New Feature - Classic Posts Weekly

I just made a new feature for this blog: a new tab called, "Classic Posts Weekly."

This tab should take you to a page that I intend to update every week. I will revisit a classic (i.e. "old") blog post that I still thinks has some relevance for conversation.

My first entry on this page is there because I just plucked it out at random, read it and realized it was a pretty fun read. At least it was for me.

It discusses a forum discussion that was brought about from my exploration of how to make a panel glue up fail.

I'll just leave it at that, you can read the post here.

Enjoy!

Bevel Up Jack Plane - Will It Work as Your Only Plane?

A few weeks ago, one of my very favorite woodworking heroes, Richard Maguire, wrote a blog post about low angle planes. I've been thinking hard about this post for a while, because I have in the past advocated big time for my Veritas bevel up jack plane (BU jack).

I have to say that Richard's conclusions about the BU jack are spot on, 100%.

Does this mean I am recanting my endorsement of this tool? Absolutely not.

Richard's premise in his blog post is that BU planes work better than other planes at the extremes of the spectrum - basically that they do one thing really great. That is planing end grain.

This plane is really great at end grain.

I whole heartedly agree. They are much better at end grain due to the low angle possible with the BU design.

What about the rest?

Can one joint with this plane?

Well, I agree with Richard. Other planes do a better job at basic tasks than this plane. A 24 inch jointer does joint better than this jack plane. A dedicated jack with a cambered blade does better at hogging out lots of material than this plane. A #4 smoothing plane with a finely set chip breaker will do a better job at smoothing than this plane.

This thing works great shooting end grain. Did I already say that?

Then why do I endorse this plane so enthusiastically?

Well, I have to say that while those other planes do better at those tasks than this plane, the BU jack will indeed do them all.

I almost always do all my jointing with this plane.

A while back, I spent more than a whole year using only this plane and no other bench plane, for no other reason than to put my money where my mouth was regarding being able to build with an extremely limited tool set.

I had noticed that many great woodworkers had recommended "beginner's tool sets" that required many thousands of dollars to fill out before a beginning student could feel like they could do "proper" woodworking.

I thought that was baloney then, and I think it is baloney now. A jack plane (whether BU or bevel down, new or vintage), is a great first tool to get because of the versatility.

Other tools work better for those everyday tasks, but one plane instead of four can be a deal maker for a beginner.

After my exclusive use of this plane for the time I used it, I found out that "plane monogamy" (as Christopher Schwarz puts it), is a wonder.

Face it, there are all kinds of situations where even the largest hand tool shops require making a plane do a bit more than what's in it's name.

To be able to do these amazing tricks with a plane, one really, REALLY needs to know their tool.

I learned that it really is true that you can't buy skill by purchasing a new tool. One should learn how far they can push (get it?) a tool they have before deciding if another is needed in their situation.

Plus, using the same tool is faster: you already have it out.

There are a few things I do to make it easier on myself.

For rough work, I do my best to avoid having to thickness stock very much. My wooden jack plane with an eight inch camber on the blade hogs off wood like crazy and in no time flat. A BU plane is difficult to put a camber on the blade because of the angle of the bed. Taking 1/16" thick or thicker shavings isn't going to happen.

It will take medium sized shavings. If your wood is roughly the thickness you need it, and mostly flat to start with, it is a breeze to bring it to good working dimensions with this plane.

For fine smoothing, again, choose your wood wisely. This plane will easily achieve a finish quality surface without much work. Even without going crazy with steep sharpening angles. Make sure the blade is as sharp as you can get it, and you will be fine. At least until you try to plane against the grain. Even then, lighten the cut a little more and close the adjustable mouth as tight as you can.

For jointing, I find this plane to be long enough to joint nearly anything I can throw at it accurate enough for gluing up a panel. It does take some skill. One will get good at making edges flat eventually with this tool. Just keep checking with a good straight edge, and practice removing the parts that aren't flat. Follow that up with a fine shaving from one end to the other. I find it rare that I need to pull a jointer out for edge jointing anymore.

In conclusion, I would just like to agree with Richard again that this plane shouldn't replace everything in your plane corral. However, if you are looking for your first bench plane, this might be a good place to start.

