Must Haves For Woodworkers!

Transcript

hey everybody how’s it going it’s been a while since I’ve done an actual woodworking video I’ve been working on my timber frame house for the last several months so I’m kind of excited to do a woodworking related video and with the holidays right around the corner I thought I would share 10 different gift ideas for the woodworker so if you’re watching this and you’re shopping for someone who you know is a woodworker some really good ideas and if you are the woodworker you could always send this video to somebody who might be shopping for you and say hey I’m kind of into number one and three on this list so check those out so let’s jump into it all right first up are these Japanese P saws by Suzanne Japan who’s also sponsoring this video they’ve been a longtime partner of mine and whether or not they sponsor this video they definitely would have made this list because the tools are so wellmade and they’re so affordable that they’re the perfect gift idea all these are under $50 the ryoba saw which is two-sided it has rip cut on one side Crosscut on the other is only $40 and this is a great saw for larger tenin in joinery for furniture I’m not talking like giant things for Timber frames or anything like that but your larger table siiz joinery and just breaking down material rip ripping boards and cross cutting them to length different things like that this is kind of like the Jack of all trades you can also use it for really Fine Furniture joinery as well like dovetails and things like that it’s a it’s a great saw it touches every single project that I build hands down and it’s only like $40 now the finer versions of that are these two dauki saws one is a cross cut and one is a rip cut and I actually helped Suzanne developed this rip cut saw which is a true Dove tail saw now if you go online you’ll see a lot of their saws labeled as dovetail Tenon cross cut rip cut just kind of for search engine optimization and so people can kind of find their their saws when they search different keywords but this is truly their dovetail saw they didn’t have this in their lineup and I worked with them and kind of specked it out and they built it and it’s amazing it’s a really really nice saw so for finer Furniture joinery these two in combination are absolutely awesome and I kind of recommend all three so you can get everything done with a ryoba and these two dauki saws then they have a finer dauki cross cut version these blackback ones are their cross cut ones and this is like such a fine saw it’s really fun to use for anything and everything a lot of that Kumo stuff which is really cool and popular this this is a great saw for that and then lastly I like this little flush cut saw so I do a lot of joinery with PEG or drawboard mortise and tenons and this little flush cut saw will cut those pegs flush perfect perfectly or whatever kind of proud Dove tails that you might need to trim flush it’s a great little saw too so another nice thing about Suzanne is I know they’re running 20% off on all their saws from November 20th to the 27th kind of that Black Friday week so uh you can take advantage of even more savings on already really affordable tools great stocking stuffers and they’re honestly I mean for fine professional Woodworkers they’re great saws and I think these two are about 45 each like I said this one’s only 40 they’re just great value they’re made in Japan which don’t get that confused with made in China they make really nice stuff over in Japan um so Suzanne Japan first gift idea it’s a great gift moving on to number two all right next up on the list are these really cool brand new to the market clamp stands that a friend of mine Ryan at fous Family Woodworks developed and created and if you remember this really beautiful cutting board that I made made this was from a set of Ryan’s plans so he also makes really cool cutting board plans but anyway these are really clever and they’re a great way to clamp glue-ups in a much better way now these are designed to run in Te tracks on the bottom a lot of people will have te TRS in their workbench but I just took a couple pieces of plywood and routed a tea trck Groove in it so it’s a little more versatile I can move it from place to place set on saw horses or whatever but this little T trck Groove allows me to clamp these things down and I can space these out so these are really neat they work with both pipe clamps just position them on your T track screw them down so they don’t go nowhere so pipe clamps but they also work with these parallel jaw clamps as well and just gives you a more stable base when you’re clamping and it gives you a lot more room underneath so if you’re adding calls which are boards that run kind of across your glue up that you clamp on each side to keep the top or whatever you’re gluing nice and flat that gives you a lot more room underneath now that these are off the table a little bit they also are more stable base than like your traditional pipe clamps that might want to roll over if you need to slide things so if you have your boards on here you’re trying to slide them everything’s going to stay nice and solid and not just roll all over on you so it’s a really awesome idea and another cool thing about this is you’re maybe doing some epoxy work on your glue up and you want a really nice level surface you can put your level on here and you can also slide these up and down to level out your surface perfectly so they’re just a really really awesome idea idea he has this over on his Etsy page and just so you know I should have mentioned this up front all the links to all these different products will be down in the description all right so number