No woodworking for me this weekend

Did you ever get a burst of energy and just go crazy for a day? I've been nursing a sore back, but it's finally starting to feel better. So when the Fourth of July rolled around, I went a little insane.

First, I unloaded two of my kilns that I had fired a few days ago. Every potter knows it's like Christmas when you unload a kiln.






Then I started working in the garden, trimming the artichokes back




and harvesting the spaghetti squash.


I stupidly planted too many onions. Way too many, like 160 total. Who knew they'd sprout up like demons and overtake the whole garden?


Let me tell you - the only way I could get through cleaning onions for two hours was to promise myself a reward at the end.

On top of everything else, the "kids" wanted to play, despite it being
really hot outside. They usually like to stay inside, where it's cool, but if I'm outside, that's where they want to be.

Stella is my "special needs" child.


I can't tell you how disgusting she gets when she plays with her favorite toy - a racquetball. I have to rinse her beard and mouth and paws with the hose before she can come back inside.


The first honeydew of the season!


I've never had luck with cukes, this one could use a little TLC. If anyone has some tips about growing these, I'd appreciate your help.


Everything is starting to sprout all over the yard.



On top of everything else, I made fresh dough in the morning, let it raise all day, and baked a couple of sheet pizzas for dinner.


You can bet I slept like a baby that night!

Hope your Fourth of July weekend was as fun (and productive!) as mine was. I'll get back into the woodshop soon - I'm replacing the bearings on my drill press, so I hope to blog about that soon. And I have a nice commission in the works, so stay tuned.

Let's talk about Finger Joints

At last month's Sin City Woodworker's meeting, I gave a short demo on cutting finger joints. I have a portable Dewalt Tablesaw that I keep outfitted with a stacked dado blade set, and showed the group how to set up the jig for cutting the joint.



My buddy John blogged about the demo here. John teased me a bit in a recent e-mail, as when I did the demo, I had to make a slight adjustment for the fit of the joint. The best adjustment tool I have is a small hammer, and with one whack, I was able to get a perfect fit for those corners. Or as John says - I lead a charmed life in the woodshop.

Cutting all four corners is a breeze when you've got the jig properly adjusted. You can make a box in less than three minutes. Sweet.

But this post isn't about cutting finger joints - you can find info about how to do that in many different places. Tage Frid's book on Joinery is one of the best investments you can make, if you're looking to add new joints to your woodworking arsenal.

This post is about something a little more obscure - how to machine the dado around the inside of the box, to hold the bottom in place. I shared my secret weapon with the group, and I've already heard from several members who have gone on to purchase it.


When making a box with mitered corners, you can simply run your dados from end to end on the box sides. The dado will never show, so it's simple. But with finger joints, you have to machine stopped dados, and since you're working with short end grain, it's quite easy to blow out the ends of the grain. That's where this slot cutting bit comes in - from Lee Valley.

It's available in a few different configurations, but I just use the simple 1/4" slotting bit.


It's simple - just cut your corner joints and assemble the box. The run the router along the inside of the box, where you want the slot to be cut. There are only a few things to think about - you have to be careful when exiting the cut. Pull the bit away from the wood before you lift it up, or you'll end up cutting out an area of wood on the bottom that you shouldn't cut.

John said he did his machining on a router table, but I usually rout mine with a handheld router.

The slot that you wind up with has a rounded corner, matching the radius of the bit. You can either square off the slot with a chisel, or round the corners of the bottom panel. I prefer the latter.


See how the bottom has square corners, but the dado is rounded?

I usually just trace the radius of the bit onto the corners of the bottom, and sand them on the stationary sander.

A perfect fit!


Once everything is sanded, it's time for the gluing process. It usually takes a lot of clamps, since you want your joint pulled tightly together in each direction.


I applied the glue with a small paintbrush, and felt like I was putting a very light coat on all the fingers, but you can see, there is still quite a bit of oozing out. I'd rather see that, than a dry joint.

Eight clamps on a small box - can you ever own TOO many clamps?

And finally, after the glue dried, I sanded down the fingers that were proud of the surface.


Is there anything easier to cut and more attractive than this joint?


