ECE Coffin Plane Restoration

ECE Coffin Plane as found in Wells, Maine

The E.C. Emmerich Company was founded in 1852, and  they're still in business in Remscheid, Germany. I found this 7-inch coffin plane at an antique shop in Maine looks like its labeled for sale in the US given that its labeled with both 51mm and 2" dimensions on the iron. I downloaded their catalog, and it doesn't appear that they still offer this plane. This plane doesn't look like it was used very often, but has sat unloved for a while and humidity has lead to rust on the iron, which in turn discolored the wood parts that come in contact with the metal. I've just cleaned it up and put it back to work. 

You can see a YouTube video I made about this restoration here.

There was some spray paint over-spray on the wood, and some general grime. The iron and chip breaker were rusty but not very pitted. There was some limited pitting on the back of the iron where the chip breaker was pressed against the metal. That took a little while to grind out but I don't think the back of the iron was ever flattened, so most of it came while doing that in any case.

Click on the pictures for larger view

I soaked the iron, chip breaker, and screw in Evapo-Rust over night to loosen the rust. While those pieces sat, I worked on the wood parts with a utility knife blade as a scraper, some small files, and sandpaper. I decided not to try and remove the rust stains as that would remove too much wood, and the worse of it is covered by the iron assembly when its put together.

The completed plane

The completed restoration produced a really nice plane. I had to square up the cutting edge and reestablish the bevel, then I worked on it with 400 and 100 grit stones before stropping it on leather with compound. The result was very satisfying. I flattened the sole by hand by marking it with a pencil and using sandpaper on a flat bed (my belt sander with the power off.) I rubbed the wood (except the sole, and the insides) with raw linseed oil.

The tuning of a wooden plane takes a little to get used to but once I had it set, it was taking beautiful shavings from a piece of quarter sawn beech I've had in the shop since 2015.

The wood shined after this pass

Check out the video if you get  chance. Leave a comment here or there (or both places!) and let me know what you think. Do you have a wooden plane, or two? How do you like them compared to metal planes?

Compass Saw Tote Design

I've been doing drawings once a day for the month of October this year for the Inktober Inking challenge, and the prompt for yesterday was Compass. Rather than drawing of a wayfinding compass, or a drafting compass, I decided to put down an idea for a new tote design for a compass saw.

Traditional handsaws, and backsaws have always had handsome totes, but compass saws have suffered a little in the design area. I think that is based on the needs of the user, and the way the saw is often used, either upside down, or sideways, with three fingers on the handle and the forefinger along side the cheek, or with four fingers in and a thumb on top. In practice, this has led to a simple hook shape with no horns to get in the way of turning the saw, or changes in grip, but I'm hoping for a tote design that allows for both.

My design takes obvious clues from traditional compass saw tote designs like those from Jackson and Disston, and others but I've tried to add just a little more detail to keep the tote from being so drab. Some larger versions or table saws will often have horns to and bottom, similar to a backsaw, but may not be as flexible for different grips as the hornless design.

A quick ebay search today resulted in a few examples:

Disston Compass Tote

Tyzack Compass Tote

'Vintage' so I'm not sure who the maker is

William Webster, Shefield Compass Tote

Is my Compass tote design a big difference? No, but that's not the point. The point is to add back a little of the detail that makes the horned tote on the Webster, without loosing the flexibility of the simpler, 'pistol-grip' styles.

Next up is to do a test.

Saw Tote Designing

I got a comment on one of the (very few) YouTube videos I've posted. That video is about a saw I built for a customer of my Etsy store. In the video I must have mentioned that I put together the tote design myself and the commentor suggested that what I had really done was just downloaded a tote design and made a few modifications. My response is, essentially, 'that's exactly right.'

