Getting a grip

I do like a good garage sale. Car boot sale, clearing sale, antique auction, garage sale. Call them what you will, but if there's old stuff, covered in rust and dust, then I'm a happy camper. So what's better than a good garage sale? How 'bout the annual Kyneton Garage Sale Weekend! 
Yes that's right, purveyors of stuff both old and new, valued and valueless have their address added to a secret map, which is handed out for $3 a pop, at 8am on Saturday morning. From that point the race is on to get to as many of the garage sales as possible before anyone else.

I was fortunate enough to ride shotgun in a van with a good friend David and his Dad John, who are seasoned garage sale specialists. If we went to one sale that day, we went to fifty! Some streets in the town had 3 or 4 sales per street. By lunch time the van was full to the brim and we were pining for coffee.

Strangely enough for me, I didn't buy a heap of stuff that day. But one particular sale on the outskirts of town sticks in my mind. A heap of stuff spread out in the front house paddock of a small farm. Amongst the old bicycles and junk was a broken plastic tub with a heap of old rusty iron in it and a few old porcelain insulators, the kind you would find on old telegraph posts. On the top of the heap was an old rusty strap style gate hinge. I'd been looking for one to pair up to another forged hinge I already have. 

Great, I thought as I headed over to get a price. The old fella came over and asked what tub it had come out of and then proceeded to tell me the whole tub was 3 dollars. "I really don't want all this rubbish," coursed through my mind as I handed over the gold coins, but it was a cheap hand made hinge all the same. 

As I bent down to pick up the tub my eyes focussed on one of the rusty bits of iron. There in front of me was a very old iron 'parallel guide' from a leg vise. God knows how long it must have been sitting around rusting away. Bargain.

But not much use unless you have a good screw mechanism to go with it I hear you say? Well I can't even remember where I found this old one, but it's been waiting for a home for years. So into the molasses with both of them and when they come out, they'll go onto a new workbench for the workshop classroom. One mans trash is another man treasure........especially for three bucks.

Smooth running

When I made my woodworking pilgrimage of sorts to the U.S. I visited a number of well known furniture makers workshops. Some, such as George Nakashima's, are still active and vibrant workshops, producing pieces in the style of Nakashima's original work. Wharton Esherick, who like Nakashima, is said to be one of the founding fathers of modern American furniture, has had his unique home and workshop turned into a small museum.

A fascinating insight into Esherick's work and lifestyle, his home showcases not only his unique sense of style but also some extraordinary and ingenious craftsmanship. A walk through his kitchen shows random edged floorboards which have been beautifully interwoven, creating one of the most unique wooden floors I've seen. This eye for detail and creative flair are echoed throughout the home, at every turn, like ascending the spiral staircase while holding its mammoth tusk hand rail !

One thing which is not immediately apparent is hidden under Eshericks bed. Large drawers ( which still contain Eshericks clothing ) that given their size, under normal circumstances would be heavy to open and close. The guide who showed them to us, opened and closed them with one finger, effortlessly. The secret was that the drawer sides were more than double the actual length of the drawer, in fact they passed the opposite side of the bed, through the wall under the window and went some distance under the skillion roof outside. These extra long sides give the drawers perfect balance and ensure that the drawers do not bind up on the kickers or runners. Quite clever.

Wanting the basin stand to resemble a Shaker nightstand meant a single drawer at the front. But having a basin sitting above that drawer of course means a waste pipe and trap, right in the middle. My first thought was to have a false drawer front, complete with turned drawer pull. But the thought of people pulling at the faux drawer, perhaps mistaking it for being jammed, until something breaks or they start dragging the nightstand across the floor, quickly put me off that idea. I then thought of a short drawer, only 100 - 125mm ( 4 - 5" ) deep, but concern over it being pulled from the carcass and out onto the floor, put an end to that. 

That's when I recalled seeing the Esherick drawer. And so the drawer sides are full length and instead of through dovetails at the end of the drawer, simple through mortise and tenons instead, setback to allow for the drain. 

No unnecessary stress on the nightstand, no pulling a short drawer out by accident and a smooth running drawer which allows for the basin. 

Memory is the diary we all carry about with us. - Oscar Wilde.

More old stuff...

Lots of things to do as per usual but sometimes you have to take five and smell the roses. Sunday was such a day and found me in the back blocks of Trentham on the hunt for timber. Well I didn't have to hunt too far or wide as this timber, Hawthorn to be precise, was sitting in a very large heap in Tom's paddock waiting to be burned.

I had mentioned to a new acquaintance Stuart, that Hawthorn was a useful timber for turning into handles, draw-pulls etc. ( it also ebonises well ) and had shown him a long 'slick' handle that I had turned from some Hawthorn from Dad's farm. The following day saw us selecting some nice long lengths of Hawthorn trunk from the pile. Enough to fill more than half of the ute. Thank you Tom and thanks Stuart!

While we were there Tom's son Angus, gave us a tour of the rest of the farm including one particularly nice old stone building near the banks of the Coliban River.

This old beauty which is thankfully fenced off from livestock was too interesting to pass by without having a look. Buildings like this have such an interesting story to tell, if your prepared to listen....or look.

On walking inside I immediately looked up and saw the original hand split shakes in the roof. While staring wide eyed at the perfectly split shakes, I cast my eyes towards the rafters and noticed the tell tale diagonal saw marks on them. A closer look ( unfortunately very hard to see in the photo taken with my phone ) confirmed that the rafters were indeed pit-sawn, another indication of just how old the building was.

Just as interesting were the tiles on the floor, which again were hand made and as Stuart recognised, contained flecks of quartz and other impurities amongst the clay. The last time I had seen hand made colonial tiles like these was at Mont de Lancey Homestead in Wandin, where they hold them in great esteem. I know it's hard work and it costs money but we all should do everything we can to ensure these connections to our past don't fade away to a distant memory, as once they are gone, they're gone for good.

After running around preparing for a days saw milling tomorrow, I did manage to fit in a little more work on the Huon Pine Vanity/stand for the bathroom, getting the frame glued, the top re-sawn, milled, glued and beveled and the drawer stock milled and dovetailed.

The drawer runners and kickers just have to be fitted and drawer the finished off, then the top planed and fitted. The drawer will be a little unusual too as it will have to stop short to allow for the basin waste pipe. More on that later.

Shaker Nightstand in Huon Pine

A few posts back I gave a brief list of some of the furniture I intend to make for the cottage. I had omitted one piece as it will actually be more of a fixture or built in. 

Commonly known as a Shaker Nightstand they were made in most if not all the communities in differing forms. Variations were made to the legs, some turned instead of tapered and the tops were both undercut and straight edged. Most often they only had a single drawer.  They were both oiled and painted. The nightstand for the cottage is being made as a stand for the hand basin in the bathroom and like all the other furnishings in the bathroom will be made from solid Huon Pine. Virtually impervious to water, it should be ideal for its intended use.

I've made 5 of these little tables now and as well as being aesthetically pleasing they are very easy to make. Just like any piece of furniture really in that if you follow some very basic steps it goes together without much trouble. 

I had come across a supply of Huon which I had earmarked for this piece, but it has taken a while to materialise. So with some regret I hauled out my railway sleeper sized piece of Huon and began to break it down. The flip side of the coin being that the entire nightstand will be from the one flitch so the colour match will be perfect. I couldn't guarantee this with the other supply.

All previous nightstands I've made have been to order and to fill a particular use or place and so all have been differing sizes. The basin that will sit on this stand is 130mm high so I worked backward to make it a comfortable height to wash your hands. This gave me the overall height of 690mm. From that basic measurement and the pre determined void that the stand will fill, it was just a case of ensuring the rest was in proportion. 

Given that the Huon flitch was over 1800mm ( approx 6' ) long with a slight curve a third of the way down, I first broke it down into smaller components to ensure I didn't lose too much in jointing and thicknessing it. 

