Take Good Pictures
If “A picture is worth a thousand words,” then then a GOOD picture must be worth 10,000 words. Lumberjock John Greco very graciously pointed this out right off the bat. But how do you take good pictures?

• Use natural light. I stumbled onto this by mistake. I had taken some pictures inside the house using lamps for my lighting. The pictures were not bad, but not that great either. Then I took some pictures in a different corner of the house—but in front of a large picture window. The change to natural light made such a difference I’ve never gone back. There is something about the natural light that brings out the deep, rich color of wood—especially figured wood.

• Use a creative background. Setup your project that has natural texture, color, lines, shapes, etc. I’ve used stones from our creek, an old church hymnal, freshly cut lawn, rhododendron leaves, hostas, a dictionary (opened to the word “pen”), and cut barn stones. I also used the sky for a set of pictures. I took my new mirror (shhhhh) and laid it on the ground with a bright blue sky in the background. The reflection of the pen with the sky in the background was really cool.
  

• Use a tripod. There is no way you’ll get consistently sharp pictures holding them in your hands. A cheap tripod goes a long way to having nice pictures that look semi-professional.

• Use the camera timer. This is a little trick that takes the “still shot” to a new level. Since I know that I will probably shake the camera when I push the button, I decided to remove this problem by letting the camera count down and take the picture with me a couple of steps away. The results: better pictures. Try it out. You’ll see what I mean.

• Take close-up pictures. Most cameras have a zoom that will let you take nice close-ups showing the details of your work. Again, a nice, crisp close-up will show important facts about your work that a customer will want to know.

• Take multiple pictures from multiple angles. It’s nice to have a many pictures to choose from rather than having to use the four you took—regardless of how good or bad they are.

Remember, the person looking at your work on line is not able to hold it in their hands. Use your pictures to show potential customers what you’ve done and what they are buying.

I’m having a lot of fun making pens, and decided that—while the pens are the same types of pens that others sell—this wood that I’ve found is absolutely amazing! So we’re going to give this a shot and see how it goes.

If you’re interested in looking, here’s the link: http://www.etsy.com/shop/ThePastorsPenShop?ref=si_shop

Have a great day!

So I pulled out a piece of 3/4” oak that was sitting around, cut it in half, and started laying out the cuts for a very thin “mallet.” I used a blue pen, which is part of the dark line you see along the joints. (They actually are very tight—tighter than I expected.) I didn’t take a lot of time to in laying it out, and my entire time in the shop was 45 minutes. As you can see, I did not include the tenon. But I did include both side dovetails.

Why am I posting this? To show how versatile and simple this joint really is. I also wanted to check to see if you actually need to relief-cut the back sides of the dovetails. I didn’t this time. I simply clamped dovetails to compress them and began sliding it in place. I used a 3 lbs hammer to drive the “handle” into the “head,” but I didn’t really it it that hard this time. Once it got started, the whole thing went together very easily.

Practice. This is a great exercise in layout, chiseling, sawing, getting your head around these goofy angles!

So get out to the shop and have some fun!

As you can see, I shaped the handle a little differently than they showed in the magazine. I like the squared-off handle better. I also stained the head one color and then applied several coats of tung oil to the whole thing.

Thanks, again, to venues like LJ, Roy Underhill, and the folks over at Popular Woodworking. My woodworking is better because of you all.

I like you a lot more this week. Lots.

Sincerely,

Mallet Boy in PA

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If you haven’t gotten a copy of the April 2012 issue of Popular Woodworking, do it today. That’s where this insanity all got started. But I’m telling you, I never could have launched into this if it weren’t for that article. They do a great job. Check them out.

The second attempt with the hardwood turned out to be much better. Doing a practice run with the poplar was a great idea and helped me figure out the angles and such.

As I wrote in the previous blog, I also used my marking knife for nearly every cut. When I couldn’t see the mark it was making, I used a fine-tip pen. That helped out, too. Using two dedicated marking gauges was also helpful. Same with the sliding t-bevel.

I’m pretty happy with the results.

The joints were much better, too.

Some things I learned:

1. Perfection doesn’t come the first time, and that’s okay. The second time is usually going to be better, so give your project a second attempt.
2. When I was cutting the sides of the mallet head, I used my chisel to cut a starter-groove for my saw. That helped create nice, crisp joints. A must for this project.
3. The hardwood (which I think is either oak or ash—it was a hand-me-down) was easier to work with than I expected.
4. I had my boys help me with the assembly. They were totally into it and excited with the results. More generational woodworking.
5. I test fit this and re-measured just about every way I knew possible. When I was ready to “bite the bullet,” I glued it up real good, and started assembly. YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE how hard I had to hit this to get it to go together. Even still, the fit is pretty much right on.
6. The only change I would make is in the assembly. As you can see from the detail of the top of the mallet head, there is some discoloration on the right side. I didn’t realize that my mallet head was bottomed out on the vise, and I sort of crushed the end grain on that side. Not a big deal, but I would be more careful about that if I were doing it again.

