Category Archives: Shop Talk

Going Big…

For those of you who may not be aware, Infinity Cutting Tools is one of my advertisers. I had the pleasure of meeting up with David Venditto last November when we cut the deal – so to speak – and brought him on.

It was at that time when I realized that – holy crow – his office/warehouse space was tight. I mean like submarine tight. Working out of a 2,000 square foot unit in an airport business park, David walked me through the cramped space. There were racks of router bits, saw blades, jigs, fixtures and other goodies stacked high on racks. This did make it convenient to walk through the warehouse and pick out the parts to complete someone’s order, but wow, if they offered any more tools the place was going to explode.

That’s why I was excited to hear that Infinity Cutting Tools was getting ready to relocate to more spacious digs. This past Saturday, I met David for lunch up at his new facility. It’s a 10,000 square foot space in an industrial area of Oldsmar, Florida – about 20 minutes away from my house. The building has an interesting history with his family – it turns out that his dad custom built the place  in the mid-1990s. Back then, David’s dad owned Jesada tools, and this was part of a larger manufacturing/warehouse facility. “Oh, I can remember working in this building 15 years ago,” said David, “it’s got a lot of family history.”

The building is still empty, but the walls – inside and out – are sporting a new paint job, and he’s outfitting the new offices with furniture in preparation for the big move. The huge warehouse area (nearly 8,000 square feet of uninterrupted space) has freshly sealed floors and is ready for shelves to be installed. The additional space is going to provide him the ability to double his product offerings right off the bat, with plans to expand his inventory quickly after that. “Even with the increase in product offerings, we still have tons of space available for expansion.”  Packing and shipping areas will be far more spacious, allowing his employees the opportunity to spread out while working. David also envisions a friendly area where people can come in right off the street and have their orders fulfilled right there on the spot. Given the large number of woodworkers in the Tampa Bay area, this will be a convenient service.

One thing in the warehouse that surprised me was a walled-off area – about 20 feet wide by maybe 35 feet long. It was recently constructed, and had a ton of power outlets. This is where David plans on setting up a woodworking shop. “We’re planning on using it for product testing for sure,” said David, “but, our vision is to make it a place where woodworkers can come and take classes and really get the hands-on experience.”  When I asked him why, David was very candid. His is a world of steel, carbide and engineering drawings. “The raw materials come on one door and roll out the other side as a complete bit or blade. Once that happens, the process isn’t over – it’s just beginning.” Woodworkers will use the completed product to build their projects, and making that connection between the bit or blade and the wood helps bring the design process full circle. While the plans are still being developed, there’s a chance that you might be seeing yours truly teaching up there in the not too distant future.

The big move is planned for sometime later this month. As the date gets closer, Infinity is planning on offering a moving sale with some pretty sweet deals. “I mean, it’s easier for us to ship our stock out to customers than schlep it across town.”

David has asked me to keep y’all updated as the new facility take shape, and he’s asked me for some input on the new shop. I’ll have to tell him where to put the banana dispenser, just in case a stray shop monkey should swing by.

The countdown reaches FOUR to go to 1,000!

My shop’s split personality

What a summer. A major family vacation swing through the northeast, including some awesome woodworking destination stops. Followed by a quick trip off to the Kennedy Space Center and Cocoa Beach. Followed by a quick weekend getaway with my good friend Bob and his family to enjoy a little sand, surf and boating.

This has been a total blast.

Of course, this has also meant that there hasn’t been a lot of progress on things in the shop. Which means, my shop is now broken into two distinct zones of activity, and I have to make some quick progress on both of them…

In one half of the shop, it’s strictly tile. Remember that bathroom project? Yeah… I thought you might. After I ripped out the old tile, moldy drywall and rusty old tub, we changed out the drain and supply plumbing, replaced the tub and surrounded the area with cement board. I used thinset mortar to seal up the joints, and then painted the area with a red waterproofing membrane.

