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The moisture content of the wood you use to build projects is an important consideration. The moisture content of wood that will be used to build furniture projects should be dried to approximately 6- to 8-percent moisture level in most parts of the United States. A moisture meter is the best tool for measuring moisture levels in wood. As is the case with any tool in your shop, a moisture meter will do you no good if you do not use it correctly.
Here are 10 tips from Wagner Moisture Meters to help you get the most accurate readings from your moisture meter.
1. Wipe Off Standing Water
Before taking wood moisture readings, wipe off any standing or visible water and allow the surface to dry for 60 seconds or more. Standing or visible water always results in inaccurate readings, regardless of the meter type. For example, pin moisture meters with non-insulated pins give highly exaggerated readings when the wood surface is wet. Also, be aware that if water soaks into the wood, it will give a higher MC reading.
2. Is Your Moisture Meter the Right One?
Use the proper meter for the job. If you are working with an exotic wood species, your meter will need a meter with an extended SG range, such as the Wagner MMC220. If you require extended data collection capabilities for quality control, the Wagner MMI1100 offers data analysis functions as well. The right meter for the job will save you time and potential trouble down the road.
3. Consider the Subfloor
If you are measuring moisture content levels in installed flooring, the meter will probably pick up moisture in the subfloor. If the subfloor is made of wood products, this probably won't skew the readings, but concrete will give a higher reading.
4. Beware of Metal
Never check the moisture content of a piece of wood lying on a metal table. Instead, hold it in the air to take a reading. The reason: Moisture meters are sensitive to anything conductive. Thus, taking a reading on a metal table or near any metal objects such as nails, staples, or metal studs renders the moisture meter ineffective, resulting in a false reading.
5. Don't Be a Klutz!
Be careful with your meter. Many moisture meters are calibrated at the factory, and will probably never need recalibrating. However, if you drop your meter, or it is accidentally submerged, it could be damaged. You should keep it on your belt loop in the provided carrying case for protection.
6. Keep Fresh Batteries on Hand
Moisture meters do not draw a lot of power, so the batteries will have a long life. It is still a good idea to keep spare batteries with your meter. A quick switch of batteries on the jobsite will make a big difference in time-on-task.
7. Don't Forget Your Manual
Keep the manuals handy. In addition to the operation manual, the Wagner moisture meter comes with another very useful manual that tells you the specific gravities for each wood you deal with. Be sure to check your manual to get the most from your meter. Both manuals fit nicely next to your meter in the protective carrying case.
8. Keep Your Meter Dry
Be sure there is no condensation on the sensing plate of your moisture meter. Just as the surface you are measuring should be free of visible moisture, the sensing plate should be clear as well.
9. Consider Your Wood Materials
Moisture meters can be used to measure moisture content levels in plywood and OSB, but it may require using a special setting to get the best reading. If your meter has a material selection option, make sure you set your moisture meter to read the material you are testing.
10. Make good contact
Pinless meters require about three pounds of pressure is ideal for a good reading. Pin-style meters must be pressed firmly into the wood until the pins reach the designated reading depth. Be careful not to bend of break pins when pressing them into hard wood.
There you have it–10 ways to get the most from your moisture meter. These pointers will help you use your meter trouble-free for years to come.
Good chisels deserve good storage. If you regularly set a chisel down unprotected on the bench top, it could easily be nicked several times a day. Each time it gets nicked, it must be resharpened, which takes valuable time. Not only does resharpening take time, but good chisels are expensive, and every nick in the edge could cost you 50 cents. Aside from the hazard to the chisel, an exposed chisel edge also presents a serious hazard to hands and fingers. Obviously, making a chisel rack is time well-spent. Not only does it keep the chisel and your fingers safe, it dramatically reduces the time you spend hunting around for the chisel you need.
Many chisel racks use a rigid design that holds the chisels upright all the time. That design protects the blade well and makes it easy to grab a chisel when you need it, but it uses a lot of space. Another common storage method is to keep the chisels flat in a box. This is more compact and provides protection to the chisel handle, but when the box is open it leaves the blades less protected than the upright design. I wanted something that combined the best features of both designs, so I built a folding rack that stands up when I need it and folds into a box when I am done. It gives the chisels and my fingers maximum protection, is small enough to fit in my limited space, and enables me to quickly grab a chisel when I need it.
Make the Rack
The part that holds the chisels is the same as the upright part of a rigid rack. The most important feature of this piece is that the chisel should not touch the bottom of the slot. In most shops, grit will accumulate in the bottom of the slot and nick the chisel edge if it is allowed to touch it. Most chisels get thinner towards the end, so this is easily accomplished by making the slot longer than the flat part of the chisel. Find a 3/4″ thick board, cut it to 1-1/4" longer than your chisel slots, and mark the places for the chisel slots on the face. Leave 1/4" between slots and 3/8" between slots and the edge of the board. Use the chisel to stop the cut where the edges and ends of the slots will be. This helps to keep the cut you make from bringing splinters with it from outside the desired area. Slowly cut down until the slots are as deep as the thinnest part of the chisel. If the flat part of the chisel is tapered, cut the slot to match. When you have all three slots right, cut a 1/4" thick piece of wood to the same size as the board and screw it on the face with the slots. We now have what looks like the upright part of a normal chisel rack, and we need to make a box for it.
Make the Box
Find a board the same width as the chisel holder. Measure the length of the chisel holder with chisels in it and add 3-3/4″. Cut the board to this length. Now cut two 2" wide boards to this same length and screw them to the sides of the first one. Cut two small pieces of wood as wide as the chisel rack and 2" long. These will be dovetailed into the ends of the board to keep it from splitting. You can dovetail them to the sides as well or just use screws. The next step is to add a way for the chisel rack to stand up and fold down. I considered using a hinge, but I did not have a suitable one on hand. Instead, I put a slot at one end that holds the chisel holder upright. It is locked in place with a pin. Cut a piece of wood as wide as the chisel holder is thick and 1-1/4" long. Stand the chisel holder up against the end of the box, push the block of wood against it and mark where it goes. Take out the block, pre-drill screw holes, and screw it in place. Mark a location for the pin on the end of the box where it will not hit any screws. Because the chisel holder is 1-1/4" longer than the slots, it is impossible to hit a slot. When you have found the right location, drill a hole for the pin. I used an ordinary 16 penny nail and a 9/64″hole. Although the nominal size of the nail was .131, there were burrs near the point that needed to be removed before it would fit. Unless you possess a set of hole-shrinking drill bits, you should make enlarging the hole your last resort.
Some kind of knob for the pin is a nice touch. Take a 1" length of 3/8" diameter dowel and cross-drill a 1/8" hole through the middle. This assumes that your nail has a diameter of about .131". If it is different, use a drill bit that is about .006" smaller than your nail. Since you are cross-drilling a round dowel, It helps to start the hole with a machinist's combined drill and countersink. Drill in with this until the countersunk area is larger than the drill you will be using. This ensures that it will not wander. When the hole is drilled, press the nail through. You can do this with a C clamp and a piece of pipe or with an arbor press.
At this point, you could declare the chisel rack complete, but I decided to add a lid. This is a simple matter of a suitably sized board, two hinges, and a latch. My main reason for the lid was that I have limited shelf space. With the addition of a lid to keep the chisels in the box, I could add a hanger and hang the box on a hook. This completes the chisel rack. Now, not only do you have compact protection for your expensive chisels, but you can live by the motto that "The edge is never dull."]]>
It's common among woodworkers to feel some reluctance at throwing scraps away (I could make something out of that!), but if you share a shop with your spouse, it gets doubly difficult. Carole Rothman, who built the Holiday Gift Box featured in the December 2013 issue of Woodworker's Journal, as well as the Cherry Jewelry Box from June 2013, recently shared on her blog, Scroll Saw Bowls, what her husband Joe made from some of her bowl cutoffs:
Anybody else with a great use for cutoffs?]]>
In my youth, one reason many builders of fine furniture, amateur and professional alike, turned to hand tools was economy. Hand tools were much cheaper
than machinery. Stanley probably made more hand tools than any other company, having plants in New Britain, Connecticut and England. The most notable hand tool they manufactured was Bailey Planes. The company bought Leonard Bailey out in 1869 and hired him to supervise production. Stanley made prodigious numbers of Bailey planes between 1869 and the early 1960s. The design set a high-water mark for hand planes and Bailey's numbering system, sizes 01 through 08 (pronounced Oh and the number) became the de facto standard for the entire woodworking industry. Smoothing planes are 01 though 04; jack planes are number 05, with 07 and 08 being jointers. In 1923, an 05 jack plane sold for $6.05.
In 1898, Stanley introduced an even better plane, the Bedrock. This used the same numbering system, but a 6 preceded the number to denote the Bedrock Line. In the very early 20tth century, the cheeks of the 600 Bedrock Line were squared to further distinguish them from the Bailey Line. Stanley ceased production of the Bedrock in 1943, but craftsmen use and treasure them to this day. Today at least three manufacturers make slavish copies of Bedrock planes. In 1923, a 605 Bedrock jack plane sold for $6.75.
When I was getting serious about woodworking in the 1970s, plane manufacture had sunk to an all-time low. You could not buy a usable plane anymore. But Baileys abounded at yard sales and flea markets for between $5 and $25. Bedrocks went for $5 to $75, depending on whether the seller realized that Bedrocks were premium merchandise. This happy state of affairs made a used high quality classic cheaper than a new piece of junk. There are those who will only buy new, and they chafed under what was available.
As woodworking grew as a hobby, the demand for decent hand planes became sufficient that companies started making decent ones again. Tom Lie-Nielsen was the first to realize this need and started making a good Bedrock reproduction. Today we are blessed with a host of companies making really good planes; however, they are not cheap!
If we factor in inflation for our 1923 prices from Stanley Catalogue Number 120, we find our $6.05 Bailey would cost $80.49 today and the $6.75 Bedrock would cost $89.80. This tells us that planes, and I think hand tools in general, have gotten significantly more expensive. A 05 Lie-Nielsen Jack today costs $325, which is 3.6 times the price of our 1923 Bedrock.
Some of this price difference can be attributed to manufacturing quantities. As you make more of any product, quantities of scale are reached that significantly reduce manufacturing cost. In the 1920s, Stanley was making planes in the hundreds of thousands, while any manufacturer today is making thousands at best. This would account for part of the price increase. Another factor is that planes, and many other hand tools, are cast iron. The cost for a foundry to meet EPA environmental standards, which are needed if the world is to go on, is significant. Some of the more attractive prices for hand planes may be due to manufacture in Asia, where manufacturing air quality standards are lower than in the U.S.
