French-Speaking Stuff

My shop is currently beyond my reach. Real life interfered, and I’ve been traveling back and forth between Dallas and San Francisco every week, with no time in between to do much besides laundry. (I miss my wife, I miss my dogs, I miss my shop, I miss my car… Woe Is Ross.)

But there are worse places to travel to on the planet than San Francisco… especially when it has incredibly cool places like the Musee Mechanique, on Fisherman’s Wharf. It has an incredible collection of antique arcade machines and games. One caught my eye when I walked in the door, because of its faux pegged through tenons. I’ve seen faux through tenons before, but nothing like these. (Sorry about the fuzzy iPhone photos.)

Meanwhile, my shop work has to be vicarious. There are a lot of terrific woodworking (particularly hand tool woodworking) blogs, and one of the best has to be Kari Hultman’s The Village Carpenter. If you’re not reading it, you should be. When you’re done here, go there.

In fact, she’s forcing me to break a rule… I normally don’t re-blog other people’s posts, but this one is just too incredibly cool to pass up. It’s a french woodworking video from 1912. It’s fascinating, and it shows that the really, really good stuff never changes much.

Pity me while I miss my shop. Wah.

Ross Henton

Casualties of Peace

Let hammer on anvil ring,
And the forge fire brightly shine;
Let wars rage still,
While I work with a will
At this peaceful trade of mine.
– Harry Bache Smith

Rule of thumb: If you take a mallet and beat on a heavy object long enough, eventually either the object or the mallet will break.

The Roubo du Garage had one casualty – my mallet. I’m sentimental about it. It was the first hand tool I ever made. It was a streak of luck for me: I didn’t really know what I wanted when I made it. But it’s the perfect shape, balance, weight, face angle, length, and fit for my hand. It’s my go-to for bench chisels, mortise chisels, light to medium joinery, and every other similar task. It doesn’t drive nails, but it works for anything else that requires beating on something with a hammer-like object. It’s made out of some scrap rock maple, with a couple of small walnut inlays.

When it failed, it really, really failed. I was almost through chopping out the mortises in the Roubo when it practically exploded. I had to hunt for pieces. One of the sides split in two, and the center lamination broke through on both ends. In retrospect, I’m amazed it didn’t happen sooner. It was made from three laminations of maple, with the handle fitted through the center section. I added a couple of thin strips of walnut inlay, just for fun. It took me about an hour to make. And it was only held together with glue. As much as I’ve used it, and as hard as I’ve whacked on stuff with it, that’s a testament to the strength of Titebond.

But it was fixable, because all the pieces fit together without any gaps or missing chunks. And if it fails again, it’ll be because it completely disintegrated. I set the pieces together and drilled two 11/32″ holes all the way through the handle. Then I glued everything together, drove two 3/8″ rived oak pegs through the holes, and clamped it up for the afternoon.

When dry, I cleaned out the old laminations with a router plane, slightly deeper than the originals. I cut two blanks of scrap mesquite to fit the inlay slots, glued them in place, and clamped it up again. I trimmed the excess off on the band saw, and planed them flat with a block plane. The two mesquite inlays hide the pegged joinery that hold it all together. Before the handle comes lose, the pegs would have to be broken, and that ain’t gonna happen. The glue joints holding the laminations together at the ends might split, but that’s very unlikely. More likely, the wood itself would fail. And when it came apart this time, the glue joints stayed together. It failed along the wood, not the glue (which is normal). One coat of oil, a pass through the Beall wood buffer, and viola, back in business.
It’s not going to fail easily; I expect to beat on things with it for a lot more years. The end grain of the maple will take a tremendous beating without getting significantly dinged up, but sooner or later it will have to be refaced – or replaced.

It’s funny how much satisfaction I get out of picking up this simple tool. I smile every time I use it, and probably always will. That’s true of most of the tools I’ve made or restored. They have history and character like no other tools do. Making simple tools isn’t difficult, and the planes, shaves, mallets, and handles I’ve made all contain part of my own history as a woodworker.

There are a number of excellent resources on the web for toolmaking. My favorites include In the Woodshop, Toolmaking Art, and Hock Tools (where I get my blades). As a woodworker, a lot of your work often goes to other people. Toolmaking is something you do for yourself, and your own pleasure and education. Go ahead. Indulge yourself.

Ross Henton

Got fish?

Time to quit babbling about the bench and actually use it. I needed to make something for a friend’s birthday, and I recently found a wonderful book at my favorite used bookstore.  Now out of print (but sometimes still available), The Art of Elegant Wood Kitchenware by Tony Lydgate has a number of beautiful designs, and looks like many months of small projects. Can’t have too many of those, can we?

The instructions in the book for this sushi tray were a little sketchy – but this isn’t a terribly difficult project, and there’s a lot of wiggle-room for using the techniques you’re comfortable with.

The slats are curly maple, and the chopsticks, feet, and condiment holder are mesquite.  I found it a little easier to do cut the dados in a slightly different order. First, starting with a solid block of maple, cut the dados for the feet, then the chopstick holder.  Then – and only then – switch back to a regular blade and rip the slats to width. Then switch back to the dado stack, and cut the dado for the condiment holder.

Take the block that will become the feet, and trim it to thickness to fit in the angled dados. Rather than make two cuts for the feet, since their finished height isn’t really critical, take the block the feet are made from and rip it down the middle with one cut at the correct angle.  That ensures that the angle will be exactly the same on both feet. Then, clamp them together, and trim them to the correct height with a hand plane – you shouldn’t have to touch the angled edges except to sand slightly.

