Tag: woodworking

Using Pinterest to Promote Your Blog

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn FurnitureLeave a comment

I’ve been a member of Pinterest for a few months and have added a few Pins onto my Boards but never messed around with it too much. It’s a fun site where I get ideas on furniture designs or things that just catch my fancy but I never really knew of its potential as a marketing tool.

Then tonight while I’m browsing Pinterest, I see a stool with yardsticks as a seat. I’ve seen them before in stores and always wanted to make one but haven’t gotten around to building one yet so I decided to pin it. When I looked at the photo I clicked on it and it took me to the lady’s blog where she talked about making it.

When that happened I thought, I’ll be damned, how did she do that? Every pin I ever uploaded came from a picture off my computer. The Link box was already filled with where the picture was being pulled from. I had no idea how they were linking their pins to their blog.

After messing around with one of my pins for a while I figured it out. First I added the picture and pinned it. Then I went back in and edited the Link to my blog page. Too simple. 

What can I say, I’m not the most tech savvy guy out there. I’m still trying to figure out what Twitter is for.

Here’s one of my pins. http://pinterest.com/pin/134052526380084266/

Repairing a Desk’s Legs

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Furniture5 Comments

My wife Anita won this desk at a local auction a couple of weeks ago. She loved the curves of the desk and wants to use it for sewing. What she’s going to sew I have no idea but that ‘s what she wants it for. It was in decent shape with a few spots where the veneer needed to be glued down and the leg needed to be glued back to the frame but that’s easy stuff to fix. What really needed attention were the two legs in the back that were missing part of their feet.

More than likely, sometime in the past the desk sat in some water and both back feet became unglued from their leg. I knew Anita was planning on painting it so I just grabbed some straight grain cherry about 1″ thick and glued it onto both back legs.

Once the glued dried, I started filing away the wood trying to recreate the swoop of the pad. Since the bad legs were in the back, it wasn’t entirely necessary to make perfect matching feet with the ones in the front since no one would really see them while the desk was against the wall but I still wanted to give it my best shot.

I used a variety of rasps and MicroPlanes to shape the curve into the foot. I’ve made cabriolet legs before so I had a basic understanding of how to shape them. Once the general shape was created, I drew the bead onto the blank and used my Dremel to carve it in.

After shaving was completed, 80 and 150 grit sandpaper finalized the foot. I was quite pleased with the results.

One foot down, one to go. It took about 30 minutes for me to finish one foot listening to the Bengals game on the radio.

After I was done with both feet, I flipped over the desk to see how it looks. Not too shabby. Once the desk is painted no one will know that the feet where redone. Anita was impressed as well. She didn’t think I would have been able to match the two in the front. I guess I’m good for something.

Improving my branding iron

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop9 Comments

A few years ago I invested in a nice branding iron featuring my company logo and website underneath. I love the thing to death and have never regretted the pretty penny I spent on it. The only issue I ever had with it was user error. When my branding iron gets hot it works like a charm. The problem is that sometimes I think the iron is hot enough and when I go to press the iron to the wood, I get an imperfect burn. With the iron being free hand, there was no way for me to line back up the iron perfectly with what was already burned in the wood. I basically had one chance to get it right. When I made my kitchen cabinets a few summers ago, some of the burns turned out not so pretty.

Then last year I attended the Marketplace at The Woodworking In America conference in Cincinnati. There I met a guy who was selling branding irons that attached to a drill press. With his iron being in a fixed position, if you don’t burn enough of the logo into the wood, you simply lower the head back down and burn again. I knew that was my answer but my branding iron wasn’t equipped to be attached to a drill press. I had the idea of buying one of those old jigs that turns a hand drill into a drill press but they were $45 on amazon and I wasn’t sure if it would even work.

Then last week my wife and I attended the Springfield Antique Show Extravaganza in Springfield, Ohio. As soon as I walked into the show, I spotted this thing lying on the ground. The old man saw me looking at it and yelled out “ten bucks” to me. I yelled back “Sold!” I immediately walked it back to my truck with delight.

