I have got to tell you, this Plan of the Week thing I have been doing the past few weeks has been pretty darned successful so far. I have had people send me plans they have drawn up. I have linked to popular plans from woodworking magazines. I have posted plans for several rooms in the house.

And, this past weekend, I posted a plan for a miter saw stand. OK, innocuous enough. But, it did elicit an interesting comment from one of my readers:

I’m a sucker for DIY as much as anyone else, but wouldn’t one of the prefab manufacturer’s stands be a lot lighter and just as good, for around the same price? They’re even included free with some of the higher-end mitre saws.

Now, that’s a great question that I don’t normally get on my blog. And, one that deserves a good answer.

Woodworking is a many-splendored thing, isn’t it? I mean, there are all levels by which one can get involved in the craft. There are those who love up-close, intricate work, while others love big, burly chairs and tables. There are turners, scrollers, carvers… the works.

Just as there are many different woodworking styles, there are also many different woodworking philosophies. I have heard of people who are collecting tools, and when they get enough to have a complete shop (table saw, jointer, planer, band saw, routers), then they will start woodworking. I have also seen (and, I am one) woodworkers who, given a jig saw, a drill and enough imagination, have leapt into woodworking with great gusto, building their skills and attempting to impress the heck of their families and friends.

Both approaches are perfectly fine and absolutely acceptable, as long as the woodworker is fine with that. Different strokes for different folks.

However, there are also those who, while they may buy a few tools, get a tremendous amount of joy out of building their own. Hand planes. Band saws. Drum sanders. If money is tight and the imagination of the woodworker is vast, there’s really no end to the number of tools that can be built. And, many of these tools work just as well – if not better – that the commercially-available ones.

For me, though, I don’t get a kick out of making my tools. Not in the least. So, when I get a chance to buy or inherit a tool, I usually go that route.

Now, if the tool needs a place to rest, I will go in and build the table, like I did a few years back when I built my miter bench. Woodworking magazines are seldom without a plan for a piece of shop furniture you can built to make things better for your work flow.  Heck, I know woodworkers who build entire banks of shop storage cabinets to hone their skills before attempting something like a set of cabinets in their kitchen, just to prove they could do it.

Of course, there are also beautiful, heavy duty, hyper accurate items you can buy for your shop. I frequently drool at the diamond-plate shop cabinets available at the local home center and wonder what they would look like in my shop.

And, ultimately, couldn’t you just buy furniture and not build it?

So, I guess the answer is this… can you build something like a miter saw stand? You bet. Can you buy one? Absolutely. Is one better than the other?

Who am I to say?

Just make a decision that fits your budget, talents and needs, and you will be a happy woodworker.

This past Friday, I took off work a little early to do something really enjoyable.

No, I didn’t take off to take in a mid-day Rays game, although a day at the ballpark would have been fun. And, no, I didn’t take off early to hit the beach, although the weather was absolutely gorgeous.

No, I took off early to head up to the Infinity Cutting Tools open house. That’s right, they opened the doors and invited everyone to come on over to check out the deals and get their hands on the tools.

David Venditto offered a great spread of food, reps from the companies Infinity carries were on hand, and even Andy Gibson, a big-time hand tool enthusiast, was showing off some of his decidedly less than modern tools.

Oh, Andy’s tool chest is certainly something to drool over.

The real fun happened when Ben Farrell of Nova Teknatool brought out his lathe and started doing some demonstrations. Boy, was he a busy guy, helping people come out to turn their first bowls.

Ben is a skilled turner, and he was getting total noobs out to do some turning. For instance, Jessica Venditto, David’s sister, did her first bowl, and she wasn’t ashamed to show it off…

Now, silly me, I didn’t get any shots of myself doing the deed, but I did end up turning a bowl out of a very Florida wood – grapefruit. Yes, citrus trees are pretty cool to work with, and this little bowl is a honey.

That actually ended up being the second bowl I turned. The first one? Well, it looks like this…

I guess that’s why folks are so adamant that you wear a face shield when you turn…

All in all, it was a pretty cool day, and it was fun to be a part of it.

No, this isn’t more about the new weekly plan feature that I debuted yesterday (Although, that’s pretty cool!). This is instead about my visit to the Woodworking Show in Tampa this past weekend.

