You can now download an enhanced pdf of the March 2008 issue of Woodworking Magazine (Issue 9) for $6.

Our instant digital downloads are compatible with any computer running Adobe Reader 7.0, a free program available from Adobe that runs on Macintosh, PC and other systems. The downloads are delivered to you on a secure and fast server (a high-speed Internet connection is highly recommended). Plus, if for some technical reason your download is interrupted (power outage due to nefarious squirrel activity etc.), it’s quite simple to get back on and download the issue again.

Issue 9 focuses on the act of handsawing, and it explores the three backsaws you need for hand-cut joints – the dovetail saw, carcase saw and tenon saw. Plus we explain the nearly-lost English system of cutting joints by hand.

We also delve into cutting circles with a simple (and very cool) jig, plus how to properly use glaze when finishing. All these skills will help you build the Stickley Tabouret featured on the cover.

On an administrative note, we’re still working on how to deliver subscriptions digitally to subscribers and have narrowed it to a couple options. More news on that to come this summer. Until then, these enhanced pdfs will (we hope) keep you informed and inspired.

For more details on the digital downloading process and to place an order, click here. You can view all our digital downloadable products here.

— Christopher Schwarz

Thanks to my job and the freelance work I do for The Fine Tool Journal, I get to see a lot of specialty handplanes that most people see only in the catalogs or in one of the lusty tomes by The Sandor.

But despite getting to actually use a corebox plane and dozens of other unusual and cool forms, I tend to stick with the basics when I build. I use the jointer plane more than any other bench plane, followed by the smoothing plane and block plane. A few other specialty tools – router planes, a moving fillister and a plow plane – round out my personal set.

One plane I’ve never quite made nice with is the Stanley No. 95, the edge-trimming block plane. This tool is now made by both Veritas and Lie-Nielsen Toolworks in iron or bronze. And though the two brands have some significant differences, the basic form is the same.

The No. 95 is a block plane with a skewed blade and an integral and fixed 90° fence. The idea is that you press the fence against the face of your work and the tool planes the adjacent edge perfectly square to the face.

I’ve never been fond of the tool – I tend to use my jointer plane to dress edges square to the faces. But during the last few projects I’ve built I’ve found the tool in my hand a surprising number of times. I’ve been using it to plane solid-wood edging square and flush to plywood. I’ve been trimming face frames flush to carcases. And I’ve been dressing rails and stiles of doors and face frames before assembly.

That last task finally convinced me that the tool is a gem for a shop that blends power and hand tools. Here’s why: When I dress stock by hand, all the edges of my rails and stiles end up planed square from the jointer plane. So the No. 95 sits idle.

But when I dress my rails and stiles with a powered jointer (as I’m doing this week), the edge-trimming plane shines. The goal there is to remove the toolmarks, to keep the edges perfectly square and to not remove a lot of material. The No. 95 accomplishes all three goals with aplomb. Typically one or two light passes is all it takes to get crisp inside and outside edges on the parts for a frame-and-panel construction.

Here are a few tips for use: First, the set-up is key. The iron has to project evenly from the mouth or your edge won’t be square. Take some test passes and examine the shavings. Their thickness should be the same on both long edges. Shift the iron around until the tool makes a consistent shaving and a square edge.

Second, press down on the toe of the tool with more force than you would use with a block plane. The plane tends to want to rise out of the cut in softer woods. Also, use one hand to press the tool’s fence against the work and use the other hand to press the work against the fence on the opposite side. All this pressure ensures your cut won’t go astray, which can be trouble.

Now, despite my crush on this tool, I haven’t been able to justify getting both a left- and right-hand version, however. Because my stock is dressed with a planer, it’s true on both faces, so I can work with the No. 95’s fence on either face of the stock without worrying about grain direction. The tool can be pushed or pulled with ease.

Now if I could just find the same love for my chisel plane/paperweight I wouldn’t feel so guilt every time I open a certain drawer in my toolbox.

— Christopher Schwarz

Between bites of salad, Kevin Drake pauses to take a close look at the common chair sitting in our local Panera.
 
When I look at the chair, all I see is your typical bent-lamination, factory-made, comfortable-for-about-32-minutes padded chair.
 
But Kevin, the founder of Glen-Drake Toolworks, sees a lesson in Japanese aesthetics and composition by Japanese arts teacher Shozo Sato. What is the dominant focus for the viewer? What is the sub-dominant; the subordinate?

I was chewing my food at the beginning of the explanation, but by the end I was listening so intently that I forgot about the baguette soaking in my own mouth juices as I finally "saw" the chair.

Nothing makes me happier than to have lunch with someone whose brain is on fire with ideas different than mine. Someone who sees the same world with different eyes.

Which brings us to handsaws.

It's a common thing to read in woodworking texts that the ripping teeth in a Western saw (power- or hand-driven) are shaped like chisels. And that crosscutting teeth are shaped like knives.

