My staff and I would like to wish all subscribers a Merry Christmas and happy new year and thankyou for your support over the past year. I hope you have found the information in our newsletter informative and useful woodwork knowledge. 

 We have recently updated the website with a full range of Colen Clenton's marking out tools with some very good pictures and information on how to use them and why you would use a certain tool over any other.    This year I sent some ebony that I use in my planes down to Colen to use in making his tools.  Some of these ebony tools have started to become available on my website and will continue to be throughout 2006.   Please enquire if you are interested in any of Colen's tools in ebony.

In October this year we released the flat bottom spoke shave at the Melbourne wood show.    The response at this show was a bit tentative mainly due to the handle shape and consequently I have refined the shape some what but essentially it has remained a squarish shape due to the benefits outlined in my last newsletter.   Hopefully Aussie  woodworkers will warm to the handle shape so they can benefit from the ability of this shave to plane against the grain when planing curved shapes in furniture work.  Conversely at the two USA shows I attended in November this year the response was great and I sold out of the spoke shaves at the first show - interesting how these things work!

When I finish writing this news letter I will be out to the workshop to continue making the curved sole spoke shave.   I have pretty much nailed down how I will make it with a full brass sole.   I ended up making the radius 3" which was a good compromise to optimise it for furniture work.   It won't be able to get into those real tight areas but it will handle the vast majority of curves found in furniture.   There are a few features that I want to try out when it is made and I will report back next year with the results.   I expect this tool will be available in Feb 2006.  In the USA, the flat bottom shave is available now through Craftsman Studio and the Japan Woodworker.  Also as a result of the two woodworking shows I did in the US both these stores have decided to stock the short shooting board made by Micheal Connor.

For some time now I have been collecting the straightest and best pieces of Ironwood from big trees to release a Jointing plane.   I have been making  a few on special orders but I have decided to add them to my standard line of planes in 2006 but only available in ironwood, but the odd one may be available in gidgee and ebony on a special order.   The standard length will be 27" long but they can be shorted a little if required depending on peoples requirements.   This plane will take over where the trying plane (small jointer) starts to struggle which is at about the 6' (1.8m) mark for jointing boards.   So if you are into making  long tables this plane will be a benefit.

I am planning on doing more Aussie wood shows in 2006 including Brisbane, Sydney, Perth, Melbourne and possibly Canberra.   Please check the website for details.

 HNT Gordon will be closing down over the Christmas break, so if you email me or place an order during this period the response time maybe 7 to 10 days for my reply. If you are visiting the Northern Rivers of NSW and wish to call in to the showroom, please phone ahead and leave a message with a return phone number and I will see if I can meet you.  Happy Woodworking  Terry Gordon.

In this newsletter I would like to share the experience of making a flat bottom spoke shave and point out to woodworkers what I found to be the important parts to a spoke shave that has good controllability and can produce the goods when it comes to planing from a straight wood surface into a  curved wood surface without tearout or loosing control of the cut leaving you with that smooth desirable finish.   

 At this point I would like to say there is no perfect spoke shave the same as the is no perfect plane that can do all tasks. But like the other planes that I make I feel I have produced a tool that is very easy to setup and adjust, it can plane against the grain on most woods and has good controllability which is rare with a lot of spoke shaves on the market. This spokeshave has a 50mm (2") wide blade that is 4mm thick, so no problems with chatter and a wide blade for the big to small tasks.  

 I have put a brass sole on it for a couple of reasons, the first being the ability to resist wear which became an obvious problem when I started to shape some hard pieces of wood using a proto type wooden sole shave.  This is not a problem on a wooden sole plane  as you have a much larger surface area working on a flat surface, but this is not the case with a spoke shave.  The other reason was so that I could close up the space behind the blade, not something you will see in other spoke shaves but it proved to be a huge bonus with controllability when doing the outside of a curved surface.  The gap in the sole where the blade protrudes is less than 3 mm (1/8")  and on most spokeshaves this is about 5mm or more. The mouth opening is the same as my smoothers, 0.3mm optimum with a maximum of 0.5mm. By reducing the total  gap in the sole to less than 3mm improves controllability as it is easier to find the blade when you are doing outside curves and the depth of cut is much more constant as you go from a flat surface to a curved surface.   This is where a lot of spoke shaves have control and tearout problems because the large gap in the sole leads to the depth of cut increasing as you go into the curve, and while it is only a very small change in depth it can be enough to cause tearout and/or make it hard to control the shave as the depth of cut changes.  I feel this is a large improvement on the spoke shaves that I have used. 

