The Drill Bits are Here!

It's taken a while, but I'm happy to announce that we are now taking orders for sets of chairmakers long spur brad point drill bits. Charlie Ryland came here last February straight from North Bennet Street. We talked about his making drill bits, but quickly became mired in all sorts of other projects. But lately Charlie jumped in and started grinding away.

Just as with Claire and the travishers and Tim with the reamers and adzes, he has advanced the bits beyond what I was doing with them. By making some slight alterations to the dressing of the wheel, he's managed to make a bit that lets you know when it is about to poke through the other side of the workpiece. The lead spur is slightly wider at the base and the change in pressure as it comes through is perceptible.

If you aren't familiar with the abilities of these bits, I will be making a video when we get back from North Carolina. The geometry of these bits is helpful in getting clean entry and exits holes as well as drilling at angles,  making them great for making chairs. Plus, seeing a ribbon like shaving pour out of the hole proves that drill bits really are woodworking tools, deserving of attention and respect just like a plane or chisel.

The bits are available in sets of 5 as shown for $110 plus $10 for shipping. They are made from American made High Speed Steel and include 5/8", 1/2", 7/16", 3/8" and 11/32".
The larger bits require a drill with a 1/2" chuck.

Charlie will have some sets available for purchase at WIA and is accepting orders at rylandwoodworking@gmail.com. And of course, feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions, peter@petergalbertchairmaker.com

Not What I Meant!!

I've been getting some feedback that tells me that my last post might have been misconstrued. My pal Dan came over and said, "So, you finally got sick of people bugging you!?"
Then, a few sheepish "I hate to bother you" emails and I figured that I need to clarify. I pointed out the search box because I thought that it would be helpful. Please feel free to contact me, but be patient for my reply, as lately I've been overbooked!

Here is some of what has been taking my time. The class in Atlanta was small, but a great success. I've been using this simple drilling aid to help students drill the bow.

I know, I know, it's better to teach skills then jigs, but coming in at the end of a 65 hour work week and asking students to drill their bows by eye (which is a very achievable skill, by the way) proves to be a bit inhumane. Some visual guidance is helpful, such as placing a spindle near the hole and against the bow, but I figured, why not take a minute and make the aid more focused.



The jig is basically a tuning fork shaped block of wood with a dowel drilled into it that fits in an aluminum tube that sits in the mortise in the deck. The aluminum tube make the jig adjustable for height. The rubberband around the dowel locks the height.

Here you can see that pointing the top of the "tuning fork" helps find the center. Notice that the spring clamp is place so as to not affect the position of the "fork".

I've used this in a couple of classes now, and the chairs come out great and the meltdowns have stopped! There are plenty of hurdles in this race and I think that this fits fine within the goals of learning,  having fun and building a great chair.

Plus, the result speak for themselves.

Here is another student from last week. Jack has made about 30 chairs, so he was ready to tackle my most complex style.

We had fun making this one and I got to bone up on teaching it, which is good because it's one of the classes I'll be teaching soon on my travels.

 Jack really befriended Rocket, I had to tear him away from the poor dog just to get some work done! So Jack, this one's for you.

More Ugly Jigs that Work Great: Part Two

Now here is an elegant jig.  A perfect melding of species, craft and drywall screws!

I've posted before about grinding drill bits, and I've shown a lot of students the method. Over the years, I started to see the limits of the grinds, some too aggressive in softwoods, some too slow in hardwoods. So when I decided to make a drill bit grinding jig, I finally had some idea of how it should work.

I chose an 8 degree angle for the center spur, which is made by attaching the "fence" to the bottom of the guide at a 4 degree angle. (thanks Tim for pointing out the doubling effect!).

Then it's just a matter of setting the angle of the tool rest. (If you haven't seen the basic grinding method, which remains the same, check out this post.)

 I found that an 18 degree angle works great in hardwoods for drilling armrails blowout free, and that an 11 degree angle will slow a 5/8" bit down enough to cut pine without chewing it to bits. All that's left is to set some rare earth magnets into the base to get rid of the pesky clamps.

This photo is of jigs (sort of), but hardly the ugly kind! Andy Jack helped me make these for my class that starts tomorrow. They are available for sale to the students, and if we have any left, I will post them here. The wood for these was a gift from my friend Peter Krupowicz, I believe it's bubinga. Anyway, they are gorgeous and work beautifully.




