Wenzloff & Sons

For some, that simple block of wood in the previous post may be too easy. Too basic. While I would disagree, for some that block of wood may be too difficult. There may not be the skills in-place to easily dimension the wood with hand planes. Perhaps accurate chisel work, sawing or boring is the hang-up.

If any of those skills could be enhanced in your woodworking, I would like to recommend a book. It is among a small group of essential books I’ll never sell off. Robert Wearing’s The Essential Woodworker is that book.

While for some it appears Wearings book moves through elementary information too quickly, I have found that if I loan this book to a new hand tool woodworker, it gets them up to speed rather well. I find it doesn’t waste the reader’s time with information one can and will discover over the course of their growing woodworking experience.

One can find used copies of Wearing’s The Essential Woodworker book using a service such as bookfinder.com, but be prepared for a good hit to the wallet. Another option is to order the new reprint from Lost Art Press. You can read the LAP announcement that the book is shipping by clicking here. And you can read the original announcement here.

Hopefully this limited run of reprints will still be available if you desire the book. Once it is gone, the only means of obtaining the book will be the used market.

Wearing covers necessary skills one needs to develop and the tools needed via projects during the course of the book. The techniques presented can be applied to other projects if the ones in the book don’t strike your fancy.

A highly recommended book.

Take care, Mike

Accuracy—or the quest for accuracy—applies to all we do as workers of wood. The first step in accuracy begins with layout of the work at hand.

Bob Lang’s recent blog post asking the question What Makes the Good Woodworkers Good on the PopWood Editors’ blog brought this topic to the forefront of my mind. I forwarded a scan from a book that I make from time to time. Bob in turn posted about it on the blog. Some wood workers may want to get right to the work and not be as careful in laying out this “simple” block of wood. Even should this wood worker execute the work with exacting accuracy but not layout the block correctly, they will have perfectly executed the wrong thing. You can see Bob’s first post on this simple block of wood here. Be sure to watch the PopWood blog for later progress. Read the rest of this entry »

There is a current trend concerning thinner and thinner saw plates. Why? Well, the first answer is there is a quest for speed of cut. It is an interesting exercise that yields demonstrable results: Everything else being equal about saws, a thin plate does saw faster than one with a thicker saw plate. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve done it—we’ve “completed” the move. Now the real work begins, that of rearranging tools, machines and hooking everything back up.

More to follow…Mike
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I was pretty tried last night when I began this post. Being one’s own rigger moving heavy stuff—and just a lot of stuff—does that. Not being smart enough to hire it done we did it ourselves.

We shut down parts of the shop last Wednesday and began packing up while a couple of us continued building and shipping orders through Friday morning. About noon on Friday we all began the move in earnest. Everything was palletized for shoving the 6′ long pallets off the loading dock into the 26′ truck.

Yesterday morning we unloaded the last load. Phew! we were so wore out that about 2 pm I sent everyone home to rest. We more or less know how the new space will be laid out and so today begins shoving things around. Friday the electrician arrives to wire up for the two 3-phase machines, adding some 220 single-phase drops and the machinery will begin whiz-banging again.

What’s all this mean for contacting us? The new phone lines and Internet connection will be added this Friday as well–so if you call before next Monday you will likely only hear ringing. Email will be the best means to contact me until Monday June 7. However, do note that without the Internet connection at the shop, I am using the home DSL line to receive emails and at that I am only able to check it in the mornings and evenings.

The servers are being set up temporarily at the house Thursday. Until then I cannot look up orders to check their status. So if you write us, please let us know as much as possible about your order (order number, pertinent details about it) and I’ll locate it to update you.

I apologize for any inconvenience the move may cause you. We are trying to make it as swift as possible.

Take care, Mike

After a couple years of putzing around learning PHP programming, I am nearly ready to replace our web site!

There will be the ubiquitous shopping cart and even stock to put into it…We are starting out with the Harvey Peace, Henry Disston and early Kenyon saws. As well there are the files and other tools to maintain your hand saws.

We also have some in-stock kits ready to go. There will be a limited offering as goes options at first and we will work on fleshing out the kit saws. nd we will have the parts-ala-carte section.

Here’s a first peek at a screen shot:

I am in the process of adding to the product database and tweaking the design and some of the features. If I can squeeze in the time, I believe the site will be up by the end of April—the week after my kit building class.

Please note: I have never done a web site of this complexity before. I am pretty certain the web site as a whole will be off-line for at least a day. There should be a readable page informing visitors to www.wenzloffandsons.com that we will be down for maintenance.

Thank you all for your continued support.

Mike

All lovers of quality hand tools–Listen up.

At least if you are within driving distance of Portland, Ore.

Gary Rogowski’s Northwest Woodworking Studio, in Portland Ore. will be the place to be on February 19^th and 20^th for the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event. This event will have notaries such as Ron Hock (need Ron’s latest book or have it signed?), Kevin Drake and Dave Jeske will be there set up to demonstrate.

These events that Thomas Lie-Nielsen began a few years ago have grown to be a very popular event. In fact, I believe they are the only place for a free, interactive chance to use hand tools. Need questions answered about the use or the care and feeding of hand tools? Go.

These LN Hand Tool Events are so much more than simply a place to purchase a tool. They are the opportunity to enhance your ability to sharpen any tool woodworking related, to learn to quickly and easily flatten a board (check out the use of a toothed blade in this regard), to mark out your work, to saw better–in short, to do any hand tool woodworking task.

While you are at it, check out Gary’s school. Top-rate instruction in the fine art of woodworking goes on there, taught by dedicated instructors. The address to the school is on the LN site and can be gotten to by clicking on the Lie-Nielsen link in the first paragraph.

I hope to see you there. I’ll might pop on down to Gary’s school on Friday afternoon, but probably will have to await Saturday instead depending on how Friday is shaping up at work.

And for y’all in northern Washington State, Lie-Nielsen will be at Seattle Central Community College on February 26^th and 27^th. For the address, see the announcement page on the Lie-Nielsen web site.

 Take care, Mike
(P.S., did I mention these events are free…?)

I received an email from one of our ShopNotes kit customers concerning how to install our backs. The method another vendor uses generally will not work well as our backs typically hold a bit tighter–and correspondingly are more difficult to install.

When we got in this morning, I photographed one of the boys illustrating how we install a folded brass back.

http://www.wenzloffandsons.com/saws/kits/backsaw/backs/index.html

The link above is to the resultant slide show.

Take care, Mike

We have offered kits from the beginning of Wenzloff & Sons, from individual saw parts to what we call a full kit. And of late, we are supplying the SN-701 kit for the recent article in ShopNotes on building one’s own back saw (they have a real nifty jig for cutting in the teeth in that article).

What I never have taken the time to illustrate, though, is the shaping of a back saw. Because of the upcoming classes on building kits at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking, we have finally taken the time. The following link provides a 40 photo look at the shaping of a Black Walnut Harvey Peace open handle saw, with a couple photos of setting and filing the teeth.

http://www.wenzloffandsons.com/saws/kits/backsaw/index.html

The only difference between a Full Kit and the slide show is that kits do not receive a medallion.

We hope you enjoy this peek into building a back saw.

Take care, Mike

We are pleased to announce two new offerings. A new line of saws directly available through us based upon the designs of Harvey Peace, and 3 new panel saws available via Lee Valley.
Read the rest of this entry »

Dates have been set for two classes at Port Townsend School of Woodworking (http://www.ptwoodschool.com) for the making of saws from kits.

The kits will have all the metal work done. The attendees will be shaping the handles, assembling their saws, applying finish and learning to sharpen them.

The dates for these two-day classes are:

April 24 / 25
July 10 /11

Certain details are still being worked out–like what kits will be available to select from, what materials for shaping will be provided/available for purchase, a slide show of a build, sharpening, etc.

I look forward to meeting everyone who signs up for the classes.

Take care, Mike