woodworking, planemaking, and full-on rambling

Last year when I introduced the DT planes, I had a tough time working out what to call them. Genetically, the planes are an outgrowth of the traditional british thumb plane, but there are pretty substantial differences compared to, say, a Norris 32.

Most significantly, the DT series wedge and front bun are designed for significantly different ergonomics than a traditional thumb plane – with the goal being a range of grips that are comfortable and allow very subtle control both one- and two- handed.

After my initial post about these planes, UK carpenter Greg Reid contacted me with a brilliant suggestion: why not call them ‘index’ planes? In well under a second I’d bought into the idea completely. It describes the critical control focus (the index finger rather than thumb), but also conveys a sense of precision that I think gets at the sort of picture I have of the planes.

So: index planes they are. Thanks Greg – easily the best suggestion I’ve ever received through my blog.

Around the same time, another client asked me if I could imagine a slight redesign of the DT-1 sidewalls that would have a more traditional ‘feel’ than the very modern lines on the original. I liked the idea, and loved the final plane. Here’s a shot of both versions of the DT-1 in ironwood to show the sidewall differences clearly. The DT-1 modern is in the foreground, and the DT-1 traditional in the rear.

I honestly cannot decide which I prefer – so I’ll be making both styles. Which brings me to:

PLANE FOR SALE: DT-2 traditional profile.

This is the first plane I’ve made in the larger DT-2 size with this profile. The plane has a 1-1/2-inch blade, a sole length of 6-1/2″, and weighs about 2 lbs. 4 oz. African blackwood infills.

It’s a sick plane, if I do say so myself.

Price: $1700. I still need to build a mallet for the plane, so it will be available for shipping by the end of next week.

First ‘I’ll take it’ email gets it. raney@daedtoolworks.com

Punk at its heart is a blood-n-spit forged radical commitment to integrity. It’s a full-force head-butt to a mass-produced culture that degrades our humanity and a caste system sewn in niceties, innuendoes, and euphemism.

It’s not nice and it’s certainly not subtle. But true? Aye – it’s that. Always that.

— Stew Napalm, aka Stuart Daedalus

How was Handworks? Well – other than Narayan Nayar wussing out on a crowd-surfing opportunity – it was pure punk.

And for those of you who don’t know me – that’s about as high praise as I get. If I rotated on an axis, its poles would be Punk and Zen.

Handworks was chest-thumping, adrenaline-pumping Peace with a capital P.

Was it good for business? Probably. But – and you’ll have to trust me on this one – that’s not why I went, or why it was worth every second. I went because it was a chance to be immersed in craftsmanship with some of the most talented people I know.

And to me, the real value of this sort of event is not what I learn there, what I buy there, or what I sell there. The real value for me is what I bring home with me. Pure, unbridled enthusiasm. I came home from handworks exhausted, spent, and positively on fire with the urge to make mind-blowing stuff, to get better at it and to see if I can impress myself. I got home and couldn’t wait to dive into my shop and create something.

Radical dharma in a bottle. As a verb. Present tense.

Thanks to Jameel, Fr. John, and (because no one ever does anything alone in their family – or in this world) the entire Abraham clan. Now get to work on 2015.

One of them’s sold, one’s mine, and one is the ‘door prize’ at Handworks.

Which one’s earning me bupkis? Here’s some clues specifically geared to anyone educated in the US public schools. There will be (multiple choice) test.

Come by the booth and see me if you’re going to Amana. I will NOT be the guy in the Grateful Dead T-shirt.

And if you’re not going to Amana, I’ll try not to laugh at your misfortune. Or your haircut.

More regular blog stuff soon – I promise.

So here we are, dear reader, at that point of the year when all good neurotics re-evaluate everything about their life, mode of being, relationships, vices, and position in the world. Personally, I’ve only got one area of my life that gets any degree of reflection beyond “I think I’ll have a sammich” and that’s my shop life.

And in this process, I’ve decided to sell a few of my personal planes that, frankly, I just don’t use anymore. I’m not very interested in much more than getting these out of my shop and (hopefully) into one where they’ll see some use, and rather than think much about it I’m just selling these at half the regular price.

Just to be clear – all these are excellent workers, and all have seen significant use in my shop and at demos and shows. Specifics on each tool are addressed below.

