M-WTCA Area Meet

This past Saturday was the Cabin Fever meet near my house again. I was highly anticipating this, as I loved going last year. I showed up early, and wow, the turnout was twice the number from last year! I was overwhelmed at the number of tables stuffed with tools.

I had a few things I knew I wanted to find, and I did well on some of them. I picked up a 12″ Starrett Combination Square from the same guy I bought the Bridge City from last year. I also finally found a decent single bevel axe, a True Temper Flint Edge. And I finally have my own Fray brace. But my favorite find happened much like last year. Show was getting close to over, I’m digging through some crates on the floor, and then I pick up this thick set of dividers, which felt like they must weigh over a pound. Wow.

I had $9 left in cash, so I offered it to the guy and they were mine. I don’t think they are blacksmith made, but they are definitely alot heavier duty than any I’ve seen. They are solid, and I love the chamfers and almost architectural details.

I can only attribute this lucky find with wearing my new Lost Art Press hat.

Changing focus for the new year

It’s 2013, and I’ve received renewal notices for organizations and publications I subscribe to. I received Popular Woodworking and Fine Woodworking last year, first time for both. I’m not renewing either one. Why? Because neither actually helped me do any woodworking.

I haven’t posted much on here since last June, which is the same month my daughter was born. Two kids, two parents with demanding, full-time jobs has been difficult, and most of the time I don’t get time in the shop. So I tend to read alot. I can read blogs on my phone while on the bus, or in the middle of the night feeding my daughter. One such blog post struck home, from chairmaker Jeff Miller.

Jeff posted in early December about improving skills and the roadblocks that can get in the way. The second item on the list was surprising to see, “Stop reading quite so much (or watching so many videos) and start making stuff.”

This hit home for me, as that’s all I’ve done this past year. That and acquire tools. So when those magazine renewals came, I ripped them up before I could second guess myself. Instead I’ve decided to subscribe to another publication, Fine Tool Journal. This publication is focused on hand tools, and is only 4 issues a year. I’ve also decided to drop membership with EAIA, as I didn’t see much benefit from it in 2012.

I still continue to buy books, including many from Lost Art Press. And hopefully I find a way to make time for more actual woodworking in 2013.

Sharpening saws by hand

Today I attended Mike Siemsen’s School of Woodworking for a class on sharpening Hand Saws. I brought two Disston D-23 crosscut saws with me, one in 8pt and another in 10pt. I learned a ton today, and it was fun to learn alongside others experiencing the same thing for the first time. Funny, one guy mentioned his job was being “a computer guy”, and at least 5 others, including me, said the same. Must be an attraction to hand tool woodworking for those immersed in technology on a daily basis. I really enjoyed the class, and hope to attend more of Mike’s classes in the future. He’s a good guy to learn from, and a real nice guy.

As for my saws, I started with my 8pt, and did an OK job on it. I put too much set on it, not knowing how to adjust my saw set. I learned from my mistakes on my 10pt, and I really like how that one turned out. Very sweet to cut with.

There was something really cool about learning to do something my Grandfather was interested in late in life. The saws, vise and files I have are all from him, and the 10pt saw was his too. Hopefully these skills last me a lifetime, and I can pass them on to my grandkids.

A great way to organize PDF issues of articles and magazines

If you have alot of PDFs to manage like me, then you’ll appreciate any way to help organize the mess. Files on a computer aren’t as readily seen and browsed (and purged) as items on the shelf, but I found an app called Ehon that I find immensely useful.

I have many CDs of back issues of Popular Woodworking, Woodsmith and other magazines. I also have old publications revived in ebook form like The saw in history by Henry Disston and The Work Magazine Reprint Project by Tools for Working Wood’s own Joel Moskowitz. The task of keeping all this great information accessible is daunting. I’m sure I’m not the only one with stacks of old magazines that see little use.

Ehon does for PDFs (and ebooks) what iTunes does for digital music. I’m already using more of what I’ve collected over the years! And it doesn’t take any floor space.

Ehon is now available for free (Mac OS X only) on the App Store.

Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event

This weekend I attended my first Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event. They had all their tool displays out along with books, DVDs, workbenches. You name it. Also in attendance was Glen-Drake Toolworks and Mike Siemsen’s School of Wood.

