A Box I Made for Dave's Favorite Arkansas Stone

[Chris Griggs]

Dave Weaver recently leant me his favorite arkansas finishing stone, a vintage yellowish translucent, so that I could try it on my straight razor and compare it to my newer Halls surgical black. Its a lovely stone, a very fine finisher that still maintains a bit of cutting ability. This ability to leave a a very fine edge while still have some cutting power is supposedly what sets the vintage Arks apart from many of the modern ones.

This lovely stone, however, didn't have a box, so yesterday when I was gluing up the base for the cabinet I'm building, I decided to forgo watching more reruns of Cheers, and, as a thank you to Dave, make a box for this lovely stone.

This is kinda a silly thread as its just a little box, but these quick little projects are always lots of fun and it came out nice so I thought I'd share. Of course, since it is for Dave, it had to be free of end grain so the box is all mitered. Also, its always fun to go a little overboard with this things so I made a bookmatched top and the fielded/raised it....total overkill for an oil stone box, but again, fun. Finish planed and coated with BLO. Hope you like it Dave.

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[David Weaver]

That's way cool!! It looks like it's getting far better treatment there than it ever gets on my bench.

Thanks Chris!

[Chris Griggs]

My pleasure. Glad you like it. Its a pretty sweet stone. I see why you like it so much. It deserved a box.

[Mel Fulks]

Nothing silly ,a handsome and practical thing. Kindly done and graciously accepted.

[Chris Griggs]

Thanks Mel. I must say I had a lot of fun building it. I never really get sick of building these kinds of things. Lots of quick gratification.

[george wilson]

You are making out,David!!

[David Weaver]

Yeah, I'd say. Now I won't have to wipe all of the dust off of it.

I call that stone "magic yellowstone". It's not spectacular compared to modern abrasives, but it's a very nice oilstone and it still retains chunky marks from hand chiseling on the bottom side. Maybe I'm biased, Chris may have found it not a lot different than other finishers, but I do like that it has some personality that's missing on modern stones.

[Chris Griggs]

You are making out,David!!

Not half as well as I am. Dave has sent a number of pretty nice things to play with.

Thank you for commenting George. Glad you like it.


Yeah, I'd say. Now I won't have to wipe all of the dust off of it.

I call that stone "magic yellowstone". It's not spectacular compared to modern abrasives, but it's a very nice oilstone and it still retains chunky marks from hand chiseling on the bottom side. Maybe I'm biased, Chris may have found it not a lot different than other finishers, but I do like that it has some personality that's missing on modern stones.

Its not a lot different, but I see why you like it better than the others. It is indeed very nicely worn in and maintains some cutting ability. Its hard to tell how much faster or finer it is then my halls black I've worked to wear in, but I think it is a bit finer and cuts about the same. Subtle differences. As you pointed out to me I do like how easy it is to see what the stone is doing. The ability to see the swarf and generally whats going on with the blade is probably the biggest consistent advantage translucents have over blacks. For tools I care less, but it made me want to get a translucent for my razor.

[Sam Murdoch]

Chris, would you like to borrow my violin? :D
What a wonderful and generous way to return a favor - no end grain indeed :).

[Chris Griggs]

Chris, would you like to borrow my violin? :D

Is your violin a rectangle? If so, than I might be able to make a case that does is justice;)

[Mel Fulks]

Sam ,you need to make one of those cigar box violins!

[Jeff Heath]

I've got 3 stones you can borrow anytime......:)

Nice box, and a better "thank you" gift.

Jeff

[Jim Koepke]

Nice way to say thanks.

jtk

[Bob Jones]

Nice. I feel so slow when I see "quick" projects that I know would take me over 8 hours of shop time :)

[Sam Murdoch]

Sam ,you need to make one of those cigar box violins!

Just what I need - another project :rolleyes:, plus that would mean 2 fancy boxes from Chris :). I guess I'll be happy with what I have.

[Chris Griggs]

Hey thanks for thanks for the comments guys. I'm glad you all, but especially Dave, like it.

Bob I use the term "quick" loosely. I am a painfully slow woodworker..."quick" is anything that takes me less than a month. In the interest of brevity in writing, I probably made it sound like I threw this together in an hour. I'm not sure how much time I spent on it since I actually worked on it on Saturday and Sunday between things I was doing on my other project. Not a ton of time, but more than a couple hours. I think I spent a couple hours on Saturday, deciding on the the basic contruction, picking and dimensioning the wood, and constructing/gluing the the bottom and 4 sides together. I then spent a another few hours on Sunday, resawing/gluing the piece for the top, attaching it to the rest of the box, doing the shaping on the top, sawing off the lid, finish planing/cleanup and finishing. Again, since I did it in it and pieces it hard to tell how much time I spent but I bet all together from selecting the scraps to use to rubbing out the oil finish, it was likely no less the 5 hours and all together may have even been closer to 8. Time flies when you're having fun.

[David Weaver]

Holy Cow!! That's in the ballpark of the time I spent this weekend making a pair of H&Rs. I did think it looks pretty tidy, but I thought you might have some tricks set up to jig the parts quickly. It's coming into focus now...the miter jack, ...

Super cool.

[Chris Griggs]

Nah, no jigs other than the shooting board and miter jack. All done by hand, and done slower than it should be. All good though. This is how I relax, and it feels good to do a nice job on something that doesn't need to be that nice, especially when its going to someone else. Really, I had one of the funnest days in the shop this weekend than I've had in a while working on this this.

