Man versus groundhog

I was at the bench today and looked out my backyard window and saw this little guy foraging around. “Mittens”, as I like to call him, is a groundhog that lives in the bank of a stream at the end of my property. It’s hard to ever get a good look at him because, as rotund as he is, he usually skitters away before I can get anywhere nearby. But like many animals, he’s apparently susceptible to predators behind glass which is where I took photos of him.

Now that I think about it, I did have a previous, odd encounter with Mittens a few years ago. I was detailing my recently estranged Mustang, “Sally”, and all of the sudden I see this huge mass of an over-sized, rat-like creature blazing towards me. I jumped back about 5 feet and yelled for a particular matriarchal family member as the rush of life and death encounter with nature consumed me.

After calming down and changing my pants (people who know me, know I have a tendency to piddle during such events) I get on all fours and look under to see it’s just Mittens chilling under my car. I had never seen him in front of my home so I guess he got a little lost and as it was an extremely hot summer day he was probably just ducking for cover and catching his breath. So I resume detailing the car assuming he will leave at some point. Not the case… as I finished up, I got back on all fours (my standard workplace position) and tried to talk him out… he went with the “if I don’t move, he can’t see me” tactic and continued to lay there, motionless. I started nicely with “hey, little buddy, time to go”, then shouting “boo!” and lastly, in desperation, tried your momma insults such as “your momma is so ugly everyone thinks she’s a possum”. Not even an acknowledgment of my existence (Mittens win).

A Hot Mittens is an unhappy Mittens

Needing to move my car and having little desire to get his innards all gummed up in there, I switch to plan B and try to poke him with a stick. It got him to move, but he would just continually move out of poking distance (Mittens win). Time for plan C, I get in the car and lay on the horn like there’s no tomorrow. Amazingly, no signs of retreat or surrender by the groundhog, just a few cross-eyed glances by passers-by as they just see the unstable individual honking at his garage door (Mittens win).

A disinterested Mittens

Finally with plan D there is success. I grabbed pepper spray and a stun gun…. kidding PETA, I just squirted him with a hose and he ran away defeated by the more intelligent species… or he ran away thinking “it took that idiot till plan D to figure out that I just wanted to be hosed down to cool off” (I win?).

Coy Mittens

Why is common wildlife so amazing to me? Well, I live in NJ (exit 4, so you don’t have to ask). While NJ is nicknamed “the Garden State”, as decreed by our license plates, the only thing we seem to be growing anymore is condos. In my backyard is one of the remaining 56 49 (I originally wrote this a couple months ago) trees in the state. So when I see some wildlife in my backyard, it always intrigues me…. along with the natural curiosity if I could capture and kill it for sustenance in a survival situation.

Mittens being Mittens

Making a .001 clearance insert

Padouk Insert

Tired of closing my eyes as I trim boards, fearful of the offcut falling between the blade and the stock insert and being launch back at me,  I decided to make one of these high-falootin gizmos called a zero clearance insert. These inserts are a panacea… they protect you from the aforementioned offcut falling between insert and blade and also improve cut quality by backing the material, reducing tear-out. Beyond that, they are known to get rid of warts and make you more virile. Ehhh maybe not all of that, but we live in age of over-hype and unsubstantiation so I’ll ask you kindly to not question my claims.

I have a bit of a history with zero-clearance inserts or ZCI’s as we call them in the biz ( the “as we call them in the biz” is there simply to annoy). You see,  I’ve previously mauled an HDPE,  which is High Density Polyethylene aka “space plastic”, version. Ideally you’re able to just stick a blank insert in throat, clamp a sacrificial board over it, and raise the blade to cut the kerf. No such luck with my Craftsman 22124 (Steel City clone) as the blade sits to high and prevents the insert from sitting flush for the operation. So I aligned my fence with the throat and pushed the blank insert over the blade to create the kerf in the right spot. It seemed to work but when I installed the new ZCI it just bound up my blade and made the belt whine like a Guantanamo detainee (What?? Too soon? I don’t condone torture, I just make fun of it so we can all heal… and by “all” I mean those of us that weren’t tortured of course… I’m guessing those guys are scarred for life). I tried to make the insert work but I ended up just making a mess of things… so I just declared “mission accomplished” and walked away.

