Norse Woodsmith Blog Feeds

I've recently been working on my old woodie plow plane and it got me thinking about the Veritas plow.  When I bought it, I got a 1/4" and a 3/8" iron with it.  But it seems most of the grooves I make these days are small.  I absolutely love using the wooden plow, but the irons are a little funky.  None of them are the nominal size - they're typically off by a bit (some more than others).  For example, the 1/8" iron (0.125") measures 0.157".  That's almost 22% over nominal.  But the 1/4" iron for the Veritas is spot on.

Here's the Veritas plow plane

And here's its 1/4" iron

Anyway, I thought I'd make a new 3/16" iron for the Veritas, and maybe later I'll make a 1/8" iron.  Their irons are 1/8" thick and, as luck would have it, I have some 1/8" O-1 tool steel.  So I got out the old hack saw and cut a blank to just over 1/4" wide and just over 3" long.

Sawed it out to just over 1/4" wide

The blank filed to 1/4" wide next to the factory 1/4" iron

Next was to file away 1/16" of metal in the lower 3/4" to 1" of the iron.  I probably should have hacksawn this because filing it took a while.  But I got a fairly precise 3/16" wide iron.

Iron clamped sideways in a vise

Filed the width, and also sawed and filed the notch for iron depth adjustment

I also filed the sidewalls so that the bevel side of the iron is a little thinner than the flat side, giving clearance for the iron in a cut.  The next pic shows the iron test fit into the plane.  I made the body of the iron 1/4" wide so that the iron clamping screw would act similarly to the way it does for the stock 1/4" iron.  You can also see where the lever cap meets the iron - that's why I didn't go higher on the iron with the 3/16" width.

First test fit into the plane

The notch fit nicely with the depth adjusting nut

Just a note here.  The metal that was filed away to make the business end 3/16" wide, was filed on the outer side of the iron.  You can't tell in these photos, but the plane's skate sits below the inner side of the iron.  So for the skate to properly support the iron, the metal had to be removed from the outer side.

I heat-treated the iron with a torch until cherry red and nonmagnetic, then plunged into oil.  Then because I didn't want to use our kitchen oven to temper the iron (it was 96° that day and we have no A/C), I tried for the first time to temper it using the colors that advance to the cutting edge as I heated the iron about midway along its length.  When the golden straw color reached the bevel, I plunged in oil.

I didn't get any pictures of that, but it seems to have worked well.  When I sharpened the iron, I thought I might have done the tempering wrong because it seemed I couldn't get a good cutting edge.  But after I removed a bit of material, I sharpened again and got a great cutting edge.  I'm guessing that the initial hardening treatment left the thin cutting edge area a bit brittle and it just needed to be ground back a bit.

[If you read my substack blog, skip this one. Just notifying readers of the new book about the Essex County cupboard.]

I was the luckiest woodworker around when I got the chance to make TWO versions of one of the most elaborate cupboards I know…and even more so when Lost Art Press (who else?) agreed to turn my notes and photos into a book.

The link for ordering is here – https://lostartpress.com/products/17th-century-essex-county-cupboard

I first saw the cupboard this is based on in 1998 – it’s in the collections at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston. At that point, I was embarking on a study with my friend Bob Trent of this cupboard and its relatives. That study took a couple of years to research, digest and write.

Along the way I had a chance to collaborate with my joiner-friends Ted Curtin and Rob Tarule – they were building a copy of a related example to be exhibited at the Saugus Iron Works – and they included me in some of that work. Then in 2001 the article I worked on with Trent and Alan Miller was published in the 2001 edition of American Furniture. At that point, I figured that my Essex Co Cupboards notebook would go on the shelf and stay there. And so it did, for 20 years – when out of the blue I got asked would like me to make one! I jumped at the chance and was twice-blessed. I wrote enough about the project that another person chimed in & said “I want one too.”

Along the way I shot a bunch of video of the process in addition to the photos for the book. I’ve edited a bunch of those – about 5 hours’ worth and made a vimeo-on-demand page for them. Think of them as a companion to the book. All the details are in the book. Many of the processes are presented in the video series. Link is here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/504407

I posted a sample video of about 10 minutes of setting the pintle hinges on the cupboard door over on my substack blog. That video is above the paywall – so you should be able to see it. Maybe you need a free subscription – those that get the truncated posts. Often those are about half the length of the full post…

https://peterfollansbeejoinerswork.substack.com/p/the-cupboard-book-is-done

In this episode, I design and make a new jig for routing the neck joint. Then: fit the neck, the fretboard’s supporting wedge, and the fretboard itself. Quite a lot there to take in!

I skim over the fretting process as I’ve demoed this many times before, but if you’re interested in how I fret, have a look at thisvideo- 

Although I fret my short scale bass, the actual process is the same, just the scale is different!

Cheers Gary

Panel saw German Plum (Zwetschge) 550cm 7 toi Crosscut Pedderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12692353908068506678noreply@blogger.com0

In my last post, I showed how I removed the old finish from this 19th-century sideboard.

Most any antique furniture I can afford to buy is going to need some repair, and that was certainly true of this piece. No doubt it was priced low partly due to the hole burned into the top.

As you can see, the gap is large and deep, and it runs right out the front edge. I first considered filling most of it in with epoxy and doing some kind of decorative inlay to top it off. Then I came to my senses and settled on an plain wooden panel. I’ve done this kind of thing a couple times before, though never with something this big.

I happened to have a 4″ wide white oak board available. I resawed it and edge-glued the two halves together. After planing it down, I ended up with a panel measuring about 12″ by 8″, and 3/8″ thick. I made sure both halves had the grain running the same direction.

The first step was to clamp the panel to be inlaid exactly where I wanted it.

Make sure the grain direction of your inlay more or less matches the grain direction of the surrounding wood, because you’ll eventually have to plane this whole thing flat. You don’t want the grain of the inlay going one direction while the grain of the surrounding wood goes the other.

I outlined the whole thing with a knife.

Use a chisel to cut into the knife line, resulting in a clear knife wall. Deepen those cuts with mallet and chisel. Everything inside will be cut away.

Now it’s time for some serious excavation. There is a lot of wood to remove here.

I found it helpful to work across the grain at times, not just with the grain.

After removing a good amount of material with the chisel, I switched over to the router plane.

I set the router plane somewhat more shallow than the final depth, and started going around the edges.

Because this was a really big surface to excavate, it was important to leave a little “island” of material in the middle for the router plane to ride on.

In retrospect, I should have left even more in the center and the front edge so the router plane had more surface to reference.

I went back and forth between the chisel and the router plane, slowly increasing the router plane’s depth, until I got to the final depth. Then I chiseled out the center.

Because the router plane wouldn’t reach into the very center, I used a small handplane to bring the center down to the right level.

I managed to go deep enough to get most of the damaged wood out, but there’s still a nice burn mark underneath. But no matter. The patch will cover it all, and the surrounding wood is sound, so the patch will stick just fine.

I put in enough glue to make the patch stick. There’s no need to put in so much that the whole panel starts floating on the glue, as there aren’t a whole lot of places where excess glue can squeeze out.

If the fit of the patch is a bit too snug, try using a handplane to relieve the underside of each edge, so it drops in easily at first. Then you can tap it the rest of the way home with a mallet.

I clamped the patch down as well as I could and walked away.

Once the glue had time to dry, I leveled it off with a handplane. I’m very glad I ran the grain in the right direction. But I also wish I had either excavated the hole a little deeper or planed the panel down a bit more before installation, as it took me too long to plane the whole thing down level.

The next fun challenge was to plane the edge to match the profile on the front edge.

