Paraffin wax has many uses around the shop and can often be found in my tool belt or shop apron. It’s something I often take for granted and rarely thought about until recently when I needed to replenish my stock and could not find it in any of the usual places…
The Hunt for Paraffin Wax:
I tried all the places I’d swear I had seen it before…
My local food stores — Shaws, Hannafords, Market Basket, and Stop and Shop
The big box stores — Target and Walmart. (Walmart even listed it in stock on the website with a product ID but after searching on my own nobody in the store had a clue about it and all claimed people regularly come into the store expecting them to have things the website says are in-stock but nowhere to be found)
Any other place I thought might reasonably have it — Walgreens, Rite-Aid, CVS, True Value
No luck.
The next best idea I had was to try some craft stores. Michael’s and AC Moore didn’t list it on their websites, but Hobby Lobby claimed to carry some but was sold out online. After clearing snow in the evening and feeling a bit of cabin fever I decided to give Hobby Lobby a try in person. After hunting around I finally found some in the candle-making section. Given all my hunting around I bought the last two 1lb blocks of paraffin — likely a lifetime supply for most woodworkers.
The Strategic Paraffin Wax Reserve
My favorite workshop uses for paraffin wax:
Lubricating screws — especially when driven into hard woods or when the screw made of a softer metal like brass it lubricates the threads and makes it easier to drive the screw. It does not affect the screws ability to hold in the wood, and is accomplished quickly by dragging the threads through a block of wax
As part of a workbench and similar shop finish — From Tage Frid and other sources he would dissolve paraffin with turpentine and boiled linseed oil and use it as a durable renewable workbench finish
Sealing metal and tools— by dipping them into melted paraffin
Lubricating planes and saw blades— a quick rub with some paraffin will help your planes and saws glide easily through the wood
Lubricating wood on wood moving parts— such as the tail and shoulder vises in a traditional workbench or on a drawer slide
Waxed Screws In Hard Maple
Tips on working with paraffin:
You can cut up the block of wax into any size chunk you like using a large kitchen knife. I tend to use a block about the size of a hotel bar of soap
Be careful in the summer as it can melt in the sun, so be careful where you store it in warmer weather. I normally have an old Altoids tin in my toolbox to keep it from getting on everything
For making a finish be careful as paraffin is flammable so you’ll want to melt it in a double boiler or slice it very thin or use an old cheese grater to increase the surface area before mixing it with your solvent(s)
Where did all the paraffin wax go?
Paraffin wax is generally a bi-product of the gasoline production industry and is most often used to make candles, seal jars, and as a USDA approved coating for candies and some fruits and vegetables. For folks that used to can their own food they would often seal the jars with paraffin wax (often marketed as ‘Gulf Wax’ in the food store near the Ball Jars — it came in a white box and was cut neatly into 4 bars.) From looking online it seems the USDA has advised against using wax to seal your preserves and canning seems to be less popular in recent years as most food stores no longer stock Ball jars and that sort of thing — replaced by ziploc containers and other modern plastic disposable junk. Without the connection to food, I could see food stores dropping it from their shelves.
I suspect there might be more to the story, so if you have a better theory on why paraffin seems to be a lot harder to find, or have spotted some recently, please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
A good carpenter can be hard to find. Many of us like to think that in earlier times there were was an abundance of exceptional carpenters, but this sort of lament is not a new phenomenon. Check out the interesting except below from the 1850s:
“The Author’s Experience.
These facts and reflections have been impressing themselves upon the mind of the Author of this work for twenty years past, while he has been serving the Public as a practical carpenter. During much of this time it has been his fortune to have large jobs on hand, employing many journeymen mechanics, who claimed to understand their trade, and demanded full wages. But it has been one of the most serious and oppressive of his cares, that these journeymen knew so little of their business.
Few Good Carpenters
They had, by habit, acquired the use of tools, and could perform a job of work after it had been laid out for them; but not more than one man in ten could himself lay out a frame readily and correctly.
Why Apprentices do not Learn
Now, it is not commonly because apprentices are unwilling to learn, or incapable of learning, that this is so, but it is because they have not the adequate instruction to enable them to become master-workmen.”
— William E. Bell ‘Carpentry Made Easy: The Science and Art of Framing’ (1858)
I think Bell’s comments ring as true today as they did when he wrote the above in 1858. I won’t focus on the lazy workmen uninterested in learning, but I will focus on those who want to keep learning new skills. As with many of life’s pursuits, you’ll get out of it what you put into it, and there is much to be learned if you know where to look.
