Chinese style bowdrill

I managed to snap some photos of two bowdrills that Gao Yisheng brought into the woodshop before his departure. The bowdrills have left with him but my curiosity remains. They function identically yet while one is clearly a smartly fashioned homemade model, the other shows signs that it was manufactured.

side by side

Besides having a surface finish, the bowdrill on the right appears to be manufactured (yet I could find no brand markings) because of the larger alloy ferrule that accepts drill bits or bit pads and the ball bearings set inside chrome plated races. (The ferrule on the handmade version was nearly rusted through.) In spite of this, the bowdrill is rather crudely made. There is a bit of loss where, it seems, a lathe operator gouged out some short grain but it was still deemed acceptable. It's the putative handmade tool that has this detail on the handle that distinguishes it as more refined and adapted by a user for a user's comfort.

The more elegant handle of the two

the ferrules

By contrast the other bowdrill handle is a straight dowel with a wider section for a handle that is also warped along its length. Whether intentionally or not is unknown. I don't know anything of their provenance nor was I able to use them. They arrived as is and without and attachments. The cords were similarly rotten and would have required restringing before attempting to test them.

Planing stop, croche, and bowdrill

I managed to photograph a similar tool while on a woodcraft tour of TianTaiShan.

unguarded combination machine

Bespoke furnituremaker

I spotted this one on the workbench of a furnituremaker. He seemed to use it exclusively for drilling the alignment holes when gluing edges of wide boards. Opposite the work bench, he used a jointer with a drill chuck attached to the cutterhead spindle as a horizontal borer. The main source of lighting came through the front entryway so I failed to get a good photograph of the drill bit. Describing it in words is sufficient. An iron nail had been pounded flat and then sharpened to a point with two cutting edges. This was then driven into the end grain of a block of wood (pad), which was forced into the bowdrill. This was not a refined tool. I could see that replacing the pads had damaged the opening, probably with a screwdriver. It might have been made at one time to accept better crafted bits and pads. As it was, it served the joiner to drill the holes for bamboo dowels when making round tabletops from boards. At least in this form, this bowdrill is in no way an accurate tool and is very limited to small size holes. It is comparable to putting a finishing nail into a drill chuck. It does a task but in a very limited application.
I want to believe, at least, that at some time, drill bits and pads were made specifically for this tool, either for manufactured bowdrills or to be used in conjunction with homemade versions. I've never seen these tools used on a construction site and I have no idea whether any craftsmen prefer them over the more readily available cordless drills on the market today. It might simply be another example of the conservative impulse in so many aspects of Han Chinese culture. It nevertheless might have some advantages that have yet to be identified.
Short of finding a set of bits for this tool, there exists a possibility that evidence exists in printed form, possibly in advertisements or in tool catalogues. I am still looking for a cooperative scholar with connections in one of the state or university archives.  
If any reader has a suggestion where to pursue this line of inquiry, or wants to add anything to the discussion, please reach me through the comments.

Waste not

Here are some boxes that I just finished putting a linseed oil finish on:

flip lid front

flip lid rear

 

sliding lid front

sliding lid rear

And here is the source the wood to make these boxes.

This unused pallet was just gathering dust when I decide to pull it apart and see what it was made of: rough sawn poplar, but the special discovery was the amount and varieties of sapstain fungus that had infected the planks. On the downside, the wood is very brittle and unforgiving to work, readily splitting and chipping off at the edges. On the upside, it's like a painting from the inside out. I have no idea under what conditions the fungi got into this wood, but it's possible that the varied colors are actually more intense due to competition between the different species setting up zone lines to defend their resources.
Controlled rot, and we see beauty in the patterns of the organic battlefields.

Mujingfang remade

It's never a good sign when a new tool is painful to use. This was the case with my new Mujingfang beading plane. This is a bare bones tool manufacturer the only apparent upside of which is that their products are extremely cheap. I've bought their wares before so I know about their limitations. But as around $10 US a plane, it was hard to not try this one just once more.
One very valid criticism of Chinese manufacturing is that very often from the upper management down to the assemblyline worker, nobody in the operation has any idea about what it is they are making. That's the only way that I can explain how this beading plane ever came to be made as it is.

