Hand Tools

When people come so far this question may well be the ice breaker. I recall when I lived and had my workshop in the castle in Wales how a man came into the workshop and said, “If only you were nearer, I would love to do a class with you.” I asked where he was …

Read the full post And Where Are You From? on Paul Sellers' Blog.

In Roubo’s description of the finishing processes and materials included in L’art du Menuisier (and thus our To Make As Perfectly As Possible translation) he used the word “juncus” when referring to the fibrous plant from which the polissoirs were made.  At the time we had competing dictionary definitions and identifiers, “rush,” “grass,” and “straw” all showed up in one dictionary or another, and in the end I decided to simply use the word “grass” if I recall correctly.

Yannick Chastang, like my Roubo Project collaborator Philippe Lafargue, was trained in the full multi-year program at Ecole Boulle in Paris, chided me that Roubo chose the word “juncus” on purpose and I should have as well, at least in concert with the word “rush.”  Fair enough, but in retrospect since the word Juncus refers to a genus with over 300 species of grassy rushes I cannot beat myself up too much for that editorial decision.

I was talking about this to Mrs. Barn one day, she being a botanist/mycologist by training, and she said something like, “Well, you are in luck since we have Juncus effusus growing around the pond.”  She took me outside and sure enough, we have a number of fairly immature clumps at the shore of our pond.  When Daniel the stonemason was here building the hand-knapped dry-stack wall a few months ago he mentioned that he had loads of juncus growing around his pound and I was welcome to harvest as much as I wanted.

As a break from our activities during ManWeek John and I took the morning an went to Daniel’s place to harvest soft rush, or juncus.  We first spent a minute ogling his greenhouse.  Mrs. Barn will be most impressed with it when we visit again.

Then we headed to the pond and there was indeed a multitude of soft rushes ringing one end of it.  In less than an hour of harvesting we had the back seat of the Envoy completely filled.

Back at the barn we sorted and arranged the rushes to dry in the sun before moving them inside a few days later.

Yannick avers that polissoirs made from these fibers have a very different feel and performance than the ones I get made from sorghum broom straw.  After this material gets fully dry and I make some Juncus polissoirs I will be able to make my own determination on that.

Stay tuned.

Well that’s not entirely true, of course. I do use them when I need to make up a cut list from a full-scale drawing or story stick to tell a machine in numerical code (be it metric, Imperial or shaku) where to make the cuts. The cut list is, however, rarely necessary in the hand-tool approach to construction. So in typical layout work, I go with pin-point perfect real placements of cut or location lines.

For example, if I need to lay out the location of slats in a bed’s headboard, I simply stack the slats together against the post (or its location on a story stick) and find the intervening gaps by stepping out the number of gaps needed between the slats (number of slats + one). Layout follows as shown in the next drawing. The accuracy of the layout will be a function of however sharp I make the points of my dividers.

Of course, you can use algebra to generate dimensions with numbers:

As for me, I don’t want to spend the time doing it and then having to deal with reading tiny numbers on some ruler and coping with rounding errors!

As another example of rulers not always ruling: Say you want to locate placement buttons (the ebony plugs in the set shown here) on a pair of winding sticks so you can quickly locate the sticks on the edge of a board. In this case, the location is not a number at all (at least not until after the fact). You could, of course, measure the length of the sticks and divide by two to get a numerical center point.  Or, to avoid rounding error, you could step off an even number of intervals to locate the middle division line and then enjoy the accuracy of a pin prick. But both would miss the point so to speak. What we are really looking for here is not the center of the stick, but its center of gravity. How do we find that? We just balance the stick on a sharp knife blade!

— Jim Tolpin, byhandandeye.com and one of the authors of “From Truths to Tools“

Two years. Long time, two years. And yet for the graduating Mastery students, I can tell you that it seems like a flash of light that just flew by.

Join us First Thursday, October 5th from 5-7:30pm. There will be work from six accomplished woodworkers on display at the Studio. They have spent two years working, designing, thinking, worrying, stressing in order to make and show their final Signature pieces. Please come by and take a look.

Base Camp Brewing says howdy as well. I hope to see you there.

