Lost Art Press

LAP Open Wire: June 14, 2025

Posted on by fitz
Chris is working on some bends for an upcoming seating project.

Update: Comments are now closed. Thanks for entertaining us on our drive!

Got a woodworking question? Then today is you’re lucky day: It’s time for Open Wire! You have until 5 p.m. Eastern to pose your question in the comments section below, and we’ll respond – hopefully with a informed and useful answer…but no promises. (And it’s possible your fellow readers will have answers, too – and perhaps you’ll have an answer for someone else).

Chris and I are driving to Northern Indiana to pick up a thing…so if you’re wondering why I’m answering many of the chair questions…I’m not. I’m the amanuensis on those. But I’ve you covered on many of the not-chair questions.

– Fitz

p.s. The remaining Open Wire dates for 2025 are August 9, October 25 and December 13.

126 thoughts on “LAP Open Wire: June 14, 2025”

  1. Thanks again for doing Open Wire! Chris, a while back you wrote about the two-day workbench. Would you still do it with two Ikea tops glued together or go another way (eg glue together a bunch of 2x4s)?

    1. If the IKEA tops are available (sometimes they are not) it’s a great way to make a top. My only caveat with the tops is sometimes their MC is really high when you purchase them. So if the tops feel cool, let them dry out for a bit before using them.

      If the tops aren’t available, my second choice is to use layers of 3/4″ plywood, glued together with screws used as clamps.

      1. DMT lapping plate to flatten Shapton stones. You have the regular I believe but in retrospect would you go for the 95 which is claimed will leave the finer grit stones smoother? Thank you.

        1. Nah. I don’t care much about the smoothness of the stones. In fact, a smooth stone can make you miserable when working the back of the tool (stiction).

  2. A question on Auriou rasps. I’ve seen a bunch of older videos and images of the modelers rasp (including Never Sponsored) that has a beautiful handle. Do they still offer that somewhere? The handles I see on the rasps online are pretty meh.

  3. Good morning and thanks as always for doing this! Do you have an opinion on Kutzall rasps? Their teeth or points or whatever they’re called seem to be pretty randomly distributed, so I’m thinking they should perform more like a hand-stitched traditional rasp. Thoughts?

    1. I haven’t used them recently. So maybe they have gotten better. But last time I used them they clogged really easily. If someone can refute me, I’ll be happy to back down.

      1. Thanks! Duly noted. Do you have any observations on their surface finish? (The Kutzall rasps, in case this reply ends up out of place)

        1. Chris says he doesn’t remember, good or bad. So he was unimpressed, good or bad, is my guess. And I’ve never used one. Sorry.

  4. Hello! Hoping to finally try my hand at chair making with your BS plan but was wondering if you had guidance for how I could modify it to be toddler size and possibly a rocker?

    1. I’ve never made a rocker, so I’m useless there.

      Children’s chairs are usually two-thirds the size of adult chairs. Study the children’s chairs out there for guidance on part thicknesses etc.

      1. Okay thank you. I will shrink everything by 2/3rds and let you know how it turns out. For science!

        1. Just to add a little more to Chris’ response – 2/3 scale are great for toddlers, I made several for friends. But the downside is kids grow out of them by about 5 years old.

          I’ve since switched to 3/4 scale for mine. They’re still very obviously kids chairs when you look at them, but they’re just enough bigger that they’ll work for a kid up to about 9.

  5. Thanks for the open wire as always. Bandsaw blades. What are your recommendations on brands and what’s you general recommendation on size (blade, tip, tooth type) for seats and arms?

  6. What adjustments do you make if you’re widening a seat width? I’m finishing up my first chair using the improved arm chair pattern from the chair journal #1 and plan to make a second but with a wider seat 22-24”. Do I need to consider making any rake or splay changes?

    1. Not rake or splay, says Chris. Small changes like that means you’ll have to make a wider arm and decide how to space the sticks. The changes will all be above the seat.

  7. Hi there. I’m also building the BS chair. I already made the patterns and the seat glue up.
    Now I’m searching for some Plywood for the arm. It’s kinda difficult to find the multilayer ply locally. What do you think of using 3 layer Plywood made of Norway spruce? Would it be strong enough?

    1. Just be careful when assembling that you don’t hit it too hard, says Chris. But yes, it should be strong enough.

  8. During a chair class in November you mentioned working on a settee for a potential class. With classes on pause, have you made any progress on the design? Kale’s recent adventures have got me thinking about a stick chair inspired settee again.

