Here are some considerations for bringing high quality to woodworking.

1. Layout tooling is a very big deal. Accurate layout is the first phase of getting where one wants to go.

The subsequent work with tools will diminish this accuracy, so starting as high on the accuracy scale as possible is beneficial. Good layout tools and the skills to use them help provide the ultimate in fit and finish, whether you are going to make a Morris Chair, or a William and Mary Secretary.

Any cut is meant to be to the line, so what quality should be the line? What a line is to a framing carpenter is different to the fine woodworker. This can mean choosing well for quality squares, rulers, straight edges, protractors and bevels that hold their angle. Marking gauges, compasses, curve layout tools. Finally, honing the skills that help you to use them all comprehensively.

Joinery is a huge factor in woodworking. How joinery fits is key, and how good it looks is desirable. Layout is the second step after truing the boards. Always mark the face, waste, and which side of the line to work to.

Remember, a pencil will blunt as you use it, so knowing when to resharpen it, or to use harder leads, a pen, or better, a marking knife (where the line can then be darkened with a pencil or lightened with a chalk pounce) is important. Red pencils can be helpful on darker woods.

2. Sharp tooling. This means that any woodworker must find their path to high-level sharpness for themselves and perfect their ability to provide it to their tools. There is more than one way, but being perfect with one is all that is needed. Saws, Planes and Chisels depend on sharpness. There isn’t any compromise.

3. Quality edge tooling is a combination of edge holding, stability, and ergonomics.

If any tool will not retain sharpness adequately for its needs, consider upgrading its cutting edge. If it is a chisel, replace it. If it is a plane, narrow the problem to its fault. If it is the iron that is failing, replace it. If it is the sole or the adjuster, perhaps you can repair it, and sometimes it isn’t worth the bother.

Even vintage tools can be replaced cheaply enough when you consider the value of your time and what you prefer doing with it. On some old tools, fettling never ends, but if the tool is good, fettling takes well. Do consider any tools’ usability in ensemble with the sum of its parts. If you have to fight a tool to make it perform, upgrading it could be worth consideration.

The better a chisel feels in the hand is a bigger part of how well they do the work than one may think. Too, consider its task. This can also mean that sending a paring chisel to do a butt chisels job can be fraught with peril. Peril you say? Yes, peril. Tools need not be expensive, that’s fine, but consider the specific purpose carefully. Compromising with tools often requires greater skill. Consider next the cost of wood per board foot. What is the cost of your board? Common Walnut runs $7.00. Curly Mahogany runs $100.00 per board foot. Wannabe tools and compromises are risky when a wood stretcher or replacer isn’t available. It always happens when you are almost done.

There are different types of chisels for specific purposes. (e.g. pairing, butt, bench, skew, dovetail, etc.) There are different planing bevel angles required for specific outcomes. It is important to learn these differences what, when and why, as they affect ease of use and finish quality. Remember to observe these differences in different materials and under changing circumstances.

On bench planes, there are also different plane iron sharpenings, mouth openings, and chip breaker settings, if offered, that can inter relate to one another. Some planes are purpose made for specific tasks, like a jackplane, which for it’s usual task wants a radiused iron and an open mouth. Or a smoother that likes very sharp irons sharpened square to the sides and a closed mouth. We have to set these planes up for the outcomes we want them to help produce. Our ignorance of these understandings isn’t something wood will abide.

A thicker plane iron is inherently more stable than a thin one. Some will argue this but I won’t. This has great influence on finish quality. On planes with thin irons like the old Stanley planes, thin irons are aided and stiffened by the cap iron, but depending on the type of work the plane is doing, the cap iron setting cannot always provide stiffness nor it’s connected chip breaker to the correct proximity for both or either to help stabilize the iron.

Modern plane and blade makers have bypassed this concern by supplying a thicker iron that usually overcomes the issue. If the iron is working, then nothing is broke. If the iron chatters or won’t cut well at any mouth setting or depth of cut, consider upgrading it, particularly if using most any vintage plane.

Sharpness is everything, always. Dullness is at the root of most problems with either the tool or the wood. Perfecting the ability to sharpen adequately for the tool to work outcomes that are favorable from the wood is any woodworkers goal.

4. It’s the 21st century. Most woodworkers can buy S4S lumber anywhere. This can save you some time, but it still isn’t ready for fine work. It still has room for improvement. Is it square and flat? Are there grain issues? Is there twist, wind, cupping? S4S often is not fully seasoned or acclimated before it is planed. Time has been given to allow the board to move some more, so choose carefully. Since these woods are so obtainable, do feel free to use them if they help get you where you want to go, but leave the challenging boards at the store. If you like the idea of getting started on a project and you lack a full kit, choosing these woods carefully can really help get you going.

A good first saw for working in S4S lumbers could be a16 inch-ish long, sharp western backsaw or Japanese equivalent is important. If Japanese saws seem right to you, consider the Ryoba.

5. A Jointer plane need not be top of the line, but one should have one, and it should be capable of accomplishing the tasks of flattening and straightening. If you can’t true the work, you can’t expect anything else. It is probably more important to have than a smoother. Any of the jointers from wood to infill can bring this, but in the end, if they can’t, woodworking suffers. For fine work, absolutely zero layout is worth doing if the wood surface has not been properly prepared in advance.