With the parts prepared, I marked out the top divider and dovetailed the tops of the front legs. I like to make the top and bottom dividers a little wider than average and dovetail/tenon them into the upper and lower doublers. It may be overkill but I like them to have the extra strength top and bottom, especially when the drawer is extended and puting racking pressure on the carcass.

With the legs and upper doublers dovetailed and the bottom divider tenoned into the legs and lower doublers, the rails were mortice and tenoned and the whole thing stood together to check for fit. I then cut the drawer front to the exact dimension of the drawer opening and tapered the four legs. 

I would usually taper legs on a nightstand to half of their upper dimensions, but in this case I have left them slightly heavier. This is due to the weight of the basin and the fact that people may be inclined to lean on it. I don't think the extra 3mm will adversely affect the overall proportions.

So at the end of a fairly relaxing day all of the parts for the carcass have been rough cut and readied for hand planing tomorrow prior to being assembled. I'll then re-saw the last lump from the flitch to create a nice book matched top. 

A few steps closer

As the old adage goes, 'red sky at night, shepherds delight.' The weather has certainly turned the corner. With that I've been able to move outside and get on with the finishing touches to the outside of the cottage. One of those is the stairs and balustrading on the deck.

My dealings to date with stairs have been climbing and descending them and I think once falling asleep up some, but I digress. So with my carpenters square in hand and a pair of old stair gauges that I must have bought 4 or 5 years ago ( perhaps I had a vision of a future staircase? ) I set to work on the Macrocarpa planks Dad had bought up for the job.

Working on a rough angle of 40 degrees I found I needed 4 steps or goings. Then, settling on the tread width I was able to calculate the exact riser height and thereby where the stringer would fall. The gauges were then placed on the square at the tread width and riser height and the stringer marked out.

So with trusty circular saw in hand I cut the first stringer and checked it for fit. Having now managed to use trigonometry successfully for the first time since high school, I used the first stringer as a template to mark out and cut the other two. Three treads were then cut and milled to size ( the fourth tread being the the decking boards ). The whole thing was then glued and screwed together with heavy 100mm galvanised bugle head screws and given a good coat of primer. It will be the same colour as the house.

Before setting the stair in place, I fitted two short galvanised stirrups with 90x 90 cypress posts to the underside of the bottom tread and stringer. With these fitted,  I lifted the stair into place, the stirrups seating themselves into holes I had pre-dug and half filled with a wet mix of concrete. Levelled and screwed to the deck bearer, the remainder of the holes were filled with concrete and the stair braced in place to set. Not bad for a first time, I thought. ( Did I pass Wayne?? )

Sterling M.A., Circa 1800

Kyneton, Circa ....today

                                                      

The rest of the deck posts will be fitted tomorrow, then the rails, balusters etc. I took a cue for pegging the posts from seeing Pete Galbert's Chestnut newel post in his 18th century Massachusetts house. Hopefully before to long I'll be enjoying a relaxing drink on the deck instead of building it!

Red sky at night......

Bits and pieces

                    Haskins Work Counter in Cherry, Pine & Poplar -$491,000 at auction in 2006

"Why patronise the outside world or gugaws in our manufacture, when they will say we have enough of them abroad? We want a good plain substantial Shaker article, yea, one that bears credit to our profession and tells who and what we are, true and honest before the world, without hypocrisy or any false covering. The wourld at large can Scarcely keep pace with it self in its stiles and fassions which last but a short time, when something still more worthless or absurd takes its place. Let good enough alone, and take good common sense for our guide in all our persuits, and we are safe within and without."

Brother Orren N. Haskins Jan. 18, 1887 New Lebanon, New York.

There is a good deal of work both signed and attributed to Br. Haskins of the New Lebanon Shaker community. Desks, looms, trying and moulding planes, workbenches, to name a few. All of his pieces embodied the words he wrote well over a hundred years ago, but which still ring true today.

In a weeks time I will start to make the furnishings for the cottage. They have been pieces that I have had in mind for a few years and now we have the perfect setting for them. Hopefully they too will reflect the honesty and substance that Lisa and I are trying to bring back to the cottage.

