Author: MVFlaim Furnituremaker

Woodworker for Flaim Design Co. Antique tool restorer.

A Half Blind Dovetail Chisel

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn WorkshopLeave a comment

I’ve owned this 5/8″ firmer chisel for years. I’ve kept it around because I always wanted to reshape it and turn it into a chisel to clean out half blind dovetails but never got around to doing it. Since my wife is out of town, I have a lot of shop time right now, so I decided today would be the day.

I used a sharpie to lay out a rough idea of what I wanted the blade to look like. I wanted it to be flared out on both sides, so when I clean up the inside of half blind dovetail pockets, the blade will get all the way into the corners.

I took the chisel over to the bench grinder and carefully and slowly ground away the sides so as not to burn up the tool steel and have it lose its temper.

After a few minutes of grinding, I was happy with the overall look of the chisel. It wasn’t perfectly symmetrical on both sides, but I didn’t care. I would be the only one to use it, so I don’t have to impress anyone with my craftsmanship.

I then went on to sharpen the blade with my water cooled sharpening machine and a few water stones to hone the edge. I then polished the back of the blade to a mirror finish just in case I did get a visitor in my shop and wanted to impress them. Lol

After the chusel was sharpened and honed, it was time to see how the chisel worked. I laid out a few half blind dovetails and sawed and cut out the waste with some bench chisels. Then I tried cleaning up the sides and bottoms with my new dovetail chisel. Sure enough, it cut beautifully! I was able to get into the corners of the pocket with this chisel, something that I had a hard time doing before with my normal bench chisels.

I made a little holder for the chisel and added it to my tool cabinet door. I put off doing this project for years, thinking it would have taken a lot of time to complete, but it ended up only taking about an hour. Figures.

Rustic Coffee Table

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Furniture2 Comments

Well, I finally built something! It’s been over a year since I built any type of piece of furniture. Mainly, because my new job keeps me busy during the week so the only time I have time to work in the shop is on the weekends.

My wife bought an old bookcase on Marketplace last year. She originally wanted to use the bookcase in her booth, but it was in such poor shape that she decided that she wanted me to take it apart and make a coffee table with the wood instead. So, I disassembled it and removed all of the cut nails from the boards.

The wood was poplar and in decent shape, just dirty and covered in paint, so I sanded the surfaces clean with my random orbital sander. Some of the boards were nearly 20″ wide.

We originally wanted to use an old 4 x 4 to make the legs but came up empty at our local reclaimed wood supplier. So I ended up using a douglas fir 4 x 4 from Home Depot and turned four legs from it.

Assembling the table was super simple. I used Dominoes to attach the sides to legs and the top pieces were going to be screwed down from underneath.

I opted to put a drawer in the front of the table so I cut out a rectangle hole in front with my jig saw. Then, I made a drawer with frame work with some scrap pine. The drawer face was glued and pinned onto the drawer box.

After the drawer was made and fitted well, I attached the top pieces and brought it upstairs into the living room. It was a fun, simple build, and it felt good to get back in the shop and build something.

Woodriver No 1 Plane

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools7 Comments

A few months ago, I bought this Woodriver No 1 Plane on eBay after missing owning my Stanley No 1 Plane that I bought at an antique show a couple of years earlier. I had to sell my Stanley No 1 because at the time, I needed the cash, but I still enjoyed using it for the short time I owned it.

I wanted to buy a Lie Nielsen No 1 plane, but those have shot up in price over the past couple of years as well. When I wrote my article about “Using a Stanley No 1 Plane,” you could buy a Lie Nielsen for about $200. Now, their prices fetch anywhere between $500-800 because apparently Lie Nielsen is no longer making them, and collectors are grabbing them up.

Woodriver No 1 planes are technically still available, but they have been on backorder from Woodcraft for over a year, which is why I had to hunt eBay for this little guy. Whether or not they come off backorder is anyone’s guess.

The plane needed a little cleaning, so I took it apart and polished all the parts, removing surface rust. I noticed the edges were sharp from the milling process, so I cut them down with a file and some 120 grit sand paper.

The one thing I didn’t like about the plane was the shape of the rear tote. I originally wanted to replace the handle with Brazialian Rosewood, but I couldn’t source a piece that was cheap enough, so I settled with a scrap piece of Paduak. I’m partial to the look of Stanley’s older totes, so I drew out a design that I thought looked close enough to the old Stanley planes.

