Hand Tool Basics Book Available For Order

Book cover, showing the plane till in my basement workshop.

If you'd like a copy of my book, Hand Tool Basics, published by Popular Woodworking Books, it's now available online at ShopWoodworking.com.

It's available in both hardcopy and e-book formats. It's a direct companion to my video series, Intro to Hand Tools (more information on the series, including the free Part 1 and sample lesson, is at Intro To Hand Tools Downloadable Videos).

Whether you want to augment your power tool woodworking with some hand skills or you want to do everything with hand tools, whether you have a big shop or just a tiny space, this is for you.

The images in the book are taken from the digital video I recorded for the series, and its organization and content match the series. The book is therefore a matching visual reference for hand tool woodworking, with some 1400 captioned photos.

Why have a book version identical to the video series? Several reasons:

• Some people prefer learning from videos. Some people prefer learning from books.
• It's nice to have both so you can sit back and watch the videos, then have the book with you on the workbench as you follow the steps for a procedure.
• The dynamic images in the video allow you to watch the tools in motion, while the static images in the book freeze the action so you can take your time examining details. These complementary views help you get the whole picture.

You can see my acknowledgements and references here. These are the people who gave me the knowledge.

Here are the full Contents and Index pages so you can see what's covered. As always, I like to show multiple ways of doing things, so you can tackle any situation based on the tools you have available, your personal preferences, and your current skill level.







Here are a few sample pages representative of the layout and level of detail in the book.


From Chapter 1: The Tools, showing a selection of the tools covered.


From Chapter 5: Mortise and Tenon Joinery, showing some of the fistfights and fundamentals.


From Chapter 6: Dovetail Joinery, showing some of the steps laying out and sawing a tails-first through-dovetail.

Feel free to email me at sdbranam@gmail.com if you have any questions about anything in the book. One of the challenges is getting just the right explanation that conveys the information to all readers regardless of their experience and skill level, and sometimes that fails.

Beyond The Vise

Using holdfasts to hold a piece of walnut for rabbetting the edge.

Workholding For Hand Tools

Why go beyond the vise? Most workbenches have some kind of vise for holding workpieces. A good vise is invaluable, but it's not the whole story. There are some operations or workpieces where it just doesn't work well. 

Things only get more frustrating if you don't have a good vise. Some are totally inadequate. And what do you do when working at a project site or some other remote location away from you main bench?

Woodworking is thousands of years old. Various workholding methods have been handed down across the generations, but many have faded into obscurity.

In my Popular Woodworking University webinar Beyond The Vise, November 5 at 8:30pm EST, I'll part the mists of time and show you how to use them in your work (a recorded version will be available if you're unable to be online at that time).

These are time-tested methods that are simple and efficient. Effective work holding makes your work faster and easier. And less frustrating.

One of my favorites is pictured above, the holdfast. This is an example of modern evolution of an ancient method. These Gramercy Tools holdfasts are made in a patented process from modern bridge wire ("wire" takes on new meaning when you're holding up something like the Golden Gate bridge). But blacksmiths have been making them for woodworkers for centuries.

The essence of simplicity, they just work. Slipped into vertical or horizontal dog holes, you whack them on the head to set, and whack them behind the head to release. You can hoist an entire workbench into the air with a holdfast set in the top.

The general requirement for work holding is that you need to be able to hold pieces for face, edge, and end grain work. This includes planing operations of all kinds, sawing, and chiseling, for stock preparation and joinery.

The tools apply force to the work in specific directions, so you need to restrain the workpieces against those forces. A plane directs force down the length of a board. Planing on a diagonal adds sideways force. You need to keep the work from sliding forward or sideways.

Some tools also apply force on the return stroke. A saw cuts on the forward stroke, but there's enough friction in the kerf that pulling it back on the return stroke pulls on the workpiece. So you need to restrain it against both forward and backward forces.

It's tempting to want to lock down the work against all possible motion, since that's what a vise does. The workpiece is restrained against movement in three dimensions, up and down, left and right, forward and back.

However, that's often unnecessary, and leads to time-consuming steps getting the piece locked down. Then you take more time to loosen it up and tighten it back down when you need to reorient it or swap it out with another one.

It's much more efficient to minimize the restraints to just the actual forces that will be applied, leaving the piece loose in other directions. Then you can instantly reorient it or swap it with the next piece. The time savings add up. The work flows more smoothly.

Round dog holes in my workbench give me lots of choices. In addition to holdfasts, I use simple dogs and pegs in them, plus a variety of more specialized stops. I like to use battens as planing stops, particularly ones fitted to the dog holes so they can just drop into place. I use bench hooks for fine sawing, and apply this concept to planing boards.

Add a couple more items, and you have a versatile set of work holding methods capable of handling any situation.

I use three workbench designs in my work: Chris Schwarz's Roubo with leg vise, Paul Sellers' bench with Record-style quick-release face vise, and Roy Underhill's portable bench with no vise (what, no vise?!?). I've also taught classes in rooms with nothing but bare worktables (what, no vise, no dog holes?!?).

