Hand Tools

“Green Woodworking” by Drew Langsner is a passport to an enormous area of the craft that has been long-neglected in the literature. Using simple tools and materials from around your house, Drew shows you how to coax these materials into useful household objects that would be difficult or impossible to build with lumberyard wood.

The projects range from beautiful Cherokee and Cree containers made from bark and lashed with hickory, to a traditional hay rake and a firewood carrier.

But the projects are really only a small part of Drew’s book. He spends most of the time preparing you to work with the material, from felling a small tree to stripping the bark to making the basic tools. The core of the book is Drew’s explanation of the raw material. After you read his description of how wood works, I think you will look at the material in a whole new way.

Even though I have made many chairs and tables from green wood and willow, “Green Woodworking” filled in a lot of blanks in an easy-to-digest and encouraging style.

“Green Woodworking” has long been out of print, but now Drew has brought it back himself and sells it through his Country Workshops web site. You can order the book directly from Drew here for $35.

It’s an excellent book, well worth having in any woodworking library. And by purchasing it from Drew directly you will be supporting directly one of the pioneers of the green woodworking movement in the 20th century.

— Christopher Schwarz

Filed under: Personal Favorites

We’re starting to pack up for the Handworks event in Amana, Iowa, this weekend. If you are attending, here are some of the things we’re bringing to sell at the event (in addition to a selection of our books).

1. H.O. Studley T-shirts. The screen printing is complete (whew) and they look great. They are a light grey, 100-percent-cotton American Apparel shirt – made in the USA, of course. The front features a stylized image of the engraved nameplate that Studley attached to his tool chest. The back features the title of the forthcoming book from Don Williams.

We will bring sizes medium to XXL. Price: $20. We will offer these for sale in our online store after we return home from Handworks.

2. H.O. Studley Register Calipers. Inspired by the calipers in the Studley chest, these are machined from brass. Studley’s were steel with some sort of plating. We had 50 of these made for us. Price $45. These will be one to a customer and will be offered first-come, first-serve starting when the show opens on Friday.

We’ve had many readers urge us to make more and sell them in our store, but I’m afraid that is not going to happen. We have no desire to get into the tool-making business. This is a special one-time event. We hope that another toolmaker will produce this tool for sale to the general public.

We take Visa, MasterCard and cash.

Hope to see you there. Our livers are trembling in fear.

— Christopher Schwarz

Filed under: Products We Sell, Virtuoso: The Toolbox of Henry O. Studley

Yeah and verily I have returned from the EAIA Annual Meeting in Hyannis, MA. Miles Standish made an appearance at the Sat nite banquet to regail us with tales of his escapades as well as some of the true life down and dirty facts of the life of the Living History Museum experience. Which, by the why, is why you should consider joining the mind boggling named ALHFAM and also found here ALHFAM. As I expected, I was one of the younger of crowd. As I also expected, my elders out walked, out talked and out lasted me for the...

Hello everyone! Thanks for reading this.. I added a bunch of about 120 new old tools to my Tools For Sale page today. Please have a look and see if you find soemthing you like. The list includes a lot of high quality and unusual molding planes, lots of wooden and metallic smooth plnes, some layout tools, a couple of saws, and lots of other fun stuf. I hope you find something you like! I'll reiterate that the best way to ensure your message gets through without delay is to send to both my jclark@hyperkitten.com and jclark42@gmail addresses. That way your message should make it through one or the other promptly. Enjoy your Memorial Day Weekend. We have a picnic, T-ball game, my son's third birthday, our 10th wedding anniversary (how is that posible??), a fishing trip,and a parade to watch. It should be fun! As always, thanks for reading. Josh

My Small Tribute to Roy

A true philosopher is a person who is in touch with his immediate surroundings and understands the complex relationship between the physical existence and limitations of the human body as well as the unlimited rational and spiritual potential of the human mind.  For countless centuries, philosophers have been driven to develop a complete cosmology that would help to explain simple existence.

The question of awls and knives came up several times in referring to the previous post on tails and pins in dovetailing. Awls used for marking out dovetails has become an issue with traditionalists and lines left in across the tails accepted as a relevant witness of tradition seems well accepted. I have seen this throughout my life in looking at old joiner and cabinet maker’s tool chests and some marked all the way across with a round semi-pointed awl while others used a knife wall. Still others used a knife and some used a cutting gauge. Awls were simple tools in general and a lot more accessible in the pre-pencil age when layout was with a steel marker. The awl was of course the obvious choice but not for neatness but more practicality. On building super structures such as timber framed buildings and large doors , door casings, paneling, frames and such, what’s called a scratch awl in the US and a striking awl in Great Britain was the method of marking out for joinery and identification of components. Chisels too were used for this type of marking.
Different books and articles expose the calibre of craftsmen past. Some woodworkers prefer a more puritan approach and thereby lay claim to traditionalism over our more modern expressions where dovetail and pin shoulders are cut within the recess to distinctly separate the boundaries of the recesses from the remaining material. This clean-shaven look to dovetails is therefore rejected in favour of retaining tradition. Whether that’s the right thing is of course individually appraised. I would most likely not do this as it is no quicker than simply pacing the knife wall with the knife really. I teach and use the combination of pencil followed by knife so that temporary marks laid on with the pencil can subsequently be delineated with the permanent knife-cut shoulder lines I need for perfecting my work. This was how I was trained and indeed many craftsmen from my era. Replicating an early piece for museum work in say a series, I might indeed preserve the authenticity of method and use a gauge or a striking awl or knife, but in my everyday work I find the knife line definitive and uncompromising.
Cutting dovetails takes practice to deliver quality work. Last week we taught another nine-day Foundational Course and that included making the Shaker candle box I first taught back in 1988. The class was full with 18 people making the box and for the main part, all of the dovetailed boxes were the first boxes everyone made. I have to say that most of the boxes were very well made using my methods and that each corner improved, with the last corner being the best. This is an important record for the students in that the box itself is secondary to the skills taught and subsequently mastered. I would not teach the awl or marking gauge method because of tradition though we do often discuss this as a historical consideration. I am often amused by visitors who pass through my workshops, look at the dovetails and say something like, “I cut dovetails once in school,” or, as happened last week, “I cut a dovetail by hand once. I just felt like I had to do just one so that I could say I had done it, but then I used a router after that.” He, as with many machinists, felt like that was the step to more advanced methods using machines when in reality he never reached any level of perfection or skill but of course substituted for the discipline that would have made him highly effective. I read another passage where the author talked about the experience of cutting a few dovetails as though that somehow qualified as a badge of merit. Describing the process as not that difficult, I realised that most people really fall short in discovering the art and craft of woodworking because they are always looking for something new and more stimulating. A bit like a a kid in a toy shop. A friend of mine once went home from the workshop I had just taught on dovetails and came back six months later to make a coffee table with dovetails in the construction. His dovetails were so perfect they amazed me. I asked him about them and he said he had gone home and his wife said they didn’t have the money but they need twenty Christmas gifts for relatives. They decided to make Shaker candle boxes for each present and that’s what they did. He said that by the time he had made the twenty boxes he had the process down. So, there are just six months left to Christmas.

The post More on Tails and Pins appeared first on Paul Sellers.

This is a clever way to add a locking mechanism to a Japanese-style toolbox. Clay Gossage was kind enough to send these photos of how he incorporated a wedge with a dovetail profile to lock the lids of boxes that he made in preparation moving his tools in place. Clay also mentioned that he could drive a screw through the wedge into the lid for added security.

The chair illustrated below was recently offered for sale by an upmarket antiques dealer who described it as eighteenth-century Irish Chippendale, made from dense first growth mahogany.

Fig. 1. A nice enough, though robust side chair.

Stylistically, I don’t see anything Irish about the chair at all; in fact, it displays features more prevalent in chairs from the north of England and across the border in Scotland (the ‘V’ carved into the knees of the front legs is a frequently occurring feature of Scottish chairs).

