Arris Setup

[Escolastico Hall]

Thismorning I removed every missed arris from the two cabinets I am making in the shop. My favourite tool for in situ arris removal is the Stanley #90 bullnose plane. I straddle the plane with my hand and let the fingers and thumb centre the plane at its tilt on the corner, tracing my fingers and thumb on the adjacent surfaces. One or two strokes will remove the corners flawlessly and the bullnose stops about half an inch from the corner where no one touches or sees anyway.

Handmaking is very different than machine making: throughout our process of hand-making a project like furniture it is our common practice to plane our flat faces true and then take a single swipe along the corner with a bench plane to take the arise off all four corners there and then. This minimises the possibility of splinters, takes away the hard corners that can damage other aspects of our work by a slipped piece and prepares the work for sanding where when the corners are left on, as in machining, sanding often results in splinters.

Another key reason for arris removal is one less known and less obvious. A hard corner in almost all woods is a weak corner. Because the corner is unsupported when created, any knock by bumping or dropping something against the corner or a corner against a something will almost always break. When we are in making mode we are constantly shifting the pieces from benchtop to vise, across the benchtop to leave it there while we work on another piece and also to work it into our piece. I just made two drawers for my two cabinets and I am sure I picked up the pieces for the drawer a hundred times each over the two days it took for me to mill the wood from rough stock to the finishing and fitting of the drawers. These sharp corners times four would be 2,000 times handled and remember I made two, so, 4,000 all told.

As a closing reason, though there are many more I know of that I might add later as I sometimes do to flesh out my blog posts, I became very aware of something when I began to sell my work as a designer-maker back in the 70s. I am trying not to be sexist here but when people come into a sales area where handmade pieces are being sold, would-be buyers run their hands and fingers over the work. Half of those visitors went more meticulously by running their fingers and hands under the rims of tables, along the aprons, places like that, the under-edge corners of chairs and along the insides of door corners too.

And if those hands or fingers snagged on anything they might consider even slightly splintery or rough they never bought the pieces. Now in our work, we are concerned about the physical appearance differently than a fully machined product from the factory. Everything gets rounded over like an American two-by-four. There is little to consider crisp and precise. Huge gaps surround the doors whether recessed or overlaid and overlaid doors are inevitably made with a quarter-inch radius to a corner round over as are tabletops, the tops of sideboards, bedside tables and so on. there is a place for that but, hmm, not too much! In a kitchen where sweeping and mopping is a common occurrence, a big radius or wider bevel works great.

Like yourself I was always taught to knock the arris off for all the same reasons as you, I also think like many other things, it makes a project look far more professional and shows care was used in the finish

If you are teaching us about a word such as arris you should check the spelling of the other words in the definition: an arris is formed by the intersection of two planes, not two plains. Proofread or get an editor!

Do you know the great American artist, Charles Marion Russell? He used to misspell things on purpose, because he thought there was a charm to imperfection. I think so too. Shakespeare often used words in a strange way, and nobody told him off for it, and it added colour to the language. And of course ee cummings, who eschewed capital letters. Language is a material, like wood or clay. It is completely a matter for us what we do with it.

Hi Paul, I love the post! You have helped me learn a new hobby and simultaneously stay sane through the Covid isolation. I hope you continue to use your time to put as much of your knowledge out into the world as you can, and never think about proofreading or editing. Picasso never did.

Hi paul. just smiling about a arris , my mate and I are a bit older than you but do bits of work for friends. last week we where fitting a pair of doors and I took of the arris, Roger my mate says you can always tell a apprentice trained joiner by the little bits. Same as fitting hinges,locks latches and things, nothing to them when trained properly. Keep up the good work and hopefully more young people will read your site and say yes to being a Paul Sellers and working with would or should I say WO OD. All the best from a early pair of seventy plus joiners. Dave and Rog.

So true. As it happens I am currently building 2 speaker stands using Meranti for the center post (stand, pole?). Planed very smooth, as a result the edge is very sharp. Due to the nature of the wood and the grain splinters are formed easily, and I have removed a few splinters from my fingers already.

Additionally, it is difficult to finish very sharp corners, as fluid retracts from the corners. Not to mention it wears off sharp corners just by thin air striking the arris (yes!) as it seems.

Paul ,

I have been removing the arris since before I learned from you that it had a name. Mostly, at first, to remove dings. This article has been a real eye opener for a self taught, trial and error woodworker. I have learned so much through your generous multi media teaching.

Thank You, John

two more informative and thoughtfully articulated pieces Paul, always a delight to read, as warmth of style, love of craft and attention to the minutiae of tools and wood do all the auto-correcting for you! AND my bandsaw runs even more nicely.

A different Jim

I am always struck by the volume of output on your blog and the time you must spend on it. It is full of invaluable information from a master craftsman and is freely given.

In this context perfect grammar is swill!

In addition of making my woodworking skill dream almost a reality, Paul you became my main English teacher. I love reading you. Not only am I learning the words of woodworking, but I love your writing style. I feel that English conveys the passion of the craft better than French. Today two words for only one in French: arris and arte, with a subtle difference in meaning . Another good reason to forgive your damn imperial system of measurment

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I recently purchased a arris model tm822g (the same one comcast provided) for my business phone line to avoid having to pay the monthly rental fee. I was told by my local business class sales rep that i could do this to avoid the fees. So to make a long story short, I bought it off Ebay, registered it at my local comcast office and registered it with the reps online. The first young lady that helped said everything was ok on comcast side. She said that she dialed my number and was receiving a busy signal. I informed her that my telephone light on the arris was not lit up. She transferred me to arris who after 45 minutes asked if my wifi was now working. What!! They then said they don't handle the telephone aspect of the arris, and that I should call comcast back. I called comcast back and this time a young man said that it is only possible to switch out the phone modem with home phone use, not the business class, for security reasons. Again, my sales rep said I could do this, so i bought it (its non refundable) what can you please do for me?

I recommend that you contact 800-391-3000 and use the technical high speed internet option, then explain you situation to the technical agent and he/she will schedule you for a Change Of Service to get the correct business equipment replaced/re-installed into your business. Your local Comcast Service Center will tell you the same thing. So this response is to save you some time to get this expediently resolved.

The only approved Customer Owned Modems (COMs) can be found at this website. Just position the blue ball within the Business Speed Tiers gauge to the speed that you currently have with Comcast business, then scroll down to the list of approved and supported COMs. I believe you will find that the tm822g is not within the supported COMs list.

I recommed you should contact your Busness Class Sales representative and focus his/her attention to the above website and then request that they provide you with a credit on your billing account as you see fit.

This leaves me even more confused. Comcast installed a arris touchstone telephony modem TM822G at my business and that is what I bought on ebay. Should the comcast tech that came out to do the install given me a different one?

For your Business Internet Service you should be using either a dedicated SMCD3G, Netgear 3000DCR, or Cisco DPC3939B for these are the standard Comcast Business Gateways. You cannot use the TM822g for Business Internet Service.

The TM822G is a residential modem that can be used for combination Internet and Telephone service, but for business service the devices are dedicated to each prescribed service i.e. Internet , Telephone as mentioned above.

Specifically, it's only for those too lazy to run a network cable. And by that, I don't even mean the complete job of getting your home wired, but just a relatively long ready-made CAT5E or CAT6 cable.

So, whether or not this Kit is worth the investment depends on the level of impossibility in accepting that little wire that snakes around your home and how much your pad's layout allows you to take advantage of the new and fast but short-ranged 6GHz band.

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