Table saw tote design underlays set to transparent

In fact, I downloaded a bunch of saw tote designs, both drawings and photos, and worked with them all, plus what I had, to develop a tote that would work for this saw but still had that classic tote design. My first tote design was a few years ago, and while I was happy with it at the time, when I look back I can see a number of mistakes, that I've tried to improve upon moving forward. Why try to reinvent the wheel when we can all stand on the broad shoulders of those that came before us? And if you ask the guys who have made their tote designs available for download, I think they'll say the same thing. Their designs come from traditional saw makers too. (The TGIAG drawing included in the underlays above is labeled as a Disston No. 9, very similar to the No. 12) Still, the clean geometry of the drawings these guys make available for download make them even easier than photos to work with. My thanks (again) to Two Guys in a Garage, and Blackburn Tools for making them available.

Above is the design I put together (in red) for the 6 inch backsaw in the YouTube video, overlaid on a pistol grip tote design from Blackburn, which is one of the designs I used for reference, mostly for the grip. The design of the grip, including the relative positions of the 4 circles that make up the inside and outside portions of the grip at the top and bottom is critical for a comfortable tote design, and these relative positions change with hand size, as well as angle of attack. And you can see that I had to adjust the angle of attack on this tote considerably given the short plate length of this saw. Other changes include heavier horns to prevent breaks, elimination of the hook, more mass in the cheeks, lining up the saw bolts, and a few other minor stylistic changes. In the YouTube video about this saw build, you can also see that I added length to the horns, and combined the double top nib into a single nib.

The completed Table Saw tote design, with a nod to its Disston No. 12 origins

Above is my most recent tote design.* This is the design that resulted from all of the underlays shown in the first image at the top of this post. Its for a table saw, or pruning saw. I'm using Vectorworks for the CAD drawing. I found a nice old Disston No. 12 in the basement of my brother-in-law's family home. He thinks it may have belonged to his grandfather. Only half of the tote was there, it was rusted, and it had been sharpened so many times that the plate was nearly gone. You've seen those saws that come to a point at the end like a crazy keyhole saw. (You can see the plate in the top photo, which I used to lay out the holes in the tote design.) So I decided to cut it down and make a short hand saw for breaking down pine boards and other light duty stuff. Once I squared off the cutting edge, and trimmed the toe, the fourth tote hole was too close to the teeth, so I decided to remove it. (You can see the hole drawn in the final design, above. Its just outside the cut line of the new heel design on the plate.)

Here's how it turned out. I wanted a pistol grip for this little saw--I think its about 14 inches long--but I wanted to recall the extra loop in the grip of the Disson No. 12, so I opted for a little remnant. I cut new teeth for crosscut at 7 PPI, so its a little bear when chopping through softwood. The wheat design chip carving and the salvaged saw bolts are also a nod to the saw's history, but I gave up on trying to use a medallion; the cheek design just got too goofy looking when I made it large enough to fit the medallion.

It was a fun little saw to make, and it fits in a tool box, and I can throw it in a bag with the other tools when I'm working around the house and not worry about it getting beat up a little.


* If you think any of these tote designs might be useful for one of your own projects, please feel free to download. If you need a pdf, leave me a comment with your contact and I'm happy to send what you need or see if I can post it.

Stanley No. 5 Restoration

As my efforts to be greener and all natural in the shop have evolved, I've naturally been more interested in hand tools. You just have to take a quick spin through the handful of posts that precede this one to see that. Hand planes do some things that other tools just can't do, and they do some things better than the alternatives. Even some power tools don't stand up to what can be done with a hand plane. That being said, there are also some limitations that need to be considered. In this post, I'm going to walk you through how I cleaned up an older plane I bought for jointing,* while also touching on what I see as the benefits--and the limitations--of hand planes.

First off, there are lots of different types of hand planes, from general purpose smoothing planes like the Nos. 4 & 5, to specialty planes like routers and rabbet planes, to wooden shaping planes; Stanley alone has over 200 planes in their (historic) catalog. Want to know more, go see Patrick Leach.


