Landis Valley Museum, Revisited

We headed back to the Landis Valley Museum yesterday, mainly to see a new baby lamb and to enjoy the grounds in nicer weather than the first time we visited.








The gardens were blooming, the vegetables were growing, the sheep were sleeping, and my camera was snapping.

A giant loom was on display in one of the outbuildings and I'm always delighted to find ornamental details even in massive, practical machines like this one. As craftspeople, we just can't help ourselves, can we? Why have a plain, straight beam mortised into another one, when you can decorate the joint and edges with ogees and stopped chamfers?













On the grounds are a tavern, gunsmith, blacksmith, and tinsmith shops, a large barn, Victorian homes, a log home, and other structures which include a collections center and agricultural center.

In the agricultural center, behind glass, are several woodworking tools: goosewing axes, handplanes, and a handsome workbench with multiple drawers, a sliding deadman, and leg vise.

The planes and bench in particular were in excellent condition. One plow plane was stamped "E.W. Carpenter / Improved Arms & Handle / Lancaster" and looked like it had hardly been used.




In another historic building—the tavern—we found that the guide had just finished cooking his mid-day meal in an open hearth, so the room smelled like fresh-baked bread. But he wasn't sharing.

The Landis Valley Museum is a fun place to visit. Just make sure you've eaten lunch first before you reach the tavern, or your stomach will be rumbling like a Conestoga wagon on a country road.

Tool Holders

Or: What to do with a few scraps of wood and a few hours of unexpected free time.

When I designed my tool cabinet about 7 years ago, I carefully arranged sketches of my handtools on gridded paper.

Well, needs change, priorities change, and minds change, so my half empty cabinet looks a bit different than the original design.

When faced with a Sunday afternoon with nothing to do but weed the flower beds—a most egregious task—I decided instead to make a couple tool holders for my dovetail and tenon saws and my little mallet.

The saw holders are simple—just a block of wood that matches the shape of the inside of the handles, and little turnbuttons to keep the saws from sliding off the blocks of wood.

The mallet holder mimics the shelf that holds the chisel rack.

Also pictured are two Mag-Bloks (which work extremely well) that I bought from Lie-Nielsen to hold gouges and floats.

So after I made the tool holders, I looked around to see what other handtools needed to be hung in the cabinet. Shockingly, and to my utter dismay, I found that everything—everything!—already had a home in some compartment, drawer, or shelf.

And we know what that means, don't we?
Time to go tool shopping!

Sindelar Tool Museum

Have tissues on hand because you are about to drool.

If you've never visited John Sindelar's website, Sindelar Tool Museum & Education Center,* you've been missing out on one of the finest collections of extraordinary handtools in the world.

John Sindelar has been amassing his collection of rare, one-of-a-kind, unique tools for decades. Enjoy!

*Since I wrote this blog post, John's website has been taken down, so the link is to an article written by Popular Woodworking Magazine which includes a slide show.

Handcut Dovetails Video

To view larger and in high definition, click here.

This is not the most expeditious way to cut dovetails and it's just one of several ways to make them. The video has been sped up; it actually takes me about 20 minutes to do what the video shows in 6 minutes 11 seconds.

You can quicken the process by not using a guide block, and you might be faster at chopping out all the waste with a chisel rather than removing the majority with a fret saw. A marking knife is great for transferring layout lines, but I use a pencil that's been bevel-edged on a sheet of sandpaper.

The double-folded piece of paper in the beginning of the video is used to offset the marking gauge about 1/64" so the pins and tails protrude a bit when conjoined. This provides some wood to shave off with a handplane so the mating surfaces can be made flush.

In my opinion, it's faster to cut tails first because you can saw both tail boards at the same time, plus transferring layout lines to the pin board is easier. But if you plan to make skinny, English-style pins, I suggest cutting pins first. It's nearly impossible to transfer the lines of thin dovetails if you cut tails first.

Always saw with the "show" side facing you. In the video, they are marked "Pins" and "Tails".

If you are careful with laying out, transferring, and cutting to your lines, and sawing perfectly straight, your pieces will go together on the first try.

For a write-up of one way to handcut half-blind dovetails, click here. It explains the use of a wide plane blade to assist in lining up the guide block, and lists the tools I use.

Music: Derek and the Dominoes (Eric Clapton) "Bell Bottom Blues" and the instrumental version performed by Vitamin String Quartet.

I used a 1:8 ratio dovetail marker because I had planned to use cherry. When I used pine instead, I forgot to use my 1:6 ratio marker. 1:6 works best with softer woods.

Lettercarving Video

Watch in high definition here.

