Monthly Archives: March 2013

Saturday Update 3/30/13

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Hello and happy Easter eve to each of you. Saturday and my last shop forbidden weekend….hope the rest of you are making up for it! It is a warm but overcast day here with rain earlier and the promise of more later. But a beautiful forecast for Sunrise Services tomorrow….then SNOW on Monday! Urg…..!!!! I keep telling myself I will be enjoying door & window open Saturdays before long.

My recovery is going well and my follow-up appointment was positive this week. The day after my surgery I could clearly read the smallest line but this week I only got half the letters right. How quickly I forget that 2 weeks ago I couldn’t read THAT screen! I’m still overwhelmed by the difference and how well I can see in the distance. Up close I still may need readers (they sell reader safety glasses…) but never the less I’m very pleased. And I am a master at putting drops in now! I went over to the shop Wednesday evening and for you NASCAR fans…it was like being under the red flag….I could get everything laid out….but couldn’t work on it until they put out the caution flag. Caution flag waves Thursday….and green flag on Saturday!   🙂

This week I want to start the meat of this e-mail by talking about something amazing and something, I have to admit, that I learned this week and it keeps with the Easter theme here. This is over the top and I was more amazed the more I read. This was shared by a friend this week and I checked it out for myself (call me doubting Thomas if you like) . I added a couple of links here but there are MANY more on this subject. The subject being that a certain type of pine tree starts a shoot a couple weeks before Easter and then a couple of days before Easter…these turn into Crosses…..regardless of the timing of Easter…pretty amazing. Enjoy these links….the last being put to music.

http://wandascountryhome.com/pinetrees/
http://www.seiyaku.com/customs/crosses/pine-tree.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM0rYyIzNuU

Here is another fun topic. By now most of you know that I love to ride bikes…..and I love to build things from wood. SO……how about a wooden bike? There are several designs out there now, but they all lack one important feature…..NO FRETWORK! What were these guys thinking? (Oops I lied….there is one picture that is fretwork….Bikes in a Cross….talk about keeping with the Easter theme!)

Bonobo Plywood Bicycle
Google Images of Plywood Bicycles

I guess I should talk about a woodworking topic now that we’ve had some fun. We have sold several of the chess set patterns recently and I had a good question that I thought would be a good topic. The question was about the larger size of the sub table top and if I recommended hardwood and how to plane that size board or if it was ok to use plywood. I have to admit that I use hardwood veneer plywood whenever I can. Plywood tends to be more stable for large size panels than hardwood. I like using plywood for floors and this is something that you can trim out with a contrasting wood which adds to the overall appearance of your project. I am fortunate enough to have a good source for the hardwood veneer plywood that is close to the shop (http://www.metrohardwoodsinc.com). But if you want to use hard wood for these larger pieces and only have a 12″ planer, I recommend planing your wood down in smaller strips and do a glue up inverting your grain curl on each of the strips. I have a couple great panel clamps at the shop and will take some pictures next week as to how I use them and how I do the glue up. When doing this it is important to make sure and minimize mismatch to cut down on the amount of sanding you have to do. But if you have a fair amount of sanding due to mismatch, a sand flee sander works great for this. Visit them at http://www.rjrstudios.com .

I have an update on the mini clock book (The Big Book of Little Clocks, a collection of Mini Clocks by Wilckens Woodworking) that we are putting together. I dropped off all the drawings at the printer (http://www.corporatecopyprint.com)  yesterday so they can start their part. There are over 100 mini clocks in this book and it will be bound together using the wire hoop, this allowing the book to be completely opened and placed on a copier to reproduce the pattern. The traditional bound books look really nice but if you have ever tried to copy out of one of them….you know exactly what I’m talking about. We are really excited about being able to add this to what we have to offer. All I have left to provide the printer is the introduction, table of contents, back page and the cover. So I am way ahead of schedule on this….I was shooting for early summer but hope to have this well before that. It was so exciting, for me, going through the patterns and all the great memories that came flooding back. I promise you that you WON”T be disappointed with this. For those of you that have been a part of our journey since early on….you will remember several of these and we hope they bring back a few memories for you as well. Going through all my patterns, I came across several boxes and several Christmas ornaments as well. So as of now….that will be on my very near radar and hope to have these available by the end of summer. It is a really exciting time for us here at WWW and we are so happy that you are all along for the ride…..nothing is more exciting than being able to share all of this with our friends.

I will finish by sharing this link to the ultimate desk. Pretty incredible piece considering it was built a long time ago. Imagine something like this with fretwork! This was shared with us by a couple of our Canadian friends….(Thanks).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MKikHxKeodA

On a closing note….any of you that have recently purchased a copy of the Orlean’s Cathedral clock….please e-mail me. I’d like to talk to you about something. Also please go to the website and download the newest page to the free clock www.wilckenswoodworking.net and also don’t forget to visit us on face book where we share other pictures and things during the week. Oh yeah….I added a pattern here for an Easter Cross…..hope you enjoy!

