Sam Maloof Leaves an Empty Chair

Sam Maloof passed away last Thursday. He was one of my woodworking heroes: someone that left corporate America to build enduring and beautiful furniture and succeeded wildly. I know he was tremendously lucky as well as talented, but his story still inspires.

If you must be dead to be a legend, a woodworking legend was born Thursday. Thank you, Sam. (Hat tip to Brian)

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-sam-malo of23-2009may23,0,3907018.story

Building the Jointmaker Pro (Part 2)

In the last post on assembling the Jointmaker, I forgot the picture of required tools. The Allen wrenches came with the Jointmaker, but everything else you'll need on hand. The (accurate) 6" square was extremely useful. The small hammer and needle-nosed pliers were only used once, but without the pliers, it would be very hard to drive the spring pin.

These tiny Phillips head screws hold the saw blade into the spine. I used the longer screw driver to put them in initially, but later (when tightening the blade in) I found the stubby driver to be the right choice.

Here's a picture of the spine with screws in place (though not tightened).

Next was the attachment of saw blade guides. This required the screws and washers pictured above. Notice the very thin washers: these are just .010 inch thick and sit between the saw blade guide and the front spine guide. Getting them in without dropping them was a challenge.

The first guide went on without a problem, and I was pleased with the speed and ease of the assembly. But the second guide occasioned much swearing: Everything seemed to be going well, until the front screw bound up. I backed it out, reseated it, and tried again with the same result. The screw would not go, and I was not going to force it.

I examined both the screw and the tapped hole. The screw had a white residue on the front of it, and the threads inside looked like they might be stripped. I panicked and immediately wrote to Bridge City tools (both to John Economaki and Michael Berg - the production manager. At least for now, their email addresses are included in the User's Guide. And even though it was the weekend, I received a reply from John before the end of the next day. Had I tried scraping the threading gently with an awl, or something else pointed? There might be some gunk in the threads.

The awl couldn't get the right angle, so I made a tool with a small brad:

Sure enough, what looked like cross threading was gunk. After scraping the threads thoroughly, I tried assembly again. This time I could drive the screw past the problem, and a few runs back and forth wore away what was left of the gunk.

Now the entire transmission was assembled. For some reason, the auto focus really didn't want to focus on the anodized aluminum. The picture above was the best I could do (it focused on the thread adjustment).

The instructions called for a transmission check, holding the unit in a bench vise and temporarily attaching the handle to take it, literally for a spin. Everything worked as described: I was ready to install the transmission in the table.

The travelers hold the transmission square to the front and back, and ride in the protractor slots at the front and back of the unit. Notice the white spots on each of them: these are nylon set screws that allow width adjustment to take out slop (there wasn't much) in the fit between the travelers and the front and back plates. The fitting was done before attaching the keel assembly to the frame.

Here's the front traveler being fit to the frame.

The keel is slid through the back plate.

The shaft is inserted into the front traveler.

And the back of the keel rests on the back traveler. Now the keel can be attached and adjusted.

And we're ready to attach the travelers to the front and back plates.

Locking knobs and nylon washers, which prevent damage to the aluminum front and back plates.

The knobs, once installed, will hold the keel in place. These are only finger tightened lightly until adjustments are made to the keel.

The jam nut will hold the handle in place with friction once it has been seated.

The handle screws on, and...

The jam nut is tightened against the bottom of the handle.

These four screws secure the keel on the travelers.

Notice on the shaft, the three nuts. These are part of a clever system for setting depth of cut for exact repetition. The stop that fits there allows perfect depth of cut every time (assuming you set the depth right in the first place).

The saw is beginning to take shape. Now it needs the sliding tables.

There are four dovetailed ways that for the supports for the tables and six aluminum spacers that make two rigid tracks for the tables to ride on.

The tracks slide into the front and back plates to form the rest of the frame.

Now there is a lot more screwing to be done, in the literal sense of the word.

I'm not sure how many screws are seated and tightened during assembly, but there are a lot of them.

Once the tracks are tightened lightly, the tracks are checked and adjusted to make sure they are coplanar.

These four sliders fit the dovetailed ways and make the suspension on which the tables ride. The bumpers prevent damage to the sliders by preventing them ramming into the front and back plates.

Here's one of the sliders after attachment.

And one of the bumpers installed next to it.

One of the sliders for each table has screw holes, the other has slots to allow adjustment back and forth. The one with slots is not fully tightened and once the tables are placed on the ways, with the sliders riding in the dovetails, you pull the slotted slider toward the edge of the table before tightening it down.

The fences attach with square headed bolts, that ride in slots on the bottom of the table.

This is a dovetail nut, which fits into a sacrifice fence and holds it in place. I'll probably want to get a router bit that cuts a matching dovetail at some point, so I can replace the fence when it gets too worn.

The dovetail nut attaches to the front of the fence.

Saw teeth on a seriously thin and well sharpened blade.

The blade inserts between the saw guides and is tightened into the saw spine. Easy to do.

