No Comment #2 - Onyx Cap for the Tapered Octagon

Getting back to the Tim Burton table build (No Comment #2), today we'll look at cutting and polishing the piece of Onyx that caps the tapered octagon.  We'll also go over making the molding that became a frame around the bottom.

While I used the Bridge City Jointmaker Pro for cutting the molding, that's actually a pretty trivial use for that tool (but I like to use it and it's right there!)  No Jointmaker?  No problem, I show a technique at the end of the video that you may find useful for cutting miters in small molding without a Jointmaker and without a tablesaw or bandsaw.

As a warning, there's some easy geometry in this episode... bisecting the angles (which are the miters for the frame) can be easily done with a compass.  You learned it in middle school, but in case those neurons were fried in some college hazing incident, we'll go over it quickly.  In the original build video, I used a Bridge City CT-4 (Angle Divider) and BS-5 to do without the geometry, but these nice layout tools are hard to come by.



Have to apologize for going dark for over a month! Life, work, and 120ºF+ heat waves kept me from the shop.  Yes, folks, we have canceled flights on account of heat out here!  That said, though, two other videos are in production with another review being recorded this weekend.  Of what? It makes a cameo in the background near the end of this video :)

Random Tidbits

A couple random things before going into the shop to record a review of a lot of great things from SenecaWoodworking.com (yes I had to wait for the A/C to bring it down a few degrees... 108º+F today!)

First, Mark Harrell of Bad Axe Tool Works let me preview an article he wrote for a magazine on how to tune your saw.  Loved the article since it explained everything you need to do for 99% of the fixes he does as a Saw Doc.  The article assumes you're not into posturing by chatting about saw fleam angles over coffee, which is great because I could never learn the secret handshake of that social group.

The article isn't published yet and I can't tell you where or when it will be (I was sworn to secrecy over a table of fleam angles), but he followed up with a great article about re-tensioning a backsaw's spine posted to his site.  This may or may not be similar to part of the secret article <wink>

If you score a nice backsaw at a fleam-arket (ah I get it now...), this article will walk you through re-tensioning and straightening out the plate.  The right margin on his site lists other DIY articles including one on unlocking a frozen nut; handy for our Canadian readers.

Next up, a magazine article I was behind on!  My friend Rutager West wrote an article for Popular Woodworking's December 2012 issue (this is for the print issue, which may no longer be available when you read this).  In the article, Rutager shows you how to inlay a checkerboard pattern on a curved radius.  The plane in the lower-right photo is the HP-6v2 mini multi-plane I love; that profile is the corner bead although the corner cove (or any of the corner profile!) would look equally exciting on a box.

The article is a "corner bead" version of a well-documented thread Rutager did on the Bridge City forum where he put the inlay on a face bead (this is the profile I used for the Onyx frame in No Comment #2).

Other good threads on using the HP-6v2 profiles for inlays include revealing a wood under the multi-bead; I've used this many times after reading this; an excellent effect.

Last of the OPT ("other people's tidbits"), Scott Meek makes nice wood-bodied planes. He's decided to auction off this smoother with at least 50% of the proceeds going to the Moore, Oklahoma relief fund.  Might be a great way to get one of these for less than retail!  I have a watch on this.  Hopefully the bids will be out of my range so I don't have to do that nervous last-minute-of-auction sniping.

EDIT: Here is the updated eBay link; eBay had erroneously deleted Scott's auction since they are being cautious of any auction for "Moore charity" since so many were false.

For me, my list of videos to roll has grown almost too fast this past week.  That said, over the next two months, I should have 4 new Festool reviews along with the very interesting Seneca Woodworking reviews I'll be rolling after hitting publish.  This without forgetting to finish the No Comment #2 build videos and get the drawer assemblies in place on Angle Madness.  I need to quit my day job!

Speaking of videos, thanks for letting me hit 3,000+ subscribers on YouTube!

No Comment #2 - The Full Build

Finally!  There, thought I'd say it for you since I've been saying it all week :)

I had a lot of fun with No Comment #1.  Enough that I'd thought to continue the series with a small but fun build aptly named No Comment #2 (clever, no?).  Like No Comment #1, I won't tell you what I'm building.  This video is a full project build from start to finish in high-speed sections and multi-cams to keep you busy watching instead of snoozing!  Guess as you watch it what I'm making.  Some clues have appeared on this blog to, you know, build intrigue.  My version of foreshadowing!

