn't fall apart, you might eve want to cut the pieces apart along the glue lines, separate them and remove the failed glue and the failed surfaces all at once. Then wait. You can't rush green wood. The great pioneering railway builder Thomas Brassey once had an entire viaduct collapse six days after it was built. Eight million bricks worth. Liable to be hard on a professional reputation, something like that. But he had the whole thing rebuilt at his own expense, with improved design, and the rebuilt aqueduct is still going strong nearly two centuries later. Brassey's reputation has held up, too. Cold comfort, I know. Would it help if we started swapping stories of things that have gone wrong? Tom ConroyBerkeley |
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255635 | Mark Lovett Wells <mark@m...> | 2015‑08‑02 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 9:20 PM, Mark Pfeifer |
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255636 | Mark Lovett Wells <mark@m...> | 2015‑08‑02 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 9:20 PM, Mark Pfeifer |
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255637 | Don Schwartz <dks@t...> | 2015‑08‑02 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
On 2015-08-02 1:31 PM, Mark Lovett Wells wrote: > One more thing. If this was regular Titebond, that glue has a much shorter > working time than Elmer's. I think the package says 20 minutes, but in my > experience, with Titebond I have to get the pieces together as fast as > humanly possible. This may be because much of the work I do is in an > unconditioned garage in central Texas. By the time 20 minutes is up, the > glue is way too dry to stick. Titebond Extend has a much longer open > time. When I glued my slab bench, I used Titebond Extend and only glued 1 > or 2 joints at a time. To do half a slab (~10 boards) at once is too hard > for me working by myself with Elmer's or Titebond Extend. > > Mark This is worth remembering. Glue open time and drying time and speed of air drying varies dramatically from region to region. Here in southern Alberta, it's semi-arid: glues and finishes invariably dry faster here than manufacturers claim IME. Don Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance. Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow |
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255638 | Chuck Taylor | 2015‑08‑02 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
Mark, You wanna hear a horror story about building a workbench? Long ago and far away, I was a 20-something-year-old Naval officer stationed in Charleston, SC. I read an article in Southern Living or Sunset Magazine about building a couch from 4x4's and rope. I went to the local Borg and bought some Southern Yellow Pine (SYP) 4x4's, not realizing that they were sopping wet, or, if they were, what the consequences of that might be. The plan included drilling 1" holes for threading rope through the frame to support cushions. My tools included a hand saw, a Skil saw, a brace and bit, a Stanley #4 plane Made in the 1970's, and some saw horses I had built. About halfway through the project, the 4x4's started to bow and twist. I got mad and decided to go with Plan B. Plan B was to rip the 4x4's into 2x4's and build a workbench. I used the Skil saw to do the ripping, two passes each. A lot of the resulting 2x4's had 1" holes bored in them, either in thickness or transversly. I built the bench base by nailing together 2x4's using 2" finishing nails, including the top and bottom stretchers (short and long stretchers, top and bottom). Dimensions are 2 feet wide by 4 feet long by about 34" high. For the top I cut a bunch of 2x4's into 2-foot lengths and nailed them transversely to the long top stretchers. That makes the top about 1.5" thick in most places. No part of that bench is square or plumb or level. It wobbles when I tried to plane anything. I can't plane the top flat because of the nails. As the wood dried, gaps appeared between the boards on the top (inevitable because of the way I oriented the grain of the top boards). There were 1" holes in random places (which was great for losing small pieces of hardware). No glue was used. Some 39 years later, that bench is still in use. It has survived 5 moves (2 of which were across an ocean). I've added a few braces and a couple of vises and plugged the holes in the top over the years, so it isn't quite as rickety as it once was, but it's still rickety. And I still love it. It's my "dirty" bench. If I spill oil on it, no problem. If I pound on it, no problem. That SYP is nearly as hard as a rock. If my chisel slips into the bench surface, no problem. If the black swarf from sharpening with my oilstones gets on it, no problem. I actually find the gaps between the top boards useful when I need to cut sandpaper with a utility knife (when I can find the bench's top). Ed Minch has seen this bench in person and can testify to its faults. So, Mark, don't despair. Just because your new bench top doesn't look pretty doesn't mean that it can't be useful. I learned a lot from building my first workbench. So will you. I've been intending to build a new, more proper bench for quite some time now. I actually started building it only 7 years ago, and it is at last nearing completion. Stay tuned for a report after it is finally finished, which will be Real Soon Now (measured of course in Galoot Time). Chuck Taylor north of Seattle |
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255640 | Michael Suwczinsky <nicknaylo@g...> | 2015‑08‑03 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
My "some form of spreader" tends to be the ol' index finger. ;) I keep a stack of expired credit cards, plastic hotel keys, & etc. (and all those stupid AARP cards I get in the mail) next to my glue. They are reusable if you get to them soon enough, otherwise disposable. One swap meet foray yielded a set of pinking shears (cuts a zigzag for non sewers), for the aforementioned stack of cards. Almost like notched trowel in tile work. Michael-still causing his neighbors concern. |
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255642 | Mark Pfeifer <markpfeifer@i...> | 2015‑08‑03 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
