I think I figured it out. Go back up to the top of this page and read the header title by my spokeshave logo:

“The Renaissance Woodworker; So Many Projects…So Little Time, Welcome to Woodworking A-D-D”

I adopted this tag line more than 2 years ago when I started this blog because I was fascinated by all styles and methods of construction. I would like to think that my tastes have become more focused lately and there is no doubt that I have a special place in my heart for period styles of the 18th century. However, I still love Arts & Crafts, Asian, Mid Century Modern, Danish, etc, etc. I have gravitated to a hand tool approach but I still get as excited as the next guy by a roaring planer and precision table saw cut. This is my cross to bear: woodworking attention deficit disorder.

This is why I am so slow. Too many balls in the air and projects in the shop.

This rather lengthy prelude is a way of leading into the introduction of yet another project in my shop. Right now I have my Queen Anne Side Table sitting patiently off in a corner waiting for me to spray on some Shellac. I am building a checkerboard style banding to inlay into a Walnut 2 drawer hall table as well as preparing stringing for the drawer fronts. Once that is done I will apply Shellac at the same time at the side table. I have 2 Adirondack chairs built and awaiting finish that I salvaged from my picnic table that collapsed under the February snows and a patio table under construction from that same Redwood. On the lumber rack I have close to 100 board feet of Pennsylvania Cherry and curly Cherry acclimating for The Wood Whisperer Guild summer chest of drawers build. Related to that project I have milled up 3″ square blocks of Poplar to practice ball & claw foot carving and have 6 of those blanks laying about in various stages of completion. All of this within the confines of my 340 square foot shop.

So I think I should add another project to that don’t you? My wife has a need for a small book shelf for her voice studio at work. This is where she teaches her private voice lessons and rather than running back and forth to her office every time she needs a piece of music she wants a place to store them right in the small studio. It cannot be anymore than 34″ high so it can fit under a windowtherefore I am making it with 1:1 proportions. Knowing that I have many other projects underway, she insisted that it need not be complex but still be pretty. I know that the kids who filter through her studio are parented by some of the wealthy elite in Baltimore and those parents often make appearances. Also this book shelf will be clearly visible to all who pass by on the way to the main theater. In other words I am building something that will essentially be sitting in a gallery frequented by people who can afford custom furniture. This is a great opportunity to build something small and simple thus giving me a lot of opportunity to embellish it with some fine points and lines so as to impress the passersby.

I will go into more detail on this build in future posts but I’ll tease you now with the template I have formed for the bottom feet and lower apron trim.

French Foot and front apron will be trimmed with a 1/4\

This French foot sweeps nicely into the trim where the change in radius of the curve punctuates the transition and sweeps elegantly across the whole piece in an elliptical shape. This is derived from Hepplewhite’s design book and some of his chests of drawers therein. It will be fun to see it come together using some modern techniques, time saving measures, and cost saving lumber.

So, the upshot of all of this is I will do my best to keep the cameras rolling and will report to all of my fragrant and beautiful readers. However, I really think I need to move some of this stuff to the completed column or I won’t have any place to step in the shop. Stay tuned to this Bat channel for more on what I am calling my Hepplewhite Low Bookcase.

Feet rough cut and ready to carve

A case could be made for each as to which is the best tool for the job. Without a deadline and a yearning to understand how it used to be done you could say the turning saw is the best tool for the job. If you are on the clock then the band saw method is definitely the best tool. Ultimately I think you need to figure out what you personally enjoy about your woodworking and decide from there. I enjoy working with old tools to see how they work but I’m not a big fan of drudgery. Cutting one of these feet was enough for me to get my fix and continuing to do so with the turning saw would have become tedious. What I am really looking forward to is the carving aspect of these feet and I am anxious to get there quickly so in this case I think the band saw was really the best tool for the job.

What’s my point? Woodworking is subjective and we each derive our joy from it in different ways. The best tool for the job is the tool that makes you smile the most. ’nuff said!

Now who can guess which foot was cut by hand?

In my non-stop effort to be difficult, I am ratcheting things up a notch and building a 4 drawer chest based on the designs of Major John Dunlap and Lieutenant Samuel Dunlap of New Hampshire. The Dunlaps are part of a legacy of immigration that took lowland Scots who emigrated to the Ulster area of Northern Ireland and then eventually on to New Hampshire and Maine in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. This nomadic existence was mostly driven by religious persecution since these people were mostly Presbyterian living among predominantly Catholic societies. In fact, once settled in New Hampshire primarily, some of this persecution continued as it was assumed these Scots-Irish were Catholic based upon their nationalistic origins. It seems that the Scots-Irish spent more time declaring what they were not than defining who they were. This checkered past yields the name Scots-Irish and the designs from this group are endearing, whimsical, idiosyncratic, and just plain weird. It is interesting because the towns of Antrim, and Londonderry are not so far from the major style hub of Boston that dictated most of the furniture details in New England. The Dunlaps worked primarily during the Rococo or Chippendale period so being in New England we would expect detailed, asymmetric carvings, massive structures with lower centers of gravity and powerful ambiance like this Highboy built in Boston around 1750. I took this pictures at the Winterthur Museum by the way.

