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Road trip to buy a stash of Ash, today....five 1 x 6 x 6', and a 2 x 4 x 8'.....$17. Was looking around for something to build out of it.... The Woodwright's Shop....Peter Follansee building a Carved Oak Desk Box.... Hmmmm... Except..my last name isn't Follansee Except ...I do not carve... Except...I have a stash of Ash...instead of the Oak.... And...I don't have a measured drawing of the dang thing..... Not that ever stopped me before... Will let the Infamous Single Brain Cell Sketch Up work out the details.... Stay tuned

Grandson wants a Coffee Table for his home....and I need it done by Christmas...Hmmmm...doable? First, need a few boards....back to the usual supplier...$10 for a stack of Ash One board for a top...2 x 4 for legs..and a vise rehab... Even a few scraps were tossed into the van.. Not too sure about the spalted one....middle one was needed... 10' of 1 x 6 Ash....will make a 3/4 x 16 x 36 top....got these three jointed, and glued up.. Let this sit overnight.... Clamps came off...cauls can wait awhile...Hauled that 2 x 4 x 8' board to the shop...needed two blanks cut from it....without including too many knots.. Set up the rip fence.. Roughly all the same size, and square? Marked a few lines...bandsaw to make a few cuts, junior jack to clean up.. Couple cuts weren't working out...reset the rip fence, run the fat ends through...about a blade's width... Brought the better of the two 3/4 x 6 x 6' planks to the shop...was trying to get all four aprons out of it...Laid out the legs on the table top...to get the lengths needed...was coming up a tad short....that short scrap then became the short apron... But..there needs to be a drawer? Ok, simple enough to do.. Make 2 rip cuts...followed by.. The "missing" middle section is now the drawer's front...glue this mess back together.. IF you watch the grain..it will look like a solid apron..until you open the drawer... While that glue up dries...the other 6 tenons got milled...and.. Bread board blanks....have since installed these...sliding dovetails. Have laid out a few cuts in what is left of the 2 x 4....looks to be plenty for the vise rebuild. Should be able to toss that knot into the fire pit...later... Stay tuned...I have the mortise jig all set up..for tomorrow.

Thought I would share a fun project I did several years back. Hope you enjoy. Step One: Cut walnut and ash stock into small squares, 12 walnut, 20 ash. Step Two: Drill holes using jigs to insure accuracy - different jig for walnut and ash pieces. Step Three: Set up table saw to cut at proper angle and cut all walnut pieces into pentagon shape. Step Four: Reset table saw to cut hexagons at proper angle and cut all ash pieces. Step Five: Make several extra pieces in case you mess one up later. Step Six: Make sure you have a friend to drink beer and watch while you're working. Step Seven: Glue and tape. Step Eight: Relax, watch the glue dry. Step Nine: Remove tape, light sanding, wax your ball and close up shop for the night. Step Ten: Do it again the following day using tape to minimize tearout. Step Eleven: Give the best of the two to your soccer star daughter for her 13th birthday and keep the other for yourself.

The Boss wants a new end table.....brought home 12' of 1 x 6 Ash...and 10' of 2 x 4 Ash....might just be enough? 1 x 6 s went to the shop, this afternoon...needed three planks at 30" long....was able to get 4.... Here is 3 out of the 4....the 4th? Has "issues"..... Has enough waves, to make you seasick....set this aside, before the others get any ideas... Straight edge showed I had a bit of work to do... Marked a line, bandsaw the worst off....set up the fence on the saw...ripped a new straight edge on both edges...laid out to see what kind of panel I had.. Close...we can do better..Clamped one into the leg vise....after I had marked a big "V" across to keep things lined up Joint an edge, then check it...both the #62 and this big guy... No. 7c worked on each edge...I also checked for gaps.. Worked until I had three planks I could glue together into a table top...spread a bead, moosh a bead, repeat... Just glue holding this together....time to apply a few clamps... First clamp was in the middle. Then the ends, then the cauls. Will let this sit overnight....Trying for a 4/4 x 16 x 30" table top.... Boss does want a shelf....might be tricky to do...with tapered legs...we'll see. Just a simple table, tapered square legs (no lathe) 3" aprons...rather plain, actually.. Has a hint of grain to it...will see if it shows up later.... It's a start....stay tuned

