Don’t ask me how four middle class white boys in Northwest Ohio came up with the same name as Huey Newton’s black Mao-ist/socialist movement. There are some who believe the human brain stores every piece of information a person encounters in life, and the limitation of human existence is not the possession of knowledge but the ability to recall. (This leads to the possibility that hypnosis can cause one to recall seemingly tiny, unperceived details from previous life experiences.) So perhaps one of us had heard Walter Cronkite mention the Black Panthers in our pre-teen lives, or perhaps Keith and Kevin were actually black radicals just passing as Arayan twins…who knows. The point is the four of us decided to call ourselves The Black Panthers. We even went to the T-shirt shop at the mall to see if they had any panthers iron on thingies that we could have put on black shirts. They didn’t. We could have had fuzzy block letters spelling out Black Panthers put on shirts, but that seemed lame. We thought about getting custom air-brushed t-shirts, but that was too expensive. So we just waited 3 or 4 days and forgot about it as focused on our 2 on 2 football games where each person running the ball claimed to be Earl Campbell. Edward and I moved back to Indianapolis a few months later, our family having only spent 6 months in Elida.

I spoke to my brother a few days ago. I haven’t heard from Keith or Kevin in over 27 years. 26 years after the disbanding of The Black Panthers of Elida, Ohio, Panther Fever hit me again. In 2006 when I bought my first hand plane and fell into the Galoot Crevasse, I purchased the two volume boxed set of Garrett Hack’s books. I really wanted The Handplane Book. I bought the boxed set because I love books, and I love to think I am getting a bargain. I had no real interest in the second volume of that set, The Handtool Book. But when those books arrived at my house, I got Panther Fever. One look at the Woodrough and McParlin Panther Saw on the cover of The Handtool Book and an abscess formed in my soul. I instantly had an infected cavity that could only be filled and healed with a Panther Saw.

I went looking for them on Ebay. There were none. What’s the deal????? None on EBAY???? Are they rare, or something? Some Googling told me they were rare. One website went as far as to estimate there were only 30 in existence. Obviously, there are probably more than 30 of them around, but I like how some people vehemently disagree with that total. I’ve seen bulletin board posts that say things like, “Oh, he’s full of crap if he says there are only 30 in existence. The total is probably closer to 50!!!! There could even be 100 of them if they were all dragged out of the barns and basements.�

I couldn’t find one. Gail and I went down to John Sindelar’s last year and there were four of them mocking me. I asked John about them, and he said, “I’ve had a few of them through the years, but I kept these because they were unique. These are weird ones…� (Friends that is a man after my own heart. His collection is so extensive he only collects “weird� Panther Saws.)

A year or so ago a Panther Saw finally showed up on Ebay. It was beat to death, and it went for about $600. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t even bid. A few weeks ago another one showed up. It wasn’t in Sindelar Condition. It had a couple of issues. It had a blade that had seen so many sharpenings it was only about an inch and a half tall at the toe. Also, it had a big nasty drip of latex paint on the handle. Even though I felt my background as a black panther (Elida, Ohio white guy pre-teen chapter from 1980) entitled me to own this saw, it was actually my Ebay bid that made it happen.

So, even though I spoiled this story a week and a half ago by showing Gail pruning trees in the backyard with my Panther Saw, I am officially on record as being a panther owner. I have described my Panther Saw as being like a Gutenberg Bible that is missing Psalms. Sure, given its condition, it is not the most desirable sample in the world, but why don’t you show me yours before you say anything bad about mine.

A couple of weeks ago a Panther Saw in really good shape turned up on Ebay, but the final $1800+ bid did not meet the reserve.

How many are out there? There have to be at least 30 Panthers. I think there are still more than 50 Panther Saws in the world. There could be as many as 100. Mine isn’t perfect, but owning it does make me feel like I am special. And I haven’t felt this special since the Nigerian Government sent me that email asking me to help them move some money around through the use of Money Orders...

I have been very busy lately. My father called me Sunday, and wanted to make sure I was alive. When I asked why, he said, “Well, you haven’t called in at least a week, and you haven’t updated your blog either.�

It was good to learn that I have a dedicated reader, even if it’s “just family.�

So tonight I thought I would try to get something done on my workbench. I am almost ready to assemble the four legs and four stretchers of the base, and I need 16 pieces of 3/8� diameter pegs to use for drawboring the Mortise and Tenon stretcher/leg joints.

