Blog Review: Scott Berkun

If all of you woodworkers haven't heard of Scott Berkun yet, don't worry.  This is not what you think.

Scott Berkun writes about writing.

So, this post is more for you woodworking bloggers out there than for those of you who want my thoughts on the latest router bits.

If you want my thoughts on the latest router bits, here they are:  I plan to do all of my future moldings with hand planes.  Forget the router.  Fearing for my life and not being able to hear for two days is not my idea of fun.

Stay on target...
Gold Five (1977)

I was flipping through my search engine today and stumbled accross this post:

How to Write a Book – The Short Honest Truth

His writing style is very engaging.  I found myself clicking around on different posts, and came upon this video that I think may be helpful to bloggers on any subject:

It is a time lapse movie of the author writing an essay, 30X normal speed.  Plus he speaks about what he is doing.

I think I might read this blog regularly, and hopefully pick up a few tips on writing.  This blog seems a bit different of an approach than most of the writing courses I took in college.  In other words, I think I can put these ideas to good use!

Fun With Lap Joints - Slideshow

"My brief love affair with Japanese saws is now over."

          -Ben St. John after using my BadAxe dovetail saw, 2011.

I wasn't at all sure this project was going to turn out, so I didn't post about it until now, when it is done.  This is another project that can be built with only the tools in my Beginner's Tool Kit.  If you don't want to read my old blog posts, I think beginners can focus on just buying a few good tools and do some work with them.  They include only a jack plane, a ryoba saw, two chisels (3/8" and 3/4"), a couple of marking tools and something with which to keep everything sharp.

I was amazed at how smooth this project went.  There were plenty of things that could go wrong, but thankfully none did.

This mallet is my own design.  At least, I have never seen one constructed like it before.  Normally a laminated mallet uses three laminations.  The center one is the same thickness as the handle, so it is easily sawn out and glued up.

A traditional mallet is made of a single block of wood with a mortise in the middle for the handle.  Since the tools I have chosen would make that extremely difficult, I chose to build a laminated mallet.

I have been practicing lap joints, and I thought it would be fun to build a mallet with only two laminations.  The lap joints taper, so the handle can not slip out (indeed, there is no glue holding it in).  And for good measure, I thought one side of the lap should be dovetailed, to hold everything together even if the glue holding the lamination fails.

I chose a hunk of walnut that was rolling around in my shop, and a bit of Honduran mahogany I got a while ago for the handle.

The sliding dovetail was not as steep of an angle as I had originally envisioned.  I was looking for something that would let me mark out a consistent angle that might be available to anyone, and settled on the same square that is 2 1/2 degrees off square that I made for the taper.  It turns out that this was a good choice.  It made things a bit easier, and it is plenty strong to hold these mallet halves together.

In the video you see me making one of the sliding dovetail cuts with a backsaw.  I wouldn't have done this, except that I had loaned out my Ryoba saw to someone for a few days.  I did get the saw back and used it for the other half.  The BadAxe worked WAYYY better.  I had a lot less paring to do to clean up this cut with the BadAxe.  However, the Ryoba worked surprisingly well when crosscutting the mallet faces.  I had very little planing to do to smooth the faces of the mallet.

One thing I perhaps should have put a bit more thought into was the size of this mallet.  I really needed to replace my small mallet.  This one is huge, and should answer nicely on a 1/2" mortising chisel.  I guess I'll just have to build another.

Music:  Beguine (Paniks) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

I wanted to give this mallet a manly name, so I discussed it with my wife.  While I was trying to think of something manly like Thor, Mongo, or King Kong, she said, "How about Trevor?"

I figure it is kind of like trying to change a dog's name.  Once he answers to Fifi, you can never really call him Butch.

Trevor the Mallet, it is.

See my other Beginner's Tool Kit Projects.

How Perfect Does It Have to Be?

Like many of you, I started my woodworking hobby using machines.  About six or seven years ago my wife and I renovated our spiral staircase, which included replacing the ugly carpet lining on the steps with some really nice beach planks.

Completed stairway renovation.

I got the idea from our next door neighbor, who had her steps lined with oak.  Her contractors used 18mm thick laminated wood from the home center. 

The beach I bought was inexpensive (don't you wish you lived in Europe, too?) so I got plenty.  The thinnest rough lumber I could get from the local lumber yard was 40 mm thick as opposed to the 18mm that the Frau and I had in mind.

What did I do?  I ran all of that beautiful 6/4 roughstock through the thickness planer until I had all of the 3/4" thick material that I needed.  What a waste.

What should I have done?  I should have resawn those boards and flattened them with a hand plane. 

Does that seem like an awful lot of work to you?  It did to me.  Let me tell you, all of that thickness planing was no fun either.  One of the reasons I didn't do it by hand was I was having a hard time figuring out how to use a hand plane to get the two opposite faces of a board perfectly parallel, like a thickness planer would.

