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#1 ·
Joinery Details

Joinery is the art of knowing what wood to remove and what to leave behind. Reductive & simple, yet seductive in its intricacies balancing negative space with strength. Take too much wood away and you leave no strength. Take too little and you've compromised the tenon. You are the joinery designer/ engineer.

There are several important details to know about wood and its properties. Double a board's measure in height and it is twice as strong as doubling a board in its width. Hmm. Wood moves more across its growth rings than between and none in its length. Hmm, again. Wood has little tensile strength between its fibers. There is more, but finally you have to practice. To learn what is a good fit takes practice and care with one's tools.

Northwest Woodworking Studio

Furniture Table Wood Rectangle Writing desk
 

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#205 ·
My Transmutable Bench

In the middle of a storm, commonplace things change. My bench for instance. When building a piece for a deadline, my recognizable bench becomes a place of chaos, a haven for every tool, every piece of scrap wood, for every note and drawing, dull tool, and a ready to hand assortment of screws and sandpaper, most of which I will not use. A place for everyone and everything. Emptying it will take days. It becomes not just a symbol of my own tumult. It is a signal of the state of my mind. Seemingly hundreds of items collect across it at once and I am able mostly, if no one disturbs the clutter, to find the things I need in order to build. But it is transformed before my eyes. It is a tableau of my life, of my mind. It is stunning and I say it is a sign of intelligence with so many "ideas" strewn about.

You on the other hand may find it vaguely recognizable if true.

Northwest Woodworking Studio Mastery Programs

Table Wood Interior design Writing desk Wood stain
 

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#207 ·
My Transmutable Bench

In the middle of a storm, commonplace things change. My bench for instance. When building a piece for a deadline, my recognizable bench becomes a place of chaos, a haven for every tool, every piece of scrap wood, for every note and drawing, dull tool, and a ready to hand assortment of screws and sandpaper, most of which I will not use. A place for everyone and everything. Emptying it will take days. It becomes not just a symbol of my own tumult. It is a signal of the state of my mind. Seemingly hundreds of items collect across it at once and I am able mostly, if no one disturbs the clutter, to find the things I need in order to build. But it is transformed before my eyes. It is a tableau of my life, of my mind. It is stunning and I say it is a sign of intelligence with so many "ideas" strewn about.

You on the other hand may find it vaguely recognizable if true.

Northwest Woodworking Studio Mastery Programs

Table Wood Interior design Writing desk Wood stain
Sounds like my whole Workshop!
 

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#206 ·
My Transmutable Bench

In the middle of a storm, commonplace things change. My bench for instance. When building a piece for a deadline, my recognizable bench becomes a place of chaos, a haven for every tool, every piece of scrap wood, for every note and drawing, dull tool, and a ready to hand assortment of screws and sandpaper, most of which I will not use. A place for everyone and everything. Emptying it will take days. It becomes not just a symbol of my own tumult. It is a signal of the state of my mind. Seemingly hundreds of items collect across it at once and I am able mostly, if no one disturbs the clutter, to find the things I need in order to build. But it is transformed before my eyes. It is a tableau of my life, of my mind. It is stunning and I say it is a sign of intelligence with so many "ideas" strewn about.

You on the other hand may find it vaguely recognizable if true.

Northwest Woodworking Studio Mastery Programs

Table Wood Interior design Writing desk Wood stain
 

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#211 ·
Do Good Work

How can anyone afford to do good work these days? Isn't the strain of surviving enough to make mediocre work good enough? As that famous poet once said, You gonna have to serve somebody. So who's it gonna be? Your landlord or the voice inside you asking you to do it right this time.

I can't choose for you. I can only choose for myself. These were the standards I said I had to adhere to and if I couldn't meet those then it wasn't worth doing. Yeah, some days those standards were higher than others. Yep, some days I wanted to jump off a cliff rather than do the nitpicky goddang minutiae, why-in-the-hell-worry-'bout-that-spot kinda work I can get involved in sometimes. Sometimes that money losing work is enough to drive you crazy.

