New Web Site

Starting my blog at blogger.com, was a test for me. I wanted to see if I would post on a somewhat regular basis. I was pretty pleased with my regular posts, and I have more ideas and projects coming. So I though I would move over to a real domain. New posts will now be showing up at theinquisitivewoodworker.com. I moved all of my current posts and comments over to this new web site. I plan to spend some time "customizing" the new site. You will see a general template for now, but look for some changes, as I start to figure things out.

Bandsaw Weekend

I did a quick tire change on the bandsaw this weekend and tested out the new bandsaw blade I ordered. The tire change went fast without any problems. It was then onto testing this new killer blade.

Resaw King bandsaw blade
The bandsaw blades I’ve been using lately have been Wood Slicer blades. I’ve been really happy with these blades. They cut pretty fast and pretty smooth. I knew even with the “nice” cut I was getting, there was going to be a lot of work cleaning up the cut surface. Recently I was listening to Wood Talk Online, and Mark was talking about a new blade he was testing. It was the Resaw King from Laguna Tools. He commented on the smoothness and quality of cut he got with this blade. He also said it was pretty expensive and he was right. I thought if the blade worked as well as advertised, it could save me a lot of time during the surface clean up.

There are some nice videos on Laguna’s web site, you might wont the check them out if you are considering one these blades.

The first thing you will notice about this blade, it’s not the standard hocked toothed blade you are used to seeing. It really looks like a “table saw” blade, but stretched out into a bandsaw blade.

A positive thing about this blade is that it can be sent back to be resharpened. It helped me justify the initial cash outlay, which for me was about $180. My bandsaw can support up to a ¾” blade, so I got a 105” - ¾” Resaw King.

While on Laguna’s site, I watched some of their other videos. In the section on their bandsaws, one of the demonstrations was on setting your fence for blade drift. It was brilliant and the simplest procedure I had ever seen. I had to see if it really worked.

Setting your fence for blade drift
First, find a nice piece of stock a couple inches thick. Make sure the edge that will ride against the fence is flat and square. Make your first cut about a 1" in from the outside edge. The cut should be a couple inches deep. Turn off the bandsaw. Observe the blade position in the cut.

In my case the blade was resting up against the right side of the cut, as you looked at from the cut side. The goal is to get the blade in the center of the saw curf. I opened the fence up slightly and did another test cut.

I was a little conservative on my first adjustment. Another slight tweak, and I got it on my second try.
This really is the simplest and quickest method I’ve ever used. Now, the real test was going to be how it cuts.

Testing the blade
Here's an example of a resaw cut I did last weekend using my Wood Slicer blade. It’s what I’m used to getting on my bandsaw and until now I thought it was a pretty nice cut.

Here’s an example of the quality of cut I get with the Resaw King blade.

You can just make out some very light “ribs” left by the blade. It is the cleanest and smoothest cut I have ever seen on a bandsaw. Laguna says they are trying to achieve table saw quality cuts on their bandsaws. I think I'm about 95% there with my bandsaw. I suspect you can get that quality of cut, on one of their saws with this blade. I on the other hand have a Grizzly 14” bandsaw, which is working fine for me now. Although, I look forward to the day I can move up to a higher quality and larger bandsaw.

I was so impressed with the quality of cut, I recut the laminates for the apron. The surfaces were so smooth, I decide to try the glue up without even cleaning up the cut surfaces. The apron is curing in the form and will be ready for a closer look tomorrow, or this next weekend.

Bending form for the apron

Available shop time has been low lately. I caught one of the early cold bugs going around, and then my wife caught it from me. This last weekend I felt better and had a little bit of time I could spend in the shop. I finished up the bending form I will use to make the apron for the Small Hall table.

I also started to cut some of the laminates I will use to do a test glue up. I had some issues with my band saw while doing this. I was hearing a thumping sound coming from the saw whenever I was cutting. This was unusual, because my band saw always sounded and cut smoothly. After a little investigation I found that a nice little chunk had been taken out of one my tires. I can't even begin to think how this happened. They were petty new tires, but I have ordered some replacements. Replacing the tires will be one of this weekend’s tasks. I’m also going to try a nicer resaw blade to see if I can get a smoother cut. I'd like to cut down on how much time I have to spend cleaning up each laminate. I'll post the results after I have had a chance to use the blade.

Which leads to the question, “How do you clean up the laminates”? Most of the woodworking shows and articles I have seen on resawing laminates, say to use a drum stander to clean up the surfaces. I would say that most amateur woodworkers don’t have a drum sander, and it’s pretty far done on my list of tools if it’s even on my list. I hate sanding dust!