Also – before anyone asks: this is it. There is not a stash of ‘other’ planes I’m selling, or a ‘seconds’ bin – please don’t ask.

First person to email me to say they want one of these gets it. You can see larger images by clicking any of the photos below.

edit: SOLD
PLANE A:
a 1″ mitre plane. Ebony infill. This is the only mitre I’ve made to include a lever cap – which is either a ‘plus’ or a ‘minus’ depending on how you feel about lever caps and the aesthetics. Personally, I prefer a wedge – but for sheer function, this is a really nice feature. It’s also one of only a handful of planes I’ve made out of stainless steel (304).

I used this plane pretty extensively for several years, but between the new DT-1 and the slightly larger 1-1/4″ mitre I made earlier this year, this plane has become superfluous. $800.

edit: SOLD
PLANE B: another 1″ mitre – this one a wedged version with Brazilian Rosewood.

This was one of the first planes I made in this style, and there are a couple of subtle aesthetic differences between it and the newer mitre planes.

First is that it’s about 1/2″ longer than I now make these.

Second is that it uses slightly smaller bolts for securing infills.

Subtle details, but they are noticeable to me. As mentioned above, I really don’t find myself using this size plane these days, so it’s gotta go.
$800.

edit: SOLD

PLANE C: This one is the development prototype plane for the DT-1 – infill is Macassar Ebony.

There are some slight design differences, and one functional apology to note.

The most significant aesthetic difference is that this plane has a closed rear, whereas the final designed is open at the back (under the blade).

Functionally, this plane has a very open mouth. My tolerance for mouth openings is about 4-8 thousandths of an inch – this plane has an opening that’s more along the lines of 30 thou.

For all intents and purposes, the mouth opening is too large to function as a tearout-reduction strategy.

For most purposes, and in the vast majority of woods, this is a non-issue – but it will affect performance in the toughest woods.

$925.

Again – email me if interested. And there you have it dear reader. Happy New Year!

PS – I’m also longing to get rid of my massive, idle, and space-hogging Brown and Sharpe no. 10 OD/ Tool & Cutter grinder. If anyone is interested – and can come GET IT – just drop me a line.

Brace yourselves, gentle readers. Two blog postings in one month – I know, right?

First things first – For those needing further proof that the map is indeed not the territory, today it was discovered that tearing off the last page of the Mayan calendar didn’t actually cause the cessation of the human species. Good News – unless of course you’re Mayan and have to date a check. But for the rest of us, it’s smiley emoticons all round.

So, being still here, and on solid temporal ‘ground’, I thought I’d celebrate by introducing a pair of new plane models.

A few months back, I put together a blog post dealing with the concept of design. There were a few reasons for this, foremost being that at that point I was knee-deep in trying to design a new thumb plane.

Around that time, I’d worked out a drawing that I liked – shown at right – and had made a first-run prototype. Between the two, I’d come to a design I was quite happy with, and I’d also worked out a somewhat larger version as well.

So here are the fruits of my labor. The Daed Toolworks DT-1 and DT-2 planes, shown – well, throughout this whole damn post. The smaller DT-1 is 5-1/2″ long at the sole and has a 1-1/4″ blade. Its larger brother, the DT-2, is 6-1/2″ long, with a 1-1/2″ blade.

Just a word about nomenclature here. I’m referring to these as block/thumb planes because I frankly don’t really know what else to call them. In use, they’re designed to do the same sort of work that most of us use a block plane for – chamfering, smoothing small areas, tuning joinery, and all manner of odd jobs. In the history of infill planes, however, I think this sort of tool falls loosely under the thumb and chariot plane heading. From a design standpoint, I don’t think they really look much like common models in either camp.

But for the sake of giving some sort of explanation as to their likely use – block/thumb plane it is.

In designing these, the criteria for me was to make a plane that was compact and ergonomically designed for both one- and two-handed use. Along the way I also wanted to see if I could stretch the aesthetics of my current work just a bit more.

I’m including a number of photos of the planes with a few of the more common handholds. I find these extremely comfortable, and to be honest I couldn’t be happier from an ergonomic standpoint. Please resist the urge to sign me up for a manicure.

I’ll be adding some info on these to my website over the next couple of weeks, but I wanted to at least get them posted to the blog before the year slips away. For those interested, the DT-1 is going to be priced at $1850, and the DT-2 at $2050.

