General Woodworking

  On Columbus day weekend I taught a live-edge furniture class at Snow Farm, a reputable New England based craft school located in the picturesque Berkshire mountains of Western Massachusetts. My six students faced a challenging task, to design and build furniture that presents a strong live-edge character, and to do so just in two and a half days of work. The weather was mostly nice and the food was […]

The post Live Edge Class at Snow Farm, Massachusetts – Part 1 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Last night my kids unearthed a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer book for a bedtime story. I desperately tried to steer them back toward our wide selection of Halloween books that I’ve arranged prominently on their bookshelf. But alas, while they’re excited for Halloween, the inevitable holiday season looms large on the horizon like the Death Star in Rogue One. Apparently I need to get my holiday planning underway. And so, […]

The post Book Giveaway: Wooden Toys appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Band saws are great for cutting curves but when you need a perfect circle, you need a jig. I’ve used many circle-cutting helpers over the years and the design presented by Tom Caspar in the video below combines the best features from all of them. The jig is held in place on the band saw table using a bar in the miter slot and it features an adjustable pivot point […]

The post Video: Circle Jig for the Band Saw appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I’ve been slow to add stuff to the blog here. Time to correct some of that. Today’s chore is splitting up some leftover bits of oak, and some newly dropped-off bits. Here’s how I read these, and how I decide what to split from a few different bolts. the first one is an old one, been split & hanging around a long time, over a year I’d say. It was given to me about 2 months ago. Free wood is sometimes not worth it. this is one of those cases. Note how the radial plane is cupped. This isn’t from drying, it’s the way the tree grew. The medullary rays curve from the center of the tree to the bark. So if I want wide flat stuff from this, I have my work cut out for me. What I do with such a piece of wood depends on several things: what I need at the time, how much effort I want to put into it, and how much other wood I have around. These days, wood is in pretty good supply, time much less so. Thus, I want to get the best piece I can from this as quickly as possible.

The ruler shows how “un-flat” the split is.

The piece was 26″ long, but with the checking at each end, I expect to get about 22″ length out of it. Just right for a joined stool stile (leg). So I opted to split a 2″x 2″ square out from right below the sapwood. First split with the froe gets off the inner twisted bits.

Next I split off the sapwood & bark. Surprise, the sapwood sheared off across the grain. Usually a log that has been around this long has punky rotten sapwood – I expect that. But to shear off like that means there’s something underneath…

And there was – some deformity curving the grain near one end. So didn’t get my 2″ x 2″ x 22″ stile. The resulting piece could be a ladderback chair front post (something I want to build, but have no time for right now. I’ve made parts for 3 of them so far this fall.) or the leg to a workbench out in the yard. I already have maybe 4 of those benches. On to the next split.

This one’s big & fresh. Just came in yesterday. Bark looks good. Very wide bolt, maybe 12″ or more.

But a big knot creating disturbed grain all around it, the full bottom third or more.

I always am working between getting the biggest piece (widest) I can, or getting the best piece of wood I can. Usually I want the best one. Which in this case, is much narrower than what I first expected from a section like this. See the ruler here, the best (straightest, flattest, least-work) piece is from the 10″ mark to 15″. So that’s what I split.

Now the distorted stuff is isolated in the right-hand section, destined for firewood.

Then I further split the remaining stuff into four thin boards for carved boxes, or narrow panels for the sides of some chests. Once I don’t think about where they came from, these are excellent clear, straight boards. This is a case of free wood that is worth it.

One of the older bits looked promising: wide, maybe 7″ or more. 24″ long.

But when I sighted down its length, lots of twist from one end to the other. I didn’t shoot it well enough, but you can generally read the twist down at the far end. Its right hand corner is high, as is the left corner nearest us. Means some hewing before planing. Not fatal, but maybe there’s better wood out here.

Yup. Fresh too. (that means easier to work…) Shorter, but wider.

When I scooch down and sight its radial plane, dead flat! That’s the stuff I’m after…

Gonna have lunch and find some more like this one.

