Woodworking Magazine Weblog

I want to take a minute here to apologize to many of our new subscribers who have not received the first issue of their subscription to Woodworking Magazine, but they have received a bill for the subscription.

We hit a couple rough spots with this first mailing, and I promise you I am doing everything I can to ensure it never happens again.

Bottom line: Issue 9 went out in the mail on Monday, March 17. If you live in the United States, you should have your copy by March 24. International orders should take a bit longer.

If you'd like to read the gory details, here they are, short and sweet: The magazine was supposed to mail from the printer during the week of March 3. Our printer, however, received the wrong mailing labels. Meanwhile, the bills went out in the mail (on time). And now we have confused and frustrated would-be readers.

If you have a bill and checked the status of your subscription on-line and it says "suspended," please ignore that. It's a poor choice of words on our part and we're working to fix that. It means that your payment is "pending."

Thanks everyone for your patience as we get this horse out of the gate. The next issue will go smoother.

— Christopher Schwarz

There are still spaces left for a week-long summer course in handsawing at the Northwest Woodworking School in Portland, Ore. It is the only class I'm teaching this year that has not sold out.

During the five days of instruction I'll be diving deeply into saws and joinery – weaving together the historical facts about the art that I've dug up with the hands-on exercises I've been practicing since I picked up my first handsaw at age 8.

Unlike my other weekend classes on sawing, I'll be covering the entire gamut of the craft, from breaking down rough stock with an 8-point crosscut handsaw to cutting dovetails that are tight and made with a minimum of fuss. (I've actually just posted a blog entry on dovetail cutting angles on my personal blog that you might find interesting.)

The other interesting aspect of this course is we explore the joinery planes that are used in conjunction with handsaws to make perfect – and I mean perfect – hand-cut tenons, half-laps, dados, notches and sliding dovetails. (In other words, you'll finally learn what your router plane is really good for.)

Plus, we'll be building two projects: a traditional English sawbench for your shop and a hand-dovetailed silverware tray for your family.

The class runs from July 14 to 18 and costs $725 plus the materials for the sawbench and silverware tray. You can read more information about the class at the Northwest Woodworking Studio's web site. Or you can drop me a line via e-mail if you have any questions.

Hope you can join us. If you'd like to see photos of past classes I've taught on sawing, check out this link to a weekend class I taught recently at Kelly Mehler's School of Woodworking and a one-day seminar at the Woodcraft in Sterling Heights, Mich. Also, there's a short podcast about the class at Matt's Basement Workshop you can listen to. Matt Vanderlist, the host of the shop, was one of the students in the Woodcraft show. (He made some wicked-tight half-laps.)

— Christopher Schwarz

One of my favorite things about the Holtzapffel Workbench I built for Issue 8 of Woodworking Magazine is the monster twin-screw vise with wooden vise screws. The wooden screws move the vise's chop quickly, engage the work firmly and are quite durable.

Plus, they're wood. And I like wood.

Now there's a new source of wooden vise screws that I can heartily recommend after inspecting the finished product this weekend. Woodworker Joe Comunale of Romeo, Mich., has started a new business called BigWoodVise.com to sell vise screws, nuts and handles for woodworking benches.

While I was teaching a couple classes at the Sterling Heights, Mich., Woodcraft, Joe stopped by the store to show me the screws, which he has been selling for some time to friends and fellow woodworkers in the Detroit area.

The screws are as nice as I have seen on any bench. The threads are crisp, with no visible chipping or tear-out along their entire lengths. The hub, which is the large end piece on the end of the screw, is finished as well as any piece of furniture. One style of hub that Joe makes, which he calls the "Classic" style, has crisp black lines burned into the hub.

The screws he sells come with the matching nut, the handle and round ball-shaped caps for the ends of the handle. The two nuts I tried moved smoothly and rapidly on the screws and showed very little slop in the mechanism. Joe says he wants to tighten up the fit of the nuts on the thread, but I think they're great as-is.

