Mortise & Tenon Magazine

I received a copy of the inaugural issue of Mortise & Tenon magazine the other day. I had seen an ad for it and it looked interesting, the price seemed reasonable and I ordered a copy. It arrived in a sturdy mailer and to my surprise, the magazine was contained in an inner wrapping bound with cord and accompanied by a card. A very nice presentation.

As to content, well, I purchased the magazine because it was to be devoted to the exploration of furniture making in the pre industrial era and would focus on presenting historically accurate and well researched information on period furniture construction. I am not a period furniture maker but I do have a keen interest in learning about historic furniture making.

The Editors present a nicely balanced series of articles which range from interviews with conservators to articles about period woodworking techniques. I found all the material to be of interest but particularly the articles that detailed pre industrial woodworking techniques. There are lots of photographs which give you a look, not only at the exterior, but at the interior. You get to see many details which are generally hidden from view. From a technical point of view, we are still dealing with many of the same problems inherent in building with wood today and it is interesting and inspiring to see what our predecessors have done in the past.

From what I have seen in the first issue, I will look forward to the next issue, expected in January of 2017.

I'll be back to the blanket chest in a few days. I am out of the ditch and the water is draining nicely now. Thanks for taking a look. I hope you check back and see how it's going.

The Veritas MKII Honing Guide and Sharpening Edge Tools by Hand

I have found a honing guide to be invaluable when sharpening my edge tools. I do sharpen my striking knife, skew chisels, and small narrow chisels by hand since they don't fit in my guide. After a fair amount of looking around and using various sharpening jigs I finally settled on the Veritas Mk II Honing Guide, available from Lee Valley Tools. 

There is also an attachment you can buy to use with skew chisels but I don't have that. This honing guide allows me to quickly and repeatedly set my blade or chisel at the correct angle so I can do touch up sharpening while in the middle of a project. This guide also has a feature that, by pulling and turning a knob you can change the blade angle by 1 degree allowing a secondary bevel to be formed. This is handy!

 

Here the guide is shown with the angle setting attachment on.

This controls the projection of the blade and thus the angle. There is a good instruction booklet that comes with this guide to explain it's use and help decipher the markings.

Here the guide is shown from the under side showing the chisel blade meeting the stop. The fence on the side keeps the blade square to the roller. You then tighten the blade clamp, remove the angle attachment and you are ready to roll.

At this point you just push and pull the device with the blade registered on the abrasive, as below. You need to pay a bit of attention but it is really quick to do 50 strokes back and forth. More than enough to touch up a blade during use. Notice that I have placed the film close to the edges of the glass. This is so I can lap the burr off the back of the blade without removing the tool from the holder.

Unless a blade is really in bad shape I run through the 15, then 5 micron grits. If I want a high polish I will finish with the 0.5 micron. If a blade is chipped or needs the bevel changed I will start with sandpaper as coarse as 400 grit and work up from there. Some folks use a bench grinder for this. If you do, be careful not to overheat the tool!

When I am readying a new chisel or plane blade for use I lap the back to flatten, smooth and polish it. You don't have to do the whole back, just the bottom 1/8th inch or so. After I have the back in good shape I install the chisel or blade in the holder and start honing. If you are buying a decent quality tool it should come with the blade square and reasonably sharp. The back will probably be flat but rough compared to the front of the cutting edge. Start with the grit that seems appropriate. You want to polish out the previous scratch marks and leave progressively smaller ones until, at 4000 grit or so, you have a nice polished edge. Here is a close up of a chisel blade after sharpening. This is a 1/2 inch chisel. The micro bevel doesn't look as polished in this close up as in real life, but it looks pretty good with the naked eye.

I hope you have enjoyed hearing about my sharpening practices. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Check in again soon.

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.