All posts by Tom

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

Get Woodworking Week 2013: Wednesday

February 6, 2013 Tom 7 Comments

Back when I was in college, we used to have really heady discussions. Did Shakespeare’s older plays capture his voice better than his later works? Did Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales really create modern English literature? What bar had the cheapest beer?

One discussion I recall having with a professor happened during a class about modern English literature… We were studying Orwell, and the professor told us that our literary history was made more poor by – of all things – the devastation brought by World War I. “Think of the authors who wrote during and after the war. Tolkien. Orwell. Fitzgerald. Faulkner. They wrote many of the classics we read and cherish to this very day. Now, how many other gifted authors died during these battles- the voices we have never heard from? What did they have to tell us?”

It was an interesting point. How many people never had the chance to write for us because of their ultimate sacrifice?

I recently recalled this discussion while interviewing Megan Fitzpatrick, the new Editor of Popular Woodworking, during a recent podcast of the Modern Woodworkers Association. She casually mentioned that she believes she is one of the first women to hold such a position in the woodworking community. While she wasn’t making a big deal about it, it did spark a follow up line of conversation.

Follow me here for a minute.

When I was back in middle school up in Bloomingdale, New Jersey, we had both shop class and home economics. We were probably one of the last groups of kids to go through these vocational classes. We shifted between the two classes: one for the fall semester, and one for the spring semester. While in home ec, it was not so subtly expressed to me that I should relax, because soon I would be in the ‘guy’ class at the woodshop. And, once spring rolled around, the shop teacher had to explain to more than a few upset girls that no, they didn’t have to do too much in shop class, because he understood women were more of a natural fit for home ec.

I can vividly remember building Pinewood Derby cars as a Cub Scout, but I haven’t heard of a parallel event for Brownies. That event was a fun introduction to the craft and helped me get interested.

Today, when I walk into a woodworking store, the vast majority of customers are men, with just a smattering of women. And, many of them are there with their husbands/boyfriends/fathers while they shop.

That’s an interesting observation, especially given the fact that in the 2010 U.S. Census, females made up 50.8% of the population.

This got me wondering… how many women with the aptitude, skill and desire are not woodworking because it has been portrayed as a ‘male’ pastime?

Now, the purpose of this post isn’t to advocate that there be one female woodworker for each male woodworker. Nor is it to lobby for ‘equality in the shop’. There are no legal or moral barriers that prevent women from getting into a workshop. All that is required is the desire and the commitment to learn.

But, I do have to wonder: How many women have the itch to try their hand at woodworking, but feel it’s not appropriate for them to get into it? When I look at the work being turned out by people such as Mary May, Kari Hultman and Gail O’Rourke, I want to see more. I can only imagine the ideas, the skill, the vision that more woodworkers can bring to the craft, but it’s locked away due to a negative external influence or self imposed internal barriers to participation.

That’s why I’m thinking that this Get Woodworking Week is an excellent time to introduce a girl or woman in your life to the craft. Who knows? Just as my wife Rhonda took an interest in the project this past summer, you might find an eager student who will become so excited about the possibilities offered by woodworking, she will add her voice to the body of work we enjoy so tremendously.

And, there are even more articles for Get Woodworking Week. Check them out here:

Steve Ramsey – Woodworking for Mere Mortals: Get Woodworking
Wilbur Pan – Giant Cypress: What you need to get a kid into woodworking
Ron Hock – The Sharpening Blog: How to Make a Board by Dave Barry
Matt Vanderlist – Matt’s Basement Workshop: Jointer or Thickness Planer First?
Fine Woodworking: 7 lessons for aspiring furniture makers
Popular Woodworking: Some beginner hand tool instruction
Highland Woodworking: Teaching a friend to turn
Highland Woodworking: Getting started with woodturning
Chris Landy – The Lighthearted Woodworker: Pay it forward
Andy Brownell – Brownell Furniture: South African Biltong Maker
Chris Wong – Flair Woodworks: Don’t listen to them (Listen to me – at least this one time!)

By the way, Wood Magazine is also making a series of plans available for free during Get Woodworking Week. Here’s what’s out so far:

Get Woodworking, Tools

Get Woodworking Week 2013: Monday

February 4, 2013 Tom 5 Comments

As an English major back in college, one of the things I had to do – a lot – was read literature. Lots of it. I mean, tons.

Chaucer. Twain. Shelley. Shakespeare. Oh, and this one guy named Tobias Smollet who wrote a novel named Humphry Clinker, which, I believe, is the most painful of all novels ever written. In fact, I swore an oath during that one semester that when time travel is invented, I would go back to the time when he wrote the novel and burn his entire pen and paper collection and encourage him to take up botany… It was horrendous.

But, I digress. Since many of these works were written by folks influenced by the classic Greek stories, I had to read more than my share of ancient Greek gems. One of the ones I had to read was the Odyssey, written by Homer (no, not Simpson!). Our brave hero Odysseus and his merry band of cohorts get into all types of adventures in a world filled with all manner of magical creatures and beings.

The crew while out on the high seas ran into a group of beings known as Sirens, who appeared as beautiful young ladies with sweet singing voices. But, their beautiful outside covered an evil intention – their irresistible singing would attract sailors close to land, where they would shipwreck and drown. Hmmm… sounds like some of the women I used to date before I met Rhonda…

Why the mythology lesson? Beginning woodworkers have a similar battle to fight with another kind of Siren… the ‘starter’ tool. Now, I’m not advocating you hold out until you can afford a top-of-the-line, uber expensive tool. But, in the same way, you don’t really want to follow the melody being sung by tools that are way too small, underpowered or cheaply made to work well for you.

Let me give you both a power and a hand tool example to illustrate. When I started woodworking, my only saw was a jigsaw. And, it was good. But, I could never get a good, straight, smooth cut with it. Plus, it took forever to make the cut on long boards, and I was going through jigsaw blades like nobody’s business. That’s when I upgraded to a circular saw. Nice move. It cut fast and smooth, but, after a while, I realized that it couldn’t do everything I wanted it to. That’s when I followed the song right into the rocks.

I bought a $149 bench saw from Delta at a local home improvement center. And, I was tickled with it. It cut quickly and smoothly, and it seemed to tick all the boxes for me. That was, of course, until I had to rip something thicker. Or crosscut something that wildly overhung the edges of the puny table. Or, I had to rely on the wonky rip fence to be accurate and square. Then, it stank…

Eventually, I had to bail on that saw, and I bought the one I use now. The Ridgid saw I bought back in 2003 was the latest version of the line carried at Home Depot, and it has been a solid performer for me since day one. Accurate, repeatable cuts. Power to spare for most cutting applications. Can handle a stacked dado blade. And, best of all, no frustration and lost hours trying to get everything to line up. Just what I was looking for!

At the time, it ran me $500, which is a considerable amount of money to spend on a tool. However, right next to the 3612 I bought was the recently discontinued 2424. For $300. Just twice the cost of the el-cheapo I was dumping. Had I held my funds for another few months when I bought the cheap saw, I could have started with a big cast iron contractor saw with excellent performance, a shorter learning curve and a lifetime warranty from the get go. I probably would have still owned that baby today.

The same thing happened with my first hand plane. Jack planes sold at most home improvement centers aren’t worth diddly. Poorly cast and ground soles. Inadequate steel used in the iron. Clunky adjustment mechanism. I can’t tell you how many hours I wasted trying to get that plane to work properly… to produce a shimmering curl. Instead, I got chatter, splinters and the thought that I was the problem and that hand planing wasn’t for me.

It wasn’t until my friend came back from a flea market and handed me an old, dirty Stanley No. 5 made in the 1930s. He spent a grand total of $10 on it, and told me to knock myself out. After reading up on plane restoration online, I spent a few hours cleaning and waxing up the plane. I ordered a replacement iron for the old workhorse and sharpened it carefully. I clamped a chunk of wood in my vise, and was planing like nobody’s business right out of the gate. Was it perfect? Nope, but it did show me that hand planing wasn’t outside of my abilities.

