They also often used non-detergent 30-weight oil, but it’s terribly messy and doesn’t perform well on a lot of woodworking equipment where exposure to cold temps and sawdust are concerned. In light of what my ancestors did, I found myself thinking about, and wanting better lubricants.

Modern research has evolved some very nice, specific-use oils that work great in targeted applications. Synthetics, Silicones, and so-called “Dry” lubricants. I would be remiss to not mention WD-40 too, but even as it is thought of as a lubricant, it is actually more a solvent with temporary lubricating properties, and although it was named to be a water displacer, it makes a poor corrosion preventative. It is however, a great lube for oilstones and for wet sanding steels.

Oils and lubricants are a field of endeavor that is very hush about it’s formulations. Manufacturers keep their cards close to their chests. Often, there are components of a lubricant that are proprietary information, and the “brand” is hanging on that formulation. It’s very scientific. The makers know exactly what they target a lubricant for, and what they use in it’s bases to create it, exactly. If it works, the manufacturer garners all the profit from being good at what it does.

To the many end users of oils and lubricants, all we know are the brand names, and what the creators target the product to do. We tacitly accept that the product will do what is advertised. For instance, most of us are familiar with penetrating oil, but most of us do not know what all is exactly in it that makes it penetrate and why. After awhile we come to know which brands we like, and which types are for what, and if they work well for us or not. Mostly we don’t need to know a lot beyond that, when all we really want is stuck parts unstuck, or a hinge to swing a door quietly. Rest assured there is a recipe for the stuff, and the maker knows why it works. In essence, we just use the oils they tell us to.

I tried a lot of the different products that have become available, and as I started out to say, observed. I didn’t have any way to scientifically test them, nor was that my aim. I just wanted lubricants that were slick and protective of my bearings and mechanisms where metals had to interface. So I applied them as directed, and let them do their stuff, and after awhile I determined if I liked them or not.

So how did I get to sewing machine oil? For years I was an advocate of the light machine oils, like 3 in 1, and in addition to my own supplies, I had a good supply that had once belonged to my Grandfather and Dad. Along the way I tried some of the modern synthetics out too, to see if I liked the performance. I rejected quite a few because I didn’t like the way they performed in a woodshop environment, or the way they had to be applied was wrong for me.

Bicycle lubricants showed some promise, but I felt the formulations really were most properly targeted at bicycles, and they often didn’t “feel” as slick as oils. Often sawdust seemed to either cling to, or weaken many of them, causing adjustments to feel coarse. Sawdust is going to cling to most lubricants anyway, but my want is for that to not be too clingy, and for the lube to keep feeling like it is working. I had run low on my stash of my old school 3 in 1, so I decided to go after more. It was then that I learned that packaging had evolved to plastic, it was no longer in the old, familiar rectangular can!

I bought a new bottle and began using it on the machines and hand tools in my shop. After a time, I observed that it didn’t seem to be working in the same way I had been accustomed. I did a little google research and read in many different places around the internet, that I was not the only one noticing 3 in 1 had changed the formula some. I also learned that 3 in 1 had also changed ownership sometime back, and some people were speculating about it. It’s still a light machine oil, but in my non-scientific observations I noticed it was evaporating quicker, and leaving behind a yellow waxy film on everything, which it had always done, but this was more pronounced than the old product and it seemed to dry stickier than it had been, attracting sawdust even more than before.

I have a friend in the Sew and Vac business, and one day while we were talking about an antique sewing machine we had in for adjusting, lubricants came up in discussion. As I told him of my observations and dissatisfactions regarding light machine oils, he just looked at his feet and smiled. After I asked about his acknowledgement, he pretty much told me that he’d observed this too, and has repaired many sewing machine’s and vacuums that 3 in 1 had been used in. He said 3 in 1 is not a bad oil, but it’s application when used in sew and vac applications is wrong.

For sewing machines and vacuums, he felt 3 in 1 does evaporate too fast, faster than manufacturer recommended oiling intervals, leaving metal on metal, plastics and nylons. It does leave a waxy varnish build up that clogs, and gums up the works. Not what you want on those machines, and the same thing I was observing with 3 in 1 oil in my shop. I was applying it where I do, and in a week, I felt I had lost lubrication and had a yellow varnish stain to show for it. Varnish from hardened oil paraffin is a future seal to fresh oil and a side effect I don’t want. Oil needs to get where it needs to be and lubricate, not become hard and seal off future oilings. I decided that while 3 in 1 is an adequate product, I wanted something better in my shop.

After he got done singing the praises of sewing machine oil, we left with a bottle for the shop.

Sewing machine oil (or how any oil is actually formulated) is challenging to research. I’m no petroleum engineer, and don’t really need to be, but I know it is good stuff. I can tell you that it is a mixture of three different base oil types- paraffin, mineral and aromatic. It can be found in 5 weight (ISO 22) and 10 weight, (ISO 32) with 5 weight being most common. It is classified as a “white” or clear oil, non-staining for use on fabrics and I’m told light on the paraffin, heavy on the mineral. It is a formulated oil with corrosion inhibitors and other additives that help it do the job as well as possible. (Well oiled machines are rarely rusty.) I find it is plenty slick and leaves no varnish or paraffin residues behind on anything I have used it on.

Like any oil, it needs to be reapplied regularly because there is wear and evaporation. With busy tools I find a drop every 10 – 25 hours of use depending on the application, and things stay good. For the less used items, I go with the feel. If it feels or looks like it could use a drop of oil, it probably does.

We have two old Singer, gear driven sewing machines, which are in the 70 year old range and have seen high usage in their time. They are clean as can be and show little to no wear on the mechanisms, thanks to the use of sewing machine oil. Proof is in the condition of these machines, which have moving parts like a steam locomotive.

It has become my “go to” shop oil. I like to apply it to the spring and quill of my Drill Press regularly, as well as the tilt mechanisms on the Band Saws and Jointers. I really like it on the knob spinners on shop machines. It is great on toggle clamp mechanisms, and I oil all the acme screws on my clamps and vises with it. It is also great on the ball and socket of the clamp pad feet, as these need to spin freely.

I like it on eggbeater drill shafts, and in the chucks of both the eggbeater and brace. It is nice on the brace knob as well. It works wonderfully on plane adjusters as well as a light coat under the frog on the plane base. Try it also as a refreshener on Japanning. Rubbing some sewing machine oil into the Japanning on your planes with your finger, and buffing it off brings luster to the Japanning that looks nice and fresh! I’d even recommend it as an initial protectant on freshly cleaned and sanded metal. It works well as a light honing oil on oilstones if you like. It is great on anything with a lead screw, set screw, or threads that would be ok with an oil lubricant, but before you use it on the Table Saw adjustment screws, consider candle wax there instead due to extreme sawdust.

I’d also like to add that if you don’t find yourself drilling metals often, but need to on occasion, Sewing Machine Oil will work as a good cutting fluid for use at the drill press. As a light machine oil, it is a closely related viscosity to cutting fluids, and will serve you well, but if you are going to be drilling metal as a rule, “Cutting Fluid” would likely be a better formulation.

So if you like, pick up a bottle and be sure to get an applicator bottle similar to the one pictured for precision application. Often a drop will do and go a long way. I’d like to recommend it to you.

While I’m at it, I’d also like to recommend Renaissance Wax (or it’s equivalent) as an excellent corrosion inhibitor. Paste wax as a corrosion inhibitor, surface prep and glue release agent. Candle wax for lubing both screw and machine threads and plane soles. Kroil is an excellent penetrating oil, and here is a Spray Bee’s Wax available from Wenzloff and Sons that really improves the friction factors on saw plates, and helps protect them as well.

Happy Woodworking!

Maintaining an edge during the woodworking process provides higher levels of working sharpness from edge tools, promoting accurate cuts and joinery, smoother wood surface finish quality, and saves woodworkers an enormous amount of wasted time regrinding, by avoiding dullness, affordably.

It comes down to convenience. This is very important, because when sharpening isn’t convenient or is too messy, we tend to allow tools to become so dull, that restoring sharpness is a lot of hard work. Dullness is avoidable if we maintain sharpness as we work. Maintaining edge tools should be easy.

Why would we want a strop optimized for our workbench? Most strops on the market today are not optimized for honing woodworking tools well. Some come closer than others, but overall they don’t offer the right combination of leather types, flatness, length or ergonomics all at once. Woodworkers want some options and ease when they maintain their edge tools. Our strop is capable of maintaining tool sharpness, reducing or eliminating the mess, while fixturing itself on the bench where the tools are working.

Enter the ‘Bench Strop’ from Evenfall Studios.

The Bench Strop is a multi piece interchangeable stropping surface, sharpening tool. It is optimized for bench work with a Strop Base that supports the Strop Top 2-1/4 inches above the bench top. This boost in height allows clearances for the hands to hold handled tools and plane irons while stropping both the bevel and the backs.

The Strop Base also has three 3/4-inch deep, 3/4-inch diameter Dog Holes bored in the underside for fixturing the Bench Strop over any Round Bench Dog. It is quick and easy to fixture the strop wherever there is space and an available dog. Need to move the strop? Use one hand and pick it up. It is that simple and easy. Need to fixture it again, place it over the bench dog using one of the three provided holes and that’s it! If there is no dog, or the strop will be used away from the bench, we offer an optional non-skid foot kit that can be installed to the base. This will not impede the use of the bench dog fixturing system at all, and adds stability on other surfaces.

The top of the Strop Base is the mounting point for interchangeable Strop Tops. A hex key holder is integrally built into the right side of the base so the tool for interchanging ‘Strop Tops’ is always at hand.

The Strop Tops are made from dead flat MDF and mount to the Strop Base with two 1/4-20 flat head cap screws. The stropping surface area measures 3 x 10-1/4 inches. The optional stropping surfaces are made from Hard Rolled, Genuine Horse Butt, Cowhide Split Suede, which are the two most popular leather stropping surfaces available, and we offer a bare MDF base for use with diamond paste or polishing compounds. Choose one, choose three, or choose multiple Strop Tops for use with the many different compounds available. It is a system you configure to work your way.

The size of this surface area is over two inches longer than most bench stones and wide enough to easily accommodate the #8 jointer plane iron. Stropping free hand or with a roller jig is equally easy and there is plenty of space for each method. There is a lot to be said about interchangeable stropping materials that are the best available, mounted on a flat surface that stays where you put it and allows space enough for the hands to hold the edge tool as required. Our ‘Bench Strop’ provides all this.

Stropping is super easy! It is performed by dragging the bevel edge of the tool backward on the strop. We recommend preparing the edge tool with your finest stone prior to stropping. Never push the tool on the stropping surface or it will damage the strop! There is no need to press down hard, just register the steel against the strop fully with light pressure only and pull. There is no need for speed or rushing. The surface you choose loaded with the compound you prefer (or not) will do the work. This not only takes the honing of your tools beyond the range of many stones, but also can assure that the wire edge is fully removed from the bevel before returning to the work.

A few other benefits of the Bench Strop are that it’s a clean system at the bench. No water, no oil, no mess. It won’t freeze in the wintertime; it’s just the stropping surface and compound. It’s Dry! If the tool is feeling a little dull, harder to push, simply strop it! Sharpening is quick, easy and at hand!

We want to emphasize here, this kind of maintenance honing will prevent the need to completely rebuild edge tool sharpness. Regrinding will be kept to a minimum through stropping while woodworking.

Stropping chisels and carving gouges is easy. Take the tool to the strop directly. The fixturing capability and strop height above the bench allows you room to pivot skew chisels, carving gouges or contoured irons used in hollows and rounds ergonomically. Straight blade chisels from Butt to Paring length are easy, cranked necked and fish tail chisels are just as easy.

Bench Plane irons are removed from the plane, and If chip breakers are involved, no problem; simply leave them attached to the iron and strop the bevel side. Radiused irons are similarly no problem. Rock the iron from right side to left side alternatively as you pull it on the Bench Strop. Strop squared Irons for the shooting plane or smoother with the roller guide on if you prefer. There is no mess to clean up. Reassemble the iron set onto the frog, replace the lever cap, adjust the iron for backlash and depth and it is back to work. It’s fast, easy and the edge tool sharpness is maintained. You won’t miss grinding steel a bit if edges are kept sharp as you work.

As mentioned earlier, multiple ‘Strop Tops’ can be used on the ‘Strop Base’, allowing flexibility. Configure your stropping system to suit your steel’s needs. Use Horse Butt with different compounds, or Cowhide Split Suede with others. Mix and match. Damage a strop or wear it out? No worries, replacements are available and are quick change. Need more than one base to accommodate the way you work? Add a base. Want fancy or fancier? We deliver. Available woods for bases are Ash, Hard Maple, Cherry and Walnut.

“I like stropping a blade but not everyone does. If you polish with a very fine abrasive, say an 8000-grit stone, you’ll have an edge that’s hard to improve. But something about a gentle swipe on a green chrome-oxide-charged leather strop makes me feel like I’ve done all I can.”

Excerpted with permission, page 110 of the “The Perfect Edge”.
Ron Hock. Owner, Hock Tools, Author, “The Perfect Edge”.

“I cannot imagine working on the bench without my strop handy — right there on the bench, between paring or bench chisel cuts — I can renew the edge. The main benefit with my paring chisels, in my experience, is not taking an edge to a point of failure. If edge failure happens, I need to actually go through my sharpening regimen in order to continue having clean cuts.

The benefit for my other edge tools, such as my smoother, is that I can pop out a blade, strop it, and get back to work quickly and cleanly. With a strop, I can maintain a clean working bench, no water or oil to accidentally spoil the bench or my work.”

Mike Wenzloff, Owner, Wenzloff and Sons Sawmakers.

The strop is an invaluable tool to many woodworkers, aiding the ability to keep the workbench workflow agile and easy, and edge tools sharply working at peak efficiency. We think our ‘Bench Strop’ incorporates the best of all these strengths together into a tool that makes keeping edge tools sharp as easy as it can be.

The ‘Bench Strop’ is available for purchase now from the Evenfall Studios Woodworks Store. Please see the ‘Bench Strop’ Product Page for affordable pricing and configurability.

Happy Woodworking!

Our new Planing Stop is the jointer planes helper, engineered to be a complete planing stop, meant to be easy to set up and use. When you wanna plane, you wanna plane! When you are done planing, simply lower the screws and it’s flush to the bench top. Always ready.

Why would we want to use a planing stop?

The main reason to use a stop when planing is that it offers no cramp to the board. By cramp, I mean clamping the uncorrected board so that some of the wind and twist may become compressed. When you clamp a board that isn’t flat before you attempt to true it, you can flex the wood fibers against a natural wind and actually plane more problems into it than out.

This means that clamping boards between the end vise and bench dogs can make it harder to flatten a board if we wrench things into more wind than is already there, and that is all too easy to do. What works best is a stop to plane against and a few wedges under the board to keep it from rocking. This way the board is flattened while all it’s fibers are at rest.

Flatten the top, flip and thickness the other side flat to match. Once faces are flat, chuck in the vise and chase the edges. Then saw the ends to length and shoot. No need to worry about marks in the end grain from the stop because you’ll shoot the ends after. Of course if you are too late, this stop will work with a board between the stop and the work just as well.

The cool thing is that this design looks tough on the bench, and is tough on the bench because it eliminates the short grain breakage issues that are common with the sliding stops most commonly used.

Kari Hultman, from the Village Carpenter Blog outlines some of the limitations of traditional planing stop variations, Here. Our hope was to see if we could overcome them, and we think we have. The screws have excellent holding power, better than planing into a vice or a bench dog, and this offers variable width and height versatility.

What it is.

It’s a fixture that usually mounts on the left end of the bench nearest the edge the face vise is on. Of course if you’re using a left hand bench this would be opposite. It is always 12″ long 1-3/4 thick. Depth or width, depending on how you look at it is optional in three sizes. Small: 1-3/4, Medium: 2-3/4, or Large: 3-3/4 inches.

It mounts firmly with two or three 3 x 5/16th lag bolts, which are recessed flush into counterbores, and has a series of six 1/4-20 flat head cap screws spread over a 10 inch range in 2-1/2 inch intervals that have 82 degree countersink tops which can be quickly and easily raised and lowered to stop any board you would like to plane. Just mount the top of the stop on plane with the bench top or alternatively slightly below the bench top surface.

The tops and sides have a small chamfer on them, so there are no sharp edges where people will usually contact it. The bottom edge has a decorative cove cut into it to help dress up the stop and it’s appearance on the bench. We finish it with Teak Oil. Teak Oil is an amber finish that pops grain and it wears like iron.

We make these planing stops available in three different sizes and four different woods; Ash, (shown) Cherry, Hard Maple and Walnut.

How is it installed?

This is a pretty straightforward install. There are two to three 5/16 holes in these depending on the model. There are counterbores for the bolt heads so everything is recessed into the stop. Nothing protrudes from the fixture to catch on your clothes.

Layout for mounting is optional. As mentioned, the stop can be mounted on plane with the bench top, or slightly below to compensate for future bench flattenings. It can be positioned right on the corner or inset a bit, as based on personal preference.

Once it is positioned where you like, take one of the supplied lag bolts and use it to punch the center points for the 1/4 inch diameter mounting holes. Then drill the holes squarely to edge of the bench approximately 1-1/2 inches deep. If you need help squaring up this drill hole, our Medium Drill Squaring Guide works great for this.

Your favorite socket and ratchet fit right in the counterbore for a straightforward install. It goes on the left end of the bench and near the edge with the face vise. Simply drill two or three 1/4-inch holes (again, depending on the model) into the end of the bench about 1-1/2 inches deep and bolt it on.

How it works.

Lay your board up on the bench as you usually would, inspecting for twist and wind. Prepare to shim the board so it won’t rock as you flatten it.

You can choose any two or three of the flat head cap screws, which are spaced from 1-10 inches apart. Raise them between 1/8th to 3/16th above the bench top with the hex key that stows in its holder on the end of the stop.

Position the board against the stop and plane away, planing the high spots first and work your way down to flatness. The stop is tough, so push as you would with usual planing force. It can handle the pressures of planing. It is equally adept at working with both thick and thin stock because it doesn’t take much height for the stop to hold the work and the cap screws always remain below the plane iron. No damaged blades here!

Adjustments are quick and easy! Simply grab the hex key out of it’s keeper on the lower right side of the stop and use it to quickly raise a couple of the cap screws that seem appropriate for the width of the board and the stop is ready. We find 2-1/2 to 3 full turns on the screws is all that is needed for stopping any board.

It’s an affordably priced upgrade to any bench, that works great and offers planing versatility that a vice often can’t match when jointing and flattening is the task. Please see the Planing Stop product page in our Store to order.

Happy Woodworking!

During this same time, we have developed other jigs for helping take woodworkers further in other aspects of the craft. We listen to what woodworkers talk about when they discuss what they feel is difficult for them, or could be more efficient, and what they wished were easier.

Many woodworkers say they want to spend less time making jigs. Some say that they don’t have enough spare time, others don’t have the tools. We listened. Free time these days for most people is limited and precious, so when there is time for woodworking, most people want to maximize their outcomes making great cabinetry and furnishings.

One might wonder why we would develop tools over a period of time and not release them. It was a tough decision but a good one. It seemed odd to us to have a line of shooting boards and one widget. So we continued to develop more tools as time permitted. The original store on our website had no way to branch into categories, nor any shopping cart. Our clients had to email us to place an order and in all, it was neither a good showcase nor purchasing system. We had to upgrade it.

We developed the Evenfall Studios Woodworks Store into a new store with Shopping Cart Capabilities and Product Pages for every product. It’s easy to see, navigate, and place orders. It was exactly what we needed to showcase all the new categories in our product line. Our growing line of artisan made woodworking tools and jigs are designed to bring capability, ease and speed to the woodworker, helping them make their woodworking dreams happen, by making the most of the tooling they already have. So without further adieu…

First, we introduced the ‘Picture Frame Shooter’ late last year.

This shooting board is specialized for accurate flat mitering where a distinct profile will prohibit turning the work piece over to shoot angles for either direction. Twin Chutes right and left, two calibratable 45 degree fences for dead accurate miters, and a 90 degree fence which can be made either left or right-handed. These also have a detachable fence face for backing both short and tall materials and moldings. It is as accurate and versatile as we can make it.

Please see the ‘Picture Frame Shooter’ page for more details.

Second, we have developed the ’Lie-Nielsen 51 Chute Adapter Kit’.

The Lie-Nielsen 51 has been released and is a dedicated chute board plane. We checked into the nominal dimensions of the 51 and found that our Basic and Deluxe right hand model shooting boards can be adapted to create a ‘Chute’ in much the same way as the Stanley and upcoming LN 52 Chute Board has.

Our kit consists of two precision made rails, and stainless steel mounting hardware. The Rails are reversible; precision cut and drilled, flattened to 0.001 on each side for smooth glide, and are adjustable to compensate for manufacturing width differences. We provide two reversible rails, used one side at a time to compensate for wear which could occur over time. Store the spare for future use.

There are two ways to order. We can make this kit mount to your board with Stainless button head cap screws when you order. If you already own one of our ‘Basic’ or ‘Deluxe’ shooting boards and would like to upgrade, we can supply you to retrofit mount the rail kit similarly with machine screws, or with #10 wood screws depending on how you prefer.

If you need a very versatile and highly accurate chute style shooting board for your LN 51 shooting board plane, we have you covered.

Please see the ’Lie-Nielsen 51 Chute Adapter Kit’ page for more details.

Third, we developed the ‘Shooting Board Planing Stop’.

Safe ways of dimensioning thin stock and short stock are at a premium, and we believe hand planes are the king in this arena. As a bench hook goes, our shooting board is as strong as they come.

The shooting board planing stop was developed to help overcome the difficulties experienced when dimensioning short or thin stock. This is a 1/4-inch thick stop supplied with a pair of 1/4-20 flat head mounting screws. Simply remove the shooting board fence on any of our shooting board models and replace it with this stop. The mounting screws are countersunk and won’t interfere with your plane iron.

For dimensioning stock thinner than 1/4 inch, we recommend placing a piece of 1/8 hardboard on the shooting board base to lift the work up, allowing thicknessing from the 3/16th to 1/8th inch range.

Please see the ‘Shooting Board Planing Stop’ page for more details.

Fourth, we developed the ‘Bench End Planing Stop’.

We are really excited about this fixture! Traditionally, many woodworkers have fashioned a 3/4 – inch thick planing stop that bolts to the end of the bench, and raises into place when needed by sliding the stop up a pair of slots and tightening the mounting bolts. It works, but often fails because the slots create a weak, short grain situation in the stop that breaks due to forces applied from planing. This style of stop often looks less than attractive too, but the concept is handy, and convenient.

Our Planing Stop design approaches this challenge differently. It is a base made from 7/4 material that mounts to the end of the bench, with two to three lag bolts (depending on the model). It has a series of flat head cap screws that are spread over a set distance that can be raised as any pair, to match the width of most any board. They only need be raised a little to hold back even the largest boards. They work great on thin stock as well. You never need raise them higher than the thinnest stock, and your plane irons stay safe.

They come in three sizes and four different woods, offer higher strength, work well on both thick and thin stock and look great! The hex key adjuster stows right in the end of the fixture.

Please see the ‘Bench End Planing Stop’ page for more details.

Fifth we would like to introduce the ‘Rasping Fixture’.

The Rasping Fixture is a bench fixture that is meant to help fixture the work being shaped with rasps and files, improve ergonomics for this process, and protect the bench from damage.

It is simple to use. Just slip it over the left front corner on the bench (if you are right handed) and either clamp it in place or use a hold fast. It extends out past the edge and end of the bench.

Once in place, simply lay the object you wish to rasp over the semicircular cut out in the corner of the fixture. Gravity and finger pressure will hold the work, and then go to shaping. The angle is wonderful for the wrist and arm, and there are a lot of areas one can reach easily from this position.

The other important thing about the Rasping Fixture is that it protects the bench from slips that can cause damage. There are cleats under the edge and end of the fixture that not only help to locate it, but also protect the bench from damage. It is a wonderful accessory, particularly if you want to do work on saw handles, cabriole legs, or other work with compound curves.

Please see the ‘Rasping Fixture’ page for more details.

Sixth, we developed the ‘Disc Sander Shooter’.

The Disc Sander Shooter is a precision angle jig meant to be fitted to the tilt table of the 12 inch disc sander, enabling the sander to work 90’s 45’s and the 22.5 angles to both the right and left of center.

It allows non-square objects to lay on their flat side and be sanded on either side of 90 degrees. We increased the size of the table and the jig is calibrated with plastic drafting squares. Tilt the table down to whatever angle you need for creating compound angles.

The base measures 8 x 20 x 3/4 inches and is fixtured to the table with a miter bar and thumbscrew. It can be slid back and forth to distribute wear across the sanding disc. Like our shooting boards, all the fence mounting points are steel threaded, the fence faces are flattened to 0.001, and the thumbscrews, all three, are from Stainless and Brass.

Please see the ‘Disc Sander Shooter’ page for more details.

Seventh, We developed another jig for the 12 inch disc sander. The ‘Speedlathe’.

A lathe for a disc sander? Well yes, sort of. It is an old Patternmaker’s jig. I have spoken to several of the old patternmakers and they all agree this jig is something they all made and used the heck out of. Some of them referred to it as the Speedlathe.

What it does is make perfect circles on a disc sander. Yes a circle maker. Our speed lathe has 32, 3/16 diameter radius positions and a fine adjust lead screw that can make circles from 5/8ths to 16-5/8th in diameter.

Overall size is 8 x 17 and is also mounted in the miter slot for a pivot point. It is the fastest circle maker I have ever seen. Once you have the circles, you can use them for wheels, custom curve layout, router jigs, or wherever your imagination takes you.

Please see the ‘Speedlathe’ page for more details.

Items eight through eleven are all a series of drilling guides targeted at drilling squarely, when there is no drill press or one isn’t an option.

Often times drilling a hole that is square to the work is important. But many times the hole is located where a drill press wouldn’t help, or we need to be a bit quicker with the task than a drill press would allow. Other times there is just no easy way to jig up.

Sure, there are jigs that help us drill dowel holes, and there are jigs we can mount to a drill, but they are not always the answer either. Our drilling jigs are designed to accommodate the situation where a hole drilled squarely and quickly is needed and most of these jigs will work with either egg beater drills, braces, or hand drills.