But when it's done right, when the job is done, and you've done it 4 times just to get it right and you step back and you look at your work, the ability to be able to say, It was done right. That was worth a lot to me. Cheap taco dinners usually, but worth eating them in order to be able to walk away satisifed. Mastery ain't for everybody. That's why it's called mastery and not mediocrity.

Signature Piece by Mastery student, Patrick McGlade, 2014

Furniture Couch Wood Chair Rectangle
 

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#212 ·
Do Good Work

How can anyone afford to do good work these days? Isn't the strain of surviving enough to make mediocre work good enough? As that famous poet once said, You gonna have to serve somebody. So who's it gonna be? Your landlord or the voice inside you asking you to do it right this time.

I can't choose for you. I can only choose for myself. These were the standards I said I had to adhere to and if I couldn't meet those then it wasn't worth doing. Yeah, some days those standards were higher than others. Yep, some days I wanted to jump off a cliff rather than do the nitpicky goddang minutiae, why-in-the-hell-worry-'bout-that-spot kinda work I can get involved in sometimes. Sometimes that money losing work is enough to drive you crazy.

But when it's done right, when the job is done, and you've done it 4 times just to get it right and you step back and you look at your work, the ability to be able to say, It was done right. That was worth a lot to me. Cheap taco dinners usually, but worth eating them in order to be able to walk away satisifed. Mastery ain't for everybody. That's why it's called mastery and not mediocrity.

Signature Piece by Mastery student, Patrick McGlade, 2014

Furniture Couch Wood Chair Rectangle
If you can't do it right, why bother!
 

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#217 ·
Taking Down a Tree

I hate cutting down trees. As much as I love the wood that comes from them, there is still something about cutting down a tree that seems to me an affront. A crime against the sky. Certainly it is a loss of some valuable shade in the heat of the sun. And it changes a landscape, a street view.

But it was half dead and once cut, discovered to be rotten inside. It had to come down now in a noisy if controlled fashion rather than taking out someone's car some chance day. It was a good sized tree and it had a good run of time. Pretty looking wood. But all wood, wet and fresh from a saw cut, looks like Christmas. I do still hope for a good slab or two.

The thing about cutting a tree down is the finality of it. It's up and standing and a pain in your side and maybe a hazard and in a few hours, it's gone. Like it never existed. I don't like cutting down trees because it makes me feel just as temporary. Maybe even more so as I was younger than that tree. Still I'll try to make something out it instead of just burning all of it. Now that is a crime.

Northwest Woodworking Studio

Sky Twig Branch Tree Electricity


Sky Plant Wood Tints and shades Tree


Sky Wood Plant Trunk Art
 

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#218 ·
Taking Down a Tree

I hate cutting down trees. As much as I love the wood that comes from them, there is still something about cutting down a tree that seems to me an affront. A crime against the sky. Certainly it is a loss of some valuable shade in the heat of the sun. And it changes a landscape, a street view.

But it was half dead and once cut, discovered to be rotten inside. It had to come down now in a noisy if controlled fashion rather than taking out someone's car some chance day. It was a good sized tree and it had a good run of time. Pretty looking wood. But all wood, wet and fresh from a saw cut, looks like Christmas. I do still hope for a good slab or two.

The thing about cutting a tree down is the finality of it. It's up and standing and a pain in your side and maybe a hazard and in a few hours, it's gone. Like it never existed. I don't like cutting down trees because it makes me feel just as temporary. Maybe even more so as I was younger than that tree. Still I'll try to make something out it instead of just burning all of it. Now that is a crime.

Northwest Woodworking Studio

Sky Twig Branch Tree Electricity


Sky Plant Wood Tints and shades Tree


Sky Wood Plant Trunk Art
Amen,

From one tree hugger to another. I'm setting myself up with tools to go to our compost site and do as much honor as I can to the gifts of Mother Nature.
 