  9. Hi, I have two questions:

    1) Thoughts on using your softwax 2.0 recipe as a finish for mouldings? I’m in the process of a big remodel and will have various elements to finish: t&g beadboard wainscot, chair rail, etc etc of various domestic species cherry, maple, etc…all clear stain-grade stuff.

    2) I’m going to be building a new workbench in the next year and was wondering if there are still plans to publish a video series on making the anarchist workbench? No worries if you can’t comment on that at this time.

    Thanks very much for your time.

      1. This is for your house (it might be difficult to sell a customer on it)? Are you willing to reapply the soft wax as needed (which likely won’t be terribly often, except for those pieces that get touched/washed a lot), perhaps once or twice a year? If so, I would use it. We use it on the kitchen counters, after all – and they get a LOT of use.

      2. Yes, I hope so. The loose plan was that I would build it…then I got sidetracked by the pesky broken ankle. But I hope we still do that (though it wouldn’t be until the late fall at the earliest).

  10. When making stretchers (I used tapered octagonal with straight tenons) there is a small gap on the bottom/back where the stretchers meet the legs and the medials go into the sides from the shoulder hitting on on the angled mate. Do you ever bevel the shoulder to get a closed joint or just leave the small gap?

    1. In a fancy frame chair, you cope the joints. In a vernacular style (stick), nope.

  11. Good morning and thanks for all the great stuff you do and the inspiration. Gibson chairs – working on numbers 2+3 and wondering whether you have any feedback about potentially using a bevel on the underside of the seat? I’m not hung up open historical relevance. More interested in aesthetics and whether you have tried and rejected or have thought, “that works, too?” I try not to experiment this far down the line 🙂

    1. Chris has never seen one with an underbevel; generally the seats are thinner, so they typically have just a little easing, if anything. So our thought is don’t do it.

  12. Excited to wake and find it’s open wire day!

    I’m thinking of using hard wax oil for finishing, but would also like to burnish and wax. In order of process – can you burnish before hard wax? Or does the burnish prevent oil penetration?

  13. Thank you! Maybe it’s an excuse to make more chairs, when I know they’ve got an expiry date 🤣
    I actually have an almost 4 and almost 1 yr old, so I might just do a 2/3rds AND a 3/4th, at your suggestion. Great insight!

    1. Whoops—guess I’m a Luddite bc this was meant to be a reply. Please ignore, LAP team and thanks again

  14. A while back, I seem to recall that you had used silicone molds to mold glue to be used later in a glue pot. Any thoughts about molding glue into cylinder sticks to be used in a cheap dollar store glue gun?

    1. Hmmmm… Our glue (protein glue in general) is a little squishy…like a hard gelatin (it IS a hard gelatin until you heat it). All the glue gun sticks I’ve used have been pretty rigid. I’m not sure our glue would hold the shape necessary for a gun to extrude it w/a plunger. I’d try it on a cheap gun perhaps – one that I could bear to lose. And perhaps be pleasantly surprised.

  15. No question, just a note of thanks: Among all the other things I’ve learned from your posts and books, I figured out how to build a beautiful (and big – 8′ x 3′) workbench that I find myself working at more days than not. I hope you occasionally step back and reflect on how many of us have a part of you in our shops!

    https://i.imgur.com/6EakhUI.jpeg

  16. Draw bore question. Relative to the size of the tenon, what diameter pins are appropriate? Is there a rule of thumb? I will be joining D-Fir to D-Fir. Tenons are 1″ x 3″. Not seeing anything in my Hayward book on joinery. Thanks for all you do and that big tease on Earlywood today!

    1. No rule – most are about 1/4″ to 3/8 for furniture; larger than that and it’s for workbenches (and larger still for timber frame buildings)

  17. When hunting for straight grain for chair parts on quarter sawn pieces, the edge faces don’t tell you much since they’re flatsawn. Do you assume the grain is straight in both axes if the face is quartered?

    1. On ring-porous species, the fibers should be evident on the edge. On diffuse porous, you kind of have to split it to see how they’re running.

  18. I’m trying to find a hilarious line by Chris that contained the phrase ‘after they’ve hung medals on you and the wookie’. Can you remind me where I read it?

  19. From my Internet searches, intermediate and advanced hand tool classes (particularly those that focus on casework) in the US are not easy to come by. I’ve looked at the Marc Adams School, the Wood and Shop School (in Virginia) and others. Any recommendations (especially in the central US)? Thanks again for offering this!

