I guess I shouldn’t really complain because I am one the masses contributing content and opinions to the whirlpool. I just didn’t want to spend a bunch of time considering how to make them when I had some high quality scrap baltic birch ply sitting in the corner of the shop. It’s flat and already cut in sizes that make sense.

I made two hooks, a low profile and a miter hook. Both are sized to accommodate the average work I would be doing.

The low profile hook has a fence that is only 1/4″ tall and I will be using it for small parts work. This is a quick way to plane small parts by butting them up against the fence and still being able to plane across them. I made the bed of the hook 12″ wide and 18″ long to give me plenty of space the work. I may end up using it as a backer board when chopping dovetails too.

The miter hook is really just a normal bench hook but I made the fence 1.5″ tall and cut two 45 degree and one 90 degree kerf in it. I also stopped the fence short of the left side of the hook to allow cutting there too. With the taller fence I can register a back saw in the kerf and make very accurate cuts. Like the low profile hook the fence is attached to the base using Miller dowels.

Finally I made a new shooting board. My old board was no longer flat and I can never get the fence right. I had screwed the fence in place and with years of unscrewing and screwing the holes don’t keep the fence steady. So here I made the shooting platform out of 1/2″ ply set on 3/4″ ply for the chute. I can shoot wider stock now as more of the plane blade is exposed. The board is 18 by 15 with plane chutes on either side of the board. I am a lefty but my Philly skew miter is made for right handed use. (my oversight, I should have told Philly my gaucheness) No matter and it is still easy to use and works like a dream. I added the left hand chute in case I wanted to square up another end of the board and could keep my same 2 reference faces against the fence. Thanks for the tip Bob Rozaieski!

The fence is hard maple and it is attached to threaded inserts in the base. I drilled over sized holes in the fence so that I can adjust the fence to keep it square.

In use the board works great. I was a little concerned that the fence might shift but so far it is rock solid. I guess if it becomes a problem I can add some sandpaper to the bottom.

So those are my new appliances and I have already gotten a lot of use out of them since I started my end table for The Wood Whisperer Guild Build. I’m sure you will be seeing these boards a lot in the future.

I can’t really put my finger on it, but there is something very calming about working in a semi dark shop. It feels more intimate and just feels wrong to be making a lot of noise like I might wake up someone so it seems that this low lighting actually lends itself to hand work. The weather is still a bit too cold for me to open my garage door and the two windows I do have shed some natural light on things but not quite enough; hence the incandescent task lights.

All of this preamble leads up to an experience from this weekend. I was working in my shop most of the day on my Wood Whisperer Guild build table with only this one light on over the bench. I continued to work until just before the sun went down when I took a break to walk the dog. That led to dinner and a few other things in the house and I was not able to get back down to the shop until it was fully dark outside. As I walked through the door into the shop I was greeted by this sight:

Behold my shrine to hand tool woodworking! How can you not be inspired to produce your best work when confronted with this setting!

I chose the medium cut, round file since most of the time I reach for a file is when trying to refine a curved surface. The edges are safe so that you can cut right up into a corner which I really like when trying to clean up a sharp corner.

My first impressions are that this file cuts really smoothly and just glides across the wood. I grabbed a scrap of hard maple to put the file to the test and before I knew it I was pulling long curly shavings off the wood with little effort. The stock removal was really fast and still left a clean surface that wouldn’t take much to clean up.

I am really impressed with how easily and quickly these files work and I am anxious to try out the fine and extra fine versions to see how clean they leave the stock. The file I currently own will be invaluable for rough shaping and I imagine I could knock out some cabriole legs pretty quickly with it.

The concerns I have at this point is how durable the teeth are over time. At around $30 a piece they are not super expensive but not throw away either. I’ll have to report back on that in time. For now I have some cool shavings to make with my new file.

First of all the cut started easily and powered through the hard Ash with little effort and in no time at all. The cut was dead square and really clean considering the 10 ppi pitch. There is no tear out on the back of the cut because of that relaxed rake on the front and rear teeth.

This will be a visible piece every time I remove the vise assembly but I made no attempt to clean it up because I like the reminder that I cut this by hand with a beautiful saw.

