Hand Tools

ready to go

Changed my mind on the installation of the slats. I'm going to do the two sides first, get them glued and cooked, while I work on the back slats.

last one

Last slat fitted in the last mortise for the bottom rail. Wash, rinse, and repeat for the  top rail.

first dry fit

The only hairy part of this is fitting the slats into both rails. It wasn't that bad and there wasn't even the smallest hint anything would get flying lessons. I had to do this one more time (for each side) when I glued it up.

hmm.......

Before I installed the slats I had dry fitted the rails again and checked the diagonals to get the measurements. Dry fitted again with the slats and the diagonals were off over a 1/4". It took a wee bit of effort with a 4 foot clamp pulling the long diagonal before I got them to agree with what I had without the slats.

2nd side slat installation

First step was to plane a chamfer on all four edges. After that I took two shavings off all edges and progressed from that until the slat fit snugly.

2 dry fitted sides

Looking at the two sides dry fitted, I think I should have gone with two more slats. The gap between the legs and the outside slats is almost 4".

glued and cooking

Got both sides glued and I'll let them cook until tomorrow. Survived both glue ups without any hiccups.

left turn

Changed my mind on using walnut for the center wide slat on the back rails. I sawed off a length to get the slat from. I don't have enough cherry in my stash to make another desk so being miserly with it doesn't matter. I'll use the rest of this board to make the slats for Leo's desk.

2" wide slat stock

The plan was to get the 2" slat from board where the knot was. It doesn't go through all the way through the board.

made a story pole

There are 17 slats on the back rails. One 2" wide (actually 1 7/8") centered R/L and 16 3/4" wide slats. The gap between the last slat and the leg is around 2 1/2" wide. Made a story pole to transfer the layout from one rail to the other.

success

I double, triple checked myself on this layout a bazillion times. I got it right this time or at least I think it was right the four times I checked myself. I'll chop these mortises starting in the AM.

accidental woodworker

 

almost

Got all the mortises chopped for the slats. Slats are cleaned and smoothed on all four edges. They will be individually fitted to their specific mortise. I'll do all three sets of them at one time.

dead nuts

Both diagonals said hello with 37 7/16". The other side came in with the exact diagonals. 

numbered

I numbered the bottom of each of the nine slats and the inside wall of the top/bottom rail mortises. I resisted the urge to get the slats installed on this but I'll wait.

sigh

Another brain fart. I started the mortises on the wrong edge, again. I didn't want to flip it and do the mortises on the top. These mortises would be visible on the underside of the rail - it is the bottom one. You would have to flip the desk over or get on the floor to look at them. 

I was able to flip it 180 and switch which tenon went into the legs. No haunches to worry about as there are none on the bottom rails. I had to take a few shavings on one of the tenons to get it to fit - it was too snug.

the correction

I did have to plane a bevel on the opposite face so the two rails will have space in the mortises where they meet.

I have one more rail to chop mortises in and the sides will be done. I am making a change to the back slats. I'm going to put one 2" wide slat centered on the rail L/R. I am leaning towards using walnut for it. I really don't want to use any of the cherry stash I have left to get one slat from. 

Didn't get a PM session today. My PCP called and said there was a cancellation and I was able to get my echocardiogram done at 1400. I had a student from the local community college do it. She did pretty good with most of it and had to hand it off to the tech for one portion of the test. It took a wee bit longer than having a tech do it but we all have to learn how. No problem with that because when you're retired time isn't a big deal, at least not with me.

accidental woodworker 

E. Hoppus, "Mr. Hoppus's Measurer", London, 1777

Before the internet, finding things in a book could be challenging. A library with a good librarian could be essential for success if your topic was obscure. But even with the book in hand, a table of contents only got you to the general neighborhood and you might need an index for the actual item. Library indexes date from ancient Greece and Egypt but the indices at the end of the books are a thirteenth century innovation. Tool catalogs really are a late 18th century invention (not entirely). In the picture at the top, we have an 1777 edition of "Mr. Hoppus's Measurer," a book mostly of tables and formulas for computing the value of timber and other items. But the back has a more narrative look at some useful items likes saws and their prices. Hoppus also has a table of contents at the beginning of the book - but no index.

Why am I thinking about the quest for knowledge? It's because I think all time how hard it is for people to find us, and how hard it may be for them to find the things they want from us. My favorite job at Tools for Working Wood is interacting with customers in person. Unfortunately I don't spend most of my time doing that. My main jobs are as follows: paying bills, doing all the bookkeeping, figuring out how to make tools, designing tools based on what I figured out, writing a blog, and caring for and maintaining our website.

