Hi Folks
Just finished in the workshop - I'm finally happy with the planes I've made for the Kentucky show. Amazing how much work goes into a plane. The initial work goes quickly but the finishing details and tuning takes easily as long again. Then after a few days the plane needs another fettle once it has settled down.
The Blackwood Miter plane looks awesome - I'll take some "studio" shots tomorrow. That wood is just spectacular, and I'm already worrying about obtaining some more. The sheer weight of it is shocking - this is one plane that definitely doesn't need a brass sole! And it always amuses me the way the shavings curl out of a skew plane :)
Tomorrow will see me packing and panicking (probably in that order). Can't wait to get to the US, though.
Cheers
Philly

I am excited about the latest DVD as it concentrates on techniques for chisel use.

Chopping and paring ...

Hi Folks
Spent some time yesterday making a stand for the new Mill. 100mm square legs makes for a sturdy base, and it cost me about £20 to make.
Today was D-Day. Went to my local hire centre first thing (A1 - great guys!) and picked up an engine hoist. It was rated for 500kg so I was quite satisfied it was man enough for the job.
Spent an interesting hour manoeuvring the mill in through the door of the workshop (yes, after removing the door to give me more space) and then getting the thing safely in position on the new stand.
Once the heart rate had slowed down I was rather pleased with how it had went. Next - de-greasing. The mill was heavily coated in thick grease and paper. Good for keeping the rust off, a dirty job to clean off. Lots of towel and rags, with WD40 to loosen the worst areas and it came up pretty well.
After setting up the machine and installing handles, etc I was ready to test it. And it worked a dream out of the box - very smooth and quiet. Spent some time taking test cuts and I came away very impressed - a world apart from my previous mill.
Someone asked if I would be making infill planes? I don't plane to make infills at the moment but do have plans for some interesting new hybrids. Pics soon ;)
Cheers
Philly

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

Here’s last week’s tip from ShopNotes online editor Phil Huber:

I wanted to add an auxiliary table and fence to my drill press. But I didn’t want to spend a lot of money. So I built the simple drill press table and fence with a replaceable insert you see in the photo above. The fence is adjustable and has a sliding stop.

Table

The table is two layers of ¾″ plywood that are glued together. A dado on the top side at each end holds T-tracks for attaching the fence. Two bottom-mounted T-tracks attach the table to the drill press, as you can see in detail ‘b’ and the photo at right.

Fence

The fence is nothing more than a length of aluminum angle. A slotted hole at each end accepts a flange bolt from the table so you can quickly mount and adjust the fence to meet almost any drilling challenge.

Stop Block

To help position and hold the workpiece, I added a stop block to the fence. It’s simply a block of wood attached to an aluminum bracket. A knob and T-nut, are used for adjusting the block and securing it in position on the fence (detail ‘a’).

You can find even more ways to upgrade your power tools, just go to: http://plansnow.com/toolstandplans.html.

Good Woodworking,

Phil Huber
Online Editor, ShopNotes

Send for a preview issue of ShopNotes magazine

Our very own guest expert Hendrik Varju has returned for another visit here at Matt's Basement Workshop, and this month we're mixing things up a little bit.  Rather than our usual question and answer show, we're talking a little more philosophical and asking the question "Why do we woodwork?"

This is the wrap-up to our discussion and once again after you listen to it I'm willing to bet that many of you feel the same way about why it is we woodwork as we did. 

You're welcome to send in your own comments to the discussion or even pose a few more questions too.  Just contact us either by email at mattsbasementworkshop@gmail.com, leave a comment at the website, or call and leave a voicemail at 231 354-2338.

If you'd like to get more information about Hendrik checkout his website at www.passionforwood.com.

If you have the time, please take the new listener survey.

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

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We are having a one week half term so that the students may have time with their families, and in Yonatan's case go walking and ...

More pictures, fewer words. Here's the plan for the first storm window. Dimensions will be different, but construction will be the same:

This started as a half-lap joint, but became a bridle joint to improve the mechanical joint. The trimming moldings are intended to reduce the chance of moisture getting into the joint.

It?s safety week at Popular Woodworking. Reading their blog this week took me back to my start in woodworking.

When my wife and I bought our house, we decided that we wanted a tile-top kitchen table. I opted to try making the table after we failed to find what we had in mind. I enjoyed that experience so much that I thought I?d get more involved in woodworking.

I started slowly. No multi-thousand-dollar trips to the woodworking stores, I got some handheld tools and went about reading everything I could find. Before long it became clear that a table saw would be a useful tool. I shopped around for a used contractor?s saw and found a Delta at a reasonable price (though I had to drive to Pittsburgh to get it). ?Now,? I thought, ?I?m a real woodworker.?