His vise screws attach to your vise's wooden chop with a garter system. Garter systems confuse many woodworkers who have never seen them, but they are really quite simple. The job of the garter is to secure the chop to the screw so that the chop will move out when you retract the screws.

The garter itself is a small piece of wood that is mortised into the chop of your vise and held in place with friction. One end of the garter nests into a groove in the screw.

The 2"-diameter, 2 threads-per-inch screws from BigWoodVise.com are made from ash. The handles I inspected were made from maple.

Joe has just launched his web site recently and is having a "March Madness" sale that ends March 31. So if you are in the market for vise screws, you might want to place your order soon. The "Classic" vise screw, nut and handle are on sale for $99 for each set this month – the regular price is $150 for each set.

This business is a side job for Joe, who is a mechanical engineer, but he plans to keep several screws in stock and promises (at most) a four-week delivery time. He also is happy to do custom work if you have something special in mind. Contact Joe at joe@BigWoodVise.com for details.

So if you're tired of getting grease marks on your work from your metal-screw vise, or you are building a bench with an old-school look, then definitely check out these screws from BigWoodVise.com. I don't have any plans for building another bench (where would I put it?), but if I do, I'm definitely going to buy a set of these screws myself.

— Christopher Schwarz

When it comes to saws, aspiring sawyers have two basic questions: What saws should I own to build furniture? And where can I get them?

During the last couple years I've been teaching a few classes on sawing, with more classes on the horizon. So I've been asked these two questions a lot. Below is my basic set, which is based on the furniture I build (casework, chairs, tables, general stuff), my personal preferences (I like longer, coarser saws) and established historical practice.

In other words, if you have a problem with my list, make you own list and post it below in the comments. Perspectives from other sawyers are useful and interesting.

1. Crosscut handsaw: I like an 8-point crosscut handsaw for breaking down rough stock and general dimensioning of material. It cuts quickly (yea!), and the resulting surface is easy enough to clean up on a shooting board. Some woodworkers like 12-point saws, but I think they are slow and the resulting surface isn't significantly cleaner. My personal saw is a 24"-long panel saw (most handsaws are 26" long). It's a private-label saw made by Disston & Sons for an old Boston hardware store.

2. Ripsaw: I don't rip a lot by hand, but when I do, I want to be done with it. So I like a coarse ripsaw. The one shown in the photo is a 6-point Disston D-8. I also have a Wenzloff & Sons 5-point saw. Both are good workers. Some day I'll be man enough to use something even coarser.

3. Tenon saw: I have a few tenon saws. I prefer a saw that is about 10 points, though saws that are as fine as 13 points are OK by me (as long as the rake isn't significantly relaxed). Tenon saws start at 12" long, though I recommend the longer ones. Shoot for 14" at least; they make them as long as 19", which are surprisingly easy to wield. All tenon saws should be filed with rip teeth. They are designed to rip tenon cheeks.

4. Carcase saw: This is the backsaw I use more than any other. I like something that is 12 points to 14 points, filed crosscut, and about 14" long. The long sawplate helps improve my accuracy. The carcase saw shown in the photo is a sweet Wheeler, Madden & Clemson XLCR saw.

5. Dovetail saw: This is perhaps the most personal saw, so ignore my recommendation completely. If you like a 23-tooth Japanese crosscut dozuki, stick with it. Or a hacksaw. It doesn't matter. I like a 15-point Western saw with rip teeth. Shown is my Lie-Nielsen progressive-pitch saw, which has 15 points at the toe and about 9 at the heel. This is a love-it-or-leave-it saw for most people, so I recommend you try before you buy.

The names of saws are confusing. The types of saws overlap with one another in size and tooth configuration. I'd ignore the names in the catalogs and just buy them based on their specifications. It's much less confusing that way. Also, I use a lot of other specialty saws, including a flooring saw, jeweler's saw and a flush-cut saw. But those aren't necessary for all furniture-making.

Where to Buy Saws
There are lots of places to buy new, sharp backsaws, but buying a sharp handsaw or ripsaw is more of a challenge. However, there are three gentlemen I have bought handsaws and ripsaws from that I can recommend. Sometimes they also have backsaws in stock, though vintage backsaws are a lot more rare than handsaws.

