For under $5 you can obtain a set of HSS blanks from Harbor Freight. Do this at a store, I have been so amazingly and expensively burned by online shopping with HF that I will never ever do that again. The stores however are great as long as your are careful what you get.
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I love mesquite wood. It is beautiful, tough, weather resistant, hard and the worlds most stable wood. It does have a curious weakness, a screw will split it in half despite it being able to survive years as a mallet. The wood can split. So there are methods you learn, that you would not have to learn on a wood that did not split easily. This project will show a lot of these methods.
Snap Blade Knives are handy. I use them to cut things that I would never, ever use a good knife for. If you are going to cut a box open or shape cardboard, score chipboard or cut sandpaper, then a snap blade knife belongs in your tool box. The problem is that even a nice one does not fit in when you are putting it beside fine hand tools. Lee Valley has just offered a new Retractable Japanese Saw in a snap blade knife format. This is a great idea, but it calls for a nicer handle than the typical snap blade knife shows. Continue reading Remaking a Snap Blade Knife or How to Work Wood that Splits Easily
We may know what someone else is saying when they mention a Carpenter’s Bevel, Sliding T-Bevel or any number of phrases with two or more of the words, Carpenter’s, Universal, Adjustable, T, Sliding, Bevel, Square, Angle, or Gage combined, but there is no guessing what they might end up calling it. Perhaps this oddity needs a scientific name. limuo lignarii or something like it. The Superior Works Sliding Bevel Gauge is definitely a contender for the best bevel gauge. This video shows it off. Lee Valley Tools has three of the nicest bevel gauges, The Starrett, Veritas and the Shinwa Aluminum Sliding Bevel. I have the Shinwa Aluminum Sliding Bevel and it is one of my personal favorites, despite the fact that I did not make it. The Limited Edition Woodpeckers Gauge is also a quite nice aluminum bevel gauge. For sheer beauty, The Australian Version from Vespers, looks like the best of them. While these are not bevel gauges, bevel gauges are enhanced by the ability to set them. I have the Veritas Bevel Gauge Setter from Lee Valley, and I use it whenever I am making the odd dovetail. Woodpeckers is making another one time tool, that is similar, but larger. It does not have the locking slide for repeating angles, but it is larger which may mean greater precision and more angle choices. I may have obtained what is currently one of the hardest to obtain bevel gauges, The Pitch Square, and it may well be the best bevel gauge of them all. It depends on your view I suppose, but it is the only one here that could be called heavy duty, and apart from the extreme angles the Starrett can do, this can do everything the others listed above can do and a bit more. The Pitch Square
I made an odd spill plane of my own design a while back, but it was more of an experiment and kind of a cute failure. This is a spill plane loosely based on Darrell LaRu’s walk through. This plane works great! Since the plane stays still and the wood moves, I have been able to clamp the plane down and together, and test it before it was glued up. The shavings are pretty spirals! I am shaving down wood just to make shavings! I love my new spill plane! I made it to have a duel purpose. It will clean up the edges on cedar picket for when I am making planters. At the same time it makes lovely cedar spills. I took a handful of them in to show my wife and she claimed them as hers! In olden days, pine spills where kept on a cup by a fireplace. When you wanted to light a lantern or pipe, you would grab a spill, and light it in the fire. The short spills in the pictures below are made from cedar and burn for a bit more than thirty seconds. They smell nice too. Here are a few tools that I made with octagonal handles. I detailed how to make them in my post on making octagonal handles.
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