Number Eight, The ‘Dog Hole Square Drilling Guide’.

Designed for auger bits, this is two inches of squarely drilled guide that can get the auger started properly. It comes with a nine-inch tang so you can fixture it while drilling. Bench dogs come with a sloped face, so the hole needs be drilled straight for best results. This jig is the squaring device hitting the mark with your brace.

Please see the ‘Dog Hole Square Drilling Guide’ page for more details.

Number Nine, The ‘Forstner Bit Square Drilling Guide’.

For all the same reasons we’ve gone over, even Forstner bits need help getting started squarely. The odd shape of the shanks and their many diameters make guiding these bits a challenge. Fortunately this odd looking jig will trap the bit’s shaft on three side to help keep it square and steady your hand. Accommodates Forstners to 2-1/4 in Diameter.

Please see the ‘Forstner Bit Square Drilling Guide’ page for more details.

Number Ten, The ‘Medium Drill Squaring Guide’.

This guide is targeted at twist drills and brad points, providing 3/4 of an inch of squarely drilled guide that help the bits off to a square start. You can remove the guide quickly once a square hole is started to aid drilling a deeper hole.

This jig is shown as a prototype in Baltic Birch, but will be supplied in Aluminum. The five hole sizes are 1/4, 5/16, 3/8, 7/16, and 1/2.

Please see the ‘Medium Drill Squaring Guide’ page for more details.

And Finally Eleventh, the ‘Screw Pre-drill Squaring Guide’.

This guide is targeted at twist drills and the bits that came with Egg Beater Drills, and is primarily meant for pre-drilling holes for woodscrews, but there are many other adaptable uses. This jig provides 3/4 of an inch of squarely drilled guide that help the bits off to a square start. You can remove the guide quickly once a square hole is started to aid drilling a deeper hole.

This jig is shown as a prototype in Baltic Birch, but will be supplied in Aluminum. The eleven hole sizes run from 5/64 – 15/64 inch, in 1/64th inch diameter increments.

Please see the ‘Screw Pre-drill Squaring Guide’ page for more details.

That’s what’s new for now, but rest assured there are more ideas in the queue that we hope to be able to release in the near future.

Please feel free to go and have a look around in the new store on our website, and see if there isn’t something in there that might be useful to helping you woodwork better and easier!

Happy Woodworking!

Working with picture frames and moldings in general presents a special set of circumstances when mitering. Often, the bottom and back of the molding are the only surfaces that can be registered flat and square, and so they have to be the ones used when registering them against fences for cutting and shooting.

So it goes that if you can only orient a molding one way, which is on it’s back, a single chute shooting board will only be able to shoot half of the miter. The right hand board will only shoot the left side of the miter, and the left chute will only shoot the right side. A problem if you only have one chute. There are workarounds, but ehhh… They are often rife with as many problems as they hope to solve.

Enter our newest shooting board, the ‘Picture Frame Shooter’. A shooting board with twin chutes, independent, calibratable left and right hand 45-degree miter fences, with tall, removable fence faces to prevent breakout to the top of most plane blades.

Not all moldings are tall, so both the fence base and fence face are flattened to 0.001 when we make them. If the high fence face is in the way for a low molding or workpiece, simply remove it, as it is just held in place by two 1/4-20 flat head cap screws, and use the base for low moldings. The base is the same basic fence we use for the Standard Fence on our other shooting boards. You can remove and replace the fence face as you need.

Baltic Birch Construction. Solid, Hefty, Stable. The best material we can obtain for shooting boards, and hearty in any environment. We figure if old woodies are still alive and kicking after 100 plus years, our shooting boards should enjoy a good run as well. We build them to last. Like any fine tool, this one is precision and will appreciate being kept safe and dry when not in use.

Twin chutes, 2-3/4 inches wide by 14-3/4 inches long. Complete with dust grooves and will accommodate any plane, same as our other shooting boards.

A roomy board lift to place your moldings for shooting.

Individual, and fully calibratable 45-degree left and right fences, offering 5-1/4 inches of molding registration and breakout protection nearly 1-3/4 inches high.

A 90-degree fence, 11-3/4 inches long for right angle work like our Deluxe Shooters, and this fence can be made right or left handed depending on your preference for no additional cost.

Fence faces and bases flattened on a granite surface plate to 0.001.

Stainless Steel and Brass custom made thumbscrews to add durability and corrosion resistance. These mount into steel threads.

The same fence angle calibration system employed on all our shooting boards, which will transfer the accuracy of your finest layout tools to this board as well. We recommend plastic drafting squares. An 8-inch drafting square can be had for less than $5.00 in any office supply, however, if you like Starrett accuracy, these boards can work with that as well.

We recommend that you calibrate before each use for total shooting accuracy. No test shots, no shimming and taping or bumping and fudging. Just calibrate and shoot your miters with confidence.

The rest of the details on the new ‘Shooter’ borrow heavily from it’s older brothers, and you are welcome to have a look at the Features and Specifications page for more details.

As always, the boards are finished to 150 grit smoothness, and offer plenty of traction for the work. The chutes are made square to the work and polished to 400 grit.

Then the boards and fences are given a saturation of Watco Teak Oil, which we have found to offer stove bolt protection in tough conditions, and is easily field repairable should the need ever arise.

Finally the chutes are waxed with paste wax and buffed. The wax is as easy to renew as it is to wax your planes. We find that this is as slick as UHMW and far squarer to the work, because there are no screws to deflect a slick plastic material. We feel it is the accuracy that is wanted most, and the final result in your project is what really matters.

Make no mistake about this board. It is a pure shooting board, every bit as capable as our ‘Basic Shooter’ and then some. It is not sole and only for moldings, You can shoot any rectangular dimensional board.

The ‘Picture Frame Shooter’ is also equipped to address most any board that has a distinct front and back like moldings do. The 90 degree fence is similar, flattened to .001 on both the base and face, both 45 degree fences are treated the same. The big difference is only that when a board has a non flat front, the miters must be addressed from either side.

It’s a fully tricked out workhorse and ready for service whether you build picture frames commercially, or enjoy doing them for yourself, friends and family. If you are looking for high accuracy and durability for fine framing or 45-degree miters of any kind, this is the ultimate shooting board.

If you are interested in a ‘Picture Frame Shooter’, we are taking orders for this and all our products. Please visit the ‘Picture Frame Shooter’ product page, and have a look at the rest of our tooling in the Evenfall Studios Woodworks Store.

As always, your questions and comments are always welcome. Contact Us.

Happy Woodworking!

Dick wrote that what he had accomplished was good enough for “rural work” but in reality, he was a very talented user of hand operated tooling, and knew what he could accomplish with the woods he had access to and the kind of durability he needed from them. Rural work did not mean he quit refining the quality of his workmanship, it meant he built the way he did so as to provide utility, endure hard use and inclement seasonal conditions.

Colonial Williamsburg Photo

Hand tools are also very highly regarded as the go to tools for fine work. Work on pieces where tolerances are exacting, or the sizes of the pieces are so small or thin where powered tooling would make it difficult to work safely or accurately.

The biggest misgivings that people who don’t use hand tools have when I have spoken with them about them have been based in what they are unsure about. Not knowing what a tool will do, how to maintain sharpness, and how difficult the application of the tool to the task will be. In other words, to some, hand tools are either Greek to them, or they seem too hard. The philosophy of “seem” is different than the philosophy of “is”.

Colonial Williamsburg Photo

Other times it’s a production issue, but unless we have commercial obligations, most woodworkers are not having production issues. Most woodworkers have the shop machines they need to handle all the heavy lifting, and for the most part are usually not in a production environment. Never the less, some hand tools are quite productive, and are in some cases the only way to do certain things. Those who eschew machinery, are not concerned with any production issue. I know a few furniture makers who are asked on occasion to build commissioned pieces with hand tools only.

Colonial Williamsburg Photo

Sometimes we are afraid to try something we are unfamiliar with, or dismiss something because we don’t know much about it. On the other hand, nothing ventured, nothing gained, and it never hurts to try. I am saying, try them, you will be pleasantly surprised what they can do! They are much easier to work with than you might have imagined.

Colonial Williamsburg Photo

Epiphanies often happen for woodworkers who are new to using hand planes when surface qualities that compare to 600-grit sandpaper smoothness happen in one swipe of a plane blade. Better still, the wood is not burnished and will take stains and dyes really well. Other times the ease of using a hand tool shines when a task is accomplished without noise, projectile sawdust, or without complex jigging and fixturing. It is even more impressive when it happens with great ease and in less time than you thought it would. Hand tools offer a lot of premium advantages to woodworkers if they try to learn their ways.

Colonial Williamsburg Photo

Woodworking is an evolved tradecraft that can trace it’s linage to the use of hand tools. While machines have taken the place of hand tools for many mundane and laborious tasks today, there are still many places where hand tools can shine, and even do the best work possible. We are making a bunch of parts and sub assemblies, then putting them together; we can create them any way we like. Layout for what you want to make, and remove all the material that doesn’t belong to what you are making. Depending on the task, often the hand tool makes an outcome as easy as drawing or pointing. When you look deeply into certain tasks, hand tools offer the most direct way.

Colonial Williamsburg Photo

In 1976, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation produced a documentary about how musical instrument making was done in colonial times. It featured the use of hand tools in a cabinetmaker’s shop of the era. It is about the making of a spinet harpsichord and a violin. There are a large number of hand tools, even some very specialized tools used, different timbers and materials used, and woodworking techniques described in the movie.

This video is just a taste, Video 1 of 6. If you navigate to the following six links, you can watch The Musical Instrument Maker of Williamsburg in it’s entirety on YouTube.

Video 1 of 6

Video 2 of 6

Video 3 of 6

Video 4 of 6

Video 5 of 6

Video 6 of 6

Many woodworkers may not be interested in making musical instruments and that is fine, but the film will show many different techniques which can be employed to do very fine woodwork with hand tools. Nearly any of these techniques are transferrable to any project where hand tools are used to accomplish the work. Are there skills you wish you had? Are there techniques you would like to employ on the work you do? This documentary may offer the right inspiration.

Colonial Williamsburg Photo

Some of the tools and techniques shown and described in the documentary are:

• Wood bending, using both boiling and steaming methods.

• Properties of various wood species and how reading these variable properties for specific purposes is important.

• Many applications for gluing using hot hide glue.

• Special fixtures for work holding during sawing with fret and coping saws.

• Fixturing for chiseling and carving processes.

• Special techniques for clamping odd shaped items with various forms of joinery.

Colonial Williamsburg Photo

• Techniques for clamping curved work.

• Techniques for clamping and molding woods to the contour of shaped forms.

• Techniques for clamping with various shaped cauls.

• Techniques for clamping with go bars. (A wooden bar that fits between the work and the ceiling to provide clamping pressure.)

• Techniques for clamping with string.

• Special fixturing for gluing curved work.

• Layout techniques for various styles of joinery as well as for use with curved work.

Colonial Williamsburg Photo

• Sawing veneers by hand.

• Planing with toothing planes to avoid tear out to the wood fibers.

• Planing with violinmaker’s planes for thicknessing and finishing tight areas and creating special contours and radiuses.

• Paring and carving operations with chisels and gouges utilizing many different approaches and techniques.

• Methods for sawing, filing and gluing with ivory.

• Many different views of various scraping scenarios throughout.

• Curved purfling inlay work with ebony and holly.

Colonial Williamsburg Photo

• Router plane usage for fixed depth work.

• Shaving curved and straight work with drawknives and spokeshaves.

• Sawing and chamfering the finished edges of holes.

• Layout and planing for fitment to contoured surfaces.

• Marquetry, the lay out, sawing of multiple colors at once, scorching for color toning, and fitment as an inlay.

• Finishing with shellacs, varnishes and polishing out with rottenstone.

• Layout for drilling with awls and various styles of bits, the reaming of holes for proper sizing, and finished edges with chamfers.

Some other things that the film exposes us to, are how different materials are chosen for the specific qualities they have. Strength, appearance and sonic resonance are a few qualities that make the wood adequate for use when none of the other qualities are required.

Colonial Williamsburg Photo

Of note in the film were the many ways the craftsmen fixtured the various forms of work, so as to be able to work with tools safely, ergonomically and accurately. The sharpness of their tooling made the work look as though it was effortless. In reality, it is as easy as it looks if tooling is sharp. Sharp tooling does make the work happen with a lot less effort than one might imagine, and achieving high levels of sharpness on hand tooling is not hard to learn to accomplish.

Colonial Williamsburg Photo

Many of us learn by seeing things done, and it helps to have an explanation as we watch. My hopes are that seeing this documentary sparks interest and imagination. Perhaps it will show a path to finer woodworking to those looking for a way. This documentary helps outline many ways we can utilize hand tools, jigs and fixtures to aid in accomplishing fine workmanship that would be otherwise very difficult to do with power tools and shop machines. Have a look at each of the six videos and see if it doesn’t reveal a trick or two of the versatility hand tools can offer!

Happy Woodworking!

Richard L. Proenneke Photo

For most of us, this was our introduction to Dick, and his life. It is one of the only films ever made that shows the process of making a cabin in the wilderness, using only hand tools. It is a real gift.

