Highland Woodworking Blog

Christmas is coming and it is time to look at the old wish list.  My family laments the fact that I have all the $30 woodworking tools.  Anything I still need/want is going to be more.  Assuming you have been a good boy or girl, perhaps it will be a fruitful year in the workshop.  For the sake of any of you friends and family (particularly my son Jon) who might be looking for something to grace this old blogger, here is my list for this year.  Maybe there is something you might like on my list.

1.   I would like to be able to write songs like Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and sing like George Younce of the Cathedrals.  Oh wait, did you say this was a Wish List for a Woodworking store?  Sorry, those two just slipped out.

2.   Hollow Chisel Mortiser — Highland has a top notch mortiser.  I saw it in the store this week and it is high on my list.  If you do a fair amount of mortise and tenon joints, then this tool may be just right for you.  It is bench mounted and has a rack and pinion adjustable fence for easy alignment.  The handle adjusts to six positions and is reversible.  The switch is right up front and easy to reach.  The bits lock into the spindle and there should be none of that twisted bits stuff which is so irritating on lesser models.  This thing looks like an excellent medium duty machine for the serious amateur mortise maker.

3.  ANYTHING from Festool.  I have not started my Festool collection yet, but these tools are always on my list.  Given my choice, I would start with the chop saw, then the router, and then the sanders with the vac.

Shaping a Rocker

When I was working on my rocking chair, Charles Brock in his shop had the heavy duty Festool sander hooked up to the Festool vacuum and it is a sweet operation.  Probably not going to happen this year, but perhaps if I am very, very good next year.

4.  Sawstop Table Saw —  Highland can ship the SawStop Contractor Saw to all the lower 48 states now and if you are looking at a table saw, you owe it to your spouse and family to keep all your fingers.  Touted as the safest table saw out there, don’t ask for any other saw without looking seriously at this one.  Watch the famous hot dog video, (or the chicken leg demo) and you will be a fan.

Fein Multimaster Tool

5.  Auriou Chairmaker’s Rasp Set — If you have never used one of these things and all you have ever tried is one of those five dollar rasps from the local hardware, then you are in for a revelation.  I had never used one of these things until I worked on a sculptured chair.  Who knew that the single biggest issue with one of these beautiful tools is you have to be careful to not remove too much wood.

Auriou Chairmaker’s Rasp Set

How many hand tools do you use where taking off too much wood is the main problem?  Most of the time, I have trouble just getting tools to cut in the first place.  Well, you say, I sure as heck ain’t paying that much money for a stupid rasp.  Well, nay, I say, nay!  First of all, these rasps will last the rest of your life and your children will bless you for them.  Second, once you try them you will wonder how you missed them your whole woodworking life.  Just try one and you will agree with me.  (By the way, Jon, I like the set of three for $349.99.)

There you go.  Slide this list under the door for somebody, or leave it open on the computer.  Or print it out and leave it under the breakfast cereal.  If you don’t score any of these things this year, try being gooder next year.  I’ll let you know how it worked out for me.

It occurs to me that many of the people who frequent this Blog would be interested in one of my favorite things, i.e. Habitat for Humanity. Not to be bragging, but I am probably up to 75 houses that I have worked on in some fashion or other over the years. A few more and maybe I will learn how to actually build a house. Let me tell you about it.

The system is pretty typical around the country. A corporate sponsor or group or individual comes forward and offers the money needed to purchase the land and the building materials. Then the sponsor or group will collect volunteers (that’s you, Pilgrim) to come and actually do the construction work. In my local Chapter, we look for about 30 to 35 people per day on the site, and we schedule about ten days to complete a 1400 square foot house. The Chapter obtains the land and the building materials, the permits and licenses, and provides essential construction expertise. The skilled trades which require licenses will be hired by the Chapter.

Once everything is in place, construction begins and that is the really fun part. Day One and Day Two are the best. In our Chapter, we are sorely disappointed if all the walls are not standing by the end of the first day. Roof trusses are usually scheduled on Day Two and the rest of the work proceeds from there.

One of the real joys of the construction time is working with the family who will live in the house. A requirement for purchasing (that’s right — purchasing) a Habitat House is the sweat equity investment. Before we will sell the house to a family, they must put in 250 hours (logged in and out) working on either their house or someone else’s Habitat house. Plus they must attend a 50 hour course on financial management as taught by Dave Ramsey of radio fame. Once they have made the hours and completed the course work and shown they can handle the payments, then we sell the house to them for the cost of materials and land. We provide a twenty year mortgage at zero per cent interest. At the end of twenty years, the house belongs to the family with no further obligation to Habitat.

