This Week in Wood » Lee Valley/Veritas

New Tools

glennth — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:53:21 +0000

I suppose that a woodworker may never have enough tools so it’s never really news when a woodworker gets some new tool. I feel like I’m approaching a place where I can get increasingly choosy about which tools I get and when. I have a nice selection of saws, chisels, hand planes, measuring and marking tools. As I move through my practicing of various hand tool techniques I do find a small tool here and there that would be useful in simplifying the task. My observation in these tools, unlike my previous power tool life, I am finding that these tools are simpler and more basic.

Here is a shot of my new tools:

On the top left is a divider. In practicing my dovetails, I am getting increasingly happy with my cuts and fits of the joint but have noticed that my rough guesses at where to make pins/tails and how wide to make them is looking non-uniform. While I feel that hand cut parts should have some non-uniformity to them, I would like a closer sense of symmetry just from an artistic point of view. In watching various dovetail experts, I noticed that Rob Cosman uses dividers to get symmetry in his joints so that was my motivation.

Far right is a new crosscut carcass saw. All my shorter carcass/dovetail saws are rip so I needed a crosscut for things like tenons.

In the middle is a goose neck chisel for cleaning out the bottom of mortises.

Lastly on the left/bottom are some Veritas bench pups which give me another bench tool for keeping material in place while working that material.

If I head towards making guitars as I fantasized in a previous post, I expect that I will need a few additional tools but hopefully not many. Everytime I make a tool purchase means that I don’t have the funds to purchase wood for actual projects.

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New Tools

More dovetail practice – oak

glennth — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:20:15 +0000

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I have taken a path to practice hand cut dovetails. In the first round, I worked with poplar.

Now, I’m down the path of using oak. My first attempt (back before Thanksgiving) was a disaster. I had forgotten how easy it is to split oak and I did split the oak when I tried to force together joints that were too tight (by quite a bit).

Today, I took the lessons of my previous attempt and to it slow and didn’t use force on either cutting the dovetails or fitting the dovetails. Getting the joints tight enough to not have gaps seems harder with oak but after a little patience, I succeeded in a decent first attempt.

I’m using a Lee Valley/Veritas dovetail saw. I think my biggest issue is cutting a square/straight cut. I am having to adjust them by parring them down and that does not give me the best fit. I will keep working with the oak and hopefully, this practice will be able to be applied to other hard woods as well.

Any readers who have had more experience and success that have any advice, I would love to hear from you.

Expecting New Tool – Low Angle Jack

glennth — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 06:13:06 +0000

Having your hobby live on a tight budget, you have to save and buy up. This can take month and requires a great deal of patience. Well, my patience is paying off. I had saved up so that I could buy a few tools. One that I’m very excited about is a Lee Valley/Veritas Low Angle Jack Plane.

I already have a Leigh-Nielsen Jack Plane. I’ve got this one set up as a rough tool. I wanted another plane about the size of a Jack for doing slightly finer work, much like a Jointer Plane but not as long. Some boards are just too small for using the Jointer but smaller planes like Block Planes are too small for the board.

Another way would be to get a different blade but I also wanted the benefits of the low angle plane so I figured it would compliment my other hand planes.

Hand Plane for shooting board

glennth — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:56:28 +0000

As I mentioned in my last post regarding the Lie-Nielsen Tool Event, I was thinking about a dedicated hand plane for the shooting board.

I’m currently using my Lie-Nielsen Jointer Plane which is set up for medium planing work (versus rough/aggressive or smooth/fine work). This works though I’ve found that the plane should be set up a little bit more fine for cleaner “shoots”. I’ve found that plane is reasonable comfortable and has a reasonably high side for decent stability when shooting. My thoughts on having a dedicated shooting plane is that I could have it set up and not have to change it for different work (i.e. non jointing work).

One option is the Lie-Nielsen Iron Miter Plane pictured below:

Lie-Nielsen Iron Miter Plane

I think the benefit of this plane is that it has large sides to the hand plane giving it a greater stability than non-dedicated shooting board planes. One miter benefit is that it may be slightly more comfortable than a standard plane. This plane is probably the most expensive option for this job.

Alternatives include low-angle bench planes like the Lie-Nielsen Low Angle Jointer Plane or the Lee Valley/Veritas Bevel Up Jack Plane (which has a reasonably hide side versus the Lee Valley/Veritas Bevel Up Jointer Plane which has essentially no sides). Here is a picture of the Lee Valley/Veritas planes (B or the middle plane is the Jack I mentioned above):

Lee Valley/Veritas Bevel Up Bench Planes

The Lie-Nielsen low angle planes have lower sides. The Lee Valley/Veritas bevel up planes look to have similar sides to standard bench planes so may have increased stability. Also the Lee Valley/Veritas bevel up planes appear to be less expensive so that makes this option attractive.

Based on this analysis, I’m leaning mostly toward the Lee Valley/Veritas Bevel up Jack Plane due to both functionality and cost. If any readers have opinions on this, I’d love to hear agreements, disagreements, or maybe alternatives via the comments.