January 29, 2015
October 25, 2014
Sharpening woodworking tools
Paul Sellers talks about the practical limits to sharpening woodworking tools like planes and chisels:
As I have said, we have become something of an obsessive bunch when it comes to the different elements of working wood; sharpness has become more and more obsessive. Now we are not talking about the violin maker seeking sharp levels for clear tone from the wood and who uses wood so soft, unsharp gouges and planes would bruise rather than cut the fine surfaces he strives to achieve. His standards parallel the levels needed for severing tissue by the surgeon’s hand, not the bench joiner chopping mortises and cutting a few dovetails.
It’s unfortunate that since the demise of ordinary craftsmanship we now turn to guru wood writers and not wood-wrights. Woodwrights are no longer there to give us our information of course. It’s true too that the sources of information become more and more questionable. Three recent sources of information teaching on sharpening techniques I tracked back to tool catalog and online sales people selling products for sharpening. Most of the information they have is not new but regurgitated. Each phase of sharpening change marks another saleable product and so we see Japanese water stones added to carborundum stones, Arkansas stones and Washita stones and then came diamonds and abrasive films, diamond paste and flattening stones. The list goes on.
We have survived the different gospels of scary sharp and micro-bevel methodology and are emerging to this very simple reality. As long as you start the cutting edge somewhere around 30-degrees and polish it out it will cut well. If you you sharpen to around 1200-grit it will cut most anything you need in woodworking. If you sharpen to a polished edge of around 15,000-grit you can slice the most delicate of materials effortlessly, but 98% of the time that’s far from necessary. What am I saying? I’m saying that we generally sharpen to task but often sharpen to a higher level because it’s not much extra effort. We all know after a few efforts at sharpening that the greatest effort comes at the start of the process when we have to regain ground to get through a fractured and dulled edge and back to a productive cutting edge. That said, it’s not a big deal, just a few extra strokes on the coarse diamonds gets you there. So, if that is the case, why do we sharpen to higher levels than are usually needed. Well, it is a fact that the more polished the two plains forming the arête for a cutting edge are, the sharper the edge is but the stronger the edge is too. As I said, the extra effort is worth the work because it’s so quick and effective. It’s not so much what we do to the edge to establish it but what we do to the edge after we have prepared it for work. Taking the chisel to the surface of the wood to work the wood begins an immediate process of edge reduction we now know is edge fracture but was once called wear. No matter the steel, edge fracture occurs at some level but some steels fracture more readily than others. What we often do not realise is that it is impossible to find a steel that both takes and retains an edge and at the same time has a level of durability we can rely on forever. All edges wear away by fracture and constantly need restoring.
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September 2, 2014
Sharpening woodworking tools
I’m an occasional woodworker, but I’m always aware I don’t sharpen my tools as often as I should. One of the reasons I don’t is that it’s such a hassle to sharpen them properly: it’s not as simple as sharpening a kitchen knife, and you need to spend time to work through from a coarse grit (250 or so), through medium grit (1000) and into fine (4000) or even superfine (15000 and higher). This video by Paul Sellers has persuaded me that it doesn’t have to be that way for most of the woodworking hand tools I’m likely to use:
Published on 8 Nov 2013
In this video Paul Sellers shows that you don’t need to sharpen to 15,000+ grit on you planes, chisels and other woodworking tools. 250-grit works just fine for most of our woodwork. Paul addresses the myths and misinformation put forward, and challenges what we think about sharpening.
To find out more about Paul Sellers and the work he is involved with visit http://paulsellers.com
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April 1, 2014
Innovative new bench design for woodworkers
The deep thinkers at Lee Valley Tools have come up with a brilliant solution to a perennial woodworking problem:
H/T to Jon, my former virtual landlord, who said “I’d like to see someone do a legitimate motion study on this and prove that it would actually work”.
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August 26, 2013
A small note from the hand tool trade
In a discussion of the plight of Sears in the major appliance market, Coyote Blog mentions an earlier Sears mis-step in a different market:
Oddly, I witnessed a similar Sears private label fracas when I worked for Emerson Electric over a decade ago. For years and years, Emerson (not the folks who make the cheap radios and TVs) manufactured many of the Sears Craftsman hand tools and power tools. Sears got tough one year, and negotiated a better deal of some sort with someone else, and an entire division of Emerson saw its sales basically going to zero. So Emerson bought a bunch of orange paint and plastic, went to Home Depot, and cut a deal for a private label tool line at Home Depot (Emerson separately owns the Rigid tool company, so a lot of the items were branded Rigid). Emerson ended up in potentially better shape (I did not stay long enough to see how it turned out), partnered with a growing rather than a declining franchise.
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March 8, 2012
Woolley: We need power tools (and cars) for girls
Over at the Worthwhile Canadian Initiative blog, Frances Woolley marks International Women’s Day:
Goods are becoming ever more specialized. Everything from baby diapers to multivitamins is now dispensed in gender- and age-appropriate models. Yes, it makes sense to have his and hers jeans. But gender appropriate soft-drinks? Does the average guy’s masculinity really need to be bolstered by buying Coke Zero instead of Diet Coke?
The profitability of his and hers products is partly due to price discrimination. The local hair salon charges women more than men because women are prepared to pay $50 or $60 to get their hair cut. Men asked to pay that price would just walk across the road to the barber shop that charges $15 for a short back-and-sides.
[. . .]
Second, gender differentiated power tools. I have small hands. My palm sander doesn’t fit into my palm — it’s more like a two-handed sander. I’d love to get a new drill, but most have such a large grip that I can barely hold them. It’s not just a gender issue — men’s hands come in all sorts of different sizes, too. How can women be expected to share equally in home repair duties when every power tool is the wrong size for their hands?
Finally, I’d like to see more cars built with features that appeal to women. I’ve heard — but I don’t know if this is true — that as soon as a particular model of car is perceived as being “girly,” men won’t buy it. Since men still constitute the majority of car buyers, sales collapse. I’ve heard this offered as an explanation of the lack of cars like the Smart car — two person vehicles that use hardly any gas, and are easy to drive and park on city streets. Smart cars are just too cute, and cute=girly, and girly is the automotive kiss of death. But what is the cost of this pursuit of masculinity?
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February 18, 2011
Ron Hickman, inventor of the ubiquitous Workmate
Many people have bought and used the Workmate collapsible workbench . . . 30 million or so. The inventor, Ron Hickman, Ron Hickman, died recently:
Hickman, who lived in Jersey, was 78. His design for the wood-and-steel foldable workbench and vice was rejected by several tool companies that believed the bench wouldn’t sell.
Tool company Stanley told him the device would sell in the dozens rather than hundreds, while other companies told him the design would not sell at the necessary price. It has since sold about 30 million units around the world, and 60,000 were sold in the UK last year alone.
Hickman sold the benches himself when he couldn’t find a backer through trade shows direct to professional builders. Black & Decker saw the light in 1973 and began producing them. By 1981 it had sold 10 million benches.
He came up with the design when he accidentally sawed through an expensive chair while making a wardrobe. He had been using the chair as a workbench.
His designing skill wasn’t limited to tools: he also is credited with the design of the Lotus Elan.
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February 16, 2011
Another, safer, table saw design
Table saw injuries can be quite gruesome — amputation of fingers, for example — so any new technology that might make woodworkers more safe is welcome. The first innovator in the field was the SawStop, a device that could stop the spinning blade of the saw whenever it detected human skin. Mighty impressive, but none of the major manufacturers wanted to buy the technology: it increased the cost of existing saws beyond what they thought their customers would be willing to pay. The inventor had to form a company to build his own table saws instead.
A post at the Popular Woodworking blog looks at a newer device to make table saws more safe:
Ten years ago, table saws were about to change. In 2001, you could buy a cabinet saw, such as a Delta Unisaw, a Powermatic 66 or a clone of the Unisaw made in Taiwan. Or you could get a contractor’s saw, a heavy but relatively portable table saw. Benchtop saws were not a significant part of the market, and things hadn’t changed much since the end of World War II. All the saws at the time had one thing in common: awful guards that were rarely used. Things were changing on two fronts. Underwriter’s Laboratories and the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) were looking into bringing American saw’s guard systems into the modern age, spurred in large part by a pesky woodworker from Berea, Ky., named Kelly Mehler.
