A Splintered History of Wood

     Happy Fourth of July to all of the Sin City Woodworkers!

     Hope you've had your fill of hot dogs, apple pie, fireworks, and maybe a beer or two thrown in for good measure.  I don't know how many of you like to read but I read a review about a book titled "A Splintered History of Wood"  that is written by Spike Carlsen.  Being a thrifty Dutch guy the first thing I did was to check the county library website to see if they have it.  I didn't expect to find it since the date is 2008.  They had it and I requested the book. If any of you use the library website it's real easy to request a book but you'll have to wait to get this one!   I've only started reading it but thought I'd pass it along.  Looks as if I'm the first one to read it so it's like getting a new book for free.  For me, it's all about the wood and this book has 11 chapters full of interesting and crazy facts.  Chapter titles include Extraordinary Wood, the Wacky World of Woodworkers, Wood in Music -- Sports -- War, etc.  Very easy reading and quite interesting.  I tried to put an image of the book cover on this blog but was unable to so here is a link to it on Amazon:   click here  
     Check it out, according to the Amazon ratings it's a 4 1/2 star book out of 5 stars possible.  When I checked out there were about 30 reviews.

June 16th. Meeting: Finger Joints and More

       Before the meeting we needed to attend to some business, mainly collecting the dues of $20.00 for the year.  The dues are a way for Jamie to pay the MeetUp fees which are close to $150.00 for the year.  There haven't been too many takers but remember you can get those fees back if you want by doing a demonstration during a meeting.  I'm sure that many of you have a trick or two up your sleeve that we could all learn something from.  Just as an example, the router bit that Jamie showed to cut the slot in the drawer for the bottom was killer!  Matter of fact, I ordered one from Lee Valley this morning because the way I make me pistol cases that's a technique in their construction.  Here is the Lee Valley link so you can get your own.  Using the bit is much easier than running a blind dado and then chiseling out on the finger to allow the bottom to fit right in -- dynamite ; )

      Another item that came up was the Farmers Market (Fresh something or other) that will be in the Henderson area.  It would allow those of you who make items for sale a place to show and sell them.  Jamie mentioned that she believed that the Etsy Organization that she and others in our group belong to has something to do with this as well.  For those of you wanting to know more about them, here is a link to their website.  

      Okay, let's get on to the finger joints.  The advantage a finger joint has over just a simple nailed and glued butt joint is that you expose the long grain of the wood which gives the joint  strength.  Let me explain that concept for those of you new to this woodworking thing.  If you think of a piece of wood as a bunch of drinking straws laying side by side it'll help.  Imagine taking two bunches of those straws and putting the ends together with glue -- where would the glue go?  Yep, right down that hollow tube.  Now imagine putting the glue on the long sides (edges) of the straws and sticking it all together, they'll stick won't they?  Wood is essentially a bunch of microscopic tubes, the more edges of those tubes that you can use to join them, the stronger the joint will be.

The first step to the finger joint process is to cut a slot in the piece of wood you'll use for the jig.  In top  photo you see the dado head set slightly higher than the thickness of the wood being cut.  The blade is the two, outside cutters of a stacked dado head to obtain a 1/4" cut.  Jamie did a good job of explaining how the dado head works, it's a good investment to have.  On the left side there is a piece of wood next to the blade that is attached to the jig.  This is the exact width of the cut.  Basically here's the procedure:

1. Cut a groove/slot in the piece you will use for the jig
2. Move the jig over the exact width of the cut and screw it to the miter gauge.  The piece of wood that is the same width as the cut is then put into the slot you made in step #1 -- let's call that the guide pin
3. You can see that Jamie then took her test board and held it upright against the guide pin to make a cut
4. Each cut after that is made by placing the cut on top of the guide pin and working your way across the width of the board
5. To cut the mating piece you put a spacer against the guide pin and align the mating piece with it.  This way you're cutting a notch out of the board -- after the first cut simply set the board over the guide pin and work your way across the board

    In the second photo, Jamie is doing a test fit.  Her secret weapon for adjusting the width of the cut was a hammer!  If the cut is too tight, gently tap the jig towards the right (looking at it from the operators position), too loose tap it towards the left.  Usually you'd make another test set of boards unless you lead a charmed and lucky life (like Jamie) and just go for it.

