Fixed My Stiks
Less than a month ago I broke down and bought a new coat. This is only significant if you understand that for the past couple years I’ve been wearing a coat that, each time I needed to zip it up, I had to fight with a zipper that was well past its prime. My office chair has an arm that is semi-broken and flops around a bit. My workbench vise racks like crazy and while I’ve been saying that I was going to build a new bench for at least 3 years, I still haven’t done so.
That’s the kind of guy I am. It could be justified if this behavior (or is it a lack thereof?) were driven by thrift but it has little to do with money. Rather, it’ s that I view buying a new coat an annoyance, something that will take me away from something “important”, like maybe drinking coffee or eating a donut. Lazy am me when it comes to this sort of thing.
And so it went, for years and years that I worked with a pair of winding sticks that were only one cut above firewood. They were straight. They did the job. But they were ugh…ly. It was last September that I broke down an made a set of winding sticks that looked good. I thought it was a step forward and nearly broke something patting myself on the back.
So, with good-looking winding sticks, what more is there to talk about when it comes to winding sticks. Well, just as I used ugly winding sticks that worked for several years, I began to use good-looking winding sticks that didn’t work so well. I guess I’m more tolerant of ugly things than I am things that don’t work well as it’s only taken me 5 months to decide that I had to fix my sticks.
The problem was they were simply too thick. At just over 3/4″ thick, when sighting over them it was hard to see a single ‘edge’. I was working over a bunch of cabinet parts yesterday and got frustrated with this problem to the point where I just stopped and shoved the sticks through my thickness planer, taking them down to 1/2″, which seemed a good thickness for my old eyes and yet thick enough that they wouldn’t fall over. While I was at it I lopped off the corners, drilled a hole in each so I could hang them and rejointed the top and bottom edges. It only took a few minutes but what a difference it made.
Then I did something fun with them. Tage Frid describes a finishing method where he applies boiled linseed oil and almost immediately adds some shellac to the surface. This, of course, creates a very sticky surface but if you rub it with a clean cloth, the sticky goes away and you can bypass the time normally required for the BLO to dry. It was actually sort of magical and allowed me to get back to my cabinet pieces. I don’t think I’d like to try it on a large surface but it was great for these sticks. Best of all, I now have winding sticks that not only look good, they work even gooder.
Cheers — Larry
Making Money As A Blogging Woodworker
I’ve been a blogger for a bit more than a year. I never thought of it as a money-making venture and, in fact, it’s lived up to those expectations. But if you’re on the Internet you can’t help but notice that there are lots of people making, or at least claiming to make, lots of money from their activities.
The “big-money-made-by-blogging” thing is has exploded in popularity as those who have lost jobs due to the Wall St. debacle have flooded the Internet with websites and blogs telling us how they can teach us to make lots of money. Who’da thunk that a recession could create so many experts who know how to get rich? Anyways, these folks hawk courses, eBooks and themselves as they will teach you the obvious while pushing your “get rich quick” buttons.
So I figure, why not? I’m a smart guy..sort of…so why shouldn’t I make lots of money too? I’m going to give you an advance glimpse into my own money-making venture. As a loyal Wood’n Bits reader I’ll give you a peek at my program that will let you benefit even before any of my break through program is available as an online course and eBook. Everyone else will have to wait as they don’t yet know of the Wood’n Bits greatness like you guys do.
I call my new program the NutriSawz-Um Fitness Program. Imagine achieving these results while continuing to eat pizza, drink beer, and helping out Frito-Lay stockholders. No need to shun desserts and there are no expensive gym memberships involved either. My program will attack these biological realities:
Calories In > Calories Out —> Weight Gain
Calories Out > Calories In —> Weight Loss
I know it’s complicated but my NutriSawz-Um Fitness Program will make it easy. I’ll show you how to lose weight, make stuff for your house, and you’ll never have to use a Nautilus machine, those silly elastic bands, or spend money on diet books.
While it wouldn’t make sense to give away my entire program now that I’ve got you all excited to buy it and become my disciple, because you’ve been so supportive of Wood’n Bits I will provide a couple hints.
There are actually two workout stations required for the complete NutriSawz-Um Fitness Program workout. The Sawz-Um Station, from which the program gets its name, requires at least one saw and saw bench. The wood pieces on the shop bents are an additional side-benefit to this program and in this case, these pieces will become a couple of vanity cabinets. Calories burned? I estimate about a gazillion but my program doesn’t count calories as big numbers make my brain hurt. With the purchase of the NutriSawz-Um Fitness Program you’ll receive plans for 10 complete projects that will help guide you to success.
This is station two, the Planz-Um Station. Here you will burn calories, tone smaller muscles as you maintain plane orientation and build muscle mass as you push a big hunk of metal along a wood edge or face. To those of you who want to start accumulating the workout equipment, I’d recommend a long straight-edge, a square, and a jointer plane. Oh…the entire NutriSawz-Um Fitness Program benefits from an iPod and your favorite tunes.
