If you’ve been following Wood Talk Online for a while, you’ll know I am a big hand tool guy. Not because I relish the thought of sweating in my shop (that’s a given during the long Florida summers) or I want to do things the ‘hard way’ (my dad would argue otherwise…).

With hand tools, I feel more connected to the craft, get to understand the wood better and get myself into less trouble should something go amiss (have you ever had a router bit slip out of the collet and ruin a project? If so, you’ll know what I mean!).

When people think of hand tools, their thoughts first turn to hand planes, hand saws and chisels. As well they should. Even in the most electrified shop, competent woodworkers should have at least a good set of chisels, a block plane and maybe a backsaw to handle some basic tasks that would take forever to jig up on a power tool. I have those in my shop, and I find myself reaching for them frequently.

I also have a few others that I find myself reaching for time and again. Many of them may not be found in your shop, but each of them really makes a difference in how I work. Fortunately, many of them are also dirt cheap and take only a limited amount of time to learn how to use. Ready?
Marking gauge. This has become a mainstay in my shop, and you can have mine when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. There is no better way to mark out a mortise or how wide you want a rabbet on a work piece. Sure, you could do the pencil-on-the-side-of-the-combination-square trick, but, come on, how accurate could that really be? I have one of the gauges made by Veritas that uses a circular blade to score a clean line on the wood. Older gauges use a sharp pin that will tear the wood fibers when you drag them across, so always look for one that slices. You will be very happy.

Striking knife. Pencils are nice for marking cuts, and I have a slew of them in a mug up on my work bench. But, when I really need to be precise, I reach for the striking knife. It has a flat side and a beveled side, and when I run that flat side against a steel rule, I get the exact mark that I need. Very handy, and I keep it with me at all times when doing joinery.

Spokeshaves. Just like the name implies, spoke shaves used to shave spokes on wheels. You can get a really comfortable grip on the twin side handles, and you usually pull the tool toward you. They act sort of like miniature planes, able to fair bandsawn curves with ease. Some have flat soles; others have curved ones, so look to get a set. Some of the new ones are very sweet, but Stanley made these things by the bushel, so you are bound to find a nice model at a garage sale or flea market. The only difficult thing about these are the blades are very small compared with plane blades, so you have to really concentrate when you sharpen them.

Scrapers. Card scrapers are so simple, you have to wonder how they qualify as tools. It’s a rectangular (or shaped) piece of steel. That’s it. But, when you burnish them just right, these things are magic. I was working on a piece of very curly maple. I knew if I put that piece through the thickness planer, it would come out looking like the surface of the moon. And, if I tackled it with sandpaper, it was going to take a long time to get right. I locked the piece into my vise and started scraping it. The wood was incredible! All of the rough surface came off, and the wood was smooth as glass. Look for more information on tuning a scraper in later articles, or check out Wood Whisperer Episode 14 – Barely Scraping By.

Rasps. They look like rabid files, don’t they? And, yes, they can splinter wood if used the wrong way. But, if you need to shape something, I’d be hard pressed to find a nicer tool for the purpose. The key is to use a light touch and remove small amounts at a time. I was working on a small box with a lot of curves in it, and the plans in the magazine called for three very intricate jigs to be built to achieve the results. Since the beginning of the plans mentioned that the woodworker had done most of the shaping by hand, I figured it had to be easier that building the jigs. Sure enough, the raps grated away the right amount of wood, and the final piece needed some very light sanding and scraping to perfect the finish. It sure beat listening to power tools running!

You might be reluctant to give hand tools a try because you think they are old fashioned or slow. However, I think you might be surprised just how much faster, better and more enjoyable they can make your woodworking. I’m glad I started down that slippery slope!

Growing up, my buddies and I used to debate really Earth-moving stuff all the time. For instance:

Could The Flash outrun Superman?

Who was stronger? The Bionic Man or Spider Man?

Who did you think is cooler? Luke Skywalker or Han Solo?

We thought we were so darned sophisticated, debating such highbrow stuff.

The best debate, however, went like this: In a straight up fair fight, who would win – Bruce Lee or Muhammad Ali?

As any kid growing up in the western hemisphere, it was only natural that I put all of my ice cream money on the greatest boxer of all time – Ali. After all, he floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee. It seemed to be a no-brainer.

“But,” my friends would remind me, “Bruce Lee uses all that mysterious kung-fu stuff.” And, yes, in those Saturday morning karate movies, Bruce and his enemies seemed to do a lot of floating and stinging as well.

Believe it or not, that was the first exposure I had ever had to Eastern cultures. From there, my mind was opened to these strange and mysterious things and practices. Chinese food (the kind we make here in the United States), Japanese cars (everyone remembers the movie Gung Ho, right?) and the martial arts took me to lands far away on the other side of the Earth.

What the heck does this have to do with woodworking?Well, when I was just starting out with the craft, my thoughts naturally went back to my dad’s tool collection in his workshop. Crosscut and rip saws, power tools, chisels, a Sears hand plane with a high black painted tote. In my mind, those were the images of what woodworking tools should look like, and, when I started my tool collection, my decisions were based on those tool forms.

That was until I got my hands on my first Japanese style handsaw.

The simple act of cutting wood is a universal need. Cultures thousands of miles apart still had trees and a need for places to live. Thus, they developed similar tools to perform similar functions (cutting, shaping, jointing, etc.) But, while these tools are very similar, there was a mysterious (yes, that word again) feeling about these tools.

First of all, that new handsaw cut on the pull stroke. Wow. That took some getting used to, but it seemed to make so much more sense. I couldn’t get the saw to bind – something I had no trouble doing with my crosscut saw. The blade was ultra thin. I could flex the saw and cut plugs and dowels flush. For me, pulling seemed to be a more natural sawing motion than pushing.

One day, my neighbor Chris gave me his dad’s set of Japanese chisels. I was floored. It was quite an honor because my neighbor’s dad was a noted architect and had worked with George Nakashima, and Chris was very proud of his dad’s accomplishments. The chisels were a little beaten up, but, when I sharpened them, they honed to a fine edge. They have a very broad tip and a narrow body, which makes them perfect for cleaning up joints. When I need to do some very fine work, I find myself reaching for them a lot more frequently than my very nice set of western chisels.

Now, I am starting to get into eastern planes. Again, they do the same work that western planes can do, but these babies are pulled instead of pushed, giving a completely different feel. There are jointers, jacks, smoothers – all of the tasks that western planes are called upon to perform.

Every time I start working with those new form planes, I always make the comparison in my mind.Are the eastern tools any better than western ones? Define ‘better.’ Both give excellent results when sharpened, tuned and used properly. Both styles are the culmination of hundreds – if not thousands – of years of development by master craftsmen. Some may handle certain tasks better, but each is a solid performer in my workshop.

I guess both schools of tools would make for an interesting fight…

One of my most favorite movies of all times is Raiders of the Lost Ark. Who could ever forget Indiana Jones trekking around the world to find the lost Ark of the Covenant, battling bad guys left and right while taking a beating that would kill just about any mortal person?

In many ways, I see myself as a little bit of that adventurer/archaeologist when I start hunting down old hand tools. (OK, it’s my childhood fantasy to run around exotic marketplaces with a bull whip and a brown crusher on my head. There. What’s it to you?)

Instead of running away from evil Nazi agents, I can be found some Saturdays walking around the long-running flea market a few miles from my home. My wife hates going there, but I get a kick out of looking at the old tools hand tools for sale. Some are in pretty tough shape, while others look like they have never seen a square foot of wood in their lives. Some have reasonable prices on them, while others… well… you have to wonder why a nasty looking chunk of rust with a rotten handle can cost more than a plane you can buy new from a woodworking store…

I’ve bought lots of old tools – especially hand planes – at that flea market and in the other big virtual flea market out there – eBay. Since I have told my family about my interest in old tools, I’ve been getting them by the bushel. Old hand planes, spoke shaves, auger bits – it’s a bonanza of old iron that shows up at my door – whenever someone needs something built!

Before you decide to take the plunge, it pays to become familiar with what hand planes are all about. You can check out an excellent primer at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_plane), or, what I would recommend would be to get to a library and check out Garret Hack’s The Handplane Book. These are both great places to look for the basics.

Once you get the old tools, you really want to put them to use as soon as possible. While you could take a rusty old hulk and try to work with it, it pays to do a few things first.

1. Before you buy – or after you receive one as a gift – check the plane out thoroughly. Look for broken totes and knobs (you can buy or make replacements), cracked iron, warps and twists, missing pieces, etc. I’ve received some planes that look like they were used for target practice – needless to say, those babies are probably not going to get put back into service. I typically put the broken planes up on a shelf in my garage for decoration and as sources of spare parts.

2. Once you decide you want to rehab the plane, take the entire thing apart. Remove the handles, cap iron, frog, everything. I usually start with wiping everything down with a rag sprayed with some WD-40 and a blast of compressed air for the nooks and crannies. For screws, use an old toothbrush to get the crud out of the teeth.

3. Some folks become crazy about getting rid of rust. I’ve seen people sandblast their planes, submit them to electrolysis and a bunch of other methods to strip off a layer of rust. For me, I’ve found 400 grit wet/dry paper with a blast of the aforementioned WD-40 can clean up the pieces very nicely.

4. Assemble the tote, knob and frog into the plane body, but hold off on the blade and chip breaker. I usually stick a piece of 320 grit wet/dry paper down to my table saw, lubricate with the WD-40 and rub the sole of the plane until its clean. You’d be surprised how much bright red rust comes off the sole of some of these babies! Keep wiping the crud out of the paper so you can eventually flatten the sole of the plane.

5. And, when it comes to flattening plane soles, don’t make yourself batty about it. An easy way to ensure the sole is flat is to draw a squiggly line with a permanent marker across the sole. Rub the plane on the sandpaper a dozen strokes, then lift the plane up and look at it. Where is the marker still on the sole? You want to make sure the front and the area around the mouth are nice and flat, so rub the plane until those areas are without marker.

6. Once you have everything nice and shiny, look at the plane iron. Sharpen and hone that sucker. If you can swing it, look to get a replacement plane iron. There are some killer replacement plane irons out there for $25 – $40 from Lee Valley, Lie-Nielsen, Hock tools and others.

7. Assemble the entire plane and give it a good wipe down with some furniture paste wax. That keeps rust at bay and allows the plane to glide nicely across the board.

8. USE THAT PLANE! Give your jointer, planer or random-orbit sander a rest and develop the skills necessary to dress, joint and smooth wood the old fashioned way.

You may never give up your power tools, but you will gain valuable insight into how wood works, and just how fortunate you are to have those modern shop tools. Now, there’s something to discover all on your own.