Want to learn more about how to read these logs – Plymouth CRAFT has a weekend class coming up that’s just the ticket.  https://www.plymouthcraft.org/riving-hurdlemaking-weekend

Riving, hewing, drawknife work. Me, Rick McKee ( https://www.instagram.com/medullary_rick/  and https://blueoakblog.wordpress.com/  ) and our friend Pret Woodburn will show you all we know about opening oak logs and what to do with them.

The post The Highland Woodturner: Rotary Texturing Tools appeared first on Woodworking Blog.

In this episode of 360 with 360WoodWorking, Dave Campbell, Wood Magazine’s Editorial Content Chief, gives us a behind-the-scenes look at Weekend With Wood, happening in May 2018. He tells us why, in his opinion, this event is so successful. Plus, he shares all the happenings included with the spouse’s event that runs at the same time.

Join 360 Woodworking every Thursday for a lively discussion on everything from tools to techniques to wood selection (and more).

Continue reading Dave Campbell Tells All About “Weekend With Wood” – 360w360 E.254 at 360 WoodWorking.

Last week, Marissa Bowers (our wonderful designer, who’s been helping us out while we seek a new permanent art director) mentioned she had been looking for a set of picture rails – and wondered aloud if it was something we could build in the shop. Ever eager for an excuse to bring everyone out to the shop, we decided that everyone in the office could use their own, and I (Brendan […]

The post Pop Wood Group Project: Magnetic Picture Rails appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

In my November 2017 editor’s note, I wrote about two $5,000,000 lawsuits filed against Menard’s and Home Depot for “false and misleading advertising” for selling 2×4 lumber that isn’t actually 2″ x 4″. You can read that here, if you like. Last night, Nicholas Vanaria (a friend from Instagram) let me know that the suit against Menard’s was dismissed. U.S. District Judge Edmond Change threw out the case on October 6. […]

The post 2×4 Lumber Lawsuit Dismissed appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I woke up on Sunday morning feeling a little under the weather. My back was a little stiff, I had a headache, and I didn’t sleep very well on top of it. I almost put my Washington’s Desk project on hold, but I knew that if I didn’t get started I probably never would. So I cleared out the garage and got to work.

The plan was to mill up enough material for the desk top, the breadboard ends, the legs, as well as cleats for the desktop underside and the cross stretcher. So I chose 3 boards, two 6 footers and one 4 footer (all of the boards were 12 inches wide by 1 inch thick). To mill down those boards I used my Ryobi surface planer. For the record, this isn’t what I consider a great or even good tool. I purchased it almost 14 years ago while doing a kitchen remodel. It does the job, but it is loud and messy. Nonetheless, I had to work with the tools I have, so I checked the blades, and they were reasonably sharp, so I started milling.

What made this such an arduous process was the collection of the shavings. Because I rarely use power tools, I don’t have a dust collector or even a large shop vac. The shop vac I do have is perfectly fine for cleaning out a car or keeping a workbench clear, but it is not made for large scale work. But once again I had to use what was available, and it was not fun. Initially, I was hoping to finish up with two boards just over 7/8” thick for the top and one board just over ¾” thick for the legs. But, I underestimated the amount of material I needed to remove. The boards I was working with were very rough sawn, as in just a shade beyond still having bark. So I had to remove nearly ¼” of material just to get down to usable boards that were flat. And it also meant a lot of starting and stopping to empty out the shop vac. I was actually sore from the constant bending over to pick up the shavings, which I did at the very least fifty times. In the end, I filled up an entire lawn bag with shavings.

The desktop boards after the initial milling.

After the boards were milled I used the table saw to trim the two boards for the desk top to rough width and length (as well as getting rid of planer snipe). I then aligned the boards for a nice grain pattern (at least to my eye), and trimmed the boards to very near final size. To join the boards I decided to match-plane them.

The set up for match planing

Match planing works well, especially if your plane is set properly. I used a strange sequence: jointer plane first, a couple of passes with a jack plane set to take gossamer thin shavings, jointer again, and then one final pass with the jack. I’m not sure how other woodworkers match-plane, but when I am able to take a full width, full length shaving from both boards I call it joined. And in a surprisingly short time the boards were ready to be glued. I am very happy with the joint, as it was air tight, and the top is thankfully nice and flat. It will take a good amount of plane work and sanding, and probably some scraping as well (there are a few funky grain spots) to get the top ready for finish, but I should have a top ¾ thick when all is said and done, which is a bit less than I wanted, but hardly the end of the world.

A surprisingly small amount of shavings

At that point, I decided to call it a day. There was a lot, and I mean a lot, of clean up to do. In fact, I spent nearly as much time setting up and cleaning up as I did woodworking. This coming weekend I am hoping to get the legs sawn to finish length and width, the breadboard ends ready, and with a little luck I may possibly have the entire base and desk top ready for assembly. I was a little worried over laying out the legs, but I figured out a simple solution that I will detail in my next post.

The panel glued-up.

The post Product Video: European Workbench appeared first on Woodworking Blog.

Check out the new “Library” and “For Sale or Trade” tabs in the menu. Here’s why:

Over the summer, new guild member Barb Siddiqui donated a treasure trove of mostly hardback woodworking books to us. In other words, we have a library! Included in the 500+ titles are some of the best ever published: all of The Best of Fine Woodworking books, woodturning books, carving books, books on making period furniture, you name it.

The library is housed at Lombard’s Hardwoods, and all volumes are available for check-out by guild members. In the notebook provided, print your name and contact info, along with the names of the titles you are borrowing, then be sure to bring them back. If someone might want a page or two copied out a particular book, we recommend taking a picture of the pages with your phone or tablet.

The “For Sale or Trade” idea has been bandied around for awhile now, and since yours truly (Autumn) will have to make all of the postings and updates, I was skeptical about starting it, but we’ll give it a go and see where it goes. I’ll do my best to keep it updated.

If you have a woodworking related item to sell or trade, send me the info, with photos, to autumn.doucet@gmail.com. Be sure to provide your name (some email addresses are obscure) and your contact information. Please send me an email advising me when to take down the posting, otherwise, you’ll keep getting inquiries.

 Darrell Peart is coming to town! Date and other info are on the sidebar.

In preparing for the sessions at The Anthony Hay Shop of CW I decided at the last minute to toss in the materials needed to make sandpaper, not knowing whitener or not there would be any interest.  It turned out that a lot of the participants were indeed interested, and several told me a very common question from the visiting public was some variation of, “Did they have sandpaper in the old days?”

So I’m glad I had what was needed.

We started with moderate weight rag paper, albeit machine made, not hand cast (maybe next time).

Wetting the paper both sides relaxed it so it would pucker less when the hot glue was applied to one side.

We were using 135 gws glue since it had plenty of adhesion properties plus was much more flexible than higher grades, making it more usable since it would not fracture when bent.

Once the glue has been on the paper long enough such that it is tacky but not wet, the surface is sprinkled with fine frit, the ground glass that was often used as the abrasive for some ancient sandpapers (hence the common terminology of “glass paper”).  You want the glue tacky enough to adhere the frit, but not wet enough to soak into it and turn it into a big chunk on the surface.

The glued sheet with frit is shaken or brushed so that the frit covers the whole surface, and the piece is set aside.  Once the glue has hardened adequately the excess frit is brushed or shaken off and the sheet is allowed to dry fully.

And voila’, you have a genuine new piece of antique sandpaper about 180 grit.

Three years ago I learned about dynaGlide Plus from Richard Welder at Micro Fence. It is a Silicone and Teflon free dry boundary lubricant. I have used it principally to clean the swarf off the bearing surfaces of my shooting boards and to lubricate them. It functions well on metal planes, edge tools, bits, bearings, and abrasive surfaces.

Vogt Toolworks is now a distributor. Click here to view the Product Page.

Woodworker, author, actor, humorist and all-around nice guy (with a most excellent giggle) Nick Offerman and Offerman Woodshop are teaming with Would Works through October 30 for a $20,000 fundraising campaign. Would Works is a Los Angeles non-profit that teaches people who are homeless or who live in the city’s Skid Row neighborhood create and sell handcrafted wood items as they work toward a specific financial goal – simple goals many […]

The post Nick Offerman Woodworking Non-profit Matching Grant appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.