All The Gift Giving Days Rolled Into One...

There was a knock on my door yesterday; a sound my wife has come to dread. She has good reason to as it was once again the postman with my latest collection of tool acquisitions. This particular shipment was even more exciting for me because it included not only my latest purchase, but also three other purchases I have made over the past two months.

A couple of months ago I purchased a 14” Disston-Jackson Backsaw on eBay. I came across it while searching for a match to my Jackson 12” dovetail rip. It was one of those strange purchases where you don’t really think about it, you just do it. I placed a bid, if I now remember correctly, one of $27.00, and forgot about it. About four days later I got an email saying I had won the auction and to be honest, I was taken aback by this email, as I truly did not remember bidding on a saw. Finally remembering that I actually did make the bid, I sent off the money and emailed the seller and asked him to ship the saw to Daryl Weir (woodnut4 on eBay), who is located in Illinois, so he could refurbish it before I got my hands on it.

About two weeks after that, I finally came across a new listing on eBay for an open-handled Jackson dovetail saw that I could have made into a crosscut to match the rip I had. I quickly sent off an email to Daryl asking him to look at the listing and make as accurate of judgment on the saw that he could, given the limited information the listing held, and added to by a even more limited answers to my emailed questions I sent off to the seller. Daryl got back to me right away stating that while he couldn’t be sure, the saw did appear in the photos to be workable. I had been searching for this match for the past year and a half and this saw was the first I had come across so I became very determined to own it. It seemed to me to be a long week before the auction finally ended, but I think I ended up paying a whopping $26.00 for it. Again, when I paid the bill, I asked the seller to ship it to Daryl.

A week after that, doing my usual morning cruise through all the vintage tool seller sites looking for more Stanley No. 40 chisels, I came across an older Disston Gent’s saw on the toolexchange.come.au site. While there was very little information about this saw, which is not unusual for this site, I trust the proprietor, so I emailed him and stated that if the saw is straight, bill me and send it to Daryl. Naturally, he billed me $55.00 (AU), and another saw headed off to join Daryl’s ever-increasing workload.

Last Sunday I got an email from Daryl stating that all the work on the saws had been completed and they were being shipped the following morning. Included in the email was the total bill for refurbishing the three saws. I was amazed at how little it cost me, considering the work involved.

The first saw, the Disston – Jackson 14” back, was manufactured between 1910 and 1920. It was not in the best of shape, although the bones were there. Daryl removed the handle and the back. He then cleaned, straightened and re-tensioned the blade, reinstalling the back once the blade was ready for assembly. He cleaned and gave the handle a few coats of boiled linseed oil to preserve the original finish and then reinstalled it. The saw was then jointed and sharpened at 12 ppi. The blade is very thin, at .027”, and as Daryl says, “it is a fast, smooth cutting saw”, one that will work very well in my Stanley No. 150 Miter Box.


The little Jackson Dovetail was in better shape. It only had to be cleaned, jointed and sharpened. As the handle was loose,
Daryl removed it, cleaned it and coated it with boiled linseed oil, reattaching it so it is now tight and secure. For 26 bucks, I didn’t do too badly. While not an exact match to the Jackson I wanted to pair it with, it turned out to be a pretty good little saw. Where my rip is from somewhere around1888, this one is from the1870’s. What was almost disappointing, though, was while my rip is 12”, this one is only 10”. It was in the description. but I had been looking for this match for so long, I didn’t even bother to fully read the description, I just went at it and purchased it. I’ll keep looking for an exact match to the rip, but until then, I’m happier with an almost matching crosscut than I was without one at all.


Here is a shot of my "almost" pair of Jackson Dovetail Saws...


The Disston Gents saw was a steal. The only thing it required was sharpening, and Daryl did that, giving it a crosscut filing. It has seen very little use and has lots of metal beneath the back. The etching on it is faded, but still easily readable. Neither Daryl, Stuart, the seller, or I have any idea when it was manufactured. Daryl put it in the “older model” category because it has the wider back and has a pretty turned handle. I bought it to replace a Dozukime saw I bought at Lee Valley Tools a while ago. Its not that the Dozukime is a bad saw, its not. In fact, it is a very good saw for the price ($49.00 (CAN)). It is just that I can’t get used to cutting on the pull, and I don’t feel I have control of the cut with it as much as I do with a push style of saw. I think using a pull style saw requires a completely different stance than when using a push saw; one that requires you to be further away from the material. With my eyesight, this just doesn’t work for me. I have to be so close to the markings that I could use my nose as a guide to start the saw, so a push style saw is more aligned to my abilities.


I won’t tell you what I ended up paying Daryl for all this work, but when you look at all three saws, it is surprising how very little money I have tied up in them. To date I have purchased four saws from Daryl, had him sharpened two others, and completely refurbish three more. I have nothing but good things to say about this man. Let's face it, I didn’t do anything to get this wonderful set of saws other than pay the bills. While I own them, it was Daryl that made them worth owning. Who, then, should get credit for them; me, because I have a Visa card, or Daryl, who spent a number of hours turning a bunch of sow’s ears into a group of silk purses?

You can get in touch with Daryl Weir at weir@gallatinriver.net, or you can find him on eBay listed as woodnut4. He usually has one of his refurbished saws for sale each week.

Having thought about it, I am considering upping the anti and buying some true collectible saws now; ones I won’t use, but instead, will just dust and look at. I don’t think the vast majority of my tools will increase in value anytime soon, but some of the higher-end collectable saws and planes might as investors look for new places and things to sink their money into. That is what happened with muscle cars from the 60's and 70's, which only happened very recently. Why couldn't the same happen with tools? With the everyday tools like the ones shown here, I think that my son, who will inherit them, will definitely be in a win-win situation. As "quasi-collectables", he can sell them and probably see what I have invested into them back, with maybe a little more to spare. If he decides to keep them, he will have a wonderful set of hand tools to use. Until then, however, just look at what I get to play with.


Along with the package of saws came a second package. Sorry, this post isn’t done yet.

Two weeks ago I was having a look around the eBay listings in the Tool Collectables section, and came across another tool I had been looking for; a Stanley No. 71 Router Plane. It was being offered by nail1nh55, a seller who turned out to be one of the most honest sellers I have ever dealt with on eBay. What he was offering was one of the “B” models, this particular one being manufactured in 1909, the exact tool built in the exact year that I was looking for.

Sound a little too specific? Let me explain.

The open-toe model that Stanley started producing in about 1890 had a "shoe" added that closes the throat so it can be used on narrow stock in about 1895 or '96. They also added a depth rod at about this same time, modifying the shaft that holds the adjustable shoe so it became a dual-purpose item. Around 1898 or 1899, they stopped producing the plane with a japanned finish and started producing it with a nickel-plated finish. In 1902, the biggest change in the design happened when they added the wheel adjustment to move the blade up and down, a design change that allows for finer adjustments with greater accuracy. In 1909, they added the countersunk holes in the sole so a wider board could be attached to the tool and a few months later, Stanley redesigned the sole casting so the combo depth rod / shoe mount protruded through the throat, which eliminated the need for the second collar that held the cutter blade and the shoe attachment together. Stanley went on to produce this design for the next 64 years with only three changes to the design after 1909. One those changes took place in 1910, when they stopped producing the planes with maple knobs and started producing them with ones painted black, another change was the addition of a third "smoothing" blade in 1917 and the third, in 1939, saw them add an adjustable fence to the sole.

The example that I now proudly own has an open toe, a shoe, a combo shoe holder and depth gauge shaft, it is nickel-plated, has the wheel adjustment, countersunk holes in the sole and maple handles, but it does not have the second mount in the throat. This one came with the original and often lost second collar and also has the original two blades.


As a result of all of this, and the reason I was looking for this exact model, is that this particular example is one of those very rare Stanley products whose manufacturing date can be narrowed down to within one year – six months, actually. Hence, I can pretty much emphatically state that this Stanley 71 B Router Plane was manufactured in the first half of 1909.

How many tools in your cabinet can you date that closely?

Peace,

Mitchell

Overcoming, "Use It or Lose It"...

I went online the other day with the intent of purchasing Christopher Schwarz’s, “Building Furniture with Hand Planes”, when I spotted the offer for his latest work, a book entitled, “Handplane Essentials”. Never being one to fight an opportunity to add items to a shopping cart, I clicked on the link to investigate it further. In the post was a link that opened a pdf file which displayed the Table of Contents and Christopher’s introduction for this publication.



Viewing that short document, a few thoughts came to mind.

First was the black and white photography included. Wow. Nice stuff. Al Parrish, the guy behind those photographs, has had me as a fan for quite some time now. He has such an amazing eye for detail and incredible abilities for controlling light. You have probably viewed many pieces created by this talented man before and not known it. Over the years he has done work for just about everyone who is anyone, especially all things F&W. I searched for a site that, hopefully, would display some of Al's personal work as I think it would be amazing stuff to view, but sadly, one couldn't be found.

The next thought was about the layout. If the rest of the book looks as clean and inviting as these few pages, it is definitely something I want to own. Yes, I know, you are thinking who would buy a book because they like the layout? Well, in truth, I would, because I’m really into that kind of thing. The success of presenting anything, including knowledge, is based on its packaging, and if you don’t believe that, consider how you view squirrels and rats. They are very close cousins, you know. It is too bad this excerpt didn’t include a credit for the person who did the layout.

