The show didn’t really catch on too quickly, and I still don’t see the number of subscribers/downloads that The Sawdust Chronicles has… In the first few months I received a lot of mail that I regarded as ‘hate mail’. It was very critical – to this day I still believe the emails to have been pretty critical – but I believe that these critics had my best interests at heart. Through social networking online, I’ve actually ended up cultivated pretty nice relationships with some of these guys.

And that’s probably one of the most reinforced lessons that I’ve learned about the online woodworking community, and even some of those that are never, and probably will never be, online – it’s that they are generally just really nice people. Sure, there are bad eggs in every group of people you meet, but even in the woodworking arena, the bad eggs are still pretty good.

Now, I’ve been getting a few correspondences about Splintered Board succumbing to the phenomenon that is now known as ‘pod fade’ . Hopefully every time I released a new episode, after being silent for a while, squashed those rumors or concerns. It turns out that I’ve been unbearably busy. So busy, in fact, that I’ve been doing very little woodworking. And, a low turnout of woodworking means a low turnout of woodworking podcasts. Sorry about that, but that’s just what happens when life gets in the way.

Again, addressing pod fade. I mentioned, on Twitter I believe, a few months ago that I might turn Splintered Board into a blog, but continue doing The Sawdust Chronicles. Well, The Sawdust Chronicles is definitely not going anywhere – in fact there are some great new surprises coming soon. The blog thing is still up in the air, but I think, for the most part, the podcast – Splintered Board – will remain silent except for the necessary podcasts.

What does that mean??? Well, it means that I have handshake obligations with Fox Chapel Publishing to review books, Micro Jig and Total Saw Solutions to demonstrate and use their products, and of course I’ll be involved in Woodworkers Safety Week each May. Plus, I’ll be podcasting about each woodworking project I complete, as they are completed.

The vast majority of shows will be video episodes from now on. I hope that gets people excited, I know I love doing video shows… But that also means that the post production time is longer, the episodes are shorter, and the time between podcasts will remain extended (especially since my output has been very sporadic over the past 12 months).

Another change is that I’m not going to promise to do one project per season. I think that was ambitious of me, and doable too, but things just aren’t working out with that, so I’m just going to fall back on doing things as I’m able to get to them.

Projects I have in mind are going to include another iteration of the X-Leg table, a possible weekend commission project, a bent lamination coat hanger, and a stack lamination Pizza Pie table. So there will be plenty of material to podcast to you in the future.

What have I learned in two years of woodworking podcasting? It’s a pretty tall order to list everything that I’ve learned, but I’ll give you some topics in no specific order: Microphones, Audio/Video Editing, Lighting for Videos, Tool and Shop Safety, Sharpening, Hand Tool Use and Maintenance, Power Tool Use and Selection, Dust Collection, Shop Layout, Scavenging for Materials, Relational Dimensioning, a little about Finishing, Versatility of the Tools You Own, Bargain Tool Hunting, Furniture Design, Period Furniture History, Lathe Use, Scraper Importance, Inlaying, Wood Bending, Wood Grain, Wood Figure, and much, much more.

Stay tuned for the details.

Tommy and Justin discuss the very recent announcement that Tommy MacDonald has landed a TV deal with WGBH to become the next television woodworker.

Pics from the Home Show – Day 1

New England Home Show 2/25/2010

]]> http://splinteredboard.com/?feed=rss2&p=413 4 Big news tomorrow, so stay tuned to the podcast feed! Pics from the Home Show – Day 1 New England Home Show 2/25/2010 Big news tomorrow, so stay tuned to the podcast feed! Pics from the Home Show – Day 1 New England Home Show 2/25/2010 Rick Waters http://splinteredboard.com/?p=411 http://splinteredboard.com/?p=411#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:57:29 +0000 Rick http://splinteredboard.com/?p=411 Finally! I got out a serious episode in 2010. Here are my New Year’s Resolutions, and some goals for the podcasts for 2010.

I was recently watching a podcast called The Stuff of Genius. It’s another of the How Stuff Works series of podcasts. I listened to the episode about the QWERTY keyboard. Christopher L Shoals, and another inventor patented the typewriter in 1868. There was a problem, though. The keys on the keyboard were in alphabetical order. That would seem pretty strange to us, since the keys on the keyboards were use now are almost in no conceivable order at all.

The thing was, the most common letters used were too close together on Shoals’ alphabetical keyboard, and the arms that held the letter ‘hammers’ were getting stuck when they hit each other. Shoals ‘fixed’ this problem by making the keyboard harder to use. It slowed down the typist and spaced out the arms inside the typewriter so it wouldn’t get jammed anymore.

Why am I talking about the typewriter and Shoals’ solution to the jamming problem? Design. It all comes down to design.

The way I understand good design is that it is supposed to do a few things:

- Solve a problem
- Make something more efficient
- Please the senses (look and feel in furniture)

Part of this design, I think, should be the manufacturing process. The means to create the object being designed should also be efficient, but also the time required to create the new object should justify the object itself. In other words, don’t put 100 hours into the building phases of a small table that you don’t expect to last for very long, or that you could have bought at a discount store for $20.

I’m getting a little off topic. Just a little though. Am I the best person in the world to be preaching about design? Absolutely not! Just take a look at the long list of people I’ve talked with over at The Sawdust Chronicles, and it should give you an idea of all of the great craftsman that could probably tell you better than I can.

But, am I the last person that should be preaching about design? I don’t think so. Every once in a while, I think a fresh perspective should be seen from experienced, yet possibly callused eyes.

So, let’s take a look at what Shoals did. He took a current design and made it harder to use, made the operator less efficient, and made it utterly incomprehensible to anyone unfamiliar with a keyboard. He solved his problem and got the typewriter to work. But he introduced a new problem. He forced typists to memorize a new ordering of the English alphabet.

When I think about my own design problems I always go back to my X-Leg table. Why? Because even though I love how the table looks, I’m always upset at the way it was designed to be built. I’ve always known that there was a better way to build it.

As you may recall, I plan on rebuilding the table as my Winter project. To get some help with the construction plan of the table, I called on the Twitter crowd. I asked whoever wanted to get involved to please get a Google Wave account (I invited something like 8 or 9 people), and join me for a collaboration.

What followed was a little frustrating. I wanted help developing a new way to build the table. I didn’t want a newly designed table. After a few days of chatting, or Waving, with the folks online, I realized that the table’s construction design may have actually been OK. We tweaked the joinery solutions a tiny bit, but that was all.

What I ended up gleaning from this collaboration was a new design for the table. A design whose construction should be slightly easier. This new design can be attributed in large part to Jeremy Kriedwaldt. I’ve mentioned him before, but for those of you who don’t recognize the name, he’s been on the online woodworking scene for quite a while, and is now contributing to Mack McKinney’s The Way of the Galoot podcast.

Anyway, the new design for the table still captures the original essence on the table concept, but actually enhances my own design to the point that I think this may end up being the design I opt to continue with.

Jeremy's Design of the XLeg Table

In an anti-Shoals move, Jeremy has taken something that wasn’t entirely broken, made it better, made the construction of it possibly more efficient, and also made it look more elegant, in my opinion.

So, thanks Jeremy!

I was recently watching a podcast called The Stuff of Genius. It’s another of the How Stuff Works series of podcasts. I listened to the episode about the QWERTY keyboard. Christopher L Shoals, and another inventor patented the typewriter in 1868. There was a problem, though. The keys on the keyboard were in alphabetical order. That would seem pretty strange to us, since the keys on the keyboards were use now are almost in no conceivable order at all.

The thing was, the most common letters used were too close together on Shoals’ alphabetical keyboard, and the arms that held the letter ‘hammers’ were getting stuck when they hit each other. Shoals ‘fixed’ this problem by making the keyboard harder to use. It slowed down the typist and spaced out the arms inside the typewriter so it wouldn’t get jammed anymore.

Why am I talking about the typewriter and Shoals’ solution to the jamming problem? Design. It all comes down to design.

The way I understand good design is that it is supposed to do a few things:

- Solve a problem
- Make something more efficient
- Please the senses (look and feel in furniture)

Part of this design, I think, should be the manufacturing process. The means to create the object being designed should also be efficient, but also the time required to create the new object should justify the object itself. In other words, don’t put 100 hours into the building phases of a small table that you don’t expect to last for very long, or that you could have bought at a discount store for $20.

I’m getting a little off topic. Just a little though. Am I the best person in the world to be preaching about design? Absolutely not! Just take a look at the long list of people I’ve talked with over at The Sawdust Chronicles, and it should give you an idea of all of the great craftsman that could probably tell you better than I can.

But, am I the last person that should be preaching about design? I don’t think so. Every once in a while, I think a fresh perspective should be seen from experienced, yet possibly callused eyes.

So, let’s take a look at what Shoals did. He took a current design and made it harder to use, made the operator less efficient, and made it utterly incomprehensible to anyone unfamiliar with a keyboard. He solved his problem and got the typewriter to work. But he introduced a new problem. He forced typists to memorize a new ordering of the English alphabet.

When I think about my own design problems I always go back to my X-Leg table. Why? Because even though I love how the table looks, I’m always upset at the way it was designed to be built. I’ve always known that there was a better way to build it.

As you may recall, I plan on rebuilding the table as my Winter project. To get some help with the construction plan of the table, I called on the Twitter crowd. I asked whoever wanted to get involved to please get a Google Wave account (I invited something like 8 or 9 people), and join me for a collaboration.

What followed was a little frustrating. I wanted help developing a new way to build the table. I didn’t want a newly designed table. After a few days of chatting, or Waving, with the folks online, I realized that the table’s construction design may have actually been OK. We tweaked the joinery solutions a tiny bit, but that was all.

