A few years ago, I embarked on one of my most ambitious projects.  It wasn’t just one woodworking piece – it was nine copies of a wine rack plan I had seen in Wood Magazine.  The holidays were just around the corner, and I knew that the wine lovers in the family were just going to love having their very own Tom Iovino creation to rest their fine bottles on.

The one thing I hadn’t counted on was just how many pieces I was going to need to cut in order to make these projects.  Each one had four uprights, four stretcher, four curved bottle holders and two feet.  Add in that each stretcher needed to be tenoned on both ends and each upright had to have two mortises cut to receive each tenon… well, I quite literally had my work cut out for me.

I also knew that I wanted each of these projects to look identical. Well, maybe not identical – I was using different kinds of woods for the project pieces – but similar in shape and form.

Cutting each of these pieces individually was going to be out of the question. I mean, if I  had to set the cuts for each of these components by eye looking at pencil marks, it was going to take a long time to set up for each operation, and there was little to help ensure that the cuts were going to land on exactly the right place.  With the time ticking down  toward the holiday season, I was going to have to work smarter, not harder, to make my deadlines.

That’s when I turned to some tried and true shop short cuts that helped to knock this big job down to size.

The first had to do with the measurements.  Now, I’m sure I could have brought out a steel ruler to mark the depth of the tenons I had to cut, but how was I going to be sure that I hit the right tick mark every time? And, a combination square would work well, but, ya know, if it ever got reset for another measurement, how was I going to remember the exact point I had set it to at the beginning?  No, my friends, I needed to work with a known distance.  That was conveniently provided for me by a set of set-up bars.

These handy little blocks were perfect for setting the depth for my mortising gauge so I could scribe the depth line for the shoulders of the tenon. This way, I could keep coming back to the  correct measurement time and again without having to re-measure.  Pretty convenient.

Another thing I did was to set stop blocks on my miter gauge to establish the width of a set of notches I had to cut. This way, there was no need to eyeball a pencil mark on each piece to ensure the right width of notch.

I was soon using shortcuts like this in other parts of the project. MDF spacers to ensure that glue ups were nice and square.  Templates so I could mark and cut the curves on the pieces, and later pattern rout them to the proper shape. Why, with the proper short cuts, I was nearly invincible!

As near as I could figure, my little short cut tricks saved at least one day in the shop on some very monotonous, repetitive operations, and made the pieces look pretty darned sweet.

And, the proof for me was the sight of so many happy faces when the recipients opened their presents. It just goes to show you that simply taking the right shortcut to completion can make your shop time a whole lot more rewarding.

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And, remember everyone – this Saturday at the Tampa Fairgrounds, we’re having the first ever Modern Woodworkers Association Florida meeting!  Be there or be out of square!

In the past I have written lovingly of my spokeshave. What a great little tool. That thing can sweeten up curves – both inside and outside – with no trouble. It can do a little bit of chamfering work. Heck, a sharp spokeshave is just plain handy to have around.

Note the key word in that last sentence – SHARP. That’s where I – and many other woodworkers – have trouble. You see, the iron on the spokeshave is just so short, it’s not easy to get a good grip on the sucker. I tend to scrape my knuckles against the sharpening medium as much as the blade bevel. And, after working the blade for a while, I tend to cramp up.

What I needed was a way to hold the blade more comfortably while getting a precise honing on the bevel. It may seem like a no-brainer to just put the blade into a sharpening jig and have at it, but there’s a problem with that – most side-gripping jigs can’t get a good purchase on the short spokeshave blade. And, holding the blade at a consistent angle is pretty darned important.

One low-cost solutions I have seen is to tape the spokeshave blade to a larger plane iron using duct tape, and then using that larger surface to get a better grip for either freehand or jig-based sharpening.  It’s a pretty clever way to use what’s at hand, and, if you aren’t using the blade that often, it will certainly work for you.

There are other methods to secure such short blades. For instance, Lee Valley offers a short blade holder that uses magnets and a stop block to secure shorter blade for sharpening.

On my Tormek, a multi-purpose flat tool rest fills the bill for short blades.  It’s a simple matter to adjust the platform on the guide bars to get the right angle, and it creates a solid base to rest the blade on while doing the honing. Quick. Easy. Back to work. Gotta like it.

While sharpening spokeshave blades can be a bit of a hassle, there are definitely opportunities to make the job a lot less onerous. Which, of course, leads to more time at the bench. And, isn’t that what we are all here for anyway?