Tag: Craftsmanship

Chopping Block Kitchen Island – IKEA Hack

/ Matt Talley / 2 Comments

Stamps-With_Foot has wanted a chopping block island for years. Our kitchen in Seattle just didn’t have the room for one, but the kitchen in France was PLENTY big enough. I looked into taking some 5/4 maple and gluing it up for her, but without a table saw and a power planer it would have been REALLY difficult. We found a couple that were already built, but they were between 400 and 900 Euros. No.Thank.You. After some deliberation, I decided on an IKEA island – the Groland. Stop Laughing and put down the stones…

While my son (The Ruminator) was here in France on his summer vacation, we bought one in a box, strapped it to the top of the car, drug it home, and started putting it together. I couldn’t leave it stock though, that is just not how I operate 🙂 We added a few flourishes to make it “better.”

1. Turned the legs on the lathe to give it bun feet
2. Glued it all together and added some extra dowels for reinforcement
3. Removed the steel rods on the original and plugged the holes with Dowels
4. Painted the base with a Sea Green Milk Paint
5. Added an additional block section to the bottom of the top panel – to make it super-solid
6. Cut a 6″ hole in the top for sweeping scraps off the work surface
7. Put a large plastic bin – removable from both sides – under scrap hole
8. Bolted rolling pin to one side to towels and placed 2 brass hooks on the other side
9. Scrapped the wood lattice bottom panel and used 7/8″ tongue and groove clear pine decking boards instead.
10. Polyurethaned the top – 5 coats – and bottom shelf so they match and make the painted base “pop”
11. Took a hunk of cherry tree trunk and turned it down as a lid for the scrap hole.

My Son and I had it installed just in time for my chef Father-in-Law, The Chatty Buddha, to visit and whip up a few fine meals using it as a work platform

Kitchen Island France 2014 (1)

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Kitchen Island pieces 2014 (1)

Kitchen Island pieces 2014 (3)

Kitchen Island pieces 2014 (2)

a couple of saw benches for the shop

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I needed a couple of saw benches for my GROP, so I put a together two of different designs. They are both simple, plain and sturdy – no nails or screws, just glue, dado joints, and oak dowels. One is an old V-notch pattern that I have seen 1000 times and the other is combination bench/tool tote of my own design. I made the tote handle of the second one from a baseball bat that was cracked. I turned down the ends on the lathe to make 1-1/2″ round tenons and captured the tenons with wedges and 2 dowels – placed at 6:00 and 12:00 as keys. This permanently locks the bat and will keep it from twisting loose. the Louisville brand is facing up when carried – It adds a little flair to something that would normally be utilitarian and is big enough to carry everything I need to do a household fix/honey-do.

Grop Bench 2014 (1)

Grop Bench 2014 (2)

GROP update – French Cleats

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Since I live in France, it only makes sense for me to have a shop organization wall that using French Cleats. I have wanted to do it for years, but just never found the time between house and furniture projects when we were in Seattle.

I ripped down some pine sub-flooring that came from the local French Big Box (Leroy Merlin), cut the edges at a 45, ripped the board in half, and glued/screwed them to a section of 1/2-ish (13mm) plywood. Exterior water-based poly was added to both the back and front before it went up on my clay-block garage shop wall with 8 large anchors. For my first French Cleat accessory: I had three small cut-off sections left from a picture shelf wall I did in my home office that I tacked to section of scrap ply to hold my #5 1/4 Jack, #4 smoother, and a couple of block planes. I keep the rest of my planes in a chest, but I use these constantly and wanted to have them in reach. I was so happy with how it all tuned out that I started building all sort of other holders and organizers: ones for squares, chisel rolls, Mallets, cords, apron hooks, saw horses, clamps, Japanese saws, etc… I ringed the garage with a single cleat about 6′ up for all sorts of diabolical organization plans, then hung two more above the lathe so that I would have a place to suspend my lathe chisel rack that is currently in progress and for a spot light that shines down on projects as they are turning.

I will update and post as I add new stuff.

