1. When using a honing guide to sharpen your plane blades place a couple of earth magnets on the blade. The metal particles will then collect on top of the blade aiding sharpening and easing cleanup. When finished remove the magnets from the blade over the trash.

2. To drill a perfect sized pilot hole for a finish nail, just clip the head off a same size finish nail and use it to drill the hole.

3. To glue wood together temporarily make a paper joint with a sheet of paper (brown paper bag works best!) in between them. To break apart place the tip of a chisel at the crack point and tap with a mallet.

4. Use Titebond III for gluing dark woods and Tightbond II for gluing light woods. The color of Titebond III dries dark and Tightbond II dries light, thereby minimizing the visibility of a glue line.

5. Use a small amount of denatured alcohol or mineral spirits to temporarily bring-out the grain in a piece of sanded wood. Once dissipated neither of these will leave any trace that will affect your finishing.

These are just a few tips that I picked up lately. They come from a variety of sources including books, magazines, newsletters, online and some from personal experience.

There are more Woodworking Tips and Tidbits located here.

Got a woodworking tip that you want to share? Let me know and I’ll add it in a future issue of Tips and Tidbits!

Back to the shop…

Today was both a happy day and a sad day. Happy, because we would finish the chair to the point that we had set out to do four days ago and sad, of course, because it was my last day here at Rocking Chair University. The week had gone so fast, it seemed that I had just arrived!

The day started with a special treat. In addition to rocking chairs Hal has made several guitars and harps. Here he is playing a few songs on the ‘Reso Nuevo’ resophonic guitar (dobro) that he built:

He doesn’t make guitars anymore but he says he’s working on a few more harp designs and he also hopes to make a violin sometime!

After this enjoyable mini-concert we worked on the arms and the rockers. The first thing to do was to plane the rockers to size:

Continue reading 'Rocking Chair University Week – Day 5'

The English Walnut that we were using for the chair had a very distinct coloring, ranging from mostly the creamy white of the sapwood to what would be considered the more traditional dark brown of the heartwood. Since it hadn’t been ’steamed’ as most commercial Walnut is it retained it’s natural color throughout. It’s sweet smell had a tang that peaked your senses as soon as you walked into the shop, immediately setting the mind’s perspective of the work, or journey, ahead.

It was Day 4 here at Hal’s and since the smell of the Walnut has set my mood I’m ready and raring to go!

We started today with coopering the backrest. As I said in the first post this chair is a small rocker so the ‘headrest’ of a traditional rocker is the backrest on this one. Here are the four pieces that we will be using:

The joining edges were cut to a 4-5 degree angle, which will give a comfortable sweep. The edges were then planed, glued together and clamped with pinch dogs:

Continue reading 'Rocking Chair University Week – Day 4'

When I arrived at Rocking Chair U on the morning of Day 3 I was greeted by Hal’s four horses in the paddock beside the barn. Each afternoon around 2 o’clock they come walking by the shop and you can watch them go by from the large window facing the riding ring. You could pretty well set your clock by them.

Over the past couple of days I found that working with Hal was very similar. Each part of his chair building process was done methodically, step by step. Each day had a particular thing or number of things to be done that was paced very comfortably over the length of the project. There was no race. No rushing to the end. It was a very calm and dedicated approach with the project being enjoyed along the way. I quickly learned more appreciation for the journey and not just on the destination.

Today’s journey brought us to the fitting of the front legs to the seat. First, the legs were notched on the tablesaw:

Continue reading 'Rocking Chair University Week – Day 3'