Hand woodworking Hand woodworking Basic joiner's tools THE TRADITional joiner’s TOOL KIT When starting out in hand tool joinery, filled with every tool that someone else you do not need to go out and buy all assumed an aspiring joiner needed. the tools you are ever likely to use in A key tool missing was a mentor. your woodworking career – you only At that young age, it was my father need a subset of the traditional joiner’s and I learned mostly by observation. tool kit. After that it was my secondary school The saying ‘you get what you pay woodworking teacher, who instilled in for’ is so true when purchasing me a passion for working with wood woodworking tools. Unless you have and the respect and care of tools and a lot of money to fork out, reasonably I have been making sawdust and wood priced, good quality tools are hard to chips ever since. As I tell woodworkers come by and forget chain DIY stores starting out: “The only difference for quality hand tools. Very few of my between where you are and where 18th and 19th hand tools were purchased new and, I am is time and equipment ruined.” century English for the most part, were obtained by joiner’s tool kit scouring flea markets, car boot sales So what’s in the tool kit? • Mortise gauge from The Wealden and online auctions. These offer the • Dovetail and tenon saw • Marking knife Museum, West best hope of finding good quality, • Jack and block plane • Try Square or combination square Sussex older tools at reasonable prices. • Chisels: 10mm mortise chisel and • Wooden 150mm mallet with flat head I received my first tool kit when I was a 20mm bevel edge • Bradawl about seven-years-old, a wooden box • Brace and 6, 10 and 20mm twist bits • Homemade bench hook LET’s make a joinT When woodworking, there’s a natural progression at play, but only if derived from an understanding based on personal experience. If you have a plane and develop a connection between eye, brain, muscle, hand, PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL T COLLINS tool and wood, you will gain an understanding of how the tool responds in the hand and also its limits. The more you use the tool, 1 2 BEGINNERS’ the sooner you will know when it’s time to acquire the next tool to accomplish a given task. By this experiential process, your GUIDE: knowledge and skills will develop and your tool kit will need to grow along with your experience. Using hand tools and traditional Now that we have our tools Michael T Collins assembled, let’s look at producing methods to make a draw-bored Michael has been working with wood one of the fundamental joints that has off and on for 40 years. Having run out been used for thousands of years: the 3 4 mortise and tenon joint of projects in the UK, he moved to a draw-bored mortise and tenon. This small village in the heart of the Finger classic joint can be found everywhere, Lakes in Upstate New York with his in chair, table and door construction. of thumb is three-quarters the width Michael T Collins looks at how a selection family in 1996. Over the years, he has of the mortise stock, but there are no of basic hand tools can be used to make a made bespoke furniture, including After planing your leg stock to size, hard and fast rules. clocks, inlay work, Adams fireplaces, 1mark the face side and face edge variety of traditional joints book cases, reproduction furniture, with cabinetmaker’s marks and gang Gang the rails and scribe the woodcarvings, restorations, bowls, the parts together. Lay out the mortise 4shoulder line on the face side, e have one drawer in our kitchen that contains our shared tools – tables and some major construction location using the width of the rail, a then with the try square, using only the tools we reach for when something needs doing and I don’t want projects. As a mathematician by try square and pencil. face side and edge side to mark a knife Wto trek to the workshop to get my tools. It’s a set of tools that has taken training, he is constantly looking to line on all faces. years to refine, based totally on our needs. You could call them ‘necessary tools’. solve puzzles and woodworking for It’s a good idea to leave extra wood English joiners through the years have used a small selection of tools and were him is a continual process of solving 2‘horns’ at the end of the legs; this Set the mortise gauge using the able to produce a wide variety of beautiful furniture. puzzles – or maybe that’s just the way prevents blowout when chopping the 5width of the chisel. I make my When starting out acquiring tools, it’s easy to be confused with the plethora he works… mortise. Set the legs aside for now. tenons half the width of the stock, so available, some so specialised that you may only use them once or twice. It’s Web: www.sawdustandwoodchips. 20mm stock will have a 10mm mortise important to not fall for the more is better philosophy – if I have this tool or com Tenons – I find this is a good size for most Twitter: @sawdustandwood that tool, then I’d be a better craftsman. Mark the tenon depth based on the mortises but I have been known to 5 3mortise depth you want – my rule over-engineer things. ➤ 68 www.woodworkersinstitute.com Woodworking Crafts issue 01 69 Hand woodworking Hand woodworking DRAW-BORING 6 7 8 Adjust the mortise gauge so that 1 2 3 6the mortise is in the centre of the rail. Scribe the tenon, using the face side, by dragging the gauge away from you across the wood. Cutting the tenons Cut a ‘V’ groove on the waste 7side and then pare out a notch using a chisel; this will give you a place for the saw to cut and produce 9 10 a very clean shoulder. Using a bench hook and a tenon saw, saw down to and leave a small gap for any seasonal mortise with each successive chop and 4 5 6 the tenon marks. If your tenon is going movement in the leg. you’ll find the chisel will go deeper to have four shoulders, then repeat on into the mortise. Draw-boring is a technique that has all sides. Chopping out the mortise 1been used for thousands of years. From the face side, mark the Continue to within 1.5mm of the Pegs are driven through the mortise Place the rail in the vice at 45° 9 mortise, using the same mortise 11end, then about face and repeat and tenon to secure the joint and 8and mark a small ‘V’ notch on the gauge setting you use to mark the the process back to the start, clearing there is no need to use glue or cramps waste sides of the tenon lines. Using tenon. If you want a reveal, then out the chopped wood as you go. when assembling. Some of these joints a dovetail saw, rip down on the waste simply move the mortise gauge’s have lasted many centuries and are as side to the ends of the scribe marks fence away from the pins by the You should only remove wood secure now as they were then. you can see. You can only cut what depth of the reveal. To chop the 12 that has been cut – don’t try and you can see – do not try and cut down mortise, place the wood over the leg lever out unchopped wood as you are Position your holes so that they to the shoulder in one go. Rotate the of your bench so that the forces are likely to split the wood and even bend 2do not intersect with those securing wood in the vice and again saw at 45° concentrated in the chop rather than the chisel. Lastly, true up the ends the other tenon in the leg and not too using the saw kerf as a guide – you absorbed by the bench. of the mortise by chopping vertically close to the edges. Bore through the will have left a triangle of uncut wood down the end mark. If two mortises tenon from the side with a 6mm bit – at the bottom of the kerf. Place the Chopping a mortise is a simple are going to intersect, only chop choose a size that’s proportional to wood vertically in the vice and then 10matter of placing the chisel the mortise down to the level of the the joint. Offset the pins if you think cut down to the shoulder and the with the bevel facing the mortise and intersecting mortise. This way, you will the wood is liable to splitting. 7 waste should fall away. If need be, you about 1.5mm from the end; this will have support – in the bottom – when can clean up with a chisel by paring protect the wood from being damaged chopping the second mortise. You can Hold the joint together firmly and towards the tenon. If you have two while removing the waste. Now ‘walk’ draw a line or add a bit of tape on the 3 using a bradawl, mark the tenon intersecting tenons, bevel the ends the chisel towards the far end of the chisel as a depth gauge. through the holes.