But then, you ask, if the materials are furnished by the sponsor, and the labor is all volunteer, why is there a mortgage? The answer is that we take the money which comes in from the mortgages, pay a minimal staff, and then use the rest as seed money to build more houses. It is somewhat like a benevolent Ponzi scheme. Our Chapter for instance has built about 125 houses so we have around 125 mortgage payments coming in each month. Larger Chapters have built 1500 or more houses.

Habitat works all around the world. In fact, as a salute to our Christian beginnings, we tithe our monetary donations. Turns out you can build a house in Guatemala for about $3000. As a result, Habitat International recently celebrated construction of its 500,000th home. Corporate Donors also step up constantly. For example, Whirlpool Corporation donates a stove and refrigerator to every single house built in America by Habitat. When we finish a house, we call Whirlpool and they send them out. That’s why I buy Whirlpool every chance I get. Blessings on them and hundreds of others who do likewise.

How do you fit into this scheme? Call your local Chapter and see what you can do. Start by showing up on the site one day to offer your labor in construction. Look around and see what they need. What you will find is a bunch of good people doing something they love for the benefit of someone who will never have a home any other way. Match your skills to their needs and it will be a good thing for both of you. Go do some good!!

Our latest house, sponsored and built by employees of Delta Airlines in Atlanta.

When I first started out in woodworking, one of the techniques that really caught my eye was dovetailing. There was something about this type of joinery that was strong, efficient and yet still beautiful. Whenever I’d see an old piece of furniture, especially those containing drawers, I’d have to check to see if the maker used dovetails. After a bit of experience, I’d then focus in to see if they cut the dovetails by hand, or if they used a powered router setup. While the router cut dovetails are amply strong, and still look good, there was something about the hand cut joints that captured me. I looked for training materials, in print and video, and found Frank Klausz. This was back in the mid 1980’s.  After absorbing the instructional materials, I was ready to make some dovetails. Or was I?

I went to the one local woodworking store that featured “good” tools and with the help of their sales staff, bought a “dovetail” saw and a set of four chisels. I came home and was dying to make my first dovetails. As per Mr. Klausz’ video instruction, I cut the pins first, without any “layout”, other than a pencil mark for the depth of cut. I immediately noticed my saw didn’t seem to behave like what I’d seen in the video. Hmmm. I went forward, transitioning from saw to chisels, in order to remove the material between the pins. After what seemed like days later (an exaggeration, but not so far from reality), the pins were all that was left standing. I noticed something else that didn’t look like what I’d seen on the video. The end grain, between the pins, was all torn out and an inconsistent distance if measured from the end of the board. Well, I was in so far, I couldn’t see turning back. I placed my pin board onto the end of what was to be the tail board, and used a pencil to mark both the tails and the depth of cut. As might be expected, my sawing on the tails was worse than I’d experienced on the pins. I cut angles that looked like I should take off my blind fold! Those first dovetails never went together, nor ever looked like they should. At least I could see that wasn’t going to happen.

Fast-forward some large number of years.  My desire to make hand cut dovetails never waned, but my initial attempts (yes, there were more unsuccessful attempts, but I didn’t want to waste the electronic ink going into those), were never even close to my self-imposed standards. For dovetailing, I purchased one of the original Lie-Nielsen dovetail saws, a .020” (for more on this saw, compared to my first “dovetail” saw, check out my previous article on our dovetail saws), one of the great marking gauges made by Glen-Drake, a five piece set of Lie-Nielsen chisels and made a dovetailing template out of wood. I have subsequently purchased the new .015” Lie-Nielsen Dovetail saw, and converted my .020” Dovetail saw into a cross-cut saw, by re-sharpening the teeth in the correct orientation. I initially practiced cutting to both vertical lines as well as angled lines, so I could minimize the waste of good wood. I also watched the basic dovetailing video by Rob Cosman, which was about 180 degrees different from Frank Klausz’ video. Rob cuts his tails first, following up with the pins. For me, this made complete sense, especially for someone whose sawing skills are not highly developed (meaning me, not Rob!) When cutting the tails first, I will still lay out the angles I’d like to see, but it won’t matter if I’m off slightly, as long as my cut is square across the end of the board. The reason is, as long as the still-to-be-cut pins match up to my tails, I’ll have a good fit. Since the pins are laid out directly from the completed tails, and the pin cut is a vertical cut, its much easier to cut to the lay out lines. I find many people have more trouble cutting to a line that requires the saw plate off of vertical, as it is when cutting tails.

