Oh heck it's only Wednesday

Sack Back Nanny Rocker

Well, it has been one of those weeks where life has gotten a head of steam and is attempting to roll me over.  I am making this post from my wife's laptop because, (long pause for affect) my computer has taken a dump.  The pictures taken for the chair build are presently trapped inside and therefore I am unable to post them.  Computer is in the shop with hopes of being able to be back online in a day or two.  As if that wasn't enough I woke up this morning to an air conditioning system not working.  Well enough whining on my part.

On the lighter side the boot/brace is off the foot and things seem to be working well.  Thanks Doc! This evening I had a visit to the shop from fellow woodworker and friend, the incomparable Donna Hill.  If you are not familiar with Donna she is quite the accomplished woodworker, instructor and speaker.  Donna is very active with The Society of American Period Furniture Makers (SAPFM), is the Project Illustrator for Popular Woodworking Magazine, past speaker at Woodworking In America (WIA) and has taught numerous classes on inlay.  If you see where Donna is teaching a class do yourself a favor and sign up.

Donna stopped by to talk about building her first Windsor Chair.  She is wanting to take on the most difficult chair I have built to date (see photo).  I am honored that she has asked me to guide and instruct her in her endeavor.  I look forward to working with such a talent.

When I have my cyber issues rectified I will be posting on the June Chair Build and when Donna gets ready to go and with her permission I will post on her first Windsor experience.

~ Ray Schwanenberger

Chair Build Days 4 and 5

Much has taken place in the shop since the last post two days ago.  Yesterday, I pulled another piece from the water and was quite pleased to see a 39% MC reading.  This meant it was time to steam and bend.

After soaking for about two and a half days.

First I had to do a little adaptation to my steam delivery system.  Up until yesterday I had used the 12' hose connecting to special fittings on both the steamer and steam box.  The problem is 12' of hose is 9' too much.  In the past I was unable to get my steambox up to 212 degrees, and I believe it was because of a heat loss in the hose.

Wallpaper steamer requires the fitting on the hose.

Hose fitting to connect the hose to the wallpaper steamer.

 After lopping of 9' of hose I was left with 3' of useable hose with a fitting on one end and open hose on the other.  What I discovered was a 3/8" ID hose inside of the black exterior hose.

Black hose acts as an insulator around the white hose that carries the steam.

 Next I removed the brass fitting from the steam box and on the drill press bore a 7/8" hole that provided a tight fit for the black exterior hose.

Brass fitting was required when using the hose as it came from the manufacturer.

While the steamer was bringing the temperature up in the box, I carved a piece into a 7/8" round bow. I marked the center with a line and an arrow so that I would know what side to put up.  It is best to figure this out before you have a very hot piece of wood in your hands that needs bent in 45 seconds. I mark the wood in such a way that the tangential plane is against the form.  The tangential plane is parallel to the bark and the radial plane runs from the pith to the bark.  This would mean the growth rings would be parallel to the bending form.  I am happy to report that my steam box made it to 212 degrees with ease.

The steam box actually held 212 degrees without a problem

  

The bow was in the box and the timer set for 1 hour.  When working with green wood I will usually steam pieces for 30 minutes.  Since I was working with wood that had been air-dried I rehydrated the pieces and doubled the steaming time, as suggested by Pete in his book Chairmaker's Notebook. While the steaming was taking place I prepared for the bending.  As I said before, once the piece comes out of the box you have a short bit of time to wedge the piece at its center point (arrow up facing the form), bend, pin and wedge the the ends before it cools too much.  When the hour was up I put the bow in the form and bent away.  I was so so happy with the results. It bent like I had just taken the piece out of a freshly cut tree.

The only place where a fiber or two raised , SUCCESS!

 
I attribute the success of the bend to being able to rehydrate the material and being able to deliver a consistent flow of 212 degree steam through out the steam box while using a defect free piece of oak. I was so psyched with the results I carved two more bows and put them into the steam box for an hour.  Well it would be great if I reported only my successes, but that isn't me.

The other two bows came from pieces whose grain was not as straight as it should be (understatement of the week) and as a result I ended up with a few small delaminations.  I was able to use some polyurethane glue and tape to repair those.  This morning I steamed and bent two arms that I carved and they were out of some wood that I most likely should have cut short of the wonky grain and used for spindles.  However I had to give it a go (I need help). One of the arms suffered major delaminations and required glue, clamps and then tape.  At this point this arm has become an experiment.  The other arm fared a bit better but I will most likely burn it also.  It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, well here you go.

