Old Mallet Restoration

This old wooden mallet may have been hand-made, or it may have been purchased. I didn't see any maker's marks on it, I think it was hand-made. Its got a nice size and weight to it, maybe 50% bigger than the wood mallet I made for myself a few years ago, so I think it will be handy to have around the shop. The handle fits into the head in a tapered hole, so the harder you swing it, the tighter the head gets, yet and easy tap is all it takes to loosen the head up. Between the two parts, the handles is probably slightly more complicated, so making a new head would have been pretty easy, but i wanted ti try and keep as much of it as I could.

So I planed off the big break at the top of the head, and matched it to a piece of white oak I had in the shop. After the glue set up I trimmed it on the band saw, and then took it down to rough shape in the vise with a hand plane. I finished up the shaping on the power sander, and then went over it with files and sandpaper to get the shape right. I didn't want to try and chuck this up in the lathe, so doing it this way was a little fussy, but the results were good.

After I got it shaped up I scribed the detail lines in with a marking knife, and then deepened them by running a thin wire in the slot. The final step was to clean the wood with grain alcohol and a utility knife blade, and then coat the wood with raw linseed oil.

You can see a video I made of this build on YouTube.

Scratch Stock

I have an old fireplace surround I'm working on for my sister and her husband. They've bought a gas fireplace that they'd like to install in their living room. The shape of the gas fireplace doesn't match the opening in the surround they found so I'll modify it to suit, and add some shelving along with some other elements to tie it into their living room (see below.) *

 

My son and I used a heat gun to strip most of the paint off the most complex parts we're reusing, the small columns. They have appliques on them but that section of the column will be removed to lower the height, leaving the lower fluted section, and there is still paint in the flutes. That's why I need a scraper. I could just round off the end of a piece of tool steel and use it like a paint scraper, but holding it firmly, and close to the wood surface will give me more control. At least that is my hope, so I'm working on making a simple scratch stock.

I found some great sites that really helped with the design and build of this tool. This article from Woodsmith Magazine is a great introduction to the basics and includes plans. For more of a deep dive into the types and styles of scratch stocks and their history, check out the Valley Woodworker blog. Fine Woodworking has a helpful article with an embedded video which is also helpful. Thanks to  these sources for the great information. 

Click to enlarge

 

I made a video of this tool build and posted it on my YouTube channel, check out the video here. I'll save the scratch stockfence for a later date, as I don't need it for this project. The cutter head is half-round and its designed to get into the flutes on the columns without damaging the wood. The cutter blade is made from a used utility knife blade, so between the scrap wood and the used blade, this project has basically no cost for materials. And the cutter head can be shaped on both sides, but I haven't done that yet.

The completed scratch stock

Leave a comment if you think the Sketchup model would be useful and I'll post it.

Here's the surround I'm building*

* Hopefully I'll get a chance to record some of that work and post it here and on my YouTube channel.

Almond Drill Chuck Refurbish

I picked up this small chuck with a bunch of other old tools, and I've had it for a number of years. It was coated with rust but still usable. I've used it in a bit brace and to drill very fine holes just holding in my hand, and twisting it with my fingers. After taking the center out the tail stock in my lathe for the hundredth time, it occurred to me that the taper of this small chuck may be the same. 

Click here to see a YouTube video I made about the refurbish.

After a quick check, I dropped it in Evaporust overnight to clean it up. When it came out of the rust remover, I washed it with a wire brush and hot water. The hot water heats up the metal so that when I'm finished washing and dry the part, the heat dries out the piece really well. 

Here it is in the lathe after I cleaned it

 

I put it in the four jaw chuck in the lathe and  put a clean surface on the tapered arbor. Once it was clean I could see the makers mark on it. Its a T.R. Almond Mfg Co. model 40 - 50 drill chuck. Almond sold these and Morse Taper arbors separately, but the arbor isn't marked, so I'm just assuming that its also and Almond product, as it seems to match the illustration in this catalog page I found on the Internet Archive.

Click to expand, or use the link above

Almond Mfg made this Jacob's style drill chuck at some point after Jacob's brought his invention to Almond in1902 and Almond refused it, saying that it had no significant improvements over his own, hand-tightened chuck. After Almond refused him, Jacob began manufacturing on his own, and patented his invention, and after his key tightened chuck became popular, the T. R. Almond Manufacturing Co., now owned by former company treasurer Carlton A. Hubbel, copied it and was successfully sued by Jacobs for patent infringement. According to the judgement, Almond Mfg could still make their version of Jacobs Chuck, but there were restrictions on where it could be sold. The two companies then feuded over the situation for some time. Most of the information I found on the T. R. Almond Manufacturing Co. and their feud with Jacobs was found on Vintage Machinery's website.

The Morse Taper was invented in 1864 by Stephen A. Morse to easiliy join two rotating machine components. Earlier in the same year, Morse invented the modern twist drill, and with a $30,000 investment from supporters, he opened the Morse Twist Drill and Machine Company in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and soon saw the need for a simple, and easily repeatable method for driving his bits. He came up with the tapered shaft. 

A lot of the information I found on the Morse Taper Arbor history is from the PubMed Central (PMC) site, which is the archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature at the U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NIH/NLM) which talks mostly about how the tapered arbor is still used in medical implants, such as hip replacements.

 

  

ECE Coffin Plane Restoration

ECE Coffin Plane as found in Wells, Maine

The E.C. Emmerich Company was founded in 1852, and  they're still in business in Remscheid, Germany. I found this 7-inch coffin plane at an antique shop in Maine looks like its labeled for sale in the US given that its labeled with both 51mm and 2" dimensions on the iron. I downloaded their catalog, and it doesn't appear that they still offer this plane. This plane doesn't look like it was used very often, but has sat unloved for a while and humidity has lead to rust on the iron, which in turn discolored the wood parts that come in contact with the metal. I've just cleaned it up and put it back to work. 

You can see a YouTube video I made about this restoration here.

There was some spray paint over-spray on the wood, and some general grime. The iron and chip breaker were rusty but not very pitted. There was some limited pitting on the back of the iron where the chip breaker was pressed against the metal. That took a little while to grind out but I don't think the back of the iron was ever flattened, so most of it came while doing that in any case.

Click on the pictures for larger view

I soaked the iron, chip breaker, and screw in Evapo-Rust over night to loosen the rust. While those pieces sat, I worked on the wood parts with a utility knife blade as a scraper, some small files, and sandpaper. I decided not to try and remove the rust stains as that would remove too much wood, and the worse of it is covered by the iron assembly when its put together.

The completed plane

The completed restoration produced a really nice plane. I had to square up the cutting edge and reestablish the bevel, then I worked on it with 400 and 100 grit stones before stropping it on leather with compound. The result was very satisfying. I flattened the sole by hand by marking it with a pencil and using sandpaper on a flat bed (my belt sander with the power off.) I rubbed the wood (except the sole, and the insides) with raw linseed oil.

The tuning of a wooden plane takes a little to get used to but once I had it set, it was taking beautiful shavings from a piece of quarter sawn beech I've had in the shop since 2015.

The wood shined after this pass

Check out the video if you get  chance. Leave a comment here or there (or both places!) and let me know what you think. Do you have a wooden plane, or two? How do you like them compared to metal planes?