I'm Teaching

I've been woodworking intensely for the last five years. building, reading, learning, watching, doing. In that time, I've built a shop, an (almost) complete set of tools (ok, there's NEVER a complete set of tools), a workbench, furnished half of my house with custom period furniture (and still going), built projects and furniture commissions for customers both locally and at long distance, and more. And while I still feel new to the craft (and probably always will), when looking back at all I've done, I have to acknowledge my accomplishments. I've built solid skills. I've done my homework, learned from great sources. I completed many difficult and challenging projects. I've marketed, sold, and delivered furniture to customers. I've gone from a newbie -- being unsure, confused, and sometimes struggling, into a pretty efficient woodworker, knowing the steps I need to take, knowing the time and effort and attention required to do them, and applying those to projects that get completed. I know that simply knowing those things vs. executing them over and over again, are not the same. The first leads to the second. To improve my work, I need that experience, and I'll get that with each day I spend woodworking. I'm aware of both my strengths and weaknesses as a craftsman. And so it was with mixed emotions that I began to entertain the idea of teaching woodworking to others.

It all began a couple of years ago, when I was approached by Dave Coulthard, a woodworker from England, living in Des Plaines, a suburb of Chicago, about helping him realize his dream of starting a woodworking school. He had found me online through my website and other places where I had posted my work, and liked my craftsmanship and writing. And in his eyes, my background in IT didn't hurt either. We met and discussed his plans, and how I could help him (setting up tech/IT stuff at first, teaching classes and helping run the school later). As our talks progressed, I was flattered that Dave, a 36 year veteran of professional woodworking, classically trained in the apprentice system as a joiner, loved my work and craftsmanship. But I felt understandably insecure about teaching to to others. How could I presume to teach?

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Brett in the shop

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two chairs

But I had taught before. I had taught a few one-on-one sessions in my shop, for hire. Those classes were exhilarating and rewarding, for myself and the student(s). And last spring, building the Morris chair was actually a tandem build with my friend Brett. I was sharing my shop with Brett that year, and he had been commissioned to build a Morris chair for a friend, and as that was on my bucket list, I couldn't resist building it along with him. Brett was a newer woodworker, and the build ended up being an extended, multi-week tutoring session, where I spent time helping him through his build as I did mine. As I wrote at the time, helping him was an equally big help to me. It reinforced the lesson that teaching is a great way to learn too. I'd also been a woodworking student on many occasions from excellent teachers, and saw how they worked, and how they paced their classes. I recall watching them teach, taking notes, and imagining myself doing the same.

"OK, OK", I felt ready to teach. I knew I had woodworking skills, experience, and passion to share with students. I knew I would be learning from Dave, and learning from my students. And it was an excellent chance to add more woodworking into my daily life. Dave and I worked on the plan for the school for months, getting together the facility (Dave's space in Des Plaines, IL), putting together the classes, the website & registration system, the social media stuff, the marketing materials, etc etc. It was all a lot of work, but unlike a lot of work I've done in my life, it didn't fell like work. I was so excited for the outcome that I just dove in and did what needed to be done.

So here we are, finally, and the doors are open. I hope this new chapter will become a big part of my life. If you're anywhere in the Chicagoland area, and would like to learn woodworking in a great environment from passionate, experienced people, please take a look at what we have to offer. Classes start in a few weeks!

http://midwestwoodworkingschool.com

I will be blogging over there, as I continue to do here. So even if you can't attend classes but enjoy my ramblings, keep an eye on the blog over there for my writing.

Boiling Stones

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I've been enjoying my new books. Lost Art Press recently released the two book set "The Woodworker: The Charles H. Hayward Years", a release that I've been eagerly awaiting ever since it was announced month (years?) ago. It's an absolutely fantastic curated collection of woodworker and author Hayward's articles from his years as editor of the English The Woodworker magazine from 1939 to 1967. If ever "Lost Art Press" lived up to its its name (by, you know, pressing lost art), its here. Hayward's career spanned the transition from hand work to the modern power tool age, a period when so much fundamental woodworking knowledge went from being common to almost forgotten. At 888 pages, it is a massive collection. But Lost Art Press has organized it by type and topic (and done an amazing job at re-setting the type and reproducing the illustrations) to where it is an engaging and very accessible read. As I go through it, every page seems to reveal a new gem, and authoritatively answers the kinds of questions that pop up on today's woodworking forums with regularity, ones that are often answered only hesitatingly and incompletely, by the well meaning, but ill-informed.

