Wm Perry Studio weblog

When I teach a seminar, whether it’s in my own studio or someone else’s facility, I stress safety. When it comes to large machines with sharp blades I stress it a lot.

Sometimes I wonder if people attending my seminars think I’m hyping the safety thing because (a) it’s politically correct, or (b) it’s an insurance thing. That’s the appearance part.

Actually, it’s neither (a) nor (b), and at the same time it’s both.

I push safety in the shop because I genuinely care that both I and my students leave with the same number of digits they had when they arrived. Politically correct and insurance premiums are subsets of that, and they’re far down the scale when measured against loss of a body part forever. That’s the reality part.

Now here’s the real deal: safety is all about preparedness. When we say “accident” what we really mean is we hadn’t anticipated what could or might happen, and so we weren’t prepared when it did. Now I can yammer on about this until the cows come home but what really matters is anticipating the unexpected, no matter how unlikely it may be, so that you’re protected from harm if the worst comes to pass.

Here’s an example: something I’ve done for years is to use a push pad when making a non-through cut on the table saw, i.e., a cut where the blade is plowing a dado or groove through the wood, rather than actually cutting through it.

There’s no good reason to use a push pad. After all, the blade is only cutting partway through the wood and you’re completely protected by the wood above where the blade is cutting. It’s the same as a large wooden push pad, isn’t it? And what’s going to happen? The board is going to explode under your hand?

In spite of how stupid it feels, I always use a push pad for this sort of cut “in case the board explodes under my hand.” I’ve been doing this for years, and can’t bring myself to stop using that push pad. Paranoid or what?

Today a board “exploded under my hand.” I was cutting rabbets down opposite edges using a dado set in the table saw. Nothing extreme – making multiple light cuts until “BANG”! The board wasn’t on the saw any more; it was in pieces on the floor. I have no idea what kind of stress was lurking inside that piece of lumber. And in spite of having seen it, I still think I’m  kind of paranoid to imagine that a board could just disintegrate into fragments. But it did.

And I sure am glad it was a push pad and not my hand on top of that piece of lumber when it became kindling. That’s preparedness: Think through what you’re going to do before you do it. Try to anticipate everything that could go wrong. And make sure it can’t hurt you if it does.

I cut off the end of the fragmented board as a reminder. Get the picture?

– Bill

Let’s face it: sharpening edge tools is grunt work.

Okay, that’s only my opinion. If rubbing a piece of steel back and forth across an abrasive stone a few thousand times until you’ve honed a perfect cutting edge is your idea of a good time (or a life), lucky you. Frankly, I don’t think it’s enough to keep the mind alive.

The perfect cutting edge I like. The thousands of repetitive abrasions I don’t like. I’d rather be woodworking.

Now, sharpening isn’t really such a big deal, except the first time. The concept is simple enough: hone intersecting angles at the edge of a piece of steel so the intersecting surfaces are perfectly flat and meet at a specific angle and a (theoretical) zero degrees radius.

The beveled edge of a blade is not a large surface to grind and hone. If you use a micro-bevel (a small bevel at the cutting edge that is one or two degrees steeper than the overall bevel angle) you only need hone an area about 1/8-inch or even less right at the cutting edge. It’s the back of the blade that needs the work. Honing that surface perfectly flat is essential to a sharp edge but is also the most time-consuming part of any sharpening job.

The good news is that once you’ve flattened the backs of your blades, unless you damage them you shouldn’t have to do it again for a long time, and even then it will be quicker than the first time round.

It’s still slow tedious work, however, no matter whether you sharpen by hand with wetstones, oilstones, sandpaper on glass or diamond plates. Power systems such as those made by Veritas, Tormek, Jet, Sharp Smart and others speed up the process but at a price (~$200–$700).

Lee Valley during the past year opted to start supplying all of their planes with lapped blades. What this means to you is that you only need to hone the bevel of the blade and remove any wire edge created by the honing. This is a huge saving in time and effort, and a big step towards “out-of-the-box” performance for tools with lapped blades.

Let’s keep our terminology straight here. “Lapping” is often used in a limited sense to describe making something flat by abrading it against another flat surface. In fact, lapping reduces surface roughness. This is done by rubbing the surface to be flattened against another flat surface along with an abrasive and a lubricant. The abrasive crumbles into progressively finer particles during the lapping process, allowing you to achieve a remarkably smooth surface. A good overview of the lapping process can be found at: http://www.leevalley.com/shopping/Instructions.aspx?p=59753

Lee Valley’s lapped blades are flat to a tolerance of ±0.0002” or better over the working surface. Achieving this requires a very precise machining operation. What’s especially good about it for you, however, is that it could easily save you an hour or more of flattening time per blade (especially if the blade is convex and needs extensive flattening).

