When you have to work small in section pieces with molding, plow and rebate planes, may be convenient to use a proper board which helps to keep them steady during planing. It simply consists of a leveled board , at least 150 cm long and with section of about 10 x2, 5 cm. On its surface can be glued  a stright rail (section 4x2, 5 cm).

It is important that the side of the rail is square with the backing surface of the piece. I used some screws inserted at the end of the board; they have the task of stopping the piece during processing. They can be tightened and loosened to allow to avoid the piece escapes from board. If the piece is square it will be sufficient. However, it is convenient to work pieces longer than the final measure to use the edges or parts that will be discarded (cheek of  a tenon in the pic), to ensure all through thin nails. The table is stopped by dogs and lateral vice.

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Looking at WIA13

While I didnt shoot much video, I did take lots of photos at Woodworking in America 2013.
Here then, are my albums from the weekend. Click on an album for all of the photos.

MWA Meetup

WIA13 MWA Podcast

WIA13 Online Woodworking Roundtable

WIA13 Roy & the MWA

WIA13 Chairs Style & Substance w Ejler Hjorth-Westh

WIA13 Working with Curves Design & Execution with Ejler Hjorth-Westh

WIA13 Marketplace

Timber! at WIA13 with Roy Underhill

Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.

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Jointer Planer or Jointer Planer

Ive alchoices been of the mind that having a separate jointer and planer was a better use of space in a narrow shop where having the room to lift up the jointer bed of a combo machine could be an issue. Frustrations with aligning the beds of my mid-50s jointer and not knowing where to put my planer have me re-thinking that

The current jointer I love and hate.

Im currently thinking that I may be better off with a 12" combo machine instead. I would have to put it on a mobile base, but it could be more efficient with space than the two machines and would certainly increase my jointing capacity.
I want this to be my last jointer/planer purchase for a decade or two and I want it to have a helical cutter head. Im currently considering (and saving for) the Jet or Grizzly.

Woodcraft had a 15% off sale this past weekend on the Jet, which got me thinking.

I also noticed in the new Rikon in an email from Highland Woodworking today.

I was wondering if any of you have these (or other) combo machines? Are they worth it? Is setup an issue? Most importantly, how close to a wall can you place the machine?
Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.

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Yesterday was my birthday, and it seems that my girlfriend has secretly been practising her dovetails ... in cake!

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LN 7 Jointer Plane

Its funny how things all turn out and help you make a decision. In the past week I have both sold my boat... and ... received a lovely letter (and cheque) from the Tax man.  Finally, the icing on the cake,... I was sent a discount email for 10% off any item from Axminster tools. 

Now, despite all the above, ... This decision did not come lightly I can assure you! I am sure the Quangsheng planes would have probably served my purpose adequately, in fact from the reviews I know they would. 

They sound like really good planes at amazingly cheap prices. But... I am thinking of this as a one time quality purchase and I would alchoices be wondering or lusting after the Lie Nielsen tools. No political or moral views came into it - I simply could afford what I wanted in the first place, regardless of the quality and value for money of the competition.

Its lovely! ... If I get the same feeling from using this new no#7 plane as I get from my other LN tools, its money well spent. I am also enquiring about a LN no#3 smoother in iron (not bronze), but I would like it with an O1 blade and the high angle 55 degree frog. I have decided against the LN no#5 Jack plane for the moment as my old Stanley no#6 has been (begrudgingly) earning its keep with a newly cambered iron.

As the new no#7 jointer / try plane and my crusty rough and ready no#6 fore plane both have 2 3/8" irons I decided to also spring for the DMT Diasharp 8"x3" stones in both Fine and XX Fine (8000g).  I will still keep and use my 6"x2" DMT stones for chisels etc as they are a lot lighter and more portable for other work or jobs I may do achoice from the house.

And lastly, its time I started doing a lot more dovetail work and treated myself to the Veritas 1:6 dovetail marker.

I will be using it in a little project soon....

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So I bought a new jointer a few weeks ago. Its a mid-1950s 8" Delta with giant 1 HP General Electric motor residing in the cast iron bases pot belly. It is a penultimate jointer, in that it has dovetailed choices and a straight cutter head. My ultimate jointer will have parallelogram beds and a helix cutter head. Still, considering what I paid, this big old Delta it was a bargain and a big improvement over my old 6”.

Here is the beast, in all her fantastic, frustrating glory.

When I first setup the jointer I used my winding sticks and made a quick assessment that the infeed and outfeed tables were not coplanar. At the time I simply made sure the outfeed table was set properly to the blades (it was), adjust the fence to the outfeed table and milled achoice. I was surfacing thick lumber. As long as I didn’t make too many passes the faces were flat before the board became a wedge.

As I’m starting work on a non-paying commission from my wife for her friend which will require jointing some thin and expensive boards I wanted to first tune up the jointer.

I began that process by watching Marc Spagnuolo’s Jointer Setup Video. It’s a very informative video, but as Marc has a parallelogram jointer, I found that though the theory is the same there were more differences than similarities in the technique he showed versus the one I had to use. The biggest difference I found was that Marc shows making all adjustments to the infeed table. While this works on a parallelogram jointer where cam wheels make permanent adjustments which are held as the bed is raised and lowered, it doesn’t work so well on jointer with dovetailed choices such as I have.

By reading Roland Johnshon’s excellent Tune Up Any Jointer article from the Tools & Shops 2013 issue of Fine Woodworking I learned that with when tuning up a jointer with dovetailed choices such as mine, you want to shim & adjust the outfeed table. The reason for this is that in use, the infeed table is the one you move and adjust up and down. The outfeed table is only moved during tune up and alignment. If you were to shim the infeed table, the shims would be prone to shifting and moving as the bed is adjusted up and down. Less movement means the shims will stay in place longer. Rolands article is behind their pay wall, but its certainly worth checking out if youre a member.

Before I could shim, I had to figure out how close to coplanar my beds were. I did this with a large Veritas straight edge from Lee Valley. It’s probably the one I would have used anychoice, but it was reassuring to see both Marc and Roland recommend the same straight edge.

Begin by loosening and re-tightening the gib screws.

First I loosened the set screws which hold the gib and provide tension against the dovetail choice as Roland suggests. As this relieves tension in the beds, I did this for the infeed and outfeed beds. Unfortunately after resetting them, I still found that my beds were not coplanar.

Next, I adjusted my beds so that the infeed table was just barely higher than the outfeed and both were above the cutter head. With the straight edge clamped to the infeed table, I measured between the outfeed table and the straight edge at the four corners of the outfeed table (this requires moving and re-clamping the straight edge).

Lots of light under the straight edge.

From here, it was a slow, tedious process of measuring, adding shims, re-measuring, adding more shims, re-measuring, etc. For shims, I bought two (2) extra feel gauges. I took them apart and used the blades for shims.

More shims. She needs more shims!

I started this process on Friday night. I did it for about 4 hours on Sunday. As I write this on Monday night, theres more shimming to be done. Hopefully Ill have coplanar beds by my Saturday post.Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.

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I posted a video on YouTube on figuring out how to use my router table as a jointer