Popular Woodworking 2007-04 № 161, страница 6

Letters

How to Install a Primitive Ring Pull

Steps to Pull Perfection

I am making the cherry tool cabinet you featured a while back (December 2004, issue #145). I am installing traditional ring pulls, bought from Lee Valley. Their web site says to j ust hammer them in, and then bend back the staples to secure them. Is this what you did? The staples are pretty long for the smaller drawers, and I was wondering if it would harm anything if I just cut them a little short before bending them over. The pulls seem pretty secure without needing the extra security of bending the staples back, anyway.

Allan Hill Lancaster, California

Sure, you can file them down a bit. Then, it's a two-stage bending operation. Drill a hole and knock the two tines through it. Make sure the pull still swings.

Pry the two tines apart inside the drawer/ door. Take some pliers and bend ¹4" of the tip of each tine at a right angle. With the pliers, then bend each tine until the tip contacts the work. Use a hammer to drive each tip into the wood, and you're done.

— Christopher Schwarz, editor

Sharpening Scraper Plane Blades

Because you've recently been looking into scrapers (February 2007, issue #160), I thought that maybe you could answer a question about scraper-plane blades.

Recently I acquired a Stanley #12 scraper plane and the three Lie-Nielsen scraper planes (modern versions of the Stanley #112, #85, and #212). I am in the process of preparing and using these scraper planes to smooth the surfaces of the blanket chest that I made at a woodworking course. I intend to thereby avoid sanding.

I intend to paint the chest (which is made of poplar) following the methods given in the painting article in the Autumn 2006 issue of

Woodworking Magazine (Ed: the sister publication to Popular Woodworking).

I am preparing the scraper-plane blades just as I would plane blades: both back and bevel, five diamond plates of grits from #120 to #1,200followed by four waterstones of grits from #2,000 to #16,000. The burnishing of the 45° bevels to produce a burr is being done with a Glen-Drake burnisher following the method of David Charlesworth (which is similar to the method given by Garrett Hack).

It is my understanding that when a scraper plane ceases to produce shavings and starts to produce "sawdust" that I must go back to honing and redo the burnishing to produce a new burr.

Here is my question: How far back must I go in the honing sequence?

Certainly I need not go back to the diamond plates. But, do I need to go back to the #2,000-grit waterstone? And, can I get away with only re-honing the bevel, or must I re-hone both the back and the bevel?

If you are able to help me understand how to do the refurbishing of defunct scraper-plane burrs, I would greatly appreciate it.

Dave Raeside Norman, Oklahoma

On scrapers, I have indeed been doing a lot of work on their care and feeding this year. In brief, they are like any other edge tool. All the same rules apply. The burr is strongest when it is turned from the intersection of two highly polished planes.

And so resharpening of scrapers involves exactly the same regimen as it would for a plane or chisel.

1. If the edge is only slightly degraded, I'll begin with a polishing stone (#8,000) and then turn the burr.

2. If the edge is mostly used up but still unchipped, I'll begin with the #1,000, then polish, then turn the burr.

3. If the edge is chipped or otherwise damaged, I drop back to the diamond stones, grinder or other grinding abrasives. Then I use the #1,000, #8,000 and burnisher.

What I don't do much of, is to try to resharpen with burnishing alone. My results have always been inconsistent. Occasionally it works. Usually I get a burr that is OK in some places and weak in others. Other times I get nothing but a trip back to the grinder.

— Christopher Schwarz, editor

Stickley Table Seems a Bit Tricky

This is my first official week of 'retirement' and I am contemplating making the "Lost Stickley Table" (November 2006 issue #158). I am a fairly accomplished woodworker and have focused on Arts & Crafts and Greene & Greene reproductions. However, this table has me a tad spooked. As I proceed with the table may I prevail upon you for some advice continued on page 14

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Popular Woodworking April 2007