I have a very simple wish, which is ‘better lighting’.
I currently work in a small workshop which is cold, damp, and poorly lit. My workbench is functional but when I’m hand planing I find that the lighting is just poor, which is slowing me down considerably when trying to achieve a perfectly flat edge.
My normal routine is this:
1. place board on bench and clamp between vice and dogs
2. hand plane one or two strokes
3. undo vice, remove board, and hold up to the window with my straight edge to look for light shining through any gaps
4. mark areas on the edge for adjustment
5. again place board on bench and clamp between vice and dogs
6. repeat a million times until insanity or victory
Clearly this is a recipe for madness, so my wish is for some simple fluorescent lighting that I will install horizontally at the back wall just above the bench surface so I can assess my progress while leaving the board in place.
Proposed location of additional lighting
Having said all that, the electricity is currently broken in my shop due to a faulty RCD device, so my real wish is for an electrician 🙂
Marty is a full time IT worker from New Zealand who is continuing a long journey to learn furniture making despite the common obstacles of limited time, money & workspace.
Although my woodshop is pretty well stocked with lumber and the tools to work it, there always seems to be something else I need, or if not need, then that I want. Mrs. Santa is always looking for ideas about what to get me, so here are some suggestions for what might end up under the tree this year.
Top on my list is the Sawstop sliding table. Sure, I have a large plywood sled that’s done good work for me over the years, but that sliding table sure is slick. It would make crosscutting a lot easier, especially for oversized pieces like the dressing table top I’m planning for Mrs. Santa in the coming year. She really ought to consider it.
I’ve got a goodly collection of handplanes—both new and old—but it seems like I can always use at least one more. How about a Lie-Nielsen #5? That would just about round out my collection. Won’t I be needing it to plane the figured walnut for her dressing table?
I also like the looks of the Lie-Nielsen small router plane. Together with the adjustment kit, that would help me with those smaller jobs like lock installation.
I’m eager to try my hand at turning a hollow vessel but a hollowing tool is one that I don’t have in my arsenal. Please, Mrs. Santa, give some thought to that.
Let’s don’t forget those household repair jobs I’ll need to be doing. I think the Fein Multimaster Top model would just about fill the bill. I’ve seen them in operation, and they are top of the line. What about that, Dear?
Maybe we could use some new kitchen knives. How about a set of Ron Hock knife blades? That way I could have fun in the shop making them and produce something Mrs. Santa would like at the same time.
I know she’s concerned about my safety in the shop, and one of the hidden dangers is, of course, dust in the air. I hear the Elipse P100 dust mask is great for cutting down on those micro-particles we breathe. Perhaps I could persuade her that this would make a good stocking stuffer.
OK, so maybe Mrs. Santa doesn’t want to pop for a Sawstop sliding table or a handplane. There are always Highland logo T-shirts, which would be great to wear in the shop or for that matter just about anywhere.
In the end, maybe the most useful thing would be a nice big Highland gift certificate. That way I could pick out what I want, er, need the most.
Norm Reid is a woodworker, writer, and woodworking instructor living in the Blue Ridge Mountains with his wife, a woodshop full of power and hand tools and four cats who think they are cabinetmaker’s assistants. He is the author of the forthcoming book Choosing and Using Handplanes. He can be contacted at nreid@fcc.net.
Every year Highland asks me to do this Wish Listthingy and it dawned on me, finally, that I have been looking at it backwards. Every year I make up a list of things I would like to have on my list and I hope people will give to me. I’ve got pretty much everything I need. So to be different this year, here is your Wish List. This list is of things that I already have in my shop, enjoy constantly, and believe you need to put on your Wish List this year.
OneWay Lathe. I have a OneWay 1640 Lathe I got from Highland several years ago and I use it constantly. It is a joy. The 1640 designation is the capacity of the lathe meaning it will handle a bowl 16 inches in diameter and a spindle of 40 inches. This marvelous lathe will do all but the most extraordinary projects, and is just below the industrial size 2436 model. My favorite feature is the completely variable speed control. You need one of these.
