Old Bits Like New

 Since I can't really do any work on my box until I get my new 1/4" chisel, today I decided to clean up some old tools that I bought at an estate sale last month.  I had read that soaking old tools in citric acid would loosen the rust on them, so yesterday I went to a brewery supply store and bought 8oz of it.  They were pretty busy while I was there, so I had time to look around and dream of other hobbies I could get into.  Of course, right now I have plenty on my hands, so beer making will have to wait for another day.

The picture in the upper left is my brace and bits before I did anything to them.  In the upper right the bits are soaking  in a solution of about 1/4 cup citric acid power and 1/2 gallon of warm water.  After about an hour, I started scrubbing the bits with strips of Scotch pads.  In the picture in the lower left, you can see difference.  Once all the bits were scrubbed, I sharpened them with my auger bit file as seen in the lower right picture.  I then rubbed them all down with some light oil to prevent them from rusting again.

I decided not to soak my brace in the citric acid, mainly because I think it takes away from the value of an old tool.  Also, it would only improve the aesthetics of the tool and not and its operation.  Instead I sprayed it down with WD-40 and scrubbed off a little of the surface rust.  I also took apart the chuck and cleaned it with WD-40 and a brass bristle brush.  Then I wiped it all down, put it back together and put a little oil in the bushing on the top knob.  I also took apart my egg beater drill and cleaned it with WD-40 and oiled it up.


At the left are my drills and bits all ready to go to work.

Project #1 - A New Box For Blocks - Hand Holes

In my last blog I mentioned that I hoped to be writing about cutting dovetail joints this time, but I was getting ahead of myself.  I decided it would be better to cut out the hand holes on the ends of the box and the grooves for the bottom panel before cutting the dovetails.  This should reduce the chance of me breaking off one of the dovetails before the box is finished.

Since I'm still waiting on a new 1/4" chisel to come in the mail so that I can cut my grooves, I decided to cut the hand holes today.  I was lucky enough to come across a brace and some auger  bits at an estate sale last month, so I had all the tools I needed.  However, once I tried to use the 1" auger bit, I realized that it wouldn't cut at all, so I tried sharpening it with a standard file.  This didn't help any, so I did some research (Thank you Google) and found that there is a special file for sharpening auger bits.  I ordered one of these from Lie-Nielsen and got it on Friday.  The file is flat and comes to a point for getting into the tight spaces on small bits.  Also, it doesn't have teeth on the sides so that you don't accidentaly tear into the bit.  The file seemed to work pretty well, but I still couldn't get my bit to cut.  Finally I thought that I should compare it to another bit and I realized that the cutting angle was way to small.  After filing a much steeper angle, I got the bit to cut.  In the picture on the left, I'm drilling out the material that will make the hand hole.

In these, you can see that I drilled three holes to make up the hand hole.  In the pictures on top I'm cutting out the remaining material with a chisel and in the lower left, I'm cleaning up the edges.  In the lower right, I'm smoothing the edges with a file.

When I was designing this box, I was worried about how I was going to make the handles and have them look good.  As it turned out, it was easier than I thought and I'm pretty happy with them.

Also, today I went to a brewery supply store and bought some citric acid.  I've read that it's good for removing the rust from old tools and I was going to use it to refurbish my drill bits.  As you can see from the picture above, I decided to hold off on that and rather do some work on my box.  If I don't get my new chisel in soon, then next time I might be blogging about cleaning up old drill bits.

Project #1 - A New Box for Blocks - The Beginning

 For my first project, I knew I didn't want to get in over my head.  I didn't think it would be a good idea to start working on our new bed right off the bat (see post #1).  I wanted something fairly straight forward that wouldn't take a lot of time to build and that wouldn't require a huge variety of tools that I didn't have.  What could be more simple than a box, right?  Well, probably several things as it would turn out.  The picture on the left is the current setup for my 2-year old's wooden building blocks.  It's working for now, but I have a feeling that eventually it will get torn apart.  A new wooden box should be a pretty simple and straight forward project and it will allow me to practice on some basic woodworking techniques. I plan to use dovetail joints at the corners and the bottom of the box will fit into grooves that I cut into the sides of the box.

The drawing on the left is what I sketched up.  It shows five sides, 1/2" thick, with an open top.  When it is full of blocks, there should be a 1/4" gap all around the sides and the blocks should be pretty much flush with the top.  I have made some design changes since putting this drawing together.  The first will be to add some hand holes to each end of the box so that a child can pick it up or drag it.  The second change I made while shopping for the materials, which I got a Metro Hardwoods in Independence.  While looking at the 1/2" Hard Maple, I thought that it looked unnecessarily thick for the bottom of the box and was worried that it would add a lot of extra weight.  Fortunately they also carried 1/4" Hard Maple.  Using this for the bottom will save on weight and it will save on work since I won't have to cut the rabbets that I show on my drawing.  So, $21.00 later I walked out of the store with a 6' x 6" piece of 1/2" Hard Maple and a 4' x 6" piece of 1/4" Hard Maple.


This is a picture of my material already cut to length.  Also, on the left side you can see that I have already glued two pieces of the 1/4" material together to make the bottom panel.  My first challenge of this project was to use my new block plane to create two really straight sides so that I would have a good joint going down the middle of the panel.  This really should be done with a longer plane, but I had to make due and I think the it turned out pretty well.




The pictures below show what I've done so far.  At the left I'm ripping one of the boards to the right height.  In the pictures in the middle and at the right, I'm planing the end grain to square up the ends.  As you can see, I had to come up with a special technique to hold the saw horse still while I planed.  My wife's grandfather suggested that I push the saw horse up against a wall to keep it from moving.  I definitely need to consider getting more advice from guys who have been working with wood their whole lives.  They usually have a lot of simple solutions for doing things.

This project should really only take a day if I had the right tools.  So far I've worked on it on three separate days for an hour or two at a time.  Part of the reason I haven't done more is that I was waiting on a pair of saws that I bought on eBay.  One of them is a rip saw and I thought it would make my rip cuts a lot easier.  It did, but it's really too coarse for cutting hardwood.  I'll use it for the rest of this project, but I think I'll keep my eye out for another one with more points per inch.  I'm also still waiting on a 1/4" chisel that I ordered to cut the grooves to hold the bottom panel in and a file that I'll use to the smooth out the hand holes in the ends of the box.  Hopefully soon I'll be able to post about cutting my first dovetail joints.