Last evening, for this segment Matthew Crawford gave his account of academia, the new job force, and life’s little nuances. Matthew is a PhD graduate from the University of Chicago and left the cube farms of corporate america to be a motorcycle mechanic, opening his own shop. He has also written a book called Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work of which I promptly went out and got. I watched this piece to realize that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way, and frankly was touched, and comforted that my choices to leave the doldrums of corporate culture to actually create tangible works isn’t completely unfounded. Here is the clip from the BBC.

I’d love to write a little more about this but I think I’ll do that at a later date, allowing this segment stand on it own. As I expand this blog’s focus a little more to include general lifestyle and green practices for those of us whom are craftsmen in our own ways, I will say this, please have respect for those out there that actually get dirty for a living, chances are they’re as intelligent or more so than you – else you wouldn’t have called them to do something you can’t. I see all to frequently potential clients, friends, and family looking down their nose because tradesmen don’t wear suits (or maybe don’t even own one). Besides, if it weren’t for us craftsmen, specifically woodworkers, you would’t have that beautiful desk in your corner office.

Now everyone has their own methods of creating arcs in any given project. One of the most popular I read is using a thin piece of wood bent across the length. This obviously only translates well for short arcs and custom pieces. Another is utilizing midpoints and tangents to establish the radius, which is great when you don’t want to do the math but sucks when you would end up having 13-foot plus string-lines stretched across your shop (This makes moving around a little difficult when you have a ton of machinery and the such in a 26′ x 20′ shop). The concept of a trammel in this just wasn’t in the cards for pretty good reasons, as you might expect, but there is a really nice and extremely flexible jig you can make to do these massive arcs, and most importantly, repeatably. I was inspired for this jig from an extremely talented finish carpenter whom used something similar for doing trim arches over windows and doors.

The Math First

From previous posts and anyone whom has read this site knows that I love math and formulas for making things nice and tight. There is no difference here. Calculating an arc isn’t difficult and there is a lot you can do with a really smooth and graceful arcs in terms of aesthetics. There are three pieces to an arc’s puzzle, the width or span you want to have, the height of the arc’s section, and the radius of said arc. The parts of this equation we typically know is widths and heights cause we have a given area in the lumber piece we chose be it sheet goods or solid boards.

The Radius

The radius requires no more that basic algebra. Length squared plus four times the height squared, divided by eight times the height.

R = (L2 + 4H2) / 8H

The Length

Length is a bit more advanced but not the worst of them. The square root of two times the radius minus the height, times the height, times two.

L = 2√H(2R - H)

The Height

Height is probably the most complex of them all. The radius minus the square root of four times the radius squared minus the length squared, divided by two. (did you get all that)

H = R - ((√4R2 - L2) / 2)

Now for the Jig

Ok, now that the math lesson is over let us get to doing this in a limited space and with repeatable accuracy. The required materials are few and as follows;

• Two pieces of scrap wood, sheet goods, or MDF half the arc’s width plus a few inches for some wiggle room.
• Two drill bits, preferably of the same size (I use 1/8″ bits which you’ll see why in a bit)
• A sharp and short pencil, I use the ones you get from golf courses.
• (Optional if you plan on reusing the jig) A few pieces of scrap sheet goods to make and hold the jig square.

Component with Kerf Cut

Take one piece of the wood you cut at half the arc width and run a saw kerf down the center over the entire length. This piece serves as a track for one of the drill bits. You can see now why I use a 1/8″ bit as that is the kerf of my blade. You want the drill bit to fit snugly in this kerf but still be able to slide fairly easily through it. I’ll usually wax the kerf and the drill bit.

Next take the other scrap wood piece and mark an endpoint about one inch +/- from any given end. Measure from this mark as establish half the length of the arc plus half the width of each drill bit if they are different sizes or one drill bit’s width if they are the same. Now drill a hole centered on one mark to fit the pencil tightly for it to remain square to the underside of the board, it is also very important to have the pencil’s point sharp and centered on this mark. Drill another hole to fit one of the drill bits at the other end. Again, make sure it is tight, centered, and square to the board.

