Lefty plow? This plow plane is a mirror image of a plow, and is different than what Moxon describes in his text. So we’ll have to show you some other plows.
This is an excerpt from “The Art of Joinery” by Joseph Moxon; commentary by Christopher Schwarz
Analysis Moxon’s plow is widely reported as a mirror image of the same tool in Félibien’s work. And that is why this picture of this plow is like a Gucci bag for sale on an urban street corner. It looks OK from about 10 feet. But on closer inspection, this is not the plow you’re looking for.
Unlike many tools in Moxon, the plow has evolved quite a bit since his description. And you’d be unlikely to find a plow as he describes. Let’s look at the differences between the Moxon plow and some ultra-contemporary (19th-century) ones.
1. The posts or staves. Moxon states that the staves move through the body of the tool to adjust the fence. The fence is fixed to the staves. This kind of wooden plow was common in England and North America but not Europe. In typical European plows (which is what is shown in the accompanying plate) the staves are fixed to the body and the fence slides on them.
2. From many plows, one. Moxon states that the mechanic would have a different plow for every size groove. Modern plows have interchangeable irons in a range of sizes.
3. How the fence is set. In Moxon’s book, the staves and fence are friction-fit into mortises. So you tap the fence and staves to move the fence closer to or farther away from the cutter (with wedges to help).
Modern plows use something mechanical to secure the fence, from thumbscrews to screws to far, far more clever mechanisms.
4. No depth stop. All but the most primitive plow planes have a depth stop that stops the plane’s cutting action when you reach your final depth. No mention of a depth stop is made in Moxon.
Familiar plows. These plows are more typical in English and North American shops. On metal plows, the fence moves on fixed posts (which Moxon calls staves). In Moxon’s description, the staves move through the body of the plow to adjust the fence, as shown in this screw-arm plow.
As to actually using the plow, Moxon merely states that you set the fence and thrust it forward like the other planes. This would imply that you start planing at one end and take a shaving to the other end. This can work. However, many craftsmen use a different technique.
Many start near the far end of the board and take a short stroke with the plow to start cutting a groove just a few inches long. Then each following stroke is a little bit longer as the woodworker backs up along the length of the board.
You can indeed do exactly what Moxon suggests, but the chances of your iron wandering by following the grain of the board are greater.
Begin at the end. The first strokes with a plow are typically taken at the far end of the board, and the work progresses with longer and longer strokes. This helps keep the groove as straight as possible by reducing the chance that the iron will wander in a long cut.
By taking short, advancing strokes, you can keep the plow’s fence against the work during the part of the cut that is new, then the cutter drops into the already-made groove and the tool won’t jump out.
Plus, if your plow plane does wander, it will be for a shorter distance, and you’ll get an opportunity to make a correction before the tool wanders so far that your work is ruined. Here’s another tip on use: Give each of your hands only one job to do when working with the plow. Use one hand to thrust the plane forward. Use the other hand to press the fence against the work. Don’t try to make both hands do both jobs.
Welcome back to the work week. I hope everyone had a great weekend with time to relax and rejuvenate. Or, if you are like me, it was enjoyable but exhausting. Either way, Monday has snuck up on us and this means it is time to avoid real work and read the forum. Remember, if you have a question about our products, procedures in our books or anything related to Lost Art Press, the fastest way to get an answer is our forum. Check it out here.
Has Anyone Worked Extensively with Redwood? Any ideas what you would do if you had 150 bf of tight grain quarter sawn redwood? Joshua is trying to decide what type of project would be best for the wood he acquired a few years ago. Let him know your visions here.
Boarded Bookshelf: Backboards not Attached to Rail Michael was looking for feedback on how to attach the backboard to his bookshelf project. He has gotten a couple helpful responses so far but feel free to add how you attached yours. In the meantime, I wanted to share his picture. (at top) I love to see modifications to projects to fit individual needs and spaces.
More Questions About the Staked Worktable Jeremy is considering make the table from “The Anarchist’s Design Book” for his younger brother to use as a computer table. However, he would like to make it a knock-down table. This has come up before so let him know if any of you have learned any tricks along the way. Has what you did help up? Have you had to make any modifications?
Bow Front Need Help Ron’s friend has a bow-front chest and is not having any luck finding modern pulls to fit the curvature of the piece. He is curious if they can still be bought or if they need to be bent to fit. See if you can help him out here.
Mid Century Modern Console Has anyone built a piece of furniture with hand tools that has a slider door? If so, Ron (a different Ron if you are wondering) is curious to hear how you did it. Give him some pointers here.
Finished And, as I like to do, let’s end with a finished build. It took a year in the making but E Hilfers followed “Chairmaker’s Notebook” and finished his first windsor chair. (at right) Congrats! It turned out beautifully!
