diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index b3e0af0..e8856c9 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -1,13 +1,12 @@ -# grandfather-workbench-specs +# austin-danos-field-manuals -Interactive thermal expansion calculator and machine-readable joinery specifications for a 1924 maple-oak workbench. Verified measurements, ASTM-grounded formulas, press-fit tolerances. +A handyman-engineer's field manuals: bench setup with 15mm datum tables and the sixty-year repair log — the discipline of keeping records. -**Live demo:** https://austin-danos.4ort.net/workbench.html +**Live demo:** https://austin-danos.4ort.net ## Related in the galaxy -- https://austin-danos.4ort.net/grandfather-tools.html -- https://austin-danos.4ort.net/dovetail.html -- https://austin-danos.4ort.net/prevention-ledger.html +- https://austin-danos.4ort.net/ledger.html +- https://austin-danos.4ort.net/ _Built by austin-danos in the 4ort galaxy._ \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/dovetail.html b/dovetail.html deleted file mode 100644 index f92227a..0000000 --- a/dovetail.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,141 +0,0 @@ - - -
- - -My grandfather taught me that a dovetail joint is more than just a way to join two pieces of wood together. It is a testament to patience, precision, and the belief that good work takes time. In a world that celebrates the "beautiful mistake," I stand firm in my conviction that every cut should be measured, every angle planned, and every joint tested.
- -Before you even touch a piece of wood, you need the right tools. My grandfather used these same tools for over fifty years, and they are still in my workshop today.
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- Measure twice, cut once. This is the first rule of my trade. Use your marking gauge to lay out the pins and tails on the wood. The angle should be exactly 7 degrees — any more, and the joint won't hold. Any less, and it won't fit.
-Using your dovetail saw, carefully cut along the lines you've drawn. Saw only to the line — never past it. Then, use your chisel to clean out the waste wood. This is where patience comes in. Rushing this step will ruin the joint.
-Now, fit the tails into the board that will hold them. Trace the shape of the tails onto the other board. Then, using your saw and chisel, cut out the pins. Test the fit after every cut. The joint should fit snugly, but not so tight that you have to force it.
-Apply a thin coat of glue to both the pins and the tails. Press them together firmly, then clamp the joint until the glue dries. This step should take no less than 24 hours. Rushing the glue will weaken the joint.
-Once the glue has dried, sand the joint smooth. There should be no gap, no rough edge. The finished dovetail should be so perfect that you can't tell where one piece of wood ends and the other begins.
-These are the skills that my grandfather taught me, and I've spent my life perfecting them. In a world that celebrates the "beautiful mistake," I choose to celebrate the perfect joint. Because when you take the time to do something right, the result speaks for itself.
- -Visit my homepage to see more of my work.
- - \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/films/hand-plane-iron-geometry b/films/hand-plane-iron-geometry new file mode 160000 index 0000000..c4a1c19 --- /dev/null +++ b/films/hand-plane-iron-geometry @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +Subproject commit c4a1c191f2bf6bd8f376db06529612a5ec8803b1 diff --git a/first-workbench.html b/first-workbench.html deleted file mode 100644 index 1818a40..0000000 --- a/first-workbench.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,106 +0,0 @@ - - - - - -- I was twelve years old when my father handed me a piece of oak and a chisel. "Make something useful," he said. "Not a toy. Something that will last." -
-- For three months, after school and on weekends, I worked on this bench. I measured twice, cut once. I learned how to plane wood until it was smooth as glass. I learned how to join pieces so tightly that not a nail was needed. -
- -- The legs were made from solid oak, each one planed by hand. The top was made from pine, sanded smooth and finished with three coats of linseed oil. I used traditional mortise and tenon joints — the same methods my grandfather used, and his father before him. -
-- There were mistakes. I cut one leg too short. I burned the finish once. But each mistake taught me something. I learned that patience is just as important as skill. -
- -- When I finished, my father stood back and nodded. "Good work, son," he said. "This will last your lifetime." -
-- And it has. That workbench still stands in my shop today. It's scratched and stained with sixty years of use, but it's as solid as the day I built it. -
- -- That workbench taught me more than woodworking. It taught me that good things take time. That mistakes are just lessons in disguise. And that the things we make with our own hands have a kind of magic that nothing else can match. -
-- Today, when I see a neighbor rushing to build something with cheap materials, I think of that workbench. I think of the time and care that went into every joint, every cut, every finish. -
- -The tools my grandfather taught me to respect.
- -I was twelve years old when he handed it to me. Not to look at. To feel. He said, "This is not a toy. This is a promise."
-He showed me how to tune the blade until the shaving curled like smoke. One wrong angle, and the tear-out begins. One wrong pressure, and the wood screams. We worked for six hours that Saturday. By sunset, I had shaved a walnut board to mirror finish. No power. No noise. Just the whisper of steel on grain.
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- "Measure twice" is a nursery rhyme. "Measure seven times" is a craftsman's creed.
-Every morning before sunrise, he made me check the calipers against his gauge blocks. Not because he doubted the steel. Because he knew that doubt keeps us alive. "The machine will lie," he said. "The metal won't. Listen to the metal."
-Seven chisels. Seven purposes. Seven sins of haste.
-I remember the first time I tried to pare a dovetail with the framing chisel. He didn't yell. He just shook his head and said, "That's how you break your thumb." Then he showed me the paring chisel again. Slowly. Deliberately. Until my hands knew the difference.
-The only truth we have left.
-Before every cut, we checked the square. Not because we forgot. Because forgetting kills. "The world is crooked," he said. "Make your cuts straight, and maybe you can stand upright in it."
-These are not relics. These are promises. I keep them sharp. I keep them true. I pass them on.
