Wood Zealot's Workshop

Semi-close up of mat

I saw that the good people over at Popular Woodworking took my suggestion to give horse stall mats a try to battle hard-floor fatigue. I think these mats are one of the best secrets out there. I became aware of these back in the day when lifting was the current obsession (there are two laws that govern my life… one, I’m always obsessed with something and two, I will research the subject of that obsession to death). So, deep down in the lifting forums people talked of actually getting gym flooring thicker than a 1/4 inch and costing less than a million dollars a square foot as is the case in any sporting goods store. The stall mats, at 3/4″ thickness, are so far superior in both quality and value it’s not even funny.

You’ll most likely find these mats in tractor/farm supply stores. Expect to call around a bit as these stores may not have an online storefront.  I purchased mine in 2006 for $40/mat from a local Agway. The store owner had a wry smile as she looked me up and down and said “you don’t have horses do you.” I was impressed by her profiling ability and wondered if she had previously served in law enforcement.

I guess I was perhaps a bit luckier than the Popular Woodworking folks as the mats supplied at my Agway were of the non-stinky variety. While all of these mats come from recycled tires, apparently the manufacturing processes vary… some involve adding sulfer while others do not as noted here in the faq of this stall mat manufacter. I have mine inside my home and no aroma issues to mention. So this may be the one thing to be mindful of if you look to purchase.

Getting these mats to their final destination from the store will undoubtedly rank as my greatest achievement in life. My spacious Neon could not accommodate the mats in the flat position so I had to roll them up which is not something they like to do naturally. I expected to have to make two trips but with some manipulation I was able to get all 4 in the car. My car turned into a true low rider with the extra weight.

When I got home I carried all 4 up a flight of stairs to the gym. A hundred pounds and much more awkward than a dead body, each mat was a real test of determination. I then cut them to fit the room. Started with a box cutter and found that a linoleum knife did the best job. You can get one 4′x6′ mat and cut it into pieces for several stationary woodworking machines.

The mats have since been repurposed to my woodworking shop as I sold my power rack which I believe was defective as the weights rarely moved themselves while I watched TV. Using these mats has definitely reduced fatigue and joint discomfort that I used to experience during longer hours on the feet and thus have made woodworking more enjoyable. No more aching feet, knees, and back for me! You don’t have to take my word for it… it seems to be working out for Chris Schwarz and that means go buy it in my book!

I had a brain MRI recently and while flipping through the pre-MRI questionnaire I had to pause when one of the questions was “do you grind metals?”

Like anyone else, on occasion I’ll grind on some metal if I’ve had one drink too many… especially if it’s particularly shiny or in the form of dancing robots (as in the video below). But nothing out of the ordinary and I wondered how this was even relevant in the first place?

On second thought I realized that they most likely meant abrasively removing metal which of course I do all the time on the grinding wheel and even most recently sharpening carving tools on a belt sander.

Wanting to get the MRI done, my eyes dart left and right, and my mind thinks “nobody knows… I can do this”. Thinking it through a little further, my brain does me the favor of envisioning my head inside a massive electromagnet with metal floating in my veins and what the resulting experience may be like.

So without further hesitation I do what I have to do and quickly grab the nurse… she’s offended… I figured what did I have to lose? My metal-laden melon is about to explode so I might as well get a cheap thrill first (plus, in all the educational videos I’ve ever watched the nurse always seems receptive). Anyways, it turns out I can still do the MRI if a head x-ray called “orbits” comes up clean which it does so I’m green-lighted.

Since I’m claustrophobic my anxiety level was already on the high side as I know my head is going to be strapped down and my body inserted into a tiny canal (I almost made a phallic analogy here but I realized I would represent the huge penis in it). The technician gave me some blinders to wear which really helped… have to say though, after being harnessed in and blinders put on I was waiting for someone to feed me an apple out of the palm of their hand as I felt like a horse being broken. I just went with it and whinnied whenever I felt nervous, which is to say every moment.