The good news, I think, is that cost of machinery has seen similar price increases, so hand tools are still a good alternative. What is more: they are safer, quiet and don't need a power cord. Used planes do not abound anymore, but are still quite available. A decent Bailey can still be purchased for less than $100, making it a very good buy indeed.]]>
In learning any craft, the apprentice is indoctrinated with a plethora of rules. In woodworking, many are a matter of avoiding personal injury — as in safe use of sharp tools and machinery. Others are crucial to achieving workmanship-like results and producing furniture that will hold up to abuse for generations. (Woe is the practitioner who is ignorant of the laws of wood movement!)
Just such a rule is: "There must always be a half-pin at either edge of a dovetail joint and not a half-tail." Stated another way, there is never a half tail — and this is true whether you are hand or machine cutting. The reason for this ironclad tenet is that wood, left unto itself, has a proclivity to warp.
A box, drawer or carcass dovetailed together with half-pins at each edge is ironbound and will resist any inclination of the wood to warp. However, this is not the case with half-tails at the edge, as we can see in the illustration. Should the wood warp, there is nothing holding the edges of the tail boards, and gaps will form. While I have exaggerated the phenomenon in my drawing, it is nevertheless unsightly.
I recently had a group who wanted to build the box pictured, which is in John Kassay's beautiful collection of measured drawings, The Book of Shaker Furniture. The 10" deep box measures 11" by 19" but has a 3" drawer in the bottom running the width and divided from the main compartment by a floating panel. The original is nailed to a board with a molded edge to form the bottom.
This rustic workmanship niggled me, so I moved the drawer up ½" and trapped another floating panel to form a true bottom that would be immune to wood movement. The dovetail layout of this box is asymmetrical, making it a great training piece. However, wood warpage of the front and back tail boards could make the area around the drawer a poster child for Illustration I. The solution is a ½" rail below the drawer to resist wood movement.
The problem is that you cannot put two half pins on such a small rail. It needs a single center pin, leaving a half tail in the pin board. It is time to safely bend the rules as we see in the close-up photo. Although we threw the rulebook out the window, we have a box that will last for generations.
Epilogue: This box brings rave comments from all who view it and is a popular pick for a dovetail workshop. Once sanded and finished, however, it is not a particularly practical piece of furniture. It is too large for tabletops but not big enough for the floor. The drawer doesn't hold much, and no one knows what the original was used for. Several months later, Susan and I are still looking for a use. Maybe my fungus collection …]]>
Guitars for Vets and the Harley-Davidson Museum are hosting a special benefit concert Sunday November 9th at the museum from 6pm – 11pm to help raise money to provide free guitars and music lessons for ailing and injured military veterans.
The Rock the Rumble III concert will feature the acts Hessler, The Last Vegas and God's Outlaw and will feature an on-site auction and more. Tickets are $20 for general admission or $18 for members of the museum, and donating a guitar to the program will get you a $10 voucher good towards the purchase of a ticket.
WHO: Guitars for Vets and Harley-Davidson Museum
WHAT: Rock the Rumble III benefit concert for Guitars for Vets featuring musical acts Hessler, The Last Vegas, and God's Outlaw
WHEN: Saturday, November 9 from 6 p.m. – 11 p.m.
WHERE: Rumble at the Harley-Davidson Museum
400 W. Canal Street
Milwaukee, WI 53201
TICKET PRICE: $20 general admission, $18 for Harley-Davidson Museum Members
For more information visit the event website and Guitars4Vets.org.
You can see our previous coverage of this worthy cause here:
Guitar for Veterans School Video.
Chris Marshall's Guitar Build Afterglow
Guitars4Vets Craftsman Experience]]>
This just in: big news on the business side of the power tool industry!
This morning in a press release, Tenex Capital Management announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the machinery and tools business of Walter Meier AG of Switzerland. For those who may not be aware, Walter Meier Tools manufactures the machinery and equipment under the JET, Wilton and Powermatic brands.
Walter Meier Tools is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, but the company also has operations in Switzerland, Germany, Russia, France, Taiwan and China. It sells through more than 3,000 distribution channels in 30 countries. Tenex, the purchasing company, is a private equity firm focused on middle market investments. The transaction is expected to be completed by October 31, 2013. No financial terms were disclosed.
In the same press release, Michael Green, CEO of Tenex Capital Management, stated, "In Walter Meier Tools, we have acquired a strong company with great brands and a growing market share in each of its segments. The well-recognized brands of JET, Wilton and Powermatic define the resilience and durability of the products. We look forward to supporting the company and its management team in executing its continued growth initiatives."
At this time, that's about all the information we have here at the Journal, but stay tuned! We will provide updates as they become available.]]>
Editor's Note: Sandor Nagyszalanczy is the author of the article "Portable Sawmills: Lumber from Local Trees" in the July/August 2013 issue of Woodworker's Journal. Find out more about that article, plus lots more great content, here.
Salvaging a dead or dying tree, or logs that a power company or homeowner have cut, and milling them into useful lumber is a very satisfying experience (see the video of a portable band saw mill in action on the More on the Web page for the July/August issue). If this idea is in your wheelhouse, there are two ways to proceed: One is to find and hire a good sawyer that has the right experience to do the job for you. Many portable sawmill manufacturers have their own forums and links pages where you can find a reputable sawyer in your area. Some sawyers have their own web pages or are listed in your local phone directory. The other method is to buy or borrow the equipment and do the job yourself. Whether you buy/borrow a sawmill or hire a sawyer, the proper preparation will save you time and money, as well as potentially help produce more useable lumber. Here are some tips I gleaned from veteran sawyer David Boyt, publisher of Sawmill and Woodlot Management magazine, to help you prepare for the job:
I had a lot of fun working on a Portable Sawmills article for the forthcoming July/August issue of Woodworker's Journal. To do the research (I didn't really know anything about small sawmills), I visited a pair of local sawyers who demonstrated how their marvelous machines work: Just set a log on the mill's bed, start the motor, and let the horizontally-mounted band saw transform that rough log into a stack of dimensional lumber. But after watching these sawing veterans run through the piles of logs they had at hand, it occurred to me that although I'd been building things out of wood for most of my life, I'd never actually used wood from a tree I'd felled myself. I have cut quite a few small trees on the property in the Santa Cruz mountains where I live with a chainsaw.
Although I can't imagine milling a log into boards by hand, cutting down a tree with just an axe, a saw and muscle power is definitely on my bucket list. I already have the advantage of having received expert instruction on tree felling: Some years ago, I had a job as the official photographer for the Pacific Northwest Tool Collectors' 2008 "Best in the West" conference, a gathering of the country's top tool collectors that happens every two years. Members display their amazing tool collections and present lectures and demonstrations that often feature rare and beautiful antique tools. One of these demonstrations, done at a member's backyard in Sheldon, Washington, was felling a large Douglas fir tree using traditional tools and methods. The two sawyers who performed the demo (I don't recall their names) started by chopping out a large notch, known as the undercut, on the side of the tree facing the direction in which they wanted the tree to fall. They both wielded double-bit axes (sharp enough for a close shave) while they balanced on wood springboards stuck into slots chopped into the sides of the stump. As they alternated their strikes like a well-oiled two-cylinder engine (bang-bang…bang-bang), it was amazing how quickly they created a sizable notch in the tree trunk. Just shy of finishing the notch, one sawyer showed us how to use an axe as a "gun stick" or felling gauge: He placed the head of the axe flat against the back of the cut notch, then looked down the handle, which indicated the direction in which the tree would fall.
With the notch cut a little more than 1/3 of the way through the trunk, the sawyers swapped their axes for a two-man crosscut saw, which they used to make the back cut that actually brought the tree down. As they expertly pulled the tool back and forth in rhythm, the saw's frighteningly sharp teeth cut through the wood like it was soft butter. One sawyer occasionally poured a little kerosene on the saw to keep it lubricated and prevent sap from building up. They quickly reached a point at which it required only a last, light saw stroke to sever enough fibers to bring the big Doug fir down. Impressively, the tree fell exactly where they said it would. The entire cutting process took only about 15 minutes and seemed to take less brute strength than I had imagined. The lesson I came away with is that the secret to safely felling a tree is careful planning, using razor-sharp tools, and performing each chop and slice with thoughtfulness and precision. Come to think of it, this same "secret" applies to just about every other woodworking operation I can think of, whether it's done the old-fashioned way or by using some newfangled machine.]]>
Whoever first said that if you enjoy what you do, you'll never work a day in your life, must have been a woodworker. Or maybe a magazine editor. In any case, it sure sums up how I feel about my job, which is equal parts of both vocations. I'm pretty sure a coal miner would rather not dig more coal when he or she is off the clock, and I know quite a few schoolteachers that don't dream about teaching once summer break begins. (My wife is one of them!)
But what do I do when I'm not building something for the magazine or testing a bunch of new tools? Well, oftentimes, I'm woodworking. Or I'm trying out some new tool. And whether I'm building for the magazine or for myself, the way I feel about it is exactly the same. The experience is equally satisfying, whether I'm earning a living or just wrapping up a personal project on a Sunday afternoon.
The top snapshot here will give you a glimpse of what I've currently got "cooking" in the shop, and as luck would have it, there are a few "down" days between getting the last issue off to press and starting our work on a new print issue. So, I'm squeezing in some time to work on a bank of four upper and base cabinets for the shop. It's sort of an anniversary project, you might say. Almost a year ago to the day, I was moving into this shop space (see photo, below), and I've had these cabinets rattling around in the back of my mind ever since. But, while working for a woodworking magazine might seem like a gravy job to many folks that only woodwork after dinner and on the weekends, we on staff actually have way too much to do most of the time. So, like you, many of my woodworking projects take a back seat until I can get around to them. (My wife will attest to that, too. She's been waiting for a new closet closet I've promised to build her for two years…)
I'm really enjoying the process of working on these cabinets. For one thing, I can imagine how much they are going to improve my storage situation in the shop. I have boxes and boxes of shop stuff that still has no place to go … but soon, it will. It's also nice to make multiples of the same thing. Usually for the magazine, we build one prototype of a project and then a second for the article. Changeover from one project to the next is pretty quick and constant, but this time I can take the Henry Ford approach. On the bench, I'm just about to assemble seven more sets of doors. It only makes sense to get one machine setup ready, then blast through them all at the same time, before moving on to the next phase. There's a lot of repetition, to be sure, but that gives me time to think, plan the next step and enjoy the process of making something with my hands — even if that's an exercise I'm blessed to be able to do about 50 weeks of every year.
Here's to hoping that you find the same sense of satisfaction that I do in this wonderful craft we all share — whether you get paid for it, or not.
