Using winding sticks - tip for the day (Part 1)

Re: Using winding sticks - tip for the day (Part 2

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

>Part #2:

TIP #1: better visibility

Place a contrasting colour (cloth, board, etc) at the other side of the winding stick that is furthest from you. This will make the details clearer to perceive. In the picture below I have placed a Jarrah board on the assembly table behind my bench.

TIP #2: qualifying the wind

The first picture shows the winding sticks being used to determine whether a board is in wind. It is obvious that it is not.

The next picture shows the use of a feeler gauge to level the sticks. The result is depicted in Picture 3.

I was using a metric feeler gauge here, so the numbers may appear a little strange at first. It required a shim of 0.40mm (or 0.016�) to level the winding sticks. In other words, there is a highpoint of .016� at the other side of the board.

Now measure the shavings you are taking with your plane. Let us say that you are taking an average thickness of .002�, then the board will require the removal of 8 shavings to bring it in wind with the shimmed side.

While you must also account for wind at different points on the board, this method gives you a better understanding of the �dynamics� of the board.

Do I do this with all my boards? No � but I do find it useful when it is essential for dimensions to be exact (such as the dovetailed drawer I am currently working on.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I have a question

Adam Cherubini

>Are winding sticks tools? Or is this just a name we give to something while we're using it for a specific purpose. I sometimes clamp a board to my bench when I plane long stock. Is that a tool? I'm not sure its always the same board. How about a straight edge. Is that a tool?

I recall some Zen stories about how something that used to be important or useful and isn't now, should be abandoned or has no value. These stories are always tough for Westerners until they are applied correctly. I'm not saying this is a good application.

In the woodshop, one wonders if its even worth it to save these sorts of tools, knowing that they will probably need to be planed straight again next time they are needed anyway.

Adam

You put your finger on it

Denis Ch�nard, Orl�ans, Ont.

>Given the nature of wood and the humidity changes, I don't think one can ascertain for sure on a given day if their wooden winding sticks are true and straight.

I like the upcoming Veritas sticks for that reason first: if they are straight when you receive them (as we expect) they will remain straight.

The last thing I want in my shop is a tool that I can't know for sure if it is useable on a given day...

Maybe I'm overly fussy, but I like tools that I can trust.

DC

Re: I have a question

Derek Cohen (in Perth Australia)

>You're in a philosophical mood, Adam.

I assume that anything may become a �tool� if it is used in the production of something. A handy rock becomes a hammer to wack in a wooden stake in the garden, then is discarded because it is not unique enough. In the workshop we may select two lengths of scrap timber to use as winding sticks. We may discard them after they are used since they are not unique enough. If we recognise that these pieces of wood filled a need and will likely be needed once again, we may choose to set them aside. Of course we modify and re-design and the pieces of timber selected and breathed on are now unique, and no longer just pieces of timber - they remain tools as long as they are unique. If they lose this ability they return to being just timber.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Using winding sticks - another idea *LINK*

Dave Thompson - Champaign IL

>Nice post and nice implementation! I agree that visibility through contrasting woods is helpful.

Where I live, humidity levels change such that using wood was a concern for me. Before cheap metal alternative were readily available, I bought two used 24" starret levels off of e-bay... the cast iron kind with all of the scroll work inside. They are common on e-bay and nicer ones use to go for around $30-$40. Ofcourse, they double as a level when not used as a winding stick or straight edge... ;-)

Below is a link to what I'm talking about. The newer used ones have cleaner gridings and more contrast between metal edge and black/japaned sides.


old 24" starrett level on e-bay

Yes I think so

Ron in Kokomo

>I think a tool is any artifact that you use to do work.

All your examples would be tools. IMO

Ron

Re: Using winding sticks - tip for the day (Part 2

Don McConnell

>First, a matter of terminology.

I may have it backwards, but my understanding has always been that when a board has some twist, it is considered to be "in wind." Hence, one is checking for the presence of wind (twist) with winding sticks (winking strips). When flat, it is "out of wind." Maybe I'm wrong, or the usage is different "down under"?

The key to having winding sticks which are worth keeping is to carefully select the material. I have a pair, made of straight-grained, quarter-sawn American black walnut, which I have been using for, at least, twenty years. I've had to "correct" them, at most, a couple of times over all those years. I just now checked them on a known flat surface (a j**nt*r bed), and they're quite accurate - and they've been moved several hundred miles and been in a number of different environments over the past few months. And I hadn't tested them for quite some time.

