Earlier this year, while we were finishing the attic, I took a weekend and built a cherry and ash laminated canoe paddle at the Camp Beach Center For Wooden Boats shop – as my own wood shop was in full use for the attic/storage. It was a little bit of a rush build and after paddling with it once, I decided to rebuild and reform it into a better performing paddle. This video will take you through all the steps of the initial build and the refit. The next video in in this series will show the finish steps and some on-water testing.
Tag: Luddite Life Skills
Mid-week Update
So, this week has been crazy at work and at home. On the home-front, there were birthdays, shopping, it is Income Tax time, we have 3-4 guys showing up every morning at 7:00 with tools in hand to work in and on the attic.
My shop is full. I can’t even get to my table saw and my bench is stacked 5′ high with insulation. I need a little shop time to keep me sane or at least saner… So, I took a little me time and signed up for some classes for spring and early summer where I will get use other folks shops and build/make stuff:
- Canoe Paddle Making
- Claw and Ball Foot Carving
- A 10-Week Letter Press Workshop
- Woodcarving Figures
- Spoon Carving
- Block Printing
- Industrial Sewing: canvas and leather
My Own Personal Take on Hand-planes: Buying Recommendations to Use
I use the bejesus out of my power tools. I LOVE my SawStop, my Bosch compound miter-saw is scary accurate, and my band-saw is magic, but there is room in my life and in my shop for lots of hand-tools. I am a child of both Norm Abram and Roy Underhill. I watched them both on PBS every Saturday after cartoons as a small child in 1981 until I was 44 or so. Their combined influence has made me value the old way of doing things without being a Luddite and I can appreciate modern cabinet shop/woodworking tools. Case in point: I have a 3HP Powermatic 3520 lathe and would not even want to think about turning a bowl or platter on a pole lathe with a forged hook knife. On the other hand, while I have not given up a single one of by 5 routers, I found years ago that it is sometimes faster to grab an old wooden molding plane from a shelf and take care of an edge detail or piece of trim. I can be done and dusted with the plane in the time it would take me to find the right bit an set up the router.
Because of my vocal love for hand planes, I get questions all the time from friends and acquaintances about what they should buy, where they should start, how to set something up, sharpening, truing a sole, etc… I thought I would take a minute to go over those things, stand on my soapbox a little, and give the world my opinions concerning hand planes.
.. Ascending my soapbox… Ahem…
- Buy a quality block and #4 smoothing plane – Lie-Nelson, Wood River, or Veritas are great options. Stay away from used hand planes or classics until you get used to how a hand plane SHOULD work. Setting up an older Stanley or Bailey plane, sharpening, replacing parts and flattening the sole will drive you insane if you don’t know exactly what you are doing and will make you want to throw the thing and swear off hand planes forever. Start with the known good and once you know how it should function, then you can pick up a used #2 bench rabbit or a #8 corrugated bottom jointer and tune them sweetly – maybe. I would go over any prospective purchase with a scornful eye and replacement the blade and/or chip breaker on an old plane is required about 50% of the time, in my experience anyway.
Here is my list of the initial planes and accessories you will want/need ( I like the low angle but to each his own):
- Stanley Low-Angle Block Plane
- Shoulder plane
- Smoother plane
- Plane chip-breaker Screwdriver I swear to God you need this, really! When you mare the screw an a $200 plane because you didn’t listen, it is your own fault for not listening.
- Sharpener: get two…
- Buy a nice set of Japanese water stones 1000 to 8000 grit. Watch the videos and keep your blades sharp.
- Also, Japanese planes, like Japanese pull saws and water stones, are FANTASTIC. They deserve their own diatribe, but for the purpose of this post I will stick to western planes with the exception of an edge-rounding plane. I use mine constantly.
Nice to have once you get serious about using hand planes:
- Jack Plane
- Jointer planeSpoke shave Get the flat first then the curved. You probably wont ever need the concave one.
- This Router plane but, if I were in the market for a new one, this Walke Moore version is the nicest I have ever seen!
- Scraper plane – get the toothed blade
- A combination plane, but be wary of used Stanley Record #45/#46s. They can be a beast to swap around and if they come with all the original parts they are spendy!
- if you are going to be doing a lot of drawers or insets, then both a Left and Right Plow Plane are really nice to have
- Wooden molding planes : See below…
Once you have been bitten by the molding plane bug, you will want to run right out and buy a 1/2 or full set. Good luck. There are not a lot of makers out there and the ones that are doing it have a long wait list and are not cheap. Some people, like myself, invest is an older set. My molding planes include a 3/4 harlequin cove and round set (mixed from various makers and time periods) that I have carefully built over the last 9-10 years. The dates for my planes run from 1956 to 1930s to 1850s/70s and I have one from the 1790s that has an uncommon roman ogee shape that I use on boxes and 6-board chest lids. This collecting takes time as there has never been a set standard for what a #8 is, for instance, so there is a lot of variance in sizes between makers. I have replaced a few irons as well.
