One of the world's biggest tool collectors is bringing his brand-new traveling tool museum to Northern Kentucky on Oct. 1-2 to show it off to the public at the Woodworking in America event at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center.

John Sindelar of Edwardsburg, Mich., has spent his entire adult life amassing some of the world's rarest, most expensive and beautiful tools. And this year Sindelar built a traveling tool museum that will travel the country to share some of the highlights of his collection at festivals and fairs.

Even if you got shut out of the classes at Woodworking in America this year, the Marketplace itself is well worth the trip (and it's only $7 for two days).

Sindelar's traveling collection includes more than 500 items (valued at $300,000) from all the trades, from woodworking to blacksmithing to household tools. Visitors can see one of the first axes ever made in the New World, according to archaeologists (it's copper!), specialized plow planes made entirely of ivory, antique levels from Asia and much more.

"You name it, we have it," Sindelar says. "From the beginning of time to the present day."

The traveling collection is housed in a custom-built trailer that Sindelar's woodworking business outfitted to look like the inside of a vintage luxury locomotive car. The interior is constructed entirely with antiqued frame-and-panel in cherry – and features a tool in the center of each panel.

The 30'-long, 220-square-foot traveling museum is Sindelar's effort to build support for a permanent tool museum for his enormous tool collection now housed in his shop in Michigan.

The traveling tool museum will be parked on the floor of the Marketplace at Woodworking in America at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center. Admission to the Marketplace (just $7) gets you in to see the traveling tool museum, plus more than 70 woodworking vendors and demonstrators showing off all aspects of woodworking with both hand and power tools.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. I'll have photos of the traveling tool museum later this week.

More Links to Obscenely Gorgeous Tools

• For more information on Sindelar's collection, visit his web site at: sindelartoolmuseum.com

• Read (for free) a story I wrote where I test-drove some of the world's most expensive planes.

• "Tools Rare and Ingenious" by Sandor Nagyszalanczy has some serious brass and steel.

• My book, "Handplane Essentials," has a lot of stories about modern makers, including Konrad Sauer, Ron Brese, Karl Holtey, Bill Carter, Wayne Anderson, D.L. Barrett & Sons and more. It's available from our bookstore.

• View a free slideshow of my trip to Sindelar's tool museum a few years ago.

Our new book, "The Workbench Design Book" is at the printer and will ship at the end of September. It's a 256-page behemoth – and more than half of it is all-new material that I've been writing since February.

Starting today, you can pre-order your copy at 20 percent off – $27.99 plus free domestic shipping – until the book arrives at our warehouse. Then it will go to its full retail price of $34.99 plus free domestic shipping. (By the way, this book won't be available at Amazon for several months. However, Lee Valley Tools will have it this fall.)

Of course, some of you are wondering why I would write a second book on workbenches. So I've included the introduction to the new book below, which explains the book and its content. Also, for those of you who asked, this book is being produced, printed and bound in the United States.

If you are ready to order, you can jump to our store here. Otherwise, read on:

Why Ancient Workbenches are Still Better

Here was my first proposed title for this book: “Wait – Didn’t You Already Write the Only Workbench Book I Needed?”

Since I wrote “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use” in 2007, a lot has changed. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of woodworkers have built workbenches based on the simple but ancient designs I tried to pan (as in for gold) from the historical record.

Also, the sort of workholding available to you has greatly expanded. (Note: I take no credit for this development. I think this reversal of fortune has a lot to do with the still-small but still-important growth in the interest in handwork.)

And, no surprise, I have built several more workbenches.

What hasn’t changed is that woodworkers still need to work on the faces, edges and ends of boards and assemblies. And that is as true in 2010 as it was in 1910 or 1679. And here’s a second thing that hasn’t changed: The ancient French and English workbench designs I explored in my first book are still just a blip in the world of workbench construction.

The vast majority of workbenches that are built or bought today are what you might call “European,” “Scandinavian” or “Mongrel.” What I mean by Mongrel are benches that are built with a weird combination of design cues and features that seem more random than purposeful. Example: A bench with a single quick-release vise centered on one end of the benchtop. I like car analogies, so this one is like owning a Corvette with a Vega engine. (The Vega, for those of you unschooled in American automotive history, was one of the most woefully underpowered cars ever.)

So it might seem to you that this book is another attempt to convince woodworkers to build the simple, ancient and adaptable forms that were more common during the 18th century than today. But that’s not entirely true.

Curious at first: Sometimes you have to know the context of a bench design before you can evaluate it. This one from Ivin Sickels “Exercises in Wood-Working” (1889) looks odd. Two face vises. No tail vise. If you read the text it’s obvious this bench is for a school. That makes more sense. But I still don’t have to like this bench.

This book is the result of feedback from hundreds of readers who have dropped me notes, asked me questions and sent me photos during the last three years. As a result of your feedback, I have tried to refine my ideas about bench design, expand my arsenal of workholding possibilities and work on benches weird, wonderful and even painted pink.

But the real impetus for this book came from a grumpy old man who wanted his money back.

He had purchased “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use” and was disappointed that the book had plans for only two workbenches. He had expected at least a dozen.

At first I tried to defend my book, and I explained that the core idea of the book was that you could take the principles in it and create something that was suitable for your work, customized with the workholding you would need as you grew as a woodworker.

He was ready for that answer.

He said that there was no way that he could know what sort of workbench he’d need in five or 10 years. Instead, he wanted to see plans for a bunch of workbenches from experienced woodworkers who had thought hard about the bench they should build. Then he would examine the sort of work they did and find the woodworker who was doing work that he found inspirational.

Then he would build their bench.

That’s not an entirely bad idea. So I took his idea and twisted it to my own devices. In this book you’ll find plans for nine workbenches that we have published over the years in our magazine from my pen or from woodworkers I respect or from whom I’ve learned a great deal.

But the reason we are publishing these plans is not for you to pick one out like it’s a car and build one just like it. In fact, it’s just the opposite. We are publishing these plans in the sincere hope that you will take the opportunity to tear them apart, understand how they work then discard them for something slightly different that suits your work.

In fact, I spent more than three months building a workbench that I hope not a single woodworker copies – the 18th-century Roubo-style workbench shown on the cover. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a fantastic bench, one of the nicest-looking ones I have ever built. But I didn’t build it for you to copy.

So why the heck did I build it?

I’m not trying to be difficult here. I promise. The reason I built that bench like I did is because of feedback from readers. Lots of people seized upon the idea in the first book of using construction-grade lumber that you then laminate into the thicknesses that you need for your bench’s parts. It’s a principle that we explore even deeper in this book, such as the workbench Megan Fitzpatrick and I built using laminated veneer lumber (LVL).

The Ultimate Bench? David Denning holds this bench up as the one to have in his book “The Art of Cabinet-Making.” This bench has a lot going for it, but a few things could be greatly improved.

However, as several readers pointed out, I was sending out mixed signals. I was showing you how to build a workbench that was ideal for handwork but that was best built with a powered jointer, planer and table saw. So the real lesson in the 18th-century Roubo bench in this book is to show you how to cut workbench-scale joints entirely by hand. And you can take those skills and use them to build any bench.

And that is the real purpose of the plans in this book. Each bench has some important construction details that you can take and make your own. Here are some examples:

• The Holtzapffel Cabinetmaker’s Workbench shows you how to incorporate a wooden twin-screw vise and an end vise that is a quick-release vise (a non-traditional but quite excellent adaptation of this common piece of hardware).

• The LVL Workbench explores the merits (and limitations) of this common construction material and shows you how to build a traditional bench base that is bolted together and can be built in (no lie here) one afternoon.

• Robert W. Lang’s 21st-century Workbench has the only tool tray that I (begrudgingly) approve of, plus it shows you alternatives to having a sliding deadman and offers a lesson in building a knockdown base that uses wedges.

• Glen D. Huey’s Shaker Workbench shows you how to master post-and-rail base construction, plus it offers scads of storage.

• The 24-hour Workbench is the fastest bench I’ve ever built (I’ve built five of these), and it shows you how to use plywood for a benchtop and bench bolts in the base.

• The Power-tool Workbench shows you how to get away with one vise, a small footprint and still be able to do most handwork operations. This was my workbench at home for many years.

• The $280 (or so) Workbench is a lesson in frugality – how to build the most bench with the least amount of scratch.

• Jim Stuard’s German/Patternmaker’s Workbench is the first hand-tool friendly workbench I ever used. It has a classic trestle base, storage, a patternmaker’s vise and very few compromises.

But in assembling that list of benches, I concluded that these nine benches weren’t enough to give you the full range of possibilities you’ll face as you sit down with a blank sheet of paper or an empty computer screen.

So I decided to add a couple other features to this book. First, after eight of the nine workbench plans there are two-page commentaries of the bench based on the user’s experiences with that design. They answer the important questions of: What would they keep? What would they change?

Second, I compiled a list of bench designs that cover most of the major Western designs – from European to Late Mongrel. With these designs I offer a sort of “before-and-after” approach. I show the bench design as it commonly appears with commentary about what works and what doesn’t with the classic design. Then I show you how to modify the design so it might do a few more tricks for you.

In other words, this book is like a vaccination. With these plans I’m trying to free you from the tyranny of plans. If you look at enough workbenches and understand what makes them tick, then you’ll start designing good ones for yourself. That’s what happened to me. And that is what has happened to other workbench freaks I’ve communicated with during the last decade.

Know your sources: This bench from Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises” vexed me for many years. What I didn’t realize is how the engraving of the bench had been changed after it had been swiped from the French. That key bit of information led to a new understanding of the workholding.

New Workholding & Ways To Knock Down Your Bench
Other parts of this book are attempts to update you on some new developments or fill in areas that I had to skim over in the last book. I have included a sizable section on the world of workholding – much has changed. Manufacturers have redoubled their efforts to bring us vises and devices to make life easier. (And sadly, other manufacturers have sent their operations overseas, which has resulted in their products becoming cheap in the worst sense of the word.)

Plus, I have made a few small discoveries about historical workholding that had eluded me for years. In other words, I’m coming clean about my earlier ignorance.

And finally, I include a chapter on building knockdown workbenches that I didn’t have room for in the first book  The two workbench designs from my first book are monolithic (the way I like them), but as many of you have told me, people move.

So Do You Need This Book?
That’s a fair question. I think that most woodworkers will be happy with the designs in the first book. It’s like buying a stock Honda Civic and modifying the heck out of the thing. Change the VTEC timing, mess with the cold-air intake, redo the exhaust and suspension. In the end you will have a car that is a top performer, but it still has the Honda Civic nameplate on it.

This book is for people who want to build a car from scratch. Weld together a chassis and pick out all the parts, from the coil to the water pump. It’s more effort to understand the car, which is – ultimately – a group of systems. But the result is that whatever you build in the end – fantastic or craptacular – is entirely your brainchild.

Your bench might end up looking like a Roubo or a Nicholson or a Klausz to a casual observer. But because you understand how all its systems work together you will have created a John-style bench or a Janet-inspired design.

If you’re ready for this, then the first step in your education is to revisit the rules of workbench design and see if we can stretch them, distort them or make them write bad checks.

— Christopher Schwarz

I wrote a short review of Karl Holtey's No. 982 smoothing plane for the October 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine (which is mailing now to subscribers). And you don't write a review of a tool that costs $10,500 without bracing yourself for some comments from readers.

Overall, I quite liked the tool, which was on loan to us for several months from its owner. For me, the experience was like driving the BMW 700-series sedan that belonged to a friend of my mom. At first it was terrifying, and I handled the tool like an injured wombat. After a few weeks of babying it, however, I started to explore its limits.

Over the weekend, I received the following letter from reader Dave Makarewicz, which asked a lot of good questions.

Earlier this afternoon I read your Tool Test article about the Karl Holtey 982 smoothing plane. While I've heard the Holtey name in the past I've never really investigated Karl or his work. One item that caught my attention was the price quoted in British pounds, so I did the math and realized that we're talking about the "upper stratosphere" of hand tools. OK now you've really got my interest cranked up! I spent some time on Karl's web site to see what I could learn and it's obvious Karl is a superb craftsman, dedicated to achieving near perfection.

So now all day long I can't get this review out of my head, and I have a few questions. Can you shed some light as to who uses a tool of this caliber? Realizing that Karl's planes are one-off commission pieces, how much better can this tool be as compared to say a Lie-Nielsen plane? At that level I'm thinking this thing jumps out of the box and starts planing all by itself. And lastly your comment about the tote attachment coming loose really floored me, You're telling me that my $10,000 handplane is going to have problems? That's like the salesman at the Bentley dealership telling me that the knobs on the dashboard have a tendency to fall off!

