Gang Saw

I've been active in woodworking personally and professionally for at least 20 years. How did I miss this?

It is one beautiful saw, the Veritas® Variable Gang Saw. I sure hope it works as well as they say it does on the Lee Valley website:

Made with the same high-quality blades and specially engineered stainless-steel composite spine, it will cut dovetail joints not just 10% faster, not just twice as fast, but a full three times faster!

They have a lot of photos and explanation online of how the saw works, not just hype. But I'm still knocked out about how good it looks. (Click on the photo for a larger view.) Hmm. My birthday's coming up...

[Thanks BoingBoing Gadgets]

Mystery Solved?

Ever wonder why there's a little nib or notch on the top edge of a large handsaw? Never found a good answer, never even heard a good guess.

Well, Dan at Dan's Shop blog appears to have found the answer--on a 1930's Will's Cigarette package of all places. According to the story on the pack, it was used to clear sawdust out of a saw kerf. Hmm.

Visit Dan's blog for more info, and lots of other cool woodworking posts.

[Thanks Dan]

Terrific Tool Boxes

oobject.com is featuring an article of ten interesting tool boxes of different ages and containing tools for different purposes. Lots of cool photos.

The Henry O. Studley tool box is shown in the photo. When closed and hanging on a wall it's 39 inches by 20 inches and 9 inch deep. It opens up to become a 40 inch by 40 inch tool chest.

It's made out of mahogany, rosewood, walnut, ebony, and mother of pearl (Henry was a piano maker). Each tool fits snugly into its space, often with an audible click as the tool snaps into its closely-fit cavity.

[Thanks to Gadgets.BoingBoing.net]

No Splitting Headaches

I used to live in a house with a wood burning stove that we used a lot. I'd order one or two cords of firewood in the fall, and then, as time permitted, split it down to a size that would fit in the stove. Not only was this time-consuming and a hassle, but on more than one occasion, I actually whacked a finger that didn't get out of the way in time (I always wore heavy leather gloves).

Now Karl Bunker writing in Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools blog has the answer--one that I'm sure you traditional tool fans have already figured out--the froe. This would have saved me so much time and trouble. Live and learn.

Bench Plane Restoration

Over in the Hand Tools forum at WoodNet.net, member leonard_bailey has posted photos of his restoration of a No. 3 bench plane. Other members asked how he did it, and he explains his technique.
Click through for the "after" photo.

Hand Scrapers

This is one hand tool every woodworker should be comfortable with. Once you get the hang of sharpening and using it, you'll be sorry you took so long to try.
A while ago, ShopNotes magazine produced a short video demonstrating how to sharpen a scraper, and a couple ways to use it. And once you've tried it a couple times, it really is as easy as it looks in the video.

And another cool thing, they're inexpensive too.