Then there were the quotes used, quotations being something that always fascinate me. I’m fascinated by them because they always make me wonder what the scenario was when they were spoken. Think about someone finding the quote, “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” written on a bathroom wall a hundred years from now and, hopefully, you get the idea about what I am talking about here. Schwarz’s first quote by John Gay is something I live by, but never had it put into words before, so it was very cool to come across. His second choice, however, is one I’m not too sure about. He used a quote by Stonehouse (Shan shi), a poet I hadn’t heard of before, which states, “In 20 years on this mountain, I’ve never been cheated by a hoe”. My only thought after reading this one was, “…and what red light district have you been frequenting and how do I get there?”

Finally, there was his Introduction. In this short discourse, Christopher makes his case for hand tools over their power offspring and doesn’t do a bad job of it. Many of his arguments and statements are quite valid and indisputable until I came across the entry, “Power tools have brilliantly eliminated the need for the first-time user to be highly skilled to do basic operations. Even beginning woodworkers can turn out stunning feats of woodworking thanks to the cleverness of the tools themselves.” Oh, boy. Having spent a lifetime working exclusively with power tools, this entry immediately raised the hair on the back of my neck. How dare the man make such a statement.

I didn’t close the file right there and then but, instead, sat there for a while and thought about what the man was saying and considered why I was reading his offering in the first place. I considered why I made the switch to hand tools, which was done solely because I have lost so much of my peripheral vision due to glaucoma and other assorted eye ailments, that I started to share the worry held by those around me that I was going to lose a finger or two one day because I couldn’t see both hands at the same time. I thought about my past, which I have commented about often in this blog, stating I was taught the finer points of power tools at a very early age by my father and related how I constantly upgraded and added to those skills over the next forty years. I thought about how it was a long haul to learn how to properly cut something as basic as a miter joint on a table saw, let alone many of the other more complex tasks some of the other power tools are capable of. I then thought about what would happen if I made the switch back to power tools and came to the realization that while Christopher struck out with this statement, he was in the right ballpark.

From my perspective, having lived in both worlds, there are some very serious differences between using power tools and hand tools. The slope of the learning curve for each, however, isn't one of them. Just learning how to feed a piece of wood through a tablesaw takes considerable practice and knowledge to avoid even the slightest of binding, which, in the worse case scenario, can deliver the piece back to you in a very uninvited manner, or in the least, mar the cut. A tablesaw’s spinning ⅛” wide blade has haunted many of the most experienced craftsmen whom have added many a piece to the woodpile as a result of not allowing for it properly in the setting of the fence. Power tools, like hand tools, have their hidden Achilles Heels, and while they always have a way of finding you in both applications, in the power tool world, they find you faster and are much more apparent then when they appear in a hand tool application.

What power tools have over hand tools, Christopher, is “repeatability”. As I sat there and thought about what you wrote, considering what would happen if I made the switch back to power tools, I realized that I would have no difficulties whatsoever. The beauty of power tools is that once you learn the process, you can repeat it until the cows come home and always achieve the same results. Where I would have a problem is if I made the switch back again because the one thing that hand tools require over power, is hand/eye coordination, the biggest Achilles Heel in the hand tool world. I have written about this unique requirement a number of posts ago, but since mulling over Christopher's statement, it has been in the forefront of my mind every time I pick up a chisel or saw.

Currently, I’m in the process of building a new chisel rack for my tool cabinet. Built in the same manner as the rest of the racks in this ongoing, never-ending project, the frame is dovetailed together and the rack is through mortised to the frame. The last rack I built was finished last November, seven months ago. As I had built one immediately before that, the 8 dovetails and 14 through mortises this particular rack required all came off without a hitch and I was quite pleased with the results. The same can’t be said for this current one. Not having cut a dovetail in 7 months meant that I had serious difficulties in repeating the feat. I knew the processes and followed them, just like I would do if I was using a power tool, but the one thing I no longer had, the one item not required with that power tool, was the hand/eye coordination to pull it off, something that I had developed over the last few racks that I built. As a result, my cuts were not as true as they should have been and my chiseling was inconsistent. In the hand tool world, unlike the power one, "If you don’t use it, you lose it".

Where this latest project has it over the previous one is in the finishing of the surfaces. On the current one, I have used scrapers exclusively, where on the others, while I attempted to use a scraper; I didn’t have the greatest of luck with it and ended up sanding them. Having used scrapers in the past, I am well aware of their abilities, but it is that “use it or lose it” thing.

In my hand tool world, you can “cheat” on just about anything but cutting a dovetail. From what I have seen and read on the web, most agree with me as, according to just about everyone in the hand tool world that I have been exposed to, using a jig to thickness plane a piece of wood with a jointer plane is acceptable, but using one to cut a dovetail is the world’s biggest no-no and something to be scoffed at. While at the heart of it, it really is an irrational attitude, but it is one that I believe in and honour. As a result, while you would have to hold a gun to my head to get me to buy a jig that would hold my saw at the perfect angle to cut a dovetail, I didn’t hesitate to buy Lee Valley’s offering of their "Veritas Scraping Set".



What an amazing set, each piece a perfect example of proper engineering and design.

First, it comes with a multitude of scrapers in different thicknesses, 4 to be precise (A), all “super-hard”, in Rc48-52 steel no less, whatever the hell that means.

Next, it has a Jointer (C) which holds the 8” file (B) that is also included with the set. While any piece of square stock can take the place of this jointer to keep the file square with the scraper, this piece of extruded aluminum is like adding a long handle to a broom head – it is not necessary to get the job done, but it sure makes life a lot more comfortable while you are doing it.

Then, included in the $92.00 (CAN) set is the burnisher (D), the reason I bought this kit, even though all of these pieces are available separately. Burnishing the hook has always been my downfall in the past when it comes to using a scraper. Sometimes I get it and sometimes I don't. I can learn how to hold the burnisher to do its job properly, but when I go back to it in a month, or even six months later, that ability has disappeared and I have to start all over again. Because of time constraints, I don’t pick up a tool as often as I would like or as often as it takes to maintain my abilities with it. When I do find those few precious hours in a week, the last thing I want is spend it practicing to regain my abilities with it. I may not take shortcuts when it comes to cutting a dovetail, as that would be sacrilegious, but when it comes to something as mundane as sharpening a scraper, I’m all for anything that helps, and this thing truly helps.

This plastic handle is very comfortable to hold and very easy to maintain a constant pressure with. To overcome the “use it or lose it” thing, you dial in the angle you want and that angle stays consistent across the edge of the scraper. The process is simple. After clamping a scraper in a vice and filing it flat and square with the jointer, you coat it with a minute amount of oil. The instructions that come with the set suggest that you wipe your finger behind your ear and then across the scraper edge as this is about all the oil you need. So far, I have passed on that one and so far have stuck to swiping my finger across a paper towel that has a drop of Norton Sharpening Oil on it. Once oiled, you then set the burnisher’s dial to 0° and slide it over the scraper via the slot in its bottom. With a bit of downward pressure, you pass the burnisher back and forth a couple of times and the result is that you have spread the edge a bit and it is now set up to be rolled. Adjust the dial on the side of the burnisher again, this time to anywhere from 1° to 15°, and again slide it over the scraper, put some downward pressure on it, and pass it back and forth again a few times and you are done.

Combine the ease of use with its accuracy, and this item stands out as one of the best investments in my cabinet.

Popping it out of the package, having a quick read of the instructions, and I was on my way to setting different degrees of hooks on all four of those scrappers in minutes. I didn’t hook the first, the thinnest scraper, but left it after passing the burnisher over it a few times with the dial set to 0°. The next thickness up, I put a hook on it which was 5°, then the next up got a 10° hook, and finally, the thickest in the set got a 15° hook. With this set-up, I start out with the 15° one, which removes material quickly, then I just work my way down the degrees, doing the final passes with the 0° hooked one, which puts a sheen on the beautifully smoothed wood.

To do this, it is a simple matter of changing the blade in the holder (E) that comes with the set. Talk about taking the pressure off, this little gizmo holds the scraper and distorts it at the same time through the use of a centre turn screw that pushes out on the centre of the blade. The only thing I have to do is find the sweet angle to hold the thing at and push or pull, whichever is appropriate. Sweet! I did find two small issues with this tool, however. At only 1 ⅞” high, I find it a little narrower than I would like and because of the way it holds the blades, you can only sharpen one edge, making it necessary to return to the vice more often. Its ability to hold a setting for the bend forever and the stress it takes off your hands overcome these perceived shortcomings in a serious hurry, though, so I doubt I would ever scrap again without using it.

So there you go, Mr. Schwarz, even in the hand tool world there are tools that make woodworking geniuses out of the uninitiated.

Peace,

Mitchell

P.S.: I continued on to the site's Checkout with my purchases of Christopher's book and DVD but for some reason, maybe it was the web master's way of helping me get even, when I filled out the form and hit "Submit", it came back that it didn't like my address, it was correct but I reentered it again, then it came back that it didn't like my credit card number (now that I write this, maybe it was my wife and not the web master's fault), and after going through that circle three times, I gave up and closed the site, so I still do not have his "Building Furniture with Hand Planes" DVD, which I want. I'll try again another time. (Just to be honest about all of this, I use a Mac with Safari as the browser and despite what Mr. Jobs says, this combo is not always compatible within the internet world.

