Pull up a chair and chat with a couple of woodworkers about – I dunno – table saws.  They’ll go on for hours yapping your ears off about horsepower, riving knives, accessories, dust collection, blade selection… the works.  How about routers? Holy smokes, where to even begin with routers?  Hand planes? You betcha – bevel up or down, Japanese or western, the best way to set the chip breaker…

How about this? Ever see woodworkers debate passionately about these?  Can you find lots of detailed books in the library about the care and feeding of them?  Probably not. An Internet search will leave you scratching your head, too.  There’ s not a lot out there.  That’s a shame, because the Stanley No. 80 cabinet scraper (and the ones made to look and work like it) is a handy tool to have around the shop for a lot of reasons. Unfortunately, your search for information may be shrouded in mystery… Heck, it took me years to figure out how to use mine!

Let’s talk for a minute about scraping. Hand scrapers, cabinet scrapers and scraper planes really don’t scrape, as it were. They work like extremely high-bevel plane irons, taking very fine shavings from the piece you are working on. What they create is known as a type III chip. This chip formation dealio was laid out shortly after World War II by a guy named Dr. Normal Franz to study the effects of cutting in industrial manufacturing . Scraping is a great way to get your project to an ultra-smooth surface – especially on highly figured wood. In fact, I like to break my scrapers out after I sand if I am looking to get the best possible finish for a project.

Many woodworkers love their card scrapers, but they can be a challenge to hold in the proper position at the proper angle for a long time.  The blade heats up, the edges can dig into your hands and your thumbs will be aching like nobody’s business.  Scraper planes are cool, but wow, some of them have big time price tags.

Then there are the cabinet scrapers.  These things are ubiquitous. You can find them at nearly every flea market, garage sale and online auction site. Why are they so plentiful?  Because they have always been – and still are – so darned handy!  These babies resemble large spokeshaves in many ways – a cast iron body with a pair of handles, a way to secure the scraper blade and a thumb screw to flex the blade to help it protrude from the bottom.

The challenge is that their blades aren’t like regular card scrapers. Those hand-held versions have square edges on all four sides and have a particular way of being prepared. The No. 80 is a different kind of animal. It’s scraper has two ends that have a 45 degree bevel on them. These bevels can both be sharpened and honed, and still need a burr turned on them to be effective.

For years, I have tried to get the one I bought online to work. Sometimes, I had moderate success. Other times, well, let’s just not go there.

One thing I have discovered recently is that my Tormek does a pretty decent job getting the blade into shape.  I can use the tool platform on the guide bars, then adjust it so the blade kisses the stone at 45 degrees. By carefully moving the blade side to side, I quickly have a well ground bevel to begin my work with.  I will then flip the blade over so the flat side is down, and I’ll give it a quick pass on the strop side.

But, wait, aren’t I trying to create a burr to do the cutting?  I sure am, but I want to control how the burr turns myself.  The quick honing gets rid of the wire edge, giving me a nice, flat surface to start with. I also give the bevel a quick roll on the strop as well. Hey, sharp is sharp!

From there, it’s a simple matter to clamp the blade in my vise and, using a screwdriver as a burnisher, roll the burr about ten degrees toward the flat back of the blade.  When you insert the blade, do it from the base up. This protects the burr you have worked so hard to create. With the blade in place, set it on a flat surface and make sure the blade is contacting that surface as well. Tighten the screws that hold the blade in place, and then every so gently turn the thumb screw until it contacts the blade.  This is your fine adjustment.. the more you tighten it, the more the blade will protrude from the bottom, taking a heavier cut.

You can push or pull the scraper, depending on how comfortable you are with it. Just keep the thumbscrew on the back side of the scraper as you work and you’ll be golden. When you are making very thin shavings, you are in the butter zone. When the blade starts to make dust, it’s time to sharpen and turn a new burr.

Once you get this baby figured out, you’ll wonder why you have gone so long without having one in the first place!  Just think of the conversations you’ll have with your woodworking friends.