I simply used chisels and files and rounded the edges of the tote. I played around with the overall shape of the tote a few times until I was satisfied with the overall look.

After the shaping was done, I had to drill the holes for the nut and threaded rod. I stuck a 1/8″ dowel through the Woodriver tote and transferred that angle onto my new tote. Then, I drilled the center hole through the body and larger holes on the top and bottom of the tote to fit the nut on top and the raised hump on the bed.

Once I put the tote onto the plane, I examined how it fit. I noticed that the front part of the tote was a little too tall for the brass adjustment screw to move freely. So I reshaped the front of the tote, giving the screw more clearance to move.

I sanded the tote smooth and applied dark walnut Danish oil on the tote to tone the reddish color down a little bit. I contemplated making a new knob as well, but I decided against it. I’m hoping that the color of the Paduak will darken over time and match the knob better in color.

Here’s the plane all cleaned up with a new tote. Looks nice, but I still would like to make Brazialian Rosewood handles someday.

I sharpened the blade to see how it performed. I grabbed a scrap piece of birch with some swirly grain and went to work. The plane worked admirably. I really do think these little guys were made to clean up rough grain produced by larger planes.

I don’t think Woodriver No 1 Planes are as nicely machined as Stanley or Lie Nielsen planes, but for the price, they’re a good substitute.

A Little Jig

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn WorkshopLeave a comment

One day last year, my wife and I were driving through Amish country when we stopped at a yard sale. The Amish woman had a long cedar log she was selling for $10.00. We had one of those IKEA storage cube cabinets with cloth drawers the size of milk crates in my truck. We were planning on donating to St Vincent DePaul but asked if she wanted to trade for it. The woman had a few kids, and we figured she could use it for storing away all the kids’ stuff. She agreed to the trade, so I took it out of the bed of the truck and put it by garage. She was tickled to have it.

The log sat in my basement for months until Anita asked me last week if I could cut it up into chunks so she could use them in her booth to put topary plants on them. The different heights add visual appeal to the booth, and it helps her sell more plants

I sliced the log into small pieces as best as I could on the band saw, but the irregular shape of the log made it tough to cut the top and bottom parallel to each other. I sanded the bottom on my oscillating edge sander and then tried to sand the top parallel to the bottom by eye as best as I could. It didn’t work the best, and I figured there had to be a better way.

I looked at my go-to jig book, “Making Woodwork Aids & Devices” by Robert Wearing, but I didn’t see a jig that would work for my task so I kept thinking about it until I came up with this.

It’s basically an 1 1/4″ cube with a 1/2″ hole drilled through the middle. Then another 1/2″ thick piece of wood with 1/2″ hole drill in it and a slit cut to the hole so that a bolt could tighten the piece onto a 1/2″ dowel. At the end of the piece is a 9/32″ hole drilled so that I could shove a pencil into it.

After I assembled the jig, I set the pencil to the lowest part of the top of the log and gently scribe a pencil line all around the log. It’s the same principle as leveling chair legs but on a larger scale.

Once the line is scribed all around the log, I carefully sanded it to the line on my oscillating edge sander. I’m sure a random orbital sander will work, but this thing makes quick work of it.

After a few minutes, all of the log pieces are flush and level. It’s a stupid simple jig, and I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere, I just can’t remember where.

Here are the stumps in action. Makes the display of plants look much nicer, which increases her sales.

the.antiquetool.restorer

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Uncategorized10 Comments

A few weeks ago I was at work at the Sakrete plant putting Belgard A Frames in my truck when one of them slipped and fell on top of my phone that was laying on my tailgate. It immediately cracked the screen and my phone became completely useless unable to swipe anything on the home screen.

So, the next day, I run out and get a new Samsung phone, and luckily, I was able to transfer all my data from my old phone to the new phone through the cloud. I had to log back into all my accounts but at least they were still active. Everything but Instagram.

When I try to log into my mvflaim_furnitutemaker Instagram account on my new phone it wanted me to put in my access codes. I wrote down access codes several months ago just in case someone hacked my account and I could retrieve it back. My wife has known a lot of people who’ve had their Instagram accounts hacked and suggested I get access codes in case it happened to me.

