Logan Cabinet Shoppe

Being the cheap wood hoarder that I am, I have trouble getting rid of leftover scraps and offcuts from projects long since completed. I use plane shavings as packing material when mailing out boxes. They also make great tinder for starting the grill or fireplace so I can't bring myself to throw them in the trash. I'll go as far as to burn the excess shavings and put the ashes in the garden or flower beds rather than send them to the landfill, even though they are biodegradable. I still have a piece of 12/4 African mahogany from a project I completed some 6 years ago. The piece has a large diagonal split acros it's end, effetively making it useless for anything but the fire, but I keep holding on to it thinking that someday I'll find a use for this small offcut. Until that time is sits at the bottom of my scrap bin.

One very good use I have found for many of my offcuts is to make tools or small toys from them. Making tools for the shop is a great way to use up some of your small offcuts that would otherwise end up in the fire. I made these try squares from offcuts of different species just floating around the shop. The miter square was made from cherry offcuts of trim pieces from our kitchen remodel last year (the pieces supplied with new cabinets for use as filler strips between the end cabinet and wall). It's also very satisfying working with a tool you made yourself. The wood squares also have the benefit of not damaging your work should you drop them and they have thicker blades, giving a striking knife more to register against.

The adjustable bevel was a fun one as well. I knocked it out is about 40 minutes. I do want to make it sliding however so that it can be used as a drilling guide in addition to a marking tool, so this one isn't done yet.

The marking gauge is a good way to use up thicker but smaller offcuts. This one is based on an article by Dean Jansa in the Dec 2006 Popular Woodworking. It is very comfortable to use and can be adjusted one handed, a feature missing from most commercially made gauges. I have plans to make a matching mortise gauge with two pins on each side of the beam permantly set to 4 chisels in my kit. This will reduce time spent setting the adjustable pins on my current mortise gauge.

I'm still trying to locate a good source of marking gauge pin stock though. I'm not happy with the way modern HSS drill bits work. They can only be shaped on the high speed grinder and cannot be honed on stones or shaped with a file easily. If you know of a source of good pin stock, please let me know.

The plane adjusting hammer was made from scraps of purpleheart and oak. The purpleheart is extremely hard, however, because it is wood, it still doesn't damage my planes or mushroom the irons over like a steel hammer would. The panel gauge has a mahogany head and an oak beam. I took the pin out of this one as I made it from an 1/8" drill bit but wasn't happy with the way the drill bit performed so I need to replace it with something that can be shaped and honed by hand. The drill bits just don't work well.

The taper reamer was fun as well. It was designed by John Alexander. There was a lot of spokeshave work in this one as I do not yet have a lathe. It's obviously not perfectly round, however, it doesn't matter as it only serves as a holder for the scraping blade, which is made from an old handsaw blade from a broken saw. I made this reamer to ream the holes in Windsor chair seats, which I have not attempted to build yet. I did use it to ream the holes for the legs in the bench of my shave horse and it worked very well.

Speaking of spokeshave work, here are a couple I built from offcuts of bubinga. These were fun to build and a lot of fun to use. I have a Stanley #51 high angle shave but my shop made wooden shave is much nicer to use. The hardware is available at most home centers (#10-32 machine screws and matching knurled brass knuts). The blades were made from annealed 1/8" x 3/4" O1 tool steel and heat treated with a simple plumbing propane torch. The travisher still needs heat treating and tuning but I'm not at the point of making my chair seats yet (only due to a lack of time) so I have time.

So next time you have a limited amount of time in the shop, dig through the scrap bin. Who knows what kind of gem you might find in the firewood pile. The possibilities are almost endless.

Based on period invntories available for 18th and 19th century cabinet shops, one can get a good idea of the common tools that may have been found in a cabinet shop of the time. Further reading of period texts like Joseph Moxon's Mechanik Exercises or Peter Nicholson's Mechanic's Companion gives us some clues as to how period cabinetmakers worked with their tools. One thing that is apparent from both the period inventories and texts is that these shops typically had a good number of tools for specialized tasks.

This brings me to the subject line of this post. In the modern day, it seems we are constantly looking for bigger and better. We want one stop shopping, universal remotes and hybrid SUVs (I still don't understand this one). In our shops, many of us are looking for more versatile tools, hoping to avoid the purchase of multiple specialized tools that can perform fewer tasks. I too once subscribed to this camp of thinking. However, as my skills continue to develop, I'm finding that more versatile usually does not mean better. Even worse, it usually means more effort and time to complete a task.

