The Japanese Gennou Hammer & Handle Part 22 – Tasting the Pudding

True perfection is unattainable, but if you chase perfection you will catch excellence!
Vince Lombardi

In previous articles in this series about a craftsman-made gennou hammer handle, we discussed how to design and make a handle to fit Beloved Customer’s body and way of working. This article assumes you’ve mostly completed your handle, attached the head, and are now ready to test it. So let’s get started.

Why Testing Matters

I don’t know about you, but after all the research, design and fabrication work we’ve invested in your gennou handle, I need to see how it performs and determine if its performance is superior to a Minion impaled on a stick. Being a Beloved Customer and therefore highly intelligent, you’ve asked yourself the following three indubitably perspicacious questions about testing.

What can I learn from testing?
Against what performance standards should I compare my most excellent new hammer handle (besides to a Minion on a stick)?
How should I conduct that evaluation?

To perfect your hammer, you will need the answers to these questions and more. You can get them over years of use, or get many of them now by testing it in a methodical manner and paying attention, but one way or another, you must get answers, bro.

Desired Testing Results

We can learn several things from testing our gennou with its new handle, but I encourage you to do your best to ascertain the following two things at minimum.

The first thing, of course, is whether or not the hammer with its new handle is comfortable and stable to use, and if possible, what needs to be improved to make it more stable and comfortable. This may entail many small details depending on your requirements and powers of perception.

Whether it’s comfortable in-use or not is subjective and entirely up to you, but you can probably identify problems easily through this testing process. Pain, soreness and blisters and the lack thereof are solid indicators (ツ).

Whether or not it’s stable in use is another important thing to determine early. Does it tend to track straight on the downstroke, or does it want to twist off your intended path of travel striking chisel handle or nail head erratically? When it hits the chisel or nail, does it convey its energy into the target smoothly, or does it wiggle like an eel on a hook on impact?

An unstable head and handle combination may perform well for one or two consecutive strikes, but because Murphy’s Law of Buttered Toast irrevocably dictates that small errors accumulate to maximize damage, an unstable head will often wiggle off-line enough for the third swing to hit weakly, even miss entirely, ruining your rhythm, damaging your confidence, and eliciting snide looks from resident bench cats. Oh, the shame…

A second thing you need to learn is whether or not the face of the hammer is striking the chisel/nail squarely and if the center of mass of the head is aligned with the vertical axis of the chisel handle or nail. Please make sure you understand the meaning of the previous sentence.

With this experience and the answers to these questions under your belt, you will be in a position to adjust the handle to perform its best for you and the way you work.

Testing Procedures

Out of an abundance of well-deserved humility combined with a strong desire to avoid looking even more the fool, your humble servant will refrain from suggesting any specific objective tests, or urge you to use quantifiable standards, or seek concrete empirical results because that would be too silly to even contemplate. Unless, of course, Beloved Customer will conduct these tests in your super-secret laboratory, possibly located at the heart of a dormant volcano on an uncharted South Pacific island, maybe covered by coconut palms with cold beer taps, probably surrounded by hundreds of horny bikini babes, likely frolicking in crystal surf. BTW, if you do have such a lab, please text me the address!

In this super-secret lab you will probably have access to equipment and software suited to more scientific, empirical, replicable methods of comparison, such as those developed for analyzing and improving the apparent performance, marketability and profitability of mass-produced sports equipment such as baseball bats, golf clubs, and green dildos (シ). Sadly, while your humble servant does not possess such equipment, most (but not all) humans own and operate one of the world’s most refined super-computers and sensor networks: our bodies and brains. I therefore propose you focus these formidable tools on this analysis. (brains and bodies, that is, not dildos).

Below are four absolutely subjective tests only you can perform, the results of which only you can evaluate.

Incorporating Test Results

To thwart the confusion promulgated by Murphy and his multitudinous malevolent minions, I strongly recommend you use the results of your analysis to guide you in making incremental improvements to your handle over time rather than large changes immediately, so to that end, please plan to remake your handle, once, twice or even thrice, improving it a little each time. Such is the true path of the craftsman.

Please update your handle drawing each time to record the improvements you’ve made and ensure no “increments” are misplaced.

In scobe veritas. (“In sawdust, truth”).

The Grip

As you are aware, for any testing other than drinking beer or women choosing wall paint color to be meaningful, some basic techniques must be established and followed to reduce variables to a manageable degree. How you hold the gennou handle to be tested is just such a basic technique.

The handle design presented in this series of scribbles is intended to work best when gripped in a particular way, so when performing the following tests, it’s important that you grip the hammer correctly thereby removing one huge, often-problematic variable.

Of course, I’m describing a particular grip here as being “correct,” but that’s just my well-informed opinion. In any case, I promise your hammer will work more efficiently if you abandon the so-called “hammer grip” (what I call the “Hobbit-killer” grip with the handle grasped in your fist) right away and switch to this more advanced grip.

I didn’t invent this grip, BTW, but observed and consulted with craftsman I respected in the USA and Japan who used it for many decades, all of whom are now working overtime in the big lumberyard in the sky. I later came to call it the “Sam Snead grip,” after the extremely successful pro-golfer of the same name who made it famous, and him rich, in tournaments and in dozens of books he wrote on the subject of using golf clubs skillfully.

We’ve talked about this grip in some detail in Part 13 of this series, but please review the photos below to confirm your understanding.

The first photo labeled “Bridging the Palm” shows how the hammer’s handle is NOT held in a fist, but is angled diagonally across the palm, supported on the first joint in the index finger, as well as the heel of the palm.

You can see how the index finger wraps around the handle while the thumb is pressed against the side so that the handle is strongly clamped between index finger and thumb, but can still pivot the handle if the operator so desires. This grip affords the joints of the forefinger and thumb, digits accustomed to fine motor control (unlike the fist), absolute control over three critical surfaces of the handle.

This grip also provides better control, more power, and greater reach without forcing the wrist to do the strange, unnatural contortions the Hobbit Killer grip does.

The Three Tests

Following are three tests to help you ascertain how well your new gennou and its handle suits your body and your work style.

Before attempting these tests, however, it is important to use your new handle for a time to establish a connection between it, your hand, and your eye (using the proper grip, of course).

Besides moral virtue and a sense of humor, you will need a few things.

A wood chisel suitable for cutting a mortise hole, around 24mm.
A piece of light-colored scrap wood for cutting a test mortise hole;
A stick of light-colored wood approximately the size and shape of the handle of the chisel you would normally use for cutting mortise holes:
An ink pad, wide-tip marking pen, or Dykem.
A lab assistant. I recommend a buxom, young lass with a cute giggle wearing a sexy lycra lab uniform (Warning: bad stuff may happen if you let She Who Must Be Obeyed meet, or even see, this assistant!)

So, now that we have our supercomputer and its sensor suite warmed up and focused, our tools laid out, and a bubbly lab assistant standing by, sound the trumpets and let the testing begin! We who are about to dye salute you!

Test No. 1: The Blind Retrieval Test

After you have used your gennou with its new handle for a few weeks such that your hand has become accustomed to it, please give your bench dogs a few treats, shoo away any arrogant bench cats, set it on your de-cluttered bench, step back a few steps, close your eyes and turn in-place once or twice like a ballerina with hairy legs. Now, have your lab assistant, perhaps a child, a friend, a neighbor, your girlfriend, or wife, or even a clever bench dog (but never your neighbor’s girlfriend’s wife’s cat!) change the gennou’s orientation on your benchtop by turning it over, switching it end for end a few times, spinning it, or whatever. Random orientation is what’s needed.

Next, with your eyes still closed, grab the gennou with your hammer hand in a proper grip ready to rock-n-roll. Notice how easy or difficult it is to grip the handle correctly, without fumbling and without opening your eyes. If it’s not easy to do, however, you need to know it now. It may be simply that you’re not accustomed to your hammer, or that the geometry or details are out-of-wack.

By “correctly” in the previous paragraph, I mean (1) the flat striking face of the head is facing away from you and toward the chisel or nail; (2) the handle and head are is aligned straight in your hand, and not twisted, (3) the heel of your hand is pressing against the flat spot on the handle adjacent the butt; (4) the distance from the center point of the face to the heel of your hand is located precisely the distance shown in your design drawing.

BTW, whether you picked up the habit from your daddy or some internet guru, choking-up on the grip is an inefficiency you should discard simply because it’s counterproductive and silly, like a powerful cane corso dog wearing flower brocade.

If your grip is shaped as shown in the drawing with a flat back edge and sides perpendicular to it, a radiused front edge, and flared toward the butt, it should be easy to instantly grip the handle in precisely the proper place, with the intended striking face oriented properly, without opening your eyes and without any fumbling whatsoever.

If, on the other hand (the one with six fingers (ツ)), your hammer doesn’t leap into your hand in perfect alignment without argument or eyeball action, some adjustments to the handle are called for. For example, a frequent cause of confusion between handle and hand is the leading edge of the grip being square instead of rounded. Or the sides and butt of the handle being angled wrong. These details can all be adjusted once you know they need to be adjusted

A gennou that naturally orients itself in your hand with the striking face in the right direction, the same distance from the striking face first time every time without your having to look at it, will provide you a tremendous advantage in speed, efficiency and confidence. It will become a good friend and companion.

BTW, just for gits and shiggles, try this test with any name-brand one-size-fits nobody nail bender you have laying around. The virtues of your new handle will become immediately apparent.

Test No. 2: The Blind Swing Test

This test will teach you something about handle length and other details.

Once again, perform this test after you have used the gennou with its new handle for some time and have become accustomed to it. A sexy lab assistant (one who doesn’t talk too much) in slinky woodworking togs is optional (ツ).

Grip the gennou properly in one hand and the stick shaped like your chisel handle in the other just as you would an actual chisel. But instead of placing the end of the stick against something as if you might cut it, please keep the stick in the air without butting it against anything. Now, with your eyes still closed, swing the gennou at the end of the stick of wood.

You should be able to strike the stick with the flat end of the gennou solidly and squarely on the first, or perhaps second try. Success in this test is common.

If your hammer misses the stick consistently, it may be because you aren’t yet accustomed to the handle, or it may be that you are choking-up up on the grip, or it may be you need to make it shorter or longer, or the grip shape needs to be adjusted. Or it may be that Murphy keeps distracting you by sending dickpics. It’s absolutely worth figuring out.

Once again, if you consistently miss the target, pay attention to why and where you are missing. Is the handle too long? Is it too short? Are you missing off to the side? Make notes recording the results and your observations on the design drawings to incorporate in your Mark II handle.

If accuracy can be improved by shortening the handle or modifying the grip, go ahead and make the necessary changes a little at a time. It’s easy to shorten the handle, but lengthening one requires an ACME Wood Stretcher Mark 2. I can lend you mine if you don’t have one (ツ)

Test No. 3: The Ink Test

Never fear: this test has nothing to do with gossip screeds or crime scene investigation. It will help you determine if the handle of your gennou is the right length, if it is cocked at the most effective angle, and whether or not it should be canted to the left or right, and all without pulping an innocent tree.

This test works best if preformed after the Blind Retrieval Test and Blind Swing Test.

Begin by coloring the striking face of your gennou with an ink pad or by applying dark marking pen ink or Dykem to the gennou’s striking face (the flat face). Clean or sand the end of your chisel’s handle to produce a clean, white surface. Then cut a mortise using this gennou in the same posture you assume when cutting most of your mortises.

For instance, if you mostly cut mortises in wood located at a constant height on your workbench, such as drawers and furniture parts, you should employ that position. Or, if you tend to cut mortises in timbers while sitting on or straddling them using the venerable butt-clamp, please assume that position.

The impact with the chisel’s handle will wipe ink off the face of hammer and deposit it on the end of the chisel’s handle at the same time. This ink transfer will print the story you need to read. Check the ink on the gennou’s face and the end of the chisel every two strikes.

This is a time-tested technique professional golfers use to select/design golf clubs, BTW.

If the ink at the center of the striking face is scrubbed clean first, and the center of the chisel handle becomes inked first, then you have made your handle the right length with the head angled correctly. If not, you should make notes describing the results in the handle drawing you made earlier, and adjust the design of your next handle accordingly.

Again, you may find it enlightening to perform this same test with conventional hammer with a standard handle.

When your done testing, be sure to record your conclusions. Either erase and adjust the drawing, or trace over it to make and date a new drawing with your revised details. Tracing paper is our friend.

In either case, be sure to add a date and/or revision number to the drawing to ensure you don’t confuse it with older, superseded drawings. Don’t put this off but do it right away before you forget. This applies to all the tests described herein.

Adjustments to Your Handle

You should use the results of these tests to make small, incremental adjustments to your handle, as you deem necessary, rather than big, drastic changes.

For instance, you may need to shorten the handle. This is easily done if your handle is a little long and you’ve made the neck as I recommended. Worst case, make notes, adjust the drawing and remake the handle with as few changes as possible to avoid confusing over-complication.

A common correction you may want to try is, after becoming accustomed to using the hammer, to reshape the grip area to distribute pressure more evenly over the hand, and to reduce stresses induced in skin, muscle, tendons and bones by easing edges and corners while maintaining control and indexing. Most importantly, you should shape the handle so it doesn’t twist in your hand stretching your skin in uncomfortable ways, a common cause of blisters, especially in plastic-handled one-size-fits-nobody hardware store hammers.

If I may share an example from my experience, every new hammer handle I make tends to produce a blister on the first joint of my right hand index finger. Obviously a lot of pressure focus on this location on my hand. So I know to smooth the transition from back edge to the side just where this joint bears to avoid blisters.

This modification creates an obvious dent in the smooth lines of my handles, but your humble servant is resigned to sacrificing beauty for performance when necessary. Just look at the sorry state of my career as a fashion supermodel if you doubt my dedication to performance.

Another less-common problem is the hammer’s face striking the chisel handle or nail head at an angle instead of being centered on, and at a 90˚ angle to, the long axis of the chisel handle. The ink test will reveal such impish behavior.

This tendency usually improves with practice, but you can adjust for it by making a new handle with the head skewed to the left or right as necessary.