We at Wilckens Woodworking wish each and everyone of you a blessed Easter and as always…..until next time, keep the sawdust flyin’…

 

Saturday Update 3/23/13

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Hope everyone had a great Saturday and was able to make some sawdust since I couldn’t. Today it was cool here with a cold rain later in the afternoon which has now switched over to snow. So I felt it appropriate to share this picture of Phil. They are promising us 6″ – 10″ of snow tonight with locally heavier spots of 14″. We don’t get that much all winter long and this will be 3x in a month….and it is now Spring! I’m thinking some groundhog stew may taste pretty good tomorrow!

By now you all know that I had eye surgery this past week and it has went really good. It is amazing how well I can see now. The family was laughing at me today as we were driving down the road and I was pointing things out….apparently those things have been there all along. (Tam tells me it will be the same way once I break down and get hearing aids)…what’s that you say? I have 7 different drops that I put in multiple times a day…good thing there is a sheet to fill out or I’d never remember which drop I was on. All joking aside….the difference really is amazing and I encourage any of you that have been putting it off….to go ahead. I really can’t wait to get back on the saw!

 

I also promised I share pictures of the bike bench. I love to ride bikes and by having the bench over the bike, I can ride and work at the same time. This bike is basically a warm-up for my primary morning workout and my cool down at the end of the day after my primary evening workout. So it’s not like the sweat is pouring out all over my laptop….basically seat time and junk miles. So every time you cut out a WWW pattern…..it was designed while I did a ride. Bet not many others can brag that fact….(or would want to)  (the first time I walked into the bike store, they knew that I was crazy…..)    🙂

I ask this last week for suggestions and topics to talk about….and I got a few really good ones. One of the suggestions was to talk about creativity. This is a really big subject and could go in 10 different directions so I will see if I can do it justice. The first direction I’d like to take is….we as veterans of our discipline of scrolling really need to pass this on to the younger generation. Over the years I have been fortunate enough to be around and learn from some of the best…Pat Spillman, Bill Guimond, Ioji Iosif, Ira Anjoorian and of course Dad….only to mention a few. Once I was the young guy at the shows….the kid….but now there is a new younger crowd getting into fretwork. One of my most cherished memories at a show was several years back at the KC Woodworking Tool show and I had my laptop up designing mini clocks when a little boy came along and became very interested in what I was doing. He ended up coming into our booth and spending the afternoon helping me design mini clocks. Over the years I told this story many times and always hoped that I touched his life as much as he touched mine that day….this is truly what it is all about. I have recently been lucky enough to talk with his Dad and to catch up a bit. Sadly many times over the last few years I’ve talked to people who have talked about more and more schools that may have a woodworking class but no scroll saws. So this leaves it up to us to pass it along to the younger generation…..our Kids and Grand kids and where ever else we can. We can’t let fretwork die….!

Secondly I’d like to talk about being creative with your copy of the patterns you buy. Honestly some of the best versions I’ve seen of the different projects are the ones that the person took some creative liberties. I really encourage people to not take a pattern at face value and to get as much mileage out of it as they can. If there is a box portion to the project…make a box out of it! Take corner brackets and make some shelves using them. Get creative with your wood choices also. So many times over the years folks have ask exactly what woods we used….mix it up! There are so many incredible woods out there…use them to make your piece a one of a kind. (Check out our website for some great wood vendors that are approved by WWW).

And finally I’d like to just touch on the creating end of it from my point of view….even though I don’t even fully understand it myself. In everything I do I look at things as if I could use it for a design somehow. Every building I look at or thing I pick up…how can I turn that into something that can be cut out. Typically I open a new screen and just start putting down lines. I have a basic stating point….clock, box, shelf etc. There have been many times I start putting down those lines and even though they may be used for something….they don’t feel right and they get dumped onto this huge drawing of 10,000 pieces of nothing special. A fun thought….I should design the next web clock using only that stuff and see what I come up with….see how this happens? A new clock was just born. Some of my best Ideas have come during the middle of the night. In the beginning I would think of something and it would be gone by morning. Now there is a sketch pad close and if I dream of something…I get up and make a sketch. I have a folder with about a hundred sketches in it. So don’t worry….I won’t be running out of ideas any time soon.

I’d like to end by throwing in a couple of websites people shared with me this week. The first one is an incredible piece and it is beautiful music on a crazy looking wood instrument….I think some awesome graphics were involved here but still very worthy of sharing. http://www.youtube.com/embed/XlyCLbt3Thk?rel=0

Also this is maybe the best video I’ve ever seen on how to fold a band saw blade…yeah it isn’t as easy as it sounds. And the guy in the video does a great job and keeps it fun. There are some other video links there that look interesting as well that I haven’t had a chance to check out yet…but will.

And lastly….here are some pictures of some incredible pieces….sorry I don’t know anymore than the e-mail shared…

Wood Chips…This man takes wood chips, soaks them in water for many days. He uses (Red Cedar). Then he starts building his pieces which takes him about 6 months, 10 hours a day to finish it. He was offered a lot of money for one piece but won’t sell one.

And I was worried I couldn’t come up with enough to talk about….of course I have to thank everyone who helped me out by sharing some cool things this week. I have a couple for next week but if anyone has an idea…just let me know. Hope everyone has a great Sunday and next week is good for you. Don’t forget to check us out at www.wilckenswoodworking.net and catch us on facebook. And as always….keep the sawdust flyin…