Planes in Sin City

Last Wednesday's meeting was one of our first, interactive meetings and judging by the comments I heard and the activity going on it was a success.  I was happy to lead the group in learning the basics of setting up and using the various planes.  Yes, it's a time consuming process but, as I heard Dennis exclaim: "there's nothing like the sound of a shaving coming out of a nicely set up plane", well that may not have been his exact quote but you get the idea!

Beginning of the Demonstration

To be sure, setting that plane up can be a daunting task but like I said, once mine is set I generally leave it alone so it's ready whenever I need it. Jamie and Larry both use block planes in their work when needed so even though they may not want to use the planes exclusively to get a great finish they have their place in any shop.  After using my method to teach literally thousands of kids through the years I'm sure it'll work for you.

Here's a picture of using the block plane to cut a chamfer on the end of a board. With its low angle and small size it's ideal for that.

You move the board, I'll hold the plane!!

Before we started the meeting, Neil showed off his cast and shared his accident with us on the router table.  It's a reminder of how careful we need to be working at this craft and that in spite of all the safety precautions, accidents can still occur.  Hope your fingers heal and you're as good as new Neil, look forward to seeing you cast free next month!
Speaking of next month, Jamie brought up an excellent idea of us all bringing a project for a Show & Tell session and also having snacks and libations in the spirit of Christmas.  Seems as if most of us welcomed that so we'll have to make plans and finalize them before the meeting which will be on the 15th. of December.
Several of you asked for plans for the bench I brought and also the article from Fine Woodworking that went into tuning up a plane.  I can't figure out how to attach them to this blog but will send a separate email to everyone that I have in my address book with them as a PDF, you should be able to open them.  If you're not on my list and want them just send me an email.
Last of all, Jamie did a great Cecil B. DeMille impersonation and took a number of videos of us in action!!  Here they are, enjoy  Okay, slight technical glitch!  I've been watching the icon churn around for the past 10 minutes and nothing is happening.  Jamie sent them to me as a zip drive and they really are cool.  I'll send them to you in the same email I use for the PDF files.

Sin City Woodworkers October meeting

Sin City Woodworkers, a Vegas valley social and networking group committed to serious (and not so serious!) woodworking discussions, meet on the third Wednesday of each month to share everything from techniques and ideas to information about local suppliers and much more. They meet at Studio: Wood It Is!, 2267 West Gowan, unit 106 in North Las Vegas. The next meeting is scheduled for October 20, at 7:00 PM.

We're changing things up a little bit at this meeting - no demos or hands-on woodworking at this get-together. Instead, we'll be discussing the business of running a a woodshop. How do you price your work? Do you use an estimating program? Where do you buy materials and equipment? How do you market your work? Have a website? Sell on Etsy? If you are thinking about starting a woodworking business, this round table discussion will probably answer a lot of your questions. If you own your own shop, we hope you'll share some tips that work for you.

The public is welcome to attend the meeting, but there are a limited number of chairs in the woodshop. Attendees might want to bring a folding chair if they wish to sit during the meeting. If you have questions or need directions, call the studio at 631-1870.

Remember Al Phillips the Cleaner??

If you've been in Las Vegas for any amount of time you probably remember his ads on television.  Someone would ask him "how do you do it?" and his reply was always; "it's easy when you know your business".  Well, here's a picture of our own Dennis Patchett, when asked how do you carve -- yep he said: "it's easy when you know your business".




He gave us a demonstration on how he does some of his carving and brought in some samples as well.  It's pretty obvious that he really loves what he does with his carving and furniture making and that's always the key.  As easy, as he says it, but there's no denying that he has an artistic talent for the work because it's way past just being technically perfect, it's artistic as well.  I like how he explained the way he obtained his tools, every payday for about a year he'd get one or two more.  From my limited carving experience I've found that there are so many different chisels you could go crazy!  Seems as if the key for Dennis is to basically get them as you need and then plan your carvings around the tools you have.  Last night he showed how to carve/incise letters and explained some of the architectural work he has done.  It just so happened that Richard brought in a book of reproduction furniture that had plans for a shell carving that Dennis had done as well.  Here are some photo's of his work.