Here’s wishing everyone the finest of holiday seasons. I’m looking forward to some time with my family, and some time in the shop. I’m taking a two-week hiatus from planemaking to actually do a bit of actual woodworking. Huzzah!

A couple of weeks ago, the hipster geniuses at Tools for Working Wood sent out a new publication called ‘Modern Edge Tools’. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can download it from their site. Personally, I think it’s worth every second you can spare. I defy anyone to read “Saw Veneer in your Spare Time” and not marvel at the human spirit and laugh at human folly. Brilliant stuff.

Maybe even better than the print, though, are the videos that accompany it on the company’s MET page. Last summer, TFWW’s Ben Seltzer took a trip to the UK and shot video of the toolmaking operations at a trio of old-school operations: Clico/Clifton, Ray Iles, and Ashley Iles. Anyone who has even a passing interest in toolmaking and craftsmanship should watch them.

After a serious rinse/repeat cycle from Mother Nature this year, Brooklyn’s best tool vendor deserves a huge round of applause for their work. In addition to being damn funny, Joel and crew have a positive genius for reintroducing historical practices, tools, and techniques to the modern handtool world. They make the best production backsaws I’ve ever used, they resurrected the turning saw for the new millennium, and if you are reading this blog it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re using their holdfasts (and that you probably hadn’t ever used a holdfast before they brought them back to popularity).

Watch the videos. Read the booklet. And have a merry merry Xmas.

So by now, I suppose it’s possible you may have heard about Handworks 2013.

If you have an internet connection, you’ll want to check out Handworks.co

If you don’t have an internet connection, you’re not reading this. And in that case, I should like to say that I never liked you much.

Handworks is, simply, going to kick every anatomical component that’s kickable on a PG-13 rated blog. No fees, no fluff, nothing but a metric fulcrumload of handtool makers and crafstmen getting together in a huge barn as far from law enforcement as possible for the purpose of doing what they do.

Handworks 2013. Seriously – you should be there. Even if it means a divorce, you should be there. In fact, just don’t call in to work, steal your brother-in-law’s mobile home, and bring your neighbor’s alpacas with you. Cause after this weekend, when the mothership beams you back home freshly probed and cryogenically suspended, the high point of your life will already have happened anyway.

I get exasperated when I hear woodworker’s say they ‘can’t design’. Furniture-making is design. Toolmaking as well. Can’t do it well without a good design sense. I think anyone who believes they can’t design has fundamentally misunderstood what design is.

There is a persistent myth out there that design is something you’re either born with or not. Overexposure to Krenov books sometimes leads to this notion.

I disagree. Anyone can design. It’s not magic. It’s work.

So since I’m feeling feisty today, here’s Nelson’s Universal Design Method(ology).

STEP ONE: draw

No – even better: sketch. A lot. Want to design a table? Sketch about a thousand tables. 20 seconds for each sketch, MAX. Do twenty or thirty every day. Do them on business cards in the doctor’s office. A napkin at the bar. Toilet paper in… you get the picture.

Somewhere in that thousand, there’s going to be one (maybe two if you’re a prodigy) that has ‘something’ in it. A lean, an attitude, an ‘air’.

Something in that sketch will say: I AM INSPIRATION. WORSHIP ME. MAKE ME. Listen to it.

Because this is the part no one can explain, but everyone worries about. Where the ‘inspiration’ comes from. You can go for walks in the woods, scour the internet, or take a weekend course in creative visualization to get there if you like, but in the end you are going to have to make those thousand (give or take) sketches. Everyone does.

STEP TWO: draw

Now you’ve got your inspiration. Here’s the part that counts – the part you don’t read about in the design articles in the magazine. The Work.

Draw it again.

This time take five minutes per drawing. Try to reproduce that special ‘thing’ about the sketch. It’ll take more than one try – trust me. Do it as many times as you need to. Eventually you’ll get something sort’ve like the first, but a little clearer. Cleaner. And you’ll have a MUCH better handle on just what it was you liked. You might even be able to ‘name’ it. If so – Congratulations! Now you can ‘speak’ design.

STEP THREE: draw.