It is not uncommon for dealers to bestow antiques with sentimental or utopian origins – especially of Ireland. Although it irks me, it wasn’t the geographical misattribution that caught my eye on this occasion, but the ascribed timber and justification for citing it.

With regard to the chair’s colour, I can see how it might be mistaken for some faded cuts of mahogany, though the unvarying grain and absence of pronounced figure are wholly uncharacteristic of early mahogany. The bland timber employed in the chair’s construction (figs. 2, 3 & 4) is distinguishable as common alder (Alnus glutinosa) which would lend credence to the geographical origin of the chair being the north of England or Scotland where alder was widely employed as a cheap substitute for mahogany…

In Scotland and the north of England, this [alder] wood is frequently used in furniture.[i]

Alder is an unusual choice of material, for this wood is not extensively used elsewhere in the English chair making tradition, and is, therefore, often useful in providing a key to the origin of a particular chair design to the North West.[ii]

In the Highlands, where few other timbers were available, alder logs were sometimes immersed in peat bogs after felling, when they assumed an attractive reddish stain. This “Scots mahogany” was then used for furniture making.[iii]

Fig. 2. Somewhat featureless wood.

Fig. 3. The knee exhibits characteristic alder end grain.

Fig. 4. Typical alder grain.

Old growth mahogany is indeed dense stuff, yet alder is relatively light… perhaps another case of dealer sophistry.

The final piece of evidence in repudiation of mahogany is its resistance to attack from furniture beetle and conversely, alder’s marked susceptibility to it (figs. 5 & 6).

Fig. 5. Furniture beetle flight holes.

Fig. 6. Extensive woodworm damage.

Caveat emptor.

 

Jack Plane

Filed under: Antiques, Distractions Tagged: alder, Alnus glutinosa, chair, furniture beetle, Ireland, irish Chippendale, Mahogany, north of England, Scotland, Scots mahogany, Scottish

It is a wonder that the file, rather than the hammer, has not been recognized as the sign of the manufacturing industry. Its range, powers, and usefulness are far beyond those of the hammer, and it can assume the functions and perform the work of a number of auxiliary tools to which the hammer holds no analogy.

Whatever cannot be done by the set and power-driven machines in the shops where the metals are worked is sent to the file. The file reduces protuberances, smooths roughnesses, changes inclinations of surfaces, cuts scores, forms levels between parallel drill holes, prepares surfaces for the scraper, evens the roughness and inequalities of lathe work, cleans out the suggestion of the rib-like projections of the planer, shapes the tool where the most delicate grinding apparatus fails, makes a better finish to the eye than any scraping or stoning, is a saw at times, may be used as a chisel, takes the place of a plane, smooths the roughnesses of castings and forgings, reduces their proportions to size, and finishes them to fit. Except for drilling holes through solid metal the file can take the place of any tool used for any other purpose on the metals.

In England, Scotland, and Wales the filer is a man by himself; he has little to do with the lathe man or the floor man. He is the prince among machinists. Here we think all the work of the machinist may be done by one man, and the lathe man, planer man, floor man, and vise man may be compromised in one. But this general ensemble is getting out of date here.

There is more need of attention in our shops to the uses and usefulness of the file. It is the most abused tool that was ever employed, and it seems to be the most neglected tool. The writer ventures the assertion that in broken or whole discarded flies lies a portion of the buried stock of defunct companies which could not make both ends meet, and the neglect of the file interest is one of the reasons why manufacturing stock “don’t pay.” To be sure, a single file, however fine its cut or large its cost, would not bankrupt a company nor move a mark in the dividend list by its loss; but files are in continual use; they are called on for every emergency, and they are doing duty in the hands of almost every employee of a metal-working establishment. The supply of files is one of the “large” bills of every machine-building establishment in the country.

How to use these tools ought to be a fixed line of instruction in all shops. It is an outrage on common mechanical taste to go through one of the best of our shops and see how this tool is misused, abused, and thrown aside half used. It is a mistake in this country to try to make a good planer, a good lathe man, and a good filer out of one man. It has never succeeded—unless in some remarkable instances—and it is not generally practicable.