1640 OneWay Lathe
Leg Vise. Several months ago, I added a leg vise from Benchcrafted to my workbench. I didn’t know I needed it until I got it. Mine has a hand wheel and I mounted it just beside one of the legs on the bench I made myself some years ago. I use it constantly. If you don’t have a good heavy bench, now is your chance to make or buy one and add the leg vise to it. Highland sells a Split Top Roubo Bench Maker’s Package, or the plans for the Roubo Bench and you will never regret having a nice bench in your shop. Pass it down to your grandchildren or set it in your living room when you hang up your planes.
My Leg Vise
Lathe Tool Handle. If you get the lathe above or already have a good lathe, then by all means, get yourself one of these wonderful tool handles. They have a substantial weight to them and since they are coated with a heavy plastic, they don’t get so cold when left in the shop in the winter. The weight is enough to dampen out much of the vibration which many tools transmit to your hands so it feels much better over a long session. I also like the ability to buy a different tool steel for different shapes. I use a 3/4 inch bowl gouge in the tool handle I have and it works like a charm.
Tool Handle
Bose Wave Machine. Technically outside the tool world, but this needs to go very high on your Wish List. This thing is a real joy and belongs in every shop. I first met one of these many years ago when a sewage pump manufacturer brought a demonstration trailer by the office to show our staff how a pumping system might be configured. I was standing inside the trailer and was convinced the pumps were running, but could not figure out how. It was a Bose radio playing a recording of the pumps running. I can turn this thing up high enough to hear it above any machine in the shop. I can play the radio, a CD, music from my phone, or podcasts from my iPad. I love this thing. You will too.
Bose Wave Machine
Low Speed Grinder. After much practice and gnashing of teeth I learned to sharpen my lathe tools on my grinder. It works well because it has soft grinding wheels and runs at 1750 RPM instead of the standard 3600 RPM. I put a OneWay grinding jig on it and I can sharpen the tool I use the most in about 20 seconds and then it is back to turning. Great machine!!
Rikon low speed grinder
That is myWish List for you this year. I hope you get everything on it.
There is a strong inclination at this time of year to wax altruistic, demonstrate my “niceness” as the Down To Earth Woodworker, and wish for holiday gifts like “peace on earth,” “more new woodworkers,” or “a twenty-first century renaissance.” The fact is, though, I do often succumb to covetous thought. Professing to want nothing that costs real money is a psychological manifestation of something I am sure Freud would have fun with (Freud the psychologist, not Freud the router bit and blade guy!). The fact is it might actually be therapeutic to admit, “I want things.” Expensive things. Luxury things. Things I have convinced myself I really need.
So forget the pasty saccharine bromides and the kind and gentle Down To Earth Woodworker, here is the list of stuff I really want. I don’t expect to actually get any of these things, but here goes:
A new Oscillating Spindle Sander. I have an inexpensive bench top type OSS, and I use it a lot, but I find myself sanding six-foot long and longer pieces all the time, thus I need a big floor-standing machine. More power, a longer stroke, a bigger table, and more sizes of drums would be great. Highland Woodworking sells two nice bench top machines, but, alas, no big honking 300-pounder. I won’t be able to rely on their trusted recommendations and knowledge, so I’m stuck trying to figure out what is “good” from internet descriptions. It probably doesn’t matter… at more than a thousand bucks, this item is unlikely to be checked off my wish list.
A Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro Lens. Okay, okay, I know this is supposed to be a “woodworking wish list” but I would definitely use this fine lens to do some serious close-ups of certain woodworking steps in my videos… that’s what the “macro” part of the description means. This is an “L” series lens, Canon’s best… and the reviews are awesome. Alas, it is even on sale right now for “just” $799, normally $899. Hah! That’s probably not going to make it onto my “gift received, thank you” list, either.
The new Rikon 14inch Professional Band Saw. I have the 14” Rikon Deluxe band saw, and it is one of the two best, most reliable, and accurate pieces of equipment in my shop (the other is my SawStop PCS). But I would really enjoy the extra power provided by the 3HP 220V motor in the Rikon Professional model, I like the way they set up the dual dust ports, and I think the ability to go all the way to a 1” wide blade (as opposed to 3/4” on the Deluxe model) would serve my resawing efforts well. This band saw is on sale right now for $1,299, and this, too, will unfortunately likely not find its way to my Christmas tree.
