Another terrific round of classes coming to an end... and some new ones starting!

Some of my classes are coming to an end this week, and a new round start back up next week - no rest for the weary! 

I'm always grateful for people who up their game and really put some effort into their projects - like the grain management on the front of this box.  It's not a great photo, but the box was wonderful, and the figure on the front pops right out at you. A terrific job.  

And this breadknife - she wanted a knife that looks like a bow, and this two-handled knife accomplished that quite nicely. She plans on adding some embellishments to this, and I can't wait to see what she does. Again, upping their game! 

I've been caught in a tornado of repairs lately - making duplicate parts for customers who either lost or broke something - it's not that fulfilling, but they sure do appreciate having someone make their widgets. I had to wheel out the lathe and make a small finial, duplicating that small part shown below. (Of course, I forgot to take a picture of it before it was picked up!) 

Speaking of lathes - think they can't be dangerous? Check this out!

 I'll be starting another job today - making all new slats and various parts for a porch glider that has seen its better days. Again - not very inspiring, but someone it going to be very happy to have their glider back! 

Here's a little glimpse of last night's class.

Back to work!....

Not exactly a woodshop accident, but ....

Someone was having a really bad (but lucky!) day. 

Read about it here. 

He's lucky to be alive.

 After reading that article, I was reminded of the time I was driving and swerved in my work van. I accidentally send a can of paste wax flying across my dashboard, and of course, the lid wasn't on the can very tightly.  So some of the wax chunks flew out, and one landed in my coffee, unbeknownst to me. 

As soon as I took a big sip of it, I could taste the wax (not a good taste, either!) and had to end up calling the poison hotline. Note to self and everyone else: Paste wax is NOT a good thing to ingest. I tasted it for days.

It takes a village....

To me, making things in wood is like writing a song. We all have the same raw materials to work with, but each of us sees (or hears) something different in our brains. 

One of my students picked up a couple of walnut slabs from Andrew's shop - Reclaimed Secrets, and wanted to make a coffee table.  

Clearly, he had an idea in mind as he started cutting and assembling this amazing table.

 His vision included metal legs fabricated by our shop neighbor, Hugo. Notice the leg that spans gap in the top. 

There's a gap of around 3-4 inches, and he didn't want the metal leg showing  in that gap. 

So we designed a unique leg that wouldn't show, yet provided enough strength to support the table.  

What an awesome build. 

It truly does take a village to make some of these pieces, and this one will be  remembered for a long time. 

Nice work, Alvin! (and Andrew and Hugo!)

Working on a fun live edge piece

Since I returned from vacation, I've been working my tail off, catching up on some commissioned work. Here's a fun one - a client dropped off two slabs, unsure of the type of wood. They were fairly short - each one was about 30" in length. For whatever reason, they were cut apart, but the grain matched perfectly. 

Since my planer is only 24" wide, and these were just a bit wider, I pulled out the Festool tracksaw and ripped off the splintered edge. 

It probably would have been a better idea to hook up the Festool vacuum, but these two cuts would have practically filled up the vacuum bag, and those Festool bags aren't cheap!  

  

As is the case with most live edge slabs, these weren't flat. The best way to test this is on a perfectly flat surface, so I used my tablesaw table to determine where the high spots were on the wood.  

I like to mark the high spots with some chalk, 

and then shave off the high spots with a scrub plane, which takes them off very quickly. This rounded plane iron was razor sharp, 

and made quick work of the high spots.

As every woodworker should know - the planer can't fix a warped board.  The planer will only make a board a a uniform thickness, but if the board is warped, it will still be warped when it comes out of the machine. That's why it's so important to get one side of the slab flat, and not skip this step.

These boards had a very weird texture - it was soft and beautiful, but there were voids on one side of the slabs,  which resulted in some pretty bad chipping.

 Nothing the planer couldn't handle though! Again, the output of sawdust was so profound that it was easier to disconnect the dust collector and just let the dust fly. 

With a respirator on.... let's not forget that! 

After they were flattened and a uniform thickness, it was easy to cut the miters for the waterfall edge.  

I clamped them together, ensuring that the grain lined up properly, 

  

and marked out lines for the dominos that will hold the mitered joint together. 

Four big dominos on the mitered edges hold this corner together. 

A little sanding, and an easy glue-up followed - like I said - this was an easy project, and after a little sanding, I'll order a metal leg and finish this piece for my client. 

Stay tuned!

 

Above the clouds in North Carolina

Did you wonder where I went?

It's hard to believe that I've been MIA for over two weeks, but sometimes getting away trumps everything else. 

I took a week to get away and visit my sister and her hubby in North Carolina. Truth be told, she's the real artist in the family - she has more talent and creativity in her pinkie than I have in my whole body, and  spending a week with them was just what the doctor ordered. 

They live on the top of a mountain, in the the middle of nowhere. 

No, I mean it - they live at 4000 feet elevation. Looking out the windows, you're above the clouds. 

Sunsets are magnificent.

 No, I mean it! If you live here,

you can't help but be inspired by everything around you. 

The colors, the trees, the wide open spaces... it's awesome. 

You can lose hours just by sitting on their front porch, taking in the view. 

Just be careful, in case the bears decide to venture out and snack on the apple trees. 

No, I mean it! 

They  wander around like they own the place! 

I mean, how often do you hear - "watch out for the bears" when you go outside? Their land is a forest of trees - and I was thrilled to see some Sassafras trees close-up.

 It's one of my favorite woods, and the trees are amazing - they start out as skinny saplings and grown into amazing giants. 

They have a few bottle trees in their yard, too. 

I'm not sure how those are to build with, 

but apparently - they grow wild in North Carolina. 

There was a ton of woodworking to see, and I'll post some of my favorite pieces, as well as introduce you to a few artists that I met. 

Stay tuned!

HMS Terror... take a dive back in time

A few years ago, one of my students got me hooked on reading historical books about shipwrecks. I devoured stories about Ernest Shackleton,  Robert Falcon Scott's  South Pole disaster, and more. 

Check out this video - this ship was located in the frigid waters near Nunavut, Canada. They've named it Terror Bay, which is a perfect description, in my opinion.

What's your oldest tool?

My lathe is 40 years old. That officially makes it older than most of the people I teach. 

It's rusty and worn, and so many of the parts are broken (and unavailable) that it's a little embarrassing when I pull it out to turn something. Still... there's something about that old Rockwell that makes me proud. 

At the time, it was one of the most expensive tools I'd ever purchased, and over the past 40 years, it has more than paid for itself. I've made hundreds of rolling pins and bowls, and salt shakers and handles for broken tools. Not to mention table legs, stool stretchers... you name it, I've probably made it. 

The patina is gnarly, and I've had to substitute parts from other machines, just to make it work. Still... I'm not sure I'll ever get rid of it. It's kind of like an old pair of shoes or a belt that are so comfortable, you just can't bear to toss them, even though you never wear them anymore. Yes, that's my lathe. 

Someone sent me this picture, asking if I could make a paddle similar to this. But - they wanted a turned handle, not a flat one, like the picture. 

Turned like a baseball bat handle, they requested. 

 Well, I can cut and paste with the best of them, so I put together this picture, to ensure that we were on the same page.

 My plan was to make it out to two pieces - the handle and the flat part -  and join them. But they were dead against that, worried that the joint would break over time.  The tricky part in my mind was turning the handle while it was attached to the flat part. The vibration could be epic, especially on my tired lathe. But I worked out a few dimensions, and asked my buddy Denny to cut this sample on his CNC. He came up with this sample  - perfect for what I was trying to accomplish.  

I found a suitable piece of wood,

 and he cut the shape perfectly. 

To lessen the chance of the edges chipping off, I rounded over everything with a router, 

and then pulled out the trusty old Rockwell to get this party started.  

This front plate reminds me of pictures I've seen of the Titanic, where rusty parts abound. 

Since my customer requested the baseball bat handle, I pulled out a bat I had hanging around the shop. 

And started cutting. I'm sure there's a name for this knob on the end of a bat. 

Oh wait -  

it's called a ... KNOB.  

Who knew? 

The part that I worried about most was the transition between the handle and the flat part. One little slip of a tool and the tool could make this piece go flying out of the lathe, and well, that's dangerous AF. I had a rolling pin fly out of this very lathe many years ago, and I had a black eye for a month. 

Luckily, the transition went perfectly, 

and once it was sanded and blended together, it was perfect. 

It's sort of corny, but I like pulling this old relic out once in a while. 

The battle scars could tell a few stories, 

but in the end, it can still produce some nice work.

 Batter up!