I'm able to get the same work done on all of these by adapting my workholding strategy to the setup at hand. The latter was the most challenging, for which I created a space-age portable work surface adapted from a number of traditional methods. Since there was a left-handed student, I made one in a left-handed version.

You can see all of the methods I use here in various posts, but if you'd like the concise summary, sign up for the webinar. It'll make your hand tool woodworking faster, more effective, and more efficient.

Apartment Workbench

The apartment workbench.

When I was demonstrating at the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event earlier this month, talking to a number of people, I realized there's a whole class of potential woodworkers out there who are missing out due to some combination of severely limited space, funds, or skills.

The prototypical example was the lady who was a grad student living in a tiny city apartment with her husband and knew nothing about hand tools.

What they have is the interest and the desire. I know where they're coming from. I spent time in that situation myself, three out of three. If you're one of those people, this is for you.

Some of my woodworking buddies tell me they enjoy doing some work with hand tools, but I take it to extremes. I tell them that's because I want to show people it can be done.

You don't have to have a big workshop with a bunch of big, noisy, expensive power tools. You can work in a tiny footprint with a modest number of small, quiet, inexpensive hand tools. And then fold it up out of the way when you're done.

Introducing The Apartment Workbench

The apartment workbench is an adaptation of the portable workbench that appears in Roy Underhill's The Woodwright's Apprentice and earlier in Bernard E. Jones' The Practical Woodworker from 1918. From Paul Sellers' workbench, I've borrowed the idea of using pre-dimensioned construction-grade lumber. The top is laminated from these materials, offsetting the widths in the two layers.

It's small, with folding legs, to address the space limitation. It's made from a small amount of inexpensive materials with a small number of tools, to address the funds limitation. It's design is simple, relying on pre-dimensioned lumber, to address the skills limitation. Yet it's practical and functional, allowing you to build those skills.

Make no mistake, this is a small, crude, light bench. It's always better to have more mass. But that conflicts with the limitations we're dealing with. So it's a compromise, and your work will have to adapt to that.

Suppliers

I chose to get everything for the bench from a home center, because those are the most accessible suppliers for people, widely available and offering the lowest prices (though that's both good and bad). I limited myself to what you'll be able to find there.

Better quality materials and items are available from more specialized suppliers, but the goal here is absolute simplicity for the beginner while still maintaining a sufficient level of quality.

I generally have a low opinion of the hand tools available at home centers. Before World War II, people built everything with hand tools, and a tradesman or craftsman could expect his tools to last through tens of thousands of hours of use, to be passed from generation to generation.

That broad market for hand tools simply no longer exists. Because of that, the tools at home centers now have been reduced in quality of materials, design, and workmanship so that their working life is a few hundred hours at best. They're made to be thrown away after short use. That makes them cheap to buy, but means they're also cheap in quality.

However, for the hobbyist who only gets a few hours a week to use them, some are good enough to start with. Not all; some fall below the threshold of acceptability. I'll cover tools more below.

In the US, the predominant home center retailers are Home Depot and Lowe's. They sell lumber in standardized, pre-dimensioned sizes. I assume there are similar retailers and standardized lumber in other countries, though not all.

I went to Home Depot for all the materials and tools used to build the bench. I ordered the small vise from their website. The 4 1/2"x6 1/2" Pony vise is also available from Amazon, as well as other vendors.

The bench can handle a slightly larger vise (available from other websites) if you're willing to spend more money, but be careful about getting one too large that overbalances it. Vises get heavy fast. You can hurt yourself extending a heavy vise that tips the bench over on you. Portability, light weight, and convenience take priority here. That's part of the compromise.

Plans

You can click on any of theses images for a larger view. To obtain the plans, your browser should allow you save the images to your computer so you can print them out (you may have to right-click or Control-click on an image for a popup menu with download options).

The height of the bench as shown is 35 3/4". For comparison, my kitchen counter is 36" tall. I'm 5' 8", so that puts the bench about an inch below my belt. Height is a personal preference. The older you are, the more your back will appreciate erring on the side of higher, to reduce bending over.

If you want to make yours taller, you'll need to mount the spacer blocks wider apart on the underside of the top so that the legs fold down inside them. You'll also need to make the angled braces a little longer. It's best to save cutting the braces to size for the very last, since you need to size them to whatever you actually end up with.


Rear underside, showing how leg assemblies are attached to the top. The cross-braces provide rigidity. Like bridge trusses, they form triangles that can't be deformed.


Rear view disassembling the braces and folding the bench. Then you can stand it up on its side or end for storage. Or use it as a low coffee table; folded up, it's 9 3/4" high, about shin height.


Front exploded view.


Rear exploded view.


Dimensioned orthographic view.

Materials

The bench is built completely from construction-grade 2-by lumber (US standard sizes 2"x4", 2"x6", and 2"x8", sold in 8' lengths), and No. 2 premium pine 1-by lumber (US standard sizes 1"x6" and 1"x8", sold in 8' and 6' lengths).

All you need to do is cut it down, cut some simple lap joints in it, then glue and screw it together. There's one slightly challenging cut, but you'll get the hang of it quickly.

This should be within the abilities of even complete beginners. Building the bench will start building your skills.

The nominal dimensions used to identify lumber are actually the rough-milled sizes, before planing and jointing at the lumberyard. The final, surfaced dimensions are smaller: 1 1/2" thick for 2-by lumber, 3/4" thick for 1-by lumber; then 3 1/2" wide for 4" lumber, 5 1/2" wide for 6" lumber, and 7 1/4" wide for 8" lumber. I've sized all the parts based on these standardized dimensions.

If you're using lumber following a different sizing system, you'll need to adapt the design slightly. But it's all based on the widths and thicknesses of the standard units. Fit the pieces to what you have.

The 2-by lumber is generally labeled "KD SPF", "KD whitewood", "KD fir", etc. KD means kiln-dried. SPF means any spruce/pine/fir. This is what's used for floor and ceiling joists and framing studs in construction. Since it will be covered by siding and sheetrock, it doesn't have to be pretty. The corners of this stock are rounded, so butting pieces edge-to-edge leaves a small groove at the joint.

The 1-by No. 2 premium pine is pine with a certain number of knots. It's used for finish carpentry. The corners of this stock are left square, so butting pieces edge-to-edge leaves a smooth joint, which is why I used it for the benchtop upper layer. There's also "Select" pine, which is almost entirely free of knots, but roughly twice as expensive, used for a higher grade of finish carpentry. A few knots in the bench are an acceptable tradeoff for reduced cost.

When selecting lumber, go through the stacks and bins and examine each piece. Some of the 2-by lumber looks like it's been run through a chipper, so skip those. The other main defects for both 2-by and 1-by lumber are various types of warping, cracks, and splits.

Sight down the length of each piece and turn it to all sides to confirm that it's straight end to end and free of cracks or splits. Pick the best pieces. Restack any you're not keeping.


All the materials and hardware needed for the bench except the vise, which is currently being shipped (this shows one extra 2x4).

Each layer of the top consists of one 6"-wide piece and two 8"-wide pieces. Since the bench is 4' long, you only need to buy one 8' board of the wide stock in each thickness, which you'll cut in half to get the two pieces.

For the narrower stock, the remaining half of the 8' 2x6 will be used for the upper stretchers on the leg assemblies. You only need to buy a 6' length of 1x6, which will leave a 2' scrap. You can use this for the vise chops (the wooden liners for the vise).

Lumber:

Qty	Description	Unit Cost	Total Cost
1	2x8, 8'	$6.49	$6.49
1	2x6, 8'	$4.62	$4.62
5	2x4, 8'	$2.57	$12.85
1	1x8, 8'	$11.12	$11.12
1	1x6, 8'	$9.98	$9.98
1	1x6, 6'	$8.54	$8.54
	Total		$53.60

Hardware and glue:

Qty	Description	Unit Cost	Total Cost
2	#12x3" screws, 25	$5.90	$11.80
1	#10x2" screws, 50	$5.98	$5.98
1	#14x4" screws, 2	$1.18	$1.18
3	3/8"x6" carriage bolt	$1.10	$3.30
1	3/8" wing nuts, 3	$1.18	$1.18
4	4" T-Hinge	$3.67	$14.68
1	Pony 6 1/2" light-duty woodworking vise	$22.96	$22.96
1	Wood glue, 16oz.	$4.68	$4.68
	Total		$65.76

Total cost of materials: $119.36.

Addendum: while working on assembly, I realized I needed two additional packages of screws: #10x1 1/2, 25 and #12x2 1/2, 20. These should be under $10. Also, it doesn't hurt to have extras in all the sizes, because the regular wood screws at Home Depot are such low quality that the heads strip out easily when driven by a drill. Then you're left with a half-driven screw that you may need to remove with vise-grips. You might have better luck with decking screws.

Tools

In selecting the tools to build the bench, I opted for the lowest price tool that offered a sufficient level of quality. That means I skipped a few of the very cheapest items and spent a little more money for a better version.

That's a long-term tradeoff. You can certainly save a little more initially by going strictly for the cheapest, but you'll end up spending additional money pretty quickly to replace them with something better.

So start off better and save yourself the trouble and expense. Beware cheap, junky tools, no matter how shiny or how big the word PROFESSIONAL is on the package.

Because this bench uses pre-dimensioned lumber, you don't need any hand planes to build it. You need measuring and marking tools, a saw, a chisel and mallet, and a few clamps. You also need a drill for drilling screw holes and driving screws.

While I emphasize hand tools, Home Depot doesn't carry hand-powered drills, so I got a power drill. I chose corded instead of cordless because that offers better power for the same price. That means it can handle drilling larger holes with spade bits, and you don't have to worry about the battery dying halfway through driving a bunch of screws. Note that I bought 100 screws!


