[This article was written by the energetic Doctor Antone Martinho-Truswell, a Most Beloved Customer and Dean at St Paul’s College, University of Sydney. While not as scholarly as his fascinating and romantic earlier guest post titled Permanence, in this article Antone has graciously shared an aspect of his woodworking experience that will resonate with many Gentle Readers. Please enjoy.]
A few weeks ago, I was putting the final touches on my most recently finished, and largest, woodworking project to date. Over the past 18 months, interspersed with dozens of smaller and more pressing projects, I’ve constructed this tea-house styled cubby house for my daughters, complete with engawa, shoji screens (already torn and patched), Aussie-style “tin roof”, and tiny roofed reading nook overlooking Australia’s Blue Mountains National Park. My daughters made the paper garland to celebrate the opening of their new palace.
Engawa view
With this project I set myself the challenge of making the entire structure using only handtools (save a cordless drill for the roofing screws), and to use primarily reclaimed timbers. The timber frame, floors, and inside surfaces of the wooden walls were all hand-planed with a kanna, and all of the joints hand-cut. This involved cutting some 300 joints, and an almighty amount of handplaning.
But it was the ripping that did me in. Or rather, did in my tools. Between the wall panels, floorboards, shoji frames, and the joints themselves, this involved a tremendous length of rip cuts in very hard Australian woods. As I celebrated the completion of the project with a glass of vintage Château Thames Embankment while gazing across the verdant valley, I considered the small collection of exhausted Japanese rip saws the project had left in its wake.
I had been using modern, disposable-blade, induction-hardened Japanese saws on this project, and two, in particular, gave the ultimate sacrifice in the process.
One saw was a rip single-edged kataba already fairly used up on other projects, the other a fresh but inexpensive ryouba that I dedicated to this project in particular. As Stan has noted before, these induction-hardened and mass-produced Japanese saws are excellent tools – sharp, effective, and long-lasting. Moreover, I had been putting them to more punishing work than usual – “in the field” rather than the workshop, cutting reclaimed timber replete with grit, dirt, and other dulling faeries that grinded away their cutting edges.
I am normally meticulous in following Stan’s advice to clean one’s timber and remove dirty, gritty surfaces with dedicated roughing tools before putting quality blades to work, but this project called for a different approach – there was too much timber to efficiently clean before working it, and the inexpensive saw was purchased and dedicated to the project in order to prevent needless back-and-forth while assembling the structure in the garden, so it served as both roughing and finishing tool.
Later, while enjoying a refreshing beaker of Château Fleet Street, I realized two things. First, that my much older furniture-making ryouba had also been dulled by local faeries; and second, that I needed to replace my other workhorse handsaws.
Naturally, this meant contacting Dear Old Stan, the only solution when tools that work are wanted. (Stan, I’m waiving my copywriting fees for that tagline.)
After some back-and-forth with our reliable proprietor, I settled on three saws to renew the capabilities of my saw-box. Our discussion covered a few considerations:
I have no shortage of fine-tooth saws like dozukis and hozohikis, all of which are working fine and providing good service.
I am up for the challenge of re-sharpening rip teeth, but am wary of the time investment versus benefit of trying to sharpen the complex shape of Japanese crosscut teeth.
These new saws would be used for sawing stock to rough dimensions. I frequently make furniture from locally-sawn slabs, and so need to make long rips and crosscuts to efficiently break these down into smaller components.
I wanted saws that are nicer, more real, and more meaningful than mass-produced tools, if possible.
Gentle Reader will not be surprised to learn that Stan delivered all I needed and then some.
The firstcab off the rank was an antique 300mm ryouba labeled as being made of Tougou steel – a now rare tool steel produced by Andrews Steel of Britain. This is a stiff bladed, large ryouba, and a very handsome saw. Stan offered, and I enthusiastically agreed, to have this saw tuned, sharpened, and teeth re-profiled for hardwood by his saw-smith, Takijiro.
Takijiro trued and tensioned the blade, leaving behind the telltale henpecks seen on the sides of the blades.
