An exercise in neander

Stu Gillard

Member
Messages
8
Location
Canberra Australia
Hi all,
After 3 or so months of part time woodworking, the change table is complete (our first is due in 2 weeks !!!).
I decided from early on, that the whole project was to be completed with hand tools only. About the only exception is the knobs that were turned on a lathe (does that count ?).
I don't normally build things from scratch, I'm more into restoring. It was a great opportunity to use just about all of my vintage hand tool collection.
I also decided to use all Australian timbers.
Timbers used were Australian Red Cedar and Australian Rosewood, with a recycled Redgum shelf. Drawer knobs are turned from Blackwood. Drawer case was made with recycled pine out of a 19th century Australian chest of drawers (no restoration hope for this chest :D).
All the timber was re-sawn with my Disston D4 handsaw, sized and finished with hand planes. All 34 of the mortise and tenons were hand cut. The drawer is Cedar fronted with half blind dovetails, and pine casing.
The backboard, which is Cedar with a Rosewood band, was carved by SWMBO.
The plan is to install 2 more drawers underneath the first when it's finished being a baby change table (whenever that may be :doh:), so we'll have a chest of drawers for the room.
Change table was french polished (shellac) and waxed.

Pic 1 shows the glue up....sometimes it would help to be an octopus during glue-ups :D
Rest of the pics are the final product.
 

Attachments

  • IMGP2128.JPG
    IMGP2128.JPG
    29.1 KB · Views: 71
  • IMGP2216.jpg
    IMGP2216.jpg
    37.5 KB · Views: 63
  • IMGP2211.JPG
    IMGP2211.JPG
    32.9 KB · Views: 82
  • IMGP2208.jpg
    IMGP2208.jpg
    90.2 KB · Views: 73
  • IMGP2207.jpg
    IMGP2207.jpg
    42.2 KB · Views: 78
  • IMGP2204.jpg
    IMGP2204.jpg
    34.4 KB · Views: 82
Last edited:
Stu, your changing table looks great. I need to look again tomorrow when my eyes are fresher (late for me here). I take it you are located in Austrialia. Big country, what part are you from? Welcome to the forum!
 
Now that's quite a first post there, Stu. ('Bout time you posted here.) ;) Looks like an instant heirloom to me. Great-looking woods and the craftsmanship looks superb. Very well done. :thumb:

The knobs look lighter than the blackwood I've seen. Does blackwood have light-colored sapwood?
 
I didn't realize it was my first post, I've been lurking here for quite a while.

Bill -I'm from Canberra, the nations capital.

Vaughn - Tasmanian Blackwood has a well defined grain ranging from a deep black to graduating down to quite light shades (see attached pic). The knobs are quite dark in real life.
It's a great furniture timber. Polishes well, turns well etc.
It's also an Australian colonial timber, which is why I have stocks of it. It's also very hard, our Aussie timbers test out the finest English plane blades. Although having said that, cedar and rosewood are a joy to work.
Same can't be said for the redgum shelf. Most of my Stanley planes are of English origin, with English blades. That shelf was a chore. I really wanted to grab the belt sander, but I resisted :D. Light smoothing cuts and a Stanley 12 1/2 scraper did the job.
Mental note :
Must buy some aftermarket tough irons for my planes, recommendations accepted :dunno:

Thanks for your kind comments.

Cheers all,
Stu
 

Attachments

  • blackwood_timber.jpg
    blackwood_timber.jpg
    58.1 KB · Views: 23
Thanks for the info on the blackwood. I believe your red gum is related to (or the same as) ironbark red eucalyptus, which is an Aussie import here in the LA area (and elsewhere, I'd assume). I acquired a pile of it a couple years ago for turning and I'm still working my way through the stash. It's wicked hard when dry.
Mental note :
Must buy some aftermarket tough irons for my planes, recommendations accepted :dunno:
I'm a neander novice, but I've been real happy so far with the Hock cryo-treated A2 iron I got for my granddad's old Stanley Bailey No. 3. Here's a discussion we had a while back about plane irons...

http://familywoodworking.org/forums/showthread.php?t=8540
 
Welcome to the Family Stu :wave:

That is a great first post, and an even better piece of work :clap:

The carving on the headboard is very nice, does your wife do a lot of carving? You two will make quite the team!