Versatility can be a good thing is some cases, but there are also drawbacks. When something becomes more versatile and less specialized, it usually means that you give something up that made the specialized version...well special, and usually better. I do like being able to go to the local big box home improvement store to get all of my plumbing, lumber, electrical and landscape supplies for the weekend's projects in one trip. However, have you ever needed help in one of these stores? If you need to talk to someone who actually knows something about plumbing, electrical or roofing, you're SOL. When I need to talk to someone knowledgable, I still go to the specialty store.

The same can be said for our tools. One of the most common questions that comes up for new woodworkers is what plane to buy first. Without hesitation a slew of recommendations will be made for a tool with the most versatility. There is a problem with this approach, however. In my experience (yes I have used them), while these planes can be made to perform a lot of different tasks, they typically don't do any one thing particularly well. They are too short to be a good jointer or try plane, and they are unnecessarily long and heavy for smoothing work (though they do smooth just as well as a good smoother if set up properly).

Can one of these tools perform all of these tasks, sure, but it requires a lot of additional effort and time, as well as constant changes to the tool's setup. If you do most of your work with machines and want a plane just for general smoothing and trimming, a smooth plane will serve you better. If you want to hand flatten panels or joint edges, a jointer or try plane will server you much better. Our ancestors knew this and therefore had tools set up for specific tasks that they could just pick up and use. This was an absolute necessity for them to be able to get a piece done quickly and done well.

I liken it to a modern shop with job specific machines. You could joint your boards with your planer with some ingenuity and a few jigs, but would you want to? Is the additional time required worth it? Probably not. You could size a board to width with your jointer or planer, but would you want to? A table or band saw makes this super fast and effecient. The way I see it, your hand tools should follow suit. Anyone who has tried to face a board with only a jack plane should be able to attest. Sometimes, there's just no substitute to having the right tool for the job.

I needed a 20" wide board for the built-in project I'm working on, but like most people, I don't have access to 20" wide boards. At least not in my price range. So the solution to this problem is to edge glue two or more narrower boards together to make a single wide panel. I prefer to do this with as few boards as possible so I choose the widest boards I can that will result in the panel width I need.

Before gluing two boards together, it is vital to know which direction the face grain is running. If you get the two boards glued together with the face grain running in opposite directions, planing the final surfaces true after the glue has dried will be difficult due to opposing grain at the glue joint.

Notice here that I've marked the grain direction of the two show faces as well as the two joining edges. The direction of the edge grain is also important to know as it is helpful to have the grain on both edges running in the same direction when match planing the edges. However, this is not always possible with every pair of boards and becomes more difficult when edge gluing more than two boards. It is not as import as having the face grain running in the same direction and also flowing together well. The edges will be hidden in the joint so a little tearout will not be seen. If you cannot orient the boards with the face grain and edge grain running in the same direction, choose to run the face grain in the same direction if the appearance of the final panel will allow it. The appearance of the final panel should be the main priority. You want the grain from the two boards to flow together on the show faces so that the edge joint almost disappears after glue-up. If your final panel will be painted like mine, this is less importand and you can orient the boards with the face grain running in the same direction regardless of final panel appearance. On my boards, I was lucky to be able to get the face grain and the edge grain of the two boards running in the same direction.

The first step in creating a seamless edge joint is to plane the show face of each board flat and true. This will be the reference face so it must be fairly flat. Slight cupping is ok as long as it can be clamped out when the two boards are placed face to face, however, for this process, flatter is better. It is only necessary to plane one face at this point, the show face. The bottom faces of these two boards are still in the rough.

After the faces are planed flat and true, orient the two boards how they will be in the final panel. Next, fold the two boards together like a book with the show faces touching each other. In this picture, the edge facing away is the edge that will be joined together. Notice the rough area on the near edge of the upper board. This will be cut away after the panel is assembled so I'm not concerned with it now. This is a good place to use damaged boards like this.

