Oregon Wood Works
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Guild of Oregon Woodworkers Volume #29, Issue #06 June 2012 OREGON WOOD WORKS A LL ABOUT WOOD BOB OSWALD Pernambuco. A rare wood now on the forbid- and the way they are harvested generates sub- den harvest and sales list. It got me to think- classes such as curly, quilted, Birdseye and ing one evening about wood as I was sitting more. on the porch looking out over a number of Exotic hardwoods are almost limitless. Zeb- Douglas Fir trees. So many species. Oregon rawood, Blackwood, Bocote, Bubinga, Buck- is made of wood. The world is made of eye, Camphor, Cocobolo, Ebony, Bamboo, wood. Simple woods, as we woodworkers Lyptus, Mahogany, Purple Heart, Ironwood, would think of them, like Northwest Fir; used Lacewood, Kingwood, Osage, Rosewood, to build hundreds of thousands of homes. Sandlewood, Sapele, Snakewood, Wenge, Pine, Oregon or the East Coast, makes mil- Teak, to name a few of the more well known. lions of pieces of furniture. Woodworking itself is as diverse a hobby or a And many other common woods such as Al- profession as the supply of raw material. der, Oak, Maple and Walnut used daily to Countless ways to work with the woods, from build things like furniture. simple and elegant hand tools to a wide array Inside this Issue: There are so many species! Softwoods: Pine, of power tools. Exotic Violin Bows 2 Fir, Balsam, Cypress, Hemlock, Larch, Ce- This listing names but a few. Many woods dar, Spruce, most exist in numerous species. have specialty purposes. Balsa for model Hardwoods, the list is immense. Domestic airplanes, Basswood for carving. Cherry and Double Duty Mortise 3 hardwoods such as Ash, Elm, Alder, Aspen, walnut for fine furniture. Maple, Oak, even Jig Balsa, Birch, Beech, Box Elder, Cherry, Pop- Olive, for flooring as well as numerous other 4 lar, Dogwood, Oak, Walnut, Locust, Haw- uses. Accurate Drawer thorne, Maple, Myrtle, Willow abound. Slide Installation And of course, Pernambuco, from Brazil, for How many varieties exist for Maple? Ac- violin bows. A Better Push Block 5 cording to the internet, there are 125 varieties, N EXT MEETING— WEDNESDAY —JULY 18, 2012 6:30PM Steam Bending Kit 5 B UILD A CUSTOM DOOR Franklin High School, 5405 SE Woodward Portland, OR 6 Stain, Know When to The Doors Works Company (www.doorworksco.com) will show us how to install a custom Quit door correctly. The door will not be pre-hung. There will also be a slide show showing past actual installations. This will give you some ideas for your next door. Forums—How To 7 In 1973, this company opened their “door” and started in business. Actually they travel in an outfitted van to a customer’s location. They have been serving the Portland Metro area 8 fixing and installing doors ever since. Learn how the professionals do their work. You will Bedroom Project be surprised how fast and efficient a professional can work even on a one-of-a-kind door. Complete Christopher Ekstrom, will be installing a door on the construction trades building at Frank- Bus Tour 9 lin. Bring your camera or note pad to record the steps necessary to install a door correctly. WARNING: IF YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE SOUND OF A SAW OR ROUTER, PLEASE BRING YOUR OWN HEARING PROTECTION. Directions: Crossing the Ross Island Bridge eastbound, take SE Powell to Social time begins at 55th, a left turn lane a couple blocks past the light. North to SE Woodward 6:30. Board of Directors 1/4 mile to the end. Left on Woodward a block; the shop is on the corner meeting at 5:30. on the right. Page 2 Volume #29, Issue #06 L AST MEETING: MAKING EXOTIC VIOLIN BOWS BOB OSWALD xpensive violin bows. Why so? Materials Ken Altman was a Guild member back in the form- High class bows use exotic materi- E ative days, and remembers well working with Bill als, Pernambuco, gold, silver, eb- Bolstad way back when. Living in Silverton, makes violin ony, ivory, mother of pearl. bows for a living, and bows for viola, cello and bass as well. Pernambuco is a rare wood from He took us through a little of his woodworking history, fol- Brazil, no longer available any- lowed by a detailed discussion of the anatomy of a bow, of where in the world. It’s a protected how they are made. species. It is very dense, heavier Ken started life in the music busi- than water, flexible with a very high ness working for a violin compa- strength to weight ratio, and has ny. That transitioned to building excellent musical characteristics. Other woods commonly