In contrast the Dunlap cabinetry style adds an element of whimsy with unique and elaborate carvings unlike anything we see coming out of New England at the time. In some ways the ornamentation hearkens back to a Baroque style. Basket woven galleries and almost Celtic derived scrollwork adorn the tops and bottoms of the cases. A signature flowered ogee molding is seen as a punctuation mark between elements and upon closer examination seems to be a minimalist version of architectural egg and dart moldings. Deep lower cases are prevalent that seem to embrace the Chippendale massiveness but take it one step further. With the deeper lower cases came more elaborate scrollwork as well. This piece is somewhat iconic of this style and includes much of what I just mentioned.

Here is another example taken from Paul Rulli’s website. Notice the somewhat disproportionate upper and lower cases.

A Paul Rulli Dunlap reproduction

Here is a close look at the iconic basket weave and Peacock fan typically seen on Dunlap pieces. You will also see the flower ogee molding above and below the top gallery.

Paul Rulli's fine carving work on the Dunlap reproduction

I will be curious to hear some of your thoughts on this piece. It is certainly different and in my opinion somewhat ugly. I think the offensive nature of it is what really attracted me and stirred me into further research. In many ways this style has grown on me and I believe when taken in moderation it can yield some amazing pieces. I think some of the most constructive design exercises can be done when you force yourself to play in areas that you don’t like. So if we take away some of the disproportions of the above piece, mellow down the carvings a little, and apply the chest of drawer form to it we end up with this piece which will be the subject of my next Guild build.

This chest was mostly likely built by Lt. Samual Dunlap around 1795 and you will see that the proportions are more pleasing but the stubby feet keep that extreme low center of gravity to the piece. The distinctive flowered ogee molding is present as well. I think some of the reasons for this overall mellowing of the style is that period in which this was constructed. The idiosyncratic Dunlap style was really one for the American Revolution generations and as we move into the 19th century, this began to lessen.

So I see many challenges ahead during this build. For one the integral bead detail on the case and drawer blades will be a test since each joint will have to be mitered to keep a continuous flowing line throughout. This will be my first attempt at ball and claw feet as well and I am already gearing up for that by doing some practice pieces in Poplar. The chest will be done in Cherry and if possible curly Cherry for the drawer fronts. So stay tuned for updates here as I start out on my next project.

By the way, I highly recommend the book “The Dunlap Cabinetmakers” for a much more detailed look into this style of furniture.

I few years ago, I ponied up the dough for a Festool sander and dust extractor hoping this would take the coughing out of the equation. This system does it’s job admirably and I can even work without a respirator most of the times and just turn on my ambient air cleaner. The problem is that the hose and cord really get in the way and wear you out as the weight of the cord always wants to pull the sander out of your hand. Festool makes a nifty boom arm for their extractors to loft the hose and power cord up out of the way and takes the weight off the sander, but my 7 foot shop ceilings just won’t accommodate it.

So when faced with sanding the Redwood parts for 2 Adirondack chairs and a table, I finally went in search of a solution. It was in my garden shed of all places. I used to hang my mountain bike up in the garage and I have one of those heavy duty rubber coated hooks still laying about. Find a stud in the ceiling near my bench, screw in the hook and problem solved.

Now with the weight of the hose and cord taken off the sander, it just floats over the work piece and does its job like it should. No more sore wrists trying to hold the sander on the benchtop. Surprisingly, this big sanding job just went by without incident.

Of course it was helped along by a Best of Wil Ferrell SNL DVD in the player.

This solution was so simple that I almost hesitated to post it, but I began thinking about all the tiny little creature comforts and time saving tips/devices that we woodworkers implement into our own shops and thought I would share in case anyone else out there is having this problem.

What tiny additions make your woodworking better? Leave a comment and share it with us.

I am creating some templates for ball & claw feet as well as some trim molding for the chest of drawers I will be building next as part of The Wood Whisperer Guild summer build. I thought I would bring you all along with this process since I haven’t really found much published on it and I believe this is a skill all woodworkers should have.

Let me first say that you need not have a set of plans with a grid overlaid although that is helpful and pretty commonly available. If you only have a photograph you can add your own grid and calculate your dimensions using some known quantities. This is probably a topic for it’s own post but I just wanted to put it out there as a possibility.

In this specific case I knew I was dealing with a 1/2″ grid so I laid out a 1/2″ grid on a piece of stiff cardboard. I normally would use something like hardboard or thin ply but this is what I had on hand and it is really heavy cardboard.

Now I begin looking at the drawing and marking dots on my grid where the drawing intersect the grid. You don’t need to get hyper accurate here and I tend break each grid square down into quarters and mark the dot at the quarter or halfway point. Pay particular attention to your place on the grid and make sure you follow the drawing. By the end of this exercise you have something like this.

All that is left to do is connect the dots. I did this with a Sharpie marker so it would show up on camera better but I sketched in the lines with pencil first and shaped the curves to my liking. This is the point where you can add your own character to the design or focus on getting the reproduction just right.

Now I just need to cut out the pattern, refine it to the curve and I’m set to start shaping my blanks.

I had a lot of fun building this piece entirely by hand and it was very satisfying to put my skills to the test this way. Now for the next project, I think I am ready to plug my thickness planer back in and probably my bandsaw too!

