Pine Desk Refurbishment

I was mooching about at our local Joseph weld here in Weymouth, just looking really.  I suppose wasting time while we were waiting to go elsewhere.

I spotted this old pine computer desk,  I had been pondering of either, waiting till we move before getting one or, making one when I have the new workshop set up but that will be some time from  now, and could really do with it now. I know I could easily make one but,  as the workshop is in the process of being shut down, it ain't possible, to many tools already packed away, and anyway I cant buy the timber for the price I paid for it, not only that the money goes to a really good charity. After  some friendly bartering, I now have a slightly  battered, damaged to the fold-down false drawer sliding shelf  hanging off t, plus a lovely water stained desktop, pity  I didn't take a photo of it fully assembled first.

First the two grubby base cabinets, inside and out, not to bad inside but, outside the woodworking finish leaves something to be desired.



I took it all straight to the workshop mainly to try and get the water stain out of the top which to my surprise I did just that (you'll see later. I must admit primarily it took some doing. I tried sanding it, I ran straight into my first problem the pine stain finish was all waxy, I don't know if it had a second coating over the years  or, if it had furniture polish worked into it over a period of time, trying to sand it off all it did was choke up the sandpaper-like it was going out of fashion, so out with the hand scrappers, phew, that made me puff, its been a long time since a scrapped a top right back to bare pine.



As seen above-choked sandpaper, the scraped top and I,m getting ready to resharpen the scrapers both Stanley s first I used the No 112 for the heavy scraping and then down to the No 80 for the finer work and then in places a hand scraper. it had a very light sanding now the stain has been removed, I still need to go finer.

After a closer examination of the bottom door mouldings and panel moulding plus the drawer front joinery  which  I stated left something to be desired, I have decided  that after scrapping all the mouldings  around the desktop I need to speed things up a bit  I'm going to spray paint the entire desk with the exception of the top  which will be re-stained as original and the lower section sprayed probably a stone colour to help cover up the let's say poor joinery.

Any way to help clean it rather than scrapping, I,m using white spirits and scouring  pads surprise just how clean it comes up  and  it appears a lot of the waxy  feel to the wood has gone as well  drawers are now drying I,m going to try again to sand them tomorrow let you know how it goes.



End grains all furry and needs cleaning and sanding, top two cleaned with white spirits and a scouring pad (still wet), bottom drawer still to be done, last photo all three done top two (still wet), bottom drawer did the previous day. There now dry and ready for sanding.

Before we start sanding let us change the pad on the palm sander to a clean new one, the end grain  of drawer front now sanded and smooth as it should have been in the first place, three drawers sanded and  placed back in there places to prevent any possible damage, sanding pad after I had finished showing very little residue left on the paper, well pleased with that, shows the white spirits and  scouring pads  worked well, its certainly saved a lot of heavy scraping.

On to the doors and more mouldings, these are going to be fiddly, all done the same as the rest with white spirits and Brillo pads, to get right into the corners, I used my sharp marking knife to scrape out the corners then another small wash and wipe down with white spirits and disposable paper kitchen towels. All ready for sanding now, still drying, the backs were done with exactly the same routine.

Showing the difference between panels cleaned and still to be cleaned, plus both doors now done and drying awaiting sanding later tomorrow maybe.  Today the big scrub down of the base pedestals still the same method being used white spirits and Brillo pads. I started with the two the internal shelf's from the left-hand pedestal then onto the sliding keyboard shelf and final the pedestal itself, I am well chuffed with the results I'm getting as well.

First photo shelf's drying next you just sees my handprint on the shelf as its half cleaned and last the cleaned base unit. Tomorrow I,m going to give the base unit a second going at.


                                                                                                             
Fingers and knuckles  getting a bit stiff now so let us give the cleaning a break, for now, I'll sand up the doors which I cleaned off yesterday.

These doors have cleaned up really well and have now been sanded as seen done with my palm sander,  and are complete.   When I have the other pedestals all cleaned and sanded in a few days time that will then complete the cleaning down with spirits and Brillo pads, leaving only a final hand sanding all over. But first a trip out to fetch more sanding pads and some very fine sandpaper 240 grit.


     

In the last photo, it shows some damage to the inside edge of the pedestal, probably done with someones trouser leg scuffing along the edge over a period of time. Rather than splice a Piece into the edge I,m going to rum a stopped moulding down that edge and another one down the opposite pedestal to match it. I'll show this a little later.