French Cleat 2014 (2)

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Talley - French Cleat attachments 2014 (1)

Talley - French Cleat attachments 2014 (2)

Talley - French Cleat attachments 2014 (3)

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Talley - French Cleat attachments 2014 (5)

Talley - French Cleat attachments 2014 (6)

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Talley - French Cleat attachments 2014 (8)

A Bench Building Machine

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In addition to the 5-board bench by our front door, I have built a large bench for our dining table and one for our entry-way with shoe storage, per my sweet wife’s request. I have a couple of saw benches for the GROP and 2 narrow ones for my office all cut out as well, but not put together. These benches are traditionally “furniture of necessity” and not meant to be fine furnishings, but I think that there is still beauty in their simplicity and usefulness (useful and helpful are the highest Talley-family compliments). Additionally, they are simple, cheap to build, and lend themselves to hand-tool only construction. Not a single screw or nail is used: I used through-tenons, oak wedges, and dowels. With almost instant tangible results, the whole process in building these is therapeutic. When and if I have a super-crappy day at my J-O-B, I can go into the Garage/Shop/GROP after dinner and make some wood shavings and improve the bejesus out of my mood. Cheaper than counseling and less bloody than a rampage 🙂

7/3/14 Update:

So… The bench built for the dining table had ends that extended a little too far from the legs. It made the bench tippy if someone either sat on just the end or got up with someone also sitting on the other end. There were a couple of incidents where a butt almost hit the ground. I removed 7″ from either side and changed the stretcher detail a bit as the plain 45 degree cut didn’t really match the curl detail on the feet.

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Another Cherry Bowl

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I spent another weekend afternoon playing on the lathe. I made a mate to the cherry bowl I turned last month – the other side of the tree trunk. It was a little smaller block of wood and I roughed it out a little quicker. I decided to keep this one instead of giving it away and use on the dining table for fruit and such. It colored up really nicely – a warm orange that will darken with age, but it has checked a little more than the first one – it hasn’t split and hopefully won’t – but there are a few fine cracks that have popped up here and there.

I started it out thinking it was going to be a different shape, but due to some spongy fruit-wood, it became more of a vertically sided bowl with a deep finger groove on the bottom. Like the last bowl (and most of my bowls and lids), I turned a little detail in the bottom of the bowl because I think that curiosity should be rewarded. The bowl is again finished off with my own mix of beeswax and walnut oil. I am going to let it dry for a few months and reapply.

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A Fine French Work Bench

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My GROP (garage and shop combo) in Seattle was too small for a proper joiner’s bench. I made due with a slim, high, wall-mounted work counter, a bolted on machinist-vise, Quick Clamps, and the top of my table saw. It worked – mostly – but was a pain in the ass a good bit of the time: I never once planed a board on a stable, solid surface. My GROP here in France is roughly the same size as the one in Seattle, but is absent the huge cast iron machines and saws. I have some room to move and finally have the space for a big, heavy, proper work bench. This shit is about to get real…

As I live in France, I am building a 2m long, 85cm wide split top Roubo-style bohemyth, that will have a 12cm, 4-part slab top (6.5′ X 33.46″ X 4.72″) and it will be 36″ high as that is MY optimal bench height. Wooden leg vise, dog holes, a cast iron tail vise – all the bells and whistles! I am planning for it to take a mule to move this thing as I will do some serious planing on this baby. It is an amalgamation of benches by M. Roubo, Roy Underhill, Chris Schwartz, and Bill Schenher. I am calling it the “Cornebarrieu Bench” after the small village in southern France where we live, where the lumber has been sourced, and where the bench will be made and first used.

I picked up some of the lumber at a yard near the house (still need the top – thinking of Beech!), strapped it to the top of my tiny car and carried it home, giggling manically. The wood is now in the GROP drying out a little and waiting for me to attack the timber and fashion it into one fine, sweet hunk of usefulness. It makes my black heart more than a little happy to think about the look on movers’ faces when they see this thing when they come to pack us out for our eventual move back to Seattle. Mwahahaha…

From tree to bowl with a LOT of sweat in between

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

I have a colleague that was making over a large section of his property out in the French country-side and he needed a dying cherry tree taken down. It was a big old tree with what looked like lots of good hard wood in the trunk base, so I gave him a hand. I thought I could tun the wood into some nice bowels, mallet heads, honey dippers, etc… and he agreed to let me have some of the wood that was destined for his fire place. Holy Crap it was work – not at all helped by his tiny electric chainsaw. It made me long for my 30″ bar, 2-stroke beast back in my Seattle garage shop.

After cutting 2 good rounds and trimming up the root ball, I split the rounds in two, then put 200 pounds of wood in the back of my tiny Suzuki Swift and hauled it home. Into the garage it went and the wife and I were off to the Saturday Market. I came back to one of the rounds on the next night and decided to prep it for turning. With my Japanese hatchet and hand saw, I worked it into an octagon-ish shape. There was a lot of rot in the outer rings and the sections did not make as large of bowls as I had hopped, but the root ball will make an AMAZING centerpiece on the table for holding bread or fruit at parties. I am getting ahead of my self a little…

Anyway, the first section was a beast! It took me 3 hours to go from the half-round to the round bowl-blank. I almost threw the hunk down and took it over to my neighbors wood pile while just roughing it into shape with the axe. The wood was SO FREAKING HARD! It got worse when I started spinning the thing! My roughing gouge was super sharp when I started and I had to sharpen it twice again during the initial turn. There was a break in the turning where I built a jig for my turning chisels so that the sharpening angle was perfect every time, but that is a different tale…

I have never gone from tree to bowl before and I wanted to see if I could do it well. Usually, I either glue up hardwood scraps or buy a rough elm or maple blank from my hardwood dealer in Seattle (With the coin I drop at his place, he is most assuredly a DEALER! His crack just has figured grain and tight growth rings…) Anyway, I might should have picked a tree with softer wood for my first time, but how many turners back in the US can say that they cut down a old cherry tree in France and made cool stuff with it?!

I finished up the bowl four nights after I started turning the rough shape. I had to work around some rot and cracks, but the final shape turned out really nice. When someone handles the bowl and flips it over, they will find my makers mark and I turned a little detail in the bottom of the bowl because I think that curiosity should be rewarded. The bowl is finished off with my own mix of beeswax and walnut oil. After two coats, it colored up beautifully. There are a couple of spots where it may split along the rim, but that is just the nature of the wood and that specific piece – it will add character to the bowl. This one was done for the guy who gave me the wood and I will turn a couple later for our house.

I was really proud of how it all turned out and the final product made all the sweat and cussing worth it.

How to make a Chinese wood lathe work “right out of the box”

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I have mentioned that when planning our move to Toulouse, I realized that I would have to leave my big electrical shop machines in Seattle.   It hurt a little as I have become dependent on a table saw and compound miter saw for even the simplest tasks. I am looking forward to spending some quality time with my hand tools, but I have to have a lathe to complete 75% of the projects that I tackle. There is no way in Blue Blazes that I am was going to build a pole lathe or a foot-powered flywheel lathe – there I draw the line. I needed a fairly large machine to turn the posts, trenchers, stools, bowls, table legs, spindles, scoops, etc… that are on my “to-do in France” list.

Machine tools in France are CRAZY expensive. Look at the US price, change the Dollar sign to a Euro sign and add 30% to the final price. I looked at a large Jet lathe and it cost more than my first truck. Even the small midi version was the equivalent of $600. I just can’t spent that kind of cash on something that doesn’t either feed me or take me to work. After some research, I found a bare bones, no accessories, Chinese made model that some of the local turners were buying for their second or third lathe. It was 1/3 the cost of a well appointed model with the same bed length and power. Sold. I brought all my chucks and jigs and accessories with me, so I thought “Perfect!”

There wasn’t one available in a 400 mile radius, so I had to order it at the home center in the next village over.  11 days later it showed up and I brought my new 400 pound beauty queen home in a Suzuki swift. I am sure the douche-bag that stood 10′ from me watched as I man-handled it into the rear hatch of my tiny car using old tires and 2X4s has already posted the video.

