General Woodworking

I'm not sure how it happened, it's not my business. Somehow her husband had broken her grandmother's antique table during the past weekend. We were working together on a Monday morning at the hospital when she told me. 
 The leg on the left had been ripped off it's mounting bolt.


And the other leg had one of it's feet torn off.


The hardware to work the drop leaves was interesting, I hadn't really seen anything like this before.


Unfortunately the cleat had broken off on the other side.


The dowel joints at one corner were broken completely.


After stressing the rest of the joints, I was able to pull the chair apart into three pieces.

In addition to doing demonstrations for the Highland Woodworking 35th Anniversary One-Day Sale this past Saturday, Roy Underhill stuck around on Sunday to teach a day-long demonstration workshop on building a standing desk (pictured left). While the actual process of creating this desk from start to finish would take much longer than the allotted time for the class, Roy demonstrated the different techniques needed to create the different parts of the desk, as well as the joints needed to piece them together. Although we didn’t take a finished product home with us, we all got to learn the skills needed to build our own and have Roy help us with our techniques.

I have taken a few classes from Roy before this one, most notably during Woodworking In America a few years ago. Not only is Roy a great teacher, but he is also very entertaining and definitely knows how to keep his audience. From using audience participation to create a “human workbench”, to the cool and smooth maneuvers of “Spoffer”, Roy had plenty of one-liners and musings to keep this demo class on its toes.

The post A Lesson from the Woodright himself, Roy Underhill appeared first on Woodworking Blog.

Extra tools are always a puzzle for me.  Do I sell them, give them away or something else.  Selling is tricky involving negotiating a price, mailing, packaging, etc.  And finding some one who needs something I don’t is fun, but can also be tricky. Here’s another really cool idea .. build a tool chest, fill it with tools, [...]

A few years ago we made a special run of temporary tattoo's featuring the famous woodworking mantra of "Measure Twice - Cut Once". This is an extremely useful bit of advice to follow for anyone who has measured once and cut at least twice. We included the tattoo in orders, and had a stack for customers and in general we had a lot of fun. At the time a certain gentleman by the name of Corn asked if we minded if he adapted the design for a real tattoo. We were totally chuffed and obviously gave an enthusiastic "by all means". Corn stopped by our shop last week to pick up some tools and we got a good look at the result. Wow - it came out great!!!

In other news: I would be a less than a competent iron monger if I did not mention that we are now stocking Geier leather work gloves. These are the gloves we use ourselves in the workshop where we make Gramercy Tools, and we just love the fit, the quality, and the general comfortable feel of the gloves. It also gives us a chance to support another US manufacturer. The gloves are nice enough to be worn outside the shop, and are better made than most of the dress gloves available at department stores.

Wood porn! Thanks so much, Shannon!

Highland Woodworking had a wonderful turnout for our 35th Anniversary Celebration and One-Day Sale this weekend. We were excited to have our special guest, Roy Underhill, in the store on Saturday doing demonstrations of a variety of hand-tools, both old and new.

In addition, we had representatives from Carter Products and Festool doing demonstrations throughout the day, while visitors were able to stop by and checkout their latest products.

Be sure to checkout our Facebook page in the coming week for more photos and videos of the celebration and Roy’s visit!

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I have an old 14″ Delta band saw that has been in my family since I was a kid.  It is an ok saw, but resawing was impossible.  It was just accepted that this was an old saw and never going to preform like I wanted.  The problem is I really need resawing capabilities, a lot of the projects I build are small and utilize thinner stock.  Planing a 3/4 or 4/4 board down to 1/2 is a big waste of material.  Also, I have wanted to experiment more with shop cut veneers.  So I decided it was time to buy a new band saw.

After shopping around I was almost ready to purchase but the Woodworking Shows were going to be here in Atlanta so I decided to wait and see if I could find a good deal there first.  Last year while at the Modern Woodworkers Association booth all weekend at the Woodworking Shows, I pretty much had memorized Alex Snodgrass’ demonstration as we were right beside the Carter/Band saw Clinic booth.  I even teased that he should throw “it slices….it dices….” into his routine, but honestly I didn’t think it would probably help my band saw as much as I needed.  But this year I decided to give them a try and picked up a band saw conversion kit that included a new set of upper and lower guides and guard.  I also took there suggestion and bought a 3 teeth per inch resaw blade.