Straight-grained, quarter-sawn mahogany might be an even better choice. It is also customary to increase contrast by inlaying a lighter colored wood (assuming the use of darker wood for the main body) along the top of the corner of the winding stick which is placed at the far end. I simplified that by inlaying short pieces of contrasting wood near the ends - seems to work just as well, and was quick to do. To me, it was well worth the small investment of time, to always have a serviceable pair of winding sticks at hand.

Making/correcting them is really pretty easy. Shoot the edges of the sticks, which are to rest on the material, straight with a plane of the appropriate length. Then place the two pieces together (about the only time this makes sense) to shoot the other edges - making sure the trued edges are perfectly in line with each other. It is best to keep the second edges close to parallel with the first trued edges, but the really important thing is that the second edges are parallel with each other. If always used in the same orientation with each other, that is perfectly serviceable. Chamfering the non-critical arrises of the ends and top edges will help to easily identify the proper orientation.

One could purchase metal straight edges for this, I suppose, but I like the idea of relying on my own knowledge and skills for some things. Besides, if you happen to slip and drop a wooden winding stick on your material, it will likely do less damage. Same goes for wooden straight edges, which are easily made and checked for accuracy.

Don McConnell

Eureka Springs, AR

Clamped board is a fixture

Patrick Gibbons

>Adam, your board clamped to the bench for planing is a fixture (because it holds or guides the work) while a guide attached to your jointer is a jig because it holds or guides the tool (and yes I know you don't use a guide but it was the first thing I could think of to illustrate a jig). Winding sticks would be a tool, I think, but would you consider them something that guides or holds work which is a fixture? Ah nomenclature. The refuge of an anal retentive mind.

Re: Using winding sticks - tip for the day (Part 3

Joel

>Don,

I agree with everything you say but may I add a few notes:

My winding sticks (cherry of indeterminante parentage) are keyed together with 2 square pegs - one in each stick. This ensures I will trivially put them together consistently the same way and that is the way they are stored and assembled for checking.

To square them up or check them all I need to do is put them together and make sure the top and bottom edges are flush with each other. if not plane them flush. To make sure I am planing straight - simpley open up the pair and bookmatch the edges and see if any light comes through. If not I put them together and plane them straight. The secret to consistenty is having the keys in the stickss so that they can always be lined up exactly right and quickly( the square keys have a slight taper and are a tight fit) so that there is not play in the assembly). Corrently them like this trivally gurentees that the two stick are parrelell to each other on both edges and each edge is extremely straight. As a pair I use them for winding sticks (duh), individually they are as accurate a straightedge as I could possible want and they get even more use that way (and I have two of them). Also being wood they I don't worry abuot dinging the work as you say etc. and I can easily move them about with one hand because they don't weight much.

I inlaid boxwood targets on the ends of one stick. I think having two targets makes for a more consistent reading than having a long target on the entire edge - but I could be just too compulsive.

If anyone is considering making a pair I would say having them lock together like mine (and I didn't invent the concept it's as old as the hills) makes for a far far more veritile and accurate tool, makes calibration easier and is the way to go. I would also refrain from using any partiuclarly heavy wood. - especially as a longer lighter winding stick is much more useful than a shorter heavier one. The bottom dimension should be wide enough to easily be stable on a board , mine are about 7/8" wide. height is less important - but I would say 1- 1/2 or 2" ois nice. mine are about 1 1/2". the outsides taper to about 1/4" at the top. Make them as long as you can practically store. Mine are 24" long. Accuracy is directly proportional to the length of the sticks. As a straightedge longer is obviously better. For winding sticks, considering that you usually balance the sticks on a board, for example a 6" wide board that is 1/32" out the error will be 1/64" at the edge of the board, and only 1/16" at the edges of a 24" long winding stick (blaanced in the middle) Which is visible but not as visible if the sticks were longer. And once you get the hang of using winding sticks you can see and correct really fine out-of straight conditions. HOWEVER - if you make them too long they are hard to store, more awkward to handle and there is a greater chance the wood won't be stable. Mine are 24" because that's what will fit in my toolbox - you don't see them shorter much, I won't mind longer ones - maybe 30" especially because they are so useful as a straightedge - but wouldn't know where to keep them.