I searched and found two articles, both of which I think I had read in the past. The first was in Fine Woodworking # 164. In this article Lon Schleining, uses a melamine board and double stick tape to attach the laminates to it. He then ran the board through a thickness planer, or drum sander if you have one :). I had thought of this, but the idea just scared me. Even taped down to another board, I have this image of the thin pieces coming apart under the fast spinning knives. It was good to know that it has been done.

Because I was still uncomfortable with the thickness planer idea, I kept digging. I found an even newer article I had read in Popular Woodworking. They say your memory is the 2nd thing go, I can’t remember what the first is. The article was written by David Charlesworth, one the people that really got me interested in hand tools. He attaches his laminates to a piece of MDF, using a couple drops of Super Glue at one end. He then uses a hand plane to clean up the surface. You only need the glue at one end, because as you are hand planing the piece it will be under tension. It also has the advantage of letting you left the piece up, to check on how you are doing. This method really seems to be what I’m looking for. It is safer and uses a hand plane. I may give the thickness planer a try, just to prove myself wrong or right. I'll post results of both methods soon.

Measure Twice, Cut Once

I tend to try to remember things without writing them down. Just ask my wife when she gives me a list of things to pickup at the store. She’d always ask do you want to write that down. I’d always say, no it’s just 4 or 5 items I can remember that. Needless to say I always forget something. Now she just hands me her list.

This time it wasn’t remembering something it was doing math in my head, which is just as bad. Last weekend I started to work on the form for the bent laminate apron, for the small table I’m working. I knew what the finished radii were for the apron. I then had to compensate for the cork I was going to line the form with. I though it’s only a 1/8” I can do that math in my head. I don’t know what happened. Where I need to subtract a 1/8” I added and/or where I needed to add a 1/8” I subtracted. In any case, the measurements were off. Luckily this wasn’t a big deal, it was only a couple small pieces of MDF I had to through in the trashcan. I’m really glad I found my mistake before I got all the way through my glue-up!

What I learned from this? I failed on the Measure Twice part. Even though I was dead on in laying out the wrong measurements. I really need to write everything down. I think I’m saving time by doing stuff in my head. In reality, it has cost me time and money more than once. I think I have finally learned my lesson. I may even start to make grocery lists now :).

Small Hall Table – Starting the Mock-Up

This weekend I had some free time and spent my time working on the mock-up for the small hall table.

I started with the legs. I was concerned that the size of the legs I drew up in my plans might be too bulky. The legs I drew up were 1 ¾” square at the top and tapered down to 1” square. After making the first leg I was sure it was going to be too bulky, for this table. I mocked-up another leg that was 1 ½” square at the top and tapered down to ¾”. I like this leg much better. It just goes to show that it is hard to judge size and proportion in a "CAD" program. A full size drawing or a mock-up might be needed.


To cut the tapers I made a simple jig. It’s just a piece of ½” MDF, with a couple stops attached to it. The stops held the blank in place pretty well, but I added some double-stick tape for good measure. After cutting the first two tapers, I had to add a small “shim”, the size of the waste I cut off, to the lower part of the jig. This kept everything lined up for each cut. The cuts were made on the table saw. The jig runs up against the rip fence.

After getting the legs worked out, I had some time to start on the form I was going to use to glue-up the apron. The apron will be a bent-laminate glue-up. This is going to be a somewhat “small” glue-up, so I just plan to use a few pieces of MDF. The apron will be about 1 ¾” wide. 3 layers for ¾” MFD will give me the width I need to do the glue-up. To make the radius cuts I need, I used my band saw. I’ve seen this done on many woodworking shows, but haven’t tried it yet. I didn’t make fancy jig for this, it's just a piece of MDF attached to my top. I then drilled holes for the different radii I needed, and used a piece dowel as the pivot point.

The boards that were going to be cut, were somewhat small so I only used double-stick tape to attach the jig to my top. Someday, I may spend some time to make a “reusable” jig. For now a simple board taped to the top worked well.

I started the glue up of the 3 layers of MDF. I plan to use some cork to line the form, but I have to track it down first. I think I’ll have time next weekend to do a test glue-up of the apron. I’ll show the completed form and glued up apron at that time.

Looking for lumber

I went by 2 of the larger hardwood suppliers in my area (Crosscut Hardwoods and Edensaw), looking for lumber for the small table I'm starting. For the first time I struck out finding what I wanted. I was looking to build the table out of Cherry. I wanted the top to be one piece and it needed to be about 10" x 20". Most of the boards I found were closer to 6" and 8" wide. I didn't want to glue up the top, I thought the joint might look odd on the half circle shape. I did find one board that would work, but they were calling it "Figured Cherry" and it was over $20/bf. If it had figure in it I might have gone with it, but I didn't really see any figure in it. Unless you call sapwood figure!