This drill press attachment was made for a 1/2″ drill with the collet being a 1 3/4″ in diameter. I knew I had to make some sort of spacer in order for it squeeze my 1/2″ branding iron shaft tightly. I grabbed some scrap poplar, drew a 1 3/4″ circle around and drilled a 1/2″ hole in the middle. I had my spacer made but needed to make it work so I had to cut in half so it would wrap around my branding iron shaft.

After a few minutes tinkering around, I got it to squeeze tightly on the branding iron and the collet of the drill press. It fitted, but now it needed to work.

I lined up the cutter head so that it was perpendicular to the base on all four sides with my small try square. Once it was square I tightened the collet wing nut with all my might.

 

Now it was time to see how this thing actually worked. I heated up the iron, grabbed a piece of scrap wood and gave it a go. What do you know, it worked. I pressed down, and checked to see how it burned. If it didn’t do a well enough job, I just lowered the arm and gave it a little more heat. I definitely got a more consistent burn versus free hand.

The only downside to the jig is the wood that I used as a spacer for the collet started to burn at the bottom. Now I’m not sure what to do about this. Since I won’t being using the iron all that much, the wood should last a long time. Plus it was super simple to make and would be a snap to make a new one if the this one burns up too much. I think I’ll just let it be.

Getting back in the shop

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Uncategorized6 Comments

They say you should never take your life for granted and in the past few weeks I’ve learned that lesson well. It started a couple of weeks ago when I was having trouble seeing out of my left eye. It was cloudy at the bottom right of its vision field. At first, I thought it was a dirty contact but after I replaced the contact my vision didn’t improve at all. Concerned, I went to see my optometrist so she could check it out. She dilated my eye and took pictures of the inside and found nothing wrong. She told me to take some Advil for the pain and come back in a week.

A few days later, the pain increased and my vision decreased, so I went to the Cincinnati Eye Institute to have more tests done. The doctor examined my eye and conditions and told me that what I have is more likely Optical Neuritis or inflammation of the optic nerve to the brain. Nothing is wrong with the eye itself, just that the message from the eye is not reaching the brain. He told me to come back in the morning to take a vision field test to get a better diagnosis. I came back the next day, took the vision test and it confirmed that it was Optic Neuritis. The bad news was Optic Neuritis is often the initial episode a patient has who will subsequently develop Multiple Sclerosis later in life. He told me that I needed to have a MRI done to determine if there were any white-matter lesions on my brain. He also said that I need to see a Neuro-Opthalmologist in a few weeks to see if I regain any vision.

At this point my wife and I were freaking. I’m 38 and don’t go to the doctor because I rarely get sick. But the thought of developing MS during my life was not something I wanted to accept. I kept thinking about my life with MS and the limitations it would bring. Not being able to move my arm or the loss of my legs scared me to death. How was I going to work with wood? How would I ever keep my job as a sales rep having to travel around and build displays? What would eventually happen to me and how would my wife take care of me? It was a very stressful time for the both of us.

A few days later l stopped in and had my MRI done. They sat me down on the machine, strapped me in and put on a helmet on my head that made it feel like I was scuba diving. I laid inside the machine for 40 minutes as they took numerous pictures of my brain. The sound was horrible as it felt like I was in some strange space alien testing contraption. The only good part of the experience was they pumped in Sirius Satelite Radio; BB King’s Bluesville through some headphones. I listened to Albert King’s “Born on a Bad Sign” during the procedure and started to cry. I felt my life was coming apart at the seams and nothing would be the same again.

After the MRI, I waited for the doctor to call me back to inform me of the results. The doctor’s assistant called and told me that the MRI came back “abnormal” but wouldn’t clarify what that meant. My wife got on the phone and asked if the doctor would call us himself so he could clarify what the abnormalities were. A few hours later, the doctor called and said that they had found scattered white-matter lesions on my brain and with the symptom of Optic Neuritis, that it was likely that I would have the possibility of developing MS during my life. I asked if I need to be on steroids and if I did, why do I have to wait three more weeks to see the Neuro-Ophthalmologist? He said he’ll call the doctor and see if they can schedule me in sooner. The next day, the Neuro-Ophthamologist’s office called and scheduled an appointment the following morning.

