Empty! (c. 2022 years ago)

Latest Gabfest (NOT woodworking)

My most recent conversation with long-time friend “retired” broadcaster Brian Wilson is now posted on his Substack Brian Wilson Writes or his podcast Now For Something Completely Different.

It’s a pungent discussion of the social/political status quo.  You have been warned.

Enjoy.  Or not.

DCW

Christmas in April

If I am known for anything in the realm of shop work it is that I am an enthusiastic advocate for two arcane tools; the polissoir at the finishing bench, and the toothing plane at the woodwork bench.  I find myself grabbing one of my dozen toothing planes almost every time I am preparing a board for whatever comes next, as toothing planes are magnificent for the task of making a board flat/planar (but not smooth).

I have long asserted that we are living in a Golden Age of hand tool makers, and one of them is my friend Steve Voigt.  Sometime last year I asked Steve to make me a custom toothing plane.  As a result of our correspondence about the plane, I sent him three of my favorites to use as guides for his work.

A few days ago I received two packages from him, one with my three and the other with his new one.  I’m like a kid on Christmas morning, anxiously awaiting the time soon when I can really take it for a test drive.

Stay tuned.

Back To Shangri-la

Our Mondo March Marathon of Travel is now in the rearview mirror, we are back home in Shangri-la where Spring has definitely sprung.  Were home exactly two days last month in between visits to grandsons old and new (and their parents, of course), an exhausting trek for these two geezers.  The final push of 700 miles in one day was just about enough to put us in traction.

But now we are home and (mostly) recovered and the chores of spring are in full bloom.  Flowers are popping up all over the place and Mrs. Barn is feverishly getting all the garden beds ready for her ministrations.  This is her version of being “in the shop.”

I, on the other hand, have gone to the shop only long enough to package up my Donsbarn.com store orders.  This will likely continue for another fortnight.

I have spent a couple days working in the greenhouse installing the new thermostat controlled solar powered ventilation fan.  We’ll see if it is adequate to the task; the day before I started working on it the space was well over 100 degrees.  Yesterday the fan brought it down to the mid-70s, but it was a cloudy day.  I’m thinking I will have to augment the fan with a shade cloth.  I’ll now spend a couple days finishing up the window framing before proceeding to moving in mulch and soil and building the main raised bed.  I am looking forward to now getting fresh vegetables year-round.

Being Spring time it has been my time to re-activate the hydroelectric system. Every year I check the line to repair any winter damage which results from trees falling on the 2” PVC penstock. Normally this occurs at the beginning of March but since Grandson #3 was born on February 28 and Grandsons #1 and #2 have birthdays in mid-March…  This year there is much less damage than normal but I am taking the opportunity to reroute a few stretches of pipe in order to flatten out the inclined line of the pipe.  Near the bottom and alongside the pond I disconnected, pulled out, then rerouted a 150-foot section, moving it up about three feet but weaving it in behind several trees.  Ever try to “sew” with a 200-pound piece of thread?  I am very pleased with the result but that one little step took more than two days and my shoulders still ache.

Next week I will do the same thing for three sections before reconnecting it at the top and harvesting the watts.  If I can get the incline straight enough, with no swoops and swails all the way to the top, I can (theoretically) keep the system running almost all year long.  Maybe all year long in reality.  The final project in the coming weeks will be to construct a Coanda cover for the penstock intake.

One problem to be solved this year involved re-setting the debris catcher on the top of the pond drain stack.  Heavy ice in the pond this winter pushed it aside (sorry, no picture of that) leaving it sorta in place but pretty womperjawed, hanging off to one side.  To set the strainer on its axis I had to strip down to my skivvies and shoes and venture neck-deep into the 50-degree water.  Brisk.  But, I got ‘er done.

That all said I can hardly wait to complete these necessary tasks and get back into the shop with the multitude of projects awaiting me there.  Tool cabinet parquetry and fittings, full and 3/4 scale Gragg chairs, writing, editing, writing editing, and more of the same.

Stay tuned.

New Roubo Version

Although I have yet to see and touch it in person, my long time friend Jersey Jon sent me this picture of his new copy of the new Roubo on Furniture.

It’s not R2D2, it is R2V2.

As always. it is available over at Lost Art Press.