    1. Sam Beauford in outside Detroit, https://sbwi.edu/

      Pine Croft in Berea Ky, https://pinecroftwoodschool.com/

      Then, I’d look up craft schools rather than strictly woodworking schools – that’ll lead you to John C Campbell, Penland, Peter’s Valley…They all have woodworking and other traditional craft classes.

  20. Howdy, good morning, and thanks! I love the ATC ‘incendiary device’ bookmark. (Did I need another copy of the book? Not really, but it came with a bookmark!) And so I’ve been kicking around the idea of doing a production size batch for the gift shop.

    What finish would you recommend that would be safe to put in a book?

    (I was already going to ask before I read Earlywood this morning. I would have prob settled on water-base acrylic or ugghhh… polyurethane, but I sure do hate them and now it seems I’m not the only one.)

    xoxo -S

  21. Hello,

    I’m looking for information regarding woodworking for people with disabilities. Who knows this could possibly become a series of articles.

    Woodworking has been my hobby for decades and has also been a sort of mental health therapy as well. I have become disabled in recent years and have not been able to continue with my hobby. Since then I have been on a hunt for information regarding woodworking while confined to a wheelchair. What little information I have found has not been of much use.

    In my situation I have mostly full use of my upper body, but only have partial use of my legs. I can use a walker for short walks and can stand, with something to help stabilize me, for a few minutes at a time. Considering my instability issues while standing, power tools offer dangers that can be avoided by the use of hand tools.

    I am looking for advice on a workbench and use of hand tools. Obvious issues include bench height, chair and leg clearance under the bench, and possible remedies for expected leverage issues. I’m sure there will be additional issues discovered once I get to work. Improvise, adapt and overcome as the Marines say.

    As I mentioned earlier I believe this set of topics could become a series of articles. There are countless others out there who would also benefit from advice and guidance with our particular obstacles. We might be considered a niche market for articles, but the impact on our lives would be huge.

    I appreciate your consideration and look forward to your feedback.

    Thank you for all you do.

    Neil Baltz

  23. Good morning, and thanks for this great opportunity! I want to build a standup desk for my adult child who is 5’2”. She likes the staked worktable in the Anarchist design book. I suspect the finished height of the desk will be around 38 or 39 inches. Is it simply a matter of extending the legs from the staked worktable design or are there other design considerations?

    1. That’s probably not the best design for a standing desk…the legs would stick out too much. It needs straighter legs and stretchers. Maybe this one from Jim Tolpin would be a good starting place? (Or maybe build the desk as is, and build a box/riser to put on top of it? Perhaps with cubbies? drawers? Keyboard tray?)
      https://www.byhandandeye.com/product/standup-desk-project/

  25. Good morning, and thanks for this opportunity. I want to build a standup desk for my adult child who is 5’2” tall. She likes the staked work table from the anarchist design book. I suspect the finished height of the standup desk will be around 38 or 39 inches. Is it simply a matter of making the legs longer or are there other design considerations?

    1. Yikes! Sorry about double posting. I’m not sure how that happened.

  26. Others will have WAY more experience with hard wax than I do, but I’ve used it a little and I know both Rubio and General Finishes caution against over-sanded (Rubio say no finer than 120, GF 180) else the product can’t bind with the wood fibers. Based on that, I’d think burnishing would be out. I’m happy to be told I’m wrong

    1. Got bit by the out-of-place-reply bug. The above is a reply to Michael E’s post above…

  27. Hi Chris and Megan, I am beginning to invest time in learning to hand plane properly and have been using two vintage planes (#4 & #5 Stanley). I am doing well with pine boards, but hardwoods are causing a lot of chatter. I have camber on my #4 iron and it is properly sharpened. Coincidentally, I also recently bought a low angle jack plane from Veritas. Is that tool better suited for difficult grain that causes chatter?

    1. Is the chatter just on starting? (Not sure what exactly you mean by chatter). If it’s when coming into the cut, skew the blade, and make sure you have firm contact/push down on the knob. If it’s all along the board, that’s likely a result of too much blade out…or not sharp enough. Or you need to push down harder. Hard to diagnose from afar, but those are my knee-jerk thoughts.

  28. I’m working on the Staked Backstool from the Anarchist Design Book.

    I’ve got the set of three veritas tenon cutters and the back sticks are cut with 5/8″ tenons to go into the seat and the crest gets 1/2″ tenons. I don’t have a 1/2″ tenon cutter so I used my 1/2″ plug cutter, but the difference in quality and inconsistency between the ends bothers me. For the next one, I was hoping to find a veritas tenon cutter at 1/2″ but I don’t see one.

