Bow Lathe and Fancy Footwork

Here is a captivating video of a woodturner in Marrakech who uses a bow lathe—a tool that's been around since the ancient Egyptians—a chisel, and his foot (!) to turn some intricate pieces.



Here is the youtube link.

Stopped Dadoes and Drawer Runners

A better title for these sawbuck table progress posts would have been: Why The Pennsylvania Germans Were Smarter Than I.

That's because they chose a straight-grained, soft wood for their original sawbuck table instead of curly cherry, a wood that's prone to tear and splinter; and they nailed the entire drawer together, instead of dovetailing angled corners and cutting angled grooves for the drawer bottom.

Despite this, it's been a fun learning experience and I've done things I've never tried before. What better way to expand your skills?

I decided to cut stopped dadoes in the drawer supports even though there are through dadoes on the original. This poses a problem if you plan to cut them with a plow plane, because the skate requires clearance in front of the cutter. Not a big deal, though, if you cut the last few inches with a mortising chisel before reaching for your plow plane.

Since the drawer sides are angled, but the drawer supports are not, the runners needed to be angled on one side and square on the other. I drew the shape on both ends of the runners, connected the marks along the length, and checked them frequently for accuracy while I planed them to shape.

I made the pegs from cherry by rounding bandsawn sticks with a block plane. There are other ways to make dowels, but this one is my favorite. Even though the runners are glued to the drawer sides, I chose to reinforce the joint with wooden pegs, since the drawer is so heavy. The runners on the original sawbuck were nailed in place.

So now there's only one thing left to make before final sanding and finishing.

You know how, at dinner, some people will eat the yucky stuff, like lima beans, first, and save the best stuff, like prime rib, for last?

I was always an "eat-the-good-stuff-first-and-hope-no one-sees-me-feed-the-gross-stuff-to-the-dog" kind of person.

In woodworking terms, that means I've saved making the drawer pull for last. That's right—I need to turn a lima bean. Yuck.

Patching and Shaping

Sometimes it helps to have a friend who gently reminds you about the long-ignored, incomplete projects in your shop to give you the push you need to kick it into high gear.

As I recall, Shannon's words were something like "Hey, how 'bout finally finishing that sawbuck table that's been sitting in your shop for over a year!"

Since then, I've replaned the boards for the drawer so they're square, cut the grooves for the drawer bottom, glued up the drawer, patched all the gaps from having fixed the drawer, shaped the drawer supports, cut the stopped dadoes in the drawer supports, and glued the runners onto the drawer.

More images to follow in another post. Must....keep....moving.

Playnz?

A new tool manufacturer is positioning itself as the plane maker for the next generation.

The company is called Rainbow Playnz® and it's gearing up to take on the big guys.

"We're woodworkers who know how to market to young people. And Gen Y is going to looooove our planes" says spokesperson Dylan Cooper.

He's not the only one who thinks so. At least one big name is investing in the fledgling company. Take a look under the hood of the company's #4 1/2 smoother plane (last photo). Yeah. It's what you think it is.

Rainbow Playnz is counting on the fact that young people love bright colors and connecting with friends. So, why not enjoy both while woodworking? The company is planning to offer a full line of planes in every color of the rainbow.

Think Gen Y'ers will go for it? Brandon Richwine, a 20-year-old from the company's focus group thinks so. "OMG—it totally matches my iPod!" he says.

So, how does Rainbow Playnz manage to colorize metal in so many bright hues?

"We don't—they're plastic," says Cooper. The planes are made from material produced through injection molding. They will always retain their shape, the soles do not require lubrication or rust prevention, and they're lighter weight and can be made much less expensively than metal planes.

What about the phone feature—won't it get damaged in use? According to Cooper, it's recessed into the sole, so it never touches your workpiece.

So, is the woodworking world ready for Rainbow Playnz? Somehow, I can't quite picture the 60-somethings in my woodworking club using pink handplanes.

Wait......I'm getting a visual. :D

Fettling a Wooden Plane

My little coffin smoother has always been good at chamfering an edge.

