nicomichaeljames

[nicomichaeljames]

Today I resawed, router planed and bent this maple on a homemade bending iron in order to practice for bending the sides of the ukulele I will be building. Turned out well and I got good practice for the mahogany I will use as the sides and back.

[nicomichaeljames]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Tóth (@tothtoth)

First coat of oil going on my 97th vase…. #makeitrain #thedustylife #woodturning

[nicomichaeljames]

Worker Blade and Koa..

#knife #knifelife #knifefanatics #knifemaking #knifecommunity #knifestagram #knifenut #metalwork #woodworking #koa #americanmade #donttreadonme #threepercenter #dailybadass #theknifeclub #hunting #survival #camping #bushcraft #cutlery #tactical #everydaycarry #pnw #washington #puyallup #253

[nicomichaeljames]

Are you a robot?

No

[nicomichaeljames]

7 august 2016

[nicomichaeljames]

This project was one of the first wooden rings that I have made. This one in particular was made of cocobolo, the same wood I made the Izula scales from. To make it, I drilled a circle into the wood and cut the best that I could around the circle. I then used my dremel to enlarge the circle to the correct width. Using duct tape around a sanding disc I spun the ring on my dremel and sanded until the proper shape was reached. I then sanded to 2000 grit to finish. The process I use to make rings now is slightly different but overall the same.

[nicomichaeljames]

This project was the sucessful continuation of my last project, though this time I used better wood, and a dremel. The wood was cocobolo, which is very hard, very dense, very strong and very beautiful.

I drilled the holes using my power drill using the CD trick in order to keep it as straight as possible. I also needed rather thin pieces and the slabs I had were much too thick for what I needed so I made a small jig for my miter box. For later projects I would just cut them by hand with a thinner hand saw, due to ease and the wasting of less material.

I had to order hardware since what ESEE gives was much too shallow to work with he thickness that I had made. I counter sunk the drill holes by hand with the dremel and simply sanded to about 2000 grit and left it like that since cocobolos oily nature doesnt accept most finishes.

[nicomichaeljames]

This is a small shelf I built for my moms birthday to hold some teacups in her china hutch. I dont seem to have a pic of the finished product, but it was straight forward enough you get the idea. I didnt have a way to rip the boards so I bought them in 3 different widths after figuring out the design before hand. I cut them to length on my miter box that was given to me by my grandfather to help build my workbench.

If I remember correctly, this build happened almost concurrently with building my workbench, which I can’t find the pictures for. More on that later.

They took ages to cut and I didnt yet have a way to mount the miter box, so I built a small platform of plywood atop 2x4s that i screwed together then screwed the miterbox to. Between my weight and a office style water jug a third full of pennies, the miter box stayed stable enough to use. After cutting, the boards were simply glued up and I have to say, it was a clean build. I actually took my time sanding on this one and the results showed. Nothing fancy, but it was my first chance to use my new workbench for the glue up.

[nicomichaeljames]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Phil Fuentes (@325sqft)

#ookanna #work #ineedoneofthese #japanesetools #japanesewoodworking #kez2016 @jimblauvelt @mokuchistudio (at Mokuchi)

[nicomichaeljames]

ESEE Izula

[nicomichaeljames]

This here was my first attempt at a woodworking project. I really wanted to make knife scales for my ESSE Izula neck knife. Unfortunatly, I knew very little actual technique and I had access to very few tools. I think I bought a coping saw for the job, being familiar with one from high school shop class. In addition to that, the only other tools I had on hand were sandpaper and a couple small c clamps and a power drill.

This was before I had a workbench so the cutting and sanding was all done on the desk in my bedroom. There was a LOT of sanding, and I learned very quickly the problems of that level of dust inhalation. I convinced myself I was fine, however and persisted onward.

The reason there were so many holes in the scales was so that I could put pins through the wood in such a way that it would contact the insides of the cutout of the handle. I did not think that the screws would be able to hold them on strong enough with friction alone to keep them from slipping laterally.

The end of this project was a realization that the pins would not work as intended, as the holes that were drilled through them were slanted too much. I would later learn to correct for this by having a CD around where i am drilling so i could better line up the bit to its reflection. This was no substitute for a drill press, but it helped my unperceptive drilling to the point where it was workable.

Another issue I faced with this project was the choice in wood. Red oak. Boards bought from Home Depot. It was the hardest stuff they had, however for small projects like this, it is simply too pourous to use, especually as a knife handle where it could be getting wet or coming into contact with food. On something this small that should be avoided. This was also the first in many lessons of trying getting as close to target in order to reduce the amount of fixing (sanding) later. This is especially important when using hand tools.

I never did finish this project, however it was an invaluable learning oppurtunity for the knife scales I would make in the near future.

[nicomichaeljames]

#knife #knifelife #knifefanatics #knifemaking #knifecommunity #knifestagram #knifenut #metalwork #woodworking #americanmade #donttreadonme #threepercenter #dailybadass #theknifeclub #hunting #survival #camping #bushcraft #cutlery #tactical #everydaycarry #pnw #washington #puyallup #253

[nicomichaeljames]

[nicomichaeljames]

Good-ass sky

28 july 2016, evening