But when Kevin sees sawteeth, he sees something different. He sees the function of the teeth relating more to its "rake," which is how forward or backwards each sawtooth leans. On a handsaw, teeth with the cutting face straight up have "zero rake." Teeth that lean forward into the cut have a more aggressive rake. And teeth that lean backward have a relaxed rake. (Whether the rake is "postive" or "negative" depends on whether it's a power tool or hand tool user describing it.)
 
To Kevin, Western ripping teeth don't look like chisels; they look like scrapers. Scrapers attack the work in an almost vertical position – like a zero-rake sawtooth. I can see this (see the photo at the top of this entry of a wooden model of Western sawteeth).
 
And to Kevin, it's the Japanese-style sawteeth (shown above right) that look like chisels. They lean forward like a chisel being used for paring. And I can see this, too.
 
So Kevin then asks three questions:
 
1. What type of wood scrapes better, hardwoods or softwoods? Easy. The harder the wood, the easier it scrapes.
 
2. In general, which woods are harder, Japanese woods or Western woods? Again, it's an easy question. Western woods are harder.
 
3. When you scrape a wood, is it easier to push the tool or pull it? You can do it both ways, but I definitely prefer to push the tool.
 
"That," Kevin says, "is why I prefer Western push-style saws."
 
That statement was like a Zen Buddhist riddle (called a koan) for me. Thanks Kevin. Now I'll never look at my saws (or the Panera chairs) in the same way ever again.
 
— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. This coming week (May 19 to 23) I'll be teaching at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking, so there won't be many (if any) updates to the blog. Enjoy your vacation!

Learning to cut woodworking joints is one thing. Figuring out how to assemble all those joints in a correct and efficient order for a project is another skill entirely.

In the upcoming Fall 2008 issue of Woodworking Magazine, we're delving deep into the topic of cabinet construction. And the method we have developed during the last decade is different than any other you have read, but it will do three things for your woodworking:

1. You'll make fewer mistakes and waste less wood.

2. You'll have an easier time fitting your doors and drawers.

3. Your cabinets will go together faster with tighter joints.

If you'd like to learn about our new method, then I encourage you to subscribe to the magazine by May 30 to guarantee you will receive a copy of the Fall 2008 issue. In addition to our research into cabinet construction, you'll also find:

Fitting Doors & Drawers: We show you how to square up doors with a table saw and fit it precisely with a hand plane. Plus, we explain how to size your drawers so they'll fit properly with only minor adjustments with a plane.

Tool Review – Sliding Bevels: Why do so many of them slip and slide around on you? We investigate the major brands available today and find the best ones.

Coloring Walnut: Walnut with a simple clear finish looks cold and lifeless.
We show you how to warm up this beautiful wood with a variety of approaches, including shellac and stains.

So why should you subscribe to Woodworking Magazine? We think it's different than every other magazine out there. It's written to help all woodworkers fill in the inevitable gaps in our skills that result from teaching ourselves woodworking.

We show you the historical, time-tested and frequently forgotten methods to saw any joint, drawboring, wedged through-tenons and splines. We review tools that other magazines won't touch but are extremely important: like 6" rules, screws, combination squares and moisture meters.

Plus, we offer projects you won't elsewhere. We build only time-tested forms in classic styles, such as Arts & Crafts, Shaker and early American. More importantly, we pick projects that can be built without an enormous outlay of time, wood or tools.

And that's not all that's different. Woodworking Magazine has no advertisements and is printed in glorious sepia-toned black-and-white on its inside pages.

If you're ready to subscribe, we're ready to take your order. Click here and we'll sign you up to receive the next issue.

— Christopher Schwarz

When I first opened the package, I assumed that the tool inside was a prototype that had a plastic blade. That happens occasionally here at the magazine when a manufacturer wants our opinion on a tool’s ergonomics before they crank up production.

But no, the white chunk of stuff at the end of the Gladstone Tools marking knife actually was the working blade. And this was no prototype.

The spear point of this 8”-long knife is ceramic. Ceramax 80, to be precise, a material you can find in a variety of industrial and home applications, including some kitchen knives.

According to the manufacturer, the knife is second in hardness only to diamond and “will never need sharpening.”

That is quite a claim, and so I immediately put the knife to work today to see how it performed. The ceramic blade is a spear-point shape that is about 1/8” thick. It has the same general shape as the now-discontinued Veritas marking knife we reviewed a few years ago.

The knife’s edges don’t feel as keen as a freshly sharpened steel knife, but the tool does lay down a fine line with little effort. It also offers the same feedback to the user as a steel knife as it makes its mark. I thought the Gladstone might feel a bit gummy (like a stainless tool), but perhaps I was just getting over the shock that it wasn’t a chunk of white plastic.

The handle that was shipped to me is not the same shape as shown on the Gladstone Tools web site. This knife has two pronounced flats that prevent the tool from rolling on the bench (always nice) and has a thin neck for your middle finger while marking joints.