I already had a couple of sets of dividers in my shop, along with a thin marking knife. Rob’s technique for laying out the dovetails is easy, but can take a few tries to get your head wrapped around. One of the critical aspects is scoring the baseline with a marking gauge, so the chisel can register in the groove for the final paring cuts, as well as mark the sides of the tail-boards for the cross-cut saw. This provides consistency of depth for the tails, across the piece, which minimizes gaps or openings in this region. I also like to use my Lie-Nielsen 140 Skew Block plane, before cutting the tails, with the fence set so the plane will cut from the end up to the baseline. I remove about 1/16” of material (not a critical measurement), to aid in proper layout of the boards while marking the pins after the dovetails are cut. After cutting the tails, I use either a coping saw or a jeweler’s saw to remove the majority of wood between the tails, prior to paring to the baseline. I find this speeds up the process, and there is less chance of compression issues or slips of the chisel than when removing the remaining wood with a chisel and heavy mallet blows. I use my .020” converted cross-cut saw, to remove the two outside excess pieces, and then pare to the marking gauge line. I prefer a chisel that is wider than the board is thick, so I can have this base in a single plane.

After the tails are complete, orient the two boards for pin marking. One tip is to mark each end, of each board, uniquely so you’ll make sure only one set of pins are cut from each set of tails. I’ve used everything from an extendable box cutter to a beautiful marking knife made by Homestead Heritage woodworking in Waco, TX, to mark my pins. Whatever you use must be thin enough to fit between the tails, yet strong enough so it doesn’t deflect from the tail side-wall. I always start with a couple of lighter passes with the marking knife, before deepening with a bit more pressure. The light passes are to ensure the knife doesn’t have the chance to follow the grain on the pin board. After the end-grain is marked, I use a small square to mark from the end-grain to the baseline, using the same marking instrument. Remember not to mark the sides of the pin boards with the marking gauge. This wood is only removed on the tail-boards.

After completing the actual dovetailing, I mark where I will groove for the bottom of my box/piece, usually for 1/4” material, but that will depend on the scale of your project. I usually choose an area centered between the pins. This allows me to use my powered router, with a straight cutter, to remove this material, which will be covered by the tails when assembled. If I did the same through groove on the tail-boards, the ugly groove would be seen after assembly. For this, I use a stopped routed groove. I make sure to make a mark on my router’s fence, so I know exactly where the edge of the cutter is. I take the depth of cut of my groove, and add on about a 1/16”, and make a pencil mark that distance from the shoulder line across the tails. With the router bit spinning, I slowly pivot the board down onto the bit, just shy of the mark on the far end of the board, slowly move the board backwards to the point where the marks line up, and then feed the board through to the mark on the opposite end.

During the dry fit, I will measure from groove to groove, so I can cut the bottom material for a proper fit. Many times I’ll use 1/4” Baltic Birch plywood for the bottoms, as I don’t have to worry about it moving or expanding. I cut the material on my table saw, which gives good results.

Depending on the woods used, I regularly use a yellow or white glue to assemble these projects. If I’m using all dark woods, I will sometimes either use liquid hide glue, or one of the plastic resin glues. Both seem to “disappear” in this usage. After letting the glue completely cure, I’ll come back with my #60 1/2 Low angle block plane to trim any tails/pins that stand proud of the sidewalls, as well as chamfering the sharp edges. When trimming the tails/pins, make sure to work from the end in, or you’ll risk chipout. I’ll take a final pass or two, in the direction of the grain, using either a #4 Smoothing plane, or my #8 Jointer plane set to take shavings in the .001” range.

When completed, I usually like to apply a Tung oil finish, followed by some fine wax. The Tung oil is applied using some small rags, and rubbed over the wood, making sure to completely cover all areas. I let it stand for a couple of minutes, then lightly wipe with a dry cloth. This makes sure there is no chance of ponding. Since I live in the hot South, I can usually apply a couple of coats of finish in an evening. I’ll lightly hit the surface with 320 grit sandpaper after the first coat, and then 600 grit between the subsequent coats. When I have applied 8 – 12 coats, I’ll apply Black Bison wax. Neutral is what I use for all but darker projects. Then I’ll use some of the dark colored Black Bison wax. Buff it out after it sets for 25 – 30 minutes. I think you’ll enjoy the oo’s and ah’s you get from those who touch your work.

Videos on dovetailing are still available by both Frank Klausz and Rob Cosman, and are good sources of information and instruction. Remember to try different methods, no matter what you are doing, to find what works best for you. Whatever you do, keep reading and growing.

I hope to see some of you at our upcoming events listed on the Lie-Nielsen website.

To take a closer look at the Lie Nielsen dovetail saws, click here and here.

To see Highland Woodworking’s entire selection of Lie-Nielsen hand tools, click here.

Lee Laird has enjoyed woodworking for over 20 years. He is retired from the U.S.P.S. and works for Lie-Nielsen Toolworks as a show staff member, demonstrating tools and training customers.