Harrisburg Artsfest

The Harrisburg Artsfest is a 3 day-long juried craftshow during Memorial Day weekend and along the Susquehanna Riverfront. The artwork includes pottery, painting, photography, metalwork, jewelry, fabric arts, leather, stonework, knives, brooms, and of course, woodworking.

I spoke with 3 of the woodworkers who were, as I have found most woodworkers to be, friendly people who generously share their knowledge with you.

June Burns, along with her husband, Tony, own Peachie Originals. They collect and use antique scroll saws to create puzzles for children. They also have written 3 books showcasing some of their original designs and how to make them. June was demonstrating with an 1860s treadle scroll saw which is powered by one foot that pumps a pedal. She switched feet while we were talking, because her one foot had run out of gas. During the show, June cut out little shapes to give away and in 3 seconds, she had scrolled a shamrock for me.

Steve Strouse makes Shaker oval boxes in various hardwoods including cherry, walnut, maple, elm, and lacewood, among others. He uses only locally-salvaged wood that comes from storm damaged trees, tree care services, and logs that would otherwise end up in a landfill, including one 143 year old Sugar Maple that had been removed from the county courthouse. On his website, Steve provides photos of his work, lumber preparation, workshop, and young daughter who helps him sand the inside of his oval boxes.

Maker of treenware, Bob DeWitt, of DeWitt's Spoons & Bowls, showed me how he uses a jig clamped in a vise to secure rough-shaped spoons while he uses a drawknife for final shaping. A board with a carved, shallow recess hangs on his chest and effectively wedges the spoon between the jig and himself. Bob uses gouges, a bent knife, and drawknives to shape his bowls and spoons, and upon completion, soaks the projects in water for days in order to raise the grain, sands them with 600 grit sandpaper, and applies mineral oil and beeswax. Finishing his pieces this way creates a burnished-type surface on which water pools rather than soaks into the wood.

Every year, the Artsfest is an impressive gathering of talented people whose attention to detail and love of their craft is evident in their work.














So, what did I buy at the show?
Hey, what's a woodworker without a little bling?






Peachie Originals: (716) 679-4766

Strouse Woodworking: (814) 353-1901

DeWitt's Spoons & Bowls: (814) 842-6042

Sticky Shim

Thanks to a comment by Gary Roberts, there is a blog post today. Gary asked in my last post why I hadn't, instead of removing the bulk of the waste from the lap joint with a chisel, used a rabbet (rebate) plane instead.

According to Gary, "skewed rabbet planes were used for hogging cross grain material, particularly the wider width planes. The large mouth, curved escapement served to allow the coarse cross grain material to be ejected without clogging the plane. The outline of the lap was sawn to the line, the waste was hogged with the rabbet plane and finished up with a chisel or if narrow, with a router."

Suggesting that I use a handplane for a particular joint is like setting a plate of doughnuts in front of Homer Simpson—way too tempting. I love using handplanes.

Since I don't have a skewed rabbet plane, I dusted off my #78 and took a few passes within the layout lines of an untouched lap joint. Handplaning is a mesmerizing experience for me and sometimes I shave more than I should. In my state of handplaning delirium, I completely forgot about leaving a section in the middle of the waste area to support the router plane in final clean up. By the time I realized what I had done, the center section was 1/32" lower than the surface of the workpiece, which would result in sloppy joint with a scalloped bed.

Nothing that a little tape can't solve. 4 layers of masking tape, burnished flat, equals 1/32". It supported my router very well but did get a little chewed up toward the final passes.

Still, a sticky shim saved me from a sticky wicket.

Handcut Lap Joint

Cutting lap joints by hand takes a little while if you are as slow as I am. To cut just one half of a lap joint took me....well, let's just say that if I were to charge $30/hour for my time, this joint alone would cost $5 million.

There are a number of ways to cut this joint, and other ways to speed up the process, but here is one way to do it:

Layout the cut with a bevel-edged pencil, marking knife or exacto blade. Use a chisel to define the shoulder. Handsaw kerfs within the waste area. The more kerfs you saw, the easier it is to chip out the waste. My kerf marks are rather far apart because I get tired pretty quickly with handsawing. Use a beefy chisel to chip out the majority of waste then clean up the bed with a router plane or paring chisel. Because this is a wide lap joint, remove the waste from only half of the joint at a time and leave a section of wood in the middle to support your router plane as you clean up the bed. Remove the center waste section with a chisel and/or plane.