Recently I got the nerve to try it again. Pretty much forgetting my first experience, I went ahead and repeated most of my mistakes… and yes, I interrogated the hell out of that blade and belt again. This time I made the insert out of some padouk, a rather dense and stable hardwood. The stable part is the important word there… a zero clearance insert needs to not move… especially if it wants to expand and become a negative clearance insert, or NCI as we call it here in the biz. Actually, I would think “zero” clearance insert is a bit of a misnomer as well, as it would imply that that the entire insert is always in contact with the blade.

We should probably be calling these things .001 clearance inserts or something, as presumably one tooth is going to be set fractionally further out than all other teeth and/or slight variations in blade path as the arbor is raised enlarge the kerf, etc. This strikes me as potentially being on the anal side of things so I will not mount a substantial campaign to do so. Anyways, back to my incompetence. First off I half-assed the making of the insert after bandsawing it to shape… no, wait… I half-assed it well before that by jointing only the top surface since set screws are the mating surface on the bottom to the machine (since it’s hardwood, everything should probably be uniform to ensure that there’s no impetus for that sucker to move).

After bandsawing I doubled-down on my half-assedness (achieving overall full-assedness) and brought it to finally shape with a spindle sander instead of using a router with a bearing to follow the exact shape of the stock insert. I guess I just wanted to see how well I could do it freehand and frankly I just like playing with the spindle sander as it’s just one of those tools you can get into a zone on…. especially with that woooo-waaaa, woooo-waaa sound that I find so soothing (yes, I just dropped some onomatopoeia on ya… and how come that sounds dirty?). I’m half tempted to replace my white noise machine in my bedroom with this sander.

This is where I cut the kerf in exactly the same way as I did previously. They say it’s a sign of intelligence to repeat things that don’t work with the expectation of a different outcome (still waiting for my invite Mensa… hint, hint). My table saw was kind of enough to make sure I got the message this time by tossing the insert back at me… I think I even heard it say “No soup for you!” at the same moment. I didn’t get the reference but was still offended. I finally grew a brain cell and carpet taped the new insert to the top of stock insert, clamped a board on top and proceeded to raise and lower the blade 418 times. The insert no longer grabs the blade.

Lastly I replaced the stock safety guard/splitter with a slightly more compact home made version.

For the short-term I’m going to use it. Shortly after making that decision, however, I found myself engaged in further debate of the idea. The conversation (with myself) went something like this: You know that you are still a relative newbie to this woodworking thing don’t you? Well, duh, your point being? Do you really want to always have the question in the back of your mind “is this insert going to blow up because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing” every time you use this inherently dangerous tool? No, no… you make a good point… and um… nice pants, by the way. Thanks! I didn’t think you noticed any more. [end scene] So with that I ordered a phenolic insert.

When I started writing this I was concerned that there wasn’t much to say about it and thus removed my tangent muzzle…. begs the question, overcompensate much??? Wait, are you talking to me again? Seriously?? You’re going to take a shot at me after I complimented you on your pants, wtf? [And with that I'll take this conversation offline as it's about to get heated up in here]

On a separate note, I think it’s time that I start educating my viewers with short educational videos covering the more complex and nuanced aspects of woodworking.  First up, how to properly chuck a bit:

more about “How to chuck a drill bit. on Vimeo“, posted with vodpod

I will certainly endouver to continue sharing my woodworking knowledge. Please be patient as I’m sure you can understand that these videos take considerable time to storyboard, shoot and produce. I mean getting the gaffer(me), key grip(me) and best boy(me) on the same page is a nightmare.

Taking you to the mat!

Semi-close up of mat

I saw that the good people over at Popular Woodworking took my suggestion to give horse stall mats a try to battle hard-floor fatigue. I think these mats are one of the best secrets out there. I became aware of these back in the day when lifting was the current obsession (there are two laws that govern my life… one, I’m always obsessed with something and two, I will research the subject of that obsession to death). So, deep down in the lifting forums people talked of actually getting gym flooring thicker than a 1/4 inch and costing less than a million dollars a square foot as is the case in any sporting goods store. The stall mats, at 3/4″ thickness, are so far superior in both quality and value it’s not even funny.

