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’…