I often defer to people that are smarter than me and Matthew Bickford and Chris Schwartz recommend a set of #4 and #8 and a set of #6 and #10 hollows and rounds as an initial starter set. I would add that a 3/16 beading plane is a wonder to have as well if and when you start down this road.
To my own set, I have added some additional beading planes – up to 1/2″, tongue & groove planes for 1/4″ – 1″ stock, specialized profile molders, 1/4 rounds, scrapers, etc., but those is my own personal obsessive tendencies.
I failed miserably at finding a classic matched set of snipe-bills and half rounds (NEEDED for linen-fold panels). I have resigned myself to buy new ones from Old Street Tools, but I have to warm my wife to the idea of me spending serious cash on blocks of wood and iron that I will use 5-6 times a year. I have been working on her for 3 years and they are on my Christmas and birthday list every year. No luck yet.
Read Bickford’s Moldings in Practice (if you have bled with me or we have swapped spit, you can borrow my copy) and take a look at the video of the same name before jumping in. Molding planes can be sourced from the following, in no special order:
New planes:
- Caleb James
- Matt Bickford
- Old Street Tools
- Made in England Philly Tools
- J. Wilding Planemaker
Classic:
- Jim Bode Tools for reliable planes
- Liberty Tool has great molding and fine steel planes as well
- I have made some decent finds on Inchmartine Tool Bazaar
…and now I will dismount my soapbox…
Chopping Firewood Warms You Twice
I have some on the most awesome neighbors ever. I know a lot of people say that, but I firmly believe in mine. One of my neighbors across the street took down a maple and a cedar and offered both up as fire wood for me to just HAVE! Now, two trees is a lot of wood to and split and the cedar looked nasty with lots of knots and limbs. I decided to rent a $70 hydraulic log splitter for the day and just get it done.
I showed up with a chainsaw, bar-oil, and the splitter and he had it all laid out and ready to go. He gave me pre-mixed gas for the saw and spent 9 hours helping me bust it all up – just because!! Even though we used the splitter, it was still HARD work and we lifted/rolled/moved/cut/shoved 2+cords of wet heavy wood around. It was work! I bought him lunch and a bottle of Bushmills 10yo Whiskey, but that is nowhere near enough payment for all he did!
The maple is enough to supply around a third of our wood for next winter (takes a while to season) and the cedar will make for awesome fire pit wood in the back yard and at the beach! I am on the lookout for some oak to lay up this winter and I would commit heinous acts for a load of madrona…
Weekend in the shop
I got some serious crap done in the garage and at home this weekend:
Cleaned, swept, and put away tools for over an hour Saturday morning
Added wheels to my screw-clamp stand
Built a hammer stand – I have a lot of hammers
Organized 4 drawers on my tool cabinet
Organized a drawer for just camera mounts and cables
Hung 22 small blue U-Line organization bins
Cleaned off table saw
Installed new table saw blade
Re-tensioned bandsaw
Cleaned off bench for 1st time in MONTHS!
Put all the miscellaneous screws, bolts, and hardware in the proper organization bin
Sanded the carcass for a bathroom cabinet installation
Moved some angle-iron into the metal storage rack
Carried 2 of the 3 cabinet sections in the house
Cranked on the lathe to reduce the diameter of a dowel
Blew 30 amp breaker
Said the f-word at least 3 times
Took a look and original electrician did not fully terminate one of the “hot” wire legs, which led to the failure.
Said dirty words
Drove to Home Depot and back for breaker
Swapped out a blown breaker
Ran 75 linier feet of 12-2 Romex wiring
Installed 12 electrical boxes
Only dropped 1 on my head/face
Installed a couple of runs of CAT-6 ethernet cable for the PoE camera system
Jesus, CAT-6 is expensive!!
Moved some firewood into the house
Built and installed butcher paper roll noteboard on a cabinet front
Re-set wall clock
Worked on chipping hammer re-build
Shot a couple of videos
Sanded a couple spots on the jeep under windshield
Wished I had a bathroom in the garage at 3 different points during the weekend
Started on pizza peel build for Father-in-law
Film Friday – Blacksmithing and Forging
I am a novice smith and that is being generous. I do like to forge though and it is awesome when I get a little time to make things for myself. This short film details a couple of the different type of hold fasts (metal work and word work) that I recently made at the Pratt Center for Fine Arts forge in Seattle. If you live in Seattle, have a single maker bone in your body, and haven’t checked them out – do so immediately and sign up for a class or two.