The edges of the slats are eased with a block plane instead of a router… I think it makes the finished tray look slightly more organic. Once sanded, the tray was glued up with 1/4″ spacers between the slats.  The slots for the chopsticks and the condiment tray were cleaned up with sanding blocks.

The chopsticks were made – no, I’m not kidding – by shanking 5/16″ blanks in a drill, and holding them against a belt sander to turn the tapers. It worked quite well, but I got more even results by marking across them with a pencil at where I wanted the tapers to stop, so I kept them turned evenly.

The hardest part was the condiment tray. Partly, because I insisted on making it in mesquite… again.  (Well, it’s a Texas-made tray, for Texas sushi. Probably catfish).  After cutting the block to length, I hogged out a rough (very rough) version of the cups with a hand-held router, and grabbed a leather glove and a carving gouge.  It was sharp enough that once the cups were cut, I had fairly minimal sanding to do.  Not a difficult process – this was the first hand carving I’ve ever done.  Just labor-intensive. My shoulder was singing pretty hard when I was finished.

The finish needed to be both food-safe and easily renewable.  All finishes are food-safe, once they’re cured.  But I only had three days in which to get this made, so I just wiped it down with six or seven heavy coats of mineral oil.  That way, it will be easy for its owner to renew it after washing.

This was the first real AB (after-bench) project.  There’s no doubt, the Roubo is the perfect planing bench.  I am, however, going to have to build a riser for detail work in the very short future.  At my Advanced Age, I need to bring small parts a little closer.  But the best part was that I never even had to think about workholding. Every clamping operation was easy and instinctive. Gotta love that.

Music was from Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. Seemed appropriate.

More little stuff ahead. Stay tuned.

Ross Henton

Finishing the Roubo du Garage

Ten months and one shoulder surgery later, it’s finished. I’ve used the bench several times over the past several days), it it only took a few minutes to know that I love working on it – the height, the workholding, the stability. I already know a couple of things I’ll be changing, but I’m extremely happy with the results.

The Planing Stop

The planing stop is a sliding, friction-fit square post above the face vise. I really, really wasn’t convinced about its utility, but Christoper Schwarz insisted that it’s fundamental to the design of the bench, and it didn’t take long to figure out that he was right.

It allows you to but a board against it and start planing, without any other (more complicated) workholding required. It adjusts up and down with hand pressure, no tools required. It’s position is ideal for planing long boards, and can be used as a brace for other workholding (more on that in the future).

Its simplicity was only exceeded by the almost ridiculous difficulty in getting it made. I mean, really… it’s just a square hole in the bench. It has to be fairly accurate, but it’s just a hole.

The problem I faced was with the wood. Southern yellow pine apparently has tremendous variability in the density of the rings. That means that the downwards pressure of the chisel is concentrated in a tiny area, which causes the edge to crumble. I’ve worked with several extremely dense woods, from ebony to mesquite, and I’ve never seen anything more damaging to share edges than cutting cross-grain in this resinous pine.

From Adam Cherubini’s “Arts and Mysteries” blog:
“Interestingly, the toughest wood on my chisels is pine. If you’ve followed my logic so far, you instantly know why. The hard/soft rings of pine, especially quartered pine (the use of which I advocate), poses a unique problem for an edge tool. Pressure is concentrated discreetly, instead of spread evenly across the cutting edge. And I believe that the hard parts in pine are pretty darned hard compared to other woods (like those previously mentioned), but I don’t know that for sure.”

I think this is a good assessment. Chopping the hole for the planing stop was difficult, and I had to stop and resharpen my larger chisels twice. But it’s such a joy to use that it was worth ten times the effort. Just butt a board against it and start planing.

The Sliding Deadman

This was the easy part.
The deadman was made from a glue up of some leftover pieces of mesquite, and cut to shape on the band saw. The instructions in Christopher Schwarz’s book had recommended cutting the lower notch for the deadman on the table saw, with the blade angled to produce the notch. However, I had the bandsaw pulled out and ready, and its resaw capacity is huge – so I just cut the notch on the bandsaw right before cutting it to shape.

Same for the tenon at the top that holds it in the track. A few minutes with a shoulder plane to trim the tenon, and to clean up the edges with a spokeshave. The holes were fast to mark and drill, and viola – it popped into place.

Dog Holes

Drilling the dog holes was easy – and tedious. The best way I found was to start the holes with a forester bit, and then switch to a spade bit at about a third of the way through. That way the top of the holes was nice and even, and the longer (and more aggressive) spade bit made fairly short work of the rest. I only drilled out one line across the front, four in the back, and one above the plane stop. It matches the Roubo drawings I’ve seen, and I can always add more later if necessary.

To Crochet or Not

This was a touch decision, just because it looks so cool. Ultimately, the answer was not. The clearance between the end of the bench and the face vise is shorter than standard, because the overall length of the bench was reduced. The reviews of the traditional crochet I’ve read have been mixed as to whether or not it’s really much of an advantage. I could have added a (slightly shorter) one, but I have a plan to retrofit one later if I decide to (stay tuned).

Holdfasts

Now, these were a wonderful idea… and proof that sometimes, the older ways of doing things have advantages. A holdfast is just a J-shaped piece of metal; tough enough to handle being banged on without breaking. All you do is put the long end through a dog hole, set the J-end on a workpiece, and bang the top with a mallet a couple of times. It jams in the hole (theoretically), and holds the workpiece down to the table. You need to put a thin piece of wood between the head of the holdfast and the workpiece, to avoid marring the work. To remove it, bang the back side of the holdfast (by the post) and it pops out.

Holdfasts come in several varieties – ranging from beautiful hand-forged work to cheap wrought-iron versions. This is one area where I did quite a bit of reading. Reviews for included very expensive (and lovely) hand-forged ones, to some that apparently broke the first time they were set. I settled on a middle ground = utilitarian, but well-made holdfasts from Gramercy Tools.

One thing you may read is that sometimes they don’t want to grip in wood that’s this thick (about 4 1/4″).  The manufacturer’s recommendation is that you scratch them up across the stems with some coarse (80-100 grit) sandpaper. That really does help. Aside from that, I had no trouble getting them to hold in this thickness.

The Lower Shelf

Adding the lower shelf was easy, partly because I deliberately didn’t do anything fancy. It’s just sections of 2×4 with chamfered edges, butted against each other and cut to fit. They sit on ledgers inside the lower framework, and aren’t attached to the bench itself – they’re attached to two lateral runners underneath them. The entire shelf lifts out, and is only held in place by its own weight.

There’s method to my madness. I couldn’t decide whether or not to do solid shiplapped joints, or to do open slats to let dust fall through. This way, I can easily remove it and replace it later if I change my mind. As it is, it holds the tool carriers I made last year for sanders and air tools, and its weight adds even more to the stability of the bench.

Finishing

And now… Proof again that a lot of the most famous woodworkers didn’t live in Texas. Including Tage Frid.

Professor Frid, author of the tremendous Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking, had an amazing amount of useful commentary about different joint types and their construction, and a wonderful no-nonsense Git-R-Done attitude towards woodworking. He also recommended a particular formula for finishing benches, which advances from raw linseed oil, boiled linseed oil, BLO and japan drier, and paste wax. It takes nine days, start to finish.

This all proves that Prof. Frid never set foot in Texas, or at least he wasn’t working with southern yellow pine in Texas in the summer of 2011.

All started out well, but the result at the end of day 5 was goo. It became a sticky, uncured mess that couldn’t be scrubbed off, much less sanded. I had to resort to a scraper. Fortunately, Howard Hale (a student of Prof. Frid who teaches at the local Dallas Woodcraft) set me straight: “If the oil is no longest being soaked up by the resinous wood, the you’re done. Wait two days for it to ‘bleed’ oil up from the surface, give it one coat of straight japan drier, and wax and polish it. And that’s all.”

As usual, Howard was right. I was done in three more days. The result? I can dump super glue on the surface, spray it with activator, and pop it off with an fingernail. Gotta love that. This was for the top only – the mesquite used for the vises and other parts got several coats of oil, but that’s all.

Final Notes, and Hindsight

Yes, I love working on this bench. It only took a few minutes of watching it not vibrate to figure that out. Also, I haven’t had to stop to think about the best way to hold something, or figure out where to put clamps. Workholding is fast, easy, and instinctive. But there are some things I know I’d do differently.

Choice of wood: Wow… this is a big one. But I wouldn’t use southern yellow pine again, in spite of its availability and cost. I found it difficult to work due to its variation in density across grain – it was really hell on chisels. Also, it’s prone to warping badly. This was after months of seasoning time, but it still warped after cut and sections were glued up. I’d probably go ahead and spring for beech or maple, even knowing how hard they can be.

The Veritas vise: I really like this vise, and I have nothing bad to say about its manufacture or mechanics. But even setting aside the problems I had with the instructions, and the (comparative) difficulty of installing a wagon vise, I’d probably go ahead and get the Benchcrafted tail vise. The Veritas vise does require additional room at the end of the bench to open and close it; that’s not a problem with wagon vises.

Positioning of the tail vise: I’d move it a couple of inches inward on the bench, so the dog holes don’t get into the track of the sliding deadman (my bad).

Rouboverload. Rouboverkill. Rouboverdone. This was a much, much longer project than I had expected, and I already have ideas about changes, fixtures, and add-ons… making dogs, more planing stops, and a riser/Moxon Vise for doing close-up work. The bench is the largest hand tool I’ve ever made. Building it will always be something I look on as a turning point in my woodworking. Maybe projects will be BB or AB (before-bench or after-bench).

Before.

Much, much after.

We’ll see. Stay tuned.

Some Assembly Required: A Tale of Two Vises (Part 2)

After installing the Benchcrafted Glide Leg Vise – about which I have nothing to say that isn’t praise – it was time to move on to the tail vise. I considered a lot of different options, including the Veritas Surface Vise (simple, easy to install, but I was afraid it might not be heavy enough for what I would put it through), a heavy Veritas Twin-screw Vise (overkill for the right end of my bench), the Lie-Nielsen Tail Vise (nice, but not the design I wanted), a traditional wagon vise (nice, but was going to be difficult to install – because I didn’t plan for it in the original bench design)… and I finally found exactly what I was looking for: the Veritas Quick-Release Sliding Tail Vise.

It had every feature I wanted: looked simple to install, required minimal modifications to the bench, and did exactly what I needed – open and close rapidly and solidly to hold work between dogs. The leg vise is more important to me and the kind of work I do, and I held out for exactly what I wanted.

But the kicker was when I found the Veritas vise on eBay new in its box for about half retail price. $139 was just too good to pass up. It arrived, and like the Benchcrafted vise, I set it aside until I was recovered from surgery. I did, however, read the instructions: seven pages (including cover and end pages). Looked really, really simple to install.

I thought I was facing an afternoon’s work. Thus are battles won and lost.

