Category Archives: Woodworking

The work on the chef’s knife continued today:

The epoxy for side two cured overnight. I removed the clamps, and trimmed the sides down to near the tang, all the way around, using the scroll saw.

Sanding the knife handle was a multi-step process. This first phase used a couple of sizes and grits to get the wood down to the same profile as the tang. I used mini-sanding drums in the drill press for the task. Then I drilled through the rivet guide holes from the other side, then finished drilling the rivet profile in the handle. 0.177″ ∅ through, then 0.25″ ∅ drilled 0.21″ deep from each side for the rivet head.

I seated one side of each rivet using a hammer, after treating the drilled-out surface in the handle with cyanoacrylate adhesive. I put some more adhesive on the threads of the mating side and on the shoulder in the handle, then screwed each rivet together. Oh, yeah, the rivets: I got them from North Coast Knives – pleasant folks, quick & efficient order fulfillment, and lots of parts in stock for just about any sort of knife fabrication and repair you’re contemplating. Recommended!

Removing the rivet heads required application of the hacksaw. Sanding or grinding them all the way down would have caused too much heating … I know this, and caught it before I burnt the handle. Then sanding, a bit of carving, and a lot more sanding at progressively finer grits brought the knife to the place where I could apply the first coat of Danish Oil:

Three or four more applications are due, with sanding and/or rubbing with #0000 steel wool between each coat. This will be done Sunday, I think.

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 I also finished building my table saw fixtures today. Here in one image you can see both the outfeed extension table (the leg actually still needs hardware, so I’ll go get that tomorrow) and the over-size cross-cut sled I built. It’s not light, but it makes getting true 90° cuts possible on large pieces:

I suppose that means different things to different people. To me, in the context of this week, it means “repairs.” The chef’s knife handle was going to pieces:

The cracking has been present for a while, but it started getting loose, which is a recipe for damaged knife-wielder, so it was time to fix the problem. It didn’t take much effort to get apart, and it looks like there was a fair bit of rust and corrosion pushing things apart. One crack leads to this, eventually. The next step involves picking some new handle material, and preparing for reassembly:

I am using some offcuts from the hockey glass table project to make the new knife handle. I cleaned up the tang with a wire brush mounted on the drill press, and cut the wood to the correct thickness on the table saw. The end of the wood nearest the blade is canted out at 7° to match the casting. I used JB Weld to epoxy one side onto the tang and let it cure overnight.

Today, I pre-drilled through the holes to provide alignment after the other side is epoxied on, and used the scroll saw to get the profile partially cut. Finally, I epoxied on the far side and set that aside to cure until tomorrow. I also executed the first stage of assembly on that cabinet sled I was talking about a couple of days ago. Ciao!

I’m getting going on the new office project. Remember that? Anyway, today I went shopping at Exotic Lumber in Gaithersburg. Sadly, I don’t have budget for any actual “exotic” lumber, so I got ten sheets of maple 3/4 ply, one sheet of cherry 3/4 ply, and three each of maple in 1/4 and 1/2 thickness. To get all this home, I rented a U-Haul truck for a few hours. I loaded it all into the garage, then set up for parting out the plywood.

The configuration is easy. Lightly glue (I used a low-tack spray adhesive) some foam to a sheet of plywood. Lay that out on saw horses. Then, one sheet at at time, use a straight edge, a couple of clamps, and a circular saw with a high-tooth count, thin kerf blade to part the sheets into “close” sizes. I sketched out on paper the cuts for each of the cabinets, and laid those out to minimize waste, then started cutting. As each component comes off the foam, I label it with some painters tape and a marker. By the time I was “done” and cleaned up for the day, I’d dismantled 8 sheets into the components to build the carcasses four shelving units, four base cabinets, and one upper cabinet.

Now what’s downstairs is ready and of a manageable size to work with the table saw. That and a panel sled, plus some housecleaning should fill the day, tomorrow.

The “cart” I use for the jointer and the router table was empty space at the bottom, and when stored against the wall, I kept the compressor in the niche. But I had to move the compressor every time I wanted the cart out in the middle. Now the compressor rolls with the cart!

Previously seen on that shelf: an Aiwa boom box. This new setup uses the old Logitech system from my office desktop, providing an audio input for the iPhone, which also can charge (which is good in the low-signal environment in the basement):

Being a wood-hoarder, I broke down and chopped up two trash cans full of scrap lumber that was really never going to be used for anything ever again. I kept cherry, walnut, and maple strips that might suit for an inlay later, etc. But most of the crap wood is now in the trash, and I’ve cleared two corners. Lots accomplished today!

Now for the normal Monday chores. Ciao!