Only a short day today   A before and after photo, One base pedestal machine sanded and hand-sanded as well with 180 grit paper smooth, plus both shelves  from the opposite base pedestal  and the sliding keyboard shelve all sanded and finished. It's beginning to come together now, I'll soon have to decide if it's going to be painted or stained.

I have now finished cleaning the other base cabinet today, thank goodness all the cleaning down is now finished,   with the remaining time today I made a start on  hand sanding the top section,  I got it to a stage today  that has left a few imperfections in its top a few dings and some rough grain here and there nothing serious,  to be sorted tomorrow.




I've placed pencils on the top to show where the small imperfection is, Hopefully, they will all be sorted tomorrow then all the cleaning and sanding will be complete.

I had to fit two new backs into the base pedestals, Originally when this desk was first made there were backs to it but somewhere along its journey, they have disappeared. I also fitted a new keyboard shelf the  Original all bowed and buckled as you see in one of these photos.  The two backs and keyboard shelf + the shelf that I fitted for the mouse shelf fitted into the top of the right-hand drawer are all from a half sheet of 15mm  birch faces ply I had leftover from another job.  Before fitting the backs and shelf's I pre-drilled  the hole for electric cables and finger hole to the mouse shelf. I have also rebated two mouldings down both front inner edge to both pedestal to  remove that damaged edge I showed you
earlier.



I don't like flush styles brass hinges that are just screwed flush to the surface with no adjustment on setting the gap down the edge of the doors, I popped into B/Q early yesterday morning and bought 2 pairs of 50mm brass hinges supplied with brass screws, haha. what a joke they are.

As seen below, as soon as I opened the packets I knew these doors would be hinge bound (meaning that when you try and close the door it will spring back at you because when the hinges have closed the screws that were supplied with the heads are to big for the countersink in the flap of the hinges and come in contact with the opposite screw head the flaps need re-drilling to suite the screw heads so the heads sink in to the hinge flush.) I decided to fit them anyway just to show what i mean.


The photo on the right the cent-re hole has been re-counter sunk to suite the screw head. Both doors have been rehung using the new hinges, both internal shelves have been fitted in a new position. The left pedestal had two shelves originally but I intend to place my printer in that side, I removed one shelf and lowered the other one to suit, the now spare shelf is now fitted in the right-hand pedestal.



This now leaves the fold-down drawer front as seen in the photo, laying on the desktop. I have to make a new front for it as it has a bad twist in its length to much to attempt to plane it out.

Top shelf in the right-hand pedestal No prizes for guessing at what's going on it, and more than possible under it as well.

It's now all rebuilt and finished ready for the finish, I'm still not sure to either paint it or get some antique polish for it hmm.
 

Some of you who read the original posting here may find some changes from here onward, unfortunately, this post decided to go walkabout and disappeared for nearly a week totally vanished.

Luckily some very clever people located it for me, I managed to restore it here, but, unfortunately, the last few paragraphs and photo s were missing so I have had to rewrite it from here on my apologizes to you all.

Well here we go again, I decided to paint it, in the end, I used acrylic emulsion it is not white its stone-coloured three coats, it looks great.

I only painted the base units and drawer unit section. The top I decided to stain and polish, no varnish, the stain was an antique pine two coats just wiped off with a rag, then two coats of sanding sealer followed by two coats of pal polish from Mylands.  Just to add that bit extra I decided to stain and polish all the knobs to match the top I felt it gave that bit more to the finished styling to the desk.

I loved the polished finish but need must,  the top soon disappears under the all the other bits and pieces still to be added to the desktop.

 Here it is now finally finished. I hope you enjoyed this post, feel free the leave any comments you like.

New handle for Henry Disston D8

I bought this lovely old beauty recently while mooching around in  Joseph weld charity shop a few weeks ago here in Weymouth Dorset, £3 that was a bargain.

They had what looked like an old  Ottoman, I just happened to lift the lid (you know as you do)  just being nosy, really expecting to find it empty, or, find it full of sheet and blankets,  To my surprise, it was an old carpenters chest which had been covered to look like an Ottoman, still had all the sliding draws etc,  and full of a bit of junk that accumulates in them over the years, most of the tools were already gone.

I couldn't resist a rummage in the bottom of it, buried right at the bottom was this lovely old saw a Henry Disston D8 handsaw with a broken handle.

The Blade was true and straight it had all its teeth no broken or missing teeth either,  all cut evenly on both sides of the blade, the handle was badly broken, but that's replaceable.

 

The medallion inlay ed in the side of the handle is readable and the date as shown is Dec 27th 1887 Philada  ( Philadelphia)

As can be seen from the lower photo is the damaged handle, It could be repaired but I think its always going to be a weak point.

