This morning I completed installing the new leg vise on my Holtzapffel workbench that is powered by the Benchcrafted Classic Vise and Crisscross. Installation took about four hours – spread out over the week – and was straightforward thanks to the crazy high quality of the Benchcrafted components and the excellent installation instructions.
The new vise set-up is remarkable. I’ve never had a leg vise that works so well.
While the installation was simple, it’s not for the bolt-it-and-go crowd. You need to be on your A-game to get the vise to run smoothly. The mechanism has plenty of “forgiveness” for small inaccuracies. But everything will go together with less frustration if you take your time and pay close attention to the details.
I’ll be interested to see how the mechanism fares in the long haul. So there’s only one way to find out: Get back to work.
Next up: a shelf for the Holtzapffel and an almost-vanished tool from the 16th century.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. Read our Lost Art Press Statement of Ethics for information on how we buy our tools.
P.P.S The music is “Vernon Jackson” by The Brought Low.
My first woodworking job was at Therma-Tru, a door-making factory in Arkansas. For eight hours a day, I cut rails and stiles for fireproof doors on a sloppy and unguarded radial-arm saw.
To say I hated that machine isn’t a fair measure of the word “hate.” I was scared of the machine, and I would have a close call almost every day when the saw would lurch or bind.
But when I inherited my grandfather’s tools and machines in 1993, I was thrilled to obtain his sloppy, unguarded Craftsman radial-arm saw (aka the “radical-harm” saw).
For me, whether or not I like a tool has nothing to do with whether it’s powered by hand or electricity. Instead, it is about whether the tool keeps me “down on the farm” or sets me free. I know it sounds like a dimestore Marxist theory, but it’s true. (And if you think I’m a Marxist, then we haven’t met.)
Despite my love for handplanes, chisels and handsaws, I will never speak ill of my thickness planer, jointer or table saw. All of the tools in the previous sentence have allowed me to squirm free of being employed by someone else. Because I own those tools, I am entitled to the fruits of my labor (and theirs).
When I crank up my table saw, I am grateful for its ability to rip hundreds of feet of stock for a woodworking class or for a customer. When I remove the burr from the back of a chisel, I am thankful for its ability to chop and pare dovetails to an airtight fit.
Most of all, I love the fact that all of my tools allow me to build things that suit my aesthetic, that use raw materials that are renewable and that will last well beyond my short life.
Bottom line: I dislike adjectives (not to mention the dirty, filthy adverb). When I say I’m a woodworker, I don’t want anything modifying the noun. Just “woodworker.”
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. So why don’t I write much about power tools? Easy. There are tons of fantastic books, magazines and videos that cover the subject in exhaustive detail. Handwork is, for our generation, an undiscovered country.
My Dutch tool chest isn’t big enough to hold full-size handsaws, so I’ve been on a long search for the right panel saws that fit the chest and suit the work I do on the road.
After searching three tool-swap meets without success, I grew tired of the hunt and asked Matt Cianci at the SawWright.com to find some panel saws for me and fix them up so they were good to go.
I’d met Cianci in person for the first time last year at a meeting of the Early American Industries Association (no good panel saws there, either). There I watched him sharpen a few saws and tried out several of the saws he had sharpened or made. The guy is dead serious about saws, and his filework is both crisp and precise.
The panel saws arrived this week, and I’ve been breaking them in. For those who are curious about the configurations of my saws, here are the details of what I like in toolbox saws.
Crosscut Panel Saw: Matt found a 22” Disston D8 that he restored for me. The saw is taper-ground (.035” at the toothline; .025” at the spine). Matt filed it as an 8-point with 15° of rake and 25° of fleam. That is a good general filing configuration for a crosscut saw – a filing I also have on my full-size handsaw.
The saw was made during the early years of the 20th century – check out the Disstonian Institute to learn a crazy amount of information on dating Disston saws.
Rip Panel Saw: Spear & Jackson No. 88, also with a 22” blade. Matt estimates it’s circa 1930. This saw is also taper-ground, though not as much as the Disston. Matt refiled this one with 7 points, 0° rake and 0° fleam. That is a fairly standard filing for someone who is comfortable with rip saws. If you are a new sawyer, you might like 3° to 5° of rake to make the saw easier to manage.
I file my own saws and am good at it. But Matt is embarrassingly better. If you have some old saws that need to be refiled or restored, I highly recommend you drop Matt a line. I am a satisfied customer. Matt’s filing job will be an excellent foundation for me as I file these saws in the future.
Thanks Matt – not only for digging up these saws for me, but for making sure the “art manual” of saw filing isn’t lost. After Tom Law died, I was worried. Now, not so much.
— Christopher Schwarz
