I’m one of the lucky (yea that’s it) few, that has sweat/skin oils that rust metal. I’ve read some place that roughly 10% of people have this problem. Most of the time it’s not much of a problem, but if your involved in woodworking or metalworking, it’s a real problem because a lot of tools are made from metals that rust. Rust causes the tool surface to become uneven, and while it’s mildly annoying on most tools, it’s a real problem on a precision tool like a square.
Most squares are made from tool steel, and most tool steels aren’t know for their rust resistance. Fortunately, Peachtree Woodworking sells special layout squares made from stainless steel. I’ve had them for about month now, and they are well worth the price in my opinion. They’re exceptionally square, and their unique design means you don’t need 3 hands to use them.
My rusty old machinist square
stainless steel squares
Last time, I posted about the chisel racks I made for safety Week. Since then I’ve built the accessory racks that mount on the front sliding dovetails. I could babel on about them, but they are pretty simple, so I’ll let the photos do the talking.
Ahh, so pretty
mallet holder
scratch awl & marking gauge holders
Incra rules & squares rack
pencil and ruler holder
A few years ago Marc Spagnuolo came up with the concept of Safety Week, eventually one week a year, several prominent bloggers write about ways of staying safe in the shop. It’s not talked about much, but lets face it, woodworking is one of the more dangerous hobbies to get into. Careless mistakes in a woodworking shop, can easily lead to a missing digit, eye, or worse. Now I’m not known for being Mr. safety, some times I do stuff that would make most people cringe. One thing I take very seriously, is cuts caused by hand tools.
If you’ve done any amount of woodworking you’ve probably come to learn that hand tools make certain tasks very easy. You’ve also probably learned that the sharper they are the better. In the grand scheme of things planes and back saws aren’t that dangerous. Your chisels and marking knife however are just waiting for you to let your guard down so they can slice you open and send you to the emergency room for stitches.
With all that being said, I decided to make myself chisel racks for safety week (yea I know I’m behind schedule). The requirements were pretty simple, the racks needed to be cheap, simple, fully cover the blade, and if possible stylish. What I came up with is below, It’s made from black Willow that I piked up at my local Rockler dealer for $1.92 a BF. They mount to the wall with dovetails and they also have a dovetail across the front of them so I can make “attachments” to hold my marking gauge, rules, etc. The finish was BLO and paste wax.
Milled raw stock
Glued up
Mounted
lovely grain
Mounting dovetail
accessory dovetail
This weekend I prepared the shop for spring, I didn’t do anything major, just blow out the dust, and rearrange some tools on the wall. It only took 2 hours to do it, but it still felt really good to open the garage door, turn up Pandora, and doe something completely mindless.In other words, another season of woodworking has begun.