three on the list are these really cool wooden hand PL kits from Le Valley or Veritas and these kits include the metal hardware to make these planes they don’t include the wood you choose your own wood and you can shape it however you want they come in a couple different sizes you have some smaller sizes to make kind of a block plane size and then you have some larger ones for kind of your smoothing and Jack plane size planes you can choose a variety of different Woods I went with marble wood and Jara on this one for kind of my Jack plane and I went with just Jara on this little kind of block plane mini smoother and you can also choose whatever metal you want for your blade iron I think a202 and pmv11 which is a proprietary metal that Veritas carries and I really like the pmv11 and they have a nor style plane adjustment to retract or Advance the plane iron or adjust your lateral adjustments so it’s a really nice little kit they’re a lot of fun you’ll essentially take three slices of wood cut out a section of the middle glue those all together to create your throat opening rather than trying to chop that out of a solid block it makes it really really easy just a really fun project and something that after you build it which is fun itself you always get to use it on whenever projects I actually have YouTube videos on both of these so you can always check those out and see see how I made them yeah these wooden plane kits from Veritas number three all right so number four on the list not necessarily A woodworking tool but the Leatherman it’s something that I carry with me every single day I have for probably four or five years now and I can’t when I don’t have this on me I feel completely naked I use it all the time for everything from you know plane adjustments to tightening a cabinet door to you you name it I use it all the time and I’ve beat this thing up really bad I abuse it it’s super super strong and durable I can’t recommend these enough and I actually give these out as gifts quite a bit to friends and family who have helped me out with different things and I’m like listen just make sure just wear it for two weeks and after two weeks of getting used to having it on you you’ll be shocked at how much you use it and you won’t not ever use it again I have the Leatherman Wave plus that I’ve used I have two of these and there’s a new one that I’ve seen out recently called the Leatherman Arc I believe so I’m I’m kind of interested in maybe trying that out I actually need to make a new leather holster cuz I’ve worn mine completely through and so I’m thinking about maybe trying that Leatherman Arc but these are awesome tools they’re great for your everyday care it’s not just woodworking related you’ll use it around the house all the time I promise you get this and wear it for 2 weeks get used to using it and you’ll thank me all right so number five on the list is this really cool little spoon carving jack knife by Flex cut now I have the original one and I actually won this at my local woodworking Guild Christmas party many years ago but they’ve improved it since and now it’s like the 2.0 version and it has an extra Tool uh this one has a straight blade knife on it and it has two curved knives kind of gouges or scorps type things for hollowing out the inside of a spoon so there’s this one like this kind of a more of a shallow curve and then there is the more aggressive curve for getting a little bit deeper in the spoon and I really like this thing I take it on my Camp trips with my family and when we’re sitting around the fire at night or during the day hanging out I bring a couple like Maple or cherry or Olivewood blanks with me or I’ll just take my Hatchet and rough out a piece of firewood and just carve something and instead of having my phone in my hand and scrolling I have this in my hand and I’m kind of I can stay in the conversation with people more talk to the family rather than getting distracted with the phone so this is a really fun little gift that’s fun to take on vacations or you can just be in your wood shop carbon things too so the flex cut pocket spoon Jack really good little gift that’s number five all right for number six I’m kind of cheating and including several different tools here but I’m calling this layout tool upgrades or just additions if the woodworker in your life doesn’t have these we’ll start with this guy right here and this is a marking gauge for fine Woodworking and joinery layout you really want to Mark everything with a knife line and not a pencil line and these marking gauges use this piece here to reference the edge of a board and these rods with these cutting blades single bevel cutting blades at the end will allow you to Mark like a tenin wall or a shoulder wall perfectly parallel to whatever reference surface the edge of your board or whatever to get a nice crisp straight perfectly parallel line these are super super important for good Joiner layout and this is a double marking gauge and if you look it has two different blades one blade that will have an inside bevel and one blade that will have an outside bevel so what you can actually do is Lay these out to create both sides of your mortise wall at the same time really nice tool to have if you don’t have one already similar to a marking gauge for really important layout is a really good square a lot of people have squares out there combination square is what I prefer because it’s just so versatile I’m a big fan of spending the extra money for stere it there’s a lot of different brands out there that you can get your big box stores are probably fine tools but they’re not lifelong heirloom tools like ster it they have hardened steel matte blades that come