Smokin', gamblin', drinkin'.

All vices, of course, although I only indulge in the last. Arguably old tool acquisition is another, albeit lesser known one, which, yes, I have been guilty of. It's a fair cop, I'll come quietly, officer. What about the acquisition of old vices though? Doubly vice-like, presumably? I have no idea, but I've been pretty good at resisting them. I really have. I'm in the land of Record, for heaven's sakes, and yet this is probably the only workshop in the Western world that doesn't contain a Record vice.

I know what you're thinking; it was always too good to last. In my defence there's very little one can do if you have no choice in the matter and one just happens to arrive on your doorstep like an orphaned babe, all the way from Bonnie Scotland. And even now it's not one of Sheffield's finest. In fact I suppose really it ought to be referred to as a 'vise'.

Now at this point, some of you might be wondering where I got that skinny 12" rule from and isn't that a funny-looking vice? Some of you won't. Some of you may be thinking "Alf, is that what I think it is, you jammy @*$^#...?"

So, just to clear things up: it's a two-foot (patternmaker's) rule, and yeah, it's 86lbs of Emmert patternmaker's vice. A big one. It's actually a Type T5, minus its turtleback cover. Eeek!

I won't explain how it comes to be chez Alf - mainly because I'm still not absolutely sure myself. It's a complicated story and I seem to have been nominated unwitting-beneficiary in a complicated vice triangle. Which sounds like a story in the News of The World... Anyway, it's absolutely not a tabloid story, and is instead all very nice indeed, whilst also being very, very scary.

Anyway, what does Alf do when presented with old arn she knows not of and an urge to put off doing anything practical about it? Hits the books, Old Tools List, Google, and on the off-chance, UK Workshop, of course. First, second and third all came up trumps, as expected. In addition to the Iron Hand site linked to above, also Walt Q at Brass City Records looks potentially helpful and a fair few threads from the galoots, notably this one. The Workbench Book has quite a chunk on them too. But most surprisingly of all, and why I do love the small world that is online woodworking, I didn't find just information on Emmerts generally at UK Workshop, but I believe I've found this very vice in particular. Location and who knows who certainly fits its history, never mind the appearance, so that was a bonus.

All very helpful, not least in terms of prevarication. Because naturally this throws up all sorts of troubling things I don't want to address. Such as "Can I bring myself to cut a big bite in my beloved workbench?", "Should I fix it flush or not?", "How d'you flatten a workbench top if it has a ruddy great big cast iron plate let in the top of it?", "Where in Hades am I going to find screws big enough to fix it?", "Can I get it back together again?, "How does it work, anyway?" and most of all "Help!" and a terrible urge to run away. Yep, it's going to be a saga, I just know it is.

And yeah, that's my other vice; finding the cloud round every silver lining...

Less Musing Than Usual

Yes, all right anonymous comment leaving person, you've made your point. I have been a tad absent from these pages. Again. Did anyone notice? The silly thing is I've actually had things I could blog about, but you know how it is. You vow to blog on Monday, next thing you turn round and it's Thursday and how did that happen?

Anyway, a few weeks ago - okay, last month - I actually bought some RUST! Eeek! I know, you thought I'd gone on the wagon. So did I. But what can you do when a Stanley #71½ waves at you in a pathetic "take me home" kinda way?

Well exactly. 'Course it does push the hand router count into rather dangerous territory. I haven't checked, but I have a nasty feeling it's nearer double figures than can possibly be justified...

Not surprisingly, in the intervening year or two, I've managed to lose my rust removing mojo and as a result the cleaned plane is a) Not as good as I'd hoped, and b) Took me perishing ages to do. But while I was in the groove, I cleaned up the Record 050c I took apart for cleaning some time in 2008, iirc. Amazingly I'd only managed to lose one piece in the intervening period, and that was easily replaced. However, I'm not convinced I'm going to be a convert to the design award-winning rear handle and have already wondered about a wooden replacement. Ooo, Alf has a handle issue; plus ça wotsit as our friends across the Channel might say.

