I’ve long known about the Maison de l’Outil in Troyes, France, but I have not had the chance to visit. Yet.
Reader Sebastian Gonzalez found this short video – in English – about the history of the museum, its collection and its more than 30,000 books on tools and crafts. The video even highlights Juliette Caron, the first female compagnon carpenter in France (I collect postcards related to her).
The video is worth a watch.
— Christopher Schwarz
Part 4 of a British Introduction to Japanese Planes
Fitting the blade and back iron to the body is a fiddle, but not difficult. What you need is a good bench light and a graphite pencil or graphite stick. The essence is of this is DO NOT CHANGE THE GEOMETRY of the plane body. So as the blade fits into the two side channels, do not pare the upper surface; this is the surface that beds the blade at 41° effective pitch.
Remove the bar under which the back iron fits. You will find that this is just a round wire nail sharpened on one end. Fit the blade by rubbing graphite on the sides and on the back of the blade.
Tap the blade in using a small hammer, tap it out by hitting the top back corner of the wooden body with the hammer, there is a chamfer planed on that corner to allow you hit JUST THERE. Not on the end like European tap-and-try planes.
Pare away the area where the graphite has left an imprint on the plane body and repeat the process. You will find yourself fitting the width first, then paring to allow the back of the blade to sit further down in body of the plane. Allow a nice couple of hours to do this well. If you rush this, the blade will not sit tight and you will not get the polish you want.
Remember that plane bodies expand and contract in width and blades do not, so open the side channels enough to allow for this expansion and contraction. You see so many cracked Kanna where this has not been done correctly.
Getting a good fit for the back iron is difficult as it is hard to see right down by the cutting edge. You will need a narrow chisel to work the slots on either side and a broad chisel for the land between.
The mouth is pretty well determined by the Kanna’s maker; a good maker will set up the mouth so that the blade trims its own mouth and you can then open it a shaving or two. I have a Kanna that did not have such a good mouth so I have fitted a rosewood dovetailed key in front of the blade.
Next we will look at the sole of the plane and taking a shaving or two!
Last Saturday I gave a day-long seminar to the Michigan Woodworkers Guild that was a bit of a disaster.
I started with a sharpening demonstration. First thing: I picked up my #1,000-grit waterstone; it slipped from my hand and cracked into a dozen bits on the floor. So I muddied through with a diamond plate.
After lunch, as I was demonstrating full-blind lap dovetails, I nicked my thumb with a chisel – right by the fingernail. As Dr. Gary Assarian noted as he was bandaging me up – there is a lot of vascular activity right there. Boy was he right. I was squirting blood like the Buckingham Fountain.
(The blood-spattered joint went together quite well, thanks for asking.)
Anyway, there were several items I promised I would post links to here on my blog. So here you go:
Thank you Michigan woodworkers; and sorry about the mess.
— Christopher Schwarz
I don’t wear cologne. But I might start if I could buy cologne that smelled like fresh-cut Eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) or American white oak (Quercus alba).
However, Katy, my 13-year-old, thinks l’eau du alba smells like Starburst candy. Others report that the oaks smell like urine. So either I’m going to attract young girls or hobos while I’m sporting that scent.
Some woodworkers have told me their favorite wood smell is huon pine (Lagarostrobos franklinii), but that smells a little too spicy for me, like a hippie using patchouli to cover up some wicked B.O. Another much-loved smell is aromatic cedar, but that will only bring you attention from hamsters in heat. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
In any case, if I ever do come out with my own line of wood-smelling cologne, I know what I’ll call it: Studley.
— Christopher Schwarz
Pure opinion: Buying sharpening stuff would be easier if manufacturers used microns to describe the particle size of the abrasive in each product.
While microns isn’t a perfect description, it’s a heck of a lot better than saying a stone is a “fine crystolon” when that stone is useful only for grinding away damage on a woodworking tool.
Woodworker Bert Bleckwenn recently created a chart that converts many sharpening products for woodworkers to microns and shared it with me. It’s an excellent and useful chart and is a good way to understand how coarse or fine your abrasives are.
Sharpening & Honing – Stones – Abrasives – Inventory – 050514
A couple of caveats: Natural products are difficult to rate this way. For example, novaculite is the abrasive found in Arkansas oilstones. These can be coarser or finer depending on the individual stone. And there are other factors with abrasives – too many to really write about here without creating a book.
So if you have problems with this chart, I ask only this: Make a better one and I’ll consider posting it, too.
When I sharpen, here are the micron sizes I use for each operation.
Thanks to Bert for this chart. And thanks in advance to readers for not trying to turn this post into a fight over sharpening (that’s a hint).
— Christopher Schwarz