Now from the center of the hole that will house the pencil measure the height of the arc plus half a drill bits width. This drill bit needs to remain as square as humanly possible, it will be holding a little pressure to control the drawing of the arc. I usually make sure it is through the board and add a little scrap wood to the bit for me to hold while drawing. You’ll see how it works in a bit.

Squaring the Arms

Secured to the work

The optional part to this is adding a couple of “arms” to the kerfed board at 45° to help with the squaring when we are going to draw the arc. I’ll use the fence on my table saw to align these, then I add another scrap to the bottom side, so that I can put some double sided tape and secure it to the piece or template wood prior to drawing the arc. The Jig is done now. It’s a bit confusing to understand how this might work at this point but trust me when I say it is wonderfully easy to use.

Setting up to Draw the Arc

Detail of Arm

This is by no means rocket science, the concept here is quite simple. The drill bits are the working elements, one to ride through the kerf and another to ride the edge of the work piece or template we want to draw the arc on. The pencil just goes along for the ride. Place the jig exactly square to the edge of the board to have the arc transfered to. Make sure you have a little of the work piece’s edge above the jig so that the second drill bit has something to ride along.

Jig in use

The idea now is to move the drill bit along the edge of the work piece allowing the other end to ride through the saw kerf thus creating the arc. One thing to note on this jig though, when you reach the endpoints of the arc where the drill bit is getting about an inch from the work piece in the kerf, the arc will abruptly move perpendicular to the work piece. To compensate for this you can recalculate the height of the arc by expanding the desired width by about two inches on either side. This really only becomes a problem when doing trim work as most of the time there is joinery at the arcs end points that removes this any way.

Other Things with this Jig

One thing you’ll quickly learn about me is I hate one trick ponies, I only own one and that is my hollow chisel mortiser. Everything I do, buy, or make has to have a little more than just a single use and this is no exception. This jig can do a perfect arch by taking the half the length and dividing it in half for the center bit that rides the work piece. I also have on of these with a T-track that can take a bearing in place of the drill bit, add another bearing for the riding piece and a router plate at the end. Now you have a more versatile means to route arcs and arches accurately. Just be forewarned here, the router jig can get away from you and kick violently if one of the bearing jumps so it is a pretty good idea to get an assistant for this one. I constantly improve on this and many of my other jigs and will continue to update this post as needed. Have fun with large, graceful arcs in your work.

The break down is like this;

• Door Dimentions: 42″ x 96″
• Sidelite Dimentions: 21″ wide obvious hight variance
• The door and sidelites are 2 1/4″ thick
• Construction is mortise and tenon
• Material is Sapele
• Arc / Eyebrow radius: 160 1/4″ (13′ 4 1/4″)

Construction Details

The door and sidelites are constructed using the modern exterior door practice of using stave core construction, but at a thickness not common in production wood doors. You see the extra 1/4″ thickness not only adds mass and rigidity but another r-value of 1.5 to the energy efficiency of the door. This is a roughly north facing door so this can become a factor and is important to me. The windows in each piece are double pane insulated glass being constructed by a local suppler here.

Understanding Stave Cores

Stave cores are not a new technique for doing solid wood doors but strangely enough I don’t see many custom door makers (outside of production houses) using them. There is a lot of advantage to this construction technique both is strength and life of the product. It can also help the bottom line as well. We woodworkers all know about the dimensional stability of plywood and veneers and this is essentially what stave core construction is, just with a twist.

The core itself is typically a wood of lesser quality but with greater stability of the veneer wood. In my case, and a lot of manufactures cases, I used Eastern Yellow Pine. This core wood is cut into strips and the glued back together with opposing grain structures (see figure 1). After glueing the strips together they are cut to length, roughly 12″ in my experience and then finger jointed back together to add even more strength to the core (see figure 2). This is a time consuming task for any woodworker, I should know I’ve done it. In this case I decided to outsource it to a local vender to cut my labor costs to the client. It was a profound savings that I was able to pass on and will most likely use them moving forward on any additional doors I make.

