THE INDEPENDENT HAND TOOL REPORT

Teaching this stuff since 1983

This page is here to get around that problem, we dont have advertisers. This page is here to help you choose woodworking tools and help to teach you how to use those woodworking tools properly. Since 1983 we have had hundreds of students come to us to help them to learn furniture making. We have seen them buying hundreds of thousand of dollars worth of woodworking tools, power tools and hand tools. And we've seen some of them make mistakes. Wasting time flattening planes soles, wasting money buying tools that were not necessary.

Do not waste your money.

This page is to help you to avoid wasting money on tools you don't need and spending what you have to spend on tools that are going to do a good job for you. Hopefully you are only going to buy something once. You may as well try and buy the best one you can. Our advice is impartial, we are not linked financially in any way with any tool manufacturing organisation and we receive no free samples that may blurr our judgement or colour our opinion.

Our knowledge is expert, gained over decades of experience of handling these tools and working them ourselves and making our living with them. Our objective is to get the best tools in your hands and show you how to use them properly. Later if you want we can sell you videos and stuff that will help teach you stuff that is not in the books but alot of our info is free so, be my guest, enjoy.

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Steel

Forged High Carbon Steel

Lets start with the most important part the cutting edge. All your work your effort is through this point. This sharpened steel wedge. You need to have the best steel to save yourself effort and gain more control. Dont worry about manufacturers that claim their steel that holds its edge for soooo.... long. What you really want is SHARP. My experience tells me that "high carbon steel" takes a sharper edge than the A2 kind of steel offered by most modern toolmakers. High carbon steel was at best forged, hammered in a hot state. However modern steels even modern high carbon steels are cold rolled. This gives a"tougher" edge that is lacking abit of the hardness of genuine forged high carbon steel. Yet it is good steel common in many brands of western chisels including Sorby Marples Stanley and many others as a steel it is acceptable (just). But that edge is just abit too dull for me. The best forged high carbon steel now seems to come from Britain France and China.

If you can find genuine forged high carbon steel try it. Clifton make a really good genuine forged steel blade "The Victor" plane blade is forged in Sheffield I have these in my planes and replaced an A2 blade from Lei Neilsen to great effect. If you know how to sharpen properly without a silly set of training wheels then it should give you the very best edge most easily. Other sources are blades from Ron Hock he worked with Jim Krenov to develop blades for his students and I believe imports steel from France. www.hocktools.com I have also bought small spoke shaves from Lee Valley that were made in China to a very high standard of steel.www.leevalley.com

Old forged steel blades

Beware of "old steel" this is wonderful stuff hard as good tool steel as it can be, and romantic, however it can be so damned hard it cannot be flattened easily enough to make good contact on a sharpening stone. Those old guys didnt have the quality control to be sure that every blade was flat so many are not. Getting an old blade flat is a tough job, once you get it flat then you got a real tool for life but boy thats an effort. [I will talk about flattness later its very important.]

A2 Steel

A2 steel is popular with many modern toolmakers "A-2 steel hardened to Rockwell 60-62 cryogenically treated and double tempered" is the info on Lie -Nielsen chisels.They are without doubt made with a tough steel, the toughness enables them to hold an edge for AAAAAAges. But that edge is just abit too dull for me. Many of my students buy these chisels and I dont discourage them. They are a teeny bit tricky to learn to put an edge on but thats not a problem. I prefer teaching people new to this with a high carbon blade as the burr comes away really sweetly. Once you get the idea its no problem to sharpen these A2 blades.

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Woodworking Bench Planes.

Under my bench right now I can see three bench planes. There is a long one, a medium length and a short one. The long plane is used for truing edges and dead flat surfaces, the medium sized one is an everyday bench plane and the short one is used for smoothing finished carcasses and final truing up of surfaces. A Number 6 is for a reasonably well built male is the standard everyday plane, quite frequently referred to as a Jack plane.

If you are a strong dude then you may go for Number 7, or if you are relatively light of frame a Number 5 or 5 1/2. The number is the indication usually of the length of the plane, though some planes are slightly narrower than others, so start with this plane and just get that one plane to start off with. Later on you can add in a Number 7 or Number 8 plane for a long jointing plane for jointing edges and flattening dead flat surfaces, and you can later on add a smoothing plane, a Number 4 or 4 1/2 plane.

Don't buy either of these unless you have to. Start off somewhere in the middle. We've seen many students buying hundreds of planes over the years and it's come clear to us that the Lie Neilson brand and the Clifton brand are the two ones to go for. Veritas have made some interesting new planes however their bench planes have given a couple of our guys problems with flatness and with the adjustment mechanism. When they get this sorted and I am sure we will we will start recommending them.

We have had students who have had problems with the Clifton planes not being as flat as their own specification demands but we are assured by the manufacturers that those problems have now been overcome. However I think if I were buying a plane right now I would be buying a Lie Neilson plane. They are the most expensive available but they have been reliably flat which is the essential quality that you are looking for in a plane and the machining of the blades and back irons have been acceptable. I would however change the blade to a high carbon forged steel blade from Clifton. The Victor blade fits real easy.

In our sharpening workshop we have a large granite surface plate usually used by engineers.We bought this when we had to argue with some tool suppliers that their planes were not as flat as they said. This surface is flat within a measured number of microns and has a Warrantee signed by an inspector to prove it. Lee Neilson and Clifton have been the most reliable suppliers though we have had planes of both returned as being outside their own specification. "Tom will be upset", she said, I really don't care, my student was even more upset having spent lots of money and lots of time with a tool that was not to specification. You can buy less expensive planes but you will spend an awful lot of time faffing around with flatness and making the blade sit securely within the mechanism of the plane.

Dont waste your time. Buy a decent plane and learn how to use it properly.

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York Pitch

When buying bench planes you need to understand what is normal and what is "York" pitch. The overall cutting angle that the blade is set to the sole of the plane is usually 45degrees. This is standard and fine. The front plane below is at standard pitch. Look at the smoother plane behind it this has a slightly higher pitch at about 50 degrees. this is York pitch and is usefull for finishing difficult grained timber such as cherry. You can buy a different "frog" the block of steel that the blade sits on to give you "York" pitch.

Low Angle Bench Planes

NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH LOW ANGLE BLOCK PLANES. We've recently had a spate of these low angle bench planes in our workshops. Again these are Lie Neilson and Veritas planes and we can recommend these only partially. The attraction of these planes is that the blade is set at a very low angle with support to the cutting edge quite near that cutting edge. These blade have the bevel facing up and do not have a back iron making the planes more simple in construction. These planes are giving exceptionally high quality finish to the timber even on very figured timber. They are however not a replacement for a general bench plane. The adjustment of these planes are very critical. They need setting up once and leaving alone, so we would only recommend one of these planes as an addition to your armoury. Maybe bought after a few months on the job. In that case the favourite in the workshop seems to be a Number 6 or a Number 7 low angle plane, again manufactured by Lie Neilson though Veritas are also good and recommended.

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Chisels

These are a few of the chisels in my tool box, I use all kinds and many brands of chisels, in the 1980s I was one of the first western woodworkers to advocate using japanese chisels and one of the first to stop using them as the only solution. Now my tools are a mix of western and japanese. I am currently working with a japanese blacksmith to develop a lighter western style chisel but with the very hard sharp cutting egde that some japanese chisel makers can provide. More Later on this.

We are definitely still waiting for the ideal cabinetmakers set of chisels. The essential quality of a chisel is a flat back. This is the jigged surface that one uses and puts on the job to gain flatness. A bent chisel is of no use whatsoever, no matter how sharp it is or how nice the lovely handle is.

Sorby Bevel Edged Chisels

Until very recently I think Sorby have been a tool supplier that has gained a lot of our custom. The Sorby box wood handled cabinetmakers chisels are very nice, light, well shaped blades with quite good quality steel. The lightness and the quality of the shaping of the steel, and the quality of the grinding and shaping of the blade is of really paramount importance.