I’m going to come clean on this to the whole world (in advance). I don’t really know if I know what I am doing… I may be a victim of the right side of my brain. You see, I’m a little bit artsy. It’s okay. In the modern world a guy can be the proud owner of a bag full of smelly stuff bearing the names Bauer, Easton, CCM, and Sherwood and still recognize the beauty of good design…

I have decided to accent my massive hard maple Holtzapffel bench with Ebony. I am using Gabon Ebony pegs for the drawboring, and I am looking forward to the contrast of the black circles on the white maple. However, I don’t know if ebony pegs will work. I think it will be okay because as I drive the pegs through my Lie-Nielsen Doweling Plate…(another shameless plug, Tom…come on…let me be a hand model in next year’s Lie-Nielsen Calendar) Sorry, I was saying, as I drive the pegs through the steel doweling plate they seem to have adequate toughness. They tear/shred as opposed to split. So I think they will be great for drawboring, but I won’t know for sure until I start driving them in.

Let me tell you the other ebony ledge I am venturing out onto…(this one might get bad): I am making Ebony Handles to go in the massive maple screws that Stephen Fee made me for the front vise. Wow, turning Gabon ebony into round cylinders for vise handles…what’s so crazy about that? Well, nothing. However, I am planning to tap the ends of the handles with male threads and then thread them into Ebony knobs. For those knobs, I am going to turn them, then I plan to tap blind holes that I have drilled almost all the way through. I honestly don’t know if you can tap ebony, but here I am letting the world know ahead of time what my plan is. At this moment I feel like Oral Roberts telling the world that God wants to take me home on a specific date. I wasn’t supposed to tell the plan until after it was successful…

Tonight I spent some time making more pegs for drawboring, and look what happened. How did I cut that finger, you ask? I picked up my drawknife. That’s it. I just picked it up. I didn’t juggle it. I didn’t swing it like a cleaver and try to catch it with my left hand. I just reached down with both hands and picked it up off the bench and apparently my left hand was a little too high on the handle and managed to get hold of some of the blade. That is almost as dumb as the fact that I cut my pegs into ½ x ½ x 3 inch rectangular blocks BEFORE I started any rounding. I now realize it would have been better to keep them as long as possible and spindle turn them down closer to 3/8� before driving them through the doweling plate. But no; I created way oversized rectangles that are too short to grab hold of, and I have to shave them down to a cross-sectional area just under 50% of their 0.25 square inches. Look at all of those shavings. I have little Ebony curls EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Right now in Holland, Michigan there is a moron standing in a mountain of Ebony curls who cannot lift a tiny little drawknife off of his bench without cutting his finger, thinks he can flawlessly tap Gabon Ebony, and believes he is the next great Lie-Nielsen Hand Model. Stay tuned to see how this turns out.

About a decade ago, my boss Steve Shanesy told me something about design that knocked me flat. When he was a struggling custom furniture maker, he took some time off to do something that few people do.

Create a new style of furniture.

That is one of the most ambitious personal projects I could imagine. I wonder if there has there been a new style of furniture created in my lifetime. Does James Krenov’s work constitute a new style? Sam Maloof? George Nakashima? I don’t know the answer to this question, but I do know how one mouth-breather of a woodworker (me) goes about it.

And because I never tire of hearing how other people design pieces, I thought I’d share with you the convoluted path I’m taking this week to make a simple thing for our fall 2008 issue.

I like old furniture – anything from Ancient Egypt to World War II interests me greatly. So when I set out to build something I hit the books to look at as many examples of furniture and decorative objects from that period as I can. In this case, we decided to build an 18th-century wall cabinet for the fall issue, so I cracked open all my books from Wallace Nutting, particularly “A Furniture Treasury.� This out-of-print book is available in many forms and is fairly inexpensive. I paid $20 for my two-volume set at Half-Price Books.

I might not look at wall cabinets when I scan these books. I look at lots of casework pieces and their proportions, mouldings and the arrangement of the components, such rails and stiles from doors.