Tomorrow is the last day to pre-order Issue Three so if you haven’t yet ordered consider this the last call for free (US) domestic shipping and the special pre-order wrapping with wax-sealed trade card.

All magazine orders submitted after Tuesday will be mailed naked in our rigid mailer. This includes Issues One and Two. If you want any of these three issues wrapped, it’s now or never.

Mike and I have poured ourselves into this issue and we are super excited about how it turned out. One of my favorite pieces in this issue is about the passing of the craft school torch from Drew Langsner to Kenneth Kortemeier. Between our team, there have been many miles driven, interviews done, transcriptions produced, and words crafted to bring this complex and intertwined story into an inspiring and personal narrative. Mike and Jim worked this one over and over and I couldn’t be more pleased with the result.

Between Garret Hack’s discussion about how simple wooden patterns are essential to his design and building process to Brendan Gaffney’s fascinating journey through the ancient craftsman’s measurement to building a spring pole lathe, we’ve run quite the gamut in this one. Jim McConnell and Danielle Rose Byrd wax philosophical about craftsmanship and Bill Pavlak show us the nuts and bolts of using period design books for carving inspiration. All of us on the M&T team are particularly proud of this issue. We think this might be the best yet.

Here's a video from our printer (Royle Printing) of the binding process. Issue Three is on a truck as I write this with delivery scheduled for tomorrow morning. On Friday and Saturday we have a bunch of people coming over to help wrap and ship the new issue. We just had a few slots open up in the rental house so if you were interested in coming up to Blue Hill, Maine on Friday and Saturday to party with us and send Issue Three out into the world, email us at info@mortiseandtenonmag.com right away and we’ll reserve your spot.

- Joshua

When a woodworker threw two workbenches down well No. 49 at the Roman fort at Saalburg 1,800 years ago, he (or she) likely anticipated retrieving the benches once the Germanic tribes attacking the fort (or attacking the nearby limes) were defeated or retreated.

That didn’t happen, and so in 1901, and the workbenches were retrieved during massive excavations and reconstructions at the fort at Saalburg, resulting in thousands of surviving artifacts in wood, leather and metal.

During my visit to Saalburg in June, I was allowed to measure the workbench to a make a reproduction for my upcoming book, “Roman Workbenches.” During the last few months, I’ve been getting ready to build this bench. This is one of those cases where preparing for the project will take much longer than building it.

The bench itself if simple: A slab with five to seven sticks driven into it. Placing those sticks and selecting the right material is what has vexed me since June.

The primary problem has been what 1,800 years in a well will do to a slab of wood. Rüdiger Schwarz at Saalburg explained the problem perfectly this summer when he showed us a wooden yoke that had been pulled from one of the wells. The wooden yoke was shriveled and distorted, like someone had made a Shrinky Dink of a yoke and left it in the oven too long.

Next to the yoke was a casting that had been made of the yoke right after it has been rescued from the well. It looked like a brand new farm implement. Schwarz explained that wooden objects, such as the workbench and the yoke, had distorted noticeably after they dried.

So the workbench was likely much less twisted than it is today.

Also: The bench’s legs are not original. They were added shortly after the bench was recovered so the bench could be shown. As the “new” legs were wedged in place from below, there is no way to know how the mortises are angled. In other words: Who knows what its rake and splay are really like?

So the last couple weeks has been all about laying out the joinery on my benchtop, performing trigonometry equations to determine some sample rakes and splays and them comparing the results to my photos. Oh, and lots of wondering and thinking and imagining. (I know this doesn’t sound scientific at all.)

In the end, my numbers were driven by several factors aside from the photos of the Saalburg bench, including other low workbenches I have used and their working characteristics.

Today I bored out the waste inside the square mortises. There is no going back now.

— Christopher Schwarz, editor, Lost Art Press
Personal site: christophermschwarz.com

Drivel Starved Nation!

Before I share the next clue, I am informing all that we have a winner! NO! You say. Me too! So, why clue 3?

Well, it’s my contest, my rules, and our fun. It’s just too early to stop my ability to insult our customers. I do promise however to share this story and why we are going to have TWO winners for this contest. That’s fair, don’t you think?

Oh, one more thing… both winners will receive this thing whether they want it or not. How cool is that?