The other half of the NutriSawz-Um Fitness Program is to gain control of your diet. Throw your Atkin’s and Suzanne Summers diet books away. You have to make choices here and it’s not easy, but traditional diet books won’t help. I need to line up some celebrities to promote the program and their diets may assist you in your decision-making. In the mean time, Bob Easton, world-renowned woodworker, eats a lot of Snicker’s bars. In reading their work I surmise that Chris Schwarz (aka – “The Schwarz”) and Roy Underhill (aka – “King Roy”) prefer thinner foods made from barley and hops. For myself, I’m something of a beer and pizza kind of guy but donuts will do in a pinch. Whatever your choices, make sure you eat a lot of it. The NutriSawz-Um Fitness Program requires it.
Cheers — Larry
Olympics Slowdown at Wood'n Bits Workshop
There’s not much going on in the Wood’n Bits Workshop right now. You’ll probably laugh but the Olympics has turned me into a couch potato. Well, I shouldn’t blame the Olympics for my shape but they are causing me to sit on a couch firmly attached to the glass teat.
I not sure what it is about the Olympics that grabs me so. I’m not really a sports nut and I don’t think it’s the actual sports themselves that interest me. Rather, it’s more the nature of the humanity that turn my head. It’s about young people, who have worked hard to excel, being there, excelling. It’s about people acknowledging that there is something beyond “winning” that matters in human activities and we’re shown that coming in 6th is still an accomplishment. It is. It’s about realizing that things other than money are important to the human condition and just being good at what you do is justification to work hard to be so.
The International nature of the Olympics is also important to “my Olympic experience.” It demonstrates that if you strip the posturing by politicians from the process, people can actually get along in spite of differences. The Olympics also show us that we’re more the same than different. We should have Olympic-like events daily; the world would be a better place.
The one “sad” thing about the 2010 Winter Olympics is the weather. All winter I’ve been happy as a clam that Quebec City, where I live, has gotten almost no snow (normally 11-12 FEET of the stuff) as the US has graciously accepted more than their share. To shovel snow so I can have a year without doing so is, well, it’s pretty special. Thanks to all who have taken on some of this burden.
But, alas, this has not been good news for the Olympics, where Vancouver is experiencing summer-like temperatures as they try to provide sporting venues covered with snow. I applaud their efforts and the acceptance of conditions on the part of the participants. It does, however, make one feel sorry for someone slapping on a couple boards and flying down an ice-covered mountain at 120 mph. Even so the results have been spectacular.
There’s something that we woodworkers can learn from all this. Skill trumps conditions every time. So often we read someone explaining that they made this or that error on a piece and this is quickly followed by a desire to own some tool that, of course, would have prevented the problem. Skill, or rather lack of it, is not understood to be the real problem. Olympians show us the importance of practice and maybe, just maybe, I will get up off this couch and spend some time practicing in my shop. Then again…big Olympics weekend coming up. I need to get to the store to pick up some munchies.
Cheers — Larry
Planning My Bathroom Vanity – Help!
I’m struggling with the design of the vanity area of a bathroom, as described in a previous post. While I’ve been keeping SketchUp warm, everything I come up with looks like a big box and I’m not sure what to do about it. So, I’m coming to you. Any and all ideas will be appreciated.
Here’s one idea I’ve come up with and it does meet all the criteria laid down by my wife. Its inspiration comes from Tom Fidgen’s Made By Hand book, specifically his small cabinet project. It kinda sorta works and if I’d take the time to orient the grain in the proper direction on all the boards would look decent. But it’s lacking something, maybe many somethings.
Here’s where I’m leaning towards at the moment as this approach produces a more ‘free’ look in my view. Again, Tom provides the inspiration as does Krenov but I’ve to use trim to provide a flow between the two cabinets. What I can’t figure out, though, is what to do about the mirror. No matter what I do, I can’t get it “right.” I’ve left the area blank in this drawing. Anyone have any ideas on how to fill it in? Would sure like to hear from you.
Cheers — Larry
Marking Valentine's Day With Wood
I suppose I’m a curmugeon but I oppose the very notion of spending $4-5 on a piece of paper that will end up in the trash the day after it’s given. And so, every time Valentine’s Day rolls around I’m faced with showing my Valentine(s) that I care without succumbing to the card marketeer guilt tactics.
This year I decided to take advantage of the fact that the two Valentines in my life are avid readers. I can show them I care and they can be reminded of it every time they mark their place in a book. These bookmarks were made from 1/16″ cherry and painted with General Finishes Milk Paint. These paints aren’t casein-based milk paints but are, rather, a water-based acrylic resin with the creamy, smooth properties you expect from a traditional milk paint. I just love them.
Attached to a box of candy, I think they’ll look great and for another year I have avoided the Hallmark store. I’ve got an extra one. Will you be my Valentine?
Cheers — Larry
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