Daryl Weir (weir@gallatinriver.net): 781 S. Market St., Knoxville IL 61448. Daryl sharpens saws and sells saws on eBay on occasion.

Steve Cook (SharpeningGuy01@aol.com): 1160 Taxville Road, York, PA 17408. Steve also sharpens saws if you have an old saw that you need toughed up (or completely refiled).

Tom Law: 62 West Water St., Smithsburg MD, 21783, 301-824-5223. Tom no longer sharpens saws for hire, but he will sell you a saw that he has rehabbed and sharpened.

If you know of other reliable sources for buying sharp handsaws, add a comment below.

— Christopher Schwarz

Tenon saws are one of the three essential backsaws for building furniture (the other two are the carcase saw and the dovetail saw), but until recently your choices were limited to:

1. A vintage tenon saw that you resurrected from the dead
2. A Japanese saw that may or may not be suited to cutting tenons
3. The excellent Lie-Nielsen tenon saw
4. Some other frustrating new English-named saw.

A couple years ago, sawmaker Mike Wenzloff started making tenon saws, including my freakishly huge Kenyon-style tenon saw that I have waxed on about so endlessly that you’d think that Mike must be washing and waxing my car every weekend. (He’s not, though he’s offered; it’s a long drive from Oregon to Cincinnati.)

And now Wenzloff, his sons, his lovely spouse and probably the family dog all make thousands of Western saws for Lee Valley Tools. It’s a lot of work for the Wenzloff family, I know, but it’s an absolute boon to woodworkers because now we have more choices in the marketplace. (Also, as noted in the comments, I don't own an Adria tenon saw, another new premium brand. I've used the Adria carcase and dovetail saws and they are good. I have no reason to suspect the tenon is any different.)

At issue here is not which brand of saw cuts better tenons. That point is honestly and truly moot. Both the Lie-Nielsen and Wenzloff brands come sharp, accurately filed and well-set. They both cut well once the saw has been broken in with some work and wax.

Instead, what’s important is the handle of the saw and the number of teeth. These factors will help you determine which saw is right for you. I’ve had a Lie-Nielsen tenon saw since the day the company started making them. I’ve had the Kenyon tenon saw for a couple years, and two weeks ago I ordered the Wenzloff Large Tenon Saw from Lee Valley. After a weekend of breaking in the new saw during a sawing class at Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking, I have a good feel for the Wenzloff tool and how is compares to the Lie-Nielsen version and the Kenyon tenon saw.

Let’s start with the teeth: The Kenyon tenon saw sold today is 10 points per inch (ppi). On my unit, Wenzloff filed the first couple inches with progressive rake. These few extra degrees of rake in the starting teeth make the saw easier to start, though not as easy as a progressive-pitch saw. Wenzloff says he'll add this rake (no more than 4°) to custom saws by request.

The Wenzloff & Sons Large Tenon Saw has 12 ppi. And the Lie-Nielsen has 10 ppi.

I was surprised how the difference in the number of teeth made a difference in the tool's cutting speed. The Kenyon tenon saw was the fastest because it was the longest, heaviest and (tied for) coarsest. The Lie-Nielsen was the second fastest, and the Wenzloff Large Tenon was a bit slower.

I prefer fast and coarse saws, but not everyone does. Beginners like finer saws, and people who do work in thin stock really like finer saws. So don’t judge a saw on its speed. It’s not a race. But if you work with thick stock, think coarse. Thin stock? Think fine.

The handles are also different. The Kenyon tenon saw has the most curves and feels more “made by hand” than the other saws. But the Lie-Nielsen is the most comfortable handle to my hand overall. I’m told that I have “girl hands,” but these girl hands seem to like slightly larger saw totes.

The Wenzloff Large Tenon Saw has a tote that appears to have more hand work than the Lie-Nielsen. The flats on the sides of the tote have been well-faired into the curves, and I suspect it is a process done by hand or with an inflatable drum on a sanding machine.