Freestanding kitchen shelving

                                                  New Lebanon style trestle dining table

                                                                       Candle stand

  

A step back cupboard such as this one from the Watervliet community, but with a few subtle      

  changes. This should keep me busy for a week or two...

Molasses Part 2

On the weekend I removed the H V McKay gate hinges. Here's the before and after photos. The hinges  have just been washed and left dry in the sun. They were then scrubbed down and oiled, but as you can see it has bought them back to the point where you can even see remnants of the original silver paint.

I also dragged out a set of four castor wheels that I found buried deep in the dirt at the back of the house. These things didn't swivel and the wheels had all seized. They were just rusty clumps of iron. Even I was doubtful if they could be bought back to life.
Not only did they clean up well, I was able to undo the square nuts on the bolts, which I thought would have to be sawn off. Best of all the molasses had free'd up all of the ball bearings and they swivel beautifully. Now to build something to sit on them.

The beginning and the end.

Last week we had an almighty wind storm through the region. Real 'blow a dog off it's chain stuff!' As you would expect, trees all over the place came down. As I've said previously, drought has affected the roots of many of these old trees. Above is a good example of that. This pine started a domino effect that resulted in over a dozen trees in this stand coming down.

It's a real mess in there with trees hung up and half down. Flip side being there's some nice saw logs amongst them.

This massive Radiata Pine came down at Rock House. It's 1200mm ( 47" ) at the base where I let it off the root ball and 990mm ( 38" ) just under the crown,  6.8m ( 22' ) away. There may even be some good stuff for seat blanks in there somewhere.....

While I was there I took down another dead Elm just across the driveway from where the last Elm fell. It was only a matter of time before it fell itself. There should be a good 3 or 4 sawlogs from this tree. As well as a generous supply of firewood for Mum and Dad's wood heater.

In just the same way as my connection to the above trees has begun, I'm now at the other end of the process with logs I milled 18 months ago. The London Plane above will be turned into panelled doors and drawer fronts for the last of the built-ins in the cottage.

Here's the frame just fitted into the old chimney cavity. Honed Limestone tiles ( just sitting there at the moment ) will cover up the old concrete hearth.

I broke up the monotony of the graduated drawers by dividing the top left into two smaller drawers. As I've seen in a good deal of other Shaker built-ins. Just the drawer runners in the bottom to go now and the frame/carcass is finished. With age and the sunlight streaming in of an afternoon, the Vic. Ash frame will turn a really rich golden colour.

All the uprights are dovetailed into the dividers. Dividers are loose mortise and tenoned into the uprights and the runners are all glued and screwed into place. Should make for a sturdy piece. It's a constant process, but a rewarding one. As a good friend of mine says. "It's never ending mate." "There's a beginning, a middle........ and another beginning!"

How does my Hare look?

I know. There has been a lot of non-wood working content on the blog of late, but I promise there is some good -wood related stuff to come. The last of the built-ins in the cottage is nearly finished and with that so is the cottage in its entirety. Im planning a 'walk through video' of the house when it's all done, so stay tuned, it's not far away.

Of course that is not inclusive of all the furniture to fit it out with. That's another story, but these things take time. It reminds me of when I renovated my last house and I had a retired carpenter/joiner who would help me out every few days for an hour or so. Tony was 70 at the time and one day I said to him that Rome wasn't built in a day. Quick as a flash he replied, " that's because I wasn't the foreman! " What can you say to that?

Anyway, while I'm off the subject, I couldn't let this photo opportunity slip by. Two days ago I was in the paddock at Rock House tidying up the last of the Elm when I noticed something moving through the grass. Rats are common place and the size was about the same. Then this little guy popped up. No not a rabbit, but a hare. Well, a leveret to be precise. When you have seen plenty of both rabbits and hares, it's quite easy to tell one from the other, even when they are this young.

I think the sound of the saw must have moved him ( her? ) out from under the log. Unlike rabbits hare are much more docile and I think he was just glad to be away from the noise.