Now, it was advertised at “Ready to turn out of the box!” For that to be true you need the following tools:

  1. Rubber Mallet
  2. 1/2″ combination wrench
  3. Set of standard Allen wrenches
  4. Flat-head screwdriver
  5. #2 Phillips screwdriver
  6. 3/8″ drive ratchet
  7. 1/2 socket
  8. Long socket extension: >6″
  9. Standard Tap and Die set
  10. A large vocabulary of cuss words
  11. Drill
  12. Metal Drill-bit Set
  13. Large Bastard File

You will also need the following additional parts as the bolts and washers provided were likely scooped from a bin without counting and dropped in a bag.  There are only two small pages of instructions and they do not list all the parts, the number of each that will be required, or the order in which they are installed.  Take examples of the bits and pieces provided and get duplicates in the same size:

  1. Washers
  2. lock-washers
  3. pan head bolts
  4. Machine bolts

You will also need:

  1. four 8′ long 2X4s
  2. Wood Glue
  3. Sandpaper
  4. Pan-head wood screws or deck screws
  5. 4 sacks of concrete

I found out about the hardware issue right away and drove back to the home center in the next village for spares, but I had all of the other supplies on hand – I did not pack light for our move here 🙂   The base was my first obstacle. It was flimsy sheet metal and some of the holes were out of alignment.  I drilled and fitted, whacked with a mallet and said lots of dirty words, before I finally got the lathe on.  A quick tug showed that the base needed some serious beefing up.  If I put an unbalanced piece in it, it would shake apart.   I ended up building a crossed braced wooden skeleton for the whole thing – my Jr. High Wood Shop teacher would beam with pride.  The reinforcing process took me 4 hours that first night, but that was mostly because I don’t have a miter box saw and was making compound angle cuts with a sliding-T bevel and a Japanese pull saw. I ended up having to chase the threads in the cast iron lathe bed and on the head stock (really) with a couple of different taps and used Loctite on all the bolts.

All the handles and knobs had to be put on and tested and the tail stock and head stock had to be adjusted, tweaked, and tweaked a little more to get them in alignment. The cast iron tool rest was really rough, so I used a file here and there on it and sanded the tool bearing surface and finger groove with progressively finer sandpaper, from 80 to 400 grit.  This all took another 3 hours the next night.

After all was said and done, I clamped up a small hunk of 2X4 that was a cut-off from building the base and with just my skew chisel, turned it down and into a bunch of tiny beads.  The lathe turns great and has plenty of power.  I couldn’t be happier.  I saved 800-1000 Euros in exchange for 7-8 hours of me time.

Bench for the front entry – Project #4 in France

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

We are a “no shoes in the house” family. It is dry and dusty where we live in the summer and the trails near by that I run and that Stamps-With-Foot and Brodie walk on are shared with horses. We don’t want to track dirt and poo into the house. There is a great spot right by the front door to take your shoes off, but no place to sit down to do it. I decided a rustic little 5-board bench was in order. I spent five hours from the initial sketch design to putting on the final coat of polyurethane over a week’s time. No nails or screws were used, just through-mortises, wedges and dowels. We now have a small piece of furniture outside the front door that is functional and matches the house and the style of our other furniture – you never know it might someday find its way inside.

Tools I brought with me from the old country…

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When planning our move to Toulouse, I came to the realization that I would not be able to take my entire shop with me. I didn’t relish the idea of replacing all my power tools and saws with 220vt/60Hz versions, only to have to sell them in a couple of years when we move back to Seattle. I decided that I would bring mostly my hand tools and and spend some quality time working small projects, cutting dovetails, tuning my planes, etc… There were three 24″X24″ boxes and one wooden chest full of edge moulding planes, Stanley Bench Planes, 4 rolls of chisels, mallets, Japanese saws, hand drills, dovetail tools, axes, draw knives, my half set (#2 – #18 even) of 1850ish Gleave hollows and rounds, squares, jigs, rasps, and assorted joinery paraphernalia.

My plan is to use the time here to do the detail work that I am usually in too much of a rush to even contemplate: carved scroll-work, mortised frames, insets, layered stain finishes, edging with the moulding planes, some light carving, maybe even cutting a few linen-fold panels. I have done a couple of little things already, but my first big task is to build a HEAVY work bench so that I will have a proper work space: I am going with a split top Neo-Roubo without a leg vise. I will be installing a cast iron Front Vise and a Screw Vise on the tail of the bench instead. No cabinets underneath so that I can store a shooting board and a Moxon vise. It WILL BE coming home to Seattle with us.