If I'm shelling out that kind of dough Karl himself had better be coming over to tweak the tote attachment and he's going to have to bring doughnuts too!

I think you are a truly lucky fellow to be able to get hold of stuff like this and try it out. I also think it's important that us commoners get to see that these things really exist, and I believe that men like Karl raise the bar for everyone.

Here are some answers.

1. Who uses a Karl Holtey plane?

I know that some of Holtey's planes never go to work in a shop, and that's typical among the customers of all the custom toolmakers. But I do know that Garrett Hack has a Holtey No. 98 that sees a fair amount of use. I saw Hack's Holtey at a show about five years ago and it was worn and well-patinated. And Hack had only praise for the tool. David Charlesworth also has a couple of Holtey's planes that get put to the wood. And I know a few home woodworkers who both collect and use the planes from Holtey and other markers.

It's my hope that every well-made tool gets to see some action.

2. How much better is a Holtey plane compared to other premium tools?

This point gets debated all the time on the woodworking forums. The argument goes something like this: People who dislike the tool say there's no way that a $10,500 tool planes a piece of wood 26.25 times better than a $400 plane. And they're right. People who like the tool say that's like comparing a Honda Accord to a Ferrari Enzo. And they are right, as well.

At a certain price point, all tools do a tremendous job, just like all chairs hold you off the floor in relative comfort. But it's up to you as to whether you want a chair from Ikea or Sam Maloof.

3. About that tote coming loose.

The tote of the plane did come loose, but I wouldn't make too much of it. The totes on all my planes come loose from using them (even a Ferrari needs new brakes and an oil change on occasion). I asked Holtey about it via e-mail and here's his response:

"The metal stem inside the handle is only anchored at the top end. This is to allow some movement due to shrinkage; otherwise the handle would crack. With this shrinkage you may notice the loosening on the handle screw and it just needs a little more tightening.

"Another solution to shrinkage is to use a polymer but for some reason it hasn’t caught on."

And that's exactly right. Tightening up the handle fixed it. I mentioned it (briefly) in the review only to point out that this is a real tool.

I'll add one more question to this list, even though Dave didn't ask.

4. Why review a tool that is out of reach of most subscribers?

Once a year we publish plans in our magazine for what could best be termed a "fantasy" project – a piece of work that most woodworkers would like to build but is out of their league at this point. We do this because we want to inspire our readers to become better woodworkers. And we want to show them what good design and good craftsmanship looks like.

And that's why I chose to write about Holtey's plane in our pages. If given the chance, wouldn't you want to pore over a cabinet by James Krenov? Sit in a chair made by Sam Maloof? Use a plane by Karl Holtey?

— Christopher Schwarz

Other Resources on Custom Plane Makers

• Visit Karl Holtey's web site and be sure to read his blog. His level of craftsmanship is tremendous. holteyplanes.com.

• Konrad Sauer of Sauer & Steiner also writes a blog that details the construction of his custom infill planes. sauerandsteiner.com.

• Wayne Anderson is also one of my favorite makers. I own a few of his planes. Each one is unique. andersonplanes.com.

• I discuss a lot of the custom planemakers (and compare their tools to James Krenov's) in my book "Handplane Essentials." This sizable book is a compilation of my best writing on handplanes during the last 10 years.

I have four sets of screwdrivers. Three for loaning and one for using.

The set I never loan is made up of tools that were made (mostly) by the H.D. Smith & Co. company of Plantsville, Conn. Usually these are referred to as "perfect handle" screwdrivers. They are single drop-forged pieces of steel with a wooden handle that has been riveted into place. And they are tougher and more comfortable than any screwdriver I've used.

I've picked up my set of six drivers through the years since 1996, when I spied my first one at a flea market and picked it up for $5. Since then I've also noticed that the prices for these tools can be ridiculous. I've seen screwdrivers go for $40. I've never paid more than $10, but I've picked up mine at antique fairs.

The reason I was able to get mine so cheaply is that mine look like dogmeat. And they look like dogmeat because they were probably used on the devil's locomotive they are so black and grungy. And they are as tough as hell.

Note that there are counterfeits out there that weren't made by Smith. Some of the tools are stamped "Germany," and some are stamped "Irwin." And some are tools that have been cobbled together by a clever welder. But if you find the real thing, I know you'll be pleased.

I've noticed that Garrett Wade carries a Chinese set that looks like my screwdrivers, but I don't have the heart to test them. Anyone out there have these?

If you'd like to learn more about the line of "perfect handle" tools, here are some good resources:

• A history of H.D. Smith & Co. at "I Like Rust."

• A reprint of the company's catalog from Martin J. Donnelly Auctions.

• A tutorial on repairing a perfect handle from Jim Thompson.
 
• Read a patent for the company's wild adjustable screwdriver. And check out their patent for a chisel handle. Look familiar?

— Christopher Schwarz

I've been getting questions almost daily about the 18th-century French-style workbench I built for the cover of the August 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. The questions go something like this:

1. Has the benchtop exploded into pieces yet, you dufus?

2. Has the epoxy shattered?

3. How are your chiropractic bills with that leg vise?

During the last four months I've been using the bench quite a bit and have built four projects on it. I feel like it's pretty much broken in, though I still have some uncertainty ahead with my benchtop (more on this in a minute).

Here are some of the changes I've made to the bench in the last four months and some things I've observed about its behavior.

The first alteration I made was to add a tool rack along the back edge of the benchtop. This is a traditional French feature that shows up on many plates in André Roubo's 18th-century books on woodworking. The rack is 28-1/2" long and 3" wide. It's made from 1/2"-thick material in two layers. One layer consists of spacers. The other layer is the long piece that contains the tools.

I've found that a 1/2"-wide slot is a great width for many bench tools. Your results may vary. The rack is nailed onto the bench using some cool iron nails I found at VanDyke's Restorers.

I like the tool rack quite a bit. The only time it gets in the way is when I'm dovetailing. I had to pull the tools out of the rack to transfer my tails onto my pin board, which was secured in my leg vise. If I cut pins first, this wouldn't be a problem, by the way.

I also added a hinged lid that covers the space above the shelf. This creates a little toolbox that has been handy for stowing stuff. It's a nice addition, but it's not a game-changer.

I also added some stop chamfers with a lamb's tongue detail on the long stretchers. I think it lightens the look of the base a bit, and I like stop chamfers.

About the Top
I rather like the way the slab top looks. Of course, most people have wondered if the through-tenons and through-dovetails are tearing the bench apart. So far, no.

But the top is moving.

When the top came into our shop it had been sitting outside for several years and it was at about 15 percent moisture content. After being inside since February, it's now down to about 13 percent. Black cherry usually ends up at 10 percent moisture content in our shop, so it still needs to dry out a bit.

As the top lost moisture, it shrank a bit and squeezed out some of the epoxy I had forced into the cracks. This epoxy is flexible so it didn't shatter or crack. It simply bulged out like a vein on your arm. So I took a card scraper and trimmed off the proud epoxy. It took about 15 minutes.

In June I checked the top for flatness and found that one section in the middle had moved a bit. That was a good excuse for me to whip out the jointer plane and true it up. This also removed the finish from the top. While the old finish looked good, I had added too much varnish into my finish mixture so the top was a little slicker than I wanted.

So after flattening the top I put on two coats of straight boiled linseed oil, and now the top is grippier.

About the Vises
I couldn't be happier with the leg vise. The Lake Erie wooden screw is fast and robust. And I'm glad I placed the vise's parallel guide above the leg. I can reach down and move the pin without stooping much at all. In fact, I can usually just drop my arm and reach the pin while I'm adjusting the tommy bar of the vise.

The end vise is also a success. It's an old Sheldon quick-release vise. Unlike modern quick-release vises, it doesn't move much – maybe an 1/8" when you engage the lever. I was concerned that this wouldn't be enough pressure. It turns out to be ideal. In fact, I like it because you don't tend to over-tighten it and bow your stock.

Other Changes Ahead
I can't wait to get this bench against a wall. While it hasn't tipped a bit, I just feel more comfortable working against a wall. Also, I need to make some more hickory bench dogs. The two that I have made have been a complete success.

If you're going to be at Woodworking in America this October you'll be able to see this bench in person and give it a thumbs-up or -down. But for me, I think this bench is a success. I like the way it works and the way it looks. Do I wish it were bigger? Sure. I always prefer a bigger bench. But for a short bench, this is a fine one.

— Christopher Schwarz

Workbench Resources – Free and Otherwise

• Want to mainline some workbench information? You can read every blog post I've written about workbenches in the last five-plus years by clicking here. Hope you have some bandwidth handy.

• We filmed a DVD of the construction of this bench. It includes many details we didn't have room for in the magazine article, including a slideshow of all of the construction photos. You can order the DVD "Build an 18th-century Workbench" from the WoodworkersBookshop.com.

• I have a second workbench book coming out this fall titled "The Workbench Design Book." My first book is on sale in our store: "Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use."

Learning to sharpen has little to do with your sharpening stones. It has a lot more to do with being able to see your progress and knowing when to stop.

Showing a class of woodworkers what a sharp blade looks like in the flesh (a real poor choice of words) has proven to be tricky for me. So I've resorted at times to line drawings, which helps.

Today a reader sent me some great photos he made using a scanning electron microscope, usually called an SEM in the business. Want to read about how the microscopes work? Brace yourself for some scary images of pollen.

The reader is a mechanical engineer working in research for a medical device company, so these are legit. What you are going to see here are images of a Veritas spokeshave blade. The images of the dull blade show what it looks like with the factory edge on it after being used to build four benches. The blade still feels pretty sharp, the reader reports.

The images of the sharp blade show the same tool in the same position after being sharpened with #1,000- and #8,000-grit Shapton stones.

All of the images were taken from the same angle – 12° off of vertical looking directly at the edge. As a result, you can see both the flat face, the secondary bevel and the primary bevel all in the same image. The primary bevel is at the top of each image. The secondary bevel is the stripe in the middle. The flat face (some people call it the "back") is the bottom part of the image.

So let's kick this off with photos of the dull and sharp blade at 30x magnification, which is about what I can see with my jeweler's loupe.

30x Dull and Sharp

You can see the factory scratches in the bevel on the dull blade, and you can see them disappearing on the sharp blade. This is about all our naked eye gets to see in the shop. As we zoom in, it gets more interesting.

500x Dull and Sharp

At 500x the differences between the two blades becomes quite evident. The scratches in the dull blade stand out like canyons, and you can see them and how they fade on the sharp blade.

1,000x Dull and Sharp

On the dull image you can see a torn bit of metal right on the edge, which the reader reports as being typical of this edge. On the sharp edge, the little light-colored spots are debris, not metal. The dark spots on the right of the photo are also likely debris, not the wire edge of the blade.

2,000x Dull and Sharp

At 2,000x you can really see the rolled-over edge in the middle of the frame. That, I suspect, is what reflects light when you look at an edge and see a glint right at the tip.

The photo of the sharp blade at 2,000 power also has a dark line at the edge. This could be debris or it could be the "wire edge" remaining after sharpening. It would take more testing to determine exactly what we're seeing here.

So what do I conclude? Seeing is indeed everything. And is there an SEM section on Craigslist.com? How many kidneys would it cost?

— Christopher Schwarz

Sharpening Stuff for Other Sharpening Nuts

• Ron Hock wrote the book on sharpening, and I think it's worth buying. "The Perfect Edge."

• Brent Beach wrote the web site on sharpening, and I think it's worth exploring. Be wary. It is a vacuum. http://www3.telus.net/BrentBeach/

• You know you are a sharpening nerd if you've been to this page. It's the rec.woodworking post that kicked off the latest sandpaper sharpening craze. Note, I found an old Boy Scout reference to sharpening your pocketknife with sandpaper.

We've been testing the Veritas Quick-release Sliding Tail Vise for several months now and have been keeping as mum as possible. Now I can break my mum-ness and discuss this interesting piece of new bench hardware.

The idea is simple: Put a traditional European tail vise and a machinist's quick-release vise into a tropical hotel with an ocean view. Open the mini bar. Order room service.

Their love child is this vise.

Like a machinist's quick-release vise, it is easy to install – even to retrofit. We added this vise to the LVL Workbench in about a couple hours of work. We cut out the recess for the vise using a jigsaw and trued it up with a chisel plane. Then we bolted the hardware to the underside of the top and made the walnut chop.

Like a tail vise, it offers 100-percent support to wide panels when you are working on them and gets your row of dog holes right up in the front of the benchtop where you want them.

