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You can sharpen your woodworking skills with helpful tips and techniques from the editors of Woodsmith and ShopNotes magazines. Get a FREE tip sent to your email address each week! Go to WoodworkingTips.com and sign up today.

Here’s last week’s tip from ShopNotes online editor Phil Huber:

A block plane makes quick work of chamfering the edge of a workpiece. To ensure a constant width and angle, I built the base shown in the photo above. It slips over the plane to make ¼″ chamfers and doesn’t require any setup.

The base is simply two triangular-shaped runners glued to a pair of side pieces. Then cross supports are glued into notches in the front and back to hold the sides together.

Two rare-earth magnets glued into recesses in the runners hold the plane securely in place. A shallow dado is cut in the top of the runners at the mouth of the plane for the exposed iron.

The base is easy to use. With your block plane in the base, position the V-shaped groove formed by the runners over the edge of the workpiece. Then plane the workpiece until both runners sit flush. It worked so well I made a second one for ¹/₈″ chamfers.

You can learn even more simple shop techniques, just go to PlansNOW.

Good Woodworking,

Phil Huber
Online Editor, ShopNotes

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Okay, you’ve seen your share of sharpening jigs. And they all seem to work pretty good. Well, I guarantee you’ve never seen anything quite like this before: The Sharpening Box. (At least I never have!)

Last night, I watched Gary Blum, a cabinetmaker and toolmaker from Walnut, IA., demonstrate the jig and I have to say, I was impressed. You can read more about the jig at Gary’s website: Blum Tool Co.

According to information on the site, “…the jig consists of a box made of UHMW plastic that is both a honing surface and a storage box for the stones. It has an adjustable angle block which is set in relation to the top honing surface.”

A couple of features that make it unique:

• The angle for honing is set directly from a scale and is easily changed
• The tool has no jig attached to it
• The tool stays set and the stone is moved - a much easier motion
• The stone can be used laterally and in a circular motion as well as back and forth - therefore, the flatness of the stone is not as critical as a back and forth motion, and the edge can be made sharper and longer lasting
• Much shorter and narrower stones can be used very effectively
• The tool references on its back, which is the widest and flattest side
• Can hone angled edges as easily as straight
• Can sharpen very short cutters as well as short cutter with handles, such as butt chisels or Japanese chisels
• Self-contained and portable-stones store inside of box
• Can sharpen scraper blades at a true 90 degree angle very easily and repeatedly - “filing” is done with a diamond stone
• Jig is entirely waterproof for water-stone sharpening

By the way, Gary also makes some pretty cool hand planes as well.

I like old tools. It can be a 100-year old hand plane or a 50-year old table saw. I enjoy the history and reading about old tool companies. For power tool history, the Old Woodworking Machines (OWWM) web site is a great resource. There you can find photos, instruction manuals, and catalogs that tool collectors have uploaded to share with everyone. I’ve used OWWM frequently when I needed a manual for an old tool that somehow managed to find its way into my garage shop.

And if your a fan of old catalogs, photos, and other paper items related to old manufacturers of hand tools, check out Gary Robert’s Toolemera web site. Gary collects, studies, and enjoys old tools and related books and ephemera. There you’ll find old bills of sale, postcards, letterhead, books, pamphlets, and assorted other items from Gary’s collection. I’ve got one of his old photos as wallpaper on my computer screen. It’s fun just browsing through Gary’s site.

As I was stepping out to do a seminar on hand planes and scrapers at the Woodsmith Store last week, I noticed a couple of new items on Randy’s desk. He had just received two new planes from the Blum Tool Company, a small firm in Walnut, Iowa. The owner, Gary Blum, was kind enough to send Randy a smoother and a jack plane. They were strikingly beautiful with their all wood bodies of maple and cherry. And they had a very unusual blade and adjustment arrangement, But I’ve seen good-looking wooden planes before and been a little disappointed. For a lark (and because I thought they’d at least make good window dressing at the seminar) I took them both with me to the store.

After setting everything up for the seminar, I had a little time to spare. So I dug out the instructions on the Blum planes and gave them a quick glance. I wasn’t planning on doing an extensive setup or anything, but I wanted to at least see how they worked. After all, they had a different design from anything I’d ever tried before.

You see, they don’t have a conventional plane iron. Instead they use a small blade which is attached to a massive (¾”-thick) adjustable, frog-like device. Sounds complicated, right? Not at all. A star knob on the back loosens to allow adjustments of the blade depth. You just set the depth and angle of the blade with two knurled screws, tighten the star knob and you’re off. 

After five minutes of tweaking the smoother, I was taking whisper-thin shavings off a birdseye maple board. Okay, now they had my full attention. I already liked the way they felt in my hand (very light weight with a comfortable tote), and clearly they were serious tools—not just eye candy.

Gary makes only four designs at this time, the smoother and the jack that I tried out and a fore plane and jointer. Prices are more than reasonable, ranging from $199 for the smoother to $245 for the jointer. (Although Gary charges a little more for rosewood versions of these designs.)

