Making a staircase

 Given my lack of blogging the last couple of years, I often forgot to take pictures of whatever little or large thing I have been making. And contrary to my earlier blogging where I tried to take logical pictures of the process, all I have at the moment is a bunch of pictures on my phone that shows a bit of the progress on various projects.

The company that Gustav and I have together invested in a house. The house hadn't seen much maintenance or modernizing in the last 30 years or so. 

One of the interesting details was a really narrow staircase going to the basement. The staircase was hidden inside a cabinet in the kitchen, so it looked kind of an entrance to the Bat Cave.
The problem with this layout was that the staircase was incredibly narrow. I think it was only around 18" wide. 
When we discussed the plans for our rebuilding, we agreed that we still needed a staircase to go to the basement. But it had to be a bit wider so that someone could carry a hamper with clothes to and from the washing room which we planned to put in the basement. 
Technically there is also a door and a staircase outside that leads to the basement, but I know that I wouldn't want to go outside just to go down the basement and then go back inside again. So that entrance is mainly for when you get home in the winter time covered in mud or soaking wet from the rain.

The limitations were the height of the ceiling in the basement and the spacing of the joists. The spacing meant that placing the new staircase in the other end of the kitchen would give us a width of some 36" (as far as I remember). We still had to make the staircase fairly steep in order for it to work without using too much floor space for the descending hole. Still it is not as steep as the original one.

I sawed some spruce for the sides and the steps and milled it all in the planer. 
The positions for the individual steps were marked, and I clamped on a batten and sawed to the intended depth. A chisel and a router plane made quick work of getting a dado that the steps could be seated in. Given that it is sort of a secondary room staircase, I felt that it was most appropriate to not go overboard in ornamentation and fancywork. So each step just received a nice little chamfer on all sides and then a couple of saw cuts  were made that would allow the front of the step to pass over the sides.

When all the steps were made and I had checked that each of them would fit, I transported the pieces to the house. I had figured out that if I'd assembled the staircase at home, I would most likely not be able to get it into the basement.

I swept the floor carefully where I was going to work, in order to avoid marring the sides of the stairs while working on it, and then I assembled it. Each step was glued and nailed in place using two large nails for each step. 
Technically screws would be easier and perhaps even hold better, but I think that large nails look the part on a staircase, and would have been the traditional way to do it in a house of that age anyway.

Once the staircase was completed and I had ushered it into place, the protruding ends of the steps were sawed off in something like a 30 degree angle. 

Test fitting in the workshop

The front of the staircase.

Assembling in the basement.

View form the backside of the staircase.

MMXXIII (2023)

The installed staircase.

Repairing a riding boot

 I have begun making more and more out of leather in the past years. Part of it is for our little company, where I change zippers in riding boots and occasionally make other small repair jobs on shoes and boots etc. 

Gustav had an old set of riding boots where the sole had come halfway off, I have kept them in the workshop for about a year, with the intention of one day taking them apart and see if I could use them as template and make a new pair. But in the mean time I got inspired to try and fix them myself.

First the sole was removed by means of a set of pliers. 

The insole needed to be replaced as did the midsole. both of these were made of some cardboard like material. Kind of surprising actually that a set of decent boots are made with such crappy materials.
Another thing that was surprising was the fact that the insole and the uppers weren't sewn. it all relied on glue to hold the boot together. 

I made a new insole form a piece of vegetable tanned leather and glued it into place. Then I used an awl with a hook to sew it in place. The steel stiffener was glued in place and the voids were filled with some small scraps of leather. I had tried to make my own filler putty of of some PVA glue, sawdust and a bit of latex paint. After about a day I decided that I didn't trust that enough, so I removed it again. In addition to being difficult to remove, it left an ugly white deposit on the lower part of the boot. (So much for that experiment).

The next thing to come on was the midsole that I also made out of a piece of vegetable tanned leather. With that in place, the underside was sanded using a sanding wheel. This was done to get nice flowing curves and make sure that it would fit the rubber sole that was also going to be glued on.

I don't have a heel press for shoes and boots, so all the pressing of the contact glue was done by means of a hammer.

Finally the boots got some long needed black leather grease, and now they will hopefully last a couple of seasons more.

The damaged boot.

Closeup of the damage.

left to right:
Sole, inner lining, midsole, insole (with the metal stiffener on top)

New insole glued in.

After the sewing (not very pretty)

Voids filled with leather scraps.

Midsole glued in place and sanded.

Boots ready for service again.

Table extensions for a Barnsley Hayrake table

 10 years ago I made a Barnsley Hayrake table to a friend of mine. The table ended up looking a bit weird since the legs were to close to the ends and the sides, and they were also too large compared to the size of the tabletop, giving it a bit of a clumsy look. 

