Supporting Tip: Mark which side of the line will be the waste side. The waste side is the part you don’t intend to keep.

This isn’t about measuring as much as it is about marking. Marking exactly that which we want to keep is the best way to assure things fit when we assemble our project’s parts. If we don’t observe this however, it can render our careful measurements powerless. The fitment of our work is what we honor the most.

The lines we mark give clear meaning to our layout. We should always put the lines on as clearly and accurately as we can, and have them represent to us the part we wish to keep. This way if we are called away and return to look at our project later, we don’t ever have to remember what the lines mean.

It’s been argued that you can take the line, split the line and so forth, but those techniques are fraught with problems when you really think about them.

If you saw to the line and take the line, how much over the line did you take? Is there room here for a mistake? Will we always remember to compensate for the saw’s kerf? Will we always be sure? Will it make things too short? Mistakes happen with this method more often than not.

Some have said split the line. If we draw a line with a pencil, the pencil will blunt as it draws, so what then is the standard width for this line? Does it really, truly stand for the part of our project, which we intend to keep? Again, what if the saw can take a kerf wider than the line? How do you split that? I’ve seen people advocate for this but too much is left to chance. Why risk it? Woodworking doesn’t have to require that we be lucky.

Remember that many things we saw are not finished off the saw, the saw is a rough tool, and usually leaves behind rough marks. Often, these marks are so rough that we can’t do further accurate layout on that surface, until after we smooth it up. It is rarely a finish surface in woodworking with few exceptions. It is a better practice to saw a short distance from the line on the waste side, particularly when the saw is coarse.

We must leave room on our work to smooth this rough surface, and we can’t do it if we split or take the line. We can sand, plane, chisel, even use a shooting board or a spokeshave to the line to obtain a smooth and accurate finish. It just depends on how we need to shape that line. More often than not, taking the line will leave you little room to smooth, let alone solve a problem if one occurs.

Good work practices are very important to consistency, so it is always good to be an early adopter of such practices. When showy woods can run from $20.00 to over $100.00 a board foot, we can’t afford to condemn wood to chance. We need to know where we are cutting for the best fit possible.

Depending on the level of accuracy the line needs to represent, we can use chalk, chalk line, carpenter pencils, sharp or fine pencils, even a marking knife with possibly the line darkened or lightened after we strike it, but the line should stay and represent the working limit.

With pencils, a harder lead can help. HB hardness is common; 2H hardness if you can find it works better. Sharpness is everything in a pencil, so be sure to maintain it while working. Red pencil leads show up well on dark woods and are more durable than white. Ballpoint pens will endure layout work, but depending on the project or position, can leave a mark in some woods that could be hard to remove later. Gel pens are good for marking light colors as well, but can be both expensive and fragile. Marking knives actually scribe lines that are more usable when they are slightly dull.

Remember that with dovetail layout, one joinery-sawn board lays out the other. On the board being laid out second, the lines can only be placed on the part which you intend to keep. This is true in many cases when working in joinery, and in joinery, fitment is everything.

Working to the line always allows room to trim if we still need. And all the lines can easily be removed once we have fitment and move towards the finish.

When accuracy in lay out matters, surface quality matters. It encompasses both the initial dimensions as well as the finish dimensions, and one is often used to lead to the other. Being squared up or at a specific angle can matter to the layout line placement. A shooting board can help us arrive at the right fit and finish when working to the line, both in the layout and the finish of joinery, as well as miters and butted boards that will require precise fitment.

Finally, remember as we lay out our work that we orient the placement of our lines so as to keep them where they will remain on the part of the work we intend to keep. This may mean we will need to orient the work so we layout from one or two reference surfaces only, (another good practice) and that the lines will work with the tool or machine that does the cutting, or which hand we use to work. If you like to saw to the right or left of a line for your waste, keep that in mind as you lay out. Think of what the tool will need for accommodations and the boards will arrive at the size needed consistently.

Practice consistency. Work to the line and rest assured that our best work has been done. These tips will help anyone create anything faster and with higher accuracy. The lines? They can be straight or curved. Anything you can imagine. This is a major part of building anything we can design. The bridge from what we imagine, to what we make become real. Now we can create!

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!

It may seem funny to have thought about tape measures as much as I have. As a life long woodworker, and over 25 years of civil construction and surveying experience, I have literally worn out a bunch of measuring equipment from using these tools all day every day. After using tapes in dirty environments where I took well over 100 measurements a day, daily and weekly, I have learned what I value and what has risen to be the best for me. I am just sharing what I have learned with you.