Now it's onto the next one!

In Defense of Cheap Tools

As I continued to remove the bandsaw marks on the sawbuck table legs, I reached for a chisel to clean up the deepest crease in the profile. But not just any chisel. My FIRST chisel.

It was purchased 16 years ago at a big box store for a few bucks—ugly, yellow, too-short plastic handle and all. I knew almost nothing about woodworking back then and had no idea what made one chisel better than another. I just knew I could afford this one and hey, it has a cutting edge, doesn’t it?

16 years later, this 3/4” Stanley Workmaster® proudly occupies the #1 slot in my chisel rack. It might not hold an edge as long as my Japanese chisels or be as pretty and as well-balanced as my German chisels, but it’s a real workhorse, sharpens quickly and cuts cleanly. And it reminds me that I don’t have to buy the most expensive tools to get good results.

Bottom right is a photo of the first plane, block or otherwise, I ever purchased. I think it cost $10 at the big box store. Knowing nothing about planes at the time, I bought it thinking hey, it has a cutting edge, doesn't it?

It took me a while to learn how to sharpen it properly, but it does indeed cut.

A few years ago, our woodworking club hosted a used tool sale where I offered to the sell this plane for $2. No takers.

And lucky for me! I brought it home and, not having used it in years, took a swipe on some wood. Nice clean shaving. The mouth is fixed too wide for a fine, thin shaving, but still, it cuts perfectly.

So, how do I employ this plane? It accompanies me every time I visit MLFKAG (My Lumberyard Formerly Known As Garage) which houses stacks of rough cut lumber that I bought at various auctions. Often the wood is so rough or so old, I can’t tell what species it is. A few passes, and the plane quickly exposes the grain beneath the rough surface. I’ll never try to sell you again, little guy.

Mind the Arc

I built this cabinet in 2005, and last year I noticed that the gap in between the two doors was no longer as even as they had been (they were never perfect, but close). The top of the gap was a little thinner than the bottom. Or so it seemed. I ignored it at first, chalking it up to sloppy construction. But it got worse. After a few days, the gap at the top was less than a 1/8" and the gap at the bottom was 3/8".

(insert little girl scream)

Here's what happened. When I built the carcase, I didn't pay attention to the arc of the endgrain. The second photo, taken from beneath the cabinet, shows the endgrain (on the tails). You can see that the crown of the arc is arching away from the carcase . What happens with a flatsawn board like this is the grain essentially wants to straighten itself out. So, the last tail in between the carcase and the door started to pull away from the last pin, effectively taking the bottom of the door with it. What I thought was an indestructible joint was failing...badly.

So I added glue, clamped it up, and drove a screw through the pin.

A better way to build a carcase or box is to orient the crown of the arcs toward the box. So, when the grain tries to straighten itself out, the pressure will be into rather than away from the joints.

I haven't had the nerve to check the other side of the carcase, but if it does happen to the other board, I'll know not to hyperventilate.

Shaping the Legs

To shape the legs for the sawbuck table, I first traced the profile onto the leg blanks using the cardboard template. Then I transferred the profile to the other side of the leg. With the profile marked on both sides, you can check back and forth as you're shaping to ensure that the profile is square.









I roughed out the shape on the band saw and then cleaned up the cuts with round files, triangular files, smooth files, a Nicholson #50 rasp, a Lee Valley rounded spokeshave, and sandpaper.

The shaped leg in the last photo is sitting on top of what's left of the cherry that is being used to make this project.

Sawbuck Table: Part I

In my shop, a 9/4 x 12" x 11' piece of curly cherry has been patiently waiting to become a PA German Sawbuck Table, like the one I found at the Landis Valley Museum. I was not able to photograph the original very well because it was behind glass, but the photos still came in handy. From a page in a book, I knew the height, width, and length of the original. And from the front-on shot that I took, I figured out rough dimensions for the various parts with the help of a proportion wheel.

This project involves fun little details, like sliding dovetails, tusk tenons, an angled drawer, lettercarving, turned spindles, and baroque sawbuck legs.