Catch you in the shop,
Chris Marshall, Senior Editor]]>
Summertime is a chance to get out of the shop now and then, and the new June 2013 print issue of Woodworker's Journal will give you several good reasons to get out and explore — whether it's a new lumberyard or your back yard.
Here's a sneak peek at what you'll find in the new summer issue.
If you don't subscribe, visit our online store to buy your own copy of the May/June 2013 issue!
Among woodworkers, there are some projects that are "classics" — whether the woodworker in question has built them or just has them on a mental "someday" list. Sometimes, it seems as if nearly everyone has built, or wants to build, a guitar, a wooden boat … or a bar for the basement.
If that woodworker was participating in the "Raising the Bar" program of George Dickel's Tennessee Whiskey, they'd be building a pretty fancy bar. It might, for example, include using whiskey barrels for barstools — or even the front end of a classic car for the bar front. Those are just a couple of examples from the real-life teams competing in this event, which is now a film series on Hulu .
Team bar-building? Competition? Yep, and there's a chance for Woodworker's Journal readers to get in on the action, too. Tell us your ideas for what to add to this bar to make it cooler — anything from specific types of glasses to specific types of stools — and, if your idea is chosen as the winner, you could see your idea come to reality. (Here's a thought from your editors: since you're Woodworker's Journal readers, we'd suggest something made out of wood.)
Further details? OK. First, the backstory. Whiskey company George Dickel's slogan is "Handmade the Hard Way." It refers to their 25 employees personally overseeing every step of the distillation process. To promote that slogan, they partnered with the producers of such TV shows as "Deadliest Catch" and "Storage Wars" to film six teams of real-life craftsmen — woodworkers, metalworkers and more — building bars at the 2012 American Royal World Series of BBQ in Kansas City, Missouri. Each team had just eight hours to build what they thought would be an impressive bar. "Most of my projects take exponentially longer," said Kansas City woodworker Kirk Brown. "You can't make anything really well, really fast, just like you can't make whiskey real fast."
Some teams went in with design ideas; some didn't. They had access to some handheld power tools — like a circular saw, jigsaw, planer and battery-powered drills — and they brought some of their own tools. "I brought a hand plane," Kansas City woodworker Kirk Brown said, "and thank goodness, because we ended up using it when we plowed over the cord of the power planer."
Afterward, producer Thom Beers' Original Productions company turned each of these builds into a video for the Hulu series. And public relations company Taylor Strategy assigned each of these teams to a partner publication — randomly, you will notice. Which is perhaps why the assigned "Woodworker's Journal" team is one that incorporated no wood into their build, except the stand for metalworker Kyle Moody's anvil. (Not that we're bitter.)
Moving on. Each partner is soliciting ideas from our own team — that's you, Woodworker's Journal readers — for additions that will "raise the bar" further for our assigned bar. Examples? Replacing the glass in a traditional shot glass with redwood (a shot wood?). Or adding rockers to the bar stools. Or … ? We're waiting for your ideas, which will be submitted to Taylor Strategy on Monday, April 15. They'll be judged on a) originality and creativity; b) representation of true American craftsmanship; and c) the "cool-ness" factor: something you'd want to show off to your friends.
Whatever's picked as the winning "Raising the Bar" item will actually be made, in a set of eight. If it's a Woodworker's Journal team item that wins, they'll send us the eight items — but we'll share with our readers. We promise.
So, watch the video of "our" bar (and the other ones, too, if you'd like — some of them incorporate wood) and send us your ideas for additions. You can share in the comments to this blog post, on our Woodworker's Journal Facebook page, or by emailing us at firstname.lastname@example.com. Let's "raise the bar" on (woodworking's) creativity!]]>
One of the luxuries of being a woodworking magazine editor is that I get my hands on "good" wood on a pretty regular basis. Clear, straight cherry and maple are often "on deck" for projects in our magazine. Recently, I built a couple of Arts & Crafts bookcases from some nice quartersawn white oak for our first "Small Shop Journal" project (February 2013 print issue). And, without spilling the beans prematurely, I just finished a project that I built from some extraordinary ribbon stripe mahogany for our June issue. It was too wide to fit my jointer … what a problem to have, right?!
Last fall, when I needed a few 2x4s for a home improvement project I was working on, I went to Lowe's to pick them up. There, at the top of the pile, were a few of the clearest, straightest 2x4s I've ever seen. Some were even quartersawn — and for a woodworker that's pretty mind-blowing when you consider how absolutely green, checked and awful so much of the construction lumber seems to be these days. It's a wonder it even passes inspection on the way to market.
So I bought 10 of these beauties, for no real purpose besides not wanting to imagine them ending up in wall, hidden away forever. I suppose it was a bit greedy of me, but I couldn't help myself.
Well, one of those shop projects I've had on my "to do" list for a spell has been a simple work table that I could put behind my cabinet saw to use for outfeed support. The saw is close enough to my planer that I figured it would serve the second purpose of staging stock as I surfaced it. Simple enough. Who can't use another little table?
One Saturday afternoon I drew up a plan for my little shop table, and then it occurred to me that I really didn't have any "good" stock I could use for the framework. After all, surely I must have leftover hardwood laying around from some project or other that would do the trick. I went out to the shop and, rummaging for the lumber, actually moved those nice 2x4s out of the way to keep searching.
Then the Homer Simpson moment hit me: "Duh, use the 2x4s, Chris. Why not?"
Well, here's the back-of-my-mind reason: They're JUST 2x4s.
I should be ashamed not to have thought of them right away. They turned out to be the perfect choice for this little project. I glued them up into leg blanks, cut some mortises and whipped this table together the very next day. The top is actually a simple project we shared some time ago in an online router technique. If you didn't see it then, click here for a link to it.
Now, there's not really a moral to this little story. But the experience has reminded me that there can still be some diamonds in the rough of what you can find in the home center lumber racks. And, even a few "lowly" 2x4s can turn out to be something pretty nice in the end. My little table will remind me of this every time I have cause to move it around the shop. I might even cruise the racks at the big boxes now and again, just to see what might be hiding there. You never know.
Speaking of which, if you've made some projects from "ordinary" construction lumber that your particularly proud of, leave a comment and tell us about them. Maybe we can start a 2×4 renaissance.
Catch you in the shop,
Chris Marshall, senior editor
I got an email from a friend this morning asking me what I thought about Festool's Domino joinery system. I told him I thought it was an incredibly ingenious solution for rapidly cutting mortises and that the machine itself is a marvelous (albeit expensive) tool. When I reread his email before sending my reply, it was interesting to find out that he wanted to buy the Domino specifically because he had to make a dozen or so mortise-and-tenon (M&T) joints for an upcoming project. I asked if he planned to do a lot more M&T work in the future and he said he suspected as much, but wasn't sure.
I guess I shouldn't be too surprised by my friend's readiness to buy such an expensive tool, possibly for a single use. After all, if you have a task to do on your computer, iPad, smartphone or other electronic time muncher, you simply buy the right software, application or peripheral device, right? I suppose it follows that when a modern woodworker needs to cut a particular joint, they buy the machine or device that's designed specifically for that purpose.
But has modern woodworking really come to this? I remember when I was a teenager just getting interested in furniture making, I read a story about a church on an island in Lake Onega, Russia. It is said to have been built by an anonymous master craftsman using nothing but a simple axe. The story goes that after he finished building this amazing structure, he looked at his hand holding his axe and, unwilling to consider that this same axe might create such beauty elsewhere, flung the axe into the lake! Although the story is almost certainly apocryphal, I found its tale of doing great work with simple tools inspiring.
Making something with only the tools you have on hand is not only challenging, but it can help you to become a better woodworker. This certainly has been my experience. Way back before there were fancy mortising machines, we learned to chop decent mortises with a basic chisel and mallet. I remember drooling over the cool dovetail routing system that the Canadian company Leigh introduced some decades back. As a fledgling furniture maker, I was perpetually broke, so I had to cut all my dovetails by hand. It took a lot of practice, but let me create dovetails in sizes and proportions that fit the furniture I was building — not just the capabilities of the jig.
Speaking of which, lack of money and special tools also led me to design and build many of my own jigs and fixtures. For example, I had a commission to build a sleek mahogany frame for a daybed. I wanted the piece to feature box joints in all four corners. But since the members were way too long to cut on the table saw (using a dado blade), I created a router jig to guide all the joint cuts. The jig worked so well that I ended up using it on dozens of other projects, eventually making miles of tight-fitting joints before the jig wore out.
Such circumstances not only helped me develop better hand-eye coordination, but cultivated my concentration and patience as well. In fact, I probably wouldn't have acquired the majority of my woodworking skills if I could have just gone out and bought a new tool or ready-made jig every time I needed it. And as an added bonus, you get a lot more physical exercise sawing, chiseling, drilling and planing your joinery into existence than you do simply pushing a router around. That's a lot more important nowadays, as I'm not as skinny (or as poor) as I used to be!]]>
When it comes to weather, we've had a true embarrassment of riches here in California this winter. Although the beginning of this year has been the driest in recent memory, it's hard to argue with sunny days and shirtsleeve weather at a time when folks in other parts of the country are freezing and getting snow shovel blisters.
This unseasonal weather makes me think that, just as it's said that a young man's thoughts turn to love in the spring, many a late-middle-aged man's fancies turn to … shop improvements! I suspect this is true, because I've recently been barraged by emails and phone calls from friends on the West Coast who need advice about their workshops: "Which table saw and planer should I buy?" "I'm thinking of installing a new dust collection system, but I've no idea where to start." "Have any ideas for easy-access storage for portable power tools?"
I had already been thinking about shop improvement quite a bit in recent months, as I'd been working on a modernized form of my book Setting Up Shop, which The Taunton Press has just published in a new "book-azine" form. Because I'd recently pondered all kinds of woodshop matters, I was quick to respond to all my friend's queries. But even though I approached each question thoughtfully, analyzing the pros and cons of all possible solutions, I was struck with how long and involved some of my responses were. OK, I thought maybe I'm overcomplicating things. After all, I have a background in epistemology (the science of how we know things) and aesthetic philosophy, so I tend to see things less in black and white, right and wrong, and more in degrees of rightness and shades of gray. Philosophical discourse is one thing, but shouldn't the answers to most woodworking questions be fairly straightforward?
