More antique books, cleaning up the rust pile and carving.

Last Friday, I received another antique French woodworking book: "L'ÉBÉNISTERIE" by Henry Havard. While it is not on the same scale as Roubo, it was an interesting read. I may try to procure some of the other volumes from that collection. I am now also looking on antique architecture, drawing and carving books.

The rust pile is rapidly shrinking as I have been pickling antique files in molasses water for a few weeks now. I must say that I am very impressed with the results and I may try it out on a saw plate. As usual, I forgot to take picture of the process... I have rescued a box of antique files and rasps with this method and they do look brand new. While I was in the rust pile, I checked if I had any carving gouges but unfortunately came out empty handed.

While waiting for season 34 of The Woodwright's Shop, I have been watching (again) the last 7 seasons during my commute... which included quite a few bits on molding and carving, so now I've got a new itch to scratch. I have been doodling acanthus leaves, roses, camelia and vines for a week solid now. It is quite surprising as carving was the medium I enjoyed the least in my art classes... I loved clay, photography and technical drawing but loathed drawing and carving. Tonight, I watched pretty much all of Mary May's videos on youtube and added a pile of related content to my "watch later" list.

Roubo bandwagon

I have received my copy of the third tome of 1977 edition of "L'art du menuisier ebeniste". Now I will slowly start looking for the previous 2 tomes in the same edition. I may look into obtaining the antique editions down the road.

I quickly read a few pages and apart for the antique units, I can read it no problem. The nice thing is that now I know the exact specs of the monster resawing frame saw: a blade at least 4" wide and less than 1/12th of an inch thick at the teeth, tapering towards the back with no set... the blade should be filed rip at about 2 TPI (points 5/12th to 6/12th apart).

TIL: antique French units

A ligne is an antique measurement equal to a 12th of an inch. The ligne itself was composed of 12 points and it took 12 inches to make a foot. Up to this point (har har), it's logical albeit duodecimal. After that, it gets messy... 6 feet to the toise, 3 toises to the perche-du-roi, 20 feet to the "perche ordinaire" and 22 feet to the "perche d'arpent".

French cathedral builders used a measuring system based on 5 numbers from the fibonacci sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987...

Their measuring stick was called the "king's cane". That cane measured a total of 555 lignes (around 125cm)

It was subdivided in five different measures, each connected through the addition of the previous two measures.

34 lignes in a hand (palmus minor)

55 lignes in a palm (palmus major)

89 lignes in a span ( a hand + a palm)

144 lignes in a foot ( a span + a palm)

233 lignes in a cubit (a foot + a span)

That may be a fun easy project to make with a large piece of scrap wood.

For you imperial lot, the reason the cane doesn't seem to add up is that the French inch of Roubo's time was a smidge above 17/16th of an English inch (1.06575)... to make it easy. :)

Dutch tool chest done

I finally put the last touches to the dutch tool chest the weekend before last. It now only needs painting. Unfortunately, as usual, I had underestimated the amount of molding planes in my workshop! The bottom compartment can't even fit them all. That means I'll have to build the larger version one of these days.

In the meantime, I had some fun doing a pair of Wierix squares using scrap wood I had close to the bench. The larger one has been nicknamed "Flederhausmann" and the smaller one "Wanderdrossel". I will probably make some more out of oak or beech at some point.

The stack of beech logs has been inspected again to get straight grain blanks for more Hollow and Round blanks. I am planning to make a full set based on the dutch pattern ones I bought a few weeks ago. They will have a perpendicular bead on top of the toe, a curved notch for the thumb just behind that and a cove all along the hand-hold. First I'll need to make a bed/breast gauge.

Block plane revelation

Thanks to a Christopher Schwarz post yesterday, my block planes woes are no more. I was tightening the spin wheel too much, I tried the "3 hours after feeling resistance" approach and it worked a treat. As an added bonus, it is now easy to adjust the blade. I was able to take nice end grain shavings on fir and pine, which helped for the dutch tool chest.

Talking of the chest, the end of the build is at hand... I am putting the finishing touches on the lid then it gets painted. The lid saw till is done and attached. The next steps will be the back saw till and the chisel rack. All the screws were counter-sunk and the holes have been filled then sanded smooth. The screws holding the shelves in the dado are already pretty much invisible.

Jumping on the dutch tool chest bandwagon

Today, I have started a quick project: a small dutch tool chest loosely based on the Popular Woodworking plans. Instead of sticking to the published dimensions, I adapted it based on the Woodwright Shop episode. The top compartment has been made to fit my German wooden planes and the bottom compartment will host my dutch hollow, round and molding planes.

So far I have milled the sides, the bottom, the shelf and dovetailled the carcasse together. Next time I get in the workshop, I will cut the dadoes, fit the shelf and hang the handles. Then it will be down to the "easy" part of the project.

If I get enough free time in the next months, I may actually build the large one as well.