The tote of this Wenzloff saw feels good in my hands, but it’s just a little on the small side for me.

The other differences are aesthetic. The Lie-Nielsen comes stock with a maple handle (usually curly maple) and it looks like a 19th-century Disston. The Kenyon tenon saw is traditional European beech and reeks of the late 18th-century aesthetic. The Wenzloff Large Tenon Saw is bubinga, which matches Lee Valley’s house line of Veritas planes, and looks quite old school.

If you’ve read this far, you probably feel like I owe you a solid recommendation. I’m going to let you down. I’m delighted with all three saws and wouldn’t sell a single one. (Yes, Scott, I’m talking to you.) But what delights me even more is that we have a choice about what to buy. Not as many choices as the 1808 furniture-maker, but it’s a start.

— Christopher Schwarz

When you buy a handplane (even a Veritas or a Lie-Nielsen), it's not going to work well out of the box. You really need to hone the iron to do decent work.

However, with saws, it's more complicated.

If you buy a cheap Western handsaw or backsaw, chances are that the teeth aren't sharp or properly set. So you need to either learn to sharpen your saw or send it to somebody who already knows.

But if you buy a premium Western saw – Lie-Nielsen, Adria, Wenzloff & Sons – the challenges are different. The premium saws are set up and sharp, but I think you need to break in the saw before it will cut smoothly. Most new Western saws are too grabby at first, especially for beginners. But after about a dozen tenons the saw will be easier to start and will run more smoothly in its kerf.

I was reminded of this when I was teaching a class in precision sawing this weekend at Kelly Mehler's School of Woodworking. Many of the students brought new premium saws to the class, and several of them brought their new saws up to my bench and asked the question: "Could you try my saw and tell me if it's cutting well?"

On a couple saws, the teeth were set too strong on one side. We stoned those teeth (a couple strokes on a #1,000-grit stone) to help straighten out the way they steered.

But with most of the students' saws I tried out they cut true, but they were harder to start than my saws or they didn't run as smoothly in the kerf. In fact, one student, Glen Koopmans, had a heck of a time with his new tenon saw. It was hanging in the cut and just not working well at all.

He stayed late into the evening trying to figure out if it was just him or just the saw.

The next morning, we cut a few tenons with his saw and then lubricated the blade with some paraffin wax (I use canning wax from the grocery). By the end of the weekend class, Glen's saw was running as smoothly as mine, which has logged a couple hundred tenons by now.

What happened? Three things. One: The wax helped lubricate the blade in the cut, which helped reduce the grabbiness of the new teeth. Two: the dozen or so joints that Glen cut with the saw helped ease the freshly filed edges on the teeth. And three: After about a dozen tenons, Glen was a much better sawyer.

At the end of the day Sunday, Glen was cutting the cheeks of massive half-lap joints in resinous yellow pine for the sawbenches we were constructing. Even all the way across the room, you could hear how smoothly his tenon saw was cutting. And the resulting cheek looked as good as the cheek of a table-saw tenon.

So before you send your new saw back to the factory, put some wax on the blade and cut some tenons first. You might just be surprised how nice your saw is and how easy it is (really!) to saw.

— Christopher Schwarz

When I first built my French Roubo-style workbench, I put a sliding deadman on it to help support doors and long panels. But I have long intended to replace that deadman with a sliding leg vise.

Roubo actually shows this arrangement in one of his volumes, and it is a tempting morsel. However, as you will soon see, it is also an engineering challenge.

I'm tempted to build it because it would be the final solution for dovetailing and working on the long edges of boards. One end of the work would be held in the regular leg vise (located on the left leg). And the other end would be grasped by the sliding leg vise. With a long bench (mine is 8' long) you could hold almost any piece of wood you would find in a furniture-making shop.

The engineering challenge comes when you try to build it so it is sturdy and won't damage the bench. It can be done, of course, but adding the sliding leg vise as an accessory requires some careful thought.