First kid on the way eh? Well your life is going to change :D

All with handtools, that will keep you in shape.

I look forward to more from you Stu, glad to have you here :thumb:
 
Thanks for that link Vaughn...

I had considered Hock irons, but I was a bit worried about having to get new chipbreakers, longer cap iron screws, opening the mouth etc. They are a lot thicker than the original Stanley irons. Stanley did make HSS irons for the Australian market. I have one of those in my No 5, and it works very well. But gee they're expensive now days.
Most of my restoration work involves cedar, rosewood and Kauri pine, which are fairly soft. So I'm in no great hurry to upgrade.

Hi Stuart,
My wife is a textile artist by trade. Mostly weaving, dyeing, fabric printing, sewing etc.
She has done a fair bit of wood carving just for fun. She's also just had an exhibition of her botanical watercolours for the Canberra Botanical Society. She sold every work !
We've both always had a love of Australian timbers, of which she has rendered botanical paintings of (flowers etc), and I've sawn up :D
 
First of all congratulations on your upcomming parenthood :thumb: Second, that is one nice changing table, well done. I just love the grain of the top. Lots of great wood comes from Australia. I am using Jarrah to make my kitchen countertop.

Tom
 
very well done!

and welcome to the family, your gonna fit in nicely with the group..your talents are very well shown in this piece.the top shelf is some real fine figure,and to have it all done by hand with hand tools says alot about your character,,,great job:thumb::thumb:
 
Hi Stu

Very impressive piece! It's a great example of what can be done with a combination of handtools, good taste, skill and determination.

You really have created a unique family piece here. I can see this outliving its original purpose in your home, then passing to generations to come.

:thumb::thumb::thumb::thumb:
 
That's fantastic Stu.
Great work - design and craftsmanship. It's a beautiful heirloom.
Makes me want to tune up my Disston D4.

About the hand plane irons - i've gotten a few. I like the A2 the best, though the high carbon has worked out really well too. Mine come from Hock, Lie Nielsen, and Veritas. With the older iron hand planes, a thicker cutting iron will make a huge difference in reducing the blade chatter in difficult wood. If you get a new blade thicker than .09" or so, you may have some difficulty with the depth adjuster because the yolk that engages the chip breaker isn't made long enough to account for too thick a cutting iron. I've tried a .125" cutting iron and it does cause problems.

My favorite aftermarket blades for the Stanley (and similar) bench planes are .09" thick A2 steel. Some prefer O2 steel, and some like the high carbon. They're all a huge improvement. If you sharpen your irons with waterstones or wet/dry sandpaper (scary sharp method), the A2 will take an edge easily enough, and it's a bit more durable than the O2 or high carbon. Cliffton also makes quality aftermarket blades, though i don't have any experience with them.

You might also consider a thick aftermarket chip breaker. They're available from the same companies. The stiffer chip breaker gives added support, which also reduces the chatter. I like the design of the Cliffton 2 piece chip breaker, but the single piece versions look like they'd work well too.

Keep going - that's really fine work you're doing.

Paul Hubbman
 
Stu, I would sure welcome seeing any more construction photos if you have any. It is nice to see hand tools in action (hint: photos of tools & bench). You really did a nice job of balancing out the panels on the top. Looks very nice.

What method did you use for the raised field of the top?
 
Thanks for the kind words all...

Paul, thanks for the advice about the blades.
I was concerned about yolk problems, lever cap screw length problems etc.
What I will probably do, is purchase a new smoother (I like the look of the LN's), with an A2 iron for difficult wood.
I'm a big fan of scrapers though, for the final finish of cranky wood.

