In the second installment of "Ask the Masters," Tommy and Al discuss photos that PeteMichelinie from the North Bennet Street School posted on the forum of his beautiful replica Newport Kneehole Block-Front Bureau. They also respond to viewers' questions about Tommy's choice of dovetail saw as well as his bench, which he built himself.

I want to do another safety related blog entry before Woodworkers Safety Week gets away from us…

In the shop we should use all of our senses to detect danger. Well, use touch as the last sense for detection. Ya know…if you are unsure whether your table saw is on you should listen for the motor or look for the moving blade before reaching out to touch the spinning carbide.

I think our eyes are the most valuable safety tool we have. Hopefully, we see dangers. Even when we know dangers are present we use our eyes to determine our proximity to them.

So the Jeff Skiver Safety Tip of the day is…make sure your vision is clear by avoiding tears that can cause distorted vision. Therefore, never go to work in the shop immediately after watching any of the following movies:

1) Brian’s Song

2) Old Yeller

3) Love Story

4) Ghost

5) The Way We Were

6) Bambi

7) My Girl

8) E.T.

9) Forrest Gump

10) Pay It Forward

11) I Am Sam

12) Schindler’s List

13) Braveheart

14) Saving Private Ryan

15) Blazing Saddles

Also, if you are in the shop and any of the following songs come on the radio, IMMEDIATELY STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

1) Wildfire by Michael Martin Murphey

2) Honey by Bobby Goldsboro

3) Diary by Bread

4) Think of Laura by Christopher Cross

5) How Do You Mend a Broken Heart by the Bee Gees

6) Still by The Commodores

7) Alone Again, Naturally by Gilbert O’Sullivan

Finally, if you have been reading ANYTHING written by Nicholas Sparks then you should stay away from your shop for at least 4 weeks after you finish the book. You may think you are okay at 3 weeks, but you aren’t. Even three and a half weeks after finishing Message In A Bottle I would spontaneously break down into uncontrollable fits of agonizing tears. Nicholas Sparks requires FOUR FULL WEEKS!!!!!! You’ve been warned.

I am looking forward to another USA trip in May 07.

This starts with a weekend class at the Marc Adams School in Indiana. ...

June marks the 4th anniversary of the completion of my new workshop. Prior to that, I worked in a basement shop with concrete floors, 6 foot ceilings, exposed lightbulbs, and exposed knob & tube wiring. Dungeon-like.

Yet it was still my favorite place in the house.

I dreamed for 10 years of having an above-ground shop and when I finally decided to have one built, I spent a full year researching heating systems, insulation, material, lighting....everything.

I even built a to-scale model of the shop, complete with all my equipment, just to make sure that everything would fit and that I would be able to tell my builder where to put the outlets. I determined where to put the 18" bandsaw in relation to the back window, so that long boards could stick outside and rest on the sill while I ran them through the blade. The model also helped my builder work up pricing.

The first design had a second story and a finishing room closed off by a sliding door. After my builder told me how much it would cost, reality set in, and both those luxuries were crossed off the list.

The model itself was built hurriedly?just plywood tacked together with brads?but it helped immeasurably when I was able to tell my builder where to put my 300 pound band saw and 400 pound table saw, as he and his helper carried them out of my basement shop and into the new one. They were able to plop them down exactly where I wanted them. I doubt they would have appreciated some lady telling them to "Move the table saw to this wall. Nah, that's not right?move it to that wall instead. A little to the left, no right."

The next sound I would have heard would have been my contractor and his helper slamming the door shut behind them, leaving a trail of expletives in their wake.

Planning for and designing my shop was an exciting journey, and I ended up with a cute little woodworker's dollhouse in the process.

This is the last day of the year when the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Jamestown settlement was celebrated in America and some ...

You can sharpen your woodworking skills with helpful tips and techniques from the editors of Woodsmith and ShopNotes magazines. Get a FREE tips sent to your email address each week! Got to Woodworking Tips.com and sign up today.

Here’s last week’s tip from Woodsmith online editor Ted Raife:

It always breaks my heart when a project gets its first scratch. But I know that even with the best of care, it’s bound to happen. So rather than stew over a minor blemish, I came up with an easy way to make it disappear.

My repair system started with an investment in an assortment of touch-up markers. You can get these from many woodworking and finishing supply companies. My set includes about a dozen different colors and this gives me a good shot at finding a close match to the project. But the trick is finding the best color match without relying on a lucky guess.