Carving the straight section of the letter.

Adding the curve to letter end.

Fan Carving for a Drawer Front

Sample for Cabinet Top

Thirty Hours of Work in Maple    Notice the chain in the lower right corner.

For all of you that we're wondering, including you Dennis.  If you go to Facebook and do a search for Dennis Patchett you can find his page.  I scrolled through it and found the most beautiful work.  Dennis my friend, if a computer resistant 'ole dude such as myself can figure out how to get a website up you can too!  My wife has helped me a lot but I used a fairly easy program.  I won't say it's the easiest or the most enjoyable thing to do but if nothing else you can use it like an on-line portfolio so potential clients can see the type of work you are capable of. 

September 15th. Meeting

     Our meeting for this month is scheduled for Wednesday the 15th., as usual it starts at 7 pm and will be at Jamie's shop/school.  Dennis Patchett will once again demonstrate his carving skills to us.  He plans to bring several examples of his work and also show how to carve a chain as well as a few flower designs.  My first exposure to carving was way back when in Cub Scouts.  We were given a bar of soap, a knife, and the simple direction of carving a whale.  I seem to recall that there was a picture of a whale, maybe Moby Dick, that we were to use as a guide.  The only advice I remember getting was to just "cut off everything that doesn't look like a whale" -- yea, like that really helped!  Good thing it was soap and I was able to use it for a bath later that week.
      Hopefully, Dennis will give us a little better understanding on what it takes to take a flat piece of wood and carve a recognizable feature on it.  From seeing his demonstrations before I'm sure we'll all walk away with some of his knowledge.  To carve as well as he does takes a certain artistic eye, the ability to see what the outcome will be as you selectively remove wood and shape it to become whatever it is you're carving.  Hope to see all of you at the meeting.

 

Composition Ornamentation

Thought I'd share a couple of photo's of the completed TV Lift Cabinet with you guys.   Did any of you that took some compo after my demonstration have any results with your experiments?  Let me know how they turned out and I'll post them on the blog for the rest of the group to see.  Not my personal style of furniture but it sure opens up a lot of possibilities!

Front View

Side View

Tips from Richard

Hello Sin City Woodworkers,  Sunday Rich sent me an email extolling the use of hand tools.  I'm a hand tool guy myself so thought I'd promote their use with his email.  He told me it was okay to use on the blog so here it is, by the way feel free to send me pictures, stories, etc. for the blog as well.  My email is: eugster96@cox.net  

Hi guys!

I just had to share this.  I was routing a dado for the miter gauge track in my new table saw/router table work center project.  Unfortunately, the pattern bit I was using lost the set screw that kept the collar which kept the bearing in the right position, and somehow the bit got under my template guide and after my first pass, I had a dado 1/8" wider than it was supposed to be!  Ouch!

Now I'm thinking, OK, I've got nothing to guide the bit on the next pass, how am I going to get to the right depth, in the right place (which happened to need to be precisely 33 64ths of an inch).  After much gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair, I realized that I actually owned the tools to make this possible.  I grabbed my trusty sliding dovetail saw, and my trusty Veritas large router plane, and was all set to go.

I loosened the bolts holding the saw blade in the sliding dovetail saw, pulled out the blade till it was too deep, and set it down next to my miter gauge track and pushed it down until the flat next to the blade seated on the top of the track.  Tightened the bolts, checked the depth again, and viola, 33 64ths in depth is set (without measuring!).  Sawed both sides of the (#$%#%$) dado to depth, and proceeded to hand route (most) of the rest of the waste in the dado.  When I got close, I checked the track, yep, not deep enough yet.  Made a 1/4 turn on the depth adjustment screw, routed, checked again, repeat until fit is perfect.  Done!

Now all I have to do is fill the blinkin gap.  Rockler is sending me a replacement router bit, and pointed me to some filler called Wunderfill which seems to have gotten good reviews.