When you are buying a tape measure, there are several available features that you can consider. For shop use, furniture making and cabinet making, you will rarely need a long tape, but the long tapes have features that enhance accuracy. They come with 1-inch wide tapes, which are easier to read for eye relief, harder to distort and are more rigid. Often the 1-inch tapes include more rivets on the hook, which lend themselves to resistance to wear and stretch. Unless you need a shorter tape for handy reasons, I recommend the bigger tape just for its added stability.

Consider the hook of the tape measure. The hook can be worn, bent, or the rivet holes that hold it can be stretched. This can unwittingly induce errors, and many people are simply unaware of this frailty of tape measures. Lufkin has several models with 1-inch wide tapes that include four rivets on the hook. They are the only maker I have ever encountered that installs hooks with four rivets.

All the four rivet Lufkins I have tested and compared have always compared exactly to Starrett steel rulers, even after *very* extensive use, and are trusted most exclusively by surveyors and engineers, meaning, I feel they are trustworthy in your woodworking shop also. I also have a Lufkin twelve footer that is a useful length, as accurate as any when new, but it uses 3/4 wide tape, and has only 2 rivets attaching the hook to the tape. It is accurate when new and well cared for, but I don’t expect its accuracy to be as sustainable as the bigger tapes. I limit its use to the “Handy” instances.

Getting back to tape measures in general, even when trying to be careful, The hook can make any measurement not taken from an edge inherently inaccurate, because the hook will not allow the tape to lay flat on the surface of what it is measuring. When the tape cannot lay flat, it induces an error through forcing a trigonometric path that is like a hypotenuse length, which is not the actual surface; it is instead an independent path above that of the flat surface one. While usually subtle, this is similar to the error induced when you measure from an edge but are not perpendicular to the edge when you read the tape.

That gap we see can equal measurement FAIL.

Speaking of the devil, from the hook on, any measurement pulled which is not perpendicular to the edge of the board will introduce a trigonometric error, which is going to pivot from either edge of the hook. It also can induce a Parallax error when the marks are not right on the surface being measured. Either way, it is slight, but can be enough to be annoying in fine work, especially when the error can become cumulative.

Just when you think you understand all the gremlin’s and their ways, the side to side curve of the tape, which is designed to stiffen it, holds the markings up off the surface being measured by about 1/4th inch, on a 1 inch wide tape, and unless the user is careful to push the marks on the tape down flat to the wood, this too can induce a parallax error when marking.

As an exercise, grab your tape and pull out 2-3 feet. Lock it, and hook it over the edge of the bench. Now examine how flat it lays, and how close the markings are to the surface it will be measuring. See? The tape case itself holds the tape of the surface at least 1/4th inch. It can twist, bend and flex and it needs pulled taught and laid flat to be usable at all. You really need to apply more English to it than a cue ball in a game of snooker. I’ll not even discuss how often I wish I had a third hand or wish I didn’t have to use it upside down and backwards.

For those who wonder, what I mean by parallax error is this. I am referring to parallax in terms of visual perception, particularly related to instruments. We all have a strong eye, which we favor over the other. We do this via habit, we do not think about it. Interestingly, we have two eyes though, and one can tend to throw the other one off when we are looking at a single point at close range when we need to do something precisely.

What this means, is that when we look at the markings on a rule, unless we are super careful, we my actually be looking at the rule markings from a slight angle. In order to measure anything with total accuracy, the measuring tool must have its marks absolutely flat to the surface being measured, the closer to the surface, the better, and the rule must be viewed at a 90-degree angle to the markings. This may mean favoring the use of just one eye when you measure.

If the marks on the measuring device are not absolutely against the surface needing measured, then the difficulty in determining parallax is not being overcome, and will create difficulty for the person measuring to determine.

It is hard to be really certain if the pencil is marking perfectly on line, when it is marking 1/4 inch below the 1/32 line, it is marking for on a tape. Harder if you don’t have 20/20 vision, harder still if there are shadows in the lighting, harder again if it is a precarious situation in the first place.

In carpentry, many things can be fine with some parallax error induced; things close enough are close enough. Much of carpentry is accurate enough if you work to the eighth of an inch. A good bit more of it will forgive 1/16th. It isn’t always critical. In fine woodwork, it is a situation that can leave a board to short or long, depending on the favored eye and the side the line was meant to be cut on. It happens because when we are marking and laying out, parallax errors become cumulative. After a cloud of these errors, which are commonly as small as 1/128th in size, we can easily find we are 1/32nd or more out of alignment. Worse still, the layout is the most accurate part of the work; the cutting will rarely be as precise as the layout, especially with hand tools. This makes good layout all the more important.