As a way to determine how much skew is required, you can plane down the sides of your test handle, glue on slips of wood, shape them as you see fit, and test the results. Once you’ve determined how much total correction is necessary, you can remake your final working handle accordingly.

Once again, work patiently to achieve small, incremental improvements, and be sure to record the results on your drawings.

Don’t hesitate to methodically scrape, shave and experiment with this first handle.

The design of this handle, and the process your humble servant has described for making it, is suited not just for Japanese gennou hammers but for all short-handled hammers and axes. Give it a try and you’ll see what I mean.

In the next article of this series we’ll apply a protective, and maybe even tastefully elegant, finish. Please remind me to call Ramon and beg him cater the unveiling party! I simply love his cheesy shrimps on crackers, don’t you?

YMHOS

A list of our gennou heads: C&S Tools – Gennou Hammer Head Pricelists & Photos

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please use the questions form located immediately below. To see a list of our tools and their pricing, or to contact us, please click the “Pricelist” link here or at the top of this page.

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Brother Saint Martin and the Three Trolls by *John Bauer*. Supernatural creatures are everywhere, if you have eyes to see.

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The Japanese Gennou Hammer & Handle Part 21 – Installing the Head

No one should be ashamed to admit he is wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

Alexander Pope

In the previous article in this series we finished fitting and shaping the handle of our gennou hammer in accordance with our design document. Some refinements may be pending the results of testing, but in any case the time has come to attach the head.

This is an important task, perhaps not as easy as it sounds, because this is a craftsman’s handle, made with love and skill, not a mass-produced cockroach killer ground out by barefoot Bangladeshi farmers and secured with crude wedges. It’s not a typical tool of the sort sold at Home Despot designed to fail quickly and be tossed into a landfill soonest. And because the head is not secured with barbaric wedges but relies entirely on the extremely tight fit between the eye of the steel head and the tenon Beloved Customer cut on the end of the handle, some careful, but nonetheless violent action is required to successful connect head and handle. The purpose of the article, therefore, is to help you install it carefully with all due violence.

Installing the Head

Beloved Customer can install the head either before or after sanding and finishing the handle, but in this example we’ll attach the head before testing and finishing the handle. This approach will be most efficient if you decide to adjust or rework the handle after performing the tests I recommend in the next article.

In this case, I use the word “finish” to mean to apply a chemical “finish material” to the wood, not to “complete” the work or “conclude” the job. This difference in definition matters to me because confusion regarding the dual, even treble meaning of the word “finish” has caused problems for me in the past. So there you are.

Preparing the Tenon

First, remove any tape remaining on the tenon and, if necessary, use a solvent such as lacquer thinner to remove any adhesive residue. DO NOT USE soap, water, or any water-based chemical as this will make the tenon swell! After cleaning there should be no finish material, wax, oil or unicorn wee wee left on the tenon.

Depending on the relative humidity the handle is acclimated to, it may be advisable to make an effort to shrink the tenon a bit by placing the handle in a low-humidity environment for a time. Please do NOT microwave your handle, cook it in your oven, or heat it in your toaster, not even with cheese and Tabasco Sauce.

There are several ways to remove moisture from the tenon in order to shrink its width and thickness a bit without ruining the handle or burning down your workshop. Perhaps the safest way is to store it for a time in a tightly-sealed plastic container with packages of silica desiccant. Other ways include placing it in a warm spot close to an operating gas furnace, or indirectly exposing it to an electric room heater for a day or so.

If you use any method that involves heat, make sure you are nearby to monitor progress and deal with scorching and fires.

Orienting the Tenon

You’ve already shaped the handle, and shaved and lightly chamfered the tenon so it should partially fit into the head’s eye almost as deep as the chamfer, but should go no further using only hand pressure.

Please keep in mind during this process that it’s extremely important to get the tenon started in the eye straight, and to keep it straight, without allowing it to become cocked.

It’s also important to install the head in the correct orientation. This usually means it’s flat striking face is oriented towards chisel or nail, and with the brand oriented towards the handle’s butt.

Some people like to orient the head’s brand so it faces up (away from the butt) when using the hammer. I can understand this compulsion, and while it makes no difference in performance one way or the other, you should be aware that it’s seen as bass-ackwards among professionals in Japan.

Starting the Tenon

Of course, in accordance with your humble servant’s advice in previous articles, you’ve already created an elegant dome on your hammer’s butt to prevent these taps and strikes from damaging the handle.

I like to place the head on a working surface such as a benchtop or a softwood board like pine or cedar resting on the floor/ground cushioned by a piece of leather or rubber to prevent slipping.

Insert the tenon into the eye, and, after sighting the handle and head from multiple directions to check alignment, when you are absolutely certain the tenon is poised to go into the eye straight, tap the handle’s butt with a flat-faced hammer, genno (not a domed-face hammer) or mallet. After a few taps, stop tapping, check your progress, and make sure the tenon is going in straight and not cocked.

Although the tenon should not have entered the eye more than a millimeter or two, it should be an extremely tight fit, with each tap making barely any progress.

I can’t describe the sensation in writing, but if the fit is too tight at this point in the process, you may need to scrape or sand the tenon a little.

Driving the Tenon Home

This is where the “violent” part of the job I mentioned above begins.

With the tenon properly aligned and started in the eye, stand up, hold the hammer in a fist with the head hanging straight down, and strike the butt of the handle with your hammer or mallet paying attention to its progress into the eye with each strike and the friction created. Gradually adjust the impact force of your strikes accordingly. Don’t be surprised if it takes literally dozens of extremely hard strikes to install the handle completely. If the tenon just slips in, however, we have a problem, Houston.

If you find that the fit is too loose, however, don’t despair, simply shim it with quality paper as described in the last section of the previous article. Remember, most people find it difficult to get the tenon/eye fit right the first time. Such adjustments to a new handle are nothing to brag about, but neither are they something to be ashamed of. It’s more the rule than the exception until experience is gained.

Some people like to make their tenon extra-long so it projects out of the eye 6-12mm or so. Nothing wrong with this approach, but it looks silly to me in the case of a new handle. Once again, beauty is in the eye of the bean holder.

I was taught that the ideal is for the tenon of a new handle to remain recessed inside the eye a few millimeters. The purpose for this goes back to one of the reasons for the gennou handle design described in this series of articles, namely, that the handle does not have a tumorous swelling below the head but the neck is approximately the same dimensions as the eye for a portion of its length to permit the user to tap the handle further into the eye should it loosen. By leaving the end of the tenon short of the end of the eye in the case of a new handle, one provides visual evidence that (1) the handle is tightly fitted and; (2) that plenty of tenon length is available for making such adjustments.

Accordingly, a tenon projecting a long way out of the eye indicates to the knowledgeable observer that either the handle is either old and has been adjusted many times, or the tenon fit was sloppy from the beginning. In my humble opinion, a tenon of a new handle projecting from the eye a significant distance looks odd, but in practice, it doesn’t make much difference. The choice is yours.

In the next article in this series of articles about danger and violence, we’ll test you’re new handle. How exciting!

YMHOS

Please share your insights and comments with all Gentle Readers in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.”

We see data miners and their bilious bots as dastardly sneak thieves and so promise to never share, sell or profitably “misplace” your information for any reason. If I lie may all my hammers swim away from me!

Title: Cormorant. This ink drawing was made by Japan’s most famous swordsman, Miyamoto Musashi (c. 1583 – 13 June 1645). This style of art (suibokuga) is not well-known outside Asian countries, but despite the few materials used (paper, ink stick, inkstone, brush and water), it’s an extremely difficult art to master. Why? There’s no pencil layout to follow, so the artist must have the drawing planned down to the last stroke in his mind’s eye. Each stroke must be made precisely but without hesitation or mulligans. The ink is black, so color gradations can only be achieved by altering the speed of the brush and the ever-changing water/ink balance contained in the brush. High-speed, high-precision, powerful lines, no wasted strokes. Very much the work of a swordsman.

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The Japanese Gennou Hammer & Handle Part 20 – Making Sawdust

Woodworking minus patience equals firewood.

– Author Unknown

In the previous article in this series, we selected and prepared the wood for our gennou handle and layed-it out in accordance with our design drawings.

The next step in the process is to gather our tools and begin the fun work of making sawdust. Yeeehaaaa!

Tools

I prefer to use the following tools when making a gennou handle. You will need to have similar tools on hand for layout and fabrication, but the specific choice is entirely yours.

Divider with sharp points (transferring dimensions and tenon layout);
Sharp pencil (making pencil marks (ツ);
Small try square (laying-out and checking tenon);
Marking gauges (Titemark and kama kebiki. Marking tenon and centerlines) ;
Marking knife (layout);
Hozohiki rip saw and/or dozuki crosscut saw for cutting the tenon (in hardwood, a sharp hozohiki rip saw frequently makes both rip cuts and crosscuts cleaner and more precisely than a crosscut dozuki saw);
A fine saw such as a fret saw or coping saw for making curved cuts;
Auriou cabinet rasp (Lie-Nielson) (optional);
Boggs-pattern flat-sole and curved-sole spokeshaves (Lie-Nielson. Optional but very handy and pleasant to use if you can tolerate A2 steel);
Sandpaper;
A board to support the handle-in-progess. I suggest dimensions of 300-400mm long x 50-60mm wide x 40-50mm thick, with a “V” groove cut full-length and a cross-stop inlet about 2/3 its length. The handle will rest, more-or-less securely in this groove, and be restrained at one end by the stop when using spokeshaves and rasps. This support board can be clamped in a vise, or clamped to a workbench with a C clamp. I also find it most efficient to place this board on my benchtop with the gennou handle resting in the v-groove with one end touching my chest, perhaps cushioned by a rag, and use rasps and spokeshaves pulled towards me to shape the wood.

Safety

I dislike safety nannies and never want to become one. But Gentle Readers of this humble website include everything from venerable old-timers to fresh newbies, so it would be unkind of me to write for the benefit of only accomplished woodworkers while ignoring the new guys. And since the operations described herein include sharp tools, and potentially harmful substances, please plan to work safely. The following webpages may help.

In addition, before you start making (and sucking into your pretty pink lungs) the millions of the tiny airborne wood particles that comprise sawdust, please check that the species is not dangerous in general, and that you do not have allergies in particular. The website at the link below might be useful.

Wood Allergies and Toxicity

The Tenon and the Unblinking Eye

Let’s start by cutting the tenon and fitting it to the gennou head’s eye.

You’ve already layed-out the tenon, so next use a fine precision rip saw like a 210mm hozohiki to cut the four cheeks being extremely careful, like a big-eyed kitten stalking a grasshopper, to stop short of the layout line. Be careful to work very precisely with your saw to not cut too deeply as any excess meat removed from the tenon, or sawcuts left in the tenon, will fatally weaken it. I’m not kidding!

I humbly confess to making this mistake more than once, ruining all my work to that point and wasting some nice wood. Indeed, it may be best to cut the shoulders shallow and trim with a chisel, once again being careful to not cut too deeply. Ruthless, merciless, unrelenting control of your coke-snorting inner-badger is critical!

At this point, the handle is a chunky, graceless block with square edges, flat surfaces and a stubby tenon sticking out at one end. That’s alright. There’s no need to contour the handle yet.

Cut itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny chamfers on the end of the tenon to help guide it into the eye without cocking and binding. A big chamfer will benefit nothing and look ghastly.

Mark the reference face annotation on the corresponding tenon cheek because you don’t want to mistakenly force the tenon in bassackwards.

Test fit the tenon into the eye a few millimeters but without driving it all the way on. It should not start by hand pressure.

Although you shouldn’t have yet tried a full-length, full-power test fit, when you are satisfied that the tenon will fit into the eye of your gennou head without the tight fit shaving off much wood, and marked the reference faces, then tape the tenon with masking tape so you don’t accidentally knick or shave it. Don’t ask me why I know this risk exists.

With the tenon close to completion, let’s next shape the curved front, back and side surfaces to fit.

The Back and Front Edges

The tools you use don’t matter so long as when this step is complete the back edge is perpendicular to the reference face, the opposing side face, and is consistent with the layout lines.

Cut the back and front edges (surfaces parallel with the long axis of your gennou head) to your design profile using saws, rasps, knives and/or spokeshaves. The two guiding details in this process are the butt and the tenon, with the tenon being most important. These two surfaces should be shaped to smoothly connect the butt with the tenon, not the other way around.

However, leave the corners of the neck and handle area square for now to help guide you in shaping the critical back and side surfaces because, if you start rounding and smoothing edges and corners now, it often happens that the geometry which aligns the hammer’s face with chisel and nail will be compromised.

I recommend you cut outside the layout lines plus a millimeter or two because accidentally cutting deeper than your layout lines will not only disrupt the even flow of the design but may damage the structural integrity of this elegant, minimalist tool.

Do not shave the handle’s sides flush with the tenon yet, but leave them just a hair proud.

When done with the this, lightly remark the centerline and extended the eye’s lines.

The Sides

At this point in the process the right and left sides should still be flat and parallel, perpendicular at any point with the back surface, and have neat, square corners.

Use the paper/cardboard profile pattern from your design drawing to mark the handle’s layout on the back and front edges.

Just as with the back and front edges, cut the side surfaces using saws, rasps, knives and/or spokeshaves.

Although some prefer handles with a broken dogleg shape, I recommend you make the transition from tenon to butt gradual and smooth.

As you approach the final dimensions, be careful to avoid tearout or gouging in the neck area since removing these irregularities may require you to reduce thickness too much.

Do not cut or shave the sides flush with the tenon’s cheeks yet, but leave them just a hair proud.

Smoothing and Rounding

I find it most effective at this point to shape the back edge (opposite the flat striking surface of the head) flat with slighty relieved corners, not rounded-over corners. You can always change it later.

Some people like to make the back edge of the handle oval or egg-shaped, but I recommend you leave it flat at first and then adjust it to fit your hand as you use the gennou.