I got as close as possible with the shoulder plane.

Then I switched over to a hollow plane. I own just one, which I picked up on a lark at an antique mall a year or so ago.

It’s the only molding plane I have, but it fit the profile well enough. I’m so glad I have it!

It’s the first time I’ve used this plane on a project, and I’m really pleased with the result. I’ll have to be on the lookout for more molding planes like this.

I used some card scrapers and sandpaper to finish the job.

Once I had finished, I realized that there was a little gap at the far end, where some of the old wood had splintered away from the initial chisel cuts.

These kinds of little gaps are very easy to fix. I sprinkled a bit of oak sawdust into the gap and flooded it with regular superglue. Once it was dry and hard, I scraped it all level with a card scraper.

Even with all the repair on this end, the top of this sideboard still had a lot of scratches, burn marks, and other stains, some of which you can see in the above photo. (Maybe somebody was using it for chemistry experiments for a while. I dunno.) I decided the whole top needed to be sanded down.

One of my daughters was interested in learning to use an orbital sander. So I showed her how to do it. She went over the whole top to try to remove as many of the scratches and stains as possible.

It eventually became clear that we were either going to have to remove a good 1/8″ of wood from this top, or leave some of the deeper burn marks there.

We reminded ourselves that we weren’t going for a like-new look. It’s okay to leave some scars visible.

However, all the sanding had gotten us down to fresh wood, so putting a clear coat of finish on it would not only fail to color-match the rest of the piece, but it would also risk accentuating every stain and discoloration.

So I decided to apply a coat of medium-brown stain to the whole top.

I used an aniline dye (“Georgian brown” from Lee Valley), which brought the color back closer to the rest of the piece. It didn’t need to be an exact match, but it turned out fairly close. More importantly, it hides the burn marks just a little bit.

With the sanding and staining done, it was time to apply a fresh finish.

I went with my all-time favorite: home-mixed Danish oil. Here’s the recipe: put equal parts polyurethane, boiled linseed oil, and mineral spirits into a jar. Shake it up a bit to make sure it’s thoroughly mixed.

Using this finish is very easy, and I normally put on only one coat. Flood the surface of the wood liberally with the mixed oil, using a brush or a wadded up piece of paper towel to spread it out evenly. Wait 2-5 minutes, and add more to any spots that look a bit dry. Once the whole surface is fully coated, wait 15-20 minutes. Wipe off any excess. (Make sure you wipe off the excess before it turns tacky.) Let it dry for at least 24 hours, or until you no longer get a strong smell from the surface.

You can add additional coats if you like. The results are a surface that feels like wood, not like plastic, but that is still easy to clean. It also really brings out any figure in the wood, which is a really good thing in this case.

This sideboard was never going to look like new, but it certainly looks a lot better than it did before.

You can see the burn marks on the far right side, right below the inlaid patch. That’s where the burning liquid that damaged the top spilled over and dripped down the front. Whatever it was even burned off part of the original wooden drawer pull! But there’s enough of the pull left that it remains functional.

Like I said, on a functional piece this old, it’s okay that some scars are visible.

The sideboard is now at home in our back hallway, which we are (slowly) renovating to be our coffee and tea bar.

I think it looks happy in its new home.

 Another sleepless night. The rest of my lingering symptoms are still gradually getting better. I'd trade that for a goods night sleep. I hit the rack before 2200 and slept fitfully until the peepers failed open for good at 0231. In between 2200 to 0230 I slept for less then an hour, woke up, and drift off to sleep again. That would have been acceptable if it had continued until morning.

Instead I was wide awake watching You Tube until until I felt sleepy around 0500. I debated about getting up but I closed my eyes and when they opened again it was 0810. I felt a whole lot better then and got up then to face the day.

By the time I had posted my blog I felt blah as in I just wanted to occupy space, suck in oxygen, and expel carbon dioxide. I stayed that way vegetating until I dragged my myself down the shop in the PM session.

honey do project

My wife asked me to make a frame for her new certificate. The left one is mahogany that I made out of a mahogany table I got off of Facebook Marketplace. I don't have any more of that but I do have some 8/4 sapele. That is the closest thing I have to mahogany and it'll have to do.

2nd honey do project

This is from daughter #2 that she wants framed as a present for her husband. I have a frame for this already so I just have to pick out a mat for it. I'll get this one to Maria ASAP as his birthday is next month.

yikes

At this time of the day in the shop I'm usually looking to wrap things up. Today it is the time I finally made it to the shop. It was a chore to get myself motivated to do something.

done

Cleaned up the bottom of the top and the sides. That took me all of 3 minutes to knock out. This was all I had on the to do list but I stayed to find something else to do.

what a relief

Searched the shop looking for these. As the last place I searched, I found them in the shitcan. How and why they were tossed in here, I am totally clueless. Happy that I found them and they weren't damaged.

hmm.....

My first choice for the back was 1/8" plywood but I don't have any wide enough for the back. I'll have to use 1/4" which would be  stiffer and stronger but it will eat up some of the drawer real estate. The rabbet at the back top isn't that bad - a bit awkward to execute but no headaches to do.

I like this rabbet

This one will hidden when viewed from the side. I think overlaying it looks sloppy and crappy. It is worth the calories (IMO) to do it this way.

nope

This is the rabbet on the sides and I don't like it. It is eating into the half tail which will decrease the strength of it. I'll have to rethink how to get a back on that doesn't look haphazard or an afterthought. I already have an idea percolating in the brain bucket for that.

I didn't feel up to gluing the the carcass today. Past glue ups have taught me that they are stressful enough without not being fully up to snuff. Maybe tomorrow I'll get it glued and cooked.

accidental woodworker 

The old-fashioned way. I've been out and about taking these around today. Birdwood House Gallery, Totnes.

Lots to do. 

 

 I am now 8 days out from my surgery. I am mostly pain free but there is some soreness on the left side of my chest. I cough a lot but the doc said that is good for me as it helps to inflate and expand my lungs. The cough is annoying as I don't get a heads up with it nor for how long I will try to hack up whatever is causing the coughing spell.

I still have a lot of swelling due to fluid build up. The doc said walking should help with making that going bye bye. The fluid build up has shifted from the tube site to the middle of my chest. I still feel like/look I have a XXL beach ball for a stomach. But overall I'm happy with my healing so far. Next week I see the chief pulmonologist and fingers crossed that  he'll have some good news for me.

done

Chopped the other nine stopped dadoes this AM. It took me longer to whack out then it would have before the surgery. Happy with how they came out.  Sometimes pine dado bottoms can tear out and look real ugly. A few came close tbut they will never be seen regardless.

hmm......

From the top to the 3rd one down, the dadoes are a few frog hairs wider than a 1/2". The bottom one (by my finger) is a snug fit for the 1/2" brass bar. I thought of shaving it to increase the width but nixed it. The difference between the dadoes is almost nothing and I didn't want to risk chiseling a mismatch R/L.

no problems

 I wasn't sure how this would go. I ripped the thickness of the rails a few frog hairs wider then the dadoes. I planed the R/L ends to fit and had no issues doing that. Planing the rails to fit with my #4 was easy. No straining, pain, or losing my breath planing them. Not sure if the back and forth moving the plane fit the excessive arm repetition I am supposed to avoid. 

drawer guides

The plan is to glue the front end of the drawer guides to back of the drawer rails. I will screw the back of the drawer guide to the side in an elongated hole. I have used this same method in just about every other 'shop dresser' I have made. I think this is the 8th one?

ran out of gas

I have to plane the inside of the dresser and then I can glue it up. That will be the all I can do on this for now. Making the drawers is batting next. They aren't on a multiple of 12" neither which means I'll have a bit of waste with standard length boards. I don't have enough stock neither to make all the drawers.

