Lost Art Press

Molding Plane’s Best Friends

Posted on by fitz
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Left to right: moving fillister, rabbet, & jack planes.

They say a sculptor sees the naked woman (or man, I guess) in the rock and then proceeds to remove everything that is not the naked woman. A sculptor would not start out with his or her fine finishing tools to make a statue; they would start with a jack hammer.

Making moulding is pretty much the same process. Starting with coarse tools to hog of as much waste as fast as possible is the easiest way. The planes I use most often for this are the moving fillister, jack, rabbet and plow planes. These planes can be set deep to remove material fast. Chisels and gouges can also be used to bash out wood close to the profile.

Today I made a top molding for the top of a reproduction Shaker case of drawers and snapped a few photos of the process.

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I used the moving fillister set to remove as much waste as possible inside the profile.
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After resetting the moving fillister, I cut a rabbet down to create the fillet at the bottom of the profile.
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The rabbet plane gets in pretty close.
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With so much of the waste removed it only took about 5 minutes to finish the concave portion with a round plane.
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To finish up, I roughly shaped the lower quarter round portion with a jack plane and finished with hollow plane.

— Will Myers

The Nuts of “Ingenious Mechanicks”

Posted on by saucyindexer

While researching “Ingenious Mechanicks” Chris Schwarz and I found many workbenches with face vises and some of them actually had vise nuts.

In the montage above there are selections from paintings from Spain, Italy and what is now present-day Ecuador. As you can see, they range from the basic steering wheel to the curvy hurricane. The nut on the lower left is the shape Chris chose for his Holy Roman/Löffelholz workbench (and he provides the pattern in the book).

My particular favorite is a form that may have originated in Spain and made its way to Spain’s New World colonies: the double-bunny ear. The double-bunny ear provides an easy grip for tighting or loosening the vise.

The top right image is from a 17th-century Spainish painting. The next two vice nuts on the right are late 19th-to-early 20th century from Guatemala and Mexico. The vise nut on the left is of a similar date and also from Mexico.

“Ingenious Mechanicks” explores a multitude of workholding methods early woodworkers devised to enable them to work more easily and efficiently. The book offers the modern woodworker options, including what form or shape you chose for vise nuts.

-Suzanne Ellison

Last Chance for Free PDF with ‘Ingenious Mechanicks’

Posted on by Lost Art Press

IM_cover_mockup_web“Ingenious Mechanicks: Early Workbenches & Workholding” will ship from the printer’s docks on April 4, and that will be the last day you can get a free PDF of the book with your order.

The book is $39, which includes free domestic shipping and the instant pdf download. After Thursday, the pdf will cost $19.50 extra if ordered with the printed book.

The No. 1 question about this book has been: What the heck is it about? Basically, I took my short book on Roman workbenches that we published last year and expanded it greatly with lots of new research done on the ground in Italy and Germany.

And, in the process of expanding it, the book became more about the ingenious early workholding that Suzanne Ellison and I dug up than the benches themselves.

If you’d like to read a free preview of the book, check out this entry.

Soon we’ll have a complete list of our retailers that will carry the book.

— Christopher Schwarz

Got Time for a Quickie Next Weekend?

Posted on by fitz

Serving-TrayUpdate: Sold out. (But if you’re interested, sign up for the waitlist for the June 23-24 class at LAP, or join me at Lie-Nielsen Toolworks in Warren, Maine, Sept. 8-9 for a class on a slightly different version of a DT tray.)

I have one last-minute opening in next weekend’s Dovetailed Silverware Tray class (April 7-8) – so if you have a free weekend and want to spend it with me, my lovely assistant (Chris) and five more of your soon-to-be-closest friends, click the link below to register.

The class is at the Lost Art Press storefront/shop/horse garage, 837 Willard St., Covington, Ky. The fee is $275, including the stock, which is cherry, and lunches, which will not be Jimmy John’s (apologies for that to last month’s Dutch Tool Chest Class). It’s free to register – I’ll ask that you bring cash or a check to the class 🙂

 

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Prepping stock now – whee!

— Megan Fitzpatrick

Tool Chest Updates: The Innards

Posted on by Lost Art Press
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The runners for my chest from 2005.

During the last five years, I’ve made considerable changes to the innards of the tool chests I build for customers. Most of these changes are details, really, but they are informed by the fact that I work out of a tool chest every day.

The most significant of the changes is in the runners for the three tills. On the original chest, the runners for the lower till didn’t extend all the way from front to back. They stopped at the saw till (see above).

The reason for this was to imitate several historical chests that also had a door to the lower parts of the chest. After building the chest with the door, I found it silly. So I removed it. But I was stuck with the runners.

Now when I build a chest, I make all three runners run from the front to the back.

The other change to the runners is that I now bead the top edge of each runner. It looks nice, and the rounded edge prevents the runners from splintering in service.

This is quick work with a 3/16” beading plane.

Next up: The sawtill. It’s smaller and has less room for your weed stash.

— Christopher Schwarz

Editor, Lost Art Press
Personal site: christophermschwarz.com