We get a fair number of complaints about the price of the Crucible Card Scraper. (Not from blog readers; y’all are nice.) Why does a piece of steel cost $23?
So we prepared this video to explain the steps that go into making it. And explain why we think $23 is a fair price for the tool. I’m placing the video here so our customer service people have a place for the curious and the grumpy to land.
— Christopher Schwarz
P.S. We also have a video on how to sharpen the scraper here.
The following is excerpted from “Cut & Dried,” by Richard Jones.
Richard has spent his entire life as a professional woodworker and has dedicated himself to researching the technical details of wood in great depth, this material being the woodworker’s most important resource. The result is “Cut & Dried: A Woodworker’s Guide to Timber Technology.” In this book, Richard explores every aspect of the tree and its wood, from how it grows to how it is then cut, dried and delivered to your workshop.
Richard explores many of the things that can go right or wrong in the delicate process of felling trees, converting them into boards, and drying those boards ready to make fine furniture and other wooden structures. He helps you identify problems you might be having with your lumber and – when possible – the ways to fix the problem or avoid it in the future.
“Cut & Dried” is a massive text that covers the big picture (is forestry good?) and the tiniest details (what is that fungus attacking my stock?). And Richard offers precise descriptions throughout that demanding woodworkers need to know in order to do demanding work.
The main drying faults in planks or boards are: distortion or warping that are the result of shrinkage in the grain; plus the internal checking, surface checking and end splitting caused by shrinkage where all these faults may be exacerbated by drying processes. The following faults are entirely drying faults: collapse (aka core collapse in North America), shell set in oversize condition, honeycombing, case-hardening and the very rare reverse case-hardening.
Another drying fault sometimes apparent is discolouration of the wood. One discolouration, sticker stain, has already been discussed in section 8.3. Additional drying-induced discolouration of wood is discussed in section 9.2.
The causes of distortion or warping are discussed in section 7.4, but the natural warping of wood due to moisture loss and aggressive drying, whether in a kiln or air dried, may magnify the distortion.
With reference to figure 9.1, at the beginning of the drying process wet wood is not under undue stress. It is only as it dries that stresses begin to develop. At the beginning of the drying process all the cell lumen are full of liquid, or at least partially filled and, most importantly, the cell walls show no significant sign of stress-inducing shrinkage. It’s not until free water in any cell in the wood has gone and the bound water in the cell walls and the cavities begins to leave that shrinkage starts. It’s counterintuitive but drying faults such as surface checking and honeycombing develop at high wood moisture content, but the following discussion explains this phenomenon.
At the beginning of the drying process water is first lost through the ends of a board where the end grain is exposed, and from the fibres near the board’s surface. The 12″ to 16″ (300 mm to 400 mm) at each end of a board exchange water vapour faster through the relatively porous end grain than the board edges and faces. As wood dries, a moisture gradient develops. If the wood is dried quickly with high heat and fast-moving air, a steep moisture gradient forms. If we take as an example wet wood, e.g., at an average 50 percent MC, and subject it to high heat, this causes moisture at the surface to rapidly evaporate out of the cavities and the cellular structure. The tissue below the surface or shell is still at an average 50 percent MC and also still cool. But the situation changes quickly as the now drier and warm shell transmits heat toward the centre of the wood through the intermediate zone. The additional warmth affecting the intermediate zone encourages moisture movement toward the now drier shell. In turn, the intermediate zone transmits heat toward the core of the wood and moisture starts moving from the core to the intermediate zone, and on outward toward the shell and out of the wood. It’s not difficult to see, having just described the mechanics of drying how, for example, surface checking develops whilst wood still has a high average moisture content.
All these different zones at different moisture contents create the moisture gradient within the wood. A steep moisture gradient means the wood is drying very quickly. For instance, extremely rapid drying occurs in the oven-drying test used to determine moisture content. In this case the samples are small and there is a large surface area (particularly end grain exposure) to volume ratio, letting the moisture out relatively easily. But you could put a piece of green wood 20″ long x 8″ wide x 4″ thick (500 mm x 210 mm x 105 mm) in a large-enough oven and start drying it in the same way. Now the surface-area-to-volume ratio is small compared to the small samples used in oven drying to determine moisture content. The rapid drying of a large piece of wood causes a steep moisture gradient that puts large stresses on it. The surface dries quickly, but the moisture in the cells in the intermediate zone and the core can’t escape fast enough to prevent tension and compression stresses developing in the board.
