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Link of the week

Link of the week

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The National Hurricane Center

Ike preparationsNo, this is not wood related.  At all.  However,  if you live in the area potentially affected by Hurricane Ike – please heed all evacuation orders and leave immediately.

Leave your tools behind.  Leave your prized timbers behind.  Leave your big screen tv and all that other stuff behind.  All of that stuff can be replaced, but you can’t.

The National Hurricane Center is carefully monitoring the situation, and local emergency managers will be giving you instructions.  This storm has the capability of killing hundreds – possibly thousands – if people do not evacuate.

Remember, hurricane season runs through November 30 – please pay attention to the threat!

Finishing, How-to

Become your own mixologist

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The coolest job in any restaurant belongs to the bartender.  Sure, the chef gets the credit for the outstanding meal, the maître d’ for the ambiance of the place and the wait staff for the overall dining experience.

But, when people want to have fun and strike up a conversation, they turn to the bartender.  Think Isaac on the Love Boat.  Tom Cruise in that stinkin’ movie about being a bartender.

“Yes, Mr. Bond would like his martini shaken, not stirred,  Mr. Sinatra wants a highball, and Evel Knievel wants two fingers of Wild Turkey before he tries to jump the fountain in the parking lot on his Harley.”

While no one may be hanging out in your wood shop, you can be just as cool by mixing your own wiping finish.  Why mix your own?  Instead of just relying on what a manufacturer thinks is the best mix, you can adjust your formula to fit your own needs – faster drying time, more film build, etc.  Also, if you have cans and bottles of the components, you can use them in your finish instead of throwing them out.

Mixing your own finish is very easy.  There are dozens of formulas out there to suit individual needs, but this is my formula I have used very successfully through the years.

The ingredients can be found in any hardware store and start with boiled linseed oil (BLO).  This natural oil helps the figure in wood ‘pop’ and gives it a rich, deep finish.  The next ingredient is polyurethane or some other type of varnish. It offers a great deal of protection from water, abrasion and other hazards.  Finally, you have to add a thinner to the mix.  I like turpentine, but paint thinner or naptha will work as well.  It makes the finish flow nicely and level without brush marks and runs.

Now, here comes the hard part – mixing it together.  The ‘standard’ mix that a lot of people refer to is 1/3 varnish, 1/3 BLO, 1/3 thinner.  While this does make a nice mix, I have found that I can mix it 1/2 varnish, 1/4 BLO and 1/4 thinner.  It gives me a little faster build on the finish while still making for an easy wipe on.

My scientific method for mixing involves an old pickle jar.  I measured up from the bottom in one inch increments, and poured the ingredients up to the lines.  No, you are not trying to send people to the Moon or split the atom, close enough will work…

After sanding the piece, I again prefer to wipe on a coat of 1# cut dewaxed shellac and sand it down to 400 grit after letting it cure.  Then, I wipe on the finish with a rag.  Don’t be bashful, the wood will soak up a lot of the finish – especially in end grain.   Let it sit for about five minutes, then wipe off any excess with a dry cloth.

I love how easy the mix is to use, and I have yet to be let down.

Now, after all that hard work, I think I’ll take one of those fancy martinis to celebrate.

Quick Polls

Quick Poll

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Gotta scrub out those old glue stains...The reason most of us hobbyist woodworkers go to the shop is to have fun.  Designing our own projects. Working with beautiful wood.  Skillfully cutting joints.  Unveiling the finished project for display and admiration.

But, it’s not all fun and games.  In fact, some of the tasks we have to do are tedious, time consuming, and many woodworkers will put off doing them because they would never be considered fun. “I’ll clean the shop tomorrow.”  “I hate dragging out all of my sharpening equipment just to touch up that chisel.”

This week, we want to know what woodworking task you consider the absolute worst.  I mean,  we’re talking about the kind of task you would build a robot to do if you had the time, skill and the robotics degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

[poll id=”38″]

Link of the week

Link of the week

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The Diaku Dojo

A craftsman from The Diaku DojoSince the Japanese word for carpenter is Daiku, and the word Dojo means hall for training, it’s easy to get an idea of what this site is about. It is a community organization designed to help provide the education and skills necessary for the use of Japanese style hand tools in woodworking.