You see, I wanted to do some new stuff this week when I went. The first thing I thought I could do was to bring one of my sons with me. My oldest son Dominic was at some big high school business event taking place in Orlando, so he was out. But, my youngest was free, and he is also an excellent photographer and videographer, so I invited him to come along for the day. He went for it.

But only if I included breakfast. That kid drives a hard bargain.

After a big plate of pancakes and bacon, we were then off to the State Fairgrounds where the show was being held. When we got there, I was the one who was too excited to contain myself. My son had to calm me down and refocus me on the important stuff.

When we got inside, it was great to be there early, before the crowds got in, to conduct a few interviews and get some shots of the vendors before the madness begin.

The real highlight, though, was watching my son turn his first pen. At first, he was very apprehensive, but with some great guidance, he was able to go from square blank to turned pen with ease.

And, the result.. well… it was something to see!

His first effort was so inspirational, well, I just had to to do something on iMovie…

Now, of course, I have my hands full. The first thing he said when he was done with the turning was to tell me, “Hey, dad, we need a lathe!”

I assume we will be shopping shortly…

This was an interesting topic that was brought up at the last meeting of the St. Petersburg Woodcrafters Guild.

Pete Richardson, who owns the Viable Lumber company, was working up at the Florida Woodturning Symposium, which took place at the end of January in Lake Yale, Florida. As he walked around the floor of the show, he couldn’t help but notice – there sure are a lot of older woodworkers out there. In fact, Pete said he was one of the youngest people there – by decades.

He brought this up at our meeting, which is frequently attended by many well-experienced gentlemen. And, he made a point which has been echoed many times in many different forums – woodworking guilds and events tend to draw a lot of the more experienced woodworkers, and very few youngsters.

Flashback to last October in Covington, Kentucky. I was at Woodworking in America, and I couldn’t help but notice the large number of younger woodworkers in the room. Guys – and gals – in their 20s and 30s were attending classes, shopping for tools and bragging about projects they had built in their shops, and had been able to share online with their many friends from around the country – and the world. There was vibrancy. There was energy. There is a youth movement afoot that would rather spend a Friday morning watching someone like Roy Underhill turn a poplar log into a beautifully-hewn beam then do anything else.

And, many of them said the same thing. I would go to my local woodworking guild, but only old people go there.

This, my friends, is trouble with a capital ‘T’. And, here’s why.

Well, here we dive into how computers changed things. Back in the day (yes, I can say this), I took shop class. It was a rite of passage that every young man – and woman, in my middle school – had to endure. We trucked out into class, learned how the tools worked, different kinds of wood, how to design and eventually how to put those bits of knowledge together to build a final product. It was a shared, social experience as we all discovered who stunk the joint up, and who would go on to be pretty handy with his or her hands.

Sure, people went on to be accountants, car salespeople, executives and the like, but there were lots of folks who went into their basements and garages and turned out nice looking pieces of woodwork. And, since it was a social event, it only made sense for folks to get together to show off what they were doing, but more importantly, to share knowledge. “Here’s a book I finished, if you want to read it.” “Here’s how I built that bookshelf.” This was networking without computers, and the people who attended amassed a tremendous amount of group knowledge.

After the rise of computers in education, many schools – my middle school included – converted their wood shops to computer labs because they saw how the change of technology was going to require people skilled in this new way of doing things. The hands-on experience faded, and the gap between the parents and their children widened over the years.

But, the desire to build – and to share information – never went away. Instead, many people turned online to share their experiences and ask questions. This created new virtual communities where you could get advice from woodworkers in the United Kingdom, Japan and Mexico as easily as heading down to the local guild meeting.

The problem is that there are almost two different islands out there. On one hand, the older woodworkers, who have a tremendous amount of experience and knowledge keep meeting with each other, following the model that has worked for them for years.  And, younger woodworkers who are learning and sharing are doing the same thing online. With this set up, the knowledge and expertise that the older set has will be lost as they pass on, and the newer woodworkers will have to discover methods of work that are well known, but must be rediscovered on their own.

Pete Richardson’s modest proposal was for both sides to take the initiative and make the necessary moves to put both communities in touch.  The mission we gave to our members as we left the meeting was to go out and invite someone younger to come to the next guild meeting. If they can’t make the next one, keep inviting until they relent and come to see what’s going on.

