Some days my inbox is stuffed with odd questions about what I do. And when the number of those question eclipses the “What wood should I use for my workbench?” questions, then it is time to write a blog entry.
Recently, there have been a spate of the following questions:
Question: What cameras do you use to take photos and video?
I’ve always been a Canon enthusiast. I prefer the colors that these cameras produce, and I am comfortable with the controls. For blogging, I use a Canon G10 (now the Canon G12) for both videos and still photos. It is a remarkable camera with a metal – yes, metal! – body so it can take a hit. The photos are nice enough that you can publish them in a book (it’s what I recommend that some Lost Art Press authors use).
The best accessory ever for woodworking photography is a tripod. Don’t buy a cheap one. I have a used Manfrotto – you can pick these up on Craigslist and fix them up if need be. Mine needed a lot of tightening and adjusting. A tripod allows you to use available light, small apertures and long shutter speeds. That is the sweet spot for most woodworking photography.
If you won’t buy a full-size tripod, spend $28 and buy this Manfrotto pocket support. It lives on the bottom of my Canon G10 and allows me to stabilize it in the field when I don’t have a pod. This thing is 100 percent pure unicorn magic. I have personally made at least 100 sales by demonstrating this gizmo at woodworking shows.
I have a second Canon camera, a SLR, that I use for shop photography. Until January, I was using a Canon Rebel – very entry level – with good Canon lenses. I shot all my magazine articles and books using this camera, including most of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”
In January, I bought a Canon 5D, a big step up that was made possible by you, the reader. Thank you. I also have an L-series Canon zoom on the 5D. Yes, that was a gloat.
I have some basic lights, but those are packed away. I always prefer to work with existing light.
Despite all the text above, I don’t obsess about equipment. In fact, I’m fairly oblivious. I’m much more concerned about composition and spend far more time studying that than reading equipment reviews.
Question: What is the music in your video?
I get this question every single day. I like Americana music, especially with a Southern flavor (duh, I’m from Arkansas). If you want to download some of the tracks I’ve used and search for other like-sounding stuff, I recommend two sites: freeplaymusic.com and freemusicarchive.org.
At freemusicarchive.org, check out the stuff from the Black Twig Pickers. That will sound familiar.
At freeplaymusic.com, check out these two collections of music:
Question: And finally, I saw your video on rasps and want to buy the belt you are wearing. Where do I get it?
The belt I’m wearing is from Thomas Bates. Yes, that is a bottle opener. It works great. However some people freak out when you open a beer for them and you take it to your bathing suit area to do the deed.
I wouldn’t crap you – you’re my favorite turd, right?
So listen carefully. Deneb Puchalski of Lie-Nielsen Toolworks has made a great leap forward in woobie technology. He has created a woobie so perfect, so supple, so sensual that I am running out of words that I feel comfortable using about a rag.
Today I was teaching the first day of a class at Lie-Nielsen’s new classroom facility in Warren, Maine – more on that later in the week. As I and the students were sharpening our irons I started looking for something with which to wipe off my wet tools.
Hmmm. Where is my woobie? Did I leave it in Connecticut? Was it stolen? Mayhaps.
So I ponder the options. I can go to the restroom and ball up a lot of toilet paper and make myself an ersatz woobie. It’s a shameful wiper. But I admit I have done this before.
About the time I am looking for the bathroom, Deneb mentions that the blue rags hanging below the table are “charged with oil.” I reach down and touch… SuperWoobie.
It was magical. This cloth was so oil-filled and wonderful and soft and…. In my hand was a 3M microfiber cloth that had been soaked in jojoba oil. It was the woobie I had always been looking for. I wiped down all my tools with it and it held tons of oil.
Deneb says he charges them with oil and then uses them until they get “funky.” Then he runs them through the wash and recharges them with oil.
You heard it here first, an interview with Deneb, father of the SuperWoobie.
“The world is filled with people who are no longer needed – and who try to make slaves of all of us –
And they have their music and we have ours –
Theirs, the wasted songs of a superstitious nightmare –
And without their musical and ideological miscarriages to compare our song of freedom to,
We’d not have any opposite to compare music with – and like the drifting wind, hitting against no obstacle,
We’d never know its speed, its power….”
— Woody Guthrie, from the liner notes of “Mermaid Avenue” by Billy Bragg and Wilco.