out really easily and you can use this independently of the square body and these are made of a really nice cast iron this goes right back in there like that and they maintain their squareness very very well and you can actually adjust squareness there’s a couple little pads inside of these that it references so if these ever go out of square then you can bring them back true a high quality one like this is not going to go out of square hardly ever if ever those cheaper ones do go out of square heck of a lot more so a 6in one is is kind of my favorite but I’ve been using this 12in one all the time in my Timber Framing and I use it all the time in woodworking too so you it’s kind of nice to have two of them this 12in one’s a little bit cumbersome to to use when you don’t have to this little 6in one’s just The Sweet Spot and then to use these you want to mark your lines all your joinery out with either this marking gauge or a high quality marking knife I really like this feel uh which is a Swiss made one one they make a lot of the gouges and they make chisels but they make tons of carving gouges and I like this kind of wide double bevel marking gauge that allows me to whatever side that I need my bevel Edge to be I can switch it if I need it to be this side I can roll it over I can switch it to that side pretty easy to keep nice and sharp I’ve had this thing for a long time it’s cut a lot of lines and I’m a pretty big fan of it all right so number seven are these Sony w h1000 mx4 headphones now I’ve had these for like 5 years now and I beat the living heck out of them they’ve fallen off my head a 100 times from high heights they’re covered in paint they’re covered in spray foam they’re scratched all the heck and they just still work so so well the battery life’s amazing on them they’re really really comfortable and they do a great job of protecting my ears when I’m in the shop running saws dust collection I wear them when I’m mowing they just work amazing amazing so I really like listening to Audi books and podcasts and music when I ww workk and because I make videos all the time I would constantly have to turn the speaker on and off in between filming so I just started always just wearing these and in a lot of videos you’ll see me wearing these as I’m going around I’ll be hand planing and people are like why does he got hearing protection on it’s just because I don’t want to have to turn a speaker on and off and the sound quality is phenomenal in them now there’s some debate on whether noise cancelling headphones are actually protecting your hearing or not what they do is they create a sound wave they have a microphone in them that hears whatever sound’s coming in and they create a opposite sound wave going out that basically nullifies the sound coming in that’s different than just like the foam inserts that go into your ears that block those sound waves and there’s debate on how well those actually protect your hearing especially for like long term according to my research these over the- muff style noise cancelling headphones because they go over your ear seal your ear they do a really good job of protecting your ears for longterm and just regular hearing protection unlike kind of The Ear Pod style these don’t do as good of a job they use noise cancelling to block out those sound waves but because they’re not over your ear protecting your ear they don’t do as good of a job so I really like these they’re way more comfortable than those ear pods too they don’t fall out just really like them I highly highly recommend these and I’ve tried some of the other brands that are kind of in The Woodworking world that you see floating around and the sound quality and the volume and the clarity just were nothing compared to these and the battery life’s amazing I just am super impressed with these things so if you want a good set of headphones check these out all right number eight on the list is a nice heirloom quality new hand plane you can see behind me I’m a big fan of hand planes I have a whole bunch of vintage Stanley but sometimes the woodwork in your life might not want to go through the whole process of restoring those and tuning those and it can be a lot of work I have a couple videos on those it’s a lot of fun and very rewarding doing that but sometimes it’s nice to just get a nice pretty much out of the box really well-tuned hand plane and probably out of the manufacturers that make good quality new hand planes like Lee neelen Lee Valley Veritas and Wood River my favorite is Lee neelon they just have to me the most timeless classic look you can get this number four smoother in all brass it’s just a really handsome plane they come out of the box in really good shape you have to do very minimal tuning to them you no matter what tool it is you’re really going to want to put a a good Edge on it for it to really work properly or they make little smaller block planes this is a rabbiting block plane cuz the blade runs all the way to the edge I don’t really recommend this I’m not absolutely in love with this plane what I wish I had instead and I probably will ask my wife for Christmas for myself is the smaller bodied all brass block plane from Lee neelson and they have all sorts of really beautiful tools on their website but a really nice hand plane from Lee neelen Lee Valley Wood River is a great gift and it’s going to last that woodworker for their entire lives and someday it’ll get handed down to hopefully their Apprentice or children or whoever so it’s a great gift all right at number nine is kind of another two-parter here so first are some of these These are great little stocking stuffer type gifts these Veritas Workshop design pads I really like