On the other hand, if you put the same piece of green 20″ x 8″ x 4″ wood in a sealed plastic bag it will barely dry at all. Even keeping the bagged piece of wood in a warm room where heat transfers to the wood and causes the moisture in the shell to evaporate, there’s nowhere for the moisture to go once the air in the bag reaches 100 percent RH. In all likelihood leaving a piece of wood encased in a plastic bag like this for a couple of weeks in warm conditions would result in a fuzz of mould developing. But, importantly, from our point of view of discussing moisture gradients, this piece of wood would exhibit a shallow moisture gradient. Shallow moisture gradients don’t put much stress on the wood, but the problem from a timber or lumber dryer’s point of view with shallow moisture gradients and slow drying is twofold: firstly, stock turning over too slowly to make any profit; secondly, serious disfiguring mould development, which is less likely when wood is dried faster.
Tension stresses are “ripping apart” forces. Compression stresses are “crushing forces.” To dry wood quickly in a kiln requires getting the balance right between tension and compression forces induced by the movement of moisture out of the wood. Get the balance right and the wood comes out of the kiln stress free, or near-enough stress free. Get them wrong and the faults depicted in figure 9.1 reveal themselves.
Despite our best efforts to get him on a payment plan, Chris’ outstanding tab at the local bar has run up to astronomical heights. To offset the damage a bit, we’re dropping prices on a few past projects – the Blackout Tee and our Ebbets ballcaps.
The tees are a thick, tough 6.1-ounce jersey, tube-knit from domestically grown cotton. That’s about 50 percent heavier than your typical cheapo tee, and the tubular knit means no side seams to chafe and/or fall apart. They’re proudly Union-sewn in California, discharge printed in Oregon, and we couldn’t be happier with them (aside from their being remarkably difficult to photograph).
The hats are a heavy brushed cotton bull twill, with a short, flexible brim – you can wad the cap up and put it in a pocket, and its shorter length doesn’t bang into the top of the band saw when you’re focusing on a cut. They’re gorgeously made in the USA by Ebbets Field Flannels.
— Tom Bonamici
I finished writing “The Stick Chair Book” last year with great reluctance. There were scads of techniques and forms of stick chairs that I still wanted to explore. But I knew that I was reaching the mechanical limits of our bindery (the book is 632 pages) and the patience of the readers (the book is 632 pages).
So I vowed to write some softcover “supplements” to “The Stick Chair Book.” Each supplement would explore a different form of chair and the new techniques required to build it.
I’ve been hard at work on the first supplement since September. As I started assembling my notes, I realized that the material went way beyond my original outline. When put together, all the different parts were like, well, a magazine.
Now, most of you know that I would sooner make sweet love to a porcupine than start a magazine. I did my time.
But I couldn’t ignore all these bits and pieces and how they fit together. As an exercise, I decided to sketch out the next few supplements, and the ideas came together quickly and seamlessly. Each supplement had a new chair plan, plus half a dozen articles on techniques and tools that expanded the stick chair universe.
Well damn.
So I am bewildered to announce the “The Stick Chair Journal, Vol. 1,” which will be available in September 2022. The Journal will be built and sold like a book. It will be 7-1/4” wide and 9-5/8” tall (the same dimensions as “Welsh Stick Chairs”). Coated paper. Sewn bindings. With a heavy card-stock cover. And it will have 128 to 160 pages – a very efficient size for printing.
There will be no subscriptions. No advertising. And it will be sold like a book – $20 per issue. Here’s a look at the first issue:
The Chair
The first issue will feature complete plans and construction information for a new six-stick comb-back chair. The chair armbow is made of four pieces with mitered ends. The hands have a thin, cut-away profile, one I haven’t shown publicly before. Many of the through-tenons are domed and faceted. I’ve built variants of this chair about five or six times now and know exactly how it should look.
Techniques & Tools
Until I run out of ideas, the Journal will be written entirely by me. But I could see a future where there might be a guest editor or two.
— Christopher Schwarz
Larry Williams of Old Street Tool has a lot of good jokes about people with “Infill Disease.” This expensive malady plagues woodworkers who become smitten with these curious tools – infill handplanes – and spread the contagion by claiming that they outperform all other tools.
Larry, who recovered from Infill Disease many years ago, now makes beautiful wooden-bodied planes in an Arkansas workshop with Don McConnell. Their wooden handplanes put to rest any notion that wooden-bodied planes are anything but world-class.
Like Larry, I struggled with Infill Disease early in my woodworking career. I was deeply curious about the performance claims that got thrown around about these tools (“They don’t cause tear-out – no matter the grain direction!”). Plus, the tools just looked so damn different from the metallic and wooden-bodied planes I grew up around.
After years of using infills side-by-side with other planes, I concluded that a handplane’s performance is 99.9 percent in the hands of the user. After that, I sold or traded away most of my infill planes to help send my kids to college and improve my workshop (hello, windows!). But I still have a handful of these tools in my shop. Why? Because each one is a story, a relationship or a history that I can hold in my hands.