Many manufacturers make what they call bevel edged chisels and the shaping of the blade is nowhere near the quality that is wanted.

Crown so called "Bevel Edge Chisels"

This is a blade from Crown. To call it a"Bevel Edged Chisel" is pushing the envelope, well it is technically bevel edged it has bevels but compared to the Sorby blade above, compared to that its what I call a "Firmer chisel". Cheaper to make more profitable to sell but not good for you, you need the bevel to go right down to the corner where the cut is made ,you need the sight line. DONT BUY IT OR ANYTHING THAT LOOKS LIKE THIS.

Steel Bananas

However the problem we have encountered with the Sorby blades is FLATNESS or lack of it. As far as we can see it seems that somewhere towards the end of the process of manufacture heat is being introduced to the blade after it has been flattened. Because it seems to have once been flat then another process introduces heat to part of the blade and the whole blade then seems to bend slightly.

What arrives in the customers hand is a blade that in our experience three times out of five is curving from the tip of the blade in a convex pattern towards the handle of the tool, so if the blade is put on a flat surface it will touch near the heel of the handle and touch at the point of the blade with a hollow in the centre of the blade. This hollowing may only be half a milimetreover the whole length of the blade. But it should be dead flat.

You'll need at least one blade in your collection that is dead flat and it's a damn shame that really good blades like these cannot arrive dead flat in the first place. Failure to give us flat chisels is an unacceptable situation, many of my students do go for the Sorby chisels because they have many good qualities but this now is against our advice and some of them later regret their decision. With a certain amount of care in the fettling of these blades after purchase you can flatten those backs but its a pain and it's work that should have been done for you by the manufacturer.

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Lei Neilsen Chisels

Lie Neilson make flat bevel edged chisels and we have grudgingly recommended those to our students for some time now. They are however heavier than I would like to see a bevel edge chisel but the machining is a superior quality. We've yet to have blade supplied to us that hasn't been up to specification and I'd recommend these chisels in all of the sizes because of this.

The shape and design of these chisels is not the only thing I would like to see improved however. These are made in A2 steel which is a very hard tough steel that takes a good edge. They do not in my opinion take as good an edge as a chisel made in high carbon steel. I have used high carbon Marple chisels for over thirty years and Norris plane irons for a similar time and I know this modern A2 steel is not as sharp. It hold an edge well but not as sharp an edge. The other deficiency is that this steel sharpens in a way that does not help the beginner. Dont be too fussed we can show you how to sharpen this stuff fine its just that high carbon steel will turn a burr and hone that burr off real easy. With A2 steel the burr comes away in tiny clumps and needs watching. It's not necessary to have a full set of these expensive chisels but over the course of time you will need a full set. Don't buy them all at once, buy them as you need them, but in time seek to acquire a full set of bevel edge cabinetmakers chisels.

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Japanese chisels

An alternative to western chisels is the japanese chisels. Generally their tools are too heavy and clumsey for cabinetmakers. However if you can find a good supplier they can be very well made tools. These are their version of the dovetail chisel Ureke Nomi they are lighter and shaped similar to our bevel edged chisels. They are of laminated construction made by hot forging a hard layer to a softer shock absorbing layer. This gives us very hard cutting edge with [if you choose your supplier] with a high carbon cutting edge better in my experience than A2. These came from Classic Handtools at www.classichandtools.com

Ureke Nomi

Note the underside of this chisel. Its a feature of this type of blade that they hollow out the centre of the flat area. This is very very hard steel so this helps you get this area dead flat which is important for sharpening and use. Dont worry about wearing back to the hollow its very shallow a rub on a course polishing stone will bring this hollow back quite fast.

Japanese Toolmakers.

We have noticed over the past five years that the standard of Japanese tools that we get here in the U K has got worse. Their economic depression has closed alot of the small tool makers. These were literally one and two man workshops. What we are getting now are tools from the larger suppliers and they can have quality issues.

I saw when I visited Japan this concern for quality is not lost. This is a quote from a magazine article I wrote shortly after returning.