To help make a more informed choice, I created a sample sheet on a piece of clear acetate. The sheet contains a small, labeled swatch from each marker. As you see in the photo, I simply hold the sheet up to the project to find a good match. After choosing a marker and performing a quick touchup, the project looks as good as new and I feel a whole lot better.

For more helpful project tips, techniques, and plans, visit PlansNOW.

Good Woodworking,

Ted Raife
Online Editor, Woodsmith

It was a very productive, successful and enjoyable trip.

The prospect of travel reduces me to a nervous ...

Any one that has seen two lovebirds perched together understands that love is a natural animal instinct that you can also be seen when you look into someone's eyes, and see everything you need.

The Box is made of Maple wood and Purple heart wood.

Visit Me At http://www.simplywoodrings.com for you Wooden Wedding Band Set.

A few weeks ago I stopped by The Hardwood Connection in Sycamore, Illinois. It’s a combined retail hardwood lumber dealer/woodworking store/cabinet shop/gallery. And it’s one of the best run shops I know about. Okay, I’m a little biased since I worked there for a short time in the early 1980’s when I was teaching high school woodworking in a neighboring town, but it is a cool place.

It’s always fun to stop by and see what owners Ken and Barb Burtch and their employee, Dave Smith, a former student of mine, are up to. This time Ken brought out a piece of wood and asked me to identify it. It had the coloring of walnut, but not the grain pattern or open grain. (In the photo at left, the “natural” wood is on the left and I sprayed some clear lacquer on the right side. That’s a little strip of end grain I cut off laying on top.) It looked a bit like well-aged cherry but had the grain pattern of curly maple. And it wasn’t stained or dyed as I could see the color went all the way through it. It had a slight bit of a “burntâ€� wood smell to it.

I was stumped and figured it must be some foreign wood I had never heard of. Then he told me that it was “Roasted Hardwood.� It’s being distributed by a Canadian Company called Goodfellow.

Roasted hardwood starts out as very dry soft maple, yellow birch, or poplar and is then heated (roasted or “carmelizedâ€�) at extremely high temperatures (440 degrees Fahrenheit) in a vacuum. It’s then rehumidified so that it’s once again dimensionally stable — and it helps create a uniform color. It was originally designed as a wood for outdoor projects since it’s very resistant to insects and rot, but it seems to me you could use it on indoor projects as well.

Apparently Australian aborigines started heat treating wood 10,000 years ago. As the story goes(?), in the 1990’s a kiln owner left some wood in the kiln and it was accidentally overheated. They were going to throw it out but someone decided to experiment with it and found it had some interesting characteristics. A French company got a patent to the process and started licensing it to North American companies in the late 1990’s. For more about the process go here.

Though roasted hardwood has the color of walnut, it’s much more consistent and predictable in color. Without any sapwood it makes grain matching easier when building up panels. And the cost is considerably less per board foot than walnut.

I got my hands on a piece of roasted soft maple (see photo) and first cut a small piece off the end to make sure the color went all the way through (it does). I’d heard that the wood is “brittle� but I didn’t notice any problems. I tried jointing and planing the piece and discovered it works just about like I would expect from soft maple. It sanded okay, but the dust was very fine and I would strongly suggest wearing some kind of dust mask or respirator. I also quickly sprayed a coat of lacquer on part of my sample board and it brought out the color, again like walnut, but perhaps a little darker. (For a larger view, double click on the photo at left.) It will be interesting to see if it will lighten over time (like walnut) or darken (like cherry). My guess is it will stay the same.

I hope to make a complete project out of roasted hardwood some day.

Ken told me that he now is selling roasted hardwood and if you would like more information and pricing, e-mail him at KBHardwood@aol.com or call him at 815-895-8733.

Black Desk, Part 1
Black Desk, Part 3

Just a minor update here.

I got a detail shot of the leg "carving" with the two coats of Minwax Waterbased Stain in Onyx. I didn't realize there was so much dust on there when I took the photo, sorry.

The white wood is some 3/4" x 1 1/2" curly maple. I found that maple at Lowe's in the common maple rack. I need to go back and find another one for trimming the top of the desk. They only had one in the entire rack.

It is attached with 8 1/4" dowels, and a small bead of glue along the length along with the glue in the dowel holes.