None of the access codes that I wrote down worked so, I decided to log in through my Facebook account. When I did that, it still asked for the six digit login codes. It then said that you could get these codes from a third party Duo Mobile or Google Authenticator software you set up on your phone.

So then I installed Google Authentication software on my phone which would give me a random six digit code every 30 seconds. When I try to log in and put those codes in, it still didn’t work.

So now I’m pissed screwing with Instagram for several days trying to get back into my account. I tried to log back in to get help and clicked “get support” which asks me if I have a picture of myself. I don’t take many, if any, selfies of myself but do have a few photos of me on my feed. It then has me take a 360 degree video of my face so it could recognize it was me. Every time I tried, it emailed me back saying it can’t verify the video is me. I took over two dozen videos of my head over the past few weeks and everytime, the AI software still will not recognize my face.

It’s so bad that now, the software won’t even pull up when I try to take another video of me saying there is a bug with the software. So basically, I’m fucked.

So, I bit the bullet and decided to create a new Instagram page and call it the.antiquetool.restorer. But now I have to start all over again gaining followers.

It took me nine years to get over 4k followers as I’m not a tech savvy social media guru. It just sucks so bad. All that hard work getting all the followers is just pissed away simply by getting a new phone.

UPDATE: After a few months of the.antiquetool.restorer, I said, “screw it,” and changed my name to “mvflaim.” But I’m still pissed I can’t get back into my old account.

A visit to Colonial Homestead

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools8 Comments

A couple of weekends ago, my wife and I drove up to Millersburg, OH to check out the fall colors and the antique malls up there. We visited Millersburg a couple of years back only to find out after we left, that there is an antique tool store in town. I saw Colonial Homestead on Instagram when we got home and couldn’t believe I missed it so, this time I knew I had to put it on our list of stops.

The building is about ten minutes outside of town and is a really big. Inside there are thousand of tools laying on tables and bookshelves. I immediately took a step back just to absorb everything I was looking at. There’s a table in front with a bunch of Stanley planes that are restored and ready for use.

Every tool you could imagine in this joint with some rare and unusual pieces. The prices on the tools are equivalent to eBay pricing, so don’t expect to get a steal. At least it’s not for me as I’m a picker so there was no meat-on-the-bone with the pricing on the tools. He was asking $2100 for the Stanley No 1 which was way above my budget. It looks like it’s sitting on the original box but I don’t remember noticing the box when I was looking at it.

He did have a real nice selection of molding planes with prices that were in my budget however, he only takes cash and I didn’t have any on me so, it was pretty much a few minutes of browsing.

He also had a nice closet full of woodworking books. There were a lot of out of print books along with Lost Art Press favorites. I looked for the 2nd edition of the Stanley Tool Collecting book by John Walter but, there was none to be found.

After twenty minutes of browsing, I said goodbye and went on my way as my wife was waiting in the truck. The weekend wasn’t a total lost as I was able to find tools in my budget in antique malls in Berlin, and Walnut Creek, OH. The prelateral Stanley No 37 Jenny’s Plane was my favorite pick of the trip.

Restoring Wooden Clamps

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools5 Comments

Last month, I went back to the Springfield Extravaganza Antique Show in Springfield, OH. It’s the bi-yearly pilgrimage I’ve taken for the past 20 years. I love it, even though I haven’t found that many tools in the past few years. It was slim pickings again last month so, I was happy to buy a few wooden clamps for $15.00 a piece.

When I started restoring them, they were completely seized as the handles were unable to turn. I thought to myself “did I just piss away $30.00?” Luckily, after spraying the threads with PB Blaster for about 30 minutes, I was able to break free the rust on the threaded rods.

I then went to my tried and true antique oil, of mineral oil, orange oil, and melted beeswax. The solution not only helped the parts move freely, but it made the parts move like they’re brand new. If I had half of a brain, I’d sell this solution as it works so damn well, but I already have enough on my plate these days.

After the parts were free, I used a Japanese metal file and carved away the rust that was in the threads. You can see in the photos how corroded the threads were on the clamps. I feel lucky to have them usable again.

The final step was to coat the whole clamp with my tool solution. With a everything clean, I have two very usable clamps for a fraction of buying new wooden clamps and it was a done in one afternoon while watching football on TV. You gotta love antique shows!

