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.

Disston No. 7 Refurbish

This is number 2 of 2 posts about two saws I just refurbished. The other is a Carcase Saw. I've had this saw for a little while and wanted to fix it up. I wasn't sure it was a number 7 until I cleaned the plate, but I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. It was clear from the medallion that I had a Disston from 1896 to 1917, and the tote looked like the No. 7 design, but it was chipped in two places. The upper horn was missing a chunk, and one side of the lambs tongue was gone.

The tote after I removed it and cleaned it with denatured alcohol

So I pulled the saw apart and set the plate in vinegar to loosen the surface rust. You can read more about that process on the carcase saw refurbish. The tricky part of this refurbish was the tote. The chip at the upper horn left a lot of wood at upper part of the horn, and I wanted to keep as much as I could, so I clamped it up in a hand screw clamp and cut out the damage with my small backsaw. I used a small try square to keep thecuts straight. Then I used a chisel to square up the notch for the patch.

The try square held tight to the hand clamp acts as a cutting guide

For the lambs tongue, I used the chisel to flatten the area, and then glued in a small piece of quartersawn beech in both places, doing my best to align the grain. I set up a series of small bar clamps and rubber bands to hold the little patches in place. The rubber bands are great because you can wrap them around the patch to apply pressure from a variety of angles.

The rough cut horn patch

Once the glue dried on the patches, I cut them roughly to follow the shape I was looking for and then went to work with a chisel, and then some rasps and files to clean up the shape, trying not to remove any of the existing wood in the process.

The rough cut lambs tongue patch

The lambs tongue ready for sanding and toning

The horn patch ready for sanding and finish, note the contrast in color

Touching up the color of the patches was next, so I tried a darkening agent first; vinegar mixed with steel, which reacts with the tannins in the wood to darken the surface. Once that dried I touched it up with some sandpaper and  rubbed the entire with raw linseed oil. A short time later I wiped off the excess, and set it aside to dry. In hindsight, I wish I'd adjusted the color better before putting on the linseed oil, but I couldn't see how poorly the color matched until the oil was on there; that made the next step difficult. I tried some wood stain to darken up the patches some more, which I let set and then rubbed off. The linseed oil kept the stain from penetrating, and while the lambs tongue turned out nice, the horn patch is not dark enough.

Steel and vinegar solution after a few minutes

After the solution dries, a light sanding evens out the tone

While the linseed oil dried, I turned my attention back to the plate. My one piece of advice, don't go too heavy with the sandpaper grit, its hard to get the scratches out later. Okay, one more nugget; keep the sanding strokes long and straight, they show when you're done, and short, wavy strokes look wrong. After a dip in the vinegar and some cleaning and light sanding the plate looked pretty good, so I put some paste wax on it and set it aside.

The etch confirms its a no. 7, early 1900s

I put a few coats of shellac on the tote, sanding lightly between coats. When it was good and hard, I rubbed some paste wax with a fine steel wool to take down some of the sheen and add some protection. The saw bolts and medallion I cleaned just a little with a Scotch Bright pad; I like to see some of that old color on the brass. The fleck in this quarter-sawn beech is beautiful.

The finished tote. The lambs tongue looks like it grew there

The refurbished Disston No. 7

All in all this was a fun project, and the two saws that I ended up with look great and are ready to go back to work. I guess I'll have to put them in the next rotation for a little tune-up sharpening!

Carcase Saw Refurbish

This is 1 of 2 posts on saw refurbishing I just did. I also cleaned up a nice Disston No. 7 I've had around for a while, and this saw, a reasonably new purchase for me. I was looking for a carcase saw that was a little bigger, and not quite as heavy as the W. Tyzack, Sons & Turner saw I fixed up last summer. This saw has a 14-inch by 3-inch plate, 13 PPI, crosscut.

Looks like a beater, but there's potential there

This Jackson is probably a little older than the Tyzack, but new enough that all of the detail had been designed out of the tote, similar to the Tyzack. It also doesn't have a Disston medallion, so I'm not sure when it was made, but I'm guessing something after 1950.

A little worn, a little rusty, a small chip in the chamfer, and no style

The plate was in good shape and the tote was solid, with just a small amount of play where it was mounted to the plate. And the tote? Its just ugly. All curves and no angles. No balance.

The tote after cleaning with denatured alcohol, with the inspiration tote

So I pulled it apart, and soaked the plate for a short while in white vinegar. I know, folks say that ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is supposed to be better, or some commercial rust remover that I can't afford, but the vinegar worked good for me. After just a day, I pulled the plate out and scrubbed it with hot water and soap to remove the vinegar, the carbon left on the steel, and whatever general crud was left on there. Then it was wire brushing and the scotch bright pad to clean up the metal.

I'm not trying to make the tote look new. I like the age, it tells a story

The tote I repaired by cleaning off the broken chamfer square and gluing in a small piece of beech with the grain aligned. Once that was dry, I shaped it to match the opposite side with a chisel and then re-shaped tote, adding back the V-notch, a double nib ahead of the top horn, and I sharpened up the notch ahead of the bottom horn. The changes are subtle, but the make a difference. I cut the shape with the band saw and some files, and then cleaned it up with some finer files and then sandpaper.

After the vinegar bath, a good wash, and dry scrub with a Scotch Bright pad

Once the re-shaping was done, I gave the tote another light sanding. I'm not trying to remove all of the marks, dings and scars, just most of the dirt, paint drops, and the crud. It tends to build up in the shellac as it gets damp and sticky over the years. Its hard to see, but just before finishing, I added an extra chamfer stop to each cheek. It looks like there might have been a very small one there, so I deepened them.

Click on the picture for a blow-up. The grain in this quarter-sawn beech is nice

When it was clean, I rubbed some raw linseed oil into the tote, to protect it, bring out the grain, and to swell the wood up a little. I think the dried out wood was part of the reason for the loose fit on the plate. If its still loose when I put it back on, I figured I'd file a little bit off of the bolts to keep them from bottoming out in the nuts, but it worked out fine and I didn't have to do that.

The refurbished carcase saw

The next day, while the linseed oil was still uncured, I wiped off the excess and put on a coat of 2# cut shellac and left it to dry overnight. The shellac gets mixed up with the oil on the surface, and the next day the shellac is still a little sticky, and even oily in some places. I sanded off any high points and put another coat of shellac on, which dried up fine. The linseed oil and shellac mix make a kind of varnish (this is what I tell myself anyway) which I think helps to binds the shellac to the wood, and slows the drying of the linseed oil. Time will tell, but I think it may work out to be pretty good.

Before re-assembly, I touched up the saw bolts and medallion with the Scotch Bight pad, but didn't remove all of the color. The bright brass is pretty, but too pretty for a saw that looks its age. I put paste wax on the tote and on the plate to protect them. I used a fine steel wool which takes some of the shine off of the shellac so its a little more matte, which looks good.

I haven't even sharpened this saw. It cuts great. Now it looks great, won't rust anymore and the tote doesn't wiggle. That's worth a few hours, and I did the Disston No. 7 at the same time, so... efficiency, baby.

Hand Tools

Hand Tools: Their Ways and Workings is a beautiful soft cover book written and illustrated by Aldren A. Watson in 1982. This is now my go-to guide for hand tools. Watson is clearly a lifelong user and fan of hand tools and in this book he has poured out all of what he knows, illustrated clearly and concisely with beautiful hand-drawn illustrations of the tools, their parts, their use, and even care and sharpening. The appendixes even include measured drawings and instructions for building your own jigs, wooden hand tools, a work bench (including a version that folds up in a closet for the apartment dwellers) and patterns for replacement handles.

Exploded view of a smoothing plane

The book is organized by tool types. Each tool is described in detail, with cut away drawings of the innards, and its workings so the tool owner fully understands the tool and how it functions. Watson explains, and often illustrates the variations found in the tool, what the different options and adjustments are good for and then goes on to describe how the tool is used. These descriptions are full of examples, and advice ton the best ways to work, often with illustrated techniques, tips, and time savers along the way. For example, in the discussion about a spirit level there is a great tip for leveling a wooden table that doesn't include cutting the legs or using a matchbook. Fantastic!

Do you know this is called an adze-eye hammer?

If you are just starting out with woodworking tools, or if you've been using them for years, like I have, this book has something (many things!) for you. If you've been outfitting your shop with the latest power tools you see on The New Yankee Workshop and shows like it, you may want to take look at this book and see what hand tools can do, often times with less effort, less set-up time, less sawdust, and better results.

Knowing what's inside informs its proper use

Aldren Watson was a professional illustrator, woodworker, print maker and book binder. He died just a little while ago, in 2013 at 95.

Read this book. And then set it in your workshop for reference.


I also posted this book review on my other blog.