    In the third photo down, you can see that yes, the finger joints do indeed fit.  You'll notice too that they are quite proud of the surface but you can either plane or sand them flush.  When the drawer is finished this will leave a decorative element since the end grain will finish darker than the edge grain -- remember my straw example?

    Last but not least, the bottom photo shows how easily the slot cutting router bit I linked to earlier makes the dado for the bottom.  Like Jamie said, you can either radius the corner of the bottom piece or I would square off insides of the slot with a chisel.  I'd suggest cutting the bottom piece slightly undersize so that it will be able to float in the grooves.  Not too crucial if you're using a plywood, masonite, or MDF for the bottom but if you use solid material you need room for expansion and contraction of it.

    Hopefully we all learned something from the demonstration, I know that router bit was new to me and according to my shipping data I'll have one the middle of next week!  If you try this at home and have any questions you can contact me, I'll try to answer them.  I can't speak for Jamie but I'm guessing she'd help you out as well. 

Fantastic Carving

  During our recent visit to Seattle we stopped in to the Seattle Art Museum (SAM for short).  Lots of really interesting exhibits including one dedicated to Kurt Cobain for you Nirvani fans, but what really got my attention is this sculpture.  Would you believe that it's a solid piece of redwood?  I think the title was "The Shroud" and although it looks like it's sitting on a piece about 8" square, it's actually carved and then the bottom looks to be planed or chiseled to look like a post.  Really cool, looks like a challenge piece for Dennis!
Anyway, the artists name is Dan Webb and I looked up his website, click here to view his other work.

Kallenshaan Woods

What a great May meeting we had!

Ken and Colin Nelson, of Kallenshaan Woods, makers of laser cut pen body kits, brought a nice selection of their products and actually made a pen during the meeting. Here, Ken describes how to put the pen body kit together on a mandrel and load it onto the lathe.


He also brought a nice selection of finished pens.


The pen on the lower left has a hot air balloon design,
and although it's hard to see the actual detail, all of those pieces are individual pieces of wood, dyed and reassembled together, just like a puzzle would go together. As Ken explained the manufacturing process, it's clear that he's put a great deal of thought and expertise into these kits.


Ken began the demo by roughing out the body of the pen with a simple
skew cut. This father/son duo really complemented each other, each had their area of expertise.


Colin begins the finishing process, by applying a CA finish.


If you want more information about his technique, check out Colin's website.


He finishes up the process by wet sanding, using micro-mesh papers. The video below shows his quick and effective methods. Thanks to both Ken and Colin for not only a fantastic demo, but for all the goodies they shared with the group.

Wednesday, May 19th. Reminder

       Just in case you haven't checked out the link for our demonstration this Wednesday you can click here  to see what is in store for us.  Ken Nelson is the creator of some outstanding kits for making wooden pens.  I'm sure you remember Jamie talking about them at the last meeting.  She mentioned one that was similar to a jig saw puzzle and I just couldn't picture that one in my head but looking at the website put it all together.  Why not check Ken's site before the meeting and maybe ask him about a design that intrigues you.  If you haven't done so already, go to the Meet Up page and RSVP for the meeting.  See you there......

How I Love Wood -- Gorgeous!!

Just wanted to share this image of the crib I've talked about making for my first grandson.  The cap is a piece of curly maple that also had birdseye in it.  I scraped it and then finished with many coats of platinum shellac followed by rubbing out with 4/0 steel wool and Liberon Black Bison wax.  Hope my grandson to be doesn't decide to use it for teething!

