When I first built my wall-hanging tool chest, I had only a handful of moulding planes. Basically a quarter set of hollows and rounds, plus a wooden fillister (rabbeting) plane. So the little cubbies at the bottom were more than sufficient for both those and my couple of joinery planes.
Being a 3/4 metal tongue and groove plane, large router plane, and combination plane.
But since then, I’ve accumulated more worker moulding planes, including a few beading planes, two more tongue and groove double planes (for 9/16 and 7/8), some rabbet/shoulder planes, and so on. So on a snowy weekend in Southern New England, I made a new moulding plane cubby.
When your dovetails fit nicely, the clamp on the dado is all your need.
The dimensions are exactly the same as the lower cubbies, other than a little extra depth (since I don’t have to account for the French cleats. Once the glue dries, I’ll run a few screws into the dado board (more for peace of mind than actual fastening) and screw this new cubby down to the top of the current wall cabinet. The joinery is very much overkill (pocket screws or even rabbet and nails would have been more than sufficient for this, as it will experience no significant forces). But I needed the dovetail practice for another project.
I prefer larger pins. Larger than English style, anyway. Not quite Central European.
The wood for this little cubby is pretty scruffy. It’s just a home center white pine 1×12, planed flat and thicknessed to about 11/16. Even home center white pine isn’t usually this brittle and stringy, though. It’s basically the definition of “deal”. And deal is useful for many things, including shop projects.
If I ever get around to remaking my wall mounted tool chest in nicer wood (this was, after all, just a prototype), I will probably add this cubby into the main carcass. I have some old genuine mahogany that I’ve been saving for that in particular. But that’s a long way off.
In any event, I hope everyone is staying warm and dry.
Happy [American] Thanksgiving to those who celebrate! It’s November 27, 2025 and things are in a weird place. It’s been a busy year for me, professionally. Workflow is good; the pipeline is strong. And all I want to do is spend some quiet time in the workshop and forget about the chaos out there.
It’s important to take some time for ourselves, if we can. Especially around the holidays.
This morning, I spent a couple hours turning an otherwise useless stick of poplar into a plant stand for a colleague of mine. Something that could certainly be acquired at the home center or a big box store for less than $20. And I have indeed bought my fair share of small wooden items even after I started woodworking, both for myself and as gifts.
But it’s the meditative process of making. The weight of the tools in my hands. The smell of the workshop. The empty space on the rack where the material used to be, in potentia. The smug satisfaction of seeing it get use at the office day to day.
Those protruding tenons will get trimmed when the hide glue dries.
I like these little plant stands because they are an efficient use of materials. Pretty much anything at least 1 inch square will work; I typically use poplar or spruce. And the only critical measurement is the length of the two beams (sized to fit the pot it will support). You can otherwise tailor the height of the legs as needed or desired. And they are collapsible, so they travel well.
Just a simple lap joint in the middle, well fitted but not glued.
You can make them with a basic kit of tools. I use just a No. 6 hand plane, a 1/2 inch chisel, a 1 inch chisel, a crosscut saw, and a router plane, plus a marking knife and a try square. I’ve always meant to do a Basic Projects post on these. Maybe in 2026.
In any event, I hope you and yours have a warm, safe, and happy Thanksgiving.
Editor’s Note: Buckle up. This will be a long one and will at times feel like James is just ranting. In an effort to pander to his international audience, James is also adding metric parentheticals. Even if using anything other than Freedom Units is anathema to him.
I’ve a number of small trips on my calendar for Fiscal Year 2025. Between concerts throughout the Northeast of the United States, a beach vacation in the Cape of Cod, and, of course, my spring pilgrimage to the house in Central Vermont, I will be away from my home shop quite a bit over the next 6 months. And I’d like to be able to do some vacation woodworking.
Vermont is not an issue. I have, over time, migrated a full size workbench and entire complement of essential woodworking handtools up to permanently live in the utility shed on the property. As a result, though, I don’t really have a travel tool kit anymore. I’ve never been much of a tool hoarder and I foolishly gave away my travel tool box once it did its job and moved everything up to the aforementioned utility shed.
So I’ve been forced to start at essentially square one in putting a new travel tool kit together.
Over the years of making many, many, many travel tool chests, and in refining my thinking on what specific tools one actually needs for casual, on-site, vacation woodworking, I’ve learned a couple lessons. Many the hard way.
First and foremost, vacation woodworking (for me) is not fine furnituremaking. I know of very talented folks who vacation carve beautiful and intricate panels. And I envy them. But that’s just not me. If I’m making furniture outside the home shop, it’s utilitarian: an extra table or a bench or stool. Or if you can’t sit on it, it’s probably a shelf or a rack or a quick shadow box to display some quirky knick-knack picked up at a local antique shop.
That is the long way of saying that my vacation tool kit can an should be small. And I mean small. One saw that crosscuts well and can rip decently (if not efficiently). One bench plane. Two chisels and a mallet. A knife, a square, a bevel gauge, an awl, and a way to bore small holes. Something to keep all of the above sharp. A small hammer and nail set, some pliers, and a measuring tape (although everyone should have one of these in their car anyway). That’s about it. And I’ll probably be tossing in a bag of nails, a bottle of glue, and other miscellany as well (because I just can’t help myself).
All told, that’s 30 lbs. or so of tools (or 14 kg for you metric cretins), before you add the container to store it all in. About that…
I grew up (and still live) by the coast in Southern New England. Between sailing and swimming and other salt-water related activities, canvas tote bags are second nature to me. I have many, and I love them for a broad range of holding and storage tasks. But you cannot just throw a bench plane into a canvas bag, even in a plane sock. No matter how careful, you’ll eventually break the tote or ding another tool. I have in the past made a plane box to keep the bench plane safe, but even that’s not ideal since it still rattles around and can crash into other tools.
And what about your hand saw? Even if you sheath it in a proper carpenter’s saw bag, you could still bend the plate if it bangs around too much in the bag (for instance, against the heavy bench plane). Folding saws are great, but they tend to cut on the pull stroke and I work in the English style (being a steadfast disciple of Paul Sellers).
You can spend money on a nice tool bag with storage pockets to segregate the edge tools and other small tools into pockets. I especially like CLC bags, and any of the Husky bags from the purse aisle at the Homeless Despot will work. But the big stuff is still rattling around inside, if they will even fit. And don’t get me started on metal toolboxes, which can hold a small arsenal in perfect organization but will undoubtedly snag and tear the upholstery in your back seat if you’re not careful.
So where does this leave you? Well, we are woodworkers after all. So I would suggest making a pine box that you can french fit to keep your tools safe.
It’s a travel tool chest, though, and will need to haul at most 50 lbs. (again, 23 kg for you metric types), inclusive of the box itself. The 3/4″ or even 7/8″ stock you might see in a proper English floor chest is way overkill here. For a travel tool chest, I typically take the thickness down to 9/16″ or even 1/2″ (13mm or so), with the actual thickness depending on wherever ends up actually flat across the width.
Funny thing is: when working in stock of that thickness and this application (where strength really matters), you really can’t do posh Western European dovetail patterns with super narrow pins. I like wider pins anyway and these travel tool chests are a good excuse to make the pins noticeably beefier. Like so:
Those heavy chamfers on the corners are prep for the iron angle reinforcement.
So how big should a travel tool chest be for the type of rustic vacation woodworking I tend to do? Well, your saw is always going to be your longest tool in the kit. Frankly, if you’re intent on hauling around one or more 20″ panel saws, you might as well just make a full size Dutch Tool Chest and bring an entire workshop with you. But I have found you only really need about 15 inches (380mm or so) of tooth line for most woodworking sawing tasks. It’s less efficient than a longer saw because of the shorter stroke, sure. But it still works fine.
A saw like that will fit into a tool box that’s got 19-20 inches (480-510mm) of internal length. You could buy a small home center hard point saw, and they work well. But they sure don’t look very nice and aren’t terribly comfortable to use for long periods, especially when ripping. So what are the other options?
Well, vintage hand saws are abundant and cheap. If the tote is in decent shape, and the plate itself still has some life, odds are it’s got a kink in the tooth line. And that kink is probably around 1/4 or 1/3 of the way back from the toe. You’ll never get that kink out (and even if you do, you probably just work hardened the area around the kink so it will just kink again, or shear). But what if you could just angle grind off everything past the kink and make a shorter saw? Suddenly, that saw would fit into a travel tool box of manageable size.
Something like this, perhaps?
A 20 inch panel saw shown above for length comparison.
