Popular Woodworking Editors' Blog

Franklin International stock is not publicly traded – a crying shame ’cause I could use a no-fail get-rich-quick plan. Editor Christopher Schwarz is building another bench; Franklin International makes TiteBond Glue.

In theory, I’m building a bench. When I first began dabbling in woodworking a few years ago, Chris gifted me what I think was his first bench (maybe it was his second; it’s hard to keep them all straight). Since then, I’ve gravitated toward hand tools, but often struggle with workholding on my bench that’s better-suited to power tools. So when he’s not in the middle of a project (and sometimes when he is), I sneak over to Chris’s Roubo where the surface is long and level, and the workholding is easy.

This new bench, which Chris has written about on the Woodworking Magazine blog, is being made from LVL (laminated veneer lumber). Chris has never worked with the product before, and that’s just too much temptation for him to resist. And I’m happy to let him lift, joint and rip these heavy, splintery, 8'-long behemoths – I seriously doubt I could do the work. I’m content to serve as an outfeed table, clamp-getter, glue carrier…What I didn’t count on was having to wipe up a gallon of glue from the floor. Seriously. A gallon. After ripping the LVL, we laminated it back together in four-piece chunks with the plies facing up (and down) – in large part because it looks cool that way. Chris poured the glue, and I spread it with a 4" roller.

Chris admits he’s often been accused of having a glue problem. But in his defense, he says he’s experienced only one de-lamination in all his years of building benches – and that one de-lam was because he was young and foolish…and took the poor advice of a more experienced but parsimonious woodworker. So now, he pours on the glue. Lots of glue. You know how when you glue up a panel and you look for tiny beads of squeeze-out along the seam? Apparently, when making a benchtop, what you’re looking for is Angel Falls.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

Thursday, May 14, 2009 4:56:06 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [7] 

For an upcoming article, I was researching turpentine when I followed a trail to a Valdosta State University web site. The web site is titled  “Faces” in the Piney Woods: Traditions of Turpentine in South Georgia. It is an oral history project of the South Georgia Folklife Project at the University. The term faces originated from the process that “turpentiners” went through to get the gum (tar) from the Slash Pine and Longleaf Pine trees. Cuts and scrapes in the bark resulted in a simplified “cat face” appearing on the trunk.

At one time, Georgia was the leader in extracting turpentine and rosin from the collected gum. It was a large industry that was especially important from the late 1800s through the mid-1900s. In 2001 on August 9th, Major Phillips collected the last commercial bucket of gum in Georgia – it marked the end of domestic turpentining in the United States.

If the process of making turpentine is not something you’ve seen or studied – it’s new to me – then here’s a short lesson. (Sorry for the fuzzy photos. They were taken from video on the Valdosta State University web site.)
 
Turpentine (and rosin) is distilled from gum that’s collected from trees. To collect the gum, workers would begin by “pushing down” the bark of the tree. The work began in late winter, sometime in February or March. Pushing down involved a worker using a bush axe to clean the bark off a tree and provide an area to set up and collect the gum.

After the trunk was clean, a set of tins was nailed to the trunk. The tins were made up of an apron and a gutter. The apron was positioned level and the gutter angled into the apron. Five nails held everything in place. A cup – a collector that looked more like a pan for baking bread than a cup – was held just under the apron, again with nails. (Ever wonder why you find odd pieces of metal in some of your lumber!)

Next the tree would be “Streaked.” Done in late March or early April, a cut was made just above the tins. A little farther up the trunk, workers would use a hack to form a v-shaped notch across the cleaned area. The scraped cut is where the gum would ooze out of the tree. Each week a new scrape was added to the tree. Each scrape moved up the trunk. At the start of each year, the tins were placed higher up the tree, marking the trunk year by year. Each tree produced gum for five years.



“Dipping” a tree was when the cup was emptied into a bucket. The gum was scraped into a bucket with a paddle. The cleaned cup would then be re-positioned for the next amount of gum.The amount of gum from the tree would vary depending on the season, but once the cup was filled, the setup would have to be dipped. Two streaks would produce about a 1/2 gallon of gum in the summertime.

Buckets (recycled nail kegs) held about 20 cups (not a liquid measurement) of gum. The buckets were then dumped into barrels. The barrels, at least those shown in the video, were painted a specific color for identification purposes and held eight buckets of gum, or 435 pounds of crude tar. (Before the advent of steel barrels, oak barrels were used. The wooden barrels were stored in a waterhole to keep the staves tight.)

The gum was then heated in a still (remember Granny Clampet’s still). The heat would produce steam. As the steam moved through a length of coil, it would condensate and fill barrels with a water/turpentine mixture. Because turpentine is lighter than water, the solvent would reside at the top of a barrel and be drained off the water. We have turpentine.

I’ll bet you think differently the next time you pour turpentine.

Thursday, May 14, 2009 1:23:48 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [3] 

The keynote speaker for the Woodworking in American Design conference is Thomas Moser of Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers. Most of us were first introduced to Moser as we read his books. In fact, I remember in my early teens thumbing through my Dad’s copy of Moser's “How to Build Shaker Furniture”. Throughout the years I’ve returned to that book many times.

Like most of us who dabble in woodworking, Moser is good with his hands. He learned the skill by watching and working with his father. As a hobbyist, Moser decided to supplement his income by rehabbing old furniture – a great way to learn and understand furniture design, and to recognize what methods of construction work and what methods don’t. He purchased pieces, then cleaned, repaired and refinished those pieces in his home shop before selling them for profit.