When I’m saturated (a few trips through the treasury will do that), I’ll start sketching. It’s not formal. I just draw without regard to perfectly straight lines or dimensions. I sketch in the car while waiting for the kids to finish track practice. Or in the few minutes of peace I get between the bedtimes of the two kids. I sketch things that I’m sure won’t work just to give them their day in ink.

The more examples I draw, the better the chance I’ll hit something I really like. I don’t use the Golden Section or any other mathematical formula. It’s all gut.

Then I fire up a CAD program on my laptop and try to turn the sketches into something that can be built and has some dimensions that make sense – a dining table that’s 30� high, for example.

While In CAD I’ll make a few variations that take advantage of the cut-and-paste power of the program. I’ll move the drawers and doors around. Add a cupholder. With this wall cabinet I tried it with two doors (like the Nutting original), one door, then a door with a drawer.

Then I show the CAD drawings to others and ask them which ones they like. Why they like it isn’t as important – though I always ask. Maddy, my 12-year-old, liked the two-door version of this cabinet because of the symmetry and that you could display two contrasting pieces of pottery behind the glass panes. Katy, the 8-year-old, liked the drawer because it could be used to “hold little things.� Lucy, my wife, declined to put a dog in that fight.

Next stop: If I have time, I’ll knock together a prototype in poplar to see if it looks awkward. Prototyping always pays off in two ways: I make small adjustments that improve the design, and I’ll typically keep the prototype for our family.

— Christopher Schwarz

I made this earrings and the bracel for a firend´s doughter, Lucy. She loves animals, so I gave to the earrings a personal detail.

To make the earrings use rounded pliers to make chains with the wire. You can make yourself the part of wire that goes in your ear: put the wire arround a pencil or pen (or arround something cylindric) to give the wire that shape.

I made this earrings and the bracel below, embroidening the beeds in an elastic fishing line.

Here you can see both designs.

Hope you like them! Try handmaded jewerly, it’s an adicction!

 Ah, the hard work was done...  Or was it?  I got the roof framed, and it was time now to get it shingled.   Before I get to that, the last little bit of framing needed to happen - the cupola.  Here you can see the base I had constructed while framing up the roof:

You can also see the roofing materials nowhere near I wanted them to be - I wanted them on the roof, but there they are on the ground...  Of course, they are the heavy ones - architectural layered shingles, which basically means each bundle weighs twice as much as a regular bundle...  but I digress... 

Here's a rear view of the building, showing the cupola framing and the rear overhang I neglected to include in the last installment of this unending adventure:

It was much easier to frame up the cupola on the ground, as there were several angled cuts to make and it's easier to make any adjustments where the saw is closer than a run down the ladder...  besides, that 8/12 pitch is hard enough to stand on.  That - and I wanted to make sure I got the weather vane installed properly.  I purchased it from The Weathervane Factory located in Bar Harbor Maine.  I had considered something more whimsical, but in the end I am happy with this purchase - it fits the finished design of the building quite well.  Here is the framed cupola, complete with vane, on the floor of the shop:

And - of course - in it's final resting place on the top center of the shop:

The cupola is a functioning roof vent, along with gable vents at each end - there should be plenty of air traveling through the attic space with this setup.   I used pre-made louvers just to save on time and keep them a bit more maintenance free...   In retrospect, I think if I were to build it now, I would use a larger roof on it - something with a little Asian influence - but, I'm not going to tear the thing down for it!

Anyhow - I had the roof sheathed now, the cupola framed and in place, and all that was left was to heft all the shingles up onto the roof.  By my calculations, it was going to take about 18-1/2 square or so, or 56 bundles.  That's 56 trips up the ladder carrying some god-awful heavy material.  Of course - it was mid August, the hottest part of the year... You can't shingle a roof unless it either the hottest or coldest part of the year, you know.

I have mentioned that one of the reasons I was able to build my own shop was because I had become my dad's caregiver after mom passed away.   Dad had come to live with us right at  New Year's, and did quite well at first.  But it was about at this time that his condition (Alzheimer's) became quite severe.  It made working on the shop during the day difficult at best...  Dad had taken to wandering off on me, wouldn't come out to the shop to "help" me any longer, and I couldn't leave him by himself for more than about 10 to 15 minutes, even if he was sleeping.  Usually I would have to wait for my wife to get home from her work to "take over" for me so I could work on the roofing in the evening.  The nights were long, and the weather cooler in the evening, so it wasn't all bad, I guess...  

