Thread: WIP Shaker Workbench with Split Top

Originally Posted by AndrewPatrol

Mike can you please tell me what is “Bishoping”

G'day Andrew. The term is not mine and I'm not sure of the exact definition, but from what I can gather it's the act of hitting the wood a certain way to cause the fibres to expand or break out with the purpose of closing gaps in joinery. It's usually done with a small ball pein hammer but I've used a custom made drift for better accuracy. Some people plane the joint in a certain direction to achieve the same result. I believe my method allows larger gaps to be bridged. I'm not sure where I heard or learnt it from, but I'm a fan of the technique. Please bear in mind that I'm still a noob and more experienced and talented woodworkers probably don't need to employ such a crude method. I assume the term "to bishop" stems from the shape of a bishop's headpiece.



Cheers,
Mike

I will preface this post by saying that I have the highest regard for Terry Gordon and am in constant awe of the exceptional and consistent quality of his work.

Originally Posted by delbs

I had a slight heart palpitation when I read your statement about HNT. As silly as that ordeal was due to ozpost I ...

Originally Posted by KahoyKutter

... I agree, Terry and Zamantha did not have to offer a replacement as the blame lies entirely with OzPost, but I'm pleased that they did. They're very easy to deal with.

I am not quite so sure. If I bought something of the quality and the pricing of an HNT Gordon tail vise (circa $350) then I would expect the quality to extend to the packaging. A reasonably sturdy and appropriately sized carton, at the minimum. Bubble wrap, paper and gaffer tape is demonstrably not adequate, and certainly not AusPost resistant. No argument about AusPost exacebating the situation.

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My assessment now is that Terry is rather embarassed by the happenings, and will quietly take remedial action to ensure that it does not re-occur.

Terry Gordon: If you think that I am misrepresenting the facts or being unfair, then please respond publicly or by PM.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

I am not quite so sure. If I bought something of the quality and the pricing of an HNT Gordon tail vise (circa $350) then I would expect the quality to extend to the packaging. A reasonably sturdy and appropriately sized carton, at the minimum. Bubble wrap, paper and gaffer tape is demonstrably not adequate, and certainly not AusPost resistant. No argument about AusPost exacebating the situation.

HNT Vise.jpg HNT Vise 2.jpg


My assessment now is that Terry is rather embarassed by the happenings, and will quietly take remedial action to ensure that it does not re-occur.

Terry Gordon: If you think that I am misrepresenting the facts or being unfair, then please respond publicly or by PM.

Perhaps you're right, Graeme, but in this instance I don't think a layer of cardboard would have offered any more protection. There were several puncture marks (4~6) and they all went in pretty deep. It couldn't have been caused by a simple drop or anything one would reasonably expect a package from Alstonville to Brisbane to experience. It's one of the reasons why I believe that it was a pre-meditated act. It was very fortunate that only one hit the vise and that it didn't affect its functionality. You have to remember, the package had already survived a return trip without any damage. Sure, one could argue that a premium product should have premium packaging, but I also see the argument for keeping the packaging costs down to prevent the price from being even higher. I made the same argument in my review/feedback on the Henry Eckert Rebate Block Plane. I would rather they skimp on their packaging and spend more money on the quality of their products. I've bought HNT's face vise and tail vise before and I honestly cannot remember how they were packaged. The fact that I can't remember makes me believe that the packaging was not anything special or "premium". I just care about the quality of the product. Lastly, I doubt Terry Gordon would even be aware of my build thread.

Gday

Just wanted to bump in to say relieved about your comment about shooting plane not seeming as effortless as shown in videos. I experienced the same thing.

I am still getting the hang of mine. It is on the Veritas aluminum track with low-friction tape so ideal scenarios. I have found times it's just felt like it's not working and a bit of frustration because I know the blade is super sharp. Although inexperienced I have found upping the force a little bit - albeit in a controlled way and definitely not a hard push - has turned failures into good slicing - it seems you have to just get it "right".