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#222 ·
Taking Down a Tree, Part Two

The tree is down. No ceremony was performed for it. As a street tree, this maple had a pretty good long run. I was sorry to have to remove it but seeing it fallen over on top of a car would have made me a bit sorrier. It was half dead as was plain to see this spring and rot would soon take over the trunk. So.

It was actually pretty cool to watch how the arborist, Aaron, took it down. He roped up and started dropping limbs, both dead and alive from the top on down. When he got close to the crotch is when I became really interested.

Sky Twig Branch Tree Electricity


Where you make your first cut determines so much about the kind of wood you might receive from the tree. About 7' up, we had two big limbs split off from one another. This crotch area can reveal beautiful grain. You could already see some spalting on the outside of the tree and some ripple in the grain. I wanted to capture all that in some slabs so I had Aaron cut off just about the crotch split.

Plant Sky Tower Wood Terrestrial plant


From there, he switched out chainsaws to one with a rip blade on it and made two rip cuts so we could maximize the crotch wood. Almost lined them up but that's a tough cut to nail. It's a big kerf too. You can see right through it.

Plant Wood Trunk Trunk Tints and shades


Once he got the log split, then he crosscut the sections down. This is when it became apparent that there was some real pretty wood here and a bunch of rot as well. You can see how the right side, the dead side, is starting to rot out from the center. That's how it goes whenever you cut down a tree. You never know the surprises that await.

Sky Wood Plant Trunk Art
 

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#223 ·
Taking Down a Tree, Part Two

The tree is down. No ceremony was performed for it. As a street tree, this maple had a pretty good long run. I was sorry to have to remove it but seeing it fallen over on top of a car would have made me a bit sorrier. It was half dead as was plain to see this spring and rot would soon take over the trunk. So.

It was actually pretty cool to watch how the arborist, Aaron, took it down. He roped up and started dropping limbs, both dead and alive from the top on down. When he got close to the crotch is when I became really interested.

Sky Twig Branch Tree Electricity


Where you make your first cut determines so much about the kind of wood you might receive from the tree. About 7' up, we had two big limbs split off from one another. This crotch area can reveal beautiful grain. You could already see some spalting on the outside of the tree and some ripple in the grain. I wanted to capture all that in some slabs so I had Aaron cut off just about the crotch split.

Plant Sky Tower Wood Terrestrial plant


From there, he switched out chainsaws to one with a rip blade on it and made two rip cuts so we could maximize the crotch wood. Almost lined them up but that's a tough cut to nail. It's a big kerf too. You can see right through it.

Plant Wood Trunk Trunk Tints and shades


Once he got the log split, then he crosscut the sections down. This is when it became apparent that there was some real pretty wood here and a bunch of rot as well. You can see how the right side, the dead side, is starting to rot out from the center. That's how it goes whenever you cut down a tree. You never know the surprises that await.

Sky Wood Plant Trunk Art
Very cool. Thanks for sharing.
 

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#228 ·
Why Not Dovetails?

Hand cut dovetails are a pain in the butt. So some would say. I say differently. They are a giant . . . delight.

Consider the dovetails below, cut by John in last year's Resident Mastery Program. This drawer is pretty small. Dovetails are overkill for its strength requirements. And yet they add so much beauty to the piece. And these half blind dovetails are actually easier to cut than through dovetails. Hmm.

Wood Rectangle Drawer Hardwood Varnish


Also think about the value of this hand cut work. It's not just to hold something together forever. It's a statement about how you consider your own efforts. What you think them to be worth. It's pretty apparent how Matthew in our current Distance Mastery Group feels about his work. He's darn proud of it and he should be.

Join us June 15-19 and learn to cut some dovetails with us. Or improve your skills at it. I guarantee that you will get better at the table saw by doing so. And you'll get better at dovetails too.