And finally I've had an absolute rash of emails, principally concerning my friends - and possibly yours - the combination plane. As a result there are two new manuals for a couple of the more modern brethren - the Record 050c and the Stanley 13-050. Yes, that Stanley. The one with the joke shop dog doings for a handle... Aesthetically ghastly, but apparently it is really and truly a good plane. I have no plans to find this out for myself though; there is a line. And at some point I really will get the pics of the 044c someone sent me far too long ago up on the 044 page too. No really, I will. Honest. I could probably say before the next blog entry, but that ain't saying much.

Talking of which, I anticipate being a bit busy through April and May, so if you don't hear from me, don't be surprised.

Wadda you mean, you won't be...?

More musing than usual

Hand tool furniture, or furniture made by hand tools. I was reminded of my long-stabled hobby horse (see previous blog entry) and have been mulling over the thing again. In the current furniture climate, taste leans towards the simpler design. Florid mouldings, veneer and painted effects are out; clean lines, solid wood and 'expressed joinery' are in.

I should make a confession here. I'm not sure if the term is recent, or I'd just forgotten it during my break from woodworking, but when I first read of 'expressed joinery' in my magazine catch-up I thought for some minutes it was something to do with the speed at which it was cut... D'oh.

Now I'm a bit dichotomous about exposed joinery. I think it can look fabulous, often as an accent in an otherwise fairly boring slab of timber. But I also think it's in real danger of being as overused as mouldings ever were. In this age when available timber, and inclination, is meaning we use more and more highly-figured woods, why not let the wood do the talking with one clear voice? Does shouting against a panel of figured walnut with 16 through tenons with contrasting wedges really improve it? Okay, so I possibly exaggerate, but I'm betting many woodworkers can think of a real-world example they've seen that has started along that road.

A more worrying possibility arising out of this desire for visible joinery is one of simple craftsmanship - using the wrong joint or the right joint the wrong way because it 'looks better'. Now at the moment the only examples I can think of are in tool cabinets - and one may have been a simple error of layout and not a design choice - but one was certainly done deliberately, and it makes me wince. Viz: Cutting drawer dovetails so the tails show at the front. i.e. Completely disregarding the mechanical advantage of dovetails. For heaven's sakes, why not just dowel the thing together and put some self-adhesive tails on the front and be done? Ack.

Now obviously that's a bit extreme and it's hardly widespread - yet. But will 'expressed joinery', in its own way, end up being taken to similar extremes as the mouldings and use of poor machine joints did before it? Will it become a by-word for all that's bad in furniture as the new age of real furniture advances in a cloud of ogees and ovolos? Okay, probably not, but don't say I didn't warn ya...

Anyway, one argument seems to be that designing modern furniture with hand tools in mind is rendered difficult because of this desire for visible joinery, clean lines and no mouldings. This floated into my mind over the weekend in particular. On the one hand I was reading the Lost Art Press reprint of 'The Joiner and Cabinetmaker', and on the other I went out to lunch at a local hotel.

Yes, it wasn't bad, thanks. The game terrine is recommended. The furniture though? Variable. One monstrosity clubbed me about the head and demanded to be recorded for posterity - a cursory inspection suggests it's not particularly old and someone went mad with the off-the-shelf mouldings. Somehow it doesn't speak of time-served craftsmen labouring over a carving bench, and I think I detected some machinery in it's manufacture. All told, pretty ghastly.

Meanwhile, in 'The Joiner and Cabinetmaker', the hero of the piece ends up building a chest of drawers as his final demonstration of how much he's learnt. And thus, because of the nature of the reprint, so does Chris Schwarz - and so I've swiped the photograph of his version from his blog (do hope he doesn't mind).

So what do we have from this piece of design from 1839? Clean lines, no mouldings and... exposed joinery. And it's all made with hand tools. Okay, so the original text suggests a paint effect and a bit of simple moulding round the base, but it works with this modern interpretation perfectly well. Now if I'm reading what Chris wrote correctly, he actually cut stopped housings (dadoes) for the drawer dividers, only to realise that actually they should have gone the whole depth of the carcass. Which kinda feels like it makes my point for me - we have a tendency to think like power tool users and make furniture accordingly.