Re: I have a question

Dave Thompson - Champaign IL

>With all due respect Adam, who cares? ;-)

The word "tool" is an artificial linguistic categorization that implies a usage and assists in communication. The object is what it is regardless of what one calls it. Mixing in non-relevent information such as what it was in the past, or will be in the future only obfuscates the message if the subject has to do with the present.

Its a fair question

Adam Cherubini

>I like Derek�s analogy best. If you find a rock in your garden is helpful for the task at hand, you use it, right? When you�re done the job, you discard the rock. There are others. What Derek has done is paint his rock and put it in his toolbox for safe keeping. (I think) The interference is that we should perhaps paint ours as well.

I think winding sticks deserve no special attention. They aren�t actually tools per se. Just something you pick up off the shop floor, use, and discard. There are no requirements for their size or shape or color, though some characteristics may make some winding sticks better or worse.

This isn�t to say what Derek has offered is without value. Far from it. But in our quest to optimize absolutely everything, it may be helpful to ask ourselves whether the painted rock is really different from all the other rocks in the garden.

I'm asking, because I'm not sure.

Adam

Re: Its a fair question

Joel

>I would disagree with you. I made a nice pair of winding sticks many years ago. (5 or 6 I forget - after I lost use of a power planer). IT took about a hour all told maybe less. (mine are keyed together which is a little more work) THey have become essentil workshop tools. Sure I could make a new one from scrap each time - but that's a a waste of time and effort. Just because a tool is easy to make or disposible, doesn't make it less of a tool. Derek is right - in a pinch you can take a rock from the garden and it can become a tool. You are right - you can toss that rock and find another later. BUT once you find a nice shaped rock that fits in your hand and works well - it makes no sense to get rid of it and have to start from scratch later. some tools are better than others and last longer but they are all tools

Re: Using winding sticks - tip for the day (Part 3

Joel

>here is a sketch I made awhile ago in response to a similar post. (note in my post I said mine are 1 1/2" wide - I was too lazy to go to the shop and meausre - the drawing says 3" - which apparently is a nice size that seems smaller in hand - follow the drawing)

Re: I have a question

Patrick Gibbons

>I submitted a slightly flip post above yet I think it had some food for thought. One of the greater themes that run through the threads here concerns the hows and whys of tool use prior to machine tools and the influences that exerted. We know this theme is important to Adam and he has put a lot of intellectual curiosity towards the pursuit of its understanding. The more I have thought about this the more I believe that winding sticks are preindustrial jigs. They do guide the tool. Normally I do not think of hand tool usage requiring a lot of jigs or fixtures but that's clearly not the case. Hold fasts and miter boards are two more examples. Modern thinking, it seems to me, has a jig or fixture being used for a specialized purpose that is often a one time proposition or a one trick pony. When I think of winding sticks or holdfasts I see them as falling into Adam's principles that were laid out in his last Arts and Mysteries article. Their use goes towards improving results and efficiencies. They're not the sort of things that end up in Tips of the Month.

Re: thanks

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI

>Thanks Adam; now that you point it out, I don't believe they are tools. The reason is because I can only buy tools with money budgeted for tools; therefore I can buy the LV winding sticks with money budgeted for groceries, because they are not tools. Some people may argue with my logic, but it makes perfect sense to me.

Re: thanks

Norman (Ottawa, Ont.)

>I like that Moses ..

If we come up with a completely new classification for

our purchases, it opens up new doors and new additions to the

shop,,, and best of all, they are not tools :))

The tool thing was getting long in the tooth anyway.

Let me see, I need to stock up on "woodworking instruments"??

We'll need to get LV to add this new category to their online site

toute suite...

Norman (woodworker in progress)

Re: You put your finger on it

John Clifford in Chicago

>Denis good point. No less a craftsman than Jim Kingschott extolls the virtues of an engineer's square as opposed to the typical woodworker's try square. He argued that the wooden stock attached to a metal blade can eaily get knocked out of true. Whereas an all metal engineer's square is made to stricter tolerances and can probably handle a few bumps or knocks and remain true. A square that aint, aint no good to me. I'll be getting the LV winding sticks thank you. John.

Re: I have a question

John Clifford in Chicago

>Dave, how Taoist of you. The principal of the "uncarved block" (called P'u) - a thing is what it is, no more no less. Over simplification but that's the gist. Hmm, uncarved block, kinda appropriate for a woodworking site. John.

