Face Vises: Left Or Right End Of Your Bench?
Because I’m a leftie, and because the face vise on my bench is on the left end, I get asked whether that causes me problems. This question comes from the common view that righties put their face vise on the left end while we lefties are supposed to need ours on the right.
If one consults the workbench bible…Chris Schwarz’s Workbench book, one finds Chris covering the subject with “Right-handers generally place the face vise on the left side of the bench; lefties put it on the right.” In short, Chris simply restates the common view.
But why are they put there? Chris goes into great detail about the “whys” of different kinds of vises, their virtues and drawbacks. Why no bold statements about why one places their face vise on one end or the other. I’ll tell you why.
Cuz it doesn’t make a whit of difference which end of the bench has your face vise. There is power in this statement and an understanding of why this might be, so don’t dismiss it as heresy. I can’t speak for Chris but my guess is that he’d agree with that statement.
Face vises are used to do edge work. You use it to boards while jointing and edge, when shaping an edge or when you cut dovetails or tenons. Edgework: that’s what face vises are about. When you work on a board face, you don’t use a face vise.
So, whether you stand in front of the left or right end of your bench to cut a dovetail hardly matters. Whether you are looking left or right hardly matters when you’re shoving your #7 along a board edge.
So, is the common view untrue? Not exactly, but for a reason that doesn’t get attached to discussions of face vise location. What end of your bench has an end vise DOES matter, if you’re going to have one at all (a subject for another post). So, if you insist on having an end vise and are right-handed, you need it on the right end for a number of the reasons. Left handed, you want it on the left end of the bench. And thus, you put your face vise on the opposite end.
But let’s assume for the moment that you don’t need an end vise (you don’t in my opinion). In this case, you open up a lot of options when it comes to bench placement in your shop. Take a look at these benches, from the Hay shop. Notice the face vise location and the fact that the craftsmen at Williamsburg don’t seem to need end vises. Because of this, they can butt one end of the bench against a wall, not needing open space on both ends of the bench. If it would have been better to butt the left end into a wall, leaving the right end open, the face vise would need to be on the right end of the bench. Note, this has nothing to do with whether the cabinetmakers is left or right handed.
Here’s the best example I could find. Bob Roziaeski is a hand-tool only woodworker who really knows his stuff. On the left is a photo of his old bench. On the right is his new bench. Note that the face vise has shifted ends. Bob also doesn’t use or need an end vise. This is where the kewl kids say “I’m just sayin’.”
Cheers — Larry
Why Do Chisel Restoration?
With so many quality chisels available today, why would anyone restore old ones? Back in October, Chris Schwarz did an economic analysis in his Yuppie Tools: A True Accounting post and suggested that it just wasn’t worth the time and trouble.
I agree with most of what Chris talks about and I don’t disagree here, but I do restore chisels. You see, I don’t think money is everything in the analysis. For one thing, for most of us, woodworking is about having fun. The notion that ‘time is money’ just doesn’t apply. For many it’s fun to find an old socket chisel that hasn’t had it’s brains banged out by someone with a metal hammer. Lifting old tools from the flea markets of the world is an honorable activity. Whether it’s fun to de-rust it is less clear but there are those of us who actually enjoy this messy, mindless task. Certainly, using a tool that you’ve restored is a pleasure for most.
But an oft-overlooked part of the analysis is that Lie-Nielsen (the company whose chisels Chris used for his comparison) doesn’t make wide chisels. They don’t make slab-sided firmer chisels. And for this reason alone, you might find oneself doing a chisel restoration even if they own a stack of Lie-Nielsen chisels, which I agree are wonderful.
I did. I’d been looking for a wide chisel for cleaning up the sides of mortises, for cutting a notch next to a cutline when doing dados with saw and chisel, and for the various other tasks for which a wide chisel is useful. I found one.
I had also picked up a 3/8″ firmer chisel. I have a 1/4″ firmer and have found the vertical sides very nice when you’re paring the ends of a mortise and since I do both 1/4″ and 3/8″, I jumped at the chance to pick up a 3/8″ version of this chisel. 
I cleaned them up, sharpened them and then thought about handles. The firmer came with an old, but quite usable handle. As it had a tight leather top and was otherwise not too beat up, I sanded it a bit and added some BLO and called it done.
