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.

This trip we are hoping to spend a litte more time in the DeWitt Wallace museum up close and personal with some incredible 18th century southern furniture. There are regular furniture tours taking place and I hope to catch one of them. The weather is expected to be warm and nice so we are both looking forward to strolling up and down Duke of Gloucester street and just relaxing. I am also curious to check out the new coffee shop Charleston’s since that last time I was there the Carpenters had just raised the roof.

Of course no trip would be complete without a stop into the Cabinetmaker, Cooper, and Carpenter shops. So my dear readers, please tell me what you would like to know about the 18th century cabinetmaker and joiner. I have plans to spend some time talking with these fine folks and I would love to be armed with questions from you all. Submit a comment here or send me an email at shannon@rogersfinewoodworking.com and I will do my best to get your questions answered.

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 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!

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.

Last weekend I made a trip up to Hearne Hardwoods to pick up some 12/4 Walnut for the table I am building for The Wood Whisperer March Guild build. While the Hearne folks were tallying my total I noticed this column that looks like it came off some kind of temple. It was broken at the bottom so it looked like it was just snapped off in demolition. It is elegantly shaped and faceted and I can imagine that the structure it once adorned was a thing to behold. The curves evoke something from Asia and once I looked closer that was confirmed when I realized that the entire column was made from solid East Indian Rosewood!

…Paradigm shifted…

Just because it is exotic and hoarded in tiny parts for pen turning and the like here doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be someone else’s 2×4 construction lumber somewhere else in the world where Rosewood grows naturally.

Suddenly this digitally small world just got a whole lot bigger.

It’s funny how a seemingly insignificant piece of furniture can play such a major role in the function of a room. You may not even notice it (unless you’re a woodworker) until it is gone and you suddenly have no place to set your keys or reach for a tissue. So by Thursday afternoon it was readily apparent that she was going to need something to replace the table, and preferably something that wouldn’t fall apart when a student leans on it.

Enter the fabulously talented woodworking husband of said teacher! My marching orders were to produce a small table that would sit in a corner and be around 25″ high. No drawer, no shelf, just a simple, square table top. It needed to be built and delivered by Monday ideally and built using only scrap laying about the shop. The finish would be black lacquer to match the piano already in the studio.

My time constraints immediately eliminated the visions of cabriole legs and Queen Anne cyma curved aprons. I am a notoriously slow woodworker so I needed to scale back my design. I decided upon something from the Stickley catalog because the straight forward lines and sturdy construction would fit the bill both aesthetically and functionally. The Stickley number 603 Tabouret would fit the bill nicely.

The size and stock requirements would allow me to build it with only the scrap laying about and it would fit into a corner well. I liked the crossed stretcher and uniform design that allows you to place it any which way and it will always be facing front. My wife is not keen on the round top and with some quick mocking up in SketchUp I was able to render this same design with a square top. That got the seal of approval and I was off to the races.

I did an inventory of my stock in the shop and knowing that this piece would be painted I wasn’t ready to “sacrifice” my good hardwood. I came up with a piece of 2×12 construction lumber and a big hunk (5×4.5×36) of Kiri that I got for a song many months ago. For long time readers this is the same piece that I used to make my Tansu box in June of 2009. Knowing what raw material I had on hand it was time to consider where construction compromises needed to be made. Since I was only using scrap I would need to do some resawing and panel glue ups to get the dimensions I needed. I hoped to save the time added in milling by attaching the lower stretcher with an integral tenon instead of the through tenon that Stickley so loved. Not having to fuss over a clean exit of the tenon and then clean up/chamfering the exposed end would cut an hour out of the build easy.

I considered attaching the top stretchers with pocket hole screws but since I was building the piece out of softwood I was not convinced that the pocket screws would hold up over the years. Instead I stuck with the traditional half blind dovetails into the top of the leg posts. No one will see these dovetails so they don’t have to be show quality and using softwood allows for some compression space when fitting the joint. In reality these joints came out really pretty and it was almost a shame to hide them under the top.

The top was glued up from two pieces in probably one of the cleanest panel glue ups I have ever done so there was very little surfacing to be done once it came out of the clamps. It is attached through elongated screw holes from the top stretchers to compensate for seasonal movement.