I have found that the use of dowels signifigantly improves the strength of the joint, in addition to making alignment much simpler. While I don't doubt that a biscuit joiner would also make the alignment simple, there is a massive price difference.

• Dowel Centers: $2 for 10
• 1/4" dowel: Free if I cut my own with a plug cutter, or 40c for two feet.
• 1/4" drill bit: Comes in every set of drill bits I've ever purchased. So I have plenty.

This last photo is the maple clamped to the bottom shelf. The clamps were more for drawing the dowels into the holes than for actual clamping. But I'll take the clamping as a bonus!

Once this is dry, I'll put some pieces on the sides of the shelves, then I'll apply the finish.

Beautiful Mesquite Cabinets require the hand of a craftsman and Mesquite HardWood from ADM.



Photo Courtesy of Warsaw Woodworks

Fine Mesquite Cabinets installed By Craftsmen Like Joe Mozdziock of Warsaw Woodworks of Chino Valley Arizona really make an impression. This Kitchen Center Island was installed by Joe in the Prescott area. The Kitchen can become a place of warmth and beauty , and premium lumber from Arizona Desert Mesquite is the place to start. Here's a shot of some cabinets in the kitchen.

 

Contact :

Warsaw Woodworks
Joe Mozdziock
P.O Box # 2625
Chino Valley AZ  86323
(928) 636-0197

joemoz@netzero.net

Start with a perfectly straight edge on a shortish board, say 15 to 20 inches long.

Take 10 full length, reasonably ...

Matt Vanderlist has just posted a podcast of a conversation he and I had last week. I hesitate to call it an interview because it sounds a lot like us just goofing around and joking about woodworking.

So I guess, it actually just sounds a lot like a day at the office.

In any case, we discuss handsawing, premium tools and how we generate story ideas here at Woodworking Magazine and Popular Woodworking. Plus Matt and I brainstorm an idea for a shop garment that ensures you never have to take a break while woodworking – and it composts the yard. (If anyone has a good name for this product, post it here.)

It was a fun conversation and if you have some time at your desk and want to look like you're working… I highly recommend it.

— Christopher Schwarz

Here's another video from our trip to The Woodworking Show in Atlanta, GA. In this video we get a look at a very innovative tool to sharpen your your woodworking tools, the Jool Tool.

My good friend Rob interviews the CEO of Jool Tool, Anie Piliguian, about how this sharpening system works.

We were sure impressed with the speed and ease that the Jool Tool can put a razor sharp edge on cutting tools.

If you have any questions about the Jool Tool or anything related to woodworking, visit our site at:

www.WoodworkersResource.com

Craig Stevens

This week’s shop comes from Mike in Pittsburgh, PA. Let’s check it out!

“It all started in Aught-Five, when my lovely wife and I decided it was time to add on to our 3 bedroom colonial. With two little girls and a whole lotta Fisher Price stuff, we were starting to feel cramped. So I took advantage of my very handy retired-architect dad and we built ourselves a 1,100 sq. ft. three-story addition. During this project, I managed to reserve a 12′x12′ plot of space in the basement that has since been dubbed Mantown.”

“Mantown is on the cozy side and has a very low ceiling. But I put in double doors that open out under the deck. This allows me to get things in and out easily and to cut larger items on the table saw, which rolls into place when I need it. The doors and window also give me plenty of natural light to work with. I even thought ahead and had the window made with tempered glass, for when I accidentally put a pipe clamp through it. Also, rather than drywall, I put pegboard up directly onto the studs, an idea that seemed great at the time, but frankly I’m starting to think pegboard is overrated.”

“Mantown has a long way to go before being complete. Tool-wise, I’m just getting started. Delta 10″ contractor’s saw, Delta drill press, and a Makita sliding compound miter saw are the major tools. I also have been doing a lot with my Kreg pocket hole setup. The wall containing the miter saw is pretty much temporarily thrown together, but I’m working on a master plan for it to improve storage, utility and all-around coolness. I’m also planning to incorporate a router table into the right side of the table saw and am debating dust collection options while currently using a shop vac connected to the tools wherever possible. The alcove next to the interior door is handy for storage as well, though I had to make sure to position the shelves at the right height to allow a 8′ board to be cut on the miter saw.”