You’ll notice that a lapped blade has a matte gray surface instead of – as might be expected – a mirror finish.

But that’s another story. Please stay tuned.

– Bill

How would you like a finish for wood that is non-toxic, fast-drying, compatible with both oil- and water-based topcoats, can be applied by wiping, brushing or spraying, comes in several natural colors and can be tinted if necessary to obtain precise color adjustment?

Sounds too good to be true? Well, this is not some “miracle-finish” hype. Shellac has been used for thousands of years and is one of the most versatile, economical and foolproof finishes you can use.

Shellac comes in a variety of colors and grades. The shellac flakes pictured above are available from Wood Essence Distributing:  www.woodessence.com

Shellac is a resin secreted by the female lac beetle to form a cocoon, on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is collected, crushed, washed and dried, then formed into buttons or thin sheets which are then broken into flakes. The level of refinement, timing of harvest, and source of the lac (type of tree which nourished the beetle), determine the color of the shellac.

Shellac has many features as a finish. It is non-yellowing and quick-drying. Re-coat time is only an hour or two and many shellacked items can be used the same day or shortly after. A variety of natural colors are available and tinting can produce almost any desired subtle shade. It has excellent adhesion and hardness, can be sanded and rubbed out well (as in French Polishing) and it is a first-rate sealer for sanding and sealing in contaminants such as silicone, wax, dirt and oil.

Shellac is easily repaired or removed. Because shellac dissolves in alcohol, scratches and other minor surface blemishes can be invisibly blended into surrounding areas. By re-applying shellac to the damaged area, it will melt into the old shellac, making for a perfect repair. For the same reason, shellac can be removed with denatured or isopropyl alcohol instead of toxic strippers, and there are no toxic fumes created by using it.

Shellac is FDA approved as food safe for children’s toys and food utensils. It is actually used as a glaze for pharmaceutical tablets and pill-shaped candies.

The main drawback to shellac is that it has poor resistance to heat, alcohol and water. The good news is that it’s as easily repaired as it is damaged. Buff out the damage, wipe on a new coat of shellac over the repair, and rub out to achieve a smooth finish once again.

Once dissolved in alcohol, liquid shellac is typically described in terms of its “cut.” A “one pound cut” means one pound of dry shellac flakes dissolved in one gallon of denatured alcohol. Flakes will dissolve faster if they are ground up before adding alcohol; a coffee grinder works well for this. Put the desired quantity of shellac flakes and alcohol into a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid and shake them well. Give the jar another shake every half hour or so to keep the flakes from congealing into a blob of shellac. Everything should be dissolved within a day or so.

Shellac is very forgiving as a finish when wiped on using a wad of cheesecloth or other absorbent fabric wrapped in a square of lint-free cloth. For ease of use, put the shellac into a plastic squeeze bottle so it’s simple to dispense what you need. Squirt some denatured alcohol onto the pad you have made, and then saturate the pad with shellac – enough so that there’s ample to apply but not so much that the pad is dripping or creating runs when you apply it to the wood.

Wipe the shellac onto the wood with overlapping strokes, not too heavy, and taking care not to go back over areas where shellac has just been applied but is starting to dry. It will quickly become tacky and it’s best to apply a first, light coat and let it dry, then re-apply subsequent light coats until the depth of finish you need has been achieved, buffing out between coats as required.

The same basic technique is followed when brushing on shellac. I highly recommend a top-quality brush for this job. Most frustration from brushing shellac stems from using a brush that does not flow the finish out well, leaving streaks and uneven lines. Good brushes use a golden synthetic bristle such as Taklon. They’re pricey, but are worth every penny for the ease of use and quality of finish which they provide.

Shellac can also be sprayed. A High Volume Low Pressure (HVLP) system is ideal for this and a two-pound cut of shellac is about right. Make absolutely certain there is no chance of having a flame or spark anywhere near where you’re spraying. Shellac is dissolved in alcohol, and vaporized alcohol is just about as explosive a substance as you can find. If there is any risk whatsoever of a flame or spark, don’t even think about spraying.

But with that one caveat, give shellac a try as a finish. As a source, Wood Essence Distributing has shellac flakes, tinting dyes, brushes, abrasives and much more. Shellac information can be found at:

http://www.woodessence.com/shellacdefault.html

Do some internet research on shellac. You might find there’s a lot of value in this old-fashioned, low-tech finish.

