About a month ago, I got an e-mail from a couple who had the maple tree from their yard cut down and milled into boards. And they wanted to turn it into something useful. So I ventured into New Westminster to have a first-hand look at what we were dealing with. The maple that they … Continue reading Natural-Edged Maple Slabs
Well, at 10:00 pm, I just finished cleaning my machine shop. It's definitely clean and pretty organized. Organization is one of those things that is never complete - there is always something else to be done, something that can be improved. And there is nothing - NOTHING - that can take the big grin off … Continue reading The Other Half of the Shop: Clean!
Woodworkers use clamps for many tasks, but most importantly for clamping work together while the glue sets. Some clamps, like spring clamps are fairly weak and apply about 35 lbs of force. At the other end of the scale, heavy duty bar clamps can exert up to 6800 lbs, and C-clamps can exert well over … Continue reading The Fine Art of Sticking Two Pieces of Wood Together
Well, I spent the last week cleaning my shop. There's still some organizing to do, but it's clean at least!
A few weeks ago, I received a call from my friend Dave. He had just gotten word that two large trees - a large Norway Maple and an even larger elm - had just been brought down. He asked me if I was interested in any of the wood and mentioned that the elm was … Continue reading Some Kind of Work
I have been experimenting with different types of joinery. On my second prototype of a seating bench, I experimented with triple offset tenons and wedged triple offset tenons. I liked the cleanliness of the triple offset tenons but didn't care for the complicating detail of the wedges. When a finish is applied, more soaks into … Continue reading Exposed Joinery
This box was built from butternut using only hand tools. I started with green boards of butternut and planed them down with a jack plane, cut the half-lap joints with a chisel and skew-rabbet plane, and glued and nailed the joints. I glued and nailed on the bottom with two nails - the other two … Continue reading A Box Called “Tolerences”
Yesterday, I had a bit of a scary moment. I needed to glue something together, so I found my bottle of Hot Stuff (fast setting cyanoacrylate adhesive, commonly known as Super Glue). I took off the black cap, put the tip to the piece I was gluing, and squeezed. Nothing. I wasn't in the shop … Continue reading Faster Than Super Glue
May 11, I decided that it was time to rid my 8" jointer (Delta DJ-20) of its dull knives. I carefully removed the blades and found that they were hopelessly dull. Must have been that lignum vitae. Rather than send the knives out to be sharpened or purchase new knives, I decided to spring for … Continue reading Installing A Shelix Cutter Head
I have been working on developing a line of furniture for my company. Inspired by some Douglas Fir I found in my wood pile with green iron stains, I built this bench. If you look closely at the inside of the left leg, you can actually see evidence of the square steel spike that was … Continue reading Prototyping – Bench
