Showing posts with label its. Show all posts
Showing posts with label its. Show all posts
Monday, February 10, 2014
Its a new episode of The Woodpecker !
This guy is one of my woodworking heroes!
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Its Too Funny To Apologize For
Woodworking in America is almost upon us (have you remembered to book your flight and hotel yet?). In there continues evangelism of the event, the editorial staff have crafted this wonderful spoof video. It was first brought to my attention with this tweet.
If you watch and break out into laughter so loud others in the room look at you and then after youve explained whats so funny they say "Huh?", then you need to go to Woodworking in America.
By the way, +Charles Bender had me in stitches.
Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.
Read More..
Apologies. http://t.co/Xg6yfVEzFYNot only is it amusing, its also a great woodworking event placement test. If you watch ans say "Huh?". Then youre safe not attending.
— Popular Woodworking (@pweditors) September 13, 2013
If you watch and break out into laughter so loud others in the room look at you and then after youve explained whats so funny they say "Huh?", then you need to go to Woodworking in America.
By the way, +Charles Bender had me in stitches.
Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Its Nice To Have a Little Pot Around the Shop
When time becomes a commodity that is easy to come by, I hope to have everything I will ever need to while away the hours making little pieces of wood out of big ones. Hopefully, some of those little pieces will be usable as veneer.
There was a time when I thought only cheap furniture was made using veneer. Amazing what you learn when you read a book.







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There was a time when I thought only cheap furniture was made using veneer. Amazing what you learn when you read a book.

So now veneering is right up there on the top of my list and to facilitate it, I have been looking for vintage tools and toys of that trade. My first purchase was a disaster; the French saw that turned out to be a trim saw, but hopefully I have done right by this latest purchase.
I have no idea when this glue pot was produced, but I sure like the look of it. I have been looking for a glue pot for some time now, ever since receiving my copy of Stephen Shepherds book, "Hide Glue, Historical and Practical Applications". I have seen a number of traditional styled pots come and go on the market, but I wanted something a bit unusual. Finally one came up on jimbodetools.com.

This was the first one I came across that was made of brass, all three pieces in fact. The outer pot reminds me of the bottom of an artillery shell, and weighs about as much. The inner pot is about half its weight with one small steam hole and the lid is just pressed sheet. Its only marking is "W. Pehrson", a producer whose name does not come up on the internet.

As we said back in the 60s - "Good stuff!" (ok, we didnt actually say "stuff", but you get the idea)
Peace,
Mitchell
Additional Comments added October 22 at 10:45 a.m.
Waking up this morning to PeteWs comment about this glue pot, I clicked on his link and checked out the very same item listed in one of MJD Tools auctions. They had it listed with another brass item as...
"Two Unusual Desktop Items including a brass inkwell holder by W. Pearson".
My God! Did I screw up AGAIN??????
Here is an enhanced photo of the mark...
I took this out of a shot I took of it through a loop...

The mark is definitely "W. Pehrson".
Im no expert on inkwell holders, but I can think of no reason to manufacture an inkwell holder that has the inner pot much smaller than the outer...

Nor can I think of any reason why they would put a carrying handle on an inkwell holder or include a vent hole in the top of it...

Now I admit that logic has failed me before with calculating what a tool is or does, so I did a search of "Inkwell Holders" on Google. An "Inkwell" is "a small well holding writing ink into which a pen can be dipped". Trying to come up with an as clear definition for an "Inkwell Holder", however, was a different story. The best definition is "a hole to hold an inkwell", but there are many sales listings for these things that call the decorative base that has a hole in it to hold an inkwell an "inkwell holder", although I surmise by the very few articles on the subject that I found that this is an incorrect use of the term.
As a result of no factual information about this manufacturer or this item, I am only left with logic.
Arguments:
- There is a half inch of space all around the inner pot which would be perfect for holding heated water.
- There is the hole in the top of the inner pot aligned with that space that would be perfect for letting off steam.
- There is a handle attached to the inner pot which would make removing it easy to top-up the water bath when it runs dry and through its use, would make it unnecessary for the user to touch the heated base.
- Brass is the third most conductive metal for heat available.
Conclusion:
- If it isnt a glue pot, it sure as hell is one now!
I truly appreciate any and all comments on this blog. Sharing information and helping each other, to me, should be as natural as falling off a log. I dont understand those that see an area where a few typed words would help another individual but they dont bother for whatever reason.
Just dont scare the hell out of me first thing in the morning when you do :o)
(That was a joke, PeteW. I do appreciate you bringing that listing to my attention and please, keep commenting)
Peace,
Mitchell
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Its Not Nice To Screw With Mother Nature
So I spent the summer tending my garden.
My old man was a gardener. When I was a kid, he bought a house that sat on a huge parcel of land and turned half of it into a vegetable garden. The property came with a bunch of apple, pear and cherry trees, as well as trestles full of grapes, raspberries and blueberries. He then added just about every type of vegetable that would grow in this climate.
I cant tell you how much I hated that garden. Every spring he would push me to till the damned thing, and every spring I would have to hear the, "When I was your age working the farms..." yarn that drove me nuts.
Fast-forward fifty years and there I was, willingly hanging on to a rotor tiller, whacking up the sod in my back yard, merrily turning it into a vegetable garden. I removed the sod, broke up the hard clay earth, mixed in sand and added sheep and cow shit to make it as comfy and cosy as I could for tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, corn and carrots, including a bit of a herb section to round it out. I weeded that bugger two or three times a week, spent a fortune watering it, spent hours trimmed things, staked others, and even made a couple of very cool looking tomato cages to make it all look more interesting and inviting. By the beginning of August we started to get a few juicy samplings as the plants started to come into maturity. This, of course, only served to make me work harder at it. I started pulling weeds more often, turning the soil between the rows bi-weekly and even started talking to them, although none of the rude buggers answered.
Come mid-August, I looked out the window overlooking the backyard and saw this...

I had noticed before I started that our property sat lower than our two neighbours, but didnt realize how low until we had a horrendous rain one Saturday afternoon. When the 5" of water finally disappeared, only two tomato plants and the impatiens that bordered it all survived.
I remember standing there, looking out that window at this lake that was once my garden patch, and hearing my old man laughing...
Peace,
Mitchell
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Its Wanderful Part 3
After I spokeshaved the first blank into a dowel, I regrouped and took a full size sketch I had made based on Kenneth’s photos and made copies. Then I took the copies and the remaining four (4) blanks down to my Dad’s shop. I glued on the sketch copies and fired up the band saw (mine doesn’t quite run right now). When I was done, I was left with four (4) square pieces of wood that had the rough in and out nature of the wands.
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| Two (2) wands fresh off the bandsaw, and one post rasping. |
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| The wonderful Shinto Rasp. |
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| A wand, post rasping, and the wonderful Auriou rasp I used to fine tune the work of the Shinto. |
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| The four (4) wands, ready to be freed from their bases. |
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| Time to cut. |
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| The four wands, ready for finish (not for cutting). |
Once you finally get there, do you often find the scary part of a project actually wasnt so bad?
Its Wanderful: Part 1
Its Wanderful: Part 2
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