Sharp Tools

The tools we use to form wood, whether power tools or hand tools, all require maintenance.

A selection of edge tools

While all maintenance is necessary, I have found that keeping the cutting edge of my tools sharp is one of the most important  parameters to keep an eye on. Every time I change a blade or bit I check it visually for cleanliness and sharpness. Every time I pick up a chisel or plane I check the set up and sharpness. I try to keep my hand tools ready for use by sharpening them after a project has been completed but these often need to be touched up in use. 

Most power tool blades, bits and knives have carbide cutters and some pretty critical dimensions to maintain so I send out my table saw blades for sharpening. I usually replace dull router bits since I have not had good luck having them sharpened. Band saw blades are also replaced when dull. I do sharpen some of my drill bits. I have segmented cutters on the planer and jointer so they don’t get sharpened, just turned and eventually replaced.

Segmented cutterhead on a Powermatic jointer

Hand tools need frequent sharpening when used. I have tried a few methods and have researched a lot of machines, jigs and stones for sharpening before settling on the method I currently use. My criteria were: first, producing a fine edge, second, ease of set up and use and third, expense.

I have used sharpening stones extensively and they work well but I have found some drawbacks. Good quality large stones are kind of expensive. A set of 4, coarse lapping, coarse, medium and fine, can easily set you back 2 to 4 hundred dollars. They can be fragile and they do wear. Waterstones need special containers and regular flattening.

There are machines (Tormek etc.) which can work very well and the sharpening is automated to some extent. A large variety of machines are available which vary in quality, ease of use, results and cost. I have little experience using them but I do know people who have a system similar to this and they use it infrequently because it is quicker to just pull out a stone and touch up that chisel or plane blade than set the machine up. If you are sharpening all your tools at once I think these systems can be a real time saver. If you have the space to keep it set up ready for use it may be easier to use. These systems range in cost from 1-200 on up.

After using stones for a long time I read about a product in the Lee Valley woodworking catalog called lapping film.

3M lapping film

Made by 3M, this film is produced for the Telecomm industry to polish fiber optic cable connections and is available with a pressure sensitive adhesive backing. It comes in 15, 5 and .5 micron sizes. This film is made to high specifications regarding the size of the abrasive particles so you won’t get odd scratches as you work your way through the grits as can happen if you use sandpaper. I decided to give it a try for sharpening and it has become the sharpening medium I use.

You need a flat substrate to adhere the film to so I purchased a piece of float glass as a substrate. I bought this from Lee Valley, but it is also available from Rockler. I cut the film to fit my largest plane blade, about 3 inches wide. I carefully apply the sheet to the CLEANED piece of glass. Be careful of trapping air bubbles under the film. If you get some, slit the film with a knife at the bubble and roll it down. I then use a roller to seat the film and remove any trapped air bubbles. Add a few drops of oil and you are ready to go.

Lapping film attached to glass plate

I sharpened without a guide for years but as I became a better woodworker I wanted better results. I thought that a guide would help me acheive a better result. There are several devices available to hold your blades and chisels at the correct angle for sharpening. 

Several holders for sharpening. Veritas holder on left.

I currently use the system made by Veritas, the Veritas® Mk.II Honing Guide System available from Lee Valley Tools. It consists of the holder/guide and an attachment to set the projection of the blade. It holds most of my chisels and all of my plane blades. This device allows me to easily set the chisel or blade to the same angle each time. This really helps with keeping your tools sharp.

Next time I will go over the methods I use to sharpen my chisels and planes.

Hand Tools

Hand tools certainly have their place in the custom woodworking shop. Power tools accomplish many tasks quickly and efficiently and are a boon to the woodworker, resulting in savings of time as well as saving your body from physical degradation. I want to produce work that I am satisfied making and that people can afford to buy. Besides, running those hand tools is really hard, time consuming work. There are however, many situations where hand tools provide the best and most accurate result. 

