October 9, 2016 by thequietworkshop

Use the tool in your hand

My carving teacher used to admonish me to do as much work as I could with the tool in my hand. Carvers often have a lot of tools on their benches. Swapping between them uses time. Use the tool in your hand until you can do no more work with it, then change.

I’ve just cut 13 brackets for a chest. They each have two ends with five edges at each end. That’s 130 edges. I started by using a block plane (an old Record 018 in case you’re only here for the tools!) for the straight edges and a chisel, bevel down, for the curves. The block plane wasn’t gaining me anything. The straight edges are so short that keeping the plane flat and the cut even was as much effort as doing the whole thing with a chisel. So I did.

If you’re paring end grain chamfers here are some notes.

Pare along and up, never down.
Always pare towards an already chamfered edge. That’s what the first corner cut is for.
Bevel down on concave curves.
As always – a very sharp chisel makes this a lot easier.

October 2, 2016 by thequietworkshop

Sticking it to them

I rarely get the opportunity to bring out the big guns.

This piece of ash is destined to be brackets in a chest. I started by ripping it out of a a thick board that’s been kicking around the shop for a few years. I’ve been avoiding it because it’s hard and has some particularly obstreperous late growth rings.

After squaring it I stuck a rebate in one corner using a thin iron in a plough plane from two sides. Easier than taking away all of the wood. Then I brought out the number 18 round plane. Of my half set of hollows and rounds only the 2, 6 and 8 sizes see much work. The 18s get out less than once a year and their big brothers, the 22s, have an even easier life.

Pushing a moulding plane through hard ash is energetic work and I resharpened twice, as much to give myself a break as to make wrestling it down the board easier.