ben lowery

Interesting stuff from February 8th, 2012 through February 9th, 2012

Ben — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:01:01 +0000

Inside Instagram: A look inside. Now make an Android client.
Log In – The New York Times: Do cantilevers turn you on? RT: @southsidepgh: An Industrial Strength House in Pittsburgh
Ateneo stude rickrolls prof in Malacañang Field Trip paper | GMA News Online | The Go-To Site for Filipinos Everywhere: Too many secrets
A History of the Sky for One Year | Murphlab: Goddamn.
Nick Kwiatek — Web & interaction designer + developer: Fluid dynamics in ASCII art. Amazing.

Interesting stuff for February 8th, 2012

Ben — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:00:10 +0000

Path: "It is also stored securely on our servers using industry standard firewall technology." has to be my favorite bit of PR techspeak nonsense in a while.
Behind the scenes: Reinventing our Default Profile Pictures: Some of the best default avatars I've seen. Love the painterly look.
Impossible – Making film for Polaroid cameras: These guys spun up a shop to keep making film for the Polaroid after Kodak stopped making it. Crazy free market.
Marshmallow Launch at the White House Science Fair: Air cannons FTW
Identity at Mozilla: New(?) take on single sign-on for the web, integrated into Firefox.

Interesting stuff for February 7th, 2012

Ben — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:01:28 +0000

17th-century mistakes, pt 1 « Peter Follansbee, joiner’s notes: The eye is forgiving. If you make a mistake, just keep going.
Bug 394769 – setTimeout/setInterval "lateness" argument breaks expected behavior: RT @kangax: setTimeout/setInterval "lateness" argument gone from FF — Got bitten by it in the past.
Letter from China: How Did Hoekstra Get So Much Wrong?: What a moron.
Red tape: On doing business in Albany
Nobody gives a fuck about Superman.: Great rant on the death of superman

Interesting stuff for February 7th, 2012

Ben — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 17:00:53 +0000

101 Cookbooks – Healthy Recipe Journal: A collection of recipes using natural foods
Overflow – a secret benefit: Careful reading of the spec allows for a very neat clearfix trick.
CSS playground: Impressive set of UI features done in pure CSS3
Scifri Videos: Where’s The Octopus?: Now that's camo. I'd scream too.
US Postal Service "Hacked" Ad: yes, because having tens to hundreds of people physically handle sensitive information is way more secure.

San Pel in Glass

Ben — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:36:14 +0000

Playing with WordPress for Android 2.

Through the Looking Glass

A Sign of Accurate Sawing

Ben — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:18:33 +0000

The kerf

A few nights back I was sawing the side aprons for my Stickley Lost Side Table to length. My procedure is to mark all of the faces using a knife, nip out a small starter notch for the backsaw, and then saw away the waste; it’s pretty standard stuff.

Knifing in the lines does a few things: it gives you a clean entry line on the shoulder, it makes it easier to track the saw, and if you cut things fat, it gives you a nice place to register a chisel when paring. One thing I discovered is that it also lets the waste piece break away before the saw gets to the bottom of the work piece.

In the picture above, notice the little shelf of wood left on this piece of waste? The top of the shelf is where my knife scored the wood fibers. The width is the width of the kerf on my backsaw. I looked through my other waste pieces, and this only appears when your cut is square and plumb, that is, when you’re exiting the cut with the saw right against the marking lines.

If you see the shelf, you made a good cut.

Building a shower that won’t leak

Ben — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:02:36 +0000

Great writeup by Bob Borson on building a shower that won’t leak.

Inside Ikea

Ben — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:32:58 +0000

A creepy fun look at what happens when you turn the page.

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Kerf [Flickr]

Ben Lowery — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 05:43:08 PST

Ben Lowery posted a photo:

IMG_2960 [Flickr]

Ben Lowery — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 05:42:57 PST

Ben Lowery posted a photo:

The Essential Woodworker for $10

Ben — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 01:13:32 +0000

If you have any interest in hand work in woodworking, a wonderful introduction is The Essential Woodworker by Robert Wearing. This formerly out-of-print book was brought back by Lost Art Press a while back and is now being offered as a DRM-free ePub for $10 with a Kindle version coming soon.

This book is my go to reference whenever I have a question on how to build a piece of carcase furniture. It also includes some nice exercises to help learn essential hand tool skills, like planing a board flat and sawing accurately. It’s finely written, well edited and quite clear. For $10, you cannot go wrong.

The hard cover edition is also available for $23.

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Two New Vises

Ben — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 03:32:08 +0000

Fancy New Tail Vise

While my bench has been useable for a while now, I’ve wanted to add a tail vise to help when milling up stock. When milling by hand, you have to be able to go across the board, perpendicular to the grain, diagonal to the grain, and along the grain with your planes. While I can get this done with a planing stop and battens, a tail vise and dogs make it really easy.

After I scabbed on a spacer block, I chiseled out the mortise for the inner vise plate, so it would sit flush(ish) with the end of the bench. Word to the wise, don’t do this with a 1/4″ mortise chisel; it takes a couple of hours.

Next, I attached the vise and made up a quick chop from some 12/4 poplar left over from the bench top.

Vise Chop and Dog Holes

All that was left was to drill the dog holes and make some dogs to go in them. I ordered some 3/4″ maple dowel and it showed up a bit oversize. Sadly, oversize means it doesn’t fit, so I had to break out the 80 grit and atomize a couple hundredths of an inch of maple. Fit with a bullet catch, a small leather face, and a coat of wax, the dog is ready to go.

Chips and Dogs

I had mentioned two new vises. The other is my edition of a Moxon with hardware from Benchcrafted. This build is really pretty simple, though you do get to practice a bit of fancy mortising for the nuts. Next time, I’d hold the nuts down with a holdfast while marking them. They shifted a bit under finger pressure and things got a bit sloppy. Still works though. Oh, and I’d gang up the two pieces when drilling the through holes. That way, any slight deviation from plumb and square carries through. Or I’d use a drill press. Still, a damn pretty bit of kit and it works beautifully.

Moxon Vise

IMAG0221 [Flickr]

Ben Lowery — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 11:42:13 PDT

Ben Lowery posted a photo:

IMAG0209 [Flickr]

Ben Lowery — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 11:41:58 PDT

Ben Lowery posted a photo:

IMAG0203 [Flickr]

Ben Lowery — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 11:41:37 PDT

Ben Lowery posted a photo: