With every class there are three types of students.
The type that is there to learn. They learn. They go home happy.
The type that probably should consider a different hobby. (To be honest, that was me during my first woodworking class. Somehow I persevered.)
The type that has no business there because they could easily teach the class.
Ed Sutton is in the third category. Ed runs the blog thingswemake.co.uk, and is actively involved on Instagram and Twitter. If you haven’t joined in on Instagram and Twitter, you should consider it. It hasn’t (yet) been overrun by trolls.
(By the way, Lost Art Press is on Instagram and Twitter, as well.)
Anyway, Ed was in my Dutch Tool Chest class in England this month (last month? who am I?) and has finished it up right pretty as we say in Arkansas (about our cousins). Here is his blog entry about the class. And check out his video, which is comprised of stills from the class.
The handful of you who witnessed the incident during the Midwest Woodworking wood sale already know that my block plane spontaneously disassembled while I was using it to check out some 8/4 incense cedar, with the various components flying out of my hand and scattering themselves across the concrete floor.
Surprisingly enough, I couldn’t find any signs of damage afterwards. There was a nick in the front adjusting knob, but that may have been there already. Anyway, once I got home I decided that it deserved the full spa treatment after an experience like that.
I disassembled it as far as I could, lightly went over the sole and sides with some 400-grit silicon carbide paper to remove any incipient rust, then cleaned everything with soap and water. After everything was good and dry, I sprayed the bare iron surfaces with Boeshield T-9.* Once that was dry, I wiped it all down with a cotton cloth to remove the excess.
Ready for reassembly
Then it was just a matter of putting all the pieces back together in the correct order, honing the blade, and verifying that I hadn’t screwed something up and it still worked. Speaking of honing, I’ve been experimenting with some freehand honing techniques recently, and while the jury is still out, one thing I’ve decided to permanently add to the regimen is a final stropping. I bought a couple of Genuine Horse Butt strops from Joel Moskowitz, and—as he advises—use the rough side of the leather with some micro-fine stropping compound.
The proof is in the shaving: sugar pine end grain
I suspect that the slight round-over produced by the stropping acts sort of like a micro-bevel, and helps toughen the edge. The net result is that the edge seems to last a bit longer between sharpenings.
–Steve Schafer
*I’ve also used TopCote (now apparently called GlideCote). Boeshield has gotten better reviews with regard to preventing rust; TopCote is less messy to use.
If you frequent Lie-Nielsen Toolworks events you may have run into Roger Benton. He is one of the show crew that demonstrates Lie-Nielsen tools and lifts large crates of tools at the end of the show. When we travel to do shows we get to catch up with people like Roger whom we haven’t seen since the last show. It’s sort of a Carney thing. One of the many things Roger does to make ends meet is roam the borough’s of New York City harvesting lumber from trees. As you can imagine, dealing with large tress is like dealing with large animals. The “fun” is in direct proportion to size. Roger has lots of stories, like the one involving his uncle getting an injured hand permanently mended into a half closed position so he could work the clutch on his Harley. Sadly this story doesn’t involve uncles and Harleys….
— John Hoffman
‘I Don’t See that Going Anywhere.’
“Nah, that’s probably fine,” I said.
Kyle had just brought up the possibility of adding another ratchet strap to the load of mulberry slabs that were causing the truck’s bumper to hang so close to the ground.
“There’s another strap behind the seat,” he offered, hopefully.
I made a show of vigorously attempting to rock the stack of slabs side to side, demonstrating the absolute soundness of the load. Then I confidently dropped the clincher: “I don’t see that going anywhere.”
Kyle managed to emote the phrase “It’s your funeral” without actually speaking as he went for the rest of the gear.
The preceding batch of hours had been spent doing the work of many men so we were pretty shot. The mulberry tree was massive, the biggest I’ve seen, and working quarters were tight. The tiny Brooklyn backyard this beast lived in was barely 25 feet square with tall brick buildings on three sides. Chainsaws are loud, and I’ll tell you that you haven’t really heard a ported Husqvarna 395xp sing until you’ve run it wide open for a few hours within such tight concrete confines. Running this saw in that space is to your sterocilia as Mt. Saint Helens’ explosion was to the surrounding fir forest: utter devastation. I love that saw, I have feelings for that saw that would scare people, but I have to admit that on this occasion I’d had quite enough of it, thanks much. The mulberry cut really well when we found the rare stretch of metal-free wood, but stretches of metal-free wood would prove to be in short supply that day. We hit an even dozen nails on the first cut. Ten mangled chains later we had ringing ears and nine slabs to show for it, the slabs around 2-3/4” thick, 10 feet long and 20″-34” wide.