Tools: clamps, straight edge, power drill, handsaws, utility knife, mallet, drill bits, driver bits, spade bits, chisels, and combination square.

The clamps shown are the bare minimum you'll need. You can never have too many! These are Jorgensen Heavy-Duty bar clamps. They also have light duty bar clamps for a few dollars less, but these are much sturdier.

I got two saws. The 20" Stanley SharpTooth saw is a western-style push saw. It has impulse-hardened teeth sharpened in a combination rip/crosscut pattern. These teeth can't be resharpened, and the handle is pretty ugly, but it does a sufficient job until you can find a nice old antique saw to restore. The Irwin/Marples Japanese pull saw (known as a ryoba) is an extra. It has a crosscut side and a rip side. You can get by with either one of these saws.

For chisels, I got a Buck Brothers three-pack with 1/2", 3/4", and 1" chisels, and added separate 1/4" and 3/8" chisels (not needed to build the bench but good to have). There are cheaper ones, but I find these a little better.

I got a reasonable selection of drill and driver bits with quick-change adapter. This really is a helpful gadget, especially when driving screws, where you need to switch back and forth between counterbore, pilot, and driver bits. The spade bits are for larger holes.

This is enough tools to bootstrap you from nothing. If you already have some tools, by all means put them to use if they're functional.

While you don't need any planes to build the bench, they'll be the next thing you should get. I don't recommend the really cheap bench planes that Home Depot carries in the stores.

However, online they carry Stanley planes that are reasonable, 14" No. 5 jack plane (model 12-905, $61) and 9 3/4" No. 4 smoothing plane (model 12-904, $50). These are the lowest price planes I would recommend. The Stanley No. 5 and Stanley No. 4 are also available from Amazon at similar prices, as well as other vendors (however, check prices carefully, some sell them for twice the price).

If you buy old handplanes online, you can certainly find better quality ones for the same or less money. The trick with these is that you'll need to spend some time cleaning and tuning them. Also, not  all online sellers know their tools. So they may not be able to accurately assess condition or know if parts are missing.

My favorite reliable online tool dealer is Patrick Leach. He knows his tools (Patrick's Blood and Gore is a widely-known encyclopedic collection of old Stanley tool information), and always has good affordable ones on his monthly tool list.

Chisels and handplanes need to be sharpened. No matter how sharp they are initially, they dull in use. If you're going to use hand tools, you need to be able to sharpen them. The tools Home Depot sells have been sharpened at the factory on sanding discs or belts, leaving fairly heavy machine marks.

The simplest, least expensive sharpening setup to get started uses sandpaper adhered to a hard, flat surface, going through a series of progressively finer grits. Once honed this way, even cheap tools can take a good edge. Over time, the cost of sandpaper does add up, so you may opt for other methods long term.


Sharpening: wet-dry automative sandpapers in extra fine grits, polished granite floor tile (you can buy these singly), protractor for measuring bevel angle, single-edge razor scraper for removing sandpaper from the tile, spray adhesive, roll of non-slip shelf-liner, and coarser sandpapers.

I'll go through the sharpening process later. For now, the factory edge on the new chisels should get you through the bench.

Tools:

Qty	Description	Unit Cost	Total Cost
2	Jorgensen 24" heavy-duty bar clamp	$15.97	$31.94
2	Jorgensen 12" heavy-duty bar clamp	$13.97	$27.94
1	Ryobi 3/8" Clutchdriver drill	$39.97	$39.97
1	Empire Straight edge, 48"	$7.97	$7.97
1	Stanley 20" SharpTooth saw	$11.97	$11.97
1	Irwin/Marples 9 1/2" double pull saw	$22.97	$22.97
1	Stanley 6" retractable utility knife	$4.48	$4.48
1	White rubber mallet, 16oz.	$4.97	$4.97
1	Ryobi SpeedLoad 17pc drillbit set	$19.97	$19.97
1	Ryobi 8pc driver bit set	$3.97	$3.97
1	Bosch Daredevil 1/2" spade bit	$3.97	$3.97
1	Bosch Daredevil 3/4" spade bit	$4.67	$4.67
1	Buck Brothers 3pc Pro chisel set	$19.88	$19.88
1	Buck Brothers Pro chisel, 1/4"	$8.46	$8.46
1	Buck Brothers Pro chisel, 3/8"	$8.96	$8.96
1	Empire 12" combo square	$9.96	$9.96
	Total		$232.08

The power drill and bits, extra saw, and extra chisels added $113 to the total. You need to have some way of drilling and driving, so you could get a cheaper drill and fewer bits for less than I paid for the drill. The other items are nice to have (especially the small 1/4" chisel), but you could work without them for a while.

