Just now carving is at the top of my “learn a new thing” list. It’s not easy to discover what tools are needed for which carving styles as the many experts seem to offer conflicting advice. Indeed, many of them end up saying that carving is such an individual thing that each carver must essentially discover hs own preferences.
So, what a great facility to have the loan of a large range of carving chisels with which to play and discover one’s needs or preferences. Mike Wenzloff has lent me a set of over 30 Pfeils with which to discover what profiles would best suit my “carving A&C motifs” ambitions. Without such an opportunity I would be having to buy-and-try which could get expensive but, more to the point, end up in a row of largely redundant carving chisels festooning my shed.
Now, this “act of kindness” seems to me a great model that we Knoters could adopt and expand. Of course there has to be a relationship of trust for such lends to go on. (Trust means having evidence of good intent, by the way, not blind faith). Also, there are postage costs, which I regard as a “hiring fee” exchanged for the opportunity to do some trying-out.
It only really makes sense to send a tool to another person to try (especially if they live on another continent) if the tool has a high value. Cheap tools to try-out might as well be bought locally, if the price is less than or equal to postage costs of borrowing one from elsewhere.
*****
I’d be interested to know if other Knoters think such a scheme is workable; and how it might be implemented to reduce costs and obviate the risk of a naughty fellow making a “permanently-keep” situation out of a “temporary-lend” intent.
As a starter (although Mike Wenzloff is the real instigator) I offer:
* A Veritas small BU smoother with two blades (high & low cutting angles) – for someone to try who is intrigued by BU planes but is wary of coughing up the money for an LN or LV without being sure the design would suit them.
* A Jesada cope/stick/panel cutting router bit set (which I have hardly used as I liked a CMT set much better) for someone who might like to try router-cut frame & panel joinery.
As I don’t really need either of these items anymore, I forsee them as “Knots-lend” items that may be passed around a few folk who each might give them a work-out before passing them on to another, meanwhile deciding whether they will now buy their own or not.
All thoughts and observations welcome.
Lataxe
Replies
Ah , Lataxe ,
Well, you asked for thoughts and observations :
I do like the idea and agree with you that the intention must be the right for one to feel secure in the transaction of lending .
However I observed the absence of the herd from the offerings , as the Marcous are the tool I would really love to try , my intentions are good , I offer my first born as collateral please take me up .
That was very generous of Mike , hey he also lives here in Oregon I would be willing to pick the Marcou up from Mike when you send back his carving tools .
I'm glad we got that worked out , thank you
dusty , who has a special set of tools just for loaning
While I admire Mike Wenzloff's largess, I'm of the Ben Franklin school - Neither a (tool) borrower, nor a (tool) lender be. ;-)
Ralph-Franklin may have said it, but I think you'll find that Polonius, in Hamlet, said the borrower/lender adage before Ben.Don
Back when books were the tools of my trade I learned that generosity comes back to bite you. Nobody returns books. Slightly Foxed publishes a nicely printed ancient booklender's curse for inclusion with a loan. You might want to adapt it for tools.
"For him that stealeth a book from this Library, let it change into a Serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with Palsy and all his members blasted. Let him languish in Pain crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no Surcease to his Agony, till he sink to dissolution. Let Bookworms gnaw his Entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his final Punishment let the flames of Hell consume him forever and aye."
Of course it wouldn't work on me. Books whose owners think so little of them that they lend them out deserve to rub shoulders with leather-bound special editions in my air-conditioned, UV-protected, glass-fronted beeswax-polished cherry bookshelves. Same with carving tools. Those orphan Pfeils belong in the same toolroll with my shiny Ashley Iles.
BTW could you see your way clear to lending me that Sheppach saw? You've persuaded me that it's better than mine, and I can no longer do without it. And it's not much use without a decent selection of sharp blades...
But don't let the cynics drag you down!
Jim
Jim,
Tool borrower's curse, taken from the lid of an old chest:
Whoever borrows aught from out this case
And, having used it, puts it back in place,
That true and proper craftsman rightly bred
Will always hit the nail upon the head.