6. Make or Buy. A shooting board is one of the tools that take woodworking accuracy, fit and finish further, and most woodworkers will find the need for this accuracy, both fit and finish somewhere along their journey. It brings qualities to the final outcome similar to that of the jointer planes. It can help you bring finish dimensions to your work that you may not yet be able to achieve free hand. There are other jigs that help. A good bench, because workholding is a big part of refined crafsmanship. Clamps, guides, what-have-you, the list can go on, depending on your desired outcomes.

There is a corollary to 3,4,5 and 6: If number 2 is not observed, nothing else matters. This means, even low price can be high quality if one can make it sharp and it can stay work-sharp.

7. Tooling isn’t everything. Develop yourself. Knowledge is but one thing, ability is another. One is schooling the other is practice. They are parts of the puzzle. We too must be sharp.

Train your brain and body to do this work well.

Learn and practice only the best techniques. For best results, sawing is with the grain first, then across it. Chisel across the grain first, then with it. Observe ergonomics, posture matters.

Observe the outcomes and results from your tools and trust what you observe over what you read in books. This will show one fastest, where improvement is needed or not.

Learn grain reading and what the do’s and don’ts are with grain, including the long, the short and wood movement, as they are hard fast rules. Learn to be patient, let wood move by allowing it to acclimate. Make your big cuts to true it and let it rest. Then after a few days take it to final size, check that it is ready and then work only what you can fit. Preparing all your wood before you work it can allow movement to occur that you can’t correct. It happens. Wood grain is the decider.

Don’t work wood when tired. Woodworkers are not high quality when tired. It’s about safety and the final outcome.

Always consider the safest way to do anything before starting. Consider also what can happen if safe practices are not followed, before starting. Shortcuts are throat cuts.

Have I left a lot out? Yeah. Probably. This is a lot to build on, in ensemble.

Remember, It isn’t just high quality from what we are willing to pay. That is only part of the puzzle for some of our success. Success in woodworking is an ensemble of qualities, from both tooling and technique and the boards themselves.

Happy Woodworking!

Evidently I am NOT comparatively busy as the folks who made the following video. Busy does not really adequately express these folks… I’m thinking over exuberant, with double down on imagination…

For those who dig… eh sorry, like hand tools, this will be over the top, but it will be over the top to everyone anyway. Just when you thought you’d seen most everything. Eight some odd minutes of stunning, well, shock… Eh, you’ll just keep watching to see what happens next. It sort of just sucks you in.

For those who prefer better content from me, Thanks, and I am working on some, but for now just laugh a little like I did, and know I’ll be along with better stuff soon!

Happy woodworking, or multi-tooling, even!

~ — ~

What hath brute strength wrought
where finesse has shown cunning?
wisdom, woodworker.

~ — ~

Ponder gnarled grain
twisting, turning, catching light
the path is simple.

~ — ~

The least resistance
sharpness is known to coerce
wood can only sigh.

~ — ~

Sunlight on woodgrain,
Second line jazz New Orleans
such vivid splendor!

~ — ~

Cabriole Bossa Nova
They dance so free standing still–
Femininity.

~ — ~

The Roubo stands strong
Awaiting the woodworkers–
Imagination.

~ — ~

Finesse in silence
unneeded wood whisks away–
Sculpture revealed.

~ — ~

Ying and Yang of wood
Who is the master of which?
Contest never over.

~ — ~

The sharp rasp quickens
woodgrain tamed beneath its grasp–
shaped beauty springs forth.

~ — ~

Inspire yourself
listen, the wood beckons you–
now make some shavings.

~ — ~

Drill Pressed counterbores
Wood chips disappear to vac
Get back to work now.

~ — ~

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!

Today, as I try to write this, Monday June 29, was a tough sad day. I had to say goodbye to a well-loved friend, and one of the coolest spirits I have ever known.

Boomer. 1997 – 6-29-2009

A cancerous abdominal tumor began growing in his abdomen last September.

Tumors ending in the word carcinoma are bad. These cancers, they always take their host. This one got my buddy. I have lost too many loved ones to cancer.

Mine is a garage shop, nice when it is warm to open up garage door, and let it have a breeze, but not so easy when you have a cat with the wanderlust for the front lawn and points beyond. It’s all about the adventure, you know?

He came to me four and a half years ago, sort of a rescue. He and his adopted brother were not able to go with his family on a 3 year Naval deployment to Japan. He belonged to my wife at the time’s brother, who is a really great guy, and though we had two cats already, two became four.

I was not originally ok with becoming the caretaker to 4 cats, but I sorta like cats, and it didn’t take them long to grow on me…

For reasons that don’t matter now, four over time became two again, and one of the remaining two was this ol’ enigmatic guy, Boomer.

Boomer was named for Boomer Esiason the football quarterback most noably of Cincinatti Bengal fame and color commentator for the NFL. Boomer was a name that fit him, he was one big cat. Not fat, just big, and in the 20 lb range. He had swagger, but he was more about love and attention than about being tough. Just don’t be a stray cat in his backyard.

If you were ever a visitor, you remember Boomers constant attention. He loved you all, and he wanted you to love him too. He was just a force of love to be reckoned with, and you might as well just love him, because he was pretty nice that way, and heck, you-know-you-just-want-to-pet-him…

Boomer’s antics included attention, more attention, pet me, and rub my belly. Scratch my ears and mind if I help you with that? I want to go out and roll on the concrete, pet me some more, Uh, is that ice cream you are eating? and “I’m just going to lay down right behind where you are standing or where you’ll be working so you will notice me.” As you can imagine, he was very effective at getting his needs met.

Water was something you needed to have plenty of, and where it was accessible to him. Food too, but water for Boom was a biggie. There were a couple places to drink, but in the kitchen, a favorite dish, it was not to be let to get empty or it would migrate out to where you were sure to see it needed attended to. He was often found lying on the kitchen floor, front legs straddling his water dish, very happy about this arrangement indeed. He loved you more for fresher water, even if the dish was not empty. More leg rubbin for you.

Access was something Boomer enjoyed. He was let in and out as he liked. Too big to jump, he had the entire fenced back yard. But that is not all. Closed doors in my house have a spring loaded wall protector attached to the back of every door. Cats, being pretty smart, but without opposable thumbs learn that if you make enough noise with these, a human, with opposable thumbs will come and open the offending door. Can you imagine the boing… boing-ng-ng…? Yeah… In Boom’s mind, one offending closed door in particular lead to the shop.

I have always had reservations about pets in a woodworking shop. I am not saying this to create controversy, it isn’t about ethics, I was just worried about my little buddy’s health, you know, dust, and startling noises. I never wish to startle an animal, or have them breathing dusts that I myself would take protective measures with. I want them to live long happy lives.

Too, Cats tend to make their own choices for themselves, and unless you enjoy a constant battle of saying no to a being that does not share your sentiment, you pretty much just let kitties to what they like. Despite my early concerns, ol’ Boom, he wanted nothing to do with any of this, He wanted out in the shop with me, and like Cats do, he was great at timing the door as it opens.

As it turned out, Boom, when I felt I was doing things that were not too noisy or dusty, or was working with the door closed, could be the shop kitty. Interestingly, if I thought he might not want to be in there for some reason, he was usually amenable to this, and sometimes I would try to do all I could without needing to ask him to leave for a bit. It usually worked out pretty well for us both.

So when Boomer’s Dad was in the shop, Boomer spent many a happy hour. When Boomer’s Dad was not in the shop, sometimes Boomer didn’t want to come in, so he stayed in the shop, and since my office is next to the shop, I could hear if he wanted in. I’d look in on him, he would be happily laying somewhere, I’d ask if he wanted in and often he would rather just be in the shop, thanks. I never knew what Boomer built out there while I was not with him, he always said he was not good enough at woodworking for me to see his work. He sure loved it out there.

Well the 3 years came and went, and the thought was Boom would go back to his Family. I am not clear on the whole story, but it was not looking like his family was going to be able to take him where they were being stationed next. Pets are a tough situation with military families and so my ex offered to keep him. So Boom wound up staying with me.

Boomer was fine with this arrangement. More shop time for him, and well he was pretty fond of his routine. He liked being my shadow, and I came to like it too. He was a good talker of sorts, understtod a lot of what I wanted or was saying. With a knowing look and poignant flicks of the tail we had some fun conversations. I am going to miss those conversations. Those fun opportunities to hang out with my buddy, Boomer.

One of the finest spirits I ever had the chance to know, and before he left, I reminded him that he was welcome here always. He taught me a lot if you can imagine that. I hope he felt the last few years were a blast, they were for me. God Bless you Boom.

Going to take some getting used to being without a shadow. A big cat that leaves a big hole.

Thanks for listening, Happy Woodworking, and don’t forget to remind the ones you love that you love them, all the time. It really sucks when you can’t anymore.

The Woodworks Library is a collection of woodworking books, which includes a number of topical books that are not specifically about woodworking, but are related to, and of possible interest to woodworkers.

There are a number of ways to get to the Woodworks library, and likely one of the easiest if you have already found yourself here reading this is to look into the upper margin of this web page, and look for the row of “Brown Blocks” up there that have listings printed in them.

They are all links to other pages related to this site and the one you want is the fifth one from the left entitled “Library”. Clicking that link will take you to a Library Interlink page that will either link directly to the top of the “Library” and it also contains a “Clickable Topic Index” that allows you to navigate directly to the top of the list for 15 different kinds of Topical Content found in the “Library”

Also if you rather the direct link to the Library is: http://www.evenfallstudios.com/woodworks_library/woodworks_library and in a pinch if you have not got a bookmark handy where you are, you can get to the “Woodworks Library” by using Google. It is the Top Link at Google if you use the name as the search term.

A new feature of the Woodworks Library is improved navigation. There are 15 sub topics in the Library and a clickable index at the top of the Library to quickly navigate to each of the topical sections you want. It is a lot faster than scrolling, but you can do that too. There is also a return to the navigation link at the bottom of each topical section.

Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, I copied the navigational index that is in the Library, to the Library interlink page here at Woodworks, so you can go direct to topic from the library interlink page as well.

There have been a large number of book additions to all the topical areas of the Library. Highlights include a Copy of Moxon in Woodworking, as well as many other great texts, from joinery to farm woodworking. The Carpentry section has many great books that will outline most any thing you want, from how to use every way possible when laying out with a carpenter’s square to how to build stair cases. The Understanding Wood section has seen some Forest Product Labs additions on adhesives and wood hardness, and some older texts about glues from a century ago.

