The next photos will be of the finished planes - I promise.

A few weeks ago we talked about Ken Wisner planes. Then about a week after that blog entry a very special Wisner showed up on Ebay. It was special (in my opinion) because it had WISNER cast into the side of it in the area where I have always seen Ken Wisner’s name hand scribed. Naturally, I had to have it. It would perfectly complement the one I own with the autograph.

As I followed the end of the auction on Ebay, I was pretty sure I was going to win it. It was going for about $85 and I knew that I had my AuctionSniper price set for at least 50% more than that. As the closing seconds ticked away, I waited to see my name and bid magically appear. Then, with 5 seconds to go nothing happened. AuctionSniper blew my bid. I watched as someone else won my plane (with the cast in name) for about $90. I was not crestfallen; I was PISSED. I’ve spent thousands and thousands of dollars through AuctionSniper going back to at least 2001, and it had never failed me before.

I emailed, called, did that whole “Automotive Engineer SENSE-OF-URGENCY Crap” and tracked down what went wrong. I put a permanent corrective action place, and I should have no more AuctionSniper trouble as long as I live. However, it is little consolation since I had missed the only Ken Wisner plane I had ever seen with the name cast in.

Then it happened.

In our universe where celebrities die in threes…apparently Name-Cast Wisners appear in pairs on Ebay. Less than a month after the AuctionSniper fiasco a second one appeared out of nowhere. The bad news is that it was due to end while we were in Ireland. I would have no choice but to trust AuctionSniper to bring it home for me. I placed my bid on AuctionSniper and left the country. I actually forgot about the plane…(the wood cutting plane….I thought a lot about jet planes while out over the ocean.) Then one day in Ireland while checking my email I found I had completed my Wisner collection by winning the auction. My successful AuctionSniper bid easily covered the second highest guy and I brought it into the fold for $107.50.

The plane actually made it to my house before I did. We were still in Ireland when my mother-in-law collected the package off of our porch. So along with the suitcases, the new Wisner got unpacked when I arrived home. Take a look at it.

It actually has grime on it.

I held him up to the light and tried to imagine his life over the last 30 years. I wondered what kind of work he had done to accumulate this kind of gritty patina. As I pondered his existence the little plane opened his mouth and yelled at me in a voice surprising like Mr. T’s, “I’m blue collar, Fool!!!! I ain’t no Bridge City sittin’ on a collector’s shelf. I’ve had to pay the cost to be the boss!!!!! Now give me somethin’ to cut on, Boy!!!!!”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him I already had a Wisner #95. I could not find the cojones to let him know I had only purchased him to complete my Wisner collection. I don’t think he could handle it. There’s a lot of working class anger pent up in this grimy little guy.

Tommy's next step on the Bombe Secretary project is creating the profile on the front edge of the writing surface doubler. He has already cut the Bombe Secretary writing surface doubler out on the bandsaw, run a flush cut router bit, and lastly cleaned it up with hand tools. In this podcast we see Tommy complete the shaping of the doubler's front profile.

I was able to get a resource for the ramped mortis I used when installing hinges on my plane cabinet.  As you recall I ramped one side of the mortis to accomodate the non-swaged hinges.  This of course was not an original idea of mine and it generated some great thougths on the blog.

Below is a page from Charles Hayward's ?Carpentry for Beginners?.  If you look at figure 2 you can see that he is showing a ramp for one side of the non-swaged hinge.  The file is a word document.  I was unable to post the picture directly onto this blog, sorry about that.  If you have any trouble opening it please let me know and I can email it to you.

Regards
John


Hayward.doc (926 KB)

The latest Popular Woodworking magazine has a good shooting board article with plans. An expanded version of the article is available as a PDF file. It is pretty big at almost 2mb so it might take awhile to load over a slower intenet connection.

arc welding

Just a brief update… I have added new (and highly requested) Contests tab to the main navigation. It links to the page that lists our past and present Awards and Challenges together with the corresponding dates.