Trying to determine the angle of the legs was a monumental dilemma for a right-brained person who wouldn't know the Pythagorean Theorem from a Pierogie. So, here's what I did—I laid tape on the floor and marked corners of a rectangle that matched the height and width of the table (minus the table top). Then I criss-crossed two pieces of 5" wide cardboard within, but longer than, that rectangle; laid a straight edge from one top corner of the rectangle to the other top corner; and drew a line across the tops of the cardboard. Then I did the same at the bottom of the rectangle. This gave me the angles at which the legs needed to be cut. I eyeballed the baroque shape from the photos, sketched it freehand, and cut the pattern.

After all four legs were cut to length, I had to figure out where to cut the half lap. The cardboard template wasn't reliable enough for marking the critical joint. So, I clamped two legs together, marked the middle, drilled a hole through the top leg and half way through the second leg, pegged them with a dowel, and scissored them apart. Now I had to figure out how far apart to splay them so that the legs would support the table top and also rest squarely on the floor. So I clamped a straight board to my assembly table (representing the table top), slid the legs against it until both ends laid flat against the board, then slid another flat board against the opposite ends of the legs (representing the floor). This showed exactly where to mark the half laps.

There you have it—the right-brained person's guide to figuring out angles.

My New Workbench

No doubt Chris Schwarz will want to include plans for this natural-edged workbench in the updated, revised version of his book, Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use.*

In the interim, here are detailed instructions on how to build one:

1. Keep an eye on the neighbor lady’s tree that’s about to be toppled.
2. After the tree has been felled and sawn, casually walk your dogs by her house to inspect the logs.
3. Just “happen by” as her strapping young son-in-law is chopping up the logs for firewood and inquire about the largest part of the trunk.
4. Be nice, and the strapping young son-in-law just might wheel your new workbench home for you on a dolly.

Why the new workbench? Because I found Robin Wood’s website. Robin is a woodturner and maker of treenware. On his site, he posts video tutorials on how he makes his spoons, while sitting in his living room, and using a tree stump as a work surface. What fun! To start with a log, use an axe to rough out the shape, and finish with carving tools and knives is something I’ve always wanted to try.

I have only made one kitchen utensil, a pasta rake, which works surprisingly well. It’s made of cherry and is finished with olive oil. There is something “right” about using wooden utensils and I can’t wait to use my new workbench to make more. I just need to find another neighbor who is planning to cut down a tree so I can “happen upon” some logs.

*If you have not read Chris’ book and are thinking of building a new or upgrading an existing workbench (or are just looking for a fantastic read), do yourself a favor and purchase a copy. His book is replete with valuable information on building workbenches, choosing lumber, making bench jigs, and the whys and hows that aren’t found in other workbench books.

Safety First!

Marc Spagnuolo, The Wood Whisperer, has named this Woodworkers’ Safety Week.

And with good reason. How many of us still have all 10 digits, don’t continually have to ask people to repeat themselves, and don’t have a woodworking battle scar or two?

I’m guilty of the second one, but that’s due to too many Pat Benatar concerts in high school.

For the female woodworkers who read this blog....you’re already wearing your safety gear so feel free to skip this post and head back to the shop.

Two things are for sure: 1) woodworking is dangerous with both hand and power tools, and 2) guys love to outdo one another with “near-miss” or “how I lost my (fill in missing body part)” stories.

Being safe in the shop doesn’t mean you aren’t cool, aren’t manly, or won’t have riveting stories to share. What it does mean is the following:

VC’s Top Ten Reasons to Practice Safety in the Shop:

10. You can wave good-bye and people won’t think you’re making a rude gesture at them.
9. You can count to 10 without removing your shoes.
8. You won’t have to quit your bowling league. (Of course, there's always duckpin bowling.)
7. You can still type on a keyboard without having to hunt and peck. (Provided you know how to type in the first place. If not, proceed to number 6).
6. You can hear your granddaughter when she says she loves you. (awwww!)
5. You can hear your wife when she says “Honey, you’ve had a hard week. Why not spend some time in your shop?”
4. You won’t have to explain to the emergency room nurses why you have a spear of curly maple protruding from your belly button.
3. You won’t soil your drawers from kick back.
2. You can still dream of becoming a hand model.
and the number one reason to be safe in the shop....