Moxon Clarified...

Reading the comments left and some emails received regarding my views on Moxon's, "The Art of Joinery", I feel that it is possible that my position regarding this publication were not stated as obviously as I thought they were. To attempt to try to remove any confusion about where I stand with this book, I have added a supplement to the original posting at the end of it, which, hopefully, will clarify my position regarding it.

Peace,

Mitchell

I Bought It, I Read It, I Don’t Get It.

There are three things in life that I truly love; a good read, woodworking and anything historical. Currently, I am building a small library of history books, I am building a small collection of vintage hand tools, and other than electronics, most of the purchases I make for my home are through antique dealers.

With this in mind, you would think that Christopher Schwarz’s current remake of Joseph Moxon’s “The Art of Joinery” would be right up my ally. It wasn’t. In fact, I was so bored with the whole thing that I truly struggled to finish it.

“For if the wood be hard, the iron must stand more upright than it need do if the wood be soft”.

The above quote is typical of Moxon’s “insights” into the historical “secrets” of woodworking. And that, I found, to be the rub of the book – there isn’t any, insights or secrets that is. What “The Art of Joinery” turned out to be for me was a very difficult and painful read to glean information that I already knew.

With the constant barrage of hype for the book on just about every woodworking web site and blog that I frequent, I was expecting it to be the be-all and end-all on everything to do with the craft. Throughout these sites, statements, such as “According to Moxon…”, or, “Listed in The Art of Joinery…”, are found so frequently and used so often to give credibility to one technique or another, that I was expecting the sales representative at Lee Valley Tools to lay a virtual “Bible” on the counter in front of me. Needless to say, I was more than a little disappointed when what he did present to me was the thinnest publication I have seen that wasn’t published by Hallmark, but once read, I was thankful it wasn't any thicker than it was. The two covers total exactly half the thickness of the entire book, which is only a ½ inch in total.

While I won’t blame Christopher for it, I do have to state that I knew I was in trouble with this purchase after reading his introduction which spans the first three pages of the book. While it is an explanation regarding what he had done with the original version, he also told me that Mr. Moxon hadn’t picked up a plane in his life and that his writings regarding those planes were going to be truly a pain in the butt to read. More importantly, though, Christopher told me, in that short passage, that I wasn’t going to get any “insights” into woodworking. Here, he stated that Moxon’s work was the equivalent of having, “watched the joiners at work for a few weeks and got to ask them some questions over a small beer”. To me, this immediately told me that there wasn’t going to be any revelations from this book because if I got to watch joiners at work for a few weeks, I’d be biting at the bite to get to work using the techniques I had witnessed over that time, not waiting to ask questions about them. Chris also pointed out, in these same first three pages, that he had “issues” with the illustrations provided in the book’s original form, as noted by his caption under the illustration of the workbench on Page 5.

What I did enjoy in the book was Christopher’s photographic descriptions of cutting mortises and flattening boards with hand planes. While informative, descriptive and an entertaining education into the processes used to achieve acceptable results in these two areas of joinery, I couldn’t tie Moxon’s work with Christopher’s. One was a historical narrative that told me very little, while the other was modern display of information and told me a great deal. It all left me feeling that the $16.00 would have been better spent towards the purchase of Christopher’s DVD entitled, “Building Furniture with Hand Planes”. It also told me that, while many things have not improved over time, but just changed, our ability to communicate with each other isn't one of them.

The bottom line is that the original version, while historical in nature, used incorrect illustrations, offered superficial descriptions of the tools used during that historical timeframe, was written in a language that today is difficult to understand and was all put together by a man who didn’t know firsthand what the hell he was talking about. As someone who is known for using the term, “stuff” to describe just about everything around him, the only thing I got out the read was the thought that maybe I should stop using it. Moxon’s consistent use of that term throughout was a royal pain in the butt and only served to show me that using it wasn’t cool in the 17th century, and is probably just as uncool today, but then again, I'm still using the term "cool", so what do I know?

I know it is bordering on the sacrilegious, and for that I apologize, but “The Art of Joinery” just didn’t do it for me.

Peace,

Mitchell

Having written an article on Christopher Schwarz's republication of Moxon's, "The Art of Joinery", and having read some of the comments made by a few, including Christopher himself, and as a result I think I failed to present my point about this publication in an understandable way. With that in mind, I would like to make a few clarifications, if I may.
As a historical work, I completely understand the hype for Moxon. I "get" that it is, as Christopher pointed out, "the first English language woodworking book" published. I "get" that it gives an insightful look at the workbenches of the craft in the 17th century. The thing is, and the point I thought I made quite clear in my original article, is that I didn't buy the book for its historical significance. I bought it because I believed the hype.

To quote my original posting, "With the constant barrage of hype for the book on just about every woodworking web site and blog that I frequent, I was expecting it to be the be-all and end-all on everything to do with the craft." Because this book is used so often as a reference, I was expecting a cornucopia of insightful descriptions of everything woodworking. I didn't get that with the book, and that is the point I tried to raise with the original post.

To be as clear as I possibly can be about this subject, the remake of Moxon's "The Art of Joinery" holds the place of honour in regards to its historical significance to the woodworking community. It also possibly holds a great deal of historical significance to the publishing community as well. As for its significance for me - not so much. I am neither a traditional woodworker, or a woodworking historian. I am just a guy who likes old tools and like to build things with them. As a result, I am looking for books, magazine articles, DVD's and anything else that would teach me how to build those things a little better and with a little more accuracy. Because Moxon and I are coming at woodworking from different ends of the woodworking spectrum, the republication didn't do a thing for me and I found it a very difficult read that gave up no secrets for me and my hobby.
The one line that, to me, states my original post's position, and the one I still stand behind, by the way, is, "It all left me feeling that the $16.00 would have been better spent towards the purchase of Christopher’s DVD entitled, “Building Furniture with Hand Planes”.

I hope this clarifies my position.

Peace one more time,

Mitchell

Stanley - the Energizer Bunny of Old Just Kept Going...

If you were asked to buy stock in a company that developed a product at the end of one century, did the tooling for it, and then ran with that exact set-up, enjoying fair sales with it, until way past the middle of the next century, would you buy it? I probably would seriously consider it.

This is pretty much what Stanley Rule and Level Co. did for about that length of time. They came up with something, they refined it and then they produced it – for damn near forever.

Here are three images of the Stanley No. 97 Marking Gauge lifted from three of the four Stanley No. 34 catalogs that I have found in the public domain so far. One is from the 1914 edition, another from1934 and the third from 1958. Which one is which? They are displayed in order; 1914, 1934, and then the 1958 at the bottom of the stack.





By the way, I just bought one of these on eBay and it doesn’t match any of these illustrations. All three display the Stanley logos; the two earlier ones on the striking face and the ’58 model on its back. Mine, as you will see in the image below, displays a more Gothic scripted logo on the opposite face. What is weird about mine is that it has a Sweetheart logo on the machined screw. Either you can’t believe the illustrations in these catalogs, or mine is either older or newer, and has had the screw replaced.

Prices? The gauge sold for 47¢ in 1914, twenty years later, in 1934, it had jumped to 60¢, and by 1958, it was selling at the whopping huge price of $2.85. If you want to work that out in terms of inflation, from 1914 to 1934, the price increased 26%, or 1.3% per year. From 1934 to 1958, however, the price increased 475%, or almost 20% per year. Progress?

The next two images are from the same catalogs; 1914 and 1934. These are displaying Stanley’s top of the line Slide Mortise Gauges; the No. 77. Advertised as manufactured in Solid Rosewood and Brass, this baby sold for 60¢ in 1914. By 1934, the price had risen to $1.60, and by 1958, it had been dropped from the catalog.


A forth catalog that I have found is from 1898, and shows neither the No. 97 or the No. 77. It is not a complete catalog, though. I have, however, seen both these gauges offered by Stanley in other pre-turn-of-the-century publications. I just cannot show you them here as they are not in the public domain.

Here are three tools that I picked up over the last month; the Stanley No. 97 Marking Gauge, the No. 77 Slide Mortise Gauge and what I consider to be a very pretty awl.

The two gauges were picked up from eBay, but the awl came from toolexchange.com.au. I picked up the gauges because they looked to be in excellent shape, which they are. I was considering a Veritas Wheel Marking Gauge by Lee Valley, but when I saw this 97, I grabbed it instead.


The awl I purchased because it has the most beautiful yellow tone to the wood handle that I have ever seen. I have no idea what kind of wood it is made from, but it reminds me of the term, butternut. I also bought it because I needed it, ya, that’s it, I really needed one.

I got an email from another poster the other day asking me if I “enhanced” my images. I do. As you can see in the image below, I don’t alter the actual product, just the lighting, densities and backgrounds; the window dressing, so-to-speak. Sometimes I get a little carried away, but hey, you can't blame a guy for having a bit of fun.


Peace,

Mitchell

An Interesting Article On The Stanley Works...