— Bill Perry

It’s interesting how we become stuck in fixed ideas. Take chisels for example.

Most of us know that we can regrind the bevel angle of a chisel to accommodate the work at hand. A steeper angle stands up to heavy work such as chopping out waste, while a shallower angle is better for light, paring cuts.

The fixed idea is that if you sharpen one chisel to a certain angle, you must then sharpen all the chisels in that set to the same angle. That makes sense so long as all the chisels will be used for much the same work all the time. That isn’t necessarily the case, however.

I have a half-dozen Japanese chisels that are used primarily for dovetailing. They are used for lots of other work, but when I pack up a small tool kit for a job that includes cutting dovetails, they’re my “go-to” chisels for most of the work.

One day I realized that the 3/8-inch chisel is used for heavy chopping about 99.5% of the time and almost never for paring. The regular ¼-inch is also used mainly for chopping; a triangular-section ¼-inch is used for finer work. So why not sharpen them to the most effective angles and never mind consistency?

My 3/8-inch chisel is now honed to an angle of 35˚, the regular ¼-inch is at 30˚, and the triangular ¼-inch is at 25˚. So these chisels are now sharpened to the angle matching the work which they most often do instead of occasionally doing work suited to their bevel angles.

Imagine that: a “set” of chisels sharpened to different angles. Pretty scary stuff.

– Bill Perry

Table saw blades need regular cleaning. Without cleaning, resin accumulates on the teeth, degrading the quality of cut and increasing friction. Friction generates heat, and resin accumulation inhibits normal heat dissipation. This further increases heat buildup and potentially contributes to blade distortion.

Resin (and probably glue from sheet goods) has started to accumulate on this blade. See the red-brown discoloration on the sides of the carbide teeth.

Many brands of blade cleaners are on the market. Many are pricey, most are caustic. Spray-on oven cleaners are often recommended as an alternative. They’re cheaper, but still caustic.

Caustic chemicals have a couple of drawbacks. One is that they’re indicated as an enemy of the carbide teeth and the brazing that binds the teeth onto the blade. Freud Inc.’s Charles McCracken has stated: “These attack the binder in the carbide and, on Freud blades, they also deteriorate the special tri-metal brazing we use. This can cause carbide or brazing failure and could lead to injury”.

The other is that they’re nasty to your skin (on a personal level) and to the environment (on a global level).

An alternative to caustic nasties is a bio-degradable household cleaner called simple green. McCracken noted: “We recently started doing testing with simple green concentrate and have found it to be very effective, too.”

It’s available either as a concentrate (cheaper) or regular strength in a spray bottle. Use a 10-inch pizza pan as a catch basin, spray simple green around the blade’s teeth on both sides, and leave the blade to soak for five minutes. Give a quick scrub around each of the teeth with a small brass brush, rinse clean under running water, dry the blade, and you’re back to work.

Spray simple green onto the blade, wait about five minutes, scrub lightly with a brass brush, then rinse clean under running water and dry.

The cycling community – looking for an ecologically safe cleaner for bicycle chains – has posted concerns that simple green may cause brittleness in metal. The few reports I’ve found imply instances of prolonged soaking (like a week) in concentrated simple green, followed by inadequate rinsing. Whether the cleaner actually caused the metal to become brittle or only pitted the surface was unclear.

Regular strength simple green used as I’ve described above works well, works quickly with little effort, and doesn’t add to the chemical soup that too often finds its way through our sewers and back into our water supply. You might want to try it.

Dental work complete: clean shiny teeth.

— Bill Perry

You must have heard this: “Never, never, never put a handplane down on the bench resting on its sole. It’ll dull the blade.”

This plane is resting on its sole and blade. Does it need sharpening? See below for the answer.

There are woodworkers out there who are all but fanatical about this. They have an emotional and then physical reaction as they watch the sole of a handplane approaching the surface of a bench. It must be stopped!

First they’ll be smug. You, as a woodworker, should know better than to place a sharp blade into contact with a piece of wood, and they’ll make sure you know — in a friendly, condescending fashion.

They increase the intensity of their warnings as you make the first threatening movements toward the bench top with the plane. “Don’t put it down on the blade!” They watch with increasing anxiety when you don’t freeze. They stiffen up as you continue your inexorable progress. They might even try to physically restrain you before the blade hits the beechwood.

Too late. You’ve placed your plane on its sole, with the blade projecting a good one or two thousands of an inch, and that blade has contacted a wooden bench top. Obviously the edge has been ruined. Now you have to get out the grinder and waterstones and start sharpening.

