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“All war is deception.”
— Sun Tzu

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In an earlier post I shared the King and Queen of a chess set I have been working on for over a year now. Next week, my students at Marc Adams will make their version. And the new students the week after that.
 
I wanted a project that really emphasizes the capabilities of the Jointmaker Pro.
 
The smaller your work, the more accurate you have to be. This is going to be challenging, but we will do it.
 
This chess set will be on display in the upcoming “Quality is Contagious” exhibition in August. It is the first piece of woodworking I will have made in almost 30 years. Lots of precision sawing and block plane work. FYI, the king is 4-1/2″ tall, the chessboard squares are 1-3/4 square in the cavities. I wish my eyes were younger.
 
The piece is called. “Fog of War“.
 

 

 

 

 

-John

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“I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers.”
— A Bit of Fry and Laurie

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Yikes, have we been busy around here. The Drivel Starved Nation must be…starving!
 
This is a friendly reminder that for those of you who are making pieces for possible inclusion in the “Quality is Contagious” exhibition, you have until July 1 to get your piece to the Museum. For those who submitted work for the book, I have been told that one piece was accepted. Nicole is sending out notifications this week and making arrangments for the safe return of the submissions.
 
We are 30 years old this year and are busy making presents that you can buy for yourself (we are always thinking of you). What better place to start than with a new version of the TS-2? Please meet the TS-2v2;
 

 
We are making two versions, all aluminum and all stainless steel. The later will be a limited edition.
 
We invented a whole new way to make a precision square (which as you can see, doubles as a dovetail square) and you can get the idea by looking at the non-stainless version in the image above. The two aluminum squares in the image above are actually the same tool, it has a split personality.
 
After making well over 100,000 try squares we have learned a few things. One of those “things” is when a square hits the floor, the corners of the blade frequently flare. We solved that little annoyance by rounding the corners, and it makes all the sense in the world, there is no function for a square corner on a square blade. Oh, and the blade is field adjustable.
 
That said, the grip on this tool is off the charts, maybe it will never hit the floor…
 

 
We will open up pre-orders next week, but here’s a pleasant surprise: The aluminum version will be under $100. Want to know how cool this is? The original TS-2 sold for $45 in 1983. This inflation calculator tells us that the TS-2 would sell for $104.89 today. How cool is that?
 
-John

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“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”

— Ansel Adams

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Drivel Starved Nation the time has come to unveil our plans for our 30th Anniversary bash. Listen up!

 

Thursday, August 15th
6pm -8 pm; The exhibition, “Quality is Contagious: John Economaki and Bridge City Tool Works” opens at the Museum of Contemporary Craft. All this proves is that I have been making stuff for 36 years, and includes several pieces of furniture and lots of tools—some of which you likely own! The reception will be held on the roof of the building (it is beautiful!). A selection of plated and passed appetizers, appropriate to the season, will be served in addition to wine and non-alcoholic beverages. The exhibition runs through January 18, 2014.

 

To commemorate this event, the book. “Bridge City Tool Works: 30 Years Through the Lens of Joe Felzman” will be unveiled at the August 15th opening. Here is a sneak peek of the cover;

 
Here’s an image from the book that is cool;

 

Friday, August 16th
10am -3pm; Bridge City Showroom and Skunk Lab Open House, non-alcoholic beverages, wine, and finger foods provided.

 

6:00 pm until ???
Book Party! This is a catered dinner for our customers and a chance to meet all those associated with the book. This will be a fun evening hanging out with Joe Felzman and Jay Maisel, who is flying in from New York City for the festivities. If you would like to attend this function, please RSVP Consuelo@bridgecitytools.com for further details. (Both of the above links are short videos and worth the time to view them)

 

Saturday, August 17
11am-5pm; Wine Tasting Through the Willamette Valley. We have arranged for a bus tour of the Oregon wine country. We will visit 4-5 vineyards and tasting rooms.The first stop will be Chehalem Wines, they make extraordinary Pinot Noir and their Inox Chardonnay is fantastic. If you have never been on one of these tours they are a blast. One of the buses is a double-decker! Cost will be $50 per person and space is limited, so please RSVP to Consuelo@bridgecitytools.com if you would like to take the wine tour. For those not interested in the wine tour, I suggest renting a car and driving east from Portland through the Columbia Gorge, turn right at Hood River and drive around Mt. Hood, stopping at Timberline Lodge for lunch, maybe ride the “Magic Mile” chair lift up to the snow fields (on a clear day you can see Mt. Shasta in California, about 400 miles away!) before heading back to Portland. To us locals, this is called the “loop trip” and it is jaw dropping.