Palladio suggested a rule of thumb for establishing the casing around a window opening. Divide the space into five or six equal parts, and use one-fifth or one-sixth as the casing.
This is an excerpt from “By Hand and Eye” by Geo R. Walker and Jim Tolpin.
Punctuation to Establish a Border Punctuation acts like a visual warning track in a baseball outfield. As the outfielder races to catch a fly ball, the warning track signals that the field is about to end and the home-run fence is fast approaching. Punctuation tells the eye that one part is ending and another is beginning. Our eye doesn’t like to suddenly hit a wall or slip over a cliff. That’s why printers format a text with margins to make words easier to read. Borders help us locate transitions and play an important role. A door frame is a good example. It plays no functional role yet plays a vital visual role of highlighting the opening. Note that on a tall vertical space such as a window or door frame, we don’t use the height to establish our punctuation. That could result in a heavy band if wrapped all the way around. Tall vertical shapes (doors) are punctuated across the width (east and west), while long horizontal shapes (drawer fronts) are punctuated along the height (north and south).
We selected the border for one of the smaller drawers to punctuate all. That border ties all the others together in a unity.
This brings up another practical issue. A series of drawers, doors or spaces in the same composition with multiple sizes would call for different-sized banding or border elements for each space. Yet that’s seldom the case in built work. Select one door or drawer front from the mid-range and use it for all. It’s more important for all the composition to display a unity through similar borders. Graduated drawers that get larger toward the bottom of a case are a good example. If you choose to incorporate a punctuation with banding or inlay, work up a border for several of the smaller drawers and trust your eye to select which border will complement all.
Adding 1/6 to the height or width of a door opening is a way to tweak it to your eye. This double square was tweaked taller by adding 1/6 the width to the height. Period guide books described this as “two squares and a sixth.”
Tweaking a Design Using Punctuating Ratios It used to frustrate me to hear someone with a creative bent opine about making the smallest tweak to hit some mythical sweet spot. Somehow they seemed to magically know that adding 1⁄4″ to the width of a door frame would spell Nirvana. I might agree that the door frame did seem to look better, but it all seemed like magical guesswork or voodoo. Part of clearing through the fog is to gain some understanding of how elements harmonize or punctuate. Using these principles, we can unpack examples to help develop that inner sense. Secondly, we need a practical approach to make small adjustments to an element or shape. We already established that a small series of simple ratios (1:2, 3:5, etc.) can cover a range of simple shapes to define a form. Classical designers often used punctuating ratios to make a small tweak. These are large enough to make a visual difference without looking forced. The top diameter of a column shaft is one-sixth smaller than the shaft diameter at the base. If we want to bump a square just a bit wider without making too dramatic a shift, we bump it just a little wider by one-sixth. A long 2:1 rectangle can be tweaked just a bit longer using a sixth of the width.
This principle applies to tweaking border elements. If 1:5 seems too bold, try 1:6, 1:7 or 1:8. We are always concerned that the border element has a relationship with element it’s linked with.
It is Monday and we are all dragging. Time to brew some coffee, relax and let the week start off right. With the forum. Remember, if you have a question about our products, procedures in our books or anything related to Lost Art Press, the fastest way to get an answer is our forum. Check it out here.
Staked Table from Green Lumber This question is similar to the question from last week about whether a workbench could be made from green wood. However, this week Jeremy wants to know if similar rules apply if he makes the staked table from “The Anachist’s Design Book.” See some of the responses and add your own feedback here.
Hanging Shelf Ethical Issue Dennis has a vision that he is not sure how he wants to execute. He has provided images of his inspiration and his sketches for us to ponder and give feedback on. See what you think and let him know how you would proceed here.
English Cabinet Makers Tool Chests Adam found some tool chests on E-Bay that are worth a look. One image is shown at the top of this page and the rest can be found here.
Visiting London Know any places around London that a woodworker shouldn’t miss while there? Make sure to let Kris know.
Using Ash for a 6-Board Chest Jacob is worried about the ogee feet and how they will work with ash. He has a plan to try to prevent the wood from cracking in the long run but is curious to see if others think it will work or if they have other suggestions.
from http://verktykista.wordpress.com
from http://verktykista.wordpress.com/
Tool Collection from West Norway Adam provided a link to a tool collection from a boatbuilders shop in Norway. (Two images are shown above) He points out the similarity between some of the tools in the images to those from Estonia. The link to the full collection is in his post.
This is an excerpt from “Chairmaker’s Notebook” written and illustrated by Peter Galbert.
