Chris Billman's Blog

Spray Finishing Class

Today I attended an informal class on spray finishing put on by two members of the SEMWW, Dave Zaret and Jim Biddle. They did an outstanding job of presenting an overview of spraying. They focused on spraying Target Coatings products, and since I haven't used anything from them in a few years it was a great reintroduction to their lineup. They also discussed gun setup, hvlp vs conversion guns, polishing the finish, and spraying technique. Zaret has a great shop in a barn that he shares with Biddle, and they've made quite a nice spray booth in the corner of their shop. I sure do wish I had such a nice setup in my shop!

Thanks to Dave and Jim for such a great seminar!

Website Updates

Well I've finally completed a few new projects. Check them out on the main website: a pair of dulcitars and a new outfeed bench.

The bench went together very quickly thanks to my use of a premade slab and Dominos for joinery. It's a great design and I'm already thankful to have a few more workholding options for the shop.

The dulcitars were kind of a spur of the moment project. My local woodworking club was sponsoring a class on making them and it sounded like a lot of fun so I enrolled. They weren't on my looooong list of projects to be built but I'm glad I snuck them in because they were a ton of fun to make. And they're a ton of fun to play too.

Anyway, I thought I'd take this opportunity to add an overdue blog entry even though it sort of duplicates stuff on my web site. At the slim chance someone out there is following me via RSS is might even alert them to click the links above for more detailed updates (since I don't have RSS on my main website).

Have fun and stay safe!

Back In The Saddle

I occasionally have lulls in my woodworking hobby. They don't happen often, and they usually don't last long, but there are occasionally times when I just don't feel like getting into the shop for some unknown reason. This spring was one of those times, and this time the lull seemed to last unusually long - perhaps a month or so.

Right now is certainly an anti-lull (is that a word/phrase?). I'm Jonesin to spend every available moment in the shop.

I'm in the midst of building a new outfeed table that will also serve as a second workbench. This will look a bit like a Holtzapffel bench but with a few twists and mods - chief amonst them is an apron. Aaah, how I love my apron.

I just got the base completed and I'm in the home stretch for the top. Hopefully the thing will be completed before too long, but as usual it all depends on how much time I can squeeze in the shop (which often occurs by weaseling out of other honey-do items). So what if we've been working on finishing a room in our basement for a year and a half, so what if I haven't trimmed the yard in far too long, so what if I need to replace/repaint some exterior woodwork before the snow starts to fall, and so what if the "real" project list doesn't contain a new bench at all. I'm gonna make me another bench, and I'm loving every minute of it.

Insurance

Over the past several days we've been reviewing the insurance coverage we have for our home, cars, life ("lives"?), etc. A few years ago we added a "rider" to our homeowner's policy expressly to cover my tools. Without the rider our basic policy capped tool coverage at something like $500 which is obviously not adequate for a woodworking shop. So our tool rider covers us for full replacement costs up to $25,000 which should be enough to get the vast majority (if not all) of my shop tools. The rider only adds $27 to our yearly insurance bill, so it seems like a great bargain for the peace of mind it provides.

The other nice thing about our tool rider is it forced me to make/update a tool inventory including pictures of each major tool. We track serial numbers, purchase prices, make/model, etc. All this is kept on line (partly on my website) for safe keeping.

With this we feel pretty good about insurance on our tools and shop. Hopefully we never need it, but it's nice to know that we're adequately covered if it's ever necessary.

Working at not much

My shop serves several purposes. Primarily it's a place for me to build stuff. But one of it's important secondary functions is to provide a place of respite from the rest of the world. A place to go and forget about the issues of life and spend a few moments without worry or pressure or stress or trouble.

I occasionally enjoy going down to the shop and working on nothing. I may tidy up the place a bit, or make minor improvements to storage or organization, or perhaps just go down there and zone out for a few minutes.

Most times (by far) I'm working on projects, but I'd be lying if I denied it also provides a simple place to get away from the world for a few brief minutes.

Byrd Shelix Heads for Jointer & Planer

The other weekend in between business trips I was able install Byrd Shelix cutterheads in my jointer and planer with the help of a friend. I had been selling misc shop tools that haven't seen much use to raise the cash, and I finally raised enough to purchase both the jointer and planer heads thanks to a great sale price from Grizzly that was matched by Holbren (who threw in free shipping as well).

