Better Than New  michael l. maine From salvage to savings

Like the tools he rescues from the scrap heap, the period pieces Glen Jewell makes for his 168-year-old West Virginia home are better than new.

len Jewell runs a rehab center, Glen, 72, has a passion for furniture of sorts, but it’s not for people. making, particularly period pieces GThis barn on a three-acre that reflect the era of the log home he wooded lot just a mile from downtown shares with his wife, Carol. His second Charleston,West Virginia, is where floor workshop occupies a barn Glen rundown or disabled tools built in a style that complements their get reborn. house. Beyond that, he has a passion for refurbishing old machines. Of the 19 major tools in his shop, only two (an oscillating spindle sander and a planer) were purchased new. The others he restored to “as good as or better than new” after acquiring them from the state’s surplus property send them out to be productive in their agency, the county school system, world. I have never had a piece become or going-out-of-business auctions. a backslider.” “I sometimes feel like a missionary,” It started 30 years ago when Glen Glen explains. “I go out looking for bought two Delta 12" turret-arm lost souls, make them whole, set them for $50. He invested $250 in parts, on the straight and narrow, and then restored both saws, and later sold

40 woodcraft magazine O c t /N o v 2 0 0 8 america’s top shops Better Than New THE WORKSHOP each for $600. The process has been “If you’re planning on building at a glance From salvage to savings repeated many times to include at a shop, study what other Size: 24×32' barn loft. least seven lathes, eight , Stick-built barn with people have done. Think Construction: five table saws, numerous belt/disc shop over garage. 3" insulation in 8' sanders, presses, and other tools. about how they operate and walls; 6" insulation in the ceiling. Floor is unfinished tongue-and- yellow Glen has calculated that he has about about your long-term plans . Exterior is stained board-and-batten $10,000 invested in his current tools, for woodworking. That will tell cedar. Roof is red tin. but that new replacements would cost you what size to build it.” Heating and cooling: Ceiling-mounted nearly $57,000. 80,000 btu forced-air gas furnace; 1½-ton air conditioner. Lighting: Twenty-eight 4'-long twin-bulb fluorescents; halogen task lights over the , flexible-arm fixtures at bandsaws; one mobile incandescent That day finally came. Glen lamp. retired from Bell Atlantic telephone Electrical: 200-amp main box with six 17 years ago and set about building 110-volt circuits and six 220-volt circuits. Ten 20-amp three-phase outlets. the barn beside the house. The Dust collection: Five-inch trunk line first floor has space for two cars between the shop floor and garage and Glen’s waterfowl-hunting ceiling. Four-inch Y branches to individual The Jewells bought their “needs boat, plus a half bath; the second machines, except for the planer, joiner, and table , where the runs are 2'. A work” log home 30 years ago (Glen saw floor contains his 24×32' shop. 1½-hp blower removes dust from the only the problems; Carol, the potential, With benches and wall-mounted work area into a compost pile outside. Glen admits). In the 5'9"h×10'w×15'l cabinets at both ends, and machines Two Jet air-filtration systems cleanse the shop air. stone cellar under the house Glen set permanently set along the long sides up shop. Because of its limited size and and in the middle, Glen has plenty Air compressor: 1-hp, 20-gallon compressor on the ground floor garage. the need to move the just to of room to maneuver long boards Air is piped to both ends of the garage rip a board longer than 4', Glen vowed and sheet goods without moving and shop. that when he retired he would build a or unplugging anything (see the shop large enough to eliminate all of floor plan on page 43). “There is that I move in order to use my over- the moving and all of the unplugging one minor exception,” Glen confesses. arm , which is not very often.” and plugging in of cords. “I have a on a mobile base As a period furniture maker and tool

Glen’s 12" variable-speed lathe dominates one side of A collection of vintage hand tools, including Glen’s the shop. It is flanked by a router-based mortiser/tenoner grandfather’s handmade tenon marking , is and shaper, and a Uniplane, over-arm router, and sander. displayed on this end wall, above his mechanical/electrical Glen refers to this lathe (his seventh) as his “felon lathe” workbench. The wall cabinet has eight small parts cabinets because it spent 20 years in the WV State Penitentiary. that contain 176 drawers. photos: k.d. L ETT