Forging and Fabricating
I can do and make bunches of stuff: Everything from joinery to electronics, from wood turning to machining, from bookbinding to electrical, from carving to heavy machine operation, but there are certain things that I have never really been able to do in the world of hand-craft, mostly due to lack of exposure or instruction. Chiefly among these things are/were forging/blacksmithing and metal shaping. The latter composed of shaping and bending sheet metal into forms and objects.
I decided this year to work on those deficits and have been taking some forging and fabrication classes at The Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle. A couple nights a week, I leave work and hammer, shape, weld, grind, and make stuff out of steel. I have been at it for 5 weeks and am really please with both The Pratt and all that I am learning. I have also learned that while I have dipped my toe in these waters, that there is a ocean of knowledge out there. I do not have any want to be a full-time blacksmith or fabricator, but I want to keep learning, so I can add some of the techniques and pieces to stuff that I already build and add to my repertoire of ability and understanding. Below are some of the pieces that I have made, tools I am using, and some stuff that I am working on. I am putting together a little video as well.
More G-Mail Woes.
A Little rant:
My G-mail that is linked to my site stopped working due to some sort of host/server issue last week-ish. I use a G-Mail proxy through my domain and I called and chatted and e-mailed for days before a resolution was found. After the server issue was fixed, I then had a Tucows registration issue and I had to prove that I was me and that I owned my site. I have had limited access for a few days and just now got full access back. Very frustrating and time consuming. Looks to be all fixed now, but I hope I didn’t piss off too many folks by not answering their mail. I am wading through it all today and tonight.
Sometimes tech makes life harder and I long for a small A-frame cabin in the woods near water, a pantry full of good coffee, my wife reading with the puppies on the couch, a fully stocked shop, lots of firewood, a source of independent wealth, and no wireless connection.
Dreams..
Labor Day Weekend – 2017
I was at home for Labor Day weekend this year and spend the time working on the house and yard. I dug up a cubic yard+ of dirt where the garage walkway will be and then built concrete forms, added rebar, and welded wire for a 20′ X 4′ sidewalk pour next week.
I also took a couple of hours to rebuild a 10′ section of fence on our south side. A 40′ (12.2m) tree had grown through it from the neighbor’s yard. He let me cut it down a couple of weeks ago and rebuilding the fence was required. Note: Stamps-With-Foot did not see me roped up, hanging in the harness, topping the tree, so I didn’t get in trouble for being a “stupid man” until later 🙂
Grilling Cedar Plank Salmon
The very first meal that my father-in-law ever made for me was a semi-traditional cedar plank salmon. It was delectable and I have asked him for the magic recipe a few times since, but it was only this weekend that he had the time & opportunity to go through it all from start to finish. I, of course, documented the whole thing with my iPhone (GoPro battery was dead). As a note, he is a professional chef and on this visit hooked us up with a version of his recipe/process made for and on our tiny 10-year-old, much loved and used Weber grill. The meal was AMAZING! Here is the whole process:
Film Friday – Hatchet Handle Replacement
I seem to be keeping with a theme – another Handle replacement. I promises that this is the last one for a while 🙂 My next film will be from an adventure in China or a snowboarding mishap.
This hatchet was given to me by a neighbor a little while ago. It had a hard life: the handle was chipped and split and the heel had been used for driving God only knows what and had mushroomed out a bit. Twenty minutes of my time, $12.00 in total cost, and I have a repaired tool that will outlast me. It is destined for a kindling chopper and glamping chores when my wife and I venture into the wilds “roughing it” with a camper trailer.
Film Friday – Hammer fix
We are well on our way to becoming a doomed and disposable society. Example: After trying in vain to buy a handle replacement locally for my broken framing hammer, I had to buy one online and have it shipped to Seattle from the East Coast. I didn’t need the fancy matching OEM handle. Most any would have worked with a little shaping using a rasp and file. Neither Home Depot nor Lowes sells replacement handles for hammers or hatchets anymore – just handles for garden tools. I had four people try to sell me a new hammer while searching though. Apparently, just spending $80+ is easier than fixing a tool with a replaceable part designed into it. Lazy mother f….. Son of a …
The hammer holds no special value or spot in my heart or personal history. It wasn’t smuggled into the US 300 years ago by a ancestor who built and defended his home with it… Nope, just a framing hammer that someone gave me once. It had already been used and abused for years before it fell into my hands. The point was/is the thing is mine. A tool that I use to make stuff with. A tool that is MADE to have the handle replaced and somehow there are not enough people with the skill and drive to do such a simple task to keep them stocked on the shelves of multiple large national chain building supply stores. I stand by my statement that the movie Idiocracy is a documentary filmed by time travelers.