Unlike No Comment #1, I'll be following up this initial build video with videos detailing different aspects of the build.  There were some interesting techniques used in this build that can be applied to many of your projects.

If you write a comment on this video here or on YouTube (which I'd appreciate!), please don't put a spoiler in there as to what the project was.  Latest comments appear on the homepage so someone not trying to see the comments may see "hey, nice grain elevator!" and it'll just ruin the effect :)

The video is an hour long although my test victims who previewed many early versions never thought it too long; hopefully it'll be as interesting for you.  Maybe go pee before you hit play!


There are two versions of the video!  It wasn't enough to drive myself batty with all this video editing that I mixed two soundtracks.  One uses the songs you've heard many times on previous podcasts.  The second uses new music!  It's all progressive guitar and rock instrumentals.  It is very much what you'd hear in my shop, especially the newly-found favorite Daniel Bautista.

Since the video is all music between a short introduction and final conclusion, you could always hit mute and play your favorite hair bands if you prefer.

I shook the dust off the walls listening to the guitar edition after rendering it tonight; the middle three songs might be a bit much if you're not into the guitar as much but fear not as the songs after those three are very melodic; modulate with the volume control!

Here's the version with the sounds you've often heard on this podcast:



Here's the guitar version: version 11.0!




While sometimes the scene is messy in the video, what's behind the camera is usually piles of whatever I wanted out of the scene.  Here's a panorama of the shop during some of the shooting (the project was in the house so no spoiler here):

A secondary goal of this video was to get better at video editing, lighting, etc.  The biggest thing I learned is that for the total time of this project, easily 9/10th (or more!) of it was video work, whether it was setting up cameras, correcting clips, editing clips, or figuring out some silly thing I wanted in the video for no other reason than I didn't know how (at the time!) to do it!  This really wasn't that long of a build if you don't have red record lights pointing at you :)

For the curious, here's the info for my dedicated video drives:

Crazy that two 4Tb drives are full of the raw and optimized footage for this thing.  As I render the build videos to follow this one, I'll get to delete some footage.  At one point, I found myself drooling over an 18Tb raid stack.  Someday... (no, Friday! :)

Angle Madness, my other project in process, will continue, too, while I put out detail videos for No Comment #2, as I've recorded a lot of the content for those videos already.  The slow pace of Angle Madness needed an intervention for myself and for you.  Now you know why I was in the dark for so long :)

Making the After-Earthquake Detector with the Jointmaker Pro and HP6v2

At last year's WIA'11, I was invited to do demos of the Jointmaker Pro (JMP) from Bridge City along with three other Jointmaker customers.  The event itself was a whole lotta fun.  While all of us use the Jointmaker in different ways in our woodworking, we did a simple-ish demo piece at the show to highlight some of the whacky cuts you can do easily on the Jointmaker that are very difficult otherwise.  The demo piece was the After-Earthquake Detector.

It's a fun demo and a funny project so I've wanted to make a podcast of it ever since and this is it.

After the introduction, there's a section on dimensioning the stock by hand.  Now if you don't have a Jointmaker or any interest in it, there's a good deal on dimensioning small stock with hand planes that may be useful to you; this is that "thickness planing" technique you may have seen in "No Comment #1" for dimensioning small splines.  I'll go over how it works and some caveats... this time with comments! :)

Next up is preparing the profiled base using the HP6v2 Mini Multi-Plane.  That plane is a lot of fun when a clean profile starts coming off of stock and you'll get a good time-lapse in high-speed of a stepped ogee on a board.

Lastly, the work on the Jointmaker.  I had some fun using a close-up camera for side-views to make seeing the work more interesting.  I'm planning on using this camera more for future videos so let me know if it works for you.

The video is longer than usual clocking in a little over a half hour.  Normally it would be shorter by putting tool work in high-speed, but the only way to "get" the Jointmaker is to see it in action.  So... maybe make a bigger bucket of popcorn.



Lastly, here's the link to Chris Wong's videos for making your own Br'all.