1.You won't have to listen to your wife complain about you not being safe in the shop!

There’s nothing dorky about being safe.

Wear your safety goggles & hearing protection, use push sticks and the safety features that come with your tools, and don’t stick anything in the blade that you don’t want chopped off.

Happy Woodworkers’ Safety Week!

Workshop for Lilliputians

June marks the 4th anniversary of the completion of my new workshop. Prior to that, I worked in a basement shop with concrete floors, 6 foot ceilings, exposed lightbulbs, and exposed knob & tube wiring. Dungeon-like.

Yet it was still my favorite place in the house.

I dreamed for 10 years of having an above-ground shop and when I finally decided to have one built, I spent a full year researching heating systems, insulation, material, lighting....everything.

I even built a to-scale model of the shop, complete with all my equipment, just to make sure that everything would fit and that I would be able to tell my builder where to put the outlets. I determined where to put the 18" bandsaw in relation to the back window, so that long boards could stick outside and rest on the sill while I ran them through the blade. The model also helped my builder work up pricing.

The first design had a second story and a finishing room closed off by a sliding door. After my builder told me how much it would cost, reality set in, and both those luxuries were crossed off the list.

The model itself was built hurriedly—just plywood tacked together with brads—but it helped immeasurably when I was able to tell my builder where to put my 300 pound band saw and 400 pound table saw, as he and his helper carried them out of my basement shop and into the new one. They were able to plop them down exactly where I wanted them. I doubt they would have appreciated some lady telling them to "Move the table saw to this wall. Nah, that's not right—move it to that wall instead. A little to the left, no right."

The next sound I would have heard would have been my contractor and his helper slamming the door shut behind them, leaving a trail of expletives in their wake.

Planning for and designing my shop was an exciting journey, and I ended up with a cute little woodworker's dollhouse in the process.

Hand Tool Conference

Popular Woodworking Magazine is hosting a woodworking conference this November devoted exclusively to hand tools, called Woodworking in America. The list of speakers is an all-star line up of hand tool experts and the 3-day weekend will be filled with 40 short classes, a marketplace for toolmakers to display and sell their wares, and social events with demonstrators and toolmakers.

Registration begins in June, but I wanted to give you a heads-up on what will most certainly be an awesome weekend.....and I hope, an annual event!

Read more about it here.

Scraper Sharpening Showdown

Alan Turner and Mario Rodriguez*, two well-known and talented woodworkers, were the guest speakers at our most recent woodworking club meeting, a combined meeting with another club. Alan started his own woodworking school several years ago, The Philadelphia Furniture Workshop, where both he and Mario are instructors.

Mario demonstrated mitered through-dovetails and Alan demonstrated how to sharpen a scraper. Alan sharpens them a little differently than I do, so I decided to have a showdown between his technique and mine. I used the same scraper, a Sandvik, and sharpened one edge with my technique and the other edge with Alan's.

Here’s my process:

Chuck the scraper in a vise, and using a smooth file, square each edge 90º to the sides. Switching to an 8,000 grit waterstone, hone the edge. Skew the scraper as you hone, so you don't plow a groove in the waterstone. Next, hone 1/2" of the face of both flat sides. Put some oil on a burnisher (some people use the handle of a screwdriver, but I have better luck with a burnisher), hold the scraper in your hand** and, using a fair amount of downward pressure, slide the burnisher 3-5º along both sides of each long edge, 5 or 6 times. The idea is to create a hook on both sides of the edge so you can use both sides to scrape.

Here’s Alan’s process:

First, he oiled the scraper and the burnisher. Then he laid the scraper flat on the workbench near the edge and used the burnisher to draw the metal out along each long edge on both sides of the scraper, creating a “U” shape of metal along each edge. Then he chucked the scraper in a vise and filed the edges to 90º. He added more oil to the scraper and burnisher, then he drew the metal out once more on the workbench. Back to the vise, he burnished each side of each long edge 2-5º.

To use the scraper, flex the blade between your thumbs and hold the scraper at 45º to the work surface. The moment of truth....

They looked the same to me. I was surprised because I thought Alan's would work much better. I still think his is a better sharpening technique that will produce more consistent results. But, take your pick!















*Photos of Alan and Mario courtesy of Robert Aspey.
**It's possible to cut yourself by holding the scraper in your hand while using the burnisher, so to be totally safe, you can secure it in a vise instead.

String Inlay

Lie Nielsen now carries tools to create string inlay* (pictured at right) based on Steve Latta's innovative designs.

I took Steve's inlay class a year ago at Olde Mill Cabinet Shoppe, where we made simpler versions of the tools (pictured below).

While I won't show you how to make the tools since they are Steve's original designs, I will tell you that they are simple to use, if you're thinking about taking Steve's class, buying the L-N set, or making your own. I practiced for only about an hour before starting a Chester County line and berry design for a spice box door. It only took about 3-5 hours to do all of the inlay for this panel, although the "berries" aren't finished yet, nor has the surface been finish-sanded. It's far from perfect, but hopefully people won't inspect it too closely once it's done (which may be never, since it's been sitting in this state of incompletion for almost a year....)

The radius cutter pivots on a point while little teeth plow a groove for the inlay. You can see a close-up of the teeth configuration on the L-N website. In Steve's class, we also made a tool that plows a straight line and a thicknessing gauge that ensures the veneer strips are consistent in width. To use the gauge, you pull the veneer strip through a kerf in a block of wood. One side of the kerf is wood. The other side has a little scraper attached to it.

L-N also offers a dvd featuring Steve Latta creating the line and berry technique. I have not seen this video, but I can vouch for Steve's excellent teaching skills.

It's easier than you might think to add decorative string inlay to your projects.

*I do not sell for Lie-Nielsen (or Steve Latta), nor have I used their inlay tools, so I cannot comment on their performance.

A Tale of Two Museums

We met some friends in Philadelphia yesterday to tour two museums: The Mütter Museum (museum of medical oddities, including body parts encased in formaldehyde) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (which is currently showcasing artwork by Frida Kahlo).

I would like to point out that The Mütter Museum was not my idea. I had vowed years ago that I would never tour the facility (I hate all things gross), but when my partner and friends dangled the Frida Kahlo carrot in front of my nose, I caved.

The Mütter Museum did not disappoint—I was queasy after the tour....just in time for lunch.

We had some time to kill before our appointment with the Kahlo exhibit, so we spent time exploring the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where as luck would have it, a fine collection of various types of sculpture, paintings, metalwork, ceramics, and FURNITURE (woohoo!) from 1680 to present is housed in the American Art section. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Wardrobe, 1779, walnut, yellow pine, oak, and sulfur inlay, and with rattail hinges.
   
2. Side Chair, 1866, oak.
3. Desk & Bookcase, 1827, mahogany, mahogany veneer, stained burl ash, white pine, yellow poplar, and stringing. The Franklin Institute's report on its 1827 exhibit in which this piece won an award stated that it was "the best piece of furniture" of its kind.
4. Shaker Sewing Desk, Enfield New Hampshire community. Birdseye maple, cherry, walnut, and poplar.
5. Spectacle Case, 1800-1850, cherry, Shaker. Note the ridged side pulls.
6. PA German Painted Cupboard.
7. Shaker Worktable, 1800-1850, white pine and maple.
8. Giant Plug, cherry, from the Pop Art collection.

The Kahlo exhibit included a self-guided audio tour that was enlightening and informative, but we had some difficulty getting close to the paintings due to the large number of art lovers also on tour.

The museum closed before we had time to tour the other collections, which include European Art, Asian Art, Modern/Contemporary Art, and Arms & Armor, making it well worth another trip to Philly.

It was a fabulous Saturday—I've managed to erase the medical oddities from memory—and before we headed home, maybe because we were aglow from the spirit-lifting exhibits, maybe because we're a benevolent bunch, we decided to help a sister out with a little tweezing.
(click to enlarge photo)

Woodworking: The Perfect Hobby

At least it is for someone who loves variety. Woodworking is an inexhaustible source of learning. There is always another technique or talent you can acquire or challenging project you can build.
When I first started woodworking, I built rustic furniture. The wood was free (fallen limbs in the neighborhood), it required few tools, and it involved basic joinery. From there, I became interested in building New Mexican furniture because the carving looked like fun. Then, I migrated toward Mission furniture, then Shaker furniture, then learning how to handcut dovetails, then how to make handplanes, and now PA German furniture.

I’m crazy-interested in learning more handtool techniques.

Recently, I bought a video on marquetry from Jane Burke and a video on sharpening handsaws from Tom Law. A year ago I learned how to make string inlay, for a line and berry design, from Steve Latta.

But it doesn’t end there.

There are a multitude of other types of woodworking and ww techniques, including wood bending, veneering, carving in the round, chip carving, furniture design, making handtools, mastering complex joinery, finishing, building musical instruments, and woodturning, just to name a few.

And my list of “to-build” projects. Well...I will never reach the bottom of the list.

But that’s what I love about woodworking. It’s impossible to learn everything or build everything you'd like to, so it's constantly exciting and it's impossible to be bored.

Women's Woodworking Club

The club, which was started a year and a half ago, has grown to over 20 members. 8 to 10 usually show up for our monthly meetings, where we do as many hands-on projects as possible.

Most of these women are brand new to woodworking—some are retired, with grown children—and all are enthusiastic to learn. The enthusiasm can be gauged in the sheer volume of exhuberant chatter that goes on during our meetings.

Regarding woodworking (and probably most things), all that women seem to need is a little encouragement & patience, and they will dive right in. Tonight, we worked on part 2 of our current project—cutting boards—in the Woodcraft Store shop where we meet. During the course of the 3-part project, they are learning how to use the jointer, planer, and miter saw. Next time, we'll have a router workshop, when we'll round over all the cutting boards and test drive different types of routers and bits.

We decide at each meeting, as a group, what the next topic will be. There are no dues, no officers, no business to attend to. We sit at a table, facing one another. All of the women have ownership. It's very different from what I call the "boys' club"—the other woodworking club to which I belong. Up until last year, I was the only female member.

In the boys' club, the guys seem to prefer hierarchy and structured meetings. We have officers, dues, and an annual business meeting. There are too many guys in that club (and too small a space) to do much hands-on stuff, so we mainly have a demo or lecture. Members sit in rows of chairs and face the presenter. The volume of these meetings is also different. Pretty quiet, except for the speaker, and the occasional wisecrack. The guys chat with one another prior to and after the meeting, but not so much during.

The other very important difference in the two clubs: the women's club usually has snacks. This past year in the boys' club, when the Christmas party was discussed, the guys opted to not have one. Conversely, the women all but leapt out of their seats with a resounding "YES!" when I asked if we wanted to have a club Christmas dinner.

And you wouldn't believe what they brought. Crab cakes, homemade lasagna, homemade meatballs (made by one woman's husband, which cracked us up), salads, and desserts like you'd find at Wegman's.

It's great fun to be an observer in both clubs. Despite their differences, there is one common thread between the two clubs: they both consist of people who want to create something—something useful, something artistic, something challenging. Something that will leave a lasting mark.

Something's Different...

Now, I know I haven't built anything in my shop for over a month, but I'm pretty sure the last time I was in there, I didn't leave a plant, 2 dog toys, and a bird bath lying around.

Has this phenomenon happened to any of you?

Bevel-Edged Pencil

Marking layout lines with a pencil always leads to "Do I split the line or save the line?" Here's a way to narrow the line, but still be able to see it, and resolve the issue.

Use a piece of sandpaper to create a flat side on your sharpened pencil then ride the flat edge along your straightedge. The line you create will be the exact the location of your cut. I mark dovetails this way and transfer lines from pins to tails. It is surprisingly precise. It does not, however, allow you mark lines in tight quarters, as in transferring marks from tails to ultra-thin dovetails. For that, you need a thin-bladed marking knife. (Or, cut your pins first...but that's another post.)

Using a pencil with a bevel edge leaves a mark that is easier to see than a knife mark. Sometimes you need that, especially if you've reached that 40+ year old bifocal age (raising hand).

Osage Orange Plane

People have written me asking for more information about the little osage orange plane in the side bar, so here are some images and measurements in case you would like to make one yourself.

