Wednesday, January 31, 2024
Designing Boxes Cover
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
A discussion of the need for hands-on learning
Dale Dougherty publisher of Make Magazine asked me what direct steps we can take to improve American education, and he printed my response in this link.
Saturday, January 27, 2024
router mortise jig
I've made this relatively simple new jig for routing mortises using the plunge router and guide bushings. The first step is to cut a piece from the middle of a board equal in size to the selected guide bushing.
Then the base must be glued with an opening to allow for the guide bushing to move a distance equal to the length of the planned mortise, plus an allowance for the different sizse of the router bit and guide bushing.
A guide is added to the underside to position the jig in the right place so that the cut will be centered in the stock. In my jig, I used spacers to adjust the position so I can use the same jig for different thicknesses of wood. The jig can either be clamped in a vise or can be clamped directly to the stock.
Make, fix and create.
ready to sell
You position the cleat on the wall, level it and attach it with screws, and then simply lift the cabinet in place. It is sized to hold a large array of spices. Other small collectables could also be displayed inside.
Make, fix and create.
Thursday, January 25, 2024
quick carving
Make, fix and create...
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
designing boxes update.
At ESSA we're preparing parts for making tables. The start of a pedestal is shown.
Make, fix and create...
Monday, January 22, 2024
Milk paint
A reader, Connie Goddard, who is working on a book about the history of manual arts training for University of Illinois Press sent this interesting comment from 1901 regarding the North Dakota Normal and Industrial School. Thank you Connie.
Make, fix and create...
Sunday, January 21, 2024
Milk painted spice cabinet.
The cabinet is sized to fit spice jars and mounts to the wall using a "french cleat."
Want it? You'll be able to bid on it when the auction goes live.
Make, fix and create...
Saturday, January 20, 2024
AI, Kindergarten and the need for universal manual arts training.
I have an essay in this month's Front Porch Republic https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2024/01/ai-misinformation-and-manual-arts-training/
In the essay,
Doug Stowe reflects on the importance of educating students to work with their hands: "With the rise of Artificial Intelligence, it is more important than ever that we develop a common framework of understanding rooted in the senses—sight, sound, and touch—offline, in the real world."Tuesday, January 16, 2024
box maker's plow plane
The weather here is cold, and we have 3 or 4 inches of snow. But shop time is a near everyday thing for me.
Yesterday I decided to give my new Veritas Box Maker's plow planes a test, while also rethinking my simple clamping system that uses a common wood bodied hand screw.
With the plow plane I'd wondered whether I might use plane irons from my old Record Multi Plane, and learned that I could. I used a 1/8 in radius beading cutter to make a practice run on a piece of western cedar and got perfect results.
Turning a hand screw into an effective clamp for holding stock is relatively easy. For schools interested in converting desks to work benches, it can offer a cost effective alternative to woodworking vises that are expensive to buy and difficult to install.Monday, January 15, 2024
hidden spline joint
Fine Woodworking sent out an email link this morning to my video on making the hidden spline joint.
Saturday, January 13, 2024
My friend Paul
My friend Paul Harvel died yesterday. He was a major advocate for my adopted home state, Arkansas, and his life can serve as a model for the positive effects we can have on each other. I first met Paul when I was selling my work at the Arkansas Craft Guild's Christmas Showcase. He was director of the Little Rock Area Chamber of Commerce and bought some of my boxes to give his staff. He did the same the next year, the year after and for years after that.
His wife Barbara called one day as she was looking for someone to design the Governor's Award for Quality. As she asked about my work I mentioned that I made small inlaid boxes, at which point she picked up a box from her desk that Paul had given her, and noted my signature underneath. That led to my making the Governor's Award for Quality for the next twenty years.
When Paul was involved in building the new Chamber of Commerce offices in downtown Little Rock, he asked me to design and build the furniture for his office. That furniture was recently a gift from Paul and Barbara to the collection of the Museum of Eureka Springs Art. https://www.facebook.com/museumofeurekaspringsart/
My point in mentioning Paul, is to point out that an artisan's work is dependent on the support of his community. Paul's particular art was to encourage others, and my own work and development as a craftsman holds me in Paul's debt. If others have been encouraged by my work, they are also at least a bit in Paul's debt.
An illusion that we humans suffer from is that we are separate from each other, and that we come and go from this life. Perhaps a clearer view would be to witness the interconnections between us, noting the fabric of life. In simple terms, Paul is gone, and Paul is not gone,
My love to Barbara, to the state of Arkansas and all the small towns that benefitted from Paul's attentions as he promoted their growth.
Make, fix and create... Assist others in living likewise.
Thursday, January 11, 2024
white oak
In about a year it will be ready to use. The common understanding suggests one year of drying for each inch of thickness, though that may vary dependent on the amount of air flow around the stack, and how dry the air is in the environment.
Make, fix and create... Assist others in learning lifewise
Monday, January 08, 2024
Music box revisited
The small box in the photo is a music box left over unfinished from the production of my book Simply Beautiful Boxes. That book and its projects were compiled in my book Build 25 Beautiful Boxes. While out of print, it's available in a Kindle edition.
Wednesday, January 03, 2024
fathers of...
The answer of course was for them to do real things in school where necessary foundations for abstract studies might be purposely built. The American manual and industrial training movement was thus launched from that exposition and the return of Woodward and Runkle to their respective institutions.
Sorry to be preachy on this subject, but isn't it obvious that children need to be doing real things?
Less noticed at the same exposition was the Swedish School house that featured an exhibit of hand-crafted wooden models representing Educational Sloyd, a system of education bringing the hands, eyes and mind into partnership in developing the whole child. The Swedish School house was moved to New York City's Central Park following the exposition. It currently serves as the Marionette Theater, as it has since that time.
Along with the introduction of manual arts training, Americans were also introduced to Kindergarten at that exposition and the movement to bring Kindergartens to American children and Educational Sloyd to American youth were closely connected and sponsored by some of the same enlightened folks.
You can follow along through this blog and use the search function at upper left to gain more information. The photo shows my visit to the Swedish School House in Central Park.
Make, fix and create...
Monday, January 01, 2024
odd but true
Happy New Year. It's odd but true that every small thing we do has what the bankers call "serial effect." You bounce one check putting your account into overdraft and the next follows. We make very small choices going this way or that, and the course of our lives is forever changed by each choice we make.
Unfortunately we are not given clear maps, and the shortest distance between two points is almost never a straight line. Also, it seems that very small decisive moments can make all the difference in the world, while at the same time, we may feel and seem powerless in response to catastrophic world events.
But what is the power that we have, and what can we do with it?
A number of years ago friends brought me a slender volume published at Naropa Institute in Boulder Colorado where they had attended classes in meditation. The thin volume is called the Tsin Tsin Ming, translated from the writings of the third Zen Patriarch.
The volume suggests a path forward. When we make the slightest distinction, heaven and earth are set infinitely apart, but by refusing to fall into judgement of things, this vs. that, everything becomes clear and undisguised.
In that is a simple path forward. The world we face is profoundly complex. There are people trying to divide us from each other, and they are well practiced in their ways, using buzz words and ready anger to gain power and control. We see it in every event, and yet we are each presented even in this new year with a path of peace that starts from this moment.
The hands have a clear and distinct role to play in this transformation. They demand your (and my) presence in the now, in this moment, and in the real world.
Again, Happy New Year.
Make, fix and create...