swenson

I do a lot of tables the way you do and always use Tite III I'm sitting at one right now and for the life of me I can't see the glue lines where I ripped the front apron at all. The table top was glued the same way and can't see it there either. The wood is cherry and the finish is Tried & True varnish / oil, four or five thin coats.

As for the waterproof part, I sometimes forget to wash out my brush, a good art brush I use for spreading glue, and the result the next day when I find it is one hard solid brush. Puting it in a glass of hot water and dish soap fixes that in a couple of hours. I think the brush is better for it.

Just my 2cents.

Great idea one set of feet for four uprights. When I was looking something up in #208 I saw these and made two. The next day I made two more. You can nest four, for storage, in just a couple of inches more space than one. Use them all the time. Downside: as you say, they are so beautiful you don't want to get paint on 'em. Now you have to worry about spatters from the grill.

When computer printers stopped using folded paper I discovered that I had a lifetime supply of paper at any length I needed. I can quickly make a full sized pattern of each piece used in a project and take them with me to the lumber yard. As I select each unmilled board I lay the patterns out and shift them around to get the best use out of each board. Later, in my shop, I do this again more carefully, leaving space around each pattern and avoiding end checks, knots, and defects. I mark the parts in chalk, roughly drawing around each pattern, and cut them out before milling. Each pattern then sits on top of its corresponding part till I have time to mark the part with sharpee and blue tape. Works for me.

Did they indicate what the price range would be? How did that compare with the LN chisels?

The "one steel screw" trick reminded me of another one. Driving steel screws, of the same size as the brass screws you are using, into each hole first, threads the wood. Then when you replace them with brass screws there is less chance of twisting off the soft brass head.

Home › Forums › Fine Woodworking Knots › General Discussion.Rough Cuts with Tommy Mac
ViewEdit.Rough Cuts with Tommy Mac
swenson on Sat, 10/02/2010 - 16:54 in General Discussion

SAMPLE FROM KNOTS

First impressions, first show In this area. I have never seen or heard of this guy before the controversy about the title Rough Cuts, when FWW started using the same name a few months ago. So I have no axe to grind. The first show shown here in the DC/MD/VA area was on building a trestle table, on Maryland Public TV.

On the plus side: Interesting little road trip to get wood and see a log being flitch cut with a big sideways bandsaw mill. Good production values in the film making without a lot of fancy transitions and effects. Good editing. Fast paced.

On the minus side: Fast paced... maybe too fast p[aced. More on that later. I watched this episode with my wife, no stranger to woodworking because of me, but not a woodworker herself. While I followed everything because I had experience with this particular project, she got lost early on. She didn't realize that the pre made parts were being used as patterns for the layout of the chalked ruff cuts, he talked too fast and everything was "all right guys, listen up guys, guys this guys that 'till it started to get to me as well. Also annoying was the "Easy sneezy, easy breezy" expressions, it got a bit much.

Other problems: Spring joints... I know they are controversial, he advocates them. Breadboard ends... needed because this is a trestle table with a big overhang but he did not make floating tenons, nor did he peg them with elongated holes. He didn't peg them at all as far as I could see, it looked like they were all glued in. The segment on finishing was hurried and I got next to nothing out of it.

Overall impression: Not enough time to cover everything they wanted to put in the show. He raced thru everything, talking faster and faster 'till I got out of breath just watching. If you are going to go at that pace you have to have periods that go a bit slower every once in a while to let the audience catch its breath.

All that said, I did enjoy the show, we are set up to record it every week, and I do look forward to watching more episodes and wish them success.

There is a much longer thread going on in FWW "Knots" under the General Discussion forum, including comments from a FWW producer and a review by a network television editor with almost 50 years in the business, the last 28 of which were as an editor/producer for ABC News Nightline. This has been going on for several days now.

Looks good. If the production of the show is as good as the preview we are in for a treat. If they can resist the use of snap zooms and stupid transitions in the promo I feel confident that the editing will be clean in the show too, something I expect from WGBH anyway. I don't know this guy but I like him already. Just 2 cents worth from a guy who likes straight cuts in film as well as in wood.

All I can say is WOW and wonder why the cuts don't split right out the ends upon opening. I was expecting to see holes drilled at the ends of the cuts in the close-ups but there aren't any. Another example of the most powerful tool in the shop... the human mind.

Safety Note: First remove loose necktie and hair...

Looks good. I'm gonna make one. But did you know that vise grip drill press clamps work without the nuts on the bottom? If you drop them into a hole just like an old fashioned holddown they jam in the same way when pressure is applied to the clamp. I have a large wooden add on table for my drill press and have placed a couple of holes where I use the clamp the most. The threads on the vise grip bolt work so well that they grip the hole walls at whatever height they are in the hole. I don't usually even have to adjust the clamp pressure at all, I just lower the clamp in the hole till the clamp sits on top of whatever thickness stock I am drilling and I push down the handle and the bolt jams at that height and the clamp clamps. That said, you are stuck with the position of the hole. Your design using slots gives you more options. Thanks for the great jig idea.

As a woodworker and a retired film-tape-digital editor I gotta say it doesn't get any better than this. Great shop, great piece. Thanks.

