Woodworking With Hand Tools

Besides the tools below, a 1912 farm list names a gouge, a hatchet, files, a vise, a shaving horse and a grindstone (Handy Farm Devices, pp. 13–14).

Make these yourself: clamps from a bar, two blocks and a pair of wedges (Griffith, pp. 90–91; drawing); a bench hook, which doubles as a shooting board for planing ends square (Griffith, p. 51); two winding sticks for checking twist (p. 46); and a hardwood mallet (rule of thumb).

📚 Go deeper: Griffith Essentials of Woodworking — every hand tool and how to use it, with drawings; Brace and Mayne Farm Shop Work — the tools, then farm projects; TM 9-243 — care of every common hand tool. Pictures: Hand plane, Brace (tool), Spokeshave.

The grindstone shapes; only the oilstone sharpens. "No tool, after it has been ground, is ready for use until it has been whetted" (Griffith, p. 68). Grind only when the edge is rounded or nicked; otherwise just hone.

1. Grind on a wet stone turning toward the edge, at one steady angle, moving across the stone. The water keeps the edge from being "burned or softened" (Griffith, pp. 67–68; drawing). Mechanics use 20–30°; 23° suits everything, honed steeper for hard wood (Brace & Mayne, p. 209). The bevel is about 1/4 in long on a plane iron, 3/8–1/2 in on a chisel (Griffith, p. 67).
2. Hone: lay the bevel flat in the oil, raise the handle until the oil squeezes out from under the edge, and rub at that angle without rocking (Griffith, pp. 69–70; drawing).
3. Take off the burr (wire edge) with the flat side dead flat on the stone; never raise it, or you start a second bevel (Brace & Mayne, pp. 209–210).
4. Strop on leather on a board: the bevel drawn toward you several times, the flat side once or twice (Griffith, p. 70).
5. Test: in good light a dull edge shows a white line; a sharp one shows none (Griffith, pp. 71–72).

The ground bevel, the steeper honed edge, and the flat side that stays flat (a diagram drawn for this guide).

Plane irons are ground straight across with the corners just rounded; gouges are rolled on the stone and the inside burr taken off with a shaped slip (Griffith, pp. 70–71). Keep a drawknife at 33° (Handtools, p. 45). A scraper is filed square, honed, then its edge turned over with a burnisher (any smooth hard steel) under light pressure (Griffith, pp. 80–81; drawing).

Stones: use a little light oil and the whole stone, or it wears hollow. Flatten a worn stone on sandpaper on a flat surface, or on a board with sand and water (Griffith, pp. 68–69; Brace & Mayne, p. 211); clean a glazed one with kerosene, or citrus solvent and a stiff brush (Handtools, p. 52). A glazed grindstone cuts again with a little sand poured on (Handy Farm Devices, p. 15).

Axes, hoes and shovels, and forging new chisels and plane irons from old files, are in Blacksmithing & Hand Tools.

📚 Go deeper: Griffith, pp. 66–72 — grinding, whetting and testing; Brace & Mayne, pp. 208–212 — angles and stones; Handtools for Trail Work, pp. 49–52. Pictures: Whetstone, Strop.

"Learning to sharpen a saw is a difficult thing" (Griffith, p. 34): learn on a coarse saw (Brace & Mayne, p. 205). Touching up the teeth with a file now and then saves a full sharpening (Disston, p. 34). Clamp the saw at elbow height with the bottoms of the gaps (gullets) 1/8 in above the jaws, or the file chatters (Disston, p. 38); two boards bolted together make a clamp (rule of thumb).

1. Joint (only if teeth are uneven): run a flat file along the tops of the teeth until it touches every one, keeping it from tipping (Disston, p. 35). A wooden block holding the file square helps (Brace & Mayne, p. 207).
2. Shape (only after jointing): file straight across until all teeth are equal and pointed (Disston, pp. 35–36).
3. Set: bend the top of each tooth out, alternately left and right, with a saw set. Never deeper than half the tooth, or the blade cracks. Wet or soft wood needs more set (Disston, p. 36).
4. File with a three-cornered file, cutting on the push stroke, every other gap from one side and then the rest from the other; filing all from one side makes the saw run crooked (Brace & Mayne, p. 206).
   • Crosscut: saw handle on your right, start at the point. Put the file in the gap left of the first tooth bent toward you, square across, then swing the file's handle about 45° toward the saw's point. Then turn the saw around for the other side (Disston, pp. 38–39; the two positions).
   • Rip: the same, but the file held straight across (Disston, p. 39).
5. Side-dress for fine work in dry hardwood: rub an oilstone once along each side of the teeth (Brace & Mayne, p. 208).