Enjoy!

You can reach us by email at woodtalkonline@gmail.com or you can pick up the phone and leave us a message on our voice mail at 623-242-2450. Or you can find us on Twitter as @MBWPodcast, @WoodWhisperer, and @RenaissanceWW and also on Facebook too.

Topics:
Eye Safety: Shannon had a close call and learned a little about eye injuries and treatment
Our “Just for Fun” Projects
Popular Woodworking – its been a few months with the new format. Are they living up to promise?
Fine Woodworking’s Call for Bloggers
Which woodworking styles you think everyone should master
And drum sanders.

Events:
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Around the Web:
Tico Vogt enters the shooting board market with the Super Chute
New Bad Axe saws: 12 & 14″ saws
Sketchucation.com
Popular Woodworking’s writeup about Treefrog’s Maloof-inspired chair
TreeFrog’s Finale
Forum Thread: The Woodworking Funk
LumberJocks Summer Awards

Voicemails:
Jim – Drum sander advice

Sweet Deals:
Lee Valley – Free Shipping until July 11th http://www.leevalley.com/us/home/page.aspx?p=60912
Craftsmanplans.com “Woodworker’s Guide to Sketchup” by Bob Lang, $30 & no shipping til July 1 http://craftsmanplans.com/sketchup.htm
July 1. Czeck Edge Tool 5th anniversay sale. Free shipping on orders over $30 http://czeckedge.com/

PeachTree Woodworking 4th of July Sale- 25% off Everything Ends July 4th. Use code July 1.
Penn State Industries – buy 3 pens of same style, get 1 free until 7/1; hurry
Woodcraft – free shipping on orders $25 or greater until 7/6

Carter Products – $30 off Quick Release or Jet/Delta 14″ guide set use code MUSA10
From David White: $32.50 Diamond Sharpening Stone
Eagle America – $4 shipping orders under $99/ Free Shipping over $99 till July 5th use code E2100623

Tip Clips:
Tom’s Tip – Use the lube!!
See more from Tom at TomsWorkbench.com

I think you get my point. The explosion of woodworkers today is driven by the armies of office workers penned up in their cubicles by day yearning to make something that you can touch, and possibly break a sweat along the way. As I will illustrate, this is not a new idea.

Article A

This little beauty is a hobby saw from the Victorian period. We have more of these than I can count at the Steppingstone Museum. The industrial revolution brought many advances including mass produced tools. Along with this, we saw the addition of free time to the average Joe. It wasn’t necessarily the dawn to dusk grind to survive anymore so people found themselves yearning for a creative outlet to use up that time. This saw is treadle driven, but lightweight and very compact. The tiny table and throat of the saw doesn’t make it practical for anything but knick-knacks but you can see how someone could have a good time in the parlor making tiny fretwork to adorn their home.

Article B

This little lathe is of the same ilk as the above scroll saw. The treadle pedal (that’s fun to say) is missing and the belt needs repairing, but you can see the diminutive size would not make it very useful for major project work. However, I can see a candlestick or two being turned for enjoyment. This particular model may also have been a salesman’s model. It is the mini-me version of a larger lathe we have in the collection and this leads us to think a salesman may have carted this around door to door to demonstrate the latest “wonder of technology” Regardless, I can also see someone sitting by the fire on a cold night making that perfect Christmas gift for a loved one.

Working around all these treadle powered tools does make me appreciate the simplicity of hard work and the enjoyment that comes from building something yourself using your own power. So respect your table saw and be thankful for the work it does for you, but maybe you might want to pick up a handtool and build some muscle too. Just imagine that when all our natural resources are used up and we need to go back to treadle power just to turn on our lights how well prepared you will be.

If you haven’t read it yet, The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi is an interesting take on a post energy crash world where the treadle computer is an everyday occurrence.

Enjoy the show!

I am hard at work trying to decipher this little conundrum and I thank you for your patience. A special thanks to Rob Bois and Christopher Schwarz for emailing me directly to bring this problem to my attention. I hope to have this problem fixed soon.

ALERT FOR SHAMELESS PLUG: if you know anyone looking for online marketing help give me a call or drop me a line.

Anyway, I have been slowing getting my feet under me at the museum and getting acquainted with all the tools as well as doing some restoration and tuning to get everything into working order. I came across this odd little coping saw hanging high on the wall above our treadle lathe and took it down to put it through it’s paces. The saw has a chain mechanism attached to an axle at the top that allows you to steer the blade without fear of breaking it because you introduce too much twist. With the axle at the top, both sides of the blade turn in unison really smoothly. Now with this flexibility comes a disadvantage because the frame of the saw turns freely about the handle and you cannot lock it in place.

Interesting Steering Mechanism for your Coping saw

This freedom of movement means that you really need both hands to cut with the saw. In use though it turns on a dime and with it’s larger through capacity and blade length (about 12×8) you can really use it much like a smaller frame saw. I like to call this saw a Steampunk Coping saw!

Stay tuned for more oddities from the Steppingstone Museum tool vault!

or the video

You can reach us by email at woodtalkonline@gmail.com or you can pick up the phone and leave us a message on our voice mail at 623-242-2450. Or you can find us on Twitter as @MBWPodcast or @WoodWhisperer or @RenaissanceWW and also on Facebook too.

