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Different Saws for Different Purposes

Much has been written about saws in the wood shop. Usually the articles go into detail about one particular kind of saw and all that it can do. I don’t see as much written which compares the relative merits of different kinds of saws.

My experience in woodworking over the years has taught me that you need more than one kind of saw. My first electrically powered saw was a radial arm saw. The manual suggested that it could be used for many different purposes. I soon found out, however, that what it was really good for was crosscutting lumber that was smooth on two sides. From there on it was down hill. I also learned that it was very difficult to keep tuned so that it cut precisely.

So from there I went to a table saw. My shop was just in the garage so I selected a saw with a small footprint. It was a Swiss made Inca saw and still serves me well after thirty years. However, I learned that metric saw blades can be hard to find in the United States, and that the real purpose of the table saw is to rip previously milled lumber. Since the table is small I found it difficult to rip large things like sheets of plywood or to cross cut long boards. The bigger the table the greater the support.

Everywhere around me I saw wood that was abandoned. Trees cut on construction sites usually made it to land fill dumps or were burned on the site. Power companies are always cutting trees and leaving the wood where it falls. Neighbors are always losing a tree and have to pay to have it hauled off. Winter wind and ice storms are constantly bringing down trees. I got my first taste of this in my own back yard. I wanted to raise a garden and needed to take some trees out to have sunlight. Some of the wood was so pretty that I could not bear to cut it up for firewood so I saved some and this is how I got my start with working with found wood.

So if one is alert, the opportunities for acquiring found wood are almost limitless. Metropolitan areas are particularly good foraging areas. Lumber people will not fool with just one tree. It is not worth their time. Yet one tree can fuel many woodworking projects. Just offer the person a finished product from part of the wood and you will be given the whole tree and make a good friend in the process is what my experience has been.

chain saw

That brings us to the next saw. To handle found wood you need a chainsaw. I had a patient when I was in medical practice who told me if they had had those things when he was growing up, he might have stayed on the farm. It is a great labor saver. I soon found that I could cut enough found wood in a day to pay for my saw. If you have not noticed, wood is expensive to buy. I started out with a light weight saw from Sears but soon had worn it out. Now I use a Sthil and am on my fourth one. I like the fact that they are solidly built and generally reliable. I found that having a longer bar on the saw made it easier for me to cut larger longs but shorter bars will work as well. They are the choice of professional lumber men and tree services. I even purchased a small Alaska Mini Mill that clamps to the bar. With this I could mill flat lumber of various thickness right on the spot. This had the great advantage that you could cut up and haul out wood one board at a time. This is great if you don’t have heavy equipment or are some distance from a road.

A word of caution is in order here. I have learned some hard lessons and will share my experiences. Several years ago I cut a chunk out of my knee using a chain saw. I just got the bar too close to my knee and it bit me. I was in the woods and by myself. Fortunately it was not so serious a wound and it healed but it took a couple of weeks. The point here is that I should have been wearing chaps. These are sold where they sell chain saws. They are made of some sort of very tough synthetic fabric and would have stopped the saw teeth that cut my knee. So, now I am careful to don my chaps when using the saw. You will see the professionals using them, too.

Now with a chain saw all kinds of found wood became fair game. There are many, very attractive, non-commercial species awaiting the unbounded wood worker. Species such as osage orange, mulberry, apple, pear, spalted woods of all kinds, just to name a few. With the chain saw, the log can be bucked into manageable bolts and worked while green or allowed to air dry for several years. The picture above shows a small part of my collection of found wood. You can even leave some outdoors for a season to make your own spalted wood. We can talk about techniques to avoid checking of the end grain in another episode but I want to keep the thread of saws first at hand.

Now, let’s suppose you have a large block of air dried wood and you want to turn a bowl. It is much too thick to saw with a radial arm saw or table saw. You can cut it with the chain saw but if you are trying to make it round, it gets tricky and dangerous with the chain saw as there is no way to keep the piece from moving as the chain engages the wood. You really don’t want any metal holding devices abound a moving saw chain. So, what to do?