In the interest of full disclosure: I am not a neo-Luddite – I did buy an orbital sander right after we got here and I shipped my Ryobi 18vt tool set (circle saw, 2 drills, reciprocating saw, flashlight, & jig saw). The same sets are sold here and I got a 220vt charger that works with my existing batteries and picked up a couple of fresh new lithium-ion batteries in the process. Aside from the battery tools, I ordered a large wood lathe so that I can make furniture legs, tool handles, bowls, jar lids, platters, etc. I brought all my lathe chisels and chucks with me and I got a model that uses a DC motor that I can change over to one that runs on US current when we move back. It is much larger than my lathe in Seattle and will be a valuable addition to the shop there when we return.

From Trash to Basement Built-in

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I was at one of the architectural salvage places in the SODO area of Seattle one fine summer day 3 years ago and as I was leaving with whatever small treasure I had found (picture SmĂ©agol with his Precious…), I spied a bit of white cabinetry and what looked like a paneled cabinet door in their free/meant-for-the-dumpster pile so I went over and looked to see if I could salvage a bit of whatever it was.  The hope was for a door that I could re-purpose or some cool hardware left intact, but I struck gold!  Some idiot used a pry-bar and a Sawzall to rip a built-in painted hutch out of a house’s wall during a remodel.  It was taken to the salvage shop without a back, one side missing, no top, zero trim left, and with rough recent tool/pry marks all over it.  All the shelves were there and the door that I had seen was one of four heavily painted paneled oak doors.  I saw some promise and had an exact spot for it, so I piled the wreckage in the back of my truck, roped it down, and sped away before someone could tell me no.

It languished in the basement for part of a year before I tightened the joints, squared it all up, made a back from pine bead-board, built a matching side panel, reinforced the structure and installed it on one of our basement den walls.  What used to be the open counter-top space between the original built-in base and top, became storage for boots or snowboards or books (which is what is there now).

I wanted to include Stamp-With-Foot in the project, so I took her with me to pick out some trim.  She found a section of fancy scalloped-cut chair rail/case molding that she REALLY liked and I went home and used it in a custom buildup: adding a section of ripped down base molding and a length of popular wood that I ran over with two different router bits to make the top trim.

After getting the piece installed, I realized that I would have a 5″ gap of dead space between the inside top of the cabinet and the finished top, so I rabbited in two shelf lips and built matching hatch covers to provide storage for long or seldom used items in the top of the cabinet.  The hatches were finished with brass ring pulls from a local boat supply hardware shop.  After some light sanding, Stamps-With-Foot and I put two coats of white cabinet paint on it and I had The Ruminator help me install antiques glass pulls and keyed latches while he was visiting for Christmas.   The piece looks like it was built with the house, the top is already filled with mountaineering books, and is a fantastic addition to our basement and home.




Kitchen Cabinet Work Update

/ Matt Talley

There was a flurry of activity to get our kitchen done before our move to France.  I got it 99% of the way – with serious help from Mr. Flood and my sweet wife.  It just needs a little paint on the overhead fridge pullouts, slight pull-out slide adjustment and the installation of the custom milled and matched cove molding.  That will all keep until we get back to Seattle though.  My mom will be able to cook in there just fine as-is.

I feel that the upper cookbook shelf ties the old and new sides together and adds that part of the overall kitchen that was missing.  The shelf also seems to lighten up the space a little as well.  The wine rack was put in specifically for my wife.  It started as a discussion in the breakfast nook one mid-morning, transitioned to a napkin sketch, and four hours later, the carcass was built, bottom brackets cut, and block top was in the clamps with the glue drying.  After the paint was on and top installed, my wife swooned.  It made me smile from ear to ear!

The paper towel holder was a bit of a conundrum.  With low upper cabinets, there was just no good spot either on the counter or under the cabinet.  I toyed around with a couple of ideas before I decided to mount the paper towels on the old ironing board (now spice cabinet) lower door.  I used some scrap popular and turned a section of oak down on the lathe for the rod.  It is inserted all the way through the shelf and both wedged and glued in place.  My grand kids will still be able to use that towel holder when they are my age.  yes, I over built something again…  On the brighter side, the paper town holder bracket, the small round shelf brackets, the cookbook shelf brackets, and the wine rack brackets all match, again marrying all the different kitchen elements together.

