Wooden Vise

Home Made Bench Vise

DIY bench vise.



What that super clean new bench vise looks like in a commercial wood carvers  shop in Barcelona Spain.

   Clearly it is a tool that is very useful on a bench.  The threaded rod is available for sale to enable you to make your own vise, or you can buy the gear and make your own threaded wooden doweling.  

    I have the threaded rod, and made a vise years ago but it wasn't very good.  Actually the vise was about as good as my wood work skills at the time.  Now...it is time to make another vise using new skills and better tools and materials.

Best Knife for the Money.

  Mora Sweden is the home of Moraknif.  Moraknif makes the famous Frost Knife, the traditional sloyd knife from Scandinavia.  It is worth watching Roy Underhill's video, Who wrote the Book Of Sloyd.

   

  I have several Mora knives.  In fact I have a couple of 'Frost' knives from before the two companies were amalgamated.

  I have been to Sweden thrice in the last five years and each time I have brought a knife home with me.  The most recent in the lower left knife, it is a Basic 511. The Basic 511 is razor sharp when you buy it and.....it cost $7.50 Cdn.  Yes it comes with a terrible snap-in plastic sheath but so-what! As a rule the Mora knives are all about the blade, you can re-handle them and make a fancy leather sheath if you'd like. By focusing on the blade and leaving the fancy work to others Mora provides an outstanding tool of an amazingly reasonable price.

  The two knives with the dirty wooden handles have history. The short bladed knife was my Father's whittling knife, the blade started life the size of the knife in the middle bottom, my whittling knife. The knife with the long blade and stained handle has kicked around my shop since forever.  I remember scrapping the paint off the handle 32 years. Ironically this Frost Knife is so good that I don't use it much in the shop now, I beat up other knives instead.

  On my second trip I bought the Push Knife (across the top). (or some one brought it for me?? now I am not sure) It is like a draw knife for dummies.  I find it much easier to control than a traditional draw knife, and since don't use a draw knife often I likely won't develop the skills it demands.  The push knife gives me nearly as good a tool for less learning time.

  I have been quiet on this blog for sometime, but I have not forgotten it.  

cheers, ianw

Bora Combination Square

  I have not used a combination square on a regular basis for years. The first combination square I bought was cheap and inaccurate and so it never found a spot in working method of work. In fact I threw it out years ago.

Bora 12 inch Magnetic Combination Square

 A couple of weeks ago I bought a Bora Magnetic Combination Square on a  clearance sale.  I know Bora to make good tools so I gave it a try I love it.

Check out the video: Magnetic square

 Don't wait 25 years before you get a good combination square like I did.

  Learn from an 'ol fart', it is cheaper and less embarrassing than making your old mistakes.

 cheers, ianw

    

V belt vs. Link Belt

Check out what woodgears.ca has to say about belts.

I like the link belt on my drill press but haven't tried one on a table saw.

Are link belts worth it?

  A blog with some information worth considering.

ianw

Clever Wood Workers

  It is pretty hard to have a wood shop with out lumber.  Wood turning doesn't need sawn lumber but everything else starts easier and progresses faster when you start with dimensioned lumber.  Here is Canada there is no shortage of available lumber.  In the GTA (Greater Toronto Region) where I live there are plenty of places to buy both rough and dressed wood.  

  The history of the saw mill is a history of innovation and danger. Recently I was sorting wood in my shop and thought of a video I'd seen a couple of years ago, and began to think of sawn lumber.

Horse Powered Sawmill 

   I am always impressed by the power of the human spirit and the mechanical genius shown by my wood working brothers.

Marble Adding Machine

  From horse power to mechanical detail, wood is impressive and so are woodworkers.

cheers,

ianw

  

  

Little projects, Big satisfaction

 It sometimes seems as though I have no real shop projects to share on my blog.  I work in my shop fairly steady but many of the jobs I do are basic carpentry not projects worthy of sharing with the Internet World.

 For example, we are doing some landscaping in the back yard so I have made a couple of raised flower beds, out of left over and found wood. The flower beds will be filled with lovely flowers and add to the pleasures we enjoy in our yard. Making the frames was a real basic saw and screw together sort of job.