Brown Wood Rectangle Wood stain Flooring


Northwest Woodworking Studio Mastery Programs
 

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#229 ·
Why Not Dovetails?

Hand cut dovetails are a pain in the butt. So some would say. I say differently. They are a giant . . . delight.

Consider the dovetails below, cut by John in last year's Resident Mastery Program. This drawer is pretty small. Dovetails are overkill for its strength requirements. And yet they add so much beauty to the piece. And these half blind dovetails are actually easier to cut than through dovetails. Hmm.

Wood Rectangle Drawer Hardwood Varnish


Also think about the value of this hand cut work. It's not just to hold something together forever. It's a statement about how you consider your own efforts. What you think them to be worth. It's pretty apparent how Matthew in our current Distance Mastery Group feels about his work. He's darn proud of it and he should be.

Join us June 15-19 and learn to cut some dovetails with us. Or improve your skills at it. I guarantee that you will get better at the table saw by doing so. And you'll get better at dovetails too.

Brown Wood Rectangle Wood stain Flooring


Northwest Woodworking Studio Mastery Programs
I could only dream of having the time and money to be coached on executing this kind of joinery. The string inlays are perfect not to mention the dovetails.
 

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#231 ·
Being in the Shop

I cannot tell what woodworking does for most people. For some it is a simple hobby. It is a pastime where you get to work with some tools and build something nice or useful. For others it's a job, how you make your money and provide for your family.

Still for other woodworkers I think it is an important escape from the world. The shop becomes a spot where you can finally be in control for a change. You alone are responsible for the failures and successes at the bench. You get the credit for both. You also get to finish a job. It's not taken from you or given to someone else to wrap up. It's yours from start to end.

Many makers love the variety of tasks and problems that have to be addressed and solved. Lots of hats to wear as the builder of a piece from design to lumber selection and milling, joinery and assembly, and then don't screw up that finish. A cornucopia of tasks.

For me it is what centers me and holds me steady. It is my work, my hobby, my career, my drug of choice. When building something I really like, a design that makes me happy, time goes away. I go away. And then I get to build things. I get to work with tools and wood at my bench, in my little world that I have created, and as an added bonus, I get to build things. Lucky me, being in the shop.

The Northwest Woodworking Studio


Brown Wood Rectangle Art Wood stain
 

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#232 ·
Being in the Shop

I cannot tell what woodworking does for most people. For some it is a simple hobby. It is a pastime where you get to work with some tools and build something nice or useful. For others it's a job, how you make your money and provide for your family.

Still for other woodworkers I think it is an important escape from the world. The shop becomes a spot where you can finally be in control for a change. You alone are responsible for the failures and successes at the bench. You get the credit for both. You also get to finish a job. It's not taken from you or given to someone else to wrap up. It's yours from start to end.

Many makers love the variety of tasks and problems that have to be addressed and solved. Lots of hats to wear as the builder of a piece from design to lumber selection and milling, joinery and assembly, and then don't screw up that finish. A cornucopia of tasks.

For me it is what centers me and holds me steady. It is my work, my hobby, my career, my drug of choice. When building something I really like, a design that makes me happy, time goes away. I go away. And then I get to build things. I get to work with tools and wood at my bench, in my little world that I have created, and as an added bonus, I get to build things. Lucky me, being in the shop.

The Northwest Woodworking Studio


Brown Wood Rectangle Art Wood stain
Wow, Gary..
This sums everything up perfectly !! I can visualize the text of this blog entry printed on a poster, framed, and hanging on the wall of any wood shop as an inspiration.

Great read!
 

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#239 ·
As If

I haven't practiced sawing in a while. As if that makes any difference.

It does. I will get to the bench and try my hand at a dovetail and I won't know where exactly to put my feet. Or rather, I put my feet where I think they're supposed to go and they don't feel quite right. Or I don't feel right and I'm thinking about how to stand instead of standing and cutting. First tail gets done. I start to cut the second tail and I start to feel that things are getting right again. I launch into the third and now I know I'm back home.