Figure 1

Figure 2

I should note that I went to the supplier and selected all the wood for this project to keep a grain consistency. This would be a hard pressed task to get from any of the production houses. Another step I took was to have the top rail, lock rail, and kick rail for each piece manufactured as one unit that was then cut appropriately in my shop to get the grain to move across the entire door and look as close to consistent as possible. The vertical stile of each sidelite was also manufactured as one piece and then ripped to width, half the width of the door stiles, to also give that matched look. A lot of time went into the planning of this before being sent out and that was a huge step for me as I barely trust anyone that I can see in front of me, let alone a couple hours drive. I am glad I did.

Rough Cut and Moving Along

I now was able to rough cut all of the pieces oversized and did a rough layout marking with soap stone the various location of cuts to be, and joinery locations. Here is where being smart and cutting oversized come in handy. The lock rail on the door in the Sketchup document looks good. In the real world with the layout on the table rough it just doesn’t work as there is too much top and not enough bottom. The design called for the door to be split in thirds, the top two being glass and the bottom being a panel. The client wanted a larger window and it moved to division by fifths. This looked good on paper but not when it’s done to scale. These are always things you must accommodate for with clients and resolve as they come about. No matter the size or scope of a project the client is always welcome to call me and visit during construction.

Sidelites Rough

Side View

Lower Portions

Next step is the jig to create the arc without string or trying to find a thin strip of anything to create this accurately and uniformly. Oh, and little to no math except dividing by two and I think you can handle that. – John

I have also developed a new video player plugin for the site, of which I will release to the masses when I am happy with the functionality. This video player enables a full screen ability with no advertising or bizarre branding, though it is an open source video player that is fairly well maintained. The main detail is for those of us whom need and want video on their sites need a little customization to really provide the proper look and feel with our chosen themes. Features include:

• HD video and multiple video formats (FLV, MOV, M4V to name the most common).
• Will not attach the video in the RSS feeds as so many other Wordpress sites do.
• Runs inline with the page and full screen with scaling.
• Multiple videos per page and post.
• Does not slow down page loading as the video is only loaded when user requests it.
• Customizable colors for the controls
• Custom Image support to create a teaser before the video is asked to play (Image will be used in RSS feed if supplied)
• Branding is also possible with your own logo

If you would like to help me test it I would be happy to provide anyone with a like an instructions for doing so. Please note that you must be running the most current Wordpress 2.8 series. On that, I must give a shout to Rob, The Tattooed Woodworker, for sticking it out. It truly sucks that people have to regress to a middle school mentality in order to make themselves feel better. Good show man and keep up the good work, I love your stuff. My next project is awaiting and one that I will chronicle here so keep the eyes open and subscribe to the RSS feed to get all the gory details and techniques for modern door and window construction.

The site was put up to get things rolling on my end. Both clients and the fellow woodworking community were the motivations behind the rapid site development, though the blog has been getting most of the traffic and focus from my end, the look and feel really is cobbled together and a new interface and design is in progress. Yes, I will be getting a gallery of work together as new projects continue. The new site will also have an avenue to checkout and purchase my wooden planes, scrapers, and shaves. I have many of my own design patterns and some inquires to make some for others so I have decided to offer up an ordering system for my basic designs and the ability to customize plane for yourself, that I will make and deliver to you with a number of different iron options. Keep an eye out for that toward the end of the summer or early fall.

I have a pretty exciting and unique project about to start in the next week to 10 days that I have decided to chronicle here at pinstails.com. The project is a unique and very oversized front entry door and sidelites. This project consists of quite a few challenges, excluding that the door is 8-foot tall it includes a massive 13 foot radius arc transfered through out the door and trim. Additionally I am working with Red Star Ironworks here in the Pittsburgh area to create the lite dividers and decorative ironwork on the door. When it all said and done this massive door will be weighing in around 500 pounds and has many, many obstacles that I will share and discuss the solutions here on my blog with you in the community. To tie everyone over her is a Sketchup render of the door, sidelites, and final trim work to all be done with some gorgeous Sapele I just took delivery of. Keep the lookout here in the coming week for the first phase of what is to be quite the multi-parter as this project unfolds over the next few weeks.

