The Big Think

Q: What’s worse than smashing your thumb with a hammer?
A: Two minutes later, smashing the same thumb in the same spot, with the same hammer.

Ouch

(signed- Jason, the temporarily one-thumbed musician)

Had a great day in the shop building three big props (well, one big- heavy!- one, and two smallish ones). We’re still not done, but it’s coming together. Needless to say, tomorrow’s forecast of 34 degrees and raining isn’t going to make it any easier.

I really love prop days, but it takes a toll. 12 hours on the concrete floor tossing around 4×8 sheets of 3/4″ plywood makes a body sore! Fortunately, a little Advil and Ace Pear Cider takes care of that.

8 way kinetic sculpture. Neat!

The SawStop table saws blade brake stops the blade instantly (well, at 1000g’s) if it comes into contact with a finger (or a conductive hot dog, in this case). How much faith does the inventor have? Enough to put his own finger into the spinning blade. Ouch.

And even though he doesn’t exactly shove his finger into the blade (opting for a much more carful pace), it’s still impressive to see. Check out this clip for a demonstration, viewed through an ultra high speed camera.

I’d definitely like to get a SawStop some day but alas, they cost about $2500. My current cabinet saw was about 1/3rd that cost and is totally paid off. Yes, it’s cheaper than an amputated thumb, but I’m incredibly careful around the table saw (using guards and push sticks religiously). I plan on being one of those old woodworkers who has all his fingers.

New Yankee Workshop to end. Dangit! I love that show.

Tonight I finished the sharpener I detailed here. It’s not quite as tidy as I would like it to be, but it does the job spectacularly well. I’m finally resharpening chisels that were badly chipped three years ago when a well meaning but inexperienced person tried to use one of them as a paint can opener. The new finish is literally mirror smooth (I can see myself in it!) and I can shave the hairs off my arm.

And, unfortunately, I can cut myself with one of them. When I was done sharpening one had an itch so I absent-mindedly reached down and scratched the outside of my left leg below the knee. Using the chisel. I now have a nice 6″ long cut on the outside of my leg! Stupid. It’s the kind of cut you don’t notice until you look down an hour later and see the thin red line. Good thing my tetanus is up to date.

So I spent a few wonderful hours in the cool shop today watching the rain while I worked on the sharpener I described in a previous post. I got my order of hardware in from McMaster-Carr and went on to the middle steps of the project (installing thrust bearings and collet sleeves, etc). One of the steps had me cutting sections of the main drive shaft from the long 36″ single steel shaft I got in the mail. Did I mention that it’s steel? Precision steel? HARDENED precision steel? That sucker was just about the hardest thing I’ve ever had to cut through in my life. It was only 1/2″ thick but took the better part of an hour to cut a single section out with a hacksaw. I finally thought of my Dremel tool with a cutoff wheel but this didn’t really speed things up. It just saved my forearm from giving out with the saw.

I had to cut TWO short shafts for the sharpener (see pic in previous post for the shafts). I still have to cut three very short pieces for guide pins. Sheesh, I can’t believe how hard that thing is.

The sharpener is coming together very nicely, though it is somewhat difficult to keep all the precision bearings all nice and lined up. I’ve got both shafts and pulleys installed and it’s starting to look like something! It’ll be cool to get to use it when it’s done.

American/Swedish woodworking legend James Krenov passed away yesterday at the age of 79. Krenov is responsible for some of the most influential woodworking design of the 20th century. Along with Sam Maloof, the woodworking world has lost two irreplaceable giants this year.

Krenov’s unique style may not appeal to everyone, but his philosophy of working with the wood instead of against it inspired many woodworkers (including me) to really pay attention to the wood grain and color. I picked up his book With Wakened Hands a few years ago and it opened my eyes to areas of design I never knew existed.

Krenov’s work is very distinctive and some would say spare. He didn’t stray very far from his famous “Krenov cabinet”, but that just allowed him to spend a lifetime perfecting this beautiful design. Like good Japanese calligraphy that espouses the philosophy of just enough, Krenov’s cabinets compliment the wood in a balance of color, line, and grain that borders on perfection. He was an artist that knew how to work in his style very, very well, and he will be missed.

More examples of Krenov’s beautiful work are here.

I was wandering through Lowes the other day and spotted the most recent issue of Shop Notes magazine. It’s a great woodworking mag that always manages to have one or two “must build” projects. The other bonus is that it has NO advertising (it’s only about 50 pages each issue, but they make every page count).

I ended up taking one look at this issue and adding it to my basket. The cover article was this:

I’ve been looking for a good way to sharpen my chisels and turning tools for several years and hadn’t found one until now. They sell $200-400 solutions that do effectively the same thing as the shop-built one on the cover here. The good news is that this clever build lets you get a razor sharp edge on your tools for less than fifty bucks (and far less if you can scrounge some of the weirder parts). I spent a couple hours in the shop this afternoon starting on the main box for the thing. I have to order a few parts from the inestimable McMaster-Carr - mainly two pulleys and a couple of thrust bearings- but the rest of it can be made from plywood and screws that I already have around the shop. After the huge entertainment center project it’s nice to be working on something I can finish with comparatively little effort.