Not living in burrows like rabbits, hare live in 'forms' or depressions in long grass. And unlike the rabbit they have never successfully been kept in captivity. So while Tom would have loved to have had him as a friend for his guinea pigs, he sat on and in my beanie before I let him go back in the long grass when we were finished.

                                                          How do you like those feet!

Although these guys are a feral animal, it is good to see them out and about. Ok, it's out of my system now. Tune in for the next cottage instalment and soon after I'll be listing and showing the range of furniture I intend to make for it.

Vitamin D

It took it's time, but I think I can safely say that Spring has finally sprung. Kyneton's famous daffodils are out in their golden thousands. And to celebrate the golden greatness, Sunday saw the annual Daffodil Parade.

 
Here's Tom in the orange vest, marching with his Kindergarten. It was a great day.

Yesterday I actually made it through a good part of the day without my beanie and scarf wrapped tightly around my neck.  In a few weeks I may even cease to be translucent !

Our garden has also come to life, the half dozen fruit trees in the back yard are all in full bloom.

The garlic has punched it's way through the mulch.

Even this little Crimson Rosella was enjoying the sun. Sitting on the vent pipe outside our kitchen window he chirped away quite happily. I'm fairly sure he and his mate are nesting in a fist sized hole in the wall of our neighbours weatherboard house.

I'll admit I'm fond of cool weather but it's heartening to see the sun for a change, hope it's warming your neck of the woods....... and your neck too for that matter.

Sweet

You may have guessed by now that I'm fairly fond of woodworking tools. In fact pretty much all hand tools and especially old ones. Sometimes you're lucky enough to find old stuff in great condition but on the odd occasion you'll find something that is not quite what it used to be. Covered in rust, scale or both, but perhaps there's something about it, it's rarity or another quality, that make it worthy of attention.

A few weeks back I was driving through Chewton ( little old 1800's gold mining town ) with a few minutes to spare and popped into one of the local antique shops to have a quick look around. A quick scrounge in one of the tool boxes and voila! Two old Cooks Patent auger bits. Nice. Only one problem, they were heavily covered in rust. I could see that there was some semblance of writing on the drill shaft but there was no way of making out what.

Here is a couple of pairs of H.V. McKay cast gate hinges, uncommon and worth cleaning up. The drill bits were in the same condition, but I didn't get a 'before' photo....

Although some old tools require cleaning to become serviceable again or 'users,'  it's always disappointing seeing a great old piece that has been destroyed by over zealous cleaning, usually with a wire brush wheel on a bench grinder. The end result is a gaudy, bright, over polished silver lump without any of the detail that may have existed under the rust. Not the answer. And especially when you are talking about the ultra fine spiral tip on a Cook's bit.

                                                   Mmmm, a drum full of black goodness

On the way home I recalled something that my Uncle put me onto when I was a kid, wanting to clean up all manner of junk that I was collecting at the time. Molasses . Yep, jet black, sickly sweet smelling molasses. So a quick detour via the stock and feed agents around the corner and a 20 litre bucket of Queensland's finest was procured. At around 52% pure sugar this stuff is made to eat rust. There's no special secret. Just tip the molasses into a larger drum and add the same volume of water. Mix it thoroughly until it's an even solution. Ideally you would just use neat molasses, but this stuff is so thick you would spend half your time trying to submerge anything in it!

                                                        Freshly rinsed and dried

Then just put what ever it is you want to clean into the drum and make sure it's fully covered. Then just sit back and wait. Depending on how thick the rust is, it can take between two to four weeks. Then just fish out the offending piece of metal and rinse off all the molasses. You'll notice that all of the rust will have gone and the item will be a dull matt grey, possibly with a yellowish scale as well. This can be removed with a very light rub with some 0000 steel wool or a scotch brite pad.

The result two very clean Cooks patent bits, with a light coat of machinists oil to stop the rust returning. The sharp detail all still present and the makers names, I Sorby and Thomas Turner & Co. as clear as a bell. The gate hinges are due out next week, along with a a couple of very old spades and a set of cast castor wheels. Cheap, easy and just the stuff to clean up any thing metal that has succumbed to rust. I wouldn't recommend it on your pancakes though...