Like a machinist's quick-release vise, you turn a lever and the the jaw slides open and closed with a satisfying swoosh.

Like a tail vise, you can lock the threads so that the jaw opens and closes with a screw-feed action. That means you can use this vise for assembly, disassembly and holding your work

Like a quick-release vise, it has guide bars to keep it from racking and it doesn't sag.

But like a tail vise, there are no bars that get in the way of the vise's functions.

To show you how this works, Megan Fitzpatrick and I prepared the short tour above. (And no, Megan doesn't wear those sandals when she is working in the shop, so just shut your pie hole about that.)

Also, before you ask: The Acme-thread screw is indeed small, but the sucker is robust. You can really crank the thing down (not that you should ever need to). I think this vise is going to be a real game-changer when it comes to deciding which end vise to install on your bench.

The vise is available and in stock from Lee Valley Tools for $269 U.S.
 
— Christopher Schwarz

Other Tail Vise Links to Consider

• We'll be testing out the tail vise hardware from Lie-Nielsen soon. I am told that it is "bombproof."

• The Benchcrafted tail vise is an engineering marvel. And now the company has released an updated version that is easier to install.

• Be sure to visit workbenchdesign.net for all your workbench information cravings.

• And if you want a heavy dose of my off-centered view on workbenches, my book is a good place to start: "Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use."

My first Stanley shoulder plane (a No. 93) was the worst plane I ever bought. The sole was more than 1/8" out of alignment, and it took me a couple hours on a belt sander to even get the tool working.

That dog of a tool was built during the sunset days of Stanley's U.K. plane production, and I've always imagined that my plane had been made by someone who was drunk, hungover or having a stroke.

So when the new Stanley Sweet Heart No. 92 showed up on my desk last week, I was skeptical. (Note: This tool is a loaner, so it will go back to Stanley after it has had a workout at Woodworking in America.) I took the tool out of its sealed box and checked the sole with a machinist square.

Ah-ha! The sole was out of truth. Probably by a couple thousandths of an inch. Maybe more.

This morning I decided to look at all the shoulder planes in our shop, and compare them to the Stanley. And here's the funny thing: Almost all of them have some problems with their soles. (The exception was the Veritas Large Shoulder, which was dead square. I didn't get to check my Lie-Nielsen 073 because it's at home.)

Most of these planes have performed fairly well, but they all have problems when you try to do persnickety work. You have to massage the position of the cutter to get the results you want. (The exceptions being the Veritas, which is always dead on, and my Lie-Nielsen at home, which is also always bang-on.)

So I decided to true up the soles of several shoulder planes today and see if it improved their performance. I'm sure there are better ways to true up a sole than what I am about to describe, but this following procedure works.

I took a 2x4 and trued it up on the jointer. Then I stuck a piece of 40-micron sharpening sandpaper to the face of the 2x4 and secured this to my benchtop with holdfasts.

Next I took a piece of plywood and set it on my bench in front of the sandpaper. I rested the shoulder plane on the plywood, hung its sole off the edge and stroked it back and forth over the sandpaper. After about a minute of work I checked my result. The sole was improving. About three minutes later, the sole read dead flat to my square.

Then I sharpened up the A2 iron. The unbeveled face of the iron was dead flat, which is always a nice surprise to see. It polished up quickly. Perhaps too quickly for A2 – I'll have to get this iron tested to see how soft it is. In any case, I'm not complaining.

I checked the plane for bed errors (it had none) and put it to work.

I quite like the tool, but I like rhino-horn-style shoulder planes (the horn is the proboscis at its toe). Megan Fitzpatrick reported that the plane had too many sharp arrises. I agreed and knocked them down with some sandpaper. Robert Lang didn't like the way the tool fit his hand when he pulled the plane toward him – the horn dug right into his palm.

He also wished that the rear curve on the top of the plane was 1/4" shorter. And actually, after looking at photos of the original No. 92 and 93, the rear curve used to be shorter.

I hold my shoulder planes differently – I didn't have a problem and found it comfortable.

So here's the bottom line: I'm going to make this plane my primary user until I have to give it back to Stanley. It's worthy of a hard workout.

Shoulder planes are difficult tools to make (ask any toolmaker), so the fact that Stanley's is so close is a good sign about what I might find as I set up the rest of the tools in the line.

The No. 92 is available from a wide variety of retailers for about $110 to 120, including Woodcraft and Amazon (which has the right model number but an outdated photo).

Other Shoulder Plane Resourses

• Read (for free) the article I wrote about premium shoulder planes for the Fine Tool Journal. It's now available on WKFineTools.com. When you are really bored, check out all my articles on WKFineTools.com here.

• I wrote a good deal about shoulder planes in my book "Handplane Essentials," which is available in our store. It's a nice, big, made-in-the-USA trip into the world of planes.

• David Charlesworth knows more about setting up shoulder planes than anyone I know. His Lie-Nielsen DVD "Furniture Making Techniques: Five Topics" contains an excellent section on shoulder planes.

Today we finalized the design for a nice poster that features the famous plate 11 from Andre Roubo's woodworking masterwork. The poster (redheads not included) will be ready for sale (on very nice paper) at Woodworking in America. It also will be available for sale in our store.

Plate 11, for those of you just joining us, shows one of Roubo's designs for workbenches, plus a scene from a French joinery shop. Some of the tools in the plate are not to scale, but the detail is tremendous and the lessons are there for you to decipher.

We're still working out pricing (should be about $20), and some other details. But here's a shot of the prototype with Linda (hiding behind the poster) and Megan (not hiding).

— Christopher Schwarz

This morning we were messing around with the band saw blades and got into a discussion of how to fold and unfold them properly. I was taught to use my foot to fold it.

Robert Lang uses just his hands.

To release a band saw blade, I was taught to cast it to the ground, roughly, on one of our floor mats. It makes a great noise and people will jump a bit.

Robert Lang uses just his hands.

Megan shot this short video of the two techniques. The little dance at the end is free.

— Christopher Schwarz

Cuss It, I Need to Write More About Band Saws

• The best band saw book I know of is from Mark Duginske: "New Complete Guide to the Band Saw," which we now carry in our store. Hurrah! I bought the first version of this book years ago and still use it today when tweaking my band saw.

• Also good: Lonnie Bird's: "The Band Saw Book."

• Our best-selling book involving band saws is Lois Ventura's crazy (but cool) "Sculpted Band Saw Boxes." So many woodworkers have made these boxes from this book that they have even ended up in the reader's gallery of a competing magazine. That's flattery!

I don't relish handing out bad reviews of tools. But as someone who gets stoned occasionally by an angry mob, I know that a critical review can help improve the quality of my work in the future.

During the last year I reviewed new premium planes by both Wood River (Woodcraft's line) and Stanley. I had problems with both brands. The Wood River planes had irons that were too soft, the lateral-adjust levers were flimsy and some of the block planes had fatal bed errors.

Stanley's new Sweet Heart line of planes also had some rough patches. Both versions of the No. 62 low-angle jack plane had fatal bed errors, rendering the planes worthless. Some of the adjustable mouths wouldn't close up. And the overall fit and finish of the tools was lacking.

During the last month, both companies have released new or improved versions of their tools and I am in the beginning stages of testing them here for a follow-up review.

It's obvious that both companies listened to complaints from customers.

The Stanley planes look about 100 times better. The wood is nicely finished. The paint on the base casting has changed and – most of all – there are no bed errors in the examples I've examined. I still have one quibble with the line as a whole: The lever caps are too lightweight.

The Wood River planes also made a big leap forward. The lateral-adjust levers are now robust and made using two pieces, like the old Bed Rocks. The depth-adjustment knob is bigger and easier to turn. And the overall fit and finish of the tools has improved.

I'm going to set these tools up and send the irons out for testing in the coming weeks. So I haven't drawn any conclusions other than it looks like the quality is improving.

Stay tuned for a review in the next few weeks. I really am focused on building stuff right now. So the prospect of setting up nine more plane irons isn't appealing.

— Christopher Schwarz

Other Stories on Stanley & Wood River

• My original review of the Stanley No. 62

• News on the new line of Stanley chisels (I still need to get a set).

• Read other reviews of premium planes in my book "Handplane Essentials." It's big (312 pages), printed in the United States and chock-full of the drivel you've come to begrudgingly endure on this blog. You can order it directly from our store.

Early Modern Drama majors are enablers. They have fancy library cards and access to stuff that makes you pasty white and boring at parties. I used to have friends. People used to say they liked me.

— Christopher Schwarz

I've been purging my shop and tool chests of excess tools this week. But now I'm afraid some of my tools are "taking the hint" and leaving on their own.

This morning I set out to dovetail a walnut carcase and found that one of my beloved dividers – an old Brown & Sharpe – was AWOL. So I had to use some bigger, clunkier dividers in tandem with my Starrett (shown above) to lay things out.

I sawed out all the waste and reached for my drop-point knife to clean out the snot from the corners. No knife. Where the cuss is my knife?

I suspect that I've been traveling too much with my tools and these small items have been lost in the shuffle. The funny thing is that I need these little guys more than I need a table saw. They are steely psychological crutches.

Lucky for me, the Mid-west Tool Collectors Association is having meet down in Louisville this fall. So I should be able to make some new friends at the tool swap.

— Christopher Schwarz

Be a Joiner

• Someone had to hold a gun to my head to make me join French Club in high school. I never liked "groups" of "people." But I have gotten over it. You should, too. If you aren't a member of the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association you should remedy that right now. The first tool sale you go to will make you into a lifetime devotee. mwtca.org

• And while you have that wallet open, join the Early American Industries Association. Even if you don't go to the meetings, you'll stay a member if only to receive their quarterly, The Chronicle. eaiainfo.org

Last month we showed you a preview of Len Hovarter's interesting twin-screw vise (check out that entry here and see a video). Today Hovarter's web site went live and is offering a $25 discount for pre-orders before Sept. 15.

The web site for Hovarter Custom Vise is: hovartercustomvise.com.

We've received our vise hardware from Hovarter, which is sitting patiently behind me in my office. Megan Fitzpatrick and I are going to try to start building some benches for Woodworking in America this week. Maybe Thursday – if the editing part of our jobs doesn't get in the way. I'm planning to put the Hovarter vise on one of the benches as a twin-screw face vise. The other bench will get the awesome Glide vise from Benchcrafted.

Oh, you didn't hear? It's Yuppy Bench Hardware Week. It was in all the newspapers.

The Hovarter twin-screw kit is $350 to $360 depending on the configuration you want. His web site also has assembly instructions for the vises, which will give you an idea of what's involved.

I've been unpacking the hardware and examining it during my nanoseconds of free time. Everything looks overbuilt and shiny.

— Christopher Schwarz

More Workbench Resources to Investigate When Your Boss Ain't Looking

• Check out the European Sjoberg site. There are lots of interesting workbench forms there that we don't have here. http://www.mollefors.se/en/start/

• While at Roy Underhill's I worked on these Hoffman & Hammer workbenches. The tops were nice. The bases looked a little spindly to my Frenchyfied eyes. But at that price, it might be worth building a base for. We didn't have any sagging tail vises, but there's always tomorrow.

• And for those of you dwelling beneath a boulder, I have a new DVD out "Build an 18th-century Workbench." It includes tons of extra materials to help you build the burly French beast in our shop right now.

Watch this beautiful preview of the new DVD from Lie-Nielsen Toolworks on Peter Follansbee's "17th Century New England Carving," which will be available in early fall 2010.

You'll get to see some of Peter's work and Plimoth Plantation, where he works. If you're not in love with 17th-century furniture and methods, this preview (and seeing Peter's work) could change your mind.

And if you can't wait to get a dose of Peter, visit his blog "Joiner's Notes."

— Christopher Schwarz

Soon I will sell my Makita LS1013 miter saw. Not because it's junk – far from it. It's still the best miter saw I've ever used. But I don't need it anymore. During the last five years, I've started using miter boxes a lot more. And my Makita is just taking up space in my shop.

In an upcoming issue we're featuring an article by Ron Herman on how to select a miter box, so I don't want to steal his thunder here on the blog. But there is an important bit of miter box news that I wanted to share with you.

If you've tried to buy a miter box you've probably discovered the following:

1. The boxes are cheap and plentiful.
2. Many times the boxes are missing their saws.
3. A fair number of the saws are rusted, bent or have been sharpened too many times to work in the box.

My first miter box was a small Langdon model that I use for mitering mouldings and cutting rails and stiles to length. However, last year I sharpened the saw to the point where the teeth wouldn't cut through the work.

