2011 Resolutions – Woodworker Style
Over the last few days I’ve read more about New Year’s Resolutions than any human should endure. There are those who tell you their grand plans, listing half a dozen things they’re “gonna do” and confessing they’ve been “trying” to do them for the past forever. Then there’s the flip side….resolutions are bad for you, or at least a waste of time. There’s a third group who feel compelled to tell you what any basic book on planning anything tells you – goals are only useful if they are concrete and have measurable sub-goals attached to them. It’s the same old year-end yada, yada, yada. And so I wasn’t going to talk about it… until about an hour ago.
I just got back from the wood store. I realized that I might have something to say about New Years Resolutions afterall. Here’s how at least one woodworker “resolves” to do things in a new year:
BUY WOOD
- 2 x 72″ x 5″ – 6/4 cherry
- 1 x 48″ x 8″ – 4/4 cherry
- 8 x 72″ x 5.5″ – tongue & groove pine
- 3 x 72″ x 5″ – 4/4 walnut
- 1 x 72″ x 7.5″ – 6/4 walnut
- 1 x 84″ x 5.5″ – 8/4 walnut
<– I do hereby resolve, in 2011 to make cherry totes for two handplanes that need them. This will leave considerable 6/4 cherry laying around for days when I’m bored.
I resolve to make three handsaw handles from my wider cherry board. One will replace the handle on my 10pt X-cut saw as it developed a crack in 2010. The others will go on two new handsaws coming into my shop and that will need handles. –>
If I were making typical resolutions I’d resolve to create a fancy, hold-all-my-cool-stuff tool cabinet. 
It would be a stand-alone affair with curved doors, done Krenov-style, and at least a dozen drawers. But I’m not making typical resolutions. Instead, I resolve to use my tongue-n-groove pine to create a couple wall boards, hung on French cleats, to better organize my hand tools. Here I admit the plans are not clear as these T&G boards are on sale right now. The gleam in my eye is to panel two entire walls with this stuff and THEN make some tool boards hanging on French cleats. Who says woodworkers can’t be fickle.
I also resolve to get the 3 old chisels, sitting on my sharpening bench, off said sharpening bench. To do that I’ll have to turn some handles from the mountains of maple scrap I have laying around. I had so much fun turning my mallet that I’m very much looking forward to this so it may happen before 2011 and thus is hardly a resolution.
<– Last, but certainly not least is my walnut purchase. I bought far more than I need but one can never have too much walnut and, you see, there were these really nice 6/4 boards that I didn’t really need but… well you know how it goes. 
Much of this wood is designed to fulfill a resolution to build a table like the drawing on the right. I’m fairly confident that I want straight-tapered legs but the top edge treatment is still a mystery. It’s also likely that the aprons will get some contours added to their bottom edges. The drawer front will be made from a piece of curly maple I’ve been saving for that purpose.
I also resolve to make a small, wooden block plane. I bought the Hock/Krenov blade for it so I’m committed.
So there you have it. My resolutions for the year. I’ll probably be done before summer 
Oh yeah…and I’m going to lose 20 lbs.
Cheers — Larry
Changing Our Tune In 2011
“There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man’s lawful prey.” — John Ruskin fillIsn’t it amazing how clear the vision of the 21st Century was from the 19th Century. Mr Ruskin not only states the obvious, he states something for which we seem to have lost all comprehension. In the woodworking world we run to the big box store, buying “dovetail saws” that look the part but that is all. We buy cheap chisels and then wonder why our $30 set of five chisels don’t function as well as those sold by Lie-Nielson for $55 each. In fact, we scoff at those who buy these more ‘spendy’ tools.
And why not? It’s how the rest of our world operates – doesn’t it? Go to any electronics store and buy a tool that will last more than a couple years. Buy one that you can fix. I dare ya (grin). The most popular MP3 player on the planet has no facility to even change the battery, for goodness sake. We buy pens that we expect will write for a week or two if we don’t simply forget them somewhere because they mean so little to us. Even our furniture is not built to last our lifetime.
And yet we deem our world better and more advanced than the 19th Century. We believe that those of John Ruskin’s era had it hard as they had to write with gorgeous writing devices you had to fill with ink and often considered status symbols. They had to lead lives sitting on mahogany chairs and dining at tables made of solid cherry. Their furniture was mostly handed down to them by their parents. Yep, those poor sods really had a tough life, missing out on particle board desktops and plastic bookshelves.
So why am I thinking about this, and boring you with it? Well, it’s because of the Christmas season. To hear the media talk, buying has become a patriotic duty in North America and that speaks to me. It doesn’t say good things but it does say things about us as a group. We need to change not only our behaviors but our points of view.
Yes, we like to buy. Yes, we love to shop. But this is the time of year where we make decisions about our future. Some call the results of these deep thoughts New Year’s Resolutions. Maybe, just maybe, this year we could all decide to buy a couple good-quality items that will last a lifetime rather than ten that will fall apart by 2012. I’ll shut up now as I want to get back to my Lee Valley catalog.
Cheers — Larry
ps – If you’re interested in reading a historical account of how we got into our current mindset and what it is costing us, this is a great book. If nothing else, the history is interesting.
Mallets From Pallets
I have a nasty habit of working with old tools, well past their prime, if they ever had one. There’s nothing worse than hammers and mallets in that regard as I’ll use an old stone if it’s available.
This is the mallet I’ve used for at least two decades. It never was much to look at but it could find the back of a chisel so I used it, and used it, and used it some more. But I decided to replace it and this is where I always say to myself “If I’d known how little time it would take, I would have done it a long time ago.”
I took a piece of what I believe to be white oak that I got from some pallets a friend of mine brought me. It was 3 3/4″ x 3 1/2″ in cross-section. I figured it would make a decent-size mallet for tapping on my LN chisels without insulting them with ugliness as my existing mallet was doing. My tools talk to me and they had complained – honest.
So, the first thing I had to do was to heat up the shop and so I did. Nothing like a Disston D8 and a big chunk of white oak to warm things up.
Then, I’m sad to say, I failed as a blogger. I was so excited about being in the shop that I forgot to take photos. I took my blank (which was nothing more than a foot long piece of the oak) to my chopping block and I lopped off the corners, somewhat rounding it up. It’s much faster to do this than to chuck up a big square stick and then spend forever being beaten around by my roughing gouge.
Once finished, I chucked it into my lathe and turned a cylinder. I used a parting tool to mark the two ends of the mallet-to-be. Note that I changed its length when I got to this point. I’d originally guesstimated a length where the pencil line is but decided that I didn’t need the handle that long once I got to the point where I could actually wrap my hand around the stock to see how it fit my hand. This is the real virtue of making your own hand tools. One can buy a mallet like this for not much money but I was able to fit the handle to my hand as I refined the shape.
At this point all that was left to do was remove everything that didn’t look like a mallet. I ‘designed’ it on the fly, putting a slight taper into the head, fitting the handle to my hand and turning a knob on the end. I actually had to shorten that knob just a bit as there was a nail hole that I didn’t want to include. Roughed out it looked like this:
I’d gotten to this point using a roughing gouge and then a spindle gouge. The surface, however, could be a lot better and so I smoothed everything up using a skew chisel. I sanded it a bit, particularly in the curved places where it’s hard to create a surface with a skew. then I applied a thin coat of #1lb cut shellac to bring out the color and followed with a layer of Renaissance wax, which is named after the Renaissance Woodworker, I think The result looks like this and my chisels approve. It was embarrasssing to listen to them giggle.
Cheers — Larry
Where Did November Go????
It’s been nearly two months since I’ve posted. I could say that this was in honor of Kari Hultman’s hiatus but I don’t think you’d believe me. The fact that it’s not true, of course, is irrelevant as I’m a 21st Century kind of guy.
The truth is, fall is a tough time for me as there is a lot of “batten down the hatches” stuff that has to happen when you live on planet Quebec City. We know cold, wind and ice are coming; we’re just not sure when. In addition to those tasks, though, I decided to write a novel… and I did, at least the first draft of one.
But I always miss woodworking when I can’t do it so it was good to finally get into the shop on Saturday. Well, it was sort of good. I learned something about myself. When I’m woodworking, I’m sort of a neatnik. I make messes – I clean them up. I want my shop ready for the next project. I want my tools in their places.
When I’m not woodworking, however, it appears that all bets are off and the results are what faced me Saturday morning. I thought I’d take you on a tour of the mess as a warning. Don’t let this happen to your shop.
My last post about my shop told the tale of a small river running from the hot water heater to the drain. Here’s what remains of that disaster. You can see my finishes cabinet still pulled out from the wall and a pipe wrench still laying by the drain.
Careful, don’t trip. That’s the top of my shop-vac, turned into a leaf blower and then left to clutter the shop floor.
Under here is my sharpening station. The box is a reminder of the rush project to replace a space heater in the upstairs bathroom so my daughter would stop complaining. Kids.
When I went looking for my workbench I found this. Oh yeah, that was the time I needed to get the snowblower out of the shed and the lock had frozen solid. The other end of the bench was covered with some wood dumped there during the flood and an abandoned project that was to replace the arms on a bowsaw. At least it was woodworking.
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My tablesaw is generally my assembly table but it serves other purposes when I’m not woodworking. I packed and shipped a box. Why I needed a level to do that is a mystery.
An outfeed table is a handy place to drop a torch after you’ve played plumber, don’tcha think? I must have.
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But these are the sad photos. They expose an addiction – my addiction. The one on the left is the result of a day when I just had to cut some wood, so I came into the shop, grabbed some scraps and just ‘cut to the line’ a time or two. Just to take the edge off you understand. The photo on the right shows a night when I came in and got a hit off my #7. I think the wood was maple. Doesn’t matter. It calmed the shakes, at least temporarily. It’s tough dealing with an addiction. Feel sorry for me.
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I spent some time picking up and putting away. I dusted everything and waved a broom at the floor. And finally, once again, I had my meager shop ready for action.
Unfortunately, I didn’t actually get time to do any real woodworking, though I enjoyed the time fondling tools anyway. My principle tool for the day was this one.
But, I’m back, and it feels good.
Cheers — Larry
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