Skewing around...

For years, I always used sandpaper to clean up my lathe turnings. Then about 2 years ago I ran across a video Peter Galbert has on YouTube on using the skew in place of sandpaper, and it changed my lathe turning completely. It has taken about that same amount of time to get it to work consistently for me, but I never gave up. I saw how nice and crisp the turning can get and how polished you can make the turning without ever touching it with sandpaper. I do have to admit, it's not as easy as Pete makes it look in the video but he explains it very well. So after a couple years of really working at getting the hang of this tool, I can now say I'm pretty much, "OK" at it. I would love to get as good as Elia Bizzari, or the master himself Curtis Buchanan, but they both have years on me and this is a tool that takes work and time to master.

The one major thing you have to know is, the skew has to be super sharp. Now I'm not talking just sharp, there's not just a quick run over a stone and use it for the next 6 or 8 turnings kinda sharp, I talking scary sharp, like in between EVERY turning it needs to be touched up and polished. The kind that should be able to cut the end grain on pine and leave that waxy, smooth, polished look behind, or the kind that all of a sudden you look down and there's blood all over, sharp, yeah, y'all know what I'm talking about. This is that kind of sharp.

For me, I've never had a set of stones to sharpen with because in my full on power tool days, I bought a Veritas sharpening system. It works great and I get great scary sharp results with it so I've never bought the bullet on good quality stones. So even if your using a powered sharpener or stones scary sharp is the only way to get your skew chisel to behave properly. If your using sandpaper on your turnings you should at least give it a whirl and try the skew. I'm not going to say it's a tool you just pick it up and sandpaper is a thing of the past. But if you hang in there and work at it, the skew could someday replace your need for sandpaper on the lathe. I'm getting there but I'm not where I'd like to be.

New Year...New Froe Club

I was splitting out some spindles for some chairs today and after a few hard whacks my froe club broke in two. I made the broken one back in June 2011 out of hard maple. I know the date because I wrote it on the one I was replacing the now broken one with. I am trying to find what woods work best for a froe club that I have on hand. Red Oak, White Oak, Hard Maple, and Walnut are the spieces I use for chairs most often and almost always have at my disposal. I would like to find a piece of Dogwood but haven't had the luxury yet for it to be placed in front of me to try. I am writing the date I retire the old broken one so I can see how long the next one will last.  

So after using the red oak one for about a year and getting a pretty good amount of use out of it, now the maple one has only gone about 7 months. I am trying out a white oak club. Here is a short video on how I go about making my clubs. This is roughly the size I start all the clubs I've made with 4" sq and 17" long. It works great for me and I love the balance this size gives.

Splitting (riving) Hard Maple for Chair Parts

                                           
    As I began a new and rather large chair order this week, 10 to be exact. I went through the maple logs I had gotten 3 or 4 months ago and they just weren't up to par. So I had to search out another nice maple, (hard to find in Missouri by the way) that could get enough parts for all 10 chairs and extra if needed. I found this beauty at my local log guy. It was about 20" in diameter one way and 17" the other and 9 foot long or so. It was really nice and straight and just had one little blemish on the bark. So I bought it got it home and began cutting it to rough length. This is how I laid out my blanks.
    Instead of the "normal" way of splitting it into 1/8ths I tried basically making it a large checker board. I drew lines first across the center as normal and then again across the other way making 1/4's, then instead of drawing lines into 1/8th's I decided to lay it out every 2-1/2" from those first two lines, it gave me what you see in this picture.

 After all the lines were drawn on the end of the log, I used my normal way of scribing in with a hatchet to establish the split I want, ( I go a few times across each scribe line to deepen the line making the wedges easier to set and it also gives the split a direction that you want it to go). First I split the log in half, then into quarter's, then I work each quarter till it's all split up,  move on to the next quarter and so on keeping a few fibers in tact so the log doesn't fall over.

 Looks like a cheese slicer went over on this log, wish it was that simple! This method provided me with the best quality billets I've ever gotten. Usually I have a bunch of triangular splits that aren't always easy to get just what I need. By doing it this way I was able to get more uniform 2 1/2" square blocks that while not all perfect, were much easier to work and mount in the lathe. Plus every billet so far has the growth rings running at a 45 degree angle making it "rift" rived. I haven't looked at every billet yet, but of the over 60 that I split out of 2 sections, they have all been "rift" rived.

