More on Staining Wood with Tea

Okay, here's an update on the staining wood with tea experiment; I added two different oil finishes to the test.

First, let's revisit the test board with only the tea stain:


Applications of the tea stain from left to right: five, three, one, and none.

Now the oil from top to bottom: four applications of dark tung oil, four applications of Tried and True Danish Oil, and none.


And the same, but rotated 90 degrees:


I think it is interesting how the angle makes such a difference. The wood is planed, so the chatoyancy might be a factor - I don't remember seeing such a difference when the wood was sanded. But then again, it's been quite a while since I've done much sanding or staining, so maybe I'm just wrong about that.

Oh, and I'm still working on on the coffee stain - more on that later.

Tool Tote

I meant to post this some time ago and then completely forgot about it. I only remembered when I stumbled across the pictures on the computer. So, anyway, here it is.

When I was getting ready for my classes with Roy Underhill last year (Dovetails and Mystery Mallet) I realized I didn't have an good way to transport all the tools I needed/wanted to take with me. It was time to build!

I thought about several different designs, but in the end I decided to make a larger version of the tool tote I made for my son's birthday. Here's how my larger version looked when it was loaded up for the class:


And here's a shot of the unpacked kit:


It's surprising what can fit inside - here's the list(from left to right):

8" Yankee brace, mallet (sans mystery), Gransfors Bruks sharpening stone, Stanley #71 router plane, Lie-Nielsen #98 & #99 side rabbet planes, Veritas marking gauge, Millers Falls coping saw, Stanley #60 low angle block plane, 6" dividers, bevel gauge, pencil box, auger bit file, still more dividers, square, Veritas spokeshave, another marking gauge, half-round files (single and double cut), Nicholson cabinetmaker's rasp #49, flat file (single cut), folding extension rule, auger bit (5/8th"), marking knife, Lie-Nielsen dovetail and carcass saws, my "Scary Sharp to Go" kit, and various gouges and chisels

This particular kit was based on a list specific to the class and additional tools I though I might need for the class projects. I can't remember why I took the Gransfors Brucks sharpening stone. It's what I use on my drawknives, but I didn't take any...hmm. I'm sure it made sense at the time.

Staining with Tea

I've been experimenting with making my own stain; I want something completely non-toxic. I've used tea in the past, but it really didn't seem to do much to the wood, but then I got to thinking about making it stronger somehow. Here's what I came up with.

I started with about two quarts of water. After the water got to a rolling boil, I added six teabags and just let it keep boiling. After about twenty minutes or so, I removed the bags and kept boiling the water down until I had about one cup left.

As you can see, it became quite strong tea:


To test it out, I divided a board into four sections:


Then I left one section unfinished and stained the other three:


After several applications, here were the results:


The first section was left unstained, the second section had one application of stain, the third section had three and the fourth section had five applications.

Conclusions/Thoughts:

• Well first, it obviously works. Cool.
• Second - since it's water based, I realized that you have to wait for the previous application to be completely dry before adding another. If you don't, the wood doesn't absorb the stain and not much happens. I think I could have achieved similar results with fewer coats if I had figured this out sooner.
• Third, the blotchy spots are due to my sloppy application and could easily be avoided.
• I'm curious about what might happen if I strained the tea through a coffee filter. Would it act more as a dye rather than a stain?

Next steps:

I'll oil part of the test board and see how that looks.

Also, now I'm curious about coffee...

Woodshop Roses

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

Bench Leveler Feet - Mark II

I mentioned some time ago that I would post the shop-made leveler feet that I used on the benches at school. These are an improvement on the ones I posted about a few years ago. The main difference is that the whole jam nut adjustment system is gone. I went back to the original design (see link in first post) of embedding a nut in the leg. I also switched the hex bolts to carriage bolts, but I kept the shallow hole in the puck, just making it round instead of hexagonal. These are very simple to make and use.

This is all you need for each leveler foot:


Hockey puck, all thread connector nut, carriage bolt.

Here's the process:

Mark the center of the leg bottom:


Bore a slightly undersized hole:


I usually bore the hole to match the length of the connector nut, but I didn't have my Stanley 47 with me, so I used the much less accurate "tape system".

Then I used my favorite technique for removing chips from the bottom of the hole - just pass the straw between the fingers of your cupped hand and blow hard - no dust in face, eyes or hair:


Tap the connector nut into the hole with a hammer:


After starting it with the hammer, I switch to a heavy rubber mallet and a piece of scrap wood to drive it home:


If you drive the nut completely with the hammer, the threads can become distorted from the pounding and the bolt won't adjust smoothly. DAMHIKT.

And here's the bolt:


The hockey puck foot ready for boring:


Don't squeeze it too tight, or your hole becomes extremely oval when the puck is released from the vise.

Here's the finished foot:

This one is actually wrong - I forgot we reset the adjustable auger bit for a student's project, so the hole is too big. One important note: the hole needs to be deep enough to fully seat the carriage bolt head, but not so deep that the square shank is recessed as well.

And the finished bench leveler foot:


The foot is very simple to adjust - just slip an open-ended wrench over the square shank and turn. These new feet have made workbench leveling at our school shop about as easy as it can get. I think I might have to retro fit my own bench at home...

Shop Art : The Stanley Tool Guide

Well, lately I haven't been putting in much time working on (or in) my shop at home. Rather, it's been a long push to get the school shop up to speed. I'm happy to say it is now very close to being finished. I'll post some pictures soon in case anyone is interested.

There was just one problem. I had one wall that was way too blank. It needed something, but I just couldn't decide what it was. Then I found the perfect shop art to hang - "The Stanley Tool Guide". It's from the early 40's and is both practical and decorative. Well, decorative if you are a crazy, hand tool fanatic I guess.

I took it apart and framed the pages. Here are some shots - not the best quality unfortunately, but I think they show what I like about the prints.

The whole wall - and yes, it's pink. Got a problem with that?



And some detail shots:

Gruff Goats

My wife teaches Kindergarten and asked me to make some wooden billy goats to go with the story they are working with: "The Three Billy Goats Gruff".

These were to be simple silhouettes, nothing fancy, so it was very surprising how much fun they were to make. As you will see, I thought they were pretty fun to play with too.

First, I copied the design onto the stock. I oriented the design to allow the grain to run with the long, thin parts to give them as much strength as possible.


Then it was just a matter of cutting the shape out with the coping saw:


All cuts made - reassembled for fun, and to show how I chose to use relief cuts etc.:


The goat freed from the wood:


The brothers three:


Posing a la "The Bremen Town Musicians":


More fun:



There was some kind of magic in this little project. It's hard to explain, but I loved it!