The other things that are working these days are my chickens. I have been letting them free range lately and the egg yolks have turned from yellow to a burnt orange color! What a difference grass and bugs make!

Here they are enjoying a dirt bath. When I walk into the yard, they all run up to me like dogs. If I go to get the mail, I have to trick them so they don't follow me into the road. It's a humbling moment when you have to think before outsmarting a chicken.

Shedding Light

Usually methods of work can be attributed to the demands of the process, the tools at hand, or the pleasure of the user.
My favorite moments in the shop are when I know that there is an elegant method for the task at hand and I get to think it over. I usually look around the shop at my masking tape, string, straight edges, mirrors and rubberbands. There are few issues that I've run into that these vital tools can't tackle.
Recently, Greg Pennington introduced me to lasers, and while they might not find their way into my work in the same way, they have opened some doors that I've been knockin' on for some time now.

So often in "classic" chairmaking, the curved arm rails or crests are connected to the seat by straight spindles. This is no problem, as all sorts of straight surrogates can be used to site for drilling. But when using curves spindles, there is an offset, in that the holes in the seat don't point directly at the holes in the crest.

Here is how I've solved the problem. In the past, I would have set this up and used a protractor to read the angle that splits the two spindles to get the rake. Then I would have set up a mirror to drill at that same angle. The trouble with this method is that usually, by this time in my process, I have already carved the seat, and the mirrors become unwieldy.

Here come the lasers, with their lovely ability to create lines in space. As you can see, I use the same simple set up and split the difference with the laser for the rake, and for the splay, I line up with the mortise in the seat straight to the hole in the rail for the splay.

Then I simply remove the spindles and drill, using the lasers to guide the bit.

I have done this many times with my previous means, but I've never seen such dead on and even results. After the first couple of mortises were drilled, I noted a spot on the back of the drill to register and recreate the offset, then I drilled the rest by eye.

The ability of the laser to "wrap" around surfaces has been making all sorts of complex marking and locating easier for me. It only makes sense that visually defining planes in space would be a helpful in chairmaking, where so much of what we do is  connect lines in space!

The Shot Heard 'round the World

I got an email from Glen Rundel from the Melbourne Guild of Fine Woodworking in Australia with this image of their fleet of lasers ready to do battle! I love the Star Wars quality of their holding jigs.

I guess that once Greg Pennington's great laser idea got out into the ether, there was no stopping it from becoming a new standard. This photo even inspired me to get a couple myself, especially because I'll be teaching there later this year and don't want to look like a newbie!

This image really shows the benefit of using the laser for reaming. While you can do just a well with bevel squares and sightlines, let's face it, reaming a seat for the first time is challenging enough, and if this helps, great!



Glen, thanks for the pics

The Wandering Mind

I'm sure that I'm not alone in having a slow start back to work after the holidays. But I must admit that slow starts are not all that uncommon for me. Over the years, I've come to accept that my often scattered approach to engaging tasks is probably linked to the creative part of my brain and that I should just accept that sometimes it's the long way around that gets me there. Today I have been "following my nose" around trying to reengage.

You might remember my interest in using felt as a clamping tool. I am quite impressed with the results so far and found a company that manufactures felts in different thickness and hardness. The kind people at Durafelt sent me this array of samples to test. So I combined the test with another, which was about bending kiln dried walnut for an upcoming chair.

The walnut bent well even though it was 1 inch thick and almost 2" wide. I steamed it for about 1 hour.  I put the felt under the metal clamp to see if I could dent the wood. On previous bends, with a thicker pad, I noticed how the felt actually held the negative shape of the workpiece after being removed. This opens up plenty of possibilities. Soon I'll post which of the samples that I like best.

Along the lines of restricting the bends to one plane (like I showed with the plywood form a few posts back) I've been horsing around with this form for bending the rear posts while they are still octagonal.
I'll be bending the walnut with this soon.

Sometimes its a good idea to work on the last stages of one project while starting another. This can boost that lacking sense of achievement!

Lately, I've been applying two coats of the Real Milk Paint Company's Raw Tung oil and letting it dry a few days inbetween. Then I finish with a few coats of Minwax Antique Oil to give it some sheen and hardness. I like that the first coats are non toxic and take care of the "soaking in" and the last coats I apply the oil more like a padding varnish, with light coats as I work my way around the chair. Flooding the chair with the Minwax product is ill advised as it will tack up before you can get to it!

In answer to a readers question, here is the set up for drilling out the reamer to accept a bit in the back. I simply remove the tail stock from the lathe and the blade from the reamer and jam fit the reamer in. As long as you have the center well marked on the endgrain, it all works out fine. Anyone who has a reamer and doesn't wish to alter it, could just turn a new wooden body and give it a shot with the old blade.

I have a new favorite side chair. Andy Jack and I tag teamed on building this one (he did most of the work!) and I've been using it at my computer and enjoying the comfort. I brought it back to the shop to complete my notes on it to make sure that I can reproduce it properly once it goes to live with Andy.

Ah vanity, there you are! I have always branded and signed my chairs, but have resisted the urge with my spoons, but at the request of the purchaser of the Ladle that I recently posted, I started looking into ways to burn my signature on them. I looked at some units online and didn't feel very inspired, so I went to the shop, ground the end of an old chainsaw file and heated it with my map gas torch.

The need to reheat it in the middle of a word made me feel like Ben Franklin dipping his pen. Not super efficient, but I only have to write two words!

Before the signature request, I did make a small brand from the end of a piece of steel.

The beauty of doing it this way is that the result always looks better than the tool would suggest.

Here is a recent spoon that I practiced signing. It has a knot right in the bottom of the bowl and therefore some cracks, so I'll just keep this one, but I thought the position of the bowl in relation to the handle was worth showing.

I have also been enjoying working with the contrast of the heart to sapwood colors. When it comes to finishing these, I do scrape and sand the bowl and often a portion of the handle. It's important to wet these areas and then allow them to fully dry before resanding. This will reduce any grain raising after they are used or washed. Then I soak them repeatedly in a jar of oil.

 

After a soaking like this, it takes weeks to fully cure!
And finally, I've been organizing my new basement powertool shop. That's right, I have cabinet doors that just refuse to build themselves, so it seemed time to do it right!

I soaked my brother Andrew for his energy and talent while he was here over the holidays. We walled off a large part of the basement and lit it up. I'm actually looking forward to what might come out of this shop, plus, no more sanding rust off of my table saw!

I read an interesting book recently (more on this later) that focused on the evolution of ideas. One of the chapters was on the concept of exaptation. Exaptation is when something that serves one purpose switches function to find use in another. One example that comes to mind is the way that my V block holding jig for drilling legs gave me the idea for the Galbert Caliper. This cross pollination of possibilities gives me solace on days like today, when no one task or idea takes center stage, but who knows what I might stumble across as a result of my wandering mind.

It's not the Heat...

It's raining here, finally. We've been in a dry spell lately, and the only rain that we saw for a couple of weeks was dripping of of us as we dealt with near record heat. My student, Mark, and I sweated our way through a continuous arm and learned a little something about wood and humidity.



We pulled Marks stretchers from the kiln (opening the kiln was a punishment in and of itself) and started to do my normal assembly procedure. The only problem was that in the short time that it took us to drill the legs, the tenons swelled .005" or more and the first joint that we drove home made a nasty split down the side stretcher. Granted, the joint may have been a bit tight in the first place, and the mortised piece was drier than usual, but this was ugly.

I'd seen this before, the twisting that we applied to free the tenon threatened to turn solid wood into a rope of separated fibers. It's something to see a complete spiral fracture in hard maple.

So I decided to take the other route, split the mortised piece, thereby saving the tenon, and turn a new side stretcher.

Sometimes getting in a pickle leaves the student more informed and a bit more comfortable with the notion that we all get in a bind sometimes and it isn't the end of the world, or chair.

Below are a couple of photos that were requested by blog readers. The arm below shows that the continuous arm bend is about 72 degrees. With a 7/16" arm, it works out fine.



And Greg, here is the hoop pattern for the childs balloon back. I'll be teaching this chair again in October down at Highland Woodworking.



I do my best to keep up with reader requests, but please forgive me if my schedule delays or doesn't permit my immediate response. Good luck.