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In a recent session going through the book, I came across a little article about cleaning oil stones. I hadn't thought to consider they even needed cleaning - I'd thought I would just keep them oiled up in use, and wipe the slurry off when done. But as my current set of Arkansas stones have been feeling "gummy" lately, and not cutting quite like they did when new, this piece caught my attention. Hayward says to either "... boil it in a strong solution of water and washing soda..." for a couple of hours, or, if you're in a hurry, cook it with a bare gas jet or blowlamp until the oil and grease (and embedded particles) are cooked out. The latter has the caveat that any uneven heating might cause the stones to crack. That seemed cool, but I wasn't ready to risk it.

So, I decided to boil mine, with a little dish soap and water. So far so good. Thanks Mr Hayward.

Follow up: Night and day. The stones are cutting fantastically. After I boiled them for about 2 hours (seeing a big oil slick form on the top of the water), I dried them, then applied some WD-40, went over them briskly with a wire brush, and put them back to work.

Not a Myth - Wood Moves

This weekend, humidity in the Chicago area was hovering around 94%, and its been between pretty high for the whole month of August. With extremes like these, it's been a great change to see the effect of wood movement on my past projects, and hopefully learn to better appreciate this unstoppable force.

One of my biggest, and earliest woodworking projects was to build a full set of kitchen cabinets when we re-did our kitchen. The design has 33 cabinet doors, 17 drawers, and face frames, all made from flat sawn red oak (and then the standard plywood boxes and drawer bodies). As this was early in my woodworking journey, I didn't have the level of appreciation for choosing proper grain direction that I do now. The frame and panel doors were made with plywood panels, a few with glass, and stub tenons & grooves (as opposed to full mortise & tenon joinery). The potential was high for them to move over time. But so far, I've been lucky: just a few of the 33 doors have moved a bit. Let's look at them...

This first photo shows the bottom inside edge of this door getting swollen, to the point where some force is needed to close it. It's also tight on the bottom edge. The door facing it is fine, however.

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swollen at the bottom, making it hard to close

This pair of doors have also expanded towards each other, making for a tight fit. If I close the tow of them together, they close tightly. If one is closed, I can't close the other.

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tight here

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can't close one at a time

This door has twisted, so that the lower corner is "in" about 1/4" inch.

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do the twist

And the rest of the doors and drawers are fine. 4 out of 33 is not bad for blindly picking wood without careful attention to grain. Of these 4, now might be a good time (at the point of maximum expansion) to trim the 3 "swollen" ones down to where they are just barely working smoothly again, knowing that they'll be fine as it shrinks, and for the next time it gets humid again. Now is the time to deal with this, as It's impossible to guess how much of a gap to leave in the dry seasons. For the one door that's twisted, I have to either live with it, or re-make it, this time being conscientious of the material.

Also in the kitchen, we have some birch laminated slabs for the counter tops, and two of them meet at a right angle. In the winter, there is as much as a 3/16" gap at this joint. But now, they are tight. They're only butted up to each other, and attached to the base cabinets with clips, allowing them to move.

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that's tight!

Last year, I built a window bench / banquette, with batten supported lid/seats. These were fitting perfectly then, but looking at them today, the tops have moved about 1/4", and now stick out proud from the "side" pieces, who's grain is oriented 90° from the lids...

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sticking out

The obvious fix here is to remove the lids from the piano hinges, shave some length off the back (where the lack of finish will not be seen) and re-attach them. I think I'll have to be careful not to cut them perfectly flush now, as they will shrink again, and be uneven the other direction. I'll have to opt for a happy medium, somewhere in between.

Here's an example of how good design can compensate wood movement. On the mission pedestal table I built last year, the wide tops have indeed expanded. But the movement is only visible where the the edges of the skirts are pushed apart, on the underside edge of the table. The table top still looks good, with the two halves coming together tightly. If I had built the top and skirt to fit tightly during of high humidity, the opposite might have happened during the dry season: the skirt pieces would have been flush, and the gap between the two halves would have opened, which would have been ugly.