To temporarily remedy this, I installed a new bed on the miter box, which raises the work up. But that diminished the depth of cut of the saw.

So I asked Thomas Lie-Nielsen if his company ever made custom saws for miter boxes. He said they had made a few and were considering making more. I ordered one and have been using it since January. Boy is it sweet.

This week Lie-Nielsen announced the company would take orders for custom miter saws. So if you have a good miter box with a crappy or AWOL saw, now is your chance to remedy that.

Lie-Nielsen said the custom saws should cost $185, regardless of their length or depth (within reason). Eventually the company may adopt a price list based on a sliding scale, he said.

The saws can be customized to fit your box, including the plate thickness (which is critical) and the depth below the spine (very critical). So you'll need to take some careful measurements when discussing your order with the company.

A custom saw should take about a month to make, though that could be longer if the company has to order oddball materials for your saw.

This is great news for those of us who use miter boxes. And for those of you who don't, this eliminates one of your major excuses.

To order a custom saw, call Lie-Nielsen Toolworks at 800-327-2520 or send an email via toolworks@lie-nielsen.com.

— Christopher Schwarz

Thirsty for More Information on Saws? Me, too.

• The Norse Woodsmith is a great place to learn about sharpening and making your own saws. norsewoodsmith.com.

• Vintage Saws is a great place to learn about restoring and sharpening saws. Plus you can buy sharpening equipment there. vintagesaws.com.

• Andrew Lunn at Eccentric Toolworks chronicles his sawmaking operation (and the occasional pizza fire). eccentrictoolworks.com.

• Our book "Handtool Essentials" has a lot of good information on saws and is dirt cheap. Get if here from our store at the WoodworkersBookshop.com.

This year we are going to sell T-shirts at Woodworking in America. I swear this on a stack of Joseph Moxons. But we need your help.

You see, we'd like to have a humorous slogan on the shirt, but we're not funny enough to come up with anything suitably clever. All our slogans sound something like:

"Show me your feathered crotch!" (That was mine.)

"Wanna feel my fleam?" (Megan.)

"Gee, I've got cramps." (Megan, Glen and me.)

"I got hammered at WIA."

And so on.

So we'd like you to help us craft a slogan for our T-shirts. We're shooting for seven words or less. And it would be great if the slogan was funny, unlike ours. And it would be great if you could wear it to a church picnic, unlike ours.

So post your entries in the comments below before noon EST on Friday, Aug. 20. The winner will receive a T-shirt (surprise!), untold fame and Bob Vila's flowery underpants (shown above, not actual size, offer not valid in Guam).

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. Woodworking in America is sold out, but you can still get on the waiting list or come for the un-freaking-believable Marketplace (just $7 for two days). Check it out here.

If you've ever wanted to go to Germany and take a hand woodworking course from a guy who is mostly German (me), but doesn't speak a word of German (me again) but likes German beer, pork products and pork by-products (guilty), here's your chance.

Next month I am teaching a week-long class in basic handwork in the workshop of Dick GmbH, the massive German tool cataloger in Metten, east of Munich. The class, which runs from Sept. 13 to 17, will be taught in English and is titled "Classical Joinery." The class is 480 Euros (about $625).

Thomas Lie-Nielsen taught a class there earlier this week and reported that the facility is first-rate (get information here), the area is beautiful and that he wants to go again.

I've never taught this particular class before and am greatly looking forward to it. The five days will focus entirely on the precision sharpening, set up and use of the hand tools that are the core of the shop. This class will attempt to blend everything I've studied about craft history, modern toolmaking technology and practical furniture-making experience.

During the five days, we will be building a simple Shaker cabinet from the Hancock village that requires many of the skills we'll be exploring.

Here's the short list:

1. Sharpening straight and skewed tools (we might get into profiled irons if there is time)
2. Setting up and using bench planes
3. Setting up and using joinery planes, including rabbeting planes, fillisters, router planes and shoulders
4. Precision sawing with Western saws
5. Cutting joints using handsaws and handplanes, including rabbets, dados, tenons and half-laps
6. Cutting simple profiles with block planes or moulding planes
7. Nail technology
8. Fitting doors.

In addition, I'll be exploring the food and beer of Metten and the surrounding area. If you've ever taken a class with me, you know that I always try to drag students with me. (I'm also attempting to set up a special field trip, which I can't say much about at this point.)

I apologize for the short notice here. I've only recently found out there are a few spaces left in the class (the maximum size is 10 students). If you are interested in details on the class or even registering, visit the Dick site here.

— Christopher Schwarz

Several people have asked questions about the Marketplace at Woodworking in America. Here are some answers.

• If you are registered for classes at Woodworking in America, you can go to the Marketplace all you like. It's included in your registration fee.

• If you want to attend the Marketplace alone, then $7 gets you in for both days (Friday and Saturday). You'll either get an armband or two tickets.

• If you pay to go into the Marketplace (or are a full-conference attendee), you can visit John Sindelar's traveling tool museum (drool rags and Depends not included). It will be on the Marketplace floor.

• The Marketplace will also feature demonstrations by bodger Don Weber. Buy him a bagel or a beer and he'll teach you anything you want to know about coppicing, chairmaking or foot-powered turning.

• If you attend the Marketplace you can participate in the Hand Tool Olympics (game on, people).

• And yes, admittance to the restrooms is covered by the admission fee. You will be issued four tickets. One ticket per flush.

— Christopher Schwarz

I like reading about workbench patents as much as I like movies about gladiators (which is a lot).

So here's how to prove your bench geekiness, and it won't cost a penny (except for the bandwidth). Jeff Burks has compiled almost 2,000 pages of United States patent papers and drawings related to workbenches and workholding between 1845 and 1960. The patents are arranged chonologically in a .pdf file, which has some basic bookmarks and is somewhat searchable using Acrobat's "find" feature.

This is an amazing treasure trove of just about every amazing, ingenious and idiotic workbench patent you could imagine. There must be 30 different patents relating to the parallel guide of a leg vise alone. And the number of patents for pop-up bench dogs is frankly a bit bewildering.

And here's the best part. You can download the entire 112mb file for free. All Burks asks is that if you find any patents that relate to workholding or workbenches for woodworking (not metalworking) that you drop him a line. His e-mail is embedded in the .pdf file.

I've spent a few weeks reading this document and it has sparked a lot of ideas for things I could try in the shop myself. Check it out. You'll be impressed.

www.carpentryarchive.org/files/workbench_uspto.pdf

— Christopher Schwarz

Still More Workbench Resources

• The Directory of American Tool and Machinery Patents. This is another treasure trove of patent information on all sorts of tools. datamp.org

• Google has a dang-good patent site that is highly searchable. google.com/patents

• I have a new DVD on building an 18th-century workbench. It's old school. We shot it during several months of work. Watch my beard and hair grow and shrink. Amazing. Check it out in our store.

David Brookshaw has been making amazing tools since 1988 -- many of them miniatures that have appeared in some of the gorgeous tool books from Sandor Nagyszalanczy, including the cover of "Tools: Rare and Ingenious."

This November, Brookshaw is coming to Philadelphia for the Philadelphia Miniaturia show Nov. 6-7, where he'll be showing his miniature tool chest and workshop that we featured on the blog earlier (read about it here and here).

Lately Brookshaw has been making some pieces from the incredible Nessi collection of tools, including the ones below. These were featured in this book, which I bought in 2004 for $80. Ouch. But the essays and photos are well worth it for the ardent tool nutjob.

Brookshaw makes his pieces for sale. The dividers above, which are from the French book "Le Livre de l'outil." They were a commission that cost $3,000. So now I am reconsidering my decision to skip law school.

Check out the dividers below from the Nessi collection, and stop by the show in Philadelphia if you want to see more. You can contact Brookshaw through his web site.

— Christopher Schwarz

Other Tool Makers and Books You Should Investigate

• "Classic Hand Tools" by Garrett Hack

• "The Art of Fine Tools" by Sandor Nagyszalanczy

• Heinz Tools: heinztools.com, where I got my squirrel hammer!

• Gerd Fritsche's Traditional Handplanes: traditional-handplanes.com

As of 10 minutes ago, Woodworking in America is officially sold out. You can still sign up for a waiting list here or come and attend the amazing Marketplace that we have put together (admission to the Marketplace will be $7).

This will be the biggest Woodworking in America event yet. To ensure it's also the best one yet, we have secured additional space for instruction, we have brought on more than 60 vendors for the Marketplace (all woodworking-related), and we are even bringing in a traveling tool collection from John Sindelar that will make you (add hyperbolic verb here).

Thanks to all our customers who have supported us during these last three years to build Woodworking in America into one amazing orgy of tools, instruction and – dare I say it – community. We couldn't do it without you.

— Christopher Schwarz

If we ever change the name of our magazine to Erudite Blowhard Wood Finery, I know exactly where to get the headlines for all the projects we'll publish: The comments on this blog entry.

We had more than 90 readers enter our contest to come up with the most pompous name for a piece of furniture. Picking the winner was difficult. Here's the scientific way I did it: I picked my 10 favorite then read them out loud at the staff meeting this morning. The one that got the biggest laugh won the contest.

Here's the winner from Ed Furlong:

"Chiaroscuro: Intersect between the bedded angle and the angle of repose – A soliloquy in figured wood and A2 steel."

Ed wins a copy of "500 Cabinets" – plus an ascot and a matching pocket square (not really). But wait. Two other pompous titles got such good response from the staff that I've decided arbitrarily to award them copies of my new "Build an 18th-century Workbench" DVD.

Here is David V's entry:

"The Death of Woodworking"

Featuring three apparently rough cut boards that were actually hand planed and meticulously carved with a carving knife to resemble rough cut wood.

1) A 2 foot square walnut board. Individually titled, "Walnut Square."

2) A 2 foot square cherry board. Individually titled, "Yorkshire Countryside in Blue"

3) A 2 foot square maple board. Individually titled, "A 2 foot square maple board."

It should be noted that the edge of the famous "Yorkshire Countryside in Blue" has a spot that appears to have been a drop of blood from a sharp carving knife. The spot is actually a deconstructionist narrative of the myth of woodworking to demonstrate the personality of the board and any further working on the wood destroys the true beauty of the wood through social conformity. This psychoanalytical embodiment created a radical shift from the hegemony of abstraction in a way that no one actually understands.

The three pieces are on display on a simple table. The table has been titled, "Bob."

And here is Matt Sinclair's entry:

"Neighbors' mysteriously missing tree"

A note for our winners: Drop me a line with your mailing address. Our e-mail system didn't capture your e-mails correctly. And thanks to everyone. When I become a pompous studio furnituremaker (and change my name to an un-writable series of hoots and whistles), you guys can name my windmills.

— Christopher Schwarz

This has been one of our busiest years ever at Popular Woodworking Magazine. Plus, I have been in many foreign lands with exotic cultures and their own languages: France, England, North Carolina.

As a result of my travels, I haven't had a chance to introduce you to some of the interesting stuff we have been working on in the wee hours, including a jumbo-sized project called "Exercises in Wood-Working."

This was a book published in 1889 that was designed to give students at the College of the City of New York all the hand skills they need to become industrious Neanderthals. The core of the book is 39 exercises for you to complete – everything from crosscutting a board to veneering to fairing a boat's hull.

These exercises are unlike a lot of woodworking books in that they focus on basic skills. Instead of building a cabinet to learn about tool – an overwhelming task – you square up a block of wood using a chisel to learn the more important lesson – how wood and steel relate to one another.

We're re-publishing this great book in hardback form, printing it in the United States and selling it for a reasonable price, $17.99. The book should arrive in our warehouse next week. Until that day, you can pre-order the book for $14.39. Visit our store to order your copy.

But that's not all. We're shooting 15-minute videos that walk you through many of the exercises in the book. I'm the host (lucky you). To get in the spirit of this historic book, I don a tie for these exercises, and our video crew desaturated the colors so it looks a bit like vintage footage (but it's not distracting – promise).

We've finished shooting the first eight exercises. The first three are available now as individual downloads in our store. Or you can wait a few weeks and we'll be collecting the first eight exercises onto a DVD (which you can pre-order here at a discount in a package deal with the book).

To show you how useful these are, we're giving away the text and illustrations for "Lesson 1: Use of the Chisel." This is a fun lesson, even if you are an experienced chisel user. The object of the lesson is to square a board using only a chisel. There are some good tricks (including how to burnish the high spots with your try square).

You can download the text and drawings for free here.

Exercise1v2.pdf (148.76 KB)

If you'd like to purchase the video that accompanies Exercise 1, you can do that here in our store. The individual videos are $4.99 each and are downloaded instantly to your computer.

