Build your own end-grain cutting board

Thanksgiving is coming here in the United States, and the rest of the holiday season is following quickly behind.  And, we all know what that means…

Family feasts!

If you want to help guarantee your feast is one to remember, you have to make sure that the cook has all the right tools at his or her her disposal.  One of the most essential is a solid cutting board for all the chopping, mincing and dicing that goes into the food prep.

The Wood Whisperer himself, Marc Spagnuolo, has an excellent plan for making a classic end-grain butcher block cutting board, complete with an instructional video.  From wood selection all the way to final finishing, Marc shows the way to building a stylish and useful tool for the family chef.

Who knows… if you build one, you may have earned an extra slice of the roast beast.

Goodwin Heart Pine

The one feature that struck European settlers when they arrived in the Americas was the abundance of enormous stands of virgin timber.  They thought that the supply was inexhaustible.

Well, it wasn’t.  The majority of today’s North American forests are considered second growth, and there is a difference in quality between these newer trees and the old giants.

While most of that old timber made it to the saw mill, some met a different fate.  While being floated down rivers to the mills, a percentage of the logs sank to the bottom, lost to woodworkers forever.

Or, were they?

Today, a number of firms are saving these ‘sinkers’ from the bottoms of riverbeds and turning them into gorgeous lumber for flooring, cabinets and furniture work.  Goodwin Heart Pine is one of many doing the task.  Their website describes the process of saving these logs and shows pictures of just how gorgeous this old growth timber truly is.

My Chip Carving

Are you looking to embellish your woodworking projects with carving?  Afraid to lay out the big bucks on a premium set of gouges, veiners and other carving tools?

Maybe it’s time to consider chip carving.

Also know as kerbschnitzen, chip carving involves taking small slices out of the face of a board to make something akin to an engraving in the wood.  From what I have been told by chip carvers, the process is both exceptionally easy to pick up and not very expensive to gather the proper tools.

While My Chip Carving is a commercial site, it also offers very informative video tutorials on the topic, access to free plans and a gallery of chip carved projects to give you an idea of what a chip carved project looks like.

Denim Pine

When life hands you a bowl full of lemons, make lemonade. – Ann Landers

So, you have a stand of lodgepole or ponderosa pine trees that have been  infected by the mountain pine beetle, and now the wood you have harvested is a pale shade of blue.

What can you do about it?

Well, if you are an association of foresters in British Columbia, Canada, you harvest the timber and sell it as Denim Pine.

This unique looking lumber is  safe to use (any beetle larvae or eggs are killed in the kiln drying process) and is as structurally sound as non-stained pine.

While the folks who market Denim Pine are having some fun marketing this lumber, their site also offers a very serious look at the mountain pine beetle infestation in western Canada and documents the massive effort to address this important issue.

The Sharpening Blog

After much internal debate and hand-wringing, plane iron craftsman Ron Hock has launched his very own blog called the Sharpening Blog.

The blog’s unveiling is a prelude to the publication of his first book – The Perfect Edge:  The Ultimate Guide to Sharpening for Woodworkers, scheduled to be released later this fall.

While the name of the blog may sound more appropriate for a company that makes sharpening media, Ron assures me that the content will address many different aspects of woodworking.

Be sure to check back from time to time to see what’s going on over at Ron’s shop!

The Disstonian Institute

The Henry Disston and Sons Saw Works based out of Philadelphia, Penn. is to hand saws what the Stanley Tool Works is to hand planes.

During their heyday before the advent of the circular saw, the Disston works cranked out millions of rip, crosscut and different specialty saws for craftsman across the country – and the world. A peek inside the toolboxes of hundreds of thousands of woodworkers would reveal a gleaming saw with a sensually curved applewood or beech handle and Disston’s distinctive logo etched into the blade.

The Disstonian Institute is a website featuring a great deal of information on the company, the different saw models offered and scans of old catalog pages complete with drawings and the original advertising copy.  Truly a must-see site for old hand tool collectors.

The top 10 Influential Woodworkers:  Two years later

A few years ago, Tool Crib.com did a survey of who are the greatest influences on woodworkers. Earlier this year, I did a survey of my own, and listed the results in my Finding Those Roots post.

Tool Crib’s blog manager Garrett French took those results and did a little analysis… and the results are kind of surprising.

What Garrett did was look at the top ten responses from his survey back in 2007 and my recent survey and compare the results.  There were a significant number of differences between the two lists, and the findings may surprise you.  It’s worth a read.

Now, who will do the next survey in 2011, and what will they find?