“Despite the size and small tool collection, I’ve been quite productive with the space, mostly building what needs to be built for the addition. In the pictures you can see an entire built-in unit and new fireplace mantle, made of a combination of ply and pine with a tile top (and, okay, Dad helped). My most recently completed project is a student desk and bulletin board for my eight year old daughter, with love from daddy.”

“I’ve started work on built-ins for our home office, and have so far put together a desk for my lovely wife, which will eventually become a full wraparound suite of cabinets once we get rid of that gawdawful wallpaper (and yes, a gadget station included!). The desk was actually one of my first projects, during which I learned things like paying attention to grain direction, book-matching panels, and how to stain wood correctly (all after the fact, of course). Building the desk was also a strategic move on my part to convince said lovely wife that Mantown is really “all for you, honey”. So far it seems to have worked. Wait till I tell her I want to knock out that wall behind the miter saw and make it bigger!!! I appreciate any commentary, especially suggestions on how to turn my 7′ ceiling into a 9′ ceiling.”

Related Posts

• September 29, 2008 — Ryan and Mason’s Workshop - Shop of the Week
• September 25, 2008 — Small Shop Tribute - Shop of the Week
• September 17, 2008 — Dustin’s Workshop - Shop of the Week

To be used by Hobby & do-it yourselfers to display their Mesquite and other fine wood projects.


Check out this fist entry From Ronald Hesketh ... It's about Time ...


Read this heartwarming story about two Men and a Very Special Clock ! ...           >>>>>> Click on "more " >>>>>>>> 

It's now time to cut the sides of the case. This is risky business because any mistakes cannot be corrected and Tommy is understandably nervous. After the cuts are made, he then hand-planes and takes a chisel to the edges.

No, this won't be a comprehensive list, or even an attempt at one. Instead, I'm going to show you some photos of Harbor Freights least expensive turning chisels. I grabbed a set of these because they were $10. I figured: carbon steel, poor grinding. I can regrind the chisels, as well as hone frequently because of the carbon steel.

Little did I know just how dangerous these are.

The chisels bent under normal use. Yes, bent. Right at the tool rest. Especially if because of the turning I can't get the rest right up against the workpiece. The tang that goes into the handle is just a thin, pointed bit of steel. (Sorry, forgot to snap a pic of that. If you want to see it, ask.) It bent easily on the large roughing gouge because the body of the tool was too substantial to bend at the rest.

The more dangerous item was the shattering handle. It shattered and sent the parting tool that was mounted into it flying across the garage. I still haven't found it, though I heard it wizzing past my ear when it launched.

Avoid the HF cheap turning tools if you value your life and health!

I will admit it - I am quite spoiled with some of the infill wood I have. Genuine Brazilian Rosewood tops that list - but a while ago, I ran into a piece that stopped me dead in my tracks. It was a small section of burl. There was not much, and I had to really work to get enough for an XSNo.4.



And even after it was roughed out- I was not 100% sure I had captured enough of it. About a month ago, I started the plane. As I was working away I realized this piece was spectacular.



What sometimes happens is the figure and curl of the wood disappears as you cut it down and fit it to the metal shell. This piece was the reverse. With every cut - the infill kept getting better and better. There was a great light patch of wood on the rear infill that I really wanted to keep. I cheated the rear infill as far to the right as I could to capture as much of that patch as possible. You can see the patch in the photo below.



The front bun was equally spectacular - despite its small size.



This piece of burl was a very rare find. I cannot promise to find another one like this - but there are a few other large pieces that look promising. I just feel lucky to have found this piece.

Tommy marks up the dove tail on the writing surface and then using a ramp block chisels out the 45 degree and 1:6 dovetail. Just ease into these dovetails and tap, tap, tap it in. Finally scoring the case for the final work to complete the dovetail.

It’s no secret around the office and among my family members that I have an affinity for old tools.  It could be old hand tools or “old iron” power tools.  I have a couple of antique scroll saws and a very old three-wheel Craftsman band saw in my shop.  I guess I inherited this habit from my dad.  He’s always bringing home a “bargain” from the latest garage sale or auction.

Last week, he called me and told me he just “acquired” an old Craftsman planer (model 103.1801 made by King-Seeley).  He wanted me to research it and find out what I could about it.  Naturally, the first place I look for old manuals and history of old tools is www.owwm.com.  They’ve become the online library for photos, tool manuals, and company history for old tools.  You can submit photos of your old tools and scanned manuals and parts lists for the rest of the world to share.

