Drilling on Target

I mentioned some techniques that we developed and used while at North Bennet Street, and this isn't one of them...but it should have been. Any one who has ever made a chair or even more so, taught chairmaking, can tell you that drilling the crest so that the mortises line up with the spindles can be a trying experience. I have a method for teaching the technique using a target on the floor. A student at North Bennet asked me "why don't we use the target technique in the actual drilling" and I rambled something about drill alignment and went about my way. When I returned home, I started thinking about resolving the drill end of things and came up with this.


This is nothing more than a small rod stuck in the back of a disk that I epoxied on the back of my drill. The critical factor here is that the rod and disk are perfectly aligned with the drill bit so that when you look down the rod, you are essentially sighting down the bit.

When looking down the rod, if you can see anything but black (meaning the side of the rod), you are not sighting correctly.
Below is the view of sighting down the rod correctly.


To align with the target (which would usually be set around a hole for the spindles into the seat), the body of the drill should be on center of the target and the back of the drill should read all black. Here is a misalignment. Yes, the drill is centered, but the rod isn't. (The notches in the target are to make room for the stiles on the outer holes)


Here, the you are looking directly down the rod, but the drill isn't on target.


Here is the view that shows the drill in correct alignment.


Perhaps the only tough part of using this technique is getting used to moving your head with the drill to keep the rod centered. I taught Jeff Lefkowitz the technique by asking him to split it into two steps. One, center the rod by moving your head, Two move the drill into the center of the target while moving your head as well to keep the rod centered. With this he was able to do a great job.

Jeff's chair had an added layer of complexity that also made the use of this method more essential. The curved spindles in his chair didn't aim directly at the holes in the seat, so his first step was to offset the target from the holes a certain amount and then drill away as usual. I'm pleased with the results and plan to keep working with the technique. I'll show Jeff's chair in the next posting.

The Cauldron

I returned recently from 2 weeks of teaching with Curtis at the North Bennet Street School, and now that I've had a few days to acclimate to the different atmospheric pressure, I'm ready to share some photos. The class went great, and as Curtis will agree, it's the hardest either of us works all year!
But there is something that happens in the group classes that rarely occurs in the more mellow and controlled environment of the one on one courses that we both host in our shops. Given the range of skills and scope of material to cover, new methods of teaching and chairmaking bubble to the surface. Techniques that work just fine for Curtis and I in our own shops can fall short when pulling along a large group and between us, we came up with some solutions that will continue on in both of our shops.

The means of achieving a chair can reflect the individuals preferences and prejudices. I enjoyed the interplay with Curtis of comparing our approaches and explaining and compromising on the techniques that best suited the class and the chair. I think that watching the conversation between us also gave the students a chance to see inside the process, not just of chairmaking, but decision making, and the idea that in the end, it's up to them to choose the means that best suit their temperament and goals.

Here is Peter Mich bending his arm bow (remember Peter from my shop last year?).
I brought along the white oak and it performed admirably (not a single break).


Unlike most classes, we decided to go to the lathe room and let the students turn their legs. To our surprise, it went smoothly and wrapped in about a day and a half, with a little help on the arm posts and stretchers. My mother can't say when that pencil appeared behind my ear, but I suspect it was around my late teens.



Here are Seth and Chris, the two students who followed Curtis down the rabbit hole and made their chairs almost entirely with the bit and brace. Curtis started chairmaking with very little, and the bit and brace served him exclusively for many years, I on the other hand had a cordless drill and some old bits that I could grind. We each made it work.


Here's Curtis inspecting the center of an armbow.


I was surprised that such a large steambox could hold enough heat to steam all ten arms at once.
The two wallpaper steamers, like the one I use now, really cranked it out.


Below, I'm showing the technique for drilling the blind holes in the arm. No one blew out the top of their arms while drilling it (whew!) although on one students arm, you could see light when you looked into the mortise!