The whole replacement cost me $12 for the handle and shipping + 20 minutes of my time. A lot better deal than $80+ for a new hammer. As an added bonus, I get to rant a little and make a slide show 🙂
Film Friday – Bottle Opener Life Hack
Film Friday – Baidarka (Skin on frame Aleut kayak) build movie
With the hip related bed rest, I have had some time to catch up on some film-making and finally finished this little slideshow film documenting the entire process of a 9-day father/son traditional kayak build that I blogged about this past summer. The next build will be either a small motorboat or a wood-strip cedar canoe.
Let me know if you have any questions about the video.
Boat Lust
So, you may or may not know this about me, but even though I currently own a couple of small boats, I have MAD Boat Lust. I am a member of the Center for Wooden Boats, I get Wooden Boat Magazine & Small Craft Adviser Magazine every month, go to the Lake Union, Seattle, Portland, and Port Townsend boat shows every year… I follow four sets of Blue Water sailors on YouTube, am trying to con my wife into taking a sailing vacation (I am getting a hard NO! on that one currently), and almost bought a used 22′ lead keel sailboat last summer for “my son.” I tried to sell it as his “learner Boat” and play up the father/son bonding time angle with it and my wife saw right through it. To date, however, I have not come home to tell my with that “We” just purchased an Amel 55 blue water sailboat, a 47′ diesel powered Cabin Cruiser, a Chris-Craft in need of some “light repair”, or a Hans Christian 33 kept in Bristol Fashion that “I” am planning to live on since said purchase would leave me homeless, devoid of my puppies, and divorced.
If my son, The Ruminator, lived in Seattle I wouldn’t mind a swing keel Columbia 22 or a Catalina 22 to gunk hole around the Sound in with him. A Catalina 270 LE would make my heart go pitter-patter as well, but I am a realist (-ish) and very aware of my current budget and available storage space. A sailboat that I would only use a few times a year and have to pay moorage on, would make me very unpopular at home. But, if someone has a 19′ WW Potter taking up space in their life that needs a new home, I would be game…
While what I WANT is a sweet little sailboat, what I NEED is a small outboard that that sits on a trailer in or beside the garage, that I can pop over to Blake or Vashion Island on, run up the Duwamish River a little piece, do a little salmon fishing on with my son or friends, haul a crab pot or three in season, find a secluded weekend beach for summer camping, etc… It needs to have a cuddy cabin to get out of the shifty weather here in Puget Sound, some storage space to keep gear dry, needs to be light enough to be pulled behind the jeep when fully loaded, and fast enough to handle the tidal flow in the PNW.
Buying a finished boat, even used, like a Ranger Tug 21, a C-Dory 19, or a Boston Whaler 21′ Cuddy are WAY out of my price range, I have been perusing Craigslist for a 16′ -21′ hardtops, but the ones I have found are either gold plated & upholstered in unicorn foreskin or needs to be sunk. So, in due course, I have been thinking about building the boat of need mentioned above. I know, I know… I have a shit ton of projects already with the shop and house, but I won’t start the boat until Stamps-With-Foot agrees that the house is good and all the little projects at home are squared away. Happy wife, happy life.
To digress a bit, my current home-built boat want is a Devlin Boats Dunlin 22 Cruiser with all the bells and whistles, but that too would be spendy, require me to quit my J-O-B to obsess over the details properly, I would have to rent out boathouse space for the duration of the build, have the time to build it, and would probably cause my sweet bride to up my life insurance just before “accidentally” pushing me into a wood chipper.
Back in reality, I am looking hard at building a couple of boats, including a Devlin Noddy 18. It is something realistic to build over the fall and winter, in the space I have available in the F-Bomb Garage, and within my current budget. Powered by a 4 stroke 50HP Honda or Yamaha, with homey little extras like: a sardine wood stove in the cabin, a crab pot winch arm on the stern, and lots of LED lights. 
Devlin Boat Works in just south of us in Olympia and in addition to being a design house, they are a boat works and build all manner of craft there at any given time. I sent a couple of e-mails and made some calls about the possibility of going down this summer if they have a Noddy or similar hull under construction. We will see if it can be arranged.