It has been slow on the blog since the start of the year since I've been doing a 'house purge' of excess 'stuff' in my house.  Not really podcast material; not really woodworking.  With that out of the way, it's back to the shop time so we'll be starting a new project soon and a couple tool reviews.  Thanks for watching!

Lil' Boxes for a Jewelry Box with the JMPv2 - HP6v2 Tour and Profiling

Continuing on with the little boxes for the jewelry box started in part one, in this episode, I'll show you more about the HP6v2 multi-plane and use it to put a cove on the inside edge of the boxes as well as plow the groove to accept the panels.
It's less JMPv2 and more HP6v2, but as long as you have a 'v2', you're stylin'.
Hmm, how many days until Mother's Day?  Good grief...

Lil' Boxes for a Jewelry Box with the JMPv2 - JMPv2 Tour and Stock Preparation

A long time ago, I made a small Mahogany jewelry box as a Mother's Day present for my mom.  (So hopefully she doesn't read my blog between now and Mother's Day!)  When I got to the point of needing the locket and hinges, they were backordered by 2 months.  Long story short, the box sat in that hinge-less state for months until I remembered a couple weeks ago!

The box was just for practicing hand-cut dovetails and some simple shaping with planes.  In keeping with the neanderthal start (okay, disclosure: I used a bandsaw to split the lid off... :) I decided to make the small tray boxes inside with hand tools.  To me, the Bridge City Toolworks JMPv2 is a hand-tool :)

The little boxes are nothing terribly interesting on their own, but seeing them made with a JMPv2 and the Bridge City Toolworks HP6v2 mini multi plane might be.

Oh, the original stock for the boxes is also unique, but you have to watch to find out.

We'll be back to the power tools in all their loud glory on the next project (teaser: sculpted drawer fronts!).  Meanwhile, unplug everything in the house (except this computer) and get back to your neanderthal roots.  Just make sure you reset all the clocks when you power back up; you don't want to be called a 12-o'clock blinker.

Bridge City Toolworks HP6v2 Multi-Plane

My recent post on designing mirror frames used the Bridge City Toolworks HP6v2 Multi-Plane to apply a multi-bead profile to the mirror frame.  I realized I never discussed this little gem before so this post is an introduction.  But first, a warning.  Bridge City Toolworks (BCTW) is a slippery slope.  While the first hit isn't free, it has the same addiction.  While many buy the tools and keep them in a box only to be creepily admired, I prefer to use them.

This is the current humble composition of my HP6v2.  The plane body is in the back along with various fence profiles.  Four different molding profiles are shown next; the black part is the blade hone with the blade leaning against it.  The brass pieces form the toe and heel of the sole that complements the profile.  The leftmost blade is leaning on a honing rod as it cuts a bead.  The syringe contains diamond honing paste, although its availability in a syringe is clever given the addictiveness of BCTW.  Just saying.

The plane body (shown here with the optional fence attached) does not come with an iron or sole.  Each profile set contains a full sole (toe and heel) along with the profile blade.

The blades are robust and thick; they are also double-ended.  The profile is duplicated on both ends.  This allows you to quickly hone both ends before starting and simply flip the blade when one side stops cutting phenomenally.  The blade position is set by the screw on the top of the body; the blade can be removed and replaced (or flipped) without losing the last blade projection making mid-work honing error-free.

There are many profiles available (beads, coves, multi-beads, dados, etc.) plus each comes in a variety of sizes.  The blade width is the same for all, but beads and coves come in a variety of radii.

Honing the blade is done with a custom hone for each profile  The black bar shown is an anodized aluminum hone that has two profiles, one on each side.  For a particular type of profile (here, multi-bead), the hone will accommodate two available radii.  Notice how the sole complements the cut profile; this greatly helps the plane track on successive passes regardless the fence.

To hone the blade, spread a little water-based diamond paste on the hone and hone the bevel.  There is an optional honing guide, but the thick size of this blade makes hand-honing trivial.  The diamond paste cuts very quickly; only a few passes will give a razor's edge.  Do both edges while you're here.  Since anodized aluminum won't rust, I can leave the dried paste there and hydrate it next time; after a couple uses, though, discard it since it will have swarf in it.

You never hone the back of the blade.  But you do need to eliminate the wire edge by dragging it flat across a strop.

