WHY I OWN SO MANY CHISELS

I used to think that my wife simply didn’t understand me when she would widen her eyes and ask, “why do you need so many tools?”.  Then not too long ago a friend came into the shop and asked, “what in the name of all that’s holy do you use all of these different chisels for?”   (His adjectives were actually a little different, but in the interest of not upsetting some of our more delicate readers, we’ll let this interpretation suffice.)  Then, just a few days ago, someone asked me if I could recommend one type of chisel that would work well for all applications.  My immediate thought was that this guy must be nuts!  And then…I began to question myself!

So, here’ why I have so many different kinds of chisels.  They are all for different purposes.  Let’s consider some (but certainly not all) of the tasks that specialty chisels are designed to do.

From left to right:  a plastic handled, socketed, bevel edge, chisel that has be “blunted” so it can be used as a scraper (used in letting in wooden plane beds);  a single bevel carving chisel;  a Japanese cabinetmaker’s chisel with a triangular section – good for dovetail work; a Japanese bench chisel, hooped and socketed (can be honed incredibly sharp while being very durable and can withstand heavy use); a skewed, bevel edged paring chisel (used in pattern work and plane making);  a hooped and ferruled European bench chisel for general work; an English “pigsticker” sash mortise chisel, tanged and heavily shouldered, it is used to “chop” mortises cross grain;  a Continental style sash mortise chisel, hooped, ferruled and washered (still not as durable as the English pigsticker; a large firmer chisel, front and back surfaces are usually parallel (or darned close to it), generally used in heavy work and to align (“register”) the walls of mortises created by boring with a boring machine or brace and bit; a gooseneck or lock mortise chisel, used to clean up the bottom of blind mortises, i.e. lock mortise on entry doors;   flat paring chisel for trimming datum; “cranked” paring chisel, one of the preferred tools of the patternmaker as it allows the craftsman to pare a large datum witouth scraping his (or her) knuckles on the work; a heavy, socketed bench chisel for general carpentry work; a wide butt chisel used mainly for letting in hinge mortises.

So, you can see that each of these chisels has a very specific use.  And I haven’t even talked about palm chisels, framing chisels and slicks!  Well, I guess I’m in the market for a few more chisels.  We’ll talk about maintaining these little beauties in the next few days.

Ode to a Filletster and a Roubo bench update

Whether you call it a filletster,  fillester, rebate or rabbet, using a moving fillester plane is just “plane” fun.  Long pigtails of stock come shooting through the side escapement.  The wooden version of the plane absolutely “sings” as it works (some folks might call it more of a howl).  For me, the process of working with handtools is every bit as important as the end product.  So the tactility matters a lot.  But top that off with the auditory pleasure of heaing a well tuned handplane working and you’ve got a real winning combination.  Folks come into the shop and are surprised that I don’t have a radio or disc player (and I’ve been a musician all of my adult life).  I simply tell them that the tools make the music in this place.

L - Sargent 79 Duplex Rabbet, R - Sandusky Tool Moving Fillester

I broke the fillester out to rabbet (rebate for our readers in other parts of the English speaking world) the bottom of the tool tray on the Roubo bench.

Using a rabbert plane is pretty much foolproof, given, of course, that it is well honed and the depth stop and fence are correctly adjusted.  The one challenge is to insure that you keep the plane at right angles to the surface being planed.  There’s no real secret method here.  Just keep your fingers out of the way of the escapement so shaving don’t clog up the throat and concentrate on what you’re doing.  And, remember to move and use your body weight to your advantage.  This is when that extra ten pounds you put on during the holidays will really pay off.

So here’s where I’m at with the small Roubo (little splayed French) bench top.  The work surface is only 13″ wide, but the 8″ wide tool tray should more than make up for the top’s narrow width.  Hopefully, tools will find their way to the tray, not to the working surface (as they have for the last thirty-eight years on the current bench).

BACK TO THE ROUBO BENCH

So okay!  I know!  I’ve been screwin’ around with this project for a year or more.  But I just got into other things….  You know how it is.   Right?  Well, anyway, I’m back at the Roubo bench project and it is the priority project of the season.  So, stick around, we’ll finish this darned thing together, so to speak.