Here is where one of the most important saws in the shop comes in. This is the bandsaw. The beauty of this saw is that it does not require milled lumber to cut safely and efficiently. You can crosscut a large log and then rip it and produce fairly flat pieces of wood that you can mount on the lathe or run through the jointer and planer preparing them for cutting on the table saw. You can go from the log to the milled lumber all in your shop. The savings on wood are tremendous and you will soon pay for your equipment. There is also something pleasing to my independent nature to be so self-sufficient.

bandsaw bandsaw

My advice is to get the largest band saw you can afford. Watch for used equipment and explore the Asian imports. I have owned a large Powermatic saw with a 24 inch throat (distance from the saw blade over to the upright arm that supports the upper wheel on which the blade travels). I have owned a 14 inch Delta. They both have given me good service. Now I have a Grizzly 21 inch saw. I was surprised that I could replace my old Powermatic for the Grizzly for about the same price even though I bought the Powermatic back in 1979. While the throat measurement in the Grizzly is 3 inches smaller that the Powermatic, the Grizzly will cut wood that is 14 inches thick (as measured from the tabletop up to the arm) compared to the 12 inch cut of the Powermatic. I find this a big help as I am always wanting to cut thicker and thicker stock. For pieces thicker than 14 inches I use the chain saw. These large saws are heavy and weigh upwards of 500 or more pounds. However, one can purchase a metal base with wheels that allow for some mobility within your shop.

A band saw this large is great for resawing wood but for cutting out curves on smaller stock I use my 14 inch Delta saw. It does not have the power of the big saw but I can keep narrower blades on the smaller saw which will turn a smaller radius and this keeps me from having to stop and change blades so frequently. Time is very precious and this dual set up with band saws has been very valuable to me.

So, if you ask me which is the most important saw in my shop, I would have to say the band saw. It is what allows me to go from found wood to blanks I can mount on the lathe to turn into a beautiful bowl. I use it more frequently than the other saws. Yet each of the other saws serves an important function and I really need them all. I guess that I would consider a band saw and a table saw as first purchases and then add the other saws as I was able.

wood scraps wood wood

Above are some examples of found wood in my shop.

Saws are very dangerous. Keep them tuned, sharp and in good working order and wear proper face and eye protection. It may sound silly to tell woodworkers to avoid power saws when they are tired, in a hurry, emotionally upset or under the influence of alcohol or drugs but this is how accidents happen. Cut off a finger in haste and repent in leisure.

Yet, used with care, these saws can make wood working a joy. They allow you to take advantage of unused wood, a precious natural resource that would otherwise be wasted, and turn it into a objects that will bring pleasure for decades, if not centuries.

Do you have any experience with saws? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Refining our methods… growing in efficiency

Here I am doing one of my least favorite jobs. What you see is one of my scroll chucks, and a very good one at that. This is the large chunk of metal that facilitates holding wood on the lathe. To accommodate different sizes and shapes of wood to be fastened on the lathe it requires that many different types of jaws be fixed to the chuck. Some will hold a large spigot of wood and some a small one. Others are the flat metal discs that grip the wood with the plastic buttons seen in the previous essay. Still others are made to fit into a dovetail recess that has been turned on the bowl or platter blank bottom. These different interchangeable jaws greatly extend the usefulness of the chuck and this in turn increases productivity. This is very exciting when you are starting out because it opens up so many new possibilities. So in this picture I am in the process of changing jaws on the chuck.

It is the nature of man to always look for more and more. People are restless moving here and there looking for something better. This is what motivates growth. I am no exception. When the novelty wore off of having so many exchangeable jaws on my chuck, which enabled me to do so many more things, the reality set in. To change the jaws takes unscrewing a minimum of eight metal screws that hold the jaws to the chuck body. So, unscrew eight screws, remove the jaws and use the eight screws to reattach a different set of jaws. This task is time consuming and not very uplifting and not creative in the least.

I would much rather use my creative energy and skills in turning the wood itself. It has occurred to me that it would be much more efficient to have many scroll chuck bodies with the different jaws already attached. Then I would just have to exchange different chucks on the lathe for different jobs. This takes a lot less time than removing the chuck, unscrewing the jaws and then refastened the new jaws. I would have reduced my labor steps to two rather than four and I estimate that I would save between ten and fifteen minutes each change. In an average day in the shop I estimate that I would change jaws at least three times and sometimes more. Now there is a lot you can get done in thirty to forty-five minutes of uninterrupted work time.

So we start out in life not knowing much but with a desire to know more and more. As we learn more we learn how to employ technology to increase our output and creativity. Each new technology offers advantages and drawbacks. At first we are so excited to have the new capability that we are not critical of the time it takes to employ that technology. After all it is already saving us lots of time and energy. Yet after we work with it a while we begin to wonder if there is some better way to extract more efficiency from the technology. We begin to fine tune the use of the technology to make us more efficient. In this case fine tuning would be having as many chuck bodies as I had separate interchangeable jaws.

