Punch, brothers! Punch with care!

Here's a small project from the shop before it went into hibernation. It's pretty self-explanatory, so I'll let the pictures do the talking...

Complete, and...

...oiled - it will darken in time and match better.

For me, there is something very satisfying in making old tools happy.

Mystery Tool II

Well I've lost track - anyway, I think this is the second mystery tool...

I picked this up in the tool section at a local thrift store. It was in a box labeled "plane parts". It does appear to have the adjustment wheel from a Stanley block plane as one of its parts, but I really don't see how this could be related to planes function wise.

Take a look:

My first reaction was a homemade version of those screen door tools, but those are so cheap I'm not sure why anyone would take the time to make one. Unless, they were in a remote location maybe...

Oh, I forgot to say it's about 5 inches long.

Any thoughts?

Pipe Clamps

Okay, this is probably a pretty obvious "tip", but I thought "Hey, you never know..." So here it is: You can easily, and cheaply, extend the versatility of your pipe clamps beyond buying various lengths of pipe, by buying pipe couplings.

Oh, and as for galvanized versus black pipe, my personal preference is the galvanized. It doesn't stain the wood, and as for being "too soft" as some have found, in my experience my black iron pipes are more easily dinged by the clamp clutch. Just make sure it is smoothy galvanized - my local Borg tends to have some that are very smooth and some that are rough.

Anyway, I hope this helps someone.



Tambour Progress

Here's the process I've come up with for making the slats for the chisel cabinet's tambour door.

First I round the edge of some 3/4 stock with a nosing plane. Since there is no stop, I used the pencil hatching trick to make keeping an eye on progress a little easier:

The section of odd texture on the end of this plane is from the overzealous stamping of F.A.H. - obviously that guy didn't cotton to others borrowing his tools.

Once it's rounded, I use the slitter on a Stanley #45 to cut most of the way through...

...and then finish removing the slat with a knife.

The slat is then placed curved face down into a jig so I can clean up the back with a jack plane.

And that's it - one slat finished (well, actually two since it's double length) and many more to go.

And here's a shot of the planes used:

Since each slat doesn't take very long to make, I'm hoping to sneak out to the shop and work through the total a little at a time. We'll see...

Hammer Hanger

After posting about my latest tool panel, the one for miscellaneous tools, a reader asked for a more detailed shot and information on the hammer hangers. So, here it is.

They are made out of 2x stock, and are pretty straightforward to make and harder to describe in words.

First the layout: I put the hammer on top of the wood with the handle perpendicular to the bottom edge, and traced the underside off the head - under the bell and neck and down the left side of the cheek, and under the claw and down the right edge of the cheek. I extended a horizontal line across the gap where the cheek lines turned down toward the vertical. I also marked the top and bottom of the stock with thickness of the hammer head.

Time to cut: I cut the (mostly) vertical cheek lines with a Japanese saw, stopping when I reached the depth marks. Then, using a coping saw, I cut away all the wood above the traced line, following the horizontal line across the cheek cuts. It was short work with a chisel to remove the wood between the vertical cuts to make room for the adze-eye and the top of the handle.

That's it, well except for clean-up, which as you can see was pretty minimal, as I was not too concerned with perfection. Oh, and I did add a gate made from thin stock and counter sink screw holes for mounting the hanger on the panel.

I hope that helped.

Tool of the Month #1

Okay, first the title is probably way to optimistic for my reality - but I will try.

In case you didn't already know, I love tools - especially old tools with stories to tell and skills to teach. I've shared some of these in past posts, but will now be attempting to be more regular about it.

The idea is I will pick one tool a month and post about it. I'll share its story if I know it, how I use it, any unique features, any questions I have about it, and what I love about it. So, that's the idea - let's get started.


"Worth" 16oz Bell Faced Claw Hammer

I picked this up with a broken off handle on one of my early tool hunting expeditions back East - probably Maine or New Hampshire, but I can't remember exactly. I punched out the remaining part of the handle, salvaged the wedges and made a new handle from local Alaskan birch.

