Where am I?

Well...I fell down a flight of stairs while carrying a box of files. I broke my left leg and tore the ACL. I'm scheduled for repair on March 22.

I have a box of saws to be sharpened. I'm not sure that I will get to them before I have recovered. They are safe and well labeled. If you are uncomfortable or need to send them elsewhere to get them back in service I understand completely and will return them post-haste on your request.

I have a set of boxes and a table that will not be completed on time. Clients have been contacted. If I have work in progress for you that is not listed here then I am comfortable that it will be finished as specified. If you are concerned please give me a call to discuss it.

Taking away the mystery

I want to share something with you. If you have taken one of my sharpening classes you may have seen this already. If not, this is for you.

When I teach sharpening I try to make it very clear that the media is unimportant, it's all technique. Sure, some media is faster than others, some media is more expensive. But the proper techniques will produce a great edge regardless of your choice of media. I do not intend to teach those techniques in a blog post. Everyone that has taken one of my classes has heard me say, "It's fun to watch an expert but you will learn faster if the expert watches you."

My method of sharpening uses two or three abrasives. The coarsest of which is used shaping. Shaping is adjusting a bevel or fixing a nick. The medium abrasive does the actual sharpening, I prefer the term honing since sharpening if, to me, the entire process. The finest grit is used to polish the edge. Attend the class for details or, if there are sufficient requests, I'll do a video here that will clear things up.

Grid seems too nebulous a term to me. To make the discussion easier in my classes I researched the size of the abrasive of various media. The first charts I made just showed the grit to abrasive size of the various media. After that I determined reasonable abrasiveness for each operation and reformatted the charts with that information. I determined that I use abrasives courser than 22 microns for sharping, 22 to 10 for honing, and finer than 10 for polishing.

There are some "exceptions" to the rules. For example, Shapton 1000 grit stone cuts so fast that it works fine for honing and some shaping. Another exception is the fact that sandpaper that is fine enough for polishing is quite expensive, therefore I recommend stropping rather than polishing with sandpaper.

So, for your use here are the charts I include in my sharpening notes. Feel free to ask questions/make comments below.

Grit to Abrasive size

Shapton	Coarse (Shaping)	Medium (Honing)	Fine (Polishing)
1,000		14.7
4,000			3.63
8,000			1.84
16,000			0.92
30,000			0.49

Norton Water	Coarse (Shaping)	Medium (Honing)	Fine (Polishing)
220	65
360	36
600		22
800		16
1,000		14
1,200			11
1,500			9.2
2,000			7.5
4,000			6
8,000			3
15,000			0.5

Diamond Stones	Coarse (Shaping)	Medium (Honing)	Fine (Polishing)
diamond	127
extra coarse	65
coarse	43
fine		22
extra fine			11

Arkansas	Coarse (Shaping)	Medium (Honing)	Fine (Polishing)
soft		22
hard translucent			6

India	Coarse (Shaping)	Medium (Honing)	Fine (Polishing)
coarse crystolon	127
coarse India	97
medium crystolon	78
medium India	53.5
fine crystolon	45
fine India	29
extra fine India		22

Sandpaper	Coarse (Shaping)	Medium (Honing)	Fine (Polishing)
120	116
150	96
180	78
220	60
240	53.5
280	43
320	36
360	29
400	23
600		16
700		14
800		12.6
1,000			9.2
1,500			8.4
2,000			6

A Special Holiday Offer

I have a special offer for all the woodworkers that read my blog.

What we will do:
Kashley, Megan and I will sharpen your handsaws for you for $15 each. Actually, Kashley or Megan will sharpen your saws while I keep a close eye on them. Don't worry, yours is not be the first saw they have sharpened. They will joint your saw (you still aren't using the full length of the saw are you??), re-shape the teeth (where necessary), sharpen the teeth, adjust the set (if necessary), true the run of the saw (adjust it to saw straight), and wax the plate. They will then repack it carefully with the test board and return it to you. They will not re-tooth, straighten or de-rust your saw. They will also only sharpen western saws, no saws that cut on the pull. They will not repair totes.

What you have to do:
Arrange for delivery of the saw to me by December 15, details in a moment. Include a check for $15 PLUS the cost of getting the saw back to you. I do take credit cards but only in person. It should cost the same to get it to you as it did to get it to me. Include the following information for each saw; your name and address, whether you are using the saw for hard or soft woods, if it is a cross-cut saw and you know the amount of fleam you like include that information, a method to contact you in case we need additional information. If it were my saw, I'd write that stuff on the saw plate with a sharpy, you may want to write it on paper and tape it to the saw plate, your choice.

How to make it happen:
Contact me to reserve your place in line, email me at billsias (at) gmail (dot) com.

We will sharpen the saws on December 16 ONLY, therefore we are limiting the number of saws in this offer to 10. After the ten saws the price will go back to normal rates and will be sharpened by me. During this offer either Megan or Kashley will receive the entire payment (other than the shipping costs).

If you have a saw that needs more than just a sharpening contact me to set that up as well. I can make Grandpa's saw look like it did when he was using it.

A toolbag is more than an interesting title for an uninteresting person

It's been a while since I last posted. I'd like to have a really cool excuse but I don't, I've just been busy and lacking in motivation as far as writing is concerned. For verification of the lack of motivation to write see my last post.

The Woodcraft class has met twice since I last posted. They had dimensioned the plinth boards and were ready to layout and cut dovetails. Upon parting Steve wrote the process of dovetailing on the whiteboard in the shop. I find it very difficult to recite the process, I just do it. I visualized cutting the joint while Steve wrote it out. It is reproduced here just in case you are interested.

When we parted the homework assignment was to be ready to dovetail plinths, have the carcase supports ready except for length and perhaps a width adjustment and carcase components ready except for length and glue joints.

Meanwhile, the class in my shop started with the discovery that a tool bag is not merely an interesting title for an uninteresting person.

Tails and pins are cleaned up.

Kashley's plinth is assembled. The glue-up went extremely well. I find glue ups with hide glue to be exciting. I sometimes offer suggestions in a manner that is louder than my usual demeanor. Megan and Kashley can verify this for you.

Successful assembly must always be followed by an announcement of same.

A little more clean up and

Megan's plinth is assembled as well. This was the first time I had used corner clamps...probably the last as well, at least on dovetails.

Fast forward two weeks and we are back at Woodcraft. After cutting the tails we need to cut a groove to hold the carcase supports. Since we are using through dovetails great care must be taken to assure that we do not clip off a piece of tail while using the rabbet plane. Therefore, we dive in and out of the rabbet with the plane and finish the ends with a router plane. Not as fast as just using the rabbet plane but much faster than repairing square holes in the tails.

Meanwhile, Steve reshoots one of his long plinth boards to correct for a variation in width from the opposite plinth board. Since he has very little to remove and only from part of the board he shoots with his smoother.

Then he is ready to cut his tails.

Here is sets up for a first class saw cut to remove the hald-pin socket.

After Dave's glue has set (but not yet cured) he cuts the rabbet in the end board. This is just a small ledge to help hold the carcase support. It's cut after assembly because it must not show or weaken the dovetail joint.

Back in my shop, Megan starts to plane the piece of poplar that she will use for the carcase support for thickness. She commented that it seemed a shame to bury the green, blue, purple and white wood in the base of the chest where it will never be seen again.

Then it was time for Megan to start on the carcase of her chest. Below she is sawing the cherry board that she selected for the front of the chest.

I quickly hit it with a smoother plane just to show how good her eye is at spotting interesting lumber.
She also selected a piece of walnut with both heart and sapwood. She will rip that in half and border the cherry with it.

So, there you are all caught up on the action.

Schedule:
11/26 I will be teaching SketchUp II at Woodcraft in Grand Rapids. The class runs from 4:00 to 7:00. You should be competent in the basics of SketchUp to take this class.

