Woodworking
Practical Action
Bench hook
Consisting of three pieces of wood the bench hook is designed to hook on to the top of your
work bench to put work pieces on. The bench hook is fitted together squarely and allows you
to cut small square pieces of wood raised off your work top, to avoid damage to your
workbench.
Clamp
Similar to a vice, the clamp clamps your work down on to a workbench so you can work on it
freely.
Simple three peg plus wedge holding device – Three pegs, some dowel and some wedges,
allow you to locate a piece of material in place squarely for cutting, without having to use
clamps on your worktop. This is handy for log sections which are not easy to clamp.
Wood Lathe
A lathe is a machine designed to spin you work piece round to create a cylindrical form. Using
chisels to work your piece of material it is possible to create a range of poles, legs and pegs
for use in the workshop or for specific products. The lathe can be electrically powered or
manual powered depending on the availability. Practical Action has made available a design
for a treadle operated wood lathe that uses low-cost components.
Workshop Equipment 6 'How to make a treadle-operated wood-turning lathe’
by Bob Ingham and Paul Smith.
Hand tools
Mallet
Adze
Hammers
Pincers
Pliers
Brace and
bit
Gimlet
Hand drill
Auger
Saw - cross
cut
Saw-rip
Pit saw
Bow saw
Used as driving tool for chisels into wood and other pieces of wood into wood.
The wood carvers mallet has a rounded head.
Similar to an axe in form, it is used for shaping and smoothing planks of wood.
If used effectively by an artisan it is a versatile and accurate tool.
various types for different jobs, such as banging in nails, squaring up and
knocking in pieces of wood. The claw hammer is the most commonly used
hammer due to its versatility.
with reasonably long handles for a good gripping mechanical advantage, the
pincers main task is to remove nails, either in the wrong place or from an old
piece of wood.
Pliers can be used in a similar way to the pincers, but with a fatter jaw they can
grip and bend metal into various shapes as well as cut wire.
(link to drill maybe) – The lesser form of a hand drill, the brace and bit is used
for boring holes into pieces of wood. The diameter range is from 0.5cm to 5cm
and a maximum of 15cm depth.
Similar in design to a corkscrew and working like a brace and bit, bores shallow
holes into wood, for short screws.
Drilling small holes up to about 1cm the drill makes a pilot hole for screws, for
fixing pieces of wood together.
Like the Gimlet but bigger. Creating holes up to 6.5cm in diameter with a shaft
length of about 60cm.
As the name suggests this saw is used for cross cutting. Large sections of trees
which need to be reduced in size, the cross saw has a length of about 1.5m.
The teeth are set to make it easy to cut along the grain (in the direction of the
grain) making it easy to cutting down a plank of wood. About 50 – 70 cm in
length.
Used for cutting/splitting pieces of wood along their entire length. The pit saw
would be about 1.5 – 3 metres long.
The carpenters’ bow saw is used for cutting wood into shapes. The foresters
bow saw is used for felling trees and then cutting them across to make them
into smaller lengths, ready to work on.
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