A Diamond in the Rough | The Wood Whisperer Woodworking Video Podcast and Blog
Ok, just drifted into the blogs I'm following here, and what's tops on the list, this one.
One more for the "it's not what it seems" file I guess :)
Showing posts with label serendipity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label serendipity. Show all posts
Monday, March 1, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Hank Gilpin: Exploring the American Forest & Serendipity
Hank Gilpin: Exploring the American Forest - Fine Woodworking
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Serendipity is a word I'd like to use in this sentence (stolen from Dave Barry...). But that's how the idea for this blog post came out...
Ok so I joined the Fine Woodworking website cuz they have some great content, how-to's and gobs of other great stuff, like the link above.
I checked it out and was just floored with what Mr Gilpin does and has done with "plain ole" American hardwoods. I like what he said about any wood; that "there is no bad wood". Any wood is good wood. I also like that he's made his career out of using native woods in his work; that's something I'm going to try to do too. Up here in the Evergreen State, we've Fir and Pine out the ying yang, but I also know there's some sweet hardwoods here. Like the incredible quilt and curly maple I keep getting from this wonderful shop in Port Townsend - Forest Gems. I love rummaging thru the cut-offs and rough cut boards he has there (and had no clue before validating their link that he has ANOTHER cache of wood! No FAIR!!!).
This brings up two points. 1 - I need to find a local sawmill (like that'll be hard here!) and get to know them and what they have. My neighbor works in the forestry biz so I need to pick his brain as to where I can find some local hardwoods. Hemlock, the state tree, is really a soft wood (pretty sure of that, it's a Fir...) but I wouldn't mind making some country pine projects/furniture out of that. Or the Shaker style dressers (from Norm Abram's New Yankee Workshop) I want to make for the boys, that I hope will one day be heirlooms they pass along.
And 2 - Serendipity. After watching Mr Gilpin's slideshow, I went down into the garage to work on some risers for getting projects up off the workbench during assembly. I had this "nasty" 2x4 that was basically missing two of it's 4 corners along the length of the board. So I cut off three 2 ft pieces for the risers (planning on cutting on in half to stack on the other two), shaved a 1/4 in off of each side to take them down to 3 x 1 1/2, but mostly to remove the rounded corners on all dimensional lumber. AND since I just plunked a chunk of my annual bonus from work down on a Rigid planer, I figured I'd try to take the boards down to 1 1/4 in thick. WELL! Got thru the first one and WOW! What beautiful piece of pine that "nasty" 2x4 turned into! I almost don't want to use it for the risers...but I will. Won't paint them tho. I have some Tung Oil left from when I built the workbench, so I'll use that to show off the wood.
So, ya. I'm a Native wood woodworker, and I doubt there will be even a stack of fire wood I won't walk by and see something I want to take home and work :)
Posted using ShareThis
Serendipity is a word I'd like to use in this sentence (stolen from Dave Barry...). But that's how the idea for this blog post came out...
Ok so I joined the Fine Woodworking website cuz they have some great content, how-to's and gobs of other great stuff, like the link above.
I checked it out and was just floored with what Mr Gilpin does and has done with "plain ole" American hardwoods. I like what he said about any wood; that "there is no bad wood". Any wood is good wood. I also like that he's made his career out of using native woods in his work; that's something I'm going to try to do too. Up here in the Evergreen State, we've Fir and Pine out the ying yang, but I also know there's some sweet hardwoods here. Like the incredible quilt and curly maple I keep getting from this wonderful shop in Port Townsend - Forest Gems. I love rummaging thru the cut-offs and rough cut boards he has there (and had no clue before validating their link that he has ANOTHER cache of wood! No FAIR!!!).
This brings up two points. 1 - I need to find a local sawmill (like that'll be hard here!) and get to know them and what they have. My neighbor works in the forestry biz so I need to pick his brain as to where I can find some local hardwoods. Hemlock, the state tree, is really a soft wood (pretty sure of that, it's a Fir...) but I wouldn't mind making some country pine projects/furniture out of that. Or the Shaker style dressers (from Norm Abram's New Yankee Workshop) I want to make for the boys, that I hope will one day be heirlooms they pass along.
And 2 - Serendipity. After watching Mr Gilpin's slideshow, I went down into the garage to work on some risers for getting projects up off the workbench during assembly. I had this "nasty" 2x4 that was basically missing two of it's 4 corners along the length of the board. So I cut off three 2 ft pieces for the risers (planning on cutting on in half to stack on the other two), shaved a 1/4 in off of each side to take them down to 3 x 1 1/2, but mostly to remove the rounded corners on all dimensional lumber. AND since I just plunked a chunk of my annual bonus from work down on a Rigid planer, I figured I'd try to take the boards down to 1 1/4 in thick. WELL! Got thru the first one and WOW! What beautiful piece of pine that "nasty" 2x4 turned into! I almost don't want to use it for the risers...but I will. Won't paint them tho. I have some Tung Oil left from when I built the workbench, so I'll use that to show off the wood.
So, ya. I'm a Native wood woodworker, and I doubt there will be even a stack of fire wood I won't walk by and see something I want to take home and work :)
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