These practical Japanese toolboxes with characteristically clean design and clever functioning are based mostly on Toshio Odate’s article in the October 1995 issue of American Woodworker magazine, pages 58-59, available online.

Overall dimensions of my version are 32 1/2″ long, 13 1/2″ wide, and 10 3/8″ high. The primary wood is quartersawn Douglas fir, obtained as dimensional 1-by stock. The tight grain reminds me of the raked sand in a Japanese zen garden.

The sides and ends are assembled much like Odate’s but using deep thread screws instead of nails. The lower edge of the end “handle” is undercut with a 15° bevel to help the four fingers grab it reliably for lifting the box while the thumb comes over the top end piece. I added a like-sized piece below it onto the main end piece for extra rigidity.

The bottom is 3/8 Baltic birch plywood fit into a rabbet, glued, screwed, and nailed. I preferred the plywood to avoid seasonal dimensional conflict posed by a solid wood bottom fixed cross grain to the end pieces. True, nails allow some give but the modern material avoids the risk of splits and is strong. Eight hard plastic feet will minimize abrasion wear on the bottom as the boxes are inevitably slid on hard floors.

For the top, I similarly went modern with cherry veneered 3/4″ plywood. I found it by chance on sale but I like its looks with the Doug fir. The plywood allows a tighter tolerance between the top and the sides than would be possible to maintain with solid wood. The sliding-lock top is based on the traditional version as described by Odate, but with a very clever wedge lock described by George Snyder in an article on the Woodcraft blog. (Thanks to Wilbur Pan for the link.)

I added contoured undercuts on both edges of both top battens to make the top easier to handle for insertion and removal.

I’ve had the Odate article bookmarked on my web browser for years, so I’m glad I finally got around to building these boxes. The decision to use plywood for the top and bottom, and the wedge lock for the top resolved my reservations with the traditional design as presented by Odate. Then, finding the beautiful Doug fir got me building.

These toolboxes will no doubt see plenty of rugged use but with their bombproof construction they should be up to the job. They were fun to build.

The visual beauty of wood, its warmth to the touch, and lovely sound properties are so enticing that we might neglect the variety of pleasing scents many species have to offer. Smells are registered deep in the primitive brain in the limbic system where they are associated with memories and emotions, so this is a powerful aspect of wood.

When recently working with some nice quartersawn Douglas fir, the aroma brought me back to my youthful days of projects in humble fir plywood and the simple joy of making things. Continuing to nowadays, the particular scent of a species released by its sawdust and shavings is part of the experience of woodworking and thus, in my mind, part of the personality of the piece.

I think of, as examples, the shop being filled with the aromas of walnut or spicy Port Orford cedar or even the unmistakable horse barn smell of zebrawood. Using canarywood recently for the first time was a pleasant olfactory surprise.

Unfortunately, the aromas then usually disappear under layers of finish, unavailable to the end user of the piece. Of course, with most work, especially things like tables, there’s no getting around that. However, in some casework there is an opportunity to add a wonderful aspect to the piece that will be enjoyed for years to come.

Consider using aromatic woods, left unfinished, for interior drawer parts, case back panels or partitions, and box linings. The “cedars,” sassafras, and even pine are some options.

By the way, I avoid using oil or oil-varnish finishes on the interior of cabinetwork. A light application of a hard-drying varnish or thin shellac are better choices.

Pictured above are, from top to bottom, quartered Doug fir, canarywood, Claro walnut (left), Port Orford cedar (right), and zebrawood. But you have to meet the woods in person for the full experience.

The Veritas Shooting Sander uses the principle of shooting – a guided vertical cutter is pushed to engage a work piece that is stably oriented by a surface and a fence – but uses sandpaper instead of a plane blade as the cutter. It’s simple and useful.

Though it certainly is not intended to replace shooting with a plane and a good shooting board, I’ve been so far finding it handy for odd-shaped parts that cannot be fully backed by a conventional shooting board fence, and for small parts.

As we would expect from Veritas, the tool is well made and thought out. The accurately made anodized aluminum extrusion body and the nifty adjustable wooden handle are good reasons to forego a shop-made attempt at this low-cost tool.

The shooting board I made for it is straightforward but there are a few fine points. The base is 3/4″ MDF, 23″ long. The work surface is 7 3/4″ wide with a nice straight edge against which the sander runs. The track for the sander is 2 1/8″ wide with a 1″-wide outer guide rail.

The work surface must be elevated at least 9/32″ above the track surface for the sandpaper to meet the lowest part of the work piece. I made the work surface from two pieces of MDF (just what was handy) for a total thickness of 11/32″, which gives a little margin for error when applying the sandpaper to the tool. That is, the bottom edge of the work piece is sure to be within the width of the sandpaper, even if I don’t apply the PSA paper to the tool perfectly accurately.

The fence is about 1 3/8″ high, screwed down 3 1/2″ from the end of the board with slightly oversized clearance holes that allow fine tuning for squareness.

Break in the shooting board just as you would for a plane shooting board by running the sander along the edge of the work surface so that a tiny width of sandpaper, say 1/16″, cuts a miniscule rabbet along the edge of the work surface. Then screw down the 1″-wide guide rail on the outside of the track so it is snug against the sander for the full length of the track.

A generous amount of oil-varnish finish toughens the MDF surfaces. Finally, I waxed the track. It all works well.

1 1/4″ wide adhesive-backed sandpaper strips are used for this tool. These are most economically made by slicing 2 1/2″ Klingspor PSA abrasive roll paper down the middle of its width. The paper strips that Lee Valley supplies are Klingspor’s.

After removing the first piece of sandpaper from the tool, I cleaned the residual adhesive off the tool with a citrus-based remover, but did not then clean off the slightly greasy residue of the remover. I found that subsequent sandpaper stuck plenty well enough and left hardly any residual adhesive when removed.

The tool is very easy to use but there are a few caveats. The sandpaper leaves grooves that are surprisingly deep for a given grit. That is simply because the tiny grits on the sandpaper are running in the same tracks over and over, unlike with regular hand sanding where the slight variations in movement erase most of the tiny grooves.

The work goes slower than shooting with a plane, especially since sandpaper seems to cut slowy on endgrain. Also, the thickness (height) of the work piece is limited to just under 1 1/4″.

The tool can be used ad lib to sand odd angles without using the fence by holding the work piece very firmly and offering its edge at the desired angle (such as indicated by a scribed line) to the sander running in the track.

All in all, this so far has been a worthwhile addition to the shop. My sense is that it will increasingly become a valuable quick “problem solver” tool that I’m very glad to have.

Come on, woodworking isn’t really so hard to do. Just have all your stock flat, straight, and square, cut to the layout line, and never make a mental error. Everything will go just fine.

Just kidding.

But starting saw cuts accurately does help to make woodworking, especially joinery, go much better. “Well begun is half done” is true for this task. Accordingly, it is worthwhile to explore nuances of technique.

Laying the saw teeth on the wood and pushing without any guidance is generally too unreliable. So the left (free) hand is set on the wood and a finger, usually the thumb, contacts the saw plate above the toothline to provide stabilization.

This can be done with the thumb alone, but it is more stable when the side of the index finger is placed against the pad of the thumb while the hand rests on the work piece. However, the thumb pad tip is squishy, so it works better if it is also firmed by pressure from the index finger.

Even better is to angle the thumb a bit to the left so as to engage the hard thumbnail tip against the saw plate. The index finger acts to not only stabilize the set up but to help bring the saw teeth to the proper place to start the cut and fine tune the placement.

I find that using the thumb knuckle is less controllable since it is not on the most distal portion of the finger.

Below, with this angle of the thumb, only the soft tip will contact the saw plate.

Below, I’ve re-angled my thumb so the nail will contact the saw plate. This will vary depending on the angle of the cut, sight line considerations, wrist flexibility, and even the length of the nail. In some situations, it may be too awkward or impossible.

Is this getting too punctilious, picky, or perhaps persnickety? I don’t think so. These are the bits of technique that are not mentioned in books but can make a real difference in work. Though these finger configurations work for me, the key point is to work out the details to suit your hands and the circumstances of the task to achieve the control and ease that is part of good craftsmanship.

How and where would you start this saw cut? Do you start at the near or far end of the board, or attempt to score the entire width on the first stroke? Do you drag your Western saw backward or push your Japanese saw forward to preliminarily score the wood?

This is no small matter. Accurately starting the saw cut is probably the most critical manual step in dovetailing, especially when sawing pins that have been laid out from previously cut tails.

Without a doubt, the smoothest and most accurate method for me is to slightly raise the handle of my Western push saw and start the rip cut at the far end of the board. A Japanese pull-cut saw would be started at the near end. This also works for the crosscuts at the sides of the tail board, as well as for sundry other woodworking cuts.

Though I am empirically convinced of this, let’s explore why.