But, I’m quickly discovering that tile is not wood … not in the least. It’s not that cutting isn’t something unfamiliar. Heck the tool I am using is a table saw… yes, a table saw for tile. It’s just that when I get close to finishing my cuts, the tile usually breaks. Plus, I’m working with super-hard porcelain tile – which means I need to take some extra care during the cutting.

Why the hurry? Well, school starts again in a few weeks here in Florida… wouldn’t it be nice to have two working bathrooms in the house again?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the garage, I have a few woodworking projects taking up some space. The santos mahogany step stool is approaching its finale as Rhonda flexes her sanding muscles. She’s got another post in the works, and from there – I think she’s ready to become an expert finisher.

While this would be exciting on its own, I have created a challenge for myself. You see, in about a week, I’m headed to some emergency management training near where my next niece lives who is about to turn 16. Granted, her birthday isn’t until November, but I will be flying and landing at an airport close to her house. So, I thought, why not bring her hope chest to her now as part of my checked on luggage? You remember that I built a hope chest for my oldest niece a few years ago, right?

So, I have been milling like a madman the past few nights after work.  Spent a little time yesterday afternoon getting all of the pieces planed, cut to size and ready to roll for the plan. The plan, by the way, is the simple blanket chest built by Norm, but with some Mayan walnut I got from Bell Forest Products… and the panels from another piece of I wood I’ll have to write about…

Meanwhile, it was great to get some time at the table saw I was a lot more familiar with. It was also great using my miter bench to cut things to the right size – nice and square. I’m just hoping I can get the piece ready to go before the big trip…

 

Safe and sound

One project many woodworkers love to build is a jewelery box. You know, a little box or chest for that special someone to store those special rings, necklaces, earrings and other bits of bling. These boxes help keep them safe, organized and easily accessible. That’s important, given the cost of some of these shiny baubles.

So, then, why do many woodworkers just chuck their expensive router bits and saw blades carelessly into a drawer or store them in difficult to find locations? I mean, they are shiny, they cost a bunch, and you need to know what’s in your collection when you start out on a project. Why not treat them with the same amount of respect?

“Carbide is tough, but very brittle stuff,” said David Venditto of Infinity Cutting Tools. “If you are going to pop for a well-made router bit or saw blade, you are going to want to get as much life as possible out of it. Why would you want to shorten their lives by not storing them carefully?” A good storage system will help you by keeping your valuable cutting tools safe from banging together. It will also help you catalog what you have in your collection so you don’t forget you have it or – even worse – have to lay out extra money to buy another copy of what you already have.

There are dozens of plans out there for blade and bit storage systems, it never seems as if there is enough time or material to build them. Besides, we go to the shop to build furniture, right? Another option is to go with a purchased box or rack system to help with storage. Again, most woodworkers would rather spend money on blades, bits and wood rather than storage. But a small investment in time and/or money can really help save the day.

If you have the space, time, material and inclination, building a large display shelf to house your collection is the way to go. Many are built with plexiglass paneled doors so you can see the entire collection at a glance. After all, you never know when looking at a particular bit will inspire a design idea on your next project – which is something you will lose if you can’t see what’s available. Router bit holders can be fashioned from a simple board with appropriately-sized holes drilled into it, or with a commercially available bit rack. These will help keep your bits upright and their carbide edges safe.

Another good option for the space-challenged is to build a bit or blade storage drawer into a piece of shop equipment. Drawer construction is actually easier than you might imagine, and, with the proper drawer runner hardware, one can be added just about anywhere. In a router table. Under your workbench. Or, you could co-opt an existing drawer in a piece of shop storage you already have. Either way, you will want to still create a bit organizer. Again, this could simply be a piece of plywood or MDF with appropriately sized holes drilled into it, but you have to make sure that you have enough space between the bits while in storage. Another great option is to buy a commercial bit organizer that will help keep your bits neat and orderly.

