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Saturday, February 22, 2014

From Cradle Of Wood To Coffin Of Wood

"That century of magnificent awareness preceding the Civil War was the age of wood. Wood was not accepted simply as the material for building a new nation - it was an inspiration. Gentle to the touch, exquisite to contemplate, tractable in creative hands, stronger by weight than iron, wood was, as William Penn had said, "a substance with a soul." It spanned rivers for man; it built his home and heated it in the winter; man walked on wood, slept in it, sat on wooden chairs at wooden tables, drank and ate the fruits of trees from wooden cups and dishes. From cradle of wood to coffin of wood, the life of man was encircled by it.

One of the remarkable things about wood is its self expression. Whether as the handle of a tool, as a dead stump, or alive in a forest where every branch is a record of the winds that blew, it is always telling something about itself. This is why man has an affinity with wood not only as a mere material, but also as a kindred spirit to live with and to know. The children of a century ago were expert at knowing trees and their characteristics; they grew up thinking of trees as having human qualities and, almost Druidlike, they tried to acquire the qualities of trees. A man might be as "strong as an oak," or "bend like a willow"; if he had proper "timber," hed be one all the stronger from the winds of adversity.

Eric Sloane "A Reverence For Wood"

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Ive been reading this great book lately, I highly recommend you go find a copy, there are a lot of cheep copies out there online. "A Reverence For Wood" is a short book, I read it the first time through in an afternoon. Im re-reading it over again now, taking it slower, digesting it more thoroughly.

It makes me think a lot of my journey from childhood up to where I am in supposed maturity. My current affair with timber is obvious, but its a love affair Ive carried with me a long time. In my young years I grew up in very rural, very northern Minnesota. I spent many hours in the woods, around one set of grandparents farm or the other sets cabin.

We moved from Minnesota to Nebraska and the farm house we rented had a small, scrubby, copse of brush / trees behind the house. I spent innumerable hours hiding from the summer heat in the shade of those leaves. Fallen branches were swords and guns as I rambled through the brush as the second incarnation of Indiana Jones.

We moved to Wisconsin as I started high school. Even though my thoughts were turning increasingly towards girls and cars, I spent a significant amount of time hanging out in a couple acres of trees covering the hill across the road. The area has since been developed into a manicured golf course, complete with surrounding McMansions. The sacrilege of this occurring on grounds that were once so very sacred to me makes me shake my head every time Im forced to drive past.

I dont enter into relationships lightly. My wife and I have been together since high school and were married before either of us could legally drink at our reception. Everyone assumed she was pregnant, everyone was wrong. Everyone assumed wed be divorced in a year or two, this October we will be eighteen years strong. My best friend and I have been in each others lives since the early nineties. I drive and repair the cars I own until theyre way past the point of saving. Ive owned many cars and Ive only sold one to someone other than the junkyard for scrap.

If I think about it, one of the the longest relationships Ive had in my life is with trees and wood. It makes sense that I would find my way to an avocation that surrounds me with it.

Ratione et Passionis
Oldwolf

Monday, January 27, 2014

news from the metal shop

just like in the wood shop, sam is humming along in the metalshop, welding away. now that all the table bases above are finished and ready to ship, hes been working on other projects. click the photos to enlarge them ...

these are the, i dont know, 25? base shoes for a large railing project with a local builder in rupert. stairs and a deck around a pool house thats 80 long and 50 wide.

looks like 116 of it, without the stairs. gonna take a while ...

and then we have a new style blackened shaker steel base. i really like it. its kind of shiny, but not too shiny, kind of black, but not too black ... its just a really nice complement to the claro walnut slab top.

a corner of the table top. more on that later ...

and then he fabricated the full size version of a steel table base shown in the model below ...

first make a U and then add two Ls and some 1/4 x 2 aprons.

trevor routed fitting jigs on the cnc which made the job a little easier. it was still fussier than it looks. mitered corners in 3" tubing ..

and then, after making the curved towel bar above ...

he use that concept to come up with a leg design for another clients table base. roll the 3/4 square stock and then give it a half twist to make the s shaped legs. pretty cool imho.

leveled and flattened all 8 legs and then

added the plates so it can sit outside on the grass ...

and then we met with a client about a hoist bar over his new barn loft ... thatll be coming up soon as its been in the background for a while ...

and then, when i came home for lunch yesterday, i was surprised to find this object in my driveway. take a guess .... no, ok, ill tell you ... its for hauling your hounds in the back of your short bed toyota pickup. the bed is 63" and so is the unit above. it will have welded on open mesh sides, top and door, and it will be just like the dogs are riding in the back of your pickup, but legal. in vermont, technically, you cant just stick em in the back, (or strap them to the roof for your family vacation), but thisll be fine ... enough update for now....

Saturday, January 25, 2014

From Tool to Toolbox

New Tool from Veritas

Have you ever been working on a project and wished you had a certain tool to make your job easier or more efficient? More specifically a tool you already know does not yet exist? The inventor side of most wood workers I know have this happen to them all of the time; some wish they had a certain hand tool while others take the lead and go about building their own. I like you am no different and have designed and invented new and wonderful tool ideas here in my shop~ at least on paper that is...Im really going to try to make up a few prototypes of some ideas I have rolling around the ol book shelf in my brain and will keep you posted when I do. One early morning last year I had one of these moments of clarity and came up with what I thought would be a great extension of a common wooden bodied spokeshave. I thought about combining the mechanical advantages of a spokeshave set-up with the width of a draw knife. I thought that having a wider handle set up on a spokeshave and the ability to get a rowing style grip would be beneficial to the piece I was shaping at the time.
Well needless to say I thought about the idea but never did get around to making one. Fast forward eight months and it seems that someone over at Veritas tools had a similar idea. ( ahh, just when I was getting ready to conquer the hand tool market! )
The new Veritas Large Spokeshave has just been introduced and Id love to hear from you if you have one, used one or just your thoughts on the tool itself. Im curious to see if it will indeed feel like a draw knife, having the extra weight and size but the luxury of fine tuning the iron for final smoothing as well as rough work.
Send me your thoughts...
Cheers!

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=62800&cat=51&ap=1