Call me a fanboy if you like, but I am sold on Bad Axe Toolworks! The beauty of this cut is merely another testament to a great tool.

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!

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 probably has a lot to do with my personal development as a woodworker as I continue to focus more on the minutiae of joinery and the perfect fit or perfect shape, but I am certainly using my hand tools more and more every day. I don’t want to necessarily espouse one philosophy over another as I think the woodworker needs to do what works best for them. That best practice could vary from day to day and project to project too. There is no need to criticize a fellow for doing something differently because sooner or later you will be in that same position.

For example, I really enjoy using planes to flatten boards. There are several reasons for this and most of them are warm fuzzy, introspective ones. The measurable reasons are:

shavings are great for starting fires (in the fireplace) on cold days
most boards from my favorite lumber mills come in 8″ or wider sizes & my jointer is 6″
I can stand to burn the calories
I have never been able to get twist out easily on a power jointer
I have a really, really, cool workbench

However, we all have those projects or tasks within a project that can only be described at tedious. This drudgery can kill your enjoyment of a project and oftentimes leads to abandonment. Raise your hand if you have an “unfinished project” corner in your shop! Do I want to spend several days working on that task by using hand planes to process the stock when I could zip through it on a jointer in 15 minutes? Not likely. So you can see my point of not criticizing another’s dogma. I can say I don’t use my power jointer anymore and don’t really see the point of such a tool and encourage others to ditch their jointers all day long until that one task comes around and I sneak off to the electron smashing side of the shop. That’s a little hypocritical don’t you think?

My preamble here is a set up to some of my thoughts about my own work and my shop set up. This is in no way a cavalier way of saying do as I do and everything else is wrong. Call it an experiment.

As many of you know I have one of those magnetic mats that covers the table saw to protect against rust. I realized the other day that it has been on there so long that the fine coating of dust on it has hardened in place. I began thinking and realized that it has been well over a month since I used the machine. The same story for my power jointer. It was probably early November since I last used it. Now let me honest: I haven’t been working in the shop every day. The Christmas shop rush was all about the lathe as usual so there was no need for either tool. The ongoing Roubo bench saga is well beyond the point of milling and sizing stock so there was no need there. Even the Chest of Drawers that I built in August saw very little use of either machine. Most of the sizing of stock was done on the band saw and the wider stuff was flattened by hand then run through the thickness planer.

So here is my idea: to abstain from table saw and jointer use for the next 60 days. I would like to see what happens to my work style and time until delivery of finished projects. I say 60 days as I have 2 furniture pieces in que for the next 2 months to start. I probably won’t finish them both in 60 days but I will at least be on to the joinery phase where I spend all my time at the bench anyway. Let me be clear, I am not unplugging completely as I will probably still use my planer to save time when creating parallel faces, but beyond that I feel I can handle everything with just my hand tools. I really want to see how many times I am reaching for these tools and what happens to my skills when I have vowed not to use them.

I can honestly say that if this experiment is successful, I will NOT be getting rid of these 2 tools. Remember what I said in the first part of this post: drudgery is not for me. I can however see myself moving them off to a corner of the shop in a long term storage mode and freeing up a substantial amount of space for dancing.

So let’s throw down the gauntlet! Starting today and until the end of March I will not touch either my table saw or my jointer no matter how badly I screw up a rip cut or flail about with my hand planes. It should be an interesting experience to truly test my hand skills and see what my patience threshold really is.

Who’s making bets!!!

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.

Breaking down stock to rough sizes

1 Rip saw in the 5-7 tpi range
1 Crosscut saw in the 8-9 tpi range

I would use these two saws to quickly break up longer boards in their rough state. The stock would be at minimum 4/4 but likely thicker to the 8/4 range so the tpi needed to be low to accommodate it. The cuts don’t need to be pretty so an aggressive rake would be best to allow for faster work. The set would be moderate here since I would be working in both hard and softwoods. I sent Mark a 28″ Disston D8 to be my rip saw and I have a D23 filed crosscut at 8 tpi currently in my shop ready to go. The large rip saw could also double as an effective resawing blade too.