To find out more about Blum Tools, check out Gary’s website.

It’s funny how we spend a lot of money to make our floors glass-smooth. Tile, laminate flooring, and prefinished hardwood are at the top of the list. And for those of us with 100-year old hardwood floors, we spend a lot of time sanding and refinishing to get a smooth surface for our stocking feet.

Well, as proof that what goes around comes around and that history repeats itself, HomerWood® Hardwood Flooring (a subsidiary of Armstrong World Industries, the vinyl flooring manufacturer) has come out with a line of “hand-scraped” hardwood flooring. Yep.  Hand-scraped. By humans.  The Amish, as a matter of fact. They’re calling this new line of flooring the Amish Hand-Scraped™ Collection. Now, I don’t know what HomerWood is charging for this flooring, but I bet it isn’t inexpensive. And apparently there’s a segment of our population that is willing to spend the money for a “hand-tooled” finish.

Personally, I think they misnamed it.  Why?  Because in the photo on this page, the Amish man is using a hand plane (looks like a No. 4). And in the photo on this page, another Amish man is using a drawknife.  A drawknife?! Neither of which can be called a “scraper.” When I think of a scraper, I think of a Stanley 112 or at least a No. 74.  Or the modern Lie-Nielsen Large Scraping Plane or the Veritas® Scraping Plane.

In any case, I think “Hand-Tooled” might have been a better name. Maybe we ought to offer to go teach the marketing folks at HomerWood a little about hand tools.

Whether you like or use hand tools, every shop should have one of these ”Little Victor” planes by Lee Valley! It’s a simple, foolproof design that comes in so handy for so many tasks in the shop. Knocking the edges off of corners. Beveling and rounding edges. Shaving a whisper for a perfect joint.

I like the recent thread on WoodNet where it talked about reversing the blade to make it a scraper plane. I never would have thought of that, but it’s an excellent idea and works great! I was able to get transparent shavings off of maple.

I found blade adjustment very easy using a plane hammer. A light tap on the front or rear of the plane advances or retracts the blade just enough to get perfect shavings.

I agree with some users who say that the longer blade would dig into your hand. But once you learn how to hold it, it’s not that troublesome.

I thought the blade adjustment screw was a little flimsy for my liking. I would have liked to have seen a little larger screw boss in the casting with a little larger diameter screw. It’s a perception thing. I had no trouble with it during use, though.

Read all the comments about this new little plane on WoodNet.

This plane is going to stay in my shop apron. 

Kevin Martini contacted me some time ago and said that he saw the Dovetailed Shoulder Plane we featured in ShopNotes 88. He had been looking for a project for him and his dad (Dan) to work on. Dan is a retiring machinist. You can probably tell where this is going. Let me just say that I was a little shocked (in a good way) when I saw these photos. I’d say that Dan did a fantastic job!

Here’s what Kevin said about the construction of the plane:
Software was used to design the lettering and then output to a
Bridgeport CNC Milling machine with an engraving tool. The sides and sole were machined to fit. The brass sides were milled to size and the steel sole is just around .002 larger to allow for a tight pressed fit. The connector bolts have brass spacers inserted to maintain proper thickness. They were simply easier to use than bothering with rivets. The brass wedge was drawn up in AutoCAD and then exported to the CNC Milling maching with an end-mill. After assembly, 320 silicone emery paper gave the shoulder plane
the final “spit and polish.”

I told Kevin that it looked awesome, but how did it work?

Here’s what he had to say: “I broke out the Tormek and sharpened the iron up tonight and got to use the plane. Paper-thin shavings with only a little bit of fussing. This baby is going to get years of love and use!”

You can read more here on the WoodNet Hand Tools forum.

My 7-year old, Alex, was really proud of the picture he drew for Mom. It had little animals made from a rubber stamp. It had an ocean made with blue crayon. You could tell he put a lot of effort into it. After Mom gushed all over it, he turns to me and says, “Dad, can we make a frame for my picture?”

That was about a month ago. We were getting ready for a vacation trip at the time and my time in the shop was pretty limited. I kept putting him off, knowing in my heart of hearts that I’d better work with him on this as soon as possible or it would be another “lost opportunity.”

Read the rest of this article »

Yeah, we know it’s almost February. But we’ve finally got all the kinks worked out for posting a FREE SHOP CALENDAR in PDF format that you can download and print. It’s a handsome calendar with quality photos of old tools from the early issues of ShopNotes magazine. We’ll be posting a new calendar every quarter. (This helps keep the file size down for easy downloads.)

We think you’ll be proud to hang this in your shop. And it’s handsome enough to hang in your office or kitchen. So tell all your woodworking buddies about this cool download.

I’ve never met anyone — who gets into woodworking to save money — actually save any!

First Furniture Project

If I’d known about this rehab process before I bought the rust-encrusted Stanley No. 6 and No. 7 planes that I found at a garage sale for $4, I wouldn’t have resold them for $20!

It’s No RareBear

This is a sweet project that this fella put his heart and soul into. I like it.

There’s a Bird in my Office

-Joel