Gilding Sin City

      During the opening remarks of our meeting Jamie mentioned a really good dust mask called "Dust Be Gone"  I have one of these myself and even though they are expensive compared to the paper ones available locally, these should last forever as they are washable.  As Jamie mentioned, not only do they filter out the dust, it seems as if they are so good, the smell of the wood is removed as well.  I don't know but I kind of like the smell of wood! They claim that your safety glasses don't get fogged up but mine do, ever so slightly but usually not a real problem unless it's humid and we talked about that when I did the gilding demo -- not too often.  In any case, click here for a link to Klingspor's catalog page for the mask.
      We also discussed the yearly dues of $20.00; these should be paid by July's meeting.  The dues are used primarily to pay for the Meet Up page and we're also considering buying the domain name of Sin City Woodworkers for the club.  In case you missed it at the meeting, don't use the name of Sin City Woodworkers at this time to get a discount at Peterman lumber.  Apparently there is a business somewhere out there that used it and they are delinquent on their bills -- you may end up paying more than you want to!!  Just a preview for those of you who were unable to attend last night, Jamie has a demo set up for the next meeting that will feature a pen turner who makes some very unique pen kits.  He will be bringing in a small lathe to show how it's done.  Click HERE to visit his site and see what to expect.

     The next part of this blog may be a little difficult to write because I'm blogging on my own demonstration.  I guess that's like writing your own performance report hoping for a raise!  I'll tell you what my goal was with the demonstration and if you feel like it you can let me know if you think I accomplished it or not.  A couple of months ago my wife and I went to the Scottsdale Artist School to take workshops.  A well known figurative artist (John Michael Carter) and his wife (Barbara) taught them. Diane, being the artist, took his and I took Barbara's to learn about the fine art of water gilding.  I wanted to share what I learned there with our group.
     I talked about the two main ways  to gild; oil and water, and for most of the work members in our group may do the oil gilding process is the easiest and probably sufficient.  We talked about the materials needed (which can be bought for less than $30.00) and applications we could use for our work such as  moldings on cabinets, decorative panels in boxes, carvings, deep grained woods, etc.  I had a prepared demonstration board and showed how to gild using the composition gold and also silver. Several members were really interested in the variegated composition leaf which is available at Dick Blick here in Las Vegas. Then we got to the fun stuff if you're process driven person like me!  I think it was agreed that this is not for the impatient.
      Water gilding is using genuine gold leaf, 22kt. in this case, and through many steps applying it to whatever it is you want to gild.  I discussed the materials and showed samples of them, the cost of the materials, and also the time and methods used to prepare your wood for the actual gilding.

The first step is to remove the leaf of gold from your book and place it on the gilders pad.  Everyone kindly held their breath so it wouldn't blow away and it stayed in place on the pad much to my relief and surprise.  This pad is basically a piece of deer skin attached to a board with a light layer of foam in between.  I think it provides some tooth for the leaf to stick to,












Once the leaf was cut with a gilders knife you use a gilders tip (usually made from squirrel hair) to place it on the board.  A very small amount of vaseline is applied to the tip to hold the leaf and also to counteract the lack of humidity.  That is our enemy!!  I've brushed on the gilders liquor which is a combination of denatured alcohol and distilled water.  This reactivates the gelatin glue that was in the clay.

























After the sample board was gilded and the liquor had a chance to evaporate off, you use cotton balls to tamp the leaf into place.  You have to be sure keep the cotton dry because if it gets any moisture on it  you may pull off the gold as I inadvertently demonstrated.

     The last step is to use an agate or "hounds tooth"  to burnish the gold.  Luckily the lack of humidity allowed me to demonstrate that before the meeting ended.  Contrary to what most folks think, you're not polishing the gold at this point, instead you are pressing it into the clay which is what makes it shine like only genuine gold can.  








     All in all, I think the demonstration and discussion went well and I hope I gave you something to think about adding to your work.  If you added some gilded details to your moldings or carvings it would set your work apart from others.  I mentioned the compo material and some seemed interested in that as well.  That's an excellent way to add the look of carved details to your work without actually carving.  I have quite a bit of composition gold leaf and if any of you want more information or some hand's on experience with it let me know and we'll see if we can get together.  There were a lot of questions at the end and I answered them to the best of my knowledge but, like it says on those warning labels:

                                                       "Try first in an Inconspicuous Spot".