Next Meeting: August the Eighteenth

     The next meeting will be held at Wood It Is, the usual time -- 7:00 pm.  There will be two presentations for us to enjoy and learn from.  One of the demonstrations will be of special interest to any of you that have attempted to use Google SketchUp.  Chris DiRossi  is bringing his laptop along with a large monitor to give all of us a lesson!  He is planning to do a tutorial and give tips and shortcuts that he has used to design his projects.  I plan to bring a paper and pencil to take notes, computers can be confusing to me.  If you've tried to use SketchUp on your own and had problems, this demonstration should be very helpful.
     The second demonstration is about using composition ornamentation to enhance your furniture. This is a traditional way to give the look of carving to furniture, mirrors, walls, and picture frames.  If you've ever wondered how long it took someone to carve 10 feet of perfectly shaped leaves, balls, or sea shells it may of actually been compo!  This demonstration will be presented by John Eugster and could be considered an extension of the gilding demo he did a few months ago.
     As always, you know that seating is limited so bring your own chair if you want to park somewhere!
                           Hope to see you there.
    

Local artist honored in San Diego's Design in Wood competition

John Eugster scored an honorable mention at the Design in Wood competition in San Diego. Here's a little local press for one of our charter members - congrats, John!

July 21st. Meeting

The meeting last Wednesday had several new faces and there were small discussions going on around the shop before the main event. Once we started, the new faces introduced themselves and gave a little bit of background about what they did and what interested them enough to show up for the meeting. As Jamie mentioned, this was our seventeenth meeting and we've had a core group of 15-20 folks that have shown up consistently. I know I'm not talking just about myself here but the very nature of wood working is pretty solitary unless you're in some sort of commercial shop. The solitude of it is what appeals to me (and probably many of you) but it's good to get out and mingle with others -- that's what makes the Sin City Woodworkers such an interesting group!

So on to the main event of the evening. Larry Yule gave a demonstration on making cabinet boxes using the European, frameless style. As he pointed out, that system evolved after WW II to replace everything that had been destroyed.

Standardization was the key and the system is based on 32mm. Larry used a biscuit joiner which most of the members were familiar with but obviously not every one was. In a nutshell, this machine cuts a elliptical slot (half a football) in the two pieces you want to join. This can be face to face, face to edge, or edge to edge. The biscuit is a piece of compressed beech that expands when the glue wets it -- that gives you the joint. Once glue is applied you can either clamp, screw, or nail the joint together and basically you're done.


If you research it or talk to any number of woodworkers you'll find a range of opinions about the strength and merits of a biscuit joint over any others like mortise and tenon, doweled, pocket screw, domino, and on and on. Essentially, the biscuit joiner is a pretty simple and forgiving way to assemble cabinets, face frames, and picture frames; like any other tool it has its' place in your shop.

Larry started out by showing how he attaches the nailing strip to the cabinet back. He unintentionally demonstrated how it's best to mark which surface needs to be slotted but, with his skills and experience, also showed how to rectify that little mishap!


Next was laying out and cutting slots needed to put the sides together. With European style cabinets there isn't a face frame so that wasn't a consideration. Eliminating the face frame results in less time to make the cabinet and also lets you utilize more of your wall for cabinet space.


Ever seen House Hunters International when they're in Europe?, the kitchens are tiny! A new technique to some of you was how he laid out the biscuits on the cabinet components. He used what's called a "Story Stick". Instead of using a tape measure to make the same measurements he simply laid the required measurements out on the stick and transferred them to each component. Easier, quicker, and eliminates errors.

Assembly couldn't be easier, having a willing helper, a special glue applicator, a mallet, and lots of clamps is essential.


There's a lot of glue that needs to be applied and clamped and with the heat we're experiencing now speed is of essence. In a couple of months from now Larry will demonstrate how to make a face frame cabinet -- that'll cover the two main ways cabinet boxes are constructed. I'm sure we all gained some knowledge from Larry, as usual he invited other members of the group to come up and get some hands on experience using the joiner -- great job Larry!

I'm going to end this blog the same way I seem to end all of them -- come on guys, show us what you do and share your techniques with the rest of the group. It isn't an easy thing to do but once you get into it it's pretty rewarding. Plans for our next meeting include a computer demonstration on using Google SketchUp for drawing your project plans as well as applying composition ornaments to your work. These haven't been finalized yet so if you feel the urge to share your knowledge let Jamie know.

Next Meeting: July 21st.

     Just in case some of you haven't seen it on the Meet Up our next meeting is going to feature Larry Yule, of A.G. Yule & Son (http://www.agyule.com/).  You probably remember Larry as he's the one who did the great demo on making the torsion boxes.  For those of you who have questions on how to build your basic boxes for cabinets this will be the demo for you! Larry builds his boxes in two different styles - either with a face frame, or in a (faceless) Euro-style. For this meeting, he'll focus on the Euro-style, and will demo the other in the future  His box building technique is sure to answer some of basic cabinetry questions.
     If you haven't paid your dues yet for this year please bring them in this week.  Meet Up costs and overhead  for the facilities come out of the minimal $20.00 yearly dues.  If you can, RSVP on the Meet Up site, if not, hope to see you there.

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.