The association between lathe turning and Windsors runs deep. When describing a Windsor chair to someone, the “ornately turned legs” often pinpoints the style in their mind. Turning is an ancient method for shaping wood that has seen little improvement (the motor is one) in centuries. It is the fastest way to transform rough wood into finished parts with perfectly sized joinery. Entire books have been written about the various techniques of creating the shapes so often associated with the Windsor style. For our purposes, though, there is some specialized knowledge that comes with turning chair legs from split wood that is worth highlighting. At the end of this chapter are options for making legs and parts with limited or no use of a lathe.
Turning Design The origin of a chair can often be traced county by county based on the style of its turnings. Whether bold and voluptuous or sleek and reserved, the turnings create a distinct attitude. The earliest American Windsors had baluster turnings in what would most likely be labeled as “high style” for the Windsor. When presented with a Windsor chair that doesn’t have baluster turnings, many viewers will question whether it’s a Windsor at all, which shows how deep the association between the balusters and Windsors runs. There is a basic order of the elements found in most balusters, but the size of the parts and variation between thick and thin areas give a lot of opportunity for personal expression.
After the early 19th century, the influence of Asian art can be seen in the simpler forms and “bamboo” style. While the baluster might be “high style,” I think that sleek double-bobbin and bamboo-style turnings fit well with a wider range of decor, which may have added to the breadth of interest and longevity of the form.
This chapter will guide you from preparing stock to turning parts and joinery. For more information on turning tools and technique, look to the chapters Turning Tools as well as Turning Practice.
Fig. 15.2 From the tree to a finished turning.
Stock Preparation Making successful turnings has as much to do with preparing material as with using sharp tools and good technique. While starting with a straight tree is the first step for all of the parts, there are many different paths to processing the wood for turning. You can split or saw it, you can turn parts green, or dry them before turning. It depends mostly on issues surrounding storage, time restraints and personal preference.
Regardless of path you choose, the end product should achieve three important results:
• For strength, the parts should be made up of straight fibers that run from one end of the piece to the other.
• During assembly, the portion of a turning that will have a mortise should have a higher moisture content than the tenon that will join it.
• The tenon portion should be kiln-dried when it is sized, shaped and assembled.
There are many routes to meeting these requirements, and none is wrong as long as you find the process convenient and the joints are formed and assembled when the wood is at the correct moisture content. But don’t get overwrought about moisture content; you don’t need thick pamphlets or confusing charts to get the job done right.
When drying the small tenon ends of roughed parts, it takes only a few days to dry green wood enough to go into the kiln and then just a few more until it stops shrinking. I measure the shrinkage across the tangential plane periodically until it stabilizes, which is accurate enough to know when to stop the process. I rarely shape the final turnings from green wood due to storage and movement issues, but my process always begins with green wood, so I will start the explanation of the sequence of turning and drying from the log. There is more information on wood selection in the Woods for chairmaking chapter and splitting technique in the splitting Parts from the Log chapter.
Wood can be stored indefinitely once air-dried and suit all chairmaking needs, so if processing the parts is ever confusing, just remember that air-drying a part, or a lot of parts, is always a safe bet.
If you have never turned green wood, then I highly recommend you try it. There is no way to describe the fun of making shavings peel like a ribbon and pile at your feet as you glide along. Like bending wood, it’s a rare moment where the interaction with the wood transcends all expectation and sets a new awareness for this amazing material and process.
Fig. 15.3 Keep the final shape in mind when rounding your green billets. Ensure that the largest diameters have enough extra material to turn the final shapes. This will vary, depending on whether the rough billets are allowed to dry first.
When starting from a log, I either split out the parts or have the log sawn into planks of varying thickness. If I am having boards sawn, I sticker and stack them to dry and use them whenever I need them. If I am splitting billets from the log, I consider the season and, if necessary to avoid spoilage, process the entire log into rounds for later use. There is more information in the splitting Parts from the Log chapter.
I split billets about 3 ∕8″ to 1 ∕ 2″ oversized, then I cut them to an appropriate length and turn them round. If I am going to let them air-dry before completing the final shaping, I will round them down to about 1 ∕ 4″ oversized, which should allow me plenty of room to turn them to round after they shrink to oval while drying. because all of my turnings have ends with reduced diameters, I turn my blanks with tapered ends, which allows the end grain to be exposed down the length of the piece. This helps the parts dry fast and evenly, especially at the ends where they are sized for joints.
If I am going to turn a part to its final shape while the wood is still green, I oversize all the dimensions on the design pattern of the details at least 1 ∕ 16″ to allow for shrinkage. The parts with a larger diameter will shrink more, so you might consider stepping them up a bit more. For the cylindrical tenons on the ends of the stretchers that will end up 5 ∕ 8″ diameter (.625″), oversizing them to .680″ (about 11 ∕ 16″) is a safe amount.
