I have a temporary “new home” in a 1 bedroom apartment 429 miles away from my “real” home. I miss my WWing! In my “new” space I only have 11’4″ x 5’2″ to work in. It’s an apartment so noise is an issue. I have a fair collection of handplanes: Staley #55 complete, #45 complete, #6, #3, #4, block, shoulder planes, router plane, spokeshave, chisels, dovetail saw, etc. Don’t have a long #7 or #8 yet. Most planes I have need tuning (Frank Klausz — thanks for the video!!!) The issue is, missing power tools altogether due to space & noise issues, how do I thickness boards efficiently enough for a face glue-up?
I have seen the technique where you: get one side flat, put that face down, then measure/mark a thickness, then plane that surface to the line. Is it just me or is that process really tedious and perhaps imprecise? If I did this, would I be aching for my powered planer/jointer? Is there a better way?
Replies
Handplane Thicknessing
What is the project? In a somewhat similar situation, here is what I did for a three board tabletop:
First, rather than attempt to hog-off a lot of material manually, I 'cheated' and used a Bosch 3365 3" power planer set for maybe 1/64. You might get away with it - its not much more noise than perhaps a vacuum. (The 3365 is less than $100 at Amazon. Its a single blade design. Mine was well made - Swiss - and works better than the more expensive 1594 - and I do have both.)
I lined up the three boards side-by-side and then worked them all together with the Bosch on the diagonal until they seemed level. Bottom first. Then cartwheeled boards to do the same with the top sides. Don't worry about any milling/blade marks At this point - depending on your stock you might see some.
Then I jointed the edges to be glued - one pair at a time together in a vise with a #5 jack - set for a fairly light cut - and with a non-cambered blade. (Before the vise I held two boards like this with two large Jorgensen dual-screw wood clamps, with the wood clamps themselves held down with quick clamps)
I use biscuits - usually three - to help force alignment. After laying down wax paper, I glue up topsides down on my MFT 1080 - clamping horizontally for the gluelines - and vertically to force top alignment.
After the glue sets, I then scrape the glue lines, and finish-smoothed the top side manually with my LV BU smoother - their '164 1/2'. My favorite smoother. Top only - I left the underside alone - not going to be seen anyway..:>)
Since its a table top I really don't worry about the thickness before this, as I then put a chamfer on the bottom edges to get the apparent thickness to look right. I do this with a router, but you can of course do it with handplanes - or even the 3365.
Good Luck!
Chris
Can you set at router up in the parking lot? Or are you missing that tool?
https://www.finewoodworking.com/Workshop/WorkshopPDF.aspx?id=2198
Your choices are power tools or handplanes as you described; unlesss, you can take the work to a nearby shop or lumber yard and borrow their thickness planer. If the boards are close to flat, it wont take too to long to do it by hand. get them flat on one side, join the boards, then work the other. I just surfaced my workbench with a number 8. I spent about 2 hours on it. Fun though, your number 6 should suffice. Work your way diagonaly then, when flat, work the length. The process you discribed shouldnt be inprecise, Just work. You will ache for the jointer, but the satisfaction is worth the work. Woodworking always takes pacience. As an owner (and presumably frequent user) of a nice collection of hand tools, the proccess should come easy to you. Just do a little here and there, and take your time. Or, like cahudson42said, don’t worry about the thickness and underside. waxpaper is good idea.
Thicknessing speed depends on how you setup your planes
Thicknessing by hand doesn't have to take hours. With a properly setup plane, you should be able to remove 1/32 or more with each shaving. You need to get a couple of extra plane irons, one for your #6 and one for your #3 and put a strong camber on each. Use the #3 to take down localized high spots and the #6 to reduce the overall thickness of a board. The length of the #6 will help you evenly bring down the surface you're working. You will end up with a scalloped surface that will need to be refined with an iron sharpened with only a hint of a camber (just enough so that when you take as thin of a shaving as possible the edges of the iron don't dig in).
I suggest you get a 2 x 12 at the local big box store and practice. This is a cheap way to learn the techniques. Plus it will give you a feel for how long this takes making it easier to decide if this approach to thicknessing is right for you.
gdblake
OP here: A word about my projects ...