I will have to wait just lust a little while longer to satiate my boat lust…
Update: May 2017
Nope. Devlin is off the list. I can’t find anyone on the boat forums that has built the Noddy AND I have not had a single phone call or e-mail replied to. I don’t need to do business with someone who I have to beg to take my money.
Film Friday – Forging Double Feature
Hand Tool Tuesday – First Post
Last week, I was a little off for two days – a pissed off sort of sad. I thought I had left my hammer out while fence building and it had walked away with someone else. I found it Thursday evening in the garage and I almost did a little jig. This hammer is special to me: I bought it brand new and shinny when I was 12 because my dad said ‘Estwing was the best’ long before they were in Big Box stores and when you had to drive to a particular store in town to buy them. I think it was like $26 and I paid part of the total with rolls of dimes and nickels.
I used it to build my first wall, lay sub-floor, hang countless pictures, install everything from siding to cabinets to trim to roof trusses. It has fed me and my children. I have other hammers including a matching 16oz trim hammer and 4 blue elastomer handled Estwings, but this one has been my constant companion for 30 years and will out live me. Maybe my children or grandchildren will use and appreciate it and think of me when I am gone.
There was a book written in 1990 called “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. It is fictionalized account of one man’s experience in during the war in Vietnam told in part as a discussion about what he and his companions carried with them. I read it in college and it changed my perception and appreciation for the often mundane things we carry in our pockets, in our bags, and out tool belts. Those simple objects often come to have powerful associations and meaning for us. I have decided to start a new weekly post covering the tools and things that I share my day and life with.
Film Friday – Foot Powered Lathe Double Feature
Film Friday – Building a 13th Century Castle in the 21st Century.
Making usable stuff with fire and dirt.
As an update to my original post about the pottery class that Stamps-With-Foot gave me for Christmas, I have made a bunch of little pots and am in the middle of firing and glazing them. Really unhappy with the red glaze that is available, but the milky white one is great, so I am doing the majority of the pots in that color.
I plan to make 8-10 coffee cups, a set of matching puppy water & food bowls, and a number of honey pots before the end of the 10 week course. I have 4 coffee cups that have handles on them and that are drying now, waiting to be bisque fired. I’ll turn wooden lids and honey dippers for some of the cylinders and give them as Christmas and birthday gifts if they turn out well.
Progress thus far:
Making pots, cups, and bowls from sticky dirt
My pretty wife gave me a pottery class for Christmas. Tonight was the first night. I made three “cylinders” and I am apparently “great at centering…” no idea, but I like the class and want to make a bunch of stuff. Will cruz Pinterest for ideas later.
I NEED a Lister Diesel Engine
I have a big ol’ crush in Lister single-cylinder diesel engines. These stationary work horses were made from 1926 to about 1985 and were used for pumping water, power generation, inboard flat-water boat engines, and all manner of other uses. They came in 1.5-12 horsepower and would/will burn Diesel, paraffin, kerosene (as a mix), waste motor oil (WMO) fresh or waste veggie oil (WVO), bio Diesel, etc… They were and are so reliable that many of the originals are still running today after 90+ years of just regular maintenance.
After the parent company stopped making them, Indian firms started making clones for Asian and Southeast Asian use due to their inherent long life, simplicity, and ease of maintenance. These are called Listeriods, and they are fairly plentiful, but the quality swings widely.
Why do I want or need a Lister? Reasons. Why did I need a Millennium Falcon in the second grade? Why did I need all those Legos? I just did. Just like I just need a small Lister (or two) in my garage to tinker with and run various other machines that I just need as well.
I have been thwarted in my attempt while living in the US due to EPA regulations making importation verboten. There are some, both original and clones, around, but they command top dollar as they are VERY popular with the off-grid/prepper folks. I like “The Grid” just fine. I am not building a bunker, planning for any sort of societal collapse or EMP weapon defense, I just need a Lister.
I have found a couple here in France, but either the owner has been unwilling to sell or the logistics in getting it have proved difficult – hauling it 30 vertical feet up and 2km down a mountain path sort of daunting. I still haven’t given up. We know a British couple that have been here long term and the husband is a classic car/truck guy – he has a 1962 Unimog fire truck as a daily driver… I spoke to him this weekend about my need and he might know a guy who knows a guy sort of thing. I have my fingers crossed.
Enjoy a few videos of Listers in action below:
10/7/2015 Update
So, I found an engine here in France that was the right size and type, with an outstanding price tag – basically free. But, there is NO way I can bring it back to the US with me. We are bringing home Wine and other stuff that are customs red flags and they are going to go through our shipment container with a microscope. I think I might have a way to get an Indian import once we are back in Seattle, so I will deal with it there.
