Popular Woodworking Editors' Blog

You’d think running Grizzly Industrial, the wood- and metal-working machinery company, would be enough to keep its owner, Shiraz Balolia busy. After all, he’s a “hands-on” guy who founded the business, and to this day he's involved with everything from machinery design to the company’s catalog design.  

And, he builds amazing guitars – you may have seen them in the print catalog or at one of the shows where Grizzly is exhibiting. Guitar making must be what Balolia does in his “spare” spare time.

For the past couple weeks Balolia has been competing in Bisley, England as Vice-Captain of the USA F-Class Open Rifle Team, where he finished in the top 10 of the Grand Aggregate (multiple shooting ranges) World F-Class Championship. His USA F-Class team took the gold medal.

Just what is F-Class shooting? F-Class is shot prone at distances of 300 to 1,200 yards. Competitors may use almost any caliber rifle, a scope, and a front and rear rest or bipod. That’s right up to 1,200 yards – well over 6/10ths of a mile. The “bulls-eye” target at these distances? Just 5" in diameter.

Balolia, age 57, has been shooting for more than 30 years and is just one of 24 shooters in the United States who is qualified as a National Rifle Association High Master marksman in the medium-range (500 yards) and long-range (1,200 yards) categories. He has documented his experiences during the recent competition on his blog.

What does it take to shoot at these distances? More than a steady hand, apparently. In a story about Balolia for “The Bellingham (Washington) Herald,” Doug Huddle wrote, “It is a world where the slight swelling of blood vessels from a shooter’s heartbeat at the moment a bullet exits the barrel can result in a monumental miss at the target end of the range.

“In his quest for the string of perfect shots, among those things under his control, Balolia strives to leave nothing to chance. And to overcome all the variables in the bullet’s intended path that can jibe its trajectory over which he has no control, Balolia focuses a Zen-like concentration.”

In addition to his recent success in England, Balolia is also the current Washington State Champion and holds several national records in F-Class. His rifle is a single-shot, bolt-action 6.5-284 caliber rifle built to his own specifications.

— Steve Shanesy

Photo courtesy of the US F-Class Open Rifle Team

Monday, July 27, 2009 7:15:01 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1] 

The cover on the August 2009 issue shows two walnut blanket chests stacked one on top of the other. I built the two chests at the same time, but to different dimensions. I kept notes on each and, of course, did my scratch-pad drawings on both as the building progressed.

As I worked, I struggled with which size chest I would write about in the accompanying article. Should it be the larger of the two? Or would it be better to run through the building of the smaller blanket chest? I selected the smaller chest due to its unique size, because that smaller size might fit better in more of our readers' homes. I had a 50 percent shot at getting the choice right. And I think I did OK because I haven’t been overwhelmed with woodworkers asking for plans for the larger chest – but I have received a few requests.

I posted a blog entry on how to scale furniture from drawings and other plans, or how to bypass the entire process by taking a drawing to a copy shop and having the piece enlarged. (That, however, should be a last resort due to the board thicknesses becoming enlarged as well.)

Because I was looking for a reason to use SketchUp and improve my skills with the free program (you better believe that I’ll be in the SketchUp seminar at Woodworking in America next month in St. Charles, Ill.) I thought I’d prepare a front and end elevation for those of you who want to have something more to work with. You can download a pdf of the file below (or access the SketchUp file here). Enjoy, but do take the time to learn how to scale from photos and drawings. And by all means, get a firm grip on Google SketchUp so you can use our entire library of SketchUp projects.

— Glen D. Huey

Monday, July 27, 2009 1:04:07 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [6] 

“You pick the project that you like the best and we’ll build it.”

“I like the Aalto lounge. Think we can do it?”

To a woodworker who likes a challenge, anything is possible!

“Of course we can. Um, give me a few days to work out the details, OK?”

“Sure Pop.”

That’s how all good projects start — a great idea and a “How the heck are we going to do this?”

My daughter Kelly was taking an art history of design class. The instructor had the students create a project that would draw upon the style of an artist of their choice. Kelly had three different ideas, all involving building a piece of furniture. She finally chose Alvar Aalto’s lounge.

