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  1. #1
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    Jun 2014
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    Default Hand Saw and Moulding Plane Cabinet

    (I feel like this is about more of a hand tool accessory than it is a piece of furniture or "The Shed", so here it landed after much [not that much...] internal debate)

    Through some enthusiastic (but reserved) collecting of antiques and getting to know IanW and Bushmiller personally, I've managed to get my hands on a fair few saws with a fair amount of historic and/or sentimental value. Until very recently those saws have lived in a variety of places. Initially, when I began acquiring them, I had a few hanging on the wall, one or two at any given time around the shop "in use", and the rest inside a plastic tool box. After a while, I made myself a small footlocker style box to keep some of the larger ones in, so that helped, but they were still just saws in boxes. It was in no way organized, and it was a pain to access.

    No way to live.

    So my first legitimate shop-specific piece of furniture, now that I have a legitimate shop, was going to be a cabinet for my saws. I also bought the better part of a set of HNT Gordon moulding planes before moving back to the US, and those would have designated space in there as well.

    My workbench is red colored Eucalypt, and I have plenty of board stock to make it, so I chose some River Red Gum that I got for absolute pennies in the Northern Brisbane suburbs back in 2015. The guy just wanted it gone.

    I used a dovetail carcase construction approximately 900mm x 500mm x 250mm deep. Single piece of wood on the sides, top, and bottom. I dimensioned the pieces and cut the dovetails in one day. I planned it this way because I wanted to clamp them while they relaxed overnight to prevent warping. This stuff is so dynamic after being dressed it's insane.

    IMG_0616.JPG

    Ultimately that was a failure though. Virtually all of it cupped. It was still useable though, albeit a bit more difficult to knock joints together.


    The size would accommodate moulding planes lengthwise and saws height-wise. I then installed permanent shelves with full width sliding dovetails. It's hung on the wall with a (very heavily reinforced) french cleat.

    IMG_0651.JPG

    The left half is for vertical storage of saws. That slanted, upper bit has tablesaw kerfs cut into it for accommodating handsaw blades. It's slanted to hold saws by their handles, and the lower rail is provided to slot into the horns of handles so that some saws would hang and some would lean (that makes sense when you see it...).

    I chose quartersawn American White Ash (Fraxinus americana) for the back. I agonized over this decision. Even after this build I stand firm that the quartersawn, Tassy Oak at Bunnings is the best secondary wood available, but, alas, there is no Big Green Shed in Seattle. Oak is more expensive and more yellow, and I like stark contrast in drawer sides, which I would also use it for, so Ash it was. Resawn to around 9mm and glued into a panel which was in a groove on the back.

    I always end up cutting stopped grooves. I ponder on ways to get the dovetail profile worked out in such a way that I think looks good, provides strength, and negates the use of the stopped groove, but I always go for the more aesthetically pleasing, stronger construction with the stop. C'est la vie... Here are some photos of the steps I use to cut it. It works well. I grooved the whole back of the cabinet in about twenty minutes. Could be worse.

    IMG_0618.JPGIMG_0619.JPGIMG_0620.JPGIMG_0622.JPGIMG_0623.JPGIMG_0624.JPG

    Sliding dovetails are kind of my nemesis. I have no problem getting them tight, but getting the front to have a clean, gapless fit eludes me. They weren't garbage, but they're not great.

    I fit the center divider and then used a 10" square to align the ends of either shelf before cutting my slots:

    IMG_0637.JPG

    This worked great. I then used a clamped-on fence with a "Trenching Saw" and a pair of side rebate planes to fit the dovetails, which were sawn and planed on the sides of the shelves beforehand.

    IMG_0635.jpg

    These tools are fantastic for cutting full width dadoes or sliding dovetails. I especially like the saw, which is far easier to use than one might imagine. I felt confident after two practice runs. With some prior knowledge of hand saw use it's really intuitive. Having the sides straight and planar at a consistent depth is no worries.

    After glueup of the main carcase, it was door time. I had plans for a 50mm recess behind a mitred frame and panel front. I figured mitres with moulding would look better than mortise and tenon, and since it was being screwed to the recessed box, weak corner joints were not an issue.