There are a lot of new texts on files and saw filing in Hand Tools. If you ever wanted to know what there was published on the use of many files, it is in there. Some interesting texts on sheet metal work in Blacksmithing, Understanding sheet metal work has a lot of application outside the direct application. Books on drafting and lay out in Blueprint Reading, several new additions on painting and finishing, a new topic that includes books on leather work and upholstery, and well as a host of historic texts in the Furniture and Design section, for helping study period furniture, even a book containing a lot of Chippendale’s original drawings.

The Shop Machinery section has a book on the basic operation of most all shop machines that is very applicable to the basic operations of today’s machines. Not much has changed. The books even include a lot of operator tricks. There is also a new book in there regarding the set up of Shop Machinery when run off of a central belt system with leather belts. The Turning section gained a few new-old texts that will be of interest to those who want to know how turning was approached 150 years ago.

The Machine Tools section gained some great machine shop references and there is are some large files in there so prepare for the page loads to take some time. Some of what is in the Pattern Making section may be good information to the machine works as well.

There is so much more there than I have mentioned, and like a good movie, I don’t want to destroy the adventure of allowing you having a look for yourself. So please, feel free to venture over to the “Woodworks Library” whenever you like. It is 100% Free 24/7 and contains a lot of information to help you become a more complete woodworker.

Happy Woodworking!

Woodworking season comes around yearly, with Labor Day behind us, many of the summer outdoor oriented activities and chores are soon to be waning. The colder weather will be along soon enough to push us in and keep us indoors.

This is good, it spawns the need to be creative through other ways, and hobbies fill that gap. Problem is, many of us have to use a space for our woodworking hobby that is not exactly comfortable during a good bit of the indoor season. When we are cold, we don’t often enjoy what we want to enjoy as long or as much. We are more in the mode of just do it and get er’ done, rather than enjoying ourselves, where thinking through the process, being in the moment, and feeling like we relieved some stress are all big parts of having a good time. If it isn’t a good time, let’s face it, we generally avoid it.

To add, when you are cold, humans do not think as critically, and can even become distracted from slower thinking. Woodworking, like other tasks that require concentration, really does want your attention in many, many ways, because it is a very detailed endeavor, which can be inherently dangerous as well, so how you help yourself overcome these issues while trying to enjoy the woodworking season is a question that is a good thing to have on your mind.

My want is to help you stay warm in the shop. It was my want too. I bought this as a ‘what the heck’ purchase, meaning I did my research, but I really had no idea if my purchase was the best choice or if it was going to work adequately for my purposes. I do not enjoy being cold, and after asking around, no one really knew what to tell me. Electricity costs in my area rule that out, and Permanent installations are out for me as well. I got lucky on both counts, because this heater did work out for me big time. In fact, it exceeded my expectations. Now that I have used it several years it, I’m sharing my observations with you.

That is the Mr. Heater brand, Big Buddy Heater. In my shop, it is hooked via an accessory hose to a 5-gallon propane bottle. I just use the propane bottle off my BBQ as my fuel source, because both items seem to get the most use during opposite seasons, and as such it just makes sense to use the bottle I already have. I also bought the wall wart DC adapter that powers the small fan in the unit. The unit is user configurable for portability, it can also utilize 2 disposable type propane bottles housed in each side, and the fan can be powered by “D” cell batteries. I did run it off Duracell’s for a while, and the battery life is quite long.

It is a ceramic element heater with built in piezo electric starter. It has it’s own starter with thermocouple, three heat settings that give you 4000, 9000, or 18,000 BTU per hour. It is CSA certified for indoor and outdoor use. It has oxygen and tip over safety switches; you can even mount the unit to the wall to get it off the floor. It would also be a great thing to have during an extended power outage.

My shop space is a 2-car garage. It measures 20×20 so call it 400 square feet, I have 9-foot ceilings so cubed I have 2700 cubic feet. I have insulated walls covered with drywall, and an un-insulated metal garage door. My observations are that the 18,000 BTU setting can raise the temperature in my space 8-10 degrees F per hour on average. Outside was around freezing, my garage is generally 15-20 degrees warmer than outside is in the winter due to the hot water heater and a few other appliances that help warm the space a bit. Once I was between 60-70 degrees, turning down to the 4000 BTU setting would often maintain the temperature or perhaps very slowly gain or lose a degree or so an hour based on the outside temp and the time of the day.

The unit does have a fan, and I do advocate using it. Mr. Heater refers to it as a blower fan. It is not a strong fan; so do not think forced air, because if you do it will disappoint you. The fan is helpful though. The fan does help draw the cold air near the floor, into the heater rather than have it heat the air it can get by it just being a radiant heater. This increases efficiency. I also use a fan in my shop to help circulate the air, and this really was a big help in keeping the entire space in good, comfortable shape. I would definitely use a fan with this heater in the same room, and oh, the fan does not need to be near the heater, all you are trying to do is keep the hot air from stratifying near the ceiling.

Mr Heater claims that depending on the settings you use, and it is going to vary, that the 5-gallon or 20 lb bottle will get you 25-110 hours of use. Not bad really, when you consider the amount of shop time most woodworkers average per setting generally speaking. It is also not bad when you consider that the Big Buddy is making heat from propane pretty efficiently with the fuel it is given, so if heating your space is of value to you, improving your spaces’ ability to retain heat should be as well.

For your own research, I’ll include Mr. Heaters online product sheet of the big Buddy Heater here: Big Buddy Indoor Safe Heater and let you know that the heater, short hose and electrical converter for the fan will run you in the ballpark of $160, though you may find alternative or sale pricing, taxes and shipping from nearly anywhere.