With the two boards face to face, align the edges to be joined as best as possible to minimize the amount of planing. Use a pair of handscrews to hold the boards in position and place the pair in your vise or clamp to the front of the bench. Notice here how the edge grain of both boards is running in the same direction. I got lucky here but if I couldn't get them running in the same direction I would take a lighter cut with my try plane to minimize tearout in the edge that was being planed against the grain.

I start with the try plane to clean up the rough sawn edges and plane both edges at the same time. This plane will also begin to straighten the edges. The iron is cambered slightly as this plane is also used to true board faces. I don't like to glue panels up right from the try plane due to the cambered iron. I could just use my staight ironed jointer, however, it is set for a very light cut and therefore would take a lot longer to clean up the rough sawn edges. Starting with the try plane, I can take a thicker shaving to clean up the edges and then refine the edges for gluing with the jointer.

After cleaning up the rough sawn edges with the try plane, I refine and straighten the edges with the jointer. This iron has a straight edge for a tight glue joint. Again, plane both edges at the same time. A good practice when match planing edges like this is to begin planing only the center few inches of the boards. When the plane no longer takes a shaving, lengthen the stroke slightly. When the plane again stops cutting, lengthen the stroke again. This creates a slightly concave edge. Finally take full length strokes. At first, the plane will only cut at the start and end of the stroke (the high spots along the edge). Gradually, the shavings will begin to lengthen until you are taking one long full length shaving from end to end. When you get to this point, stop. You are done. The edges of the two boards will be straight.

A common misconception when creating an edge joint is that the edges of both boards need to be square. When jointing by machine this is true as the reference is the machine's fence. However, when edge jointing with hand planes using the match planing technique, the edges do not need to be square. The reason for this is that any angle created by the plane will be cancelled out when the two boards are opened back up.

The picture demonstrates this with a very exagerated angle. The angles of the two board edges are clearly not 90 degrees, however, the resulting angle between the two boards when the "book" is opened up into a panel is 180 degrees, or a flat panel. This is because the angles created during match planing are complimentary. This method works every time as long as the thickness of the two boards together is not wider than your jointer plane's iron.

Here's the final result. These boards are not glued up yet. The top board is just sitting on top of the bottom board. The joint is tight, there is no light showing between the two boards. The resulting panel is flat and the show face will require very little cleanup. All that will be left will be to plane the rough sawn back side of the panel after the glue dries and cut the panel to final dimensions.

Recently, one of the first planes I ever bought, a very nice Stanley #65 low angle block plane, had to be retired. The adjustment screw threads in the casting stripped, leaving the adjustment mechanism unable to function. For awhile, I adjusted it like I do wooden bench planes, however, this was a good opportunity for a proper replacement.

When I saw this plane online, I took a chance on it without actually seeing it in person. From the pictures I saw online, it appeared to have a lower bed angle than a typical bench plane. In addition, there is no tote, and no mortise where a tote would go. I was guessing, but I thought it was a strike block. Well, when the plane arrived earlier this week, I was thrilled that my guess was correct. What I had bought was the precursor to the modern block plane.

In the 18th century, this type of plane was referred to as a strike block. Later in the early 19th century it was referred to as a straight block, presumably, because the plane had no tote like other bench planes of the period. Later in the 19th century, these planes became known as miter planes, as their primary function was to trim the end grain of miter joints. Today, metal versions of these planes are much more common than this early 19th century wooden version. Stanley later made a version they numbered #9 and called a coachmaker's block plane.

My strike block is pictured here with my stripped out #65 and a #5 jack plane to give you an idea of it's relative size. My version is about 10" long, though 18th century versions were usually closer to 12". Unlike a modern block plane, this plane is bedded with the iron bevel down like a typical bench plane. This identifies it as likely being an American made plane (which it is). English versions were typically bedded with the iron bevel up but at a lower bed angle like today's low angle block planes.

The effective cutting angle on both types of planes is the same, however. A typical low angle, bevel up block plane is bedded at around 12 degrees. With the addition of a 25 degree bevel on the plane iron, the effective cutting angle is around 37 degrees. My plane, typical of American made planes, is bedded bevel down at an angle of 35 degrees.

Today I cleaned it up, honed the iron and tried it out on some pine end grain. The finish left behind was super smooth and polished. The plane cut just as well as a bevel up low angle block plane. I am extremely happy with this replacement. Anyone want a low angle #65 with a stripped casting?