If you’ve checked out a copy of Woodsmith or ShopNotes in the last couple of years, you may have noticed that articles about hand planes and their use have been showing up a little more often. That’s mostly because we have an editor who takes an active interest in promoting their usage — Randy Maxey.

Randy will spend an hour during this Woodsmith Woodworking Seminar Podcast to give us his tips for tuning up a hand plane, a very important procedure if you’ve ever tried to use one. As you may know, an out-of-tune plane, with a dull or nicked iron, can be a real pain to use. This seminar is for “users,” not “collectors.”

Be sure to check out the Woodsmith Podcast Store for links to a few products that Randy used during this seminar. There are also links to Seminar Guide at PlansNow.com

It seems like part of being a woodworker is repairing old furniture, whether it’s your own or someone else’s. You’re probably already aware that working on old pieces like that can present some health concerns (lead paint exposure, for example).  As it turns out, there are some other things you should be concerned about when repairing or even moving some antiques.

Discovery News is citing some info from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) about the hazards of heavy metals in antiques.  Old mirrors may have been backed with mercury and tin. And clock pendulums or lamp bases may contain mercury. You know…it’s the stuff you used to play with when you were a kid. It’s since been found to be a health hazard.

I remember a few years ago, my wife and I found an old bottle of mercury that had belonged to my mother-in-law, a nurse.  Being the responsible citizen, I took it to our local township volunteer fire department/police station.  I was essentially told to “get it out of here…we’re not responsible if something happens…you’re on your own.”  Wow!  I explained that I had several children in the home and I didn’t want it in my house.  It didn’t matter.  They insisted I remove it from their premises immediately.  So, I took it home.  I ended up having to call the county hazardous materials department.  They sent a guy out.  Turns out he was an old classmate of mine in high school.  He laughed when I told him what my local fire department told me, but he donned heavy rubber gloves, removed the bottle from the house, wrapped it very carefully, and stored it in a well-insulated, shock-protected styrofoam cooler.

Then there was the local elementary school that had to shut down for a day when a child dropped a mercury thermometer on the front steps while returning from an outdoor science class.  You would have thought there had been a bomb blast with all the emergency vehicles and personnel.

So, the next time you need to move Aunt Sue’s antique clock, exercise caution.

The club, which was started a year and a half ago, has grown to over 20 members. 8 to 10 usually show up for our monthly meetings, where we do as many hands-on projects as possible.

Most of these women are brand new to woodworking?some are retired, with grown children?and all are enthusiastic to learn. The enthusiasm can be gauged in the sheer volume of exhuberant chatter that goes on during our meetings.

Regarding woodworking (and probably most things), all that women seem to need is a little encouragement & patience, and they will dive right in. Tonight, we worked on part 2 of our current project?cutting boards?in the Woodcraft Store shop where we meet. During the course of the 3-part project, they are learning how to use the jointer, planer, and miter saw. Next time, we'll have a router workshop, when we'll round over all the cutting boards and test drive different types of routers and bits.

We decide at each meeting, as a group, what the next topic will be. There are no dues, no officers, no business to attend to. We sit at a table, facing one another. All of the women have ownership. It's very different from what I call the "boys' club"?the other woodworking club to which I belong. Up until last year, I was the only female member.

In the boys' club, the guys seem to prefer hierarchy and structured meetings. We have officers, dues, and an annual business meeting. There are too many guys in that club (and too small a space) to do much hands-on stuff, so we mainly have a demo or lecture. Members sit in rows of chairs and face the presenter. The volume of these meetings is also different. Pretty quiet, except for the speaker, and the occasional wisecrack. The guys chat with one another prior to and after the meeting, but not so much during.

The other very important difference in the two clubs: the women's club usually has snacks. This past year in the boys' club, when the Christmas party was discussed, the guys opted to not have one. Conversely, the women all but leapt out of their seats with a resounding "YES!" when I asked if we wanted to have a club Christmas dinner.