Topics:
Pore-Filling
Glen Drake dovetail saw
Project Bucket List

Around the Web:
The Woodshop Widget
iPod/iPhone/iPad App
Alison Heath’s Workbench Marketing

Voicemails:
Bart – Wood vs metal planes. Opinions on Power planes.
Dyami- Tablesaw adjustment mechanism.

Sweet Deals:
Noden Inlay Razor Kit: Normally priced at $249.00, the Noden Inlay Razor is available for special introductory pricing of $199.00.
Woodcraft – spend $75 or more, get a free knife code 62610
Highland Woodworking – 192900 Earlex HV2900 HVLP Sprayer w/ a free copy of Jeff Jewitt’s Spray Finishing Made Simple Book & DVD $149.99

Tip Clips:
Tom’s Tip – Get a Wedgie!
See more from Tom at TomsWorkbench.com
Kari’s tip – Carpet Tape
Enjoy more of Kari’s work at Villagecarpenter.blogspot.com

After regaling him with my own stories from the shop I was given a provisional Journeyman title. The provision being that I had to prove my skills throughout the day. We then took a tour of the workshop and it’s tools as well as our adjoining barns displays of Farming and Coopering tools. Wade told me that since I was there not only to volunteer but learn that I would not be expected to interact with the guests and I could just keep working as the guests are just as interested in watching the work as they are in asking questions. I immediately shuffled that off and told him that I was most looking forward to speaking with the guests and telling woodworking stories. I was after all a performance major in college. I seem to always be looking for a stage.

During the shop tour I learned a lot about the tool collection. It turns out The Steppingstone Museum has over 40,000 tools in it’s collection so we have to keep most of them in controlled storage and occasionally rotate new ones in. The overriding principle though is that all the tools in the shop be in working condition and ready to be taken down off the wall and put to work. Certainly some of the tools in the collection are rare enough and beat up enough that they stay in storage so as to protect them. It does seem a shame that so many tools don’t see the light of day or taste the wood and sweat of woodwork, but I imagine this dilemma is at the heart of most museum curation. You want to share what you have with the public, but to do so degrades and jeopardizes the artifact. With our shop being open to the elements (we have a roof but only three walls and no AC) the level of protection we can offer is quite small. I did discover a great new “tool” called Ballistal that is used to protect everything. It was invented by a German prior to World War II for German soldiers to protect their gear from the elements. The idea was to have one product that would care for metal, leather, and wood. This stuff is still being made today and is sold as Sportsman’s oil. It applies much like Boeshield T9 but you can also buy it in liquid form. The museum applies this to their tools once a year and that keeps them rust free! Here I am oiling and waxing my planes constantly! I’m thinking a switch may be in order.

Before long we had guests wandering through the barns and I hung back a little to let Wade take up the narration about the farm and it’s history hoping to soak up as much history as I could. We had a family down from Pennsylvania who was particularly interested in the Cooper display and while Wade was taking them through that process, I peeked next store into the main shop to see if anyone else had come by. Sure enough we had several more people pop in so I wandered in to see if I could answer any questions.

Fast forward 3 hours later and you will find me seated at the bicycle style treadle lathe turning beads and demonstrating infinite speed variability and forward and reverse capabilities for smoothing a cut. In the back of the shop are a couple of ripped and crosscut boards, and several boards in various stages of flattening. As my surge of guests moved on and I caught my breath I realized Wade had been watching me from across the shop.

“Yep, you’re officially a Journeyman now.” he said with a smile.

Not a bad first day and I think I hold the record for shortest completed apprenticeship in history now.

Wade Whitlock, the master joiner on the premise introduced me to their treadle saw and I was surprised that it is not operator driven but rather required the assistance of two others to drive the “pedals” on the outfeed side of the saw. Wade explained that oftentimes, local vagrants would be hired for the day to drive the saw and were paid just enough for them to go out and get drunk that night thereby giving this saw the term “alcohol powered”. As one person pushes down on a pedal the other pedal directly across from it rises and then that person pushes down. It was quite difficult to get started and Wade explained that there was close to 600 lbs of iron underneath the table that we were toiling to get rolling. Once it got started though, you didn’t want to get in the way of those pedals if you fell off. A fellow onlooker and I tried it out while Wade went about crosscutting some Beech using a crude miter gauge. My wife took a video of it, but really all you can see is my backside as I jump up and down on an oak pedal. Really not the most flattering angle so I am choosing to leave it to your imagination…for now…

And here is where lies the exciting news oh dear readers. Posted on the wall of the shop was a call for woodworkers to volunteer with the museum. I quickly inquired with Wade and he explained that he is looking for someone to help them out as there are only two woodworkers currently working at the museum. In exchange for my time, Wade and the other master, John Weifenbach, would take me on as an apprentice and train me in the traditional woodworking ways. I could advance as fast as my skills would permit so Wade acknowledged that I might quickly advanced through the basics since I already had some hand tool experience. Regardless of what he thinks, I’m looking forward to learning the basics all over again from a 19th century perspective. So after applying formerly to the museum and some organizational emails, it is official! I will be the newest Joiner at the Steppingstone museum starting this Saturday, June 5th. Wade said he is going to start me on sharpening and see how quickly I advance from there. I guess I had better leave my Veritas MKII honing guide at home.