 The next difference of my shave to the others is a higher blade angle.   I have opted for 55 degrees.   60 degrees proved to be too high and caused controllability problems and 50 degrees proved to be a problem for tearout.   The 55 degrees proved to be a great compromise angle.   Most spoke shaves you will have used will have been 45 - 50 degrees in the Stanley metal type, or very low angle at 20 -25 degrees in the old wooden types or the new veritas type.  The low angle type are certainly very good with the grain and if you are making straight grain spokes going with the grain they are hard to beat, but they are very average as soon as you come against the grain.  The standard Stanley type shaves, particularly ones with small soles and high handles, had control problems and tearout was present in most cases.

 For controllability I have put a maximum  amount of sole in front of the blade as I could (24mm) and this certainly improved control when the shave is used to do large radius internal curves or flat surfaces.

 The handle shape on the HNT Gordon spoke shave is also to do with controllability.   Whist the handles may look a bit squarish and bulky they are a Huge advantage with controlling the spoke shave.  The top of the handle is parallel with the sole and the front and back of the shave is 90 degrees to the sole giving you a great set of references to help you find the blade on curved surfaces.  Hand eye coordination is very important with using a spoke shave and I felt this style handle offered a great reference to help you keep the blade cutting on a curved surface.   I'm not 100% sure why this is but I feel it lies in the fact that our mind and hands can handle parallel and 90 degree problems but change it to a more complex angle from 0 - 90 degree and our hand eye coordination computations start to falter. The handle is also very low set down with the blade.  This is essential for control. 

 Sadly I couldn't include my usual scraper function with the spoke shave as there was control problems with doing it and it stopped me from closing the gap on the sole which was important for control issues.   As such this spoke shave is not capable of planing against the grain on curved shapes once you get up into the dense cranky woods such as jarrah etc.   It did handle a quite hard oak (suspect it was American White Oak) and planed against the grain on an outside curve without too much difficulty.   If I get feedback that customers want a spoke shave to do the most difficult woods I will look at doing a scraper spoke shave.

 However, my next tool will be the round bottom shave and I was looking at about a 3"  to 5" radius on the sole but I will experiment with this, and any feedback from subscribers is welcome on what they have found to be a good radius.   Also I will make it so that you can modify the radius to suit a particular task if required.

 The setup of the shave is the same as the other planes I make and adjusted by taping the body in front of the throat and the adjustment works very well for fine adjustment. This is a welcome bonus if you are familiar with a Stanley No 64 which I have done a lot of my spoke shave work with, for those not familiar with the Stanley 64 it is a bitch to adjust.

 This shave is capable of taking very fine shaving through to quite thick shavings (0.3mm) making it quite versatile on a variety of jobs. Spokeshaves in ironwood with a TS blade start at $150. To view the spokeshave, go to www.hntgordon.com.au/prodspokeshave.htm

 Thankyou to those readers in the US that replied to my request to borrow a workbench for the woodshows. I have a bench now and am really looking forward to this visit. If you can attend one of the shows, please come and make yourself known to me, I am always glad to meet other wood workers. The dates are  28 - 30 Oct for San Mateo and  4 - 6 Nov for the Costa Mesa Show.

 At the Melbourne Wood show, on 7 - 9 October, I am in stand no. 157. I have just received 5 Ebony handle saws from Adria Toolworks and will be bringing them to Melbourne. I will have 2 Dovetail $220 ea, 2 RIP and 1 X Cut $240 ea. If any readers are attending the show and have special requests for my tools, please advise ASAP so I can pack it with my stock.  Happy Woodworking,  Terry Gordon. 

Latter this year I will be exhibiting at the San Mateo and Costa Mesa Woodworking shows in California USA. The dates are  28 - 30 Oct for San Mateo and  4 - 6 Nov for the Costa Mesa Show.   If you are from around these areas it would be great to meet you.   I will be bringing a full range of planes to demonstrate and sell, including some planes made from the rare and beautiful Australian and exotic woods. I have been putting aside some tools made from the nicest woods I have including some snakewood. With a bit of luck I may have my new spoke shave available by then also.   Additionally I will be bringing some of Colen Clenton's Marking Out tools including his adjustable Squares and Cutting/Marking Gauges.  If you haven't seen his tools it will be worth a look to see why his tools are gaining a very good reputation world wide.

 If you are planning on coming to the show and you would like me to bring any particular planes over please let me know.  This will save you a bit on postage and paying by cash will help you twist my arm for a discount.

 Between the two woodworking shows I will have a bit of spare time so if anyone is involved in a woodworking group that is between San Francisco and San Diego I am happy to call in and demonstrate my tools and talk to your group about planes in general.   If this is of interest to anyone feel free to email me so we can see if we can work out a date that is suitable.