This association’s members are exceptionally talented when it comes to cutting the complex and artistic joinery traditionally found in Japanese style joinery.  The San Francisco based guild offers classes and organizes group projects to help hone the skills of its members and other students.

Links to companies who deal in high quality Japanese tools, skilled craftspeople and museums allow visitors to the site a convenient starting point for their exploration of the craft.  And, there’s even a forum where you can find answers to your toughest questions.

While most western woodworkers work primarily with familiar joinery methods, a visit to the Daiku Dojo will open your eyes to the traditional techniques used by Japanese woodworkers.

Spotlight

Woodworking Spotlight – Tom Hintz

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Tom HintzStarting out on any new undertaking can be a pretty intimidating – and exciting – experience.  Think about your first day at a new job.  The first time you go to meet your future in-laws.  The first time you bring a new baby home from the hospital.

For new woodworkers, what better place to start your woodworking journey than at a place that caters to the newest to the craft?

Tom Hintz, the mastermind behind the long-lived NewWoodworker.com website, can still vividly remember his first few tentative steps into woodworking.  “After buying my first home, I needed a workbench.  I built it myself over a day or two…  It wobbled and had too many nails in it, but I was bitten.  I loved building it!”

Even though his first experience with woodworking wasn’t the finest piece, the fire had been lit.  The only problem was that 30 years ago, there wasn’t the depth and wealth of information on the craft that today’s novice woodworkers can turn to.  “The instructional materials that were available then (30 years ago, pre-New Yankee Workshop/This Old House and no Internet) were either overly simplistic or assumed I knew way more than I did. Either way, I had to figure out lots of things on my own through an often long, occasionally dangerous and frequently expensive trial and error process.”

New Woodworker dot comWhen the Internet came into being, Tom decided that he could use a few of his hard-learned lessons to teach others just starting out.  Eight years ago, Tom launched NewWoodworker.com, and shortly after that, realized that perhaps his aim was set a little too narrowly.  “Yeah, it immediately became apparent through the viewer response that my demographic included nearly as many veterans as novices.”

Tom at workWhile NewWoodworker.com focuses on how-to and technique articles, his readers started asking for some more detail on just what tools he was using and what he thought about them.  Soon, tool reviews became a staple on the site as well.  The scope of the tools Tom has reviewed is very impressive – table saws, dovetail jigs, books and videos and woodworking machinery of all types.

While some criticism has been thrown Tom’s way regarding a seeming lack of ‘bad’ tool reviews, his rationale is pretty sound.  “I just don’t have the time or the budget to review everything out there. I also believe that concentrating on good tools is a better plan anyway since viewer requests for reviews of bad tools hovered somewhere between few and non existent.”

Despite his seemingly ‘good only’ reviews, Tom has come across a couple duds and has yet to pull any punches.  “I did buy a nail gun in response to a rash of emails telling me how awful it was. That input proved to be true and it really was a piece of junk. In fact, it failed so miserably that to date, it is the only tool that I smashed into little pieces with a sledgehammer just to be sure it didn’t accidentally fall into the hands of an unsuspecting woodworker.”

While running NewWoodworker.com is a very time consuming enterprise for Tom (some days, he’ll work 16 to 20 hours to hit critical deadlines), it’s a labor of love which he believes is doing a service for the woodworking community.  “The best reward for all of the work is when a viewer writes to tell me how one of my stories saved their day, helped them to finish a project or to successfully try a technique they thought they weren’t capable of. That’s what NewWoodworker.com has always been about so it is very gratifying to hear that people can take the information to their shop and use it effectively.”

Quick Polls

Quick Poll

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ShopSmith Mark VWhile combination woodworking machines have long been the norm in European shops, the one combination machine that has been sold for decades in the United States has been the Shopsmith.  It’s touted as the Swiss Army Knife of woodworking machines, with the current model – the Mark V –  able to serve as a table saw, drill press, disc sander and lathe right out of the box.

While, at first glance, it  might seem like the perfect tool for a cramped woodworking shop, opinions about the tool run the gamit from deep, abiding love to an intense loathing.

So,  this week’s poll is trying to determine whether or not you own a Shopsmith, and what your thoughts are about this interesting woodworking machine.

[poll id=”37″]