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UPDATE:

Dana wrote me and brought to my attention a great article in Fine Woodworking by Will Neptune called “Engineering a Table with Drawers”. This is a much more detailed look at the construction methods that are common among all pieces of this form. In fact he leads out by saying “there is a Shaker table hidden in every table with drawers”. Membership to the Fine Woodworking site is required to read the full article but you can check it out here. Thanks for the tip Dana!

I just celebrated by 35th birthday this week and my lovely wife gave me a new 50 degree bevel replacement blade for the Veritas. This was something I was interested in trying ever since trying out some of the really premium planes like Brese and Sauer & Steiner while at Woodworking In America last year. These premium tools have their irons bedded at 55, 60, or sometimes higher for that tearout free cut. With this new 50 degree blade bedded bevel up at 12 degrees I now have a smoother set at 62 degrees.

A very little bit of honing and polishing of the primary and micro bevels and the iron was ready to work. I had just finished up a miter bench hook where I crafted the fence out of a scrap piece of maple turning stock that was 1.75″ thick. This particular piece was cut off a highly figured larger piece so while not heavily figured it had some curly grain nonetheless. I had secured the fence and cut the two 45 degree slots and a 90 degree slot. I secured the fence to the hook using glue and Miller dowels so while flushing the pegs to the surface I really began to uncover the wicked grain beneath. This was the perfect test for my new “premium” smoothing plane.

Schnick, schnick, schnick and with three short passes the pegs were flush with nary a torn grain and beautifully glowing curly maple appearing as if from no where. I immediately turned to the other bench hook I have just created. This one I call my low profile hook because the fence is only 1/4″ high and it is meant for working with small pieces. The fence was crafted from left over Bubinga that was already planed to 1/4″ thick. This stock has wicked hard grain with early and late growth rings intertwining throughout. The wood is hard and unforgiving. I had already planed the pegs flush using my old smoothing set up of 50 degrees and it smoothed it but left some tearout in the expected places. I ignored it because…well…it’s a bench appliance. Flush with success using my new 62 degree setup on the other hook I tried to tackle the beastly Bubinga.

Schnick, schnick, schnnnniiiick again and…WOW! What a difference 12 degrees makes!

The proof as they say is in the pudding…or the end grain. Last night I was squaring up the end of a board with my block plane. I wasn’t even thinking about it when I realized that the plane was gliding across the end grain and producing shavings.

“Hey, whaddaya know, maybe I have gotten good at this sharpening thing!”, I quietly congratulated myself. I then moved on to planing the 1 inch chamfer for clearance on the top of the vise chop I was working on. After sawing most of the bulk away, I turned to my low angle jack (with freshly sharpened blade) to refine the chamfer to my marking lines. Long beautiful end grain (ish) shavings peeled off the wood.

So let this post be my penance for yesterday’s power tool transgression. I do what I have to do to get the job done, but it sure is fun when you realize you may have actually done it right!

This episode came out longer than I had planned as I really try to keep them under 30 minutes. However, I find that oftentimes woodworking shows can be frustrating by telling you how to do something without actually showing it so I decided to keep in all of my footage of cutting the tongue and groove joints by hand. So I apologize for the 200+ MB download (even after compression) but I hope you will enjoy the show.

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I was lucky enough to come across several auctions on eBay from the same tool chest. Unfortunately I was sniped on one of them, so I missed out on completing the set, but I have a fairly complete set of sizes 1 through 8 hollows and rounds.

Hand cut moldings is an area where I am still very new, but I know enough to know that I don’t need every size to be effective. In fact, like mortise chisels, you may find that you are reaching for the same couple of planes over and over again depending on your penchant for Roman versus Greek molding profiles. This however is a topic for another post.

The coolest aspect of working with vintage tools is the feeling that you are picking up where a long gone colleague left off. While I have many vintage tools, these molding planes have a particular significance as I know a little bit of the provenance. The planes were previously owned by one Cornelius Stout, born in Susanville, CA, in 1849. Cornelius was one of 3 brothers and 1 sister but the only brother to pursue woodworking. His father moved to California from New Jersey along with the great masses in response to the Gold Rush. It is here that Cornelius spent his formidable tradesman years as well as the rest of his life. In addition to making furniture, Cornelius was an entrepreneur who was responsible for a few patents, one of which was a clamp designed for both clamping and stretching actions. You can see his original drawing and patent application from June of 1909 here.

Cornelius worked in the Pomona, CA area until his death in 1925 at the age of 76.

On all the planes you can see his initials stamped into the back

and on the front is the Ohio Tool Works stamp telling us just a little bit more about their history.

Obviously there are still many many gaps in the life of these wooden planes, but I take great pleasure in knowing that with every shaving I am continuing on the work of Cornelius Stout.

And no matter how good or bad my work is, I think he would approve

In this episode I demonstrate how you can add a bevel to the long edge of a board using only your hand planes. Doing this same task on a table saw can be dangerous if you’re not very careful and often results in unsightly burning no matter how sharp your blade. Those burns have to be cleaned up with sandpaper or a plane anyway so why not skip the table saw altogether. You might even get it done faster!

I’ll do my best to get out another episode of Hand Tool Tips soon and they may be great filler in between projects (or when I can’t get the video edited in time on an existing project). Please let me know what you think of these short format shows and please let me know if you would like to see a specific topic covered.

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It made me laugh but it is a dogma to keep close to your heart while working with hand tools. Saws run easier, planes slide nicely, bits turn smoothly. Old English cabinetmakers often used tallow to lubricate their planes and that is what really gives most of the vintage tools that lovely patina we see today. The first time you run a block of wax along the sole of your plane and use it you will be shocked at the difference it makes and how much less you end up working. Saws are just the same especially when you get deep in that cut and your arm is starting to burn. A quick swipe of wax and your saw has wings and powers through the cut like a Coon hound on the scent of a prize jackrabbit (that was for you Kari).

Now Adam Cherubini just put up a post recently proclaiming the virtues of the wooden plane and the fact that it needs no wax to glide across its surface and I can’t deny this. In fact I commented on his post my agreement and satisfaction of using my wooden Jack. But I do own a fair number of metal planes that I am not going to stop using because I need to wax the soles. Maybe if Adam asked really nicely and threw in some of his grandmother’s lasagna and a sixer of Sam Adams Irish Red (hey I’m multi-cultural in my epicurean pursuits) then I might consider it. You would still need to keep that wax around for your saws and auger bits. For that matter, have you ever waxed the bed of your thickness planer or table saw? What magic that does to using the tool!

So, I’m sorry for all the tool endorsements that have cost my readers money lately. I will make amends with this recommendation. Go to the grocery store and buy a block of canning wax for a couple bucks, heck you can probably get it cheaper at Wal-Mart. This will change your work for the better. If you run out of that wax in your lifetime as a woodworker, drop me an email and I will buy you another block.