The padouk handle (it’s also available in zebrawood) is well finished. It’s not as nicely turned and finished as the Blue Spruce knives, but it is nicer than most manufactured knives I’ve used. The price is $29.95 for the padouk and $31.95 for the zebrawood – those are fair prices for a nice piece of work like this.

Will the edge hold up? I sure hope so. Gladstone Tools is run by a man that many of us simply know as “Manny,” who runs Manny’s Woodworkers Place in Lexington, Ky. When I was first taking woodworking classes, I and my fellow students would hang out at Manny’s place and drool over the amazing selection of books (still the best, even today) and hand tools. Manny was always patient with us as we would fondle the Japanese chisels but purchase a small set of brad points.

Though Manny carried a few machines and power tools, the majority of his inventory has always been hand tools, including many hard-to-find things. When I first started woodworking seriously, it was Manny’s place that made a huge impression on me. I thought all furniture making used both hand and power tools. (A rude awakening was to follow.)

If you purchase this knife, add a comment below after you use it for a while and let me know how it held up. I’ll use it exclusively for a while and report back as well.

If Manny has come up with a way to ensure that I have one less tool to sharpen, that’s a pretty amazing accomplishment.

— Christopher Schwarz

Sometime back in 1996 I took a piece of cloth that was cast off from my wardrobe. I cannot remember what the garment was. A sweatshirt perhaps? Long underwear? It’s a bit stretchy. And I soaked the sucker in WD-40.

Since that day, I have soaked that rag with every kind of oily substance you can imagine. Here’s the short lubricant list: Camellia, 3-in-1, Jojoba, mineral spirits, thread-cutting oil, spray-on “dry” shop lubricant and oil from various recesses of my personhood (yes, it’s true, and historically correct. Ask me over a beer sometime).

I use this rag to wipe down every tool after I use it. I lubricate my plane soles with it while working. I use it to wipe off the sharpening slurry from my tools after honing them.

And what I’m about to say will upset people who know anything about chemistry: I have never suffered any ill effects from this nefarious mixture when finishing my projects using any of the known finishing compounds: shellac, lacquer, oil, varnish, wax and all of their wacky combinations. No fish-eye has ever appeared in my finish. No orange peel. No silicone contamination.

So what gives? How have I cheated the finishing gods for 12 full years?

Probably because of the cutting action of all tools. When I wipe down a tool – a sawblade or a handplane – I leave the thinnest coat possible behind. This thin film is all I need to protect the tool from rusting. Then, when I apply the tool to the work, there is little doubt that some of this lubricant winds up on my work.

This first cut removes the lubricant from the tool. Then my next pass with the tool removes the wood that has the lubricant on it. Problem solved.

In addition to my magic rag (Lucy, my wife, calls it my “woobie”), I also am very fond of the Sandflex blocks from Klingspor to remove rare and errant spots of rust or staining that show up on my tools. These spongy “rust erasers” are like rubber that has been impregnated by a mild abrasive. The blocks will abrade your tools, but only slightly – in most cases less than steel wool. One block (I like the “medium” and “fine”) will last for decades of normal use.

As a result, I have had few problems with rust on my tools, despite the fact that I live outside a humid river city (Cincinnati) and my home shop is in a basement.

The bottom line is that diligence is far more important than the brand of lubricant.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Below is my latest project with a shellac and lacquer finish with no finishing problems. Maybe next project....

Todd Austman of Calgary, Alberta, won the miter plane from Philly Planes in our "Quote of the Year" contest for this little jewel:

We had hundreds of entries, which we narrowed down to about 75 of the best quotes that we plan to use in the coming year. (When we use your quote, we'll notify you and send you our latest hardbound book. It might take a bit of time for your quote to come up, so please be patient.)

There were a couple other quotes that came very close to snatching the top honors. Here are a few of them for your enjoyment:


Thanks to all of you who entered the contest. Your contributions, suggestions and scoldings are what make it a better magazine and inspire us to make each issue better than the last.

— Christopher Schwarz

When we started Woodworking Magazine, one of the things we definitely wanted to include as part of the fabric of the publication were quotations about the craft that made us laugh or think.

And when we launched our first issue in March 2004, there was no doubt or discussion about what quote would be emblazoned at the top of the first page:

Brown, who died June 1, is in my estimation the most influential writer on handwork of this generation. His columns in Britain’s Good Woodworking magazine inspired thousands of woodworkers to attempt or even completely embrace handwork.

His columns were short epistles on topics philosophical, mundane or both. He might offer a recipe for bacon in one column, offer plans for a workbench in another and in a third comment on the sad state of woodworking where we have traded skill for speed.

Brown was at times crotchety in tone, other times apologetic (to turners in particular); but he was always the spokesman for anyone who wanted to take hammer in hand and try to build something – either fantastic or mundane – using hand tools.

