Installing Double-Bullet Catches

Taunton's Fine Woodworking magazine recently had a great article on installing various hinges.  This was mostly a great way to get me off my butt and install the 6 pairs of double-bullet catches that have been shuttled around my shop for the past year onto the Oak cabinet on my back patio (it's a thankless life being a cabinet on an Arizona patio, I assure you!)

I rolled a video of it so you can see how easy they are to install using this technique.  It was also a (minimal) chance to play with a new toy that is pre-destined to be my favorite.  This is a "prequel" of a review so check back very soon :)

Lil' Boxes for a Jewelry Box with the JMPv2 - Gilding and Lining

The last of the videos for this jewelry box!  Banners fly! People cheer!

In this episode, we'll decoratively reinforce the mitered box then move on to something more interesting: gilding.  I decided to gild the inside of the coves with silver leaf to add a bit of shine.  It's easy to do and you can get creative with the process so give it a look.  All you'd need to gild is gilding 'size' (the glue) and a book of leaf of the metal you want.  I halfway considered gilding an escutcheon around the keyhole.  My mom has a lot of necklaces with silver Maple leaf motifs so a Maple leaf in silver as an escutcheon might have been a nice accent.  You could do this complicated pattern with a resist.  The reason I didn't is that the box is just nice Mahogany and having a bit of shiny bling in the middle would be too distracting.  ...but gilding offers those kinds of possibilities.

Lastly, the jewelry box lid and bottom as well as the tray box bottoms get lined with batting and velvet.

Overall, I'm happy with it.  Now to start planning the next project also in Mahogany!

Lil' Boxes for a Jewelry Box with the JMPv2 - Box Joinery

This is part 3 of 4 chronicling making two small tray boxes for the inside of a jewelry box I made for Mother's Day.

Part one was a good introduction to the JMPv2.  Part two a good introduction to the HP6v2 plane.  In this part, we'll use the JMPv2 to make the small boxes.  One has trivial mitered corners, the other has mitered-shoulder through-dovetails.  These are cut mostly on the JMPv2 with some hand-saw work with the dozuki.  Have I mentioned that dovetailing softwood is, uhm, annoying?

Part 4 will wrap it up with some gilding, finish, and lining.

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...

Safety Awareness Week 2011

Safety Awareness Week 2011 is upon us again.  A couple years ago, Marc Spagnuolo set aside a week to focus on safety issues in the shop and now it is a recurring event, much like National Backup Day and equally without a plethora of useless Hallmark cards.

In this video, I go over a couple things I have in my shop to keep me counting to 10 with my shoes on.  Some are original ideas (that I know of) and some were stolen for the better good of my digits.

Safety is boring, kinda like backing up your personally penned haiku collection, but not nearly as boring as reading last year's Field & Stream in the ER waiting room.

If you have other suggestions, please add them in the comments!