OK now, before we get started here I want you all to gather around there behind the bench. Like a family photo. We are going to gang-cut all the dovetails on all your tail boards with this one saw from Lie-Nielsen.
Yup. One cut. One and done. And you are going to be amazed.
Yup. Look amazed. Chris, drop your left hand there so we can see the saw in all its awesomeness.
Now remember folks this is amazing. Look amazed. Ready?
The first time I met Frank Klausz we were both demonstrating at a woodworking show outside Philadelphia. I was flattening boards by hand with a panel plane when Frank walked up, snatched the plane off my bench and walked away.
I stood there like a slack-jawed mouth-breather for a few moments, and then tried to finish up my demonstration.
About 20 minutes later, Frank returned to my bench with my plane. He had taken it apart and polished some corrosion off the chipbreaker. He had eased the sharp corners of the iron with some sandpaper. And he had wiped the entire body with a light coat of oil.
“A craftsman takes care of his tools,” Frank said with a serious look on his face. “No rust. No sap.” Then he gave me a great big smile and walked back to his bench.
That day was a turning point in my relationship with my tools. I stopped looking at them as just a chunk of something that held a pointy bit. Instead, they were something to be cared for, like a pet or a child. Every part of the tool became important, not just the cutter.
Why am I telling you this? Since May I have been on a marathon streak of teaching, and I have dealt with the tools of almost 100 hand-tool woodworkers. And I’ve spent a lot of time removing corrosion, oiling adjustment mechanisms and scraping crud off chipbreakers.
And so here is my brief guide to the care and feeding of tools.
1. Own the fewest number of tools possible. The fewer tools you have, the easier it is to keep them in good shape. Think of tools as cats. Do you really want to be the lady down the street with 63 cats and all the problems that 63 cats have?
2. Have some permanent tool-care products. Get a bottle of oil (any non-drying vegetable oil or light machine oil will do). A rag (I use a micro-fiber cloth, but an old sock is also good). A rust eraser (you need only one – the medium grit is fine). A paint brush for cleaning out the escapements of your planes. An old awl for dislodging fossilized gunk from corners. An old toothbrush for cleaning crap off threads.
3. Every time you take a brief break from your work, wipe the soles of your planes and remove any dust from the escapement and under the bevel. Wipe the dust and pitch off your chisels and saws. Clear any shavings from the mouths of your moulding planes.
4. When you are done for the day, break down your planes. Take apart the iron and chipbreaker, de-crud them and wipe them down. Clean out the mouth of the tool with your brush. Make sure the sole of the plane is clean and undamaged. File or sand off any dings. With your chisels and saws, wipe off all the sap and dust before you put them away. Same goes with your knives, awls, dividers – anything that’s ferrous.
5. Every month or so, oil the adjustment mechanisms of your tools. Students are always amazed at what a drop of oil on the threads can do to improve the way their tools work.
6. Store your tools so they won’t get coated in dust. A tool chest, wall cabinet or Tupperware will do.
7. If you are overwhelmed by all this, go back and read tip No. 1. Or bundle up your naked body in an old housecoat and haul the 50-pound bag of cat food out to fill the buckets on the front porch.
— Christopher Schwarz
Perhaps I should just learn to listen to my body. My best ideas come to me in the shower. My worst ones come while I’m in bed.
This one popped into my head as I was drifting off to sleep this week. Lots of people have seen Frank Klausz’s special bowsaw blade where the toothline switches from 0° to 90° over the space of an inch. The blade allows you to saw out the waste quite quickly.
See the blade in action in this video.
There’s also a rare Harvey Peace saw that does this same basic thing. I snapped these photos of one belonging to Carl Bilderback.
So my crazy idea was to tweak a coping saw or fretsaw blade to do the same thing. I would bend the blade using two pliers so the toothline would change its axis. Then I would drop the vertical section of the blade into my kerf and then push the saw so the horizontal teeth would do the cutting.
Simple, right?
Simply stupid. First I did this with a high-quality Olson coping saw blade. If you bend the blade with the pliers too close together, the steel can rip. And it’s game over. If the pliers are too far apart, then the toothline changes its axis too slowly and the teeth won’t bite. Game overer.