Luckily, industrious reader Bill Liebold has built the sliding leg vise on his 12'-long Dominy-style workbench with an end vise. He is smitten with the functionality of the sliding leg vise, but is still working out the engineering aspects of it.

The real issue is that the sliding panel moves in a groove that is routed into the underside of the benchtop. When you really cinch down the sliding vise, it can bow out the front edge of the workbench.

"I was able to bow the front edge of the bench top but that was with far more pressure than I need to hold a piece of wood," Liebold writes. "I did it to see what would happen if I overtightened the vice. I like to experiment."

If you are considering adding a sliding leg vise, you are going to want to change the groove in the underside. Personally, I'd locate it as far back as possible from the front edge of the benchtop. Liebold thinks it would be best to have the groove start 3" in from the front edge, and to use a 1"-thick tenon on the sliding panel. I think that sounds about right.

There are lots of other ways to go about this, I'm sure. And now I'm toying again with the idea of adding a sliding leg vise if I can just get the engineering worked out in my head.

— Christopher Schwarz

The fore plane is a traditional English tool used to get rough boards fairly flat so that you can then make them really flat with a jointer plane and ready to finish with a smoothing plane, scrapers and (sometimes) sandpaper.

Fore planes are supposed to be about 14" to 18" long. If you want to use an old metal plane as a fore plane, a No. 5 jack plane or No. 6 fore plane would be a good choice. I use a Hock Tools A2-steel replacement blade in my fore plane. A2 is a little harder to sharpen for me, but this modern steel takes a heck of a beating before it gives up, so it's perfect for a fore plane. I also have a couple wooden-bodied fore planes that are nice because their light weight makes them less tiring to use.

Fore planes are supposed to have a curved cutting edge and are used directly across and diagonal to the grain of your board. Most people understand the idea of working across the grain (it allows you to take a deeper cut without tear-out). But many people are flummoxed by sharpening the curve on the edge. In fact, I've had about a half dozen readers send me their irons and ask me to do it for them.

Because I don't want to open a sharpening service, here is how I grind and hone the curved edge of a fore plane's iron. It's a simple process. And if you take your time the first time you do it, I know that you will succeed.

This week I noticed that the edge of my metal fore plane was chipped up and the tool was getting quite hard to push. It was time to grind and hone a fresh edge. The first thing to do is mark the shape of the curve on the iron so I can replicate that shape. I use a curve that is an 8" radius. I've experimented with lots of curves between 10" and 6" radii. I like 8".

I have a wooden template that is the same width as my iron and has the curve shaped on one end. I place the template on flat face of the iron and mark the curve with an "extra fine" point Sharpie.

Place the template on your iron and trace its edge on your iron. A thin, consistent line is best.

Then I go to my grinder to remove all the nasty chipped-up metal. I keep my grinder's stock tool rest set to always grind a 25° bevel. I don't futz around with the tool rest. The first thing to do is to grind away the excess metal right up to your marked curve. This is done with the iron at 90° to the stone. I just balance the iron on the tool rest and go to town.

Grinding at 90° to the stone removes metal quickly to the shape you want and it creates a small flat on the edge of your iron. This is a good thing. The flat helps prevent your steel from overheating while you grind away the bevel at 25°. Thin steel heats up really quickly.

Hold the iron 90° to the wheel and show the edge to the iron. Remove all the steel right up to your Sharpie line. The first time you do this, take your time. It gets easy real quick.

When you get to the Sharpie line, put the iron flat on your tool rest and start grinding the bevel until the flat spot on the end is almost – repeat almost – gone. You remove the last little whisker of the flat on the sharpening stones.

Start by showing the middle of the iron to the grinder wheel. You'll feel when the bevel is flat on the stone. Then sweep the iron right to grind up to the left corner. Try to keep the bevel in full contact with the wheel the entire time. Then repeat this process and sweep left.

Continue to grind and watch the flat shrink. Don't use a lot of pressure when applying the iron to the wheel or you will cook your edge (it will get black).

Show the center of the iron to the wheel and sweep left or right. Here I'm sweeping right to grind to the left corner.

