Australian Wood Review Issue #91

New generation woodworkers It’s natural for things to change. We’re familiar with an older generation of craft-based makers and we know there are tradespeople who have moved from traditional materials and techniques to the digital and fabricated. However there’s now also a new generation who are discovering crafts, but not necessarily from their ‘forebears’ Recently I’ve met some younger makers who interestingly come from trade backgrounds but have gone more into the ‘art’ side of crafting things. Coming from apprentice-based training, Anthony Kleine and Mark Cedro (see p.54) are transitioning from commercial cabinetmaking into producing limited edition work. Joel Rodgers and Tom Rooney also have trade backgrounds but are now designing and creating their own furniture lines, albeit with digital and CNC tools, see p.76. Andrew Daniels, once earned his living as…

Spiral or segmented cutterheads can be retrofitted to the standard straight knife cutterblock that has been in use on planers for generations (photo 1). Small carbide cutters within the cutterblock present a shearing cut to the timber which is claimed to have three advantages over straight knife cutters: reduced noise, improved cut quality and quicker, more accurate blade changes. Noise reduction. Users of planers with conventional straight knife cutters will know the loud whine that these machines develop. This noise, often amplified by dust extraction, results from the high speed rotating knives compressing air as they rotate past the infeed tables and internal chip baffles. With segmented cutterheads, the change in blade geometry and reduced length of the individual cutters theoretically results in a significant reduction in air compression and noise. Cut…

Back in 2004 a young Jeff Hamilton attended the Marc Adams School of Woodworking in Indiana, USA. He arrived for the joinery class with a set of unsharpened chisels and other tools that were still in the packaging. All went well until he was marking out a keyed-through mortise joint. His marking gauge was too large to lay out the joint properly and others in the class had the same problem. So teacher Marc went to his bench and picked up a little gauge that he had acquired years earlier. Using the simple gauge to lay out the joint Jeff fell in love. With the gauge! After everyone had tried the tool, Marc said the original maker had grown tired of making the tool and if he could find someone to pick…

This new block plane is made with a bronze body and all up weighs just under a kilogram (975gm to be exact). With its heft and finish, when you pick it up for the first time you know it is something special. Made in the UK by Clifton, the word is that it has been coming for nearly 10 years. When Clifton was absorbed by Thomas Flinn & Co, the go-ahead was given to make a special plane that drew on the best of traditional and modern toolmaking methods. Watch the Last Man Standing video on the company website and you’ll see that most of the toolmaking is done not on modern CNC gear, but on old machines dating back up to 50 years. It’s also clear that a lot of…

There are several ways to flush solid wood edging down to veneered panels (see my story this issue p.84). One quick and accurate way is with a very clever handheld power tool developed by Virutex. The Virutex planer is a slight variation on the handheld planer. The cutterblock is on the edge of the machine, offset from and independent of the sole of the machine. The sole then acts as a reference point, running on the face of the veneered panel. The sole is teflon coated, meaning the tool will glide over the surface without risk of scratching the veneer. The cutterblock can be raised and lowered to determine just how close to the surface you will cut. Adjustment is continuous with no minimum and therefore can be set and then locked…

Based in Finland, Mirka specialise in abrasives technology for the automotive, woodworking and building industries. For Australian woodworkers Mirka’s Deros is a new random orbit sander that is now available locally and well worth taking a look at. The Deros sander is conveniently supplied standard with two base pads, 125mm and 150mm in diameter. As such it’s almost like having two sanders in one with the smaller pad suitable for well, smaller work. The motor is a brushless style which is now the industry standard for longevity in power tools. Mirka manufacture a range of coated and flexible abrasives, notably their Abranet abrasive discs. These have an open mesh design that allows maximum dust absorption through the sanding pad. With no holes to align Abranet discs will fit any random orbit sander…