Lost Art Press

Author: Lost Art Press

Publisher of woodworking books and videos specializing in hand tool techniques.

Keeping Bloody Promises to Detroit

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Last Saturday I gave a day-long seminar to the Michigan Woodworkers Guild that was a bit of a disaster.

I started with a sharpening demonstration. First thing: I picked up my #1,000-grit waterstone; it slipped from my hand and cracked into a dozen bits on the floor. So I muddied through with a diamond plate.

After lunch, as I was demonstrating full-blind lap dovetails, I nicked my thumb with a chisel – right by the fingernail. As Dr. Gary Assarian noted as he was bandaging me up – there is a lot of vascular activity right there. Boy was he right. I was squirting blood like the Buckingham Fountain.

(The blood-spattered joint went together quite well, thanks for asking.)

Anyway, there were several items I promised I would post links to here on my blog. So here you go:

  1. The chart on sharpening media that converts everything to microns is here.
  1. You can read how to grind and hone a fore plane blade here.
  1. And here is the article on 16th-century try squares.

Thank you Michigan woodworkers; and sorry about the mess.

— Christopher Schwarz

Would You Like to Smell my Strobus?

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I don’t wear cologne. But I might start if I could buy cologne that smelled like fresh-cut Eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) or American white oak (Quercus alba).

However, Katy, my 13-year-old, thinks l’eau du alba smells like Starburst candy. Others report that the oaks smell like urine. So either I’m going to attract young girls or hobos while I’m sporting that scent.

Some woodworkers have told me their favorite wood smell is huon pine (Lagarostrobos franklinii), but that smells a little too spicy for me, like a hippie using patchouli to cover up some wicked B.O. Another much-loved smell is aromatic cedar, but that will only bring you attention from hamsters in heat. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

In any case, if I ever do come out with my own line of wood-smelling cologne, I know what I’ll call it: Studley.

— Christopher Schwarz

True Grit II: A Chart for Deciphering Sharpening Gear

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Pure opinion: Buying sharpening stuff would be easier if manufacturers used microns to describe the particle size of the abrasive in each product.

While microns isn’t a perfect description, it’s a heck of a lot better than saying a stone is a “fine crystolon” when that stone is useful only for grinding away damage on a woodworking tool.

Woodworker Bert Bleckwenn recently created a chart that converts many sharpening products for woodworkers to microns and shared it with me. It’s an excellent and useful chart and is a good way to understand how coarse or fine your abrasives are.

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A couple of caveats: Natural products are difficult to rate this way. For example, novaculite is the abrasive found in Arkansas oilstones. These can be coarser or finer depending on the individual stone. And there are other factors with abrasives – too many to really write about here without creating a book.

So if you have problems with this chart, I ask only this: Make a better one and I’ll consider posting it, too.

When I sharpen, here are the micron sizes I use for each operation.

  1. Grinding. This is the rapid removal of material to repair an edge, reshape it or to shrink my secondary bevel. I like a particle size that is 50 microns or larger.
  1. Honing. When I have dulled an edge and need to recreate a new zero-radius intersection, I like an abrasive that is between 15 and 6 microns.
  1. Polishing. All abrasives smaller than 6 microns are polishing media in my eye. How far you polish is personal. I usually polish at about 3 microns and then finish at 1 micron or so.

Thanks to Bert for this chart. And thanks in advance to readers for not trying to turn this post into a fight over sharpening (that’s a hint).

— Christopher Schwarz

Download: Free Plans for the Knockdown Nicholson Workbench

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KD Nicholson Bench Lost Art Press

Thanks to woodworker Donna R. Hill, you can download a free SketchUp drawing – or a pdf version – of the knockdown workbench I built a couple of weeks ago. Here’s the video in case you missed it.

Donna (some of you might know her as the “Wood Wench” through the Society of American Period Furniture Makers), produced a SketchUp file that she uploaded to the 3D Warehouse. You can download that file by going here. She also produced an excellent three-page pdf with complete measured drawings of the bench. Even if you have SketchUp, I recommend you snag these plans as well.

KD Nicholson Bench Lost Art Press

Donna teaches SketchUp classes locally here in Cincinnati; so if you need some instruction in this program look her up. She’s also a frequent demonstrator at the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event when it comes to Cincinnati. She’s a talented woodworker – and expect to see more of her illustration work in upcoming Lost Art Press books.

Thanks Donna!

— Christopher Schwarz

The Anarchist’s Litter Box

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While some critics put my work on par with cat poo, few have ever considered that my work could actually contain and control feline fecal matter.

But reader John Notis of Portland, Ore., is a visionary.

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While he prefers a wall cabinet for his woodworking tools, he took the basics from “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” to make this litter box. It is impressive. (The only thing more impressive would be to get one’s cats to defecate in a wall cabinet.)

I hope my wife does not see this post or I know what I will be building next week.

— Christopher Schwarz