Sharpening:

Qty	Description	Unit Cost	Total Cost
1	12"x12" polished granite floor tile	$4.94	$4.94
1	Empire protractor/angle finder	$5.97	$5.97
1	Single-edge razor window scraper	$3.47	$3.47
1	Can spray adhesive	$5.77	$5.77
1	Roll of non-slip shelf-liner	$5.79	$5.79
4	3pack sandpaper (one each in 80, 150, 200, 400 grits)	$3.97	$15.88
4	3pack automotive wet/dry paper (one each in 600, 1000, 1500, 2000 grits)	$4.29	$17.16
	Total		$58.98

If you plan on restoring old hand planes, get a second granite floor tile to use for cleaning and flattening beds and sides on sandpaper. Polished marble tiles also work.

When buying sandpaper, you don't have to match the grits I've shown here exactly; if you skip an intermediate grit or get one slightly higher or lower, it will still work. I got the automotive wet/dry sandpaper in the finishing section of an auto-parts store.

Total cost of tools: $291.06.

Total

The total price to build the bench and have the tools left over to build stuff is $410.42. Add the two handplanes, and the total price to create a functional workshop, starting from nothing, is $521 plus tax and shipping. You can shave about $50 off that by skipping the extra items I got.

If you want to learn more about acquiring hand tools, see Chapter 4: The Tools in my online course, Intro Hand Tools.

Part 2

In part 2, we'll start building the workbench, beginning our first cuts and addressing the bootstrap problem: how do you build something when you don't have a workbench to work on? Hint: that's a nice stack of lumber... I'll show you how to use all the tools.

Before you cut anything, double check the measurements of the materials you have and any adjustments you've made. Plans can also have mistakes. Make sure everything adds up properly. Otherwise you may have to spend more money on replacement materials.

(Continue to part 2)

Building A Paul Sellers Workbench

How many workbenches do I need? I have my large Schwarz/Roubo workbench in the basement, my Roy Underhill portable workbench that I take to offsite classes and demos (and I have a second partially built to accommodate more people), and now I need four for the Close Grain School of Woodworking. Seven is the lucky number.

I like the workbench in Paul Sellers' book and DVD series Working Wood, so when I started the school, that was the design I chose. The combination of book and DVD provide an excellent guide to building it. He also addresses the issue of how to build a bench when you don't have a bench to work on. You can read my review of this series here.

This bench has a number of nice attributes. Built from construction-grade 2x4's and 2x6's, it's inexpensive (about $65 in materials, excluding the vise), so is affordable in multiples. It's a nice size, beefy without being too heavy. I can fit two of them in my van, possibly even all four, since I shortened them by a foot. It's also very sturdy, a combination of the laminated 2-by stock and the interlocking joinery. At that, it's simple to build.

It's also a time-tested design. Paul says it's been used in Britain for centuries, and he uses it in both his UK and US schools. The structure consists of two mortise and tenon leg frames, with aprons housed on them. This mechanical interlock provides excellent rigidity. The thick laminated top is secured to the apron, with a simple tool well behind it. With the addition of a traditional cast iron quick-release vise that itself weighs 40 lbs., it provides a solid work surface for students.

The design can also be adapted easily. As I mentioned, I shortened mine to 4', making it easy to build with 8' stock. That's the size of my portable workbench top, and I've found that to be adequate. Paul builds his at 38" high, which I found a bit too tall (but of course it depends on the individual). I made mine 36" and 34". The depth can be increased by additional laminations, and the size of the aprons can be changed. I also  omitted the quarter-round molding in the tool well. Other than that, I followed the design exactly. I did notice after building two that I had oriented the leg laminations rotated 90 degrees from his, but that shouldn't be a problem.

Here I've documented building bench #2. I kept a good record of the time required. Excluding waiting for glue-ups, it was 28 hours of labor spread over 2 weeks. As with my Roubo, I did everything with hand tools, except that I used a benchtop planer to plane down the 2x4 edges to eliminate the rounded corners. Building these is good for practicing Paul's joinery techniques.

For the vise, I used the Anant version of the Record 52 1/2 ED quick-release vise, sold by Highland Hardware. Watching Paul work in the DVDs convinced me to spend the extra money for quick-release. He just goes zip-zip-zip moving workpieces in and out of it very efficiently. I have non-quick-release vises on my first workbench (oh, yeah, I forgot to count that one, 2x4's, plywood, and MDF, but it no longer counts), and they're slow and annoying to work with.

After planing, I worked on the top. I staged the glue-ups for the top and legs so that whenever I had anything in the clamps, I had other parts to work on. One thing I didn't do, that I did on the first one, was to run all the 2x4 faces through the planer. This resulted in poorer laminations than the first one. That was a pretty dumb mistake. Functionally, all the laminations are sturdy, but aesthetically they're not as good.


The top glued up.


I ran the planer on bench #1.


Flattening the top, starting with a #5 diagonally across it for heavy stock removal.


Final flattening with a #7, sighting across winding sticks to check for wind.

With the top flattened on both sides, I worked on the leg assemblies. First I planed them up clean and square.


