Woodworking Magazine Weblog

The last place I ever expected to stumble on Andre Roubo’s handiwork was next to an Art Deco radio and underneath some old water jugs. But on Saturday, I walked into an antiques store in Ottawa, Canada, and there was a worn but functional Roubo-style workbench perched patiently under a window.

OK, let me back up a minute: I was in Canada (actually, as I write this I still am in Canada) to judge a tool-making contest for Wood Central. The judging was held in the corporate boardroom at Lee Valley Tools, and at one point Robin Lee, the president of the company, and Doug, one of Robin’s old-tool conspirators, took me aside.

“Do you want to see a Roubo workbench?” Robin asked.

My reply was something along the lines of what bears do when in they have natural urges in the woods. So after we wrapped up the judging for the day, we headed out to the antiques store. We opened the front door, and it was sitting right there – underneath some metalware, stoneware and an old sled.

So I dropped to my knees and (I know you think the next word is “prayed”) poked around the undercarriage of the bench. I can’t say how old this bench is, but I can give you some interesting details about its construction and dimensions.

Overall, this Canadian Roubo is 8' 8-1/2" long, 17" deep and 28-3/4" high. The top is 2-3/8” thick and the consensus among the group is the top is pine. There is no planing stop evident in the top, but there is lots of evidence of holdfast holes that were plugged. The top is made of two pieces. A very wide front piece and a narrow piece at the back that is joined with a square-shaped spline.

The joint is at the exact point where the rear legs pierce the top of the workbench. The rear legs are slanted (as you can see in the photo) and join the top with the exact joint that Roubo shows in his landmark 18th century woodworking book – it’s basically a through-dovetail combined with a through-tenon.

The front legs are joined to the top using this same joint. All the legs are 3" x 3" and look to be some sort of oak. The legs join the stretchers of the bench about 4" from the floor and each joint is pegged with through-pegs.

To plane long boards, there is a long stile that runs from the benchtop to the stretcher at about the midpoint of the bench’s front. The stile is pierced by numerous small holes for pegs that will support boards on edge. The far right leg is also pierced by a couple holes, though these holes were larger in diameter than those on the stile – perhaps they were for holdfasts.

The single drawer in the bench pulled right out. Inside was one small till and sliding tracks for at least two more (which were not in the drawer).

The leg vise (in the face vise position) was traditional in structure. The vise screw was wooden and quite worn (though it still worked). The nut at the rear of the jaws was detached and needed to be reattached.

The leg vise had a parallel guide that pierced the rear jaw, though its pin was long gone. The leg vise’s position on the top was quite interesting. The top cantilevered off the bench’s base on the bench’s left side by 24". On the right, only by 4". The leg vise was roughly centered on the cantilever. The lower part of the vise’s rear jaw was secured to the front leg with a strap of metal.

Overall, the bench was incredibly sturdy and showed evidence of heavy use and age. One of the members of our party asked if someone could have faked the bench or aged a newer example to look old.

While that’s always a possibility with antiques, the bench was selling for $2,000 Canadian, so if it was faked, the faker wasn’t going to be getting rich off this bench – it’s a lot of wood and there were a lot of wear marks that would have to be faked.

After about a half an hour of me making geeky statements (“Look you can see how the shell bit tore out the grain as it pierced the leg!”) I could tell it was time to go. All the members of our scouting party were standing around looking at me like my kids do when I’m on a lunatic woodworking speech.

There’s more bench news from this trip. While Lee and I were eating breakfast Saturday with Ellis Wallentine (from Wood Central) and Clarence Blanchard (a fellow judge from The Fine Tool Journal), Lee said two words between mouthfuls of eggs that has me sketching wildly this evening: “furniture” and “workbench.” More on this later topic next month.

— Christopher Schwarz, who this weekend picked up tips on teasing people on the Internet from Robin Lee, master taunter.

I've never fully understood how the U.S. Postal Service works – beyond the fact that you put an envelope in a slot here and it arrives somewhere else. This week, I don't expect any enlightenment on that mystery.

The Spring 2008 issue of Woodworking Magazine mailed out from St. Cloud, Minn., on March 17. I received my copy at my Kentucky home on Monday. Readers in New Mexico and Virginia have also gotten it, but readers in Indiana (and Australia) have not.

So the bottom line is that the magazine is still in transit to places both near and far. We're grateful for your patience with our first issue; I think you'll find it worth the wait. And if there turns out to be a problem with your subscription in the end, we'll definitely make it right.

To that end, I spent this morning enhancing one of the articles in the Spring 2008 Issue called "Understanding Western Backsaws." I converted it to a pdf and added some bookmarks and interesting external links to the story.

So to tide you over until your copy arrives in the mail, please click the link below to download the article.

Also, here is the publication schedule for the rest of 2008. After shifting around some dates, our manufacturing department has now cast these in stone (as opposed to Jell-O).

Summer 2008 issue: Starts mailing to subscribers the week of May 5.
Fall 2008 issue: Starts mailing to subscribers the week of July 14.
Winter 2008 issue: Starts mailing to subscribers the week of Nov. 24.

Kind regards,
Christopher Schwarz, editor

I'm always looking for little tricks to improve dovetailing, especially the part I dislike: transferring the tails' locations to the pin board.

Sawmaker Mike Wenzloff stumbled across this interesting short entry in William Fairham’s book “Woodwork Joints, How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used” (available for free download here at the most awesome Project Gutenberg). After describing how some woodworkers use a knife or a saw to transfer the marks, Fairham writes:

“Other workers prefer a pounce-bag instead of a saw. A pounce-bag consists of a piece of fairly open woven muslin filled with a mixture of French chalk and finely-powdered whiting; the muslin is tied up with a piece of thin twine like the mouth of a flour sack. All that is necessary is to place the timber in position and bang the bag on the top of the saw-cuts, when sufficient powder will pass through the bag and down the saw kerf to mark the exact positions of the lines.”

So it was off to the store to buy some pantyhose.

But first, we had to find whiting and French chalk. The French chalk was fairly easy – it's essentially powered talc. You can find it at the fabric stores where it is used for marking cloth. Or you can go to the pharmacy and buy baby powder, which is talc and fragrance (essence du hinder l'enfant).

Whiting was harder for us to find. It is calcium carbonate (ground chalk) and is used in preparing artist paints these days. After a couple of clueless looks and pointless phone calls, Managing Editor Megan Fitzpatrick found some at an artist supply store.

And then the muslin. Surprisingly, we're a yard short on muslin in the workshop right now. So Megan suggested I buy pantyhose for the bag. I balked a bit. So she picked out a nice pair of L'eggs Everyday knee-highs (color: nude with a sheer toe), paid the man and we were off to the races.

Now before I ruined a nice new pair of knee-highs, I decided to try some other fabrics. First up: some old surgical rags that former Senior Editor David Thiel brought into the shop about 10 years ago. It actually was too coarse and the powder went flying.

Then I tried an athletic sock (I use them to transport my block planes to shows and classes). Bingo. It deposited a fine dusting of powder when I whacked the sock on the dovetails.

As I was experimenting with the different whacking forces and whacking vectors, I cleaned off the pin board after each whack with a little water and a rag. And that water seemed to make the powder even easier to see.

Then I tried marking some knife lines and just whacking those (seeing knife lines in walnut is really hard for me). That worked, too. The resulting pins were easy to see and to saw. I'm going to have to experiment with the technique some more, but it's another thing to tuck into your bag of tricks (or your nude, sheer-toe knee-highs).

— Christopher Schwarz

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