Turn Like a Mountain Biker

Years ago when my partner and I were young and fit, we used to go mountain biking. This being Pennsylvania, we have some impressive trails—hilly and circuitous.

And although I played sports my entire life—racquetball, volleyball, and fastpitch softball—and my partner did not, she could blow me away on a mountain bike.

Why?

Because she didn't try to control the bike's every move; she melded with it. And she would fly. My view on the trail was either the dust in her wake or the blue, puffy-clouded sky . . . because I was laying on my back, having gone over the handle bars.

Last week in my woodturning class as I was using my arch nemesis—the parting tool—the instructor peered over my shoulder and tapped lightly on the knuckles on my right hand. They were dead white. "You can't turn with a grip like that," she said.

It was my mountain bike grip.

Aha. Therein lies the problem. I've been trying to control my tools so rigidly, they've been fighting back.

So I asked my partner to explain to me her mountain biking technique. She said, "You have to relax and become one with the bike. You have to keep everything loose, unlock your joints, keep calm and let the 'chi' flow through your body."

"What's chi?" I giggled adolescently.

"'Chi' is energy, one's life force."

So I thanked Yoda and resolved to change my approach to woodturning.

I thought of the sea turtles in Finding Nemo—the rad surfer-dudes who rode the East Australian Current. Mellow and laid back, they would literally go with the flow.

"Be a turtle." I thought to myself in class this morning. "Become one with your tools."

It worked. No gouged wood, no fisticuffs with the parting tool, and only mild sweating. There's a life lesson in there somewhere.

And while I'm still at the bottom of the learning curve, there is one thing I'm good at . . . and that's turning eggs. My first egg was so real looking, I put it in the refrigerator in a bowl of hard-boiled eggs. Despite the teeth marks from my dogs, who decided the egg was a much coveted chew toy, my partner packed it with 2 other real eggs and took it with her to work for lunch.

Maybe she knows all about chi and melding and being calm and all that weirdo woo-woo stuff.

But I know all about being an immature practical joker.

It's Off To Read We Go

I don't know about you, but when I can't find adequate time to play in my shop, I turn into this guy.

Since I haven't been able to work on a project for any significant length of time so far this year, I have grown a scowl, snow white beard, and furrowed brow.

However! I have had some time to start reading a new book:
A Splintered History of Wood: Belt Sander Races, Blind Woodworkers & Baseball Bats, by Spike Carlsen.

Every night, I read illuminating and entertaining passages about: wood collectors (the largest collection by an individual includes 7,000 species—only 73,000 short of all the wood species on the planet), Mira Nakashima, Jimmy Carter, chainsaw woodworkers, and the world's tallest living tree—the Stratosphere Giant—measuring a whopping 372 feet tall.

What a fun read! It's written in short, self-contained chapters—each one covering some aspect of wood and woodworking: wood in music, sports, shelter, day-to-day life, war, transportation, and unusual places; and tools, unconventional woodworkers, and how trees survive and thrive.

I've only read 100 pages out of 358, but here are a few fun facts from the book: 95% of those who subscribe to woodworking magazines are men; the workers in George Nakashima's shop turn spindles on a lathe and then facet each one with a handplane; and Jimmy Carter explains his view on the craft: "[Woodworking is] a kind of therapy, but it's also a stabilizing 

force in my life—a total rest for my mind."

Currently, I'm perusing the chapter on whatzit tools and am learning about wedding saws and two handled sledgehammers.  

There's no doubt that I'm getting amusement, enlightenment, and knowledge from reading Spike's book. But maybe I'm getting something even more important: a happier disposition.

PFW Open House

Mario Rodriguez and Alan Turner (left to right) of The Philadelphia Furniture Workshop, hosted a 2-day open house this weekend that featured vendors, demonstrations, and hands-on tool use.

Fox Chapel Publishing had a booth filled with woodworking books and dvds. And the discounted prices were enough to make my grumpy friend, Scott, smile.

Several [gorgeous] pieces of furniture that had been class projects were displayed within the work areas. Jigs, miter jacks, handsaws, power tools and wall hung tool cabinets that were filled with handtools & planes, provided some nice eye candy for event-goers.

