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I asked associate editor Randy Maxey why hand planes are an important part of a modern woodworking shop? Here is what he told me:

“I know a lot of people think I use hand planes just because I’m old-fashioned. The truth is, I love my machines. But if you want to do quality work in your wood shop, you need to learn to use hand planes. I use at least one of the three planes I’m demonstrating almost every time I’m in the shop. It has changed the way I do woodworking. I really agree with a line I read once in an old, old issue of Woodsmith magazine. It said, ‘…no machine can come close to the quality of work a hand plane will do.’”

Get the seminar guide here: Three Hand Planes Every Shop Should Have

 

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Last night I undertook the task of cleaning 2 weeks of accumulation off my benchtop.

Some of the clutter was the remnants from fun projects. But mostly it was the residue of home maintenance – sound familiar? After cleaning the benchtop, I got to thinking about what items I would allow to remain.

Now, there are the tools that we own, and then there are the tools that we actually use (a much smaller list). I like to keep my benchtop clean and not use it as a storage shelf. But, I’ve got a couple of tools that never seem to leave my benchtop because I use them constantly. They include a small square, block plane, dust brush, mallet, measuring tape, a mechanical pencil, and finally a bench knife.

A bench knife can quickly round the edge of a tenon that needs to fit into a routed mortise, clean a tight joint, bevel an edge, and do many tasks quickly and easily. And it is a wonderful companion to my block plane and chisel.

Now, by bench knife, I don’t mean a utility knife. Utility knives are great for straight down scoring and cutting thin materials like carpet, tar paper, matboard, and the like, but, utility knives are not woodworking tools. The blades wiggle about, are too wide, and the handles are designed only for an inline power grip making fine control very difficult.

A bench knife is a woodworker’s tool. It should have an appropriate handle size and shape, one that can easily be gripped and pulled in conjunction with using the thumb to brace against the workpiece, similar to the motion of making a fist, or firmly and comfortably gripped to push the blade away, or make a piercing cut.

A bench knife should have a tapered blade so that the tip can get into tight spaces yet the base of the blade is stout enough for heavy cuts. Also, the blade should not flex (flexible blades are for peeling fruit) and a cross section that can “roll” into and out of a cut.

And forget about A2, cryogenic steel, molecular packing, or any steel-related voodoo you may have heard about. Tried-and-true high carbon steel that has been properly heat treated makes a wonderful blade that has the right combination of toughness and edge-holding ability.

For a purchased knife, my favorite is a 2″ knife by Frost. It’s a plain unadorned knife and the price is reasonable. I used this knife daily for years carving figures as part of my former life as a craftsperson, so, I can vouch that the blade is of good quality with a shape that makes it quite versatile. The center swelling of the handle is comfortable and allows for a variety of grips.

So think about adding a bench knife to your benchtop. There are the tools we own, then there are the tools that we use. A good bench knife is a tool that you will use.

P.S. Off in the future the making of a bench knife may be a project in ShopNotes. My first prototype uses a purchased knife blank to which custom wood scales have been riveted on. The nameplate is a fun addition. (Who doesn’t like to personalize their tools?) I may also custom make a knife blank from tool steel.

I like layout tools. Now, of course, a speed square and a lumber crayon are layout tools, but there’s no romance of craftsmanship there. It’s the fancy layout tools that catch my eye. Fine layout tools provide good results and inspiration. Moreover, I like to think (and hope) that by using well-made layout tools I’ll get a project off to the right start and will enjoy a well thought out and well-reasoned project. No uh-ohs, no panics, no problems.

So, I thought it was time to tackle a layout tool project in ShopNotes Magazine. My choice is a pair of dividers. Now, dividers don’t get used very often, but, when you’re dealing with layout work requiring the accurate division of circles, curved lines, scribing, or the transfer of dimensions from irregular objects they can be indispensible.