Delamination in the bow caused a kink most likely rendering it unusable.  There is some extra material on the bow, therefore if I am able to fare the curve without loosing to much material it will be used.

This is the repaired delamination that caused the kink.

This arm bent the best but the wonky grained prevented me from being able to keep it flat in the form.  As part of my experimentation I have clamped it to my bench top with holdfasts to see if it will set in a flatter profile.

Moral of the post: If you find yourself wanting to bend pieces like these DON'T!  Seek help!

Five bends with one for sure usable bow and four ahhh maybe's.  I guess we will see how or if I am able to recover.

When the day ends it is time for the clean up crew.  My grandson Zane telling me "I help Pappy".

I have an arm that I had bent earlier so I am good to go there.  I usually bend more than one component just in case, and it appears it was a good thing.  Next I will be carving the spindles and then setting them aside to dry with the bendings from this past session.  Until the next time may you be blessed with straight grain always.

~ Ray Schwanenberger

Chair Build Day 3

I woke up this morning and my foot was feeling good so, after my morning cup of coffee I headed to the shop.  I opened my Quercus alba rehydration device (white oak soaking in water in a trash can) and pulled a thick piece of spindle stock from the odiferous brackish water.  I checked the moisture level with my meter and I am happy to report it measured 29%.  Since the reading increased by 11% in just one day and I had turnings to do and finish carving the seat, I decided to let the rivings continue to soak.

After one day soaking an increase in MC of 11%

I moved onto finishing the carving of the seat.  The seat on a Sack Back is called and oval seat and the grain runs from side to side.  On a kids chair I carve the bowl to approximately 3/4" deep.  I like to have the area where the legs cross over the front of the seat about 1/2" lower than the spindle deck. This makes for a very comfortable chair that does not cut off the circulation to the legs.

I did not remove the extra wood on the back of the seat so I had plenty of material to clamp in my bench's leg vise in order to work on the front and sides of the seat.  I used my bevel up draw knife to make the relief cut to the front of the seat that gives it its distinctive profile.  I then used a drawknife and spoke shave to fair the curve on the sides of the seat.

Front of the seat.

Next I removed the excess material from the back of the seat blank.  I then took great care in clamping the seat in my vise and finished fairing the curve around the back of the seat.  My leg vise chop and the portion of the bench face covered by the chop are lined with leather.  This is to aid in gripping and helps to keep from damaging the material being held in the vise.  A note of great importance; When clamping in a bench vise, a seat blank that has been cut to size and carved, ALWAYS clamp on the spindle deck.  NEVER clamp onto ANY PART of the carved seat.  Don't ask me how I know this will save you grab mental anguish.

Next I removed the material where the legs cross over the front of the seat.  To do this I used the drawknife, scorp, travisher and spokeshave, taking light and deliberate cuts.  It was ultra critical to pay close attention to the grain.  With so many undulations in this area it was very important to ensure I was cutting downhill with a skewed blade.  A slip or misguided cut at this stage could result in a tear out that may not be able to be repaired.

I then finished up with several shaped scrapers and sand paper.  On some of my first seats I didn't use sandpaper.  Curtis Buchanan explained that the seat was the largest surface on the chair and naturally draws ones eye to it.  For this reason, Curtis scrapes and sands to ensure the finish is at a very high level.  At this point I close my eyes and run my fingers over the seat surface.  I have learned that my eyes do not see the surface as well as my fingers can feel it.  The slightest bump or dip is easier to find and fix.

Circled areas are slightly higher than the surrounding surface.  I could not see them but I could feel them. 

After sanding the seat bowl down to 120 grit I planed the spindle deck with my No. 4 hand plane, re-carved the gutter and set the seat aside.  Next I turned the four legs, two side stretchers and the medial stretcher.  I am using bamboo turnings for this chair.  The double bobbin turning is sometimes misidentified as the bamboo turning.

Finished Seat

Bamboo leg turnings

Four different type turnings from left to right:
Baluster; Blunt Arrow or Ball & Cylinder; Bamboo; Double Bobbin w/A Bead

Tomorrow I will check on the soaking oak and begin to put the undercarriage together and attach it to the seat.