Since then, I have learned the secret to getting the two opposite faces of a board perfectly parallel.

The secret?  Don't.

Please do not misunderstand.  Good work is good work, and the pursuit of perfection is a noble cause.  Also there are times where precision work on this level is required.

There are limits, however. 

One of the reasons a lot of machine-made furniture looks so different than hand-made stuff is that many craftsmen know what needs to be perfect and what does not.

As an example, If I would have resawn those beach planks and smoothed both sides with a handplane without regard to how perfectly parallel the two faces of the boards were, would anyone care?  Would the steps somehow look wrong?  Of course not.  In fact, the small differences in the steps may have given it a more charming appearance.  They certainly wouldn't work any different.

One can use these ideas in many aspects of woodworking.  If you are making a dovetailed box, for example, there is no rule that says anything has to be flat and square other than the inside surfaces.  A drawer, on the other hand, needs to ride inside of a case, so the outside of it should be square and parallel as well.

I have spent time on my recent layout square projects to ensure my stock was perfectly six square to begin the project.  I am confident that these small bits of wood turned out pretty darned accurate.  For a tool like this, they need to be. 

Should you spend time making every project perfect like that?  No.  Think about a table.  The part of the apron you see should be flat and perpendicular to the top.  What about the part you don't see? 

Who cares?  No one will ever see that part.  The only reason this face should be perfect is if you are aligning things from this face for some reason. 

For that matter, does the table top need to be reference-surface flat?  As long as it looks nice and your beer glass will sit on it flat, you are OK.

That should be your real goal:  Does it look nice?

Will a cigar smoker use a micrometer do see if your work on his humidor is accurate to within 1/1000th of an inch?  No.  He is going to look at it and say, "Won't I look like a badass pulling a double corona out of that!"

Do yourself a favor.  Before you get too crazy about making opposite faces parallel, ask yourself if it is really required, or if having a flat face with a square edge is enough for your application.

GoPro HERO 3 - trombone

Since trombones have come up on my blog recently, I thought I would share this video that has gone viral:

 

OK, I know someone out there who reads this has one of these cameras, let's see what it looks like when mounted to a saw or a plane. Or, better yet, a hammer!

Square - Mark III

Perhaps you are getting tired of my repeating over and over this project.

Too bad, it's my blog!

I actually am working on my next project in my beginner's toolkit series.  For this project, I needed a repeatable angle that is five or ten degrees out of square.  Normally I would use my sliding bevel for this, but since it isn't in the list of tools for newbies, I decided to make one.

This one is even simpler than the others.  I had a bit of oak that was around 1/4" thick, and decided to use it without cutting a mating lap in the blade.  I only cut a lap joint in the mahogany stock to make the handle.

Even simpler design

The fact that there is only one lap to cut instead of two, coupled with the fact that practicing this joint is paying off with some skill finally being acquired, I think this one has joints that look flawless.  I know, there is just one joint, but still, there are no gaps anywhere on this one.

Another thing making it easy, is it is about five degrees or so out of square.  Yeah, yeah, I did it on purpose so I could mark out this joint:

This lap will be wider at the top than at the bottom.

Here is the new square in action.

Nice joint, eh?

Out of square - on purpose

I eyeballed the angle of this.  I actually have no idea what the angle is, but it is sufficient for the project I am working on.

Oh, one mea culpa is that I used my Bad Axe crosscut sash saw for this project, rather than the Ryoba that is in my beginner's tool kit. 

The reason I used this saw is a rather amusing story.  Long story short:  I loaned my saw to a friend.  Long story long:

The other day I was helping a friend install new flooring.  When taking my tools over there, I looked for my old bent ryoba blade, but couldn't find it.  "Oh, well, I'll just be careful with my good one." 

While using it to cut the door frame to allow the parkett to slide under it, the saw really stopped cutting.  I couldn't figure out why it was cutting so slow.  After several dozen strokes, it started cutting quickly again. 

When I removed the cutoff, I discovered that I sawed through a nail - lengthwise!  I wish I kept that piece so I could show a picture.  I never saw anything like it. 

Remarkably, no teeth broke, even though I was using the fine crosscut side of the saw.  I imagine that the saw is not sharp anymore.  I therefore felt no trepidation in loaning that saw to my friend so he could finish his baseboards the next day.

Back on topic:  This current square only took about 30 minutes to construct.  It was smaller, so squaring up the lumber was easier.  It seems to work great.  As long as I have some scrap in my bin, I shouldn't have any problem coming up with squares in any configuration I need. 

I think the secret to accurate paring with a chisel is accurate sawing.  The less one has to mess with paring a shoulder or a cheek, the better.

If you haven't read about my suggested list of tools for someone starting out in hand tools, read this series.

If you would like to read about the projects I am making using only the tools in this toolkit, read about them here.