Almost as important to her as the wine rack was the trash and recycling can drawer.  After it was in and painted I caught her pulling it open and closing it over and over with a giggly smile.  The curves on the side match all the shelf brackets – I couldn’t help myself.

A Few Turns of the Lathe

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After our house was packed up and loaded on a container-ship bound for the Panama Canal and on to the Port of Marseilles, the only tool I had were my lathe chisels, so I made use of the time and spun out a few odds and ends: a few cord pull handles for the florescent lights in the basement. two jar lids for Stamps-With -Foot, a wooden pestle (2 actually) for kitchen herb grinding and a short honey dipper for her as well.

From the same section of wood as the pestles, I turned some small bun feet for Brodie’s new  food & water bowl stand.  I re-turned my ash carving mallet to change the handle profile and add some ring details.  As I was in the mallet mood, I made general use wood working mallet for my brother-in-law out of a Baseball Bat and reused the bat’s pommel and turned it into a foot massage nubbin for my wife.  I got points in the ledger for to wife-specific items.  Always a good thing.

Bespoke Shoes and Boots

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I appreciate quality handcraft. Not the funny pottery you find at Saturday markets, no I am talking about the fruit of a master craftsman’s hands: A perfectly out of proportion tatsu chest, a bespoke suit jacket, an art nouveau mirror, stained glass, brazed bicycle lugs, quality tanned and stitched leather, a hand-bound book, a teak and brass campaign desk, laminated steel knives, a sharp chisel, a fine motorcycle, beech moulding planes, Victorian ironwork, etc…

I have drug my wife into more stores and museums than I could ever count, just to look at a piece or snap a few pictures of an obscure detail. She puts up with it because she both loves me and has a tiny bit of the same fever as I do: she inspects seams and refuses to buy “cheap” cloths if they are not made well. Every now and then I get to sample the wears, caress a bit of dovetailed wood perfection or buy a little piece of hand-made love. The experience usually is the highlight of my trip.

We were in San Francisco a month or so ago, getting our visa’s for France, and after dinner one night we just happened upon a store window filled with treasure!  There were tailored jackets, tiny toddler-sized suits, amazing hand made leather boots, hats, and vests. There were shoe-making foot forms in the window corners and a small wooden sign stating without ego or fanfare, “Al’s Attire. Custom Tailoring. North Beach.” I was in lust and took pictures of all the windows, of the sign, the address, and the cross street. We had an appointment the next day, but we were going back when the shop was opened. Stamps-With-Foot mentioned seeing the shop to a friend who lives in that Bay Area later that evening and her nonplused response was, “Yeah, there are pretty famous, you should stop in.”

Because of a scheduling win, we were there when they opened the next morning. It was a dark, shop that smelled of leather and wool, with dark corners, exposed brick, 100 year old working sewing machines, sunshine beaming through the windows, a resident puggle, and the most amazing wares. I showed up just wanting to buy a hat maybe and take some pictures… Then I saw the place, smelled it, felt the wooden shoe forms, and I turned into the adolescent who saw boobies for the first time. The shoes and boots were all individually and as a group calling to me. I took picture after picture and then we meet Sarah… She is part of the sales & design team at Al’s and with one look and a sweet manner, up sold me from a flat driving cap to a pair of bespoke buffalo hide wingtip dress boots. I regret nothing!

“Have a seat, we’ll measure you. “It only takes a little while.” “Yes, those ARE beautiful boots.” “Of course we can do a triple layer sole…”

Kitchen Update – September 2013

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We are in the home stretch in getting the kitchen done! Holy crap, it has been a long road. I am so close that I can FEEL the end coming. My hope is that I do not get penalty points from the wife for finishing it just before we move away for a couple of years…

The recycling/trash pullout is 95% done – it just needs paint. The two above-fridge pullouts are in work and should be ready to go in by next Monday-ish – I just need the good weather to hold a little longer. There are 2 toe-kick drawers to paint and install. The new cookbook shelf and the little 6-bottle wine rack (Made block top) that I popped together are complete (wife loves!) and the shelf really marries the two halves of the kitchen together. We have spent 4 years moving a cheap paper towel holder around the kitchen and it is constantly in the way. I decided to build a new one and mount it to the lower spice cabinet door and spent an hour with the lathe, jigsaw, and router to make a holder that matched the rest of the kitchen. Stamps-With-Foot will prime and paint it tomorrow.