Remember that at the fine woodworking level, wood is often more expensive than the tools we work it with, and we may be many surfacing and dimensioning procedures put into a board or boards for fine fit and finish on a project. When errors are induced, starting over isn’t always as simple as grabbing a new board and taking up where we left off. Care and attention to details can make or break our finished product.

Please notice in the photos. The ruler lies flat and close to the work. It can be used to measure anywhere it can fit. This is why it is useful and helpful, though not necessary to have the rulers available in various lengths. I prefer using the shortest ruler possible to measure the length needed. I use the 6-inch rules the most and as long as the measurements are shorter than six inches, they are the best fit. If the measurement I need is greater than six but less than twelve inches then I step to the next size up and so on.

The hook rule is not meant to be used laid flat, it is meant to sit on edge and have it’s hook lay over an edge to reference the measurement, but again, the marks come all the way to the surface of the work. It is the surest way to be measuring exactly from an edge and it cleared up a lot of small errors for me once I started using them.

The trick to this is learning when a steel ruler or a tape measure is the best tool for the job, and how it is liable to induce unwanted errors simply through it’s use. Some projects present these critical situations, and knowing how to overcome them makes your final product better.

Overall, this is why I advocate using steel rulers wherever possible. They are inherently more accurate than tapes not only by virtue of how they are made and what they are made from, but also by the way the way they are made forces them to be used. They are straight, flat, and rigid. The lack of flex and curvature make them inherently more accurate. It is accurate tools and practices, used with repeatable procedures, which create repeatable results. It is by this combination of virtues they are inherently more accurate, even when you are not trying to be. Consider using the tape measure with more care, and the addition of some steel hook and non-hook rulers to enhance the accuracy of your work in the shop.

Happy Woodworking!

You didn’t actually think this was going to be easy did you? Well, it isn’t always, but I think the endeavor of overcoming some of these challenges can make things better, especially if you like taking good to great. Knowing what some of the issues can be, and how to overcome them when and if they arise, can help our results better match our desires.

We learned in The Constructs of Squareness article that geometrically speaking, a right angle is 90 degrees, and if it isn’t 90, then it isn’t a right angle. Everything can be represented perfectly on paper, in CAD drawings and in theory, but in building, milling, and manufacturing there are a number of factors, which can affect the quality of accuracy. Some we have to accept, some we can learn to work with, and knowing the difference is how we approach closer to fine, if fine is the goal.

Things that affect the accuracy we use to build do vary. Goals, philosophy, materials and tooling all play a part.

Goals affecting accuracy are often production oriented, cost oriented, or what the intended use of a final product is. If the Goal is to build a doghouse, it needs done quickly, and the price of materials and labor needs kept low, then, the accuracy of squareness need only be relative. If the goal is to make a jewelry box, where scale is small and appearances will be highly scrutinized, then the accuracy of squareness becomes much more important, because the philosophy behind jewelry boxes is seeing how far craftsmanship can be taken. Close tolerance fit and finish is a very large part of how this type of work will be evaluated.

Philosophy does not always have to do with goals, but is often a party to goal-oriented work. All craftspeople over time develop an inner guide regarding the level of accuracy and craftsmanship that are acceptable for their work. Sometimes it is based on the kinds of work they most enjoy, the styles they work in, the level of patience and time they have to give towards their efforts, and if they are working to requirements which are or are not their own.

Materials are often a factor. Consider many different materials, and the methods that render them into a finished product. Casting, molding, rolling, extruding, machining cutting, grinding, all leave behind a surface quality which can affect accuracy, the very accuracy that may be needed to reach a goal. The layout work for a piece of rolled or ground steel may have a smooth surface and take place on a granite surface plate. This smoothness of the surface qualities are enhancements to accuracy.

Wood smoothness is variable, and dependent upon the state of milling it is in. Cutting marks on an 8/4 board from the hardwood dealer can easily be in the +/- .005 to .015 range, and some board surfaces can be found that are coarser than that. Saw tooth marks, planing snipe and other machining factors are the norm. It is up to us to render woods smoother with our own processes, and some woods are rendered smooth from machining processes easier than others.