Part 2: The Veritas Quick-Release Sliding Tail Vise

Before I begin the saga… please note: Most of this was my fault, and not that of the good people at Lee Valley. This is an extremely well-made and well-designed product.

The instructions (and intention) of the designers are to install the vise on a bench where you’re adding a front apron. However, I was installing the vise in a new bench, and decided to place it in a new cutout, not in an added apron. That changed everything.

Problem #1: If you’re installing this vise without adding a front apron, the dimensions of the jaw are wrong. It’s intended to be fit into place, and the apron added afterwards flush against the jaw of the vise. That’s well and good, but my intent was to inset the vise into a cutout in the bench top, ending flush against the leg of the bench. So I made the jaw, attached it to the mechanism, and forged ahead.

I was worried about the long instructions for the Benchcrafted vise. For some reason, I was thinking that “long exacting instructions” were more difficult than “short, simple instructions”. What was I thinking?

The Veritas vise is pretty simple. But I found the instructions (particularly the drawings for the jaw) extremely confusing. By comparison, the step-by-step Benchcrafted instructions, with photographs of each stage and details on construction of the pieces were vastly better. The Veritas instructions were a lot like IKEA instructions by comparison.

Making the first cut adjacent to the leg for the jaw was a couple of minutes work with a carcase saw.

Problem #2: Simple cuts aren’t necessarily easy. All I had to do was cut out the area for the jaw – about 17 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ x 2″ of the front right corner of the bench. I decided that the best way to cut this area out was with a bowsaw.

I have a love/hate relationship with my bowsaw… it feels great to use and is extremely versatile. But the blade just wasn’t quite up to cutting an area 4 1/2″ thick in soft, resinous wood like southern yellow pine. As the cut advanced, it started to bind slightly, so I cut and inserted a small wedge in the end of the kerf to keep it open while sawing.

About halfway through, I shifted my stance… and the saw started to cut at an angle. This is what comes from trying to make a straight cut against a single line. I didn’t check the tracking of the lower part of the cut often enough, and didn’t realize the drift was occurring until it was too late. The result: the cut was nice and straight on the top of the bench, but drifted about 1/2″ on the bottom.

Lessons: 1) Make cuts like this with a panel saw, not a bowsaw – bowsaws work better in thinner stock (some will disagree, but that’s where I’ve gotten into problems – and yes, it’s tensioned correctly). 2) Watch two lines when you’re cutting, not just one. 3) Plan this kind of hardware carefully before you build the bench – I could actually have built the top to accommodate the vise in the first place.

Having miscut the inside face of the jaw, it was time to drop back and punt. I decided to make a “design alteration” and re-face the miscut area with an inset piece of mesquite – to match the jaw itself. That meant recutting the inside jaw surface (correctly, this time) and adding a mesquite liner. Since I had to do that anyway, I decided to do the same thing to the end. I set a piece into the leg – since cutting flush to the leg had exposed the leg joinery, and it would match the other side.

Mounting the vise plate to the base was exacting, but not difficult. It suggested turning the bench upside down (a practical impossibility at this point), but I compromised by tipping it up on one end and clamping the mounting plate on the bench to drill the pilot holes. The rest of the installation went smoothly…and when I closed the vise, the Ugly Truth came out – the jaw was about an inch and a half too short to close. After a lot of head-scratching, I came back to this line in the instructions: “Back the vise off slightly (one or two turns) and install the apron so that the jaw clamps up to the apron before the vise uses its full travel.”

Lesson: Check the fit of all parts before assembly, no matter how right you think you are or how heavy the parts. Enough said about that.

Grrrrrrrrrr. There was no good answer except to make a new jaw. Fortunately, I had enough 8/4 stock on hand, and I only wound up wasting a little of the original jaw – the wood was “repurposed” for other assemblies.

Problem #3: Not having an apron to align against the vise after it’s installed makes the tolerances smaller and the installation more exacting. It still wouldn’t quite, quite close – by about 1/8″. So I dismounted the jaw (again) and trimmed out the mounting holes to allow the lag screws to be set slightly forward in the jaw and let it close.

Drilling out the dog holes in the top of the jaw was slow, but not difficult – with a forstner bit and a drill guide.

There was a slight bind opening and closing the vise, which was easily rectified with a couple of washers between the jaw and the hardware at the handle end. Once completed, it opened and closed nicely – it’s very well made, and operates smoothly.

Problem #4: The Veritas Quick-Release Sliding Tail Vise is not intended to be installed on a bench with a sliding deadman. The holes in the jaw are nice and close to the front of the bench – and when I drilled the matching holes in the bench, I drilled right into the slot for the sliding deadman. I really didn’t see this coming. The holdfasts drop right in the way of the deadman track.

Lesson: Thimk.

There’s no good solution for this. It doesn’t really hurt anything; it just means that I’ll have to move the deadman around when setting holdfasts in place. If I had thought about it in advance, I could have made the jaw thicker and set the holes farther inward… but that would make the vise heavier to operate.

The only real complaint I have about the vise itself were the instructions, which were sketchy and somewhat confusing. I had gotten spoiled to the clarity of the Benchcrafted instructions, which take into account a lot of different mounting options. The Veritas tail vise is intended to be installed one way and one way only. Modify At Your Own Risk. If I had it to do over again, I’d probably go with the Benchcrafted tail vise instead – it looks like a more difficult installation, but it would be easier (I think) to inset it farther back and avoid the deadman track. But then again, I really like the quick-release mechanism of the Veritas vise, and I’m happy with the end results… just not the process I went through.

