New Skelton Saw

A new saw arrived from Shane Skelton last week which, as usual, is a beauty.

The beautiful Honduras rosewood handle looks and feels great.

It's a very specific saw with a pair of fixed blades and is designed to cut two kerfs which enables perfectly sized dovetail pins to be achieved. The spacing is quite small which is ideal for small to medium sized boxes. A larger pin, say for large chests, can be achieved easily be made by moving the saw along one cut and creating three kerfs.

The idea of a kerf starter is nothing new with various types, both commercial and homemade in use.

Run up against a square (the teeth have no set) it creates two square and evenly spaced kerfs. These are great if cutting dovetails freehand as well as with my magnetic dovetail guides.

Here are the cuts which have gone down about 1 mm.

And here is the result, identically sized pins straight from the saw.

Wadkin Heavy Duty Disc Sander on E Bay

I spotted this beautiful Wadkin two ended disc sander on E Bay and was sorely tempted, they don't make them like this any more! It's in Bury St Edmunds and obviously needs to be picked up, the E Bay link is below.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wadkin-300mm-disc-and-profile-sander-240volt/324076014927?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

Krenov Style Wall Cabinet

Jack sent me these pictures of a lovely little wall cabinet he's made. It's from African Padouk, rippled sycamore, spalted beech with an ebony door pull.

It's very much in the Krenov style and the curved door has been shaped from the solid, not easy in that very hard wood. Jack made a wooden high angle smoother which helped him avoid tear out.

The door is hung with knife hinges which are very discreet and ideal for a small project like this.

Making a Dovetailed Box with Tilt Top Lid

With the dovetailing weekend approaching I realised that I didn't have one of this style of box to show to the participants. I've been cutting all my dovetails freehand recently just to keep my hand in.

It went well and I had them done and glued up in 80 minutes.

The box needs a lining to support the lid and these need to be of perfect width before shooting the mitred corners. I used a fence (stuck on with double sided tape) on my shooting board set exactly to 50.5 mm.

The next job was to shoot the lid to an exact fit, each end was shot separately then trimmed down to the required width.

Beautiful shavings of spalted beech.

The finished box...……….

…….....with tilt top lid.

Below you can see the lining angled at one end to create a gap for the tilt to work.

An add on base was applied with double sided tape, this gives a nice shadow line around the box as well as adding useful weight.

Nice Dovetailed Wall Cabinet

Rick from London sent me these pictures of a very nice wall cabinet he made from maple. The spalted drawer fronts are an attractive touch.

He also sent me these pictures of the vice on his Ulmia bench, I don't know why manufacturers secure the end cleats in the middle, it would be much better to glue them at the front and let all the expansion and contraction take place at the rear.

Plane Making Weekend Pictures

At the end of a busy first day, all the planes had been clamped up and left to cure overnight.

After five minutes on the bandsaw they were transformed into a recognisable shaped.

Now the hand work begins with spoke shaves, rasps and sand paper (optional).

The bubinga was tough on the blades, so there was plenty of sharpening needed.

Bob using my Bill Carter plane to flatten the sole, there aren't too many planes that can handle Lignum without tear out!

The first coat of shellac on Grahams completed plane, this one is in English cherry with a lignum sole.

Richard taking the first test shavings on his new jack plane.

A justifiably happy bunch!