Thread: Equipping my shop with Hand Tools

I vote dead-blow mallets...good for so many other uses...
Carba-Tec® Deadblow Hammers : CARBA-TEC

Hmmm, what about a saw tooth setter-majig? And files and whatnot. Nfi what I need or where to get them. I have about 4 different saws, mostly rip and crosscut, but they're old and probably need a bit of love in that department. Can't imagine I'd use them terribly often (triton workbench and all that), but it would be nice to be able to if required.

Originally Posted by Mooncabbage

..... As for mallets...

Make 'em!
Making a mallet is an excellent simple exercise & all it takes is a bit of scrounged wood. (Can you find an old hardwood pallet? A chunk of dry firewood?). There are a couple of ways to make a mallet head, depending on your starting material and skill levels. You can piece the head together if you only have narrow bits, & that way the handle mortise can be built-in - no chisel work required. Make sure you use an adequate glue like epoxy that can take the pounding. I much prefer solid heads, myself, but you will have to make a hole for the handle. There is no law that says a handle has to go into a square hole, so you can just drill a good-sized hole & fit the handle to that. A half-decent wood rasp can remove a lot of wood quickly, and you will be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to shape a handle. You can have all sorts of fun trying different head weights and handle lengths and face angles to discover what suits you best, & all at virtually zero cost....

Making as many of your own tools as you can not only increases your skills, I think it increases your appreciation of the tools. Enelef has just posted his versions of a mallet & a marking gauge - not a bad effort, either.

Originally Posted by Mooncabbage

Also considering what to do about saws. The ones I have now are probably fine if I can sharpen them, but for that I need appropriate files and neither Bunnings nor Carba-Tec seem to sell them. Although the Carba-Tec website is horrible for finding anything, and I haven't looked through the catalog yet. Failing that, Supercheap Auto might be the go. Probably not going to worry about it yet either way though.

You could look around for a sharpening service that does handsaws. Not many places can still do a truly good job on them, but they should at least be able to give you back something that will cut ok. For the cost of having a saw sharpened, you can buy a couple of hard-point saws from the Big Shed. These are not great saws for fine cabinet work, but they will cut wood, and will get you started. Nice old saws from the era when they were made to be used by craftsmen are your best bet if you are in this for the long haul. They can be had for very little money from all sorts of places, but you need to go hunting & keep your eyes open, and they will almost certainly need sharpening, anyway.

There is no particular reason why a newbie shouldn't start out learning to sharpen his/her saws - that's what apprentices did up until the era when hand saws gave way to the tailed variety. There are quite a few 'how-tos' on the web that a quick search will find for you, but this isan excellent start. It tells you what size files you need for the different tooth sizes. You won't find suitable files in most hardware stores any more, & even the big trade tool places carry way fewer files than they once did. It's easier to mail-order - Lie-Nielsen Australia sell appropriate files, & other specialty tool places o/seas do, too. You will also need a saw-set if you want to DIY. These are not expensive - an old Eclipse 77 for e.g. can often be had fo $10-15 in good working order. Lee Valley sell a Japanese-made copy of the 77 for not much more, & these come in two different configurations, one for larger saws, one for fine-toothed saws.

It takes a bit of time & application to learn to sharpen saws well, but it's a very useful skill to acquire.

Cheers,

PS - just read your last post. Yes, you can do a lot of things with your Triton, but if you go down the path of fine hand work, you will need hand saws. Some jobs cannot be sensibly done on a table saw.....

Well, the Triton I will configure as accurately as I can, but I think I'll probably use it mostly for rough cuts, ripping to size etc. I don't expect miracles out of it. I agree with you about making your own tools, but you have to have something to bang the chisel with to start! First thing I plan to make is my own marking gauge, from laminated red cedar 19x40 I had lying around from bunnies (atleast I think it's western red cedar, the label is gone), and a long squarish off cut of what is either tassie oak or pine, not quite sure. Thought I'd sharpen up a broken drill bit to make the point. Might make a mallet after that? I have all sorts of timber scraps, much of which I haven't properly assessed, but mostly I have jarrah, and some kind of piney looking softwood. What should I look for in a good mallet timber? Maybe like a Jarrah handle for strength, and a softwood hitty bit?