As I was trying to research the history of dad’s planer and find a manual for it, I discovered that the OWWM web site was down “due to technical difficulty.”  I was heartbroken and afraid that something terrible had happened.  I thought perhaps all the data that had been accumulated over the years would be lost.  So I emailed the webmaster to get the scoop.  Here was his reply as of 10:00pm CST on Thursday, the 13th of March 2008:

We had some issue with our former host and changes that they made to their server that “broke” the code that runs our site. To resolve this problem, we decided that the best course of action was to invest in a new server, which we will own and control. This has turned into a longer process than we first anticipated. We first had to raise around $2,500 for the hardware and software to run our site. We fortunately were able to get the majority of this donated through our many members. Next, we had to order a server, which took several weeks to get built and delivered. The new server arrived at our new host late last Friday and they have been working hard this week getting it set up to run. We are very close to launching the new site - maybe by the end of this week but in reality, probably the first of next week. No data was lost, it is just taking us longer than we like to get everything up and running on the new server.

Keith Rucker
Tifton, GA 

Hopefully, they’ll be back up and running soon. 

Do you want to know how OWWM got started?  Well, you’ll have to wait until the web site is back up and running, but when it is, visit this page for a complete history of what got Keith started down this road.  It’s an interesting read.

Oh…by the way, Keith puts a lot of time and effort (and dollars) into this web site.  If you use and enjoy the content of www.owwm.com, why don’t you donate a few bucks to help him out? You’ll find donation links on the web site.

Yesterday, I witnessed earthly perfection. I saw something that was profound enough to be one of those things that sticks with you for your entire life. I didn’t know it was coming when I woke up yesterday. However, by the time I went to bed last night I had something I can point at and say, “That is perfection!!!�

It started as Gail and I were backing out of the garage on our way to dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. I had the car about 6 feet out of the garage when I looked over and saw a box sitting on the porch. I stopped, pushed the shift lever out of reverse, yanked the parking brake and ran over to find a heavy box that had originated in Oregon.

I handed it to Gail as I got back in the car. She cut it open to find my CT14 Foxtail Shoulder Plane had arrived from Bridge City. I hadn’t purchased one when they first came out, but a few weeks ago I got to hold one. As I held it, I listened as Bridge City Tool Works owner John Economaki spoke of his theory that beautiful tools serve as an inspiration to perform beautiful work. Holding it that night, I felt the magic, and finally placed my order for one.

Yesterday while driving to BW3’s I felt teased as Gail sat in the passenger seat telling me how pretty the Foxtail is, and telling me how heavy it is, and I could hear her playing with the locking lever and the wheel that holds the front part of the plane and allows for adjusting the throat.

Rather than taking it into the restaurant, I left the plane in the car. Gail said she would drive, and I could look at it on the way home. (I am actually a five year old kid trapped in the body of an old man, and Gail understands how to deal with me). With the Foxtail out in the car, Gail and I sat down at our table, and that is where I saw a thing of beauty and perfection. It was not brass and chrome; it was brown. As beautiful as the Foxtail may be, and as great as its design may be…it pales in comparison to what I saw as I ate dinner yesterday afternoon. Yesterday on the huge televisions inside BW3’s I saw The Preakness, and for me it took me back to Italian days in May from a few years ago.

I am not a horse person, but one didn’t need to be to recognize the perfect dominance of Big Brown in the race yesterday. Big Brown was the favorite. Big Brown was EXPECTED to win. Big Brown’s reputation mandated that anything other than victory was complete and total failure. The weird thing is that everyone involved in that race knew that except for the horses. Big Brown has no concept of his reputation. He just knew he was jogging. All of the way to turn four, Big Brown was a horse that was doing a fun run. Then, with the urging of his rider, Big Brown turned to the other gasping horses and said, “Kids, what do you say we stop this strolling along and make a run for the finish. I bet I can beat you.� And out of the fourth turn, Big Brown started running. Instantly The Preakness became a race with one amazing horse and a bunch of ponies struggling to see who could come in second.

I have only seen one other thing like that I can recall. Before his retirement a few years ago, I had the privilege of seeing the greatest bicycle sprinter of all time: Mario Cipollini. When Mario’s team would form up the train to lead him to the finish, it was the most beautiful thing in sport. It was perfectly orchestrated teamwork that would take control of a bike race to put Mario where he needed to be with 200 meters to go. And when his final leadout man, Giovanni Lombardi¸ pulled off there was never any doubt that Mario would end the day atop the podium. At his prime, Mario was a man among a peloton of boys. Yesterday took me back to the Giro d’Italia’s of old. Because at the fourth turn of The Preakness I saw an invisible Giovanni Lombardi peel off, and the Mario Cipollini of Thoroughbreds, a horse named Big Brown, allowed me to experience again the joy of seeing athletic perfection.

We mortals do not get to see perfection very often. My new Foxtail is nice, and I know John Economaki is happy with this tool he designed. And as much as Mr. Economaki hopes this beautiful tool will serve as a muse that inspires the highest level of craftsmanship, I don’t know if the Foxtail will ever move me to tears.

The following is a language censored quote from a scene (available on YouTube) from the film Vision Quest, one of my favorite coming of age movies from my youth:


Elmo: I was in the room here one day... watchin' the Mexican channel on TV. I don't know nothin' about Pele. I'm watchin' what this guy can do with a ball and his feet. Next thing I know, he jumps in the air and flips into a somersault and kicks the ball in - upside down and backwards... the ^%$damn goalie never knew what the %$# hit him. Pele gets excited and he rips off his jersey and starts running around the stadium waving it around over his head. Everybody's screaming in Spanish. I'm here, sitting alone in my room, and I start crying.

[pause]

Elmo: That's right, I start crying. Because another human being, a species which I happen to belong to, could kick a ball, and lift himself, and the rest of us sad-assed human beings, up to a better place to be, if only for a minute... let me tell ya, kid - it was pretty %$#damned glorious.

Yesterday afternoon, a horse named Big Brown did that same thing to me. Out of nowhere as I sat at a sports bar in Michigan I started crying as I witnessed the glorious moment when another creature on this planet achieved a moment of perfection that lifted me to a better place.

It made me think that perhaps I have what it takes to follow those dreams I keep buried down inside. Perhaps this is my moment to drop down to 168 and take on Shute…

Walnut symbolizes intellect while the base wood (dyed maple) symolizes independent mind.

http://www.simplywoodrings.com

Tapering, pattern cutting, coves, kerf bending, and raised panels. Those are just 5 of the things you may not have realized you could do with your table saw. During the Woodsmith Woodworking Seminar podcast, Ted Raife, associate editor for Woodsmith and ShopNotes, gives us safe, fast, and efficient tips on completing all five techniques.

Be sure to check out the Woodsmith Podcast Store. If you’re interested in picking up a downloadable copy of the seminar guide, so you can follow along during the podcast, you’ll find it there. Plus, there’s a link to a good deal on the Forrest Woodworker II Premium table saw blade that Ted used during the seminar.

Please excuse all the mess around here. I have gone though a major ordeal with this site but I think the problems are finally resolved. I'll try to explain some of the issues (Warning! Geek speak ahead). 1. My webhost since 2003, HostMerit, went bankrupt. He gave no notice he was shutting down until after the fact. 2. Another company, who shall remain nameless, took all the website files from HostMerit and put them on their own servers. Again this was after the fact and without my permission. Of course nothing worked because this broke all the links in the database. I had learned to keep my own backups and was able to put the site back up but many things were broken. I had several nasty email exchanges with the new host because they kept changing things without my permission or notifiying me so I had to make several restarts. I agreed to pay them month by month until I could get my site fixed and moved even though I had paid a year in advance with HostMerit. I found these people don't send invoices or emails, they just shut your site off each month at the payment date even though I had asked to set up an automatic payment with PayPal.

Sometimes there’s nothing better than tinkering in the shop and making something just for the sake of doing it. For me, it’s often making my own wood hinges. For Canadian engineer/woodworker Matthias Wandel, it’s wooden gears, geodesic spheres, and other fanciful, if not always practical contraptions. His most recent creation is a Binary Marble Adding Machine, the latest in a series of “rolling ball sculptures.”