But try to take a full-width pass on the edge of a board, and the blade would either pull through, resulting in a thick shaving, or be knocked loose completely.

The plane is such a little thing, you'd think it would be able to do its job. But it's the little things within the structure and fittings that prevent it from doing that.

I spent a wee bit of time with the wee plane today and finally got it to take the wispy shavings for which it was made.

If you're tweaking a plane, one thing to check is the flatness of the bed. I used a thin straightedge which revealed a high spot in the middle. A file removed it with ease.

Another thing to check is whether or not the blade is in contact with the bed and the wedge. One way to determine if everything is seated properly is by waving your blade over a candle, so that soot is deposited on both sides. Insert your blade and wedge, remove it, and the soot will show where the contact points are located.

Uniform contact points on all surfaces is the ideal goal. I had good contact along the outer edge of the wedge, but the middle was a little hollow. A file makes quick work of eliminating the sooty spots, so the middle of the wedge also contacts the blade.

The next thing I checked was the flatness of the sole by holding a straightedge and the plane up to a light to find the low spots. The entire sole doesn't need to be flat, but if you're fixing up a wooden plane, you might as well make it so, since it's easy to do.

Slide the blade and wedge into your plane, but retract the blade a bit so it's protected. Tap it in place. Then rub the sole on a sheet of sandpaper that's clamped to a known-flat surface, like a table saw. The scuff marks from the sandpaper will tell you when it's flat.

If your wedge is still not holding your blade in place, try a trick that Jim Leamy taught me. Lay a file on the arms of your wedge and tap it with a mallet. The impression left by the file roughens up the surface, giving the wedge more gripping power.

The last thing I did was use my small mallet to seat the wedge. I had been using finger pressure only, but the mallet gave the wedge just enough of a push to provide the results I was hoping for.

Finally, the plane is finished.....until next season when the wood moves again. heh.

Dealers' Shows

Who has time for woodworking when there are lumberyards to tour and dealers' shows to attend?

The PATINA and Brown International shows are in close succession, which is tough on the wallet, but easy on the eyes. And even if you're not looking for anything in particular, you can usually find something you "need".

New additions to my collection include: a well-maintained "user" moulding plane; a book entitled Carpentry and Woodworking—A Handbook of Tools, Materials, Methods, and Directions (1945); a jeweler's saw; an inexpensive, but workable wooden brace; and four shell bits.

If you attend enough of these shows, you start to make friends and see familiar faces.

Last year, I met Bob Baker, an antique tool restorer, who made a reproduction of the famous Thomas Falconer plane and a reproduction of one of my favorite planes—the Moisset.

Apparently, when they were dishing out bowls of talent, Bob went back for seconds. He's blessed with a heaping helping of it, as evidenced in his Moisset reproduction (shown above), which he made 27 years ago—his first attempt at carving.



At these shows, you'll find a lot of user tools that are just waiting to be adopted and put back to work. But you'll also find some rare and unusual ones.

Jim Bode carries a number of unique tools, some of which you may have seen in fine tool books. Poke around his site and you'll see what I mean. I snapped pictures of an ivory figurine of Japanese carpenters and a fish hammer.

The last group photo shows some pieces that will be auctioned off today.

But I'm sitting this one out and staying home to play with my new old tools instead.

Two Great Lumberyards

Thirteen years ago, Groff and Hearne Lumber became two different companies—Groff & Groff Lumber and Hearne Hardwoods.

This past Saturday, our woodworking club toured both since they are in close proximity to one another.

Morris was our guide at Groff & Groff (first three photos) and showed us where the lumber lay in log form, waiting to be sawn into planks. He said that pine can remain in the yard for a year before it decays, and hardwood can lay for 2 to 3 years.

Allowing some hardwoods, like cherry and walnut, to remain outside as logs is beneficial, because the sapwood will darken.

Once the logs are cut into boards, they will stay outside for 6 months to a year before being kiln-dried. Depending on the type of wood, it will take between 3 and 8 weeks to bring the moisture reading to 8%.