Definitely plan on sharpening my own saws, if I can get the gear. Seems like it's faster, cheaper, and easier than sending them off to be done professionally, and I'm all for doing stuff yourself anyway. Partly because it's a hobby and doing it yourself is half the fun, and partly because that way when the world ends and my IT career is down the toilet, I can make the best damn anti-zombie weaponry around. Already saw a few videos/guides on saw sharpening, and picked up a few useful little tips, like a DIY saw clamp, and a guide/jig for holding the file at the right angles for rake and bevel. The nice thing about saws is there is plenty of metal on them, so if you stuff it up, you just start sharpening again.

PS. Wow, Lie-Nielsen Australia site is nowhere near as expensive as I was expecting. Sure, $13 for a file isn't cheap, but atleast it's affordable, so long as I stick to ordering the ones I actually need. Plus I might be able to buy some of those file handles to go with the existing handle-less files I already have.

You can get Nicholson and a chinese brand around here (Supertool?) ... around $8-$12 ... and they are acceptable for a start.

I was looking for the brand-name, and the Masters website shows a lot of Nicholson files ...
4" Slim Taper $6.44
4" EST $6.00
6" EST $7.50
7" ST $9.00
8" ST $10.20

It's expensive if you were after 20 of them ... but ok to get started with.

Mitre10 website shows bugger all - even for normal files!

Looking at your picture of old chisels ... the yellow clear handle is a Stanley, the blue one is Leaning-Tower-of-Irwin, and the wooden handle looks like one I have with an Anchor and 'SWEDEN' marked on it. They are probably all reasonable-to-good users (when straight). This is where a grinder with a wire wheel can come in handy to get all the rubbish off ... but 40 or 60 or 80 grit paper will do it too ... or citric acid ... electrolysis ... take your pick.

Good job with the sharpening. A fine diamond stone or - cheaper - stropping on some leather/mdf with green 'rouge' will enhance your edge further. I didn't see if you put a micro-bevel on your edge?

Cheers,
Paul

Mitre10 are just aweful these days. Bunnings has naught, Carba-Tec seems to be just chisel and plane sharpening. I've read not to bother with Nicholson files, as they dull far too quickly (the recent ones). Also, really one or two from Lie Nielson is quite reasonable, at about twice the price. $15 shipping, but if I buy a couple of things at once it's not so bad. As I said, I already have a stack of files (haven't photographed them yet), which I really should get handles for. I was going to have a bash at making them myself, but for $3 a pop, if the Lie Nielson handles fit, I'll get those instead.

I do intend to sharpen up those old chisels, although not sure what to do about the serious bend in the Irwin one. It might be relegated to paint tin duty. The wooden handle of the wooden one is not in anything like good condition, but it might be a fun project to make one for it, so I'll hang onto it anyway.

I did put a micro-bevel on the trojan, although it's more like a micro-chamfer. The angle on the back of the chisel is already pretty steep, so I couldn't do that much. I also don't have any particularly accurate way of setting the angle of the bevel as yet. I tried to set it to about 30 degrees though.

Originally Posted by Mooncabbage

...and I'm all for doing stuff yourself anyway. Partly because it's a hobby and doing it yourself is half the fun, and partly because that way when the world ends and my IT career is down the toilet, I can make the best damn anti-zombie weaponry around.

Cheers, Vann.

Originally Posted by Vann

Cheers, Vann.

Ha ha - Zombie Apocalypse!
Still, wouldn't want to be the only one without a weapon, if it happens!

If I'm the only one with a weapon I can still build the best damn anti-zombie barricade around!

Actually, now that I think about it, the Trojan chisel set doesn't say if that grinding stone is a water stone or an oil stone. Anyone want to guess? Not going to use it on my chisels, but could be handy for axes or something.

It will be an oilstone ... and chances are that you can do a serviceable job with it.
I don't know how it might compare to the old but ordinary oilstones I have come across.

People use baby oil, camelia oil, kerosene ... it has been discussed ...
and it will outlast the sandpaper by a couple of lifetimes

Try it out on one of the old chisels.

Once again - a grinder can be handy here. I think you can get a little 6" grinder at Supercheap for $30.
A hollow ground bevel that doesn't carry entirely up to the edge of the chisel can be a real help in freehand sharpening the primary bevel. And then you can use the honing guide to do a microbevel.

Alternatively you can use the side of the wheel to put a flat bevel on, with some practice of course.

If your ever gunna be down here near Armadale I can help with the little I know - 5 minutes would do it - including a drink and toilet break
There are also others here on the forum who might be able to help - or point you towards some help north of the river.
(Derek, Pops, BobL, Homesy, ... are all Perthites.)

Cheers,
Paul

I would strongly suggest that you get a good marking knife for setting out joints. A marking knife cuts a precise (more precise than a pencil ever can) line. Then when you cut to this line the saw naturally follows the cut line. Lastly the knife shears the surface of the wood leaving clean cut lines with little or no tear out.

As for saws, you really cannot go wrong with the Veritas carcass saws-rip and cross cut. But be aware that they demand to be used correctly and, if like me the rip saw is the first decent rip saw you have used, you will find that if will take some time to get used to it. But persist because once you do you will love it.

As for chisels, I could not disagree more with the idea of getting cheap ones to start with. But this applies to all and any tool, not just chisels. It is hard enough to make nice things, but if you start with inferior tools you magnify the difficulty immensely. It may be that an expert woodworker could get by on inferior tools but the average chap like me needs all the assistance he can get. My advice to you would be to NEVER EVER get a tool because it is cheap. Get it because you need it or want it and especially because it will work well. You could do worse than investigate NAREX chisels but stay away from plastic rubbish from hardware stores.

A final word of caution here. You are moving into dangerous waters. Do not comfort yourself with foolish notions of getting some basic set of tools and living a happy and normal life thereafter. Many a decent and once productive life has been ruined by this lie. Tools and machinery are addictive. There is no end to the craving once you submit to it. You see their faces at the Wood shows, men with glassy eyes dribbling and shaking over some new hand plane. I am not like that of course. But don't say you were not warned.

Originally Posted by pmcgee

It will be an oilstone ... and chances are that you can do a serviceable job with it.
I don't know how it might compare to the old but ordinary oilstones I have come across.

People use baby oil, camelia oil, kerosene ... it has been discussed ...
and it will outlast the sandpaper by a couple of lifetimes

Actually, you can use water on an 'oilstone' when it's new & hasn't yet had any oil on it, but you'll find it soaks away too quickly on all but the finer grades of stone. We all have our own preferences, but any light oil that won't go gummy does the job (used oil from the deep fryer is out). It's just to help move the swarf & keep the grit exposed & cutting, which requires no magical properties other than staying liquid. In general, the lighter the oil the better, I find, but light oils like kero tend to soak into the coarser grits very quickly, particularly when the stone is new, so my preferred goop is kero with a dash or two of engine oil to body it up a little. It works, & it's cheap...

Originally Posted by pmcgee

.....Alternatively you can use the side of the wheel to put a flat bevel on, with some practice of course.....

You might get a few protests from the safety-concious on this bit of advice, Paul. You are not 'supposed' to use the side of a high-speed grinding wheel - at least so we were taught. The reason is that you can easily produce a stone that has weakened ridges & gaps towards the outside, which can break off & turn into bullets. That said, I do use the sides, for some jobs, though with some care. I reason that if I keep the sides dressed & clean, they ought to be no different from a normal side. As far a I can determine, the stones I have are of the same consistency throughout. And mine is a half-speed grinder, so the bullets might go through me, but they won't penetrate the opposite wall of the shed. I wouldn't want to damage anything valuable.

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

You might get a few protests from the safety-concious on this bit of advice, Paul. You are not 'supposed' to use the side of a high-speed grinding wheel - at least so we were taught. The reason is that you can easily produce a stone that has weakened ridges & gaps towards the outside, which can break off & turn into bullets. That said, I do use the sides, for some jobs, though with some care. I reason that if I keep the sides dressed & clean, they ought to be no different from a normal side. As far a I can determine, the stones I have are of the same consistency throughout. And mine is a half-speed grinder, so the bullets might go through me, but they won't penetrate the opposite wall of the shed. I wouldn't want to damage anything valuable.

Cheers,

Ian

My impression was that the side of the grinding wheel should not be used as it is not designed to take sideways force. This is especially true of the smaller wheels, which are normally narrower too. The larger wheels 50mm thick and more on industrial machines are not so much of an issue.

Having said that I use the side of the wheel, but very, very gently. A secondary issue is the lack of a tool rest and the potential to drag things (including fingers) into the guard. I never wear gloves while using the grinding wheel. If something becomes too hot to handle I grab a pair of pliers or vice grips.

Regards
Paul