Schedule update

Out and about:
On October 20 from 10:00am to 2:00pm I will be at Hickory & Oak Sawmilling and Lumber Company. Steve will give tours of the sawmill. I will demonstrate sharpening (chisels, plane irons, gouges, hand saw) and hand tool joinery. Lumber will be on sale and there will be special sales on project packs of lumber, It's rumored that there may be cider and donuts as well. This is a great opportunity to get your hand tool questions answered, see a working sawmill and pick-up some lumber. Map Contact Steve Van Osdol at 269-436-0039.

At Woodcraft in Grand Rapids:
On October 8 I'll be teaching SketchUp. How strange is it that the hand tool only guy teaches computer aided design? Seems about right to me.

October 18 will be the first session of "Becoming a Hand Tool Woodworker: Build a Blanket Chest." This class will run all day nearly every Saturday for five sessions after the introductory Thursday night session. You are invited to attend the Thursday night session for free. If you like what you see you can sign up right there (assuming seats are still available). The project is a Pennsylvania Blanket Chest/Shaker Blanket Chest/Tool Chest. It contains 60 dovetails so by the end you will be a dovetailing wizard. This is the same class as is currently happening in my shop except the students will have less latitude in design.

The 25th of October I will be Sharpening for the Woodworker. This is a fundamentals class. I teach the principles of sharpening and then the details of chisels, plane irons, gouges, hand saws and most anything else students happen to bring in.

November 26 will be SketchUp II. This is not a continuation of the first SketchUp class but begins at the mid-point of the previous and continues into topics like scaling, reproduction from photographs, photo-realistic output. You must be quite comfortable with SketchUp to take this class.

In my shop:
Every Sunday in November we will build a Shaker side table. The table includes a drawer. This class teaches hand tool lumber prep, dovetails, mortise and tenon joinery and drawer fitting. This class is full.

In December we will build an Arts & Crafts (Mission Style) side table with a drawer and shelf. This class teaches hand tool lumber prep, dovetails, mortise and tenon joinery and drawer fitting. The table is built from quarter sawn white oak and is, therefore, physically more demanding.

In January we will build an Arts & Crafts (Mission Style) Sette (Love Seat). This class teaches hand tool lumber prep and mortise and tenon joinery. The settee is built from quarter sawn white oak and includes approximately 20 mortise and tenon joints. Hand cut mortise and tenon joinery will never be a problem again after completing this class.

Questions?
Ask them here or contact me.

She killed the bird

Session Two of Becoming a Hand Tool Woodworker: Build a Blanket Chest continued on 9/23/2012. The goals for this session were to complete creation of the reference face of all the plinth boards, create the reference edge for all of the boards and to begin to dimension the plinth boards for width. First, however, we needed to solve a problem with the bench that Megan is using.

The bench that Megan is using doesn't have a tail vice so she was having issues holding the boards for planing. The simple solution was to make a planing stop. We discussed various ways of making the planing stop. Those discussions included analysis of the physics of the forces generated and way to counteract the force successfully. We talked about screwing the boards together, but being a handtool guy I only have iron screws and I don't want to use those on a bench accessory, plus I don't want my planes to meet a chuck of iron. The design decided on was to dovetail two boards together and then clamp that 'L' to the bench to butt the boards she is working on against. So Megan's first task was to dovetail those boards into a planing stop.

I use the Alan Peters method of dovetail layout. I cut my dovetails tails first. Because I do. So together we did the layout and Megan did the labor.

Sawing out the tails

Removing most of the waste with a coping saw. 

Cleaning up the pin board with a chisel.

Megan spread the hide glue with a palette knife, we put the joint together and like real woodworkers solved our problem.

Next they both continued to flatten one face of their boards to create the reference face. This face of the board must be dead flat, untwisted, unbowed, and is the reference for all other dimensions of the board.

Kashley creating a reference face.

In the past, the plane used to create the reference face was called a try plane. Using winding sticks and a straight edge they both verified that their reference faces were correct. Then they moved on the creating the reference edge. The reference edge is absolutely perpendicular to the reference face. Making the reference edge is referred to as truing the board. When that is completed the board is "tried and true."

Kashley is shooting the board to create the reference edge.

Now that their boards are tried and true we can move on to dimensioning the boards. We chose to set the width first since that would remove the need to thickness material that wouldn't exist in the final board. We set my panel gauge to the correct width and scribed each board to the precise width. The next step is to remove the waste by either sawing, planing or both.

Kashley removing unnecessary width from one of her plinth boards.

Both ladies have proven themselves to be excellent sawyers so we tried a different method of sawing this time. We mounted the boards in the vice and cut off the waste with a rip filed panel saw.

Both Kashley and Megan know that the secret to fast accurate sawing is a gentle grip and to allow the saw to do the sawing. When I teach sawing I tell them to hold the saw handle like you would hold a baby bird, firm enough to keep it from escaping, gentle enough to not injure it.As Megan was sawing her board beads of sweat were forming on her forehead. Kashley accused her of "killing the bird."

Staying away from the line with the saw allows you to sneak up on it with a plane. We started with a scrub plane until we got close and then put the board back in the shooting board to get "down to the wire." When you plane to a scribed line a wood wire will come off the wood at the scribed line. If it will comes at once you know that you are perfectly straight and right on the mark. Since Megan sawed first, she managed to get two board to width while Kashley was sawing her boards (as opposed to the fact that Kashley had to wait for Megan to finish sawing).