    I don’t own a lathe, and don’t want the inconsistent appearance again. Would I be okay sizing up the tenon for the crest next time to 5/8″? If I’m going to bend the crest, should it be slightly thicker to account for that extra 1/8″ thickness?

  29. Good morning from the Seattle area. I’m leaving a list of How To’s around the house for when I die — hopefully not soon. One of the toughest is how to dispose of my complete set of hand-woodworking tools and Roubo-style bench (eight feet long, Douglas Fir), including an uber-complete set of carving chisels. Seattle does not have as passionate of hand-tool culture that I read about in other parts of the country. My first thought is to contact the Port Townsend School of Woodworking where I have taken a couple of hand-tool classes. Any other thoughts?

    1. Chairmaker’s Toolbox or the auction houses, or other hand-tool schools readers might be able to chime in on, here.

  30. In a recent Open Wire someone asked about the Veritas Pullshave and Chris said he would give one a try and report back. Has there been time for this yet? I picked one up and am happy so far, it’s pretty intuitive (like a more-curved spokeshave with the handles less in the way) but I’ve never used the an inshave or travisher so I don’t have that experience to compare it to…

  31. Most chairmakers insist on drying tenons in a kiln, but you don’t. Can you explain why not? And how do you get really precise fits?

    1. Both pieces are dry – if there is similar MC in both pieces, there won’t be shrinkage. And Chris compresses the tenons, so they go in more easily then expand when the glue hits them (which fills any minor gaps). Also, he usually wedges the snot out of everything.

  32. I’ve made a number kids chairs scaled down from adult chairs (including the ADB stick chair) and found the math often worked easier at 60% scale (e.g. a 5/8” hole becomes a 3/8” hole). Regardless it’s a fun and manageable way to make a chair.

  33. I wanted to start off by thanking you for these and all the work you have done, LAP has been an amazing north star when getting into woodworking and helped me to avoid plenty of pitfalls.

    When reading the American peasant, you make note of a T shaped tool you found that was amazing for making the T&G joints from riven stock, however for the life of me I cannot seem to find that tool and was wondering if you had a name or photo.
    Seeing as I want to to add T&G joints to riven boards, and their triangular cross section would make a fenced T&G plane the wrong tool of choice (as a riven board wouldn’t have a true square face to ride along guiding it), and the only way around this I would imagine being a very stressful saw cut followed up by a router plane like Fitz describes in her DTC book.

      1. Wow! That’s exactly the resource i’m looking for thank you!
        also is this the tool that helped to inspire the Crucible carver? from the photo the hook on each end looks remarkably similar.

        1. The engraving tool is something different than the T&G tools, but is inspired by his engraving tools.

  34. I’m make an outdoor bench out of cypress and I lost the color vote in my family. It will be red. I’d like for the grain to show. Is milk paint an option for outdoor furniture? Or a stain a better option? Or something else? Also any suggestions on coatings after paint or stain is applied? I’m fine with a little up keep over time. Thanks

    1. Transparent deck stain is your best bet. And reapply from time to time when it starts to look ugly.

    2. Steven, if Osmo Country Colour/Landhausfarbe is available in your neck of the woods, give it a try. It’s completely opaque but the structure of the wood remains visible. It’s designed for outdoor use and really easy to refinish after it has weathered.

  35. Yes, we’ve suspected you’ve never made a rocker, so there’s that, but you’ve still never made a pie safe either, as far as we know. Are you tragically stuck in the stick-chair rut now? The home-made pies are still highly imperiled, you know.

    1. He has made a pie safe…the aumbry in “The Anarchist’s Design Book.” Rockers give Chris motion sickness — and rockers are a jingoist furniture form (only partly joking…).

  36. Hi Chris, Meagan,
    I am looking for advice on how to resolve a conundrum. I like shaker and craftsman style furniture in my home and build a lot of it. Also, I really like learning the skills to build 18th century furniture like you see in SAPFM but I don’t want it in the house. Any thoughts?
    Thanks,
    Joe

    1. Research and build real Shaker furniture…it’s more complicated than the magazines tend make it look (I am guilty on that front); get a copy of Kassay. And Look at Limbert and English A&C – lots more technical than Stickley.