At this point your industrial-designer sensibilities will scream at you in a voice like a nazgul commanding you to round the the back surface entirely or to make it oval or egg-shaped, but while such surfaces might look better hanging on a peg in a hardware store, or in pictures in a magazine, or as an image on you facebook or Instagram page, and may even feel better when used to kill cockroaches, I promise you it is counterproductive when doing serious work.

Why? Because, despite what you may think, a flatter back surface does not bite into the hand in-use, but because of the greater surface area in contact with the hand it provides, it actually reduces the pressure of impact reaction forces on the hand reducing fatigue and bruising. More importantly, it helps with quickly and unconsciously indexing the striking face of the head correctly.

With the back edge where it needs to be, next round the front edge into the design profile. I prefer this surface to be more-or-less a perfect radius at any point in the handle area, but some guys feel an egg-shaped cross-section fits their fingers better. Six of one half-dozen of the other.

In any case, this surface must smoothly morph into a flat surface with slightly radiused corners in the neck area, and finally with no radius as it approaches the tenon. Yes, you read correctly: no radius.

I usually round-over the flat on the back edge right where my index finger wraps around to the side just a little to avoid developing a blister. But keep in mind that the only way to tell what small details works best for you is trial and error.

Doming the Butt

A Hiroki head (bright finish) with a handle of ushikoroshi wood. Notice the domed butt.

The butt should be flat with sharp edges at this point in the process.

You may find a domed butt strange, but it has both practical and aesthetic purposes.

Let’s consider the structural, practical purpose first. If the wood is adequately hard, and the tenon is not too skinny, you will need to pound on the butt like a son-of-a-gun dozens of times to get the tenon into the eye. That’s as it should be. Don’t start yet, but when the time comes you must be careful with the accuracy of your hammer strikes to avoid damaging the butt or breaking the tenon.

If the butt is flat with crisp edges, unless you have perfect aim with every swing, your hammer might chip or even split it. A domed butt, by comparison, directs impact forces of your hammer away from the edges of the butt and into the neck to help to prevent chipping. Likewise, a domed butt will also reduce damage to the handle over many years of hard service.

Moving on to aesthetics, a domed surface is more organic and, to my beauty-deprived sensibilities, more elegant than a flat one because straight lines seldom exist in nature, are boring to the eye, and are seldom aesthetically pleasing

A warning. Everyone has different opinions about what pleases the eye, as you know. Beauty is in the eye of the bean holder, or something like that, so I entirely understand if you dismiss the aesthetic reasons I’ve suggested. But please don’t ignore the practical, structural reasons if you want to avoid wasting your time and wood.

Assuming the butt is flat and its surface is more or less perpendicular to handle’s centerline, use a marking gauge set at ¼” to scribe a shallow line on the butt’s face (the part the will be domed), and around the butt’s sides (the handle’s sides and front and back edges). These lines will be the limit of the chamfer between the grip and the butt.

Next, mark a cross on the butt using the front and back edge’s centerline, and a perpendicular line parallel to the back edge. This cross will be useful in maintaining the centerline while profiling the butt.

Use a knife, chamfer plane, block plane, files or other tools to make a 45˚ chamfer up to the lines just scratched.

Next facet the butt using planes or a sharp kiridashi kogatana knife and remove all tearout and filemarks Try to keep it symmetrical if you can.

The butt can be left faceted (my preference) or smoothed using sandpaper later. That decision must be made before finishing the handles, but need not be made now.

Why might one elect to leave the butt faceted instead of smoothing and polishing it? I’ve done it both ways, and if I’m in a hurry, I sand it smooth and get it over. But all commercial products nowadays are smooth and symmetrical, but a factory cannot facet a curved surface easily. A faceted butt sets my hammers apart from all commercial products while giving them the craftsman’s signature.

Fixing a Loose Head

So here’s the “I toljaso” in advance.

If you were not as careful and clever as big-eyed kitten stalking a grasshopper when fitting the tenon, you may find it becomes loose and the head begins to wiggle with the passing of a few seasons. A Sergent Elias moment!

I won’t say it out loud, but just between you, me and CCP, you can remedy a loose head by removing it and shimming the eye with quality high-rag-content typing paper. Don’t have any typewriter paper left in your bat cave? It may be your not using your IBM Selectric much nowadays. Are there alternatives?

Don’t tell the Secret Service I said so, but nothing works better for shimming a tenon than a strip cut from a dollar bill. Crane Stationary makes the best paper in the world, and by no coincidence, also makes the paper used in US currency.

In the next few articles in this series we will attach the gennou head to the handle, apply a London Finish, and sample its performance. Yummy!

Until then, I have the honor to remain,

YMHOS

Lena Dances With the Knight by John Bauer 1915

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The Japanese Gennou & Handle Part 19 – Laying-out the Handle

Not all those who wander are lost.”

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Introduction

In previous articles in this frightfully sexually-charged series, Beloved Customer produced a design drawing for your gennou handle based on the parameters of your actual gennou head and your body. You should have also selected, or at least rolled out of bed onto the floor, bumped your head, partially opened one sticky eye, and seriously considered selecting, an appropriate stick of wood. Assuming you’ve procured said stick, let’s get to the layout.

Tools

There are as many ways to layout a hammer handle as Carter has pills, so I won’t insist you do it my way, nor will I dictate what tools you use, but after making dozens of gennou, hammer, axe and adze handles for myself and customers, I’m confident in recommending the following minimum set of tools:

Divider with sharp points (for finding centers and transferring dimensions and lines from drawing to stick;
Sharp pencil;
Small try square;
Marking gauges (Titemark and kama kebiki for quickly laying out centerlines and other details);
Marking knife;
Calipers (vernier, dial, or digital. For measuring internal dimensions of the eye, and precisely laying out the tenon)
Handplanes (for dimensioning purposes).

Dominic Campbell’s atedai workbench (in-progress) and his tools, including his gennou with classical-style Kosaburo head and beechwood handle

Preparing the Stick

You need to prepare the stick or board you selected after bumping your head to have 6 flat, parallel, square sides. As far as dimensions go, we need it to be a little oversized, e.g. longer, wider and thicker than the maximum final dimensions shown in the drawing.

You can prep this board or stick using electrical tools, but if you can’t do it with handtools alone, I strongly encourage you to work on your basic skills. Not as flashy as a halfgainer with a twist of lemon while falling from the bed, but surprisingly few have these skills nowadays.

Looking back on the old texts, one of the first tasks assigned trainees in cabinetmaking technical schools and apprenticeships was making a number of sticks or boards with six precisely dimensioned, flat, wind-free, parallel, 90˚ sides just like this because this simple job combines many of the essential woodworking skills, readily makes mistakes apparent to encourage improvement of basic skills, and helps one’s develop an understanding of the material.

Your humble, bumbling servant too was once required to make several boards and sticks just like this using handsaws, handplanes, a trysquare and marking gauge in front of others before I was permitted to be taught more advanced skills. Powertools are fine, but if you haven’t done this before, now is the time to perfect your technique.

Layout

The following layout steps assume the stick has already been dimensioned as described above.

Begin your layout by selecting and marking a flat and wind-free side of the selected board corresponding to a profile view on the drawing to be the “reference face.” You can write “RF” on it to avoid confusion. I just draw two quick lines in pencil at an angle across the board’s surface at both ends. Don’t forget to label this critical surface somehow so there will be no confusion moving forward.
Plane the surface of the board that will form the handle’s back edge (seen from above in plan view) flat and perpendicular to this reference face. All further layout will be indexed from these two faces.
Mark the maximum thickness of the handle on the surface opposite the reference face, as determined by the widest dimension of the butt, using a marking gauge against the reference face.
Plane all the surfaces flat, free of wind, and where appropriate, planar. This needs to be done pretty precisely.
Use a marking gauge to draw the appropriate centerlines on both sides, edges, ends of the board/stick.
Use dividers to measure and layout the width of the eye, plus a little extra, centered on the centerline you just marked, and spin this around the eye, butt, back edge and front edge.
Make paper, cardboard, or wood patterns based on your design drawing of the handle’s elevation and profile views. Paying close attention to minimize grain runout, especially in the tenon and neck area, position the patterns and mark the board accordingly.
Using these cardboard patterns, carefully layout all the tenon’s dimensions on the board, measured from the reference face and back edge. Be sure to make the tenon a half-sheet of copy paper too large in width and thickness. This can be trimmed down later if the fit is too tight. Layout of the tenon is critical so don’t f* it up.
Adjust the lines of the handle design to meet your requirements for beauty.

In the next post in this series we will begin making sawdust. Oh joy!

GennouHandleDwg85Kosaburo20160415 Download

YMHOS

Two Trolls by John Bauer, 1909. Not wanting to pay the construction costs of the bread oven with its gracefully artistic hinges your humble servant has just installed, exceedingly parsimonious Granny Troll is trying to convince me to climb inside the hot oven and do a closeup inspection. Will I fit? More importantly, do you like my fetching new safety shoes?

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Ancient Tools: The String Line & Straightedge

I’m not only a philosopher, sir, I’m a fatalist. Somewhere, sometime, there may be the right bullet or the wrong bottle waiting for Josiah Boone. Why worry about when or where?

Doctor Josiah Boone, Stagecoach, 1939

This series of articles is about tools that have been around a long time, used by nearly every craftsman and builder throughout the span of human existence. Tools without batteries, with no plastic parts, with no need to update or replace glitchy decepticon software that intentionally breaks or evaporates after a few months. These are tools that don’t lend themselves to mass-production and corporate profits. You could even make them yourself with little effort.

I call them “Ancient Tools” because their origins are older than writing.

In this post, your humble servant would like to consider two of the most ancient such tools: the noble stringline and its stiffer brother: the straight edge. We will also touch on the divider.

But before we go into details, let’s consider some background about these tools and why they are so important.

Some History

It’s not even a featherweight of exaggeration to say that each of these tools was essential to the design, fabrication and installation of the wood, brick, stone and steel that make up the foundation of both ancient and modern human civilization.

Indeed, beyond simply making stuff, these small tools were critical to the elevation of human civilization above subsistence hunting, gathering, and the herding of goats. How did these simple tools build civilization, Gentle Reader may ask?

Well the reasons are simply that the stringline and straightedge were essential to the development of mathematics, geometry, trigonometry, navigation, astronomy, architecture, engineering, external ballistics, and many other practical sciences, all of which are essential to not only craftsmen, but modern civilization in total. An exaggeration? Not in the least degree.

Does Gentle Reader use round objects? Do you know how the number Pi was first approximated?

Does Gentle Reader ever ride ships on oceans, or airplanes in the sky? Or use objects transported by trains, cars or trucks over long railways and highways? Have you given thought to how ancient builders were able to plan and layout those railways, roads, highways and bridges? Or layout and cut the earth, stones and wood to make them? Have you considered how the Parthenon in Rome, the world’s oldest, and until recently, largest domes was designed and laid-out?

Have you considered how ancient sailing vessels were able to navigate oceans and chart constantly changing courses?

You may think that these tasks are all handled by theodolites, lasers, computers and GPS widgets nowadays, and that may be so, but it was the string line and straightedge that started it all.

It’s my humble contention that these simple tools remain of significant utility even to modern woodworkers.

Relevant History

Pardon me while I momentarily wax academic.

Did you know that the oldest and most respected treatise on geometry was a 13 book collection titled Elements of Geometry, written around 300 BC by the Greek mathematician, Euclid? That was along time ago.

A fragment of Euclid’s Elements on part of the Oxyrhynchus papyri.

The fact is that Elements is the world’s oldest, extant, large-scale deductive treatment of mathematics, and for nearly two thousand years was the definitive document studied in the West and Middle East by those seeking an education about the physical world. This includes, of course, Leonardo of Pisa (Fibonacci) (c. 1170–1250 CE), René Descartes (1596–1650), Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727), and every other mathematical giant. It’s an impressive set of books by any standard.

Of course, Maestro Euclid did not invent all the principles presented in his books but summarized the works of Eudoxus of Cnidus, Hippocrates of Chios, Thales and Theaetetus.

The exact same principles of mathematics and geometry written about in the Elements are taught in schools and universities nowadays, although the textbooks employed are abbreviated, fancier, plagiarized versions of the Elements shamefully giving no credit to Maestro Euclid or his teachers. Interestingly, the word plagiarize comes from the Latin word plagium, meaning to kidnap.

And here’s why The Elements is relevant to this humble scribble, because, you see, Euclid limited the constructions he presented in his books to those that could be produced using just a simple straight edge (not a ruler) and a basic divider, the two most important tools to civilization, and worthy of mastery.

Let’s first examine the father of both the straightedge, ruler and divider: the string line.

The Stringline

Before the straightedge there was the string line, a simple tool older than the straightedge, the ruler and the divider. Anyone can make one.

Think about it. If you must draw a straight line, or check that something is straight, and you lack a precision straightedge or carpenter’s square, or the tools you have are too short, how would you do it? The quickest, cheapest, most reliable tool for the job is the simple string line, be it made from palm fiber, camel hair, hemp, nettles or dried fish guts. Anyone can make it, and anyone can use it. They sell it at Home Despot, but batteries are not required!

The same string line can also be used as a divider or compass.

For example, if you need to divide a distance into 4 segments, simply stretch the line over the total distance and fold it back on itself 3 times. Each fold is a perfect 1/4 division of the total distance. This may be the origin of the 1/2″, 1/4″, 1/8″, 1/16″ progressions of divisions used in imperial measurements.

If we tie a knot, or make an ink mark at each of these divisions, we’ve now made a very accurate, graduated string line which can be used like a tape measure. And all it took was just some cordage made from a nettle plant or horse tail. Batteries not included.

A commercially-available string line I recently purchased for quality control of a robotic customer fulfillment center construction project in Chiba, Japan. In Japan this tool is called a “mizuito” (水糸), which translates to “water string.” In Japan the “water line” has nothing to do with boats but is a datum line critical to layout in construction, BTW. Made by Takumi in 4 colors, this string line is made of 0.8mm x 120m low-stretch nylon. Stretchy nylon would be a big failure. The black plastic reel that came with it measures 80×52×31mm and comes in both 120m and 240m sizes and is designed to fit into a breast pocket. To use this reel, one places one’s thumb and forefinger on the opposing free-wheeling red circular centers on each edge of the reel. This allows one to completely control the reel with just two fingers while spooling line in or out and all without striking the web of the hand. A very handy tool indeed and one I use all the time.