For the other chisel I needed to turn a handle so I took a scrap of maple and did just that. I didn’t record this process as I’ve talked about making chisel handles in a previous post titled Handling My Chisels. Here are the end results.
In the end, for the princely sum of $5 + a couple bucks worth of expendibles, I’ve got two very useable tools that Lie-Nielsen doesn’t sell (grin). I do wish they’d come out with a 2″ wide chisel to match their bench chisels, though.
Cheers — Larry
2011 Resolutions – Woodworker Style
Over the last few days I’ve read more about New Year’s Resolutions than any human should endure. There are those who tell you their grand plans, listing half a dozen things they’re “gonna do” and confessing they’ve been “trying” to do them for the past forever. Then there’s the flip side….resolutions are bad for you, or at least a waste of time. There’s a third group who feel compelled to tell you what any basic book on planning anything tells you – goals are only useful if they are concrete and have measurable sub-goals attached to them. It’s the same old year-end yada, yada, yada. And so I wasn’t going to talk about it… until about an hour ago.
I just got back from the wood store. I realized that I might have something to say about New Years Resolutions afterall. Here’s how at least one woodworker “resolves” to do things in a new year:
BUY WOOD
- 2 x 72″ x 5″ – 6/4 cherry
- 1 x 48″ x 8″ – 4/4 cherry
- 8 x 72″ x 5.5″ – tongue & groove pine
- 3 x 72″ x 5″ – 4/4 walnut
- 1 x 72″ x 7.5″ – 6/4 walnut
- 1 x 84″ x 5.5″ – 8/4 walnut
<– I do hereby resolve, in 2011 to make cherry totes for two handplanes that need them. This will leave considerable 6/4 cherry laying around for days when I’m bored.
I resolve to make three handsaw handles from my wider cherry board. One will replace the handle on my 10pt X-cut saw as it developed a crack in 2010. The others will go on two new handsaws coming into my shop and that will need handles. –>
If I were making typical resolutions I’d resolve to create a fancy, hold-all-my-cool-stuff tool cabinet. 
It would be a stand-alone affair with curved doors, done Krenov-style, and at least a dozen drawers. But I’m not making typical resolutions. Instead, I resolve to use my tongue-n-groove pine to create a couple wall boards, hung on French cleats, to better organize my hand tools. Here I admit the plans are not clear as these T&G boards are on sale right now. The gleam in my eye is to panel two entire walls with this stuff and THEN make some tool boards hanging on French cleats. Who says woodworkers can’t be fickle.
I also resolve to get the 3 old chisels, sitting on my sharpening bench, off said sharpening bench. To do that I’ll have to turn some handles from the mountains of maple scrap I have laying around. I had so much fun turning my mallet that I’m very much looking forward to this so it may happen before 2011 and thus is hardly a resolution.
<– Last, but certainly not least is my walnut purchase. I bought far more than I need but one can never have too much walnut and, you see, there were these really nice 6/4 boards that I didn’t really need but… well you know how it goes. 
Much of this wood is designed to fulfill a resolution to build a table like the drawing on the right. I’m fairly confident that I want straight-tapered legs but the top edge treatment is still a mystery. It’s also likely that the aprons will get some contours added to their bottom edges. The drawer front will be made from a piece of curly maple I’ve been saving for that purpose.
I also resolve to make a small, wooden block plane. I bought the Hock/Krenov blade for it so I’m committed.
So there you have it. My resolutions for the year. I’ll probably be done before summer 
Oh yeah…and I’m going to lose 20 lbs.
Cheers — Larry
Mallets From Pallets
I have a nasty habit of working with old tools, well past their prime, if they ever had one. There’s nothing worse than hammers and mallets in that regard as I’ll use an old stone if it’s available.
This is the mallet I’ve used for at least two decades. It never was much to look at but it could find the back of a chisel so I used it, and used it, and used it some more. But I decided to replace it and this is where I always say to myself “If I’d known how little time it would take, I would have done it a long time ago.”
I took a piece of what I believe to be white oak that I got from some pallets a friend of mine brought me. It was 3 3/4″ x 3 1/2″ in cross-section. I figured it would make a decent-size mallet for tapping on my LN chisels without insulting them with ugliness as my existing mallet was doing. My tools talk to me and they had complained – honest.
So, the first thing I had to do was to heat up the shop and so I did. Nothing like a Disston D8 and a big chunk of white oak to warm things up.
Then, I’m sad to say, I failed as a blogger. I was so excited about being in the shop that I forgot to take photos. I took my blank (which was nothing more than a foot long piece of the oak) to my chopping block and I lopped off the corners, somewhat rounding it up. It’s much faster to do this than to chuck up a big square stick and then spend forever being beaten around by my roughing gouge.
Once finished, I chucked it into my lathe and turned a cylinder. I used a parting tool to mark the two ends of the mallet-to-be. Note that I changed its length when I got to this point. I’d originally guesstimated a length where the pencil line is but decided that I didn’t need the handle that long once I got to the point where I could actually wrap my hand around the stock to see how it fit my hand. This is the real virtue of making your own hand tools. One can buy a mallet like this for not much money but I was able to fit the handle to my hand as I refined the shape.
At this point all that was left to do was remove everything that didn’t look like a mallet. I ‘designed’ it on the fly, putting a slight taper into the head, fitting the handle to my hand and turning a knob on the end. I actually had to shorten that knob just a bit as there was a nail hole that I didn’t want to include. Roughed out it looked like this:
I’d gotten to this point using a roughing gouge and then a spindle gouge. The surface, however, could be a lot better and so I smoothed everything up using a skew chisel. I sanded it a bit, particularly in the curved places where it’s hard to create a surface with a skew. then I applied a thin coat of #1lb cut shellac to bring out the color and followed with a layer of Renaissance wax, which is named after the Renaissance Woodworker, I think The result looks like this and my chisels approve. It was embarrasssing to listen to them giggle.
Cheers — Larry
Where Did November Go????
It’s been nearly two months since I’ve posted. I could say that this was in honor of Kari Hultman’s hiatus but I don’t think you’d believe me. The fact that it’s not true, of course, is irrelevant as I’m a 21st Century kind of guy.
The truth is, fall is a tough time for me as there is a lot of “batten down the hatches” stuff that has to happen when you live on planet Quebec City. We know cold, wind and ice are coming; we’re just not sure when. In addition to those tasks, though, I decided to write a novel… and I did, at least the first draft of one.
But I always miss woodworking when I can’t do it so it was good to finally get into the shop on Saturday. Well, it was sort of good. I learned something about myself. When I’m woodworking, I’m sort of a neatnik. I make messes – I clean them up. I want my shop ready for the next project. I want my tools in their places.
When I’m not woodworking, however, it appears that all bets are off and the results are what faced me Saturday morning. I thought I’d take you on a tour of the mess as a warning. Don’t let this happen to your shop.
My last post about my shop told the tale of a small river running from the hot water heater to the drain. Here’s what remains of that disaster. You can see my finishes cabinet still pulled out from the wall and a pipe wrench still laying by the drain.
Careful, don’t trip. That’s the top of my shop-vac, turned into a leaf blower and then left to clutter the shop floor.
Under here is my sharpening station. The box is a reminder of the rush project to replace a space heater in the upstairs bathroom so my daughter would stop complaining. Kids.
When I went looking for my workbench I found this. Oh yeah, that was the time I needed to get the snowblower out of the shed and the lock had frozen solid. The other end of the bench was covered with some wood dumped there during the flood and an abandoned project that was to replace the arms on a bowsaw. At least it was woodworking.
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My tablesaw is generally my assembly table but it serves other purposes when I’m not woodworking. I packed and shipped a box. Why I needed a level to do that is a mystery.
An outfeed table is a handy place to drop a torch after you’ve played plumber, don’tcha think? I must have.
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But these are the sad photos. They expose an addiction – my addiction. The one on the left is the result of a day when I just had to cut some wood, so I came into the shop, grabbed some scraps and just ‘cut to the line’ a time or two. Just to take the edge off you understand. The photo on the right shows a night when I came in and got a hit off my #7. I think the wood was maple. Doesn’t matter. It calmed the shakes, at least temporarily. It’s tough dealing with an addiction. Feel sorry for me.
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I spent some time picking up and putting away. I dusted everything and waved a broom at the floor. And finally, once again, I had my meager shop ready for action.
Unfortunately, I didn’t actually get time to do any real woodworking, though I enjoyed the time fondling tools anyway. My principle tool for the day was this one.
But, I’m back, and it feels good.
Cheers — Larry
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