So my wife and I got up and went to the doctor’s office first thing in the morning. By this time I’m devastated and not expecting any type of good news. My wife and I spent hours looking up symptoms of MS and Optic Neuritis on the internet over the past few days. The only symptom I had was vision loss, otherwise I felt fine. How could I have MS? I’ve never had any symptom of falling down, dizziness, numbness or tingling in my hands or legs my entire life.

The doctor came in the room and asked me how I was doing. He dilated my eye to get a better look at the optic nerve. He told me that my optic nerve was very inflamed and there was some hemorrhaging. He also told me that the white-matter lesions on MRI were old and not in the right spots to be causing my Optic Neuritis. Apparently white matter-lesions are common as you age and sometimes you can develop a white spot for every ten years of life. Considering I’m nearly 40 years old, that made sense. He said that what I have is Atypical Optic Neuritis (AON). This type has no association with developing MS. AON is sometimes brought on by an infection or virus. He asked me if I had a cat. I told him I did. He said sometimes people can develop cat scratch fever (even without being scratched by a cat) that can cause AON. He told me to go to the hospital and have some blood work done. There they will be able to determine why I developed AON however he cautioned, sometimes a person can develop it for no known reason. It just a fluke. I expect to get the results on Monday. If  the blood work confirms it is an infection, they will prescribe some antibiotics for me to take.

I was relieved that I wouldn’t develop MS during my life but I’m still concerned about my vision loss. When it started a couple of weeks ago, my vision kept getting worse over the course of a few days until I lost 95% of vision in my eye. Only in the last few days has the vision been getting any better, but I still have 90% vision loss. Optic Neuritis usually last 6-8 weeks in people then usually goes away. However, I have Atypical Optic Neuritis which may last just as long if not longer. Also, because I have AON, there’s a chance I may have some permanent vision loss once the swelling ceases. The doctor said that the majority of people with AON do regain all their vision but in some cases, some do not. He put me on steroids for the next month and I have to go back in a couple of weeks for a check up. Hopefully by then I’ll have the majority of my vision back.

This morning I went downstairs to my shop and started picking up some tools again. I stopped for a few weeks as I have been too afraid to work with only one good eye. I messed around drilling a new hole in my workbench for a placement of an overhead swing light. It wasn’t much, but it was the first step on the road to recovery both physically and emotionally.

I never really took my health for granted. Well maybe I did since I don’t have a primary care physician yet. But all I know is that I will never take my life for granted again. The things we do everyday just seem so mundane that we hardly ever think anything will change but when you have a health scare like I do, it wakes you up quick. Even though I’m not out of the woods yet being legally blind in one eye, I’m hopeful I’ll get better soon with good medicine and a lot of prayer.

French Style Bookcase

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Furniture2 Comments

My French style bookcase is painted and done. It turned out really well. My wife loves it which is all that really matters. I decided that I will build a few more and have my wife paint them with different colors to see if we can sell them on Craigslist. I posted these pictures on Facebook with a little bit of a description and an asking price of $450.00 which is cheap considering hand-made bookcases sell for over a $1000 in furniture stores. I’ll see if I get any offers on Facebook but even if I don’t, I won’t let it be a deterrent from building more because I feel that people will really like these bookcases.

The bookcase measures 59″ Long x 16″ Wide x 34 1/2″ High and is made from poplar. My wife did an excellent job painting it with two coats of semi-gloss black latex paint and a primer underneath. It’s turned out really well but I’m considering painting the next ones with a lacquer paint for durability. I’ll have one black, one white and one black with white stencil, or vice versa, whatever my wife decides to do.

The side shot shows the detail of the crown molding that I cut with an old molding plane and the cross bars that hold the case together. The crossbars are strong but make the whole bookcase light. The crossbars also imitate the sides of the Eiffel Tower which puts it in the French Style.

This morning my wife and I decided to fancy up bookcase by decorating it. We searched all over our home for trinkets and stuff to stick on the shelves. I used a picture of a bookcase from a furniture catalog to act as a guide on how to decorate it. After we were done, my wife didn’t want to put the stuff back from where we got them since the bookcase looked so nice.

Hopefully I’ll get good feedback from my friends on Facebook. Maybe I’ll even get an order or two.

Since when do woodworkers buy furniture from other woodworkers?

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Furniture4 Comments

I have to admit, I’d never thought that a woodworker would buy a piece of handmade furniture from another woodworker. After all we’re woodworkers, we could just easily make it ourselves. But what has happened over the past few months has changed my opinion.

It started a couple of years ago when I made four Shaker side tables out of cherry. I had plans of listing them on Etsy and turning a handsome profit. At first it seemed easy with a sale within the first week. The problem was that the person who had “bought” the table was a scammer trying to pull some over payment cashiers check trick and then have me send him the difference back. Luckily Etsy saw the scam and cancelled the transaction.

I had the tables out on Etsy for a few months with no other bites so I decided to delist them. I was them stumped as to what to do with them so I had the idea of donating one to my local PBS station’s Action Auction. The auction went well and I had my table on TV for several minutes as well as MVFlaim Furnituremaker listed on the PBS station’s website. So, the next year I decided to do it again. Even though I didn’t get any money for them, I felt good about the exposure and helping out my local PBS station with the donation.

Then last summer I got a call from one of the people who had won the auction for one of the tables. They wanted another one! So I gave them a price and went over to their house to deliver it. I met with the woman’s husband and he started talking about woodworking and took me out to his shop. I looked around in his shop in confusion. The man obviously had a nice set up. Nice enough to be able to build the table himself. Why was he buying mine? I asked him why and he told me that while he dabbles in woodworking, he doesn’t possess the skills that I have to build the table as nice as I did. I was extremely flattered by that.

Three tables down one to go. My wife decided to stick the last one in our spare bedroom and use it for a few months. It looked nice but didn’t quite match the French country decor she was going after so she listed it on Craigslist. A couple of days ago a guy called and asked if he could have it for a certain price. My wife and I agreed to the offer and told him to come pick it up. The man came to the house, introduced himself and started asking about what type of joinery I used to build the table. I couldn’t believe it. Another woodworker! Here’s another guy who would rather buy a nice handmade table than make himself. What is going on? He told me that he spends all his time at work and really doesn’t have time to build things he wants but appreciates nice furniture when he sees it. He even told me that he went down to Tennessee to Lonnie Bird’s school to take his Dovetailing class a few years ago so he definitely had a passion for woodworking.

All I know is that I learned something new today. Even though people possess the skill to build something themselves, they’ll still pay a fair price for the work of others. I didn’t get rich from the sale of the tables. In fact, I barely got my money back from the cost of the wood, but it still felt good helping out my local PBS station the past couple of years and meeting new friends.

“The Art of Joinery” by Joseph Moxon and Chris Schwarz

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn Workshop5 Comments

A few years ago I attended the first Woodworking in America conference in Berea, KY. While there, I picked up the book “The Art of Joinery”. The book was originally written by Joseph Moxon about 300 years ago. Chris Schwarz rewrote parts of the book in plain English and added a bunch of photos with captions under them.

It’s a good book that is a quick enjoyable read but unfortunately it’s no longer in print. So one day I was browsing eBay and saw that somebody was asking $400 for the book. I thought to myself “yeah right”. Then I searched amazon.com and saw people were asking $500 for their copy. I knew those prices were ridiculous but was intrigued what the book was actually worth. So, I threw the book on eBay last week with a starting bid of $39.99 and watched where it would go. It ended up selling for $59.12 plus shipping.

I can’t remember what I paid for the book but I think it was only around $8.00 -$12.00. Chris Schwartz signed the book with his name on the first page which may have helped its final selling price. Pretty good return on my investment if you ask me. In fact, it makes me want to buy a couple dozen copies of “The Anarchist Tool Chest” and drive across the Ohio River to Chris’s house to have him sign the books.

