Suggestions to Santa Claus

Most of the people who give me Christmas gifts have no idea what to buy me for my shop. In past years my wife has purchased a major shop machine (lathe, joiner, Leigh jig, etc). One of those machines and a few small catalogue items and my Christmas was complete. Now I am at a stage where I really don't need any more machines. So I will start a list of some smaller, but not necessarily inexpensive, wood working items that I would enjoy having.

#1 on my list is a good low-angle block plane.

Woodcraft sells Groz block planes. They have a heavy cast iron body, accurately ground surfaces, lateral adjustment levers, and black enamel finish.
The Low Angle Plane has a 1-3/8" iron set at 12° and an adjustable
Groz Low Angle Block Plane, catalogue #146074 Price:$27.50. They can be ordered directly from http://www.woodcraft.com/

The other example of this same kind of low angle block plane is made by Lie-Nielsen. This is said to be the best brand of planes available - and the price suggests that they are right.

They feature sturdy ductile cast iron bodies and 1-3/8" by 1/8" thick blades.
The surface ground body is perfectly flat and a movable shoe allows precise, easy control of the mouth opening for adaptation to the work at hand.
The bronze cap iron comfortably fits the hand and is tensioned with a 1-1/2" brass spin wheel. The low angle iron is set at 12-1/2º. Low Angle Adjustable Mouth Block Plane These can be purchased through Woodcraft or directly from the maker at http://www.lie-nielsen.com/catalog.php?grp=1221. It is significantly cheaper to buy this plane from Lie-Nielsen

Finally, another superior brand is Veritas from Lee Valley. This unit is slightly more in cost, $145.00, catalogue number 05P22.01

I would be grateful to Santa for any one of these. Don't feel too trapped because I will make other suggestions of other gifts later.

Big time shop cleanup and reorganization

This weekend I spent all day Saturday and half of Sunday in my work shop cleaning, reorganizing, moving, installing - everything to get the shop to a state that it is enjoyable to work in.

I finally trimmed all of the cherry bowl blanks I salvaged from the neighbor's fallen cherry tree. Now I will store them for awhile. This picture shows all the blanks loaded and ready to go into the basement storage room. Each of the blanks is coated with Anchor Seal - a waxy liquid that protects the end grain from drying too quickly. Most of the blanks are in the 5" to 6 1/2" range with two that are 9" blanks. At least one of the finished bowls will have to go back to our neighbor as a thank you for letting me have the wood and as a reminder of the tree that fell during our visit from Hurricane Ike.

I did a tremendous amount of moving equipment around, putting a new butcher block counter top on one of my work benches and creating a second workbench for my sanding equipment. The place still looks messy but I think I have things headed toward neatness and ease of use. More pictures of the shop next week.

The only wood working that I did this weekend was to do my first veneering. I had purchased but never used a unit that uses a hand pump to create the vacuum. Since I had been to a class recently that glossed rather quickly over veneering, I wanted to try out the unit that I had. The veneer on both sides is taped to the plywood. There is a plastic mesh sleeve that covers the work piece and all of this is sealed inside a heavy plastic bag. The hand pump quickly removes the air and puts pressure on the work piece to help adhere the veneer to the plywood. The piece is the lid panel for a box. The panel is veneered with bird's eye maple on both sides of 1/4" plywood. The insert will sit in a frame of mahogany. It will be next week before I can return to check out the veneering to see if it is ready for installation in the mahogany frame. More pictures on this later.

Box Making 1, 2, and 3

I completed a Woodcraft three part Box Making class last night. I brought home a semi-completed box that I built over the three classes. We made a box with a veneered panel - one side mahogany and the other side walnut - mahogany lid frame and box sides, and walnut splines.
Each of the three classes was from 6:30PM to 9:00PM. The first night we concentrated on the lid. The instructor, Mike Novak, covered veneering the panel, and we cut the dado in the lid for the panel, sized the panel and glued the box lid together. The second night we installed splines in the corners of the lid, cut dovetails in the box sides, and sized and cut the box bottom. The final night we used hand planes to remove the excess wood on the splines and the dovetail ends and planed the box and lid tops and bottoms. We also cut and installed dividers for the interior of the box.
I did learn new things and did some things for the first time. I have used my own Leigh dovetail jig to make many boxes and drawers but I had never added splines to mitered corners and had never used the different planes in so many ways.
At the same time I left the class with some mixed feelings. I wanted to learn to use veneer and not just talk about it but I realize that it would have been a time consuming step to actually do within the class. I disliked the mixture of mitered corners for the lid and through dovetail corners for the box but I accept that the real purpose of this class is to acquaint people with various woodworking methods and to sell merchandise. I came home with a box that I really don't want to finish because I am assuming that the mixture of mahogany and walnut will not be pleasing but I hope I am wrong.
My wife, Mary Lou, strongly suggests that I finish the box and not let it sit undone. What I decided to do was remake the lid with a combination of woods that I think would be more pleasing. I am intending to use birds eye maple on both the top and bottom of the lid panel instead of the walnut/mahogany. I will then complete the box, put on a finish, and add the hinges.
I know a lot of my dissatisfaction comes from the issues above but are also influenced by two time issues. This class had seven participants and every step became a "do your thing and then wait" for six others to do theirs. There was entirely too much time wasted. The second time issue for me was the drive. I spent almost exactly the same amount of time going to and from each class as I spent in class. I have usually enjoyed the Woodcraft classes from this same instructor and others but I think I learned that the class structure and time are important considerations in taking a class in the future.

It's back!

My Sorby Spindlemaster gouge arrived in the mail. What a beautiful job they did in restoring the honed bevel that I had mistakenly sharpened away. All in all it was an easy experience: Sorby responded to my emails the same day and graciously agreed to repair my gouge at no charge if I paid the shipping costs. They confirmed the receipt of my gouge and contacted me directly for the credit card information. My costs to ship to Sorby was significantly under $10. Their costs to me for shipping back to me came to $32.
Two important conclusions: even with the shipping costs I paid about half the cost of a new gouge and if was nice to deal with a company that helped a "newbie" learn a valuable lesson about sharpening.

Turned wood hats

Keim Lumber had a demonstrator at their Charm Days sale this past weekend. Powermatic Lathes sponsored the appearance of JoHannes Michelson.
My brother, Ronnie, was visiting from Texas and we went to see what turned out to be the last half hour of a three hour demonstration. JoHannes turned a hat made of red maple and added a decorated band using ebony and to color the banding.
Michelson's website contains an extensive photo gallery of the steps he uses to turn a complete hat. He uses some unique adaptations (a fluorescent bulb attached through the head stock to illuminate the interior of the hat while he makes the finishing cuts on the top of the hat. He is certainly an accomplished turner who can easily turn while answering questions from the audience. He enjoyed poking fun at some of the mistakes he has made while he has been hat-making. It was an enjoyable and inspiring experience for me. I appreciated seeing him in action and was challenged by his skills to try more on my own turning.

Turning Cigar Pens

I bought ten Woodcraft #147158 cigar pen kits to make for Christmas presents. I have completed seven and have three to go. Each pen is from a different type of wood so the pens take on a very different look even though they are all the same shape.

I had one failure due to attaching the pen pieces in the wrong order. The first six successful pens are pictured at the left. The woods from left to right are walnut, yellowheart, purpleheart, koa, rosewood, and sugi.

The kits appear to be quality pieces with a gold finish. The instructions leave a little to be desired. Woodcraft encloses generic instructions for pen turning and then a sheet specifically for the cigar pen with instructions for mounting the bushings on the mandrel and then for assembling the various components. Some specific diagrams would be helpful since some of the generic diagrams are confusing.

I'll finish the last three pens and then return to bowl turning. My inventory of bowl blanks has mushroomed with the addition of the recent cherry green wood.