Moisture content can also play a role. Beyond the limits, which the cellular structure of the wood itself inherently provides, the smoothness from our milling often determines how well we can do with the quality of accuracy we can render upon it. We can mark it for squareness anytime we like, but the quality of squareness we get, no matter how good the tool can be degraded or enhanced by the quality of the surface we are working with. This is why it is a good shop practice to sneak up on the final sizing you need as the board is milled to final dimensions, the process can become more accurate as you go.

Tooling can be a factor. Tooling is available in a number of levels of quality, and accuracy. The higher the quality, of course the higher the cost, and the level of accuracy is commonly better, yet it does not mean that lower quality tools can not be found to be, or made to be highly accurate. It should be evaluated case by case. There are budgets to consider but I’d like to advocate that when it comes to layout tools and approaches to Metrology, it never hurts to do the best you can, and buy the best tool you can afford.

Straightness is a factor, which I touched on, in an earlier article, called The Utility of the Straightedge. Too, squareness benefits from this same straightness, and angular precision is also brought into the mix. Consider a Starrett combination square. It is adjustable, blades are interchangeable on it, commonly to 24 inches, but 36 and 48-inch blades are obtainable. At 24-48 inches away from the squares head, one can begin to realize the value of having straight edges, and precision angular accuracy coming from the tool very easily. If a square with this capability were to contain error, imagine how amplified the error would become at three to four feet from the reference edge.

High accuracy in the tooling pays you. Even when wood surface quality is poor, the layout cannot be more accurate by any tool that is not accurate. The surface quality of the wood can be improved though accurate machine setups, various cutting, planing and machining methods to enhance layout accuracy, if the layout tool can “bring it” to begin with. This means finer accuracy from layout tooling is possible if layout is performed after the surface quality of wood is improved.

Certainly the doghouse we talked about earlier will not be rendered higher quality by using a Starrett precision square, but the jewelry box will suffer if the square used to lay it out was not accurate. If you choose to tool up well, then you are free to work at any level, choosing the level of accuracy you desire, and often even verify the quality of other tools you may own, so you can be aware of the quality of layout they offer, and you can account for, compensate, or restrict the tool for use where it is adequate for the work it is called upon to do.

Wood movement is often at issue, as a reason precision accuracy is not necessary, or desirable for woodworking. Most often, the argument stems from not knowing the ways which wood moves more specifically, therefore ruling out wood altogether as a material capable of high accuracy and precision. Yet those who endeavor to understand wood movement achieve very high quality, stable results from wood in as built conditions.

Here are a few notable thoughts regarding wood movement.

Select grain structure is important. If wood stability for a project is desirable, consider that quartersawn woods are more stable than plainsawn, because the board grain does not cross the pith;

Quartersawn wood orients the growth rings radially, that is, at 45 to 90 degrees to the wide surface. Wood movement is along the rings, and rings are kept short by half or greater in quartersawn boards than that of plainsawn, and the movement from moisture content expected from quartersawn is half that of plainsawn.

Plainsawn lumber deals with growth rings from zero to 45 degrees to the flat side of the board, otherwise called tangentially, it does cross the pith, and movement in these boards can be expected to be twice that of quartersawn.

Vertical, clear grain boards will be most predictable. Avoid boards with interlocked grains, variable grains, reaction woods, tension woods, and mineral deposits, as seasonal movement from moisture content in boards like these is not predictable even at equilibrium moisture. If the figure and beauty these woods can offer is desired, it is up to the woodworker to design with this in mind, and build into their project the compensations needed for these factors.

Once EMC, Equilibrium Moisture Content is achieved, and considering the common ranges of humidity for the area of the country, as well as where the wood will reside in regards to climate control or not, and whether the air handling has air conditioning which is capable of dehumidifying are other factors.

The good news is, wood movement in a climate-controlled area, such as indoors, often has very predictable movement in select, uniform grained boards. A great deal of research and observation has been conducted over the last century, dealing with the many species of woods that are used as building materials, and the data is freely available for use to the builder. Please see Wood As an Engineering Material, written by the US Department of Agriculture, Forest Products Laboratory as one of the foremost writings on this subject. There is a copy available in the Woodworks Library.

The details can be accurately worked out. Properly sawn, select lumber is also helpful when future predictability is desirable, and most boards will not shrink more than 0.2% longitudinally from green to kiln dry, so most any angle cut on the end of a board will remain accurate, as originally cut over the service life of the piece, meaning the accuracy of squareness, can be made highly precise, and can be counted on to remain that way.