Making crown molding with a complex molding plane

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn FurnitureLeave a comment

While in the process of building a Bourdonnais French style bookcase I needed to make some crown molding for the top.

I wasn’t about to go out and spend money on some pre-made crown molding. That would be the easy way out. I have a boat load of antique molding planes in my shop, so I decided to put one of those bad boys to use.

The first step in make making crown molding is to get the stock prepared. I ripped a couple of pieces of straight grained poplar 5/8″ x 2″ x 6′ long. It’s important to get wood with grain as straight as possible to avoid tear out caused by the plane’s blade.

I then chopped off a section of one of the boards to use as a test piece. Placing the piece in my sticking board, I began running my molding plane over the board to create the Roman ogee profile. After a few strokes, the shape was completed in about five minutes. By the way, my sticking board is similar to the one based off of Jim Toplin’s in the book “The New Traditional Woodworker” by Popular Woodworking Books.

The next step is to create the angles on the board so that is works as crown molding on the case. I took the board over to the table saw and set the blade to 30 degrees. Once I set the fence to the proper location, I ran the board through and then flipped the board over to rip off the same 30 degree angle off the other end of the board.

I then took the molding back to the bench to finalize the profile. I used a block plane and just knocked off the top corner. This corner should be 90 degree to the 30 degree angle cut on the table saw so that it will lay on the case properly. (It’s really helpful to have a small sample piece of crown molding laying around so that you can use all the angles on the molding as a template for your piece).

Once the profile has been completed, a light sanding with 120 grit sand paper helps clean up any chatter left by the molding plane. I use a styrofoam sanding sponge and some sticky sand paper to sand the profile.

After sanding the only thing left to do is attach it to the case. Always make more molding than you need. There may and will be parts of the molding where the plane falls out of line a little bit and the profile won’t match the rest of the board. You simply cuts those parts off and use the rest.

ToolCo Router Bits

On By MVFlaim FurnituremakerIn WorkshopLeave a comment

A couple of months ago there was a thread on a woodworking forum I host called The Burl www.theburlforum.com where people were talking about which router bits were the best. I made the comment that I usually buy Whiteside router bits because they were of good quality and made in the USA.

I was told by a member of The Burl that there was another USA made router bit company around that makes bits under their name as well as private labels them for other companies called ToolCo. I had never heard of them but was intrigued so I searched them on the internet and found their website at www.toolcobits.com.

After visiting their website, I was impressed with the vast amount of bits they made and was eager to try them out but had no way of knowing where to buy them as it lacks a dealer locator.

Then miraculously, I was contacted by an employee of the company who asked If I would be interested in getting some. After exchanging a few emails he sent me a package of router bits.

At first glance I could tell these bits were bad ass. The majority of router bits I have in my shop are 1/4″ shank Chinese shit bits I bought as a set at Costco a few years ago. These ToolCo bits were 1/2″ shank and looked like they could kick some serious hardwood ass.

You can definitely see the quality difference between ToolCo and the crap bits. For one thing, there’s more metal to the body and the carbide is thicker. I’m sure the carbide itself is better grade of material but I don’t know much about metallurgy to even comment on that. All I know is that when I stuck them in my router they cut like butter.

Even the spiral up cut bit is wicked looking. I’ve never seen a bit with that many tight spirals up the shank. A few weeks after I got my bits, I attended The Woodworking Show in Columbus Ohio and went to the booth where they sell a lot of router bits. I looked for their spiral up cuts to compare to the ToolCo I have. I could tell the ones they sold at The Woodworking Shows were made for homeowners while these ToolCo bits are sold for Industrial use.

Obviously I haven’t had time to try out all the bits I got but, it’s like the old saying; you don’t have to eat the entire pie to know it taste good. All I know is the next time I’m in need of a new router bit, ToolCo is where I’ll look. I just hope they update their website so I can find a local dealer who stocks them.