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New Distaff for an old wheel

My friend and Master woodcarver and turner Richard McDonald picked this wheel up at a local flea market.  It is in excellent condition and appears to have never been finished, it is ‘in the white’. All that was missing was the distaff and the pitman (footman) needed to be replaced.  I designed the new distaff and pitman from turning details on the original, Richard turned the pieces and I assembled the parts. I got very little spring back or recovery from the bent dowels. The ribs are 1/8″ diameter birch dowels, the rest of the wheel is also made of birch.  I made a bending jig, boiled the 5 dowels, hoping to get 4 good ones in boiling water for 20 minutes, …

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Cyber Monday Sale at the Full Chisel Store

Through Cyber Monday all items in the Full Chisel Store will be for sale.  Order before Monday night at Midnight and I will read the orders first thing Tuesday morning! Peruse the Full Chisel Stores various departments including Tools, Ingredients, etc., Spinning Wheel Parts and more! Did you know I now sell Iron Gall Ink? And Sympathetic Ink? All of this is for sale at the Full Chisel Store, enjoy. Stephen

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21st Century Writing Desk, Complete

A textured top might at first seem the wrong choice for a writing desk, but with computers leading the writing world nowadays we think it’s a great idea. – Canadian Woodworking & Home Improvement Magazine I completed the base for the 21st Century Writing Desk, to go with the top that I carved in November. The base had to be visually lightweight to avoid overwhelming the thin top. I achieved this by leaving space below the top and tapering the legs. To allow ample space for knees, I opted to omit the front apron. I made up for the missing apron by using an H-shaped stretcher assembly positioned low on the legs. Turned around, the desk can be used …

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Shop Stools/Bar Stools

The kitchen island in my new house was calling for a pair of bar stools. My shop stool that I completed in the Shop Stool Build-Off found its way there during the move, and with the chaos reigning in my shop, I was happy to let it live there. My shop stool A second stool was in order, and it looked like it would be a while still before the shop is in any sort of shape to work. Fortunately, I recalled that, a little while after the Shop Stool Build-Off, I had tried again to make the crossed-leg stool which I had originally attempted but due to a miscalculation, wasn’t able to pull off in time. …

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Simpler Edge Joints

Quite often, I need a wider board than what I have available. Usually, that means gluing up two or more boards edge to edge. Since, in this situation, I am usually making a highly visible part such as a table top or cabinet side, I am very careful to match not only the grain pattern of the neighbouring boards, but the exact colour shading as well. The surface of this box is comprised of between 8 and 20 strips edge-glued together. I honestly don’t remember how many strips were used, and they were assembled in such a way that the seams aren’t distinguishable. It’s a very time consuming process, as I need to flip, rotate, slide and shuffle …

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Throw Conventional Wisdom Out the Window

I am almost through a book called Rethinking Sitting, which discusses different ergonomic design styles of chairs. The author, a commercial designer of chairs, has developed many different models which are quite distinct from the typical form that you or I would recognize as a chair. Of course, he feels that his chairs have distinct ergonomic advantages over typical chairs. This quote is from the book, and I think that it applies to designers of all fields. “One of the most common limitations in product development is conventional wisdom. – Peter Opsvik, from his book, Rethinking Sitting Links: More great quotes in this list of Quotables

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“Sharpening” Carbide Insert Cutter Heads

It has been a long time since I installed Byrd Tool’s Shelix carbide cutter heads in my Delta DJ-20 8″ jointer (May 2009) and DeWalt DW735 13″ planer (June 2012). The videos showing the installation of the cutter head in my planer have been viewed almost 75,000 times! Although the machines still produced tearout-free cuts, they did leave ridges behind and I suspected that changing to fresh edges would lower the noise level and reduce the strain on the motors. I had not rotated the cutters until now. Byrd Shelix Cutter Head Basics The machined cutter head had tapped holes to received machine screws, each of which locked down one squarish carbide cutter. A registration ledge machined into the …

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portfolio pictures

well, ok … i stumbled across a folder full of pictures this morning and i thought they would make a good blog post. as an example, on the ‘page’ above, there is a 10′ cherry table, 8 windsors, 4 stools and a nine foot wide by 8 foot high sideboard. couple of months right there. also, a pair of maple cabinets with c.r. ashbee inspired inlays and a 60″ round table …another couple of months there.until 2007, when i first started my blog and more or less moved my ‘portfolio’ online,i kept photos of my work in these three 20 page, 14″ x 17″ binders. in august of 2014, i intended to migrate these portfolios into my slide show area by taking careful photos…

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time flies …

3/6/16 .. no snow!it’s been almost a month since i wrote my last blog post … don’t know why, just needed a break i guess. it might also be the spring in the air … the convertible is out and the top has been down several times. crazy weather for march. the wood frogs are croaking (most years it’s april before that happens), the robins and buzzards are back. ducks on the pond. black spotted salamanders are out … all that is also rare in march. and, i’ve golfed twice already! once at ‘arlington national’, a par 3 down the road, and once at kingswood, a real course that opens early in nearby hudson falls … manure on the asparagus and the garden today, kit stacked…

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jim harrison …. gonna miss him

so, jim harrison has left the building … however, you can be assured he gave his whole time here his absolute best shot … outdoorsman, cook, poet, thinker, writer, storyteller, he did it all. and admirably and in his own totally robust style. i think my first introduction to his work was ‘dalva’, a fine saga i have read and reread numerous times. he drew fine characters, like brown dog, and led you through their interesting, yet somehow almost believable lives … one would do well to read the two things the times has published yesterday and today … the photo above is from the obituary they published yesterday .. and this one today by dwight garnerthe excerpt below is from a blog post on …

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more stuff

more time flies by, and again i find i’m not doing much writing on my blog here … been busy, and the work, while interesting, is not that new or challenging that it needs to be explained too much … so, we’ll continue with the show and tell …here we have a small claro walnut slab dining table, about 36-38 x 72 with a walnut bench.headed to sag harbor soon with a nice mottled green vermont slate and steel coffee table .’rothkoesque’ i believe would be a good description …and we’re about to wrap up this steel and pine bar .. a couple more coats of finish on the top and it will be good to go ‘mountains and stream’ steel work by samand …

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