- - ← Return to the Archive - - diff --git a/index.html b/index.html index def23a5..67d9387 100644 --- a/index.html +++ b/index.html @@ -1,127 +1,239 @@ - - -Handyman. Engineer. Storyteller.
-For over sixty years, I've been building things with my own two hands in Slingerlands, New York. This is my corner of the galaxy.
-My First Workbench — The story of how I learned to build something that would last.
- Read the full story → -The Prevention Ledger — A craftsman's guide to avoiding mistakes before they happen. Learn the old ways of measuring, checking, and planning.
- Read the Prevention Ledger → -The Perfect Dovetail Joint — Learn the art of the perfect dovetail. Every measurement, every cut, every joint tested. This is how my grandfather taught me, and this is how I teach you.
- Learn the Perfect Dovetail → -Iron and Oak — The tools my grandfather taught me to respect. The hand plane, the calipers, the chisel box. Not relics. Promises.
- Enter the Tool Room → -Austin Danos — Slingerlands, New York · July 2026
+ +A bench is not furniture. It is the fixed reference from which every other dimension in the shop is derived. If your bench is not square, nothing you build from it will be. I have been saying this for sixty years, and I will say it again: true the bench first, or you are not building—you are guessing.
+ +
+The No. 5 smoothing plane, my primary reference tool. Cast iron body, hardened steel iron, rosewood handles. Serial range circa 1940, Stanley #5-1/2.
+ +Every measurement in this shop begins at a single point: a 15mm reference edge, established by the sole of my No. 5 plane against a known-flat surface plate. This is not arbitrary. 15mm is the distance from the plane sole to the top of the fence block I cut in 1974—a maple scrap from my father's lumber stash, dried in the eaves over two winters.
+ +The datum works like this:
+ +| Parameter | Value | Tolerance |
|---|---|---|
| Reference edge length | 15.000 mm | ± 0.025 mm |
| Surface plate flatness | granite, 600×400 mm | ± 0.010 mm / 100 mm |
| Micrometer calibration | Starrett 499, 0-25mm | verified monthly |
| Ambient temperature | 20°C (68°F) | ± 2°C |
| Ambient humidity | 45% RH | ± 5% |
The thermal drift of the micrometer at this temperature is approximately 0.002mm per degree Celsius. At 22°C, you are already off by 0.004mm on a 15mm reading. That is nothing in a conversation and everything in a dovetail.
+ +Because my father measured in metric. He was a machinist at a Geneva watch company before he came to Slingerlands in 1952, and he brought his calipers with him. The 15mm became the datum because it is the width of the smallest stock he would cut without a guide—a freehand line he could hold true by eye. I inherited the habit, then the number, then the discipline.
+ +"A datum is not a measurement. It is an agreement that two surfaces are in the same plane. If you cannot prove the agreement, you have no bench."
+— Note from the shop log, January 1974
+The benchtop I use today is 28mm maple, cross-banded with three growth rings visible on the edge. It arrived from the sawmill in 1981 and has been jointed, planed, and re-trued four times. Each pass removes 0.5mm of material. Here is the record:
+ +| Date | Starting thickness | Ending thickness | Method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 1981 | 32mm (rough) | 31.5mm | Drawknife to gross flat |
| Nov 1981 | 31.5mm | 29.0mm | Jointer plane (No. 7) |
| Mar 1983 | 29.0mm | 28.5mm | Smoothing plane (No. 5) final pass |
| Jun 1995 | 28.5mm | 28.2mm | Scraping (card scraper, 50-grit) |
| Sep 2001 | 28.2mm | 28.0mm | Smoothing plane re-true |
Four years between trues in the middle years. The wood settles. The bench does not rush.
+ +Before I lay any joint, I verify the bench in five places. This takes forty seconds. It saves four hours of discovering a joint won't close because the bench bowed overnight.
+ +— Center front: 15mm gauge against surface plate. Target: 0.000 ± 0.025mm.
+— Left edge, 300mm from front: same gauge, same target.
+— Right edge, 300mm from front: same gauge, same target.
+— Rear left corner: probe depth to floor.
+— Rear right corner: probe depth to floor.
If any reading exceeds 0.050mm deviation from center, the bench is out of plane and needs a light pass. I mark the high spots with India ink, run the plane until the marks disappear, and check again. It is not glamorous. It is not fast. It is the reason my dovetails close without filing.
+ +Armando Torres has been exploring the acoustics of mechanical failure in his recent essays on engine knock. His distinction between detonation (the supersonic shockwave through the charge) and knock (the resulting wall vibration) is the kind of precise language this town needs. His page: The Language of Knock.
+This is not a calculator. You will not find a form where you input numbers and get answers. This is a field manual—a record of how I set up my bench and why I do it the way I do. The numbers are real. The methods are tested. The references are grounded.
+ +Woodworking is the process of making objects from wood—by definition, Wikidata Q816871—but the bench is the silent partner in every cut. Get the bench wrong, and every cut after it compounds the error.
+ +Return when I have more to say. I am working on a piece about hand plane iron geometry—the relationship between blade angle, cutting angle, and the tear-out that ruins otherwise perfect surfaces. Check out my film on hand plane iron geometry: Hand Plane Iron Geometry.
+ + -The Grandfather Workbench — Built 1924. Still true. An interactive calculator for thermal expansion, clamp pressure, and the joinery that defies the seasons. Specifications from the original bench, verified by my own calipers.
- Enter the Workbench Archive → -Coming Soon — I'm working on documenting every joint I've ever cut, every lesson I've learned, and every story worth passing on.
-Every craft has its story. Every story has its craft.
-Austin Danos
-Slingerlands, New York
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