So I fiddled with it until I got the teeth to turn 90° over about 1/16” of an inch. When I put the blade to work, the whole thing went to pot. When I pushed the saw forward (or pulled it back, I tried it both ways), the horizontal teeth didn’t engage much at all. Instead, the kerf in the wood tended to bend the blade just as well as the pliers had. Yup, wood defeats steel in this instance. I could baby the teeth into engaging the side of the waste, but it was impossibly slow.
Then I decided to try something else, and this new tactic seemed promising.
What if I tool a spiral fretsaw blade and “de-spiraled” about 1” of the blade? So I’d have a 1”-long section that was .010” thick. I would drop that section to the bottom of the sawkerf, then push forward and the spiral teeth would engage the waste. I could cut out my waste right along the baseline. Brilliant!
Nope. Have you ever unwound a spiral blade? I got pretty good at it after about 10 attempts. It doesn’t take too long — less than a minute for a blade.
Almost turgid with excitement, I loaded the blade into my fretsaw. It dropped to the bottom of the kerf and pushed forward. Ting! The blade snapped.
I tried another. Ting! Ting! Ting!
My guess: Unwinding the steel blade fatigued the blade. Hmmm, perhaps I could convince a blade manufacturer to make a batch of blades with 1” of the blade unspiraled?
Or instead, I reasoned, I could stop mucking around and finish this dovetailed carcase for the traveling Campaign Bookcase I’m building.
But then I realized that I was already done. During all the experimenting I had cut eight tail boards and eight pin boards.
I need a shower.
— Christopher Schwarz
Earlier this year, I announced that I wouldn’t be teaching any woodworking classes in 2012 in order to give my family a break from my sometimes-hectic travel schedule.
After stepping down as editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine in June, my wife and I reconsidered that decision, and I will be teaching an abbreviated class schedule in 2012. Many readers have requested my teaching schedule so they can request vacation days from their employer. And though I am still ironing out the details with a couple schools, I decided to go ahead and post my schedule as it stands now.
Some important caveats:
• Some of these topics and dates might change slightly, though my hope is that nothing will change.
• I also hope to teach a class on building “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” at Roy Underhill’s school sometime in 2012, but we are still trying to find the best dates.
• Registration has not begun at many of these schools for 2012 so you might have to be patient.
• What I am posting below is all I know at this point. So with those big caveats, here is the line-up.
Feb. 25-26
Woodcraft of Atlanta
“The Best Layout Tools Money Cannot Buy”
We build a Roubo try square, inlaid winding sticks and a traditional straightedge, three of the most important layout tools for the hand- or machine-tool woodworker. This will be a one-day class.
Second one-day class: Perhaps something on sharpening, dovetails or building a sawbench. We’re still working on it.
April 10-14 (yes, Tuesday to Saturday)
Marc Adams School of Woodworking
“Build an 18th Century Workbench”
We build the Old-School Roubo workbench using massive timbers and the traditional joints – including the through-tenon and sliding dovetail joint that connects the base to the top. This bench will feature a leg vise as the face vise and an iron quick-release vise for the end vise.
May 5-6
Marc Adams School of Woodworking
“Handplanes and Their Uses with Thomas Lie-Nielsen”
I’ve assisted Thomas Lie-Nielsen for six years now in this popular class in which we cover all the bench and joinery planes. We show you how to set them up and use them to make boards flat and ready for finish, plus how to cut and refine joints.
June 10-17
Dictum Workshops, Metten, Germany
We are still working out exactly which days each class will occur during my eight days there.
“Build Your Own Precision Layout Tools” (one-day class)
Wooden layout tools are lighter in weight, easier to maintain and less expensive than metal layout tools. And they can be just as accurate as metal tools, once you understand how to build them and measure their accuracy.
In this one-day class, we will build the three most essential layout tools for hand-tool woodworking: a one-meter straightedge, winding sticks with inlay and an 18th-century style try square. In the process of building these three tools by hand, you will learn the following skills.
• How to dress boards with handplanes so the work is completely flat and true.
• How to design wooden layout tools so they resist seasonal expansion and contraction and stay true.
• How to test layout tools to ensure they are straight and square.