Festool Kapex KS 120 EB Sliding Compound Miter Saw. You may recall that I tested the Kapex extensively and loved it… but I couldn’t afford to add it to my shop. Don’t get me wrong, my current miter saw is fine, but it is frustratingly slow to work with. The “spin-down” time after releasing the trigger switch is long, tempting me to remove a board before the saw stops spinning… a very unsafe (aka “stupid”) practice. Also, when adjusted and locked into a 90-degree cut, it makes perfectly acceptable cuts, but swing it right or left to make a 45-degree cut, then swing it back to the center, and it is necessary to go through the entire set-up procedure again to get it square. The Festool Kapex moved seamlessly from 90 to 45 and any stop in-between, and always returned to a perfect 90-degrees. What a time saver! And while it would be perfectly okay to spend $1,450 on a necklace or earrings for my spouse, the same amount of money spent on a tool would be considered over-the-top. I guess a big Festool box won’t be under the tree, either.
A sweater. I figured I should wish for one thing that I am likely to get. It will be thick, itchy wool in a color that goes with absolutely no other clothing I have. And I will be forced to wear it to the family Christmas dinner. If I spill gravy on it, it might just be a Freudian slip of the spoon. I’ll bet even Dr. Freud’s apprentice could figure out the psychology behind that!
Steven Johnson is retired from an almost 30-year career selling medical equipment and supplies, and now enjoys improving his shop, his skills, and his designs on a full time basis (although he says home improvement projects and furniture building have been hobbies for most of his adult life).
During the Christmas season of 1967, about two months after the late October school event where I met and began dating my girlfriend (later my wife), she told me that her mother wanted a list of what I might like to receive for Christmas. Pleased with this affirmation of my growing membership to this new family, I thought this a splendid idea (the nineteen-year-old). I also realized I should handle this with diplomatic sensitivity to avoid creating an undesirable impression (the college freshman in me).
Having been well trained by my grandmother to pay special attention to proper etiquette, I created a list of tools that I wanted to feed my growing interest in woodworking. I was ready to grow beyond my father’s basic, utilitarian bench of pliers, clamps, quarter-inch drill and a gray electric Skill saw to build a better quality tool collection of my own. I designed my wish list across a broad spectrum of prices (remember, it was 1967) beginning with the most practical and reaching into the “out-there” level of wanting to learn something about the wood lathe. (Note: at that point, I had never actually seen a wood lathe being used and I am quite sure my future mother-in-law had no idea what one was, but apparently we shared a vision.)
Temple’s Wish List for Christmas 1967 (approximate prices of the time):
Combination screw driver set — $3.99
Deluxe try square — $9.29
High-quality dovetail saw – $16.66
Set of five bench chisels — $24.95
Toastmaster power multi-tool: lathe, sander, saber-saw — $35.95
The total was $94.84. (Connecticut State sales tax was somewhere in the 0.06% range at that time did not apply to purchases from out-of-state that were delivered by the US Postal System, as addressed by a US Supreme Court ruling. The Toastmaster multi-tool came from the John Plain Mail order catalog company in Chicago.)
In my own family experience, my siblings and I often laughed about the reality that whenever any of us gave our mother a wish list of presents we might want for Christmas, we were pretty well guaranteed to never receive those items. True fact.
The tradition in my new girlfriend’s family turned out to be quite different. When a person in her family put an item on the Christmas wish list, that person was guaranteed to receive it. If the list had five items, that lucky, and in my case totally humbled, person received everything on the list! Imagine my surprise, embarrassment, and delight (quite a complex set of feelings) when I visited my girlfriend and her mother that Christmas morning and discovered all of my carefully planned Christmas wishes in beautifully wrapped packages that I unwrapped one after the other.
Yikes!