Curtis and I took a trip up to Essex for some lobster and tool scrounging. Alas, we are both in the unenviable position of not needing any tools, that's right, it does happen.


The room we were in was small, but lent itself to easy communication and the whole class focussed beautifully in it. I've taught at shops that were so big that they had the intimacy of an airport terminal!


Here is Rob practicing drilling by eye. The tape on the floor represents the spindle deck. I've found that a few practice holes drilled, without the pressure of ploughing into an actual arm, can smooth the learning curve.


Here are father and son, Rob and Drew, with their finished chairs.


Here is Curtis talking to Anita. I like this photo, I think it captures Curtis' great rapport with the students.


Here is Jan sawing away on her armpost. I learned a great deal working with her. She is added to the list of school teachers that I am privileged to have worked with.


Thanks to Herb Harris for the extra photos.

Curtis and I are teaching again at The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Maine in August, but I believe the class is full. However, there are openings for our class in September at Highland Woodworking in Atlanta.

On the short notice side, I'll be demonstrating turning techniques Wednesday July 1 at the Watergap Woodturners meeting at Peters Valley Craft School woodshop.

Mish Mash

Here is John Waters sitting in his finished chair, I was happy to be a stop on his American Adventure. For the Australian fellow who wanted to see photos of the chair, I suggest stopping by for a visit, he's a talented woodworker and lots of fun.


Lately, I've been all over the map (literally and figuratively), so I thought I'd share some of the happenings.

Here is a quick sketch that I made recently of a figure rocking. I've been working out ideas about balance and support in my never ending efforts to design better rocking chairs.



Here is the robin that is nesting outside my shop window. The chicks are all mouths when the robin returns with food. The nest is so clear from inside the shop, it's like watching a nature program.


I'm sure we've all wished that spindles grew in the garden, but these ones were put there to support a tarp that blocked the frost.


Here is my second generation goat manger. Not only did they bust up the first one that I made, but I learned of the design flaws by watching them waste hay. This design, that I got from a book with lousy measurements and some poor advice (yes, goats can jump 42"). The great part of the design is that the hay is loaded in the top and then it's held up by some cross bars. The goats naturally like to reach up to feed and the hay that they discard falls in the bin below. We're going through much less hay and they seem to like the challenge of pulling it out.


Here is Mark Hudson carving the ears of the crest on his comb back rocker last week.



Bending the crest with the Irwin clamps is no problem. I used to wrestle the crest along the bend, but it really is no effort to draw it to the form with the clamps.


Balancing the rockers is always a challenge, but in the end it worked out beautifully.


Here's Mark with the finished chair. Mark had the dubious honor of being here while I "processed" our first batch of cornish chickens. I am still learning the technique and Mark was good enough to point out my flaws! By the way, you missed it Mark, the chicken dinner was fantastic (if I may say so!)


I spent the first part of the week in Ohio talking to manufacturers about my caliper. I've already posted on my website that I am happy to be extending the introductory price of the Galbert Caliper. I've been working hard to keep the price down, make it in the US and still be able to sell it through catalogs and with some effort, I think that we are going to pull it off.

Now I am off to teach with Curtis at the North Bennet Street School, so I guess that settling down isn't in the cards. With all the action around here, I've been missing my blog posting time, I'm looking forward to more videos on the skew, we aren't done with that beast yet!
Thanks for checking in.

The Language Barrier

This week I am excited to have John Waters from Melbourne, Australia in the shop making a chair with me. John is a fantastic furniture maker, you can see his work at www.roseadora.com.


It wasn't a couple of hours before I realized that we'd have a special problem in communicating, with numbers that is. I remember being a schoolchild in the late seventies and listening to the hype around the switch to metric that was going to happen in the U.S.. Well, we all know how that went.

I did get a chance to work with the metric system while building a sculpture for a German artist (he was dead at the time, but that's another story). At first it seemed odd, mainly because I didn't have an inherent sense of the distances being shown in the drawings, but then it hit me, one number, it's all one number! There's no need to know conversions or even better fractions. Each number says it all, just look at the decimal place and get to work.

When I started to tell John that the ends of the spindles that we were shaving in green wood needed to be oversized to nine sixteenths of an inch because they would later shrink to just above one half, I laughed a bit. It must sound absurd, kind of like I feel when I hear someone refer to their weight in "stone".

Most woodworkers take a bit of pride in their ability to sight measurements (or is it just me?). It's like a musician, they know where to find the e string, well, I know what five eighths looks like. So to keep John in his comfort zone, I started using my vernier caliper (I won't allow dial calipers around any more, I break them like bread) to translate the numbers. It worked out fine.


I do like the way that imperial scales offer so many different length lines to read, I find this helps me locate the measurement quickly, but who's to say that in time I wouldn't be able to read the metric just as easily with some practice. But something tells me that it will be a while before we make "the switch" besides what would I do with the part of my brain hardwired to know what a heavy nine sixteenths looks like?

Good Fences

I have had an email exchange with Jameel Abraham that brought to mind an old story. Jameel is a maker of exquisite Ouds. If you have not seen them, you simply must. Visit Khalaf Oud Luthiery Blog

In our exchange, I was reminded of my time in New York City, when I shared a tiny storefront space with a guitar maker. It was as I jealously watched my shopmate, Justin Gunn, craft his arch top guitars with his hand tools in a 10'X10' workspace that I realized that I had to find my own answer to my desire to make an enduring object of beauty and value in wood with the tools that I loved using. It was in this small space that I made my first chair.

It was also in this space that I met Eddie Boros. Eddie was a fixture in the East Village, living in the apartment where he was born (until his death in 2007) and making art the only way he knew how, out of the refuse of the city streets. Eddie created the tower of toys that you may have seen on the beginning sequence of NYPD Blue. He was a real character, like one of the Bowery Boys, only in sandals and a string of pearls.



I got to be friends with Eddie as he would visit our shop, he even made me the sculpture that you see in the image. Eddie was the real deal. He made things with a natural ease that most artists would kill for, imaginative and complex yet simple. When he asked me what I'd like, I said that I thought my wife would like a horse. A couple of weeks later he brought this work to me. He said that he couldn't figure out how to finish it, so he made a worker perpetually toiling on it. He made this with a few dull tools and a bottle of glue. It's a prized possession. If I could make sculpture like this, I would.

But back to my story, one day Eddie came into the shop to find my shopmate Justin playing around on my small lathe. He berated Justin for toying around with this "dangerous" tool. He turned to me and said, "It's ok for you, you're like a carpenter, a fence builder, he's an artist!"

Perhaps it seems strange, because their work is so different, but when I look at Jameel's Ouds or Eddies horse, I have a similar feeling, perhaps it's the humbling presence of art, or maybe just the burning need to build a fence.

In Praise of Cherry

There are three chairs in my shop waiting to go out and a flurry of oiling and rubbing happening to get them ready. Each time that the oil hits the cherry, it glows a bit deeper and richer, which is good fun (although rubbing the oil off is another matter!). While building these chairs, I couldn't resist placing the lovely inclusions and markings in prominent places. I've talked before about the difference between designing for a painted piece and one left natural. In my book, they both have their strong suits, but in this case, I have had a lot of fun leaning on the appearance of the wood to accent the design. Below is the front right leg of the rocker that I am crating up tomorrow.


It's like a little painting! Of course, the other desirable aspect of working with cherry is the color and patina that only time can truly bring. The photo above and the two below are a timeline of the color shift. I made the chair above a few months ago, the one below has been finished for about 5 weeks and the third is about 1 week old. The longer that the cherry is left unoiled and exposed to the air, the quicker it seems to take the color, although, in time, it all seems to even out.

Quite a difference from the first image to the third. The photos also highlight some more of the lovely markings that I've been coming across while finishing the chairs.