Check it out now – I’m sure you’ll be pleased to see LJ history in the making ;)

It?s no secret that I?m a fan of the work of Greene & Greene. A big fan. Anyone with cursory knowledge of the brothers has heard of the Ultimate Bungalows. These homes, designed by Charles and Henry at the height of their popularity and creative energy, are grand residences built with uncompromising attention to detail. Everyone agrees the the Gamble, Blacker, Pratt and Thorsen houses are in this category. Many include the Freeman Ford house as well. Were I the ultimate authority, the Robinson house would also join the list.

While the Gamble house remained in the Gamble family until it was donated to USC and the city of Pasadena, the other Ultimates have more colorful histories. Most endured some period of neglect or abuse. The rape of the Blacker house resulted in ordinances that protect historic homes in Pasadena. I think the Thorsen house trumps them all, however. Since 1942 the Thorsen house has been home to a fraternity.

I suspect that many of you have seen the movie ?Animal House.? It?s hilarious. It?s a classic. It?s completely unlike the California (Berkeley) chapter of Sigma Phi. The brothers of Sigma Phi take their stewardship of the Thorsen house, which the fraternity purchased from the Thorsen estate, very seriously. Every Saturday morning they work as a group on maintaining the house. They learn its history. They take pride in it.

But keeping up with the demands of a 100 year old mansion (and a work of art at that) is difficult. And expensive. About 9 million dollars. If you find yourself in Berkeley, stop by the house. The brothers will happily give you a tour and accept a donation to the fund. But don?t let an inability to visit stop you from contributing. Send a few dollars and help save an historic landmark, one of the Ultimates. It?s a lot easier to keep such houses around than to wait for another genius to come along and design more.

The Thorsen House Restoration Campaign
c/o Mr. Dan McNear
Route 1
Box 264-E
San Rafael, CA 94901

Tommy sits down with Al to respond to questions and comments posted in his newly-launched message board and send out a big thank you to all his fans (and especially Chicago Ron for the cigars!). After being asked by a viewer, Al gives a "quick" biography of himself. He also fields a question from another viewer about a matchstick holder he made.

I turned a new bowl the other night. I'm looking to practice a little. I'd like to create a segmented bowl soon and thought it might be a good idea to practice on a solid piece first.


I used a piece of yellowheart (2"x6"x6") and sanded up to 600 grit sandpaper.

Tommy and Al dive into discussing bellflowers with special guests Eli and Brian. Tommy demonstrates how he made the lines on the table leg. He then reviews how to make the bellflowers and Eli cuts them. Afterwards Tommy and Brian discuss his work so far.

The carving is done on the inside door so Tommy starts planing the lid. He first shows how it fits with the Bombe and then begins hand-planing the board. He reviews how he planes the wood, works the planer and sharpens the blade.

Not so long ago my workbench's top was the perfect surface for almost all of my needs.  It's always been a little short, but the weight was perfect for handplaning.

When I discovered how unflat it's become in the last few weeks it was clear it needed to be replaced.  The question on my mind is what should the top be made from?

I need something flat, something reliable and more importantly something that could get me back in the shop in no time...

WIN AN iPOD TOUCH!!  If you have the time, please take the new listener survey, and when you do you'll be entered to win an iPod Touch.

If you'd like to enter for free schwag or just have a comment, question or suggestion drop me a line at mattsbasementworkshop@gmail.com or  head over to my website at www.mattsbasementworkshop.com or call our Skype Voicemail at 231 354-2338.

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HI Folks
I've been beavering away in the workshop trying to get myself together for the upcoming Yandles show. Planes left, right and centre! But I'm trying to steal a few minutes a day to work on a side project (or two!)
A guitar. Now, a lot of you may know I play guitar. I've made a solid body electric (a PRS style) but never tried an acoustic. So I finally ordered a set of plans from Stewart-Macdonald for a Weissenborn style lap steel guitar. An interesting acoustic guitar - it is played sitting down with the guitar flat on its back on your lap.
I've used timbers that I have in stock - sycamore for the top and paduak for the back and sides. All quartersawn and dried in my workshop for about four years. I cut 3.5mm slices on the bandsaw - fun cutting five foot long by 10 inch tall slices! Glad I fitted that new blade.......
I've jointed and bookmatched the top pieces and have glued them up. Just need to get them to final thickness (2.5mm) and then I can start "building"!
Cheers
Philly

I’ve been thinking about nomenclature. I’ve been thinking about what I call the area where I do my woodworking thing (or at least where all of the tools and equipment live when I am busy surfing the internet or playing Wii Fit and complaining about having no time to do any woodworking.)

