Shark's teeth? Even worse, it seems...

Stay tuned!

— Al Navas

Using a mallet with good technique, and without damaging a board like I did on the first try, the edge glue-up resulted in a very flat board:

Old technology can be discarded easily. My old Craftsman screw clamps came to the rescue once again – I will keep them.

— Al Navas

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Sometimes I do dumb things, but this one takes the cake — an edge glue-up gone awry by careless pounding with a mallet.

To minimize the risk of damage to the boards, and for large edge glue-ups, I normally use a large, thick piece of similar wood (scrap) to beat the board edges into perfect alignment with the mallet. Meanwhile, I tighten the clamp in that area a little at a time. In a momentary lapse of concentration, I did not use the scrap board; instead, I pounded the mallet directly on the white oak surface (twice!), with these results:

I missed the damage due to lack of contrast after I finished the glue-up, even after a cursory inspection; but it was there:

Too deep to repair by swelling the fibers with water, and applying a hot iron to pull out the crushed fibers, I simply ripped the glued boards at the glue seam, prepared another 75-inch long X 8-inch wide board, and did the glue-up a second time:

The color should equalize quite a bit after the first two coats of dewaxed shellac. And the wonderful medullary rays (“fleck”) will be even more apparent then.

— Al Navas

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Clamps, and fleck.

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I found some boards with terrific fleck!

— Al Navas

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Disclaimer: I do not have any connection with Lie-Nielsen.

As always, click on the images to enlarge them.

The first of the Events in the Midwest in 2010, the Lie-Nielsen (LN) Hand Tool Event will take place in Kansas City in less than two weeks! The Kansas City Woodworkers Guild will host the Event at their facility in Merriam, Kansas. You can view the brochure for this event by clicking on this link. This is a wonderful learning opportunity – I have always learned something new at every one of the Events I have attended. And that makes it a lot of shavings!

Cost: Attendance is FREE!

What: The Lie-Nielsen Toolworks Hand Tool Event

Where: Hosted by the Kansas City Woodworkers Guild in Merriam, KS

When: March 26 and 27, 2010

Time: Friday, March 26, Noon to 6 PM; Saturday, March 27, 10 AM to 5 PM

Why would you want to attend?

• A great opportunity to “…learn how great tools make your woodworking easier!…”
• Do you need new tools, and want to try your hand with any and all of the Lie-Nielsen tools? Just about every tool made by the company will be available for you to try.
• You get to meet, and ask questions from the people at Lie-Nielsen, first-hand.
• You will have a terrific chance to get advice from experts, whether on the use of a hand plane, a chisel, sharpening, etc. – literally, any of their tools.
• Lie-Nielsen will not be present at any of the Woodworking Shows this year; as a result, this is a great venue to see them in person.

I encourage you to mark your calendar, and to attend this Event. Sandy and I were fortunate to be able to attend the LN Event in Cincinnati, Ohio, in May 2009. It took place at the Popular Woodworking offices. Other articles in which I mention Lie-Nielsen can be found at this link.

I hope to see you there!

— Al Navas

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After cleaning up I headed to the Simpson & Sons saw mill, just outside town. I needed a few cherry boards for an upcoming project. As usual, Dustin, Lori, and the rest of the crew, were extremely helpful, climbing the stacks to hand-pick boards and hand them down to me. Back in the shop, I took a few minutes to handle a couple of phone calls; I cannot remember when I last sat in the open area in front of the table saw, but it felt great – it is a most unusual happening, but one I might practice more often:

Just back from the saw mill.

Not only has all the snow melted, but we have had two rainy days – actually, drizzly days and flooding of the Platte River. I make it a practice to bring lumber into the shop, to let it acclimate for a few days. To help it along, I lay out the boards and cut them to rough length; then they sit in the shop for a few days. I make sure to inspect every board carefully, marking areas I will avoid due to cracks and other defects:

Start layout on cherry boards.

In the morning I will do some preliminary machining of the cut pieces, just enough to get them flat, but nowhere near final thickness. This will allow me to check for stability much better, as I will be able to detect even the slightest cupping or twist.

