Rough Wood

At a local hardwood dealer, on a mission for some 8/4 White Ash, I found sapele. Since I was gearing up for a few projects, and shopping for some thick stock for vise materials, I decided to get this one giant board. The plan was to take a relatively small piece of it for my vise chop and build the thick bits for a few furniture projects from the same board.

The salesperson suggested it as a nice solid material that could serve both purposes. This assessment was absolutely correct, if a bit extravagant in the vise context. It is often used as a substitute for mahogany. It is beautiful, dark, and very much like mahogany in appearance, with the exception of its figure, which is generally very ribbony. It is slightly harder than hard maple, works well with hand tools and machinery, and is incredibly inexpensive for such a wonderful material. It glimmers like rain sheeting down a window. It even smells nice.

No one mentioned that it is considered a “vulnerable” species in certain areas of its range. Sapele is found mostly in Africa, in an area including Sierra Leone, Uganda and the Congo. It is a rainforest tree. As it turns out, some populations are exhausted.

Old growth materials are scarce because we’ve overdone it. Highly prized exotics are expensive because we’re using them up. You may not be one to observe or be concerned about the environmental impact of this, but surely you can agree that, for example, Honduran Mahogany supplies are dwindling for a reason: our demand outweighs the trees’ ability to grow, and then they are gone. I’m all for the gorgeous exotic woods if I, personally, have some indication that the species isn’t threatened, that the flora and fauna of their habitats aren’t being squeezed out of existence, and that any indigenous populations are not being backed into a corner because I like nice table legs.

So I’m staring at 12′ of gorgeous 8/4 sapele, considering that I intended to use it to make legs and structural elements for a few projects that I was very excited about, and that I’d need to go back to buy several 4/4 boards for the tops of a desk and a tool cabinet that I intended to build with it. What to do? Support this by buying more, or find a plan B and stick to more locally available hardwoods?

This has been a wakeup call for me. I am going to cut my vise face from this board, because I need it now and it would be wasteful (to any species) to buy a whole new board for such a small piece. This board was cut roughly in half at the dealer for transport, so I’m stuck with it. I’m not going to buy more unless I can verify my dealer’s source (there are a few “protected” sources of sapele in various places, including Australia). I will keep this board, and dole out small amounts of it for very special and specific projects, but I will take the financial hit and go back to the dealer for something else (probably cherry) for the current furniture projects—again, unless I can confirm the source of it.

It is up to us as individuals to be aware of our impact. I am not going to preach about what is right and what is wrong for any single person, but I will suggest this: Know what you are buying, and by proxy, know what activities you are supporting. In my case, my other projects can be just as beautiful (in different ways) in walnut, cherry, or a number of other “exotics” that are not quite as fragile, and I will not buy without being more aware of the impact of my decisions.

In the meantime, I’m going to have a damn fine vise chop.

I started building the knock-down workbench about a week ago. I’ve been trying to write a post about it since I started, but various things have conspired against me. So this one is a doozy.

After further consideration for the directions of the forces involved, I’ve made some design changes. Many thanks to readers Dean and Dyami for other suggestions.

I’ve placed the stretchers along the long axis, as this will be the direction of the most forceful planing. Most forces along the short axis (in the vise), like jointing, will require more precision than sweat. I’ve also redesigned the leg bracing. The legs are now entirely enclosed, so they  fit into very tight mounting braces made of various pieces of 2×4 material squeezed tightly together.

I have the hardware for using 3/8″ carriage bolts (with knobs) to anchor the legs in, but they are quite sturdy. I got a real workout trying to get them out the first time, after having clamped the bracing tightly together to screw everything in. Yay for thoroughness!

An interesting side note: I waxed the ends of the legs so they will slide into the mounts more easily. This fit is not based on friction, so it doesn’t have to be grabby. There’s 3.5″ of vertical support in the braces, so they aren’t going anywhere. I also waxed the shoulders of the lap joints. Since glue would be pointless here, I wanted to reduce the tendency for the bench to creak under pressure. It is, thankfully, not a noisemaker like the old one.

The frame is joined with pocket screws and large timber screws, because, really, why go through the trouble of doing mortise and tenon joinery in squishy 2×4? I will very happily move on to a more substantial bench whenever I have the space, but I didn’t need to spend weeks on this one.

The top is 3/4″ poplar (actual 3/4). I found 11.25″ boards, jointed them with my fantastic new Veritas jointer fence and did a glue-up that worked rather well. After a small amount of planing, it’s incredibly flat, in spite of my not having had anything flat to make it on. There was a little wind in the frame, but I planed it out, and everything on that front is nice and stable. Notice the lip on one side. I’ve designed this overhang due to my abundance of clamps that have a 3-4″ clamping range. The primary series of dog holes will be along the opposite long edge.

A threading kit arrived yesterday, so I’ll get started on the vise soon!

This thing is really coming together. What amazes me is that in the course of working on this I’ve seen exactly how not-flat my Workmate surfaces are… I don’t know if it was this warped when I first bought it. It flexes quite a bit with heavy planing and has probably bent over time.

I have experienced a few very surreal moments during this process. The first was when I faced the task of planing the top, connected to the frame—because it’s thin enough to flex without the support. The only waist-height surface at my disposal was my old/current bench. This bench surface is about 4x larger than the Workmate, so I had to work out a way to support this relatively massive structure on the Workmate. The solution was to attach a pipe clamp under the new bench surface, which was hooked onto the old surface as if the new surface were a gigantic bench hook. Remarkably, it worked with some clamp support on the far end to keep it from tipping. This photo might explain better.

A bench bench hook?

Another really weird moment came when I started to trim the mating surfaces of the laps with my (also new!) router plane. The new bench was assembled for some measurements. Since I was working on the stretchers, the bench was just standing there taunting me. So I clamped a stretcher on it and started doing some trimming. It was so automatic and comfortable, as opposed to the old bench—which would always take some crazy contraption to hold things down—that I actually got some work done. I didn’t have to think about it. That is, until it started sliding across the floor because it wasn’t fully assembled. I didn’t want to go very far with it, but I couldn’t help myself.

The glue on the stretchers is dry, and it is rock solid in the long direction. It is flat and stable. A bit of additional weight from the vise gear should help to keep it from tipping at the end. I can’t wait to be able to use this thing.

Also, carnage shot:

My wife was an amazing cook for many years, and was in a chef program for about 6 months—finally turning her experience into a career. We found some interesting parallels between woodworking and cooking, the most notable of which is that both of these pastimes involve the use of very sharp tools—and extensive hand skills. Literally 1 minute before the end of her final presentation for school, having never cut herself with a knife in decades of heavy knife use, she cut her left index finger and ended up in the ER.

I had just sharpened the knife for her.

About 10 months ago, as partial justification for spending money on sharpening gear, I had offered to start sharpening her knives. The knife in question is pretty serious—it is ice tempered to a hardness of around 58-60 RC. That’s tough chisel territory, and is almost as hard as a Lie-Nielsen A-2 plane blade. It took an amazing edge, which didn’t budge for quite a while.

As my tool sharpening skills improved, so did my ability to sharpen her knives—quickly and to an absurdly keen edge. I kicked myself for providing the means for her to literally remove a piece of her finger—through fingernail.

Fast forwarding to the ER, when I arrived and she was waiting for a doctor. I wanted to see the wound so I could reassure her of whatever the results might be. There was a clean, oblique slice, which removed about 1/3 of the nail, and a lot of nail bed. I mentioned my self-imposed guilt trip to the nurse, and she reminded me that sharp is actually better. If you are cut with a dull blade of any kind, which has more of a rough serrated than a rounded edge, the wound is much rougher—and the cut does more damage. These cuts take longer to heal, and are more prone to scarring.

It was a rough night, and she was heavily medicated, but she was fine. She wasn’t able to use that finger for a while, but the doctor was confident that it would heal ok. Ironically, the cut happened when she let her guard down, rather than being due to her nervousness. Upon having realized that her presentation was almost over—and that she was in the home stretch—she stopped concentrating on the cutting.

There are two huge lessons to be learned here:

1. Considering that a knife is just another kind of hand tool, this is proof that even hand tools can really, really mess you up. Hand vs power is no excuse to slack on safety. Always be careful. Always.

2. Though it may seem to be more dangerous, sharp is better. You don’t have to force the tool to do what you want (as much) and if you are cut, you have a better chance of healing.

Just saying. Be careful out there folks.

It’s true.

Though lately it seems that I only think about, dream about, speak of, write blogs about, read and watch videos about woodworking, I actually did some woodworking last weekend. I’ve been crazy busy with work, and had a huge render going. I was captive for a few hours, so I decided to knock out a plane adjusting hammer.

I had searched for solid brass rods at various hardware haunts, and wasn’t having any luck finding something thick enough to drill a useful hole through. I thought it would be excessive to special-order a 3′ rod, only to use a few inches of it and have the rest sitting in a corner for the rest of my life. So I went with an all-wood solution.

The 2 woods are beautiful, though a mystery to me, considering that they were retrieved from a scrap bin. The handle has some really wild grain, and a beautifully creamy sapwood accent. The head is extremely dense. I could barely make a scratch in the end grain with sandpaper. Punny! It weighs in at 5.2 ounces (3 for the head), and is 8¼” long overall. It works like a charm.

As I’ve come to realize since I first picked one up, I love spokeshaves. I can’t imagine shaping something like a tool handle with a spindle sander, or, as I like to call them, wood erasers. I suspect that these kinds of things are mostly left to large manufacturers and boutique companies these days, which is a shame. Using a tool that you’ve made for yourself is something special. It’s amazing what you can do with a pile of scrap.

I did briefly long for some auto-wood-shaping-device—or at least a dowel plate—to help me with the round tenon. It was my first round tenon, and was shaped with chisels and rasps. It’s definitely not perfect, but the wedge should keep it snug for many years. If I ever need to do this again, it’ll probably be a dowel plate occasion.

On another tangent, I used my BCTW dozuki to cut the wedge for the tenon. I love this saw; it’s like a laser with a handle.

I do enjoy the process of making these random tools—and the results. Maybe some day these trinkets will be retired to a drawer, after I’ve made newer and better stuff, or disfigured them beyond recognition. Then again, maybe they’ll be with me forever. Another mystery.