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The key to working at a craft the way we should work – where the job is done well and we are well – is to coordinate the pace of four factors. The hands must work with clear intent, guided by skill embedded into muscle memory. This is peaceful productivity and efficiency – the way we should work, and the way things best get done. Sadly, many, maybe most of us, are pushed in our pay-the-bills jobs with little regard for the truths of human work, driven by the fantasies of those who do not actually do the work but instead tell others how to work.

I got these NT Dresser mini rasps from Lee Valley, who call them “Japanese finger files, The tool feels about like 220-grit sandpaper but leaves a surface more like 320-grit sandpaper. I’ve always kept a set of these little shop-made sanding sticks, pictured below, for use in countless detail and touch-up situations. They’re just PSA sandpaper (or glued-on regular sandpaper) on a squared-off tongue depressor or similar sliver of wood.

The kiln operator modifies the moisture content at the end of the drying process, and ideally, there would be no remaining stress. However, the irremediable state of reverse case-hardening must be avoided, so a bit of case-hardening is acceptable in the final state of most kiln-dried lumber, demonstrated by a slight inward curve of the tines of a test fork sawn from a cross-section sample of the board (below). 8/4 is, of course, much slower to dry than 4/4, white oak is a relatively difficult species to dry well, and quartered lumber is a bit slower to dry. Further, since 8/4 white oak is less common, this board was probably lumped together in the kiln with thinner lumber and/or faster drying species for which a faster kiln schedule would work.

For example, A-2 is a good choice of steel for a jack plane blade but if the bevel angle is too narrow, such as would be good for O-1 steel, the edge will be prone to premature chip-out. As another example, a plane blade with a wide bevel angle (e.g. 43°), though correctly employed in a bevel-up plane to create a high attack angle to reduce tearout, will necessarily have a shorter useful working life than narrower edges. For many woodworkers, the most vexing matter of edge geometry is plane blade camber. For choosing, producing, and assessing camber, I invite readers to visit this series of five posts, which is about as in-depth a treatment of the subject as I think you will find anywhere.