Dimensioning rough boards to close to final size

1 Rip saw around 8 tpi
1 Crosscut saw around 10 tpi

These two saws would take my planed stock that was flat and to thickness and cut out the parts needed for whatever I am building. Thickness for 95% of my work would be 7/8 and under but speed is still somewhat of a factor especially when ripping so I wanted saws with a low tpi but still capable of producing a somewhat clean cut. My thoughts were to get this cleaner cut with a relaxed rake which would also serve to make the saw an easier starter. The set would be minimal so at the remove much less wood and allow be to work very close to the finish line while saving on plane clean up later. I sent Mark a 26″ Disston D23 to be re-toothed and filed rip and I would use my 11 tpi crosscut 20″ D8 panel saw since by this point in the process most of my parts would not be very wide and a long saw wouldn’t do much for me. This would be where I see growing the nest in the future by adding a 26″ crosscut saw, but for now the panel saw will suffice until I start building large casework and want to saw faster.

Bench Work

1 rip saw filed fine in the 10+ tpi range
1 crosscut saw also fine in the
This is really the last saw cuts that get made. In some instances it could be larger joinery like bridal joints that are deeper than the clearance of my tenon backsaw. It would be final sizing of a panel in a door or case side where I don’t need the edge to be clean since it would be housed in a joint. These will be small and clean cuts. For these operations I would use my existing crosscut panel saw but I would need a finely tuned rip saw to accompany it. I got a 19″ D8 on ebay that was file crosscut so I sent that to Mark to be filed rip.

What is so great about the service that Mark offers is the entire process is a consultation and a peek into the head of a saw expert. I told Mark what I currently have and what my goals were and he helped guide me with regard to pitch, geometry, and size. I did some initial cleaning of the saws to remove rust by following the instructions on Mark’s page and then packaged them up to be sent off to Wisconsin.

Once Mark received them he did a once over and diagnosed problems he saw like bends I didn’t catch in the saw plate and how they fit into the handle as well as the quality of the existing teeth. He sent me his findings and prognosis in an email along with his suggestions on how to set up the saws to meet my goals. Initally, Mark also suggested I contact Tom Fidgen to get his take on the content of a good nest and together, Mark and I factored in Tom’s comments to come to conclusions on the final profile of each of the 3 saws I sent him. It turns about that all of them has bends that I didn’t catch and the small panel saw was really at a point that wasn’t worth the restoration money for the outcome. Rather than leaving it at that, Mark, who is a bit of a collector, told me he had a nice little Simmonds saw that would be a great stand in and in many cases a better performer than my little Disston. I gave him the approval to move ahead with the restore on that saw and I paid the difference.

The final products are all very close to my initial ideas with some minor tweaks here and there in rake and pitch. Throughout this process Mark was highly communicative letting me know his thoughts and his project time line. The rush of orders on the Bad Axe side of the house prevented him from getting to my saws for a few weeks and he was up front with that. I told him there wasn’t a hurry to begin with anyway, All told though once Mark started working on the saws, it only took him the space of one weekend to complete the complete reshaping, re-toothing, jointing, filing, and honing of all 3 saws. The finished saws arrived on my doorstep this past Saturday and they look beautiful. Mark uses mostly recycled material for all of his packaging too.

The saws were clean and beautiful with wicked sharp teeth. My big 28″ rip saw could cut you just by handling it and the set was much less than when I sent it to him.

As is typical whenever shop toys arrive in the mail I have a day of non stop activities outside of woodworking. I did get down to the shop briefly on Sunday and put the Simmonds panel saw to work sizing to width some shelf planks for the lower shelf on my workbench. The saw starts like a whisper and cuts really smooth leaving a clean cut that took only a pass or two with my jointer plane to be ready for tongue and groove joinery.

The saw plate is polished nicely with a clearly visible etch

The handle has a nice chip carving pattern on it and is comfortable in use.

I haven’t been able to try out the other saws but the real test will be when I start my next project and can work the work all the way from the mill to the finish, putting to work all the varying pitches and geometries to good effect.

