Rogue's Blog at LumberJocks.com http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:59:50 GMT Back to the computer http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/12070 The holiday has given me a few moments to catch up with posting on LJ. Got the swine flu then a stumach flu only days apart. Did you know that it you can’t go out to the shop no work get done. I thought there were wood shop elves but I guess thats only for shoes hu. Anyhoo I was down for about three week and it has taken that long to get cought up. I did learn a new way to know that you have the career that you are suposed to have. Though I was hugly behind I couldn’t come up with something to have my employee to do. I looked at all my work and said, “I don’t want to give him all my work!!” So I ended up starting new projects so he could be busy.

]]> Thu, 26 Nov 2009 02:59:50 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/12070 Rogue Rogue The Art of Wood #2: Learning http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/10872 Most all of the projects that come through the shop are things that people didn’t know that thay could have done. In addition most of my projects, the ones that are a big enough deal to post on LJ’s, are things that I’ve never done before. Mind you it is harder to convince a custormer to commition a piece when all they have is your word that you can do it well without having a reference of the exact project that they want made. This line always closes the deal though “My best pieces are things I have never done before”. Right now I am building to match a 1920 Bovarian style. This is such a rich period of furniture. It is ornate and homie at the same time. It is nearly all build of quarter sawn oak, I love that stuff! and all of the tops of all the period peice I studied have beautiful marqued tops.
This isn’t something that I would have just gotten into. I would have never woke up one morning and said, “I think I’ll build something bovarian today”. In fact left to my own devices I only build conteperary studio furniture when I build for myself or something to sell. The point is that no matter what your favorite dicipline in woodworking it is essential to have a diverce experience with different building style. Next time you are trying to come up with a project to build go to a freind or family memder and ask them if you could build something to match there household furniture. Research the style and history of the period and build something out of your box.

]]> Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:11:24 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/10872 Rogue Rogue The Art of Wood #1: Lets Make Some Plans http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/7651 Wow, thanks for all the response on my last post! I love it when woodworkers get passionate and lets face it no one can show passion like a woodworker. I got a lot of great insite from you guys. I also wanted to qualify a few things.
I love to draw!! Thats what sent me to art school in the first place. Life drawing is still one of my faverite pass times. The human body is one of the most intriguing forms to consider in all the world. I have taken drawing and painting classes since I was a kid. I have ofter wondered how a person could go from that to woodworking. I resently figured it out. I was in love with the structure, tone, and movement of the body. I am fasinated by the parts and how they interact with each other. Sounds a little like woodworking doesn’t it. One of the primary design rules is that things look right if they are like the body. This is were we get prisiples like the the “Golden mean” and “The Devine Proportion”. Something only works if it fits or resembles the human form.
I’m not a plan guy (already stated). Design decissions come to me on the fly. When I get an idea the parts fly together in my head (usually faster than I can handle). I’m very visual. Even when I am reproducing something all I use is a very basic drawing and photos. And yes, as one of you pointed out, I’m a pain in the butt to work colaborativly with. I have the idea in my head, those pieces are flying together, and I can’t understand why the other person can’t keep up :-) But I know some of you aren’t photographicly minded and thats cool. Plans or no plans, your project has to feel right. If you are a plan person be mindful if something doesn’t feel write, if it doesn’t flow organicly, change it. If you don’t think it looks comfortable for your body it probably won’t be for anyone else either. That’s what I like about not using plans it frees you to work intuitivly and things are made to flow as you work.

The thing I want to leave you with is that if we are biulding something for the body to use we need to study the body. Weather it’s a chair to sit in or a table to sit at, a gun stock to shoot with or a pen to write with our project should reflect what it was built for, the body. I think there’s a reason wood is still the number one matial to make things for humanity with. It can be so easily formed to work with our form. If you’re really sirious about improving your woodworking you might think about trading your hand tool classes for a few life drawing sessions. Once you understand the form you are building for and that understanding is refected in your work, your work will be set apart plans or no plans.

]]> Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:02:49 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/7651 Rogue Rogue I Never Use Plans http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/7626 I started woodworking seriously when I was in junior year of art school. I was sick of my profs telling me how to do this and that, and mostly what this and that meant conseptually. I knew to continue in my career after school I had to find something that was mine. Something that I could express myself in that they hadn’t destriod with their rule. To be able to have the level of fluidity in wood that I needed however I knew I had to build a knowladge base that transended plans. Once the inspiration of the design had been recieved I needed to just be able to visualize how it needed to be built. So I subscribed to ever wood magazine there is and poored over the plans and building articals. I bought all the woodworking plan books I could and studied the plans. I even got a cd with 400 woodworking plans and spent hours thumbing through them.

I have recieved alot of great comments on my new hope chest project on LJ and from others who saw them. Many of the comments though are “Where did you get the plans?” or some such. To their surpize I reply “there are no plans”. Infact I have never built a project from a plan. I design first, then if there is something I can’t get my mind around in the consruction I go online or dig though my wood mags to look at how someone else built something similar. Many times though my reference for a table comes from a artical on drawers or I look for chest constrution wisdom in a chair plan. If the project doesn’t require it I usually go off a very rough drawing with the basic final measurements of the piece.

Now days I don’t study plans. All my references now are the gallery pages in fine woodworking and studio furniture volumes and online gallerys. I’ve spent hour and hour recently looking at Artful.com and other studio furiture sites to see what other have designed and wonder about how I would build it. Take your woodworking for knowlage to wisdom. Through out you plans and start designing.

]]> Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:52:15 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/7626 Rogue Rogue I've got the blues http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/7308 An upcoming piece on my project page will be the new bunk beds I’m marketing. The one I’m working on now is biult out of blue pine. These two words have become a dirty word in the fine woodworking world. I love hardwood as much as the next wood freak but I think this wood has gotten a bad wrap. With the finishes and building technology we have today pine can be durable and strong if used right. I have had a great time this week seeing this great wood come to life in my shop. One of my favorite things about it though is that you can workout the construction of a peice that you make for the first time. If you mess up you aren’t burning a $13 bf piece of exsotic hardwood. Yet when you get done you still have a decent looking product. If you are harboring a pejudice agains this nice, fun to work wood maybe you should go out and pick up a stick of blue pine and see what you can come up with.

]]> Sun, 01 Feb 2009 06:45:05 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/7308 Rogue Rogue Time http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/6980 I have come to see a photograph as a good analogy for woodworking. my new year resolution is to make more pieces for sale as oppossed to doing mostly commition and ordered work. This “photo” theme is the reason for this new direction. The world seems to have sped up. I have poeple that complain about how long things take to complete. In connection to that, they can’t beleive the price of my service even though I have one of the lowest shop rates for 100 miles. A still frame picture is a frozen moment in time. It reminds us of the way things were. It holds a record that no matter how the way we see things change some things will always remain. This is the way of any craft that has stood the test of time. We come up with the technolagy to make the work easier. We may educate ourselves to the point there is little about woodworking that we don’t know. And our eye can be trained to see the smallest flaws in our work. The true difference between breathtaking piece and a poorly exicuted project is the time that was spent on it. This priciple is a reminder to our fast paced world that true quality takes time and will not tallerate a rush.

]]> Wed, 07 Jan 2009 03:19:10 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/6980 Rogue Rogue New Masters http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/6939 I found my christmas present to myself in a hastings on the way to Spokane Wa for christmas. It was “The New Masters of Woodtuning” not to be confused with “The Masters of Woodturning” printed about 15 years ago. This is a great book not only for turners but for woodworkers period. Many of the artists in this book touched on something that I found important when designing. I was reminded of it as I was commentting on a fellow jocks blog. A true artisan who is devoted to learning their craft cannot become so enamored with the material that he is using that he looses sight of his design. As woodworkers we love wood. In fact after I wrote up and distributed my broucher there were people saying that they were going to knock on my shop door before they come in after reading some of the things I wrote about my love affair with wood. That being said I belive that the warmth and beauty of our medium is going to shine through. In this world of pre-fab and cheap imports it is vital that a maker be committed to puching the emvelope on design. You know I have a very beautiful piece that sits down at one of the shops that carries my work unsold. It’s probably one of the more solid constructions that I have put together and it is made of very beautiful wood but I made one mistake on it. The wood that I used on it was so wonderful that I didn’t give the design the attention that it needed. Now after all the other piece sold over that holidays that one remains because it doesn’t have that little extra thing. The little nudge that pushes it over the line of “thats a nice table” to “I must have that, my life is not complete without that table in my house”. The wood isn’t enough by its self, if it were we could just go down and put a nicely sanded and finished board for sale. It is the design that sets our work apart. Now I’m not saying that we should judge our success on sales. But have the disipline to our craft to ask why it didn’t sell. And as a woodworker I know that it is important to consider the matirial. We should love wood and showcase it at every opertunity. After all our craft is about making wood look it’s best, but not at the expense of our creativity. It is important in our growth as craftsman to understand our matieral enough to get it to do what our design requires and what the world has never seen wood do before.

]]> Sun, 04 Jan 2009 17:18:30 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/6939 Rogue Rogue Rolling pin hardware http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/6870 Great comments on the rolling pins fellas. You are right about the lags. They are abit unsightly. Reseacing them and adding a plug would be a good solution, but it would also take more time. Don’t get me wrong I love to sink endless hours into my work like the rest of you but these are sora my mass produced items I make alot of them at a time and I need to keep what I have to charge for them low. I also like that the hardeare is accessible easy without any fuss for deep cleaning once in awhile. I have also started wholesaling them so I’m going to need to get even more of them out in a short amount of time. I think the real solution is just some nicer looking hardware. Any suggestions as to were I might get 3/8” x 6” screws that might be more attractive

]]> Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:27:37 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/6870 Rogue Rogue Spalted birch http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/6528 Keep your eyes open ladies and gents, you never know where and when an unparalleled wood treasure will wash up on you desert ile. I was recently given a couple of birtch branches by a retired arbidder. Didn’t think much of them. I figured I’d save them for a project that I needed a nice white stick for. One day I walked by them in my shop and I saw that the cut off of a small branches had dark inky lines spiderwebbing through it. I nearly wet myself! I propty set to work for the next couple of hours to mill out the branches. Sure enough they were full of some of the most beautifully spalting that I have ever seen. Get yourselves a 3/4” bandsaw blade and start milling out your “Yard Debris” and you “Firewood”. There is some great stuff out there if you don’t mind a treasure hunt!

]]> Thu, 27 Nov 2008 07:27:56 GMT http://lumberjocks.com/Rogue/blog/6528 Rogue Rogue