You’ll most likely find these mats in tractor/farm supply stores. Expect to call around a bit as these stores may not have an online storefront.  I purchased mine in 2006 for $40/mat from a local Agway. The store owner had a wry smile as she looked me up and down and said “you don’t have horses do you.” I was impressed by her profiling ability and wondered if she had previously served in law enforcement.

I guess I was perhaps a bit luckier than the Popular Woodworking folks as the mats supplied at my Agway were of the non-stinky variety. While all of these mats come from recycled tires, apparently the manufacturing processes vary… some involve adding sulfer while others do not as noted here in the faq of this stall mat manufacter. I have mine inside my home and no aroma issues to mention. So this may be the one thing to be mindful of if you look to purchase.

Getting these mats to their final destination from the store will undoubtedly rank as my greatest achievement in life. My spacious Neon could not accommodate the mats in the flat position so I had to roll them up which is not something they like to do naturally. I expected to have to make two trips but with some manipulation I was able to get all 4 in the car. My car turned into a true low rider with the extra weight.

Semi-close up of mat

When I got home I carried all 4 up a flight of stairs to the gym. A hundred pounds and much more awkward than a dead body, each mat was a real test of determination. I then cut them to fit the room. Started with a box cutter and found that a linoleum knife did the best job. You can get one 4′x6′ mat and cut it into pieces for several stationary woodworking machines.

The mats have since been repurposed to my woodworking shop as I sold my power rack which I believe was defective as the weights rarely moved themselves while I watched TV. Using these mats has definitely reduced fatigue and joint discomfort that I used to experience during longer hours on the feet and thus have made woodworking more enjoyable. No more aching feet, knees, and back for me! You don’t have to take my word for it… it seems to be working out for Chris Schwarz and that means go buy it in my book!

Warning: Attractive minds may cause harm

I had a brain MRI recently and while flipping through the pre-MRI questionnaire I had to pause when one of the questions was “do you grind metals?”

Like anyone else, on occasion I’ll grind on some metal if I’ve had one drink too many… especially if it’s particularly shiny or in the form of dancing robots (as in the video below). But nothing out of the ordinary and I wondered how this was even relevant in the first place?

On second thought I realized that they most likely meant abrasively removing metal which of course I do all the time on the grinding wheel and even most recently sharpening carving tools on a belt sander.

Wanting to get the MRI done, my eyes dart left and right, and my mind thinks “nobody knows… I can do this”. Thinking it through a little further, my brain does me the favor of envisioning my head inside a massive electromagnet with metal floating in my veins and what the resulting experience may be like.

So without further hesitation I do what I have to do and quickly grab the nurse… she’s offended… I figured what did I have to lose? My metal-laden melon is about to explode so I might as well get a cheap thrill first (plus, in all the educational videos I’ve ever watched the nurse always seems receptive). Anyways, it turns out I can still do the MRI if a head x-ray called “orbits” comes up clean which it does so I’m green-lighted.

Since I’m claustrophobic my anxiety level was already on the high side as I know my head is going to be strapped down and my body inserted into a tiny canal (I almost made a phallic analogy here but I realized I would represent the huge penis in it). The technician gave me some blinders to wear which really helped… have to say though, after being harnessed in and blinders put on I was waiting for someone to feed me an apple out of the palm of their hand as I felt like a horse being broken. I just went with it and whinnied whenever I felt nervous, which is to say every moment.

While inside the machine, I wondered how large a metal particle needs to be in order to be spotted on the orbits x-ray? I mean I use 15 micron silicon carbide belts on the sander which make super fine metal dust. Are particles smaller than the resolution of the orbits scan not going to be pulled through vein walls and into my virginal gray matter? In theory, my heart was beating during the MRI so couldn’t have some of these particles decided to take the road trip from the lungs to the brain during the scan?? I guess getting answers to these questions would have been prudent before doing the MRI.

Trust is both a wonderful and dangerous thing. I guess there was no damage done, although I have noticed that I now tend to face polar north when standing idly.