My wife went to Lowes in the PM and asked me to come but I declined. I could have picked up the stock needed to make the drawers but I just wanted to sit at my desk and rest up before I went on my 2nd walk about for the day. 

I will be dead in the water because I can't bring the lunchbox planer out to the driveway. I could saw out drawer parts to rough size and then resaw them to width on the tablesaw. That is doable and most likely what I'll do because I don't want to wait. 

Ran out of gas again at lunch time. I spent a few AM hours in the shop with the intention of returning in the PM to start the glue up but that didn't happen boys and girls. However, this time I stayed awake and didn't allow myself to drift off into La La Land. I paid that price last night when I woke up at 1230 and didn't fall back to sleep until 0300 or so. I can't sleep a full night after taking a nap during the day. Fingers crossed I'll get a good nights' sleep tonight.

accidental woodworker 

Rex Krueger has posted a very nice video snapshot of Plane Wellness’ Handtool Haven 2026, where I was one of the speakers and exhibitors.

A 48mm oiirenomi by Hidari no Ichihiro

When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.

Thomas Sowell

A couple of questions prospective Beloved Customers frequently ask your humble servant is what variety Japanese chisel(s) they should purchase, and the best width(s).

In this article I will summarize the answers I most often offer, and list the advantages and disadvantages of 3 types of striking chisels. Perhaps it will be informative.

I started using Japanese chisels long before the internet was more than a group of linked university library research computers. I’ve learned a few things on the subject from Japanese language books over the years, but I’ve yet to read anything on the internet that was more than a regurgitation of marketing screeds and BS from self-proclaimed experts. Most of what I know about Japanese chisels I learned from Japanese blacksmiths and professional woodworkers in Japan, and from my own hands-on, trial and error experience using them to make a living.

Even after the internet expanded (or rather blew up like a dynamited outhouse) into world wide web we know nowadays, there was very little useful written information available in the English language anywhere regarding the varieties of Japanese chisels and how to maintain and use them. This frustration was my primary reason for establishing this website, in fact. But after starting this humble website I’ve noticed more and more people presenting themselves as experts on the internet who merely imitate, indeed plagarize, what I’ve written. Do they do this to improve general knowledge on the subject of Japanese chisels, or do they have other motives?

Posers and copycats are fine, but many lack the true understanding that only comes with hands-on experience under pressure. I encourage Gentle Readers to seek useful knowledge based on practical experience rather than ill-informed click bait.

Regarding my answers to the two questions listed above, let’s begin by considering the options I believe most likely to serve Gentle Reader best.

As this article: The Varieties of Japanese Chisels explains at length, there are two primary types of Japanese chisels: the tatakinomi striking chisel and the usunomi paring chisel. In this article we will examine only tatakinomi.

A 42mm oiirenomi by Sukezane Tatakinomi (Striking Chisel)

The three types of chisels described below are categorized as “Tatakinomi” which translates directly to “striking chisel.” It’s name’s derived from the way one motivates it by “striking” the butt of its wooden handle with a steel hammer. No, not an inefficient, imprecise wooden mallet but a serious, differentially-hardened, high-carbon steel tool.

What is a Gennou Hammer?

Hammers to Use With Chisels Part 2 – Hammer Faces

Head Style & Weight

Tatakinomi are the best-known type of Japanese chisel, but there are other kinds, primarily “usunomi” or paring chisels.

Because high-quality chisels are not free, and because the powerful forces applied to tatakinomi place it at risk, it’s important that those you procure be durable, so let’s next consider consider some factors impact that always govern a chisel’s durability.

Keys to Chisel Durability

High-quality, hand-forged (vs. stamped, mass-produced) Japanese striking chisels differ from Western-style chisels in that they are intended to be wacked hard all day with a steel hammer, treatment that will quickly destroy Western chisels, but which professional-grade, handmade Japanese chisels eat with chips and beer.

But why can our tataki chisels shrug-off abuse that would destroy all other chisels? There are three primary reasons. First, the handles are made of either Japanese red oak or Japanese white oak, varieties of hardwood native to Japan significantly denser and stronger than all species of American and European oak.

The second reason is that the handle is reinforced by a steel ferrule in the shape of a hollow “truncated cone,” called a “kuchigane,” which translates to “mouth steel,” carefully fitted to the contoured blade end of the handle.

This component doesn’t just perch on the handle like a pelican on a post but squeezes and compresses the wood fibers around the tang of the blade making it nearly impossible for the impact forces of a hand-operated hammer to split the handle. In fact, the harder the handle is struck the tighter the kuchigane becomes, the more constraining hoop pressure it applies to handle. This is a genius design detail, one commonly found in many ancient weapons (swords, spears, and pole weapons) around the world, BTW. I’ll be dipped in chocolate and sold as a hairy truffle if I can figure out why European and America tool makers abandoned this technique a hundred or so years ago. Perchance an early example of enshittification?

The third reason the handles of hand-made Japanese chisels can eat up such abuse without getting ulcers is a piece of furniture called the “crown,” what some people vulgarly call the “hoop,” a steel band with a particular cross-section encircling the butt end of the handle. If the crown and handle are fitted properly (the majority of Japanese chisels sold overseas are not, BTW), this crown will apply tremendous hoop force on the wood preventing it from splitting.

An important detail worth knowing is that this crown doesn’t just sit on the handle like a metal hatband, but is designed to slowly move down the length of the handle as the handle becomes shorter over the years providing continuous support for the handle without the need for future adjustment. Ergo the nickname “sagariwa.” Clever stuff.

Another less-obvious reason high-quality chisels can happily endure such abuse is the fact that the handles are hand-turned of dense, well-dried, defect-free Japanese hardwood, and hand-fitted to the blade by an experienced Japanese craftsman who specializes in making handles (Mr. Hasegawa, in our case) with many years of experience, to ensure a proper fit between wood and steel components. Such handles cannot be procured in bulk from Chinese farmers. Why does this matter? A sloppy fit between steel and wood will not only reduce a chisel’s useful lifespan, but will actually reduce its efficiency.

The Three Types of Tatakinomi

Let’s next consider the three main types of tatakinomi, the oiirenomi, hantatakinomi, and atsunomi.

The Oiirenomi Chisel

The most popular type of tatakinomi striking chisel sold nowadays is the mentori oiirenomi, pronounced oh/ee/reh/noh/mee). This is the Japanese chisel best known outside Japan. A couple of variants are the older-style kakuuchi oiirenomi and the slimmer shinogi oiirenomi.

The oiirenomi is a smaller, lighter, more economical version of the bigger, older atsunomi style chisel. Just as I have done so often in answer to questions from prospective Beloved Customers, I’ve compared some of the key advantages and disadvantages of the oiirenomi compared to the hantataki and atsunomi below. Horses for courses.

Oiirenomi’s Advantages:

• More compact (shorter and slimmer) than the atsumomi and hantataki chisels, the oiirenomi is extremely handy for making light cuts in tight spaces, for making furniture and cabinets, and doing installations. Being less bulky, oiirenomi take up less space in the toolbag/toolbox, and accordingly are easier to transport to and around the jobsite.
• The oiirenomi’s lighter weight, compared to atsunomi and hantataki, makes them easier for those with weaker hands to use.
• Oiirenomi can be motivated with a lighter hammer and/or less force for more precise work in some jobs.
• Less costly than atsunomi and hantatakinomi.

