Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event: Indianapolis

Angie and Alex (back turned) of Lie-Nielsen setting up.

Well, as usual we had a great time last weekend at the Indianapolis Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event. We're always happy to meet new people. But were mostly grateful to the L-N team for hosting these events. These are real grass roots type shows with no pressure but lots of potential for learning and talking woodworking and tools.

Every show we've been to has been a positive experience and we look forward to many years of doing these if possible. The turn out at this show wasn't as large as some we've been to but then again Indianapolis was the smallest metro area by a long shot we've attended. That doesn't mean it wasn't as much fun or as beneficial as the others though.


Crowded house.


Andrew Lunn of Eccentric Toolworks. He's telling this potential customer how he likes to be called Andy but no one will listen.


Thin crosscut competition. Chris Schwarz, Megan Fitzpatrick, Andy Lunn, Joshua VanderPlaats, John Hoffman & John Abraham.


Kevin Glen-Drake of Glen-Drake Toolworks.

Benchcrafted in Indiana

Next weekend we're joining Lie-Nielsen for one of their Hand Tool Events in Indianapolis. Details can be found at the Lie-Nielsen website. Click this link for times and address.

There are some great presenters at this particular event. We've had the pleasure of spending time with the following folks.

Chris Schwarz, in addition to being editor of two of the best woodworking magazines in print, is also extremely well-versed in the foundations of hand-tool woodworking. Crowds always gather around Chris at these events, not only because of his knowledge, but also because he's a great teacher and just plain fun to watch. His enthusiasm will get in your veins.

George Walker specializes in furniture design. The interesting thing about Walker is that he won't show you how to design in a particular style, although he can do that. George shows you how every piece of good furniture is based on the classical Greek orders. His video produced by Lie-Nielsen is fascinating. I highly recommend it.

Kevin Glen-Drake. Kevin has a great article in the November issue of Popular Woodworking magazine. He's an authority on woodturning and he also makes the best wheel marking gauge on the market, right here in the U.S. of A. We first met Kevin at Woodworking in America last year.

Eccentric Toolworks. Check out Andrew Lunn's incredible handsaws. Ever wished you could get the thin-kerf performance of a Japanese saw in a western saw format? I have a Lunn saw on order.

Folks from the Marc Adams school will also be present. Marc Adams is the largest woodworking school in the country, and located just south of Indianapolis.

For more info see Chris Schwarz's blog post here and here.

Unfortunately, we sold out of Skrapers at Woodworking in America. But we will have one to try in Indianapolis, and we will be taking orders.

We'll also have a sign-up sheet for our new bench plans, featuring both of our vises. The plans are done, and should be available very soon.

We'll be bringing our travel bench outfitted with three Benchcrafted vises for folks to try. We'll also be bringing our backup travel bench, pictured above.

WIA Philadelphia Wrap-up

The Benchcrafted crew has returned after a whirlwind tour of Pennsylvania! 6 days and 2350 miles later we're beat, but happy. We have to say that the show was rewarding in multiple ways. As usual, we were fortunate to see many old friends and also make some new ones. Just a short journal here to document some of the happenings.

We started out from Eastern Iowa mid-morning Tuesday September 29th. Our first hurdle was loading our 15 passenger van. It was a daunting task to load everything, most notably our 8 ft. 500 lb. Ash Roubo with dual Glides. What a bear! We also brought our 6 ft. Travel Roubo, various display tables and other accouterments. It was a load. Finally we put about 12 lbs. of chips and nuts in to accompany the beer (this we put in a VERY accessible location, after all we'd be picking up Bob Zajicek the next day). We drove 7.5 hours to Toledo, OH the first day without a hitch.

The next day, Wednesday, we drove approximately 10 hours to arrive at the Philadelphia airport in time to pick up Ron Brese of Brese Planes and Bob Zajicek of Czeck Edge, our partners in crime. We packed em' in and headed for the Valley Forge Convention Center. The hotel was nice, but doubly so because we scored the rooms at the venue for half the going rate thanks to Hotwire. It also afforded us the convenience of being able to attend the show each day without driving anywhere. It's hard to beat staying at the venue.

Thursday morning we were the first ones on the show floor to set up. We knew ahead of time that Andrew Lunn of Eccentric Toolworks was right next to our double wide booth. Luckily Andrew wasn't there yet which opened an opportunity for a practical joke. Andrew's a great guy but a bit slow on the uptake. We quickly removed the provided venue sign from his booth and replaced it with this one.



We got quite a chuckle out of it but no so much as we did after we found out from Andrew that he thought it was a legitimate mistake on the hotel's part and proceeded to take it to the front desk to sort it all out! There weren't many people at the show that weren't talking about the Harbor Freight booth.