Mehler was the author of “The Tablesaw Book,” and he questioned why European saws had more effective and user-friendly guards. At about the same time, Stephen Gass, an amateur woodworker and patent attorney with a doctorate in physics invented the SawStop, an imaginative and revolutionary device that could stop a spinning blade in less than a heartbeat if a flesh came in contact with it. These two ideas caught the attention of CPSC, and the long saga of what to do about the problem of table saw injuries began.
A couple weeks ago, this story was mentioned in the national media, in a brief story with scary-sounding headline in USA Today. As has happened many times in the last few years, this set off a round of emotional debate among woodworkers.
[. . .]
In the next few months the discussions and meetings between manufacturers and the CPSC will probably resume. One thing that will likely factor into this round will be alternatives to SawStop’s “flesh-detecting” technology. Last spring, the joint venture of member companies of the Power Tool Institute filed patent application 12769396. This describes an electronic detection system and a mechanism to fire an explosive trigger (similar to that used in automotive airbags) that would drop the blade below the table. An important difference to this approach is that it wouldn’t force anything into the blade, thus avoiding an expensive replacement due to an incidental firing. Also interesting is the mention of this system’s ability to tell the difference between wet wood and human flesh.
And there are several new patent applications from the SawStop inventors covering detection and deployment systems for table saws, and the possibility of using similar devices in miter saws. Will this mean new, less-expensive and less-destructive systems for table saws and other tools that will make woodworking safer, or will it mean years of waiting while the lawyers battle over intellectual property issues?
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December 18, 2010
The fascinating economics of Chinese manufacturing
An interesting post at the Bridge City Tools blog about how Americans (and Canadians) are actually willing to pay the outrageous price of $5 for a single 1/8″ drill bit:
About 10 years ago I was in an OEM Chinese factory that made bench grinders. You have seen them, 1/2 HP motor, two 6” grinding wheels, pig tail cord, a small plastic face shield and no nameplate — these would be attached by the American companies that bought them. The total cost per grinder, landed in the US was $7.15. Of course at this price it would be asking too much for a UL tag.
These grinders were, and still are being sold here and the prices range from $49 to $200 — awesome margins by any standard.
Behind the factory floor there was a small mountain of insulated wire that had been pulled from old cars, appliances, televisions and the like and it was replenished daily. Surrounding the wire mountain were a couple of dozen women who were stripping the wire of insulation. These wire remnants were then spliced together and used in the grinder motor windings. Completely illegal, and dangerous. But cheap.
I thought I was shocked until I walked into the factory section that made twist drill bits. Here they were making, for the AMERICAN MARKET, those 59, 89, 119 pc drill sets found at the box stores and other discount joints for $19.95. Again, there were rows of women who were dipping the bits in what looked like Easter egg dye.
I asked the interpreter what they were doing. He replied, “They are making all the bits the same color as these four.” The four bits he pointed out were the 1/8”, 1/4”, 3/8” and the 1/2”.
I asked why.
I learned that those four bits were properly hardened. The remaining 115 bits were made with what I call pot metal. The reason?
“Because those are the only four hole sizes that Americans use.”
I asked, as politely as I could, if there was any guilt or remorse for duping their American customers. The reply was shocking.
“In America, if it cost less than $20, nobody complains about quality — everybody in China knows this.”
It’s an interesting explanation . . . and has the ring of truth to it: I’ve got several sets of drill bits, most of them bought from a reputable source (Lee Valley Tools), but I have one “big” set bought from a big box store (I think it’s branded as DeWalt, but probably made in China).
Most of the sizes of drill I use in woodworking are from the Lee Valley sets, but I think I’ve only used the 1/16″ and 1/8″ bits from the big box set. I wonder what’d happen if I tested all the rest of that set?
I have to admit being guilty of this:
More recently, I found myself at the local paint shop to purchase a Purdy paint brush — I have always liked them. So when I walked into the store I asked the sales rep to show me the most expensive brushes…
“I don’t get asked that very often…” he replied.
I then learned that the cheapest brushes outsell the flagged end bristle brushes by about 20 to one. The reason?
So people can throw them away rather than clean them.
In my defence, I can say that I get several uses from each of the “disposable” brushes because I do clean them after each use, but I do eventually throw them away. Once the quality of the applied stain or finish starts getting worse, it’s time to get rid of the brush.
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Interesting hand-powered table saw
I thought this was a joke . . . but those are some pretty impressive results shown in the video.
H/T to BoingBoing for the link.
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October 20, 2010
Some combination tools work well … and then there’s this one
Christopher Schwarz gives in to the urge to try out a new tool that combines the rasp and the chisel in one not-so-easy-to-handle package:
Now usually when I see a tool like this I just ignore it. Boneheaded ideas like this usually end up in a mass grave with the bones of dodo birds, passenger pigeons and AMC Pacer automobiles. But a couple weeks ago I stumbled on a set of these tools for sale — new — on Amazon.
These tools must be stopped. So I bought a set of three to take a look. They are as bad as I feared.
The tools are incredibly heavy. The rasp teeth are coarse and not very aggressive. They manage to make more of a farting sound than any scratches in the wood. Of course, it doesn’t help things that you have to use the rasp one-handed — grabbing the chisel tip is ill-advised.
Or is it? The chisel edge is as sharp as Lennie from “Of Mice and Men.” And when you do pound the chisel into a piece of wood (thank you Mongo the Mallet) the tool stops dead after 1″ because the rasp teeth dig into your work.
And the worst thing of all? They are branded as Nicholson — the once-great rasp maker.
But if this tool can succeed in the marketplace for 10 years, what other opportunities are toolmakers missing out on?
September 10, 2010
More on that list of tools you don’t need
Jon, my former virtual landlord, wanted to respond to this post:
Your post — here — is amusing. I am guessing, though, that you and Sippican Cottage just don’t do certain things around the house. Taking SC’s easy ones . . .
Sledgehammer — I use mine to set stakes around trees and shrubs.
Center Punch — You don’t need the one shown in the Pop Crap article (which has a shank similar to that of a cold chisel, which makes me think the one they show there is for masonry work), but a centre punch is helpful for drilling. I punch the centres of all my drilled holes, even those that I’m doing on the drill press. I also use a centre punch when mounting hardware, such as hinges, to wood.
Combination wrench — I guess you guys don’t do any plumbing, or anything with bolts that go completely through an object. You can’t reach everything with a socket — a socket will not undo the nut on a toilet’s feed pipe (unless, of couse, you break away the toilet’s tank so that you can get to the nut from the top). And you sometimes need to hold the bolt head in place while you crank on the nut with a socket. I have a good set of combination wrenches and use them a lot on our bikes and playground equipment. I also have a cheap set that came with my socket set that’s convenient to have with the sockets, but I don’t think they will stand up to prolonged use. The socket set itself is an interesting item that would make Sippican Cottage laugh out loud: it’s a 300-some-odd-piece set with 1/4″, 3/8″, and 1/2″ drives and sockets. I see the need for 1/4″ and 3/8″ and use both frequently. If I ever need to install industrial-grade light standards or build a highway overpass, I guess the 1/2″ set will come in handy.
But hey — it was on sale!
Jigsaw — Depends on what you are doing. I use mine to rough out stuff that I am going to finish with a template on the router table. If I had a bandsaw, I’d use that instead. I did not have $700 to drop on a bandsaw, so I bought this $50 item instead.
Tin Snips — you need these if you do home repairs involving metal. I’ve used mine to repair or replace exhaust vents, install anti-bird mesh in said vents, replace the clothes dryer exhaust tubing, and to do repairs to aluminum downspouts. I’ve also used them to open those freakin’ polycarbonate clamshell packages that all electronics and toys seem to come in. They are the only way I can get into those things without slicing up my hands on the packaging.
Machinist Vise — this is the only vise I have at the moment. A real woodworker may not need one of these, but I have found mine to be handy.
I wonder how many bench planes Sippican Cottage has . . .
Humph.