So here’s what’s going on with the right end vise (really not a tail vise, now is it?).  Just about complete and being dry fit to to the to the top;

You can see the “sacrificial chop” squeezed between the front chop and the bench top.  It will be trimmed to height when everything is finally assembled.

The next step is to set up the tool tray.  This will require a “plough” that will accept the “floor” of the tool tray.  I could do this with a router.  But I’m still trying to loose that ten pounds that I put on during the holidays.  (I still don’t know how it happened.)  So, I gonna make this plough with a Stanley 45.  This is a plane that you can definitely develop a love/hate relationship with.

The one bit of advice that I can give you about using any plough (plow) plane is, to start “at the end”.  Work your way back from the terminus.  Trust me, it’s better that way.  Plough’s are remarkably rewarding in their simplicity and efficacy.  Just enjoy them and don’t worry about the time that it will take you to make that plough.  Remember, for hand woodworkers it’s about the process.  Right?  I mean, come on, it is all about the process, right?

I’ll explain that loose tenon hanging out of the end of the bench next time.  But for right now, let’s just let it be a mystery.

THE DWINDLING MIDDLE CLASS AND THE FUTURE OF FINE FURNITURE MAKERS

This is a blog about woodworking, not about politics.  It’s a blog about woodworking, not about economics.  But if you’re going to practice any form of woodworking for gain, you have to be aware of the economic climate.  So just this once, I want to talk, very briefly, about economics.

I know a lot of people who are involved in various aspects of the woodworking trade.  I have to say that it’s rare when any of them come up to me and say something like “Wow, business is really good!”.  More often than not, I hear statements like “I’ve been at this for thirty years and I’ve never seen it this bad for so long”, or “I’m not making any money, I’m just taking work to keep my crew together”.  Friends of mine who are in the fine furniture trade comment that this part of the country (Great Lakes) has no history of supporting fine furniture builders.  Then I’m reminded of any number of “known” craftsman who are having trouble pursuing their chosen trade in all parts of the country.  Think of the people that you might know who have given up their dreams just to put bread on the table.

Recently I read an article by Francis Fukuyama in Foreign Affairs magazine about the Future of History.  But one thing really jumped off the pages of that article.  It was a simple, short statistic.  “In 1974, the top one percent of families took home nine percent of GDP; by 2007, that share had increased to 23.5 percent.”

So what does that mean to us, the woodworking community?  Well here it is in a nutshell.  One guy who makes $100,000 a year will buy one TV.  Ten guys who make $10,000 a year will buy 10 TV’s.  So as the middle class shrinks, through unemployment, underemployment or the increased accumulation of wealth at the very top of the “food chain”, there are fewer dollars to be spent on things like fine furniture (or even the 3′ Shaker Pegboards).

Woodworkers are an ornery, individualistic, highly ideological group.  And, I’m continually amazed how often they will act against their own best interest, when they support policies that add to the diminishment of the middle class.  If there is to be a continued market for what we are all interested in providing, we need to do everything in our power to insure that the middle class expands thrives and has adequate disposable income to compensate us for our efforts.  It simply won’t come from anyplace else.

I’m suggesting that we all put ideology aside and think about and act in our own best economic interest.  Unless you’re part of that “one percent”, economic considerations are probably what should drive your politics.

Okay, next post is back to woodworking.

 

The way Gramps sharpened his plane irons

Seventy-five years ago most handtool woodworkers were professional carpenters, joiners, millwrights and millmen.  They depended on their tools to make a living.  They were paid on the basis of their productivity.  They knew how to sharpen their tools to maximize their productivity and they knew how to do it fast.

Now, most handtool afficinados are very dedicated amateurs (or recognized artisans with clienteles that are willing to pay for “toolmarks”).  This group of handtool users has the luxury of time, time to fettle their tools “in absurdia”.

Matt Sullenbrand, frequent visitor to this site and provider of wise observation, sent this recent comment;

“I have purchased lots of old planes over the years, and started out flattening the backs on all of them. Then I realized, if none of the craftsman who owned these planes worried about flat backs, why should I? I am not convinced that flat backs on plane irons were ever necessary. It seems more likely and more expedient that it was the norm to use a back bevel on almost all irons, save maybe profiled plane irons which would have been very difficult to back bevel. Just a thought.”