This solution comes with a price tag. The chuck bodies are fairly expensive ( at least $200 apiece). I have at least eight different sets of jaws and there may be more that I would like to have. Soon I would have more invested in jaws than I did in the lathe itself. So I think further. There are just a few jaws that I use most of the time and if I just had two more chuck bodies, it would still save me most of the wasted time. Now I figure what my time is worth per hour and see how long it would take to pay for the extra chucks and see if it made sense from an economic standpoint. Somewhere in here I would find a formula for maximum time and creativity saved with the least expenditure of cash.

So, we are never done growing. It is the nature of life to grow towards more and more. Thus we remain dynamic and do not become static. We keep thinking on ways to improve what we do. We try to minimize the dull routine work and maximize the creative part of the job. This brings us more and more pleasure because we are becoming more and more creative day by day.

Another point comes to mind. Time is the most precious thing we have. Past is past and is forever gone. We can never bring it back. The future is always the day after this one. So the present moment is all that we really have. That is why it is so important to use the present in the most efficient and uplifting way possible. Then we see that we are progressing on our road to have more and more, whether it be creativity, wealth, security, love or whatever.

How have you become more efficient in your work or play?

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Improving Wood Bowl Feet

What you see in these pictures took me years to accomplish. As I am a self taught turner I started out knowing nothing of the subject. It was through years of trial and error, reading and growing in my understanding that I arrived at where I find myself today. Design is absolutely critical and I will have more to say about this in another essay but a significant part of design is how you finish the foot of a bowl or any other turning.

When you begin to turn a block of wood you have to find a way to attach it to the lathe. The first lathe I had came with a faceplate and little else. A faceplate is a flat circular piece of metal which screws on to the headstock of the lathe. The headstock, in turn, is attached by a belt to a motor and this is what causes the lathe to turn. The face plate I had was six inches in diameter. It had holes drilled in it to screw the work piece to the faceplate. It is a pretty simple and straight forward arrangement.

Now, many of the blocks of wood are fairly heavy, and when they start to spin, a lot of force is generated. To keep the wood from flying off the faceplate you need several stout screws holding the wood to the faceplate. With the wood secured you begin to turn. The first thing you notice is that the faceplate keeps you from getting in to turn a small foot on a bowl. The foot has to be about the same diameter as the faceplate or slightly larger. Of course you could glue your bowl blank to a piece of waste stock and screw the faceplate into the waste stock but that had not occurred to me at that point. I was determined to work this out myself without running to the books any more than I had to.

It takes a big bowl to have a six inch foot look aesthetically pleasing. So you begin to search for smaller faceplates and you find they make them in four inch and three inch sizes. I became the proud owner of three faceplates. I then made another discovery. That tick, tick, tick sound that my gouge made when I hollowed the inside of the faceplate mounted bowl was my sharp tool hitting the tips of the mounting screws. Further, when I took the bowl off the lathe and unmounted the face plate, I had three neat holes from the foot up into the bowl. Even if I was lucky enough not to go so deep as to hit the screws, I still had three holes that needed to be plugged. To make sure I had enough wood in the bottom to accommodate the screws, I ended up with thick clunky bottoms.

Now it may be a revelation to you, but the first thing a perspective bowl buyer does is pick up the bowl, turn it over and inspect the bottom. Wooden plugs just don’t make it. It proves your amateur status as a bowl maker. By the time I reached this stage I discovered scroll chucks. These are woodworking adaptations of metal working lathe chucks. The small one I bought required three hands to operate. Two were needed to operate the rod levers that tightened and opened the jaws of the chuck and the third hand to hold the bowl blank into the jaws. Being small, my chuck would not grip the wood very tightly and the work piece would frequently loosen and the work would be off center. I solved this be purchasing a much larger chuck which only required two hands to operate. One hand turned a key, while the other hand was free to hold the work in the jaws as they tighten.

Now that I had mastered holding the blank to the lathe without using screws, I still had the problem of finishing the outside bottom of the bowl. You can’t get to the outside bottom when you are hollowing out the bowl because that part is being held by the chuck (or faceplate). A set of flat metal discs that screw onto the scroll chuck was just the ticket. Buttons then screw into the concentric rows of screw holes in the metal discs to hold the rim of the bowl to the chuck so that the bottom of the bowl is exposed to turning. They work pretty well but are not absolutely precise. If you try making cuts on the bottom third of the outside of the bowl, they don’t match the cuts made when the bowl was mounted the other way. It is just eccentric enough to be visible no matter how much you sand. Thus you must complete all of the bowl except the bottom of the foot when the bowl is mounted the other way.

