For the past few weeks, we’ve been downsizing – aka, getting rid of junk we don’t need. Most of it of any value has gone to a good home somewhere in the Universe. As a result, the garage, aka shop, is now very roomy and functional. All my tools are available for use and I…
I completed the long stretchers this morning – and yes, each of the four mortise and tenon joints got better as I went along. Funny how that works. I’m half tempted to do them all over again, but, hey, this is only a workbench. On to the next step which is cutting out the half-blind…
X Marks the spot. For the next mortise. I’ll need to do four of these, one on the end of each stretcher. The width is 3/8 inch leaving wall thickness of 5/16. For some reason, I don’t have a 3/8 chisel, so I’ll need to pick up one of those tomorrow morning. Fortunately, they’re fairly…
Just completed my first spreader to leg mortise and tenon. When it fits, it fits. Three more to go.
This is beside the point, but last night before bed, I took one 5 mg Melatonin tablet to help me sleep. Whew! I won’t be doing that again! I don’t think it helped much last night, but I’ve been trying to wake up all day. And to think I almost took two of them. I…
This vise has been sitting in a drawer since before Art passed away. I think he may have even given it to me for Christmas at one point or another. I had always been a little confused about the installation process and was afraid I’d screw it up – or worse – screw up a…
Yesterday, I finished the mortises. They’re a little rough, but I’ll clean them up after I finish the tenons, of which this is the first. I used a Spear & Jackson 24″ x 7 pt handsaw for the cuts. It is a crosscut saw, but worked ok for these rip cuts. Quite the workout! Three…
This mortise was marginally better, and/or easier to complete. I used a wider chisel. Very sharp. But I didn’t get it quite square so the two holes from opposite sides didn’t quite line up. It’ll work for this bench, but I need to be more careful on the next one.
Mortising is quite a learning experience. I have seven more to go on this bench. By then, I should be much better. There is a lot of cleaning up to do on this first mortise. I’m going to take another look at the videos from Paul Sellers. He has some great ideas. And this video…
Nothing like starting off small with your first mortise. But, I’m halfway through… almost! Another 1 1/2 inches to go.