Week One: The end of the week.

Through dovetails completed, we started on the first project.  We were introduced to drawing plans.  I'd done "mechanical drawing" as far back as High School, and during my first year at USNA, so this was not new for me. In fact, I remembered a technique the instructor didn't show us, and that saved me a considerable amount of time and effort.

I had spent a lot of time thinking about what to build. In addition to the criteria required, and recognizing that time was a critical aspect (the project has to be completed next Friday), I had to consider a blend of what I wanted to do, what I knew how to do, and what we would be permitted to do.  My first couple of ideas were rejected, either by me or by the instructor, as requiring more work than could reasonable be completed in a week, given not only the degree of difficulty of the project, but also factoring in the scheduled lectures and other work interrupting things (eating, sleeping, etc.) that would cut into the available work time.  Other reasons for rejection included aesthetics - it just didn't look right; didn't show off an intended decorative feature (the dovetails) or was just plain wrong.

I finally settled on a relatively simple book rack.  It could be thought of as the bench I showed in yesterday's posting turned on its side and then tilted it back about 8 degrees.  The actual amount of tilt is derived from the 1:7 ratio (see below for an explanation of sorts) we're using for the angles in our dovetails, so I call it my 1:7 Book rack.

Once I had a design, I commenced drawing.  Again, having prior drawing experience helped a lot.  Because of the screwy angles I've included, it took a lot of head-scratching to figure out how to put the idea on paper.  I did it in about two hours.  Then the instructor checked it; he pointed out some things I hadn't thought of.  The way I had the wood grain going, it was going to be hard to cut out the two side pieces.  Also, he pointed out that I had made the stretcher piece, which was intended for the mortise and tenon piece, so wide that I would have difficulty cutting the mortise by hand, and that it probably wasn't supported well enough. He suggested two smaller stretchers, with a different shoulder arrangement.  The total mortise length would be the same, but taken in two smaller chunks rather than one long one.

As they say, "back to the drawing board."  I tried modifying the drawing I'd already made, but soon discovered that with just a slight change in the concept, almost all of the dimension and the layout had changed.  Rather than erasing a bunch of lines, I decided to abandon the original drawing and start over.

The revision took another hour.  I grabbed Aaron (instructor) just as he was about the leave for the day and asked him to check it again.  Yet again, he laid a whole new idea of how to construct the drawing on me.  Fortunately, I had saved the old drawing, which was done in the manner he was describing, and I convinced him that further drawings would not add any new information.  Finally, he agreed.  He checked my "cut list" which is really the goal of this part of the exercise and pronounced me ready to move on.

Then I went out to the lumber racks and picked out what I think is a very nice piece of cherry.  It doesn't have too much cup or twist or sapwood, and it should be more than wide enough to leave me plenty of wood to build the rack, with a good piece left over for some other project.

Now I'm back at my apartment.  I've met my landlady's parents.  Today is her father's birthday, and they were going out to dinner.  So, I'm here using her washing machine to do a week of accumulated laundry.

Tomorrow I and two of my fellow students are going to Liberty, ME, to the Liberty Tool Company.  Liberty Tool Company sells used tools, and is the parent of the Captain Tinkum's Emporia that Steve and I visited in Searsport, ME last summer.  I'm looking for a Record #43 or #44 plough plane or whatever else strikes me.

---

The 1: 7 ratio refers to the angle produced by one inch horizontal in seven inches vertical or the acute angle produced by right triangle with a 7 inch near side and a one inch side opposite the acute angle.  The beauty of this method is that you don't have to find a protractor or a special dovetail marking gauge to determine the angle.  You can draw the triangle on a handy piece of paper or your workbench, and then set a bevel gauge to the angle. 

Enough?  For more information, see the article at Popular Woodworking Magazine

1:6 and 1:8 ratios.  1:7 is about 8 degrees.

 

Week One, Thursday: In which I do multiple things

This was another really intense day.  I'm not sure I even remember everything we did.

First we had a demonstration of cutting dovetail joints - the tails in one side, the pins in the other.  Then we prepared two pieces of wood (poplar) to use to practice our own dovetails.