In the pictures above, you can see me mounting the buttons to the flat discs and then you see me working on the bottom and the buttons are a red blur. By the way, these buttons protrude a fair amount and are of a very hard plastic. When you forget and try to stop the work from spinning with your hand to inspect it, they hit hard and they hurt. So you have to keep your hands clear. Just ask me how I figured this out. Today I am looking at a large bruise on both sides of my right hand. I tussled with the buttons and I lost.

With all of these tools and techniques in place I finally was able to turn the base of my bowls thin without having to leave extra wood for screws and could make a foot of small and pleasing dimensions. It only had to be large enough to fit into the jaws of my scroll chuck. Lastly, I could put a finished look on the bottom of the foot by reverse chucking it in the flat jaw plates with the buttons so that the most critical inspector of bowl bottoms would have nothing to complain about.

There is nothing particularly remarkable about all this. It is just about how we learn. We start not knowing very much and then begin to run into limitations. One by one we solve the problems. Finally we come back to the central issue: aesthetically pleasing design. We might know design from the beginning, though more probably we don’t. Even if we do, we need to develop the technology in order to complete the design to our satisfaction. As we work we find out ideas of aesthetics change and we devise even better techniques to improve design. On and on it goes until we reach perfection. At that point there is nothing more to perfect. We have reached the truth we seek and now we are no longer seekers but have become finders. It is important to seek but it is even more important to find. Otherwise we never become fulfilled.

Fulfillment comes much faster with knowledge. When you don’t know how to do something, consult with someone who does. This can be a mentor, a reference book or an article in a specialty publication, the internet, or a group such as a club of members who share the same interests and have probably wrestled with the same issues as yourself. You may be able to reinvent the wheel but it is a lot easier to stand on the shoulders of others. Some day others may stand on your shoulders as you point out the way.

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David Ellsworth – A Woodworking Seminar Made in Heaven

This past week I had the good fortune to take a wood turning seminar at the home and shop of David Ellsworth. The seminar was a generous gift of my daughter Sarah who has supported my wood turning efforts in so many ways.

David needs no introduction from me. He is the man who literally created the genre of turned objects as art. His work graces many museums and private collections. He also contributed to the advancement of wood turning technology with his development of a uniquely ground profile for his wood turning gouges and his sharpening jig to create that profile as well as many other technological improvements.

I will have to admit that the seminar was beyond my expectations. David is at the top of his field and yet he is completely approachable and lacks the arrogance that comes with success to so many. He is a masterful teacher using approaches which register with all three learning styles; auditory, visual and tactile. He never hovers but is there to give gentle and helpful correction when needed, as often it was in my case. He would always begin by uplifting the student for what he had done right. Who would not want to please a teacher like that?

The seminar was balanced between hands on experience in his well equipped shop and relaxed meals together with the five students (actually there were only three on my weekend due to severe weather).

heavy equipment in the wood shop

Some of the heavier equipment in the shop

student by the lathe

One of my fellow students beside the lathe I used. In the background is the photo lab.

Meals were a joy and David would give us insight on the recent history of wood turning and then bring out object after object from his personal collection that he had purchased or for which he had traded with other leading experts in the field. He would not only show the objects but supply lively details about the artist and his career. He is a wealth of information.

David Ellsworth by a bandsaw

David standing by his retro bandsaw

Time in the shop was divided between small amounts of practical and theoretical didactic material and actual practice with projects at the lathe. Each student had his own lathe and an almost unlimited supply of green wood with which to work. I had to learn new methods of roughing, shaping and finishing wood all with the same gouge which is what is so wonderful about the grind of his special gouges. It was ever so much easier than the crude methods I had used in the past and it went so much faster. It was also much easier on my body. Occasionally David would come by and remind me that it was not necessary to beat myself up so much and would correct my problem by repositioning my tool rest a bit closer to the work.

All of the subjects covered were of great interest to me. Besides the basics of how to form the Ellsworth signature grind on the gouge and the basics of green wood turned edge and natural edge vessels and hollow vessels, there were many other subjects covered. There was a session on chain saw sharpening which was most valuable. I recently had problems with sharpening my saws. Now I have used a chain saw for many decades. Yet my mistake was corrected in an instant. I had forgotten that the chain cuts on the corner of the tooth and I had been focusing on the sharpness of the blade of the tooth. Funny how we can forget what we once knew.