And you wouldn't believe what they brought. Crab cakes, homemade lasagna, homemade meatballs (made by one woman's husband, which cracked us up), salads, and desserts like you'd find at Wegman's.

It's great fun to be an observer in both clubs. Despite their differences, there is one common thread between the two clubs: they both consist of people who want to create something?something useful, something artistic, something challenging. Something that will leave a lasting mark.

Here's our entry in LumberJocks Thorsen Side table Challenge.
I know we were going to build it together but my time and the challenge deadline forced me to just go for it.
The objective of selecting this challenge at the Lumberjocks forum however, still remains the same..... to see other woodworkers work!!! You will witness that as I expected, excellent CREATIVITY occurred.
So now is the time to wonder over to Lumberjocks and have a look at the craftsmanship of fellow on-line woodworkers.

GO TO: LumberJocks

I am alive.

When I checked email today there were 317 new messages. The most recent one was from the editing staff at Popular Woodworking. Megan was worried I had gone all literary/artsy and pulled an Ernie Hemingway 12 Gauge move or something. I am okay.

I am in Dublin. We have been in Ireland for the last few days, and we are here for another week. I haven't been on the internet since I arrived because I have finally gotten cheap. We've been at the Conrad Hotel in Dublin, and since it costs about a Lie-Nielsen #8 Jointer Plane per night (or in our case a boat load of Hilton Honors points), I refuse to pay an additional 18 Euros (per night) for internet access in my room. Honest to God, the most expensive room I have been in since a stay in Hong Kong in 2005 makes you pay an additional 18 Euros a night to check your damn email.

So tonight I finally grabbed my laptop and found a nice tavern with WiFi.

I will have Irish Woodworking stuff to babble about when we return to the States in the second half of June, but for now I will close with photos of today's Woodworking Research Project.

While in Dublin today, I investigated Coopering.

Here are some photos:


Now some probably wonder why I would take time away from vacation to spend time researching Coopering. Vacation is supposed to be a time to "get away from it all." Well, that is just my dedication to the craft of woodworking. Even during a respite from the stress of work life, I can still find a way to improve my knowledge of woodworking and its history. Basically, I decided to do something to help with my future woodworking articles and my work. It's not always about doing what I want to do. Sometimes one needs to suck it up and be academic.

If you are ever in Dublin, I encourage you to follow in my studious footsteps and do your own research of Coopering. Just look for the place shown below.


Apparently, they have an extensive history in this important area of woodworking.



I suppose some day I should find out what they put in all of those barrels. This trip was only about woodworking...

My shop is only 400 square feet. Things are always underfoot and I’m constantly having to move one machine so that I can get to another. The lathe is stored in an adjacent (finished) room, the miter saw and stand are out in the garage, and I have to set up a couple of sawhorses out there just to cut a sheet of plywood down to size. Boy, what I wouldn’t give for a big addition to my house for a new shop!

The problem is, I don’t have an extra 25 grand laying around to spend on fixing up my home. But I could. And so could you.

That’s because Home Depot is giving away a $25,000 gift card (and many more prizes) to the best YouTube video entry showcasing the projects Home Depot customers would like to tackle around the house. You can submit your video from November 10 to December 15, 2007, and the winners will be announced sometime just before Christmas.

Think about it, you could finally add that gourmet kitchen you’ve always wanted…or put on a new roof…or add a backyard getaway…replace all the flooring…the list goes on and on. Or if you need some really great ideas for your video, pick up a free preview issue of Workbench. It’s full of practical ideas for your improving home.

Are you feeling creative? Then get to it.

To keep track of everyone’s videos, log in to YouTube and join the Home Depot “Gift Card” group.

The Carver's Mallet Part 1

In Part 1 I talked about making the handle from curly maple and fastening it to 3 layers of cross grain laminated wood.

Now I'm adding the rest of the laminated layers to the mallet and turning the assembly on the router.

