“I’ve heard that all my life, a chairmaker never has a thing to set on.”
— Chester Cornett, as quoted in “Craftsman of the Cumberlands” (University of Kentucky Press) by Michael Owen Jones
Wisdom from Pine Mountain
Let’s Talk Trash
No matter how many years of experience you have at your craft, you can’t afford to stop learning.
Kitchen cabinet making is viewed as an inferior form of woodworking by many of those who reproduce 18th-century Philadelphia highboys. Well, let them feel superior. The fact is, building kitchen cabinets requires endless learning–not least because hardware manufacturers are constantly inventing new products to make life “better.”
Sometimes I feel like cabinetmakers have become the doctors of the cutting-edge hardware world. We’re visited by hardware company salespersons and bombarded with literature about new products that will open doors, close drawers, lift lids, hide appliances, and make exhaust vents invisible. Our clients see these wonders in their neighbors’ kitchens or advertised in magazines and want them (just as yours truly asked her doctor about Cologuard as an alternative to colonoscopy, thanks to the manufacturer’s underwriting announcements on NPR).*
My basic attitude toward such gizmos is the equivalent of the sign on my doctor’s office door: Pharmaceutical Representatives Not Welcome. In my kitchen, the cabinet doors hang on surface-mounted butterfly hinges and we toss our trash into a freestanding can beneath the sink. I like simple.
Things are different when I’m discussing hardware with clients. It is, after all, their kitchen. Consider trash. There’s a spectrum of ways to store it until you’re ready to take it outside. As with most cabinet detail decisions, I go through all the relevant options. We start with a fork in the road: Would you like a freestanding trash can (or unassuming bin beneath the sink), or would you prefer a dedicated trash cabinet?
(This one’s ours.)
If the former, congratulations! You’re done. Just put the thing in your kitchen and get cooking. Choose the latter and you’ve launched the cabinetmaker’s equivalent of an automated answering system—Enter your account number followed by the pound sign. Press 1 for customer service. Now press 2 for residential or 3 for commercial. Etc.
- How will the cabinet open? Will it have a door on hinges or be made like a drawer? Will tossing that tea bag wrapper mean reaching into the cabinet, or will the trash receptacle slide out to meet you?
Made that decision? Good. However, you’re still not done.
- You can either buy a pull-out unit or make one. If you’re going to make it, will the design allow for bottom-mounted runners (such as Blum Tandem slides) or will it need to be side-mounted higher up to counteract the stress on the door if the pull is at the top?
- Are you willing to use a knob or drawer pull, or do you want the unit to open hands-free? If the former, great; just install it. If the latter, there are several further options, from a foot-operated pedal that pushes the unit open to an electric servo drive.
(Servo drives? Are we still talking about trash?)
***
My most recent kitchen job called for a cabinet dedicated to trash and recyclables that would open hands-free. At first I planned to fabricate a pedal—not just any pedal, but one with sufficient oomph to break the grip of the little man who hides at the back of every Blum Tandem with Blumotion drawer slide (or the Blum Movento slides that came with the Rev-A-Shelf waste and recyclables unit I had purchased). I wasn’t thrilled about installing a pedal, because the sink area is the first thing you see on entering the dining room; a pedal dangling beneath such an exposed cabinet just seemed too reminiscent of a tampon string. The kinds of objects that might logically be hanging down from a trash cabinet (a nicely printed sardine or spice can could be epoxied to the bare metal bar I imagined using in place of a pedal; my second suggestion was to carve a cute wooden mouse and stick it to the metal bar) are not likely to appeal to most people commissioning cabinetry. Trash falling out of the waste receptacle? A mouse trying to climb in? These were bound to reflect badly on the cabinetmaker or the clients, respectively.
I called my hardware company and asked about the trash container equivalent of a touch latch. Of course such hardware exists; in my supplier’s case, it’s the Blum Tip-On with Blumotion unit, a nice middle ground between the pedal and the servo drive. With a bit of help from Sarah Gates of Blum’s customer service team, I got the thing installed. It works like a charm.
*Note: The clients in this example did not suggest the hardware I used for their trash pullout. I did.
–Nancy Hiller, author of Making Things Work
‘The Shaker Guy,’ in the Portland Newspaper
Christian Becksvoort is featured in the Portland Press Herald today, in a Bob Keyes article in the Books section:
“Christian Becksvoort doesn’t want to be the ornery old guy who complains about how things are and wishes for the way they were.