Lastly I may need to chase down a workbench to demonstrate on for the Costa Mesa Show.   If anyone lives close by and would like to loan their bench out for the weekend I would be happy to pay them by the way of a plane.   I will be able to pick the bench up and return it. 

Sorry I don't have any interesting bits about planing this time, getting the spoke shave designed and made is taking its toll.

Happy Woodworking. Regards Terry

 Now the woodshows have started, time just seems to be slipping away.   For any subscribers in Adelaide,  Perth and Canberra, be aware those shows are just around the corner.  Full details are on the website at www.hntgordon.com.au/woodshowattendance.htm, and I will be there at all shows.   Remember talking to me at these shows is a great way of learning about the HNT Gordon planes you have, and picking up little tips on using planes can save you lots of time in the workshop. Not to mention improving your woodwork projects.

 At the coming woodshows (except Adelaide as I will be a guest on MIK stand) I will also have: Colen Clenton's marking out tools, Micheal Connors Woodworks workbench and accessories, Paul Williams (Academy) replacement HSS irons for most of the old Stanley/Record planes, and some new hand crafted hand saws made by a chap in Canada.  All these tools are made by talented craftsman who value their reputation hence make tools with quality in mind.  I have personally used these tools and can recommend them without hesitation.  

 The Snakewood Saga

 I recently travelled to the USA to pick up some snakewood (Piratinera guianensis) which I plan to make planes out of.  I suspect it is the most expensive wood in the world and after my experience with buying 300 kg of this wood I now know why. I will share my snakewood story with you and I suspect you will appreciate why anything made from this wood should be treasured and looked after.   For those wood nuts amongst you this story may give you an insight into how crazy things can get when you start collecting certain woods.

 Besides the fact that Snakewood is very beautiful and extremely unique this wood is very hard to acquire.    There are many pitfalls with it and the lady that I purchased it from told me early in our negotiations that it is not only called snakewood because it looks like snakeskin, but this wood can bite you very badly, with the venom testing the resilience of your finances if you are not careful.    After waiting about 18 months (with a large deposit paid) I was off to the USA to look at the snakewood. After tuning up an 18 inch Taiwanese Bandsaw at the Lumber Yard  I was able to cut the logs into manageable sizes and I was very relieved to know that the wood I had spent considerable money on was very good quality wood in sizes large enough to make all the different size planes without too much wastage. What a relief!  I managed (with some tense moments) to get some snakewood back on the Qantas Jet with me, but the majority of the wood is still in transit on a ship so the saga continues.  I'm not celebrating yet but I do feel a sense of being lucky in this case so far after hearing a story from a wood merchant in Los Angeles. This wood merchant purchased 6000 pounds of snakewood only to get 600 pounds of good quality snakewood (10% recovery).  The rest was second and third grade wood which is very difficult to sell.  This can happen because this wood can crack very easily if it is not looked after very carefully (read treat with kids gloves)  after it is cut down and quite often large parts of the logs don't have any snakeskin like figure in them. If this is the case and the figure is fairly plain you certainly can't demand high prices for the objects you make just because it is called snakewood. 

 Ensuring there is good figure in the whole log is very difficult just by looking at the log, you may see the snakeskin look on the outside of the log (which is a positive sign) but this may be just skin deep and the rest could be quite plain.   The best way to check there is good figure through the log is to clean up both ends of the log so you can see the growth rings clearly.   The end of the log will generally be a dark reddish  brown colour and from the centre or pith of the log you will see like a bomb burst of black lines emanating to the outside of the log.   If these lines stop half way out so will the nice figure.   So if you can see the nice figure on the outside of the log and this bomb burst figure extending all the way out on the ends of the log it is a "beauty"!  Or at least it should be a good one and you have done all you can to ascertain what the figure is like.   If your wood merchant will split the log in half this will give you a better idea.   I suspect for most woodworkers who just want a single piece of snakewood the best bet is to buy a piece cut to size.   Snake wood is sold by weight and cut to size it costs about 4 times as much compared to buying it in log form.  But unless you know what you are looking for, paying more for a piece cut to size is a very smart option.

 As I mentioned acquiring the snakewood is difficult, it comes from the top end of South America, Surinam, Venezuela and a couple of other countries close by.  It would appear from some of the correspondence I had with the lady I purchased the wood from that it is very difficult to deal with wood merchants in these countries, email is not in use and correspondence is by written letter.  In addition the changing customs laws in the USA due to terrorism are making life difficult also.  Below are 2 emails I recieved from "The Lumber Lady" who operates from YUMA Arizona USA..