I had never done that before, and at first I was rather intimidated by the idea. But, like so many other things I have learned on this hand tool adventure, it's really just a matter of getting started and figuring it out as you go along. As I worked on the shavehorse with drawknife and spokeshaves, I just kept holding the handle and pretending to hammer with it, and my hand told me what to do - thinner, longer, more flair, etc. In my mind it was going to be a round handle, but as I worked on it, the flattened octagon shape just felt right. In the end, I had a handle that was custom made to fit my hand. There are some pretty big dividends to NOT having a plan sometimes - in fact, in my experience, this is true most of the time. So if you've ever thought about rehandling a tool - I say do it!

In this shot you can see the "Worth" logo and also some marks that show a previous owner did some hammering with the side of the adze eye. Hmm. I wonder how this little guy ended up with that broken handle? (Not that the side hammering would do that, but I think it shows a level of disrespect for the tool.)

Worth was a house brand sold by the large hardware company of Bigelow & Dowse located in Boston, MA. From what I can find, this brand was made for B&D by Pexto, and sold between 1925-1945, which makes this hammer at least 67 years old. Cool. It also has a "REG US PATT OFF" imprint, which I find a bit unusual, as I don't see anything unique and patentable about it. Curious.

I also have a drawknife with the Worth mark on it (and strangley enough it is my "go to" drawknife, just like this is my "go to" hammer) but it also has an asterisk or star stamp as well, which I think I recall seeing elsewhere as being a symbol that Worth used. I'd love to learn more about this stuff.

Another thing I really appreciate about this hammer is the smooth, slightly convex face. I can consistently sink nails to just below the surface without leaving the so-called "French marks" - an old English term I rather expect.

And a shot of my initials - I'm not sure why I didn't brand this one - maybe because I was thinking of it more as an "owner's mark" rather than a "maker's" mark? Of course, I did make the handle...

I think hammers are under appreciated - but this one makes me happy every time I pick it up.

Two Down, One to Go

When I removed the last pegboard tool panel in the shop I decided to reorganize things a bit. It was a real mix of tools, and is being replaced by three separate new panels. I completed the layout tool panel first, and now the second panel is finished as well. Yes! More than half-way done!

This one was for the "miscellaneous tools" - tools that are used too frequently to put in a drawer or chest. I wanted these right at hand, but arranged in a way that made more sense than the way they were on the old panel (actually, some of these were never on the old panel, but were "upgraded" to "frequently used" status during the planning and building stages).

Here it is:

You'll probably need to click on the picture to see it closer (well, if you're like me and such a total tool geek that you pore over photos trying to identify each and every tool ).

Now only the chisel panel waits to be finished - but it is going to be much more complicated, with a tambour front. I hope it doesn't take too long - at the speed I've been moving lately I'm already late getting started on Christmas presents.

Black Spruce Carving Mallet

One of the projects my students will be working on this year is making a carving mallet. We didn't need these last year when we made wooden spoons, but there will be some projects this year where a mallet to use with the gouges will come in handy.

This weekend I made a prototype from some black spruce harvested from the burn zone of the Miller's Reach fire. That was a huge fire back in 1996 that burned over 37,000 acres and around 400 buildings. The area, like a lot of this part of Alaska, is boggy, and the black spruce are dominant. I don't know if black spruce grows differently elsewhere, but up here they are very "Doctor Seuss" like:


They are extremely slow growing - this is a mature stand that escaped the fire. In the burnt areas they look like bare, black poles.

Here's the section I started with:


It was an off-cut from another project at our school and had been stripped with a power planer. "Oh the humanity!"

Here's what I meant by slow growing:


This one has 60 rings per inch! So at three inches in diameter, it's a 90 year old tree - yikes!

After cutting to length, I worked at the shavehorse to rough out the shape of the handle with a drawknife. Then I switched to the spokeshaves to smooth and refine. I should mention how handy the step cut in the end of the shavehorse was on this project. For creating the curve down from the head, I used the horse normally. For the flair at the bottom of the handle, I couldn't keep shaving in the same direction as it would be working against the grain. I could have reversed the spokeshave and pushed, but instead I removed the mallet from under the horse's head, put the top of the mallet head on my solar plexus and wedged the end of the handle on the step and shave down the curve with the grain - easy and quick!

Here it is with the handle mostly finished:


And here it is after the head was also cleaned up:


And oiled:




I'm not sure if the checking will be a problem or not. Even with the cracks, it feels solid. Time will tell...

