A new balcony and canopy for the main entrance

Mon, 12/10/2009 - 17:26 — Pekka Huhta
We moved in to an old timber framed house six years ago and I have been renovating it since. This year I got the last bits finished on the outside, now there is still only some interior work left.

Last things to be done were the front door and the balcony. The "before" image has been taken on the first winter after moving in and the "after" one just a few weeks ago.

An infill molding plane

Wed, 04/03/2009 - 00:00 — Pekka Huhta

Hand planed moldings for my bathroom

Thu, 05/06/2008 - 15:32 — Pekka Huhta



I wanted hand planed moldings to my bathroom – actually they were a big part of the design from the start. I actually started the whole project by planing the first moldings, the story can be found at http://www.sihistin.fi/en/woodwork/moldings.html

Starting from the material: I use pine, as slowly grown as I can find, free of knots and cross-grain. Here is an example of what I mean:

Replacing a horn on a smoothing plane

Wed, 05/12/2007 - 00:00 — Pekka Huhta
The horn on a "continental style" or german handplane is often missing. Main reason is the force used to plane, but reading from the cracks on several planes, they also suffer from the same "dropping syndrome" as the totes on Stanleys.



Replacing the horn can be as easy as this:

Quick repair: new sole for a reeding plane

Tue, 04/12/2007 - 13:31 — Pekka Huhta
Just as a quick note: one method for replacing the insert piece on a wooden plane. (What should the "insert" be called? If they are "boxed" planes, is the insert piece a box then?)

Half of the insert was gone, but I managed to plane a short length of the appropriate profile with the plane anyway.

Hand-planed moldings

Tue, 04/12/2007 - 12:50 — Pekka Huhta
My house is built 1919 from recycled components, apparently taken from a bigger house somewhere. For my bathroom project I decided to add a few new profiles in addition to the vast amount of old recycled moldings I have scattered all over the house. Just for the fun of doing it, and perhaps to prove my dear wife that there really is a point in collecting all of those planes.

It is pretty difficult to get good enough timber anywhere, but I had some old roof beams available (you’ll see some more on the background).

Making an axe handle

Tue, 04/12/2007 - 00:00 — Pekka Huhta


I had two axes in need of a handle and a small birch trunk to begin with. At least over here the rule goes: back of the handle towards the bark. Never towards the center, and never getting the center on the finished handle. You also should always find some sort of natural croock in the wood. As you can see my trunk had a shallow s-curve in it, suitable for two handles.

A self-made wooden lathe

Tue, 04/12/2007 - 00:00 — Pekka Huhta
I had a problem: I needed a lathe for a couple of chisel handles but had no intention of buying one. My workshop is about 2,3 x 2,4 m big and already pretty full and I did not want to waste money for something that could be easily built anyway.

I have used my hand drill for all sorts of small turning tasks, modifying screw heads, polishing anything that could be gripped in the chuck and rotated etc. So the thought of using a hand drill as the motor for the drill was quite obvious.

Tar, what it is and how it is made?

Mon, 01/10/2007 - 17:04 — Pekka Huhta

"Stockholm tar", pine tar that is, has been made for thousands of years. The name Stockholm Tar has a centuries old history. Tar was mainly made in Finland (which was a part of Sweden those days) but as it was all sold through Stockholm, the name came and stayed. The poor Swedes had burned most of their forests with their iron industry they came over to the periphery (Finland) and bought our forests in form of tar.

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