Oiirenomi’s Disadvantages

• While compact and lightweight, their blade, neck and handle are shorter in length than atsunomi and hantataki making them unsuited for some deep cuts. This is seldom a problem when making furniture and cabinets, but their shorter reach may limit their effectiveness in some carpentry and timber framing projects.
• Their reduced weight is achieved by reducing the amount of metal used and employing a shorter handle that some users with large hands sometimes find inconvenient.
• Most importantly, the reduced weight is achieved by incorporating less metal in the blade, neck and shoulders making the oiirenomi relatively weaker and less durable when subjected to the heavy pounding required to cut the large joints and hog the large volume of wood required when timber framing. For the same reason, wider blades (42mm+) may not be adequately supported by the thinner neck and lighter shoulders of the oiirenomi.

The oiirenomi is perfect for most furniture and cabinetry tasks around the shop, and is very portable for jobsite use, but it may not be suited to heavy carpentry, timber framing or for use by those with humongous hands.

Professionals that use chisels from morning to night, however, prefer the atsunomi for even small jobs simply because it’s stronger, cuts with more authority and lasts much, much longer.

The Hanataki Chisel

The hantataki chisel is a larger, longer version of the oiirenomi, or depending on your viewpoint, a smaller version of the atsunomi. It has both advantages and disadvantages when compared its brothers.

Hantataki’s Advantages

• Hantataki chisels are an “in-between” chisel built longer and somewhat beefier than oiirenomi chisels, but shorter and lighter than atsunomi chisels, depending on your viewpoint again. They take up less space in the toolbox/toolbag than atsunomi and are therefore easier to transport.
• Their greater length compared to oiirenomi makes them handier for those with larger hands.
• Hantataki can cut deeper/longer joints than oiirenomi can.
• While not as heavy-duty as atsunomi, hantataki are significantly beefier and stronger than oiirenomi and therefore better suited to cutting joints in large timbers using heavier hammers. They make great chisels for carpentry work in the field.
• Our hantataki chisels are priced nearly the same as our oiirenomi chisels, making them an economic choice.

Hantataki’s Disadvantages:

• Hantataki chisels can’t cut as deeply as atsunomi, but this is seldom a serious limitation except in timber framing work.
• While heavier and tougher than oiirenomi they are lighter than atsunomi. Horses for courses.
• They are not as strong as atsunomi and may be at a disadvantage for some heavy timber framing jobs. Although we carry them in 54mm width, this may be a little too wide for the shoulder to adequately support during heavy use.

The Atsunomi Chisel

Atsunomi (ah/tsu/noh/mee) are the largest standard size chisel. There are special-order chisels with longer necks, such as the anayanomi, for cutting special joints (no longer made), but this is the chisel used for serious, heavy-duty carpentry and all timber framing jobs.

A 54mm anayanomi (a long-necked atsunomi) by Nora. The long neck is for making deep cuts.

Atsunomi means “thick chisel,” which explains it well. As an example, our 48mm wide Sukemaru-brand atsunomi are 295mm long (OAL) 11mm thick, with an 85mm long blade, 70mm long neck, and weigh 426 grams, almost twice the weight of our 48mm Sukezane-brand oiirenomi chisel.

Two of your humble servants well-used chisels by Kiyotada. Top: Oiirenomi with white oak handle. Bottom: Atsunomi with red oak handle.

Atsunomi’s Advantages:

• Long blade, neck and handle allow this chisel to make deep cuts in heavy timbers, this chisel’s greatest advantage.
• Thicker blade and neck make the atsunomi much stronger and tougher for hard cutting all day long.
• The extra mass of the atsunomi cushions the impulse shock acting on user’s hand and wrist joint compared to the same impulse forces acting through lighter oiirenomi or hantataki.

Atsunomi’s Disadvantages:

• Being bulkier and heavier, transporting atsunomi by bus, train, bicycle or mare’s shank is relatively more work.
• Their extra mass requires a heavier hammer to motivate in order to make the same cuts as the oiirenomi and hantataki. This requires a greater expenditure of energy,.
• Being heavier, the user may need stronger hands and arms than when using smaller chisels.
• Although the extra weight and increased moment of inertia makes the atsunomi more stable than other chisels, it requires greater skill when making delicate cuts.

Blade Width

“What’s best blade width for the job” is another question people always pose, but it’s a a bit more difficult to answer. The following are some points to consider.

First, if you will use the chisel(s) to cut mortises you either need to (1) determine in advance what width mortises you will need to cut; or (2) The likely range of mortises. The difficulty of answering these questions, and the fact that the answer varies from job to job, is why professionals end up owning more than one or two chisels.

But how to decide? If the mortise is fairly narrow, say 6~15mm, then owning a chisel the same width is most efficient. In the case of wider mortises, it’s often best to use a chisel a little narrower than the mortise hole, and then pare the walls to final dimension. Why? Because, unless you’ve had a lot of practice, and your chisel has tight tolerances, it may tend to bind in the mortise hole and maybe even gouge the sidewalls. But by paring to final dimensions, the width of the mortise hole can be kept within tolerances and the sidewalls kept free of gouges.

When all’s said and done, and when speed and precision are critical, it’s best to check, adjust and maintain the tolerances of your chisels.

Another point to keep in mind when planning mortises is that it’s almost always most efficient to match the width of the mortise to the dimension your chisel can most easily, precisely and consistently cut rather than planning the mortise width around some specific dimension, e.g. precisely 6mm. One then cuts each specific tenon to fit each specific mortise instead of some dimension on a drawing. Once you have your chisel setup properly and a mortise gauge with a matching setting, there will be no need to measure mortise width at all.

People always ask what 3 or 4 chisels they should purchase to get started making furniture, for instance. The easy answer is 6, 9, 12, 24mm. Why not wider? I love wide chisels, but if you only have a few chisels, you will need one on-hand that does a great job of paring. 24mm is about the maximum width the average guy can precisely motivate a chisel by hand without using a hammer. Of course, this capacity will vary with the joint being made and the hardness of the wood, but 24mm is standard.

While we’re on the subject of paring, the handles of oiirenomi are too short for a powerful grip and good control with two hands, and the steel crown tends to be hard on one’s hands. For these reasons, the usunomi paring chisel with its thinner, longer blade, neck and handle, and lack of a crown is ideal. If you don’t have any yet, you will find usunomi to be wonderful tools and great friends.

Conclusion:

The oiirenomi is a compact, lightweight, nimble and less-costly striking chisel suited for light cuts with moderate weight hammers. It’s the typical starter chisel for Japanese woodworkers, and the only variety of Japanese chisel most Western woodworkers know. Perfect for making furniture, cabinets, and most joinery. Being lightweight, it will not endure long sessions being pounded on with heavy hammers. Also, being short, it may not be suited for those with large hands.

The hantataki chisel by comparison is slightly larger than the oiirenomi. It’s relatively inexpensive, not especially heavy, and can cut deeper joints. It’s perfect for those with larger hands that find the oiirenomi uncomfortable to use. And it will do everything the oiirenomi can and more.

The atsunomi is the largest, heaviest, strongest and most durable of the Japanese chisels. It’s ideal for heavy work such as timber framing and wasting large amounts of wood quickly. Besides carpenters and timber framers, many professional craftsmen in Japan, even those that never work on construction sites, prefer to use atsunomi even for delicate work because of their relatively longer blades and cost-effectiveness.

Because of its greater size and weight, the atsunomi is not as nimble as the smaller varieties of tatakinomi and demands greater strength and skill of the user. But on the other hand, it’s very stable in the cut, wastes wood with impressive gravitas, and will endure many decades of hard daily use in professional situations without complaining.