After setting up we jumped in the van for a day trip to the Winterthur DuPont estate. The estate was impressive to say the least, covering over 1000 acres, down from it's original 2500. It was at one time a full working, self-sustaining farm estate providing for all it's own needs with the exception of sugar and tobacco. The main building houses room after room of authentic period furniture, each room encompassing a specific period or style.



Bob Z. meditating on the natural beauty at Winterthur estate.



90 year old Redwood, already over 100 ft. tall!



Much of the estate contained vast amounts of hand laid rock walls. Very impressive and beautiful.



Vintage Shaker sideboard.



One of the many themed rooms. This was an 18th Century room containing several period pieces from the Federal style. Much of the china was owned and used by George Washington. Ron Brese & Jameel Abraham admiring on the right.



Steins designed and made by none other than Paul Revere!



Oriental room. Chock full of Chippendale.



Three-story spiral staircase.



Atrium. Bob Z., John (jr.), Ron B., Jameel A., guide.



Family room. Despite the sheer vastitude (yes, that is a word...) of this place, most of the rooms were meant as mere "walk throughs" simply for looking. This is one of the rooms that was actually used by the family. We were told they had some ripping good times in here. Certainly looks warm, cozy and inviting...not stiff or formal at all. This room just screams "Pinata"!

The show. We were happy as usual to be across from the Lie-Nielsen booth. We're huge LN fans, not just because of the tools but because of the people. They run a tight ship, treat people right and everyone walks away from that booth with a positive experience.



Thomas Lie-Nielsen giving a look at our new bench Skraper.

Being next to Andrew Lunn from Eccentric Toolworks was also a great boon. Andrew is an extremely affable fellow, someone we had corresponded with, but never met. He's also a VERY funny guy. We can say that we'd be dissapointed to not have the opportunity to share space with Andrew again.



Jameel, Roy Underhill & Andrew Lunn. Photo thanks to JoeMac.



Roy giving Andrew's dovetail saw a try on our 500 lb. Roubo. He liked them both!
Photo thanks to JoeMac.

A quick shot of the new Brese Panel Plane.

Another great bunch of guys were Dan and Kyle of DL Barrett & sons & Ed Paik of Medallion Toolworks. Fantastic products, the Barretts make world class plow planes and Ed makes beautiful saws. The best part is they are a bunch of good-natured cut-ups, even for a group from the great white North, eh'.



Ed Paik, Jameel, Dan Barrett, Kyle Barrett, Raney Nelson.



A stunning Barrett plow plane.

We'd be remiss if we didn't mention some others at the show. We didn't take as many pics as we would have liked but we were really happy to see our friends Ron Hock & his wife Linda Rosengarten of Hock Tools. They are simply great people and we always look forward to seeing them. Unfortunately we missed getting some good shots of Konrad Sauer's infills.


L-R: Andrew Lunn, Ed Paik, Bob Zajicek, Jameel Abraham, Kyle Barrett, Gary Blum, Ron Hock, Dave Jeske, Dan Barrett, John Economaki, John Abraham (jr.), Ron Brese, Fr. John Abraham. Photo courtesy of Tony Augruso.

In fact it's too bad we have to rely on these shows for everyone to get together, being separated as we are by typically great distances. People like George Walker, Christopher Schwarz, Megan Fitzpatrick, Angie Kopacek, Alex and the whole L-N crew and many others we are pleased to see.

Special thanks to the entire staff of Popular Woodworking Magazine for putting so much effort into making WIA the special event that it has turned out to be. We look forward to the next WIA and hope to participate in it.

See us in Philadelphia October 2-4

October 2-4 we will be exhibiting our products at the Woodworking in America Hand Tools Conference at the Valley Forge Convention Center in King of Prussia, PA.

Here's what we have lined up for the show.

Benchcrafted Vises

See both the new Glide leg vise and our popular Tail (wagon) vise. We'll have vises on display (out on tables) so you can see just how robustly and precisely they are built. We'll have 6 vises (3 Glides and 3 Tail Vises) in different benches to try out. We'll also have an assortment of the finest hand tools for you to try the vises with from fettled vintage Stanley planes to Lie-Nielsen Bedrocks, as well as infill planes from Brese Plane. We'll also have a couple high-end hand saws to try our vises with. You can practice cutting dovetails with the Tail Vise, or try your hand at cutting tenon cheeks with a Bad Axe Toolworks tenon saw and our Glide Leg Vise.







The Benchcrafted Skraper

Our newest tool is the Skraper. It's a multipurpose scraping tool that shines for all sorts of miscellaneous shop tasks. Scroll down for a previous blog post about the Skraper. Recently, Popular Woodworking Magazine editor Megan Fitzpatrick had some good things to say about her Skraper she picked up at WIA in Chicago last month. Take a look at Megans' comments at the Popular Woodworking Blog. We'll be offering online ordering soon, but for now the Skraper is available only at WIA.




8' Ash Roubo bench outfitted with Benchcrafted Glides and Tail Vise.

I'll be bringing the Ash Roubo bench I built last year. This is the bench that I used to prototype our vises, and which currently features both vises. I've also added a sliding deadman to the bench which I'll be bringing along. The bench will be outfitted with an assortment of hand tools so you can test drive the vises and bench. Additionally, I've added a Glide Leg Vise to the right rear leg of this bench for the show. The entire vise will be for sale at the show. This will include not only the Glide hardware, but also all the wood components-a massive 9" wide, 2-3/4" thick ash chop along with quartersawn white oak parallel guide drawbored to the chop, roller guide brackets also in ash, and ash-handled steel adustment pin. It would make an ideal vise suite along with our Tail Vise for those looking to build a bench in the near future.





Mag-Bloks

As usual we'll be bringing along a variety of our Mag-Blok knife and tool holders in various species and sizes. These are the best racks for storing chisels, edge tools, and especially kitchen knives. They also make a great inexpensive gift. Christmas is just around the corner, and any foodie in your circle of friends and family would love one of these. They are also great for storing files and rasps. We're bringing along a special bench accessory for the Mag-Blok that we're pretty excited about. It's a trestle-style mount for an 18" Mag-Blok. It allows you to place a Mag-Blok right on your bench for storing tools off the surface, but at the ready. Its massive base allows it to stay put without it being attached to the bench, which also allows it to be moved around quickly when needed. We got this idea from our good friends at Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, where we saw a similar holder on their bench (holding a series of their floats) at the last WIA in Chicago. Lie-Nielsen is a Mag-Blok retailer and they use Mag-Bloks regularly at the showroom and factory.






Bench Plans for the Benchcrafted Split-Top Roubo

Unfortunately, we won't have the actual plans ready for WIA. But we will have a poster on display advertising the plans, along with a form where you can be added to our mailing list to be notified when the plans are ready. The plans are in fact virtually complete, we just didn't get a chance to present them in a proper format in time for WIA. The good news is, these plans are being drawn up by Louis Bois, a professional draftsman who does work for Woodworking Magazine and Lost Art Press. So those of you familiar with the bench designs of Christopher Schwarz will recognize Louis' work in our plans. The complete plans will also include a 3d rendering of the bench, including vises, that you can rotate and disassemble on your computer screen. It's the next best thing to seeing our vises in person since you can see just exactly how they mount to the bench. We also have some extras in store on the DVD. Also, keep an eye out at our booth for a prototype of our new knockdown bench hardware.







T-Shirts

We had plenty of opportunities to come up with witty phrases for our T-Shirts, but in the end we decided to keep it simple. We figured nobody outside the woodworking world would get it anyway, and it's not very clever if you have to explain your T-shirt to a passerby! Stop by the booth and check out our new "Effortless Workholding" T-Shirts. You pay us for the T-shirt, you get cheap clothing with a cool logo that looks like Space Invaders and we get free advertising. What's not to love?

See you in Valley Forge.

European Woodworking show in Essex, England

This upcoming weekend is the first European Woodworking Show in Essex, England.

Since we can't make it to the show (as much as we'd like to spend the weekend at what looks to be a fantastic event for traditional tools, chock full of incredible demonstrators and tool makers) please stop by bench maker Richard Maguire's booth to see our vises, which Richard is now incorporating into his line of benches. See his latest Roubo bench above (which will be for sale at the show), featuring the Benchcrafted Tail Vise.

Richard's benches are some of the most incredible looking pieces of work I've ever seen. These are serious benches for serious woodwork. We wish Richard and the other participants the best of success this weekend.

Bench Plans In The Works

We've had lots of requests for plans for our Roubo-style, split-top bench featuring both of our vises.

I'm glad to announce that complete plans, as well as construction notes and a 3-d model are in the works and will be available soon. Although our instructions cover the installation process, these plans will allow vise users and bench builders to see the vises in three dimensions and even "disassemble" the bench to see exactly how the bench is put together around the Glide and Tail (wagon) Vise. The drawings are being prepared by draftsman Louis Bois. Louis did the bench drawings for Christopher Schwarz's Workbenches book, as well as the plans for the Holtzapffel bench from Woodworking Magazine.

We'd hoped to have these plans ready for the Woodworking In America Hand Tools conference next month, but that's not going to happen. However, if you're interested in receiving an email when they are ready, please drop us a line at info@benchcrafted.com. We'll also have a sign-up sheet at the show for those attending.

The Benchcrafted "Skraper"

At this year's Woodworking in American Furniture Design and Construction conference we unveiled a new tool, the "Skraper".

The Skraper is a utilitarian tool that is intended for tasks such as glue squeeze-out removal to refining surfaces and joinery, and everything in between. Honestly, it's a bit difficult to pin down just exactly what I use the Skraper for, since I use it for so many things. It's not like a smoothing plane that has basically one purpose--to take a fine shaving. The Skraper can do that too, by the way, in addition to strategically removing glue squeeze-out.

The business-end of the Skraper is a solid carbide bar honed on three sides and ends. All 8 edges are razor sharp and capable of taking fine shavings. And since its carbide, the edge lasts a long time. The Skraper can be resharpened with diamond abrasives.

Instead of trying to list everything I use the Skraper for (not that I could even remember), I'll point of a few of my favorite uses.



Glue squeeze-out. The obvious one.

We all know that scraping glue while its still rubbery is a good technique, but oft times the glue can pull out wood fibers along with it, especially when using a card scraper to remove the glue. Here's where the Skraper shines. The 90 degree cutting angle , coupled with the thick carbide edge helps prevent grain tearing, especially when the tool is used at a skew to the grain.



Skewing the tool helps keep the grain in place while the scraper can do its job of shearing off the glue. The angled handle allows a zero degree approach, allowing space to get your fingers around the handle.



The Skraper also really shines for cleaning glue out of corners. After removing the glue, the Skraper can be used to take fine shavings from the surrounding area. See the video below for the technique.



I also like to use the Skraper to refine small areas while keeping them dead flat. A card scraper will hollow an area, while the Skraper will not. This is especially handy for maintaining the fit of some joints or the flatness of a surface. I like to think of the Skraper as a sort of one-tooth float. Holding the Skraper at a low angle and taking short strokes at a bias to the grain makes nice wispy shavings.







The Skraper is incredible on exotic oily woods like this cocobolo. Holding the scraper upright with a rearward tilt (I'm pulling the Skraper toward my body here) produces beautiful shavings. I can make dead flat scraped surfaces with no tearout.



These are just a few uses for the Skraper. I find myself reaching for mine several times during a project. And they are not just for woodworking, the Skraper is also great around the house and shed for miscellaneous tasks.

Right now the Skraper is not available through the website. If you are attending the Woodworking in America conference in Valley Forge, PA October 2-4 you can buy a Skraper at the Benchcrafted booth. After the show, online ordering will be available. If you'd like to be notified when they are available, please drop us an email.

Gearing Up For Valley Forge

Next week marks one year since we officially introduced our Benchcrafted Tail Vise to our product line. Since then, what Christopher Schwarz dubbed "the ultimate wagon vise" has found its way into woodworker's hands from North America to the rugged wilds of Norway and as far away as Australia. We even had to fit the Aussie vises with a right-handed thread instead of the typical left-hand thread because of the reverse polarity of the earth's magnetic field in the southern hemisphere. To test the tolerances of that particular run of vises we utilized high-tech cardinal grammeters fitted with redundant wenal sprockets, and 100% of the results came back obsolete. That's how much we care about the quality of our products.

So it's especially poignant for us at Benchcrafted that next month we should be hauling ourselves to the Woodworking in America event in Valley Forge, PA for the most fantastic gathering of top-quality woodworking hand tool manufacturers and users in the world since, well, last year's Woodworking in America event in Berea, KY.

There are a couple differences between this year's show and last year's. First, Philadelphia is not a dry town like Berea, where you not only can't buy a six-pack (or single for that matter), but you can't even order a margarita at the local Mexican restaurant. (I'm guessing the family that opened that restaurant found out after the grand-opening that alcohol is frowned on.) No wonder that guy in the corner is sulking on his haunches under that big sombrero, I would be sad too. The lime wedge in my bottle of Mexican Coke didn't make it taste any more like Negro Modelo.

The second and more important factor is the number of exhibitors at this year's event. There are quite a few more tool makers at this year's event. One thing we noticed about the people at the WIA event in Chicago. They were all really excited to be there. The hand-tool renaissance is in full swing, and these events hosted by Popular Woodworking and Woodworking Magazine are paving the way for future gatherings of hand-tool experts and enthusiasts. These forums for exchange and transfer of knowledge are highly rewarding, and a lot of fun. If you've never been to an event like this, do try to get to Valley Forge. We're really excited about participating.

How excited? So excited that we've decided to bring along the workbench we used to prototype and develop both our wagon (tail) vise, and our new Glide leg vise. It's a ginormous 8+ foot long, 500 pound Ash monster bench outfitted with the Glide leg vise and the original Benchcrafted Tail Vise. We'll have an assortment of fine hand tools and wood available for those who would like to try a Roubo bench outfitted with our vises.



One other exciting piece of info about WIA Valley Forge. A new exhibitor will be bringing bundles of Ash lumber specially selected and assembled for building Roubo-style benches. If you're planning a bench project, there will be no better time or place to pick up the wood for your Roubo bench along with the two vises that work best with the Roubo design: our own Tail Vise and Glide Leg Vise.

For a list of exhibitors and more info, follow this link.

If you visit, please stop by our booth and say hello.