 The soles attach to the plane body with dovetail keys that pull the sole into recesses in the sole for a positive lock.  Adjusting the toe gives the throat clearance while the heel should always be abutted against the back of the iron to eliminate chatter.

The observant types will have noted that in the first picture of the soles, some had holes in the corners.  This model body is the HP6v2 as in version 2.  The original HP6 attached the soles with 8 screws.  Much slower.  The v2 accepts soles for both models while naturally the v1 cannot accept the v2-specific soles.  I will say that I wish there was an adaptor sole; that is, a thin brass sole with 8 holes for the v1 sole to attach to along with the dovetail slots on the other side thus converting a v1 sole to a v2 sole.  Naturally, people would buy many to retrofit popular profiles.  The blade can easily project far enough to compensate.

One blade profile deserves special mention.  The dado profile comes in a variety of widths including a tiny 1/16" dado.  Shown here is a 1/4" dado.  The dado blade itself hones with a flat stone as you would any other blade; the black hone you see in the background is for the double knicker.

The knicker sits in the toe and scores the material before the blade cleans up.  This makes for exceptionally clean dados even cross-grain (yes, I know, dado is cross-grain by definition, but the term is tossed around a bit; good grooves, too :).

The projection of the knickers can be adjusted to match the blade.  A more interesting use comes when you don't even use the blade.  If you needed to score a line either using a fence or riding the plane body up against a fence, you could easily do it without using the blade.  This can be handy if the score line is to mark the outside of a much wider dado you'll cut with a router for example.

The 1/16" blade (that I don't have, yet) lends itself to even more eccentric use.  With the fence and the 1/16" dado blade with knickers in place, you could score the edge of a tenon getting the fibers perfectly scored before completing the cut with a tenon saw and back-paring with chisels.

Don't say I didn't warn you; slippery indeed.

Designing Mirror Frames

Does remodeling ever end?  Soon, actually.  Two mirrors to hang and frame then I can call it done.

I have two mirrors to install over a vanity.  From the picture, you can see where one will go (above the sink) and to the right is a glass-bloc window that pretty much lets in indirect light all day (it was 1 am when I snapped this though).  In this entry, I'm going to describe how I designed the profile as well as how I made it using power tools and hand tools.  Likely some nose picking too, but we'll skip that.

So how to design the molded edge of the frame?  The front of the vanity has vertical fluting on the stiles and is a mix of stains and glazes to look in the neighborhood of walnut.  The doors under the bowls are coopered.  My thinking went like this:

• Use walnut for the close color, but let the grain show for interest.
• Use a cove to work with the coopered doors.
• Use fluting or beading to match the stile profile.

The profile of the frame can be split into two halves: half nearest the mirror and the outside half.  Both can be profiled independently.  The frame sides aren't wide enough to have more regions.

The inside half will be a cove sloping down to the mirror; a straight bevel would work, too, but the cove will be nicer.  The cove also faces the user better than a bevel, which gives more appeal.  The outside half will, in my case, have multiple beads.  I want beads since flutes would have too much "concave" in the profile between the side cove and flutes.  The multiple beads will also be subtly highlighted by the raking light during the day from the glass-bloc window.

So, now that you've seen the resulting profile, how to make it (this is just like high-school calculus! start with the answer and work backwards!)

There are hand planes with cove profiles.  You can also split a rock with a mallet.  I chose to use a router for this and steal the profile from a panel raiser with a cove.  The back-cutter wasn't involved.  I had the bit completely raised to the final position and moved the fence back until the full profile was cut.  If I instead cut the full width of the cove but raised the bit for each pass, the back-cutter would have cut my molding.  Take light passes since the resulting edge is just 3/32" (edge towards mirror); light chipout will take the edge with it.

For the multi-bead profile, I used a Bridge City Toolworks HP6v2 Multi-Plane.  This plane has interchangeable irons and soles to give a number of profiles including the multi-bead I'll use here.  (I have a more detailed introduction to this plane here.)  The iron is a little under an inch wide and happens to be just the right size for the side of my profile.  If I needed a wider swath of multi-beads, I could scoot the plane over and use a couple beads from the previous passes to anchor the fence and complete the cut.

It does make hamster bedding rather well!

Next up will be finishing the molding (dye, stain, finish) then assembling it into the mirror frames.