 Email 1

 "Hi Terry -
Thought you could use a little update on the Snakewood drama.  From what I have gathered from speaking with my import broker and what I have been reading, combined with what my Snakewood supplier has been saying, it seems the U.S. Customs Bureau has mandated that any import shipments have to be by the container load only; and that small shipments are no longer permissible because there are a limited number of inspectors and they want to be sure to be able to inspect every shipment for drugs, weapons, and .....terrorists or terrorist-oriented activities. From the standpoint of security this makes a lot of sense, but from my standpoint, it creates some inconvenience as these regulations have taken place just in the last few weeks; and were instituted so swiftly and arbitrarily that they caught everyone by surprise. Furthermore, the inspection procedures have been complicated by another regulation that advance electronic notification has to precede all shipments, and some shipments have been caught halfway betwixt and between... while the red tape of retroactive notification is being activated. What this means is that my supplier must only ship a certain amount of material.  What he is going to do is ship everyone's orders to me and I will disburse them.  This will allow him to combine all his shipments into one.  The one shortcoming of this idea is that he has to wait until he has enough orders to combine to warrant this manner of shipping.  He will need 14 orders about the size of ours and so far he has about 8 of those strung together.  This all is likely to create some further delay.  But, since it is going to cost him $1,200.00 to ship the full container, (as opposed to $65.00 in the past) the only recourse is either to kick in the additional  $1,200.00 shipping or wait a little longer.   He has already purchased 600 lbs of Snakewood logs to send, so any notion of his refunding my deposit (and I suggested it) is without merit as he has spent the money and cannot expect any refund from HIS supplier. As I had previously said, I have been dealing with this person for about 4 years and he has always come through like a champ for me, so I reckon the thing to do is keep calm and wait until the situation irons itself out.  I imagine small shipping agents like FedEx and UPS will scream their heads off and changes will ultimately be made.  In the meantime I will join in the fray by writing to my congressman stating a particularly unfriendly response to these changes. If you have any questions or suggestions, I am certainly open to new ideas, as is my supplier."

 Email 2

After this letter was sent  it still took to the end of May for the snakewood to arrive in Yuma Arizona.  It was like working in slow motion.

 I now have some snakewood in the kiln drying and trust me it is testing my skill level in drying wood.  To take a look at some photos of the snake wood go to www.hntgordon.com.au/snakewood.htm  on the website.

 I suspect when I make the first plane from this beautiful snakewood all will be forgotten and with a rush of blood to the head I will probably be crazy enough to do it again.   That's if my wife doesn't shoot me before hand.

 I hope you enjoyed this little story about buying snakewood,  I think it helps put in perspective why snakewood is so expensive.

 Until next time happy woodworking and remember if you have any questions etc about the tools I make and sell please feel free to contact me.

 Hope this newsletter finds you well and your woodworking projects are taking shape. Further to my last newsletter I have added another section on sharpening a Smoothing or Trying plane blade.   Go to www.hntgordon.com.au/sharpeningsmoothingtryingblade.htm  and this page will take you through the process of sharpening your blade so you don't leave any of those undesirable marks on the surface of your wood.    If you sharpen in this manner you will find it will improve the finished surface on whatever you may be planing flat.

 For new subscribers, the past newsletter information is incorporated in the website so if you take a look at the 'Using Planes' section you will pick up on what has previously been published.

 Please feel free to contact us if you have a specific question on using or maintaining planes and if there is enough interest in a particular subject I will endeavour to cover it in a newsletter.

 Since opening the new workshop some woodworkers have found where we are and have taken a look.   We encourage others to call in and visit us and see how we make and maintain the quality in our hand made planes.  You will be more than welcome to use all the various types of planes we make and accessories that we have made.

 All the best until the next newsletter is posted.   I will cover planing a table/bench top in the next newsletter. Happy woodworking. 

This is the first electronic news letter from HNT Gordon.  The news letter will be sent out when HNT Gordon has some information which may be of interest to you as a woodworker. This first news letter is to let you know that we have: setup a new website with secure payment options, more information on using planes, sections where you can purchase bargain planes or unique planes which come up, plus the section on collector planes which we have expanded to show more photos of the planes available.  We have also added some accessories to the website which we use ourselves to make woodworking easier and they are all very good quality products at a reasonable price. 

 This year is proving to be a busy one as we are in the process of building a new workshop and show room.   We expect to have the showroom complete by December this year so anyone visiting the Byron Bay area will be able to call in and see planes on display and planes being made.   We will let you know when the showroom is open and provide a map on how to find us.