Kiln Temps/Class Openings
A kiln dried tenon, an air-dried mortise, no glue and a sloppy fit: wait overnight and the tenon will swell so tight that you can’t budge it. At least that is true where I live – I don’t know what happens in the desert.
Temperature
How hot does your kiln need to be to dry wood? The answer is not an absolute temperature, but is relative to the temp of the air outside your kiln. read more…
Bending Fun
I thought you all might like to see a fun, short video Roy Underhill and I did after we filmed a TV show last week:
Bentwood Firewood Carrier FailHappy Woodwright Wednesday! Who’s ready for some fresh video? It’s blazing hot out there, so why not get a jump on winter by learning the secret to building a bentwood firewood carrier, successfully, with Roy and Elia Bizzarri. #TensionFailure #CompressionFailure “Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.” —C. S. Lewis #JustSayin’
Posted by The Woodwright’s Shop on Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Survey Results
Thanks for all the feedback to the survey. I got quite a few responses and it was very informative. read more…
New Rocker Beveling Tool/Your Feedback
A year ago, teaching at Roy Underhill’s school, a student was struggling to get his rocker bottoms beveled so they would touch the floor evenly. I said half-joking, “We need to add a outrigger onto the plane to ride on the other rocker.”
I was teaching in Portland last month, lazily sitting and watching a student bevel his rockers with a wooden spokeshave. Suddenly it hit me. You could easily attach a long, long handle to a wooden spokeshave! I made just such a bottomer as soon as I got home. Two students got try the bottomer out last week:
Jim bottoming. read more…
Clogs
Sunday in Portland, biking back from the farmer’s market with a backpack full of berries, I stumbled upon an Estate Sale. A turn-of-the-century house in a nice neighborhood, full of nice things. Dozens of copper pots, hundreds of beautiful drawings, closets of wool and mink coats. Books in Hungarian on every shelf. In one of the closets I found a pair of clogs.
Tool marks on the inside showed me they were handmade. The $6 pricetag told me they were mine.
Further coats of Milk Paint/Instagram
Those following my series of posts on milk paint may remember that back in January we painted the first coat of paint on the Continuous Arm Rocker. Paint makes surface defects much more apparent, so let’s look and see what we can find:
A couple drops of paint on the seat need to be sanded down, along with some raised grain. I like the growth rings to pop (one kind of raised grain), but narrow raised fibers can become white streaks when you rub through the paint layers during the rubbing-down process (more info in further posts). read more…
Chair Stories: Little Block Plane
On Friday I delivered a Continuous Arm Settee to Mark and Leslie in Chapel Hill, NC. They have a modern apartment downtown and wanted a more contemporary chair, so I put cigar-turnings on the settee (like those on Curtis Buchanan’s Velda’s Chair). My camera blew up, so I have no photos, but here’s a story about their chair:
This morning I was working on a Continuous Arm Settee, my block plane taking nice long shavings on the pine seat. Block planes don’t get much use in a chair shop, but I enjoy using mine when I get the chance. Nothing rare or special, a model mass-produced by Stanley for most of the 20th century, it is special to me for two reasons. It was one of the first tools given to me and one of the first tools that I ever properly learned to tune up. read more…
Guinness Cooperage Video
Filmed in 1954, this video shows a large cooperage in full swing. At this time the cooper’s trade had been going uninterrupted for hundreds of years and we are watching the result. These guys move! I suspect chairmaking was once this efficient, but our trade died out in the 20th century and we are having to struggle to relearn it. read more…
The Gouge’s Handle
Today I turned 103 baby rattles. This may seem a long day, but it’s less than a day’s work at two and a half minutes each. I’ve been turning rattles since I was 16.
Tom Donahey was the straw-boss at Drew Langsner’s volunteer week. At 16 I was the youngest volunteer by half. Tom told me I could sell as many rattles as I could make to craft shops – this peaked my interest. I got the general pattern from one of Mike Abbott’s books, modified it to meet Federal toy regulations, and away I went. read more…
Red oak for Chests
Last week a local tree guy offered me a beautiful Northern Red Oak log, straight, clear, and no twist. He said it was 18″ in diameter, which is the first time I can remember anyone underestimating the size of a tree: the butt log was 24″ in diameter at the small end. It died standing last summer, so there are a few beetle holes, but not many. It is probably ideal for Peter Follansbee-type joinery. I should be able to get some 8″ panels out of it and maybe even wider. Contact me for more info or to place an order. read more…
Free Tool, Free Forum, Upcoming Classes
BEVEL BUDDY
Several years ago a student sent me a .PDF file of a template for accurately setting a Sliding T-Bevel to any angle between 0-55 degrees. It was made by Wisconsin chair-maker Steven First, who has generously allowed me to post it on my links page.
Similar commercial versions are available, but this one works just as well and it’s free. Just print it out and glue it to a piece of plywood or sheet metal (a coat of varnish would help protect the paper). Works much better than a protractor. Requires a PDF viewer to print. read more…