On a non-woodworking note, our 5-year old granddaughter, Emily, has started using “her Mommy’s Facebook”, and sending Sandy and I messages. Last night she did it on the Facebook chat. Today I found a message from her on my Wall; and I noticed she had also written on Sandy’s wall. When I asked her tonight how she wrote on our Walls, she said “…I found ‘Al’ on Mommy’s Facebook, and wrote you a note. Then, looking in your Friends list, I found Sandy and wrote her a note, too…”

I was unable to contain my laugh. It was a pretty special day, thanks to Emily. She will be six in April.

— Al Navas

Postscript: Emily wrote on my Wall:  “hi papaps this is emily hau r you?”

Showing the details of resawing on the band saw.

Toward the end of the presentation, one of our members requested that I show how to fold a band saw blade into a small hoop. After I demonstrated my method, one member volunteered to show us how he does it. I looked with much interest, as I had never seen it done this way (this is a 19-second movie that Cherie captured on her iPhone):

Video courtesy of Cherie,
recent past Guild President.

I always have a good time at our meetings, seeing people I have missed for a while, and renewing friendships. Tonight was special, as I learned something new, and possibly better than my method of folding a blade. I would love to learn how YOU fold the blades:

1. Do YOU fold your blades?
2. Or do you just hang them on the wall until next time?
3. If you fold them, do you use the method shown in the video?

— Al Navas

Sandy and I looked at each other, nodded as if saying to each other “…could be the cat in the living room…” Sandy actually said it. We continued eating our nice meal. Forward three hours, time for bed, time to put some clothes in the hamper in the closet. The entire left wall of clothes is on the floor, the result of a failed oak rack – the failure occurred at the finger joints:

Failed finger joint.

Here is the interesting part: Once opened, the joint showed no evidence of glue ever having been applied on any surface:

Failed joint exposed.

How could this joint have survived the weight of two huge, fully-loaded shoe racks, plus the weight of heavy clothes? Even more amazing: This part of the rack, about a 3-foot span, was held in place by less than 1/2-inch of a very small screw actually in the wood. I remember putting up the rack in a hurry, as a permanent installation at least seven years ago, and not even wondering about this deficiency…wow!

The repair: I ripped a 1-1/2 inch wide strip, 1-inch thick piece of white oak, rounded all four corners, and installed it using T-straps with three screws to the top part of the rack. The screws securing the new rack are just over an inch into the white oak. I think this repair is likely to last a good while longer than the original.

— Al Navas

Nancy's niddy noddy.

Disclaimer: I have no commercial, or any other interest in Nancy’s Knit Knacks, the maker of the niddy noddy above.

The damage to the end of the long piece, where the threaded insert is encased, cracked due to excessive pressure. The threaded insert was now loose in the hole, and did not allow the cross piece to sit properly in the recess. My solution was to use to Crazy Glue, a low-viscosity adhesive that wicks very well, and allow it to seep through the cracks to wet them; then, several hours in the vise proved sufficient to allow proper curing of the glue:

The following photo shows the glue seeping through the cracks. Keeping the assembly under pressure in the vise worked well to allow the threaded insert to remain seated properly:

Glue squeeze out through the cracks - YES!

Simple? Sure! But it is not always obvious that the simplest repair can be the most difficult. Using Crazy Glue escaped me on the first repair job. I hope I nailed it this time, though.

Our daughter will be thrilled to get her niddy noddy in almost-new condition. I will do a little sanding, and get this ready for delivery tomorrow. Ah!  It is good to be a hero once or twice a year.

— Al Navas

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The all-new Popular Woodworking Magazine - April 2010

I kept reading on the forums about people receiving their copy of the all-new format, the result of merging the old Popular Woodworking (PWW), and Woodworking (WW) magazines. I was getting…mildly upset I had not received mine.

That changed last night. Sandy brought in the mail late in the day. I won’t keep you waiting: In a nutshell, bottom-line, I like the new format!

First things first: I already liked both magazines, as each offered something different. Now that I have said it, I can get on with some of the details. With the online buzz, some people liking one or the other, comments on the forums about the pluses and minuses of merging two magazines that differed in style as much the two old ones, I eagerly awaited my issue of the ALL-NEW format. I like the content, and I like the format.

Quispiam vetus ( Something old):

I loved the black-and-white photos on Woodworking magazine; I liked the layout of the magazine, and also its content and lack of ads. The no-nonsense approach to every topic was always refreshing; and every single issue brought something new, as well as long-forgotten nuggets to this power-tool guy and incipient Neanderthal. Basically, “…no-crap reporting…”, according to the Editor. And quotes interspersed with other text – wonderful quotes! Would any of this go away in the merged format?

