My Planes are Taking Shape!

On the fourth day of the Scott Meek class on making wooden planes, we shaped the wedges that will hold our blades in place and then began to cut the now rectangular plane bodies to their final shapes.
For my Osage orange smoothing plane, which has a 50 degree bed angle, I decided to create my own body style and so I strayed from the traditional design. 

The Osage orange smoother body before shaping

My idea was to incorporate handle-like curves in the toe and rear of the plane to make it more easily fit my hand in use.  So I left the front and rear sections higher so I could shape them to fit my hand.

Some of the shaping is visible on the front of the plane; I did less shaping on the rear

I will probably not make any more changes to this plane, except to polish the rasped areas.  I can do additional changes to fit my hand when I'm back in my own woodshop and after I have spent some time using the plane.

My teak jack plane in the process of being shaped

The teak 12 inch jack plane is still being shaped.  I'm following Scott's pattern for this plane, which will have Scott's "wave" pattern on the rear section.  That not only makes it easy to hold and use, but beautiful as well.

I've not yet started on shaping the 22 inch white oak jointer.  That will come tomorrow.

My teak jointer and Osage orange smoother as they near completion

Some of the 12 planes being built in the class this week

Tomorrow we'll finish shaping the bodies and then work the mouths so the blades protrude just the right amount.

Need I say that I'm having a lot of fun--and learning a lot too!--in this class?  When I update my book on handplanes, Choosing and Using Handplanes, I plan to include a chapter on wooden handplanes, which are quickly becoming favorites in my handplane collection.

Norm

My Book on Handplanes

For the last several months, I've been writing and photographing a book on using handplanes in woodworking.  Titled Choosing and Using Handplanes, it describes the various types of handplanes, how to set them up and sharpen them, ways to hold work for planing and planing technique itself.  It also addresses caring for handplanes, buying and restoring old handplanes and how to diagnose and fix various problems encountered in planing.  The book should be completed in November in a paperback edition that will be sold on Amazon.com as well as on my web site and in a Kindle edition to follow soon after that.

A photo of the book's cover is shown here.  If you are new to handplaning, I think you will find this book a helpful resource for getting started.

A Sharpening Station, At Last!

Many of my tools will benefit from regular sharpening.  This includes handplane blades, bench chisels, carving chisels and woodturning tools, all of which I use often.  It's well known among woodworkers that sharp tools are necessary to achieve the best work, while dull tools are inefficient at best and dangerous at worst.  My problem was that I had no regular place to sharpen my tools.  Instead, every time I wanted to sharpen my plane blades or chisels, I had to get out my stones and set them up on my workbench, then move them out of the way when I was finished with them.  My woodturning tools are sharpened on a heavy slow-speed grinder that was inconvenient to lift from under my workbench every time I wanted to do some turning.  I use a Koch sharpening system and Shapton stones for my carving chisels and, once again, it was stored in an inconvenient location.

The eventual outcome of all this inconvenient, of course, is that the job of honing gets put off until no small amount of resharpening will suffice to restore the tools to peak condition.  And it means that tools get used when they are dull, poor practice indeed, but one I'll admit to practicing.

Gluing up the drawer

The solution is a dedicated sharpening station, something I've yearned for over the years and even planned but never built.  Fortunately, my good friend and business partner Jeff Fleisher came up with some surplus property that provided a solution.  First was a slightly damaged cabinet with a wide drawer opening and double doors leading to a moveable shelf inside.  Then, a local restaurant was renovating and he snagged some thick Formica table tops for each of us.

With these two pieces in hand, my job became simple.  I attached rotating wheels, pin nailed the table top to the case and built a drawer to fit the opening just under the new tabletop.  Then I added drawer pulls and finished it all with a coat of shellac.

My sharpening tools

Even before the drawer was completed, however, I put the station in operation.  The tabletop measures 48 X 30 inches and is large enough for all my sharpening equipment--a Tormek T-7 water-cooled grinder, a Koch sharpening system for my carving chisels, a low-speed grinder and a tray with my Shapton stones at the ready.  My strop is hanging on one side.  Tormek accessories and other small tools are in the large drawer.  Water jugs (I have no water in the shop) and other large items are accessible through the double doors.  Being on wheels, the whole sharpening station can be easily rolled near the workbench when wanted there and then rolled back out of the way when the floor space is needed for assembly and the like.

The finished sharpening station

I feel certain that this improvement to my shop will greatly enhance the speed and quality of my woodworking.  If you don't have a sharpening station, consider building one similar to this.  If you can get hold of a surplus cabinet or tabletop, so much the better!

Norm

Using Pinterest for Woodworking Research

I recently signed up for Pinterest.  I've got to admit it straight out; I'm not a big social media user.  Sure, I have a Facebook account and I read it sometimes but seldom post.  And I'm on LinkedIn as a passive presence.  I don't Tweet.  So frankly, I wasn't sure why I'd want to be on Pinterest.  All that said, I decided to give it a go.

My first idea was to post links to my business, Shenandoah Tool Works, and I created links to photos of the woodworking mallets and birdcage awls my partner Jeff Fleisher and I produce.  But then, upon looking around, I began to see photos of things I'd like to build for myself.  So I created boards in Pinterest for several projects--a cabinet to store hand tools, saw tills, a rolling lumber cart, table designs and decorative boxes.  After creating the boards, I searched each of these topics, scrolled through what I found and pinned the photos I liked best to my boards.

Already I've used the photos to design a rolling lumber rack that combines several features I saw in the Pinterest photos--racks for boards, storage for plywood, bins for offcuts, a panel saw and clamp storage.  I can already see that it will reduce the clutter in my shop and add functionality as well. 

If you haven't tried Pinterest yet, you may find it useful for designing projects.  The good thing is, it is not only easy to use but it's free!  If you like the project boards I've set up, you can always follow me.  My site is my name--Norm Reid.  If you decide to use Pinterest, let me know how it works out for you.

Norm

A New Name, A New Design

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll notice that I've renamed it and applied a new design.  Since I've come to call my basement shop the Cobbler Mountain Woodshop, it seemed right that this blog should bear the same name.  And, in view of the fact that I'm no longer a novice woodworker, a changing subtitle and design were in order as well.

Why Cobbler Mountain Woodshop?  Simply, because my home is situated at the foot of Little Cobbler Mountain in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, with Big Cobbler Mountain lying just behind it.  It's a lovely location, the mountain visible out the kitchen window on all but the foggiest of days.

The address for this blog is still the same as it was, normssawdustpile.blogspot.com.  Only the title has changed, though a search on Cobbler Mountain Woodshop will find it as well.

The photo beneath the title and the design are new as well.  I chose the photo--of my no. 4 Lie-Nielsen smoothing plane working a natural edge walnut coffee table--to reflect my growing use of hand tools.  It also represents the fact that I've been teaching hand plane use and restoration at northern Virginia Woodcraft stores for the last several years.

As I see it, these changes represent more than a design upgrade.  Instead, they reflect my evolution from a complete novice--which I was when this blog began--to a maturing woodworker with a number of increasingly complex projects under my belt.

I look forward to describing my woodworking adventures here and hope you'll join me for future installments.

Norm

Making Space for Hand Tools

Like many contemporary woodworkers, I started out with power tools.  I assembled the usual array--workbench, tablesaw and bandsaw, jointer, planer, router table and sanding equipment, among others.  I set up shop in a basement cleared of accumulated clutter and installed my power tools within reach of a good dust collector.  Convinced that power tools would meet all my future needs and desires, I went so far as to declare I'd never need to use handplanes.  I mean, just how wrong can a fellow be?

It wasn't long before I began acquiring handplanes and learning how to set them up and use them.  Then it was chisels.  And handsaws.  And so, I converted from a complete Normite to a hybrid woodworker with a growing desire to build things using hand tools.

But while my woodshop afforded me space for my power tools, there was no good place for hand tool work, no spot where I could use a sawbench to break down lumber, no place for a sharpening station, no open area for assembly, no way to keep my burgeoning lumber stash from frustrating my attempts to move around the shop.  I began to have visions of building a new woodshop outside to meet my growing need for space.  My wife even went so far as to suggest just that.

It took my friend Jeff to see what I could not--the potential for reorganizing the space available right in my basement to yield more usable work area.  And so, with his vision and assistance, we transformed the cellar in a few short hours and opened up at least half again as much space as I was already using.

Now all my power tools are in one area and my hand tool operations in another.  Now I can walk past my lumber rack without fear of tripping.  I can saw a board with plenty of clearance.  I can wheel my assembly table into an open space for four-sided access when needed.  I have room for a sharpening station near my workbench.

My wonderful wife was ready and willing for me to build a new woodshop.  Fortunately, with her support, I've been able to get nearly the same result at little expense.  I think I now need to build something to repay her.  But that's what it's all about, isn't it?  I think it's time to head down the stairs to my cellar woodshop and start something special.

Norm

Update on 2014

Well, so far this year, things haven't turned out as I planned in my last posting.  Early this year I was diagnosed with cancer in a couple of places and in February I had an operation to remove it.  The operations was, by all accounts, successful, but it did take me out of the shop for the better part of four months.  As a result, I haven't gotten very much done on the goals I set out for the year.  Needless to say, when next January rolls around, much of what I planned will remain undone.

Still, I have done a few things.

• Jeff Fleisher and I introduced our new birdcage awls and began selling those via the web.  Sales have been very good.  We continue to sell our Shenandoah Mallets as well.
• Jeff and I are signed up to have a vendor booth at this year's Woodworking in America, which will be held in Winston-Salem, NC, September 12-14.  We will be busy this summer producing enough stock to meet the expected demand for our awls and mallets.
• I built a bird's mouth fixture to use with my turning saw.  I purchased that from Tools for Working Wood at last year's Woodworking in America.  I can't say I've learned to use it effectively yet; that remains an objective for this year.
• I built a pair of shop bents to go with my sawbench.  For these I used salvaged Douglas fir from stairsteps that were replaced in our house.
• I resumed teaching at Woodcraft the other day with my Handplane Basics class.  That is a milestone for me on my road to recovery and I will now be able to teach the other classes I'm planning to conduct.
• I installed my new General router table.  I got the one with the cast iron table.  The router is also new, the 3 1/4 hp Porter Cable router, which should give me all the power I'll need.

I'll still work on the other projects I proposed for this year, though my emphasis will be on preparing to teach several new classes.  For those, I need to first build the projects we will be building in class so I am fully prepared to teach them effectively.  I do want to finish the bedside tables and the natural edge walnut coffee table, at a minumum.  And, I'd like to build a Greene and Greene style clock based on plans from a November 2010 Wood Magazine article.  Other projects may simply have to wait until next year!

Norm

My Goals for 2014

Well, it's that time of year when, Janus-like, we look back at what we've accomplished in the preceding year and ahead to what we hope to achieve in the coming one.  Here are my lists.

2013

This was a very busy year for me, woodworking-wise.  While I accomplished a lot, I also started a number of things that remain unfinished.

My friend Jeff Fleisher and I started a small business, Shenandoah Tool Works, and began production of premium woodworking mallets featuring highly-figured hardwood handles.  The mallets come with steel heads in 1 lb. and 1 1/2 lb. weights.  Business started off well and our mallets have been well-received.  We attended the Woodworking in America show in Cincinnati in October and did a good business there, getting valuable exposure in the process.

I continued working on a pair of white oak bedside tables.  I hesitated over several construction problems that I eventually solved and the cases are now glued-up and awaiting drawers. 

I upgraded my Nova 16-24 lathe to the Nova 3000 DVR model, which seems more powerful and is certainly easier to use with its adjustable speeds.

I sold off my Craftsman radial arm saw, now that I'm using handsaws to dimension my lumber.

I joined Shannon Rogers' Hand Tool School and began learning from Shannon many of the mysteries and skills associated with hand tool woodworking.

I started work on a joinery bench, following plans developed by Shannon Rogers in the Hand Tool School.

With a colleague at the Leesburg, VA, Woodcraft store, I designed a Hand Tool Woodshop class series  that he and I will be teaching on a monthly basis.  The idea is to teach hand tool skills while letting students build new and useful appliances and tools.  Examples are bench hooks, shooting boards, and saw benches, among others.

I was able to locate a natural edge walnut slab that I planed smooth, mostly by hand, for use as a coffee table top.  I also purchased another slab of highly colored maple and was able to get a slab of beautiful red box elder that I also plan to turn into a coffee table.

I undertook a lot of additional, smaller projects that are too numerous to recite or even to recall.

2014

I hope to focus my attention this year on a select number of high priority objectives:

• Complete and finish the bedside tables.
• Build a base for the walnut coffee table.
• Build several Jefferson lap desks  like the one on which the Declaration of Independence was written in 1776.  I have a wonderful mahogany board waiting for that purpose.  I'll follow the plans from Charles Neil's Mastering Woodworking on-line sessions for that.
• Recommence work on a Winchester Chippendale secretary that I started several years ago in a class with Jeff Headley and Steve Hamilton at Woodworking Workshops of the Shenandoah Valley.  The casework is completed but not glued-up, the drawers remain to be built and all the pigeon holes need to be created.  I'm sure I won't be able to complete the project this year, but I want to make significant progress on it.
• I want to learn how to cut dovetails by hand with precision and ease.
• I want to complete the joinery bench I started in 2013.
• I want to build a sharpening station.
• I've ordered a General International router table with a cast iron top and hope to have that installed in late January or February.
• I'd like to turn a number of items using the cherry, hickory, apple, box elder and other blocks I have stored away.

• I want to continue teaching hand tool techniques at the local Woodcraft stores, including the introduction to hand planes, restoring old hand planes, saw bench, shooting board and other classes.

• Jeff Fleisher and I will continue to produce our premium woodworking mallets.  And, we expect to begin offering a hand-forged birdcage awl sometime early this year as well.

I'm sure other things will come up during the year, principally projects from the Hand Tool School that I'll want to tackle, such as the Limbert Table from Semester Two.

Did I say a select number of high priority objectives?  Well, I guess I've put a lot on my plate for this year.  It remains to be seen how much of this I will actually be able to accomplish.  Check back next January!

Norm

A Saw Till

I've been accumulating hand saws over recent months as part of my transition from a fully power tool woodworker to a hybrid woodworker.  What that means is that I'm starting to use hand tools more and more in my work.  I don't ever plan to change over to an exclusive reliance on hand tools.  Power tools are useful and have a good purpose, especially when processing large amounts of wood for larger projects.  Still, I like working by hand and am building up my skills in this area.  Hence the hand saws.