Is this their fault? No – design of the bench was up to me, and I didn’t put all the pieces together first. Ultimately, it works well – I’ll find the overlap of dog holes and the deadman track annoying, but it’s not a deal-breaker. It’s just a lesson.

Music that day was Leo Gosselin’s Celtic Vision (for Chapman Stick) and a bunch of old ’80s stuff.

Ross Henton

Some Assembly Required: A Tale of Two Vises (Part 1)

As the Roubo progresses from bench to workbench – maybe it’s a fine distinction, but I think it’s valid – I’ve started to think of it as the Roubo du Garage.  It’s smaller than standard (about 23″ x 60″), and has some compromises.  But since its function is workholding, I decided that the one place I would not compromise is in the quality of the workholding hardware. It was an indulgence, and a fun one.

That’s not to say it’s all modern. Both of the vises are very new designs, and one is as close to top-of-the-line as it comes.  But the most important part of the workholding is the (very) old system of holdfasts and dog holes. There’s been a world of information written about holdfasts the past few years, some of which seems contradictory, some very straightforward.

The lessons that came out of this part of the project weren’t what I expected, and included a mix of what-to-do and what-not-to do; of good design and poor; document writing both good and bad, and some really good customer service from a small company.  The bench became a mix of old tool designs and new ones.  I love the outcome, but it’s like the contrast between my chisels and my iPad (more on the iPad as an indispensable shop tool in the future). 

Now that the bench itself was built and standing, I flattened the top with the help of a new/old Stanley #40 scrub plane.  This comes under the heading of “why didn’t I get one of these years ago”.  It hogs wood off in neat little curls faster than you’d believe.  It took no – ZERO – time to learn, seconds to set, and evened up the top enough for my jointer plane in a few minutes. 

Sighting for flattening the top is accomplished with two parallel sticks called winding sticks. Each is a different color, and you lay them across the top and sight across them to see twist in the wood. Yes, it’s that easy.  No, you won’t see pictures of mine here… they’re just spray-painted angle aluminum.  When I have time to make a set out of mesquite and maple, then I’ll post them.  If you’re interested in this technique, Google “winding sticks”, or read this excellent article from Fine Woodworking. Or buy Chris Schwarz’s book (visible on my iPad).  Or almost any other book about traditional woodworking.

I must have read the section about the Roubo in this excellent book a dozen times. Including the part about routing a groove in the underside of the top for the sliding deadman before assembling it. Of course, I didn’t.  The solution was five minutes with a palm router, and that crisis was averted. The slot didn’t go all the way to the right front leg, but a few minutes with a chisel fixed that.

Part 1: The Benchcrafted Glide Vise

This was a piece of engineering I loved from the moment I saw the pictures. A heavy face vise, with the weight fully supported by two rollers – one above the parallel guide, and one below.  I watched a video of one being gently spun open and closed.  And I was hooked.

The first thing I’ll say about the company is this: They told me eight weeks. I had it in three.

When I unwrapped the parts, I was really, really impressed at the quality of construction and the beauty of the product.  When I downloaded the instructions from their website, well… that’s when the qualms started. The instructions are twenty-seven pages long. Fully illustrated. Some of the hardware required cutting threaded holes in the table with taps. It also sat in its box for three months while I recovered from my shoulder surgery.  It kind of hung on the horizon, and intimidated me from a distance.

I decided that I’d make the assorted workholding pieces (the chop and parallel guide, tail vise, deadman, and planing stop) out of mesquite. I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love the way it looks, the weight, and the way it handles when it cooperates. I hate how it dulls tools and can be difficult to work.  But I made the drive up to Woods of Mission Timber, and spent some time sorting out the pieces I wanted – including 8/4 stock for the vises.

The piece I selected has some small cracks that don’t go very deep, and won’t compromise the strength of the chop.  It also had a large-ish knot about halfway through the thickness.  For decorative work, I usually fill mesquite flaws with powdered copper and epoxy; for this, I decided on epoxy and some black ink – making a solid, polished black fill.

After cutting the shape of the chop, I pried the knot out and mixed the epoxy.  The knot came down the side of the chop about halfway, so I stuck some blue painter’s tape on the side to keep it from spilling out.  I poured the epoxy in and let it set.  Interesting lesson: epoxy gets hot when it cures.  The more you use, the hotter it gets. This was about a quarter of a cup, and was too hot to touch for quite a while.

Once it set, I pulled the tap, ran a router around the edge of the chop to make the chamfered edge, and scraped the excess epoxy off with a card scraper. It sands and polishes right along with the wood.

The parallel guide was cut with a simple tenon on one end, and a matching mortise cut into the chop at the bottom.  3/8″ holes are drilled along the length to insert a pin to keep the chop of the vise from racking unevenly when tightened.  The parallel guide was locked in place with drawbored pins of rived white oak.  I noticed after it was finished (too late) that it’s slightly out of square with the chop… just a couple of degrees, not enough to make any difference to the operation of the vise, but enough to annoy me because I know it’s there.

The wheel and screw are mounted to the vise with machine screws into threaded holes. I’ve tapped threads into metal in the past, but not into wood – and I was a little skeptical.  No longer.  It’s much easier than tapping into metal, and holds extremely well.  There’s no need to tap the holes a quarter-turn at a time – drill the pilot hole, attach the tap to a hand drill, and let the tap feed itself. Backing out the tap three or four times through the depth of the hole was sufficient to keep the threads clear of chips.  Two things, here – first, put no pressure on the tap; just let it thread itself. Hold the drill loosely, and let the tap do its work. Second, don’t let it hit bottom – it will dig in and spin, and strip the threads out. Know when to stop.