Chuck Thanks for writing, I feel better. I laughed, but your note struck a chord and made me sentimental.....And FYI if benches had genes, I'd swear your bench's clone is out in my garage. And I do love it. Literally. I hear about guys planing their tops.....I used to paint mine every couple years, but as life accellerated, having and raising 7 kids, running a big baseball program, keeping the house up, restoring several cars, all while managing to keep my job, I didn't make the time. Im glad i didnt, because now I think of my bench as my journal. The stripes of Testors Panzer Grey do sometimes rub off on my work, but they are the memory of my son's freshman project; we built a working trebuchet that when tuned could throw a 5/16 x 9/16 nut about 120 feet. He will graduate HS soon and if he doesn't make the cut for the Red Sox, wants to me a mechanical or civil engineer. He still has the trebuchet somewhere. The greasy orange-brown smear looks like a biohazard, but that's a remnant of restoring a corner curio stand that has been in my wife's family for generations out of mind......my father in law loves dark brown stain ("it's colonial!") and gloss urethane....very careful stripping reveals it's mahogany.....except for the pieces that had been repaired with pine, or cedar, or some indeterminate wood.....some with hide glue, others with cut nails, so by itself it's a history lesson of sorts. Yes I planed it all smooth and shiny, but I left the amateur repairs, and used the square nails for part of it. The bench has some old holes I cut in it because I was careless with a hole saw, or a drill. Others I cut on purpose, where and when i needed to have a bench dog.......by which I really mean plastic pieces from a Workmate I bought the year I got married, 1993. They still work, banged in with a hammer.. The front edge has the first saw cuts my now 14 year old ever pulled. Some people have really nice Record face vices.....I have a Columbian stand up that my father in law gave me when he moved into assisted living. I'm not sure it closes square, and it must weigh 150lbs, but he got it used......in 1964. The only place I could mount it was the right hand corner, right where my elbow will find it when I'm hyper focused on a carving or cutting with the 20s vintage Simonds he gave me with the vice. My right elbow is rounded off from that vice, and it probably has enough of my DNA in it to call it a relative. Now i want a tail vice and nice neat rows of holes, and a wood screw face vice, and a surface that wont vibrate when I plane. So I will finish my fancy bench.....and when I look at the hairlines in the far side slab, will notice the aprons and near side slab don't have hairlines, and I'll remember how that bench taught me to glue, with a lot of help and encouragement from some generous men I never met....... So I'll finish it, but nobody can take my old nasty bench unless they pry it from my cold dead fingers. :) See, I toldja your note made me sentimental. Thanks for making the time to write, Mark. Sent from my iPad On Aug 2, 2015, at 4:59 PM, Chuck Taylor |
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255643 | Brian Rytel <brian.rytel@g...> | 2015‑08‑03 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
I'm a bit late to this discussion but... Here's an excerpt from a private email sent about my Seller's multi-year wood-wrestling project. " I'd emphasize not using the material I did. Truer, easier material would be better. Jointing the faces for the slab hasn't been fun. I had considered using alder, ash, or beech milled [and S2S] to 1-3/4"x2-1/2" but decided against it in an impulsive move. For someone looking for a quicker project, choosing a more suitable stock is a good idea. " That's the polite way of stating it. I had one board, intended for a stretcher that must have twisted 20-30 deg. While the SPF borg not-at-all dry lumber is a lot easier to work than doug fir, it's been a giant pain. If you have access to a fully-stocked shop for a weekend (jointer, planer, etc.) then you can get it all done, glued up and only have to worry about some of the specific joinery. However, my lams came out decently. I trimmed them to length (total ~8 in. of waste from both sides) and the ends were all solid, most breaking through the wood just a Sellers demonstrated. My aprons did twist a bit but nothing that a few strategically placed fasteners won't overcome. Not a total loss, although... The worst part is that as I'm getting everything ready to assemble I realized I'm not even going to be in love with the bench. The aprons mean you can't sit at it with your legs under the top and you'll rub your knees on it while standing in certain positions. Plus installing the vise is a far more challenging enterprise than on an open-face bench. The only bonus is that you get a deadman where ever need one. Next time (maybe soon) I'll be going with a more common trestle. A couple extra M&Ts looks pretty appealing compared to 10+ joints for the aprons. I'll probably go with ash although it's crept up in price around here (guitar builders) and with all this recent discussion of beech it's still in the cards as well. |
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255644 | Michael Blair <branson2@s...> | 2015‑08‑03 | Re: Fwd: Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
> Before my ill-fated rip cut, the board looked straight and true, with > no > indication of internal stress. We used to call that phenomenon "case hasdening." The exterior of the wood is straight and true, but a little deeper into the piece the stress is tight. > Serves me right for using a tailed apprentice! Still, it is a poor > workman > who blames his tools . . . If it's any consolation, the same thing would have happened if you hand ripped it. It wasn't you. It wasn't the tailed apprentice. It was the tension inside the wood. I've had it happen numerous times. Alder, pine, redwood have all done this for me. The most exciting time happened when one of my partners was running a four inch thick by 26 inch wide piece of cottonwood through a tailed apprentice planer. From deep inside the machine, we heard a loud boom when the inside of the timber was released from its bondage. Mike in Sacto |