    After dovetailing the recess, I clamped it to the carcase as the glue dried. This ensured that any lack of coplanar...ness (?) on the front of the case would translate into the door:

    IMG_0644.JPG

    I chose Tasmanian Blackheart Sassafras for the panels. It was too thin to bookmatch and then screw tool storage into, but I found two good sections in one of my boards. There would be two panels, separated by a center stile in the middle. The entire frame would be grooved with a small fillet and ovolo moulding.

    IMG_0660.JPGIMG_0665.JPGIMG_0669.JPG

    The mouldings were cut using a marking gauge, rebate plane, and 3/8" hollow plane. Getting them to meet right was tedious, but it turned out great at each corner. Little or no scraping required.

    Turned knob in Gidgee. Wedged on the inside.

    IMG_0674.JPG

    Voila:

    IMG_0677.JPG

    I was super stoked with how it turned out. The only real letdown was that I blew it coping the upper and lower junctions of the center stile against the rails. I cut it too short, so I had to basically choose which side would have a gap after I chiseled out the cope on both ends. It's far from world ending though, and it was my last piece of RRG without a trip to my storage unit, so it went on. It also was from the same board as the other stuff, so the figure needed to match.

    It occurred to me after the fact that this was my first full frame and panel construction all by hand. I'd made quite a few F&P doors at my last job, but that was all jigs and machines. I felt pretty good about that...

    The recess was screwed into the front and four brass butt hinges used to hang it on the cabinet. I got the hinges from Horton Brasses. For anyone paying high prices for Brusso, I highly recommend you check out Horton.

    The last part of the build was the tool storage in the door and the drawers, which are kind of general use, and will hold saw-related accessories and other misc. items.

    The saw storage in the door was a fun exercise in fitting things in there. I got kind of creative to save enough space for another saw, but I think I'd still have to rearrange if that day comes. I still have plenty of room for more full sized saws though...

    IMG_0685.JPGIMG_0687.JPGIMG_0693.JPG

    The drawers are a simple construction with half blind dovetails at the fronts, through dovetails at the backs, and a grooved, fielded panel used as the bottom. I used fat dovetails to make it look kind of decorative, and so that I had to cut fewer of them and I could groove through them to avoid that blasted, stopped groove!

    IMG_0704.JPG

    Knocked together a quick latch:

    IMG_0728.JPG

    At then it's finishing time. One coat of danish oil outside, one coat of mineral oil and beeswax on the inside:

    IMG_0727.JPGIMG_0729.JPGIMG_0731.JPG


    Flush pulls were the only real option for the drawers on the inside of the cabinets. I'm cool with that. They're classy and practical.

    This is a significant, positive upgrade in my tool organization that I've been really excited about for a long time. Looking forward to working more efficient hand work, and to opening this door many, many more times.

    Cheers,
    Luke

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  3. #2
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    Feb 2017
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    Default

    Great Job Luke.

    Love the contrast of the black heart sas. One of my favourite timbers.

    Im also really interested in your story
    Did you recently move (back?) to the USA and bring all the timber you had collected from your time in Australia with you?
    Was there just a simple fumigation or the like applied or nothing?
    You must be sitting on a goldmine with what you still have in "storage" and what some imported timbers sell for.

    Sorry for the personal questions, just interested in why there's quite a few Americans on the forum. Its great to see the different timbers and styles etc.

    Thanks, ozka

  4. #3
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    Very, very nice Luke, and a typically good write-up!

    You might have gotten more exposure if you'd placed it in the 'furniture' section, but I can see your dilemma, it is very much a hand-tooly kind of thing, too. I can attest that there is continual satisfaction in opening a tool cupboard made of woods that are part of your travels, looks like it belongs to a cabinetmaker, and is well-organised and contains a bunch of nice tools, many of which have a personal backstory. You've got all of those in spades.....

    Cheers,
    IW

  5. #4
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    Oct 2013
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    Perth, Australia
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    1,813

    Default Hand Saw and Moulding Plane Cabinet

    Beautiful work mate! I want to build something similar after I get a bench built, will likely borrow from this [emoji846]

  6. #5
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    Nov 2011
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    Melbourne
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    As others have said ,and extremely nice outcome for tool storage.
    The hint to timbers will always bring back memories.
    It's funny tho, I've meet the two fellows you mentioned too.
    Now I find I have a saw habit!!!!! I also noticed a few of your saws look like they have a certain signature style to them from a certain small tool maker.
    I swear, there is something keen to the masons going on hear.