I got all excited recently -- having thought through some unique joinery for a twin-size bed I want to make. (I start with 2x4's) I make wedged joinery using softwood reiforced with hardwood -- only where needed. In order to do this type joinery one could 1) hog out the mortises with a chisel, or 2) one could slice the frame members in thirds (with a bandsaw), then cut the joinery precisely, then glue the three parts back together. My mind is horribly stuck on (2). However, could I face-join boards with hand planes well enough for this? I just have not used my planes enough to judge this task, but my instinct tells me I need power jointer and thicknesser for this type work.
Although I have watched and envied Roy Underhill for years, I have finally got the gumption to acquire some of the hand tools, but I am still wondering (due to lack of experience with handplanes) if I am required to change the type of work I can do to that which can be done with handplanes. I also have some of the Charlesworth vids and most of Rob Cosman. As always, however, Frank Klausz seems the best.
Also: I have become rather adept at squaring stock with my power tools. This, as many of you know, is no small feat -- primarily with the jointer! I have had many battles with my 6" Ridgid jointer, and I think I am winning! (Yes, I have made and used all of John White's alignment tools) Now, the newly inexpensive line of Jet Combo planer/jointers is arriving on the market. Someone said that a combination 10" jointer/planer may go on sale for $250!!! It's noisy, however.
Any further thoughts? I really appreciate your replies!
Dimensional Lumber
Where do you live? If when/in the South (I am a retired 'snowbird') i use dimensional Southern Yellow Pine (SYP) from the Borg.
Up north, I'm stuck with SPF.
But in either case, you can make a lot of nice stuff cheaply.
If you have access to cheap SYP, let us know. I've a couple thoughts on the bed... but no sense wasting your time otherwise.
Chris
Do you mean like this ?
As everyone knows around here I just build tools so I can build better tools. Just a personal hang up.
: )
Well any way here are some pics of my purple heart laminations for the shoulder vise of my Klausz bench. These are all face-joined by hand. The rest of the bench is too, this includes a three eighths thick veneer I put on the front of the bench just to make it look purdy ( see next to last photos specifically "Three layer" and "Heart 3" ). You can see the end/edge of the three eighths layer in the lower left of the Heart 3 photo
Takes practice, takes time, takes determination, takes oh I don't know what.
This lady ROWED over eight thousand miles of open Pacific ocean in three hundred days. (no sail, no motor at all , just skinny little girl arms). She learned how and did it. She has what.
If you got what you can do it.
As you probably heard Frank Klausz say in the videos: " You don't know what you can't do until you try. Go for it ! "
Yes, EAXCTLY like that!
First off, I can't decide which is prettier the Three_layer_Face_joins or Glam! Yes, if you've done all that with handplanes, then you understand what I am trying to do. Thanks ever so much for the inspiration.
Do you do everything with handplanes or do you use power too? Which got you Glam? LOL Or was it Hard Work and Dedication for all three?
Thanks!
Cannot quite tell from the photo what planes you use. Do you recommend reconditioning old Stanleys, LN, LV, or some of the newer reproductions, or Woodcraft's chinese stuff? Or whatever is sharp & handy?
Nope not much power here. More like turtle power.
As I tell my acquaintances that have, it seems everyone of 'em, gone through a divorce lately and are dating again :
Nah dude nah; take up a nice hobby , like woodworking , and forget about all that other stuff. They don't listen. I didn't listen.
Cut to Sinatra in the shadows singing "I've got you under my skin". Applies to woodworking splinters as well I suppose.
Whaaa ? What was the question ? Oh yah . . .
I used all those monster power machines in High School. Good if you got the bucks and the room and the dust collection.
I don't. There is always the chance the world will discover my real true wonderfulness and give me a bunch of money and a chateau in France with an atelier large enough for those noise makers.
but
until that fine day I just slog along with mostly hand tools and a fine , quiet, bandsaw.
Planes. Man have I written a bunch here about hand planes. Wish there was a decent way to search it like the old days and give some links.
Basically I am now a LV man mostly, great, cheep, accurate, best designs.
Seems like you said you had that same LV smoother I put in the pics to give an idea of scale. Give me a stack of variously ground blades and that plane and I could build most every thing that doesn't require a specialty plane like a shoulder plane etc.
Long planes no big deal, scrub is good but not a must. Pretty much like that. I have all those cool guy planes and play with them but for a now and again hobby person the one is excellent.