Working from a photo is sometimes the best you can do. We measured the lounge parts in the photo, sized them up to fit a person anywhere between 62" and 72" tall. I measured the distance from the top of Kelly’s head to her hips, then from her hips to the inside of her knees. We fit these with the bends in the seat of the lounge. The sides were proportioned to that.

We threw around a lot of dimensions, worked out radii for the various bends and finally had a full-scale plan.

I’ve bent a lot of wood over the years, but this was going to be interesting. We decided that the sides needed to be about 2" thick and 3" wide. That’s a hefty chunk of wood. We knew the bottom bend would need to be strong. The seat parts came out to 1-1/2" thick and 2" wide. Still fairly chunky, but strength was needed to bear the stress of the webbing.

Making the forms was the first task. We used 3/4" MDF. The side forms required four pieces and the seat required two. Whenever you are making bending forms that require multiple layers, make the first layer as close the final shape that you can. Smooth the edges and fair the curves. Then add one layer at a time, using the first piece as a template. Rout each layer to match the first. That done, we bought some red oak with the straightest grain that we could find.

We tested various thicknesses of wood to see what would bend the easiest around the tightest radius. We found that each strip would need to be no thicker than 3/32". That’s fairly thin. We would need about 22 strips for each side and 16 for each side of the seat. That’s 76 pieces, plus another 10 thrown in for good measure. Good grief.

I chucked up a new band saw blade and we proceeded to slice, and slice, and slice the oak. That took about six hours. Did I mention that the side strips needed to be almost 10 feet long? My shop is 25 feet long. The band saw is in the middle of the shop, so it worked. It got cozy very quickly as strips of wood were piling up. I own a thickness sander, so we sanded the strips to their final thickness. That only took two days.

One thing to remember when strip-bending wood — as you slice the strips, keep them in order so the grain pattern will match when you glue them back together.

Now it was time to bend and glue some wood. On a good day, this can be nerve-racking. Everything has to be in place and ready to go — clamps, glue, forms, strips of wood and, most important of all, calm nerves.  After checking, re-checking and re-re-checking, we began. Kelly wetted the strips with lots of water and applied the glue using a small paint roller. The idea was to have a lot of moisture in the wood so it wouldn’t scream and yell and crack and split.

We clamped the straightest section first, and then made the bends. The sides of the seat were easy to bend and clamp. The sides of the lounge weren’t. After clamping the straight bottom section, both Kelly and I put our weight behind the sharp bend at the foot. It took all we had to grunt it into place and then clamp it. We let the glue dry for two days for each glue-up. That took eight days.

To make a long story shorter — we planed the edges of the parts, ran them on-edge through my thickness planer (yup, it can be done with some finesse), cut the parts to length, machined and cut the three cross pieces for the seat, doweled and glued the seat together and put the lounge together using some clamps. It was exciting!

Then we sanded, rounded and smoothed the edges, applied three coats of amber shellac (which gave the oak a nice, rich color), sanded with 320-grit and rubbed out the finish with No.0000 steel wool.

In the middle of all of this, we picked out some webbing and ordered it online. We had enough time to put one strip of webbing in place, and then we took it to Kelly’s design class. All the students were required to give an oral presentation. After class, the instructor wanted to see Kelly and a couple other students. He asked them to put their projects in an art show in the fall.

We finished the webbing and assembled the lounge using bolts and nuts. It won’t come apart anytime soon.

Is it comfortable you ask? Kelly caught me napping.

Working with Kelly is always a wonderful experience. I recommend that each of you build a project with yours kids, your grandkids, nieces, nephews or the neighborhood kids. Let them make some sawdust. Guide them when needed, but let them run with it.

Bob Lang and his son Hunter and Chris Schwarz and his daughter Katy have worked with their kids and it’s always a win-win event.

The book, “I Can Do That Woodworking Projects”, contains projects perfect for that adult/young adult joint adventure into woodworking. Here are more ICDT projects.

— Jim Stack

Monday, July 27, 2009 12:00:07 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2] 

I grew up in a college town, and we used the term "regular guy" to describe people who didn’t let the initials after their names make them act superior or place them outside the real world. As in “he has a Ph.D. in economics, but I ran into him at the lumberyard and he’s a regular guy.” Before the 1930s, design was not the realm of folk educated beyond their intelligence. Design was the field of regular guys; it wasn’t a profession, it was a skill learned by experience and intimately connected with making things. It was learned from someone with experience in the real world.

