Thread: Quack Quack - or - Handmade Tools and Duck Box Christmas Gift

This is another one where I don't exactly know where to put it. It's part hand tools, part hand MADE tools, and part boxmaking. So I, again, cop out and just stick it here...

We do "Secret Santa" in my family (draw one person's name to give gifts) so that everyone gets one solid gift instead of a bunch of smaller gifts. There is a small (one person) cadre in my family who effectively inflicted this on everyone, but we've come to appreciate it over time. This year, for the first time, I got my Uncle, who is a woodworker, and has been a fairly significant influence on me, so I wanted it to be something nice.

Initially, the plan was to make him a really nice try square. This would be the deepest I've gone down the toolmaking rabbit hole, so I expected a fair challenge. The design I went with is a very close imitation of a reputable tool dealer, so I won't post a WIP, but suffice to say that after some careful thought, some even more careful drilling, and a few emails with someone else who had made one similar, it went together surprisingly well, and I ended up with a finished tool after two evenings in the shop:

IMG_2047.JPG

Tasmanian Blackwood and Brass. There are two adjustment screws on the right side which can be used to recalibrate the square if it goes outta whack.

So I had the square done in two days and, while I could've easily left it at that, I decided I'd spend another couple of hours making a marking knife and a scratch awl which could be used with the square:

IMG_2048.JPG

Knife in Crow's Ash and awl in Acacia aulacocarpa ("Brown Wattle" locally, but it's one of who knows how many things that get called that). Both are O-1 steel that I either hand filed or "turned" by chucking rod stock into a hand drill and grinding it to a tip on a bench grinder.

At this point, the gift was getting very respectable. Serendipitously, I was already having IanW send me a couple of marking gauges for other gifts, so I got him to put another one in there for this box. So that was a square, two marking tools, and a cutter style marking gauge.

This is where things got hairy... I decided that the tools deserved a nice box to live in. Initially I decided I would make a simple, dovetailed box in some nice Tasmanian Oak that was cut in 2014 near Launceston. I'd gotten it at a Maleny show a few years back. But, being the fool that I am, I decided to complicate things and make it in an American wood, Western Maple (aka Big Leaf Maple, Acer macrophylla). I also decided I would make it as nice as possible and use blind (secret mitred) dovetails.

I'll fast forward a bit here... Western Maple sucks. It's brittle, soft, unreliable, and just outright garbage when it comes to chisel work. I will not be using it again any time soon unless it's for very straightforward, machine-focused work. I got all four corners cut before I accepted that it was way too loosely fit and it had to go in the trash. There's no photo record.

So I decided to make it AGAIN. If you've ever cut blind dovetails, they aren't exactly quick, so this was a bummer. Attempt two was to be in Crow's Ash. Fast forward to the end, I get the thing glued up and am very happy with my joints. Then, I make the frame and panel top before I realize that the box had ended up slightly rhomboidal during glueup. This was not apparent without a top, but was an absolute trainwreck with the fine lines, mouldings, and interior angles of the mitred top.

Into the trash it went.

Box three would come full circle... A simple dovetailed construction in Tassie Oak.

The top would be a frame and panel. My uncle uses a duck as his "trademark", so I lowered the entire panel with hand planes and carved one into it. I then made a french fit interior for the tools and voila:

IMG_2298.jpgIMG_2299.jpgIMG_2300.jpgIMG_2301.jpgIMG_2302.jpg

And there it is. Uncle Kile (Yes, K I L E) loved it. Tassie Oak box, Red Cedar panel and interior, and polished shellac finish.

Merry Christmas.

Cheers,
Luke