I harkened back to my first job as an assistant editor for another woodworking magazine (its name rhymes with "lime hood jerking"). I used to get phone calls from readers that went something like this: "I'm building a dining table for my family, and I was wondering what kind of wood to use?" Assuming the caller had a thirst for my insights, I'd launch into a full-blown lecture on the types of woods available in their region and the various physical and aesthetic traits of those species. One time, a caller stopped me in mid-dissertation and asserted: "yeah, that's all well and good, but which kind of wood should I make my table out of?" Not only didn't he want a lecture on wood science, but I don't think he wanted to strain his grey matter in order to come to his own conclusions. Maybe he didn't have the time to process the information. Or maybe he thought that the answer he'd come up with on his own might not be as good as the one that the "professional" on the telephone could provide. A simple answer was what he wanted, and so I gave it to him: "Walnut. Make the table out of walnut," I told him, then thanked him for calling and hung up.
I hate to think that people contact me for advice because they'd rather have me doing their thinking for them. I've always been a big fan of learning by doing your own problem solving. But everything in life is more complicated than it used to be (think of telephones, automobiles, even toothbrushes), and shop tools, hardware and processes are no different. So why not, on occasion, offer simple answers and/or opinions in lieu of delving into all the complex details of a topic like dust control or shop storage? I know I won't be able to solve all of my friends' shop improvement dilemmas, but the next time one of them calls or writes, I'm sure to ask "do you want the long answer or the short one?"
Sandor Nagyszalanczy, Contributing Editor]]>
One of my woodworking friends sent this link to me — and it does a really great job of showing the process. Even though I've been around the industry for a long time, and have even seen veneer being made firsthand, I thought this video was great. Check it out!
Rob Johnstone, Woodworker's Journal]]>
If 2013 is your year to buy a new stationary tool, and Grizzly is one of the companies you're considering for that purchase, they've just added a slick new search feature that could make the process quite easy. It's a machinery comparison chart widget that generates an instant side-by-side cross-reference for up to four Grizzly machines at once.
The process for setting up a comparison is about as simple as it gets. Go to Grizzly's website homepage (click here), then click on the "Comparison Charts" tab along the left-hand side of the screen. It will give you the option of selecting from among 18 different stationary machine categories in Grizzly's inventory. Options include woodworking band saws, table saws, dust collectors, jointers, shapers, planers, drum and wide belt sanders, edge sanders, power feeders, mortisers, miscellaneous sanders and table saws, wood and metal lathes, drill presses and more. Then, four boxes with pop-down menus at the top of the page give you the relevant models of your search. Click on four machines that interest you. Their catalog specs, including pricing, fill out a chart at the bottom of the page.
From there, you can print the page out for future reference. Currently, you can't save your search in a Grizzly account, but a few clicks makes the chart just as easy to recreate again.
I don't know of another machine tool company that offers a similar search feature, but with the plethora of different models Grizzly offers, it sure makes sense for Grizzly customers! Give it a try, and see if you don't agree.
Chris Marshall, Senior Editor
Our colleagues at The Taunton Press sent out this message regarding the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and we feel moved to pass it along to our readers. Taunton, and specifically the folks at Fine Woodworking Magazine, are competitors but this initiative is the sort of thing that far transcends any sense of business competition.
We at the Journal offer our condolences to the staff at Taunton and the wider Newtown community. And if it is in your heart to help out with a donation (see link below), we offer our thanks to you for your kindhearted generosity.
Larry Stoiaken (publisher), Rob Johnstone (editor in chief) and the staff at Woodworker's Journal magazine
The January/February 2013 issue of Woodworker's Journal magazine contains plenty of content to keep you busy in the shop during winter months and beyond.
Here's a sneak peek at what you'll find in the issue.]]>
As we head into this holiday season, the new December 2012 print issue of Woodworker's Journal offers four unique projects tailored for filling your gift list or for trimming the tree, along with much more.
Here's a sneak peek at what you'll find in the issue.
Then, swing over to our online store to buy your own copy of the November/December 2012 issue!]]>
One of the things I love about my wife Amy is that she shares my appreciation for beauty in what some might see as macabre. But it can lead to strange souvenirs that present opportunities for unusual projects. And here's a good example for you. A couple of months ago, Amy took our daughters on a vacation trip to New York. While there, they visited the store Obscura Antiques and Oddities in Manhattan. If you've ever watched the show "Oddities" on the Science Channel, that name should immediately ring a bell. The proprietors buy and sell just about anything and everything that's, well, odd. It's an amusing and often hilarious program that's become a family favorite.
She came home with this bat specimen from Obscura encased in a block of resin. And her request of me was this: "Please build a frame for it so I can hang it on the wall."
Now there's a project you don't get every day! So, I got on it straight away. The frame has bridle joints on the corners and is made of cherry. It actually doesn't hang on the wall; she sets it on a deep windowsill in her office so sunlight shines through it. Makes a pretty good shadow.
It seems an eerie and fitting project for October — and one to offer up to the following theme: "Strange Projects We Have Made."
I'm sure I'm not the only woodworker who builds something weird from time to time. Do you have a project or two from your past that you'd chalk up to "strange" in some sense of that word? It doesn't have to be Halloween appropriate, just funky somehow. Why not tell other readers about it here by leaving a comment below?
Let's see what sort of oddities we've conjured up from wood. As far as I'm concerned, "off the beaten track" is a refreshing path to follow now and then, don't you think? If it's possible to improve on a plastic-dipped bat, I tried to do it justice here! Amy thinks so, anyway.
I hope you'll fill us in on your "oddity" project! And spill the details of its "backstory," too.
Catch you in the shop,
Chris Marshall, Field Editor
A couple of weeks ago, in Woodworker's Journal eZine Issue 310, Woodworker's Journal editor in chief Rob Johnstone wrote in his introductory editorial about a friend who'd questioned him on the viability of cutting his own lumber for a project. Rob asked eZine readers if any of them had ever chopped a tree down, turned it into lumber and built a project. Many of them had — including Herb Brodie, who shares his story here.
I have many large, old oak trees on my lot. Every couple of years, one fails for a variety of reasons — from wind to rot. I've cut a lot of firewood from these trees over the last 30 years. In 1999, while sawing, I thought that the wood was too good for a fire, so I saved about 15 feet of 26-inch diameter trunk. I then made a jig out of 2×6′s on the log and fixed an aluminum frame on my chainsaw that allowed me to cut slabs off the log. You can buy outfits like this now, but mine was entirely homemade. Each slab took me about an hour to cut and another hour to relocate the jig for the next cut. I kept the slabs at least 6/4 thick because the precision of my cutting wasn't good enough to ensure uniform dimension. I trimmed the slabs to uniform width with a circular saw. I ended up with 12 boards ranging from 12 to 24 inches wide by 15 feet long. I stacked the boards horizontally with spacers for air drying in a well-ventilated shed, where they stayed for six years.
In 2005, I deemed the boards cured enough to start using them for projects. It was a good idea to saw them as 6/4 because there was a lot of warp and cup. I made a jig that allowed me to clamp a board and plane down one side using a router on a rail. I could then turn the board over and plane down the other side with the router. This made a ton of chips and wasted a lot of wood, but the result was a straight, useable piece of lumber up to 24 inches wide.
A toy chest was a six board box with trim. The top, sides and bottom of this box are each a single board. The sides are fitted with large dovetails. The top and bottom float in slots to allow for expansion and contraction of the wood. The overall dimensions of the box are about 24 inches wide by 36 inches long and 17 inches deep.
I also made a swinging cradle. The cradle can be mounted in the swing, or it can be removed to sit on the floor. This way, the baby can be moved from place to place in the cradle while the swing remains where most needed. The swing is entirely held together with removable pegs so that it can be torn down for storage. I built this cradle and swing in Maryland, then put all the pieces in a box and sent them to my daughter in Oregon. I included a video on how to put it together. My son-in-law glued the cradle together and applied an oil finish. It has served three grandchildren.
I made two other toy chests, several bookcases and children's chairs. The lumber was gone by 2007. But, I lost another larger tree that year. I gained three 12-foot logs 30 to 38 inches in diameter. I did not have a chainsaw capable of sawing these logs into lumber. I hired a local farmer who had a portable band saw. He could cut with precision, so I had 5/4 slabs cut. Within two hours, I had 36 boards ranging from 15 to 30 inches wide and 12 feet long. I cut four cords of firewood from the rest of the tree that sold for more than I paid for the band saw work.
I trimmed and racked these boards outdoors with a metal roof fashioned over the stack. These boards dried more quickly and more uniformly than did my 1999 stack. This spring, I pulled some out to make new baseboards and window trim inside my 100-plus-year-old house. They are straight with little cup and have even thickness. I worked with widths that fit my jointer and thickness planer. I again made a jig for my router for wide boards, and I was able to get a pretty good surface on a 28-inch-wide board. I'm letting that board sit for a while to see if it is stable enough to use whole.
So, now I have a plentiful supply of wide oak boards from a tree in my yard. I have a lot of projects in mind. I love to work with oak. But, at 70 years old, I'm finding it harder than it used to be to pick up a 2 ft. by 12 ft. by 5/4 oak board and carry it into the shop.]]>
Last winter I was visiting a friend in Mississippi near Vicksburg. The farm at which I was staying is located on a road that leads directly to that city's famous battlefield. In fact, the Confederate army marched down that very road to get to the fight. While I was talking to my host about the battle of Vicksburg and the national park that is located at the battlefield, he mentioned a tree. Apparently, this tree had the unlucky fate of being located directly between significant numbers of soldiers of the two opposing armies. When the bullets started to fly, and then continued flying for a long, long time — the tree was one of the early casualties of the battle. According to my host, so many bullets hit the tree that it eventually fell over from the weight of the lead embedded in its wood fibers.
Not so long ago, I was reminded of that story as I built a table that would be featured in the print magazine. (Woodworker's Journal, October, 2012 … Walnut Game Table) As I was preparing the stock for the table, I noticed a couple of voids in the wood. Thinking it was insect damage, I continued to plane the stock to thickness. Then I noticed that the bug holes were shiny.
Turning off the machine, I took a close look and found that the wood was full of bullet holes … and bullets. There were too many slugs to be found in these chunks of wood to be a random shot … my guess is that someone had hung a target up on a black walnut tree. (Unless, perhaps, it was in some less well-known battle!) Now, I've found bullets in boards before. It is not too uncommon and, if you surface a lot of wood, you'll run into some sooner or later. But I have never before found so many bullets in such a small stash of wood. It was an odd but enjoyable event in my shop … and one that I thought you might get a kick out of.
Rob Johnstone
Editor in Chief
We all know that old adage about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery. But it's a notion that's always struck me as a hollow compliment at best. In my experience, it's much, much harder to create than it is to duplicate.
I was reminded of this just two weeks ago while attending IWF — a biannual woodworking trade show and one of the largest in the country. Here's a textbook example from that trip of how quickly certain companies will jump onto the bandwagon of a good idea.