There was a valuable lesson on making and using jam chucks. There was a lesson on how to position your blank to get the grain orientation that will be most pleasing to you, and a lesson on how to use wood movement as it dries to best artistic advantage. Of phenomenal use to me was how to use a face plate and make the design go inside the diameter of the screw holes to be able to utilize the whole depth of the blank while enjoying the increased stability of the wood held fast by multiple screws. David shared his extensive knowledge of photographing the work and showed us his solution to the challenges. There was a helpful demonstration of vacuum chucking. He even showed us how he makes many of his tools Always, David presented low tech and cost saving techniques which were of great value to me.

As I look back I realize that we had covered a phenomenal amount of information yet
it all went in so easily and in such a relaxed manner that there was no straining and the
acquisition seemed effortless. If you did not catch it all, David has created a beautiful new text book called, appropriately enough, Ellsworth on Woodturning; How a Master Creates Bowls, Pots and Vessels. It is beautifully written in an easy to read style and filled with wonderful illustrations. It was a great take home item for me as well as the sharpening jig and boring tools that I actually watched David make right before my very eyes.

So, if you would like to make a quantum leap in your turning skills and understanding, I really recommend a seminar with David Ellsworth. Short of that, his book is immensely helpful. I am just thankful that a master like David so generously shares what he has learned over a life time of turning. He is a great turner, artist, teacher and human being.

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A Woodworker’s Boon

Keith Cruickshank

I would like to tell you about a remarkable man. His name is Keith Cruickshank. He runs a video blog: www.woodtreks.com. This is no ordinary woodworking blog. Out of his interest in woodworking and the goodness of his heart, Keith seeks out woodworkers of exceptional talent and reputation. He travels to their work site and takes high quality videos of them demonstrating some aspect of their expertise.

So what Keith is providing is private tutorials from real experts. Now I have learned that there are three learning styles. One is auditory. These people learn from reading or hearing someone speak. The second is visual. These need to see what is being presented. Then there are the hands on learners who need to hear it, see it, work with it and talk about it.

When we teach, if we do not provide adequate learning experiences for all three learning types, some will be left behind. I have people come to me and ask me to show them skills in my shop because, unlike me, they find it impossible to learn from a book. Just let them see it done or try it themselves and they have it.

With his very well done videos, Keith comes as close to providing for all three learning styles as is possible using a single medium. There is a running commentary on what is being done as it is being done. The expert talks the student through the demonstration at the same time he is performing the work. Due to the high quality video camera work it is almost like being in the room with the expert.

The subjects of the videos, which are very to the point and not overly long, cover a very wide range of topics from lumber selection to proper sharpening techniques to how to make perfectly fitting dovetail joints. You may not have a need for every subject covered but if you watch, I guarantee that you will learn something. In fact you might find that you are inspired to do something that you have not done before.

There are a lot of woodworking DVDs on the market and some are very good but they mostly are by one expert and all cost money. Keith’s site is completely free. I don’t know how he manages to do this as his trips may last days and cover considerable distances. Yet he keeps coming up with new and, to me at least, very interesting subjects.

Since the videos are short you can cover a lesson in one easy sitting. All the previous subjects are indexed so you can pick and choose the areas of your interest. No sitting for an hour or more to find the one piece of information you need. For your convenience you can elect to receive e-mail reminders whenever a new video is produced.

I spoke with Keith recently to try to find out what motivates him to provide this wonderful service free of charge. He told me that he had a background in computing and a love of digital photography. These qualities coupled with a life long interest in woodworking have put him on a mission of helping to link experts, many of whom are not widely known, with those who thirst for this knowledge. The quality of the subject matter and the execution are really exceptional in my opinion.

There are several thoughts that come to mind. First I feel that we should take advantage of the knowledge being presented in this unusual site. It will make us better woodworkers. Second, I think we should encourage other woodworkers to visit the site. Third, I think we should express our gratitude for the service being given by giving Keith some feedback on how much you enjoy what he has created. Having recently celebrated my 70th birthday, I can vouch for the fact that this kind of information was just not available when I was starting in woodworking. There was an occasional book or journal and that was it. You never knew the quality of the book until you bought it. Until Fine Woodworking started to be published in the 1970s, the quality of the journals was not so high.

So, I want to voice my gratitude to Keith for the service he is providing to woodworkers and hope that he is inspired to continue this labor of love. Woodworking is much easier and more fulfilling due to his educational efforts. Don’t miss his blog!

