Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue #90 i Australian Wood Review

This beautiful Australian-made wheel-type marking gauge uses a three part brass body running on a stainless steel shaft. The round or wheel cutter screws into the end of the shaft with a small allen screw. The face is almost 45mm in diameter, comfortable and has enough heft to make the tool feel balanced when positioned anywhere along the shaft. The fine adjustment activated by the large central thumbwheel with a range of around 15mm is a boon. The shaft is stainless steel as are the thumbscrews. There is even a tiny nylon grub screw to adjust the tightness of the sliding action. A recent development, the gauge now has a flat on its round edge fence to stop it rolling off your bench. The cutter came sharp and was easy…

Saws With More Oltre’s MJ12/1600 panel saw with 1600mm sliding table and its larger MJ12/2600 brother can handle full 2.4 x 1.2m sheets. Both come standard with 3hp single phase motors and have scribe function, 1200mm rip capacity, 45° blade tilt, two dust pick-up locations and can perform compound mitres. Currently part of the package from Beyond Tools is a bonus quality blade set including 96 tooth triple chip tungsten carbide main blade, and carbide split scribe blade. Phone (08) 9209 7400. www.beyondtools.com Brand New New on the scene is the Artisan range of machinery from I Wood Like which is purpose-built for those with high-end needs who also require value for money. The Artisan 310XC combination planer/thicknesser features cast iron tables and a 300mm wide spiral cutterblock for a…

This project uses minimal machines and tools to create a trendy but strong coffee table. You will only need a drill, a mitre saw or similar and some hand tools. Use handsaws instead of the mitre saw and you could go totally unplugged. Joinery could be mortise and tenon however as a beginner project I am using dowels. I have seen some people use only screws to join table bases together. Screwing into endgrain is not good practice though, as the endgrain can break and over the years you can end up with a wobbly table. The wood There is in my opinion quite a design trend to make dining tables and coffee tables using what is called feature grade Australian eucalypts. Feature grade is wood that can have gum…

The correct installation of hinges is critical to the successful outcome of any project. Many woodworkers find this stage of their project stressful, but it doesn’t need to be this way. In this article we’ll first look at some ways to lay out and cut mortises for three common hinge types, and then take a closer look at choosing different types and brands. Cabinet or Butt Hinges These come in a range of sizes and offer a full range of motion to allow doors to swing fully open. Smaller butt hinges are good for boxes, particularly those with inbuilt stops to hold the lid open, but be aware that as they are mounted along the back edge of the box there can be a lot of rotational stress on the…

Brisbane School of Fine Woodwork 0415 328 166 www.royschack.com Stuart Bywater School of Fine Furniture 07 3256 9000 www.bywaterdesign.com.au Centre for Fine Woodworking Nelson New Zealand www.cfw.co.nz Derwent Valley School of Creative Woodwork 0459 548 263 www.dvscw.com.au Neil & Pam Erasmus ESCA 08 9293 7171 www.erasmusdesigns.com Damion Fauser 0407 522 207 www.damionfauser.com Gilet Guitars 0412 589 124 www.giletguitars.com.au Heartwood Creative 0419 690 757 www.heartwoodcreative.com.au Robert Howard 0403 161 111 www.roberthoward.com.au Kilmarnock Forge [blacksmithing] 0419 772 580 www.kilmarnockforge.com.au Melbourne Guild of Fine Woodworking 0413 537 490 www.mgfw.com.au Perth Wood School 08 9277 5558 www.perthwoodschool.com.au Phoebe Everill 0419 517 500 www.phoebeeverilll.com Piece Furniture 0407 208 403 piecefurniture.com.au Richard Crosland's School of Fine Woodwork 0409 444 760 www.crosland.com.au Richard Vaughan Works in Wood 07 3376 8520 richardvaughan.com.au Sturt School for Wood 02 4860…

Like other power tool companies Triton now have a range of cordless tools that run with common sized 18 volt batteries. Four batteries are available ranging from 1.5 to 4 amp and all feature LED charge level displays. You can buy a kit or individual tools as ‘skins’ and batteries as per your needs. The power tool skins are very competitively priced, the drill /driver I trialled for example is $79. A 3 amp battery with charger costs $155. I had a deck to repair which gave both tools a good workout. Whilst many people may prefer impact drivers for building work I found the drill/driver became my preferred choice for deck fixing. The impact driver tended to belt the deck screws in and it was harder to seat them…

Any sharpening method needs to be quick and repeatable. Ideally we should be sharpening a blade before it needs it, so the edge is always performing optimally. Sharpening with a honing guide is relatively easy to master and it certainly provides a very quick and repeatable method. There are a large number of honing guides available and in this review we are looking at four that cover a wide price range. Basic Eclipse The original Eclipse honing guide appears to be no longer available but there are a number of inexpensive Taiwanese copies and I have used one of these for a number of years. Plane blades are held with the two upper jaws while chisels are held with lower dovetailed jaws. The honing angle is determined by the amount…

