Sorry the blogging has been a little light. My regular work as an engineer has gotten “crazy busy” with a lot of business travel, pulling me away from the shop. I need to retire from that so I can spend more time in the shop!
I did get the opportunity to visit the Wood and Shop school in Virginia (just north of Charlottesville). www.woodandshop.com. I took a workbench appliance/tool class there offered by Bill Anderson. Bill has taught at several places, including the Woodwright’s School in North Carolina (now closed, unfortunately). I’ve taken several classes with him, and enjoyed them all!
The class was for two days, making a bundle of essential workbench fixtures, including a joiner’s mallet, two wooden try squares, a straight edge, winding sticks, a shooting board, and a bench hook/miter box. Each of these is very useful in hand tool woodworking – or actually any woodworking
- Joiners Mallet: For applying hammering blows to wood joints to close them, without significantly marring the wood. Useful for chisel work, especially mortise chisels
- Try squares: For measuring the “square” of wood, so you can achieve a true 90 degree edge. Useful for laying out work
- Straight edge: Needed to ensure the wood is flat and true before work can be done
- Winding sticks: Also needed to determine if board has any “wind” or twist in it – where one corner is higher than another. If so, you will need to plane it down to make the wood true
- Bench hook/miter box: Used to saw wood, so you don’t mess up your workbench. Can get you reasonably close to true 90 and 45 degree cuts on joinery
- Shooting board: An appliance that lets you run a handplane at 90 degree to the table, which enables you to shave off small portions of wood at the end. Lets you get a “dialed in” exact 90 degree or 45 degree angle on the joinery
It was a great 2 days, and I got to spend it around a lot of woodworkers of various ages. Nothing like the comradery of shared interests!
After the holidays, its back to the shop. My last Farmer’s Market is coming up, and I have completed the items I needed for it. My Christmas gifts are pretty much done as well, so starting in December I can get back to the hand tool joiner and cabinet maker box!
Kevin