Why build a marble machine? Well, according to Matthias, “My Marble Machines are complicated and ingenious, but utterly useless pieces of toy machinery that automate the process of playing with marbles. With toys like these, mankind is free to pursue more productive ends, while leaving the playing with marbles to his trusty automated machine servants.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

(Photo courtesy of DesMoinesArtsFestival.org)

The Des Moines Arts Festival, rated among the Top 5 in the U.S., celebrates it 10th year in 2007. Featured will be over 150 premier juried artists and 24 “emerging” artists from the state of Iowa. Artists will exhibit in 14 categories, including wood, metalworks, and sculpture.

I think this is the second year that the festival will be located in Des Moines’ new Gateway Park, just down the street from the August Home Publishing offices. I’m excited about attending this year and so I’ve spent a few hours looking through the galleries of all the artists that will attend. I always get a lot of inspiration for my woodworking hobby from shows like this, and I’ll even go through a phase occasionally where I’ll work only on boxes or chairs for a period of time after I see something I like at a show.

For the last several years the Des Moines Arts Festival has attracted over 200,000 people and it’s also become a great place for young artists, like Matthew Obbink (whose tables are featured in the photo at the top of the page), an Iowa State University student competing in the Emerging Iowa Artists Program category.

Part IV 

All right then! Here it was, around the beginning of April, and I had a plan for the new shop (more or less) in hand. It was time to go ahead with the construction... or so I had thought, anyway.

I got a contractor lined up to do the concrete. I had decided that work was simply too much for me to handle on my own, and that it would probably serve me better to have it done by somebody else. I didn't have the equipment, nor did I have the help (or the back) to put down the concrete by myself. I might have mentioned that North Idaho was undergoing an unprecedented building boom at the time. What that meant for me was a wait for the permit. Permits usually take just a couple weeks. Usually, this might not be an issue, but the concrete guy I had lined up had a very tight schedule. Well, it turned out I had a couple of issues that permitting wouldn't allow, mainly the bathroom I had discussed previously. With that, I took the plan home and removed it entirely from the design (which actually helped me out budget-wise), but as it would have it I couldn't take the time off of work to get back to the permit office for two week. When I did finally, it was two more weeks before I got the plan reviewed and approved. I called the concrete guy up, and turns out I was past his window of availability. I would have to find another.

That delay led to a two week long search for another concrete contractor. The only one I could find available was still three weeks out before he could start, but he didn't do excavating - though he knew someone who did. So, I contacted him, and he was three weeks out too. So - what I thought might be a two to three week period of getting the permit reviewed and groundbreaking turned out to be entirely too optimistic. By the time I got the excavator there it was the end of May, a full 5 weeks later than I'd hoped.

Being an architect, I'm familiar with the whole process so didn't let it get me down, and just chalking it up to the way things work. But - when this showed up out front of the house early one morning, I started getting a little excited:

It's not really the machine I would have chosen for the task, but as long as the hole got dug, I wasn't going to worry. I had considered doing it myself... had I done it; I would have rented a loader with a backhoe mounted on the back. A track-hoe (like above) tends to rip up the lawn too much when you turn on it... It's also a very small bucket - which can be a good thing, both for digging utility trenches and when you have a plan with a lot of little corners... But I don't have a great deal of experience in digging foundations, and what little I had done was over 20 years ago... I figured it best to leave it to someone who knew more. Besides, the cost of renting a backhoe for myself would have been 2/3rds of the price of paying someone else to do it, so I figured it was better hired out.

It was finally time to break ground. Here's where the shop was to go shown in the site plan again:

Here is a photo of the yard, talen looking north from the end of the patio:

The scarring you see in the center of the yard was from an old willow tree that had to come down a few years prior when a windstorm had knocked the main portion of it's trunk down. The scarring was from the year previously when I finally got the stump out of the ground using a skid-steer I had rented when putting in the pavers for the patio, which you can see in the lower left. Within an hour or two, the trench for the main footings were dug:

Finally, something was happening. I was still worried about the excavation, though - I thought it odd that he would only dig the trench and not strip the topsoil within the footprint of the building first. In the end, it turned out I didn't need to worry about it. The fellow was a young guy, for whom renting himself and his track-hoe out was his main method of income in the warmer months. While young, in the end it turned out he was hard working, honest, and truly concerned with doing a good job - and for not really all that much money, either. But I didn't know that yet at this point, so was concerned. Even though it was taken care of later and I was satisfied with his work, I do wish it had been done properly. But with the building environment the way it was, I was just happy to have somebody to do the job.

Up next, the foundation!