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December 16, 2008 By

#39. WIA: Advanced Dovetailing with Frank Klausz

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Run time: 1 hour, 51 min., 47 sec.

Frank Klausz returns in this episode on Advanced Dovetailing, to share how he makes half-blind and mitered dovetails. He shares tips that are crucial to get excellent joint fit with a minimum set of tools. I filmed this during his wonderful session, at the Woodworking in America hand tool conference in Berea, KY.

The session opened with Klausz talking about his background, and his search in America for “…others who made dovetails like his grandpa made them, back in Hungary…”. He later told the audience he has made “… a total of 12 of these, and now is getting ready to make his 13th mitered dovetail joint…”

Pins-first is the order of the day when making both, the half-blind, and the mitered varieties of dovetails. Klausz also uses a sharpened pencil to mark the tails from the pins; and, from the Pins vs. Tails dovetailing videos I filmed during his first session, white glue is what he uses to assemble the dovetails. He considers white glue a great stress-remover when the time comes to glue up dovetail projects – the longer open time of the white glue is good for these, he says. Of course, he is right.

If you decide to download the video: The file size is 570 MB. It will take a while, depending on your connection speed.

Relevant posts:
Woodworking in America: Pins vs. Tails, with Frank Klausz

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Filed Under: Berea, Blog, Conference, Dovetails, Joinery, Video, Woodworking in America Tagged With: , , , , ,
December 14, 2008 By

#38. WIA: Part 3 of 3 – Forgotten Workbenches and Workholding

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Total running time: 48 mins, 54 seconds

This episode is all about workholding:

  1. Face vises – Racking is the main reason The Schwarz does not like them.
  2. Leg vise: Elegant, cheap, GREAT!
  3. Shoulder vise: Best choice for dovetailing drawers – it is fast. It is great, but too complex.
  4. Crochet: Used with holdfasts, it is great, and cool.
  5. Sliding dog vise: Otherwise called the Wagon Vise. Recently installed one on of his benches.
  6. End (tail) vise on European-style benches: Fragile, and they sag!
  7. Dogs: Round or square? Likes square, bur coming around to round. It is hard to make square holes. The round dogs are best because there is a large after-market that caters to these.
  8. Battens: Offer an effective way to work: Low profile, and cool.
  9. Planing stops: Made from scraps; make them as thin and wide as possible; install on the face vise.
  10. Planing boards: Great if the workbench is not flat; Chris has made available a construction drawing on his blog.
  11. Deadman: Installed on his Roubo; has nothing but praise for it.
  12. Other benches: Concrete block bench; wheelwright’s bench, with leg vise and cabinets; the Modern Roubo”; the English hybrid, with angled leg vise but straight legs; Moxon’s bench; the “sink” bench (laughter!), which is a Shaker bench corrupted.

The Schwarz answered many questions, all terrific and relevant, until he ran out of time. The discussion could easily have run much longer, but everyone had to run to lunch, to the Marketplace, and to other terrific sessions.

I took a good look at the construction of the sliding deadman…

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Filed Under: Berea, Blog, Conference, Video, Woodworking in America Tagged With: , , , , ,
December 11, 2008 By

#37. WIA: Part 2 of 3 – Forgotten Workbenches and Workholding

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Total running time: 39 mins., 52 seconds

In this episode Christopher Schwarz, Editor of Popular Woodworking and Woodworking Magazine, presents, discusses, and points out pros and cons of several benches and their features:

  1. The European bench: He is not happy with this form, but also is not anti-European-form. His problem with this one: People take old principles and apply them to other benches. He likes to apply the kitchen door test (typical sizes we work on) and the kitchen carcase test (pushes him to narrower benches) to all benches, for suitability.
  2. Materials: For example, the Nicholson bench required only a small amount of material. He likes soft woods for his benches; SYP (Southern yellow pine) does not move much, is stiff ((no flexing), it dents (no detriment), and he can flatten a workbench in 45 minutes using a #8 jointer hand plane diagonally. Also, SYP does not sag; however, one of his benches has developed a low spot i.n the middle. He believes the critical area that requires total flatness on a bench top is the front 8 inches to 10 inches.
  3. Roman style bench: This is the one he finds in most pro shops. Pros: It is simple, and stout. Con: No planing stops, etc.
  4. The French undercarriage: Pros: Great clamping ability. Con: Requires a log of material, primarily due to its massive legs.
  5. The English bench: Pros: Requires very little wood. Con: Undercarriage clamping is tough.
  6. The Danish bench: Pro: Easy to knock down. Don: Can’t clamp easily on the front.
  7. The Shaker bench: Pros: Great looks, and storage for everything and everybody. Cons: Hard to clamp on.
  8. Tool trays: Cons: They are always full of “stuff”.
  9. The Hayward bench: The thin top flexes; but the front apron takes away some of the flex.
  10. Top thickness: At 3″ to 4″, the beam strength is enough to provide support on the legs. Holdfasts reach their holding limit around 4 inches.
  11. Bench height: For hand planing, it should hit the joint between the pinkie and the palm of the hand.
  12. Bench width: Finds that 22″ is great, but 18″ tends to be tippy.
  13. Bench finish: NO slick film. The formula he uses is 50/50 BLO (boiled linseed oil) / varnish, with solvent added to make it possible to wipe on the mixture. There is no need to finish the underside, unless the owner wants to finish it.

Next: The ending of the session on Forgotten Workbenches and Workholding.

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Related posts: Watch more videos from Woodworking in America on this blog.

Filed Under: Berea, Blog, Conference, Tools, Video, Woodworking in America, Workbench Tagged With: , , , , , ,