On to Plan B. Now I'm looking to use veneer for the top. I'll just add one more thing to this project that I haven't done yet. This simple little table is turning into a real experiment for me now. I started looking around online for veneers. I found some really nice Redwood Burl veneer at B&B Rare Woods. I had come across this company awhile ago, but I haven't ordered from them yet. I sent off a few questions to them, and I'm waiting to hear back. It sounds like they are in the middle of moving to a new location, so I'll give them a little while to get back to me.

In the meantime, I plan to pick up some inexpensive wood to start the mock-up. I plan to mock-up a couple different sizes of legs, to figure out which proportions work best. Design and proportions is something I'm still working on and I think a mock-up is needed. I've seen a lot of new woodworkers try their own designs, and quite often they come out chunky and heavy. This is going to be a somewhat small/delicate table, and I don't want tree trunks for legs.

It's interesting, Christopher Schwarz just talked about design in the latest issue of Popular Woodworking (Oct 2008). I had recently come to the same realization that there are no real design classes out there for woodworkers. Part of what I want to share in this blog, is how I develop that skill. I've been thinking about looking at some of the community colleges around me to see what they offer. If anyone is aware of design classes that can be taken by "average" people let me know.

Montana Trip

My wife and I just got back from a trip to Montana. My wife’s parents have a house on Flathead Lake, and we try to go over there each summer. I love the Northwest and can’t imagine living anywhere else, but Montana would be a really close second for me. It was a little cloudy the few days we were there, so we didn’t get any good pictures this year. Here is a picture I took a year or two ago, from the porch their house. It’s really hard waking up this view each morning ☺.

We didn’t stay quite as long as we planned. Both of the parents caught a cold just before we arrived. We hung around for a couple days, but then decided to head home before we caught it. It was still a good trip despite being cut short. We still have a few days left on our vacation, so we will spend it at home. I hope to get some shop time after a few tasks that need to be done around the house.

Small Hall Table – Initial Design Idea

Now that I have finally finished my workbench, it’s time to move on to projects that have been waiting for me to finish the workbench.

We have needed a small hall table that will be near our front door. It needs to fit a specific area, which isn’t very wide. The table needs to be less than 20” wide. It will be a place to drop keys and mail. So it doesn’t need too large. I thought about some of the different design options. I wanted it to be clean looking, not too decorative. I looked through a few design books and kept an eye out in furniture sale fliers for design ideas. End the end, I started to settle on a half round table with tapered legs.

I spent some time in SketchUp to rough out my design. The top will be about 20” in diameter. I haven’t settle on the height yet, but it will be around 32” high. I also think I will use Cherry for the project, but it will depend on what I can find at my suppliers. I’d like to find a nice piece of figured Cherry for the top.

I gave some thought to the type of joinery I would use, to attach the legs to the apron. I was thinking I could use mortise and tenon joints for the back legs. Then I thought I could use sliding dovetails. Beside the joinery I choose, this project won’t be that complicated. I’ve never used sliding dovetails, so I think I will challenge myself and give it a try. For the front middle leg I will use a bridle joint.

The other challenge for this project will be the apron. I plan to make the half round shape, using bentwood lamination. This will also be a new experience for me. I’ve seen this done a lot but have never tried it.

Because some of these techniques are new to me, I will be trying them out on some less expensive wood first. I’ll create the apron and a leg or two out of Poplar. This will allow me to practice cutting the sliding dovetails, and to see how the bentwood lamination behaves.

To help cut the male end of the sliding dovetails, I looked around for dovetail planes. I really couldn’t find what I was looking for. I new Phil over at Philly Planes made different kinds of wooden hand planes. I sent him an email asking if he made dovetail planes, and I was happy to hear back that he does. I’ve got my name on his to-do list. It will be a few weeks before he can get to it, but that just gives me time to work on getting the test pieces put together.

Best In The West

Last weekend a woodworking buddy and I headed off to the Best In The West - Tool Extravaganza. This is a tool collectors gathering hosted by the Pacific Northwest Tool Collectors (PNTC). The event only happens every other year and moves between Washington and Oregon. It’s a 4-day event but we only went on Saturday, for the main tool sale and auction. Even though I don’t consider myself a collector, it was a lot fun.

I went there looking for some good user tools, but ended up walking away without buying anything. For me I was quite overwhelmed and really couldn’t make up my mind. I really haven’t done much research on older tools, so I really wasn’t sure what I was looking at. I could tell the different between the user tools and the collectable tools. The collectable tools were always in the hundreds and thousands of dollars range! I went looking for hammers, saws and eggbeater style hand drills, but for some reason those were in short supply. Maybe those aren’t as collectable as other tools.