Film Friday – Shoe Repair Shops: Part 2
The second edition of my shoe/boot edition of Film Friday.
English Shoe-Maker:
Fabulously British Collaborations – NPS Shoes Ltd from Jack Wills on Vimeo.
Climbing shoe resole in Bishop, California:
Inside The Rubber Room: A Climbing Shoe Resoler from Just Go Climb on Vimeo.
Work Boots:
Dayton Boots from Mike Nairne on Vimeo.
Film Friday – Shoe Repair Shops: Part 1
I am a sucker for a fine pair of shoes or boots. I love to go into a shoe shop to watch the cobblers work and smell the leather & dye. I have a pair of Justin Roppers ™ that have been with me since I was 17. I have had them half soled more than 5 times and full soled twice. I have had cuts stiched up and new heels nailed on. They fit my feet like a pair of bespoke calf-skin gloves. I wish all my shoes fit and felt like they do. I have Al’s Attire in San Francisco building my dress shoes and boots now and I hope to have that sort of relationship with their products as well someday.
First Rate Shoe and boot repair in the Great State of Texas:
Austin Shoe Hospital:Craftsmanship from Mosaic Media Films on Vimeo.
A part-time cobbler making shoes in his garage:
The Shoemaker from Pete Stone on Vimeo.
Western boot builder:
Lisa Sorrell from Tiana Jade on Vimeo.
Some small projects around the house
I have been swamped with work and travel for the last couple of months, so my shop time has been very limited. I have mostly been puttering around with my workbench, getting the last bits and bobbles done before calling it done and I have spent the off hour here and there on the lathe and doing stuff around the house:
- I had to fix a dishwasher leak and do some painting in the kitchen – still hate plumbing
- We did some re-arranging, so I had to fill some nail holes and then make new ones.
- Glued a cutting board back together after it split – craptastic glue didn’t hold, so it is back in the to-fix pile and will get some dowels this time
- Made a pot lid handle out of some scrap cherry.
- Tackled the jungle that was once my yard – twice
- Sharpened the lawnmower blade
- Turned the compost
- I bought a sheet of plywood and built a DVD shelf and a 8′ bookshelf for the lending library we run.
- There was been an oak log in my shop for months so I cut it in half and made a couple of stools for my office.
- Our puppies play a game called “run away from Mommy” when she takes them out, so I built two small fences to keep them in the back yard and away from the front gate.
I have do a few things in the shop just for organization and am working on a couple of little projects:
- We got a huge free wardrobe that I put in the GROP to organize non-tool/shop related items like climbing gear and life jackets
- My battery operated tools need a home, so I put together an organization center for them that mounts on the French cleat board
- I hung up my 6 heavy panel clamps to get them out of the way
- Made a Lathe chuck and tail-stock tool organizer for the French cleat organizer
- With a bonus from my J-O-B, I bought a few more molding planes, but they arrived in sad shape. I spent 6+ hours one Saturday cleaning, sharpening and fixing them.
- Started work on a blanket chest rebuild: cut here, snip there, new runners and new feet. Will get new milk paint finish when complete.
- Working on a copyist lectern rebuild. I made the base, pillar and other bits from some scrap beech left over from the bench build.
- Built a wooded top for the puppy Kennel so it blends better with the furniture in the Living Room.
- Putting together a 6-board chest for molding plane storage. Will get re-purposed forged hardware and a Barn Red milk paint finish.
Let down by an online tool seller with GIANT balls.
So, I am a little tweaked… I got a small bonus at work and sent a little money to my mom and daughter, got something for my wife, paid to have a tree taken out, sent Heifer and MSF some funds, paid off my last student loan (FREEDOM!!), put a little money back for a rainy day, and with the last bit decided to do a little something small just for me: I bought a few beech molding planes and 3 mortise chisels from a guy with a web store in the Scotland. I will call him UK Tool Guy. I have bought twice from him before and it all went really smooth and my purchases were exactly as expected. I bought a toothing plane from him at a good price that was in perfect working order and arrived exactly as pictured on his site.
My experience this time around was different. The order part was normal, but when I received my stuff it was all kinds of wrong. Painted parts, broken pieces, condition received was NOT as advertised, etc… I spent 4 hours cleaning and fixing and will have to spend another 4-5 repairing 2 chisels and 2 of the planes. 8-9 hours is a lot of time to unexpectedly fix stuff that I just bought. I am not super-important in the grand scheme of things, but my time is worth something to me.