 There is another project from my shop this weekend. It took longer to decide on the photograph from the net and draw the plan than it did to knock it out on the band saw. There is a hull of sorts underneath the flight deck but again hardly a major project.

 To go with the aircraft carrier I was asked to make some stealth bombers. I left one unpainted, the owner of the boat can paint one to suit himself.

  While projects like this aren't high art they definitely have their place in my workshop. Each of these things was made easier because I have the right tool to make the job easy.  I try to make the garden frames square, all the edges are sanded and shaped slightly on the kids projects and I try and do my best regardless of the nature of the project.  

  I use sanding sticks like these when working on small things like the planes. These belt sander sticks seemed like overkill, until bought one, it makes getting into cracks and corners and controlling the sandpaper much easier than anything else I've tried.

  I guess the mortal of this story is: make stuff.

cheers, Ian W

TED Lecture - Start with WHY

  I have been known  in the evening to surf the internet. I love my work shop but I am also a information junkie, I'll watch a documentary on anything. One thing I go looking for are TED lectures-ideas worth spreading.

  Last evening I watched a a TED lecture that talked about business models and how to make your business successful.  

  My shop is not really a business and it is pretty much as successful as I want it to be but...the idea of Why being the starting place for your actions I think works in more than just business.

Start with WHY

  I think that many organizations not just businesses make the mistake of not thinking about 'why' and so suffer in the long run.  In my shop I make mostly projects for friends, family and myself, that is why I have a shop, and why I make things that could be purchased more cheaply at a Box Store. However I also make cutting boards and wooden toys that I sell at a local craft store, and sometimes making a bit of money obscures the real reason for my having a shop.

  It took me several years to arrive at a clear idea of 'why' I have a shop and I need to remind myself of that 'why' sometimes. My shop connects me with a family history of wood workers, boat builders and carpenters, not cabinet makers or specialised craftsmen. when I started out making stuff I was a wood butcher, now I am a carpenter. Since I grew up around saw dust it is how I express myself, and how I find pleasure. It really isn't about the money.  That is the 'why', everything else just follows on from that.

  Why do you have a work shop? Is it for the money, or is the money a happy by product?

Toy Blocks, and home made tools

  Yesterday I made some wooden blocks for my youngest grandchild.  Tova Elise is just one year old and so doesn't need battery powered toys, yet.

  I made a set of building blocks for Clara last year and so have developed a couple of techniques for small scale production of wooden building blocks.  After squaring a corner on the joiner I ripped the wood to thickness on the table saw.  

  Once I had two dimensions I needed to cut the blocks to size. Rather than set up a stop on my sliding mitre saw I used my table saw sled.  My sled is a bit different than average, mostly because I designed it for cutting small pieces when making toys and things, so it is small sled. Also my table saw sled fits over my blade guard which lets me leave the blade guard on.  I almost never take the blade guard off of my table saw, any more. (i do need to take the guard off to use dado blades, but that is the only time) I resolved to leave the guard on after my last unhappy encounter with the spinning blade.  At this point I don't expect to recover the feeling in my left index finger though the tingling has stopped, almost a year later.

 My sled has the typical two runners but instead of a sheet of plywood I have a frame that fits over the guard attached to the standard back plate.

   You can also see that I made a stop that I clamp onto the back plate to make it easy to replicate cuts.  For the smaller pieces I back the sled off and poke the off cut out of the sled with a pencil or bit of wood. I do not let my fingers get close the the moving blade any more.  It only took three small accidents before I admitted the saw is faster than the eye.

  Once the blocks were cut the were 12 edges that needed to be broken.  If I was planned to make a large number of blocks I would round over four of the edges on the router before cutting the blocks off, this time I didn't bother with that stage.
  Sanding 12 edges could be a pain but with the right tools it is not bad at all. First I used my block plane to shape the four edges that are with the grain, then I used my flat belt sander to shape the cross grain pieces.

  The flat sander is a bit of 3/4 plywood with a sanding belt attached. I have 80 grit on one side and 120 on the other.  It only takes four stokes on the sand paper and the edge is nicely broken.  I use this for these projects because I find the power belt sander too aggressive and so too much material is removed, too easily.  Power belt sanders are for big jobs, in my experience, not for fine touch up.  I made this flat sander a long time ago and keep cleaning it up with my crape block.

Complete, six 1 1/4 poplar blocks, unfinished. I use poplar because it it pretty tough and in many cases has a bit of colour, as you can see.  The blocks are unfinished so that they can be chewed  and there is no concern about chemicals.  I will make some more later. The blocks will have to go a few at a time to Sweden in family suitcases I guess.

Sharp

  Like most people my shop is filled with blades: planes, knives and chisels mostly.  I also take a serious interest in the blades in our kitchen as well as the gardening tools. 

  If you are vigilant in your tool maintenance your blades will seldom need to be really sharpened, they only need to be touched up (honed), because the edge has been slightly rounded over in use making it appear more dull than reality.

 The two most common ways to hone a blade are the traditional butcher's steel.

  With experience and practise a honing or butcher's steel will do a good job of keeping knives in top shape. It is easier to use with the longer blades you see in a kitchen.

  Another excellent way of honing blades, and the one I use with my wood carving knives and chisels is a leather strop.

   My carving strop is similar to this one, it is leather, glued to a flat pieces of wood and charged with green polishing compound.  In the old days when barbers used 'cut throat' razors they all had a strop hanging from their chairs and before you got shaved the razor was honed on the strop.  Cut Throat razors disappeared before my whiskers appeared so that is an experience I missed. (like many childhood diseases, an experience I am not sad to have missed)

  Neither the steel or the strop is very convenience to carry about and so I used a small ceramic stone (about a 2000grit) for a few years as a pocket touch up stone.  I had a couple of reservations with the ceramic stone:

one: is it heavy and wants to pull my tool belt or pants pocket down, and,

two: if a ceramic stone hits a cement workshop floor the result is modern art in the form of pieces of a once expensive sharpening stone, and so it becomes a detail to be fussed over and worried about while trying to work. I found myself putting the stone away in a drawer and finally it ended up in the tool box containing my carving tools. Not handy at all.

  The solution presented itself about a year ago when I was visiting New York state and stopped into a Rockler store.

DMT credit card diamond stone

  I bought a fine stone and stuck it to a piece of 3/4 inch oak with double sided tape.

  The wood backing provides a place to grip the stone and I have painted the wood red, like all my shop made jigs and tools.  This little honing tool weights almost nothing, is a good size and is unbreakable.  Those characteristics mean that this tool is close at hand when I am working. It is good for touching up an edge without interrupting the flow of the work. 

  I expect to buy another one the next time I am in a Rockler store, in fact. Then I will have one for the bench top and one for my tool belt.

Two Tips

  I was preparing a couple of pieces of walnut for a small project.  As I squared up the piece I reached for my yellow pencil crayon to mark the wood.  The first cheap quick tip for today is use white or yellow to mark on dark wood.  If you've got kids there are pencil crayons laying around, if not check out an art supply store and buy a single pencil.  While a standard graphite is visible, yellow is Hi-Vis.  

  My second tip:
  I have always found taking the bottom bag off my dust collector easy, getting the bag back on; directly challenging gravity, not so easy.  Some times it became a swearing situation.

  After going out of my mind every other  month for a couple or years I hit on a way to reduce the agony.

    I put one of those big yard waste bags into the bottom bag.  The heavy paper provides enough support to the cloth bag so that I can get it replaced on the bottom of the dust collector and the tension ring around the bottom of the dust collector tightened up. (with much less trouble)  I had tried the bungee cord trick but never had a cord of the right length for it to really work. Having the yard waste bag in the dust collector means not having to dump the saw dust into a bag later too.

Draw Knife

I have the luxury of some very good second hand tools.  One of these tools came from my Grandfather's workshop via my Father's workshop.

This draw knife  came in handy when I wanted to remove bark from some of my found wood.  

soon to be a walking stick

  With the wood held in the vise I was able to quickly and easily remove the bark.  The other use for a draw knife is to do the preliminary  shaping before putting a spindle onto your lathe.

  This draw knife has been around for many years and since it is used so seldom it is still very sharp.  The end is preserved by careful(?!) wrapping in a custom sheath.

  Just because it is custom doesn't mean that it is hand stitched albino kangaroo hide.  The wooden slabs are held in place by the large hair elastics that you buy at the $ Store.  Protecting the edge of blade tools is good for them and for you.