 

Our hotel recommendation during your stay is the Paramount Hotel. It is only a couple of years old, very nice and affordable. For a couple of bucks, you can ride the MAX light rail from the airport and get within 2 blocks of this hotel. For those of you with female significant others, Nordstrom’s is a block away. Why would I mention that? Oregon does not have a sales tax. You will need to make hotel reservations yourself.
 
Couple of other tidbits; Seattle is a three-hour drive from Portland. Vancouver BC is about 5 hours. Crater Lake National Park (unbelievably beautiful place) is a 5 hour drive from Portland. (Oregon is a honkin big state). Both Mt. Hood (you can snow ski in August here) and the Oregon Coast are an hour away from Portland. Oh, no humidity and no mosquitoes or Mongolian Death Worms! It is a great time of the year to see the Pacific Northwest (we are located in the world’s largest temperate rain forest, which begins in northern California and ends in British Columbia). Other sites of interest include the World Forestry Center, and we are now famous for something other than topless bars and micro-breweries– our food carts. Lots of great restaurants and a conspicuous absence of most chain eateries–the food is great!
 
We hope you can join us! We might even have a little sale for those that make the trek…
 
–John

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“If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got. “

— Albert Einstein

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I have the coolest job in the world. How cool you ask?

 

You can tell by examining the bags under my eyes — which means I have not been sleeping. Get this — in the last two weeks I am averaging less than 4 hours per sleep/night. I don’t like it, and I can’t help it.

 

Our new HP-10 Foxtail Convertible Plane is the reason why. Frankly, I think this is one of the most exciting new tools ever, and the culmination and fermentation of 10 years of work. I believe it is a complete game-changer in functionality, ergonomics, economics and space requirements. I also know I am prone to speaking in absolutes, generalities and hyperbole. My answer? My name is John and I approved everything I said about the HP-10 Foxtail plane. And, I believe it tool — if not, why bother?

 

Tomorrow, you will receive the pre-order email on the HP-10, and it is important to understand how we are going to deal with all the capabilities of this tool — so now would be a good time to pay attention DSN.

 

The offer tomorrow will be for the HP-10 Foxtail Convertible Rabbet Plane. This will include everything you need to make rabbets including the unisex rabbet depth foot, and the universal 45/90 degree fence kit, scoring cutter and of course the body and iron. And this is just the beginning.

 

The next “Convertible” option will be the Foxtail Shoulder Plane kit. This will include front and rear soles, a lower attack angle iron for end grain and universal depth skids. Why universal depth skids? Because they will work on both the rabbet conversion, shoulder conversion and… yes the dovetail conversion down the road.

 

After the shoulder conversion, we will introduce the Foxtail Crown conversion kit, consisting of the soles and iron only. The fence you need is included in the rabbet kit.

 

In 2014, we will introduce the Foxtail Dovetail conversion kit, which will do sliding dovetails. Following that are some unique dado/groove soles and the tongue and groove kit. After that, I will post, on this totally and awesome blog, the other profiles I want for myself and allow you, the Drivel Starved Nation to vote on their order of introduction.

 

I also have a couple of suggestions. Let’s say you only want the HP-10 Foxtail shoulder plane kit, and that is fine. I suggest you order the Foxtail body only from the window opening tomorrow because we are only going to make bodies for this plane once a year. We will re-make profile kits when the interest hits our minimum mfg.number which is typically no less than 300 units. Also, we have some customers who like separate bodies for each profile, and if you are one of those, I suggest ordering the bodies in the window opening tomorrow. As always, if our timing and your timing is off, call us for layaway options because we are going to remain in the anti-inventory business for the foreseeable future, and more likely until I croak.

 

Lastly, everything we are introducing is backward compatible with the limited edition (50) Stainless steel Foxtail rabbet planes.

 

As mentioned earlier, we will continue to offer new profiles for the HP-6 and continue to make bodies. I love that little plane. The HP-10 Foxtail allows us to do profiles that are next to impossible with the HP-6. Make sense now?

 

 

Did I mention how excited I am about this plane? I may need to see a physician because part of me has been excited for more than 4 hours…now that is exciting!