The nest will cover just about anything I need especially when I add in the 8 tpi rip file bow saw in the foreground for awkward ripping tasks like when I needed to cut my vise chop to shape. Of course I am not including my joinery saws in this post, but know that they are very much a part of the work and I will get into a discussion of those in a future post.

Working with Mark was a pleasure and I felt that I was truly in the hands of an expert throughout. He has just updated his website as well as put a flag in the ground on Facebook where he has some lively saw discussions already underway. In fact there is a great discussion on just what makes up an ideal nest of saws. Head over there and check it out.

Let’s look at music as an example. With thousands of years of tradition and formal structure to music, it took those crazy Americans to throw away those rules and build the Jazz art form based entirely around improvisation. In the Baroque period, the Pope banished the diminished 5th or tri-tone from music calling it il diablo en musica because of it’s harshly dissonant sound. No one would touch the interval until some crazy American named Bernstein not only used the interval but based an entire operetta, West Side Story, on the evil sound.

Americans have long been about breaking the rules and casting off societal norms. Now maybe we have gone a bit too far these days and I will be the first to admit a yearning for a simpler, more moral time. “Gee Walt, I think there’s something wrong with the Beaver”.

Our furniture was simpler and cleaner than it’s heavily carved and ornate British counterparts. Outside of the metropolitan areas, I don’t think America really left the Queen Anne or Neat & Plain period for the embellished Chippendale. While Federal was well into vogue in Europe and certainly not an American idea, we embraced wholeheartedly the return to basics that this style evokes and latched onto it as our own as a kind of metaphor for our new born republic.

These days, there is a point of pride when you say that this product was made in America (or at least North America) and there is no question that we are making some brilliant tools here on the continent. I own many of them and use them proudly.

However when it comes to mortising chisels let me just say, God save the queen and pip pip cheerio to that! This Christmas Santa sent me a pair of Ray Iles English Pattern Mortising Chisels and they are a revelation! You wouldn’t think that such a simple tool could be so vastly different. It’s a thick piece a steel crammed into a wooden handle right? Let’s take a look at the features of these chisels and what it means to you when you use them.

Handles
At first glance you will notice the handle. It is beefy and not round. I love the tactile feel of a hefty handle and the elliptical shape allows you to “register” the chisel in your hand. I have found that this helps me to position the chisel very quickly and easily merely by the feel of the tool in your hand. There is very little chance of chopping into your stuff at a crooked angle.

Bevels
As they come from England via Tools for Working Wood, the chisel are ground with a really acute primary bevel. I measured mine to be in the 20-25 degree range. This low bevel allows room for the chisel to work deep in a mortise while still providing great leveraging power along that bevel. However, this primary bevel would quickly fold under the whacking you give it while mortising. So to compensate there is a secondary bevel of 35 degrees. Notice I say secondary bevel and not micro bevel. This secondary bevel is a good 3/16″ wide to provide a solid hunk of steel to support your cutting edge. I immediately saw a great difference with the lower primary bevel. I had much more room when approaching the bottom of the mortise to move the chisel back and forth when levering out the waste.

That Crazy Odd Shape
This is something you won’t notice unless you are looking for it, but will immediately feel in use. The cross section of the blade is trapezoidal in shape with a slight wider back than front. The big reason for this is when you are buried deep in the wood a simple pull back on the handle will pop the chisel free of the mortise death grip. Most important for me is the with this slight taper you get some wiggle room when starting the cut and positioning your chisel along your marking lines. I had long believed that parallel sides were necessary to guide the chisel through the cut, but you quickly realize that this has little to no effect as the resulting mortise is determined on that first tap of the mallet. I suppose if I were making very shallow mortising this could make a difference, but for furniture work, it is rare to make a mortise shallower than 1 inch.

So far I have put these babies to the test in Poplar, Maple, Oak, Pine, Walnut, and Mahogany and there really is no appreciable difference. It is very easy to line up because of the oval handle and the trapezoidal shape allows for some flexibility in steering into the cut as you whack it with a mallet. I also have a few eBay finds that I have been using for the better part of a year and there is a difference. While based on the same pattern, the exceptional steel, more acute primary bevel, and the trapezoid shape are not found on these vintage chisels. What I find most exciting is this is a chisel that you don’t need a complete set to be effective. How many sizes of mortises do you really cut right. I have 3/8 and 1/4″ now and I can’t see needing anymore. I have a 1/2″ in my vintage set and I have used those while making my workbench.