From reading others experiences I gathered that the jointer head would be fairly straightforward to install, but from my personal experiences with tearing my planer apart I knew that would be a PITA. Much to my surprise, they both went fairly easy, and we were able to get the two machines done in about 4 hours. My friend was a huge help, and we had to re-use some parts that I wasn't planning for, but overall it was a much easier task than I expected. So I thought I'd capture some lessons learned here for folks who might tackle the same task in the future.

For the jointer, the biggest surprise was that the bearings on my Griz G0490 (one of their first models) are different than those in a DJ-20, and they're also different than those shown in the on-line G0490 parts list. So the replacement set that I had on hand were later returned to the store, and we had to pull the original bearings and re-install them on the new shelix head. Other than that it went easily, and after tweaking the tables with the new head I was testing the machine in no time.

The planer was definately harder to do, but it didn't take much more time (probably thanks in part to my previous experience with "repairing" the gearbox). The biggest issue with the planer is the $%#@* gearbox. It looks easy in Byrd's step-by-step document, but my gearbox did not come apart (on either occasion) nearly as nicely as the one in Byrd's pics. The shafts and gears interlock with each other, there are bearings all over the place pressed onto shafts and into the box housing, and the oil seals are tricky to seat properly. Also, I think there's a fundamental flaw in the gearbox that permits the oil leakage - it needs an additional fastener in the upper corner of the case to get a better clamp load on the gasket. Before you start the planer head make sure you have print outs of the exploded parts diagrams, replacement oil (I used 80-90W gear oil), replacement bearings and seals, several bearing pullers (the cheap HF set I purchased had several sizes and worked great), shop rags to handle the grease/oil, a dead blow hammer and deep well sockets to coerce bearings into/out of their housings and shafts, leather gloves to protect your hands from getting sliced on the cutters, and some real estate to lay out all the pieces/parts. If you have some base knowledge of bearings, take your time, don't chip the new cutters, and keep everything neatly organized and you'll get it done.

Virtual Woodworking

I miss my shop. Lately I've been travelling a ton for business, and the hours are long and there's little to no relief in site. Since I can't take my tablesaw and handplanes with me on a plane, I've been busy with "virtual woodworking". You know - reading books, reading web forums and blogs, working on desigs in Sketchup, visiting tool stores and galleries, and generally thinking about wood much more than working with wood.

So I'm well read but poorly practiced. This bites the big one. Really sucks.

I even started a few threads on my favorite web forums asking for ideas about woodworking on the road. The best ideas seem to be learning chip carving (which I've been meaning to do for a while). That's fine, but when I really want to work on a desk or throw shavings at the lathe, fiddling with eeny weeny geometrical cutouts on a bland piece of basswood just doesn't seem so appealing.

So if/when free time becomes available again I need to concentrate on two priorities: my family and woodworking. The wife and kids are always number one, but I need to take every spare half hour while the family is otherwise occupied and carve out some shop time. I have a friend who wakes himeself up at some ridiculous hour in the morning so that he can have an hour or two of project time before the family awakes and work beckons. I'm not a morning person, so that will never happen, but the idea of creatively squeezing out time to work with wood at every available moment is one that I need to learn from.

So if you're reading this and have your workshop a few steps down the stairs or out in the garage, get out there, spend an extra 30 minutes, and appreciate the quality time working with wood.

I'm a Ford Truck Man, That's What I Used To Drive....

Oh, how I miss my truck! The lease on my F150 was up last summer, and in a moment of weakness I leased a Ford Edge instead of another truck. Oh, how I miss my truck!

Yeah, the Edge is awesome, and it gets relatively fantastic gas mileage for my 50 mile daily commute, but you just can't haul stuff the way I used to in my truck. Plywood? - nope. A new major shop tool? - probably not. A load of mulch? - no way. Two kiddies and a wife? - yessiree. I suppose my priorities have truly changed over the last few years. More family (and more work); less woodworking.