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Making a Stepping Stool from Sentimental Wood

cherry stool

This summer I was clearing out the house where I grew up in order to put it on the market. After 56 years of continuous inhabitation by the Smith family you can guess that it was filled with memorabilia of my past. I found two small stools that I had made in shop in the seventh grade. They weren’t great but I thought they would do as gifts for my small grandchildren. So at my 70th birthday celebration in Vermont this summer I delivered them to my two sets of grandchildren. After a week long celebration the families headed out and we cleaned up. In a bathroom I discovered that one of the stools had been left behind.

My wife appropriated it when we got back home as there were some high cabinets that she could not reach. So I thought I should make her one to replace it when it eventually got back to the proper grandchild. It was a week before Christmas and I had been so busy with Fall shows and filling orders for knit shops for my knitted shawl and sweater clasps that I had not even started on the project

As I was looking at my lumber stack in the shop I found a board that was filled with memories. Shortly before he died in 1980 my father had the boys from the local saw mill come and cut up a cherry tree that had fallen in the wind. When I went to pick up the wood, Bubba Adams, the sawyer, reached into his pocket and produced a steel spike and a ceramic fence post arrestor. He said: “Would you happen to know anything about this.” With much embarrassment I admitted that my father and I had put that on the tree 35 years earlier when we had horses. The horses were long gone and the tree had grown around the spike and we had forgotten all about it.

“Well, the saw found it.”Bubba grumbled..

I thanked him profusely and loaded the wood. He would not take any money for his efforts. So I made a Chippendale mirror for him and his adopted brother out of the wood and I know that they hang proudly in their respective houses.

One of the two inch thick slabs had a dark stain and axe marks where the metal had been chopped out of the wood. I thought at the time that I should make something special out of this wood that would incorporate all the memories it held. So 28 years later, after having moved that wood from Virginia to Iowa, to New Mexico, to Kentucky and finally to Maryland I decided that this would be the next best time.

I wanted to design something better than what I had done in junior high school. The slab was a good 15 inches wide. My planer is only 12 inches. So I decided to do a somewhat rustic design and incorporate some of the natural edge of one side of the board and make a roughly triangular three legged stool with a 15 x 19 inch top. One advantage of a three legged stool is that even if the floor is uneven, and most are, it will sit flat without rocking.

cherry stepping stool

I hand-planed the surface and was rewarded with rich color and interesting grain pattern. There is something deeply satisfying about preparing wood with a hand plane. I cut the shape of the top with my band saw with the table set to cut at an angle. The cut was cleaned up using a spokeshave. Looking at the top, I realized that the refined nature of the wood required a more refined set of legs. Not fancy, mind you, but something more than crude. After looking at pattern books of Windsor chair legs, I took some ideas, simplified them and went to the lathe and produced the legs you see. They were made from one and three quarter inch square stock and fitted into one and a half inch holes bored at an angle into the seat.

To get the same angle for each splayed leg I used a jig two inches thick with an angle cut on two sides and a 1 1/2 inch hole bored inside. It was made for me by my wood turning buddy, Tony Kowalewski, a home contractor. I simply clamped the jig to the top with two C clamps and then used a Forstner bit in a hand drill. The jig ensured that the hole got started at the proper angle and did not skate as I drilled on the slanted, hard, cherry surface.

I carefully crafted wedges to go in the slot sawn in the top of the leg to make it tight in the top. I even carefully drew the orientation of the wedges in my shop working drawing. Wedges need to go at right angles to the grain to avoid splitting the wood with the pressure of the wedge.

So I carefully aligned the wedges. applied wood glue and drove them home. After this point of no return I realized that I had done just the opposite of what I had intended and each wedge was running parallel to the grain. Time will tell if the joints fail due to this error but with a two inch thick wood top, it may take a long time for them to fail. The old saying of “measure twice and cut once” came to mind. In this case it was, “check the set-up carefully before you apply glue and drive home the wedge.” You have to pay attention to every detail at every step of the way. My problem is being in a hurry to see the project finished.

I was able to sneak the stool into my finishing shop in the basement of my home without being spotted by my wife. After the glue had dried I sawed off the portion of the legs and wedges that were sticking out of the top of the seat and finished the job with a brand new orbital sander just taken out of the box for this job. Boy, does power sanding make a difference! In just a few minutes the job was done.