One of the bowls we did last week with Glenn Lucas was a milk paint bowl. The technique works best with an open grain wood like ash or oak. The bowl is turned close to finish and then wire brushed to open the grain. After brushing it gets painted with milk paint. After painting the final details are cut, in this case, the rim and the bead. It's a neat effect I think but probably not for everyone. We also talked about form and balancing the grain in a bowl. Form is not perfect on this one, I can see a little flat spot in it. A guy like Glenn considers nuances and details most of us never would. Anyway, I wanted to do something on the bottom so I didn't finish mine until I got home. It is finished with mineral oil and beeswax. Steve

Well...yard was mowed last night, just before it got too dark to see....came into the house...and not a single cold beer to be found... This morning...had a road trip to do with the Boss. Dropped her off at where she wanted to go....motored on down the highway...left turn at the old family graveyard.... Did a little wheel & deal......24 bf of Ash, with the Boss having to clean the fellow's house ( his "Boss" is away for a while) Stopped at Wall E World on the way home...Boss needed a couple things, I needed to correct the "No Beer" part. Got home..took a while to unload everything... Nice hat, just doesn't protect the ears, much. These boards are from the Wapak Shindig...finally got them in the house...the Ash? having issues with the right hand shaking....boards were 1 x 6 x 11'6"...cut in half to fit IN the van... Clamped together, and let it sit a few days....couple boards were bowed a bit ( will get a couple better views, when I get the tripod back upstairs) Grain isn't too bad...there are a couple knots in some of the planks. Some will need a straight edge sawn on them. Good news is, I barely made a dent in his supply... Boss saw a thing @ BigLots....that holds a fireplace insert, and can have a tv on the top. Door on each side of the insert. Need to sneak in with a camera, tape measure and notepad....and do a little measuring... By that time, the Ash should be about ready to mill... Stay tuned..( flooring stuff may get used as "accents")

Last one of these for a while, or maybe not. They're fun to do. Maple with ash end caps. Five letter code. The pattern on the border rings was drawn in Delta Cad and Inkscape, I call it "star chain". The pointer is a generic Celtic pattern I cabbaged off the web. It's crazy how some projects get almost addictive. I have other things I need to be doing but these are just so much fun! Steve

Per orders of the Boss. There is to be a skinny "pantry cupboard" made. It has to fit in a corner of the Dinning Room next to the chimney. Kind of a dead space, not much seems to fit in there. Picked up a few boards the other day... Flat sawn, 4/4 by 6" by 5'-6' long. Thinking I can take the four longest slabs, and do a glue up into the two side panels. Size of the space I need to fill? 26" in width, 12-13" in depth.....between 60-67" in height. Thinking a single raised panel door..... The Infamous Single Brain Cell Sketch Up is now hard at work......Have enough 3/4" plywood for the shelves......May need one more plank for the face frames and door frames.....May go back out to Southern Logan County, OH....and buy a couple more planks.....we'll see. Still in the plan(??? What IS a plan)stage.....stay tuned

I couldn't find any hinges then misplaced the lid when I started putting the 100 % Tung oil on. And it has sat there looking heart broken and dejected ever since. I still can't figure out what or why I had started building it! I finally asked the one who knows everything and she said she had requested a tape dispenser like the one I built for me...

Checked McFeeley's to see if their 1/1/4" ash dowels were still the most reasonable priced dowels on the market and hey, McFeeleys has changed ownership and don't ever list lots of things they used to sell..including dowels Their 3 foot ash dowels uses to sell for 3.35 each in lots of 50 and were super straight. I have a few more of the 100 I bought from them but now need more. They told me at the time they didn't stock the large sizes for they would be straighter leaving it up to the supplier to keep and send only the straight ones to McFeeley's customers... Shucks!!