But he who takes the saw and hammer out
And leaves them anywhere-the shiftless lout!
I hope today and all the days to come
Will hit the nail upon the thumb!
Ray
Dusty,
No Marcous for you as you would only wear them out and I would just get the remnants returned. Also, I need every one all the time, oh yes I do. (Fondling, drooling over and so forth as well as cutting shavings).
Ralph,
Cynicism is a sad thing to see in a chap, especially when it was borrowed from some dead old bloke of a Puritanical bent. :-)
Jim,
I lend and borrow books all the time. Of course, I keeps lists and go around collecting, should a rascal be over long in reading one. I always return what I borrow, especially when threatened with physical violence. You can borrow that Scheppach when I've finished with it. But send the postage now. ($1487).
Ray,
I takes it you can't wait to try them cope&stick router cutters. It is too late for the BU plane as you've made your own. (Perhaps you will do the same with router cutters)?
*****
Meanwhile, I notice this:
http://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=27239
Lataxe the lender.
Lataxe,
A truly interesting article. The most interesting to me though, was this comment:
"The backs are then slowly hand ground to avoid heating the steel again so when they leave the factory they should be within a minute or two's work of 1/10 of a mm hollow over their length. Please don't flatten them any further than 1/10mm - the hollow is enough to facilitate very fast sharpening but it's effect on the accuracy of the tool (in the order of 1/100th of a mm per cm of cut) is not significant. "
I would like to see the geometry that was used to calculate these results. I have no quibble with them, just would like to see how it was done.
Also, this "lack" of a perfectly flat back is something that I have seen expounded on in several places, the one that first comes to mind is Adam Cherubini's and his shop-made chisels of 17th century design. Watching him work with them at the "woodworking in America" conference was intriguing. Still, the issue is back flatness, and how flat is "flat enough". David Charlesworth has also said that a slight hollow is acceptable, though he did not define "slight".
Curious, as this is the first tolerancing for chisel back flatness that I can remember seeing.
What are your thoughts?
Mike
Mike,
I confess to chisel-back naughtiness; to get rid of the rounded parts at the business end of polished two-cherries chisels I gave them a tidgy bit of Charlesworth ruler trick, which he says (most loudly) is for plane blades only. Guess what? It seemed to have no effect on the ability of the chisel to flatten tenons and other work where the flat back is used to "jig" the chisel. Of course, that tiny back-bevel probably raises the cutting edge by about 1 micron (although I ain't done the trigonometry either). :-)
When the Sprucers came they were already flat in the back so they just get kept that way. (A token pass or two of the back over the 8000 grit diamond plate, when it comes time for a re-hone of the edge).
In fact, only the last inch of a chisel-back (or thereabouts) next to the cutting edge needs to be flat anyway - at least for the work I do with chisels. The rest of it could be a corkscrew. Now, I understand that pattern makers and carpenters might need a longer bit of flat on their chisels to jig them as they require. But it seems a rare need in furniture making - that inch or so is enough for just about every cabinet-related chisel task. (Of course, several lads will now find counterpoints to that bold statement).
***
Perhaps the Iles hollow-back idea is a Western version of the Japanese approach to chisels, which puts large hollows in the back to allow easier flattening of the rock 'ard steel used on that side? Them waterstones is a bit soft and wear quicker than the fine diamond plates I prefers meself. As long as there's enough flat next-the-edge, that bit of hollow won't matter, will it? I can imagine a convex back being a more difficult issue.
*****
This week I've been sharpening carving chisels, where one deliberately introduces slightly convex bevels and flatness seems redundant. I tried paring a flat surface with one - no good. So, some degree of flatness next to the edge is needed in joint-making and other linear-furniture-part making. But how much? Apparently, the whole of the chisel's back doesn't need to attain that super-flatness from tip to ferrule.
Lataxe, just thinking out loud and awaiting flak.
lataxe,
do you, as i, sharpen your carving chisels entirely by hand? the backs of all of my chisels are somewhat convex. i can't say that this has ever been a problem. by convex i mean the bevels are all somewhat dubbed. this just seems to go with hand sharpening gouges, v-chisels and the like, by hand.