On my way back from returning my daughter and grandson back to Bristol airport I popped into Yandles of Martock near Yeovil looking for some Applewood for the new handle but never found any, Instead, I came away with plenty of Black walnuts to do the job.

Monday tomorrow I'm taking the saw in to be re-cut set and sharpened, I use to do this my self but the old eyesight not what it used to be.

I have had the handle off of this saw from the shape of the end of the blade and positioning of the brass bolts there is no way I can cut a simple slot into a new bloke of wood and then slide the blade into for positioning because of the rounded end to the blade.

I'm going to laminate the new Handle in four thin sections,   two either side then rebate out from both sections sides with a small router half the depth of the thickness of the blade to suit the shape of the end of the blade then laminate both section together., But that's another post.  Stay tuned.

Elu ps174 TYPE a3 Mitre chop saw, A total refurbishment.

Well, this is the condition it came to me, from my son-in-law Edwin.

Parts have been ordered, but, at the moment just enough  to fire it up so I know it is still a working saw.

As soon as it is fired up, I'll strip it totally to pieces and  start a complete refurbishment here.

It appears to have a few missing parts, things like missing table extension bars, dust bag,  Allen key, blade wrench.

I have  managed to source a dust extraction hose  connector, a new  drive belt, plus the wrench, and the Allen key, I have on order two TC blades 

First of the parts arrived today and I have fitted new brushes and holders at least I now know its a runner.

No prizes for guessing as to what was wrong with it. The brushes were very simple to fit.  Shown the old brushes and holders, New brushes and holders now fitted, brush covers refitted. The trigger switch was hanging out of the handle with a muddle of wiring now sorted and refitted in position.

The ordered  Tc blade came today as well. Instead of replacing like for like, the old blade only had 24 teeth I increased the new blades to 64 teeth for a much finer finish to the cut. The drive belt I won't fit till the present one breaks.

I reassembled all parts today after fiddling here and there to work out where and how all the parts fitted which took a bit of time seeing it was already stripped apart so I didn't know how they fitted into each other,  but, as you can see it all back together.
 

As seen here an offcut of Oak 60 * 45 mm it cut spot on at 90 degrees across the gain and at 90 degrees vertically, absolutely no wobble, no signs of wear in the bearings or shaft, phew.  

I tried several other cuts with lovely clean finishes, from these cuts  I decided there is no point in stripping this saw any further, even if I were to replace all bearings and the main drive shaft it would not improve the saws cuts at all, unnecessary work and expense. I think a case of leave well alone.

All I'm going to do now is make a  simple bench to bolt it to. any ideas? 

In the shop tidying up after the re-build picked up the old blade and was going to chuck it in the bin but took a closer look at it, hmm maybe not, I scraped off some of the gunge that was baked onto the teeth, Couple of photos before and after.


Monday send it off t for re-sharpening seeing it has wear I'll keep this one for rough cutting and as a spare while the other blade is away for sharpening.

Record sash clamps

I've had one of these now tucked away in the corner of the workshop for years and never used it; I bought two more, a couple of 30" old dogs, all rusty off of e bay, a few weeks back; I paid £17.00 including the postage for the pair, bargain, you know the usual,  missing pins old bolts thread all rusty difficult to use etc.

I don't like fiddling with bolts while I'm trying to clamp and assemble something together, with the glue setting off fast. I decided to refurbish them to their original condition. After a little research for Records replacement pins with chains, which cost out at £10.95  per clamp * 3  £32.85 Nah.  I decided to source my own Material.

My first find was the tapered pins I used  2" * 11/32" *10  from e bay. I purchased a pack of 10; thirteen were in the packet (extra nice) at £5.  A quick trip to B/Q   2m  of chain  £4.40. Euro fasteners for the split ring for each end of the chain  20  £1.60   enough materials to do ten in number clamps total cost £11.

First, a bloody good de-rust all around and a quick coat of blue paint made them much more presentable, as seen above.

When the pins turned up, they were slightly bigger in diameter than I had anticipated, but no problem.   I re-drilled all the holes along the length of the clamps using the variable speeds drill I recently refurbished (startrite) using an 8.5mm drill on a speed of 210 rpm the drill went through these clamps like slicing through butter.  To hold the pin while I drilled through it. I drilled a 6mm hole at the end of an offcut of oak,  taped in the tapered pins till they just nipped in tight, and then clamped the oak in the drill vice as shown below.

