Frame Saw

Dave Noftz · August 5, 2020

A Frustrating Conundrum

My shop is in a basement. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice basement... in fact, I'm rather fond of it. It’s spacious, dry, and stays a constant temperature year round. None of these positives change the fact, however, that my shop is located in a concrete-lined hole in the ground with a house on top of it. There's little to no natural light and it can only be accessed through a steep narrow stairwell that leads down from my kitchen (which I'm also rather fond of). Bringing large heavy machinery down that stairwell is about as easy as fitting a baby elephant through a cat flap: it's technically possible, but the most likely outcome is a damaged structure and a pissed-off pachyderm. So, I'll be sticking with my tiny 10” Craftsman bandsaw for the foreseeable future. Honestly, it’s fine for most tasks except for one: resawing. As luck would have it, Andre Roubo solved my resawing conundrum way back in the 18th century. I guess Monsieur Roubo’s shop was located in a basement, as well.

A Solution Presents Itself

In Plate 278 of his now-famous book L’Art du menuisier, Roubo illustrates a large frame saw intended for two-person operation. This modern version is scaled down for use by a single operator. These are essentially just rip saws on steroids, but that's exactly what I need for large resawing tasks.

The tensioner rides against a stainless steel plate

My saw is based on Tom Fidgen’s design, which he first detailed in the book The Unplugged Woodshop. I purchased the blade and hardware from Bad Axe Toolworks. When it comes to building tools, I'm a big believer in using the materials that I have on hand, so I built the body of the saw from a plank of maple that's been taking up space on my lumber rack for years. Unfortunately, this board was only a heavy 4/4 so I needed to glue up blanks for the four main components to achieve the required thickness. Once the glue was dry, I milled the components and cut the joinery. The long side stiles connect to the front and back rails with housed mortise and tenon joints. These joints are not glued; the saw is held tightly together by the tension on the blade and can be completely disassembled for repair, if necessary. Bad Axe includes a cardboard template to shape the front and back rails, similar to Roubo’s illustration. I used their template for the front rail, but I chose to follow Tom’s lead and shape the rear rail into a handlebar instead. This configuration feels more comfortable, and I was able to customize the handles so that my hands will always be approximately shoulder-width apart while sawing. To polish things off, I added four small wenge diamond inlays; it gives the saw a little je ne sais quoi.

The front blade bracket is drilled and tapped to accept a large eyebolt which rides against a stainless steel strike plate that I installed flush to the surface of the front rail. The eyebolt is used to tension the blade. The rear blade bracket sits inside a dado cut into the handlebar to prevent it from shifting from side-to-side during use. The blade is held in the brackets with two U-bolts.

By the Numbers

So what are the overall statistics on this monster? The saw’s overall length is 37”. The front rail is 18” and the handlebar is 26” wide. The blade is 2 1/8” wide and 30 1/2” long with some monstrous rip teeth at 4 1/2 TPI.

The handlebar with some sweet wenge inlays. Oooh, fancy!

Overall, I’m genuinely surprised at how fast this saw cuts. So far, I've enjoyed using it, and it brings me one step farther down the path of transitioning to hand-tool-only woodworking. It’ll probably take me years to fully make that transition, but my feet are firmly planted on the path, and that's good enough for now.

Next Steps

The frame saw is surprisingly easy to start and it cuts fast, but there's definitely a learning curve for tracking to a line. I’m getting better, but I still have a ways to go. I’d like to use this saw for cutting 1/8” thick veneers, so my next project will be a kerfing plane to help improve cut accuracy. Stay tuned for a future post on that once it’s completed.

Project, Shop

Hand Plane Till

Dave Noftz · October 23, 2016

My till holds my full inventory of planes with a little room for new acquisitions.

My hand plane till is finally done! It looks great hanging on the wall, and fulfills my requirement to hold my full inventory of planes while still providing some space for future acquisitions. The basic look of the piece is inspired by a till that I saw in an old issue of Fine Woodworking magazine, but I made significant changes to the joinery and tool holding details.

The cabinet itself is a fairly simple design: it’s a dovetailed cherry box with a single horizontal divider dadoed into the case sides. The top section has a piece of cherry plywood to hold bench planes, while the small bottom section is left open as a general storage shelf. The cherry plywood is housed in dados on all four sides that recline it at a slight angle. Strips of solid cherry on the plywood surface act as dividers. I attached the dividers with only screws, just in case I ever want to reconfigure the cabinet. Realistically, I’ll probably never do this, but it makes me feel better knowing that I have that option.

One of my most important criteria for this hand plane till was compactness. I’ve seen similar wall-hung tills that store hand planes on a reclined surface using gravity alone to hold them in place. That’s a convenient method because it’s easy for the user to remove and replace the planes. A quick calculation using the Pythagorean Theorem, however, will show you their biggest drawback: in order to use gravity as the primary means of holding the tools in place, the surface needs to be reclined at a significant angle, making the whole cabinet stick too far out from the wall. My cabinet is only five inches deep, and I was able to achieve that by reclining the storage surface a measly five degrees.

Since my planes are resting at such a steep angle in this till, I wanted some additional insurance to hold everything in place. I decided on a two-prong approach: I keep the heel of each plane from sliding off the divider it rests upon with a wooden clip, and I hold the toe of the plane tight to the surface with an embedded rare Earth magnet. My block plane is small enough that the wooden clip isn’t needed. Magnets aren’t effective on bronze, so I used a wooden spinner at the toe of my smoothing plane, instead.

