sutton046

Believe it or not, I am here in Pasadena, California, on my way to the Woodworking in America Conference in Cincinnati. Stopped in LA for a look around on the way there. Gamble House, Pasadena I found my way to Gamble House, one of the best known and best preserved houses designed by Greene and Greene in 1908, in the height of the Arst and Crafst movement.  It reminded me of the beautiful Rennie Macintosh stuff in Glasgow. I did the guided tour today. This stuff makes my heart sing! Not a sharp corner to be found. Greene and Greene designed everything right down to the light fittings. There are repeating design elements throughout the whole house, furniture and fittings. It was a partnership between the Greene brothers, the Hall brothers (cabinetmakers) and other highly skilled craftspeople in glass and stone. The clients from Ohio, Mr & Mrs Gamble, of Proctor & Gamble, commissioned it and were able to afford it. While it only took 10 months to build, it cost $79,000 to mak...

With all the treads and risers complete, including the First Two Curving Treads , the next stage was to make and fit the handrail up the stairs. When there are winding treads, it is normal to have the handrail just going up the outside wall, where the treads are at their widest. Creating the handrail profile. In an earlier post I mentioned that my customer had found a handrail profile she liked on a US website. With some experimentation, I found I could get close starting with 60mm x 60mm material, and using my table saw to cut two rebates and then use three different router cutters to create the profile. The picture from the US website, and my profile process. One correction: Step 3 is actually a 22mm radius, not 19mm. I need to start with sections of 60 x 60 material - jarrah. You can't just pop in to the hardware shop and buy this stuff!  The timber merchants don't carry this stuff anymore. It would have to be created. Almost the only way to find heavy sections of jarrah is ...

Sometimes, an old saw is just not worth salvaging. Sure, if good enough, the handle and bolts/nuts can be all be saved to use again when repairing or re-building another saw. There are times when it is the saw plate that will be utilized instead. Amongst my huge pile of old saws awaiting rebirth, there was a very tired post WWII  Disston panel saw which had a ruined handle. The saw plate had a bit of surface rust, but nothing too drastic. I had a need to make some more curved scrapers for spoon carving, so set about cutting up the saw. This was initially done with a guillotine. Saw meets guillotine ...  Dividers were used to draw curves on the ends of the pieces of saw plate, and the guillotine and  heavy tin snips were used to remove much of the waste. The rest was done with a bench grinder, to create the final shapes of the scrapers. The first few scrapers taking shape. Once the required shapes are made good with a bench grinder, the scrapers's edges need...

All this year I have have been privileged to be working on a big renovation, where I have been doing a wide range of carpentry and joinery work. An Art Deco home built in the 1930's, the house has been expanded upwards and outwards. The addition of a second storey brought about the need for a staircase. Another job for me, which I relish. Stairs are a wonderful brain challenge and have always been a great chance to push and test my skills. Where possible, the old original jarrah roof timbers removed to make room for the top storey are being recycled back into the house by way of the staircase, window sashes, and many other uses. Most of the straight treads in the stair case are made from glued up rafters from the original roof. Yep, it ticks all the right boxes... Previous posts tell the story of the Staircase Saga thus far: Part 1: Building a Staircase with Winders. Part 2: Getting Started. Part 3: The Big Flight. Part 4: The Short Flight. Part 5:   The Winders. It seems that some...

At the Perth Wood Show last weekend, I picked up a lovely Canadian-made Disston tenon saw from the second hand tool stand run by the Hand Tool Preservation Society of Western Australia. It's a beauty! However it just needed sharpening... Yep, a very nice Disston tenon saw, with the handle in very good condition. I have a few odd Disstons made in Canada. This is a new addition to my Canadian bunch.  With a three day gig this week at a primary school doing woodwork with the K - 2 students, I needed another sharp saw on hand. I also had another tenon saw needing sharpening for the event -an older Disston saw. So it seemed a golden opportunity to get them both done during a window of opportunity I had on the day before the school program commenced. The older Disston tenon saw, made in Philadelphia USA. About the variables in saw filing - rake, fleam, and set. In a nutshell, RAKE is the vertical angle of the face of the tooth, which also determines the aggressiveness of the cut. If the ...