used in furniture and little boxes on his Ken Altman own. He fondly remembers mak- inexpensive bows include Snake ing these mystical sliding dovetail Wood and Brazilian Rosewood. boxes, and over the course of a Most ivory is off limits. Still available is Mammoth tusk decade, figures he built about 33,000 puzzle boxes ivory. As a big wooly thaws out of the great Artic icebox, 33,000 of them. He turned back to it’s available for harvest. music a number of years ago and, enjoying making artistic, complex wood things, he tried making a violin bow because Horse hair comes from the tails of a certain breed of Belgian “….it seemed interest- horse, and sells for ing. I liked to make around $400 a pound. delicate, artistic things.” Pernambuco, when you Today he sells them all could find it, cost $50/ over the world, beauti- lb., We held a block , ful, high end bows for 2”x4”x3 feet – around the string family. $2000. Ken bought enough a couple years It is incredible, the back to last him the rest amount of tedious hand of his career. Careful labor required to make nesting and using spe- the kind of quality be- cial meat cutting band- fitting a $3500 bow. saw blades with half The violin bow is one the normal kerf, can half of the process of salvage enough wood playing a violin. Far more than a stick of wood with some to make another stick. It’s the horsehair on it, it’s a balanced, finely tuned instrument in most expensive sawdust and itself. A good bow can easily cost more than the violin. And shavings imaginable. violin players learn two instruments, one for the right hand Hand forming silver compo- and one for the left. Concert performances demand quality nents and silver solder, fol- and features not found in cheap, commercially made bows. lowed by delicate shaping of Bow Anatomy the silver and ebony produce delicate, beautiful, intricate The photo shows the major components. A long stick has a structure. The stick is slowly tip to hold a horse-hair ‘string’. It is tensioned by an adjusta- hand bent in an alcohol flame Home made thumb planes ble frog using the button on and then hand planed to final the end of the stick. dimension.. It takes Ken about 50 hours to produce a bow. Tools His sales price starts at $3300 Ken’s tools range from the He does some commission work but the results are totally full size woodworking tools unpredictable and most customers will test a bunch and pick we all know to miniature one that works for them. hand planes, gouges and files. Thank you very much Ken, for a very interesting presenta- Hand powered drill tion. Page 3 Volume #29, Issue #06 D OUBLE DUTY MORTISE JIG BOB OSWALD ver think about using your mortise jig for more than er bit to cut the deep slot, constrained to the center. one application? These jigs are easy to make and in The second guide bushing is 3/8” OD with the same this application, there would be a ten- E 1/4” router bit. This combination will route to 1/16” from dency to make two of them, to cut the two the edge. So the total width, reduced by the offset of the different mortises. bushing, is 5/8”, exactly 1/8” less than the 3/4” jig. The application is to mortise a bed rail Arriving at the right answer required drawing a number bracket into the headboard. A 5/8” wide mor- of pictures to be sure it would work. And a test cut was nec- tise is required to inset the bracket. A second essary for the peace of mind that it would be correct when 1/4” mortise, set deeper into the center, pro- used on the project. vides clearance for the mating part’s fingers. The 1/4” clearance mortise needed to be cut in two Getting them easily aligned coaxially was shorter segments, not the full length of the slot. Of course a concern, as well as having to make two jigs, this was discovered immediately after routing the first inset an extra effort, when a little voice said that full length. one jig could do the job. And it did; the same jig with two different guide bushings solves Two removable stop the problem. blocks inserted at the ends of the slot during the second operation made the length correct. The middle island was accomplished by draw- It takes a little ing the slots on the template math to find the and visually starting and right combina- stopping the router at the tion of guide right place. bushings, router bits and jig If one were to keep this size. This jig jig, you would definitely had a 3/4” slot want to write on it in bold with a 3/4” marking pen what bushing, guide bushing depths and locations were and a 1/4” rout- used.