The Straightedge

The straightedge is a stiffer, shorter, handier version of the string line. It takes some skill to make.

The ruler is a straightedge with marks (graduations) instead of knots. This takes more skill to make.

The folding rule and metal ruler are more durable, convenient versions of the wooden ruler, but take a lot of skill and expensive materials to make. They were too costly for ordinary craftsman to own until recent times.

Civilization & Public Standards of Measurement

In ancient times, each upstanding, well-organized community, be it town, city, abbey, temple, or castle, had a person responsible for establishing local legal standards of weights and distances, for maintaining official references materials (e.g. actual weights, graduated rulers or containers), and for checking on behalf of the local authorities, such as the Pharaoh, king, baron, castle owner, abbot or mayor, that the subordinate members of the community were in compliance with those standards.

In past millennia this system of public standards was considered proof of civilization, one of the primary justifications for government and taxes, while the lack thereof was considered a sure sign of barbarism and crooked government.

Indeed, failure to establish, maintain and enforce these standards frequently resulted in bitter disputes and even bloody wars even in the recent past.

With every Tom, Dick and Pharaoh striving madly to become emperor of the world and establish themself in history forever as the person who governs “standards” (aka the “ruler”), until relatively recently, these weights and measures varied from kingdom to kingdom, castle to castle, and town to town. What a confusing mess!

Matters of health, welfare and uniform commerce aside, from the days of Melchizedek, standards were, and still remain, absolutely essential to taxation, of course.

To ensure that buyers and vendors were familiar with the standard measures current in a certain place, in ancient times these standards were carved onto or embedded into the walls of public buildings and church facades in such a way that all could see and copy them, and so they could not be removed or defaced.

Defacing/modifying standards, sometimes by the taxed and often by those imposing taxes, has always been a convenient but ruinous way to make money. The recent bout of intentional high inflation and currency devaluation the world is experiencing is a symptom of currency adulteration, another ancient criminal activity related to defacement of standards.

Indeed failure to comply with officially-established standards was deemed a serious offense in many communities punishable by fines, imprisonment, dunking, public exposure, dismemberment, hanging and even crucifixion. Worldwide more than a few shopkeepers, bakers, brewers, weavers and even tile makers were maimed or executed for “shorting” their customers.

Historically, master builders and tool makers were often required to provide a letter from the local standards officer attesting that their scales and measuring tools were in full accord with the latest standards.

While we no longer embed standards of measure made of iron or stone in the walls of churches and city halls, in one form or another, this practice continues even today.

Standard measures on the façade of the Torre Civica in Assisi (photograph Elizabeth den Hartog). Shown are public standards for various units of length at the time (yard, foot and palm), as well as the respective official standards for the thickness and size of roof tiles, bricks and floor tiles. These standards often included the minimum size of a loaf of bread and size of a tankard of ale.

How To Use a Straightedge

I learned how to use straightedges, scales, dividers and compasses for carpentry and woodworking as a boy from my father, and from carpenters and other craftsman on jobsites over the years. But I learned the most from drafting classes in college. This was before drafting heads, digital protractors, dot-matrix printers, and CAD. Back then even lettering was done by hand or using plastic/metal templates. The professors back then were justifiably proud of their hard-earned skills and the beautiful and precise documents they could deftly produce entirely by hand.

The first lesson the Masters taught was this: Never lay one’s tape measure, rule or scale on the drawing/workpiece and mark from it directly using pencil, pen, scribe or marking knife, but instead use dividers to first measure the required distance on the scale/ruler, indexing the divider’s points in the engraved lines, and then use those same dividers to transfer and mark the distance onto the workpiece or paper. High precision indeed.

The intuitive, but inefficient way most careful people do the job is lay the ruler, yardstick or tape measure on the workpiece, index one end (a careful man will always “burn” 1″ or 12″ or 10mm and not index directly on the tool’s end), locate the target distance on the measuring tool, and make a mark. But if he is trying to layout an irregular distance like 2-3/64″ (= 52 (51.99) mm), for instance, a pencil’s lead or pen’s tip is too wide for precision, so he will use a scribe or marking knife instead. But in many cases, this requires extremely good eyesight, and sometimes even a magnifying glass. When I as a young man, many senior carpenters kept a magnifying glass in their toolbox. It works.

The wiser craftsman will tip the scale or ruler on its edge, kneel or bend down so he can see the scale’s/ruler’s marks clearly, fit the point of his marking knife or scribe into the engraved line on scale/ruler, and then transfer that to the workpiece, paper, or story stick with a quick “tick.”

There is a risk that the far end of the ruler/scale at the point he is measuring from may wiggle out of alignment messing up his precision. Or that the scribe/knife point may shift while making the “tick.” With practice, these tendencies can be overcome, but clearly this method is time consuming and the results may be questionable.

The improvements I recommend to make one’s marking knife more effective at this task can be seen here.

But using dividers, the wise craftsman can fit/index their points quickly and precisely into the engraved lines in scale/ruler at each end of the measurement, first time everytime, and without kneeling, squinting, pressing down, or worrying about wiggling and shifting mark the desired distance on the workpiece. Once he has set the dividers to the required distance, he can fit one of the sharp points precisely into the index hole, or onto the line he is measuring from, and then use the other point to make a precise scratch or hole in the workpiece, which can be used again for future layout reference. This technique greatly improves precision without using a magnifying glass.

This technique works with both dividers and trammel heads.

Standard dividers are quickest, but a locking divider with screw adjustment is easier to adjust precisely and is more likely to retain the measured distance with repeated usage.

You will find when drafting or doing layout that you repeat some distances frequently. Having 2 or 3 locking dividers set to these distances close at hand will allow you to layout those distances quickly and accurately without the need to refer to scale/ruler. Your humble servant keeps three in my toolchest.

The quality of your scale/ruler becomes important when attempting precision layout. A high-quality, professional-grade scale or ruler must of course be of proper length and uniform width and thickness, be free of twist, and have accurate lines. But to qualify as a high-quality scale/ruler, it must pass 2 simple quality tests, not an easy task nowadays.

Accurately spaced graduations. Performing this quality check requires the skillful use of precision tools and time, so it is seldom economical to purchase discount scales/rulers.
Consistently engraved graduations. Besides being spaced at the right distances, the graduations engraved into the metal must be the right length, width, depth and have smooth, straight walls. This too is also uncommon. Don’t settle for cheapo tools with shallow, uneven laser-etched or acid etched graduations. Photo-engraved graduations are best. Seldom found in Chinese or Indian tools.

We’ll consider more uses for these tools in the next installment of this crazy adventure.

YMHOS

A fusuma screen by Kano Nagatoku, a designated National Treasure of Japan, commissioned by the Tokugawa clan, Japan’s last and most famous shogunate. Imagine presiding over a meeting with this as your background!

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Procuring Wood

We are men of action. Lies do not become us.

― William Goldman, The Princess Bride

No doubt Gentle Reader will agree that the sights, smells and other sensations of working wood are wonderful. And of course we all appreciate owning beautiful, enduring, useful objects made from wood with our own hands and tools, but how best to obtain this supremely sustainable environmentally-friendly material for our projects?

For purposes of this article I am assuming Gentle Reader does not use fully-milled S4S (surfaced four sides) boards exclusively, nor that you start each project from standing trees or even logs, but rather begins your projects with rough-sawn lumber of the sort pictured above and sold not at home centers but at lumber yards.

If this assumption is correct I encourage you to build a relationship with small sawmills, often located far from the beaten track, who are willing to sell directly to craftsmen at their yard. This may take some hunting and travel. And you will need to build mutually-beneficial, respectful relationships with the owners of these small businesses. To that end, I encourage keeping a few things in mind and acting accordingly.

Remember that, while sawmills are small businesses, Sawyers aren’t shop keepers, waiting by a register at Home Despot with nothing to do but play Candy Crush Saga on their iPhone until you arrive. They are always busy, their profit margins are thin, and their time is money, so if you want to do business with them, you would be wise to not waste their time. This requires forethought, planning, preparation and action as outlined below.

Planning

Your humble servant is fond of making a good plan, and then working that plan, while remaining flexible and responsive to reality. In commercial situations, a good plan for woodworking must include complete drawings with dimensions and clear details, materials specifications, a cost estimate, a time schedule and a reasonable contract to be reviewed and approved by all parties involved before work begins. And shop drawings too must be produced and approved, of course.

But in the case of personal woodworking for pleasure, I like to leave the details of the plan a little looser, a little more flexible to allow me to better adapt to time, cost and material constraints and to permit interesting improvisation. My tools love improvisation. What about yours?

When it comes time to procure wood, we need at least an initial plan that lists approximately how much wood we need, its species, length, width and thickness. This plan must take into consideration the limitations of the tools (e.g. jointer, planer, bandsaw etc.) we have at our disposal to mill the wood after we purchase it. With this in hand, and assuming a realistic fudge factor of 13~20%, we’re ready to go hunting for wood.

Seeking a Source of Wood

Home centers and lumber yards are convenient to purchase wood from, but the cost may be relatively high and selection may be poor and/or boring. Given the option, and the ability to transport the wood (or to have it delivered), I prefer to purchase directly from small sawmills instead.

When I was residing in the USA, locating sawmills was not easy. I ended up purchasing hardwood mostly from Amish sawmills in Central and Eastern Ohio, and both hardwoods and softwoods from mills in the mountains of Northern California and Southern Oregon. But nowadays the internet appears to make sourcing much easier.

Father and son surfacing boards in an Amish sawmill

I enjoyed purchasing wood from Amish mills. No frills, no BS, just honest wood sold by honest men. They’re not as convenient as Home Despot. They don’t advertise, don’t have websites, may not have telephones, won’t do email, and they’re always closed on Sunday, but if you drive into Amish country and ask around at local stores and gas stations you can usually find them. They are deeply religious and absolutely family-oriented folk, so watch your language, be polite and respectful, and be sure any women accompanying you dress modestly.

I don’t trust evil Google anymore, but a quick search on DuckDuckGo just now listed dozens of sawmills selling lumber to end-users around the US. A local Chamber of Commerce might be able to direct you too.

Other sources of information about sawmills I’ve had good luck with are cabinet shops, stair shops, custom door shops, millwork contractors, and interior contractors, all businesses that buy a lot of roughsawn wood. Better to drop by and ask in person than to just telephone or email.

If there’s a woodworking club or guild in your area they’ll know the local suppliers for sure and for certain.

Storage

Before you select and purchase your wood you should make sure you have space to store it unless, that is, you plan to cut it all up in a day or two after purchase. Be sure you don’t buy more than you can conveniently and safely store.

Improperly storing lumber so it’s not supported correctly will cause it to warp. If it’s exposed to rain and snow the resulting differential moisture content will always cause warpage. And of course, your boards may become dirty, or bugs may infest it. I hate wasting good wood.

If your ceilings are high enough, you can stack boards vertically, leaning against the wall in a corner of your apartment, house or garage. Be sure to stack it carefully so it won’t warp. Most importantly, tie it off securely so it can’t fall over and crush your kiddies. Notice I wrote “can’t” not just “won’t.” This deliberate choice of language is evidence of my deep confidence in Murphy’s active inclination for malicious harm. Indeed, here in Japan, most lumber is stored vertically, and many injuries and even deaths have resulted from toppling lumber.

A Gentle Reader pointed out that storing lumber this way with the board’s end resting directly on soil may invite termite infestation. Of course this is absolutely true, assuming the ground touching the board is infested with termites and the moisture content of the soil and wood are inviting to such insects, conditions that are often easily met. Best to elevate the boards above the soil by resting on concrete, bricks or cinder blocks, or on the floor of your apartment, house or garage, as noted above.

A Japanese lumber warehouse with vertically-stored product.

The best and safest way to store lumber, IMHO, is to place some stickers (three minimum) on a level floor, in a place protected from the weather, and to neatly stack your lumber on them. 2×4’s placed on edge are usually good, but you may want to skew them a bit for improved stability in the long direction of the lumber they will support. Be sure these stickers are all the same width and that once placed the top edges of all your stickers are situated level and planar (in the same plane). Don’t assume for a second that the floor or ground are level. If your check confirms it isn’t, shim the stickers so they are level and planar.

Use a spirit level to confirm the top edges of your stickers are level, and a stringline (aka “dryline”) to confirm the top edges are all planar.

Place thin stickers of uniform thickness between each layer of your lumber, so it will continue to dry without warping.

It’s easy to store lumber outside under the eaves of a building, but since it will be more exposed to rain, snow, weather, dust and critters, a few extra precautions may be called for. Once again, place your stickers properly and lay plastic sheeting on top of them. Then stack your lumber on top of the plastic, and wrap the plastic over the top of the stack so rain and snow can’t wet the wood, but leave the ends loose and tented so air can circulate. It may be best to place a few sheets of plywood or roofing material over the stack, well-weighted down so it won’t blow away during a storm.

Once your lumber is stacked, place newspaper or other paper on top to protect your beautiful wood from airborne dust and grit. Plastic is OK if the stack might be exposed to rain, but be aware it may slow the wood’s drying and/or cause the growth of discoloring mildew, so you may want to plan for some air circulation.

Another storage option is to attach steel or wooden brackets high on the wall of a garage, barn or outbuilding that can safely bear the weight. The top edge of these brackets needs to be level and planar to prevent the wood from warping. Don’t place your lumber directly touching these steel brackets, however, but lay down plastic or wood under your lumber to prevent dark lines of iron corrosion from developing in the wood.

Again, place newspaper on top of the stack to protect it from dust accumulation. Getting wood safely onto and down from these high brackets may be challenging, so be careful.

Preparation & Action

Once you’ve formulated a plan, located some potential sawmills or sources, and arranged safe storage, it’s time to take action. I recommend the following preparations and actions.

