What have I done in the workshop today?

I agree that there is nothing like old steel to hold a keen edge. I have read there are companies that are starting to use traditional methods and steel that has not been recycled. I think the impurities in recycled steel are one of the factors in modern tools being inferiour (as well as the culture of buy cheep, use once, then throw away).

Using a hand plane (once you have gotten used to the effort and technique) often gives a better result. I recently planned over 20 meters (in various widths and thichnesses) of home planked poplar for a job I have been doing for client. If I had been using an electric planner it would have torn out fibers all over the place and ruined the surface, which was to be very visual.

Older steel had only a few alloying elements in it and the percentages had to be pretty spot on.

Modern steel gets the properties from a fine balance of very many elements, which is ok when it is "new" metal but yes I could see the potential for a significant "build up" of elements in recycled steels which would affect the overall properties...you can add more compounds to get the material properties back again but every thing has an effect.

I deal with that routinely in my line of work. Recycling metals is great for some purposes, but not so great for others. Especially when the wrong metal gets sorted in. Take for instance working on a cast piece of steel for a finished product. Tractor engine case, let's say . Now, what happens when an old bit of carbide gets mixed into the casting "pot" metal? Machining away, happy as a clam, start a drill and "BAM" shattered bits of drill.

"Normalizing" heat processes help some. (Heat treat to a specific heat/time recipe, as well as cooling/quenching recipe) As does carburization. (Imagine baking the piece at high temps in a coke bath). But the base metals, especially those of too high heat tolerance to be affected by the above, can still make problems in finish machining.

Amongst many other things, I am a Materials Scientist by profession, and when I worked for a salary, that was what I did in my former working life

Spent many happy hours playing with dopants and adjusting alloys

Keep meaning to pop a picture or two up here to show the kind of mutants that evolve in my shed... Heres one to start with...

Ooooooo! That is nice!

Meanwhilst....
With the intention of making a 'Rocket stove' to heat part of the building I have started cutting up an old boiler from a central heating system. The cast iron will make an excellent top to the burn tunnel (I have read that due to the heat the bricks normally used are prone to cracking in this area).
This is an example of a finished one (illustration from the front of Ianto Evans' book)

Wow, there's some great projects going on in your workshops! Nice to see the photos.

I've just been getting back in there after a couple of years away - our own workshop gremlins made getting through the door very time consuming and getting beyond the door near on impossible, but the mess has now been beaten back to reveal the lovely lathe, which I've been having some fun on getting a christmas present together for my sister. I'll post pics next time I get out there. Bit disappointed with the wood on this one though - I always seem to have trouble turning sycamore - it seems to need a real careful touch to stop it going all rough. Hey ho though, I'll just have to take my time finishing up with sandpaper to smooth it out.

Wood Troll wrote:Mark, you should write a thread on how you go about making one of these brilliant beasties! Do you canibalise other bikes and weld them up into new parts, or do start with new steel?

Thanks! When I start my next project I hope to remember to take pictures along the way...

The trike above was built up from 2 kids mountain bikes and 1 adult bike, with a few sections of steel box section. All of these I picked up from the local council recycling centre. The only new parts are the tyres and the brake discs on the front. I guess the total build has cost around £60 and taken about 50 hours.

So...costing your time at a (very!) low £10 per hour that would sell at £600 ish

Add a 50% retail mark up...£1200

sounds about right to me for a one off work of engineering art/craft work....

seriously! Mark you need to go into the "bespoke bike " business.....

Split a green Poplar log using a billhook and mallet, roughed it into a circular blank with the draw knife on the shave horse

Turned it down on the pole lathe and then carved it ( using spoon and straight knives) into a spoon

Am pleased.

Great stuff - there is a spoon carving thread about somewhere for photos ...

I have never done green woodwork, always worked in seasoned wood. I am really mystified how to prevent things made from green wood splitting - don't they tend to dry out dangerously quickly ? Do you have to oil/wax or something to slow it down ? I'm picturing the state of the wood in my logpile now ...

I have composed 3 replies now, and saved them in the draft folder abut still they have got lost! grr!

C-H you stick them in a bag of shavings so they don't dry out too fast...

Also selection of wood, working with the grain etc are all even more important with green wood.

Its fascinating stuff!

Now looking at a Scheppach Tiger 2500 Wet & Dry Grinder with all sorts of useful attachments.....

I have the Tiger 2000 - the plasticky version, but I reckoned it was cheaper and wouldn't go rusty These Scheppach machines look like a cheaper rip-off of Tormek, without the speed controls etc.