The rest was straight forward cutting lengths of chain feeding split rings on at both ends and then connecting them to the heals of the bottom shoe's through there pre-drill holes and the other end through the new holes that I drilled in the tapered pins.  Here in this photo shows all three new pins connected and finished with all the old and new bling left over.

There you go three old dogs refurbished, ready to use, that now leaves me to oil them all over and make a rack to hang them on with enough space for a load more clamps still to come.

Finally, the hanging rack, simply made from offcuts of scrap, has four slots cut to allow for an extra  30" clamp to make up a complete second pair.  Enough space to the right to hang my 48" clamps and space in the middle to hang a set of 36 " clamps, but that's another thread.

ps.
The split ring used was smaller than what was originally used by the record. I found that they got in the way when clamping and could get caught up and crushed, ending up all bent and twisted and sometimes broken. That's why some pins were missing, so I bought smaller rings; they are fiddly to fit but well worth the trouble.

my bench

Finally after all these years, I've  actually got round to  starting my new bench. It's always been on my To-do list but as many of you will know when as you go through your married life,  mortgage,  kids car repairs you know the usual, a luxury like a cabinet makers bench just gets shoved to one side.

offcuts left for  tail vices etc

First I'll tell you a little about the bench I intend to make, I want to keep it as traditional as possible, but, with a difference, I am in desperate need of tool storage space and extra vices fitted.

I like to work around my bench from both sides and from the ends at times depending on what I'm working on. I've been pondering different the designer bench now for some time  My bench will be sort of a Heinz 57 the version of some ideas pinched from them all with a few ideas of my own worked into the build as it progresses.

The new bench  will have two York (tail vices) and one York shoulder vice, a line of dog holes along both edges and possibly other dogs hole  across the benchtop for cramping purposes.

This morning I made a start and machined the core for the top, the pieces are temporarily clamped together overnight.

core boards cut  marked for biscuits

I decided to build the top from American Oak ( just my choice)  no other reason,  with a softwood base (still to be sourced), the carcase for the tools stowage to be made out of 18mm and drawers from 12mm  birch ply.

Last week  I sourced some nice American  Oak pieces  2  @ 3.6m x 195mm x 80mm   plenty enough to make the top from, overall sizes approximately  2m x 600mm  with the core of the top is 50mm thick,  the edged skirt  somewhere about 70mm to give that  extra thick look, the oak arrived yesterday.

waiting for  assemble

I  ordered the ironwork from Axminster tools for the bench,  as mentioned above but these are out of stock till next week, but, that's not the problem at the moment for me.

biscuits glued and waiting for assemble

25/11/2012    End of day today all 264 biscuits cut machined out and ready for glueing,  I only have eight sash cramps, so I'm going to glue  the core boards up  in pairs  when I have  three pairs  all glued then I will glue  the first pair and second pair together, when they're set, I'll glue the last pair to the first four boards this then forms the  main core to the benchtop.

1st boards glued

Please note,  the biscuits cuts to  the outer edge of the 1st boards  this will be to glue the skirts around the main benchtop core to house the dog holes, this I will deal with later in the thread.

26/11/2012   Showing in the foreground the second pair just glued up  on top yesterdays pair in the background the last pair later today or early tomorrow maybe, 22 biscuits in a double row it takes quite a lot of the pressure to cramping these together.

 

27/11/2012   As seen above  the  final pair of core boards now glue together plus day 1 and 2  also tomorrow the final glueing to the core boards.

I'm not going to  machine the  core top  to its final finished level  yet till it's fixed to the base unit, I'll deal with that later in this thread. Tomorrow I'll start machining the side  skirt boards for the  dog holes etc. 

First casualty today oops,  as seen in the above last photo    just giving that extra squeeze   in the final cramping and  ping, totally knackered one of a set of eight, bummer Grr. 

28/11/2012   Today another casualty  a second clamp broke not one of  those I used yesterday  but one of the heavy-duty cast-iron one as used in the lower the picture  suddenly a chunk of cast iron flew  off t the back end of the shoe, it's still usable  as yet not sure how badly damaged  the clamp is till I remove it tomorrow. 

All the core board to the top are now glued together,  remove clamps tomorrow and  start  a cutting list for the skirt and  various parts for the vices, got an email today  telling  there's a three-week wait for the ironmonger on all three vices, now that could be a nuisance. 

  

01/12/2012  Today, ooh... it was colder in the workshop this morning than it was outside, I waiting for a few hours till the sun moved around and warmed things up a bit still cold in the workshop but not so bad when you got going. Machined the side skirts and boards for the dog hole.      02/12/2012  I machined the side skirt today, cut all mitres and machined a load more biscuit cuts, ended the day with a dry dummy run fitting the skirt boards to one side of the bench. I machined out the groove for the tail vice guide.