So far, so good. My tool holding strategy makes it easy to access the planes, but holds them securely when they’re in the cabinet. I wish I had built this till years ago; it makes working in the shop just a little bit more enjoyable!

The bench planes are held with a wooden clip at the heel and an embedded rare Earth magnet at the toe.

Since a magnet won't hold a bronze plane, I made some support blocks for the heel, and a spinner to hold the toe.

Shop

When You Work Alone, You're Always the Smartest Guy in the Room

Dave Noftz · September 8, 2016

Back in February, 2015, I posted an article about my plans to build an enclosed hanging tool cabinet. It’s now September, 2016, and I still have nowhere to store my hand tools. Gather ‘round, my friends, and hear my tale of woe… but fear not! There’s a happy ending.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, let’s review my short list of requirements from the original article:

Keep out the dust
Consolidate everything into one place
Greater capacity
Better protection for the tools

This is a reasonable list of requirements and, when taken at face value, an enclosed hanging tool cabinet should fulfill all of them. So, I pulled out my pad of graph paper, sharpened my pencils, and started sketching my design ideas. I sketched, and I sketched, and I sketched. I pulled all my tools out and piled them up on every horizontal surface in my shop to better visualize the storage needs in the cabinet.

I was floundering and needed some inspiration, so I searched my woodworking archive. I came across an old article by Chris Becksvoort where he described his method of using paper cutouts of his tools to design the interior layout of his tool cabinet. I traced around my tools and started arranging them on a sheet of cardboard to come up with dimensions, but I was still unhappy with my designs.

After months of discarded ideas, I finally hit upon my problem. I had missed the fifth, and most important requirement: flexibility. Building an enclosed wall cabinet is a sensible solution if you already own most of the tools that will be stored in it. Sure, you can always make room in the cabinet for a few new acquisitions, but I was trying to design a cabinet that would accommodate a tool collection that will change significantly over the years. I probably would have saved a lot of time and frustration on this project if I would have talked over my ideas with someone else, but since I work alone in the shop (making me the de facto “smartest guy in the room”), I got caught in an endless loop.

So, now what? Well, I’ve changed my strategy. I’ve decided to move forward with a more modular tool storage solution. The first piece of my new storage system is a hand plane till. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve probably already seen the progress pictures. I’m almost finished with the build, and I’ll post an article here on the blog once it’s complete. I’m amazed at how one simple realization unblocked my progress on this project. Maybe the lesson learned here is that even when I'm alone in the shop, I’m STILL not the smartest guy in the room!

Editorial

The Unexpected Journey

Dave Noftz · July 11, 2016

“An idea is a point of departure and no more. As soon as you elaborate it, it becomes transformed by thought.”

— Pablo Picasso

It’s funny how projects can take on a life of their own. I’ll start a project with a picture in my mind of what I need and what activities will be required but, once work begins, the project almost always branches off in unexpected directions. Eventually, the project concludes and I’m left with a result that is not at all what I intended, and yet the shadow of my original concept is there if I squint hard enough.

I just spent the last few weeks working on a home improvement project that morphed and changed many times throughout the process. What started out as a simple plan to paint the living room quickly expanded to multiple rooms, had me cutting into drywall, doing electrical work, repairing plumbing, and shampooing carpets. The project was supposed to only take “a few days of work,” but instead ended up taking me weeks of nights and weekends to complete. The end result is so much better - so much grander - than my original concept that sometimes I can hardly believe that I’m the one that did it.

Woodworking projects are no different. If you’ve never tried it before, come up with a simple concept and just start building. Figure out the details as you go. The project will lead you down paths that you never intended, and you might just surprise yourself with the end result. It’s a lot of fun that you’ll miss out on if you only spend time building someone else’s plans.

Shop, Project

Sawbench - Part 3 (Final)

Dave Noftz · May 26, 2016

We’re in the home stretch now!

Since I had the top boards ready-to-go, I started the glue-up. Each board is held in place by two half-lap joints on the top of the legs. The short cross rails that hold the base together created a platform to support the top boards across their width. Gluing up these joints was straightforward; I just needed to ensure that the half lap joints were closed tight and that the top boards were sitting flat on the rails.

I wanted some insurance on all of these half laps since the sawbench will be treated roughly over its lifetime. So, I decided to peg all the joints with dowels. I used an auger bit to bore out two holes in each joint. The auger bit leaves a perfectly-sized hole with no tear out. I cut the pegs from a 3/8” cherry dowel rod, added a little glue, and tapped them home with a hammer. I left the dowels extra long until the glue dried and then I trimmed them flush.

Cutting down a 3/8" cherry dowel rod.  I tapered each dowel slightly with a chisel to make it easier to drive it into the joint. — Cutting down a 3/8" cherry dowel rod. I tapered each dowel slightly with a chisel to make it easier to drive it into the joint.

The dowels are glued into the joint to peg it in place.  Notice also that the surfaces have not been flushed up around the joint yet. — The dowels are glued into the joint to peg it in place. Notice also that the surfaces have not been flushed up around the joint yet.

The final surface prep was easy. I used a block plane to flush up all the surfaces around the joints, and I applied two coats of Tried and True Original Wood Finish. Once the finish dried, the sawbench was ready to work! This was a fun project to build, and it’s a useful tool to have in the shop.