So in conclusion, run don’t walk over to Tools for Working Wood and check these out, pour yourself a pint of bitter, put Manchester on the tele, and make some holes in your wood

I was putting the finishing touches on the leg vise to my workbench this past weekend and focusing solely on the functionality of it. I had installed the parallel guide with a through wedged tenon and backed it up by pegging the joint. I was very proud of this very strong and if I may very pretty joint and the vise was working great. I then realized that I still needed to chamfer the edges not only to allow room for working on the outside of the chop but to cut down on weight since the chop is a 2 inch thick piece of Ash. I also wanted to cut a taper on the chop toward the bottom. So much for running it through the table saw or band saw.

Imagine a thick board that is 2×8x35 with an 18″ board sticking out of the back at a right angle.

Now how am I going to cut the taper and the edge profile?

Clamp it to the bench front, and hit it with a frame saw or panel saw filed rip and you have a tapered edge, all the while working around the parallel guide sticking out the back.

Now onto the chamfer. I clamped the chop down to my bench with the parallel guide hanging off the back and held securely between two dogs.

Then it was time to make lots of shaving with my drawknife, spokeshave, and block plane to create perfect 1″ 45 degree chamfer all the way around the coffin shaped vise chop.

This is just one example of the work you can do after the glue up with hand tooling. Call it flexibility, but often it is just me realizing too late that I should have done something before putting glue on that tenon.

Any war stories out there where a hand tool has corrected your glue happy tendencies?

This week I add the dust frame and back panel to the chest carcase and then move on to dovetailing all 5 drawers. I hope you enjoy this episode and don’t hesitate to hit me with questions or suggestions on how I can improve.

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Not sure how many parts this build will work out to but enjoy.

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Posted via web from renaissanceww’s posterous

Since this footage was shot I have finished the leg vise and you can see it if you look close in one of the opening photos. I’ll post that part soon, but really y’all are caught up to my progress now.

Oh yeah, let me know what you think of my new opening credits segment with episode specific shots.

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I arrived home from the office after a long day knowing that I needed to head back out in a minute to run a few errands with my wife. There was not time to really get into anything nor did I want to sit down in front of the TV knowing that the law of inertia would probably keep me there. Instead I wandered into the shop and looked around thinking I would take in the smell of wood shavings for a bit. Laying on my bench was a the parallel guide for the sliding leg vise of my Roubo. I had drilled the peg holes already and I only needed to cut the detail on the end before joining it to the mortise on the chop.

Such a simple task to saw two miters and clean them up but one that would enfold me in such a feeling a contentment and excited peace.

A quick whack of the mallet upon the hold fast cemented the guide to the front of the bench at an angle, presenting the miter cut in a vertical aspect. Pinch the work and press the shiny saw plate to my fingers. Lift the weight of the saw off the wood and push lightly forward to start the cut. Release the weight of the saw while releasing my unconsciously held breath and the saw begins to cut eagerly. With each stroke I relax my grip on the saw further and the tension of the day eases from my neck and shoulders. The waste of the miter falls away and I take a moment to bask in the glory of a finely sharpened saw and the fine ribbons of wood created with a rip cut saw.

Whack, and the hold fast releases it’s grip on the Ash. I move the piece to the bench top and set it atop another scrap of wood, positioning the freshly sawn edge so that it slightly overhangs the scrap. Turning my block plane on it’s side, I begin to shoot the edge and within a few strokes I have a polished, flat edge that gleams like only planed end grain can do.

My work is done, but not yet prepared to release myself from my meditation, I lean the block plane over towards the work piece and begin to chamfer the mitered edge to give it a little more style. I revel in the minuscule adjustments needed to create an even chamfer on all three sides at the end of the guide and watch the light bouncing off the faceted face until the angles match all the way around.