 

— John

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“A gentleman is a man who can play the accordion but doesn’t.”

— Unknown

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First, for those that follow this Totally Awesome and Worthless Blog (about 2/3 of the total population of Earth last count–amazing isn’t it?) you are likely aware of Drivel Starved Nation member, Rutager West. Besides being a great customer, he is a fervent contributor to our forums and is likely the world’s foremost authority on our DJ-1 Drilling Jig and perhaps the Jointmaker Pro–and of course, bacon.

 

Rutager is also an avid bicyclist and commutes 20 miles each way to work in St. Paul, MN. Friday, while riding to work in frigid weather, he hit a patch of ice, crashed, and broke several bones in one leg–not unlike a compass needle that points both North and East. Not good. He has had surgery and now will have a difficult time passing through airport screening. The good news: He has not lost his sense of humor–and I am guessing as he re-cooperates he may enjoy hearing from fellow DSN members. rutagerwest1@gmail.com Sorry Rutager, had to do it.

 

I am really excited about adding our newest creation to our Bridge City Essential family of tools. As mentioned in previous posts, our focus is creating tools that not only work, but take up very little space. The value proposition of this new tool should be enticing to many. Please meet the HP-10 Foxtail “Convertible” Plane…

 

The HP-10 Foxtail is primarily an all aluminum plane, and we will reveal full specs in a couple of days. Since I have been gone much of the year, and you are likely starving for more drivel, here are a few pics illustrating the many functions of this versatile plane.

 

Here is the setup to precisely cut rabbets;

 

Cutting both with the grain, against or across is a breeze with the circular scoring cutter;

 

Here’s a view of the rabbet depth stop, which like the fence or the scoring cutter, can be attached to either side of the plane body;

 

The first of the many conversions possible with the HP-10 is the obvious shoulder plane;

 

And my favorite decorative cutting plane of all time, the crown cut conversion;

 

This plane is heading where the capacity of the HP6 leaves off–because of the larger body and improved grip, we will be able to add conversions down the road. AND, we are going to add them in a really fun way, we will decide here, on this blog!

 

Lastly, before anybody has a cow, there is an HP-9 plane, it needs more work so this plane skipped ahead.

 

–John

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“It’s so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and say the opposite.”

— Sam Levenson

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This week I returned from my annual two-week work retreat. Good thing I left Dodge when I did, that Clearance Sale website meltdown was bad… as those of you who participated know.

 

As promised, ANYBODY who purchased clearance items from the sale announcement through Feb 4 will receive a FREE tool. And, also as promised, it was the first item on my work retreat agenda. I think it is darn cool and want one, so I know at least one Bridge City customer will be happy. Plus, there are no complaints allowed when it is FREE!

 

Next week we will announce the agenda for our 30th Anniversary activities in August. We are finalizing details, hotel information and the activities. It is a great time of the year to visit the Pacific Northwest and we do hope you consider joining us for both the exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Craft and our book reveal. We know how to throw a party here at BCTW–and past details will go to my grave…

 

For those of you who are making projects primarily using the Jointmaker Pro, and want to be included in both the book and the exhibition, your entry deadline to make the book is March 1! If you don’t care about the book aspect, Nicole Nathan will accept entries up until July 1, 2013. There are no guarantees your work will be accepted but it is a cool opportunity.

 

Now here is some incredibly useful information;

 

8 microns = 0.00031496063 inches
9 microns = 0.000354330709 inches
10 microns = 0.000393700787 inches
11 microns = 0.000433070866 inches

 

Why is this so useful you ask? Click here. I saw this in person about 10 years ago and it is something else.

 

–John

 

PS: Almost forgot to mention that the first new tool for 2013 will be announced as soon as…next week!

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“A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I am afraid of widths.”
— Steven Wright
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Thanks to the hard work of our ace fire department here (Consuelo), we believe we have righted all the wrongs from our Big Sale Meltdown last week. A GREAT BIG THANK YOU to all who were impacted and your patience while we fixed the mess.

 

The “Clearance” choice in the lower left quadrant of our splash page has been reopened–so have fun with all the stuff in there! AND REMEMBER; If you hit “Submit” more than once, you are doubling your order. You can check the status of your order by going to the “My Orders” tab and you will see an order number. What happens when you hit submit is complex-inventory is adjusted, email confirmations are being generated, and the back end credit card stuff is happening. So please, just hit submit once! Thanks.