I will install the majority of cabinet pulls tomorrow night, but we need 12 more red glass handles for the remaining cabinets so that they match. There is still painter’s caulk and 1/4 round to go on in one spot and I have finally sourced 40 feet of matching cove molding for the tops of the new cabinets – by sourced, I mean I am making it on the table saw. So close….

Candle Box build

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As part of my on-going campaign furniture project I decided that I needed a small box to hold beeswax candles and a few candle stick holders. I contemplated spending way too many hours crafting a small box with dovetails or finger joints, but good sense and my travel schedule won out and I happened on a wooden 2-bottle wine presentation box at Goodwill while I was there perusing for candle holders and baseball bats (for my lathe). I found four nice small Indian-made brass holders that fit in half the box with just the right amount of patina and beausage. I glued in a plywood separator in the middle of the box and cut down a piece of 1/4″ plywood scrap to cradle the holders. I glued that into one of the halves. A coat of red mahogany stain was rubbed on the outside and the box was finished off with two coats of polyurethane. An appropriately dinged-up brass handle was a sourced for $0.50 at a local reclaimed hardware shop and the box is now ready for a safari, Glamping, or romantic dinners in the back yard, etc..

Kitchen Cabinet Doors

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I am super trying to finish up the kitchen cabinet doors and get them painted and hung. I was putting the last coat of paint on them this weekend and the cat decided to help… I said dirty words – loudly. The cat didn’t care and looked away like I was insane for questioning her right to sit in fresh white paint. Had to let the door dry and sand cat hair off and repaint. I said more dirty words. The cat didn’t care and laid on her side in the grass, I am sure thinking: ‘Ima gonna do it again, jus ’cause. Dirty pink bald monkey…’

Fvcking cat.

I went to Seattle Hand-tool Heaven today.

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Somehow, I have lived in Seattle for nearly 5 years and yesterday was my first visit to Hardwick’s Hardware in the U-District (just up the hill from another favorite shop – Recycled Cycles). I made a quick stop looking for a used posthole digger while my son and puppy waited out front in the truck. I stumbled into old-school hardware heaven: Narrow rows stacked floor to high ceiling with new and used (in wonderful shape) planes, chisels, axes, drawknives, Knowledgeable – not too crusty – staff, and tools the one Yelp reviewer has said are “mighty enough to build Viking warships with…”

I may be in love… I lingered for as long as possible (10 minutes) and while I left without a posthole digger, a Stanley Sweet Heart #45 plow plane jumped out of its locked case and came home with me. I will be returning when I have a little cash and a couple of hours to peruse alone and without my sweet wife there to narrow her eyes and tell me “no” when I lust after the broad axe or fondle a fish-tail gouge.

The place has been in business since 1932 and proof that there is room left in the world of Home Depots and Lowes for the neighborhood hardware store where Norman Rockwell would feel at home. Hardwick’s is a bit of a drive for me, but it is officially my new go to stop for hand tools and hardware.

Hammer in my hand…

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This is a plane hammer that I made from brass bar stock and a game-day bat from my youth. The hammer head was made on an old-school machinist lathe and I used a rasp and Japanese pullsaw to form the handle. A light tap is all it takes.


New Bench Chisels

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The bottom chisel (originally my grandfather’s) is the only one I have left from my shop getting burgled/cleaned out over a year ago. I have saved my pennies and dimes for a while and two days ago I bought a set of Stanley Sweet Hearts. I mortised the hinges into the kitchen cabinet doors I am building for my wife. Having quality tools makes me happy.