“He’s generally pretty well disposed, balanced and grateful, and at age 69, shows hardly a hint of slowing down. But he can’t help himself when it comes to talking about how it used to be, back in the day when kids were taught in school how to make things out of wood with their hands. They had to know how to measure, cut and hammer and were supposed to be endowed with enough functional woodworking skills to navigate the basics of home ownership and life.”
While the article focuses on Christian’s latest book “Shaker Inspiration,” it’s also a glimpse into his history, life and woodworking aesthetic.
“He also makes reproductions of traditional Shaker pieces and enjoys taking furniture apart to see how it was made. He’s always learning by understanding how other people have solved problems before him. ‘You can tell two or three people worked on a piece. Some dovetails are real crisp. Parts of others might be real sloppy,’ he said. ‘You can learn a lot by taking it apart.’ There’s a humility to Shaker simplicity that Becksvoort treats with reverence. For him, it always comes back to the opposite of what he calls “maximalism, or how much crap can we put on a piece of furniture?”
Click here to read “Practicality, in life, craft, drives Maine’s most famous furniture maker.”
A reminder that Christian will be at Lost Art Press (837 Willard Street, Covington, Ky., 41011) for a book release party on Jan. 12, from 7-10 p.m. (plus he’ll be in and out during the 10 a.m.-5 p.m. open house). Please shoot me an email (if you’ve not already) if you’re attending the evening shindig.
— Fitz
The ‘Hard Reset’ for Handplanes
No matter how expensive or well-made your handplane is, there are times when you have to perform a “hard reset” on the tool when it starts to behave unpredictably.
I use my handplanes every day, so I have to do a hard reset almost every year. My smoothing plane and block plane are more sensitive tools and require more frequent maintenance – maybe every nine months or so.
When should you do a hard reset? I do it when problems occur that a simple sharpening won’t fix. Perhaps I get plane tracks in my work I can’t explain. Maybe the plane won’t hold a fine setting the way it should. Perhaps the tool just feels a little rough when I use it.
When I do a hard reset, I perform all the steps below. When I do all the steps, my planes always perform as better-than factory new. Skipping steps means success is not guaranteed (at least in my shop).
Grind, Reshape & Resharpen the Iron
Take the iron to the grinder and reshape the entire bevel. Remove all evidence of the previous edge. Create a burr with the grinder. If there’s a back bevel, remove it. Then reshape the edge appropriate for the type of plane (jack, jointer or smoother). When I do a hard reset I always dub the corners of the iron on a diamond stone to ensure the corners will not dig into the work.
Hone a fresh edge on the iron. If you use micro-bevels (I do), try to make the smallest micro-bevel possible.
Clean, Repair & Shape the Chipbreaker
Chipbreakers cause as many problems as they solve. They are made of soft steel so they are easily damaged when you plane a knot or hit something harder than a knot (such as your planing stop). Minor damage to a chipbreaker can ruin a plane’s performance. Here’s what I do to get it back to factory condition.
Clean the sap and gunk off the breaker with a rubberized abrasive (such as the Klingspor Hand Block). Hone (or grind) a new edge on the chipbreaker. The leading edge of the breaker takes a huge amount of abuse. A burr or teeny nick on it can destroy the plane’s ability to pass a shaving. Grinding or honing away the old edge will restore its function.
This grinding or honing will raise a burr on the underside of the breaker. Remove this burr with great care on a fine stone. Then attach the breaker to your iron and look for any light between the breaker and the back of the iron. If light can get in, so can a shaving. And that sneaky shaving will foul the plane.
To fix the problem you might have to file the underside of the breaker. You might have to bend the breaker a little in a vise so it clamps down harder on the iron. Hell, you might have to replace the breaker. They are cheap so don’t hesitate to get a new one.
Dress the Sole
Many times “plane tracks” are actually “sole tracks.” A knot or something else hard has scored the sole or the edges of the sole. And this damage has raised a burr that scratches your work.
The sole of plane should be as clean and smooth as possible. This is more important than it being dead flat (in my experience). To clean the sole, buy a piece of $5 granite tile at the home center and stick a piece of #220-grit sandpaper to it (I use a spray adhesive).