Below is one that I came across under one of the arms. Just like in painting, I believe that you can't finish what you aren't looking at, so I spend a lot of time contorting myself to see the areas that oil just loves to pool in.


One benefit of using turnings in the natural chairs is that you get to see the tangential and radial planes in their full glory. Here's the radial plane on a chair leg.


Here is the arm of the rocker. I'm showing it to demonstrate the level of sheen that I like to achieve on the finished piece. Normally, I send chairs out the door slightly shinier than I actually like, knowing that the finish tends to dull in the first year.
This brings up a question that I often field about the varnish oil mix. The simplest answer is to mix 1/3 oil, 1/3 spar varnish and 1/3 mineral spirits. But that doesn't really cover the whole story.


The oil is affected by the three ingredients to different ends. Too much varnish and the oil will build a finish in fewer coats but be difficult to handle and will tack up too quickly to remove easily. Too much tung or linseed (boiled will cure faster but has driers) and the oil will be easier to remove but the finish will take more coats to build. The mineral spirits thin the oil to help it flow and soak in, I like a thin first coat to soak in more deeply, but too much spirits in the final mix will require more coats to build the finish as well. So just like any tool in your shop, which needs proper selection and care to achieve the task at hand, subtle adjustments to the oil can help turn finishing into something besides mindless rubbing...and rubbing.

His n Hers

To those who live in NYC, this is no news, but living in the city requires a different sense of priorities when it comes to the objects in your life. Imagine stuffing your whole life into a 500 square foot apartment. Sue and I used to joke that the apartment could be spotless, but if you put your keys on the kitchen counter it looked trashed!
So when a city dweller asks for something special, I feel flattered that I will get to influence a portion of that valuable space.
Last fall I took an interesting order for a couple of chairs. The customer was attracted to the rod back in cherry that I make, but wanted to have one for himself and one, with slight modifications for his girlfriend. So I introduced some curves, slimmed the chair down a bit and reshaped the seat. Here's the results...


He'll be driving up this Friday to pick them up, until then, I'll be oiling them and imagining her face when he shows her the chair he had made "for her".

Not Quite Business as Usual

Things are buzzing around the house and shop these days! Obviously lots of teaching and chair building, but now, with another great review of the Galbert Caliper on the Popular Woodworking site, we are humming like a beehive (it looks like I won't have time this year to put in actual beehives, but there's always next year). This is our best review yet!
If you haven't been to the web page for the Caliper lately, the introductory price is set to expire on July 1st. I'm committed to keeping the tool produced in the U.S., I take pride in adding to our manufacturing base, in my own small way. This fall, you will be seeing the Caliper available with some of your favorite retailers as well as through my web site.

There are a few spaces left at the classes that I will be teaching with Curtis Buchanan this summer. We have a lot of fun when we teach together and think that our different approaches make for a great learning opportunity, I hope to see you there.

Dings and Things

Last week, Frank Sharpe was in the shop with me making a continuous arm. Here he is cutting v notches with the skew. I'll be covering more in the skew video series soon. Below is the spindle deck of Franks chair. The soft white pine dings and dents very easily and often despite all best attempts to protect it. It would seem that planing to the bottom of the dings or "sanding them out" would be the solution. But it's just the beginning of the problem!



Here is a short photo series showing the issue. Especially when using water based milk paint, the dings can come back to haunt you when you think you've planed them out. What happens is that the fibers compress and later pop back out when the water soaks in.

Here, I've made an intentional ding in some pine.


Then, I planed to the lowest level of the indentation (or close to it, for visual sake)

Next, I steamed the ding out with a wet paper towel and an iron.

And here is the ding now sitting proud of the surface. To avoid this little surprise after painting, the steps shown must be switched around a bit. Steam the surface first to raise the dings back to the level of the surrounding areas and then plane them out. This way they won't find their second life after the painting is done!