"For me this was a statement of understated quality, a reverence for and understanding of the fact that beauty is often hard won. That quality is something more than an advertising message and something beyond the capacity of manufacture.

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I witnessed this most tellingly when visiting a toolmaker. This was a man in his 40's with over twenty years experience. I saw him working with all the skill of an assured craftsman. Fast, dextrous strokes of the hammer. This man, Osasayaki San worked with his father, a man in his 80's. He was a man who was not retired he still turned up for work every day because he just loved the work. As Osasayaki San finished applying the workshop mark and applying my name to the woodworkers knife that he was finishing for me, he completed his strokes, then holding the knife in two hands in front of his face he showed it to his father.

The position and the action was ritual, father and son had done this hundreds, maybe thousands of times before. This was the completion of another piece of work. The action was what industry would call 'equality control'. What in this case was a son saying to his father this is my work, am I maintaining our workshop standard with this piece of work, am I doing anything here that might be letting you down?'. The old man looked at the work for maybe 2 or 3 seconds and then gave a deep appreciative grunt and looked away. Ritual complete. With this I came to understand more fully that quality is not an assurance. It is not even a standard. It's a state of mind."

BLUE SPRUCE Chisels

Breaking news I have just found that i can get A2 bladed nicely made bevel edged chisels from Blue Spruce Tool Works. Now i know its not the steel i want but I like the quality and the options of different handles available direct via their very good website make this worth alook . I will report more when afe people here have bought and used them. (We dont accept free tools from manufacturers we buy and use them ourselves before we tell you what we find.) Have alook for yourself at www.bluesprucetoolworks.com

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Cabinetmakers Low Angle Block Planes

When buying woodworking tools there are two smaller planes to consider. The first would be the Veritas low angle block plane. These are available either with A2 steel blade or with a high carbon steel blade. If I had the choice I think I'd go for the latter as I think the high carbon steel makes a slightly sharper edge. This is the g01h tool steel that is listed in the Lee Valley catalogue. If I only had the choice of A2 steel then that wouldn't worry me unduly as I think this still a very high quality blade.

I would go for the low angle plane of the two planes offered and I think there's not a lot of differance to choose between Veritas and a Lie Neilson low angle block plane, that is the Number 60 1/2 low angle block plane. The Lee Nielson only come with A2 steel . There is a very nice Veritas low angle block plane which comes with option of a high carbon blade as standard. This I would highly recommend and is available from www.LeeValley.com

The important things about a block plane are the low angle that the planes is set in the body and the mouth. The low angle is important as it gives you more choices when you later understand about cutting angles this picture shows how low the angle is set in the body usually 13 degrees or less.

Lei Neilsen low angle block plane with adjustable mouth ispopular with our students. The Veritas version is better with the high carbon blade.

The Mouth or Shaving Aperture

The next issue is the mouth. Do not be tempted to buy a block plane without an adjustable mouth. Woodworking tools are offered in lots of variations in an attempt to sell you two tools when one will do the job. The construction of the body is critical, the overhang of the blade beyond the body, to the point it cuts should not be too great otherwise the cutter will chatter or vibrate when working difficult grain. This will be through lack of support and lack of stiffness in the blade. This picture shows a well set up block plane with a small opening in front of the blade which is called "the mouth" You need an adjustable mouth to get this small enough. This is important in some situations but not all.

Shoulder planes

Shoulder planes are an essential woodworking tool and part of the cabinetmaking armoury. The Lie Neilson 073 large shoulder plane and the 042 medium shoulder plane are exceptionally good tools, however I think that most of our students now are going for the Veritas shoulder planes. These are the large Veritas shoulder plane and the medium Veritas shoulder plane. These have the advantage of having again the choice of A2 or 01 blades and a rather nice adjustment mechanism to the blade and a more comfortable plane body. Of these two planes, probably buying the smaller medium sized plane first will be a good idea and then adding the larger shoulder plane later on.