This new saw’s first challenge was crosscutting a slab of camphor laurel planned for a coffee-table top, about 650mm wide and 40mm thick (after giving the slab a good scrub with a wire brush first). It took me about 2 minutes to complete this cut, and it was exceptionally easy to keep straight. I followed this with a 1200mm long rip cut through the same in about 4 minutes and equally satisfying. The cut surfaces were exceptional – very smooth and very straight, even with my paltry skills.
I could not have been happier with this saw, which came from Stan’s “miscellaneous ryouba” selection, and the decision to have the blade tuned and the original teeth replaced with dedicated hardwood teeth is something entirely to be recommended to all potential purchasers.
But one is never enough. And after years of reading Stan’s enthusiastic praise of them, I also wanted my own bukiri gagari, a much rarer and more specialized saw. Here, Stan was able to provide this beautiful 330mm blade made by Takijiro, again, sharpened, trued, tensioned, with hardwood teeth, and with a beautiful natural wooden handle to boot.
Nakaya Takijiro Masayuki, sawsmith extraordinaire
This saw is a joy to use. It’s much bigger than its 330mm size might suggest on first read. It feels like a much bigger, more substantial tool than the 300mm ryouba, despite the blades being notionally similar in size.
I soon became accustomed to using a pull saw with a “pistol grip” handle (aka “shumoku” handle), and sure enough it delivered a straight cut and quickly. I put this saw to the task of making the matching 1200mm rip cut on the other side of the slab, and the results were, as expected, fantastic.
I can’t overstate how much easier it was to make quality cuts with these quality tools. I’m not a professional carpenter, but neither am I a turnip, and can usually make a fist of accurate work even with subpar tools. And while I have some higher-end dozukis and other fine-toothed saws, I had kept my ryoubas and rough work kataba saws cheap and cheerful to this point. These saws were, if not quite like the light that shone round Saul on the road to Damascus, at least a bit like scales falling from my eyes.
The third saw I ordered from Stan was a mass-produced and induction-hardened crosscut ryouba, with an exchangeable 300mm blade – larger than is easily found here in Australia. The reason for this choice was explicitly related to one of my purchasing criteria above, namely that I suspect that I will not be attempting much crosscut saw sharpening any time soon.
The aforementioned ryouba and bukkiri gagari saws are both traditional, handmade saws with teeth that will require regular sharpening.
Stan kindly included in his package a tiny specialized saw file to accomplish this task. But I will be babying the crosscut teeth on the ryouba out of my own hesitancy to try to sharpen them. As such, I thought it wise to make use of the best of modern technology in this affordable, induction-hardened saw to be used whenever extensive rough cross-cutting, sometimes through less than immaculate timber, is required. It cuts very well indeed, and quickly, if without some of the romance and spirit of the handmade saws.
These saws are already the new front-benchers in my workshop, and doing excellent work. The only thing I recommend more strongly than Stan’s tools are his advice and counsel in selecting, using, and caring for them.
There are many people selling tools. But the world will never see the likes of dear old Stan.
As we say in Australia, here’s wishing you a Ripper Christmas! May the greatest of all carpenters be a light unto you and your loved ones.
Antone
Christ in the House of His Parents, oil on canvas by John Everett Millais (1849-1850), at the time a controversial painting much criticized by the likes of Charles Dickens because of its realistic depiction of a country carpentry workshop, especially the dirt, sawdust and shavings on the floor. But surely this is what a poor carpenter’s workshop in rural Nazareth would have looked like when Jesus was a small boy. Joseph is shown working on a simple battened door joined with nails, a standard carpenter’s job in all places at all times, but he’s stopped work to examine an injury on Jesus’s hand, perhaps caused by one of those nasty nails, foreshadowing future wounds, while Mary comforts her boy with a kiss. By no coincidence, a drop or two of blood has dripped onto the child’s foot further hinting of unpleasantness to come. In the background grandmother Anne takes over the job the injured child had been doing prior to the accident of clipping clinched nails, while young cousin John on the right (later known as John the Baptist) brings water to cleanse the wound, another ominous foreshadowing indeed. The apprentice shown on the left is said to represent Jesus’s future apostles while the sheep seen gawking through the open workshop door are said to represent the flock of Christianity. The ladder and the dove resting on it are also symbolic.