The number of shapes of the file demanded in the ordinary business of machine-building and tool-making is enough to appall the beginner and sufficient to employ the shop life of the journeyman in their use. At the great exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876 there were show-boards of file-makers from England, Belgium, France, Germany, and home, which showed a collection that would almost make a museum. And yet none of these specimens were gotten up for show merely, but were bona fide specimens of tools called for and made in response to a demand. Looking at these, it would be folly to claim a mastery of the art of filing. But with the diminished number of shapes and sizes we use in our general machine shops, the workman is a remarkable one who can handle them judiciously and economically.

The waste in files in our home shops is enormous. There are some, as the bastard files, which lose their value with the sharpness of their teeth; but all the fine-cut files have as many lives as the traditional cat. The writer knows of instances where fine-finish files have “held their own” for eleven years constant (occasional) use. A better finish can be put on a surface of cast or wrought iron by an entirely worn-out file than by the finest emery—if the workman knows how to use the file.

Cold Chisel – Boston Journal of Commerce 1882

If you would like to learn more about files, refer to:
A Treatise on Files and Rasps Descriptive and Illustrated by William T. Nicholson – 1878

- Jeff Burks

Filed under: Historical Images

I've added a second apprentice!

Here is a shot of her training:


Too bad, she seems to be lacking in enthusiasm. :)

And here she is admiring the growing skills of apprentice number one:


Life is good!

This highly provocative issue is a regular question for me and I usually avoid the controversy. I might be guessing here, but I would say that from my personal experience, most woodworkers who actually made their living from furniture making and woodworking in general cut their tails first. of course everyone is entitled to their opinion whether they are right or wrong. It’s a strange new world this world that changes with each typed symbol that others occupying the globe read, judge and pass opinions on as though just opinion alone somehow mattered. Many write that there are many ways to cut dovetails after they tried but two methods and then then made two or three dovetails before realising that there may be many methods to make the cuts, but that there are not but a couple of methods to sequentially cut them, if you see what I mean. Distilling out the fiction of pluralism just a tad takes out the excesses of verbiage and leaves you with actual task that we woodworkers who ‘do’ woodworking do. Generally, you either cut a pin or a tail first. Which ever one you choose first means that the other quickly follows. Because a small minority of people cut pins first, I take it that the tails is the better, more practical way forward, but I don’t discount that the ‘other’ method works preferentially for some people.
Resolving mistakes
I cut pins first only because I made a mistake. I don’t need to throw away a piece of wood that’s already fitted with dovetails to a previously made corner. The adjacent dovetailed effort may have failed because a piece of wood split wrongly or something and so I then cut the new tail piece from the existing pins. This is logical and resolves the issue. Like many things in life I have a choice of just two ways to do some things. I can walk forwards and see the future or I can walk backwards but not see where I am going. I cut tails first because cutting from the outside on push strokes using my native western-style saw means the outside fibres are supported as I push into the main body of wood. (That’s also the reason I don’t use Eastern-style saws too.) This means that I don’t get broken fibres on the visible outside corners of my dovetails (very logical, really) and so, when I press my dovetails together the corners are in tact and the dovetails look pristine. If I cut the tails from the pins I must then cut from the inside toward the outside face of the joint and the risk is that the crispness I seek can be lost. Aside from that, every craftsman I ever worked with, that guided me through my formative years to become a craftsman, cut their dovetails before they cut the pins. I never met a practicing craftsman from my youth who cut pins first. Knowing both ways means that repairs can be made when something goes wrong. Add into the equation that it is extremely difficult to cut half-lap dovetails accurately using the pins-first method, it makes sense to cut tails first as a matter of course. Understand that though we call through dovetails common dovetails, it is relatively more common to cut half-lap dovetails than through or common dovetails.

The post Tails and Pins – Which is Best? appeared first on Paul Sellers.

Another great day of classes at Weekend with WOOD and to wrap it up was an open Q&A with the editors of the magazine.

There were a lot of great questions that were asked by the audience, they even answered a couple of mine, but one that really seemed to catch everyone’s attention was in regards to the true unbiasness of the tool reviews, especially advertisers’ tools.