With all the gluing surface, this corner joint is exceptionally strong. People can argue all they want in favor of dovetail joints, but I find the set-up time for machining them to be too labor intensive. I can set up my saw and cut finger joints in a matter of minutes, and they're every bit as strong and attractive.

Anyone disagree with that? Let me know.

Multi slot mortising machine using a router

Most of my weekend was spent teaching an intensive three day session of Basic Woodworking to a lovely woman from Wyoming. Her crash course in the woodshop armed her with enough tool experience, as well as hands-on building skills, for her to return home and start working on her own.

One thing that really strikes me about teaching is how many people fall in love with the router. Hey - what's not to love? It performs a variety of tasks in the shop - from cutting decorative edges, to machining joints, to carving - you name it, it can probably be done with a router.

Another student of mine (thanks, Doug!) sent me a link to this video below. It's awesome, and will give you a new appreciation for what a router can also do. I'm seriously thinking about building this device.

Ceramic studio change-over

There's an interesting difference between being a potter and being a woodworker that most people don't consider. Woodworkers switch materials all the time, from job to job. Right now, I'm working on a cherry piece, but the next one I'll start is in oak. There isn't a significant difference; the adhesives and finishes are much the same, and it's not as if I have to change my sawblade if I've switched wood. Just a little cleaning with the air compressor and the changeover is complete.

But clay poses a different problem. For the last six years, I've used a deep brown clay body called Black Mountain. I love the way it fires to a chocolate brown color. But just as all things must change, I've started mixing some new glazes, and the bottom line is - the glazes I like simply look better on a lighter clay. I'm switching to a buff stoneware called Long Beach, which I've thoroughly tested and find works perfectly for my glaze palette.

Now many potters switch back and forth, but to me - it's a hassle. That means I have to clean everything from my canvas mats to my throwing tools, to my wheel. And since there is such a drastic color difference in the two clays I use, the slightest cross contamination really pops out.

So it's with some sadness that I used the very last of my Black Mountain clay this week. I've probably gone through several thousand pounds of it; not much by most potter's standards, but for me, that's a fair amount. I threw three pieces - two small pitchers and a tumbler, on the wheel, as my final farewell.


And now the changeover begins! Time to pack away all the old glaze tests, using that clay body.


A clean wheel!


And clean tools!




The plaster molds needed a little scrubbing and organization.


And the glaze area needed some straightening out. There were all sorts of slips and unlabeled mixtures, all of which went into the trash.



As long as I've giving you a tour of my clay studio, here's something that most people ask about when visiting. Call me silly, but I save my cone packs. I just think they look cool.


And finally, my current sketch wall. Whenever I'm working on a project, I sketch it in full-size, or print it with my computer. At times, the wall can be crowded with dozens of drawings, but right now - the the new clay being introduced - most of the older drawings have been retired, and new ones are being added daily.


Hope you enjoyed the little tour!

Wood mystery solved

There's a little known service provided by the USDA Forest Service that offers free wood identification. Many years ago, someone gave me a few boards of a highly figured wood - and I hadn't a clue what it was. I sent in a sample, and sure enough, about eight weeks later, I had my answer - lacewood. Pretty cool, for a young teenager in her first woodworking class.

Last Autumn, I built this desk


using some lumber of which - once again! - I hadn't a clue about it's origin. A few of my old college textbooks offered some suggestions - possibly yellowheart, avodire, or satinwood. This wood had a very light yellow hue, with a fairly open grain and was somewhat dense. All I knew is that I'd acquired about six 2x10s of it, and it was just enough to complete the desk, with it's three drawers and upper hutch.


But it bothered me that I couldn't be sure of the wood specie, so I sent off another sample to the USDA, asking for their help.

If you're a wood geek like me, you will be surprised at their answer. Brosimum alicastrum, better known as a breadnut tree.

Depending on what you read in your high school literature classes, you may remember the book - Mutiny on the Bounty. The British Royal Navy sent the HMS Bounty to the South Pacific to pick up saplings of the breadfruit tree in Tahiti, and transport them to the West Indies. The tree was believed to be a complete food source, and they intended on using it to feed the natives on the islands, whom they hoped to enslave. As far as I can tell, the breadfruit tree is a close relative to the breadnut tree, although it is difficult to get any reasonably current information about this genus of trees.

Guess what book is currently on my nightstand?


This lumber probably came from a tropical rainforest, but how it ended up in the middle of Las Vegas, up for auction, is beyond me. It belongs to the fig tree/mulberry tree family, and is native to Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. There's a very informative article - The Mighty BreadNut Tree written by T.H. Culhane, published in Zoo View, a Los Angeles Zoo magazine. If you search on Google long enough, you will find it. I downloaded a PDF of it, and if you're interested in reading it, I would be happy to send you a copy. (I just can't find the link again!) The article might sound boring, but it's really a pretty great source of current information as well as some fascinating historical background about this tree.

In this article, the tree is likened to the soybean - a perfect source of protein. It was believed to be the main food source for the Mayan civilization, more than three thousand years ago. Think "edamame" for natives who lived in rainforests. (And what did they do without salt - or did they have some?)

Better yet, the tree provides a natural habitat for monkeys and birds, requires little maintenance, and it's "fruit" can be used for anything from making "coffee" to grinding into flour and used as grain for various foods like breads, cakes, cookies, tamale masa, and so on.


Even the young leaves of the tree can be eaten, much like we eat spinach. The better question is - why was this tree turned into lumber, when it's usefulness is far better served as a food source?

One of my current students/friends actually knew most of this information off the top of his head, when I told him the name of this tree. It's amazing to me that some people can store that amount of trivia in their head! (Steve, if I made any glaring technical errors in this post, would you kindly help me in correcting them? You are - as I said the other day - officially the smartest person I know!)

Kallenshaan Woods

In about a week, I'm hosting another one of our Sin City Woodworking meetings, and it promises to be a special one. A Las Vegas local woodworking entrepreneur, Ken Nelson, started a company called Kallenshaan Woods. If you're not familiar with the name, check out his shop.

He's coming to our next meeting to give a demo on the products he's perfected - laser cut wood pen kits. The kits start out as miniature puzzles, with a good selection of designs. Once assembled, they turn into the most amazing pens you'll ever see. Like these....

And my favorite one...

The detail is precise, thanks to his laser cutting machine, and when I visited his shop yesterday, I was treated to a very special tour. I feel like I have a decent idea about most woodworkers here in the area, but I had no idea this company even existed.

(Hat tip to Larry Yule for enlightening me!)

Kallenshaan Woods pen kits are currently being sold by Lee Valley and soon to be carried by one of the other major woodworking supply chains. Quite an accomplishment for a small business being run out of a Ken's garage!

There is an article about Kallenshaan Woods in the latest issue of Woodturning Designs magazine, in the Spring 2010 issue. Hopefully, Ken will bring some copies to give away, as well as some of the products that he makes. I hope to get a few good photos at the meeting, and will try to post something on the Sin City Woodworker's blog soon. It's sure to be one of our more popular gatherings.

Stay tuned...

Big tool purchase of the year

We were all pretty excited to see the UPS guy pull up today. Even Stella was smiling.

Once a year, I try to make a decent tool investment. Last year's purchase was the SawStop, which is still paying dividends like letting me sleep at night, knowing that people who work at my shop are relatively safe while cutting wood. Oh, I know - before sixteen people write to me and tell me not to take the SS for granted - rest assured, I still keep my eye on everyone who uses the saw. No complacency in my shop!

Ever since Stave Bace of Festool USA gave that amazing tool demo a few months ago, I've been wanting a few of their tools.

Like this

and these amazing sanders


Let's not forget the tenons and extra bits.

And of course, one of my main reasons for going with the Festool system was to take advantage of their nearly dust free, integrated vacuums

which not only allows you to stack up all your systainers, but helps you store your vacuum hose and attachments. Sweet.

But frankly, the girls didn't really care about any of these features. They just wanted to play.

I'm working on a few commissions right now, and these tools are going to save a lot of time for me. But for now, I'm going to play with the girls until it's time to go to class tonight.