It always takes time to find your pace. To find that body memory. It only takes practice.

Mastery Programs

Brown Wood Door Rectangle Flooring
 

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#240 ·
As If

I haven't practiced sawing in a while. As if that makes any difference.

It does. I will get to the bench and try my hand at a dovetail and I won't know where exactly to put my feet. Or rather, I put my feet where I think they're supposed to go and they don't feel quite right. Or I don't feel right and I'm thinking about how to stand instead of standing and cutting. First tail gets done. I start to cut the second tail and I start to feel that things are getting right again. I launch into the third and now I know I'm back home.

It always takes time to find your pace. To find that body memory. It only takes practice.

Mastery Programs

Brown Wood Door Rectangle Flooring
What does the first one look like? Do you take practice cuts? Good to know that we are all somewhat alike. LOL!
 

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#241 ·
Chair Design, Please Sit

Chair design is a fairly new design concept. Read Witold Rybczynski's book called Home and he points out that chairs were used only by royalty for centuries. The idea of comfort only came later on after the Middle Ages. The notion that people could sit unceremoniously slouched around a dinner table took a few more centuries to take hold.

We discover the intricacies of chair design this weekend. Three days of design, engineering, and joinery. What a trio! On Day One we look into the needs of design, function vs. intention, how joinery affects the look of a piece, and how to engineer the important triangle into our chair. We will sketch, build a 1/4 scale aesthetic model of our chair design and then a sittable prototype by the end of the weekend. Good fun.

Northwest Woodworking Studio

Chair Wood Wood stain Natural material Hardwood
 

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#242 ·
Chair Design, Please Sit

Chair design is a fairly new design concept. Read Witold Rybczynski's book called Home and he points out that chairs were used only by royalty for centuries. The idea of comfort only came later on after the Middle Ages. The notion that people could sit unceremoniously slouched around a dinner table took a few more centuries to take hold.

We discover the intricacies of chair design this weekend. Three days of design, engineering, and joinery. What a trio! On Day One we look into the needs of design, function vs. intention, how joinery affects the look of a piece, and how to engineer the important triangle into our chair. We will sketch, build a 1/4 scale aesthetic model of our chair design and then a sittable prototype by the end of the weekend. Good fun.

Northwest Woodworking Studio

Chair Wood Wood stain Natural material Hardwood
Gary,

Chairs are different, seemingly simple, yet more complex. And the joinery? Have a great time sir!
 

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#243 ·
The Battleship

Projects come, projects stay. I walked around the shop one day to count the projects I had started only to put down for one reason or another. I got depressed by the number 20. Unfinished for any number of reasons. I cut a panel too short on one. I wasn't sure of the curve of another. Not hard to make a new panel, 0r try to mock up the curve. That logic does not fly in the face of a simple defeat. I just let the projects linger, go to your corner.

What is it that stumps me? Probably this doesn't happen for you, this is probably just me. I think for me it is the battleship called focus. The work is never the issue, I am the issue. Getting me to focus long enough on the problem at hand usually solves it in such a short time that it's embarrassing.

Get the battleship turned around and pointed in the right direction and it's amazing how quickly I can knock out one of those unfinished jobs. So I'll make another list and put a couple of these nearly complete pieces close by and see if I can knock one out today, in an hour or two.

Northwest Woodworking Studio

Cabinetry Furniture Wood Rectangle Cupboard
 

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#244 ·
The Battleship

Projects come, projects stay. I walked around the shop one day to count the projects I had started only to put down for one reason or another. I got depressed by the number 20. Unfinished for any number of reasons. I cut a panel too short on one. I wasn't sure of the curve of another. Not hard to make a new panel, 0r try to mock up the curve. That logic does not fly in the face of a simple defeat. I just let the projects linger, go to your corner.