Your space may be just like mine, (400 sq ft) or it may be smaller, larger, with more or less insulation, and your weather may be far more severe. This may be all you need, or you may need two, or less or something bigger. The main things I want you to take from this is that this heater works well, given the range of heating capability it has, coupled with the space and conditions I describe.

You are welcome to think about your own space and how you may need to augment the non-scientific observations I gave for performance to best gauge your own best guess at estimated outcomes. You are welcome to use my comments section or my contact page to ask any questions that you may want help answering, I will give them my best, based on my own observations. Please feel free to comunicate any time. I felt the product is a good fit for a 2 car garage sized space, a good value for the money spent, and I would buy it again.

I own two of these units. I use one to heat my shop everyday, because I work in my shop full time. I have used it going on four seasons now, (as of 2011) three of those seasons daily. I use one in the house as well. I have a Carbon Monoxide detector for both units, 5 feet from the Big Buddy and they have never been set off. I have used them a lot, I’ve had no concerns with Carbon Monoxide. None.

If you are concerned with moisture in the air, as heaters like this can add water vapor in the air to a degree, I recommend using a product like Dri-Z-Air. These are very inexpensive and you can purchase refill packs for them. I have used Dri-Z-Air products many times over the years and they work well. They are popular with people storing boats and RV’s that are stored for winter. There is a list of online retailers on their company website to aid you in finding them. A good choice would be Amazon.com. These will help capture the moisture and humidity, to keep your tooling safe.

Remember always that waxes, oils, contained spaces like drawers and cabinets for tool storage, desiccant dehumidifiers, anti corrosion emitters and even GoldenRod Dehumidifiers are great ways to help insure that corrosion is kept at bay.

So if you are thinking you want to enjoy a warmer woodworking season, a heater with 4000-18,000 BTU capabilities may be just what you are looking for.

Happy Woodworking!

Back in the 30’s, 40’s 50’s and 60’s of the last century, woodworkers commonly used containers named “MJB”, “Hills Bros”, and “Folgers” for the proper containment of “hardware”. The proper methodology for sorting the “hardware” was to sort through the top inch and a half of the can, and then up end the contents on the bench for a closer sort of the needed hardware at the bottom of the can.

A higher tech solution was to use mason jars, commonly used for canning, and errr, other handy and imaginative uses, and all you had to do was deny knowing anything as to where the canning jars were when it came time to put up preserves, and the high tech part was that you could see in advance that the “hardware” you were looking for was at the bottom of the jar.

Advances in baby food preserving had the Beech-Nut Corporation putting 13 varieties of food into glass jars, beginning in 1931, and the resourceful woodworker in fatherhood found this as a boon to “hardware” storage. The thing was you see, the integral lids could be mounted to the bottom of shelves, making use of otherwise unusable space, and the woodworker could simply look from underneath and see the needed hardware at the bottom of the jar, and not have to spread as much on the bench to sort for the needed pieces.

The 70’s brought forth the use of plastics and many innovative storage solutions came to light. Boxes and bins made from plastics that handily held large quantities of hardware, mixed quantities of hardware where the odd sized and weird shapes would fit, and the part you needed would still furrow to the bottom of the bin.

Then there were the tiny metal cases full of even tinier transparent drawers filled with barely any hardware, which would fail if you tried to actually use it, so you tossed the hardware you bought into it but eh, still dumped the contents on the bench because your fingers wouldn’t fit in the drawers.

The steel fab folks came up with some wonderful hardware storage solutions, and when you went to town to the parts houses, you asked for parts and the counterman would reach back and grab a drawer, set it on the counter and open the lid and man, you wanted the sliding drawer storage cabinet worse than you wanted the “hardware”. So you ask the guy behind the counter and he shrugs and says eh? “That comes that way from the supplier”… Bummer.

The Fishing Tackle industry went big on modular storage containers in the 90’s and boy was that stuff great, but… But then you had to choose, because if you used that, what would you store your gummy worms and crappie jigs in? Worse yet, you have the hardware boxes with the worm and lure boxes in the shop, so on the last second phone call from your buddy for fishing excursions, invariably you wind up in the boat with a box full of jewelry box hinges. Wait! Trout hit shiny stuff right? Rig the hinge with some donor leader and some split shot… Of course McFeely’s came to our confusion issue rescue with the Super-Sortment Chest, and Adjustable Compartment Tray.

Problem solved. Right? Well, no.

The Calliard and Bowser Company has been supplying those curiously strong Altoids in metal tins since the 1920’s, c’mon… You can’t throw those perfectly good tins away, can you? Nah, and you haven’t been either. You got them laying around, and saving them up for when there is something you need to store, just in case, or something. Besides, they are shallow, they latch shut, hardware can try to furrow to the bottom but they are (ahem) shallow, and your fingers fit in them! Eh, so why not use ‘em? You can’t save them all for a “what if” situation forever, so stop the hand wringing, and make some of them into hardware storage.

My approach was to use the Altoid tins for organized hardware storage. The costs of having them was almost nothing since they were purchased over time, yet Costco will sell you a dozen full tins for around $13 dollars. That is still so cheap that the costs are nearly negligible even if you throw the mints away.