In the end, I survived the MRI and the results come back negative which was rather deflating… I was so hopeful that they would finally confirm the existence of a brain after all these years. Oh well, time to go oil my joints (a reference to the brainless Tin Man, not a euphemism for self-pleasure (this time)).

Note:  certain artisitic freedoms were taken in this post and it should be noted that no robots or nurses were actually inappropriately grabbed or grinded upon.

Necessity out, stupidity in, as mother of invention.

One day not that long ago I found myself with the task of mounting an under-cabinet light fixture. Simple enough. Or maybe not… as I examine the fixture I see it mounts by sliding sideways over mounting screws. Unfortunately the light fixture is exactly as long as the space under this cabinet and thus has no room to slide. So without pause for any thoughts that would extend beyond my mid-brain, I ask myself the obvious… What would McGyver do? Easy… magnets.

Moments later, via assistance of a forstner bit, magnets, and CA glue the job was completed with minimal casualties. I quickly put the fixture up, flip the switch while exclaiming “let there be light!”, and revel in my brilliant ingenuity. Lastly, I check how I would replace the bulb and as I take the bulb out I see a clear view of the mounting holes. I find that interesting.

Before taking the, at this point, optional step of adding screws I explore other potential uses and applications that this groundbreaking use of magnets may yield, including cures for diseases, military weaponry, etc. While none of that panned out, I did find that it allows easy and convenient storage access to keys, canned soup, and knives. Clearly, the potential for such an invention is limitless. I may have to patent this novel notion of magnets holding junk. Disclaimer: if you have no sense of aesthetics, live in California, and actually implement my invention, I take no responsibility for subsequent injury due to falling knives and cans of soup.

Hanging my beans with bacon.

Additional evidence that I should never have children

What other McGyver-type ingenuity have I attempted? well, since I’ve mastered magnetism, it made sense to switch over to lasers. I played a little bit with using a leveling laser as an aide for identifying high spots when hand jointing a board. I think the idea may actually hold some merit and would have pursued it further if I hadn’t been distracted by a shiny object elsewhere in the shop that day.

I believe this technique may be particularly handy when jointing in the dark (probably how cave men jointed boards at night before fire was discovered). Operational note: While it’s interesting to observe the angle at which the laser bounces off your jointer, I recommend changing your observation angle if and when you feel your retinas tingling.

ET Fingers

With lasers embedded in practically every woodworking tool these days, I’m waiting for the first hand plane with one embedded into the toe casting (maybe in a fore or jointer plane) and at least obviate the need for winding sticks. Come on Lee Valley get on this… I’m sure Rob will cut me in for half??? If nothing else, it should provide for one of your April 1 tool releases.

-As you may have noticed, I refer to Rob Lee of Lee Valley in this post in a familiar way. To be clear, we haven’t necessarily hung out for an extensive period of time (which is to say that I’ve never met/talked/communicated with him in any way). I, however, choose to believe that all tool manufacturers are my good buddies and that they make tools just for me (Freud understands me)… Yo John E! How’s it hanging Tom L?!? A little creepy? Perhaps… and while I know that they make drugs to remedy this, I just gotta be me on this one.

Read more >> Options >>

Genuine crotch wood

Trees are people too.

When I saw this magnificent piece of buckeye burl on eBay I knew had to have it. For the life of me, I can’t explain why this piece of wood spoke to me. Maybe it’s just my cockeyed perspective on life, but it seemed that it could hold great potential in my hands if worked properly. Ok, ok… I’ll drop the ridiculously thin veneer of sincerity. I’m guessing you know me better than that by now.

I obviously only bought this piece of lumber because it looks like frank and beans and as such would yield me great comical amusement (if you can’t see this at first, squint your good eye and smack yourself in the head repeatedly until it’s obvious). I did laugh for quite a while, but now I find myself stuck with a piece of male-genitalia shaped lumber.

I was thinking that it I could slap it on a lazy Susan to be placed on the kitchen table where condomints could be put atop. This was the only idea I had that wasn’t tacky. Maybe a bookstand to hold books erect? An oddly shaped table-tennis paddle? Thoughts?

No, I’m not proud of myself but I felt compelled to share. I have boundary issues.