From rough lumber to a sanded piece, I only spent about 5 hours. I kept to my promise of table saw and power jointer abstinence as well, but don’t think that really added any build time since I roughed the pieces out on the bandsaw while cutting down that big hunk of Kiri. I usually do my joinery by hand anyway.

This was a whirlwind build from concept to finish and it taught me a lot about how I work and what decisions I make along the way. What compromises do you make in a design due to time and money constraints? How do you deliver a quality product on a tight delivery schedule while not sacrificing your style? I don’t have a picture of the finished piece yet because by the time the finish was applied it was dark outside and I really can’t get a black lacquered piece to show up well in my shop lighting. I’ll take some pics when it reaches it’s final home and post them.

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.

I’m proud to say that since yesterday’s post we have a new guild member who joined through the affiliate link, and I will be adding my affiliate fees to the American Cancer Society donation. Remember click the Join the Guild link above and I will donate 100% of my fees to this cause.

The design is simple enough that even our most novice members can challenge themselves to build their first furniture piece. On the other end for the more advanced members the simplicity of the design allows for a lot of variation and personal embellishment. In my case I want to satisfy my Queen Anne tastes by adding a little southern 18th century charm to it and model the table after a piece in the Colonial Williamsburg collection. More on this later and I will of course share my build process. That is not what this post is about as you may have guessed by the title.

One of our number, Duane, has been fighting with pancreatic cancer for a while now. You may remember Duane from Marc’s steamer trunk build where he helped Duane build an heirloom by creating a video series. Unfortunately, Duane’s cancer is not ready to give up it’s fight and it has taken a strong hold on him lately. He is really excited about this group build but has concerns about being strong enough to complete it. Marc and Nicole, being the incredible people that they are, flew out to Ohio to visit Duane and do some one on one coaching to give Duane his head start on the project.

That was not enough and Marc has dedicated our March build to Duane and for every guild member that completes this project, Marc and Nicole are going to personally donate $5 to the American Cancer Society. In addition, being the savvy business people they are, this dynamic duo has gotten a few companies to agree to match this amount too. All of the guild members are encouraged to donate as well and we of course welcome the general public to donate. I have been in touch with Marc and he is working on getting a donation page up on his free site. I’ll let you know when that is up and link to it as well. Stay tuned, in the meantime…

Now I have recommended that everyone join the guild in the past because of the value it can bring to your woodworking, but now there is a higher calling. Why not join up, learn a lot, make some great friends, build a beautiful piece of furniture, and contribute to a great cause. I make no secret of the fact that I am an affiliate for the guild and if you click the link at the top of this page and join the guild, I will donate 100% of my affiliate fees back to the American Cancer Society for the duration of this project.

Come on, everybody’s doing it. Let me sum up by quoting our Guild master Marc in an email he sent earlier today.

This isn’t just about woodworking as a task, its about woodworking as a
lifestyle, and woodworking as a Community. I want people to be inspired
by what we are doing, and perhaps even donate to the cause themselves.

God bless you Marc and Nicole, and hang in there Duane we’re all praying for you.

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!

Reality check, it’s 2010. Aren’t we supposed to make contact with aliens this year in orbit around Jupiter or something? So when another 4×5x3″ mortise presents itself, I break out my router, pattern bit, and a template. Yes, I am very confident that I can chop that by hand and make it pretty and square and to depth with my lovely chisels. I have chopped enough mortises to say that I can do it, but I have also chopped enough to say that I don’t want to do it.

I’m putting the finishing touches on the sliding leg vise for my Roubo bench and it is time to inlay the vise nut into the sliding chop. I cut the nut down so it is only 5″ long but it is still a huge mortise and one that requires utmost precision so I don’t compromise the strength of the chop. Woo hoo for power tools!!! Turn on the dust collector, turn up the music, don the respirator and hearing protection and let’s chew up some wood.

10 minutes later and I have made a mortise that would make the Grand Canyon proud. I even used pocket holes and a powered drill to make the template. If it makes the galoots out there feel better, I squared up the corners with a beautiful 1.5″ paring chisel.

So before anyone starts calling me a purist, let me also say that I like my TiVo, read a fair amount of Science Fiction, and cannot live without my iPhone. Hooray 21st century conveniences!

