OPJ
Established Member
It's taken me a fair few weeks of evenings in the dark and cold, but I finally got to the gluing up stage of my latest project, the Shaker Step Stool (there's a link to the plans somewhere on this site).
As you might be able to tell, this project is made entirely out of pine (European Redwood, in fact). That is simply because the main focus of this was for me to take a dive in to the ice-cold waters of hand-cut dovetails, where there are no second chances; prisoners do not escape.
As these pictures show, I only barely had enough clamps for the glue up. I used polyureathane glue for a change, I'm getting quite bored of PVA/evo-stick, finally.
All in all, I'm pleased with how it's gone. On dry-assembling, I had a pretty good fit all over with the dovetails - it's gone well for a first attempt!
But it's not something I'm likely to rush into again - unless you have the hours in a single day, wow, such a simple "cut and trim" task can last just about for ever!
One concern was this slight 'split' (perhaps a shake?) that formed part-way along the middle tread after dry-assembling. But as it's only on the face side, I'm confident it won't cause too much grief in the future.
Thanks must go to Philly - if it wasn't for his project based on this design a few months back (GWW), I wouldn't have looked in to it.
Once I trimmed all the excess from the proud pins, tails and 'tenons' of the braces and planed any outstanding surfaces flush, I'll post some more photos for you.
I don't like the cold weather any more than the rest of you, but if there's one thing it is quite good for, it's curing polyureathane glue!! :wink:
Thanks for looking.
As you might be able to tell, this project is made entirely out of pine (European Redwood, in fact). That is simply because the main focus of this was for me to take a dive in to the ice-cold waters of hand-cut dovetails, where there are no second chances; prisoners do not escape.
As these pictures show, I only barely had enough clamps for the glue up. I used polyureathane glue for a change, I'm getting quite bored of PVA/evo-stick, finally.
All in all, I'm pleased with how it's gone. On dry-assembling, I had a pretty good fit all over with the dovetails - it's gone well for a first attempt!
But it's not something I'm likely to rush into again - unless you have the hours in a single day, wow, such a simple "cut and trim" task can last just about for ever!
One concern was this slight 'split' (perhaps a shake?) that formed part-way along the middle tread after dry-assembling. But as it's only on the face side, I'm confident it won't cause too much grief in the future.
Thanks must go to Philly - if it wasn't for his project based on this design a few months back (GWW), I wouldn't have looked in to it.
Once I trimmed all the excess from the proud pins, tails and 'tenons' of the braces and planed any outstanding surfaces flush, I'll post some more photos for you.
I don't like the cold weather any more than the rest of you, but if there's one thing it is quite good for, it's curing polyureathane glue!! :wink:
Thanks for looking.
