Port Townsend School Woodworking Laura Mays - Getting Ready

 Back in Nov 2019, I signed up to take a summer woodworking class at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking (Meghan Fitzpatrick - Anarchist Tool Chest).  I was so excited that I built a mid-sized Japanese carpenter style tool box for the class.  Well, we know how 2020 turned out.  I was so bummed about the class I built a mini-Anarchist tool chest on my own and have been holding off on the full sized ATC in hopes that some day I can take the class from Meghan somewhere.

Port Townsend is a beautiful town.  I used to live in WA state and had visited there a least half a dozen times or more before the school existed  As such, I wanted to get back there, take a class, and visit my close friends I still have in this state.  Laura Mays, head of Krenov School of Woodworking in Fort Bragg, was going to teach a class on small boxes/dovetails.  I want to get better at dovetails so this seemed like a great class and I signed up.

I wanted to bring my two tools.  Given it's a family vacation as well and gas prices are through the roof we wanted to take our hybrid rather than the mini-van.  I figured we would save $500 worth of gas by using the hybrid.  As such, this meant I was going to use my mini-ATC as the mid-sized tool chest doesn't fit will in the vehicle.

Laura Mays was kind enough to outline what tools we would need and was responsive to my email for a few clarifying questions.  Having said that, I didn't want to bring just the bare bones minimal tools.  Honestly, I feel a bit uncomfortable not having all the hand tools I have and use with me.  For saving $500 in gas, I was easily motivated to pare down what I would bring.

The wood we start with will be S4S'd and we will be cutting off pieces during the week off of a board we have been given.  Since it comes relatively dimensioned, I am leaving No 5 and winding sticks behind.  I figured I needed a smoothing plane, 6" & 12" square, marking knife, a few chisels, a mallet, some sort of device to mark the dovetail locations (dividers, dovetail marker), block plane, sharpening stones.  There are a couple of other things to add such as a coping saw, Glen Drake offset kit w scraper for saw kerf, and a router hand plane (I like making rebates to align my dovetails) and small plough plane (in case we need groves for box bottoms).  

Not sure if Laura Mays will encourage or discourage any of these extra items.  I plan to make the dovetails and learn how she tells us to do things so if she says yea or nea to any of these things I will comply.  In another hobby I have, I've always found it amusing that folks will pay good money to take a class and then tell the instructor there is a better way to do something.  I have vowed from that other hobby to never be that person.  I'm there to learn however she wants us to do things.

So below are photos of what I brought.  It's more than I need but it fits in the small tool chest just fine.  I literally sharpened, cleaned, lubed, and adjusted each and every tool as needed.  That way, when I get there the tools should be in optimal working order.  It was also a good excuse to do an annual maintenance on the tools.  Needless to say, I'm very excited by this class.  I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas day.  It's not that often as an adult that I find things that really get me excited so I really enjoy it when it happens.  As I'm typing this (03Jul2022), the class hasn't started yet.  By the time you read this (30Jul2022) the class will have happened.  If all goes well (sometimes I don't feel like blogging), the next several posts will detail what the class was like.

Stretching My Skills Part 3 - The Paul Sellers Keepsake Box

 To recap, in my last post I mentioned I head a big sickening crack sound when I clamped together this Spanish cedar box.  One side broke badly.  I attribute that to my level of skill and that maybe Spanish cedar wasn't the best wood choice given how some areas were thin.  Rather than toss this, I wanted to see if I could fix it so that the box could be used for something.  Prior to the glue up, I had already reached the conclusion I would be making at least two more of these boxes.  That helped take a bit of the sting out of this issue.

Before I could fix the crack, I had to saw open the box to get the body and lid.  Fortunately, this was uneventful and nothing fell apart during this process.  

The first thing to do was to clamp and glue up the cracks to get the wood as close to the proper orientation.  It required two different glue ups with a day in between to make sure the glue set fully.  It helped but still looked ugly.  Ralph over at The Accidental Woodworker (hi Ralph) had an awesome idea - cover the cracks with inlay.  My wife loves inlay so any time I use it she gets happy.  I like to keep a variety of commercial inlay I purchase from the local Woodcraft and Rockler in my shop so I already had it handy.  

I used my small router (a tool that doesn't get used often but I'm happy when I have a chance to use it) to put a symmetrical design.  I didn't put the banding on all four sides - this had become a shop box and I didn't want to "waste" the banding.  I wanted to practice fixing the break to make it less visible and where the symmetrical banding is accomplishes this.

I used my low angle block plane (new tool purchase which I will talk about in some future blogs - I like it but could live without as I've gone without one for close to 7 years) to flush the inlay.  In a few areas I got some blow out - sigh.  In another area, I didn't make the groove deep enough to accept the inlay - double sigh.  That's ok.  I have learned something and will keep this in mind next time I use inlay.  I could have spent more time trying to fix the inlay but I stopped.  Given the gaps in the dovetails, etc, etc.  The fix was good enough and the box would be fine in my garage as is.

For the hinges, I was worried that the Spanish cedar would be too fragile to support them.  As such, I added some cherry backing blocks to firm up the area.  I could have tried inlaying the hinges and screwing them in without this but I found that fixing this error was taking a lot of time.  My lesson learned is that it is always worth spending a little time to avoid having an error rather than fixing it.  If I had to guess, 5 to 7  hours of the 30 hours it took me to build this box was to fix the problem.

It turned out that I also ordered the wrong hinges.  I had through these were stop hinges (which I had heard about on Fine Woodworking's Shop Talk Live podcast).  They weren't but they also stopped at 90 degrees but they mounted on the outside.  Luckily I ordered only one pair for Horton Brasses.  I have ordered and received more sets of stop hinges so I will be ok for the next few boxes.  The inlay process itself for the hinges went fine.

For the legs, I just took some small pieces of scrap, shaped, and put 45 degree miters.  I haven't done many 45 degree miters and it showed.  Again, more boxes will give me more practice.  I really like these feet that Paul Sellers designed.  No doubt I will use them on other types of projects when I want a simple foot on a box.  

From there, it was a matter of applying finish.  For this project the finish only goes on the outside so that the interior of the box retains the nice Spanish cedar smell.  I went with what I like and looks good - shellac.  I dissolved up some blond shellac flakes in isopropanol.  Why isopropanol you ask?  I have a fair bit of it in the shop and wanted to see how well it work.  Not quite as good as ethanol but acceptable.  Three(ish coats, denibbed, then three more coats of the 1-1.2 lb cut)  After letting the box sit for a week, I waxed.  

It's done.  I think it took 31 hours.  I learned a lot in making this.  Very much looking forward to making more of these.  However, that will have to wait as I need to get ready for a woodworking class that I'm super excited to be taking.  That will be the focus of next week's blog.