The 2018 class schedule is now live at The Woodwright’s School website. Roy Underhill has been diligently working on the new calendar of classes for the upcoming year and it is finally complete. Most of the regular classes are back with many new classes added as well. You can check it out here.
As most of you know, if there is a class you are interested in get signed up ASAP, they fill up quickly.
— Will Myers
One of the things I miss the most by not teaching is the hand-tool immersion classes for younger woodworkers. These low-cost classes are a fantastic way to jump-start the woodworking skills and tool chest of young adults.
After I canceled my teaching schedule, Mike Siemsen picked up where I left off with the hand tool immersion class. Mike will be teaching a discounted class in June 2016 for young adults at his school north of Minneapolis. He has received many offers of assistance – everything from cash to tools to food.
Below is his Mike’s note on how you can help.
— Christopher Schwarz
First off: Thank you. Your generosity is much appreciated.
Here’s how you can help
Tuition: If you wish to sponsor a student taking the class, you can send a check made out to the Mike Siemsen’s School of Woodworking. You can send the check to Mike at:
Mike Siemsen
9912 Green Lake Trail (County 23)
Chisago City, MN 55013
Simply write in the memo section of the check that the donation is for the Hand-tool Immersion Course. Sorry but this donation is not tax deductible. If you have any questions about donating tuition money for students, call Mike at 651-257-9166.
Tools: If you would like to donate some of your tools to the class that will be given to the students, you can send them to Mike at the same address above. Below is a list of the tools we hope to supply for all 16 students with details of what we are looking for in the tools.
Tool Kit for the New Anarchist
Planes
Boring
Striking
Marking/Measuring
Sawing/Rasping
A few people have asked if they can donate food or tutoring assistance during the class. I’m going to try to come up with a plan for those aspects of the class early in 2016. So stay tuned.
If you have any questions about helping out with these classes, drop me a line at:
Mike Siemsen
9912 Green Lake Trail (County 23)
Chisago City, MN 55013
651-257-9166
I hear of good people sending Chris tools to help young makers. Most of us have too many tools; I am still buying tools at 66 and giving lots away to students and friends. It’s a great gift, something you have used and worked with. There is a load of romance in used tools. The history of who had it before you were given it, or got it on eBay. Their sweat is burnished into the handle. If you are like me, you hope that a little of their skill will help you do a bit better job.
I put out a general “if you have any tools that you think could go into this chest to help a young maker get going let me know.” Well I don’t know if British makers are just mean or didn’t hear me but the response has largely been from across the pond. Typical is this:
David,
I hope these help get someone inspired to work more with their hands and wood. It’s odd that a nail set or chalk line can provoke something inside. And this something can last a lifetime. Well, these tools are genuine… nothing fancy. Please consider something for the runner-up … to all of us who didn’t make first place.
Bob
Bob asked for his gift to be anonymous, well I respect that, but cannot allow it to go unmarked. (sorry, Bob) The tools Bob sent me, and it cost him $70 to mail it to me, are old, good and useful, and all will go in the chest. I will also take Bob’s point on “failing” to win. Something for the poor devil who will do the final week but not win the chest. They have the courage to try and fail and deserve recognition. So who amongst you, following Bob’s example, have a good shoulder plane that you can give up? Let me know here and I will get back to you.
This will be Political. Bench planes always are.
I have, I must admit, asked Matthew at Workshop Heaven to donate here. I will, where I can afford it, buy tools in, like the panel saws and see if I can upgrade my own tool box. I will then pass one of my saws on to the young person who will get this tool chest. (They only have one more month to apply.) I wanted a No 6 bench plane; what Matthew sent me very kindly was a 5-1/2 Quangsheng. My aim was to look at these planes again. When they first came on the market I reviewed them and was less than happy. They have since revised these planes and they seem to be getting a good place in the market. I am delighted by this. From the point of view of the young maker with shallow pockets, I hate it that good tools are shiny and rosewood decorated, and expensive.
I have got a Lie-Nielsen No 7 in one of the many student tool boxes here that is a strong candidate. It’s in use at the moment so Jon’s No 6 is showing in my images. My comparison is between the Cheap Chinese and the really good Yank.