I always knew woodworkers and now tool collectors are some of the nicest people. The people at this event lived up to this reputation. Everyone was very nice and answered all the questions of a couple newbies.

The other part of the event was the tool collection displays. This is worth the trip even if you don’t buy anything. These collections were amazing, I should have spent more time over there. I snapped a few pictures, but the pictures really don’t do them justice. If you ever have a chance to go to an event like this, I highly recommend it.

At the end of the day, there was a dinner and live auction. At part of the dinner you had a choice to purchase a “favor”. The favor cost $50 but was well worth it. For each event PNTC commissions a one of a kind tool to be made. When we signed up we saw some of the past favors, and they were incredible. So, we said we were going to get this year’s favor.

While walking around we found a toolmaker named Christopher Laarman. He makes these amazing Finger Planes. While talking to him, we found out he was the guy who made this years favor. What the favor is going to be, is always a big secret. There was no way he was going to tell us what he made. We both joked how cool it would be if we got one of those Finger Planes! We both knew it was out of the question, because some of his planes were going for over $300. Wow, were we surprised when we opened the favor! It was one of his planes. It wasn’t quite as refined as some of his other planes, but it is a beautiful example of craftsmanship.

As I stated before, I’m not a collector. I can get excited about seeing a MIB old plane that has never been used or hardly touched. At the same time, I’m a little sad that the tool never gotten to live out it’s potential as a tool. So, that means my little Finger Plane will be taken out of its box and tuned up and put to use! It’s a good thing those tools in their pristine original boxes are so expensive, otherwise I might let some of them free ☺!

How’s your grip?

It's interesting how your grip can dramatically change how something reacts or performs. If I squeeze my wife’s hand too hard, I’m liable to get punched! If I grip my golf club too hard, I will hook or slice the ball. There are many other examples like this. So why didn’t I use this knowledge on my hand tools? I think it’s because I started out using power tools. When using power tools you seem to need to hold on for dear life, especially handheld routers!

When I first started to get interested in hand tools, I was watching some of Rob Cosman’s DVDs. Rob talked about the importance of a “light” touch/grip when using the dovetail saw. He likened it to the amount of pressure you would use when holding a baby’s hand. I was also watching some DVDs by David Charlesworth, and he favoured a light/delicate touch when you hold your chisels. It all started to sink in, eventually.

I use a 15ppi dovetail saw, and many would call this a course saw. The key to using this saw, as Rob points out, is to have a light grip and to take some of the weight off the saw. Whenever I’m having an issue starting my cut, I stop and analyze my grip. If you have a tight grip on the saw, it’s almost impossible to lift up to take some of the weight off the cut. In those cases where my cuts aren’t starting smoothly, it’s because my grip has tightened up. I loosen my grip and presto the cut starts like a dream.

I’ve even taken this concept to how I hold my hand planes. For planes that have totes, I use an almost open grip. For the most part you are pushing a plane and really don’t need to grip it. I used to have a tendency of having a death-grip on my planes, and my hands would get tired. I wasn’t afraid of dropping the plane, I just associated a strong grip with power. Now I know, a light grip on hand tools means control. Analyze your grip and see how much control you get, if you loosen up a bit.

LumberJocks.com

About 2 years ago I started to find more and more woodworking resources on the Internet. Most had great information and lots of participation from woodworkers of all kinds. Unfortunately the Internet has a way of removing normal social barriers, and can bring out the worst in some people. I started to see more and more of what people called “flamers”. These people seem to take pleasure in insulting others that don’t agree with them. Because of this I started to avoid these forums, sadly some of the largest ones on the Internet. Don’t get me wrong I like a good debate, but for the most part these people weren’t debating.

I was at the point where I wasn’t participating in these forums anymore. Then I heard about LumberJocks, I think from The Wood Whisperer. Even then I didn’t go right out to the site. I think I was bored one day, and decided to check the site out. At that time, the site was still kind of small, maybe a few hundred members. Even with the small membership, there was a lot activity on the site. So I signed up. I was overwhelmed by the welcome I received! LumberJocks has a regular “Welcome Committee” that welcomes every new member. This I think this sets the tone for the site. Everyone is very friendly and flamers are few and far between.

The other thing that sets LumberJocks apart is that it is, for lack of a better term, a “multi-media” site. LumberJocks is designed to encourage you to post pictures, videos, postcasts, etc. Martin who started the site has also added a Blogging feature to the site. I think LumberJocks is still a very unique site and has no equal. Its membership has been growing by leaps and bounds, and it has kept its “small” friendly spirit. If you haven’t heard for LumberJocks yet, you really need to check this site out.