The cruel molding plane

The first point to notice is that the fence is on the opposite side as other molding planes for right-handed users. This might be a plus if they came in pairs for difficult to plane woods, but as far as I can ascertain, this is the only model. The other failing is that the plane is extremely small which makes it hard to push without the upper edge of the blade poking into the palm of the unlucky hand. Or was it meant to be pulled? There is a long, shallow depression on the fence side but it appears more decorative than functional.  If one tries to pull the plane, squeezing with the right hand thumb somewhere in the depression, it is not possible to maintain enough downward pressure without having the blade chatter across the surface. It is simply impossible to believe that any woodworker did a test run on this plane before it was approved for delivery.

Initially I thought about just chalking up this purchase to as yet another lesson about how expensive it is to buy cheaply made Chinese tools. But then I pondered how to salvage it. I could have cut off some length from the blade and filed it smooth, but that would still have made the tool only slightly easier to wrap my fingers around the back while navigating with a pullstroke. It occurred to me that I could build a holder into which I might be able to use this plane with. My first idea was to create a square hollow in a suitably large piece of wood. Fast, but it would have created a problem as to how to keep the plane held inside the holder. I then realized that I would have to build up a holder in layers and then cut it down to size.

I started by planing down a piece of scrap pine slightly thicker than the plan body. I then roughly sketched the outline of plane and cut the waste out with a bandsaw. The result of my transfer and cutting was that the back section was slightly lower than the front in the glueup. I knew that I would be able to quickly bring the bottom down to flat with a jointer. The finished depth was less important that the interior fit.

test fitting

I didn't want any slippage during the glue assembly so taking a cue from my experience with Krenov style planemaking, I drilled 4 10mm holes and used dowels to keep the three pieces aligned. I moistened the wood surfaces to be glued, spread some watered down glue over the wet surfaces, and pounded them together down the dowel shafts. And, as Murphy is my witness, both inside pieces split along the holes for the dowels. I quickly spread glue over these unintended joints, clamped them together, and continued. Those joints would be cut off and the holes still functioned to keep all three pieces aligned.

alignment holes

I removed the block from the clamps the next day and started to shape the piece. I cut off the waste just below the doweled holes and ripped the excess from the sides while I was still at the bandsaw.  Over at the jointer, I flattened and squared up the bottom to the sides.

The beading plane is just proud of the pine holder. If it had been too low, it would have been a simple matter of running the bottom over the jointer enough times. I had to chop some allowance for the upper edge of the blade with a mortising chisel.

view from above

There is nothing to secure the plane inside the holder. I keep my fingers on the fence as I pull it along the stock. If I decide at a much later date to do any final shaping, there is a possibility of drilling and tapping for a wooden screw that can press against the finger recess.

profile from molding plane

I did a test run on a short piece of scrap. It is still necessary to use this plane on the pull stroke, but it is also much less painful now with pine holder to help guide it.

Christmas presentable 2014

It might be a sign of bourgeois comfort that I am able to craft Christmas presents again. I made these lanyards for my father who is probably living in a cabin in the mountains of western Colorado, living out his last years in retirement.

toggle and carabiner

 He told me once that he needed to escape from the big city of Craig. It's hard to relate to such a sentiment since there are more residents in my apartment complex than in the whole of Moffat County.
These lanyards ought to come in handy whenever he decides to do some camping because even cabin living can become confining. The last time I saw him, though, his camping involved a 5th wheel travel trailer and his campsite was somewhere in sunny Arizona.

 There is also the possibility that he might be called up as a paratrooper as these were once employed. I prefer that they might inspire of the grandchildren to be reminded of a very distant uncle of theirs. I don't need to worry that I might undo the surprise of this gift. My father has never turned on a computer. And as little as he writes, he doesn't read any more. Merry Christmas, dad.

same wood, different reaction to linseed oil