As a complete non sequitur, if you don’t mind, would you fill out the following poll to help me better serve you in a subsequent post about being a digital woodworker.

My woodworking bookcase

So much knowledge for such a little brain

Very shortly I’ll be sharing how I gather and organize information in the digital world especially as it relates to woodworking. In the meantime, after reading David Thiel’s recent post over at the Popular Woodworking blog where he shares his vast library, I thought I’d take a couple shots of my bookcase to share as well.

Each book has it merits of course and if I were to ever read them I could speak to that with some authority. As it stands, I’ve just scanned through most to see how they end. While most of these books were loaded with good information along the way, rarely did they come through will a killer ending or mind-blowing turn of events… not one “I see dead people” moment.

There is one book, however, that has served me far more than any other, and that book is “Illustrated Cabinetmaking” by Bill Hylton.  The book starts with very thorough coverage of joinery and goes on to show exploded diagrams of subassemblies followed by a wide variety of furniture applications, again all with exploded diagrams. These diagrams are extremely well done including useful annotations which clue you in on relevant details of the specific piece. Just perfect execution on making this material as easy to learn as possible.  This book will never gather dust in my home.

So without further ado, here’s my woodworking bookcase:

Pretty covers get the top

Books on first shelf

The Moxon shelf

Yet another shelf with books whose titles you can't make out.

Last shelf of woodworking books

As you can see, I keep some antique hand tool, eye candy in the case as well. I can’t help but feel the sense of storied history of this craft and the amazing craftsman of the past when looking at such hand tools.  Take a closer look at the double sliding dovetail boxing on the Griffiths Norwich plow plane which sits atop the bookcase. Impressive craftsmanship, isn’t it.

Double Sliding Dovetails

Oops… Almost missed these three which weren’t in the bookcase as I’m currently reading them.

Apparently to good to be idly sitting on a bookshelf.

Note: This post is uncharacteristically low on the  disturbing-scale realtive to my other posts. Please see the “My favorite posts” links on the front page side-bar for a proper taste of the Woodzealot buffet. Be warned, while it is all-you-can-eat, pace yourself to advoid the inevitable nausea and feelings of regret that will quickly ensue.

Plans for complete obscurity foiled!

In an amazing development for me, I’ve been blogrolled by “The Schwarz”… That’s right… the man, the myth and the legend of woodworking himself. Do I deserve such an honor? Absolutely Not. Will I take it and perform a happy dance? You bet your sweet @s$. Will I be posting a video of me doing the happy dance? Officially, No, as we do not permit torture in this country. Unofficially, if people do not leave comments on this blog feigning interest such videos may just pop-up and I can’t be held responsible for the resulting trauma.

With this post I’d like to give newcomers to my site who are clicking over from Chris’s sites a proper welcome. Soooo, hi there.. how ya doin? Can I be your friend? Am I moving to fast? Is this coming across as “needy”? Ok, just forget what I’ve said… moving on…

You may be asking yourself why you should read my blog. My suggestion:  stop asking yourself so many questions and just go with the flow for once.  I mean really, what’s with giving yourself the third degree all the time?!? You’ve ended up here and thus it must be destiny that you are to forever read this blog (You’ve always been told that karma was a bitch, but no one ever warned you about destiny did they?) Anyways, what I offer is a significantly warped/skewed view of the world of woodworking and the world in general. I tend to treat all subject matter in double entendre, sexual inyourendo, and general immaturity. I am currently in therapy for this but the prognosis for change is not looking good. Please accept my apologies in advance for this medical condition of which I have no control over.

You may notice that many of my posts are non-woodworking related. This evolved over time as I noticed that it seemed to increasingly annoy my readers, a.k.a. my co-workers, who were expecting and demanding content related to woodworking. While this social experiment has yielded me great personal joy, I promise that I will endeavor to keep material at least tangentially related to woodworking.

As far as what I have to offer in regards to discussions related to practical woodworking… well, ummmm… this is where the plume of smoke would appear as I attempt to flee. A discussion for another time, suffice it to say my first two years in this craft have involved great study and preparation for a life dedicated to this passion. In future posts I’ll elaborate on my rather unconventional beginnings and the rationale behind. If your looking for real woodworking knowledge please see the links in my blogroll. You’re probably already familiar with them, but if not they are must-reads!