Learn to familiarize yourself with the various appearances of grain in wood, and know where and when to put it to the best use. While they can be very, very beautiful, boards of any variety containing interlocked grains, variable grains, reaction woods, tension woods, and mineral deposits will not move consistently when the seasonal moisture in these boards swings. Cupping, twist, warp and wind are all plausible factors, which will affect dimensional accuracy in any direction and the best way to deal with this is to bring these boards to EMC and let them move all they want as they acclimatize.

Begin final milling difficult boards by starting a bit bigger than the intended final size. Work your way in, so as to relieve any of the stresses these boards may have, correcting as you go, so that when you have them at the final dimension, and in the realm of the target EMC, you have the best chance of knowing the future outcomes, and then design around the seasonal movement they will still require.

Once the boards have been milled to the flatness, squareness, and dimensions needed, the next step often includes joinery, and adhesives. Joinery inherently enjoys flatness, straightness and squareness as components of it’s fit and finish. The need for close tolerances is relatively high. Glues commonly call for joinery tolerances for squareness and parallelism of .002-.005 inch, for optimum adhesion, and clamping forces will not help you achieve better results from improper milling.

If the factors affecting wood movement and surface smoothness are observed, wood should be able to be worked and milled easily to accuracy approaching .001 inch, and certainly .001-.003 inch, depending on grain smoothness. As previously discussed, not every project will require this precision in every way, and it will be up to the builder to decide what works best for the project. However if the tooling you own cannot bring .001 inch accuracy, cutting tools cannot mill to accurate lines, and the bets for precision are off, whether the project would benefit from fine looking accuracy or not.

Happy Woodworking!

Much of the way we think about civil engineering, architecture, woodworking, and even some metalworking, call it flat work if you like, is based on previously understood, maybe even taken for granted, notions about geometry.

Every line that goes in a given direction without variance to that direction is straight, all points that lie upon a line, line segment, or ray can be thought of as congruent. At any point on a line, another line, line segment or ray can intersect, begin sharing a common end point, and create an angle.

There are four ways we look at angles… The most basic angle is the right angle, the angle of 90 degrees, which when measured, corresponds to a quarter of the 360 degrees in a circle, or some thing other than a circle that circuitously begins and ends at the same point. The other ways we describe angles are of angles smaller than 90 degrees which are “acute” and angles larger than 90 yet smaller than 180 degrees, which we call obtuse. If the angle is greater than 180 and less than 360 degrees we call it a reflex angle. When working in terms of squareness, we are only concerned with the 90 degree, or right angle.

Classically, a square has four angles and each of those angles is 90 degrees. If we add all four of those angles together, the result is 360. The interesting thing to note here is that in geometry, and fine work, 360 is not acceptably 359 or 361, and considered a fit. It is either square, or not.

Unlike all the other geometric shapes that use right angles, the square has four sides that are of equal length. This gives us two diagonals, which are also equal. When the diagonals are equal, they are equal to 1.41 times the length of the sides, otherwise known as the square root of two, and this value is referred to as Pythagoras’ constant. These diagonals also form the hypotenuse of right triangles, if the sides of said triangles are equal length.

Now, making your head hurt is not what I am trying to do, but you now know that you can check for squareness if the diagonals within the square are equal length. But what if the sides are not equal length? Well if 2, 3, or 4 sides are not equal, then you don’t have a square, and the angles will not be 90 degrees, except in one case, and that is when each pair of opposite sides of the 4 are equal length, yet adjacent sides are not equal length, This too creates square corners, can be checked with equal length diagonals, and Pythagoras’ Theorem is used instead to find the length of the diagonal. and conversely

Did you guess? This squared, non square is called a rectangle.

Square to the builder is simple, it can be the box or the rectangle, but it is most usable as another name for a right angle. Cutting something to square, or squaring something simply means to form an accurate right angle on the end of it.

With that and a tape measure you can square boards, boxes… Power at your fingertips!

The creation of square where there is not square is easy to do, positioned wherever you need it. You need sharp pencil, a ruler and a compass. Follow along with the diagram, hand drawn by the way, just to show that it can be drawn anywhere. Here are the steps:

With the ruler, draw line AB, and make point A on the left end. With the compass point positioned on point A, swing a short arc mark at any radius length you like, roughly off to the right of the intended perpendicular near the 45 degree radian. Pick any spot you like on that small arc line and cross it to mark your RP, or Radius Point.

With the same compass setting, transfer the point of the compass to the RP and starting at point A, draw a circle based on this unaltered radius length.