Anyone who has heard me talk about sharpening knows that I don’t really give a rodent’s hinder what system you select. Just pick one and stick with it. Just please don’t sample all the systems — that will definitely slow your efforts to get a keen edge.
Despite my “I’m OK, you’re OK philosophy,” I have a few beefs with some sharpening systems. Sandpaper is crazy expensive in the long run. Water-cooled grinders are crazy slow in the long walk, short run or whatever. I can say this because I’ve had to learn and use all the systems on the market, including LapSharp, Jool Tool, WorkSharp, etc. etc.
When I worked at Popular Woodworking Magazine, I used Shapton waterstones almost exclusively. Why? Because they cut faster than any system I’ve used, and they don’t need to be soaked. They do have downsides. They are sloppy, like all waterstones. You need a dedicated place to sharpen or you have to be one of those woodworkers who is, um, let’s just say “fastidious.” And they are expensive. I can say this because I have burned through several stones from several manufacturers.
When I left Popular Woodworking Magazine, I moved all my woodworking equipment to my shop at home. This shop is a lot smaller. There is no easy access to water. The floor is oak instead of hateful concrete. I don’t have room for a dedicated sharpening station.
So I switched back to oilstones for sharpening.
When I first learned sharpening, I had an India combination stone and a nice black Arkansas that a friend picked up for me at a gun meet. And a strop. That was plenty of equipment to get a keen edge.
But as I became the person who had to sharpen lots and lots of tools for the shop and for all our tool testing, I needed a system that was faster. We had the space for a dedicated sharpening area, so I dove into waterstones.
Today I have had to go back to my roots. I need to be able to sharpen on my bench. I need to do it without slopping water all over my benchtop and work pieces. And the system needs to be fast, but seconds don’t count anymore.
So I switched back to natural oilstones. When I was on the hunt for some, I bought a couple nice vintage ones. But then I had a chat with Larry Williams at Old Street Tool (formerly Clark & Williams planemakers) in Eureka Springs, Ark. He had been down to visit two places that mined and sold natural oilstones. He was quite pleased with the stones he picked up, and he’s now working on an article about the stones.
The two places Larry visited are Best Sharpening Stones and Dan’s Whetstone Co. (Correction: Larry informs me they visited Dan’s, but not Best, which is in New Jersey. My mistake.) Both carry a full range of natural and beautiful novaculite stones in any size you could want. Natural oilstones cut plenty fast for the home woodworker and make a nice keen edge.
So should you follow suit and switch to oilstones?
No. Stick with the system you are exploring right now. But if you haven’t chosen a system, don’t let the sharpening snobs talk you out of trying oilstones. They are tremendous.
So that is why I recently switched to oilstones. I sold one of my set of Shaptons. I’ll probably hold onto the other for when I teach classes, or until the day comes when I have a dedicated sharpening area in my shop.
When I embark on a writing project I try to begin with a ridiculous premise. During the revisions and the re-writes, the absurdity begins to mellow or even drain out of the manuscript altogether.
Take “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” for example. When I began writing the book, the nutty, never-happen-but-it-would-be-cool premise was to sell most of my tools, write a book, then quit my cushy corporate job… aw crap.
When Roy Underhill asked me to be a guest on a couple episodes of “The Woodwright’s Shop” for the upcoming season we decided to do a show on planes and a show about the English Layout Square that graces the cover of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.”
So I began thinking about new ways to talk about handplanes. Stupid and perhaps insensitive ways to talk about handplanes. Stuff that would generate angry letters.
Here’s the set-up: What if smoothing plane use were an addiction? And there were support groups?
The following unedited script was completely discarded. We probably used only one line on the show. And yes, I know that addiction is a serious problem – ask me about my family’s struggles with it over a beer sometimes.
— Christopher Schwarz
Smoothing Plane Recovery Program
Chris: My name is Chris Schwarz, and I am a recovering smoothing plane addict.
Roy: An addict? Really? Strong words. Well let’s see … there are basically six steps to recovering from some sort of addiction. Let’s check the list:
“Step one: Admitting that one cannot control one’s addiction or compulsion.”