I'm having great fun with these exercises and am looking forward to the next batch of them that we're shooting. I am not, however, looking forward to wearing that tie again.

— Christopher Schwarz

Purchasing Links:

• Pre-order the book: "Exercises in Wood-Working."

• Pre-order the DVD of the first eight exercises.

• Download the first video: "Exercise 1: The Use of the Chisel."

Router planes are the Starsky. Handsaws are the Hutch.

These two tools work together all the time in my shop. In fact, all the sawing classes I teach are actually classes on the router plane in disguise. So I have seen a lot of woodworkers struggle with sharpening the router plane's L-shaped iron.

Some woodworkers use slipstones, little pieces of sandpaper stuck to blocks of wood, emery boards or even buffing wheels. ("Ya just jam the edge into the wheel and go," they told me. I forgot to mention that this was preceded by: "Hold my beer for a second while I sharpen this.")

Here's how I do it: I sharpen the entire bevel to make it easier to maintain the correct angle. First I prop up my sharpening stone on a 2x4 so I can hang the iron's post off the stone. I press the bevel to the stone, angle the iron and drag it toward me. Then I angle it the other way and push it away.

This morning we shot this short video that shows how to deal with the bevel. It's better than words.

Once I pull up a slight burr on the bevel I flip the iron over and sharpen the flat area on the stone, too. This is a key part of the procedure, and I do it on both my shaping stone (#1,000) and my polishing stone (#4,000). Here's why: It's hard to remove metal on the bevel without a lot of strokes. By sharpening the flat area of the iron on my shaping stone, I can more easily chew away the dull steel and get a fresh edge.

Once I am happy with the sharpness of the iron at #1,000 grit, I switch to #4,000 grit and repeat both procedures.

Once last piece of advice: Keep your router plane's irons sharp and touch them up often. You don't want to grind the iron unless you absolutely have to because that's a difficult operation. And that's another great reason to sharpen the entire bevel on this tool instead of using a micro-bevel.

— Christopher Schwarz

Other Resources on Handplanes and Sharpening

• We have two good books in our store that should set you straight on the tricky topics of handplanes and sharpening. "The Perfect Edge" by Ron Hock is a great text that really explains the sometimes-confusing world of sharp and dull. Also, my book, "Handplane Essentials," talks quite a bit about router planes and other joinery planes.

• Have you visited Ron Hock's Sharpening Blog? You should. It always has some good stuff for beginners and experts.

• Another excellent sharpener is David Charlesworth. His DVD on sharpening plane irons changed the way that thousands of woodworkers prepare their plane irons.

Following his trip to North Carolina to shoot two shows with Roy Underhill for "The Woodwright's Shop" and a three-day teaching stint at Roy's school, Chris took a few days to head south and visit with family in South Carolina.

But usually when Chris is out of the office, he continues to post blog entries. But yesterday? Nothing. And frankly, I'm a bit concerned.

Yesterday was International Beer Day. And Chris did not write about it. We should all be worried.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

photo by VoxEfx

I've always been hesitant to get to know my personal heroes because it's usually a disappointment. They almost always turn out to be just like the rest of us. A bit vain. Self-conscious. Insecure. Troubled.

So when Roy Underhill of "The Woodwright's Shop" invited me to stay with him at his converted mill in North Carolina while I taught at his school, I was delighted and dejected.

I mean, who wouldn't want to hang out with Roy for six days? See where he lives? Get to chat about the crazy stuff that he's done, learned and seen while host of his PBS show, which is in its 30th season? Me, I was a tad worried that the Roy Underhill in my head wouldn't be the same guy after I saw him come down the stairs in a bathrobe and mussed (seriously mussed) hair.

After six days with Underhill I can say that my opinion of him has indeed changed. But how it changed was not what I expected.

This evening Underhill invited a bunch of the North Carolina woodworkers to come to his shop, buy me a beer and see some outtakes from the two episodes we shot during the weekend. The turn-out was great (I managed to drink only three beers, which is why I can still type right now).

As we all sat in the City Tap (the sweet bar behind "The Woodwright's School"), Underhill said some things that brought his personality into focus. He told the story of when he was invited to be on a radio program with other guests that was titled "The Past, the Present and the Future."

"They hired me to be the guy representing the past," Underhill said, sounding a bit astonished. "I'm not the past. I'm all about the future. What I do is the future."

That's when the whole week came into focus. His program is not about the past at all. Nor is his school, nor are his books. Sure, they look like they are about the past because he is using vintage tools to make traditional woodwork. But he's not seeking to explain the past so we can understand it. Instead, he is seeking only to influence the future course of human events.

"You don't need to buy things," Underhill said tonight at the bar. "You can make anything you need."

And that is the real lesson Underhill has been trying to teach us for 30 years. And it is something that flows through the way he treats people (even people who don't know Underhill from a hill in the ground). Yes, he looks like the rube on television sometimes, but inside beats the heart of a professor, a historian, a craftsman and an entertainer.

He structures his program so it moves fast – almost like you are being mugged – and is filled with messages that stretch back to the beginnings of civilization and stretch forward beyond our time here.

Will we merely consume the resources around us? Or will we build something that outlasts ourselves and everyone we know?

It is astounding that Underhill has managed to ask this question for 30 years and still remain optimistic, curious about the world and open to new ideas.

And that was the narcissistic revelation of the week – what will happen with my future? Will I become bitter, narrow, inflexible and guarded as I get older? Or will I become like Underhill?

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. For your viewing pleasure, here are some of the pictures I took at Underhill's mill.

When I teach classes, I tell my students to buy their winding sticks in the “18th-century Tool Section” of their local home center.

I would probably be a better person if I didn't interact with other people.

That is the thought that flashes through my head when Roy Underhill says to me: "I could go down the street and buy a plastic doll that you could saw in half."

Let's back up a couple hours. This morning I started teaching a three-day course on sawing at Roy Underhill's "The Woodwright's School" in Pittsboro, N.C. And I began the class (as is my way) with a quick survey of the history of saws and sawing.

I have always been fascinated by the Bible, so I quoted two passages from it about saws. These are not nice passages; they are about people getting sawn in two. Nevertheless, they are some of the earliest accounts of sawing that we have in Western literature. So I recite them in my best Charlton Heston voice.

Usually when I discuss Biblical resawing, I'm afraid that some wiseacre will ask me if the saws were filed rip or crosscut. But today something much more frightening happened.

Roy Underhill got a funny gleam in his eye.

That was before lunch. In the meantime, everything was going swimmingly with the class. I taught the students about selecting the right saw, how to hold it, how to use it, and the three kinds of saw cuts. About 4 p.m., Underhill disappears from the school and returns $1.50 poorer but with a bag in hand.

It's Polly, the only $1.50 doll available at the Dollar General store. Underhill prepares a special jig to hold her upright in my face vise.

"What," he asks, slyly. "Don't the other schools buy you plastic dolls to saw in half?"

I can't argue with that. So at the end of the first class session, Roy clamps the doll into my face vise. He sets up my camera and goads the students into pretending to have horrified expressions. And he takes the photo above.

I want to apologize to all the great Presbyterian ministers I grew up with. Sorry to say, but it looks like you failed.

Other than that, the rest of the day was incredible. The students moved swiftly through the lesson plan (perhaps too swiftly), and we are on track to building these sawbenches by the end of the day on Wednesday. I have more stories to tell about the day, but the clock is ticking.

— Christopher Schwarz

All photos by Roy Underhill

So we shot two 25-minute episodes of "The Woodwright's Shop" today. So you are probably wondering what the heck I did with the other 23 hours of my day.

Manicure? Pedicure? Facial? Crystal Meth bender?

Nyet.

I woke up this morning at 6 a.m. at Roy's place – he lives in an old mill, and the guest bedroom sits right on the water. We slugged down some coffee. Roy sat in a rocking chair and quietly looked out over the dam next to his mill. I was poring over one of his books on Virginia shore furniture (I could spend a month here just browsing this man's library).

Then we headed off to the UNC-TV PBS station, which is an awesome facility as far as PBS stations go. Then it was a few hours of getting our microphones attached (they bored holes through my pants), rehearsing and working out all the camera moves for the first episode.

We started actually shooting the first episode (on sawing) sometime before noon and we botched the beginning over and over and over again. After four or five false starts, Roy and I finally got loopy enough to make it through the episode. But I have to say that the 25 minutes of tape felt like a lifetime.
Then we shot a couple short promotional spots for that episode (when you see them please do not make fun of my sawing – it's a long story). Then it was time for fried chicken.

Ask my co-workers – I usually eat an apple for lunch. But when someone dangles the promise of fried chicken and biscuits before my Southern-fried eyeballs, I cannot resist. And sweet tea. Dear me, I miss sweet tea.

The fried chicken, however, turned out to be a technical gastro-intestinal error.

The deliciously greasy fried chicken made Roy and me burp like an overheated Louisiana swamp. As we rehearsed the second episode after lunch, our belches and intestinal discomfort grew.

We burped our way through the second episode, which is about the toolkit of a typical 1839 joiner in England. It's interesting stuff, if you can ignore the occasional eruction from us.

We finished up sometime about 6:30 p.m. (I think). Roy and I are both so tired from the whole day that we drive back to his mill in near silence, with just a few comments about ecology, old cars and our days ahead together.

When we arrived back at the mill, Roy's wife, Jane, was out on the edge of the mill's dam. She's sweeping the duckweed over the edge and into the stream bed below. Roy and I perch ourselves on the edge of the dam and drink some Eagle Rare bourbon I've brought along. We watch Jane work, we breath slowly, and we let the humidity of the North Carolina night soak into our skin.

Jane has made an incredible meal of fried chicken, corn pudding, chicken gravy, broccoli and fresh bread. It's ready for us. So we finish our bourbon in the proper manner (very slowly), stand up and head to the house for a beautiful meal.

Oh, in case you were wondering – yes, I have the best job in the world.

— Christopher Schwarz

All photos are courtesy of Mike Oniffrey

Let's say your table saw's guard is painted black. And you've figured out that if you put a piece of wood under it in a certain way, that usually it comes out cut like you intended. But sometimes not. After all, you can't see what's going on under that guard.

This sounds ridiculous, I know. But that's basically what many woodworkers do when they apply finish to their projects. They don't know how a finish works or why it works (or doesn't). In fact, finishing is still considered by many of us to be a "black art," with secret formulas and the like.

And finish manufacturers only perpetuate this problem because they have so many confusing names for the same product.

Lucky for us, there is Bob Flexner, our long-time finishing columnist.

Flexner started his career as a woodworker, but at some point he became so flummoxed by finishing that he decided to figure out the chemistry. And what he found is that finishing is actually straightforward once you look behind the curtain. Why is it so confusing? Well....

1. Some magazine writers don't understand finishing and continually repeat idiotic myths. (Such as that oil "feeds" a finish. Or that you have to finish both sides of your work to prevent warping. That the inside of a cabinet has to be finished. And on and on.)

2. Manufacturers don't dispel the myths either and tend to feed them with misleading labels and marketing campaigns.

And that is why we hired Flexner as a contributing editor to our magazine more than a decade ago – an honor we have bestowed on very few people.

Flexner has changed the way that hundreds of thousands of people finish their projects. Through his regular column, "Flexner on Finishing," he has busted myth after myth. He has taken manufacturers (and even other writers) to task.

For me, he has made finishing simple to understand and simpler to do with confidence.

So I am pleased to announce that we are releasing Flexner's best columns in a hardbound 224-page edition called "Flexner on Finishing" that will come out in September. You can pre-order it now for $19.99, which saves you $5 off the cover price.

Flexner updated all of his columns, and we redesigned all them for the book (pity our Senior Art Director Linda Watts). But the result will be worth it. Even if you own Flexner's landmark book "Understanding Wood Finishing" you'll find this volume a good companion. Flexner dives deeper into topics relevant to woodworkers – giving you a clearer picture of what happens when the finish hits the board.

I recommend this book without reservation (which is something my company can't pay me to do). I have immense respect for Flexner, his intellectual rigor and his integrity as a woodworking journalist. And if you pick up this new book, I know you'll agree with me.

It's available for pre-order from our store. Click here to order.

— Christopher Schwarz

I'm packing up all the tools I'll need in North Carolina for the coming week, and I was a bit shocked this morning as I went through my checklist.

One of the "Woodwright's Shop" television programs Roy Underhill and I are shooting this weekend will deal with the typical toolkit of a joiner circa 1839. I compiled my list based on an old book, "The Joiner & Cabinet Maker," which detailed the fictional life of a young apprentice.

