Making a Walnut Board-done sanding and beginning to oil it

Hello Everyone,

Well here it is:

I got up early today and went downstairs and worked on the cutting board with my cabinet scrapers.

I scraped and I scraped and leveled the surface and got rid of minor scratches and some high spots in the wood. I did this to both sides and then sanded it with 320 grit sandpaper and took a good look at it and decided, yes, it's time to begin oiling. So I got out my bottle of flax seed oil and began oiling the board. I think oiled finishes are best when many very thin coats are applied instead of several thick coats. So here we go:

And here is the board from several different angles. I probably used 2 tablespoons worth of oil on all the sides and edges and then rubbed it in very well:

 I'm going to let the board sit for a couple of days before I put another coat of oil on it to make sure that the first coat of oil is absorbed into the wood and dries. I'll probably be done oiling it next week sometime.

As it's getting cold outside, I've brought the board inside and I'm letting it dry in here.

I'll be back next week with completion photos.

In the meantime, I'm going to build a quick table for my grandson's train set this weekend and I'll post about that.

Stay tuned,
VW

Making a Walnut Cutting Board-clamping done and beginning the finishing process

Hi Everyone,
I let the clamps and glue do their thing over night and this morning I removed the clamps. The cutting board is now one solid piece of wood and ready for finishing. Here's today's photos:

Ok, here is the board with the clamps removed. It's strong and heavy and in one piece so the assembly part of the build is finished. Now on to shaping and surface smoothing:

First I cut about 1/8" inch off of each end to get rid of squeezed out glue and uneven ends and I did this on the bandsaw. Next I nipped off the corners to get rid of those sharp edges:

Then I beveled the long edges of the board, again to get rid of any sharp edges. This I did with a block plane and a wood file:

Then I briefly sanded the long sides of the board smooth. A helper elf somewhere really tightened the clamps down hard after I set the block aside to dry last night and left a lot of dents on the wood. I got the dents out but I was rather annoyed at that:

Here's a photo of one of the corners:

Now for smoothing the faces of the board-for this I got out my set of cabinet scrapers and began scraping off dried glue and uneven areas. I'd much rather scrape the surface rather than sand it smooth at this point. Sanding is loud, messy, and the vibration hurts my hands.
I hate sanding.

And here it is after about 30 minutes of scraping. I need to sharpen my scrapers before I proceed. I should be able to get rid of the sawing marks on the surface with a sharp scraper:

I'm gong to spend the next several days gradually smoothing the surfaces of the board and I'll show you what that looks like in a day or two.

Stay tuned,
VW

Making a Walnut Cutting board-finally assembled and glued

Hi Everyone,

Well I spent the afternoon assembling, gluing and clamping the cutting board. Here are the photos from today:

Here is a photo of the board jumped clamped together-no glue. I wanted to see what it will look like when I'm done and to measure the threaded rods accurately:

Now for the challenging part-I needed to cut the threaded rod long enough so the nut and the washer would fit inside the holes I drilled in the end pieces but short enough to accommodate the wooden plugs. After some measuring, I settled on 10 1/8" long and that was long enough for all three rods:

So I got everything cut and ready to go. We have a box with a lot of socket wrenches and various handles and I got lucky to find the right sized socket and a small handle to fit it. If I ever do this again, I'm going to find the socket first:

Now for the irritating part of this: inserting the rods, the washers, the nuts, and gluing everything together all at once. I couldn't come up with a stupider way of doing this. Next time I'll just get some construction adhesive and use that instead of all this. What a headache:

I've got four bar clamps attached to the board at present and since it's turned much colder it's inside my house drying.

Ok, tomorrow I'll unclamp it and we'll see how it came out.

Stay tuned,
VW

Making a Walnut Cutting Board, continued

Hello Everyone,

Well, I had a good day in the wood shop today and I got the walnut pieces marked and drilled for the threaded rods I plan to insert inside. Here are some photos from today:


The first thing I did was line up all of the pieces carefully and then I drew a line across the faces. Then I turned them over once and placed each piece on it's side and carefully extended that line down the sides. I marked the each hole 22 mm from the edge of each piece. Here you can see a small hole from my awl:

Then I proceeded to drill each hole. I drilled it several sizes larger than the threaded rod so it would easily pass through the wood:

Here is what each piece looked like after I finished drilling. There are 3 center pieces and two end pieces. I drilled the center pieces first all the way through:

And what do you know-I got them drilled straight through! Yeah!!

Now the end pieces will have a 1/2" white oak dowel plug covering the holes with the rods, a washer, and a lock nut inside. So these pieces were drilled twice-once with a 1/2" Forstner bit and then with the drill bit I used to drill the holes in the center pieces:

I wasn't sure if the holes would line up properly but with some care they did:

And here you can see how the holes line up. I'll be able to insert a washer and that will help with tightening the rod and nut together:

Here is the threaded rod passing through one side:

And all the way through!! Success!

Ok the next step involves gluing, inserting the rod and the hardware into the holes, clamping the block tightly, and then tightening the nuts down on the rod and leaving it all to dry. Since it's getting cold outside, too cold for the glue to dry, I'll do this part of the build tomorrow.

