| Blog series by gizmodyne | updated 4 hours ago | 6 parts | 2047 reads | 42 comments total |
Part 1: What is Sharp?
Intro to Hand ToolsThree Saturdays ago, Kristin and I woke up early and headed down to good ol’ Cerritos Community College to start our new class, Woodworking with Hand Tools. Previously we have taken Basic Woodworking, Cabinet Making and a Furniture Lab together. I have also taken table making and a few more lab classes. I have a pretty good grip on basic furniture making and power tool use, but have been frustrated in my use of hand tools. Kristin is not a fan of huge power tools...
Part 2: Razor Sharp
Last time I showed the process for lapping the faces of the chisels. Here is the back of the 1/4” chisel. In the next phase of chisel sharpening we learned to hone the bevels. In order to more easily hone the chisel by hand we ground a double bevel. For the purpose of the class we used a Tormek Super Grinder, however the same can be accomplished with a bench grinder and more care to not burn your steel.Here is a chisel that has been hollow ground…Hollow ground chisels provide t...
Part 3: Sharpen this! (Card scraper)
Falling BehindThe class is about halfway through with an agenda of the following:Sharpen four chiselsSharpen a card scraperTune and Sharpen a Smooth PlaneTune and Sharpen a block planeS4S boards with hand toolsCut DovetailsMake dovetailed box with mortise and tenon handle. So far we have finished our chisels and card scraper and worked a bit with the chisels. Our instructor has given demos on how to tune a plane as well. Sharpening A Card ScraperFor the last two weeks Kristin and I have...
Part 4: Smoothing Plane Restorations
Our next project in class tune a smoothing plane. We bought a No. 3 Stanley for Kristin at the Swap Meet and I bought a Stanley No. 4C on E-Bay. My plane before tuning. Step 1: Flatten Sole or pay a guy to do itThe sole of the plane before grinding. We set up wet-dry paper on a granite plate and tested the soles. Given the condition of our planes, we decided to take our teacher up on an offer to send the planes to his machinist friend who ground the soles and squared one cheek f...
Part 5: Block Planes and Tool Gloat One
Block Plane TuningOur next step was to tune our our block planes. We tuned a Stanley 220 and a Stanley 60 1/2. This is pretty simple. We started by lapping and sharpening the blade as described in our prior blog entries.We lapped the sole on a diamond plate to flatten it and then polished it on water stones.We tuned the lever cap by removing paint from the underside on the grinding stone.and then polished the curve of leading edge of the lever cap.Here are the finished planes which cut like d...
Part 6: 100% Handtools Box and Tool Gloat Two
Final ProjectOur final project for class is to build a 100% hand tools built box / tote.The tote requirements:Through DovetailsRabbeted Bottom Panel glued up from two piecesHandle with through tenons. Practice.I practiced surfacing a rough poplar board and cut my first set of dovetails. Not great, but it was first time. Lumber PrepWe bought an 11’ foot African Mahogany board to build our two totes.We started by halving to share.We then each rough cut two 24” pieces to use as...
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