Highland Staff

Stories from Grandpa’s Workshop: Lessons Learned

Mar 042021
 

For the March 2021 issue of Wood News Online, Bob Rummer addresses different types of learning. He then discusses how each type of learning affects your woodworking skills over time:

One of my earliest lessons in the shop is marked by a thin white line across the back of my left thumb. Through pain and injury, I learned to appreciate the value of good workholding devices. They say, “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first and the lesson afterwards.” Experience is also the best teacher. Once was enough.

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March 2021 Woodworking Poll: How Do You Classify Yourself as a Woodworker?

Mar 012021
 

The Wikipedia definition of Woodworking is “the activity or skill of making items from wood, and includes cabinet making, wood carving, joinery, carpentry, and woodturning.” Based on this definition, woodworkers are made up of a variety of different people: cabinetmakers, woodcarvers, carpenters, woodturners, and many others.

This month, we want to know how you classify yourself (or if you even do) when it comes to woodworking? Maybe you dabble in a bit of everything and overall you just consider yourself a woodworker. Or maybe you focus solely on lathe work and are just a woodturner.

If your answer isn’t among the options, please choose ‘Other’ and write it in!

Making Rustic Boxes

Feb 252021
 

For the January 2021 issue of Wood News Online, Norm Reid writes about one of his favorite woodworking projects: making wooden boxes. When his friend offered him some rustic looking wood, Norm got creative and used it in his box making.

Recently, a friend tore out a fence where he works and saved me a small pile of the boards he recovered. Mostly they are red oak, with a few chestnut oak boards in the mix. Though they had been in place for years, the interiors of the boards were still quite solid. I decided to put this wood to use making small boxes that display the untouched exterior.

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Turning a Bundle of Spindles

Feb 232021
 

For the February 2021 issue of Wood News Online, Temple Blackwood shares his opinion on turning multiples:

The most typical questions asked by my woodturning students and demonstration bystanders regard turning multiple copies of the same design. “Do you get bored?” “How do you sustain your attention?” “Are they really the same?” “What is the challenge?”

Read Temple’s thoughts on this and more

Click here to visit the Highland Woodworking Woodturning Department

How to Install Router Bits

Feb 182021
 

Almost everybody knows that the “proper” way to install a router bit is to bottom it out in the collet, then withdraw it 1/16″ to 1/8″ before tightening the collet nut. Almost nobody, however, knows why. We’ve never seen an owner’s manual divulge the secret, and we’ve seen the real story in print only once or twice in the last twenty years. The stuff you have heard is almost certainly hogwash: you pull the bit back to reduce vibration, or to decrease heat transfer into the motor spindle, or perhaps to keep fairy dust from getting in your eyes. Even though such things actually show up in print from time to time, they’re entirely nonsensical.

Click here to read the rest of the article on installing router bits

Click here to shop Highland Woodworking’s wide Router Bit selection

Stories from Grandpa’s Workshop: A New Year’s Resolute-tion

Feb 172021
 

In the February 2021 issue of Wood News Online, Bob Rummer discusses the history of the wood that was used to build the Resolute Desk in The White House, and then related it to his own projects, considering how the wood he uses often has a past history of its own.

The story of the object may not be the wood as much as the making. I have fretwork pieces made by a great-great uncle carefully labeled by my Grandma – “Made by Uncle Newt.” For me they are a priceless connection to a woodworking tradition and a story that matters to me.

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Book Review: The Anarchist’s Workbench By Christopher Schwarz

Feb 112021
 

For the February 2021 issue of Wood News Online, Norm Reid reviewed The Anarchist’s Workbench:

The Anarchist’s Workbench, the third of Christopher Schwarz’s series, is the most complete treatment of workbench experience available. At its base, it’s a thorough personal review of the good, the bad, and the ugly of the author’s experience in building workbenches.

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Purchase your own copy of The Anarchist’s Workbench

Click this link for more great woodworking books to read