General Woodworking

Feast your eyes on this fantastic short film.

“Fascinated with the shapes and textures found in both newly-cut and long-dead pieces of wood, I envisioned a world composed entirely of these forms,” Foxwell told Colossal. “As I began to engage with the material, I conceived a method using a milling machine and an animation camera setup to scan through a wood sample photographically and capture its entire structure. Although a difficult and tedious technique to refine, it yielded gorgeous imagery at once abstract and very real. Between the twisting growth rings, swirling rays, knot holes, termites and rot, I found there is a lot going on inside of wood.”

WoodSwimmer: A New Stop-Motion Short Made Entirely by Tediously Cutting Through Wood

It was a few weeks before Hans had an opening in his schedule that allowed us to go out and hit the road again. I had promised him the chance to go out and learn about the furniture heritage of North Carolina.

We drove south two hours to start the day in Charlotte, NC. We were hungry and decided to try a local ethnic restaurant I had heard about.  Nobody over 70 that I talked to had anything bad to say about it. Plentiful food at reasonable prices. It was even in my GPS!

Big parking lot. Hans climbed atop my car to make sure we were in the right place.

The food there is all organic in that for the most part it is carbon-based. I believe that there was some issues a few years ago with respect to their special meatballs and the local Health Department but I can’t find the article and I don’t want to be seen trading in unsubstantiated rumors so I will not mention it for now. Forget you read this, assuming you did.

It is a really large place with many different departments. Besides the restaurant, there is a large store selling all sorts of exotic and prepared foods.

Part of the store is filled with hand-made, boutique furniture from some of the finest local artisans the world over. It reminded me of 10,000 Villages or Pier One Imports. There exists some obvious cross-pollination between the artisans and some of the brain-training companies. This outfit offers a line of puzzle furniture with abstract shapes and cryptic pictographs you solve in the vague hope of assembling the purchased item. As a bonus, the cardboard box often proves to be as useful as the contents therein.

From Charlotte, we headed north to Thomasville, NC. Thomasville is known (to some) as The Chair City due to a combination of the furniture manufacturing (2000 chairs per day in 1916) and the presence of The Big Chair (see below).

We stopped first at the statue of John Warwick Thomas, founder of Thomasville:

Politician and entrepreneur. He arranged for the railroad to be built through Davidson County and built the first store (1852) in the area in anticipation of the railroad’s arrival.

What youngster doesn’t like trains?

All aboard!

Not like the trains of home but a train nonetheless.

And then, The Big Chair:

A large-scale reproduction of a Duncan Phyfe chair, 30′ high, It was built in 1950 by Thomasville Furniture Industries. It is built of steel and concrete.

I have two problems with what they describe as the world’s largest chair. Is it really the largest? I was unable to independently verify this. For convenience’s sake, I will just accept it until proven otherwise.

The more fundamental question is is it a chair or a chair-like structure? Does labeling a chair mean it is a chair or does calling it a chair imply that it can be used as a chair for chair-like purposes. Does chair define its function or describe its appearance as does Einstein Bros. make bagels or do they make bageloid sandwich rolls? Does a label make it so?

In Highpoint, we found the world’s largest chest of drawers, 36′ tall.

No doubt about this being a chest of drawers. Note the socks jauntily hanging out of the middle drawer.Not best housekeeping practices but it does have a certain visual appeal and whimsy.

Our last stop of the day was in nearby Jamestown, NC at Furnitureland South, home of 1.3 million square feet of ugly furniture (my opinion). There, they have the world’s largest highboy dresser.

At 85 feet (29.908 meters), it’s huuuge! Drawers are not dovetailed, however

In case you missed it. One of these is made of wood.

We drove home, tired but happy.

all right – let’s try a couple of short videos this time. From Greenwood Fest 2017.

 
an overview of the woodpile area, with Rick McKee ducking through…

Kiko Denzer turning bowls during Jarrod’s class:

and a long one from Roy, more from Roy Underhill’s Big Box of Woodworking Fun

I’m video-challenged – but because of Instagram I shoot many short ones with an ipad. Just spent a godawful amount of time figuring out how to get them here. Let’s see if this works:

Sometimes the best Father’s Day gifts are the ones that you pick up at the very last second…right? We understand that some of our readers haven’t taken advantage of our free shipping deal – which runs through this weekend if you want to hand Dad a receipt of a product that is in the mail – so we have curated a list of 11 products from our store that would […]

The post 11 Last Minute Father’s Day Gifts with Digital Delivery appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Plymouth CRAFT’s Greenwood Fest 2017 is now a  thing of the past. I vividly remember the feeling last year after the fest, I was so overwhelmed I just floundered around for a couple of days, not being able to concentrate on anything.

