Montana Trip

My wife and I just got back from a trip to Montana. My wife’s parents have a house on Flathead Lake, and we try to go over there each summer. I love the Northwest and can’t imagine living anywhere else, but Montana would be a really close second for me. It was a little cloudy the few days we were there, so we didn’t get any good pictures this year. Here is a picture I took a year or two ago, from the porch their house. It’s really hard waking up this view each morning ☺.

We didn’t stay quite as long as we planned. Both of the parents caught a cold just before we arrived. We hung around for a couple days, but then decided to head home before we caught it. It was still a good trip despite being cut short. We still have a few days left on our vacation, so we will spend it at home. I hope to get some shop time after a few tasks that need to be done around the house.

Small Hall Table – Initial Design Idea

Now that I have finally finished my workbench, it’s time to move on to projects that have been waiting for me to finish the workbench.

We have needed a small hall table that will be near our front door. It needs to fit a specific area, which isn’t very wide. The table needs to be less than 20” wide. It will be a place to drop keys and mail. So it doesn’t need too large. I thought about some of the different design options. I wanted it to be clean looking, not too decorative. I looked through a few design books and kept an eye out in furniture sale fliers for design ideas. End the end, I started to settle on a half round table with tapered legs.

I spent some time in SketchUp to rough out my design. The top will be about 20” in diameter. I haven’t settle on the height yet, but it will be around 32” high. I also think I will use Cherry for the project, but it will depend on what I can find at my suppliers. I’d like to find a nice piece of figured Cherry for the top.

I gave some thought to the type of joinery I would use, to attach the legs to the apron. I was thinking I could use mortise and tenon joints for the back legs. Then I thought I could use sliding dovetails. Beside the joinery I choose, this project won’t be that complicated. I’ve never used sliding dovetails, so I think I will challenge myself and give it a try. For the front middle leg I will use a bridle joint.

The other challenge for this project will be the apron. I plan to make the half round shape, using bentwood lamination. This will also be a new experience for me. I’ve seen this done a lot but have never tried it.

Because some of these techniques are new to me, I will be trying them out on some less expensive wood first. I’ll create the apron and a leg or two out of Poplar. This will allow me to practice cutting the sliding dovetails, and to see how the bentwood lamination behaves.

To help cut the male end of the sliding dovetails, I looked around for dovetail planes. I really couldn’t find what I was looking for. I new Phil over at Philly Planes made different kinds of wooden hand planes. I sent him an email asking if he made dovetail planes, and I was happy to hear back that he does. I’ve got my name on his to-do list. It will be a few weeks before he can get to it, but that just gives me time to work on getting the test pieces put together.

Best In The West

Last weekend a woodworking buddy and I headed off to the Best In The West - Tool Extravaganza. This is a tool collectors gathering hosted by the Pacific Northwest Tool Collectors (PNTC). The event only happens every other year and moves between Washington and Oregon. It’s a 4-day event but we only went on Saturday, for the main tool sale and auction. Even though I don’t consider myself a collector, it was a lot fun.

I went there looking for some good user tools, but ended up walking away without buying anything. For me I was quite overwhelmed and really couldn’t make up my mind. I really haven’t done much research on older tools, so I really wasn’t sure what I was looking at. I could tell the different between the user tools and the collectable tools. The collectable tools were always in the hundreds and thousands of dollars range! I went looking for hammers, saws and eggbeater style hand drills, but for some reason those were in short supply. Maybe those aren’t as collectable as other tools.

I always knew woodworkers and now tool collectors are some of the nicest people. The people at this event lived up to this reputation. Everyone was very nice and answered all the questions of a couple newbies.

The other part of the event was the tool collection displays. This is worth the trip even if you don’t buy anything. These collections were amazing, I should have spent more time over there. I snapped a few pictures, but the pictures really don’t do them justice. If you ever have a chance to go to an event like this, I highly recommend it.

At the end of the day, there was a dinner and live auction. At part of the dinner you had a choice to purchase a “favor”. The favor cost $50 but was well worth it. For each event PNTC commissions a one of a kind tool to be made. When we signed up we saw some of the past favors, and they were incredible. So, we said we were going to get this year’s favor.