~ Ray Schwanenberger

Chair Build Day 1

Well as you might imagine getting around in the shop with a large medical boot brace on ones foot is cumbersome.  However, I must press on.  Usually I would split, rive and shave my arm and bow parts first. Followed by a good steaming then bending them in their appropriate forms and setting them aside to dry.  Then I would move onto the other greenwood work, the spindles.  But as I said in a previous post I am going to be doing things a bit out of order, due to my aforementioned state of gimpiness.  I am attempting to recruit a strong young person to split that big ole oak log for me.  So far no luck.

So I started on the seat blank.  I laid it out, drilled my center spindle hole and the four leg holes.  I then began to carve the bowl of the seat.  I am happy to report that the Sugar Pine carves very nicely. Like its cousin Eastern White Pine it requires sharp tools.  I started with my adze made by Tim Manney.  It works so nicely and made very short work of removing the bulk of the seat bowl.  I am a novice with this type of adze and am still learning the nuances of the tool.  Next I moved onto the scorp/inshave. Taking a skewed cut working downhill while paying close attention to the grain is paramount.  The wood will let you know how it wants to be carved.  It is very important to heed its warnings so as to avoid tearing out a deep hole that will be difficult to remove.  The last step was to move to my travisher made by Claire Minihan.  The travisher is a bit of a peculiar tool to learn to use, for me at least it felt a bit counter intuitive.  Again I used a skewed cut working downhill paying attention to what the wood would allow me to do.  Using my bandsaw I cut out the front of the seat in preparation to carve it.

Tools Left to Right: Adze, Travisher, Scorp/Inshave

Next I drilled the arm post holes.  To do this I used a square, bevel square and mirror to obtain my 17 degree angle along the sight line.  The mirror allows me to compare my drill bit to the bevel square with a glance rather than having to move my head around causing me to loose alignment with the sight line. I use a square lined up perpendicular to the sightline to help me stay aligned as close as possible to the sightline.

After drilling both arm post holes I turned the bamboo style arm posts on the lathe.  I do this before reaming because I want to assign and fit an arm post to a particular mortise during the reaming process.  The arm post will be marked for its particular mortise and that is where it will reside for the remainder of its days.

Bamboo Style Arm Post

   
Next I ream the arm post holes and make them into tapered mortises.  As when drilling, I use a square, bevel square and mirror when reaming.  My reamer has a 6 degree included angle, therefore I set the angle to 14 degrees, three degrees less than the 17 degrees used to drill the holes.  I align the blade of the square with the sightline and compare the top tip of the reamer with the blade of the square.  If it lines up with the edge of the blade, I'm spot on.  If the tip is left I must take more off the right side of the mortise and vise versa if the tip is right.

Reamer is in line with the sightline

 
Next I brought the bevel square up to the reamer and observed the gap between the blade of the bevel square and the tapered surface of the reamer.  If the gap is the same up and down the reamer, I'm spot on.  If the gap is larger at the top I need to take more off the mortise toward the square and vise versa if the gap is larger at the bottom.

Reamer is at the correct angle

So after reaming both mortises to the indicated correct angles one might think that it is a completed task.  Oh contraire!  What I have neglected to explain is that I actually don't ream the mortises to their final depth until after I check to see that both arm posts are in the same plane.  I feel this is one of the most critical stages of building an armchair.  If the arm posts are not in the same plane it will make it hard to get the arm to sit correctly at a later stage in the process.

Winding Sticks to check the plane of the arm posts

Even though everything appeared to be correct, a pair of winding sticks would let me know just how close or far off  I was.  At first check I was off a wee bit and it was close enough that a very minor adjustment, a half turn of the reamer to the left arm post mortise, was all it took to be nuts on.

The gap at the left is ever so slightly larger than at the right.  When the gap is even everything is copasetic.

Well that was all my foot could handle for the day.  Next I will be turning the legs and stretchers for the undercarriage.  All the while I will be attempting to recruit some help with getting that oak split.  

~ Ray Schwanenberger

June Chair Build

It is June 2nd and time to participate in the June Chair Build that has been promoted by Brian Eve. In case you are not familiar with our host allow me to give you a glimpse.  Brian is a woodworker who is living in Munich Germany and the author of the blog Toolerable.  Brian arrived in Germany in the 1990's while he was in the US Army.  Brian spent eight years in Bamberg Germany and a year deployed in Iraq.  After Brian's discharge from the Army he moved with his wife to Munich, where he is employed as an Army civilian.