At the Heart

Typically used for doing stud counts or in it’s extended form, balustrade spacings, this formula has a lot of other uses. I’ve gone as far as using this formula to do a wall of european cabinets. At it heart is works like this;

( Total Length / Desired Spacing ) + 1

This gives up the total pieces to the project puzzle. So in context, you are framing out a new wall for that shop addition that been put off for years. You have established that your wall is 13′ 3″ or 156″ and you will want a nice firm wall cause of everything your are going to be hanging and leaning on it so you decide to go with the normal 16″ spacing between the stud. So it looks like this;

156" / 16" = 9.75

9.75 + 1 = 10.75 (11 Studs)

Simple enough and invaluable to buying or calculating the amount of wood needed for the project. Now this is really a simple formula to get that board footage figured out on the project. As you can see above though, the result isn’t always exact, so lets step it up a bit and make it work in the craftsman’s world.

Taking it to useful

So we have spent the last two days laying out and rough sawing all the gorgeous quarter-sawn white oak for that adaptation of the Morris chair. Now it’s time to do the arm spindles. We know this, the distance from the front to the back leg is 29 3/8″ and we used 2 1/4″ thick material for the legs. The resulting opening between the legs is 24 7/8″. Now we want the spindles to be 3/4 inch², and we would like to have the spacing be half the width or 3/8″. How many do we need to cut and what will their exact spacing be? The formula changes ever so slightly.

First we need to estimate the total spindles.

 Total Length / ( Desired Spacing + Material Width )

24 7/8" / (1 1/8" = 19.9) (20 spindles)

Second we need to discover the total space “occupied” by those spindles

Material Width x Total Spindles

3/4" x 20 = 15"

Next the total space between all the spindles, using the result of step two.

Total Length - (Material Width x Total Spindles)

24 7/8" - 15" = 9 7/8"

Now to get  the actual spacing between the spindles, using the result from above.

Total Space / (Total Spindles + 1)

9 7/8" / 21 = 1/2"

Spindles laid out on the chair.

Now on a Morris style chair I don’t like to fill the space in the arms with spindles so I find a pleasing “gap” in both the front and the back, usually a larger gap toward the back if there is to be a cushion made. There is a nice even gap and it looks pretty good. As you can see and probably already thought the basic formula and the larger one are quite flexible in their various incarnations. One thing to keep in mind though. If you are filling a space, as we were in this case, add the width of one spindle to the gap you want filled. Only if you want to fill the space completely. The reason being is the formula expects that you want to fill across the length, including putting the end piece in place. Just think of the balustrades on your staircase.

Let SketchUp Do the Work for You

All of you are using SketchUp to model your complex projects aren’t you? SketchUp has an extremely powerful set of features that allows you to experiment with spacing and not have to do this over and over again. Everyone knows that great woodworking and craftsmanship comes from creating a pleasing to the eye final. This obviously goes beyond just the finish and, more importantly, requires a proper aesthetic proportion. That proportion that is pleasing doesn’t require any crazy formulas or algorithms. Though there are quite a few out there. SketchUp just creates a wonderful opportunity to “experiment” with different designs and ideas of aesthetic proportions.

SketchUp’s Arrays

The move tool is such a powerful tool for many obvious reasons and a few hidden ones to us woodworkers. One of those being arrays. First things first though you have to get things setup in the SketchUp document and that’s quite easy. The geometry you want to create multiples of in length should be a component or a group. While not actually necessary, a good idea due to SketchUp’s sticky geometry and the need to establish dimensions for our joinery. I am going to use the same Morris chair file to demonstrate this. The external array function of the move tool is pretty straight forward.

1. Start by selecting the component or group you want to create multiples of.
2. Begin moving the geometry and press the copy modifier (Option on the Mac, Ctrl for PC)
3. Let go of the drag when you reach the distance you like
4. (Optional) Enter the exact move distance and hit Return / Enter
5. Type 12x Enter / Return to create 12 copies at that same distance across the same axis.

From here as long as you don’t click anything else you can keep typing some number + x to get what you are looking for. This is what SketchUp calls an external array. This is powerful but requires you to know the spacing to achieve a desired result. So what if we don’t have the spacing, well now, you can calculate it with the above formula or we can let SketchUp do it for us. We can also use an Internal array to fill a “gap” with the desired geometry. Here’s the process and it’s almost the same as an Internal array which makes things pretty easy to remember.

1. Select the component or group you want to use.
2. Move the geometry to the end point using the copy modifier as with the External array
3. (Optional) Enter the exact end distance and hit Enter / Return
4. Type 10/ (Forward slash) then Enter / Return to fill the “gap” with 10 copies.

Again, as long as you don’t click anything you can play with the amounts in the array. Now in this case you don’t know the spacing of the geometry. So when you find the amount that is pleasing to you, select your tape measure and get that distance from the SketchUp document. Now this isn’t easy to demonstrate with images so I have put together a little screencast for you to see all that I am talking about.

[flashvideo mediaURL=/files/2009/07/sketchuparrays.m4v teaserURL=/files/2009/06/sketchuparrays.jpg /]

Please be kind my teaching background is normally one-to-one, but this was fun and I just might make a habit of it.

Stack of Reclaimed Pine

To start I had a bunch of old pine boards anywhere from 3 ¹/₂” to 6″ wide and ~24″ to ~36″ long all of the wood had come from the railings so it was about ³/₄” thick but none had stayed very straight, snaking, twisting, and cupping in a bunch of directions. I decided to mill all the boards to ⁵/₈” thick and 3″ wide to make it as simple as I could. The design was to be very simple but open options for interpretation. I’ve been pretty busy and only getting more work coming in so I wanted a reprieve from client projects but not so much that I was running a risk of missing deadlines. This resulted in making the milled lumber cuts for the planters in three lengths so that I could batch cut enough for the two planters I had promised and use the assembly line to make it move along efficiently. The resulting cut dimensions are as follows;

With everything cut to length we need one miter the length of the leg just to clean up the look of the joint. Next we will be adding biscuits to this for an easier assembly and stronger joint. This is a pretty simple setup with your biscuits jointer’s fence set to 45° and doing three slots for a number 10 biscuit 2″ for both ends and at the 11″ center mark.

Now for the side assemblies, I really chose to go simple here deciding to just use glue and brads. This is where you creativity can come out and shine, I was going to do some some Shoji lattice work in the field here but with my time constraints I decided against it (for now, I may have some down time coming in late July between projects and have plans to expand on the planter concept to create a garden bench). To set these up all i did was put a straight edge on my bench and pressing the small field lengths against it laid out five pieces to create the panel. Running a bead of glue across the top and bottom of the field no lower the 1″ from the edge I marked the center of each rail, I aligned this mark with the center of the field, 1 1/4″ from the top and square to the sides. Then fasten it with a brad in each panel component. Repeat this with the bottom rail. I then ran a bead of glue on each side, the measurements are done for you with the rails in place, I aligned the legs / stiles to the top of the rail and fired a few more brads to fasten it. As long as your cuts a extremely accurate and square everything lines up nicely. Rinse and repeat for each assembly.

Miter setup

Biscuit slots

Side assemblies

With all 4 assemblies complete give the a bit to just setup as wen we assemble the sides together there will be a little man-handling with them if you don’t have someone or something to help hold them for the final glue-up. (I actually made two of these so the glue was quite ready by the time i finished eight side assemblies). Here’s the routine, glue the biscuits in the slots of two assemblies. Run a bead of glue down the length of the miter and slot them together. This is a good place to use a web clamps around each of the rails to hold it together. I had mine tied up (no pun intended) on another project so I used a few f-clamps that were handy. This is a real pain by yourself, my suggestion is this:

1. Put two of the sides together and stand them upright.
2. Quickly get the third side assembly on before you drip the glue and make your bench the planter.
3. Setup the clamps of your choice just tight enough to hold the three assemblies.
4. Glue and slip in the fourth assembly in place and tighten the clamps.
5. Check for square and adjust as needed.

The last thing we need to do is trim the top. miter one of the sides of the trim and dry fit it on the top of the planter to make the other side’s miter. Again, rinse and repeat around the perimeter of the planter glueing each and firing a few brads through to complete. You now have a planter to make whomever quite happy.

Final Assembly

Final Planter

Test fit and done

I’ve actually had neighbors asking me where I got them and all I was trying to do was make my little woman something a bit different for her flowers. The project accounts for about 48 linear feet of 3-by lumber, that didn’t cost me a dime but my local big box orange home improvement center has 10′ length of 6-by paint grade pine for $5.89 so just shy of $20 USD and there is a quick and easy project for the weekend. This took me about 6 hours to complete both and that includes re-milling the lumber. There are a few cheviots and ideas to keep in mind though;

1. Have the interior planting pots at hand. Mine happened to both be 15 1/2″ with an 1 1/2″ lip to hang them on the internal exposed structure of the field panels. You may have to adjust the widths of each side to accommodate yours.
2. Create an internal structure to allow for different sizes or multiple planting pots.
3. Take more time to dress them up. Ideas include, dovetails on the miter, splines on the trim, or carving in the fields.
4. Make an octagon for round planting pots. Just change the miter to 22.5° from 45°

Feel free to comment any other ideas to change this up. I haven’t talked about the finish, obviously if these are outside you’ll need an outdoor finish, but that’s all you. I have a post coming up that will outline an outdoor finish with a colored dye you can get just about anywhere.

It wasn’t until I was working on a built-in for a client that I noticed something. The project was and overhead cabinet and a vanity below all made out of Red Oak. I was prepping for the finish of the overhead cabinet and was getting a scratchy feeling in my chest. I honestly thought I was just coming down with a cold or something but as the project progressed it worsened. So I started to do some research as I always have when I wanted to find something out and found a lot of surprising results. A lot of which really opened my eyes to things.

From the Beginning

I love a good wine and whisky, and what I already knew about them actually made part of the whole pretty easy to understand. The tannins, which I knew about in some wood, cause of my love of wine, actually lead me down this road of research. 

Tannins are distributed all over the plant kingdom. They are commonly found in both gymnosperms as well as angiosperms. In terms of location of the tannins in a plant, they are mainly located in the vacuoles or surface wax of the plants. These sites are where tannins do not interfere with plant metabolism, and it is only after cell breakdown and death that the tannins are active in metabolic effects. Tannins are found in leaf tissues, bud tissues, seed tissues, root tissues and stem tissues. An example of the location of the tannins in the stem tissue is that they are often found in the growth areas of trees, such as the secondary phloem and xylem and the layer between the cortex and epidermis. Tannins may help regulate the growth of these tissues. They are also found in the heartwood of conifers and may play a role in inhibiting microbial activity, thus resulting in the natural durability of the wood.

Tannins are a natural acid in the growth rings of our beloved material of choice. Though not a true acid but an acid-like substance called a polyphenol. Tannins are what the vintners work so hard to regulate to give our favorite wines the flavors we all have grown to love, mostly red wines have this prominence. They actually are the reason some stains work, as these stains react with the tannin in our given project’s wood of choice. At the very least stains contain tannic acid, the commercial form of tannin, to create the reaction in woods low in tannin. So what does this have to do with my health? Well a few things actually.

A Long Time Coming

This research lead to me find a lot about how the dust, and other factors, effect our health. Though unfortunately not a lot of research has been done in this area, there is a few things that I will share. The evidence related to various issues ranging from a little mild irritation to as serious as cancer seems to point to the tannin content and why some woods have greater effect than others. The fear factor came when I had read that nasal and sinus cancers are 5 – 40 times higher in woodworkers. Though the exact culprit hasn’t been truly identified due to the very high latency period of 30 to 50 years. The evidence does point to woods with high tannin content, such as Oak, Chestnut, and Red Cedar to name a few. 

Mold, which is big news now, actually is a very big concern to us. Spalted wood, especially prized by you woodturners, is actually caused by a mold, Cryptostroma Corticale. This mold lives between the bark and sapwood of hardwood trees, very happily I might add, favoring the Maple and Birch. This mold is the cause of “Maple Bark Disease”, which contains all the symptoms of a severe respiratory allergy. Though I can’t find a ton of information specific to the disease that doesn’t require a medical degree to completely understand what I can surmise is this. It’s bad and the basic treatment is lung transplants and death. Not to say there isn’t treatment for the symptoms but why treat when you can prevent. 