I now have three crosscut saws--two in serious need of sharpening, a skill I am working on but have not yet mastered--two rip saws of differing tooth configurations and several smaller saws.  Those saws are a Bad Axe Toolworks 18" tenon saw with a hybrid tooth filing, an Adria Toolworks carcase saw, a Lie-Nielsen dovetail saw and a Veritas crosscut saw. Each saw has its own purpose, so I feel justified in having them all.  I'm hoping they will meet all my hand saw needs for a very long time.

The problem with having this many saws is where to store them.  That led me to design and build a saw till so I could hang them in a small space on my shop wall.  As the photo shows, this turned out to be a simple affair, essentially three rectangles of birch plywood, two of which are attached at right angles to the back board and supported by a cleat on their undersides.  I sawed grooves in the horizontal pieces for the saw blades to fit into.  As you can see, the saws are held in place by their handles and a bit of gravity.  I screwed the whole affair into the concrete wall of my basement shop, where it hangs between some shelves and a large sheet of pegboard.

This simple design works well and was easy to execute.  But improvements might be possible for others who wish to build something similar.  I might have designed it so the handles are at the bottom and the blades facing upward, for example, but somehow the simplicity of this arrangement appealed to me more.  Another improvement would be to angle the top horizontal piece so it slopes upward toward the front.  This would have alleviated my fear that the saws will--given vibrations in the shop--gradually work their way forward in their slots and eventually fall to the floor.  My solution to that is periodically to push them backward in their slots to rectify any forward creep.  An angled board would have rid me of this concern.

Perhaps some day I'll make another saw till that incorporates improvements.  Until I'm caught up on all my projects--and that is likely to be a very long time indeed!--I'll use the one I have and be glad it is there to project my saws and keep them handy for use.

If you decide to build one of your own, leave a comment and tell me what you did.  I just might want to borrow from your ideas if and when I rebuild my own.

Norm

Building a New Workbench Top

The final glue-up.

After using a good, hard maple workbench at Jeff Headley's workshop, it became clear to me that I needed to upgrade my own workbench before I would be able to do the chiseling and planing I'd need to do to complete the Winchester style Chippendale desk I started in Jeff's class.  So I bought a copy of Chris Schwarz' book on workbenches and read it through, then decided that rather than building an entirely new bench, I could do quite well by building a new top and installing it on my current base, which is made of 2X4s laminated into 4X4s. 

Ready to plane.

I began by buying and acclimating 8-foot 8/4 hard maple boards.  With the help of a friend, I jointed and planed these, then ripped them to 3-inch widths.  This is the only time I have had trouble with my SawStop contractor's saw.  It ripped the first half dozen boards smoothly, but after that point it began to stall until it refused to cut at all.  I later discovered that the motor was overheating from the hard cutting.  It finished the job the next day with no hitches. 

After cutting the boards, I stood them on edge and glued them up in sets of three, then glued up those sets until I had a nearly complete bench top.  My plan was to attach a six-inch apron to the front of the bench.  Before doing that, I installed a Veritas twin-screw vise and front jaw to the apron to be sure it would fit.  Once that was working well, I disassembled the vise and completed the final glue-up.

Low-angle jack plane.

That's where things stand now.  What remains is to plane the bench top smooth and level, even up the ends of the bench (they are a bit uneven at present) and install the new top on the old base.  I'll use a Lie-Nielsen low-angle jack plane with a toothed blade to take the roughness off the top, then complete the job with a low-angle jointer and smoothing plane.

Norm

A Tale of Two Holes

I'm building a new workbench.  Since I've gotten deeply interested in hand planes, and since I need to cut a good many dovetails on the Winchester secretary I'm building, I need a bench with a solid hardwood top, bench dog holes and good side and tail vises.  So I've taken that on as an interim project.

I got a supply of 8/4 hard maple and, with the help of a friend, jointed and planed it square and smooth.  Then I ripped it into 3-inch widths, which I stood on edge and glued together to make a 3-inch thick top.  More planing followed to even out the edges, leaving me with a 2-3/4-inch thick top, more than heavy enough.

Now I'm installing a Veritas twin screw vise on the left front side of the bench.  The first step was to drill 1-1/2-inch holes in the front and back faces of the vise to accommodate the screws.  The front face I drilled with a Forstner bit on my drill press.  But the back face is an apron that runs the approximately seven feet length of the bench.  No drill press for that!  So I clamped the two boards together in their proper relationship and, using a device that holds the drill vertically (see photos), I began boring out the holes.

The first hole went fairly well, though the going was slow.  But the second one seemed to take forever.  Was the Forster bit too hot (it was hot)?  Was I drilling too fast for the bit to bite into the wood?  Had I dulled the bit beyond usefulness?

I'm not sure which of those explanations works, but I did eventually finish the hole without having to spring for another bit.

There's still more to do, but I'm at least making progress.  With any luck, I'll have the vise installed and the remaining parts glued together and ready to install by next week.