Open dovetail joint

A dovetail is a very traditional joint.  In fact, the instructor mentioned that, although techniques have changed, the joints we use today are, for the most part, no different than they were 300 years ago.  We just have better tools and other materials now.

Other than aesthetics, why would we want to use a dovetail joint?  Consider the construction of a drawer.  The basic drawer comprises two sides, a front, a back, and a bottom.  Forget about the bottom, and think about the stresses put on the sides and front of a drawer as it is pulled out of the encompassing framework.  If you built it just of glued up pieces of wood, it probably wouldn't last very long.  No matter how you put it together, the joint between the front and each of the sides is put together with the long grain of the wood in the side pieces being attached to the end grain of the front (or the reverse).  Any gluing to end grain is bound to fail if it relies just on glue, even with modern adhesives.  The joint was created when animal protean glues (such as hide glue) were all that was available.  Because of the way that the dovetail is made, there are built-in long grain to long grain connections which are much stronger than long grain to end grain. In addition, once properly assembled, the pins on the front of the drawer are captured by the tails on the sides, and this provides the additional benefit of mechanical strength.

OK, more than you wanted to know.  But I'm showing off the kind of things I am learning here.  Until this week, I never considered why you would want dovetails.  I just knew that a dovetailed drawer was a sign of better craftsmanship when I went furniture shopping.

We had a demonstration/lecture on planes: types, history, disassembly, sharpening, reassembling, using, where you would use what type of plane.  None of this was new, but it's the first time it's all been put together for me.

I have a brand new plane of a particular type. (For you woodworkers, it's a Lie Nielsen Low Angle Jack Plane.) I am glad to have it, but was almost afraid to use it.  It was still in its shipping box with the paper padding,  The plane blades were still wrapped in protective paper.  It's an expensive device that I purchased just for this class, and I didn't want to do anything to misuse it.  So today was its unwrapping.

In the afternoon we saw a demo of flattening and smoothing one side of a rough-cut board, and were then given our own board to flatten.  I'm happy to tell you that the plane performed wonderfully.  I am very pleased with it.  And, the board I prepared passed all the checks and measurements I could perform, and appeared to me to be flat, twist free, and smooth.

In the meantime, I worked in a practice dovetail joint.  This is not the first time I have done dovetails, but I still need a lot of practice.

We also discussed our first project. Next week will be spent designing and building whatever it is that we decide to make, given the criteria that it must have dovetails and mortise and tenon joints, and at least one of the boards in the project must have been flattened by hand.  The example project is a small bench, but we are not constrained to building that.  The real constraint is time.

The example project - a small bench

We knocked off a little early this afternoon - 6 PM - in order to participate in the weekly pot-luck dinner.  My contribution was a watermelon I bought last night.  It had been in the refrigerator all day and was quite good, although not as popular as the various decadent chocolate concoctions others had contributed.

But the main(e) attraction was Lobster and corn-on-the-cob.

After dinner, the school director organized a game of cutthroat croquet.

The lobster and the croquet are evidently weekly traditions.  One of my classmates, who is camping on the school grounds (he's an ex-Marine, so we'll forgive him) said this was the first real meal he'd had since Sunday.  I didn't admit that I could probably say the same thing except for the sandwiches I've been buying at the local market.

Anyway, it was a good time and a lot of fun, and something to look forward to in coming weeks.

Sawing, sawing, sawing

Aaron, our instructor, demonstrating a quality of wood while the assistant instructor, Yuri, looks on

Yesterday was one of those Intense days as noted in the title of the course (12-week Intensive Furniture).  I discovered (well, I already knew it...) that I really do need to practice my hand sawing technique.  We had plenty of opportunity to do just that: practice sawing.

It might seem boring to saw a 3/4" cut into a piece of wood, over and over and over again, but the result was that I learned a lot about my biases.  When I'm sawing to the left of a line, I tend to lean toward the right.  When I am sawing the the right of the line, my sawing tends to be straighter. Don't read any deep political or other meaning into this.  It's just the way I saw. I suspect that it is because I can see the line more easily when I saw to the right of the line.