Our main interest in any machine starts when we think about getting one – through the selection process, having it installed and learning how to use it. It may just be another piece of workshop equipment, but your new machine has a life that started in a factory somewhere and will end when it’s finally recycled. So what goes into the manufacture of a woodworking machine? Last year I visited Altendorf in Germany; Felder in Austria and SCM in Italy to find out. Our machinery imports come mainly from China, Taiwan, Italy, Germany and Austria. The quality can vary considerably but Australian distributors source good quality equipment at reasonable prices. It’s a competitive market where quality and price jostle to catch the eye of the customer. It’s fair to say…

For those who don’t know, Vic Wood is known as the grandfather of Australian creative woodturning. He was a high school and college woodwork and wood technology teacher before becoming a full time woodturner. He mentored well known Australian woodturners such as Stephen Hughes, Ken Wraight, Guilio Marcolongo and Brendan Stemp, to name a few. Vic is probably best known for his signature rectangular-edged bowls and lidded boxes. During the 1970s Vic also made laminated wall pieces that were a bit like shields. He used contrasting woods and experimented with the interplay of turned shapes, grain patterns and lines of their components. In 1984 Vic was commissioned by an architect to make a wall mural for the Victorian Housing Association’s head office. Made from Vic ash (eucalypt species), it would…

Some OEM and many aftermarket bandsaw fences allow for minor adjustments to be made for drift, but not all do. Correctly setting for the drift angle allows you to make ripping and resawing cuts with far cleaner results and in a more safe manner. My bandsaw fence does not adjust for drift. Up until now, I’ve used my own shopmade resaw fences made from some sheets of MDF fixed together at 90° and reinforced with triangular ribs at the rear. By freeing up this type of fence from the guide bar, you can place it at whatever angle relative to the front of the saw table to allow for the drift angle. This system has worked well for me for many years but it can be fiddly to dial in…

The technology of Windsor chairmaking represents the perfect marriage of geometry and physics as applied to the movement properties of wood. When weight is loaded onto triangulated components, it has the effect of locking them into each other. With grain running end-to-end, thin spindles in the backs of some styles will flex in use, ironically becoming stronger, just as a tree will bend in the wind and not break. In fact only end-to-end grain is used in Windsor chair components. Spindles and crest rails are riven or bandsawn along the grain before being shaped with drawknives and spokeshaves, or turned and steambent. Mortise and tenon constructions go right back to ancient Egypt and were used extensively in Roman times, but the Windsor style mainly evolved in England from the 1600s…

About four years ago, Paul and Jenny Ryan decided to close their successful business that still had plenty of potential to expand. There comes a time for all things to run their course. Paul, along with six or seven employees, produced a range of architectural fittings, gables, mouldings, balustrades and posts as well as specialised custom and often large scale work. Even with his own paid workforce he never went ‘off the tools’, always liking to be hands-on. The Ryan Woodworks factory was in Airport West, not far from Tullamarine. There were machines of all descriptions of the industrial and often automated type. ‘Why do a boring repetitive job, when you can get a machine to do it?’, Paul said then (as now). Over the years they developed a large…

Visit Chris Vesper’s workshop and you’ll quickly appreciate that what takes place there is a homage to all those dedicated to the engineering of wood and metal that have gone before him. Light filters down 4.5 metre high walls against which are suspended antique drive pulleys, bandsaw and saw blades, block and tackle and various ropes and straps that cast interesting shadows. Behind them run channels of electrical conduit which power the industrial machinery which sit below. Much of what you see is above is vintage and part of what Chris calls his ‘museum’, however below is a comprehensive and fully operational machine shop with hand finishing areas geared specifically to the production of fine hand tools for woodworkers. It’s so atmospheric it could be a movie set and it’s…

Having been a hobbyist woodworker for more than 20 odd years, I finally decided it was time to learn some more ‘formal’ techniques and was pleasantly surprised at the results. My last woodworking class was in high school, and I wasn’t paying too much attention at the time, so my woodworking skills have predominantly been self taught over the years via books and the internet. Why take classes in woodwork? The obvious advantage is the improvement to your skills and technique. You’ll be able to explore new methods of construction as well as gain input from both classmates and the teacher. However, the main advantages I found didn’t centre around an improvement in my own skill level but around some other very important components of my woodworking life. Enjoying a…

Handplanes are on top of my list of favourites. They are such a beautifully styled tool. And that special swish sound as a shaving curls gorgeously off a sharp blade…unbeatable. In this article we’ll look at the common ‘Stanley/Bailey’ style plane with a cast iron body, steel cutting blade and wooden handles. Wood body planes are great too, especially because the sole or body can be easily modified or curved to do special jobs, but this article is about the cast iron versions. Handplanes come in various lengths and widths as experienced woodworkers know, but if you are starting out you may be wondering why you’d need planes with different lengths and widths? Or perhaps what plane you ought to invest in first? And anyway, why are there different numbers…