That Christmas was a turning point for me. In a lasting way, because of my MIL and late wife, I discovered the lathe and rewards of woodturning, a passionate pursuit for me that continues. I ultimately learned through trial and error to enjoy the crisp benefit of a well-sharpened saw and chisels cutting clean well-measured dovetails. In a larger perspective I grew to enjoy having the right tool to accomplish the job efficiently and effectively.
As I think about the many years and projects since that Christmas, I grow in my appreciation of my mother-in-law’s confidence and support for my passion for shaping and cutting wood. Reflecting on her life and on my late wife’s gentle but firm guidance that urged me to seek excellence, I look again to see how that original whimsical and uninformed list of new tools would stack up this year for my wish list.
New version of that same list for Temple’s Christmas 2015:
Isomax 100 Piece Security & Standard Screwdriver Tips — $34.99. Of course there are many more screw types 48 years later, and a set of driver tips to fit a screw of nearly every type fulfills that shop urge to meet every possible need with just the right tool, not to mention the ubiquitous dependence on the cordless driver (which outstanding engineering I would also like to include). This extensive set seems to cover every possibility for any occasion, which is an admirable goal for every on-call fixit person.
Rosewood Try Square – 9 inch — $24.99. Another lesson I learned from my grandmother and later my wife is that only the best quality of tool or material makes the effort of a craftsman worthwhile. There is no point in wasting valuable time on a perfectly good project with inferior materials or tools. I have grown to appreciate the depth of this concept, and the contemplation of measuring carefully with a beautifully crafted square reinforces the goal of making each measured mark and cut precise. “Things won are done, but the joy lies in the doing.” (Troilus and Cressida)
Bad Axe Stiletto Dovetail Saw – 12 inch — $245.00. For those of us who value the sensual and spiritual pleasure of cutting and fitting dovetails by hand, this is the kind of tool that challenges the craftsman to work always at a challenge level of excellence. Magically the higher level of the artistic beauty of the tool itself energizes and inspires the craftsperson to new levels of achievement.
Narex Premium 6-Piece Bench Chisel Set with Leather Tool Roll – $119.99. What a beautiful presentation these fine chisels properly make in a properly protected roll, and complimentary they are for use on fine furniture. I believe this set might make the best kind of gift for my oldest son who builds wooden boats at Brooklin Boatyard in Maine, a fitting connection between the encouragement from his grandmother long before he was born and now when he does such beautiful work on the impressive new boats such as Foggy being designed and built at the yard.
Rikon 70-220VSR 12 ½” Midi Lathe – (on sale!) $599.99 This represents a tremendous advance over that tiny little Toastmaster multi-tool combination lathe, saber saw, and sander with which I first ground out a little goblet from a pine blank with one scraping tool in January of 1968. What a terrific starter machine with versatility and stability that will launch novice woodturners into that wonderful world of expression in craft and art.
Total $1,024.96 Plus CT Sales tax of 6.35% of $65.08 = $1,090.04
I think asking for the lathe I really want, the Oneway 2436 3HP Lathe at $6,481.00 plus freight might have been a little ambitious after only two months of dating, but then again, if I did not ask, she might not have known what I really want. Those Oneway’s are truly beautiful tools in all sizes with precision, safety, well-balanced fixtures that inspire a woodturner to seek excellence, and a powerful launch into a new adventure of exploration, skill-development, passion, and personal development that may never be equaled.
The end of the story is that the wife of one of my woodturning students (both extremely good friends) called me to ask if she really needed to take the plunge and if so which lathe did I recommend she buy for her husband’s 25th wedding anniversary, birthday, and Christmas. She said she was sitting down and ready to take the plunge. I gave her the link.
What do you do with the shavings and sawdust that come out of your dust collector? I use mine as mulch, usually, for trees and bushes in the yard. Keep in mind that anywhere you put sawdust on the ground, it will kill anything that tries to grow in that area. The reason is that the high carbon content in the sawdust chemically binds the nitrogen the plants want to use for food.
Mulch also prevents sunlight from reaching the ground.
Speaking of food, it’s generally recommended that we shouldn’t mulch food crops with shavings, in case the wood might be contaminated with things you wouldn’t want to put in your mouth.