Replacing my Tormek Sharpening Stone

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop2 Comments

After using my Tormek sharpening machine for the past twenty years, it was time for a new stone. When I researched replacement wheels, I read all about the new CBN wheels on the market that stay flat and don’t require water to use. The one disadvantage I saw with these wheels, is that the side of the stones are prettty narrow. When I sharpen old plane blades, I like to flatten the back of them as well, so I often grind the back of the blade with the side of the stone. I was afraid that the narrowness of the CBN stones wouldn’t do the job as well as my original stone. I’ve been happy with the stone that came with the machine so, if it ain’t broke, dont fix it.

I knew the hard part of replacing the stone would be taking the old one off. I grabbed a 3/4″ wrench and tried like hell to unscrew the nut. I whacked on the wrench with a hammer as hard as I could hoping not to bend the shaft of the machine. It was so tough to get off, my stone cracked and fell apart.

After about twenty minutes of cussing and using a half of a can of PB Blaster, the nut finally freed itself. Once I took the remainder of the stone off, I tried to put the new stone on, but the shaft was so rusted and corroded, I had to sand the shaft smooth in order for the new stone to slide on.

I slipped on the new stone and noticed that it moved up and down just a little bit. Curious, I removed it from the machine and also removed the stropping wheel on the other side so I could remove the shaft in order to get a better look at what was going on.

Sure enough, the plastic gasket that was next to the stone had wore a larger hole in it from use over the past twenty years. Not having a replacement gasket on hand, I simply switched the gaskets from eachother sides hoping they will still work.

Now with a “new” gasket in place, the shaft wouldn’t fit into the hole because of all the corrosion on it so, I carefully filed and sanded the rust away. After a few minutes, I was able to get the shaft nicely seated in the machine.

I checked the squareness of the stone to my crossbar and it looked much better than before. For years when I used the Tormek, it would cut slightly heavier on one side of the blade. I would compensate for this error by tilting the angle of my blade in the jig just a smudge. After messing around with the machine this afternoon, I finally understand why it would cut heavier on one side.

I turned the machine on and checked how everything was running. The stone wobbles just a touch but, from how hard I was hitting the wrench with a hammer in order to get that nut off, I’m not surprised. As long as the machine sharpens blades fine, I’m happy with it.

Stanley No 68 Rabbet Spokeshave

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Antique Tools2 Comments

Yesterday, I went to an antique show and picked up the Stanley No 68 Rabbet Spokeshave in it’s original box. I’ve heard about the tool, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in person. The price the guy was asking was too good to pass up so I took it home.

When I got home, I noticed a fence inside the box. At first, I thought it didn’t belong with the spokeshave but after looking at it for a few minutes, I saw that it clips on the back. The fence looks crude as if it was made by the original user, so I looked in John Walter’s Stanley book, but saw no mention of a fence that came with the tool.

When looking online for more information for this spokeshave, I saw that the vast majority of them have no fence. Then I came across this photo on WorthPoint where it shows a similar fence as mine, except this fence has a screw to tighten it while mine has a bolt. So, I’m not sure if this was a user tip that people saw in magazines that they made themselves or not.

Here’s the spokeshave in action. It works quite well with the fence. I posted this video on instagram and people said that the spokeshave was used by boat builders and carriage makers which would make sense. Definitely an interesting tool.

A Bird Feeder with a Past

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop2 Comments

Two years ago, our house got hit by a tornado. One of saddest part from all of the damage was the destruction of the shed I built a few years ago. I was so devastated, I never rebuilt it. As I tore down the shed, I kept some of the lumber hoping I would use the wood to rebuild a new one however, with 2x4s costing $7.00 a piece, I never rebuilt it and left the wood on top of the shed’s wooden platform.

Along with shed being destroyed, a bird feeder was also destroyed in the storm. My wife, Anita, finally wanted a new feeder in the yard so I decided to use some of the cedar from the shed to make a new bird feeder. I cleaned up the boards, removed the nails and milled up some boards from the trim I kept from the shed.

After the boards were milled, I glued some boards together and started cutting up the parts for the bird feeder. The feeder was so simple to build I believe I built one just like it in the 9th grade.

After a couple of hours of work, the bird feeder was installed back on top of the post. The birds are happy again and I gave new life to part of my destroyed shed. This summer, we’re finally planning on building a greenhouse on top of the platform.