I got the saw setup in short order. While I had read about table saw use, I don?t believe that I had ever before used one. I set the rip fence, fired it up and began pushing a piece of oak through. After a couple of seconds the oak was on the other side of the room, striking the water heater with a very loud noise. Unhurt but a little shaken, I shut off the saw and went upstairs. My first (and only experience with kickback).

I don?t remember what I thought about -- if I considered selling the saw and taking up golf -- but after a while I ventured back down to the shop. The water heater sported a nice new dent, a convenient reminder that I could have been sporting a nice new dent. Luckily something made me decide to give it another try, to climb back on the horse.

Woodworking has been an important part of my life since. An inauspicious start notwithstanding. It?s good to think about such things once in a while, to remind ourselves that our hobby (or profession) involves inherent risks. Fortunately, the risks are balanced by great rewards.

Apparently my daughters have been so nice to the fairies that moved in, the fairies have invited their friends to move in as well!



A new door has been discovered. And a note has been left at the first door that reads:“Thank you for the gift. You have been so nice to us, we have invited our friends to move in as well.”

Apparently the fairies in the new fairy door prefer a room with a view as this door is located a few steps up from the original.



It looks like this door is constructed of Jatoba with a Cherry frame and finished with Boiled Linseed Oil.

Dave Jeske at Bluespruce Toolworks is now offering a fishtail detail chisel. Very cool!

For immediate release

LumberJocks.com Grows to More Than 10,000 Projects; Now Officially the Biggest Online Woodworking Gallery.

September, 29th, 2008 – LumberJocks.com, the largest project based website for woodworkers, today announced that more than 10,000 woodworking projects have been posted to the site.

“We are delighted that our members and viewers are finding LumberJocks.com to be a great place to publish and find woodworking content,” said Martin Sojka, CEO of Lumberjocks.com. “With more than 10,000 projects posted, we know that our members enjoy sharing their talents and showcasing their skills from beginners to professionals. With this rapid growth rate we expect the numbers to rise dramatically over the next quarter.”

The top 5 project contributors received a thank you award for taking the time to share their many wonderful projects. “I know it may only be a small sign of gratitude; however I would like all the contributors to our site to know that showcasing your talents and the helpful and friendly attitude of our members has truly made the site what it is today. I expect our online family of woodworkers and their projects to continue to grow and prosper. I feel that LumberJocks is now the biggest online woodworking gallery.” said Sojka.

LumberJocks.com is quickly becoming the #1 online social network for woodworkers. The site’s structure and growing features allow members to easily connect with other woodworkers, post projects and blogs and compete in friendly competitions for fantastic prizes. Stay tuned for our Winter Awards!

About LumberJocks.com
LumberJocks.com is part of the growing network of online communities hosted by Martin Sojka. The rapidly growing LumberJocks.com is comprised of men, women, children, and youth from around the world who are actively involved in woodworking. The members are a combination of professionals, skilled hobbyists, beginners and everything in between. They are furniture builders, artists, home renovators, and wood explorers.

The woodworkers join LumberJocks.com to share their experiences with wood, ask and answer questions, seek and post their personal tool reviews, find and share resource information, and blog their woodworking journeys.

###

I'm looking at 3.71 Gb's of PDF files. By 'looking', I mean just that. Looking. I've reviewed them so many times, I think I have memorized the entire contents of...

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Hey matt (napaman), no need to bug me about the next, previous project buttons – anymore ;) Each project page now features 2 new navigation widgets with thumbnails of the previous and next projects. Just click on any thumbnail and you will be taken to a respective project page.

Author’s projects are first… followed by the Everyone’s projects:

Enjoy!

I have completed dimensioning, handplaning and scraping the surfaces of the panels for the drawer cases. The panels were longer in length than necessary, an extra length allowance of each of the panels comprises one side of each drawer case. These drawer case sides will be rabbeted into the top and bottom panels. The grain orientation of the drawer cases is similar to the cabinet top and bottom, this is purposely designed in to accommodate any expansion and contraction due to humidity changes in the ambient air. In the lower drawer case, the sides are somewhat longer to accommodate two drawers and a drawer divider. The hardwood drawer divider will be fitted into dadoed slots in the center of either side of the drawer case. Dadoes run perpendicular to grain orientation as opposed to grooves which run parallel to the grain orientation.

The drawer case sides, and top and bottom panels are oriented in the same direction to have the complete drawer case movement occur front to back similar to the cabinet itself. The drawer case sides need to be trimmed to size next and then a dado created in the dual drawer case. The drawer cases are assembled afterwards with careful attention to maintaining the drawer cases perfectly square. Once the assembly is complete, I will fit the drawer divider into its dado.

