Popular Woodworking Editors' Blog

Spoken in my best radio voice: “You can win fabulous prizes selected especially for you!” Yeah! I know. Keep the day job. But the words couldn’t be any truer.

The Woodworking in America – Hand Tools and Techniques Conference is just around the corner and one of the major portions of the conference is the Hand Tool Olympics. If you were in St. Charles, I hope you participated. I know you’ve read about the events (get more information here). And I hope you all plan to compete while in Valley Forge.

Just as in St. Charles, the top-ranked individuals in each event win a prize and the second of the two donated prizes is awarded randomly by drawing – all you need to do to be eligible to win is compete. It cannot be any easier than that.

What we won’t do this time during the banquet is cut into any primo chow time or chew up any of St. Roy’s keynote address time calling a zillion names. We’ll announce the prize awardees and they are welcome to come up and receive their prizes. (Random-drawing winners are welcome to pick up their prizes at the Olympic's booth during the Sunday portion of the show.)

Special thanks for donations go to:
•    Lee Valley and Veritas for the low-angle jointer planes for the Shooting Sports event.
•    Mike Siemsen School of Woodworking for the rip saws (sharpened by Mark Harrell at Technoprimitives) for the One-Meter Dash and for the crosscut saws (also sharpened by Mr. Harrell) for the Crosscut Extravaganza event.
•    Mid-West Tool Collectors Association for the 10"-sweep braces for the Brace Yourself For a Hole in One event.
•    Bad Axe Tool Works for the backsaws used for Greco-Roman Tenons event.
•    Di legno Woodshop Supply for the marking knives and mallets for the Pins First or Tails First event.

Practice. Practice. Practice. The events begin this week.

Additionally, this conference has Hands-on Bench Rooms where you can spend time with the seminar presenters. Stop in to get more in-depth information, get help to improve your techniques or simply to rub elbows. And we encourage you to bring your hand tools along – there’s nothing better than to get guidance using your own tools. But if that’s just not possible, we’ll have some hand tools available for you to work with.

Thank you again Lee Valley and Veritas. The company has graciously supplied the conference with a number of hand planes of all types with which to work and supplied dovetail saws for use during the conference. And to the Robert Larson Company for supplying the bench rooms with chisels used to practice dovetailing with Roy Underhill. (Anyone know a bandage supplier I can contact?).

And thanks also to Ron Herman who is not only a presenter at the conference, but who is supplying many saw vises so you can set up and sharpen your saws while attending his bench-room session. And of course, our thanks go out to Geoffery and Suzette Noden for supplying the conference with a number of the Noden Adjust-A-Bench benches.

— Glen D. Huey

Monday, September 28, 2009 1:56:23 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0] 

You can tell from the above photo that our Unisaw has gone mobile. The base came in last week and I finally found the time to put the base together.

It’s super-easy to assemble. A couple bolts hold the stationary wheels in place, add the two clips to the end of the base in which the extension table legs sit, then attach the swivel caster to the foot apparatus and the entire assembly to the frame, then you’re ready to rock. That’s when you’ll need help.

With the joke, “How many editors does it take to …” knocking about in my head, it took three editors to get the table saw situated into the mobile base. After positioning the base under the extension table and tight to the saw bottom, we tilted the saw up, lifting at the table legs. With enough clearance, Megan Fitzpatrick slid the base under one edge of the saw and Bob Lang and I slowly allowed the unit to settle down onto the mobile base.

All that was left was to wrestle the saw into its base location. Megan held the mobile base from moving as we jockeyed the unit in place. With a bit of a thump, the table saw nestled into the mobile base.

The final step to secure the two units together is to add the J-hooks at the extension legs (see the photo). This is a bang-up method to hold the legs to the unit – fast, cheap and easy. Someone at Delta was thinking. Nice job.