Wayne Anderson Infill Miter
1-3/4” blade; 2”-wide x 8-5/8”-long body
This was my first infill plane – I bought it in 2004 back when Wayne charged $100 per inch of the finished tool – and I know it as well as my wife’s hands. It also had the craziest journey of any object I’ve owned. You can read the whole tale here. But the short version of the story begins when it was stolen at a woodworking show outside Philadelphia.
Ten years later, the tool resurfaced and was sold privately. It had been caught in a hurricane and became a rusted barnacle of its former self. After some horse trading, I got the plane back. My original goal was to restore the plane to its former perfection. Then I had a change of heart.
I’m not one to hide scars. I have a gash on my left hand that could be easily concealed, but I leave it as a reminder about the wrong way to push a knife. So I decided to fix the miter plane to work the way it used to, but I let the cosmetic flaws remain. Raney Nelson at Daed Toolworks did me a huge favor by refiling the plane’s ebony bed; I took care of the rest of the exterior.
Even with its flaws, I love this tool. I pick it up and remember meeting Wayne for the first time at a farm in Illinois and falling in love with his aesthetic. Every Wayne plane is different – I’ve never seen two that are identical. That idea, which was foreign to me at the time, continues to resonate with my stick chairs: No two are alike.
Daed Toolworks Infill Miter
1-1/2” blade; 1-15/16”-wide x 7-1/2”-long body
When Raney Nelson started selling infill planes (many years after he began making them), I was one of the first people in line to buy one at Woodworking in America. We have similar aesthetics tool-wise (and music-wise). So the steel miter plane with boxwood infills spoke directly to me.
The mouth on the plane is as tight as any I’ve encountered. Of all the infill planes I’ve owned, it comes as close to fulfilling the “superplane” myth that gets thrown around. It remains a fantastic tool that is easy to set and use. Plus, Raney is a good friend, so I always smile when I get to use it. Corny, but true.
Robert ‘Bob’ Baker Infill Miter
1-1/2” blade; 1-13/16”-wide x 7”-long body
This plane, made in 1983, was a pioneer. It was featured in an early issue of Fine Woodworking magazine, and Baker was one of the early American makers of infills.
Bob and I met only once, in 2006, but I was immediately charmed and drawn to him (like others were). And we kept in touch after that meeting, exchanging jokes and emails about tools until he died before his time in 2010.
But that’s not why I own the first infill plane he made.
Tool collector Carl Bilderback had purchased the miter because of its provenance and beauty. And he used it in his shop in LaPorte, Indiana. Carl and I met about 1999 or 2000 when he called to complain about something I had written in Popular Woodworking about Norris-style depth adjusters. After that day, we became good friends and hung out at tool meets and woodworking events for many years. (You might remember Carl singing the National Anthem at the first Handworks event in Amana, Iowa.)
As Carl was losing his battle with cancer, he asked Megan Fitzpatrick and me to visit him in LaPorte for lunch. There, he presented us each with a Bob Baker plane and said there was only one string attached to the gift: I had to use the tool. So now when I pick this tool up I think about two wonderful people I have lost.
If you think this story is getting sadder, don’t worry. It gets worse.
Bristol Design Thumb Plane
1-1/4” blade; 1-1/2”-wide x 5”-long body
While teaching at David Savage’s school in Devon, England, he gave me this small plane as a gift for coming all the way from America. It was a prototype tool made by Bristol Design. David said it was the only plane that worked better than his Lie-Nielsen block plane, and it was one of his favorites.
It was a special gift because David had become a father figure to me. The man was incredibly encouraging about my work – more so than any other person I’ve met. And his encouragement and attention came at a time in my life when I needed it badly. The relationship was, at first, bewildering to me because his woodwork is simply on a different level than most people (and certainly mine).
Aside from that, David was also a bombastic writer, self-deprecating, generous, a snappy dresser and all-in-all a lovely person to spend time with.
I don’t connect with many people, and I’m always circumspect around others. But within a few weeks of meeting David I was telling him things I had told only my wife in the dark.
When David died of cancer in 2019, it was almost one year after I’d lost my father to cancer. I felt the loss of both men acutely, and I don’t think I have yet to recover.
The good news was that we managed to publish David’s book, “The Intelligent Hand,” before his death. It’s a book that Megan and I are quite proud of. David’s furniture and mine look nothing alike on the surface – his is insanely perfect. But the book, his design process and his way of looking at the world are forever stamped on my brain.
Whenever I want to remember that relationship, I have only to reach for this plane. The tool might not be a so-called superplane. It’s just a couple castings, two pieces of wood, a screw and two thin slabs of steel. But like any plane, it’s what the user brings to the tool that makes all the difference.
— Christopher Schwarz