I enjoy using hand planes, chisels and saws but if I was restricted to hand tools I wouldn’t be able to get much done and I would have to start working out to develop the muscles and stamina to spend  8 hours a day running a hand saw or plane. I think there is a balance to be struck between one extreme and the other. It makes sense to me to do as much of the work as possible with power tools and to use hand tools where they provide the best solution to a problem. 

In general this means that sizing of timber is done on the bandsaw, flattening the face and squaring the edge are done on the jointer, and final dimensioning is accomplished with the planer and/or table saw. There are times however, when it is easier to plane an edge by hand or to cut and plane with hand tools, mainly on real ornery or very small pieces. This gets the material to a workable state in an efficient manner.

From this point I decide what tool to use based on efficiency versus accuracy, quality and esthetics. I use power tools to cut joinery within the parameters of quality I am trying to achieve, and then use hand tools for final fitting of the joint. I usually make mortise and tenon joints  by machine, then use chisel and plane for final fitting.

For dovetails, I often cut the tails partially on the table saw if layout allows. I then use a chisel to remove the waste. After laying out the pins from the tail board, I use a hand saw to cut them out and chisel to remove the waste. This procedure produces a nice fitting joint for me .

I have found that other joints, like tapered sliding dovetails and finger joints are best done with machines, jigs, and as much accuracy as you can possibly manage. Other joinery methods which find a use in my shop from time to time include plate joinery, dowels and slip tenons. I try to find the most efficient method for each task that will accomplish the structural, esthetic and economic goals I have set for the piece. This results in a project that, to me, achieves the quality I want to produce without breaking the budget for a piece.

Wood Bondage, Is It Wrong?

The question must be asked!

Glue and clamps and nerves, oh my

Glue up is a special time. You have spent many hours readying your parts and now it is time to put it all together. If you goof up here it is exceedingly difficult to take your piece apart and have anything usable left. The glues I use (titebond pva types) set, depending on the type, in 5 to 15 minutes and cure in 24. If you put a part in wrong and have to remove it even after only a few minutes, the parts can tear and break if you can move them at all. This means that you should be prepared!

You need to do a dry fit with clamps to insure that all fits well and you have the clamps, cauls, and blocks you need.

You also need to think about the work and how long it will take to assemble everything. Sometimes you can assemble in sections,

sometimes you have to put everything together at once.

You should think through your method to apply the glue too. Brush, roller, squeeze bottle, spreaders, all should be at the ready. For a really big job you may need to enlist some help. It is never any fun when your parts seize up before you have finished the job.

I use several different glues depending on the requirements for the job. Titebond II is great glue. It sets quick though so is generally not the one to use for a large job. Titebond II is not waterproof. The glue line is fairly colorless with Titebond II. Titebond III is waterproof and has a longer open time. It does dry to a somewhat dark glue line so keep that in mind. I will use Titebond III on this project so I have more time to adjust and clamp. These doors are being installed in an exterior location so the waterproof quality doesn't hurt either.

I have all the clamps, glue, brushes and spreaders ready to go. Now to work!

Click to play animation of glueing up a door.

One down, one to go. I only have enough clamps to do one at a time. I'll get that done tomorrow. I will give the doors a good sanding in preparation for painting. They will be installed in the opening of my "dust house". I'll write about that at a later date here on the "It Starts  With A Tree" blog.

Thanks for taking a look I hope you enjoyed seeing how I did this.

Panels for the doors

Here one of the doors is dry fit and clamped so I can check the fit and measure for the panels.

There is a lot of friction with all those tenons. While each piece fits by hand nicely, when the whole thing is assembled it would be hard to pull apart by hand. A mallet would work but may damage the parts. To disassemble the doors I use a reversed clamp as below. This keeps from damaging the parts when there is a lot of friction. I checked the corner to corner diagonals and I am happy to say that both doors clamped up perfectly square!

I then put a combo blade on the table saw. The Powermatic PM2000 table saw has some nice features like a shaft lock for changing blades.