During the show, I had the opportunity to interview Steve Krohmer, Rockler's vice president of new product development, and to see some of Rockler's recent product releases. Rockler consistently has fresh widgets to share at the big trade shows, and this year's IWF sampling was no exception. One new item that really got my attention is Rockler's flexible Silicone Tray and Silicone Spreader. It's an inexpensive kit that expands on Rockler's clever little silicone glue brush. If you follow a number of woodworking forums and magazines, including ours, you've probably read the good press these brushes have been receiving from the wider woodworking community: inexpensive, durable, reusable, versatile — are all fair descriptions of a simple tool that can make glue-ups and cleanups more convenient. Now, the company continues the theme by giving us a non-breakable reservoir to hold a small quantity of glue, plus a trowel-style applicator to smear it over a broad surface more easily. I suspect these additions will catch on quickly, too, as more woodworkers continue to give the glue brush a try.
But several aisles down the trade show floor from Rockler's booth, in IWF's new product display, sat a competitor's silicone glue brush.To be fair, it's a different color from "Rockler blue" and has a round-profile head instead of a rectangular one, but nevertheless, the concept is essentially the same. While technically "new" to market, the irony of this knockoff struck me: Rockler's silicone glue brush — the first of its kind for woodworking that I've ever seen — came to market just six months or so ago.
I guess I should temper my idealism. Tenth grade economics class taught me that competition is good. It drives prices down, gives consumers purchasing options and often raises the bar of quality. It's a cornerstone of capitalism, and, of course, our woodworking industry is saturated with it. It's hard to think of many woodworking products that aren't available from more than one brand in some derivative form. What sensible manufacturer doesn't want to grab a piece of the action in the ongoing effort to be profitable? And, given the still tenuous state of our economy, it's pretty tough to bring a wholly new innovation to a woodworking trade show just now. There was a LOT of empty space in that new product display case, and many booths had very little in the way of bright-shiny new. We are an industry still very much in recovery mode.
But Rockler's approach to getting out in front and blazing a trail, instead of just following a trend, is inspiring. Products like last year's shutter-making system (our June print issue cover story), the Bench Cookies® of several years ago, Rockler's new Mixing Mate™… all are products that try to make woodworking and home improvement more enjoyable for every skill level and budget. They solve problems with fresh solutions in a way that other companies can only emulate. But innovation is a commitment the company takes very seriously. In fact, Krohmer once told me more about how Rockler's product development process works, and you can read that interview here.
During IWF, Marc "The Wood Whisperer" Spagnuolo posted the following query to his Facebook page: "Anyone find anything cool coming out of IWF this year? Other than the same old incremental tool upgrades and whatever Rockler's new invention is?"
That about sums it up. If Rockler calls it new, it's typically a trade show head-turner. Not another imitation.
Catch you in the shop,
Chris Marshall, Field Editor
Practicality is a good way to sum up the theme of our projects in our new September/October 2012 issue, which is available on newsstands September 4th. If you're looking for a sensible, yet challenging piece of furniture to build for your home this fall, this issue has you covered.
Here's a sneak peek at what you'll find in the issue.
Then, swing over to our online store to buy your own copy of the September/October 2012 issue!]]>
You can watch the tools in action on our blog specially dedicated to the IWF show. We're now in our fourth year of blogging from the floor of the year's big tool event, with videos for your tool-viewing pleasure. Find all of our coverage of IWF at the Woodworker's Journal IWF 2012 Blog here.]]>
We've previously brought you other news of pending table saw legislation; in recent news, a Chicago jury decided earlier this month in favor of table saw manufacturer Ryobi Tools, against a plaintiff who claimed he was injured by a defective saw.
The plaintiff, Brandon Stollings, a carpenter who purchased a Ryobi BTS 20R1 a few days before the accident, claimed in the suit that the saw was defective because it did not include a SawStop sensing device or a European style riving knife. Additional lawsuits have been filed across the country with similar allegations, including a 2010 case decided in Boston in which the jury ruled in favor of the plaintiff, awarding over $1 million in damages.
In many of these cases, SawStop inventor Stephen Gass, who created the sensing device that causes a saw to "brake" if it detects flesh rather than wood, has served as an expert witness. Stephen Gass's petition to the federal Consumer Protection Safety Commission to require SawStop technology on all new table saws manufactured is still pending before that federal commission.
In the Ryobi case, the manufacturer contended that the cause of Stollings's accident, which resulted in multiple amputations of fingers on his left hand, was his failure to read the manual, failure to use the blade guard, and failure to use the miter gauge when crosscutting a piece of laminate flooring "freehand," when a kickback occurred.
The jury in the Chicago case ruled unanimously that the Ryobi table saw, which complied with Underwriters Laboratory 987 and other standards such as those from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, was not negligently designed or unreasonably dangerous. In making this ruling after two days of deliberations, they did not address the question of the plaintiff's conduct.]]>
When most people hear about San Diego Comic-Con, their thoughts immediately go to the halcyon days of buying Superman and Spider-Man's latest adventures for a quarter at the corner store. And while there's still a piece of that history alive on the floor of the San Diego Convention Center, Comic-Con has expanded far past that.
From Hollywood features to the latest games and gadgets to, yes, woodworking, there's a little bit of something for everyone at this yearly event. It has become an all encompassing event for hobbyists of all interests and backgrounds, and the company Geek Chic is taking the forefront at bringing quality woodworking to the geek audience.
Geek Chic started out making gaming tables and storage devices to fill what they felt was a hole in the furniture industry. There weren't enough products designed for the growing market that plays tabletop and video games, so they created tables and cabinets perfect for storing and playing these games.
But they quickly wound up at something of an impasse. While they'd found a need and a market and were creating quality wood products, getting in front of their customers was proving to be a problem.
The company started attending consumer and product shows a few years ago, but that setup didn't offer the space to really showcase the tables and cases or the ability for customers to take them home right from the show floors. So company founder and chief "instigator" Robert Gifford decided to add to their repertoire.
They turned once again to their audience for inspiration, and began creating a line of wood display weapons. Everything from swords to axes to wands, which make great show pieces both on the convention floor and in homes.
Gifford recalls a story in which a customer excitedly purchased two weapons to "take home to his wife to show her the difference between cherry and walnut." Gifford offered to give him some wood samples instead, but the customer insisted that the swords showed the intricacies of the wood better.
With the success of their armory, Geek Chic had started to gain momentum for their business. Then inspiration struck again, this time quite by accident. The company's woodworkers, Gifford says, are often toying around with making different shapes out of the scrap wood in the band saw. As a joke, one employee put a vaguely mustache-shaped piece over his upper lip.
Soon, all the guys in the shop were trying their hand at the project, and the "Mustache Monocle" was born. It didn't take much prompting, Gifford said, to "make a batch and bring it to a convention."
So they took them to this year's Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle and they've sold well ever since. They've increased the volume of mustache monocles currently in production and available at conventions across the country in sets of three, and they hope to add them to their website in the future as well.
While there's currently no plans to take their products to retail, Geek Chic is a great example of a business which has tackled an evolving marketplace with fresh ideas and an evolving product model turning everything from large furniture to scraps into profit. Comic-Con may seem like an unlikely place to find up and coming woodworkers and innovative products, but for Robert Gifford and company, it seems to be a perfect fit.]]>
This spring I moved into a new shop, and I'm finally getting around to doing the finish carpentry to wrap up the interior work. I decided to save some money and run the base molding, door and window trim myself. Every now and again, I really like this sort of trim work, and the contractor's budget is long since spent.
To keep things moving forward on a Saturday afternoon, I decided to purchase my window and door trim from the local home center. It's simply off-the-shelf 1x radiata pine — nice, clean and straight material that I could pretty much sand, cut and install. Now I wouldn't think of pine as a home center species that would come from great distances — especially another hemisphere for gosh sakes — but this batch sure did. The SKU tag says it's from, of all places, New Zealand.
Kauri, yes. I'd expect it from there. But pine … well, no.
A quick online travel calculator tells me that this pine stock has made about an 8,000-mile journey as the jet flies to finally end up nailed to my shop walls. With the exception of some ebony and cocobolo I've had in the past, I think this window trim now tops the list as the furthest-flung lumber I've ever purchased.
There are times when I'm astonished by our global economy these days. Somehow in the ledgers of the buyers for this particular home center chain, it's actually cost-effective to get pine lumber from New Zealand. I suppose it all comes down to economies of scale. A couple hundred shipping containers or so of this material (and for all I know, maybe exponentially more than that) probably drives the cost down pretty far if you're in the market for enormous volume.
The New Zealand revelation made me curious, so I wandered around the lumber and sheet goods area to see where other supplies are coming from these days. The 1/2-in. "furniture-grade" plywood hailed from Ecuador, and the current batch of 3/4-in. birch plywood comes from China. If I were shopping for poplar dowels, they're grown and manufactured in the proud state of Wisconsin. Southern yellow pine porch flooring? Well, that comes from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and the cedar ships from Corvallis, Oregon.
I'm not trying to make a political statement here, just an observation. Whether we like it or not, a global economy is part of our 21st-century reality here in the U.S. In this particular instance, I find the diversity of lumber sources both surprising and interesting. If that pine window trim came from central Virginia where I live, and if it were convenient to pick some up on a Saturday morning, that's where I would have bought it. Whenever possible, I drive about an hour and a half up the road to buy project lumber from a small one-man lumberyard. He knows where his inventory comes from, he stocks excellent material, and I like to help him out whenever I can. Still, my radiata pine from a Kiwi forest somewhere sure looks good wrapped around my shop windows. And from start to finish, I had my window trim project bought, cut and done in an afternoon. That aspect mattered to me this time.
There are all sorts of factors to consider for the materials we need for our projects — among them are cost, availability, suitability for the application, environmental impact, convenience of procuring them … and source of origin. These days, even a casual trip to the home center for some pine can reveal how small our world seems sometimes.
Catch you in the shop,
Chris Marshall, Field Editor
I am an expert woodworker … I just am. I have a natural talent for the craft, and I have dedicated myself to it for over 40 years. It is exacting work about which I am serious, and while I do get satisfaction from a well-made project, I would not describe making furniture as a good time. On the other hand, I do woodturning for fun. I am decidedly not an expert turner, as the letters I get from real turning experts demonstrate every time there is a picture of me at the lathe in the print magazine. ("Rob, your form is really terrible!" "Rob, it just hurt to see you using that scraper when you should be using a so-and-so gouge." All of those comments are appreciated, have come to be expected and are taken to heart.)