Do Over! - Square Mark II

There were a couple problems with my first square from the last post.  Namely, all those fancy chamfers that made the tool look so nice and feel so good in your hand did not allow the square to work right.  Those chamfers reduced the amount of wood that register along the edge you put the tool up to.  Indeed, one side doesn't grab at all.  That makes this useless as a tool, and a failure as a project.

Almost.

It would be a failure if I had spent two years on this project to only find that when it is complete it didn't turn out to do what I wanted.

Instead, I spent an evening in the shop, got some good practice and figured out how to make this thing.  Plus, I only am out a couple sticks of scrap.

Mark II - Oak and Mahogany

Not sure if I should throw it out or keep it as a reminder that nobody's perfect.

So, with the information I gained in the first build fresh in my mind, I spent some more time in the shop to do it again.

Amazing!  What a neat experience to be able to do this project over.

I used the exact same tool kit as the other day, i.e. my Beginner's Tool Kit.  Today, my sawing was much more accurate.  I remembered what I did poorly the other day and corrected the problem.  As a result, the lap joint is a lot tighter than my first gappy example.

I also fixed a problem in the design.  The tool didn't look right with the dimensions I had, so I  made the handle longer today.  I think it looks great.

Before and After

Also, I finished this project in half the time.  Only an hour and a half.  Once again, most of the time was spent squaring up the stock.

Here is a tip that I discovered:  If you want to improve your paring skills with a chisel, do a better job with your saw.

Amazingly, my shoulder cuts only needed the tiniest bit of paring.  I only trimmed a little at the back of the shoulder to make the cut square (or indeed, a little undercut).  One of the cheeks needed a bit of work, and some of the problems are still visible.  Better luck with that next time.

I think it is Not Too Shabby

I bet that if I made a dozen or so of these, my lap joint skills would be as good as I'll ever need them to be.  Plus, I'll have some neat gifts for my woodworking buddies.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Anyway, it was an interesting challenge doing this build with only the tools in my tool kit for beginners:  a marking gauge, marking knife, square, jack plane, and two chisels (3/8" and 3/4").  Plus, my tools were sharp, and I had a hammer for adjusting the plane. 

If you choose to build this square, here is what you can expect from this exercise:

Beginner - You will learn some important fundamentals with this project using the limited tool kit that you absolutely need for most every project you will build from now on.  The basic skills include making rough stock six-square and lap joints.  Lap joints require many of the same skills used in making tenons.  Also, you will learn to saw to a line and pare with a chisel.

Veteran - You will discover if you can throw down with basic fundamental skills rather than rely on some specialty tools.  Your standards are going to be high, resulting in you messing with this until it is as perfect as your patience will allow.

Either way, after adjusting the square you will have a useful tool in your kit that you can use for many years.

A note about accuracy:  The closer to "square" you can make this thing during the glue-up, the better.  However, it will not be perfect, and will more than likely need some adjusting.  Use a pencil to draw a straight line perpendicular to the edge of a piece of scrap.  Then, turn it over and draw another line starting at the same point.  If you have only one line, perfect.  If you have a giant "V", you have some more paring to do on the blade of the square until it gets perfect.

Once one edge makes a perfect line, either always use that edge (say, the outside edge), or also adjust the other.

Enjoy! 

If you missed my series on the Beginner's Tool Kit, check it out here.

Afterthought:  After planing the wood, I burnished it with my new Roubo Polissoir.  This thing is awesome.  All I did was rub it over the bare wood while it was dry.  Everything shined up nicely.  After the glue up, I applied some wax with a rag and buffed it out with a paper towel.

Basic Tool Kit Project - Square

I decided one can only go so long writing about woodworking without actually doing any.  To put my money where my mouth is, I designed and constructed a square and used only the tools in my Beginner's Tool Kit.

It's not too pretty, but here is my prototype:

The very first Beginner's Tool Kit Square.

If you want to see all of the gory details, check out the slideshow.

You really need a square in your basic tool kit.  The size of this square isn't all that critical (mine is around nine inches long and 4 1/2" wide).

I chose lap joints because my basic tool kit doesn't have a chisel narrower than 3/8" yet.  The lap joint should be plenty strong for this.  Besides, if it comes apart, you can easily make another one.

Construction is pretty straight forward, just lap joints and perhaps some chamfering if you so desire.  The idea is that the handle is thicker than the blade, so you can push the handle up to your true edge and mark with your pencil or knife along the blade.

In retrospect,  I recommend not going chamfer-happy like I did.  You'll notice that there is a nice pretty chamfer that makes it comfy to hold like a pistol (indeed, when I showed it to my wife, she shot me with it).  However, it may reduce its accuracy if it slips on the work you are trying to mark square.

I also don't think having the joint off-set looks as nice here as it might on one with a bridle joint. Not to fear, this only took a couple hours to make, mostly because I was being anal about squaring my stock.

Stay tuned for Mark II.

Music:  No Money No Honey All We Got Is Us (The Underscore Orkestra) / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0