Aaron demonstrates cutting a mortise

You might wonder what difference it makes.  If I was just rough cutting a board to length, probably not much.  But we next went on to cut a mortise and tenon joint.  For this joint, one piece of wood has a hole in it (the mortise) and the other has an extension (the tenon) that fits into the hole. I didn't have any trouble with the mortise, but the tenon requires a lot of fairly precise saw work, even though you end up trimming it with a chisel (remember them - we spent the afternoon the first day, and the morning yesterday sharpening them, just for this exercise).  My first tenon fits in the mortise as it should, but, because of imprecise saw work, it is slightly skewed so that the two pieces do not come together to make a smooth joint.  It was off by almost 1/16 inch.  So, today I tried again - three more times. Each time was better, but I still found fault with each rendition.  I suspect that learning to see what is wrong and how to go about correcting it are probably the most valuable lessons I'll learn here.

Periodically, the instructor interrupts us for a demonstration or lecture on some aspect of the work we are doing.  Yesterday we discussed "tune-up" of a mortise gauge.

Typical Mortise gauge with two adjustable
marking points

My mortise gauge, which uses cutting wheels.
See the bottom of this posting for another look at it

My mortise gauge is of a different type than the typical one most of the students had (I have one like that at home but didn't bring it), so I took notes, but didn't have to do that tune-up. However, on examination of mine, we discovered that it had its own potential improvements.  This afternoon, we had a similar lecture on another type of marking gauge, the cutting gauge.   I do have one of these with me, and so spent some time making it work the way it ought to work instead of relying on the manufacturer's erroneous setup.  It comes as a complete surprise to me that these tools are made by people who should know how the tools are supposed to be used, but evidently don't.  Here's an online article on fixing the cutting gauge.

Yuri demonstrates using a Japanese saw to make the same cuts we were doing with western saws

Today before and after lunch we had a demonstration of making a through dovetail joint.  Later we cut and squared up the stock we'll be using tomorrow to make our own practice dovetail joints.

One of the concurrent things that is happening is that we are exhibiting our proficiency in using the various power tools in the machine room.  Each time we do some activity on a tool, an instructor observes us and gives his/her signature on our checklist.  The activities include such thing as running a rough board through a jointer to plane one face flat,  This is followed by correctly running the board through the thickness planer to make the two face surfaces smooth and parallel.  Anyone who does woodworking will recognize these as two steps in making a board "4-square."  The goal is to get initialed off three times on each activity.  Once we've achieved that, we won't need an instructor to observe everything we do.  Even though I've done all these things before, I appreciate the attention and thorough instruction that we are receiving.

For anyone reading this who wonders why I am going into all this detail, please understand that I'm summarizing for my own review as much as to satisfy anybody else's curiosity about what I am doing in Maine for the summer.  I know I have a few lurking followers who are woodworkers and are curious about what the school is all about, so they'll benefit from these descriptions. This is also for my family members who are curious about what their brother/cousin is doing. And for everybody else, I hope you enjoy my writing.

A more detailed view of the marking gauge
typical of the type most students have

Notes on usage of my mortise gauge from the
Lee Valley tool catalog

The School: Day One

The 12 week Intensive Furniture course began this morning.

I got out of bed way before I had to, discovered I didn't know how to use the microwave, left early, got to the school before 8 am.  But, even though the class wasn't scheduled to start until 9, I wasn't the first there.  Christoph, an engineer from France arrived at about the same time I did, and Devon was already there.

Christoph and I chose our workbenches, and I hauled in my over-large collection of tools.  Other students started to arrive, and as each arrived and chose a bench, we exchanged introductions.

Demographics: We have 12 students, a large range of experience, and two of the students are women.  I appear to be the oldest student, and the majority, I would guess are half my age, or less.  Many are hoping for a change of career.  A couple, like me, are hoping to improve their skills and therefore their pleasure in woodworking.

The morning was spent as you would expect in any course - administrivia, followed by safety rules, and other stuff of that sort.

Then we launched in to the course.  First was a discussion of wood - how trees grow, how they are cut up to make boards, the big part moisture plays in movement, warping, cupping, etc.