    Cheers Matt

  7. #6
    Join Date
    Jun 2014
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    Seattle, Washington, USA
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by ozka View Post
    Im also really interested in your story
    Did you recently move (back?) to the USA and bring all the timber you had collected from your time in Australia with you?
    Was there just a simple fumigation or the like applied or nothing?
    You must be sitting on a goldmine with what you still have in "storage" and what some imported timbers sell for.
    That's pretty much the jist of it. I was in Australia for 4.5 years and I brought back 4.5 cubic meters (6 cubic meters of container space) worth of Aussie hardwoods. I never saw the correlation in those numbers until just now...

    I became a woodworker in earnest in Aus, and part of the fun was always trying out new species of Aussie wood. As far as I'm concerned, Australia has the best and most diverse collection of timbers anywhere. Full stop. The US has some real gems, but it's pretty much all from very young trees, it's not as diverse, and its uses not as broad. I was pretty anxious about never seeing my favorite woods again, so they all came home with me. Getting it here was a pain, and did involve fumigation, but ultimately it was straightforward I guess. I outlined the journey in a thread called "The Eagle has Landed". I'd link it but I'm out the door to work momentarily, so maybe check my profile and my past posts from around October or November of 2016. As far as "Gold Mine" that's hard to say. Hopefully it all gets sold as furniture, and not as bare wood. If I do end up selling large quantities of it as lumber, it will be because I fell on hard times, so let's hope that's not in my future.

    As far as I know I'm the only American on the forum who has spent significant time in Australia, but my guess as to why there are a fair few of us on here is that the American forums just aren't as good as this one IMHO. They are a bit to "Bro-ey" and it always just digresses to argument and measuring of... opinions.

    Yep, Matt/Simplicity. You spotted my collection of, mostly, genuine Wilkies. The exceptions are the large dovetail in the middle, right part of the door with the Tiger Myrtle handle which is from planemaker/Stewie/Tote Tool Company, and I rehandled the little flush cut saw on the left side. I like to think I have the largest collection of Wilkut (C) (TM) (R) saws this side of the equator .

    The full-sized saws are mostly Henry Disston saws that I collected in Aus and one that I got on eBay from the US. Three of them, including my only two non-Disston saws, however, went through Bushmiller's palace of saw restoration in beautiful Milmerran, Queensland or, "The Paris of the Darling Downs" as I like to call it .

    As a matter of fact, between the different dovetail profiles, sliding dovetail trenches, and general casework, I may have used more saws on this build than any previous build. I suppose that's appropriate since it's their home now!

    Thanks for the compliments, everyone. For anyone planning this kind of build, I highly recommend it. Extremely rewarding!

    Cheers,
    Luke

  8. #7
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    That's really nice.

  9. #8
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    Jul 2015
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    My first thought here is that you don't have enough saws.......

  10. #9
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    Mar 2015
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    Good work Luke looks great!

    I'm jealous of your HNT Gordon moulding plane set. Definitely on the list

    I'm planning on making a wall mount tool cabinet sometime in the near future and would also like to use sliding dovetails for shelves etc. I wonder if the HNT gordon side-rebate planes and dovetail fence along with a 1/2 dado plane would make life easier / more enjoyable for cutting these. I understand that these can be used for both the male and female parts of the joint, along with a rebate plane for the male side. How did you cut the male side of the sliding dovetails? Not sure if a saw, router plane and chisels do just as good a job or if it's worth investing in some of the HNT planes. Although, let's face facts, I'll figure out a way to convince myself to get them in any case .

  11. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by DomAU View Post
    Good work Luke looks great!

    I'm jealous of your HNT Gordon moulding plane set. Definitely on the list

    I'm planning on making a wall mount tool cabinet sometime in the near future and would also like to use sliding dovetails for shelves etc. I wonder if the HNT gordon side-rebate planes and dovetail fence along with a 1/2 dado plane would make life easier / more enjoyable for cutting these. I understand that these can be used for both the male and female parts of the joint, along with a rebate plane for the male side. How did you cut the male side of the sliding dovetails? Not sure if a saw, router plane and chisels do just as good a job or if it's worth investing in some of the HNT planes. Although, let's face facts, I'll figure out a way to convince myself to get them in any case .

    Well I've played with them at a wood show, and I'm convinced that the HNTG side rebate planes are as good as any out there, so if you can afford a pair then I think those plus a dado plane would be great. A couple of mine were stopped sliding dovetails, so in that application I think sawing is a better option than planing.