Filing a crosscut saw: the file's handle swung toward the point, from one side and then the other (Disston, p. 38).

Soft wood takes a long, sharp bevel; hardwood a blunter tooth (Brace & Mayne, pp. 206–207; three tooth shapes). A saw that runs to one side has longer or wider-set teeth on that side; file and set them evenly (Brace & Mayne, p. 190). One that grabs and kinks has "too much angle and too heavy a set" (Disston, p. 40). Two-person crosscut saws need raker gauges and special tools (Saws That Sing, pp. 24–26).

📚 Go deeper: Disston Saw, Tool and File Book, pp. 34–41 — the whole job step by step; USFS Crosscut Saw Manual — big saws; Nicholson Files and Rasps — files. Pictures: Hand saw.

Toughest first: hickory, ironwood, rock elm, birch, oak, ash (Brace & Mayne, p. 177). Heartwood is usually better, but not in hickory and ash (p. 176). Ash, maple, hickory, pine, true fir and tanoak rot outdoors (Wood Handbook, p. 316).

Our own trees. Hickory does not grow here: the Wood Handbook's list of western hardwoods is red alder, Oregon ash, aspen, paper birch, cottonwood, bigleaf maple, California black oak, Oregon white oak and tanoak (Wood Handbook, Table 2–1, p. 18). Decay ratings are for heartwood (p. 316).

Port-Orford-cedar heartwood is resistant to decay too, and Pacific yew "very resistant" (p. 316): see the Shelter guide.

Salvaged wood: pull every nail before sawing or boring (Disston, p. 10; Griffith, p. 56). Pressure-treated wood: never burn it, keep its sawdust off you, and never use it for cutting boards, food or feed bins, or hive parts that touch honey (Wood Handbook, p. 329).

📚 Go deeper: Wood Handbook ch. 2 — every American tree's wood and uses; Brace & Mayne, pp. 175–180 — hardness, toughness and woods for each job. Pictures: Hickory, Ash.

Green (fresh-cut) wood is easier to split and shape (rule of thumb); dry wood is "much stronger" (Brace & Mayne, p. 177).

How wood moves (Wood Handbook, p. 84; drawing): it shrinks most along the growth rings, about half as much across them, and slightly along its length. So log ends check (crack), flat-sawn boards cup away from the heart of the tree (Brace & Mayne, p. 178; drawing), and tool handles work loose (Wood Handbook, p. 84). Warp comes as bow, crook, twist, cup, oval or diamond (p. 301; drawing).

How pieces change shape as they dry, by where they were cut from the log; wood shrinks about twice as much along the rings as across them (Wood Handbook, p. 84).

Work with it:

• Rough out green, finish dry. A dry peg or tenon set into green wood is gripped tighter as the wood shrinks round it (rule of thumb).
• Edge-glued boards: turn every other one so the rings curve the opposite way and the warping cancels (Brace & Mayne, p. 178).
• Keep boards narrower than eight times their thickness; boards with the rings on edge cup and check less (Wood Handbook, p. 366).
• No green wood in doors and windows, and cut green parts oversize (Timber, p. 88).

Drying boards: stack under cover, off the ground, with sticks between every layer; seal or paint the ends; dry hardwoods slowly or they check (Brace & Mayne, p. 179). A 1-in board takes about a year (Timber, p. 45). Here, lumber dries fast in the dry summers and hardly at all in the wet winters: stack it in spring, under a roof with open sides (rule of thumb). Furniture wood should be drier than air-drying gets it outdoors, 6–8% moisture for hardwood (Wood Handbook, p. 297): finish drying it indoors for some weeks (rule of thumb). With no moisture meter, oven-dry a weighed sample and compare (Timber, p. 44). More on stacking lumber and hewing is in Shelter & Building.

📚 Go deeper: Wood Handbook ch. 4 and ch. 13 — shrinking, drying and warp. Pictures: Wood drying.

A split follows the grain, so split stock is stronger than sawn (rule of thumb): for dowels, "split, not saw, these pieces" (Griffith, p. 100), and treenails (wooden pegs) are split from straight-grained oak (Shifts and Expedients, p. 315).

Riving with a froe (Kephart, pp. 207–213):

1. Pick a sound, straight, springy tree with bark ridges running straight up the trunk. Cedar rives best; oak and pine work.
2. Saw a cut 2½–3 ft long and split it in half with an axe and mallet: tap lightly along the line and strike hard only at the end, or the split runs off.
3. Always split through the middle. A log splits straight through the center from any side; splits parallel to that wander (splitting rails). Halve, quarter, then make bolts about 5 in across, and knock off the tough heart (bolts).
4. Hold the bolt in a riving brake (a forked limb, or a small log staked beside a big one) (brake) and drive the froe into the end with a mallet.
5. If the split runs toward one side, turn the thicker side down, open the cleft, and bear down on that side while you work the froe (drawing).

Step 4: the bolt held in a brake while the froe is driven in (Kephart, p. 212).

Step 5: steering a split that runs off, the thicker side down (Kephart, p. 213).

A froe is a blunt blade about 14 in long on a green-stick handle (Kephart, p. 211). Splitting firewood safely is in Firewood; shingles in Shelter & Building.

📚 Go deeper: Kephart Camping and Woodcraft vol. 2, "Axemanship" — splitting, riving and hewing. Pictures: Froe.

Marking (Griffith, pp. 17–24): stand the rule on edge and mark with a knife point. Mark across the grain with knife and try-square, along it with the marking gauge, set from a rule ("the graduations on the beam are seldom reliable"). Light lines; pencil only on rough wood. Plane one face and one edge true, mark them, and measure and square everything from those two (p. 47). Squaring big layouts with 3-4-5 is in Practical Math.

Sawing to a line (Disston, p. 10; positions): start on the waste side, thumb against the blade, with a few pulls back. Crosscut at about 45° to the board, rip at about 60°, with long full strokes, and hold up the waste so it doesn't split off. For joints the cut sits in the waste just touching the line (Griffith, p. 32; good and bad sawing). If it binds, tap a wedge into the cut (Griffith, p. 30).

Setting the plane: the iron sticks out about the thickness of a sheet of paper, evenly — sight down the sole to check (Griffith, p. 39; sighting). Lay a plane on its side (p. 44).

Planing a board to size (Griffith, pp. 43–52):

1. Read the grain and plane "downhill" with it; against it the wood tears.
2. Face: press the front knob as you start, the handle as you finish. Test with a straightedge along, across and corner to corner, and with winding sticks for twist (drawing).
3. Edge: straight, and square to the face.
4. Width and thickness: gauge from the face edge and face side, and plane to the lines.
5. Ends: stop short of the far corner or it breaks off; work in from both edges, or use the shooting board (pp. 50–51).

Boring: sight the bit from two sides. For a clean hole, bore until the screw tip shows, then finish from the back (Griffith, pp. 58–59).

📚 Go deeper: Griffith, Part I — layout, sawing, planing, boring and chiseling, a drawing for each step. Pictures: Try square, Steel square.

Lay out every joint with the knife from the face side and edge, number matching parts, and cut on the waste side (Griffith, pp. 92–94). A good fit goes together by hand but doesn't fall apart under its own weight (p. 97). "Most joints are weak unless triangulated" — braced (Timber, p. 82).

Nails and screws: a nail at least three times as long as the wood it holds, two-thirds in the second piece, driven at a slight angle toward its neighbor; nails across the grain hold better than with it (FM 5-426, pp. 33–34). Stagger them rather than setting a row along one edge (Brace & Mayne, p. 157). In hardwood, bore a shank-size hole in the top piece and a smaller one in the bottom for a screw (Griffith, pp. 87–88).

Lap and dado (a dado is a groove across a board, as for a shelf): knife both sides, gauge the depth, saw on the waste side down to the gauge lines, chisel out between, and pare to the lines (Griffith, pp. 95–97; dado; cross-lap). When chopping to a line, chop 1/32 in inside it first: the bevel pushes the chisel past the line (p. 62).

Mortise and tenon — "no joint has a greater variety of applications" (Griffith, pp. 105–109; the order of cuts):

• Tenon: knife the shoulders all round, gauge, rip to the gauge lines first, then saw the shoulders.
• Mortise: gauge with the same settings from the same face. Bore a row of holes and pare, or chop with a chisel as wide as the mortise, from the middle out to 1/8 in short of each end, then chop the ends to the lines last.

Dovetails (Griffith, pp. 110–112; drawings): cut the tails first, flared about 1 in 6 for softwood and 1 in 8 for hardwood (rule of thumb); stand them on the second board, knife round them, and cut that board to fit. Glued dovetails and mortises should be pegged or screwed too (Brace & Mayne, p. 202).

Checking an axe's hang, wedging and filing it are in Blacksmithing & Hand Tools; this is the wood.

The wood: hickory for striking tools, ash for the rest (Oregon ash grows here; hickory does not) (Handtools, p. 53). The grain must run parallel to the length and to the wedge slot: "If the handle is not straight-grained, it is likely to break" (An Ax to Grind, p. 26; good and bad grain). Keep handles bare: paint hides flaws (Handtools, p. 53).

The grain runs along the handle and parallel to the wedge slot (An Ax to Grind, p. 26).

Making one:

1. Rive a blank a little bigger than the handle (see Splitting and riving).
2. Rough it out green on a shaving horse, with the old handle as a pattern. Let it dry a few weeks (rule of thumb), then shave to final size, since shrinking wood loosens handles (Wood Handbook, p. 84).
3. Shape: saw down to the deepest point of each curve and chisel toward the cut; finish with spokeshave and plane. A hammer handle is oval, not round (Brace & Mayne, pp. 88–90). Axe handles run 32–36 in for 3–6 lb heads (An Ax to Grind, p. 27).

Fitting it (Handtools, pp. 54–56; photographed step by step):

1. Clear the eye: saw the old handle off at the head and drive the stub out through the large end of the eye (TM 9-243, p. 128), drilling holes in it first if it is tight.
2. Saw the wedge slot two-thirds of the depth of the head, and draw center lines on the end.
3. Shave and fit, tapping the head on and off, until it sits squarely 1/4–3/8 in above its final place. Cut a small square shoulder there and smooth the wood just below the head.
4. Drive a long, tapered hardwood wedge the full width of the slot, tapping wedge and handle end in turn until the hammer bounces equally off both. No metal wedges: they crush the wood (p. 53).
5. Trim flush and rub in raw linseed oil, again now and then.

Soaking a loose head in water or linseed oil tightens it for a day; fix it properly soon (p. 54). Shovels and forks with a socket: fit the end to fill the socket, drive it home, and screw or rivet through the socket's hole (rule of thumb).

📚 Go deeper: Handtools for Trail Work, pp. 53–56 — rehandling any tool, photographed; An Ax to Grind, pp. 24–33 — choosing and hanging an axe handle; Brace & Mayne Lesson XIII — a hammer handle. Pictures: Hickory, Drawknife.

Workbench (Brace & Mayne, pp. 154–160; drawing): 36 in high; a top of 2 × 12 in hardwood planks 6 ft long on 2 × 4 legs, braced between the legs; a vise jaw of 2 × 6 maple on a bench screw; and a bench stop, a hardwood stick 1 in square driven through a square hole near the end and tapped up or down.

Shaving horse (Handy Farm Devices, p. 18; drawing): a 2-in plank to sit astride, a slanting platform on it, and a clamp head "of heavy hard wood that is tough and will not split" on an arm down to a foot treadle. Push the treadle and the work is held, leaving both hands for the drawknife.

One common pattern: push the foot bar away and the head grips the work (a diagram drawn for this guide).

Sawbuck: oak legs halved together and a hickory crossbar wedged through bored holes (Brace & Mayne, pp. 36–42; drawing).

Stools and tables: a one-legged stool or camp table is a pillar cut to fit a large auger hole in the seat, then split and wedged; a wider top is boards treenailed edge to edge (Shifts and Expedients, p. 375; drawing). Wedge three or four legs into a slab the same way, splayed a little, with dry legs in a greener seat (rule of thumb).

Shelves and boxes: let shelves into dadoes, "used in the making of shelving" (Griffith, p. 95), and brace the case. Nail rough boxes; dovetail tool boxes (p. 110); screw drawer bottoms in (Leland, p. 89).

Ladder (Brace & Mayne, pp. 101–111; drawing): white-oak rails and steps held with carriage bolts, each hole bored from both sides to meet in the middle. Round rungs without a lathe: plane a stick square, gauge half its diagonal from every side, plane off the corners to make eight sides, then the eight corners, and sand round (pp. 109–110). A log ladder is a log with long treenails driven through auger holes about 2 ft apart (Shifts and Expedients, p. 335). Use straight-grained, knot-free wood, look for cracks and rot each season, and set the foot out a quarter of the height (rule of thumb).

Rakes, mallets and wheelbarrows (rule of thumb; no book here covers wooden rakes): a rake head of ash or oak, its teeth of split dry hardwood driven into holes a shade small; a mallet whose handle goes through a hole that widens toward the striking end, so each blow tightens it; a barrow whose two long ash or oak handles are its frame. Put the load over one big wheel — see Bicycles & Carts.

📚 Go deeper: Brace & Mayne Farm Shop Work — 27 farm projects with working drawings; Handy Farm Devices — shop gadgets from scrap; Shifts and Expedients — camp furniture with axe and auger. Pictures: Shaving horse, Workbench.

Doors: a door "must not be fitted perfectly tight; it must have a little play"; plane where it rubs (Griffith, p. 121), and leave about 1/4 in round a plank door (FM 5-426, p. 134). Dried wood swells again in damp weather (Timber, p. 44), so trim a sticking door in the wet season, not the dry (rule of thumb). A new plank door: boards on two crosspieces 6 in from the ends, with a diagonal brace from the top crosspiece at the latch side down to the bottom one at the hinge side (FM 5-426, p. 134). Windows: see Shelter & Building.

Furniture (Leland, pp. 85–89):

• Broken chair leg: fit the pieces, bore across the break, glue, and drive a screw through before the glue dries. A stepped splice — both ends cut to matching steps, glued and screwed — makes it "stronger than before" (p. 87; drawing).
• Loose joints: take apart, scrape off old glue (rule of thumb), re-glue and peg (Brace & Mayne, p. 202). If nothing holds, bore through and twist wire round (Leland, p. 88).
• Warped panel: wet the hollow side, weight it flat, then screw strips across the grain on the back (pp. 87–88). Sticking drawers: plane where they rub (p. 88).
• Holes and chips: fill with fine sawdust of the same wood mixed with glue; it dries to carve and sand like wood (p. 89).

Rot in sills, posts and steps: probe with an ice pick, because rot hides under a sound surface (Wood Handbook, p. 368). Cut back to sound wood, scarf in new (Timber, p. 82), and stop the water (Shelter & Building).

📚 Go deeper: Leland A Manual of Mending and Repairing — wood, furniture and glue; FM 5-426 ch. 8 — doors and windows; Griffith, pp. 120–123 — fitting and hinging a door.

Hide glue: "Strippings of hide, bone, horn, hoofs, etc., are boiled to a jelly" (Griffith, p. 88; PA Additives to Clay, p. 4). To make it (rule of thumb): simmer clean rawhide scraps, hair and fat removed, for hours without a hard boil; strain, let it jell, slice thin and dry. Only from healthy animals: anthrax (p. 3).

Using it (Griffith, pp. 88–91; Brace & Mayne, pp. 201–204):

1. Soak overnight in cold water; melt in a double boiler (a pot inside a pot of hot water).
2. Use it hot and thin; warm the wood first (Leland, p. 86).
3. Size end grain with a first thin coat, let it partly dry, then glue.
4. Spread thinly on both faces, clamp, and wipe off the squeeze-out with a warm wet cloth. About ten hours in clamps (Griffith, p. 99).
5. Make it fresh daily: glue kept hot half a day loses half its strength (Brace & Mayne, p. 204).

A good glued edge joint is stronger than the wood (Griffith, p. 98). But hide glue "will not hold if kept in a damp place" (Brace & Mayne, p. 204). For glue that stays liquid cold: 2 oz glue, 3 oz vinegar, 2 oz water, 1 oz alcohol (Household Discoveries, p. 331).

Casein (milk) glue is "water-resistant but not waterproof": soured skim-milk curd, dried and ground, mixed with water and slaked lime (VITA, pp. 313–314); details and pine-pitch glue are in the Make-Do Household guide. Outdoors, use pegs, wedges and bolts instead.

No clamps? Wedges between blocks on a bar (Griffith, p. 90), weights, or a rope loop twisted tight with a stick (rule of thumb); or rub a short edge joint together until it grips (p. 91).

📚 Go deeper: Brace & Mayne Lesson XXXI — glue and clamping; VITA, p. 313 — casein glue. Pictures: Hide glue.

Indoors:

• Oil: linseed or tung oil soaks in. "Apply two or more coats of oil followed by a paste wax" (Wood Handbook, p. 388). Raw linseed oil is the tool-handle finish (Handtools, p. 54).
• Wax: beeswax with a third its volume of turpentine, melted in a double boiler away from flame (Griffith, p. 179); rub on very thin and polish after 5–10 minutes. It "will not stand wetting" but is easy to repair (pp. 165–166).
• Bowls, spoons, cutting boards: drying oils (tung, linseed, walnut) take weeks to cure; kitchen oils go rancid and feed mildew; the simplest board finish is melted paraffin wax, heated gently, never over a flame (Wood Handbook, p. 389).
• Stain: logwood boiled in water makes brown; vinegar that has stood a week on iron filings, brushed over it, black (Griffith, p. 179).

Outdoors:

• Dry wood doesn't rot. Air-dry wood (below about 20% moisture) is safe; rot needs it soaked past about 30% (Wood Handbook, p. 314). Keep wood off the ground and let every joint drain (rule of thumb).
• Seal end grain (Wood Handbook, p. 368). Paint slows wetting, but "paint is not a preservative" (p. 377).
• Bare wood erodes only about 1/4 in a century, but checks, mildews and rots unless it is decay-resistant heartwood (Wood Handbook, pp. 366, 371).
• Charring gives "temporary protection ... only for cheaper timber, such as fence posts" (Timber, p. 48). It doesn't replace durable wood.

Fire: oily rags "are subject to spontaneous combustion": burn them, or keep them in a bucket of water (Griffith, p. 164; An Ax to Grind, p. 34).

📚 Go deeper: Wood Handbook ch. 16 — weathering and every finish; ch. 14 — decay; Griffith ch. XIII — finishing by hand. Pictures: Linseed oil, Beeswax, Yakisugi.

• Both hands behind the edge; fasten the work so they're free (Griffith, pp. 61–62).
• The drawknife comes toward you. Clamp the work, start each stroke with straight arms, keep your fingers off the blade's corners, and carry it by one handle at your side (Handtools, p. 45). End each stroke short of your body (rule of thumb).
• Dull tools are dangerous: they take "undue strength" (Griffith, p. 11), and forcing an edge is how it slips into a hand (rule of thumb).
• Edges away when you put a tool down. Never stand an axe on the floor or hang a saw where it can scratch a leg (Disston, p. 42).
• Sharpening: gloves at the file and stone, eye protection at the grinder (Handtools, pp. 49, 52). Test an edge with "just a touch" of the calloused thumb, never a finger (Griffith, p. 72).
• Splitting: goggles, boots, people back, and never strike steel with an axe — see Firewood.
• Cuts: see Field Care.