I don't say this is as a criticism but I think often it's not realised that many of the Real McCoy woodworkers you see on Youtube have serious functional strength that they simply don't go on about. By that I don't mean just strength, but precise application of force at just the right level to get the job done without over-exerting or making it look difficult. An example is when you see Rob Cosman saw - he inevitably is using a great saw but also just the right amount of force to power through and use all the teeth on the saw without apparent effort (and hence knocks dovetail lines down in two strokes or so).

Originally Posted by Cgcc

Gday

Just wanted to bump in to say relieved about your comment about shooting plane not seeming as effortless as shown in videos. I experienced the same thing.

I am still getting the hang of mine. It is on the Veritas aluminum track with low-friction tape so ideal scenarios. I have found times it's just felt like it's not working and a bit of frustration because I know the blade is super sharp. Although inexperienced I have found upping the force a little bit - albeit in a controlled way and definitely not a hard push - has turned failures into good slicing - it seems you have to just get it "right".

I don't say this is as a criticism but I think often it's not realised that many of the Real McCoy woodworkers you see on Youtube have serious functional strength that they simply don't go on about. By that I don't mean just strength, but precise application of force at just the right level to get the job done without over-exerting or making it look difficult. An example is when you see Rob Cosman saw - he inevitably is using a great saw but also just the right amount of force to power through and use all the teeth on the saw without apparent effort (and hence knocks dovetail lines down in two strokes or so).

I'm putting it down more to the types of wood they're using rather than their strength. If you look at Rob's videos, he usually uses Holly, Cherry, Walnut, etc. These are relatively soft woods. I don't think I've even seen him shoot hard/rock maple. I would guess that the old growth fiddleback Tas Oak, which is what I'm using for the drawer faces, is significantly harder. The dimension of the piece is also a factor that I previously hadn't considered. The faces of my bottom drawers are about an inch thick and 275mm high. That's gonna take much more effort than if it were 3/4" thick and 4 inches high. I tried shooting the ends of my stretchers and had to give up in the end. I thought it may have been my technique or the sharpness of my blade before realising that asking the Veritas to shoot well-seasoned 40mm thick and 140mm wide spotted gum/blackbutt/grey ironbark was perhaps a tad too much. This was where my inexperience was self-evident. I hadn't planed much Aussie hardwoods let alone tried shooting their endgrain on a shooting board. My expectations were simply too high. I was reminded recently by how hard some of our Australian hardwoods can be whilst watching a clip on Youtube of Vic Tesolin talking about the Veritas Scraping Plane. He states in North America he discourages potential customers from buying the scraping plane because there's very little need for it over there. He went on to say that there's very few American timbers that could not be finished with a plane such is the softness of their hardwoods. A scraping plane is simply not necessary in NA. But here in Australia, it's a different kettle of fish. Not only are our hardwoods extremely hard, often they are interlocked and have a much higher silica content. I've gone and purchased the Veritas Shooting Sander. I believe it's intended to use on delicate veneered boards, but I'm going to give it a try on our Aussie hardwoods

Originally Posted by Cgcc

I don't say this is as a criticism but I think often it's not realised that many of the Real McCoy woodworkers you see on Youtube have serious functional strength that they simply don't go on about. By that I don't mean just strength, but precise application of force at just the right level to get the job done without over-exerting or making it look difficult

You are NOT WRONG!

I was shooting a few dozen boards that are 30mm thick last night.... I managed six before I was pooped.

It really took it out of me. I did a few more tonight.

Timber is merbau, plane is a veritas jack with a sharp A2 blade. Jig is MDF.

HARD work!

KK,

I hope you’re successful with the Veritas Shooting sander but i’d be surprised if this solved your problem. I have the VSS and use it a fair bit for bookmatching veneers. It works really well. However, it’s very light in weight compared to a decent plane and I think you may find it tough going on decent sized bits of Aussie concrete (oops - hardwood). I’d be delighted to be wrong, so please let us know how you go?

Good luck,

Brian

Also curious. I hadn't seen before. It does look like a slow-but-sure solution to shooting something big. Perhaps also a solution for very narrow stock where chamfering the reference face (to avoid blowout) is tricky.

It does look like a solution in particular to a bug-bear of mine which is shooting mitre edges (on a donkey-ear jig or other custom arrangement). With the bevel meaning the surface area of a 45' mitre is ~1.414 times the height of board... for a 19mm board even you're effectively trying to shoot just over an inch-thick (~26mm board). Even in pine that would be quite a slice!

Yes would be slow as, but if you're trying to get a perfect mitre on a small box that might be okay.

Originally Posted by homey

KK,

I hope you’re successful with the Veritas Shooting sander but i’d be surprised if this solved your problem. I have the VSS and use it a fair bit for bookmatching veneers. It works really well. However, it’s very light in weight compared to a decent plane and I think you may find it tough going on decent sized bits of Aussie concrete (oops - hardwood). I’d be delighted to be wrong, so please let us know how you go?

Good luck,

Brian

Rather than the expensive Veritas sanding thing (nothing against Veritas of course!) perhaps one could build a little jig.

I saw a clever jig made using belts (30x300mm?) and this thing had two wedges to keep it tight.

Rotate the belt as needed to get a fresh face.

This is a commercial one....
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and these are the DIY's ...

sanding block.PNG Wedged Sanding Block.gif


addendum - Like the little 25x330mm belts off this cute little sander on AliExpress ....

I agree. The VSS probably won't work too well and in hindsight I probably would have been better making my own sanding block out of a bit of hardwood the same width as my shooting track. It would have definitely been cheaper and probably would have worked just as well or perhaps even better. In my defence, I was convinced by the fact that it's designed to be compatible with the shooting track (which I already owned) and I was maximising the cost of shipping by spreading it out between a few products. It's certainly not one of my better purchasing decisions. The motto of the story is: "Scotch and late night online shopping is definitely not a good mix" !!

Originally Posted by KahoyKutter

I agree. The VSS probably won't work too well and in hindsight I probably would have been better making my own sanding block out of a bit of hardwood the same width as my shooting track. It would have definitely been cheaper and probably would have worked just as well or perhaps even better. In my defence, I was convinced by the fact that it's designed to be compatible with the shooting track (which I already owned) and I was maximising the cost of shipping by spreading it out between a few products.

in defence of the Veritas Shooting sander, like a shooting plane, the shooting sander has a "safe edge" that won't cut away the lower edge of your shooting board. The same can't be said for a home made sanding jig.

where I think the VSS will struggle is getting the sanding width you require for your drawer faces. When you subtract the height of the shooting board surface (I'm guessing it's around 15 mm) from the thickness of the drawer face (from memory you said 25 mm), the VSS will only be sanding around half the drawer face thickness.


The VSS is really for sanding veneers, which if shop sawn will be about 3 to 4 mm thick.

Originally Posted by ian

in defence of the Veritas Shooting sander, like a shooting plane, the shooting sander has a "safe edge" that won't cut away the lower edge of your shooting board. The same can't be said for a home made sanding jig.

where I think the VSS will struggle is getting the sanding width you require for your drawer faces. When you subtract the height of the shooting board surface (I'm guessing it's around 15 mm) from the thickness of the drawer face (from memory you said 25 mm), the VSS will only be sanding around half the drawer face thickness.


The VSS is really for sanding veneers, which if shop sawn will be about 3 to 4 mm thick.

Ian,

The VSS is designed to shoot/sand veneered boards and not just shop sawn veneers. As such, in conjunction with the Veritas Shooting Track, it will accommodate boards up to a thickness of 31.5mm - the width of the adhesive backed sandpaper it comes with. Please see below.......


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Or if one cuts their own sanding strips, boards up to 36.5mm (the distance from the "safety lip" on the bottom to the top of the VSS) is possible. It's still not enough for my +40mm stretchers but should do most boards.



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Above is a pic of a sheet of adhesive backed sandpaper that I plan to use exactly for this exact purpose. It is pictured alongside the sanding strips for the VSS. If I were to use my own custom made sanding block, all I would need is to stick it on about 6mm up from the base so that the it doesn't end up sanding my shooting track. I would make the block much longer (perhaps 12 inches) to maximise each stroke.

A quick play of the VSS has changed my mind. I think it will work for what I intended, i.e. shoot-sanding our more recalcitrant hardwoods. I thought it's lack of heft would count against it, but it doesn't need the mass as it doesn't need to "push through" a cut.



Cheers,
Mike

The VSS seems like a great bit of kit if you are already using a shooting board with the Veritas track.

Something that comes to mind is you could use the shooting plane to take off the high spots or a high side (a higher side might be very slow going with a sander), then switch to the sander readily once the cut became too heavy. That would reduce the wear on the sanding strips which it is easy to see becoming a task you'd avoid.

Something I've seen, but discounted because it's just too bulky a fixture at least for me is a "mitre jack" clamp: La Forge Royale Miter Jack - YouTube and Benchcrafted

The use of it with a hand plane would be lovely but just seems too much of a double-up with a shooting board. What I thought was more interesting was the chisel work with larger pieces. But again, if you've already got a Moxon vise floating around, for me it's just too large and unwieldy a fixture to have around for such a specific task.

As a noob, the threads and videos I find of most benefit are build threads particularly those where the maker documents their mistakes and how they went about fixing things. With this in mind, I thought I'd swallow my pride and share my most recent stuff up and my attempts at fixing things.



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First up is my initial stuff up. The angle of the camera somewhat minimises the error, but I got the alignment of my logo all wrong when I branded my moxon vise. It was much worse in reality and enough to nag at me everytime I used the vise so there was no way I could leave it be. The logo is 50mm in diameter and it just happens that I commissioned a few brass medallions of my logo in a few sizes one of which happens to be 50mm. My solution to the problem was to use a forstner bit to drill a shallow hole in which I could inlay one of my brass logos.

My 2nd mistake was thinking that I could drill the mortise using my cordless hand drill. I thought because I was only going to be drilling a couple of millimetres deep, that it shouldn't be a problem especially if I used a guide block to help me drill perpendicular. HUGE MISTAKE !!! Drilling plumb has never been one of my strengths and when I tried to drill the hole, one side dug in almost ripped the drill out of my hand. Classic noob mistake !! I was surprised I didn't fracture my wrist. That was the good news. The bad news was it chewed up the smooth maple of my moxon vise. I was so annoyed at myself so much that I forgot to take photos of the result. Embarrassment may have been another reason.

Now I had an even bigger problem. You would think my first attempt would have me looking for a different solution, but I have a stubborn streak. I decided to double down by drilling an even bigger hole to fit a 66mm brass medallion. But this time I decided against using a drill.......



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......and reached for the power router. I've stated before that the power router is the power tool that I feel least comfortable with. I'm not sure what made me think using a 66mm forstner bit in it was a good idea, but that's the 2nd solution I went with. To maximise my chances, I used another guide block (i.e. a scrap 32mm thick MDF with a 66mm hole drilled with the pedestal bench drill), clamped it as well as the router itself to the bench, and turned the router all the way down to its lowest speed. With all my fingers and toes crossed, I pulled the trigger and..........



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.....SUCCESS !!! There's some scorch marks but a nice and clean 5mm deep hole all things considered.


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The 66mm medallion fitted perfectly, but I wasn't liking the proportions. It seemed too big to me, so I decided to use the 50mm medallion and have a Purpleheart border around it like the inlay in my leg vise.


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The way I made the Purpleheart border was by first drilling a 50mm hole and then using an adjustable circle cutter bit to cut a 68mm circle around it.



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Here is the resulting piece.....


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.....and glued into the mortise after handsanding it down to the right diameter.


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Here it is with the 50mm medallion epoxied in. The medallion is recessed a couple of mm to allow for re-flattening of the top in the future. I rounded the lip which is another mistake. I should have left the edge crisp because I've now decided to cover the medallion with epoxy so that everything is flush and the hole doesn't fill up with sawdust etc. I must confess that I much prefer the branded logo, but this result is acceptable to me. It's at least not going to nag at me everytime I use the vise.





Cheers,
Mike