I like to use oil finishes. One problem I have found is that the oil finish soaks into the wood and may take months to dry. Wet oil will make its way to the dry finish and blotch the wax. Some bowls I have had to re-wax and buff as many of six times until the finish was stable.

cherry step stool - top

I read recently that if you use a de-waxed shellac such as Bull’s Eye brand, which comes in an aerosol can, to provide a light coat, and sand it well before you apply the oil, you can seal most of the pores and your surface oil will dry very quickly. I have been using this to great advantage with my bowls and decided to use this on the stool. I did not have the luxury of time, as it was almost Christmas eve. With this technique, and buffing with the Beal buffing system, which I have really come to love, I was rewarded with the finish you see in the picture.

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What kind of tools do you go for?

I have my own philosophy about tools. With some crude ones I have done some good work. It is not so much the tool that you have but the use to which you put the tool. Japanese master builders put together the most complicated joints requiring no nails, either of wood or metal. They accomplish this with a couple of hand saws, some chisels, a mallet and use their knee and the weight of their bodies as a vise. Those tools they do use are of the highest quality but they have learned how to get the most out of them.

I started my turning using a second hand inexpensive Sears and Roebuck lathe sold to me by a former patient. By the time I moved up to a the lathe I have now, I had learned to get the most out of the lathe I had been using. So, I suggest to someone just starting out that they get the tool they can afford and learn to use it fully before investing in more expensive equipment. If you get that tool used, then you will not be investing very much. Look in free papers that list things for sale or look in the classifieds in your newspaper.

Once you have the tool, it is good to get a book on the proper use and care of that tool so that you become knowledgeable. There are excellent books written on every commonly used wood working tool in the shop, replete with photographs and easy to follow text. It was not like that when I started working wood.

As an inexperienced turner I wanted to show my children my new found skill. I had a very uneven piece of wood on the lathe so I made a note to turn the wood at the lowest speed. I adjusted the belts accordingly and then with my children standing on either side of me, I turned on the lathe.

As the lathe cranked up to its maximum speed the large chunk of wood came spinning wildly into the air and crashed into a metal bucked on the floor putting a large dent in it that served as a reminder to my folly for many years―I realized that I had adjusted the belts for the maximum and not the minimum speed. I had insufficient knowledge about my machine, and my error could have injured my children or myself had any of us been hit with the flying wood. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so learn all you can about your wood working machine before you ever turn it on. Don’t operate in haste and repent in leisure.

As you use your starter machine you become aware of what it will do well. In time you notice that it won’t do some of the things you want and you begin to make mental notes of the features you will require when you upgrade to your next machine. Then when you do make a purchase of the newer machine, you really appreciate the additional features it offers.

It is not a bad idea to approach life in a similar manner. Get as much knowledge as you can before you start out on any venture. Learn to do the very best you can within the framework of that venture as you make mental note on the new features you would like your next venture to embrace. This is called growth, and that is the nature of life.

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Hands and Making Tools to Fit Them

hand calipers

Ever notice how many different kinds of hands there are? I have come to the conclusion that there is a hand type for every purpose. One of my favorite quotes is that an artist is not a special kind of person but every person is a special kind of artist.

My own hands are not suited for many purposes. With wide stubby fingers, I cannot type on a notebook computer or use a cell phone with ease as I hit three keys for every one intended. My wide hand will not fit inside a quart jar to clean it easily. My handwriting was never a thing of beauty earlier in my life and now I cannot even read it myself.

Yet the strength in my hands serve me quite well in working with wood. Using a chain saw, holding a carving knife or using a wood turning gouge all day gives me no problem.

Since each hand is different, it is nice to be able to make your own tool handles to fit your hands best. Once you know the basics of wood turning, making your own handles is quite simple. Blanks from most any hard wood will do quite well. I start by turning the diameter for the ferrule to fit over where the tool steel joins the wood. Once I have determined the inside diameter of my ferrule, usually just 3/4 inch long piece cut from a scrap of pipe and deburred on the grinder, I transfer this to the wood on the lathe using calipers.

Once I have the wood the that accepts the ferrule the proper size, I take the wood off the lathe and tap the ferrule over the turned end. I then remount the wood on the lathe and finish turning the handle, sand it and apply finish while it is still spinning on the lathe. Decorations can be added such as grooves to suit your individual taste.

In this day of mass produced tools, there is something very satisfying to pick up a tool handle of your own design. You can make it out of a very pretty wood. This will give you a sense of being uplifted every time you put it in your hand or your eye falls on it. A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Craftsmen of the past took great pride in the appearance of their own, hand-made tools, as they felt that their tools were a reflection of their own craftsmanship.