Born in the fading days of the 40's, I'm a member of the Baby Boomer generation. As a "Boomer", I spent my youth fully immersed in the hippy movement, partaking in all the trappings and trimmings of that culture. Many who know me honestly believe that I am still stuck in 1967, a comment I find hard to argue with.

Now, as a college instructor, I deal with the current younger generation more than most. As I spend a great amount of time communicating with them, it is not surprising that I learn a great deal about their thoughts outside the ream of their artistic endeavors. It might come as a surprise to many of my fellow Baby Boomers, but these kids truly hate our generation, believing we represent greed and selfishness, an opinion I often agree with.

I often wonder what happened to the turn-on/tune-out crowd that I sat around the coffee houses with and listened to them pontificate about peace, love, equality and honesty, all while disclaiming any connection to “the man”, with his greedy, selfish ways. When did these kids turn from looking for a way to finance a dime bag of dope to financing a new BMW or Lexus?

As we Boomers now head off to pasture, we leave a world that, frankly, I wouldn't want to face. The world economy is in the toilet, governments are handing out billions in corporate welfare, money that will take generations to recover, and seemingly indestructible institutions are falling like flies around us. Let’s face it, who of you ever thought you would read the words, "General Motors" and "bankrupt" in the same sentence? What the hell happened?

Faced with numerous questions and no answers, a month or so ago I started to set aside an hour a morning to do some investigating. What I found was that no-one had definitive answers. To me, it seems that for every laid-off worker there is an armchair annalist spouting off a different reason for it. From what I gather, though, it seems that the mess we are in today really started decades ago.

Man, this is a long-winded introduction to an article, isn't it? Ok, to get to it.

This morning I stumbled upon this article, being drawn to it because of its title; The Stanley Works (now do you see the connection between this post and woodworking?). It is an excerpt from a book entitled, "The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences” by Louis Uchitelle. While the book is all encompassing in its subject matter, this excerpt deals with it as it relates to the Stanley Works and uses the explanations of that company’s CEOs to do it. It does an amazing job of giving the reader some insight into what lead up to our position in the Global Market today, greed and stupidity in the leaders of our financial institutions aside.

An excellent article on a subject that impacts of each and every one of us, not to mention insights into why Veritas and Lie-Nielsen are able to exist today.

Check it out at http://www.enotalone.com/article/5403.html

Peace,

Mitchell

Here's a Stubby I Bet You Didn't Know About...

We all know about the "Stubby" screwdriver, referred to as a "Chubby" in the UK, which was first introducted at Stanley in 1937.

Some of you may already know that the premier tool manufacturer, Snap-On, made the practice of cutting down perfectly good standard-length wrenches to get into tight areas obsolete with the introduction of the "Stubby" wrench around that same time. I have no idea what they call these in the UK.

What seems to be unknown to all of us, however, is that Stanley seems to have also produced a "Stubby" chisel, a #40 or #50, no less. I back up this incredible announcement with proof in the way of a just completed offering on eBay. For some reason, I guess disbelief that such a tool as the Stubby Chisel actually existed in Stanley's line-up, it went unsold, even though the starting bid was a mere $9.95.


Who knew?

Peace,

Mitchell

Tripping Down Memory Lane While Using An Old Tool...

I started a chisel rack yesterday for my almost complete set of Stanley #40’s, or #50’s, whichever version they happen to be. The problem collecting these things is that you just don’t know which model you have; the only difference between them being length. The #40’s are longer than the #50’s, opposite to what I expected, and as a result of this only difference, if you sharpen a #40 a few times too many, all of a sudden you own a #50.


Having to put beads on both edges of the stock for this addition to my tool chest, the first bead I ran was with my old wood bead molding plane. With the first bead done, I then remembered one of my latest acquisitions; the Stanley #66 Beading Tool. I dug it out and started to think things through regarding how to use it as I had never held one in my hands before receiving this one.

The first thing that struck me about this tool was its simplicity. Originally I thought I should go online to see if I could find some instructions for it but that thought quickly dispelled as I started to assemble it. You definitely do not have to be a mechanical engineer to figure out how this thing goes together.

As I have never been shy about discussing my old man in these posts, I will tell you that I thought a lot about him as I put that old tool together. My main thought was to try and figure out why he didn’t own one. I know it would be a tool he would be impressed with. In truth, for a carpenter, and a damned good one at that, he didn’t own a whole lot of tools.

His toolbox held:

• Stanley #9 ½ Plane


• Stanley #4 Plane


• Stanley #7 Plane


• Stanley #78 Plane


• Stanley #28 & #29 Cornering Tools


• Disston 28” Straight-Back Rip


• Disston 26” Skewback Cross


• Disston 20” Skewback Cross Panel


• Disston 14” Back


• Stanley #150 Open Front Miter. Box


• Stanley #720 Chisels (a set of five)


• Stanley #40 Screwdrivers (a set of five)


• Millers Falls #610A Spiral Screwdriver


• Stanley Bevels (3 different sizes)


• Stanley #94 Butt Gauge


• Stanley #77 Mortising Gauge


• Stanley #373-3 ½” Butt Marker


• Stanley #6 Awl (two)


• Stanley #82 Scraper


• Stanley Ratchet Bit Brace (I have no idea what model but he had two of them)


• Irwin Bits (a complete set in a canvas roll)


• Stanley #232 Aluminum Level


• Stanley #87 Line Level


• Hammers (2; one framing and one for trim)


• Sand’s Craft Rafter Square 24”


• Stanley #21 Combination Try and Miter Square


• Stanley #20 Try Squares (6” and 10”)


• Stanley #94 Boxwood Folding Rule (two)


• Nail Sets (many)


• Wrecking Bar


• Nail Pull


• Sharpening Stones (two)

Strange that I can list these, isn’t it? To tell the truth, it really isn’t. Not only was it my job to clean out that toolbox every Saturday afternoon for a number of years when I was a kid, but the fact is, I now own most of them. While you readers might think something poetic, like my dear father left me all his tools when he left this world, the reality is, he sold them to me. When I built my first house my father was retired. I approached him about borrowing many of his tools and his answer was that he didn’t need most of them any longer and if I paid him a thousand bucks, I could take what he didn’t need then and collect the rest after he was gone. While this may sound a little cold to you out there, in truth, I think it was payback time for him, and I will explain this if you read further.

With this simple set of tools, my old man started out in the building trade after be discharged from the army after the war. He got into building because the soldiers coming home needed homes to live in and given he had a grade 5 education, I think it was the only thing he could do. He bought a set of Audels Carpenters and Builders Guides, among others, taught himself the math required to figure out complex rafter systems and the like, and taught himself the art of drafting, something he became a true master at. By the mid 50’s, he had started his own contacting firm and was doing subcontracting with 10 men working for him. He also built a few houses on spec and renovated a number of others. Even though he was the boss, he built most of the kitchens in all these builds himself because that was what he excelled in – building cabinets, something that is no longer a craft because of the manufactured systems that are now in place.

By the late 50’s he was busted and broke. A developer he had subcontracted with to trim-out an entire subdivision filed for bankruptcy two weeks before the cheque was due. He went back working for someone else. He worked all the overtime he could to earn enough money to pay his men what he owed them instead of just passing on the loss by filing himself. I don’t think he ever recovered from that experience, but he kept at it until his failing health forced him inside. I can remember when I was a kid riding my bike to one of his sites he was working on to bring him his lunch and some cold pop.

Thinking about all of this yesterday and wondering about his limited tool selection, I realized that there probably wasn’t much money left over each month for buying extra tools once the bills for keeping a family was paid. There always was enough to meet his healthy beer budget, there is no doubt about that, but I think there just wasn't enough left to buy himself something like this beader. I guess it comes down to priorities and a limited budget.

Over the past five years I have taken his collection of tools and added to them considerably, which is what this tool cabinet build is all about; holding and displaying these wonderful examples of a bygone craft. Out of all I have so far, the only ones that show any signs of real abuse are the ones I listed above. Why? Because when I was a kid I liked to build things, just like my old man. I also wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, and as a result, I left his #150 Miter Box out in the rain, lost the depth gauge, fence, complete with both rods, and the spur from his #78, lost many of his Irwin Bits, left his #82 Scraper under a tree for over a month, used one of his chisels to open a can of paint and broke the end off, lost a couple of his screwdrivers completely, lost the wing nut off of his #26 6” bevel, broke the end off of both his Awls - often, and lost the majority of his nail sets. These are the things I can remember doing to his tools, so image what I didn’t realize I had done. Genius, eh?

As I put this list together in my head yesterday, I wondered how I would have reacted if my son had done such things to the tools of my trade; my camera equipment. I would have killed him. As I thought this, I realized that, despite destroying a good majority of the tools my old man used to earn the money to feed me, he never cut me off them. There is no way in hell he didn’t know that I would damage more of his tools every time I used them, but he never said no. Without question, he let me use every one of them whenever the need occurred and often suggested which tools to use for a particular task. For the life of me, I can't figure out if that was a truly impressive act of a good father, or the dumbest thing I ever heard of. I’m also not saying the old man didn’t give me a serious cuff every time I damaged one of his tools, along with a long, detailed oratory regarding his views of how tools are to be respected and cared for. I’m just saying he never cut me off them.