Next session we will finish setting the width of the boards. Then they will plane them to the proper thickness. Followed by squaring one end and setting the length. We probably will not get to layout and cut the dovetails until the following session.

I ran into both of them this morning while getting my morning espresso. It was verified by the state of soreness that Megan had indeed, killed the bird.

Girls don't sweat

I warned Kashley and Megan that session two was going to be a sweaty one.

When they arrived I had them each continue working on their spoons. As I've mentioned before, the spoon carving exercise has nothing to do with making a spoon and everything to do with understanding how to cooperate with the wood's natural tendencies and to learn to identify what those tendencies are. They are both progressing extremely well.

As soon as we were all settled in we discussed hand saws. They learned how to distinguish a rip saw from a cross-cut saw and where/why to use each. We looked at a saw bench and discussed why mine will seem "funny" to them. We learned to use a panel gauge and after very little sawing instruction Megan chose to go first. She needed a 5" wide piece 10 feet long piece of cherry.

I had pre-selected two pieces of cherry that were 10 feet long and 12" and 15" wide respectively. After a discussion of the merits of each the 12" wide piece was selected for their plinths (case skirt). As we learned last week, Megan is a natural sawyer. Straight, plumb and quick. Kashley also saws straight not quite as plumb, but she is fast! I'll put her up against anyone with the same amount of experience. Give them two more weeks and they'll be ready for the Neanderthal Olympics.

Next they cut the long board into the pieces they need for the plinth. Megan cut all of her's with a tenon saw and bench hook. Kashley used a cross-cut filed hand saw for her first cut and then switched to the tenon saw and bench hook method. In an unprompted quiz, Kashley stated that the hand saw is quicker but the tenon saw produced a finer cut, I completely agree. On the other hand, the ends of the board will not be used straight from the saw. We will shoot them square before we layout and cut the dovetails.

Flattening boards by hand is truly a learned skill, I don't believe there are any "naturals." Since Megan completed her sawing first, she started to flatten her boards first. This was when she learned that the sweat I had warned them about had nothing to do with sawing.

Despite the fact that both sets of boards came from the same original board, Megan's boards all had one face that was nearly flat untouched, yet Kashley's were all suffering from some degree of cupping. Next week we finish flattening the boards and layout the dovetails.

Here are some spoon work pictures from last week. Oh, and girls do sweat.

Can she make a Cherry Spoon...

The first session of Hand Tool Woodworking: Build a Blanket Chest is now history. Due to some other obligations we were limited to two hours.

In my opinion, you give a new hand tool woodworker a much higher chance at avoiding frustration by first guiding them to understand how wood works. Power tool woodworkers have the ability to force the wood to submit to nearly anything but as hand tool woodworkers we can work faster by working in co-operation with the wood.

We started out by learning how to identify open ring-porous and diffuse ring-porous woods and why we care.

Here's Megan pointing out her diffuse ring-porous cherry pre-spoon. 

After sketching the outline of a kitchen spoon on a piece of cherry scrap we used our new knowledge to very quickly rough cut the spoon using stop cuts that they made with a cross-cut tenon saw and then an oversize chisel. By working with the grain and across the grain at low angles both had reduced the scrap wood into a reasonable representation of a caveman spoon.

Next we used a coping saw to work where the chisel is less effective, direct cross grain cuts. Both also used it to round the heel and front edge of the bowl of the spoon.

Next they moved to a gouge with a large sweep to hollow out the bowl of the spoon. Followed by a spooke shave to begin to refine the shape and thickness of the spoon.

Since, as I previously mentioned, we were time limited neither are finished with the spoon. However, both were further along than any of my previous students at the same time mark (sorry previous students).

So we ended the session understanding the types of hardwoods, safe use of a chisel, sawing with a back saw, using a coping saw for curved cuts, shaping with a spoke shave, and sharpening a chisel.

        

I was delighted at how quickly both gained the skills taught.

Next time we will complete the spoons and discuss finishes that are appropriate for food handling. Then, or more likely at the same time, we will rough saw the material for our plinths. I suspect next week's photos will include dark half-moons under their arms.

Variations in the familiar

Nearly everyone at my local Starbucks knows my name and my drink, slightly dry triple non-fat grande cappuccino. Its not unusual for them to have already made it by the time I get to the cash register. Every barista makes it a little differently. Sometimes the same barista will not make it the same one time to the next. I was reminded of this a few days ago when "the new guy" made mine. At first I was taken aback by the taste. But as I drank it I began to appreciate the fact that it was different. All of the cappuccinos that I get are slightly different. I'm sure that's why I like them so much, variation within the familiar.

The same is true of hand tool woodworking. Given the same plan no two pieces will ever be the same. If I shove wood through a series of machines they will all be the same. Worked by hand they can't ever be identical. I like that.

Subtle things like a difference in angle between dovetails, a spot of twisty grain that was smoothed by a card scraper leaving that microscopic hollow that can only be felt and only by an experienced hand, the facets that were missed when rounding over by hand. I love those things. Little clues that a person made it. I'm not talking about mistakes but the evidence left by the humanity of the builder.

I think all of that is why I like teaching hand tool woodworking. Several students all building the same table or chest or whatever and they all end up with...

Snowflakes