I spent some time this past week creating a few cutting boards. Cutting boards make great gifts and are fairly easy to make. I used a variety of woods and edging to make each one different. Here they are:

The board below is approximately 10″ square and made of walnut and maple:

Continue reading 'Wooden Cutting Boards For Christmas'

The December meeting, also known as the Christmas meeting, of the Atlantic Woodworkers Association was held tonight at Lee Valley.

The Christmas meeting has been the tradition among the AWA members to bring in (and show off ) toys that they made. The toys are given later to the Salvation Army to distribute to underprivileged children. This year, as in the past, the toys were a varied mix and very professionally done. There were trains, trucks, games and hobby horses. I’m sure the children receiving them will be entertained for a long time with these! Take a look:

Continue reading 'Woodworking In Toyland'

I went to the wood show in Moncton, New Brunswick today. This show is one of a few that runs across Canada. Other locations include Kitchener-Waterloo, Ottawa and London. The show runs for 3 days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and offers the latest woodworking tools and accessories as well as demos, displays, seminars, carvings, turnings and more.

I didn’t get a chance to sit in on any of the seminars this year but it looked like there was a good selection to choose from including router techniques, tuning up your bandsaw, hotrodding your table saw and finishing techniques.
Continue reading 'The Moncton Wood Show 2007'

The Atlantic Woodworker’s Association meeting tonight was held at our ‘club house’, a local Home Depot and the theme was sharpening techniques.

One of the members demonstrated the Work Sharp 3000. It was nice to see this in action after having posted the announcement of this new tool last month. Several members brought in tools for sharpening which gave a wide array of samples, from plane blades to carving chisels. The Work Sharp performed well on all of them giving a quick and easy sharpening. Very impressive!

Another member spoke on hand sharpening and the trials and tribulations of such. There was also discussion on various sharpening and honing options.

I was hoping to have a sharpening competition between man and machine but it was not to be.

As always, it was a great meeting. It’s nice to meet others from time to time that share a similar interest in woodworking.

Back to the shop…