Disassemble the plane and rub the sole on the sandpaper until the sole is as smooth as a nun’s stomach. (Side note: You’ll read elsewhere that the sole has to be under working tension with the iron and cap iron in place to do this. I have not found this to be the case. I have found no sole deflection in a standard bench plane. Rabbeting planes and shoulder planes are another story.)
When the sole is clean and smooth, take some #220-grit sandpaper and strongly ease all the edges of the sole. This removes any damage on the sidewalls, toe and heel. And it helps prevent future damage. A sharp corner is more fragile than a rounded one.
Wipe the sole down with oil.
Clean the Interior
Remove the frog. If you do a lot of planing, the interior will be filled with crud. Clean all this out. At this point I always clean all the screw threads that hold and adjust the frog. You might think this is overkill, but crud builds up and there’s a tipping point where everything goes to pot.
So I remove all the screws and clean them to bright metal with a soft-bristled bronze brush. I clean the interior of the adjustment nut with a stiff-bristled nylon brush. Then I put some light machine oil on all the screws and reassemble everything.
Re-assemble
While everything is apart, tighten the screws on the tote and front knob. Sand off any burrs on the tote (these crop up when the wood gets knocked about). Clean up the lever cap if you like. The lever cap works fine if it’s filthy but it looks better if you clean it off with the rubberized abrasive.
And that’s it. The whole process takes less than an hour and the results are always worth it.
— Christopher Schwarz
Advice for No One
With my kids, I struggle when we talk about their futures. I want to tell them: Do what you love, work really hard and everything will be alright. It’s a great line, but it’s USDA prime horse crap.
My first business – The Kentucky Gazette – failed in the 1990s. And no amount of hard work could save it. I slept under my desk many nights, and I did a good deal of award-winning journalism. There is more to it than hard work, intelligence and talent.
The person who put it best, in my mind, is Doug Martsch, the founder of the band Built to Spill. He is one of my guitar heros and has an independent streak a mile long (which he somehow maintains while his band signed to Warner Bros. records).
I probably will forward this interview to my daughters someday. But it’s far too nice outside today, and they are both in good places with their lives and their work.
So perhaps I’ll disrupt your day instead. (I actually take great comfort from Doug’s words.)
— Christopher Schwarz
These excerpts are from SPIN magazine, an article written by Rachel Brodsky and posted April 14, 2015.
RB: Ira Glass has a quote where he essentially says that every creative person does terrible work in the beginning. Everybody who’s ever wanted to make art is terrible at first. But as long as you create a “volume of work” — even if it continues to be terrible — it will get better. That’s kind of reassuring.
DM: Well, I’m going to go one further and say that it doesn’t get better. You will not get to a point where you write good things. I’m saying that even now, 99 percent of what I write is really stupid, and it didn’t get any better.
What keeps you going with it then?
I can’t do anything else; there is nothing else I can do. I don’t know how to do anything else, and I still like it. Mostly what I’m talking about is the lyrics. The music part of it, it doesn’t come easy for me, but it’s more subjective, so you can get away with more. Whereas the lyrics, lyrics are subjective. But if they’re bad, they can really turn a person off to what’s happening in the whole. If the lyrics are bad, it’s impossible to listen.
Got any career advice for younger indie-rock bands?
I don’t at all. I can tell you about my circumstances, but they’re not going to apply. I just feel like people have something in them that they want to just do, and they’ll do it no matter what anyone says. Or if they need to be advised, maybe it’s not for them.
Yeah, the music industry is pretty much the antithesis of practical.
Yeah, exactly. So the thing I always say is that I’ve been really lucky. That’s my secret, that I got lucky. I’m not saying that there aren’t other things involved, but I wouldn’t be where I was if I hadn’t lived in Seattle at a certain time, met certain people. The people that I started a band with, I just happened to hook up with some people who were a little older than me who put out records themselves. That was a big deal back in those days. For me to work with them was amazing, and that made my whole life.
I wouldn’t say, like, put out your own record, because that might not do it. I wouldn’t say tour a bunch, because that might not do it either. The other thing I say is don’t have any expectations. If you want to do it, just do it. But if you want to make it big, you’re on your own. I have no idea how to make it big. No one knows the secret to that. I mean, I can tell you how to book time in a studio, but that’s neither here nor there.