The big question everyone at home asked me: what are you going to make?  Well, now I know.  In the first two weeks we will be making a small bench of our own design which must incorporate dovetails and mortise/tenon joints.  In the next six weeks we'll be making a casework project, again of our own design, which must incorporate at least one door and at least one drawer. At this point, I plan on making a tool cabinet or something similar.

The final segment we will be making something incorporating bent wood.

A significant part of the afternoon was spent in sharpening 3 chisels.  I'm still not finished.  Then we got partway through a demonstration of making a properly squared up piece of wood from a rough cut board.  More of that and the chisel sharpening tomorrow.

The facilities are excellent.  The photo below is of the bench room.  The next room to the right is the machine tool room.  Large and well equipped, but not the huge industrial sized tools I used at AB Tech.

Through the door you can see in the right of the photo is what I would call the "coffee mess" or kitchen area, and the drafting room.

That's my bench with the yellow topped box next to it.  My "home" for the next 12 weeks.

In the evening I attended the weekly Faculty Slide Show.  First up was the fellow teaching a one week woodturning class.  He's from Seneca, SC, and I'm sure I've seen him at the JC Campbell Folk School.   His presentation was about his beautiful natural edge turned wooden bowls.

He was followed by Peter Korn, the school's Director.  He gave us several intertwined histories - his own, the school's, and the modern furniture making movement.   All very interesting.  Well worth coming back to the school this evening.

And so, good night for the first day of school.

By the way, I said I wan't going to show any more APRS plots, but I have two different routes I can take to get to the school from my apartment.  One takes 4 minutes, and the other about 6.  Here's all the plots for me today.  I think you can understand why this is the last one I'm going to post. The distance from Kathy's Lane, Scott Rd, Chris Rd, West Street Ext, and West St to the school is less than two miles.  The Tolman Pond Market is where I bought a sandwich for lunch.

  

Lee's Big Adventure: Day Three, In which I arrive in Rockport

Today, was the final leg of the journey - Connecticut to Maine, via Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Lots of tolls.

Just before reaching Portland on I-495 I realized that the low fuel light had come on.  I still had at least 5 miles to go before I could exit.  I began to sweat it.  I queried my GPS to see where the nearest gas stations were, and found that the nearest one was only about a mile from my exit, at a Sam's Club in South Portland.  So I set that as my destination.

Getting more and more apprehensive as the gauge needle crept down toward empty, I found what I thought was the Sam's Club.  Wait for light to change.  Turn left in to parking lot.  Nope, one light too soon.  A trip around a parking lot.  Back to the stop light. Wait.  Turn Left.  Wait at the next light (about 75 feet further on.) Turn left.  Where's the Sam's?  Rechecked the GPS display.  Next turn 90 miles. Huh??? Re-searched for the Sam's.  Ok, it's ahead on the right.  Turn into the parking lot.  Drive all the way around the building, stopping to let shoppers and other cars move.  No gas station.  Back to the GPS for another station.  It lists a Citgo 0.1 miles away.  I drive to the intersection.  I can't see a gas station of any description as I wait for the light.  Then I see it diagonally across the intersection as the light turns green.  Unfortunately, I'm in the wrong lane and have to turn right.  I drive 300 yards down the road and make an illegal "U-ie" to get back to the intersection.  I wait again for the light.  Pull across the intersection into the lot and drive to the first pump that has an opening on my side.  Made it!  Oh, No.  The pump handle is covered: Out of Service.  I pull out and around all the pumps.  Only one other one is open.  I pull in to it.  Out of Service.  I pull out and make another trip around the pumps.  Finally, somebody else pulls out, and I wheeze into the spot on fumes.  My debit card is refused.  Why? I dunno, don't care.  My stress level is already way high.  I whip out another card; the pump accepts it and I start pumping.  18 and a half gallons later I'm topped off ( I thought the tank only held 18!).

I pull out of the station with the GPS set for the address in Rockport for the school.  I'm still a good distance away.  On the way I pass by all the exits for Freeport.  No need to go to L.L.Bean yet, I continue on.

By now, it's almost 2 pm and I am getting hungry.  I queried the GPS for a restaurant.  All the ones that were not McDonalds, Wendys, Burger Kings, etc., are behind me, but finally, I found one called "Bullwinkles". It was about 10 miles ahead so I chose it.