The mobile base works great. If you have the new Unisaw and need to move it around your shop – if only to sweep up the dust every now and again – I would get the mobile base. Units are shipping at this time. The base to work with the 36" extension (what we have in the shop) is $160 and the longer 52" base is priced at $240.

By the way, the variation you see on the base near the extension legs is nothing more than plastic that I removed as I finished.

— Glen D. Huey

Monday, September 28, 2009 1:38:48 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [3] 

Glen Huey is picking up a trailer tomorrow morning, then we’re loading the workbenches up for the trip to Valley Forge, Pa., for the Woodworking in America: Hand Tools & Techniques conference Oct. 2-4. We’re bringing Christopher Schwarz’s Roubo and Holtzapffel benches, my Gluebo and Bob Lang’s 21st-Century Workbench. First, though, we have to clean them off. (I was going to pick on Bob here – that’s his bench pictured above – but frankly, mine’s not a whole lot cleaner at the moment).

There’s still time to register for the full conference (and there are still a few $100 shopping sprees for the WoodworkersBookShop.com available for full-conference registrants). But if you have only a limited amount of time, you can purchase Single Session passes on site for $35 each. That means you can spend an hour or three in the marketplace (for which admission is free), then take in a class with Roy Underhill, Toshio Odate, Chris Schwarz, Mike Wenzloff or any of the other hand-tool gurus we have lined up for the conference. Check out the schedule here.

We hope to see you in Valley Forge. Now I’m off to clean my bench.

– Megan Fitzpatrick

Monday, September 28, 2009 1:00:08 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [4] 

My favorite drafting instructor in design school was a histrionic misfit known as Wild Bill. He didn’t pull any punches and tried his best to prepare us for the real world. When we came to descriptive geometry, he let us know that by the end of the quarter at least a third of us would no longer be design majors; we’d have to switch to photography or fine arts if we didn’t get it. His favorite dramatic device when he caught someone making a mistake was to refer to a scene in Repo Man. “Smoking boots!” he would shout, “you’re nothing but a pair of smoking boots!”

It’s a powerful image, and there have been many times in the years since when what seemed like a good plan somehow went horribly wrong. One of the differences between woodworking and science fiction is that there can be a significant time lag between “Give me the keys” and vaporization of everything except your Red Wings. If you read the Woodworking magazine weblog, you’re probably familiar with the saga of the Chinese stool that has been going on since last spring.

The stool looks simple enough, and in many ways it is; three legs connected by three stretchers support a round seat. We have an antique example that we dissected with a dead blow hammer, and the construction isn’t quite as simple as it seems. The center of the stretcher assembly is the center of the triangle between them and that causes the stretchers to twist a few degrees where they meet the legs. It’s a fun project because you can’t rely on any of the usual things you use for reference. Nothing is square, the only things certain are an imaginary plumb line through the center and an imaginary circle about 9 inches off the ground.

You can’t hold one part against another to get a length until all the joints are cut. But you have to know the length to cut the joints. Like the stretcher to leg joint, I’m a little twisted and I think figuring out how to do stuff like this is fun. I came up with a plan and made one stool to be sure I had the procedure down. It was a little sloppier than I wanted it to be, but it went together and it’s a marvelous piece of engineering work. There needs to be some wiggle room for it all to fit together, but there’s a point where all the parts interlock into a strong structure.

I started in on the second stool, shooting photos as I went for the upcoming magazine article. And in the midst of it, I made a fatal error. Instead of transferring a layout mark from the bottom of the assembled stretchers to the top, I flipped the assembly over. Three angled through mortises and three compound angled tenons later I tried to dry fit the stool. Like all great bonehead moves it took a while to figure out what was wrong. The stretchers fit together nicely. The legs fit into the seat, and the ends of the stretchers fit the legs. Six of the seven parts would fit, but there isn’t a hammer big enough in Ohio or China to make the whole thing fit together.

