Lost Art Press

Factory-Fresh Millers Falls Bench Stop

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We call them “tool pushers” in the collecting world. People who find out what sort of stuff you are interested in and feed you a steady stream of it until your wallet is dry.

One of the worst tool pushers is Slav Jelesijevich, a Chicago area tool collector, cabinetmaker and cat-loving wild man. Get to know Slav just a bit and you’ll receive photos of his cats (some of them in attack mode) and you’ll get leads on old tools that are new in the box. That’s his specialty. I bought a 1970s-era Rockwell band saw from him. In the box. A Work-Mate (in the box). Hammers with 1970s-era Super Bowl tags on them. And too many rasps and files to mention (I guess I just did mention them).

At Woodworking in America, Slav sold a lot of stuff. And a lot of it went home with the other toolmakers on the selling floor with him.

While I was yakking with someone (Harrelson Stanley?) Slav walked by and dropped something in my pocket. Then he disappeared. I knew that whatever it was, it was going to cost me.

It turned out to be something I’ve always wanted: A never-used Millers Falls bench stop. It is the height of gizmo-cool. Sure a simple block of wood can be your planing stop – you Philistine. Or you can get this remarkably sophisticated spring-loaded, quadra-sided piece of tool engineering awesomeness.

Here’s how you install it: Drill two holes in your bench – a 1″ hole inside a 2″ hole. Screw the stop in. You’re done.

Here’s how it works: Loosen the screw and the stop goes loosey and bouncy on a spring. Rotate the head until you have the type of stop you want. There’s a flat stop, a V-shaped slot, one with four big teeth and one with 10 little teeth.

Set the stop at the height you want – anything up to 1-1/8″ and then turn the screw to lock it. Done.

I’ve seen these in old catalogs, but I’ve never seen one in person. And now I own one that’s never been used. But that last part is going to change.

— Christopher Schwarz

We Have Three Winners

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The T-shirt slogan contest was great fun. I eventually had to stop checking the entries while I was at work, however, because I was worried that human resources was going to nail me for some of the stuff scrolling across my screen.

The three winning slogans are:

“Trying Stuff Since 1678” from Mike Siemsen. Lucy, my spouse and a writer, called out this one as the most clever of all the entries.

“We Nail, We Screw, We Bolt” from Ben Davis. When I insisted on this one, Lucy rolled her eyes as if to say “You wish.”

I let Lucy pick the third winner, which turned out to be quite disturbing on a personal level.

“Inch-prickt Since 1678” by Dave Fisher.

Ben and Dave: Drop me a line at christopher.schwarz@fuse.net. My blog software ate your e-mail addresses.

The winners will all receive the Pin-Eez sawnut tool and one of the T-shirts with the current slogan. As soon as we sell out of those, we’ll use one of these new ones.

Thanks to everyone who entered.

— Christopher Schwarz

How to Use How-to Information

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When I was in high school, my father gave me a great gift: a leather vest.

I wore the snot out of that thing. I wore it when I dated my future wife in college. I wore it when Steve Shanesy interviewed me for my job here at Popular Woodworking. I have – quite literally – worn the buttons off the thing.

Last year, I realized that my beloved cow covering was a catastrophe. Frayed. A bit smelly. Unusually soiled.

So after 20 years of faithful service, I retired that vest and decided to buy myself a new one. My new vest is well made, but it’s shiny and stiff. I am neither.

So I sought out some way to age the finish on the vest. I found a lot of advice out there: Drag it behind my car. Put it in the clothes dryer with some rocks. Sand it. Wad it up, stuff it under the bed and sleep on it over and over.

As I considered all this advice I noticed something about the givers. None of these advisers had actually done this to their precious skin-based garments. They were just repeating things they had heard or were making up things that “should work.”

So I dug deeper until I found the stagehands. According to these people, they used denatured alcohol to age leather costumes for plays about pirates, bikers and S&M-loving citizens. Their instructions were specific and consistent: Put alcohol in a spray bottle. Spray a large surface and then wipe it down. Instant age.

It sounded like wood finishing advice, so I was instantly skeptical. So I decided to do what any wary woodworker would do: I tried it on a hidden area of a non-essential garment.

It worked. So I went to town on my new vest with a squirt bottle and a rag.

