John Economaki from Bridge City Tools is in our shop today before he demonstrates his new Jointmaker Pro saw to about 60 of our readers. As we were setting up the saw we took a few test cuts.

The walnut above is so smooth it's hard to describe. It reflects light. The scratches indicate one stroke with the saw. There is no roughness to the end grain at all. All I could say was, "Wow."

Here are two more photos. First the joint together:

Then the joint apart:

Here's the best part: These are coffee stirring sticks from the Starbucks we stopped at on the way back to the office after a Japanese lunch (yum). And, by the by, these joints were cut by eye – no measuring.

We'll have more photos tomorrow, I'm sure.

— Christopher Schwarz

Managing Editor Megan Fitzpatrick grabbed our magazine's digital camera and told Marc "The Wood Whisperer" Spagnuolo to hold still for a photograph.

"I need to take a headshot," she announced.

"So do I," replied Marc, as he lifted up his video camera and pointed it at Megan.

For a few short moments they stood there with their cameras pointed at one another. Then I told them to "take this outside." They did.

On Monday morning, Marc and his wife/business partner/camera operator, Nicole, visited the Popular Woodworking's editorial offices to shoot video footage of us working in the shop and plowing through more than a dozen doughnuts, which Senior Editor Glen Huey brought in.

Marc is the host of the very popular web site thewoodwhisperer.com, which offers scads of free instructional woodworking videos, shop tours, audio programs about woodworking and links to other like-minded woodworking sites.

He's also our newest contributor. Starting in the August 2008 issue, Marc will be writing a column in every issue on a woodworking technique, which we have cleverly titled "The Wood Whisperer." In addition to the written column, Marc will be posting a video on our site at popularwoodworking.com/video that will show that technique in action.

During Marc and Nicole's visit, we forced them to sit through our Monday morning staff meeting (which is really a doughnut-eating contest in disguise), then we headed into the shop to shoot video. After a quick tour of the shop, they interviewed Bob about the project he's working on for the August issue, and they chatted with Glen about his woodworking. Both video pieces should appear on his site in the future (assuming they can get some of the profanity bleeped out).

Glen also shot some video of Marc and Nicole, then we went to my house and shop, where I gave them a tour of some of my personal work and my small workshop.

Most of all, the day was a great excuse to get to know more about Marc and Nicole, who represent the vanguard of where woodworking instruction is headed this century.

Marc, 31, is from Trenton, N.J., and studied biotech in college. After graduation, he headed out to San Diego for work and met Nicole when she answered an advertisement for a roommate to share an apartment. They've been together ever since.

When they moved out to Temecula, Calif., they bought their first house and it needed some work. One table saw and a flooring project later, Marc become hooked on the craft. Well, obsessed might be a better word – that's the word he uses.

His interest in the craft deepened when he encountered David Mark's cable program "Wood Works." Marc eventually studied with Marks in his Santa Rosa, Calif., studio and then opened his own custom woodworking shop in Phoenix, Ariz.

From there, it was short hop to take everything Marc learned – and his enthusiasm for teaching it – to the Internet, where he launched thewoodwhisperer.com.

If you don't know Marc yet, I encourage you to scoot over to his site and take a look at some of the excellent content there. Watch a few videos (they are well done and Marc's a funny guy) and listen to one of his broadcasts of Wood Talk Online with buddy Matt Vanderlist. Or just browse through his blog.

And watch this space for more on The Wood Whisperer. Once we get some of our video edited, we'll post that on our video player.

— Christopher Schwarz

We just received a sample of a new product that I am not at all eager to test.

It's a KytoStat Bandage, which is an interesting piece of new medical technology designed to quickly stop bleeding. The pad of the 1" x 4" bandage is made from chitosan, which is a naturally occurring compound found in shrimp shells, according to HemCon, the manufacturer. (People with shellfish allergies can use the product, officials said.)

When the bandage is applied to a bleeding wound, the chitosan attracts red blood cells and pulls them into the dressing. Blood makes the pad extremely sticky, and it then seals the wound.