At the point where the circumference of the circle intersects line AB, establish point B.

Place the pencil at the RP and position the ruler against it. Align the ruler through the RP and point B. Then draw a line through the circle that intersects point B, the RP, and the circumference opposite point B. Establish this new intersection as Point C. This is Line BC.

Position your pencil on point C, and position the ruler against it. Align the ruler to point A, and draw line AC.

Depending on the how and where this is arranged, this creates a right angle every time. Layout lines for square. The process is called Erecting a Perpendicular. Simple, accurate, scalable, uses few tools. Squareness wherever it is needed. You can even draw it upside down and backwards.

Perhaps line AB and AC already forms the edge of a board or panel. That works. If point A is allowed to be the corner, a point B is established along the horizontal, and a Point C is established along the vertical side, and measurements are taken of line AB and AC. Plugging these measurements into Pythagorean theorem, and conversely will give the length of the hypotenuse, and if it does not measure the same, the board or panel is not square.

In any case, the constructs of square have some pretty simple and humble beginnings, and when observed in working, they help things fit. Now we know a bit more of the back-story. The fit and finish of any project is often defining of many things. Squareness often plays it’s part in the mix, and is often what we are striving for.

Happy Woodworking.

Accuracy refers to the confirmation of dimensional tolerances.

Dimensional tolerances differ with the various types of projects a woodworker will commonly undertake. The set up of shop machines and precision hand tools often requires the precision of accuracy to be at the thousandth of an inch level, however most woodworking projects require accuracy at a level which is commonly referred to by fractions, and is often referred to in the 1/32nd (.031) to 1/64th (.016) range.

The quality in our craftsmanship is inherent in our understanding of these constructs, and our personal stake in setting for ourselves, a level of tolerances. These tolerances are the differences between woodworking, and fine woodworking.

It may not seem relevant, but here is an analogy for higher accuracy. A surveyor will set up an optical instrument, and first, sight their back sight. What they are establishing is a couple of different things, but what is important for us to know for this discussion is that the further away the back sight is from the instrument, the higher the precision of accuracy will be when the surveyor makes other measurements that are shorter than the distance between the instrument and the back sight. The practice is sometimes referred to as going long, and is meant to create higher precision.

One of the common things I have heard over the years, is that in woodwork, a high degree of accuracy is not needed, and then there is the ever ubiquitous, “wood moves anyway”. The understanding being overlooked here is that a lot of assumed accuracy is inherent in the process, because it has been manufactured into the tools we buy, as well as a lot of the lumber we purchase, and we take for granted that it is already “there”. Even wood movement is understood and can be compensated for with relatively high accuracy. None of these assumptions fully get us off the hook.

Consider the ruler. Sure, the ruler has the increments we need, the 1/32nd, and the 1/64th… But we rely on the very same precision accuracy at the fractional level to be consistent to the thousandth of an inch, to assure each of those graduations are where they’re supposed to be. Someone in some lab and factory put all that accuracy into our tools. If we want our precision to maintain 1/64th accuracy, it has to be consistently maintained to 1/64th, plus or minus .001-.002, otherwise the eye will be drawn to errors. After the tool has done its part, the rest is up to us.

Unfortunately, not all levels of woodworking accuracy can be assumed. There are some levels that each of us working the tradecrafts are personally responsible for, and things go better when we are mindful of them.

Take for instance, straightness. The layout of lines is many things, but few things in the layout of lines are required to have the precision of accuracy we have come to expect from straightness. From precision straightness, we can evolve precision flatness, and also use precision straightness as a construct of precision squareness. Parallelism is yet another important derivative of straightness. How straight, straight is, is a pretty important matter. It is always best to start from the best we can do, as it will surely be degraded from there.

Think about the tooling we use to create straightness and flatness. It is inherent in the tooling and machinery. It had to get there somehow. We have to accept that the industrial designers, engineers and machinists did their part, and many woodworkers rely on the good graces of a millwright they never met for a lot of built in accuracy, but there is another part, which they left to us.

One of the more important tools a woodworker can own is a good straightedge. You can have them short or long and there are a number of makers offering them, but if you choose only one, a two-foot straight edge offers a lot of well-rounded utility to the Woodworker. Once you have one, what I want to encourage is; the use of it. Sure they are high accuracy, but it isn’t just for hanging on a peg and looking at.

Straightedges in the woodworking shop have a lot of application. They are available in both steel and aluminum, however they all have more utility if they are made from flat bar stock. Steel straightedges are generally made from stress relieved, 01 steel and are hardened. They are precision milled straight and parallel, and often offer accuracy generally to .001 over the length of the tool. The manufacturer will state the accuracy of their tool, sometimes offering a letter of certification as well. They lay flat on their backs for scribing or drawing lines, and stand on their edges for the comparison of surfaces. They are available with or without beveled edges, and with or without graduations for measurement, but these upgrades are not a necessary requirement, and usually add cost. If you can only afford one, it is better to leave measuring to steel rulers and tape measures.

I find the non-beveled, non-graduated types are less expensive and if it is less specialized, then it usually will offer more utility. Another rational is, that the less it costs the more likely a craftsperson will own it, and if you don’t have one, you can’t put it to good use. There is a lot of good use to be had. Longer than the average ruler and better quality ones are thick enough most generally to stand on edge.

For layout work, the straight edge is a heavy, wide tool, which stays where you put it and has a tall side, which is great for the marking of your work. It is very comfortable for use with any pencil, and it really shines while a marking knife is registered against it. It is an excellent way to connect all the straight lines after you have laid them out. It is also a very nice extension for use with the squares you have and will extend the reach of shorter tools when more reach is needed.

To the hand tool user, the straightedge brings a lot of utility. It can be used to verify the soles of hand planes. After you see where the work needs done, you can then lap the soles to correct the issues and verify as you go. Feel free to verify the flatness of your honing equipment. Flattening the workbench with the use of feeler gauges, a straightedge, and marking is a great use of the tool, because the high spots can be found and removed. The flatness of the workbench is a frame of reference for all future work that comes off it.

Is your board, especially when prepped by hand ready to accept the joinery profiles you intend to put in them? The flatness and trueness of boards is crucial for the fit and finish of dovetails. The plowing of slots and grooves such as dados and sliding dovetails, as well as the treatment provided by hollows and rounds are always made to look a lot better on boards that have been properly evaluated as ready by a straightedge. Handwork is a challenging process; why not evaluate the needed quality before moving to the next part of the process? Besides, the evaluation of a freshly jointed board edge, is just a quick quality assurance check, and a savior before you find an error in mid glue up.

The straightedge is also useful when evaluating the cup, twist, and wind in boards as well as evaluating the flatness of panel surfaces. A pair can even be used as winding sticks. Another good use is for establishing the straightness of the chute edge and fences on a shooting board as well as the overall flatness of its surfaces. While you are at it, evaluate your other shop built jigs from time to time as well.

For machine setups, routine adjustments and maintenance, the straightedge is a great tool. It is invaluable for evaluating the surfaces of the jointer beds for parallel and coplanarity as well as the proper calibration of its vernier settings.

The table saw can be evaluated for table flatness, which is not uncommonly found to be less than perfect yet in some cases correctable. There is also the adjustment of side tables, out feed tables and the trueness of miter slots. It is also valuable to know what the relative flatness and straightness the fence faces have. If there are anomalies, you can then compensate or adjust for them.

Miter saws can use the straightedge for evaluating the trueness of the fence, and are also aided by the straightedge when side wings, when used, are leveled with the main surface of the saw.

A straightedge can also be used for the routine set up of roller stands when used as an in feed or out feed support on any shop machine.

The router table is a high precision shop machine which is commonly shop made. There are many uses for the straightedge with this tool. Evaluation of the tabletop is a constant need with some designs due to the weight the tabletop supports. Many designs are under built and table sag is an error inducing issue. The plates often used to fit the router to the table can be ill fitting in their mortise, and require fine adjustments be made, in order to be brought flush with the table surface.

The router table fence is often in need of straightedge evaluation as well. It needs to be flat and straight, if split, it also has a need for coplanarity. It also must be evaluated to determine if it has any tendency for deflection. The router fence is also a candidate for using a straightedge along with 1-2-3 blocks, gauge blocks and feeler gauges for the settings of the fence and router bit height. With these tools in use, on a well-made table, one can expect fully repeatable accuracy from a router table to be in the .001 range.

The evaluation of any wood, which has been prepared for milling, is important as well. Any cup, twist, warp or wind is something that will throw off the fit and finish of the simplest joinery, and even make edge treatments like bevels, round-overs and more sophisticated profiles look awful. Further, these evaluations can make a lot of difference as to how safe a milling process may be. Knowing ahead of time saves a lot of needless frustration. There are few tools available to the woodworker which can assure things go right, and evaluate why things go wrong, with more power than a straightedge.

