Wood'n Bits Workshop » General

A Woodworker Road Trip

Larry — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 14:33:45 +0000

It’s been a few days since I’ve posted and there’s a reason… honest, and it has nothing to do with my laziness.

It’s been excruciatingly hot here in Quebec City and like most Quebec homes, ours has no air conditioning. We just don’t need it – at least we haven’t needed it.

We do have air conditioning in our car, however. And we’re not complete idiots. So, what better time to jump in the car for a road trip? That’s what we thought. Besides, our daughter had never seen any of the Ottawa museums and she’d never seen the homes we used to own in Petawawa, Ontario, or the place both my wife and I worked there. Let’s go!

We had little plan other than to follow the old “go west young man” plaintiff of earlier generations. And so we found ourselves heading down the highway, daughter programming the music and parents tolerating it. My mind started to wander. It does that a lot.

It occurred to me that I could stop at Langevin & Forest, a large woodworking store in Montreal. I could look for some 3×3 stock for a couple Krenov-style planes I want to build. Oh, and I need some Deft danish oil too. While I’m there I’ll check to see if they have Craig Stevens’ book too, though it’s become hard to find. And suddenly, the trip became much more interesting.

And we did stop there. No book, but they had one called “Country Pine” that I just had to have. I picked up some 3×3 birch but the only large size exotics they had were way too expensive. $70 for cocobollo? I don’t think so. The ebony sticks were pretty cheap. They’ll make nice Greene & Greene joinery pins.

Back in the car and we discussed the “itinerary.” What museums would we visit. Would we drive to Petawawa right away or spend a night in Ottawa first? What bookstores would we visit? It was decided to spend the day in Ottawa, visit one museum and then play like the proverbial farmers coming to the big city, gawking our way through the big stores, particularly the bookstores. And so we did.

Of course, with several hours on the road, I had more time to think. “Is it ok if we visit Lee Valley?”, I asked. “Sure, we’d be fools not to”, my wife said. I’m lucky as Lee Valley is smart enough and sell gardening stuff too. And so we did. I found a really nice block of padauk that will form the carcase for my next plane and I picked up a 1/4lb of square-cut nails. Otherwise, I played nice, though the new Veritas skewed block plane called to my wallet and I’m sure I whimpered a bit as I walked away without one.

We had a great time in Ottawa, and I enjoyed seeing the sawmills in the Petawawa area. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an actual sawmill. Such is city life. We spent several hours in the Chapters bookstore in Ottawa, buying so much treeware that it required the three of us to carry everything. The high point for me was finding a copy of “Shop Class as Soulcraft” by Matthew Crawford. This book examines what we’ve lost as we’ve become a society that no longer creates things with our hands and are so separate from the devices we depend upon that we can’t repair them and mostly don’t even know how they work.

Such is the nature of a road trip by a woodworker. It’s a bit sad to be home, but I’m charged and ready to do some shop work – as soon as it cools down a bit.

Cheers — Larry

larry@woodnbits.com

Is This Woodworking?

Larry — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 02:06:44 +0000

Friday night the weather here was great and I was sitting as my slothful self in one of the Adirondack chairs I’ve built recently. I was trying to enjoy a brew and trying to read Brandon Sanderson’s latest novel, Warbreaker. But it was hard. Warbreaker is a good read but all my two neurons could concentrate on was the large space in front of me – the place where a table needed to be. A place where a table I need to build needed to be. No matter how hard I tried to ignore it, there it was… open space. How would I build it? From what? Design? When?

Into the shop, looking for materials and I found two cedar 2x4s and 5, cedar 1x6s (which are actually fence planks and thus only about 5/8″ thick. They are slightly cupped so I’ll be lucky to have 1/2″ by the time I get them flattened. But this fodder seems sufficient for a smallish, 15″ high, 18″ x 36″, slatted table.

And so it was that I woke Saturday morning, anticipating the “on-the-fly” design/creation of a simple table. I was enjoying a cup of coffee and staring at the ceiling, deep in thought about how to join very 1/2″ aprons to short legs when my wife came in from the garden and said, “Can you help me?” We went outside and there, on the ground, were several long pipes and one with a pruning head on the business end. “I brought this from work and I can’t get it together.”

And so I helped her plug the pipes together. Using this device requires one to hold a relatively heavy and long pole while pulling very hard on a rope to operate the cutter. Guess who ended up doing it [picture of me with his hand up here]?

She “just” wanted me to remove some branches that were shading a portion of her garden where she wanted more sun exposure. No big deal me thinks. But then there was the tree next to it with these branches that hung in a “remove me” fashion. So I did.

Across the yard and along the driveway there are a series of trees. Each of these, must have felt ignored, as simultaneously they all started sticking branches out that they wanted removed. And so, by 1:30 in the afternoon, this is what my back yard looked like.

About two feet below this field of branches is my lawn. It’s not a great lawn but it was mine. If woodworking means cutting wood, I was sure doing it. In fact, I was using hand tools as I prefer. It was just a hand tool that gave me a couple doozy blisters in spite of my gloves.

I even used power tools for a couple thicker branches so I think this means I was doing “hybrid” woodworking.

And yes, it was only 1:30. I could have run into the shop and started that table if only I could have mustered the energy to do so. And if only my hands didn’t hurt from that pruner. If only I weren’t so darned old.

So, instead, I ate lunch and played with SketchUp, drawing a simple plan for my table. I’ll cut wood “real soon.”

Cheers — Larry

larry@woodnbits.com

Lateral Thinking Comes to Dovetail Practice

Larry — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 12:43:45 +0000

I just had to post a link to this YouTube video, which was brought to my attention by the Pop Woodworking blog. It’s one of the funniest takes on joinery I’ve ever seen. My only criticism? They didn’t drawbore the mortise & tenon joint.

Cheers — Larry

larry@woodnbits.com

A Woodworker Goes Gardening

Larry — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 12:04:24 +0000

My wife is a gardener. I’m not. My wife likes plants. I like to cut up big plants. I’m not a mean guy but in the eyes of tree justice, it doesn’t look good for me.

And so when my wife came home and said, “I need your help in the garden tonight”, my lizard brain started scheming for a way out. Fight or flight? Fighting with my wife never works out for me. Flight in this case required an excuse. She’s had me and visions of weeding or some other horrible task skittered between my ears. “Ok… I’ll be glad to help dear”, I said, in what was a less than enthusiastic tone.

When we went outside she headed for the car and opened the hatchback. There were two aspen/poplar logs there. Each was a foot in diameter and about two feet long. I should add that they were heavy. All I could think of, though, was how fun it would be to clobber them with my froe. I guess I am evil.

But these logs were different. They’d been girdled heavily on one end and this slot and the end face were covered with a whitish, fuzzy material. My wife says, “I’ve already dug the holes but they’re too heavy for me to carry them. I need you to carry them and put them in the holes, with the mushrooms on top. ”

Of course my immediate response was “Mushrooms? Will they be mushrooms we can eat?” After all, eating plants is almost as good as creating sawdust from them. She reassured me that these will be the eating kind (she’s a mushroom-ologist) and so we planted our poplar logs in a shady corner of the garden. If ever there were a form of gardening I could get into it is this. Who’da thunk you could plant logs?

Cheers — Larry

larry@woodnbits.com

Safety Week 2010: What Will Happen If Things Go Wrong?

Larry — Wed, 12 May 2010 12:58:29 +0000

Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences. — Norman Cousins

Let’s face it. We woodworkers use tools with sharp edges so there is some risk of injury involved in much of what we do. Our best defense against accidents is knowledge of our tools and skill in their use. We can and should acquire these skills and few would dispute that.

But we humans seem limited in our ability to anticipate something going wrong. We believe our skill will prevent problems but, as they say, fecal material happens.

And when it does, we can often avoid injury by anticipating what could happen when things go wrong. For instance, when you step up to your table saw, do you think “What will happen if this kicks back? Am I in the way?” If you’re using a chisel, do you identify where the chisel will go if it slips or the wood splits out? Are there fleshy parts along that trajectory? This sort of thought routine requires no time and requires only a few calories to feed the brain activity. It may, however, save you a trip to the emergency ward.

Cheers — Larry

larry@woodnbits.com

Safety Week 2010: Most Accidents Are Planned

Larry — Mon, 10 May 2010 12:43:43 +0000

It’s Safety Week 2010 and rather than talking about using push sticks and wearing safety glasses I thought a few words about another tool, the brain, might be more useful.

Accident: any event that happens unexpectedly, without a deliberate plan or cause.

There are other definitions for this word and the distinctions between common and legal definitions of “accident” are illuminating. It’s interesting to note that this common definition nicely avoids any personal responsibility for accidents which is very fashionable. But for purposes of Safety Week 2010, let’s consider accidents.

It’s an accident if you drive your car into another person’s car. It’s an accident if you meet the love of your life while doing your laundry. It’s an accident if you spill your beer. It’s also an accident if you lose your fingers while using your table saw. We all understand this use of the word “accident.”

But I contend that, most times when the word is used, the accident has been planned and not an accident at all. For instance, was it an accident if you were texting or on your cell phone when you drove your car into another person’s car? Was it an accident if you had been hangng out in the laundromat because you knew the girl of your dreams would show up? Would it be an accident if you lost your fingers to your table saw because you were shoving wood at it without using a fence while also spilling your beer?

I don’t think so. These are all examples of outcomes that are predictable from the observed behaviors and by the behaviors they were “planned” by the accidentee. Using the word “accident” only deflects us from acknowledging the factors that caused the outcome. I would contend that most, though not all, shop “accidents” are planned. Take a look at the mechanic in the photo. He backs up a bit, knocks the 2×4 and the newspaper reports that an ‘accident’ occurred. Really?

And the sad thing is that in a wood shop, so many ‘accidents’ have their “planning” acknowledged by the operator before they occur. Thoughts go like “just this once”, “it’ll be ok”, and “what could happen?” Ever heard the joke women tell about us?

“What does a man say just before he hurts himself?”

“Watch this!”

Planning your accidents doesn’t make you smart; it makes you bleed.

Cheers — Larry

larry@woodnbits.com

If I Could Put Time In A Bottle….

Larry — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 19:17:50 +0000

Apologies to Jim Croce for abusing the opening line of his Time In A Bottle song but don’tcha wish you could? Sure…we all talk/joke about not having enough time for woodworking.

This month’s Fine Woodworking reports on their ‘sander vs handplane’ showdown where they looked at which method could prep a piece for finish the quickest. They’ve also done a similar “shootout” on cutting tenons by hand vs a table saw. Fine…fine…I guess this stuff is worth doing… maybe. But mostly this is because most woodworkers believe that using hand tools is akin to putting on the brakes of productivity.

But I’m here to tell you that I think we talk about time/quick/fast FAR too much. If you’re paying the mortgage as a woodworker, the adage “time is money” may apply, but why the heck are hobbyist woodworkers so obsessed with how long something takes?

Let’s do a thought experiment. Imagine that a machine is available that requires a space the size of the average hobbyist shop. Suppose that as long as you don’t use it to produce things for sale, you can have one for free. Suppose this machine creates furniture pieces the way it produced Earl Grey tea for Captain Picard?

Do you want one? Sure…where do I pick it up. Me first…me first. But are you sure? How much hobby enjoyment would you get from saying “Windsor chair from maple” and having it pop out a door? Would it hold your interest? Or would you use it and start spending your time in another hobby? How proud would you be of your Windsor chair. The point is that whether you focus on the final product or the journey to it, the doing is part of what makes you enjoy this hobby.

But today I did my own “power tools vs hand tools” showdown event. That wasn’t the intent of course. I was trying to get some work done. I report on it mostly because it’s been a while since I’ve used power tools and my morning seemed worthy of reporting given the fascination with how long things take.

You see, I needed to put rabbets on 4 rails and 4 styles for my vanity doors. These will accept the glass center panels. I struggle with rabbets using hand tools simply because the tool I have, a Stanley #78 has a fence that is very wonky and I’ve never been happy with the results. It also really slows things down as the fence goes out of adjustment so I spend a lot of time fussing. I need a Lee Valley skew rabbet plane. Some day.

Anyways, because I’ve been slow to get moving on these cabinets I thought I’d get those rabbets done “quickly” by throwing a Freud rabbeting bit into my router table and zip, zip…I’ve have the rabbets done. Ha!

Reality was a bit different. First I had to pull out the router table and then fiddle to get the bit height set properly. I put on my moon suit – face shield, respirator, and my ZEM hearing protection. I hooked the dust collector to the table. I found a test piece, set the fence to take a shallow cut, and made a trial cut. It looked ok so I ran each piece through. Three more passes and I’d created the 1/2″ deep rabbets in all the parts.

The only problem was that I wasn’t done. There were chips all over the floor and table. There were some burn marks on some of the parts in spite of my repeated shallow cuts. And there are several small corner chips where the wood tore out along the inner frame faces.

So, out comes the shop vac. I sucked up all the chips. I swept the floor. I pulled the bit and put it away and moved the table back. I put the shop vac away…. finally… done.

Well, sort of. I’ve still got to smooth the inner faces of all those parts to eliminate the few little bits of tear out, but whose counting? Total elapsed time – a bit more than 1 1/2 HOURS.

Now it may well be true that it would take me 2 hours to do these rabbets with a good hand tool but I doubt it. These are all full-length rabbets (going to use asymmetric tenons) so they’d be pretty quick to make with a good fillister plane. The big difference? I don’t have to look like a NASA astronaut while I do it. I can listen to music. It’s less risky, both to the parts and to my person.

Am I a hand tool zealot? No, not really. I won’t be creating laminated bench tops using hand tools. You won’t see hand tool guys turning out cutting boards to give away as gifts. And it’s a lot easier to buy a router bit to do a fancy molding than to find an equivalent tool in the hand tool world. But this morning was just a reminder of why I do most of my work these days using hand tools.

Cheers — Larry

larry@woodnbits.com

Q&A: Marking Reference Faces

Larry — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:14:05 +0000

Question: I’ve noticed in several of your posts that there is blue tape on all of your parts. What’s it for?

I use blue tape (and if I get sassy I might use green or purple tape) to mark the two reference faces of each piece. I also use the tape to label the purpose of each part. If you look closely at the photo above you’ll see blue tape on all but the top and bottom pieces. The reason is that I’ve just cut those top/bottom pieces and while I’ve done some planing, they haven’t been flattened and squared yet and thus they don’t have reference surfaces.

Most people mark these faces with a pencil and that works too. I started using tape because I got frustrated when I’d lose my marks while doing smooth plane or sanding and/or when I had a hard time removing the pencil marks.

Having the tape allows me to move the “mark” to suit my activity. In the photo above I’m smoothing a cabinet side. Note that I’ve simply pulled the tape away from the face, leaving it attached to the edge. I can smooth the face and then wrap the tape back into it, retaining both the reference face marks and the part name, in this case “S2L” which tells me it’s the left side of my second vanity cabinet.

Cheers — Larry

larry@woodnbits.com