Flip stops allow repeatable angles. There is a track on both the front and back plates. Set the blade at the correct angle, but a flip stop up against it, tighten it down, and you have an instantly repeatable setting that can be moved out of the way when not in use.

Installation of the flip stops requires some coordination, but with a thumb through from the back, and an index finger holding the square nut in back, it goes on quickly.

After all these pictures, I can't believe I didn't take one of the full assembly, but I didn't. I managed to secure the saw to the table and take some test cuts: smooth as glass.

Compost Bin Design Session

Today I assembled two thoughts for compost bins:

The first is built on a foundation of cinder blocks and has hardware cloth on three sides for ventilation. The fronts are prevented from spreading by a 2x4 attached across the front.

The second is modeled on a traditional New Zealand Box design that I found in the book "Let it Rot". The posts are driven directly into the ground and the slats on three sides are attached to the posts with half inch gaps between them for ventilation. Across the top is a "spreader bar" that prevents the tops from bulging out under the weight of compost. Both have slats that can be slid in at the front to build a taller pile that doesn't fall out.

We'll probably build the second one, because it hides the contents from the neighbors—somehow eggshells and vegetable scraps don't inspire confidence in the modern world, and we've removed many of the bushes that once obscured the compost heap from public viewing.

More Handsaw Practice

I haven't had much time in the shop. I have been ducking in for 5 minutes at a time to practice cutting to a line, though, using the method described in and earlier post.

I'm getting pretty good.

Building the Jointmaker Pro (Part 1)

Christmas continued at my house this week with the assembly of the Jointmaker Pro. I received the unassembled version of the Jointmaker, which provided a great opportunity to understand exactly how the machine goes together.

Before starting, I cleared and vacuumed the benchtop. I only wish I had also vacuumed the floor: there are a lot of small parts (with no extras), and I managed to drop three of them. The game of hide and seek would have been easier on a carefully cleaned floor.

The tool parts arrived securely boxed. Inside they were packaged in protective plastic bags, carefully wrapped in paper, or nestled in perfectly-sized high impact Styrofoam compartments.

As I mentioned in my previous post, there are a lot of small parts and the assembly requires a lot of patience and care. If I had not had such short lengths of time to work in, and not taken so many pictures along the way, I think it would have taken about three hours to assemble. As it was, it took about 4.5 hours plus time to solve the two troubles I encountered (more on this later).

The hardware was divided into manageable groups of parts, and I kept them in their bags until I neared the end of the process. The logic of the sorting was not always obvious, but there was a logic: all of the same sized screws were in the same bag, and all of the orange aluminum parts were in the same bag, all of the square topped bolts, etc. When I looked for a part, it was usually in the bag I look in first.

In addition to the Allen wrenches Bridge City shipped with the kit, they mentioned the need for a #2 Philips head screw driver, a small hammer, a 9/16" open ended wrench (or adjustable wrench), and needle nosed pliers. I quickly found that a small, accurate square was also required for referencing some of the parts, and I wished many times for Allen wrenches that had screwdriver handles for the two largest sizes that Bridge City supplied.

The front and back panels were wrapped in individual heavy plastic bags to preserve the quality finish of the tool.

The stretchers each had a perfectly fitted seating on the back of the front and rear plates. These were then easily screwed into place.


Doesn't it look good already? But a tool looks good because it works well, so there wasn't too much time spent admiring it. I didn't get nuts with the pictures until later in the assembly process (I really did go nuts), but assembling the shafts to the keel was when the square became useful: it was the perfect tool for ensuring that bearing blocks are square and flush with the keel edges. There are pictures in the manual showing exactly how the gears should interlock. At first it seemed to me that I couldn't do this incorrectly, but the slots in the keel allowed some play in the positioning of the shaft. I found it easiest to check the correct placement by feel: the gears should interlock so that the teeth meet on exactly the same plane.

A blurry picture of the gears after both shafts are attached:

With the shafts assembled, the working part of the tool starts to take shape.

I found the hardest (most nerve wracking) part of the assembly to be inserting the spring pin that attaches the front height shaft to the spine. Needle nose pliers truly were necessary for this, and though the instructions recommend using a small hammer they don't make clear how hard that hammer has to strike to drive the pin home. Too lite and the pin just waggled around. It took a solid blow to get it started enough to abandon the pliers and pound directly.

With the pin fully seated, this is what the connection looks like.

Next, the front and rear height shafts are screwed into the keel. This is where the work of raising and lowering the blade takes place. The instructions have specific lengths mentioned that should protrude from the gear bushings. This was another place that I found the sliding combination square handy: I set the rule to the required height and used it as a depth gauge.

After this step, the keel was held upright in the bench vise, as recommended in step 7. The pitch adjuster screw was inserted and the rear spine guide attached (again with the combination square to seat it properly square and flush to the keel). The next part involved tightening down a screw that threads into the rear pitch adjuster until it is tight, then backing it off slightly. This captures the spine between two washers and allows free movement of the screw while the spine pitch is adjusted. A simple and elegant solution.