The Stanley No. 5, or jack plane, is a general purpose bench plane, but has a long enough bed for jointing in a pinch. The 5 I've fixed up is a cast iron bodied plane with rosewood handles (tote and knob) a heavy steel blade and chip breaker assembly and an adjustable steel frog, fitted with a brass and plastic knob to set the cutting depth and a lateral adjusting lever to adjust the squareness of the blade against the bed of the plane. All of this adjustability hardware means that the cast iron bodied smoothing plane can be tuned and adjusted on the fly without tapping on the cutting iron, wedge or plane body with an adjustment hammer as you would on a simpler wooden version.**

The adjustablity that is built into the Stanley-type bench plane, means that the plane can be broken down to its basic parts. This really helps when it comes to cleaning. Once the plane is broken down, the parts fall into three major groups: The plane body, the rest of the metallic parts, and the wooden knob and tote. The cleaning methods I used on the plane body and the rest of the metallic parts is similar, but the size of the body, and the flatness of the working surfaces, make it a little different than the other parts. The wood parts clearly need a different kind of a attention.

Once its apart, I dust everything off and set the wood parts aside. Next, I take each of the metallic parts to the sink and wash them with scouring powder and really hot water. I know, rust. The hot water brings the temperature of the piece up to a pretty toasty temperature. I wash and rinse them one at a time, and then dry them while they are still hot. I knock or blow the water out of the screw holes and the heat in the metal evaporates off the rest in no time. Take care cleaning the blade, its easy to cut yourself.

Next, I chip off the paint drops--why are there always drips of paint on old tools?--being careful not to damage the Japanning. For this I usually use a sharp piece of hardwood, like maple, rather than a metal tool. After that, I check for rust. Fine surface rust comes off easily enough with some steel wool, or fine sandpaper. For the flat parts of the plane, I'm careful to clean them on a flat surface, coated with sandpaper, to make sure the surfaces stay flat. For bad rust, I drop the parts into some white vinegar overnight, and then its back to sink for more scouring powder and hot water. After the heavy rust is removed, I clean them parts as noted above. A wire brush is handy for hard-to-reach places, but I don't use it on the Japanned areas, or the brass/plastic bits.

The wooden tote and knob usually clean up nice with a little steel wool and some paste wax, but if you've got a broken tote (and it happens, boy) then you've got a more serious problem on your hands. I've done some tote repairs on planes and saws in the past. Getting the original shape right can be the tricky part. Luckily, this plane didn't have any damage to the wooden bits.

Once everything is clean and rust free, I put on a coat of paste wax before I put it back together. A little light oil goes in the screw holes and on the threads of the screws. I pay special attention to the paste wax on the raw metal parts such as the face and the cheeks of the plane, the blade, and chip breaker, and the lever cap, as it really helps to keep the rust at bay.



* I've since picked up a Union No. 7 jointer plane at a yard sale for just a few dollars. It's in pretty bad shape, but I'm going to see if I can tune it up and get it working.
** Stanley (and others) also make wooden planes with metallic inserts (often referred to as transitional planes) that allow a lot of the same adjustability as their metallic counterparts. I'm comparing metallic planes to the traditional wood plane with a wood wedge holding the iron in place against a bed that's carved right into the body of the plane.

kiridashi

 

Kiridashi have an interesting history; they go way back. A quick search online uncovered one source * that traces Kiridashi and Ko knives to approximately 20,000 years ago, in Japan. These stone knives are described as using the Setouchi technique; ** making a flat stone core, which is then struck on the side to create a wide, flat flake knife, which is then retouched to create the distinctive, long, pointed knife with a cutting edge near the tip.

At some point between then and now--lets say after 500 BCE, when the iron age came to Japan--kiridashi began to be made from iron, and eventually steel. The design of the traditional steel kiridashi is appealing in its simplicity: a piece of flat stock is beveled to a point at one end, and then sharpened on one face to a keen, chisel like edge.

Kiridashi make great marking knives for woodworking--and is what they are still used for in Japan--because the flat, unsharpened edge lays tight against your straight edge or try square, taking the guess work out of where the cutting edge is relative to the straight edge you're trying to follow.

These knives can be made with simple handles, even paracord wraps, but I prefer the simple piece of steel with a sharp edge. I've seen them forged and sharpened, and ground from hardened steel, on websites and YouTube, but what caught my eye was reusing an old file. There are some great tools made from old files, and I wanted to give it a go.

A quick look around the shop this past weekend gave me two options, and both were older Nicholson files that were still in good shape, and then I found an old triangular file with the tang broken off. I almost dismissed it immediately but picked it up because it seemed to be the right length. The three sided file fell right into the sweet spot in my grip, and I knew I needed to try it.

This file is an old Simon, 8-inch regular taper (four square) single cut file, that was a little nicked up. The missing tang just made the grinding that much easier.

I ground the cutting edge on the bench grinder and I tried to align the cutting edge with the cut lines on the file (for looks.) 

I ground away the back at a steep angle, similar to a chisel, but I didn't measure it.

The triangular shape fits great in the hand for cutting.

I finished the sharpening with 220 and 320 grit sandpaper on a sheet of glass. The cutting edge is sharp, keen and strong. I cut a few test lines in some well seasoned oak I have in the shop, and the marks are nice and clean. I think I'm going to enjoy working with this marking knife.

* "History of Humanity: Prehistory and the Beginnings of Civilization," edited by Sigfried J. de Laet: Unesco, Paris: 1994

** "Archaeology of East Asia: The Rise of Civilization in China," Korea and Japan: Oxbow Books, Oxford: 2015

Saw Bench with Tool Storage

I don't have a whole lot of room in my shop for a saw bench, but I have been missing something to lay a board on to saw, as well as something to sit on while I do some busywork. I've looked at a bunch of designs for saw benches from the traditional (looks like a fancy saw horse) to the split top rigid type that I assume are great for ripping with a hand saw. I think ripping is great, but I have a table saw, and I haven't reached the point where I've become a hand tool user, exclusively.

Click to enlarge, send me a note if you want the plans

So my saw bench starts with some pretty simple ideas, e.g., keep the sides and ends square to the top to act as a guide, make it at a comfortable height for sawing and sitting, and don't get too carried away with the design and construction. I think the saw bench I've come up with will last and when its time to break it down and build a new one, its should be pretty easy.

I was going to hinge the top, but then I figured why not just set it in there? So my design shows a rabbet all the way around so the top--1 1/2-inch thick stock--can drop right into the opening. I figure that will help stiffen the whole assembly when I'm sawing and sitting, and the two scoops cut out in the faces allow me to pull the top off when I need to get to the storage inside.

The two ends are also 1 1/2-inch thick stock, and the faces and bottom are 1x stock. I've let in the two sides so the face are flat down to the floor, and there are dadoes in the two ends to support the bottom. The two sides dip down in the middle so I can add nailing strips to support the bottom, and I have one stretcher running across, to also add support to the bottom and keep the sides from blowing out. I thought about doing a through tenon on the center stretcher, but I ended up doing a mortise about halfway through. The drawing shows solid pieces for the side panels and the bottom, but I'm making them out of some older stock that I'm piecing together.

More to come!

Moxon Vice

My shop is growing like I think many shops on a budget grow: slowly, and as needed. The things I don't have, could easy furnish a very nice shop on their own. One of those things I don't have is a nice bench. Oh I know, its supposed to be first on the list, but the thing is, I do have a workbench, sort of.

It started out as homemade staging planks when I was fixing my house just after moving in. The planks I made are 10-feet long, and just over 2-feet wide, with 2x4 framing and 3/4-inch plywood tops. I set these on post jack staging and they were much sturdier than 2x12s. A few years later, I added some legs, some stretchers, some plywood scraps on the ends and across the stretchers and that is my bench.

Not very glamorous.

