Tiny, Pointy Tools in Woodworking
Last week, on Twitter, Kari Hultman of the Village Carpenter posed a question about carving really small areas. The ensuing discussion was a good one and you can see Kari’s solution in her excellent blog post.
I thought, with the interest raised, I would talk a bit about some of my “tiny tools.” I create miniature furniture from wood and have a bunch of small pointy things for getting into and around small areas. At times, they are very useful when working on full-size furniture as well.
First, the dental tools that Kari has found useful. Here are a couple I use. The one in the foreground is flat on its turned in surfaces and one end is oval-shaped while the other is round.
I’ve filed/honed these ends to act as scrapers. Not quite as nice as what Kari did but quite functional. I found these particular tools at a surplus electronics store.
Lee Valley sells a useful set of smallish chisels that I use sometimes, particularly when I want to clean out a corner. They need some work when you get them, in my opinion, as they’re not all that sharp as sold. But they will take/hold and edge and when you need them, you really need them.
These are my “go to” small chisels for really small details. Dockyard produces these in several sizes but the 1.5mm size is the most useful. These are tiny. They’re also available from Lee Valley and I believe Woodcraft stocks them as well.
While the standard chisel shape is useful, the set includes crooked-neck gouge and v-tools that are very useful when the typical small woodworker chisel is too large.
Lastly, but certainly not least, is my collection of riffler files. Like cabinet and pattern-maker rasps, these come in differing levels of coarseness and a variety of shapes. I seem to use them a little bit in every project I do.
Tis the season, as they say, and these tiny tools Christmas presents make great stocking stuffers.
Cheers — Larry
Lee Valley's New Miniature Shoulder Plane
I’m a sucker for things miniature so when Lee Valley announced the release of a new, miniature shoulder plane, I ordered one. The surprising thing was the price as they give this plane away, along with a great dual marking gauge for $41 CDN.
And are these tools KEWL! The photo above is the miniature plane with its mother, my medium LV shoulder plane. It doesn’t have the adjustable mouth its mom has but it’s a fully-functional shoulder plane. As it happened, I was in the middle of fine-tuning some tenons when it arrived and even without sharpening I used it to true up one shoulder. Worked fine, but I’ll hone up the blade before using it again.
The plane comes in a really nice case and so would make an ideal Xmas gift. You can still send me the Wenzloff tenon saw you were planning to send me, though, as I already have my baby plane.
While all of the buzz is about the plane, the marking gauge will get a lot of use in my shop. I love the idea of having several marking gauges, pre-set to dimensions I use regularly. This little guy gives me two settings in one tool. The smaller diameter of the rolling fences should make it ideal for box projects where I use thinner stock.
So, whether they are for yourself or to give as gifts, these are two Lee Valley products you should give thought to as they’re wonderful, and surprisingly inexpensive ($41). I believe this is called “lotsa bang for the buck.” Act now, however, as the announcement said the price is only good until November 9th.
Cheers — Larry
Working with Thin Wood Stock
If you create small things from wood, whether they be miniature furniture or small boxes, you are faced with the need to scrape and/or sand the surfaces of the small pieces you’ve cut. So much miniature furniture is ruined by well-meaning miniaturists who hold the piece in their hand and try to sand it either with a small sanding block or with sandpaper in their hand. Both methods result in edges that are rounded over. Sometimes this is simply an esthetic problem but often it causes the imperfect joinery. I thought I’d show you some of the ways in which I hold thin wood when working the faces of small/thin wood pieces.
I cut a lot of thin strips from standard lumber stock using a table saw. I know there are those who believe their table saw provides .001″ accuracy. Mine does not and often I’ll need to fine-tune the thickness of the results. It’s also the case that the surface itself is simply not smooth enough for miniatures work. I fix both of these problems using a heavy card scraper in a simple handle I made. I clamp the stock to my bench using an F-clamp and then pull the scraper over the surface. The result is a surface that is very smooth (smoother than most sanded surfaces) and I can control the thickness of the wood very well as the scraper removes very thin shavings. Notice that there is no sawdust created, which is a plus for this method.
I also have a couple plywood planing stops, one made from 1/8″ luan plywood while the other is 3/8″ baltic birch plywood. They’re easy to make so having them in several thicknesses requires only a few minutes to create. The two pins lock them onto the bench and you can push against, planing, or scraping wood surfaces.
When working with very thin stock I clamp a metal ruler to my bench, using it in the same way as the thicker stops. Here I’m using a thin scraper on a 1:12 scale table top. Why scrape rather than sand? That’s a subject for another blog post but the short answer is that cutting wood fibers creates a much smoother surface than abrading them. The result of scraping is a wood surface that glows.