Call ahead or visit and make introductions, describe your needs in some detail, and arrange a time to select wood. Make sure the proprietor understands that, after an initial perusal, and on condition he has the wood you need, you will conclude your purchase immediately with hard cashy money and without any tedious paperwork. The Amish, for instance, accept only cash.
Know what variety, and approximately how much wood you need before calling the sawmill. For instance, you need to be ready to say something like “I need 200 board ft of 8-quarter (2” thick) maple, 10’ long 10” wide. ” He may not have that species wood, with that figure, in that size, in that quantity in-stock. Even if he doesn’t have exactly what you need, he may be able to suggest alternatives, or point you to other suppliers.
Be sure to ask if the wood he can supply has been kiln-dried or air-dried and how close he thinks it might be to equilibrium moisture content. He may not know, and that’s alright too. On the other hand, if he says everything he has in-stock is freshly milled and sopping wet, you may want to look elsewhere unless you’re prepared to wait for a couple of years for the wood to dry in storage.
Learn how to evaluate lumber grades and how to calculate board-feet.
Ask the following questions:
1. “Do you have a minimum sales volume or dollar amount?” He’s not a Home Despot focused entirely on high-volume retail sales in small quantities, after all.
2. “How late are you open?” Sawyers tend to start work early, so you need to be done with your selection and complete payment well before he locks the gate at the end of his workday.
3. “Can I bring my truck into the yard to load, or must I park out front?” and “Where should I park my truck so it’s out of the way?” Customers parking willy-nilly and blocking traffic are a frequent problem for most lumberyards. If he won’t let you bring your truck into the yard, you’ll need to bring/borrow a cart or be willing to hand-carry your boards to your truck.
4. “Are there any varieties of wood or stacks not for sale?” Sawyers often receive orders from regular commercial customers months in advance and keep partially-filled orders set off to the side, so while it may appear he has plenty of the wood you want, it may not be for sale, or he may be unwilling to break down a stack for the few pieces you intend to purchase. If he does have such reserved stacks, find out which ones they are, don’t touch them, and don’t pester him about them.
5. “What are your safety rules in your yard?” As mentioned above, the Sawyer may require you to use full PPE (personal protection equipment) including safety shoes, hardhat, safety vest, safety glasses, ear protection, and cut-resistant gloves, or he may be OK with your usual business-casual attire of frayed jeans shorts and flip-flops. Fashion statements aside, it’s just professional to be prepared and learn the rules beforehand.
When you visit the mill, bring all the safety equipment the yard rules require. Even if they are not required, please have the sense to wear certified safety shoes, an orange or yellow reflective safety vest (very important in a lumberyard where vehicle and foot traffic meet in tight quarters), and to have cut-resistant safety gloves tucked into your belt. It is also wise to bring safety glasses, ear protection, and a certified hardhat just in case. You may think you don’t need this PPE, and perhaps you won’t, but the Sawyer’s yard safety policy and/or insurance may require it. Best to be the prepared professional.
Bring a tape measure and moisture meter with you to check the actual moisture content of the actual wood yourself before you purchase it because, if it’s too wet, you will need to sticker/store it while it dries. Be sure you understand the acceptable range of moisture content you buy. 12% is pretty good for lumber stored outside, and 18% may be just fine, but 30% MC will be too high. High moisture content may not be a problem if you know how, and are prepared, to deal with it, but even then please don’t pay full-price for lumber you’ll need to dry for a year or so before it’s useful.
Be prepared to attach at least one red or orange safety flag to any lumber you purchase if it projects out past the end of your truck’s bed much (6′).
Bring enough rope and/or ratcheting safety tie-downs to keep the lumber you purchase from shifting in the bed of your truck while underway. Watching your newly-purchased pretty boards spread artistically all over the freeway in your rear-view mirror may be exciting for you, but I guarantee you folks in the vehicles following will not thank you.
Be prepared to do all your own grunt work, including sorting, lifting, carrying and loading. Don’t expect the sawyer to do more than use his forklift to move stacks around for you, even if you’re accustomed to other retailers accommodating your bad back. Bring a helper if necessary. Bored sons and young boys are useful for this and can benefit from the experience, at least that was my father’s viewpoint, and in retrospect, I heartily agree. Be sure any young folk that accompany you are cautious, respectful and follow the sawmill’s rules, as will you. Provide cut-resistant gloves so their mothers won’t berate you for any cuts or slivers they manage to collect. Modern mothers are irrational about that sort of thing. And hi-viz safety vests can prevent crushed kiddies.

In the Lumberyard

Dealing with retail customers that purchase in small quantities is a pain for all businesses, so if you want to develop a reliable source for good wood without buying by the trailerload, make of yourself a mellow, good customer. The following tips will help.

Jimmy Choo’s Safety Shoes from his new “Prostate Exam” Collection

Leave Fido, your pet goat, your mother-in-law, and all small children at home where they’ll be safely out of the way. I grew up in lumberyards, so I know how dangerous they can be with trucks and forklifts operated by tweaker teenagers zooming around, teetering stacks of wood aching for a chance to topple, and sharp slivers, nails and bloodthirsty staples sticking out everywhere. If you bring a teenager to help, be sure he too wears the required PPE.
Most Sawyers are not setup for efficient retail sales, and few can process credit cards or online payments. Of course, checks from people they don’t know well are never welcome. In fact, he may not agree over the phone or by email to sell to you directly at all, but once you are face to face, cash in hand, and you flash your best Brad Pitt smile, everything should be fine. In any case, it’s important you help make the selection and payment processes go as quickly and smoothly as possible, so unless you have an account with the Sawyer, be prepared to pay the exact amount in cash, without requiring change for big bills.
If you need to park your truck in spaces between stacks, leave your keys in the ignition when you step away for a bit so the Sawyer can move it to allow large trucks or loads of wood to pass.
When sorting through lumber stacks, set some stickers (at least three 2×4’s on-edge) on the ground nearby (out of the way of passing trucks and forklifts) to temporarily place the lumber you’ve removed from the stack and to keep it off the ground and clean.
Never place a board directly on the ground or pavement until you’ve paid for it. And don’t ever be so rude as to toss boards you haven’t paid for.
Never step on wood until you’ve actually paid for it. It isn’t yet yours to mark with your pretty pink boots from Manolo Blahnik’s Ironworker Collection.
Never place the end of a board into dirt or gravel until you’ve paid for it.
Keep a running count of the board feet and approximate grade of the boards you have selected to purchase. Tell the Sawyer your final count, and show him your calculations, but be prepared to defer to his count if it differs, at least until you become a large-volume customer.
Lumber dealers, and especially those who are accustomed to selling in volume to commercial accounts, dislike customers who “cherry-pick” their stacks taking only the best boards and leaving mediocre boards behind. More despised are those rude, lazy souls destined to roast for eternity spitted and rotating over Satan’s tar-fired barbecue pit who leave stacks a disorganized jumble inducing the remaining lumber to warp. Please firmly control your inner penny-pinching Scrooge (excruciatingly difficult for many) and select a mix of boards, not just the best ones. They’ll all come in useful. If the only boards you can find are hopelessly useless, discuss the problem with the Sawyer using a non-belligerent, even apologetic, tone of voice. If it’s your first time visiting this sawmill, consider buying some sub-standard lumber just to get off on the right foot. Hopefully he’ll make it up to you next time.
After sorting through a stack of lumber, if reasonably possible, be sure to expend the time and effort to fix or realign the stickers so their top edges are level and parallel (a spirit level and a stringline are handy for this task) and always neatly restack the boards you’ve moved but won’t be purchasing so the stack looks better, is more orderly, and more stable when you leave than before you touched it. This is supremely important. Besides looking tidy and saving the Sawyer work, this minimum human courtesy (vs. arrogant, pigish rudeness) will help preserve the value of the lumber you leave behind, it will show respect to the Sawyer, and will earn you respect in turn so you’ll be welcomed back again. Sawmills often give slightly better rates to return customers with such professional manners who make less work for them. The inverse is also true.
Bring something to share with the guys at the lumberyard and office they can enjoy and that will cement your cherubic face in their memories. For example, personally hand each one a cold beverage, or a couple of your wife’s award-winning double-death-by-chocolate chip cookies. It helps to make friends.

I hope this little article has been a little useful.

YMHOS

Just where the heck is that stack of 8/4 zelkova wood he mentioned?

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Beginning Tools – Part 1 Measuring, Marking and Layout

An antique craftsman-made sumitsubo with shishi lion and peony perched on the lip of the “pond.”

A good tool improves the way you work. A great tool improves the way you think.

– Jeff Duntemann

Over the years your most humble and obedient servant has received many inquiries from Gentle Readers new to woodworking about what tools they should procure at the very beginning of their adventure. The internet is chock-a-block with both confounding confusion and beaucoup BS on this subject, some dribbling from amateurs and even more sprayed by marketing pukes and clickbait sages. Heretofore I haven’t really scribbled anything on the subject in this blog.

But now, at this fork in the crossroads, beginning with this article your penitent servant will share some thoughts about what tools a beginner needs to perform a lifetime of excellent woodworking, with minimum wasted time and funds, and the recommended priority for obtaining them.

Reluctant Advice

From this point forward I will be so bold as to make some suggestions about the the tools I recommend.

But first allow me to explain my viewpoint on the subject to help you gauge how much saltpeter and sulfur to mix with your charcoal, if you follow the allusion. You see, I enjoy giving Beloved Customers excellent choices in tools, but I’m allergic to giving casual advice. Why? Because even advice given honestly, with the best of intentions, and without profit motive often yields bad consequences. And sneezing.

In Proverbs 12:15 it’s recorded that Solomon the Wise (and disobedient) taught the following: “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes; But he who heeds counsel is wise.” Sounds good, I suppose, but does this mean that the man who’s convinced his honest decisions are correct, even after much study and experience, must still be a fool? Are only those who rely on counsel wise? What if the counselor he relies on is a blasted fool or a greedy, lazy influencer? Is all counsel equal in value?

King Solomon’s most famous descendant once said “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” Sounds like reasonable evidence-based judgment to me. So what were the fruits of Solomon’s advice? The record tells us that he thought his judgement so wise that he frequently ignored it on an epically immoral scale and with tragic, destructive results.

While less decisive than Proverbs but equally concise, I think Professor Tolkien’s insight on the subject may be even wiser, and so I have taken it to heart. In the Lord of the Rings he wrote “Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.”

Solomon’s fabulous famous folly aside, your humble servant has seen first-hand ostensibly wise advice purchased from reputedly wise “experts” at unjustifiably high cost run horribly ill too many times, so I dislike giving advice. And there’s the sneezing thing too, of course.

But since advice is what’s required, in this series of articles I will climb far out on a skinny tree limb to offer the following advice on two conditions. First, I insist Gentle Reader accept the value of this advice as worth no more than what you pay for it (nothing), and second, that any consequences that spring from your acting on this advice are entirely yours. Accordingly, I won’t be offended if, like Solomon the Wise, you decide to ignore it entirely and get yourself another hundred foreign girlfriends instead.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand.

Tool Categories

The following are the four basic categories, by function, of the tools I believe a beginner needs to possess to get started in a lifetime of woodworking, whether as a career or hobby. You’ll most likely need all the tools listed here eventually, but you won’t need them all at once to make excellent things from wood. The categories are as follows:

Measuring, Marking and Layout Tools:
Sawing Tools
Chiseling Tools
Planing Tools

Of course, depending on your projects, you’ll need tools that don’t fit neatly into these four categories, such as those used for processing trees and making lumber, nailing, boring/drilling, screwing, gluing, clamping, laminating, sanding, edge treatment, assembly, and finishing. When it comes to these other categories of tools, I can only encourage Gentle Reader to rely on your prodigious innate common sense.

Each list is divided into two tiers. The first tier includes absolutely necessary tools. The second tier lists essential tools you will eventually need, but can get by without until later.

So let’s begin by examining the minimum measuring, marking and layout tools every beginner needs. I will deal with the other categories in future posts. If I’ve forgotten anything critical, please let me know in the comments form below.

Essential Measuring Tools (Tier 1)

While chopping, sawing, carving, joining and planing get all the attention, final results in woodworking (and all physical trades for that matter) can never be better than one’s skills at measuring, marking and layout, so woodworkers and builders need to own the related tools and master them.

By no means sexy jobs, both ancient and modern history provides endless examples of poorly performed measuring, marking and layout work buggering cost, schedule and quality goals with a barge pole wrapped in barbed wire. No wonder these jobs have historically been assigned to the most experienced and intelligent craftsmen. The simple tools included in this category will serve you well in any handwork activity, not just woodworking.

One caveat. I have listed a few tools below that are modern precision tools beginners should own and learn to use skillfully, but I know a few purists who find such tools violently repulsive. The truth is that the more experience one obtains, the less one tends to rely on absolute measurements in millimeters, inches, or cubits, and more on relative precision. But possessing the tools to perform precise measurement is nonetheless necessary if you plan to do quality work.

Necessary Measuring Tools (Tier 1)

You’ll need the following essential measuring tools from day one.

1. Quality Tape Measure with an accurate sliding hook (check to make sure it’s not sloppy). Size will depend on the projects you plan to undertake, but 2-4 meters is a minimum useful length for cabinetry, furniture making and joinery. Get a reputable name brand, with a warranty. Avoid like an Asian giant hornet with flaming hemorrhoids any cheapo crap made in China, India or Vietnam. Tape measures are a bit delicate and don’t last forever, so treat yours gently and check it frequently against your precision straightedge for accuracy and damage. Do not rely on it for great precision. Since ancient times the folding scale has been thought superior, a sentiment with which I agree in the case of some jobs. But in general nothing beats a quality steel tape measure for most quick and dirty measuring tasks.

2. Precision Straightedge (12”/300mm long) with accurately, deeply etched graduations. This is a precision measuring and layout tool. Good quality graduations are useful for precisely indexing and guiding layout tools such as pencils, pens, divider points, and a marking knife. Hardened stainless steel is ideal for durability. Best if it’s made to high quality standards (JIS, etc.). You’ll use it not only for measuring and checking the accuracy of your other tools, but more frequently for checking that surfaces are flat and free of wind (twist). If treated with respect, it will serve you well for a lifetime.

