This next installment in the “Setting Up Shop” video series takes a look at joinery planes: rabbet planes, dado planes, routers, and plow planes. Hand tool beginners often assume these are for specialty work, but they’re not. These are fundamental tools for enjoyable hand tool work.
The driving of a nail is a vivid illustration of the kind of skill and agency that is often underappreciated in our time. No one comes out of the womb able to swing 16 ounces of steel on the end of a stick to a precise location with a precise amount of force. This is an acquired skill that, once gained, becomes a mindless and simple task. When a confident craftsperson is absorbed in hammering, there is no consciousness of the features and characteristics of the hammer. The only thing that would bring attention to the tool itself would be if something went wrong – the head came loose, the board split in a weak spot, etc. When all is...
“Most people have staked their self-images in the present structure [of society] and are unwilling to lose their ground. They have found security in one of the several ideologies that support further industrialization. They feel compelled to push the illusion of progress on which they are hooked. They long for and expect increased satisfaction, with less input of human energy and with more division of competence. They value handicraft and personal care as luxuries, but the ideal of a more labor-intensive, yet modern, production process seems to them quixotic and anachronistic.”-Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality
The panel raiser was the first plane of Chelor’s that I chose to copy, and it departs the least from the English tradition. Still, there are two differences worth noting. First, English panel raisers nearly always have adjustable, rather than fixed, depth stops and fences. The early American planes, on the other hand, sacrifice adjustability in favor of simplicity and ease of use. Remember, we have miles of pine to plane! A more subtle difference is the design of the escapement. Normally, the abutments – the surfaces that the wedge bears against – are a consistent width until the bottom half inch, where they taper into the side of the plane. But on the Chelor/Nicholson panel raisers, the left abutment...
As of just a few minutes ago, Term 04 of the Mortise & Tenon Apprenticeship Program is open for registration! As Joshua mentioned yesterday, we’ve been blown away by the response to this program (referred to affectionately in-house as “MTAP”) and by the wonderful enthusiasm of our students. Many start out cautiously optimistic, having struggled with dovetails and sharpening and finding clear guidance in the past. But as we’ve seen, they finish the program with confidence to tackle just about any furniture project on their bucket list… or to go out into the woods with an axe and chop down a tree. The transformation is nearly incredible. Image Courtesy: Deborah Pessoa Running this program is a group effort, and a...
