Simple (Ahem, Better) Sticking Boards

Plus a New Rant on Sharpening Stones

View this email in your browser Our Favorite Sticking Board Plus: Chris Gets Specific About His Favorite Sharpening Stones Read this on the blog The following is excerpted from Matthew Bickford's "Mouldings in Practice." In this book, Bickford shows you how to turn a set of complicated mouldings into a series of predictable rabbets and chamfers that guide your hollow and round planes to make any moulding that has been made in the past or that you can envision for your future projects. The first half of the book is focused on how to make the tools function, including the tools that help the hollow and round planes – such as the plow and the rabbet. Bickford also covers snipes bills and side rounds so you know their role in making mouldings. Once you understand how rabbets and chamfers guide the rounds and chamfers, he shows you how to execute the mouldings for eight very sweet Connecticut River Valley period projects using photos and step-by-step illustrations and instruction. Below is one of the appendices, which shows you how to make a simple sticking board – a must have appliance for the hand-tool shop. A table saw has a fence, a powered jointer has a table, your bench has dogs or a stop. Like any other task in our craft, bracing a piece while working is necessary. The solution is not always obvious. A sticking board is the appliance you will make to hold your work as you create profiles using your planes. A sticking board in its simplest form is a base, a backer board and a stop. I use 1/2″-thick MDF (medium-density fiberboard) with screws set in a few inches from the end for the stops. I add screws on both ends of the sticking board for the times when I need to plane in the opposite direction so the board's grain runs in my favor. I make the sticking board wide enough so that it can be pinched between the dogs on my workbench and puts the work near the front edge of my bench. Most of the force you exert upon the piece with these planes will not simply be downward against your bench. The piece you are working is often angled, so the planes are held at an angle, too. Simply clamping a piece between two bench dogs is not ideal for several reasons. This is one of those reasons. A sticking board gives you a backboard to press against and resists this lateral pressure. The sticking board can be clamped in your bench between dogs and/or held down with holdfasts, screws or numerous other solutions. A firmly held sticking board prevents the workpiece from snapping out of the dogs and you from doing a belly flop across your bench and damaging the plane, iron and the moulding being stuck on your bench. The sticking board will also prevent the clamping pressure of the two dogs from distorting a thin moulding. Because the piece being worked upon is not usually pinned in the sticking board, gauging your progress does not require you to bend down and look for gauge lines, leftover rabbets or flat spots in less-than-ideal light. Simply pick the piece up, rotate it and examine it. Read the Comments & Answers On Our Substack: The 21-year Sharpening Stone Review Our "Never Sponsored" substack is still free for everyone, but that free access will end soon. Some posts will have a paywall. Others will be free. So it's worth getting a free subscription. Today's post delves into Chris' 21-year history with Shapton stones. It could save you hundreds of dollars. Read the full post here About 21 years ago, I was introduced to Shapton sharpening stones. Harrelson Stanley, the owner of JapaneseTools.com, brought the Japanese president of Shapton to the Popular Woodworking office in Cincinnati, Ohio. They had a suitcase filled with Shaptons, which were not yet available in the U.S. Would we like to try them? I spent about 45 minutes working with the different grits, sharpening different steels that I had on hand – high-carbon, A2, M2 and (I think) some odd stainless steel chisels I was testing. That day, the Shaptons blew the doors off any sharpening medium I had tried before. And to this day, the original Shapton stones continue to be my absolute favorite sharpening stones. I love them so much that I have an extra set sealed in plastic and hidden – just in case. Since Shaptons were introduced in the U.S. in 2003, the company has introduced other sharpening stones, including the GlassStones, the RockStar stones, some smaller stones for knives plus a crap ton of accessories. This article is about why you should ignore all other stones out there – even those made by Shapton – and focus all your love on the company's original stones (which are now called the Kuromaku or Ha-No-Kuromaku stones). Read  More Here The Anarchist's Apprentice: Finding a Rhythm On our Anarchist's Apprentice substack: Apprentice Kale Vogt writes about the challenges of finding a way to juggle all the tasks required at Lost Art Press and find the right "rhythm" for creative growth. Plus Megan discusses the tool chest she is building with Kale and tool storage. Read the full story here Follow Us Copyright (C) 2024 Lost Art Press. All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to the Lost Art Press blog. Welcome! We try our best to make this a good experience for both of us... Our mailing address is: Lost Art Press 407 Madison Ave Covington, KY 41011-1519 USA Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe