Here’s a quick look at the proposed artwork for the sequel to Roy Underhill’s “Calvin Cobb: Radio Woodworker!” (OK, not really.)
Note that Lost Art Press does not condone riding a motorcycle without a helmet. (Or undergarments.)
— Christopher Schwarz
I went out of town for one weekend and it seems like the forum exploded while I was gone. A lot of advice is what people are after. Remember, if you have a question about our products, procedures in our books or anything related to Lost Art Press, the fastest way to get an answer is our forum. Check it out here.
Wear to the Sliding Tills in the ATC
We all know wear is inevitable, especially to something you use as often as your tool chest. Joshua is looking to make his in a way that will prevent some of this from the start. A couple preventative measures have been given, perhaps you want to give them a try? Perhaps you have other methods that have worked for you?
WoodOwl Bits – Sharpening
Jason hit a steel plate with his WoodOwl nail chipper and is curious to know if he can use the small knife-edge files that Lee Valley sells to sharpen it. Are they the same angle? Help him out here.
Soft Wax
Has anyone used a wax recipe on their tools as a rust preventative or to lubricate? Did you have success? And did you use a specific wax recipe?
‘I remember a post on here a while ago about a leg vise with no lower guide’
Peter is looking to add a leg vise to his bench and is thinking about taking this approach. It turns out it is the bench from Plate 11 in Roubo. Now it seems he is not the only one looking to use this method. Has anyone given this a shot and able to give some feedback?
Moulding Plane Choices
Anyone have a favorite older wooden moulding plane? Neal wants to get one and is looking for suggestions. What shape do you like? Why? Ogee? Reverse ogee?
— MB
If you’ve been following my work for more than a few weeks then you might have winced a bit when you saw the image at the top of this blog entry.
The curly oak figure in the chest is a bit of a departure for me. For the last 20 years I’ve sought out boards that have a mellow, understated grain. This has always been intentional. Loud woods can obscure a good form or – put another way – attract unwanted attention away from a weak form.
For me, the form of a piece is what I like (or dislike) the most. Incidentally, that’s why I like paint. Nothing strips away the bread and circuses of fiddleback hoo-ha like a democratic coat of pigment.
So what the heck is going on in the above photo? Short answer: I don’t believe in free will.
Longer answer: I’ve had this chest design in my sketchbook for many months and decided in May to release itself on its own recognizance. My initial plan was to build it in white maple or Baltic birch. But while buying some oak at Frank Miller Lumber in Union City, Ind., there were four boards of curly quartersawn white oak sitting in the middle of the warehouse.
I put my measuring tape on them and realized that there was exactly enough to make my chest design. The price was ridiculously cheap. I had the money.
The oak is outrageous, and so I did what I could to turn down its visual volume. Usually you’ll read articles about how to accentuate curled woods with an undercoat of linseed oil or dye. I did neither of these things. In fact, I muted the curl by using a super blond shellac instead of my typical favorite, garnet.
Even so, I was worried about the curl obscuring the piece’s form.
I’m not quite done with the finishing process. I still need to rub out the shellac and add a coat of a linseed oil/wax that I’ve become quite fond of (more on that later). That should tone down the gloss of the shellac and I’ll end up where the figure and the form are in balance.
— Christopher Schwarz
Mark Firley at The Furniture Record (one of my favorite blogs), sent me these photos of a workbench he encountered in his travels. He was on;y able to snap these photos before the antiques dealer shooed him away.
My first (and fifth) reaction: A Narwhal and some ship’s tackle had a baby. And it didn’t live….
So if you look at the top of the bench, you can see there is probably a vise nut bolted to the underside of the workbench’s top.
The bolts might be (OK, almost certainly are) a later addition to the bench. Judging from the wear and tear on the thing (and the dealer’s guess at the age), that hardware is new.
But then everything goes sideways when we consider the vise. The vise screw itself looks handmade – not manufactured – and could very well be from the same era as the bench itself. The big thing sticking in the air is definitely… sticking in the air.
To my eye it resembles a leg vise chop after a vicious dog attack. And then there’s the second vise nut in front of that. It’s bolted in places (perhaps a repair?).
I wonder if the vise screw is in backwards and its hub is under the bench. And we just have, for some odd reason, two vise nuts. That’s my best guess.
— Christopher Schwarz
Katy managed to make 34 more tins of soft wax this week. It’s available in her etsy store via this link. She’s hard at work on another batch during the times when she isn’t signing rhymes about Black Phillip from “The VVitch.”
— Christopher Schwarz