As Gerard Vanderleun points out in the comments to the original Sippican Cottage post, “I love this fisking more than I love the dream of an Obama recall. It gets worse since Yahoo evidently chopped this down from the original 50 by Logan. That’s a schmo at the beginning and a know-nothing Yahoo intern chopping at the end. De-licious.
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September 7, 2010
A “terrific, haphazard mess of twenty arbitrary thingamabobs”
I’m not much of a woodworker, so I don’t quite have the necessary gravitas to manage a proper takedown like SippicanCottage:
It’s a shameful pleasure of mine, I admit it. I love to read lists of tools randomly drawn from a Home Depot flyer, written by people that can’t write, aimed at people that don’t make anything but reservations. Popular Mechanics doesn’t disappoint with their: Tools Everyone Should Own. It’s a terrific, haphazard mess of twenty arbitrary thingamabobs, written in the breathless prose usually reserved for paperbacks with pictures of Fabio on their cover and the tears of countless overweight data entry clerks dappling the pages.
OK, first, let’s take care of the easy stuff:
- Sledgehammer – You don’t need that
- Center Punch – You don’t need that
- Combination wrench – Singular? Never mind. The item just before it is a socket wrench set. You don’t need both. And they put an adjustable wrench on the list, too. How many nuts you got, Willis? Are they all loose?
- Jigsaw – You don’t need that. And Jig Saw is two words.
- Tin Snips -You don’t need those
- Machinist Vise – You don’t need one of those
Down to fourteen.
Hmmm. What about a slightly more serious look at the PM list? Here’s my barely informed views on the suggestions:
- Sledgehammer. I’ve got one. I bought it for one specific job. I’ve only ever used it for that one job. Should have borrowed one from the neighbours.
- Center Punch. I’ve got one. Inherited it from my late father-in-law’s toolkit. Never used it.
- Putty Knife. I’ve got a few. Used occasionally for filling voids in plywood.
- Safety Glasses. SC is right: this isn’t a tool, but you should definitely use them whenever you’re waving powertools around.
- Adjustable Wrench. Got a few, mostly inherited. Occasionally used, but I could get by with fewer.
- Pipe Wrench. Got one, also inherited. Never used it.
- Socket Wrench Set. I have both metric and Imperial flavours. Used fairly frequently (far more than I thought when I first bought a cheap set at Canadian Tire). SC is right that if you’ve got a socket set, you should have few uses for adjustable wrenches.
- Combination Wrench. I have several, unmatched, in various states of rust/paint/corrosion. All inherited, and rarely used.
- Jigsaw. One of the first power tools I bought. Rarely used once I bought a table saw.
- Crosscut Saw. Once I used a Japanese saw, I scrapped all my “traditional” western saws. Cutting on the pull stroke allows a much thinner blade, and better control in use.
- Snips. I have some general purpose snips. They’re just oversized scissors, and not used very often in my shop. Probably more useful if you do metalwork.
- Needle-Nose Pliers. Yeah, okay, you probably need these.
- Power Drill. Yes, you need this one too. Don’t go for the biggest and best: at heart, these are simple tools and you don’t need too many “features”. Variable speed and a “pilot light” are probably all 98% ever use in the way of extras. More battery power also means more weight: unless you want the exercise, don’t go bigger than you can comfortably lift and hold without wobble or shake.
- Drill Bits. I don’t know why they listed this separately: what good is your power drill without drill bits?
- Circular Saw. I’ve got one, and use it for breaking down plywood panels pretty much exclusively (I can’t get full 4’x8′ panels down the basement stairs). If you have a table saw, you won’t use your circular saw as often.
- Measuring Tape. Yes, you need one. Get a good one. A metal case is probably better for general use, because it’s one tool that everyone seems to drop off the workbench every now and again.
- Hammer. Yes, you need one, but you won’t use it as often as you expect.
- Machinist Vise. No, you don’t need one, unless you’re doing metal work. I have one — bought on sale several years ago — it’s still in its original packaging.
- Multibit Screwdriver. Yes. Get a good one, if you can: you’ll use it a lot.
