Toolmaking Resources V; Gary Roberts' Toolemera Press

Gary has kindly organized, digitized, and given us access to a delightful library of tool and wood working documents.  In his Book library, for example is the book, How to make woodworking tools.  In this book alone are examples of tools that cover most of the range of hand woodworking.

Bob

5 comments to Toolmaking Resources V; Gary Roberts' Toolemera Press

  • Skip J.

    Excellent resource and excellent book! Thanks for the link! Since I’m building a kit scrub plane – I printed off Hayward’s drawing of the scrub plane parts – page 13. I also liked his stripped down bench plans. I might build that one first, before trying on the full sized CS bench…. And then there is the tool chest. It so happens I have an old trunk to rehab into a tool chest that is almost the same configuration. I’ll use those plans a lot when the time comes….. As you know I like these same type of old B&W books as Gary documents. After giving one (Joyce) to Walt last year, I was down to three (3), not a very big “collection”. So in Dallas last week I needed to kill some time and hit the antique shops and thrift stores looking for oldies…. I picked up 2 more – which almost doubled my supply. I’ll never have what Gary does, but they’re there – right there – on my shelf whenever I want’em. Something tells me I’ll never see a Hayward on the local shelf… so Gary provides a valuable service indeed!

    Skip

  • Haward’s How to Make woodworking Tools is one of my favorite references. Having made several of them and used the plans to alter other plans, I must advise some care in following his plans. I think he did a lot of the plans from memory and did not test them. For example, his frame saw has some great thought to it, but will not tension if made as shown. I also think the worktable needs to have the front legs even with the table for wide boards to be stable when working on them.

    Bob

  • Skip J.

    Boy – you got that right! There are several small improvements I would add to his simple workbench design. But in general, it is a much higher quality design than other simple quickiee/dirty small benches… What interests me is that it allows starting small with a trial version before building the real thing. I have screwed together some heavy small benches before and they still hopped, skipped and jumped when planing. So my question is, can a small bench actually be built that doesn’t move when planing???? And his wedge on the scrub plane has arms to create a throat even tho there is no cap screw to avoid. My SK wedge has no arms, just a plain wedge shape and works fine. Maybe I should go ahead and cut a throat into my wedge just get practice how that works???

    Skip

  • I would keep the original wedge as a reference and make another to compare. It may help with clearance and it may be that the arms are an unneeded artifact from copying other planes.

    After a table is stable, adding nice heavy tools to the drawers/shelves will give it mass. Putting a table up to a tree or wall, or even propping it with a board can add stability.

    A small table will probably need to be secured to something stable or be used for tasks that produce more vertical than lateral forces.

    The other method of stabilizing work is to reduce the opposing forces. For a portable kit, this is an important consideration. Thinner shavings and less wide blades will reduce the force of the planing. A wide blade will make a job take less passes, but will require more force to push and more to resist. I was given a really nice 3″ wide blade for Christmas, and it taught me, that I prefer about an inch and a half wide blade, or a 2″ blade skewed. I tip the scales at 274 so I have enough mass to push a blade, I find I can push a narrower blade with more even control. Only for a really fine smoothing and shaving do I like wider blades.

    Scrubs are for removing a lot of wood quickly, so they are going to a good test of a tables stability and your endurance. A stable surface with a well secured board will reduce your work considerably though.

    Bob

  • Skip J.

    Thanks! I will keep the wedge and make another. I glued the plane together with hide glue so I could take it apart again if I wanted to. SK uses Gorilla Glue, so the only way to get the inner detail is to buy a kit. Excellent information on the blades! I was already planning on the Overkillsharp blades using less force to cut. All my old woodies have 2″ blades or bigger, and they’re not skewed. Of course, I skew the plane to the board to compensate.

    However, I have an old woodie scrub with a blade not much bigger that 1″ with a radical camber that takes only a 1/2″ wide shaving. And the bigger SK blade still takes less than a 1″ shaving. Still, I plan on continuing to use the scrubs (occasionally) on my existing trash bench I have screwed to the wall. They’ll pick up a rough board and throw it if it’s not secured tightly.

    I might need to start making planes to start using narrow blades – or get around to making that big, heavvvyyyy bench instead of a little one. Interesting thought process..

    Skip

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