3. Try-square (see item 2 below). The handy dandy try square has many uses as a measuring tool, but rather than making numerical measurements, its most important job is checking that right angles of components, tools and assemblies are indeed 90˚ , a check one must make constantly and quickly when planing/machining the components of furniture, joinery and cabinetry and casework not to mention setting up portable and stationary power tools. Most try-squares sold nowadays are poor quality Chinese or Indian junk that are out-of-tolerance when new. I too like pretty tools and realize that a plain stainless steel square doesn’t look as cool as more traditional squares with rosewood stocks and brass fittings, but the blade and the stock should both be made of stainless steel and should be solidly welded to each other, not glued or pinned. Best if the blade is hardened. Graduations are not necessary. Get this essential tool wrong and all is lost.

Necessary Measuring Tools (Tier 2)

4. 1-meter stainless steel precision straightedge. This tool needs to be certified by a reputable standards organization, such as Japan Industrial Standards Committee (JIS), NIST: National Institute of Standards and Technology (USA); UKAS United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UK); DIN (Deutsches Institut für Normung), etc.. Why does certification matter, and why is it worth the extra cost? Fraud and deceptive marketing are more common now than ever, with many well-known manufacturers taking a page from Chinese Best Industrial Practices of bait, lie, mislable & switch. In the case of a tool certified by an organization such as NIST, JIS, DIN etc. with a valuable reputation to lose, you are much less likely to be fleeced by quality crooks. Indeed, this tool, along with the 12″/300mm straightedge and try square listed above must be accurate enough to serve as one of your own in-house “standards.” It must not only be extremely straight when new and stress-relieved, to avoid future warping, but it must have deeply, uniformly, precisely-etched graduations. It’s OK if it spends most of its life hanging from a nail on the workshop wall, because there will be times when it will be critical for quickly for checking surfaces for flatness and wind, layout, assembly, dimensioning boards and fettling handplanes.

5. Caliper Gauge: This gauge can be of the vernier, dial or digital variety, whichever type you like and can afford. Once again, buy a certified product. This tool is useful for precisely and quickly measuring, comparing and laying out distances and dimensions. Some are sold with carbide tips convenient for directly scratching layout arcs/lines/points in harder materials such as metal or stone. Will you use it constantly? No, but for those tasks where it’s needed, nothing works as well or as quickly. Quality vernier calipers cost much less than the dial or digital variants, and are not as delicate, but take more time and concentration to use well. Once again, nothing made in China, India, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. When in doubt, I buy Mitsutoyo.

Necessary Layout & Marking Tools

Try Square (same as see item 3 above). This tool is absolutely indispensable for layout and marking of joinery, cabinetry, and furniture work. 100-150mm is a handy size for furniture work. Even if your workshop has been thoroughly purged of pernicious pixies this tool will be dropped, and will wear out in-use, so a useful one will have a welded (not just pinned) connection between the thinner blade (aka beam or tongue) and the stock. And, this is important, the blade will be made of hardened stainless steel. Graduations are totally unnecessary. Used for marking 90˚ lines and checking for squareness. Matsui Precision makes the best one I am aware of after much searching and hands-on experience in the field.

7. Framing/Carpenter’s/Builder’s Square.

Essential for checking lumber, laying-out and marking of larger joints, casework, checking square of larger joints and assemblies, working with doors, panels, and plywood, and many other tasks. Regarding materials, carbon steel squares are heavy and always turn red and go away, so I don’t recommend them if you have a choice. Stainless steel is more durable, but still heavy and costlier. Aluminum will suffice. You may need to true it, but this is easily done with a hammer, punch and file. Just ask me how when you think it’s necessary. This is a tool with a long history you should be proud to own. In all nations more than a few centuries old, the carpenter’s square has been associated with stability, honesty, righteousness and order, all traits a craftsman should seek to foster in himself, his family and his crew. In Japan, this tool was traditionally extremely expensive and was considered the craftsman’s “spirit” in the same way the sword was revered as the warrior’s spirit by the warrior caste. Indeed, in past centuries, stepping over a carpenter’s square resting on the floor or even ground was seen as a mortal offense resulting in bloodshed at times. Such emotional sentiments did not extend to other carpentry tools. The Japanese version of this tool goes by several names written several ways including “kanejaku,” “magarijaku”（written 曲尺or 矩尺), “sashigane”指矩, and several other names. Don’t ask me why. Unlike the Western square of uniform thickness, the better Japanese kanejaku have a variable cross section for less weight/greater rigidity. Being thinner, smaller, more flexible, and much lighter in weight, the Japanese square is handier to transport and use in the field. Of course, it has a couple of disadvantages such as not handling longer/wider boards as well, and being more difficult to control because it’s more flexible. Horses for courses, of course, so I own and use both types.

8. 45˚ Stainless Steel Layout Tool or quality speed square for laying-out miters. An accurate combination square will work too, but such tools are relatively expensive and quite fragile. The Shinwa tool shown below is cheaper, much tougher and absolutely reliable.

9. Marking Gauge: There are many types of marking gauges, most of which the craftsman can make himself without special tools or machinery. Perhaps this will be the subject of future articles. In any case, you will need at least 2 types of gauges.

The venerable old Stanley No.65 marking gauge.

The classic type has a single pin or blade to cut/scratch a single line with each stroke and has been around since Moses wore gator skin loafers. You can make versions from scrap wood, nails, or scrap steel easily yourself.

An excellent kamakebiki mortise gauge by Kinshiro

The second marking gauge you should have is called a “mortise gauge.” This tool has two pins or blades to make 2 parallel lines, at a set distance from each other, with a single stroke. It’s especially suited for quickly and precisely marking mortises and tenons and installing hardware. I prefer the Japanese version of the mortise gauge called the “kamakebiki” (sickle mortise gauge shown above) which has two L-shaped steel blades, easily adjusted and easily resharpened. A handy tool indeed.

Having multiple marking gauges on-hand will help to minimize the time you must spend resetting/adjusting the pins/cutters, a principle key to performing precise work consistently because every time a gauge is reset, error creeps in, sure as pigs are made from bacon. Marking gauges are simple tools easily mastered, but don’t underestimate the importance of owning a few and mastering them completely.

The Titemark gauge is an excellent tool, not only because it cuts consistent lines, but because it can be quickly and precisely set using a single hand and no tools. The only downside is the depth of cut is shallow and the cutter is easily damaged.

10. Carpenter’s Pencil. Useful for the same marking jobs as a plain pencil, but if one sharpens its wider lead to a chisel edge, it will be more durable (won’t break as easily) and last much longer than a standard pencil.

11. Divider/Compass. An essential tool for layout used to quickly and accurately transfer distances from straightedge or layout stick etc. to a workpiece. Of course, it can perform all the classical geometrical tasks that have made this tool essential to skilled craftsmen, architects and engineers worldwide for millennia. A spring divider is adequate, but finances permitting, Starrett 92-6 or 92-9 dividers shown below are worth every penny. I always have at least two on-hand to minimize the lost time and inaccuracy frequent resetting entails.

12. Ballpoint Pens: Not often thought of as a precision layout tool, inexpensive ballpoint pens are more durable than pencils and can make a permanent mark or line of consistent width without needing to be resharpened. Too wide for accurate layout, you say? Practice perfectly sawing in half the centerline of a line drawn with a pen and you’ll change your tune.

13. Marking Knife and/or Scriber. Instead of leaving a line of ink, chalk or graphite on the surface of a board, these tools cut or scratch a permanent line into the surface of material being worked into which divider points and the blades of cutting tools such as chisels, saws and even planes can be indexed quickly, reliably and without the need for expending much attention, greatly increasing speed and confidence in one’s layout. Essential tools. Here’s a Link to an article on the subject.

A Japanese-style marking knife, a simple but surprisingly sophisticated tool.

14. Inkpot and/or Chalkline: For making long straight lines on wood, concrete, steel, gypsum board, etc. The article at this LINK contains more details

15. Colored Marking Pens or Lumber Crayons: Marks made with colored marking pens or lumber crayons, while not precise, are helpful for speedily marking/identifying the orientation and/or relative position of parts, pieces and components in an assembly. For instance, a blue stripe, or two parallel black lines on the end of a part or tenon, might be drawn to indicate right-hand, or North, or front direction in an assembly. I sometimes draw an arrow to orient the front of the assembly or to indicated the direction/location of a reference surface or part, etc. Of course, drawing the cabinetmaker’s pyramid is essential for joinery and casework. The marking convention you choose is, of course, up to Gentle Reader, but having one and using it will help your work go faster and with less confusion, especially if you must set the part aside for a few days or even months. Lumber crayons are especially useful for marking lumber for dimensioning and planing.

Storage, Transportation & Protection

With the exception of the 1-meter long straightedge, and that only because it’s inconveniently long and I want to protect it from dents and dings, I always keep these measuring, layout and marking tools located in the handiest place in my toolchest when I’m in my workshop, or in my portable toolbox and/or toolbag when I’m working in the field.

If you carry these tools outside the workshop, and intend them to be lifetime tools, I recommend you make a simple case for each tool, of cardboard perhaps, to cushion them in your toolbox to help retain precision, to keep them from dinging each other, and help to them last longer. Only then can you reasonably expect a long, mutually profitable relationship with these good friends.

In the next installment in this swashbuckling adventure we will consider the next category of tools the beginner needs: Saws.

YMHOS

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Recently Completed Bukkiri Gagari Handsaws

A Shakusan 330mm bukkiri gagari rip handsaw by Takijiro

Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?

– Gimli son of Glóin, “The Lord of the Rings”

In previous posts your humble servant wrote about a traditional Japanese handsaw called the bukkiri gagari. This rip saw was a standard tool prior to the proliferation of electrical-powered circular saws, but is no longer produced commercially anywhere and is seldom seen nowadays. Detailed information about this tool can be found at the following links:

For those who enjoy using their own internal power pack, this saw is as useful now as it was back in its heyday.

My first hands-on experience with the bukkiri gagari was an antique example I purchased in 1987 at an outdoor flea market held monthly adjacent Iidabashi station in Tokyo. Judging from the markings and patina, and after consulting with a specialist in antique tools, I concluded it was most likely forged around 1910 of a British tool steel called “Togo Steel” produced by the Andrews Steel mill of Sheffield, England and sold in Japan by the Kawai Steel Company. This steel was named after a famous Japanese Admiral who kicked Russki patootie in the Russo-Japanese War (1904 to 1905).

My old bukkiri gagari handsaw made of Togo steel with a kiri wood shumoku handle. A hard worker and good friend.

Despite a cracked tooth, this old saw served me well and without complaint for many years. When I sent it to Master Nakaya Takijiro for a routine sharpening one day, he also repaired the crack, trued the plate, and reworked the teeth all without being asked. He’s subsequently resharpened it for me several times, and with each ministration of his tiny files, its performance has improved incrementally. He’s a magician.

About 14 years ago I found myself suffering an insatiable itch for a bigger, newer more refined bukkiri gagari saw, so I visited Takijiro’s forge to procure some medicine. After much back and forth he agreed to reproduce of one of his own master’s saws, a style once very popular with temple carpenters (Miyadaiku 宮大工). The final product is a thing of great beauty and serious purpose.

Over the years Takijiro has been kind enough to forge a few bukkiri gagari saws for Beloved Customers, but the wait time has always been long. This article is about the latest order he completed recently, similar in shape to his Master’s old pattern. Photos can be seen at the link below.

Photo links

Working alone and without any electrical equipment other than a motor to spin the flywheel of his spring hammer, a grinder, a fan to force-feed his forge, and a few bare lightbulbs overhead, it takes Takijiro a while to make these large saws, but he delivered on our latest order a few weeks ago. It included four sizes:

9-sun (九寸 240mm/ 9.4”),
Shakurei (尺0 270mm/10.6”)
Shakuni (尺二 310mm/12.2”)
Shakusan (尺三 330mm/13”)

The 330mm shakusan saw is the largest practical size for standard purposes IMHO, and the largest blade Takijiro can heat in his forge (originally built by his master for forging swords).

The smaller 240mm saw, called a kyusun (meaning “9 sun) in Japanese, is a handy size, especially for the workshop and workbench.

Takijiro makes these saws by hand from Hitachi Yasugi Shirogami No.2 (aka “white label” steel #2), a relatively pure high-carbon steel that makes an excellent saw blade, but which is difficult to work due to its marked tendency to warp and crack during heat treat. Unfortunately, Hitachi no longer produces this steel.

Of course, he used hammers and scrapers to apply a double-taper-grind to the blades, then hammer-tensioned and trued them. He also hand-cut, hand-sharpened, and set their teeth in a progressive pattern (increasing in size approaching the toe) specifically for ripping Western cabinet hardwoods.

Each saw has an angled handle in the style called “shumoku,” made of plain hinoki cypress wood.

This style of handle is seldom seen anymore, but it has several significant advantages. First, it makes the saw much shorter than one with the more common, straight stick handle, so it’s more convenient for carrying in the field and using in tight places such as construction projects. Second, the angled handle provides an improved grip for powerful two-handed cuts. And third, it makes the saw easier to use from various angles, such as on the workbench, and when making overhead cuts where a long, straight handle tends to get in the way, a common situation in construction work.

Each handle was shaped with handplanes and does not have an applied finish such as varnish or polyurethane.

Nakaya Takijiro Masayuki (“Takijiro”) is one of the last two or three master sawsmiths remaining in the waking world with the skills and willingness to make handsaws of this utility and quality, so this is a rare opportunity for discerning Beloved Customers to obtain one of his marvelous saws. They are a joy to use.

YMHOS

A carpenter carving decorative details into the “hana” or end of a hinoki wood beam.

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please click the “Pricelist” link here or at the top of the page and use the “Contact Us” form located immediately below.

Please share your insights and comments with all Gentle Readers using the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, fascist facebook, or the Chinese Communist Party’s coordinator for blackmail, and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information. If I lie, may my all my saw teeth break.