I have posted quite a bit of information on Lumber Jocks. You can check out my profile here. I have posted several: Projects, Blogs, Reviews and forum topics. I’m particularly happy with the Blog series I did on building my workbench.

If you have a favorite site let me know. I will also post a more complete list of sites I really like and frequent.

Day 4 and 5 – Handsawing class with Christopher Schwarz

My last post really went into a lot of detail on what cuts I used on which joints, to demonstrate where the different classes cuts can be used. I won't bore you with that kind of detail in this post. Instead I just give a general overview of what we did for our final project in the class.

Out final project was a Shaker Silverware Tray. It's a "simple" and clean design, as you would expect from the Shakers. Clean and simple can be hard to pull off. Everything has to be just right, from the design to the execution. Otherwise it will look like someone just through it together. This tray is simple in design, but the proportions and slight curve in the handle give a pleasing look. Whenever I walk by it, I just want to pick it up and look at it and feel the shape. I try not to let my wife catch me fondling my projects :).

As you might have guessed, this tray was made with using only hand tools. Well, only after the lumber was given to us. The wood was prepared beforehand by the school. There wasn't time in the class for us to prep the wood ourselves using only hand tools. This was a handsawing and cutting class, not a rough to ready hand planing class.

Before this class I think I might have cut 10 practice sets of dovetails. The first sets weren't the prettiest, but I kept trying. I can say it does get easier with practice. The more time you spend with saw in hand the better you will get. During the first part of the week we did have a lot practice sawing, which helped prepare for the hand-cut dovetails.

Let me also put in a plug for Rob Cosman here. Before I took this class, I watched a couple DVDs by Rob Cosman on hand-cutting dovetails. Rob has some very nice DVDs covering a few topics on hand tools. They are very informative and walk you through all of the steps in cutting dovetails. The DVDs are so good I can watch them over and over again. I can't say that about a lot of woodworking DVDs. Rob has even come out with a shop manual you can take with into your shop. It covers cutting dovetails step-by-step. Also, Chris mentioned that he took a class from Rob, years ago when he (Chris) was starting out in woodworking. Rob will give you the confidence that you can do this, and it's within everyone's reach.

The curved end pieces were marked out from a template Chris had. I then used a chisel to chop away the excess wood. You could use a coping saw or some other method here, but a chisel does quick work of it too. I refined the curve with a rasp and then a spokeshave. I haven't used a spokeshave that much, but I was really impressed with the clean smooth surface I got with. As with most hand planes, no sanding was needed after I was done.

The holes for the handles were made using a brace and bit. We drilled overlapping holes, with the brace and bit. The cherry we used was only 1/2" think and a little brittle. One of my ends did crack, because I didn't have it well supported. A little cyanoacrylate glue, fixed it right up. You can't hardly see the crack.

After few pass with a Smoothing plane, I applied a few coast of Tung Oil. The dovetails came out pretty well. It's hard to see in the pictures, but there a few small gaps. I'm making process but also realize that these are suppose to look handcut and not machine cut. I'm not saying they have to imperfect or gappy to be hand-cut, but that absolute perfection is not needed. I know I will get better overtime and my cuts will get tighter. Until then I'm not going to beat myself up over it.

Day 2 and 3 – Handsawing class with Christopher Schwarz

In this post, I'm going to go into some detail on how we built our sawbenchs. I'm going to explain the types of cuts (1st, 2nd, and 3rd-class) we used. This should give you and idea of when to use the different types of cuts and why.

The next 2 days of the class were spent making our sawbench. A sawbench turns out to be an essential tool for the sawyer. When using a handsaw (crosscut) or large rip saw, the sawbench allows you to work with the lumber at the proper height and angle for the saw. For a crosscut saw that is 45 degrees, and for a rip saw that is 60 degrees. If you tried to use these larger saws at your regular workbench, you will find the cutting action very uncomfortable and awkward. I found this out on the first couple of cuts we made.

We didn't have our sawbenchs yet and I think no one wanted to go up and try Chris's, out for fear of putting a cut into it! Luckily most of the other cuts we we had to make were made with backsaws, which work well at the bench.

The first task was to cut the legs to rough length, and at a 10 degree angle. This really was a rough cut, as the legs would be cut to final length after the bench was completed. We also worked on the shoulder cut at the top of the legs. The legs are set into the top of the bench, and the top rest on these shoulders. It was a fun challenge, seeing that everything was cut at 10 degrees. I started out with the cheek cuts, and used a 2nd-class cut for these. I then moved on to the shoulder cut, which were 1st-class cuts. I did pretty well, seeing that I still didn't have much sawing experience under my belt yet. The cheeks and shoulders were cleaned up using my large Lie-Nielsen shoulder plane. It was pretty easy to clean up the cuts to the gauge lines.