So if you are anywhere near the Mid Atlantic region, look up the Steppingstone museum near Havre de Grace, Maryland right at the head of the Chesapeake Bay and pay me a visit. I’ll be working weekends from 1-4 and I’m sure you will find me jumping up and down on the pedals of a treadle table saw. If you bring the beer (nod to Chris Schwarz) you can help power the beast too. In the coming weeks we will be hosting a Celtic Festival on June 12th and 13th and then a Blues Festival on June 26th and 27th. Come by for some beautiful scenery (and I don’t mean the tool collection although that helps), good food, and great music. I can’t promise I’ll be wearing a kilt so don’t get your hopes up!

Finally, I have had a few conversations with the museum staff about starting up a blog for them and I am hoping to get this started shortly where I can regale you with tales from the shop and the museum’s other trades and events. Stay tuned for more news on that soon. In the meantime check out this video posted by my local county board of tourism.

Turn it into this with some resawing, crosscutting, joinery, etc…

How can you not want to be a woodworker?

Happy Memorial Day to my American friends, now let’s go get into our shops!

If you saw my mouth watering video tour of Hearne Hardwoods that I put up a few weeks back you will know that I took a trip up to central PA to visit The Acanthus Workshop again. This school, run by Chuck Bender, is so much more than just a series of classes about building furniture. It is a peek inside the shop and mind of a successful professional cabinetmaker with 30+ years of experience.

I was there to complete my “apprentice” program with Chuck with his Fundamentals 3 class. This series of 3 classes is the prerequisite to more complex projects offered throughout the year. You can of course talk to Chuck about taking any of his Journeyman or Masters level classes and essentially “test out” of the prerequisites, but I was interested in learning some of the basics from someone who has spent some time in the saw dusty trenches. Like many self taught woodworkers weaned in the halls of the Internet, I am a fount of information and a desert of experience. Sure I have built my fair share of furniture, but nothing compared to the quantity of pieces Chuck has turned out over the years. It is this experience that has him brimming with tricks and time saving techniques that enticed me to return for this class.

The final apprentice class was a culmination of sorts. In fundamentals 1 we learned all about wood science and hand tools. Fundamentals 2 was plugged in and we threw chips and dust about with electron smashing abandon. Fundamentals 3 was now time to put our skills into action and build an entire piece from concept to finish.

Day One began at the shop. We discussed the project of the hour: a small one drawer Shaker Table. Sound familiar? Yes this is the same table I built on commission last Spring and the same table The Wood Whisperer Guild built in March of this year. So in order to be difficult and challenge myself I decided to build a two drawer hall table of sorts. I planned to embellish it in a few ways to add some classical and Victorian charm to it. The eventual resting place will probably be in the entrance hall of the web marketing agency where I spend my days. Our office is in a beautiful old Victorian house right at the head of the Chesapeake Bay so it seems appropriate.

How do you begin a project? What do you base your design upon? We answered these questions and many more by starting with a photograph and deriving dimensions from it using a perspective driven grid and simple algebra. This was a great exercise considering how many books of furniture I own and it built a set of skills that I will use as I start every project from now on.

The task presented to us now was how to create a design from nothing in such a way as to ensure accuracy throughout the build as well as repeatability for the future. Enter the story stick. Chuck walked us through the process of creating this old school method of capturing every detail and measurement of the piece all on a small 1/2 piece of plywood 3 inches wide and 23 inches long. A quick peek through his shop and you will see scores of these hanging from the walls detailing past projects and ready to be dusted off and used again.

Now that we have the layout and dimensions of the piece we set to making a tapering jig for our legs. This is a simple affair and meant to be specific to this project. To embrace this method you need to have plenty of storage space in your shop but when it comes time to recreate this table you have a ready made jig and don’t have to remember any settings.

Now that we knew the basics of our designs we could head off the the lumber yard with story sticks in hand prepared to select everything we needed. (In fact, the lumber for these tables was already in Chuck’s shop and had been acclimating for a few weeks) This trip was more about theory and was a great insight into how Chuck picks his lumber and keeps his design in the forefront of that selection. If you haven’t seen my shaky iPhone video of that trip yet, check it out here.

Day Two rolled around and it was time to get to work. You all know I am a hand tool lover and I often mill my stock by hand. I use my 6″ jointer from time to time, but mostly I’m making shavings and then running through my 13″ planer to true up the other side. Well Chuck’s 16″ battleship of a jointer will make anyone think twice about hand dimensioning their wood again. In my shop I use planes because it is more efficient for the wider stuff. Maybe I just need some bigger tools!

Once we had our lumber dimensioned and cut to size (using our story sticks) it was time to start on the joinery. I learned a great tip for laying out mortise and tenon joints quickly and accurately that involves no measuring at all. (sorry I can’t give away all of Chuck’s secrets, you will have to take his class) We cut our mortises using a Hollow Chisel machine and then went to the table saw to cut the tenons. Then it was back to the bench room to refine the fit of the tenons using shoulder planes. The final task for the day was milling the lumber for our two piece tops and getting them glued up to cure over night. This was like Christmas time as we each milled our parts to uncover some amazing figure and grain. It was a great exercise to match the parts and layout the best appearance for our tops. I was blessed with an amazing patch of swirling, milky grain that I put right down on the front left corner of the top.

