In The Down to Earth Woodworker column this month, Steve Johnson explains the basics to Stock up, Clean up, and Organize in order to get your shop prepared for winter, no matter which climate your shop might be in.
After you read through Steve’s tips, we’d love to hear your own winter prep tips by leaving a reply below!
CLICK HERE to get tips for a summer-to-winter “changeover” in your shop.
One of our customers, Kipp Krusa, shared this beautiful note and video of his guitar making process with us, which we wanted to share with the rest of our woodworking community:
Staff @ Highland Hardware,
I have taken a few of your classes over the years & have purchased a few precious tools from your catalogue.
My craft has become, over time, the building of guitars.
I wanted to share with you a video that was shot in my shop a few weeks ago. I hope that it displays what one customer does with the tools that you sell.
I am both thankful & immensely grateful for all that Highland Hardware has done & continues to do for the preservation of craftsmanship.
Warm Regards,
Kipp Krusa
Birth of a Guitar from Christopher Durai on Vimeo.
Today’s #FollowFriday woodworker is Anthony DiSabatino, who we just featured in the Show Us Your Woodworking column in our newly published October 2013 issue of Wood News Online. Anthony qualifies himself as a “wood hobbyist” as he has been gaining new tools and learning new woodworking skills over the past few years. In his article we focused on his woodworking projects including a Shaker trestle table, and a modified reproduction Shaker blanket chest with drawers, both seen below.
The Shaker trestle table has a very unique background as it was made with planed down oak boards taken from the flooring of Anthony’s restored 1860’s era barn near Dayton, OH. The barn work was completed mostly by an Amish work crew from Indiana, but Anthony completed a lot of the interior work (replacing the wood floor support beams and flooring, new support pillars, and new doors).
The fully-restored barn.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–Fridays on the Highland Woodworking Blog are dedicated to #FollowFriday, where we use this space to further highlight a woodworker or turner who we have featured in our monthly e-publications Wood News and The Highland Woodturner. Would you like for your shop to appear in our publications? We invite you to SEND US PHOTOS of your woodworking along with captions and a brief history and description of your woodworking (Email photos at 800×600 resolution.) Receive a $50 store credit redeemable towards merchandise if we show your shop in a future issue.
Come read your copy of our October 2013 issue of Wood News, filled with all kinds of shop and project ideas, as well as several deals and sale items sure to get you back into woodworking season!
This month’s highlights include:
Woodworking Without a Shop: A new monthly column where we highlight woodworkers who manage to create beautiful pieces without the assistance of having a full shop or workspace at their disposal. In our first article of this column, we feature Anthony Ward, who has been building toy chests for his grandchildren without any major power tools.
Building a Dulcimer: A few months ago we featured Preston Woodruff in our September Show Us Your Woodcarving column, and this month we focused on his specialty of building dulcimers, which are beautiful stringed instruments that incorporate different shapes, ornamentation, and woods.
Show Us Your Shop: In this popular monthly column we are featuring the converted garage shop of James Kelley in Spring, TX.
As always we’ve got our wonderful Tips From Sticks-In-The-Mud Woodshop with some great repurposing tips, The Down to Earth Woodworker who shares his winter woodworking tips, a wonderful review of Jeff Miller’s Foundations of Better Woodworking by J. Norman Reid, and some Finishing Tips from one of our class instructors, Alan Noel.
And lastly, we’ve got some great new products including a one-of-a-kind, Limited Edition Scott Meek Smoothing Plane that he manufactured in honor of Highland Woodworking’s 35th Anniversary, as well as a whole line of Whiteside Router Bits, rated BEST OVERALL and BEST VALUE.
All of this plus much more in our 98th issue of Wood News Online.
Today’s #FollowFriday is Neil Yeager, who we featured in our popular Show Us Your Shop column in our September issue of Wood News. Neil has a rather unique shop in the fact that his is located in Chiang Mai, Thailand, one of only a few international shops we have seen in our series. While he originally had a large basement shop when he lived in the US, ever since moving to Thailand he has only been able to bring a few hand tools over at a time, and now most of his shop is made up of just hand tools that he has brought over on the plane.
Living in Thailand has also given Neil the benefit of being able to work year-round in his shop because of the weather, unlike most of us who generally stick to “woodworking season” from October-May. He often gets the opportunity to work outside, giving him a “zen” woodworking experience in the outdoors with the many accompanying sounds of birds singing, insects buzzing, and the wind in the trees.
Neil’s outdoor “zen” shop space.
As you can see, Neil’s shop space is very simple with his workbench as the centerpiece. The workbench is made out of Ha Num, a wood native to Laos and very inexpensive in Thailand. Like the makeup of his shop, his bench was made entirely out of hand tools, and fits perfectly into his shop theme and philosophy.———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–Fridays on the Highland Woodworking Blog are dedicated to #FollowFriday, where we use this space to further highlight a woodworker or turner who we have featured in our monthly e-publications Wood News and The Highland Woodturner. Would you like for your shop to appear in our publications? We invite you to SEND US PHOTOS of your woodworking along with captions and a brief history and description of your woodworking (Email photos at 800×600 resolution.) Receive a $50 store credit redeemable towards merchandise if we show your shop in a future issue.
This week we are following Andreas Zenker, who we featured this month in our Show Us Your Stuff column in our monthly edition of Wood News. Andreas is relatively new to woodworking, having just caught the woodworking bug about 4 months ago. Like many woodworkers he has a day job, specifically as a computer programmer, but lucky for him it still involves getting to build things…just not with wood.
As a new woodworker, Andreas has turned to a lot of the online woodworking resources out there to get tips and ideas. These include Wood Talk, Matt’s Basement Workshop, The Wood Whisperer, Renaissance Woodworker, ShopTalk Live, Fine Woodworking and Highland Woodworking’s own show, The Highland Woodworker. A lot of these resources offer a variety of projects from beginner to advance, which is how Andreas found his first project, an Eastern White Pine Stool.
Andreas Zenker’s first project: Eastern White Pine Stool
This project allowed Andreas to learn many different woodworking skills as he went through the building process, including the creation of dovetail-like joints and how to plane boards as flat as possible. Being able to learn as you go is a great opportunity for new woodworkers, which is a method Andreas took full advantage of and ended up with a great looking stool!
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–Fridays on the Highland Woodworking Blog are dedicated to #FollowFriday, where we use this space to further highlight a woodworker or turner who we have featured in our monthly e-publications Wood News and The Highland Woodturner. Would you like for your shop to appear in our publications? We invite you to SEND US PHOTOS of your woodworking shop along with captions and a brief history and description of your woodworking (Email photos at 800×600 resolution.) Receive a $50 store credit redeemable towards merchandise if we show your shop in a future issue.
Hot off the presses, a new issue of The Highland Woodturner is out!
Fall is a great time for bird watching, and Curtis Turner’s column will teach you how to turn a Bird Seed Scoop. We’ve also got a special new column from previous contributor, Temple Blackwood, who discusses his woodturning classes and teaching philosophy. And as always we’ve got a Show Us Your Woodturning column, and this month it features the works of Doug Pinney and the beautiful turnings he makes to contribute to the Empty Bowl auction.
Finally, we’ve got Phil Colson’s all new Turning Tip with the Quick Measure Repetitive Cut Bandsaw Table (QMRCBT).
Check out the September 2013 issue today!
Happy Turning!