Lost Art Press

Category: Uncategorized

The Soft Wax Pipeline

Posted on by Lost Art Press

Katherine has just posted a big batch of Soft Wax 2.0 to her etsy store. Thanks to her new Heating Mixing Filling Machine, we are able to make more wax with less waste and fewer first-degree burns (though I did stupidly touch the heating element of the machine).

In working with Katherine, I also noticed that she overfills the jars. As I was helping her, I filled each jar to the 8 ounce line. 

“No dad,” she said. “I fill each one to the very top. I don’t want people to feel they are being cheated.” We then went back and filled all the jars to the very top.

So you are probably getting 9 oz. of wax. And after using her wax for awhile now, I think you can wax at least four chairs with one jar – not two, as I stated earlier.

Notes on the finish: This is the finish I use on my chairs. Katherine cooks it up here in the machine room using a waterless process. She then packages it in a tough glass jar with a metal screw-top lid. She applies her hand-designed label to each lid, boxes up the jars and ships them in a durable cardboard mailer. The money she makes from wax helps her make ends meet at college. Instructions for the wax are below.

Instructions for Soft Wax 2.0
Soft Wax 2.0 is a safe finish for bare wood that is incredibly easy to apply and imparts a beautiful low luster to the wood.

The finish is made by cooking raw, organic linseed oil (from the flax plant) and combining it with cosmetics-grade beeswax and a small amount of a citrus-based solvent. The result is that this finish can be applied without special safety equipment, such as a respirator. The only safety caution is to dry the rags out flat you used to apply before throwing them away. (All linseed oil generates heat as it cures, and there is a small but real chance of the rags catching fire if they are bunched up while wet.)

Soft Wax 2.0 is an ideal finish for pieces that will be touched a lot, such as chairs, turned objects and spoons. The finish does not build a film, so the wood feels like wood – not plastic. Because of this, the wax does not provide a strong barrier against water or alcohol. If you use it on countertops or a kitchen table, you will need to touch it up every once in a while. Simply add a little more Soft Wax to a deteriorated finish and the repair is done – no stripping or additional chemicals needed.

Soft Wax 2.0 is not intended to be used over a film finish (such as lacquer, shellac or varnish). It is best used on bare wood. However, you can apply it over a porous finish, such as milk paint.

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS (VERY IMPORTANT): Applying Soft Wax 2.0 is so easy if you follow the simple instructions. On bare wood, apply a thin coat of soft wax using a rag, applicator pad, 3M gray pad or steel wool. Allow the finish to soak in about 15 minutes. Then, with a clean rag or towel, wipe the entire surface until it feels dry. Do not leave any excess finish on the surface. If you do leave some behind, the wood will get gummy and sticky.

The finish will be dry enough to use in a couple hours. After a couple weeks, the oil will be fully cured. After that, you can add a second coat (or not). A second coat will add more sheen and a little more protection to the wood.

Soft Wax 2.0 is made in small batches in Kentucky. Each glass jar contains 8 oz. of soft wax, enough for at least two chairs (probably four chairs).

Crucible Dovetail Templates (now sold out)

Posted on by fitz

Edit: These are once again sold out. I _think_ we’ll have more later this week. The warehouse has just entered into inventory 125 Crucible Dovetail Templates – which means most of the production and packaging processes have been worked out. Whew! (Hopefully, we’ll soon be more reliably able to keep these in stock.)

– Fitz

Flattening Panels With Planes

Posted on by fitz
Before you can begin traversing with your jack plane, you should bevel off the far edge of the board with a few good strokes of your jack plane. This bevel reduces the “spelching” on that edge. (Spelching is the fun English word for “splintering.”)

The following is excerpted from “The Joiner & Cabinet Maker,” by Anonymous, Christopher Schwarz and Joel Moskowitz. The original short, book released in 1839, tells the fictional tale of Thomas, a lad of 13 or 14 who is apprenticed to a rural shop that builds everything from built-ins to more elaborate veneered casework. The book was written to guide young people who might be considering a life in the joinery or cabinetmaking trades, and every page is filled with surprises.

Unlike other woodworking books of the time, “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” focuses on how apprentices can obtain the basic skills needed to work in a hand-tool shop. It begins with Thomas tending the fire to keep the hide glue warm, and it details how he learns stock preparation, many forms of joinery and casework construction. It ends with Thomas building a veneered mahogany chest of drawers that is French polished. However, this is not a book for children. It is a book for anyone exploring hand-tool woodworking.

In our expanded version you’ll find the unabridged and unaltered original text; a historical snapshot of early 19th-century England; chapters on the construction of the three projects that show the operations in the book, explain details on construction and discuss the hand-tool methods that have arisen since this book was originally published; and complete construction drawings (you can download those files here).

With the glue dry, it’s time to flatten one face of all of your panels. Thomas begins with the jack plane then moves to the trying plane, yet the details of the operation are sketchy in “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker.”

Early workshop practice was to use the jack plane (sometimes called the fore plane) across the grain of a panel. This operation, which Joesph Moxon called “traversing” in his “Mechanick Exercises” of 1678, allows you to remove a good deal of deal without tearing the grain too deeply. Working the grain diagonally in both directions allows you to get the board fairly flat – Thomas checks the board with a straightedge as he works, which is always a good idea.

Before traversing a panel, check the panel using the edge of your plane, which is a fairly good straightedge. If the panel is cupped across its width (typically on the bark side of a board), then the work should be fairly easy to accomplish. If the board is crowned in the middle (typically on the heart side of a board), you need to watch what you are doing. Sometimes traversing and diagonal strokes aren’t enough to flatten a crowned surface.

Note: When you work at 45° to the grain of a panel, you will typically see more tearing in one direction than in the other. This is normal. Just make sure you finish your diagonal strokes in the direction that produces less tearing.

Traversing is a powerful hand-tool technique. You can remove a lot of material quickly and make the board flatter than when you began.

Determining when a board is flat can be a challenge. After some practice, you learn to tell by the way your planes respond when dressing the panel. The shavings become consistent in thickness, width and length all along the board. A straightedge can help. So can winding sticks, which aren’t mentioned in “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker.”

Diagonal strokes, as shown here, allow more of the plane’s sole to touch the panel. After some overlapping, you’ll find the panel is pretty flat once you can take a shaving from every point on the board.

Winding sticks are two identical sticks that are longer than the board is wide. They are placed at several points across the width of the board and compared by eye. When the panel is twisted, the sticks aren’t parallel. And because they are longer than the board is wide, they exaggerate any wind. The author of “The Joiner and Cabinet Maker” has a novel solution: Compare your panel to a known flat panel. If your panel rocks on the flat one, it’s in wind. Of course, the trick is getting that first panel flat. It’s possible to create two panels that are in wind but don’t rock on one another – the high spots of one panel nest into the low spots of the other and result in a false reading.

Check the panel using the wooden straightedge. Look for light as you hold the tool diagonally one way, then the other. Work the remaining high spots using the jack plane until the panel is close to flat.

However, once you get one panel flat, the method explained in the book works well.

Then dress the panel using the trying plane (sometimes called a jointer). I use diagonal strokes first. Then I finish up with strokes that follow the grain of the panel.
The top panel is flat. By placing it on top of the panel I am working and trying to rock the panel at the corners, I can test for wind. You do have to be careful here. Sometimes you can miss a problem when you have one low corner but the three other corners are coplanar. Keep a sharp eye.

Butternut (Juglans cinerea)

Posted on by fitz
Fig 2.13. Butternut (Juglans cineria) 60′-80′ (18-24 m) tall

The following is excerpted from “With the Grain,” by Christian Becksvoort.

It is, above all, succinct, easy to understand and perfectly suited for the furniture-maker. As important as what is in its 160 pages is what is not. It’s not a detailed analysis of cell growth. It is not a heap of tables and equations for figuring truss loads in residential construction. It is decidedly not a scientist’s approach to the material.

Instead, “With the Grain” contains the facts you need to know at the lumberyard, in the woodlot and in the shop. It gives you enough science so you understand how trees grow. It explains the handful of formulas you have to know as a furniture-maker. And it gives you a hearty dose of specific information about North American species that will inspire you. Becksvoort encourages you to use the trees in your neighborhood and makes the case that just because you cannot find catalpa at the lumberyard doesn’t mean it’s not a good furniture wood.

You’ll learn to identify the trees around you from their silhouette, leaves and shoots. And you’ll learn about how these species work in the shop – both their advantages and pitfalls.

Butternut, the closest relative to black walnut, is sometimes called white walnut, oilnut or lemon walnut. It is a rather short, spreading tree growing only to 30′-50′ (9-15 m) in the open, and occasionally reaching 60′-80′ (18-24 m) in the forest. The wood is not as strong as walnut, and branches are subject to wind and snow damage. The trees are short lived, seldom becoming more than 75 years old. Their natural habitat extends from New Brunswick through southern Canada into Wisconsin, south to Missouri and east to Virginia.

Editor’s note: The “actual size” and “1/4 actual size” refer to the print book, but not necessarily the size of these on your screen.

Several differences in leaf, branch and fruit structure make butternut distinguishable from black walnut. Butternut has 11-17 light green, sticky leaflets on its compound leaves, reaching a total of 15″-30″ (38-76 cm) in length. The twigs have a long terminal bud and a small, downy pad between the lateral bud and the leaf scar of the previous year. The pith in the twig is dark brown. The nuts have a green husk and are oval in shape, almost like pecans. The bark is gray-brown and ridged.

Bark

Butternut has light, creamy sapwood less than 1″ (2.5 cm) wide. The heartwood is medium brown and quite lustrous. It is very soft and light in weight, having a density of 27 lb/ft3 or .42 g/cc at 12 percent MC. The pores of this ring-porous wood are easily visible by eye and are filled with tyloses, while the rays are almost too small to be seen. The wood is used in cabinetwork, paneling, veneer, toys and millwork such as doors, sash and trim. It tools and machines well, and is a pleasant wood to work with. Unlike other woods, which darken or bleach with age, butternut tends to remain a medium-brown color.

End grain cross section (25x)
Courtesy of Univ. of ME School of Forest Resources, A. Autio
Face grain, quartersawn

More Soft Wax & Soft Wax News

Posted on by Lost Art Press

Katherine Schwarz and I spent some time this afternoon making a large order of soft wax 2.0 for her etsy store. It was the fastest and most consistent batch she has made since she started making wax several years ago.

After years of using homemade contraptions to heat and dispense the soft wax, we got serious. We now own a commercial mixer (designed for the cosmetics industry) that heats the ingredients to the correct temperature, blends them and allows us to easily dispense the soft wax into jars.

What usually took two days to do was completed in a couple hours. 

The cosmetic-grade wax balls about to be melted in the linseed oil.

The first batch made by our new mixer is now in her etsy store. More is to come. The machine worked so fast that we unexpectedly ran out of jars. 

Notes on the finish: This is the finish I use on my chairs. Katherine cooks it up here in the machine room using a waterless process. She then packages it in a tough glass jar with a metal screw-top lid. She applies her hand-designed label to each lid, boxes up the jars and ships them in a durable cardboard mailer. The money she makes from wax helps her make ends meet at college. Instructions for the wax are below.

Instructions for Soft Wax 2.0
Soft Wax 2.0 is a safe finish for bare wood that is incredibly easy to apply and imparts a beautiful low luster to the wood.

The finish is made by cooking raw, organic linseed oil (from the flax plant) and combining it with cosmetics-grade beeswax and a small amount of a citrus-based solvent. The result is that this finish can be applied without special safety equipment, such as a respirator. The only safety caution is to dry the rags out flat you used to apply before throwing them away. (All linseed oil generates heat as it cures, and there is a small but real chance of the rags catching fire if they are bunched up while wet.)

Soft Wax 2.0 is an ideal finish for pieces that will be touched a lot, such as chairs, turned objects and spoons. The finish does not build a film, so the wood feels like wood – not plastic. Because of this, the wax does not provide a strong barrier against water or alcohol. If you use it on countertops or a kitchen table, you will need to touch it up every once in a while. Simply add a little more Soft Wax to a deteriorated finish and the repair is done – no stripping or additional chemicals needed.

Soft Wax 2.0 is not intended to be used over a film finish (such as lacquer, shellac or varnish). It is best used on bare wood. However, you can apply it over a porous finish, such as milk paint.

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS (VERY IMPORTANT): Applying Soft Wax 2.0 is so easy if you follow the simple instructions. On bare wood, apply a thin coat of soft wax using a rag, applicator pad, 3M gray pad or steel wool. Allow the finish to soak in about 15 minutes. Then, with a clean rag or towel, wipe the entire surface until it feels dry. Do not leave any excess finish on the surface. If you do leave some behind, the wood will get gummy and sticky.

The finish will be dry enough to use in a couple hours. After a couple weeks, the oil will be fully cured. After that, you can add a second coat (or not). A second coat will add more sheen and a little more protection to the wood.

Soft Wax 2.0 is made in small batches in Kentucky. Each glass jar contains 8 oz. of soft wax, enough for at least two chairs.