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 Chinese Communist Party’s coordinator for blackmail, and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information. If I lie, may the tang of my bukkiri gagari saw break off.
Pixie, kobold, elf, and sprite,All are on their rounds tonight;In the wan moon’s silver ray, Thrives their helter-skelter play.
Joel Benton
Iron Pixies
Beloved Customer, have you ever placed a tool down, only to later discover it has vanished into thin air? Do your tools ever become inexplicably dull or corroded within what seems like just a few days after cleaning and sharpening them? If so, you may have an Iron Pixie infestation without realizing it.
Respected fairyologists theorize that, unlike their timid brethren frolicking in forests, or their blingy cousins infesting Hollywood, New York, and Washington DC who delight in tricking the mass media, film industry and corrupt politicians into constantly making greedy, immoral, lecherous, hypocritical fools of themselves, Iron Pixies (genus Fatum Ferrum), do not fear iron or iron alloys. Indeed, besides pilfering and concealing tools that contain iron, they love nothing more than to use their corrosive powers to return this metal to its natural state through the thermodynamic chemical process known as “rubeum, et conversus abibo” (turn red and go away).
These piratical pixies become especially joyful if the owner of the pilfered tool is unable to find it after much frantic searching and he is eventually forced to buy a replacement. Only when they see the replacement tool will pernicious pixies permit the owner to locate the pilfered tool, usually in a deplorably rusty, chipped and paint-covered condition. Nasty, vicious little pests!
We’ll come back to the supernatural impacts of these maniacal monsters on woodworking tools, but first let’s examine some more mundane details about sharpening blades, and a few things that typically go wrong with them.
The Ideal Bevel Angle
There is such a thing as an “ideal bevel angle” for each blade in each cutting situation, one that cuts the wood quickly, cleanly, with minimum force expenditure and that keeps the blade effectively sharp for the maximum amount of cutting possible, but determining this angle is not an easy calculation since it is difficult and expensive to actually observe what is happening at the cutting edge from a shaving’s-eye-view.
For example, a steep 60° bevel angle on a chisel will support the cutting edge thoroughly and will be durable, but it will pound the wood more than cut it wasting time and energy and damaging the wood unnecessarily. On the other hand, a 15° angle will cut very nicely, thankee kindly, but the blade is certain to chip and dull quickly. A balance is necessary.
This balance will depend on many factors including hardness and abrasiveness of the wood you are cutting at any time (e.g. Sugar Pine versus Ipe), the quality and nature of your chisel blade, the type of cut you are making (low-pressure surface paring versus high-pressure deep mortises), and the care you take to protect the cutting edge. Yes, technique matters.
Determining the ideal bevel angle is ultimately a trial and error process the diligent craftsman will perform until it is second nature, but the following are some general guidelines to get Beloved Customer started.
Most Japanese woodworking tools, including plane blades and striking chisels (oiirenomi, atsunomi, mukomachinomi, etc.) perform well in most construction and furniture woods with the standard 27.5°~30° bevel angle. This is a good compromise, acute enough to cut most wood efficiently without too much friction, while still providing adequate support to the thin cutting edge to avoid chipping. Indeed, this is the bevel angle we insist Beloved Customers maintain as a condition of our warranty.
But as Captain Barbosa advised, these are only guidelines. For example, 35° is often a superior bevel angle for chisels when quickly cutting mortises in harder woods or planes shaving tropical hardwoods.
When cutting very soft woods, such as Kiri (Paulownia Tomentosa), similar to balsa wood, a 22~24° bevel angle may work best, however.
Paring chisels (tsukinomi), when used properly, are subject to less violent impact forces than striking chisels, and can usually handle a 24° bevel angle. But for most woods, a professional-grade Japanese plane or chisel blade will likely experience chipping if the angle is much less.