Here is Frank with his finished chair, obviously happy to have those dings out!


And what would a posting be without a shot of the Chair Notes Covergirl with Mikey the goat. They love their afternoon hikes (they start wailing and screaming around 3 o'clock) and they love to eat pine needles.

And the Lathe Turns On

Well, it doesn't turn on for long in this video about the skew, but now that the basics are covered, we'll get to the action next!

On the teaching front, it looks like I only have a couple of more slots for teaching at the shop this year, so anyone interested should get in touch with me to secure a slot. Thanks

Nice Grouping

Ahhh Spring!!




Here is Chris Durbin putting the wedges in the continuous arm settee that he made last week. It came out great. The alignment of the legs was especially impressive. Even more than a chair, the legs on a settee need to align closely, otherwise they draw the eye, especially the center legs which have no splay.



Below is a photo of the center leg. The string that you see passing by is taped to the same spot on the outer legs. As you can see, he really stuck the landing on this one.


Here is the same idea with the stretchers that pass from the front legs to the back. The picture shows the center stretcher with a string that passes from one outer stretcher to the other!



In order to keep the diameter of all of the back to front stretchers the same, Chris cut this lapping tenon that met in the center of a hole drilled clear through the stretcher. I'd never done it this way, but had been meaning to try it. It looks nice that the diameters stay constant and I don't think there is any loss of strength.


Sometimes I find myself explaining to a student why I am so fastidious in choosing and executing my methods for reaming in the legs. They just need to hit the floor, right?! The settees present the perfect example of a reason to be so focused. Granted, some folks may not be bothered if a leg is out of whack, and some variance is acceptable, but what I try to avoid is using and teaching methods that can't live up to new challenges.

A couple of quick tips about settee reaming. Start with the outer legs, then use a string connecting them at similar details while reaming the center legs.
Because the center legs have no splay, they only need to be perpendicular to the seat and barely touching the string. Also, take few turns of the reamer before checking the angle. This is necessary because the center legs are canted less than the outer ones (once again because of the lack of splay) and will ream deeply more quickly!
And finally, when you trim the legs, let the center legs hang in the air 1/32" or so to help prevent rocking on the center on uneven floors (like mine).

With a week to myself, I'll be shooting the next video about the skew.

More Legs

Here is Chris Durbin working on the seat for the settee that he is making this week. Chris has come a long ways as a craftsman since I met him a few years ago, it's a joy to see his progress.



One of the elements of a settee that is missing from chairs(or at least less noticable) is the alignment of the three legs in the front and back. It's important that the legs are all raked to the same degree. Another important aspect of the legs is that the various elements line up between the side legs and the center one. Because the center leg has no splay (meaning it doesn't tilt to the side when viewed from the front), it is a slightly compressed version of its neighbors. To achieve the correct proportions for the turning, I draw a leg at the splay angle of the outer legs and then draw horizontal lines from each element to a leg without splay to arrive at the template for the center leg. You can see the drawing below.



Although the compression is minor, you can see the results in the photo below. When all of the legs are reamed into the seat, the elements of all three turnings align. Subtle, but it's there.

For those of you keeping up on the farm developments, we have 8 new chicks. These are "meat" birds and will be with us for about 2 months. I'm dedicated to giving these little guys the highest quality of life possible, so they moved into the insulated coop while my layers got new housing.



Here are the summer digs for my layers. A bit more open and airy. As you can see, they are confined to the area defined by the electric netting, our perennial gardens could not longer take the abuse! In winter they'll get their other coop back, but as of tonight, they were all happily perched inside their new home, ready for bed.



Another example of crappy construction that fits the bill, and all with materials that I had laying around! (forgive the pun)

Movement and the Skew

I'm very pleased to say that Fine Woodworking Magazine has a review of the Galbert Caliper in the May/ June issue. Check it out!