Tom Wolfe’s book From Bauhaus to Our House makes the point that there was a cultural shift in the design world between 1930 and 1950, due in large part to the Great Depression and World War II. We weren’t making or building much in those years, and that left a gap in a long chain of practical design experience. Design became an intellectual exercise, largely unrelated to the real world. It moved from the shop floor and the job site to the college campus. After 20 years, there weren’t many regular guys left, and the academics convinced the rest of the world that their credentials were essential.

There are two approaches to learning, the academic and the practical. The best information about historic forms of furniture comes from people who know what they know because they have had their hands and eyes on the real thing, have done their homework – and most important, have done it themselves. The Woodworking in America Furniture Design and Construction conference isn’t an academic exercise; it is a gathering to pass on practical knowledge. And the presenters are all regular guys.

If you want to make your own furniture, and you want to do it well, you need to be careful where you get your information, because there is also a significant gap in information about woodworking that started about 80 years ago. We stopped making stuff when the stock market crashed in 1929, and when we returned to it there were very few people around who knew what, why and how things were accomplished. There are plenty of people without practical knowledge passing along what they’ve read, what they’ve heard and what they imagine about these things. That won’t teach you much. If you want good information, look for a regular guy to teach you.

Regular guys know what they know because they are driven by curiosity and passion. They read everything that has been written, but they also take the time to try things out to see how the written word holds up in the shop. They willingly share what they know, but they are willing to point out what they don’t know, where historical evidence is lacking and when we have to make our best guess. If you’re interested in making better furniture, and want to learn the fine points without getting lost in academic hooptedoodle, come and join us in August. You’ll have access to people who know what they’re talking about, and you probably won’t hear the word evocative. You will head for home better equipped to build anything.

Click Here to learn about Woodworking in America

— Robert W. Lang

Thursday, July 23, 2009 11:20:28 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [4] 

A tool that I noticed in more than one booth at AWFS (Association of Woodworking and Furnishing Suppliers) this year is a benchtop lathe. Manufacturers are hopeful that woodworkers plan to turn more in the coming year. And these lathes aren’t just ordinary machines with set speed controls; these lathes feature electronic variable speeds.

It’s called a mini-lathe if you’re talking with General International or Rikon, but if you’re looking at new lathe from Delta, you better say midi-lathe (a company-derived title it promotes and has registered). With either name, it still sits on a bench – unless you purchase a stand to go with the lathe. So, how do the different lathes stack up?

General’s lathe is the 25-114 M1. This machine has three variable-speed ranges (as do the other two lathes) set by adjusting a drive belt on successive size pulleys. The General lathe is powered by a 3/4-horsepower (hp) motor that spins the drive spur at 300 – 800 rpm, 640 – 1,750 rpm and 1,300 – 3,600 rpm, depending on the pulley. General has boosted the available turning diameter of this lathe so it’s possible to shape a 14"-diameter piece. The 25-114 M1 is 93 pounds of solid weight to hold the lathe steady when turning. The company says you can turn a full 17" between centers. Additionally, General’s variable-speed lathe has 24 indexing positions (every 15º). Look for this machine to be priced around $699 with a delivery date yet to be set.

Rikon also introduced a benchtop lathe, model 70-200EVS. With this lathe you can set speed controls at 400–950, 650–1,700 and 1,500–3,850 rpm. The swing over the bed is 12"(the smallest of the three lathes discussed) and the working area between centers is 16". A nice feature on Rikon’s variable-speed lathe is a self-ejecting tailstock that allows the removal of the tail center without the use of a knockout bar. Included with a 70-200EVS is an 8" tool rest, a spur center and live center and a 3" face plate. Rikon’s benchtop lathe has a weight of 86 pounds. The 70-200EVS is available in Fall 2009 and is priced at $699.