Brown himself was a boatbuilder who was made obsolete by fiberglass watercraft. After spotting a primitive Welsh chair in a shop in Lampeter, as Brown put it: “It was like a vision. I had never seen anything that had made so instant an impression on me.”

And so he built a Welsh stick chair like the one from his vision. He began selling them. He began writing about them. “Welsh Stick Chairs” was published in 1990. It’s a short volume, but is one of my prize possessions. In it, Brown gives a concise history of the Celts and their furniture. Then a short history of his love for the craft. The remainder of the book is photos of Brown in action, building what he calls a “cardigan chair.”

I first encountered his column in Good Woodworking in the mid-1990s. Brown had begun writing for the magazine during issue 13, I believe, which was the November 1993 issue. It was called “The John Brown Column,” and discussed mostly chairmaking, but with all hand tools. His run of columns there ended 32 issues later with a condemnation of power machinery in June 1996.

After a year of respite, Brown returned to the pages of Good Woodworking in issue 58 and continued for a couple more years. The last column I have of his is from December 1998. He continued as a chairmaker for awhile but during the last decade, Brown turned his attention to studying art.

"The John Brown Column" – sometimes titled "The Anarchist Woodworker" – was so inspiring to me, it’s difficult to quantify. I think it’s best said that if I had to have only one hero in woodworking, it would be Chairman Brown.

Not only did his writing encourage my hand-work skills, he also inspired me as a chairmaker to the point where I even ventured into the Canadian wilderness to take a class in Welsh chairmaking from David Fleming, a Cobden, Ontario, chairmaker who is Welsh.

All this detail above might make me sounds a bit like a stalker, but I never met John Brown. It was one of my primary goals for the coming years, which I can now bitterly cross off my to-do list. My plan was to ask if we could reprint his columns in book form so they could receive the wide audience they deserve. That project might be in limbo now, but perhaps his heirs will be willing.

If you can get a copy of “Welsh Stick Chairs,” you certainly will get the flavor of his writing and wit. And if I have any luck, perhaps you’ll also get to read his columns and then understand the loss the world of handwork has suffered this week.

— Christopher Schwarz

Most of you know how much I like Andre Roubo's "L'Art du Menuisier" – probably the best and most complete books on woodworking from the 18th century. Heck, I've even considered taking up my French studies again just to be able to read it (more on that later).

However, getting copies of Roubo in this country has been nothing less than frustrating. I got a couple modern reprints through a bookstore in Quebec. And several French web sites carry them (with ghastly hoops to jump through to get them into this country). And all of my efforts to get a reliable and reasonable source in North America have proved fruitless.

Until today.

Thanks entirely to Joel Moskowitz at Tools for Working Wood, reprints of all five volumes of Roubo are now available for sale. These books are immense fun to page through, even if you don't read French. That's because the plates – hundreds and hundreds of glorious line drawings – will teach you more about furniture, marquetry and hand tools than I can. Plus you likely will be inspired to build one of Roubo's benches once you see them in use throughout the book. That's what sold me.

The volumes sell for $70 to $90, which sounds like a lot, but it's worth it. When I was importing these from Canada, that's about what I ended up paying (maybe a bit more once you included international fees). These books will be with you forever, and who knows how long they'll be available.

The other news is that we have some more exciting news about Roubo that we'll be announcing on my personal blog this weekend, LostArtPress.com. This is a personal project that I and another woodworker have been slaving over for a while. So do drop by LostArtPress.com this weekend and check it out. I think you'll be glad you did.

— Christopher Schwarz

Last week I bought a toothing plane from a Midwestern tool collector. I've always wanted one of these tools, and this one is particularly nice.

Toothing planes are lot like scraping planes: The iron is vertical. What's different is that toothing plane has a serrated cutting edge – instead of a smooth edge with a tiny hook, like on a scraper plane.

Toothing planes can be used in a couple different ways. Some people use them to flatten a board's surface. The vertical pitch of the iron prevents tearing in gnarly woods, and the serrated teeth allow you to take a fairly big bite.

Other craftsmen use a toothing plane for traditional veneering jobs with hide glue. The toothing plane would prepare the substrate – flattening it and giving it some "tooth" – before you apply the adhesive and the veneer.

I'll probably use this tool for both of these sorts of jobs – they're handy and simple tools. This one was probably made by the craftsman, and the maker was likely German. The "horn" at the toe is a feature of many European planes.

Oh, there's one other feature of the plane I like:

I wish I had a good story about the origin of this tool, but I don't. The tool collector who bought it acquired it during a tool swap meet. So there's no cool history to share – just the mystery of me wondering what sort of work the other "C SCHWARZ" did.

— Christopher Schwarz

Now that we’re publishing Woodworking Magazine four times a year (you can always subscribe via this link), we have an even greater demand for quotations related to woodworking, craft or (on occasion) even artistic expression.