Chris: At one time I had more than a dozen smoothing planes. I was trying out all the angles, all the mouth apertures, infills, vintage, new, bevel-up, bevel down, woodies, different sizes, you name it.
shows different planes
I had a micrometer to measure whether I was making shavings that were .0005″ thick. I was watching Japanese planing contests – where they measure the shaving thickness in MICRONS.
shows wispy shavings
My wife even caught me down in the shop making shavings… and I wasn’t even building anything. Just… smoothing.
Roy: That is serious stuff. What made you finally quit?
Chris: The good book.
Roy: You mean…
Chris holds up and opens book
Chris: Yup. Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises; or the Doctrine of Handy-works Applied to the Arts of Smithing, Joinery, Carpentry, Turning, Bricklaying.” The first English-language book on woodworking.
Roy: That’s the second step – recognizing a higher power can give you strength. So you found strength through a 17th-century printer and hygrometer to the king?
Chris: Yes I did. Moxon showed me the error of my ways.
Roy: How’s that?
Chris: When I first read Mechanick Exercises I was struck – nay – blown away by how much Moxon wrote about the “fore plane” and how little he wrote about the “smoothing plane.” It was incredible. More than 1,800 words on the fore plane. And on the smoothing plane: just 33.
shows fore plane.
Roy: Dang. Well I hope they were strong words about the smoothing plane – about how it is the end-all plane, end of story.
Chris: Hardly. Here’s all he said:
“S. 6. The Ufe of the Smoothing-Plane.
The Smoothing-plane marked B 4. muft have its Iron fet very fine, becaufe its Office is to fmoothen the work from thofe Irregularities the Fore-plane made.”
Roy: That’s it? Nothing about finding your power animal or opening your heart chakra or adjusting your aura with sub-thou shavings?
Chris: Nope. That’s it. So I started diving deep into Moxon’s text on fore planes and I found that this plane (holds up plane) is the most powerful bench plane in the world.
Roy: You don’t say.
Chris: With this plane I could correct all the things I was doing wrong with my smoothing plane, and that’s ….
Roy: …the third step.
Chris: Indeed. The secret is inside the mouth of the tool. The iron (shows iron) is a convex arc – this one is an 8″ radius. And this radius can give you superpowers.
(reinstalls iron)
Roy: Like making paper-thin shavings?
Chris: Like making shavings the thickness of an old Groat! (makes massive pass with plane, pulls off thick shaving). This is what gets the work done, not the mamby-pamby lacy doily shavings where each one is unique like a snowflake!
This is what flattens boards (continues to work). Every shaving from a fore plane equals 10 from a smoother. You can do 10-times less work.
Roy: But won’t thick shavings tear up the work?
Chris: Ahhhh. That’s where Moxon helps us again. He tells us to traverse.
Roy: Traverse?
Chris: Yes. Don’t push your plane with the grain (shows) or against the grain (shows). Instead go ACROSS the grain.
Roy: Won’t you go to a dark and very warm place for doing that?
Chris: Hardly (demonstrates). By going across the grain we can take a much thicker chip with much less effort. And because we aren’t levering up the wood fibers, the tearing is minimal. This also allows us to get boards really flat – something a puny smoothing plane can’t do.
(discussion and demonstration of flattening a board by traversing bark side, then heart side. showing the different sounds and how to determine flat – just wink!)
Roy: That’s pretty remarkable, but the tool seems rather coarse; aren’t you going to make a lot of clean-up work for the other tools?
Chris: Hardly. Moxon says we can reduce the cut of the fore plane and clean up our dawks before moving on. (demonstrates; discussion of dawks ensues).
Roy: It seems like you really got true religion here. As I understand it, you are supposed to “make amends for your errors” in cases like this. Did you. Did you really?
Chris: I did. I sold almost all of my smoothing planes or gave them away to friends. I’m now down to – two smoothing planes, which is probably still one too many. And I’m trying to live my life with a new code of behavior – working as much with a coarse tool before I switch to a fine tool. That’s the core message in Moxon.
Use a hatchet more than a fine file. Use a rough plane more than a fine one. Chop. Don’t pare. Pit saw. Not coping saw.
Roy: And then there’s the last step, right? Helping others who suffer from an addiction to smoothing planes?
Chris: Yup. Wherever there is a woodworker using a Norris A13, I want to be there. A Holtey No. 98? I’m there to take your hands off the $5,000 tool. I’ll be there to trade you a moldy Scioto Works fore plane and show you the way: Across the grain, to get thick shavings, to actually accomplish something.