I stopped at Bullwinkles for lunch and had an excellent Haddock BLT sandwich.  The fish was wonderful.  I must be in Maine.

Back on the road again after lunch, I see that the turn for the school is less than 10 miles away.  As I tore down the road, I passed the Lie Nielsen company on the right.  A woodworker can't pass Lie Nielsen without stopping in, so I turned around and did just that.  I discovered that, as a student at the Center For Furniture Craftsmanship, I'm entitled to a 10% discount on all of their branded tools.  Too bad I didn't know that sooner.  I have might waited to buy that Low Angle Jack Plane I dropped a bundle on a couple of weeks ago.  Oh well.  Hindsight is wonderful, isn't it? Besides, the sales tax would have eaten up the discount, and they gave me free shipping, didn't they?  Anyway, I bought a ticket to their open house on 10/11 July.  That gets me a seat at the Lobster Bake, and a chance to shake hands with Roy Underhill.  Of course, I've already done that a couple of years ago.  But, us North Carolina guys need to say hello.

While I was in the store, I talked to three guys who are students at the school.  We compared notes on how the dovetails on a box on display could have been constructed.  I am really getting excited.

Back on the road again, I went right past the entrance to the school.  It was not where the GPS thought it should be.  So, I backtracked and drove in to the school.  Amazingly, it looks exactly as it does in the photo on their website: a group of red buildings.  I drive around and found a building with a door open to a power tool workshop.  I parked and went in to the workshop and wandered around until I found some people.  One introduced himself as Peter Korn, the school director, and the others were the same guys I met at Lie Nielsen.  I'm not sure how they got back to the school before I did since we all left the store at about the same time.  Anyway, two of them were sharpening chisels.  They told me they are taking the 2-week basic course and that sharpening is a central part of that course.  It turns out that the first two weeks of the course I'll be taking are essentially the same thing, so we know what I'll be doing for the next couple of weeks.

One of the students, Mack, who is here from the West Coast, and will be taking the 9 month course beginning in the Fall, took me on a very quick but thorough tour of the building, telling me that the building I'll be in is laid out essentially the same.  My excitement rises.

Then I set out to find the place where I'll be staying.  I found it pretty quickly.  It's no more than a couple of miles away from the school, but I'm glad I didn't stick with my plan to bring my bicycle so I could ride to school every day.  Large hills, a busy highway, and narrow lanes would have made it more difficult than I could manage.

Because it was only about 3 pm at that time, I decided to drive around a bit and see what I could see.  I picked up Route 1 again and went into Camden.  I had forgotten that Camden is very much a tourist town, and the traffic and congestion was terrific.  I found a back way out of town and back to Rockport as quickly as I could.

I finally checked in at the apartment.  It is in a heavily wooded area, and the apartment itself is a good-sized efficiency over a two-car garage.  I wouldn't want to live here forever, but it will be comfortable enough for the summer.  The owner's teenage son helped me move all my stuff in.  I'm glad he did, because it's quite a walk up stairs. (What, no elevator?)

After moving in, unpacking and putting stuff away, and a nice chat with the owner, I drove to a restaurant several miles away, then to the local supermarket for some breakfast makings.  Then back here for the evening.

It's almost 10 pm.  Outside it is pitch black and silent.  It's even quieter than at home.  No distant highway noise at all.  I think I will enjoy myself here this summer.

In keeping with the previous two entries in this blog, here's the entire track for today, starting in Connecticut, then through Mass, skirting around Boston, and then more or less up the coast to the Rockport area.

The second plot is the part around the area here.   The school is at the two dots next to the lake in the lower left corner, and where I am staying is where it shows my truck and my callsign.  You can see the one trip I made all the way up to Camden, and then back on back roads.

Unless I do something different, I won't bother to put any more plots in my blog entries.  On a day-to-day basis, they won't even be as much as this one.  So, if you really want to see my movements, you will need to figure out how to find me at http://aprs.fi Here's the link for the one below: http://aprs.fi/#!mt=roadmap&z=11&call=a%2FN0SYS-9&timerange=86400&tail=43200

Lee's Big Adventure: Day Two

Another challenging day of driving.  While I only got through most of Virginia yesterday, today I went through VA, WV, PA, NJ, NY, and CT, but the distance was about the same.  There were all sorts of traffic delays, especially in NJ, NY, and CT where many of the roads are either in need of repair or are actually undergoing it.  There were also several delays due to accidents.