YMHOS

A folding screen by Kano Hogai with an ancient plum tree, bamboo, and birds. This screen is a designated “natural treasure.”

The Varieties of Japanese Chisels

The Mentori Oiirenomi (面取追入鑿）

The Kakuuchi Oiirenomi (角打追入鑿）

The Hantataki Chisel

The Atsunomi （厚鑿)

The Usunomi Paring Chisel

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This picture is from the graduating class photos taken in 1940. The guy in the middle, L. Moskowitz, is my father. The picture is from P.S. (Public School) 30 Junior High School in the Yorkville section of Manhattan. My father was 18 at the time, and he was just graduating junior high.

My father came to this country four years earlier (1936) from a small town of what was then Czechoslovakia. He spoke no English. At home he and his parents and siblings spoke Hungarian, because their town was in Hungry before World War I. (It's now part of Ukraine.) From an Orthodox Jewish upbringing, he was initially sent to a yeshiva in Brooklyn for his education. He rebelled and insisted that his father let him go to the local public school. His family lived on 82nd Street; the school was on 88th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. When I was a kid, I lived on East 88th Street and I remember walking by. By then the school was closed and abandoned. Later it was torn down entirely to make way for an apartment building.

Let's take a look at a larger picture of the entire graduating class. All boys, because I assume it was a boys school. Or at least the classes might have been segregated by sex. From the looks of the picture, my father wasn't the only older kid in the class. Some of those other boys look pretty old for junior high as well. And the names are the names of immigrants. Szabo, Tkacz, LoPresti, Viskupic, Fedorico. Given the neighborhood, I'm assuming most of them were Hungarian, Czech, or Slovak, with Polish, Italian, and other immigrants thrown in for good measure. There's was a large German population in Yorkville at the time. Yorkville was known for it; there were breweries and famous food establishments like Schaller & Weber (opened in 1937) In those days, students were not allowed to advance in public school unless they could speak English and keep up with the work, which is why there were older kids in junior high.

After my father graduated PS 30, he went to Seward Park High School on the Lower East Side. He rode the public bus with a kid named Bernie Schwartz, who later became known as the actor Tony Curtis. The country was still recovering from the Depression and the city had a huge influx of immigrants from all over, many fleeing Nazi Germany. The reason my father was able to learn English, in spite of the fact that it wasn't spoken at home, was that he desperately wanted to be American. The school assigned him, and all the other immigrant kids, individual tutors to help them along.

After graduating from high school my father enlisted in the Air Force. In 1943. He ended up as a mechanic on airplanes, mostly B24s. He did a lot of maintenance on the Norton bombsight in Italy. He was the youngest in his family and the only one to go to college. He attended City College on G.I. bill. (City University says that nowadays 45% of its students are immigrants or the children of immigrants.)

I mentioned the story for two reasons. The first is that my father's Junior high School picture has been sitting next to my desk since he passed away. The second reason I mention this is because it reminds me how we're a nation of immigrants. In my father's day and beforehand, like my wife's family, the immigrants came mostly from Eastern Europe and Southern Italy. Before that, Irish. You could go on like this for a long time. I am continually reminded that if grape harvest had not rotted on the tracks because of a rail strike in Czechoslovakia in the late nineteen teens, my grandfather would never have emigrated. He came to New York City in 1922 and became a blacksmith, working on the ironwork at the Cathedral of St John the Divine. He never would have gone on the in the grocery business thereafter. Once he was established, he called for his wife and younger children to join him, and they did. If there hadn't been a rail strike and resultant desperation, they would not have left their home, and my grandparents and my father and some of his siblings would have instead been murdered in Europe, like all my relatives - aunts, uncles, and cousins - who remained.

My father was always grateful to have been able to immigrate here, and to serve in the US army and to work as a NYC civil servant. In spite of his enthusiasm for the United States, he was always nostalgic about the Old Country. "You never saw so many types of wonderful apples at the market!" was a sample recollection. He also said to me that paying taxes was a privilege: it meant you were successful.

Happy Father's Day to all.

PS 30 in the 1940's - from the NYC Municipal Archives

Had a  good and bad day depending upon how you look at a half filled glass of water. I did my first walk about at 0830 and it took me 27 minutes to complete including resting 4 times to catch my breath. The first part of the walk I felt like I was trying to hack up what was left of my lungs. Got winded and out of breath but the 2nd half of the walk was cough free. The strange part is that I felt good in spite of being tired from a short, easy walk.

I did the 2nd walk at 1555 and it was different. I didn't cough as much initially but I still got winded, out of breath and had to stop catch my breath. It felt good to be walking again. Fingers crossed that my right foot doesn't throw a hissy fit tomorrow.

layout

Transferred the story pole to one edge of the dresser. Clamped the two sides together and knifed the pencil lines across the two.

hmm.....

I made the stopped dado for the rail 1 1/2" which just happens to be the size of this butt chisel. I thought chiseling this thin of a dado with this chisel would have given me some headaches but it didn't. Sharp cures a lot of what ifs and maybes.

1/2 done

I flattened the dado with a router but I still have to saw a 1/2" x 1/2" notch at the top. I will do that after I have done all of the dado work. That will save the notches from getting the snot beat out of them. 

This is all I got done today. The first walk wore me out and made me feel like I had worked a 12 hour shift. I had made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch that I didn't finish. I fell asleep at my desk and woke up over 2 hours later.

I am still not sleeping through the night. I hit the rack around 2200 and I've been waking up 3-4 hours later. I do seem to add a little more time each day so that is encouraging. As much as I hate it, taking a nap might be a good idea.

I am feeling better each day but today made me feel my age. I was worn out with absolutely no desire to do anything but sit at my desk. Wondering if I will ever get back to putting 5-8 hours in the shop daily?

accidental woodworker

I posted a picture on my FB recently showing two draw bore pins slightly protruding from the end cap of a breadboard end tabletop. I was surprised that so many confidently identified and asserted these two end-grain protrusions as our now commonly used wood plugs, and then that these plugs were hiding screwheads. They then identified the tenon haunch of the tenon that was visible as a short tenon where the plugs made no sense because they didn't reach the tenon anyway and would serve no purpose. Of course, even though I mention that the table is over a hundred years old and made from solid wood. It shows that culturally, people thinking from the new era assumed that the slightly protruding circles were indeed wood plugs of the type used in modern-day woodworking to hide screwheads and not the anchor points to fix tenons in place in mortises. They also never knew that, on the 90º corners on some frames, we use a short aspect to the tenon called a haunch that enables us to fully enclose a tenon within the mortise on all four sides and that, if grooved to receive a panel, the haunch part to the tenon fills the groove gap left by ploughing. The assumption by these woodworker types was that the screws were anchoring the tabletop to the legs or apron below, and so commented from their ignorance rather than any woodworking knowledge; assumptions can do that. This is the kind of confidence that gives the impression of being knowledgeable, but the problem is that others assume that they are right.

The two 10mm (3/8" in old money) pegs still hold despite wood shrinkage and expansion for a hundred plus years.

I assumed ignorance, of course I did, but telling someone they are ignorant is to state it wrongly, even if that is what they are. If we say of ourselves that we are or were ignorant of something, then that's okay. If someone states you are or were ignorant, that's usually different, very different. It might be accurate, and it might at the same time be a rude thing to say depending on our culture

My own draw-bore pins with boxwood handles and brass ferrules.

Culture defines us in many ways because culture is the educating factor that enables us to function within particular cohorts of society. Cultural differences and diversity can make us ignorant, as can our personal assumptions. Returning to my UK living, I regularly hear British people say, "Well, you know what Americans are like." Before I lived and worked in the USA, I might have agreed, but having lived in that culture, amongst such a wonderful people, I realise how prejudiced Brits in general can be.