For the younger woodworkers, the challenge is to find out more about the local guild or club in your area and attend an upcoming meeting. Show up. Shake hands. Volunteer to take some leadership role. And ask lots of questions. You might be surprised how a new charge of excitement into the next guild meetings might make them the place to come for woodworking know-how.

At that point, the divide will be bridged, and who knows what great things may come of that.

As I have mentioned before, our friends Bob and Pam hold an annual event known at Timpano Night. In the late winter or early spring (the date changes to ensure maximum participation), a number of us get together to collaboratively build something known as a Timpano – an Italian dish consisting of all kinds of goodies married together inside a rolled crust and baked until done to perfection.

The one down side about Timpano Night is that the dish is hardly what you would consider fast food. The baking alone takes a little more than an hour, and unless you want to eat some type of steamy Timpano soup, the final product has to rest for at least another hour to firm up.

But, leave it to Bob and Pam to come up with the ultimate solution to pass the time. Each year, they hire a magician to come to their house to perform some up-close magic tricks during the cooking and cooling phase of the dinner.

Kentastic isn’t just a magician – he has become an integral part of the entire event. And, while the kitchen crew toils away, Ken wows the crowd with his prestigidation.  Believe me, he’s good. And he is also a great showman, keeping the table in stitches as he goes from trick to trick.

There is one person, though, who sits very close to Ken while he is performing his feats, and she gets very involved in the act. Our friend peers closely at his hands, trying to find the secret of his act. She gets as many – if not more – laughs than Ken as she gives him grief and tries to figure out just how Ken does his thing.

There has been many times during my past 14 years as a woodworker where I have found myself looking at a piece of furniture or some other project and thought to myself, “Dang! How did this woodworker do that?”

Sometimes, it can be examining a challenging joint on a beautiful project. I have seen the famous joint that woodworking legend Sam Maloof used to connect the legs and backrest of his sculpted chairs to the seats. I have had woodworking notables such as Andy Chidwick, Kurt Rashke and Charles Brock explain – and SHOW me – the joint, and I still have trouble wrapping my mind around just how the joint works, and how to cut it.

I have seen beautiful inlaid dovetails cut with some router based jig and wondered just how the heck those babies were cut, when – with a little bit of prompting – I probably could figure out that the proper application of a dovetail router jig could bang those babies out lickety split.

And, more than once, I have wondered just how people work with tremendously large slabs of gorgeously figured woods to build dining tables that are both flat and smooth, yet allow the natural beauty of the wood to shine through.

You know what? As a woodworker who wants to stretch his abilities and try new things, I don’t think I could find anything as exciting as experiencing that feeling. That is what makes me happy – to try new things. To see techniques I have never tried before and to succeed – or to learn from the mistakes to become a more accomplished craftsman.

That, my friends, is why next week, we will be celebrating Get Woodworking Week. Let’s give that feeling to someone in our lives…let’s make them curious and want to find out just how it is built and how it goes together.

Ken and his wife Melissa always stay after the magic to eat with us, and it’s interesting asking him some questions about the art of magic. Sure, Ken will tell us that magic is all about practice and showmanship, but he always adds that it’s the fun he has learning new tricks and watching people like my friend try to figure out how those tricks work that really makes his job fun.

I don’t normally enjoy working late at work. While it is an essential part of the job, it usually means that there is a long meeting of the board of county commissioners, or there’s a hurricane in the area. That’s never good.

But, today, I have to work late, and it’s for one of the most interesting reasons.

Let’s go back to 1976. That year, Pinellas County established Heritage Village.This 21-acre living history park is a place where many of the county’s historical structures were relocated to, rather than to have a date with the wrecking ball. Over the years, 28 structures representing different eras and styles in the county’s history have been sited here, giving visitors a look back into some of the most interesting bits of county history.

Well, for the past 20 years, I have been driving past a building tucked away in an overgrown lot. Several of my coworkers have mentioned that they would love to see the building bought and restored, and it is a great looking old house. Well, it turns out that this building – known as the Turner Bungalow – was built in 1915, and was owned by one of the original families that settled Pinellas County, and that last year, an elderly granddaughter of the original owner passed away, and the family put the house an the lot on the market.

Knowing that the future of the property was pretty much assured to be demolished, the county stepped up and purchased the house with an eye on moving it to Heritage Village.

