A features correspondent for the Des Moines Register attended the seminar last week. His story was in the Clive Metro section yesterday (Thursday, Apr. 27).

Unfortunately, only a small portion of the people who shop at the Woodsmith Store (which is at 104th & Hickman in Clive) live in Clive, so the printed version of the story didn’t reach a lot of you.

Fortunately…the web is "everywhere!"

After I glanced at the story online, I looked around and found this link to Google SketchUp. This is an easy-to-learn 3D modeling program that can be used as a simple tool by those of you interested in designing your own furniture. Or, you could even use it to design your own dust collection system!

Here are my "Cutoffs" for this week:

• Small shops don’t need an elaborate system for dust collection. A two-stage 1hp dust collection system that can be moved to the machine is more than adequate for most home shops
• Seal up every seam or connection to achieve maximum efficiency from your dust collection system
• Use straight runs of at least a couple of feet at the impeller
• Get a floor sweep!

Thanks Ken, you did a great job.  

Joel Tille from Humboldt is in the market for a dust collector. That’s why he’s attending the seminar this Thursday. It’s a long drive from north-central Iowa, but Joel makes the trip regularly because he’s dedicated to getting the right information.

He doesn’t depend on just our seminars though. He does the research and studies his options before making a decision. This morning, Joel sent me a link to a website he found as part of his research. A guy named Bill Pentz, who has done exhaustive research on dust collections systems set up the site. It’s a lot of reading, but from what I could tell, it should be very beneficial for anyone interested in this subject.

One particular point Joel was interested in were the health risks from fine dust in our home workshops. The website gives some great information for filter ratings and mesh sizing. See Doc’s Orders Section 1: Air Filtering. 

It doesn’t take too much sawing or sanding to kick up a lot of dust. And a shop full of airborne dust is not a good place to work. There is a way to get rid of airborne dust — a heavy-duty shop air filter that uses three furnace filters and an old squirrel cage blower to clean the air. I’m including plans for the air filter as this week’s Blogger’s Special.

Ken Munkel (this week’s instructor) is an accomplished designer/custom cabinetmaker/trim carpenter/contractor. In fact, Doug Hicks describes him as "…a jack-of-all-trades and master of most of them!" He did most of the custom trim work in the Carriage House at the August Home Publishing offices at 2200 Grand Ave. He spent the summer of 1986 in Des Moines, while working on the 19th-century building, and commuted back to his home in Decorah on the weekends. (Be sure to scroll through the Gallery to see some great examples of Ken’s work.)

He must have made a great first impression, because soon after his work on the carriage house was completed, Woodsmith magazine hired him as a project designer. When he’s not designing furniture and shop projects for Woodsmith and ShopNotes, he and his wife Diane enjoy renovating old houses here in Des Moines.

Ken designed and installed the dust collection system for the new Woodsmith shop and I’m sure he’ll have some great pointers for setting up a dust collection system for home workshops. 

Okay, here’s your chance. (You can even post anonymously, if you want.) Let me know what you took away from the seminar that may help you if you decide to build your own cabinets.

Note: Post in the comments section, or send me an email here.

Here is a Blogger’s Special that should help those of you who want to reface your cabinets instead of build all new ones. This is another one that sells well at PlansNOW.com, so once again I’ll have to take this down by next week’s seminar.

Here are my "cutoffs":

1. The whole cabinet doesn’t need to be made of expensive wood (such as Cherry), to make it look like it was made of expensive wood.
2. Use a wood that is light in color to make it easier to see inside cabinets, particularly the lower cabinets.
3. Installing cabinets has the same issues as built-in furniture in that you have to scribe the contour of the walls onto the cabinets to get a nice clean look.
4. Since my kitchen cabinets are metal cabinets that have been refaced, I could build new cabinets and still use the existing drawer fronts and doors (although the lazy Susan in the corner could be an interesting task).

Tim Wilson

This week, Doug Hicks and I will be ganging up on you with a reprise of sorts.

The original cabinetmaking seminars last spring were an hour (or more!) long. Then the second versions, presented during the Woodsmith Store Expo last fall, were a condensed version (15 minutes each) of the longer seminars. Both versions were well received, but the shorter versions led to more interesting questions and answers.

So this Thursday, we’re doing an expanded version of the condensed version. Confused yet? Hope you can make it Thursday to find out what I mean.

The handout this week is missing the first four pages of an article from Workbench magazine. I’m including those four pages here as a Blogger’s Special.

Here are a few of things I took away from the Lathe Basics seminar:

1) Beginners interested in turning should seriously consider a low-priced mini/midi-lathe. These types of lathes are fairly inexpensive, they’re easily expandable, and they’re versatile.

2) Sharpening is still one of those mysterious, somewhat intimidating, aspects of turning that deserves more attention.

3) Turning can be a frustrating, yet extremely satisfying, woodworking experience. Where else can you honestly say, "I’ve turned 200 bowls for practice. That’s a good start!"

When I bought my Delta Machinery wood lathe, I really hoped to turn an Ash blank or two into a baseball bat. Four years later, and I still haven’t turned a single bat or much else for that matter! It’s taken me that long, in between lots of other woodworking projects, to get comfortable using my lathe. It’s not like a table saw, where you can just start cutting boards. Plus, I’ve only just recently picked up some of the skills (and the accessories) to make sharpening my lathe tools easier.

That’s why I’m looking forward to tonight’s seminar on "Lathe Basics." I’ve watched Brian Simmons’ seminars on bowl and spindle turning and I can tell you, more than once, I’ve wanted him to go into more detail on the what and why and when and how.

I want to know what turning tools work best for spindles. And why a bowl gouge is different than a spindle gouge. I want some pointers on how to sharpen a skew chisel. And, I’d really like a few good sources for even more information. If we’re lucky, Brian will answer most of these questions, and more.

Cutoffs — Doug Hicks recently mentioned in passing a magazine called Folio that he likes to read. At the end of each article in Folio is a small synopsis that details a few things you might “take away” from reading that article. Friday morning I think I’ll do the same with the “Lathe Basics” seminar. If you want to weigh in yourself, please do. I think I’ll call it: "Cutoffs."

Blogger’s Special — Here’s a couple of Blogger’s Specials for this week. The first is a six-page article from the December 2005 issue of Workbench magazine is titled “Epoxy Inlaid Gift Boxes.” Full-size patterns for the inlays are available as well. And the second is a 3-page article from ShopNotes Issue No. 44. It’s one of their Fine Tool articles titled "Scratch Awl."

Gallery — Surveys show that a little over 40% of the reader’s of our three woodworking titles own a lathe. I know from last week’s seminar that several of you do too. So let’s see your work — send me a shot of one of your turning projects and I’ll put them in the Gallery. Make sure the background is neutral (or at least uncluttered) and that it’s focused and well lit. If you’re using a digital camera, set it for 640×480 pixels and save it as a .jpg. If you’re sending scanned photos, save them at 100 dpi. This is the best resolution for viewing on the web. And if you’re especially proud of a detail, just take another photo of that detail! I’ll post them too. Send them to me here.

I’ve had a number of people ask if they could get a tape or DVD of a seminar at the Woodsmith Store. I’m sure they notice the camera is there and filming during the seminars. (Actually, the purpose of the camera is so the audience in attendance can see what’s going on better.)

We originally planned on taping the seminars and selling the tapes. As a matter of fact, back in 2004, we had two, three, or even four cameras running to "capture all the action."  After we had quite a few filmed, we sat back and studied what we had done. We even got together some focus groups and had them review some tapes and give us their feedback. Here’s what we learned:

1. There are two very different audiences: Those attending the seminar and those viewing on a DVD at home. If the speaker tries to direct his comments to the live audience (good eye contact, answers questions as they come up, passes around props, etc.), the home audience feels left out and may not even hear the questions asked. On the other hand if the speaker talks only to the home audience (i.e. addresses only to the camera) the seminar attendees feel left out (and you pay good money to see the seminars). We actually tried filming segments both ways and these feelings were expressed to us in focus groups.

2. When filming with just one camera, close-up shots and some angles just plain get left out. And when we started adding cameras and cameramen, there were a couple problems: First, the audience members started complaining that they couldn’t see the presenter around all the cameramen and cords. And, second, editing the film together became very time consuming and consequently expensive.

3. And, to be honest, when filming a "live show," speakers can occasionally misspeak, make mistakes, have a board kick back, forget their safety glasses, etc. We don’t want those problems on tapes to be available to the general public around the country. We don’t think it is a typical reflection of the type of quality we strive for at The Woodsmith Store or August Home Publishing Company.

4. Finally, I have very little doubt that we could maybe sell 10-12 copies of a seminar tape to attendees. But the labor/materials cost of producing such small numbers of tapes would be high. It only becomes worth our time and resources if we can sell larger numbers to a wider audience. (Hey, after all, we’re running a business here!!)

Okay, Doug, so what’s this all mean? What we’ve decided to do is take some of our most popular topics from the seminars and "re-package" them in a different way. During the week when seminars are not going on in the Seminar Room we have been re-shooting different topics under very tightly controlled conditions. The camera angles, light, and scripts will allow the viewer to see and hear EVERY step of the process. The speaker has all of his props and tools right at hand and set up ready to go. We shoot quite a number of "takes" until we feel that it shows the process the best we can. Then we take the time to go into the editing suite and bring it all together. We can edit out the 3-4 minutes to change blades so you don’t have to sit at home and watch that. We also can add graphics and animations that show the "inside of joints," for example. Or slow motion.