Now take your slightly more detailed drawing and redraw that. This time with precision. Do it on graph paper, with rulers and to exact scale. Or on a computer program – CAD, sketchup, Illustrator; whatever. You won’t get this part done first try either. You’re trying to convert your idea to a mechanical drawing, and finding out the limitations of the ‘lean’, the ‘attitude’, the ‘air’ you have been trying to bring along. You’ll probably find at this point that the ‘attitude’ has become MUCH less extreme than the original sketch. That’s good. Restraint happens automatically here.

Rinse and repeat.

Once you’ve got that done, you’re almost home free. Now you just have to make it.

STEP FOUR: Make

If this is for your living room, and not a showroom or architectural digest – and if it’s fairly straightforward – then what are you waiting for? This is what you spent all those hours learning to saw and carve and plane and join for. Make it. Create it. You’re a MAKER.

STEP FIVE (advanced): remake

If you’re planning on selling it, or if you just think the design itself is worth really going ‘all in’, or even if you just want people to call your design things like: “refined”, “fully-realized”, and “incredibly coherent”, then here’s the ultimate secret. Ready? You sure?

Make it at least three times.

It’s well worth considering making the first one or two out of cheap, easy material. Cardboard and plywood; poplar and clay; sticks; mud; whatever. In the design world, the technical term for this is a ‘mock-up’. It helps.

it’s a lot faster and cheaper than making it out of mahogany.

Talk to some really first-rate furnituremakers. I’m betting nine out of ten of them use mockups of one sort or other most of the time. In my experience the link between ‘great designer’ and ‘mockups out the wazoo’ is a shocking correlation. Personally, I take that to mean something.

So there you go. Nelson’s Universal Design Method. I named it, so it must be mine – right?

Am I exaggerating here? Yes. A bit.

Not much, really.

Here’s a cool piece from the Popular Woodworking editors’ blog where Brian Boggs discusses design. He’s probably worth listening to.

And if you care for some more detailed – and well-thought-out – ideas on design, Tom over at the Millcrek blog wrote up a really good introduction to design just last week.

And I hope it goes without saying that you might want to read George Walker’s excellent Design Matters blog – incomparable repository for learning the fundamental skills of design (the ‘seeing stuff’ part and the vocabulary) and to get a picture of how to ‘think’ design.

Enjoy.

I don’t do a whole lot of review and recommendation writing on here, but on occasion something comes along that I’m so enthusiastic about that I feel the need to post about it.

Even though it’s been a few years since I managed to post frequently about it, the kumiko and shoji work on my blog still garners a lot of traffic. I don’t attribute this to my skills at either blogging or the work itself so much as the real lack of solid instructional information that’s available, particularly when it comes to decorative kumiko work.

So I was thrilled earlier this year when I saw that Des King had published a new book on the subject. I ordered it on the spot from Amazon.

So how does this compare to previous works on the subject? Well – for anyone interested in this sort of work, this is simply the most detailed and comprehensive introduction available. While I am a great fan of Toshio Odate’s Making Shoji, I have to say that for those interested in actually doing shoji and kumiko work I find King’s new treatise clearly better.

Odate’s text still reigns as an introduction to the spirit and attitude of the japanese doormaker of the past – and it remains worth the cost just for the descriptions of Odate’s own apprenticeship. But for sheer techniques and methodology, King’s book is vastly more detailed and comprehensive. Where Odate is part good-read with instructional details interspersed, King has delivered the definitive manual for the craftsman interested in learning the traditional methods.

The long and short of it is that King (who trained in a traditional program for shoji and kumiko work in Toyama, Japan) takes a remarkably no-nonsense approach to every aspect of the work. There is none of the ‘spirit of the tools’ discussion that plagues so much of japanese woodworking material. But at the same time, there is no ‘westernization’ of the methods and techniques in here. The traditional methods and design are upheld completely. While the author covers the typical japanese tools used incredibly well, he also points out where suitable western equivalents will work well, and the cases where there really is no suitable substitution. The book also includes what I consider by far the single finest english language introduction to kanna (japanese planes) ever written. For that alone, I think the purchase price is well-justified.

This book is Volume I. King plans two additional volumes as well. There is a gallery of the projects covered in this (and future) texts available at Des and Mariko King’s website. The volumes are all self-published to allow him to retain complete control over the material, but can be ordered from Amazon in the US.