Dick was a man whose life took him to a lot of places and exposed him to a lot of things, and those things may have been instrumental in helping shape his abilities for life in the wilderness. Born and raised in Iowa, he joined the US Navy and was a Navy carpenter, a rancher, diesel mechanic and heavy equipment operator.

He originally went to Alaska to start a cattle ranch, and wound up commercial salmon fishing and working as a mechanic. He spent the final years of his working career in and around Kodiak Alaska at the naval base there, until a work accident nearly cost him his eyesight. His life in the ranching business probably helped him understand nature and wildlife on an intuitive level, and his life as a carpenter and mechanic probably prepared him with the self-sufficiency needed for the next phase of his life. He retired at age 51 to Twin Lakes, living as a naturalist, nature cinematographer, and scientific observer in the remote Alaska wilderness.

In 1962, Dick made his first trip to Twin Lakes Alaska, part of what is now Lake Clark National Park, and lies 40 miles North of Lake Clark, 100 miles West of Kenai and about 350 miles West of Anchorage. This area is full on bush country, and only accessible by floatplane in summer, ski plane in winter.

He was originally introduced to the Twin Lakes area, by friends he made while working at the Navy Base at Kodiak. A retired Navy Captain and his wife, Spike and Hope Caruthers, who had a cabin there, invited Dick to the area, and loaned him the use of their cabin. Dick in turn loaned the use of a camper he had to the Caruthers in the Kodiak Area.

Dick set out to live in a way similar to Henry David Thoreau, as he had written about in “Walden” as a test of his personal life and values. During July 1967, Dick spent time harvesting logs At Twin Lakes, from a small stand of spruce near Spike’s cabin, and on May 21, 1968, he returned to Twin Lakes to build his own cabin, where he remained for the next 16 months. He may not have known at the time, but that first stay would evolve into where he would live for the next 31 years. It began as a test to see what he was made of, and became his home.

He lived in Twin Lakes, off savings from his retirement, from payments received for meteorological and wildlife research, photography he did for the National Park Service, and from showings of the film footage he shot in and around the area.

In 1999, Dick returned to the States to live with his brother in Southern California, Returning only once for a short visit during the summer of 2000, to dedicate his Cabin to the National Parks Service. The cabin is now maintained in the state Dick left it, as a historical site and museum.

Among the many things Dick was, he was a very talented woodsman and woodworker. The first forty minutes of the largely autobiographical video “Alone in the Wilderness” depict him building his cabin from the spruce logs he felled the year before. The video is also interspersed with shots of him doing the other things that make up his life at Twin Lakes.

Let’s have a look at Dick and the tools he brought with him to Twin Lakes, as he builds his cabin, furnishings and living accessories. For many, this is an excellent opportunity to see a trained carpenter from the old school, go about his work with hand tools, and without drawings. Knowing what he wants to do, seeing it in his minds eye, using his skills and developing the materials available right there at his cabin site.

This video is just a taste of the first movie in a series of three, Alone in the Wilderness. If you navigate to the following links, you can watch excerpts of Alone in the Wilderness, Alaska Silence and Solitude and The Frozen North on YouTube.

Alone in the Wilderness

Alaska Silence and Solitude

The Frozen North

Only the first video, “Alone in the Wilderness” depicts Dick doing any woodworking, but I highly recommend watching all three, or even purchasing the videos from DickProenneke.com. If you are like me, you’ll watch them many times.

One of the first things you’ll notice is that Dick has to prepare the cabin site. He clears the brush and lays down a gravel base that he hauls from the lake. Next, he hauls the logs one by one from where he has them stacked to the cabin site. How does he do it? Look closely, he isn’t just dragging them on the ground. He has logs laying crossways in the trail. Dick fashioned an old school skid road.

Among the tools he brought in to build the cabin as well as for survival was a 36 to 40 inch one man tree saw, with teeth filed for softwoods which were predominant in the area, a metal frame style tree saw, a double bladed axe and a hatchet. He has a splitting maul for firewood as well. There is also a shot of him filing an adze, an adze that he was also shown to use like a light sledgehammer when building sawhorses. He uses a drawknife for debarking, flattening and shaping his logs, poles and rough lumber.

Something worth noting about Dick’s axe. He chokes up on the handle often to shave shape and carve. He relies on it for a lot of tasks. He even uses it while hunting. It is hard to see his axe in any shot when it is not in motion, but if you are used to seeing what a good axe looks like, the area near the blade has been filed down to a thinner profile.

Richard L. Proenneke Photo

I am originally from logging country in the Pacific Northwest. We know that many new axes will chop nearly as well as a sledgehammer. The cutting edge is simply too blunt, and when swung, the axe bounces off the tree better than it cuts. You would think it dull, but no. Its cutting edge is just too blunt, and the axe can’t penetrate into the wood fibers to cut cross grain.

What was often done to a new axe by their new owners, was to file or grind that area just behind the edge down some and use a shallower bevel angle on the edge. If you relieve this shoulder a bit, the axe will cut into the wood and not bounce off the wood as you chop. It also makes the blade a lot more versatile as we can see from Dick’s skill with it. This is physical work. Dick knew he needed his tools to work for and with him.

It appears he has at least four handsaws. One is a ripsaw, which he used to resaw logs into planks. He claimed he could rip a log 5 inches in diameter by 42 inches long in 15 minutes. That is not a bad pace when you have a lot of ripping to do, so it was likely in the 4-6 ppi range. There is a shot of it leaning against the planks he had cut. It looked like a 26” Disston D-8.

Dick commonly used both hands on his saw when it was stable to do so, but I couldn’t see a thumbhole on this saw. In the places we see dick cross cut, the saw looks like a D-8 also, but it doesn’t look discernibly different than the crosscut while viewing on the fly. If I am wrong about two D8’s then Dick is using his Rip Saw for some of his crosscuts, and this is doable. He likely dressed most all his sawn edges with his planes anyway.

There was a short cross cut saw, a short panel saw, with no back that looked to be approximately12 inches long, and with what looks like an aluminum handle, as a well as a keyhole saw, used to saw the elaborate latch and lock he made for his Dutch door. It was also likely used to saw out the crescent on the outhouse door as well as make the wooden spoons he carved.

His edge tools appear to include at least a framing slick and gouge, a, block plane and a number 4 Stanley smoother He made many of the handles for tools that needed them from spruce on site, such as the handles for his framing chisels. He likely had more chisels and gouges than just one of each in his kit; likely some of the bench chisel style variety.

There was also what was called a “thin bladed wide chisel” he was shown using to split logs to make boards from for framing windows and doors. It did not appear to have a wooden handle. He struck it with his claw hammer. Something similar to this chisel was seen fitted later with a long wooden handle for chiseling holes in the lake ice for fresh water during the freeze. He had what looked like a wide-bladed, small cold chisel like chisel, likely a brick set, which he used to tack Oakum Moss between the logs while insulating the cabin

His sharpening tools appear to include files, which while not shown would have to include saw files, perhaps a Lansky puck of Carborundum, which he used on his axe, hatchet and drawknife, and likely some other Carborundum stones, which were popular for sharpening in that era.

His drilling tools appear to include a brace, but all we ever see is the collet of that brace while he is drilling handles he made on site for his large augers. It is likely he has a number of bits for his brace, and the large augers we see him use in the timber framing, He likely made the handles for his large augers for a couple reasons. In addition to the leverage he gains, they negate the need for additional braces with different sweeps.

Richard L. Proenneke Photo

His striking tools appear to include a large framing claw hammer, a smaller claw hammer in the 16 ounce range that he used to tack the tarpaper and visqueen on his roof. He made a large wooden mallet carved from spruce. There is also a Crowbar available to him up there, often used for un-boarding boarded up windows for weatherization in winter.

Layout tools include a one-foot combination square, a folding ruler, a tape measure, a chalk line, what was likely a 24 inch level, a pair of dividers and carpenter pencils.

Dick made wooden hinges sawn from seasoned spruce stumps, and made dowel like pins for various joinery needs. He applied glue with a brush in some of these joinery applications. It is hard to say which glues, but they were used outdoors as well as in. In other cases he fashioned round mortises, where a tapered pin went into a hole, much like what was used traditionally in Windsor chairs, but I never saw any tooling that would taper a hole. My guess is that Dick shaved the pins with a drawknife and or whittled them so there would be a friction fit.

Richard L. Proenneke Photo

He made many accessories for living from tin gas cans, so there was likely a pair of tin snips or two but we never see them. There was at least one pair of vise grips and perhaps a pair of pliers. He made baking pans for his beloved sourdough, the starter that he got from Mary Alsworth, Babe Alsworth, his friend and bush pilot’s wife. He made wash basins, other tools for the kitchen. Carrying pans, tin totes and trays, for packing sand, gravel, cement mortar and stones. He made a pail with bail for carrying water from the lake, and covered storage for dry goods.

Dick even made hinges for various doors from these tin cans and nails. From the looks of other metal work for the stove and pipes, as well as flashing and 55 gallon drum usage, he likely had a hacksaw as well. For those without a cutting torch, a cold chisel will take the top off a 55-gallon drum too.

There was also a round point shovel, which he used for gardening and cutting moss for his roof. A hoe he used for mixing mortar for his fireplace and a pointing trowel for cementing the rockwork on the fireplace.

Amongst the tools Dick made were saw horses, a planing horse, which like a Japanese planing beam, had a stop on one end he could plane against. He made a number of different ladders. The spruce mallet, the handles for his augers and framing chisel and gouge. There was also the pack frame for carrying his moss for the roof, which I suspect may have later became the lid to his underground root cellar.

He also made jigs to help make things. The frame he built around the tin box he used to carry mortar and rocks. He made support forms for his rock fireplace chimney and a support form for building its arch. The snow shovel was cut from a 55-gallon barrel, and the bottom of a 55-gallon barrel was used for his cement mixer. He had a shop storage area adjacent to the outhouse where he kept dry wood and his tooling as well.

He made his furnishings. A bunk bed, dining/writing table, chair(s) and benches. He had seating inside and out. He made a couple tables and a carved a bowl from a burl he sawed off a tree. A wall mounted paper towel holder, cabinet next to his bed, various shelves for his dishes, utensils and cooking spices. A kitchen counter appears to have been made from 3-4 planks. He hung his cast iron frying pans on the wall or stored them in an animal proof cache he built outdoors. Even had the use of a cutting board, but did he bring that in? He likely made his snowshoes.

Unfortunately the videos never show all the tools he was seen to use all at once. The logistics of doing this, even as minimally as it was, was something that required a lot of thought and planning. Dick clearly had done his thinking and knew what was needed to use with what was at hand in the Alaska bush country. He had a good friend in Babe Alsworth, helping to fly in the things he needed. Dick was a resourceful man who knew his way around tools and how to use them productively to get what he needed made under a very tight schedule. The Alaskan spring, summer and fall passes by in a very short five months.

What is a self-sufficient craftsman? Fine craftsmanship does not have to be French polish. Is what Dick made rustic? Sure, but it is as durable as the land and stood the test of daily use over 30 years in unforgiving country. If you were wondering what tooling you really must have in your kit, if there is to be nothing other than human power, now you have a good idea.

Richard L. Proenneke Photo

Know that even though there is power from gas and electricity, these tools and skills can still be of great help to us. If you were wondering what skills you need to develop to use them, this too is a good overview. If you need help learning to use tools, and gaining knowledge for building with them, there are many, many titles in the Woodworks Library, which will help address this. Please feel free to go in and have a look around. If you have further questions about these tools and skills, you can also contact me.

If you are interested in some of this tooling, there are some links to many great new and used tool vendors on my Woodworks Tool Source Links page. For some of the specialized timber framing tools, two vendors come to mind. Caribou Blades is a maker of many fine tools for building and surviving in Bush country, and they are truely bush tools, made off grid in the remote bush country of British Columbia, Canada. Scott and Aki have been living this way since 1997. They have been doing “green” since before it became cool. Their tooling is primarily made in the same way Dick made things, from recovered steel, and local woods. Probably the greenest way to go if that appeals to you, and you support people who like Dick did, are living a simplified life, off the grid in a green way. Alternatively, Barr Quarton of Barr Tools also forges up a fine line of timber framing and woodworking tools in Northern Idaho. Both are highly recommended.

The three documentaries about Dick Proenneke and his life are available for purchase from Bob Swerer, the producer of the videos at www.dickproenneke.com They are all wonderfully produced, well narrated and well worth a watch. There are two books, “One Man’s Wilderness”, which is available from Amazon, and “More readings from One Man’s Wilderness”, that is either available from Amazon, or as a pdf download from the National Park Service, Here.

I understand there may be a third book in production from Dick’s journals that will fill the gap between the One Man’s Wilderness of 1968-69 and 1974-1980 where “More Readings” takes over.

Finally for video to go out on, there is a 15-minute clip that depicts Dick in his twilight, in 2000 when he returned to Twin Lakes to dedicate his homestead to the National Park Service.

I hope you enjoy these videos and woodworking insights from Dick, to the world.

“Too many men work on parts of things. Doing a job to completion satisfies me”.
Dick Proenneke

Happy Woodworking!