We ran a contest last year to solicit quotations (with great success), and I’d like to run it again to deepen our well of material in reserve. If your quote is picked as the best of all the entries by our editorial staff, we’ll send you a miter plane from Philly Planes. (You can read a review of the plane here, but trust me, it’s an awesome piece of kit).

All the runners-up in this contest (meaning that we publish your quote in the magazine) will receive the hardbound edition of Issues 8 through 12, which will be released at the end of 2008.

Here are the rules:

1. Contest ends on midnight on Friday, May 16, 2008.
2. One entry and one quotation per person.
3. Your entry must be submitted via e-mail to chris.schwarz@fwpubs.com, along with your full name, street address, phone number and valid e-mail.
4. The quotation can be from any source (even yourself). However, it needs to be attributed – where you found it and who said it. Here’s an example: "It's not just about making beautiful furniture, but how do you get rid of it?" — Tage Frid, quoted in an article by Jonathan Binzen in Fine Woodworking.

Here are some tips: Short quotes are better than long quotes. Original or unusual quotes are better than common ones (“Measure twice, cut once.”). Quotes that are funny, make you think or challenge conventional wisdom are always appreciated.

Good luck, and thanks in advance for entering.

— Christopher Schwarz

As woodworkers dive into handwork, they usually start with a block plane, then the bench planes, the saws and the joinery planes.

Joinery planes – such as plow planes, router planes, shoulder planes and rabbeting planes – are some of the easiest planes to set up and use. Their irons are straighforward to sharpen (no curves needed), and because the tool doesn’t produce a show surface, you don’t need to be a maniac about the keenness of your cutting edges.

One of the most essential joinery planes is the moving fillister. It cuts a rabbet either across the grain or with the grain. And it can make a rabbet of almost any size thanks to its adjustable fence.

Moving fillisters are different than other planes in the rabbeting family in that its fence is adjustable (planes with a fixed fence are called standing fillisters), plus it can work across the grain because it has retractable nickers (planes without the nickers are just plain old rabbet planes).

The iron Stanley No. 78 is the most common vintage version of this tool, however I’m not fond of the form. The fence wobbles because of the way it is attached to the body, so the plane does a poor job in hard woods (in my experience). Record, by the way, fixed this problem with its metal version of this plane, though it’s a tough tool to find in North America.

This really is a case where the wooden versions of a plane are superior. Wooden-stock moving fillisters are fairly common in the secondary market, though they usually require some rehabbing to be usable. So what do you do?

You could ask Clark & Williams to make you one – they showed me an excellent moving fillister they make a couple years ago. You could buy an ECE from toolsforworkingwood.com. Or you could buy a new traditional one from Philip Edwards at Philly Planes in England.

Philip’s planes are excellent. I recently reviewed his miter plane plus a plane designed for raising panels for drawer bottoms. They both work like a charm. So it’s very exciting to me (and a good sign for hand work in general) that there is a new moving fillister on the market from Philip’s shop.

We’ve ordered one for our shop here, and I will offer a full report once it arrives. Until then, however, if you need a moving fillister, I can recommend Philip’s planes highly.  

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Want to learn more about joinery planes? Then definitely pick up a copy of “The Wooden Plane” by John M. Whelan.

After three more hours of CAD work last night, I finished up the preliminary drawings for the next cover project for Woodworking Magazine. We're calling this project "An American Wall Cabinet." But right now a more apt name would be "An R-5 Wall Cabinet."

This morning I spent about 45 minutes building the face frame, tombstone door and drawer front of the cabinet using the pink ½"-thick Foamular insulation board. I taped up the joints with packing tape. Then I printed out the hardware from the Horton Brasses web site, cut it out (Horton scaled it full-size!) and taped it in place.

If you ever wonder how woodworking magazines get away with coverlines like "Build a Bench in a Weekend," this is it. It's our trade secret. We just build it out of Foamular.

After a dry-fit of all the parts (no tape), I determined that the mediary rail in the door was too wide. So I shaved off ½" with a ruler and a knife and it looked much better. Then Senior Editor Glen Huey and I placed the rattail hinges on the stiles so they would work well and look good.

This short exercise also drove me to plan on adding some stopped chamfers on the stiles of the face frame when I build it out of walnut. So all in all, it was worth the $10.

If you've never worked with Foamular, it's a cinch to cut with a knife and a ruler. I used my Tite-Mark gauge to first score the foam's plastic film. Then I followed up with the knife. To make the curve in the tombstone door, I drew it with a compass. The pencil lead didn't cut the foam; it made a furrow in the film. Then my knife could easily follow that furrow to complete the cut.

And what are we going to do with the leftover foam? Easy. I use it for slicing up plywood with a circular saw. I lay the foam down on the driveway, put the plywood on top, and set the sawblade to cut through the plywood and slightly into the foam (and not the concrete). Works every time.

— Christopher Schwarz

So today I get a copy of the WoodWorker's Book Club bulletin and it lists the "Top 50 Member Favorites." I eagerly flipped through to see if my book on workbenches made the list.

It did. It was No. 30.

I was quite pleased by this bit of news. It was good to be on the same list as Taunton's "Complete Illustrated Guides" (at No. 1), Kerry Pierce's "Pleasant Hill Shaker Furniture" (No. 2) and Jim Tolpin's "Measure Twice, Cut Once" (No. 3, and one of my favorite woodworking books).

But my moment of glee was quickly flung into the dirty litterbox when I saw what aced me out at No 28: "Black & Decker's 24 Weekend Projects for Pets."  

That put my tail between my legs. Time to go home and start writing that birdhouse book I've had on the back burner.

— Christopher Schwarz

When a young Thomas Lie-Nielsen set out to start making premium handplanes in the early 1980s, he launched his business with an adaptation of the Stanley No. 95 edge-trimming plane.

But Lie-Nielsen wasn't the first person to make this tool in bronze. That footnote goes to machinist Ken Wisner, who made the planes in small batches and sold them through the Garrett Wade catalog. When Wisner decided to get out of that business, he turned over his patterns to Lie-Nielsen, who took them to Maine and set up shop in a shack on his farm.

I've always wanted to own one of these Wisner planes – partly out of curiosity and partly out of my desire to own a piece of recent history. But they're hard to come by. And they're expensive when they do come up on eBay.

So this weekend, I got a little schoolgirl thrill when Jeff Skiver pulled a Wisner out of his bags of tools during a class on handplanes at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking. He wasn't looking to sell it, and I won't tell you what he paid for it. Suffice it to say that Skiver practically stole it from a starving widow who had substantial medical bills.

The Wisner is an interesting piece of work. On the one hand, the main casting was nicely polished and the machined areas were crisp and clean. But the thumbscrew on the lever cap was black plastic (the screw itself was metal, however). And the main screw that joined the lever cap, iron and body casting was an off-the-shelf hex-head screw.

Wisner signed his name on the plane with some sort of rotary tool (perhaps a Dremel). And the blade was thinner than the Lie-Nielsen version.

Of course, when you are blazing a trail like Wisner was, you have to overlook details like this and appreciate the sheer fact that this plane exists. Plus, look at what this little plane led to in Warren, Me.

And if anyone has a Wisner plane they'd like to part with (for the sake of history, natch) please drop me a line.

— Christopher Schwarz

This fall, our magazine is sponsoring the first-ever weekend conference devoted to hand tools and learning to use them.

We're calling it the Woodworking in America conference, and we'll be bringing together the country's best hand-tool woodworkers and manufacturers for a symposium in Berea, Ky., on Nov. 14-16.

There will be more than 40 short classes on tools and techniques during the long weekend, plus a marketplace where toolmakers can display (and sell) their wares, social events with the demonstrators and toolmakers and more.

So who is going to be there? Here's the list of people who have agreed to teach seminars during Woodworking in America as of this date (with more to come):

Roy Underhill: Known as "St. Roy" to the legion of fans who watch "The Woodwright's Shop" on PBS, Roy worked at Colonial Williamsburg and then launched his show about traditional hand tools.

Frank Klausz: One of the country's consummate craftsmen, Frank is a professional New Jersey cabinetmaker who trained in Hungary and has a lifetime of experience with the full range of handwork.

Michael Dunbar: Founder of The Windsor Institute, Michael has single handedly revived the craft of building Windsor chairs, has trained thousands of woodworkers and is a passionate student of the art and history of handcraft.

Adam Cherubini: The author of Popular Woodworking's popular "Arts & Mysteries" column, Adam is a devoted 18th-century woodworker who builds period pieces using period tools.

James Blauvelt: A Connecticut cabinetmaker, joiner and carpenter, James owns Bluefield Joiners and is a student and teacher of Japanese tools and traditions.

Robin Lee: The president of Lee Valley Tools in Ottawa, Ontario, Robin has been a driving force behind the expansion of the Veritas line of premium handplanes and a caretaker of the company's immense tool collection.

Thomas Lie-Nielsen: The founder of Lie-Nielsen Toolworks in Warren, Me., Thomas has been making and selling premium traditional hand tools for 27 years. Thomas's company was the trailblazer in reviving many traditional forms of tools that had been lost.

Larry Williams and Don McConnell: Two of the principals behind Clark & Williams in Eureka Springs, Ark., Larry and Don are bottomless wells of information about traditional tools and their workings. Both are accomplished woodworkers, planemakers and tool historians.

John Economaki: The founder of Bridge City Tool Works in Portland, Ore., John has long been a pioneer in developing new (and very beautiful) forms of hand tools for woodworkers.

Konrad Sauer: The owner of Sauer & Steiner Toolworks in Ontario, Konrad is one of the leading makers of custom infill handplanes.

Wayne Anderson:Wayne specializes in designing and building custom infill handplanes that are deeply rooted in the past but are each a completely original work of art.