Popular Woodworking, on the other hand, appealed to me for the same reason it appealed to the larger audience. Great writers and woodworkers, from Cherubini, Walker, Flexner, Dunbar, Schwarz, the whole crew, always did their best to help me learn along the way, for many years. And, of course, the ads, which is fine by me. It helps pay the bills! But the old format appealed due to the variety of topics presented by, and for, woodworkers.

I followed the magazines’ blogs, read the online articles, and stayed informed with content that did not find its way into the respective issues.

Quispiam novus ( Something new):

New paper, glossy paper, ads. The same Editors, many of the same contributors, at least two new Contributors (I recognized Kari Hultman, our beloved Village Carpenter, as one of the new Contributors, and later realized she is also a new Editor, in Tricks of the Trade!). Of course, the pages also contain some great articles. What more could a person want in a woodworking magazine? In short, more of the same.

George Walker is back with another great article, Making Sense of Form; I bought his two DVDs, and my fascination with the topic continues, thanks to Walker himself (I met him at two of the Woodworking in America conferences). With Cherubini on sabbatical, Jerome Bias fills in with a wonderful article about Thomas Day, a free black man who “…was the most influential cabinetmaker in North Carolina…”; this is a wonderful article, and I enjoyed it thoroughly! Glen Huey presents a White Water Shaker stepback; this is one project I will probably tackle in the not-too-distant future – I love it (and, secretly, I hope I get to see this Shaker Village in October). Chris Schwarz wrote about plane maker Clark & Williams, and their basement operation. And Bob Lang wrote a wonderful article about How Tables Work, which brought memories of a table I researched and built for a client last year. Chuck Bender came back for an article featuring the William & Mary style; great stuff for me to learn. Kari Hultman wrote about Sunken Treasure, the recovery operation of very old tree trunks in Belize, Central America, that will bring 200-year old lumber to our shores. Bob Flexner wrote about An Array of Lacquers, which opened my eyes to this often used (and, sometimes, $%^$#) finishing material.

Whew! That is a lot of stuff to cover in one issue, folks. I wanted to give you a flavor for the extensive content, done well by terrific writers who are also gifted, experienced, and passionate woodworkers. One more thing: I know all but two of the authors (Bias and Flexner), and I know they are all passionate about their woodworking.

The new direction for the new magazine also includes a larger online presence, in the form of content that does not find its way into the printed pages, and in the social media. It will be interesting to see this grow, as the electrons convey the message down the fiber optic pipelines. I already see the greater involvement in Facebook, for example, waters into which I only recently dipped my toe. I look forward to the greater content on the magazine’s web site, sharing woodworking information to our heart’s content.

As I scrutinized the pages of this issue, it hit me that I never really paid much attention to the little boxes inviting you to “Go Online FOR MORE…” I have no idea what tinyurl.com is, and probably won’t find out. It seemed to be shorthand for links; I tried one and, voilá, it was a link to the Bookstore. A note to the Editor: I am too old to remember the number sequence; please change to something more pneumonic, like http://www.woodworkersbookshop.com/product/print-special-best-tricks-of-the-trade-january-2005/ . I am more likely to remember “…tricks…trade…2005…” instead of “…yj62644…”

Epitome (Summary):

The bottom line: I like the new magazine format. It has a good part of the feel of Woodworking magazine, and the (longer) familiarity of Popular Woodworking magazine. I never objected to the ads in PWW, but like the clean layout of WW. In the new format, I appreciate the articles seem to always (mostly?) start on the left-hand page – this is great layout! Overall, the quality of the new magazine is excellent. I am certain it will continue to get even better. I hope that, as you read this review, it will make you want to go out and get your own copy (or order online). That was part of my intent; but I also wanted to convey that, in my opinion, the woodworking community is likely to be engaged by the new format and the renewed focus in the online content.

Now, your turn:

1. Do you subscribe to either, or both magazines?
2. If you do not subscribe, will you buy a copy of the new issue?
3. Have you received yours in the mail?
4. If you have received it, have you read it?
5. If you read it, please share your thoughts by leaving a Comment here. Thanks!

— Al Navas