Trimming a leg to length. The way to get a clean, square cut is to cut about 1/4" deep, then roll the piece, repeating for all four sides. Each little bit of kerf already established helps guide the next. Keep repeating until all the way through. Note the auxiliary bench hook on the right to support the far end of the piece.


The four legs trimmed and marked so I wouldn't get things mixed up as I fitted each joint.


Mortising a leg, using Paul Sellers' mortising technique.


Cutting the haunch in the top mortise. The haunch provides the twist-resistance of a full-width joint, even though the tenon will be only partial-width, due to the location at the top end of the leg. The actual tenon needs to be cut to fit this haunch.


Cutting the shoulder in the tenon on a rail.


Cutting the cheek of the tenon.


The tenons on the lower rails protrude 1/2" in the Art and Crafts fashion. Paul shows several possible end treatments. I chose to round them with a plane, then round off the corners with chisel and rasp.


Assembling the leg frame. The spacer blocks accommodate the protruding lower tenons.


The frame glued up.


Trimming the upper tenon end flush with a block plane.

The leg frames are attached to the top and well-board with bearer boards. I haven't used this method before. The bearers are predrilled with two sets of holes, then screwed to the top rail of the leg frames through the first set of holes. They'll be screwed to the top from the underside through the second set of holes.


For the screws that will secure the top, predrilling the holes  at an angle.


Countersinking the holes on both sides.


Drilling the pilot holes in the top rail of the frame.


Glue-and-screw the bearer to the top rail.

With the leg assemblies complete, the next step is to cut the housings in the aprons, which I had already hand-jointed and edge-glued from 2x6's.

(Continue to part 2)

Review: Paul Sellers' Working Wood DVD and Book Series

Paul Sellers' Working Wood book and DVDs, and one of my practice dovetails using his method.

Paul Sellers has released an excellent and thoroughly enjoyable DVD and book set on hand tool woodworking.

I first found out about Paul when his blog posts starting appearing on Luke Townsley's excellent aggregator site UnpluggedShop.com. I quickly realized he and I are on the same wavelength.

Paul has been a woodworker for over 45 years, apprenticing at the age of 15 in the UK. He's been published in Woodwork, Fine Woodworking, and Popular Woodworking Magazine, and now runs the New Legacy School of Woodworking in North Wales, UK. The school is in Penrhyn Castle, which is maintained by the National Trust. I think he wins the award for most amazing workshop venue!

In one of those minor coincidences of life, I was living in North Wales, PA, when I took my first woodshop class in 8th grade (from the first of three shop teachers missing a fingertip; jointer accident).

That was a couple years after Paul had completed his apprenticeship. So for most of the time that he's been a woodworker, I've been wishing I was a woodworker.

Paul is currently in the process of launching a US New Legacy School of Woodworking in upstate New York, scheduled to open in the Spring. You can read about it here. You can also see him this winter at several of the Woodworking Shows. He'll have a New Legacy booth at the Baltimore, Springfield, Somerset, and Fredericksburg shows. I'm hoping to meet him in Springfield.

There are several videos of him on YouTube, both in his workshop and at shows. These give a hint of his skills and presentation style. Note that for demonstration purposes, they emphasize speed more than accuracy. His DVDs show a much more accurate method for dovetailing, the results of which you can see in the following photo:


Closeup of my practice joint, the best I've ever done (ok, so this was my sixth attempt!). That black speck along the middle pin? Always be sure to THOROUGHLY wipe the honing oil off your chisel before returning it to the wood.

After watching the videos and reading through his blog, I saw that he offers the newly published Working Wood 1 and 2 DVDs and companion book. I promptly ordered the full set.

There are 7 DVDs total. They're available individually or as a set from Amazon, Lee Valley (US), Classic Handtools (UK), or directly from Artisan Media (full disclosure: I earn a small commission on sales through Amazon and Highland Woodworking links via their affiliate programs, though not through other links).

I watched the DVDs over a 3-day period, about 12 hours total viewing time. Series 1 consists of two DVDs, Woodworking Essentials 1 and 2. Series 2 consists of the remaining 5:

• Master Dovetails
• Master Housing Dadoes
• Master Mortise and Tenons
• Master European Workbenches
• Master Sharpening

The production style of the transitions and interstitial elements borrows from video gaming and Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, which some people may find distracting, but it keeps things dynamic. The workshop segments are filmed well, with good pacing. And that castle!

The book is gorgeous, suitable for the coffee table (at least in a woodworker's home). It's best treated as a companion volume rather than a standalone text. In addition to background information, it has matching chapters for each of the DVDs. The whole package works best by seeing and hearing Paul work, then referring to the book when following along in the workshop.

Paul's educational philosophy is a bit different from mine. After briefly introducing methods, he likes to use projects to develop the skills. I like to focus on skills separately, removing the fear of mistakes ruining a project. But that's why there's chocolate and that's why there's vanilla. There will be those who prefer to learn by one method and those who prefer another.

The methods he presents are a mix of elements I've seen before and some new things. If you're a beginner who's never used hand tools, this would be an excellent series to use as your primary reference. If you're an experienced hand tool woodworker, it adds versatility and reinforces things from a new perspective. 

Just remember that you're seeing a practiced hand here, so don't be upset if you don't immediately get the same results he does. As always, good dovetails require accurate sawing to a line. The reason it took me 6 tries to get the joint pictured above is that I was homing in on that with each one. How do you develop a practiced hand? The same way you get to Carnegie Hall: practice, practice, practice, like this!

I like learning from a variety of instructors, because each one will have a favored set of tools and techniques which he emphasizes, and those he glosses over. Comparing and contrasting different instructors fills in the whole picture to give me the broadest range of skills.

In this case, Paul starts with lumber that's been dimensioned and squared up with machines (of course, you can do it with hand tools as well if you don't have access to machines). He introduces a minimal set of tools necessary to produce fine joinery, emphasizing three concepts: accuracy, sharpness, and technique. He present three fundamental joints, then use those to build a series of projects.

He presents a number of fine details in the process. Throughout, he emphasizes listening to the sound the tool makes, as well as the feel of the wood. These sensory aspects not only make the work more satisfying, they are critical to achieving the best results.

In Series 1, the first DVD is actually somewhat more organic than the rest. While the main focus of the overall series is on joinery, this starts with shaping wood to get an understanding of grain and how the tools interact with it.

He uses chisel, gouge, spokeshave, and axe to quickly shape a spatula, a spoon, a bowl, and a three-legged stool. These are great introductory projects, quite a treat to watch. If they don't have you itching to put tools to wood, nothing will. They remind me of the work of Robin Wood, Drew Langsner, and Peter Follansbee.

The second DVD introduces the tool set and techniques for accuracy. Paul goes through making a housing dado, a single-tail through dovetail, and a mortise and tenon (with multiple ways of forming the tenon).

Series 2 expands upon the information from Series 1 and applies it to several projects. Simple in design, they do an excellent job of focusing on a particular joint. First is a dovetailed box in the Shaker style. Second is a four-shelf wall unit in the Arts and Crafts style, using interlocked housed dadoes and through mortise and tenon. Third is a small side table, using haunched mortise and tenons. From here you can use these techniques to build anything.

The last project is a very nice English workbench. Paul addresses the logistical problem of trying to build a workbench without a workbench. The bench uses a classic Record-style quick-release vise. While Record is no longer in business, Anant versions of the vise are available from Highland Woodworking and Tools For Working Wood.

The final DVD covers sharpening of a variety of tools. Interestingly, Paul uses a convex bevel method similar to Jacob Butler's, which I wrote about in the Grimsdale Method. Jacob encountered quite a bit of negative reaction when he discussed it on woodworking forums, yet here we see another professional who has used it to great effect for decades. The DVD is organized differently from the rest, as a series of short reference videos by tool rather than a linear presentation.

If you enjoy reading this blog, you'll enjoy this set. Paul is currently at work on Working Wood 3.

First Student

I'm happy to report that I've had two sessions with my first private instruction student, Larry Ciccolo. Larry, I'd like to thank you for putting your trust in me, and for letting me write about it!

He didn't realize he was my first victim, er, student, when he contacted me, but I told him when we were unloading my toolbox at his house. It's another milestone for me, and I appreciate the opportunity.

I recognized Larry's name from the Sawmill Creek Neanderthal Haven forum, and he tells me he's a frequent visitor to CloseGrain. He's been a power tool user for many years, but recently has developed an interest in hand tools. He works in the high-tech industry, and told me one of the reasons he was interested in my instruction is that he saw I'm a software engineer. He says he knows software engineers are always interested in doing a good job (despite the, ahem, occasional bug!).

His basement shop is well-equipped, divided into power- and hand-tool workspaces. He's clearly been paying close attention to online tool discussions. Like all of us, he loves accumulating tools. He has an excellent selection of Lie-Nielsen planes, chisels, and saws, as well as Bad Axe saws, several restored Stanley planes from Bill Rittner (rbent.ct@gmail.com) and Tablesaw Tom, and some wooden moulding planes from Matt Bickford. Most were bought new, but several items were good scores on eBay and Craigslist.

He has a beautiful cabinetmaker's workbench that he built in a class at the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking ("7 days of 12 hours!"). The vises are Lie-Nielsen hardware. The face vise is an LN chain-drive vise, and it's a joy to use. He's also a member of Shannon Rogers' online Hand Tool School, where the second project is building a split-top sawbench. This is a nice style, because it fully supports the workpiece when ripping, and deals with the problem of how to finish off the rip without cutting into the bench.