The guides were super easy to install and took less than 20 minutes.  Once the guides were installed I put on the new blade.  The adjustment were quick and so much smoother that the original set of guides.  The only negative on the Carter guides is that the guides don’t come with a lot of instruction on how to install or adjust, I suppose the reason is that they push an instructional video with the conversion kit.  That said it was not that difficult to figure out.

Once the blades was installed and adjusted I was ready to test it out.  I expected to have a few adjustments after the first cut but was amazed that with the first cut I was able to slice a consistent 1/8″ off of a 4″ thick board!  I have been using the band saw for a few weeks now with the new guides and blade and am really satisfied with the results.  I am still limited to about 6″ on resaw width but with narrow boards the performance is great.

One last note on the replacement blade.  I was concerned that with the coarse 3tpi I would get a really rough cut.  But after playing around with feed rate I can get a cut that requires not more than usual finish prep.

Is for niche. A recess built into a wall to house a statue, trophy, or work of art. Often niches are capped with a semi-dome. The domes were sometimes carved to mimic the inside of a seashell. Found in Roman buildings from antiquity, niches were exploited by joiners and cabinetmakers for interior architectural work. The interior space for built in  corner cupboards often included the graceful carved domes with dramatic effect. Sort of sheds light on the saying “Carved out a niche for oneself”.

This is one of those architectural elements that shares DNA with other bits and pieces often found in traditional design. Did this semi-dome from a niche inspire the fanlights capping a doorway (also found in some glazed furniture doors)? If you have any examples of niches to share, e-mail me at georgewalkerdesign.com and I’ll add them to this post.

George R. Walker

I just finished up a dovetailed chest of knotty white pine for a buddy of mine. The final intent of the box is a coffin for their dog Valen, who has lived a long, long life, and the chances are that some day soon he will be passing into the next one.

It's an odd thing to build something that will be buried in the earth before too long. It's an honor, but a strange honor. To compound on top of that strangeness, I decided to experiment with my shop time management.


Setting up and taking photos can be a huge time sink for me. Don't get me wrong, most of the time the documentation is well worth it, but I wasn't really building anything new. It's mostly a smaller rebuild of a traditional tool chest. There were somethings I did new. Beckets for rope handles on the ends, but that wasn't earth shattering enough to break out the camera.

I really wanted to find out how fast I could work if I buttoned my lip and got to it. Turns out I can go pretty fast (at least in my estimation) By rough figures I estimate about twenty hours into this box from boards to finished box. Pretty decent, but I have to remind myself I only hit the essentials here and nothing more. If I were making this for someone's bedroom I would have been a whole lot more meticulous with the surface preparations. That can be a big time consumer too.

I did take final pictures though.










I did put a finish on the chest. One good coat of what I've come to call The Maloof Finish. It's one part each  tung oil, wipe on poly, and boiled linseed oil. I read an article written by Sam Maloof where he listed this. It's a good oil finish that has a great "touch" to it. Over the top of this I buffed on a coat of paste wax. I didn't finish the inside, no one wants to show up at the pearly gates smelling like finishing products. Sawdust maybe, but not oil.

I did for a while desperately want to paint this box black. In the end I got over that and decided the oil would be fine enough.









This was the first project I was able to push through the shop this summer, I got started just as the weather was barely starting to break for the better. It's very satisfying to have one down before the season has gone too far.

But enough of all this thinking and dwelling on the end of things. I'm off to go play a Sunday night board game with my kids.

Ratione et Passionis
Oldwolf

In the near future, my latest book: “Classic Arts & Crafts Furniture: 14 Timeless Designs” will be available. This is a collection of some of the project articles that I wrote for Popular Woodworking Magazine. But it’s not just a … Continue reading →

I finally finished the desk and breathed a sigh of relief that it turned out OK.  It was certainly a project that challenged me and certainly elevated my woodworking skills.  It was not, however, my favorite project.  I followed plan which was actually overly complicated and had some confusing mistakes. That was a big part of problem [...]

