Clean Phil Wanted

The Trouble with Trivets!

We rent the house that we live in so I’m wary of doing anything that would damage it.  The counter tops aren’t all that spectacular but I still have zero interest in damaging them.  I also need to be use that surface for pots and pans from the stove.  So a couple of trivets are in order!

The designs

I used two different designs. One is super simple as it’s just two sticks. Jill and I have seen an number of this design in hotels in New Zealand.  I really like them and they tend to sit on slightly uneven surfaces well.  The loose half-lap joint for them makes them easy to throw together and throw aside.

The second design is one I like a lot and wanted to try with hand tools for a while.  I didn’t sharpen my chisel before doing this and I think that had a huge part in the rough walls of the grooves/dados. While I think this one turned ok and it is very usable. It’s not pretty at all.

How they were made

Please check out video on my Youtube channel here.  Let me know how you would approach making this trivet.

 

I’ll probably make a number of the simple ones and add some carvings too them. I may try the second one again in the future but with all the dadoing and grooving I can’t see it being a short build. I may try to used a plow/plough plane to create the structure and wrap that with some edging.  Or I may just make something more ‘hobbit-y’ since I’m living in New Zealand now. Though there will be no furry feet.

Thanks for checking it out, subscribe, comment and like!

clean phil

 

Once Upon A Carving Mallet

“Once upon a time there was a guy with a mullet who wanted to make a carving mallet, with his bare hands…”, Jill just said.  She’s right, I’ve been wanting to make a decent, or better, carving mallet then the one I made a few months back.

One of the things I made sure I brought with me from the US to New Zealand was Peter Follansbees 17th century carving video.  Granted, I didn’t realize I could just buy it online back then, which you can now.  And when I knew work was drying up with my last employer in the US. I threw in the money to get a good set of carving chisels you could hit with a mallet.  I probably would have bought these flexcut chisels years ago if I knew they were made only 2 hours away from where I was living. Heck, I probably would have tried to get a job there.

The wood, Kowahi:

A piece of pine firewood was used for the previous carving mallet and it was crudely shaped but comfortable. I actually like the dents/distress that pine gets on it.  Still, I knew that something heavier would be a 100 times better to use. So when a couple of people that Jill knows offered a tree to me I jumped at it.  Now, I’m not one to go cutting a tree down in the woods, hurt or not. This tree was a decorative tree in a garden that lined a driveway and was hit by a moving van a few years back. When the husband of the house walked out to show  me the tree he grabbed it with one hand and pushed it over. The root ball and all came with it.  Half of it was dead the other half wasn’t budding.

My lathe is in the middle of Pennsylvania so I went at this with a drawknife, spokeshave, some whittle knives and sandpaper.  It turned out pretty nice and wow am I pleased with the weight of this thing. It makes a massive difference.

Here’s the video!

You can find the video and others like it over at my Youtube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/c/cleanphilwanted

Or watch the video of it right here!

Thanks!

CPW

 

The Cheeseboard

I am still uncertain if it’s “cheeseboard” or “cheese board”. The first one is what the dictionary had in it so I’m sticking with that for now.

It wasn’t on my list of things to make. After watching Jill and the bread cooling rack from last week (here), I knew she’d really want a cheeseboard to match. So, while she was outside working on the weeds I went to the garage and made the decision to go slow and go accurate.

Here’s the video!

 

It started with a 3.5 inch board about 47.5 inches long. Re-sawing the strips from it until I had enough, I aimed for straight cuts.  I did pretty good when I focused on as little pressure downward as I could. This is the way I use my backsaws and they usually end up right on. Practice should perfect this, though I’ll still be making a frame saw later on.

I laminated the pieces together and let it set for an hour. There was little glue squeeze out so I’m getting better at judging glue needs. Then I made the tongue and groove joints. I went real slowly with this to make sure I got the fit correct.  In time I’m sure I’ll be able to do this much more quickly. For the tongue, initial 3/16ths could have been removed much more quickly. I was just more concerned with crisp lines. The joints turned out better than I expected. Though not perfect so there is still plenty of room for improvement.

The thing I love most about hand planes is the thing I love least about woodwork, sanding.  Usually a hand plane finish is too smooth for a lot of finishes to stick to. You have to actually sand it so you can finish it, which means lightly sanding.  I did my usual shellac finish and will need to get more supplies to do better ‘french-ish’ style finishing.

Side note, I did finally find a store that had shellac flakes! Funny part was NO ONE even in the store knew what it was (or where it comes from). I got to educate them!

Anyways, a video is on it’s way.

Thanks,

phil

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