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255646 | Mark Pfeifer <markpfeifer@i...> | 2015‑08‑03 | Re: Fwd: Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
Wow this is all new to me.....I know cars better than wood. Is exploding wood just one of those "fact of life" things like cam slop in the B series BMC engine? Or is it more like orange peel in paint and it's hard to avoid bit if you know how.... I LOVE the phrase tailed apprentice. I am seriously looking at adding a couple. I've developed carpal tunnel and am at a PoDR where if I stick hard to the no electrons principle I may not be able to do as much as I'd like. Doctor is saying I change something, or end up having the CT release surgery. I don't usually trust doctors so if anyone has advice for avoiding carpal tunnel I'm open to alternative medicine. Bourbon, Scotch, vodka all off the alt medication list for me.....lifestyle choice. :) On Aug 3, 2015, at 6:19 AM, Michael Blair |
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255647 | Claudio DeLorenzi <claudio@d...> | 2015‑08‑03 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
> > Re CTS Hi Mark Carpal tunnel is a real thing, and median nerve compression can be quite bothersome. You should get a baseline EMG done (an electrophysiologic test of the nerve function across the wrist). The carpal tunnel is a real tunnel, having bone on 3 ¼ sides, and a thick ligament (¼ inch thick) on the top. The ligament prevents the tendons from bow stringing outwards, so it is very strong and thick. You can sometimes get good symptomatic relief by switching to ergonomic keyboards, tables, and chairs if you spend a lot of time at the computer for work. In general, you want to avoid having your wrist palmar flexed (or extremely dorsiflexed) for prolonged periods. The natural position of the wrist with the least pressure within the tunnel on the palmar side of your wrist occurs when the wrist is dorsiflexed in a natural position of about 20 degrees, with the pressure increasing with either extreme palmar or dorsal flexion. You can pick up a night time splint to wear to prevent you from flexing your palm downwards in your sleep (we tend to assume a foetal position during sleep. Keeping your hand elevated when sleeping may also help (you have to rig it so that if you had a drop of water sitting on the tip of your index finger, it could roll down to your shoulder: in other words, you want to make it more difficult for swelling to stay put. In my own patients, the only ones who got better non surgically were those who had treatment for a disease that was causative or those who really changed their habits. Everyone else generally failed to show permanent improvement with conservative treatment. Surgery was generally effective with long lasting benefit. Non surgical treatment, including cortisone injections splinting etc typically only provided some temporary relief unless habits were changed. Untreated, this can cause permanent damage in terms of sensibility of the finger tips of the radial 3 and a half digits and impairment of thumb abduction, but this is unusual. So you can stabilize it with night splints, anti inflammatory meds, rest, stretching, physio, etc, but permanent relief, in my opinion, comes from surgery. Cheers Claudio |
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255654 | David Nighswander <wishingstarfarm663@m...> | 2015‑08‑03 | Re: horror story . . . was it the crappy wood?! |
I intended to make a workbench. After 40 years of not having a proper woodworking bench I thought it was time. Thinking that I was being clever I set myself a task with a deadline. I told LOML that I was going to make a bench for my sons birthday gift. With all the trepidation involved in the beginning planning of any project I went with the Paul Sellers method. It closely matched my fathers methods in that it involved 2x4’s and glue. Dad always threw in lag bolts on any project and his favorite glue was PL400 in the caulking tube. The large caulking tube. I cheated with a tailed apprentice in some steps. Removing 1/4” of radius from the edges of the fifteen 6’ long 2x4 seemed like a job for the big blue planer that had sat in the corner of the garage since the move. I glued up two 12” wide planks of 2x4’s face to face. For a spreader I zigzagged Titebond III glue over the face of one board and rubbed the other across it. Seeing that I have a plethora of clamping devices I gripped the planks mightily and left them to sit overnight while I went off to earn the money for more glue. After rough planing one face with my Stanley #5 I bashed them through the planer. Because I wasn’t sure exactly how long the bench needed to be I had left the 2x4’s at their original 96” length. A fair amount of fast footwork was involved in making multiple passes but it finally was done. When I got back to the task of assembling the planks I found that during the 2 days of idleness in the garage the planks had twisted. Only about 1/4” but enough that it would be obvious. Using mechanical means and several cauls I was able to bring a 6’ section of the planks into alignment. Having settled on a 6’ long bench the rest was rather anticlimactic. The bench was well received and arrived at its new home in the originally designed number of pieces. It needed to go down a set of stairs with a dogleg so it was designed to be disassembled. It has been in use the most of a year and seems happy to be of service. No further warping or twisting has shown up. The one half that is Douglas Fir is coexisting nicely with the white pine half, that was all that was available during the second trip to the Borg. Why did it work? Don’t know. Don't care. I used the same method on a similar bench for my shop that has been most satisfactory. If you are interested you can see the bench in various stages here. https://www.youtube.com/wa tch?v=EZ2yHekr00A The second bench top was hand flattened after the final glue up. No matter how many clamps I used I couldn't pull it into alignment. The second bench top shrank to be about a 1/2" narrower after the final gluing and before the base was attached. |
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