Even living in cultures that once held common knowledge in things like woodworking may well have changed. The majority of woodworkers have never and will never use a draw-bore pin to pull up the shoulders of a tenon to the mortise, to ultimately drive in a the wooden peg for its final destiny in holding the two parts of the joint together in its permanent "marriage." It's also a truism that neither will they ever develop the pegs, pins, trunnels, or treenails with drawknives or spokeshaves. Methods of construction have changed with new technologies, and thereby culture, by its very definition, is perpetually evolving, and this in turn makes culture fluid in its changeableness. New words in woodworking have replaced things like mortise and tenons and dowels. Think 'biscuit' and 'domino.' These two words had entirely different meanings but were adopted because the developers of the technology lacked any imagination to come up with a meaningful and appropriate term. Calling a compressed and dried-down oval piece of wood a biscuit doesn't make an edible treat. You see, a wooden peg by the name of "tree nail", or in the vernacular of the local dialect in the day, "trunnel," pegged it, if you'll allow the pun. Recounting a story of a plane journey, the English stewardess (now flight attendant) asked the American travelers whether they would like some squash and biscuits. The Americans gave a funny look. In English, squash is a concentrated fruit juice with added water to taste, and a biscuit is a cookie. To the Americans, squash is a vegetable, and a biscuit is similar in looks and size to scone but not as sweet as a scone.

Clamps are taken for granted today; screw threads are assumed by everyone.

There is, of course, no real need for draw-bore methods of construction these days because we have no need for them. Today we have woodworking clamps, or cramps, to pull up our joints. I once clamped a floor with a 40-foot span with extension pipes made from threaded steel pipes using a pipe clamp head and shoe. Clamps became all the more ubiquitous because of the threaded screw and thereby relatively inexpensive. We all own a half a dozen clamps of different types. And we no longer boil up animal hides and bones to make glue from either. PVA works great and has a long shelf life. So some words are adopted, and others become archaic to the point of oblivion. No child in any school in the world will know what a draw-bore pin is and 99.9% will never know that a mortise and tenon joint in wood even existed by the turn of the century, if they even do now.

My friend uses an all-steel draw-bore pin is inserted initially to draw in the tenon to the mortise before the peg is driven in.

The confusion from my pub tabletop came from one thing appearing like another. In our modern woodworking culture, we generally hide our power-driven, crossheaded, ugly screw heads with wooden plugs and align the grain to match the long axis of the grain of the main body of wood because we want the grain to correspond to it and we also want to hide our use of screws. Done right, by using a carefully matched plug cutter to hole size, tone in the wood, and then grain selection of the plug wood too, the plug itself can 98% disappear.

A tenon cut ready for insertion and pegging on a project back in 2009.

So I did use the word ignorant. Told someone that they were indeed ignorant but in no way saying that they were ignorant people even though they followed on to make assumptions that led me to believe that they were. The image posted was clear to me because I knew how the joint went together, the history of it and of course my own use of it in my work. Indeed, I teach these things throughout my videos and designs. Referring to the obviously end-grain circles as plugs didn't make them plugs. Instead of looking and looking again, they immediately jumped on the word 'plug.' When they went on and said that the table makers should have aligned the grain so that the plug expanded at the same rate as the long grain of the body wood, I did wonder what planet they were living on. What source and which book had they read to make such a confident statement? Many gurus seem to me at least to be more and more silly. A 10mm (3/8") plug cut from dry wood and inserted into dry wood by a 2º taper will never face any contradiction by grain orientation even if fully immersed into the sea for life.

Anyway, we are all ignorant of many things, and we get along by certain levels of tolerance.

Had two appointments at the VA today, one at podiatry (AM) and the other with pulmonary (PM). The foot doc said I had most likely broken my big toe based on what I told him about it. That certainly explains the pain and why it took so long to go away. He told me that I should be able to manage two, 20 minute, walks a day now. Day one for that starts tomorrow.

marked

I set the front edge of the sides a 1/2" from the outside edge of the top. Once I had that I marked the back  edge and sawed the two sides.

rail half dovetails sawn

This was a bit tricky for me to layout. I laid out the slant wrong on 3 of the four. I had to double triple check myself a bazillion times before I sawed them. I did half tails because I didn't want a single tail with two half pins. I think this will be as strong or stronger than a single tail would be. I will glue and nail these with cut nails.

done

I am kind a of square. The left side is gap free between the blade and the side. The right side was square at the back. At the front it was square and gap free at the bottom but there was a wee bit of light at the top couple of inches. 

I wasn't overjoyed at the fit. The front rail had a gap and neither rail fit snug or was self supporting. The half dovetail was a good fit and it will keep the sides square and where they should be. I will fill the gaps with shims - and they will never be seen.

I sawed the tails and pins with my dozuki saw. My opinion of this saw is still changing. I like how smooth the cuts are and I'm finding it easier to saw square/plumb with over a western saw. Not sure how far down the japanese saw road I will go but for now it worked well doing the front/back rails.

hmm......

Did a layout starting from the top 1 1/2" drawer opening down with a 1/2" drawer rail in between openings. The bottom drawer was 2 1/4" which is too wide IMO. I only need 1 1/8" of depth for a plastic screw container. 

Laid out a second one with 1 3/4" for 4 drawers with the last one being a few frog hairs shy of 1 5/8". I didn't like this layout - this one had the shortest drawer at the bottom and I think that should be at the top. I also think that the difference should be more then 1/8". Visually this is too easy to miss.

good, better, the best

I cut two scraps that is were the same length between the top and bottom of the carcass (ID). I'm going with the 3rd and final one I laid out.  The top drawer is 1 1/2" and the other four are 1 3/4". I might need to make another one because I have a lot of hardware/screws/etc scattered/stowed around the shop. Maybe 2 or more hardware dressers would consolidate the herd in one corral.

The 2nd appointment with pulmonary  was at 1500. Found out that they removed a 8cm tumor and according to the Doc based on the size was most likely stage 3. I'll  get the official word on that june 26th from West Roxbury VA. The impression I got was that the pulmonary team is more concerned with my secondary ILD (Interstitial Lung Disease). Before either the Prov VA or West Roxbury VA decide on how to  treat the ILD, I have to heal from the lung cancer surgery.

No appointments on the calendar for tomorrow so I should get more shop time. I felt much better today, still coughing but most the pain with that is gone. Now I have to build my lungs back up -  still can't take a full, deep, breath. Partly due to the missing part of the lung and ILD. Sounds like tons of fun upcoming.

accidental woodworker 

I didn’t need to make any more blocks of beeswax for the moment, so I concentrated on turning my purified beeswax into Blend 31.

The preparation is indeed exotic (/sarc).  I weigh out several hundred grams of shellac wax, then three times as much of the purified beeswax.  It all goes into the cooker to melt together at a slightly higher temperature than is necessary for the beeswax alone.

Once it was all melted uniformly I ladled it into the silicone molds I made a long time ago that have served me well all these years.  Given the temperature of the room I can make a new pour every 30-45 minutes as the blocks cool and can be removed from the molds.  They are still pretty warm at this point and need to be set aside to cool completely.

A good day’s production is almost 50 units.  I make four at a time, and each extraction/pour takes about 5-7 minutes.

Now on to the wrapping and packaging of the wax to take it to Handworks 2026.

 Another miserable night. Anesthesia is a wonderful thing but the side effects linger way longer then its actual use. Went to bed at 2145, fell asleep right away, and then woke up at 1230. I couldn't fall back asleep no matter what I tried. I had the same sleep  headaches when I had my right hip replaced. Don't know how long this @)%&@)%_*_@# BS is going to continue. 

hmm.....