Day Three began with us finishing up any fitting of joints and gluing up our tables. Again just so I could be difficult, I lagged behind because I had to add a center, vertical divider to break up my drawers as well as insert a center runner. Since I had Chuck at my elbow I opted for the tougher method of dovetailing the divider into the case. I learned a few choice tips for that operation as well. Fitting the runner was pretty straight forward until I somehow placed the mortise at the back of the case higher than the front so I ended up with a tapering opening that would make fitting a drawer impossible. Chuck showed me a way to quickly identify the taper, lay it out, and then I planed an opposing taper directly into the runner so that my opening was square. Through this process, I decided again to be difficult and cut the mortise on the back of the case as a through mortise and then wedged the runner tenon in the back. I just love being difficult, but why not when you have the tutelage of a master at your disposal.

From there, it was on to drawers. Back to the machine room to mill up some Poplar stock for sides, bottoms, and backs. Then we turned our attention to the drawer fronts that we had so meticulously cut from the same board as our aprons in order for the grain to match along the front. A short dovetailing review and we were off to the races to cut our joinery and build the drawers. Again, I picked up some great tips here on constructing drawers and way to save time and sanity. (Sorry, not giving up the secrets yet again)

We took a little time to install our drawer guides and then it was time to attach the top. We used the clip and slot method by routing a slot on the inside faces of the aprons and then used a great technique taught to Chuck by Steve Latta on how to cut the clips in one pass. Stay tuned to the tips and tricks portion of an upcoming Popular Woodworking magazine when our lovely editor Kari Hultman will share this secret with us all.

At the end of the third day, none of us were done with our tables. We were not the fastest class, and we took a lot of side trips along the way. This is really what taking a woodworking class is about for me. Yes I knew how to build this Shaker table going in, but I chose to add some things and soak up some knowledge every step of the way. I learned from my classmates and the instructor both. My table is still sitting in my shop and I still have to build the second drawer. I plan to push my skills even further with this table as I keep with my already established theme and add some stringing to the legs and top, beading on the apron, as well as cockbead molding on the drawers. By the time I am done, I will have learned several new ways to cut joinery, more efficient milling techniques, better workflow, several new decorative techniques, layout and design tips, story stick creation, lumber mill best practices, and many more things that my brain is too addled to remember here.

Here is a little clip of our tables at the end of the day and you can begin to see some of the embellishments I added.

It was a great class that expanded my skill set and I highly recommend enrolling in one today. If you can, get down to The Acanthus Workshop it is worth every penny.

Anyway, it was a great time and the show is always a great experience of just a couple of guys talking about woodworking and what’s happening in the woodworking world. Check it out

Small projects can be a lot of fun. You get to use up some of that scrap that you have been hoarding for years, and you get an opportunity to try some new techniques without being overwhelmed by size and scope. Doll furniture can be even more fun because it is like building a prototype of a real piece.

So this very important customer had some big ideas and was very specific about them. After some impromptu napkin sketching, we had determined what kind of table we needed and how the garden would look.

The benches needed to be part of the table
Garden would have planter boxes at the corners
Recessed beds between the planters to simulate an in ground garden

I knew that her American Girl doll was 18″ so with my sketch in hand I began to scale the table to fit the doll. After a few hours of work with saws and planes I had a cute little picnic table. The garden platform took a little more planning because of the need to create recessed flower beds. This is really a torsion box assembly with beautiful Vermont Cherry 2×2 blocks set in the corner with holes drilled to act as the planter boxes. One I had skinned both sides of the platform I was left with holes where the flower bed would go. I placed floral foam into the planters and the beds and provided plenty of pretty silk flowers so she could “plant” her garden. A little model railroad grass on the surface and all was ready.

It was a huge hit with the birthday girl and she immediately went work planting her garden. Once her doll was in place with a picnic she turned to me with a very serious look on her face and said, “I feel so lucky to have a one of a kind table. No one else will ever have this exact table.”

Isn’t it great that even kids today can appreciate hand made.

Enjoy!

Registration is now open at www.woodworkinginamerica.com, there is a great course list this year and some exciting after hours events too. You had better have a really good reason for not being there. I expect doctor’s notes people!

When I was in high school and backpacking in the mountains near Aspen, CO, my buddy and I decided to rappel off a cliff and into a waterfall. Seemed like a good idea and a great way to get pictures of the falls. Stupidly we set up our ropes a little too close to the falls and the wind blew us into the cascade of water and essentially pinned us against the cliff face under the onslaught. No matter how hard I pushed away from the wall that torrent just held me tight. In the end I had to hold my breath and drop further down the wall to get the pendulum leverage to swing away and into the drink below. Stupid move that resulted in a harrowing few minutes and something I will never do again.

A few years later I was playing a drunk in Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” and on the night of the show, while rehearsing a drunken sword fight I decided to add a leap off the stage into the orchestra pit for dramatic effect. That leap was proceeded by a trip and a fall onto my sword, which eventually landed me in the hospital to have my ruptured spleen removed. (after doing the show and the cast party of course)

Hubris.