Later, Moser returned to school where he earned a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York and began a high school teaching career in Michigan. After that, it was on to universities and colleges to earn a master’s degree and a doctorate in Speech Communications. (You know he’ll be an excellent speaker!) All the while, he kept a home workshop up and running to enjoy woodworking.

In the early 1970s, while teaching at Bates College in Maine, Thomas decided it was time to walk away from teaching and begin a new career. In 1973, the Mosers (Thomas and his wife, Mary) opened Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers. The idea was to build one-of-a-kind furniture in Maine. He transformed his hobby into a business. A big business.

At the beginning, his furniture looked similar to the many designs and styles he had worked with and studied throughout the years: Shaker, Queen Anne and others. But that wasn’t the only work Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers did. The company's motto was, "If it's made of wood, we can do it."

During the past 35 years, some of Moser’s designs veered from those early influences and he began to develop a distinct style with a more contemporary look.  Also, the company has grown from a one-man enterprise to employ nearly 100 people. In and amongst that family of employees are three of his four sons – the one son who has moved on is also involved in a woodworking-related business. Today, Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers operates seven showrooms located in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago and Freeport, Maine.

He’ll be joining us at Woodworking in America to talk about his journey. Not only will he share experiences found while building his business, but also his path along the design spectrum. For more information and to get a look at his company’s designs, visit thosmoser.com.

— Glen D. Huey

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 11:39:49 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0] 

With measuring devices, you don’t often find a wholly new tool. And this one is so complete a departure in both design and use from that which it improves on. When I first saw the Galbert Caliper its use was not even apparent at first. Let’s face it – most “new” tools are simply evolved from their predecessors. It’s rare that you find an entirely new species. But such is the case with this remarkable new spindle turning measuring tool.

With a traditional turning caliper, you set the opening by measuring, or with a comparative gauging device such as a mating part. The Galbert Caliper doesn’t require a pre-measured size. The user can simply read the current cutting diameter right on the caliper, by following the built-in scale. Want 1"? With the parting tool cutting and the caliper riding in the kerf of the cut, you simply stop cutting when the scale indicator reads 1". Done.

What’s truly remarkable about this tool is that you can move continuously along a turning to cut varied-diameter dimensions using just this one tool. You never need to stop and change caliper dimensions, or have several calipers already set to the dimensions you need, so your work speeds along quickly. You can see this tool in action here.

The inventor, Peter Galbert, is a Windsor chairmaker and his need for speed as a production spindle turner led him to create this clever device. He calls it “the turner’s tape measure” and that’s an apt description. With the tool engaged in the spinning work, it can measure in the 2-1/2" to 3/4" range. To measure between 1/2" and 3/4", you have to remove the parting tool from the work.

The tool is very well made and can be easily calibrated should it come out of register. The Galbert Caliper is currently available at an introductory price of $79.50 plus shipping. According to the Galbert web site, that price will change to $124.99 on July 1, 2009. I was frankly shocked at the introductory price. The soon-to-be-regular price is in the neighborhood of what I expected – and it’s worth it.

— Steve Shanesy

Steve Shanesy is the publisher and editorial director of Popular Woodworking and Woodworking Magazine, and an avid and accomplished turner. His new DVD, “Turning Basics for Furniture Makers,” will be available in June.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 11:32:42 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0] 

So this was supposed to be an at least vaguely amusing post about Woodworker's Safety Week. You see, Kari Hultman (a.k.a. The Village Carpenter), posted a funny blog entry in honor of Safety Week with pictures of her dogs.

Now, you could say that I'm a bit of an ailurophile – so I came up with an idea (in retrospect, it was an idea doomed from the start), to use one of my cats' paws as if it were a toothing plane. So just before we left work today, Editor Christopher Schwarz (also a cat lover) took a few passes on a piece of pine with a toothing plane, and I took it home to mock up a picture of my youngest cat scratching furrows in the board, then a picture of her claws with little plastic sleeves (cut from coffee stirrers) to show how to properly store your pawlane (say it fast -- it almost works) when it's not in use.

Yeah, that didn't work so well. I have furrows in my arm instead.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

Friday, May 08, 2009 9:06:52 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [3] 

Conversation in the Popular Woodworking office this week centered on dust collection, or the lack thereof. It seems that I might be the odd man out due to my reluctance to attach a dust collector to my table saw. Whether I operated in a two-car garage shop or in a fully functioning woodshop that partially filled 4,000 square feet, I never hooked my table saw to a collector.

Why? There are a few reasons. First, I was (and am) leery of stumbling over the dust hose that is always stretched across what seems to be the best pathway to anything on which I am working. Second, if I position a dust collector near the table saw, there would be a time when whatever I am about to cut – or am in the middle of cutting – would have its path impeded by the collector. And third, the 4" dust port on my saw does not allow the dust to fully evacuate the saw’s cabinet, so I am constantly opening the door to dig out the waste.

My solution is to occasionally use a flat stick or cutoff and push the dust out of the base of the cabinet, then sweep up and pitch the dust.

Now I’m asking you: Do you collect the dust from your table saw with a broom or a machine? Please take a few seconds to respond to our survey.

 — Glen D. Huey

Friday, May 08, 2009 1:36:01 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [10]