How to Learn to Sharpen Saws

Note that I did not title this post, "How to Sharpen Saws." I am not going to write about that. I am not anywhere near an expert. Instead, I'm here today to point you to some resources and methods that will have your saws tuned up in no time.

I went on a saw-filing binge last week.

If you are like me, when reading about rake, fleam and slope you'll get about halfway down the first page before you start to nod off. Saw filing texts for the uninitiated are the perfect cure for insomnia.

There is a reason for that. It is, you might not be ready for that yet. Take it step-by-step.

Saw filing has a few fundamentals and a plethora of brainiac minutia that can get in the way of a beginner. There are a million different theories on saw tooth geometry, but you first must get in the swing of things and learn the mechanics of "how" a saw is sharpened.

Think about it this way: I guarantee you that a professional saw sharpener will do a better job at sharpening saws than you will, but I also guarantee that you will make your saw cut better after sharpening than it did before.

With that in mind,

1. Get an overview of what it's all about. Watching it done is best for this. I highly recommend Paul Sellers' recent YouTube video on sharpening a crosscut saw.
2. Sharpen some saws. Don't skip this step. Get your butt in the shop and do it. The next step will not make sense otherwise.
3. Learn some more by reading up about it. The Vintage Saws website is a great place to start. 
4. Go back to Step 2 and repeat until you know it all.

This works in your brain by giving you a few of the basics that you will remember when you are in the shop, cementing what you just saw, and giving you a foundation upon which to build. I would expect you to have more questions after sharpening one saw than you did before. This is good. it means you are ready to learn something else.

All you really need is a saw to practice on and a file of the right size. You will need something to hold your saw tight while you sharpen, so either buy a saw vice, or make the dead simple one in Paul Sellers' video. One should be able to do that even with a dull saw!

If you don't want to wreck your favorite user saws, many saws are out there for cheap that will be good practice for you. Vintage Saws even sells saw filing kits, which include a beater saw with freshly punched but not sharp teeth, and the correct saw file. This can be a good way to build your confidence before tackling your favorite user.

Here is a pile of freshly sharpened saws. Some turned out great, one didn't cut the way I expected. That's a good lesson, too!

Here are some free resources that might help. If you know of others, please leave a note in the comments as I want to learn, too!

• YouTube - Paul Sellers has another excellent video on sharpening a rip filed backsaw that is excellent, plus there are a zillion others. Some good, some not so much.
• Wiktor Kuc's excellent site. Lots of excellent saw stuff there. Start with one of the articles by Mike Hagemyer.

French Moulding Plane

French eBay strikes again!

French plane.

I picked up a pretty little moulding plane from French eBay the other day.  The construction of this plane is a bit different than the English tradition, and I thought it might be worth a five Euro bid to find out if it might be worth building one.

As is typical with purchases from eBay, you never quite know what you are going to get.  I tried to bid on one that didn't look too ratty.  Not too much rust or too many worm holes.

This one has a worn out sole.  The bit on an English plane that normally would be boxed is practically worn off in the front.

The sharp part of the profile on this plane's sole is worn away.

There are some interesting tidbits of French plane construction that one can learn from this plane.  First of all, it doesn't appear that the planemakers were too overly concerned about perfectly straight grain on their planes.  Looking at other planes on eBay, this plane is typical with a big swirly bit of grain right down by the sole.

Nasty tear out on the sole itself!

Here is another view of the sole from the rear.  The back of the plane took a bit less wear than the front.

One can see the profile on the sole from the back.

Here is another view of the swirling grain near the sole.

The wedge is a bit different in shape.  It actually looks practical and easy to make.

Wedge.

I was pleased to see the tapered iron was made by the Peugeot firm.  This should be good steel.  I look forward to sharpening it up.

Peugeot blade.

Here you can see the blade is tapered.  Curiously, it is full width the whole way back.

The big reason I bought this plane, is I wanted to see how the mortise for the blade was constructed.  I was right when I suspected that it was sawn out and another strip of wood was attached to the side.

This construction method for the mortise looks simpler to construct.

Indeed, looking at the end of the plane, you can clearly see where the strip was attached.

The side strip that is glued on is one wall of the blade's mortise.

Another view of the sole including the inserted blade.

Here is a view of the blade cavity with the blade removed.

I think the side escapement looks funny, but I imagine it is practical and works.  It looks like the end of the wedge fits seamlessly with the escapement.