Really that is what sums up the above incidents. That and adolescent testosterone induced idiocy. How many times has your own confidence gotten in the way of safety in your workshop? How many times have you tried a slightly risky action on your table saw or router table that caused one of those heart stopping, pants filling, split seconds that forever change the way you look at that tool again? I have a few that have increased my respect of the table saw and my dedicated readers will remember me sharing them here on this blog.

I was batch cutting a bunch of small box parts in preparation for one of my craft shows. I have respirator, hearing protection, and eye protection on with dust collector running. The splitter was on the table, and I was using a push stick. Rather than shutting off the saw after each cut I kept it running and just kept cutting the parts. I was pushing them completely clear of the saw on each cut so they just lay upon the out feed area. When that space got full I reached across the blade, no guard in place, and picked up the pieces. (are your palms sweating yet?) On one of those reaches one of the pieces slipped out of my hand landing on the spinning blade and was catapulted at high speed directly into my stomach. It knocked the wind out of me and left a very colorful bruise for several weeks. Lesson learned put a guard on that blade and never reach across the blade while it is still spinning. If you don’t have a blade guard then turn off the saw after every cut and let the blade come to a stop before you even move.

In a similar instance I was batch cutting smaller parts again but this time with the aid of the fence. I had set up a starting block a la Norm Abrams prior to the blade to register my cuts while still providing space between the blade and fence further into the cut. Once my piece was cut free it had an extra 3/4″ space before getting trapped between fence and blade. I kept cutting and cutting letting my cut off fall into that space. After 3 or 4 cuts the space was getting tight and sure enough one of the off cuts was pushed into the blade and came shooting up into my face. Safety glasses saved me from serious harm but the corner of a piece caught me in the temple and drew a little blood. Really nothing, but enough to teach me a lesson.

Sure in hindsight both of these situations scream danger. But look at what I did right. I had taken safety precautions and was confident in them. In fact those precautions probably prevented these accidents from being so much worse. Still my confidence in what I was doing and reliance on my gear may have caused a little hubris of my own.

Let’s not be scared of our tools, what good does that do. Remember that there are no master craftsmen when it comes to safety. We are all novices in that department. The common thread to both of these accidents was that I was really in just too big of a hurry. I was trying to meet a deadline and I needed to slow down and just be safe. Lesson learned and I won’t do anything that stupid again.

I’ll sum it up with another story from my past. My senior year in high school I worked as a tour guide in a cave. While there was much to see it was primarily my job as guide to engage the guests and keep up a witty conversation. I had done this tour so many times and knew the route so well that I walked backwards the entire time talking to my guests. On every tour, it was inevitable that I would get the question, “don’t you bump your head by walking backwards like that?” My answer was always the same,

“I only bumped it once, then I remember to not do it again”

It took a trip out of my shop to form this topic. I was up in PA at Chuck Bender’s school and most of the class was in the bench room fine tuning mortise and tenon joints. One of our number has gone into the machine room to begin working on his table top. I joined him a few minutes later and walked into the room to see my fellow trying to joint the end grain of his top on the 8″ power jointer. I shouted for him to stop but with the dust collection, jointer, and air compressor running he didn’t hear me right away. I ran to the jointer to hit the power switch and swiped at empty air!

“Where was the friggin power switch???!!” It wasn’t in the place I was used to on my own jointer at home and it took what seemed like an eternity to find the switch and cut the power. I’m sure that in reality it was a second or less, but in the moment…well you know how that space time dilation works.

The good news: no one was hurt and not even the project was ruined.

The bad news: that second or two when I was searching for a power switch and the blades were chopping at the end grain desperately trying to fling that board across the shop was scary. Why couldn’t I find the power switch? It is not that it was hidden it was just that I had grown used to the location of the switch in my own shop.

So the moral of the story here is, when visiting another shop or enrolled in a class, take a step back and familiarize yourself with each tool. You may have worked with a jointer for 30+ years, but if the switch is on the body of the machine as compared to your own machine where the switch sits up on a pedestal above it you need to know that before you turn it on. Take a moment to consider what other aspects you need to know when operating that machine. Mentally walk through your operation and consider all eventualities and make sure you know how to respond to them specifically with the machine you are about to use.

Most manufacturers have standardized the basics, but you would be surprised how many power switches are in different places or adjustment levers subtly changed. On top of that the individual woodworker may have set up the machine slightly differently and you need to know how that will effect your usage of it.

This gut check will take you only a few seconds. That few second spent now will prevent you from taking a few seconds to kill the power later like it took me.

Be safe folks!

A little lathe time and I have produced a one of a kind gift that will make my mom very happy.

You just want to pick them up don't you?

Look at those handles pop

Of course mom does drop by this site from time to time so I hope I didn’t just ruin the surprise that will be arriving in the mail this weekend…oops

I was only able to capture so much of the process of building a wheel since the Wheelwrights were working on a small cart and actually not building a wheel while I was there. There are some great videos on the Internet that can illustrate the process if you are interested in learning more.