Ron Hock: One of the earliest and most important players in the revival of handtools, Ron makes high-quality replacement plane irons, chipbreakers and marking knives in Ft. Bragg, Calif.

Mike Wenzloff: The founder of Wenzloff & Sons sawmakers in Forest Grove, Ore., Mike is a long-time woodworker and expert in saws and saw sharpening. His premium saw business has exploded in the last two years.

Joel Moskowitz: The founder of Tools for Working Wood and an expert on woodworking history, Joel has recently been making many traditional hand tools, as well as selling them through his catalog and web site.

Clarence Blanchard: The publisher of "The Fine Tool Journal" and the president of Brown Auction Services, Clarence sees more old tools in a week than most of us see in a lifetime.

Kevin Drake: After studying under James Krenov at the College of the Redwoods, Kevin founded Glen-Drake Toolworks, where he combines woodworking, toolmaking and education. His innovative tools have received numerous awards; we named his Tite-Mark one of the "Best 12 Tools Ever." 

If you are interested in attending, please visit the web site that is dedicated to this conference at WoodworkinginAmerica.com and sign up for the conference's newsletter (the sign-up box is on the top right of the page). You'll then be the first to be notified of when registration will open (it will be before July 1) and the pricing for this event.

Attendance will be limited to a few hundred people (we want to keep the event intimate and manageable), so be sure to register as soon as slots become available. We are expecting the conference to sell out.

There are more announcements and surprises ahead that I cannot share with you right now, so please stay tuned to the blog and the conference's newsletter.

— Christopher Schwarz

For me, finger joints have always been the nerdy, square cousin to the dovetail.

Finger joints are immensely strong when glued properly. But they are usually used by beginning woodworkers in places where a dovetail would be more appropriate, such as on a piece of 18th-century casework.

Add to that the fact that finger joints are tricky or dangerous to make on wide boards (without a commercial jig) plus the fact that gluing them with yellow glue is stressful, and it's a wonder that anyone uses them at all.

And so we decided to tackle finger joints for the Summer 2008 issue of Woodworking Magazine, which will be shipping to subscribers next month. It took us a few months to really pin them down (pun intended), but I think we nailed it (and no, cut nails are not involved).

Here's a small taste of some of the problems of the joint we solved after three months of testing in our shop:

Appearance: Finger joints are a product of the machine age. Using them in styles before circa 1900 is just wrong to the eye. So consider the joint for more contemporary pieces only.

Cutting them Accurately: Right now there are basically two different ways to cut the joint: A shop-made jig for the table saw for narrow boards, and using a router jig that costs several hundred dollars for wide boards. We set out to develop a simple and safe shop-made jig that could handle both wide and narrow boards. Senior Editor Robert W. Lang had a stroke of genius on this and solved the problem forever (in my opinion).

Gluing Them Easily: You can assemble small boxes with finger joints fairly easily when using yellow glue. But at a certain point, you hit the wall because the glue sets up before you can close all the joints. So the solution would seem to be a slow-setting glue. Well, that's one way to go about it. But we found an easier and faster way that is super-strong (see the photo of Managing Editor Megan Fitzpatrick's boot on a sample joint). In the end, it took an anvil to bust up our sample joints.

Also in the Summer 2008 Issue
The finger joint is just one of the major themes running through the issue. Here are some of the other stories you can look for in the coming issue:

Building a Better Chest: Most woodworkers build chests using the most convoluted and fussy assembly imaginable. After reviewing hundreds of historical models, we settle on a method for building a chest that looks more complex at first glance, but actually saves an immense amount of shop time, requires less fussing around and allows more design flexibility.

Crackle Finishing: Many woodworkers who try a crackle finish have inconsistent results. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't. And predicting how much it's going to crackle is almost impossible. Senior Editor Glen D. Huey cracks the code of crackle finish and finds out that the easiest and most predictable way to do it is also the simplest.

Trimming End Grain: When you have to cut back some end grain so it's flush with some face grain, it's always an opportunity to mess up the project. We show you two (actually three) methods for doing it right every time with a block plane, sander and pencil eraser.

And one more thing about the Summer 2008 issue: This issue is going to be mailed out to subscribers in a protective plastic bag, which will reduce the chances that the postal service will mangle it. If the plastic bag works for you, let us know so we can encourage our manufacturing division to continue using it.

And if you're not a subscriber, you can easily remedy that here.

— Christopher Schwarz

About a decade ago, my boss Steve Shanesy told me something about design that knocked me flat. When he was a struggling custom furniture maker, he took some time off to do something that few people do.

Create a new style of furniture.

That is one of the most ambitious personal projects I could imagine. I wonder if there has there been a new style of furniture created in my lifetime. Does James Krenov’s work constitute a new style? Sam Maloof? George Nakashima? I don’t know the answer to this question, but I do know how one mouth-breather of a woodworker (me) goes about it.

And because I never tire of hearing how other people design pieces, I thought I’d share with you the convoluted path I’m taking this week to make a simple thing for our fall 2008 issue.