Anyway, I took a few pictures and wrote the guy to let him know about the issues, asking about the possibility of some remuneration. He sends me back a mail offering me a little credit instead of a refund. I take him up on it, not knowing what the shipping will be I choose a couple of items from his web store that equals to less than £50 (~$78) that he offered up. I think my time and frustration was worth more, but I didn’t press the point.
He sent me a response that informed me that I had gone over budget and that he would “…let me off for now…” Seriously‽‽ Was this guy born with an extra set of balls? This is the third time I have done business with him. I check his site regularly for stuff I am looking for – I am even on his MF mailing list. The bottom line is that I got an unexpected crappy deal, I was gracious and completely undemanding and he will “…let me off for now…”. It took over three weeks for him to send the stuff two new items out. So much for the “Shortly” time frame he referenced in his last mail. I believe that this is the last time I will be doing business with the UK Tool Guy
For the sake of Transparency, I have included the whole chain I sent below – only deleting names and contact info.
___________________________________________________________________________
Hi Matt
Thanks for your response.
Those two items actually come to £63.50 with postage which is a bit over
£50 but I’ll let you off for now, we can maybe adjust slightly with any
future order. I will get these off to you shortly.
THANKS
> On 17 March 2015 at 11:20, drivenoutside wrote:
Hi _____,
Sorry, I didn’t mean to come off as someone that can’t be pleased. It is
not that at all and my two previous purchases were really spot on.
Thank you for your immediate response and offer for credit. I would love
to have the boxwood rule and the upholstery hammer if you are OK with that.
Thank you and regards,
Matt
> On March 16, 2015 at 4:18 AM UK Tool Guy wrote:
Hi Matt
Thanks for your e-mail and I am sorry you had so much to complain about.
Not that it is an excuse on my part but I have a funny feeling I didn’t
pack your order up as otherwise I would have picked up on some if not all
of these points as I check everything properly when I am packing it. I
understand your frustrations when you get something that is not quite what
you were expecting and once again I am sorry for this. Rather than
refunding you some monies why don’t you instead have a look at the site and
see if there is something there around the £50 mark including postage that
you might like FREE. If there is just drop me an e-mail with the product
number so I can remove it off the site and send it over to you.
THANKS
> On 15 March 2015 at 20:36, drivenoutside wrote:
Hi _____,
I received the molding planes and chisels a couple of weeks ago, but as I
travel a good bit for work, I just this weekend had the time to open the
packaging up and take a look. What I found was a little surprising as I
have ordered a couple of planes from you before and condition was spot on
as advertised. I did not expect like-new condition as some of this
material is over 200 years old, but some of it was not as stated.
Two of the collars on the sash chisels are cracked, one completely. I am
going to have to tear them apart and replace the collars. I guess I will
either see if I can source from Marples or turn down some brass stock on
the lathe.
I spent most of yesterday flattening, polishing, sharpening, and oiling
the plane blades. There is a good deal of pitting on some of them and I
will need to replace two. Most of the plane bodies were fine, but the #12
was painted red and the #16 had a screw holding a crack in the body
together. I drilled it, filled with hide glue and inserted a beech dowel.
The #1 round’s wedge is cracked in half and has been glued back together
by a previous owner. I am going to have to make a copy of it and replace.
When I unwrapped the #9 there was wood worm in the packaging. Not just old
holes, but a live worm in the plastic. There was damage to the plane and
the wedge. I took the whole lot to our local vet and had her x-ray the box
4 times. It is a Luthier’s trick and it kills any worm/moth larva.
Take a look at the attached pictures and let me know what you think and if
you think it is fair to refund me a little of the purchase price and
shipping.
Thanks,
Matt
On 23 February 2015 at 15:51, drivenoutside wrote:
Hi _____,
The ship to address is: __________
My phone number is: ___________
Please send me the tracking number so that if there is a problem with the
shipper or customs, I can call right away
Thank you again,
Matt
——– Original message ——–
From: UK Tool Guy
Date:02/22/2015 2:30 PM (GMT+02:00)
To: Driven Outside
Cc:
Subject: Re: Tool Order
Hi Matt
Just written out your invoice for the tools ordered. The grand total
including postage comes to £metric shit-ton. An invoice / receipt will be included with the tools. I’m in the shop today until 4:30pm if you want to ring with card details for payment.
MANY THANKS
Medieval Benches in Art
As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have been on a 5-board bench kick this year. I have built five so far and two more are in the works. I am also putting together at least three 6-board benches in the next 6-8 months, which share similar design and construction. Both items are classified as “Furniture of Necessity” or “Early Rustic” if you go shopping for one or the other. The patterns for them are roughly the same now are they were 2000 years ago and they lend themselves to hand-tool only construction.