First a credit to the work of one man. Tom Lie-Nielsen has done more to enable good making to carry on, in my lifetime, than anyone I know. Quite simply he has put tools out there that give you a chance. For years in the 1980s and 1990s I wrestled with steel bananas. Tool-shaped objects created by marketing departments and accountants that challenged anyone attempting to learn to make. What was wrong you, or the tool? That they were patently not fit for function took us some years to establish. I vividly remember one student flattening a Record No. 6 eight times in 12 months and the damn thing was still moving! Tom gave us flat planes, and publicly, I thank you. Veritas followed behind often with “that’s a great solution but what exactly was the problem?” Their contribution should also be applauded. Alan Reid at Clifton gathered the remnants of a destroyed Sheffield tool industry and heroically attempted to enable good affordable bench planes to be made available to us. His forged steel Victor blades were in all planes at Rowden that could be modified to take them. I am desperately sad that these blades are no longer being made and not offered by the new management at Clifton.
The Western bench plane is a precise and complex version of a chisel stuck in a block of wood.
When any bench plane comes into the workshop at Rowden we check the perimeter flatness on a ground granite slab that has been certificated for compliance to almost atomic flatness. I remember it cost me an eye-watering amount of money. They go on this slab and our finest now rather crumpled feeler gauge is tested around the edge. Most planes these days get past this test (or they go back!!). It’s what is going on in middle of the plane surface that concerns us next.
Putting a straightedge across the plane sole from side to side now slip that feeler gauge under the blade in the centre of the plane sole. Tom’s planes generally come out quite well with half a thou being the worst. This we remedy in the time-honoured way with thick sheet glass, checked for flat, well-supported as a surface to work on. We use double-sided tape rather than spray adhesive and #180-grit wet and dry paper and a little water. There should no need to do too much work on the sole to get most of the hollow out. Wearing the abrasive unevenly is a challenge that good technique just about overcomes.
The LN No. 7 was pretty well spot-on, needing a very short dressing, but the Quangsheng showed a good three quarter thou hollow that I told Jon not to spend more than half an hour working on.
The LN No. 7 has a blade and back iron that does a great job. It’s A2 steel, which holds a decent edge for a long time. For stock removal and general work this is a good blade. For final shaving it’s is a little lacking in sharpness. But you would probably not use this plane for that purpose anyway.
The Quangsheng 5-1/2 is a potential finishing plane being small and fitted with a carbon steel O1 blade. I didn’t go and check this plane out as I have a walnut table in my studio being polished. But Jon set it up and got some pretty fine shavings.
In winding this up, to complicate a simple problem. I offer an image of my current bench plane. Chisel in block of wood, but it’s the most sophisticated version of a simple concept. I would not suggest this for the beginner. It’s like driving a Ferrari, you have to be good enough or it will kill you. But I offer it as an idea to those of you who are older and wiser and needing to conserve energy. These light, incredibly sharp tools can be very effective in the right hands. In Summer School I glued up my chest half day after my fastest students, but was able to catch up, by the afternoon, even allowing for glue to set up, as my planes were that much better at final finish.
Thank you Tom, thank you Matthew. Both planes are going in the tool chest for our young furniture maker.
Hurrah, that’s a tricky one done….
Panel saws, huh? Well I have got a few handsaws. A superb old Disston 10 point hangs on my wall gathering dust. I just got out of the habit of using it; lazy really. The dovetail and tenon saws see a quite a bit of daylight as they are bench saws. I could go to the table saw rather than pick up a tenon saw but I am probably quicker with a tenon saw. And I avoid the shlep. I have a nice, big, well-equipped machine shop just behind the studio here. But it’s a bit of a shlep. So a small panel saw seems to be getting more and more use as I get more confident in using it.
That’s an alarming admission. Yes, I have not used a panel saw as much lately as I did when I was younger. You forget a lot in 40-odd years of furniture making. That is the effect of the machine shop. The band or table saw are just too good, too reliable to not be used in this role every day. And the panel saw takes effort, work, sweat. All of which is pleasant to avoid on a warm sunny day – unless really necessary.