While inside the machine, I wondered how large a metal particle needs to be in order to be spotted on the orbits x-ray? I mean I use 15 micron silicon carbide belts on the sander which make super fine metal dust. Are particles smaller than the resolution of the orbits scan not going to be pulled through vein walls and into my virginal gray matter? In theory, my heart was beating during the MRI so couldn’t have some of these particles decided to take the road trip from the lungs to the brain during the scan?? I guess getting answers to these questions would have been prudent before doing the MRI.

Trust is both a wonderful and dangerous thing. I guess there was no damage done, although I have noticed that I now tend to face polar north when standing idly.

In the end, I survived the MRI and the results come back negative which was rather deflating… I was so hopeful that they would finally confirm the existence of a brain after all these years. Oh well, time to go oil my joints (a reference to the brainless Tin Man, not a euphemism for self-pleasure (this time)).

Note:  certain artisitic freedoms were taken in this post and it should be noted that no robots or nurses were actually inappropriately grabbed or grinded upon.

One day not that long ago I found myself with the task of mounting an under-cabinet light fixture. Simple enough. Or maybe not… as I examine the fixture I see it mounts by sliding sideways over mounting screws. Unfortunately the light fixture is exactly as long as the space under this cabinet and thus has no room to slide. So without pause for any thoughts that would extend beyond my mid-brain, I ask myself the obvious… What would McGyver do? Easy… magnets.

Moments later, via assistance of a forstner bit, magnets, and CA glue the job was completed with minimal casualties. I quickly put the fixture up, flip the switch while exclaiming “let there be light!”, and revel in my brilliant ingenuity. Lastly, I check how I would replace the bulb and as I take the bulb out I see a clear view of the mounting holes. I find that interesting.

Before taking the, at this point, optional step of adding screws I explore other potential uses and applications that this groundbreaking use of magnets may yield, including cures for diseases, military weaponry, etc. While none of that panned out, I did find that it allows easy and convenient storage access to keys, canned soup, and knives. Clearly, the potential for such an invention is limitless. I may have to patent this novel notion of magnets holding junk. Disclaimer: if you have no sense of aesthetics, live in California, and actually implement my invention, I take no responsibility for subsequent injury due to falling knives and cans of soup.

Hanging my beans with bacon.

Additional evidence that I should never have children

What other McGyver-type ingenuity have I attempted? well, since I’ve mastered magnetism, it made sense to switch over to lasers. I played a little bit with using a leveling laser as an aide for identifying high spots when hand jointing a board. I think the idea may actually hold some merit and would have pursued it further if I hadn’t been distracted by a shiny object elsewhere in the shop that day.

I believe this technique may be particularly handy when jointing in the dark (probably how cave men jointed boards at night before fire was discovered). Operational note: While it’s interesting to observe the angle at which the laser bounces off your jointer, I recommend changing your observation angle if and when you feel your retinas tingling.

ET Fingers

With lasers embedded in practically every woodworking tool these days, I’m waiting for the first hand plane with one embedded into the toe casting (maybe in a fore or jointer plane) and at least obviate the need for winding sticks. Come on Lee Valley get on this… I’m sure Rob will cut me in for half??? If nothing else, it should provide for one of your April 1 tool releases.

-As you may have noticed, I refer to Rob Lee of Lee Valley in this post in a familiar way. To be clear, we haven’t necessarily hung out for an extensive period of time (which is to say that I’ve never met/talked/communicated with him in any way). I, however, choose to believe that all tool manufacturers are my good buddies and that they make tools just for me (Freud understands me)… Yo John E! How’s it hanging Tom L?!? A little creepy? Perhaps… and while I know that they make drugs to remedy this, I just gotta be me on this one.

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Trees are people too.

When I saw this magnificent piece of buckeye burl on eBay I knew had to have it. For the life of me, I can’t explain why this piece of wood spoke to me. Maybe it’s just my cockeyed perspective on life, but it seemed that it could hold great potential in my hands if worked properly. Ok, ok… I’ll drop the ridiculously thin veneer of sincerity. I’m guessing you know me better than that by now.

I obviously only bought this piece of lumber because it looks like frank and beans and as such would yield me great comical amusement (if you can’t see this at first, squint your good eye and smack yourself in the head repeatedly until it’s obvious). I did laugh for quite a while, but now I find myself stuck with a piece of male-genitalia shaped lumber.

I was thinking that it I could slap it on a lazy Susan to be placed on the kitchen table where condomints could be put atop. This was the only idea I had that wasn’t tacky. Maybe a bookstand to hold books erect? An oddly shaped table-tennis paddle? Thoughts?

No, I’m not proud of myself but I felt compelled to share. I have boundary issues.

As a complete non sequitur, if you don’t mind, would you fill out the following poll to help me better serve you in a subsequent post about being a digital woodworker.

[polldaddy poll=1397792]

So much knowledge for such a little brain

Very shortly I’ll be sharing how I gather and organize information in the digital world especially as it relates to woodworking. In the meantime, after reading David Thiel’s recent post over at the Popular Woodworking blog where he shares his vast library, I thought I’d take a couple shots of my bookcase to share as well.

Each book has it merits of course and if I were to ever read them I could speak to that with some authority. As it stands, I’ve just scanned through most to see how they end. While most of these books were loaded with good information along the way, rarely did they come through will a killer ending or mind-blowing turn of events… not one “I see dead people” moment.

There is one book, however, that has served me far more than any other, and that book is “Illustrated Cabinetmaking” by Bill Hylton.  The book starts with very thorough coverage of joinery and goes on to show exploded diagrams of subassemblies followed by a wide variety of furniture applications, again all with exploded diagrams. These diagrams are extremely well done including useful annotations which clue you in on relevant details of the specific piece. Just perfect execution on making this material as easy to learn as possible.  This book will never gather dust in my home.

So without further ado, here’s my woodworking bookcase:

Pretty covers get the top

Books on first shelf

The Moxon shelf

Yet another shelf with books whose titles you can't make out.

Last shelf of woodworking books

As you can see, I keep some antique hand tool, eye candy in the case as well. I can’t help but feel the sense of storied history of this craft and the amazing craftsman of the past when looking at such hand tools.  Take a closer look at the double sliding dovetail boxing on the Griffiths Norwich plow plane which sits atop the bookcase. Impressive craftsmanship, isn’t it.

Double Sliding Dovetails

Oops… Almost missed these three which weren’t in the bookcase as I’m currently reading them.

Apparently to good to be idly sitting on a bookshelf.

Note: This post is uncharacteristically low on the  disturbing-scale realtive to my other posts. Please see the “My favorite posts” links on the front page side-bar for a proper taste of the Woodzealot buffet. Be warned, while it is all-you-can-eat, pace yourself to advoid the inevitable nausea and feelings of regret that will quickly ensue.

In an amazing development for me, I’ve been blogrolled by “The Schwarz”… That’s right… the man, the myth and the legend of woodworking himself. Do I deserve such an honor? Absolutely Not. Will I take it and perform a happy dance? You bet your sweet @s$. Will I be posting a video of me doing the happy dance? Officially, No, as we do not permit torture in this country. Unofficially, if people do not leave comments on this blog feigning interest such videos may just pop-up and I can’t be held responsible for the resulting trauma.

With this post I’d like to give newcomers to my site who are clicking over from Chris’s sites a proper welcome. Soooo, hi there.. how ya doin? Can I be your friend? Am I moving to fast? Is this coming across as “needy”? Ok, just forget what I’ve said… moving on…

You may be asking yourself why you should read my blog. My suggestion:  stop asking yourself so many questions and just go with the flow for once.  I mean really, what’s with giving yourself the third degree all the time?!? You’ve ended up here and thus it must be destiny that you are to forever read this blog (You’ve always been told that karma was a bitch, but no one ever warned you about destiny did they?) Anyways, what I offer is a significantly warped/skewed view of the world of woodworking and the world in general. I tend to treat all subject matter in double entendre, sexual inyourendo, and general immaturity. I am currently in therapy for this but the prognosis for change is not looking good. Please accept my apologies in advance for this medical condition of which I have no control over.