• How to correct layout tools using simple strokes with a handplane.
• How to add simple inlays of geometric shapes to make your layout tools easier to use and more attractive.
“Master Metal Handplanes and Western Saws” (two-day class)
To the uninitiated, metal handplanes seem too heavy, awkward and complex for fine woodworking. However, once you understand the proper way to sharpen, set them up and use them, you will see why these planes are most popular form of tool in North America and England. Compared to wooden-bodied planes, iron handplanes offer some advantages that you can exploit to do extremely fine work. On the first day of the class, students will learn to set up and use metallic planes so they can produce precision work.
One the second day of the class, we will explore Western saws, including the dovetail, carcase, tenon and handsaw. Students will learn proper sawing technique and how to cut extremely accurate joints using these tools.
“Build an 18th-century Workbench” (five-day class)
Early workbenches were simpler, heavier and better suited for people who built furniture with hand tools. After disappearing from workshops for more than 100 years, these ancient workbenches have become popular again as hand-tool woodworkers have discovered their advantages.
I’ll be leading a class at the Dictum workshops where each student will build his or her own workbench using hand tools (for the most part) and common materials. These benches feature only the best joinery: mortise-and-tenon joints for the base, plus a sliding dovetail and through-tenon joint for the top. The vises on the bench are simple, accurate and heavy: A leg vise on the front of the bench and an iron quick-release vise on the end. You will be able to customize your bench for right- or left-handed work, and you will be able to build your bench so it is the correct height for you and the length of your arms. A properly sized bench is much less tiring to use.
All the benches will be constructed so they can be assembled and disassembled using metal nuts and bolts so they will be easier to transport to your shop.
July 16-20
The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, Rockport, Maine
“By Hammer and Hand, Build the Dovetailed Schoolbox”
In this fast-paced class we build a Moxon, double-screw vise for dovetailing and a shooting board that works very well as a bench hook. Then we use these two appliances to build the Schoolbox featured in the book “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker,” an 1839 book of fiction written for the young apprentice.
July 30-Aug. 3
Kelly Mehler School of Woodworking
“The Anarchist’s Tool Chest”
We build the full-size tool chest from the book “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest.” This chest features lots of dovetails (you will become an expert by the end of the week) and a very nice raised-panel lid. We will have time to build only the outside of the chest – the shell, mouldings, skirts and lids – but we will discuss how to divide up the interior for efficient work.
Sept. 4-8, 2012 (Tuesday to Saturday)
Marc Adams School of Woodworking
“By Hammer and Hand: The Dovetailed Schoolbox”
In this fast-paced class we build a Moxon, double-screw vise for dovetailing and a shooting board that works very well as a bench hook. Then we use these two appliances to built the Schoolbox featured in the book “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker,” an 1839 book of fiction written for the young apprentice.
— Christopher Schwarz
While at the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking and Lie-Nielsen Toolworks during the last 15 days I took a lot of notes that I will be vomiting into my blog this week. Some of the entries require me to purchase some liquid plastic, wax paper and Wesson oil.
Or is that the shopping list for my next house party?
No… that’s the woodworking list.
Anyway, one of the cool little things I saw at Lie-Nielsen Toolworks last week will excite both the tool collectors and users.
Lie-Nielsen has added an extra inch of length to its much-beloved dovetail saw. The saw’s blade now comes with a 10”-long blade instead of a 9”-long blade. What does this mean for you?
If you are a user, it means the saw is a little faster in the cut. The Lie-Nielsen saw was already fast. This added length (and a tiny bit of extra weight) makes it noticeably faster. After using the new saw for a few days, I don’t think that it affected the balance of the tool. I was worried that it would be more toe-heavy as a result – a bad thing in my opinion.
The longer saw is now being sold by the company. The price of the longer saw is the same. And the 9” saw has now been discontinued.
And that will make the tool collectors tingle.
The 9” saw will now pass into legend and increase in price on the secondary market, just like the Lie-Nielsen bronze No. 9, the company’s chamfer guides for drawknives and the small bronze shoulder plane kit it used to sell.
So take care of those 9” saws for your children, especially the early ones stamped “Independence.”
— Christopher Schwarz