During the book, the apprentice builds three projects – a packing box, a dovetailed schoolbox and a full-scale chest of drawers. Last year I built all three of these projects using only hand tools (the school box was featured in the Autumn 2009 issue of Woodworking Magazine).

Today I made up a list of the 41 tools mentioned in the construction of the three projects in the book. This includes everything from pencils to chalk and plow planes to bowsaws. What was surprising was how few tools there were. I fit them all easily on my 20"-wide x 6'-long workbench. To be sure, there would be several tools that I would have liked to have had in that toolkit, such as a sliding bevel square, but they are all tools of convenience instead of necessity.

Here's the list (and yes, I know that some people think a dozen chisels are not one item. I do. Just ask my wife. If I have 100 cans of tomato soup I'll go through the express lane at the grocery store and say: It's one item. So there).

2' rule
Try square
Chalk
Chalk line
Handsaw
Ripsaw
Bench brush
Two sawbenches
Pencil
Striking knife (a joiner's marker)
Jack plane
Trying plane
Smoothing plane
Rubstone
Wooden straightedge
Marking gauge
Panel gauge
Brad awl
Hammer
Piece of iron or steel for clenching/straightening nails
Nail set
Broad chisel, dullish (for scraping glue)
Sash saw
Shooting board
Bench hook
Dovetail saw
Chisels (a dozen, 1/16" up to 1"; then two or three wider than that)
Rattail file
Turnscrews
Brace
Countersink
Rasp
File
Sandpaper
Mallet
Name stamp
Rebate plane
Plow plane
Mortise chisel
Mortise gauge
Frame saw (bowsaw)

— Christopher Schwarz

Want More on Early Tools and Technology?

• Visit Gary Roberts's excellent Toolemera.com. No, I'm not sure how to pronounce it, either. It combines "tool" with "ephemera." In any case, Gary's site is chock full of catalogs and early books that you can download or order.

• Jeff Gorman's web site is back up! Neanderthals rejoice. www.amgron.clara.net. There is lots of good stuff there on traditional technique from a British perspective.

• The Evenfall Woodworks Library is another free repository of great old books. Stop in when you have some bandwidth you want to suck up with some great downloads.

I know I am going to get flack for this, but I cannot help myself.

Last week we received two copies of a cool new book in the mail – "500 Cabinets: A Showcase of Design & Craftsmanship" (Lark). The book is (though I didn't count the cabinets) a collection of 500 designs from woodworkers all over the world.

Most of the cabinets are contemporary, and almost all of them are fun to look at. All the staff members here have been paging through these books since they arrived. I really like these books because you get to see a wide range of work, and it's usually beautifully presented.

But there is something about these books (and some contemporary furniture in general) that makes me giggle: Why do some woodworkers insist on giving their pieces of furniture artsy and unscrutable names?

When I opened the book, the first cabinet I saw was on page 147. It's a cool piece of work. Well-proportioned. I want to know more about how the maker achieved the surface texture. But here's what he named the cabinet: "Naked Came the Weekend."

I was drinking some coffee at the time and I started laughing so hard that I didn't know if the brown water was going to come out my nose or my pants.

Here's another: "Misery is the River . . . Cabinet."

Here's the scene in my head. My wife and I are in the bathroom one morning and she says: "Honey could you reach over the commode and get me toilet paper from the Misery is the River (pregnant pause) Cabinet?"

Or: "Ceci N'est Pas une Boite a Tiroirs" (This is Not a Box With Drawers). Note to self: Add French for another layer of artistic shellac.

"Leap and the Net Will Appear."

To be fair, most of the cabinets in the book have names that are more along the lines of "Teak Sideboard" or "Chiffonier."

But the funny arty-named ones keep me turning the pages.

So here's the contest: You can win a copy of the book "500 Cabinets" simply by submitting your own artistic and pompous title for a piece of furniture. Submit it by leaving a comment below (be sure to include your e-mail so we can contact you – e-mails addresses are never published, by the way).

The deadline is noon EST, Aug. 6, 2010.

— Christopher Schwarz

Our Best Furniture Books

• "Greene & Greene Furniture: Poems of Wood & Light" by David Mathias. We just received our advance copies of this book and all I can say is wow, wow and wow. It's available for pre-order in our store now. I'll be blogging more about this book when I return from North Carolina.

• "Building 18th-century American Furniture" by Glen D. Huey. Glen sits two cubicles away from me, and even though I talk to the guy every day, I am still in awe of the work he does. This book is a collection of his best pieces.

• "Shop Drawings for Craftsman Furniture" by Robert W. Lang. Bob also works with me here at the magazine, and I am pleased to announce that we now carry his books in our store. Before I knew Bob, I knew his books. His whole series of Arts & Crafts books is excellent.

Isshi Yamada never said much to me when I was dating his daughter in college. To us Western students who studied Eastern religions, he was an enigmatic Zen Buddhism professor who was famous for giving exams that bordered on the surreal.

Most of my memories of Dr. Yamada put him sitting at his dining room table in a worn Irish fisherman's sweater – drinking a little sake and watching the affairs of the household.

One day, however, Dr. Yamada became quite animated on the topic of human perception. And his short lecture sticks with me to this day.

"What is the one thing the eye cannot see?" Dr. Yamada asked.

I leave for North Carolina this week to shoot two episodes of "The Woodwright's Shop" with Roy Underhill then teach a three-day class on handsawing at Underhill's little Utopia of a woodworking school in Pittsboro, N.C.

One of the shows will be on English handsawing (no on-screen French-sawing DIY vasectomies are planned) and the other show will be about the simple toolkit of a joiner, circa 1839.

To prepare for the class and show, I built a new sawbench this weekend and improved the design a bit to use less material, I used a wood species that is easier to deal with when working with hand tools and I tweaked the design to make the sawbench ideal for those who do a lot of ripping on their sawbenches.

Here's why I made these changes:

1. Less Material: Previous generations of my sawbenches used 2x8 material. This allowed me to have the top fairly wide (just under 7") and to rip all the components out of the 2x8 and increase the chances that I'd end up with quartersawn stock. I switched to 2x6 material for this new generation, which reduces the cost of the project a bit (always a good thing). It also makes the top a little narrower, which hasn't been a problem yet. But it does mean I need to be more careful in selecting my stock because there's little waste when ripping up the 2x6.

2. New Species: By switching to 2x6 material, that meant I could use Canadian white pine instead of Douglas fir or Southern Yellow pine. I usually prefer yellow pine for this project because the stuff is durable. But when I teach students about sawing and we're cutting yellow pine, they struggle. The different densities of the earlywood and latewood give them fits. By switching to white pine, I can further reduce the cost of the bench and make all the joints easier to cut. And white pine is plenty durable for a sawbench.

3. Design Change: I now have one long stretcher down the middle of the sawbench instead of two long stretchers attached to the outside of the legs. This does a few things. It reduces cost and weight. It gives us another type of joint to cut. And it makes the sawbench easier to use for ripping. On previous generations of sawbenches, students would sometimes score the long stretchers with their ripsaws, especially when sawing with the tool vertical. With this new design, you can't nick the lower stretcher unless you are sawing wrong.

And one last change: The parts are fastened together using 6d cut nails instead of screws. The cut nails just look cooler.

After I get back from The Woodwright's School, I'll have a four weeks in the office and the shop before my next trip. That means I'll finally be able to give you the answer to the e-mail you sent me in May.

— Christopher Schwarz

Other Interesting Links on Hand Tools for You

• Read an interview with Roy Underhill about his most recent book. http://blog.woodworking-magazine.com/blog/An+Interview+With+Roy+Underhill.aspx

• Read my review of Roy's book "The Woodwright's Guide." http://blog.woodworking-magazine.com/blog/Review+New+Book+From+Roy+Underhill.aspx

• Have you heard about our reprint of the book "Exercises in Wood-Working"? It's a great lesson-by-lesson way to get familiar with hand tools. And I host some short videos actually performing the exercises. Fun! Read about it in our store.

• Like the PBS show "The Woodwright's Shop"? You can watch episodes for free here. http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/

• Got a drool bib handy? Go here: www.maison-de-l-outil.com.

Bob Baker, a furniture and tool restorer and excellent planemaker, died unexpectedly last week.

I had the pleasure of meeting Bob in February of 2006 when we hosted a gathering in Cincinnati for many of the best planemakers and gave each of them the opportunity to present their work to one another, and to talk about planes, planemaking and toolmaking in general. Bob was high on that list of "best planemakers." In the picture at left, he's presenting two of his planes to the rest of the group.

I met him only that one day, but as I look back through the pictures of the event, I remember a kind and genuine man who had a grin on his face almost the entire time. Kari Hultman, who knew him better than did I, has written more about Bob on her blog, The Village Carpenter, and there are some touching comments below her post that I hope you'll take the time to read.

Chris wrote a story about about our "planemakers'" event for the August 2006 issue, which features some of Bob's work. You can link to it here. 

— Megan Fitzpatrick

Just about every week, someone asks Chris, “How can I get started in working with hand tools?” Sure, there’s a lot of information on the Internet…not to mention in our magazine, in other magazines and books, and on this blog and others. But it can be difficult to sort through the scads of information (some of it contradictory) and pick out what you need. That’s why we’re particularly pleased that we are reprinting a classic but little-known book: “Exercises in Wood-Working,” by Ivin Sickels.

First published in 1889 and written to educate college students in the woodworking craft and business, “Exercises in Wood-Working” is an excellent introduction to period hand tools – most of which are still used today. After a fascinating chapter on wood, wood pests and the process of milling lumber, the book teaches you the most essential woodworking operations – how hand tools and wood interact – and takes you through all the basic skills you need to build furniture. It is well-organized, beautifully illustrated and easy to digest.

So now Chris has a simple answer for the question: Get “Exercises in Wood-Working,” do the 39 exercises and practice. Then practice some more. The book is available now for pre-orders; it’s expected to ship at the end of August, and until then, is 20 percent off the retail price of $17.99.

Chris has also recorded a series of short video lessons (about 12-15 minutes each) to accompany the book’s exercises, and we’re presenting three of them right now as “enhanced PDF” downloads. What that means is, we’ve embedded the video with the text in one document, so you can read the words, study the pictures, then watch while Chris demonstrates how to correctly hold the relevant tool and performs the exercise. Available now are "Use of the Chisel: Part1," "Use of the Chisel: Part 2" and "Use of the Gouge," and we’ll have more videos coming soon. (The first eight videos are also being collected on a DVD; it should be ready to ship at the end of August.)

To have a little fun with it, and to pick up on the idea of instruction from the past, we recorded these videos with an old-timey feel (OK – 1950s or so) – it’s the only time I’ve seen Chris in a tie. And he’s wearing it under an apron. I’ll have to don a shirtwaist dress with a big skirt just, and dig out my high-heeled pumps and pearls to fit in (that’s appropriate shop wear, right?).

— Megan Fitzpatrick

Mark Harrell at Bad Axe Tool Works has always taken a different path than other modern sawmakers. Instead of imitating the look of classic British saws, Harrell has always favored American styles, with their steel backs and distinct tote profile. And he launched his sawmaking business by making the biggest backsaws first – most sawmakers have started by introducing a dovetail saw.

This summer Harrell has introduced two new backsaws that are going to make your buying decisions far more difficult. We still have a bunch of carcase saws here from our recent review of the category and spent a morning evaluating where these saws fit in the very competitive carcase saw category.

About the Saws
I'm going to call these new Bad Axe saws "carcase" saws, though Harrell calls the big one a "sash/tenon saw" and the small one a "carcase/sash." The saws from Bad Axe don't really fit into any one distinct category, according to Charles Holtzapffel's seminal chart. But the Bad Axe saws we tested are filed for crosscut and are 12" to 14" long. So they will likely be used for carcase work. At least in my shop they would. Whew, explanation over.

I'm not a nationalist, but one thing I really like about the Bad Axe saws is their unapologetic American-ness. Before I started selling drugs in school zones and could afford fancy new saws, my favorite saw was a Wheeler, Madden & Clemson carcase saw. I like everything about the saw, from the way it looks to the way it hangs. And the Bad Axe tools are like that.

In fact, Harrell has taken this one step further by making the back available in gunsmith-blued steel or in stainless steel (for a small upcharge). You also have eight different options for your sawnuts, from traditional split nuts in brass to stainless slotted nuts, blued nuts and more.

For this fact alone, Harrell deserves a high-five. Though I like the way brass split-nuts look, I have munged far too many of them over the years as I tightened my nuts each season (this blog post will never make it through a parental dirty-word filter).