    The male parts are where my joints go awry I believe. I mark the baseline with a cutting gauge, use a paring chisel to get a shoulder started, and then I used the side rebate planes I have to plane them to shape.

    Mine aren't gross. They're still presentable, especially for the inside of a shop cabinet. Nonetheless, I need some practice and some kind of better understanding of how to get them to look at the front as well as they fit throughout their length, especially if I hope to use them in a "show" application on a legitimate piece of furniture.

    And yeah, the HNTG hollows and rounds are great. I'm not terribly experienced with older ones, but the ones I've used are considerably larger than these, and I find these easier to steer because my hands are closer together and closer to the work. It's like having less leverage over the plane, and therefore more control.

    Cheers,
    Luke

  12. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Luke Maddux View Post
    .....The male parts are where my joints go awry I believe. I mark the baseline with a cutting gauge, use a paring chisel to get a shoulder started, and then I used the side rebate planes I have to plane them to shape. .....
    Luke, I don't see how you get the acute inner corner of the dovetail with a rebate plane that wants to cut a right-angle?? Have you modified the blade in some way. I'm not at home, & using swmbo's laptop to type this so I can't put up a pic of my little plan that I use for forming the sliding tails, but it has a sole (& blade, of course) formed at the angle of the tail. It's a pretty crude device which I made back in the day when I burnt electrons to do jobs that I now do almost exclusively with hand-tools. It was meant only to clean up & put slight tapers on tails that I made with a simple router jig, so I didn't bother including a nicker. Despite that, it will cut tolerable tails from scratch, if I score the shoulder line fairly deeply, & use a fence clamped to the work. A future project is to make a 'proper' dovetailing plane with nicker & fence.

    I agree with you, the trench is pretty easy to do by sawing the sides, chisel out as much waste as you can, then use a router-plane to level the floor. BTW, it's traditional to put the slope on one side only of a sliding D/T for a shelf. The top of the shelf is untouched (reducing your fitting problems by half! ).

    I prefer stopped D/Ts on furniture, it looks neater to my eye (as long as you get the 'shoulder' tight, which isn't as easy as I first thought it should be!). But plenty of old CODs etc. had drawer dividers with sliding-dovetails visible from the front (was it done more on American than British pieces?)I have a nice old late 19th C English COD and they went to some trouble to cover the S/Ds of the drawer dividers with a strip of well-matched veneer, and I probably wouldn't have spotted it if one hadn't had an accident at some point & pulled the veneer away slightly. However, if I were making through D/Ts to show at the front, I would taper them so they were a bit tighter than usual, leaving the last 5mm or so in particular, a little generous. That way, it should fill the trench fully when forced home, and minimise any gaps...

    Cheers,
    IW

  13. #12
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    Hi Ian,

    I was refering to the HNT 'side' rebate planes. Looking at Terry's videos they can be used for both the male and female sides.

    https://youtu.be/DeiTMK4svcM

  14. #13
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    Luke

    You have done so well with that storage cupboard and I am most envious of both it and the contents. In the cabinet I can see the influence of a certain person from Queensland and he certainly does not come from "Paris on the Downs!"

    I'll have to remember that phrase next time some bogan has the temerity to malign my little piece of paradise!

    Is there enough room in that cabinet for your latest thumbhole acquisition? Will you be posting a pic here or does it deserve it's own thread?

    Regards
    Paul
    Bushmiller;

    "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"

  15. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by DomAU View Post
    Hi Ian,

    I was refering to the HNT 'side' rebate planes. Looking at Terry's videos they can be used for both the male and female sides.

    https://youtu.be/DeiTMK4svcM
    OK, I got it now.
    It's good to be able to do use less specialised tools to do a job, I'm all for it, but being lazy, having a dedicated dovetail plane that can do the whole job is just easier! But don't worry, given that I only need to make sliding dovetails once every year, if that, it may be some time before I get the round tuit required, so I'll most likely be cutting the next set (or two) by my current less-elegant method....

    Cheers,
    IW

  16. #15
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    Nice work and I like the layout of the saws on the door

    what do your fellow shop woodies think of the aussie timbers - especially the sassi?

    Isn't it a great feeling to open the door and there they are, sitting pretty and waiting to be used
    regards
    Nick
    veni, vidi,
    tornavi
    Without wood it's just ...

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