What I ended up gleaning from this collaboration was a new design for the table. A design whose construction should be slightly easier. This new design can be attributed in large part to Jeremy Kriedwaldt. I’ve mentioned him before, but for those of you who don’t recognize the name, he’s been on the online woodworking scene for quite a while, and is now contributing to Mack McKinney’s The Way of the Galoot podcast.

Anyway, the new design for the table still captures the original essence on the table concept, but actually enhances my own design to the point that I think this may end up being the design I opt to continue with.

In an anti-Shoals move, Jeremy has taken something that wasn’t entirely broken, made it better, made the construction of it possibly more efficient, and also made it look more elegant, in my opinion.

So, thanks Jeremy!

Most woodworkers have received these ads in one way or another. And I would bet that we’ve all thought, if only for a moment, ‘That’s one sweet tool,’ or even ‘I’ve gotta have it.’ But, reality soon sets in…right about the time we see the price tag.

Though our eyes continue to caress the shining bronze and stainless steel, the smooth mahogany, fiddleback makore or rich cocobolo, we know that this picture is as close as we will ever get to owning such tools (barring, of course, fondling them at trade shows). Some brave souls have given in to temptation, only to invite the unforgiving and inevitable wrath of their significant other.

Even for well-funded woodworkers (or tool collectors), with tricked out shops and tool collections, there are always going to be gorgeous tools that are way out of even their price range.

I started my tool collection with a $7 block plane from a home store, added a few low-end power tools, received a few second-hand tools from friends, then rescued a ton of old hand tools from a friend’s basement. Though some of the old hand tools are in such good shape that they are worth many more times that of their brand new mid-range brothers, these cannot, in my opinion, be considered boutique tools. Those are antiques.

Yesterday I read an old article in the New York Times about hand tools which mentioned that Garrett Wade and Woodcraft were ‘high-end tool catalogue businesses’ and grouped them with Lie-Nielsen and Bridge City Toolworks.

I wasn’t into woodworking in 1998 when this article was published, so maybe things have changed in the past 11 years, but in my opinion, Woodcraft is not a retailer that I associate with high-end tools. I associate it with overpriced tools, but not high-end tools. I’m just now becoming familiar with Garrett Wade and, contrary to the article’s statement that Garrett Wade was ‘the first of the ”boutique” woodworking catalogue businesses’, I would say they are an outlet for higher-end tools than Woodcraft, but still not high-end ’boutique’ tools.

No, rather, I classify a Boutique Tool as one whose competition consists of a few alternatives that range in their accuracy and price, from low-priced poorly made ‘junk’ tools that, normally, only new woodworkers would buy from their hardware stores or discount tools outlets, through to high priced 100% accurate and precise tools that, if used correctly, will return excellent results every time.

What sets Boutique Tools apart from these high-end tools that work perfectly? Mainly, price. To me, a $48 well-made, accurate, and comfortable to use marking gauge is high end. A $145 marking gauge with nickel plated body, stainless steel knobs, and electro polished beam, or a $180 solid ebony gauge are both examples of boutique tools.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t condemn either of these tool makers. I’ve purchased items from both companies. In fact, the owner of one of these companies is a friend of mine. And no, his name is not John.

Take, for instance, a couple of automotive comparisons.
What’s the difference between buying a Geo Metro and a Toyota Prius? Both are tiny little cars that get great mileage. One screams ‘LOOK AT ME, I’M SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT!’ while the other says politely ‘I know my car doesn’t accelerate that quickly, please pass me while I burn half the gas that your car does.’

I used to own a Chrysler PT Cruiser, what’s the difference between that and the Porsche Cayenne? Both are vehicles that offer seating for 5, are SUV-like, and plenty of storage. The Porsche also offers much more comfort, style, and power, while the Cruiser offers affordable maintenance.

In both examples, what is the main difference between the mid-to-low-end cars and the high-end cars (yes, I understand the Prius is not a boutique car and the Porsche is, but work with me here)? #1. Price. #2. The statement.

I understand the sociological differences between owning an $100k car versus a $20k car and a $250 hand plane versus a $2500 hand plane. I also understand that the expensive handplane in a tool collection may only ever be seen by a handful of people, while an expensive car is seen by everyone in the community.

I guess when you compare a boutique tool to a boutique car, the answer to the ‘why does this tool even exist?’ question ends up being ‘because someone, somewhere, is going to buy it.’

Anyway, to drive home how ridiculous some of these tools’ price tags are, I’m going to site some specific tools. And I already know that Bridge City Toolworks is going to come up quite a bit. I don’t want to be misunderstood. I don’t believe their entire line of tools are boutique. Some of their tools have no equal. This actually makes BCT one of the toolmakers I respect the most. They are the only ones coming up with truly NEW tools.

Boutique Tools:
Bridge City Toolworks:
MG-5, CT-4, CT-15, CS-6, Dead Blow Mallet, SS-2×4 Aluminum Saddle Square, HG-1, CS-2, DSS-6, KM-1

Festool:
Kapex, Domino

Blue Spruce Toolworks:
Mallet

Grand Slam Tools:
Ebony Marking Gauge

EC Emmerich:
All of their tools