Popular Woodworking 2005-12 № 152, страница 36

Arts & Mysteries

In each of the preceding articles I offered an approach that I think helps explain the speed and efficiency of early shops. Like the old masters, I attempted to use examples to illustrate each "mystery" or approach. In this article, the last in my series, I'll review the preceding five articles, and reveal the secret "mystery" in each.

The Striking Knife: Working Together

The striking knife is a helpful enough tool for its intended task. But what makes the striking knife so interesting is that it's also helpful for other tools. As a marking device it is adequate I suppose. It marks wood, not unlike a sharp pencil, and more faintly in some instances. But unlike the pencil, it makes layout easier in dim light, aids in sawing, allows the use of ripsaws for crosscut operations and provides a positive place to position a chisel. As such, it's particularly like many other tools in the period woodworker's tool chest. The tools work together to help each other and the craftsman achieve the desired quality quickly, without requiring total mastery of hand tool techniques. The concept, like the tool, enables the exhausted veteran and the beginner alike.

I don't see this level of cooperation with

modern tools and I often see the opposite. For example: The electric router can shape a moulding, but in most cases it fails to produce a finish-ready surface. Sanding a delicate moulding is difficult and can destroy fine features. These tools don't help each other.

Sometimes the cooperation exists not in the use of a particular tool, but in the selection of its size. Obviously, mortise chisels and match planes are chosen based upon the stock thickness. Less obvious may be my preference to have plow plane irons and mortise chisels in matching sizes. When making a frame for a panel, for example, I prefer to plow the groove first then make the mortise. Cutting the mortise is much easier when the mortise chisel perfectly fits the groove.

Unfortunately, I don't know enough about power tools to suggest how this concept may be used in a modern shop. But I think it's important to be aware of it. The relationship between your tools is as important as the individuals themselves. Getting those individuals to work together as a team will create a more productive and more enjoyable shop.

Advanced Chiseling: Tool Slaving

In skilled hands, the chisel is fantastically effective. I've seen masters use chisels in ways

As it happens, I'm writing this article on my dining room table. Its top is made of two 8'-long black walnut boards, glued together at the center. Trees usually get narrower toward the top so the boards are a little narrower at one end than the other. Consequently, the table is 36" wide at one end, and a touch under 35" at the other. If you were making a similar table with the same stock, would you have ripped a bit off each board to square them up? I think most people would. It's what we learned to do in shop class. If you want to work faster with whatever tools you're using, challenging arbitrary requirements is a good first step.

Knowing a plane's "true" name can unlock its true purpose. Sure, a rabbet plane is obviously used to make a rabbet. But then consider carefully the "fore plane" - so named because it is designed to be used before the other planes for surfacing boards.

I'm certain I will never master. Though I may need 20 years to achieve that level of proficiency, I certainly can apply one advanced chisel technique immediately. Tool slaving is a technique evidenced throughout period furniture. It's a way of producing accuracy without excessive skill. Simply put, tool slaving is using a feature of a tool to define the size of a joint or cut. Carvers do something similar I'm told, by carving shapes that are the size and shape of their tools.

Probably the best example I can think of is making a mortise of the exact width of the chisel. Little skill is required to make a very precise mortise this way. The tool provides that accuracy almost automatically. You can try to drill holes, then clean up the sides with a chisel. But your ability to make a square-sided mortise is limited by your skill. Other examples include using the straight sole of the try plane to straighten an edge or produce a sprung joint, or using the straight blade of a jointer to match-plane two edges simultaneously. Tools like dado planes give you no choice but to define a feature based on the width of the plane's iron, yet there are some who would scribe the shoulders, cut the dado, then pare to the lines with a chisel!

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102 Popular Woodworking December 2005