Patrick Leach of Superior Tool Works has a brief introduction to the No. 80 on his site.

Replacement blades for these classic tools can be found at Hock Tools, Lee Valley Tools and many other sites.

One of the best tutorials I have seen for this tool can be found at the Lee Valley Tools site.

One of my favorite movies of recent years was The King’s Speech. What an awesome film. It followed King George VI of Great Britain and told the story about his stammering problem and how he overcame it. The culmination of the movie was the memorable speech he delivered to his subjects on the occasion of the start of World War II, helping to steel the resolve of his island nation.

It’s a good thing he came to power, because his brother, Edward VIII was a real weenie. Rather than take the advice of his counselors, he chose to continue a relationship with American divorcee Wallis Simpson. She was less-than-reputable, allegedly having several suitors while dating the Prince of Wales, later the King of Great Britain. She also treated the future King George VI and his wife in a manner not befitting their status as members of the royal family.  Often seen as vain and self-centered, she was quoted as saying, “You can never bee too rich or too thin.”

This quote later became the rallying cry of fashionistas and super models strutting the latest designer clothes on the runways of Paris and Milan.

While I’m neither too rich or too thin, I do know of a similar expression in woodworking circles that seems just as applicable… you can never have too many clamps. Basically, you need the clamps in your collection to hold wood together while you glue, mark out joinery or otherwise work on a piece of wood. Clamps should be strong, hold well and easy to deploy when they are needed.

Since most woodworkers don’t have the financial wherewithal to afford every single clamp out there, we need to take the time to explore the different kinds of clamps that exist and which ones can create the basis of a workable collection. I’m sure that some of you will write me to ask why I didn’t include your favorite.  Just remember, we’re looking at clamp 101 here, so bear with me.  By the way, the awesome folks at Bessey Tools helped me with my research.  Nice folks.

The pipe clamp:  What many people think about when they think clamps. They are exceptionally affordable – you buy the the head assembly and tail piece together, then attach them to a length of iron pipe you can find in any home improvement center. They are perfectly adequate for most clamping purposes, giving a lot of clamping power. You can even use a pipe coupling and attach two lengths of pipe together, making uber-long clamps.  The down side is they are heavy.  Black iron also reacts with water-based glues, staining your wood.

The F-style clamp: Also known as bar clamps, these  have a head that is fixed on one end of the clamp, and a sliding tail piece that allows you to make large adjustments. Once snugged up to the work piece, you apply pressure on the clamp by twisting the handle, extending the bottom screw of the jaw to apply pressure to the work piece. Much lighter than pipe clamps, they are more maneuverable. With their smaller clamp pads, aggressive tightening can leave crushed areas, so either watch how tightly you crank them down or use a caul to help distribute the load.

Aluminum bar clamps: Very similar in appearance to many other kinds of clamps, you’ll be able to recognize these things by their light weight. Made of aluminum rather than iron or steel, these babies are very easy to maneuver and give a great amount of clamping force. They also tend to resist bowing when pressure is applied because the aluminum is drawn into a rigid channel form. The best ones are made from aircraft quality aluminum, and they can cost a bit.

Parallel jaw clamps: These are the big daddies in the clamping world. Bessey’s K-Body clamps were some of the first out there, and they are the type I reach for most of the time. They have an enormous clamping area on both faces, and can be used in several different configurations. While they do cost more than your average pipe or bar clamp, they are solid performers and make clamping a whole lot easier.

Squeeze clamps: These one-handed clamps are as convenient and handy as the day is long.  For most of my small-project glue ups, I reach for these. Also, when I have to attach something like a stop block to my crosscut sled, I reach for these babies.  You can get a decent amount of pressure on them, and they release by tripping some mechanism that releases the clutch on the bar. I have seen these as long as 36 inches, but my collection seems to be mostly in the 6 to 12 inch range.

