Since summer here in the desert gets pretty hot my time
in the shop is limited so not too much gets done. I did one small project which was making a
cage for our fig tree. The local
javelinas or peccaries look similar to a wild pig and had decided to root
around the fig nearly destroying it in the process along with the cage used to
keep the birds from eating all the figs before we could pick them. After digging the plant up and repotting it I
rebuilt the cage. The cage frame is
cedar with the end cuts waterproofed so they don’t soak up water and then
sealed. Aluminum corners are used on the
bottom frame for joint reinforcement while the top is put together with
waterproof glue and screws. Its end cuts
are also waterproofed.
Anyway, as it started to cool a bit I got started on a
couple of projects that had been put off for several years. First is to add some handles to three stubby
wood files made for a jig saw that are too short to use well without
handles. Second, is to build a case for
some other small files to replace the plastic pouch they came in.
Looking for suitable material I settled on two
options. A piece of cherry that’s the
right size and a much larger piece of quarter sawn white oak get selected. I have made other handles from cherry and it
works well but have never used white oak so though I would give it a try. This piece of white oak got selected because
it’s a problem child that has been moved around in the shop since 2008. The reason it has never been used is that the
plank this piece came from is riddled with internal cracks. The center photo shows a typical crack on the
end of the piece and the bottom photo shows multiple cracks and splits along
the piece’s edge. Most of this oak has
been turned into jigs or firewood but sometimes there are short pieces that are
usable and that’s what I am hoping to find.
Otherwise, it’s firewood.
First step is to rip about ¼” inch off the cracked edge
to see if the cracks were getting better or worse. The top board is what the original edge
looked like. The piece below was what
got exposed after the ¼” got removed and was not encouraging with fewer but
bigger cracks coming to light. With
nothing to lose another ¼” was cut away to reveal the edge shown at the bottom
of the stack and surprisingly a clean solid crack free edge got exposed. Now with one good edge a 1 5/8” thick piece
gets ripped to make my oversize blank for the handles. Fortunately, the newly cut edge is also crack
free so the whole piece may be solid.
Further ripping to a 1 3/8” width and thickness showed no problems so
this is my blank for the handles. The
offcuts are set aside for fireplace starter and the 1 ¼” wide remainder of the
original board gets set aside for another project.
Using the chop saw with a stop block the oak blank gets
cut into four equal sections for the required three handles plus one extra.
Using a center finder the center point of the oak blanks
are located as shown in the top photo.
After that a center point is added using a spring-loaded center
punch. Most of the holes ended up in the
right place but there were a couple that due to the end grain were a little
off-center. That won’t be a problem
since the blanks will be turned round between centers on the lathe so the resulting
cylinder will be concentric about the punched dimples.
To make turning the square blanks into a cylinder easier I
decided to cut the four corners off to make an octagon. That’s done using the bandsaw with its table
tilted to a 45-degree angle. The photos
below show the setup with an inset closer view so you can see where the
bandsaw blade is set to make a cut just slight larger than the desired
cylinder.
When run through the bandsaw each corner gets cut off so
you end up with an octagon that will make turning the blanks round on the lathe
a lot easier.
Last step before starting turning is to take the drive
center (black toothed steel piece) set its point in the punched center in the
oak blank and give it a good whack. Here
I used a white oak mallet rather than a regular hammer so as not to deform the
drive center. The result is a matching
toothed pattern that will engage with the drive center when it’s all setup in
the lathe. If you want to see how the
mallet was built here is the link.
Here the top photo is with the blank mounted in the lathe
before turning starts and the bottom photo is after the blank has been turned
into a cylinder.
The missing step between the above photos is when the
piece is being turned round. For this
work I don’t need a perfect surface so used a roughing gouge. It leaves a pretty good surface but not as
good as other tools. The goal is to get
the blank turned smooth, round and to within 1/32” of my target diameter. That accuracy is probably overkill but it’s
good practice for when I get to making the matching handles.
Here are the three blanks along with one spare ready to
be turned to their final shape. I don’t
anticipate any movement in the blanks but given the quality of the original
plank it’s better to be safe and let them set while I work on the ferrules to
be shown in the next post.
Over the years I have made a lot of handles for different
things that include a seam ripper made from leopardwood, a small spatula from
mesquite and numerous file handles like the 4 ¾” long one in the bottom photo
made from cherry. For these files the
shape is going to be similar to this file handle but scaled down to fit the file
size.
Next Up – Ferrules & Rough Turning
