SAPFM Members
in the News
Tony Kubalak's bombé chest is featured in the Reader's Gallery section of the April 2010 issue of Fine Woodworking.
Dennis Chilcote's Shaker-inspsired basket appears in the Reader's Gallery section of the April 2010 issue of Fine Woodworking.
In the April 2010 issue of Fine Woodworking, Jeff Headley describes how he makes and installs fluted quarter columns.
In the February 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking, George Walker begins the first of a series of columns on furniture design.
In the February 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking, Jim Crammond demonstrates how to make a cam-style marking gauge.
Don Williams is currently collaborating with a team of experts that will re-translate and release two volumes of André Roubo's L'Art du Menuisier. The first volume will be released in 2011 by Lost Art Press.
A sea chest made by Doug Mooberry of Kinloch Woodworking is featured on the back cover of the February 2010 issue of Fine Woodworking . Doug describes how he carved the nautical motif of the top of the chest in the How They Did It column.
The January 2010 issue of Woodshop News has a feature on the 10th Anniversary of Bob Van Dyke's Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking.
A bombé chest made by Kinloch Woodworking garnered an award in Custom Woodworking Business' Design Portfolio 2010 and is featured in the magazine's December 2009 issue.
Lance Patterson has been featured in an article in the Winter 2010 Woodwork Magazine. Lance is an instructor at NBSS.
Charles Bender writes about secret drawers and hidden compartments in the November 2009 issue of Popular Woodworking.
Charles Murray demonstrates how to make custom totes and knobs for bench planes in the November 2009 issue of Popular Woodworking.
In a three-part article in Fine Woodworking #207, #208, and #210, Bob Van Dyke shows how to select and match lumber, and then prepare it for glue-up for a table top.
Alf Sharp discussed the tools and methods for shaping wood by hand in Fine Woodworking issue #208.
Don McConnell of Clark & Williams has released a DVD on making moulding with traditional wooden moulding planes. Traditional Molding Techniques: Cornice Moldings is available at Lie-Nielsen ToolWorks.
George Walker hosts a new DVD, Unlocking the Secrets of Traditional Design, available at Lie-Nielsen ToolWorks. Read a review of this DVD.
Professional woodcarver Fred Wilbur has recently published his third book on woodcarving. Read Mark Arnold's review of Decorative Woodcarving: Accessories for the Home. To order a copy of the book, visit Fred's web site.
Kerry Pierce's Tips for
Buying Molding Planes
1. Hollows and rounds are the most common molding planes on the antique market and the most useful. A modest collection of these planes can be used to create complicated shapes if you don’t have the specific complex molder you need. They can also be used to remove the waste before finishing up with a complex molder that you do have. This was common practice in the 19th century for craftsmen sticking wide moldings.
2. Side beads and center beads are also quite common, and they’re also quite useful. I use side beads around the openings on glass doors and on the corners of country-style cabinets. I have also used one to round the edge of cock beads (before the cock bead is ripped from a board.) Center beads are often found with two large holes passing through their bodies so that a fence from a plow plane could be installed. This allowed a craftsman to create a bead—quirked on both sides—that was placed a consistent distance from the edge of a board.
3. Complex molders are those that include two or more elements. Narrower complex profiles will likely be of more use to furniture makers than the wider complex profiles, which were intended to create more massive architectural moldings.
4. A molding plane must have a reasonably straight sole. I have straightened the soles of a couple of bowed molders with a bench plane and some hollows and rounds, but it’s hard work, and the process alters the original profile, requiring that the iron be re-shaped.
5. The profile of the sole and the profile of the iron’s cutting edge should match. It is possible to reshape a mismatched iron, but it’s fussy work.
6. Boxing—the inlaid strips of boxwood on the sole’s wear points—should be present, although loose boxing isn’t much of a problem because it’s easy to re-glue the boxing into place.
7. When the back edge of the iron is tight against the back side of the throat, the iron and sole profiles should match. Sometimes on molders that have seen hard use, the back edge of the throat is so worn that the iron must be shimmed to keep it in its side-to-side position.
8. When you buy molding planes, don’t buy what you need. But what you like. You’ll learn to need the ones you have if they spend enough time in your shop. -Kerry Pierce