Finding a good carpenter
Most of the best carpenters and woodworkers I know get the majority of their work via word of mouth and are booking months out at a time and thus don’t have to invest much in marketing. If you’re looking to find one of the ‘few good carpenters’, ask around at a local woodworking school, shop, guild, club or friends and family for referrals and interview your next carpenter.
Learning More
One of the best ways to learn a woodworking skill is to take a class or workshop.
I have a few upcoming workshops this spring at the North Bennet Street School (details below) and there are some seats available if you are interested in joining me.
Molding planes
Making Traditional Moldings Using Hand Planes @ The North Bennet Street School
Learn to use traditional molding and joinery planes to produce beautiful traditional molding profiles. Learn the basics of tuning and using these planes. Build a basic sticking board, used to hold the moldings you are making. Layout and execute historic profiles. We discuss the history of traditional moldings, examine planes/profiles students bring (optional) and, if there is time, an introduction to carved moldings.
Shutters Workshop
Introduction To Shutters @ The North Bennet Street School
Learn about traditional wooden shutters in this two-day workshop. Using traditional joinery, students build a sample shutter and learn the skills needed to layout and build shutters for custom projects. Discussion includes interior and exterior uses, fielded panels and louvered styles. Students should be able to plane and square up a board by hand and have some experience laying out and cutting traditional mortise-and-tenon joinery by hand. Some experience with tuned hand tools and power tools is required.
Between Timber Framing and modern Platform Framing was an intermediate style of framing a building called ‘Balloon Framing’.
Figure 1: Balloon Frame 3D Model
This method of framing was radical for its time. Started around the 1830s and steadily gaining in popularity through the end of the 19th century Balloon framing ushered in a new generation of building supplies and builders who benefited from and drove the advent of ever cheaper machine made nails, consistent milled lumber, and more efficient transportation methods (Rail box-cars etc). Beyond the technological advancements in the materials production and transportation this building method caught on quickly as buildings framed in this manner could be built cheaply with non-skilled labor and common nails and tools, thus farmers and do-it-yourselfers could build what they needed with a far shallower learning curve when compared to all the advanced joinery traditional timber framing required. This was invaluable to frontier areas where traditional carpenters and joiners were in short supply.
Figure 2: Bell’s Carpentry Made Easy Plate 4
In the mid-west and plains states in particular you see a lot of balloon framed houses during this period as they had good access to the mills producing these building materials, a desire to quickly build and expand existing buildings and in some areas a dearth of heavy timber needed to build in the older styles. Even in more populated areas back east you’ll see many of the Shingle Style and Victorian homes and Triple-Deckers were framed this way, though certainly some more austere farm houses of this period were also framed in this manner as it was an economical way to build. If you look carefully at some of the design details you can see how tastes and designs changed to make use of the dominant building supplies of the time. You’ll see higher ceiling heights, various bump outs, towers etc that were more easily executed with this style of framing and in keeping with the prevailing styles of the day. (See Figure 3)
Figure 3: Mansard Victorian in Manchester NH
Balloon framing made use of common sized lumber coming from mills — the first real large scale use of 2x4s, 2x8s, 1x10s etc in framing a building and marked a transition from the heavy timbered buildings of the east coast of America and the ‘Old World’ that preceded it. In the earlier part of this period a 2×4 was actually 2″x4″ in some areas as opposed to the ‘nominal’ sizes we have today wherein a 2×4 is 1.5″x3.5″ by the time it makes it to a modern lumberyard, but that is a post for another day. The weight of the building was dispersed across a series of smaller consistent studs as opposed to a few heavy posts. Also notable was the fact that the studs ran from sill to plate, thus requiring the 2nd and 3rd floors to be ‘hung’ from the studs via ledger or ‘ribbon’ boards. (See Figures 2 and 4)
Figure 4: Bell’s Carpentry Made Easy Plate 5
A great period resource for information about Balloon Framing is William Bell’s “Carpentry Made Easy: The Science and Art of Framing”. While Bell was not the first author to extol the virtues of Balloon Framing he may have been one of the most prolific. His ‘Carpentry Made Easy’ book was published continuously from 1858-1904. 46 years is quiet a testament to the information he provided. The book’s longevity is largely due to how the information is provided. Bell starts with a detailed section on basic math and geometry for carpenters and the moves into framing. He covers Balloon Framing for homes and modest sized buildings and moves on to heavy timber framing for industrial buildings, bridges, spires and the like. Bell was a trained carpenter and joiner and speaks the reader in a clear and concise way that was agreeable to most carpenters. Bell goes into technical detail but did so in such a way that any reasonably skilled carpenter could take this information and apply it to the project at hand. His words still resonate well today — in fact using his descriptions I was able to build a detailed 3D model in Sketch-Up based on his instructions for how to build a Balloon Framed structure. (See Figures 1 and 5). I’m sure that many a house carpenter had a dog-eared copy of this book in their toolbox and regularly referred to it over the years.