But it’s nice cutting down a line with a small panel saw using a sawhorse properly. No screaming router, just argh, argh argh. I wish I had had one years ago. My old Disston is great, but somehow too big, a small panel saw can become a bench tool, like a tenon saw. Saves a lot of shlepping about.
So what have we got for this young person’s tool chest that will make any sense? The biggest change in saws that I have seen is the arrival of the cheap, throw-away saw. These we have all over the shop; they hang on hooks behind almost every door. These are board saws. They usually have a Japanese tooth pattern and get loads of use quickly ripping up board material or crosscutting the odd bit of solid.
It’s hateful, but we buy them, use them and chuck them away. It’s a scandalous waste of resources that we should be ashamed of, as my daughter would tell me. But saw doctors are getting older and not being replaced. Our saw doc, Brian Mills, is retired now; thankfully he still does all our hand saws and planer blades. Getting them back into shape after we have mutilated them. Don’t tell him, because he would put his prices up, but he is invaluable. I don’t think Brian has trained a replacement, and when he stops, which will never happen, we are in trouble.
First up are the two cheap throw-aways: the Irwin 990 Fine with a 10-point toothline and a disgusting purple plastic handle. There is also an Irwin 880 Universal 9 point with a disgusting orange plastic handle. They are both razor sharp to a state that they can easily cut you very badly. Both these do a great job, and I will not dwell upon them. Our experience is that the toothline holds up so well that you don’t chuck them away as soon as you should. This means you find yourself working much harder with dull saw than you should. Was that not always the way?
I will keep the purple one; it goes with my purple tool chest. So the orange one goes to our winner. What winner? You must have heard? Well, we are gathering tools to fill this tool chest. One Chris Schwarz made when he was here with us at Rowden in the summer. And we are giving it to a young maker under 25. Application details are here.
Now we come to the meat. Two of the best panel saws I could lay hands on. If I missed your saws I am sorry but I can only look at two. These are not “review” saws; I bought these and paid a pretty penny for the Lie-Nielsen 12-point crosscut saw at £174.46 from Axminster Power Tools. The best British saw I could find, and I can’t avoid wanting to support British tool makers, was from Roberts and Lee. Their Dorchester range made now by Thomas Flinn and Co. of Sheffield. This is another 20”, 10 pointer crosscut but at £100.31. Alan Peters had Roberts and Lee saws; my first dovetail saw was Roberts and Lee. So they have history with me. Not all of it good.
These are very different saws apart from the price. One is a stiffy one a floppy. Both are taper ground, meaning the plate of the saw is ground thinner near the top of the saw to give clearance. Both claim to be hand sharpened and indeed both cut very well. The differences come with the handle, the plate and the toothline.
The handle of the LN saw is beautiful, a ripple maple piece of work clearly inspired by Disston. Handles matter. It’s the bit YOU engage with. The junction of handle to the blade matters. This fit on the LN saw is pretty near perfect. The Dorchester saw handle is pretty crude in comparison without the decorative embellishments of the LN. But it fits my hand OK. The fit of the blade to the handle of the Dorchester is tight with five fixings, but the kerf of the cut the plate fits into is still a deal wider than the saw plate. The LN saw seems to be perfectly matched, kerf in the handle, to plate held in place with three brass fitttings.
The plates of these saws are fundamentally different. The Dorchester is a stiff saw with a thicker blade The Lie-Nielsen saw a floppy thin bladed saw in the Disston tradition. You could play a good tune on the LN saw. This is a personal preference thing. Common wisdom was, stiffies for board stuff and floppies for solid, but I don’t think that is totally true. I like the stiff blade of the Dorchester in this small saw, and it seems to cut well for me. Not that the Lie-Nielsen panel saw doesn’t do a great job.
The last difference which makes me sing with happiness is the breasted tooth line of the Dorchester. If you look down the line of the teeth they are not straight but slightly domed. Not much, probably a quarter of an inch. But that for me makes a difference. It’s to do with the geometry of my arm swinging away and the teeth engaging in the timber. Missed a trick there Tom.
Beautiful though the Lie-Nielsen 10-point panel saw is, I am going to put that saw in the prize winning box and keep the Dorchester for myself.