Lastly, thanks again to Chris Schwarz. His refreshing perspectives on this age-old craft and witty writing style have been inspiring to me (may appear to be just overt brown-nosing, but is in fact,  unadultered brown-nosing wrapped around genuine sentiment). As I have become more and more engrossed in this new world of woodworking, and even blogging, I’ve sought to model the qualities of several woodworkers out there and Chris would be my “top model” in many respects (although I can’t necessarily speak to how he looks in hosiery so please don’t ask).

A Dear Moment to Me

Every once and a while you have one of those moments… a moment that rips you from the normalcy and mundane of everyday life and says “it could all change right here”. I recently had one of these moments…

Friday night I was leaving my workplace and heading home on the local interstate at 1:45am (I work odd hours thanks to serotonin issues). Surrounded in a slight fog I put my car in cruise control at 74 mph and relax for the 20 minute drive home. Nary a car to be seen except in the distance. I shuffle through radio stations… AM stations… to listen to people talk about politics and allow my brain to numb-down to the requisite level for the drive. Rather peaceful drive, and then it happens before I can think…

For some reason I swerve from the middle lane to the right lane and yet my brain has not been so nice as to even inform as to why.  Then with a mental “whoosh” sound, life returned to normal speed and I realized that I had swerved away from a sizable deer jogging directly across the lanes and not using blinkers or proper hoof signaling in any way. I hadn’t even had time to hit the break… the car was still under cruise control at 74mph well after the event.

This deer was by no means small… quite on the large side actually, to where I mostly saw legs from my perspective. To be fair though, it is possible that I may have momentarily, and from a purely instinctual response, assumed the fetal position from which it may have appeared taller. Suffice it to say it was definitely big enough for me to saddle it up and mount it. And I’m not that small a guy… I’m easily big enough for a large chimpanzee to saddle up and mount.

So immediately following this near miss my body is flooded with adrenaline and resulted in two things; one, I had a strong desire to go back and beat the deer down and two, I think it affected my “rational” thought (not my strong suit to begin with) slightly. Replaying the event in mind I had come to the conclusion that it was only my super-human perception and reaction times that permitted me to avoid disaster. It became clear that I could dominate NASCAR if I so desired or perhaps even fight crime from the shadows… as the adrenaline faded, I realized it was more of a luck thing… but I did let out a little whimper of “I’m the king of the world” before the last of the adrenaline was gone.

I hope this potential life-changing moment always stays with me, helping me to appreciate every moment for the profound gift that it is, so that no moment in my life is ever wasted again…. one second… ummm, gonna have to get back to this some other time, “Turner and Hooch” is on TNT again. Ohhh, that Hootch and his slobbering here and there.

They Call them “Fruits” and “Vegetables”

As a bachelor woodworker with a day-job, my diet generally consists of what you see in this pic of my freezer after food shopping:

Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

I recently received some intel claiming that not all food naturally exists in cardboard boxes ready for microwaving. I was further told tales of things called “fruits” and “vegetables”. Long story short, you eat these “fruits” and “vegetables”and you magically become healthier… more energy, smarter, and a longer pen… err, wait I’m getting the claims of this better diet confused with other phallicies.

So, I figure what the heck my gullet has seen worse and decided to find a way to get these substances in to my body in a reasonable way. Hearing that the taste of this stuff is so off-putting I seek supository form. No dice. Googlin around reveals that blending this stuff up into goop form is a good way to sneak this junk into your system. Bingo!

After a run to the food store and acquiring these foods of mass nutrition I start sperimenting.

Day one test: banana, various frozen berries, and some orange sherbert.

Fruit Smoothie Before

Fruit Smoothie Blended

Result: Does not taste completely horrible.

Day two test: banana, various frozen berries, spinach, and water.

Green Smoothie PreBlending

Blended "green" smoothie

"Green" smoothie PRIOR to ingestion

Result: Does taste completely horrible.

Some observations… my body seemed to reject this foreign material as observed by varying levels of cramping and increasing levels of methane output. Out of concern for our world I may have to suspend further experiments with these dangerous materials.