Offering steel nuts – slotted or split – is a great move in my book. Earlier this year a machinist made some stainless split nuts for my backsaws and I could not be happier. I am mung-free.

So they look good and feel good in your hand, but how do they cut? Dang fast.

I brought the entire staff into the shop one morning to work with all of the carcase saws we had sitting around. We all have different preferences, especially where the tote is concerned. But one thing was clear from our testing: the Bad Axe saws blazed through the material. They weren't as smooth as the Gramercy, which cuts like silk. But they went toe-to-toe with the other fast saws, such as the Adria and the Medallion. And the Bad Axe saws left an acceptably smooth surface behind.

"That saw," Megan said, "is a monster."

Of course, a major reason the Bad Axe saws are so fast is because of their materials and teeth. The small Bad Axe we used is 13 ppi, 12" long with a .025"-thick sawplate. The larger Bad Axe is 12 ppi, 14" long with a .025"-thick sawplate. So these two saws are coarser and use a thicker sawplate than any of the other carcase saws we own, which are 14 ppi or 15 ppi.

The Bad Axe saws left a bigger kerf behind than the other saws, mostly due to the thickness of the sawplate. Sawplate thickness is a matter of taste. Some sawyers prefer thinner saws with a thinner kerf, which are easier to push. Others prefer thicker saws with a wider kerf, which are less likely to kink. It's your call.

Bottom line: These saws are worth serious consideration; and they should be at the top of your list if overall durability is an issue. The thicker sawplate and the steel nuts (get the steel nuts) means you are less likely to cam out your nuts or kink your plate. You also can order these saws with a variety of filings. The 14" saw filed rip would make a nice small tenon saw.

We're happy to hang these saws up on the pegs above our benches and look forward to the Harrell's next batch of saws.

— Christopher Schwarz

Like Saws? Want to Know More? Check these Links

• The Norse Woodsmith site is one of my favorite saw sites. Learn to make and sharpen your own saws.

• Pete Taran's VintageSaws.com is a great place to learn about saws, how to restore them and how to sharpen them. Taran also sells refurbished vintage saws and sharpening equipment.

• When you start combing the DisstonianInstitute.com then you are official a saw geek. Learn about every saw that Disston made for woodworkers. An awesome and deep site.

• If you want to get started in sawing, I recommend our "Handtool Essentials" book, which features great articles from all of our contributors about all aspects of hand craft. Heck, that sucker is on sale right now for $15.

There are few things I dislike more than seeing myself in video. I'm one of those guys who has a face for radio. And when I talk, I move my hands in a way that looks like I am giving myself an erotic chest massage.

But readers have asked – insisted even – that we provide video instruction for things that are difficult to show with words and still photos. So I've swallowed my discomfort – hard.

For more than three months, Glen D. Huey and Drew DePenning filmed me as I was building the workbench shown on the cover of the August 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. Nothing was faked or set up for the cameras. It was just me working, Glen filming, me sweating and Glen chuckling.

In all, we recorded more than 40 hours of video, which Drew has been distilling into a compact narrative that explains in the most succinct terms possible how to build this bench using hand tools. We were able to greatly condense the story of building the bench by almost eliminating the "talking head" part of woodworking videos (a crime of which I am guilty on occasion).

Instead, most of the video is of me working with narration layered over the video. In film, narration is a "cheap plot device," according to one of my favorite film professors. But I think it works here.

In addition to the video, the DVD has some extras that you will find useful.

• There is the complete story from the August 2010 issue with the cutting list and construction drawings, plus two additional views of the leg joinery.

• An extensive slideshow that contains more than 80 images – many of them unpublished. This shows you nitty-gritty details in high resolution so you can study them.

• SketchUp files of the bench, plus two variants I worked on and a SketchUp file that shows you how I took Roubo's image of the leg and transformed it into a real working joint.

I am very not displeased with this DVD – my highest praise for my own video work.

As of today, the DVD is now in stock in our warehouse and is shipping. The DVD is $24.99.

If you are considering buying it, would you do me a favor and use this link? They track this stuff, and thanks to you guys, I won $100 in beer money, which I plan to share with the entire staff.

And speaking of beer, I think my chest massage thing could perhaps become a drinking game for you and your woodworking buddies. You have to drink anytime I'm treating my chest like an old-fashioned radio. Or anytime I say the word "unit."

As always, thanks for your support. It's why I still get to work here and am not the "detail sander" editor.

At high school reunions there's always the guy you don't recognize because he's gained 200 pounds and is nursing a spectacular goiter. This workbench is like that.

Eagle-eyed reader Andrew Midkiff sent in these photos of a workbench he spotted in a water-powered grist mill at the West Point of the Eno City Park in Durham, N.C.

The top is a huge slab. But what confused me at first was that the legs are attached to the top using giant, round through-tenons. Midkiff found no sign of an end vise, but says there are square dog holes just cut into the face of the slab. The dogs are completed by a board nailed to the front.

The underside is completely rough. Midkiff wrote: "It looks like it was chopped out by a rabid beaver on meth." (Note that this is unlikely; methamphetamine was not developed until 1893 and beaver culture didn't embrace the drug until after the species was named as endangered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.)

When I first saw these photos, my gut said the slab was old but the legs were newer just because the legs were lighter in color. Also, the round tenons seemed weird at first. After a few minutes, however, I realized that though this looked like a French bench without stretchers, it actually has a lot of Roman bench bones.

Roman workbenches (which were common even into the 15th century) consisted of a big slab top with the legs tenoned into it using round tenons. Usually there were no stretchers below. (In this way, workbenches and Windsor chairs enjoy a common ancestor.)

In any case, the square leg and round tenon really threw me at first.

Bottom line: I want this slab. And I want to flatten it. To steal it, however, I'll probably have to sneak past the drug-addled beavers.

— Christopher Schwarz

A Bench Geek's Delight: More Links

• First, let's get the commercial stuff out of the way. We just got advance copies of my new DVD "Build an 18th-century Workbench" where I build the Roubo on the cover of the August 2010 issue. If you've ever wanted to know how to cut big joints by hand, this is the ticket. It ships real soon. If you buy it through this link, they give me beer money. No lie.

• Want to see the coolest leg vise ever? It's creepy. It's in a factory where they made ... wait for it ... legs. This 1916 photo shows an awesome leg vise (the bottom middle of the photo) that has a huge handwheel and a St. Peter's Cross. Want. Just want.

After five years of whining, someone listened to (or became merely weary of) my complaints about the search function on this blog.

We now have a custom Google search bar at the bottom of every blog post (look below the comments. Little lower. That's right. No. Still lower). I think you will find this searching tool to be far superior to the Dixie cup, string and monkey that we used before. You can now use all the typical boolean and Google search functions. Such as:

• Using quotes to find a specific phrase. By putting "Schwarz lying in a puddle of his own sick" you will find posts with that exact phrase instead of all the posts that have "puddle" in them or "sick."

• You also can exclude words by including the minus sign before them: Schwarz -beer will bring back all the posts where I don't mention beer.

There are lots of other ways to tweak the search. This Google page explains it all.

Thanks to our online staff who made this happen.

— Christopher Schwarz

When I worked at a liquor bottling plant one summer, the bosses found out I was in college and decided to put me in charge of the robots.

I had to summon the robots from the warehouse, pick up an entire pallet of coffee liquor with a giant robot arm and load it on the little scurrying buggers.

Oh, I also forgot to mention something: I know nothing about robots.

You know where this is going. Almost immediately I dropped eight cases of Tia Maria on a robot, destroying all the liquor and making the robot – no lie – weave like a drunken hobo the rest of the summer.

I'm more cautious now. And I always like to practice new techniques before I dive in, chisels blazing, on the most visible face of a real workpiece. This caution is one of the few benefits of getting old (at least until I qualify for senior discounts on Grand Slam breakfasts).

So I'm about to start cutting stop-chamfers on the stretchers of my workbench, a detail I have been too busy to add. I've cut plenty of stop chamfers with a router or a drawknife, but I wanted something different. I wanted each stopped 3/8" x 3/8" chamfer to terminate in an ogee.

So I made a pattern and began practicing on some 2 x 4 scraps. First by removing all the material with a chisel, which is slow. Then by wasting away most of the wood with my Stanley No. 65 chamfer shave. Don't get one. They stink. Sure they leave a beautiful and consistent surface, but you don't want one. Yes, they are easy to sharpen and use, but your spouse says you don't need one.

After three chamfers and six ogees (cut freehand with a chisel) I'm ready to tackle the bench itself.

I love practicing. And robots like it when you practice, too.

— Christopher Schwarz

Tool Resources You Should NEVER Use

• Don't sign up for Patrick Leach's newsletter here. In fact I think you should simply block that site and all his e-mails. You do want to stay married, don't you?

• Also, in the interests of continued co-habitation, avoid JimBodeTools.com. Avoid his daily newsletter – the sign-up box for that is on the right side, so tape your right eye shut or something.

• However, your spouse gives you permission to purchase the book "Handplane Essentials," a made-in-America compilation of my writings about this important tool during the last 10 years. And free shipping in the United States.

I can make my own beef jerky, but that doesn't mean I want to apply veneer-making techniques to a hapless bovine.

So when I found out that long-time woodworker Bill Rittner was making knobs and totes for vintage Stanley planes, I jumped at buying a set for my vintage No. 6 fore plane.

That plane's original tote looked like someone had dragged it behind a truck with a bulldog attached to it (weird teeth marks and blood stains included). And it was a maple replacement – the plane still had its original (or at least original-looking) front knob in rosewood. So I had no qualms about replacing the wood on this tool.

The knob Rittner made is circa 1870 Stanley. That means it's a fairly low front knob, which I prefer to the newer high knob. The low knob is 2" high and the high knob is 2-1/2" high. You can easily convert the screw for a high-knob plane to one for a low-knob plane by hacksawing 1/4" of the threads off both ends of the screw.

Also worth noting: The front knob has a nice bead at the base.

The rear tote is like the best tote that Stanley made. Unlike the cheaper late-model totes, Rittner's don't have uncomfortable flats and sharp arrises. Rittner's are all just smooth hand-pleasing curviness.

The fit and finish on these knobs and totes are as good as anything I can do, and even looks better than some of the mint, new-in-the-box Stanley planes I've seen. In other words, I have no complaints.

Rittner makes the knobs and totes using cherry and walnut, though he can make custom sets using other species. The wood is finished with varnish. The set I purchased cost $40 plus shipping.

I think this is a fair deal for such nice work. To order a set, contact Rittner at rbent.ct@gmail.com.

If you want to make your own knobs and totes, see below for a link to the issue where we recently featured instructions for making your own.

— Christopher Schwarz

Other Handplane Resources

• Confused by bench planes? I wrote this free article on our web site called "Understanding Bench Planes" that might help decode the system for you.

• Charles Murray shows you how to make your own knobs and totes in the November 2009 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine.

• I still like my book "Handplane Essentials," which is available in our store and is shipped free in the United States.

The cutting list for the ‘The Return of Roubo’ workbench in the August 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine has a small error in the cutting list. And I'd like to quickly clarify a couple things about the construction drawing.

First the error. I accidentally transposed the tenon lengths for the stretchers. The finished dimensions listed in the cutting list are correct – I just swapped the tenon lengths. So the tenons for the long stretchers should be listed as 4-1/4" (instead of 2-3/4"). And the tenons for the short stretchers should be 2-3/4" (instead of 4-1/4"). I apologize for that mistake.

And now a couple clarifications. I have the parallel guide listed as 1/2" thick. That will work just fine – I've made many parallel guides out of 1/2"-thick maple. But in reality, my parallel guide is closer to 5/8" thick (it was all dimensioned by hand so nothing is exactly anything). The bottom line with any parallel guide is that it fit snugly in the slot in the leg and yet move smoothly.

Also, a couple readers have pointed out that the drawing and cutting list indicate the legs are 4" x 5-1/2", yet in the photos they look almost square. Truth is, they probably are a little closer to square – I'm actually not sure. When I drew the workbench for publication I tried to use dimensions that I knew would work and that I knew would be easier for you to find or glue up.

With handwork you have to deal what you can find and balance it against what will work and what will look good. If you build this bench by hand, you're going to find out what I mean. Once you gather your stock for your bench, my drawings and cutting list will become irrelevant anyway.

— Christopher Schwarz

Other Workbench Resources Buried in my Browser

• Want to turn a face vise into a shoulder vise? Check this out.

• French benches are still alive, well and for sale in France. Check out the Francois web site at etablis-francois.com.