Probably took more longer than it should have even by my standards, just because I started it on a whim Saturday and diddled around looking for a good piece of scrap and figuring out how I wanted to join everything. It also took a bit of extra time since the whole box is actually made out of resawn material. I resawed a 4/4 board in pieces that ended up about 3/8" rather than wasting a bunch of wood hogging twice as much material down to 1/2". Actually, resawing the material for the sides was intended to create a full grain wrap around, but I oriented the boards the wrong way when I plowed the groove (the matching faces end up on the inside) so I didn't really get the full wrap around effect. The resawing isn't hard to do when the material is only 1 1/2" wide but that and the resaw/bookmatch for the top probably added a little time. Also, the bottom is a piece of 3/16 plywood set into a groove so I had to fiddle around a bit trying to find a way to hold the 3/8" thick and 1 1/2" wide pieces to be able cut the groove with my plow plane (why I need a sticking board). I also futzed around for a while trying to figure out what to do with the top, and then how to do it to make it look nice.

Yes, the miters were done on my recently made miter jack, so that part was actually pretty quick and easy. I LOVE my miter jack. The miters are perfectly closed on the outside, and I took the extra time while I was finish planing to make sure that they met at a perfect point on each corner and no end grain was showing on one piece or the other. Little things like that make a difference. There are some things that aren't perfect that stand out to me, but I won't point them out to you, but all in all yes, I made the effort to end up with a clean and tidy product.

None of this is to sound like I expended some huge amount of effort on this. It was a fun, easy, and relaxing build, but as we all know, being a relative novice hobbiest, requires one to take a bit of extra time get clean result. That's just how I work.

Charlie Sanford once said "Anybody can ultimately tweek, fiddle, and to some extent buy there way to 'perfection.' "

Hi, I'm anybody....

[David Weaver]

When you discuss it, it makes plenty of sense why it would take that long. Especially if none of it is just router-made pieces like the boxes that come with the stones with soft wood and drawer lock joint sides. I wonder who makes those things.

[Chris Griggs]

When you discuss it, it makes plenty of sense why it would take that long. Especially if none of it is just router-made pieces like the boxes that come with the stones with soft wood and drawer lock joint sides. I wonder who makes those things.

I've always wondered that too. I kind of assumed that they were made in house, but they are all identical. Exact same shaping on the top, same fiberboard material for the bottom. Maybe the same folks or individual is batching those out for cheap to all the oils stone companies. Even with just basic power tools setup (Planer TS, MS, Router) you could batch those out in a hurry and probably turn a decent profit

[Chris Griggs]

Pair of H&Rs huh? Don't you have a bookcase, and some kitchen cabinets you're supposed to be working on. How'd the H&Rs come out?

[David Weaver]

They came out fine, a minor technical flaw in the one that you can't see that I can repair if it causes feeding problems - it probably won't. I wanted a plain moulding for the bookcase, something cyma rectish, and I also wanted it to be about 2 inches high. I need a pair of 12s to do that, and I don't have a pair of 12s. H&Rs and long sticks are about the only time I wish I still had a TS. I had made a wedge jig for the TS, and cutting the grip with a TS is neat and fast - I used the small plow plane. Making the wedges without the jig is a bit of a pain, but it's not *too* bad once you make a couple of them.

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Best thing about them is it's $2 worth of beech robbed from my cabinet drawer stock, and dead nuts quartersawn. Worst thing is that being cheap and not using some of my 8/4 stock made it so that there is some discoloration that would've planed out if I had more thickness to give (the dark spots).

O1 flat stock is way up right now, too, that also sucks. The steel cost about $8 for each plane.

Still one of the best places to spend time if you're going to make tools. They always come out better than old ones (you can pretty much just do what larry says to do in his video, it's kind of nice to be able to capitalize on his experience), and they're fairly quick to make unless you want the aesthetics to be as absolutely super perfect as Larry's. Larry can probably make a perfect pair faster than I can make a mediocre pair, but he's had some practice.

[Chris Griggs]

That's so cool Dave. Didn't have a pair of 12s so just made them in a weekend. Makes me happy.

I always have a hard time believing they are as easy as you say they are but I can see how the video would make it pretty simple and remove the trial and error that one goes through making, for instance, their first saw.

Maybe I'll give it a go after I finish the current furniture project. I'll admit that it is something I've wanted to try for a while. I could finally be rid of my evil router table.

[David Weaver]

When you want to do it, let me know and I'll send you the DVD. You'll want to buy a couple of floats, too, but I'd imagine they hold their value pretty well and you can sell them when you're done.

[Chris Griggs]

Cool, thanks. I want to get some floats anyway. I bet even the regular plane makers could do double duty on joinery. And once I have them, well, then I have them and can continue to use them to make planes whenever i want. I just have to decide it's something I really want to do and decide when I want to do it. I bet I'll get around to it in a few more months.

[David Weaver]

A bed float is super pimp for long groups of through dovetails (on the pins) if you cut one too fat. Super fast, super straight and non-threatening since it scrapes the straws off rather than cutting in line with them. You won't find a lot of use for the bed float with H&Rs, though, but the same thing could be done with a pull side float, which is very useful for H&Rs. My parents and my wife teamed up to get me all of the LN floats except for one a few years ago (I had already made a 1/8th edge float), but a push cheek float, pull side float and a 3/16th edge float is a good kit to buy to make the planes. The 1/8th edge float you can easily file out of O1 stock and just harden the first 10 teeth or so, and the cheek float you could do the same. The bigger ones are a major pain to try to file out by hand and in my opinion just not worth the effort. I was in the mode to make all of them after doing the edge float, but quickly thought otherwise when trying to make the side floats.