I feel like I’m running a couple of days behind schedule, but it will come out in the end. Where I last left off, I had shown the processing of the cylindrical mortises. When the router was set down, I checked the fit of the lathe-turned pin:
Here’s a look at the corner joint with the pin removed and the joint separated:
The fit of the pins was satisfactory, so I then marked out the pins to the length they would be cut:
The inside cutter on the marking gauge is a hair above the height of the other one, so I am only making a mark with the outer cutter by holding the marking gauge to push the outer cutter down more strongly.
Next it was time for the dull saw with a wonky tooth:
It cuts reasonable well, this Lignum Vitae. The scratch marks on the lower portion of the cut are from one of the saw teeth, which will not stay in its set after umpteen re-sets:
That tooth will probably snap off pretty soon. Like I said earlier, this is the sayonara saw performance for that unit.
Two pins are now cut to length:
Next step was to chamfer the edge of the cylinders with a chisel, and now it is time to have a look at how the main hinge joint will work. First, in goes the pin:
Then I offer up the bolster:
And on it goes:
I temporarily propped up the bench in position to see how things were shaping up:
The bolster has a little edge treatment:
These hinges look like (and feel like!) they will work fine:
That’s all for today. In the next installment, I’ll fit the cross-pieces to the frame, and the spindles to carry the swing-out leg assemblies. This piece is almost done now. Hope to see you then, at a stop called ‘post 12‘
Hi Chris
What are your thoughts on the Wenge now that you have had a lot of hand contact with it? From the photos it looks like there should be little if any issues of splinters.
Hi Dale,
Wenge is definitely not an ideal choice for the person wishing to work material with hand tools primarily. It's very hard on the cutting edges. I finish-planed the 2×2 cross-pieces today, and the six pieces required 2 re-sharpenings to get through. Since I am going to finish by wet sanding in the Tung oil, fussing unduly with the planing seems a waste of time. That said, from my planing passes so far, I haven't had any significant tear-out problems – the fibers of the wood seem quite short. In fact, I can't produce long shavings at all with this material, especially on face grain orientation, where all I get are shavings 2~3″ long that won't hold together at all.
The wood seems to polish pretty well, though the light brown portions of the grain, which I take to be like some form of 'earlywood' (I'm thinking that Wenge is a likely a dry season deciduous tree) seem about as hard as, well, balsa wood. This Wenge is a strange combination of the very hard black growth with the very soft brown growth, and that poses challenges for planing – either your bevel is stout enough to tolerate the black material and won't quite cut the brown cleanly, or you have it slicing the brown cleanly but the edge won't last. I'm curious to see how the wood responds to the sanding, especially the soft brown layers.
When I'm done the oiling stage I'll render some more opinion upon the workability and how hand-friendly the result is – I am optimistic it will come out very well in that regard.
~Chris