FYI, one of my magazines had a tip for filling holes with epoxy that I plan to try when the filler comes.  The tip was to pour the 2 part epoxy into a ziploc bag, close, then mush the stuff around until mixed, smoosh it all into one corner of the bag and the snip a tiny bit off the corner.  Squeeze gently to fill holes with epoxy.  He got the idea after watching a cooking show on TV where the chef was using a squeeze bag (not sure what the proper name is) to squeeze decorative icing onto pastries.

Next project is to make the router table fence.  The plan calls for a 4" tall by 6" deep fence.  Not having tons of spare space to hang multiple fences, I've decided to alter the plan knowing that at some point I'll want a tall fence.  I'm making it 13" tall with a mini-T track 2" from the top edge for feather boards.  Can't think of a good reason why a tall fence won't work just fine for cuts that really don't need one.  Let me know if you see a drawback to this plan.

FYI, I love Baltic birch.  Never worked with it before because I thought it was too expensive, and am never going back to Lowes plywood.  Boy was I wrong.  Cheap plywood is too expensive!  Rugby's got a new customer.

Cheers, and I'll see you at the next meeting!

Rich

Compo & Computers

     At our last meeting on Wednesday, August the 18th., there were about 14 members attending.  We had a one new person, Ed, who makes Adirondack chairs and brought one of them to sit in during the meeting.  Pretty heavy for a portable chair but those of us who sat in it agreed it was comfortable.  I did one of the demonstrations and Jamie elected to go ahead and lead the meeting seeing how I was standing up front anyway!  What I had next to me is an electric hotplate with a pan of water and screen stretched over it.  The screen is a piece of canvas and it's all you need to work with composition ornaments.

Samples of Composition Ornaments

     I get my compo from Bomar Designs in Louisburg, KS.  I recently completed a French Provincial style cabinet and when I ordered the compo from them asked if they had any brochures I could give to the SCWW when I did my demonstration -- they were good enough to send some so that the members have some understanding of what the composition material is, how to work with it, and also be able to incorporate it into their own work.  

     The first thing I showed was how you can dress up a typical frame with the compo corners.  The frame I'm using is for one of my wife's paintings but since compo sticks to anything, an inexpensive frame from Michaels, Aaron Bros., JoAnnes, etc. can easily be modified and improved.

    

Corner Ornaments, can be used on any frame then finished to match

Close up of corner piece

     Another piece that I demonstrated was one that you can use to create a long line of detail.  I showed it on a picture frame but this is something that works really well to edge the bottom of a cabinet or the edges of a mirror frame.  You can imagine how much time it would take to carve a repeating detail like this!  Once the compo is steamed it becomes very flexible and you can conform it to whatever shape you need, just watch that the details don't become distorted.                                                    

Applying Fish Scale, Notice the flexibility!

Close up of the Fish Scale

     

     The next demonstration of the evening was given by Chris DiRossi.  Quite a contrast -- compo has been around since the 1500's and Chris's demo had to do with Google Sketch Up which is much, much further down the  time line of technology and woodworking!  Really interesting, he brought in his lap top, a large monitor, and this really unique mouse that is great to use with plans and making drawings.  It allows you to select your drawing and then rotate it in any direction to see the details of the plan.  He started out by showing us a plan from a recent magazine (Woodworkers Journal I think) for a table.  You can go to the website, download the plan, and then by using the free Google Sketch Up program completely de-construct the piece and get every detail to actually build it in your shop.  According to Chris there is a huge library of plans available on the internet as well as through most of the popular woodworking magazines.

     He also walked us through how to use the program to design your own projects.  I must admit being somewhat of a dinosaur and computer challenged but I can really see the value in using these programs.  It's very easy to make changes and visualize the work before you start to build.  I know my son has used it for building a backyard structure and he had good success.  A real advantage for making your own plans is how easy it is to change dimensions or, as Chris demonstrated, change the number of drawers in a given space to see how it looks.  To top it off, it will automatically give you the sizes.  You know how difficult it can be to divide a given space into equal divisions -- of course there are tricks to doing that but they're being replaced by the computer.  The demonstration was really informative and Chris answered many questions from the members.

Watching Chris explain Sketch Up

The large monitor made is easy to see from anywhere in the room