Master Woodworker Sam Maloof passes away. Rob Johnstone has a remembrance.

After years of being frustrated with my finishes on my woodworking projects, I finally broke down and bought an HVLP spray gun. HVLP stands for “high volume, low pressure” and, while it looks like a standard automotive spray gun, these things put out far less paint while doing so at a very low pressure. the result is more like a re-loadable spray paint can that can spray whatever can be thinned to a water-consistency (dye, stain, finish, etc). Automotive guns put out much more paint and you have to deal with a lot more over spray and paint-bounceback.

The gun only cost me $25 at Woodcraft after a coupon. They’ve come down significantly in the past few years (several years ago I went to a woodworking show in Houston and saw guns there for several hundred dollars. All hail globalization!). It’s probably not the highest quality gun (the paint can is plastic), but it’ll do the job for me. Works nice with the big air compressor I inherited from Erin’s uncle when he passed away a few years ago.

I just tried out the gun to spray a shellac/denatured alcohol topcoat on Erin’s file cabinet and I’m reasonably happy with the results. I had to mess with the pressure and other adjustment knobs to get a decent finish, and even now it’s slightly splattery (very fine splats of finish). I think they’ll sand out as I do further coats. I imagine I’ll get better as I do more of this.

It’ll be nice to not have to hand-finish everything from now on. I could have definitely used this gun on the entertainment center. That was a huge finishing job that took weeks.

Erin and I just got back from the lumberyard where we picked out the quartersawn red oak for my next project. (sidenote: my wife loves to go the lumberyard with me. AWESOME).

I did the entertainment center for us, then followed it up with a set of cabinets in the shoppe for me, now it’s time to build something for her. It’ll be a nice two drawer filing cabinet from solid wood that has the same style as the music cabinet and entertainment center. I’m getting much better at building this style and working out the kinks of the design. It’ll be nice that it’s so small. I told her on the way home that I’m mentally gearing up for a 6 month project because the last two have been so huge. But since this is only 30″x18″x15″ it shouldn’t take me nearly as much time.

I am, however, suffering from the standard affliction of quality creep. I could build it for about fifty bucks if I used cheap plywood and hardware, but for only a little bit more you can use the nice hardware. But then, if you’re using the nice hardware it sure is a shame to put it on crummy plywood, so why not use hardwood? End result is that this filing cabinet will top out around 3x the cost of a cheap ugly metal one from Target. And it’ll last forever. And it’ll match our other furniture. And I get to spend 40 hours building it (which, to me, is fun). Updates as I go.

Speaking of updates, Sean and I have finally gotten fed up with the crummy service this site is hosted on so he’s volunteered to move it to a better server. Sometime in the next few weeks (days?) it’ll go offline for a bit, then it’ll be back in glorious splendor. So if you try and hit the site and it’s not here, it’s only the DNS servers that haven’t updated. It won’t be gone long.

Now…. down to the shop!

One of my projects made the Toolmonger site! Yippee! I uploaded some pics to Flickr a few days ago and these guys got ahold of them and reposted them. Big smiles all around.

Worked three hours on the doors today. I flipped them over and gave the backs a final coat of shellac, then once they were dry I reattached the hinges. Not being able to wait, I brought the big outside glass doors and the smaller speaker covers into the house and attached them to the main body. It looks great! What an amazing difference doors make.

I still have to do some final trimming on the window separators (the wood crosspieces that make the doors look like true “divided light” doors). Once they’re trimmed to final size (a matter of a couple millimeters only) I can epoxy them into place. I also have to attach the handles. Erin and I decided on authentic solid brass A&C hinges, handles, and handle plates. They cost a pretty penny but it was worth it. They add a very nice authentic touch to the piece.

Also today: I bought a stained glass grinder and a couple of small hand tools. I’m all set to start my stained glass cutting. I have to design the panel and spend a few days doing some test pieces, but I’m very excited about this. I’ve read a couple of books and spent hours online familiarizing myself with the technique of making stained glass projects. I’ve got the glass all ready to go. I did some research on grinders and decided on an upgraded hobbyist model. Hobby Lobby had it and I availed myself of their weekly 40% off coupon, which saved quite a bit. I ended up getting this model, but for a significantly lower price. I plan on adding stained glass to my list of Maker Skills. I think it’s safe to say I’ll have some more stained glass elements in my future projects. BTW, if you go to Hobby Lobby often, check out their site for the 40% off coupon. You can use one per day for unlimited days on anything at full list price. Probably not worth it for small things, but if you have to buy a more expensive tool or supply, it can save you a bunch. You can find the current coupon here. Just print it out and give it to the cashier.

At dinner tonight I asked Erin if she wanted a matching mirror to go over the entertainment center and she immediately said yes, then made the brilliant suggestion of incorporating a stained glass element into the mirror that echoes whatever design ends up in the entertainment center. Smart! So at some point I’ll be doing that piece as well.

Home stretch! It’ll for sure be done by Christmas (barring any sort of idiot operator error on my part with the stained glass grinder).

Total time: 179 hours.

Check out Mulvany & Rogers’ insanely detailed miniatures. Don’t miss the pics.