But I've mounted my grinder at the end, and then my drill press. So now its crowded too. But the wedge vice I had on there for a few years had some obvious limitations. I don't have a hundred bucks for a bench vise, and I've seen some nice Moxon vices on YouTube, and elsewhere on the internet and thought that a variation of that would work for me.

Moxon vices are typically a benchtop affair, set atop the bench and held in place with some clamps of hold fasts, and set so that the rear chop or jaw of the vice is flush with the front of the bench. This assumes you don't need it often enough to mount it, and because its raised above the surface of the bench, the height is more convenient for fine work like dovetailing, so you don't have to bend over.

My idea was to use it as a bench vice, set flush with the top of the bench, and add dog holes so I can also use it to hold items on the surface of the bench. So my Moxon is more of a hybrid between a Moxon and a double-screw bench vice.

Designing my vice started by thinking about it. I liked the idea of the heavy wheels that I saw on the nicer Moxon vices, they were weighty and you could give them a good spin and they'd tighten right up. But I also liked the wooden screws because they're bigger, and the edges of the threads aren't sharp like a lot of threaded rod is, so it doesn't cut into your work. Then it occurred to me: I've seen something like this before, when I was younger and used to lift weights.

After looking at the options, I was happy to see that there is a built in shoulder at the end of the thread to act as a stop for the rear chop, and they have these heavy steel floriform nuts* that take the place of the cast iron hand wheels in the fancy kits. And, they're threaded on both ends so I could cut one in half and $20 would give me enough for two vices! So wow, right? But the threads are little short, and if I'm going to make chops out of 6/4 or 8/4 hardwood, I'm no going to get much of a range with these things from they way they look, and there aren't any good dimensions on how long those threads are on the various places I looked online. So it was off to the store to see if I could find the dumbbell handles with the longest threads, and what do I find? This crazy thing:

Golds Gym 5-foot Weight Lifting Bar

Its a weightlifting bar that comes in three pieces. The two ends are solid, 1-inch diameter solid steel, threaded, with an integral stop like the dumbbell handles, The center piece is a hollow pipe, that slips over the end bars, and is fixed in place with set screws or something. Seems like a crummy idea for a weightlifting bar, but great for a vice! The threads are like 10-inches! This bar was about $25 at Walmart (corrected).

There are 3 of these with holes lined up. 2 under, and 1 in front of the bench.

So, I came up with a simple design to hold the threaded rods in place, so I can install this under my bench, and feed it through corresponding holes in the 2x4 holding up the front edge of the bench. Its a few pieces of 3/4-inch plywood, with holes large enough to allow the rods to slide in and out, but small enough to catch the raised stop at the end of the threads, and two side pieces of plywood  to hold them together makes a rectangular frame. [Let me know if you'd like to see a SketchUp model]

The completed Moxon vice with board clamped in place

I assembled the plywood frame, with the two threaded rods inserted. They don't fall out because the raised stops hold them in. There are corresponding holes in the front of the bench, so I slipped it in from below, and screwed the frame in place to the bench skirts. Then, with the two rods sicking out of the bench front, I slipped over the last piece of plywood, with holes aligned, and then the 8/4 white oak front chop and the nuts. Basically done.

BONUS: The rods slide back, out of the way, when not in use.

A couple of items to note: The rods slide in and out in the frame, so when the vice is not in use, I can spin the nuts out to ends, and then slide the rods away so I don't walk into them. The 8/4 chop is about 4-inches deep so I get an 1 1/2-inches or so of grip above the rods. Since I finished, I've added a couple of dog holes to the chop so I can use it to clamp work onto the surface of the bench too. Lastly, I made a 'wrench' out of pine that has a matching corrugated (floriform, right?) hole that fits over the spin nuts, and a short handle so I can torque the nuts tight.

I'm thinking about making some hand wheels out of heavy hardwood with the floriform shaped routed out, so they'll slip over the spin nuts. If I do, and they work, I may glue them on there (and I'll post it here.)


* floriform = flower shaped. The dumbbell folks call them threaded collars, spin collars, or star collars. They look more like flowers to me.