Lost Art Press

Wounds in the Workshop, Minor and Otherwise

Posted on by Lost Art Press

I’m not afraid to pull down my pants, turn my head and cough when it comes to discussing workshop practice. And after reading this very interesting bit on treating wounds with French polish, I decided to discuss some of the stuff I do – advisable or not.

When I cut myself in the shop and it’s not ER-able, the first thing I do is wash out the wound in the sink with running water and soap. Then I put some Neosporin or some such on the wound.

But how do I close the wound so that I can continue to work? That depends.

If it’s real minor, I use fabric bandages from the drugstore. Yawn, I know. But these bandages – no matter how much money I spend on them – are usually wrecked when I move my joints. Most woodworking wounds are on the hands, so most bandages don’t last long.

So if it’s a bleeder, I take some other steps that have worked well in my shop for 15 years without any problems. First, clean the wound. Clean it. Clean. It. Then:

1. Blue tape and a clean paper towel. Yup, make your own custom dressing with these two common shop products. Why do I do this? It’s a much more “adaptable” dressing. Even good fabric bandages don’t last the whole day in the shop. Blue tape sure does. And the tape resists dirt. Fabric bandages absorb it.

2. Cyanoacrylate with accelerator. This is my favorite wound-closer. After cleaning things out, I’ll press the wound together, apply some cyano over it and squirt it with accelerator. If it’s a wound on a joint, I’ll usually add a second coat of cyano to make a tough skin. I follow that up with the blue tape/paper towel as noted above to keep the dirt out, and I am good to go.

3. Recently, I’ve made some bandages from clean strips of cotton (old T-shirts) soaked with hide glue. You make the bandages beforehand so they look like light brown strips of dried bacon. But they work. You wrap them around the wound and they tack pretty quick. I still prefer cyano over all the other methods, but this is a good field solution.

I know that the doctors will likely cringe at my methods. But I have had far fewer problems with infection once I started actively closing the wounds with cyano and blue tape.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Chestmaker’s Apprentice

Posted on by fitz

Everything I need for my tool chest shell.

Christopher Schwarz is literally off the grid at the moment – so he has no idea that I’ve commandeered his blog for the weekend (though I suspect he’ll soon figure it out). But it seems appropriate, because I’ve finally begun building my version of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” (ATC).

It’s pathetic that I’ve waited this long.

I watched as Chris built his first ATC in late 2010, before, I think, he’d even come up with the title. He’d leave the Popular Woodworking shop every night (you know…when he still worked for a living) to race home and make dinner for his family, then write until the wee hours. And after he was satisfied with the words, he moved on to the images and book design.

By April 2011, Chris was almost done. I distinctly recall copy editing an almost-final proof of ATC on April 15 and 16 last year. Why? Because there was a Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event (and the public unveiling of Chris’s chest…so to speak) in our office/shop that weekend – so I was wielding my peacock-blue editing pen (it’s so much kinder than red) while also talking with visitors and giving tool demonstrations. And Chris wanted the book off to the printer on April 17. If you have a first edition of the book, well, that explains the crap editing.

So I read the book twice again before the second edition was published (and caught almost all the earlier mistakes) and again before the third edition (at which point I caught, I hope, the rest of them). If you have the latest edition and find an error, I really don’t want to know (but Chris does – feel free to point it out to him).

After “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” was published, Chris started traveling around the world to teach classes on building the chest (like Elvis, he’d by that point left the [PW] building). And I even spent a week as his helper monkey at Roy Underhill’s The Woodwright’s School early this spring, during which I cut what I think was eleventy-billion board feet of poplar for all the students’ skirts, lid pieces, bottom boards and battens. (I’m now awfully good with a panel saw, if I do say so myself). I helped glue up cases and fit skirts, and helped a new woodworker learn to cut his first hand-cut dovetails (though he didn’t need much help).

This is all a (very) long-winded way of saying that I know “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” inside and out – both the book and the construction. Yet I’ve not actually built the darn thing.

Within the next two weeks, if all goes according to plan that will have changed. This morning, I glued up panels for the case front, back and sides (and pesky knotholes have dictated that my chest be just shy of the 24″-wide panels called for; I guess that’s my idea of anarchy?).

Tomorrow, I’ll trim the panels to final size and process the stock for the skirts (yes, I’m using the PWM power equipment for that – sue me). Then, I’ll bring everything home to my hand-tool shop and break out the dovetail saw. My goal is to have the shell, bottom, battens and skirts done by next weekend, at which time I’ll build the lid. But unlike someone else, well, I still have to go to work every day…so I hope I can stick to my plan.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

p.s. Christopher will be back on the grid – but busy teaching – come Monday. He’s back at Roy’s in Pittsboro, N.C., teaching students to build…the Anarchist’s Tool Chest. (This time, he’ll have to do his own rough stock prep.)

p.p.s. The best thing about this build so far? I needed to buy liquid hide glue, and the only place near me that sells it happens to be right next door to Graeter’s. Excellent!