The rollers are easy to make with a bandsaw.  Templates are available on the Benchcrafted website, and can be printed and stuck to the blanks. Cutting and assembling them is short work. The longest part is drilling out and shaping the slots for the mounting bolts.

The process of mounting the rollers, the vise, and the acetal bearing the screw rides on is exacting, but not difficult if you follow the instructions carefully. Which is the second thing I’ll say about Benchcrafted: they know how to write instructions. I’ve done a lot of technical writing, and their instructions are clear, concise, accurate, and have useful information about places you might get into trouble.   The instructions were perfectly and completely accurate in every respect.

At first, I had some difficulty adjusting the height of the rear roller bearing… or so I thought. As it turned out, I had the slot for the parallel guide a little too tight, and it was trying to drag slightly. A few minutes with a rasp cleaned out the high spot, and it worked perfectly. It functions exactly as described – which is high praise.  It spins freely and grabs tight.

The hardware comes with a 3/8″ rolled steel pin to make make the locking pin for the parallel guide.  All you have to do is make a handle.  Or, better yet – I decided to use that Crown burnisher I recently decided that I really hated and threw into a junk drawer.  It makes the perfect $19.95 parallel guide pin. And I laugh every time I look at it.

It wasn’t the simplest assembly I’ve ever done, but it worked great and I love the results. I wound up using it to finish some of the remaining work on the bench, and it works better and smoother than any vise I’ve ever used.  It’s exactly as good as the company – and the reviewers – have said. Not many new devices seem to live up to that.

This is the first of two vises… and the other story isn’t quite as pleasant. Stay tuned.

Oh, before I forget: music was Greg Howard’s Stick Figures, and Rob Martino’s One Cloud – both music for the Chapman Stick. Great albums, both of them.

Ross Henton

The Easy Post: Why I Love eBay

Some posts are easier to write than others. This is an easy one.

One of the best things about hand tools is that good ones have been made for a long time. There are beautiful, beautiful new tools available for very high prices – rosewood and brass infill planes, white bronze planes from manufactures like Lie-Nielsen. Most of which are out of reach for a hobbyist like me. But good, workable tools have been around forever, and were often designed to last for a lifetime’s work.

And that’s why I love eBay. I’ve found some remarkable deals, and some great old tools – and the process of restoring some has brought me to know them in wonderful and unexpected ways. Here’s a few – some restored, some still to be done.

One note: I am not an antique tool collector. I onlly pick up tools that I’m actually going to use. They’re beautiful things – but to me, the beauty is in the craft, not on the shelf.

Millers Falls “eggbeater” drill: These aren’t hard to find at all. Often less than $20. Mostly missing the knob on the side, but work fine without it. Cleaning up the layers of old varnish on the handle showed it to be a beautiful grade of rosewood. All the teeth are in perfect shape, and its action is smooth as velvet. Price on eBay: $16.

Wood River #5 plane: These are made by Woodcraft, and the reviews I’ve read have been mixed. Personally, I think it’s great. It handles well, is balanced well, is solid and accurate construction, and it works great. Yes, the lateral adjustment lever is flimsy. I can live with that… because it works exactly like I want it to. You can Google a couple of really negative reviews of these planes. Don’t believe them. Price on eBay: $35.

Stanley/Bailey #4 smoothing plane: There are scads of these around. Lots of them still in regular use, and there’s a reason for that. This one had been pretty well tuned, but I don’t like the refinishing on the handles – I’ll probably strip it off and polish them, and replace them if I still don’t like the way they feel. I honed the blade and put it to work immediately. Price on eBay: $50.

Stanley #40 scrub plane: It’s a rough, simple tool, for doing rough, simple work. It’s for removing large amounts of stock, in preparation for finer smoothing planes. Very few parts, simple mechanism. Still needs some cleaning, and I’ll probably sand and polish the handles. Some of the japanning could be in better shape, but it doesn’t affect the way it works. Price on eBay: $50.

Stanley #62 ruler: Boxwood, bound in brass. Usually around $20. The brass-bound ones (like this) stay perfectly accurate over time. This one has all its alignment pins intact, which is a little unusual. It cleaned up great, and is easy to read. Every time I use it, I wonder how many woodworkers handled it before me, and what they built. This one just feels good to my hands. Price on eBay: $16.

Japanese mortising chisels: No maker’s mark, no earthly idea about the quality of the steel. They work well, and were an inexpensive way to try out my first Japanese tools. They work fine, and are smaller and easier to handle for small mortises than my Narex mortising chisels (although for larger mortises, I’ll take the Narex chisels any day and twice on Sunday). Price on eBay: $9 for the pair.

Veritas Detail Chisels: Some days, the universe smiles on you. I’d been drooling over these at the Lee Valley website for about $200, trying to find a way to justify the expense. Then these turned up on eBay. One chisel had a small ding on one corner of the edge, which sharpened out in about three minutes. I’ve never used chisels for detail work that even come close to these. Price on eBay: $65.

None of this is to say that all eBay sellers are reputable – but I’ve been buying and selling things on eBay for about 15 years now, and I’ve gotten burned exactly once. Watch the seller’s reputation and return policies. Read the descriptions carefully, know what you’re looking for, and be patient. You can find some amazing tools at wonderful prices if you’re willing to invest a little steel wool, mineral spirits, elbow grease, and sharpening time. And if you’re not, why are you interested in hand tools in the first place?