I find with shorter saw plates (physics for the win) that they are more rigid and more controllable. After making several travel saws of various tooth pitch this way, I’m starting to think that backsaws (and especially half back saws) are somewhat superfluous. You can do fine joinery tasks with a backless hand saw that’s short enough. The lost stroke length is meaningless when you’re aiming for precision. And 15 inches feels like the sweet spot for rigidity and control.
So when you allow for the saw and other tool kit described above, plus the french fitting, I find a tool chest that is about 20″ long (510mm) x 8″ wide (200mm) x 7″ high in the well (175mm) will hold everything I need, even if it’s a bit cramped. If you can get away with some more width, go for it. But remember to subtract about 1 inch (25mm) to determine the inside dimensions when planning out your tool storage.
The second lesson on travel tool kits, and probably even more important, is that you can’t bring a thickness planer with you to the beach. I mean, you can. But then you’re a psychopath. So you’re probably working with dimensional stock (home center pine or construction lumber) that needs to be flattened and/or trued on site. And unless you are a different type of psychopath, this rules out anything smaller than a No. 5. I typically use a No. 6 fore plane for everything in home shop (other than the absolute final smoothing before finish). However, I prefer a No. 5 1/2 jack plane for travel work. It’s the right combination of length and width (and heft) for being on the go. And this is where a corrugated sole really shines, in fairness.
That extra room is for a little box that will hold a measuring tape and some other bits and bobs.
In a 20 x 8 toolbox, your jack plane will take up less than half of the total width, and not all of the length either. A hand saw till is about 1 1/2″ (38mm) wide and you can cram a few smaller tools around the saw itself. So you have around 4″ of width for everything else, which I typically fit out with a rack (for the edge tools and pokey bits) and another well for sharpening gear). You can make a lid with some depth to it that will add a new dimension (pun intended) to your storage space.
But I’m going to stop there, before this becomes a veritable novella.
In the meantime, that cut off saw plate needs to sit in some Evapo-Rust for a day to get cleaned up. Pretty sure that saw was a Disston, but it could be an Atkins. It’s definitely not a Simmonds (my preferred brand of vintage saw).
We’ll see. In any event, Happy President’s Day, all!
In between my day job as an M&A attorney and my social responsibilities (which are legion), I have been slowly organizing the new workshop. Recently, this has included updating the tool wall that goes with my hanging wall cabinet. The tool wall itself hangs from the same french cleats the main wall cabinet hangs off, and I actually now have enough room for a second tool wall on the other side of the cabinet (that I may or may not ever get around to).
My first goal for the new tool wall was to move a number of tools that used to hang off the sides of the wall cabinet itself (or just lived on or around the workbench) onto the tool wall. I largely kept the previous hangers for the other tools (chisel mallet, rasps, dovetail layout guides, and chisels/marking gauges, etc.), but I did remake the rasp hanger so they would hang a bit more uniformly.
As for new tools on the wall, the plane adjustment hammer (red handle), the sliding bevels, the large dividers, the gimlets and dowel plate, and the wrenches all used to hang on the right side of the main cabinet (above where the combination square is currently). Happily, by moving those to the wall (and shrinking the footprint [wallprint?] of the cabinet itself), I was actually able to widen the tool wall too and fit even more tools on it.
I was even able to fit my discontinued Lee Valley pencil gauge on it. For the record, mine had no “character” to speak of when I unwrapped it. It really does work great, though.
A thinner top shelf also helped fit more boring tools.
The new wall is 14″ wide and 44″ tall (the height matches the cabinet height including the drawer), and is made of 3/4 birch plywood (the 5 ply, veneered home center stuff). There is still some space above the chisels and below the dovetail guides but aside from a bar magnet to hang my marking knifes, I’m not 100% sure what to put there. I really like where the 12″ combination square sits currently. I’m just too used to it to change it (and I’m proud of how well the hanger design works).
There are still a coping saw and my gunsmith pattern screwdrivers on the far side of the wall cabinet, which will go on the opposite tool wall if/when I get to it. I will also hang my Crucible bench square, my drawknives (yes, I have two now!), and a few other things on that opposite wall when the time comes.
It goes without saying, but I buy all my tools with my own money (the ones I didn’t get as a gift from my godfather or inherit from my grandfather).
I’m not sure I could ever go back to a floor chest as my main tool storage. But that’s just a luxury I’ve worked hard to attain.