You may notice that many of my posts are non-woodworking related. This evolved over time as I noticed that it seemed to increasingly annoy my readers, a.k.a. my co-workers, who were expecting and demanding content related to woodworking. While this social experiment has yielded me great personal joy, I promise that I will endeavor to keep material at least tangentially related to woodworking.

As far as what I have to offer in regards to discussions related to practical woodworking… well, ummmm… this is where the plume of smoke would appear as I attempt to flee. A discussion for another time, suffice it to say my first two years in this craft have involved great study and preparation for a life dedicated to this passion. In future posts I’ll elaborate on my rather unconventional beginnings and the rationale behind. If your looking for real woodworking knowledge please see the links in my blogroll. You’re probably already familiar with them, but if not they are must-reads!

Lastly, thanks again to Chris Schwarz. His refreshing perspectives on this age-old craft and witty writing style have been inspiring to me (may appear to be just overt brown-nosing, but is in fact,  unadultered brown-nosing wrapped around genuine sentiment). As I have become more and more engrossed in this new world of woodworking, and even blogging, I’ve sought to model the qualities of several woodworkers out there and Chris would be my “top model” in many respects (although I can’t necessarily speak to how he looks in hosiery so please don’t ask).

So why do those antlers on your wall smell like do-do?

Every once and a while you have one of those moments… a moment that rips you from the normalcy and mundane of everyday life and says “it could all change right here”. I recently had one of these moments…

Friday night I was leaving my workplace and heading home on the local interstate at 1:45am (I work odd hours thanks to serotonin issues). Surrounded in a slight fog I put my car in cruise control at 74 mph and relax for the 20 minute drive home. Nary a car to be seen except in the distance. I shuffle through radio stations… AM stations… to listen to people talk about politics and allow my brain to numb-down to the requisite level for the drive. Rather peaceful drive, and then it happens before I can think…

For some reason I swerve from the middle lane to the right lane and yet my brain has not been so nice as to even inform as to why.  Then with a mental “whoosh” sound, life returned to normal speed and I realized that I had swerved away from a sizable deer jogging directly across the lanes and not using blinkers or proper hoof signaling in any way. I hadn’t even had time to hit the break… the car was still under cruise control at 74mph well after the event.

This deer was by no means small… quite on the large side actually, to where I mostly saw legs from my perspective. To be fair though, it is possible that I may have momentarily, and from a purely instinctual response, assumed the fetal position from which it may have appeared taller. Suffice it to say it was definitely big enough for me to saddle it up and mount it. And I’m not that small a guy… I’m easily big enough for a large chimpanzee to saddle up and mount.

So immediately following this near miss my body is flooded with adrenaline and resulted in two things; one, I had a strong desire to go back and beat the deer down and two, I think it affected my “rational” thought (not my strong suit to begin with) slightly. Replaying the event in mind I had come to the conclusion that it was only my super-human perception and reaction times that permitted me to avoid disaster. It became clear that I could dominate NASCAR if I so desired or perhaps even fight crime from the shadows… as the adrenaline faded, I realized it was more of a luck thing… but I did let out a little whimper of “I’m the king of the world” before the last of the adrenaline was gone.

I hope this potential life-changing moment always stays with me, helping me to appreciate every moment for the profound gift that it is, so that no moment in my life is ever wasted again…. one second… ummm, gonna have to get back to this some other time, “Turner and Hooch” is on TNT again. Ohhh, that Hootch and his slobbering here and there.

As a bachelor woodworker with a day-job, my diet generally consists of what you see in this pic of my freezer after food shopping:

Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

I recently received some intel claiming that not all food naturally exists in cardboard boxes ready for microwaving. I was further told tales of things called “fruits” and “vegetables”. Long story short, you eat these “fruits” and “vegetables”and you magically become healthier… more energy, smarter, and a longer pen… err, wait I’m getting the claims of this better diet confused with other phallicies.