I wrote a post on this a while ago but thought it might make more sense to some in video format. Plus this video shows how to carve the serifs on letters. (To be honest, I had nothing better to do today than play with my camcorder.)

The video has been sped up so you won't fall asleep, since I am the world's slowest letter carver. The music is "Closer to You" by Brandi Carlile.

Now that I know how to speed things up in iMovie, I'm tempted to create a "2-Minute Dovetail" video....

WIA Handtools Conference

Woodworking in America Handtools & Techniques Conference

October 2-4 2009 • Valley Forge Convention Center, PA

Registration is now OPEN

See you there!

Quaker Locks & Hidden Compartments

Chuck Bender, owner of Charles Bender and Company, Cabinet and Chair Makers, is a maker of exquisite period furniture and instructor/owner at Acanthus Workshop. His wife, Lorraine, is next to him in the photo above.

Chuck is an expert in 17th, 18th, and early 19th c. furniture. Recently, he gave a presentation to our woodworking club about secret compartments and locking mechanisms that were sometimes found in period furniture, such as spice cabinets, slant front desks, lap desks, and blanket chests.

Features like this gave cabinetmakers a chance to show off their skill and ingenuity. And who doesn't like a mystery? Trying to find all the hidden drawers and figure out how to open them was great fun for our ancestors. And by the response from the club, it's still intriguing to modern woodworkers.

Chuck showed us some of his pieces, which included handcut dovetails and hand carved ornamentation. The largest piece, a lovely, tall painted hutch, unfortunately suffered a broken pane as it was carried into the meeting place by club members. I was not the cause of this, even though—as an easy target who is forever without a comeback—I was pegged with the mishap.

Chuck also brought with him an explodable chest to illustrate locking mechanisms and hidden compartments.

One way to lock a drawer is to install a Quaker Lock (also called Spring Lock). Oak, maple, or some other springy wood "key" is slid into a shallow, sloped, bevel-edged dado on the underside of a drawer. A square hole is cut into the drawer support (shelf), in alignment with the key. By reaching underneath the drawer support and pushing a finger through the square hole, the key is depressed, and the drawer can be opened. When the key is not depressed, it pushes against the front wall of the square hole, so the drawer is locked in place.

The bottom shelf of Chuck's demo piece tips upward when you push down on the back edge, and reveals a shallow compartment. When this shelf is removed, you can see a small, sliding dovetail key that slips into a matching mortise inside the cabinet's back. By sliding the key toward you, it releases the back, which slides up, and provides access to hidden spaces behind the drawers.

For 17th, 18th, and early 19th c. cabinetmakers, there were no standards for making these concealed compartments and locks; they just used their imagination. Sometimes, heavy crown moulding camouflaged a shallow drawer behind the ornate profile.

Planning ahead is paramount to successfully including hidden drawers and locks to your furniture. Trying to retrofit them after your piece is built is nearly impossible. Don't do what I did.

Today, we have bullet catches, rare earth magnets, metal springs, and other items to help us include secret spaces in our furniture.

We can also follow on the heels of our ancestors and come up with our own clever ways to add a bit of mystery to our projects.

David Savage / Black & Decker Event

All are welcome to this FREE event. You just need to email one of the coordinators (listed below) to let them know you're coming so they have enough food for lunch.

When: Saturday, July 11, 2009.

10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Where: Black and Decker University, 8701 Mylander Lane, Towson, MD 21286

Cost: No charge. Pizza will be provided by Black & Decker.

Schedule:

10:00 a.m. – 12 noon: Delta – Porter Cable – DeWalt Product Development team will give a briefing on new tools they have under design and development, and will ask for our feedback to help them improve their ideas.

12 noon – 1:00 p.m.: Lunch

1:00 – 2:30 p.m.: David Savage, a British furniture designer and maker of international stature, will be the featured speaker. Not only is David highly successful in his own business, but he has a multi-decade history of teaching other woodworkers to be successful in their own businesses. David will talk about The British and Irish Studio Furniture Movement. He will focus on how British and Irish furniture makers have developed a way to stay connected with one another. For more about David Savage: www.finefurnituremaker.com

2:30 – 3:00 p.m.: Talk on Setting up and tuning a bandsaw by B&D University

3:00 – 4:00 p.m.: Round Table on “How to make your woodworking business successful”

Raffle/Drawing for a free school seat from Jeff Headley and Steve Hamilton

Contact: Mel Montemerlo at montemerlo@gmail.com; Stu Crick at stu@stuswoodworks.com; or Alan Garner at theagarn@comcast.net