Last week fellow +Modern Woodworkers Association member +Rob Bois and I headed up to Newtown, Connecticut to meet up with the +Fine Woodworking crew and represent the MWA on their podcast, Shop Talk Live.

Publishers, and just all around nice guys who love woodworking.

We had a great time and really appreciate the invitation.

On the podcast we joined +Asa Christiana, +Matthew Kenney & +Ed Pirnik to talk woodworking. The specific topics discussed ranged from the pro & cons of sliding compound miter saws (Im on the Pro side) to the dangers of drinking shellac.

Matt Kenney sits down in their decked out podcasting studio

Yours truly, behind the mic.

Ed Pirnik made this decked out mic stand just to accommodate us.

You can check out the podcast on their site here, you can also download and subscribe to it on iTunes here. And if you do listen using iTunes, please leave a review. +Ed Pirnik will really appreciate it.

Rob & Matt talk shop.

Yes, Rob, jointers do come that big (By the choice, he won a Bad Axe Tenon saw).

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When I signed up to take Designing and Building Chairs with Jeff Miller I was so excited that Highland Woodworking asked me to write a few blog posts about the class. If youve read my initial post about signing up and are curious about the class (it was great), you can read more here.
Highland Woodworking Blog: Im Ready For Jeff Miller
Highland Woodworking Blog: On Chairmaking With Jeff Miller

The class was a blast of hands on chair making.

Spoiler Alert: There will be a video about the class from Highland soon.

Also, If youve not weighed in on the MWA Calendar, please do here.
Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.

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Thanks to Tom Iovino, its Get Woodworking Week. Its a week when we in the online woodworking world and the regular woodworking world look to help others enter the craft. While many of my compatriots are writing fantastic posts about what tools to purchase, how to use the tools, what projects to begin with and how to do joinery, I thought I would offer a different take. I wanted to show just how easy it is to get someone into woodworking. Hopefully many others will fall prey to woodworking as easily as Pete has.

My friend Pete and I went to college together. We’ve got many shared interests and a lifetime of shared experiences. Up until recently, woodworking was not one of them.

L to R: Me, Shots & Pete. Circa 1998. Shots is a cop now. Pete and I are not.

Since I’ve been blogging and ranting on and on about how wonderful woodworking is, Pete has been one of the few, non-woodworking friends to show an interest. He’s actually been looking to come visit and go over some woodworking for quite some time. We were finally able to make it happen over this passed Christmas break.

As woodworking was one of many topics we hoped to cover during his brief afternoon with us, we choose to take on a very simple project I had pending and work on it from start to finish so that Pete could see the whole thing.The project was the construction of a simple shelf to hold the cable box and DVD player in my room. By simple, I mean simple. It only consisted of cutting a flat board to size, rounding the edges and sanding. I doubt any of us would even call this woodworking.

Yet, for Pete, it was a revelation on many levels.

Peter, rounding the edge.

On one hand, like most non-woodworkers, he’d never stopped to consider the steps involved in making something from wood, even something this simple. When we reviewed how using a simple ?” round-over bit in a trim router to address the edges would make the whole shelf much warmer and touch friendly, it was a eureka moment. Pete instantly understood why it was so beneficial to the project yet without this brief woodworking class it would never have occurred to him.

Sand old women. Sand like the wind.

On the other hand, Pete reveled in the hands-on work. Even tasks as mundane as running a random orbit sander over a flat surface were rewarding because their results could instantly be felt and appreciated.

The completed shelf, in all its basic, functional glory.

While spending a few hours in my shop, making a simple utilitarian shelf hasn’t made Pete a woodworking expert by any means, even small projects like this are important when shared with others. By choosing such a simple project, and working on it from start to finish, Pete partook in the most important part of woodworking, the creation of a piece from a block of wood.  He caught the bug. The actual methodology, the skills to make complex pieces on his own, that will come with time. First he needed the desire and that has been firmly planted.