How fast did this transition happen?
Like most major shifts in an industry the transition from Heavy Timber Framing to Balloon Framing did not happen over night. The word had to get out, it had to be evaluated, the supplies had to be ready and a host of macro-economic pressures had to come together in order to facilitate this change — a strong need to build economical housing for an exploding population etc. Like most things, some isolated or rural areas clung to the old ways for longer periods and some areas were more willing to try out these new techniques. Even cutting over in terms of technique was an evolutionary change. If you look closely at Figure 4 above you’ll see that the house shown there has Balloon Framed walls with a heavy timbered sill, which the author notes as the preferred way to go if heavy timber is available, as opposed to Figure 2 which shows a more traditional balloon framed sill made from 2x framing elements.
In broad terms this building method started in the 1830s, crescendo-ed during the 1880s-1930s giving way to modern Platform Framing which was an evolutionary advancement that built upon the strengths and lessons of this movement. Balloon Framing and it’s relative efficiencies greatly improved the living conditions of many Americans and others of modest means and the burgeoning middle class.
Figure 5: Balloon Frame Cutaway 3D Model To Show Joinery
Why did Balloon Framing disappear? Disadvantages and Demise
With Balloon Framing, you framed an entire wall at once from sill to top plate, thus requiring longer framing members. Once the wall was standing you needed to have ladders and scaffolding in order to ‘hang’ the upper floors from the ledger plates and studs. This required more labor compared to modern platform framing where each level builds upon the lower level, thus requiring less labor, scaffolding and smaller framing members.
In some larger Balloon Framed buildings you’d see some sagging towards central walls due to differential shrinking of the framing members — joists resting on ledger boards will move a different amount when compared to joists nailed into the side of as stud. This kind of differential can add up in a larger building and took time to manifest itself. (See Wikipedia here for a more detailed explanation)
While the above items are negatives for this system of framing the final nail in it’s coffin was how it performs in a fire. The inter-stud wall cavities that run from sill to plate worked like a chimney flue and helped to rapidly spread fire throughout a Balloon Framed building. To counter this, fire blocking can be installed between each floor, but this was labor consuming to install and not quite as good as the fire resistance you’ll see in a Platform Framed building. Even today when filling out an application for homeowners insurance you’ll often see questions related to this kind of framing.
What replaced Balloon Framing?
Around the 1930s the death toll and property loss data was starting to add up and folks looked to rectify the situation. The solution was Platform Framing. In a nutshell you’d build a platform of sill, joists, rim joists and sub-flooring, use this as a platform to build the walls for one floor, you’d tilt up and nail off the walls, then build another platform on top of that until you top out your building. This method required less labor, shorter framing members and by breaking up the wall cavities at each floor provided better fire resistance. After World War II the post war building boom accelerated the need for even more housing and faster build completion times. At this time we started to see the introduction of studs 16″ to accommodate sheet goods (Plywood and later OSB) in regular sizes as a replacement for more labor and material intensive traditional sheathing. And in a similar manner vinyl siting replaced genuine clapboards etc etc until you get to present day building materials and practices.
Conclusion
We don’t often see or hear much about Balloon Framing today as it has fallen out of favor in the building community, but it’s impact can be felt today in any Platform Framed structure that benefited from all the lessons learned by this earlier incarnation of efficient home building. I hope that the next time you are examining the framing of a Balloon Framed structure you’ll take a look and see what lessons it can teach you.
Take care,
-Bill
P.S. If you’d like to read William Bell’s “Carpentry Made Easy: The Science and Art of Framing” (1858) you can get a copy from the Toolemera Press here. It was a great read with interesting sections on timber framing, compound roof joinery, bridge-building, spire making and other interesting building topics above and beyond the Balloon Framing and carpenter’s geometry I mention in this article.
** Plates 4 and 5 of from Bell’s Book are provided via Gary Roberts of the Toolemera Press and used with his permission.
Treenails, Trunnels, Pins and Pegs — all terms used to describe the wooden nail-like fastener used in timber frame construction. I needed to make a large number of them for an upcoming project and thought you might also enjoy seeing what it takes to make these deceptively simple looking pins.