 

A couple of years ago we purchased a tail vise kit and Glide vise kit from my fellow Iowan, Jameel @ Benchcrafted. We never opened the boxes and just discovered them stashed in our prototype shop. I was going to use them and build a bench for our video studio but instead asked Jameel to build us a bench and he agreed–WOO HOO! We are going to pick it up at Handworks 2013 in May.

 

Here are pics of what is inside the boxes;

 

THE GLIDE VISE KIT:

 

THE TAIL VISE KIT

 

As mentioned, these two vises have never been opened and are ready to ship. We have just the one set and paid $695 for the pair. First person to sweet talk Consuelo can have them both for $574.21 (I did that to make myself laugh…). Be warned, the shipping is not included.

 

Lastly, you wont be hearing from me until February–I am off on my annual work retreat. And my first order of business is the design of the FREE tool we are going to send everybody who bought stuff off that Clearance page and lived through the nightmare.

 

–John

To All the Enthusiastic Customers who Suffered though our Sale Yesterday:
 
I apologize for wasting your valuable time.
 
We literally have thousands of transactions to fix.  The multiple “submits” have basically killed the inventory, created multiple duplicate charges that need to be reversed…and it gets worse–
 
Our IT company that runs our shopping cart quit on us yesterday when we screamed for help.
 
Those are details however and they will all get fixed in the next few days. Orders will get shipped and for those of you who see multiple charges on your card for the exact same amount, they will all get reversed–despite the appealing notion of me disappearing to a tropical island with your money, particularly an island without an extradition treaty with the United States…  (We have one customer who hit submit 30 times and has 30 pending transactions–his name rhymes with Alex… Oh boy.)
 
The real issue is the huge public relations mess. Believe me, WE KNOW many of you are pissed.
 
So, last night I turned to somebody who handles public relation issues for a Fortune 5 company. This guy is in charge of all the New York City PR for AT&T, and those customers are perpetually torqued, or so it seems. And this guy just happens to be my son, Brian.
 
He talked. I listened–which has NEVER happened in reverse. So here is what we are going to do;
 
Next week I leave on my annual work retreat and will not be back in the office until the first week of February (somewhere in the lower 48 in case you are wondering…). The very first thing I am going to do is design a tool for ANYBODY who has placed orders from that “Clearance” page and we are going to build it, and send it to you folks for free.  I call it the Quad “F” solution.  We get a big “F” for how this all went down.  We get to “F”ix the mess and you get a “F”ree tool…the fourth “F” is coming…
 
Today, as we cancel the duplicate orders, items that appeared out of stock should reappear. Those items that we know are out of stock will be taken down. The “Clearance” section may disappear in interim spurts as we fix our inventory. It will come back. Furthermore, because this will take a couple of days to fix, our Quad “F” solution is live until I get back in “F”ebruary.
 
I don’t give a hoot how much this is going to cost us. I hope you accept my apology and I assure you the free tool will be cool. It is not like we have another option.
 
I also want to apologize to our staff–they are doing their best.
 
-John

Folks, the toilet is overflowing here in a big way! PLEASE DO NOT SUBMIT YOUR ORDER MORE THAN ONCE.

That said, the pipeline through our site can’t handle this volume. Lets all assume your orders are screwed up–we will fix them one by one. WE HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS.

Oh boy…

Your Frustrated BCTW Team…

SALE DAY UPDATE: ITEMS H90 AND UP MAY NOT BE AVAILABLE WHEN THE SALE OPENS, BUT THEY WILL BE AVAILABLE TOMORROW. SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE. -JOHN

 
Wow. The Drivel Starved Nation loves a sale!
 
Our 2013 sale opens tomorrow at 5:00 PM Pacific time. That’s the good news.
 
The bad news is that we just discovered a glitch in our webstore shopping cart that may impact a small percentage of our customers; the shopping cart refuses to accept more than 20 items.
 
So, I recommend that you do not go over 20 items before you place an order–yes, I determined this awesome solution all by myself….
 
If you are an out of control shopper, and we hope you are, this may require you to place a second or third order, which of course means you will get charged for shipping on all parcels instead of one. Because shipping is all weight based, it is not as bad as it sounds, but it will be more than a single parcel.
 
If this happens to you, we will issue you a store credit for the excess shipping charges. You get the most expensive box, we will take care of the rest.
 
–John