A stop at Lowe's and then at Ballard's Hardware took care of almost all the remaining scavanger hunt items. Now it's just a matter of cutting wood, drilling, gluing, etc... Simple, hey?

September 22, 2006.

Oak dowels for the inner braces and support tops came from Lowe's Home Improvement center in Lenoir. Also a bladed protractor, 1x3 poplar for bridge supports, some clamps, 60 and 120 sanding pads. Lowe's had no numbered drill bits but I remembered seeing them at Ballard's Hardware so I came home through Connelly Springs.

Hitch pin drill bit:
ideal: #27 (0.1440")
bought: 9/64ths (0.1406)    -0.0034"

Tuning pin drill bit:
ideal: #15 (0.1800")
bought: #16 (0.1770")     -0.0030"

Can those deltas matter in wood? That's a big difference in brass, steel, or aluminum, but in maple? Can my drill press really "see" that difference?

Take Ardie's recommendation about drilling all holes with the smaller bit, then drilling the tuning holes to finished size with the larger bit after applying lacquer. Also, see notes from Geerspiano about the speed of drilling producing different size holes and adjust accordingly (I think if I drill fast with the undersized bit, the difference between ideal and actual will be minimized). Also there's a while yet to find the right bit if it worries me. Also bought some #400 grit sandpaper at Ballard's.

We're heading up on Wilson Creek tomorrow for a Dutch Oven feast with David Brakefield, Kay and Patrick, and who knows who else. DB, of course, built our kitchen cabinets. I'll bet I can find a chance to ask some questions about finishing cherry tomorrow -- I don't want to use a stain to make it look like cherry. It is cherry! But I want it to look its best.

September 23. David Brakefield suggests lots of light applications of linseed oil. Sand it down to 400 or so, then apply some oil. Let it rest for a day or two, then apply more. Maybe a dozen applications will give the cherry a deep, rich, unusual finish, "like a gunstock." Sounds great! Armed with Brakefield's hint, a Google search turned this up on a woodworking forum under "darkening cherry:"

I like the idea of treating the wood with a couple of coats of boiled linseed oil, but I'd like to finish with a satin clear polyurethane. Will this be compatible? I figure that the boiled linseed oil needs 24 hours between applications and planned on 48 between the last oil coat and the polyurethane.

Your help with this is greatly appreciated. I'm just finishing my first big furniture project (a Shaker table made out of Cherry) and it's looking pretty good, I'd hate to screw it up at this point.

– Sean Clarke, Apple Valley, Minnesota

Answer: There’s no compatibility issues with your finishing schedule – polyurethane can be applied over linseed oil once it is fully cured. The linseed oil will add some nice color. In fact, to add more color, you might want to consider putting on the oil and leaving the tables in strong sunlight for a day. That seems to help things along (look for more on this in a coming issue). I've experimented with this a bit over the years and have found that one day seems to do the trick. More than that doesn't seem to produce much (if any) color change.

However, I’d allow at least a week or more for the oil to cure before you apply the topcoat.

In general, I avoid adding any stain or dye to cherry whenever possible. Cherry tends to blotch because the grain soaks up the color unevenly. In some kinds of cherry, such as curly cherry, this is desirable. But in most cases, it looks pretty bad.

 

September 24. Cleaned up the shop, measured the stock on hand, and re-re-re-read portions of RD's book to be sure I am going to get the most out of the cherry and maple sticks.

 

October 2. Finally! I have begun turning wood into smoke and sawdust this morning, using both the table saw and the miter saw to cut the rails and to begin the pin blocks. Ardie's drawings and clear diagrams help immensely. The cherry cuts great. Ripping the 2-3/4 thick maple, however, is different. The 2-3/4 depth is exactly the limit for my table saw: it chugs and lugs, loads up and threatens to stall. When it spins freely it gouges and burns the wood. The advice about using a sharp carbide blade was worth taking afterall. Next time.