Spring clamps: Just like large clothes pins, these babies use spring pressure to hold the jaws shut. Again, these are light-pressure clamps and they have limited opening ranges, so don’t count on them for a lot of glue ups, but when you need to hold a molding in place or some other delicate job, they are more than up to the challenge.

Strap or band clamps: Not every project we build has 90 degree corners. Some projects have crazy angles (chairs come to mind)  or are round (or mostly round in the case of something like an octagon). In those cases, it may be tough to get a standard clamp to work right. That’s why these clamps are just so darned handy. Basically, they consist of a nylon strap, some mechanism to take up the slack and tighten the grip, and possible some corner guides.  These corner guides make gluing up miters very easy. You typically won’t use them every day, but you will enjoy the heck out of them when you need them.

Handscrews: An old fashioned tool that still is a heavy hitter in most shops. They consist of two large wooden jaws joined by a pair of threaded screws with handles on the ends.  By adjusting the handles, you can get the hand screws to open to any angle you wish. You can also use these babies to grasp the back end of a long board when the other end is secured in a vise. This way, the board is supported while you edge plane. I have also used them as a holder for small pieces which need to be routed, giving my hands a little more distance for safety.

C Clamps: The old tried and true standby. These babies are made with a c-shaped frames and a threaded post that allows the clamp to be cranked into place. While they may seem small and even cute (a word my wife used to describe the first set I brought home), these clamps are capable of providing tremendous clamping power.  Again, either watch how much force you use when applying them or use a caul to protect your work.

Now, I’m sure that I have missed a bunch of specialty clamps out there… there’s no doubt about that. But, these are the kinds of clamps I rely on for the woodworking in my shop, and you will find many of them being put to use every day.  Hopefully, this is a starting point for you on your clamp acquisition adventure, and that you find it to be a good starting point on your way to having a King’s ransom of clamps … that STILL will never be enough.

Back when I was in middle school, my dad approached me one day. “Son,” he said, “when you go to shop class tomorrow, ask your shop teacher if he has any literature on raised panel doors.”

This struck me as funny because 1) I wondered why Shakespeare or Dickens would be writing about raised panel doors, and 2) How would the guy teaching me how to build a coat rack know how to build raised panel doors? Undeterred, I went to school the next day, worked through the hour long shop class and totally forgot to ask my shop teacher about how to build raised panel doors. Remember, that’s how the 13 year old brain works… I see that from time to time in my oldest son.

What my dad needed was something a little more – uhhh – available to him when he needed the information. Oh, sure, our library had books about woodworking, but its hours were limited, and my dad worked late. No, what he needed was… TA DA… the Internet.

It’s stunning to see how much the Internet has changed things since I first got into the craft back in 1999. Yes, there was an internet back then, and yes, there was information about woodworking on it. Compared to today, why, it was just a drop in the bucket.

If my dad had access to the internet today, he could not only found out about how to make raised panel doors, he could have also learned how to build a TV cabinet, stud a wall or  lay carpet- all tasks we tackled in the basement remodel at our house.

He could have even learned techniques to help his teenage son remember things.

The beauty about being a novice woodworker today is that there are thousands of sites out there, each available to teach you about the craft.  Are you interested in turning? Marquetry? Chair Making? Building kitchen cabinets? It’s all out there on the web.

Point is that it’s never been a better time to be a new woodworker. Your internet connection can put you in touch with tool manufacturers, hardwood suppliers, other woodworkers who want to lend a hand… it’s all out there.  Take advantage of the opportunities and get into the game.

And, to think, you don’t have to rely on a forgetful teen to remember to find information on how to do things.

For those of you who have Twitter accounts… check this out. Tonight at 9 p.m Eastern (that’s 2 a.m. on Thursday in Timbuktu), I’m going to be on WoodChat discussing Get Woodworking Week. If you would like to participate, sign in to your Twitter account, then follow this link to TweetChat. There, you can ask questions about why this week is happening and get further inspiration. Hope to see you there!

The links for Get Woodworking Week keep on coming… and, they are awesome!  Here are a few more…

• The Village Carpenter: Just do it!
• The Renaissance Woodworker: Get Woodworking… NOW!
• Wood Magazine: Beginner techniques
• The Sharpening Blog: Basic Sharpening Notes
• Hardwood to go: Tips for buying lumber for your next project
• Giant Cypress Blog: The Shellac redemption
• Woodcanuck’s Blog: So you want to be a woodworker?
• Wood Chuck’s Workshop: Shellac, this beginner’s favorite finish
• Brownell Furniture: Getting Found Online
• Bucks County Craftsmaster’s Blog: Football is over. So, now what?
• Might as well dance: Woodworking: where to begin?
• The Wood Lab: Don’t let shop ‘shortcomings’ stop you!

My family loves to watch movies. We subscribe to Netflix and get the movies sent to us, or we’ll watch them on the kids’ Play Station. Man, that’s a convenient way to watch movies!

And, while we love to watch movies, getting out to them can be a real trick. I think most of our local theaters now offer easy financing at the snack counter. When they don’t post the price of the popcorn-and-soda snack deals, well – as they say – if you have to ask the price, you probably can’t afford it anyway.

So, when we go out to see a movie, we have to choose our selections carefully. And, there was a stretch back in 2005 when the only good movies out were animated. Hoodwinked was a great one. So was one of the Shrek franchise films. But, the one that we liked the most was Wallace and Gromit and the curse of the Ware-Rabbit. Now, it sounds kinda hokey, but if you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth a watch.

I don’t want to give away the entire plot, but it does involve a giant veggie-stealing rabbit and the hijinks that go along with putting an end to the terror plaguing the contestants in the annual Giant Vegetable competition.

Sometimes in woodworking, we need to look to rabbits as well. Or, is that rabbets? A quality rabbeting bit can be a big time player in your arsenal.

Me, I’m happy to have a big rabbeting bit I picked up from Infinity tools. This baby is a real brute. It has a half-inch shank and a two-inch diameter slug of metal with a full one-inch depth of cut.

Why such a massive bit? Options, my friend. With the rabbeting bearing kit, you can take this massive bit from an 11/16” cut all the way down to a flush trim. Of course, for a very deep rabbet, you’d want to do that in steps as to not get all kinds of tear out. For that, you may want to lower the bit to the proper depth over a few passes, as opposed to changing the size of the bearings.

The one-inch cutting surface is pretty cool as well, making flush cutting easier. And, if you want identical parts for a project, template routing makes it easier to get the accuracy you want.

The thick carbide tips lean forward (positive shear angle) so you get fine wood shavings. Yes, you get shavings, not dust or chips with this bit.

I have found mine to be useful for rabbeting the backs of cabinets to allow for a back to be mounted. And, when paired with a router based tenon cutting jig, you can make mortise and tenon projects easily.

Those are just a few uses for a quality rabbeting bit, and I’m sure once you get some experience using one, you’ll be able to pull a few woodworking rabbits out of your own hat.

When I was looking for a car to replace my old minivan last year, someone at my office suggested that I check out Car and Driver magazine to see what they had to say about my choices. After all, it’s a great resource for all things automotive.

Unfortunately, they also have a bunch of articles and reviews about powerful sports cars. Before long, I was drooling over the muscular exotic beauties. Their sleek styling. Their tremendous power to weight ratios. Their ability to sit in the corners and ride them like they are on rails.

When I did purchase my new car, it wasn’t anything like I had fantasized about and my dreams were thwarted again.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t get to handle the corners. In fact, I have a fast, nimble set of tools that allows me to ride right on the edge of my projects and leave me breathless.  They are my Lee Valley cornering tools.

These little babies are very handy.  Before I had them, I used to do a number of different things to round over the edges of my projects. I would sometimes break out the random orbit sander and do the deed that way. The problem with this method was that I could round some areas more than others – it was difficult to control. Or, I could use hand-held sandpaper, which was great. But, it could take some time to get everything rounded over, and I was back to the troubles I had with the random orbit sander – I could have uneven round overs.

When I really wanted to get everything identical, I would break out my router. But, that was a little bit of a pain in the butt to get everything set up, break out all of my safety gear and dust collection. And, if the piece was small, it was tough to balance the router on it, and I might have to shift to the table-based router. This seemed like overkill.

These babies didn’t cost too much (about $25 for the set) and have tools to create a 1/16″ and a 1/8″ round over. The 1/16″ model is great for just breaking the edge of your projects.  If you want to go for the larger radius, the recommendation is to start with the smaller model then move to the larger.

Their unique look may make you wonder how they are used, but they couldn’t be any easier. There is a groove on the bottom of the curve that registers right on the edge of the board.  These tools cut on both the pull and push strokes, but after getting a few sharp splinters shoved into the tips of my fingers while pushing, I’d recommend that you stick to the pull. A few quick strokes and your edge is perfectly rounded over.

These tools not only cut with the grain, but – when kept sharp – can cut across the grain as well.  As with any other work across end grain, it’s best to work from both sides to the middle to prevent any blow-out on the tool’s exit.

You should also work to read the grain direction of the board you are working on. The cuts are silky-smooth when you pull with the grain, but the tool can raise an ugly splinter when pulling against the grain. Always start with the smaller tool and light passes, adjusting your direction based on performance.

Sure, these cornering tools are specialty tools, but after one try with them, your heart will be pounding as you watch them handle the corners.

I have to confess… I love milling lumber. It’s so cool to peel off a layer of rough wood to see what lies beneath. But I have grown tired of my Delta planer. It’s OK, and it has served me well for years, but its performance has been – how shall I put it – lousy.

It seems to work very well with straight-grained, thick hardwoods. It can plane those all day, leaving a bit of a divot at the rear, but better than satisfactory everywhere else. But, get that wood thin or figured and it’s Katie bar the door. I’ve seen rough board surfaces turn into moonscapes of tear out and snipe marks everywhere. Just awful.

There are plenty of tricks out there about how to reduce this nastiness. Build an extension board. Check. Take very light passes. Check. Moisten the top of the board before planing. Check. Push it through on an angle. Check. And, none of these tips worked. At all.

So, last night, when I got home from work, I decided the time was right to take the plunge. I grabbed up all the Home Depot gift cards I got for the holidays and trucked on down the road to big orange. There, I bought the latest and greatest Ridgid planer – the model  R4330 thickness planer.

Why this model? Well, first of all, I’ve had a lot of success with Ridgid tools – my spindle sander, miter saw and table saw are all nice and orange. This model also has a three blade cutterhead – and, from what I read, that gives a better result than the two blade cutters.  It has the Indicut control, which shows me when the cutterhead assembly contacts the board and how much material I’m taking off. Plus, I can’t get enough of the built-in dust collection. I hate shoveling the shavings after I plane boards with my Delta – they get everywhere.

I had fun loading it into my Corolla, and I hauled it to the shop with some help from my son Dominic. The assembly was very easy, consisting of putting together the dust collection shroud and the height adjustment handle. The fit and finish of the tool was very nice, and I loved the features such as on board tool storage for assembly and blade changes as well as a convenient cord wrap.

Sure, I should have read all of the directions carefully before I began, but DUDE, I needed to try it out!  So, I plugged it in and took some curly maple I had resawn and attempted to plane on the Delta (Boy, was that a bad idea). I figured that the pieces may already be a total loss, so what was there to lose?

I set the cutterhead to where it just kissed the board’s top and turned the motor on. I carefully fed the board through, and it slid right under the knives. OK, maybe a little lower next time. And, I could hear the knives just graze the board’s rough top. Another pass, and more knife contact.  Soon, I was removing the ugliness of the previous night’s attempt, and things were looking good. And, I mean REALLY good.

So good, in fact, that I believe that sanding these curly maple panels would ruin the very nice surface I put on them!  I didn’t think it was possible to get this kind of smoothness straight from the planer, but wow, I was totally impressed. And, yes, that board is 1/4″ thick… with that kind of smooth surface on it.  Unreal.

The planer does fold up into roughly the same sized footprint of the Delta, so stowage shouldn’t be an issue.  With this new planer, I think I can get over my phobias and start looking forward to getting more use out of the tool.

So, yesterday morning, was I ever surprised when Santa Claus came down our chimney and left me a new Pioneer car stereo. Sweet!

This now allows me to play my iPod on the system – heck, it charges the stupid thing, and I can control it from the stereo system faceplate. Or, if I’m feeling lazy in my compact car – use the silly remote control.

While I was sitting in my driveway installing this contraption (no, I had never installed a car stereo before.. this was gong to be fun), I read the directions very carefully to ensure I didn’t have to pull the center console apart a second time (I did). And, while trying to secure the four 10 mm bolts back into the deep recesses which secured the stereo mount, one fell off the socket and fell down behind the center console.  Damnit!  The instructions warned me several times to use magnets to capture the nut and keep it from doing this very thing.

I got the other three installed and was entering my second half hour of fishing for a bolt that I couldn’t see, when it hit me. Why the heck was I looking for it?  I grabbed the mount and shook it. It was rock solid. It didn’t shake. It didn’t shimmy. Nada. I made the command decision to just close up the interior panels I had to remove and get the car back into workable condition.

Why so cavalier?  Well, with me, when I buy a car, I tend to drive the sucker until it falls apart. We got rid of our 2001 Dodge Caravan earlier this year when the odometer clicked over 150,000 miles and the vehicle was preparing to wheeze its last. The Corolla the stereo is in is already five years old, and will probably be handed down to my oldest son when it’s time to go to college in four years.

So, who is ever going to notice this one missing screw?

I bring this up because I do obsess. I obsess about the condition of my tools. I like to leave them as close to the way I purchased them, not making any changes that could identify them as my own. Why on earth do I do this? I have no idea. Maybe it’s because I like to fool myself into thinking the tool is brand spankin’ new. Maybe it’s because I think should the absolute worst happen to me that my wife will be able to see my tools for what they cost me when I bought them.  Maybe it’s because I think I’ll ruin them if I modify them to work better for me.

I remember once when Jim Heavey was teaching a class at a Woodworking Show here in Tampa. He suggested that – perhaps – it would be easier for woodworkers to do a certain task if they scribed the exact mark on the top where the left side of the carbide teeth of a table saw blade would begin to cut. For some attendees, this was a nearly blasphemous statement.  How COULD Jim even suggest that someone defile the surface of his saw by doing something so permanent?

Well, Jim made it clear that when the time came to resell the saw, there was going to be a significant amount of depreciation – regardless of how much money was spent or how much time was lavished on its upkeep. And, that it was very proper – thank you very much – to customize your saw to meet your needs.

Many of you may have gotten tools under the tree yesterday. If you did, good for you! Now, get out there. Work with them. And, if they need to be modified to suit your needs… do so judiciously.

This week, I have to finish a set of pantry doors. I have this Rousseau router plate that holds my Freud FT2000 router. I picked it up about eight years ago.  Those little insert rings have never quite fit right – they have always been too tight. I have been holding off doing anything about this because – you guessed it – I didn’t feel right about ‘customizing’ the plate to meet my needs.

That ends today. If I’m going to get good results on my cope and stick joinery, I’m gonna need a very flat table. So, out comes the 220 grit paper and I’ll be shaving the rings down to size to make them fit.

The sounds of a happy client who got perfectly milled doors? I’m sure that will be music to my ears!