First you have to check out Colonial Williamsburg’s site at www.history.org but specifically their trades section where they have a description of the Wheelwright trade as well as 2 podcasts discussing the trade. Look for a link to those two episodes in the multimedia section in the right sidebar. In addition there is a great slideshow illustrating the process of fitting the iron tire.

There are also a few great videos on YouTube, but this one I found particularly to be a good explanation of the trade.

Finally I make reference in this episode to a post on Stephen Shepherd’s blog about over sharpening. Check it out here.

So take your own field trip to Hearne Hardwoods and be prepared to take some of this fine lumber home with you because it is irresistible. Also make sure to check out the class schedule at Chuck Bender’s school for his list of exciting classes still to come this year. I hope to get back up there myself at least once more this year.

So day one was all about the design. We talked at length about scaling and designing a piece from a photograph and how to deal with varying perspective. Chuck specializes in period furniture and he has built many exact replicas just by taking lots of pictures. If you have ever wandered into a museum and taken out a tape measure you will see just how fast the security guards will show you to the door. The ability to capture photos of that museum piece (assuming photos are permitted) and then reproduce dimensions is extremely valuable. Think about the times when your spouse or family have presented you with a picture and said, “can you build this for me”. Not only that but we then talked about the ways to re-size the piece while keeping the proportions the same.

From there it was time to build our story sticks for our side table. A story stick is a narrow board with all of the information needed to build the piece in question. The idea is that once this board is laid out, you throw away your tape measure and build everything to match your story board. It contains all the dimensions laid out to actual scale and any additional notes you will need throughout the build. If you look around the walls of Chuck’s shop you will see hundreds of story sticks for the period pieces he has built over the last 30+ years. So as you make up your story stick, make sure it makes sense so that 10 years from now you can take it and build the same piece.

The gang lays out their story sticks

From there we headed to a great lunch and great conversations. This was the halfway point on the road to our field trip destination: Hearne Hardwoods. The Shangri La of wood dealers. We toured the monstrous facility and took in all the amazing woodness of the place, followed by a breathtaking tour of the new offices with every exotic species under the sun. Stay tuned for a short video on this as I was able to get some footage on my iPhone.

OK, well here is a sneak peek, attach that bib now…

The Front Desk

The goal of this field trip was to peek inside Chuck’s head when he goes to the lumber mill to buy wood for his project. How to prepare and how to pick your boards for most efficient yield and the least wasted money. This was also an excellent primer into wood science and how a lumber mill operates and marks their stock.

Talking among the stacks of the Maple room

There is not much to say about Hearne Hardwoods other than WOW. The place is astounding and no where have I seen such wide board stock so readily available. I saw some of the famous “sinker” mahogany that has been rescued from the rivers of Belize as well as boards that are so wide you would think you are looking at the lengthwise dimension. I came across a piece of Sapele that was at least 6 feet wide! This place should be on every woodworker’s list to visit. You might want to leave your wallet at home or you will certainly get in trouble.

What a great day and I am excited to head back tomorrow and get back to work. Stay tuned for more!

I have a barrel trimmer that I use when squaring up the end of a pen blank with the brass tubes. I normally chuck it up in a cordless drill to remove the bulk of the wood. I tend to be a little liberal with the CA glue when inserting these tubes and I like to seal up the end grain to prevent chipping out the pen blank where it meets the bushings. This is the part that is usually the thinnest and most delicate. All of that hardened CA glue can be a problem when trying to slide the blank onto the mandrel so I have a second barrel trimmer with a threaded end that is intended to be fixed to a handle.

So now I have the perfect short project to get my woodworking fix and make something very functional.
I measured the threaded end using calipers and drilled a hole slightly deeper than the extent of the rod that was the inner diameter (between the threads) of the rod. From there it was a simple matter to chuck it up and turn a comfortable handle, sand it, and finish it to a high shine.

Now I have a handy little tool to help me crack out the glue stuck to the inside of the brass tube that makes my blanks stick to the mandrel. 30 minutes of bliss!!

Watch the new barrel trimmer in action:

I haven’t used my table saw in over 5 months in favor of my growing collection of hand saws. So when I got it set up to rip some Ash and the power went out halfway through the first cut, I thought the hand tools gods were intervening to tell me about false idols and pillars of salt and such.

I tweeted this observation as at least my iPhone still worked during this outage. I was greeted with the expected ironic response from my friend Brad (TreeFrogFurniture) saying “maybe it is actually the power tools gods punishing you for your inattention.” I laughed at this until I tried to start up my thickness planer and dust collector. Immediately the on board circuit to the dust collector blew and I could not get it reset to run the collector. I do not recommend running a thickness planer without dust collection as you will very quickly be swimming in chips. It turns out the circuit breaker had actually blown for good and would need to be replaced. The fine folks at Steel City were very helpful and a new part is on it’s way to me as I write this. Of course the real reason for turning back to my power tools was to quickly batch out some parts for a new commission that needs to be delivered by this Saturday (more on that later).

So my punishment for using power tools or neglecting my power tools (depending on your point of view) is to have to use my power tools sans dust collection. Thank goodness for my respirator but believe me the shop will need a thorough cleaning when I get finished with this little project.

So if you will excuse me now that I have appeased the power tool gods, I have to go hand plane some wood before my planes get mad at me and start tearing out the wood.