If I thought about it, there is probably much more which could be said about such a simple tool, but this is a reasonable well-rounded look at it. It may seem to be a cost prohibitive tool to some, but after thinking outside the box with me awhile, you see it has so much application, and with its evaluatory prowess, how much money could it save you in error free or error caught woodworking, even over the short run? In my shop, it has more than earned its keep and continues to, as I find that wood is costly, even more so than tools. In fact, around my shop, the straight edge offers more value than many other needed tools, and if you can get your mind around that, one will serve you just as well. It can touch so many aspects of your woodworking, that is, if you give it a chance!

Happy Woodworking.

While a lot can be done with these, a common application is for use in workbench base construction. Real life happens. People move, circumstances change. Sometimes the dream shop in the basement relocates to a garage or an outbuilding. Many of us cannot build a bench with the certainty of knowing it will never need to be easily transported to elsewhere at some future point. This makes the use of steel or brass cross dowels a wonderful option.

While this article is about what it takes to install cross dowels, due to popular demand I have researched and included links to what I feel are the best sources for this hardware in it’s various sizes out there. The links are included at the end of this article.

It is notable that bench building is enjoying a renaissance right now. some great new designs, vises and hardware packages have recently become available.

Amongst these offerings, a top of the line All Steel Cross Dowel Package has been made available by Benchcrafted. They are marketed as Benchcrafted Barrel Nuts, and they are the best product available to the bench builder. Unlike any other cross dowel meant for use with benches, these are all steel for heavy duty applications and the design allows the installer to align them with fingers during assembly. These are top quality, a great value and installation doesn’t get simpler.

Ok, if you already have your hardware in hand, then layout for cross dowels in knock down bench legs works like this. If you have not obtained the parts you need, please consider waiting until you have it in hand.

Lay your two legs and cross piece on the bench, Inside face facing up, already milled, mortised and tenoned, and dry fit them. Clamp them top and bottom to hold the unit together with enough force so that things will not move while you perform the layout, and check them for square. Make sure you have them square.

If you have a Veritas saddle square, or equivalent, that would be handy, but if you don’t, no matter, here is a work around:

Position the leg assembly by allowing it to hang over the edge of your bench and support it with a something like a telescopic roller stand. Take a six-foot length of string line and tie a nut or a heavy washer on each end for weight, and drape it over the leg assembly, along the centerline of the crosspiece. This string line forms somewhat of a double-ended plumb bob, which will indicate the centerline of your layout work and will project these lines around corners. You can eyeball centerline of your work piece or measure. Once the string is located, go ahead and put a piece of blue painters tape on each end near the corners where it drapes over the edge.

The best position for the cross dowel on the bolt is at the end of the bolt with all the threads in the nut fully engaged. The formula for figuring cross dowel hole location from any combination of length and diameter hardware is to take the working length of the bolt (which differs if the cap screw is hex head, allen head, button head or flat head) and subtract half the diameter of the cross dowel from that length to find hole centerline for the cross dowel. The length of the bolt, when you are choosing the length optionally, is best determined by the thickness of what it has to pass through on the bolt head side, plus 1-1/4 inches minimum into the adjoining board for cross dowel centerline.

We sharpen our tools and skills, we buy accurate measuring and marking tools all with the hope of accurately conveying our vision. We go to work and accurately lay out the work, checking, and double-checking everything as we go to assure we have everything right.

We cut our wood, taking care to get every cut right and of course they are perfect, except for the fact that the face of the board we loved so much is now going to be the back, because we got turned around while we were trying to be so careful. We did not mark our boards properly to affirm their proper orientations in the project above all else.

Can you imagine being half way through with some half blinds when you discover the orientation error?

Oh Man…

A bummer, but it is avoidable.

Buy yourself some chalk and mark your boards as to the intended orientation. Chalk is a buck for a box and it could save you thousands of dollars in layout errors over time. Wipes off, leaves no trace, keeps you on the intended track

Blue painter’s masking tape and a Sharpie marker is a great adhesive notepad for on board paper brain purposes as well.

As an upgrade to plain chalk, consider getting a chalk holder for your piece of chalk. It keeps you cleaner and helps keep the chalk from breaking and rolling off onto the floor. Keep it in the pocket of your apron really nice, you know, where you may find it and maybe remember to use it!

You can also use the blackboard chalk as a release agent on files so that hardwoods, brass and aluminum do not so easily clog the grooves of the file, and this helps make the files work better, last longer and dull more slowly.

Happy Woodworking!