Even so, while I do give it my best to come up with a great woodturning project, I have not let this one area of woodworking migrate from a release to a regimen — I want it to be my shop fun time.
Recently, we have done some surveying around the topic of woodturning, and have discovered that many of you have joined the woodturning gang, and that even more of you are thinking of giving it a go. If you want my opinion, I say make it happen sooner rather than later. I don't think you will regret it. (And, to read even more about woodturning, click on over to this week's Woodworker's Journal eZine — it's a special themed issue, dedicated to the theme of woodturning.)
Rob Johnstone
Editor in Chief
Over the years, I've developed a love/hate relationship with polyurethane. Even though many readers tell us that it's their favorite finish by quite a stretch, generally speaking it just isn't mine.
On the plus side, polyurethane is pretty darn durable. We have two teenage kids who are hard on furniture. My wife and I are constantly hounding them to use coasters under sweaty cans of diet cola. Book bags and musical instrument cases get tossed on the kitchen table when they get home from school–and those metal hinge knuckles, zippers and buckles are anything but kind to a tabletop finish. Damp towels sometimes get hung over the backs of wooden chairs. You get the picture. If you've got kids or grandkids, you need a tough-as-nails wood finish if you want it to survive the long haul.
But the downsides to poly can tip the scales the other direction for me. Oil-based poly takes forever to cure, and when you're on magazine deadlines, that just doesn't work. It smells awful, too. You might think, well so does lacquer and shellac, but at least both of those options flash off quickly. Not poly. It seems to stink up the finishing area for days.
Poly makes my brushes crunchy, no matter how diligently I clean them, and it can be difficult to lay down smoothly unless you're really attentive to brush marks.
Even typical waterbased poly has a couple of drawbacks: it smells like ammonia and it can make the wood look washed out when it cures. But at least it dries more quickly than it's oily cousin.
Well, I just wrapped up a new project for our upcoming October issue of the print magazine, and time was on my side for a change. In spite of my grousing, I decided to give poly another try (durability being my biggest objective for this project), but this go-around I tried something new: Rust-Oleum's Ultimate Polyurethane in a satin sheen. Maybe you've seen it on the shelves of your local hardware store or big box home center. You might even recall an eZine interview a while ago in which I interviewed the folks at Rust-Oleum about this product and the company's other new Wood Care finishes, or a blog post from one of their recent visits to the office. So, time to give it a try for myself.
And the verdict, now that the project is done: I'm very impressed.
Ultimate Polyurethane is waterbased, but I was pleasantly surprised when I first popped the lid. The milky liquid has almost no discernible smell. I applied it in a small room of our basement, and the absence of oily solvents or ammonia was a welcomed and pleasant benefit. It brushed out smoothly while wet and proceeded to flatten out even more as it dried–another big plus! And, true to the marketing suggestion on the front of the can, it dried quickly. The company claims "ultra fast," which for me translated to about two hours until the finish was dry to the touch. Sure beats the snail's pace of oil-based poly.
The majority of this new project is made of cherry. So, in order to avoid potential blotching that can turn unassuming wood grain into a distracting case of the "wood hives," I started with a wash coat of dewaxed shellac to seal the wood. Then it occurred to me that that potentially may have been a bad start to a project that would be topcoated with a waterbased finish. Shellac isn't very resistant to water. But, my fears were unfounded, thankfully. The varnish cured beautifully and seemed to have no negative impact on the shellac underneath it. While I will say I miss some of the amber tone that an oil-based finish can impart to cherry, this Rust-Oleum product doesn't drain the wood's natural color dry. And the flat sheen is perfect for my application. It doesn't look at all "plasticized." The brush bristles cleaned up to a supple dry with soap and water.
By now you can guess that I'll be using this new breed of poly again. I can't attest to it being "33 percent more durable than the leading competitive product" just yet, as my kid's haven't given it their own style of acid testing. But if it turns out to be as tough as it is pleasant and easy to apply, this just might be a new favorite general-purpose finish of mine. So far, I'm not seeing a down side to it.
I encourage you to give Rust-Oleum's new poly a try, and then, please post a comment to tell us all what you think of it. Hopefully, your results will be as good as mine.
Catch you in the shop,
Chris Marshall, Field Editor]]>
I remember the halcyon days when M2 high speed steel (HSS) turning tools hit the market. No longer did we have to worry about burning at the grinder, and HSS tools held an edge forever — compared to plain carbon steel, anyway.
The last decade has seen a proliferation of turning tools made from exotic powdered steels. Powdered refers to the manufacturing process where iron, with the necessary alloying elements, is mechanically mixed in powder form, then sprayed into a furnace where the powders become plastic but do not melt. The resulting blob is cold worked to form bars for machining. Powdered metal technology allows much higher amounts of alloying metals such as vanadium (which increases edge holding) than conventional blast furnace manufacture. The price of such special handling is significantly higher, but PM steels give extraordinarily longer tool life for metal cutting.
I have long suspected that the metal cutting claims were accurate but did not hold true when cutting wood. In fact, for spindle turning, I feel a good old M2 gouge may hold an edge longer than PM tools. I am speaking from gut experience for I am fortunate to have tried about every new tool on the market. A second factor is that a new turner is going to grind up a tool or two in the "learning to sharpen" process so, for your first couple of tools, the grinder is the enemy and the cheaper the better!
A study James T. Stanley did with his engineering students at North Carolina State University at Raleigh in 2008 confirms my intuitive reaction. Those wanting to read this fascinating paper, can download it here. The study does confirm improvement in edge holding of PM tools when cutting wood but nowhere near the claims for metalworking. For bowl turners who know how to sharpen, the extra price may be salient.
I feel spindle turners are better off with M2 as it takes a keener, burr-free edge more readily. For scrapers, which are used by both spindle and faceplate turners, M2 is vastly superior to carbon or PM steel. Sorry to steal the PM thunder, but that is the way I see it, and I hope I have saved you a buck along the way.
Ernie Conover]]>
Summer may bring dog days and busy vacation schedules, but it's still a great time for woodworking. Our July/August 2012 issue, on sale at newsstands July 3rd, will bring you a full order of projects and tool news to keep your warm-weather woodworking fresh.
Here's a sneak peek at what you'll find in the issue.
Then, swing over to our online store to buy your own copy of the July/August 2012 issue!]]>
Here at Woodworker's Journal, we've been digging deep in our archives to put together our largest collection to date of almost-forgotten projects, articles, tips, techniques and wood science. But the archives where we've been digging aren't exactly Woodworker's Journal archives — at least, not really. Confused?
Longtime readers may remember when two different magazines — Woodworker's Journal and Today's Woodworker — combined into the publication you know today as Woodworker's Journal. Once that happened, Today's Woodworker ceased publication.
Larry Stoiaken, the former editor in chief of Today's Woodworker and current publisher of Woodworker's Journal, said "When our magazine (Today's Woodworker) bought Woodworker's Journal and merged them together, we had to suck it up and admit that they had the better name. So we moved forward with it. But we always knew we had the best projects in the industry…"
As the years went by, it became more and more clear to us that these issues are just too good to keep locked in the vault. OK, to be honest, they're actually in binders on shelves around the office — but it just sounds cooler to say they're locked in a vault. As the resident content guru here at the Journal, one of my jobs is to make sure that all of our archival material is readily accessible for woodworkers looking for great project ideas. Trouble was, most of our Today's Woodworker content was "pre-digital." But that didn't stop me. I put on my analog hat and, with the help of Publishing Assistant Matt Hocking, dug into the back issues. Now, I'm proud to help present the complete Today's Woodworker Collection — all on one CD.
Along with tricks of the trade, finishing advice, wood science and much more that hasn't seen the light of day since the late 1990s, this CD contains over 200 projects for your home and shop. And don't let the 15-plus years since their publication scare you off: these are timeless classics from some of the top woodworkers in the country. You'll even see a younger version of current editor in chief Rob Johnstone (pre-grandpa days).
So click here to buy this incredible collection. After all, haven't you been waiting long enough for this great content?
Matt Becker
Internet Production Coordinator
For many woodworkers, the entire purpose of a garage is to house their tools. Any vehicles are an incidental. For some, however, the bikes are just as important as the woodworking — and we're not talking about the kind they ride on the Tour de France.
We're talking the kind of bike you'd find in Sturgis — or on the show American Chopper. Recently, the stars of that show (Paul Teutul Jr., Rachael Teutul, Vinnie DiMartino and Joe Puliafico) teamed up with SKIL — yes, the name you recognize from woodworking tools — to create a custom show chopper to honor the 75th anniversary of the Worm Drive SkilSAW®. While the traditional celebration of a 75th anniversary involves diamonds, the partnership between SKIL and American Chopper instead created a motorcycle that incorporated parts of a Model 77 SKILSAW, including a housing from that circular saw model used for the air cleaner and headlight and a built-in solid bronze worm gear.
Unveiled at the National Hardware Show in May and aired on two May episodes of the American Chopper reality TV series, the custom chopper, along with a second bike built for daily riding, is currently touring the Western U.S. The daily riding bike will be auctioned of on eBay this fall, with proceeds going to support veterans' housing through The Home Depot Foundation.
Of course, SKIL still wants their tools in your garage, too. The Worm Drive SKILSAW may have been around since 1937, but for the 75th anniversary, they've built a commemorative edition of the Worm
Drive 77 SKILSAW that sports a 75th anniversary nameplate, a custom black fleck paint finish and a chrome aluminum footplate. It's being sold for $189 as the MAG77-75 Worm Drive SKILSAW.
You can find more information about the SKIL 75th anniversary celebration, including tour dates and locations for the choppers, when you click here.
It's been a while since we've posted a reader project here on the blog but that doesn't mean there haven't been some great submissions! This end table showcases shaping skills on the legs and top, along with a forward-thinking finishing choice.
I made this end table made from 4/4 plain cherry. I adapted the design from a wall table design. My wife "put in an order" for an end table with a European provincial look.
Top is made of 2 pieces of biscuited (#20 biscuits) cherry 13″ long x 15″wide. Top upper edges were routed with 1/4″ stem 1″ cove bit. Top overhands stretchers by 1″, overall height is 21″. Legs were sculpted using saber saw.
The was finished in Minwax cherry stain #235 and Minwax Wipe On Polyurethane. I chose poly since the top would be subjected to drink glasses. Final coat was sanded ever so lightly with 1200 just to remove any "fuzz.." So far so good!
- Stan Feinberg, Wantagh, NY
Do you have a project you'd like to share? Click here to send it in!