I was unfamiliar with Bill Rittner and Tablesaw Tom, but a little searching online turned up several references. Chris Schwarz did a nice blog post about Bill's replacement knobs and totes. The totes are subtly different from the originals, but some quick handling shows that they would definitely be more comfortable over long planing sessions. A number of people on different forums recommended Tablesaw Tom's plane restorations. Bill also does full restorations. The planes Larry had them both restore were beautiful, rivaling the machining, fit, and finish of the Lie-Nielsens. Nothing has left the Stanley factory that nice since World War II.

Now that Larry has amassed the tools, he's amassing the skills to use them. During our first session, we discussed options for organizing his workspace. He's working on a plane till that he wants to hang, and I went over my current method of storing everything on a tool wall next to the bench. For the second session, he had moved the bench out to the center, similar to my layout.


Larry's workbench and sawbench.


The future tool wall to the right of the bench. This is plywood screwed to 2x4's, which have been tap-conned to the poured concrete wall. The plane till will hang from this.


View of the power tool area from the workbench. This is all subject to fine tuning as he gets some experience with the workflow and shuffles things around.


Laying out the plane till.

One of the benefits of private instruction is that the student decides what to cover, and how long to spend on it. Larry's primary interests were basic sawing, getting full and proper use of his planes, and dovetailing.

I like to teach by demonstrating a skill, then have the student try it, and together work out any issues that arise. Often, an operation needs to be broken down into constituent steps that we examine individually.

Two of the things that came up are common themes with woodworkers new to hand tools. First is the appropriate degree of precision for an operation. I always like to have people rip down a long board, because no one ever thinks they can keep to the line. I get them started, showing them how to steer the saw, then have them deliberately go off course so they can correct it. Naturally, this leaves a wavy cut.

Most people tend to want laser precision in this operation. I always point out that this is a rough operation, to be cleaned up in seconds with handplanes, no matter how bad off it is. Decide what tolerance you can reach at your present skill level, and leave that amount of margin. That's the appropriate degree of precision. Anything finer is wasted time. As long as you don't cross your finished dimension, any cut is acceptable here.

The next steps produce an almost magical dawning. Starting with a heavily cambered jack or scrub plane, we quickly chew the edge down to near the line, then shift to a jointer. A few quick passes with the iron set rank to get really close, then set fine for the final passes. Suddenly you realize it doesn't matter how well the rip cut went, that first meat-eater of a plane tames the ugliest edge in no time.

After doing his 4' rip cut, Larry pulled out a #6 that he said had a slightly cambered iron. I said, that's nothing, and pulled out the old wooden razee jack I had brought, since he had told me he wanted to see some wooden planes. I've ground that iron to an 8" radius. I also pulled out an ECE wooden scrub plane. I showed him how to use those to take big fat chips, taking down the high spots, or bringing the edge down to the low spots. He really liked the razee jack.

We measured a chip with a dial caliper: 55 thousandths! That's the flip side of this lesson in appropriate precision. Save those 3-thousandths shavings for later, right now we need SPEED! This thing was reducing the wood nearly twenty times as fast.

I told him what he needed was a cheap beater of a jack plane, iron cambered to 8". No point in spending the big bucks, it could be the ugliest dinged-up out-of-flat plane he could find, as long as it could hold an iron.

He thought for a moment, then pulled a dusty old wooden plane out from a shelf. He said his son had found it inside a wall in an old house. The tote was an ugly user-replacement, there were end-checks in the body, and the bed was dished and cracked. Perfect! It was even a razee. I knocked the iron loose to check it. It was a nice laid-steel iron and chip breaker, but not much length left. Just enough for one good shaping and a few sharpenings. But it's easily replaceable with a flea market iron.

So with all his fine planes, he can enjoy the irony of knowing this refugee from some distant past workshop will be his primary power tool for fast stock removal.


With a new tote and a cambered iron, this will become Larry's meat-eater.

After this we went through the FEWTEL sequence to four-square a board, then used several moulding planes on it.

The second thing that came up is learning to relax, especially when sawing. You're body is really part of the tool. You want to move in smooth, fluid strokes, extracting as much power as possible without wearing yourself out. Under the pressure of doing a good job, it's easy to tense up, get a death-grip on the tool. For precision operations like sawing dovetails, this ruins your control. For rough operations like heavy ripping, this wastes energy.

Correspondingly, heavy sawing and planing are the most laborious operations. They make you sweat, putting a lot of stress on the body, especially if you're not used to that level of activity. Again, relax, chill out and pace yourself. The tendency here is to try to become a human power tool, able to zip right through a board. That'll wear you out fast.

Find the steady level you're able to maintain, allowing you to work for extended periods while keeping it enjoyable. Take a break and catch your breath. In the long run it's far more efficient than trying to race through a board and exhausting yourself, or worse, hurting yourself.

Those were the broader lessons. When we got to the nitty gritty details of dovetailing, my main point was that I'm just showing one possible way; treat that as a baseline. There are many variations, everybody from the micrometer folks to the shoot-from-the-hip folks. From the fundamentals, you can branch out to all the other methods and decide which ones you like best.

Once again, Larry, thanks for the opportunity!