The plane's escapement.

I couldn't see any spring lines on the end of the plane, however the plane's fence was canted a bit.  Could this be the angle that the plane should be sprung?

The fence looks sprung.

Here is a close-up of the maker's mark. It looks like, "8 VRAI CORMIER GARANTI" with a P. G. in the center of the star.

Maker's mark.

The over all length was 22 cm with a height of 7 cm for the body. (8 5/8" x 2 3/4")

Fairly short.

I think there is no question looking at this style of plane that the English style is superior.  However, construction of this plane looks far simpler than the English one.  One can not say that the French made inferior furniture using tools such as this.  Perhaps they viewed these tools with the thought of them being a bit more disposable than the English did.

In any case, here is a construction method of a plane that could perhaps be relevant today in the view of a more entry-level plane, or perhaps a tool one would buy for a single use.

I look forward to trying this plane out to see if it will still cut a moulding.  If so, it might be worth rehabbing and fixing the sole.

In any case, I might try and build one using principles seen on this plane to see if I can come up with a plane that is easy to build.

Filling the House with My Furniture

The apartment finally is starting to fill up.

Let's face it.  We, as hobby woodworkers, aren't the most efficient group of workers on the planet.  If you are like me, your "to-do" list adds line items much faster than they come off.

The Frau and I bought this holiday apartment three or four years ago, and I decided I was going to fill it with furniture I built myself.  I finally feel like I turned the corner and now am on the downhill side of that goal.  We still have a few empty spaces here, and there are still a few "temporary" pieces needing replacement, but now I no longer feel totally underwater with projects.

My contemporary Himmelbett.

I now have a bed, a six board chest, a Roorkee chair, a dining table, a dining chair, and a vitrine that I built myself.  It is a great feeling using these pieces, knowing their quirks and imperfections as well as the quality of materials and joinery in each.

Using these pieces adds a dimension to my woodworking consisting of a layer of practicality of what works, not just the theory of what should work.

I still have a few pieces to go, including a couple of side chairs and a bench for the dining table, a coffee table, a telephone stand, and a bedside table.  Better yet, I have a realistic plan for completing these pieces.

When I finish these projects, will I be "done" with the furnishing of this apartment? 

I doubt it.

By then, I expect my taste and standards will have changed, and it will be time to start over, replacing these pieces one by one.  I'm not sure that one can achieve perfection in woodworking, but the fun is all in the pursuit.

When a Mockup is Useful

I meant to just slap the doors on and be done with this vitrine mockup.  Instead, construction of this piece continues to educate me.  The lesson:  there are better ways to ensure the doors are perfect.

One of the challenges with the design of this cabinet is the glass panel floats between the two doors.  At least it does the way I am building it.  This means the glass panel (which is dead square and can't easily be changed) fits only when the doors are hung dead-nuts-perfectly-square when hung.

These aren't.

I was hoping that the problems would be resolved when I tuned the hinges.  The problems have to do with the fact that I didn't check ANYTHING for square when constructing this.  I thought it would save a bit of time.

I was wrong.

Not sure if you can tell from this angle, but the doors are not in a straight plane with each other.

The bottom door, the way it is hung now, has the left side hanging down a bit from where it should be.  The rabbet I sunk in this door needs to be exactly even with the rabbet on the side, in order for the glass panel to fit and look right.  If this door is rotated a bit so the rabbet is flush, the bottom left part of the door sticks out past the cabinet an unacceptable amount.

This part of the door hangs down, the hinge side is right on.

This theoretically wouldn't be a problem, as these European pocket hinges allow for lots of adjustment after installation.  The deal breaker is that once they are sttraight on top, the bottom isn't straight.

For example, the top door.  The rabbet is adjusted perfectly, but you can see the door is not straight on the cabinet.  Pay no attention to the glob of paint that ran down the front and dried right in front of the camera lens!

I will fiddle with them a bit more, but I think I just need two new doors.  Lucky thing they are nailed together with the cheapest material I could find!

It sounds like an opportunity for a blog post on the strength of panels constructed with clinched nails!

My plan is to build the door panels a little oversize.  After I mount the door straight, I can then cut off the extras and sink the rabbet so it will fit the glass dead perfect.

The problem with this plan is that the cross battens on the door also serve to clamp the glass in place.