If you bring your bits or blades with you to different job sites, portability is going to be key. In that case, you may be looking at some type of box or case to carry your precious cargo with you. Again, you can certainly build your own, or you can look to purchase a bit or blade storage box. “We’re kinda proud of our bit and blade storage boxes. They are finger-jointed southern yellow pine with secure locking latches. They are a great value. Plus, hey, you get our contact information on the lid!”

 

Sub (assembly) warfare

The captain made one last sweep of the horizon before pulling his eye from the periscope’s eyepiece and snapping the handles into their storage position. “Down scope! Weapons officer, flood tubes two and three  and get ready to fire on my command!”  The crew sprang into action in the hot, cramped quarters, adjusting dials and pulling levers to get the warship ready to fire on the unseen but very dangerous opponent. “XO, with our range to target, how long will the fish run until impact?”

“Thirty seconds until the impact, sir,” barked back the boat’s Executive Officer, “But, I don’t have to remind you, Skipper, that those destroyers are very close and we’re going to have to begin evasive maneuvers as soon as we fire.”

“Very good.  Conn, once we fire, make your heading three-two-zero degrees, go to all ahead full, crash dive to 300 feet and rig for depth charge attacks. Fire on my mark…”

When movie directors want to create a film with a tremendous amount of tension, pressure and claustrophobia, they turn time and again to the silent service – the submarine fleets. Run Silent, Run Deep, Das Boot and the Hunt for Red October – while taking place in different eras – each captured the pressure cooker environment in the service below the waves where one misstep can take the boat from the ultimate stealthy killing machine to a helpless hole in the water where submariners await their fates.

While the aim of Hollywood is to create the pressure-filled environment when it comes to sub warfare, woodworkers have their own kind of subs to deal with which can actually reduce stress and make things considerably more easy in their shops.

I’m talking about sub assemblies for larger and more complex projects. The idea is very simple – you break down an involved assembly into manageable parts, tackling each in turn to ensure the joints are tight and everything is square before moving to the next step. Most woodworkers have made the mistake of trying to assemble everything all at once.  Usually, they run out of hands, clamps, open time with the glue they are using and patience, leaving their project gappy, ill fitting and out of square.

I had the chance to go with some sub-assemblies on a step stool I am building for my mom’s house. Sure, it’s your average, run-of-the-mill Shaker style step stool you have probably seen about a thousand times before.  I’m making it out of some nice Santos mahogany, and I want to make sure it’s built strong, so I turned to my Leigh R9 jig and decided to crank out a few dovetails.

Now, I have made these kinds of stools before, but I have nailed or screwed the top to the sides, but never with dovetails. I had always wondered how you can make a two-step stool with dovetails – I mean, wouldn’t the top step get in the way of dovetailing the bottom?  That’s when it hit me (I know, I am a dope) – I saw that you make two separate one-step step stools – one high and one low – THEN you glue the high and low side pieces together to make both sides of the stool.  Duh…

Of course, as you work in sub-assemblies, it’s critical to ensure you have everything oriented properly. Creating two left sides or two right sides of a project may seem like something not too important at first, but the final assembly will involve a lot more cursing and anger if you don’t take that into consideration.

This allowed me to first cut all of the dovetails to make each of the sub-assemblies. Then, I broke everything apart and glued up those side pieces so I could cut a decorative curve into the bottom so the stool would stand on four points before I glued the treads and crossmembers into place for the final assembly.  Heck, since it’s flat on my bench, why not just sand that sucker down inside and out?  I might even do a little pre-finishing on what will become the difficult-to-reach areas once the stool is finally assembled.

Gosh, that wasn’t that tough, was that?

I wonder what kind of woodworking solutions I can come up with after seeing one of those superhero movies?

Insuring your recovery from shop disasters

So, here I at the Governor’s Hurricane Conference and man – I’m keeping busy. I’ve been teaching a basic Public Information Officer class the past few days… my voice is shot!  With hurricane season just a few weeks away, it’s time to get ready for what the season may bring. That’s what we’re here to do this week – learn from the experts.