Here are some photos I posted in the past to give an idea of what I use or at least tried out.
What are the Use_These_All_the_Time's?
Looks like a #4 and #6 from LV -- is the #6 a low angle? If this was a test, how'd I do? Oh, and an LV #4, more used looking near the top of the photo. Can always tell LV's due to the chip breaker design.
I personally like LV the best as well, but most posters in forums seem to talk about LN more.
Do you ever use the right angle attachement for the #6? (For jointing)
Nope
gotta love it when this happens and yah can't just remove it or cancel it or even fully erase it.
Moderator please remove this duplicate entry.
Wow almost forgot
You gotta have the right chant going in your head . . . or . . . alternatively the right track on the stereo. Here is a good one I like to use :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLyWd6tnEPM
Try (plane) . . . every day I do a little bit more . . . well I don't care how long it's gonna take me . . .
and repeat as needed
: )
Roc,
I used to read Knots to learn about woodworking. No more. Now I just look for your posts. Priceless!
Too many wannabee woodworkers don't realize that the most important trait of a great woodworker is ATTITUDE. Klausz has it. Tage had it. YOU GOT IT. Any wimp can learn to make joints. To be a great woodworker, one needs to rise above all of that and see the world through the eyes of an artist, and to finally realize, "It's only wood. I can make it do anything I want it to." You have achieved this lofty goal. As did the Grasshopper on Kung Fu, you have grasped the stone from the hand of the Master. You are now one of woodworking's GrandMasters. Let the others teach joinery. You should stick to giving others visibility into what it takes to master one's own mind, and to achieve Woodworking Nirvana. You should write a book, "If I can dream it, I can achieve it (with hand tools)" I will buy the first copy.
Have fun.
Mel
All I can say to that is
Ha Ha Ha Ha, aaaaaah Ha Ha Ha Ha
(I do tend to get a little overly excited about all this stuff)
surfacing with hand tools
The way you discribe the process is how we were taught to do it as 9th grade students in 1950. Let's be practical. Take your boards to a cabinet shop and pay a little to have them planed on a machine. You can easily make your glue joints with a No 6 or No 5 plane. Glue them together using either dowels or biscuuits for alighnent. You will still have some hand work, even with the dowels or biscuits but you can clean this up with a No 4 plane , a hand scraper and or portable sander. I use this method in my shop due to the lack of a large planer. I plane my boards on a 6 in. jointer and 12 inch portable planer and finish by hand after glueup. Works for me. As for your No 55 nd No 45, I have found them to be useful only as collector's items. If a router won't serve my purpose , I use wooden molding planes. I have used the 55 and 45 but they require so much tinkering that it is not worth my while. The 55's and 45's that I have seen do not show much in the way of wear and tear. This tells me that the old guys didn't use them much. I'll probably get some comments from this statement.
Hand-thicknessing
Why not? I didn't want to drag out that noisy planer for a couple of small boards so I started with a $5.00 flea-market scrub plane. Then a jointer, followed by my smoothing plane. The scrub plane is a pretty surprising tool, it'll take a lot of wood off the surface.
Scrub Plane
What would you recommend as a scrub plane? I've got several Stanley #4's -- that are untuned at this time. Could I grind the blade to a bevel and widen the mouth to make a scrub? Is it better to get one already configured as scrub?
Hey there is a friendly face; you didn't have your photo up before.
>What are the "Use these all the time" planes ?<
I posted a photo and didn't say what is what. Oops sorry that wasn't fair was it.
Top of pic is a LN scrub. I try and try to do with out it and just use the jack with a very cambered blade but I always come back to it when I get tired of going through the motions and want to get the heck on with it.
http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?sku=40_5
The lower left we have a Veritas Low angle smoother. The widest one.
http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=51870&cat=1,41182,41187&ap=1
To the right that is a LN low angle jack
http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?grp=1247
Talk about LN more than LV. Well LN has been around longer at least has been making a comprehensive line of planes longer. I suppose there may be some thing to the fact that they are American made and we want to support that, especially right now.
>Do you ever use the right angle attachment for the #6? (For jointing)<
No I haven't. I just use a square and straight edge. The attachment may be a good idea. There has been discussion of it here long ago, probably more than one, I think they said it is more trouble than it is worth.