Here is my completed edge, ready for honing.

Here is the flat left on the tip of that edge. The reflection makes it look bigger than it really is. It's a little less than 1/64".


You can then hone the edge freehand. The edge doesn't have to be perfect because the fore plane never produces a finished surface. However, you can use your cheap little side-clamp honing guide to help you (and your edge will look a lot sweeter, as well).

Put the iron in your honing guide and set the iron to hone a 30° secondary bevel. Place the iron on your coarse stone (#1,000-grit or coarser if you've got it). Put finger pressure hard on one corner of the iron and press that to the stone. Pull the guide toward you and shift your pressure to the other corner. This will feel awkward at first. But eventually you'll rock it smoothly and naturally.

Repeat this process by starting with all your finger pressure on the other corner. If you are doing this correctly you should see an X-shape appear on your stone. Then it's just like sharpening any tool.

Rock the edge back and forth as you move the jig. This might look hard. It's not. It also tends to shape the wheel of your honing guide into a slight barrel shape – which is a good thing.

Remove the flat bit on the end of the iron – you'll know it's gone when you can feel a burr on the other face of the iron. Then move up the grits until you run out of grits or patience.

Now reassemble your chipbreaker and your plane. Sight down the sole of the plane and tweak the lateral-adjustment lever until the curve of the iron is in the center of the sole. This is easy to see.

When you are done sharpening you should have a nice even secondary bevel.

Then work directly across the grain of a board. Increase the projection of the iron until you are removing material quickly and can easily push the plane. The shavings should be thick – I shoot for 1/32"-thick with most woods.

You can probably take a larger shaving in a softwood, but I usually poop out if I try to take a shaving thicker than 1/32" – but yet, that's a lot of material for one stroke of a plane.

The fore plane is really useful for me, even though I have a nice powered planing machine. It allows me to remove material in a localized area with ease or to peel the edge off a rough board faster than my jointer (because I can work only the high spots). And it allows me to flatten boards and panels that are too wide for my jointer and planer.   

— Christopher Schwarz

“After many vain attempts at ornamentation ‘on my own’ I learned that choice classic designs had been well thought out and established before my birth. It was for me to study them, to revel in their line and proportion until the spirit became my own and controlled my perception.”

-- Walter Rose, “The Village Carpenter”

Among all the many types of handplanes, it is the so-called moulding planes that generate the most confusion, consternation and frustration among beginning woodworkers.

Drawing a fair moulding profile, selecting the tools to cut it and actually proceeding with the work is enough to make many woodworkers cling to their collection of router bits forever.

If you’re curious about cutting mouldings by hand, then I heartily recommend a new DVD from Don McConnell and Lie-Nielsen Toolworks that will lay the groundwork for you to understand the tools and how they are wielded.

And as valuable as these lessons are, I think the most eye-opening aspect of the DVD is that you get to watch McConnell make several profiles from start to finish. Seeing the profiles appear stroke by stroke, plane by plane, is a convincing argument that the work is fairly straightforward and do-able. And plus, the results are more beautiful than anyone can achieve with a routed and sanded moulding.

McConnell is, in my opinion, one of the most knowledgeable scholars on early woodworking tools who is working today. Plus, McConnell spent many years as an interpreter at The Ohio Village, a professional hand-tool furniture-maker and a highly regarded ornamental carver in the Columbus, Ohio, area. I’ve always thought of him as the Indiana Jones of the hand tool world – his encyclopedic knowledge of early woodworking is backed by years of putting his book-smarts to use at the bench.

As a result, this entire DVD is a jewel. McConnell, now a planemaker at Clark & Williams, explains the basic anatomy of mouldings so you can understand the difference between Grecian and Roman shapes, and you can see how complex mouldings are in fact the assemblage of simple forms.

McConnell then demonstrates a couple basic complex moulding planes (the side bead and the ovolo) so you can see how a complete (usually simple) moulding can be created with one plane.