There is also a practical aspect to this. At my wood turning club meeting last week, one of the senior turners admitted that he had over one hundred turning tools. While I am not in that league, I must have thirty or forty and every time I see a new turning demonstration I find that there are several more tools that I need. Now, if all the tool handles are identical as supplied by one manufacturer, just try to pick out the special tool you need from that stack.

woodturner's hand

On the other hand, if some have ash handles, some cherry, some beech, some walnut, some maple and each is a different design and length with different numbers of grooves in the handle, it is much easier for the eye to fall on the one you need. When you add to this the fact that you made it just the right diameter and shape that fits your hand best, then you develop a real fondness for the tool.

If you strive to create beauty, then you should have beautiful things around you. What you see you become is an old proverb. When you are surrounded by beautiful things then it is easier to create beauty in the project you have selected.

Now it is not much of a jump to go from making your own handles to making the shape of the metal tools you use. Every professional turner on the teaching circuit has the tool catalogues cary his specialty “signature” tools. There is a different tool or grind on the tool for every purpose. As you use your tools you will find that there is a special need you have for which you can not find the proper tool. So the solution is to make it yourself. Scrap steel, masonry nails, old files, etc. can be ground on a bench grinder to make that special shape for that special job.

When you make a special project using a cutting edge you designed yourself mounted in a handle of your own design, you feel the meaning of the word creativity. Wasn’t that the reason you went into the wood shop? You wanted to express your own creativity, whether great or small. What you put your attention grows in the awareness and creativity in one line of thinking begets creativity in other lines of thinking. The next thing you know you are regularly thinking outside of the box.

I had a wonderful patient in Newport News, VA, when I practiced medicine. He was very bright, but coming along in the Depression, he could not afford to go to college. He became a watch maker instead. World War II came along and all the watch makers were grabbed by the defense department to make Norden bombsights for airplanes. So he ended up eventually working for NASA until he built his own successful machine shop and retired to manage his own business.

People would come in to see him with a complex request for some machine or apparatus. He would listen patiently as the prospective customer outlined what he wanted made. Usually it was something that had not been done before. At the end the customer would ask if it would be possible for something like that to be made by the machine shop. My friend would say: “Sure, we can do that for you.” However, he confided in me that at the time he had no more idea how to do that job than a jack rabbit. He said he would think about it. He would sleep on it. He would continue to turn it over in his mind. Before long he wold come up with a way to make the job work. He said he never turned down a job because he did not know how to do it.

I learned a valuable lesson from that man. Not only was he a great friend but he was a great teacher as well. I had another great teacher. He is my son. At the age of three or so, he told his Montessori teacher that his father could make anything. In fact, I could hardly make anything. Soon the school was asking me to make everything for them from missing map puzzle pieces to storage cabinets. I just said yes to every project and stayed on the steep end of my learning curve for many years.

So, life is like that. Even though you don’t know how, you can do anything you really want to do. Just say yes and then let nature show you how. Mother nature is hovering in the wings ready to show you anything you desire. She just needs to know what you want, and you must be alert to her help because it may not be what you were expecting. Of course it really helps to have someone have complete faith in you. How can you let a person like that down?

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Natural Edged Pear Bowl

natural edged pear wood bowl

I am somewhat of a neophyte at making natural edged bowls. I recently was given a whole Bradford pear tree and feeling flush with raw material, I was persuaded to take some risks I do not ordinarily take. As you hollow the bowl, part of the time your gouge is floating in the air. It takes a lot of tool control to keep from knocking off the fragile bark on the undulating rim.

This tree was cut in September when it was still full of sap. I found that Bradford pear sap is like glue and I would have to frequently change band saw blades to get the wood cut up in proper dimensions for turning. Well, that glue set up and made the bark unusually adherent so that it made for more allowances of imperfect technique than any other natural edged bowl I ever tried to turn.

The bowl was turned green to final dimensions, and sanding green wood does not work. Furthermore, trying to sand a fragile spinning undulating rim was just too scary for me. This meant that there was much more hand sanding in the finishing process after the bowl had completely dried. Wherever you have figured wood it dries with a very uneven surface. Here I used my cabinet scraper to good end to remove wood faster than hand sanding. I was surprised that the bowl dried without checking and with very little warping. It was most noticeable in the base which would not sit firmly on a flat surface without some attention from my carving chisel.

For finishing I applied and sanded out a couple of coats of de-waxed shellac and then finished with a coat of tung oil. I read recently that de-waxed shellac is compatible with any other kind of finish applied over it. This sealing of the grain prevented the tung oil from penetrating so deeply that it would take months to dry completely. I was satisfied with the finish which had not even been waxed yet.

See this bowl in my bowls gallery here.

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