  It is finally garden season and as much as wanting to share photos of projects, I have a garden photo to share.

ciematis in the Kids garden

  It was a long cold winter but the glory of summer is here.

  

Auger Gimlets

  When I started buying tools for my shop from Lee Valley, back before the internet I had to decide on the tools quality and use based on reading their catalogue and occasionally finding a reference to the tool in a magazine or book.

 One such set of tools was Auger Gimlets.  I bet most shops not longer have a set of gimlets, and in truth you will get along fine without them. However I like my set:

auger gimlets

  My set is now 20ish years old and has been ignored for months at a time. But....when I use them they are really the only tool available to do what I want.

                                              

  These are a pocket truck and a larger wooden toy being held up for spraying with arousal varnish.If you look under many of my smaller carvings you will find the tell tale hole left in the bottom.

  I have used various gimlets for creating pilot holes in many projects where I was driving a small/short screw or a screw eye.  The gimlet gives the screw thread on the screw eye enough to get started.

  Today I used my gimlets to drill a hole in a material I have never worked with before.

 

  A number of years ago a friend, Karen, gave me two deer antlers that she found while out walking in the forest near her old house.  Needless to say I was happy to receive this thoughtful gift, I had no immediate plan for the horn but I was sure that one day I would make appropriate use of it.  That day was today.

  The gimlet connection is the fact that I used a gimlet to drill the hole in the antler in which I set knife blades. I began the process with an electric  drill and bit but almost immediately decided that drilling was too aggressive for what I was doing. The gimlet allowed me total control and to taper the hole by using different sized gimlets as I augered out the centre of the horn.  By the way the antler smells "funny" when it is sanded.

  These knives are antler handles with custom blades made by Stefan Heldt of Sweden.  I was told by the clerk in Pasadena AB in Stockholm where I bought the blades three years ago that Mr. Heldt was a blade maker of high distinction in Sweden and had recently won an international competition.  I don't imagine that these two tiny blades are his very finest work, but they are spectacularly fine/sharp blades.  If I ever decide to take up doing eye surgery as a hobby I think these blades will be up to the task.

  I encourage you to check out his web site. 

             http://www.stefanheldt.n.nu/

  It is my plan to try to write an entry in this blog once a week or so.  I don't plan for it to always be wood working, because I many loves, food, baking bread, riding anything with two wheels,and family. We'll just see how it goes.

cheers, Ian W

  

  

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all and to all a clean shop.

   With luck and planning I will be posting to this blog too, but if you really want to hear from me, check out

blogthetoolstore.blogspot.com

or 

blogjessemtools.blogspot.com


cheers Ian W

Opinel Knives - a Quality Traditional Tool

  This evening my Mother and Brother came for supper.  As is always the case my Mom brought me a special treat to eat. She is diabetic too, probably inherited it from her, and so she makes good low sugar baked treats.  Also they brought a small something for me to fix in my shop, this time a new handle for a hatchet. And they brought the knife that my father used to have in the glove box of his car.  

 

  In this case I think I gave him the this knife 25 years ago.  My Father valued quality knives highly and he had several, he also introduced me to the value of a sharp knife and started me on the long journey of learning how to sharpen blades.

 I remember seeing these knives at a Lee Valley store, buying one for myself and then buying this knife for my Father.

   I admired this Opinel knife for several reasons.   I like carbon steel blades on knives because they are easier and faster to sharpen than stainless steel, which is harder.  I used to buy Old Hickory kitchen knives for the same reason.  Yes, carbon steel dulls quicker but I always felt that the trade off of sharpening  more often but faster was worth it.  I also found that I was willing to sharpen more often when it was easier.

 Another aspect of the Opinel knife I liked was that it was a single bevel edged blade.  It made it even easier to sharpen and super easy to hone.   

 This particular knife has a story, a story that I actually can share because my Father has passed away and so can’t be embarrassed by its telling.  As I said my Father kept his knives sharp and well cared for.  This knife comes from the store pretty sharp, but with room for improvement.  My Father had never dealt with a single bevel edged knife and I will never know why he choose to invest the time and effort to reshape the blade to a double bevel.  When I was mad at him I used to think it was because he was dumb.  I know he wasn’t dumb so I guess he was just so tradition bound that he couldn’t get comfortable with a new blade shape, so he worked this knife’s edge until it is two sided.  I am not going to change in back, not now.  