I realize I am no damn good at some of these tasks - as many of you know, when you are a small business owner, you still have to do a task even if you are no damn good at it - but Ive actually developed competence at some of them. Competent enough? Its hard to know. We occasionally hear from customers when something really really good happens, but we always hear from some customers when something bad happens.

Bad can mean a lot of things, both to our customer and to us. The nature of complaining is that most complaints are aired to people who cant do much about them - typically whoever is there at the time. As a merchant, I know we are probably not going to hear complaints from people who are new to our site or casual browsers. They will just leave if they cant find what they want.

So the thing I am concerned about and we don't really hear from you enough about is, can you find the things you want to get on our website? We are particularly attuned to this topic because we just changed the websites search engine. (This is why the words enhanced by Google now appear in the search box in the upper right hand corner.) The search engine covers products for sale as well as information in the blogs. So I have a question for you: when you look at our website, can you find what you're looking for? I mean either by typing in a product in the search box, or by drilling down in the list of departments or links from products to products? When you get there, do you find what you're looking for? Between tariffs and high fuel costs, we are out of certain items, and Ashley Iles and Ray Iles products have always been a challenge to have in full stock. But we do have a lot of items that you nevertheless cant find and you may just think we don't stock it. It is those items that concern us the most. We are also interested in products you wished we carried but dont. (Customer requests are literally why we carry Odies Oil, Pica pencils and Fastcap; we look into all customer suggestions but sometimes the wholesale terms are too unfavorable to a little guy like us to consider.)

So we welcome your thoughts about how to make search better. Please add your comments below. And we - and many strangers - thank you.

The picture below is from the index at the end of Randle Holme's 1688 The Academy of Armory (York, England). Not a catalog but full of useful information. The index is invaluable. 19th and 20th century tool catalogs moved the index to the front so you could easily find what you were looking for.
Randle Holme, "The Academy of Armory," York, England, 1688

My sons learned to sharpen saws from me. After a few minutes, they understood the essentiality of direct thrusts and certain angles with files into and through the gullets uniting each two teeth. The saw thrust is the uniting factor. With handsaw file-sharpening of any type, you are cutting two teeth or the equivalent of one; as the saw file passes into the gullet, it sharpens both the back of one tooth and, in the same stroke, the front of the other adjacent tooth. Generally, this is good and fine. Sometimes, occasionally, we might micro-adjust an individual tooth that needs extra input because it's uneven or damaged. In such cases, we may only file the back or the front of a particular tooth, just to resize or correct its profile to better align and match the other teeth.

I think that people rarely see early on that sharpness and sharpening in-house is a non-negotiable, but we soon come to realise that without sharp tools the work becomes drudgery. I used to tell students in my classes, "If you are not prepared to sharpen and sharpen even mid-task, you should take up machining." You see, we really can't send a saw to be sharpened if we want to become real woodworkers. Cutting edges don't wear so much to dullness but edge-fracture. It's not a water-washing-over-stone wear out but the fracture of edges minute by minute.

Even really rugged saw plates pitted both sides will give you a good saw if

I called over to my son and asked him to sharpen one of my saws for me. He was fifteen years old at the time. I gave him the file, he looked at the saw teeth and picked up a flat file as well. Pulling the stool out, he positioned himself with the saw held in a saw chock in the vise, and he first topped (jointed USA) the saw teeth very minimally before filing the teeth. The thing is this. I don't need anyone else to sharpen my saw teeth. I have sharpened my various saws, overlapping them here and there because I do use half a dozen different ones. This probably means a saw every two weeks. Since my 61 years of doing this, that's 25 sharpenings in a year, so we're looking at 1500 saw sharpenings, but then I have sharpened saws for the schools I have had too , along with those of friends and such, acquaintances. I'd add as many again, that being the case, so let's settle on 3,000 sessions of saw sharpening. That's around 200 hours. That could be around 2.4 million saw teeth I have sharpened individually.

It was in 1965, towards the end of the year, a dark winter's afternoon with snow gathering outside at a rapid rate, when George tasked me, "Paul, can you sharpen my saws for me, please?" He handed me two saw files. Stubbs.

One of my former workshops. It takes something to pack up and move on. More than a house for me. There have been many moves for this man. I am evolving as I grow into occupying my space here on earth as it is in heaven, `i think.