  37. I’m trying to gather materials for a BS chair here in Canada. The dowels available in nearby box stores are just labelled “hardwood” and appear to be poplar. I found a local wood supplier that lists red oak dowels on their website. They also list maple at 2/3 the price, but then the description says they could be either maple or birch. Any thoughts on using that for sticks, or should I just pay for oak?

    1. Don’t use poplar; the birch or maple would be fine. What’s important is that the grain is straight, and with no runout.

  39. While I like my Vertas flat spokeshave, I find that the blade creeps back over time, even if I only change the blade projection by advancing the blade. I have the cap iron tightened adequately. What am I missing?

    1. Most screw-fed tools do creep. But it’s possible the tool is dull/rounded over (ie shorter) and needs sharpening and adjusting.

    2. I have discovered (or, more properly, my wife discovered) that a good way to deal with creep is to clean the clamping threads (internal and screw) with either alcohol, turpentine or even Simple Green. I had that problem with my plane blades (against the chipbreaker) because, I believe, small amounts lubricating oil was seeping in between the threads over time, causing the screw not to lock as tightly as it needed to. If you mark the top of the blade against the edge of the cap with a Sharpie after cleaning, you can see how well this may work. It definitely was helpful for me.

  40. Pshaw, I looked it up in the ADB_expanded_Nov_2019_consumer.pdf, and the aumbry is clearly identified therein as a BOOK-SHELF! It might have the bare fundaments of a pie safe, but since it is COMPLETELY bereft of doors of any kind, not even to mention the traditional punctured-tin door-panels, that project could not possibly keep ANY pie safe from the usual suspects and predators. I recommend dearly-parted Charles Neil’s classic Utoob series detailing the design and construction of THREE DIFFERENT classic, heirloom-quality, proper, hard-wood, pie safes for inspiration and encouragement. We already have plenty of chairs in the world, but the once common, and always necessary, pie safes have become entirely endangered now, possibly soon to be extinct, if this keeps up. Nice try though.

    1. Linen on the inside behind the carving. And there is indeed a door (and on the original the door used to go all the way to bottom…but Chris copied it as is. now.

  41. These days how does Chris put a camber on his plane irons (by hand or grinder)? Thank you.

    1. As always, we grind jack plane blades; all others we camber are on the stones.

  42. I restored my grandfathers tool box last year but I find that I still prefer to store my tools on the wall behind my bench or in a bench mounted rack on the back of my bench. Isn’t that just as historically accurate as using a chest to store your tools? I thought that the chest that I have might be handy if I take a class or 2 when I retire.

    1. Both systems are historically valid. In a shared shop/job, they’d be in a chest. If it’s a personal shop, the wall is/would be fine.

  43. Hello and thanks for the LAP Open Wire… any favourite resources, LAP or otherwise, for making picture frames or barrister bookshelves?

    1. “The Big Book of Picture Frames” and “The Big Book of Barrister Bookcases.” Sorry, not really. Picture framing is a different trade/really. Maybe check out “The Art of Mitring” by James Lukin for the frames (serious about that one).

  44. Curious for your thoughts on using super / CA glue to fill in small gaps in joinery. On one hand, it seems anathema to the “avoid plastics” ethos and an odd pairing for a piece assembled with hide glue— but on another it is quite effective, may increase a pieces longevity / sealedness, and doesn’t seem to have a direct pre-industrial analogue. What is your approach to balancing these scales?

    1. There are lots of pre-industrial ways to fill gaps (thinned hide glue mixed with sawdust). We really don’t use my cyano (it’s pretty weak/brittle), except thre skin-safe ones, as those are good for bad wounds that aren’t quite bad enough for the ER

    1. As long as they’re tight and don’t cause trouble cutting the joinery, doesn’t really matter.

  47. Thanks Megan. Will do. I do very much enjoy complex joinery even if something more simple will suffice.

  48. Good afternoon. One last question. Is Shaker and Arts and Crafts over the last 10 years become popular again? I know mid-century modern is fashionable again. Just trying to figure out if I like Shaker and A&C because I just like it or if there is some sort of Pavlovian influence by magazines and YouTube going on. I can’t tell.

    1. I don’t think Shaker has been out of style in my lifetime. I think you’re just seeing more of other stuff…so it seems like less of A&C and Shaker.

  49. I am also in the Seattle area, and the Pacific Northwest Tool Collector’s Association will be a good resource. One of the things they do is hold auctions of antique tools or the tools of retired woodworkers. The funds generated from that are given to community organizations and schools that promote teaching woodworking to a new generation. You might also get in touch with the Furniture Repair Bank, a community group that repairs/refinishes/reupholsters furniture that would have been going to the landfill and gives it to people in need (ex: refugees, kids aging out of the foster system, people leaving domestic violence shelters, etc). They may be able to make use of some of your tools.

