Thread: Finished build - hallway "bag" table

Hello, thought I would just share a build.

When I was at my timber place, I saw a lot of black wattle boards in stock. I had turned a couple of random pieces and liked the look of it, so I thought I would use it for a need we had. We have a hallway area near the door which just collects re-usable bags. We just walk to shops often so have a need to keep bags for the shops. (No-one in the household the type to neatly fold away and keep in a closet.)

Not much to say about the build but I thought I would share a few lessons learned.

The starting point is I bought the wood dressed. My timber place does it (you just pick the boards and spec what you want, for a fee they mill and deliver.) I find this great for me as my time and space is limited; I don't have milling machines and it means my shop time is on the hand tools building furniture.

1/ I tried Derek Cohen's posted method of gluing up boards just with blue tape. By and large it was successful however the boards were quite heavy (3/4 inch, heavy hardwood) and I ended up with problems on one side with flatness and having to really remove more than I should have. I think until I figure out what I am doing wrong I might use more cauls in the future but the method is definitely a thumbs up!

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2/ When I decided to shape the legs with a concave sweep, I had problems with both the methods of sawing down to the line and chiselling out, but also with a spokeshave. The wood was hard to describe but difficult to work. It is not hard-hard like a tough eucalypt but it just seemed quite chewy and resisted often. Without anything showing on the grain, sections would just fight a chisel or plane. It was very slow going and I had to do 8 curves. I enjoy hand tool work but when you get to points where you're just feeling like a donkey being whipped, it's not enjoyable and time to think.

I looked about and thought it was a chance to put my drawknife to the test, which I'd sharpened but hadn't used much. I thought to try and use it to knock out the bulk of the waste, then clean up with a spokeshave.

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This was actually wonderful! The wood honked off with the drawknife at the deepest sections to a couple of mill above the line (some effort required, but you're only doing about a half dozen pulls), and then the spokeshave was comfortable to get down to the lines and get a pleasing shape in, within a few passes, without feeling like a human thicknesser. Where the wood was particularly punk I used a tip I saw on a Paul Sellers video and just chopped into it with a chisel to break up the structure.

This to me was what handtool working is all about - getting the right tools in the right combination for the task, so that you (a) get your result without (b) knackering yourself like a fool for the principle of the thing.

It reminded me of something I read and which stuck to me about hand planes, which is that you want to do what you're doing with the fewest strokes all other things equal for efficiency. This is because if you have to do it in 100 strokes of your handplane on super-fine passes you will blunt the blade quicker and need re-sharpening. (It was an admonishment against always trying to get the finest shave possible.) I rarely see a drawknife in use in joinery (although Rex Krueger quite often uses a hatchet which has a similar idea).

3/ Not many photos but I cut single dovetails in each leg and into the panels. Because they were a single dovetail (the look I wanted) I did a 45 degree cut.

Can I share that this is a terrible idea and there is a bloody good reason why you never see 45 degree dovetails in furniture. The bastards just snap off. I had my superglue and accelerator out almost constantly. I think I snapped at least half of the tails at every stage in the project. It is not an issue in the final piece but whenever test-fitting and taking apart. While I am pleased with the result, never again and I apologise for my stupidity to the universe.

I also managed to cut the pins in the wrong orientation on one side and had to bodge by cutting off the tails and epoxy'ing back in upside down. Safe to say it will not be entered into any competitions.

But I was pleased with end result (put outside on the grass not to encourage it to eat, but to rev up the drying on the organoil Danish oil - which takes forever to dry!)

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