CTWoodWkr

I don't understand Lie-Nielsen's recent decision to only sell their tools directly to customers and discontinue selling through retailers such as Woodcraft. However I won't buy Woodriver tools which are obvious Chinese copies of Lie-Nielsen planes. Lie-Nielsen Toolworks is an American company employing American craftsmen producing very high quality tools. I use their tools in my furniture business every day. Of course, the price is higher than a Chinese knock off but quality and value not price should be the priority when purchasing woodworking tools. Everyday I try to educate my clients about my handcrafted furniture and why they should buy quality and value from a local craftsman. It would be incredibly hypercritical to build their furniture using imported tools made with cheap foreign labor. As a US citizen, I will continue to buy from Lie-Nielsen and support American jobs. It is time we stop exporting the jobs of our fellow craftsmen. When we demand to buy on low price alone we end up cheating ourselves and our fellow Americans.

I hope adding my two cents will be helpful in this discussion. After a lot of experimenting I've developed an easy and quick method of sharpening and cambering my smooth plane blades. I use sandpaper sharpening on a stone surface plate with the Veritas MK II honing guide and camber roller. After honing at the finest grit (2000 wet/dry paper), I hold the blade vertically and gently round off the corners. Next, I change the honing guide roller to the cambering roller. I put pressure with one finger in the middle of the blade and make five strokes pulling toward myself but not pushing forward. Then I move about one quarter from the outside for five more strokes on both the left and the right. Lastly, I move my finger pressure to the extreme outside corner and make ten strokes on the left and right. I then repeat the same process using Lee Valley's green honing compound on a 3" x 8" piece of MDF. This whole thing goes much faster then this description and produces blades that cut smoothly with out blade marks. I use this routine for bevel down planes and haven't found it necessary to to change it for different types of planes. I don't try to camber bevel up planes because I would then damage the flat side of the blade which is the reference side from which to measure the bevel angle. By the way, if you are a new to sharpening, the sandpaper method using wet/dry silicon carbide paper is the least expensive, no maintenance and easiest way to get a very sharp edge.

I understand your point about links after all this is a major underlying concept of the world wide web, however I've notice a trend among commercial websites that they don't include a links page. Maybe the idea is not to loose or confuse a potential customer or prevent comparisons with competitors. I have a links page but not sure what sites I should link to. What do you think?

This Pro blog is long overdue but greatly welcomed. I would like to see lots of marketing ideas. Word of mouth is the best advertising but getting it started is really tough. By the way, I think there are many more pros reading FWW then your reader polls show. I've visited many pro shops and have seen FWW being used there. I refer to FWW almost every day.

I copied this article many years ago when I started my custom furniture business and tacked it on the wall next to my desk. I refer to often and it helps by giving me a morale boost when business is slow. Mike Dunbar is also an excellent writer and I would like to see more of him in future FWW issues and Pro Shop blogs.

I did a lot of shopping and comparing features of table saws when I set up my workshop. Most european saws are right tilt and have the Unifence type of rip fence with the high/low fence position feature so thin rips can be made at 45 deg. without cutting into the fence. On the other hand, it makes sense to use a Beisemeyer type of fence for left tilt saws because the blade tilts away from the fence. There has been a lot controversy over the safety of right vs. left tilt saws. It seems to me that the problem is to use the correct fence - Unifence type for right tilt, Beisemeyer type for left tilt. I hope Delta doesn't discontinue the Unifence - it is an excellent design and very well built.

I was lucky that a friend gave me an early '60's Delta Rockwell 10" radial arm saw. It is very heavy cast iron and very well built. I stripped it down to nuts and bolts, cleaned, lubed, repainted, and had a local motor shop install new bearings. Because it is three phase, I bought a static phase converter. I built a bench for the saw under my lumber rack and built a adjustable fence using Kreg toptrack and flip stops. I also built a dust hood to connect to my central dust collector.
I use it almost every day in my custom furniture shop both for rough cutting boards at the start of a project and fine crosscutting when the table saw is busy. For crosscutting the RAS can't be beat.
The Delta turret design works very well and is easily adjusted. Some users say that it doesn't hold it's settings but my saw is still cutting as straight and square as the day I first set it up. Inexperienced RAS owners may have trouble at first because setup requires adjusting three parameters: square to the fence, square to the table, and removing any heeling (blade angled left or right as it travels across the table. Use a dial gauge.
I think the saw got a bad reputation resulting from saw manufacturers when their marketing departments promoted the RAS as a do everything saw. While you could use it for ripping, I wouldn't recommend it. I only use it for crosscutting and mitering.
Finally, I believe safety can't be built into a tool. Woodworking requires tools with sharp blades to do the job and entails some risk. Safe shop procedures are the result of proper training and experience. Sure, technology such as SawStop is great step forward, however there will never be a device invented to protect a fool from himself.

Although I have the greatest respect for Gary Rogowski, (I own several of his books and read his articles in FWW), the idea of spring joints is a myth that has been passed on from one woodworker to the next. This was taught to me in a weekend workshop by Frank Klausz. He was adamant that an edge joint should be made completely straight and smooth so that the glue can do its job.
My procedure is to first, flatten and square the boards on the jointer, then using a shooting board and a No. 7 plane I smooth the edge to remove any machine marks left from the jointer. The boards meet perfectly straight and square.
The reason often given for a spring joint is end grain moisture loss. However, most woodworkers use kiln dried lumber with moisture content of 8-10%. The wood will not dry out any more and may gain moisture depending on climate conditions. Another reason not to make a spring joint is that at this stage of the building process most woodworkers are gluing boards with rough measurements to allow for trimming to final dimensions after glue-up. When you do cut the panel square then you have lost the compressed ends that you have so carefully built in.
The spring joint idea may be an old technique leftover from an era before lumber was commonly kiln dried. It might have made sense for those craftsmen who were working with air dried or green wood. One last point - the glues we are using today are very strong and reliable compared to the hide glue of the past. Make your edge joints straight, square, smooth, use good clamping technique, put glue on both edges so you get a small amount of squeeze-out and you will have made a strong edge joint.