Delta actually introduced its variable-speed lathe last year at the major tool show in Atlanta, but the company re-introduced the lathe at AWFS and brought in a craftsman to demonstrate the machine. Model 46-460 (the variable-speed model) is available now and is priced at $599. This lathe has many features that look appealing. The foremost, in my mind, is the reversing switch that potentially reduces your sanding time, and with the spin reversed, the dust is easily thrown away from the operator and toward dust collection. Also, a feature of interest on this lathe is the belt tensioning system. The adjustment process is quick and secure, and the belts are wide with five grooves, versus the three grooves found on most other benchtop lathes.

Speed changes with a 1-hp motor are again in three steps with the range from 250 (the lowest available rpm for slow roughing of stock) - 700, 600–1,800 and 1,350-4,000 rpm. Work between centers is a maximum 16-1/2" with the largest possible diameter for bowl turning at 12-1/2".

If you’re looking for a lathe, don’t look past these benchtop models, unless you want to turn lengthy legs. Of course, bed extensions are available for these machines.

— Glen D. Huey

Monday, July 20, 2009 3:00:58 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1] 

We never know what will stick with our kids. We hope it’s the good things, but we can't predict if they will remember to be polite to their elders, or the vocabulary to use when someone cuts you off in traffic. I spent some time recently helping my son build his first piece of furniture, and was happy to see that good things had rubbed off on him.

When Hunter was younger we spent a lot of time together in the shop. I put a coping saw and spokeshave in his hand back then, and together we made all manner of things, mostly toys and other amusements. He was one of the few kids in Cub Scouts who did his own work on his Pine Wood derby car (although I will admit to fine-tuning the wheels and axles), and we still have and use the bird feeder, but when he discovered computers, he left woodworking behind.

He’s 17 now and needed a new desk (for his computer). I convinced him he could build a nicer one than we could afford to buy, and I convinced the other editors here that it would make a nice article for the magazine. The desk is done, the article is in progress, and it will appear in an upcoming issue of Popular Woodworking. As Hunter worked on the desk, we reminisced about the things he made when he was younger. At one point he mentioned that he was feeling like a “real” woodworker; he was enjoying the process and was comfortable with the machines and tools.

That was something I had noticed. He was taking to tools and procedures he hadn’t done before and catching on quickly. When I handed him a dovetail saw he stuck his index finger out as he grabbed it without thinking about it, and it only took him a minute or two to be able to use a block plane effectively. He recognized the band saw as an efficient version of the coping saw and had no trouble adapting to it. But the ultimate proof of his being a “real” woodworker came when we took the desk home and put it together in his room.

As we assembled the desk, he spotted a place on the inside where the finish had dripped and left a run. We hadn’t noticed it before because it was in a hidden spot, and no one would ever see it again. He ran his hand over it, picked at it a little with his fingernail and said, “I really ought to fix that.” Later on, as his mother gushed about how nice it was, he began to point out the flaws, small things that no one else would ever notice: an edge that could have used another minute of sanding; an area his brush had missed on the second coat; the place where he leaned the trim router just enough to leave a tiny divot in an otherwise-clean edge.

We told him to look at the big picture and not be such a perfectionist, but I knew that was useless advice. He picked up the way I and a lot of other woodworkers look at our work, and I don’t believe there is anything he can do about it. He is now the owner of a pretty nice desk. For as long as he has it, people will be impressed with the fact that he made it himself. And when he allows himself, he too will be impressed with his effort and justifiably proud of the result.

But that unseen drip will always bother him, and he will consider now and then what he would do differently, or more thoroughly, if he had the chance to make it again. And that is what makes him a “real” woodworker.

– Robert W. Lang

Monday, July 20, 2009 12:02:17 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [5] 

Thank you all. We received more than 150 entries in our “Caption the Photo Contest." But curses on those  who mentioned “The Macarena” – that  song has been stuck in my head for days. I don’t like that song. I never liked that song. (That said, it does look as if Glen could be practicing the dance…). And a special shout out to Farm100 who put a  more enjoyable song in my head with the “Pirates of Penzance” parody – very clever.

To the Shakespearean entries: Pandering! Pure pandering! (Which of course I enjoyed.) And to those that were perhaps a bit, well, too close to home (does this blog make me look fat?): I simply can’t condone that type of behavior…because I suspect I’m soon to be in the firing line.

A lot of the entries made me chuckle, some elicited a guffaw, but only a handful necessitated the cleaning of Diet Coke off my keyboard. And if you didn’t win, just chalk it up to my warped sense of humor.

Here’s my Top 10:

10. "Work fascinates me, I can think about it for hours."
– Jamie Ray

9. Senior Editor Glen D. Huey testing the structural integrity of local trees while memorizing his lecture material.
– Anonymous

8. Worn out after completing the macrame components, Glen tests the strength of the timber laminations in our hammock swing project.
– anonymous

7. During research for an upcoming article, Glen spent hours using this elaborate rig to test the strength properties of the oak board (shown in photo above his head).
– Lynn Hagans

6. "Oh, you wanted me to "Go find some hemlock!?" I thought you said "Go find a hammock." My bad.
– Raj

5. Glen demonstrates power tool safety by staying as far away from them as possible.
– Ken Copenhaver

4. "I'm not sleeping, I'm testing a new butt-laminate press."
– JJ Gray

3. "And here kids, we have the "supinus glenhueyus," also known as the Southern Yellow Supine. It's often planted as an ornamental and has little commercial value."
– RC

2. Welcome to the Acanthus Workshops wood carving course. Today we will sculpt the classic "Glen in Repose". Does everyone have the required 250lb block of White Pine and your chainsaws?
– David Pearce

1. (Who gets a free copy of our latest CD, "The Arts & Mysteries of Hand Tools"): "I'm so sorry I had to lay down for a spell, I saw someone sharpen a chisel - by hand no less - and got the most awful case of the vapors. Why I near fainted at the site of it! Savages"
– Josh (and Josh, if you're reading this, please send my your address!)

Again,  thanks for playing!

— Megan Fitzpatrick

Friday, July 17, 2009 2:02:09 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2] 

Thursday was my day at AWFS 2009 to stop by SawStop and catch up with Mark Pennington, marketing director. He shared a few things about SawStop’s new Professional Cabinet Saw (PCS) and provided some insight on SawStop table saws in general. (Did you know that a single turn of a SawStop handle moves the blade exactly 1/8" in height?)

The PCS has the same blade-stopping technology as other SawStop saws but the PCS is different from the Industrial Cabinet Saw in a few ways. First, the trunnion on the PCS is lighter than that on the Industrial saw and the dust shroud around the blade is also a molded plastic instead of cast iron. Those changes, along with a couple other things, add up to the Professional Cabinet saw being nearly 180 pounds lighter than its bigger brother.

Why did SawStop change from a cast iron dust shroud? That has to do with the increased dust collection levels achieved in the newer saw. By molding the shroud differently (something not easily accomplished in cast iron) and adjusting the blade guard (which SawStop is calling its "V-stream blade guard") the company has pushed dust collection to 99-percent efficient (there may be some difference when using a thin-kerf blade, but the drop would be minuscule).

To demonstrate just how effective the dust collection is due to the way the turbulent air around the blade is re-directed toward the rear of the guard, SawStop manufactured a dust collector that captured the dust from the cabinet in one section and the dust from the guard in another, and they are using a simple shop vacuum with 120 CFM to do the job. As cuts were made, you didn’t notice the flow going into the guard section of the collector until the wood covered the openings in the throat plate. Then you began to notice the increased efficiency.

Take a look at the new blade-guard design. The rods you see extending to the front are there as a limiter. If the stock you’re working doesn’t fit under the front piece attached to those rods, it won’t fit under the pawls either. And take a closer look at the pawls. You see two distinct sets. The smaller pawls are there for light cuts in thin stock while the larger pawls, the size we’re used to seeing, are for typical operations. When not needed, the larger pawls hook into the guard setup to stay out of the way.

Another creative innovation on the PCS is the quick-release function on the throat insert. SawStop has a bail-type handle that swings to engage a lock to hold the insert in place. Posts on the insert, at the rear, slide under catches affixed to the saw and the front is held by the bail lock.

If you want a Professional Cabinet saw from SawStop, there are two things to decide: Do you want a table saw with a 36" extension table ($2,899) or a 52" extension table ($2,999), and do you want a mobile base for your saw. That’s it. You can pre-order your saw now for delivery in August – just around the corner.

Thursday, July 16, 2009 11:39:00 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [5]