Here is a short video about more steps that can be taken to make your skew work better. As I've said before, there is much to know before starting cutting to avoid that moment where the skew seems like it just won't work for you. Patience and prep are all that's needed.

Good and Better

Here is Wayne Grove making spindles last week. Wayne was in my class at Peters Valley last year and made good on the promise to come up and make a chair with me. He has already made a slew of chairs in his time, so we spent a lot of the week discussing the finer points and trying to raise the bar in quality, technique and focus.


I've heard it said that "better is the enemy of good", and if I understand the quote, I am not much of an adherent to it. To me, a huge part of my interest lies in looking deeper beyond the skills that I already possess, even if it means the occasional (or often) ruined workpiece. I find trying irresistible and the consequence of failure tolerable. This is definitely evident in my turning. I can't tell you how many times I've gone back for "one more clean up pass with the skew" and blown off an entire detail!

But thanks to those efforts, I've gotten to control my skew.
Below on the left is one of the legs that I turned at the NWA showcase out of soft maple next to one that I did in the shop in hard maple.


Of course, standing in front of a crowd full of observers and questions while trying to explain my caliper is bound to lead to a drop in focus and quality. When I got back to the shop and set out to turn more legs, with a slightly more robust pattern, the time and quiet let me shoot for "better".


Hopefully you can see the sharper edges and more delicate shaping in the leg on the right.
Perhaps viewed under the paint and from across the room there wouldn't seem to be much of a difference, but by making the details more refined and challenging there was a huge pay off,
I had fun.

Here's Wayne gluing up his undercarraige. We used my new marking method and it worked out great.


Today is one of those days. All errands, paperwork and computer work (why should I be any different, right?!" I started by getting photos taken of the chair that's heading to Maine for the faculty exhibit at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship. The chair is cherry (remember me cutting it down last fall), white oak and butternut, with walnut wedges.



Here's a detail of the arm joint. For a diseased tree, it sure had some lovely wood.


I am close to loading up the next video on skew technique. We are getting closer to actually cutting wood, but not quite!

Grinding and Honing the Skew (Video)

Something besides the skew is giving me trouble these days at the lathe! This is what I get during thunderstorms, and all the reasoning in the world doesn't seem to work.

Here is a video of grinding and honing the skew chisel.



Here is the edge part of the way through the honing process. You can see where the arrow indicates a small portion that the stone hasn't reached. It's vital to easy skewing that the entire edge be honed, so back to the stones. If I experience a catch (and it does happen, I assure you) I immediately check the edge. More often than not, I find a small area that has a burr or some other distortion. Think about the tracks left by a chipped plane blade, and the different force needed to push it. Now imagine that spot engaging a whirling piece of wood.



A few benefits come from maintaining such a large hollow grind.
The tool rides on two distinct edges while on the stone which helps maintain the correct position while honing.
The second is that the area being honed is so small that even a fine stone cuts to the edge quickly.
Also, the smooth stone offers less resistance while honing which increases the sensitivity to the contact between the tool and the stone, which may also help maintaining the correct position.

Below you can see a wonderful telltale sign of correct contact with the stone. You can see the distinct trail marks left where the edge and back of the bevel contact. It is always better to fault by having the edge of the bevel rise up, because it doesn't matter if the back part of the bevel is slightly rounded.



As usual, the real test of a sharp tool is to cut the endgrain of pine.


I feel like I can't stress the importance of sharpening enough when it comes to learning the skew. I can turn with a compromised gouge, but I can't create good turnings with a dull skew. I did check the geometry of my cutting edge and found that the radius edge is at around a 70 degree angle to the length of the skew and the bevels are around 25 degrees. It's the first time I've measured them. I generally look at the length of the bevel for information about its correctness. I know folks who turn beautifully with bevels so long that I get chills!

And as far as the radius goes, I like to keep it subtle so that I can still use the toe and heel of the edge easily. They come into play a lot in more advanced techniques, but we've still got a ways to go before that.