The slabs were gorgeous and heavy, and had to go through a “small alley,” then up a short flight of stairs and into the truck. The homeowner had warned us about the “small alley,” and we thought we were prepared. We were not, for at some point in the past someone had seen fit to erect a small storage shed in the alley. This looked to have been around 800 years ago. The dilapidated shed was crumbing into the building on one side and left a gap around 20″ wide on the other. So the “small alley” was further condensed into a dirty gap one could squeeze through if one wanted to abrade oneself against a filthy brick-and-stucco building on one side while contracting tetanus from the jagged tin ruin on the other. We each gave it a dry run before committing to the feat with slabs in hand. This was when we confirmed that the small alley doubled as a urinal for the homeless.
A few scrapes and bruises later and we had all the slabs in the truck with no signs of lockjaw.
That’s when Kyle tried to be reasonable, I uttered what is now a fun phrase for my friends to throw back at me and we hopped in the truck and drove off.
We made it about six blocks.
Kyle said, while looking through the rear window, “Um, dude….”
Before he could finish, the truck bed bounced up sharply as if suddenly relieved of its burden. That was because the truck bed had been suddenly relieved of its burden. The slabs, splayed across Kingston Avenue, quickly grew smaller in the rear-view mirror. I could hear tires screeching as the cars behind us slammed on their brakes. It was like in a spy movie where you press a button on the steering wheel to deploy the road block. “They’ll never catch us now!”
Kyle: “We lost the….”
Me: “Yes, I see.”
While the street kids from the bodega on the corner laughed and made insensitive remarks, we loaded the truck a second time. We blocked the street for about 15 minutes, 20 at the most, the car horn crescendo drawing heads from upper-story windows. I smiled and waved cheerfully. Kyle, bless him, quietly fetched two extra ratchet straps from behind the seat.
We were on our way again in short order. Back at the shop the story was told, embellishments were made. Laughter was had at my expense. “Let the troops have a laugh,” I’ve heard. It’s good for morale.
“I don’t see that going anywhere” is now one of my standard catch phrases for exceedingly precarious situations, and it gets used with scary frequency.
— Roger Benton
For more information on Roger, his furniture and wood business see
Come to Cincinnati this weekend to scarf up the wood that is left at Midwest Woodworking at a significant discount – 25 percent off the already-low prices for solid wood and 40 percent off veneer.
Midwest is located at 4019 Montgomery Road in Cincinnati, and the sale will go from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Bring cash or check – no plastic.
I’ll be there to scrounge up some pine, mahogany and sapele for some future commissions. If there are enough people who are interested, we might organize an expedition to the nearby Madtree Brewing taproom, which is less than three miles away and has good beer and brings in some good food.
If you see me there, let me know if you’re in or not for Madtree.
The only thing difficult about building this workbench in two days is not building the whole thing in only one day.
I had only about four or five hours of shop time today because we’re packing up our oldest daughter to head off to college on Monday. Despite this, and going to three record stores and a pizza dinner (A Tavola, my favorite), I had to restrain myself from just building the whole workbench start to finish today.
This morning I broke down all the stock with a circular saw, jointed all the boards’ edges with a jointer plane and glued up the top. Then I ate a jelly doughnut.
I clipped the corners of the front and back aprons with a handsaw and then glued a 1×10 spacer to the inside of each apron. This spacer, which is an idea I swiped directly from “The Naked Woodworker,” is one of Mike Siemsen’s moments of pure genius on the DVD. The spacers add rigidity and set the location of the legs.
Then I removed the machine marks from the legs and drilled all the holes for the knockdown hardware. The surface-mounted tee-nuts are a snap to install. They press into a 31/64” pilot hole; prongs stop them from rotating. Then No. 6 x 1-1/4” screws make sure the tee-nuts never fall out when the wood shrinks. I was impressed by how easy these metal bits were to install.
And when I cinched up the legs to the aprons with 3/8” x 3” hex-head bolts and 3/8” x 1” washers, the assemblies were rock solid.
Note that the order of assembly here doesn’t appear logical at first. But I have a good reason for it. More on that tomorrow.
