Some months ago, in the beforetimes, I made an armrest coaster from walnut. This was nice, and well received, but we decided that another one would be handy. The local Rockler store was getting ready to move, and they had all their exotic lumber on sale. They had this rosewood board left, and Sharon loves rosewood, so into the basket and onto the todo list it went.
Rosewood armrest coaster
There are some cracks in the wood, and i tried filling them, with only limited success. It should not effect the structure, though. Most things about the construction were the same here, except I had to cut my own splines. I should have done that on the band saw instead of on the table saw. A bit of tape to keep the splines from falling into the saw after cutting made this much safer. The gluing went a lot better this time than last time. I guess I was more patient and more practiced. Anyway, here’s what it looks like in situ:
Coaster on armrest
A couple of doses of boiled linseed oil to seal the wood, and it’s ready to use.
Back in October of 2016, when I was in Japan for the TV show, I had a few “free” days in Tokyo when they weren’t shooting video and I could go do whatever I wanted. One of these, I walked from my hotel near the Shiba Daimon Gate up to the Tokyo National Museum, a distance of some three or so miles. One of the displays in the museum that day was a collection of wood and lacquer items. Within that display was a small collection of masu measuring boxes from the 15th century. Ever since that day, I’ve been wanting to recreate at least one of these boxes.
Masu in the TNM
Most people here in the West are familiar with masu as the wooden sake cups one sometimes receives with cold sake in sushi restaurants. That size, is a 1 goumasu. Five of the six masu in the TNM were 1 shoumasu. They have ten times the capacity of a sake cup masu. A thousand gou is a year’s supply of rice for one person, called a koku. A shou of rice is about the amount a person might buy in the market for a family.
The way a rice merchant would use a masu is to dig into the rice bushel with the box, and lift out a mounded boxful of rice. Then, drag a rod across the top of the box to level off the measure, much in the same way a baker uses a metal spatula to level off a measure of flour. ! shou of rice is about 1.8 liters, usually described as “about a half gallon”.
Here’s a better picture of just one of the masu in the museum:
Probably the best masu in the collection
This image shows some vital details necessary for recreating this kind of 1 shoumasu. The bottom is not captive within the walls, it is applied and extends to the full footprint of the box. This one shows significant wear, rounding off the bottom edges. The joinery at the corners is simple, more or less “box” joints, but with the huge half-height “fingers” I am used to seeing on boxes from this era. Interestingly, the joints “chase” around the box, and all sides are Z-shaped. The joinery is secured with two pegs per finger. The rim of the box is covered in copper strips. These strips keep the top edge of the box from being worn down by the rubbing of the leveling rod. the copper strips appear to be nailed on.
Anyway, it’s taken me some time to get around to completing my masu. First, I had to calculate the measurements needed to achieve the 1.8 liter volume. If I planed down some cedar boards to half-inch thickness, my walls needed to be (amusingly) seven inches long and three inches tall. I’m told that the actual volumes of the masu in this collection vary significantly, but whatever. I started working probably two years ago, ut the planed boards sat on my workbench until recently. I even got some sheet copper and cut it into strips, and that sat waiting too. My copper is about half as thick as the strips in the museum masu, and I think that the walls of the boxes may be thinner, but I do what I can. I was able to cut all the joinery by hand, and hand-drill the holes for the pegs using a yotsume kiri gimlet. I glued everything together with rice-paste glue, which may or may not be authentic, but is certainly closer than if I’d used wood glue.
Anyway, here’s my masu with its measuring rod:
I was even able to get copper-plated nails to attached the strips. It feels so good to finally complete this project after all this time. This kind of common object is the kind of thing my SCA persona would have been familiar with as a mundane object in the marketplace, so it helps me complete the mental picture of what his world was like. I can now hold in my hands something I’d previously only seen behind glass in a museum.
I have these two things that I have been carrying around in my backpack for years, One is a slim plastic pencil case for miscellaneous adapters and cables. The other is a small Bluetooth keyboard for when I have serious typing to do on my phone. These coexist fairly well in some backpacks, but in others they just slide on top of each other and take up way too much space. I needed to make something that would hold them vertical, yet still make it easy to grab one or the other and pull it from my bag without having to undo fasteners.
The faces, once again, are thing plywood from the scrap pile. The dividers, and the floor you can’t really see, are half-inch by 1.25″ trimmings from 2×4. I have a bundle of these sticks from making the stands for the 7-Pearls Banner Project. Quick work to cut everything to size on the band saw, glue in place, then secure with brads from the nail gun. (This Ryobi cordless electric nail gun is probably one of the most useful tools I have ever bought from them. This model is a little finnicky, and they don’t sell it any more. I haven’t tried the newer models.)
The only fancy thing about this slipcase, besides its 100% custom nature, are the grab slots I cut to make it easier to actually grab the items. The keyboard box sticks up, but the pencil case totally disappears inside. If I ever stop using the cardboard box for that keyboard, its slot will be more necessary. Here is the slip case in my backpack:
Slipcase in Backpak
I’ve been wanting this for a while, so I’m glad I finally made some time to get this done.
All my spare blades for the band saw have been sitting in an inadequate CocaCola crate for years. This state of affairs was becoming more and more untenable when I was switching blades back and forth during the shogi project. While I was waiting for some glue to dry on a more central project, I decided to rectify that.
Band Saw box on Band Saw Table
The faces are some 3/16″ plywood from the scrap pile. The sides and floor of the box are some 3/8″ plywood from the scrap pile. Some of these utility projects are basically just ways for me to justify having kept around these massive quantities of scrap lumber for so long. The whole thing is just glued together with butt joints and pinned with 18gauge brads from the nail gun. One slightly fancy thing about this box are the two finger holes that make it easier to pick up the box.