Keep in mind if the bottom of the plane is square to the plank but the blade is tilted a bit then you get a jointed edge that is out of square. I for one like to put the cut right where I want to put the cut to take off a bit to make the joint close up without clamps. The fence would get in the way for that.
It is coming back to me now . . . to run the plane you need two hands on the plane and a third to hold the attachment against the plank. Zaphod Bebelbrox had a third arm put on so he could be more competitive at ski boxing but I haven't made the plunge me self. Ignore that bit and don't worry about it if you haven't read the book.
Hey roc,
If I haven't told you before, thanks for all the fish...
Ray
if it was me Id save up my thickness projects and drive the 429 miles to my planer.... if your new life is so compact I think youd welcome the excuse to get outa Dodge
Got outa Dodge this weekend
Drove the 429 on the Halloween weekend. Going to make some shims from soda cans for my powered planer. My comfort level for hand planes isn't there yet -- and I need to make furniture for the new place.
Gotta do what Frank Klausz suggests -- after tuning a plane up gotta practice "doing scales" then projects. Am dragging hanplanes, waterstones, sticky sandpaper sheets, elbow grease, slow-speed grinder and vertitas grinder jig down to Small Shop.
You always know where your towel is !
Ray,
You are one hoopy frood !
Feel Your Pain
Squaring stock for a whole project solely with hand tools sucks. For five years, I lived in a condo with similar noise and space restrictions to what you're describing ("Condominiums: The responsibilities of home ownership, the privacy of apartment living").
I too assembled an arsenal of planes, some of them flea market finds that had to be tuned, some of them beautiful brand new Veritas and LNs that worked right out of the box.
Tuning hand planes also sucks. When I started using hand tools in earnest, like a lot of guys I thought that anyone who paid $400 for a hand plane probably belonged in a mental asylum -- until I tuned a flea market plane.
Having said all that, I and most guys I've talked to find working with hand tools to be rewarding and occasionally therapeutic. The same can even be said for tuning hand planes. Both are great skills to acquire.
I think the issue is necessity. If you're squaring one or two boards with hand tools, but you don't have to, then it can be rewarding. Same thing for tuning a hand plane. But if a project getting finished is dependent upon you squaring all of the stock with hand tools, and especially if you don't have a lot of experience squaring stock with hand tools, things can get nightmarish pretty quickly.
Check out Rob Cosman's "Rough To Ready"; my first thought on finishing the video was how impressive it was to watch him square a fairly jacked-up piece of wood with a LN #8 and a hand saw. My second thought was that it took the entire length of the video just to square one piece of stock.
Aside from properly tuned planes, you need accurate marking and measuring tools to square stock. I have a 12" Starrett combination square and a 36" Veritas straight edge that work marvelously. You also need a scrub plane, winding sticks to check for approximate flatness, and a flat bench top to secure and reference your stock against.
I'd recommend checking out Anthony Guidice's article, available on FW.com, "Four-Squaring with Hand Tools." Guidice's preference for using bow saws is perhaps exotic, and his diatribe against hand plane fences for edge planing strikes me as ideological and curmudgeonly, but the rest of the article is golden.
Best of luck ...
SYP vs SPF
I am in a unique position right now. Regular shop is in Chicago, While small Shop is in Bowling Green Kentucky. I've never had access to SYP before -- so I'm excited. No SYP in Chicago -- and I did research that one. However, during the process, I did learn about the different types of "pine" and got some very nice DF at Chicago Borg -- once I learned how to differentiate among the types.
Please share your thoughts on The Bed. I'm using my own version of a wedge-lock joint that seems as if it works really well for The Bed Project.
Here is what I do when buying construction SYP in FL - from either Home Depot or Lowes: Go to the rack that has the thickest, widest, longest dimensional SYP. This for me is nominal 2" thick (1 1/2), 12" wide (11.5") and 16' long. Get these - and rip them/crosscut them to whatever actual widths/lengths you need, as you will find that these boards are from the lower part of the tree - and are most likely to be relatively clear..
Pick thru the boards - bring a friend to help move them. Depending on the actual widths you need, boards with pith in the middle may actually be desireable. This is because the wood near the edges - perhaps the first 4", maybe 5" - will be quarter or rift sawn. Rip off these edges to use for your project, keep the center cut pith for shop wood.