I got slightly lost just after I crossed the Hudson River on the Tappan Zee Bridge, and you can actually see that on the APRS plot.  Evidently they are rebuilding the bridge, and the traffic is really screwed up around it.  I misinterpreted what my GPS was telling me, and missed a turn.  Ended up going the wrong direction, and then had to go all over the place to get turned around in the right direction.

I also was surprised by the $5.00 toll on the Tappan Zee Bridge.  I guess it's been a long time since  I went over it.  I used to use it all the time when I was stationed in Newport, RI, and travelled to my parent's home in New Jersey.  That was in the late 60's, and everything is more expensive now than it was then.

As I passed through Sleepy Hollow, I was reminded of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."  According to Wikipedia, there really was an Ichabod Crane, who was a Colonel in the US Army and also served in the Marines.

As I move north, gasoline gets more expensive.  And I had a real surprise today when I went to buy gas in New Jersey.  There was an attendant at the pump who was all set to pump my gas for me.  He seemed very upset when I told him I'd do it.  I can't remember the last time I saw a gas station attendant.

Tomorrow will be a bit more leisurely trip.  I only have about 300 miles left to drive.   Once I get past Portland, ME, my trip will be along the coast.  I'm looking forward to that.

The first map shows the trip from where I stayed last night in Virginia, across West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The second map shows the Hudson River Crossing, and then you can see the jog south where I got turned around.  In case you are not familiar with the area, you will see that on the New York side of the Hudson at the Tappan Zee is Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow. It's right about there that I made my error.  I saw neither the Headless Horseman nor Ichabod Crane so I can't blame them for my error.   

After I got straightened out on the Saw Mill River Parkway, I continued up through Connecticut to where I am staying this evening.

Lee's Big Adventure: Day One of trip

I drove just over 400 miles today, which is some sort of a record for me.  I started at about 9 am, and got a hotel room about 6 pm.  That averages out to about 45 miles per hour for the trip.  No land speed records there.  You could probably do better.

But, consider this: When I was taking Linda to Duke Hospital in Durham, Linda, who couldn't drive because of her health situation, insisted that I get someone else to assist me with the driving because she didn't trust me to be able to do it.  She was right to not trust me.   For most of our married life, Linda did most of the driving.  I was just too unreliable.   Fortunately, my good friend Steve would do most of the driving to Durham and back.  I just couldn't drive that far without dozing off.  In fact, I couldn't drive more than an hour or so.  The first time I drove the entire distance was when we were returning home, and Linda was going to Hospice.  My friend Frank, another Ham, drove most of our stuff from the apartment in his truck and I drove the car.  We yakked all the way on the radio, took frequent stops, and arrived home safely.  

I've been apprehensive about this trip to Maine.  I haven't driven a distance like that alone since the 70's, and even then I had to be careful to keep my mind occupied or risk falling asleep.

I got a new CPAP a while ago, and that has made a tremendous difference.  I've been using a CPAP for about 12 years, but had another sleep test a year ago.  My sleep apnea was worse than I thought. The new machine has helped tremendously.  I've also made some other lifestyle changes which have helped.

But, I was still concerned.  This trip really means a lot to me.  I've been looking forward to it since I signed up for it last December.  Because I am taking a bunch of woodworking tools, and will be staying in Maine for three months, flying was pretty much out of the question.  I had to drive.  

One of the things that I did was to take along a bunch of audio books.  I'm currently listening to "The Mongoliad," a book I read and enjoyed several years ago.  Occasionally I find my attention wandering, but mostly I'm keeping up with the story. 

Also, I stopped along the way many times.  In two cases I took naps for a half-hour or so.  Hence the poor average speed.

Additionally, as I noted, I have my radio beeping and booping at me as it broadcasts my position along the way.  Here's the track for today using the website aprs.fi  That's me N0SYS-9 in the upper right corner, and the blue line is my track.