Now I can't design stuff to save my life; I have enough of a learning curve on my hands trying to make things. The requirement for the amateur woodworker to master so many diverse skills that a professional cabinetmaker of the old school would have never contemplated tackling is another hobby horse in the stable. The last thing we should feel obliged to be is designers as well. But I digress. What I mean is I can't sit down and come up with the next big thing in furniture trends - I don't have the skill. But history tells us it'll happen, and it has been known to be influenced by the trends in woodworking tools before now. At the moment that really does seem to be using hand tools, so wouldn't it be lovely if the next trend was modern furniture designed to get the best out of old tools?

But in the mean time it seems we have 1839 to draw on... ;)

Opinions; everyone's got them.

Now last week I admitted to having gone slightly mad with the credit card - and completely forgot that there was yet another book on order, which duly turned up. Made By Hand, Furniture Projects from the Unplugged Workshop by Tom Fidgen. As soon as I ran across reference to it, I was excited to read it - at last, a book of projects written with hand tools in mind. Unfortunately I was disappointed.

You see I have this, quite probably erroneous, notion that a project for making with hand tools should be aimed to get the best out them. Taking advantage of the efficiency that a dedicated tool - like a plough or rebate - can bring to a project. Using designs and joinery that make the best of them. But there I am, faced with lots of stopped housings and grooves again, just like every power tool project in every magazine and book. All of which seem calculated just make you regard the plough as a bog awful tool and where the devil did I out the spanner for the router...? Or at least it does to me. Which is why I was so happy when I thought it was a book of hand tool projects, not just projects built with hand tools. I confess I gave up reading them after the first two or three and just looked at the photographs.

The projects themselves are an interesting selection, and cover lots of techniques pretty well. The tool box design with the built-in shooting board is clever, although where in Hades I could find the hinges I have no idea. Having them all in one picture to get an idea of relative size is very helpful. I'll draw a veil over the actual designs, 'cos not everyone's taste is the same. I will say that the gallery proves that Mr Fidgen is no mean craftsman, but any small table that can be described with reference to Shaker, Japanese and Arts & Crafts is always going to be a challenge to pull off...

But none of that bothers me as much as the basic things, like terminology. Please, please don't describe a short-arsed planing board as a bench hook and a bench hook as a mitre hook - woodworking terminology is confused enough as it is, isn't it? A groove is not a dado, even if you are used to cutting it with a dado head in a tablesaur. And the contrasting wood on a set of winding sticks isn't to make it look pretty - the sticks are supposed to contrast with each other not themselves. It's just totally missing the point and - as you may be able to tell - drives me up the wall. I also fail to understand the point in having 'how to' sections, such as dovetailing, that are essentially someone else's teaching. Just say 'Buy Rob Cosman's DVD' and have done.

I wanted to love it, I really did, but too much of it made me grind my teeth. I'm sure there are loads of folks who absolutely love it and are sharpening their quills to tell me so even now, and that's good (Good that you like it, not that you're going to attack me with sharpened feathers!) I hope it gets more people to eschew their power cords for a change. But it's not for me.

It did get me wondering though, about what happened to the manuscript for a book on making furniture with hand tools called Chisel, Mallet, Plane and Saw written by Tony Konovaloff that John Brown wrote about back in September 1997. Like JB himself, TK was a bit too far ahead of the game then, hand tools still be regarded as old fashioned and past their sell-by-date. At the time he was making furniture entirely by hand in a workshop so small that larger pieces had to be built in two parts and joined with sliding dovetails. If you want to see the quality of work he produced just with hand tools and have The Toolbox Book, then you'll find his gorgeous tool chest detailed therein. Try not to dribble too much...

And finally, while I'm spouting off opinions on stuff I've bought, a small review of the Quangsheng No.3 Bedrock Pattern Smoothing Plane over on UK Workshop from yours truly. And a pretty picture to go with it...