This fall, my good friend Bill Baldwin is going to bring some old hand planes back to Dallas from the Lawson Boating Heritage Center on Chatauqua Lake. I’m going to clean them up and restore them to workable condition. There’s an old wooden jointer plane, a great #5 Stanley Bedrock, a coffin smoother with a cracked body that I probably can’t do anything about, and two great wood and metal transitional planes. My goal isn’t to make them museum pieces or collector’s items. Just to get them into working condition so they can be used in the shop there if they want to. They may never get used, but I’ll have fun doing it. And I’ll be wondering about the woodworkers who used them to feed their families, to make fine work, and treated them well enough that some have survived more than a century in usable condition.

More to come.

Ross Henton

Soiling the Till, Round Pegs, and the World’s Biggest Pencil Sharpener

Till is kind of an interesting word. It isn’t always short for “until”, and it doesn’t always mean turning the soil for planting. It has a third, and very different meaning:

till (noun)
1. a drawer, box, or the like, as in a shop or bank, in which money is kept.
2. a drawer, tray, or the like, as in a cabinet or chest, for keeping valuables.
3. an arrangement of drawers or pigeonholes, as on a desk top.
Origin: 1425–75; late Middle English tylle, noun use of tylle, to draw, Old English -tyllan (in fortyllan, to seduce); akin to Latin dolus, trick, and Greek dólos bait (for fish), any cunning contrivance.

I love my tool cabinet, even if it’s just a simple box with holders. It has a huge amount of space and saves me a world of frustration. But ny collection of saws has grown to include several detail saws (coping, gent’s, flush-cutting, and jeweler’s), my bowsaw, a couple of wonderful old Disston panel saws, a Japanese Dozuki saw, and a set of beautiful Lee Valley carcass and dovetail saws. They accumulate like dust bunnies. Fitting some of them (particularly the panel saws) into my tool cabinet was going to mean a lot of rearrangement, so I decided to move them into their own storage and use my tool cabinet for planes, chisels, and the various other tools which also accumulate. (I blame eBay.)

Antique saw tills could sometimes be extremely ornate. They occasionally had complex moldings, curlicues, detail carvings, Queen Anne legs, and… well, you probably get the idea. Some were just rude boxes with slots. I wanted something that was functional, simple, (roughly) matched my tool cabinet, and could be made with scrap I had on hand. The result was certainly simple: two sides, two back rails, a custom holder for the smaller saws, and a front rail. No bottom; I didn’t want it filling up with dust. No nails or screws – not because I have anything against them, but I had some walnut dowel scrap handy and thought it would be fun. It took a couple of hours to make, a handful of scrap red oak, and was some good hand joinery practice. A couple of coats of Watco golden oak danish oil, two coats of spray shellac, and that was it. Cost = $0.00 USD. It looks new – but I’m looking forward to having it get dusty and scarred with years of use in my shop.

Not all pegged joinery is that simple and painless.

The Roubo-strocity has to be really, really solid. I don’t want any wobble or shifting – that’s why I’m building it in the first place. That means the mortise and tenon joinery should be reinforced with pegs, using an old technique called drawboring.

The joints in the table are enormous. I drilled the bulk out with a forstner bit in an older Dewalt drill (not my good and nearly-new lithium-ion Dewalt, but an older Dewalt 14v that occasionally wafts smoke from the motor housing). Be warned – drilling this many deep holes with a hand drill can burn it up; it’s better to use a drill press. But in this case, getting the legs up onto the drill press was going to be a bit of a hassle. Also, the mortises in the table top absolutely had to be done on the floor – lifting it to the drill press was an impossibility. I could have chopped everything out by hand, but that’s a lot of work, and my shoulder isn’t up to that yet. A piece of blue painter’s tape around the shaft of the bit let me get the holes to a mostly-uniform depth, and my indispensable Oddjob (in the picture, not the one with the bowler hat from Goldfinger) helped me ensure they were deep enough to accept the tenons.

Once the bulk was removed, I cleaned up the edges of the mortises with a mallet and chisel, assembled each joint, and drilled the holes for the pegs. draw boring means that the holes in the mortises and tenons were slightly offset – about 3/32″ – so that when the peg is driven in, the joint is pulled together. That means drilling the holes through the mortised piece, assembling the joint, marking the center of the hole on the tenon, disassembling the joint, drilling the offset hole in the tenon, re-assembling it, and driving the pegs in. Yes, it’s a lot of work – but seeing the peg pull the joint together tight was magical. I absolutely love this technique. Joints made this way are extremely strong, and can be assembled without glue. The joinery attaching the top to the base isn’t glued, so if I ever need to break the table down to move it, I can always drill the pegs out, knock it apart, and reattach the top later. Christopher Schwarz wrote the definitive article on the technique, and I highly recommend it.

Since the drawbored holes don’t line up, the ends of the pegs have to be tapered. I could have whittled them to shape, but these pegs are 3/8″ rived white oak, and it’s tough. The easiest way I found was to sharpen them on my benchtop disc sander. It took about 20 or 30 seconds each – and saved me either cutting myself or having to get a bigger pencil sharpener.

One thing’s for certain. This bench is going to be solid. I don’t think anybody’s going to walk off with it if I leave the garage door open.

The astute among you will probably have noticed the slot cut in the lower leg in the detail photo (above). In case you’re wondering, that’s to accept part of the vise hardware. Which brings me to the next couple of topics: flattening the top, and installing the vises – a Benchcrafted leg vise, and a Veritas sliding tail vise.

More to come.

