This will be a much shorter post today. I mentioned in the last post that I put the ferrells and caps into 5% acidity vinegar to finish removing the rust on the inside surfaces. Within minutes there were bubbles forming on the pieces and the rust particles were floating in the vinegar within an hour. These four pieces remained in the vinegar for 30 hours. I then rinsed them in tap water, filled the jar with water and added baking soda to it. As for how much, well I used a very old scientific method, Gravity! When a clump fell out of the box that was the amount used. This is just to neutralize any remaining acid from the vinegar.
First 15 minutes in vinegar
After 30 hours in vinegar
In solution of water and baking soda
After drying the pieces off I wire brushed inside and out and coated with protective oil. Hint: a 1/2" plumbers brush was just the ticket for doing the inside of the ferrells.
I also measured the flair of the tangs on the drawknife today and determined I will need to make some adjustments to them before replacing the handles. The tangs for the most part are in line with the blade making it a drawknife best used as a bevel down knife. Just what I want.
I will check the angles on one of my favorite drawknives and most likely adjust this knife to match as closely as possible. My instinct tells me it should be fairly close to the 83.75 degrees pictured above.
The last post has had some great reader comments. I greatly appreciate that you take the time to read my blog and even more so that you take the time and effort to contribute with your comments. One concern brought to light by a reader was Hydrogen Embrittlement. There have been some wonderful contributions concerning this and they can be found in the last posts comments.
As luck would have it, just as I was making great progress on this project, I had to go out to work. I guess that is how it is when one is semi-retired. In an attempt to be as thorough as I can this will be a rather lengthy post.
Well I'm back and lets take up where I left off a few weeks ago. I searched the shop and house for the materials needed to remove the rust using electrolysis and the only thing I had was the baking soda. I purchased a plastic container to use as the electrolysis tank, 8' of 1/2" rebar to use as sacrificial steel, rebar tie wire to connect the rebar together and to tie to the drawknife so that it could be suspended in the tank, and the total cost was less than $12. I borrowed the battery charger from my neighbor Rusty (isn't that ironic).
First step was to wire the rebar together as evenly spaced around the tank as possible. All my research indicated that removing rust using electrolysis is a point to point process. So to avoid any shadowed or blind spots the drawknife needed to be surrounded by the sacrificial steel. The longer piece of rebar on the left is where I clamp the positive side of the battery charger making the rebar the anode.
Next I filled the tank with water and added 1 tablespoon of baking soda per gallon of water. Mix this thoroughly, stirring until the solution is clear. This is the alkaline solution needed. Some individuals recommended using sodium bicarbonate NaHCO3 (baking soda) while others recommended using sodium carbonate Na2CO3 (Arm & Hammer Super Wash). I am not a chemist and I know that there is a difference between the two, but I'm not sure exactly what the difference is in regards to removing rust using electrolysis. By the way, both camps results were the same, the rust was removed. So the deciding factor was, the baking soda was in the pantry. I then wired the drawknife to a piece of wood and submerged it in the tank. The drawknife will be the cathode once the negative cable of the battery charger is attached.
Take great care to ensure the drawknife or any other parts do not come into contact with the rebar! Next, I attached the positive cable to the rebar and the negative cable of the battery charger to one of the wires around the drawknife. I made sure that both cable clamps were out of the water. Once I ensured that everything was as it should be I plugged it in. Almost immediately I saw a reaction take place. Another word of caution: If for any reason you should have to move anything in the tank unplug the battery charger first!
After 32 hours I had to remove the drawknife from the tank. At that point in time it appeared that 99% of the red rust was removed from the drawknife. The ferrells and caps however still had a bit of rust remaining, especially on the inside of the ferrells. I rinsed off the drawknife, ferrells and caps while wire brushing them, then I coated them with a protective layer of oil.
There is a good bit of pitting from the rust, hopefully it will take a good edge.
Red rust is removed and the black rust is stabilized and adhered to good metal.
Name stamped into the drawknife was preserved because electrolysis was used to remove the rust.
Metal Protection from Felder, good stuff!