I pulled up a bench stool, locked the handsaw in the vise and started sharpening his very old and well-seasoned 26" Spear & Jackson handsaw. Apart from my filing steel, the shop was warm and quiet. The machines were all shut down, spindle moulder, tenoner, planers and tablesaws. That was quite usual near the end of day. We swept every nook and cranny because we didn't want to leave anything that would spread a fire. With the foreman gone, everyone picked up a brush and dustpan, a broom and shovel; the shavings were bagged in burlap bags to feed the boiler for heating first thing in the morning when old Jack or Billy, the two elderly bricklayers and labourers well passed their sell-by date, but the boss didn't want to see them without the work they loved. This was a more thorough clean-up, more than a gathering and keeping the floor clear and safe as in the day's maintenance times.

I cut these out of 3/4" pine right in the middle of a class in Texas in front of 20 students because no one could "see" what the difference was between rip- and cross-cut teeth was. This transformed my teaching because they all could physically see the saw file angles from my using a massive, imitation wooden saw file in the gullets, the rolling of the pitch for more or less aggression, things like that.

My eyes searched for the glinting reflections to each tooth. The file strokes, the angle, had to match the previous ones that engaged in the gullets as presets for me to follow. George was not a hard taskmaster, but he did expect thoroughness from me. At that time, I liked the idea that I was doing my bit for George. When he took the saws to cast his critical over them, he declared each one, "Good enough."

Sharpening saws becomes pure therapy in the positive sense of making something barely wrong right. My saws do not dull visibly. My fingers touch the teeth lightly and if they do not prick the skin and hold under the lightest touch then I stop, take the file, touch the teeth with a half-length stroke and three minutes later I am back on task.

George did the same with his other tools from time to time. Planes and chisels, an auger bit now and then. Rarely did I need to go over something again, and in the end I never did. Bill, old Bill, too often asked me to sharpen his saws, admitting that his, "Eyes ain't any good, 'n' more."

My axe is 150 years old. George taught me to use one even at the workbench in furniture making and joinery, along with sharpening. He used it differently though, like a handless drawknife, to shape the bulk of a bevel in long grain, such like that.

Often kindnesses need no words, but we don't realise at the time that a task set might not obviate the intent. In my mid-sixties I realised that George did not need me to sharpen his saws and that I was not doing him a favour but he me. You see, he knew I needed more practice and risked his saws to me to give me the added experience. I did the same with my kids when they were learning, too. Bill, on the other hand, old Bill, needed genuine help. His eyes were shot, along with a steady hand and the feel it takes for the file to cut crisply. I continued to sharpen his saws until his time came to leave.

No, this is not my saw and nor was it one of Georges. I post it to show how badly a saw can be sharpened. Believe it or not, the teeth were sharp and apart from the occasional 'grab', it did saw in an okay way.

Reflecting on the bountiful tools I saw last weekend at the PATINA tool shindig I was reminded of a tool my friend Justin showed me when he visited a few months ago.  Fashioned entirely out of a whale bone, it is spectacular.

 What a day, what a day. Glad it is over as it was very frustrating at times but I showed a lot of constraint with nothing being broken or enjoying free flying lessons. I started this journey by going to the VA in the AM to make an appointment. The West Roxbury VA put in an order for an echocardiogram but they scheduled it for May and the CT guided biopsy is in april. Defeats the purpose of the echo needing to be done before the CT biopsy.

Normally this would have been an easy thing - just sign into health evet and message my PCP. Have her get me an echo here at the Providence VA. The rub? I couldn't sign into health evet. But I was able to talk to the clinic rep and she left a message explaining the hiccup to my PCP. Now I wait until they call me.

That didn't that long and I was back at the barn a little over an hour later. 

That was errand #1. Errand #2 was dropping off a pair jeans I needed to have taken up. I have short legs and Wally World doesn't sell jeans in my size which is a 28 1/2" leg. Finally wised up and on the way home I stopped at the tailor I used before and they are no more. The location (which is conveniently close to my house) is closing. They are permanently moving to another address. 

No biggie, I went to the other location and they aren't open yet. The windows were papered shut and there was a building permit on the shuttered front door. It is going to be a while before they will be open for business.

Found another tailor and it is one my wife had used for a long time. $10 to get my inseam taken up to 28 1/2". I'll find out on friday if it pays off. BTW Lands End sells jeans in my size and it is the only mfg that I know of that will do custom sizes. However, Wally World jeans are $20 and Lands End are $50 plus.

After I was done with errands #1 & #2, and getting gas, I started to deal with the login dot gov hiccup. This is where the frustration exploded. The security associated with these sites makes me nutso - my wife left to go shopping while I did battle with it. I endured and the reward I got was being able to log in finally.

