Tools Part I (Yes he’s bored again and you’re going to suffer for it)

Let’s talk about tools for a while. I had a few questions from people interested in (you can ask questions in the comments or email me at old.grouchyfarmer@gmail.com) about woodworking tools, so I thought this was a good time (OMG I’m sooo bored…) to talk about what you need, what the prices are like, things you should look for, things you should avoid, etc.

(Disclaimer: I should point out that I do not get free stuff from manufacturers or vendors, I don’t accept advertising, I don’t get paid for anything I publish here. Every tool, piece of equipment or other supplies that I mention in these posts was purchased by myself, with my own money. My comments are based totally on my own experiences with any products I mention. I only comment about products I have actually used myself. )

When talking about tools things get complicated because it is such a general category that it can include everything from the tweezers you use to pull slivers out of your hand all the way up to massive power tools. To complicate things even more, there are tools you need just to keep your other tools operating properly. I’m going to try to keep this as simple as I can, though.

And I should point out that tools can get expensive real fast. But generally speaking you don’t need to spend huge amounts of money. Most of those super expensive tools are basically intended for people who have more money than brains. But I’ll get into that as I talk about more specific types of tools.

So, let’s get on with this, then.

First Of All Protect Your Ass Yourself

I’m not going to sugarcoat this. Woodworking is dangerous. But then so is, well, eating breakfast, as far as that goes. Do you have any idea how many people end up in the ER from breakfast related injuries, or even killed? So much for that “most important meal of the day” BS. (That “most important meal” nonsense was started by a cereal company, by the way.)

So the first thing I want to talk about is safety gear to keep you from ending up in the emergency room.

First of all there is eye/face protection. You’re working with sharp tools, power tools that spin at hundreds or even thousands of RPM, wood that shatters and splinters, and while an eye patch may look good on a pirate or Commander Fury, in real life it isn’t much fun.

Those safety glasses you see people wearing on This Old House and home improvement shows are better than nothing, but they’re entirely inadequate for anything except a direct frontal impact. They have minimal side shielding, fit loosely, and generally do little to protect your eyes from stuff coming in from the sides. And stuff will come in from the sides. I guarantee it. What you need is something like this:

They give protection all the way around, seal tight against the skin, are not only impact resistant but dust resistant as well. Uncomfortable to wear? Yep. But would you rather be uncomfortable for a few hours or lose an eye? Yeah, thought so. They’re also cheap. You can usually get decent quality safety goggles for well under $10.

Now I do wear those goggles up there sometimes, but they don’t protect the entire face so what I personally prefer, is this:

This is a full face shield from Honeywell Safety Products. This is generally what I wear. It can be easily worn over prescription glasses, protects the entire face, not just the eyes, and is far more comfortable to wear than the goggles are. And it’s easy to wear it over the top of most respirators, although it’s a tight fit over the top of a cartridge respirator. And it’s not real expensive. You’re going to pay under $40 for one like this. You can get better ones than this, at a higher price, of course. Some even come with air filtration systems, but those are a bit awkward to wear and damn they’re expensive.

And speaking of respirators…

Protect Your Lungs

Working with wood generates dust, a lot of dust. Just about everything you do with wood makes dust. Whether it’s sanding or sawing or wood turning, it is going to make dust. And while a lot of people seem to be under the impression wood dust is generally harmless, it isn’t.

Now I know that “the state of California has determined that (insert product of your choice here) can cause cancer” warnings have turned into pretty much a joke, but in this case they’re right. Long term exposure to wood dust does seem to be linked to an increased risk of cancer. It is also linked to asthma attacks, chronic lung impairment, life threatening allergic reactions and other nasty stuff. To make things even more interesting, some types of wood are literally toxic.

Now you can have the best dust extraction system in the world (and let’s face it, most of us don’t have any kind of dust extraction system except maybe a shop vac) but you’re still going to get ultrafine particles of wood floating in the air and ending up in your lungs unless you wear a respirator of some type.

Just about every hardware store carries (or did carry before the pandemic hit) paper masks laughingly called “respirators” or more generically, “dust masks”. Most of those are, frankly, just about worthless. They do little or nothing to remove the very fine particles of dust floating around in the air. The “gold standard” when it comes to paper type respirators is, of course, one of these:

That’s a N95 respirator, and that’s what I used to wear before they became unavailable because of the pandemic. Yes they were expensive. But no where near as expensive as having your lungs ruined. Now you can’t find them anywhere, and if you can find them for sale chances are good they’re counterfeits and/or insanely expensive. (I would really, really like to know why, some 8 months into this pandemic, protective equipment is still in such short supply that it still needs to be rationed.)

What I wear is this:

That’s a respirator from MSA with replaceable filter cartridges. It provides better protection than even an N95 mask, and, believe it or not, these masks and cartridges are still generally available. And they aren’t that expensive, either. A quick peek at Amazon tells me the masks, without cartridges, are going for about $15. The cartridge filters are not cheap but not as bad as you might think. Depending on the type of cartridge they’re going for under $20 or so for a pair. And the cartridges last for much, much longer than the typical N95 paper mask does.

Is it comfortable to wear? Not really, but at the same time it isn’t horrible to wear, either. And you do get used to it and hardly even know you’re wearing it after a while. I’m used to it and it’s nowhere near as difficult to wear as some of the safety gear I had to wear for enclosed spaces training or even when painting cars. To be honest I hardly know I have the thing on once I have it in place. (Needless to say I have no respect at all for the little cry babies who whine about ‘but it’s so hot and uncomfortable’ when they have to wear a light weight surgical mask in a store. I’d like to see what they’d think of having to wear full air gear including 100+ lb. air tanks, full face mask and a protective suit.)

Whichever respirator you wear, you have to wear it the right way. It isn’t going to do you any good at all if you don’t have a good seal against bare skin. (As one of my instructors once said, if you can smell anything, you’re already dead. He had a rather warped sense of humor.)

Speaking of surgical masks, will one of those protect your lungs? Those might be better than nothing but they aren’t very good for this kind of thing.

Ewwww! It’s Sticky!

Let’s talk about glue. A large part of woodworking is attaching one piece of wood to another. And often the best way of doing it is to glue those suckers together.

Now there are dozens of different brands of wood glue out there, and I’ve tried pretty much all of them over the last twenty or so years. To be honest, there’s really not much difference between the name brands as far as performance goes. But the one I’ve used almost exclusively for years now is Titebond. The company makes different types of glues, but my favorite is Titebond III Ultimate wood glue. The stuff just plain works if you follow the instructions on the bottle. I’ve never had a glue joint fail as long as I used reasonable care and followed the instructions. It’s easy to use, has little or no odor with no toxic fumes (unlike CA adhesives), is reasonably easy to clean up and it just works. Best of all it’s reasonably inexpensive.

The drawback to most wood glues, including Titebond, is that the wood needs to be clamped for an extended period of time. Hours. Generally I’ll leave it in the clamps for at least twelve hours before doing anything that would put strain on the glued joint

That means, of course, that you need clamps. Lots and lots of clamps. Someone once told me you can’t have too many clamps and for me, at least, that seems to be true. Don’t get too obsessive about clamps. Some people get a bit weird when it comes to clamps. Most of us don’t need anything fancy. For most of us a clamp is a clamp is a clamp, and as long as it’s fairly easy to adjust and doesn’t bend when it’s under pressure, it’s going to be good enough. I have everything from cheap hardware store junk all the way up to the pricey Jorgenson brand name clamps, but in the long run they all do the same thing, clamp stuff together. I do prefer the ones that have the squeeze handles for clamping instead of the screw type. Those are much easier to work with. But in the long run, they’re all still clamps.

What About CA (cyanoacrylate) Adhesives?

CA glues, or “super glue” or “instant glue” or whatever you want to call them, are the ones that bond virtually instantly (well, actually they really don’t bond instantly). And it is really tempting to try using them instead of having to clamp up joints for hours using normal wood glue, isn’t it? Just slap on some CA glue, stick the wood together, and bang, it’s done.

But CA glues have some issues as they say.

Now I’ve experimented extensively with CA glues over the last few years, especially after watching Youtube videos of guys slapping together bits and pieces of wood with one type of CA glue or another and then chucking it up on a lathe and whacking away at it with a bloody great roughing gouge while spinning it at about a gazillion RPM. To say that doing something like that would make me a wee bit nervous is an understatement. While I’ve never had a Titebond wood glue joint fail on me, I have had multiple CA glue joints fail. Enough so that I don’t trust the stuff to be able to handle any significant sheer forces. So my experience with CA adhesives in general is that while they have their place, they generally don’t work well with wood.

But that being said, I have had good luck with Starbond CA glues. I use it with wood turning projects for things like stabilizing cracks in bowl blanks, reinforcing weak wood and things like that. It works amazingly well for that. Especially the very thin consistency stuff. Saturate the bad wood or crack with the adhesive, give it a shot of accelerator to cure the glue, and away I go without having to worry about the crack causing a piece to shatter or a bit of punky wood wrecking an otherwise nice bowl blank.

There are three problems, though, that are shared by virtually all CA type adhesives.

First of all the stuff is expensive. That little 2 oz bottle of Starbond black medium up there costs almost as much as a whole quart of Titebond III. A quart of Titebond III is about $19. That 2 oz bottle of Starbond Black in the photo up there sells for $15. And you really need the accelerator as well, which will set you back another $14.50. So while Starbond works really well, it can be prohibitively expensive if you use large quantities of the stuff.

The second problem is it is still a CA based adhesive, so that means it gives off some very nasty fumes, as does the accelerator. If you’re using more than a few drops of the stuff it is recommended you do so only with very good ventilation or wearing a respirator.

The third problem is that it has virtually zero open time. Literally zero open time if used with an accelerator. What’s open time? That’s the amount of time you have before the adhesive begins to cure and you can no longer move the two pieces of wood to position them. With a glue like Titebond, you have many minutes before the glue begins to setup so you can move the pieces around to get them positioned properly before you put on the clamps. But with CA glues like Starbond, there is literally zero open time, especially if you’re using an accelerator. You apply the adhesive to one piece of wood, apply the accelerator to the other, slap them together and they are immediately bonded. You’d better make darn sure that you have those pieces positioned properly the moment you put them together, because that’s it. Once they touch, they’re bonded.

I’ve bored you long enough. Part II (if I ever get around to writing it) will look at hand tools for cutting wood; things like saws, wood chisels and lathe tools, an how to keep them sharp.

Things are pretty slow here at the moment. We’re cleaning up the gardens, the temperatures are plummeting (it’s 42F right now out there), I’m waiting for supplies and equipment so I can start experimenting with resin casting (that could either be a lot of fun or an utter disaster, but I’ll talk about that when the time comes). I’m still trying to learn morse code. I just got a new RaspberryPi 4 computer that will probably become the new computer for a digital QRP amateur radio setup using the FT-818. We’re waiting for the contractor to set up a time to get a bunch of windows and doors replaced.

Wait, that’s slow? Sheesh…