Body: 4.5" long • 2" high • 1.125" wide
Opening: .84375" wide (13.5/15")
Wedge: 2.625" long • .8125" (13/15") wide • 12 degree bevel to fit
Blade: 3.625" long • .8125" wide • .125" thick

Bed Angles:
45 degree bed • 57 degree shoulder (the portion of the sides that hold the wedge in place) • 52 degree front bed

The plane is one piece of wood, so the most difficult part is chiseling out the wood inside the opening and being careful to ensure that the bed is perfectly flat. Layout your angles on the outside of your workpiece and transfer the angles across the top, down the other side, and on the plane's sole. Then, just keep an eye on your progress to make sure you maintain those angles as you chisel out the opening.

Other woods that make good planes are applewood, maple, bloodwood, cocobolo, and many other dense hardwoods.

Growth ring orientation, according to David Finck, author of Making & Mastering Wood Planes, is unimportant.

Leather Strop

You don't need a grinder and felt wheel in order to keep your knives, gouges, and chisels sharp. Honing with a leather strop charged with a fine compound also keeps them razor sharp. Glue a piece of leather to a flat substrate, like mdf or plywood, and rub a fine grit compound over the surface of the leather. I glued my leather rough side up, but others glue theirs smooth side up.

Slide your knife away from you, with the cutting edge facing you, and keep the blade at the same angle as the bevel. Flip the blade over and pull it towards you, this time with the cutting edge facing away from you. This way you won't gouge the leather. Hone each side of the blade the same number of times.

The lettercarving chisels that I've used for about 12 years have never once touched a waterstone or grinder. I have only ever honed them on a strop and they cut just as well now as the day I bought them. To sharpen a straight chisel, maintain the bevel angle as you slide the chisel towards you, with the cutting edge facing away from you. To hone the back, make sure the chisel is perfectly flat and then follow the same procedure. Always hone each side of the blade the same number of times.

To hone a straight gouge, I use a Flexcut SlipStrop, which has pre-formed shapes that match many types of gouges. Charge this with compound and hone the inside of the blade in the same manner as above. Hone the back of a straight gouge, if the sweep is not too extreme, on the flat leather strop, and rock the blade to match the back of the bevel. I lean the blade to the left and slide it, then lean it in the middle and slide it, and then lean it to the right and slide it. All the same number of times as I hone the inside sweep.

For smaller gouges, I sometimes use a piece of leather that I just bend by hand into a curve that matches the inside curve of the gouge.

Sharpening (Honing) Knives

When I came across a quick way to sharpen (technically, hone) knives a few months ago, I said to my dad, "Dad, give me all your knives and I'll sharpen them for you."

Question: Why do old dudes have so many knives? 40 (that's FORTY) knives, which is what Dad gave me, seems a little excessive. I'm pretty sure I only gave him like three knives total for all his birthdays and Christmases.

Good thing this sharpening system is speedy. Using a 3/4" hard felt wheel, charged with a honing compound, and secured on a grinder*, will put a razor edge on your knife, provided the knife is not too dull. If your knife has a blunt edge, you'll need to spend a little time with sharpening stones first.

Remember that when using a felt wheel, the direction of rotation must be turning away from you—the opposite direction when using grinding wheels. You will have to turn your grinder around so the switch is on the opposite side. If you do not do it this way, the felt wheel will grab the knife out of your hand and you could easily be hurt. Also remember to wear a face mask whenever you use a grinder and make sure that both wheels on your grinder are the same weight, so it is properly balanced. On the other arbor of this particular grinder is another 3/4" felt wheel.

It doesn't take much to hone the blade this way and if you hold it too long on the wheel, it will get hot, so check your progress frequently. I sharpened each knife in 20-30 seconds.

During sharpening, the felt will turn black. That's steel, and it means you need to charge the wheel with more compound. After a while, the compound may become glazed over. To remove it, I hold a block of wood against the wheel as it's rotating. The wood effectively scrapes off the compound and you can charge it with new.

The last photo shows my entire collection of knives. I have a ways to go to reach a total of forty, but then, I have a few more birthdays and Christmases until I'm an old dudette.

*Note: if you do not have a grinder, you can also hone blades and chisels with a leather strop, charged with honing compound, and glued to a board. That's a future post...