An english infill would have been perfect for the top of this table. Something with a high angle and a really tight mouth. My 12 1/2 scraper was a big help.
One thing I don't do is sand cedar (the only sand paper that touched this project was to clean up some of the beading), it tends to fluff up the grain so that it doesn't take a polish well.

Bill, the side panels on the top were resawn from one cedar plank. They are attached to the legs with fine mortise and tenons. I chopped out the mortises (carefully) with a 1/4" pigsticker. I cut the tenons with the 2 boards end to end, with a Stanley 71 router plane. A deep knife line, chiseled saw fence, and a fine cut made for a neat shoulder. I found that the router plane made it fairly easy to make perfect fine tenons.
The panels were then beaded top and bottom with a Record 050 combi plane. The panels aren't actually attached to the top as such, just held at each end in the mortises. It seems to be strong enough.

Unfortunately, I haven't much in the way of construction photos. I found I had to grab each moment in the workshop when I could. So, documenting the steps would have taken time that I didn't really have (I have an extremely busy 'real' job).
I'd love to show some photo's of my tools, but my workshop is a sore point. It's about the size of a cupboard. It has a fairly sturdy bench, but no real room to work in. I do most of the work in the fresh air (if you consider 40 degrees celsius fresh). I chop and plane on the bench, but glue-ups, finishing, re-sawing etc. are all done outside.
I try and post some pics to show you what I mean.
Problem is I live in a rental. I am looking to buy, and the first thing I will be building is a new bench in a decent sized workshop :D

Sorry about the post length,
Cheers all,
Stu
 
...Sorry about the post length,
Cheers all,
Stu
Speaking for myself at least, there's never any reason to apologize for a long post here. ;) There are a bunch of us who like to see all the nitty gritty details, and sometimes it takes more than a few words to do that. :) I rather have too much to read than not enough.
 
I'd love to show some photo's of my tools, but my workshop is a sore point. It's about the size of a cupboard. It has a fairly sturdy bench, but no real room to work in. I do most of the work in the fresh air (if you consider 40 degrees celsius fresh). I chop and plane on the bench, but glue-ups, finishing, re-sawing etc. are all done outside.
I try and post some pics to show you what I mean.
Problem is I live in a rental. I am looking to buy, and the first thing I will be building is a new bench in a decent sized workshop :D

You only prove it is not the size of the shop. A few of the people here work out of challenging spaces. See the thread Redneck Workshop.

I agree with what Vaughn said. I think a lot of us like to see the details behind projects.
 
Not quite a redneck workshop

Bill, I can totally relate to the redneck workshop. My main working area is very similar to that.

Here's a few pics of my (very small) workshop and tools...

pic 1 : Looking in from the doorway. The whole shop is about 16' x 6'.
pic 2 : Another shot from the doorway
pic 3 : The right side of the shop. My planes, handsaws (D4 and D8) hanging on the wall, a Mathieson coffin smoother on the bench that I'm restoring, and a display stand that I'm making for someone at work also on the bench.
pic 4 : My user planes. The Record 050 is in the box at back. Ask me about any of my planes, I love to talk about them (my wife and friends don't understand :dunno:)
pic 5 : A mixture of restored vintage chisels. I have few more modern beaters and a good mix of carving chisels in a chisel roll somewhere.
pic 6 : My loyal Bloodhound Brian. Guardian of the shop. (He's not the messiah, just a very naughty boy :D)

As you can see, there's not much room for much else but bench work.
I spend most of my quality time out in the pergola area or polishing in a spare room in the house (shellac likes stable temperatures).

Thanks for the interest.
Kind regards all,
Stu
 

Attachments

  • 5.jpg
    5.jpg
    40.2 KB · Views: 34
  • 4.jpg
    4.jpg
    49.7 KB · Views: 29
  • 2.jpg
    2.jpg
    56.1 KB · Views: 33
  • 3.jpg
    3.jpg
    49 KB · Views: 27
  • 1.jpg
    1.jpg
    40.1 KB · Views: 25
  • 6.jpg
    6.jpg
    35.5 KB · Views: 25
Top