Then he moves into the hollows and rounds, which are the tools that you can use to create almost any shape or size of moulding. McConnell efficiently shows how to lay out a moulding on your work and then prepare the profile with cuts from either a rabbet, plow or moving fillister plane. Finally, he demonstrates how the hollows and rounds bring the final moulding to shape with little fuss if you have followed the correct procedures. Proper rabbets help guide your hollow and round planes as they do their work.

In addition to creating several mouldings, McConnell also demonstrates how to sharpen moulding plane irons and how to maintain (and fix) their cutting profiles. He also shows how to properly saw (and shoot) your moulding so it can be applied to your project. That is followed by an eye-opening discussion of snipe bill planes, one of the least understood wooden moulding planes in the traditional toolkit.

When you’re done watching the DVD, be sure to print out the accompanying glossary and bibliography on the disc. The glossary will help reinforce the names of all the shapes McConnell discusses in the DVD. And the bibliography suggests some books on furniture and tools that will help you build on the basic principles in the DVD so you can create well-proportioned, classic and crisp mouldings for your own work.

— Christopher Schwarz

There is something deep inside our DNA that ties us to the chest as a form of furniture. First off, how many other kinds of furniture do we have that are named after critical parts of our own bodies? We are all, in essence, “chests on stands.” The feet give way to the legs. The legs are attached to the waist. And the waist supports the chest itself.

Also, few forms of furniture evoke such strong emotional response in both men and women. Whenever I mention among acquaintances that I’m building a chest, the women (sorry to generalize) always seem far more interested in this work than they are in my table-, chair- or cabinet-building enterprises.

“Is it a blanket chest?” is the first question. And that’s usually followed by, “Is this for you or will you sell it?”

Men react differently, though equally with emotion. “Is it a tool chest?” they ask. “And what will happen to your old tool chest?”

So with our species’s strong attraction to the chest, it’s surprising how many of them are designed so poorly. This became evident as I reviewed about a dozen plans for chests from the last 100 years that I dug up from my library.

Unlike the “chest on stand” that I mentioned above, most chests are low-slung affairs with three major components. The plinth, sometimes called the base, the waist moulding and the chest itself.

The plinth is almost always wider and deeper than the chest above. And the waist mould provides the transition between these two separate assemblies. It is this transition point between plinth and chest where many woodworkers make the construction far too fussy, complex and apt to fail.

Perhaps the most difficult way to build a chest goes something like this: Build the chest proper. Take your four plinth pieces and mould their long, top edges. Then wrap the four (sometimes three) plinth pieces around the chest, joining them at the corners. Finally, cope the mouldings at the corners so the moulding profiles wraps seamlessly around the chest.

If you’ve ever built a chest this way, I don’t need to tell you why it’s a bear to pull it off. First, fitting the plinth pieces around the chest requires persnickety layout. The joints have to be dead-on, or your plinth won’t sleeve nicely over the chest. Also, the exterior of your chest has to be completely true and the assembly dead-square, otherwise, you’ll have ugly gaps between the plinth and chest proper. Finally, it’s quite trying to execute the moulding at the corners of the plinth because you are moulding end grain with rasps, files and chisels.

One improvement over this form is to sleeve the plinth over the chest and then to miter and nail moulding into the transition. This is better, but it still requires a lot of fussy layout and fussy fitting of the chest to the plinth.

The third method looks like more labor than these other two methods, but it’s not. You assemble the plinth and chest assemblies separately. Then you add either a web frame or just a couple runners into the top of the plinth. It’s best to sink the web frame or runners into rabbets in the plinth.

Then you attach the chest to the plinth with screws and wrap the transition with moulding that is a wee bit wide. Finally, trim the moulding flush to the plinth with a plane.

I’ve built chests all three ways, and I can tell you that even though the third method requires more wood and one extra assembly, it is easier to fit all the parts and a faster way of building a chest.

The next issue of Woodworking Magazine (Summer 2008) will focus on building chests, both with and without plinths. The only thing we haven’t been able to answer in our research on this topic is if the chests we’re building will end up holding tools or plushy things.

— Christopher Schwarz