Notice the Allen wrench in the top of the spine. There is a very small hole there for inserting this into the trap screw, and the instructions have two names for this screw. I note that one writer on the Bridge City forums had quite a time finding this, and if I hadn't done this in the same sesiion that I threaded the pitch adjuster and trapped the spine, I might also have had troubles.

That ends the first part of the assembly. I'll post the other half of the pictures soon.

Bridge City Tools Jointmaker Pro: It's Here!

My Christmas present arrived yesterday afternoon. The box of Jointmaker Pro parts was left leaning against the front door, and I started to assemble it.

I will post pictures of the assembly process later, but my first impression: there are a LOT of pieces, and you don't want to lose any of them before you get the machine assembled. I'm glad to be assembling mine, but if you don't like assembly or know you are not careful about assembly projects it will be well worth spending extra and have Bridge City put it together.

6/4" Poplar Board

I spent time this morning consulting the U.S. Forestry Service's Wood Handbook. I was looking for an affordable wood that would not move too much, carve fairly well, take paint, and be available in 6/4 rough. I settled on Poplar over Basswood (lower movement coefficient and better paintability, especially with latex), and headed off to Downes and Reader.

I just love the lumber yard. I spent a minute just browsing all of the wood. I was tempted to look for more than I had come for (there was still some of the Friejo I bought the last time down) but the memory of the full wood racks and the pile of ash that will need to be added in a month or two when Sean leaves his current house made me decide to stick to my shopping list: at least 10 feet of 6/4 poplar in a board at least 6 inches wide. What I found needed to be cut to fit in the car, so I had it cut to slightly longer than the sword will be: 4 feet. I plan to make two sword blanks simultaneously, so that if I screw up the first one, the second will be ready to go.

Lumber Run and Joint Maker Pro

Tomorrow I'm off to Downes and Reader to get the wood for my next project: a wooden sword. More on this as things develop. It is a fantasy sword commissioned by a reader, and I'm trying to invent a way to sheath it without a sheath, so that the whole sword is visible on his hip.

Oh, and the Joint Maker Pro shipped from Bridge City Tools. I've been coming home with hopes of finding it on my front porch, but it does take packages a while to get all the way across the country!

:)

A Quick Child's Table

Last Saturday my friend, Mark, visited with his son. Mark's inventive streak runs long and he doesn't let limited experience stop him from making things. He brought the parts for a table he planned to build with August, and he and I took 15 minutes in the shop to sand all the parts.

Above you can see the table he assembled on Sunday with his son's help. The basic design is butt joints and screws. I don't think there is any glue. This table reminds me of many of the furniture pieces I saw in Belize in January: simple, practical, and without pretense. The joints are braced with both brackets and triangular braces. I expect it will hold up to everything August throws at it until after he outgrows it.

Mark plans to make a chair for this little table using the similar construction techniques and more scraps from around the house. Nice work, Mark. Send pictures of the chair when you finish it.

Photographs courtesy and © 2009, Mark Shar.

Crate Breakdown and Sword Commission

The wood stove was installed on Friday and I spent Saturday morning breaking down the crate and pallet. Sadly, the Aussies who built the crate used Torx screws—the one profile that I didn't have a drill bit for—so the drill in the picture never saw use.

I did have the required T25 profile in a manual screwdriver though, and took out at least 15 of the screws by hand. Those screws are still good and I'll use them and the crate parts (pictured above) for a garden project this spring. I expect the lower pallet wood, which was lower quality, will be used for kindling. With luck the stove will pass inspection on Monday and we'll be soon be disposing of project cut offs by warming the house.

On Friday I received a down payment on a commissioned wooden fantasy sword. I spent about an hour last night testing a method for attaching the cross guard to the body of the sword. The prototype joint worked. I'll likely need to fettle the router plane for this project, though I may try using a pattern bit in the power router first—the router plane is far from ready to use.

Before and After: Loading the Wood Rack

Last night I loaded the wood rack. Above, you can see how it looked at the beginning of the night. Below is what it looked like when I was done.

I didn't realize just how much wood I had stacked around the basement, and now I'm worried that the pile of ash that's sitting up at my friend Sean's house will not fit anywhere on the rack. The good news is, right now no wood remains piled in other sections of the basement. Here's a look at a few more before and after shots:

The walk way into the shop, lined with sheet goods, spalted maple, and freijo.

The same space with only unassembled metal shelves and insulating panel remaining.

The wall next to my bench and radial arm saw, lined with scraps and two large planks: one of cherry, the other of an unknown hardwood (maple?).

The same space ready to be vacuumed and painted.

And finally, the main section of the basement, piled with lumber: pine, poplar, ash (on the left under the boxes), and oak boards. At the bottom of this pile, a bunch of rough cut pine waits to be used for making (among other things) cold frames.

The same space, ready for reorganization and (my wife tells me) a pallet of wood bricks—fuel for the wood stove.

Journal Entry #8: Paint

I painted the corner behind the wood rack tonight. It is ready to receive wood tomorrow night.