I got a closer look and probably picked up almost every hand plane Lie-Nielsen had there. First impression, is wow, the weight of their bench planes is impressive. I noticed the frogs are made of brass, I didn’t notice that before. These are no lightweight tools, and I know if a vintage Stanley plane can last over a century, these tools will last forever. Second impression, how did anyone ever use a #1 bench plane? Tiny!

My favorite tool was their low-angle block plane with an adjustable mouth. While watching the companion DVD for The Anarchist’s Tool Chest, Christopher Schwarz describes the Lie-Nielsen #60 1/2 block plane as fitting his hand perfectly, and I will agree with that. It is a beautiful tool to behold. It feels like an extension of your hand.

After I got done ogling tools and lurking around some demo benches, I made my way over to Mike Siemsen’s bench. I watched him cut some miters in his Moxon vise, and I asked him a few questions about his bench he had. He blogged about the making of his Nicholson-style bench in 2008, and he was one of the first that I know of to utilize a split-top, which is now seen in Benchcrafted’s Split Top Roubo bench.

I asked him how he made the wooden screw in his end vise… his explanation was that it involved machinery that most people don’t have, so its really out of reach of people looking to make that bench. But it opened up conversation, and he told me if he built it again, he wouldn’t even include a vise.

Wait, what? No vise?

I was told that using the crochet (the hook seen on the side of the bench pictured in the masthead of this site) and holdfasts in the holes on the aprons of the bench was faster than using the end vise. For dovetailing and other vice work, use a Moxon vise (which sits atop the bench).

I thought, what about tall boards in that Moxon, like dovetailing the end of a long board? Would you hang half the vise off the end of the bench? Well that’s where the split-top comes in. The board can drop in through the split. Brilliant.

So with Mike Siemsen’s bench, you have a Nicholson-style bench that is cheaper to make, faster to use and can be made easily using hand tools. Sounds like a winner to me!

I didn’t come away from the show with any tools, but I did buy a Lie-Nielsen hat and a chunk of beeswax for the soles of my handplanes. It was a fun event, and I’ll definitely have to take a class from Mike someday.

Restoring junk

Yesterday I spent a day in the shop doing maintenence. I finally ground and honed the blade in my Keen Kutter KK7 jointer plane. I even filed down the frog, which I dove right into. It all could’ve went horribly wrong, but it didn’t. Everything went great and the plane works great.

I also gave my first shot at electrolysis for rust removal. I read some guides, and watched some videos on it, and decided to give it a shot. I had an old cast iron pan that had some cracks in it. This was my sacrificial anode. I picked up a large box of baking soda (here’s a tip, just get the small box). And I borrowed my dad’s old Sears battery charger.

I filled up an old round plastic tub with water, and added 1 Tbsp of baking soda per gallon. Make sure the top of your anode is above the water line, and hook up your positive lead to the part above the water. Then hook up the negative lead to the part to be derusted and submerge it next to the anode, leaving at least 2 inches of space between. Plug it in and wait a few hours.

You’ll need some Scotch Brite or a stiff nylon brush and some soap and water to clean up the black oxide left behind. I plan to pickup some Scotch Brite grinder wheels, along with some lapping/polishing wheels too. This will speed up this sort of restore considerably and yield better results.

As for the rest of the plane parts, I dunked them in a bath of EvapoRust. I had bought this to try on some saw blades, but it didn’t quite do the job I wanted it to. But for these plane parts it was perfect. Whats nice is that it gets inside the screw holes and does a thorough job.

I also threw in a pair of dividers (or maybe this is considered a caliper, I’m not sure) that Eric Mattson gave me for free at the M-WTCA Cabin Fever meet a few weeks ago. It was coated in orange rust, and you couldn’t even see a maker’s mark on it. He told me they were Starrett, but you can barely make out “Pexto”. When I picked them up to check them out, he told me “You can have it, as long as I don’t have to clean it”. Well yesterday I dunked them in with the rest of the plane parts.

Here’s a pic of the result. Didn’t know it had brass parts! Looks pretty neat, the contrast of pitted metal with shiny brass. The points are sharp, and it locks up tight, so this will definitely be put to use. Which is what a tool is meant for in the first place.

First hand-cut mortise and tenon joints

Working with the guidance of the excellent Woodworking Basics: Mastering the Essentials of Craftsmanshipby Peter Korn, I set about to learn how to do mortise and tenon joints by hand. I picked up a traditional style mortise chisel a few months ago and this weekend got to use it for the first time.