Matt Becker
Internet Production Coordinator
Over the past few weeks, I've been busy painting, installing garage door openers and running base molding in my new garage/shop. It's been a leisurely process, mostly in the evenings and on weekends, because I don't have a big project on the drawing board quite yet. But, this new shop space is going to get very busy in the next month or so, as I'll be working on a couple of big articles for our October print issue. (Yep, magazines work that far ahead — it isn't even June!)
At some point between coats of paint or sinking nail heads, it occurred to me: this new shop kind of brings me full circle. When my wife and I bought our first home — a cozy little place at about 800 square feet — my first "official" shop was a one-stall garage. We continued to park in that garage, so the space was really tight. Then came a move to central Ohio, and the shop grew from one stall to two. We rarely parked in that garage — or more accurately, we really couldn't.
The shop took precedence, and our cars became driveway fixtures. About six years later, we moved to the country. This time, two stalls became a 30 x 30 ft. portion of a retrofitted barn. Cars once again had a dedicated garage, and I had more shop space than I probably even deserved. That barn retrofit, though, was done entirely by me. There was as much sweat equity put into that space as there was service received from it. Fast forward to last year — and another trans-state move — this time we needed to build a space for woodworking and, I promised my bride, a place where she would always be able to park her car. In the interim between last summer and this spring, while a contracting crew put the building up, I've squirreled the shop into a corner of the basement and waited patiently (more or less) for the new garage/shop to be done. Now it is. The winding road of the past 20 or so years has in fact, turned out to be a circle. I'm back in the garage once more, but this time with a little more elbow room.
All of this is to say, well, any number of things. First, I'm extremely blessed to have had each and every one of these shops over the years. They've helped me enjoy this craft to greater and greater degrees. They've been a source of income and vocation and they've been a place of refuge from a sometimes hectic, frenetic family lifestyle. And, having worked in shops ranging from barely 200 to nearly 1000 square feet, I have a pretty good firsthand appreciation for the variety of shop spaces our readers have. Of course, it doesn't take a lot of room to build amazing projects. We see evidence of that in the mail that comes to our offices every week. But if you've got the room to spare, it sure doesn't hurt, either! Finally, I'm really looking forward to sharing this new space with you over the years to come, in print articles, videos and blog posts like this. Hopefully, what comes out of this room will help inspire you in your hobby, whatever your shop space happens to be.
And I won't apologize if it means your car spends a lot more time in the driveway. I've been there before, and in a manner of speaking, I'm there again.
Catch you in the shop,
Chris Marshall, Field Editor]]>
Isn't it funny that two people can walk through the same town or landscape and find interest in completely different things? On a recent visit to Northern Italy as part of an editorial tour put together by Freud Tools (more on that in a later installment), I found myself strolling along the narrow lanes of Venice, surrounded by flocks of international tourists. Judging by the darting gazes and photos being snapped at warp speed, many of those visitors were taken by a great many of Venice's charms: buildings brimming with amazing architectural history, ubiquitous canals rippled by gondolas and speedboats, etc.. Some tourists simply stood agape, staring at extravagant shop window displays or hunger-inducing restaurant menus. Many folks just wandered, soaking up the amazing scenery on a glorious day.
But, being a woodworker, I couldn't help but notice interesting woodworking just about everywhere I roamed. Take, for example, Venice's ubiquitous water taxis — the preferred and often necessary forms of travel around town. Most of these fiberglass-hulled craft boast ample amounts of "bright work": clear varnished woods, like mahogany and teak, that comprise their decks, hatch covers, dashboards, interiors and all the associated trim. These long, sleek taxis looked like the Italian versions of the vintage Chris-Craft speedboats sometimes seen cruising proudly on lakes in Eastern and northern-Midwestern states. Every inch of Italian water taxi woodwork that I spied was in terrific shape, which makes me believe that there must be droves of busy wood refinishers in Venice!
One of these watercraft took our Freud group across the grand canal to see the San Giorgio Maggiore, a grand 16th century Benedictine church on the island of the same name. Designed by the famous Roman architect Andrea Palladio and built between 1566 and 1610, the church's brilliant white marble façade embodies classical renaissance style. It simply gleams above the blue-green waters that surround it. Inside the church, behind the altar and presbytery (the area reserved for the clergy), is the monk's choir, a room with walls lined with carved wood stalls and seats for the Benedictine monks. Above the stalls, richly carved panels depict religious scenes and create an elegant counterpoint to the stone columns, capitals, and statues seen throughout the church.
Later in my Italian adventure, our Freud group visited a couple of wineries in the Friuli region of northeastern Italy, famous both as a manufacturing center and as a world-class wine region. The area was simply lovely: endless verdant rolling hills (most covered with well-tended grape vines), with breathtaking views of the snow-capped Alps in the distance. After tasting delicate Sauvignons and Pinot Blancs at the Russiz Superiore winery and touring their impressive cellars, I got another unexpected "wood fix": They had an ancient wine press on display in front of the tank shed (where the wine is fermented before being put in barrels for aging). Although no one could tell me exactly how old this press was, or even when it had been retired from service, its heavy hand hewn oak beams, handcarved screw and huge dovetail joints were a delight to behold.
The next day, we left for Udine, a medium-sized town in northeastern Italy not far from the Slovenian border. After visiting Freud's carbide plant and saw blade factory (no wood sightings there; just lots of metal and machinery), we drove through the municipality of Manzano, the self-proclaimed world capital of chair production. This achievement is celebrated by a surprising roadside attraction: a 100-foot-tall chair-shaped monument. But nowadays, there are only 800 chair factories in the area, down from 1,200 just a few years ago. The great majority of the companies are small or medium-sized and family-owned firms and that, at their peak, made 30 percent of all the chairs produced in the world!
Sandor Nagyszalanczy]]>
You may remember that, about a month ago, Chris Marshall brought you news of Rockler Woodworking and Hardware's goal to support the planting of 20,000 hardwood trees through donating the price of a tree to the Hardwood Forestry Fund for every purchase made during the April timeframe leading up to Earth Day.
We're happy to report that the initiative was successful — in fact, they reached the 20,000 tree goal even earlier than they'd hoped. Rockler's marketing vice president, Scott Ekman, commented that, "The event has been hugely successful and has received overwhelming customer support." The 2012 initiative had doubled the goal of new trees planted from the same program last year, raising it from 10,000 in 2011 to 20,000 in 2012.
The Hardwood Forestry Fund, based in Reston, Virginia, plants both seedlings and seeds in the sustainable forests it creates and manages on public lands. The 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization manages those forests on the bases of wildlife habitat, water quality, soil conservation, timber products and natural resource education. Ekman further commented, "Hitting our goal tells us our customers really understand the importance of supporting organizations like the Hardwood Forestry Fund, and we in turn extend our support."
This year, that support just happens to come in the form of 20,000 new trees.
During a recent visit to the Anderson Horticultural Library at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, the librarian was kind enough to show me their collection of Hough's American Woods. The pages you see pictured do not contain photographs – they're actually three pieces of veneer for each species, along with a description and information contained in the booklets.
They are in incredible condition considering the age (see below), and the library has one of the few complete collections in existence.
I wasn't familiar with this collection, but fortunately Tim Knight responded to my inquiry (within an hour, no less…) with the following information.
[Romeyn Beck] Hough is well known in forestry circles, not by this volume, but from his Handbook of Trees of the Northern United States and Canada which was used by many universities to teach dendrology.
His series Hough's American Woods was actually a series of portfolios covering differing regions. For example, the first four volumes (I-IV) covered woods of the north Atlantic coast, and volume V covered North Florida. He didn't revisit southern Florida until volume XIII. These portfolios were issued to subscribers, and few complete sets were purchased for two reasons: 1) It took him from 1888 to 1913 to publish them all, so not many subscribers hung in there throughout, and 2) most subscribers only purchased those of particular interest to them since foresters in the North Atlantic states had little interest in California species. Hence the reason so few complete sets exist. In addition, most sets contain volumes from differing years as he published on different years and he reissued past volumes on the same year he was issuing new first editions. Incomplete sets have sold for varying amounts and usually average greater than $1,000 to $5,000 per volume. Appraisals have ranged from $30,000 and up for complete sets. I saw one complete set in North Carolina State University's rare book collection, and I think the New York Public Library also owns one. BTW, he was self-published and charged $5.oo per volume!
You'll learn more about the purpose of my visit to the Arboretum in the July/August 2012 print issue (and believe me, it was a REALLY good reason), but seeing this collection in person was certainly worth the visit on its own.
Matt Becker
One of the most popular finishes these days is the so-called "shabby chic," a modern term for what we used to call antique finish. Why would you want to take new furniture and intentionally make it look old? Strange though it may seem, there's actually a very good reason.
Let's say you have a spot where an antique would be just the ticket, but not just any antique. You want a certain style of furniture, in just the right color, with the perfect amount and type of wear; not too much, and only worn in the right places. You'd want a piece still in great structural condition that looks as though it was painted years ago, then was gently but regularly used. In other words, something that looks timeworn, but not bereft.
Obviously, finding just the right style and color in an antique would be difficult enough; to then find one worn precisely the amount you want, and with the wear in an artistic pattern, is well nigh impossible. However, it's quite easy for you to reproduce it.
Typically, we start by staining the raw wood, then sealing it with a clear sealer, such as Zinsser Bullsye® SealCoat™. Once the sealer is dry, paint the whole thing in a solid color (or colors, for the artistic) with acrylic or latex paint. So far, we've mimicked a stained "natural" finish that eventually was painted over.
Now, we'll add years of use. With fine sandpaper, medium nylon abrasive pads, or even steel wool, wear the paint away in those areas it would most likely have worn in actual use. Usually that's the high points: the edges of raised panels, corners, knuckles on feet and arms, and so on. Wear more or less to your taste, and wherever it looks stylish to you. The sealer will make it easy to wear the paint away, and nicely stained wood will show beneath, imparting a realistic aged look.
You can leave it like that, or add some accumulated "dirt" to the paint with dry brushing, a technique that adds color by glancing over the surface with a brush whose bristle tips have been scrubbed into diluted artist pigment until almost dry. As before, add the "dirt" where you think it would have accumulated. The most realistic colors for this are burnt umber and raw umber. (I'll explain dry brushing in depth in a future blog.)
Once you have the look you like, let it dry and seal it with a coat of matte or satin water-based polyurethane. One coat of clear should be enough.
There. You've done shabby chic. Now you, too, can call yourself a designer.
Michael Dresdner]]>
In the last two days, your intrepid editor has traveled to Venice, Italy and then up to Udine, Italy, to learn about Irwin's newest entry into the circular saw blade market. Now, I understand that you might be feeling sorry for me … Venice in May is hard to take … but fear not, I am holding up well.
The exciting news is that these new saw blades from Irwin, launched under the Marples brand, look like the real deal. Not only are they made from some of the finest materials around, but to tremendously exacting standards. More on that in subsequent blog entries, but suffice it to say, there is a new serious contender in the high quality carbide-tipped saw blade market.
I would write more … but the water taxi is waiting to take me to a lovely restaurant on the lagoon.
Ciao for now!
Rob Johnstone, Woodworker's Journal
I was reorganizing some paperwork the other day, when I ran across a file that contained letters, manuscripts and notes from master wood finisher George Frank. I worked with George when I was an editor at Fine Woodworking magazine. I was originally assigned to work with George because he and I were both Hungarians and so could converse in our native tongue. Over the years, George became not only a treasured colleague of mine, but I also kind of became his adoped grandson; he had no male children of his own. George passed away nearly 15 years ago, at the ripe old age of 94.
Now, if you don't know who George Frank is, I strongly suggest you pick up a copy of his classic book: Adventures in Wood Finishing, published back in the 80s by the Taunton Press. That book will certainly not teach you everything there is to know about finishing wood. But just as certainly, you'll be greatly entertained by George's tales from his remarkable career starting back in the 1920s in Paris, France. He recounts stories (that some may call tall tales), like the time he was an apprentice finisher and his firm had been hired to stain and varnish the cabinetry in a bank. Due to a mix-up, the color of the stain ended up a couple of shades lighter than was desired, and the bank was supposed to reopen just a day later. So, the young apprentice approached the boss and said, "I know how to fix this." He had his workmen brew up strong batches of ammonia, which were left heating in pots inside the sealed bank. Hours later, the fumes had penetrated the finish on the cabinetry and reacted with the tannins in the wood, thus darkening it to the desired degree and saving the job! Some years later, the accomplished Mr. Frank opened his own "Atelier" shop at 88 Rue de Charonne in Paris and, over the following decades, performed commissions for some very famous clients, including celebrities, millionaires and even a prince.
As I read through the correspondence in my "George Frank" file, many of the stories he wrote for his books and magazine articles came flooding back to me (including a few that were a little too bawdy for general publication, like how the art of wood finishing began in a French bordello). I was also reminded of some of the stories he told me in person, during my many visits to his home and shop in Naples, Florida. By far the most colorful story he told was about the time he had worked as a restorer for the Louvre Museum. George told me how he had discovered that many famous paintings on display in the museum were actually expert copies, and that the real paintings (too valuable to hang within the public's reach) were stored in special vaults beneath the museum. After months of planning, George was able to "sneak out" a couple of these real paintings — including none other than DaVinci's Mona Lisa! He did finally give the Mona Lisa back. But instead of going to jail for stealing it, George claimed he managed to get a commendation for recovering it! Whether or not you believe this tale, or some of George's other fantastic adventures, they'll always remain as entertaining legacies of an extraordinary man.
Sandor Nagyszalanczy]]>
It's been a long winter of construction at my home, but we're finally nearly done adding a new garage/workshop to the property. As you can probably guess, I can't wait to get the lights on and the machines moved in! For four months, I've felt like a kid trying to fall asleep on Christmas Eve night.
This week, electrical receptacles and wiring were roughed in — a job I would have done myself if this building hadn't been contracted out. I'm one of those DIYers that actually likes doing electrical work. But this time, I'm really glad I didn't do it myself. Here's why: the electrician had a much better plan than I did.
Forty-plus years of doing residential and commercial wiring teaches a guy many things. This time, I'm lucky enough to benefit from his experience. His advice: "We put shop outlets 44 inches up from the floor. Standard backsplash height for a base cabinet. Then you'll never have to reach behind things to plug stuff in."
A brilliant idea. Simple and smart.
In my last shop, I ran the outlets at the typical wall height — about 16 in. off the floor. That placement might work in a living room, but (as I learned during the five years in that shop) you put anything against the wall, and reaching those wall outlets becomes a real pain in the posterior. Despite the fact that my outlets were too low, though, I did do a couple things right. I loaded the walls with outlets — about every 4 ft., and I wired them for equal numbers of 220-volt and 110-volt outlets. I never had to look far for either type. I really believe you can never have too many outlets in a shop … and I feel the same way about lights. A shop can never be TOO bright.
So this time around, the pattern will be pretty much the same: 220- and 110-volt outlets in pairs, all around the shop. Even the veteran electrician gave that plan a nod of approval. And, one of the receptacles on the ceiling, placed pretty much dead center, will also be 220-volts. I'm planning to rewire a retractable reel so I can pull power down for the table saw, then retract it when it's not needed. No more running an extension cord across the floor this way.
If you're thinking about adding some new receptacles to your shop, I hope something here can be of help to you, too.
Catch you in the shop,
Chris Marshall, Field Editor
Like the proverbial shoemaker's children that are perpetually barefoot, my own home doesn't have a whole lot of furniture that I built myself. I save most of my woodworking energy for building projects for the Woodworker's Journal or when I do "pro bono work" for the Shakespearean theater company that my wife works for (the latter has consisted of mostly creating large, freestanding poster displays and a collection box).
But every once in a while, a project comes along that I have difficulty saying no to. In this case, I was recently contacted by a prominent local business owner who lives in a gorgeous house only a half a block from one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline that California has to offer. He asked me if I would consider building him a large L-shaped shelf unit that would wrap around a partially curved wall in his home office/man cave.
The unit has to serve a number of different purposes: 1. To hold a fairly large collection of books on audio, music, software design and other technical topics (this man is one of the owners of a prominent professional audio equipment and musical software company). 2. To house a wi-fi router, printer, and other pieces of peripheral computer equipment. 3. To organize and protect a large collection of vintage comic books. 4. Provide a way to store assorted pieces of equipment and accessories out of sight, to keep the room from looking cluttered. 5. Provide diffuse lighting in the room. The design of the piece has to fit in with the architectural style and materials of the man's home, which is built in what I'd call "California contemporary beach" style, with lots of clear-finished wood (floors, stairs, cabinets, trim) with stainless steel accents (railings, balusters, door and cabinet hardware) and, of course, a ton of windows to let in all that fabulous California sunshine (I'm saying this tongue-in-cheek, as we're currently being bombarded by a rainstorm that's supposed to last for nearly a week!).
Considering the biggest specific purpose of the unit — housing vintage comic books — I began my design process by figuring out how best to store and organize all those comics, yet provide my client with ready access to them. Pullout drawers on full-extension guides seemed the best solution, and because there are enough comics to create a stack 18 feet high (!!), the design called for two layers of wide drawers on both the legs of the shelf unit. Each draw would hold two side-by-side stacks of comics stored on-edge. This arrangement creates a low console about 18 in. deep and 26 in. high, which I thought would give the unit good visual weight (see my preliminary sketch). To keep the rest of the unit visually lighter, I decided to use 3/8 in. by 1 ¾ in. stainless bar stock for the shelf standards to support the cherry wood shelves. The steel standards would be brush finished, to match other stainless hardware in the house.
Where the long end of the "L" shape section of the unit wraps around a gently curving wall, I decided to make a curved cabinet at the end of the lower console with a pair of coopered doors that follow the curve of the wall. The shelves above the curved cabinet have a smaller front edge radius curve, while the back edge matches the wall's curve. At the top of the unit, the stainless standards terminate into a fixed-top shelf that's 10 in. below the room's ceiling. Shallow light fixtures (probably LEDs) controlled by a dimmer mount atop these shelves, to provide diffuse room lighting. A lip molding at the edge of this top shelf helps conceal the fixtures.
That's as far as I've gotten with the shelf unit so far; stay tuned for future blog entries where I'll report on the progress of this project.
Sandor Nagyszalanczy]]>
A while back, we brought you news of proposed federal rulemaking that would influence table saws. This week, a committee in the California legislature approved a similar bill at the state level. The "AB 2218 Table Saw Safety Act," originally introduced by Assemblyman Das Williams (D), "Prohibits the sale of any new table saw on or after January 1, 2015, unless that table saw is equipped with active injury mitigation technology."
"Active injury mitigation technology" is defined in the bill as "technology to detect contact with, or dangerous proximity between, a hand or finger and the teeth of the blade above the table top of a table saw, and to prevent the blade from cutting the hand or finger deeper than one-eighth of an inch when the hand or finger approaches any portion of the blade above the table top at a speed of one foot per second from any direction and along any path."
This week's action in the California State Assembly saw the Committee on Business, Professions and Consumer Protection pass the bill, on an 8 to 1 vote, with referral to the Committee on Appropriations. Nine trade groups, including the California Medical Association, California State Council of Laborers, Consumer Attorneys of California and the State Building and Construction Trades Council, are listed as having registered support for the bill. No opposition is on file.
At this time, no date has been set for the Committee on Appropriations' hearing of AB 2218 Table Saw Safety Act. You can follow the bill's progress at the following link, by inputting the bill number:
Full text of the bill is available as .pdf here:
Contact information for California Assembly members, including websites, mailing addresses and office phone numbers, can be found here:
A listing of members of the California State Assembly Committee on Appropriations, with contact information, is here:
(Assemblyman Curt Hagman (R) was the sole member of the Committee on Business, Professions and Consumer Protection to vote against passing the bill to Appropriations; those voting aye were Michael Allen (D), Bill Berryhill (R), Betsy Butler (D), Mike Eng (D), Mary Hayashi (D), Jerry Hill (D), Fiona Ma (D) and Cameron Smyth (R).)
Here's a cool thing Rockler Woodworking and Hardware is doing for Earth Day this year, but if you haven't made a Rockler purchase lately, you might not be aware of it.
From now through April 22—Earth Day—Rockler will make a donation to the Hardwood Forestry Fund for every online, catalog and retail purchase made. The company's goal is to double the number of new trees planted last year on its behalf to 20,000 this year.
The Hardwood Forestry Fund (HFF) will use Rockler's donation to plant trees in the United States on public lands that are managed by professional foresters. HFF is a not-for-profit educational organization that plants and manages commercially valuable hardwoods, including black cherry, black walnut, red oak, hard maple, hickory and ash, among others. These trees include a management plan as well as a harvest and regeneration schedule.
Here's a great way to buy the products you need for your projects this month, while also "paying it forward" so that future generations of woodworkers can enjoy the benefits of rich timber forests, too. Here's an opportunity where everybody wins.
Catch you in the shop,
Chris Marshall, Field Editor]]>
Field Editor Chris Marshall takes you on a quick tour of summertime projects and tool news in our May/June 2012 print issue of Woodworker's Journal Magazine.]]>