I like old furniture – anything from Ancient Egypt to World War II interests me greatly. So when I set out to build something I hit the books to look at as many examples of furniture and decorative objects from that period as I can. In this case, we decided to build an 18th-century wall cabinet for the fall issue, so I cracked open all my books from Wallace Nutting, particularly “A Furniture Treasury.” This out-of-print book is available in many forms and is fairly inexpensive. I paid $20 for my two-volume set at Half-Price Books.

I might not look at wall cabinets when I scan these books. I look at lots of casework pieces and their proportions, mouldings and the arrangement of the components, such rails and stiles from doors.

When I’m saturated (a few trips through the treasury will do that), I’ll start sketching. It’s not formal. I just draw without regard to perfectly straight lines or dimensions. I sketch in the car while waiting for the kids to finish track practice. Or in the few minutes of peace I get between the bedtimes of the two kids. I sketch things that I’m sure won’t work just to give them their day in ink.

The more examples I draw, the better the chance I’ll hit something I really like. I don’t use the Golden Section or any other mathematical formula. It’s all gut.

Then I fire up a CAD program on my laptop and try to turn the sketches into something that can be built and has some dimensions that make sense – a dining table that’s 30” high, for example.

While In CAD I’ll make a few variations that take advantage of the cut-and-paste power of the program. I’ll move the drawers and doors around. Add a cupholder. With this wall cabinet I tried it with two doors (like the Nutting original), one door, then a door with a drawer.

Then I show the CAD drawings to others and ask them which ones they like. Why they like it isn’t as important – though I always ask. Maddy, my 12-year-old, liked the two-door version of this cabinet because of the symmetry and that you could display two contrasting pieces of pottery behind the glass panes. Katy, the 8-year-old, liked the drawer because it could be used to “hold little things.” Lucy, my wife, declined to put a dog in that fight.

Next stop: If I have time, I’ll knock together a prototype in poplar to see if it looks awkward. Prototyping always pays off in two ways: I make small adjustments that improve the design, and I’ll typically keep the prototype for our family.

— Christopher Schwarz

Editor's note: Because it's "Workbench Week Internazionale" I decided to tie up a loose end from my book: "Workbenches: from Blah, blah blah to Yadda yadda yadda." On page 57 I discuss Thomas Stangeland's bench and point out how the best woodworking I've seen has been built on the most minimal of workbenches.

Helpful reader Tom Moore visited Stangeland's shop recently and snapped the above photo of the bench. Below is the story that goes with that workbench.


In 2006 I taught a class in handwork at a school where Thomas Stangeland, a maestro at Greene & Greene-inspired work, was also teaching a class. Though we both strive for the same result in craftsmanship, the process we each use couldn’t be more different. He builds furniture for a living, and he enjoys it. I build furniture because I enjoy it, and I sell an occasional piece.

One evening we each gave a presentation to the students about our work. One of the pieces I showed was an image of my French workbench. I discussed its unusual workholding devices and how the bench was a bit of a Thor Heyerdahl experience.

Thomas then got up and said he wished he had a picture to show of his workbench for the last decade: a door on a couple horses. He said that a commercial shop had no time to waste on building a traditional bench. And with his power-tool approach, he just needed a flat surface and some clamps to work.

It’s hard to argue with the end result. His furniture is beautiful.

But what’s important to note here is that you can get by with the door-off-the-floor approach, but there are many commercial woodworkers who still see the utility of a traditional workbench. Chairmaker and furnituremaker Brian Boggs uses more newfangled routers and shop-made devices with aluminum extrusions than I have ever seen in a shop. And he still has two enormous traditional workbenches that see constant use.

The point here is that a good bench won’t make you a better woodworker. And a not-quite-a-bench won’t doom you to failure. But a good bench in any shop will make many power-tool operations easier and open the door to permit you to try many hand-tool operations. The bench is simply another tool. It’s the biggest wooden clamp in the shop.

As Thomas was wrapping up his part of the show he showed an interesting slide of an enormous and thick slab of an exotic wood he had been stashing for years and years in his shop.

“I just need to find the right project for it,” he said.

“Hey Thomas,” I heckled, “that slab sure would make a great benchtop.”

He laughed. Next slide, please.

— Christopher Schwarz

Matt Vanderlist has just posted a podcast of a conversation he and I had last week. I hesitate to call it an interview because it sounds a lot like us just goofing around and joking about woodworking.

So I guess, it actually just sounds a lot like a day at the office.

In any case, we discuss handsawing, premium tools and how we generate story ideas here at Woodworking Magazine and Popular Woodworking. Plus Matt and I brainstorm an idea for a shop garment that ensures you never have to take a break while woodworking – and it composts the yard. (If anyone has a good name for this product, post it here.)

It was a fun conversation and if you have some time at your desk and want to look like you're working… I highly recommend it.

— Christopher Schwarz