The sludge that remained in the tank was gnarly looking. The rebar had collected the rust just like it was supposed to.
Earlier today I cleaned the protective coating off the caps and ferrells. I then placed them in a glass jar covering them with vinegar (5% acidity). I will remove them in the morning, rinse them with water, then put them back in the jar covering the pieces with a mixture of water and backing soda. I will leave them in this mixture for a few minutes to neutralize any remaining vinegar then wire brush them. Hopefully this will remove the remaining rust and I can apply the protective oil.
If I am unable to get a post made prior to Christmas my family and I would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a safe and prosperous New Year.
I hope that everyone had a very enjoyable and blessed Thanksgiving!
It has been all too long since I have taken the time to make a post, and for this I apologize. It seems life happens and some things have to take a back seat. I will be making every effort to be more consistent with my posts and hope that you find them interesting and of some use.
The other morning we opened the blinds to find 1 1/2" of the perfect snow. It was everywhere except on the concrete. There is something about fall and winter that make me want to be in the shop. After getting the shop back in order, I was looking over three of my older drawknives and decided it was time to do something with the ugly duckling of the lot (the knife on the far left). The handles are loose, the blade is rusted and even has a bit of a chunk out of the cutting edge. I thought this would be a good knife to use in my first attempt at a total rehab. Then I thought it might be interesting to share this unrehearsed attempt at making this a usable tool.
The handles on the middle knife are my preferred shape of handle. Oddly enough one of these handles measures an 1 1/2" in the bulb while the other measures 1 3/8". I find the smaller of the two fit very comfortably in my hand and I don't experience hand cramps or fatigue like I do with the handles on my subject knife. That made the decision to remove the handles easy.
I have an old orange plastic handled chisel I keep around the shop for jobs such as this. Knowing the handle tang extends the entire length of the handle I did not want to damage the edge of one of my good chisels, so broke out ole orange. This is what I discovered. The hole is step drilled to accommodate the transition from a tang that resembles an over grown cut nail, to round.
The fit of the ferrel and the cap were tight, as was the round portion of the handle tang. However, as you can see, the upper or larger portion of the step drilled hole was no where close to being tight. This brings some questions to mind (i.e. another rabbit hole to explore), but not at this time.
The next step is to remove the rust. After a little research I have decided to remove the rust by electrolysis. I decided to go down this rabbit hole in hopes of converting the black rust into a more stable state and removing the red rust. This is done by passing a low voltage DC electrical current through an alkaline solution or electrolyte. The rusted knife will be submerged into the solution acting as the cathode (negative) and the sacrificial steel will be the anode (positive). I found the site of a gentleman by the name of Andrew Westcott that I found very enlightening on the subject.
I am now going in search of the materials needed to set up my electrolysis tank. I do hope I have most of it hanging around the shop, I do not want to have to deal with the Black Friday traffic. Stay tuned for Part 2.
This was acquired by my brother-in-law Rick at a yard sale for $3. The seller claimed it to be a "scoop adze".
This is a mystery to me! This tool exhibits the tell tale signs of being made by a blacksmith. It is about 12" long from the hammer face to the end of what the seller said is an adze.
If anyone knows what this is and has some historical data on it please let me know by posting a comment.
Those of you who know me, know that I can be a bit of a practical joker. Well the last one bit me in the hind quarters. Suffice it to say that a crank call to an old friend and colleague resulted in a job offer that I could not refuse. So on May 6th I came out of retirement and went back to work, with a "very flexible" schedule.
In a previous post I mentioned I was able to get the dye stain on the king size bed before leaving town. After being gone for two weeks I returned to the shop to apply the brown mahogany stain. I applied said stain, allowed it to sit and then wipe off the excess, as per the instructions. Much to my dismay it looked nothing like the sample board made with the exact same dye and stain. It had a much redder appearance. See post title for the family friendly version of my reaction. I spent the next 2 1/2 hours with a maroon pad and water (water based stain) stripping off the newly applied stain.