The Hear and Now

Other short-term effects are also a concern. Believe it or not there are those of us that can actually have allergies to some woods. We have all had those sneezing fits and tearing eyes in our shops is some way or another, very common when working with Red Cedar and Rosewoods. This is an effect of irritating the sensitive mucus membranes of the nose and eyes. Beyond the little nuances of the dust allergies can actually build over time resulting is rashes that resemble poison ivy. These can typically show up in the webs between your finders first. Woods that are common irritants include Cocobolo, Ebony, and Satinwood among others.

The good news or bad is it can as little as a few days to upwards of 8-months to develop this allergy. You really have to be allergy prone to one or more of the chemicals of the wood, called sensitizers. It could also take repeated contact for the actual allergy to develop. Some sensitizer woods include Birch, Mahogany, Maple, Walnut, Red Cedar, and Teak.

Saying “No” to the Dust Mask

Now I am not an expert, nor will I claim to be. I’m sure there is other health hazards and safety concerns I have not covered here as well. What I understand is none of these things need to happen and it really don’t take much. OSHA has a nice page about wood dust with common problems and solutions. Eric Meier also put together a fantastic article and chart for woods and their toxicity.

The bottom line is there is no reason what-so-ever to not have a dust mask on at the very least. Adequate dust control and filtration should not become a luxury for even the smallest shops. I recently began researching a better solution for myself and in talking with Oneida, the sales rep was actually discussing with me about how the cyclones can be used as an air filtration system even when tools are not in use. Honestly I’d still keep my overhead air filter, what’s the harm in a little extra fresh air? Besides maybe I won’t have to clean the filter element so much.

References and Links

• Bruce Campbell – Vancouver Woodturners Guild
• Musical Instrument Makers Forum
• Eric Meier – Wood Allergies and Toxicity
• National Institutes of Health
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration 
• Wonderful Wikipedia

Sustainability

This is the easiest one for us craftsmen and works in two parts. 

Responsibility in what we buy and how we use it is both easy and takes a little thought. We obviously can’t do our jobs without materials and the core of those materials is a natural resource, raw lumber. We just can not create anything without that, besides what would our trade be called then, woodworker kind of looses it meaning if we don’t have our raw material. The FSC, Forest Stewardship Council, comes in to play here adding a couple details to feeling good about our lumber purchases. The FSC certification states that the lumber was harvested responsibly without any social, economic, or environmental impact on current and future generations. Simply put by buying these products you, in part, make sure we and those who step into our shoes after we depart will still be able to carry on this ancient trade. There are a couple of other things we can do to feel good about what we buy of which I’ll explore in much more detail soon. Including exploring the chain of custody, local and regional organizations, reclaiming, repurposing, and how to use the CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) site and database for information.

Longevity is by far the easiest thing us woodworks already do. We don’t build our pieces to be thrown out in a few years. We love to throw around words and phrases like “heirloom”, and “for generations”. This goes a bit further than that though. Our tools make us do what we do and those tool investments are not small. I consistently read forum posts about buying, refurbishing, and selling tools. Some of the tools are decades old, there’s a simple word that is unavoidably thrown around in the green circles, recycling. Just recently buying a new jointer the sales man actually told me about the value in 10-years, i.e. The company expected me to sell it and get another at some point expecting this tool to be around for quite sometime. Now that’s longevity.

Health

Health is a complex one but one that should be important to us. This can even be part of our efforts to be a safer craftsman. We, as woodworkers, work with a lot of various elements during a project that can cause health problems in both the short term and over the life of our careers. The lumber we choose for any given project can even be the culprit as the natural tannins in some species have various levels of acidity. These tannins and some natural molds that occur in the sapwood and under the bark of some trees have been linked to ailments as serious as nasal and sinus cancers. There are some woods that can cause allergic reactions of varying severity as well. Now I’m not say to not work with these woods as the problems are mostly believed to be linked with the dust, in a manor of speaking, and having them around in finished furniture isn’t going to affect you or your clients.