We took him in to see a doctor and she suggested we contact Hospice of North Idaho - that they might be able to help us out.  What a godsend those people were...  They came out three times a week, giving dad care and me some time to run errands and get some work done.  I cannot thank them enough for their exemplary service, they were truly wonderful.

As a result, I don't have any photos of progress on the roof so here it is magically complete, about a week after Labor Day:

It took me about a month to get it from the picture before to that one.  First to go up was the class A chimney for the wood stove, the mast for the electrical service, then the fascia board followed by the shingle underlayment   Here you can see the mast for the electrical service, and my temporary scaffolding re-erected after being torn down when the roof framing was completed:

It was no fun doing this side of the roof - an 8:12 pitch gets hard to stand on after a while, and I'm no fan of heights...  It took all of my courage at some points.  I did use roof jacks for this side, which made it easier. 

It ended up taking about 19 squares of shingles to complete, I used the heaviest kind (of course!), an architectural "layered" shingle that has a 35 year warranty.  What I really remember is how exhausted I was by this time...  When I did work on the shop, it was at a frantic pace.  The shingles were heavy, of course - and I can still feel the pain in my shoulder from lifting them into place.  I had to wear tape over my fingertips, as rubbing the stone on the shingles had worn my fingernails down to where they were bloody.  Worst of all was that Dad was a 24 hour a day job, as he had no sense of day or night anymore. 

Dad was rapidly getting worse, and I stopped work on the shop to spend time with him.  He passed away on the 21st of September.

The next month was spent bringing him back to his home to be buried next to mom, and to get together with family to decide what to do with their estate. 

Getting back, it was well into October.  Life was about to change for me - no longer tied to the house, I needed to get back out into the workforce.  My focus now was on updating my resume and on storing what I had received as an inheritance from the estate.  When I started the shop, we had no idea how long dad was going to be with us, and there was a finite amount of money to work with.  We had it worked out where once the shop was complete, dad and I could start working out of it, making money out of it, hopefully enough to allow me to remain as his caregiver.  It turned out that wasn't to be, the time with him was too short, and the shop was incomplete.  I wasn't far enough along with it for it to work for its income, so it would have to take the back burner while I once again joined the 9 to 5'ers.

When everything was settled, I did spend some time on the shop buttoning it up for the coming winter.  First was to put some siding on the cupola so the flashing would keep out the rains:

Next was to get the windows and doors installed so the building would be enclosed:

It was finally starting to look like a building!  The overhead door is a 10' x 10' "residential" door from Overhead Door... I'm quite disappointed in it, it's not a very tough door and the panel with the windows is too high to look out of - the only other option would have been to have them be too low... 

I also got the electrical panel hooked up so there was power, but that was about it for the winter.  The next thing I knew, I was reporting daily to a new job and my time for working on the shop was drastically cut back to a few hours a week.  With the cold weather and darkness of winter approaching, not much would happen until spring could shake off the icy grip of what seemed to be the longest, coldest winter...  But there were a few things I could do...

Coming up next - knee braces and some other miscellaneous structural work, and hooking up the electrical...

Back in the day when I did power tool woodworking (at the exclusion of hand tools), I never did feel the need to cut a mortise and tenon joint. Somehow, using hand tools, it just feels right to do it.

However, there is a problem. I have never done it and didn't know how to do it properly - with any kind of tools. I started to work cutting tenons for the base on the workbench I am making and somehow, it just didn't seem to be coming out right.

I took a break from that and started a little stool for my daughter to reach the kitchen sink. Somehow, it just seemed right to dovetail the legs into the ends. Also, I felt like I needed the practice before going any farther on my bench.

I was right. I DID need more practice. As it turns out, the stool will be usable for children, but it will hardly be pretty or even that strong. I realized that I needed more help. A LOT more help.  read more »

Chris Schwarz, editor of Popular Woodworking and Woodworking Magazines, author of "Workbenches:  From Design & Theory to Construction & Use", and of course star of three Lie-Nielsen DVDs agreed to come on the show for an interview with yours truly.

While I meant to ask Chris everything under the sun regarding hand tools and his various articles that I've accumulated over the past few years (I swear I'm not a stalker, just a devoted Schwarzee).  I narrowed it down to just a few key ones ranging from hand sawing to dealing with letters to the editor by happy and unhappy readers alike.