As the saw teeth approach the top surface at the far corner of the wood with the saw handle raised, the rake angle is effectively relaxed (a greater “negative” rake), which makes for a less aggressive and more controllable entry into to wood. Approaching from the near corner (with the saw handle lowered) would effectively increase the rake angle, creating a positive “hook” rake, which is aggressive and tends to catch and jump on all but the softest woods.

Now, the degree to which one should raise the handle varies with the saw, the wood, and personal feel. If the saw is held too flat on the wood, it may skid on the end grain as you try to engage too much wood at once. Held too steeply, the saw tends to catch the far corner of the wood. Goldilocks this – experiment with your saw and the particular wood at hand. A generally light touch, letting the saw do the work, is part of all this, of course. Bad Axe saws may come filed with a helpful relaxed rake at the toe, which must be taken into account.

As a bonus, this method, applied to either Western push or Japanese pull saws, deposits the sawdust away from, not into, the line that the saw is advancing upon.

Some woodworkers like to start a push saw at the near end, reasoning that this pushes down the fibers, much like planing with the grain. I find that factor is outweighed by the rake factor, making that approach less reliable for me.

Likewise, I find that starting the cut by dragging/pushing the saw opposite to its normal cutting direction tends to make the saw skid and creates a kerf with a scalloped bottom that tends to catch the teeth when they are then propelled in the normal direction. It seems to me a generally mushy technique that is unnecessary with a good quality saw.

When we start a usual rip or crosscut on the flat surface of a board held horizontally, knee on the board, we are doing much the same as starting the dovetail cut in the manner that I prefer, though with a more aggressive angle, and the added advantage of sawing the fibers “down” when ripping. In fact, some people like to start the dovetail cut at the near side of the board with the saw held at an extremely low angle simulating ripping a board with a big ripsaw. The problems with that, in my opinion, is the business end of the work piece must be less rigidly held quite far above the vise jaw, and you have to start by following two lines at once.

The key point is to recognize the importance of a good start to the saw cut, experiment, and find what works best for you. Much of good craftsmanship is built on recognizing and managing the critical junctures of procedures.

And that, of course, leads to happy woodworking.

First, the tips:

The cutoffs from thick curved cuts on the bandsaw will probably prove useful, so think twice before trashing them. With a little cleaning up, they can become clamp blocks, sanding blocks, or supports under the work pieces for hand tool work.

Camellia oil oxidizes very little but enough to make it somewhat gummy after a long time in a tool oiler or on the surface of infrequently used tools. Since adding a generous amount of vitamin E oil, an antioxidant, to my storage bottle of camellia oil, the problem has been all but eliminated.

After just a few weeks, the magnetic-mount LED work light from Lee Valley has become a shop favorite. I always use it for bandsaw work where the powerful magnet keeps it stable while the 18″ flexible neck stays put. At the workbench, it is easily set up for joinery work by using the mounting plate with the 3/4″ post in a dog hole. It is also invaluable for creating a low raking light for surface finishing tasks.

[Addendum: Over time I have found this lamp to be unreliable. High quality batteries seem to drain unusually fast and leaked in the original lamp and again in a replacement lamp. I no longer recommend it.]

I find this simple bandsaw push stick (above) handy and safe. The key is the hacked-up tip that grips a corner of the work piece. The tip is self-renewing as it gets passed into the moving blade (so my fingers won’t), until the stick gets too short, when it takes only a minute to make a new one.

Now, the irritations:

While A2 steel certainly has merits, it dulls differently than O-1, often with minute chip-outs, even with higher secondary bevel angles. I am also convinced that it must be very difficult to manufacture consistently with regard to carbide grain size, because I have some durable A-2 blades that almost never chip out and some that do so much more often, despite all being from highly regarded makers.

Jorgensen’s otherwise excellent #37 series heavy-duty bar clamps come with soft orange pads that leave oily stains on the wood when tightened hard. (On sanded mahogany in the photo below.) The stains do seem to get obscured by oil or varnish finishes, but are a risk and annoyance better avoided. The manufacturer acknowledged the issue when I contacted them, but I have seen no changes in the product in the more than one year since. I replaced the OEM pads with Bessey pads on the screw end and thin adhesive cork on the fixed end.

This one goes in the DAMHIKT file. I think I’d work outdoors in single digit temperatures rather than do topside routing of MDF in the shop, at least when a router dust collection attachment is impractical. It’s just not healthful.

Another one: Non-tapered sliding dovetails longer than about 3 or 4 inches should be considered a major risk factor for insanity. This was a situation where a tapered sliding DT would not work, but some things are just not meant to be.

It’s all OK though, because making things continues.

The 0.5 HB, despite limitations, is convenient and versatile to perform most layout work. However, as in most matters of woodworking, it is valuable to have a range of options to suit the tool to the task.

In the photo above, the line on the left was made with 0.5 HB, the next with a worn chisel point 2.0 mm 2H, and the three on the right with fresher chisel points.

What about the flat carpenter’s pencil? It won’t roll away while you are building on a roof but I do not like them for furniture making layout. The lead is too soft in the widely available regular ones, and though harder lead is available, I find them generally too coarse. A chisel point can be made with a knife, and renewed with sandpaper, but the process is slower and messier than the 2.0 mm and 0.9 mm 2H.

This is just personal preference and you may find you like them. Another option for sharpening the carpenter’s pencil is the clever Keson sharpener, which uses two blades in succession. Other sharpeners that bring the flat pencil to a rounded point are a good example of defeating a design with “improvements.”

Since only the timid and fools don’t make mistakes, those who use pencils must use erasers. The pink eraser on the end of a wooden pencil is adequate for spot use but it tends to smudge. The refillable white eraser on the end of the Pentel Twist-Erase is much better.

However, I like to make big, head-slapping mistakes so I keep two types of separate erasers available. A kneaded eraser is convenient in that it does not produce crumbs, and it lasts a long time, but often it cannot fully remove lines on wood. Its surface is refreshed by folding and kneading. More thorough is a white “plastic” eraser, such as the Staedtler Mars. It does produce crumbs but this serves to keep its surface clean and thus prevent smudges on the wood.

Finally, you might like this short video of great insight drawn from the humble pencil.

Lines made with pencils are a ubiquitous and essential part of woodworking, so it pays to take a close look at pencils, points, and how they are used.

The basic hexagonal wood pencil with HB (#2) lead, such as the classic yellow Dixon Ticonderoga is a handy workhorse for general non-critical layout and labeling. I stay away from round pencils and the annoyingly flexible cheap ones made from composite material.

The point wears quickly on the ol’ #2, so consider using a 2H art/drafting pencil. The harder lead retains a point better so it draws a finer line for a longer time. I find that pencils harder than 2H tend to dent many woods, or make lines that are too light.

For dark woods, I prefer a white pencil, though some like red. Colored pencils are softer than regular ones so must be sharpened more frequently. The Sanford/Prismacolor Verithin #734 seems to be the most durable white pencil.

A battery-powered sharpener at the front of the drawer under my bench top is fast and handy for these wooden pencils.

For a more consistently fine line, a 0.5 mm mechanical pencil is useful. The ratcheting style allows the point to be easily advanced with one hand, a significant advantage when the other hand is holding a square in place. My favorite is the Pentel Twist-Erase. It has a bulky rubbery grip and a robust eraser that is not hidden by a cap and has plenty of spare length. (It is the black pencil at the top left in the opening photo.)

For these pencils, I find HB lead to be the most practical. There is little advantage to the harder 2H since the line will always be about 0.5 wide anyway.

Unless the 0.5 mm lead is extended and held vertically against the layout tool, which is not always possible or desirable, one is not quite sure exactly what distal point on the lead will actually contact the wood, and thus how far from the tool the line will be drawn. This can make it difficult to accurately meet a previously drawn line or mark. Sometimes it helps to place the pencil point on the mark and then slide the layout tool up to it.

0.3 mm pencils make finer, more accurately placed lines, but I gave up using them a while ago because the lead is so prone to breaking, even Pentel Hi-Polymer. I have also found colored 0.5 lead to be too fragile.

The way to step up to greater accuracy when you need it is to use a chisel point. For this, I use 2.0 mm 2H lead in a drafting “lead holder.” (It is the silver pencil at the lower right in the opening photo.) Here is a close up of the point:

For tighter quarters, 0.9 mm 2H in a slim Pentel P209 drafting pencil is useful. (Below, and it is the yellow mechanical pencil at the top right in the opening photo.)

The chisel point is created with a single pass of 2-3 inches on 400 grit sandpaper with the pencil held at about a 45° angle. Use the location of the clip to consistently orient the pencil – I always keep it down and to the right.

The flat side of the chisel point is placed against the edge of the square to make a very fine line that is placed with near marking-knife precision. In situations where the pencil cannot be held at such a steep angle, the rounded side of the chisel point can be held against the tool or other layout edge.

A chisel edge can be made with a wood pencil but I find this is messier, slower, and lacks the same feel of precision.

Next: comparison of lines and more on the subject.