When the county volunteers and staff members went into the house, they were amazed by the amount of stuff that had been accumulated in the building. Once many of the items were removed, three things became abundantly clear.

First, and worst of all, the house had been savaged by termites. With little protection provided by the native woods used to build the house, the termites had a field day, eating significant portions of the structure, chewing up the heart pine floors and even damaging the decorative woodwork. The house had to be treated a few times to clear out the infestation, and the property will require a tremendous amount of work to be made presentable to the visitors.

The second thing that stood out was – wow – there is some incredible woodworking inside the house. The door trim was just impressive, made of clear heart pine boards. The panels were exquisitely done.

Decorative woodworking divided the front living room from the back of the house, helping to bring some scale to the very high ceilings. Fortunately, most of the decorative woodworking hadn’t been chewed up too badly, so that will be easy to restore for future generations.

Third, and most impressive, was the furniture that was uncovered. Wow. They sure built furniture well back in the day. And, yes, many of the pieces were original to the house.

This table had an interesting design, with bookshelves on both of the ends and the top made from pine. An elegant design that might be worth copying in a future build.

Another great piece was this grandfather clock that had been in the family for decades. Untouched by termites, it appeared to be made out of mahogany. From the turned finial on the top to the elegant bracket feet, this one is a beauty.

Fortunately, these pieces are being sent to Heritage Village to be cleaned and conserved. In future years, it is hoped that these pieces – along with the many others rescued from the home – will be reunited at Heritage Village when the house opens to visitors.

But, now, I’m going to be working late, working with the local media to cover this unique story.

So, as I write this article at 36,000 feet somewhere over southern Virginia, I realize that today’s post is late and that there was no quick poll yesterday. I have a really good excuse, though.

You see, my dad’s birthday is coming up in a few days, and with Dr. King weekend taking place, I had a three-day weekend with stuff to do around the house, but a pressing engagement to see my dad and stepmom. Added to that, my youngest son has never seen snow. At all. So, with dad living in northern New Jersey, it being cold, and the available time, Steven and I packed our bags and headed north for a brief whirlwind adventure.

And, what an adventure it was. The forecast for northern New Jersey was for nothing in the way of snow, but on Saturday morning, a brief but very intense band of snow blew through. It only added up to an inch or snow, but, judging by Steven’s reaction, it was as if we were about to get snowed in by a blizzard.

My dad also lives on Glen Wild Lake, a pretty large lake up in the woods, so the surface was totally frozen over. We had a lot of fun having a snowball fight on the lake, and hand crafting some pretty sturdy looking snowmen.

We walked in the woods. We ate really good food. Saw my elementary, middle and high schools. We grilled out in the crazy dark cold. We went inner tubing down the slopes at a ski resort.

We cleared the snow off the ice and made a skating rink. My son’s feet are about the same size as my dad’s so he was able to get some skating practice in. We watched neighbors do some ice fishing on the frozen lake (the ice was a good seven inches thick, plenty strong for walking.)

We even got to see the house that I grew up in, and where I got my first true woodworking experience.

But, what struck me the most was that I was at my dad’s house. If my dad hadn’t ever taken the time to redo our basement, I may not have ever gotten into woodworking. If I had never seen him working in our basement on his little benchtop table saw, would I have ever been bitten by the woodworking bug, or would I have just assumed I didn’t have the know-how and let the urge to get started just pass?

The other thing I noticed were all of the woodworking projects I had built and sent to him. The architectural clock. The little storage box. The wine rack. Both my dad and stepmom truly appreciated what I had built, and had those pieces on display.

And, I got to see my dad’s workshop. He is the lead maintenance guy at the lake community where he lives, and right next to the big clubhouse, her has a two-car garage where one half is where the fun happens. No, it’s not a dedicated workshop, but he has built many of the lake’s picnic tables, benches and other amenities right there on his workbench. It was way cool.

So, I let some stuff fly this weekend. There’s always time to work on painting and finishing the entertainment center. I know I have to catch up with some work at the St. Petersburg Woodcrafter’s Guild’s website. And, there will be a mountain of emails and assignments on my desk when I get to work tomorrow.

But, I wouldn’t have traded a minute of this weekend for anything. Three generations of Iovinos all together at once – what’s not to like?