What is it that stumps me? Probably this doesn't happen for you, this is probably just me. I think for me it is the battleship called focus. The work is never the issue, I am the issue. Getting me to focus long enough on the problem at hand usually solves it in such a short time that it's embarrassing.

Get the battleship turned around and pointed in the right direction and it's amazing how quickly I can knock out one of those unfinished jobs. So I'll make another list and put a couple of these nearly complete pieces close by and see if I can knock one out today, in an hour or two.

Northwest Woodworking Studio

Cabinetry Furniture Wood Rectangle Cupboard
Gary
It's great to know that someone of your talents and abilities has a number of unfinished projects, now I feel a little less alone in the half dozen or so projects I have stuffed on shelves waiting for the last 10% of the work to be done. Your encouragement about just putting them on your "to do"list gives me motivation to move forward. Thanks for another super blog.
 

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#245 ·
The Battleship

Projects come, projects stay. I walked around the shop one day to count the projects I had started only to put down for one reason or another. I got depressed by the number 20. Unfinished for any number of reasons. I cut a panel too short on one. I wasn't sure of the curve of another. Not hard to make a new panel, 0r try to mock up the curve. That logic does not fly in the face of a simple defeat. I just let the projects linger, go to your corner.

What is it that stumps me? Probably this doesn't happen for you, this is probably just me. I think for me it is the battleship called focus. The work is never the issue, I am the issue. Getting me to focus long enough on the problem at hand usually solves it in such a short time that it's embarrassing.

Get the battleship turned around and pointed in the right direction and it's amazing how quickly I can knock out one of those unfinished jobs. So I'll make another list and put a couple of these nearly complete pieces close by and see if I can knock one out today, in an hour or two.

Northwest Woodworking Studio

Cabinetry Furniture Wood Rectangle Cupboard
Gary, that piece is so beautiful. It's a wonderful design.

helluvawreck aka Charles
http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com
 

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#256 ·
Liberal Arts Education

In working with high school interns last year, I was asked to write about our program. I sent this in to a local newspaper. It sums up my feelings about a liberal arts education.

Why I Did the WIN Class
Letter to the Albany Democrat Herald, 2014

What was great was to see how excited these kids were to learn. They listened to me talk about geometry and physics. They asked questions about these subjects. They listened to me talk about joinery and cutting angles. They were to a person all interested in learning. And that's what education should be about: curiosity and the excitement of discovery. Add on that you get to put your hands on tools and it's a slam dunk for just about every demographic. But certainly it is of vital importance for our kids. Please let all our educators know that hands on education needs to be back in every school. From the arts to music to shop class, we need to train our kids in the broadest possible way. This is called a liberal arts education. I'm a fan of it.

Join us on the 11th of September for a fundraiser in support of the WIN program. We're trying to expand our efforts into local Portland area schools.

NWS/WIN

Footwear Jeans Shoe Wood Artisan
 

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#257 ·
Liberal Arts Education

In working with high school interns last year, I was asked to write about our program. I sent this in to a local newspaper. It sums up my feelings about a liberal arts education.

Why I Did the WIN Class
Letter to the Albany Democrat Herald, 2014

What was great was to see how excited these kids were to learn. They listened to me talk about geometry and physics. They asked questions about these subjects. They listened to me talk about joinery and cutting angles. They were to a person all interested in learning. And that's what education should be about: curiosity and the excitement of discovery. Add on that you get to put your hands on tools and it's a slam dunk for just about every demographic. But certainly it is of vital importance for our kids. Please let all our educators know that hands on education needs to be back in every school. From the arts to music to shop class, we need to train our kids in the broadest possible way. This is called a liberal arts education. I'm a fan of it.

Join us on the 11th of September for a fundraiser in support of the WIN program. We're trying to expand our efforts into local Portland area schools.

NWS/WIN

Footwear Jeans Shoe Wood Artisan
agreed, well rounded is the base of an open mind. Thanks for posting Gary!
 

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