This also happened at the classic time to discover a mistake, Friday afternoon. At two o’clock I was telling myself I’d have the stool together by 3:30 or 4 and I'd get home early. At five o’clock I realized something wasn’t right and at quarter to six I knew what it was and headed for home in disgust. The only solution was to remake all the stretchers. At least I’d only ruined the smallest parts this time, not the seat or the legs.

Remaking the stretchers when I got back to work on Tuesday wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be over the weekend. They say that if you learn something by reading it or hearing it you need to have it repeated six or seven times for it to sink in, but the things you learn by making a mistake stick with you right away. In woodworking there is always something new to be learned.

I know that you, the reader never do things like this, but perhaps you have a good goof up story about a friend, neighbor or coworker. You can share it by leaving a comment.

--Bob Lang

Thursday, September 24, 2009 5:07:47 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [10] 

Our November issue is on it's way to subscribers, and will be showing up on newsstands in a couple weeks. If you're a SketchUp user, you can get a peek at the projects at the Popular Woodworking 3D Warehouse collection. These new additions bring the total of free models online to 158, and Google has added some new features to the 3D Warehouse.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009 11:48:00 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0] 

The “Gluebo” has been put through its workholding paces lately as I’ve been working on a 33" x 84-1/2" screen door for my house. I stayed after work on Friday to rout a 1/2" x 1/2" rabbet in which the screen panels will seat, and my bench is plenty long enough to securely clamp the door between the end vise and a bench dog to hold it in place for routing. I did, I admit, have a frisson of trepidation about routing on my new bench before we get to show it off at Woodworking in America next week (routing is not my strong suit; I’m always fearful of tipping the router base and ruining my workpiece, the bench, my hands…). But, because the long edges of the door hung off the sides of the bench, I didn’t have too much fear until I got to the ends. But no problem – I just moved slowly and carefully, and all went well.

Also, while I’ve been vocal about wanting to move my bench against a wall (it would be nice to have easily accessible hanging tool storage), it was easy to walk around the bench as I routed; I didn't have to move the bench, or reposition my work. (Now that I’m done with that though, I’m eyeing a wall space again).

Then, I clamped the screen door into the leg vise with support from the board jack to trim the tenons and wedges flush at the through-mortises. Rock solid.

And as you can see, the large bench also came in handy for painting; I used Painter’s Pyramids to lift the door off the benchtop, and again was able to walk around the entire thing to easily get a coat on. Now it just needs a few more coats of paint to help it defy the elements.

When it came to attaching screen to my mitered frames, I was able to secure the interior of the frame across a bench dog and the adjustable “Wonder Pup” from Veritas, which allowed me to stretch the screen across the frame for stapling, without having to worry about flexing the frame as I pulled the screen snug.

All in all, I have nothing but love for my new LVL bench…except that it looks “pink” in a lot of photos. It’s actually a deep brown/red – the color of dried blood (I bloodied my knuckles on the “Pet Screen” – that stuff is seriously tough – and briefly thought about wiping it onto one of the legs. But I opted for a clean shop rag).

The bench will be featured in the November 2009 issue of Popular Woodworking (mailing to subscribers now, and on newsstands the second week of October). You can see a video tour of the bench here. Plus, we’ll be hauling it to Valley Forge for Woodworking in America: Hand Tools and Techniques, Oct 2-4 — and we've extended the "Early-Bird Discount through Sept. 27.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

Monday, September 21, 2009 1:30:55 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [10] 

If you look at the video I made about buying lumber, you can see how I approach that task. If the piece were more complicated, I would have had my cut list in hand. The most important part of the video is at the end. I have all the raw materials I need, I’ve checked them against my list to make sure I have enough and then I buy an extra board. That board is still kicking around the shop, but it was money well spent. Driving to the lumberyard in the middle of a project to get one more piece of wood isn’t an experience you want to repeat.

