blogmaster

May 202008
 

Saturday Mornings at Highland Woodworking

Saturday Mornings at Highland complement our woodworking class & seminar offerings. Join us at our store in Virginia-Highlands on Saturday mornings at 10am EST for FREE, live demonstrations featuring a wide variety of woodworking skills, tools & techniques. These 1 to 1-1/2 hour-long demonstrations feature our knowledgeable staff and instructors, local clubs & guilds, guest authors, and others. Upcoming events include woodturning, woodcarving, care & use of hand tools, joinery, book signings, an introduction to woodworking design software, and much, much more.

Hal Simmons Natural Edged BowlSaturday, May 31, at 10:00am we are pleased to have Hal Simmons in the house teaching the Natural Edged Bowl. When he’s not busy at the American Red Cross, he’s teaching wood turning. He has studied with Nick Cook, Willard Baxter, David Ellsworth, Johannes Rieber, Chris Scott, Soren Berger and Ray Key. He enjoys traditional spindle, bowl, and hollow form turning using both exotic and domestic woods. Hal is President of the Chattahoochee Woodturners and member of the Georgia Association of Woodturners.

Hal will demonstrate how to turn a natural edge bowl. He will talk about consistency in wall thickness, chucking and mounting the piece on the lathe.

All demonstrations take place in Highland Woodworking’s retail store in Atlanta, Georgia and begin at 10:00am EST.

May 192008
 

Soft-Sanders Flexible Sanding BlocksEver tried to roll sandpaper around a dowel rod to smooth a molding profile, or attempt to hold on to it while sanding a spindle? Easy to grip Soft-Sanders are shaped sanding blocks that fit every imaginable contour, curve and crevice. Think of them as three-dimensional French curves. Each of the six color-coded 4-3/4" long sanders is supple enough to prevent gouging but firm enough to maintain details. They work with their Super-Flex adhesive backed sandpaper, but we found them to operate well with any paper you're already using. Just hit the back of your own paper with some spray adhesive, and apply it to the profile you want.

Soft-Sanders are solvent resistant, so you can wet sand with them or wash off any residual goo with spirits. Turners will love Soft-Sanders' ability to get into the bottom of bowls and to keep spindle features crisp. They're heat resistant, so they won't fly apart on you.

It didn't take much convincing for us to carry these U.S. made Soft-Sanders. They're deceptively simple devices that perform exactly how you'd expect them to without disappointment. Comes with one each of 80, 120 and 180 grit Super-Flex Sandpaper. What's not to like?

Click the “Play” button below to watch a video demonstration!


May 122008
 

cmt_forstner.jpgHighland Woodworking is pleased to announce the addition of CMT premium HSS Forstner Bits to our selection of fine drilling tools. With the ongoing scarcity of Austrian bits in the marketplace, our CMT bits now offer discriminating woodworkers an excellent alternative. CMT Forstner Bits are carefully sharpened in CMT’s Italian state-of-the-art machine shop, and are manufactured from superb-quality high speed steel enabling them to retain their sharpness and precision far longer under heavy use than ordinary Forstner bits made from carbon steel.

CMT first began manufacturing top-quality cutting bits more than 30 years ago in a small workshop in the center of Pesaro, Italy, and since then has grown to become a global leader in the production of woodworking tools. Today under the careful guidance of the second generation of the Tommassini family, CMT operates two factories in the Pesaro area, and distributes their industrial-quality products throughout the world. We are proud to add these fine tools to our broad selection of wood cutting tools.

See our Sharpening Forstner Bits article and more woodworking tips and advice from our popular woodworking library!

May 022008
 

East Petersburg, PA (PRWEB) April 21, 2008 — Fox Chapel Publishing is proud to announce that two of its new woodworking books were recently selected as the top 2008 "Golden Hammer" Award Winners by the National Association of Home and Workshop Writers (NAHWW). First place in the Books Division went to Mark Duginske, author of New Complete Guide to the Bandsaw, and second place was awarded to Tom Hintz, author of New Woodworker Handbook.

The awards will be officially announced on May 7 in Las Vegas during the National Hardware Show, where winning recipients will receive a cash prize and a handsome plaque. Quality of writing was the chief criterion on which all books were judged. Judges included the best in the Do-It-Yourself field with most of the judges being previous "Golden Hammer" Award winners.

New Complete Guide to the Bandsaw is a comprehensive reference that provides basic and advanced techniques for using a bandsaw. Duginske is a fourth generation central Wisconsin woodworker, designer, inventor and writer, who contributes to magazines, such as Fine Woodworking and Architectural Digest, and whose work has been featured on This Old House. He has 8 patents on woodworking tools and has written 10 books. Duginske is considered "the bandsaw expert" in the field.