Ross Henton

It’s the Little Things

There are some days when I head to the shop, look at my big projects in the works, and all I want to do is piddle around with the little stuff. The shop is a great place to go unwind, put things in order, and feel like I’ve accomplished something – even if it’s really small.

If you’ve been following this blog, you probably know by now how much I love card scrapers. They produce an amazing finish without filling the air with dust. I’ve had a couple of them for years now, and when I get to working, I don’t always want to stop and sharpen them when they get dull (yes, I know how trivial it sounds) – I just want to pick up a sharp one and keep going.

The scraper is probably the simplest tool in the shop. Hammers are complex, intricate construction by comparison. A card scraper is just a flat piece of metal. The trick is in the sharpening, which turns a burr along the edge, and can be used for everything from removing finish to final stock prep. Old scrapers were often made out of old sawblades, just cut into rectangles. Consequently, there was a huge range of hardness to the metal. Some soft, some really hard.

A scraper’s burr is turned with a steel rod – high speed steel or carbide. And that’s where my trouble started.

A while back, I picked up a pack of Lie-Nielsen card scrapers on sale. Just plain, flat metal scrapers. When my hiatus after my injury was past, I stopped to sharpen them, and the results I got were lousy. It can be a little tricky, and I think some people make the process overly complicated, but it ain’t rocket surgery. I reviewed everything I had to read on the subject – which is quite a lot – analyzing my technique, how to file and hone the edge, how to draw the metal, how to turn the burr. Still lousy results.

For once, the fault wasn’t actually mine. My burnisher is a Crown Tools high-speed steel burnisher, in a pretty rosewood-ish handle. I have nothing against many Crown tools; my Crown chisels are perfectly good. But I’ve had a lemon or two. My Crown try square wasn’t well made, and finally became extremely inaccurate – enough to ruin a joint or two. And I finally decided that the Crown burnisher just wasn’t hard enough for the Lie-Nielsen scrapers. (Research showed me that Chris Schwarz didn’t like it either, but I don’t know his reasons.)

The answer was to find something hard enough to handle the steel of the new scrapers. I looked at carbide burnishers, but the ones I saw were $75 and up. I wasn’t willing to shell out that much for a metal rod in a wooden handle, and I wanted to make certain I was right about the problem. Besides, I love making my own tools. The feeling of using tools I’ve made to build things I love making is amazing.

So on searching, I found a solid carbide rod on Amazon.com for a whopping $6.95, and dug out a piece of mesquite from the scrap bin. I drilled out a slightly smaller hole in the end of the scrap, heated the rod with a torch, and drove it in. I cut the handle to shape on the bandsaw, shaped it on the belt sander, sanded it to 220, wiped it with oil, and polished it on the Beall Wood Buffer. Viola – one carbide scraper with a custom mesquite handle that fits my hand perfectly. Total: $6.95, about 20 minutes work, and there isn’t another one exactly like it on the planet.

By the way, it works great – the Lie-Nielsen scrapers turn a beautiful burr that lasts longer than the edge on my old scrapers. Guess which one I’ll reach for in my cabinet? And I’ll smile every time I use it.

Speaking of small stuff: I had a piece of scrap Texas Ebony, with some interesting heartwood/sapwood contrast. I’ve made a bunch of business card holders with brass hardware from Rocker for my team at the office. (Guys, if you read this before tomorrow, be patient – some of them aren’t dry yet.)

They’re all about the wood. The design couldn’t be simpler, and they’re a nice way to use up pretty scrap. I didn’t have enough ebony for all of them, so some will be padauk, mesquite, curly maple, or whatever I have in the bin. Cut to basic shape, do the detail shaping on the belt sander, finish as desired, drill two holes for the holder, and you’re done.

Today’s lesson… When in doubt: make something. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Little stuff like this makes people smile. Including me.

Next time: The new saw till, some plane restoration, my two new/old planes, and progress on the workbench (hopefully).

Ross Henton

Catching up and first class

First off: sorry for the long hiatus! Back in November, I suffered a severe shoulder injury, and my woodworking wound up dead in the water for weeks. We thought I could get by without surgery, but alas… Twas not to be. So for the next several weeks, I’m going to shift the focus of the blog to tools and ideas I can write about with one arm in a brace.

Before surgery, the Roubo progressed – largely to the help of my friend Rafe. While waiting to be able to work, the whole (unmounted) top of the bench warped. We had to cut it into sections, joint and plane it, and reassemble it again. Then I had time to make the legs and stretchers, and mount the base. It’s actually starting to look like a bench. The top is mostly flattened, and the first mounting holes are cut for a Benchcrafted leg vise.

Which reminds me: I’ve decided on a Benchcrafted face vise, and a Veritas quick-release tail vise. Extravagant, but this bench is gonna rock. It’s short for a Roubo – about 6’6″ x 231/2″ but I can fit it into my workspace, and hang 24″ casework off the sides.

When my arm is back in the game, I’ll finish flattening the top, shelve the stretchers, and build the sliding deadman, face vise, and tail vise out of mesquite (just because it’s beautiful).

Upcoming Class

I’ve been invited to teach a class in western New York on July 2nd. The class will be on the advantages of adding hand tools to your power tool workshop – and will cover sharpening, chisels, planes, files, saws, safety, the joys of making your own tools, and whatever else we have time for. Teaching this class is an especially great honor for me, because it’s the first class being offered at the new Lawson Center of Boating Heritage on Chautauqua Lake. It will be split between lecture and demos, as my arm allows… But I promise you’ll get your money’s worth!

Hopefully, I’ll see some of you there. Next entry: more on drawboring, new tools, new saw till, and more. Be there!