Working By Hand

The open-air Voss Folkemuseum in Voss, Norway, is a wonderful place to visit. They have a great museum with a number of farming artifacts, and folk arts. Some of the most interesting artifacts are historic chests. Two examples are shown below, illustrating differing forms of assembly.

These chests are both small, and simple in construction. The first uses butt joints fastened using wooden dowels or pins. The second chest uses dovetails. Both have large strap hinges, top handles, and simple metal locks. What is interesting is the fact that the simplicity of the joinery does not detract from the beauty of the chests. This is quite different from the modern inclination to produce wooden chests with perfect joints.

Chest joined with wooden pegs

The chests both have very ornate decorations, embodying both chip and scratch carving. Undoubtedly the decorations elevate the beauty of both chests.

Chest joined with dovetails

What sort of books exist to help the novice learn more about Japanese woodworking? In reality, books on Japanese woodworking, in English, are few and far in between, and many were first published in the 1970s and 80s. Below is a list of the most relevant books.

• Japanese Woodworking Tools: Their Tradition, Spirit, and Use – Toshio Odate (1984)
  • The classic treatise on Japanese woodworking tools.
• Discovering Japanese Handplanes – Scott Wynn (1977)
  • The ultimate guide to using, and maintaining Japanese planes.
• Japanese Woodworking Tools: Selection, Care and Use – Henry Lanz (1985)
  • A basic book on tools.
• The Care and Use of Japanese Woodworking Tools – Kip Mesirow, Ron Herman (1982)
  • A 95-page booklet from Woodcraft.
• Sharpening and the Japanese Hand Plane – In Depth – Dale Brotherton (2017)

Tools books

• The Genius of Japanese Carpentry: Secrets of an Ancient Woodworking Craft – Azby Brown (2021)
  • A classic book covering aspects of Japanese carpentry. Describes the carpenter’s skills in the design and construction of traditional Japanese temple architecture. Original book published in 1989.
• The Art of Japanese Joinery – Kiyosi Seike (1977)
  • A book all about intricate and simple joints. More geared towards the aesthetics of joints.
• Woodworking Joinery by Hand: Innovative Techniques Using Japanese Saws and Jigs – Toyohisa Sugita (2023)
  • An innovative approach to joinery using Japanese saws and jigs.
• Complete Japanese Joinery – Yasuo Nakahara (1995)
  • An encyclopedic introduction at joinery and carpentry techniques.
• Japanese Joinery – Dorian Bracht (2024)
  • Traditional and modern joinery techniques, with over fifty different joints.
• Wood and Traditional Woodworking in Japan – Mechtild Mertz (2016)
  • Based on interviews with Japanese craftsmen, this book explores the technical and symbolic properties of Japanese woods.
• The Soul of a Tree: A Master Woodworker’s Reflections – George Nakashima (1981)
  • Part woodworking book, part philosophical journey.

Joinery etc.

Note that there are also more topical books – for example Making Shoji, which looks at making Japanese doors and screens; or books on Japanese houses.

Wedged mortise and tenon joints are quite common, but wedged dovetails are somewhat rare. Now it is said that the wedged dovetail was historically used to fill dovetails containing gaps. It could also be that this was at some time an actual means of securing dovetails in climates where perhaps the use of glues such as hide glue was less than optimal (due to moisture, cold). Classically many of these wedged dovetails exist as a single wedge through the middle of the pin.

But more complex designs do exist. A few years ago, whilst visiting a museum in Bergen, Norway, I came across a wooden chest with a more compound wedged dovetail design (as I remember, it was the The University Museum).

A Norwegian chest with wedged dovetails

The walls of this chest are 25-30mm in thickness. The pins of the dovetail joints are interesting because of the compound nature of the wedges. The example shown in the picture below shows a pin with three wedges parallel to the sloped edges of the pin (shown in blue), and two vertical wedges (shown in pink) – with the vertical wedges added last. Now I didn’t take any details of this chest, so I don’t exactly know the time period. It is possible that the different orientations were put in at different times, perhaps to counter shrinkage in the wood.

A compound wedged dovetail from the front-right side of the chest

Humans started making tools some 2.6 million years ago. That’s a long time for product development, and to get rid of the kinks from a tool. But are we at the point now where we should ponder whether we have long passed the apex of tool evolution?

Like many things that evolve, there is a point where any object reaches it’s apex – that one design change that creates a tool that is functional, efficient, robust, etc. – everything it needs to be to get the job done. Saws are a good example – the first metal saws were likely made of copper and appeared some 6000 years ago. Saws are now made of high quality steel, and have different types of teeth based on functionality and geographic region, but fundamentally they are the same. There are different saws for different tasks – but the core design of saws has peaked. From here what we see are the inevitable minor changes in ergonomics, to make the task of using a saw more comfortable. How have we reached this point? Well, in part it is because the materials used to build saws can’t really be improved upon, and neither can the design of the saw teeth be bettered, or the thinness of the blade be reduced any further.

Not every tool developed is a raging success. The “double claw” hammer produced by the Double Claw Hammer Co. was touted as being a replacement for all hammers – it wasn’t a great success.

Hammers peaked long ago, like a *long* time ago. Nails have been around since about 3400 B.C., when the ancient Egyptians supposedly used bronze nails. But the basic fundamental principle of bashing these things into wood hasn’t really changed. What did change is that hammers, like many tools, diversified to perform different tasks, with various shapes, and evolved as metallurgy evolved. Cobblers had different hammers to cabinetmakers, who had different hammers to stonemasons. Stanley’s 1934 catalog (No.134) contained some 182 varying forms of hammers for different industries. They haven’t changed much in the near hundred years since, except there isn’t such a broad selection available anymore. Development in modern hammers is really about usability, and bespoke materials.