So, I figure what the heck my gullet has seen worse and decided to find a way to get these substances in to my body in a reasonable way. Hearing that the taste of this stuff is so off-putting I seek supository form. No dice. Googlin around reveals that blending this stuff up into goop form is a good way to sneak this junk into your system. Bingo!

After a run to the food store and acquiring these foods of mass nutrition I start sperimenting.

Day one test: banana, various frozen berries, and some orange sherbert.

Fruit Smoothie Before

Fruit Smoothie Blended

Result: Does not taste completely horrible.

Day two test: banana, various frozen berries, spinach, and water.

Green Smoothie PreBlending

Blended "green" smoothie

"Green" smoothie PRIOR to ingestion

Result: Does taste completely horrible.

Some observations… my body seemed to reject this foreign material as observed by varying levels of cramping and increasing levels of methane output. Out of concern for our world I may have to suspend further experiments with these dangerous materials.

CLICK PLAYER BELOW TO HEAR AUDIO VERSION OF THIS POST

I’ve been on many woodworking blogs where members lament the cost of woodworking tools and in particular the higher quality tools with seemingly disproportionate pricing. Festool and Bridge City Tools are commonly referenced in these posts. I too will admit to participating in the discussions in the past but no longer as I have seen the light! Here is some of the logic that will allow you to easily break-free from such unnecessary financial restraints:

• Reduce/Discontinue saving money for retirement. Honestly, what do you need when you retire? Spend your money now on high quality tools and you’ll have all you need to keep you occupied. Other than that it’s just time for Wheel of Fortune and applesauce any way.
• Do not procreate. I’m sure you’ve read that in it’s entirety it costs upwards of a million dollars per offspring. That’s 1000 Jointmaker Pros!!! Consider return on investment – with fine tools you’ll be able to recoup some of your investment with what you produce; creating a new human rarely yields a significant return (if you do create one may I suggest that you teach it to throw a nasty left-handed curve ball to increase this possibility). Plus you’ll have much more time for woodworking as you reduce the time-drain associated with rearing. Note: this may result in a certain, incalculable emotional void which may further result in reducing your lifespan by approximately 20 years (and thus solving the retirement problem… win/win).

While I do understand that these paradigm shifts are directly away from conventional financial thinking I think it’s the progressive approach. Look, China has already instituted a one-child limitation. If we are going to stay ahead of them we need to do one-better and thus a no-child rule should be in our future.

With regards to not saving for retirement aren’t we just taking the lead from our government? They’ve clearly established the fact that social security is a worthless pursuit. Additionally, our government has begged us to spend more and stimulate the economy. Taking all this into context I believe it is clear what a real American needs to do here… and that is to buy tools, and clearly the more the expensive the tool the better American you are!

This epiphany has allowed me to place an order for a Jointmaker Pro and it can do the same for you!! I’d like to be an even better American and purchase a Festool Domino but Festool pricing (and control over dealers) is beyond obnoxious. Now I’m off to remortgage my home loan to pay for all this… I’m sure I can get one of them sub-prime deals that’s all the rage these days.

Disclaimer: This post is in no way endorsed by The Happy Rock.

****** UPDATE *****

This just in… I’ve officially become a highly-patriotic American by purchasing the Festool Domino… As a result I can proudly adorn a flag pin indicating my well-purchased patriotism.  This purchase was made possible do to the sale of my 3 yr old, Sally. No, No… I’m not selling off small children for tools, although, the thought had crossed my mind. Sally was my 3 yr old Mustang (with only 12K miles on it!)… selling a sweet Mustang to support your woodworking hobby… now, I’d say that’s commitment!!! This Domino better have that new tool smell!!!!!

****** END UPDATE *****

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ToolsForYouAndAmerica

One of… ummm, I mean, my only redeeming skill is shopping on the web and finding the occasional deal… keep a watch here for such gems…

Boeshield T-9: this is like hand cream for your metal tools… lubricates and protects metals at the same time… great for cast iron tables (followed up by paste wax) and hand planes… a must for anyone interested in restoring tools! Normally costs around $16 for a 12oz can. Get it for $6 here. I posted this deal to Sawmill Creek forum.