It was upon the completion of the aforementioned stripping I swore (and I mean I swore) off all woodworking except for building chairs. It was obvious to my wonderful wife that I was in need of an intervention. She quickly appeared at the shop door with an icy cold Land Shark and talked me off the the headboard ledge. Two days later, an appropriate cooling off period and time to allow everything to dry completely, I was ready to attack staining again.
This time I stained a small area and immediately wiped off the excess. The results were so close to the sample I deemed it a success. After allowing the stain to dry for 24 hours, it has been quite humid here in Kentucky, I sealed it with wax free shellac. Later today or tomorrow, I will go over the entire piece with a very fine pad and apply a thin coat of satin poly. I did this with the sample board and the results were a semi-gloss sheen that Carol and I like.
I did say a few weeks back that the subjects of future posts might be a bit different. Working out of town quite a bit will keep me away from my shop more than I would like. After many a conversation with my brother-in-law Rick, I offered to help him finish setting up his shop in the evening after work. As a result, I will have access to a "Satellite Shop" while I am away from home. Rick is a very talented individual and artist who is not afraid to try anything. I look forward to working in Rick's shop. A hint of what the future may hold is pictured below. By the way this is the result of one of those conversations.
While I am away from the shop I have been thinking about the most efficient way of working when building case goods, beds, and things other than chairs. With Windsor chairs my process is pretty straight forward. Split the log, work the spindles to an octagon shape, shape the arm and bow (if building a Sack Back) and bend in the forms, then set to dry. Leg and stretcher billets are turned out of stock that was split and turned round to dry. While all parts dry, I carve the seat, and so on.
However, with things other than chairs, I usually put on paper my little sketch with some dimensions and into the shop I go. Man do I save time on the front end! I choose my material and I begin. I get the framework of the piece built and then build the details in accordance to what the newly constructed frame work calls for. Sounds fairly easy and straight forward does it not? Suffice it to say, things are not as they seem in my somewhat wonky mind.
With this method, I end up doing so many different machine set-ups it is unbelievable. As you can imagine this can result in minuscule discrepancies in measurement accuracy, which in turn leads to woodworker frustration, and results in me writing this blog post.
I have sought professional help for this malady and here is the advice I have received, as I heard it. Start with as accurate of a drawing as possible. Time to learn Sketch-Up! Develop a cut list, to prove the piece can be built and to purchase material. Take time and think about how to efficiently break down the material with minimal machine set-ups. THEN begin building! Build the carcass, dispose of the cut list, and finish with the remaining parts.
I hope I understand the advice I have been given but more importantly I must fight the urge to skip the prep work. I wonder if there is a support group out there?
Allow me tell you about a very good thing I was
made aware of the other day. It is a project being put together by
woodworker and blogger Sam Cappo. Sam is putting together a user set of
tools, building a tool chest and then giving it all away to a deserving
woodworker. If you have any extra tools, please consider donating.
To view a list of sought after tools and all the details of
this project go to Sam's blog,PlaneDetails.com
Yes this is a first, building furniture from a ladder. I needed to let in the bed rail hardware and this was the easiest way to accomplish said task. These rails are 82 1/2" long and there was just no other good way, that I could think of, to balance my palm router. Thank goodness it is hidden.
Because the first coat of the stain is a water based dye stain and I had done some sanding, I needed to raise the grain prior to dying/staining. After the wood had dried I discovered these little spots. They looked like rust spots. I can only assume they are the result of water mixing with some type of mineral in the wood.
After I knocked the fuzz off with 320 grit paper they disappeared, and did not reappear with the first coat of dye stain.
Here is a look after the first coat. I used General Finishes Light Brown Dye Stain for the first coat. I will follow that with GF Brown Mahogany pigment stain. This will obscure the grain to some degree but it will allow me to even out the color and hide some of the mineral stains that are within the wood.
Due to my schedule it will be a couple of weeks before I will be able to apply the second coat and top coat to finish this project. Before I move this monster into our bedroom I will get some studio pics taken of it along with the Continuous Arm Windsor.
My next project and blog subject is going to be a bit different so stay tuned. ~ Ray Schwanenberger