  I took the knife down to my shop.  Cleaned it up a bit and sharpened it with a diamond stone,  it is so sharp and so easy to sharpen. (even with the reshaped blade).  And the other bonus, these knives are still very reasonably priced.  For a straight knife I love my Frost knives from Sweden,  

but for a folding knife Opinel is super value.

Cutting Dados on Site

  Once again I turn to the internet to find good ideas.  There is no need to reinvent the wheel when there is such a useful resource available.  

  How to cut dados accurately, on a job site.

    A traditional product that has been used for 1oo's of years to keep shop tools in good shape.

   

     I have had my shops in basements for a few years now and have had the damp effect some of my tools.  Tallow is very old school but it works to lubricate and protect my tools. I even use it with steel wool to touch up rust spots on "Big Iron" in my shop.  

   Another trick that works is the candle on the plane bottom or hand saw face.  There are high tech solutions but I haven't found one that is better than these low tech solutions.

  

   It is a good product at a very good price, and a little goes a very long way.  You aren't a Luddite if you like some old school ideas.

Clara's 2nd Birthday Cake.

   Clara's 2nd birthday cake.  On the inside Anna Olson's chocolate cake.  Come for the cool icing and stay for the amazing flavour.  Great Job, Sweetie.

Really Putting Things in Perspective

Tove Elise Jackson and me

   Twelve weeks ago another little woodworker was born in Gavle Sweden.  I got to see her today.  What's better than shop time?? Grand children.  Best time, Grandchildren in the shop. (and ice cream)


   Also speaking of adorable grand daughters, it is Clara Ocean Solaris Jackson's second birthday today, ...party on the weekend.

   This proves that you can have two favourites.

Putting Things in Perspective

   When my wife takes photos on holiday she usually asks someone to stand in the photo some place to provide perspective.  If the object is small she puts it beside a coffee cup or pop can or foot or something that will remind us how big or small the flower, shell or stained glass window really was.

   Over the course of my internet career I have written a bunch of blogs and read at least a thousand or more and I have found that sometimes the lack of measurements or some way to judge scale is frustrating.  I have seem some very attractive band saw boxes for example, and often I have no clue how big the box really is.   In the past when  I showed a project photo I tried to include something to help the reader get an idea of the size of my project.  After reading blogs produced by men and women wiser than I, I have stolen one of their tricks.

   I made a scale/gauge to include in my photos.

1 x 1 x 6 inch  gauge in maple

    I can not claim the wisdom of a creator and certainly have to apologise for being so slow to make this.  It was embarrassingly easy to make, my green painters tape is one inch wide.  Three strips of painters tape and a spray can and I have a small tool that will inform and enlighten one and all.  The gauge was made with some care from a nice piece of maple that I had in the scrap bin.  I am a wood junkie and so never throw away a nice piece of wood and shazam, it turned out to be useful.

  Another project made from wood junkie wood, 

   the bird house that our Grandson is helping me build in this photo.  Kieran is only four years old but he likes to spread glue and push the button on the drill when we drive screws.  On this last project he also got to use a real hammer to drive Miller Dowels.  We built the bird houses without metal fasteners, they will weather but there will be no rust.  The wood is barn board that friends were clearing out of their garage, I got the boards to build with instead of them burning the boards in their fire place. 

   Miller Dowels are a product that I use for things like bird houses to avoid rust issues and I have used the large dowels for securing the top of my work benches down.  The top is very solidly attached and I never have to worry about hitting a metal fastener when working on the bench, nor did I have to go though the whole production of seating the big wood screws deeply in the top and then pugging the holes.  Miller Dowels, fast, strong and safe.


  

Low Cost Dowel Jig

   It is very  common for me to talk about dowelling jigs on my other blogs and there are a couple that I personally endorse as outstanding tools.  However, it you only use dowels occasionally,  less than once a year take a look at this video:

Dowel Jig on Youtube:


   This jig looks like the perfect one time use jig, and the time and cost to create it is nearly ZERO.

cheers, ian