As mentioned before, the head of the mallet is made from laminated 1/4" wood, oak and padauk. I had enough scrap 1/4" wood to make it a total of 14 layers. 10 oak and 4 padauk. The bottom three layers attached to the handle and then I stacked the rest on that, gluing up 3 at a time because even that many gets squirrelly when clamping the freshly glued wood together.

The photo above is the final clamping of the entire assembly. Those Harbor Freight bar clamps fit perfectly into the 3/4" holes in my clamping table.

I quickly made a jig from particle board to hold the mallet at an angle over my router. This idea came from an article in one of the wood magazines (I forget which one). The idea is to be able to rotate the mallet over the router bit to give it a smooth face at the correct angle. I wasn't confident enough in my turning skills to use the lathe on end grain oak, so I wanted to use the router.

It was a mistake.

Several times the router grabbed the piece out of my hands, chewed it up, and spit it back at me. I'm glad I was wearing goggles!

I finally gave up on the router and put it on the lathe. I gave my turning chisels a fresh hone, held my breath and started cutting.

Not bad! Not bad at all! Some tearout on the oak end grain, but overall a good turn. I'm very comfortable with the end result. Too bad I had done so much damage to the head already with the router. Otherwise I'd be able to say it was perfect. As it its, the mallet is just ok. There is no finish on the mallet. Just 2 coats of Butcher's wax. The photos were taken before the wax was applied. That shine is from good cuts alone!

Not really. It's from sanding down to 2000 grit. =D

This is a small mallet. I am planning to take what I've learned and turn a larger one with maple for the head.

The photos here show the damage, the turning on the lathe, and the final finish photos.

I hope this helps inspire you to try your hand at crafting your own mallets! It's satisfying picking up a tool that I've made myself!

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

It’s been a few months since I completed the Greene & Greene chest project and two since I finished the bench for my wife for Christmas. Since I’ve been busy with other things but it’s time to get going on a new project. Next up is a simple shaker style desk for my mother-in-law.

I bought the lumber, some nice cherry, at a local lumber mill just after New Year. It sat acclimating in my shop for about a month before I began milling. At this point I’ve made the legs (though they aren’t yet tapered) and gotten a good start on the aprons though I still have to make the tenons.

As it is a Shaker piece, the design is simple. In fact, the most interesting parts are hidden construction details (the top rail dovetailed into the legs and lower rail attached with twin tenons). It should be a fun project.

I've added two new feeds to the RSS page. One is Chris Swarz's Lost Art Press blog and the other is Leif's Norse Woodsmith blog. Both are excellent blogs well worth following.

Here are the promised pictures of my earlier saw sharpening adventures.

Remember that I am not offering these pictures as the standard of excellence. They all still have fairly major defects, but they are all quite usable and, in my opinion, cut pretty nicely, particularly when compared to what they were before I worked on them. I expect to take care of some of the defects with further sharpenings at some point in the future.

Here is the HSB & Co. OVB rip saw:


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And I am still a little stunned.

Riley and I just came in from the shop - lesson one of hand cutting dovetails. We had finished dinner early and I looked over at the clock - 6:45. Hmmm... I wonder if there is enough time? Jill gave us her blessing so we headed out.

As we did the long walk to the shop, I realized I did not really know where to begin teaching Riley how to do this. Where do I start? Stock preparation? No... that is a lesson all on its own. How to hold a saw? No... experience is the best teacher for this. Show examples of how they look? Geeze... I was getting bogged down in the details. K.I.S.S. with emphasis on the simple.

I grabbed a scrap piece of 1x6 pine, cut it to 7" long, ripped it on the bandsaw to two equal width pieces - stock prep done. I did have a sample box that I built while at Rosewood studios several years back. We used that as reference for what through dovetails look like.

I could tell Riley was in the right headspace for doing this - he gently unpacked and admired his Wenzloff saws. I gathered the tools: the Tite-mark gauge, the 4" adjustable square, the sliding bevel and a pencil.

The first task was to define the baselines with the Tite-mark. I showed Riley how it worked, and he layed them all out. I was a little surprised that he had the sense to hold the fence firmly against the stock - I was anticipating having to gently remind him a few times.

We did not bother measuring to locate the tail lines - he just marked them wherever - and they were surprisingly well placed. Then he transferred the tail lines on the top and back down the other side. Again - he held the square correctly against the stock. This was going surprisingly well!



Next was sawing. I explained the difference between a crosscut and rip saw and marked each saws with a quick piece of masking tape (sorry Mike:) I then explained that it was easier to use a saw when you were making vertical cut as opposed to a sideways one. So Riley positioned the wood in the vice so the tail line was vertical (according to his eye) and then he started to cut. Note the index finger!



He held the saw incredibly well. We marked the waste with a Sharpie marker. He switched saws and cut off the waste. The shoulders were surprisingly strait and square.

Onto the pins. We used the tail to mark the pins and drew a big “X” on the waste. Riley grabbed the square to draw in the vertical lines... did I even need to be here???



He reached for the rip saw again, and used his own finger to help start the cut. The two shoulder kerfs were really good - now for the waste. For a second, I debated between coping or chopping the waste. We opted for chopping. Riley was a little nervous about using the chisels... but he soon got over it knowing he was going to get to use the green mallet. We chopped half way through from one side - I held the chisel. The second side went very quick and suddenly - we were done. I was preparing to break into a long speech about how they never fit the first time and would need some fine-tuning... when Riley grabbed the two pieces and pushed them together.

My jaw hit the floor - he was beaming.

The joint was a little loose - but it fit, it had square shoulders and kerfs and it was magnificent. I am not sure who was more proud at that moment.

As we walked back to the house Riley said he wanted to do a four sided one next time. I looked at the clock - 7:30.

With the backboard off, Tommy breaks out the scrub plane and starts removing material from the inner case sides. When he's done, he turns the case on its back to attach the transitional piece.

Any day of the week, and at almost any time of the day, you can find a couple of hundred people comparing notes, exchanging ideas, swapping tall-tales and generally sharing their love of woodworking with each other on the WoodNet Forums.

Around since 1993, the original WoodNet BBS was a way for Woodsmith magazine to further support their customer base. The BBS evolved into what is now WoodNet.net and it not only includes the forums, but you’ll also find project plans, woodworking tools and kits, tool reviews, and tips and techniques that are sent direct to your email address each week.

But, today, with eight forums in all (five dedicated to woodworking, one to home improvement, one off-topic forum and one for forum help) if you’re looking for answers from people with most of the same interests as you, the WoodNet forums is the place to be. The subject matter during any given day ranges from how to install kitchen cabinets, to the relative merits of a Stanley No. 4 over a No. 4-1/2, to questions about the best miter saw blade available. Proud forum members often post their “gloats” over the acquisition of a new tool or a particularly impressive wood stash.

It’s not all about talking woodworking though. There are guys (and some gals) who belong to the forums, that get together for regular gatherings (see photo). Or, one member may get a load of lumber and then drive all over the country connecting with other WoodNet members, delivering lumber, and getting some more to take home. The forum members also do lots of things to help members who find themselves caught in extreme circumstances (like illness or accidents), plus they assist active servicemen, as well as veterans.

There are over 19,500 registered users of the WoodNet forums, and probably several tens of thousands who visit the forums to “lurk” each day and simply read the forum posts, but never post themselves. In fact, during the month of April 2007, there were on average13,467 distinct visits to the forums each day. According to Google AdSense, the page impressions for all of April at the WoodNet forums totaled over 5.2 million visits.

Moderators of the forums have a “hands off” policy about forum management. So things are pretty relaxed compared to other woodworking forums. But they do have rules, and a dedicated group of member moderators, who keep things on track and without whom there would be no WoodNet Forums.

So if you’re interested, put on your helmet and flak jacket, come on in and pay them a visit.

Here's an excellent interview with a young furniture designer showing at the 2007 International Contemporary Furniture Fair.

Doug Stowe has up a new article on the therapeutic value of creative manual labor such as hand tool woodworking. He has some food for thought that many of us can back up from personal experience even if we don't understand the technical and chemical processes involved.

Here is a quote from the article: "By getting lost in our work, transcending the sense of self, losing all track of time in our creative efforts we generate the same neurohormones that we excite through mind altering drugs and alcohol... We ignore the needs of our children for creative expression only to introduce and enforce their tragic addiction to other things."  read more »

ABOUT US

Okecrafts is a company specializing in making handicrafts made from natural materials such as bamboo, wood, stone, terracotta, stone, etc.

We are also production and export of Table Lamps, Wooden Photo Frames, Wooden Mirror Frames, Natural Stone, Candle Holder and decorative Bowls and modern-living pine wood furniture.

All products are purely handcrafted, making them unique and have artistic value. Since they are made of natural materials, they are environmentally friendly.

My mother-in-law had commented how much she liked the cabinet unit I made for my wife's cookie sheets, so for my mother-in-law's birthday, we decided something should be done about the cupboard in her pantry. There were a couple of"shelves" in there already, and by "shelves" I mean a couple boards that technically were holding a few things up.

So my wife and I pulled everything out of the cupboard, discussed possible solutions and took some measurements. Then I got to work.

Here's a look at what it looks like now:






I made this in three separate units (left side, center and right side) to make it a little easier to build and install. Other than building square components to go in an area that isn't square, everything went along quite smoothly. And best of all, my mother-in-law is very happy!

All three units are built with pine harvested locally by my brother-in-law. I sanded with 100 grit and then applied a BLO (Boiled Linseed Oil) finish. And here's one final picture to give a little perspective:

I've begun creating "mini" pencils. 4 1/4" (including eraser) it is quite a bit smaller than the original PaperMate Write Bros pencil.

The mechanical pencil was disassembled and the barrel tossed. Using a very sharp bench chisel and just hand pressure I cut the mechanism down to 2 7/8". This also required shortening the leads by approx 1/4".

The barrel is made from purpleheart. I drilled a 1/4" hole through it and turned it on a standard pen turning mandrel. (1/4" hole fits the mandrels made to be used with 7mm brass tubes.) The barrel is 2 5/8" long.

The mechanism from most click-type mechanical pencils requires a small lip at the tip end of the barrel. I created that lip by gluing a tiny piece of 1/4" brass tubing into the tip. It is around 1/8" long, the longest I could make it and still have the threads of the mechanism protrude enough to catch the plastic tip from the original pencil.

The close up shows the piece of tubing used. Note that I used 1/4" tube NOT the standard 7mm tubing. 7mm tubing isn't narrow enough to stop the mechanism.

The finish on this one is just some CA glue slapped on with a small plastic baggie wrapped around my finger. No effort at properly finishing this pencil was made because I was in a hurry.

So no comments on the poor finish, OK?

The Write Bros pencils make perfect practice parts for experimentation because they are inexpensive and easily modified. They are not terribly durable since they're all plastic, but are still useful. And at approx 30c a piece, if one breaks, or I screw it up, I'm not going to cry.

The one pictured here was given to my 5 year old daughter. She loves it and has been using it heavily since I gave it to her. So far it's holding up well.

After a nightmare of Al, Tommy pulls himself together to finish up the BIG dining room table. Watch as he looks up glib, fixes a mistake on the edge, puts on a killer triple bead, attaches hardware and test for the all important 35lb turkey dinner.

With the banding now cut, it's time to put on the cuff. Tommy outlines how to construct the table foot and cuff then reviews some user submissions.

Have some good tools that you no longer use? Maybe you are looking for some used woodworking tools at a good price. The Des Moines Woodworkers Swap Meet is for you.Our Swap Meet is scheduled for Saturday, September 20; 8 am to noon at the Woodsmith Store. If you have tools to sell, swap, we will provide a table at no charge. Just download and print out the application by Clicking Here Fill out the application and mail to the address on the form, or if you have a scanner, scan the completed document and e mail it to dynexdp@aol.com The event is open to both members and non members.