I rough cut the longer pin block which will hold the tuning pins. In the process fire alarms went off throughout the house. Twice. I scorched each surface of the long ripping cuts and generally made messes (but nothing vigorous sanding couldn't repair). I am pretty sure I will leave the maple at 2-3/4 inches rather than try to rip the 4 inch face to 2-1/2. Before messing with the maple today, I had sketched many many ways to cut this beam down and reglue it so the grain would be oriented as I believe it should be. In the end, the difficulty of ripping rock maple and my lack of confidence that I could glue the pieces up any stronger than the beam grew -- grain be damned -- won out.

Next, I'll read and study and think: does leaving the pin blocks incrementally wider than the plans call for mess up anything that cannot be readily allowed for? Later that same day... no it does not!

Late in the evening I realized I had caught a break: the mill-cut sides of the maple beam clean up well with 60 grit sanding. After just a few minutes of sanding, an aluminum straightedge confirmed the reliability of the surface. That would have sufficed on the long pin block, too. I could have saved myself one of two long, smoky rips. Thus armed with newfound expertise, tomorrow I will finish one more rip and use the miter saw for four angled crosscuts (do test cuts!) and that will finish knocking out the blanks for the pin blocks. Then I'll lay all the pieces out for a plausibility check, dado the back and soundboard grooves, and maybe drill out the receiving holes for the oak dowels that resist compression between the pin blocks. At that point, the frame can be dry-fitted to look like a dulcimer, and I'll have a much better grip on what I am doing.

I'd like to get some heavy gluing underway by Friday afternoon so that it can cure over Amy's fall break. We'll see.

October 3. I whacked out the last maple rip cut (and set off the fire alarms again), then laid the rails out on the floor and stared at the irregular form. I measured, remeasured, cursed and shoved. Each rail measured exactly what it was supposed to measure -- to the 16th -- and each angle checked out. I was ready to double check Ardie's dimensions. Do lines of these lengths really make a trapezoid? Then I realized that the the 30- and 20-degree cuts were on the wrong ends of the short rail. I.e., it was upside down, backwards, or something. After flipping it -- and labelling everything --the rails fit very nicely.

Thus encouraged, I triple-checked dimensions, laid the pin-hole templates atop them as a sanity check, and then cut the pin blocks to their final lengths and angles. The 10-inch miter saw was perfect for this job, but these blocks of hard maple put it right at its limits, too.

Back at the table saw, I cut 1/4-inch slots in the top and bottom rails and in the pin blocks to receive the back. Likewise I cut slots in the pin blocks to receive the soundboard. Finally, a task well within the powers of my tools!

I tried the plywood for fit and it is tight -- snug, in a word. I may need to sand the edges of the plywood just a tidge for assembly -- just as Ardie suggests. I prepped the drill press to place the big holes in the inner faces of the pin blocks to receive the two big oak dowels which will resist the compression of the strings and to cut the holes that will be used to apply clamps during gluing stages. But called it a day before actually drilling any holes. I want to lay everything out and trace and measure it before committing to their placement.

 

Stone mason, cabinet builder, dutch oven chef, and
woodworking consultant David Brakefield
cooking out on Wilson Creek.

 

Wilson Creek.

 

On Wilson Creek (l to r: Joe Tilson, Kay Crouch, Mark Bumgardner, Mark Pearson, Amy ?, Tom Kuhn, Patrick Crouch).

 

Where but in Caldwell County, NC?

 

He stoops to cook: the cast iron chef hard at work.

 

 

10-inch strictly-hobbyist-quality Delta tablesaw about to get the surprise of its life by being asked to rip that rock maple 6-1/2 x 2-3/4 x 57-inch beam visible directly behind it. Black cherry for rails is propped in back, right, and across the left table wing. Plywood for sound- and back-boards is boxed in background. (Yes, I cleaned up the basement shop in PhotoShop. Sue me.)

 

A discernable project, at last. Pin blocks are solid rock
maple, 2-3/4 rather than 2-1/2 inches wide. Black cherry
rails (scorched, as yet unsanded) fit just fine.

 

 

It's not a great corner, but it's not a bad one, either.
Much finish work to come.

 

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Building: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Refinements, etc: 16 17 18 19