When last we spoke, I was walking through my process for laying out and cutting angled, rectilinear mortises through a slab top to make low benches and other staked leg furniture without the need for large boring bits and round tenon cutters.
At the end, I promised to discuss my process for cutting the tenons, so here we go.
For most applications, a bare faced tenon (i.e., with one shoulder) is more than sufficient for these types of compound angled joints. The legs splay outward (sometimes as much as 10-15 degrees), so gravity is trying to spread the legs apart, especially where splay (outward angle) is greater than rake (front to back angle. This spreading puts most of the force is on a single shoulder oriented to the outside of the slab in the direction of the play. And tight fitting joint (wedged to fill any gaps lengthwise will more than carry any load in the rake direction). No need for a second shoulder.
I have one more mortise to cut.
For compound angle legs, I start by measuring the overall length of the tenon I’ll need. I like to measure from the back inside corner to the front outside corner (ie, diagonally across the joint), then add 1/4 inch or so per 1 inch of tenon thickness. This leaves enough tenon proud of the top of the slab to trim it fully flush after glue up. When in doubt, add another 1/4 inch. Mark the tenon width like you would any other tenon.
Now mark the splay angle on one side of the leg using a marking knife. This is really important: the splay angle should slope downward and away from the flat of the tenon. As shown below.
Ignore that second mark on the top. After initial marking, I noticed a defect to cut around and had to invert the board.
Now it’s time to mark the rake angle (if you have one). This is where having two bevel gauges really helps. The rake angle slopes downward from the side of the leg that faces the midpoint of the slab lengthwise (or, it slopes upward from the side of the leg that faces the end of the slab). If you’re having trouble visualizing it, it will be painfully clear the first time you mess it up and the corner of tenon shoulder digs into the underside of the slab top.
I’m only using a 1 degree angle on this, but I think you can still see it slope right to left here.
Then carry the splay angle line around the other side of the leg, being careful to orient your bevel gauge so the splay angles are parallel (even if one is lower on the leg than the other). Now it’s time to cut the mortise.
I like to start with the shoulder cut, using a small crosscut saw. If all goes well, it should come off the saw at the correct angle. If not, more on that later. Then rip down the tenon length (although you could split it too, like any other tenon). Because ever one of these mortises will be different, be sure to leave the line so you can pare down later.
Both of these were good right off the saw.
As someone who started woodworking in the golden age of Paul Sellers, I refine all of my tenons with a router plane. For these, though, be careful and take very small bites (i) to ensure the tenon isn’t too thin (there really isn’t a good way to wedge that) and (ii) to avoid tearing the grain (especially in open pore woods like ash and red oak). Any undulation in the tenon face will show when you flush the tenon to the slab top.
After a quick test fit, it’s likely one of your shoulders won’t seat perfectly. I sawed at the wrong angle on one of the legs and ended up with the gap below. Now, this would probably be fine (the other side of the tenon actually seated quite well and the rake angle was spot on. But for a low workbench or a footstool that will see heavy loads, or if you need to fix a wonky rake angle, here is my process.
This is actually going to be a coffee table, so I could have left it alone.
If you have a good flush cut saw (most likely a low set Japanese pull saw or dedicated flush trim saw), you can very gently and carefully saw away flush with the slab top and you’ll be done. If, like me, your flush trim saw plate is thinner than the gap you’re trying to overcome, it may just be worth remarking the splay and rake angles and paring down with a chisel. As long as you left your leg stock overlong, either approach will work. Even if you screw it up a few times.
Now repeat three more times (or as many times as legs you have). You’ll quickly notice that the diagonal legs are identical (other than tenon thickness, probably, since that depends on the mortise). So if you screw up a leg by cutting the angled shoulder wrong, don’t necessarily throw it out or recut it. It will be useful for the opposite set of diagonal legs you haven’t done yet.
I’ve got one mortise and one leg left to go on this new project (an entirely too beefy coffee table made of 8/4 white ash that will also be a large stepstool in a pinch), and will post pictures when it’s done.
I’ve glued up the frame for the bathroom vanity, and I think it came out great. The entire frame came out of a single chunk of reclaimed Southern Yellow Pine barn beam, so the color match is pretty good. I’m quite pleased. An exterior oil finish will darken the wood a bit, but won’t detract from the character of the reclaimed wood. And die forged nails will reinforce each of the stretchers and slats (mostly because it will look nice).