I'm anxious to begin work on the drawers and have yet to decide whether the drawer faces will be a contrasting color, most likely so. In this case, I need to find a wood which complements European Beech.

I went to see Shiori Taguchi's metal workshop during summer holiday. It was an open day of her workshop, and she was running a copper pan forging class. She gave a brief instruction on how to forge the copper sheet to a teenager student, then left him and observed his work from a distance. "I tend to leave the students do", she said.

A few days later I had a chat with senior woodworkers on 'how to teach'. "I stopped giving too much instruction to the students, even when they are about to make a mistake. I rather tell them afterwards why it happened." said a man who runs a private furniture making school.

Those words made me think about our education at the college.
Are we giving too much to the students, hoping them to absorb as much as possible while they are at school?
Are we taking away their opportunity of trial and error, worring an error could be a serious injury?
Are we putting too much stuff into their schedule and they end up with even no time for a mistake and remake?
What we think "not enough" might be "just enough" for students.

夏休みの間に、木曽のkanehenさんの工房を見学させていただきました。
オープンアトリエの期間で、フライパンづくりのワークショップ中でした。
kanehenさん、中学生の子に銅板の叩き方を教えていたのですが、少し教えたらあとは離れて見ている。「私は放っておくんです」とおっしゃっていました。

その数日後、木工家のイベントの打ち合わせの席で、先輩方と「教え方」の話になりました。木工教室を営む方が「生徒が失敗すると分かっても、指摘するのをあえてやめたんです」と言われました。失敗したあとで、なぜそうなったかを教えるのだと。

なかなか難しいことです。
限られた学生生活でなるべく多く吸収してほしいと、つい情報を与えすぎていないか。
失敗は大けがにつながると恐れるあまり、学生に自ら試させる機会を奪っていないか。
学生に失敗させる暇もないほど、詰め込みすぎてはいないだろうか。
この夏、考えさせられた言葉でした。

Many of my projects use shellac in at least some part of the finish. It was the first finish I was able to apply well, it's a natural and renewable product (at least, when mixed yourself... Off the shelf stuff may not be fully natural), and it looks great.

The only downsides are low abrasion resistance and low liquid resistance. That's it. Not so good for table tops, great for pens!

The pencil shown in the photo at right is made from kingwood finished with several coats of 1# shellac. This was my first penturning attempt and I still use it every day. The finish is still great.

Shellac.net has some good info on shellac. Their "Why Shellac" article is good:

Shellac is a good choice for
furniture, smal craft, and wood instruments because it is ..

And they missed one of the most important reasons: It's a renewable resource and fully natural!

Shellac is made from secretions of the Lac bug. It is sold either prepared or in flake form that you mix yourself with denatured alcohol. Shellac is used for more than just wood finishes. It can be found in medicines as a pill coating and packaged foods to add a shine to glazes or candies. It's completely edible when cured and safe around children.

If you haven't tried shellac yet, get a small can of prepared shellac and play with it. If you like it, buy some flakes and alcohol and start mixin' yer own.

Last Wednesday I shared with you my uses for extra scraps, sawdust and shavings.  And just as I had asked, you the listeners came through for me!!  Quite a few of you sent in your ideas, so as promised I have this follow up show to share them with everyone.

REMEMBER!  If you have any comments, questions, suggestions or you want to enter for some free schwag you can always drop me a line at 231 354-2338

If you have the time, please take the new listener survey.

Hendrik is wrapping up his annual finishing seminar: 
Part 3"Antique Restoration Techniques"      - May 31st or June 7th.

Also, coming up on June 14th, Hendrik is conducting a seminar based on his book "Starting and Running a Woodworking Business"at his Acton, Ontario Workshop.  If you'd like to attend or just get more information about these seminars contact Hendrik at info@passionforwood.com.

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

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With the Bombe completed, Tommy is ready to dive into another project - a full bedroom set. This will not be a step-by-step project but more of an overview. In this installment, Tommy talks about the wood he has selected and how the completed set will look.

Chris Schwarz has posted a wonderful review of my third book on his blog.

He must be a mindreader, as he points out that ...

Hey Dick, Debbie challenged me too.. while we were chatting yesterday; she mentioned something about CEO dancing clowns.. or maybe she was referring to me ha.

Anyways here we come…

... and now one beautifuuul ballet jump

... and a sweet bonus from my brand new wife lol

These photos are from a great friends wedding (last weekend). I officially contribute them to our 10,000 projects happy dance ;) Who’s next?

