A Fall Front Desk in Walnut

O.k. so my last few blogs have been about other people’s handy work, hand tools and the like and I’m happy to say that I’m back in the wood shop working again on my own projects.
These last few weeks have been busy with life outside of the wood shop so it’ll be great to make some shavings again. I’m working on a new piece that follows in the realm of the ‘hand made modern’ line I’d been designing over the past year. The first was the walnut entertainment cabinet and the second the walnut and aluminum sideboard. This new piece is also made from solid walnut with an interesting take on some through dovetails I’ve been calling a finger tail split… It’s basically a technique where I cut wide through dovetails as per normal procedure and then split each one again with a finger joint. It makes for a unique look but can be a little tricky to execute. The photo shows the main carcass dry fit together with the door panel glued up in the foreground. The upper main carcass is a basic box with a fitted interior secretary incorporating drawers and shelves. The door panel will have bread board face and the cabinet will have a rabbeted back dust panel. The leg frame will really be the component that transforms this piece from a simple dovetailed box and draw it into a more, Mid-Century Modern vein. (at least that’s the plan on paper) Funny how things can change when you start to ‘get into the grain’.
I’ll be posting some more details as I go so stay tuned…
Work really does make life sweet!

A New Hand Saw from the Dovetail Master Himself

Rob Cosman is a well known Canadian ‘hand tool coach’ offering DVD’s and books on wood working for the past 10 years or more. When it comes to sawing dovetails he’s absolutely incredible. I’ve watched pretty much all of his videos and can honestly say they’ve helped me a great deal along my own hand sawing journey. I would strongly recommend them to any worker at any stage. I’m very happy to hear Rob is offering a dovetail saw on his website. It seems to have some interesting features and I’ll be curious to hear what people have to say about it. For starters, it has a heavy brass back that Rob says is almost twice the weight of a standard dovetail saw and is much better suited to “vibration free sawing“. Second it comes with a 22ppi for the first 2″ of blade and then a more standard 15 ppi. This fine tooth will make starting cuts much easier for beginners. Another plus, the saw plate at 10″ is an inch longer than most dovetails saws on the market. Well, without trying one before purchasing one, (which you already know from my last blog I don’t really enjoy doing all that much), I can only go by what I see and what I read. Again, I’ll be hoping to hear from anyone that gets a chance to use it.
Lastly, on this point of ‘Trying a tool before Buying a tool…‘ The description of the saws and the pictures on the website are all I have to go off of so with that I say this: These new resin saw handles are scaring the hell out of me! I know Rob said he went with the balance and durability in this “resin” composite handle, but from the picture on the website it looks like he had a few old bathroom counter tops he decided to recycle. I’m sure they feel great in hand and as Rob mentions are water-proof (for all of those times I’m cutting dovetails back home in the fresh Atlantic surf)
Maybe I’m a wood snob or am completely naive to this new technology of resin in handsaws, but for me a saw needs to have a wooden handle. Now just so everyone doesn’t think I’m ‘Rob bashing’ or anything I’ll also mention the new Veritas DT saw…they’re a little bit on the creepy side too. I’m well aware that a hand tool doesn’t have to look great to be great but it sure is nice when they do! Theres a truck load of hand tool manufacturers making sculpture like tools that perform as well as they look.
Robs new saws also come with a custom wooden box which I like. The idea is nice but I think it would be even nicer if the customer had the option of solely purchasing the saw without it; I’d be curious to see the price difference. Maybe I should take my own advice and see about trying one out. I’m sure he’ll be at the wood show next year with some of them. I’ll look forward to it.
With that, knowing Rob Cosman, and being a fan of his work for years, these things will probably eat dovetails for breakfast-but brother please…from one East Coaster to another…those handles?

Following the ‘Signs’

This morning, while edge planing a piece of Cherry I decided it would be a good time to demonstrate a trick I frequently do to determine the ‘flatness’ of the surface being worked. In the next photograph I’ve just taken a few through shavings down the reference edge. Please note that the stock is simply sitting on my bench top; it isn’t ‘dogged-down’ or clamped in any way. This will insure I’m not pinching the work, creating a bump or hollow over it’s length. I do have it resting up against a thin, scrap piece of plywood secured across the width of my work bench as well as having my bench dogs raised slightly along the front edge to keep the piece from moving about. With this method there’s no danger of transforming the profile of this important, reference edge in any way while I’m working it.

This is important and should be noted.

I arrived at this point after the larger ‘work’ or ‘reference’ surface was first determined and flattened. This first face surface being the most important, it will be our ‘reference’ surface to which all of our other lay-out will be referenced from. Some woodworkers when using the term ‘face side’ are usually referring to the outside ’show surface’ which can get a bit confusing…so to be clear-the work surface is actually my inside ‘reference face’ while dimensioning and laying out.
Now the trick I mentioned is a simple visual solution that clearly determines what your surface edge really looks like. Winding sticks and straight edges are great tools and visual aids showing you how straight and square you’re work really is; even a light rub with your finger tips can assist the eyes in determining this narrow, ’surface flattening’. But to be absolutely sure the reference edge is flat you’ll need some hard evidence…these are the shavings lying before you.If you look closely at the photos you’ll see the shavings I’m taking-these are only possible with a depth of cut in the neighborhood of one thousandth of an inch and taking a full, through shaving you’ll begin to see the signs. This type of shaving can only be obtained after you’ve flattened and tuned the sole of your bench plane as well as working with a plane iron that is razor sharp!
Lying there before me is a kind of road map…this clearly shows where there are still dips or hollows in the surface. In the next photo you’ll see how I’m getting closer to a truly flat edge. Again, the ‘map’ in the edge grain is unequaled in its ability to clearly demonstrate the progress. Simply take a fresh shaving and carefully unroll it. I’ve laid it on my steel flat edge to make it easier for you to see. With each pass these small ‘holes’ in the shavings get smaller. Another shaving and I’m almost there. The small ‘holes’ or ‘tears’ in the edge grain shaving mark any low or hollow spots in the surface. I can plane ‘around’ these valleys and bring things closer together. In the bottom photo you can see the three passes it took: from right, my first pass with two big sections that are obviously low. The middle shaving in the photo represents the next pass bringing the surfaces closer together; and finally the left shaving being my third pass is almost complete. I’ll follow with one or two stopped shavings to uniformly ‘hollow’ the length of the edge slightly and finish off with one or two more through shavings calling this side done.