…now where did I put my laser marking gauge…

No question that tools do not make the craftsman, but they sure do help. I blame the TSA and baggage restrictions from keeping me from buying one of those saws right then and there. Then in October at the hand tool rendition of Woodworking in America, I cut some tenons again using the same saws. I was not competing this time since I was helping out at the SAPFM booth and therefore ineligible. (Pro tip: this is a great way to get out of a competition, “I’m ineligible!”) I got the use the saws a lot more while hanging out at the booth and let’s just say I had an identical experience. I walked away and vowed to contact Mark and place my order. And order I did. I have been the proud owner of rip and crosscut Bad Axe saws now for 3 months and have had a lot of time to work with them. No buyer’s remorse here and I just love these saws. Let’s take a look at some of the features that make them so great and what it means for your work.

Handle

These saws have a beautifully formed Cherry handle that is modelled after the golden age of saw manufacture. The Cherry is a surprising species with so many fruit woods being used in the past, but Mark is very picky in the blanks he chooses to obtain the most stable cut and pleasing grain. Like the blued steel back, these Cherry handles impart a simplicity that is like comfort food and just feels good to look at it. The handle is carefully shaped to be easy to grip while not interfering with the sawing motion. I have pretty big hands and I didn’t feel like I was crowded at all. The handle smoothly flows into the back with a nice chamfer to rest your forefinger on while sawing. Then as a finishing touch, Mark incorporates these beautiful inset medallions.

Length, Width, Pitch

At first glance both of these saws seem really big and the depth of cut beneath the backer is bigger than any vintage saw I have seen. This height is really valuable in keeping your cut plumb because the whole saw is well balanced and just like balancing a long broomstick on your finger the extra height adds a better center of gravity.

Mark will soon be offering a 14″ version of his saw as well but for now you can get a 16″ and 18″ version of the saw. The 16″ offers a 4″ deep saw plate whereas the 18″ long saw has a 4.5″ deep plate. Like the saw restoration service you can specify how you want your saw toothed and sharpened but Mark recommends to following and this is what I purchased from him.

18″ Rip saw sharpened at 10 ppi
16″ Cross cut saw sharpened at 12 ppi

The saw plate itself is high quality Swedish spring steel and is beautiful to look at as well as durable in use and in regards to tooth strength.

Tooth Geometry

This is where the real money maker is with these saws. Mark uses a few tactics to provide an easy to start, clean, yet aggressive cut.

Progressive Rake: by adding variabiity to the attach angle of each tooth the saws will start smoothly but transition to a faster cutting tooth then relax back to decrease tear out on the opposite face of the board. The transition is difficult to pick out readily but on close examination you can see the subtle change. The following is taken from Mark’s website detailing his filing technique with some photos of my own saws thrown in to illustrate the rake transition.

Rip: I start with a 15-degree rake at the heel for the first twenty teeth, then modulate to 10 degrees for the next twenty teeth. From there, I rake every tooth is at 5 degrees for an aggressive cut. I add five degrees of fleam on every tooth (regardless of rake), which reduces tearout on the opposite side of the cut. The rake relaxes again in the same manner at the toe end of the saw. After conducting the initial filing to set a consistent rake, I then rejoint the saw, establish 20-degree sloping gullets, and file off the points without shortening adjacent teeth so that every tooth does its duty.

Crosscut: The rake modulation for the first forty teeth goes from 20 to 15 to 10 degrees at the heel end of the toothline, then I reverse that for the last forty teeth at the toe end. 20 degree bevels per tooth, and 10 degree sloping gullets. Though ten degree rake for the majority of the toothline is an aggressive cut, It achieves a surprisingly smooth finish on the wood.

The addition of sloping gullets is still a debated technique (one I am for BTW) but in theory it not only provides a little extra space in the gullet to clear sawdust but it can also provide a slightly keener tooth.

Like everything in life, too much of a good thing can be very bad. The same applies to saw filing. Fleam will slice the wood and make for a cleaner cut, but too much fleam will dramatically weaken a tooth. Mark strikes the balance needed in rake, fleam, slope, and pitch to give us a revolutionary saw.