When I design a project, I find it’s often invaluable to build prototypes. Sketching and computer modeling are important aids in designing a tool. However, prototyping is when it all comes together. Learn by doing (learn by failing). When you hold and look at a tool in your hands and then use that tool, the faults and limitations quickly become apparent. As I work my way through designing these dividers, I thought I’d share my first prototype pair of dividers. There will be more, of course. Build, evaluate, change, and build again.

I started thinking about this design a few months back while taking a blacksmithing class. On the wall hung a large pair of hand-forged dividers. I thought they were beautiful. As I said, I believe tools should inspire us and there should be beauty in the objects that we surround ourselves with. So, I knew I’d have to make a pair. When I asked our instructor about the dividers, He said that they were patterned after a design by Leonardo DaVinci. DaVinci huh? I’d say that’s good source material.

These dividers are constructed of 5/32″ mild steel for the legs, 1/8″ steel for the wing, and some misc. parts. Metalwork, like woodworking, is often an exercise in reduction (to create individual parts) and then a process of synthesizing the individual parts to form the finished item. The legs and wing were laid out on blued steel stock and then cut out using a hacksaw followed by filing and drilling. I used a multidirectional hacksaw blade to cut the curved wing. One point of construction that I found interesting was riveting the two legs together. A brass rivet was inserted into the two legs, heated with a propane torch and hammered. Now the legs are supposed to move relative to each other, right? But aren’t they hammered tight? Well, yes. But we’re not done. If you heat the riveted area up with torch and begin to move the legs little by little, with some effort the legs will soon begin to move freely as the shank of the rivet is stretched and formed. Cool it all down in water and the metal will shrink and it will be freer yet. Certainly not a new technique but new to me.

The final design will be in ShopNotes 105. It may not look anything like what’s shown here. (I have a number of sketches to build prototypes of.) Build, evaluate, change, and build again.

Chris Fitch

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 to attend woodworking schools. From my very first hands-on classes at the Woodcraft store in Bloomington, Mn., I’ve been hooked on learning from the “masters.”

Paul Sellers is one of those masters. You might remember, he taught a hand tools foundational course that I took a few years ago. And so I was excited to hear that he has founded a new woodworking school in his native England. The New Legacy School of Woodworking is much like the school I attended near Waco, TX at the Homestead Heritage Craft Village. But with a twist. It’s housed in a castle — Penrhyn Castle in North Wales. Penrhyn is one of the many castles being preserved and maintained by the National Trust, with whom Paul has been working for the last year or so.

Paul says that the availability of some really good furniture from Asia has continued to make it difficult to earn a living as a woodworker. But he hopes that schools like his will fill the void left by the decline of apprenticeship programs like the one that helped start his career over 40 years ago in his native England. During his apprenticeship, Paul learned about the proper use of hand tools, still an important part of the trade in England even in the ’60s. That’s the focus of New Legacy and I wish him well.

I remember growing up that my dad always had a sharp pocketknife in his pocket. He still carries one with him all the time. He could never stand not having a sharp knife and sharpened it often. So, I guess I picked up the habit of carrying a pocket knife from Dad.

My first decent pocket knife I purchased for myself was a small, two-bladed Buck knife. It had stainless steel blades and real wood scales.  I bought it on my honeymoon and carried it with me every day for about 15 years. Imagine how heartbroken I was when I emptied my pockets one evening and it wasn’t there. I looked all over, but couldn’t find it. A few weeks later, I resigned myself to the fact that it was long gone. Soon after, I replaced it with a Case knife. It, too, had stainless steel blades.  Some months later, I pulled into our gravel driveway, and as I was getting out of the car, I saw what remained of my original Buck knife.  Actually, it was pretty intact, but the combination of gravel and cars running over it removed one of the wood scales.

When I carried a pocket knife, I used it mostly for opening packages, cutting cardboard, and tightening the occasional screw.  (I know…don’t tell my dad.)  Every so often, I’d take it out to the shop and sharpen it. But it seemed like it never held an edge for very long (even when I didn’t use it as a screwdriver). I’m no metallurgist and certainly don’t understand the finer points of blade steel, but I wondered if the stainless steel blades were the problem.

