Popular Woodworking Editors' Blog

Yesterday, Glen Huey squeezed out equal amounts of Old Brown Glue and Titebond liquid hide glue onto two glass plates, then we walked around the offices accosting F+W employees, thrust the plates under their noses, and said, “Here – smell this!” We got some strange looks – especially when I whipped out the camera. But most people were game, even though Glen prefaced the sniff test with, “Which one smells worse?” Now if a stranger (we don’t get out of our area much) walked up to me with unidentified brown gooey stuff on a plate and said, “Which one smells worse,” I’m pretty sure I’d recoil and decline to participate. But just about everyone was game, and the results were surprising.

Glen is working on a liquid hide glue story for the Winter 2009 Woodworking Magazine (on newsstands Dec. 15), and one objection we’ve heard to hide glue is that it has a rather noticeable and pervasive scent (though that’s usually in reference to cooking hot hide glue). So, we were trying to get a consensus on which liquid hide glue was most offensive on an olfactory front, just for fun. Among the woodworking staff members, 100 percent picked Old Brown Glue as the most redolent.

We then took the test to the staffers for our art and writing magazines, a couple support staff people, IT and creative services. Among the non-woodworkers, Titebond was the smelliest. I don’t know what that tells us…except that if you’re on a date with a woodworker, go for eau de Titebond.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

Thursday, October 15, 2009 11:53:01 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [6] 

In antique period furniture, mahogany is king. Sure there are areas where walnut was a popular choice among wealthy patrons of the day, but for the most part, prior to the Chippendale period work in and around Philadelphia, mahogany was the wood that woodworkers wanted to work and the “well-to-do” desired. And swietenia macrophylla (Honduran mahogany) was, and is, the best mahogany.

Yes, we can get swietenia macrophylla today, but it’s not the same lumber used back in the day. In fact, any lumber used in the 1700s is different from what we have available today. Unless, that is, you get your hands on some of the original old-growth stock. Then you’ll experience the exorbitant number of growth rings per inch – I’m told the rings per inch in old-growth mahogany lumber can be around 40 – 60 (as high as 100) whereas the rings in mahogany harvested today, lumber that is considered very dense, stands near 25.

So how can you, as a reproduction furniture maker (or someone who wants to work with fantastic mahogany), get your hands on old-growth lumber? That’s what this entry is all about.

In 2007, a group of scuba divers, wood experts and businessmen formed a company in Belize to salvage exotic tropical logs from the country’s waterways. That company is Greener Logs Limited.

The logs being salvaged have been on the bottom of the waterways for up to 200 years and the supply is quite large. How large? In the day, trees were felled and held in the bends of the waterway to wait until a shipper, at the river’s end, was ready for a load. Then, the chains used to hold back the logs would be released and the logs traveled down the river to the shippers.

The owners of Greener Logs Limited came across Forest Service studies done in 1997 that compared original logger records to the shipper’s records to determine the number of trees lost along the journey. It's suspected that as much as 50 percent of the logs harvested never made it down the rivers to the coast. It's almost as if Mother Nature knew what was about to happen to the rain forests and created a stash for us to find centuries later.

Around August 8, 2009 the first 20' container of logs was imported by Greener Lumber, LLC and made its way into port in Alabama. On the next leg of the journey, the logs were trucked to Cardwell Lumber, a mill in Central Missouri, where eight mahogany logs (along with some sapodilla, santa maria and bullet tree logs) were sawn for lumber. The logs produced 1,400 board feet of mahogany and 3,700 board feet of lumber total. A single piece of fiddleback mahogany came in around 19" wide.

The lumber was actually steaming as it was sawn. That indicates that the logs shipped in at much higher moisture content than was expected, even after sitting out of the water since March. According to the sawyer, the drying process will be “low and slow” and it looks like mid to late October before the first load is coming out of the kiln.