This snippet is the first part of the question and you can see it in its entirety after I get home and have an opportunity to edit ALL the footage from the weekend.

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Today, Kyle and the boys and I started milling up some of the timbers for the studio. We made pretty good progress but didn’t get the whole load finished. We have more work days planned. It was a tiring day and I am ready for bed.

The discovery of an intact 18th-century joinery shop in Duxbury, Mass., set off a storm of interest last year in the small outbuilding behind a school.

Now, months after the discovery, preservationists and employees at Colonial Williamsburg have begun to piece together the interesting story of the site, to document every peg and nail and take the first steps toward stabilizing and preserving the building.

This week I took a tour of the site with Michael Burrey, the restoration carpenter who discovered the shop while working nearby, and Peter Follansbee, the joiner at Plimoth Plantation.

The working area of the shop is about the size of a single-car garage, yet almost every inch of the room is packed with clues about the work that was done in the shop, the tools that were in use and how they were stored. There is so much detail to see that after two hours of rooting around, my senses were overloaded and there was still much more to see.

As a workbench enthusiast, I was quite interested in poring over the benches that lined three walls of the shop, creating a U-shaped ring of working sufaces along the outer wall.

The benches were all fixed to the structure of the building. I haven’t written much about this style of bench. These fixed benches seem to first appear in the 15th century as best I can tell (see the evidence here). These fixed benches exist at the same time as the typically freestanding Roman-style workbench. Eventually the Roman benches disappear (though not entirely in Eastern Europe), and a replaced by the movable forms we are familiar with now.

The benches in the Sampson shop have seen so much use that the bench along the back wall had been recovered with a new benchtop – you can feel the old mortise for the planning stop by feeling under the benchtop. None of the benches had end vises or even dog holes. There are planning stops and a couple huge holes that may have been for some metalworking equipment, Burrey says. There was at least one leg vise.

Dendrochronolgy on one of the benches indicates the top was pitch pine from 1786, Burrey says. That lines up nicely with the 1789 date painted on a beam in the storage area outside the shop door.

The shop was known in the area as a shingle shop, but it’s likely that a lot of other things went on there. One of the benches has been converted to a lathe, with a large metal wheel above it. The original owner of the shop, Luther Sampson, was (among other things) a planemaker, Burrey says.

Sampson was one of the founders of the Kents Hill School in Maine. And the school has some of his tools and the name stamp he used to mark his planes. Burrey also indicates that they have found shelves in the shop that were likely scarred by moulding planes set there.

Other tool marks suggest some other operations. Along the back wall, Burrey suspects that bench was used for crosscutting. The area is under a window. Right above the bench the wall is pierced with hundreds of jab marks from a marking awl. Above that is an unusual rack that would hold try squares. And the back wall looks like it has been hit by the tip of a backsaw repeatedly.

In fact, every square inch of surface seems to hold some message. There are bits of old newspaper pasted in places. The shapes of sailing ships are scratched into the walls with a nail or awl. A hatted figure is painted on one of the shop doors. And inside that painting is a series of concentric scratches made by a compass.

Empty tool racks are everywhere, many of them elegantly chamfered.

Burrey and Follansbee are cautious about making any firm declarations about how the shop was used.

“We’re just looking at ghosts here,” Follansbee says.

Follansbee is correct. The place is haunted. Like many unrestored old places you cans still feel the heavy presence of the work that went on inside the walls. And now the really heavy work begins for the people who are not ghosts: Figuring out how to stabilize and preserve the building.

I don’t have any insight into the status of that end of the project. If I hear of any news, I’ll report it here.

— Christopher Schwarz

Filed under: Personal Favorites, Workbenches

Hello all:

Mack Headley, Jr., master cabinetmaker at the Anthony Hay Cabinet Shop at Colonial Williamsburg, officially retired as of today.  It’s certainly not the end of woodwork and opportunities for him.  But it is the end of an era for us here at the shop, and a new beginning as well.