It took a number of years but his verbal directions delivered with physical emphasis regarding tool care has finally worked its way home. The nickel has dropped, so-to-speak. Over the past couple of years I have cleaned, repaired and replaced all the damage I did to those tools in my youth. The last line in that chapter was written last week when I finally located the wing nut for his #26 bevel, located on http://www.toolexchange.com.au/, a company in Australia. Mind you, with what it cost me for that one wing nut and bolt I could have bought a complete new example of this tool, but what the hell.

So there you go. Some personal thoughts surprisingly generated by using an old hand tool. You gotta’ love these things.

Peace,

Mitchell

A Matched Pair - Sort of...

I finished the second drill index the other day. I'm happier with this one than I am with the first one, but I'm still not thrilled with my abilities for "staying within the lines". Sadly, the beading is no more accurate on this second attempt than it is on the first, but the finish is much better, so things are improving for me. This second attempt at French Polishing was done using the "true" process, unlike the first one which was done in what I call a "faux French Polish". You can quickly see the difference in the colour between these two types of finish, the latest one being darker and browner than the first

Stephen over on The Full Chisel Blog has a couple of great articles about French Polish and what he says is completely on the money, "It can be a finicky finish to master but it is actually an easy finish to apply once you understand the principles". As he further states, this finish is difficult to apply on pieces that are intricate or on molding, and I can assure you, that is an understatement. To me, these pieces are not intricate at all, with only two little beads running around each edge. Those two little beads, however, are enough to cause you to pull your hair out when you have a polishing pad in your hand. What happens is that you can't get the pad tight into the corner and because you can't get the pad into that corner, you can't rub it out, and because you can't rub it out, you can't get an even coloured finish, a statement borne out in the image. 

While Stephen explains the process of French Polishing well, gives the reader some good advice and warns them about some of the pitfalls, he does miss one very important point. The term "French Polish" is an acronym for the word, "Patience". The process is soooooo monotonous until that shine starts to creep in, I think that only those on a daily dose of about 50mg of valium can handle it. Lacking this calmer in my daily chemical mixture, I found that "staying with it" is the hardest part of the whole exercise. Doing this one index took eight days, each day involving activating the pad, charging it and spending about 10 minutes rubbing that pad in circles on the wood. Calling for forty minutes of prep and post time to spend 8 to 10 minutes applying the finish, is it surprising that this finish fell out of favour when labour costs rose above a buck an hour?

While I can tell you about the hassles, problems, mess, aggravation, extended time-frame, repetitions and frustrations involved in applying this finish, I can't begin to explain the silky soft smoothness of its incredibly deep, lustrous surface once its on. 

Peace,

Mitchell

Now I Have Something To Take A Bead On...

I had a pleasant surprise this morning. The postman arrived with a little package for me; the Stanley #66 I purchased last week on eBay.

Looking at this thing, I find it a bit unbelievable that it could have been made at the beginning of this configurations' manufacturing run, which would be 1909. If it was, the guy who bought it brought it home and put it in his wife's underwear drawer where it sat until momandpopcybershop scooped it to sell on eBay. It is just way too clean, but it is exactly as momandpop described it; very clean and very complete. Heck, even the washer under the thumbscrew that holds the fences on is there.

I'm really pleased to have it. I'm starting a new chisel rack next week and have included some reeding in the design. In a couple of weeks we will see what this thing is made of.

Peace,

Mitchell

No Tool Like An Old Tool - Especially At Today's Prices...

I’m not sure, but I think I just witnessed a record price for a Stanley chisel on eBay.

Weast8860, whom I have come across a few times in my quest for the ultimate vintage tool at the ultimate low price, had a Stanley Everlasting #40 Bevel Edged ½ inch chisel that appears to be New/Old Stock listed. While the images show some pitting, the fact that he states it is just over the length Stanley catalogues lists these things’ at, 9 inches, puts it leaps and bounds above any of the chisels from this series that I have purchased in the past. As the "Made in USA" and the "Pat.1493176" markings are oriented away from the handle, I believe this one is from the final days Stanley offered this style of chisel, which I read somewhere, was around 1941.

The winning bid was $180.00, and for we wee Canadians, that works out to around two hundred and ten bucks!

I have to admit to having my fingers twitch as I watched the final minutes of the auction, but the reality is, I would end up not using this tool if I bought it, and that goes against my principles. To use it would be to sharpen it and to sharpen it would be to shorten it and to shorten it would be to loose my shirt on it. So no pristine, perfect chisel for me. I’ll stick to the more used variety.

They sure are a beautiful tool to work with and look at, though.

Peace,

Mitchell

Is "everythingstanleyexceptplanes.com" Possible?...

I have not kept it a secret that I am in love with tools. I also have let it be known that I have a soft spot for old Stanley tools, although that is not etched in stone. It all boils down to a tool meeting my three point criteria; if it is well made, if its design interests me, and if I know I will use it. If a particular tool meets those three stipulations, I won’t hesitate to pass the bucks across the table to own it.

I just bought a Stanley #66 Beader with 8 blades and 2 fences; in other words, the complete set. I bought it from momandpopcybershop on eBay and paid $4.00 more for it than I would have paid for a brand-new one from Lie-Nielsen and $110.00 more than the newly designed one offered by Lee Valley. I paid “through the nose” for this tool and I’m thrilled to death that I have it.

I have been looking at beaders for some time now, even going as far as placing the new Veritas one on my Lee Valley Wish List. So why, all of a sudden, would I end up buying this particular tool?

I bought it for two reasons. The first is that it met the three point criteria that I have set for myself when it comes to buying a tool. The second reason I bought it was that I could quickly and easily confirm what the seller was saying about the tool. On their listing, Mom and Pop had a heading in large and bold text that stated the tool was “Guaranteed 100% Complete”. Further on in their description they stated that you could “probably date this example to around 1909”.

One click on a bookmark and I was in The Superior Works site, another click and I was on the page where the #66 was listed and a bit of a scroll had me reading when Stanley started producing this tool, and what changes they made to it over its production and the dates when they made those changes. The results of a short read told me that, yes, this tool was produced with 8 blades and 2 fences, so their claim to being complete was correct. I learned that Stanley started producing this tool with a nickel finish in 1900, and they added the eighth blade – the blank one, in 1909, so Mom and Pop’s statement that it was a 1909 model could be true. It could also have been made around 1941 as well, as this particular tool in this particular configuration was produced between 1909 and 1941 with no serial number or other marking to narrow the date of production down further. Armed with that easily obtainable information, I now knew what I was buying and without hesitation I started bidding, determined to get it.

So why is it that I can’t do this when I see a Stanley chisel I want? Or a Stanley Bevel? Why is it that I can go on a number of different sites and find out everything there is to know about Stanley planes, but finding out about any other type of tool made by this company is an exercise in futility?

As a result of all of this, I started to put together a plan to set up a new web site named, “everythingstanleyexceptplanes.com”. The domain name is available. So why not go for it? I’ll tell you why - Content – or specifically, the lack thereof. To put all of this information together so the site would be on the same level as Patrick's Blood and Gore would take a lifetime, not to mention the family jewels to finance the purchase of the research material needed. So what to do?

What about a collaborative site? Would any of you that have information about a Stanley non-plane tool be interested in sharing it? Is there enough of you out there that would be interested in something like this?

Let me know.

Peace,

Mitchell

Who Knew My Brother-In-Law Had It In Him...

Here is a shot of my brother-in-law’s new workbench that he just put together. My reason for posting it here is to not necessarily score any points with him, although that probably wouldn’t hurt, but to give a real example of our perceptions of others when it comes to the topic of woodworking. In this particular case, those perceptions came back to bite me on the butt this time.

To give you a little history, my brother-in-law has been married to my sister for a number of years now but, as in most family dynamics, estrangement between older siblings seems to be more the norm rather than the exception, so as a result, I never got to know this guy. Maybe it is because our parents have passed or just simply that we are older, but somehow my sister and I have become more accepting of each other and are slowly building a relationship. As a result of this, I am now starting to get to know my brother-in-law, who, for a banker, isn’t a bad guy actually.

I admit that my interest in woodworking has become a bit of an obsession, rather than just a hobby. It has seriously gotten worse since I started up with hand tools. While I still have difficulty putting two pieces of wood together with what I believe to be an acceptable result, I find my biggest joy in the hobby is in the challenge. It’s the old, “Its not the destination, it’s the getting there”, kind of thing. Lets face it; it is relatively easy to build anything if the quality of workmanship and simple rules of aesthetics aren’t included. Even when those two elusive qualities are included, we all end up with what we believe to be glaring mistakes in our creations. Some of us also realize that the mistakes in our work glare a little more than the mistakes others point out to us in theirs. It does not stop me from coming up with more complex designs for the next project, however, as that, for me, is the basic principle for being involved in all of this in the first place.

Because it is an obsession for me, over time I have learned one major lesson in communicating my love for this hobby with others – don’t!

Come on, we all have, in one-way or another, learned this lesson. We mention to someone our love of tools and woodworking and more times than often we hear that the person we are speaking to about it also has an “interest” in it. Believing we have something in common they try to build on it, finally ending up inviting you to view your newfound friend’s latest creation. More often than not what you end up viewing is a leaky roofed doghouse or a twisted paper towel holder; both nailed together with spikes with a whole bunch of plastic wood sloppily stuffed into the mistakenly drilled holes and nail splits. Looking at this kind of stuff is painful enough, but then you have to add in the pain of the so-called craftsman beaming with pride as he tries to force positive feedback from you where none really exists.

I came to the conclusion a few years ago that it is better to suffer my obsession in private, rather than be forced to view any more of those disasters. Thinking about this attitude now, I realize that it is rather arrogant, really. What’s the expression? You have to kiss a lot of toads before you meet your princess? Or in this case, prince?

I had the “Ya, I heard that before” thought when I was told my brother-in-law was into woodworking. Immediately the leaky doghouse and twisted paper towel holder came to mind. My first visit to their new home resulted in a tour of the soon-to-be workshop. I viewed a few nice tools, sadly, most of them power, but those visions of disasters were still present when I left, as I didn’t get to see any of his work. Saying I’m a great composer doesn’t really mean I can write a song. 

One day, not too long ago I was surprised to discover an email in my inbox from him and when I opened it, I was actually shocked to see this image. As with any “this is what I made” presentation, I immediately took a close scan of the picture. I was immediately impressed with what I saw. Stretchers let in to the legs, bolts that appear to have their placements measured for consistency, a frame around the top with properly mitered and well-executed corners, not to mention everything properly rounded over and properly finished. It was obvious he had some talent, but even more obvious he took some pride and joy in taking the difficult way, rather than the easy way. Hey, a man after my own heart and one that is even part of my own family. Who knew?

Of course I replied with the positives about his work, but I also had to add a hesitant apology to it as well, an apology for not giving him the benefit of the doubt when I heard the words, “He’s into woodworking too, you know”.

I will, however, definitely hold it against him that he has openly stated that he is putting off finishing his workshop until the fall as otherwise it would infringe on his time playing golf. While I understand the concept of “each to their own obsessions” – GOLF?

Peace,

Mitchell  

One Down - One To Go...

I ended up laying a total of six coats of amber shellac on this block of wood sanding in between the first couple with 220 grit and between the remaining with 320. I left it a couple of days to set and then I had a good look at it. I wasn't so happy. It had great colour, the finish was even, but it lacked depth and had way too many brush marks. I decided to just sand the hell out of it, starting with 220, moving to 320 and finishing with fine steel wool. I figured if I sanded through the finish it didn't matter as I was going to have to lay on more coats anyway. While I didn't end up sanding through the finish, I did cause some serious differences in the colour.

While I was working away on this I got an email from a friend who had viewed the last post and he wanted information about applying shellac. I told him it was easy, forgiving and fast drying, all the things guys like us want in a finishing product, among other things. He mentioned how he had bought a French Polish kit from Lee Valley, but after reading the instructions, he though it was probably too difficult. Now there's a word that makes me sit up and take notice, "difficult".

Back on line I read about four or five articles about this process and he was right, it did sound difficult, not to mention time consuming. From what I gathered, building up the finish was the worst part of the process, but hey, I already had one didn't I? Out came the shellac and rags. I didn't have the suggested type of alcohol, but they said it was what Rubbing Alcohol that is used to clean monitors is made from, and I sure had some of that. I mixed up a batch; two parts shellac to one part rubbing alcohol, made myself a paddle from a rag and went to work. Wow. Incredible finish. The rag allows you to get it on evenly and without brush marks. The finish was beyond belief, so I was sold. I rubbed on three or four coats, let it dry, and I was ready for the final run.

Have you ever noticed that the smaller the job, the more Murphy's law kicks in. I'm sure it is because we get cocky - hey, its a small job, right? No big deal.

The next day I rubbed the entire block down with extra fine steel wool and Minwax Finishing Wax. I laid that stuff on like it was a buck a gallon, rubbing, laying on more wax and rubbing some more. I let it sit up for about a half hour  and then, with a couple of the softest rags I could find, I started polishing. As I polished off the first bit of wax this incredibly bright, deep, highly glossed surface came through. It absolutely blew me away.

Once the wax was buffed I had an objective look. I shouldn't have done that, but looking at things objectively forces you to face your mistakes. I should have corrected that difference in colour before I continued on with my faux French Polish job. The colour difference was still there, but doubled. The finish was smooth, man, was it smooth. The surface was shiny, but the colour was blotchy and inconsistent. And therein lies the lesson - believe what the book tells you.

The shot at the top shows the rubbed out finish. You can see the differences in colour, especially on the right side and along the front bead. The three vertical faces, however, were even and smooth so I went with it. Its a drill index after all, and the top is just going to get drilled with a whole bunch of holes.

Once, when my son was visiting and we were checking out the tool cabinet, he said that when I was done, anyone will be able to follow the process of the build just by viewing the quality of the different pieces. The first piece I put the beading plane to was a disaster, but they eventually got better the more I did. My first set of hand-cut dovetails looks more like sloppy finger joints, but over time, they improved too. So now, when someone looks at this thing in the future, they will be able to say, "...and here is where he started to learn French Polishing".

I went with the finish and covered the entire thing with masking tape. There is three reasons for this. First, I would like to be able to complete the piece and put it into the cabinet finished before I smack it with something and bugger the finish. I figured if covering it with masking tape works on American Chopper when they are assembling a bike, it will work here too. The second reason for taping is to help minimize tear-out when I start to drill all those holes. Finally, the third reason is that I have to tape the template to the top for drilling and I want to completely cover the top with good, old carpet tape so the template will be held down flat and smooth. I love carpet tape and use it for almost everything, but it has one drawback - it really reaps havoc with the finish. Stick something down to a finished surface with carpet tape and you can bet when you lift it off, the surface will come with it. By covering the surface with the easy release, 5 day, green 3M tape, I won't have that problem.

This is the template I made up about seven months ago. I put it together in Illustrator, an Adobe vector program that I find just perfect for this type of thing. I just made a document slightly larger than the actual size of the block, then started making circles with cross-hairs in the middle, one for every bit that was to go in the index. It took a day of playing with positioning and alignment, but it worked out very well. Printed off on 11 x 17 stock, I just cut it down to fit the top of the block and taped it down. I was ready to drill.

 

So here is the finished product. The block has four feet made with a 3/4 inch tenon cutter. I drilled into the bottom of the block with a 3/4 inch Fostner bit, glued the dowels into them then set it on a piece of 80 grit sandpaper that was stuck to the glass plate I use for lapping my blades. After a few minutes of that, the block didn't rock and was stable, but more importantly, it had airspace beneath it for circulation.

Drilling the holes took me two afternoons, about eight hours in total. The eleven largest brad bits have a shoulder that I wanted the hole to follow so that was twenty-two goes just for them. The twists were straight shafts, so they were not quite as much work.

Originally I thought I would drill the hole with the same sized bit that the hole was to hold, then pour some water down it, let it sit to swell the wood, vacuum it out and then re-drill the hole so when it dried, it would be slightly larger. Ya, I know, sounds like a lot of work doesn't it? Surprisingly though, all of these holes were drilled with the same sized bit as the bit the hole holds, and drilled only once I might add. While it was a hassle to load a bit, drill one hole, then start the process over again, it really wasn't that bad. The only bits that didn't like their same sized hole were the ones smaller than 5/16th. All of these smaller holes had to be reamed twice with a little "giggle" to the block during the second reaming. Once drilled I coated the inside with wax to give some sealing to the inside walls of the hole. There is a lot of holes in it and they are pretty much aligned with each other and all are 1 3/4 inches deep leaving only a 1/4 inch at the bottom to hold together. I still have to make an index card for it, showing a numbered layout of the bits with a list of sizes below it.

This piece sits on a shelf on one of the doors of the cabinet. I have to do something to keep it in place when I open and close the door and that is where the round feet come in. I plan to make a female piece to match the front feet and fix those to the shelf. This is the reason for the flush ring handle - to lift the front of the block up out of those holders and bring it forward so I can grab it and lift it out.

I have no idea how long this thing will last as I could wake up tomorrow to find it split down the middle. Overall, I am very happy with the results. I finally no longer have to dig for a needed bit in those frustrating metal boxes. As with everything in this cabinet, the next one will be better.

One down - one to go...

Peace,

Mitchell

Questionable Skills? - Whack Off A Nice Piece of Walnut...

I'm back on my tool cabinet again and loving it. 

This morning I decided to start on one of the drill indexes that I created the layout for back in October of last year. You don't want to rush these things, you know. It was at that time that I milled all of the walnut I figured I was going to need to complete the interior of this thing. A few of the pieces that were included in that stack were specifically for these drill indexes.

I have a thing for my little drill press. It is one of the very few power tools I don't feel guilty about using. What I don't like are those silly metal boxes they sell to store your drill bits in. Who came up with that design anyway? The plan here is to have two separate drill indexes created from two pieces of 8/4 walnut.

The one I started on this morning is for a set of standard twist bits, a set of brad point bits, a set of  tenon cutters and some miscellaneous bits and pieces (pun intended). The piece of walnut is 3 1/2" x 12 5/8" x 2", which fits into a shelf in one of the doors on the cabinet.

Wanting to keep things simple and clean, the only ornamentation that I am applying to anything that goes into this cabinet is just a simple 3/16" bead. I like the softness of a bead, along with its ability to separate things without a lot of fuss. This way, the cabinet doesn't compete with the tools. With this index, I wanted a bead around three sides at the top and bottom of the block. I have created a lot of beads with this old wooden plane before, but nothing on a block of timber this size, especially across the end grain. I clamped it into the portable workbench with a piece the same width backing up the face. As I spent the weekend sharpening chisels and plane irons, I was pleased when the basic shape appeared on the ends without any great effort.

Once the beads were formed, the hard part started. I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but I figured the only way I could get rid of the unwanted portion in the center of the beads was to chisel it out. I clamped the piece on its back to the top of the workbench with a piece of pine beneath it. Using a just sharpened 1 1/2" Stanley #40, I just kept shaving slivers of material away by just leaning on the chisel until I got the ends down to the point where it looked to me like the whole thing was flush with the bottom of the beads. I then unclamped the piece and had a look at the results. To my horror I had cut into the bead in spots, removed the waste unevenly, and even somehow added a twist to the end face. Let's just say I was some ticked.

I then wizened up and got out a square and marked the different faces to properly guide me. When will I ever learn that I can't judge distances or depth that well. By the time I got things squared up, the beads didn't match any longer, nor did their top curves match their bottom curves. I did get it all relatively square, though, and I had to stop, otherwise the chunk would have ended up being to short for its purpose.

I then had to cut the beads and waste the material between them on the face. I did this using a Stanley #78 Rabbet Plane and the job would have been easy and enjoyable if it wasn't for the fact that I had to recut the face beads to match the ill-shaped end grain beads. It was pure torture having to intentionally mess up a pair of lovely cut beads to match some ill-begotten ones.

With frustration, I quit removing material and just gave it a good scrapping and a bit of sanding. Saying the hell with it and hoping the next one will be better, I cleaned everything up and set it up to give it a coat of amber shellac. I didn't want to apply the finish after its drilled because I figured I would have to redrill them to get any material that seeps down into the holes so I wanted to finish it first. In disgust with myself, I slapped on a coat of shellac and walked away.

A few hours later I came back to it and discovered it was dry enough to give it a good sanding and apply another coat. This I did, and when I stood it to dry I had a good look at it.

I was amazed. All of those mistakes I knew were there just melted away into this incredibly beautiful hunk of wood. You just can't argue with Mother Nature.

Tomorrow I'll rub it down again and give it another coat and by Thursday or Friday it will be ready to start drilling - all 73 holes.

Peace,

Mitchell

Here's What Has Kept Me Busy These Past Few Months...

When I was a kid, my attitude was rotten, my work ethics were rotten and I had the rotten school marks to prove it. Somewhere along the way things changed for me. From that rotten little kid whose idea of reading was to look at the pictures in hot rod magazines, I now spend 75% of my waking hours studying everything I can on every subject imaginable; from architecture to zoology, and given that my so-called part-time job is that of a college instructor, I spend the rest of my time teaching.

So what does this confession have to do with woodworking? Everything.

This post is about the rebuilding of our kitchen. When I first started to consider this project I made the commitment that I would do it with hand tools. I felt that fabricating on this scale would advance my hand tool skills a thousand fold and take years off of my learning curve. Staying consistent with the rest of my life, I’d like to share what I learned with those of you that are considering doing a similar project…

Buy a damned table saw!

There was nothing major here. It was more to give the kitchen a face-lift, rather than reinvent the wheel. We kept the costs down mainly because we do not have any preconceived notions as to how long we are going to live here. I like the place well enough, I just hate the location; half way between living central and living in the country. Too far away from downtown for quick and easy commutes, but too much urbanization be worth the aggravation of commuting.

The place is a condominium built in the late 70’s when land and materials were cheap and labour was far less than today's standards. Because of that, by large urban-center standards, it is a huge three bedroom, two bathroom box. As is usual with these types of places, the kitchen is far too small, the fixtures far to cheap and the design far too ugly. Half the ceiling in the kitchen was covered with plastic panels in a cheap representation of those “Florida ceilings” that were so popular back in the late 70’s. The original floor had been replaced with the ugliest brown speckled terra cotta tiles ever made.

When my shor…er...petite wife started to constantly complain that the upper cabinets were too high, I started to look at what we could do.

I set out to:

• Lower the uppers a few inches, the amount lowered determined by the coffee maker
• Replace the junk original doors with 3/4” particleboard
• Reduce the space the original installment left for the fridge and stove
• Add a 16” upper and lower to the right end of the wall
• Replace the box above the fridge with a lower one, mounting it flush with the face of the fridge
• Add a divider between the fridge and cabinets to enclose it
• Reconfigure the original bulkhead to follow the new cabinet configuration
• To cover the fact that I was building this with the cheapest of materials, finish the new and existing with a better than average finish
• Rewire and add new lighting
• Replace existing floor

Here is what I started with. Actually, I had already lowered this side, added the lights, crown molding and took a door off when my son reminded me that I hadn’t taken a before picture…

Here is what it looks like now…

Because I was using 3/4" particleboard for the slab doors (pre-primed birch ply for the boxes), I wanted to give it a better than usual finish, one that would replicate the old milk paint used until it became known lead would kill you. To get this I gave everything one coat of regular primer, sanded, then two coats of high-build primer. This is great stuff as it expands as it dries and makes it easy to get a smooth, flat surface. I then sanded that to death, then laid on three coats of the green oil paint, giving it sands in between each coat with 220 grit. After that I laid on three more coats of satin finish varathane, again sanding between each coat, this time with 320 grit. I still have one more coat of varathane to put on, but I going to give everything a month or so to cure completely before going at it again. After that last coat is hardened, I'll rub everything down with steel wool and give it all a coat of wax. I did this to one end piece and the finish is as smooth as glass, but has a very unique sheen to it, and does replicate that old milk paint of yore.

In this shot, the upper cabinet over the fridge has been replaced with one that is consistent in height with the lowered originals and brought forward. A divider was installed to enclose the fridge and a new upper and lower cabinet was added to the end...

This is the new upper and lower cabinets, made to replicate the design of the original boxes. By reducing the space for the stove and fridge I was able to squeeze more space out of the wall to allow for these new 16" units. I built the base with two drawers only for pots and pans mounted on full extension, self-closing sliders. They work great and are very cool. I'm still opening and closing the drawers just to watch them close that last two inches on their own. Given the location of this base, I thought it would be ideal to have a butcher block top on it so I made one out of maple and beech...

The biggest hassle was deciding what to do with the space left between the tops of the upper cabinets and the bulkheads. It was too narrow to be of any use and too much of a hassle to enclose, besides, if the next owner's wife is, dare I say, of a normal height, they will probably want to put them higher again. All I did was added a filler piece to the top edge of each box and applied crown molding along them. The filler gave me a larger gluing surface and brought the molding out so it was flush with the faces of the doors. The molding is actually chair rail as I thought the crown molding would be too much for this little kitchen and would attract too much attention to the space. Behind the molding I installed rope lights all the way along to use as night lights. Here is what I am greeted with when I fridge-dive at midnight...

The biggest hassle was the ceiling. First, all the plastic panels, track and florescent lights had to be removed, along with their accompanying junction boxes and conduit pipe. The ceiling was popcorned over the concrete, so that had to be scrapped off and the whole thing skimmed with plaster to fill the holes and level it out. I then had to add to the bulkhead on the right, so the new cabinets looked like they belonged, and bring the bulkhead out over the fridge, so that reconfigure would look acceptable. For some reason there isn't an exhaust fan in this kitchen, even though there is a through-wall vent for the dryer in a laundry closet at the far end of the kitchen. Because of this, I plan to install a small ceiling fan in the center of the recessed ceiling but I'll have to install some fake, white ceiling beams to run the wiring in first. My good friend Eric handled the all the rewiring for me and while he was at it, installed the wiring for the fan, ending it at one of the new pot lights to wait for this further addition. So the ceiling now looks like this...

Once everything was in, installed and painted, I replaced the floor. Removing the old terra cotta tile wasn't a problem as whoever installed it removed the old linoleum tile, but didn't scrap and clean the old glue off. As a result, the thinset used to hold the terra cotta didn't stick at all and when I went to lift one, a whole section of ten to twenty tiles were lifted together, the grout between them being stronger than the adhesive that was supposed to  hold them to the floor. Believe me, the work involved removing the tiles was a whole lot less then hauling the lot of them down 26 floors to the garbage bin.

Because I am surrounded by concrete, the floor being the same as the ceiling, I had no choice but to go with "engineered flooring". Isn't that just a fancy hustle for fake wood? I wasn't too happy with the look of it in the store as to me, it looked like exactly what it was - fake flooring. Once I got it down, though, I warmed to it, and having lived with true hardwood floors in the past, I was surprised to discover how easy the fake job is to keep clean. The entire floor was fitted using a hand saw and keyhole saw with nothing plugged in for the entire day. To impart with a little bit more wisdom; that crap can take the edge off a saw in two minutes flat. I have had to add $120.00 to the price of the new floor as that is what it has cost me to send my vintage 20" Disston panel saw back to Philadelphia so woodnut4 can do his magic and re-sharpen it. I can't find anyone here in Toronto who does hand sharpening. Anyway, here's the floor...