The bandage has several advantages for use in the woodshop, according to a company spokesman. The KytoStat can eliminate trips to the emergency room for those cases where you are not sure if you need to get stitches or not. Also, if the wound is serious, the KytoStat will stop bleeding so you can get to the emergency room without unnecessary blood loss. Also, the bandage is ideal for woodworkers who are taking daily doses of aspirin or blood-thinning medication.

The KytoStat bandage was developed by HemCon after the company had great success with the same technology in a military bandage that is currently in use in Iraq and Afghanistan. The product was approved by the FDA in 2003 and now is carried by every member of the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The bandages are available at some Albertsons supermarkets and through drugstore.com. A package of three costs $14.99.

If the product works as advertised, it's a small price to pay to avoid a trip to the emergency room for typical woodshop cuts. The last time I went to the emergency room for a woodshop injury it was for a cut where I was really on the fence about whether I needed stitches. (For the record, I was sharpening a chisel using a student's honing guide. The guide failed to hold the chisel, which slipped out and cut my finger.)

In the end, that wound was less than 3/4" long, but it was difficult to stop the bleeding with simple pressure. Three hours (and three stitches) later, I was back in the shop. My hope is that the KytoStat could prevent drives like this to the urgent care center.

Because we don't have any volunteers here at the magazine to test the product today, however, I'm afraid you'll have to just wait for a field test.

— Christopher Schwarz

Legacy Planeworks officially opened its doors on Tuesday and began selling kits that allow a home woodworker with no metalworking experience to build an English-style shoulder plane with naval brass sides, a steel sole and an exotic wood infill.

The company currently offers two sizes of shoulder planes – 1" wide and 3/4" wide – with prices starting at $425. And two more infill kits are on the drawing board: a chariot plane and a Norris-style A6 smoothing plane with a mechanical blade adjuster, says Marty Sivar, one of the owners of the company.

The kits have been in development for many months, Sivar says, and the parts are so finely machined that you can literally snap the metal dovetails in place when you take the parts out of the box.

"We wanted to offer a refined kit," Sivar said today in a phone interview, "not something you had to spend hours prepping the parts for assembly and cleaning them up."

The kits come with all the metal components you need (even the drill bits for boring the wood components). The home planemaker will need a ball pien hammer, a steel plate (or anvil) and a handful of files to complete the project, Sivar says. Legacy Planeworks also sells all the files required for planemaking on its web site: legacyplanes.com.

Some woodworkers might remember the kits that were sold by Shepherd Tool, a Canadian company run by two partners outside Toronto. After Shepherd's early success with its first Spiers-style smoothing plane kits, the company ran into some rocky times and shuttered its doors in early 2006 with a crowd of angry customers who were upset about a variety of problems, from not being able to get technical questions answered, kits that were missing parts, and credit cards that were charged with merchandise never shipped.

Sivar was one of those angry customers of Shepherd, and he said he and his partner, Ernie Barber, have set out to make sure that Legacy Planeworks is everything that Shepherd Tool was not.

Sivar says that the company's web site will not sell you a kit unless there are more than two in stock, and that every order will be shipped within two or three days of it being placed. Plus, Sivar says that Legacy now has plenty of kits on hand to sell right away (one of them is heading for our office for a full review, by the way).

The kit components for a Legacy shoulder plane (both photos courtesy of Legacy Planeworks).

Every kit has a money-back guarantee and includes a 52-page instruction manual that includes many step photos that will walk the planemaker through the process. The manual, Sivar says, has taken a long time to develop and has been through many revisions to make the instructions as complete and foolproof as possible.

"I think our customers will be very satisfied from the minute they open the box," Sivar says.

Sivar has experience both as a woodworker and a metalworker. He started his career as a machinist and then went into the military. After a short stint as a corporate pilot, Sivar completed some marketing and management training and went to work for a petro-chemical company, where he is now an area manager and nearing retirement. Barber works in law enforcement and is an accomplished woodworker and carver who specializes in 18th-century furniture.

Sivar says all the plane components are going to be professionally made by other metalworking companies to Legacy's specifications; that will leave Sivar and Barber to focus on working with current customers and developing future products.

Personally, I'm quite pleased to see someone getting back into this business. I built several of the Shepherd kits, including a couple smoothing planes, a chariot plane, a shoulder plane and a panel plane. Despite the glitches (my kits were missing critical parts, too) the overall experience was fun and you learn a lot about plane mechanics by building one of the tools.

I think it's especially encouraging that Legacy has started out offering just the shoulder plane kit. Of all the kits I built, that one was the easiest to complete and will likely give would-be planemakers a good taste of the process.

In the coming weeks, I'll post photos of the new kit and my progress building it.

— Christopher Schwarz

Like most woodworkers, we here at Popular Woodworking are fond of our cordless drill/drivers. So when two officials from Jacobs Chuck Manufacturing Co. showed up in our offices last week to show off a new aftermarket keyless chuck, they had our complete attention.

And it didn't hurt that the Jacobs officials also turned their little demonstration into a contest among the editors. First a bit about the new SoftGrip chucks, then I'll tell you about the contest.

The SoftGrip chuck replaces your stock chuck on your cordless drill, no matter if it's a 3/8" or 1/2" chuck, single-sleeve or double-sleeve. There are a number of advantages to the SoftGrip that are both obvious and unexpected.

The chuck is noticeably easier to close than a hard metal or smooth plastic chuck. And that's thanks to its soft, nubby, almost gummy-worm-like feel. You can really get a grip on the chuck to close it on the bit, which is great for anyone who suffers from arthritis or anything else that reduces his or her grip.

The soft grip isn’t just something molded onto the outside of the chuck. It's integrated into the structure of the chuck using a proprietary double-injection molding process, according to Mike Goodson, the core products development manager for Jacobs.

What that means for you and me is that the soft surface isn't going to peel off in use.

The SoftGrip can be lighter in weight than your stock chuck. For example, our stock Makita chuck weighs 9.2 ounces and the SoftGrip 3000 series chuck for that drill weighs 5.6 ounces. That weight difference is noticeable when you hold the drill and can also increase your drill's run-time by about 10 percent, according to James Hou, the product marketing manager.

However, the weight savings are mostly in the SoftGrip 3000 series of chucks, which uses more aluminum in its construction. The industrial version of the SoftGrip, the 6000 series, has more steel in its construction, which of course adds weight. Our stock Hitachi chuck weighs 9.3 ounces. The SoftGrip 6000 replacement weighs 10.2 ounces.

The only other consideration with the SoftGrip is that you have to get your old chuck off. Sometimes this is easy, and sometimes it is not, as I found out as I replaced the chucks on several drills. Here's the drill (sorry 'bout that): Remove the screw inside the chuck that secures it to the drill motor. It's a reverse-thread screw, so it's righty-loosey. Then you chuck a large Allen wrench into the jaws of the drill and knock the Allen wrench with a hammer to spin the chuck counterclockwise. This loosens the chuck and you then unscrew it off. Adding the SoftGrip is even easier (instructions are included).

Clamping the drill to the bench made it much easier for one editor to remove the chuck.

I had no problems replacing the chuck on our Milwaukee and Hitachi drills. Our Makitas gave us a little bit of a fight, but after a few love taps the chuck came loose. But the Ridgid drill simply refused. Everyone tried it last week (we even fetched former Senior Editor David Thiel – a brute – to try it). This morning Senior Editor Robert W. Lang and I gave it another try.

We got the chuck off, along with the drill's clutch assembly, spilling ball bearings everywhere. Not good. Perhaps our chuck was torqued on by a particularly sprightly robot. Who knows? So do take care when removing your chuck.

Now about that contest: The Jacobs officials had each editor tighten a stock chuck and measured how much input torque he or she managed to apply to the chuck. Then each editor did the same test with a SoftGrip chuck and measured the input torque, which was much higher. That means the SoftGrip gives you a better grip for the same amount of work. Here are the before-and-after numbers – though I've changed the names to protect the editors' identities:

1. Editor with Ponytail: Stock chuck: 83.7 in./lbs.   SoftGrip: 88 in./lbs.
2. Editor with Gloves On: Stock chuck: 83.1 in./lbs.   SoftGrip: 175.2 in./lbs.
3. Editor with Fiery Hair and Temper: Stock chuck: 47 in./lbs.   SoftGrip: 69.4 in./lbs.
4. Editor with "Little Girl Hands:" Stock chuck: 89.5 in./lbs.   SoftGrip: 176.1 in./lbs.

Bottom line: We like these chucks and are now testing them for durability in the shop. The chucks are now available from Home Depot and Lowe's for about $25 to $32, depending on the model.

— Christopher Schwarz

Reader John Griffin-Wiesner writes: Just got the new Popular Woodworking issue yesterday (February 2008). Another fine issue!

I am confounded by the Shaker wood box. How are the front and back panels supposed to move being nailed to the sides which have the grain running vertically?

Answer: Great question. The answer is: nails.

Lots of earlier furniture appears to be nailed without regard for wood movement, yet it survives to this day intact. In fact, when I visited Pleasant Hill to find a good design for a wood box (I saw about 10 of them), all of them were:

1. Still in good shape without signs of repair or restoration.

2. Nailed together without regard to cross-grain.

Unlike screws, nails will bend a bit as the wood expands and contracts with the seasons. There are limits, of course. And I always prefer to create constructions that accommodate wood movement rather than rely on nails. (By the way, just about any kind of nail will do. I like cut nails, but the wire nails bend easily, too.)

But they work. I've seen it too many times in too many pieces of antique furniture to dismiss it. You can download the entire article on building the Shaker Firewood Box using the link below. You also can read more about my visit to Pleasant Hill on the Woodworking Magazine blog here.

030-31_FEB08PW_ICDT.pdf (280.35 KB)

— Christopher Schwarz

For 2008, there is only one place that I’m teaching a class that covers planes, chisels and saws. And that’s the Marc Adams School of Woodworking from May 19-23. Registration for this (and all the classes) opened today. As of now, there are still spaces available in the class.

In this fast-paced course you'll learn everything a woodworker needs to sharpen, tune and use handplanes, chisels, scrapers and the wide arsenal of edge tools available today. This class is for anyone who has ever been curious, frustrated or intimidated by hand work. It begins with the absolute basic principles of cutting wood and ends (after only five days) with you knowing how to make essential furniture joints using hand tools and building a traditional English sawbench. Here's what you'll learn:

Sharpening: Even if you've never sharpened anything before, you'll learn to put a keen edge on any tool – chisel, knife, plane blade, scraper – without spending hundreds of dollars on equipment. You'll learn all about edge geometry and how to pick the right angle for a tool every time, plus the little tricks that aren't in the books (back bevels and triple micro-bevels).

Tune-up: With your edges sharp, you'll fine-tune and modify your hand tools so they behave predictably and beautifully. You'll tune your planes to do the job they were intended to do, without spending hours and hours ridiculously lapping their soles. You'll learn the real working differences between the traditional bevel-down planes and the newer bevel-up planes and get a chance to try both to compare for yourself. You'll learn a 100-year-old trick for modifying your card scrapers that has been almost – but not quite – forgotten. And you'll learn to modify the grips of your tools to suit your work, your workbench and your hand size.

Use: Once all your tools are properly sharp and tuned, you'll discover how they work almost effortlessly if you understand just a few principles, including how to properly read the grain of any board and that not all tools are intended to be used "with the grain."

You’ll also learn a good deal about the tools needed for handwork, including:

1. The three bench planes needed to make any board flat, plus how to tune them and use them.

2. The joinery planes that every woodworker should own.

3. The four handsaws necessary to hand-cut any furniture joint, from dovetails to dados.

4. The chisels needed for good woodworking, all about good bevel-edge chisels, mortising chisels and paring chisels.

Application: On the final day of the class you'll put your new skills and knowledge to the test to build an English sawbench, one of the most useful hand-tool appliances ever invented.

This week-long class is great for beginning and intermediate hand-tool woodworkers alike.