I am not a Luddite that eschews a table saw, not in the least. I just don’t have one in France and am not buying one (If someone dropped off a new 10” cabinet saw and a compound sliding miter saw at my door, I guarantee that I could shoe-horn them nicely into the GROP). It has taken me almost 10 months to decide that I need a plug-in circle saw, but only to speed up the breakdown of thick planks and beams – I will be shopping at a pawnshop in the city though. I am just not spending the money to set up a new cabinet shop when we are leaving in a couple of years. Tools here are CRAZY expensive and most of the stuff available to non-professionals is crap. A Ridged-type contractors saw (bottom rung of what I consider acceptable for cabinet work) here with a real fence and a solid top will set you back the equivalent of $1100.00. Same saw at any Home Depot in the USA is about $500.00. A 7.25” Makita circle saw is the equivalent of $230.00 and an 18vt Ryobi drill with two batteries? $195.00!
Anyway, back to benches and chests… While in Paris last month we visited a plethora of museums and I kept finding little nuggets in the paintings, tapestries, and stained glass: top edge profiles, proportions, leg cutouts, etc… I am going to incorporate a couple of the details into my planed remaining work this year and next – just because I can. Below are a few of those details. They were for sure more to see, but not all museums allow pictures in their halls.
Everyone needs a circus tent stake maul…
I have a good number of wooden stakes to drive into the ground – garden project, long story. In the early stages of planning, I realized that I didn’t have a proper maul and did nor relish driving any of them with a claw hammer. Hummm….
To remedy that tool deficit, I finished turning one from a piece of oak firewood after work the other day – instead of mowing the yard… The steel bands are cut from a 5″ iron pipe and they are held on by 15 or so long brass nails. It seemed like a good use of my time and was a nice end to a very stressful day.
Cornebarrieu Bench – Redesign & first cuts made
I did a full redesign of the Cornebarrieu bench… As per my normal modus operandi, I was over designing/building it. With all the tweaks and gadgets and new parts, it was going to take me 6 months to build, some serious math to layout the interlocking joint angles and cost $1900 in material – I may have priced solid 4” thick seasoned Eastern European beech and walnut for the top and legs…
Anyway, I came to my senses and decided on using the pine I had already purchased for the legs and stretchers, lap joints with bolts instead of compound dovetails, a liberal amount of hide glue here and there, and a top made from re-purposed IKEA counter tops and will install a leg vice salvaged from a junk shop near Limoux, France instead of the $300 Benchcraft scissor vise that I was eyeballin’. The top will be solid all the way across instead of the split-top design.
The pine slabs have been drying in my GROP for 5 months and were ready to be cut down into their rough size. I had a little time this last weekend and spent 4 hours making all the leg and stretcher joint cuts – hogging out the material with successive circle-saw cuts and then chiseling them out. I am waiting to cut the tenon that fits into the top on each leg until I have the top in-hand. I chiseled and planed all the joint cuts smooth and I really wished I would have had a timber framing slick. When I do another bench or some large furniture with this type of joint anytime again, I will pick one up as it will pay for itself with the labor saved, in comparison to a 1.5” bench chisel, on 4 lap joints. I did the rough math and I think that I will have made 1023 total handsaw and circle saw cuts by the time the bench is done. There will be 16 bolts, 6 sections of 7/16” all-thread, 12 large screws, one 2’ ACME thread rod, 2 large dowels, 4 lag screws, 32 nuts & washers, and some sweat, blood, and curse words that will all go into it by the end. The new dimensions of the bench will be 25.5” wide, 34” tall, and 8.2 feet long. I believe the finished weight will be around 320 pounds.
My next milestone is the dreaded IKEA run. It will be a couple of weeks before I have the enough spending money horded together from my allowance (I want to be debt free in two years and retire at 55 so yes, I have an allowance…) and get the top cut out and fitted. I will update as I go.
Before Electricity – French machine tools that were/are human powered
As we have traveled a bit here in France, I have drug my wife, son, in-laws, and friends to dusty museums and shops to see some amazing examples of traditional French woodworking tools and machines. These bits of pre-electric woodworking gems have been covered in beasage, wabi-sabi and love. Some were almost pristine, looking like there were used the day before and a few are shadows of their former-selves, but beautiful none the less. There are lathes, marqueterie saws, Saw-tooth sets, sharpening stones, carts, presses, saws, etc…
One of the most prominent things I noticed were all the different mechanisms for making the different lathes go ’round: peddles, treadles, hand operated flywheels, waterwheels, and bows.
Enjoy