Check back for more information. I’m getting regular weekly updates on this lumber. One of the questions I have, and I know you have, is about the cost of this lumber. I posed this question to my contact and am awaiting a response. I can tell you that you’ll have to get your hands deep into your pockets. I don’t expect this mahogany “gold” to be over-priced, just reasonably priced. And that’s not going to be $10 per board foot.

— Glen D. Huey

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 8:34:54 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [11] 

Late yesterday afternoon a group of guys from Porter-Cable and Delta stopped by the Popular Woodworking shop. After meeting the early arrivals and while standing in the F+W Media lobby waiting for others to show up, someone mentioned that they wanted to see the “Gluebo,” Megan’s LVL workbench that graces the cover of the November issue.

What’s funny about her bench is that folks don’t just want to see and study the bench, they have a penchant to stand – or should I say jump – on the bench to find out if it is as strong as Popular Woodworking makes it out to be.

In Valley Forge at the Woodworking in America conference, I can’t tell you the number of woodworkers that mentioned Megan’s video and her jumping on the bench (click here to watch the dance). In fact, one attendee was caught atop the bench with camera phone in hand asking that I take his picture.

The guys from PC and Delta, here on a fact-finding mission and on their way to visit a couple different shops and woodworkers, took their turn on the now-famous Gluebo bench. As you can see in the photo, the bench took their best shot and prevailed, but a couple of the guys felt a bit of swaggering.

LVL Bench - 3 (or is that 6?), woodworkers - 0

(For all the management-type folks at Porter-Cable and Delta, we really had to coax the guys to jump up on the bench.)

— Glen D. Huey

Friday, October 09, 2009 1:30:12 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1] 

The big buzz in my mailbox this past week has been the “Finishes That Pop” DVD (click here to see more on the DVD and click here if you would like to purchase a copy). Overall, the comments have been positive, but a couple newbie woodworkers think the dye, oil and shellac process is too involved. (And forget about tossing glaze into the mix.) They are looking for a finish that’s dead simple. Maybe this is why so many woodworkers finish the first few projects with a couple coats of oil.

Included on the DVD is the oil/varnish method that I use for some of my pieces. To me, this is a dead-simple method that anyone can use. It’s a mixture of varnish, boiled linseed oil and turpentine or mineral spirits. But what about woodworkers who work in small shops or even in apartments, and those that are simply smelly-finish averse? Even if the oil/varnish mixture I use isn’t as involved, there’s still a nasty smell (although some do like it) due to the turpentine or mineral spirits in the recipe.

But if you grab most cans marked “_____ oil” (fill in whatever name) off the shelf of your woodworking or home-center store, you might as well use the oil/varnish mixture I concoct and show using on the DVD. I’m willing to bet that most of those oil products purchased are much more than simply oil. To get an oil finish that’s not manufactured with a solvent of some sort, reach for pure oil, 100-percent tung oil or boiled linseed oil.

With any oil, most woodworkers apply three or four coats and call it done. But with such a small number of layers of finish, the surface is flat and dull – if not as the piece is complete, certainly in a year or so. And there’s little surface protection.

But there is a group out there that doesn’t stop with such a small number of coats when oiling a project. I have heard rumors these woodworkers exist. If you’re a member of the group, please raise your hand.

From what I hear, many from this group work on gun stocks. It seems gun-stock refinishers know the secret about tung oil and boiled linseed oil finishes – furniture makers, not so much. The secret appears to be multiple layers, as many as 25 – 30 coats. With that amount of build, the finish has a nice sheen, is water resistant and durable.

One person I talked with has had this finish on his gun stock since 1982. He admits to the amount of work – he says the process is just as therapeutic as planing a surface with hand tools (boring!). And he admits his stock has dents, but there are no cracks or crazing. Best of all, he doesn’t agree with the often-reported application process described in articles and on the Internet: One coat of oil a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year then once a year after that. In fact, he hasn’t added to, touched up or re-coated his gun stock at all and it looks great.

If you are one of these multi-layer oil finishers, please take a minute to comment on your process. And if you’re near the Cincinnati area, drop me a photo of your piece. I need a good shot for an upcoming article – I doubt I have enough time to properly oil-finish a piece before my deadline.