Fixed my health evet login and it worked. Signed in/out four times to make sure it wasn't a fluke. Got my IRS 1099Rs from the last two retirement accounts. Found out that one of my retirement accounts is still intact. I never set it up after I retired from the VA. Not looking forward to the fun setting that up will be.  Lost $2317 last year. On a brighter note, since 2021 (when I retired), it has grown over $21K. 

I got to the shop after 1300 and I didn't get a lot of time on the pond. Puttered mostly muttering to myself before killing the lights and going topside.

hmm......

Chopped the last mortise in the bottom rail. The chip out is visible and gluing it back down did diddly with hiding/blending it in. At least it is on the bottom and won't be a flashing neon sign hiccup. 

hmm.....

I thought I had made this mortise (the chip one) wider but I hadn't. The slat is wider in both directions then the mortise is. Big smiley happy face on.

Houston we have a problem

I laid out the mortises on the wrong side of the top rail. I had put the rails into the legs to make sure that mortises were in line from the bottom to the top rail. Couldn't do that because there were no mortises on the underside of the top rail. The flip side of the coin this turned out to be lucky for me. The errant mortises will never be seen once the top goes on.

I'm an idiot

Checking the other side and what to my unbelieving eyes did I see. The same hiccup with the mortises laid out on the wrong edge. 

the why

At least I know why I had a serious brain fart twice. Hopefully I'll remember this when I go the two long back rails. Anyway, I saw top labeled on the rails and that is where I did the mortises. Didn't think that all the way through twice.

getting frustrated

I must have had a ton of residual nutso energy from straightening out my log in issues because I screwed this up. The front rail should have been flipped 180 with no mortises laid out on it. Oh well it was still a semi productive day for me.

came today

Trying a new shellac for me. I usually get blonde mostly because this wasn't in stock when I need to order some. The blonde has a hint of tint to it and I'm curious as to how clear this shellac will be.

two things for me in one day

Feels like xmas almost. I already read one of the articles and it calmed me down. I'll probably finish this by tomorrow at the latest.

accidental woodworker 

sneak peek

Dry clamped the base and set the top on it.  I haven't that got to its final size yet but I wanted to check that I got it right. Spoiler alert, I did.

dry clamped base

This is looking good IMO. Simple, plain, and functional. Thinking about doing something with the bottom of the legs - maybe a small taper?

hmm.......

Three of the four legs have cracks in them at the top. The tenons all fit snug and a few were obviously too snug. I'll glue the cracks and set them aside to cook until tomorrow.

glued and cooking

Just to be sure I'll keep these clamps until tomorrow. On the fourth leg I tried to open any hidden cracks in it with a chisel leveraged against the mortise walls. No cracks or even the slightest hint of any.

slats

The slats are slightly over 3/4" x 3/8". The mortises are a frog hair under 3/4" x 3/8". The plan all along was to plane each slat to fit. I want the tenons to be gap free in the mortises.

 

ain't happening

I haven't used this mortise machine in over 5 years? The switch is toast and I had to replace the starting capacitor. It still turned on (switch is now plug it in/out) without any sparks and ran smoothly. However, the widest rail is too tall to fit under the mortising chisel. The shortest one barely fit, there was barely a 32nd of clearance. Scratched the idea of using the machine to chop the mortises.

first step

I have done slats in this manner 3 or 4 times already. I found that taking a chip on all four inside edges first helps a lot. It greatly helps with keeping the top of the mortise clean and defined.

first mortise done

It shouldn't take more than one or two swipes of a plane to clean up and fit the slats to the mortise. 

more 3/8 and less than a 1/2

I am eyeballing the depth of the mortises. I want them roughly to be 3/8-1/2 inch deep. The slats are not structural so there isn't any need for the mortises to be deeper than this. It is also the same depth I did on previous slat mortises.

sigh

Had two boo boos chopping the mortises on the first rail. The first was a big chip blew out on the 3/8 width. Super glued that back down ok. The second one was a split/crack that said hello when I chiseled down on the long mortise wall. Glued that one back together with yellow glue.

sigh, again

After waiting 30 minutes I started chopping the mortises again and another split/crack shook hands with me again. Glued that one and the first again because it wanted attention too. Clamped it and set it aside to cook.

ready to chop

Got the other 3 rails ready to chop the mortises. I went with 9 slats on each side. After eyeballing the layout adding another 2 slats (11 total) didn't make much of a difference. I might add extra to the back though as it is several inches longer than the sides.

accidental woodworker