Ignore the white pine spacer in the bottom front; that was just for alignment during glue up.
The table top will also be SYP, but from a different board. I just didn’t have enough after cutting around the worst nails and checks and defects to get the wood for the frame, even taking into account the massive cutout for the vessel sink. The color match isn’t perfect, but I’m arranging the boards to make it work.
The small remaining chunk of the beam that went into the frame would have been enough for a lower shelf (slatted and nailed onto the lower stretchers). But upon further reflection, I think having the shelf boards match the tabletop boards will balance things aesthetically.
It’s been tough to find enjoyable workshop time of late. There is some work being done on the house and as cramped as my 12′ x 13′ (3.5m x 4m) workshop is at the best of times, it’s even worse when more than half of it is filled with furniture from other rooms. I’ve got about 5 feet of workbench (at the vise end) and 2 feet of space along the front to move around. I can reach all the tools in my wall cabinet, but it takes a bit of leaning on my tiptoes to get the coping saw. Even so, I’ve a project I need to complete, so I push onward.
Not sure if I’ve ever posted this image of the finished wall cabinet.
The vanity in the downstairs bathroom has always been subpar. It’s internet furniture pressboard bullshit that I bought when I first got the house just needed to make a gross washroom usable on a DIY basis. Now that the whole bathroom is being updated by professionals, I figured I’d tackle making a new vanity that is up to my own specs.
The last few chunks of reclaimed old growth Southern Yellow Pine barn beam would be just enough for the frame and a top. My little bandsaw was instrumental in this; I don’t think hand ripping would have left enough stock. I have officially hit “can’t live without it” status on that tool, for what it’s worth.
In terms of style, I’ve always been fascinated with the “slatted” style of furniture. I think the first time I saw it was a Restoration Hardware media cabinet. But it seems a dreadful waste of material because the slats tend to be decorative (and not structural). But what if they were structural? They’d essentially make a wide board out of a few small sticks (id est, offcuts from the bandsaw): maximum strength with minimum material.
While also hiding the plumbing below.
As an aside (as if my entire collected works weren’t just one massive, frenetic soliloquy), this is the kind of project where a hollow chisel mortiser really expedites things. I couldn’t centralize the mortises for the top the rails or the slats and have mortises of any great substance, so the outer walls of the mortises ended up less than 1/4″ (6mm). So not something where brace and bit boring or chisel chopping is without significant risk of blowing out the whole thing. And when you don’t have material to spare (and can’t afford to scrap the work), a hollow chisel mortiser really shines.
The second of the power tool triumvirate for a small space, hand tool woodworker.
It occurs to me that, even with multiple slats, a piece like this still needs substantial, double shouldered tenons for the top rails and the lower rail. This will increase the bearing surface of the main joints in the structure and should encourage squareness in the overall assembly and a strong frame. The slats themselves can be single shouldered, I think (again, just to use all of the available material). On the lower rails, a tight fit becomes a necessary. So everything gets fettled with a router plane.
Do others use the “over the garbage can” method for storing ready-for-glue up pieces?
I would typically drawbore each joint on something like this, but there really isn’t room for a size of peg that would give any real strength. I think, instead, I’ll use die forged nails (after finish) to lock everything in place. I’m not worried about the glue failing, I don’t think. But some extra reinforcement can’t hurt in a bathroom with wildly-varying humidity.
But I’ll tackle that after I finish the frame. I’ll also talk more about making the top where the sink will sit (this is for a vessel sink).
I had in my mind a singular vision. A mini workbench, surrounded by a tray, that sat upon an office desk. Like those perpetual motion clacking ball desk toys. But where one could plane small sticks of wood with a block plane in meditative rhythm. The small curls falling gently into a rimmed collection tray to keep things neat.
I could have sworn such a thing existed. Maybe it was advertised in an old Popular Woodworking issue. It might have been Fine Woodworking or WOOD. But it eluded me.
So I made a prototype. And it turned out great!
As I saw it in my mind.
The bench itself is roughly 1:8 scale. The slab is 12 inches long and 3 inches wide. 1/2 inch thickness would have been to scale, but I bumped it up to 7/8 for stiffness. The wing, which functions as both a tool shelf and a shooting board, is about 1 inch wide and 1/4 inch thick. The planing stop is 1/2 inch square. For those who care, the entire setup is 19 x 7 x 3.
About the footprint of a large gaming keyboard.
Let’s talk materials for a moment. This is just a prototype, so I used some tight grain Spruce framing lumber from up north. In Vermont, where my parents have a house, you can get stuff that has birdseye pattern and blue streaks but still arrow straight grain. It’s beautiful and a joy to work with.
This stock was a bit more plain, but I think still looks good. The only non-Spruce materials in the piece are the planing stop (red oak) and the base of the tray (1/2 inch birch plywood).
Spruce is rather rigid and dimensionally stable, so a good choice for this.
The workbench legs are 1 1/2 inch x 4 inch x 1 inch posts that are rabbeted (cross grain) into the slab top. The oak planing stop is also rabbeted in. The planing stop actually hides some nails reinforcing the joint between the slab and the front legs. The tool shelf is just brad nailed down to the legs.
To attach the bench to the collection tray, the legs are glued and screwed from the underside of the plywood. The tray itself is banded in 1/2 inch spruce just butt jointed around and glued and nailed on. I stuck on some nonskid furniture pads to the underside so it won’t slide around.
Top view with some blanks.
There is admittedly a practical purpose to this piece. There is a step down on the window sill in my office at work. The larger pots overhang the stepdown and it’s unstable without a spacer that’s level with the main sill and fully support the pot. Each spacer needs to be somewhere between 1/2 and 11/16 but the height varies. This will allow me to fine tune some pine 1 x 3/4 spacers on site.
A full size, modern block plane is probably a bit much for this setup. Perhaps I’ll clean up a slightly smaller vintage block plane from the user pile. We’ll see.
When I make a nicer version in mahogany or walnut, I may do a Basic Projects writeup. But for now, the prototype is rather serviceable.
Before the new year, I essentially finished the carcass on a new, streamlined traveling tool chest. I had made a low profile Dutch Tool Chest fairly recently that, unfortunately, didn’t quite work out for its intended purpose. Long story short, I miscalculated the size of the lower compartment and nothing quite fits without effort. Another inch or so and it would be fine. It’s also a bit wider than it needs to be.
So that means it’s time to make another one!
Lee Valley strap hinges are great quality but they are never quite straight.
This isn’t a post about the new chest itself, but here are some quick details: 9/16″ Eastern White Pine carcass; 3/4″ EWP tongue and groove back boards; Southern Yellow Pine lock, battens and catches; Tremont Nail cut nails throughout. Overall size 24″ x 23″ x 12″. Lower compartment is 9″ high.
As I was making the lid (always the worst part of any tool chest build), I decided to start painting the case. Then, after three coats of paint, I dry fit the lid and discovered the top of the well is rather twisted. The front right corner was about 3/32″ higher than it should have been, so the lid rocked pretty badly. If you’ve never had to level the top of a Dutch Tool Chest after assembly, know that you can’t just continuously plane the top edge like you would with a traditional square box where it’s all edge grain. If you’re not careful, you’ll ram into the end grain of the side board and risk spelching the case side. And it’s awkward.
Instead, whenever I need to level a cross grain corner joint, I start with a chisel. Mark the depth with a gauge and chop, bevel down, until you scallop out enough of the end grain where the two boards meet to give clearance to your plane bed. You can now plane down the the long grain of the front board to depth without slamming into the end grain of the side board. Then, just take down the hump in the end grain of side board until it’s straight and flush with the new corner height. Once everything is about there, one long continuous pass starting from the far front corner and ending at the near back corner finishes it off.
I took a tiny bit off the far back corner as well.
Moral of the story: check for twist before you apply three coats of paint. Or, better yet, before you attach the front board at all.
Another year on the Gregorian calendar has passed and I’m back in the workshop. As I always say, “ABCD – Always be Carpen them Diems!” And today, like every other New Year’s Day, is no different.
My first project of the year is making a panel saw from “scratch”. Those quotes are doing some pretty heavy lifting, as the plate is taken from a 26″ vintage Simonds 10 TPI crosscut hand saw. I’m not in the mood to cut new teeth today. The plate is in very good shape but the handle was a mess. Clearly an aftermarket job, the slot for the saw plate was at like 10 degrees to the handle and it made for terrible hang.
So first I made a new tote. There are a ton of good tutorials on the yutubs about this, so I’m not going to offer any real pointers here. However, a small oscillating spindle sander (I have the handheld one from Wen, which seems to be a knockoff of the Triton model) makes the job a lot quicker. I don’t have a band saw, so bringing the outline of the tote into flat on the OSS (instead of by hand with rasps and files) is a godsend. Especially on quartersawn hard maple.
Once the outside was shaped, I took my cues from the BTC Hardware Store Saw and busted out the trim router with a chamfer bit. Once the hard arrises are sanded down, it’s just as comfortable as full rounds. Plus, the intersection of the chamfers made a cool lamb’s tongue-like feature at the bottom of the tote, without having to do an actual lamb’s tongue.
When I make the next hand saw tote, if I use this pattern again, I will lighten the chamfer along the front (seen left, where it meets the saw plate). That heavy chamfer, as cool as it looks, nearly overlapped with the top saw nut and left a fragile edge that will probably break off soon.
Next I had to modify the plate to fit the tote. That vertical dotted line on the pattern to the right of the saw nuts shows where the plate seats into the tote. Problem is, the sourced plate did not have a straight line at the heel. That means it’s angle grinder time. I just use a scrap of plywood as a fence (learned that one from Pask Makes) and go to town. I also nibbed off the corner at the heel.
I am aware the guard is off. This operation doesn’t work with the guard on.
The angle grinder leaves the plate rather work hardened at this point. Files still work, but you really have to draw file to get down to fresh steel. I pop it in the saw vise and use the same jig for jointing the teeth. It’s important this be straight and true so it seats nicely in the tote.
You can see the reshaped heel, before a bit of rounding.
I didn’t get pictures of it, but I next cut the slot in the tote for the plate. You can freehand this (like the guy who last owned the saw did), but three is a better way. Just clamp to a flat surface (like a benchtop) another panel saw with a thinner plate and a fine set to the bench with a spacer underneath that centers the cut. Then draw the tote, flat against the bench and cut the slot as deep as you can. You can then finish the cut by hand in the vise, as the portion of the slot you already cut will guide the saw the rest of the way. Lee Valley has an excellent guide on this. If the slot is slightly off center (mine was by about 1/32″), just plane down the thicker side.
Now it’s time for drilling holes.
Now came the part I was dreading. When re-handling panel saws in the past, I used the existing handle as a pattern and located the saw nuts exact where they had been on the previous tote. For this, I was starting fresh and that meant drilling new holes in the plate. The spring steel plate. With a cheap benchtop drill press.
I had previously drilled 1/16″ pilot holes through the tote and bored the initial recesses for the saw nuts. So I started by clamping assembled saw onto the drill press table and locating the 1/16″ holes, which I then drilled through the plate. I then set the handle aside, recentered the drill press on each pilot hole in the plate, and clamped down the plate to the drill press table. You do not want a spinning hand saw plane. Then I just worked my way up from 1/16″ to 7/32″ incrementally until there were three 7/32″ holes in the plate. In truth, I cooked about four 7/32″ drill bits. It’s just too much for my little drill press to handle. But they were cheap drill bits (scavenged from various box store sets).
All that was left to finish the tote was drilling out the saw nut holes (9/32″ for the slotted nuts and 1/4″ for the medallion and bolts) and tweaking the depth of the recesses. I think I set the recesses in a little deep, but it works. Some boiled linseed oil really makes the quartersawn holographics of the hard maple pop.
Medallion side.Nut side.
I still need to hack off some of the toe to get the plate itself down to about 19″ of tooth line. That, in my experience, makes the plate stiff enough to not need a half back or magnetic guide for basic joinery. Plus it gets rid of that kink that always develops about 5-6″ from the toe of every 26″ hand saw. And, of course, that will allow it to fit in the toolbox.
The hang of the saw is a bit toe heavy, which makes me think it should be a medium rip (8-10 TPI). I find that useful for crosscutting wider, thicker stock on the saw bench and still able to rip efficiently at the vise. A saw like that is a workhorse for my travel toolbox. Once the BLO dries, it’s time to carpe some more diems and reshape the teeth.
But, for now, Happy New Year and I hope you find some time in the shop soon. Thanks for being a reader and stay tuned for some new and exciting things this year.
The Apartment Woodworker 