There are many variables and potential solutions one might consider, but your humble servant recommends starting your experiments with a 27.5~30° bevel angle for plane and chisel blades.
If Beloved Customer finds that your blade chips or dulls quicker than you think it should, increase the angle gradually until it calms down. This can result in a double-bevel blade, one difficult to sharpen freehand. In this case, your humble servant fully supports using a honing jig, at least until you achieve a flat bevel wide enough and stable enough to sharpen freehand. But don’t handicap yourself by relying solely on honing jigs forever because they can become like training wheels on a bicycle: slow, awkward and childish.
Mercurial Bevel Migration
There is a strange, almost supernatural phenomenon many woodworkers experience, the first evidence of which is a plane or chisel blade that previously held a sharp edge a long time suddenly and inexplicably dulling sooner than before, or heaven forfend, chipping. Even professionals with many years of experience occasionally see their tools exhibit this nasty behavior.
Some craftsmen faced with this demonic dilemma begin to question their sanity, even asking themselves: “Has heaven turned its face against me? Where to flee to escape this curse? Do I need a witch doctor or a shrink? Is cranial surgery my only hope?” In past centuries and millennia craftsmen more aware than us modern folk of the dangers of pernicious pixies drew strange hex symbols on their walls or inlaid stone or brass circles and pentagrams into their floors to exorcise them from their workshop. No, the origins of those floor decorations are not just decorative, indeed they have a long history in Europe and America of fending off supernatural pests and bad juju.
An old barn with hex symbols on the exterior walls.
Unfortunately, more than one blacksmith has been falsely accused of poor workmanship when the fault actually lay with the tool’s owner unwittingly allowing Iron Pixies to run amok. If this happens to your tools, please use the methods described below to purge any pestilent pixies within the perimeter of your woodworking palace.
Beloved Customers would be wise to consider all possible causes of Mercurial Bevel Migration (MBM), including those unrelated to any infernal fiends that may or may not be skulking in your lumber stacks.
But if not pesky pixies, what else could cause this maniacal metallurgical malfeasance? Never fear, Beloved Customer, there is another possible explanation, one that can be resolved without drilling holes in one’s skull, or paying for years of expensive psychotherapy, or consuming mind-altering mushrooms, or conducting stinky ceremonies involving burning sage and spirit drums, or placing small bowls of blood and milk around your workshop, or enduring the pain of tattoo needles, or even the simple ritual described in the postscript below.
The more likely cause is simply that it’s human nature when sharpening chisels and plane blades with their tail-heavy construction to apply more pressure to the bevel’s rearward half (farthest from the cutting edge) abrading the softer iron jigane body more than the harder high-carbon steel cutting layer. Eventually, as the soft jigane wears away, the bevel angle will gradually decrease to the point where the cutting edge loses support becoming fragile and causing dismay.
Once you are aware of this tendency and take preventative measures (and assuming you don’t have an iron pixie infestation), all should be well.
Next let’s examine some measures to get rid of both this bad habit and trixy pixies.
Pixie Predation Prevention & Pacification
If you suspect the presence of iron pixies, you should perform the Covington Pixie Detection Test (CPDT). A reliable method is described in the next section below.
In any case, and because prevention is better than Prozac, you should begin your efforts by creating a workshop environment unfriendly to pixies. The following is a partial list of measures your humble servant has found to be effective.
Brass bench dogs are an effective pixie repellent
Cleanliness: Clean bench surfaces and sweep the floors daily. Vacuum and wet-mop workshop floors at least twice a year during the winter and summer solstices (approximately June 21 and December 21);
Add more lighting: Iron Pixies fear light because it reveals them to their enemies;
Keep a pair of boots near the door into the workshop: Pixies are deathly afraid of boots, especially when they contain the feet of sharp-eyed human children, but just the sight of boots will usually prevent them from entering a space;
Keep brass benchdogs in your workshop. Expert fairyologists insist, and I agree, that having a brass bench dog (remember, Iron Pixies do not fear iron or steel or even the IRS) or two on hand will repel Iron Pixies to the workshop’s dark recesses and keep their nasty claws away from tools. The deterrent effect of bench cats is unclear, but if you decide to rely on one, be sure it bothers to stay awake;
Welcome spiders: Although this may seem to contradict No. 1 above, Iron Pixies fear spiders, especially daddy longlegs, who delight in tangling them in their webs and tickling them to expiration.
