"The whole culture is telling you to hurry, while the art tells you to take your time. Always listen to the art." — Junot Diaz
The images below represent a very small sampling of what took place in the woods of northern Saskatchewan this past August. It is almost a disservice to all who participated but I have an excellent excuse – the night before the big auction in Saskatoon, I somehow managed to bend the lens tube on my camera limiting it’s ability to focus. In addition, the auction was absolutely jam packed with people making it difficult Continue reading
"You'll never find a better sparring partner than adversity." — Golda Meir
Drivel Starved Nation; It’s Friday and I am about to take the afternoon off to meet some old friends. But, I thought you might like to see the first pics of the CT-18 Dual Angle Smoothing plane…
We still have about 4-5 weeks of work before we ship. All the bodies get their soles ground beginning next week, and this is slow, each has to be put into a special fixture. Stainless steel does not like heat so in order to flatten the soles, the grinder is set to cut 0.0002″ per pass. That’s two ten thousands of an inch.
The irons are all out being sharpened and the scrub irons have yet to arrive, but beginning next week, we will start assembly of the bodies as they trickle in from the grinding house.
Oh, all of the aluminum TB-2v2’s are done and are being shipped starting Monday. And so are the stainless versions. These are crummy cell phone pics, but you get the idea;
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Drivel Starved Nation-
Today I received a small package that I forgot I ordered (an alarmingly frequent occurrence). Inside was this; Continue reading
Drivel Starved Nation!
I just returned from my annual teaching gig at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking – two solid weeks on the Jointmaker Pro. Week one students built their version of my “Fog of War”. Week two you ask? Well… I will share the intimate details in July when I receive pics of what everybody started. I also informed Marc that I will not return as I am hanging up my teaching hat for good. Moving forward, if I feel I have anything to contribute to the community I will post here in the totally awesome and worthless blog.
Drivel Starved Nation!
Lots of stuff to report!
First, my blog has been silenced for almost 3 months because I had some work done to it, and it started acting screwy. So I moved on to some other, more pressing activities, although we all know there is nothing more important than the DSN! I think it is fixed now. (Fingers crossed)
Right about Xmas, Michael Berg, who has been running this place for the past nine years took a new position at another PDX company. That left me a long week to find a replacement prior to my annual work retreat. In addition, I had scheduled a mini-sabbatical for the month of February – so I decided to wait until I returned. As soon as I find a replacement, you will know too! And, we wish Michael the best in his new endeavors.
Drivel Starved Nation-
As mentioned earlier, we are short-staffed here until sometime in March due to my travel schedule. Tomorrow I leave for my annual work retreat and I have so many ideas to persue…can’t wait to get started!
First, we are shipping the final 25% of the TS-2v2 Try Squares and here are a couple of answers to the most asked questions;
1) The inserts (either orange or black) float in the handle, they wiggle by design. Besides the cool decorative element, they serve as a flange to help in dis-assembly.
“People forget how fast you did a job – but they remember how well you did it.” — Howard Newton
Drivel Starved Nation!
I know all of you out there in DSN land are wondering, why has John’s Blog been one big void for the past six weeks?
Well, I had a doctor’s appointment and it has taken me this long to chew through the leather straps… Actually, we did a little blog makeover and it took longer than we thought.
Bridge City News Dept.:
Michael Berg, who has basically been running this place for the past nine years has moved on. We wish him well. Because of my travel schedule in early 2014, I will not be seeking a replacement until March. Until then you are stuck with me for production updates.
Production Update Dept.:
I will see the first milled body of the CT-18 Plane within the next week or so. What a complex process.
We have begun shipping the TS-2v2 in both aluminum and stainless. The metric versions will ship last. I anticipate all will be shipped no later than the first week of Jan.
The FC-1v2 Flushing Chisels will also ship in Jan.
"Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."— Marthe Troly-Curtin
Drivel Starved Nation;
Our Skunk Lab is full of tool parts that are being boxed and will soon be on their way to our fulfillment facility. Soon, you will be able to make sliding dovetails completely by hand. Bunch of other stuff too!
I spent last week and four days this week putting our HP-6 Tapered Sliding Dovetail Kit through its paces. The results are stunning – the image below is 3/4″ thick Ash and the joint is 7″ long.
Normal perception depends on ignoring, but the appreciation of beauty and the creation, so called, of art, depends not on ignoring. It depends on looking, and the more you look, the more you see. What you see, in anything beautiful, is not only all the features of it but also the visible relations between them. — David Pye
The nutcracker pictured below is currently on display at the Museum of Contemporary Craft. I designed it in the winter of 1975 and made several to give away as holiday gifts – we had no money to buy anything. In 1977 it was photographed by Joe Felzman and was ultimately acquired by the Renwick Gallery in Washington DC. I have made several hundred over the decades and it is a fun project. Since the holidays are quickly approaching, I thought it would be fun to take you through this project so you can make it yourself.
Conformity Breeds Mediocrity — Unknown
This weekend Michael and I attended Maker Faire in Portland. What a blast that thing is. I am going to the big Kahuna next year in San Francisco, it is that cool. I think it should be a DSN field trip of epic proportions. And I can tell you this, this was way more fun than any woodworking show I have ever attended. Virtually every single booth had something in it that was of interest to me. Way cool.
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