One of my favorite woodworking quotes from the late John Brown is: “By all means read what the experts have to say. Just don’t let it get in the way of your woodworking.”
This morning I was thinking about this quote, and it occurred to me that there are so many other things that can get in the way of woodworking and building useful things. So I created this MadLib in the title of this post and began filling it with things that weren’t the word “fart” or “poo-poo.”
Here are a few:
tool acquisition
frugality
lack of tools
lack of skills
lack of a shop
sharpening
tool minutiae
YouTube videos
books
magazines
blogs
me
anything
“Most of (Hans) Wegner’s furniture is delivered untreated – only buffed and treated with soap and water, so that the fine wood is ready to become more beautiful with use. Some furniture is delivered with a clear lacquer finish.”
— “Hans J. Wegner: Hacedor de Sillas (Chairmaker)” by Jens Bernsen (Danish Design Centre, 1998)
I’m in the middle of building a new chair design in ash and am planning on finishing the chair in soap and water – a finish that is common in Denmark.
It’s a simple, easy-to-mess-up finish that I first heard about from Bob Flexner while I edited his column “Flexner on Finishing.” You can read a 2010 column by Flexner on the finish here at Woodshop News. For more details, including photos of the mixing process, check out this blog entry from Caleb James.
I’ve seen this finish on some vintage pieces at a couple stores that carry Danish Modern pieces here in Cincinnati. I visited one of the stores yesterday to get some photos, but they had filled the showroom with giant live-edge tables. Dipped in plastic. Not good.
So the photo above is one of Wegner’s pieces.
Like paint, oil or beeswax, the soap finish appeals to me because it doesn’t require special equipment (spraying lacquer) or years of experience (a shellac polish) to execute. It’s a good place for beginners to start when finishing furniture (or floors). I’ll post photos of the finish next month when the chair is complete.
While I would love to use blacksmith-nails all day and every day, my customers aren’t willing to pay $1.35 per nail. So I use Tremont cut nails, which are about one-fifth the cost of a homemade nail – a 6d “wrought” nail with a head is about 22 cents. That’s still expensive, but cheaper than handmade.
But the Tremont wrought head nails are covered in black oxide, a fact that I’ve blogged about before and have offered dangerous solutions to fix (hydrogen chloride). (Edit: Not all the Tremonts are covered in black oxide; but the one with the “wrought head” are.) Why can’t I have a plain steel nail with a nice head?
Turns out that I can.
Dictum in Germany has been carrying a variety of excellent blued-steel nails that are forged (using dies) and have square-tapered shanks. I received my first shipment from Dictum today (it took only three days to get the order) and I am more than impressed.
These nails, which I recently encountered in England, are awesome. They are plain blued steel. They look way better than the Tremonts (sorry Tremont, but it is true), and they hold like crazy. Oh, and they are less expensive.
A 6d (50mm) nail from Dictum is about 6 cents a nail (plus shipping). Order a bunch to save on shipping. You will not regret it.
Most woodworkers will need only two or three sizes of nails to do most work. The 50mm nail is used for nailing together carcases – chests and the like. Dictum sells these for €6.30 for 100 nails (plus shipping).
For nailing 1/2”-thick backs and bottoms in place, you should get the 30mm or 40mm nails (30mm for hardwoods; 40mm for softwoods). Dictum sells the 40mm nails for €6.40 for 100. The 30mm nails are €4.80 per 100.
These are great nails at a great price, even if you include the shipping. And buying them rewards a nail-making company that has been doing it the hard way for a long time.
For almost two years now, I’ve been using a Lie-Nielsen honing guide to sharpen all my plane and chisel blades. It’s an outstanding little tool and was well worth the long wait for it to come into full production.
Unlike the old Eclipse guides, the Lie-Nielsen guide is solidly made from stainless steel and bronze. It offers a variety of swappable jaws so you can handle odd-shaped tools, such as skewed irons. And it has only one dovetail-shaped aperture for holding tools, which greatly simplifies your setup for sharpening and improves the accuracy of the tool’s angle to the stone (if that’s your bag).
In short, I love it. My old Eclipse now lies neglected in my “bin of discarded thingys” – I shall have to find a new home for it.