The Bismarck

Summer is usually a busy time, but this is ridiculous! Luckily for me, things are finally slowing to a humane pace as my teaching is subsiding and the Galbert Caliper 2 is in assembly.

My recent trip to Maine was a success in more than one way. Teaching away from home can be a huge amount of work, but sometimes I come upon things in the large classes that might never happen in the calm of my own shop. One of these things is the new bit that I call "The Bismarck" (for reasons that will soon be apparent)



Here's the how and why. A couple of students drilled the holes in the seat to the wrong sightline, not too uncommon or that big of a deal. I made a couple of pine plugs with my Veritas tenon cutter and glued them in with CA glue. When it came time to redrill the holes, the brad points that I grind and love wouldn't do the job. The issue is that brad points don't drill well into end grain, which now stared at us at the end of the plug. As much as I rail against twist bits, they are the tool for the job.

The main trouble with twist bits is that they are made for metal and best used in a drill press, but they eat end grain for breakfast. So in the heat of the moment, with 10 other students in a flurry of action around me, I chose to grind my lovely 5/8" bradpoint into a twist bit, but slightly different. This one has a horn.

The long center point now only guided the bit without the "wander" of a normal twist bit, but kept the bit spinning cleanly without a drill press. It worked great.

Then I started to take a closer look at the potential of the bit in other applications. One of the downfalls of my bradpoints is that student new to them often sink the center point into the soft pine while getting their position set, this can cause the side spurs to make contact before the drilling begins. Once they gun it, ouch, major tear out. Of course this is easily avoided by getting the drill up to speed before allowing the side spurs to touch, but experience has shown that it's easy to lose focus on the bit while learning to drill at angles.

The Bismark also works great drilling at extreme angles into the legs without any surface damaging issues. I am going to continue exploring this bit, most likely using it where folks tend to chunk out the holes.

To make the bit, simply follow the instructions in my brad point grinding posts, but omit the notch in the grinding wheel. You'll end up with a rather flat brad point. Then change the angle of the fence on the tool rest to make the wings fall away from the center. Perhaps a video is in order!

Besides tending to my lovely goats (Tee, I promise some pictures soon!), I've had a lot of students pass through,

Here's Bill,





Jeff,





Derrick,



and Bill, and then I was off to Maine.





One of my students, Kenneth, is Amish, and road five hours in his buggy to take the class. Here is his horse Melody. She spent the week quietly grazing on the school pasture. Watching her graze helped soothe my homesickness.



Here is Kenneth's buggy. Just being around him had a calming effect.




Here's Paul working away while I went to lunch!



and the whole class, tired but not beaten!



I plan on announcing that the new calipers will be available as of next Monday. Thanks everyone for your patience!

New Happenings

Recently I got a counterbore from Morris Tools in Tennessee for my arm to stile joints. Boy does it make a difference.


I used to first drill a "shoulder" with a large forstner type bit and then finish it with a smaller bit for the actual mortise. It wasn't impossible to line them up, but it took some doing. Once I reground and sharpened the cutting spurs on the counterbore, it drilled a gorgeous joint and the alignment was a non issue. Below is the finished mortise.


Also on the tool front, I've been meaning to mention that while in Atlanta, I noticed that Highland Woodworking carries the diamond profile parting tools in the 1/8th inch size. Folks have contacted me looking for this elusive creature after I posted that it was my preferred size for turning but especially for the way it works with my caliper. The smaller cutting edge means less vibration and resistance but still cuts a wide enough kerf to easily measure.

I'm not sure what it says about me, but one of the most exciting and fun things to enter life here is our new ice cream maker. It's of the old wooden bucket variety (but with a motor, sorry galoots) and we've been putting it through its paces. It fits perfectly with our plan to have our goat milking in the spring. After vanilla, we decided to try mint chip, but no extract and green food coloring for us, I found a recipe and headed to the garden to pick the mint. Yes, Sue is still mad that I put mint in the garden, we'll never be rid of it!
Below is the mint steeping in the milk.

Here is the finished custard.

And into the freezer.

And the finished ice cream (actually, I probably stopped a bit short, but it froze in the freezer fine)


By the way, half of the sweetener in the mix is maple syrup from last spring, just one more reason to look forward to next years sugaring season.