Some people call those tool filled places their “SHOP.” However, that seems a little too generic for me because I have more than one shop in my life. All of the car stuff happens in my garage, but it is more of a combination garage/bicycle shop. I’ve said before that somewhere in between my Park Double Arm repair stand and Park TS-3 Master Truing Stand are enough tools to make 90% of the bicycle shops in North America jealous. Do you need to re-tap a bottom bracket? All decent shops can do either English or Italian Threads. However, for some reason I also have a tap for French Threaded bottom brackets, even though I neither work on bikes professionally nor have any French Bicycles. (I never know why I buy every tool I see, whether I’ll ever need it or not).

The non-bicycle part of the garage is pretty well set up for anything I need to do with cars. In the last ten years I have done engine swaps, clutch replacements, Air Locker installations, countless tune-ups, 30 or so brake jobs, 100 oil changes, water pump and radiator replacements, Axle replacements, ring and pinion set-ups, and on and on and on.

Before my wife and I moved to this house, most of the automotive stuff was done at my father-in-law’s shop. Long before I met him he ran a 2000 sq ft body shop behind his house, but he retired and closed his body shop before I ever came on the scene. So in the early days of my marriage, I would commandeer his shop for various automotive projects.

So now to differentiate between his shop, my bike shop, my garage shop, and the area of my plantation where I do welding and metal work, I always refer to my basement area as my WOOD SHOP. I say to Gail, “I’ll be downstairs in the Wood Shop. If the lazy dog should wake up, feel free to convince him to come keep me company.”

I am very happy with the Wood Shop in my basement. However, I will inevitably have to rename that space. Eventually my work will be good enough for me to call my wood shop a “Studio.” It’s a subtle little thing, but it is the key to being a wood artist. Adirondack Chairs are made in Wood Shops by woodworkers. Commissioned furniture projects are done in studios by two types of guys. To the uninitiated, woodshops and studios look a heck of a lot alike. They have identical equipment and tools. The difference between woodshops and studios is the guy doing the work and the deposit slips for his bank account. Today I came up with the official list of criteria required for a woodshop to be called a studio, and here it is:

1) If the woodworker went to art school then it is acceptable to call it a studio. Art School guys are different. A couple of years ago I was a Mechanical Engineer who worked with a bunch of Industrial Designers designing Office Furniture. It was my job to make sure the roll-formed steel and the drawer slides could support the required loads. It was the responsibility of the Industrial Designers to make sure the theme of the company was represented with a passionate design that made one think, “If I have to spend 10 hours a day in a cubicle, this is the work space I want.” Those left handed, beret-wearing guys were studio types.

2) If you are a woodworker who has ever made $1000 profit on a piece then you can call your woodshop a studio. The keyword here is profit. It’s more than selling cherry cabinets for $2000 when you have more than half of that total tied up in materials, overhead, labor, and burden. Woodshops produce items that either generate no income or can sometimes sell for as much as one half of the price of the lumber they use. However, studios are the setting where profitable wooden art projects are created.

Someday my basement woodshop will become my Studio. I am not able to go to art school, so criterion 1 will not happen. However, I have a plan for creating a 4 digit profit on a piece of furniture or a similar woodworking project. I’ll share that plan with you now.

Someday I am going to resaw a walnut plank and find that the bookmatched inner faces form a distinctive picture of Jesus. Then, I will put the resawn slabs on eBay, and send out a press release. Within 24 hours of FoxNews and Headline News doing bits on Jesus in the Walnut, my auction will have bids over $5000. And when the auction ends and the buyer’s PayPal clears, my basement woodshop with the resawing 18” bandsaw will forever be referred to as “My Studio.”

