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When it comes to staying organized, drawers work for me.
“Put things back where you find them.”
Can you still hear that one ringing in your ears from childhood? I can, but in my shop, it’s one rule I really do try to live by.
Some woodworkers wonder what kind of real work gets done in a clean shop. I guess for those folks, clutter helps get the creative juices flowing, or at least it doesn’t grind productivity to a halt. But the “Oscar Madison” approach sure doesn’t work for me. (more…)
Sutherland Tools Bevel Boss takes all the guesswork out of setting accurate cutting angles.
About six years ago, I was building some outdoor furniture with lots of angles to them, and the closest thing I had to an angle-setting device was my speed square. No offense to you hard-core carpenters out there, but frankly, a speed square seems better suited to rafter tails than woodworking.
I always felt like I was plus or minus a few degrees on my cuts, which just wasn’t cutting it, so to speak. I needed something more accurate that I could really trust.
I built this Arts & Crafts-inspired Wine Cabinet back in 2003 for the August issue.
What’s your favorite furniture style? What’s your least favorite? Funny how a couple simple questions can get a guy thinking…
The other day I was browsing the forums of woodworking.com and ran across an interesting thread discussing this topic:
http://www.woodworking.com/
dcforum/DCForumID8/16138.html
We’ve all got our favorites, I’m sure. Mission and Shaker prompted the most lively responses. Some folks love these two styles, while others clearly don’t. Personally, I’m a fan of both. I like furniture that accentuates wood more than ornamentation, so Mission resonates well with me.
Definitely a "do over" miter joint here--it's not even close to closing.
If you’re a trim carpenter by trade, and if you pride yourself on doing high-quality work, here’s a tip of my hat to you. You folks are the unsung woodworkers of the world.
I say this partially out of plain-old respect for the building trades, but also because my house is missing your expertise. This past summer my wife and I finally got around to painting our daughters’ bedrooms. I was in charge of “cutting in” around windows, doors and ceilings, so I spent quite a bit of time examining the moldings along the way. Let’s just say that the trimwork in those two bedrooms left a lot to be desired. To illustrate my point, here are several photos documenting what I saw up close. As you can see, the mitered window casings aren’t even close to touching. The chair rail in one bedroom has a scarf joint smack-dab in the middle of the wall, and were it not for copious amounts of putty, you could drive a small truck through it. What an eyesore.
Woodworkers are no strangers to burgeoning scrap bins. What's your favorite way to thin this herd?
If you’re a regular eZine reader, I’m sure you’re familiar with our rather dubious but always proudly delivered “April Fool’s” edition. We staffers look forward to putting that together every year, even if some of you wish we didn’t! Last time around, I poked fun at what I’ll call our collective penchant for hoarding scraps—and I’m definitely including myself in that roast. Maybe you missed my announcement for a new support group for “stick” savers, so here’s a link:
http://woodworkersjournal.com/Ezine/
Public/Articles/Scrappers_Anonymous_4478.aspx
I hate to throw those little offcuts away, just as much as you probably do. And, these days, I’ll wager my next paycheck (thankfully I’m still getting one…) that we’re all keeping a bigger pile of them around the shop than ever before. The corollary problem to keeping too many bits and pieces, however, is not using enough of them. I suffer from this one, too. My pile under the miter saw just keeps on growing.
So, here’s the question for you: How are you turning scraps into useful projects?
1930s cartography, with woodworking panache!
If Yellowstone National Park is on your short list of future vacation destinations, be sure to stop and see Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel on the park’s northwest corner. It’s a wonderful vintage building in its own right, but the hotel also contains a remarkable example of marquetry you won’t want to miss! I stumbled on it almost by accident while staying there for a night last summer.
On the wall of the hotel’s lounge, just off the main lobby, there’s a huge map of the United States made almost entirely of wood. Designed and assembled in 1937 by Robert C. Reamer and W. H. Fay, the map measures 17 ft. 10 in. wide by 10 ft. 4 in. tall. It contains 15 types of wood from nine countries: zebrawood (Africa), lacewood and Oriental (sic) wood (Australia), Brazilian rosewood, satinwood (Central America), East Indian rosewood, gray and white harewood (England), English oak, Honduras mahogany, teak (India), as well as slash and straight-grained walnut, maple and burl redwood from the United States.
Krenov-Inspired Cabinet
Over the years, I have used the term krenovian many, many times as I’ve described a piece of woodworking. And it is a testament to the remarkable influence of James Krenov – the builder, the teacher and the author – that folks know exactly what I mean.
Woodworking has lost an enduring pillar of our craft. This week, at the age of 89, James passed away. While it is of little consequence to those who are in mourning, I would like to offer my sincere condolences to his family, friends and his legions of students. The pain of separation is a certainty in life, but that doesn’t diminish its power. There’s no doubt that James Krenov’s influence will continue. His work will be referenced and studied, copied and critiqued as it has been for so many years. But the force of his character and the spark of his creativity has been lost to us, and that is a sad thing indeed.
Rob Johnstone
Common sense has to guide all of our actions and reactions when working with shop machinery—even when using those relatively "safe" tools.
The other day, while grinding a fresh edge on my turning chisels, I was reminded of a rather searing injury from my past. It’s proof that sometimes the “safe” tools are the ones that bite you back. Here’s what happened…
You might remember an Arts & Crafts Wine Cabinet I built for the magazine back in the August 2003 issue. I was nearly finished with the project and ready to hang the doors. The hinge screws were all a little too long to work right, so I decided to grind them down instead of buying shorter ones. Nothing particularly unsafe about that.
Or so I thought.
Reader Mark Davenport sent in these great photos of his recent kitchen remodel:
This is my kitchen project. All cabinets and island were made in the shop at home. Hard Maple rails and stiles are matched with figured soft maple field for all door and drawer fronts. Walnut is used fro the face frames. It all comes together for a beautiful contrast for wood lovers like me.
The project is also posted on YouTube to see project progression. Unfortunately I made the video from still pictures taken throughout the project. This means that I forgot to take too many shop photos during construction of myself. There are some shop pics but mostly shows the project from start to finish in the kitchen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIv1oRqVlag&feature=channel_page
Mark Davenport
Sioux City, IA
Do you have projects you want to share? CLICK HERE to send them in!
Theres no cheaper brush for poly than an old tee shirt and a binder clip.
Leave it to Norm Abram to come up with a better way to apply polyurethane. Have you seen him use a big binder clip and a piece of old tee-shirt? If that doesn’t show Yankee frugality, I don’t know what does. But, you know what, it’s an amazingly good applicator. In fact, it’s become my favorite way to apply poly (wiping it on is my next).
If you haven’t seen him use the clip method, here’s how it works: Cut a strip of cotton tee shirt about 3″ wide and maybe 10” to 12” long. There’s no absolute here…just cut an ample-sized piece. Colored or white both work fine, as long as the shirt is well worn. Fold the long ragged edges in, then fold the whole thing up on itself lengthwise several times to create a pad that’s about 2” x 2”. Clamp the open side of the pad into a 2” office binder clip. That’s it. You’ve got a bristle-less brush in about a minute flat.
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