Joel Moskowitz of Gramercy Tools had his wares on display and also gave presentations on grinding chisels. He recommends creating a very slight camber on the wheel, so the corners of chisels don't overheat. This way, you can concentrate on sharpening the middle, thicker section of the blade while the corners are not in contact with the wheel. He uses a 46 grit friable wheel which he dresses with a multi-tip diamond dresser.

Bill Grumbine, who teaches woodturning classes from his shop in Kutztown, PA, and has produced two dvds, showed us some smooth moves on the lathe as he turned natural edges bowls.

Nancy Anderson, owner of Londonderry Brasses, Ltd., opened for business 11 years ago and offers period reproduction hardware, cast from originals, and imported mainly from England. Perusing her products, it's immediately obvious that they are exquisitely crafted.

Harrelson Stanley and Jim Blauvelt, of Japanese Tools.com, exhibited an array of Japanese planes, saws, chisels, measuring devices and sharpening stones. Jim worked at his bench while we woodworkers stood mesmerized.

Mario gave a demonstration on making shaded fan inlay. A metal pan which was filled with sand and heated by a hotplate was used to burn the edges, thereby creating the shading for the pie shaped pieces. He made a template with compass and pencil and then cut the piece to fit. They were glued together with veneer tape, then trimmed to shell shape. He then scalloped and removed the ends of each piece and cut contrasting wood to fit the spaces. These were also glued with veneer tape, then trimmed with a large, shallow gouge to final shape.

If you weren't able to make it to the show, tour the shop, and talk with other woodworkers, you might consider signing up for a class at PFW. They offer beginner and advanced workshops in a roomy, well-equipped space.

19th c. Grease Box

Dennis Kunkle, Director of Facilities at the York County Heritage Trust , was last night's speaker at our woodworking club meeting. Dennis made a replica of the 19th c. grease box on display at the Historical Society of York County and brought step-by-step examples of the building process. Grease boxes, he surmises, may have been used by mechanics to lubricate machinery. His contains beeswax instead of grease, which he uses to lubricate screws. Needless to say, my love of boxes was roused and I plan to build my own someday.

Procedure:
1. Layout the rough shape on a block of wood. Dennis suggested using a nice piece of figured walnut.
2. Rough cut the shape with your tool of choice.
3. Saw the lid off.
4. Clean it up with a shoulder plane so it's seated perfectly when closed. Remove saw marks made within the kerf by laying a sheet of sandpaper on a flat surface and scrubbing the workpiece clean.
5. Lay the lid in place and realign the grain. Because of the kerf, the lid will sit lower that the top surface of the box, so you may need to reposition the lid slightly in order for the grain to match.
6. Drill, countersink, and screw the lid to the box.
7. Plane the top of the box flush with the lid.





8. Inlay a decorative diamond or other shape on the lid. Dennis cut the inlay piece first (curly maple) and cleaned up the edges on sandpaper that was laid on a flat surface. Rub the piece's edges on the sandpaper at a very slight angle to create a bevel. Trace the outline of the inlay piece onto the lid and use a chisel to remove the waste. Glue the inlay piece in the recess. Plane flush.
9. Use a large forstner bit to drill the cavity for the inside of the box. (You may also choose to chisel this out instead so you can match the outside shape of the box.)
10. Trace the box outline onto the workpiece.
11. Cut the shape with your tool of choice. Dennis used a bandsaw.
12. Clean up the rough edges with your method of choice.

Dennis sprayed Deft as a finish and did not finish the inside. He melted beeswax and poured it into the cavity. He also brought to the presentation a set of matryoshka grease boxes, the smallest of which was approximately 3/4" long, complete with inlaid diamond.

It's a neat little project—one that can be made in a few hours and still has a useful place in the shop. I was not able to find any historical information about grease boxes, so if you have any info, please feel free to share.

Final dimensions of the grease box are approx. 4.25" long x 2.25" high.

Extreme Homes

These two homes in my neighborhood are within a half mile of one another.

But it's the smaller of the two that has a view of the mighty Susquehanna River.