It turns out I really didn't have a good picture of how the door captures the glass panel.  This is the best I have.  Notice the right side, there is a rabbet on the large panel, and the battens go right to the top of the door.  The glass rests in the rabbet, and the battens just hold the glass.

I could try making the batten a little shorter, and attaching some kind of block to capture the glass, but you'll notice I cut some notches in the shelves on the front of the cabinet to house the battens (see the first photo).  This obviously isn't ideal, but I didn't realize I needed clearance for those battens until I was test mounting the doors.

So, I think the solution is to sink that rabbet with a plow plane.

Unless anyone else has a better idea, I'll probably get a chance to do this on Monday.

What Is Runout, and Why Should I Care?

Today I got some good work done on the vitrine.  Most of the nail holes on the carcase got filled with putty, we tested some paint colors on the back, and I glued the feet on. 

As a quick and dirty jig for laying out the position of the feet, I grabbed a scrap stick I had rolling around.  The stick was 5/8" ash that followed me home from Denmark last fall during the chair build.  We cut up a bunch of really nice, straight ash for sticks.  The nature of sawed lumber, as opposed to split wood, is that not all of it was perfect. 

This particular stick had really straight grain on one side, and the other side had really bad runout.

This photo shows pretty straight grain.  Not much runout at all.

The runout on this stick is pretty bad.  You can see the grain "runs out" in less than an inch!

When I first started woodworking, I predominantly used machines.  Nothing against machine woodworking, but during this phase of my woodworking I paid no attention at all to runout, I didn't really understand the problem.

This little stick has all kinds of lessons regarding runout.  The first thing I noticed was that this stick is no longer straight.  Even though the wood was kiln dried, sawing the 8/4 roughstock into 5/8" strips opened up the wood so the remaining moisture inside could now dry out. 

It is hard to see in the photo, but this stick is not by any means straight anymore.  The big bend in it happens to be exactly where the runout in the above photo is.

The near side has straight grain, the far side has runout.

Just so you can see the nature of this stick, here are some more closeups:

As you can see here, the runout goes on both faces.

If this stick were to fail, I predict it would fail in exactly this spot.

Why is runout so weak and unstable?  Well, the strength of wood is exactly along the grain. 

Think about chopping firewood.  You use an axe to split wood along the grain.  You would never put a log lengthways on a chopping block and strike the bark.  It takes a lot of strokes to cut a log with an axe this way.  But, it only takes one swing to split the log along the grain. 

I was so certain that I was right about the weak part of this stick being where my finger is, that I decided to break it over my knee.

I grabbed both ends of the stick, and put my knee in the center.  The spot that I am pointing to above is about 2/3 the way down the stick. 

Let's see where it breaks when I stress it.  Photo courtesy, The Frau.

Sure enough, the stick doesn't break where my knee is, but it breaks exactly where the weak runout is.

Note the position of my knee.

More closeups:

Right along the grain.

I think it is astonishing how well this experiment worked.  The split happened right exactly along the grain line.

Another view.

Yet another.

One thing of note is that this took hardly any force to break.  Perhaps I should try this on another stick with no runout, just to see what I have to do to get it to break.

The moral of the story?

Chair makers know what they are talking about when they use parts with no runout.  Chairs take a lot of stress, and if there is a weak part, it will break.  Runout on a part like this one is weak, and if I had used it on my chair, that is where the weak spot would be.

Of couse, this lesson could be transferred to any piece of furniture.  Use straight grained wood on parts that take stress.

When a Craft Dies - Music Engraving

If you think hand tool woodworking is on it's last leg, take a look at the profession of hand engraving sheet music.  Our craft is vibrant and alive in comparison.  Sadly, I think music engraving by hand is essentially dead.  While there are undoubtedly a handful of small companies who may do it this way, they are far out of the mainstream, and surely re-evaluating their current business model.  This craft is extinct enough that I found a photograph on the internet showing someone doing it only with the greatest of difficulty.

For centuries, music was printed from a metal sheet that was carved in reverse (mirror image).  The process of constructing this negative was known as music engraving, and it was done by hand.  This takes an unimaginable amount of skill, as the layout is of utmost importance.  Here is a video that shows the process.  If you are an old-tool geek like me, you'll love this one.

What I like best about this video is the part where he is laying out the different staves on a page using dividers.