It can be hard to figure out what will keep someone with Alzheimer's occupied - and one that will keep them happy...  The activity has to be something the person is interested in, and it's better if it has some long-time personal connection.  It was difficult to find such things for dad to do - about the only two things he was interested in were gardening and woodworking, and gardening was out in the winter - so woodworking was called upon as an activity we could both do while in the shop.  I tried having him help make saws, but the tasks required were all beyond his capabilities in his diminished state.  I also tried to get him to make wooden mallets and other basic tools for me, but he lost interest quickly.

 One successful activity we had with him was having him make reproductions of a lap desk my great grandfather owned.  It's an interesting piece, one I thought would be fun to examine for this blog.  It's an interesting study - showing some signs of both elegant and of crude construction techniques.  It lends itself well to study of early furniture and casework, as not all that was done as high-end furniture.  Most stuff that survives today wasn't the run of the mill stuff, anymore than you would expect today's run-of-the-mill furniture to be around in 150 years.  What does survive is often the high end stuff that is heirloom quality, which I think often distorts people's views of craftsmanship during these earlier periods.  To that, I offer this piece, which has more sentimental value than anything, as one example of construction techniques used in early work:

 

read more

Jessica and Jake said they'd be happy to send David some bamboo to work with.

Here's an excellent interview with a young furniture designer showing at the 2007 International Contemporary Furniture Fair.

Hi Folks
Brace yourselves - I have actually done some woodworking! Yes, non-planemaking stuff.
Remember the acoustic guitar project I've been slowly building? It's a Weissenborn lap steel guitar, and I made pretty good progress until I came to making the sides. Yes, the tricky part......;)
A couple of weekends ago I made a small bending iron from some steel pipe and a blow torch. Worked fairly well but the pipe was too small a diameter to give me the gentle curves I required. Rather than purchase some suitable pipe I decided to go for Plan B - build a former and laminate the guitar sides in the vacuum bag.
So I built a one piece former from some poplar and laminated the sides from 6 pieces of veneer. It was simple work and the vacuum press did its usual amazing job of flattening things while the glue set. I made a pair and then set them aside to cure. Now I can get on with assembling the guitar, when it finally looks like a "real one"!
Cheers
Philly

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We are trying a new format for this show, where we actually have a number of segments including News, Hot Deals, Around the Web, and moreâ.

Status Report: Marc has a new column in Popular Woodworking Magazine and is currently working on an entertainment center. Matt is finishing up his series on a very cool bookcase.

Around the Web:
We review a great blog from Kari Hultman called The Village Carpenter.

Matt discusses a great blog entry he found over at the Highland Woodworking blog about removing and preventing rust on tools.

News:
The Jointmaker Pro from Bridge City Tool Works is the latest tool to make waves in the woodworking community.
Our original blog post.

Hot Deals:
Irwin Quick Clamp deal from Rockler. You get four 6â clamps, plus two 12â and two 24â clamp/spreaders. Plus, theyâve added a FREE heavy-duty cloth bag.

Epifanes Marine Varnish from Jamestown Distributors - $16.02/500ml

Bessey K-Bodies Clamp Blowout at Woodcraft. 24â K-Body Clamp reg. $35.99 Sale $26.99, 40â K-Body Clamp reg. $44.99 Sale $33.74

True Value Coupon - $5 coupon off $25 purchase

Ryobi buy one combo kit get a free Ryobi One Plus tool by mail in rebate from Home Depot.

Topics:
Humidity and its effect on finishes. For reference:
http://www.minwax.com/how_to/faq/?Q=05 http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Humidity_and_Conversion.html

Tomâs Tip (from Tomâs Workbench): Waxing the sole of your plane.

Voicemails:
Denis is having problems centering a guide bushing on his DeWalt router. And Jack wanted to know what block plane Matt recommend for trimming tenons.

Email:
Tom wanted some details on when its appropriate to pre-raise the grain.

if you have a question or comment, you can email us at woodtalkonline@gmail.com or leave us a message at 623-242-2450

Now that I got my lighting back and functional, here's a better pic of the pencil shown in the previous post.

I've been asked about how I photograph my projects. When I think of it/am not too lazy/have batteries I use this rig.

It's a portable small item studio purchased at WalMart for $50. It includes two color corrected incandescent "hot" lights, the tent, blue and gray backgrounds, a little tripod, and a carrying case.

I also have a handheld strobe attached to the PC socket in my Kodak Z7590 digicam. The camera is held by a really REALLY old Graflex tripod.

In the photo is a roll of shipping tape. I use that as a lint catcher because there's always dust and lint and crap that settles on the background cloth. Adhesive tape is the easiest way to remove it on the spot.