Sharpening a Drawknife

The best advice I can give someone who is new to woodworking is: Learn to sharpen more than one way. Not all tools can be sharpened using the same method.

My personal preference is to sharpen chisels and plane blades with Japanese waterstones, carving chisels with a leather strop, gouges with a contoured leather strop or contoured felt wheel chucked in a grinder, moulding plane blades with slipstones, and carving knives with ceramic stones.

And there are more methods available than just these.

After hearing Mike Dunbar's presentation at the WIA Conference, I remembered an old drawknife I had purchased (and never sharpened) when I was new to woodworking. Following is how I sharpened this tool, but there are other ways to do it.*

First, sandpaper was used to remove the fine layer of rust that had covered the blade from sitting unused in my basement for 16 years.

A drawknife cannot easily be sharpened by holding the blade and moving it along a stone, as you would a plane bl ade. Instead, it's easier to keep the drawknife stationary and take the stone to it.

So, I used an 80 grit diamond stone to "scrub", in a circular pattern, the flat side of the blade. You can see the swirl marks in the photos.

Note: Please be careful with this sharpening technique. It's very easy to slip and cut yourself. (Don't ask me how I know this.)

A 600 grit ceramic stone followed the diamond stone, followed by an 1800 grit ceramic stone. I used ceramic stones because they cut quickly and are small & light, making them easy to hold. I would not use waterstones this way because the blade might gouge the stone.

The blade was very dull, so a circular motion was a fast way to remove steel. But I changed to carefully sliding the stones back and forth as the blade became sharp.

The same technique was used to sharpen the curved side of the blade, except that I was careful to maintain the shape of the convex bevel.

This drawknife can benefit from a little more sharpening to remove scratch marks, but I took it for a test drive anyhow. It worked great and rounded the edge of a piece of cherry effortlessly. And after 16 years, I'm finally able to put this fun-to-use handtool to the work it deserves.

*Mike Dunbar uses sandpaper wrapped around a block of wood to sharpen his drawknives.

Philadelphia Furniture Workshop Open House

The PFW is hosting on January 30 & 31 a FREE open house. Ongoing demonstrations by some top woodworkers including Adam Cherubini, Christopher Storb, Jim Blauvelt, Mario Rodriguez, Bill Grumbine, Alan Turner, and Joel Moskowitz will focus primarily on handtools.

A few tool and hardware vendors will have booth space.

It's a great opportunity to check out the PFW's shop & classes, chat with other woodworkers (and you know we are a chatty bunch! In fact, who here among us can't talk for 5 days straight about woodworking?), and learn some new techniques.

For more information, click here.

My First Love

For the first 10 years of my woodworking journey, people who found out that I'm a woodworker would ask excitedly, "Oh, do you have a lathe?"

"Well no, I don't really need one. But I have just about every other woodworking tool." They always responded with a look of mild disappointment.

Years later, a horrible thing happened. I realized that I had purchased every tool I would ever need to build the projects on my list.

So, like a good woodworker, I started to look for projects that would justify purchasing a new tool—a lathe. Because once you buy a lathe, you'll need to outfit it with chisels and gouges, chucks and spindles, and loads of other accessories. Life was good again.

First it was pens. Who can't use a pen? Why, I could make my own Christmas gifts for the rest of my life!

Then I figured I could make drawer pulls, legs for tavern tables, bowls for gifts. And there are endless ways in which turning can enhance a piece of furniture.

So now I've signed up for 8 woodturning classes and hopefully one day I'll produce some nice lathework.

However, my first love will always be woodworking. It's how I identify myself—as a woodworker. There are woodworkers who turn and woodturners who build furniture, chip carvers who make treenware, cabinet makers who whittle, and the list goes on.

You can learn to work with wood any number of ways, but you will always have your first love—the way in which you identify yourself—whichever woodworking discipline it may be. (But that's just my opinion—feel free to prove me wrong.)

Not sure what I'll do once I've purchased everything I need for lathework. But a quick glance around the shop reveals that I don't own a scrollsaw....

The photo above is of two tops I turned after taking two woodturning classes. The cherry turned much more easily than the poplar which tended to chip and fuzz. They're nothing impressive, but I still have six more classes to go!