One thing I learned during the class, once you get enough sawing under your belt, it won't matter if the cut is at 90 degrees or 10 degrees. As in most everything, experience breads confidence. Also, as I got more experience sawing, the amount of clean up I had to do was less and less. The closer you can get with your cut, the less work you will have to do with some other tool.

Out next task was to start on the large stretchers. They had to be cut to length and the ends needed to be squared up. I used a benchhook and my Lie-Nielsen 5 1/2 bench plane to shoot the ends. Our next challenging joint was the half-dovetail on the stretches. A half-dovetail is a very traditional joint in bench construction. It's a little easier to to cut than a full tail, and a half tail gives adequate support and anti-racking strength.

These dovetail joints are also lap joints and are let into the legs. The angle cut on the dovetail and vertical lap/cheek cuts were treated as 2nd-class cuts. They needed to be flat and square, but the finished surface wasn't critical. Both of these surfaces are concealed inside the joint. The cheeks were also cleaned up using a router plane. The router leave a pretty nice surface, but if you have some tearout it's not that critical.

The shoulder cut on the on the other hand is a 1st-class cut. This cut needs to be dead on. The shoulder can be seen, and must be tight. My cuts weren't perfect, so I had to spend some time with shoulder plane to get them nice and flat.

Then the challenge was to half-tail cut in the legs. Use the stretches as your templates. I clamped a stretcher to a pair of legs and marked out the joint with a marking knife. I then used my marking gauge to mark the depth of the lap joint. I made the depth of the lap joint about an 1/8" of less the thickness of the half-tail on the stretcher. This makes the stretch sit proud of the leg, which can hide any slight imperfections you might have in your joint.

Now that everything was marked it was time to cut. These cuts were all 1st-class cuts. These cuts will be seen and need to straight and square. There was a lot of material that needed to be removed. There are a few strategies that you can use. You can use a chisel to pare away the material. You can also make multiple saw cuts across the area and take the material out with a chisel. I tried both and they both worked well. To use a chisel alone, I think you need a large chisel, at least 1" or more. I tried it with my 3/4" chisel and it took awhile to pare away all of the material. Whichever method you use, you will most likely finish up with a router plane. The router plane does a very nice job of flattening and cleaning up the surface.

After all of the joints were cut and cleaned up, the large stretchers were glued to the legs. Glue should be enough, but some students chose to screw them also. I just glued mine. If you screw them, you can screw from the backside of the legs so that the screws aren't as noticeable.

Now came time to attach the leg assemblies to the top! As mention earlier, the legs are inset into the top. This meant laying out those cuts and removing the material. I clamped a leg assembly to the top and used a marking knife to markout the joints. I think we set the legs in about 5/8" of an inch. I treated these cuts as 1st-class cut. I used the multiple saw cuts technique to remove the waste. Then used the router plane to flatten up the bottom of the cut. When attaching the legs to the top, we used screws. It needs a little more support than the glue can give.

The small stretchers were the last pieces that needed to be cut and fitted. By this time, the simple half laps on the stretchers were a piece of cake. Again, the shoulders were 1st-class cuts and the cheeks were 2nd-class cuts. The cuts were cleaned up using a shoulder plane and now one of my favorite tools the router plane.

The slot cut into the top is a ripping slot. It's used when ripping smaller pieces. It allows the bench to give support to the cut while allowing the saw to travel a few inches into the cut. You then move the board forward and proceed with the cut. If needed you can flip the board around and start cutting from the other end.

The final step in the process is to cut the legs to the proper height, for you. The top should be just at the knee or slightly below. For me that ended up being around 20".

The holdfast you see on the bench is used to hold boards in place while chopping mortises. Chris told that these benches were also commonly used as mortising benches. The holdfast is positioned so that it can hold the workpiece over one of the legs. This give you a lot support while chopping the mortise. Also, if you flip the holdfast around knock it onto the top, it functions as a handle :).

For those who would like to make one of these benches, Chris did post some plans on his Lost Art Press Blog. The plans are pretty close to what you see here, but there are some slight differences. For instance, the plan doesn't include the half-dovetail in the long stretcher. It wouldn't be that difficult to add it if you want that feature.

Day 1 – Handsawing class with Christopher Schwarz

It was my intention to post updates each evening, but that just didn’t happen. Several of the evenings were spent doing other activities. The first night Chris went out to dinner with a group of us. The second night I was just too tired. The night Gary Rogowski had a Bar-B-Q potluck at the shop. The fourth night we went on a field trip to Mike Wenzloff’s shop, which I already wrote about. So, I will try and recap what went on during the week I was there.