For really small pieces, the solution is to have a large block covered with sandpaper. I use 150-grit garnet paper on one side and 320-grit Norton 3X on the other. I use this block in two ways.
If I’m doing fine sanding, I’ll use a sanding block with fine sandpaper attached to it (here it’s 320-grit) and the large block holds the piece in place while I sand it with the finer sandpaper. The second way is to slap a small piece of double-sided tape to the piece to be sanded and to it I stick a piece of scrap wood for use as a handle. Then I can push it around on the large block. This is actually my preferred method of sanding which is why I have 320-grit on the backside of my big block.
In conclusion, when working a small wood face there are numerous ways of holding it in place as you work it. All of the methods above will help you maintain nice crisp edges on your pieces.
Cheers — Larry
Fish Glue – a Sticky Solution
I’ve talked about how I use hide glue when building miniature furniture and I’ve discussed the reasons why it is superior to the typical yellow or white glues most use. More recently I’ve talked about Stephen Shepherd’s new book that is a complete treatise on all aspects of animal (hide) glues.
I hope this helped at least a few to learn and experience the virtues of this time-honored glue. Today, though, I’m here to discuss what this discussion has done for me, the author of those posts. Feedback is the best part of a blog and Peter Tucker, a true master miniaturist, wrote to me about hide glue and he mentioned that he was using fish glue in his work and that he liked it.
Being a glue junkie I ordered a bottle from Lee Valley. Fish glue is really a variation on hide glue. All of the animal glues, whether they be hide glue, fish glue, rabbit glue use collagen as their base so in the case of fish glue, fish collagen is used to produce it. Fish glue isn’t quite as strong as hide glue but in miniatures this difference isn’t important.
Lee Valley’s fish glue, however, is sold as a liquid, with urea added to it to keep it liquid at room temperature. There’s no need to heat it as I describe in my hide glue posts. I could also suggest that you ‘don’t get to heat it’ but only those who have actually used hot hide glue would understand what I was saying.
You can buy liquid hide glue as well, of course. In my experience, however, it’s not quite as nice to use. Liquid fish glue, however, has the virtue of being VERY sticky. You can apply it, stick two pieces together, and in most cases, they will stay stuck so you don’t need clamps of any kind. This, to me, is the virtue of hot hide glue as when it cools it will hold things in place as the glue sets.
If there’s a downside to hot hide glue it comes when you have a complex (many parts) glue up as you have a very short time to work as the glue cools quickly. This is a great time to haul out the fish glue. My fish glue “technique(s)” are simple. They are:
1) Use a small applicator bottle. Here’s my bottle.
They’re available from Williamson Walton Marble. You can squirt out the glue just like you would yellow glue except that it’s thinner and so easier to get it through a small tube. It’s also the case that if the nozzle gets plugged, all you need do is put it under hot water and it will clear out.
2) I use micro-applicators to spread the glue. These are too pricey to use with yellow glue as you can’t get them clean. With hide/fish glues, however, hot water will clean them out squeeky clean and so you don’t need to throw them away after use.
The green ones are larger than the white ones so I just choose the one that fits the joinery best.
Once you apply glue and stick the parts together the glue will generally hold them in alignment. The photo below shows two parts right after I’ve stuck them together. The joint needs no clamps, though being the guy that I am I’d generally use some anyway to pull the joint closed.
The downside? Unlike hide glue crystals, that will sit on a shelf forever, liquid hide/fish glues have finite shelf lives, just like yellow and white glues do. With that in mind I still recommend you add this glue to your arsenal.
Cheers — Larry
4-foot Wide Cherry Boards
We woodworkers are pathetic when faced with nice wood. We can’t help it. It’s in our genes. We caress it, we make loving sounds and we’ve never got enough of it. As a miniaturist as well as a full-size woodworker, I have a real twisted view in addition to my love of wood. I can’t help it. If I buy a 4/4 piece of cherry I’ll likely pay $5 a board foot and I’ll be lucky if I can find 6″ wide stock.
And so, when I receive wood for miniature making I can’t help assess its ‘size’ and board foot cost, thinking in terms of the 1/12 scale furniture I build. And so it went when I received this surrealistic forest. In 1/12 scale, the boards on the left are are 3/4″ thick while those on the right are 3/8″ All are baby-butt smooth on both faces. Each board is roughly 4-feet wide and 12-feet long. All of them are quarter-sawn cherry. Best of all, it costs me about a dime per board foot (grin). Makes ya giddy just thinking of wood like that, doesn’t it?
This wood comes from Pete and Pam Boorum of Smaller Than Life. These folks are some of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet. In addition to first class lumber they sell small table saws and lathes and Pete has a wide array of jigs and fixtures for both Preac and Proxxon/Microlux saws.
Cheers — Larry
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