Back to Woodworking, Sorta.

I purchased the above chisel so I could modify the cutting edge a bit. I'd read about angling the blade to better reach corners and for better paring, so that's what I decided to do.

I marked the back of the blade so I had something to follow, and then used a bench grinder to slowly grind it to the angle I wanted.

Here it is mostly done. I didn't grind it to a perfectly sharp edge because the grinding wheel moves fast enough it would have overheated the metal and caused it to lose its temper. As it was, I held the blade to the grinder until it had started change color, but I don't think I had actually managed to keep from ruining the temper.

While working on the chisel I also planed a 4X4 down so it was the same size as the bench legs I had made. I wanted to practice making the tenon joints, and decided to use this scrap I had lying around.

Here it is, pretty much the same size as the bench leg. I really like my new planer!

Here's one of the mortises I had squared up. I think it turned out nicely, but as I later find out, it wasn't squared up well enough.

I used the dado blade to cut the tenon. I made it bigger than the mortise so I could trim it down.

Looking good so far.

Here's the planes I will be using to trim the tennon.

I finished trimming the scrap piece of 4X4 and acheived what I felt was a satisfactory fit, so I cut the legs.

I clamped scrap pieces of wood on the edges so when planing it wouldn't spinter the edge.

Back to the chisel. I used a combination of different grits of sandpaper and this spiffy diamond plate to put a rasor fine edge on the chisel.

Back to the bench. I wanted to start working on the bench top. I needed to joint one edge square so I could rip the board on the table saw. I screwed a 2X4 to my current bench to hold the board on its edge, and also put a stop on the end. This allows me to focus on handling the planer.

The stop is just a piece of oak I had lying around. It conveniently had a beveled edge. I screwed it on the bench so that the bevel leads toward the bench. As I push forward on the planer the board is forced against the stop and the stop also forces the board against the bench. I read about a similar item on another bench, and have plans to put something similar on the finished woodworking bench.

It looks like all the previous experience I obtained hand planing is paying off. I'm far from perfect at it but I feel it is really pretty good. It's not perfectly square, but it is only off by a degree or so. If I was gluing the boards edge to edge I'd need to do a better job, but to run it through the table saw it has proven sufficient for the job.

I ran the boards through the table saw and came up with 7 that were 3.25" wide. Ultimately I want a 3 inch thick table top, so I'm cutting it a bit wider.

Here I am getting ready to run the boards through the planer. The boards are already just a touch under an 1" thick. I decided I'll make all the boards 3/4" thick as it makes all the math easier on me. There are times I really wish we had adopted the metric system, but oh well.

Yay the boards are all planed! The best part is I even figured out how to reduce or eliminate board snipe, so they are nearly perfect.

I decided to clean up and call it a night, I was getting hungry and the temperature was dropping. I took the boards inside and stickered them. I'm really hoping the board doesn't twist before I can get them glued together. I'll be glueing the top together in sections. I'm hoping by doing it in sections I can keep everything aligned and it will turn out how I want it to.

Iron Wood????

I finally saved up the money and purchased the electric planer I wanted. I had spent a good month or so saving and researching which one I wanted. I had started out with a budget of $200-300. Ultimately the reviews I read led me to conclude that my original budget wasn't going to afford me a planer I was going to be confident would do what I wanted it to do, so I ultimately spent about $560 for this one.

While I read the instructions (yes, I will be surrendering my man card later this week ;) ) my friend Addam was trying to figure out how the dust vent attached to the planer. One nice thing about the planer, it came mostly assembled, so it was pretty quick to get into action.

After assembling it we took it out and set it on my current work bench and ran a board through it a couple times to ensure it worked.

I had wanted to buy a planer stand from the store I got the planer from, but they didn't have any in stock. So after some consideration I chose to build my own stand. The tow main requirements was it needed to be easily moved and it needed to be fairly rigid.

I drew up a basic design on some paper and then went to the local steel yard. I had originally wanted to make it out of square tubing, but this rectangular tubing was what was on sale, so I bought some. The wheels will help to fulfill the ease of movement requirement.

Here's the start of welding pieces together.

I had started out trying to contour the metal to fit perfectly. Here I used a file to try and curve the hole to fit. When welding, how well things fit will have a huge impact on how the weld looks and how well it will hold.

After getting the two sides welded together, I felt they were not square enough and ultimately decided to redo it. Part of the problem stemmed from how I was cutting the tubing. I was using a high speed cutoff saw, and unfortunately found it was difficult to get all the sides square and straight.

Since the high speed cutoff saw wasn't working, I bought an abrasive wheel and installed it on the miter saw. It worked amazingly well for a short time. I made about half the cuts I needed too before burning the motor out ;(

Cutting metal places a lot of strain on a saw motor, and this one was over 12 yo, so not an enormous loss I suppose.

Here's a pic showing how I was holding the tubing to cut it, before the saw died obviously.

Once I killed the miter saw, I had a few choices. I could go back to using the high speed cutoff saw, I could buy another miter saw and hope I don't kill it, or I could buy a purpose built saw. After thinking it through for a few days I decided to buy a purpose built saw, and here is my new Dewalt Cutoff saw.

Over the last few years I've done enough metal working and wanted one of these, so I felt the $200 investment would be worth it. I'll have to purchase a miter saw later.

The Dewalt made very quick work of cutting the remaining tubing. It felt like cutting through stiff butter, definitely worth the money!

Here I'm beginning to tack the pieces together. I only tack them together till I get the sides completely assembled. This has saved me a few times, as I've put the wrong pieces together and a tack weld is much easier to cut through than an entire welded seem.

I've finished tacking the sides, and happy with how it went together, I completely welded the seems. I'm now beginning to tack the pieces that will hold the two sides together.

Most of the cross pieces are now in place on one of the sides. I'm still only tacking the pieces on.

I've managed to tack most of the cross pieces on and the next few pictures are me using clamps to help line everything up. Unfortunately, whether due to poor cutting, the contortion of the metal due to welding, or my own lack of skill, things didn't line up as perfectly as I'd have liked. But I'm pretty please with how it has come together so far.

Here's the high speed cutoff saw I was referring to in the beginning. It's a very versatile and useful tool, but it just wasn't accurate enough for what I needed when cutting the tubing, however, it's perfect for what I use it for next.

Here's the frame of one of the wheels. I used the high speed cutoff saw to trim this shorter since it was more than the 2" of the tubing's width. Here I am using a drill press to drill a new hole to replace the other two that were chopped off when I shortened it. The metal tubing helps to keep the wheel frame from moving down when the drill bit starts to engage it.

This will be the cross piece that holds the wheels.

The circled area is where I ground a weld so it was flat. This is where the wheel cross piece will be welded.
Here it is almost done.

The wheels are attached.
Hooray, it's all mounted up! If you look on the lower left section, you'll notice that corner is cut, this allows the stand to be tilted forward and then the wheels engage the ground.

The boards are planed and will be edge glued. I'll be cutting them to size and then mounting them between the planer and stand.

Now that the planer is mostly finished, can get back to work on the bench.