I'm not sure it really should be classed as a wet or dry grinder, both sides only turn slowly (2 revs per second ?). I find the leather honing wheel little use - I do my honing on an oil stone. But, for a wet stone grinder, it makes a nice job of plane and chisel blades. Because I'm restoring long-neglected tools I'm often grinding quite a bit off to re-shape rounded over edges, so the process can be painfully slow. Hopefully it will not be so long in normal circumstances.

Thanks for the tip about the bag of shavings - I knew there must be some trick I was missing !

Mmmm Tormek mmmmm

A bit out of our price range at the mo ever, unless pre owned..

Yes we are debating between the 2000 and the 2500...lots of extra money, but does it give a better return I wonder?

Thanks for the heads up abut the speed - will investigate further.

Cm and I engaged in a " turning" contest....to see who could make the smoothest rolling pin from a poplar blank in the shortest time...

I fear this may get serious!

Oh and we were fighting over who got to use MY new Ashley Iles tools first.... note whose tools they were... :roll

Cg wanted to have a go later and has a friend coming round tomorrow to "use E's pole lathe" as her mum said on the phone.....

Seems to me you need some labels, just to make sure whos is whos.

Either that or spend a whole day using each & every tool, a sort of hobby holiday!!

Hobby holiday sounds like a good plan, Pol!

Finally glued up the shoe rack yesterday.  I though of letting you guess what I was making, but to be honest the number of horizontal dowels in the final glue-up meant I didn't have enough glue open time to be messing around with the camera !


The dowels that make "shelves" for the shoes are re-cycled from a broken stairgate.  The lid opens to store gloves, hats etc.  I'm quite pleased with the top - to keep it flat without eating into the storage space with cleats on the bottom, I've gone for breadboard ends - the end cheeks have 3 mortices which accept tenons on the ends of the main part of the top; the centre mortice is snug, the outer two are elongated slightly to allow the top to swell and shrink with the weather without splitting.  I doubt you can see inthe picture but  3 square pegs go through the tenons, the middle one a snug fit, the outer 2 again into slotted holes in the tenons to allow movement.

I made a simple friction stay from a couple of strips of scrap stainless steel to hold the lid open;  the friction is provided by a pivot formed by a bolt with a domed nut and spring washer connecting the two strips with a plumber's fibre washer between to provide friction.

I'm still pondering what type of varnish to use ...

This weeks WIP (work in progress) is a large mirror to match the above. I've gone for a sort of "shaker" style in the same beech. Aside from the initial rip sawing to width. I've stuck with hand tools. Since the frame is wider than my sash clamps are long, I've taken the idea of a ->drawbore<- to pull the mortice and tenon joint at each corner together, but with square pegs to match those I used to fix the breadboard ends on the top of the shoe rack. Once planed flush the ends of the pegs should make a nice decorative feature. Will try to get a photo when it's done !

I may have to kidnap you... that shoe rack is wonderful! Honestly, if you could see the pile of shoes the kids have artistically arranged in a heap..

I second what Lottie said, with the slight caveat that to tidy up our hallway shoe clutter it would need to be about 18ft long, as we are reaching Imelda Marcos proportions here.

Lottie wrote:Honestly, if you could see the pile of shoes the kids have artistically arranged in a heap..

You've done some training presumably to get to the arranged heap stage. Mine scattered them all over the hall floor, especially at the foot of the stairs - comfy place to sit and take them off. Looks a lot tidier now, well worth the bother. C-H jnr seems to like using it.

Billy has correctly spotted the limitation - it can never be big enough, but it is as big as space allows. This, incidentally, is a great advantage of making your own furniture - efficient use of space. We've been looking for years now for a bookshelf / drawers thingy to fit in a space in the front room; I can picture exactly what I want but can't find it. I'm resigned to making one, though it will be a big job for me. Perfect excuse then to buy the new workbench and set of bigger sash clamps I've been hankering after for a while ...

Oops :


Never leave candles unattended, especially when they are in handmade wooden holders !  I was given these to fix, but I don't have a lathe, or space for one ...


...Now I do, admittedly not a very great one - yes, it is a drill stand clamped horizontally to a workmate, with a lump of old pallet as a tool rest.  A flat wood bit serves as the live centre, and a bolt from an old MFI cabinet which happened to have a pointy end make the dead centre.  Some none too precious Silverline carving chisels do as tools.



And there we go. Not a perfect colour match because the original wood has faded, but left in a sunny place for a few weeks it will hopefully fade to match.

What did I do in the workshop over the weekend ? Started re-organising it. Drains, shelves, storage space ... nothing you'd want to see a photo of, believe me, but hopefully it will mean I will have space for a shiny new woodwork bench around christmas time

Now to write that letter to Santa ...

Help! Seen and ad on Craigslist for a Stanley No. 80 spokeshave in GREAT shape for only $20 (roughly a tenner UK?). Please tell me not to buy it, as I can't even do woodworking all winter in the apartment!