My Graduation Punch

This is another tool I've gotten a few questions about from old tool enthusiasts and a few luthiers out there -- It's a graduation punch used for marking the thickness of wood before handplaning it to it's final dimensions. I've almost completed the punch here, and it features a locking, calibrated sliding wedge for thickess adjustments. The bottom part (I call it an anvil, similar to the anvil on a micrometer or luthier's thickness gauge) is interchangeable depending upon whether I'm marking curved or flat stock. The anvil for curved stock is shown. Missing from the tool is the punch (on order).

Graduation punch front detail

Back side of graduation punch

The Veneer Sawyer's Vise from Diderot

I've had a few questions as to what the Veneer Sawyer's (ebeniste's) vise looks like. Here is a detail shot from Diderot's "Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers," showing the Veneer saw in use, with the vertical vise holding a piece of lumber being cut into veneer flitches. The vises would often be placed over a hole in the floor, with long sections being fed up through the floor and vise to expose uncut wood after a batch of flitches were cut off.

Here is the saw during its first test cuts through end-grain hard maple. The top photo shows the starting cut (about 5 strokes, starting on a push stroke). The bottom photo is after about 1 minute of both slow and easy sawing (about 1 push stroke every 1-1.5 seconds).
While the saw is heavier than my other frame saws, its weight isn't really that noticeable when sawing, and provides just enough "feed" to keep the saw moving through the lumber. With the saw doing the feed for you, it pretty much leaves you to concentrate on steering and moving the saw.


Now, on to building the veneer sawyer's vise.

A view from the side -- the blade is a Putsch 5 TPI wide-rip blade. The stretchers are 30 1/2" long (including 1" sliding tenon and a 1/2" tenon on the non-adjustable end), and are 1.5 x 1.0" in cross section.

The blade ends are held in place with plain cross-pins that pass through a pair of wooden blocks at each end. The end blocks are held into the frame with (sort of messy) sliding dovetail joints. 

An interesing feature of the saw I used as a model (Mercer Museum no. 8490) is that the blade is not tensioned with screws. It uses a pair of sliding mortise and tenon joints, with through-wedges to adjust the tension.

A Veneer Saw At Last!

After years of procrastinating to build a veneer saw, and always heading off to the bandsaw to resaw lumber for my instruments, I've finally built one.

The saw is a scaled-down version of the veneer saws shown in Henry Chapman Mercer's "Ancient Carpenter's Tools" on pages 157 and 158. The saw has been shortened for one-person use, so that I can use readily available Wilhelm Putsch frame saw blades in it