Norm

Winchester Secretary -- And So It Begins

I reported last year that I would be building a Winchester secretary in the Chippendale style, taking a class with Jeff Headley and Steve Hamilton.  Jeff and Steve are renowned furnituremakers.  They produced the two matching chairs with carved handles that the President and foreign heads of state occupy during one-on-one discussions, as well as reproduction pieces for Colonial Williamsburg and others.  It's a seven-day class in two segments.  In the first segment, which began yesterday, we will be building the outer, dovetailed case.  In July, we'll conclude with two days when we will start work on the interior.  In between times and afterward, we'll work on the desk in our own shops.

In reality, I began working on the secretary late last year.  I first created parts and cut lists using Cut List Plus.  Then I located sources for the cherry and poplar I'm using and began accumulating the lumber.  The hardest part was finding a good supply of curly cherry and getting it in the 5/4 size (1-1/4") needed to assure it would be 7/8" thick after planing.  In the end, I settled for 4/4 (1") stock in many instances and hoped for the best.  Then came weeks of cutting the wood to rough dimensions and gluing up the many panels.  With all that behind me, I am now starting the actual construction of the desk.

The design for the secretary is based on a Winchester area desk that is held in the Williamsburg collection.  It is described and illustrated in an article by Anne S. McPherson, "Adaptation and Reinterpretation: The Transfer of Furniture Styles from Philadelphia to Winchester to Tennessee," pp. 299-334 in Luke Beckerdite, ed., American Furniture 1997 (Hanover and London: Chipstone Foundation, 1997).  The original included a case on top that might have held books or china.  I will be building my desk without that top.

We spent most of the first morning running our panels through a 36" belt sander to get them even and to the correct thickness, then cutting them to size.  The machine work was done by our instructors, who cut all the panels using a crosscut sled and jigs so they would all be equal in size.  This was much faster and saved our time for the real work, cutting the dovetails that will hold the case together.

The afternoon was spent cutting half-blind dovetails in the case bottom and sides.  This was my first time to cut dovetails and my first time for half-blind dovetails, even in practice.  It went well.  Fortunately, the dovetails will all be hidden inside the case so any mistakes will not be visible from the outside.  So it provided me a good opportunity for practice.

Of course, with all my careful preparations to process and load the lumber and tools in my car, I walked off without my chisels and dovetail saw.  I had visited my friend Jeff Fleisher to get some dovetailing advice and took them with me, then left them in my wife Betsy's car. Fortunately, I was able to borrow tools from the instructors and all went well.  Still, I wanted to give my Blue Spruce chisels a good workout and was disappointed not to have them.  They are already loaded in the car so I'll have them today.

When we resume this morning, I'll mark and cut the remaining set of dovetails on the bottom of the case and then we'll turn our attention to the top of the case.  I find I'm enjoying chopping dovetails and, under the watchful eye of the instructors, I'm learning a lot.  It'll be fun seeing how far we get today.

Oh, and I've concluded that my plywood-topped workbench is not going to cut it for dovetailing so a new bench is in order for later this summer.  One thing I know for sure--it'll have a hard maple top.  Other than that, I've ordered Christopher Schwarz's book Workbenches, said to be the best source on designing and building one.  In addition, I've found an on-line source at Fine Woodworking for a good looking bench that uses the same vise I have sitting on my workshop floor.

More later.

Norm

Learning to Plane - Part VI

There was so much information from this course on hand planing that it's been difficult for me to present it all here in a timely manner.  That's been complicated by the fact that I've been hustling to get my wood processed for the Winchester Chippendale Secretary class I'm taking next week.  That's done now and I have a short time to breathe so I can get back to the subject of hand planing.

Planing Rough Lumber

Continuing the discussion of reading boards and processing raw lumber, Chris Schwarz said that you want a flat benchtop so your boards won't flex downward in the middle while you're planing.  When the heart side of the wood is down toward the bench, plane the bark side by traversing first with a jack plane until the wind is out of the board.  Use a marking gauge to mark the finished thickness around the circumference of the board.  Then use the jointer plane, starting on the diagonal with the mouth of the plane fairly tight.  At first you will get inconsistent shavings because you are getting the tracks from the jack plane.  Eventually, as the boards is flattened, you will get full shavings.  Then you can either plane with the grain or switch to the smoothing plane.  With the jointer plane, start and finish with the strong part of the curved blade off the edge, rather than on the edge, so you don't create a bow.  For interior parts of your piece of furniture, you can often stop after the jointer plane has flattened them; there's no need for the smoothing plane.

Smoothing Plane

Chris smooth planes his furniture after it is glued up when possible.  His advice is to not smooth plane until you have to do so.  As with the other planes, he sets the blade depth by viewing down the sole of the plane and extends the blade until he sees a black line, then adjusts the blade so the curved part is in the center before retracting the blade to the correct depth. 

When planing, he starts partly off the end of the board.  He puts his entire upper body over the plane and uses his legs.  Smoothing plane shavings should be light and fluffy.  It may take several passes to clean up prior marks, though.

