Goodbyes and hellos

I won’t say goodbye, I’ll just say, see you later. That’s what I thought when I watched the pool cue rack being wrapped up and taken away by its rightful owner. It’s always a bit hard handing over something I have worked so hard on, even the small things I make and sell will give me pause.  When you sell a puppy or kitten you always wonder if they will love them as much as you do, so it was a great comfort for me to receive quick email from the purchaser telling me how good the piece looked in its new home.

This was the first time I have made an “unfinished” piece for a customer, so I can’t wait to see what it will look like finished and hanging in place. I’ll be sure to post that photo.

Now it’s on to something completely different! I am getting ready for the American Craft Council Show in Baltimore this weekend. I will be one of the representatives from the Baltimore Area Turners who will be demonstrating woodturning. I’ll be making bangles, magic wands, and spurtles. Yes sir, you heard it right, spurtles. What? You don’t know what a spurtle is?

Spurtles Ya'll

The spurtle (or “spirtle”) is a Scots kitchen tool, dating from at least the fifteenth century. Over time, the original implement changed shape and began being used specifically for stirring oatmeal and soups. The rod-like shape is designed for constant stirring which prevents the porridge from congealing and so becoming lumpy and unappetizing.

I guess you could use a spoon, but where the fun in that!

Till next time…..

Cherry pie and pegs

One of the many things I love about my wife is her cooking. She really enjoys it, and it shows. I especially like it when she makes a fruit pie. For example, cherries were on sale one day, and the next thing I know, we have a fresh cherry pie for desert. And you know what makes it even better? She makes the crust from scratch. Boy does she make good pie crust too!

So what the h*ll does this have to do with woodworking? Like my wife’s pie, the project I am working all is 100% home made. On the bottom of the pool cue rack are three “shaker” style pegs used for holding various ball racks. The plans call for you to buy the pegs and they give you a source. Hah! I can make my own shaker pegs thank you! All I needed was a piece of scrap from the rough cut boards.

From these...

To this....

To these!

Granted, my friend and full time turner, Andy Coates could turn these three pegs faster than me, but at least I can do it myself. I like being the well rounded woodworker, a renaissance woodworker of sorts. Maybe my liberal arts education made me that way…….naw….. it just made me harder for me to find a job.

Professor Fink explains why

I frequently get asked to make custom projects, but once they find out how much it’s going to cost, the deal is basically dead. When they ask “why it is so expensive,” I explain to them that I do not live in China and work for $5 dollars a day. I also work with real wood which is expensive. I recently turned down a kitchen table project because the customer wanted a “man-made” laminate top. That’s just not my shtick.

Here’s a classic example of what can rack up the time for a custom project; templates.  Arts & Crafts furniture that have corbels and repeating patterns are well suited for the use of templates.

Makin' Templates

Coping

 

 

 

 

Today, it took me thirty five minutes to make these two templates out of MDF.  (in the voice of Professor Fink)

It’s the paper cutting, the spraying, the adhesing, the coping, the rasping, the smoothing, and oy the sanding! See? All that takes time and it’s all the little things that add up.

I was a fan of Norm Abram’s New Yankee Workshop, but what you never saw was how much time he (and perhaps his helpers) took for the milling, repetitive work, sanding, cursing, and the finishing. His show gave non-woodworkers and novices alike the impression that a roll top desk could be made “in about an hour” to coin a phrase. And yes, pun intended.

of Beaver and the bra

All of my subscribers know that I love my hand tools; however, there is one power tool that would hate to be without, my hollow mortise chiseler. I know how to make square holes by hand, but only a masochist would enjoy making Arts & Crafts furniture without a hollow mortise chiseler.

A keeper!

 

 

 

 

 

Speaking of power tools, I admit that I use my radial arm saw rather frequently. I have considered selling my Radial Arm saw and my compound miter saw to get a big 12” Double-bevel sliding compound miter saw so I could save space in my shop. So what stops me from doing this? I know this is a lame excuse, but it my Radial Arm saw has a great story….

It was almost ten years ago in February of 2002 when my first child was born. My wife asked me if I would go purchase a nursing bra for her. Of course I said I would, but I was certain that if a man walked into a bra department, the pervert alarms will go off and you would get bodily thrown out of the store and be told to never come back. So with great trepidation I went forth. Thankfully, she suggested that I go to the brand new mall which was not far from the house.

Gee Lady, can you help me find a bra?

I felt like Beaver Cleaver every time I stood before a female clerk as asked her if they had “x” sized nursing bras. To my horror, each and every store didn’t have the requested size. The last store I went too was Sears, and once again, fearing the pervert alarms, me and a sales clerk looked for the correct size with no luck, so I double timed it out of that department as fast as possible. But lo and behold, what ho? The Sears tool section! Now there’s a bastion of “maledome,” so I took a stroll through the tools. Then I saw it, a radial arm saw. I was currently working on a high chair for our new baby and the design called for lots of compound angles, and that radial arm saw would be perfect for the job. The price was good, then I found out that I they were having a 50% off grand opening sale, so with reckless abandon, I bought that baby (I mean the saw. Believe me, I have been paying for the “real baby” for a LONG time).

Now the next challenge, telling my wife. I got home and walk into the bedroom and she asked me if I found the nursing bra. “Well….no……but I did get a radial arm saw!” So how could I sell that saw after that story?!

More of the modern traditionalist

I’m the very epitome of a very modern traditionalist, part hand tooler, part power tooler. Today I summoned the use of an ancient tool and a modern powered device.

Here’s the case.  I am working on a custom project, but I have a set of purchased plans. How’s that? My customer found a design for a pool cue rack that he really liked, and there happened to be a set of plans for them. The problem is that the design is too large for his wall space. My objective is to make the project and customize it to fit the space, and make further design modifications.

The first hurdle: There is a platform on the rack onto which the bottom of the pool cues rest, and there is an upper platform which the tips of the pool cues poke through. To make things interesting, this piece has a “Mission” design (I really think it is a “Prairie Style Frank Lloyd Wright” design) so there are multiple vertical thin stiles that connect the top and bottom.  The plans call for these platforms to be 30” long, but I need to make my version 27” long.

A modern woodworker might scan the plans and upload them into a CAD program or make them over in Sketch up. Me, I don’t need no stinkin’ Sketch up. All I need is a set of dividers.  I made a 27” MDF template that would work for the top and bottom platforms and then I used my dividers to quickly make the adjustment to the design. No computer necessary. WhooYahh!

Dividers make designing easier

 

 

 

 

Using the router table to transfer the curves

My template insures the curves are correct and the layout for the cue holes and vertical stiles are accurate between the two platforms. I guess watching all those David J. Marks videos has made a lasting impression on me with regard to use templates for reproducible accuracy. Thanks David!

All stickered up with nowhere to go

The first round of milling for the pool cue rack was very productive, BUT, Murphy’s law prevailed as usual.

When you are working on a time and materials commission, you walk the type rope of buying right amount of lumber. When the plans call for a certain amount of board feet, you know you have to buy a little more because your rough cut lumber won’t match the cutting diagrams. Such was the case today. I was one board that is 3.5″ wide by 56″ short. RATS! That means I will have to buy another big rough cut board and eat the cost of the board feet that I don’t use. Oh well, I will save the overage for the Morris chair I plan to make one day.

And to double down the on the Murphy’s law, that missing board is one of the key parts to the whole thing, so I will have to go back to the lumber store, let the board acclimate to the shop, then can finish up the milling, which means another day or two lost.

Meanwhile, the rest of the parts are milled and stickered so they can acclimate to the shop. If my shop were temperature and humidity controlled, I would not bother with stickering, but the temperatures have been all over the place lately and so has the humidity levels. I want to give the wood plenty of time to used to my shop before I take it down to final dimensions. If it is going to warp, cup or bow, I’d rather it do it now before I start assembling.

I know some of you lumber experts out there are shaking your fingers at the screen and shouting, “it’s quarter sawn, therefore it is much less prone to movement!” And to that I say, “you’re correct.” But with my luck, it is better to be safe than sorry.

All stickered up

 

 

 

 

BTW, I would like to go ahead and send out an apology to all you Pats fans out there. I am a bona fide sports jinx. When I watch a game, even for the tiniest of seconds, 9 times out of 10 the team that I root for will lose. Sorry.

Time to break out the beer and get stickered myself….

Just milling around

For some unknown reason, my favorite part of a furniture project is the milling. For those of you not in “the know,” milling is the process of cutting down your rough stock lumber into the approximate sized pieces for your project.

For most of my furniture projects, I use rough cut lumber for a number of reasons. It’s usually a lot cheaper per board foot compared to the finished lumber at the big box store, and it is available in much thicker sizes than finished stock.

Rough stock

As the name implies rough cut lumber does not look as good as finished lumber because it is really “rough.” It will have saw mill marks along with ink marks, and it might not be perfectly straight, or it might have slight cupping. The key is to see the potential within the board. Michael Angelo said the statue was in the rock all along, and he just brought it out.  So I look for what might be within the board. Another advantage of rough cut lumber is that it gives you more of a margin for error while saving money at the same time.

See the potential within the wood?

I do part of the roughing work by hand. I will hand plane one side of the board flat and straight, then true up the thin side so I have two square sides before I start with using machinery. I could use my jointer, but if you have any twist or bow, I can flatten it out faster by hand without snipe or tear out and save electricity. And sometimes this can be a good workout too, so burning the extra calories is a plus.

 

I don’t really know why I like the milling part best, but I just do. I wonder if a tailor gets excited when they look at a bolt of fabric the way I get excited looking at my boards.

So a new commission has begun. I am working on a custom sized pool que holder. I hope you will enjoy reading about this project as it progresses along.

And so it begins!

 

 

 

 

yaakov….