OK, now back to the mystery–What you see below is 350mm in overall length. And yes, those are acme threads.

-John

The post Clue #3 for New Bridge City Gizmo…. appeared first on John's Blog.

On a recent trip to the Philadelphia area for a wedding, I had a chance to visit some of my favorite antiques dealers in South Jersey. At one of them, I came across this rather ordinary bench:

Door on the right and vise on the left are missing.

This bench has a tool tray and a tool rack on the back:

Rather wide breadboard end with dog holes in line with the missing vise.

Drawers have machine cut dovetails:

It happens. Seems to be a 20th century bench.

An adjustable bench stop is currently frozen in place:

It can be fixed.

The odd thing here was the label on the front of the bench:

Not what you expected? Don’t that beat all?

If you know Hammacher Schlemmer at all, you probably know them for that catalog that makes you wonder why you’re getting it. It features such brilliant gifts such as The Best Bug Vacuum for $69.95 and the $50,000 The Barbecue Dining Boat.

Hammacher Schlemmer actually has a more interesting past:

from Wikipedia:

Hammacher Schlemmer began as a hardware store specializing in hard-to-find tools in the Bowery district of New York City in 1848. Owned by proprietors Charles Tollner and Mr. R Stern,[2] it became one of the first national hardware stores. A few months later, Stern withdrew and Toller continued the business until 1859, moving in 1857 to 209 Bowery. In 1859, family friend Albert Hammacher invested $5,000 into the company and the name was changed to C. Tollner and A. Hammacher.

Throughout the 1860s, William Schlemmer gradually bought out Charles Tollner’s stake in the company. When Tollner died in 1867, 26-year-old Schlemmer entered into a partnership with Hammacher and Peter F. Taaks. As a result, the company changed its name to Hammacher & Co. William Schlemmer had been actively involved with the business since 1853 when he moved to New York City from Germany at age twelve and worked at the storefront. After a few years Taaks resigned and since Schlemmer owned a greater portion of the company, the name was changed in 1883 to the present style of Hammacher Schlemmer & Co.

And it was all down hill from there.

Things change. Look on eBay for Hammacher Schlemmer in collectables and antiques.

More history for young people:

Abercrombie & Fitch: Founded in 1892 in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, by David T. Abercrombie and Ezra Fitch, Abercrombie & Fitch was an elite outfitter of sporting and excursion goods, particularly noted for its expensive shotguns, fishing rods, fishing boats, and tents.

American Eagle Outfitters: The first attempt was to open American Eagle Outfitters in 1977, positioning it as a proprietor of brand-name leisure apparel, footwear, as well as accessories for men and women, emphasizing merchandise suited for outdoor sports, such as hiking, mountain climbing, and camping.

I bought my first (and last) sleeping bag and tent at American Eagle Outfitters.

I am adding the following item to this blog because I found it interesting and don’t know where else to put it. I did find it at the same shop which makes them location coincidental. It is this box:

A box with white dovetails?

And waterfowl on the lid:

I could speculate as to what the bid is but I choose not to.

A closer view does not necessarily provide answers:

I still don’t know…

My best guess after looking at the actual box and these pictures if that it is a veneer failure. Looking at the corner of the lid you can see the substrate is white and the veneer likes to free itself. There is already a veneer failure at the edge of the tail board. Wood movement cracked the veneer and it either fell off or was picked of by idle fingers.

But, I could be wrong…

It’s OFFICIAL! I am a presenter at the 2018 Weekend with Wood woodworking event hosted by Wood Magazine at its Des Moines, Iowa classrooms and shops. The event is held May 17th through the 20th, so make your reservations now. Listed as teachers at next year’s event are names such as Gary Rogowski, Jeff Miller, Vic Tesolin, Steve and Jeremy Stevenson, George Vondriska, the staff at Wood magazine and others.

Continue reading Weekend with Wood 2018 at 360 WoodWorking.

A teacher in the Netherlands pulled a blog post I wrote about the beginnings and outcome of following my passion in woodworking here and I am not altogether sure why what I wrote altogether mattered except, well, I got something that matters to me off my chest. It happens all the time that things left unsaid …

Read the full post Who You Are Matters, Everyone! on Paul Sellers' Blog.