Finishing

Aniline dyes don't go well with planed surfaces and will blotch badly.  Pigments lay on top of the surface and work well.  For dyes, briefly rough the surface with 220 grit sandpaper.

Edges

Mark the true face and point to the edge to be trued.  A curved blade lets you cut down the high points.  Use your left hand as a fence.  Drag your fingertips and nails to avoid splinters.

Shooting Board

A shooting board is used to square the ends of boards.  Chris uses a straight edged blade for shooting.  Use a very sharp blade and set it up for a fine cut like a smoothing plane.  He miters the back corner with a chisel to avoid spelching (i.e., blowout).  He draws a line on the end of the board and then shoots until he hits the line, which is behind the miter.

Contest

At this point in the course, having learned about all we could and having set up our planes, we were challenged to square up a poplar board using only our planes.  The prize was a set of books and other items.  I didn't win, but I did learn a lot about using my planes.  I had the books already anyway. 

Scraping

We had time to get in a little extra information and demos on scraping.  We began with sharpening the card scraper.  Chris' method is, he says, the culmination of tests of numerous methods designed for not having much equipment.

You need to flatten both faces and remove the burr that is there.  File the edge at 90 degrees with a file; he mounts the card in the saw kerf in a block of wood.  Only file on the push stroke.  Then he sharpens the edge on stones, holding it at 90 degrees by pressing it against a block of wood.  He starts at 1000 grit, then goes to 4000 and sometimes 8000 grit for edge retention.  He then uses the ruler trick to sharpen the four faces.  Following this, he rubs the edges with a burnisher to push the metal upward and make it easier to turn.  Then he burnishes the end of each edge to turn a hook on each side.  The angle doesn't matter that much.  Use fairly firm downward pressure.  Use as many strokes as you need.  Use a good burnisher.  He does not like the one made by Crown.  The Veritas burnisher works well. 

When using the card scraper, you can either push or pull.  You should get small shavings when you do so, not dust.

Scraper Plane

You use a scraper plane to get a flat surface with any direction of the wood.  Flatten the back of the plane with 1000 grit.  Primary bevel is 45 degrees; secondary bevel is 50 degrees.  A hook on the blade is optional but easy to do.  Use a burnisher at the bevel, then raise it 5 degrees, then do it again.  Put the hook on the back side of the blade.  The Veritas burnisher put a quick hook on the Stanley no. 80 Chris was using for the demonstration.  He used the ruler trick on the back of the blade before putting on the hook.


Wrap Up

And that was the class--two days full of valuable information and hands on practice.  I learned more than I could absorb at the time, which is why I took such detailed notes.  If you get the chance to do this class, take it.  But if you can't get there, then these notes should help you get much of its value.

Happy woodworking!

Norm

Learning to Plane - Part V

Chris Schwarz argues that you need a dedicated area for plane sharpening.  After using your planes, dust them off and oil them with either Camilla or Jojoba oil.  The oils won't affect your finish.  In fact, Chris even applies the oil directly to difficult wood or knots to ease planing.  To wax the soles of his planes, Chris uses parafin.  It's essentially mineral spirits.  He waxes after every piece of wood.

Assessing the Wood

Before you plane, look at the end grain.  The bark side of the board is the side where the rings are convex, that is, toward the outside of the tree.  The heart side is where they are concave, or smaller in diameter.  Wood usually cups on the bark side and bows on the heart side.  You tend to get a smooth surface when you plane with the grain.  You can determine that by looking at the edge of the board.  If the grain is rising in one direction, that is the direction you want to plane.  It's like rubbing the fur on the back of a cat; you want to cut with the grain and not against it, which will lead to tearout.  You can also judge from the end grain.  On the heart side of the board, plane from the bottom of the cathedral pattern toward its top.  On the bark side, plane from the point of the cathedral to its bottom.  You would use the same methods to determine the direction for jointing and planing with power tools.  For quartersawn wood, you have to look at the edges; you can't tell from the end grain what direction you should plane.

Assuming the board is cupped, put the bark side down and plane the heart side first.  Once the heart side is flat, flip the board and you can plane without using shims.  When using an end vise, don't put a lot of pressure on the board; the vise can bend it.


Traversing with a Fore Plane

Open the mouth of the plane and use a wide radius (say 8 inches) on the blade.  Plane across the grain.  You can remove lots of wood quickly in this way.  Before traversing (which is what planing across the grain is called), knock off the rear edge of the board, usually with a block plane, to avoid spelching (tearout).

Set the plane on its edge across the board to confirm the existence of a hill.  To remove a hill in the center of the board, plane with the grain to create a slight valley, then traverse the board.  When Chris traverses, he pushes the plane across the board and then pulls it back in a very rapid motion.

Winding Sticks

I took my winding sticks from Philly Planes to the workshop and Chris used those to demonstrate their use.  However, he uses extruded aluminum strips from Home Depot and spray paints one of them black.  Twenty-four to thirty-six inches is a good length.  You can sight at several places on a long board, but you generally don't need to do so.  If you have wind (i.e., the board is twisted), it usually means that two opposite corners are high and you need to plane them.

There's more to tell.  I'll cover it next time.

Norm

Learning to Plane - Part IV

Setting Up Planes

There really isn't much setup to do on bevel-up planes, which is one of the reasons they are increasingly popular, especially with beginning woodworkers.  Chris Schwarz didn't have much to offer on setting them up, except to adjust the mouth tightly for difficult woods. 

Bevel-down planes, on the other hand, usually have chipbreakers.  Chris offered that a dished chipbreaker can be honed using a honing guide.  Most people, he said, set the chipbreaker too close to the edge of the blade.  One-sixteenth of an inch is a good distance, except for difficult woods, when it should be set closer, such as one thirty-second of an inch.  Lie-Nielsen makes a standard 45-degree frog but also 50 and 55 degree frogs for difficult woods for all its planes.

Planes are tuned either to remove material, straighten a board or prepare it for finishing.  The jack or fore plane is generally used to remove material.  These are the #5 and #6 planes.  For stock removal, set the plane with a wide open mouth, say 1/16 inch.  Use a curved blade with and 8-10 inch radius.  Back the chipbreaker off; get it behind the curve of the blade.  Use a low blade pitch, say 45 degrees.  For a bevel up plane, set it even lower.

The jointer plane's main job is to straighten a board once excess material has been removed.  Jointer planes are #7 and #8 and run from 18 to 24 inches in length.  You tighten the mouth of a jointer plane; you want to get shavings about .004 or .005 inches thick, so set the mouth at about .003 inches.  Give the jointer plane a strong curve, say .006-.008 inches from the top of the arc to a line drawn between the edges of the blade.  Use an even stronger arc for a bevel-up plane and a 45 to 50 degree pitch.  On a bevel-down plane, the chipbreaker should be backed off to, say, 1/16 inch. 

Smoothing planes should be set with the mouth as tight as possible, .003-.004 inch.  Use a feeler gauge to assess this.  A narrow mouth reduces tearout.  Use a very slight curve to the blade, .002-.003 inches.  Keep the chipbreaker set so it won't clog; 3/32 inch is where Chris starts.  The pitch of the blade can be from 45 to 65 degrees.  The higher the pitch, the less tearing.  Plane softwoods at a lower angle, hardwoods at a higher angle.

Chris argues that it's good practice to use the jack plane and jointer plane as much as possible for smoothing to avoid unnecessary work with the smoother.

Next I'll talk about putting the planes to work on an actual piece of wood.

Norm

Learning to Plane - Part III

When Should You Regrind a Bevel?

You only need to regrind after you have honed your secondary bevel, say, six times, if it is taking a long time to get a good polish, the secondary bevel has grown large or if you've hit a nail or dropped the blade and nicked it.  Chris Schwarz grinds on sandpaper, starting with 80 grit and moving to 120 grit.  Grind until the secondary bevel is small, unless it has been damaged.  In the latter case, grind it off entirely.

If you need to regrind on a grinder, grind the point flat, because the point is the most likely place for the blade to burn.  Alternatively, you can quench the blade while grinding.  If you burn a blade blue, hone it and use it anyway.  It will need honing sooner than if it had not been burned, but otherwise it will be OK.

When using a grinder, Chris draws a square line with a magic marker--red shows up best.  Then he grinds the bevel flat using an 80 grit wheel.  He prefers the gray wheels over the white ones because the gray breaks down easier and stays cooler.

How do you tell if your blade is dull?  When you can see a bright line across the end of the blade.  If it's sharp, you can't see the end at all.

Cambering Blades

Some planes will have straight blades.  Others, especially those designed to flatten boards, should have a curve to them.  Jack planes, when set up as fore planes, should have a curve with an eight inch radius.  You would create this camber on the grinder.  Jointer or try planes can be straight or curved.  Chris prefers them curved.  They get a much smaller curve, about .006 inch from the center of the curve to the edge of the blade.  This would work out to a radius of about 37.5 feet.  Bench planes get a smaller curve yet, about .002 or .003 inch.  In case the case of jointer and bench planes, you grind the blade flat, then hone it curved.  The goal is to have enough curve to the blade to avoid tracks and still take a good shaving.

Chris's method is to use a honing guide that allows some rocking motion side to side.  He holds the blade square against the 1000 grit stone, putting heavier pressure on one outside edge, then pulling the blade 10 times.  Then he shifts the heavy pressure to the other side and pulls 10 times.  After that, he moves the pressure to the midpoint between one side and the center and pulls the blade 5 times, repeating that motion on the other side.  Finally, he puts the pressure in the center of the blade and gives it two pulls.  This sequence is then repeated on the 4000 and 8000 grit stones.  There is no need to repeat the ruler trick on the back of the blade.  Stropping is about like using the 8000 grit stone.  Stropping the blade is unnecessary after honing and may even lead to rounding over the bevel.