This time, it still is overwhelming, but in a good way. I want to thank everyone who helped make it happen – Plymouth CRAFT’s board & volunteers, the crew at Pinewoods, all the instructors and most of all, the folks who travelled from Australia, Turkey and places in between to come join us in the woods for carving and camaraderie. Astoundingly great time, thanks all.

Here’s pictures. there’s more. later. 

the group shot:

Surolle was here: 

Jarrod Dahl turning what can’t be turned

JoJo Wood was back with her big knives:

The one-armed veteran of the Battle of Shiloh with his sawing machine

Tim Manney & the sharpeners

Me & him

Barn’s spoons

The Greenwood shop, just prior to opening:

Barn the Spoon & his new sheath for the big hook knife:

Jane Mickelborough helping hinge a folding spoon:

Dave Fisher working on his bowls:

Darrick Sanderson never stopped

Jogge & I with our special guests, Drew & Louise Langsner

A workbench designed for hand tool woodworkers but made (partially) with a CNC. It features a 3D carved leg vise and a workbench top designed to improve ergonomics. I designed the BARN workbench for the Bainbridge Island Artisan Resource Network. It’s a Seattle area community group that has built a wonderful community facility for artisans to share resources, education, and workspace. I wanted to help my new neighbors, so I […]

The post Introduction to the BARN Workbench appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Any experienced woodworker will tell you that the first secret to good work is keeping your tools sharp. “The Perfect Edge” by Ron Hock is one of the best books out there on sharpening woodworking tools. If you don’t have it, you need it. From choosing a sharpening set-up to in depth coverage of different sharpening methods, this book takes the mystery out of this crucial set of skills. I’m […]

The post Book Giveaway: Perfect Edge appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

As Day Two convened of the inaugural Intergalactic Ripple Molding Association, with Cor’s ripple cutter “in working order,” the day was spent fiddling and adjusting to make it cut some real moldings.

One of the first things we encountered was a broken part, the threaded collar that allows for the cutterhead to be raised and lowered, or better said, raised and released to allow the coil springs to push the cutter down on to the workpiece.  Rather than ordering another identical part, which would have cost us a day (the free market is GREAT; if I order a part from McMaster-Carr or MSC Direct before lunch, the part is invariably on my porch the following morning.  Even here in the Land Time Forgot!) we dove into my stash of lignum vitae and fashioned a new one, courtesy of my salvaged set of oversized taps and dies.  Keeping a slab of lignum around to make collars, bearings, etc., is a real boon in the shop.  Works like butter, wears like iron.

With the new part installed the fine tuning of the machine began in earnest.  While we already had what Rippleista John called “proof of concept” what we wanted was a machine that could crank out the linear feet of moldings ad infinitum.

In a short time we had further refinements becoming manifest.

And once we were able to produce this molding, thanks to the delicate ministrations of Rippleista Sharon (she actually measures stuff.  What’s up with that?) we knew we were on the way to ripple nirvana.  However, the machine is fussy to the point of truculence, requiring adjustments almost between every pass.  There is indeed great room for improvements in this machine and the likely model I will be building myself.  First among these will be a Norris-type advancing mechanism for the cutting iron.

One highlight of the day was Rippleista Travis showing off his tool chest.  All were duly impressed.

While the others were fussing with the Winterthur machine I was wrapping up making the box for the new machine that we were about to undertake fabricating.  I was making a long, narrow box from 2×6 stock.

The dust is starting to settle. I’ll get to the whole thing, but in the meantime, here’s the group of instructors from Greenwood Fest.

Back row, left to right – Jögge Sundqvist, Jarrod Dahl, Pete Galbert, Peter Follansbee, Jane Mickelborough, Barn the Spoon, Louise Langsner, Drew Langsner

Front row, left to right –  Dave Fisher, Tim Manney, Darrick Sanderson, Paula Marcoux, JoJo Wood, Roy Underhill