Give me a break.

(1) You have a handplane with a blade that’s hardened to about Rc60
(2) It has been tempered so that the steel is tough as well as hard
(3) It is designed and manufactured to cut wood and to wear well while doing so
(4) Because you rested it on the very surface it was cutting a moment ago, it is now dull and must be sharpened

Wow. If you can make a case for that, there are university law faculties who have tasty scholarships waiting for you.

I’ve heard it said that you mustn’t put your plane down on a bench or board because they could contain grit which would then dull the tool. Your bench top is gritty? You haven’t cleaned any dirt from a piece of lumber before working it with a plane? What’s wrong with you?

Frankly, I think the risks of damaging your plane’s blade (or damaging something with it) are far greater if you leave the plane resting on its side with the blade exposed. Knock it with another tool and you really have dinged the blade enough to have to sharpen. A pass of your fingers over the exposed blade will require maintenance of your body rather than the blade. It heals but it’s still a waste of time. And I’m not buying into a story that contact between a piece of tempered tool steel and a piece of basswood ruins the steel. Think about it.

Looks like that contact between the blade and bench top wasn’t so disastrous after all.

So where did this tempest in a teapot come from? It’s probably impossible to pin down but one apocryphal explanation (conspiracy theory?) does have a certain ring of truth: Shop teachers promoted the myth in an effort to minimize damage to their woodshops.

Woodworkers commonly report: “Our Shop teacher ordered us never to put a plane down on its sole because it would dull the blade,” or, “It was worth an hour’s shop cleanup detention after school if you ever put a plane down on its sole.” Only a week ago one of my students told me that a former instructor of his came close to having a psychotic episode when someone in a workshop laid a pane down on its sole. The instructor’s background? Shop teacher.

Now I can see not laying an edge tool on its blade at an outdoor jobsite, but why should this matter in a shop? Maybe a return to Shop class can offer some illumination:

You have a group of about 20 boys (not so many girls back then) sitting on stools at their workbenches. There are a few tools, including handplanes, on the bench tops. It’s warm. The teacher drones on. The kids are getting a little bored. Hmm. Wooden bench top. Handplane. I wonder if it’ll plane the bench top. Gee, it does! Cool!

Now this is conjecture. I have no firm evidence to support these implications about Shop teachers.

And of course I would never personally have done such a thing to a bench top….

A few weeks ago at one of our seminars a couple of subjects came up: use of blade stiffeners on table saw blades and how to align a blade guard/splitter assembly on the table saw.

Stiffeners are disks of machined metal mounted on a saw’s arbor on either side of the blade. They are intended to reduce blade vibration and flutter. Unless a cut is being made with excessive force, however, you shouldn’t need a stiffener. Some manufacturers recommend using them with thin-kerf blades, but even then, a moderate feed rate should make them unnecessary.

A drawback of blade stiffeners is that they change the position of the blade relative to the saw’s arbor flange (the large machined disk on the arbor against which the blade registers). For example, if you install a pair of 1/4-inch thick stiffeners, the blade will mount 1/4 of an inch away from the arbor flange. This then changes blade alignment relative to the blade guard, splitter, throat insert, crosscut sleds, or any other fixtures you may use whose position is dependent on the blade’s position.

In my experience, blade stiffeners aren’t necessary. (I have a pair; they sit on a shelf and are used occasionally as patterns for drawing 3 1/2-inch diameter circles.) To minimize any potential blade vibration, all you should have to do is make sure your arbor washer is lapped flat on the surface where it contacts the blade. That doesn’t mean the entire washer must be flattened. All that’s needed is a smooth ring around the outside face of the washer so it seats securely against the blade.

The bright ring around the outside edge of the arbor washer shows where it has been lapped flat to seat against the saw’s blade.

Aligning the splitter and guard

The simplest method of aligning the saw’s splitter and blade guard is to set a pair of straightedges on either side of the blade and align the splitter with the gap between the two:

Aligning the splitter with the blade

Place the straightedges against the blade’s plate, not against the teeth. Placing a straightedge against the plate of the blade at one edge and against a tooth at the other will guarantee misalignment since the teeth are thicker than the plate. Set up your saw’s splitter and guard aligned with the blade as shown and gradually tighten down the bolts which secure it. Finally, set up the saw’s rip fence, make a cut, and check that the splitter is perfectly aligned with the saw kerf. A wee bit of trial and error, and you’re there.

— Bill Perry

Then this comes along. A laser-guided toolbox saw.