If you have recently purchased the new Lie-Nielsen guide (or plan to), here are a few notes on maintenance and use that will make your transition from the cheap-o guide to the Lexus a little easier.
Jack Plane Blades Because the aperture for holding tools is lower on the Lie-Nielsen than on the Eclipse, I had to change the shape of my jack plane’s blade slightly. With the Eclipse guide, I could hone an iron that had about an 8” radius on its edge. When I put that same iron in the standard Lie-Nielsen (at a 35° honing angle) I could not hone the blade’s corners. The guide hit the stone before the corners of the blade did.
So I switched to a 10” radius – an equally valid historical curve – and everything works fine now. My jack is technically a little less aggressive with this shallower curve, but I cannot tell the difference.
Note: There are other ways around this (swapping to the tall jaws for mortise chisels is one path), but I seek to spend as little time sharpening as possible. Bottom line: You can make small changes to the way you sharpen (angles, radii etc.) to achieve the results you want with this jig. This was how I tackled the problem; your approach might be different.
The coarse threads on the Eclipse.
The fine threads on the Lie-Nielsen guide.
On Gunk Maintenance on the Eclipse guide was all about preventing its wheel from rusting and seizing up. As soon as it seized you were in danger of grinding a flat on the wheel, ruining the wheel.
I haven’t found the same problem with the Lie-Nielsen, even after heavy use by students. Two drops of light machine oil on the wheel’s bearing keeps it moving smoothly. It hasn’t seized once, and the wheel hasn’t even tarnished.
What you do need to look out for is sharpening gunk on the Lie-Nielsen’s screw threads. The pitch of the Lie-Nielsen’s screw is finer than that on the Eclipse. And the fit between the screw and the body is much tighter. These details make the Lie-Nielsen clamp down hard on your blade with only finger pressure (though it always is a good idea to secure the screw with a partial turn with a screwdriver).
But when the guide’s threads get swarf on them, the guide can be sluggish to open and close. So clean the threads occasionally with a little oil or degreaser and a stiff-bristled brush. Once a year seems to be enough for my heavy sharpening habits.
And that’s it. It’s a wonderful piece of engineering and a joy to use. Highly recommended. The Lie-Nielsen guide is $125 with the standard jaws. Accessory jaws are $25 to $35 each.
Earlier this year I got to use an early prototype of the Bridge City Tools Chopstick Master during a trip to Portland, Ore. (Read about that here.) After planing out a pair of Japanese-style sticks, Bridge City founder John Economaki asked if I’d be interested in testing the second prototype.
Hmmm. Food. Woodworking. Could I add alcohol to this equation?
And thus began the idea for the chopstick-making party we held last night. We gathered eight adults and two teen-agers who were mostly non-woodworkers to make chopsticks. Their reward for success? Getting to use their chopsticks instead of their hands to eat Chinese take-out.
Earlier that day I prepared the 7mm x 7mm blanks for the chopsticks using a bunch of exotics and domestics. I was thrilled to get to use some Ancient Kauri (40,000 years old) that has been sitting in the racks for years. Plus bog oak, teak and mahogany left over from “Campaign Furniture,” heart pine from an old factory, Douglas fir, Port Orford cedar and white maple.
The guests picked their woods and did all the operations themselves as I observed and stopped them from making the occasional mistake. This was the flaw in my food+woodworking+alcohol plan. I had to stay dead sober and be the “responsible” one who kept his “underwear in place.”
Biggest lesson: I had no idea there were so many ways to hold a block plane (pinkies up, really?).
After planing the chopsticks to shape, they sawed the tiny pyramid shape on the ends using an integral sliding table that works like a mini-Jointmaker Pro. Then they sanded the sharp corners and finished their chopsticks with mineral oil.
All in all, everyone was thrilled to get to make something useful with their own hands and in just few minutes of work. All the chopsticks worked great – until we brought out the cheesecake. Then we had to switch to forks.
I definitely will buy a Chopstick Master when it comes out. It is simply too much fun, and I love anything that bridges the gap between my love of food and woodworking. (This is why I’ve been obsessed with treenware for so long and follow the Hungry Squirrel on Instagram.)
Which begs the question: When will John Economaki invent Fork Master or Teaspoon Master?
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. If you are interested in Chopstick Master you can sign up to be notified when it is available at chopstickmaster.com.