The boards are likely to be somewhat wet. After ripping, I will surface plane both sides a bit to remove the mill marks and any dings. I try to keep as much thickness as possible - usually I am about 1" to 1 1/4". Let it acclimate in the shop for a week or more. Then joint and re-plane to just thicker than your final desired thickness. Again let it sit a week or so. Then bring it down to your final thicknesses.
I've made Shaker benches, trestle tables, circular tables, etc. from this stuff Not expensive, is reasonably hard and strong, and IMHO, looks good.
Good Luck!
Chris
P.S. - 'all bets are off' if you buy pressure treated SYP. This is ALL garbage. I wouldn't use it for anything.
Wood & Pressure Treated
YES, on the long center-cut boards. I also have been doing this recently. I like the idea of getting quarter-sawn lumber!
Pressure-treated -- yes, it is all garbage, but what really bothers me is that the lumber guys seem to take the better wood to make into the pressure-treated stuff.
Framing lumber, including yellow pine, I would expect to still be too wet for making furniture. It may need to be stickered and stacked for several months inside before getting down to hardwood moisture content.
Years ago I wanted to build a workbench top out of SYP. By ripping 2x8's down the middle and turning the boards on edge, I thought I'd have a great benchtop about 3.25" thick. During ripping, most of the boards moved significantly when internal stresses released. About 25% were completely unusable. Had to use biscuits and clamps to pull the rest into alignment, so my glue joints will always have stresses trying to break them.
If you want to use an old Stanley for a scrub plane, you won't have to widen the mouth - just move the frog back.
Lots of news from me the OP -- WoodRiver planes too.
OK, I'm a little OT, but here goes. I just bought a set of the WR planes, all V3's. That is #3, #4, #5 and #6, and a low angle Block.
To me, they look really good, but I've not looked at them with an overly critically eye, yet. Why? Well, I have kept chanting the Frank Klausz video chant -- fixing up old Stanleys, but Ebay is not as lucrative a source as one might presume. I have bought several old Stanleys from Ebay, but some, ok a fair number, of them are out of whack in some way. I got a few that were the really cheap type -- until I learned what to look for (Baileys). Getting up to speed in this area is not trivial! Thanks to Patrick's Blood & Gore site too!!
There are lots of directions to go -- including just making your own handplane either from wood, or the Brass-solder-body approach. In the end, I just got too weary with bad samples of Ebay stuff.
Then I noticed a couple of new info-bytes: 1) Rob Cosman has now climbed off his LN High Horse and has created a DVD on restoring Stanleys. Perhaps Rob can shed some new light of the Stanley refurb -- Frank's video is what -- 1985? 2) Rob now contends that outfitting an old Stanley with a Pinnacle blade allows for .0003" shavings -- and proves it in video clips. 3) Watched a lot of YouTube vids from Charles Neil on the WRs -- and was sold on the price-performance. I did a quick compare of WR #4 vs LV #4 -- in terms of price -- this reinforced my decision. Use the WRs now, and keep working on the old (good) Stanleys that I do have as time permits.
As far as the original thicknessing issue goes -- I still think this is the weakest area of handplanes vs power tools as those jobsite-thicknessers just work too darn well to ignore.
Well, what do you guys think? Did I make a wise decision? (Oh, I also found out that, coming next spring, the WR planes will be available with the Pinnacle (IBC) blades as standard.) For me, I think the A2 steel presently available is good enough, and I like the present price point of the WRs.
Initial impressions of the WR planes: VERY well machined, fit looks good. Not too sure about the two frog adjusters, and there were no instructions included. These are quite solid and heavy -- good to keep momentum up in use.
WR Planes
I personally think your purchase of the WR set was a good decision vs. the alternates. I've had a complete set of the older V2 planes for close to a year now. No problems, and after sharpening (I use a variation of Brent Beach's scary sharp approach - with the Veritas V2 guide) they perform great.
I'm sure when you thought about it, you saw you could get a complete WR Bedrock-style plane - for no more than the cost of a Pinnacle blade and chipbreaker put in an old Bailey Stanley.
While I use the WRs extensively, I do reach for a different plane for the last, final 'tabletop' pass. And thats my Lee Valley BU smoother - the one they call (I think) '164 1/2'. One of the family of 3 that take the same blade. This has become my favorite final-finishing smoother - after Derek Cohen explained how to slightly camber the iron so as to avoid plane tracks.
