500' or so of french cleats, cut this morning

Handworks 2015

It's official, I am going to Handworks this year.

I'm excited to be able to get hands-on time with a bunch of tools that are otherwise difficult to get a feel for. If my experience at WIA last year is any indication (why didn't I write about that here?), then I'm even more excited to rub shoulders with fellow woodworkers. I'm sure I'll learn things that I don't expect.

If you're interested in joining in, there are still 9 days to register (it's free), and last I checked, there are still tickets available to the Studley chest/bench exhibit nearby.

I hope to see you there!

The Fun Part

I'm sure most woodworkers have parts of a project that they greatly enjoy, and other parts they just slog through to get the project done. For me, finishing is the slog, and the the fun parts are those wher bits of wood fly in one direction or another. This weekend I had an experience that changed my thinking a little bit.

This is the fun part.

I was rearranging a room, and took the opportunity to clean up a few flaws emerging in the desk surface I made (with help) about a decade ago. I used a card scraper to level out some ridges and clean up where the finish was getting worn and dirty, then applied a few more coats of thinned polyurethane to renew the surface.

The scraping, for me, definitely qualifies as the fun part. A tool tuned to be effective, wispy shavings with intact gluelines, and the wood looking it's best--these are a surefire combination to get my satisfaction neurons firing.

The not-so-awful part.

What was unusual is that I did not find the finishing to be drudgery. I'm sure it helped that it was a simple horizontal plane. But I think the real reason is that I don't have to wait to see what the finished product will be like. My eagerness is tempered by having already enjoyed the desk for 10 years. And I have confidence it's going to turn out well, because I've already done it. This gives me hope that I can be a little more relaxed in the future, enjoy all stages of the process, and follow through with quality work all the way to the end of projects.

oversized joiner's mallet

Here's something I made when I was riving a bunch of oak and needed a better way to drive the froe. I patterned it after a typical English joiner's mallet, since I like using one for driving chisels, but scaled it up to suit the task. It's made from home-center construction lumber (laminated 3x for the head). The handle is a tapered friction-fit, and it has leather on one face. I like the square face because it allows you to swing hard and get a solid hit even if you are a couple inches off the mark.

Best used outdoors

If you want to make one of these, you need a 2x6, a saw, a jackplane, a hatchet, drawknife, spokeshave, glue, and clamps. Oh, and about an hour (plus glue drying time).

A square look at the trapezoidal head.

Veneer folder

I finally decided to keep my veneer protected and out of the way with this folder. It's made out of two sheets of plywood. The hinges are denim folded over several times and screwed into the plywood. Small blocks of wood distribute the force of the screws. I chose this method because it gives the folder a flexible capacity. This took me about an hour to make, and now can sit on my lumber rack.

Lots of ash for a future workbench

Continuing the recent theme of lumber aqcuisitions, here's one from a couple of years ago that I never posted. I forget how many board feet of ash I got, but I remember that I figured out it was about 400 Lbs.

Not a bad haul

shorter, wider boards will become legs

 I'm planning to build a Roubo-style bench once I finish some other projects. I was pretty impressed at the massive selection at Highland Hardwoods in Brentwood, NH (no affiliation). They didn't mind me picking through the pile for about an hour to find all the right widths. There were other choices in the running, but the emerald ash borer may have made my decision for me, as I ultimately could not resist this ash at less than $2 per board-foot and few flaws. Certainly a nice species for a workbench. 

The 7' lengths after arriving in my shop. Yeah, that looks like enough for a workbench top.

Visiting the lumberyard is more fun with a friend

Today I took my friend Frank on an exploratory mission to figure out what type of wood we might want to build a rather odd portable bar. We ended up finding a nice purpleheart board 12" wide and 17' long at Anderson Mcquaid (no affiliation) in Cambridge, MA. I had no idea those kind of sizes were even available, but we found it reasonably affordable. I always like my trips to lumberyards enough to prolong them, but even more so with a friend along.

Scott: "We must look like a couple of yahoos right now."
Frank: "Scott, we're using this lumber to build a purple and yellow glow-in-the-dark bar-top to bring to [...]. We *are* yahoos."

OK, readers, I'm heading back down to the workshop. Don't forget to smile.