New Woodworker Handbook, by Hintz, is an easy-to-read guide to getting started in woodworking. The book is a culmination of the thousands of questions he received from beginners on his popular woodworking website. Known for his straight-forward style of writing, Hintz retired from his personal involvement in stock car racing to become a staff writer and webmaster for Stock Car Racing and Open Wheel Magazines and staff editor for Circle Track Magazine all the while enjoying his lifelong hobby – woodworking. Later he began SPEEDWORDS, a marketing firm offering web development, writing and photography services for the racing business community. His website draws more than 150,000 visitors each month. Tom says these woodworkers log onto NewWoodworker.com "because they know the most effective safety tool is a well-informed brain."

Duginske and Hintz join the growing list of authors with award-winning titles published by Fox Chapel Publishing. In 2006, Charles Self won a first-place Golden Hammer award for The Woodworker’s Pocket Reference.

Fox Chapel Publishing is a leading publisher of woodworking reference and project books, as well as the publisher of Woodcarving Illustrated and Scroll Saw Woodworking Crafts magazines.

Visit Highland Woodworking for more information on these and many other woodworking titles.

May 022008
 

Kreg Precision Trak and Stop Kit

When Your Pencil and Tape Measure Just Won’t Cut It…

Are you frustrated with projects that never seem to turn out quite right? Are you sick and tired of having to measure and mark each individual workpiece? Never again.

The Precision Trak and Stop System is the fastest and easiest way to add incredible accuracy to your miter saw and the modern replacement for the tape measure and pencil. It’s designed to make each and every cut you make easier to reproduce and more accurate than ever before, resulting in projects which are easier to reproduce and more accurate than ever before. It’s time to throw away your pencil, throw away your tape measure, and start getting real precision out of your miter saw!

Watch the video below to see how!


Visit Highland Woodworking for more information.

Mar 142008
 

Festool Kapex KS120To commemorate our 30 years of service to woodworkers we are giving away to a single winner a Festool Kapex KS120 Compound Miter Saw Set with MFT 3 Multi Function Table & Festool CT22 Mobile Dust Extractor!

Festool’s Kapex KS120 saw, scheduled for release Fall 2008, provides unmatched accuracy & features, including a precision dual-line laser so you can cut exactly on your mark from both sides of the saw. Included, the MFT 3 Multi-function Table- 1 table with a 1000 possibilities, versatility, portability and durability the MFT 3 stands alone as the ideal work surface. As you cut, the Festool CT22 Dust Extractor will help keep your shop dust free & is the perfect shop vac for all your hand power tools with its’ triggered switch & shut off delay function. Total approximate value of the Festool giveaway package is $2700!

Visit our complete collection of Festool Power Tools &amp Accessories!

Official rules and guidelines are available here.

No purchase necessary. Offer void where prohibited. Participants are entered into the drawing upon completion of the online registration accessible beginning Wednesday, March 12th from Highland Woodworking. Deadline for entry is 11:59 p.m. ET on Sunday, August 31, 2008. Multiple entries are permitted.

Enter Now!

Mar 072008
 

New Red Hot Special!Posted as a limited time offer!

Highland Does It Again! A deal too good to pass up.

This nicely balanced electric detail carving tool conveniently depends upon high speed reciprocating action instead of old-fashioned elbow grease to power carving blades quickly and effortlessly through both hardwoods and softwoods.

Our manufacturer routinely provides these power detail carvers to the largest tool companies under various private labels. An importer’s overstock is allowing us to offer them to you as a Highland Red Hot Special at a greatly reduced price.

The power carver’s split collet chuck design accepts our optional premium Flexcut blades including the Flexcut Power Roughing Set (125008), the Flexcut Power Detailing Set Set (125003) and the Flexcut Deluxe Gouge Set (125011).

The tool’s variable speed feature allows you to dial in the exact amount of power you need, and its reciprocating action begins only when the blade actually contacts the work.

The power detail carver comes with 5 blades, including 1/8″ and 5/16″ straight chisels, 1/4″ V-gouge, 3/8″ gouge and 3/8″ round nose chisel, along with a wrench and a small 400-grit sharpening stone. Tool weighs 19 ounces. Overall length 9″.

Check out the Red Hot Special!

(If you don’t see the Red Hot Special item on our homepage, that means we’ve sold out, so check back soon for our next item!)