My Favorite Tool

Howard Rheingold asked what are our favorite tools and materials, and offered up his favorite tool for wood working, a low angle block plane by Lie-Nielson (#60 ½). I had a strong (and typically contrarian woodworkers response) that “I prefer the Lie-Nielson #102 low-angle bronze block plane (the #102 is significantly smaller, lighter, and more streamlined). Let me add that the #102 is one of the few tools I tell my wood working students who want to start a tool set that they should "just get this one new, go ahead and pay full price." I was in a class once with my teacher, and another student was asking about planes, my teacher, Gary, was (unusually) at a loss for words about why this was the “one,” he turned to me, “It’s just … sweet…” was the best I could come up with. Gary nodded, not satisfied with our explanation, but in agreement with the sentiment.

I have another problem with Howard’s question: Do I really have to pick just one tool? Unfortunately one of the delights of woodworking is the chance to have and use tools.

I have several of my grandfather's tools. Each of those has a special place in my heart as I carry on a tradition. I absolutely LOVE having my father’s father’s Brown and Sharpe combo square in my had. But there is such a patina on the blade, that it is hard for my aging eyes to read, so most often, I have a current era Starrett in my hand. The tools is smooth, and confident in my hand. I use it much more often these days, so which is my favorite?

All the time, I reach for and use an old Stanley #5 Bedrock that I upgraded with a new Ron Hock blade and cap iron; It cuts like a dream. I got it to emulate my teacher because his favorite plane is an old Stanley #5, though he dismisses the Bedrock as a bit over designed. How much of my affection for that plane, is the affectation of wanting to be more like my famous teacher? My all bronze Lie-Nielsen #4 is a delight — too precious? Perhaps. But it should be my best plane, and right now, it is making the smoothest most lovely finishing cuts! 

I have a #6 that was my grandfather's, and I use it, and I treasure it, but it is a bit too big for most tasks in the shop.

Maybe I’m not thinking about what favorite means correctly. Could favorite be related to that which I most covet? I have one hand-made Japanese Blue Steel laminated bench chisel made by Shizego Matsumura — I want more! They are constructed in very old, traditional style, the hard cutting steel fused to softer iron, and this is the chisel I reach for when I need a perfect cut. The one I have is about 9 mm. It is only slightly more efficient to have ones both smaller and larger, but I look forwarded to my next windfall, so I can add that delightful convenience to my workbench.

Another way to measure perfection (which isn’t linguistically equivalent to “favorite,” but which is a convenient benchmark in regards something as utilitarian as “tool.”

Certainly there is no better way to mark a measurement on a board than Glen Drake’s Tite-Mark marking gauge.  I think I have five marking gauges at my bench, including one that is considered “Highly Collectible”. Yet there is no doubt that the Tite-Mark is the one I want when I want to make a really good mark.

My current focus is on designing and making solid wood furniture. Fundamental to design is a sketch book. My current book was a gift of paper from my wife for our first anniversary. I’ve carried a notebook for years; and for many of the years pathologically. I have five or six feet of shelf holding years of my journaling in 6”x8” unlined books. That size fit well into a leather shoulder bag with room for a pen, a wallet, and a this or a that. Beginning in high school, and through college I most often wrote with a Staedtler-Mars drafting pen .25 mm most often, but sometimes .3 or even .35. Tight, thin, dry lines of ink scratched across the page  (though the jewel tipped nibs had a much smoother flow—and were twice as expensive). 

Today, for a similar sensation and effect the Sakura Pigma Micron has become popular, and I keep quite a few of them around (I generally prefer the .02).

But the “tool” this train of thought is leading to is precious, not disposable. In graduate school my lover, also a writer, revealed to me the joys of a good fountain pen. I splurged on a weighty, brass barreled Waterman: strong, confident, bold. Graduate school led to a career as a teacher, and the wherewithal to get a Pelikan 400. Resin bodied, light, deft, a rapier to the Waterman’s broad sword. A gorgeous tool with which to unveil the right word or phrase.  (As a side note, I return often to the once ubiquitous Bic Cristal ballpoint. Solid. Clean. Reliable. Accurate. Classic.)

Both the Pelikan and the Bic are satisfying to use.. I had a moment this week of almost surreal satisfaction, when I was working on a table of my design, and the wood got a bit squirrelly: the answer was a high-angle smoothly plane.

I’m sure that in every “kit” there are tools that don’t get used that often. I’ve read that very few people ever use a 6 Iron, or  a 1 Iron. I never use a 5H (or a 4B) lead. I have an Ulu knife (which was a key goal of shopping in Alaska) in a holder next to my block, but seldom rock it’s arc through flesh or vegetable. A high-angle smoothing plane falls into this category (like a Basin wrench -- a tool I NEVER want to be without when I need one, but the make and model of which I am prepared to be quite flexible with). 

Don’t get me started on how many fly rods I own. I don’t need a different 5-weight for the Deschutes than for the Blitzen, nor a 4-weight for Fall Creek, AND an 8-Weight for trips to Alaska. But each rod makes more of a joy when wielded in the right place at the right time. I’m not a great fisherman, but I am good enough that I like to choose the right tool for the day, time, and place, and I can feel a difference. Whether or not I catch more (or fewer – or any) fish is not really the point here.

I happen to have made my own high-angle smoothing plane. In the Mastery program I am pursuing we were required to make a hand plane for a critique. As part of our instruction we all made one built around a narrow block plane blade that we had the joy of tempering ourselves. But for our independent work, I went with a massive Hock iron and cap iron and black Mesquite, and wanted to create a plane that would fill a void in tool set. A high angle plane is designed to deal with the unpredictability of figured wood (e.g. Birds’ Eye Maple, etc.) What makes it suited to smoothing difficult wood, also makes it harder to push, hence, a tool that plays a vital role, but which sits on the bench until clutch time.

This week I was working through making a nightstand. The drawer front is figured ash, and was consternating to work with my “go to” planes. After I switched to the plane I had made from a block of wood, glass smooth wood, grain, rippling and reflecting and refracting light emerged. The wood and done what I wanted, reveled it’s magic. And I had made something with a tool I had made. I won’t try to label the meta, but the sense of potency was supreme.

I love my mesquite plane. But I think, I will be even more attached to the next plane that I make. Two summers ago, I was at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut, I was most eager to spend time with the Ship Wright’s and was delighted to find them working on an huge heirloom Live Oak log that been shipped up from South Carolina after falling in a storm. My original post tells the story with more photos. In this photo you can see the Master watching them work from the background. 

He and I spoke, and talked about entering my own apprenticeship. The master presented me with a great gift: a piece of quarter-sawn live oak to make a plane with during my program. Live oak is twice as dense as white oak; the USS Constitution “Old Ironsides” is clad in live oak. I feel ready, now, to imbue this marvelous gift with a task in my shop. It will be a block plane, something between my beloved #102 and Howard’s favorite #60 ½. But it will be a tool that I made. I think, at least whenever it is in my hand, that my Live Oak block plane will be my favorite.

I worked in the world of thought and theory for years. I was a skilled Politico. I took a liberal education, at a rigorous college, and played the academic games well enough. A half-dozen years ago I found myself working so hard in the abstract and interpersonal realms that I had no time to go fish, no place to go to calm my mind, and seldom inhabited my body.

I decided to learn to make things out of wood. I had pounded nails into lumber before, and cut things with power tools (I’d even had a work study job in college making painting stretcher material). I thought I’d have no trouble figuring it out. A year later, I took lessons from a Master. By the second day, I knew that something special was happening, though it took me years and a divorce to see just how fundamental the change was. Then I was an English teacher in high school; today I teach construction, and woodworking. My goal is the same: I want my students to understand that the world is malleable. That THEY can form it into the shape and vision that they see (don’t tell anyone, but apparently I believe people are basically good). Our hands are tools. Our minds are tools. Make a tool. Use a tool. Use a tool; make a tool.