So there you have it. There are still the few little jobs I have to do to completely finish this room, along with making that corner computer cabinet that I have been dreaming of these past few months. I do not think that I gained any greater knowledge or experience building all of this with hand tools except for coming to the understanding that I have a lot more respect for an old hand saw than I do for a fifty buck tablesaw blade. If we do decide to stay here I'll probably rip the whole lot out and start from scratch with a more elaborate and better built set of cabinets but for now, and in case of resale, these will do just fine. If I do go at them again, however, I can assure you the only hand tool I will be using is the push stick to shove the smaller pieces through a table saw. It took five sheets of particleboard and plywood, all 3/4", to make this stuff. Cutting all of that by hand was a huge pain in the.........arm. I will admit that particleboard does cut cleanly. Getting clean smooth edges on all the doors only took a few strokes with some 120 grit sandpaper and once painted, you can't find a saw mark anywhere. The only real bonus to building it all with hand tools is that I was able to pre-cut everything in the foyer of the apartment as the dust factor wasn't anywhere near what it would be with power tools. The compensation for the extra man-power involved was that I didn't have any travel time back and forth to the shop, which meant that I could fit the job into my schedule a whole lot easier.

If I had the time and didn't have a wife complaining about the existing kitchen every five minutes, it would have been nice to build the whole thing in real wood with frame and panel doors. Even if that were the case, I wouldn't commit myself so rigidly to hand tools again, not for a job this size. There is just way too much cutting.

I'm now taking a sabbatical from larger scaled projects for the next month and returned last week to working on my tool cabinet. I'll post some of what I have completed on that soon.

Peace,

Mitchell

An Update Regarding the Right Plane...

I'm rather late posting this; about four months, actually.

On November 20th of last year I posted a request for advice in choosing the right plane to create rabbets and such for drawers and small cabinets. Kari over on The Village Carpenter suggested that I pick myself up a Veritas Small Plow Plane. Doing some further research, I thought she gave me great advice and still think that way.

Now, on November 25th, I posted an illustration and a manipulated photo to show my conflicting feelings about the newly designed Veritas plane and backsaw.

How are these two things related?

Well I don't know if you noticed it or not, but on the inside cover the Lee Valley January catalogue, the illustration of the questioning woodworker appeared as an intro to a letter about the new tool designs written by Lee Valley's President, Robin Lee. If you can put two and two together, you have probably figured out that I am now the proud owner of a spanking new Veritas Small Plaw Plane, complete with all five blades.

As an aside, the manipulated photo of the Veritas NX60 Block Plane has been published in the April issue of The Canadian Home Workshop magazine. While I won't complain about the remuneration I received for that one, I will say that it is too bad they don't make planes there.

I have to admit, it is a wonderfully relaxing way to build your tool collection.

Peace,

Mitchell

They use these things to fly planes, you know...

About a year ago I purchased a beautiful little Spear & Jackson dovetail saw, circa 1888 from woodnut4 on eBay. Its open handled, rip set, and is just the nicest thing to work with. Since then I have been searching for a cross that would be a match to it, mainly on eBay, but the odd time, when I think of it, I'll just do a general search for one on Google to see if there is any out there that happen to be looking for a new home.

Tonight, I pulled up Google and entered "jackson open handled dovetail cross".

Have a look at what came up as the forth hit on the list...

Sometimes computers are just dumb.

Peace,

Mitchell

If I didn't have bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all

My life often mirrors George Goebel's famous line, “My luck is so bad; I bought a suit with two pairs of pants, damned if I didn’t burn a hole in the jacket”. For those of you who are too young to remember, George Goebel was a stand-up comic, singer and actor whose variety show, The George Goebel Show, was popular on television from 1954 to 1960.

I have been checking out the listings on eBay for Stanley Everlast #40 chisels, the non-SweetHeart variety, for the past year. Over this time I have picked up 5 of the original set of 11, with one duplicate. I got a good 2”, a good 1 ¼”, a fair 1”, a fine ½” and two pristine ¼”. I have paid anywhere from $90.00 for the 2”, down to $38.00 for the ½”. The prices I paid average around $45.00 each, which I have considered to be fair, given a good set of 11 would run around the $1,500.00 mark.

The whole idea behind these acquisitions is put together a really good user set of chisels that are of better quality than the current offerings of today and will appreciate in value over time. This theory is behind all my tool purchases, and while I believe it is sound, I doubt I will ever know if I was right or not. I’ll never know because I will never consent to selling my tools as long as I am breathing. After I’m gone, my son will inherit the collection and he can do with it whatever he wants; add to it, use it, or sell the whole lot to the highest bidder.

We are all aware that the world’s economy is in the toilet. I don’t know if you have noticed it or not, but as a result of this tanked economy, the prices for vintage tools has fallen considerably, especially on eBay. An example of this is my old friend woodnut4, a serious vintage tool collector and saw aficionado, who has taken to putting reserve prices on his saw sales. This is something he has never done before in the two or three years that I have been following his offerings on eBay.

I have always been taught that when the economy tanks and prices fall – buy. This goes for real estate, stocks and bonds and all those things you believe will bounce back after life returns to normal. As my tool acquisitions are something I believe will bounce back in value, and then some, I have taken to watching the eBay listings even more closely.

So why, if I smell a good deal in the air, did I start this rant quoting an almost forgotten television personality?

Well the fact of the matter is, every listing that has appeared on eBay for Stanley #40’s over the past four months have either been too short or too beat to consider being a sound purchase or they match the size and quality of the ones that I already own.

Damn!

Peace,

Mitchell

Hand Saw Massacre

I had the distinct pleasure today of having to cut up some 3/4-inch birch plywood by hand. Ok, it was really neither distinct, nor a pleasure, but I did it.

Over the years I have used a number of different computer desks, a few purchased, a couple I built myself and one that was make-shift (on the boat I took over the dinette). A few years ago I finally got down to building what I thought was the perfect unit. Twelve feet long, the whole thing rested on three bases. At one end I built a two-drawer file cabinet and at the other, a two-door cabinet for stashing the printers, a scanner and the like. The center unit holds my hard drives; one Mac and one PC, both resting on a pad that rides on full extension slides. The base is 28” from floor to desktop, which I find perfect for keyboard and mouse use. At either end, bookcases run to the ceiling. The whole thing was built out of 3/4” birch ply and stained a deep walnut with a few coats of satin varnish (spar for the top). It looked like a million bucks, give or take for inflation. After throwing in a good pair of 5:1 speakers, I had the perfect set-up.

I spend half my life at that desk. When the decision was made that we were moving (one day my wife will explain to me how “we” came to that decision), there was no question the station was coming with me. Once the burly men with the strong backs had dumped all our possessions in our new abode, unceremoniously I might add, a glitch reared its ugly head. My beautifully designed 12-foot long computer station now had to fit into a 9-foot wide room.

It took me about 24 hours to finally come up with a solution. The only solution was to turn the straight run station into an L-shaped one. That part was easy, it was deciding which unit to put where that was the problem as I had to have space for the office chairs to slide in and out from under it without banging on either side each time. Surprisingly, the bases of those chairs are wider than my butt – who knew? I played with scale models digitally, moved, switched and tweaked the real life ones around and mucked with the figures on paper. It took a while, but I finally hit on what I thought would be the ideal arrangement.

Once the configuration was confirmed and the bases set into place, I was ready to install the tops. The originals were 28-inches wide and were flush with the face of the base cabinets. This was my only flaw, more because of aesthetics rather than serviceability. Because of that, I decided to replace the tops with wider units, going for a width of 29-inches. Ok, I’ll admit it; I’m anal about these things. Anyway, the tops were easy once I found a Home Depot that had their panel saw working.

With the tops installed, stained and with a few coats of water-based varnish (horrible stuff), I was left with two 6-foot pieces of ply that was already finished on one side. As my book and text collection has grown leaps and bounds these past few years I thought it would be prudent, environmentally friendly and just plain convenient to cut these pieces up into 10-inch strips to use as book shelves. Glitch number two.

To thicken the edges of the tops and make them more rigid, I had glued and screwed three 3-inch strips of ply to the underside of each piece; one down each edge and the third down the middle. You know what happens when you try to separate glued plywood lay-ups – they take a layer of ply along with them and that is exactly what happened.

The result of all of this was that after an hour and twenty minutes of pumping my Disston #12 Cross up and down, I ended up with my four 6’ long pieces of shelving. I had to hand cut 48-feet of 3/4-inch play to get them, each shelf requiring two cuts, salvaging the undamaged sections between where the removed lay-ups left their scars. Over the course of this exercise, as the aches grew more intense and the sweat more earnest, I kept thinking, “God, how did these guys build whole houses using these things?”

They are now off in the corner drying after having their undersides stained and shellaced. Tomorrow, I’ll give them a couple of coats of varnish (the real stuff if I can find it) and by Sunday, I should be able to unpack the remaining six boxes of books that are currently pilled in the hall outside my office door. It will be a treat to be able to walk out of the room without walking into a wall of cardboard.

Whose idea was it to do this hand tool thing, anyhow?

Peace,

Mitchell