After reading Matt’s comments, I began to think about how my Grandfather taught me to sharpen a plane iron.  First, you have to remember that not all planes are used for “polishing”.  Most, are used for sizing and truing.  So, fifty-four years ago, Gramps taught me to sharpen plane irons like this.

First, make sure that the iron is ground to the purpose it was intended.  Here’s a number 6 iron that’s ground with a substantial crown.  Remember that a 6 is a foreplane.  It’s the plane that “strikes” the first datum or register, from which all other dimensions are taken.  So we get the “grind” right:

Then we “run” the iron in a “figure eight” motion on a hard arkansas stone.  Just as soon as we raise a “wire”, we strike it off by moving the iron laterally, while just raising the heel of the iron “ever so slightly” off the hone.

Then we move to a hard black arkansas stone.  We repeat the same “figure eight” motion, raise the wire, and, again, strike it away.  We don’t go to the strop.  The iron is razor sharp at this point.  The honed, secondary bevel in very small, which means we’re not wasting valuable tool steel.

We reassemble the iron and the chipbreaker and begin to work.  I mean, how many angels can sit on the head of a pin?

Back beveling plane irons – a few more thoughts

For some reason, I started thinking about back bevels, again, about a week ago.  Maybe it was because Les brought up David Charlesworth’s book, “Furniture-Making Techniques”.  So I spent a little time with Charlesworth and Garrett Hack (The Handplane Book).  Okay.  We know that higher cutting angles work better on certain species.  Chris Schwarz has weighed in, stating that a 62 1/2 degree is perfect for curly maple.  And I agree, as earlier posts on this blog will attest.  But I decided that we should be looking at simple ways the produce repeatable results.  So I went out and cut several wedges that should help in setting the back bevel, when (if ever) it’s called for.

Using a 3/8″ carriage bolt, a nut, couple of washers and a wing nut, we can make a rudimentary jig that will allow us to maintain the back bevel angle.

Instead of pushing the iron back and forth on the hone, I prefer a lateral “sweeping” motion.  I find that this allows me to apply pressure on either side and maintain the crown that I’ve already introduced to the iron.

There’s still a few “twists” that you’ll have to contend with.  Adding 5 degrees will put you up to York pitch, the old English standard for hardwood.  Adding 10 degrees will put you up to Middle pitch, which is great for lightly figured stock.   But, keep in mind if you’re working with an old Norris or Speers Plane, you’ll be struck by the fact that the iron looks to be about 3/16″ thick.  It probably is pretty close to that dimension.  You don’t get much chatter from one of those beauties.  But when you start cranking up the back bevel on your basic Stanley iron, prepare yourself.  After you cross the “York Pitch Boundary Line”, chatter will be a constant companion.  But with some fettling, you’ll probably able to eliminate the bulk of it.

The other thing that you’ll immediately notice is the greatly increased amount of effort that is required to push a plane with a substantial back bevel.  You’ll be shocked as you feel your heart rate increase as you remove a shaving that is .0002″ (or thinner).

I’ll keep this discussion alive.  There’s gotta be a couple of trade secrets out there about how to shear cut highly figured stock that have been lost to modernity.  I’d welcome any thoughts.

Cabriole table – Finished (at last)!

Here it is, complete.  Just a couple of words about the finish.  The base has four coats of Waterlox Medium sheen tung oil varnish.  After the final coat was dry, I gave it the “Wigwam” buff process (one of my old ragg wool socks).  In a day or two, I’ll give it a coat of “bowling alley” wax.

The top had about ten, very thin coats of the same Waterlox.  Using 0000 Steel wool and Murphy’s Oil Soap, I rubbed out the varnish.  Then I hit it with a really “hard buffed” coat of “bowling alley’ wax.  After that I laid on a coat of Williamsville polish, to introduce a little oil; then another coat of the hard stuff.  The top looked like it was “ten thousand feet deep”.  It was beautiful!  Then I noticed some tiny sanding scratches that I had missed.  Took the top back to the shop.  Put the finest edge that I could on my very best scraper and proceded to remove the uppermost coats of finish from the major portion of the top.  Then I sanded with 320 grit Abranet cloth.  After a coat of Waterlox, it became apparent that the scratches were gone.  A couple more coats and it will be better than before.  Wow, the stuff you have to do to maintain your integrity!  But it was worth it.  On to the next adventure.