The choice of finish we choose for a given project should also be taken seriously. Personally, I will not apply any finish by spraying, and every project is a hand-rubbed finish. This is both a choice and safety concern for me. I work from a smaller shop and don’t have an area I am willing to dedicate to spray finishes, either as a permanent or temporary means. Additionally I try to use as much in terms of natural oils or custom mixing of stains and dyes to complete a project, but this isn’t always a perfect solution. Giving a finished project to a client with the statement to apply this oil every year is not always the best option nor would some of my clients appreciate it.  So in turn this requires me to use some type of protective varnish or variant to truly complete a client project, besides I really couldn’t do an exterior door for someone and expect them to treat it every six-months or so. Protection from these chemicals, both natural and artificial, should be paramount to any woodworker as both in the short term of nasal or skin irritation and the long term exposure risks of our beloved finishes of choice.

There will be obvious explorations of these health concerns and risks coming here. Would be a shame for all the craftsmen around to disappear because they thought the respirator was too much trouble or too far away.

Benjamins

The green everyone likes the most is the green that buys things and allows us to survive. By far the best feeling for any woodworker is getting a commission or selling a piece of work. This is invaluable to anyone for validation in what you do and maybe a little extra cash for the big project, tool, or mortgage. There is a little more to it though. Saving a few bucks in the process never hurt a soul. Now we can’t go out and buy an energy star rated table saw, and it’d be a tough sell to me that it could do as well as the one currently in my shop. Now just unplugging the tool or killing the power to the circuit does help. I don’t know about you but I have a few 220 circuits in my shop and they don’t power my electric razor, besides it takes about 10 seconds to unplug a tools when you are done. I actually keep the plugs labeled and attached to the conduit so I don’t have to search for them.

Beyond the obvious disconnection of unneeded tools there are a few things that will save / make you more and have the wonderful side effect of helping your working process. Insulating your shop is a nice start and if your shop is attached to your home as mine is you would be amazed on the effect it will have on that energy bill. Spending some extra cash on insulated garage doors is another money saver for those of you in the garage shops but most likely everyone with a shop, we kinda need to get our materials into them. Lighting is unbelievably important to us and if you are like me you use a lot of it. Now one of the biggest complaints that I hear about compact florescent lighting is the color it emits (yes, they make the florescent tubes too). This is a great thing for us woodworker cause it, to my experience, shows the natural color without any changes. This is helpful in a lot of ways that I should not need to explain.

All of this can also help with the health as comfortable shops make us work better, and most likely safer from that comfort. As with all these little ideas, I will approach details individually in the coming weeks, months, and years. Please comment or shoot me a note with topics you’d like to see me touch in greater detail.

What can you expect?

Well as anyone can see from my sidebar on the site, Green concerns will be addressed here frequently. I am passionate about both my health and the health of our environment, the meaning of green to me. I hope to educate everyone on the non hippy treehugger side of green and what it really means (obviously in my own words and opinions). This is not and never will be a soapbox. The Green trends have been here and around us for a good amount of time, it’s just now that the advertisers have seen it will sell products. But there are issues and truths that are buried in this marketing jargon we, as woodworkers, could put to use both for us and our clients.

With my background in computers, programming, and general website development you will see posts about how technology helps and hinders our work. I may even open a discussion or two for everyone wanting to get things up and running for yourselves. Looking back through the history of how we got here and where our trade originated has been a hobby of mine for a while and I will definitely touch on that in upcoming posts.

Again with my background, the sciences we put to use everyday in our work are going to be a topic of discussion. I love the math we use everyday and will, hopefully, expand your knowledge of formulas and applications of math to further your work. I plan to shine a little light on variations and fundamentals for those of you just getting involved and reminders for all those whom have “been around the block”.

Keeping with the sciences expect to see posts on finishing, specifically mixing and making your own natural stains and dyes. Break down on the sciences of wood in general and understanding of all the measurements the mills use to grade and describe wood and the each species properties.

Want something specific?

My contact form is always open, so please drop me a note for whatever you feel needs to be said. I’d love to hear what you want to see me write about and explain in better detail.