Nothing Severed Yet

Porter-Cable/Delta to be bought by Black & Decker

Just found out that B&D is buying out Pentair's tool group, which includes DeVilbiss (compressors), Oldham (sawblades), and the venerable Delta and Porter-Cable brands. Lots of links to news stories here, with a bit of analysis of what it might mean to woodworkers here.
If I was to speculate wildly on the results... in my experience, a purchase like this often results in a "slide to the median". PC & Delta might be a little faster to pick up on cutting-edge innovations (like laser guides), something the B&D group has been excellent about. Their quality may also sag a bit as they start trying to trim inefficiencies, parts sharing with B&D for example. The B&D group may similarly improve quality as the groups get closer together. For the moment, though, I see no short term impacts on tool buying.

(I didn't even realize Delta and PC were co-owned!)
(I believe that B&D is an American company, as PC & Delta are.)

The ultimate tool that doesn't quite fit in your pocket

My former coworker Raymond blogs about the ultimate not-quite-pocket tool from Victorinox, the Swiss Army guys.

(Raymond is the only person I knew at Microsoft who wore a suit to work every day. No shoes, though.)

Butcher blocks redux

An astute reader noticed that I never followed up on my butcher block project. Here, then, is my final analysis on the matter.

The tung oil I put on it seemed to take ages to dry, and the sucker sure soaked up a lot of it. Still, it did dry eventually, and seemed to be ready for use. I put it to heavy work, cooking an eight course dinner for 12. Actually, it was enough to feed a professional football team and still have enough for doggy bags. But despite many hours of aggressive cleaver-hacking, it fared beautifully. The only damage happened when it was knocked off the countertop--it sustained a ding on the corner.

So my overall recommendations are:
1) If possible, use a non-porous wood for your butcher block. Hard maple is the leading contender. White oak, unlike the red oak I was using, is nonporous and a better choice. Don't use spalted maple; the fungus that makes the pretty spalting is toxic.
2) Definitely make an end-grain butcher block. This is a three step process: glue up strips to make a square, cut the square perpendicular to the original cuts so it is in strips again, rotate the strips so the end grain is showing, glue the strips back together. My experimentation confirmed the conventional wisdom that endgrain is much better for projects involving extended use of a meat cleaver.
3) For finish, either use the wacky system I described (if you ignored my advice #1 and used open grain wood), or just soak the sucker in salad bowl finish, which should work well for open-pore woods (and is foodsafe). If it's closed-pore, you can just use mineral oil, although you'll have to reapply regularly.
4) If possible, make your butcher block slightly smaller than the width of your planer/drum sander. This simplifies things dramatically, since you can just run the sucker through to level it out. Expect tearout on the trailing edge, though. Remember that you can make it 12.5" x reallyfrigginlong and cut it into multiple butcher blocks when you're done--they make great gifts.
5) Don't drink while working with a meat cleaver.

This project is a no-brainer. It's fast, fun, useful, and you can build it entirely with scraps from past projects. Crank out some butcherblocks--you'll thank me for it.

(This particular butcher block is mostly for when we have company and I need a large surface to hack at. For day-to-day uses, I'm just using plastic--our kitchen is small and it stores better. When we remodel the kitchen, I'll build a nice butcher block into the countertop.)

Anyone know about Korean woodworking?

Just got back from a quick trip to Seoul, South Korea (hence the absence of postings for a week). While there, I attempted to find a woodworking store, to no avail. As you may have heard, I'm in the market for chisels. I've been considering Japanese chisels, and I figured I might pay less in Seoul. Even better, I might learn something about Korean woodworking and techniques; maybe even pick up a distinctly Korean tool and a few pieces of interesting wood to stash in the carry-on.

But I came up dry. Nobody seemed to know where a traditional woodworking store was. Instead, I kept getting directed to these tiny power-tool kiosks (I can report that Bosch is popular over there).

So I put forth a question: do any of my brilliant and insightful readers know anything about korean woodworking? Or at least have a better mastery of Google than I?

A router bit review that isn't an insult to your intelligence

I was looking for a good review on router bits recently. A major woodworkers magazine that shall remain nameless (because I forgot its name) claimed to have done a comprehensive review on 12 brands of router bits. Their conclusion? More expensive bits cut better. Saywhat? That's right, no number, no ranked list of results, not even a list of what brands were tested. Just a looong section on methadology, and the conclusion that you should Fedex your visa card overnight to the good people at Carbide Anonymous and be thankful for it. Bull.

So when I stumbled on a non-moronic review of router bits yesterday I thought I should share. It's from Fine Woodworker, which is normally a little hoity-toity for my taste, but I can't complain about solid, free info. Check it out, and look for the little link that says "router bit scorecard" to get the actual dirt. If you want the short-short version, it turns out that the yellow Oldham Viper bits they sell at the Depot are a solid deal (and, bonus, made in the USA).

(I haven't bought any yet; I've got a couple of expensive Rockler bits I acquired with a secondhand router table purchase--which ironically performed near the bottom of the pack in this review. I'll post something when I've tried them out.)

Chisel shopping

Time to buy myself some non-horrible chisels. I was over at Scott's house using his crosscut sled (something I haven't had time to build yet). He had a set of Irwin/Marples Blue Chip chisels straight from Home Depot. These are your classic "eh" tool. They're not total crap, but they're not the chisels you're going to take to your grave by any means. The handles are plastic, the metal and quality control are so-so, and they're generally adequate.

I used the 3/4" to clean up a cut that was a bit ragged. As soon as the blade hit the wood fibers I was brutally reminded that *my* chisels are absolute, unmitigated, crap. Not only that, but my wife recently used them to chip some cement out of a crack in the tiles. Frankly, at this point I'd be better off with a butter knife. They're new and the blades aren't chipped (and proposing this alternative to my wife will prevent any complaints when I actually do buy a set of chisels).

So I did some homework, and I'm sharing the results with you. This is a pretty good wrap up of some nice chisels and comparisons; mostly useful as a checklist of things to consider when you decide what's right for you. This is a good summary of chiselspeak.

Now comes the decision: how much to spend, and what chisels to buy with it? I decided to set myself an arbitrary budget of around $60. Here's what I considered.
1) Get a set of 4 Blue Chip chisels and blow the extra $35 on a good bottle of wine.
2) Get a set of 4 Crown bench chisels. Mm, pretty rosewood handles.
3) Get two badass chisels that will last forever, and deal with only having 1/4 and 3/4 sizes
4) Ditto, but they're turning japanese (These are Fine Woodworking's #1 rated chisels). Note that these are a buck or two cheaper here.

Hm, will have to chew on this for a bit... I'll repost when I have chisels in hand & let you know how things turned out.

(Not that my wife complains when I buy woodworking tools--seriously. She's awesome.)
(Bonus points if you know the artist who did "Turning Japanese" without referring to Google...)

Giant bicycle-based rotisserie

Although this project was metal, not wood, and most of the interesting engineering was done by my friend Frank, this is worth sharing. Basically, Frank built a 6' long rotisserie out of a couple of bicycles, a washing machine motor, and some stainless steel. We used it to cook 140 lbs of lamb for my wedding, which came out perfectly.

(That's my lovely bride Leslie and I on the left)