- Extension Cord. Once again, not really a tool, but do get a heavy duty cord for running your power tool away from the outlet: don’t use cheap household extension cords for this.
H/T to American Digest for the link.
March 31, 2010
The product liability crapshoot
Tales of odd and unpredictable results coming out of product liability court cases are dime-a-dozen. This result is pushing to the limit of illogical: Carlos Osorio vs. One World Technologies Inc. et al.. This is the case where the court awarded the plaintiff $1.5 million because the tool manufacturer hadn’t adopted the newest safety technology, despite the plaintiff’s clear breach of common sense and safe practices in using the tool.
The accident happened on April 19, 2005, and the table saw Osorio was using was a Ryobi BTS 15, which was purchased at Home Depot on Jan. 10, 2005, for $159. At the time of the accident Osorio may have been employed at that company for two months; however, this is not clear, according to a deposition by Phat Vong, who purchased tools for the flooring company Osorio worked for.
Osorio is from Colombia, has a degree in computer science and was installing flooring as he learned English. At the time of the accident, he was trying to make a rip cut on a 2′-long, 2-1/2″-wide by 3/4″-thick piece of oak flooring, according to court records. He was attempting to cut the board “freehand” without the rip fence, according to the documents. Osorio intended to make a cut in a straight line all the way through the board. He had cut only a small portion of the workpiece when it got stuck at the blade. Osorio immediately experienced chattering and felt vibration in the workpiece. He stopped cutting and cleaned the tabletop. He then attempted to make the same cut again but the chattering continued, and he decided to push the board harder. His left hand then slipped into the spinning saw blade, according to court documents.
The saw blade height above the tabletop was set to approximately 3″ — at or near the maximum elevation, and the guarding system was not installed on the saw during the operation, documents state. The table saw was on the floor, Osorio was kneeling on one leg in front of the table saw, and his body was just to the left of the saw blade, according to a motion filed by Osorio’s lawyers.
For those of you who don’t know woodworking tools, a table saw is not something you can casually use in the same way you might use a hand drill or a sander. It’s a stationary tool with a long history of injuring the careless or unwary user: the act of pushing a piece of wood into a rapidly spinning serrated metal blade requires care and attention to avoid injuring yourself or nearby workers.
Carlos Osorio managed to do just about everything to increase the risk of injury. He removed the safety devices that are there specifically to prevent the kind of injury he sustained. He clearly didn’t understand the risks of what he was doing, and he was operating the saw in an unstable position. The only way he could have been in greater danger of injury is if he was intoxicated or blindfolded.
The only reason the saw’s manufacturer was the defendant in this case is the “deep pockets” theory of legal practice: don’t sue the responsible party (in this case, the employer who clearly failed to train Osorio in the safe use of the tool), sue the richest person or organization even peripherally involved in the case.
February 10, 2010
QotD: The shop vac . . . of doom
Now that I have a manly garage, with a manly workbench, I was delighted to receive for Christmas a Shop Vac. It’s a magical device that sucks up all sorts of debris, even liquid. It has attachments for everything. I think one attachment is for haircuts, but I haven’t tried it yet. The Shop Vac is gray and black and reminds me of R2D2 so much that I expect it to jack into my breaker panels and reprogram my DVR.
My point is that my Shop Vac is totally awesome. That is, unless I try to move it. It has wheels, but at the first sign of movement, the Shop Vac starts squirming and tossing off attachments like a balloonist heading into a volcano. The hose becomes like a spastic elephant trunk. It will find all of the loose objects in your garage and fling them one-by-one into oil spills and darkened spider nests. If you focus your attention on the flailing vacuum hose, the power cord will wrap itself around your legs and try to trip you into the pyramid of old paint cans. And the screaming. Good lord, the little wheels scream on the concrete floor. It’s Shop Vac language for “LEAVE ME ALONE! DO NOT MOVE ME! I WILL KILL YOU WITH MY TENTACLE!”
The worst of it, if I can pick just one thing, is that the situation totally ruins my manly vibe. I live in fear that Shelly will come into the garage and see me losing a cage match to R2D2.
Scott Adams, “My Shop Vac”, Dilbert.com, 2010-02-10
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