Highland Woodworking Blog

Each month in Wood News Online we feature Steve Johnson’s column, The Down to Earth Woodworker, which is full of a variety of woodworking projects, tips, videos, and events.

In this month’s column Steve has stories on the following topics:

The Tool Tune-Up Squad: You may have heard of The Geek Squad who can be called to come fix your tech gadgets. Steve’s Tool Tune-Up Squad would work in a similar nature, a group of woodworkers who would hop into their Volkswagen van to come fix any of your broken tools or machinery. Steve shares his ideas and tips for this new business idea.

Building the New 5S Compliant Clamp Rack: Steve’s new project is great for added shop storage and even falls under his 5S Compliancy. Steve walks you through the steps he took to create the clamp brackets and rack, and also shares the PDF’s of his plans and video series that accompanies the project.

My Visit to Highland Woodworking: We were lucky to have Steve come and visit our store in Atlanta during our January Open House! Steve had never been to the actual store and in this column he shares his observations, experiences and expectations he had on his trip.

No Southern-fried Southern boy wants to be called a Yankee, but we share the characteristics of shrewdness and thrift.  Thus, each month we include a money-saving tip.  It’s OK if you call me “cheap.”

I hope “those” people never come to visit. Which is probably not a worry, because I live a pretty isolated life:  Work, woodshop, church, sleep.  Ok, and throw in a little fishing here and there.  Entertaining in our home?  It’s limited to throwing the raccoon for Willie the poodle and encouraging Maxx the cat to attack him.  Willie, that is. Maxx is not interested in the raccoon.

Willie has at least a half-dozen of these “Rocky the Raccoons.” We get them at WalMart. For Christmas Brenda ordered him one from Amazon. He wouldn’t touch it. He wouldn’t even look at it! To him, it’s just not a Rocky

Willie’s favorite toy, however, is his twin brother, Maxx. They’re fraternal twins, which explains their appearance differences.

You want work lights cheap? They don’t come any cheaper than “trash night shopping.” Now that gas is down around $2 per gallon even the driving around is affordable. And, who doesn’t need a night out of the house? Notice the emphasis on “night.” You really do have to watch out for your reputation.

With only our animal entertainment to offer at our house, it’s unlikely that a visitor will show up to identify the two gooseneck lamps I got from their trash one Thursday night.  I’m sure they threw them out because they had tightened the thumbscrews as tight as they could and the geese’s “necks” continued to flop around.  And, when they did that, they were on the right path, they just didn’t go far enough.

You can tighten this wing nut until your fingers turn white and the lamp will continue to flop if the whole bracket isn’t tight.

The whole idea behind the design of the lamp is friction.  Not too much, not too little.  Just like the Little Bear’s soup.  All it took to make these lights functional for the bandsaw and grinder station is to snug up the other two nuts at each joint.  No more flopping around!

A nut driver is perfect for getting just the right amount of tightness on these nuts because it limits the amount of torque you can apply. No danger of stripping threads.

Sometimes when you find gooseneck lamps in discard piles you won’t find the little plastic base that supports the metal pin.  No problem!  On the grinder station I just drilled an appropriately-sized hole between the grinders.  Now the lamp can turn 360 degrees to illuminate either work area.

A hole drilled between the grinders works as well or better than the purpose-designed plastic mounting block.

Good luck finding the plastic bracket in the trash with the discarded lamp, but they can be handy sometimes.

Not wanting to drill a hole in the bandsaw’s table, I mounted the lamp in the windowsill and it works great.

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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.

Ok Luddites, here is a new one for you and if you don’t at least try it, you are missing out on something pretty good.

If you are like me, on these cold winter days when you don’t want to walk to a freezing shop and wait for the heat to come up, you drop back to all the old magazines.  I have a big folder of clippings and torn out pages which I set aside for projects I intend to build one of these days.  If I see a good project, I rip the page out and throw away the rest of the magazine.   Who has room to store all the magazines, especially when you love the books even more and you have to have room to keep them too.

The folks at Highland suggested a few months ago that I investigate Pinterest, a web site which has gained a great deal of interest over the last few years.  Well, you know me, Mr Cool Know It All, Old Gray Headed Guy, I told them where they could put that “DIY” stuff and it probably was all about painting red barns and flowers on old circular saw blades and cutting plywood silhouettes of cowboys leaning against a fence post smoking a rolled cigarette.  For someone who really dislikes that kind of stuff and does not allow plywood in the shop, my perception of Pinterest was DIY crap, not the kind of stuff that Highland customers would want to see.  I was wrong.

I was bored yesterday and needed something to keep my mind occupied, so I tried it out.  I went to www.pinterest.com and it took about 30 seconds to sign up and get started.  You start by creating boards (manila folders for you old people) with titles for things you like.  My first one was “Woodworking Stuff”.  Basically, you type a subject in the search bar at the top and then look at all the things that pop up.  When you see something you like, you click on the “Pin It” button in the window (tear the page out of the magazine) and it adds it to your Board (Manila Folder).  The net result is you can end up with Boards which contain pictures and/or sites you like and want to remember for later.  You will find plans and pictures and videos and blogs and all kinds of good stuff.  You can spend hours on this thing.

Another way to add “pins” to your “boards” is by downloading the Pinterest Browser Button by clicking here. Once you have this button installed on your internet browser, you can go to any of your favorite websites (i.e. Highland Woodworking) and start pinning your favorite tools to your boards. Just scroll over the image of the product (or recipe) you want to pin, and the Pin It button will come up within the picture (see below):

Once you click it, a box will come up that allows you to write a description of your pin (i.e. I really want this tool for Christmas! or The best tool I’ve ever used), and then click which of your boards you want to post it on:

Click the red Pinit button and then voila, the picture and link to the page will show up on your Pinterest board!

You can even make a “Wishlist” board that you can share with your friends and family who are looking to buy you a gift!

I was clicking around this morning and I put in my hometown and all kinds of things popped up.  To show you the scope, I found the recipe for potato pie from the restaurant we all went to growing up in that small town.

I think as I search through for different topics that “Woodworking Stuff” is too broad a topic.  I will probably go back and set up separate boards for Woodcarving, Bench Plans, Windsor Chairs, Bowl Turning, Wood Lathes, and other more narrow topics.

I think you will really enjoy this thing.  Go to www.pinterest.com and sign up. You can follow my boards by clicking here and then click on the “Follow” link on the upper right-hand corner. While you’re at it, be sure to follow the Highland Woodworking Pinterest page by clicking here.

Come on, people.  Time to move into the 21st Century, or at least the 20th Century.  You are going to like this thing.