As a hurricane public awareness spokesperson, it’s my job to pass information on to folks who may be in danger about the importance of having a disaster plan. While I normally talk to residents in all types of organizations and communities the county, I recently had an opportunity to speak with the St. Petersburg Woodcrafters Guild about the topic.  In fact, I was the presenter that night (Great, I get to work for my dinner there as well!).

I had two topics to cover that night. The second one was veneering (that video will be next week, I promise!), but the first topic was about how to prepare your shop for the potential of a disaster.

Now, I know many of you won’t ever experience a hurricane in your lives (Unless, of course, you order one at the bar), but there are a number of other disasters that can befall your shop.  Floods. Tornadoes. Wildfires. Theft.

In this roughly seven minute presentation, I covered many of the basics, especially when it comes to insuring your shop and tools so you can recover from a disaster.

The resources I mentioned include:

And, remember, let’s stay safe out there!

 

A perfect storm – of what?

(Shop Monkey Note: After discussion with the folks at Fine Woodworking, it has been determined that the title of the Shop Talk Live podcast applied to a segment later in the show and not to the online blogging community. That said, the folks at the magazine have admitted that they weren’t careful in how they expressed their concern toward the online woodworking community, and have issued an apology.)

It’s not often that I react to what other folks post, but this one couldn’t slide by the wayside.  The folks at Fine Woodworking Magazine posted a shop talk live video podcast, their fifth, called “Perfect Storm of Stupidity.”

Nice title.

The podcast goes into a discussion about the online woodworking community… And, at first, the comments were pretty complimentary and tame.  It’s a great way for people to share their experiences – to show what they are building and how they are growing in the craft.

Had the conversation ended at the five minute mark, It would have been a great topic to cover and things would have sat OK with me. Alas, they couldn’t leave well enough alone.  In the next five minutes, I learned that the Internet is basically awash with a bunch of idiots claiming to be ‘experts’ on every topic, leading the poor beginning woodworker down the ‘wrong path’ to frustration and a lifetime of failure.

Woah.  Hold the phone, fellas. I do get that some folks may or may not have a total grasp on the finer point of technique. But, I know a great number of woodworking bloggers, and I really  have yet to run into one who claims to be an ‘expert’ on the topics they write about.

The claim was made that  no one is vetting the level of expertise of these bloggers, and there is plenty of bad information floating around out there pretending to be the voice of authority.  I have seen people cut joints that I’m not sure would be the best for the particular situation, but I have seen plenty of techniques that are plenty sound. Besides, if those techniques work for the particular woodworker, why not see how they are done?

The question of shop safety was also brought up. Some of the videos out there can be downright frightening to watch, with the one I posted here being example A. But, believe me, if someone goes out and puts up a post that’s not safety-conscious, the readers are going to be the ones who weigh in it. This was identified as crowd sourcing, and  trust me, it works. Heck, I’ve had folks weigh in when I don’t have my safety glasses on while I hand plane.

Another point of emphasis is that the more stuff a woodworker builds, the better they are. Therefore, if someone build dozens of pieces of furniture of one style, they should be looked to as the expert in the field.  I can see the logic in this, but it would be a stretch to say that this is a 100% guarantee that they are truly better.  Think of it this way – if a person has been practicing the violin for 40 years and has perfect playing form, but can’t make the instrument sing, why would I want to listen to the performance?  If someone has been playing for five years and can bring down the house, why would I not want to hear that? When I see younger woodworkers who have less than several decades of experience – David Marks, Rob Bois, Shannon Rodgers, Kari Hultman – cutting tight joinery and making it work -I am encouraged to see the new generation of woodworkers coming along to help pass the craft to my children and their kids.

The video hosts went on to say that only people vetted by the woodworking magazines or by well-known schools are the ones who really truly understand and can teach the proper methods. With their high level of expertise, they are the ones truly qualified to teach how to build. Nonsense. People who can woodwork are an awesome bunch of people, but it also takes an incredible amount of skill to be able to teach others about the craft. Communication, interpersonal skills and desire mean a lot. I had the honor of taking a class from Marc Spagnuolo when he was in his late 20’s… and his teaching skills were light years ahead of some of the other ‘more experienced’ instructors I have taken classes from.

Another thing that struck me as odd …  we know that  all woodworkers have their own preferences on joinery. And, after years of doing things only one way, they tend to rely on those same joints and techniques for most – if not all – of their projects. I contest that it’s good to get a wider, more diverse vision of how things can be done. If I have said it a once, I’ve said it a million times – there are about a thousand ways to cut a particular joint, and they are all right if they make for tight joinery that can take the abuse.  So, say, if Chris Becksvoort hand cuts his dovetail a certain way, does that mean that machine cut dovetails are inferior?  How about box or finger joints? Splines?  Should they not be considered valid because someone prefers another style of joinery?

And, while passing on the information is fine, what about the inspiration?  David Life is a woodworker I have profiled before, and he does his work in spite of being legally blind. I find it fascinating to learn from David how his techniques have had to evolve as his eyesight faded.  Hearing stories about woodworkers like David help make me a better woodworker. Just reading about or watching ‘established and vetted’ woodworkers leaves me flat.  I need to see the stories of woodworkers like me – toiling away in their shops and turning out great work on the weekends and after hours – not just the ones who do it full-time for a magazine or at a woodworking school.

I contest that online woodworking is far from the perfect storm of stupidity. In fact, this online collaboration has done more to get new woodworkers off their behinds and into shops that many of the established woodworking sources care to admit. And, it offers exposure to a rich variety of techniques I may not have considered in my woodworking.  Is it perfect?  Nope, but either is the other option where only a few ‘masters’ control what content is released to the masses.

If you would like to hear about why I or other bloggers do what we do, check out our take on things on the fifth edition of  the Modern Woodworkers Association’s online discussion.


Oh, and keep on blogging and building. I see the perfect setup the way things exist.

 

Membership has its advantages

Think about it. When I first started woodworking – and for the first few years of my time in the shop – I was a lone wolf. A maverick. I was a man unto myself.

Oh, sure, I had the Woodworker’s Website Association online. It was a great forum to belong to, and I had the chance to virtually meet a bunch of other woodworkers who were doing things over in there shops. I started posting there in 1999, and it was pretty cool. Through those contacts, I was invited to a woodworking school where I met a number of great woodworkers – oh, and this guy named Marc Spagnuolo.

Speaking about that guy Marc, it took a couple of years after we met, but blammo – he created The Wood Whisperer website, and eventually the Wood Whisperer Guild. This online community gives me the opportunity to push the envelope in my woodworking – to try new things I would have never considered doing. While it is a virtual community, I know I’m not alone. I could read about how to do different techniques, get feedback from the other guild members and show off my successes.

Just this past year, I also became a member of the Modern Woodworkers Association. Chris Adkins, Dyami Plotke and several other woodworkers came up with this awesome concept at the last Woodworking in America conference. With so many woodworkers looking for online content and posting their projects, the MWA has become a great place to check in and let the woodworking world know what’s going on in your shop.

While I have been woodworking in my shop here in Florida, I was unaware of a great resource right in my own backyard. The St. Petersburg Woodcrafters Guild has been meeting just down the road from me for about as long as I have been living here in Florida. Every month, local woodworkers have been coming together to swap stories, brag about their exploits, point each other in the right direction when making tool purchases and offer advice when a member became stuck on a technique. It was just this past February when I attended my first meeting … and last night I took the plunge and became a member.

Now, I go to my shop all alone when I want to escape the real world and reconnect with the craft I enjoy. But, I know better. I’m not just by myself … I’ve got a lot of support.  That’s pretty reassuring.