I do use the blade guard when I can. I still have all my fingers despite a long career in construction and woodworking. I intend to keep them too. This saw makes using the guard easy with a lever to release the riving knife. The anti-kickback device and the blade guard have push buttons to release and attach them. The easier the saw is to use with this stuff, and the easier it is to use, the more it gets used.

Good in and outfeed tables help with milling the plywood.

I use a sled to cross cut the panels. Note the extension to the fence to allow for a stop block.

I then clamped a board to the table saw fence and set up the dado head to run a rabbet around the edge of the panels. I marked the height of the cut on the sacrificial board and marked the width of the rabbet on a test piece to help with set up.

I first set the fence by lining my mark on the test piece up with the edge of the cut in the homemade throat plate. I then turned the saw on and raised the blade until it reached my mark on the fence.

This got me pretty close and with a few test cuts and final adjustments I was ready to go. I check the test piece in the groove at several locations. It looks good to me!

 I used a feather board to keep the plywood down tight at the blade.

Now to test fit the panels. Hot diggetty, it's starting to look like a door.

Now I will check every part for fit and make sure all is ready to assemble. Next time glue up, on the "It Starts With A Tree" blog.

Still tenons

After cutting all the notches I then set to cleaning up the edges and making the finish cuts for the top and bottom rails. Below you can see the little ridge left at the junction of the cheek and shoulder cuts. This will keep the joint from seating properly and must be removed.

I use a sharp chisel for that.

I chamfer the ends of the tenons, also with a sharp chisel, to help them enter the mortise.

Now I cut the stubs to fit the groove at the top and bottom rails. I use a square and sharp knife to cut on the line.

Next I make a slanted cut about 1/32" from the line.

Remove the waste and you have a handy little groove to start your saw cut.

Now saw to the line.

I had very little fitting to do with these tenons. A few needed some work with a shoulder plane but for the most part they fit right off the saw.

With all the tenons fitting I can now do a test assembly and measure for the panels, next time on the It Starts With A Tree blog.

Tenon time (continued)

I take the layout directly from the work piece.

I marked out the mortise spacing on the tenons and cut the rip cuts using the band saw.

I then drilled a hole to put a jig saw blade through and made the crosscuts.

After I finished the first piece I cleaned it up and tried the fit.

Whodathunkit? It fit right off the machines!

Now I'll cut the rest. Next time I test fit the frame and start on the panels.

It's Tenon Time

There are several ways to cut tenons with the tools I have. I have cut tenons on the bandsaw when the pieces are too long to sit vertically on the table saw (see picture below) and it works fine. I have also set up a router and straight edge to cut tenons for a bench that was 16' long. Those pieces were too long to control on the bandsaw.

After mulling it over a bit and looking at the setup at each saw I went for the table saw.

Remember those test pieces? I used them to make test cuts until I was happy with the fit.

I have a tenon sled made by General that works OK. I would like it to be machined better but it does work well once set up. I use Freud Glue line rip blades and I like them very well. After running all the cheek cuts I then changed blades and set up the cross cut sled with a stop to cut the shoulders.

Now I need to mark the tenon layout on each piece and cut them to fit the mortises.

The Door Construction Continues, Mortises

Now to cut the mortises. I have a table top mortiser that works real well for this if you have good chisels. The spur of the bit on the first chisel I had was ground off center making the bit rattle inside the chisel and producing a terrible cut. Once that was replaced with a higher quality mortise chisel and bit things went much smoother. Note test piece in machine. I'll use this later to line up the dado head with the mortise.

I scribed a center line on the test piece and set the chisel up from that point. Make sure to set the chisel square to the fence. I check this again if I make any back and forth adjustments to the fence. The bit should be about 1/32" lower than the chisel.

After punching all the mortises I then set up the table saw with a dado stack to run the grooves for the panels.

It took a little fussing around to get the groove and the mortises in line but this needs to be exact or there will be problems down the road.

Here is the set up at the table saw. Note the feather boards fore and aft. I didn't want any drift in the groove.

Completed groove with mortise.

Next, it's tenon time!