My wife’s voice breaks my reverie, it is time to go. I put down my block plane and walk away from the bench, not sad to go, but satisfied with work well done. I look over my shoulder one last time before I switch off the lights and smile. “See you next time” I say and walk out refreshed and ready to face whatever comes my way.

If you not a fan of book reviews then just follow the advice in the title and skip this post…still here…well then let’s talk about this book.

Joel Moskowitz and Christopher Schwarz make a great authoring team in this work. They are like a good comedy team with Joel playing the straight man and Christopher the comic relief. The opening chapters of the book are written by Joel and he gives us a very thorough account of the trades and environmental pressures present in the early 1800s in England. Joel’s excitement about the revelations found within the pages is contagious and you eagerly dive in ready to be astounded. I’ll admit that you really have to be a scholar of esoterica like Joel to really be blown away, but essentially with his commentary and subsequent footnotes throughout the story of Thomas the apprentice you get a peek inside Joel’s mind and begin to understand why this work is so groundbreaking. By the end of the opening chapter and the story itself the reader has a great understanding of what the apprentice system looked like in the late 1700s to early 1800s from how the apprentice is picked to what is expected of him throughout his typical 7 year apprenticeship. We even get a villain in the guise of another apprentice in the shop who is portrayed as careless, lazy, and one who doesn’t take care of his tools.

For those of you who have dared to read the original Moxon or Nicholson have no fear. The language of the original text is quite a bit more modern seeing as the work was published in the 1830s. What’s more it is easy to follow and really engaging like good fiction should be. The details of each build and the atmosphere of the shop is told in great detail that has you smelling the hide glue and slipping on shavings.

This quaint little story would be reward enough, but the the Lou Costello of woodworking steps up (Christopher Schwarz) and walks us through the build process of the packing crate, school box, and chest of drawers. This section of the book is complete with plenty of Christopher’s trademark black and white photos and his signature small town newspaper man tone with a lot of dry wit thrown into the mix. We get to meet Katy Schwarz on several occasions and discover that this 8 year old prodigy is a better woodworker than most of us which plays nicely as a modern day side story of the apprentice system within the Schwarz household. I have no question that you can take this book as is and build all three of these projects in your own shop with no further instruction.

However, Christopher is packaging this book with an accompanying CD-ROM which has full color slide shows and audio commentary of each project build. If you’re a technogeek like me you will quickly find a way to burn these slide shows onto your mobile device so you can watch them on the go. I was making pegs for draw boring the other day in my shop, a truly boring (pun intended) task especially when you have to make 48 of them. I plugged my iPod into the TV and watched all three presentations (a total of around 90 minutes).

Essentially the projects presented within could be considered your correspondence woodworking course to teach you the ins and outs of hand tool cabinetry. And you don’t even need Sally Struthers to host it!

I read this book in less than a day and was captivated by it. Upon the second read, I picked up a few more tidbits that have me reconsidering how I approach projects in my own shop. I have to figure out when I can fit them into the que, but I really would like to build all three of these projects in order, consecutively, to see how it can improve my own work. I’ll be sure to keep you all informed once I decide to get started.

In summary, if you know a woodworker, get this for them for Christmas. If you are a woodworker, don’t wait til Christmas to get it, there are tools mentioned inside that you will want to make these projects that you can ask for instead.

The book is of course available at either The Lost Art Press or Tools for Working Wood, what are you waiting for???

Happy reading!

Stay tuned next week for more Roubo. She will finally stand on her own 4 feet…

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Enjoy!

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This seminar was my first at WIA and has captivated me with regard to the history of molding profiles and the execution of these profile using only hand tools. Since October I have acquired a few more of these planes and hope to get them into working order to use on my next period project.

Enjoy the show!

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Last month while attending WIA in Valley Forge I was fortunate enough to get some time to chat with Peter Follansbee about sources to learn more about 17th century furniture. Peter highly recommended Dr. Robert Tarule’s book “The Artisan of Ipswich” about the Ipswich, MA joiner Thomas Dennis. If you are only slightly interested in learning about how it was done in 17th century America then this book is for you. Not only do we get a bench side view of a chest being built but Dr. Tarule spends a copious amount of time telling us about the history of the settling of Ipswich and how the native Americans practiced sustainable forestry that provided the colonists with such a bounty of resources. In addition, there is an entire chapter devoted to the other artisans throughout the town like Coopers, Carpenters, and Wheelwrights and a discussion about the types of wood they needed and how they impacted on the resources available to the commoners of Ipswich.