So, what’s the lesson here? Yes, woodworking can be an expensive hobby to jump in to. And, yes, it may be tempting to think that it’s OK to just hop in on a ‘starter’ tool to get your feet wet. But, in the end, you will be happier with full-sized tools looking for bargains on discontinued or refurbished items. Maybe in your future lies a well-loved used tool. Maybe you can let the loved ones in your life know that you would appreciate contributions toward a (fill in the blank) for your birthday/holidays/anniversary/graduation/festivus.

In the meantime, here’s a collection of some really cool articles written by others for Get Woodworking Week:

Nick Roulleau – Mansfield Fine Furniture: On Cheating
Marc Spagnuolo – The Wood Whisperer: What’s your excuse?
Wilbur Pan – Giant Cypress: Why a dovetail a day is so useful
Chris Adkins – High Rock Woodworking: Old Woodworking Books… That still matter
Pete Harbin – Second Wind Workshop: Get Woodworking Week: Sunday
Wood Magazine: FREE Plans for a stately Shaker side table

Get Woodworking, Quick Polls

Get Woodworking Week 2013: Sunday

February 3, 2013 Tom 3 Comments

Welcome to Get Woodworking Week 2013. For the next seven days, I and many other woodworking bloggers are going to focus on writing articles and producing videos to encourage new woodworkers to stop thinking about woodworking and give it a try themselves.

And, it’s also only appropriate that we kick this week off on Super Bowl Sunday. So, if you are ready to tackle this week’s poll, let’s break the huddle and line up for the next play!

Regardless of what kind of hobby you follow, you have to identify a place where you can do what you do. If you like to paint, a nice sunny corner of the house is perfect. Want to become a home chef? A kitchen is pretty important. Bird watching? You have to get outside to go where they live.

And, when it comes to woodworking, you need to identify a place to build projects, store your tools and contain the sawdust, chips and shavings the hobby invariably produces. Where that is can be different based on what your living arrangements are. Basements, garages and separate buildings on your property are common choices, but attics, spare bedroom and even rented spaces house shops. This week, tell us where your workshop is.. or you would like to have it!

Oh, and all week, I will be linking to great articles written by other woodworking bloggers. Here’s today’s haul from around the web:

Ralph Bagnall – Cash From Craft: What I like to build and why
Popular Woodworking: A trio of common beginner questions (& answers)
Marilyn Guthrie – She Works Wood: Get woodworking … women!

Experiences

Get yourself some class

January 30, 2013 Tom 1 Comment

As woodworkers, many times we try to figure out how to class our projects up. Maybe a decorative inlay. Relief carving. Proudly cut dovetails. The possibilities are endless.

But, many times, our projects turn out a little more bland than we would like. Why? Because, we don’t know exactly how to pull off these more interesting and – yes – even classy design elements. Instead, we turn to more of the tried-and-true tricks in our repertoires because that’s what we know. And, in many cases, our work starts to become easily identified as ours.

What we need – in addition to projects and techniques that add class – is a class to learn about projects and techniques. Classes can be offered at many locations. Some are online. Others can take place at a community college or trade school. Woodworking schools are great places to seek out some new knowledge and meet other hobby woodworkers who are into the craft. And, in many cases, stores that sell woodworking tools are offering classes. Woodcraft. Rockler. Lee Valley. Highland Hardware.

And, the newest entry into the field is taking place at Infinity Cutting Tools at their new Oldsmar, Florida location. In a dedicated section of their spacious warehouse, David Venditto will be offering a number of classes on different projects and techniques to inspire wooodworkers to go on to bigger and better things in their shops. Woodworking experts will lead these classes, which will help take your work from nice to woah!

The first class is scheduled for Saturday, February 9, from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. at Infinity’s offices. During this class, participants can get the lowdown on how to get the most out of their routers. Tampa Bay area furniture builder and woodworking teacher Kurt Raschke will touch on the many different operations that a router can do – inlays, joinery, moldings, and many more operations. Hand held and table mounted routing will also be covered in detail, as well as bit selection and care. I plan on being there for the class, and trust me, there will be lots of pictures!

While this is a great first offering, it’s not all that will be presented. In fact, this first class is just a taste of the future offerings. It’s the first part of a series of classes including the basics on table saw set up and use and getting the most out of your planer and jointer. And, as future classes are planned, you will have a major say in what gets instructed.