If I’m not picking the lumber piece by piece, I buy way too much, often two or three times as much as I think I need. I have a coffee table in my living room that I made about 25 years ago. I remember picking through 100BF of lumber to make a top that is about 5 square feet. I still enjoy this table because I did a great job matching the three pieces I glued together for the top. If I had put it together from mismatched pieces to save a buck, I wouldn’t feel the same way. As I pick pieces for specific parts, I mark them up with a lumber crayon or chalk to remind me where they go. I look for different grain patterns for tops and panels than I do for frame parts or legs. It would be nutty to think you could plot this out before you see the lumber you have to work with.

I cut things to rough lengths and widths before I head for the jointer and planer. I like to leave a lot of extra length, but I’ll come pretty close in width if I want a specific piece in a specific place. How much extra is entirely subjective and once again, it mostly depends on the character of the wood on hand. I usually mill in two steps, leaving everything too thick and too wide for a few days. When I do the final milling, I’m picky about thicknesses. Thickness has more of an effect on other parts than many people realize. If you buy lumber surfaced by someone else, you need to check the thickness and assess the impact on the size of other parts before you start complaining about an inaccurate cut list.

When I have my parts edged and surfaced, I rip parts to width, but generally leave pieces about 1/4" too wide and several inches too long. I wait as long as I can to cut to a finished width. I like to run one edge over the jointer before ripping. I set the depth of cut on the joiner to remove 1/32", so if I have a part that needs to be 3" wide I run one edge over the joiner, rip at the table saw to 3 1/32", then remove the saw marks with one last pass on the joiner. If I have a large number of parts, I’ll send them as a bunch on edge through the planer. That removes the table saw marks and makes them all exactly the same size. This takes some extra work, but it assures me that I have parts that are really straight and accurately sized.

The extra length also stays as long as possible. I usually make a practice joint or two, and I like to use stock the exact thickness and width of my finished parts. This is where I use the extra length, and often I’ll cut an extra piece or two for testing or emergencies. Most of the time the distance between joints is more important than the overall length of the pieces. I usually make a storyboard and after I’ve rough-cut the stock I refer to that rather than measure, or I mark directly from the work as it progresses.

The cut list is an important tool in the process of making a piece of furniture, but like most tools it should be used at the right time and in the right way. When I made kitchen cabinets, I went ahead and cut all the parts ahead of time. In that situation, that procedure made sense; the bugs were worked out of the process and I was making something over and over again. When I’m building a piece of furniture, I’m essentially making a prototype and I get better results when I leave my options open for as long as possible.

--Robert W. Lang

Monday, September 21, 2009 6:45:28 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0] 

The major effort involved in building a piece of furniture is problem solving and establishing a sequence for the work. After that, it’s almost all cutting to a line and repairing the places where I missed cutting to the line. I like to plan my work because I don’t always make good design or engineering decisions at the workbench, and my skills at adding and subtracting seem to disappear when I step into the shop. My approach is colored by years of trying to make a profit, but I think building efficiently is still a worthy goal even when I’m building something just for fun.

I almost always draw a plan and develop a cut list, but what I draw for my own use is a lot less developed than what I draw and detail for publication. Drawing and planning are problem-solving tools, and when I have the problem solved I can start building. Figuring out what size to make the parts is one of the most important steps to understanding how a piece of furniture goes together, and I don’t think we make the best use of available space in the magazine when we publish a cut list. We’re serving up frozen fish sticks for dinner instead of letting our readers learn how to cook a rainbow trout. Of course if you want the rainbow trout you also need to learn how to catch, gut and clean the thing.

A cut list isn’t the statement of facts it appears to be, it is a series of if/then statements. If the sides of a box are really 3/4" thick, then the length of the pieces in between will be X. If the width of the stiles is what is called for in the plan, then the rails in between will be the distance named in the drawing. If you miss the mark on one of these numbers early on, then you set off a chain reaction, and turn the remaining parts into a row of falling dominoes. It’s easy to think that a bunch of little errors will cancel each other out, but the opposite is true. All those little errors will congregate at the most visible place on the finished piece they can find. Once there, they will hold a party to mock you.

Making a cut list is rather tedious, but it isn’t that difficult, and it’s an opportunity to build a piece mentally before you begin building it for real. I look at the drawing, and start with the largest parts or sub assemblies and work my way down. I compare distances in the drawing with sizes of parts and make sure that these numbers agree. I consider the joints that hold the parts together and how that will affect the overall sizes of the pieces.

One of the advantages of making your own cut list is that you can adapt it to the way you work. When you use a cut list from a book or magazine, parts that fit inside other parts, like doors or drawers, are sized the way the guy who made the list works. There could be gaps you could drive a truck through at the end, or everything might be too big so you can trim it down. These aren’t necessarily errors; they are different ways of approaching a task.

And there is the matter of fractions and human errors. Publishers don’t like to see anything smaller than 1/16" in print; so in many drawings and lists numbers are rounded off. That’s OK if you’re the one doing the rounding and you know what’s going on. It’s frustrating if you’re following another person's plan and you end up long or short. There are also many ways for errors to sneak into a published drawing or list. Cut lists don’t automatically appear, generated by an infallible computer. This is the work of human beings, and the process to get from an accurate CAD drawing to the printed page is more complicated than it appears.

Even if I’m working from a cut list I’ve made, on a project I designed, I compare the completed list to the drawing once or twice before I begin. If the project is complex, I make a story pole, to use a both as a reference while I work and as one more place to double-check the numbers. Lately I’ve been using SketchUp to make combination detail drawings and parts lists like this. It would take far too long to do that in another program, and we don’t have room to do it in print, but it’s a nice way to organize information you will need to build.

The cut list by itself doesn’t have much value. Paired with a drawing it is incredibly valuable. The exercise of making your own, or at least checking a published list against a drawing is that it makes you go through the building process before you get to the shop. You have to examine the parts and consider how they go together, and what you need to do to each part to make it fit in the whole. When you get to the shop and start building for real you can do so confidently. If you depend on someone else to make the list, you're missing an opportunity to learn, understand and develop your skills and confidence.

--Robert W. Lang

Sunday, September 20, 2009 11:10:53 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [6] 

I've been (slowly) working on a mortise-and-tenon screen door for the front of my Victorian house; I wrote a few days ago about the construction. Late on Friday afternoon, I routed a 1/2" x 1/2" rabbet in which to seat the screen inserts, and I put together the screen frames. The plan is to go into the office/shop tomorrow and paint the frames, then tack on the screening (I've no idea how to do that – I'm leaning toward wire staples, but if you have suggestions...).

First, however, I thought I'd best pull off the existing aluminum screen door and framing, and see what horrors were hidden underneath. The last few owners of this house did some, uh, interesting installation and repair jobs; I'm always bemused/shocked/terrified/disheartened by what I uncover when I pull up carpets, replace trim, etc. Under the screen-door framing, I fully expected to find rotting and/or missing trim; terrible, multiple attempts at hinge mortises; and who knows what else. I was prepared to spend at least a day prepping and repairing the jamb before I could even think about fitting and installing my new door.

A former owner, the guy who installed the aluminum screen door, is a bonehead (and Steve B., If you're reading this, I'd say the same to your face). Down one side, he used nails instead of screws, and in the intervening years, said nails got covered with eleventy billion layers of caulk. Ugh. But once I scraped off the caulk and levered the nails out from the backside of the framing, I was able to get at them with nail pullers. That, however, is going to be the worst part of the job. 

The original trim is in remarkably good shape; I won't have to match or repair any moulding at all. And, on the decorative moulding there's only a layer of two of...shellac? varnish? so the lines are still crisp; a gentle scraping is all it will take before I'm ready to paint.

Now I'm just hoping the new door goes in with as little trouble as the old one came out.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

Saturday, September 19, 2009 1:02:44 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1]