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Building Custom Cabinet Doors

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1. Buy dimensional 3/4″ poplar boards.
2. Plane to uniform thickness.
3. Rip 2″ and 3″ strips on the table saw.
4. Two dado cuts on table saw for 1/4″X 3/8″ panel groove.
5. Run each section on router because table saw is a POS and there is depth variation in all the grooves…
6. Threaten table saw with large iron maul – mean it.
7. Grumble a little.
8. Cut door stiles (sides) to length – Measure opening for stiles, subtract 4″ for stile width and add 3/4″ for double 3/8″ panel slot.
9. Write all measurements down on a non-descript sheet of paper.
10. Put measurements somewhere safe.
11. Take a 2 week to 4 month break because life gets busy.
12. Lose paper with measurements.
13. Tear house and shop apart looking.
14. Give up and re-measure.
15. Cut rails.
16. Lay all parts out and label, check sizing, trim two pieces, and pray a little.
17. Set up horizontal drill press to drill for dowel joints.
18. Screw up at least 4 initial holes.
19. Hit head in shop at least 3 times.
20. Build sweet dowel trimming jig for table saw – let head swell a little.
21. Cut 3/8″ off each dowel (8 per door).
22. Drill 16 holes per door.
23. Sand the cut-off end of dowel.
24. Dry fit first door.
25. Success!
26. Get out every bar clamp, hand clamp, and Quick-clamp that you own and set up clamping station.
27. Find original measurements for doors in the “safe place.”
28. Say dirty words very loudly. Repeat.
29. Add glue to dowels and joints and assemble door.
30. Apply judicious blows from wooden mallet to seat parts.
31. Get glue on hands and in hair.
32. Clamp up.
33. Wipe extra glue on door off with wet rag.
34. Repeat last 6 steps 8 more times.
35. Scrape clue, plane joints, and sand doors with 3 different paper grits.
36. Check and adjust door fit to openings and prime after more planning.
37. Re-prime and paint with two coats of white cabinet paint.
38. Mark, mortise, and install hinges on door.
39. Install red glass pulls.
40. Mark and mortise hinge/door onto cabinet.
41. Check fit and adjust 2 to 9 times.
42. Repeat steps 28 thru 41 eight more times
43. Drink three beers and swear to never build your own kitchen cabinets from scratch ever again!

Cutting trees down and making stuff

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Shortly after we moved into La Maison du Talley, we cut 21 trees out of the backyard. There was only one serious tree – a 40′ cedar – and the rest were smaller Bay Laurels and Vine Maples that were blocking any possibility of sunlight reaching the ground. I kept some of the larger, straighter sections of the small trees and put them in the loft of the garage to dry and season, hoping that I would eventually make stuff out of them. That was three and a half years ago and while spring cleaning in the garage/shop this weekend I decided to take a little break and mess stuff up again 🙂 I pulled a couple of sections down and cut them to manageable size with the chop saw. I knew exactly what to do with pieces.

We have a neighbor who is crazy helpful and has a passion for dahlias. He grows and shares them with the whole street and has helped Stamps-With-Foot litter the edges of the yard and flower beds with them. She loaned him the bulb planter early this spring and he loved it. He had somehow gone through life as a gardener and just never tried one. I decided to make him his own with graduated depth gauge marks and a matching mallet to drive it into the odd patch of hard ground. The planter is made from a section of the vine maple and the mallet is turned from a hickory Little League baseball bat that I bought for $2.00 at Goodwill. The maple was super-dense and I counted 21 very tight growth rings on it. It grew in the shade under larger trees for all that time and that made it an especially hard and nice piece of wood to turn with sharp chisels – the wood shavings and tailings came off in long, thin, lace-like strips. An absolute pleasure to work with.

Since I was making sawdust already, I decided to keep going: The wife and I are planning to make some/most of our Christmas gifts this year. I have already started and added a few mallets for the woodworkers in my life (I am not spoiling the surprise – none of them read this blog…). I also turned a garden mallet for Stamp-With-Foot from a section of Laurel tree (her name-sake). I added the burned striped bands at her request after she saw her’s beside the others and got mallet-envy.

Just before my wife stomped out to the shop and MADE me come in for the night, I took a hunk of red oak that I have had for 10+ years and turned a couple of fancy door-stops. Since we live in a house built in 1928, the doors have a mind of their own and a well placed wedge keeps a person from walking into the edge of a door in the middle of the night. I will add some tung oil and a few coats of satin poly this week to finish them up.