One of the things that I’ve been working on this week is the neck for the next Archtop mandolin. The neck itself is made from bird’s eye maple and the head overlay from some spectacular Claro walnut. Here are a couple of photos and a video of the process.The videos for the what is now "Jeremy’s Archtop" proved to be very popular, so I thought I’d do a second series and look at some different aspects of the build. ... read more

The remaining part of the felt lining was installed and after letting the glue dry for a day, I used a sharp and pointed knife to cut away the felt covering the 50 holes for the individual pieces of ammunition.The hinges were mounted and so were the latches for keeping the box closed.Finally I chiseled MMXVIII in the underside of the box marking the completion of the project.After taking some pictures, I handed the box over to my friend, and ... read more

On the drive home everything out past the end of the truck hood looked fuzzy. I could see the speedometer and that looked ok and it wasn't until I got home that I found out what the problem was. I left work with my computer glasses on. Everything at 2 feet was in focus, but the rest of my world was fuzzy. At least my cataracts hadn't gone from worse to absolute crappola on me.  And yes I'm having them ... read more

Today's agenda involved crest rails and arm rails. another full day of riving, and draw-knifing at the shaving horse, followed by steam bending of these pieces to their final curved shape. I don't think any of us students had done steam bending, and it comes on at the end of the day after putting all this work into making as best we could pieces of continuous grain dimensioned to the appropriate shape for the process. This morning we jump ... read more

Today I’m going to tell you a nice story. Later in the week I’ll tell you a shocking one. For the last couple weeks I’ve been unusually chipper, despite all the crap I’ve been managing with my father’s estate. In fact, the other day, my spouse, Lucy, looked at me a bit odd as I was making coffee at 6 a.m. with a s&*t-eating grin on my face. “You OK?” she asked. Being somewhat self-aware I answered. “Yes. This ... read more

Please, if you have the first Common Influence blog, get the revised one. Through a careless error, I swapped some detail pictures and conclusions. I really need to get a better copy editor. ... read more

I’m down South now spending time in Shreveport via Dallas. It’s easier to fly into Dallas with a few more things to see there as well. Only a three-hour drive to Shreveport with plenty of diversions along the way. Efficiency in transport is not always a priority. My first stop was at the Dallas Museum of Art to see whatever might be on display of the American furniture from the Bybee Collection,  98 pieces of primarily New England furniture collected ... read more

Hello and welcome to my blog!  This post details the build of a daybed in Honduran mahogany.  This daybed is planned for outdoor use under a covered patio.  The build was planned to be fairly quick by comparison to most of my builds to make an installation timeline. This build is complete which allows me to illustrate detailed sections in their completed form prior to describing their processing.  Shown here is the finished daybed. I picked up 12/4, 8/4, ... read more

Here is my finished bench and I am very happy with it! I’m pretty new at this and don’t own a power jointer or planer - so - I had plenty of hand planing to complete this. At the end of the day, I’m thankful because I am very comfortable with four squaring large pieces as well as flattening a large top with only hand tools. I used 2 x 12 SYP construction lumber. I tried to end up with ... read more

You can leave the blade alone. A Japanese plane blade is shaped so that the width towards the cutting edge is slightly narrower than the width towards the back of the plane. As a result, the sides are not quite parallel to each other. Here’s a tracing I made of the plane blade that I use most often on some graph paper.I lined the plane blade up so that one edge lines up with the grid, and you can see ... read more

Last project finished, next one not properly started yet (just have the rough cuts done) and another in mind but not off the notepad yet. So now’s the time to work on the shed itself… That’s the dust collection for the shed (it’s collapsed because the vacuum hose got clogged with shavings and the shop vac managed to pull enough air out of the barrel for atmospheric pressure to crush it).… Read the rest ... read more

What a difference a day makes in a lot of things. Yesterday it was cool, and raining off and on Today it is partly cloudy with occasional bursts of sunshine. It was also over 20 degrees (F) warmer than it was yesterday. And we had some humidity to kick things up a notch. The weather improved but my laptop fix is still in limbo. I am getting used to the one I bought. I will keep this as a backup ... read more

I'm honored to be in Jonesborough, Tennessee, USA starting Day 1 of Curtis Buchanan's Sackback Windsor chair class. I've always wanted to build furniture from freshly felled timber, for a variety of reasons. Nothing quite compares to working with wood 'in the green' as they say. it carves much easier, and the tools involved are so much fun. you learn about cleaving wood directly from a log, and then riving it into smaller pieces that are then taken directly to ... read more

Just because I have written a blog on a subject doesn’t mean I suddenly stop finding things of the blog. They’re out there and I keep finding them. Lacking any adult supervision, I can, if I so choose, share some of the more interesting of these finds. I so choose. Following up on More Work Than Necessary is this diminutive chest: It’s diminutive. That blog was about doing work that wasn’t required such as joining a case with half-blind dovetails ... read more

