Logan Cabinet Shoppe

So I'm knocking out the drawer for my shop desk tonight. Simple stuff, right? I mean I've done dozens of these so no problem. I sized all of the drawer parts just a shaving or two over sized to allow for fitting the drawer to the desk later. I scribed all of the baselines, laid out the tail cuts on the sides, gang cut the tails and cleaned out the waste. The tails were looking pretty good and I was pretty happy with myself so I decided to press on even though it was a long day and I was getting pretty tired. I figured if I could just get the pins cut I could glue up the box tonight and it would be ready to fit a bottom tomorrow.

So I transfer all of my tails to their corresponding pin board being careful to pay close attention to orientation of the boards. On to cutting the pins. All was going well (or so I thought) until I got to my last corner of pins. That's when I realized it. I had cut the pins on the previous three corners on the wrong side of the line. Test fitting the sides into the front and back confirmed my unexcusable mistake.

I actually made two mistakes in my overconfidence and haste. The first mistake was a very foolish one made simply by being in a hurry. I did not mark the waste side of the line with big Xs like I usually do. This led to my second mistake, cutting the pins on the wrong side of the line. So I ended up with one nice dovetailed corner and three corners with gaps the size of the Grand Canyon (ok, maybe not that big, but still).

I guess the morals of this story are pretty obvious.

1. ALWAYS  mark the waste, even if you think you don't need to. No matter how many times you've done a particular operation, it only takes one dumb mistake to put your ego right back where it belongs.

2. NEVER work when you're too tired. Even though I'm not going to accidentally cut off an appendage with hand tools (I'd have to be pretty determined), there can still be some pretty serious consequences. I'm lucky I just made a mistake on my project, however, a simple misplaced hand during a paring cut or an improperly secured workpiece can still result in a pretty serious injury, even with hand tools. (As a side note, didn't we just finish Woodworker's Safety Week?)

I don't think I'm going to remake any of the parts of the drawer. Instead, I'll use them and repair the mis-cut joints as best as possible. This will serve as a constant reminder of my mistake and hopefully dissuade me from making it again.

There is one positive that can be gotten from this though. I have my next blog topic all set up for me.....how to fix loose dovetail joints.

Well, after a couple feeler blog posts and a long time toying with the idea, I have finally begun making preparations for a hand tool video podcast. I put together a short trailer video just to test out the video hosting service and you can watch that below. If all goes well, the actual video podcast should be up and running in a short while from now, after I finish my current project, a desk for my shop.

Thanks to every one who posted comments to the two previous blog posts about this or sent emails with your encouragement. Without all of your support I probably wouldn't have bothered to even pursue putting this together. Wish me luck and let's hope this all works out well. Stay tuned!

After years of [ab]use, my trusty saw bench is ready to retire. However, before I can retire the old I must make a new. So that was the project this weekend.

The saw bench is an absolute must have appliance for the hand tool shop. A pair is even better, especially if you process long stock in your shop with hand saws. In addition to supporting stock at a comfortable and convenient height for crosscutting and ripping, the saw bench serves a myriad of other uses in the shop. I use mine to sit on when boring with a brace, as a side table to hold tools and project parts when working at the shave horse, as support for case pieces when I'm planing their dovetails flush, as a bench to sit at when drawing at my workbench, as a step to reach the boards on the top tier of my lumber rack, as a place to sit and take a coffee break and as a second workbench for my kids when they are in the shop "working" with me.

I don't like to over complicate tools and appliances for the shop as I consider them disposable. They get used hard and take a lot of abuse so I don't use expensive lumber or complicated joinery. I want something that will be sturdy and will last but won't cost a lot and will be quick and easy to build. The style of saw bench pictured fits that bill nicely and can be built with cheap lumber and traditional joinery. This makes it very sturdy since it doesn't rely on the strength of mechanical fasteners like nails or screws, but it also stays very lightweight and easy to move around or store out of the way when not needed. It's relatively small at about 30" long by about 12" wide and at about 18" tall (approximately knee height for me) it is the perfect height for processing lumber with hand saws. No shop should be without one of these, or preferably a pair.

Check out the Articles page to see how it was built.