So, what kinds of classes would you like to see? More hands-on how-to, projects that you will be proud to put in your living room, design that gets the proportions and wood choice down pat? Now is your time to help guide the development of this brand new woodworking school.

Oh, and look for a few posts from me as the courses get going. There may be some interesting techniques I can bring to my woodworking from them.

Experiences

Announce it.. and they will come

January 28, 2013 Tom 4 Comments

A funny thing happened on my way to being the Vice President of the St. Petersburg Woodcrafters Guild…

Let’s go back in time – a long time ago – to December of last year. The guild meetings we were attending were pretty cool. We got to talk about really cool stuff. Guild members showed off some cool projects. They were great.

The only problem was that the guild hadn’t yet embraced the magic of social media. There had been talk about getting on board with Facebook in the past, but there was very little push to make it happen. After all, things seemed to be going pretty well, and, gosh, that was pretty darned good.

Sure, there was talk that perhaps it might be good to revisit the idea, but, that was going to be a discussion for another day.

This past fall, during board elections, Dale Neff was chosen as president of the guild. Dale’s vision for 2013 was to reignite the enthusiasm of loyal guild members, attract new people to the guild and welcome members who had given up on the guild to come back to try it once again.

One of the things he did was to give direction to his new vice president – me – to get out there and promote the guild with an updated website and a reach out to the social media communities of Facebook and Twitter. So, out I went and started to get the guild’s presence online. Now, there was some concern. What would happen to guild members who weren’t tech savvy or preferred to get their newsletters by mail?

No, this wasn’t an either-or proposition. In fact, we could easily accommodate the members who preferred the more traditional approach to things while going boldly into the online community.

Even though it has been just one month, how successful has our effort been?

A packed house at our last guild meeting

Well, at our first meeting of the year, less than a week ago, we had six new folks show up to the meeting – because they had seen the meeting notice online. We also had several members who hadn’t been to meeting in the past year or so came out just to see what was going on. They were excited about the site, the social media outreach and they wanted to see what was going on.

And, this past weekend, we also ran a woodworking demonstration at the Folk Festival at Heritage Village. We had a few classic woodworking activities set up, and we threw the doors open at the beginning of the event. And the people came. Holy smokes, there were times during the day when it was darned near impossible to move in the building, with people crowded in to check out the happenings.

Many of those folks said they had heard about the event on the guild’s home page or on social media…

This recent spike in interest in the guild’s activities illustrates one very important reality – by promoting your guild, your blog, your woodworking event online, you can get the word out and get a lot more interest out in the community.

And, by doing that, you can help spread appreciation of woodworking. And, that’s not a bad thing at all!

Quick Polls

Quick Poll

January 27, 2013 Tom 4 Comments

In last week’s poll, we had a lot of feedback on red oak and your opinions about it. Somewhere in the comments, a woodworker mentioned that at least red oak had a little more respect than poplar. Which brings up a very interesting point…

Poplar is (in many places) inexpensive, readily available and exceptionally easy to work with. It was the first hardwood I had ever worked with in my shop class in middle school. It comes highly recommended for beginning woodworkers – and those with more experience – to practice different woodworking skills (it shines for dovetail cutting).

But, wow, you don’t typically see a bunch of folks raving about their fine clear-coated poplar cabinets. Or, do they?

This week, tell us what you think about poplar…

Link of the week

January 25, 2013 Tom Leave a comment

Flair Woodworks

British Columbia, Canada is known for its beautiful vistas, friendly folks and stately trees. It’s also known as the home of Flair Woodworks, run by Chris Wong. If you haven’t seen any of his work, you are in for a real treat, because his work is nothing short of amazing.

Chris has a very skilled eye for design and incorporating bold, natural shapes in his woodworking projects. Besides making gorgeous tables, benches and the like using wood’s natural character, he also builds planes, writes for woodworking magazines and even instructs for Lee Valley Tools. As if that isn’t enough to keep him busy, he also is one of the prime movers in Time Warp Tools, a great site for hand made planes and some awesome bench dogs.

Swing on by his site, but – be warned – you are going to find yourself very impressed by his work.

Tom's Workbench