This traditional style of chisel really earns its keep with this joint. If you try to use a lighter weight chisel, it twists when trying to lever out the waste. Not so with the “pigsticker” style chisels.

I spent Saturday night learning by trial and error. I tried Korn’s advice on drilling out the waste and then cleaning it up with a chisel. But I just kept splitting out the end of the mortise or rounding over the sides when levering out the waste. My tenons were off too. I needed more practice obviously, but I also felt like I was missing something.

I looked up advice on cutting mortises in Robert Wearing’s book, The Essential Woodworker. He didn’t recommend using a drill at all. Instead he worked the mortise in stages. First you pare it shallow to the knife line. Then you start driving the chisel down on one side. Pull the chisel out, flip the chisel around and drive it down and then lever out the waste. This worked beautifully. You then work yourself down to the other side, but you leave some room at the end. For this 1 1/2″ mortise, I left about 1/4″, which was a little short. This space is solely to keep the chisel from rounding down the corner of the mortise when levering out the waste. To finish up that last 1/4″, you simply take smaller bites, and work back the the wall.

I’ll definitely need some more practice, but it was a successful start.

My first M-WTCA meet

Right around Christmas, Joel Moskowitz of Tools for Working Wood wrote a blog post suggesting readers should join the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association. Well I did, and today I attended my first meet. I had alot of fun and got to see some rare tools, and even Mike Siemsen’s School of Wood at work.

I ended up buying a few treasures, despite arriving an hour and a half after the tables had opened for selling. My first treasure was a Stanley Bedrock 606 for $50. It needs some cleaning up, but not much. It’s already dissembled while make my plan. I love the heft of this plane, I hadn’t planned on getting this size, but It’s got alot more weight than my Bailey Jack. I checked the sides for square, and the sole for twist and everything looks good. It’s a corrugated sole, but that really doesn’t matter much to me. I’ll post pics as I begin the restoration.

My favorite find however was something I wasn’t aware of until I got home. I wanted a try square or small square and had been checking them out at every table. About an hour before I left I came across a nice brass and wood square, and it had a nice weight to it. It had a Woodsmith logo on it. I paid my $8 and it was mine. It looked like the Bridge City model I dreamed of making on the cover of the October 2011 issue of Popular Woodworking.

I got home and shared my purchases with my wife, and then pulled out the magazine. It wasn’t just like the Bridge City square, it was exactly like it. Every rivet and screw, even down to the rounded edges of the stock. I did a quick search and found an ebay auction for a set of Woodsmith Bridge City squares, so I knew that they had done custom work before. Holy cow, I just bought a Bridge City TS-2 Master Try Square for $8! Sweet!

I snapped this picture before cleaning it up, and it didnt take much. A quick buff with some steel wool and it shines.

A comparison of woodworking calendars

When ordering a few things to get some Christmas presents done, I added a calendar to an order from Lee Valley as well as Lie-Nielsen. I thought I’d put one up at work, and one a home.

First impressions. I love the Lie-Nielsen calendar. It has a clean modern design, with a sans serif font, and a single featured product per month. It’s a larger size than the Lee Valley, and it’s on premium paper with some stiffness to it. Very nice.

The Lee Valley calendar is smaller, and hasn’t much for stiffness to it at all. It reminds me of the calendars you get free at Fleet Farm or from your realtor. But what about the content? Well it’s a mixed bag. They have some nice vintage tool imagery, which is definitely the highlight of this calendar (just like their catalog covers), but the paper is flimsy (similar to the catalog) and the design is just not my style. Again, somewhat like you’d get in a free calendar. Except this one costs $6. They also have a few other tools dispersed throughout the months and featured along the sides and bottom in the calendar. It’s a stark contrast to the almost minimalist style of the Lie-Nielsen.

For only $4 more, I’d definitely go with the Lie-Nielsen on this one. My 2 cents.

Sawbench done

Well I finally completed the Sawbench last night. I made some modifications to the traditional design, including screws instead of cut nails (after trying them initially). It’s not perfect and in some ways an ugly beast, but I ripped a 24″ board and did a few cross cuts and it will definitely do the job. Next up is the packing box from Joiner & Cabinet Maker. I will continue my education in working pine boards with hand tools, and the Sawbench will help make my cuts more square.