I admit to being a bit of a history buff, but when you combine my love of woodworking with a study on the workings of a colonial town you get a great read. Dr. Tarule uses a mixture of non fiction, footnoted writing typical of a doctoral thesis, but then he slips into his side by side retelling of Thomas Dennis making a chest for a patron. What is most interesting is that Tarule’s retelling is not conjecture but highly accurate based on his examination of the actual piece being described. By following the tool marks, scribe lines, and reading the wood, Dr. Tarule can recreate how the joiner made this piece.

A shot of Peter Follansbee’s work from WIA Tools & Techniques 2009

By the end of the book, you are better informed not only of how you take a tree and make a chest, but why it was done that way, and what sociological pressures forced it to be designed the way it was. Finally as a parting treat, Dr. Tarule’s epilogue follows this same chest up through ages to it’s modern day home in a museum in Massachusetts. It puts a nice little bow on your understanding of the piece and how it has weathered the storm of time.

In short, go find a copy of this book. Prices has gone up a bit since Chris Schwarz blogged about it a few weeks ago, but there are still many used sources out there and you will thank me once you have read it.

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Many of my twitter followers will remember my updates of “another power outage” or “I’m in my shop and it’s dark, I’m scared”. It seems that Baltimore Gas & Electric is trying to make me a better woodworker. (yes that is my optimistic view of this). I am essentially a hybrid woodworker with a passion for hand tools. I will try to make everything I can unplugged but I admit there are times when a repetitive task becomes drudgery and I pop over to the the table saw to make some batch cuts, or I hit the router table to cut drawer bottom grooves.

Now if I want to be a really good galoot, what better practice can you get than repeating the same task over and over again right? Well, the lazy American in me often wins. But now with this new energy saving plan my power company keeps pushing on me, I no longer have that excuse.

So thank you BGE for helping me to be a better galoot…could I at least get some power for my space heater though. I’m nostalgic not stupid.

Enjoy this episode full of gratuitous vintage saw footage.

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Make sure you check out Chuck’s blog for complete instructions on how to make your own set of Bender inlay tools.

Finally, a few points on Sulfur inlay that I forgot to mention in the podcast. When cutting the recess for the Sulfur, you should undercut and create a kind of dovetail effect to lock in the material. Once the Sulfur is cool and scraped clean, it should be painted with Shellac to seal it in and protect the color before applying your finish of choice.

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I had an incredible time at WIA this past weekend. I am flush with new ideas and techniques to make me a better woodworker. I even have a few more tools to add to my arsenal (go figure right).

However I was greatly disturbed to read a post today by Rob at Evenfall Woodworks about a theft at the Blue Spruce Toolworks booth that left Dave Jeske for a $300 loss on his trip to Valley Forge. First of all, thank you Rob for bringing this to our attention. Anybody who has followed this blog will know that I am a big fan of Dave Jeske’s work. I own 2 of his marking knives and one of his fishtail chisels. I have had my eye on his paring chisels and his indestructible mallets for a while now.

Well I think I will get off the fence and help out this incredible woodworker. Dave’s tools are extremely well made and really not that expensive so I think I will take a trip over there today and see what I can find to throw this woodworker some fiduciary love.

Chris Schwarz spoke about all the work that went into the WIA conference during the keynote speech on Saturday night. He specifically took the time to thank our toolmakers as we are truly living in a golden age of tool manufacture with so many incredible boutique dealers. This is not a glamorous life filled with riches and it is tough to get by as a toolmaker. I would hate to see a product of such high standard become extinct because of an idiot who decided a free tool is the best tool.

So let’s test the power of social media and see if we can create a spike in sales at Blue Spruce Toolworks. Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat…why not carve it up with a Blue Spruce marking knife!!!