 05/12/2012 Dry run with both side skirts fitted. Finally arrived aboard a slow boat from china the ironwork for the three vices that will be fitted two-tail vices and one shoulder vice for ease of use from all four sides of the bench.



Here are both the  York tail vice. I have never fitted one of these so I had better do some research first It's  quite a complicated vice to manufacture and assemble, although fitting the ironwork I think should be straight forwards enough.

The Chinese engineering on these thread screws are to a very high standard I'm very impressed with them. Next to follow a shoulder vice  screw thread again never fitted one but I feel it's a straight forwards to fit as well.

Also ordered at the same time some bed furniture bolts which the photo explains what they're intended for.

Ok, it's back to the workshop this afternoon after the Christmas and new year festivities.

I made as start  as seen in the above  photo on the bed bolts to hold the  oak  carrier that will  do several things really ie to help hold the benchtop flat when fully glued, its primary use is to form part of the vice on the corner of the bench,   as seen in the  last photo  it still  only a dummy run,  those four biscuits  will be fitted  above the four bolts when all is glued together I used the same centre line  to line everything up nicely.   I'll  start on the same piece on the other end of the bench tomorrow.

As you can also see from the last photo  the oak carrier has been left long, the reason being that the end will also form part of the  tail vice itself, it will have a tenon cut onto it  which will be  running through a groove  to help slide and hold in place the tail vice at the correct level/height to the bench top,  (more on that later in the thread.)

 

refurbing my other vice

My second vice is a record 52 1/2 in the same sort of condition as the other vice.

Before I make a start I want to show you all that I meant by the statement I made in my previous post.

Most of the cleaning is either old grease someone used in the past or oil and dried sawdust which time clogs up the drive threads making it difficult to use your vice.


    

When I stripped this vice, I was shocked at what I found best described as years of neglect see for your selves. I have clean out the top two thread in the clutch housing just so you can see the thickness of grease and sawdust that has clogged up the clutch over the years making it very difficult to disengage the clutch to open or close the vice.

The clutch housing on this vice is enclosed, making it a poor design IMHO,  all the sawdust gathers inside and it gets stiffer to use the last owner just kept adding oil to make it work again, After a time the oils and sawdust become crusted, hence why it now left soaking in white sprites to soften till next week. In the meantime over the weekend start to clean the rest of the vice.

The re-build. Am I glad that all the cleaning is now done, the clutch housing design made it extremely difficult to clean out, it was very time consuming, don't want to do that again? Anyway, it's done now.

Here we see on the left all part cleaned, central the clutch actual now it has a spline, right looking into the clutch housing.

I made reference in the other vice thread as to what was the difference between the  52/1/2e and the 52 1/2  that if you knew to let me know, well now I can tell you now.

The  52/1/2 has a manual hand operated quick release lever, the 52 1/2E has an automatic hand operated quick release lever, i.e. with the quick release lever move it to the left and the clutch disengages release the lever it springs automatically back to the right and the clutch automatically re-engages locking the clutch on the spline.

With this vice52/1/2 you have to move the lever to the left to disengages the clutch and that is all that happens, to re-engage the clutch onto the spline you have to move manually the quick release lever back to the right to lock the spline, to re-engage the clutch onto the spline.




Left, vice reassembled looking into the enclosed clutch housing, when the lever is moved to the left the clutch has disengaged from the spline, middle to lock spine move lever back to the right as seen here with the clutch re-engaged onto the spline.  Right vice now assembled and ready for painting, Now all you need to do is replace split pin the end of spline your vice is now completed.

In conclusion.

The record 52/1/2  is obviously the forerunner to the 52 1/2E Now having refurbished the two vices which IMHO  is the better of the two vices, with any doubt at all it's the 52 1/2E  with its automatic quick-release lever. The latter vice being a revamped version which is a much-improved version and far superior vice in all aspects.

Being a professional joiner I have always used the quick release vices and now after refurbishing a manual vice and seeing how it all works inside  I can't see myself working with one automatic vice and one manual vice fitted to the same bench.

The 52 1/2, I intensely dislike the enclosed clutch housing on it.  I  don't like the manual lever at all and the way it's assembled inside the clutch housing, I suppose for someone say a DIY er or the occasional weekend worker yes it would be fine for them, but not for me, ah well nothing ventured nothing gained.  enjoy.