My wife will attest to this, I’m a planner and I like to know what we are going to do and when. She is much more spontaneous than me, but she puts up with me and I with her J. I’m not obsessive over this, but I just like to know what’s going to happen. So, the first day of any class is always exciting and anxious for me. I generally settle in pretty quick, but those first few hours can be nerve-wracking for me.

The first half of the day was spent in a lecture on the different types of saws and the different “classes” of cuts. This was the longest lecture Chris did, the rest were short talks and demos as we moved from one stage of a project to another. It was a long lecture but it was full of good information. I think I will save the information on saws for another post. He gave us a lot of information, and it could take a few posts to through it all. He covered the different types of saws, tooth configuration, pitch, rake, fleam, ppi/tpi and much more. The cool thing about this lecture was that Mike Wenzloff happened to be in the shop that morning and he hung around and gave his view on the topic of saws.

The other part of the lecture that morning was on the 3 Classes of saw cuts. These classes breakdown into Third-class (Course), Second-class (Medium) and First-class (Fine). I like how this also fits into Chris’s approach to hand tool use. If you haven’t see or read about how we views hand tools, Chris has a great DVD called Course, Medium and Fine. The DVD covers the progression you should take as you move through the preparation of stock. This idea works for hand tools and power tools. It’s not a new concept, Chris frequently references older woodworking books and articles. The same hold true for the concept of the different Classes of saw cuts. This isn’t a new concept, it’s a very European approach to woodworking.

Third-Class saw cut
Third-class saw cuts are used for rough cutting boards to length or width. When using a cross-cut handsaw or a large rip saw, these saws can leave a rough surface and can cause some splintering. You should account for this in your rough sizes. Because a third-class is rough cut, you only use a pencil line to mark you board. No need for marking knife or anything like that.

Second-Class saw cut
Second-class saw cuts need to be accurate but the resulting surface doesn’t need to be perfectly clean. These cut are generally buried inside a joint, where the surface is not seen. These cuts can/will be cleaned up by shooting, using a Router plane, or by some other means. These cuts are used on: the ends of rails or stiles, or for tenon or lap joint cheeks. The cuts are also marked out with a marking knife or marking gauge. The marking knife helps establish the precise location of the cut.

You will also use a chisel to make a small cut on your knife line, to help start your cut. This is generally done on a corner where two knife lines meet. Place your chisel in the knife line and give it small amount of pressure to deepen the knife line. A question you might have, should the bevel of the chisel be towards the waste or away from the waste? The wedging action of the chisel will push the chisel away from the bevel. If the bevel is facing the waste the chisel could get pushed back across your knife line. If the bevel is facing away from the waste, your cut could be a little fat. Many articles say you should put the bevel towards the waste. I tried it both ways while in class, and I prefer the bevel facing away from the waste for this type of cut. When I did it the other way, the chisel kept moving over my knife line. I will continue to play with both styles and see if they behave differently in different woods.

First-Class saw cut
First-class cuts are cuts that will be visible. Examples of these are: the shoulders on lap joints or tenons, and different parts of a dovetail joint. It is possible to get clean perfect cuts from the saw, although it isn’t uncommon to clean these cuts up with a shoulder plane or chisel. These cuts are also marked out with a marking knife or marking gauge.

In the example of cutting the shoulder on a tenon, you will need to use your chisel again deepen and establish the knife line. Using a wide chisel, and for me have the bevel facing away from the waste, lightly tap the chisel to deepen the knife line all the way around the joint. Then secure the piece and pare away a shallow trough, on the waste side of the line. The depth and width of the trough needs to accommodate the width and set of your saw. This will be something you will workout over time, for the saws you use. This trough will help you start your cut right on the knife line. Without this little trough your cut can wonder and can turn into a third-class cut really fast.

An evening with Wenzloff and Sons

I spent last week in Portland, OR at the Handsawing class with Chris Schwarz. I will write more about that experience in the coming days. Besides meeting Chris for the first time and spending 5 long exciting days doing nothing but woodworking, we had a field trip out to Mike Wenzloff's shop. This was one of the highlights of the trip, although there were many highlights. I forgot to take my camera with me on the trip, but Chris has just written about the visit on his blog. Chris did a great write-up on our trip and has a few pictures.

Mike and his sons are some of the nicest people you'll ever want to meet. Mike is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to handsaws and their history. We were there for a couple hours but it only felt like a few minutes. Mike gave us a detailed tour of the shop/production and explained every step in making his saws. They just moved into this new shop and it is modest in size. Mike told us their original shop was only a couple hundred square-feet. So, this new shop is huge in comparison.