  50. I volunteer repairing furniture for a local nonprofit, and have a few questions about common issues that come up:

    Sometimes we get staked chairs that have splits in the seat that do not close when clamped. These are usually fairly small (about enough to just barely fit a fingernail) but sometimes get up to 1/8″. First of all, are these structurally dangerous? And second, how would you advise filling or repairing these gaps?
    We try to use as few chemicals as possible, especially when it comes to removing old finishes. This works fine in most cases until we get large items with lots of turned details, such as bedframes. Many volunteers struggle to sand thick coats of paint off of the many tight curves and corners. Do you have any advice on how best to handle these?

    Thanks!

    1. Traditional fix is a metal strap/mending plate. Or wooden butterfly. Of kerf the split and put in a filler piece.

      Citrus stripper, keep it wet with plastic and let it sit. Or just knock off the loose paint and repaint. I wish I had a magic solution…or one of those cool laser paint removers (that cost more than my car)

  51. By chatter, I mean the blade skips along the board in multiple places. I do think I am putting sufficient pressure on the knob to achieve firm contact. I had not thought about skewing the blade and will try that next. In any case, here are a couple of pictures of the blade and the mouth. Here are some pictures of my iron: https://imgur.com/a/Wti8ERM

    1. If it’s skipping and you have enough downward pressure and forward momentum (simultaneously), perhaps the blade is only hitting the high spots and you’re not quite ready for the smoother? Or it’s a sharpening issue and the blade is not engaging. I just looked at the picture (and Chris glanced while driving…don’t make us crash!), and we suspect it could use a good sharpening session (but hard to say for sure in pics).

  52. Thanks Megan. Shaker furniture does push my buttons in a good way.

  54. My crucible bench stop doesn’t really bite well. Looking for some tips for filing it sharper. Thank you!

    1. Chris asks if it is ground on the underside? Sometimes one slips through without being ground…and if that’s the case, we will replace it. Otherwise, you could try grinding the underside, use an angle grinder, file to make the teeth pointier.

      1. The underside was ground back about 1/8 from the bottom of the gullet. Teeth also were ground very flat. Will file teeth and see what happens. Thanks.

    1. There’s a place called Boggs Tool (https://boggstool.com/file-%26-rasp-services) that can dip them in acid and expose some more hard metal…but FWIW, Chris still has his first Auriou and it’s 20 years old and still great. And his see a LOT of work. But yes, you can dip them maybe once or twice… but we haven’t approached the dipping limit so I don’t know the number of times this will work (this was on Nicholsons)

  56. Hi, sorry I arrived late here, I was @ one of the protest.
    2 questions, where do you get the compressed wood you use bend, I spen like 2 hours online but couldn’t find it.
    Yesterday I was rewatching the video on a stick chairs, are you planing to redo or offer an addendum for straight tenons for the legs and thru tenons in the undercarriage.
    Thank you very much

    1. Pure Timber; https://puretimber.com/

      Yes…before the end of the year, we’re going to release a free video on building a stick chair with all the details, to go with the revised edition of the new book. No timing beyond that yet though.

  57. I am very much enjoying the various staked projects in the ADB – Thank you. But for the life of me I still struggle mightily to drill clean and accurate mortises for stretchers. Lack of experience, need more practice, dodgy inconsistent drill bits, probably all that. (BTW my Durham’s skills are stellar). I’m impressed with chair class pictures where everyone’s smiling and the chairs look great and can’t help but wonder what they’re doing right and I’m doing wrong. Do you have some magic advice for novices? Thanks

    1. Star-M F-type bits (they cut clean mortises, no blow out), and use a drill with a flat battery pack and a chuck that is parallel to it, prop that drill on a block of wood to lift it to the desired level, then you can drill straight (that’s the “secret” from classes here…along with fear of Chris’s derision).

  59. I have the Sharpen It book and videos. I’m looking for advice on properly sharpen a variety of carving tools that I inherited from my grandfather. I can’t find anything that refers to these tools. Am I missing it?

    Thank you!

  60. Brandon, I’ve been on the hunt for a tool to make those grooves for over a year. Reached out to a few different blacksmiths and no takers yet. If you find someone interested in making them I’d happily join in for a small batch to help spread the cost around. Email me if you want to collab on it- cwclark1@gmail.com

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