Latest Gabfest With An Old Pal

I interrupted grandpa mode for a bit and engaged my friend of almost 35 years, Brian Wilson, for a freewheeling conversation on social/political the status quo.  If pungent conversation about forbidden topics intrigues you, you can find it over at the Substack “Brian Wilson Writes.”  I’ve been told that it is unseemly to discuss politics, religion, and economics.  Hit the trifecta here.

Enjoy.  Or not.  You have been warned.

Website Overhaul

It will soon be 12 years and almost 2,000 blog posts since donsbarn.com made its debut.  In chatting with Webmeister Tim yesterday he informed me that the original platform had not been updated since the beginning and was beginning to show its age.  In fact, the basic platform Jason built for me is no longer supported, but is still working!  Well done, Jason.  Nevertheless the site is occasionally having the burps, hiccups and sneezes that geezers often get, requiring periodic troubleshooting by Tim to get things back to running more-or-less smoothly.

All that to say that Tim will be constructing a new web site platform and that transition to “live” will occur some time next month.  With luck the site will remain visually unchanged.  The new site will be, well, new, and with greatly expanded capabilities I hope to begin exploiting.  At the same time, I will be reworking some of the foundational documents, maybe giving more of the donsbarn.com back story.

If it all goes well the redesign and migration should go smoothly once underway.

Stay tuned.

As Good As It Gets…

…at least in the corporeal realm.

Grandson #3 joined us a few days ago (a week early) and it is every bit as wondrous as you imagine.  Both of his grandpas are Woodworking Grandpas with a lifetime of woodfinishing experience, so at least part of his path is already known.  He will grow in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord” and seventy years from now will reflect on the multitude of glorious hours spent with his grandpas in their shops of wonder.

50(!) Years (not woodworking)

I recently noticed that it’s been FIFTY YEARS since the musical duo of Richard and Linda Thompson released their heartbreakingly luminous song “Dimming of the Day.”

How did fifty years flash by so fast?

Notwithstanding the dynamics of their marriage and splitting (the breakup was so traumatic that Linda was hysterically mute for a couple years afterward) their seven-album output from 1974-1982 was as good as it gets.

Just more captivating music to listen to while imposing organization of the first (basement) floor of the barn.  There are times when having 7,000 square feet of space is not a blessing.

Changing Horses In Mid-Stream, or, Tool Cabinet Parquetry Diamonds By The Dozens

My original full-sized design sketch.

My proof-of-concept panel with the parquetry pattern at full scale. Rendering this was an extremely instructive and useful exercise that changed my approach to every step of the process.

In prepping for the tool cabinet parquetry mock-up — that is as exact as I can make it rather than my previous proof-of-concept — plus the actual parquetry on the cabinet, I was going to need dozens if not hundreds of the diamond units.  A task that large is similar to eating an ox.  You do it one bite at a time.

Here’s that first bite.

My starting point was cutting hundreds of 30-60-90 triangles both with the grain and across the grain.  My veneers were all white oak cut from leftover scraps from the French Oak Roubo Project, and man was it dense.  I tried cutting the triangles using jigs and handsaws (that is how I teach introductory parquetry workshops like the upcoming one at Wood and Shop near Charlottesville VA), but soon came to the realization that this ox needed a little prodding.

Given my recent success using my Delta benchtop bandsaw with a fine blade, combined with a new strategy for working the parquetry, I decided to do all the sawing on that little machine.

Soon enough I had two plastic shoebox-sized tubs each filled with hundreds of the slightly oversized triangles I needed for what would come next.

Changed horse #1.

Even though I wasn’t sawing the triangles by hand I was determined to edge plane each one using precise shooting jigs fabricated especially for that purpose.  A few dozen of those, especially the ones that are primarily cross-grain, and that determination flagged.  I needed a different system if I was to get the ox eaten.  That “new system” will be the focus of my next post on the project.

Changed horse #2.

In addition, once I first established the size of the parquetry pattern I created a brass template to make each diamond the perfect size and fit.  I was so intent I used trigonometry calculations and a vernier caliper to get the dimensions and angles really precise.  (If you ever wondered when you would use what you learned in 11th grade Trig class, now you know.)  The frustration of this fussiness soon depleted my enthusiasm for this approach.  The alternative I devised will be demonstrated in a post a way down the road.

Changed horse #3.

Stay tuned for “what would come next.”

PS  Posting might continue to be sorta sketchy for another little while as grandson #3’s arrival is imminent, and grandsons #1 and #2 have birthdays right on the heels of #3’s introduction to his share of the national debt.