No, I’m not making this up, but let me try to get it straight:

You can’t follow a pencil line with a saw. But now you don’t have to. Instead you can follow a laser line projected (I assume) on top of the the pencil line. How you manage to keep the saw’s teeth embedded in a projected laser beam when you couldn’t do it with the pencil line is left unanswered, but I guess some things are meant to remain mysteries.

My marketing advice would have been to have gone with the laser-guided beer bottle opener. At least then you’d be satisfying a real and urgent need.

— Bill Perry

You know those things that are so obvious you never notice them until someone else points them out? The ones that give you those spectacular “Duhh!” moments? This tip is one of those.

As a matter of fact it’s so obvious I didn’t even get it the first time it was pointed out to me. It was so simple it didn’t sink in. And as a result I certainly can’t take credit for it; that has to go to Steve Latta, an accomplished cabinetmaker and woodworking instructor.

Okay, enough with the foreshadowing and suspense. Here it is – one of the biggest ongoing shop time savers I have ever encountered:

Wear an apron.

How was that for a letdown? Well, that’s what I first thought. Wear an apron? For what? I don’t get especially dirty in the shop, and clothes go into the washing machine anyway.

The point Latta made was that an apron has little to do with cleanliness and a lot to do with organization. You want one with a couple of pockets or pouches, not too big, and maybe with a flap so they don’t fill up with chips and sawdust. And in those pockets you put the small tools that you reach for over and over again every day.

I’ve settled on a small, leather carver’s apron. Its pouch has enough space for my basic tools, it isn’t floppy and cumbersome to wear, and the leather provides some protection against flying chips when the machinery’s turned on.

My apron holds a small tape measure, a six-inch steel rule, a four-inch double square, a small brass marking and cutting gauge, a four-inch sliding bevel, a couple of pencils – hard and soft, and often a striking knife. The tools might vary a bit depending on what’s being worked on, but that’s my basic kit.

An apron tool kit will save you hours

So what’s the advantage? Carry those constantly-used marking, measuring and layout tools—or whichever tools you reach for regularly—in your apron. You will save literally hours of time and miles of walking by not having to trek across your shop to pick up the tool you need from wherever it was stored (or put down and forgotten).

In my shop, if I walk from my bench to the tool rack for a tape or a square, it’s 10 feet there and 10 feet back. If I’m at the table saw, it’s 20 feet; at the drill press it’s 30. That adds up to a lot of time spent walking back and forth for tools every day. You may be very surprised—as I was—at just how much.

There it is. Almost too simple to be true, but I’m not just paying lip service. Since this little gem of wisdom made it through my thick skull, the first thing I do in the shop before starting work is put on my apron. Right before putting on the safety glasses.

— Bill Perry

What’s not to like about Toronto? It has theater & films, fine dining, parks, recreation, plus four losing major league athletic teams for the city’s couch potato masochists.

But something the city hasn’t had is a woodworker’s seminar program offering small group instruction in  basic to advanced woodworking skills. That changed on February 28th when nine people (one more than planned) attended our first seminar on “The Well-Tempered Table Saw.”

The new Wm Perry Studio space in Leaside

Now to put this in perspective, I didn’t set out to start a woodworking school. I’m a cabinetmaker. I design and build custom furniture and Windsor chairs. For example, to be shamelessly self-promoting:

http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/Gallery/GalleryImage.aspx?id=32083

But during several years while teaching seminars for Lee Valley Tools and demonstrating their products at trade shows, I was asked one question over and over: “Where in Toronto can I get woodworking lessons in a well-equipped shop, taught by a professional to individuals or small groups, without enrolling in a diploma program?”

The answer, as it turned out, was “Nowhere.” And at the time my shop was in a century farmhouse an hour and a half northwest of the city. It was a lovely spot, but not exactly around the corner.

The old farmhouse: nice, but isolated

At the time, though, I was considering relocating closer to town and now—more than a year later—the move is complete. The new studio occupies 800 sq. ft. in Toronto’s Leaside neighbourhood. It’s two short blocks south of Eglinton Ave. on Parkhurst Blvd. just east of Laird Drive. in the Leaside Business Park—a rapidly developing area becoming home to a variety of art, design and gallery businesses as well as fine restaurants and boutique shops.

That’s the quick news. Have a look at our seminars listing on the web site to see what’s coming up. Just click on: http://www.wmperry.ca/seminars.html

I’ll get a few pics posted soon, but mainly I’ll try to concentrate on posts that give you useful information, skills and techniques to improve your woodworking. Have fun!

— Bill Perry