Woodwork tips

[Heavymental]

Hi all,
Anyone got any sites that are good for woodwork knowledge. I'm looking at making some bits of furniture and am interested in joins and finishing mainly but a general infomation site with basic intructions and illustrations would be good.
Also...whats the best woodworking bible out there in good old paper format?
Cheers,
Tom

 

[Jasonb]

Have a look at this site, its American but the quality of the work is very good, not "lets make a bird table on a saturday morning"!

http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/index.asp

Jason

 

[Heavymental]

Nice one Jason....thats a good site added to the favourites! Looks like my bird table is going to be a work of art

Still looking for that woodwork bible book...anyone got a link for amazon?

 

[Jasonb]

Yes, its not a bad site, certainly cheaper than £6.50 for a copy of the magazine. If you want to make good quality furniture get a copy of "Furniture and cabinet Making" from your newsagent, several of the contributors also have books such as Kevin Ley, David Charlsworth and Paul Richardson.

Have a look here for books http://www.rutlands.co.uk/cgi-bin/psDept.cgi?Books & Plans

Jason

 

[wickerman]

What do you want to make Tom ?????? I made a living out of making furniture and Kitchens for 14 years until recently, perhaps i could help.

 

[Heavymental]

Hi Wickerman. Well my first foray into anything to do with wood was when I made a hifi stand...see link below. I'm sure you lot will laugh at this as all I needed to do was drill the holes and do some sanding I didn't use MDF but got hold of a lovely bit of thick Ash that I sanded and Danished oiled. Took me a while to get a nice finish but I was really impressed with the wood. The look of the threaded rods and wood is actually quite nice...the contrast between the metal and wood is quite unusual I suppose. Its certainly not traditional. If you read the below you can skip all the technicalities about damping etc. I wasn't really building it with that in mind....I just liked the design.
http://www.tnt-audio.com/clinica/flexye.html

Anyway I'm now going to make a similar free standing set of low shelves (2) to store my records and cd's on. I was thinking of again using some bits of Ash, about 60" x 16" x 3" but rather than cop out with the threaded rods I wanted to do a Mortice and Tenon Joint with a wedge. Not sure what the exact name of the joint is but you get it on tables a lot!

1 1
='1==========================1'=
1 1
='1==========================1'=
1 1


Thats a pic of what I have in mind...good eh!
Anyway I really wanted to know how I'd go about cutting the joint without some heavy duty equipment or is there a better joint I could use? I thought the m+t would look quite good as I don't want anything too traditional.

Sorry that was a bit of a stream of conciousness!

 

[Jasonb]

So it was you looking for the 20mm MDF.

The joint I think you are describing is a Wedged Through Mortice and Tennon. You don't need special tools just a saw for the tennon and a chisel for the mortice.

Will see if I can find a pic

Jason

 

[Heavymental]

Jason,
No it wasn't me although I just read that thread as well to see if it was for the same design. I didn't really want to use MDF, the Ash i got was unsawed at the front edge so I have the bark at the front. Looks a bit better than MDF I think

Realise my pic didn't come out quite right...its missing one end...but that is the right joint although it might take some chiselling to make the mortice in the ash as it will be quite long with 16" wide shelves. Should I take it to a shop to get it cut with a proper tool? I have a circular saw but thats about it.

Tom

 

[wickerman]

 

[Jasonb]

I wouldn't cut one big mortice, wait until I post a pic of a more suitable joint.

The best way to deal with large mortices is to drill out most of the waste then square up the hole with a chisel, the still saw can be used with a guide to do most of the tennons. This is how I cut the joints for the deck shown in the pics below, took 2 days to do the lot, thep posts are 8"x8" square.

http://photobucket.com/albums/v156/jasonballamy/Oast Deck/

Jason

 

[Jasonb]

Do the joint like this one, I think its even ash.

http://www.leighjigs.com/photo.php?id=118

or did you mean with wedges like this

http://www.leighjigs.com/photo.php?id=126

This shows the type of layout, just use longer tennons for the loose wedge joints

http://www.leighjigs.com/cutters-m2.php

Jason

 

[Heavymental]

Thanks for that Jason, the one with wedges is just what I had in mind although I might make the joint slightly wider. Good links and tips, thanks very much.

Thanks for the tips wikerman! I'm not thinking of selling anything quite yet although I really enjoyed finishing the wood for the hifi rack so who knows what will happen. There was nothing complicated about my hifi rack so my enthusiasm might wane once I start cocking up joints

 

[wickerman]

well heres another tip for when you do cock ups---BUY A WOOD BURNER