Veritas shoulder plane available in two sizes large being more useful than medium both are recommended

You don't at this stage need a bull nose plane or many other of the specialist planes You might consider buying a very small shoulder plane, the Lie Neilson 1/2h shoulder plane is a very popular choice. This is what is called a tap and try plane and requires a little bit of expertise in use as it's adjusted in a slightly different way to modern planes fitted with screw adjusters. The Tap and Try method was the old fashioned way of adjusting a plane. Literally tap the blade down to increase the cut by tapping the end of the blade. Try it out, gone too far, the shaving is too heavy, then tap again, this time at the back of the body of the plane. Use a small steel hammer as the shock of the tap is important, plastic soft faced hammers are too indistinct. A small 1/2 Lie Neilson shoulder plane will get an awful lot of use just adjusting joints taking a shaving off here and there to get a perfect fit.

Lei Neilsen medium shoulder plane buy after getting a large shoulder plane and a small shoulder plane recommended.

Scraper Planes

Tool makers show us a vast range of planes that we don't really need, scew block planes, bronze edged planes, convex sole planes, small chisel planes, beading planes, chisel planes, none of these are really necessary to your tool kit. You can get them if you really need them at a later stage, you can manage without them and you can do 99% of all work without them. For over 30 years I have been making furniture and I've only just bought a large scraper plane. The Lie Neilson 112 large scraper plane is a very nice tool, however it is possible to mange without it as I have over 30 years. The 212 small cabinetmakers scraper plane is very nice and a couple of my cabinetmakers have them and say nice things about them. But for over 30 years I've managed to get by with only a cheap Stanley 80 scraper. This is just a handle that holds a cabinet scraper and does an extremely fine job of turning a cabinet scraper into a kind of plane. These are very inexpensive but are largely being replaced these days by the more expensive scraper planes. The Lie Neilson 112 large scraper plane is an example of this. We've only just bought one and don't really feel that we've actually benefited very much from it's ownership.

Spokeshaves

In this workshop we do an awful lot of work with spoke shaves. Until about 1900 most spoke shaves had wooden bodies, hand forged low angle blades fitted into the holes in the body and were adjusted by tapping the ends of the tangs. These have been replaced very largely by a metal version of those planes and made by companies like Veritas, Clifton and Lee Valley, however in our opinion the old wooden ones are almost always more sensitive and with a high quality of steel iron. Many spoke shaves will have seen very little work and are in plentiful supply in second hand tool shops. Look carefully at the mouth and look look carefully at how much of the blade is left useable. A very nice modern wooden bodied spoke shave is available from Lee Valley, it's called their contour plane, made in China with an exceptionally hard high carbon blade, very highly recommended

I learnt recently about these lovely looking spokeshaves. Made in a "Mom and Pop" set up in the states forging stainless steel bodies and fitting heavy weight high carbon steel blades. I have not seen these and I am not a great fan of the Stanley and Record type of spokeshave that they are based upon but with a heavier blade and a close mouth they may work well . Small suppliers like this need all our support. Go see them at http://www.mobergtools.com/spokeshave

Sharpening Stones

I was one of the early adopters of Japanese water stones for honing edges on tool steel. They are fast they give a superb edge and are relatively cheap. These are the manufactured stones by King rather than the natural stones. The stones we have and use every day are 1200 grit and 8000 grit the first for turning a burr the second for polishing it off. When you are setting tools up you may need a course stone and I have a couple of 400 grit stones that students wear out with monotonous regularity. This has been the way of it for a long time now and I havent seen anything better comming along. We usually advise students to get a 6000 grit polishing stone and wear that out before spending on an expensive 8000 grit stone

However NOOO stuff on the market are the Norton water stones they have a range of 220 grit 1000 grit to turn a burr and either 4000 grit or the ultimate 8000 grit. I have seen these in use as a guy on a short course showed me what he had bought and they seemed to cut very well. They are more expensive than King stones but come in a nice waterproof box that helps to keep them damp see them at http://www.nortonstones.com
My thanks goes to Alex at Classic Handtools for telling me more about these they are stockists in the U.K find them at http://www.classichandtools.com

Saws

Very largely around the bench there are only three saws that can be of use to you. One would be a relatively cheap hard pointed saw either made by Jack or Stanley, many of these saws are sold as tradesman's saws, they are cheap, efficient and cannot be more highly recommended. I have a hand made pre war Disston panel saw that was recommended as the very height of saw makers art. This is not as good as these cheap modern throw away saws. I hate to say it but its true.The more expensive hand made Disston saws these days don't perform the job as well as these modern hard point saws.