Back in the 70s I was in college and wore a sign on my back that read, “Po’ College Student.” I wanted to have a garden on a budget. I went to the local feed store, where I found tomato plants for 50 cents each. On my budget, I could afford six plants. Dejected, I wandered back out toward my car, when I noticed, leaning against the front of the store, some lonely, wilted, scraggly tomato plants tied in bunches. They were marked 75 cents per bunch. I could afford three and still buy a little bag of butterbean seeds.
Arriving home, I got a shock. Within each bundle were 25 little bare-rooted plants. Having already turned over an area of my back yard, I found I needed to open a bigger rectangle! My neighbor came over to see what I was up to, and I bemoaned the fact that I couldn’t afford fertilizer for my project.
“You’re in luck,” he replied. “I have a horse, and his stall hasn’t been cleaned out for a while. There’s enough fertilizer in that stall to boost ten gardens the size of yours. There are shavings in there, too, that came from a planer mill in the swamp. They should be well-broken-down by now.”
My designation as Lt. Overkill isn’t a new moniker. I cleaned out the stall and took all ten gardens-worth of “fertilizer” home in my self-made utility trailer. Into the garden it went, well-mixed, and followed by the 75-or-so tomato plants.
As luck would have it, over three score plants survived, no, thrived. I gave away tomatoes. I ate homemade spaghetti sauce, I canned tomatoes and froze tomatoes. You never saw so many tomatoes in all your life!
Butterbeans? Those plants did well, too. With that much “fertilizer” how could they not? Still, I didn’t eat a single butterbean that summer. I had two little Beagle puppies, and it turned out they liked butterbeans as much as I did. As soon as little pods would appear, Sam and Blossum would go down the two rows and clean up.
Too bad they didn’t like tomatoes.
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Jim Randolph is a veterinarian in Long Beach, Mississippi. His earlier careers as lawn mower, dairy farmer, automobile mechanic, microwave communications electronics instructor and journeyman carpenter all influence his approach to woodworking. His favorite projects are furniture built for his wife, Brenda, and for their children and grandchildren. His and Brenda’s home, nicknamed Sticks-In-The-Mud, is built on pilings (sticks) near the wetlands (mud) on a bayou off Jourdan River. His shop is in the lower level of their home. Questions and comments on woodworking may be written below in the comments section. Questions about pet care should be directed to his blog on pet care, www.MyPetsDoctor.com. We regret that, because of high volume, not all inquiries can be answered personally.
We’ve just published another great issue of Wood News Online. This month’s issue includes:
Building a 3-Sided Farm Woodshed– Jon Rubin is known for over-engineering when it comes to his woodworking projects, and it was no different for his recent woodshed that he built on his farm. In this article, Jon discusses his over-engineering and his methods he used to build the woodshed.
Show Us Your Shop– We’re sharing the Edmond, OK workshop of Lance Wroblewski, who started woodworking in 2011 and has been building up his workshop ever since.
Show Us Your Woodworking– This month we’re sharing the woodworking projects of disabled veteran, Steve Adams, who enjoys building anything from small inlaid boxes to full-size houses.
Show Us Your Carving– Ron Latour enjoys transforming 2-D artwork into 3-D deep relief wood sculptures, as well as creating boxes with carved tops.
This month’s woodworking tip columns include:
The Down to Earth Woodworker– This month, Steve discusses the advantages of his new favorite tape measure, wonders who it is out there that makes the decision of “good” vs “bad” when it comes to judging woodworking projects, and shares some new woodworking invention ideas.
Woodworking Safety Tip– This month’s reader-contributed safety tip comes from John all the way in County Limerick, Ireland, who shares his list of must-do’s before turning on his power saws.
Finishing Tip– Alan has several tips when it comes to painting laminates and the best ways to resurface them.
Ask the Staff– This month our staff was asked for a good recommendation for slow setting epoxy.
Tips from Sticks in the Mud– This month Jim has tips on drilling pilot holes and reusing parts from a foam paint brush to assist your sander.
