Mort Tenon

I have done some personalized-to-order stuff, and while it got good feedback, sometimes it was difficult to find images to make into patterns for things like the specific military groups you mention. Even if I could find a badge for your specific squadron or AFSC, making a pattern of it could be difficult to impossible, and in any event, too time-consuming to be considered practical. One had me combine an artillery group with a nursing unit. They loved it, but I never want to do that again. My wife agrees that practical, every day items are better than yet another 8x10 fretwork to hang in the bathroom. I sold a ton of key racks, some pet food bowls, tissue box covers, napkin holders...but I was hoping for something different that would appeal to the Farmer's Market crowd. Maybe I'll just do some more cribbage boards. I still have a few hardwood boards, but my planer is gone, and I've never been any good at hand planing.

Very, very nice! Do ornaments and the small boxes sell well? Artwork like the Native American example never sold well when I was doing this[,

We do a weekly market that is mostly for the summer tourist trade and there is very little high-end artwork here. I know that every area will be different, and tastes vary.

Thank you, but that's much too high-end for me. I don't have the tools anymore for those elaborate chessboards and I have never turned bowls, etc.

About 4 years ago, I sold my woodshop because it was just too expensive to continue for the small return I was getting. However, I kept a miter saw, a benchtop drill press, and my Excalibur, just in case I needed to relieve the boredom of retirement again. My wife makes jewelry and insists she has to attend the outdoor market every year. As we are there anyway, I thought I'd try to put out a few scrolled items. Used to be my biggest sellers were the bird houses and feeders, but I have no table saw, band saw, or large drill press anymore, so I thought I'd just do a limited number of tchotchkes of some sort and see what happens. I used to make key racks from various patterns I bought or got for free online, but I'm wondering if there is anything trending today that I could put out that would be attractive to the tourists. Thanks for any suggestions.

It's been a while since I posted anything here, so here goes: My youngest daughter is a real sports nut and collects all sorts of memorabilia. She asked if I could make a shelf to hold her bobblehead collection (I had recently made a shelf for her hockey pucks.) I looked around the Web and found a shelf in Steve Good's catalog and adapted it to the sports theme, replacing a girl and flower scene with hockey, football, baseball and basketball players. Not quite finished; this is a dry fit.

That's what I used for the majority of this, a #5 skip tooth—for all of the perimeter and some of the bigger interior areas. I added some tension to the blade too, but maybe not enough. I don't like too much tension—but it may be necessary to keep the blade flatter.

It is fragile, of course, but as I handled it, it seems surprisingly sturdy given the thin sides. Also very lightweight. Gently squeezing yielded little or no give. I wouldn't give it to kids to play with, but if handled with care and stored carefully, I think you could play with these. You would need to be sure there were no hidden cracks in the wood that would cause a break, especially along the sides. They would also require a lot of space to store. I wouldn't just throw them in a drawer.

Well, here is a rather unimpressive first test from a piece of soft wood, probably from a stud or something. The little center guy broke off while cutting, and the flat surfaces are not flat due to blade flex. That flexing of the blade also guarantees that opposite sides are not uniform in size and shape. I used three blades for this one: A #5 Super Sharps skip-tooth, and #3 and 2/0 Pegas standard tooth. I will probably try few more times and then give up if I don't get better results.

Everything is on wheels. I still have to park a car in there, so I push it all to one side or along the wall, and when I have to use all the tools, I put the car outside and pull them all out. I wanted to build a woodshop when we moved here, but ran out of money. Wife said we should have built a three-car garage when we had the chance, like all the neighbors did. (She's always right...!) New neighbor down the road just built a shop with as much floor space as his house. Has enough room in back for two cars and his shop, with an office and bathroom. I don't have room for dust collection.

My original Craftsman jointer was a benchtop model similar is size to that one. Probably called a 6 in. but it was the length of the table, not the width, that was a problem for me. Any board longer than 10 or 12 inches would hang over the end and I could never get an edge that wasn't bowed. I got it when Craftsman was still sold exclusively at Sears retail stores, and it also came with damaged knives, like someone had run a board through with a nail in it. In taking the knives out, I stripped a couple of hex bolts. They were so tight that I had to use a pipe on the hex wrench to break them loose. Sears replaced the knives, but refused to give me bolts; they said I stripped the heads, it was my error. I think they were 5¢ each. Anyway, the Powermatic solved all those problems, and has the helical heads which give an incredibly smooth edge. I use it mostly for edges, but will occasionally use it as a surface planer if I have a board that is cupped slightly. I can get one side flat and then run it through the Dewalt planer.

Well, I haven't actually checked with her on that yet...

I have more room now than when I first started doing this, but I know the restrictions that go with not having a lot of space. I had a (I think) 24 in. (?) jointer/planer that in all the years I had it never cut a square or a straight edge. One of first priorities when I was able to expand (I still have only a two-car garage and have to share that with a car) was a 72 in. helical jointer. Indispensable, in my own humble opinion. If I ever have to move to a smaller place, I'll put that in the living room before I'll give it up...

For those who do not have this magazine, I just realized that I had it here in my pile, so I got it out and scanned the pieces. What I didn't know is that they are very big; the king is over 6 inches tall. It will still be a challenge, but at this size it should be less so than I originally thought. The article recommends maple, walnut, and/or cherry. I would not recommend an open grain wood like red oak. You don't make all the individual pieces though, you make strips of each color, glue them up, then cut the other direction and glue those strips. Of course the same rules apply; the strips have to be exactly the same size and cut square, or you won't have consistent squares when you're finished. That's why I splurged on a good table saw and an equally good jointer...

Spring 2019. It has a dragon on the cover. I'd like to see the ones you cut, along with tips on blades, etc.