The bottom line is the end product will be a lot better. For some topics we will even be adding a "step-by-step" book to accompany the video.

What does all this mean to you? A much better product. But the downside is that you must be more patient. As someone said "Good things take time." Joel has been heading up the first book/DVD on Mortise and Tenon Joinery and reports that it should be ready in the late summer or fall. Once we’ve got one under our belt and find out how well it sells nationwide and your reactions to it, we can move ahead with others fairly quickly.

As always, your comments are appreciated!

Doug  

As promised a couple of Thursday’s ago, I provided a link to the Panel-Moving Shuttle plan (along with a few bonus plans), for free. I’ve been wanting to build this shuttle myself for a long time, and after the seminar I’m finally feeling motivated to git er’ done. A 4×8 sheet of plywood is heavy! Because of some problems (and a case of unbridled generosity), I left it up for over a week. But now the shuttle plan is for sale at PlansNOW.

And, if you do go to PlansNOW and see another plan that you want to download, don’t forget the 20% discount for PlansNOW plans offered to all seminar attendees. The code you’ll need to get the discount is in your handout.

(Hint to Mr. Cohen — the discount code is SEMINAR)

Workbench Magazine also has a short animation showing how the shuttle works. (You’ll have to scroll down to find it. It’s pretty cool.) If the "Ultimate Home Woodshop" looks familiar, that’s because several major parts of it are featured as part of the "Garage" Dream Shop in the Woodsmith Store.

Finally, don’t forget to post questions for Dave Stone that may not have been answered Thursday night. He’s ready and waiting to answer them all personally!

I’ve been on another hand tool kick here lately. In the last month, I’ve bought 3 hewing axes, an adjustable draw knife, a hollow auger, a dowel pointer, a Gent’s hand brace, several auger-style bits, a couple of mortising chisels, and a convex spokeshave! All of these tools work great for working with green wood. (In case you’ve missed it, I’m going to the John C. Campbell Folk School in May for a chair-building class.) 

I know, I know. Who cares? There’s a limited audience for this kind of stuff.

I’ll bet I know what you’re really interested in! What most of you want are some pointers on how to cut "BIG WOOD." And by big wood, I mean 4×8 sheets of plywood. Sheet goods are a favorite among furniture builders these days. They offer an inexpensive way to build cabinets and such without the hassle of gluing up large panels. And even though they can be cumbersome and hard to handle, there are a few secrets for transporting, cutting to size, storing, and getting perfect finished cuts that Dave Stone will share with us at this Thursday’s (4/6/06) seminar.

For instance, did you know one of the easiest ways to cut a sheet of plywood down to size is with a 4×8 sheet of blue extruded polystyrene foam and a circular saw? Or, how does a two-wheel hand cart make transporting full sheets of plywood easier? You’ll get answers to these questions and more at tonight’s seminar.

BTW, here’s your Blogger’s Special for the week. Go ahead and print it out and add it to your binders. I hope you had a chance to use the coupon from earlier in the week. Remember, they’re only good through tonight (4/6/06) at the Woodsmith Store.  

There’s a reason why we put the seminars on every Thursday night — to learn about woodworking. But there’s another reason why these sessions are important — they get people into the Woodsmith Store.

In a sense, we’re a community of woodworkers with a common goal (whether we like to admit it or not) — buying tools! If I wasn’t at the store for the seminars, I’d be there all the time anyway. Sure I like to add tools to my collection. But I also just like to visit the store. It’s hard to express how fortunate we are to have a store like this right here in Des Moines, Iowa.

I have buddies who love to fish and hunt. Every spring, and again every fall, they make a pilgrimage to Cabela’s in Owatonna, Minnesota. That’s almost a 250-mile drive and they only do it twice a year. (By the way, I can drive to the Woodsmith Store in 10 minutes from home or work!) One of the main reasons they go in the fall and spring is because that is when Cabela’s has their big sales events. The extra discounts make the trip worthwhile.

So that got me to thinking. You’re coming into the store once a week. Some of you are coming long distances to get to the seminars. You’re also visiting the blog on a regular basis, so why not give you another great reason to visit AND spend some money? Come into the Woodsmith Store a little early this week and check out all the fine tools, accessories, and hardwoods for sale now and save 20% on your next purchase before Thursday, April 6, 2006.

Just Click the coupon, Print it out, Clip on the dotted line, and Save 20% with this Blogger’s Special Coupon.

This savings coupon cannot be combined with any other offers, does not include portable or stationary power tools, Leigh Joinery Jigs, or Gift Cards, it’s good for one time use only and it’s valid in the Woodsmith Store only. Use it between now and the close of business hours at 8pm on Thursday, April 6, 2006. 

Don’t forget, last week’s Thursday night seminar "Oils and Varnishes: Getting the Finish You Really Want," which had to be canceled due to the storms, has been rescheduled for this Tuesday, April 4th at 6:30pm.