— Glen D. Huey

Friday, October 09, 2009 1:23:22 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [3] 

I'm the smallest person in our shop, yet I inevitably gravitate toward the largest projects. For the February 2009 issue of Popular Woodworking, I built a Shaker-inspired stepback that serves as a flat-screen entertainment center. Then, I decided it looked lonely in the living room, and built a Shaker-inspired case-on-case shelving unit with two drawers in the bottom. That one will be in the December issue of Popular Woodworking (which hits newsstands in the middle of November). Both of them are 7-1/2 feet tall (which is key, because it means I don't have to dust the top – no one can see it).

But Chris is currently building a 13'-long walnut bench, which is a replica of an original from the White Water Shaker Village meeting house. The project will be featured in the Winter 2009 issue of Woodworking Magazine (on newsstands in mid-December). And after watching him wrestle with 13' boards (and serving as his outfeed table), I think I'll stick to 8' and under. Chris, the large-project title is yours.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

Thursday, October 08, 2009 2:27:30 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [4] 

Above is a brief video trailer I put together drawing from the footage found in the new DVD "Finishes That Pop."

In this DVD, Glen takes you through his entire process of creating a show-stoping finish. Not only will you learn his method, but you'll also learn the shortcuts to perform this process more efficiently. Glen teaches you what you need to know about choosing and mixing aniline dyes, when you should apply boiled linseed oil, whether or not to invest in a spray gun, the secrets of adding age to your piece, and the best ways to rub out a finish – to name just a few. Plus, there's even a bonus segment on mixing your own oil/varnish blend.

All-in-all, Glen makes his finishing procedure extremely accessible in this easy-to-view video format. So if you're wanting to take your finishing to the next level order this DVD from the Woodworker's BookShop.

– Drew DePenning

Tuesday, October 06, 2009 2:16:29 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [3] 

Among the many entertaining and informative activities at the Woodworking in America: Hand Tools & Techniques conference was the Hand Tool Olympics, run by the Society of American Period Furniture Makers. In a booth set up in the marketplace, attendees got to test their hand-tool skills against competitors – or learn a new skill. I, for example, had never ripped a piece of rough lumber until this weekend. Thanks to Dean Jansa and Mike Siemsen (who were staffing the booth at the time along with Mark Arnold), I now know how…though I need a great deal of practice. I also saw a young man of perhaps 12 years old cut his first set of dovetails, with a helping hand from Dean – and the dovetails were quite good (which goes to show what you can do when you have no fear of failure).

First, thanks to the event sponsors, who provided tools for the participants to use, and for the winners:
• Lee Valley and Veritas for the low-angle jointer planes for the Shooting Sports
• 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.

And now, the champions and raffle winners in each category:
One-meter Dash (a 36” rip cut through 1 x12): Champion Roger Wicks; raffle winner Jeff Hildebrand
Shooting Sports (square a ripped edge with a jointer plane): Champion Lowell Johnson; raffle winner Paul Dzioba
Crosscut Extravaganza (crosscut a piece of 1 x 12): Champion Paul Arnold; raffle winner David Gilbert
Brace Yourself for a Hole in One (bore a ¾ hole in a piece of 2 x): Champion Bryce Gardner; raffle winner Emily Bonham
Pins First or Tails First (hand-cut a 3-pin dovetail joint): Champion Warren Mickley; raffle winner Andrew Hartley
Greco-Roman Tenons (3"-long, 3/4"-thick tenon on 2x4): Champion Graham Hughes; raffle winner Howard Steier.

And yes, that's Arts & Mysteries author Adam Cherubini in the picture, trying his hand at the One-meter Dash. Even had Adam been eligible to win, Roger Wicks beat him handily.

Thanks again to our Hand Tool Olympic sponsors, and thanks to all of you who came to the conference. And for those of you who couldn't make it this time, there are more stories and pictures to come.

— Megan Fitzpatrick

Monday, October 05, 2009 12:41:35 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [4]