Have a look at this Jacob!

[G S Haydon]

You can check up on what I have been doing on my website, http://www.markwhitefurniturecabinetmaker.com
GS Haydon, just checked out your blog, nice workbench, I like your vids and black and white photography. I have added you to my blog list.

Did likewise Mark, great stuf. Seems like you cover a wide brief as we do which is fun and frustrating in equal measure! I poped an FB like on there too. Thanks for the kind words. My vids I'm trying to improve on, if I can get them better they should compliment the blog nicely. I'm a bit limited due to my camera for both video ans still being a mobile phone!

 

[G S Haydon]

Jacob the stairs are looking great. The concept of somewhere to live up top and workshop below is frankly awesome. I'd never get that past my better half! Stairs can be great fun and they do push the boundaries, once you leave straight flighs with turns and enter the world of the elipse it really does melt the brain (mine anyway).

 

[mark w]

Thanks Graham, your videos already look good to me and I think you are brave doing it, never catch me doing that.
I would like to make furniture and nothing else, but I haven`t got the customer base for that, kitchens are still my bread and butter work, not complaining it pays the bills.

 

[yetloh]

I found this thread because I have a Drawsharp and was idly looking for a UK review of it and there doesn't seem to be one, based on my limited Google search. I got about half way through the thread and almost lost the will to live (ignoring Jacob's posts and the replies helped a bit) and I was relieved and satisfied to see David Charleswoth joining in with a comment about it being a pretty pathetic thread.

Anyway, given that, unless I missed it, no one who posted from the UK seemed to have handled, let alone used, one I thought some first hand knowledge might supply a useful postscript. I bought it because I was in the process of making four dining chairs to a very organic design - all curves, varying sections, no straight lines and very few reference points - which involved a huge amount of drawknife work. My starting point was that I had barely used a drawknife before and I must say that, though expensive, the Drawsharp is an excellent piece of kit which gives an excellent edge very quickly and with complete reliabilty. If I have a criticism it is that the two grades of abrasive provided don't go fine enough, but the device has four potential sharpening faces on each of the two posts so that is easily remedied with some 3M self adhesive abrasive.

Do I feel guilty about not having taken the trouble to teach myself to sharpen a drawknife entirely freehand on an old dished oilstone? Not a bit. I was taught furniture making by a very wise man who has spent a lifetime making wonderful furniture and uses honing guides, for pretty much all his sharpening (not David C). If you like the repeatability of honing guides and have a lot of drawknife work to do you won't be disapppointed if you splash out for a Drawsharp. Hardly a surprising conclusion when Brian Boggs likes them, I know, but I speak as an amateur who sets himself very high standards even if I don't always achieve them.

Jim

 

[El Barto]

Hi Jim, I also found this thread a little while ago and grew tired of it pretty quickly. But thanks for posting your thoughts on the Drawsharp. I’ve been curious about it for a while but at the moment I’m getting by ok with using diamond stones (should I be using a dished oilstone? I don’t want to upset the sharpening council).

I read a Chris Schwarz review of it that was along the lines of it makes life easier, gives you repeatable results and means you spend less time trying to get a decent edge and more time actually using the drawknife. Sounds pretty good to me!!!! I really dislike this holier than thou approach taken by some when it comes to using jigs and the like. It’s pointless and counter productive. Not to mention that Peter Galbert is undoubtedly a finer chairmaker than all of the oafs decrying his jig put together. Go figure.

Thanks again.

 

[D_W]

Not to pick at your post, but there is a notion that you can only get repeatable results with a guide or gadget. I measured my irons last year to see what the effective final angle was (on common pitch bench planes) and found that they were all within about one degree of each other.

I am about to make and put up a video about preparing chisels. Quite often, I see people troubling with chisel preparation for two reasons:
1) they're told that it's going to be difficult and that the only way to avoid that is to buy new premium chisels
2) they're using the wrong tools because they've been advised by someone who told them point 1 above.

Sharpening a draw knife that's in good shape is a bit easier to do freehand than it is with a gadget. Maybe not the first time, but certainly the fifth. If you are going to do something like this with any frequency, you will have a net loss of time (not to mention money) with the gadgets. This thread is old, so I don't remember what I said, but it's probably something along the lines of supplying tools to a captive audience and that audience being one that demands first-shot success, as well as the instructor wanting the same thing (so that the captive audience doesn't make them spend time instructing them on sharpening - which is certainly not a paid-for endeavor for the instructor).

I prepared three sets of sorby chisels this weekend, all brand new and all had some minor flaws. It took less than an hour for all three sets from complete flattening to finish honing. The total cost of the sharpening kit that I used was about $70, which includes the stone, some glass, some PSA paper, etc. The video will be findable on youtube in a day or two.

As far as boggs' comments, etc, you can't really rely on them. He can only say one thing about a tool like this, and in his demonstration of his own sharpening, no such thing is used. He's in the community of boutique instructors, and it's sort of like a fraternity or fraternal club. I have been admonished several times by members of it who believe that you can only say positive things about instructors' or tool makers' efforts.

That said, if you enjoy the gadget and have good success with it and never want for more, it's not my business or anyone else's. Your opinion conflicting with mine doesn't make me fear the end of the world, and I don't think you should take anyone else's so seriously.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I thought some first hand knowledge might supply a useful postscript. I bought it because I was in the process of making four dining chairs to a very organic design - all curves, varying sections, no straight lines and very few reference points - which involved a huge amount of drawknife work.

Setting aside how you sharpen your drawknife, I'd very much like to see your chairs...

 

[StraightOffTheArk]

Well, I may be a completely rubbish furniture maker, but... at least I am holier than thou!! (hammer) :lol:

I am, as Jimi Hendrix said in his well-known paean to freehand sharpening, Stone Free!! (Or does that mean I should be using diamond plates on the soles of my shoes?)

Seriously though, it is the lack of common courtesy so generally prevalent on the internet that gets me down - obviously I'm right and it's all the other idiots that are wrong - I'll just say it more politely!

Carl

 

[El Barto]

I thought some first hand knowledge might supply a useful postscript. I bought it because I was in the process of making four dining chairs to a very organic design - all curves, varying sections, no straight lines and very few reference points - which involved a huge amount of drawknife work.

Setting aside how you sharpen your drawknife, I'd very much like to see your chairs...

Me too!

 

[Jacob]

...... I really dislike this holier than thou approach taken by some when it comes to using jigs and the like. ......

It's not "holier than thou" its more "cheaper and easier than what the snake-oil and gadget salesmen would sell you"; i.e. just trying to be helpful!

 

[El Barto]

...... I really dislike this holier than thou approach taken by some when it comes to using jigs and the like. ......

It's not "holier than thou" its more "cheaper and easier than what the snake-oil and gadget salesmen would sell you"; i.e. just trying to be helpful!

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[yetloh]

For those who expresed an interets in my cdining chairs here are some pics

They are steam bent undried laminated ash - 3 plies for the legs and rear seat rail, two for everything else except front seat rail which is solid. Plies are cut from consecutive bandsawn boards for grain continuity. Plies were glued after cooling with Purbond, a Swiss clear PU glue with an open time of 50 minutes. The leg to rear seat rail joints are big loose tenons. The front leg to back leg joint - I call it the knee joint - is reinforced with two side-by-side Dominos, further strengthened by walnut veneered ply splines let into grooves in both legs. This has resulted in massively strong joints at the rear seat rail and knees which sre further secured by 5mm ash dowels through the loose tenons, Dominos and splines installed after assembly. All other joints are Dominos.

These pics are of the first chair, but all are different. Two have the crest rail sloping l to r and two r to l. Within those pairs one has three back slats and one has four. The whole design is tree inspired so the slats taper bottom to top and the longer ones are wider as taller trees have thicker trunks. By far the hardest part of the build was bringing in all six or eight slat to rail joints tight at the same time because of the lack of reference points and the absence of parallel faces. Slats were cut overlength and then brought in gradually using multiple biased cuts with a block plane. The four slat chairs were an order of magnitude harder than those with three!

Initial shaping was on the bandsaw (the back legs start out 3" wide) followed by, drawknife work, spokeshaves and abrasives. Quite a lot of the finer shaping and blending of joints was done after assembly.

The four chairs took four years very much part-time work. They are designed to fit around a circular table to a similarly tree inspired design. They are all comfortable but some a little more than others as a result of small variations in rearward slope. I could correct this by adjusting the length of the rear legs but I doubt it will happen because they and the table are now with the non-paying client (my daughter) 120 miles away.

Hope you like them.

Jim

 

[memzey]

Awesome work Jim! Very inspiring I must say.

Cracking thread as well! I’d not seen it before and read it all from beginning to end. Folks with equally strong yet differing convictions expressing them freely - that’s what public fora like this are for IMHO. Shame some contributions were a bit tetchy and personal but then again, as long as no one has wafer thin skin, you might say they just added a sprinkling of salty drama. Well done all. When’s the next sharpening war? I can hardly wait

 

[StraightOffTheArk]

Thanks for posting the pictures and details - truly inspiring work, and frankly, when you're producing work of such high quality, it shows the irrelevance of the whole sharpening debate. If I thought that buying a couple of sharpening jigs would enable me to produce work of that standard, I'd be first in the queue!

Carl

 

[Trafalgar]

For those who expresed an interets in my cdining chairs here are some pics





They are steam bent undried laminated ash - 3 plies for the legs and rear seat rail, two for everything else except front seat rail which is solid. Plies are cut from consecutive bandsawn boards for grain continuity. Plies were glued after cooling with Purbond, a Swiss clear PU glue with an open time of 50 minutes. The leg to rear seat rail joints are big loose tenons. The front leg to back leg joint - I call it the knee joint - is reinforced with two side-by-side Dominos, further strengthened by walnut veneered ply splines let into grooves in both legs. This has resulted in massively strong joints at the rear seat rail and knees which sre further secured by 5mm ash dowels through the loose tenons, Dominos and splines installed after assembly. All other joints are Dominos.

These pics are of the first chair, but all are different. Two have the crest rail sloping l to r and two r to l. Within those pairs one has three back slats and one has four. The whole design is tree inspired so the slats taper bottom to top and the longer ones are wider as taller trees have thicker trunks. By far the hardest part of the build was bringing in all six or eight slat to rail joints tight at the same time because of the lack of reference points and the absence of parallel faces. Slats were cut overlength and then brought in gradually using multiple biased cuts with a block plane. The four slat chairs were an order of magnitude harder than those with three!

Initial shaping was on the bandsaw (the back legs start out 3" wide) followed by, drawknife work, spokeshaves and abrasives. Quite a lot of the finer shaping and blending of joints was done after assembly.

The four chairs took four years very much part-time work. They are designed to fit around a circular table to a similarly tree inspired design. They are all comfortable but some a little more than others as a result of small variations in rearward slope. I could correct this by adjusting the length of the rear legs but I doubt it will happen because they and the table are now with the non-paying client (my daughter) 120 miles away.

Hope you like them.

Jim

Beautiful. Reminds me of something Robert Whitley might make.

http://www.whitleystudio.com/Gallery/Ga ... table.html

 

[Sheffield Tony]

Well I'm glad I asked, well worth a look those chairs Jim ! Very unique.

These pics are of the first chair, but all are different.

Excellent plan. If you had said they were all identical, I would have found it harder to believe. How could get chairs with steam bent components to be the same is beyond me, and it would be a mistake - last thing you want is for them to start looking mass produced !

Your daughter did very well, I reckon.

 

[Jacob]

Interesting chairs. Organic shapes - you can grow your own: https://fullgrown.co.uk/

 

[Rorschach]

Amazing work there!

 

[yetloh]

Thank you all for the kind words everyone; they are very much appreciated

A coulpe of specific responses. Thanks for the link to Robert Whitley, Charles. I hadn't come across his work before - there are some really good pieces there. It is often said that there is nothing truly new in furniture design and, of course, we all have our influences. When I sat down to design the chairs my biggest influence was the table I had already made but thinking about it subsequently I can see something of John Makepeace's work and also David Savage https://www.finefurnituremaker.com/bespoke-furniture/, and I must give a nod to Sam Maloof.

Tony, apart from the thickness of the sections (30-35mm) required to get enough meat at the main joints, one oof the reasons for going with steamed laminations was that it is possible to get much more consistent blanks, and fewer failures using this method than with solid steaming.. This is a big consideration in a design like this where the ends of the bent sections are not constrained as in a Windsor chair. The table was made with solid steam bending and I had to make eight legs to get four that were consistent enough to support a level table top.

Jim