And I’ll get to show pictures to people and say things like, “here is a picture of my Studio. The Unisaw is in the middle, and on the left is my hand crafted maple workbench. If you look closely in the corner you can see my bandsaw where I created my most famous pieces, Jesus in the Walnut, as I was resawing stock one day…”

I've added two new feeds to the RSS page. One is Chris Swarz's Lost Art Press blog and the other is Leif's Norse Woodsmith blog. Both are excellent blogs well worth following.

I learned the basics of using Follow Me in Sketchup, and it solves the problem of creating round overs on the tensioner plan I've been struggling with. Now that I know how to use this tool, it's fairly easy. This task that has occupied at least 5 hours of my time can now be completed from scratch in under 5 minutes (with several mistakes). Here's how I do it:

1. Draw a rectangle 1.5 x 6 inches.
2. Using the line tool draw a section 1/2 inch long at the tip.
3. Using the line tool draw a section 1 inch long on the right side.
4. Draw a line connecting the two sections.
5. Delete the resulting triangle.
6. Using the Push tool, extrude the shape to 1.5 inches.
7. Orient the object so I'm looking right at the square end.
8. Using the tape tool, drop a reference line 12.25 inches from each side.
9. In the top left corner, use the arc tool to draw an arc that runs between two intersections and tangent to the sides.
10. Do the same in the bottom left corner.
11. Select Camera, Standard Views, Iso.
12. Orbit slightly if necessary to get a good view of the arc and the area it defines.
13. Select Tools, Follow Me.
14. Click on the small section formed by the arc and the corner.
15. Move the cursor to follow the four edges that want a round over and click when they are all defined.
16. Select Camera, Standard Views, Bottom.
17. Select Camera, Standard Views, Iso.
18. Repeat steps 13 ? 15 for the bottom.
19. Select Tools, Dimensions.
20. Add dimensions as needed.

Having learned to do it so quickly and easily, I'm almost embarrassed at the amount of time I spent trying to do this with Intersect Selected and other means. But I'm super excited about the Follow Me tool, which will allow the creation of custom moldings and other details that I couldn't do before.

In this episode of the WoodworkersResource.com video podcast we're going to be looking into building simple bookcases. In this first part, we look at different joinery methods to construct our bookcase. We'll talk about advantages and disadvantages of using butt joints, rabbits, and pocket hole joinery to construct bookcases.

In part II we'll look into constructing face frames and ways to make sure that they fit perfectly, everytime.

If you would like to be alerted to when we release new episodes, simple go to our website and sign up to receive our newsletter. Just for signing up, you'll receive a special "Bonus" from us as our way of saying, THANKS!

www.WoodworkersResource.com

Craig Stevens

This past weekend, Jill and the boys and I traveled to Erie PA for the Mid-West Tool Collectors meeting. It was a short drive for a change - only 4 hours each way.

The usual suspects were there - Jim Leamy, Paul Hamler, Patrick Leach, Don Rosebrook and Martin Donnelly to name a few. I also had the pleasure of finally meeting Roy Underhill. He gave a talk on Saturday night. Early in the show he was walking around in the tool display and demo area and I had to do a triple take to make sure it was him - he was not wearing his hat.

Paul Hamler is just finishing up what I believe is his last set of miniature planes - a Sandusky Center wheel plow. There were several different configurations - Ebony with ivory arms, Rosewood with ivory arms and even a few solid ivory versions. It was a little overwhelming trying to keep track of them all - and when Paul sent me this photo a week ago - I missed “it”.



On Saturday morning, Riley walked over to me at my bench and handed me a small bubble wrapped package. He said “Happy Fathers Day dad”. As I unwrapped it - I found myself holding a very small African Blackwood bodied, left-handed Center wheel plow. Riley answered my question even before I had a chance to ask it - “I got it for a buck”.

I knew something was up, and judging from the smiling faces around me - their plan had worked.

The plane is magnificent to say the least, and if it you left out familiar objects to give a sense of scale - it could pass for a full sized plane. Paul, my deepest thanks for this stunning and personal tool.

Here are a few photos of the pair of left-handed center wheel plows.






And a few shots to try to give some sense of scale. The rebate plane is 1/2" wide and 3-3/4" long.