You get a real sense that all of them enjoy their work, and that quality is number one. They will not sacrifice quality for speed. Although, they are working hard to streamline their processes, so that they can get through the mountain of orders they have waiting.

Mike will be at the Woodworking in America conference, in November. If you are going, stop by and see Mike you will not be disappointed.

In the coming days I will write about the class itself. It was 5 of the best days I've spent woodworking so far.

Woodworking Vacation

The week of July 14 I will be attending a class at the Northwest Woodworking Studio in Portland, Or. I'll be attending the Handsawing, Handsaws and Saw benches with Christopher Schwarz. This is the first time I've taken a week long woodworking class (woodworking vacation if you will). The other classes I've taken have been short half or full day classes at the local Woodcraft store. I did learn things in these classes, but the time was too short to really explore the given topic. It will be interesting to see what a week long class on handsawing will be like.

I've always enjoyed Chris Schwarz's writing in Popular Woodworking and Woodworking Magazine. His blogs are also very entertaining and educational over at Woodworking Magazine and Lost Art Press. It will be exciting to finally meet Chris. He has always been friendly and helpful when I have emailed him questions about woodworking and tools. I'm sure he will be just as pleasant in-person.

This brings up an interesting topic, Hobby Vacations. At least in my family this type of vacation is starting to become "common". I've already found a few other woodworking schools I would love to attend, on future vacations. My wife is a stamper and scrapbooker, and she has found a few places/schools she wants to do on a vacation. By brother is gold prospector and he is signed up for a gold prospecting class. My sisters are great cooks and they have already attended several cooking conferences. How many other people are combining their hobbies and passions into vacations?

Introduction

I'm an amateur woodworker working out of my garage. I've only been woodworking for about 4 years, but have had an interest in woodworking for quite awhile. I've never had the space to do any real work, so I had to settle for watching woodworking shows and reading books and magazines. Not long ago my wife and I moved out of our apartment and bought a house. I made sure there was at least a small area where I could explore this craft.

My exposure to woodworking
I have always had an interest in woodworking. Even as a young child I was always doing something with wood. I had my first shop class in Junior High and couple classes in High School. I left school with all of my fingers, even though many of shop teachers were missing one or two. After finishing High School, there weren’t many opportunities for me to expand my woodworking skills. I did some work for our local community theater, building sets and props. I also got my sawdust fix volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. For the most part I was a spectator watching woodworking shows and reading magazines.

With the one exception of Roy Underhill (The Woodwright's Shop), all of the woodworking shows on TV were power tool oriented. After years of watching these woodworking shows, I was quite the power tool guy. At the time I didn't quite understand or appreciate what Mr. Underhill was try to teach us. Needless to say I became a power tool junkie and a Normite. The first tools I bought were the power tool junkie's staple: table saw, jointer, planer, phmatic nail gun and assorted power hand tools.

Then things started to change. I came across David Marks (Wood Works) on the DIY channel. This show was different from most everything else on TV at the time, or even now. David was still a big user of power tools, but he also used hand planes, spoke shaves, card scrapers, and other tools not seen on a "normal" woodworking show. David did a show on woodworkers that influenced and mentored him. One of his mentors was James Krenov. The interview with Mr. Krenov sparked an interest in me. I wanted to find out more about this guy, that I had never heard of. After researching James Krenov, I was ashamed I did not know who he was before. I bought a couple of his books, and they changed the way I looked at woodworking. I don't think I will ever have the vision James Krenov has when he looks at a piece of wood, but I have gained greater appreciation for this craft. I’m more thoughtful now when it comes to woodworking and what I want to achieve in my skills.

The next event that sent me further down the hand tools path was a Christmas present from one of my sisters. She gave me a couple DVDs by David Charlesworth and Rob Cosman. I’m not sure what really triggered it, but a spark was lit inside of me. I was amazed at what these guys were doing with hand planes and handsaws. All I can say, I wanted to learn and know more. I’ll talk more about these two gentlemen and others I have learned from, in future installments.

What kind of woodworker am I?
Am I: A Normite, a Neanderthal, a Galoot, a Roy Underhill disciple? I find myself in a unique position of having a little bit of everything in me. I have a very open mind, which as allowed me to experience a lot of what each has to offer. Although, you can’t go down the hand tool path and not realize there are things hand tools can do better than power tools. On the flipside there are things power tools can do that take considerable more effort with hand tools. You will find my postings will be focused on hand tools, but I haven’t and won’t condemn the use of power tools. Like myself I just ask that you keep an open mind.

I’m pretty new to woodworking. It’s my goal to journal my experiences in learning this craft. I’ll share my successes and failures. As the name of the blog implies, I want to learn as much as I can in this immense topic of woodworking.