Anyway, the interior is a little larger than 12″ wide, by 6″ deep. This gives me plenty of room to slide in the blister cards that Lowes sells 93.5″ band saw blades on. Another slightly fancy thing is a bracket for holding the miter gauge. It’s always a challenge finding someplace to put that thing when I’m no t using it. You can see how nicely this box fits on the band saw table, making it difficult for these two items to get separated.
Some months ago, I reorganized the shop a bit to make it easier to get to the band saw. At the old house, the band saw was set up in the middle of the basement and was always available for little things like making useful boxes. I’m so glad I have this saw back where I can use it easily without having to move other stuff out of the way.
A long time ago, I bought a set of six Stanley chisels on sale for $25. They came in a molded plastic case that was very handy for taking them places, but kind of inconvenient to have in a tool chest drawer. Recently, one of the latches broke off the case, and since these chisels rarely leave the house anyway, I decided to make a divided till to hold them.
Chisel Till in the Chisels and Scrapers Drawer
The floor of the till is some thin plywood from the scrap pile. The chisel handles are about 1.25″, so some 3/4″ thick 3/8″ wide scraps from the bin made good edges and dividers. These are glued in place, and then secured with 5/8″ x 18 gauge brads from the nail gun. The rail that supports the chisels blades is just some miscellaneous trimming from a 2×4 or something. It’s just glued in place since it’s not at risk of getting ushed over or anything.
Anyway, i’m pretty happy with it. We’ll see how well it does over time, but i think it will be fine. I actually worked on four things today, but this is the only one I completed, so cheers to it.
A furo is a “drying cabinet”. It’s where you put urushi lacquered objects to keep them warm and humidified until the lacquer has fully cured. Depending on the type of lacquer, this could take a number of weeks. In my case “furo” is actually short for “furnace room”, which is a nice warm room in the house that also contains the hot water heater.
I’ve been working on a couple of wooden box projects, and I decided to finish them with walnut oil. Walnut oil is a drying oil (like boiled linseed oil), but it contains no chemical drying agents like BLO does and is food safe. The down side is that it takes about a month to cure, so I can’t show these boxes as finished projects for some time.
Boxes in the furo
Both boxes are constructed primarily of 1/4″ cherry scants. These are off-cuts from trimming down the legs of the two cherry marudai I made. The floors of both boxes are bookmatched resawn maple. The floor of the smaller box is the result of trying to make the larger box and having it come out a little small due to lack of planning. The lid of the smaller box is more 1/4″ cherry that has been edge-glued into a single panel. The lid of the larger box is 3/4″ rough-sawn cherry salvaged from the scrap pile at Mr. Arimoto’s shop. Once the oil went on the raw surface of the cherry, the whole thing went deep and beautiful.
I’m going to try to resist the urge to peek in on them constantly. We’ll see how they look in a month.
With some surplus wood from the mysterious woodworking project, I made this little phone tray to mount in my car. I got tired of never having anyplace I could put my phone down where it would rest face up so I could glance at maps or whatnot.
Tray mounted in car
The tray, made entirely of 1/4″ cherry, is sized to fit my phone, and has a small cut-out for a charging cord. The wood is sealed with some shellac. The tray is clipped to the e-brake lever, which maybe isn’t the safest thing, but is certainly safer than balancing the phone on my knee while I drive.
Underside, showing clip
The clip (I don’t even know where this clip came from, It was in my bin of miscellaneous hardware. I suppose it’s for holding a broom handle.) is screwed to a block of walnut, and the block is attached to the underside of the tray using “Command” adhesive strips. This is so that if I ever want to, I can replace this mount with something else, or re-use this clip on a tray sized for a different phone.
The woodworking vise that I have mounted to the front of my workbench has a steel block that you can slide up above the top surface of the vise. The idea is that you can use this block along with a bench-mounted block (called a “bench dog”) to clamp things on the surface of the bench. The only problem is that my bench is made of 2×4 and plywood instead of solid wood. Since the vise bolts to the underside of the benchtop, the top of the vise isn’t flush with the top of the bench, so this clamping block is useless. I have added wood to the vise jaws, and the top of that wood is roughly flush, but the block is still way shorter than would be useful. Today I changed that.
This is the old, useless block
This is the new, useful block
Here you can see the dog bolted to the bench top
Here’s how you use the two together
I cut a block of 1/2-inch walnut so it had the same width as the block, but was longer. Then, I removed the old block and slid the new block down into the recess. I cut the new block so that when it was retracted, it would be below the top surface of the vise jaws. Then, I drilled the block so it would accept a 5/16″ tee nut. I made a new knob by adding a nut to a 5/16″ x 1″ bolt. Now, I can raise and lower the block, and secure it in place by tightening the nut. I would have re-used the knob from the old block, but it seems to be some kind of metric thread.
The dog is a piece of scrap wood with a hole drilled through it and a counter-sink to put the bolt head down below the surface of the block. This is important to make it more difficult for a tool to hit the metal of bolt while working on a clamped piece. I drove a 1/4″ threaded insert down into the bench so that I can bolt any old piece of material to the bench top, whenever.
The walnut block is maybe a little flexible for this application, but it’s certainly better than ol’ useless that it replaced. I can’t believe I put off making this modification for so long. It was immediately useful. Maybe in another few years I will barter with a metalworker for a metal block, now that I know the dimensions I need.