them because they’re essentially graphing paper but they have little dots instead of straight lines and I really like to sketch all my designs I I don’t really know how to use a SketchUp I’ve tried a couple times and I haven’t perfected it and pretty much all my designs I do entirely by sketching and I like this Vera sketch pad because those little those four little dots that make up the squares it lets me divide my scale so sometimes I might make each one of those little squares a foot and every dot is 3 in sometimes I make those squares where each dot is an inch uh different things like that so I I like it because I don’t really know how to use SketchUp very well and when I’m designing something or sketching it I like to be able to have the nice fluid ability to sketch it by hand and then I usually will send that off to somebody who can make nice plans up for me after I build the project but I just really like a good pad to sketch out I think it’s a really good organic way to design furniture kind of quickly get your ideas out and then my all-time favorite pencils these are great little stocking stuffers are these Pentel pencils and they come in three different sizes and I have multiples of all different sizes the black one is a 0.5 the blue one is 7 and the yellow is 0.9 so thickest medium finest so a lot of my sketching I’ll use the black and then the workshop I’ll use these two depending on the size of the Timber or wood that I’m using but I just really really like these pencils are awesome they take a lot of abuse and it’s just they’re they’re great so those two for Designing and then with that I think the best way to become a better woodworker is through books obviously watching videos is what I want you to do is kind of how I make my living so I want you to watch my videos and such but people ask me how to improve and how to get better and the best way is books but I want to share with you some of my favorites from truth to tools this is there’s a bunch of these books really good woodwork working books from lostart press just go to his website Christopher Schwartz who used to be an editor at fine woodworking he kind of created that publishing house for woodworking books and he’s brought back a bunch of old titles that are out of print and just a lot of really really good good book so a lot of these are from there this is from there it’s really cool it kind of talks about a lot of different measuring ways from Antiquity and history and how they kind of used to measure things and how all of our measuring is derived from that it’s really kind of interesting book Paul sers who’s a big inspiration of mine essential woodworking hand tools just a big book of all sorts of hand tools how to use them everything about him awesome book for somebody who’s getting into hand tools Michael Pekovic foundations of woodworking he inspires a lot of my furniture I really love the oak first of all white oak is one of my favorites you see him use tons of white oak and the through um proud mortise and ten and joinery that he uses he has a lot of really good Furniture in there he’s a really good woodworker this with the grain as a woodwor it’s really important to understand wood and wood movement and everything about wood this is a great book again from Lost Art press probably one of my all-time favorites is this just book of Japanese joinery you can just scroll through this thing and learn so many cool Japanese joints to inspire you in projects it’s kind of derived around home building that’s really what most of their joinery is designed for not as much for furniture but home building but it can cross over big time into furniture making with all Precision possible which is a really really old book by rubo who has that famous rubo workbench there’s a lot of really famous pictures and prints in here on furniture it’s a really great book and then another awesome one that’s probably the most bang for your buck that you’ll ever get is this book that is put out by fine woodworking called woodworking wisdom and know how and I think it’s basically a they just put all their best articles from years and years of magazines into a book and you can see how much is Just jammed in there and one of the things that I like so much about books and magazine articles is the illustrations you know talking about woodworking or showing woodworking in video is really cool too but the illustrations on like you know showing wood grain or how joinery goes together or how pieces of a project go together it’s just really enlightening to see some of these illustrations and everything so that is number nine all right so coming in at number 10 the last set of gift ideas would be something like plans or merchandise from your favorite Woodworkers out there a lot of us local small Woodworkers we have merchandise I just got a new set of hats in t-shirts and we usually offer plans so it doesn’t have to be me but people that you like and support they make great gifts they make merchandise that the woodworker in your life would probably appreciate especially if you know who their fans of go check out their websites and then you can support that local woodworker and get the person in your woodworking life a gift that they’ll really like and then also gift cards gift cards to places like Lee Valley Lee neelen Woodcraft Rockler and also look for local small woodworking companies like uh here in M Michigan area there’s a place called Johnson’s workbench definitely make sure you’re supporting your small local places and hopefully you have a really good holiday season thanks so much for watching this video I hope you got some great ideas and take care

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