In the kiln, an 8"-wide board will shrink to 7", and 1/8" in thickness will be lost during the drying and milling processes. And after 3 days at 130º, any bugs that made a home in the wood will be toast.

Groffs carries some exotic woods, but they have a very large selection of domestic hardwoods, much of which is local, since Pennsylvania is abundant in timber.

They will also cut and plane boards and logs that you bring in for milling.

I left with a 1" x 15" x 6' piece of pine, a small piece of Swiss pear, and a substantial chunk of quartersawn cherry that will make a couple of nice planes someday.

From there, we caravaned to Hearne Hardwoods, where the owner, Rick Hearne, showed us around his specialty lumberyard.

Rick considers wood to be the "art of nature" and travels all over the world to find one-of-a-kind pieces. He explained that in Germany, they harvest oak trees in 200 year cycles. Compare that to the U.S. which cuts them down after just 60 years. The Germans plant beech, which is shade-tolerant, beneath the oak trees, and will harvest them 3 times before they fell an oak.

Hearne has several outbuildings completely overflowing with boards, some of which are 6 feet wide, and a yard that's loaded with logs.

One enormous log measures nearly 7'-wide at the base and 9'-wide at the crotch, and is the largest walnut tree I have ever seen. They plan to build a special saw just to cut it, because to Rick, it would be a sin to shave off a section just so they can fit it in their existing saw. "This log needs to be cut from bark to bark."

Hearne carries a huge variety of exotic species in addition to well-known domestic hardwoods.

One club member asked "What's the most expensive wood you sell?" Rick's answer—an unusual rosewood burl that costs $400 bf.

I left with a large piece of Swiss pear, which sells for considerably less.

The new showroom, which is located in a gutted 1810 barn, is still under construction, but we were permitted to enter...and gawk.

The flooring in each room is a different species, and in one room, the floorboards are Macassar Ebony.

The ceilings are all the same, though. Tiger maple.

Groff & Groff and Hearne Hardwoods: two distinct lumberyards that are filled with the things we love.

Chew On This

So, I'm sitting in the dentist's chair today having a tooth drilled, sans Novocaine, ala Little Shop of Horrors, and after the filling is ground with a dremel-like tool whose high-pitched screech can peel paint, the hygienist slides of piece of paper in between my upper and lower choppers.

"Bite down, please. Tap. Tap. Now grind your teeth back and forth."

The paper leaves a residue on the high spots of the filling so the dentist knows where to file, garnering a perfect fit between your teeth.

I often disappear to my "happy place" while at the dentist's office, and today I was whisked away to a book I'm reading, entitled "Our Workshop: Being A Practical Guide To The Amateur In The Art of Carpentry & Joinery" by Temple Thorold, 1866.

This book was sent to me by my friend, Gary Roberts, who runs the Toolemera site. Recently, he's produced exact reprints of some 18th-, 19th-, and early 20th-century woodworking books that contain fascinating, relevant information, all told in a prettier language than we speak today.

The episode with the dentist reminded me of one passage on joining two boards, one of which has been made square:

"If a little chalk be rubbed evenly all over the true edge, a small portion of the white powder will be deposited on the prominent points of the work, if the former be slightly moved backwards and forwards over the latter in the direction of its length. By removing the material where the chalk has adhered we shall soon bring the edge of the second plank into close contact with that of the first."

I had to try it. One problem, though—no chalk. The next door neighbor kid has a bunch that she uses to decorate our shared driveway (which is highly amusing and much appreciated), but I was unable to divert her attention long enough to pilfer some.

Instead, I tried a series of experiments with graphite, flour, baking powder, and powdered sugar. Nothing worked well. So, I reluctantly parted with a buck and bought a pack of chalk. Which worked.

"Our Workshop" is a short book, only about 195 pages, but covers several topics that a handtool woodworker would find captivating. Many will already know much of the content, but there are enough details and tidbits that you might not know, all presented so eloquently as to be lyrical, that it's an absolute delight.

And it's close enough to modern language to be easily understood. Like Moxon, but without the lisp.