Up until the 1990s, there were still some big music publishers still producing sheet music this way.  It just looks better than anything that can be done on a computer.

What happened?

I think it just became too expensive to do it the old-fashioned way.  If music composer Joe Schmoe could print out his composition from his computer instead of paying a skilled craftsman who-knows-what the going rate is for hand engraving some parts for an orchestra to play, he can get his music out there and played.

But that's not really it, is it.  Joe Schmoe always would have written out his parts with pen and ink to save money this way.

I think the publishing companies could save a buttload of money with a few technicians doing this digitally, as opposed to paying an army of highly skilled craftsmen to do it the old fashioned way.

A music engraver at work.  Photo courtesy LilyPond.org

What did we gain with the inexpensive digitalization of music engraving?  Plenty:

• Professional-ish looking parts could be printed at home by any amateur.
• Editing a piece of music and getting it back to the performers quickly as opposed to leaving the typos in the printed music for decades, printing after printing.
• Giving composers another tool to use to listen, compose, and print their music.  This is way, WAY easier to do now than ever it was by hand.

What did we lose?

• Proper looking sheet music.
• Essentially, the final proofing of a piece of sheet music is left to the performer. (Imagine if a novel was published this way!)

Don't get me wrong, I am an expert with a couple of these music programs such as Finale, but most musicians are not that interested in getting good at music engraving.  Usually people just want to get good enough at it that they can print something out, no matter what it looks like.

Growing up in the '80s, I could expect to look at a sheet of music and only have to figure out how to get what I saw on the page to sound like what it was supposed to.  Today, my community orchestra can not expect anything like the quality of music engraving of a decade or two ago.  Even professionally published music has gone down incredibly in quality.

As a performer, I should be able to expect to put a piece of music on the stand, and be able to play it without making photocopies, drawing lines, or interpreting what the composer "really wants."  I should be able to expect the printed page to not get in the way of what I am trying to play.

What does all of this mean to hand tool woodworking? 

I think this is an example of how fast technology can change an industry, for better or for worse.  Not all progress is positive.  Larry Williams says he thinks the art of making moulding planes was at its highest quality in the late 18th century, and every design tweak after that point was intended to make it easier to manufacture moulding planes.

I think that music engraving was practiced enough by hand that there still are plenty of experts such as the man in the video still around, but once they are gone, this craft will be lost.  If we as woodworkers do not want to teach our children to think IKEA furniture is the only furniture that technology can create, we need to keep making furniture the way we do.  Our alternative is superior, and it still makes sense to craft one at a time the way we do.

I do not think hand-tool woodworking is in immediate danger as music engraving is.  But what will it be like in a generation or two?  It could very easily disappear. 

Fingers In the Till - Lee Valley Low Angle Jack

Things have been a bit quiet in my shop lately.  I have a couple projects down there that are itching to get finished, but for one reason or another, time in the shop just seems to come up less frequently than I would like.

As a way to continue to record my thoughts for posterity, I thought I might take some time occasionally to dip my hand into my tool chest and share with you whatever comes out.

I think I'll dub this series:  Fingers In the Till.

A rather fetching photo of my LV LA Jack in action.

First up is my beloved Lee Valley Low Angle Jack plane.

I've written about jack planes before, and I think now that I have been using this plane differently since then, I can say a bit more about it.

Used to bevel this large panel.

In my original treatise on my take of what a Beginner's Tool Kit should look like,  I stated that one can do woodworking with just a few tools.  One of them should be a jack plane.  To put my money where my mouth is, I built a few projects using only those tools.

Something unexpected happened when I moved to exclusively using this plane:  I really got to like it.

Rough work across the grain.  In this case, flattening my workbench.

I think that using one plane, to the point where you know every single little quirk about it and can use that knowledge to the tool's best advantage is far more useful than having a choice between 50 specialty planes to do specific tasks.  Up until the time I wrote that beggining tool kit post, I would typically use a scrub, a jointer and a smoother for those respective jobs, and 99% of my work with this plane was relegated to use on a shooting board.

This plane excels on a shooting board, but that's not all it can do.

Intelectually, I knew this plane could do all this other stuff, but figured that if I had a dedicated smoothing plane and a dedicated jointer plane, those should work better for those tasks.  Right?

Thickness planing with the jack.