And some detail shots as well.







That little brass thing the skate is sitting on... one of the bronze buttons I insert into an infill cap iron.

Paul was also delivering some of his scraper plane inserts and gave a talk on Friday night about its history and evolution. As a fellow toolmaker, it was very interesting to see how it evolved, the prototypes and those “aha” moments that happen at the weirdest times. The spring is the (brilliant) key to this insert - and turns it into an elegant and highly functional tool. I can’t wait to get a No.6 so I can use it.

Here's the latest pen. This is a Sapele Cigar pen with a segmented celtic double knot made of Maple and Cherry.
There are 32 pieces in the segmented knot - 16 Maple and 16 Cherry. The picture below shows better detail of the knot, but the picture above best shows the true colors of the pen.

Tommy and Al discuss the photos that two viewers sent in of their projects: Rick, who made a desk, and Keith, who made an armoire. Check out their photos on the forum. Next, Tommy and Al talk about the question of the week: What is the best way to attach legs to a column? Tommy had actually shown Al how to do this for a mahogany drum table Al made for his wife, which they show off proudly. Check out BobVila.com/AsktheMasters for full instructions.

The back frame and panel is assembled with panels in place and installed at the back of the cabinet. The cabinet is slowly evolving into a piece of furniture. The frame and panel back fit very snugly after some light, judicious planing of the outside rails and stiles. I have not yet finalized the layout of the interior of the cabinet, but I expect to create an assembly with two or three drawers in the lower right section of the cabinet. In the photo, you can see the overhang at the front top and bottom of the cabinet to allow for the front doors. The amount of overhang or space I allowed for is the thickness of the individual veneered door panels along with a very small extra gap both behind and ahead of the door.There is also the small chamfered edge of the top and bottom surrounding the cabinet front, sides and back.

Creating the door panels is my next task in this cabinet build and I will be working on this over the next days. I'm also working on the stand design which has not yet been finalized. I have a feeling I will be modifying the original drawings and doing something a little different here. I'm just waiting to determine how the enclosed cabinet looks to me and what stand design provides the best complement for the cabinet. This goes back to a term I coined a few months ago on an earlier project.

The term I coined is "dynamic design" and allows the maker to dynamically modify a design as the build progresses. The modifications in design are directly attributable to how the project is taking shape, as opposed to moving forward with an existing design which might or might not make sense any longer. The concept of dynamic design and artistic freedom go hand in hand. I mention to my clients that the design will most likely evolve as the project continues and to expect some changes, most likely small ones. There needs to be a certain trust between the maker and client to be able to accomplish this, something I strive to provide the client.

I should have the beginnings of the door panels done in the next day or so along with resawing of the veneers I will be using.

The outer wood (Oak) represents nobility of spirit and the inner base wood (Dyed Maple) represents imagination.

The dark wood is dyed to achieve the color much like dyed wool while the Oak is left natural.

I handcraft every ring to bring out the warmth and honesty of the wood. Each ring is hand formed from thin layers of wood chosen for its grain and durability.

See it here: http://www.simplywoodrings.com/ring_shop/

Here's another episode we shot at The Woodworking Show in Atlanta GA. While at the show we had the opportunity to interview Joseph Strong with Bad Dog Tools. Joe demonstrated their Rover Bits to us, and to say we were impressed would be an understatement.

Rover Bits are like a forstner bit, an auger bit, and a spade bit wrapped up into one. Ever tried to use a forstner bit in your cordless drill? How about drill straight into a nail embedded in a piece of wood with any bit without damaging it?

Watch this video to see what amazing things you can do with Rover Bits.

To learn more about these bits visit our website at:

www.WoodworkersResource.com

Craig Stevens

P.S. Just to let you know, I have no financial part with Bad Dog Tools. This is strictly a demonstration video of a cool product that I though you might find a need for in your shop.

Breaking out the chisels, Tommy demonstrates how he cut the patterns into the door's inner edge. Then, with the doors ready to go, he shows how he will set the hinges. The morning had been somewhat chaotic in Tommy's shop, but now that all his visitors have left he's determined to get focused--and get finished!