Re: I have a question

Bjenk Ellefsen

>Are you familiar with ethnomethodology ? Let's try and make it simple. Let say that societies and all we know in it is in a way completely illusory. What are court rooms without human minds to understand them ? What is a bus without human minds to understand it ? A pile of metal and plastic brought together chaotically. But to us, a bus is a more or less complexe machine that is used to transport us. A Baruya that never left his village would see a monstrous metal thing. The meaning and understanding of that bus is constructed in our minds by our social organization and its representations. We give order to the world and the meaning of everything it contains is held in the social representations that we reproduce amongst ourselves by teaching and by mutual agreement. A very simple exemple is that I point at an apple and say apple and you nod in agreement. Therefore, the apple continues to be that. We gave it an identity and purpose : we eat it.

There are many examples that follow this reasoning : objects are thus defined by their usage in our world. A tool is a tool only because we have something for it to do and it will continue to be a tool for as long as its usage will exist. If a task completely disapears from our understanding and representation of the world, an old object ceases to be what it was meant to be and lets us ponder over it while holding our chins and asking "What is is this?" To better illustrate this : a Baruya gives you a decorated stick. You take it and look at it while holding it carefuly as if not to damage the delicate carved decorations on its surface. The Ghana laughs and takes back the stick holding it unceremoniously and then procedes to swing it multiple times in the air and gives it back to you. Clearly you have no idea what it is but to him it seems not to be a delicate object but probably a tool for hunting.

Just a little more to meditate, gentlemen.

Re: I have a question

Bjenk Ellefsen

>SInce I cant edit my previous message : where you will read "Ghana" you should read "Baruya". Just one slip of my mind at the end...

Re: I have a question

Adam Cherubini

>I don't think the question is that deep, Bjenk, though i don't know how anyone could disagree with your post.

But using your own logic, if we define the things in the world or in or shop, how do we define or name a tool that is almost independant of its physical form? Its a tool only in our use of it.

So if I asked how wide or how thick winding sticks should be? Could we answer? I think Derek has provided some clues to making winding sticks better, but depending on your eyesight, you could almost pick up two pieces of scrap of virtually size and get the same functionality. Its like a tool without form.

I guess I'm wondering if we are elevating this tool into a status it never held because of how we are. Like a "plane adjusting hammer" perhaps.

Adam

Are you an anthropologist by nature

Bruce, a MN Galoot

>or by profession?

bruce

Re: Using winding sticks - tip for the day (Part 3

Jack Guzman from Maine

>When I saw your first post I was about to ask if you had a picture to make things clearer,but then you answered it. What I have for testing wind are crude and difficult to read.I've been looking for ideas.Thanks.---Jack

Plane adjusting hammer

Bob Hackett(Mainely,Bob)

>Let`s focus on this one simple thing for a moment.As it is a good example of what I consider to be a useful tool that has yet to fully evolve.

I`m sure some "craftsmen" would be more than happy to spend thier entire lives wailing away on thier wood planes with whatever steel hammer comes to hand.At least one fellow had a thought that there ought to be a better way to do this and not beat the plane all to hell and back,besides it was becoming difficult to read the numbers with all those hammer tracks(later to be known as the "Union label" after the invention of the corrugated face framing hammer).This fellow installed strike buttons to take the brunt of the adjusting blows to the wood body but did nothing for the mushroomed iron problem that still plagued him.He could build in an addition to his iron just for adjustment purposes(and invent the snecked iron) but that meant modifying each and every plane iron he owned and he was still worn out from the strike button idea.

This fellow being just a tab brighter than his compadres figured that a striking tool that would have a sacrificial face would be far easier than changing all the irons so he made one out of soft brass.Just some poor working stiff who hated to beat the crap out of the tools that had served him so well.Just trying to make things better and he had to put up with all the ridicule from the heavy handed hammer bunch at the adjoining benches who were proud of the scars on thier hands from those mushroomed irons and splintered plane bodies.Sad to think that some of us still ridicule his ideas to this day.

One of the nicest hammers I`ve seen was a hammer Cecil Pierce was developeing just before he died.It incorprated a soft rounded face for adjustment and a screwdriver at the other end of the head to help separate the chipbreaker from the iron.Sort of looked like a bronze body hammer for a pygmy.I`m sure you`d get a kick out of it Adam.

Besides my plane adjusting hammer keeps me from dinging up all the rocks from my garden.

Mainely,Bob