Breadbin, hand tools wip

[Andy Kev.]

.........your third picture down above illustrates the use of the saw to mark the pins well: holding the tip down with the finger must be the key to stability. I'll give that a try.

I find it easiest to use a gents saw when doing this, because a finger along the top of the spine adds enough downwards pressure that you can make a distinct mark with only one scrape. This method produces loose dovetails unless you deliberately mis-align the gauge line of the tail board from the face of the pin board.

Mike,

could you expand on your second sentence? I don't quite understand it, especially the reference to loose dovetails.

PS Apologies to AndyT as there is a risk of diverting your thread here.

 

[AndyT]

No problem Andy - in my case these joints have all turned out a tiny bit too tight if anything.
I did say that having coloured in the saw mark with a pencil, it's necessary to leave all the pencil mark behind when cutting down. You don't just run the saw down in the mark that you scratched, you cut beside it.

 

[NickM]

Rob Cosman uses a method where he offsets the tail board by the thickness of the saw kerf and then makes very distinct saw marks in the pin board (offsetting one way for one side of each pin, and the other way for the other side). He can then cut IN the lines on the pin board to get the right fit. I like the theory, but you have to be super careful not to make a mistake, as demonstrated by his recent drawer making series where he cut on the wrong side of a couple of pins...

The bread bin is going to look great.

 

[MikeG.]

.........your third picture down above illustrates the use of the saw to mark the pins well: holding the tip down with the finger must be the key to stability. I'll give that a try.

I find it easiest to use a gents saw when doing this, because a finger along the top of the spine adds enough downwards pressure that you can make a distinct mark with only one scrape. This method produces loose dovetails unless you deliberately mis-align the gauge line of the tail board from the face of the pin board.

Mike,

could you expand on your second sentence? I don't quite understand it, especially the reference to loose dovetails.

PS Apologies to AndyT as there is a risk of diverting your thread here.

Sure. If you line up directly the saw kerfs of the pins with the saw kerfs of the tails, each pin will be 2 saw kerfs narrower than they should be. In other words, you are cutting the wrong side of the line. If you used a knife to mark them, you would then saw the other side of the knife line to where you are marking by the saw-in-kerf method. However, you can correct for this a bit by re-locating the tail board. If you pull it towards you such that the end overlaps the face of the pin board then the wedge shape of the tails moves the kerf marks closer to where they should actually be for a good fit (at the expense of now not running the entire width of the pin board). By doing this you have lost all your references, so if you happen to jog the board out of position whilst marking it is damned difficult to get it back in place. You've nothing to line it up with.

I save this method for "quick 'n dirty" dovetails, say in something for the garden or something temporary.

 

[Andy Kev.]

Mike,

thanks. All is now clear!

 

[Andy Kev.]

No problem Andy - in my case these joints have all turned out a tiny bit too tight if anything.
I did say that having coloured in the saw mark with a pencil, it's necessary to leave all the pencil mark behind when cutting down. You don't just run the saw down in the mark that you scratched, you cut beside it.

I reckon that lots of small variations on a theme are possible.

I tend to mark pin lines with a marking knife and for the sawing I put the nail of my left index finger (I'm right handed) in the cut line and butt the saw up against it (while remembering to keep the nail vertical). Obviously one has to allow for the necessity of cutting on the waste side of the line i.e. turn the board round where necessary.

 

[AndyT]

Definitely many little variations. So for those of us who don't make them every day, there are choices to be made.
I like the sound of the fingernail trick - that's new to me. I'll have to try it on the next project!

 

[MikeG.]

It'll ruin your manicure, Andy.

 

[Andy Kev.]

Ah, but it does stop you chewing at least one of your finger nails because you've finally got a use for the thing!

 

[AndyT]

Another week already - don't the days whizz by when they all look the same. Here's a little update on progress. I've had a few short sessions but it's not finished yet.

For the back, I selected some of my stash of slightly imperfect bits of thinnish oak. After sawing off the nastiest flaws I had three reasonable bits. The offcuts are on the right.

These got planed down to about ¼" thickness

I then cut pairs of rebates to half the depth where the pieces come together.

I do like these old moving fillister planes. Not only do they work really well, they provided an opportunity for planemakers to show off their skills, making ever more elaborate long dovetail joints to fix the hard boxwood corner in place.

Just think for a minute about how you would cut those joints, by hand, on piece work, and have them last for well over a century...

At the top of the back, the pieces will fit into a little groove, so they need a ⅛" x ⅛" long tenon. I marked out with a cutting gauge and made a saw cut across the end

and planed it down to the line

To make the groove in the underside of the top, I used this nice old screw stem plough plane.

Really attentive readers will recognise it from one of the old tool cleaning sticky posts.. It dates to between 1865 and 1880 and was made less than two miles away by Greenslades of Bristol.

Actually, a groove only ⅛" wide, ⅛" on and ⅛" down is about the limit of how small you can go with this plane, but it works, and here's the proof as the back panels pose in place.

At the bottom of the breadbin, these pieces will rest in a rebate, the idea being that they can be screwed in place after I have got the up and over door working.

Here is how I cut the rebate:

The other thing to crack on with before assembly is the mechanism for the door. It's a bit like the mechanism for one of those "barrister bookcases" you see in American woodworking magazines, but with the grooves in the cabinet, not the door, which will be too thin. A pair of brass pins in the door will run along the grooves.

These needed a gap at the far end, some knife cuts, some chiselling, some sawing, more chiselling and a little routing.

These also got a plastic liner, so they should run smoothly.

The ends also need a rebate for the back panels. I didn't plan this very well, so they ended up as stopped rebates. There's no way to plane a stopped rebate only 7" long and I wasn't about to get the electric router out from its long term storage box, so it was time for some more chiselling.

Just to demonstrate that stopped rebates are not a great design idea, I split one of the fragile ends off

but with some superglue and tape it soon got better again.

Then it was time for a quick sanding over the insides using an Abranet pad on the vacuum cleaner

before gluing up the project so far with the usual combination of liquid hide glue and lightweight clamps. The joints knocked together most of the way but I wanted to get them as tight as I could.

 

[MikeG.]

That's coming on really nicely, Andy. You didn't make it easy for yourself, did you, with those scrappy off-cuts of oak for the back.

Nice to see someone using chisels. I am sure that many people who think of themselves as semi-skilled or better with hand-tools actually do lots of planing and very little chiseling. I think of chiseling as the most important set of woodworking skills.

 

[AndyT]

You didn't make it easy for yourself, did you, with those scrappy off-cuts of oak for the back.

- but now I have some even scrappier offcuts! I haven't quite managed to throw them away yet and am wondering what I can make from them... :wink:

(Does anyone else remember a puzzle I read in an Annual as a kid? It was about a tramp, who picked up dog-ends to make new cigarettes from. He needed seven dog-ends to make one new cigarette. He had found 49 dog-ends, so how many cigarettes could he make?

The answer was not 7, but 8. He made 7 in the ordinary way, smoked them, then used his 7 "new" dog-ends to make one more cancer stick! The author of the puzzle omitted to mention anything about the quality of this 8th bonus fag or how long the tramp lived afterwards... )

Oh, and thanks for the compliment too, Mike. That long thin paring chisel is a treat to use!

 

[Phlebas]

Nice work AndyT.

You didn't make it easy for yourself, did you, with those scrappy off-cuts of oak for the back.

- but now I have some even scrappier offcuts!

That's prime wood in my opinion.

Oh, and your dog-end man would still have a starter nubbin for his next adventure into lung disease. So eight is not right either.

 

[MikeG.]

Nice work AndyT.

You didn't make it easy for yourself, did you, with those scrappy off-cuts of oak for the back.

- but now I have some even scrappier offcuts!

That's prime wood in my opinion. .........

Jeez, this lock-down is such a pity. I've got loads of bits better than that lot which I'd happily post to those who'd value it. I don't make boxes often, so don't really have a use for small pieces.

 

[AndyT]

Daily updates? Whatever next!

