In case you are living under a rock, the Wood Whisperer Marc Spagnuolo and his band of guilders are building the split-top Roubo workbench as part of a group thing.
Recently Marc interviewed me via Skype about my thoughts on split-top Roubo benches and thong underwear. It was an hour-long interview, and I am sure that I offended at least five indigenous cultures in this hemisphere.
So if you want to learn about how I am impossibly shy and afraid of human contact, listen to the interview. Want to know what I think of Douglas fir as a bench material? What I think of Benchcrafted vises — for real? Why I’ve never built the split-top design? My favorite benchtop finish that doesn’t involve pornography?
Sigh. I should never do interviews.
Marc has posted the entire interview for your listening derision here.
Roy Underhill has flung open the doors to sign up students for the 2012 classes at The Woodwright’s School. As usual, there are a lot of great classes on the roster being taught by uber-talented people, including Peter Follansbee, Peter Ross, Mary May, Bill Anderson, Elia Bizzarri and Roy himself.
And then there are my classes.
In 2012 I’m teaching two classes at Roy’s shop – both on how to build The Anarchist’s Tool Chest. You’ll be able to build either the full-size chest or its slightly smaller cousin, which is designed to travel.
Though I do not have the awe-inspiring raw talent of the other instructors, I can promise at least one puppet show during the week-long class.
Visit Roy’s site for more details. My classes from Feb. 20-24 and Sept. 17-21. If for some reason the class is full, be sure to get on the waiting list. There is always some churn.
We now offer Lost Art Press gift certificates in any denomination through our store.
These gift certificates are both easy to purchase and easy to use. When you purchase them in the store you have the option of sending them via e-mail or printing them out and giving them to the recipient.
Either way, the recipient will receive a code that they can enter at checkout to apply the gift certificate to their balance.
We developed these gift certificates at the request of customers. We have a lot of products coming out in 2012 (which is what I should be working on right now), including “Make a Joint Stool from a Tree” by Peter Follansbee and Jennie Alexander, “Mouldings in Practice” by Matt Bickford and – of course – the Roubo translations.
If you’d like to buy a gift certificate, you can click here. You also can buy a gift certificate at any time by clicking on “Gift Certificate” in our web site’s top navigational bar.
Sometime during the last year my panel gauge took a walk. I might have left it in Maine, Connecticut or even Pittsboro, N.C., sometime during 2011.
It’s really hard to do handwork without a panel gauge, which lays out the lines for ripping boards to width. I’ve been making due with a chalkline and an awl that’s left over from my days of cutting sheet goods on the farm.
So at Woodworking in America, my ears perked up when Jeff Hamilton of Hamilton Woodworks showed me his prototype for a panel gauge. I looked it over, made a couple selfish suggestions and then ordered one on the spot.
It arrived this week (I paid full price, have no affiliation with Jeff other than we’re both Arkansas boys, blah and yadda). Boy is this gauge nice – perhaps the nicest panel gauge I’ve ever held. I say “perhaps” because I have been through John Sindelar’s collection, and I bet he has a solid gold one.
The gauge is curly maple, though Jeff offers it in cherry and walnut, too. I recommend the maple if you are a heavy user because the beam will take a beating with more aplomb. The beam is 28” long, so you can gauge a carcase side to width, and the beam has marking tools at either end.
At one end is a curved cutting gauge that is fully adjustable and removable for sharpening – it’s much nicer than the old pin gauge I used to have. Plus Jeff has added a brass wear plate on the bottom of the beam next to the knife. A nice touch.
At the other end is a holder for a pencil – a great feature when working with rough boards and you can’t see a knife line because of all the rough-sawn fur. The pencil is held securely by a knurled brass knob, which is an over-the-top touch.
But the nicest thing about the gauge is the way the head secures to the beam. It’s a significant improvement compared to many old designs. On my first gauge, the knob pressed against the top of the beam to lock the head. The more you used the gauge, the looser the beam became, until it really didn’t lock well.
What Jeff has done is two-fold in the smarts department. One, the bottom of the beam and its matching mortise are radiused, which helps prevent the beam from pivoting. Second, the pressure plate in the head actually applies pressure against the beam in two directions – on the top and on the side. This crowds the beam into a corner with diagonal pressure.
The locking force is impressive.
The fit and finish are top-notch. The wood has a soft and silky feel like you have been using it for years. All the brass work is nice and tight.
It costs more than the $85 Lie-Nielsen panel gauge – Jeff’s is $150. But it doesn’t disappoint either on looks or function.
And just to be sure that this one doesn’t take a walk, I stamped it twice with my shop mark.
You can buy a custom branding iron or metal stamp to sign your work. But what if you are, uh, parsimonious? Or perhaps your name is Megan Fitzpatrick?
This week I ordered a custom rubber stamp for a promotional thing-a-ding we have coming at Lost Art Press. As always, I used Simon’s Stamps in Massachusetts, which I’ve been using for years. They are fast, cheap and do good work.
Just choose a size of your stamp and upload your artwork. My stamp was 2-1/2” high and 2” wide. (That is huge.) Cost: $16 plus shipping. Turnaround time: Less than a week.
These stamps would be a nice way to mark your handiwork with a custom logo or even your signature. You can send Simon’s Stamps almost any kind of freaky shape and they’ll make a nice stamp with it. And the best thing is you don’t have to invest in an expensive metal stamp.
Now I just need to find some pink ink pads to really make it mine.