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Safety – Part 2

A construction crew in Japan during the Edo Period (1603 – 1686) depicted in a woodblock print erecting temporary scaffolding (the round timbers secured with rope), and at the same time assembling a structural framework (yellow timbers). The guy at the far left is a fireman (“hikeshi” 火消し）hauling a “matoi” 纏 up the scaffold to install at the top of the frame. Another matoi is partially visible at the lower left. Performance art and superstition aside, this decorative matoi flag is a symbol of a specific team of firefighters, and marks this project as their responsibility.

Danger gathers upon our path. We cannot afford – we have not right – to look back. We must look forward.

– Winston Churchill

Your most humble and obedient servant published a well-received article on this website earlier about the safe use of sharp handtools. In this follow-up article we’ll extend that discussion to safety on construction jobsites. Never fear, unlike many bloggers desperate for content, any content at all dammit, I won’t be posting more, increasingly-stupid additions on this subject forever.

But why bother at all with such a tedious subject on a blog about tools and woodworking? Glad you asked! First, and foremost are my personal motivations. For you see despite attestations from the Mistress of the Blue Horizons to the contrary, I have a healthy conscience and want Beloved Customers who use our tools in the field to return home safely everyday without leaking any red sticky stuff.

A related motivation is regret for the past, because, like many older guys with scars (Beloved Customer is a miraculous exception, of course), I’m beginning to suspect I just may not be immortal. No, no, seriously. Sometimes I even get the niggling feeling that the light at the end of tunnel I sense is not the Road Runner with a headlamp, but is actually an approaching, but silent, freight train.

At such times I feel regret for not learning and applying these lessons sooner. But mostly I regret not doing a better job of sharing them with those around me back in the day.

Alas, if I could only use my tardis to redress past oversights, but who knows when the repair shop on Gallifrey will have it fixed. I need to call them using an official tardis telephone to check on progress. Do you have one I can borrow, please??

Scars and regrets aside, my primary objective in all this scribbling is to help as many Beloved Customers as possible live healthy, productive lives surrounded by fragrant sawdust and shimmering shavings.

Disclaimer

First, I must begin by clearly stating that the suggestions presented herein were not taken from a training manual, or scrounged from the infallible internet, or formulated by a half-wit, AI oven toaster, but are based entirely on my personal, often painful, and occasionally bloody, experiences. Moreover, I am not a professional safety consultant looking for the next gig, a “Slippin’ Jimmy” style labor attorney sneaking around hospitals, nor a representative of any legal entity or bloated government agency. Accordingly I accept no liability whatsoever, so when your ambulance-chaser cousin expresses concern, please tell him for me to suck the yellow off a lemon.

Second, these suggestions are neither comprehensive nor complete, much less all that one needs to know to work safely, but are just a few of the many safety procedures and rules you would be wise to learn and follow.

And third, I am thoroughly aware that safety professionals everywhere will heap teetering piles of odoriferous scorn on what I write here. They will say it is dangerously incomplete, or that some details are wildly inaccurate, or that they are completely inapplicable to the country and area they were trained in. One motivation for this scorn may be the fact that they didn’t make any money from writing it. Or it may be they think OSHA’s rules should govern the entire world. In any case, I don’t work for them, nor do they control my actions, much less my conscience, so I will give them all the careful inattention they deserve.

But as I mentioned in point No. 1 above, unlike the “experts,” “safety professionals,” and liability lawyers that may object, in publishing this I am intentionally neither seeking nor receiving compensation of any kind, not even clicks. Moreover, it is not among my objectives to provide complete, much less universally, legally correct, training. Indeed, please do not confuse this with training at all, for it it is only a list of a few cautionary examples, often taught and more often ignored, from my direct experience, that may benefit Beloved Customer.

Despite what some nazgul-ridden shysters will screech to the contrary, in the end it’s your body, and its safety is ultimately your responsibility. Accordingly, it behooves you to gain comprehensive knowledge and training in safety and to understand all your legal and statutory obligations related to safety compliance where you work. There are tons of free resources available nowadays if you don’t require formal certification.

So let’s dig into some details

Safety Specifics

I hate the nanny state and won’t bore Gentle Reader with a list of the myriad safety do’s and don’ts bureaucrats have imposed, but there are a few precautions which receive scant attention even in formal training classes of which you should be aware.

Trips & Falls

Cuts and sprains to the hands are the most common jobsite injuries, but are seldom fatal. Trips and falls are the real killers. They’re easily avoided, but usually occur through negligent housekeeping and/or stupidity. Please don’t be stupid. Keep your jobsite clean, orderly, and free of trip and fall hazards.

Ladders

A performance of firefighter teams attended by foreign military types. The guy on the ladder is thrilling everyone with his acrobatic feats, while many firemen hold the ladder in place using fire hooks. Pre-explosion Mt. Fuji is prominent in the background. What, no safety harness?

Without exception, the misuse of ladders is the most common source of fall-related injuries and deaths on construction jobsites. This is not conjecture.

Accordingly, you should view every ladder as a death trap. Seriously. Never say I didn’t warn you.

Here in Japan the better large general contractors (aka “Super Zencon”) forbid the use of ladders over 1 meter high on their jobsites. Extreme? Unwarranted? Death and injury statistics say no. Where possible please use well-constructed scaffolding or a certified manlift instead of a ladder.

When I was a boy of 14 working my first jobsite in the Nevada desert, my foreman had me working on the underside of the eaves of a 2 story house from a ladder perched on the elevated forks of the forklift he operated. Exciting times! I didn’t know any better at the time, but the foreman who assigned me that job later put several other workers in the hospital through similar negligent behavior. Back in those days, if a worker fell and broke his fool neck, it was his fault, you see, not his supervisor’s.

If you must use a ladder of any height, make sure it’s braced solidly at both its top and bottom ends. By “solidly” I mean it can’t be made to wiggle, and it’s impossible for even Murphy to knock over.

Never stand on the top rung of a ladder even if it’s solidly braced. Easy to say, but the irresistible Darwinian compulsion to climb to the top rung, fall off, and die in agony with unsightly bone splinters poking out everywhere and red sticky stuff making a mess all over the place overcomes thousands of guys every year. How unfashionable!

Ladders truly excel at skimming floaters from the gene pool, especially when combined with forklifts. Don’t you be one of them!

Fire Hazards

Jobsite fires are extremely common because of the garbage and flammable material that careless fools leave scattered around. All it takes is one idiot to toss a cigarette butt. Or one spark from a welder, torch, grinder or cutoff saw. Or one short in a damaged extension cord.

Garbage and clutter aside, construction sites are always at high risk for fire because for months they have only temporary power which is frequently not compliant with code, miles of extension cords strung everywhere, and careless workers with welders, cutting torches, electrical grinders and tobacco incinerators wandering everywhere. And depending on where that fire starts, the fuel available to it, the amount of time it’s allowed to grow, and the difficulty of emergency egress, too often people get toasted. I know this from direct experience.

So keep your jobsite clean and clutter-free.

Inspect your extension cords daily.

Strictly forbid smoking on your jobsites.

And for heaven’s sake, please be sure to establish and strictly enforce “hot work” rules, provide related essential equipment, and inspect that equipment daily to ensure it works or hasn’t tottered off on Darwinian adventures. Your life may depend on it.

So let’s next consider why hot work safety procedures are important.

Hot Work

“Hot work” such as welding, cutting metal with oxyacetelene torches, grinding, or using cutoff saws, etc. etc. is dangerous as I know from direct, personal experience of starting a fire in a pile of discarded cement sacks on a construction site in Las Vegas many years ago. Fortunately, while I was a stupid kid at the time directed by a drunk to do something stupid, I was also paying attention and put out the fire quickly. But that’s no excuse for not creating and not following hotwork rules.

More recently a subcontractor started a fire with his welder on my jobsite in Yokohama in a similar manner. Four fire trucks arrived. Because of the location and time of day human life was not at high risk, but it could easily have been a financial and PR disaster for my high-profile international client (one you know). Fortunately, while the GC violated housekeeping rules and the steel fabrication subcontractor blithely ignored mandatory hot work rules, it didn’t get too badly out of control because the GC had established a high-quality safety plan in-advance, fire extinguishers were staged in appropriate locations, and responsible people were more-or-less paying attention.

It wasn’t my fault, but I ended up having to apologize to both my client and the Mayor of the City of Yokohama for this embarrassing blunder in company with the GC. I tell you, it was a heavy blow to my towering humility.

But hot work violations are not always so harmless. Another ironworker started a fire in the basement of a data center owned by a big company (another one you know) under construction in Tokyo some years back. I did not manage the jobsite but only supplied heat-exchange equipment.

Molten metal sprayed by an ironworker’s oxyacetylene cutting torch landed on a stack of urethane concrete insulation blankets stored 3 stories underground and melted its way to the bottom where it smoldered unseen. After an hour or so went by fire and volcanic levels of toxic smoke suddenly exploded from the stack into the dark, cluttered underground spaces quickly killing 2 workers and 3 firemen.

Reports submitted by police and fire departments attributed the deaths to a series of criminally incompetent violations of obvious, well-known safety laws. But I would wager that none of the workers or supervisors involved even considered the possibility of dying in smoke and flame beforehand. And obviously they didn’t have a proper fire watch. Murphy was a whimsical killer that day.

I really need to get my Tardis working again.

A jobsite I managed in Japan a couple of years ago was owned by a British company that had lost 2 entire buildings outside of Japan stuffed to the rafters with very flammable retail product and robotic material handling equipment containing literally tons of lithium-ion batteries. Needless to say, that company was sensitive to fire hazards, so their safety rules permitted zero hotwork on their jobsite in Japan. Welding, cutting, grinding, soldering or any other activity that might throw a spark was absolutely prohibited inside the jobsite fence. No exceptions. With lots of steel to erect and equipment to install, these uncommunicated, unanticipated safety measures made it difficult to complete the project on-schedule and within budget. There were injuries on the jobsite caused by stupidity, but we experienced no incidents of fire.

That’s an extreme example, and your workplace or jobsite is probably not at such a high risk, but nonetheless I strongly encourage you to scrupulously plan and meticulously follow competent “Hot Work” rules even if it means having guys standing around simply watching welding, cutting and grinding operations with fire extinguishers resting on their toes (smartphone use should be banned entirely while on fire-watch).

By “plan” I mean produce a thorough, professional-grade, site-specific, activity-specific RAMS (Risk Assessment Method Statement) and getting written buyoff from everyone on the team. If you don’t know how, you must learn. Yes, it’s a pain in the butt, but educational and much less painful than 5th degree burns to the same.

It can get expensive, but don’t neglect to assign a dedicated human fire watch with no other job while hot work is underway. Allow me to reemphasize: forbid smartphone use during fire watches!

A woodblock print by Toyohara Kunichika of a fireman carrying a matoi. Such men were considered heros.

Using solvent-based finish materials brings the risk of fire. Keep your workplace clean, don’t smoke a bong when working wood, and always have a working, charged fire extinguisher located near where you are working, even if you must supply it yourself, after all the proceeds for a lawsuit for criminal neglect might make some lawyers rich, but it’s no consolation if you’re dead.

Always provide fire extinguishers, emergency lighting, and emergency alarm systems wherever hot work is undertaken and at several locations around the jobsite so that one can be grabbed and deployed in under 30 seconds from anywhere on your jobsite. Not two minutes, 30 seconds. Excessive? Not in the least.

Fire extinguishers make perfect sense, of course, but why lights? We tend to think that fire produces lots of light, but that’s not the case at all. In fact, smoke makes everything dark and confusing. And what if you are working in a basement or attic or other enclosed space without lights? Without exception, the smoke and confusion of a fire immediately disorients everyone to one degree or another, so that they can’t locate an extinguisher or the exit in time. If this confusion continues for more than two or three minutes people will die of smoke inhalation long before they are toasted.

And why alarms? Won’t screaming and running around like a chicken that’s misplaced its head suffice to warn everyone?

When a fire breaks out, things go bad at warp speed, so if you have any conscience, you will want to make everyone in the vicinity aware of the danger quickly so they can evacuate and/or deal with the danger immediately in an orderly manner. But running around screaming like a scalded chihuahua will needlessly burn both time and people. Besides, when you discover a fire, your time is best spent deploying a fire extinguisher to put it out quickly and completely and then evacuate instead of running around screaming. Right? Right.

It’s an ancient truth that to survive an emergency one must make physical preparations in advance, so please provide the appropriate number of fire extinguisher stands housing a range of useful and fully-charged extinguishers, emergency lights and a push button alarm placed in critical locations. Easy to make them yourself.

If you are not directly responsible for safety, loudly and incessantly insist the safety dude/ dudette prepare this equipment, create a distribution plan, and conducts frequent inspections to ensure the fire extinguishers are always fully functional and haven’t sprouted legs and walked away, as they are wont to do.

Fire stands are important because extinguishers left sitting on the floor are a trip hazard and are easily “misplaced.” A better solution is to place multiple fire extinguisher stands with alarms linked by radio so if one is tripped, all of the linked alarms go off warning everyone quickly. They can also have a red strobe to guide people to escape routes. In the case of a fire, not just flame and smoke, but confusion and time are killers too.

When you or your safety inspector conduct their daily safety rounds, demand they check and document that each fire extinguisher stand is in its assigned place and completely stocked with the appropriate and fully-charged fire extinguishers. It only takes a few minutes.

PPE (Personal Protective Equipment)

Fall Prevention Equipment

If you need to work at a height greater than 2 meters, and there is any possibility way you might fall, please wear a full safety harness, one that straps around legs, torso and shoulders with a lanyard connection at the center of the back. Be sure to tie it off so it will prevent even a single limb on the stoopid tree from hitting you on your way down to kiss the concrete floor.

Please, don’t try to get by with a cheaper safety belt instead of a full harness because a belt alone will break your back if you fall. I’ve seen it.

Full safety harnesses along with their dual lanyards, hooks, reels and shock absorbers are not cheap to buy or comfortable to wear, but they are worth every penny of cost and minute of inconvenience unless you actively want an image of the Darwin Award etched on your headstone.

Hardhats

I hate hardhats. They’re hot, get in the way, diminish the heroic elegance of my supermodel profile (ツ) and hide the saintly glow emanating from my noble noggin! But whenever I think of not wearing one on a construction site or in a factory, I glance at the scars on my left hand and forearm, try to fully flex my left middle finger, and painfully recall the gouges carved into my arm and back when an ironworker installing corrugated metal decking on a jobsite at the El Cortez Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas pushed sharp cuttoffs off the edge of the 14th floor slab striking your humble servant as I was erecting concrete forms in the basement. In deference to Beloved Customer’s refined sensibilities I will not repeat the inelegant sentiments I voiced at the time!

My injuries from this incident were serious, but could have been much worse as witnessed by the damage to my hardhat. The sharp sheet metal decking shredded it leaving it hanging around my ears and shoulders. And while it didn’t protect the rest of me from cuts, it did save my face, head, neck and most of my shoulders. That hardhat saved my life. And the Project Superintendent and my foreman both helped to save my life by insisting I wear that plastic chapeau.

The lesson? Please wear a good hardhat every second you are on an active construction site even if there aren’t any drug-addled ironworkers with bombsights supplied by Murphy hovering overhead. Nowadays you can even buy hardhats with fans to cool off your hot head.

A Klein hardhat with cooling fans and headlamp.

Over the years hardhats have changed. My first was made of fiberglass, and my second of aluminum. The rest have all been plastic. I’ve thought about getting one made of carbon fiber, but the cost/performance benefits are unclear to me.

But the most important recent improvement in hardhats has been increased protection against side impacts, a damage mode for which older models don’t account but which is critical in the case of blows to the head occurring during trips and falls. European industrial safety regs takes this into account with a special certification, and hardhats complying with EU rules look more like climbing or military helmets. Just something to consider.

Headlamps which can be attached to one’s hardhat are available too. As I get older and my eyes weaker I find these lights extremely helpful during quality control inspections. In fact, my headlamp is almost always mounted on my hardhat not only because it’s safer, but because it helps me do better, more accurate work in the less-than-perfect light conditions frequently found on construction jobsites allow. A word to the wise.

My point is you would be foolish to not own a quality hardhat, and to not wear it whenever you are on a construction jobsite, even if it is uncomfortable and may reduce your chances of getting your pic in GQ magazine.

I have more true bloody stories about eye protection and safety gloves too but won’t bore you with details. Use them.

Allergies

A subject many never consider when working wood is dust inhalation, especially in the case of toxic woods or those that might cause allergies.Yes, many varieties of rosewood, many varieties of cedar, and many other woods will cause respiratory problems and allergic reactions in most people. For those with asthma, the results can be serious. If you don’t know, be cautious, pay attention, and make corrections immediately.

During the Covid-19 scam Fake Faucci forced us all to purchase and wear those goofy, useless masks everywhere. Heck, here in Tokyo I know many guys who wore them all day when driving their private cars on sunny days with the windows rolled up. But woodworking entails not fake risks but real ones, so you would be wise consider what dust and fumes you will be exposed to, and perhaps plan to have on hand a real respirator with real rated filters to deal with real dust, and real fumes, especially when sanding and finishing.

Conclusion

The key takeaways can be summarized as follows:

Ladders are death traps;
Wear a full safety harness, with lanyard(s), hook(s) and reel(s), when working over 6 feet high.
A cluttered jobsite can injure and too often kill;
Hot work kills;
Fire extinguishers have legs, and must be able to scream;
Always wear a quality hardhat when on the job.
Create a plan, and be prepared. Don’t rely on safety dudes, lawyers or bureaucrats to keep you safe.

Take note; take heed: these words are a gift freely given without let, lien or loan.

A young man looking for his misplaced safety shoes?

If you have questions or would like to learn more about our tools, please click the “Pricelist” link here or at the top of the page and use the “Contact Us” form located immediately below.

Please share your insights and comments with everyone in the form located further below labeled “Leave a Reply.” We aren’t evil Google, fascist facebook, or the IT Manager of the DNC and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information. May I fall from a dozen stacked ladders if I lie.

Safety Rules for Edged Handtools

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Tariffs & Taxes

*The Surgeon* or *The Village Surgeon* by Jan Sanders van Hemessen (c.1550-1555 oil on panel). The village sawbones is shown applying a medical cure for foolishness by removing the “stone of idiocy.” If anyone knows who Meister van Hessen used for a model, please let me know. In our time this is an operation that could possibly change the lives of many in the media and politics, as well as their credulous audience and constituency of course, for the better.

There has been much discussion recently about the potential impacts of President Trump’s hasty retaliatory tariffs on international trade in general and various economies around the world in particular.

Our little venture here at C&S Tools relies entirely on exports, so of course some Beloved Customers have expressed concern regarding the effects of tariffs on our prices moving forward. At this point in time all I can really do is twirl my elegant white mustache and sagely mutter “Iduno,” but to keep things interesting, in this article I will be so bold as to share some hard-won insight on the subject that doubtless will be worth every penny it costs Gentle Reader.

The Quiver of Diplomacy

Tariffs and import taxes are ancient tools for profit and coercion, veritable arrows in the quiver of diplomacy, so Gentle Reader would be wise to understand that, while Trump may be erratic and unpredictable, he’s not the first nor will he be the last leader of a nation to string his bow and loose these darts.

But it’s also important to realize that in every case where tariffs have been manipulated for fun and profit, there have always been those who ran around screaming “the sky is falling!!”

Case in point, Japan’s economy relies heavily on exports of its products overseas, especially cars (21% of total exports), machinery (18% of total exports), and electronic equipment (14% of total exports). At one time, each of these industries was heavily subsidized by the Japanese government resulting in targeted putative tariffs being pushed through by American politicians over many decades. This is nothing new.

It has long been the habit among the wealthy business owners of all nations to blame others for their lazy planning and poor execution, while twisting the tails of their trained monkeys holding public office to cover for their feckless incompetence and the resulting financial and reputational damage through imposition of taxes and tariffs. A concrete example is the US automobile industry and the charming city that is modern Detroit, MI.

But your humble servant is old enough to recall how, instead of complaining, the Japanese government negotiated mutually-acceptable tariffs while Japanese manufacturers ignored the Chicken Little crowd and proactively worked to develop mutually-beneficial work-arounds. You see, unlike the feckless perverts that run the television, movie, and news industries, the Japanese understood that pissed-off customers on the scale of nations are not good for long-term profitability.

My point is that taxes are never fair, today’s winners are tomorrow’s losers, and complaining solves nothing, but with good will and diligence most problems can be solved. Except for Ford and GM, that is, huge corporations that foolishly discarded both good will and diligence in favor of politics and economic war, flushing their market share down the tubes never to recover. Sadly, it’s far too late to cut the “stone of madness” from the brains of many overly-comfortable American corporate executives.

Compared to Japan, the Europeans and Chinese, being especially adept at manipulating corrupt and shiftless American politicians, have had it easy and are spoiled, but amazingly they have the “stones” to call Trump “unpredictable” and “unreasonable” because he refuses to be bought, an unforgivable failing in a politician, it seems.

Much of the rattling we hear lately are the sounds of chickens coming home to roost, while the whining emanates from media bought and paid for by foreign entities, lobbyists in government jobs and short-sighted, and hypocritical executives of companies that brag of their righteousness in “supporting their community” and their “environmental awareness” while moving production to countries with cheaper labor, quite frequently child labor, and sometimes even slave labor in fact, and no environmental regulations.

This talk of tariffs has put them all into a spastic panic fearing their carefully-laid plans for reaping humungous profits and big bonuses through betrayal of their customers will soon be knocked into an even bigger cocked hat. Oh dear….

The Power of Gubmint

If there is one thing I know for certain, people in government have two rock-solid powers: (1) to make things better for themselves and their buddies, and (2) to make things worse for everyone else. And that’s all they can do. Remember President Reagan’s famous but bitter joke “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

Will these tariffs be fair? Those silly enough to pose this question should never leave their mommy’s house.

Will these tariffs impact prices here at our humble little shop of horrors? Hmmm..

Most consumers never directly experience tariffs and import taxes, so the subject doesn’t quite come into focus for them.

In a previous life I spent a lot of time dealing with import taxes and tariffs in various countries related to procuring and shipping building materials and equipment to construction projects I was planning, so I learned the dirty truths of import taxes and tariffs long ago. But instead of boring Gentle Reader into a drooling coma with my war stories, allow me to share a true and illustrative story many thousands of years old.

The Tale of Butfuk and Bacon

Long ago and far away in a place Gentle Reader will never visit, there was a smelly fellow your humble servant will call Butfuk (names have been changed to protect the incontinent) who had a stony farm located next to a heavily-traveled dirt road winding over hills, across fords and through wolf-infested primeval forests. At one location this track passed through a narrow restriction, or pass, tight against a stony mountain.

One day, tired of eating beetles and worms delicately seasoned with mud for every meal, Butfuk put on his thunkin hat and got a great idea. Together with his cousin Bacon, who lived nearby and was hell and Jesus with a bow, they cut down a medium-sized birch tree laying it smack dab across this narrow spot in the road. Not a large outlay of effort or capital, but the without a doubt the most profitable one they could have possibly made.

Their business model worked like this. Bacon would station himself to the side of the road next to a large concealing rock where he had a good view and a clear shot. When travelers approached the downed tree blocking the road, cousin Butfuk would be found standing in the middle of the road in front of the obstruction, and bold as Obama, he would demand travelers pay either cash or a portion of their goods as a “gate tax.”

Those who refused this friendly invitation were not invited to a drop of tea and some tasty wood grubs with B&B, but immediately found themselves feathered with arrows, for Bacon was not just accurate with a bow, he was quick as a duck on a june bug. Those who continued to argue had a mace-to-face meeting with Butfuk’s axe, whereupon the cousins dragged the corpses into their pig pen, confiscated all their possessions in the name of “fairness,” and sold any surviving women and children in the party as slaves. Business is business, after all, and pigs have to eat too.

Cooperative travelers, on the other hand, passed the impromptu gate safely, and while they disliked this new form of banditry, the cousins didn’t steal everything nor kill everyone, after all, and the amount they demanded was not so much travelers couldn’t pay it without being ruined, and because arrows hurt like the dickens, and pigs are messy eaters, few bothered to resist too hard. Soon, the relationship between B&B and travelers became much like that between the European kingdoms and the Barbary pirates before the king of Tripoli pissed on President Jefferson’s shoes, so to speak.

Indeed knowing the amount they would need to pay in advance, travelers could even include these gate taxes in their budget. Yea verily, the golden goose principle was key to the sustainability of Butfuk’s cunning plan.

Over the years, B&B assembled a small army of guards from among the locals to support their “gate tax” business. A town with an inn, a stable, a small store, an alehouse, and a knocking shop sprouted up beside the mudhole in the narrow place by the mountain. Guess who was the mayor.

Over many generations, the cousin’s little venture metastasized into a country of sorts. Guess who was the king.

Thus was the first tariff imposed, the first customs house created and staffed, the concept of cash flow without risk, labor, capital investment, or the bother of production was established, extortion, slavery, and murder were justified by, and codified in, law, and eventually a town, a nation, and royalty were born. Progress, right?

‘Tis a true story, one that has played out thousands of times over thousands of years in every corner of the frikin world. If you doubt it, please check into the famous “robber barons” on the rivers Rhine and Danube with their long chains, or the bandits of Hakone mountain in Japan, or the Barbary Corsairs. Lots of documentation.

For contemporary examples of the “old way,” look to the still-operating tax franchises of Spain and Thailand.

An action between an English ship and vessels of the Barbary Corsairs,
Workshop of Willem van de Velde the Younger. The Brita like to take the credit, but it was the young US Navy and the budding US Marine Corps that actually fought most of these battles while the Europeans squealed for a halt to “hostilities.”

Tariffs, Taxes and Profits

Ever since this humble, bloody beginning, customs and tariffs have been the most profitable (measured by cost vs. income) source of revenue for all governments with very few exceptions. The only more profitable, more reliable, easier source of income for governments, short of pillaging one’s neighbors, is the old confidence game of minting/printing/circulating currency. Government fees and income taxes don’t even come close.

In modern times with the explosion of international trade, tariffs are exponentially more profitable for governments and their buddies, but what has changed is the scale of their use as a tool to coerce markets, to retaliate against entities with competing tax/subsidy schemes, and to placate the disgruntled rich.

Conclusion

Will the pending tariff war yield improvements or devastation? I dunno, but I’m confident of one thing. Being based on banditry, slavery and murder justified by unjust laws, it would be shortsighted for little people like me and thee to expect these new tariffs to expand our peace and prosperity.

I think I need an operation for this bump on my head.

YMHOS

Why Testing Matters

Desired Testing Results

Testing Procedures

Incorporating Test Results

The Grip

The Three Tests

Test No. 1: The Blind Retrieval Test

Test No. 2: The Blind Swing Test

Test No. 3: The Ink Test

Adjustments to Your Handle

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Installing the Head

Preparing the Tenon

Orienting the Tenon

Starting the Tenon

Driving the Tenon Home

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Tools

Safety

The Tenon and the Unblinking Eye

The Back and Front Edges

The Sides

Smoothing and Rounding

Doming the Butt

Fixing a Loose Head

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Introduction

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Preparing the Stick

Layout

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Some History

Relevant History

The Stringline

The Straightedge

Civilization & Public Standards of Measurement

How To Use a Straightedge

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Planning

Seeking a Source of Wood

Storage

Preparation & Action

In the Lumberyard

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Reluctant Advice

Tool Categories

Essential Measuring Tools (Tier 1)

Necessary Measuring Tools (Tier 1)

Necessary Measuring Tools (Tier 2)

Necessary Layout & Marking Tools

Storage, Transportation & Protection

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Disclaimer

Safety Specifics

Trips & Falls

Ladders

Fire Hazards

Hot Work