Went to the shop after sitting at my desk for a few hours. The plan was to work until I couldn't anymore. I did a knife wall on the top end of the dado. I like that it keeps it clean and concise as I chop the dado. Without that this gets ragged out chopping the two outside walls of the dado and it tends to becomes longer than it was laid out to be.

not quite enough

The side fits in the dado snug but the side isn't bottoming out. I shaved a wee bit off the inside bottom until the the side bottomed out - and it was still snug. 

nope

The bottom fits on the sides back the grain orientation is wrong. The plan was to get the front and back rails from this but I can't. The grain runs in the opposite direction along the length I want it to.

sizing the front/back rails

I clamped the sides plumb to the top and the measurement at the bottom wasn't the same as the measurement at the top. After playing with this doing some different clamping, I decided that the bottom measurement is carved in stone and I'll use this stick to ensure the inside spacing of the sides at the bottom is the same as it is at the top.

The  kicker is the right side (as I was looking at it) wasn't plumb - it went slightly out of square towards the bottom (the top as I was looking at it). The side wasn't twisted and checked flat and straight. So I am going with the spacing as dictated by the top captured in the sides and match it at the bottom.

done

Got the front and back bottom rails sawn to size (R/L). Stopped here because I haven't decided how to attach the rails to the sides. Do half blind or through dovetails? I don't mind seeing the joinery showing.

This is all I got done today - normally I think it would have taken me 45 minutes but this is the results after 2 hours of puttering in the shop. It felt good spending that amount of continuous time in the shop. Don't know if I was going slow purposely or not but at least I wasn't sitting on my arse doing nothing.

Being immobile to the point that I would have to sit or lie on a bed is not living IMO. I have been thinking ahead with this and I'm considering taking up model ship building again. I made 3 wooden ship models in the early part of my Navy career. 

accidental woodworker

 I slept good last night and the peepers failed open at 0430. I went back asleep and woke up again at 0645. However, I was in a wee bit of pain along with a mountain of soreness. The Breathing/discharge tube hole hasn't gotten the memo to heal and shut yet. The act of coughing still ain't bad but the tube hole sings arias whenever I do cough and not always in tune. The strange thing is I feel better coughing but the pain from the tube hole negates it big time.

I spent my entire morning siting at my desk and vegetated until lunchtime. I got up twice to get coffee and twice to pee. It didn't seem to help with my erratic heart rate. It still fluctuated up and down. Sitting still doing nothing with lowering it. My wife researched this tidbit and it is a common side effect with the surgery I had.

My belly is still twice the size it was before the surgery - there are still gallons of fluid in my chest wall cavity. I look like I swallowed a 3XL beach ball. I have an appointment with pulmonary at the Prov VA on monday where I'll get my tube hole bandages changed/removed. Maybe that will help things out the pain etc. Fingers and toes double crossed.

hmm.......

I wasn't going to go to the shop today but at 1412 I ambled on down there. The plan was to flatten the first dado down to depth. There is a void centered on the dado but there isn't any pitch in it. On the opposite face it is all solid wood. No pitch pocket or any evidence there is/was one. I'll have to mark this location so I don't put a Miller dowel in it.

I had to check it

This wasn't in the plan but I had to check the fit. It was snug and I was expecting a gap at the back end on both faces.

why not

I notched the front so it would hide the end of the dado. I had to plane the inside edge a wee bit to facilitate the fit.

one thing led to another

The clamps pulled the side down tight into the dado but it wasn't square. I had to push the side into the interior to get it square. After I get the 2nd side done, I can size the front and back rails.

drawer layout

I did the layout for the drawer rails on the back part that will be cut off. I used dividers first but that didn't work out. The top is down a 1/4" and the bottom is up 11/16". I was getting confused and my results sucked pond scum. Switched to laying them out with a ruler.

took 4 tries

I ended up with one more drawer then I had on my rough sketch. The bottom drawer is 1 7/8" high and the others are 1 5/8". The top one is a strong 16th wider - should be unnoticeable.

sigh

Two of the layouts were right but wrong. The wider drawer ended up at the top (twice) and I wanted that one to be on the bottom.

hmm.....

Not carved in stone yet. I can and probably will add the 16th on the top drawer to the bottom one. I couldn't believe I had spent this much time in the shop. No headaches, breathing issues, but not what I had planned.

accidental woodworker 

When I visit antique shops, I’m always pulling out drawers and looking underneath pieces to see how–and when–the thing was built. Most of the older, handmade pieces are way out of my price range, so I’m just looking appreciatively.

But once in a while, I find something I can’t pass up.

My wife and I found this old sideboard at a local thrift shop. After giving it a quick once-over, I decided it was well worth the $120 they were asking for it.

Although it was pretty beat up (more on that below), I could tell there was something really good underneath the grime and the old, dark finish.

And I’m going to spoil the ending for you right now, in case you’re more interested in the product than the process of the restoration.

This is what was under all that:

Getting from here to there took a lot of work, and it was totally worth the time and effort.

In this post and the next, I want to walk you through some elements in the process of examining, repairing, and refinishing this sideboard.

Why I Chose This Piece

What first attracted me to this sideboard was the construction. Everything about it says late 19th century. There are no maker’s marks or factory markings on it anywhere. I think it was probably made professionally somewhere in the eastern USA, but there’s no telling exactly where. I have not seen furniture in quite this style before (note the carved drawer pulls, for example!) but all the construction details suggest it was made sometime the 1880s or the 1890s.

The first thing I do when examining an old piece of cabinet work is to pull out a drawer and look at the corners. These are hand-cut dovetails. As soon as I saw them, I knew I had to have this piece.

Predictably, the ones in the backs of the drawers are a little rougher than the ones at the front. But they’re all still solidly together. You can tell they’re hand-cut not only by the shape but also because a couple of the lines are over-cut.

The wood, by the way, is all poplar, except for the oak fronts.

Drawer bottoms are full of interesting information. I will admit, though, that I’ve never seen one quite like this.

The drawer bottom is solid wood (not plywood). It’s uncommon to find a multi-drawer unit this old with intact drawer bottoms. Drawer bottoms are often split or otherwise damaged, but these are all in great shape.

Most such solid bottoms drawer bottoms are either rabbeted or planed on three sides to fit into the groove in the sides. These drawers, however, have both. Each bottom panel is rabbeted on two sides and then beveled (with a handplane) on the third side. I’ve never seen that before.

There are two other things to notice. One is the use of cut nails to affix the drawer bottom to the back. (Cut nails generally predate the more modern wire nails we’re familiar with.) The other is the saw marks from a rotary saw blade. Notice that the panel is a single, wide board, but it was cut from a thicker board in two passes: the board looks like it was passed through the saw once to cut halfway through. Then it was flipped end-for-end and passed through again to finish the cut. The two cuts didn’t line up exactly, but they were good enough for drawer bottoms.

The back of the case also had some interesting information.

The back panels are all solid–not plywood. These boards are also rabbeted on each end, even though there’s no reason for them to be. They don’t fit into any kind of groove. I begin to wonder if the maker was working with boards that already had a rabbet machine-cut into the edges for some other purpose. That would explain the drawer bottoms.

All these back boards are attached with wire nails, not cut nails. I was surprised to find both kinds of nails in this case, but the presence of both suggests the sideboard was made at a time when both kinds of nails were in widespread use, which is the end of the 1800s.

After we got this sideboard home, I discovered a fun feature. It has a secret compartment attached under the top!

