Holdfasts

I have just received these wonderful holdfasts, tenderly hand crafted by Richard T of UKWorkshop fame (who says they don't make anything in the Midlands any more eh!)

So the next thing I needed was a 3/4" Forstner bit to make the holes for them, but believe it or not, between my collection, the collection I inherited from my Dad, the odds and ends box and the stock in the shop there was not one 3/4 inch bit to be found!

Not to worry, a quick purchase order to the nice people at FAMAG and a big box of goodies arrives. I plumped for 19mm (3/4 inch = 19.049mm) so they are only half a gnats undersize and will slot neatly into our existing product range. If anyone ever needs imperial bits, we can get them in in about a week - just drop us a message on our contact us page.

I suspect there may be others in a similar predicament so I have taken the libery of ordering a few more, listing them on the site and putting them on special offer.

Now comes the next question. My benchtop is about 50mm thick, and I've got a sheet of 12mm MDF and a sheet of 9mm ply winking at me and suggesting that they would love to be glued and screwed to the underside in a double sandwich taking it up to 82mm - nearly the full depth of the apron. The forstner will happily do 60mm on its own or up to 410mm with an extension, so either way putting the holes in is no problem.

Will the extra mass be worth it?

Will the holdfast holes wear better if they are in thicker material?

Have I got the time to do it, or will it become just another job on the list?

Whatever happens, I'll keep you posted.

Saw Handle Design

The interface between tool and user is a critical component of tool design and even subtle changes can have a marked effect on how the tool works.

Take this beautiful Thomas Turner tenon saw for example, the grip is reasonably vertical with a pronounced bulge in the back. To understand the reason for this we need to consider the 'hang' of the handle. A tool with a straight handle (like a gents saw or a carving knife) gives a great deal of control. Wafer thin slices of roast beef or finely executed joinery... In contrast a tool with a more vertical handle (like a steel framed bowsaw or a plane) is all about maximum transfer of power.

In this example we have a bit of both but the emphasis is on power. English backsaws can be steered left or right for the first few strokes, after that the kerf, gravity and the set (the amount by which the teeth protrude left and right from the saw plate) take over and do all of the steering for you. To begin the cut with this saw you would grip at the top with your thumb and extended forefinger and relax the rest of your hand to maximise your control.

With the workpiece secured in the vice so that the cut is plumb , all you have to do is feel for the zero moment when the back is directly over the teeth and gradually allow more of the saw's weight rest on the workpiece. With a new saw you have the advantage of being able to observe the reflection of the timber in the side of the saw plate too - if the reflection seems to carry on straight through you know the saw is plumb. With an old one you need to be more conscious of feeling for vertical, the weight of the saw is all in the heavy brass back, making it more 'tippy' so the point of balance should be relatively easy to feel for.

Once the kerf is established you can relax your thumb and forefinger and tighten up a touch with your little finger and the heel of your hand, this changes the grip from the top part of the handle to the bottom part - from control to power. By this stage there is no steering to do, the kerf is holding the spine perpendicular over the teeth, the spine is providing the weight to keep the teeth engaged and the set is ensuring that the left and right teeth are bearing equal measures of the work so the kerf stays straight. The faster you go on the push stroke, the more material you will remove with each pass, and as long as you don't grip too tightly and pull it off course, the cut will continue dead plumb and true.

Whether you are squeezing at the top for control or at the bottom for power, your grip should always be relaxed enough that you can feel the soft flesh of your fingers give a little each time you switch from pull to push, it really is a very light touch indeed.

With sharp teeth and a well balanced set I'd be happy to bet this saw will easily eat half inch oak at a rate of an eighth of an inch with each stroke. A new one with a much thinner plate and harder modern steel would possibly manage double that.

If you fancy having a go at fine tuning your own saw handle shape we have Atkinson Walker tenon and dovetail saws available in kit form with full instructions and downloadable templates. The Pax 1776 range were also designed to be adjusted to suit the individual user, the finish on the handles is just straightforward Danish oil (tung oil) so any alterations you make can be easily blended into the original finish.

The $300 House

There are 13.5 times as many people living in slums around the world as there are people in Britain. They live in houses made from little more than rubbish and ingenuity. Poor sanitation and lack of electricity promote disease and illiteracy and if they manage to evade those two ills they have a good chance of being injured by their own roof falling in. To still have a problem this fungible, on this scale, in this day and age is not a very impressive record for humanity.

The 300house project is the brainchild of Vijay Govindarajan and has developed from a thought he posted on the Harvard Business Review Blog into a well organised project gathering ideas from business, individuals, universities, governments and professionals.

The idea isn't new, post war prefabs were a response to a similar problem. The execution however is very different, using the internet to join up freely given ideas from around the globe to provide a complete solution. From governments finding ways to facilitate land ownership, banks to provide microfinance loans and blokes in sheds to come up with ingenious ideas like bean tin methane stoves or everlasting biological light bulbs.