You can use them just the way they come, once they are empty if you like, or you can give them a bit of an upgrade by getting one sheet of 12 x 24 x 1/8th inch thick cork, and two sheets of 9 x 12 inch self adhesive felt, all for less than five dollars. This is enough material to line 24 tins.

Make some cardboard patterns for measuring and marking the needed sizes from old shoeboxes. It is a heavy and durable cardboard for this purpose. The altoid tins, bottom inside measurements are 3-11/16 x 2-9/32’s inches, and the radius on each corner is 1/2-inch. This will mark your cork. The sides of the altoid tin, after the cork is installed, measure 5/8ths inch wide to under the lip. My template is 10-7/8’s inch long and has some overlap, which is desirable to me. I overlap the felt in a corner.

For tooling, I use a sturdy hobby knife with a fat handle, a 24-inch, straight edge, but a ruler is just as useful, I just prefer the heft and high sides of the straightedge. I also use a 4-inch engineers square. I use these as layout and cutting guides. I also use a washer with a 1-inch diameter to trim the 1/2-inch radius corners of the cork. It may be useful to be able to re hone the blade of the knife as you work.

Once the cork is cut to length and width, the washer is placed in the corners as a guide to trim the radius.

It is a nice press fit to the bottom and since cork compresses a bit, the cork stays put once installed, without needed adhesives.

The cardboard template lays out the needed width for the self-adhesive felt strips, and the straightedge is a great cutting guide. Honing the knife a bit before you cut the felt is a good idea, and you may need to run the knife through a couple times anyway.

Then remove the back and apply the felt to the sides of the tin. I am right handed and decided it was easiest to deal with the lid hinge side first, so I start in the back left corner of the tin, and I wind up with approximately 1/2-inch of overlap in that corner when I finish. The overlap isn’t a requirement, but it works well with big fingers.

Then all there is left is to load up the tins with whatever it is in your hardware storage you want to organize more accurately. Best of all, the size of the tin is such that your part can’t furrow too deep, contains enough for a project and your fingers will fit into while not taking up too much space on the bench while it’s needed. And the tins latch shut very well. All qualities I enjoy in a hardware storage container, and they look cool as well as being a useful way to recycle something.

Oh, there’s one other detail… How are you going to organize all those altoid tins full of hardware? Well, in a cigar box of course! Everyone saves those too, don’t they? I found some that will store a dozen altoid tins stacked on end in two columns, six on each side. The cigar stores sell empty boxes between one to five dollars apiece all the time.

It is just another way of tackling shop organization, and helpful on a budget, if you would rather spend your discretionary income on projects or tools.

Happy Woodworking!

Across the top of the site there is the moniker, which like the “Home” block, you can click and return to the home page. Along with the home block, there are six others across the top there, here is a little about them.

The “About” block is a little about me, just so you have some sense of who I am and what my background is. Some of us like to have a sense of the writer, or the person they are interacting with. So there you have it, a bit about the man behind the curtain.

The “Contact” block is a way for you to email me directly for whatever reason. There is a form that comes up and you just fill in all the appropriate details, click submit, and it gets to me. You can offer suggestions, or request things or just say hey, what have you. I am always up for a good conversation.

The “Gallery” block opens a page here in the Woodworks with a link to my Gallery. It is still in its infancy, because many of my preceding projects were not well photo documented, if at all. It is partly due to the, “who would have thought there would be an Internet” factor. Since the Internet, while I have made projects, I haven’t always had a digital camera, nor a desire to be on the web, and detailed documentation just wasn’t something I had been thinking about. So I have some stuff cobbled together there, some of it is fairly documented, some needs help, or is in some state of coherent recognition, but it is all a work in progress and aren’t we all managing a few things like that?

The table saw restoration, miter saw wings and router table in the gallery are all pretty complete presentations, and I think you’ll find that if you click to see the large photos, the narrative I wrote about each photo is often more detailed as well. It is also a place where I’ll toss things up when the photo says it well and so forth. Sometime I am sure I’ll refer to a photoset in the gallery from my journal posts but either way, it will always be evolving and I can’t say when, but it is worth a look.

The Library was something I already discussed in a previous post, so I’ll just say that clicking that block will take you to the link to go there. Over 100 old woodworking related books, digitized and in the public domain, please, enjoy. If you know of any books I don’t have in the library and you think they would be a good fit, feel free to use the contact block and say hey!

The “Reference” block leads to a page with a link to the Woodworks Reference Library. It is a small, yet hopefully a growing listing of pages I have designed for clean print and readability that you can take to the shop and put on the wall for the many things you will refer to in your woodworking or other shop endeavors. Things like steel hardness charts and tap drill sizes, things we all have to hunt the internet for, and hopefully as time goes by, I’ll accumulate and format more of what is needed in one easy to find place.

Again, if you have suggestions, please feel free to contact me and ask. All the reference charts will be of common free use data, it is free to use, and I put it there for everyone to use, so print it and take it to the shop. There will also be technical papers I’ve written in the Reference Library. Please feel free to print them for your personal use as well, however, if you wish to use my technical writings and other work in your publishing endeavor, please contact me.