You also want to trim the corners of the blade.  This only needs to be done the first time you set up the blade and is done by pushing a fine file against the corner of the blade, using a rounding motion.  This helps prevent blade tracks on your work.

Thanks to Jeff Fleisher for these photos.  Next time I'll cover setting up planes.

Norm

Learning to Plane - Part I

I've got the planes.  I described these in an earlier posting.  I've read the books.  Especially good are Christopher Schwarz's Essential Handplanes and Thomas Lie-Nielsen's Sharpening.  Now it's time to put what I've been learning into action.

 I started with a wide board of curly red oak that I wanted to use to make some cutting boards.  I set out using my Lie-Nielsen no. 7 1/2 low angle jointer to flatten the board, then my Veritas low angle smoothing plane.  To remove a peak in the center of the board, I first planed a trough in the center with the jointer plane, then planed across the board on a diagonal to remove the high places until the board was level.  Then I used the smoother to produce a surface that barely needed sanding.  The result was good if I do say so myself, considering I started with a tough board to plane. 

I learned a lot from the process.  One lesson was that I need to know more about sharpening.  A second lesson is that I need to know more about setting up my planes for optimal performance.

Fortunately, I'm having a chance to learn how to do both of these things.  As I write this, I am midway through a class on handplanes taught by none other than Thomas Lie-Nielsen and Christopher Schwarz.  The class is being held at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking in Indianapolis.  Already, I've sharpened and set up two of my planes and have taken a perfect thin shaving with my Lie-Nielsen No. 4 smoothing plane.  It was an exciting moment!

I'll have more to say about this class later, along with photos.

Norm

My SawStop Returns

After nearly two months of down time, my SawStop contractor's saw is finally back in operation. The tech guys at SawStop were great. They sent me a new control box, which had been upgraded, updated the software in my brake cartridges and sent me a new connection cable. I first installed the new control box, a somewhat tedious but not altogether difficult process. That didn't fix it. Then I tried the updated brakes. That too didn't work.

So I set to work on changing the connection cable. That turned out to be hard work, reaching down through the table top to get at impossible to reach nuts and screws. One I stripped out and had to remove by drilling it out with my Dremel tool. Another the instructions said was a #2 Phillips head screw turned out to be a hex screw. But it faced downward and I couldn't tell that, so I kept on turning and turning to no effect.

I finally hired a man who does repairs for our Woodcraft store to come and fix it for me. In about three hours, he had it together and operating.

It's a wonderful saw. I'm glad to have it back again.

Norm

My SawStop Stopped!

A couple weeks ago I was ripping some sycamore to make frames for earring holders when my SawStop refused to cut. I had lightly touched the blade with the end of the board I planned to rip when the saw stopped running. After that, each time I tried to fire it up, it would start, then immediately stop.

I contacted the service department at SawStop and got a fast reply from Roger and Tom, who helped me diagnose the problem. The fix is to send me a new and upgraded control box and cable, which they can do since my saw is still under warranty. In addition, they asked me to send in my brake cartridges, the ones that keep the saw from cutting off my fingers, so their software could be updated to the latest version. These changes, we hope, will take care of the problem.

But I haven't been able to implement the fixes yet. The problem is not on SawStop's end; they responded quickly. It is due to Mother Nature, who dumped 35+ inches of snow on us two weeks ago, most of which is still on the ground and seriously impeding UPS deliveries in our area. The package with the control box has been on the truck, "out for delivery," several days this week but UPS has refused to leave it on the snow bank by the side of the road and each day it has gone back to the warehouse undelivered. I don't know how long this will go on; the prospects for this much snow melting anytime soon do not seem very good.

So for now, I'll just have to be content with other woodworking jobs that don't require my table saw, jobs like turning pens on my lathe, hand planing wood for cutting boards, cutting the boards to shape on the band saw and installing the vises that have been hanging around the shop for all too many months.

Norm

Milling Lumber

I got about half of the poplar I'll need for the Winchester desk in and stickered about two weeks ago. The other day I started milling the first batch, jointing one face and edge smooth and then planing the other side smooth. That's done now for the 5/4 stock. I still have the 4/4 stock to do. When that's done, I'll have enough room on my lumber rack to get the second half of the poplar.

I'm doing the milling in stages. I first marked up the boards into the lengths for their eventual parts and cut them roughly in half to make them easier to handle. Then I milled them lightly, just until smooth. Now I'll stack them under cover and leave them until later, when I'll mill them to nearly final thickness and rip them into near final width. The reason I'm doing this is to account for any additional movement in the wood that might lead to cupping or warping as the wood continues to acclimate to my basement humidity. The idea is to get some of the work done now so it doesn't stack up right before the course starts, yet assure that the wood is accurately shaped when construction time arrives.

In the meantime, I have a few other projects in mind. I'll write about these in the future.

Norm