Wenzloff & Sons

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 »

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

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

Sawing mechanics can be a hurdle to overcome whether one is new to hand sawing or have been sawing for some time. Why? Because proper body mechanics are important to the quality of the resulting cut.

Bob Rozaieski has added an episode to his podcast which addresses body mechanics and overcoming miscuts while using a hand saw.

I highly recommend watching this video. The video, episode #4, can be found here:

http://logancabinetshoppe.weebly.com/podcast.html

Way to go, Bob!

Take care, Mike

Chris Schwarz of Woodworking Magazine (both on his blog and in the upcoming autumn issue) suggests it was in the late 19th century that fleam (the bevel on the face of a saw’s tooth that changes the profile from efficiently ripping to cleanly cross cutting) was added. Schwarz also makes the point that hand-filed saws inherently have some fleam, and that machine filing brought on the factory-sharpened cross cut saws. Both these last points I agree on.
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