11/28 I will teach 'Sharpening for the Woodworker" at Woodcraft in Grand Rapids from 4:00 to 7:00. This class is the basics of sharpening and then practice on a chisel, block plane, bench plane and a striking knife. We will also discuss/demonstrate sharpening other tools. This is a hands-on class so bring dull tools and your sharpening kit.

Comments and questions are always welcomed.

Cheers,
Bill

Southwest Michigan Woodworker's Guild

On 11/13/2012 I traveled with Gary Foote, the owner of the Woodcraft in Grand Rapids, to the November meeting of the Southwest Michigan Woodworker's Guild. I apologize if the name is incorrect.

It's an interesting group. They meet in the home of one of their members. The fellow has a well-equipt power-tool workshop. He and his wife were excellent hosts. There were about 35 members in attendance. After a short business session they did show and tell. It apparent that this club is full of woodworkers, not woodtalkers. They also have a couple of club-wide projects making toys as Christmas gifts for two local charities.

Everyone adjourned to the shop when I was to speak. There is an overhead camera and monitors both in front of and behind me. This allowed close-ups of my hands as I worked. After an inspiring introduction by Gary I began my usual introduction to sharpening. I always ask people that attend my sharpening classes and lecture to tell me how long it takes to bring a chisel from flat-out dull to sharp enough to put a finish ready surface on end-grain. Apparently I've been been doing this for a while, one of the attendees spoke up and announced, "You can do it in 8 seconds but you'll tell us it will take you 12."

He was right...on both counts.

I demonstrated many techniques and spoke about steel for about 90 minutes I think. I answered a bunch of questions about hand tool only woodworking and about developing speed in various hand tool tasks. It was great fun. If they weren't 3 hours away I'd attend their meetings regularly. If you are in the Kalamazoo area I will be happy to get contact information for you, just drop me an email.

Bill

Some times the plane shavings are just too cool

There aren't many pictures this week, after all sawing and cleaning pins isn't a lot different than the equivalent operations with tails.

Some times the plane shavings are just too cool to not play with. Earlier in the day I had cut some dados that left some very curly shavings. When Megan arrived they simply begged to be attached to her finger tips. Halloween costumes are everywhere.

 Other than the spacing be much larger, the process of cleaning out between pins is much the same as cleaning out between the tails of Kashley's dovetails.

 The top of the sides of the plinth needs dados cut to install the carcase support rails. Kashley is holding the wood that used to be where the dado is now.

Next week we are committed to assembly!

Bill

Cutting our tails.

With much anticipation the ladies started dovetailing their plinths on Sunday afternoon.

I essentially use Alan Peters' method of laying out and cutting dovetails. I do it tails first. I know many people prefer pins first but I think the tails first vs pins first argument is silly. Do it the way you are most comfortable which is probably the way you first learned to cut them. Save the emotional energy for something that actually matters.

We start by marking the width of the pin board around the ends of the tail boards by setting a marking gauge to the width of pin board and running it completely around the ends of the tail boards. We continue by determining the size of the half-pins on the ends. I seem to tend toward 1/4" varying larger or smaller with the size of the board. I set one divider to the size of the half-pin and set it aside to mark all of my boards at once.

Next I determine the number of tails I want, stepping that off on the end of the first board until I have set the opening on the second divider to the size of one tail plus one pin. Then I mark all of the tail cuts using an extra fine point pen and bevel gauge. Do not use gel ink, it soaks into the wood ruining the piece (guess how I know that little fact...). I mark the angle by running the pen up from the mark we scribed with the marking gauge and straight across the end of the board.

Since the girls have been practicing sawing to a line and are now quite good at it, the tail board is positioned plumb in the vice. Sawing straight across the top and down at the marked angle, they carefully stopped right at the scribed line.

Most of the waste is removed with a fret saw and then cleaned up with a chisel.

I was impressed with both ladies sawing abilities. If you look back at where we started compared to today you would not guess that both have only a few sessions experience. When it comes to handling a chisel neither is taking a back seat to anyone.

As always happens we ran out of time before we ran out of enthusiasm. Next week we'll layout and cut the pins and plow the grooves and dados for the carcase rails. Then we will assemble the plinths.

Bill