Brian started woodworking at the Army woodshop building furniture for his barracks room.  Things like bookshelves, coffee table and blanket chest.   When he arrived in Munich, space was at a premium and it appeared there was no room for a woodshop.  Or was there?  Brian figured if he used only hand tools  he would be able to carve out 100 square feet of space in the basement storage area and have his shop.  Check out this short video of his tiny workspace here.  When Brian has to use machinery he uses the machines at the Dictum GmbH shop or the Army woodshop in Garmisch.

Brian says he especially likes building tools for the challenge and in the end you have a useful tool. Brian also likes blogging because it helps him to think through a project when he can't be in his shop. He also likes the camaraderie of the internet woodworking universe.  Thank you Brian for sharing your story with us.

I will be making a series of post on the chair that I am building and the experiences along the way.  I will be building, of course, a Windsor Chair.  This will be a child's Sack Back Windsor.  A while back a friend was soliciting donations to raise money for a mission trip to Africa.  I donated a certificate for a child's Sack Back, this is the chair that I will be building.

My lovely chair model Chloe

Unlike the chair in the photo above, I will be turning bamboo turnings for the undercarriage and the arm posts. These will be turned in maple.  The spindles, arm and bow will be made from white oak, and the seat will be carved out of sugar pine.

The maple rounds have been drying for a year or two and should be quite stable.  The sugar pine I purchased when Midwest Woodworking in Cincinnati Ohio went out of business.  I was told it had been drying for over 30 years, so it should be quite stable as well.  The white oak is in the form of a large log that has been drying next to my house for a bit over a year.  This gives me reason to pause. While I have used one section of the log to date the other unsplit section has been sitting longer than I would have liked.

Midwest Woodworking stacked wood

After splitting the log open I will take a moisture reading and see where I stand.  If the reading is below 25% I will be afforded the "opportunity" to experiment with soaking the rivings prior to shaping and bending the arm and bow.  Pete Galbert addresses working with air-dried wood in his book Chairmaker's Notebook on pages 146-147. If the moisture content is 25% or above I will make the parts without soaking them.

The only other thing/obstacle to slow me down is me.  I had to have a procedure preformed on my Achilles Tendon yesterday morning and I am to take it easy for the next couple of weeks.  While carving at the shavehorse fits the bill I'm not sure about splitting that big oak up.  In light of this situation I will be doing things a bit out of order from my normal process.

For all that are joining in on the chair build good luck and straight grain to you all.


~ Ray Schwanenberger

Shop Stool Build Off - The Conclusion

It is the day after the Shop Stool Build Off (SSBO) and what a great time it was.  So many people working across the world on a single project, a new shop stool.  One would think this would be a fairly simple thing to build.  Many of us used this opportunity to push our talents to the next level.

At the center of my design is a seat that tilts 10 degrees forward to promote a more ergonomical sitting posture.  The three legged design provides a solid base no matter how uneven the surface it sits upon.  I chose contrasting colors for the stool.  The seat is Ash and the legs and stretchers are Cherry.

I started Saturday morning laying out the seat on a piece of 8/4 Ash and then boring the mortises for the legs.  This is where great concentration was required.  The front legs raked (angle as seen from the side) 19 degrees and splayed (angle seen from the front/rear) 17 degrees as legs normally would.  The single back leg is counterintuitive because of its 1 degree rake toward the front of the seat and 0 degree splay.  This is what is needed to give the seat its 10 degree forward tilt.

After boring the mortises I moved onto sculpting the seat.  This was my second workout for the day.  The first was shoveling out the driveway and the pile of snow the plow left behind.  There is a reason that Eastern White Pine (EWP) is used almost exclusively in the making of Windsor Chairs.  Ash is hard!  What was I thinking, there is a reason they make baseball bats out of Ash.

To change things up I moved onto turning the legs and stretchers.  All was going well until the last leg. It was then that a hidden knot revealed itself.  My fix was to fill the cavity with epoxy and continue turning.  The leg came apart on the lathe.  This meant a design change was in order.   The only way to save the project was to shorten the legs resulting in a stool that is now 21 1/2" tall.

At this point it was late and I was hungry and a bit dejected at this unwelcome development.  So I called it a night deciding to start fresh in the morning.