The “Links” block leads to a page of links… an obvious duh really, but have a look, it is not just the average page of links. I have Cian Perez’s “Neanderthal Braintrust”, and “Power Index” there, as two of the best, most comprehensive “How To” oriented link sites on the Internet. I am really proud to be able to feature, and help people find those, as they are a true resource for us all! It is a huge undertaking, Thank you Cian! Also, I have links to things like the Shrinkulator and Sagulator, just to help you build better. There is a listing of Artesian Tool Makers there to help you find the best of what’s around. I have also listed a number of well-respected dealers in new and used tools. Again, its not an exhaustive listing and not meant to be, and there may be some great places to shop out there, which I may have missed. If there are places you trade and feel it would be helpful if they were on the list, please contact me and we can look into what possibilities may be.

In the “Sidebars” you can click the little orange button to subscribe via RSS newsreader to the latest writings here at the Woodworks, or I have added an email subscription service which will allow you to receive email updates as a heads up, when I add a new post here at Woodworks. You can manage your own subscription and change addresses, unsubscribe, or what have you. This is a legitimate service, you have to completely confirm your subscription or any changes to your subscription via the email address you supply to prove you are subscribing legitimately. Your personal data requirement is minimal, never shared with anyone, and you will never be spammed. All it is for is to notify people when I have posted something new. It is also control that I put completely in your hands.

Also in the Sidebars is the listing of my last ten posts, listed by title, in chronological order. A clickable listing of Archives, posts made in any given month and year. A growing list of categories, of which, there are about 25 so far, which will reveal themselves as I continue to write, and a search engine which works fairly well. It isn’t Google, but it will get you into posts where I have used the keyword you are searching with, so the more specifically you search, the better the result it will supply. There is also a calendar, which displays the days I have posted during the selected month, and if you click the gold colored dates you will be taken to the post made that day. I am offering an archive of information, which will hopefully grow over time, and my want for you is to have a lot of different methods to search for and find topical information inside it, depending on the way you remember things best.

There is also the “Blogroll” which showcases a number of other woodworkers who are writing their thoughts down about the craft, and publishing them on the net. They are sharing their insights, approaches, philosophies, ideas, and reviews of tools with us. Some are very hands on, giving you a look over their shoulders at the way they woodwork. Some are tool makers, some are tool resellers, some are journalists, some are downright funny, some are podcasters, and the biggest common denominators is that they all have heart and want to make woodworking a better experience for others. I cannot possibly decide which of them will be a best fit for you, so I am offering you the links which I hope will help you find them. Please feel free to click their links and have a look at their sites, as there is a lot they all have to offer us, and you never know what will become a best fit with you.

To finish the sidebar, there are just a couple other sets of links. One is a duplicate of the top links for those who still eschew graphics, and a picture of my logo… The Logo is a Ying Yang symbol which for those who may not be familiar, refers to the interactions of opposites, which cause everything to happen, and cannot exist without each other. For a more in depth understanding, research it further at Wikipedia. It is overlaid on a background of curly bubinga, a wood of immense beauty, which will take you to school, when learning to work it. Woodworking is full of Ying and Yang theories; feel free to think about it sometime, I think you’ll see them. Working wood has its parallel metaphors in life. It reminds me always that there is always something more about both to learn.

Finally there is the part where the latest message is. I am trying to keep the page scroll light so just a taste of each thought for a paragraph or two, and if you like, you can click either the title, or the “Continue Reading” link to finish the rest of each post. These too have been organized so as to be easy to read and easy to print, should you find them useful for use in the shop. If you read all the way to the bottom of any post, there is a comment box down there, and you are free to use the feature if you like.

So there you go, tour over. Just my way of networking the information, paying forward the assistance and wisdom my mentors gave me, and helping others to find solutions, information and some of the other good stuff out there. I invite you to look around here and use the Woodworks site. The information is here for everyone. Please enjoy!

Happy Woodworking!

The nature and ways of wood, joinery, adhesives, and style are all things that need to be dealt with in the “what” to build and “how” to build it. Is it furniture, casework, cabinetry? Will it involve carpentry, as a built in as many elements of Arts and Crafts styling will? will it include some metal work or upholstery? Other leading questions like, will I have the appropriate tools, and can I properly fixture the work for all the different elements of construction? What finishes are most appropriate, and how best to apply them?

You see, it is a lot of questions. Fortunately there are a lot of answers. The art and craft of woodworking is age old, in fact, even our great grandparents and grandparents knew a lot about it, and lucky for us, even as much of an undertaking it was to publish books back in the day, the understandings of the woodworking trades, the methods and the how to with hand and power tools was something they authors of that period wrote about quite articulately. There was a want for future generations to know these things, and there was a lot they understood.

With all things old becoming new again with the resurgence of interest in woodworking as well as some of its somewhat forgotten ways, many libraries as well as groups like Project Gutenberg and companies like Google and Microsoft have taken on the mammoth task of digitizing many of these old texts, of which there were few left in access to the public, before father time could claim them. Fortunately many of these books are now available in the public domain and can be used quite freely by anyone as long as their purposes are not commercial.

The daunting thing I have learned is that it is hard to know what all has been digitized to the public domain, and where exactly to find a particular kind of knowledge, because each place has a bunch of books but none of them has all of them. Harder still the books are not categorized for easy access to the woodworker with a need for specific information. My desire was one amongst others I am sure, to help people find and have access to this old but still completely relevant information. By the time I finished hunting (for now) I came up with over 100 books and nearly 1 gigabyte of collected works.

This collection became The Woodworks Library. My criteria for the library was to only have complete books which were fully clear in the United States as existing freely as public domain. The original copyright holder has not renewed their claims and the book is no longer of commercial value to publishers, this means you can have it, I can have it, and as long as we do not use it for commercial use in any way, then the priceless information within is available to help us all be better at the things we hope to achieve.