(lord help me, but i hope this dub-talk doesn't bring down the house.)
eef
Eef,
Yes, despite my lazy inclination to look for a machine-sharpening method, I've been practicing by sharpening a cheap set of carving chisels (12 for £27) using various hand techniques.
Mostly I've ended up using four grades of diamond, which come on flat lollypop sticks, to take out the grinder marks and make shiny flat or slightly convex bevels. These diamond sicks can do everything except inside curves. The bevels get a final polish with handheld bits of microgrit papers, up to 6,000 grit. I might make some microgrit lollypop sticks as they are easily applied to the bevel.
For the inside curves I've wrapped microgrit papers around various diameters of dowel to make small sharpening fids. I also use some rounded-edge rubber sanding blocks with the microgrit papers to polish the inside curve of the gouges' blade.
At present the big question is: secondary bevels on the insides or not?
The harder timbers do seem to break down the ultra sharpness of 22 - 23 degree main bevels quite quickly, even when there is no malleting. I get tiny bits of breaking-off at the edges but no rolled edge (the steel seems quite hard). I gawps at them edges down a 10X jeweller's eyeglass, as I need to understand what's going on at this stage in my "larn to sharpen carvers" process.
Of course, these are cheap chisels so the steel is not likely to be the best. It does seem rather brittle in fact, albeit the edges are supersharp to begin with. I'm about to subject one of Mike's Pfeils to a test, to see how the (reputedly softer) steel of them does with the hardwoods. I read that it will do better as it doesn't get those micro-fractures at the edge; but that it needs more regular stropping. I shall be gawping down me jeweller's peer-glass at one.
It's taken a few hours to get through the first six cheap chisels, including some re-shaping of the straights and skew on a Tormek and "testing" the results by making various types of carving-style cuts. But I've learnt a lot so far. Also, once the bevel is shaped and polished I understand that one may carve lots of stuff and keep "sharp" by regular stropping/honing, before any reshaping is needed......?
Lataxe, nearly ready to carve in ernest.
Lataxe, nearly ready to carve in ernest.
A song to play while learning..
Three Drunken Maidens - Dave Swarbrick and Simon Nicol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rERAgBMDNQ
Sharpening opens up a real can of worms. At one end of the spectrum you have Chris Pye, whose website offers a free download on how to to sharpen the V-tool -- over 100 pages in pdf. At the other is Nora Hall, whose first video offers about 5 minutes on how to sharpen all your tools. Her entire arsenal consists of 2 slipstones, a can of 1-2-3 household oil, and a piece of old belt. Me, I'm fer Nora -- virtuosity over verbosity. Both advocate the inside bevel. I find it hard to use a chisel upside down without it, and it's supposed to strengthen the edge.
Jim
jim,
good morning. i use nora's technique also. i still have the piece of "old belt" she gave me. recently i sharpened four of my hand planes using the progressive-sandpaper-to-2000grit-on-a-very-flat-surface technique and i was much pleased with the results.
eef
lataxe,
when i first started carving, any info i could glean came from what few book were available. so i "learned" to sharpen by proxy. a good henry taylor cost 10 to 15 bucks then. i was single with no kids therefore i had money. i bought lots of chisels none of which were sharp, let alone polished. i spent many hours "sharpening." when i finished, all of my edges were double-beveled and somewhat sharp. all of my carving efforts, although i tried hard, were really, really sad looking. i went looking for a teacher and when we met she asked what chisels did i have and might she take a look at them. after her inspection she looked at me with what i remeber was pity and said "all of your edges are double-beveled." i know now that her pity extended to the fact that she knew that i was going to be at sharpening for quite some time to come.
all of this is to say that, although i'd be hard-pressed to explain scientifically why double bevels are evil, i now avoid them at all costs.
by the way, have you had any success sharpening the v-chisel? they're a real pain. i only learned to do it well a few years ago! i was taught to begin most every relief carving employing this chisel, and my sharpening of it was hit and miss for years.
eef
p.s. i forgot to say, the double bevel which caused nora so much consternation was the outside one. she always had me put a slight bevel on the inside of the chisel.