Sunday morning started with me referring back to my trigonometry tables.  I had to determine the correct leg lengths to maintain my required 10 degree forward tilt of the seat.  After I had determined the correct length of the legs I moved onto reaming the mortises to a 6 degree taper.  In my opinion this is one of the most critical steps in the process.  To have the undercarriage symmetrical I had to be spot on with my reaming.  Here you can see the 1 degree forward rake of the rear leg.

 In the picture below it appears there is one leg when in fact there are two.  This indicates that the extra time and care taken during reaming has paid off.

Things at this point are looking symmetrical.

Next was to measure, turn and fit the stretchers.  After that was the somewhat nerve racking glue up.  First step is to glue up the undercarriage.  If everything was done with care and great attention paid to the details the seat should slide on without much effort.

All that was needed was the usual slight pull on the tapered tenon leg tops and into the mortises they slid.  Next was installing the wedges perpendicular to the grain of the seat.

After a couple of hours the glue had dried and the tenons and wedges were trimmed flush to the seat.  I then scrapped and sanded the seat.  All that was left was to apply the finish.  First was a seal coat of dewaxed shellac.  This was followed by two coats of an oil/varnish mix.  After it had dried I rubbed it out with a gray nylon pad and applied one coat of General Finishes Polycrylic to give it the tough protection it will need.

I have to tell you this was a roller coaster of a ride.  But once the stool was completed and sitting there it became evident that it was one heck of a good time.  Like a roller coaster, I will quickly get in line to participate in another Build Off.  Many thanks to Chris Wong of Flair Woodworks for putting on the SSBO.  I hope I will see you at the next one, whatever it may be.
~ Ray Schwanenberger

Shop Stool Build Off - 2

Tomorrow the Shop Stool Build Off (SSBO) begins.  Chris of Flair Woodworks fame and creator of the event, has posted a list of participants in this weekends SSBO.  You can see who is participating here.  At this time I am still not sure if I will be able to participate.  However, I have been preparing incase it all works out.

My influences for the stool, as I mentioned before, are from a design by Pete Galbert, Curtis Buchannan, and Galen Cranz, that Pete calls "The Perch".  The Perch has the single leg in front and I am moving it to the back, ala Wharton Esherick.  I happened across a photo of a three legged stool by Mr. Esherick and was captivated.

As my mind raced most of the night on different leg designs, I have decided to stay with what I know.  That is the round, tapered through tenoned leg with stretchers.  Now I am toying with a bit of a change to the stretchers but I may not have the time to be able to do what I call a "Wishbone Stretcher".  That would require steam bending and there is just not enough time to get it to dry properly.

Another one of my influences for the build is Leonardo da Vinci and his Vitruvian Man.  This all has to do with human proportions.  I want to be able to adapt any stool for any person and use that individuals height to do so.  Wow the brain synapses are firing now.

That being said I have a few more ergonomic details to work out for a person of my height at 6' 0".

I hope it all works out and I am able to be posting results tomorrow.  Good luck to all.

~Ray Schwanenberger

Shop Stool Build Off

This Saturday, January 25th, is the Shop Stool Build Off.  What is this you ask?  It is an event conceived by Canadian woodworker Chris Wong where woodworkers around the world are invited to build their best shop stool in a day, or weekend if Sunday is needed.  The progress will be tracked via Twitter #SSBO, Google+, Facebook, etc.  At the conclusion Chris will share pictures of all of the pieces on his blog.  This sounds like a good time and the details can be seen on Chris's web site.

I will be building a stool in the Windsor style, of course.  Though I must confess, it is not an original design, but that is the beauty of this event; It doesn't need to be.  It is my addaptation of an ergonomic stool designed by Pete Galbert, Curtis Buchannan, and Galen Cranz, that Pete dubbed "The Perch".

It is no secret that I have been experimenting with chairs for guitar players.  The more I worked with my prototype the more design questions and challenges have been brought to the surface.  I have been looking to solve some of these questions with a more simple stool for guitar players.  With that being said, my plan is to make a dual purpose prototype "Studio/Shop Stool".  I look forward to seeing all the stools made during the event, and hope you too will be participating.  

~ Ray Schwanenberger

Drawknife Rehab - The Conclusion

It has taken a bit longer than expected, as usual, to complete the rehab.  However, after a few minor bumps in the road, it is done!  In the last episode I left off needing to hone an edge on the newly ground bevel.  So with great anticipation I went to the drawer that holds my new Galbert Drawsharp.  Are you are asking yourself; "What is this new fangled contraption of which he speaks"?

