The most modern of these different works are at least of the last century, and we don’t make them now because they say: This is not in style. As if that which is really beautiful [is] not forever, and that works of sculpture and or gold, often very mediocre (as is made too often nowadays), were preferable to chefs-d’oeuvre of the last century, for which we have no regard for any more, and for which we have substituted elegant super-abundance, which has no other merit than being of the passing style, which is soon erased by another, which doesn’t even exist longer than the caprice of those who have invented it.
I’ve been sharpening my own saws for many years, but it’s not something I’m comfortable teaching or writing much about because I don’t do it enough to feel like I’ve encountered all the crazy, messed-up situations that are possible with a saw.
Question: How do I recut the teeth in a new sawplate?
Heck, I don’t know.
How do I best reconfigure the PPI count of my saw to make it finer or coarser?
Ummmm.
My sawplate is warped. Every other tooth is tiny. I want to change a ripsaw to a crosscut saw with sloped gullets. I’d like to add progressive rake and progressive pitch.
I know a lot of the answers to these questions, but I don’t have a lot of experience messing around with saws in all sorts of disrepair.
But when my saws are dull, I sharpen them. It’s really pretty easy and I’ve never thought it was a big deal.
However, I have found that many woodworkers are leery of filing their saws. They are afraid they will screw them up. They are mystified by the angles. They don’t know what equipment to buy.
So here’s the truth: Filing saws is easier than sharpening a smoothing plane. If you have a triangular file and saw set, you can do it. You don’t have to have a dedicated saw vise (make wooden jaws) or filing guide (make one). You don’t need a saw jointer (I use a mill file embedded in a block of wood).
And here is the larger truth: If the Veritas Saw File Holder is what moves you into the category of “people who file their own saws,” then the jig is worth its weight in gold. It’s an incredibly simple device that trains you to hold the file in the correct orientation for both rake and fleam when filing saw teeth.
For the experienced filer, it allows you to dial in any combination of rake and fleam, so you can feel free to experiment with angles that are outside of the muscle memory of your hands.
And it’s a fantastic teaching aid, to boot.
After filing four saws with the guide, I spent a Friday afternoon teaching a person who had never filed a saw how to do it with the guide. The Veritas guide flattened the learning curve to the point where the woodworker’s second saw was almost as good as mine.
So if you are looking for something that will help you become a better saw filer in short order, this jig is the ticket I would buy.
Note: The chest is sold and I have a waiting list of six people if that deal falls through. Thanks everyone!
I have a new tool chest I’d like to sell – if you are in driving distance of Fort Mitchell, Ky., and would like to come get it, let me know at chris@lostartpress.com.
It is a full-size chest I just completed for a DVD shoot with Popular Woodworking Magazine. It’s 25” tall (including the casters), 39-3/4” long and 26” deep. It has three sliding tills. This chest is made from birch plywood and poplar and is screwed together, but everything is plugged and painted to look like a traditional tool chest. It is totally solid and fully functional.
The hardware is all home-center stuff that I stripped the zinc off of. The lid is hinged with three steel butts. The lifts are steel utility-grade items. The casters are cast metal – the same ones I have on my regular chest. The chest is painted black with General’s “Milk Paint.”
I’m looking to recoup only the cost of materials. Price $200.
I do not wish to pack and ship this chest – hence the cash and carry. The first person to say “I want it and will come get it” gets it.
If you are a hand-tool woodworker, you owe it to yourself to ditch your job for a couple days and head to Amana, Iowa, for the Handworks event on May 24-25, 2013.
Of course, Lost Art Press be there with a big group of friends. We will have all our books to show. Tool chests? Sure. Beer? Probably. A stomach pump? No. A redheaded editor? Indeed.
But that’s not all.
If you have any interest in the tool chest of H.O. Studley, then Handworks should not be missed. Why?
1. Don Williams, the author of the forthcoming book on Studley, will be there to discuss his research in detail and provide a first glimpse at some of the thousands of incredible photographs Narayan Nayar has taken of the chest during our documentary trips in the last two years.
2. We will be selling there – and only there – 50 brass thickness calipers based off the original in the Studley tool chest. We’ve commissioned a machinist/woodworker/computer guy to make them for us, and work is proceeding.
Price: $45.
So go to the Handworks page here at Handworks.co. Register. The event is free. It’s going to be something that people talk about for many years to come – like the first Woodworking in America.
And so, in my never-ending efforts to annoy, here is some more on apron hooks.
Data digger Jeff Burks started searching for the things. In all his travels, Jeff says he’s never seen any in New England, and I’ve never seen any for sale at Midwest auctions. However, Jeff turned up tons of them in France.
Called “crochets de tablier,” they are many times trade-specific. Check out the one above for woodworkers.
“I’ve found a lot of images of French metal detectorists who have unearthed these things in a field,” Jeff writes. “The designs seem to be mostly trade specific, with the pile of joiners tools and the workbench being unusually common. There are many variations on the same theme, which suggest that they were made over a long period of time by many foundries. I’m having a difficult time understanding why the heart shaped ones are associated with tanners. Have not seen any three- or four-leaf clovers.”
Despite R.A. Salaman’s drawings, which shows two hooks on the apron, these things show up mostly as one piece. The implication is that the hook goes into a reinforced button-hole-like opening in the apron.
If I get to France this summer, I’ll have to look for some.