Most of the work around a bench will not however be done by a traditional saw like that but by a small back saw. The dovetail saw is the tool of choice for small delicate work, and the half tenon or small carcass saw would be the general saw for almost all the work you you do. In this case either Adria or Lie Neilson are the recommended suppliers. When you are buying a carcass saw buy it in rip cut with a 14 tpi blade. The coarse one is a bit too coarse and the cross cut saw is not really necessary. With your dovetail saw that will already be set as a rip cut pattern. Again don't be confused by the toolmakers insistence that you need all kinds of other gent saws, inlay saws, jewellers saws or razor saws. Most of them will not be used. You might want to find yourself a small coping saw or an adjustable piercing saw, these are used for clearing waste when cutting joints, but apart from that aren't used very much around the workshop. Also a decent hacksaw or junior hacksaw would be useful.

Marking and Measuring tools.
We recommend that students buy three steel rules, a 1m rule, a 600 mm rule and a 300 mm rule, and a 150 mm rule. The latter rule is most useful for tucking in an apron pocket and inevitable gets used for scraping off glue around joints and gets lost between our floorboards. The key thing with these rules is that they are all consistently giving you the same measurements. You'd be amazed at how variable a set of rules can be and one rule in your set that's giving a false reading can be like a traitor in the camp.

Gauages

The convention wisdom is that one needs two or three guages because one may need to have a guage set up for a particular job. This is true I have a half a dozen on a rack at the end of my bench. Cheap guages can be found in second hand tool shops and brought up to spec. Cutting guages and marking guages are sold incorrectly. " you need cutting guages to mark across the grain and marking guages to mark with the grain " Rubbish, you need as few tools about your person as you can do with. Faffing about, finding cutting guages for this and marking for that is a waste of time. We find that simple marking guages from Marples can be fiddled with, sharpened, and made to scribe a nice clean line with and across the grain. So three simple guages will do it.

Popular in the workshop are the Titemark guages, these are nice people with small hands seem to get on with them. They are however expensive. Cutting guages tend to a better job more easily than marking guages so thats what tends to get used more here. The guage I have used most is a Cullen marking guage from Classic handtools its expensive but good tools are. Get your spelling wrong and you could pay even more for a Clenton cutting guage which is nice but just silly. The key thing is that everyone is different, what fits in your hand wont fit in mine.

 

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Mortice guages are needed you need one guage get one where the movable pin is controlled by a screw on the end of the stock. This tool may cost you alot and secondhand ones in rosewood are available and often cheaper and better than new ones.

Squares

Another traitor in the camp that could cause you trouble is a square that isn't square. We've always recommended our students to have engineering quality squares, in this case of full metal construction with a BS99 standard marking on it. 6inch square and a 3inch square is probably enough to start with.

Make sure they are exceptionally high quality though without being to the engineering inspectors standard, or examination standard. Good quality engineering squares should do the job for you. Almost inevitably squares with wooden handles don't seem to be able to hold the squareness that is necessary for quality work.

Marking Knives

Marking knives are of extreme importance. Most manufacturers make a marking knife that is made with a very low grade of steel. When you are running a marking knife down the side of a square, the blade can very quickly lose it's edge if it isn't of high calibre steel.

A nice marking knife we've found supplied by Blue Spruce Toolmakers is their Cocabolo handled marking knife. This is an expensive tool but well worth the extra money spent on it. Highly recommended when my knife came it was in a lovely card box with soft wood wood to protect the tool, very eco sensitive. Get their knives at www.bluesprucetoolworks.com

 

 

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