Probably the one genre of tools that has seen the most evolution in the past 200 years is the woodworking plane. From it’s long existence in wooden form, it evolved to being made of metal in the early 19th century, spurning a good 100 years of evolution, until about 1950. After a hiatus of 40 years, development started again with the development work of Veritas – in the guise of increased precision, sustainable edges, space-age materials, and customizable configurations.

The RALI 260 Evolution N, a pivotal composite, interchangeable blade plane – the future of planes?

So what does this mean for woodworking tools? Is there any scope for further development? Is there any need? The act of planing a board, or hammering in a nail, will likely never change. Woodworkers won’t ever need self-aware AI-controlled tools – not even in the context of powered tools. It just isn’t necessary, because part of the reason people enjoy woodworking is the innate connection to this malleable material. CNC-based woodworking is great for large-scale, efficient industrial production, but not really for the average woodworker. There will likely be further improvements in materials, but it is unlikely there will be monumental changes (maybe a self-sharpening blade that functions like beaver’s teeth?). There may be new types of planes, for specific, narrow-focused tasks, but on the whole the mechanisms really won’t change that much. Even the likes of planes with disposable blades have never really taken off (at least not in North America, sorry Rali).

It’s fun looking through old catalogs, especially those from Lee Valley (and Veritas). I picked up the 1999/2000 catalog and realized that this was the first time the Veritas Low-Angle Block Plane appeared. It was the plane, that helped initiated a whole family of block planes, and bench planes. The catalog also explained why Lee Valley decided to get into plane design on a more regular basis (after the Veritas Edge-Trimming Block Plane):

“When Stanley and Record began to cut back on the range of plane models offered, we decided that we had to address the problem on a full-time basis, incorporating the advantages of modern me metallurgy and all the lessons we learned from the planes that never made it to market.”

There were many features which made the Low-Angle Block Plane unique:

• No other block plane at the time had a combined blade depth adjustment and lateral adjustment mechanisms in the form of a modified Norris adjuster.
• No other block plane had blade guide screws at the base of the bed, allowing for the compensation of blade resharpening errors and to ensure that the lateral adjustment lever can maximize the lateral adjustment range.
• An adjustable nose-piece that is designed so that it doesn’t extend beyond the main body.

The dovetail marking gauge shown in the ad below comes from the 1980 catalog of a small tool seller known as Leichtung Inc. “THE Workbench People”. They sold functional small workbenches from Danish Company Anders Lervad & Son, Zyliss vise systems, and a bunch of other innovative things. The dovetail marking gauge was quite unique, designed by Collett Engineering, Cornwall (UK). This is how the gauge is described on in the instruction guide:

“The gauge can best be described as an adjustable template. It consists of a steel frame and brass stock carrying a tapered brass blade, which can be fixed in the marked central position or moved, either side up, to adjustable stops. The effect of this movement is to provide a template of infinitely variable widths from which both tails and pins can be marked out. Two tapered blades are supplied – 1:6 and 1:8. The edges of the steel frame are machined to 90 degrees for use as a small try square.”

The ad from a 1980 Leichtung Inc. catalog

Seems like the gauge was around for a while – how effective was it? You can still find them in the second-hand market for around C$60-80, but they often have one of the tapered blades missing. has anyone ever owned one of these?

The Millers Falls No.36 is not a commonly found block plane, although it is identical to the No.16, save the addition of the knuckle lever cap. It is essentially the equivalent of a Stanley No.18, knuckle-lever block plane. There is nothing uberly different about this plane except for the fact that the knuckle joint itself is a little ornery. It seems sturdy once clamped down, however clamping it down is not always easy, and sometimes it unlocks and springs open if used in a rough manner.

The Millers Falls No.36

The No.36 was manufactured from 1929 to 1959, is 6″ in length, with a blade with of 1-5/8″. The body is Japanned cast iron with polished nickel trimmings. The bevel on the blade is 20°.

Profile of the No.36

The plane features a post-lever depth adjustment mechanism, a lateral adjustment lever and adjustable throat. There is really nothing which separates this plane from the Stanley No.18 is the use of nickel-plated thumbscrews as opposed to Stanley’s use of brass.

The lateral and depth adjustment mechanisms of the No.36

I found this term whilst browsing for something else not related to woodworking. It was in the 1887 edition of a dictionary by Noah Webster [1]. Basically it identifies a joggle as “a joint between two bodies so constructed by means of jogs or notches, as to prevent their sliding past each other”, and also as a plural “the pieces of stone or metal used in a joggle-joint”. A joggle is formed whenever one piece is notched to receive part of another, and can be defined as a square, semi-circular, angular or otherwise shaped tongue and groove joint [2]. Now it is obvious that such joints were used in stone masonry, and construction with metal. As it relates to woodworking, a joggle tenon, is often another name for a stub or stump tenon [3].

A picture of a joggle-joint [1]

In reality though, the joggle joint could also be where the butterfly joint in woodworking originated.

1. A dictionary of the English language, explanatory, pronouncing, etymological, and synonymous, with a copious appendix, Noah Webster (1887)
2. A Practical Treatise on the Joints Made and Used by Builders, Wyvill J. Christy (1882)
3. Woodwork Joints, William Fairham (1921)

I found this weird dovetail joint in a 1960 edition of Mechanix Illustrated (Vol.56(7), July, pp.116-117). It almost looks like an impossible joint, but with a little bending, and some ingenuity, it is possible. The angle of the dovetail is 15°, and the joint requires removing a good portion of the cavity in the pin-board. This allows it to be bent so that the tails-board can be slipped into place. The small piece of wood that was removed is replaced during assembly. An interesting joint, but likely not at all practical!