It’s Sunday, and I’m at work to process lumber so that I can get started on a project that involves 44 half-blind dovetails for the October issue of the magazine. And it’s possible that on Saturday night I had one-too many adult libations (or I perhaps just didn’t sleep long enough…or both); I’m feeling a … Read more »

The post A Quick Tip for Half-blind Dovetails appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

By now, you know I am a big fan of this style of carved oak furniture. This chest is being offered at an auction in North Carolina, http://www.brunkauctions.com/lot-detail/?id=94982

It’s in pretty beat-up shape, lost its feet, top is trimmed and patched here & there, etc. But so what? The carving is all there. What fun. This is listed as attributed to the Mason/Messenger shops in Boston, but that’s a mistake. It’s Thomas Dennis from Ipswich, Massachusetts; 1660s-1700. It has never been published before in any of the numerous treatments on Dennis’ work…this one literally came out of the woodwork.

 

 

I noticed they have added a few more pictures from when I first saw it two weeks ago. These two show each end of the chest. Clearly one set is oak, with the ray-fleck pattern from the riven quartered stock. The first pair here seem very plain for riven, quartered oak. Now it’s really difficult to judge a piece by the photos; and these are snapshots rather than the good quality shots above..but if I had a chance to see this chest, I’d look at these end panels to try to understand why they are different from one set to the other. It almost looks like the figured set are sycamore/plane tree.

Someone will get a nice chunk of New England joinery history at a discount price. The condition will keep it from getting into the stratosphere. Me, I’ll have to carve my own – after the wainscot chair I have underway now.

 

The first book in my teenage adveture series The Hampton Summit has been launched.  It is available either as a paperback or an eBook at http://www.amazon.com/Hampton-Summit-Castleton-1/dp/1482731622/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367022081&sr=1-1&keywords=the+hampton+summit

I’m not sure how many readers were in attendance at Woodworking In America 2010, but whenever Roy Underhill is mentioned in any sort of conversation these days, I always think back to this picture of one of his classes that weekend and how entertaining he was in his demonstrations.

Roy has been well-known in the woodworking community for several decades now, and his influence is still going strong. Roy is still producing new episodes of his popular PBS show, The Woodwright’s Shop, every year, and that combined with Roy’s opening of the Woodwright’s School in 2009 allow him to have quite an impact in all facets of the woodworking world.

During his visit captured in the above video, Charles Brock got to explore Roy’s beautiful North Carolina mill property, in addition to checking out The Woodright’s School located in Pittsboro, NC. As someone who enjoys both woodworking and the outdoors, I am quite envious of Charles’ visit and one day hope to have my own opportunity to make it out there.

In the meantime, I am excited to see Roy this weekend when he comes down to Atlanta for the Highland Woodworking 35th Anniversary Celebration and One-Day Sale. In addition to his vast knowledge of woodworking, I’m excited to experience his humorous antics and jokes firsthand. Though I’m not sure if anything can ever beat the combination of Roy and Christopher Schwartz together in the same room for Roy’s keynote speech at the 2010 WIA Dinner. The speech ended up becoming more of a roast between Roy and Chris, and I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house after it was over. I wasn’t the only one who laughed until they cried!

The post Roy Underhill: Moment With A Master appeared first on Woodworking Blog.

Ok, its official.  Next project is the six board chest for the porch.  The wood is on the way (Sapele). Thanks Shannon – Hardwood To Go

I spend hours looking at photos of furniture. If I don’t have my nose buried in books, I gaze upon photos sent to me by other woodworkers. In a flickr set sent to me by Mark Firley (thanks, Mark), I stopped on a bow-front chest photo. (I think Mark was on a dovetail expedition that … Read more »

The post Choose Dovetails, But Choose Wisely appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Summer is lookin’ like its showing up early here.  Summer is awesome here, but its also crazy busy cuz its so short.  If you’re sittin’ on butt in the house, you better get on up off it, GO OUT side and do sumthin! I have a long list of outdoor projects I need to do.  This is [...]

From today on, expect to see a side bead on just about everything I build; I’ve recently received the 3/16″ beading plane I ordered from Phil Edwards of Philly Planes. And she’s a beaut – quartersawn English beech fully boxed with English boxwood and an 01 iron (at I believe a 50° pitch…I can’t find … Read more »

The post Side Beads – The Gateway Moulding Plane appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.