It occurred to me that the reason my dad’s knife is always sharp might not be just that he sharpens it often, but perhaps his has a high-carbon steel blade. (I’ll have to ask next time I see him.) I think carbon steel can be sharpened to a finer edge and holds its edge better than stainless steel. All I want is a knife you can almost shave with. I could never get that with my stainless steel knives.

I’ve been intrigued by these little Opinel knives from Lee Valley. The smallest one is small enough to carry in a pocket. And the blades are made from high-carbon steel. The price is right at just under $11US each for the two smaller ones. I’ve been carrying one around in my pocket for a few weeks, so maybe I’ll get a feel for how well the blade holds up to packing tape and cardboard and maybe the occasional whittling (but no tightening of screws). When I got it, it just took a little honing to get it impressively sharp.  A lot sharper than my Buck or Case stainless steel knives, anyway.  So far, for being an inexpensive knife, I’ve been impressed.

I have a fascination with measuring tools — especially steel rules. I seem to collect them. I think it’s partly because I can never find one when and where I need it. And partly because they’re so inexpensive, I don’t break out into a cold sweat or have to come up with an explanation for my wife whenever I buy one.

But there’s a problem I’ve always had with steel rules. I have a hard time seeing the graduations. At least in my shop, I have to angle the rule just right in the light to be able to see what I’m doing. That’s true even for the better-quality rules that are etched (instead of stamped) and have a matte chrome finish.

I finally found something better, at least for my poor eyes. Enco sells a line of EZ-View® Rules that I really like. What’s different about them is that they have a matte black finish and filled white etchings for the numbers and graduations. You can see them on this catalog page. I have the 6″ pocket rule and the 12″ and 18″ steel rules. All of the ones I have are type “4R” (8th’s and 16th’s on one side, 32nd’s and 64th’s on the other). The ones I have are rigid, but they’re available in flexible versions, too.

We talk a lot around here about the Woodsmith Store. For a little over fifteen years, it was a small, out-of-the-way haven for woodworkers tucked into the Beaverdale neighborhood of Des Moines. Then in 2003 everything changed.

That was when the old Payless Cashways building in Clive was remodeled and Des Moines became home to one of the largest independently-owned woodworking stores in the country. It is truly a regional destination store for woodworkers from all over the Midwest. The store, now over 20,000 square feet in size, is filled with woodworking supplies, tools, machinery and hardwoods. Think Cabella’s, Bass Pro Shops, or L.L. Bean.

This coming weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday (September 21st, 22nd and 23rd), the Woodsmith Store will celebrate its 20th Anniversary with a Fall Fair event. There will be a lot going on, not only in the woodworking departments, but in the painting and gardening departments as well. I just thought it deserved a shameless plug here. Hope you can stop by.

While I was vacationing near my hometown in Ohio in August, I received a phone call from a long-time family friend, Dave Corwin, from Delaware, Ohio. He and my dad are friends with a history spanning several decades. When I married, our first home was across the street from Dave’s, so we became friends as well as neighbors. The best part was, he was a fellow woodworker. There were three of us woodworkers on the block, so we could often be found in each other’s shop on any given day sipping a cup of coffee and telling a story or two.

Dave called to tell me that he made a Shop-Built Mallet we featured in ShopNotes 95. He said he really enjoyed the article and was especially tickled and surprised when I told him I wrote it. He said he had a little trouble planing the resawn stock to thickness. Here’s what Dave said about the project:

“The mallet was fun to make and was a challenging project. One problem that I encountered was that the double faced tape did not work out very well because it continually got saw dust in it. So, what I did was put a ¾” board on the planer table and ran the thin pieces through on top of this board. That seemed to work out well.”

Dave also commented that he really thought the simple resaw pivot block for the band saw was a great idea. He built one and used it for this project.

Thanks for sharing, Dave.