To access this secret compartment, you just remove one of the drawers, and then you reach underneath and slide your money or documents into the compartment. (Unfortunately, it was empty.) There are also the remnants of some decals on this compartment, but it’s too bad they aren’t in better shape.

Here, I’ll save you the trouble of flipping the photo upside-down.

At first I thought perhaps this was some kind of maker’s mark or factory identifier for the sideboard. But after looking at it for a while, I realized the secret compartment had been made from a bit of an old cigar box. I didn’t have much luck searching the Internet for information on this stamp, but if you know something about how to identify and date old cigar boxes based on factory stamps, let me know in the comments!

Anyhow, despite the cool features showing that this whole sideboard was handmade in the 19th century, I have to admit that it was also in pretty rough shape.

The biggest problem was the top.

Not only were there a lot of stains and burn marks all over it, but there was also one place on the right where the top had been almost entirely burned through! (The extent of the damage only became evident once I did an initial strip of the finish.)

This hole had been filled in with some sort of putty or plaster, which had long ago come loose. After removing much of the remaining filler, it became clear that some kind of burning liquid had once spilled onto the wood and run down the front, eating/burning almost through the top and leaving char and burn marks elsewhere. I don’t know what sort of chemistry would have done this. The damage was severe, but localized. If you have a guess on the cause, let me know in the comments!

I knew I was going to have to repair this damage somehow.

Also, each of the three door panels had cracked, and all of the cracks had long ago been filled in with the same sort of putty.

When I first opened the doors, I saw why they had split. The panels were solid pieces just screwed onto the backs of the frames.

But the insides of the doors also gave me a clue as to what kind of wood was underneath the old, murky finish. The whole case is indeed made from solid oak. I knew it was going to take a few days’ work to get this sideboard into working shape, but I hoped that the results would be worth the effort.

Repair the Wood and Remove the Old Finish

The first step was to remove the door panels, clean out the splits, and glue them back together. Fortunately the patches were shallow, and the splits were still fairly clean deeper inside. So I was able to glue everything right back in place.

I also enlarged the screw holes on the sides so as to allow for a bit of wood movement–which had not been done as originally constructed. That’s why the panels all split in the first place.

I did some other little repair work–reinforcing a loose piece with a screw here and a nail there. My goal was not to fully restore this piece to like-new condition, but to make it stable and functional for the next hundred years or so.

The major work was taking off the old finish. I haven’t done this much before, so after reading some online tutorials, I just experimented a little bit to find a process that worked for me. After a couple missteps I got pretty good results. I don’t have enough experience to tell you how to go about your own job like this, but I will tell you what worked for me.

First, have the right the tools. This includes…

• A cheap, natural bristle brush to apply the chemical stripper
• A couple plastic/nylon putty knives to scrape it off. (Lowe’s had the blue tool shown above, which I found really useful.)
• Coarse steel wool
• Lots of paper towels
• Nitrile gloves (not pictured)

For the stripper, I used the “Kleen Strip” brand. I also found it really helpful to use the same brand of “After-Wash.”

I did the whole job in my garage with the door open and the wind coming in. Even so, the fumes were strong at times.

After disassembling the piece as much as I could (e.g. removing doors and drawer pulls), I applied the stripper liberally over just one surface (like the top or the door panels). Because there’s a limited timeframe in which to work, it’s best to do a section at a time, rather than try to do multiple surfaces at once. After letting the chemical sit 15 minutes or so, I scraped the sludge off.

On most surfaces, I scraped off as much as I could, then immediately applied a second coat of the stripper and let that sit another 15 minutes to finish the job.

This is after an initial strip and scrape.

This is after the second application.

I used the steel wool, as well as the corners of the scraping tools, to get into corners and into moldings. Make sure you loosen every bit of sludge, especially in corners.

Once I had scraped off as much as the gunk as I could, but while the surface was still somewhat moist from the stripper, I flooded the surface with the after-wash and wiped off the residue with more steel wool and lots of paper towel. Again, go over every surface carefully to make sure you’ve gotten off every last bit of the sludge.

As it turned out, both the drawer fronts and the door panels were veneered with figured oak!

Part of the fun is getting a first look at the wood grain underneath.

I learned that it’s much easier to do this kind of cleaning work on horizontal surfaces. As you can see above, I set up a folding table and wrapped the top with cling-wrap, which provided an ideal work surface for the drawers and doors.

To clean each side of the case, I tipped the whole case on its back and then onto each end in order to work on each respective surface horizontally. I’m very glad I went to that trouble. It’s much easier to do this work on a horizontal surface than on a vertical one.

Once I had the old finish removed, I was able to move on to the major repair issue.

In my next post, I will show how I repaired the gap burned into the top, and I’ll give a short account of the refinishing.

 Day two at home and things aren't exactly a Disneyland movie yet. The left side of my chest is swollen. Parts of it look like an inflated balloon and it it firm to the touch. That is causing heart problems - my heart rate is fluctuating from 70 all the way up to 130 and above. The highest it hit today was a brief 172. It doesn't feel bad, no shortness of breath, and no dizziness. However, the heart rate numbers are in the A fib territory.

That aside it is the coughing that is crippling me. That hurts like hell but not quite as bad as the pneumonia coughing I did back in november. The chest tube hole doesn't like it and expresses it so with pain that brings me to my knees.

The last headache I'm dealing with is sleeping. I got maybe an hour last night. I tried to fall asleep on back and after 4 hours I gave up and watched You Tube vids. Between 0200 and 0545 when I said fxxx it and got up, I think I got an hours worth of shut eye. Tried not to nod out today so maybe I'll be so )#)^&*^#_# tired I'll pass out. The )@&%)@&%@#)__+)# heat wave ain't helping much neither.

hmm......

I got maybe an hour total in the shop today. One thing I have to guard against is repetitious arm movements like sawing etc. Got the top and sides of the dresser to size. Noticed that is appeared to be shrinking but I could be wrong. 

first change

Initially I was going to put a solid bottom on dovetailed into the sides. Nixed that and I will now put a rail at the front and back. A solid bottom isn't needed because I am putting a base platform on the bottom.

yeah, it is shrinking

I did something wrong on the layout and I'm losing over an inch of depth on the sides. The front/back depth is now about 11 3/8 " instead of 12 1/4".

almost

Just need to flatten the first dado and rout it down to final depth. After the top is clamped in placed I will size and install the two bottom front/back cross rails.

No problems with the brief time I was in the shop. It didn't feel any different now then before the surgery. I had contacted a tool seller before the surgery and he is willing to buy out my shop. This is something I don't want to leave to my wife to have to deal with. Now that I know I can still woodwork, the buyout is on a back burner for now. That is subject to change if my health decides to go south on me again.

accidental woodworker 

I re-melt the 75% clean blocks in my cooker and then filter them through my favorite medium for the task, Bounty *full sheet* paper towels.

The paper towels are placed inside a kitchen pasta strainer for support, which is then placed inside a section of stovepipe that is held up on the edges of the cookie sheet, and then the molten wax is ladled through.

The output is drizzled into cookie sheets dedicated for that purpose.

I replace the filter membrane for each new cookie sheet casting.  This is what the used filter sheet looks like after one cookie sheet casting.  This does not get discarded, it is re-used as a firestarter in the wood stove in the winter.

The result is a full-sheet roughly 1/4″ thick that is wonderfully clean and pure.  Since the cast sheet is so thin it starts cooling immediately, resulting in an uneven thickness.  It’s now ready for whatever comes next, casting the 1/4 lb. beeswax blocks, formulating and casting Blend 31, or playing with new concoctions.

Up next – Blend 31.