Woodworking Magazine Blog

This morning we skipped the 20th century entirely.

We invited a few dozen readers to the White Water Shaker Village, a 19th-century colony in rural Hamilton County that is being restored by volunteers. And we invited Freud Tools to the event to show off some of their newest tooling. Freud, never a company for half-measures, sent a huge mobile workshop on the back of a diesel truck.

Dang.

At the Lie-Nielsen event we had in our offices in May, I gave away hammers. A lot of hammers. (No, this isn't the "making amends" portion of a 12-step program. Aw crap, I just offended all the addicts. Sorry addicts.)

Instead, I wanted to share the joys of cross-peen hammers. Think of it as giving away the first rock of crack for free. (Sorry to my readers who are hubba pigeons!)

Drawing on his almost four decades of experiential knowledge as well as historic evidence dating back thousands of years, in “Hide Glue: Historical & Practical Applications” author Stephen A. Shepherd provides an in-depth look at the history, chemistry and techniques for making and using hide glues – as well as compelling reasons to do so.

The historical information is of particular interest to me. I was fascinated to learn, for example, that the Neanderthal artists of Lascaux used hide glue to help secure their paintings to the cave walls, and that a circa 1500 B.C. Egyptian mural depicts a glue pot on a fire. Shepherd also recounts a fairly detailed history of the hide glue industry in America.

Whenever I demonstrate handsawing, someone usually asks this question: "Should you saw right on the knife line or next to your line?"

I answer: "It depends. Usually I split the knife line."

They usually respond with something like: "Yeah, and I'm a Chinese jet pilot."

So I show them. And now that we have a cool new macro lens at the magazine, I can show you, too. Above is the shoulder of a dovetail joint I cut this morning. The knife line at the edges was made with a cutting gauge.

I am not showing off. This is easy to do with a sharp saw and a little practice. Not years. Not months. It takes just a couple days, really.

Here's my advice: Practice. Don't practice on a real project. (There's a reason that surgeons practice on cadavers.) Practice on scrap. After a few hours of work you'll find it easy to follow a line. After a few more you'll cleave a knife line in twain.

Other sawing advice can be found in my treatise on sawing in the Spring 2008 issue.

— Christopher Schwarz


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Last year I got to tour one of the Lee Valley Tools warehouses in Ottawa, Ontario. No wait, don't leave just yet. A Lee Valley warehouse is like the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory.

Yes, there are huge metal racks filled with bins for garden equipment, tools and Painters' Pyramids. But the Lee family also has a tendency to pick up odd items and preserve them in the warehouse. Example: an entire old-school hardware store – packed up and stored in boxes. There were entire pallets of odd-shaped metal parts or leftover factory stock of very old screws that Leonard Lee or his son Robin picked up while on an adventure.

Sometimes these finds end up in the catalog (remember the awesome French knives a few years ago, or the bronze hinges?). Other times, the items just sit and wait for the right purpose.

As Robin Lee was showing a group of us around his newest warehouse, his hand reached into a waist-high bin and pulled out a tidily wrapped cardboard box.

These were Swiss horseshoe nails, he explained. Every nail was perfectly formed and shiny. (Would you expect anything less from the Swiss?) And he had hundreds of these boxes.

The nails looked familiar to me. And because I took an interest in them, Robin gave me a box. It was a fun time getting them through U.S. Customs. ("Yes sir, Swiss horseshoe nails. No, I'm not a farrier. No, I have no idea what else they could be used for.")

When I got home, I realized that these nails looked a lot like ancient Roman nails, which were the forerunner of the classic cut nail of the 18th and 19th centuries. Roman nails have a square shank and taper on all four edges to a point. Some were shaped very similarly to these farrier's nails. Other have a head that was obviously designed to be proud of the surface. Cut nails have a rectangular shank and taper on only two edges.

I toyed with the idea of using the horseshoe nails in the 18th-century dry sink I recently finished building, but my experiments with the nails made me think twice. Because the Roman-style nails taper on all four sides, they have an even greater tendency to split the work. I tried a variety of pilot holes, but all I got were lots and lots of splits.

Perhaps the nails were better used in wetter wood, which would be more plastic. Perhaps I'm doing it wrong. I do know one thing: These nails hold like crazy. I had a heck of a time pulling them out, even from a badly split board.

In the end, I didn't feel sorry for myself that I couldn't figure it out. But I sure feel sorry for the Swiss horses.

— Christopher Schwarz

Pint-sized router planes see a lot of use in my shop. Instead of using a trim router, I always prefer to cut mortises for hinges with a chisel and a router plane. So as soon as Veritas and Lie-Nielsen started making small router planes based loosely on the Stanley No. 271 about 18 months ago, I was first in line.

I now have many hours on both tools – I've sharpened each one about seven or eight times. And I have developed some firm likes and dislikes about each tool. The next paragraph is a spoiler, so if you like a little suspense when reading blogs, skip it.

Neither router plane is perfect. But nor is there one clear winner in the category. If I could combine the best of both tools (the Lie-Veritas?) I think it would be the router plane of my dreams. Here's the lowdown on each tool.

The Veritas Small Router Plane
First the good: This plane has a closed throat and is quite compact. The closed throat allows you to work on the edges of boards without any danger of the tool tipping. The downside to a closed throat is you sacrifice a little visibility – it's a tad more difficult to see where you are cutting.

The compact size is a big plus with the Veritas. The tool is 3-1/4" at its widest, and that is an asset when you are cutting hinge mortises inside assembled casework. Sometimes larger router planes are too big and ram into the top or bottom of your case. This little guy sneaks in everywhere I ask it to go. The fit and finish is excellent, as is the knurled brass locking knob. The iron is durable.

The downside: I don't care for the round shank that the iron is mounted to. No matter how tightly I secure the locking knob, the shank can shift if you take a big bite of wood with the plane. When the shank slips, usually the blade height doesn't change, but the iron rotates left or right. You can rotate it back, but there is the danger of changing your blade's projection. So take light cuts.

Lie-Nielsen Small Router Plane
The good: The blade-locking mechanism is incredibly solid and the iron never slips. The iron is mounted to a square shank, so there's no chance that the iron can rotate during heavy use. Plus, I quite like the fact that the blade-locking knob can be turned with a straight screwdriver. The knob is small, so this is a big plus.

I also like the curved fingerholds on the body. These are comfortable and feel right when you are skewing the tool into a hinge mortise. Plus, they give the tool a little sex appeal. The fit and finish on this tool is also excellent. The iron is quite durable.

The downside: The tool has an open throat. The almost 3/4"-wide open section on the sole makes the tool unsuitable for work on narrow edges, such as cleaning up the ends of haunches in frame-and-panel work. If your work consists of a lot of work on edges, this isn't the tool for you.

Bottom line: I think the perfect plane for my work would be a router plane that had a closed throat, a compact size, curved fingerholds and an iron that had a square shank. Perhaps there's a vintage tool out there that meets these criteria, but I don't plan to start scouring eBay any time soon. Having both these tools covers all my needs.

— Christopher Schwarz


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If your interest in drawboring was piqued by our recent discussion of it in Issue 4, this article will deepen your knowledge.