It is a wonderful tool for sharpening/honing drawknives.  It is the brain child of Chairmaker, instructor, raiser of goats and all around nice guy, Peter Galbert in collaboration with tool maker, artisan and all around nice guy Jamel Abraham of Benchcrafted.  Ok enough of the Bromance.  Check out the Drawsharp here.

Following the instructions I set the Drawsharp to hone the newly ground edge.  I started by making several passes with the diamond abrasive on the beveled edge until a burr was turned along the entire edge.  I then flipped the drawknife over and honed the back turning the burr back to the bevel side.  This left me with an even scratch pattern along both sides of the edge.

When using the Drawsharp you hold the drawknife as though it were a fiddle and move it over the blade.  Next, I turned the pads to the sandpaper sides and continued to turn the burr from bevel to back and back to bevel using a diminishing number of strokes until the burr had disappeared.

I have heard it said many a time, if a drawknife can cut Eastern White Pine end grain and leave it silky smooth, it is truly sharp.  Well, I am short on EWP.  However, I have a plenty of Sugar Pine.  Sugar Pine is a bit harder and more dense than EWP, but only slightly.  So without any handles I put the edge to the pine.  Not the results I was hoping for.

As you can see the cut bore evidence of fine nicks in the edge.  I retrieved my jewelers loop to closely inspect the edge.  As I feared and suspected, the pitting on the back was not going to allow me to produce a keen edge.

This meant one of two things, either scrap the project here and now or attempt to remove the pitting from the back.  I don't know about you, but at times like these I hear voices; in an English accent I hear "What the bloody hell, get to work".  It might be a dead relative?  So it was, I took a file and worked the back of the drawknife, taking care to keep it as flat as humanly possible.  After removing about 1/4" to 3/8" of the pitting back from the edge I put the drawknife to a series of water stones stopping at 8000 grit.

 I repeated the honing process with the drawsharp and the final results were this.

As you can see there is still evidence of a tiny nick caused by the pitting.  I looked with the loop again and found it to be close to the end of the blade.  It was a go for the handles.  I thought about using paduck or purple heart but decided on good old cherry.  Why?  J.W. Mix & Co. was the maker of the drawknife and my research revealed the company was in New Haven, CT.  I felt it was only fitting to use a beautiful American hardwood on this old American drawknife.  I remembered my brother-in-law giving me some old cherry sticks that he salvaged out of a 19th century home, so I went digging.

This was my step drilling gauge for each handle and the handle pattern.  Each handle needed to be step drilled to accommodate the handle tangs that transition from rectilinear to round.

Now let it be known far and wide, I am not a woodturner.  I would someday like to be very proficient, that being said, this process took me probably three times as long as someone who knows what the heck they are doing would have taken.  Whew, that felt good to get that off my chest.  First I roughed out the cylinders then I step drilled each one.

Next I put the blanks between centers and began shaping the handles.  This process was much like turning legs for chairs, only smaller.  I was feeling my oats and thought I would use a skew chisel to give it that extra nice touch.

As you can see, I was humbled and put the skew away for yet another day.

Here are the finished handles drying.  The three dark rings were scribed with a skew and then burnt in with an old guitar G-String.  The finish is shellac put on while spinning on the lathe, then burnished with shavings.  After that, I wiped on several coats of an oil varnish mix.  The only thing left was to put the handles on the drawknife.

First I annealed the tang ends by heating them to a cherry red and letting them cool.  This made it easy to peen them over.  Thanks for the heads up Pete.  I really, really like the look of natural cherry and black together so I decided to paint the ferrule's and caps black.

A drawknife that could have easily been destined to be on the wall at a Cracker Barrel will now be residing on the wall above my bench waiting to be put into service.

With every project I try to learn something.  I take away from this project; The importance of finding edge tools that are free of or have very little pitting; That some tools are worth the extra effort to make them usable again; That investing my money in good tools made by good people is worth 10 fold the expenditure; That investing some time in learning to use a skew chisel would be a wise investment.

I hope that I have been able to provide you with some good information.  Information that will encourage you to get into your shop and try something new.  This is how we learn, by pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone.  So let's go to the shop and do something new and exciting, and always be safe.

~ Ray Schwanenberger