Failed attempt #1 at joinery

While building my assembly table I was tempted to try out some joinery. The table I've selected as my victim is an old living room table made out of oak. I need to raise it up to a good working height and also attach some wheels with breaks at the bottom. Finally I'll add a foldable extension area on both sides and some shelfs or cabinets to make full use of the space I have been assigned.

I figured I might as well practice some joinery while at it and see where (not if) I fail and learn something from it.

The goal was something like this:

I decided to only use hand tools in the process and chisel it all out. Sadly I forgot to measure that the top was perpendicular and ended up having to cut one of the pieces of to get it straight. This resulted in an avalanche of other problems so I figured I would use the bad joint as practice target for trying to fix a bad joint with inserts of other pieces of wood.

This is what I manage to accomplish with my current set of skills and tools.

How did I do it? Continue reading! But first a word from my sponsor... Hmm, there is no sponsor... Just read then...

First attempt at fixing a bad joint as practice

So I started out with something like the picture below. I'm not too sad about the result below since it gives me a perfect opportunity to see what can be roughly fixed and what cannot be fixed. The end result means nothing really. It's all about what you learn on the way there.

The mistakes I made in non-ordered lists of WTFs:

• Bad markings - I scratch my saw marks too deep, future me should use a pencil instead of damaging any wood
  
  
• Bad alignment - I didn't check that the flat surface of the legs was perpendicular to the leg itself, I just assumed it was. Always triple check all angles before starting.
  
  
• Unsharp tools - My freshly bought chisels weren't close to as sharp as they should have been, had to learn how to sharpen them.
  
  
• Bad lighting - I really need to invest in new lights for my tiny space.
  
  
• Different hardness of wood - Oak was a lot harder than my pine. I knew that, but have never really experienced working with them in the same piece. I wonder if this will pose a sanding problem where the pine will be hollowed out more than the oak? (if hand sanding)

I levelled it out as good as possible, still only using hand tools (a chisel basically) and cut some wedges to correct sizes. Glued them in and applied a bit of pressure to avoid the glue from taking up any space. (Which it did anyway).

After letting the glue dry I sawed of any extra wood with a Japanese saw.

The images are from different sides, but you get the idea. The clamp is there to provide some pressure whilst glueing.

Went over it again with a freshly sharpened chisel (don't own an hand planer yet) and sanded it roughly with 120 grit sand paper. I kinda see some light in the end of the tunnel here. This might just be good enough for a wood shop work bench table leg! Of course it needs sanding and love.

I continues the whole way around, one side at a time since. No rush here.

Getting bolder

Cutting the square pieces that goes into the large holes are getting quite straight forward now. It takes a while to get that perfect wedge shape that expands kinda equally over all sides. So I needed to ruin something else and my eyes turned to the join between the pine and the oak at the red square in the image below.

I chiseled out a slightly larger groove and continued on the other side up to the notchy thing.

 

Clamping it all up, note to self, get smaller clamps or at least more of them. I currently own 4 clamps...

After the glue dried I trimmed of the excess wood using my handy Japanese saw. Note that it has two different set of teeth on either side. One is for cutting across the fibers and the other is for cutting along the fibers.

After a quick cut, it looked something like this. I wasn't to meticulous while doing this since it will be planed and sanded soon.

Still not owning a hand planer, so I grabbed my sharpest chisel and kind of poor-man planed the edges over the entire joint.

Then I couldn't hold myself and ended up hand sanding the joint on this side. First with 60 grit, then cleaning, 120 grit, then cleaning and finally a gentle rubbing with 240 grit... Then cleaning. Those were the three size papers I had lying around, so I used those grits for this test.

Starting to look smooth. But the inlays are of course not pretty. The look just smashed in there so next time I'll take more time on getting the edges and wedges super straight.

And then I grabbed a random bottle of wood oil and rubbed it in. This one made the oak a little bit too dark for my taste. It looks so 80s... I'll be sanding it away again anyhow and try a different oil or a simple clear coating.

Not too shabby for the first attempt (of fixing a failed joint). Good enough for the garage.

The Result

There is a difference I would say at least and I learned a lot as usual from doing this.

What's next?

Machine sanding it, starting with 80 grit, then 120 grit and finally xxx grit. Cleaning the wood with paint cleaner.

And oiled the whole thing with wood oil. Not too picky about what oil to use. It's going to be a garage furniture in the end anyhow.

Reattached the legs to the table.

Awesomeness!

And after that?

The next step is to sand and perhaps plane the table surface as well.

Creating a jig for sharpening my chisels

Sharp tools are an absolute must when working with wood. I'm totally new to this, so I'm just fiddling in the dark to find my way of doing it. 

The way I do it is most likely wrong but it does get me to the point of being able to shave arm hair, which seems to be the universal way of telling if something is sharp according to YouTube videos.

Currently I only own diamond sharpening plates in four differents grit values. (200, 400, 600 and 1000 I think). Start by using the 200 grit plate and move your way up to the 1000 grit plate. Only paid about $10 for the plates in total. So no high end stuff here.

For sharpening whilst working, I only use the 1000 grit. If you need to sharpen from a totally dull tool, start at 200 and repeat the steps for each grit value.

I'm also using the plates dry. It seems to work, don't know if this will ruin the plate faster or not. See what works for you.

Flatten the back

The back needs to be as flat as possible. Lay the chisel down on the flat side and move it in an eight-figure all over the plate until you see that some material has been removed, especially at the top of the chisel (aka the sharp edge). Apply a small amount of pressure, but less than you think. The most important thing is to keep it flat.

Any time you sharpen an edge, burr will build up on the other side. This needs to be removed. For the lower grit values a gently flip the chisel over and drag it towards me, with low pressure. For finer grit values I use a piece of soft wood. I guess a strip of leather would be better, but I have no cows close to me at the moment.

The bevel

The cutting side, or the bevelled side of the chisel should be cut in two angles. A long 25 degree angle and a really short 30 degree angle at the top. The reason for this is to reduce the time needed to sharpen your chisel since you only need to sharpen the 30 degree angle. When the short section becomes too long you need to resharpen to 25 degrees and then add a new 30 degree bevel.

The easiest way to get a consistent angle is to buy a jig that ensures that the chisel is meeting the plate at the expected angle. I didn't have a jig so I used some adhesive tape and eyeballed a 30 degree angle. 

I stuck a small piece of wood to another larger piece of wood to create a template so that I didn't have to repeat the process of measuring (eye-balling) for each chisel.

And finish off by removing the burr by gently drag the other side towards you. (This should be a piece of soft wood, so imagine that in your head)!

The result

My arms have never been smoother. For me, this works. It will be fun to see how long the plates last. The end goal is to get some wet stones to compare the results at a later stage.

Improvements

For a future version of this complicated jig I'll try out adding a powerful magnet instead of the adhesive tape. Tape is expensive and it would be a lot quicker to snap on and off the chisel instead. The only question now is to figure out what strength of magnet that would be enough to hold it, but still removable without pulling hard on very sharp chisels.