Stay tuned and see you tomorrow,
VW

Making a Walnut Cutting Board

Hello All,
Well, it's been 9 weeks tomorrow since my knee replacement surgery and I can walk and move around perfectly so it's time to get back to the wood shop! I need to make a cutting board for a friend of mine and I have a large  block of walnut that is perfect for this. Here's the story:

Since the end of the recession, at least the end of it for me, I've been making things for folks who where kind to me during that terrible time. I can't count how many people bought spoons, cutting boards, bowls, etc, from me and helped to keep me afloat. And I think about those people a lot.

One friend bought an armful of cutting boards from me that I'm sure she didn't need and her purchase helped buy groceries that week. Sometime later she asked me for a walnut cutting board and since I couldn't afford that type of wood, I had to decline her request. Since that time I've looked and looked for some walnut that would work well for a project like this and earlier this year I finally found it. Since my knee was so bad, I couldn't work on making her a cutting board out of the wood-it would have to wait until after the surgery in August for me to be able to safely go out and work with power equipment.

And today is the day! Let's get down to the wood shop and take a look at some photos:

This is the block of walnut that I bought. It's a lovely piece of wood, brown with a lavender undertone.

The first thing I did was trim off the irregular ends and that big cracked knot at the left end:

Then I flipped it over and trimmed off a smaller knot:

There was a lovely fiddle back section that unfortunately was cracking so I removed that as well. The arrows point to the cracked area:

And this left me with a nice small chunk of walnut for turning later...

Here is the trimmed block. There are not defects left and the grain is straight. What a lovely sight. Now I know what you're thinking-why not leave this block as is and make the cutting board out of this and the answer is that it's too thick-it's 2 1/2 inches thick and it would make a large and clumsy to use board in someone's kitchen. It's also not a good size for chopping foods. Maybe in a restaurant kitchen that might work but not here.
At this point the block is 15 1/2 inches long and 9 1/4 inches wide and 2 1/2 inches thick.

Here is a side view of the block.

So instead of leaving it in one piece, I've cut it into 5 - 1 3/4 inch x 15 1/2 blocks. If I turn the block on their sides, I'll have an 11 inch x 15 1/2 inch wide cutting board when I'm through.

So my plan is to laminate these blocks and possibly add some detail by laminating in some mahogany or some hickory.

This is what the blocks look like stacked next to one another. This will be a nice size for a home kitchen.

I've taken the blocks inside and I'm going to let them settle down for a couple of days. In the mean time I'll think about laminating some color woods. One more thing I might do is drill the blocks so I can insert threaded rods inside of them to help pull the blocks together during the laminating process and to keep it from ever de-laminating. I'll think about that too.

Stay tuned,
VW

Knife Making Comes to Selkie Wood Works

Hi Everyone,

Well it's hot, it's humid, and it's a good time to make a knife!

I don't do metal work-it's enough for me to just to master one kind of material. But my family are all metal workers and as they are relatives, I thought it time to invite them into the wood shop to make something.

My youngest son Critter, whom you'll remember from previous postings, is a welder and a metal worker and he wants to get into knife making, which is a challenge in a turning shop. But I do have a vice, lots of files, and other assorted stuff so he's begun making a camp knife for himself from a stainless steel billet.

He started with cutting out a knife blank yesterday (sorry, no photos) and today he is filing a bevel onto the edge of it. Here are a couple of photos:

The bevel on the knife needs to be the same angle relative to the flat surface of the blank and I wasn't sure how he would accomplish that. He came up with this contraption which utilizes one of my wood files to cut the bevel with. With this he was able to maintain a consistent angle all along the edge (if you click on the photo, you'll be able to enlarge the image):

This is how it's used:

And this is what it looked like an hour ago:

The blade needs a lot of work and he's going to be working on this all week long. And he's asked me to make a handle for him so it's off to find some nifty looking wood for this.

And while he was sweating away with knife making, I worked on a spoon:

Stay tuned,
VW

Selkie Wood Works Returns!

Hello All,
I am happy to announce that I and Selkie Wood Works are returning. My fortunes improved and I was able to hang on to my equipment. Many people were very kind to me during this period and I'd like to thank them all and especially dedicate the blog to my friend Leda.

Due to the kindness of a benefactor, I am going to be enrolling in a cabinetmaking course this fall to finally learn how to make furniture, cabinets, and other things as a professional wood worker. I am excited about this and very grateful for the opportunity. I plan to keep all of you informed as to this latest journey in life with photos and my usual musings.

I've kept busy these months re-designing and carving spoons. I think they are much nicer looking and I've discovered the American cherry is my new best friend wood-wise. It carves easily and it's very pretty when finished:

And I've taken up making and canning my own jam:

Mmmmm....

Oh, and Rhubarb says hi to everyone:

The course begins in late August so be on the lookout for a posting.

I'm back, the blog is back and we're moving forward. So once again, grab some coffee, put your feet up, and drop by the wood shop. You never know what's on the horizon.

Stay tuned,
VW