So if you happen to wake up one morning with an idea for a universal multi-material joinery system but don't have the means or desire to make it a reality, here's a way that your idea could be shared and contribute to changing the lives of a whole lot of folk.

Workshop Heaven Spring Prize Draw

1st Prize: a one week training course with award winning Cabinetmaker Marc Fish

Runner up Prizes:

• A Quangsheng Block Plane of your choice (low angle, standard angle or rebating).


• £20 Narex Voucher


• two Continental Hand Stitched Rasps or Bahco Files - your chice


• Pair of Ashley Iles 7/16 Fishtail Skews


• £20 FAMAG Voucher


• Shield Technology Corrosion Control Kit


• 1 Kilo of Arizona Desert Ironwood


• £20 Ochsenkopf Voucher


• Workshop Heaven Cabinet Scraper Set & Wallet

The Draw will take place on the 28th May at YOKBII.

Competition Terms and Conditions:

• For every £10 spent on the website while the prize draw is running (8th April 2011 to 25th May 2011) we will put another ticket into the hat (if you don't want to be entered please let us know via the shipping comments box).



• Free entry: just click the link on the homepage of the Workshop Heaven website and enter your name and contact details. Being on our mailing list does not mean that you are automatically entered for the competition, you need to submit your details again to enter.



• One prize per entrant (i.e., in the event of the same person being drawn for two prizes the second prize will be drawn again).



• Any information gathered during the competition will be shared between Workshop Heaven and Marc Fish only.



• Prize winners will be contacted by email after the draw. Prizes will be shipped free of charge to countries within our normal free shipping for orders over £100 policy. For any prizes shipped beyond these countries the winner must pay shipping fees.



• 1st prize includes training but not accommodation or transport, Marc will be happy to recommend suitable B&B's in the area.



• No cash alternatives available.

Good Luck!

Rasps & Files

We have recently been paying a bit of long overdue attention to the Rasps and Files section of the site.

We have brought in a new range of Continental rasps - a little dearer than the old ones admittedly, but really, really beautifully made in the traditional manner and I'm confident that they still represent excellent value for money. I am going out on a limb regarding the cleaning of rasps, some say that they should only be cleaned with a nail brush but I have never found this gets them sufficiently clean. Given that wood debris is likely attract and hold moisture against the surface and therefore promote corrosion (far more dangerous to carbon steel than the mechanical abrasion of a file card) we are recommending that you use something a bit more aggressive and get them properly clean. We are also offering a resharpening service on the new ones (as long as it hasn't been abused a rasp can typically be resharpened a couple of times) so if you pop them in the post to us with a couple of pounds per tool to cover return postage we will sharpen them, passivate them and send them back to you.

We have simplified matters somewhat by only offering one type of handle, but it is without any doubt the most comfortably shaped file handle I have ever used. Turned from walnut with a brass ferrule it is based on an old design from the turn of the last century. Judging from the feedback we have had so far they are going to be very popular indeed.

Our range of Bahco files have also received a little attention, again the new walnut handles and we are gradually introducing a wider range of shapes, sizes and cuts. One top tip that was sent in to us was to break in a new file by using it very gently on a piece of brass to ease any high teeth (we are talking fractions of microns here) into line with the others before bringing the tool to bear on ferrous metals. Apparrently this simple step will greatly extend the usable life of the file. I haven't tried it on a saw sharpening file yet, but the next time I start a new one I'll definitely give it a go.

Up to now we have concentrated on relatively coarse files as these are the ones that tend to work best with wood. However we are gradually introducing more metalworking files for specific jobs, files for preparing cabinet scrapers, opening the mouths of planes and filing knife backs for example. It will be a gradual process of defining the best tool for each job and then adding them to the range, so if anyone has any particular favourite cuts or shapes please do let me know.

My personal favourite remains the Bahco Oberg cut file (if you only have one file in your workshop this one should be it) halfway between a float and file it cuts quickly, can be used on anything from wood to hardened steel and yet produces a supremely smooth finish, a truly remarkable tool.

Incase you were wondering who the best is...

Congratulations to Marc Fish for winning the 2011 Claxton Stevens Prize with his exquisite and brilliant L'Orchidée desk.

This highly prestigious annual award is given for the best piece of guildmark winning furniture from the preceding 12 months, it is the furniture equivalent of the Top-Gun Trophy.

The L'Orchidée desk is particularly important because it is simultaneously fresh and contemporary and yet unmistakably Art Nouveau inspired. The elegant sweep of the aluminium legs, invite you to the desk in much the same way as a ballroom dancer would invite his partner to the dancefloor; slightly bowed, arm extended with one toe pointing outwards.

The drawers inside the desk are crisply dovetailed from aluminium and walnut. The use of Aluminium and the shape of the tambour invoke the beginnings of speed and streamlining. Yet here we are a century on, in a streamlined high-speed future beyond their wildest dreams, still unable to detach ourselves from the classical beauty of highly figured English Walnut.