Edited 1/23/2009 12:36 pm ET by Eef
Lataxe,
O.K. O.K. I understand no Marcous are part of this offer , well enough.
I thought of another ,, don't you have one of those wood rodent router thangs ? I could use one for a job I'm looking at bidding on currently , would it be easier to loan the router thangy jig then the madcows ?
Now I should give you a list of items I would be willing to include as well , but somehow even though you have no idea what I may have , I would guess there was nothing you would want to want from the likes of a lowly boxmaker .
dusty , boxmaker will / may travel with tooling
I have allowed friends to come and use equipment, tools, and shop space, but my tools never leave my sight anymore. I make my living with them, and won't let them grow happy little feet.
Isn't that what a ball peen hammer is for?? Whacking the stray hands that find their way to my toolbox. I never could 'peen' for a darn...
Jeff...... a stingy non-lender
Lataxe old buddy, I'm afraid I have always reminded fellow woodworkers known for their, ahem, habit of 'borrowing' tools in workshops I've worked in that if they don't want broken fingers they should never let them stray near my toolbox.
I guess I'm not likely to wing any of my tatty collection of misfits over the Pennines to your crowded shed, ha, ha. Slainte.
Richard Jones Furniture
In hind sight I would have given fifty bucks to borrow a handsaw(s) that cut right. I didn't know it then. I thought it was me or something. Even expensive saws were not right as you know if you have read my drivel over the last year.
So you are doing a great service !
A couple of other things:
Toshio Odate was always put off when people came to his demonstrations and they would walk over and pick up his tools and feel them etc. He said he felt like asking them how they would feel if he were to go over to their wives and started squeezing them to see what they felt like. And I can relate. Tools you spend all day with get personal and/or irreplaceable.
At work I could count on one finger the number of people, over many many people that we have cycled through, our turn over is like a bus station, who I could count on to put the tools they were assigned back let alone the ones they EXPECTED ME TO LEND THEM FROM MY BOX just cause they did not feel like making a tiny investment in their own.
It is kind of the "If you knew how to use this you would already have one" and "since you don't know how to use it and are too A.D.D. to learn how from me then I aint' lending you mine" sineriao. Young whipper snappers anyway.
HHHAAARRRUUUUMPPH !
Nope. Now I just look at them as if they had asked me to pick up their dog's droppings.
Or the short version is : I am glad there are nice people like you in the world and good luck getting your tools back.
roc
lataxe,
i seldom say no when asked for the loan of a tool. the most satisfying of these transactions are those by which the recipient is pushed over the edge, so to speak, and this loan helps him to achieve greater, sought after skills. when this happens i feel benefitted also.
the least satisfying of these transactions occurs when the recipient does not appreciate the meanings that are implied or is insensitive to the intent.
one sees a need and the means to assist (which is also a given) and one responds. the spirit of the loan was given so that relationship might deepen.
somehow when intent is in the right place, i always seem to recover whatever was loaned out.
eef
My reply is that I would not borrow, if given the opportunity a set of over 30 Pfeils, with which to discover what profiles would best suit my "carving A&C motifs" ambitions. I could never bring myself to sharpen one if it needed it. I would be afraid I would ruin the tool!
I lone tools all the time. OK, only when somebody asks. I am however, not afraid to go look for them if necessary! I can be quite a pest when it comes to my tools!
I only had one real problem once. The man had died and the wife insisted the tool was her husbands. I left without saying more. Not her fault for not knowing the real owner.
It was an old Brown & Sharp milling machine I reconditioned at great cost (by my standards)! Such is life. I am sure the wife really thought it was his. I could have gotten a lawyer and all my receipts but I thought she had enough problems. Been there and did that. I hardly ever used it anyway.
Thinkin' a bit more on it... Having a set of over 30 Pfeils would probably NOT improve my carving skills anyway! User NOT the tools!
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