June marks the 10-year anniversary of the publication of “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” which is the book that allowed me to release myself on my own recognizance from corporate publishing.
As promised, to mark the occasion we are doing almost nothing.
I have a blog entry planned that I promised readers five years ago. And we are releasing two products: this stunning red bandana that was cut, sewn and printed by One Feather Press. And a ballcap from Ebbets Field, which will be in the store next week.
We are making only 144 bandanas and 144 hats. There are limits to what the small manufacturers can make, and we love to order a “gross” of objects, whatever they may be. Once these bandanas and hats are gone, they will be gone forever.
The bandana mimics the one press run of the “Anarchist’s Tool Chest” that we did with a red cover five years ago. Details of the hat are forthcoming.
We are in our 13th printing of the “Anarchist’s Tool Chest” and have printed more than 35,000 copies, which would be nothing to a corporate publishing house. But it is everything to me and the people who keep Lost Art Press running: John, Megan, Meghan and Kara (and our families).
Workbenches that are powered by wedges, friction and stops have been fascinating to me since I first started looking into Roman workbenches. My interest and research into these benches eventually became “Ingenious Mechanicks.”
And now an old Norwegian Sloid (Sloyd/Slojd) manual has shed some new light (for me, at least) on these wedge-based benches – thanks to some drawings and text.
Eivind Reed of Breim, Norway, sent along these drawings plus a translation he made from the first Norwegian textbooks on school Sloid, “Sløidlære for skole og hjem” (Craftsmanship for School and Home), which were written by H.K. Kjennerud and Karl Løvdal. Here is the translation:
No. 244. Wedgebench. Pine in the benchtop, birch in the front vise, the board at the front end, planing stop and wedges. The bench can be made larger or smaller according to the intended use. By the drawings you see that the planing stop will sit slightly within the edge of the front board. The fit in the mortise must be so tight that it stays without slipping down. To avoid having to remove the planing stop when using the birdsmouth, we make two recesses for the teeth, so that it can be flush with the benchtop.
The bench can be put on a box, kitchen counter or similar. It will of course not measure up to a regular workbench, but when you get used to it, it does good service. To plane the face of a board, put it on the benchtop, thrust it into the planing stop so that the teeth sink in and it rests toward the front board. The teeth stop the board from moving backward when withdrawing the plane. To plane the edge of a board, we put it in the front vise [a crochet]. If it will not stand securely, we use the wedge. If the board is narrower than the thickness of the benchtop, we drive down the planing stop and put the piece in the birdsmouth. To shoot the ends of the board, we wedge it in the front vise, back vise or we use the front board as a shooting board. To rip boards, we use the front or rear vise as we see fit. To crosscut, we lay the piece on the bench as usual. To avoid losing the wedges, and to keep them always at hand, we hang them by string on eye hooks on a fitting place on the bench.
No. 245. Wedgebench to attach to the wall. See No. 139. The bench is attached with hinges and can be put up when not in use.
There are some clever aspects to both of these benches that are not covered by the text.
Both benches are on the small size, like the Milkman’s Workbench. The sizes are in metric. (My mind defaulted to American customary units when I first looked at the drawings. I saw a benchtop that was 6” x 20” x 80”. Dumb American.) The second wedgebench (No. 245) is longer, but that’s mostly to make room so your handplanes don’t poke you a new window in your wall.
One of the bits of cleverness are the rotating toggles below the benchtop that allow you to hold work on edge. I’ve seen sliding bars, but not toggles. These are much simpler to make and install.
The best stuff is the wedges. The opening in the benchtop has one straight side and one angled side. The angled side is 6° off vertical. The wedges shown below the notch both have faces that are angled at 6°. One wedge for small work; one for larger. The angles on the vise and the wedges keep the clamping pressure square to the workpiece.
In investigating early benches, all the notches that I recall encountering had square-sided notches (the dovetailed notches in the Saalburg bench are one exception). Clamping work in those proved less-than-spectacular until I tried using softwood wedges with almost no slope on them. The softwood compressed when struck and then held the work like crazy. These angled notches are another excellent solution to the problem.
The crochet is called out in the text, and it’s nice that this one also comes with a complementary wedge. Both the crochet opening and the wedge are at about 11.3°.
Also interesting is the “front board” – basically a full-time wide planing stop. It’s only about 3/8” thick (9mm). Combining that with the toothed planing stop is pretty clever.
When I first looked at figure No. 244, I assumed the holes in the benchtop were for holdfasts. That is, of course, silly for many reasons. It’s likely because of the way they are drawn that they are the way you fasten the benchtop to a table or box.
If I make another Roman bench, I will definitely incorporate the angled notches and wedges into the design. Thanks so much to Eivind for the image and the translation.
The good news: We have a new printing on order of “The Woodworker’s Pocket Book” … but it won’t be in until mid-April.