I’ll add some finish and include a closing picture later.

Thanks for looking in.

I hate you.

Sincerely,
Mallet Muttering in Pennsylvania

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Actually, I don’t hate Roy. And I’m not that disappointed as to this first attempt.

If you haven’t gotten the April 2012 issue of Popular Woodworkinghttp://www.popularwoodworking.com/apr12, you need to get it… now. They’ve got a great article by Roy Underhill on making the Mystery Mallet that you’ve been seeing around.

This actually is turning out to be a lot of fun. Before you point out the obvious, I know I shouldn’t have used poplar. But I just got this nice, thick piece of poplar and thought it would be a good place to start.

Although the joint isn’t totally tight, the concept is right on the money. I am very encouraged about this.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Take extra time to lay this out with a sharp pencil or marking knife.
2. It helps to have multiple marking gauges, dividers, sliding t-bevels, etc. that you can designate for one set up at a time.
3. Mark the head of your mallet and the handle with sides (A, B, C, D) and TOP, BOTTOM.
4. If you get stuck, bring the wood in the house, get a drink of water, go to bed (it will probably be around 1 a.m.) and sleep on it. :-)
5. Use something other than poplar. (I have a thick piece of oak that I’ve set aside for something fun, like this.)

It will take a little time to get your head around these angles, slopes, joints, etc. These practice cuts have helped me get a better understanding of how this should work. Maybe tomorrow I’ll cut into the oak.

Maybe.

I was a little late in hearing about it, but realized it was still a good idea. So this past week I had my 11 year old son in the shop. We drew some design ideas, picked out wood, cut some dovetails, selected stain color options, and worked on a project together.

I’ve not posted a picture of the project. The project doesn’t matter. What matters was the time spent with my son. And as you can see below, it was time well spent!

Below are four pictures of two different jigs I used. The first three are for aligning the drawer front to the drawer box. I basically built two “U”s. The first U was the width of the drawer front with sides that are about 2-3 inches. The second U is smaller. It’s is the width of the drawer box. The two Us were screwed together giving me the overhang I needed. I even went so far as to write “BOTTOM” on the one side, so I remembered which side of the drawer box faced which way.

Before I started on the oak, I did a trial fit on a piece of 3/4 tried it on the oak, building plywood. I had a scrap, and it’s a lot less expensive than my 7 1/4” oak drawer fronts. The first attempt was right on the money, so I started assembling drawers.

Several clamps helped keep the whole thing in one place while the holes were drilled and screws inserted.

But the work didn’t stop there. I needed to drill for the drawer handles. I did pretty much the the same thing, except the edge was one layer and lined up on two sides. (I wrote “TOP” and “RIGHT” on that, just to keep it simple.)

Here’s a look at the finished drawers. Not bad, if I say so myself.

I can’t say it enough. If you’re doing a project, and repeating the cuts, the holes, the spacing—whatever—figure out a way to make a jig. You’ll save yourself a lot of worry and make the project a lot more enjoyable.

After taking some good advice from several of you on LJ, I finally started moving tools into my tool cabinet.

I began my tapping off a section of my work bench the same size as my tool cabinet. Then I put all of my tools “in the box.” I even had my kids help arrange them. When all was said and done, I came out with this arrangement. I’ll have some more pictures of the doors, which have my chisels. (You can see three of the backsaws I’ve made recently, too.)

It’s not the Studley Tool Cabinet, but I’m pretty happy with it.

Thanks to everyone who gave good advice on getting it this far.

The first thing I did was ordered the wood. The original handle has a good layer of gunk on it, but you can still see there is some curl. Most research I’ve done says the handles of this era were made of apple wood, but since I don’t have any available, I decided that some nice curly maple would work. I contacted Paul at www.curlymaple.com and ordered 5 end pieces. I explained what I was making and looking for. The package arrived by FedEx and is absolutely beautiful.

figure out which piece has a handle in it.

Pictures to follow. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

http://www.curlymaple.com/luthier.shtml

Here’s a sample of some of their stock:

Have you ever seen prettier wood?

Hand-cut joinery, hand-planed raised panel. Working on a pair of drawers and the finish.

My only problem is trying to figure out how to arrange the tools inside (i.e., what tools should be included, layout, etc.) Any thoughts would be appreciated.

A friend of mine works for a lumber company that trims the ends of their kiln dried wood. The scrap pile is periodically burned, so employees are permitted to take home whatever they want from the scrap pile. My friend uses this wood to heat his house. Last year he shared a good load with me, and from those scraps I built this tool cabinet.

Hand-cut joinery, hand-planed raised panel. Working on a pair of drawers and the finish.

My only problem is trying to figure out how to arrange the tools inside (i.e., what tools should be included, layout, etc.) Any thoughts would be appreciated.