I did have a few that were unusable, mostly the 4 that were dead center and a couple around the outside, but this photo shows, out of just one of the sections I cut to 24" long, it got me about 30 billets and just had 4 or 5 that are going to be firewood this winter. I'll have to make sure all goes well with this method, and if so, I believe I'll be using it permanently. Now to rough turn them all round and begin making chair parts.

Shaker Table w/ Company Boards

Earlier this year I had made a set of 8 Windsors for a customer and they then asked me to make them a table. They needed something that would fit the everyday space they had but during holidays they needed it to become larger. My suggestion was company boards. Company boards are just that, boards you put on the table when company comes over. Unlike table leaves, company boards go on the end of the table eliminating the crack always in the center of the table.

They wanted a shaker style table with simple turned legs and no frills. This is the table I made for them. Pretty much a shaker inspired table, made out of cherry, and plain and simple.

The only drawback to company boards are they have to be stored when not in use. They are 36" long and 18" wide making them hard to store on the underside of the table. A closet would be my choice. 

For making extra room for "Company" they work great. They slide in through notches in the aprons and gravity takes over once inserted all the way in.

This table can go from 60" long for 6 people, up to 96" long for 8 . Makes a wonderful way to add more chairs around the Turkey dinner. Plus with a normal leaf table,  you always have the crack in the center of the table and the grain usually goes across the table, not an attractive look in my mind.

Covered Wagon Toddler Bed finished

This is the Covered Wagon Bed I just finished for my almost 3 year old daughter, Lily.  I didn't have any plans for it so I just went off a picture I found online of a full sized one. I had to adjust it to fit her toddler mattress and make it low enough to the floor so she could get in and out easy enough. The little tool box on the front serves as a foot rest for her when she's sits on the buckboard and also houses diapers or could store a couple of blankets. From the look on her face in this picture I think she likes it. In fact, it was hard to get her crawl out of it after she discovered it. I would say thats a pretty good sign she'll enjoy her naps and bedtime.

Windsor DVD

Here is a promo to my DVD on making a Bow Back Windsor. I use a few new techniques now but this is basically how it's done. There are a few things I left out on the DVD because it was intended to be given to students taking my chair class as a warm up for what to expect and what they need to kind of familiarize themselves with before coming to the class. The DVD is about 30 minutes long and is available on my web site for purchase.

Beaten to death

There are times when you know you have to get a new tool. When one is broken, worn out, or not doing the job needed. Well this is one of those times. Here you can see my old beaten froe club, it's only a little over a year old but it has just about reached the end of the road. I made a new one out of maple thinking it will hold up a little better but that is yet to be seen. The "beaten" one is red oak and could probably last another few months but I had time and a piece of maple to make the new so I thought what the hell. It's a bit taller and a bit fatter and the weight is considerably more ,it's fresh from a log, I put the date I "retired" the old one to see how long the maple one will last. If I can get a piece of dogwood I would make one out of it, as dogwood doesn't split. I hear it will out last just about anything you can make a club with.  

You can see it's almost all the way to the middle on one side. I guess I naturally used it the same way every time. It may have dug in on the one side and just by force turned as I used it, I'm not sure,  but what I am sure about is even being red oak it made a bunch of split out pieces over the course of a year for me.

Lathe tool rest

I was sick of having to move the tool rest while turning legs on the lathe. So I made this 20" long rest out of a piece of cherry I had laying around. Its just cut with a 45 degree angle on it and I drilled two holes in the under side and glued in a length of dowel that fit the tool rest locks. After a little use, the water that comes out of the maple I turn was causing the cherry to fuzz up a bit and made it difficult to move the lathe tools back and forth. I screwed on a piece of flat metal and it has helped tremendously.  A little wax every 2 or 3 turnings and it just glides over like glass. Really sped up the time it takes to turn a leg now, no more stopping the lathe moving the tool rest and going again. I just turn the lathe on and let the shaving fly.