Chair Leg Splitting/Turning

 

Here's a video I made showing how I make a chair leg start to finish (not including the time in the kiln for drying the tenon). I love turning legs and when they come out as slick as this one did its even better.

I have to make about 40 or so of these and by the time I'm close to the end I'll be able to turn one in about 10 minutes. Repetition is what normally drives me in the opposite direction while building furniture, but for chairs, I get so much joy from seeing the next one look better that I am kinda disappointed when I've done the last set of legs.

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.

Shaping a Windsor Chair Spindle

 After browsing over my past videos uploaded to YouTube, I watched the one on Spindle Making. While I'm never happy with the way most of my videos come out, that video I am defiantly not happy with. It shows basically nothing but a "buffoon" hacking away at a stick of red oak. I didn't speak one word as to what I was doing or how I got to that particular point in the process. It's just a close up of me trying my best to make a video on a subject I thought I knew something about.

So with spindles to make for the chairs I'm making now, I thought this is a good time to redo a spindle video. Maybe I can give someone wanting to make a Windsor, a little more detail on how to shape them than I had when I first started.  I'm going to leave the old spindle video up and let you all comment on which one gives more info on the process and helps you make a spindle. I'm pretty sure which one it'll be but I'll let you tell me in your own words. Who knows I may have to make another with better ideas from you.

Hide Glue's Holding Power and Repairability

                                    

I was impressed with using the Hot Hide Glue yesterday on my first big project, so I thought I'd make a short little video on how well it holds and how it can be repaired. First I tried an end grain glue up, and while it had an initial tack, it didn't hold like most end grain glue joints, with a edge grain to edge grain joint it only took a few minutes to set up under just hand pressure. Five minutes later I tried breaking the joint and proved to myself how well this stuff works. Again I am behind on the times of using something that everyone else already knows about, but at least it's better late than never. If Hide Glue has held all those antiques together, why can't it hold the antiques of the future together as well. I think I've found a new old glue for my shop.

Hide Glue in a Yellow Glue Era

After a ton of reading about and hearing about it from other woodworkers, I decided to try Hot Hide Glue. I bought a cheap little $10 crock pot from "wally world", and being that I live close to a Grizzly tool store I bought a can of ground hide glue crystals from Behlen.

I have to say at first I was pretty ticked at how it was coming out. I put a couple tablespoons of glue in a glass jar and a couple tablespoons of water, put it in the crock pot and a couple hours later I came back to find a blob of a mess. What did I do wrong?

Well, your suppose to do a 1 to 2 ratio first of all, 1 part glue to 2 parts water. Then let it set in a sealed jar for a while until it turns to the gel-like consistency of fish eggs or tapioca pudding. Then it goes in the crock pot and heats till its nice and runny and melted completely, its only suppose to get to a temperature of 140-160 degrees from what I've heard.

After being real flustered, I went to the trusty ole Internet and found a video on YouTube from Stewart MacDonald. This video is great, it shows the same brand I had, and tells in a short 1:55 long video how to mix and use the stuff.  OK, so I tried again using this method, and it worked perfectly!

 I am making a huge entertainment center right now to fit a 55" flat screen and it has a dovetailed carcass, the hide glue went on nice and even and dried within a minute or so to the gel stage. One thing you have to get use to from using the "Yellow Stuff" is the extremely fast set time of Hide Glue. I did one section at a time and even used a heat gun to pre-warm the pins on the dovetails to make sure the glue had a little bit longer open time. It worked great, plus one benefit I didn't know, is the glue acts kinda like a lubricant to make slipping the joint together easier. I have to say that after my first day of actually using Hide Glue on a project, I'm kinda liking it. I want to build furniture that will stand the test of time. Yellow Glue has only been around maybe 60 or 70 years vs. the 2000 or so Hide Glue has been around, I think I'll be using more hide glue. Plus it's repairable, if a part ever needs to be fixed just heat the joint and it relaxes the glue making it fixable, not re-make-able.

There's that old adage, make it right to begin with and it won't come apart. While that has a lot of truth in it, how do we know that in 75 years Yellow glue doesn't break down and become moldy or something. Maybe I should think about the future more, glues break down, it's almost guaranteed, maybe I/we should give Hide Glue more praise and use it more so the future repair shops don't think of this as the Yellow Glue era and start saying, "That piece may have been in your family for generations but it's unfix-able, had the craftsman only used Hide Glue, Aunt Betty's Windsor Chair would be able to stay out of the trash pile".

Hand-cutting a Dovetail Drawer Parts 1& 2

                                                           

                                                    

         
        Here is a video on cutting all the dovetails in a drawer. It goes through all the steps I use to make a  complete drawer with hand tools only (except cutting stock to length and width), from layout to cutting and chopping to using a Stanley #45 hand plane to cut the grooves in the drawer front and sides, plus chamfering the solid wood drawer bottom with a rabbeting plane.

Carving a Knuckle for a Windsor Chair

Here is a video of how I go about carving the knuckles for my Nantucket Fan Back arm chairs. I have never been taught how to do this and don't know if it's right but it works for me and it's the only way I know how to do it. It takes some time to figure out and get, but it makes the arms of a chair have an added detail that I think looks amazing. Hope you enjoy the video.

Rabbeted glass door with an offset mortise and tenon

    

I thought I would show how I go about making a glass door for my cabinets pieces. Instead of using a cope and stick router bit set, I opt for a better (in my opinion) offset mortise and tenon joint. It takes a bit of time to figure out at first but it really isn't difficult and makes a super strong door. When working with glass I want all the strength I can get. I have done it with the router version before and it works fine but I have also broken the the joint by accidentally dropping it on the floor. Granted the profile on those bits give a nice look, but to me they also look like kitchen cabinet doors made in a factory. With a mortised joint it is pretty much going to look like furniture. If you put a square peg through it, I don't ever see it coming apart and it will set the door in a more furniture realm than kitchen cabinets. 

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.

Curtis Buchanan YouTube videos

If you haven't seen them yet you are really missing out. Tennessee Chair maker Curtis Buchanan has been putting together a video on YouTube on how to make a Comb Back Windsor. In my opinion Curtis is probably on the top of the list as far as Windsor Chair makers. His style and quality are superb and he has just done it so long he is really amazing. I have never met him, but, believe me I look at his chairs constantly as inspiration for mine own. I try and strive for the perfection he just automatically has.
  If you are interested in Windsor Chair Making and don't have time or money to take a class these videos will greatly help you and they are free. I find myself looking at them over and over to see little tips and tricks that Curtis is so kind enough to put out there for the rest of us. In his Videos he goes from getting the right logs to splitting to turning. As of this post, there are 8 videos total but from what I understand he is going to do the entire chair start to finish. Click on this link to go to the beginning of the videos. Very valuable info for anyone wanting to learn, advance themselves, or just see how much work goes into a Windsor.

Laughing is the best medicine

One night while we were getting our daughter Lily Mae ready for bed and into her PJ's, a fly started buzzing around, so I was trying to smack it in my hands and Lily just started busting up laughing. I couldn't help but but keep it up. I mean who doesn't love a laughing child. Theres no better medicine than to hear those few seconds of pure joy.