If you weren’t already sold, then remember that Mark Harrell is a veteran who served his country for almost 30 years with dedication and passion. Since his “retirement” Mark has sunk his considerable talents into saw making and restoration and we are all fortunate to have him around to make us all better woodworkers.

Please take some time to visit Bad Axe Tool Works. The site is clean and beautiful and chock full of information and tutorials. Mark doesn’t have any secrets and he lays out everything in his bag of tricks so that the average woodworker can produce the perfect saw too.

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.

Click To Play

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.

Ironically the piece that sticks in my head the most was shuffled off to the side of an exhibit and I only noticed it because I was assuming the role of husband waiting for his wife outside the restroom. Behind and to the side of a pretty Queen Anne dining chair was this curious little table.

While it was still an exhibit meaning I couldn’t touch it, I was able to get very close and take some snapshots and sketch some of the curves. This later point provoked some rolled eyes as the aforementioned wife left the restroom. There are hundreds and hundreds of these little candle stands sprinkled throughout period furniture exhibits, but this one particularly caught my attention because of it’s simplicity. The turned central column is not overly detailed and it represents the truest essence of the Queen Anne style that I like so much. There isn’t a wide flare into a bulbous base that is so common in this form but a gradual widening that terminates in a small bead. This whole shape adds a very delicate feeling to the table which seems to support the beautifully shaped top as if it were weightless. This is an interesting contrast to the tripod feet that snake down and firmly plant themselves. Many of the designs I have seen like this seem to stand on tip toe but this one has it’s heels planted and I like the curve formed at the ankle because of it. This speaks to the Queen Anne style as well since this was really before the ubiquitous ball and claw came into vogue.

I took a shot up under the table as best I could and confirmed that it wasn’t a tilt top (that would be unusual for such a small piece) but I also want to confirm the joinery points as I was already mentally marking out a piece of Walnut that was sitting back in my shop.

Here is a better shot of the top profile with it’s Porringer-esque shape that beckons you to set your drink there and settle down in your Windsor chair with a good book.

I think this very simple piece embodies much of what I admire about the Queen Anne period and it will definitely get a place on my “to build” project list. The challenge of dovetailing the feet into the central column is something I look forward to as well as the freedom I have to design my own take on that column while at the lathe. Expect to see this piece pop up again in the near future as I already have a spot in my house picked out for it. Maybe while I’m at the lathe I’ll turn some candle sticks or an oil lamp to accompany the table so I can read in the “old style”.

Here is the problem. Woodworking classes are expensive! No question that they shouldn’t be because think about what you are getting by taking one. A fellow craftsman is passing along some serious knowledge and best practices that will serve you for the rest of your woodworking career. The big cost isn’t so much the ticket price of the class, but the time and sometimes travel necessary. A lot of schools have seminars and weekend classes, but I just don’t get much out of those because it isn’t enough time to really cover a topic. Most of the time you sit and listen to a lecture and then get a small amount of hands on time. It is the process of actually making with someone looking over your shoulder and guiding you that makes these classes so worthwhile.

So, OK, you have scrimped and saved the money to pay the class fee, but now you have to figure out how to get to the school and arrange lodging and travel. This can be a very daunting hurdle to overcome. Not only that, but while you may be having a ball, you are away from your family and that is always tough. My wife is a sweetheart and has come with me on a few woodworking vacations. She enjoys the quiet time to read and catch up on some relaxation time, but eventually she wants to get out and do something and with me in class all day she is limited. So no matter what she says I always end up feeling a little guilty for taking time away from her vacation.

What’s my point? I seem to be advocating taking a class, but spending a lot of time shooting holes in the idea. If you can work it out, then do it, it will be worth every penny.

But maybe there is an alternative. The digital woodworking community has never been better and there is this little known site call The Wood Whisperer. Maybe you have heard of it? Marc and Nicole Spagnuolo has put together an amazing community that is full of information. What has been missing is that class feeling you get when you bond with your fellows and get knee deep in shavings and sawdust.

About a year ago, Marc launched The Wood Whisperer guild. This is his subscription only site full of exclusive content and events. I was an inaugural member and the first year has been a lot of fun. You meet great people and we have been fortunate to have some big names come and speak to us on their inspirations and work. Internet technology is a wonderful thing that allows us to have a fully interactive discussion and learn a lot.