Marc has broken new ground by using a veneered tambour to create a seamless solid surface that behaves like fabric. Historically this is not Art Nouveau because it has never been done before, but stylistically it is a perfect fit.

Anyone can make a piece of 'Art Nouveau style' furniture that is no more than a copy of something old. What Marc is doing here is different, he is not copying Art Nouveau, he is harnessing it and using it as a stylistic tool to push new boundaries. If others are able to follow his lead, this piece could very well be one that defines furniture style for the next ten to fifteen years.

Blonde, French and Horny !!!

No, not Amelie Honore, the missus wouldn't let me play with that in the shed!

I've had this knife blank knocking about for ages and have got as far as cutting out the scale blanks in various materials but always changed my mind.

Anyhow, the tuit finally rolled around and I decided to clad it in some lovely translucent French cowhorn.

I cut and filed the bases as accurately as possible to give a neat fit against the bolsters and ensure that the handle would all fit within the scale blanks. A quick trim around with a Jewellers saw brought everything to within a few mm.

I decided to conceal the pins within the scales, giving the strength benefit but still retaining a cleaner look. The holes were drilled to half the thickness of the scales using the tang as a guide.

After glue up it was on to the rasps to refine and develop the shape.

Then a fair bit of coarse sanding to smooth out the transitions and fine tune the shape.

Before moving on to finer papers and finally mops and compound.

Off with the tape, a quick clean up and it's job done. I'm not sure why the bolster looks so scratched, it's not perfect but it's nowhere near as bad as it looks. Apart from being a bit smelly at the rasping stage the horn was a lovely material to work with. Now that it's all polished up you can just make out the brass pins through the handle scales.

Price increases set to hit the tool market

First of all, apologies for the long break from updating this blog, I promise you I have not been idle and there are lots of fantastic new things in the pipeline - all of which will be revealed here on the blog in due course. For now we have some important news that I wanted to share with everyone as quickly as possible - I just wish it were better news.

The offer price for high-grade iron ore passed $200/tonne earlier this week (Reuters). To put that into perspective, 12 months ago a tonne of iron ore on an annual contract was going for as little as $61/tonne (FT). Supplies of coking coal, another essential ingredient for steelmaking, have been interrupted because the floods in Australia have inundated mines which usually crank out 1.6 million tons of the stuff a week (Bloomberg).

Steelmakers and manufacturers have already soaked up as much of this price volatility as they can, so we are now being warned by several suppliers of imminent and substantial price rises with the possibility of more to follow. I understand that the price of wolfram (an ingredient of tungsten carbide) is also skyrocketing.

In an effort to give our customers a chance to respond we will not be adjusting prices until the end of the month, stocks permitting we will try to hold out for longer.

New Quangsheng Adjustable Spokeshave

I managed to find a few moments today to try out the new Quangsheng adjustable spokeshave. As usual the quality of the casting and overall finish are very good. At 484grams (1lb) it's a touch heavier than I was expecting but has a reassuringly solid feel in the hand.

The cutting iron was sharp enough to work with straight out of the box and with the capscrew slackened off by half a turn the adjusters give a sufficiently fine degree of control over the blade projection. The only thing I did need to do was tighten up the adjuster screws into the body, a dab of threadlock may be useful here although so far just nipping them up finger tight seems to have done the trick.

The sole is flat and nicely finished. It did occur to me that there is plenty of meat there if you wanted to file it convex, if this proves a popular idea we may even get some made that way at a later date.

The 12% Days of Christmas

The 12% days of Christmas is a series of one day only offers on selected product ranges. The offer will change daily at midnight and are only available while stocks last.

Simply enter the appropriate code on the appropriate day at stage 1 of the checkout to claim your 12% discount. If the item is already on special offer you still get 12% off the offer price.

There's another load of fantastic offers in our Workshop Heaven Christmas Sale!

Tell your friends!

December 6th
12% off Ochsenkopf Axes
Discount Code: 12DC01

December 7th
12% off Bessey Clamps
Discount Code: 12DC02

December 8th
12% off Atkinson Walker Saws
Discount Code: 12DC03

December 9th
12% off FAMAG Drill Bits
Discount Code: 12DC04

December 10th
12% off Shield Technology Products
Discount Code: 12DC05

December 11th
12% off Narex Chisels
Discount Code: 12DC06

December 12th
12% off Ashley Iles Chisels
Discount Code: 12DC07

December 13th
12% off Quangsheng Planes
Discount Code: 12DC08

December 14th
12% off Gyokucho Saws
Discount Code: 12DC09

December 15th
12% off Clifton Planes
(Including Anniversary Planes)
Discount Code: 12DC10

December 16th
12% off King Waterstones
Discount Code: 12DC11

December 17th
12% off ARNO Products
Discount Code: 12DC12