The Case of the Missing Saw Nuts
In my last post I talked about creating handles for two new saw plates. I mentioned that I had saw nuts somewhere in my shop but that I didn’t know where they were. I do hereby confess to the crime of understatement as “not knowing where they are” doesn’t quite cover the energy I expended to find them.
Like most “where are they” stories I started rummaging through cabinets, opening drawers, shoving stuff here and there. When I had done that to every cabinet and drawer I stood in the middle of the room, hands on my head, looking around. Where could they be?. I repeated the process – twice. After an hour of looking I said… No, I’d better not say what I said. Anyways, I gave up and scuttled off to do something else.
The next morning I decided to take drastic action. I went to the same cabinets, the same drawers. Only this time I emptied them onto my workbench. When that was full I covered my assembly table, that used to be my table saw, with stuff.
When that table was covered with debris I did the only useful thing of the entire venture. I “invented” a takedown table. I set up my shop bents and snapped together some tongue ‘n groove pine slabs and created a new table. I will, forever more keep these pieces of pine around for just this purpose as it works great as a take-down table.
Eventually, after three hours of emptying and another hour of replacing everything, I found my saw nuts. They were in a ziplock bag, wadded up such that they didn’t look like saw nuts. They didn’t look like anything. As Sherlock Holmes once said, “You simply remove everything that is not a saw nut and what remains must be the saw nuts.” I might be paraphrasing here. Anyways, victory was mine.
Not exactly victory. I learned that, as the philosopher said, “time sifts” and in this case, the memory I had of my saw nuts was different from reality. Here they are in all their, uhm…glory.
As you can see, these are saw nuts with slotted, ugly heads. They’re also quite the worse for wear. The arrow points at one I tried to clean up and it is possible to get them to shine but quite impossible to remove the deep scratches without distorting the heads as to make them worthless, if you can make them any more worthless than they are (grin).
And so I did what any self-respecting woodworker would do. No, I didn’t make them. It is certainly possible to do so but I needed half a dozen and without a machine shop, doing them one at a time by hand would take me more time than I cared to spend. Rather, I headed to Wenzloff & Son’s website. There I could buy saw nuts that match those in my Wenzloff saws, which are beautiful. And I did. They haven’t arrived yet but this is what they’ll look like when they do.
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
Changing Our Tune In 2011
“There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man’s lawful prey.” — John Ruskin fillIsn’t it amazing how clear the vision of the 21st Century was from the 19th Century. Mr Ruskin not only states the obvious, he states something for which we seem to have lost all comprehension. In the woodworking world we run to the big box store, buying “dovetail saws” that look the part but that is all. We buy cheap chisels and then wonder why our $30 set of five chisels don’t function as well as those sold by Lie-Nielson for $55 each. In fact, we scoff at those who buy these more ‘spendy’ tools.
And why not? It’s how the rest of our world operates – doesn’t it? Go to any electronics store and buy a tool that will last more than a couple years. Buy one that you can fix. I dare ya (grin). The most popular MP3 player on the planet has no facility to even change the battery, for goodness sake. We buy pens that we expect will write for a week or two if we don’t simply forget them somewhere because they mean so little to us. Even our furniture is not built to last our lifetime.
And yet we deem our world better and more advanced than the 19th Century. We believe that those of John Ruskin’s era had it hard as they had to write with gorgeous writing devices you had to fill with ink and often considered status symbols. They had to lead lives sitting on mahogany chairs and dining at tables made of solid cherry. Their furniture was mostly handed down to them by their parents. Yep, those poor sods really had a tough life, missing out on particle board desktops and plastic bookshelves.
So why am I thinking about this, and boring you with it? Well, it’s because of the Christmas season. To hear the media talk, buying has become a patriotic duty in North America and that speaks to me. It doesn’t say good things but it does say things about us as a group. We need to change not only our behaviors but our points of view.
Yes, we like to buy. Yes, we love to shop. But this is the time of year where we make decisions about our future. Some call the results of these deep thoughts New Year’s Resolutions. Maybe, just maybe, this year we could all decide to buy a couple good-quality items that will last a lifetime rather than ten that will fall apart by 2012. I’ll shut up now as I want to get back to my Lee Valley catalog.
Cheers — Larry
ps – If you’re interested in reading a historical account of how we got into our current mindset and what it is costing us, this is a great book. If nothing else, the history is interesting.
What Makes a Woodworker Grumpy?
What is it that causes a woodworker to be grumpy? Is it when your hands are full of slivers from working with wenge? No. What about when you cut a piece 1/4″ short? No. Ah…I know…it’s when your wife asks “Aren’t you done with that yet?” No, not even that phases a woodworker.
Here’s a hint. What’s wrong with this photo? Sure…not enough tools, but that’s not what makes me grumpy. Yeah, you’re right, the bench isn’t big or solid enough, but I’m good at overlooking the fact that it walks across the floor as I plane hard maple.
No, the problem with this photo, and the thing that makes this woodworker grumpy is that I’M NOT IN IT!!!!! It’s been weeks since I’ve been able to get any shop time. I went into the shop this morning to get an Xacto knife. You know what I found? DUST on my workbench. Is that sad or what?
My blog sits, somewhat between versions. My shop is accumulating dust. Yep, the thing that makes woodworkers grumpy is when they’re not woodworking. Gotta do something about that.
Cheers — Larry
If I Could Put Time In A Bottle….
Apologies to Jim Croce for abusing the opening line of his Time In A Bottle song but don’tcha wish you could? Sure…we all talk/joke about not having enough time for woodworking.
This month’s Fine Woodworking reports on their ‘sander vs handplane’ showdown where they looked at which method could prep a piece for finish the quickest. They’ve also done a similar “shootout” on cutting tenons by hand vs a table saw. Fine…fine…I guess this stuff is worth doing… maybe. But mostly this is because most woodworkers believe that using hand tools is akin to putting on the brakes of productivity.
But I’m here to tell you that I think we talk about time/quick/fast FAR too much. If you’re paying the mortgage as a woodworker, the adage “time is money” may apply, but why the heck are hobbyist woodworkers so obsessed with how long something takes?
Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine that a machine is available that requires a space the size of the average hobbyist shop. Suppose that as long as you don’t use it to produce things for sale, you can have one for free. Suppose this machine creates furniture pieces the way it produced Earl Grey tea for Captain Picard?
Do you want one? Sure…where do I pick it up. Me first…me first. But are you sure? How much hobby enjoyment would you get from saying “Windsor chair from maple” and having it pop out a door? Would it hold your interest? Or would you use it and start spending your time in another hobby? How proud would you be of your Windsor chair. The point is that whether you focus on the final product or the journey to it, the doing is part of what makes you enjoy this hobby.
But today I did my own “power tools vs hand tools” showdown event. That wasn’t the intent of course. I was trying to get some work done. I report on it mostly because it’s been a while since I’ve used power tools and my morning seemed worthy of reporting given the fascination with how long things take.
You see, I needed to put rabbets on 4 rails and 4 styles for my vanity doors. These will accept the glass center panels. I struggle with rabbets using hand tools simply because the tool I have, a Stanley #78 has a fence that is very wonky and I’ve never been happy with the results. It also really slows things down as the fence goes out of adjustment so I spend a lot of time fussing. I need a Lee Valley skew rabbet plane. Some day.
Anyways, because I’ve been slow to get moving on these cabinets I thought I’d get those rabbets done “quickly” by throwing a Freud rabbeting bit into my router table and zip, zip…I’ve have the rabbets done. Ha!
Reality was a bit different. First I had to pull out the router table and then fiddle to get the bit height set properly. I put on my moon suit – face shield, respirator, and my ZEM hearing protection. I hooked the dust collector to the table. I found a test piece, set the fence to take a shallow cut, and made a trial cut. It looked ok so I ran each piece through. Three more passes and I’d created the 1/2″ deep rabbets in all the parts.
The only problem was that I wasn’t done. There were chips all over the floor and table. There were some burn marks on some of the parts in spite of my repeated shallow cuts. And there are several small corner chips where the wood tore out along the inner frame faces.
So, out comes the shop vac. I sucked up all the chips. I swept the floor. I pulled the bit and put it away and moved the table back. I put the shop vac away…. finally… done.
Well, sort of. I’ve still got to smooth the inner faces of all those parts to eliminate the few little bits of tear out, but whose counting? Total elapsed time – a bit more than 1 1/2 HOURS.
Now it may well be true that it would take me 2 hours to do these rabbets with a good hand tool but I doubt it. These are all full-length rabbets (going to use asymmetric tenons) so they’d be pretty quick to make with a good fillister plane. The big difference? I don’t have to look like a NASA astronaut while I do it. I can listen to music. It’s less risky, both to the parts and to my person.
Am I a hand tool zealot? No, not really. I won’t be creating laminated bench tops using hand tools. You won’t see hand tool guys turning out cutting boards to give away as gifts. And it’s a lot easier to buy a router bit to do a fancy molding than to find an equivalent tool in the hand tool world. But this morning was just a reminder of why I do most of my work these days using hand tools.
Cheers — Larry
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