Here's the thing itself so far, released from bondage.

Not looking too bad? Quite close to the original idea? Yes, but in my eagerness to sort out the rebates and grooves at the back, I had forgotten something.

I hadn't planed the front edge of the base back to size, as you can see from the pencil line. And now it's trapped between the ends.

Ho, hum, let's find a way.

I started off by some very careful chiselling and checking the angle so that it resembles the slope of the ends. Chiselling is important but hard to photograph one-handed.

This was followed by trying out some small planes. A bullnose

A nice old Stanley block plane

and even a spokeshave

Naturally the grain was quite pronounced and any attempt to go the wrong way was to invite instant tear out. Most of the job got done with the block plane and a couple of chisels.

For the last little bits I used this hi-tech sanding device, which worked rather well. Plans are available on request if you want to make your own.

So that got me back to where I should have been all along.

I spent some time fiddling about with the back panels, making sure that they all fitted side by side. I always prefer fitting to measuring, so this was quite pleasant work. I am undecided whether to leave the junctions plain as they are now, or to put a tiny v-joint on by chamfering the edges. Opinions welcome.

Then I started on the door. I started by planing the top edge and laying it in place. The angle on the first end is actually not a right angle, but no matter; I scribed it from the end.

then sawed it straight and shot the end, adjusting the cut a little with shavings - easily done on this low-tech shooting board

until it fitted ok.

I could then mark the other end from inside the bin and repeat the process on what was actually a right angle this time.

Here's an exciting shot of the finished fit.

I'm not really sure why I took the trouble to fit the door like this, as it will need to be a much looser fit to work smoothly and I might have just been making work for myself, but I least I know the angles are right.

I still need to round off the top edge so it can pivot, get the brass rods fitted and then trim the bottom edge.

I've got it in my head that a breadbin needs a bit of ventilation, so maybe a rather loose fit is actually going to be better than a tight one. Anyone know?

Thanks for reading this far, not long to the finish now.
Maybe by the time I finish I could just go to a shop and buy one, but what would be the point of that? :roll:

 

[Bm101]

You know when you were a kid and had your favourite meal? Mine was Sunday roast. In those days probably your mum's cooking if you were lucky to have a mum who could cook well. Roast beef. Yorkshires. Thick old gravy. But the roast potatoes. Ffs!
I might have got more nutrition from the beef. More instant gratification from the yorkies. The veg which you knew you were supposed to eat but quietly hid under your cutlery as best you could because green veg was for other people and grown ups...
But I always set aside the roasties till last. They were best served medium warm and slowly. They'd taken on the full flavour of the whole roast by then. Like a fine wine you could take your time and enjoy them gradually.
Andy. Your threads are the roast spuds of the UKW roast dinner. Something to be savored slowly and enjoyed over time.
Marvelous read as always.
Regards as always,
Chris

 

[MikeG.]

......Thick old gravy. But the roast potatoes. Ffs!.......

I want someone to come up with a two-tiered plate, so that I can have lashings of gravy but have somewhere to keep my roast potatoes dry and crispy. I judge a meal solely on the quality of the potatoes. All the other food is just the stuff you have to eat to be allowed to have potatoes.

 

[MikeG.]

Great post, Andy.

How many times have we all done that? An over-eager glue-up, followed by the head-scratching and the 7 different attempts to find a way to make things right......I'm pretty sure I'd have pared the whole thing, but then I don't have access to the array of tools you have (and besides, I love paring).

Anyway, it's looking good. As for your little V-groove question......if the grain is well matched and it looks like you could fool someone into thinking that it's one flat panel, then no, leave it flat. If it isn't, then a V groove between boards can look fine, although I wouldn't do it on the poshest furniture.

We're in a race to the finish. Mine should be done tomorrow. Pressure's on!!

 

[AndyT]

Day of rest tomorrow Mike!
Do you ever have one of those?

 

[MikeG.]

Day of rest tomorrow Mike!
Do you ever have one of those?

I had about 20 covid-inflicted ones, I reckon. I've got some catching up to do. :lol: