Woodworking Word of the Day: Sneck

While rereading the August 2008 issue of Popular Woodworking, I noticed a word I had never heard or seen before: sneck. In his review of the Brese 800-series planes, Christopher Schwartz said "I wish the iron had a full sneck—a horizontal bar of metal—which would make the iron easier to retract."

For reference, the plane iron on the Brese plane was similar to the standard iron found on most hand planes:

I couldn't picture it from his description. When I looked up sneck in the dictionary, however, there was no reference to plane irons. The only dictionary definition had to do with door latches.

I thought the clearest definition came from Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 2d edition: "SNECK, that part of the iron fastening of a door which is raised by moving the latch. To sneck a door, is to latch it." So the sneck, in fact, is a hooked end of a traditional door latch, which minus the handle looks something like this:

Some research on the Web, however turned up two types of sneck used on plane irons, and after seeing the type used on some plow planes, it is easy to imagine that the term comes directly from the traditional definition of sneck—the hooked end of a traditional plow iron looks like a door sneck with the thumb rest removed:

I don't think that is the type of sneck that Christopher Schwartz was picturing. I think that the "full sneck" he had in mind would look like this:

I have no idea whether etymologists would confirm my suspicion that plane snecks are so called because of the resemblance to door snecks, but that's my story and I'm snecking to it.

An Old Building Gets a New Face - Part 2

In December I noted the progress on a local historic remodel. At that time the siding was partially applied to the tower, and I said:

...much of the siding we see in this picture looks poorly applied because the visible corners aren't flush. But don't worry. When they finish the skin, the corners will be flush-cut and end caps will be installed and perfectly fitted (I hope). The slop we see in the corners will be gone, hidden by the finishing details.

On Thursday I remembered the camera and took a picture that proved the rule. All that "slop" I noted has indeed been covered by a corner end cap. I especially like the cornice details at each corner: these visually become a capital and transform the end cap into a column. The show is on.

Urban Design

When I was on my way into Boston a few weeks ago, I caught sight of an incredible piece of graffiti on the back of a truck. This graphic has form, motion, depth, and interest. Everything we can aspire to in a piece of art or craft. I couldn't help picturing a piece like this inlaid on a piece of furniture. It would have to be the right piece of furniture, but wow! It could be incredible.

Wooden Door of a Mimber

I found this incredible combination of carving and decorative woodwork when I typed in "wooden turkey" on Google today. It is the door of a mimber, which I discovered is the Turkish word for the hooded pulpit from which the Friday sermon is delivered. This example is in the Aleaddin Mosque, Konya and was built in the Seljuk period, dated 1155.

Be glad I found this rather than the wooden turkey I sought. Happy Thanksgiving!

Photograph © cambridge2000.com, which turns out to be a fun browse for pictures.

Sketchup Construction Plan for a Barn Loft

Yesterday I temporarily abandoned the Inkle Loom project plans and started in on a project that my friend Sean had sent me. We're both learning Sketchup at the same time, but he has been a bit further along. Having learned the Move and Rotate tools though, I felt ready to try the complex joints he was trying to portray in this drawing. After all: there were no roundovers any where in the plan.

Since they say a picture is worth a thousand words, here are several pictures:

This is Bryce (the Sketchup guy) standing next to the loft construction.

This shows all the loft parts in an exploded view.

Finally, this shows the complex interlocking joint that holds the structure together. It's hard to see, but the post has been slotted on both axes. One two-by-four has a notch in the top and sets in the slot first. The next two-by-four has a notch on the bottom and slides into the other slot. The notches inter link to hold the whole structure together.

I'm feeling fairly confident that this project could be built from these plans, and I'm pleased with the precise fit (which was a challenge on earlier attempts).

Faking a Roundover in Sketchup

I continue to work on learning Sketchup as a tool for creating my woodworking plans. Last week I posted about the difficulty I'm having creating a roundover on the tensioner of my Inkle Loom plans. I've concluded that "Intersect with selected", while it works in theory, is not the easiest way to do this. Follow Me seems like should be easier, but I haven't learned to use the Follow Me well enough to achieve this.

While browsing Design. Click. Build., I discovered a trick that looks right, even though it isn't: edge softening. For many woodworking plans, this method is good enough for indicating a roundover, as seen in the picture above. Even though the edges on the white tensioner aren't rounded, they appear to be. The lack of rounding is only evident at the corners: notice the rounding of the back corners on the blue tensioner, and the squareness of the same corners on the white tensioner.

Here's how this fake roundover was accomplished:

1. I drew a new tensioner without the round edges. This was easier than trying to remove the rounded edges on the first tensioner.
2. On every face I wanted to look rounded I used the offset tool to add an offset 1/8" from the edge. This gave a stopping point for the softening effect I planned to use.
3. Using the Erase tool, I softened the edges. To do this I positioned the eraser over an edge that needed softening, pressed [Ctrl], and clicked the Eraser on the line. This hides the line and softens the edge
   
4. After all the edges were softened, I used the Select tool to select the offset lines, right click, and select Hide.

The results are good enough for my application, but I'm going to keep working on edge rounding until I can apply a real roundover if I ever need it. Many thanks to Dave Richards at Design. Click. Learn.!

Inspiring Boxes

All week I've been admiring these pencil boxes at Mushashi's Woodworking Diary. Each of them illustrates a traditional Japanese timber framing joint and makes a stunningly beautiful and intriguing work of art.

Each box is made from a different kind of wood, selected carefully for clear and beautiful grain, and each box lid has a different joint. This is part of what I find so admirable about far eastern woodworking: careful attention to material and execution; the appearance of simplicity and ease in complex work.

The joints and grains on these boxes match so carefully that they might almost be imagined as a single solid piece of wood, and the contrasting pins, which would have held the timbers of a house together, become a single striking irregularity that pins the box lid together. What we see of the slide promises a careful fit and silky smooth action.

I am inspired.

Photo courtesy of and copyright Musashi Kutsuwa

17 Board Feet of Maple: Furniture Build-Off

What can you do with 17 board-feet of maple? The idea intrigues me. Could you build a bench like the one shown here? A glass topped coffee table? A side table? A bookshelf? A wall cabinet?

For those who don't know, the board foot is a rough wood measure of 12 inches x 12 inches x 1 inch of wood. You don't need to keep those dimensions, though. You can halve one dimension and double another, for example. So one board foot could be 12" x 12" x 1", or 24" x 6" x 1", or 12" x 6" x 2", or many other combinations with the same volume.

With that in mind, 17 board feet could be a 17-foot long, 12-inch wide, 1-inch thick plank, or a 16.5-foot long, 6-inch wide, 4-inch thick post. It sounds like quite a bit of wood, but you won't be building an armoire with it, or a chest of drawers, or a dining room table. This puzzle has infinite solutions, but limited size.

Why am I asking this today? Because I stumbled upon the Fine Woodworking Furniture Build-Off and it captured my imagination. This is a challenge I would love to meet. I'm adding it to the Someday Maybe section of my project list, and even if I don't participate I'll remember the principle: a limitation can be inspiration.

Photo courtesy of the Wikimedia commons and Aaron Morse

Doodling Design Inspiration

Furniture doodles creep into my notebooks both at work and at home. Usually they explore shape and concept, like those shown here.

Chair Design and Champaigne Bottles

Design precedes the act of working wood. Even simple objects require some design: how big will it be? what wood will you use? how will it be joined?

Here's a competition that shows just how much a "little" design can accomplish. The aim is to design and build a chair using only parts of a champaigne bottle. I think you'll agree that these miniature chairs are incredible, especially considering what the makers have to use for materials.

I learned about this contest from Lindsey Staniforth's blog.

Contest sponsored by and photo courtesy of Design Within Reach

Fibonacci Series and Fibonacci Calipers

During a gift exchange in which I participated, one of the recipients received a cryptic object: four pieces of wood, three of them pointed, all rivetted together into a type of caliper. This turned out to be a Fibonacci gauge, used for laying out the ratio of roughly 1:1.618 (also called the Golden Mean).

This got me wondering about the Fibonacci series. A quick browse around the Web returned this marvelous video explanation of the Fibonacci Series, the standard Wikipedia entry, and an entry from Linsay Staniforth's (sadly inactive) woodworking blog. All are "fun with numbers", even if you aren't a mathematician. But the caliper is a practical application of that fun, allowing you to find and create golden ratios quickly and easily.

You can buy a premade Fibonacci gauge, but you can also make your own using this simple plan. Once you have the gauge, take a quick spin of the Wood Magazine video on using a Fibonacci gauge. I almost gaurantee you'll be as excited as I am about making or otherwise acquiring this little tool.

Picture by Keith De'Grau, courtesy of handamerican.com

P.S. Found another good post on the Golden Section.

Form Follows Function?

I recently wrote about sculptural furniture, which is a fascinating blend of art and furniture. The gallery representation of independant furniture makers is one force that makes such furniture possible and keeps it alive. I've seen many pieces that were both striking works of art and functional furniture (Judith Kensley McKie's work, for example) and this can be among the best modern examples of the woodworking craft.

But what happens when the maker forgets the function of what they're making? We get strange fruit: a cabinet that takes up enough space to be a respectable sideboard, but only has a single 1' x 2' drawer and no surface on which you might set something; a table that looks more like a 1970's stair railing than a table; or a chair with a sinuous shape but no relation to the human form: a cement curbstone would probably be more comfortable. I'll admit that some of these items make me think "wow, how was that done?" but once I'm past the oddity, I realize nothing else recommends the design.