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a gap, but down where only furniture nerds will see it

The lesson from all this is not to think wood movement is theoretical, or can't happen to you. It's not, it can, and it will. It's therefore a good idea to take the time to examine the things you've built, and take note of how well, or how poorly, your earlier designs have held up under the extremes of humidity, and build your future projects accordingly. I'll revisit this in the middle of winter when things are bone dry, and we'll compare how the piece have moved, looking at both the fixes and the pieces that I left alone. Fingers crossed. However, as we're talking about wood, there's never going to a perfect fit. The wood will move, and our furniture must move with it. Hopefully, joints won't crack, doors won't stick, and boards won't twist, but when (not if) they do, take it into account, and learn from it.

Back to Woodworking in America 2014

I'm going to Woodworking in America this year. It will be my second WIA, and if its half as good as 2013, it will be worth it. But with the list of presenters & topics, I expect it to be better. It's a shame (for me) that the location moved from Cincinnati, OH (5 hours away) to Winston-Salem, NC (12.5 hours away), but I'm going to find away to enjoy the drive nonetheless.

What I'm looking forward to is the following:

• Meeting fellow woodworkers. Last year I met quite a few, and that has fostered a few online woodworker friendships that continued after the event. I hope to do some more of that this time.
• The marketplace. Its the biggest marketplace I've seen for this sort of thing, and the multitude of vendors usually throw in discounts of some sorts. But even better, in most cases you can try out tools and talk to their makers. That's a great opportunity to do some comparison shopping, and to see if that fancy plane is really 2x or 3x better than the one I use in my shop, etc.
• The instruction. I wasn't sure what to expect when I went for the first time last year, but I found I was pleasantly surprised. I was most surprised by the sessions I attended on things that I didn't think I would ever do. I went to one of Mary May's wood carving sessions, and that was really enlightening. I was so inspired, that I purchased a few basic carving tools, and mutilated a piece of oak in her honor. Someday I'll get back to it, and might try a few of her online classes. I also was riveted by watching Peter Follensby's session on 17th century woodworking. The techniques used in riving green/wet oak and assembling a frame and panel box were totally outside the "kiln dried lumber" approach that is most of what I've done so far. So interesting! Even after the session was over, a few of us stayed around and he kept talking, and answering questions. Getting that sort of almost 1 on 1 access was priceless. Other sessions that were great were Don Williams' talk on period finishing (here's his blog post about it, and that's me standing on a chair in the middle of the shot, 2nd photo, attending his talk last year!), showing us both his techniques with shellac, as well as using wax and a polissoir for burnishing and finishing. Great, practical stuff. I also got to see Bob Lang talk about mortises. I've been a fan of Bob Lang's craftsman furniture shop drawings books, and wanted to hear the man speak. It was a really nice session. This year, I'm looking forward to more Don Williams shellac stuff, as well as seeing the legendary dovetail master Frank Klausz do a session. And there are several presenters who I know nothing about, but I'm confident I'll wander in, and learn something, and enjoy it.

If you're going to WIA this year and would like to meet up, drop me an email and we'll make that happen. If you can make it, it's a great event, and a great way to expand and improve your woodworking knowledge and environment. I hope to see you there!

Sharpening Western Saws by "Brit"

Shortly after getting started with woodworking, I started hanging out on the woodworking community site, Lumberjocks. It is a fantastic community that has been around since about 2007 or so, and features thousands of active members who make blog posts, tool reviews, posts about completed projects, all with countless photos, comments and discussion. It's been an invaluable source of learning for me.

Although the signal to noise ratio is very good, with most members being very helpful with links, tips and info, some members really stand out above the rest. One of those is Lumberjock's member Andy Lovelock, aka "Brit", from Dorset, England. He's been posting info, pictures and videos on various topics, but mostly old tool restoration, from braces to saws.

Today, I saw that he has outdone himself, by posting a 2 1/4 hour long video on sharpening western saws. The video is detailed, well edited and paced, and beyond thorough. The most amazing part is that he did this all for the love of sharing what he knows with his fellow woodworkers. As he states in his Lumberjock's blog post...

This instructional video has been provided free of charge and I’m not looking to profit personally from it in any way whatsoever. However, every year my local community puts on a charity Christmas carnival, the purpose of which is to raise money for local charities by collecting donations from the general public on the day. If you find the video useful and would like to show your appreciation, please consider making a donation at http://www.highcliffecarnival.org.uk/

It's this sort of "we're all learning together, so let's help each other out" attitude on Lumberjocks, and elsewhere in the woodworking community, that has made my journey of woodworking richer and more rewarding. I'll be making a donation in thanks, and I'll be watching this video over and over as I learn more about saw sharpening.

Take a look at his post and video here. 

Thank you Andy!