As many woodworkers have learned, shooting boards are one of the magical epiphanies of woodworking, along with sharpening, planing, good layout tools and good technique! I have been amazed with them ever since my granddad showed me how to use his when I was a kid. After all these years, they are still really cool! Many woodworkers have learned that I take no shortcuts when I make shooting boards, I pay attention to every detail. Every board I make must live up to the rigors of quality woodworking, delivering high craftsmanship, to any woodworker, using any plane. It’s built to last.

There will be two vendors, both Infill Plane Makers exhibiting in the WIA marketplace, who will be using Evenfall Studios ‘Deluxe Shooters’ under their infill miters.

Daed Toolworks Photo

Raney Nelson of Daed Toolworks, an Infill Plane Maker from New Jersey, will be exhibiting his infill planes along with Matt Bickford of M.S. Bickford, maker of 18th Century British Molding Planes. This will be Raney’s and Matt’s first WIA conference as vendors, and I wish them both the very best of success.

Raney has been using my ‘Deluxe Shooter’ shooting board in the manufacture of infills as well as other woodworking projects for a long time now. He will be bringing his “Deluxe Shooter” along to demo his miter planes on.

Raney is a huge advocate of shooting boards and has made some very specialized boards for various projects he has built. As such, in his infill making, it has been important for him to flesh out some important infill miter designs. Please feel free to ask Raney any shooting board questions you may have.

Marcou Photo

Phillip Marcou of Marcou Planes, an Infill Planemaker from New Zealand will be coming to WIA to exhibit his planes with Fred West. Phillip has been an Infill plane maker for many years now, and this will be his first trip to WIA.

Many people already know Fred West as one of the Admin Staff over at talkFestool, a woodworking forum for Festool users and including, believe it or not, Hand Tools! Fred is a very enthusiastic woodworker and supporter of many toolmakers. He is a great guy, and we all thank him for helping to get Phillip to WIA this year! Fred will be bringing his Evenfall Studios ‘Deluxe Shooter’ along to demonstrate the Marcou M12 Mitre Plane.

All of these guys are absolutely great people and are very happy to let anyone try out anything they like including the Shooting Boards. Please feel free to ask them any questions you may have!

I also want to thank Ron Brese of Brese Plane, and Jameel Abraham of Benchcrafted for their support of my Shooting Boards at many past woodworking events. Both Ron and Jameel have used my Shooting Board extensively and I am sure if you ask them, they would also be more than happy to field any questions about them that you may have. Unfortunately this year, Ron was unable to get one of his great Shooting Board Planes ready for exhibit in time for WIA this year, but he will have some amazing new Stainless Steel Planes along that you’ll want to check out!

Jameel will be exhibiting two of the finest woodworking vises ever devised, as well as plans for Roubo style Benches. Jameel’s must-see this year is the new “Shaker Bench”, a collaborative design that Ron and Jameel worked up earlier this year. Photos are on Jameel’s Benchcrafted blog. Jameel tells me that complete plans and scale drawings for making this new Shaker bench are forthcoming, but will not be ready for WIA. Be sure to ask him to get on the list for plans to this breathtakingly awesome bench!

For those who want to do a little more homework on my shooting boards, the Features and Specifications page will flesh out a lot of the details that explain my passion for high quality, longevity, and high accuracy. You can read what Chris Schwarz had to say when he took a ‘Deluxe Shooter’ for a test drive. If you like, my current line up complete with pricing and links to detailed descriptions of each item is available in the Woodworks Store.

Please feel free to Contact Me if you have any questions at all about my Shooting Boards and Accessories, or if you would like to buy one and need a quote for purchase. If you are reading this after the date of the event, It is never too late to place an order, 24/7-365. I’d be happy to get a quote to you and make you a shooting board. For those of you going to WIA, have a great time! For those unable to attend, you can still make any weekend a skill building weekend. Check out a few books in the Evenfall Studios Woodworks Library.

Happy Woodworking!

Have you been combing eBay in hopes of finding vintage sets or individual planes of the Hollows and Rounds variety? I’m happy to help get the word out that there is a new plane maker on the scene that may be able to help.

Matt Bickford Photo.

In recent times the desire for these planes has increased dramatically, and the availability of them is scarce. The plane makers who currently offer them have backlogs I’ve read that are over two years long.

Matt Bickford Photo.

Enter Matt Bickford. Matt was recently asked what his focus was on and he said:
“I’m focusing on molding planes: hollows/rounds, snipes bills, I make rabbets like that pictured too. Basically, I make those non-bench planes listed in Builders Dictionary published in the early 1700’s less the plow. I can certainly make specific profiles if you want something out of Chippendale’s Director.

Is there something specific for which you are looking? Please let me know.”

Matt Bickford

The photos tell the tale. Welcome Matt to toolmaking! If there is something specific in this line of tooling for which you are looking, please do let Matt know!

Contact Matt, Place your order.

Thanks for looking, Happy Woodworking!

Walt’s place is Brass City Records and Tools. Those who know Walt know that he is known to drop into a tool forum with a song lyric that doubles as a riddle that somehow describes his latest tool prowl. Please click here for one of Walt’s riddle answers. Walt’s posts are always a great time and he is great to trade with! So as usual, I like to make a habit of going over to his site to look around, because it is always changing. Me? I am usually late to the party but eh… you know how it goes. His site changes a lot as some of you know. Early birds get the worm, fair is fair. Walt knows this and it works that way to shop with Walt too.

Well anyway, Walt’s haunts are the flea markets of New England, where many a tool he finds are straight out of the heart of where the industrial revolution took place. He is also centrally located near where many of these tools were originally made. These are the tools that helped bring that revolution, and are now sought after by many of us who don’t want those tools to become just another historical footnote. (Thanks Walt)

It happens that Walt has a cool link on his site that points to Pat Leach’s (of Superior Works fame) supertool.com site, that I have looked at many times over the years. While we all seem to discuss tool cabinets around at various forums on the net pretty frequently, I don’t recall seeing anyone really discussing this one for a pretty long time. It is worth a visit, or for some of us, a re-visit.

Photo Courtesy Pat Leach

It is C.A Jewett’s Patternmaking Chest. It is worthy of discussion and so let’s, shall we? The article at Pat’s site is well worth the read. Please follow that link to see all the great photos Pat took of the various attributes of the chest. We are really lucky Pat found this chest, and I feel it is really important to us, particularly since patternmaking is becoming a lost art and trade, and what’s more, artisan craftspeople are in search of tool storage that really works.

Pat is a very anecdotal writer who brings you around to his side of the table when telling a story. I can’t help but agree with his enthusiasm for this chest. If you really look deeply at this chest, you see the beauty, maybe not in the look, but the functionality. Jewett’s design is no display case, and it is quite full. When it comes to working well, I feel this design brings it.

I’m not taking away from H.O. Studley, who’s tool chest set’s the benchmark for craftsmanship, is likely the prettiest piece of work of it’s kind and important to us because of the period it helps us date craftsman’s tools to. For my taste, and this is just my personal position, which is not to say I dislike the Studley chest, but as a working tool in itself, it seems too ornate and too crammed to have a workflow I can get my mind around. I can’t speak for others, but I personally would not want to try and work from a chest of the Studley design.

The Studley is a gorgeous chest, which utilizes every nook and cranny almost too well. So well that too many tools would need to be moved to access many other tools with ease. It is ok to disagree with me on this, but remember it is just my point of view, coming from the want for easy workflow. Alternatively, The Jewett chest is a variant that houses a lot of tools, but without being as ornate, and does so with real functionality. From the looks of the wear on this chest, it was a working tool itself.

For C.A Jewett, this chest probably wasn’t the first iteration, and it was probably something that sort of came together in a happenstance that seemed to make the most sense to him. I am pretty sure he didn’t over think it or even ponder it half as much as I have. He likely didn’t have time, and if he did think it over much, it was while he was doing something else. If we could look closely, we would likely see arrangement alterations for tool upgrades and design changes because the change made more sense than leaving it the way it was.

My sense is that Mr. Jewett valued being able to get to the tool he needed with ease because that is what paid the bills. He also needed to store the tools that were crucial to his trade. He likely went with what had worked well in the last cabinet when he built the next, and he probably had coworkers with chests to draw good ideas from. Not something we as individuals working in our own shops really have in terms of idea fodder. In my mind, what Mr. Jewett evolved is truly a functional dream, or well, pretty close to one.

I don’t personally use a cabinet exactly like this right now, though I do have a couple ways I store different types of tools that work well for me and they flow similarly. My own storage solutions are evolved adaptations that share with this chest the ability to fit plenty in the space I have, while allowing access to the tool I need without upsetting a set of dominoes, or without requiring I move many tools to access the one I need. I am also not completely happy with everything about it either. I am unresolved about some things so I revisit this chest from time to time and ruminate some more.

I am not saying we should build a Jewett chest for ourselves either, even though we could if we like, but I am saying we should take a really hard look at the Jewett chest for several reasons.

Depending upon where you hail from, moisture can be the enemy of your tooling. This is going to mean that pegboard isn’t going to be the tool organization road home, and some of us wouldn’t use it if it were. Building a Cabinet like this can be part of the corrosion solution. A Goldenrod dehumidifier or dry desiccant dehumidifier can be fitted and employed inside a closed cabinet like this to control the humidity and prevent corrosion very effectively. They are practical, not overly expensive and the operating costs are negligible; particularly in light of the tools they help protect.

I’m not pure Galoot, and I don’t advocate that anyone should approach woodworking in any particular way that doesn’t suit them. The way you work works for you and I support that. I am a blended woodworker myself, and I am seeing where the Jewett cabinet offers some silent philosophy as to how I can, and should group certain tools for certain tasks, and while not over cramming, making the most used tools easy to access and the ones not so commonly needed pushed into the nooks and crannies a bit.

If you are a Galoot, and while not necessarily a patternmaker, you could consider this design one on one, and see if you can find clues to how it could improve your workflow if you were to adopt some of it’s design features for your own cabinet. If you are a blended woodworker, consider the tools you have that are a direct fit, and then consider the tooling you use that is not unique to this period, how you may be imaginative and find a way to store those tools that are unique to your workflow. This is not just about the tools you have. Be sure to include some of the tools you intend to become part of your kit over time as well.

Consider how you could utilize the drawers if perhaps you made some of them in dimensions that would work more efficiently for you. One thing this cabinet seems to scream, is that the tools should be easily accessible, yet not waste space. I think that is a scalable and adoptable want in nearly any working storage tool cabinet design.

If you are a woodworker who isn’t suffering from a handsaw problem, you may see that the Jewett cabinet has a small saw till in it as well, and from what I see, there is about six saws in it, maybe seven. I may not be seeing a coping saw that I bet is there, but I do see what looks like a folding keyhole saw stored with the hammers as well.

This cabinet is not going to give one a complete and total end all plane till either, but it will provide adequate storage for the main user planes that one would likely consider needing handy, and a separate plane or saw till could certainly be made separate form this cabinet to store any ahhhhhh, shall we say “overflow” that may or may not be a nice problem you have.

In all, no single tool cabinet can be all things to all people. This one is no exception, but it sure has a lot of well working and adoptable design elements. We all should consider this matter for ourselves. Chris Becksvoort made a tool cabinet that comes to mind when considering the need to personalize for workflow, and his is a wonderful design that I really admire as well. In any case, we all consider ways of making our personal tool storage more approachable, and I wanted to toss a few thoughts out that may get the thinking juices flowing. Pat Leach coined the phrase “marvel of 19th century toolchest efficiency” and I agree, I see it too. I thank Pat for sharing his example with us.

Once you get done tooling up over at Walt’s, I believe if that tooling is available to you and getting to it works well, then the rest of woodworking becomes more transparent and creative. It is then up to skill, imagination, and wood.

As always, discussion is welcome!

Happy Woodworking!

There are a number of things a woodworker can classify as delicate work. It can of course mean short in length or width, thin stock, veneer, inlays, book matched pieces, and even working with tone woods. Luthiers commonly join book matched boards for stringed instruments, and these boards are very fragile.

There are also the occasions where using a power tool or a shop machine may not be the safest way, or the most accurate way to accomplish a task and so we are left trying to come up with an alternative method for accomplishing the fine work we need done.

Often even the finest blades of a shop machine can leave some tear out, or small nicks on a cut edge, and due to the rotational force and unequal loadings on rotating blades, the attempt to trim just a little can often result in too little or too much. At best, it isn’t often predictable.

Jointers too, are not without issue. Handling small or thin stock on a Jointer can be dangerous due to the size of the piece and the lack of structural integrity the materials can have when they are thin. If we try to joint them we risk damage to both the stock and ourselves, and this is never good either way. There is never a good reason to have the fingers in harm’s way.

Another happening with cutting and jointing thin stock is that if you are not using high tooth count blades on your Table Saw or super thin settings on the jointer, what you get is a bunch of chatter and snipe. You can joint with the router table if your fence will allow this, but in my experience, there are times on small work that I would prefer to remove less that 1/32nd or even 1/64th, yes .008… It is really hard to get most fences to dial this, but a plane will do this easily, and still with power tools some boards will require you to have your fingers way too close to a dangerous area.

Sometimes it is safer, or more desirable to resort to hand tool methods. Yes, this is the Saw Stop method of jointing edges. Fixture the work and use a sharp plane. Planes have none of the characteristics of the rotating oscillator. They simply shear off a layer one thin bit at a time. This is particularly useful on boards that are too fragile or small to safely size with power tools.