 

Mack has ended his 31 years at CW in rousing fashion:  the completion of most of the woodwork for the first of the Mount Vernon candle stands.  A few details will be finished by the staff and the second stand will closely follow Mack’s research and practice.

 

As Mack said today to us all at the shop, “It’s been quite a ride, guys.”  Indeed.  So much work.  And the standards set for us now and for the future.  Memorable.

Join us in wishing Mack the best as he continues his life and work and new possibilities.  We will continue to carry his name as Master Cabinetmaker, Emeritus, on the staff profiles here on our blog.

Best to him… and to you all.

The Hay Shop.

I ran across an interview today of Phil Lowe on Fine Woodworking.com that became surprisingly controversial. Typical to most internet articles I run across, the comments afterward seem to take things to the extreme, hypothesizing attitudes and making statements about the person in question that were a far stretch from the actual article. But something about this one really frosted me. Not only did many of those responding to the article take Mr. Lowe's statements out of context, but also took to criticizing him for the way the author decided to spell "vise" - as if Phil had some influence on the way the article was spell checked. It was totally ridiculous. Now, I don't know Mr. Lowe personally, nor have I taken any classes he's taught. I did take the post-article firestorm personally, however, and for reasons you might not first think of.

Apparently, Mr. Lowe has a bit of an aversion to block planes. He believes - and I'm sure with some significant knowledge of his craft and the tools used - that block plane origins were primarily designed for carpenters to do light trimming on the job site. They were especially useful for when you only had one hand free, such as when standing on a ladder. He also feels that since the furniture maker has a bench and vise (or "vice", if the alternative spelling offends you) that a bench plane is better suited for the work they do because they can use both hands on the plane. It was stated that Mr. Lowe makes this point in his classes by insisting that if anyone wants to use a block plane in his class, then they should use it one handed while standing on a ladder. I know you can see the horror inherent, in such a teaching technique.

Now, you may think I'm full of sympathy for the poor students that must endure such block plane oppression. On the contrary, I feel sympathy for Mr. Lowe and am embarrassed for the internet woodworking community. Here you have a master craftsman and teacher being ridiculed by what is obviously a bunch of armchair, weekend woodworkers who think they know better. I personally use a block plane on occasion, but, I did see a video of Phil a few years ago showing him using a #4 smoother to flush up dovetails and dados in a fashion that many would use a block plane for. Well, I tried it out myself, and found that having the extra mass of a bench plane made the cuts I was attempting much easier and potentially more stable. It gave me a new perspective on how to use some of my planes and I was thankful for Phil's video. The same can be said for Frank Klausz's "3 minute dovetail" video where he bangs out some decent, workable dovetails quickly with two rather large frame saws. His statement " if they don't fit right away, get a bigger hammer" was funny, but it also disarmed the notion that dovetails HAVE to be so exact in every situation. I believe with that statement, he was trying to lessen the mystique and level of "expertise" of hand cutting dovetails that typically hinders amateur woodworkers from trying to make them when they first start out.

Woodworking was a relatively untouchable hobby for most people not that long ago. To truly learn the craft, most had to rely on previous generations or, if they were lucky, be able to spend time in a cabinet shop as an apprentice. Now we have this huge internet woodworking community that allows the average hobbyist to learn from masters of the craft, free of charge. The problem with the internet is that the anonymity it affords sometimes breeds a false sense of expertise and lack of respect for our teachers and each other. My point that I have been fumbling around trying to make is that we should be thankful for masters like James Krenov, Sam Maloof, Frank Klauz, and yes, Phil Lowe for taking the time to share their knowledge, often free to thousands on the internet. When those masters share that knowledge, we should give them the respect they have earned through years of the craft. Then, filter the info for ourselves, give their suggestions a try and see if they work for us. Finally, we need to stop taking ourselves and the craft so seriously. Most of us are simply hobbyists and we are all taking this journey together. Share your knowledge freely, but remember that everyone has different experiences to contribute and your opinion isn't the only one that matters. True craftsmanship is a blend of technical skill and art, and you can't be successful without balancing daring ingenuity with time honored techniques.