(1) White Oak and Hard Maple stock ripped, thickness planed and jointed
Where did all those names come from?
Like most things that predate modern recorded history I’ve read many conflicting theories on where these terms came from, so what I relay here is based on my own experiences in this field; your mileage may vary. Timber framing dates back thousands of years and can be found in early civilizations around the world in many different forms. What all these structures had in common was the joining of heavy timbers using traditional joinery and large mortise an tenon joints that were pinned together using large wood fasteners.
These fasteners are known by a lot of colloquial names, the most common of which I describe in this post. Most literally treenails (or trenails in some places) is the term for nails made from a tree. Trunnels is derived from the pronunciation of treenails and at times reserved for larger treenails used in very large buildings or ships, sometimes even wedged so they do not back out. Pegs tends to be a more modern term for treenails and pins tends to be used for smaller scale work though many timber framers I know today use it regularly. Having said all this I’ve heard all of these terms used inter-changeably at times by both novices and seasoned professionals, so feel free to use the term(s) that best suit your work and locale.
The bottom line is ‘a pin by any other name will hold your building together just as well.‘ (provided you heed my tips below 😉 )
(2) Stock ripped down into square blanks
How do you go about making these pins?
Traditionally pins were split out of green wood, shaved down with a draw knife and shave horse and allowed to season. Then touched up again when dry. Since I have to make a few hundred of these, being a practical modern joiner I will make use of my table saw and some high quality kiln dried lumber. Most of the stresses in a timber frame are carried by the joints and not the pins, and white oak is very resistant to shearing forces so I am not worried about the wood not being split out for this usage. (I’m building a square rule, late 19th century style frame from milled eastern white pine, so by that point the pins likely were made the same way I go about it)
For the scale of timber framed buildings I generally work on — homes, barns and sheds, I’m usually using a 7/8″ ships auger bit to drill holes for pins. Most tenons I work with are generally 1.5″-2″ thick eastern white pine and based on experience and reference tables I’ve found this size to work well for me.
I learned to timber frame while at NBSS and with that my framing has a proclivity for historic precedents. The historic buildings I work on all had octagoned pegs which worked well for hundreds of years and can be made more easily when compared to the expensive turned pegs you see some modern supply houses offer for upwards of $2 each. For a draw bored joint, I feel the octagon pegs look better and hold better compared to the CNC turned pins. (More on that later)
(3) Making octagons out of the square blanks
1.) I start off by milling down my rough 4/4 white oak stock to be 7/8″ thick, then I joint an edge on each board (See photo 1). I then crosscut each board to be about 30-3/8″ long. (Each of these boards should yield 3 sets of 10″ long pegs)
2.) Next I rip each of those boards into 7/8″ square sticks (See photo 2)
3.) Tilt the blade on your table to 45″ and turn each of those square blanks into an octagon. The use of feather-boards will help you be consistent. (See photo 3)
(4) Chopping several blanks at a time on the chop saw using a stop block
4.) I set a stop block on the chop saw at 10″ and gang chop (cut several at a time) for the sake of efficiency (See photo 4)
(5) 248 Oak Treenails and 166 Hard Maple Try Pins
5.) At this point you’ll quickly see how many pin blanks it takes to make even a modest building. (In this case a 12’x24′ large shed/small barn) (See photo 5)
(6) Using the hewing bench, carpenter’s axe and timber framing chisel to taper the ends of each pin
6.) Now it’s over to the hewing bench to taper the leading ends of the pin blanks. I usually rough off the wood with my capenter’s axe and touch things up with a timber framing chisel. I find it helps to get the cut started with the tool and bang them both (peg and tool) in unison on the hewing bench. The downward momentum drives the tool through the wood with a minimal expenditure of energy — important when you have a few hundred of these to complete.
(7) Completed pins
7.) I usually taper the first 2″ or so of the pin. You do not need to be overly concerned with trying to make the pins look like a sharpened pencil. You just need to knock off the corners to help guide the pin through the draw-bored joint. Anything beyond that is to suit the design aesthetic you are going for. (Some folks will want to cut the ends off a pin in the house, so all the more reason to only do what you need to do with them)
(8) Foreground — 3/4″ Hard Maple Try Pins; Background 7/8″ White Oak Treenails
8.) Sit back and enjoy your work. Take a deep breath and repeat steps 1-7 all over again to make try pins. Try pins are slightly thinner pins used when test fitting your timber frame. I make them from hard maple for two reasons — I can visually differentiate them from the oak and the smooth hard maple is easily removed when the test fitting is complete. For this frame using 7/8″ Oak pins I make the try pins from 3/4″ hard maple stock. They are made the same way as their larger brethren.
Full buckets of pins
Why are they octagons?
By making a 7/8″ octagon pin and driving it into a 7/8″ round hole the corners will bite into the wood and keep the the pin securely seated. (The diagonals across the 7/8″ octagon are slightly longer than 7/8″.) This is why you want to use smaller try-pins during test fitting, this way you are not deforming/stretching the holes before the frame is raised.
Driving in the pegs
Tips for a high quality timber framing pin:
Use kiln dried pins with a green wood frame. Use green pins with a dried frame
I use most often use White Oak pins with green Eastern White Pine frames
I use Hard Maple Try Pins during test fittings (try pins should be 1/8″ smaller than your final pins)
Octagon your pin stock so that it properly bites into the joint
Taper the ends of your pins so they will easily enter the draw bored joints
Don’t stress too much about the tapering
Avoid the machine turned pins — I dislike the look, the cost (~$2 each), holding power, fact that they are not historical etc
Many pegs in a timber frame
Where can I learn more about timber framing?
Join the Timber Framer’s Guild (www.tfguild.org) and read the many good publications they have
Read any of the books by Jack Sobon, Ted Benson or Ed Levin on the topic of Timber Framing
Take a class in timber framing at The North Bennet Street School (with Rich Friberg or me), or at the Heartwood School in Western MA
The next time you are in a barn or timber framed building I hope that you will take a moment to examine the pins holding the joinery together.
After living with my new hewing bench for a few weeks I finally got around to using the other half of the log. I’m glad things worked out this way as I made some modest improvements based on our time together.
Original bench on the right, revised model on the left
The original bench was fairly solid — it could hold me standing on it and didn’t bounce around when I would strike it in a downward motion — but when I’d do something heavy and lateral I could feel what felt like a tiny bit of flex in the the legs.
Turning thicker legs
At the time I ripped down a 2×3 to make the legs roughly sized to the 1″ ship auger bit which was the largest I had on hand, but I worried about the 1-1/8″ legs being too spindly. The mental image of the legs being too spindly haunted me, so for this second time out I decided to rectify that issue.
Removing the bark from the half log
Improvements:
Thicker legs (1-1/2″ square) with a more pronounced shoulders (this way the legs don’t add to any unnecessary wedging/splitting pressure and no matter how much hammering takes place on top of the bench the legs are maxed out in how deep they will go into the top of the bench)
Legs splayed in both directions to be that much more stable
Leveling the legs
Beyond the modest improvements called out above, I otherwise built it the same way as the first hewing bench. (Wedged tenons, wax sealed end grain, leveled legs etc)
Completed benches. They can also work well as a pair of saw horses.
The Verdict:
The new bench is rock solid and will be a workhorse in the shop. The new legs are nice and stiff. Having a pair of these benches in the shop has already come in handy as you’ll see in the next post.
If you’ve watched Roy Underhill on the Woodwright’s Shop with any regularity then no doubt you’ve seen him using a hewing bench. It’s a great little bench made from half a log on 4 modest legs. Roy’s used it for hewing, trimming, holding, sitting and many other common shop uses. It’s a project you can complete in an afternoon and will serve you well for many years in the shop.
Why would anyone really want this rough little bench?
If you do any sort of green woodworking it’s nice to have a place you can quickly hew a blank in the shop with a hatchet or similar small ax. When the ax hits the long grain of the bench it will not dig in the way it would if you were using the end grain of a stump or similar log section. (It also protects the reference surfaces of your real workbench) For tapering the end of treenails, splitting wood or roughing a green turning blank it has been a priceless addition to the workshop. It also makes a nice place to sit when people visit the shop. 😉
How do I make one of these benches?
Like any good Roy anecdote it starts with “First you find a tree….”
Splitting the oak log with metal wedges and a heavy leather faced mallet
In this case I took a 12-15″ wide and 30″ long section of white oak from a large tree I recently felled in my yard. This tree was over 130 years old so the growth rings are nice and tight. Using metal wedges and a large leather faced mallet I use for my timber framing I split the log in half.
Watch to make sure the split runs the way you want down the log
If the wedges alone cannot do the whole job of splitting for you, a froe can help it along.
Log split in half. You can clearly see the heartwood and the sapwood
After letting the slabs sit for a few days, it was time to de-bark the logs. If you don’t have a dedicated de-barking spud you can use any tough metal roughly chisel shaped tool or ax. In this case I used a 16lb post hold digger as shown below.
De-barking the log on the right. A metal post hole digging bar makes a good impromptu barking spud.
Back again in the shop I squared up the edges of the log with a hatchet. Being a green piece of wood this razor sharp ax made quick work of it.
Square up the edges with a hatchet
I flipped the log over and removed any remaining bark.
Remove any remaining bark with the hatchet
Now time for the legs…
Ideally you want to split out some 1.5 inch diameter legs. In my case it was snowing and I didn’t have suitable wood on hand to do that, plus the largest ship auger bit I had on hand was 1″. I ripped down some nice straight grained 2x3s I had on hand to 1 1/4″ by 30″ long. I put them on the lathe and turned down the top 6″ to 1″ diameter. I then used a block plane to chamfer the edges.
Split or rip some leg stock. Drill holes with an auger and set your legs
Using a ship auger bit I bored a through hole into the log to allow the legs to splay a bit in both directions. After you set the first leg you’ll want to visually reference that first leg when drilling the next leg. Repeat this process for all 4 legs. After test fitting you’ll want to cut a kerf in the end of each tenon and re-install the legs. Make sure those kerfs are perpendicular to the grain of the log so you don’t split it with the wedges. Then glue and wedge the tenons. If you have ever built a windsor chair, this is a cruder version of the same process you’d use to fit the legs and level the feet.
Test fit on a level surface like a table saw
With the legs installed I put the bench on a known level surface, in this case my table saw. Using a compass or similar tool mark higher up on the legs and cut them where you marked them. Then chamfer the ends of the feet and you’re almost done.
Mark what you want to remove to reduce the height and level the feet
Next I applied some end grain sealer (from Land Ark/Heritage Finishes) to reduce the likelihood of splitting in my heated shop. I also trimmed off the wedges and tenons.
Seal the end grain to reduce checking
Now the bench is read for use in the shop. This bench, with it’s delicate looking legs, can hold me standing on it, so it should have no problem handling my in shop hewing needs.
Trim the leg stumps and the wedges
Shown here is a Gransfors Bruks hand made Swedish ax. This carpenter’s hatchet is my goto ax for small trimming work and is sharpened to the point of being able to shave with it. The poll (the other business end) of this ax is hardened and can be used like a hammer. The handle is carefully tapered to fit in the hand and without looking you know when your hand is at the end of the handle. The notch under the bit allows you to use this ax much like a large chisel or plane and can yield impressive results. I used this to quickly level bits of the bench surface.
Enjoy your new hewing bench
For short cash, a few tools and an afternoon in the shop this project is well worth the effort.
As a preservation carpenter and joiner my work regularly requires me to work work with a wide variety of cut nails. A lot of recent woodworking publications focus on cut nails appropriate for cabinetmaking and smaller projects, but that barely scratches the surface of what was still available if you know what you want and where to look.
From small projects requiring a few nails…
Brooklyn Tool and Craft bags of cut nails
To larger jobs needing them in bulk…
Decorative wrought head cut nails used for wide pine flooring
You can still get cut nails, even galvanized steel cut nails from Tremont, the oldest remaining and most prolific cut nail maker that is still around.
Why do I want to use cut nails?
Cut nails offer several advantages over modern wire nails:
The chisel shape of the end of a cut nail helps to severe fibers as it is driven into the wood as opposed to wire nails that compress the wood around it
The wedge shaped profile and sharp edges that result from how the nail is made help the nail hold better when compared to wire nails
The distinctive square head, or decorative wrought head can be quite pleasing to the eye on new and old projects
Cut nails with the wrought head can be a cost effective alternative to blacksmith wrought nails for larger or less historic projects
Cut clinch nails can be clinched (bent over onto itself) which makes them a very effective fastener much like a large staple
For preservation or reproduction work it is important to get the small details right — including use of the correct period appropriate fasteners
Tremont Nail Display Board
All that sounds well and good, but is it worth the extra time and expense to track down these sometimes hard to find nails?
I’d say it’s hard to argue with good results, so let’s take a look at some common uses for cut nails. From simple traditional boxes and drawers…
Chisel box with cut nails
To high style door pediments and architectural details..
Cut nails in a traditional door pediment
To clinched nails in a reproduction door on an historic home…
Clinched cut nails in a period door reproduction
To siding and trim details…
Cut nails in exterior siding and trim
The cut nails add to the visual authenticity and given their superior holding abilities will also increase the longevity of the work.
Tips on working with cut nails:
Make sure the chisel end of the cut nail is set in across the grain thus severing it and not acting like a wedge
Start off slow with a couple of light taps before driving the nail home with harder hammer blows
If working near the end of a floor board or using a large spike consider pre-drilling a whole that is slightly smaller than the nail to prevent splitting
If using the nails on an exterior application consider buying galvanized cut nails. If your local supplier does not offer that, you can send the nails out to have them hot dipped for a reasonable price. This will help the nails survive the elements and require less maintenance.
More cut nails in exterior siding and trim
Gallery of the 20+ Cut Nail Types still available (If you are viewing this in email, you’ll need to click over to the blog to see this gallery properly displayed):
Spike (Largest cut nails)
Headless Foundry Cut Nail
Sheathing Cut Nail
Firedoor Clinch Cut Nail
Floor Cut Nail
Headless Brad Cut Nail
Clinch (Rosehead) Cut Nail
Decorative Wrought Head Cut Nail
Common Siding
Masonry Cut Nail
Brad Cut Nail
Fine Finish
Shingle Cut Nail
Box Cut Nail
Clout Cut Nail
Common Cut Nail
Slating Cut Nail
Boat Cut Nail
Common Rosehead Cut Nail
Hinge Cut Nail
Where can I find these cut nails?
If I need a small number of cut nails I usually order from Tools For Working Wood as they sell 1/8lb bags which are secured shut with another cut nail (Labeled as Brooklyn Tool and Craft I believe they are repackaged Tremont nails)
If I need a large number of cut nails I usually order direct from Tremont Nail (A company in MA with over 190 years of cut nail making experience)They offer, 1lb, 5lb, 50lb and custom larger size (think nail casks) orders
The Tremont Nail wood board with sample nails is available for purchase from Tremont — it’s a great addition to any shop and allow folks to examine each of the above described nail types in person. I have one in my shop and have found it to be a nice visual aid in my teaching.
I hope to see more folks using cut nails on their projects.
A good pair of winding lath or winding sticks is sometimes hard to find — I suspect not many survived the burn pile. The good news is that a new set is easily made in an few minutes at the bench.
Sighting down a board with winding sticks — (This set was made by my friend Bill Anderson of Edwards Mountain Woodworking)
Why would I want a pair of ‘Winding Sticks’? What do they do?
This pair of matching straight-edges are a fast and invaluable tool that allows you to quickly see if a board is flat.
By placing them at each end of a board, sighting down across the near stick and looking at the far one, you can more easily see any twisting or warping in the board. The sticks help accentuate any non-planer surfaces.
By moving one stick and sighting the board at a few locations along its length, you will quickly see how the board flows.
Using a single stick you can also check for any cupping or warping as you would with any other straightedge.
Once you identify parts of the board that need to be addressed, you can quickly plane them and re-evaluate the board using these sticks. (After a bit of practice, process goes quite fast)
Winding Lath by Otto Salomon in the ‘Teacher’s Handbook of Sloyd’ — a great prototype for your own winding sticks
From Otto Salomon’s ‘Teacher’s Handbook of Sloyd’ above you can read a nice description for how to use winding laths efficiently. The pair of wooden Sloyd winding laths shown above nest with each other via a set of fitted wooden pins and have a nice relief one the edge of the short sides so you can easily get a finger hold in there and separate the sticks when you want to use them. Otto also calls out an interesting alternative you can use in a pinch — by turning two try-planes on their side you can use them as an impromptu set of winding sticks and sight across them.
Sighting down two bench planes as impromptu winding sticks
Tips on making your own winding sticks:
Use quarter-sawn hardwood like hard maple or beech
Consider adding a contrasting inlay or strip to make it easier to sight across the sticks
I like to use sticks that are 1/2″ thick, about 2″ wide and about 18-24″ long
Sticks that can nest with each other or otherwise stay together are more likely to survive
Taper each stick on one side so that it’s clear what edge is the top (it will not stand on its own on the edge you plane down to 1/8″)
If your sticks ever get out of true they are easily squared up again with a plane
The next time you are out in the shop, make a quick set of winding sticks and see how much it can improve your board flattening efficiency.
-Bill
P.S. If you don’t have the the time or scrap to make your own set from wood, and don’t have 2 jack or try planes handy, you need to have a stern talking to, but there are commercially available winding sticks available from Lee Valley and others. I admit that I do have a pair of the Lee Valley aluminum winding sticks which I bought when I first got started in hand tool woodworking. They are well machined and the design hits all the major tips called out above — with the exception of being made of wood of course.
Nesting metal winding sticks from Lee Valley
Much like the shop made winding sticks, these aluminum sticks work well and need virtually no maintenance.
Metal Winding Sticks in Use
P.P.S — This is an extended version of a post I put together for my friends at Popular Woodworking on the contributor’s blog which can be found here.
When working with reclaimed wood you generally want to be extra cautious — you never know what you are going to find in the wood. Normally I visually inspect the wood, remove anything glaring (bits of old nails, stones, loose knots etc), then make a pass with a lumber wizard metal detector, remove what it finds and start working my way through the wood. Every so often something makes it through that system….
Tiny Tack
Above and below is a VERY tiny tack was embedded deep into an old barn board I was reclaiming. It must have been fairly deep into the board as the metal detector didn’t find it, but it sure found my planer knife.
Very Tiny Tack on End
But such is the price we sometimes have to pay in order to work with old growth timbers. On an 8-10″ wide board I was counting well over 150 years of growth rings and this pine often handles like hardwood.
Laying out the boards to even out the texture and grain profile.
For projects like this rustic headboard the trick is to stop milling before you lose all the history and character of the old wood.
Texture detail
But in the end the extra effort is worth with for the results cannot be duplicated with modern woods and simulated aging techniques.
Finished Headboard
You can see a bit more of this project on an earlier post I made here.
When last we left our plane-making heroes they were in the process of making a traditional single iron jointer plane with my friend Bill Anderson at the Woodwright’s School.
Bill demonstrating with a great bench plane cross section model
Bill had a great cross section model of how this sort of bench plane works — made by one of his students. With the body of the plane taking shape, next up was tuning the mouth opening and the abutments. If the mouth is too wide or too large the plane may not cut cleanly so you need to carefully fit the iron to the opening. If the abutment is not carefully placed when you re-flatten the sole of the plane you’d also be opening the mouth more. You also need to take care flatten the face of the bed that supports the iron — if there are high points the iron can pivot on those and make it tough to use the plane. One of the many testing/fitting gauges Bill had was a ‘bed testing gauge’ which looks and works much like a pair of ‘pants’ we use in timber framing to test out the thickness of a tenon, except in this case you are using it to check the thickness of the cheeks and how close your bedline is getting to the line scribed on the side the plane body.
Planing the wedge
With the mouth and throat all set, next up was making the wedge to hold the iron in place. The wedge needs to be carefully planed to fit the abutments inside of your plane and tightly hold the iron in place. Again here you are using an abutment gauge (wooden wedge of a known profile in degrees) to test your work as you go. With all the gauges and specialized tools you can quickly see why plane-making was its own dedicated craft specialty.
Shaped and fitted wedge
The wedge is further relieved so that the shavings can clearly escape the plane body.
Templates, bed gauges blocks and pants
Above you can see some of the many gauges used in laying out and testing parts of your plane, along with templates for the handles.
Starting to shape the handle
The handle is first cut out from a rough blank and then carefully shaped by hand to have flowing, graceful lines similar to that of a quality hand saw. The result is a handle that fits the hand so well it, the whole plane feels like an extension of your body.
Auriou rasps used to shape the handle — they were a pleasure to use
Various rasps, files and sandpaper are used to shape the handle. Using crisp hand stitched Auriou rasps made quick work of shaping the handles.
Finished handle
Above is the handle after a bit of light sanding.
A finished Jointer Plane
Shown here you can see Bill’s finished/sample plane which is based on an historical example. I’ll post the final shots of my own plane when I finish it soon in my shop.
Rear 3/4 view of the completed sample plane
At the end of the workshop one of the most important tasks was to make sure you plane can take a nice shaving. I’m happy to report that I was able to get a nice full width shaving with my mostly completed plane. (I need to finish setting the handle, trim the edges, apply some finish and use my maker’s name stamp and it will be ready for regular use in the shop).
Making the first shaving with a new plane…
In an upcoming post I will complete this series with how I finished off the plane. Stay tuned…
In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about Bill Anderson or take a class with him, and I highly encourage you to do so, please check out his website here.
-Bill
P.S. You can see the first post on making this jointer plane here.
A Joiner's Guide To Traditional Woodworking and Preservation
Rainford Restorations 