Jointing edges of thin stock and short stock is just as important as the larger stuff. Fit and finish are often even more crucial because the small items may be picked up and closely examined. At the same time, gluing and clamping still requires the same tolerances of larger boards. A straight edge, matched in the joints is still important as always.

Often, many Luthiers feel jointing book matched instrument tops and backs with a plane is both preferable and desirable with tone woods, as this prevents any damage to the wood fibers that could interfere with instrument resonance. The rotary cutters involved in shop machines often make them wonder and give them some concern if making a beautiful sounding instrument is possible if wood fibers should suffer bruising. Certainly good, even great sounding instruments are made, but, the question is, can they be even better? Perhaps shooting these edges manually is part of what takes good to great.

So we have established that it is important to joint and shoot the edges of small boards, tone woods and veneers. We may find it less than easy to balance a #7 or #8 jointer on top of a thin board. Doable sure, but it is tricky work, and easier if it is something you are used to doing frequently. Shorter planes can work but there is still balancing the plane for side-to-side squareness. Of course there is a need for truing any stock, and when you build small boxes and drawers, maybe even cleaning up inlays and virtually any board less than 24 inches long or 3/8’s of an inch thick or less, the need is still obvious, but the size tends to change the dynamics of how.

Edge Jointing veneer while balancing a plane on the edge isn’t going to happen, because there is no way to balance a plane on veneer, and this won’t give you the accuracy needed should you want to create a sunburst pattern or well, even book matching of stock that thin.

Enter the long grain shooting board.

A long grain shooting board can be very effective for handling all the difficulties that shop machines, or trying to plane without one can have.

Several woodworkers have approached me about adding a long grain shooting board to my product line this year, and after discussing with them what features would be most desirable in a shooting board purpose designed for long grain shooting, I am now offering a long grain shooting board. It uses a lot of the same Features and Specifications that I offer in my end grain shooting boards.

The major differences are that it is nearly 30 inches long, and offers at least 24 inches of shooting run, a fence that is a 90-degree fence only, but is user calibratable to confirm it is accurately set to 90 degrees.

I have also included a couple anchor points for a caul that is used without the fence that helps fixture the materials you are shooting along the chute at any angle or shape you choose, as long as you are trying to shoot an edge that is parallel to the chute. This way you can fixture materials to be jointed squarely to 90 degrees, or any arbitrary angle you desire.

So whether you work with veneers, or small boxes, or even are interested in Luthery and need a way to joint edges in a damage free way, a long grain shooting board can be a help to you. It is also just handy for general purposes, allowing you to joint the edges of any board and any thickness straight and square, with the safety of knowing a board too short or two thin will not stop you from safely bringing that board to the dimensions needed for your project.

If you are interested in a long grain shooting board, I make them for the left or right-handed woodworker. Please have a look in the Woodworks Store, or at the Long Grain Shooter’s page. If you are interested in a fixturing caul for it, please be sure to mention one when you contact me.

I am always open to discussing shooting devices, accessories and other jig suggestions. Good things are coming, Stay Tuned!

Happy Woodworking!

Here’s a photo of a pair to draw to. The shooting boards, shown here in left and right-handed models. You could almost call them V-Twins, but darn it, somebody already thought of that…

Back in late March 2009 I revealed I was going to be making a shooting board with an accurately calibratable fence, which can be fixtured in six positions. Woodworkers found this very interesting! I want to take a moment to say thank you to all who have purchased one. It has been a warm and well-received response from the woodworking community. I plan to continue making them, and even have a few ideas to accessorize them as well.

If you are a left handed woodworker, No Problem! I can make a shooting board that works for you. Same price as right handed, just let me know.

The first weekend of May, woodworker and furniture maker Jeff Miller sponsored a Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event at his shop in Chicago. From what I understand, it was quite the event.

Infill Plane Maker Ron Brese, www.breseplane.com and Toolmaker Jameel Abraham, www.benchcrafted.com/ were both in attendance as exhibitors.

Jameel and Ron with Angie of Lie-Nielsen
Cian Perez Photo

Ron and Jameel have been working together on Infill Plane designs and other cool tools in collaboration with other toolmakers. Ron approached me about a shooting board for his beautiful infill miter plane, which he is soon going to be adding to his infill offerings.

The Brese Infill Miter
Cian Perez Photo

The Brese infil miter on the Evenfall Studios Shooting Board
Cian Perez Photo

Those who made it to the event were able to see Jameel’s bench, featuring the Bench Crafted “wagon style” Tail Vise and the New, soon to be released Bench Crafted Leg Vise Hardware, as well and Ron had the full offering of his Infill Line, and featured his prototype Infill Miter on one of my shooting boards.

Ron’s planes, Jameel’s bench and bench accessories
Cian Perez Photo

Cian Perez was at the event and offered me the use of his stellar photos, showing the shooting board, Ron’s Beautiful Planes and Jameel’s great bench and bench hardware. Some of you may know Cian from his wonderful and super useful How-To Guide, woodworking link sites: The Neanderthal Braintrust, and The Power Index. Thank you very much for offering me the use of your great photos Cian!

I can’t thank Ron and Jameel enough for taking my board along to the show, and if you follow the link to Benchcrafted’s website above. While you are looking at all the cool things Benchcrafted offers, Jameel has a schedule of where he and Ron are exhibiting. They are both great guys, and top craftsmen who are always willing to answer questions and offer great insights. Get out and meet them if you can! Be sure to visit Ron’s website as well!

Jameel demonstrates Ron’s Infill Miter
Cian Perez Photo

The ‘Deluxe Shooter’ Shooting Board with six fence positions, and there are two shooting boards that are completely similar to this design, with fewer, but the most needed settings for most woodworking requirements.

If you would like to place an order, it is pretty simple to get started. Just navigate to the Evenfall Studios Woodworks Store, either here or at the top of the page, and use the shopping cart. Checkout is easy and your order comes straight to us. Shooting Boards in either Left or Right hand models are the same price. We also sell extra fences, and a Board Lift Bench Hook that matches the lift of the shooting board for when you shoot long boards. Just let me know what you would be interested in.

The product line continues to evolve, just peek into the Store from time to time and see what’s new.

Also while you are here, remember it is woodworkers safety time.

So much has been said, all of it is good. For my part, I just want to remind you of this one important batch of thoughts.

Mindfulness is everything. Your brain is the most important safety device you have. Keep your mind in the work. Watch what you are doing. Think about how you do it. Know where your flesh and clothing is in relation to the cutters and tooling. Short cuts are throat cuts. A clean work area is a much safer work area, so clean up frequently and often. If it seems unsafe or risky, trust your instincts, it probably is. If you are working with a hand tool, fixture the work piece. If you are using a power tool or shop machine, jigs, guides and guards are important.

The one time you bypass a safe practice, you invite the perfect storm to find you.

ACHTUNG

Alles touristen und non-technoschen lookens peepers! Das machinen
control ist nicht fur der fingerpoken und mitten grabben. Oderwise
ist easy schnappen der springenworks, blowen den fuses, und
poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Der machine ist diggen by experten
only. Er ist nicht fur geverken by das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken
sightseenen: keepen des cottonpicken hands in das pockets. Relaxen
und watchen des blinkenlights!

Thanks for everything, and please work safe!

Happy Woodworking!

Yes, I am talking about shooting boards.

Shooting boards are one of the gateways to fine woodworking. Sure, there are many gateways, but the shooting board, in its different configurations guide the cleanest edges and end grain cuts to the finest accuracies, the most spectacular fit and finish, and it puts this capability in the hands of any woodworker.

I have always enjoyed woodworking jigs, and have made a number of shooting boards over the years. I have thought about many different designs for a long time. I’d have one that did this, but not that, and wish I had one that did that too, but then, that method can become a stack of shooting boards, and most of us don’t have the space for that. It’s true; there are some very specific types that are meant to cover specific uses. Others are great for general work, but the worry over wood movement and long-term accuracy causes some folks to question how much energy to put into the making of their own.

I decided to try designing a shooting board, using a design that encompasses the many qualities that I felt most woodworkers would most desire and need in a basic shooting board. Reinforcing as many strengths as I could, while diminishing the weaknesses where possible, and offer it for sale to woodworkers who may be interested in a shooting board that can cover a lot of fine woodworking situations, yet may not want to build one of their own. If you are interested in purchasing a shooting board, I’d be happy to build one for you. Please see the details at the end of this article.

My design is a shooting board with pivot fence. Made from Baltic Birch for durability, and stability in most any climate. It’s adjustable and calibratable for square as well as the 15, 22-1/2, 30, 45, and 60-degree radials. The base measures approximately 14-3/4 inches square. The plane chute is 14-3/4 x 2-3/4, and 1/2 inch below the base to assure a firm squaring registration with most any maker’s planes. The fence, 11-1/2 long by 1-1/4 wide, is positioned 3 inches from the back edge for planing stability in the chute, leaving a full 11-1/2 inch surface for the work piece. The base has been sanded to 150 grit overall to improve traction on the bench and work piece. The Chute has been sanded to 400 grit. The Shooting Board has been finished with Watco Teak Oil, a user repairable finish, and the Plane Chute has been waxed to aid smooth shooting operations.

Steel T-Nuts, counter bored, pressed and epoxied into the base provide 5/8 inches of steel threading to assure accuracy and lasting structural integrity through years of adjustable use. The cleat hooks the unit to the bench with four 1/4-20 flat head socket cap screws tapped directly into the base, and countersunk into the cleat for a very sturdy connection.

A dust groove runs along the left side of the chute to help assure that dust and shavings don’t foul the shooting plane’s accuracy during use. The chute is checked to assure it is coplanar with the top of the jig, and corrected before it leaves here.

Steel Button Head Cap Screws with Brass Knurled Knobs assure a long lasting, secure, comfortable way of adjusting and fixturing the fence. Under both knurled knobs, a brass washer protects the fence from wear. The fence has a small-elongated slot machined on the calibration side that matches the pivot radius, so the fence can be calibrated to the drafting squares accuracy in any climate or wood moisture condition.

Fence calibration is easy and inexpensive with $4.00 Drafting Triangles available from nearly any good office supply store in their drafting supplies section. The 8-inch 45-45-90 square and 12-inch 30-60-90 drafting triangles assure the best registration. Other angle finders such as adjustable drafting triangles and various styles of protractors and protractor squares can be employed to find the other angles as well.

Here the fence is being calibrated to shoot in the square position. Simply loosen the fence fixturing knobs. A 45-45-90 Drafting Triangle is positioned between the fence and the sole of the shooting plane. The shooting plane is positioned with the toe end at the fence, and the plane sole is pulled firmly against the left side of the plane chute. The fence is then positioned so that there is a tight fit of the triangle between the sole of the plane and the fence, and the fixturing knobs re-tightened. You can also use machinist squares, combination squares, and vernier protractors with rulers from the edge of the chute. THe accuracy of your set up tooling is transfered to the jig. It just takes a few seconds. This assures total shooting accuracy every time you use the Shooting Board, any season of the year.

Here the fence is being calibrated to shoot in the 30 degree radial position. A 30-60-90 Drafting Triangle is positioned between the fence and the sole of the shooting plane. The same procedures for squaring the fence are repeated.

Here the fence is being calibrated to shoot in the 45 degree radial position. A 45-45-90 Drafting Triangle is positioned between the fence and the sole of the shooting plane. The same procedures for squaring the fence are repeated. This is the woodworking secret to perfect mitered corners, perfectly squared ends, perfected dimensional accuracy in layout.

Here a Lie-Nielsen 62 is engaged in shooting square the end of a board, the angle cut on the fence near the knurled knob is used to shoot at any angle other than square. Simply flip the fence over so this angled portion faces the work piece and recalibrate.

Here is a look at the fence, sole, chute relationship, where the wood if engaged would be being pared square by the shooting plane. A fine adjustment and a sharp blade is desirable.

This is a look at the hand position, fixturing the board to the hook portion of the Shooting Board. A firm grip on the side of the plane body near the blade bed pushes the plane forward while holding the plane against the left edge of the chute.

The Stanley #4 is a viable shooter when sharp. Here is it shooting the end grain of Panamanian Rosewood Veneer. Veneer can be trimmed long grain and on any miter angle using this method. Starburst or mitered veneers anyone?

The Shooting Board can shoot Long Grain to 11-3/4 inches.

As shown, the Plane Chute measures 14-3/4 by 2-3/4, which will accommodate Lie-Nielsen’s #9 Iron Miter Plane and 62 Low Angle Jack, the Veritas Low Angle Jacks, as well as other Infill and wooden miter and non-miter planes. Any of the Stanley Bailey and Bedrock planes are suitable for use, and a even a block plane, particularly a low angle one can also be employed if the wood isn’t too thick.

For the best results when using a plane for shooting, the soles should be square to the sides of the plane body, the iron sharpened to the equivalent of an 8000 grit waterstone and stropped. The side and sole of the plane waxed and the iron set for a thin shaving of .001 or less.

When shooting, a firm right hand grip on the plane on the side of the sole positioned near the plane bed at mid-plane, with the shooting board firmly hooked against the bench or fixtured in the face vise. The left hand fixtures the work piece against the fence.