And the final mallet with the tools used to make it:


The kit: drawknife, flat and round spokeshaves, and a curved scraper. Missing are the shavehorse, and the saw.

Instant Bench Top Extension

Dan's Shop Rule #7: No matter how large your workbench is, it will always need to be just a little larger.

So the other day I'm working on the Rolltop desk; it was sitting up on the bench, and I needed to take the top off and work on that as well - ah, rule #7. What to do? The desk was heavy, awkward and, especially at that stage of repair, weak. I really couldn't take it down.

As I was turning this problem over in my mind, I started to focus on the plywood bench cover I was using under the desk to protect from glue drips etc. Then I remembered Rule #9.

Dan's Shop Rule #9: All tools have at least three uses.

Well, I'd originally built the plywood and 2x4 cover for protecting the bench from the mess of cleaning rusty tools - sort of a more permanent version of cardboard. It slips over the bench top and into the vise. Hmm. What would happen if I slid it partially off the end and tightened the vise? Whoa! Cool! Instant larger bench! Take that Rule #7!

The pictures below illustrate this simple, yet slow to be discovered, second use:




There is of course a limit to how much weight can be placed on the extension before it starts to sag. With the desk on top, I added a clamp opposite the vise to help hold everything tight.

So, now I've started to wonder about the third use of the plywood cover...

Rolltop Desk Rescue and Thoughts on Shop Satisfaction

I think it is interesting how shop projects give me satisfaction in various ways. In my experience, there are at least three distinct kinds of woodworking satisfaction. With most projects, it's the creative aspect that I enjoy. With others it's the challenge, or problem solving. And sometimes it's just the tools. This last project was definitely in the third category.

I'd been looking for a new desk for my classroom. I wanted something on the smaller side, with character, and definitely wood. After a lot of time online I found exactly what I was looking for - sort of.

It was a smallish roll-top desk and I really liked the way it looked in the pictures. In person though, it had problems - and a lot of them. It looked like it had fallen off a truck or down some stairs or maybe off a truck and down some stairs. Almost all the leg and panel joints were busted - or I should say had been busted. Someone had done some questionable repairs with a ton of glue and nails. Huh.

Clearly this was going to be a project and not just a purchase. I thought about just walking away, but it was the only desk I had found so far that I liked and it came with an awesome old wooden swivel chair. I ended up getting a much better price and it came home with me.

Now as projects go, this one was a little bit of a challenge. I had to figure out how to completely disassemble the desk without completely destroying the "repaired" parts or doing new harm to the few undamaged joints. It was also not without some creative elements. I had to create a new system of glue blocks to support the more damaged parts. However, it was the tools used that gave me the real satisfaction.

First, as I was getting ready to add the glue blocks, I needed to scrape off the old finish and much glue from earlier repairs. It just so happened that I had a cool old scraper holder sitting on the shelf. It worked great, and felt just perfect in my hand. I love putting old tools back to work; they just seem so happy.


Second, as I was adjusting the angle on the glue blocks the oak was really putting up a fight. Both my "go-to" jack and block plane were not quite doing it. I could have sharpened them and they would have done fine, but instead I decided to give the old bevel up jack a try. Shazam!




Talk about "the right tool for the job." Awesome and such a pleasure! Now I know a lot of folks are going minimalist, and there is a certain satisfaction in that (which I've touched on before). I guess I'd put that in my "challenge" category. But there is a special kind of joy in using a tool for the exact purpose it was created. For the purpose at which it excels. No "jack of all trades" but a true specialist. Could I have done this job without this tool - without a doubt. Would I have missed a deep and powerful satisfaction - yes! I'm glad I have that tool, and glad I used it.

Oh, and the desk itself? Here are a few shots of the final outcome:

Cool Old Scraper Holder

Well, the usual has happened - too much work, not enough play...

I did pick up this cool old scraper holder on eBay. I don't remember seeing one like it before. I'm pretty sure it was shop made, but I could be wrong. Someone put a lot of time into shaping the handle - it is almost entirely curved and feels great in the hand.






For whatever reason, the bottom jaw doesn't quite close tight enough, but that was easy to fix with some shavings:




The only mark I could find is on the end of the handle - "LVM".


Another old tool with its own mysterious past. Whose hands once held it as mine do?