So I'm in the middle of a big desk/hutch project for Sherri, and I've gone as far as I can go without buying another sheet of plywood. Instead of jumping in the F150 and grabbing a nice sheet without thinking twice I now have to plan well in advance to either borrow someone's truck, "evaluate" one from work for a night, or beg and plead for someone to bring me one on their next plywood run. I could ask someone at the Borg to break down a sheet so that it fits in my truck, but then I'd be buying el-crapola ply and trusting one of their oh-so-helpful employees to cut it properly. Nah, I'll wait to get a decent full sheet home somehow, someway. It just might take a while, and in the meantime my wife won't have her desk anytime soon.

Oh how I miss my truck!

Electrical Upgrades

As often happens, an innocent tool upgrade has had far-reaching repurcussions in the shop. Found a deal on a new air compressor (sale price + coupon + gift cards = oh yeah), and that created the need for a new 220V electrical line to it's new location in the garage. My shop circuits were fed from my main house panel, and that's sub-optimal in a few ways. It's a long run for wire from the panel to the shop, the breaker slots are almost full (although I could always retrofit tandems), and that doesn't easily permit cutting off power to the shop to protect curious little kiddies.

So I finally decided to bite the bullet and install a new subpanel that feeds the shop. The subpanel cures all the ills above, but it's not a trivial task and with today's copper prices it's not cheap. So we bought a panel, #6 feeder cable, and a few odds and ends and took the time to rewire all the power to the shop. All is now done, and I'm glad I spent the money and time. I've got new capacity for growth (not sure why I'll need that though...), but the best part is with the flip of one switch I can cut power to the entire shop. Makes me feel much safer now that the rugrats can't go accidentally pressing pretty green switches on daddies big shop tools.

Hellllloooooooooo..??..??..

Hey, check it out - a new post to the blog. Oooooh, cool!

Just wanted to drop in to say that I realize I've been incredibly neglectful of this blog site. Inexcusable (although I have a few decent excuses)! Horrible (well, it's not really that big of a deal, is it?)! Won't let it happen again (well, let's not make any rash promises)!

So what's been going on? Well, first of all, today is Christmas. Woohoo! Had a blast with the wife and kids. What a joy to have a couple toddlers running though the house playing with all there toys. The place is an absolute mess, but there's a lot of joy in here too. I did find a few things under the tree for me as well. The small bowl Kelton coring set (that's the last size set I needed), a shiny new 60 gallon air compressor (well, that wasn't really under the tree), and a fabu Nirvana Unplugged DVD (get this - it's freekin incredible, and it blows my mind that it was filmed almost 15 years ago!). Thank you Santa Claus.

Since waaaay back when I made the last blog entry I've been doing mostly turning stuff. Bowls, platters, hollow forms, etc, etc. You're usual artsy fartsy stuff. I honesly have no idea what I'm gonna do with all these round things. There's no more room in the house. Poor unuspecting relatives might be receiving round things as gifts for the foreseeable furture.

I'm also in the midst of my first big flatwork project in quite a while. A scrapbooking desk/hutch for wifee. It's gonna be big. It's gonna be green (just wait - you'll see). It's gonna be heavy to lug up to the second floor. It's about 1/2 way done now, and the hard parts are behind me so it should be smooth sailing. No promises on timing - especially since I blew the original Christmas 2007 deadline out of the water. More to come.....

Seems like a while....

Sure does seem like a long while since I added a blog entry. Must be because is HAS been a while. Life sure does keep you busy sometimes!

As has been the theme in my shop lately, I've continued to work on turning stuff. I added two or three bowls to my web site. They continue to look cool, but I'm getting a bit sick of the maple. I still have enough for a half dozen bowls and a number of hollow forms, so I'm thinking about using them to try a few new shapes and forms.

I've also managed to grab a big walnut log to make into turning blanks. Well, technically I'm gonna "grab" it this Sunday, but it's reserved in my name. It's supposed to be 24" diameter and 60" long, so I'm gonna bring my chainsaw with me to slab it into sections small enough to lift into my pickup truck. Should be a blast, and possibly a backbreaker...

I've also been plowing through the reading material. I've finished Wayne Barton's chip carving book (which had 10x more pages of pics than text), the FWW "In the Modern Style" compilation book, and I'm just about done with Sam Allen's workbench book. Next up is the FWW chair book and David Pye's two books. I'll also try to get through my almost-completed FWW mag collection since they're currently lined up in our dining room and they need to be moved downstairs before the wife kills me.

The only other cool thing I've been working on is cutting boards. I had a few 8/4 hard maple scraps still left over from my workbench, so I glued a few together and for the first time turned a round cutting board. It came out great (pics soon), and if I can round up enough leftover wood I'll try to make more. I'm also using a finish I haven't tried before - a mix of warm mineral oil and melted beeswax. It's supposed to be longer-lasting than just mineral oil which I've used for years. The oil/wax is now on a few boards and so far it looks great, but it will take some time and use to compare its longevity to plain ol oil. One thing's for sure - it sure is messy to make and apply, and it can be tough holding onto boards totally encased in slippery oil/wax before its buffed out. Fun stuff.

Weekend Redux

Another weekend has come and gone, and I was able to spend a few hours of this one on woodworking.

Saturday morning I made it to the local Woodcraft to get in on their 15% off sale. Picked up a couple Wayne Barton chip carving knives (which fit my hand like a glove) and some other odds and ends. Can't wait to try the chip carving stuff - looks like it will be fun.

Later in the day on Saturday I finished off a few more maple bowls. They're looking good (if not a bit plain), and I should have them buffed and up on the website tonight or tomorrow. I really feel like I have the fundamentals of turning down pat by now, but I still struggle a bit with a few more advanced techniques. And I think I need to make a Longworth chuck one of these days, but that's the subject for another blog entry.

I also worked a bit on rearranging my turned bowl web page on my site, and it's looking much better so far. I have the basics done (you can take a peak here, but that address will change in a few days once I make the updates permanent) but I now need to make individual sub-pages for each of the bowls.

New goodies....

I had to miss the WoodNet gathering at Hartville Tool last week, but I managed to buy a few odds and ends anyway and have them picked up by a friend. Nothing grand, mostly a few books and DVDs.

One of the DVDs was about Chip Carving, which is something I've wanted to try for a long time. I think I might finally buy a knife (can't believe how cheap they are - one of the few remaining bargains in woodworking) and give it a go. Wayne Barton makes it look easy, but I suspect that's largely due to his many years of practice. If I can manage something decent it would make a nice accent to a box or a platter or a picture frame.

There's always more to learn in woodworking. Like many things in life, once I think I'm half-way competent I start to realize how much I still don't know.

Back in the shop

I've been out of town for a while traveling on business, so I haven't had any shop time for a couple weeks. The closest I've come to ww'ing is reading magazines, books, and the various on line forums.

So it was with great joy that I returned to the shop this afternoon while the kids were napping to turn another bowl. This one is english walnut and ended up about 10" diameter. It was very challenging to keep the grain from tearing out, and only some careful shear cutting and the old 80 grit gouge saved the day.

The bowl turned out well, but what I really enjoyed was being back in the shop. I could have been cleaning up (and boy, do I need to do some of that!) and I would have still be smiling. I had a blast working with wood, and I was truly at peace in the shop.

Marketing, fame, integrity

Recently Festool has started ramping up the pre-release marketing of their new Domino tool. They must have some smart cookies in their marketing department. They've done a couple innovative things to get the word our and build the hype.

First was inviting a bunch of woodworking magazine editors to their headquarters in Germany to demo the tool (and others). Festool paid for their trips (including "travel companions") and sent them all home with a free Domino system with all the trimmings. Not a bad gig, huh? And it should come as no surprise that we're seeing a barrage of magazine and blog articles raving about the merits of the tool.

Now we're starting to see evidence that Festool's marketing dept is leveraging new channels as well. There are some people on the internet who are trying to make a name for themselves by doing pod/videocasts and publishing tool reviews. Festool has given Domino "evaluation units" to these folks as well, and - surprise - these people are now extolling the virtues of the tool on various web sites.

This kind of thing has no doubt gone on for years by many of the tool mfgs - right or wrong. Even in other industries. It reinforces the fact that you should be critical and skeptical when you read (or watch) any tool review. Especially if it's done by someone who might have received free stuff from the manufacturer or who's magazine might benefit from advertising revenue. It's a tangled web being weaved, and we need to be careful when spending our hard earned dollar bills.