Thread: Equipping my shop with Hand Tools

Moondog,

Nice to see they arrive. Have fun now.

Heh, I still have to clean them up :P

Atleast AusPost didn't break them though, which is nice.

I have one Spotty bench and one re-purposed radiata table come bench. I have good eyes but I don't have a colour preference either way. My Spotty's nothing like as dark as Karri or Jarrah though.

That said, i do like the look of pale bench tops. I'd take your Maple one any day Ian!

Originally Posted by Berlin

....... I'd take your Maple one any day Ian!

Matts a mater of fact, I do have some choice bits of Ironbark & other wood squirreled away for a new bench. I've postponed starting on it for years, partly through lack of time, & partly because it isn't really necessary. My only real complaint with the old bench is that it is about 75mm shorter than the longest board I've needed to clamp between dogs. I think I have struck a problem about 3 times in the 25 plus years since I maade it, so it isn't a huge problem..

I have got as far as making a set of whopper wooden screws (thinking of doing wooden screws on both tail vise & front vise, just for fun), but that was a few years ago, & the project stalled at that point. But you never know, if I live long enough, I may be looking to get rid of the Maple bench some day!

Cheers,

Workbenches seem to be a bit like cars. Until you've had a couple, you don't really know what you're looking for, so your first ones are usually beaters. Later on when you know what you're looking for and you've got some cash, you probably get a nice one that suits you well. You probably still look at new ones, argue their merits, but how often do you really NEED a new car?

Side note, I'm not really sure what to do about my own workbench at this point. It seems like a very expensive exercise. I'm wondering how far I can take my existing work surfaces before I really NEED something new. I really seem to need a proper vice, as well as ways to clamp boards so I can work on their faces. My slidey mcSlide cabinets probably aren't solid enough for much planing either, even if I lock the castors (locking castors is pointless).

Transportation is an issue for me, I don't drive, so it makes getting my hands on large lumps of wood exceedingly difficult. Bunnings deliveries are fairly cheap, but the timber is not so much. I've been thinking about laminating together all the B/C plywood I have, taking the castors off the slidey cabinet, and attempting to use that as a top. Then I need to try to find a vice. Gumtree/eBay have not been a lot of help thusfar, so I'm thinking I should go buy something new. 3 options I can actually afford are the Bunnings Craftright vices, the Groz vices, and the Carbatec rebranded integral bench vices. Any thoughts on those?

Hi Ian

I am looking forward to a bench build of yours. Very interested to see what you come up with. Any style you are gravitating towards?

I recall our debates about bench top colour when I was building my recently completed bench. Having lived with a Karri top for nearly 2 decades, and now this Oak top for 12 months, I can only say that I wished I made the decision to switch over this all those years ago. Light tops rule!

Regards from Perth

Derek

Unrelated to the benchtop, what do you guys think about a shop-made bow saw designed to take standard 300mm hacksaw blades? I thought it might be handy for cutting curves, with an 18TPI hacksaw blade. Replacements would be easy to find, and you could always file coarser rip teeth in the blade if you wanted. I don't know about setting teeth on a hacksaw blade though, so you might still have to stick to fairly high TPI.

I'm not talking about cutting super fine coping saw type curves, more like drawer front type curves, with a large consistent radius.

Originally Posted by derekcohen

.....I am looking forward to a bench build of yours. Very interested to see what you come up with. Any style you are gravitating towards?

Derek, don't hold your breath, 'ol buddy! It may be some time before a build commences in earnest, but when it does, I will try to do the obligatory WIP. When/if I do make a new bench, it will be pretty much what I have now, i.e. a European style bench but with an English style front vise, not the shoulder vise beloved of Mr. Klausz et al. It will be just a bit longer & a bit wider than the present one. And as I said, I might do a front vise with a wooden screw instead of steel. The main difference will be that the top will be thicker than my present bench, which is only about 45mm, past the dog slot area (which is about 100mm thick). Then I can whack dog/holdfast holes in it wheresoever I please. I can only just lift my present bench top onto its legs, so the new one will be a challenge!

Originally Posted by derekcohen

.....I recall our debates about bench top colour when I was building my recently completed bench. Having lived with a Karri top for nearly 2 decades, and now this Oak top for 12 months, I can only say that I wished I made the decision to switch over this all those years ago. Light tops rule!

It's interesting to me that you notice such a difference. A I said, I don't really mind what colour bench I work at. In my former day job, it was de rigeur to have dark bench tops, so it is obviously something that concerns some people, and preferences obviously vary! I guess the moral is, find out before you make your fancy bench if you are a dark or light person......

Cheers,

Originally Posted by Mooncabbage

... what do you guys think about a shop-made bow saw designed to take standard 300mm hacksaw blades?

Not much, MC. Hacksaw blades are designed to cut metal, & though they will cut wood, of course, they do so rather painfully compared with a wood-cutting blade of similar pitch. The teeth are just not sharp in the way wood-cuting teeth need to be, the wavy set cuts a sloppy kerf, and 18 tpi is probably on the smaller end of the desirable pitch for a bowsaw of that size. However, it gives you a cheap way of making a bowsaw, & I'm all for trying things out for oneself. If we believed everything our 'elders' said, we would still be cowering in caves all night!

What I would suggest, is getting yourself a couple of Grammercy 300mm blades. Not that much more than hacksaw blades, & at least they are designed for cutting wood....

Cheers,

Hmm, interesting points. My concern with the more traditional bow saw blades is that they are a bit on the thin side. It seems like they'd probably snap. I'm also curious about getting the right pieces for holding the blade, since I'd rather make the saw myself. I suppose I can try a bit of wood cutting with my existing hacksaw. If I can't make the blades work in that, there isn't much point building a bowsaw to take them :P

MC

On the subject of Bow Saws it is probably time to ask Ian to post some pix of the saws he has made and some description as he has looked into this himself quite extensively. He can probably direct us straight to some links with detailed description and philosophy behind his designs.

On the hacksaw issue I think the only way for those to work is to grind the teeth and set off and start again, but this make just be an exercise fortin tenacity. I am not sure how easy this is to accomplish with that steel. Also the hacksaw blade, I think, would be too wide for anything except the most gentle curves.

Power hacksaw blades (approximately twice as wide as the handheld versions and a deal thicker) with the teeth ground away and then sharpened on a grinder make passable knives.

Regards
Paul

Something like a bow saw seems like it was designed to be multi-purpose. It seems a shame not to make the most of the changeable blades. If you took a 24TPI hacksaw, you could possibly file it back to 12TPI, or grind off the edge. It seems like most modern hacksaw blades are "bi-metal" construction, meaning only one edge of the blade is soft enough to be set and filed properly. I have no idea how deep that edge goes.

Another option would be to take a blade off a "saw bow" as they are sold at bunnings, which are designed for trimming tree branches. Seems like that'd be more useful for a framing saw though.

The sort of curves I am talking about cutting would be very gentle. Probably equivalent to something you'd cut on a bandsaw, since this would probably be a substitute for that method.

Also, I came up with an idea for my clamps. We had these gates from ikea for putting in doors, to keep the little ones out of the kitchen and the like. Each one came with 4 adjustable bolts with rubber feet. If I drill holes in the face of my clamp heads, I can use them with these adjustable feet, and a spanner to tighten. Since the feet would only slot into a hole, I could still use the clamps with wedges too. Winnar.

I have bought some tools from Woodworker's Supply in the past and have been happy with the quality and price. Hope this helps.

MC, I'm all for experimentation & finding out things for yourself, as I said, and your plan of trying to cut wood with a standard hacksaw (use a brand new blade!) is a very sensible plan. It should soon show you that it will cut, alright, though rather slowly & not as cleanly as a wood-cutting blade. But I think it would be unreasonable not to save you some frustration by pointing out that some things just ain't feasible. For one thing, you cannot file hacksaw blades, they are, or should be, hardened to the same degree as files, which is logical, since both are designed to cut steel. You could do it with a diamond file, but they are not very practical for the purpose, & the cost of one deecnt diamond file would be more than several sets of bowsaw blades!

I make bowsaw blades from scraps of steel left over from other sawmaking activities, but if you want to have a go at making your own bowsaw blade, the practical way would be to get your hands on a suitable bit of bandsaw blade. You will need to re-shape the teeth, because the positive rake will be much too aggressive for a hand saw, but that is pretty easy if it doesn't have impulse-hardened teeth. Many blades have hardened teeth which are also un-fileable, but some blades don't, and can be filed just like an ordinary saw. If you have an angle grinder, you can buy a 1mm metal cutofff wheel & cut the hardened teeth off & re-tooth (the hardened area only extends to less than a mm below the bottoms of the gullets), but that's a lot more work & may be a bit daunting for someone starting out. Perhaps the easiest approach would be to make yourself a little bowsaw using coping saw blades. The stroke is a little short, but they work quite well, especially if you touch-up the teeth a little. I prefer a 250mm blade, which is good for small jobs like nipping the waste out of dovetails, but a 300mm would probably be just as comfy. Here's an early model coping saw bladed version:

Bow saw_coping red.jpg

Bowsaws are essentially low-tech tools, and can provide you with all you need in the way of saws (a well-known woodworker & teacher used nothing but). There are several ways of fixing the blade in the arms. A simple method that I used on the first bowsaw I made employed a couple of 3/8" (~9mm) steel bolts. Just choose a suitable length, cut off the threaded part, hacksaw a slot in it & file a notch for the blade pins. The bolt heads hold them in place when you tighten the bow. You don't have to have a handle, you can hold them by the arms, but a handle is convenient on small saws, so I simply drilled a hole in one bolt head, and silver-soldred a heavy-gauge screw into it. The handle was screwed onto that. I now use brass instead of steel (brass just looks nicer!), & turn the parts on my baby metal lathe, but the elements are essentially the same.

pic1.jpg

Cheers,