In order to reduce the possibility of tearout, consider making your first cuts to the work with the index finger only of your left hand between the work piece and the fence near the plane chute, so as to skew the work towards you at a slight angle. Take a few passes with the plane here, so as to relieve a slight amount of material at the back of the area being squared. Then place the work piece full against the fence and shoot the edge, stopping when you have planed to the area you relieved. With experience, you will be able to determine for yourself when this method will be most helpful.

When shooting angles other than square, it may occasionally be helpful to fold an eleven inch strip of 320 grit sandpaper cut 1-1/4 inches wide in half, lengthwise, and place it between the work piece and the fence to help resist slipping. This is particularly helpful when working steep angles.

I am offering this shooting board (the deluxe shooter model is shown) for sale in right or left handed versions at $130.00 plus shipping and handling. There are Shooting Boards available starting at $100.00, please have a look in the Evenfall Studios Online Store. These jigs are craftsman made by me, built for accuracy and longevity. Meant to be a durable, serviceable tool that helps promote the ability for any woodworker to work at the finest levels of woodworking accuracy.

Custom offerings are possibilities! Please feel free to email me and discuss your needs. We also have some accessories available for the boards, such as taller fences, and a bench hook board lift that matches the shooting board height, as an aid for leveling long work is also optional and made only if ordered. Please feel free to inquire about these and other custom options.

To place an order, have a look in the store at the various models we have available, and simply click to order. Your order will be placed via a Paypal Shopping Cart System. We’ll reply with an invoice for shipping soon after. For purchases, we accept PayPal which also handles most major credit cards, and United States Postal Service (USPS) Money Orders. Online ordering is preferred.

To contact us via email, just click this “Contact Me” link, which will take you to the contact page, or use the “Contact” navigation button at the top of this page, to email me and place your order.

I hope you enjoyed a look at the shooting board, and as always, your comments are welcome as well!

Happy Woodworking!

Planing woods is a process that has a number of considerations, which require their needs met all at once, in order for the process to be successful. It isn’t just one thing happening at a time. There are causes, effects and recognizing which you have. The answer isn’t simple until we understand all the usual suspects involved.

If you haven’t already, read chapter 9 of Understanding Wood By R. Bruce Hoadley. It is a real good primer about how wood reacts to planing and machining to brush up on. Overall, the book will improve your skills as a woodworker. It is available in many places, and both Taunton Press as well as Amazon.com are good sources.

Wood reacts to machining in observably repeatable ways. If we understand these ways and learn to recognize the conditions, our own success in working wood is repeatable as well.

During planing operations, it is desirable for wood to be severed right at the cutting edge of the plane blade. It would seem obvious that this is happening. It is when things go well, but this does not always occur in practice.

When you plane, you make a shaving. Technically the shaving is called a chip. Shavings curl, but there is science behind the curling. The tightness of the shaving’s curl is significant. The tightness of the curl is a derivative of how frequently the chip is broken.

What breaks the chip is the blade bevel angle, just after it severs the wood fiber. The angular change from wood being at 0 degrees on the boards face, cut, then suddenly at the angle the final bevel angle the iron presents, causes the break in the chip. The wood being planed is running into a wall. The steeper the wall, the closer the breaks are, and the tighter the curl. The further the breaks are the looser the curl.

The chip (shaving) is referred to in types. There are 3 types of chip.

Type one is loose curl, and is the result of being planed at a low angle such as 45 degrees, which is known as “Common” pitch.

(Yes there are planes meant to plane at 38 degrees but this is generally meant for planing for end grain, which is a cross grain planing operation, and as such, is not generating a chip, per se. It is severing wood fibers crosswise, and as such is not considered applicable to this discussion, despite possible exceptions to this rule.)

Type two is a medium curl, and is the result of being planed at medium angle such as 50-55 degrees, which is known as “York” or “Middle” pitch.

Type three is a tight curl, and is the result of being planed at a high angle such as 62-63 degrees, which is known as “Half” pitch.

75 degrees is the next significant pitch angle for planing operations, and is considered scraper country.

Now there are a few important considerations going forward.

The lower the angle that the bevel angle the plane severs wood fibers at, the easier it is to push, and this is desirable. Planing is work! But the lower angle that makes work easy, isn’t always capable of getting the desired results in every wood.

Something that can occur when planing, even with a sharp blade, is tearout. Tearout is defined as when the angle of the blade lifts a wood fiber that is supposed to be being cut by the cutting edge, but the chip is not breaking like it is supposed to, because perhaps the wood fiber is too strong, or the planing angle is too shallow for the strength of the fiber being planed.

When the chip does not break at the cutting edge, and instead breaks after the fiber lifts, by riding up the bevel ahead of being cut, it also causes lifting and peeling ahead of the cutting edge. The blade is no longer in control of the depth, and usually the tearing that results from the lifting fibers is deeper than the intended surface desired.

This is at the heart of why planes are developed to plane at specific angles, such as described earlier. The steeper angle is meant to be an alternative available to generate a different chip type. The higher angle, forces the chip to break at a more frequent interval. Every time the chip breaks more frequently, that is a shorter length chip and the shorter length chip does not allow the fiber to ride up the blade. When the chip does ride up without being broken, tearout is likely happening.

The essence of stopping tearout is about understanding wood grain, and the planing bevel angle that will generate the chip type most compatible for the grain type being worked.

The rest of the process of tearout reduction falls to a couple factors. Tool and Human.

Tool wise, The Plane can also help reduce tearout by adjusting for a tight mouth if the plane can be adjusted. Stanley Bailey style planes use adjustable frogs and some steel planes which bed the iron bevel up offer an adjustable sole. I am not going to offer specific clearance numbers here because I want to avoid helping to develop a belief that specific mouth clearances are perfect. If you plane has variable adjustment, then it is best to experiment. You will be working in the .003-.010 range on high-end smoothers.

Another tool factor is blade sharpness. Sharp tools sever fibers. Dull cutting edges tend to blunt them an rip them… Remember, reducing tearout is the want here.

Finally, tool factors wise, Planing depth. Smoothing is a final dimensioning process. You are creeping or sneaking up on things here, so the thinnest shaving is going to offer the least resistance to being cut, and as such, leave the smoothest glossiest surface.

The human factors are about perception and action. Reading the grain is a biggie. If the grain is straight then planing with the grain is usually doable. Just remember against the grain is usually as effective as petting a porcupine, and so it goes. However if planing with the grain is problematic, sometime changing the angle a bit can help.

When changing planing angles, sometime a shallow angle off the grain direction will help reduce tear out, and there is no rule stating that going fully across the grain is taboo, as long as it will provide the finish quality you are looking for.

On flatsawn boards there is a place where tearout can hide, some people refer to it as “cathedral grain”. What cathedral grain is, is where the board was milled and the blade passed through the growth rings and a shallow skew angle. It looks reminiscent of the gothic arches seen on cathedrals. The concern with cathedral grain is that early and the late wood of the growth ring lay right there, and they come up all the way to the surface.

Something common that happens when planing over cathedral grain, is that when planing with the grain, the plane whisks over these areas, and the thin late wood of the growth ring just separates and pops loose. Seems the same as tearout, but it isn’t. It is the late growth ring’s (dark) inability to adhere to the next year’s early growth ring (light) at such a thin and shallow angle.

The trick to approaching these areas is to do it at angles the run closer to longwise with the “cathedral”, with a sharp iron set for a thin shaving and the plane body skewed to the direction of planing. Sometimes a light wipe with mineral spirits can soften wood fibers enough temporarily to assist in this. I have even seen where rays and chattoyance have given similar planing issues, and so again, be vigilant.

In curly grain, many of the same aforementioned strategies will play. Be willing to come at the grain at any angles that will work. However, please reach for half pitch planes in this situation, and don’t hesitate to simply stop and move to scraping planes, even card scrapers if that helps. Sometimes it is simply acceptable to resort to sanding.

Happy Woodworking!

Ok, this is a little longish, but there is no substantial way to provide a sharpening primer in a sound bite. I’ve tried to write about what will work well overall, without getting too focused on too many particulars in any sharpening media. No matter which way you choose to go ahead with sharpening, this advice should be helpful to you overall. It’s a reasonable primer that will put you on the road with usable sharpening skills. So grab a snack and a drink, and settle in for a bit. If you really want to learn to sharpen, reading this will likely be worth your time. Your Questions and Comments are invited as always!

When it comes to sharpening, abrasives are abrasives the world around. They may have particular idiosyncrasies you need to pay attention to, but they all abrade metal. Once you choose the abrasives you feel will work best for you, you will establish your own routine for working with them. All paths are means that will lead to a similar end. Waterstones, oilstones, ceramics, particulates, sandpaper, various styles of machine sharpening etc. The steel does not care; the abrasives don’t care either, as long as the grit equivilents of abrasiveness are appropriate to the goal. Sharpness.

For the sake of this discussion, I am referring to the abrasive grits, as they correspond to the grits common to waterstones. I do this simply for the reason that waterstones are very popular, but I am in no way advocating that waterstones are the best abrasive. Most all abrasives will sharpen, and it is up to the end user to investigate the pros and cons of the various abrasives to determine the best paths for themselves. For cross-reference please refer to this cross reference chart to derive the equivilent grit for the media you choose.

It is important to keep in mind that the goal of sharpness has stages.

Coarse grits are for grinding, heavy material removal, bevel forming, flattening. Initial flattening and bevel angle forming are the biggest jobs and to aid getting the job over with, the coarsest grits should be used to get the bulk of these tasks done.

Fine grits are for honing and polishing. Once you have established bevels and flatness on the backs, you will want to polish it. Removing coarse scratches in steel with finer ones is what creates finer sharpness. Sharpness actually is where the intersection of the two planes formed by the bevel and the back meet. The finer they are polished, the sharper they will be. the act of creating the wire or feather edge happens when the bevel side of the iron or blade is abraded until the dullness has been honed away. This is required to establish a fresh edge on the tool, and can be done with any number of the different honing or grinding grits.

It is up to the sharpener to determine how dull the tool is, and select the coarseness or fineness of abrasive grit needed to restore the edge to sharpness the fastest way. This means, it comes down to how much steel needs to be removed on the bevel side to form the wire, or feather. You must determine the condition of the edge, and the fastest way to restore it. If only a lttle honing is needed to restore the edge, don’t select coarse abrasives when you begin. If a lot of honing is needed, don’t select fine abrasives when you begin, but realize you will have to polish all the way up through the grits to the fine abrasives to restore the sharpness.

It is important to get a feel for the finish your honing equipment will give you as a finish result at each stage of the work. It will aid you to learn to evaluate what is needed, where to start, how long to hone, and when you have reached what was needed. Knowing this simplifies the task and helps you save time. This is experiential– it is learned by using the sharpening tools you have on your edge tools. It is getting to know one another. Call it sharpening intimacy if you will.

A little about flattening the back. Many people take this as meaning they must flatten the entire back of a chisel or plane iron to properly complete this step. Nothing could be further from the truth, but you can be happy if you’ve the mind to. Try thinking of how a knife has a bevel on each side of an edge. Remember how we hone both sides to make a knife sharp? We are simply trying to hone both sides of a chisel or plane iron too, but we want to keep the flat side in plane with itself for the most part.

Flattening the back really only means that you only need a planar surface near the location where the bevel is, and the width of flatness on the back, or in other words how far away from the edge on the backside need be no wider than the bevel is, but you are welcome to flatten more of the back if you like, because sometimes it is easier to hold the tool on a wider surface.

Flattening doesn’t have to kill you or be drudgery, just buy a Kanaban plate and some silicon carbide grit or diamond paste and get it over with. There are a number of places that sell those items, so in all fairness to them, please use a search engine for pricing. That is the fast track to flat backs. It is more important for backs to be a planar surface, flat, than it is to have a mirror finish, but the mirror finish is what we often wind up with eventually anyway.

The bevel side too, the bevel’s actual surface, is a narrow flattened plane. It is the intersection of these two planes where the angle forms. The flatness of these two planes are what help them succeed at being very sharp, at the angle point. In fact it is difficult, maybe impossible to achieve a high degree of sharpness if this planar-flat surface isn’t present on each surface that makes up the bevel.

It is geometric, and has to respond to a couple different things all at once to be most effective. Just like you would hone both sides of a knife to restore its edge, It just happens that on edge tools, the back makes up half of the beveled edge. It is the straightness of these two planes which form a line along the intersection of these flattened and honed surfaces, and that makes this edge. It is also often helpful if this honed edge is square to the side of the blade, unless skew (an angle that is not 90 to the edge) is desired.

Guides are useful for grinding specific angles. Please feel free to use them for the heavy work. Honing and polishing are something often done quicker, which is more useful and easy if you can learn to do it free hand. Free handed, the side sharpening method is likely the easiest to learn and use. The steel does not care, the wood does not either. If you cannot do this well enough, please, feel free too use the honing guide.

I’ll add here that chisels seem great candidates for free hand honing, and I recommend it. It’s quick and keeps the tool really sharp as you work with it. Use the guide to grind though because it is faster. Avoid micro bevels on chisels to aid freehand sharpening. Never back bevel a chisel either, because the back of the chisel is important for registration in the work.

Plane Irons are another matter. I feel micro bevels can really help you here because there is a lot more metal to remove, and the honing process is more involved while getting blades in and out of the plane. I recommend using the guide all the time on plane irons, if really sharp sharpness is important to you while planing.

Back bevels can be useful for getting sharp faster on plane irons. Use them. They have other benefits on plane irons as well but I’ll cover that another time.

Remember, forming a wire or feather only means you have ground, honed or polished past the dullness, depending on how long you allowed things to dull. It means you can now stop grinding and start honing and polishing.

Honing up through the finer grits is how we remove the wire edge created by honing past the dullness. If you hone and do not create this wire or feather, then you have not honed past the dullness. The dullness is the wear on the edge that you want to remove. The wire edge is what you want. It is the indicator that you have abraded the steel enough to have ground away the dull parts. Once you have achieved this all the way across the edge, you can then begin working both sides of the bevel with the grits appropriate to the level they are currently polished, alternately, to hone the edge to working fineness.

When honing off the wire, always hone the backs of the tool with the finest grit you have previously honed the back with. It often means alternating stones from the bevel to the back, but why scratch up the back if it is already polished? Hone both sides on the appropriate grit as you work up through the grits.

While honing or polishing, never push the edge tool into the stone, always drag it. Breaking the wire edge off is easy to do and pushing the edge will increase the risk. Braking the wire edge off is equivalent to dubbing the edge. Instant Dullness. We want to hone the feather or wire off, not break it off. The end result is vastly different. Pull the blade while honing and you’ll be fine.

If you examine your backs and bevels after honing to a mirror finish and see a glint of light right at the angle point, that is a flaw in your work. It should be a complete surface with no glints of light sparkling at you, especially from the bevel angle point. Glints of light indicate dullness.

In most steels, once you have honed through the grits to the 8000 grit stone, you have honed finely enough to pare end grain pine. End grain pine is the most difficult wood to pare without crushing; it really is the toughest task an edge tool for use in wood will ever see. **(Japanese tools often use finer steels and traditionally were used in softer woods, so there may be some benefit in honing good Japanese steels slightly finer if for use in soft woods)**

There are no recognized tests of, or charts with “scales of sharpness”. The time honored test for sharpness has been and always been; if the edge is sharp enough to do the required work in the material required, to the level of result desired, then sharp was sharp enough. I personally contend that with the wide ranges of tooling, sharpening media, and woods to use them on, this test for the woodworker is still good enough to be true.

The only major corollary to this adage is concerning edge-wear. Can the sharpness last a reasonable quantity of time, so as to bolster productivity? That would depend on the environment. Is it one of production or for that of the hobbiest? Harder tooling is wonderful in a production setting where the sharpening media can match the task of maintaining it, but can the hobby woodworker go toe to toe with the price tag needed to buy in? For most of us, common tooling is just fine, and the results of adequate sharpening as shown in the work have always sufficed, once learning what is needed so as to make results repeatable has been established.

You do not have to shave off your hair! Many people contend hair popping sharpness is an adequate test for sharpness. The truth is, it isn’t. Hair is not wood, and shaving a hair from the surface of skin is is a completely different set of circumstances and dynamics happening, that actually do not require the sharpness required to take a shaving from wood.

The sharpness required for shaving is not as sharp as required for paring wood and as such is not an adequate test for pairing wood. I can shave hair with knives coming off 1000 grit abrasives. Since this is true, what if you can shave hair, should you stop honing well before you are sharp enough to do the work you need to? I was able to accomplish hair popping sharpness with spit on carborundum stones as a young kid, so I am not personally impressed with hair popping sharpness.

For woodworking, shaving hair is the equivalent of a neat card trick. Good for show, not much go. This is a long way from the sharpness we need to push a blade through end grain pine with least effort, so as to pare it. I am saying, we are aiming for and achieving a much higher level of sharpness. If you have sharpened to 8000, you are well past the sharpness needed to shave hair. (Read this as, being able to shave hair can fool you, I hope I have made that clear.)

If you visually examine the edge and see no glints of light reflecting from your edge, and you have polished to the 8000 grit level, no tests are necessary. At 8000 and after a little stropping on leather, the tool is as sharp as you will ever need, I assure you. Honing beyond here is a lot of work spent honing with a diminished work time in wood. In other word, the honing takes longer than the dulling does in this range. You can strop on leather with a little honing compound if you like for a slightly finer edge, which is sometimes temporarily helpful in softwoods. Again, if you feel the need to test, the pine is fine.

Much has been and continues to be written about sharpening, and I encourage you to study this subject, and pay attention to your own realizations as you sharpen. This here is at the heart of what you really need to know. It isn’t rocket surgery. Once you get the heavy work done, (flattening and bevel shaping) it is done forever, and “maintaining” sharpness should generally take no more than 30 strokes on most any stone as you hone up through the grits. This means, If it is taking more that 30, you chose to hone with a stone to fine for the work you need done.

Don’t let your tools get too dull before you touch them up. You can easily maintenance hone as you work. It can take less time to keep your edges in working condition if you become a fastidious maintainer. If you have to rebuild edges every time you sharpen, then you have likely waited too long, and that is a lot more work than 30 strokes of maintainence sharpening.

I need to touch on one last thing here. Bevel angles. Commonly, woodworkers like to bevel their tools so as to be easiest to push through the work. I feel there are some hard fast rules that need to be understood.I am going to touch on a common for instances.

In a nutshell, not all steels are created equal. There are trade-offs we have to learn to live with. Here are a couple.

A-2 like any Steel, has a particular molecular structure. In A-2, the hardening process forms carbide particles in the steel which has a high wear resistance. It will stay sharp longer than that of other steels, but it will require you to sharpen it at usually no less than a 35 degree bevel angle in order to maintain an edge that won’t fail. In other words, If you attempt bevels of 30 degrees or less with A-2, the effect will often result in the edge failing and crumbling. This is due to the very carbides that form to make it wear resistant. It also takes longer to sharpen than High Carbon, or O-1 Steel. As such, this steel is not the best choice for low bevel angles where paring is desired. A-2 is far better lasting where the tooling will be struck with a hammer like in mortising, or for people who prefer a lot of chopping with their bench chisels, or when used to plane in abrasive woods like many tropical hardwoods.

O-1 and high carbon steels are considered finer grained and do not form these carbides in them in the same way A-2 does. As such, these steels are able to hold a shallower bevel angle than A-2 commonly can without edge failure, they sharpen faster, some feel they sharpen finer, and lend themselves well to shallower bevel angles that works well with paring and lighter impact work that is common with many american hardwoods.

in any case, watch your edges. If you find them failing it is usually some combination of the steel type and wood hardness coming to loggerheads with the style of work you are performing and the bevel angles you have. Prepare to adjust the bevel angles accordingly.

My overall sense of this as well as my recommendation to you is this. A-2 Steel really prefers most usually to have a 35 degree bevel ground on it for best outcomes. To go shallower than 35 degrees with your bevels is something you may find works, but please don’t have high expectations. While these angles are not good for paring, they are great for rough service, so mindfully purchase O-1 or high carbon steels for the paring tools. O-1 Is not going to hold a lasting edge is really rough service. Steepening the bevel angles will help, but it still preforms better for finer work. Asking one steel to be all things to the various woodworking tasks is not going to happen. The same is also true of the tooling itself, some things simply find it difficult to interchange. Generally Speaking, Rough service bevels are in the 35 degree range, General purpose bevel angles are in the 30 degree range, and light service or paring bevel angles will be in the 25 degree range. The steel you have may require slight adjustments, just realize your steels can not be all things to all situations and you will be well serve when reaching for the right tool for the job.

I hope these tips help get you on the path to maintaining your tooling with the least effort possible!

Happy Woodworking!

Turned out, the list is quite good. On Internet forums, one good turn deserves another, and so the feedback began. …And the list grew. People came up with some great additions for the list.

I know, I know, the list is a huge bugger, and there are a lot of things on it you do not need, and can get by without, but Bob was asked to go for ‘well equipped’, So he put in the initial time, and by the end of the thread, many other great tool additions for the list were suggested.

I went through the thread and edited further, adding what all was suggested by others. For the most part, I tried to be as inclusive as possible. Depending on your methods of work, there is likely something on there for everybody. So without further adieu, here is Bob’s “Gratuitous list of hand and small electric woodworking tools”, and thank you Bob!

– MEASURING & MARKING –
Awl, scratch, brad, birdcage
Marking knife(s)
Center punch
Transfer punches
Chalk line
Combination squares
Try or engineering squares
Double square
Framing square
Saddle Square
Plastic drafting squares
Bevel gauges
Protractors
Inclinometers
Retracting tape measure
Folding rule w/ sliding extension
Steel 4R graduated rules
Steel 4R hook rulers
Center finder rulers
Golden ratio rulers (phi)
Ruler stop
Precise straight edge
Plumb bob with string
Marking gauge
Mortise gauge
Panel gauge
Dowel centers
Sliding bevel
Dovetail Markers
Compass
Beam compass
Trammels
Pantograph
Drawing bow
Level(s) torpedo, beam
Dividers
Calipers
Dial or vernier calipers
Depth gauge
Pencils (black & white, and/or mechanical)
Crayons

- CUTTING TOOLS –
Crosscut saw
Ripsaw
Coping saw
Fret/jewelers saw
Bow saw
Backsaw
Tenon saw
Dovetail saw
Keyhole saw
Drawknife
Hacksaw
Utility knife
Folding knife
Misc. knives
Carving tools

- CHISELS –
Paring chisels – a set of five or more common sizes is useful
Chopping chisels – (aka butt chisels, may be thicker, shorter, sharpened at higher angle)
Skew chisels, fishtail chisels, dovetail chisels, corner chisels
Mortise chisels – commonly 1/4th inch and 3/8′s inch sizes

- HAND PLANES –
Low angle block plane
Bevel up or down planes
Jackplane
Jointer plane
Smooth plane
Shoulder plane
Rabbet plane
Router Plane
Plough Plane
Spokeshaves
Scrub plane
Cabinet scraper or scraper plane
Card scrapers
Scratch Stock

- BORING TOOLS –
Eggbeater drills
Bits (twist, brad point)
Ratchet brace
Auger bits
Archimedes push drill with bits
Forstner bits
Vix bits

- RASPS & FILES –
Smooth, Second cut, Mill Bastard, Double Cut
Flat rasps and files
Half round rasps and files
Triangular files
Forming tools (i.e. Sureform, Microplane)
Riffler rasps and files
Needle files
File handles
File cards and brass/nylon brushes

- CLAMPS –
C-clamps
Pipe clamps
Bar clamps
Parallel clamps
Deep throat clamps
Clamping cauls
Hand screws
Web clamps

- HAMMERS –
Claw hammer
Soft-faced hammer
Dead blow hammer
Tack hammer
Wooden mallet

- SCREWDRIVERS –
Flat bladed
Philips head
Square tipped
Ratchet screwdriver
Push screwdriver
Screwdriver bits & adapter for brace
Right angle (offset) screwdrivers
Stubby screwdrivers
Screw holding screwdrivers
Jeweler’s screwdrivers

- WRENCHES –
SAE / Metric
Adjustable wrenches
Set of box wrenches
Set of open-end wrenches
Set of combination wrenches
Ratchet socket set
Allen/hex wrenches Regular/ball end

- PLIERS –
Slip jaw pliers
Diagonal pliers
Needle nosed pliers
Channel lock pliers
Wire strippers / Crimpers

- MISCELLANEOUS –
Pencil sharpeners
Drafting supplies
Graph paper
Reference data
Calculator
Magnifying glass
Chalk
Nail set(s)
Paint scraper (removing dried glue)
Pry bar, small
Sharpening abrasives (sandpaper, diamond stones, water stones, oil stones)
Leather strop
Honing compound
Honing guides
Sandpaper in many grits
Sanding blocks in different shapes
Vegetable tanned leather for clamp pads and other uses
Rags
Brushes
Finishing supplies (applicators, finishes, rubbing out materials)
Glues
Rubber brayer for spreading water based glue
Acid brushes for spreading glue
Waxed paper to protect from glue
Veneer roller
Brooms
Dustpans
Screws
Nails
Bolts, nuts, washers

- PORTABLE POWER TOOLS –
Belt sander, sanding belts
Circular saw, blades
Saw guides
Electric drills, 3/8’s 1/2, bits (twist drills (fractional, number, letter, metric), brad point, Forstner or saw tooth, hole saws)
Drill guide
Finish sander, sandpaper sheets
Random orbital sander, sanding disks
Router, edge guide, bits, template bushings
Bench top router table
Bench grinder / wire wheel 3450/1725rpm
Jigsaw, blades
Scroll saw, blades
Lunch box planer
Shop Vac
Heavy-duty extension cord(s)
Power strips

- BENCHES -
Workbench
Holdfasts
Bench dogs (round or square)
Planing stops
Vises, (woodworking and machinist styles.)
Bench jack

- SHOP MADE ACCESSORIES –
Bench hooks
Shooting board for ends
Shooting board for miters
Shooting board for long edges
Miter Jack
Miter boxes
Sanding blocks
Storage for tools hardware and other materials

- SAFETY EQUIPMENT -
Protective glasses
Face shield
Earmuffs and plugs
Filter masks
Half face respirators
Protective gloves (appropriate to the task)
Apron, cloth, leather
Shop coat
Fire extinguisher(s)
First-aid kit including splinter tweezers