Make regular offerings to the gods of handsaws. More on this subject in a future article.
A compact and effective brass bevel angle gauge by Richard Kell
A more mundane but sure way to prevent MBM is to make or buy and frequently use a bevel angle gauge. This is very important!
Aluminum, stainless steel or even plastic gauges will work of course, but brass or bronze are more effectual at purging perfidious predatory pixies because copper is toxic and zinc gives pixies noisome gas. Be sure to store it close to your valuable steel tools to help repel the vicious little bastards.
Here’s the important thing: Once you have this tool, use it to check your blades during each sharpening session to ensure you are maintaining the correct bevel angle instead of allowing it to decrease incrementally over repeated sharpening sessions. Make this a firm habit. More on this important subject in future posts.
Here’s another important thing: Remember to measure the bevel angle at the blade’s far right or far left edges because the hollow-ground uratsuki of Japanese blades makes it difficult to correctly measure the angle if you check it elsewhere.
Pixie Detection Methods
A serious pixie infestation in a toolchest located in a clothing-optional workshop. Notice the absence of bench dogs, brass bevel-angle gauges and boots in this image. Pure madness, indeed an invitation to disaster!
Iron Pixies are secretive creatures most people never see, but if you suspect you have an infestation, a detection test is called for.
While there are many proven methods to test for pixie infestation, the least expensive non-toxic method to test for pixie infestation is the Covington Pixie Detection Test (CPDT). The execution is simple, but it requires some skill and confidence in one’s abilities.
To the perform the CPDT, sharpen a plane blade, and while doing so, attempt to “stick it” on the stone as shown in the photo below. This phenomenon is evidence the stone and the blade are in such perfect contact that the suction between the blade and the stone’s wet surface is strong enough to support the cantilevered weight of the blade. It can only be achieved when localized sources of natural chaos, of which iron pixies are a prime example, are firmly under control.
No, this is not a trick photo with concealed supports, superglue, or photoshop enhancements. This blade, hand-forged by Mr. Nakano Takeo, is supported only by the bevel which is “stuck” to the wet stone’s surface. This is a rite of passage those who wish to become proficient in sharpening must eventually accomplish, iron pixies or no. Not recommended for potato chip-thin Bailey-style plane blades.
Assuming your blade, stones, and skill level are up to the task, if you are unable to accomplish this marvelous feat even after many attempts, the likelihood of an infestation of peevish pixies nearby is high. In that case, use the preventative measures listed in the section above, or the banishment ritual described in the postscript below. You should also flatten your sharpening stones (especially the rough and medium grit stones) and make sure your blade’s bevel is perfectly flat, for bulging bevels are the pernicious pixie’s playground. (Aha! Iambic pentameter!)
Fair warning: If you stubbornly persist in your efforts to “stick” a plane blade before purging the area of pixies, they may go berserk to prevent this sublime event from occurring. If that happens, Katy bar the door!
Infernal Pixies! You Shall Not Pass!!
In the next stage of our adventure, we will examine some of the health ailments blades commonly suffer. High cholesterol in chisels? Planes with pneumonia? Or just toolish hypochondria? Stay tuned to find out more.
YMHOS
Postscript: Pixie Catch-and-Release
A few tender-hearted Beloved Customers and Gentle Readers, sick and tired of their precious tools rusting to dust and being stolen, have asked your humble servant for advice about live-catching the Iron Pixies they sense scuttling around in the dark and dusty places of their workshop and then releasing them back into the wild. I can only share my meager experience.
While the concern gentle souls have for the welfare of natural creatures is laudable, it is decidedly misplaced because pixies are not natural creatures like squirrels, cows or even tax collectors (there are some who contend the later are closer to trolls than natural beings, but that is a scurrilous rumor promulgated by tax accountants). But I digress.
