Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 173 i Australian Woodsmith

CHIP CARVING Our weekend project in this issue is a chip carving exercise that will open the doors to a very rewarding and contemplative craft. Tatiana Baldina has distilled her deep fascination with chip carving into an encyclopaedic 175-page tome. The book itself takes you on a journey through 14 classic chip carving patterns, each one more complex than the one before, building skills and confidence. The first chapter introduces you to a simple and clever method of honing your blade so it is always sharp. It consists of a small sheet of glass with four strips of abrasive glued down on the plate edges. Like all carving, you never want to lose the geometry of the cutting edge, this is done by constant honing, as soon as the edge…

Whenever someone tells me they are getting more involved with hand tools they inevitably have a bunch of questions about hand planes and which ones to get. I usually disappoint them when I tell them to buy a jack plane and move on to getting saws. I consider hand sawing to be the most important skill to master and the path to the most enjoyment and success. Maybe it’s the same thing when using hand tools to build your projects. After all, there is no better feeling than sliding together a dovetail or mortise and tenon right off the saw. It’s also pretty fast when you don’t have to finesse the joint with a chisel or a plane. Hence my focus on saws. So the next logical question I get…

A piece of Arts & Crafts furniture is a perfect example of an object that is greater than the sum of its parts. Simple rectangles of wood, a modest taper here, a gentle arc there, and a handful of squares moving quietly over the surface. These elements alone are respectable enough, but when you braid them together in the chest of drawers you see here, there’s an earthy symphony that the eye never tires of. This chest of drawers is the latest addition in a suite of Arts & Crafts-inspired projects for the bedroom that started with the gentleman’s dresser back in Issue 128. Like its predecessor, it’s mostly white oak and maple frame and panels made with tongue and groove joinery. Lots of woodworking fun and challenges here. In…

TEMPLATE ROUTING JIG The sides and top of the Arts & Crafts chest of drawers are assembled with screws through the shallow mortises that also hold the tenon plugs. To ensure consistent mortise sizes, I used the router jig shown at right. The two-part base and a pair of spacers form an opening for a guide bushing and straight bit. The width of the opening matches the bushing. The bushing should slide smoothly in the slot without moving from side to side. The distance between the spacers determines the overall length of the mortise. For all of the mortises except the two near the front edge of the top, clamp the jig to the workpiece with the narrow cleat securely against the edge of the workpiece. Use a plunge router…

A M-26 Chisel Morticer from Hare & Forbes Valued at $572* * Simply subscribe or renew your subscription to go into the draw to win a Chisel Morticer. • This Hafco morticing machine has a small footprint but still packs a powerful punch. The table slides on the X and Y axis, giving you the capacity to cut 165mm-long mortices in stock up to 125mm wide.• This 45kg cast iron wonder needs to be bolted down in the middle of a bench and complemented with some outrigger supports so long stock can be processed with ease.• There is a gas strut that connects the driving head to the column. This strut returns the chisel to its start position so you can then tweak the cross slide and make another cut.…

The heavy-duty hinges on Matsumoto Castle's keep speak volumes about hinge position. The bottom hinge is mostly in shear and is acting as a pivot. The top two hinges hold the door vertical. If the middle hinge was to be removed the top hinge would eventually stretch and fail due to the moment of force it has to keep in check. You might think that placing a third hinge directly in the centre would have been the most logical thing to do. I am sure some castle keep and cathedral door installers have tried this solution. The test of time has seen the middle hinge migrate towards the top hinge in order to share the load and keep the door from sagging. In modern buildings it is the fire doors…

It is a certainty that from April 29 - May 1 2023 the Tiny Treasures Competition will run and Australian Woodsmith will be happy to hand over the $2500 prize money to the winner. State border closures shut down the Maleny Wood Expo for the last three years. Now they are open we can come together and celebrate Australia's premium wood expo in a "country show" atmosphere and be blown away by how creative the citizens of this wide brown land are! WOOTHA PRIZE Wootha Prize offers wood artisans working in sustainably harvested Australian timbers from native forests or plantations, recycled or weed timbers, the opportunity to showcase their work to the broad Maleny Wood Expo audience and win the Wootha prize of $10,000. TINY TREASURES Australian Woodsmith challenges you…

Haida Gwaii is an island group in the north pacific 60 nautical miles to the west of the Canadian mainland. The shallow Hecate Straight that runs between the Haida Gwaii and British Columbia is dangerous to navigate and required the Haida who live in the archipelago to develop oceangoing canoes that could cut through the waves and sharp oars that could slice through kelp beds. The Haida became experts in the craft of building canoes and developed a reputation for being fierce raiders who pillaged coastal communities to the north and the south. CANOES All along the coast of Western Canada (wherever coastal red cedars grew) old growth cedars were felled in winter when the sap was dormant and then carved out with the use of fire, axes and the…

In this pattern there is no need to draw perpendicular and diagonal lines, since they are not needed here. The main motif of the pattern are triangles that form squares, twisting anticlockwise. Drawing process If you would prefer to transfer this pattern to the basswood board, use the template provided. Otherwise, if you prefer to draw the pattern directly onto the basswood board, follow the instructions below. 1 First, draw a square with 6cm sides. 2 Start marking the dots: first, 10mm on the left side of the square from the top left corner down to the left side of the square; second, 10mm from the bottom left corner to the right side, on the bottom side of the square; third, 10mm from the bottom right corner up, on the…

A rustic beaded box made from basic tools other than a homemade beading tool. The timber for this project is Irish yew (Taxus baccata). Further enhancements were added to the piece by using texture on the handle to accentuate the rustic feel of a well-used object. A design change was made to the piece with the addition of colour. Then Verdigris wax gave the aged look to the piece, finished off with a light brush of copper gilt cream. A loose-fit lid suited this piece as it was designed as a trinket or jewellery box. The base needs to stay in place when the lid is opened so as not to risk losing its small contents. Construction Overview / OVERALL DIMENSIONS: 147mm H x 105mm W EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS Tools…

QUICK AND EASY CONSTRUCTION If you are mass-producing panels the best way forward (once you have your stock ripped to width) is to install a single flat-topped dado blade in your table saw. These blades are available from Timbecon in 4mm, 6mm and 6.4mm tooth sizes. Perfect for cutting a flat-bottomed groove in your stile and rails. HAND SAW TECHNIQUES The one piece of advice that we forgot to give in this article was to keep your saw lubricated. A wipedown with camellia oil is the Japanese way to keep rust at bay and your blade slick. An applicator with a lid (to keep the dust off) is available from Japanese Tools Australia. SQUARE CHIP CARVING Tatiana mentions BeaverCraft and Flexcut knives in her delightful book. Carroll’s Woodcraft Supplies stocks…