Many of us grew up with the desire to work wood but thought it would never be accessible to the average Joe. Thanks to Phil and other true masters of woodworking for sharing their knowledge and time honored techniques so freely, enabling us to be successful in our woodworking pursuits.

Mike

perseverare autem diabolicum. 

So… you make one mistake, you’re just human.  But, if you continue to do the same thing, the Devil’s in your head, or you’re just plain stupid.

The last time I carved in Ash, I make a solemn promise to myself that I wouldn’t do it again.  But hey, I never claimed to be the “brightest penny in the purse”.   Recently I decided to replace our old “coffee” table with something a little more..uh, unusual.  The goal was a table that had some period influence, but was rather unique.  I decided to do a “bandy-legged” design that harkened back to the Oriental origins of much of what we recognize as late 18th century English and American furniture.  I decided to do an ebonized finish, which meant I wouldn’t need to use the best of “show” woods.  What did I have at hand in large squares?  You guessed it, baseball bat material!  Here we go again.

After sharpening up the tools, I went to work.  There were moments that I wished for a power carver or a 4″ grinder.  My design has a very curved “ankle”.  The shape is easy to draw, but presents some real challenges when you’re carving it with conventional tools.  (Carving against the grain in Ash just isn’t going to happen, trust me.)  After hours spent cursing under my breath (and sometimes out loud), the task was completed.

In the Oriental tradition, these legs would be in the “Dragon’s foot” family.  Whatever they are, the table frame looks like it’s going to chase me right out of the workshop.

Now to turn it black and “top it off” appropriately.

[crosspost] La Settimana Mondiale Del Girobacchino


You probably do not know it, but this is the World Drill Brace Week.
This week we celebrate and pay homage to this half-forgotten, mistreated and underestimated cordless drill.

Probabilmente non lo sapete, ma questa è la Settimana Mondiale Del Girobacchino.
In questa settimana si celebra e si rende omaggio a questo semi-dimenticato, bistrattato e sottostimato trapano cordless.

So you are vibrantly invited to post photos of your drill brace or braces.

Siete quindi vibrantemente invitati a postare le foto del o dei vostri girobacchini.

Turn this invitation also il all the forums you have subscribed, it is time to break down the fences that divide us, let's we do it with a 3/4" auger bit. Promote this event on your blog, Facebook, Instagram and Tubblr. Infect all your contacts. Put a picture of your drill brace as the wallpaper of your smartphone or set the noise (noise? Sound!) of the ratchet as the ringtone of the incoming messages.

Girate questo invito anche a tutti i forum in cui siete iscritti, è ora di abbattere gli steccati che ci dividono, facciamolo con una punta da 3/4". Pubblicizzate questo avvenimento sui bostri blog, su Facebook, Instagram e Tumblr. Contagiate tutti i vostri contatti. Mettete una foto del vostro girobacchino come sfondo del vostro smartphone o impostate il rumore (rumore? suono!) del cricco come suoneria per i messaggi ientranti. 

This is my contribution:

Questo è il mio contributo:



This year, the World Drill Brace Week is dedicated to the Thrust Bearing Of The Top Knob. So make a tribute to it by spraying in a bit of WD40, blowing it properly with the air compressor and oiling it with care.

Quest'anno, la Settimana Mondiale Del Girobacchino è dedicata al Cuscinetto Reggispinta Del Pomello Superiore. Quindi rendetegli omaggio spruzzandogli dentro un po' di Svitol, soffiandolo per bene col compressore d'aria e oliandolo con cura.



Long live to fraternity, long live to freedom and long live to drill braces!

Viva la fraternità, viva la libertà e viva i girobacchini!

I’ve never been accused of being a tease, but I’ve tried! The first ever Weekend with WOOD is currently underway and I’m about to head out the door to day 2.

I was able to get some great clips of Jim Heavey talking about spray finishing, finishing your finish (making it look even better when you think you’re done) and then also on choosing a topcoat.

I’ll post more about these much later, but in the meantime here’s a short snippet of Jim explaining the difference between HVLP sprayers and Turbine sprayers…

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