While walking around we found a toolmaker named Christopher Laarman. He makes these amazing Finger Planes. While talking to him, we found out he was the guy who made this years favor. What the favor is going to be, is always a big secret. There was no way he was going to tell us what he made. We both joked how cool it would be if we got one of those Finger Planes! We both knew it was out of the question, because some of his planes were going for over $300. Wow, were we surprised when we opened the favor! It was one of his planes. It wasn’t quite as refined as some of his other planes, but it is a beautiful example of craftsmanship.

As I stated before, I’m not a collector. I can get excited about seeing a MIB old plane that has never been used or hardly touched. At the same time, I’m a little sad that the tool never gotten to live out it’s potential as a tool. So, that means my little Finger Plane will be taken out of its box and tuned up and put to use! It’s a good thing those tools in their pristine original boxes are so expensive, otherwise I might let some of them free ☺!

How’s your grip?

It's interesting how your grip can dramatically change how something reacts or performs. If I squeeze my wife’s hand too hard, I’m liable to get punched! If I grip my golf club too hard, I will hook or slice the ball. There are many other examples like this. So why didn’t I use this knowledge on my hand tools? I think it’s because I started out using power tools. When using power tools you seem to need to hold on for dear life, especially handheld routers!

When I first started to get interested in hand tools, I was watching some of Rob Cosman’s DVDs. Rob talked about the importance of a “light” touch/grip when using the dovetail saw. He likened it to the amount of pressure you would use when holding a baby’s hand. I was also watching some DVDs by David Charlesworth, and he favoured a light/delicate touch when you hold your chisels. It all started to sink in, eventually.

I use a 15ppi dovetail saw, and many would call this a course saw. The key to using this saw, as Rob points out, is to have a light grip and to take some of the weight off the saw. Whenever I’m having an issue starting my cut, I stop and analyze my grip. If you have a tight grip on the saw, it’s almost impossible to lift up to take some of the weight off the cut. In those cases where my cuts aren’t starting smoothly, it’s because my grip has tightened up. I loosen my grip and presto the cut starts like a dream.

I’ve even taken this concept to how I hold my hand planes. For planes that have totes, I use an almost open grip. For the most part you are pushing a plane and really don’t need to grip it. I used to have a tendency of having a death-grip on my planes, and my hands would get tired. I wasn’t afraid of dropping the plane, I just associated a strong grip with power. Now I know, a light grip on hand tools means control. Analyze your grip and see how much control you get, if you loosen up a bit.

LumberJocks.com

About 2 years ago I started to find more and more woodworking resources on the Internet. Most had great information and lots of participation from woodworkers of all kinds. Unfortunately the Internet has a way of removing normal social barriers, and can bring out the worst in some people. I started to see more and more of what people called “flamers”. These people seem to take pleasure in insulting others that don’t agree with them. Because of this I started to avoid these forums, sadly some of the largest ones on the Internet. Don’t get me wrong I like a good debate, but for the most part these people weren’t debating.

I was at the point where I wasn’t participating in these forums anymore. Then I heard about LumberJocks, I think from The Wood Whisperer. Even then I didn’t go right out to the site. I think I was bored one day, and decided to check the site out. At that time, the site was still kind of small, maybe a few hundred members. Even with the small membership, there was a lot activity on the site. So I signed up. I was overwhelmed by the welcome I received! LumberJocks has a regular “Welcome Committee” that welcomes every new member. This I think this sets the tone for the site. Everyone is very friendly and flamers are few and far between.

The other thing that sets LumberJocks apart is that it is, for lack of a better term, a “multi-media” site. LumberJocks is designed to encourage you to post pictures, videos, postcasts, etc. Martin who started the site has also added a Blogging feature to the site. I think LumberJocks is still a very unique site and has no equal. Its membership has been growing by leaps and bounds, and it has kept its “small” friendly spirit. If you haven’t heard for LumberJocks yet, you really need to check this site out.

I have posted quite a bit of information on Lumber Jocks. You can check out my profile here. I have posted several: Projects, Blogs, Reviews and forum topics. I’m particularly happy with the Blog series I did on building my workbench.

If you have a favorite site let me know. I will also post a more complete list of sites I really like and frequent.