Gentle Readers should note that Iron Pixies are not natural beings, but rather supernatural creatures from the land of Faerie that choose to leave their native plane of existence to inhabit workshops in our mortal world for the simple malevolent joy of ruining iron and steel tools and inducing mental anguish in mortals. We may catch them and we may crush them, but few have the ability to banish them entirely from our world, contrary to the claims of The Learned Society of York Magicians, the only documented exception being Mr. John Uskglass and perhaps, it is rumored, an obscure magician named Mr. Jonathan Strange.
My point is that, since we mortals have no access to the supernatural environment from whence pixies hale, we cannot “release” them back into their natural environment at all, but can only strive to make our workshops less attractive places for them to pursue the malevolent mischief they love.
Your humble servant has not researched all methods of trapping pixies and so can offer no certain advice. However, if you are determined to design and deploy such a live-trap, remember that iron pixies are exceptionally clever and can easily avoid and certainly destroy most any trap, especially if it has metal parts.
Bench cats have been known to frighten pixies away, but most are just too damn lazy to keep at it. And no matter how you cook them, and regardless of the hot sauce used, iron pixies always taste like old garbage dumpster wheels and are almost as hard to chew, so scrumptiousness is never sufficient incentive for our feline masters.
I have experienced moderate success banishing iron pixies from my humble workshop, at least temporarily, using a combination of the techniques listed above and the following ancient ritual.
To perform a pixie banishment rite, you will need a few things, chief of which are at least one small, quick, sharp-eyed, strong-lunged child that still believes in Santa Clause, and a pair of large, leather work boots. Never steel-toed boots, mind you, no steel at all!
The more children the better. You may need to borrow boots from friends and family. Don’t forget the Santa Clause thing.
Open one door leading directly to the outside just a crack. Not too far, only 1~2 inches.
Help your sharp-eyed children put the boots on their little feet in your workshop where the pixies can observe (this forewarning visibility is important), being sure the boots can’t accidentally slip off.
Direct said child (or children) to march around your workshop in three circuits widdershins (counter-clockwise) while stomping their boots loudly and screeching “Pixies Flee!!” (ear protection may be necessary).
Have each circuit end at the partially-open door or window whereupon each child should toss a small piece of steel or iron, such as a nail, screw or nut, through the opening while shouting this same spell as loudly as they can.
You should lead the way and set the example, of course.
Nothing scares pixies as much as small children stomping close by in big boots while screeching loud magical commands. Seeing iron or steel then fly through an opening to the outside will usually drive them away.
A word to the wise: Incentive must be provided to the child (or children) for the ceremony to succeed because, as Jeffy Chaucer famously wrote: the “Labourer is worthy of his hire.” Chocolate or other sweets work fine. The child’s mother may object to this form of incentive pay, but carrot sticks provide neither sufficient energy nor adequate motivation to small children in my extensive experience. Besides, who ever heard of fruits and vegetables helping magic? Codswallop!
All the same, best to do it when Loving Mother is away if you think she might degrade the ritual through nagging about nutrition or cavities.
Some Faeriologists have suggested that a variation of this ritual is also effective at driving hidden monsters from under beds and out of closets in residences. Indeed, such a ceremony has been an annual traditional ritual in most households in Japan since ancient times.
For banishing demons and monsters from living spaces in the Japanese tradition, open all doors and windows during daylight hours on February 4th, and, while screaming “Demons Depart!!,” members of the household, including children of course, should each toss a handful of dried beans through each open door and window to the outside, closing them tightly afterwards. Apparently demons like beans. Boots are not worn indoors in Japan.
Children may be small, but they have an important role in protecting the home and family and your tools too. It’s a father’s duty to let them know it and show them how. And they deserve magical chocolate!
YMHOS
The scene of a conversation between your humble servant and a small child regarding pixie purging. Do you think the jewels in my wig are too much?
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 thuggish Twitter and so won’t sell, share, or profitably “misplace” your information. If I lie may pixies gnaw my bones every hour I live.
Covington & Sons Tools 
Leave a comment