My steel straight edge, winding sticks and engineers square together will tell the story of square and straight but for these tiny surface hollows, in the thousandth of an inch range, this road-map trick is something you should try. It can be difficult to see with the naked eye any slight valleys and a finger tip touch can only get you so far…this method of watching these signs will give you the confidence to move on with the dimensioning process of the lumber being worked. I should also mention the technique of ‘hollowing’ the edge along it’s length is a technique best demonstrated by David Charlesworth. His DVD on hand planing techniques available through Lie Nilesen Toolworks is extremely imformative and should be viewed by all using hand planes in the workshop.

Cheers!

Careful what you wish for ?

In my wood shop using only hand tools to build furniture, back saws are without a doubt one of the most important and most frequently used tool than any other outside of perhaps hand planes. Today we have the luxury of purchasing pre-dimensioned, quality lumber for our projects making my full size panel saws second in most cases. I still have to spend the time to cross-cut and rip stock, but the backsaws are where the real joinery happens.
I use my Lie Nielsen saws for most of my work but also have a couple of nice reconditioned antiques. One of these vintage gems is an old ‘R.H. Davis Co. and was given ‘the works’ by Mark at Technoprimitives, it’s a great saw and a real pleasure to use.
Over this past year I’ve designed and manufactured thirteen pieces of furniture in my small workspace and through this hectic schedule realised some limitations in my current hand saw arsenal. For example, when cutting dovetails in carcass work I like to use the method of clamping two surface pieces of the stock together and cut the tails simultaneously. When dealing with stock 3/4″ or better in thickness, I’ve often found myself wishing my Lie Nielsen dovetail saw had a longer plate. I absolutely love this saw for general dovetail work like drawers and single board thickness sawing-but dealing with 1 1/2″ to 1 3/4″ material shows limitations. For this reason I’ve been speaking to a couple of hand saw manufacturers and would like to develop a dovetail saw that has a longer saw plate.
I think most people associate a longer saw plate with less TPI (teeth per inch) but on the contrary, the design I think would suite my work best would actually be a finer tooth pattern. The Lie Nielsen comes standard with a 15 tpi or for easier kerf starting they now offer a Progressive Pitch Dovetail Saw which runs from 16 tpi at the tip down to 9 tpi at the handle position. I haven’t yet tried this model but have heard great things about it.
The dovetail saw I’m thinking about would have at least a 10″ saw plate with a slightly finer tooth count, say 16 tpi over the length. The progressive pitch would be fine if I can convince anyone to build one for me! With this size plate I began to worry that the extra length would mean of course extra steel or brass back in turn making the saw heavier. Not a plus when cutting dovetails in my eyes…or hands. I’m not sure how this will play out but I have a couple of ideas in mind; one being a kind of hybrid mix of dovetail saw with No. 9 half back saw plate. This would essentially make the plate the desired length without the extra weight of the full length back.
I’m still in the developing stages of this and need to work more on it…any comments or suggestions are always welcome!
So that’s my ‘dream’ dovetail saw but unfortunately I’d also like a larger scale back saw for cross cutting long miters. I’ve seen pictures of the really large plated back saws used in miter boxes…Roy Underhill is famous for that one, but would like something in the 16″ range. Anyhow, the same thing would apply, a longer saw plate with a finer tooth pattern. For this one I wouldn’t mind the extra heft so I think the back would run full length.

Now here’s the cool/freaky/strange and then cool again-part in all of this:
Last weekend I stumbled over an add in the local buy and sell…it simply read 2 Antique back saws for sale- $15.00 and $20.00.
At that price is was worth the gasoline to drive across town to see them. A friendly gentleman greeted me with the two saws saying they had been sitting in his cottage for years.
Well when I first saw him hold up these two saws I was a little bit like…
“O.k. where’s the hidden camera.?”
I took them home and simply gave them a light cleaning with metal polish and fine steel wool to remove a bit of the surface dirt and small amounts of rust that had collected on them; not more than 10 minutes on each and they were shining like new dimes. The handles needed only a fresh wipe of oil and I’ll re-sharpen them as soon as I can…

So now, here’s the hook, one saw is a closed handle, 10″ back saw with a 1 1/2″ depth of cut made by Disston & Sons the better part of 100 years ago. It does have a small crack in the handle but doesn’t seem to interfere with holding it…nothing a bit of glue won’t fix.
The other has a 16″ plate with 3 1/2″ depth filed cross cut at 14 tpi. It’s by Shurley & Dietrich, a fine Canadian saw manufacturer from years ago. Oh yeah, the little carcass saw, which The Disstonian Institute mentions: “While not marketed as such, the 8 and 10 inch saws make respectable dovetail saws when filed with 14-point rip teeth.” is indeed filed at 14 tpi-Rip tooth.
While not ‘exactly‘ the saws I’d been dreaming about these past few months, (cutting a couple thousand dovetails will do that to you) they are an incredible find. A couple of pieces of history to inspire me, assist me while I’m working wood and educate me in designing a couple of new backsaws someday…Careful what you wish for? I’ll never get them designed now!

Cheers!