I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did doing it.  Chris agreed to come back on some other time, so stay subscribed for possible upcoming visits in the future.

Hendrik is returning in May to answer your questions about getting a woodworking business up and running.  It's a little teaser before his annual seminar so get those questions in as soon as possible.

Also, Hendrik is starting his annual three part finishing seminars: 
Part 1 "Preparing the Surface and Staining" - April 26th or May 3rd. 
Part 2 "Hand Finishing and Rubbing Out"    - May 10th or 24th.
Part 3"Antique Restoration Techniques"      - May 31st or June 7th.
So if you live in the Toronto area or feel like visiting it, and you want more information about Hendrik's finishing seminars, send an email to info@passionforwood.com

Of course you can always drop me a line with your questions, comments, suggestions and schwag entries anytime.  Just send them to mattsbasementworkshop@gmail.com.

 Listen to today's show by clicking on the player below

powered by Podbean.com

Now that shop class is as common in high schools as poodle skirts, lots of woodworkers worry about passing on our enthusiasm for the craft to the next generation. In my house, I?ve started treating my kids more like apprentices, and it seems to be working.

They help clean the shop. They assist me on projects at assembly time. They can work on their own projects on the side when I don?t need them. And ? here?s the odd part ? I pay them (a pittance) for their help and swear them to secrecy on the ?arts and mysteries? of the craft.

This weekend has been a perfect example. I assembled a large run of shelving that I plan to install in the recipient?s home this week. There was a lot of tedious gluing, clamping and clean-up work involved, so I hired 7-year-old Katy to help.

First, I showed her the ?secret? to making the lacquer finish perfectly smooth to the touch ? a folded up brown paper bag. We rubbed all the surfaces vigorously, which knocked down any surface imperfections without cutting through the film finish. Katy did the shelves; I did the uprights.

?Cool,? she said. ?It works!?

As we were bagging the lacquer, both of us noticed that there were some small dings and scratches in the color. This is was the result of the parts getting moved around more than I like. So I swore Katy to secrecy again and introduced her to the mystery of stain pens. In this case, the best match wasn?t one of my stain pens (which I keep hidden away), it was a black Sharpie marker.

In fact, Katy became incredulous when I took her picture at work with the marker.

?What if someone sees the picture and figures out our secret?? she asked. ?Then they?ll know!?

Then we glued up the shelves. I applied the glue. Katy added the Dominos. We both applied the clamps and cleaned the glue squeeze-out. Assembly can be stressful for me, but Katy?s amazement at how the project came together kept my anxiety in check.

We did four major glue-ups this weekend, and by the fourth one, Katy dove into the work like she had been doing it all her life. I wonder if learning woodworking is like learning a foreign language ? it might be easier when you are young.

As I added the kicks to the cabinet, Katy worked at the bench at her own project ? she?s transforming my discarded shop jigs for this shelving project into a wooden alligator.

Then I paid her (about $1 an hour for the shop time) and I asked her if she?d come along on the installation next week. With hesitation, she said: ?Yes! Hurray!?

Next step: Getting the apprentices to fetch the small beer for the master.

? Christopher Schwarz

Here's the second interview we did at The Woodworking Show in Atlanta, GA. This interview is with Jim Heavey of Wood Magazine. Jim tours the country working at woodworking trade shows for Wood Magazine.

Jim's job is to conduct workshops that teach woodworking skills such as how to cut and install crown moulding, building small jewerly boxes. installing cabinets, and everything inbetween.

I hope you enjoy this interview. If you have any questions you can email us @:

contactus@woodworkersresource.com

For more information on woodworking and to sign up for our newsletter so that you never miss a video, go to:

www.WoodworkersResource.com

Check out this easy way to navigate the countless woodworking tips we offer for your reference throughout our entire highly-informative woodworking website. There is an abundance of interesting and useful woodworking tips here which we have compiled during our 30 years as a leading woodworking educator and tool retailer.

If you have useful woodworking tips you would like to contribute to our website and online newsletter, Wood News Online, send it to us in an email at woodnews@highlandwoodworking.com.

Click HERE to see the latest issue of Wood News Online, our monthly woodworking newsletter.