I have been involved in a lot of dangerous hobbies in the last seventy years, skin diving in the 50s, sky diving in the 60s, hunting in the 70s, rock and ice climbing in the 80s, not to mention motorcycles and shooting sports, and I have found that getting complacent is the number one problem for safety. Pushing the envelope is number two. Every hundred jumps or so I used to sit down and have a long talk with myself about how lax I was becoming. "The important thing is not getting that perfect photo of another freefaller, dummy... it's the ground coming at you at 120 miles an hour" I would tell myself. I managed to bust myself up a bunch of times over the years but I'm still alive. None of the accidents were during "dumb days" and most came out of the blue because I was getting too comfortable with the potential dangers. I used to have a light hanging over my table saw with a pull chain. For years I looked in vain for one of those joke-store severed rubber fingers to hang on it as a reminder of what could happen. Recently I noticed some drops of brite red paint across the floor of my shop I must have spilled and every day I see them and think "that could be my blood." That helps as does seeing the big red first aid kit haning on a peg just waiting for me to screw up. Flying Magazine used to have a regular feature called I Learned About Flying From That recounting near accidents and their causes. Might be an idea for some woodworking mag.

It sounds like you have achieved balance in your woodworking life. As a general rule I have found that if I am wearing ear protection I am not having as much fun as when I don't have to.

Mostley drawer bottoms, also the bottom of a baby cradle out of 3/4 Baltic Birch. Used a clear water based finish, several coats as I remember, thinking about nighttime accidents leaking thru the pad. Worked great and about to be used on another grandchild.

Anything published by Taunton has got to be OK. I turn to your books often, they are shelved right in my shop.

When I can't use my wife's SUV with the roof rack I take the top off my Corvette and place stock as long as 12 feet on the passenger side floor with the tops sticking out the top and the face of the first board resting on the opening for the roof. I used to tie the bundle together but now I just use two quick clanps, one near the top of the stack and one near my shoulder to use as a handle. I have less than a mile to drive home and this works for me quite well. The air stream seems to jam the wood more tightly under the dashboard and a fleece jacker under the wood protects the roof opening from any damage. I did this for years with my old Camero T-top, sometimes taking 16 foot lengths of moulding. I guess This would not work if I had a stick shift, but I drive with one hand on the quick clamp to give a bit of support to the load and keep repeatint to myself "Don't drive into the garage."

Great news that LN is going to put on 100 tool events a year. I went to two of them last year, both in nearby Maryland, and learned more about planes and sharpening during each event than years of reading and trial and error. If you get a chance to attend one, go. I took the tour of the factory in Maine last year and got on a mailing list... they inform me by postcard where the next tool event is going to be in my area. That said, I do like my local WC store ten miles up the road in Leesburg, VA Great bunch of guys. Sorry to see the breakup of the LN / WC relationship.

For years I suffered from dovetail guilt. My dirty little secret was, I don't know how to make 'em and I'm afraid to try. Then , at a woodworking show, I watched a demo where a guy eyeballed and hand cut a bunch of pins with only a baseline marked out. No other layout. He just started cutting pins, chopped them out and marked them against the second board with a pencil. In no time at all he had a joint tapped together with no glue that I couldn't pull apart. I was impressed. I went home and found my extra thin saw with no set that I use for cutting off dowels. Using it as a pull saw I started joining every scrap and cut-off in the shop. Every day I cut four or five. No agonizing, no measuring, just knock 'em out and try again. They started to get better. Some of them I couldn't pull apart. This was fun. I bought a good saw and started measuring and doing real layout. I got better. Sometimes I cut out the tails and left the waste, but it was a learning experience and no expensive wood was lost and no project ruined. I never have to do big production runs of multiple drawers because I'n not in the business, but when I need a few drawers for a table or a work bench I think it is faster to make dovetails by hand than setting up to make them by machine and a lot more fun. Just my 2 cents.

I have aged copper with a mapp gas torch with results that look like yours. Is that what you did? Nice job. How thick is the copper and does it rest on a base or is it just framed in?

No woodworkers were hurt making this prop. It's not fine furniture. The local gun club wanted props to hide behind during combat type contests. I made them a big blue mailbox and a fireplug. The fireplug was made out of cardboard concrete forms and an old woodturning jam chuck. It had a compartment in the base filled with sand for stability. The cookies look like they would work great on the cherry frames I am making for some large mirrors.

My son wanted a reclaimed wood dining room table and I found a store in Virginia that made them out of fence boards. He liked the look and the store put me in touch with the source of the wood. They had a bunch of 5 inch oak fence rail and some timbers from an old barn that they de-nailed and dried and ran thru metal detectors. In Loudoun County most fences are painted black and the boards had been skim dressed so you could see some of the grain underneath. I jointed one side of each until just enough weathered character was still showing and then planed them all to three quarters of an inch on the back side. All knots with voids and all cracks were filled with black Apoxy, a clay and epoxy mix used in Hollywood to sculpt things for movies. The resulting black fill looks almost like dark open holes and cracks... very neat. I made aprons and tapered legs and breadboard ends for the top. I also made two company boards that could be added to each end to extend the seating when needed. I'll get my wife to put up some pix later since I'm too dumb with computers to do it myself. Now that the table resides with my son in Maine with wild swings in temp and humidity you can really see those breadboards work. The same company sold be a bunch of six inch cherry 5/4 reclaimed from the very center of the log where the knots are the worst and I am just finishing a kitchen table for my wife in the same manner. They call it reclaimed because they say that the sawmill throws out or burns that wood as it is not even close to being the clear quality they normally sell. I think it has great character. Will get pix or that project up as well. Wow was this long winded or what ?