I’ve communicated off and on with King via email for a few years now, and I have always found him to be an invaluable resource. His website is a feast of visual and written information, particularly on complex kumiko design. It’s impossible to view it without seeing his commitment and skill. This new book takes it a step further. I cannot recommend a book more highly than this one.

Subtlety is just bull$%!t in evening wear
— anon.

Greetings, dear reader. After a hellish few days toiling away making coarse physical objects and wasting all that potential for ‘intellectual work’ that I was imbued with in school – I’ve finally managed to get some time back at my computer. Ah, the workstation… if my guidance counsellor could only see me now! What’s better than soaking up some full-spectrum radiation from a glowing screen, dear reader? Not a thing, I propose.

During my last post I collected a few photos to try to present a way of looking at the aesthetics of an infill plane. This ‘spectrum’ of form and pattern, though, is certainly not something limited to planes. It applies quite well to furniture as well – contrast a shaker corner cupboard with a federal sideboard and I think the same argument holds true: when using wood, there are a series of possible choices you can make. Selecting material with less variation in color, grain, and figure gives results where the essential form of the piece is given the primary focus. Select woods with greater variation and dynamic range in its visual impact, and the piece tends to be much more heavily skewed toward the beauty of the material itself.

I think that a lot of us have a strong tendency to prefer one end of this spectrum more than the other – but in my experience, it’s a fairly even split. And, speaking for myself, I also think it’s quite common to find deep appreciation for both ends of the spectrum. I can’t say I have a real ‘preference’ for either mode…

As I suggested at the end of that post, though, I also think there’s something of a ‘middle way’ as well. There are certain choices where the emphasis on form or pattern actually changes significantly depending on the level of attention you give the object, as well as the lighting and perspectives it’s viewed in. First example is a plane filled with beautiful south american mahogany. This wood was supplied by the client, and I was actually a bit skeptical at first – but once we’d worked out the finish schedule, the coloring and chatoyance of the end results were really gratifying:

This was finished with a bit of tru-oil followed by a number of polish coats of garnet shellac to bring the color and depth out. While there’s very little grain structure to speak of, in the right lighting the color combined with the ribboning and pore structure of the wood make for a very striking effect. Clicking on the photo will bring up a larger version, which gives some sense of the effect a closer look can have.

The next example is a recent plane, with infills of mexican desert ironwood, is what I refer to as ‘stealth’. The coloring is a beautiful dark burgundy/purple variety, and as with the mahogany plane, the coloring has a marvelous effect on the presentation of the entire shape and form of the plane. It serves much the same role as a picture frame – drawing the eye in and presenting the shape of the infills and metal shell to the eye.

But with this wood, and a few other species, the entire effect changes dramatically with lighting and attention. A subtle shift in the lighting, and the grain and figure pop out.

And this, to me, is a really compelling approach to design. The initial effect, or the ‘approach’ is heavily skewed toward form, but closer inspection brings the subtleties to light – and in some cases, those subtleties can be quite striking.

My friend Konrad Sauer recently posted another example of this on his excellent blog. The plane below is his beautiful K7 smoother design, filled in this case with Bois de Rose (madagascar rosewood). Here’s the ‘approach’ shot:

The owner of this plane referred to it as ‘greasy black’ in color – an excellent description, for my money – and one that, again, really emphasizes the details of the form in this case – notice how quickly the eye moves to the beautiful chamfer detail running between sidewalls and front bun.

Again, however, with a change in the light or perspective the details of the wood start to come to the fore:

And before anyone comments – yes: Konrad does own all the best wood on the planet. And no – there’s no jealousy on my part. not a shred. Not a shredded, torn, obliterated, smashed up tiny little bit of it. Jealousy, that is.

ahem.

I’m not sure what it is exactly about these sorts of examples that appeals so much to me. I do know that ‘subtle’ is not a term that is often used to describe my personality (blunt is the second most often-used adjective for describing that). I suppose it may be that my appreciation for subtler designs is a way of compensating for that somehow, but since I let my subscription to Armchair Psychoanalysis Digest lapse, that’s just a wild guess.

But then, what do I know? I gave up a plush, comfy life of the mind at a desk and computer to chop, scrape, hammer, and sharpen bits of metal and wood. Who in their right mind would take such a menial job over a highly skilled professional life?

So whatever you do, dear reader — don’t trust me. Never do that.

Until next time…