Marc is taking this idea to the next level in a few months by starting up a group build project. He is going to present us all with a small table design and build it while we build along with him. This is not a new idea as many of us bloggers and podcasters have encouraged our readers to build along. Marc is going to augment this idea with weekly live guild session to help along people stuck in the build or to share ideas for variations on the plan. With over 500 members already in the guild you can imagine the collected wisdom and experience all gathered together in one chat room. With the live streaming capabilities that web cams offer us, many of the guildees can broadcast what they are building at the same time and we can all advise one another and share in the woodworking goodness.

In other words, this is a traditional guild where you get together with friends and talk wood. Only I suggest that it is better because we can do all of this while remaining in our own shops and building along.

So my point is, if you are not already a Guild member, I urge to to click on the pretty Guild icon up on the top right corner and check it out. It will easily be the best money you have spent on your woodworking education. Now to be perfectly honest, I do get a little kickback if you sign up by using this link and I thank Marc for the opportunity to represent his ventures on my own site. I can tell you that this “kickback” has nothing to do with my endorsement of The Wood Whisperer Guild. It is a great place to be and I am happy to be a member. If nothing else my proceeds will just go back into my own show to make it better.

If you join, make sure to drop me a line and say hi next time you are in the chat room too.

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?

I hope you enjoy it!

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I am plagued with this all the time. I did a podcast many months ago on organizing yourself when working on multiple projects. In that episode I was talking about combining like tasks with like tasks like doing all your milling at the same time, etc. Lately I have been building task lists for my projects. I have had a list for my Roubo bench stuck to the wall of my shop for the better part of a year which is great since I dip in and out of the bench so often that it helps me to remember where I left off.

Lately though I have been frustrated with my progress on a few projects because I can’t seem to get even a single task on my list completed. For example, on my Roubo list was the item, “leg vise”.

It seems I have been working on that task for several weekends now and have not been able to gain the satisfaction of crossing it off. It is such a little thing but the act of crossing something off a list gives us OCD types a real warm fuzzy feeling. I think the problem here is not that I work slow it is that there are so many little parts within that one task. I’ll break it down and I think you will see that this applies to just about everything you make.

Workbench Leg Vise

Mill chop stock true and square
Cut chop to final size
Layout for hole for vise screw
Drill hole for vise screw
Layout for internal garter mortise
Cut garter mortise
Cut garter stock to approximate stock
Fit garter into mortise
Mill parallel guide stock
Drill parallel guide pin holes
Finish guide with decorate profile, chamfers, etc
Layout through mortise for parallel guide in chop
Cut through mortise
Flare outer mortise walls to allow for wedges
Cut tenon on parallel guide
Fit tenon
Cut wedge stock
Install wedges and glue up parallel guide
Drill peg holes
Hammer in pegs
Layout chop taper
Cut taper
Layout chop bevel
Cut bevels
Finish plane/sand
Install chop and go to work

This list doesn’t even include installing the vise nut into the leg but you can see that all of these steps go into the single line item of “leg vise” on my list. If you really want to be picky you can break down the above steps even further. Think about all the step included in cutting a tenon. Layout, cut shoulder, cut cheek, smooth and fit, possibly undercut shoulder, etc, etc. Now careful on this slippery slope because you will quickly get into list building and no woodworking. I think the point it clear. If you feel like you are getting no where, don’t get discouraged; but rather, sit down and break down what you have to do. Each one of these tasks can be done with minimal shop time and you feel like you are getting somewhere when you leave the shop after crossing off 1 or 2 of these items.

Maybe you are the type of person who doesn’t need this level of organization, or just doesn’t make lists to keep on track. I still think this post contains something to think about. All of these steps take time and time is money if you are a professional so being able to gauge how long it will take you to build something is your life blood. So next time you feel like you are making no progress and have a customer, spouse, conscience, etc hounding you for results take some time to plan your build so you can really estimate how long it will take and build in some milestones. Remember though, whether you are a hobby woodworker or a professional, don’t forget to have fun. These milestones keep you on track but they should not be a burly bald man with a dog collar beating on a drum in the stern of your shop shouting, “stroke, stroke!”

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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