• The DVD for building this workbench "Build an 18th-century Workbench" should be in stock soon. You can order your copy from our store.

Sorry for all the bench posts. (Hey, that should be the name of this blog.) I have a lot of extra jetsam (or is it flotsam?) sitting around as I crank out my next book. Here's an awesome piece of detritus.

A couple years ago a reader sent me a cardboard box containing two unused pieces of bench hardware – and the instructions! – from the Mechanical Manufacturing Co. One piece of hardware, a bench clamp, is stamped as patent pending (but I can't find a patent for it). The other gizmo, one of 10 billion bench hooks patented between 1854 and 1920, received a patent in 1910. (If you don't have any friends either you can read the patent here.)

The bench hook is a cool piece of spring-loaded hardware that you can install into the top of any work surface merely by cutting a shallow mortise and driving in two screws. The bench hook has three different kinds of bearing surfaces (serrated, two points or flat). And you can set the hook for a variety of heights.

The other piece of hardware is a cool quick-release tail vise you can install anywhere with a mallet. When installed on the benchtop, it's a little less than 3/8" high. Pull the lever back and the forked dog extends 1-1/4". Push the button at the rear and the dog snaps back into its case.

And, most important: It makes an awesome clicking noise than annoys your co-workers when you engage it 60 times in a row while they are trying to edit a story by Toshio Odate.

Though the patent and directions don't mention this, my guess is that this hardware was intended for house carpenters who needed to set up a quick workbench on a home site (which was still common practice in 1910). I also could see how some amateurs might find it useful.

We shot a short video that demonstrates how these devices are applied on a temporary benchtop.

— Christopher Schwarz

Other Bench Resources (Yes, Some Are New!)

• Do you get a funny feeling inside when you look at cool old patents of woodworking stuff? Here is your porn site. It's called the Directory of American Tool and Machinery Patents (DATAMP for short), and you can explore its bowels by visiting datamp.org.

• Ever heard of Rob Tarule? He built the Roubo workbench in Scott Landis's "The Workbench Book." Visit Tarule's site at heartofthewood.com. His 17th-century stuff is just awesome.

• And my pathetic commercial plea: I have a new DVD on building the workbench featured on the cover of the August 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. The DVD shows how to build a monster 18th-century workbench using hand tools.

Need More Posts? Search This Blog

Michigan engineer Len Hovarter has developed a new vise mechanism that looks more like a magic trick than bench hardware.

The vise hardware is patent pending and should be available in September, Hovarter says. This hardware is just so cool, that I wanted to share it with you now -- in case you are planning on building a bench this fall. I've ordered a set of the hardware from Hovarter, so I'll be testing the stuff myself. Until the hardware becomes commercially available, we'll just have to enjoy these photos and a short movie.

So what's so amazing about it? Well it's a quick-release vise and from the outside it looks like a traditional twin-screw with two hubs. When you open the vise, things start to look curious. The two shafts between the jaw and the bench are smooth – no threads.

Turn either handle clockwise a little (they are linked by a steel plate under the benchtop) and the vise cinches down hard. You also can skew the jaws a little for working on tapered work.

It's a mechanism that doesn't look like it should work. And in fact, Hovarter didn't think it would work when he first devised it.

The tale of this vise begins in 2005 when Hovarter decided to improve his hand-tool skills and was getting frustrated with his workbench – a solid core door mounted on 2x4s. He started researching benches and liked Mike Dunbar’s workbench with a big twin-screw vise. But he thought it would be cool if it was a quick-release vise.

"I went through hundreds of sheets of paper sketching ideas until I thought of using a flat 'transfer bar' to transfer motion between the two clamp housings," Hovarter wrote in an e-mail. "The first prototype was a complicated monstrosity which required a third shaft to effect clamping. I thought if I could combine the clamping and handle rotation into two shafts I might have a workable vise. I didn’t think the vise in its current form would work. And in fact the early prototypes didn’t work.

"I just kept trying different things to eliminate the problems. Eventually I ran out of problems and was left with a vise. I wish I could say the idea just 'popped' into my head, but it really was a lot of trial and error. I still have not improved my hand tool skills, but now I have a decent bench and the vise I dreamed of five years ago."

And he has some other dreams. Hovarter is now working on a prototype quick-release leg vise using his hardware; it won't require a parallel guide. He also has plans for face vises, end vises, carving vises, shoulder vises, leg vises and an enclosed tail vise. He's also working on a web site to take orders and getting the assembly instructions ready for customers.

While some details could change between now and when the vise is released, here are Hovarter's current plans.

The twin-screw hardware will be made in the United States. Most of the machined parts will be made on Hovarter's CNC mill; other parts such as the vise's rack, pinion and ductile iron casting will be supplied by companies that specialize in making those parts. The vise will be supplied as a kit of loose parts that will be assembled into the housing.

"The assembly is pretty easy to do, and I think it is fun even after I have done it hundreds of times," Hovarter writes. "The assembly of the parts into the housing does not require tools other than hands."

In addition to the hardware, the vise will come with instructions for making the clamp hubs, handles and knobs. He'll also sell those wooden parts separately.

The price for the hardware kit for the twin screw vise isn't firm yet, Hovarter writes, but it will be "in the $350 range."

And for those of you who are wondering, Hovarter has the chops to pull this off. He's a mechanical engineer who graduated from Purdue University and learned machining in middle school shop class and carried that all the way through college with machine design. He grew up in Fort Wayne, Ind., where his dad had a sheet metal shop for his heating and air conditioning business, and also dabbled in woodworking.

Hovarter was recently working for an auto parts supplier that went into bankruptcy; now he is employed by a major car manufacturer as a heating and air conditioning systems engineer.

"I would love to retire and have vise making be my full time job, and woodworking my full time hobby," he writes.

For more information on the vise, contact Hovarter at len@lencotools.com

— Christopher Schwarz

Other Vise Resources You Should Investigate

• Check out the other twin-screw vises from Veritas and Lie-Nielsen Toolworks. These versions are linked by a chain instead of a transfer bar.

• Want to read about workholding until you are blue in the face? Buy the blue book "Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use." A companion book to this will be available this fall.

• You are not a bench geek unless you visit workbenchdesign.net.

• Finally, if you haven't heard, I have a new DVD on building the workbench featured on the cover of the August 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. The DVD shows how to build a monster 18th-century workbench using hand tools.

We need more workbenches for Woodworking in America. The event, Oct. 1-3 here in the Cincinnati area, is by far bigger than the last three events we've held.

And me, I'm going a little stir crazy. I've spent the last three weeks writing the remaining chapters to a follow-up book to "Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use." (While my first workbench book is like the Old Testament, this new book – tentatively titled "The Workbench Design Book" – will be the New Testament. But more on that topic later.)

In any case, I am not getting enough time in the shop. So yesterday evening I was excited when a neighbor summoned me to his shop and pulled open a cardboard box.

Inside was a 1-5/8" x 36" x 6' long mahogany top. He had come into about 40 of these tops through his job with the railroad. He had sold most of them through Craigslist (and donated the money to his church, by the way). But he had a few left and thought I might like one.

The top was made from finger-jointed mahogany and covered in purple stain. But boy was it heavy. And flat. And hey – don't we need more workbenches for Woodworking in America?

For many years I've wanted to make a workbench top using a piece of butcher block. We have a weird warehouse store here in Cincinnati named Home Emporium that sells giant 8' Buddha heads and maple butcher-block countertop. You can get an 8'-long run of the stuff for about $80. Laminate two of those suckers face-to-face and you'd have a thick and heavy and somewhat ugly benchtop. Ikea also sells tops like this.

So this morning I ripped this mahogany behemoth down the middle, planed off the finish and decided to glue this sucker up into an 18"-wide benchtop that is more than 3" thick. The whole process took about an hour, a half bottle of glue, some screws and some clamps.

When I do laminations like this, I like to drive screws through the underside of the benchtop to clamp the pieces together. I used three rows of screws with the screws placed 12" apart. You can remove the screws when the glue is dry.

So I clamped the two pieces face to face and drilled clearance and pilot holes through the two pieces for #8 x 2-1/2" screws. It's best to drill all these holes before you put the glue on because things will start sliding around once glue gets involved. Then I unclamped the pieces and opened them like a book on some sawhorses.

Then I used a small paint roller to spread a film of glue on both open faces, folded them together and drove in the screws. And then, because I'm a bit retentive, I clamped all around the edge of the lamination, just because I could.

Total shop time: less than one hour.

The other big advantage to building this quickie bench is that I'm going to get to install some bench hardware on it that hasn't been released to the public.

Like I really need an excuse.

— Christopher Schwarz

Other Bench-building Links and Products

• See this bench (and more) at Woodworking in America. The conference is almost sold out. We have already expanded our floor space to accommodate more attendees and vendors. But we are just about out of space.

• "Build an 18th-century Workbench." To those of you who pre-ordered this DVD, thank you. I think there's a good chance I'll win some beer money as a result. The DVD is still on sale in our store.

• Free plan: "The 24-hour Workbench." This is a bench I've built several times that uses Baltic Birch plywood for the top. Very easy and fast to build.

• Workbenchdesign.net. For all things workbench-related.

I've always resisted adding wheels or a mobile base to my workbenches. They can be complex, in the way of your feet and take some fiddling to engage and disengage.

So we've always put our benches up on furniture dollys when we needed to move them.

However, readers have pestered me for years now for ideas on how to make their benches mobile. Most of these people work in a garage workshop where they need to have everything on wheels so it can be pushed aside for the spouse's car.

They never take me up on my first solution, divorce.

So I offer this idea. I've never seen it before, but I'm sure someone, somewhere has done it already. It's based on a "Shortcut" we published years ago as a way to raise and lower your workbench. But instead of swinging a big block of wood under the feet to raise the bench, I decided to put four 3" casters there.

I attached two 3" casters each to two 1-1/2" x 5" x 24" lengths of 2 x 6 that I trimmed up. Then I attached two unswaged utility hinges to each 2 x 6. One hinge for each leg. I had to saw out a 3/8" x 3/8" rabbet on the corner of each leg to receive the barrel of the hinge. Then I screwed the hinges to the legs.

I did this to Megan's bench in about an hour today (that will teach her to leave the office to get a pedicure). Hope she likes it.

The video below shows just how fast this system works. In less than 30 seconds I put the bench up on its wheels and then down again onto the floor.

— Christopher Schwarz

Still More Workbench-related Links and Resources

• "Build an 18th-century Workbench" a new DVD with Christopher Schwarz. Buy this now at the pre-order price and I might win beer money. Seriously.

• See a reader's solution to a mobile workbench that I posted here. Very cool. A little complicated for my taste.

• My DVD "The Workbench" (Lie-Nielsen Toolworks) shows you how to modify your workbench to improve its workholding abilities.

For many years I was happy with my Olson coping saw, which I bought from the now-vanished Aufdenkamp Hardware in 1996. The saw locked tight. It held the blade without rotating. And when armed with Olson-brand blades, the thing cut smoothly and quickly.

A few years ago, the saw began to tick me off. I couldn't get it tight enough (even after stretching the frame). The blade holders would rotate in the middle of the cut. It was as bad as my junky Craftsman coping saw from elementary school, which has never worked.

I switched to fretsaws for a while, but I snapped a lot of blades (more on fretsaws coming soon).

This week I took a close look at my Olson, plus a second new old stock Olson that woodworker Carl Bilderback had given me. It was considerably older than mine and seemed to hold blades better than mine. Why did mine stink so bad? I took the saws apart to investigate.

It was the wave washers. The Olson saws come equipped with two wave washers – wavy discs of metal – that help the saw keep its setting when you apply tension. The wave washers on my saw were now lake washers (meaning they were completely flat). So they weren't doing Jack buddy to tighten up the blade mechanism.

So it was off to Home Depot to pick up some different washers. I tried some 5/16" toothed washers, but those things did as much as the flattened washers. Then I tried the traditional split lock washer. That did the trick. I put one lock washer between the handle and the frame, and a second lock washer between the frame and the blade holder at the toe.

Now it is better than new. And souping up both saws was about 50 cents.

If you have an Olson saw, this is a great little upgrade. And if you don't have an Olson saw or blades, you can remedy that at ToolsForWorkingWood.com.

— Christopher Schwarz

Other Coping Saw Resources to Investigate

• Read about the history of the coping saw and its relation to fretsaws and Morris saws in this blog post.

• Buy a Olson coping saw and blades from ToolsforWorkingWood.com.

• Read the book "Coping Saw Work" free on GoogleBooks.com.