If They’d Had a Biscuit Joiner…

Posted on by Lost Art Press

… then they would have had joints that failed suddenly instead of slowly and gradually – like a mortise-and-tenon does. I know this after dropping an anvil on a lot of joints.

If they’d had a router, they would have used it – unless they didn’t want to sand out all the machine marks on the mouldings.

If they’d had a dovetail jig, they would have used it – unless they didn’t want the jig to dictate the height of their drawers.

If they’d had a random-orbit sander, they would have used it – unless they were skilled with a handplane, which would make them faster than the sander. And they might not wanted to spend the money on sandpaper, which has always been expensive.

If they’d had PVA, they would have used it – unless they wanted their joints to be reversible and unless they wanted to dial in the gram strength and open time of their adhesive.

If they’d had dowels, they would have used them – unless they preferred a joint that wasn’t mostly end grain.

If they’d had a table saw, they would have used it – unless they wanted zero grain runout on their stock (which is what you get when you rive your wood) so it was as strong as possible.

If they’d had a drill press they would have used it – unless they wanted to drill a hole at any other angle than 90°.

If they’d had a chop saw they would have used it – unless they wanted to saw something angled or compound.

OK, I’m sure you’re sick of this line of thought. I am. Truth is, I dislike talking about this sort of stuff. Work wood the way you want to. But when you get assaulted by people who say that power tools would rule if they were sent back in time through some wormhole, I have to laugh.

I have access to a CNC machine. I would never use it for building furniture.

I have access to fancy word processors that will correct my grammar, spelling and punctuation, but I never use them. They slow me down, try to correct things I don’t want to correct and generally get in the way of good writing.

I could buy a car with an automatic transmission, but it would interfere with the amount of control I want when I drive.

I prefer vinyl over digital music. Et cetera.

We all make choices about the technology we employ in every task we do. So why would we assume that the people of the past would like to do things the way we do? I sure as heck don’t want to “print” a piece of furniture using a 3D printer. Trust me, that’s coming.

When that day arrives, then maybe all woodworkers will stand united. Until then, let’s allow the woodworkers of the past rest in peace.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Be sure to read Peter Follansbee’s take on this topic on his blog.

Are Winding Sticks Necessary?

Posted on by Lost Art Press

Editor’s note: Today we have a guest blog from John Leko, a furniture maker in Huntsville, Ala. Visit his web site at jleko.com.

When I’m milling rough boards into lumber, I have never employed winding sticks. Instead I have a long(ish) straightedge that is used to try the board in three positions.

First, across its width. I start with the board “cup up” and traverse it with my low-angled jack plane. When I’m taking a shaving across the entire width throughout my board’s desired length, the cup has been removed, and I switch to planing down the long-grain. This proceeds until all of the cross-grain “tracks” have vanished.

To address the long-grain furrows left by the jack, I switch to the jointer, which also happens to be a bevel-up tool. Using good technique (or at least trying to…), I flatten this face, checking it with the straightedge at several points across the board’s width.

Finally, I cant the straight edge skew to the grain, and test along the board’s length first in one direction, then askew in the other. If either direction reveals a gap, the jointer plane is employed to remove material along a perpendicular skew line until the gap closes. Mind the gap!

In this fashion, I have always been able to produce true flat stock without the aid of winding sticks. This method removes any subjectivity from the determination. Can I see a hint of white (on the rear stick) still? For me, it’s a great deal easier to see the gap between the straight edge and the board’s surface.

For really long boards, I can see where winding sticks could be helpful, but I debate theirs usefulness for most other stock. Maybe I’m wrong?

— J. Leko

The Most Eco-friendly Waterbase Finish I’ve Used

Posted on by Lost Art Press

Unfettered by tradition or dogma, woodworking students can have occasional flashes of brilliance. To wit: During a class last week at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking, I noticed that two of the students were using a waterbase finish I’d never seen before.

The finish didn’t add much color, but it didn’t have the blue cast than many modern waterbase finishes do. It was in fact the most “water-white” finish I’d seen. It also was thin enough to be ragged on and had very low odor. Like all waterbase finishes, it cleaned up easily with water.

Downsides: You have to use quite a number of coats before you get any significant build, it raised the grain (of course) and – similar to a linseed oil finish – it has to be renewed regularly. Very regularly.

Another downside: Despite the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS to safety nerds), several of the other students in the class were worried if the finish was food-safe. The MSDS noted traces of chlorine, giardia and (surprisingly) fluoride. So perhaps you should just stick with walnut oil or salad bowl finish to be on the safe side.

And speaking of safety, while the students were applying the finish without nitrile gloves, I think it’s always best to err on the side of caution. Use the nitrile gloves and work in a well-ventilated area. And always dispose of your rags properly.

In any case, it’s another finish you can add to your arsenal, unless you live in California, where woodworkers are worried that the legislature might ban it.

— Christopher Schwarz