Now I have a vest I’m more comfortable in, and a new appreciation for how-to information. You see, whenever I write something about woodworking, I strive never to repeat things as gospel that I haven’t tried. If my name is on it, I’ve done it. Or I’m quoting someone I trust.

This isn’t always the case in any journalism (including knitting journalism and ferret-training journalism). I have read enough garbage in my lifetime to know that some people just repeat other people’s garbage because it has been repeated enough times that it has to be true.

This is the long way of saying that we should do what Virgil (70 B.C. – 19 B.C.) recommended: “Believe one who has tried it.”

— Christopher Schwarz

Cleverness Contest: Win a Split Nut Driver

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If you write hilarious T-shirt slogans and have some hand saws with loose nuts (and who doesn’t) then read on.

We’re giving away three custom split-nut drivers made using the Pin-Eez tool. (If it doesn’t sound like I’m typing English here, read this blog entry and it will all make sense.) The manufacturer of the Pin-Eez gave me these three tools last week to thank me for my blog entry.

So what do you have to do to win this fabulous split-nut driver? Be hilarious. We’re trolling around for the next slogan to put on the back of our Lost Art Press T-shirts. We sold out of the ones that read “Rude Mechanicks Since 1678.” Our latest T-shirt features the slogan “Boring Since 1678.” Click here to see that shirt.

The slogan has to be short – six words or less. And it has to relate (obviously) to woodworking, hand tools, beer drinking, Joseph Moxon, Andre Roubo – or preferably all of those at once.

Here is how you enter: Simply post your slogan as a comment at the end of this blog entry before midnight, Friday, Feb. 6. Be sure to include an e-mail address so we can contact you. (This isn’t a scam to collect your e-mail addresses; we’re not that sophisticated.)

We’ll pick our three favorite slogans and announce the three winners on Feb. 7. Each winner will receive a split-nut driver and a T-shirt with the current slogan.

— Christopher Schwarz

The Accurate Eyeball

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As mentioned in my last post, I set my tools at the proper angle in my honing guides by sighting the tools against a little block of wood that is marked with the various angles I use.

As I prepared to sharpen my smoothing plane iron this morning, I took some photos so you could see how I do this quickly, accurately and without getting sliced open like a hog’s jugular.

First, a word about honing guides. In addition to the small Kell honing guide I use for chisels, I use an Eclipse 36 guide for plane irons. The Eclipse 36 was the DNA for the $10 to $15 Taiwanese honing guides in every catalog today. But like a photocopy, the Taiwanese versions aren’t as sharp as the original.

In general, the paint on the Taiwanese guides is too thick and pools where you don’t want it to (especially in the dovetailed ways that are designed to hold chisels). Plus, the copies don’t hold tools as firmly because things just don’t line up like they do on the Eclipse.

As I’ve seen hundreds of honing guides in my 13 years at Popular Woodworking; and my opinion on this is as firm as my love for Belgian ales.

Here’s the part where you hate me. It appears the Eclipse 36 is no longer made. (If I’m wrong here, give me a shout.) I bought mine from Highland Hardware, but that catalog no longer carries it. All my other searches for a U.S. supplier have turned up naught.

If you’re a little cracked (like me), then I recommend you search eBay’s United Kingdom site. They turn up there frequently, even guides that are new in the box.

Setting the Tool in the Guide
The first step is to position your little block of wood perfectly flush to the end of your bench. Use your fingertips – this will get you within a thousandth of an inch.

Now secure the tool in the guide but clamp its jaws loosely on the tool. You want to be able to shift the guide forward and back on the tool with finger pressure. But you don’t want the guide to fall off.

Place the guide on your benchtop and roll the edge up to the end of your bench. Place the fingers of your right hand on top of the tool and press down. Move the edge of the tool to the end of the benchtop as shown in the photo. I have never cut myself through three (now four) presidential administrations.

With your left hand, push the honing guide forward (or back) until the tool lines up with the angled line on your block. For plane irons, I grind the bevel at 25° and sharpen a 35° secondary bevel. So I’m lining up the tool with the 35° line.

Now take your left hand and tighten the guide enough to lock your setting. Then use a screwdriver to really lock the sucker down. Then get to sharpening.

— Christopher Schwarz