The Woodworks Library is organized in a somewhat comfortable fashion. I did not bother with over-categorization of it, because many of the books in it cover a wide range of subject matter. After evaluating each book, I placed it in the list according to what seemed to be the biggest theme of the book. You will find that many of the books will cover many of the same things, topically, but once you wade in, you will see that the books were written at different times and or each author came from a different school of thought, and so the cross comparisons of information will be very interesting.

Read with an open mind and remember the era for which they were written as well as the audience the author was writing to. While it is great to feel a certain book speaks to you more than another, there is something in all of the books and the differing methods and understanding are of note, because it affords us all a chance to walk in that author or editor’s shoes. Wood, and the crafts that are supportive to it, are a many faceted knowledge, and you never know when a knowledge you discount or disagree with today may become your saving grace tomorrow. So just do your best and absorb all you can. Trust me, there is a lot to read and many of these authors clearly made sharing it with future generations it their life’s work.

Is there something in here for everyone? Perhaps a little, maybe not. I’ll leave that up to you to decide for you. That which is here, I’ve tried to organize by listing books and writings in categories which were most directly related yet not overly topical, and as a descending list in an order, which mainly attempted to group like with like without being too constraining.

By topic, we have; Understanding Wood, Furniture and Design, Woodworking, Carpentry, Turning, Carving, Finishing, Patternmaking, Shop Mathematics and Calculation, Blueprint Reading, Hand Tools, Machine Tools, Shop Machinery, and finally, Blacksmithing Welding and Metalwork. Remember, There are over 100 full-length books, and the occasional technical paper, just waiting for whomever to have a look and learn something new.

Feel free to bookmark the Library, and remember there is always a link to it directly on every page here at the Woodworks, so help yourself, and learn what was known about working wood long ago. It is here for everyone to use as a resource that helps us all become better woodworkers. All the information is as valid and applicable today as ever. If you know of any books in the digital realm, which are in the public domain as complete works, and seem like they are a good fit for the Woodworks Library, please fell free to contact me about them and we’ll see what we can do to add them. After all, it’s all for anyone practicing the crafts.

After the fall of the Roman Empire when the Anglo Saxons conquered Western Europe and called their new land, Angle Land (read England) they used the length of 3 barleycorns, as measured from the middle of the ear, placed end to end as an inch, and 6.5 inches was called the shaftment, which is equal to two palms. (Roughly 3 inches)

And so it was, until the Normans conquered England in 1066, whereupon they brought the old Roman system back to usage. King Henry I set the foot at 12 inches, the shaftment at 6 inches, and the yard at 36 inches. The standards for the inch? Three Barleycorns. So we have 36 barleycorn to the foot, and 108 to the yard. King Henry’s standard was made official by an engraving of one foot on the base of a column on the old St. Paul’s Church sometime during his reign. And so using the barleycorn and such, the system ascends upward through the inch the shaftment, foot, the yard, the furlong, the mile… It was known as “by the foot St. Paul’s”

John Barleycorn Must Die.

After the French revolution in the 18th century, the French Academy of Sciences divided the Prime Meridian into quadrants, which is 1/4th the distance around the earth, longitudinally. They then said that 1/ten millionth of this distance will be known as one meter. Going forward since, the want for the most accurate meter possible has become something measured by a standard of light waves in a vacuum traveling one meter as a function of how long it takes.

Descending from the meter we have the centimeter, which is 1/100th of a meter, and the millimeter, which is 1/1000th of a meter.

Because one quadrant, 1/4th the diameter of the earth can be considered such a consistent value, Science quickly adopted the metric system as the definitive method to measure, because all descending units were derived from mathematical divisions of something huge, which offers a real basis for accuracy, as opposed to the foot, which is a derivative of hands, palms, and thumbs, which are defined by three barleycorns.

In 1921 the American Standards Association responded to a request set forth by the Netherlands that a conversion factor be agreed upon between the inch and millimeters. 25.4 was recommended and between attempts by the Ford Motor Company and ASA to get this settled 10 years later, the final installment came in 1959 when the US sealed the deal with the Commonwealth of Nations. The US has been trying to adopt the Metric system ever since.

Since the Metric Conversion Act of 1975, and in many ways prior to that The US Military and many manufacturing firms have gone with the metric system. Despite the mile markers on our highways, many states go with the federal want for the metric system and the roads are built to metric specs.

But is John Barleycorn dead? No. Because the wood manufacturing trades find the good old inch convenient, in it’s fractional ways which can be halved and quartered and such, with the eye being able to see and mark to the 1/64th on average, as well as the way the foot continues to fit well the sizes which Americans like and prefer.

So raise your glasses in auld lang syne to the inch and John Barleycorn. Because ground into your whiskey and your ales, John laughs last, and lives on.

“They’ve hired men with the crab-tree sticks,
To cut him skin from bone,
And the miller he has served him worse than that,
For he’s ground him between two stones.

And little Sir John and the nut-brown bowl,
And he’s brandy in the glass,
And little Sir John and the nut-brown bowl,
Proved the strongest man at last.

The huntsman, he can’t hunt the fox,
Nor so loudly to blow his horn,
And the tinker he can’t mend kettle nor pot,
Without a little Barleycorn”