In short, he recommends getting any/all of the LV BUs with the 25-degree blade - yes, the 25-degree. Never the 38 or 50. The reason being that you need to remove much less metal for a camber starting with 25 - and then putting on a microbevel at say - 38 - which is what I use with cherry and maple. (50-degree effective pitch). Very clever - IMHO.
Prior to that, I had the original 38-degree blade - which gave me plane tracks no matter how hard I tried to 'push on the edges' while sharpening. Now the 25-degree blade, 38-degree microbevel and 'pushing on the edges' while sharpening gave a beautiful slight camber - and tracks have disappeared,,:>)
Enjoy your new WRs! But if you get some 'extra money' - and/or will be finishing cherry, maple or other hardwood tabletops etc. - consider adding the LV BU. A perfect complement to the WRs IMHO - and well worth its $225 or so cost.
Good Luck!
Chris
P.S. - I've had no problem with the WR 'frog adjusters' - but do remember the two rear securing screws were originally, to me, overly tight. When adjusting the frog, I actually remove the blade, loosen the two rear securing screws considerably - then move the frog with the adjustment screw (if you move the frog back, remember to 'take up the slop' on the adjuster by snugging it forward at the end). Then - while assuring visually the frog is centered and parallel to the throat - tighten the securing screws back and forth - just as you would lug nuts. Keep the adjuster sheet-metal tab vertical! If you let it tilt, you may tilt the frog out of parallel. (This was often all that was wrong when some early WRs were reported to have the frog 'machined out of square'). With the blade off - all this is easy to see....
Thanks for the thumbs up
Yep, it was a fair amount of money, but I think it was the right thing for me. I must disagree with one popular poster here who believes that the "premium brand" of planes do not cost anything because (he says) you can sell it on Ebay for what you paid for it. I do not buy things with the idea that I can sell them -- I buy them to keep them. The WR's was all I could afford, and I think it was an excellent buy and an excellent investment.
Thanks for the info on the Veritas BU planes as well regarding the blade bevel angles. I do like the Veritas line as well, and will keep them in mind for down the road. Good recommendation!
I just viewed Rob Cosman's video on Handplane Revival. Great video, but really -- those blades are almost the price of an entire WR plane. The vid has excellent info on fitting the frog for an old Stanley! I am going to use Rob's technique for sharpening as well as Frank Klausz's -- and see which I prefer.
I have not examined every nuance of my new WR planes yet -- but I did open the #4 and saw that everything looked just fine -- and wiped off most of the packing oil. I noticed that all the edges of the plane were a bit on the sharp side -- nothing that my Spiderco triangles cannot handle, but a tad less than user-hand-friendly for me.
What does everyone here use on their planes to keep them from rusting?
Rust
Here is a short recent thread on rust prevention: http://forums.finewoodworking.com/fine-woodworking-knots/hand-tools/preventing-hand-tool-rust-unheated-shop
I have been using Boeshield T-9 myself for the last year or so on my planes. Comes in an aerosol spray can. Not cheap - maybe $15 or so from Woodcraft and others. I spray and wipe my planes down after each use - being sure to get off all my finger prints - and sweat drops..:>) Sweat can REALLY do a job if not removed - as I found out on my LV BU blade. But with the Boeshield - so far, so good.
Be sure to get the Boeshield T-9 rust preventative, NOT the Boeshield rust remover (its in a pump bottle)
I also dissolved some parafin flakes (made using cheese grater) in mineral spirits, and, with an old Windex pump bottle, sprayed it on some tools I left for the winter in my unheated Adirondack shop. I did check to see that it formed a film - but so far no results on how well that works.
Chris
Treat like Guns?
To keep rust off, has anyone ever used the same techniques that gun-owners' use? Typically, a gun is wiped after every contact with a hand or finger. A very light coating of oil is on there, and the gun does not rust, nor do fingerprints do any damage. Any gun-owners out there ever used same on their handplanes?
levels of care
I always insist that people who want to touch my planes bring their own white cotton gloves. ;-)
A reasonable degree of care for hand tools, or firearms, is good. But, one can also be fanatical about it. The level of care that is appropriate may relate to whether the item is a "user" or a collectable. My hand tools, like my guns, are "users". I wipe them down before I put them away, but not after each touch.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled