All posts by Tom

I'm the guy who writes the blog...
Quick Polls

Quick Poll

6 Comments

It’s everywhere, and – if you are like me –  it’s probably the first finish other than paint you ever used on a woodworking project.

It’s canned brush on polyurethane, and it’s available at every major retailer. Just about all of the major manufacturers sell the stuff, and everyone in your local mega home improvement retailer recommends it for wood finishing.

And, there’s a lot to like. It creates a tough, water and abrasion resistant surface. It also takes a great deal of skill to lay down properly, dries slowly and makes some projects look plastic.

This week, how do you feel about brush on poly as a finish?



Link of the week

Link of the week

Leave a comment

The Slaugherhouse Gallery

Nestled at the former Union Provisions butcher shop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (in a neighborhood known as Lawrenceville), woodworkers Garth Jones and Don Reed opened an artists’ gallery and  shop.

One of many galleries in the formerly industrial area, Slaugherhouse has space for the exhibit and sale of such crafts as fine jewelry, paintings, photography and printing. While that’s great to see, the gallery is also the home of Jones Furniture Design… the workshop space of co-founder Garth Jones.

Garth’s work is very cool, and it’s great to hear about the arts and crafts reviving a formerly  economically depressed area.  I wish them all the best!

###

 

Projects

My first pen

3 Comments

OK, I’m gonna come right out and say it… the Kodak Zx3 is a totally rocking video and still camera. But, it’s lack of ability to attach an external microphone is a HUGE problem when you are trying to show how you can turn a pen while standing in the middle of a busy and noisy woodworking show hall.

Fortunately – while you can’t hear anything – at least you can see me turn my first pen on a lathe. Rather than make you strain to hear the discussion between me and Tano Chickwick, I’ll grab some stills to show you how it went.

Tano’s setup is pretty cool –  a mini Delta lathe attached to a rolling stand.  We used a bowl gouge, a skew chisel and an assortment of sandpaper grits to get things into shape.  Tano had taken the liberty of drilling the pen body and gluing a tube inside two pieces of bubinga. They were put in the lathe on a threaded mandrel with spacer bushings separating the pieces.

If you are looking for  these pen turning supplies, I know that my friends over at Eagle America have a great selection of mechanisms, turning blanks and tools. And if you are looking for exotic woods for turning a pen with a lot of personality, Bell Forest Products has a wide selection of woods – from African Blackwood to Zircote.

Once things got spinning, Tano put the gouge in my hands and let me go to work. The going was kind of tough at first, since the gouge was working against the sharp square corners of the blank. Before too long, things got a whole lot smoother.  Tano kept reminding me that the critical dimension to hit was the diameter of the spacer bushings.  This way, the wood would blend with the pen’s ring, tip and clasp, making for a very smooth feeling pen.

When things were close, I turned to the skew chisel. The tool was a whole lot tougher to handle than the gouge… I kept wanting to hold the handle too low, afraid the cutting edge would grab and flip the tool out of my hand.  With some patience and a whole lot of coaching, I was able to slice a finer finish on the pen and get everything to the right dimension.

Next up was sanding.  No, this kind of sanding is much easier than sanding a larger project… it’s hard to get a piece of furniture to spin on the lathe and let it rub against the sandpaper!  We started at 100 grit, then did 180, 220, 320, 400 and 600.  Hold a piece of sandpaper against the piece with the lathe running and bingo… sweet sanding.

Once we rolled through the grits, Tano stopped the lathe and hand me sand the  piece from top to bottom. This way, there would be no cross-grain sanding scratches.

From there, we brought out the friction polish. A little squirt on some paper towels, the lathe went back on and I moved the towel from top to bottom while the piece spun. The moment the  polish hit the wood, I got excited. The color on the bubinga was incredible and successive coats just make things look better. A glob of Renaissance Wax was smeared over the pen body and a little more buffing made the piece glow.

After this, we pulled the pen body off the lathe and the pieces off the mandrel. We moved to the front of the bench where we had a pen press waiting.  First, the tip was pressed into the bottom of the pen, then the clasp into the top of the other piece.  The fit on these pieces was very tight and the pen press proved to be an essential tool.  The pen’s transmission went into the top of the tip segment of the body and was pressed home (Of course, I had to ask if it was a manual transmission or an automatic transmission… shesh). From there, an ink barrel was installed, a gold ring went over the transmission and the two pieces were hand pressed together.

Stop the clock. A total of – maybe – 25 minutes from blocky blank to sleek pen. I’m not sure, but with this proper coaching, I think I could be convinced to get into a lathe and try my hand at making some more.  After all, the holidays are only about nine months away… it’s never too early to start thinking gifts!

 

Experiences

My day at the Woodworking Show

2 Comments

Hello, everyone. Iggy again, and I wanted to tell you all about the full day I worked this past weekend at the Woodworking Show in Tampa.

First, as is tradition, I had Tom call Jim Heavey and Andy Chidwick to come over to the house on Friday night. I figured that they were on the road in a strange town (Where else would Tom be allowed to work in the shop?) and could use a home cooked meal. Jim showed up first, and it turns out that the entire Chidwick clan was in tow as well! They’ve been going from town to town with the show, demonstrating and making it a great experience for everyone who attended. Me, well, it rarely happens, but I was just starstruck.

After dinner, I left Tom to load the materials for the show, and I went out to party with my guests.  We spent a wild night on the town, and celebrated into the night.  The cops had to come out to the hotel twice to talk to us about the noise, and we were definitely enjoying the banana daiquiris.  After the big night, we crashed late and planned on a rough day at the show.

Saturday morning, I was up bright and early – surprisingly chipper after the big night. Tom brought car with the Contemplation bench and Centered, the computer and lots of my business cards. When we got to the show floor, I was surprised to see my booth next to the Chidwick’s that was fit for an accomplished woodworker. I had a Lie-Nielsen bench to set the benches on, a large screen TV and a comfortable place where I could speak with the attendees. It was awesome, and many thanks to the crew who made it all possible!

Between speaking with attendees during the day, I took the opportunity to get out and see what was on display. I saw my friend Jim Heavey working hard giving his presentation at the Wood Magazine classrooom.

I had a chance to see Happy Andy at his his classroom. This guy can get people excited about woodworking, and his work really stands out. Some really awesome sculpted joinery for chairs. I noticed that Tom was busily taking notes, but I’m not sure the Tailless Wonder is going to be able to make it happen. At least not without my help.


I also swung by the booth Andy had set up for his 14-year-old son Tano. He’s a very interesting kid – he loves woodworking, and I hear he was able to teach Tom how to turn a pen.If that’s true, the kid might be a genius.  I know someone took video – I’m going to see if I can edit it and get it onto the site. By the way – nice shirt!

Finally, I have to put a shout out for two more of the Chidwick family – Sherry, the ever patient wife, mom and marketing/publicity maven and my new best friend Ellie. This girl is a dynamo. She runs a lunch delivery business for all of the exhibitors at the show – and business is good.  Plus, with a face like that , you can bet the tips are flowing. She makes a kickin’ ham and cheese sandwich.

For some reason, Sherry asked Tom to come out and speak about blogging and social media. I hear that he did a decent job. Let’s see if he managed to work the video camera properly…

Many thanks also go out to Joe Strong and the rest of the crew with the Woodworking Show. Friendly, accommodating folks who want to bring the best to woodworkers across the country. I have to tip my hat to them.

Definitely more to come as we wrap up the show.

 

Quick Polls

Quick poll

1 Comment

As I’ve stated before – when it comes to woodworking techniques, there are a thousand ways to skin the proverbial cat. Ask any woodworker, and you’ll soon discover how true this is.  While you may complete a task using a table saw, other woodworkers may turn to routers, bandsaws, hand tools or other means to complete the task in their shop.

While some woodworkers may tell you how they would have done the task at their bench, others who are a little bit more pushy (abrasive? know-it-all?) not only offer their recommendations, but tell you you ‘should have’ done it  their way instead.

This week, let us know if you have ever been told by another woodworker that you ‘should have’ done the job the way they would have done it, and what your reaction was.

Have you ever been told you ‘should have’ done a woodworking task the way another woodworker does things?customer surveys

 

 

Link of the week

Link of the week

1 Comment

Wood Marvels

Building furniture is cool, but building models of things like cranes, castles, dinosaurs and the Mars Rovers, well, that’s just something any kid would love.

Wood Marvels  creates wooden 3-D puzzles that you snap together to create some interesting projects.  You can either buy the project completely cut out and ready to assemble, get plans for a CNC routing or laser cutting system or – if you are feeling brave, .pdf plans that you can cut out using your scroll saw.   This is definitely a site worth checking out.

 

Shop Talk

What to bring?

1 Comment

After Iggy relented and let me out of the shop (he had me duct taped to the bench brush and dustpan so I could be more efficient while cleaning the shop), I was finally able to get my head around the idea of ‘appearing’ at the Woodworking Show this Saturday.

The plan, according to Andy Chidwick, is to be at a table adjacent to his booth to talk shop with folks. That’s right – be there to talk.  Something I know how to do well.

But, he also asked me to bring some ‘things’ with me to show off during my time there.  Namely, he was looking for me to bring some projects and some tools.

This creates a concern.  Which projects and which tools?

My thoughts turn toward benches. I’m obviously not going to be able to bring my workbench with me. Weighing in at somewhere around 300 pounds, it’s a tad too large to put  in the back of the Jeep and lug to the Florida State Fairgrounds.

I’m thinking instead of going with a classic and a newer.  First, I’ll be packing the Contemplation Bench.  Not only is this a beauty, it’s the piece that help launch this blog.  I built it while working with Marc Spagnuolo at a now shuttered woodworking school in Indiana. From there, our friendship grew and he later invited me to start writing a few guest blogs. From there, the rest is history.

As far as the newer project goes, I was going to bring my table called ‘Centered’. It’s not technically a bench, but everyone wants to sit on it. That was a project that was a departure from what I normally build, and there are lots of points to talk about. The angled legs. The epoxy inlay. My first ever true breadboard edges.

Neither project is ‘perfect’, but, I don’t care.  They both mean something to me, and I plan on sharing that with the visitors.

As far as tools are concerned… well, I’m not sure. Part of me wants to bring my entire plane till that I built for the Great American Teach In. But, that sucker is heavy, and keeping track of all of the planes could be a challenge.

I could bring my routers, but those babies have lots of parts that would pose a challenge. Besides, the next thing you know, I’d be asked to plug them in and do some kind of fancy routing.  I’m actually a bashful router user… I like to make my mistakes on scraps first and make the final cut once I get my nerve up.

Hmmm, I’ll have to give this one some thought.

Finally, I guess I’ll have to bring a computer. We have an old MacBook (Bought back in 2005) and a new netbook computer with one of those very small screens. I could also show off the Android phone I have… but looking at that screen would make for a very intimate experience.  I guess I’m leaning toward the netbook.

Finally, I’ll have to bring my most important tool of all – my little digital video camera. If’ I’m going to meet some interesting folks and do some neat stuff, I’m going to want to get this stuff on the camera.

Other than that, I’m an open book. Is there anything you would want to see me bring to the Woodworking Show if you were attending the show in Tampa?