The better news: You can get it now from Lee Valley Tools and Lie-Nielsen Australia, and Classic Hand Tools (in the U.K.) is awaiting its shipment but taking pre-orders. (Tools for Working Wood, Highland Woodworking and Rubank Verktygs – all of which did have it – are, like us, currently sold out.)
Roll your own. Simple screw vises such as this one are quick and easy to make with a threadbox and scraps. You can make as many as you like and as large as you like – even the entire length of the workbench. Photo by Narayan Nayar.
While screw vises were known in Roman times (there is an extant example of one used for jewelry making at Augusta Raurica), they don’t start showing up on woodworking benches until much later. The earliest image I know of is from northern Italy in the early 14th century and shows workers constructing Noah’s ark.
While these vises appear similar to modern vises, there are significant differences. On these early vises, the screw does not move. Instead, there is a movable nut that presses the chop against the work.
One slick tool. Lubricate the cutter with a little tallow or wax with each use. Some people soak the screws overnight in linseed oil. This is supposed to result in crisper threads. It’s not entirely necessary with a sharp cutter and a little lubricant.
These older screw vises are easier to make than a modern vise and can be installed directly into the benchtop without much effort. To make these vises, you’ll need a threadbox and a matching tap. These once-common tools are available used, and it’s worth searching out a functioning set because with them you can make all manner of vises and clamps. I also use these tools to make threaded parts for furniture pieces to allow them to be knocked down flat.
Note that the German threading kit shown in the photos cuts a 1-1/8″-diameter (28mm) thread, which is a good size for general workshop use. The 1″ version would also work fine and allow you to use a store-bought 1″-diameter dowel to make the screws. You can make the vise’s jaw any size you desire, including the entire length of the benchtop. Because I don’t build boats or fear the Great Flood, I made the jaw of my vise (sometimes called a “chop”) 1-3/4″ x 6″ x 36″.
The finished screw. The last 4″ of the stick is 1″ in diameter. The remainder is 1.10″ in diameter and threaded.
Begin by making the screws. Mine are hard maple, 1.10″ in diameter (which works with the 28mm threading tool) and 12″ long. Turn down 4″ of the length to 1″. This 1″-diameter section will be glued into the benchtop. Thread the remainder of the stick.
Now lay out the location of the through-holes for the screws on the chop. My holes are 30″ apart on centers and located 2″ down from the top edge of the chop. Bore 1-3/8″ holes through the chop at both locations. The oversized holes will allow your chop to pivot and clamp tapered workpieces.
Go for tight. Ideally, the screws should have to be driven into the bench with mallet taps. Go for a tight fit. The glue should be superfluous.
Show the chop to the front edge of the benchtop and use your 1-3/8″ bit to punch centerpoints on the front edge. Drill 1″ holes that are 4-1/4″ deep into the benchtop. Glue the screws into their holes.
Full-size nuts. I tried drawing the nuts and explaining them with geometry. The original, quickly sketched nuts looked better. So here is one of them, shown at full-size.
Make the nuts from maple. Before wasting time on shaping the nuts, bore and tap several holes in a board and use the two tapped holes that came out the straightest and cleanest. Cut the nuts to shape using [the figure above] as a guide. Then rasp the corners. Simple screw vises such as this are nice for working on the edges of chair seats, planing the edges of boards or working on anything that needs to be held securely. I have installed them on low benches and tall ones.
Rasp for comfort. After you drill and tap the holes in the nuts, cut them to shape and ease the corners with a rasp. Shown is an alternative shape to the nut above.
With the last large batch of dividers, it became clear that the demand for the heat-treatable tool steel version is much greater than anticipated. So, for the latest batch, half of the sets in inventory are O1 tool steel, and the other half 12L14 steel.
At the moment, there are about 50 sets total available, with another few dozen sets milled and awaiting hardware. Unfortunately, as with so many things this year, backlogs in production and delivery have made it increasingly difficult to predict timing – but I believe I have found a solution to the pivot hardware issue using off-the-shelf hardware developed for the custom knifemaking world.
So, over the past week I’ve been developing a simple approach to modifying pivots manufactured specifically for folding knives. This hardware is specifically designed to hold very tight tolerances, which is perfect for the needs of the dividers. Because they are intended as a sort of DIY-customizable solution, the bolt-and sleeve (aka “Chicago bolts,” or “sexbolts”) system only needs to be modified to take the #10 spanner drive I use for adjustment, and some light shaping to make them nearly identical to the custom manufactured hardware I’ve always used to date.
While this is no guarantee against production delays – these bolts are occasionally prone to stock shortages themselves – having another, much larger channel to source this hardware makes it much easier to avoid long-term stock issues.
So, if you’ve been wanting a set of dividers, this is a good time; but as always the goal is to have these available on a continuing basis, and this development puts the dividers much closer to that goal.
O1 and 12L14 dividers as well as a few remaining hammer kits are available at daedtoolworks.com.