A happy new woodworker!

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A few weeks ago the folks over at MicroJig were nice enough to send me a pair of GRR-Rippers and their new MicroDial tapering jig. By the time Katie’s Quilt Rack was finished the GRR-Rippers had proven themselves must have shop aids.

When I unpacked the box from MicroJig, I was excite by the build quality of their hardware. Because I already own their MJ Splitter and ZeroPlay Guide Bar I wasn’t surprised by the quality, but it was still nice to see on their flagship product. Thankfully, the MicroJigs and MicroDial tapering jig they sent me were pre-assembled. When I read through the assembly instructions, I think putting them together might have been the hardest part of using them.

In the shop, I put the GRR-Rippers right to work on my Katie’s Quilt Rack project. While building the sculpted quilt rack didn’t involve any tapered cuts, it did see lots of square rips on the table saw (to prepare the leg blanks and make the panels which were glued up for the drawer box).

All done with the GRR-Ripper

For these cuts, both narrow and wide, I used the GRR-Rippers to push the maple and walnut blanks through the saw. While I’m sure most of you know how wonderful the GRR-Rippers are at cutting small and narrow stock, what impressed me the most about them was their overall gripping ability.

I used them on relatively wide stock (4” to 8”). This may make it seem as though the GRR-Rippers were unnecessary. While that is technically true (I could have cut the boards with my old push blocks), even in this situation the GRR-Rippers proved amazingly helpful. Their most outstanding feature is the grippy stuff on the bottom. It’s a rubber like material of some sort. It grips the wood like glue.

On the long, wide pieces of the quilt rack there was no edge to hook a finger (or push stick) on while performing the first 2/3 of the cut. With my hands (or a less grippy push block) I would have worried about slipping across the top of the board during such a cut. Not with the GRR-Rippers. They did not slip.

The GRR-Rippers proved a great accessory to my table saw for all cuts. Given how well they grip, I’m tempted to buy the new GRR-Rip Bock too, as it’s a simpler device with the same grippy bottom. The MicroDial Tapering Jig will have to wait until I have a tapered project. I expect it’ll perform just as well. I’ll let you know how it does.Dont forget about the +Modern Woodworkers Association Podcast. We talk woodworking with Guests from around the world of woodworking every other week. Subscribe to the RSS feed or iTunes today.

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Penultimate Woodshop Renovations

It’s been a busy few weeks at the Punltimate Woodshop. I’ve been hanging over at the Modern Woodworkers Association as of late. We’ve had much going on with our promotion deal for Woodworking in America and we’ve been working to negotiate a successful truce between the online woodworking community and Fine Woodworking.While I havent had time to write much, I have snuck into the shop now and then to keep the renovation moving forward (even if very slowly). Here are my latest accomplishments on assembling the shop wall.

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Let Me Show You How To Get Your Flashing Bent

When Im not woodworking (or talking about woodworking or going to a woodworking conference) Im a project manager for Roof Services, a large roofing and waterproofing firm on Long Island. In that role Ive been lucky enough to connect with the nice folks at Fine Homebuilding to record a few of our recent residential projects. I had a full length article on residential flat roofs in the June/July 2012 issue (#228).

My Coworker Tom, during a video shoot at the Fine Homebuilding Project House.

A few weeks ago I shot a short video with Fine Homebuilding, explaining how to bend copper chimney flashing from sheet copper. The video was released yesterday on the Fine Homebuilding web site. Ive had a chance to watch it, and thanks mostly to their great editing ability, I think its pretty good. Im certainly proud of it.
If you like mixed media in your woodworking projects, there are bits in here you can pick up that will apply to any sheet metal you may fabricate with. If youre only into woodworking, then Im sorry youll have to wait for my next post. I was in the middle of writing a review of Maurice Pommiers Grandpas Workshop, but the release of this video was too exciting to pass up. The review will come next week, along with more woodworking.

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