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Woodworking With Hand Tools: Tools, Techniques and Projects, The Taunton Press, $24.95, 240pp, April, 2018Full disclosure: I was given a copy of this book by the publisher for review.This is another gorgeous book. It's an anthology of 33 hand tool articles collected from the past 10 years of Fine Woodworking magazine, by the following authors:Christian BecksvoortBrian BoggsTom CalistoDan FaiaJohn Reed FoxChris GochnourGarrett HackAndrew HunterMatt KenneyPhilip C. LoweTim ManneyJeff MillerNorman PirolloTimothy RousseauMatthew TeagueVic TesolinBob Van DykeThey all do excellent work. Phil Lowe ... read more

The two closest Shaker communities to Cincinnati are also the most difficult to see. The White Water Shaker Village isn’t open to the public on a regular basis, though there is a dedicated group of people trying to change that. And Union Village – the largest Western Shaker community – has all but been erased. The only structure that remains (that I know of) is now the marketing office for the Otterbein Senior Life retirement home (see photo at ... read more

Days like today frustrate, anger, and just piss me off to no end in sight. They wind me up tighter than a cheap $2 watch. There wasn't anything I could have done to avoid it or make it better neither. It was just something that was beyond my control. It going south on me ate up 99% my day fixing it. I wish it was a woodworking mistake but, sorry to say sports fans, it wasn't. Today's problem headache had ... read more

I recently finished building an Enzo Mari table from the 1970s as part of an article for Popular Woodworking Magazine, and I have only one worry about the project. It looks great. It feels stout. But I’m worried that the joinery might not last forever. The joinery? Lots of properly installed wood screws, with diagonal bracing to reduce or eliminate racking. But screws can come loose and might allow the […] The post Medieval Method Can Improve a Modern Design ... read more

Many say that brown furniture is dead. There are times I fear they are right. Take a recent auction. It wasn’t a great auction but it wasn’t a bad auction either. Nothing fabulous but no box lots. At the end of the auction, I reviewed the results and was alarmed by what I saw. The most expensive piece of furniture was this: Southern Yellow Pine Painted Jelly Cupboard This lot has sold for $2,300. Description: Late 19th century, green ... read more

This is the intro to shaping a hollow ... read more

The Stanley No.18, and No.19, first appeared in the 1888 Stanley catalog as “Improved Block Planes”. They were essentially the No.9½ and No.15 with knuckle lever caps, with nickel platted trimmings. The knuckle lever was the result of an 1886 patent (No.355,031). The planes had the requisite “excelsior” style rear-biased cheek. When first released they had the following characteristics (this discussion is geared towards the No.18, but the evolution of the No.19 is similar).: Excelsior body shape. Lateral adjustment lever. Bailey ... read more

An old friend in Bury St Edmunds was interested in purchasing this bureau (figure 1) which came up for auction (twice in the past two weeks), in nearby Colchester in Essex. I wasn’t able to reply to him before the … Continue reading → ... read more

Note: This table sold. I recently completed building the Enzo Mari table shown above for an upcoming article in Popular Woodworking Magazine. Typically when I have a piece such as this left over from an article I sell it to an established furniture customer at a slight discount. But this table is different. Mari gave his plans for this table (and dozens of others) for free to people. His ideas and hard work were a gift as part of ... read more

A bit of water has flowed under that proverbial bridge since the last posting, and in the interim, I've made good progress on the project, specifically the benches, which are now complete.A stray pic from last time, showing the use of a chisel to clean up a trimmed through tenon:Another stray - a look at one of the leg assemblies after the lower stretcher tenon has been wedged, prior to trimming:The wedges are in avodire, in an attempt to make ... read more

Work continues on the three benches for the Japanese room at Colgate University's East Asian Language Lab (EALL). I am a chronic under-estimator of time - what I thought I could wrap up in a day and a half ended up taking three, ah, well four, but at least the work went without any glitches, so it's all good.Some more avodire showed up, quartersawn 4/4 and 8/4 material I had ordered up from M Bohlke in Ohio:Where staples were sticking ... read more

Yesterday I gave the outside another coat of marine varnish, which I again applied using some steel wool.I lightly wiped off the excess, and today the surface looked fine and dry.The surface was not perfect, and I decided that I preferred a slightly more matte look.So once again I smoothed the surface using the steel wool, and I really like the look of the surface after this treatment. There is still a bit of gloss in the pores of the ... read more

I rarely like other people to pick up or move my wood. We woodworkers are like packrats when it comes to what wood we have and it’s surprising where we acquire it from or how, what we actually have with regards to wood types and sizes and so on. In the USA, with a family […] Read the full post Moving My Stuff on Paul Sellers' Blog. ... read more

On one of the forums I follow, a sickness I know but sometimes they are worth a grin, has a thread going on cheap chisels vs. expensive chisels. If I read the posts correctly the consensus is the cheap ones stay sharp about as long as the expensive chisels and therefore are as good. Of course one of the posters claimed he could use his Aldi chisels for 6 to 8 hours without needing to re-sharpen. I'm sure he could ... read more

In the previous post, I compared three 1/2" beading planes.  The Ohio Tool plane was in the best condition of the three and that was why I chose to work on it.  The following pictures are all after the fact - I didn't take any pics while doing the work.Ohio Tool plane partsThe boxing was glued in well, so I didn't have to remove it and glue it back in.  It was mangled a bit at the front of the ... read more