The problem back then was that I had first been given a size that the table should end up being, and I started constructing the lower part of the table according to that. When I was done with the legs and stretchers and all assembled, my friend suddenly called me and asked how small I could make the table..

She had forgotten to take into account that in order for a table to work, it is fairly important that there is sufficient room for someone to pull out a chair to sit in.

Anyway, about half a year ago, she called me and asked if I could make some extensions for the table. 
I was curious to see how it looked, and I loved the idea of having a chance to make it look a bit more harmonic.
I drove up to see her and took some measurements of the table. the top had shrunk a bit unevenly, so one side was 3/4" narrower than the other end. But all in all the table still looked great.
As luck would have it, I still had a bit of larch left in dimensions that could be used for the extensions.

In order to avoid having to make an extra leg or some swing type support, I chose to make a frame and panel type extension. That way it could be held by just a couple of long sliding sticks underneath the tabletop. Also this meant that the extensions could be removed and there wouldn't be anything to interfere with the knees of the people sitting at the ends of the basic table.

I didn't do any finishing, but she said that she planned on giving it some soap just like the rest of the table had been treated with. 

Trimming of tenons.

Proof to Brian Eve that I still use his old plane :-)

Barnsley Hayrake table with extensions.

Frame and two panels.

Marking up for the holding sticks.

Working on the underside.

All completed.

Hammer block for children

 Looking at past pictures, I stumbled on these pictures from back in 2022.

The grand son of some of our friends really liked hammering. 
And I remember that when Gustav and Asger were small, they had a hammer block in the workshop that they could hammer nails into at their hearts desire.

So I made a similar hammer block to our friends to give to their grandson,

The top is around 10" x 10", and the height is maybe 20", It is made out of spruce, so it is soft. Furthermore the grain is oriented with the end grain facing upwards, so even the smallest child can manage to hammer in some nails. 

The entire thing is glued together, and due to the slanted legs it is really stable. In order to make it instantly usable, I supplied a small hammer and a box of various nails with the hammer block.

I branded our logo on the block and the box and burned the name of the grandson into the handle of the hammer.

Since it is not intended to be a piece of fine furniture, I didn't see any reason to go wild in sanding the thing. As far as I remember, it was roughly sanded with some grit 60, and the edges were chamfered. And that was that.

Back when Gustav and Asger used their block, I remember that they were so proud when they had hammered in a large nail, and I had to come and admire it all the time. When they had friends over, it was always a sure hit as well.

Chimney Cupboard

 Back in January 2023 I built a chimney cupboard again. Like last time (2017) I used the plans from Bob Rozaieski, as they were published in Popular Woodworking. I built the cabinet with the intention of having it on display to show potential customers what we could make for their tack rooms. 

The cabinet I built previously has been a great source of storage space in our own tack room, and I still like the look of it a lot. It is such a classic shape in my opinion.

All of our other products are made out of high grade pine, but since I didn't have a customer, I didn't want to spend more money than needed to get some really nice wood, so I made this one out of spruce boards. Admittedly I regretted it as soon as I had to stain it. Pine stains nice and evenly. Spruce doesn't..

I can't remember how long time it took me to build it, but it is a reasonably fast build. It might have been around 14 hours or so, I forgot to write it down at that point. Since it was intended to be for sale I wanted to make it as fast as I could, and while the cabinet can easily be made purely by hand tools, some operations like making dadoes for the shelves are fast if done using a router. Also the raised panels for the doors I usually make on the table saw. 
Another thing I normally do is to install the raised panels in a rabbet instead of in a groove. that way I can assemble the door frames first, then make a rabbet all along the inner edges and install the panels using some small strips of wood and some brads. 

I didn't sell the cabinet, so after at bit of time I decided that I might as well start putting it to good use. So I filled it with a lot of the remedies that I use for repairing stable rugs. 

The cabinet would probably look better if it was painted compared to stained and varnished, but it is easy to wipe over with a damp cloth when it is varnished, and if it was installed in a tack room that would be appreciated. 
I can't praise the cabinet highly enough regarding storage space based on footprint. There is just so much useful space inside the cabinet, and the simple yet elegant lines still makes it a favourite of mine. 

It is without a doubt one of the most rewarding builds that I can think of. It is easy to accommodate in a small space like a flat or a small shop, and it easy and fun to make. Most people that sees it like it instantly, just like a hanging Shaker cabinet appeals to most people. 

Flattening the back a bit

A No 8 that I bought from Brian Eve

Marking out for the face frame

Face frame mounted.

The divider is simply glued to the front of the shelf.

Ready for finishing

Plenty of storage space in here.

Roman numerals and our branded logo

Stained and varnished.

I didn't finish the inside.

Spruce doesn't stain very well..