Well, the truth of the matter is for most furniture sized work, the jack plane works just fine for those tasks.  In fact, it can be easier.  Not only do I only have one plane to maintain and sharpen vs. three, this one plane can stay on my benchtop within easy reach to do whatever task is next. 

Dimensioning a piece of cherry.

I feel like this plane is now an extension of my arm.  I know how this plane will work and what to do to it for any particular job.  I have never experienced that before.  Continually switching between different planes prevented me from really getting the most from those planes.  Using this one exclusively (mostly) not only helped me get the most out of this plane, but made me a better planer in general. 

In short, I thought using only one plane would be do-able, but instead I found out using only one plane increased my skill exponentially. This was a far bigger gift than only having to buy one plane.

It only took minutes to get this nasty piece of pear looking silky smooth using only one plane.

If it sounds like I am going crazy over the experience of getting good with one plane rather than specifically this Lee Valley plane, well, that's true.  I know that Jonas thinks the same about a wooden smoother he has.  He switches out his smoothing blade to a radiused blade when he needs to take thick shavings.  Paul Sellers recommends a vintage Stanley smoother is really the only bench plane one needs.  Christopher Schwarz has only a jack plane on his list of essential tools in the Anarchist's Tool Chest (incidentally, this book is what set me on the path to what I currently keep in my tool chest).

So, enough about all that philosophy.  Let's get to this plane specifically:

Sometimes I clamp it upside down in the vice when working small parts.

This plane is of the bevel up variety, similar to a standard block plane.  This means there is no chipbreaker, and the cutting angle includes whatever angle the blade happens to be sharpened at.  This can be a powerful feature to use to your advantage!

What I really like about this plane is it's versatility.  I find myself twisting the front knob to adjust the mouth all the time.  I always set up the plane by adjusting it for a fine shaving, ensuring the shaving is the same thickness all the way across.  Then, I will turn the adjuster knob to make a more agressive cut, depending on the task at hand.  I like to take the most agressive cut appropriate for the task.

Smoothing a cribbage board.  I love this shaving!

Generally, the deeper the cut, the more I open the mouth.  I think the mechanism to adjust the mouth on this Lee Valley plane is better than anything else out there.  Even better than the Lee Valley jointer!

Chamfering with the aid of my Moxon vice.

I like the fact that you can change blades out for what you are doing.  I have the standard 25 degree blade, a 38 degree blade, a 50 degree blade, and the toothing blade.  I bought them all before I really started using this plane.  In my experience 99% of usage with this plane works with the standard blade.  If it doesn't, try sharpening it before you go crazy with other blades.  But, when you need it, those steeper angles really do the trick.  I've only "needed" to use the 50 degree blade once.

I think in the old days I would have bevelled this board with a block plane.

This plane is also built like a tank.  I am embarassed to say that it has fallen from my bench twice (that I can remember, anyway), no worse for wear.  However, I wouldn't recommend trying that out just to see if it works.

Here's a photo of my friend John playing trombone.  He sometimes reads this blog, and I'm sure he'll be amused to see his picture completely out of context here.

A famous woodworker said in a class I attended that this is the finest plane Lee Valley makes.  I don't know about that, but it's the finest one I have.

More little parts.  If you try this, watch your fingers!  I have clamped the handle in the bench vise.

When I first bought this plane, I wanted it for use with a shooting board.  I also didn't know if I wanted this one, or the one made by Lie Nielsen.  I chose this one based solely on that it was cheaper in price.

If I were to do it over again, I might choose the Lie Nielsen plane because the fit and finish on the Lie Nielsen is a bit finer, and it might be a bit easier to push since the blade is somewhat narrower.  I think that the two plane manufacturers both came out with an excellent tool, and it is not worth it for me to make that small of an upgrade (and learn another tool).

Here I am smoothing the grooves made with the toothed iron in the same plane.

I suppose the moral of this extremely long blog post is that if you are an experienced hand tool woodworker, and don't yet have an LA jack, you probably don't need to go out and buy one.  Instead, try narrowing your working arsenal of planes down to just the minimal amount.  If you are new to woodworking and looking to buy a plane to fill a hole in your tool chest, this is a fine choice that comes with my highest recommendation.

Do you have experience with this plane?  Do you have a favorite plane?  I would love to hear about it in the comments.