I had a little fun in the shop this morning. Soon I'll be firing up some chairs to build, and right now I am kind of jigging up and tooling up for this big project. Besides the jigs my son and I have been working on, today I got in the shop and made one complete mallet, and I have a couple more in the wings that need to be made as well. Before I took these images I had already made my layout lines and cut the mallet handle slots on my table saw. I simply set my table saw t-slot miter to 4 degrees and cut the slots in from one side then I set it at 4 degrees the other way and cut the other slot in the other side, then I hogged it out with several passes over the table saw blade. My 12" blades have 1/4" wide teeth so it didn't take long to hog the slots out. I laid out 3 mallets and gang sawed them. I cleaned up the slots with shoulder plane, the slots were heavily kerfed so I used the shoulder plane to knock the kerfs down, not all the way, but just enough to clean it up. I cut my lay out lines to produce the mallet blank halves. The key angle here is 5 degrees on the face. This allows your mallet to be used flush on a bench without your knuckles hitting the bench top but at the same time to have a sweet spot at the arc of your swing or tapping. Blanks ready to be glued up The handles are just dry fit into the slots. To get a great fit I had to sneak up on the handle widths, as not all handle slots in each mallet were the same as the next, because I cut these on the table saw without any jigs, just eyeballing lines is all. So each mallet was a tad different. I had to plane each handle to fit each slot right. I'll have a better assembly process next time, I plan on making many of these and pass them out as gifts and possibly sell them as well. A dry fit looking at the top of the mallet, the slot is tapered, so the bottom is tight and snug, the top is flared out leaving room for the wedges to secure the mallet. When I do these again I'll cut the slots so there is not much of a flare out at the top, it's really not needed. I think a 2 degree slot flare would suffice next time instead of the 4 degree. Lots of glue in around the handle, and on the wedges, I wanted the entire slot filled with either wood or glue, securing it for life. I tapped the outer wedges in just a tad, and I drove home the two center wedges pretty hard. Keep in mind, if you make a mallet, the wedges must be tapped in perpendicular to the grain to avoid splitting the wood. Cleaned up the glue a tad I used my bow arc to make the arc on the top of the mallet. Was an arc needed? No, but the mallet looks better with some shape to it. The arc All the edges of the mallet were chamfered with my block plane and the handle of the mallet of was shaped using my draw knife and a card scraper. The finished mallet at the right, and my two roughs waiting in the wings on the left. I put a very heavy coat of Watco Danish Oil on and wiped off. Here is a fun picture showing the hand tools I used to help make this mallet, it took a combination of my table saw to make the slots, the shoulder plane to clean up the slots, the miter saw to cut the blanks at 5 degrees, and my hand tools to shape and make it interesting. It's hard to see, but the chamfers I put into the handle and the edges of the head, are less than perfect, but that's alright, it's a mallet! The most difficult part was shaping the handle with my draw knife, ash is so brittle and grainy, it shapes horribly with hand tools, so I had to follow up my draw knifed handle with a card scraper. I'll be finishing the other two tomorrow. The main reason I built this mallet was for my chairs, I can't use a regular steel hammer without leaving marks, and a rubber mallet bounces too much. I already gave this mallet a test drive and I also used it on some chisels, I love it. I did not use any plans, I just read up on the required angle of the face of the mallet, and made my mallet thicker than the average. Most mallets I looked at were in the 2 3/4" thickness range, I made mine at 3 1/4", and I am glad I did, it has a nice big face. Thanks for following along!

Just a quick hit and run from the ol shop. A collection of forms and jigs for my shaker chairs. Left, rear post bending form. Next, front post drilling jig. Next, back rest slat bending form. Last at far right, side rung mortising jig. Fun huh! All made from Ash but for the mortising jig. They should last as long as I live! As you can see, the bends are not radical at all. Kiln dried in the steam box will work just fine.

I really enjoy making these mallets. Something about it that is very relaxing. I'll just have to find some owners for em since I can only use one at a time! Here are my first two. Just doing a hit and run topic from my shop. Don't you just love how you can start topics and upload images all from a smart phone in our community. The software we are using is most excellent.