w w w . W oo d c r a f t M a g a z i n e . c om woodcraft magazine 41 restorer, Glen is self-taught on both counts. But FORAGING FOR LOW-COST TOOLS there was a different motivation for each—making furniture was a necessity; restoring tools, a mission. There are plenty of tools “I didn’t get into it because I had to. I always knew it out there that need TLC; was a good piece of equipment. I just didn’t want to you just need to know where Powermatic to look. And the competition see it die on the scrap heap,” Glen explains. isn’t that intense either, When your goal is to furnish a 168-year-old especially now that Glen has home with period pieces, you have two choices: decided he’s restored his buy them or make them.“You can look a long time last tool. “I stopped about before you find a piece that fits or you can afford, so two years ago, but I still at first I made the pieces we needed,” he says. have to keep reminding With no formal training in either tool myself to pass them up,” reconditioning or woodworking, Glen relied on he says. If you’re interested in searching for and knowledge he acquired on the job and his ability to reconditioning tools or 2 retain what he read. “I got the training I needed so buying used tools, Glen I could absorb a lot of information about electro/ offers these tips: mechanical switching machines,” says Glen, who was director of engineering when he retired. “I had the acumen to understand everything they were Searching telling me, and I could comprehend the technical for tools journals.” to restore: Armed with a knowledge of how machinery • Check out your state’s surplus equipment Web site. worked, the hardest part after acquiring a tool was • Investigate equipment sales from tracking down an operating manual or finding your local school district. replacement parts—that and getting some of the • Search free publications and pieces up the stairs and into the shop. In one case newspapers containing classified the frame of a bandsaw was so heavy, Glen had ads for tool bargains or going out to secure an eyebolt to the wall at the top of the of business sales. stairs. Then with the help of a come-along and two • Habitat for Humanity may friends, they winched it up the stairs and muscled it operate a Re-Store in your area. • Visit the U.S. Government’s across the floor. surplus equipment Web site at So what takes more of Glen's time now: tool www.gsaauctions.gov. restoration or furniture building? “Restorations don’t take my time anymore so it is definitely studying or making period furniture,” Glen says. He also maintains an extensive library on period Buying used tools: furniture and its construction and attends the • Decide in advance the extent of restoration you annual Colonial Williamsburg Forum: Working intend. Are you simply going in the 18th Century. to put a blade in a worn-out piece of equipment and put it to work? Are you going to This angle grinder is Glen’s make it mechanically sound principAL tool when it’s time to but accept its cosmetic clean up a new find. weaknesses? Or are you going to make it as good as or better than new? Then… 1. Decide in advance what the tool is worth to you. If bidding at an auction, don’t get caught up in a bidding war. 2. Be patient. If you can’t get a tool now at the price you want, chances are you’ll come across one later at a better price.

42 woodcraft magazine O c t /N o v 2 0 0 8 The Floor Plan

Unlike many woodworkers who swear by my table saw out the door. I vowed that when is stored on the first floor with cutoffs, their array of mobile tools, Glen designed his I retired I would build my shop big enough trim , and sheet goods easily carried shop for precisely the opposite reason—so to have a permanent place for each piece of up a 4'-wide stairway to the second floor. Powermatic that he wouldn’t have to move anything. All equipment,” he explains. Now most machines Multiple fluorescent lights combined with four major tools but one bandsaw stay put, for two are positioned around the perimeter in pods six-light barn sash windows and task lighting reasons. His machines are older and therefore according to function—sanding, scrolling, provide plenty of illumination. heavier than many made today, vibration is shaping, etc. His workbench (a conference Glen’s dust collection, though unusual, reduced, and Glen got his fill of “mobile” tools table cut down to 3×8') is against one wall. is effective and, because there are no bags in his first workshop, which was a stone cellar Hand tools store in a cabinet above the bench; or buckets, space efficient. Dust is sucked under the house. “If I wanted to a long below, movable horizontal dividers between through trunk and branch lines, then blown board, I had to drag the planer out the door. vertical supports provide 15 cubbyholes to out a first floor window where it lands in the If I needed to rip a long board, I had to drag store portable power tools and jigs. Rough compost pile.

Hand-tool cabinet Desk/computer Oscillating station spindle sander 8' workbench

“I feel like there’s nothing I can’t Belt/disc sander 15" drill press do in my shop.” Drum/flap 7' assembly table sander w/ four Router-based mortise/ tenoner Sheet goods Table saw “Vibration is the storage extension/ enemy of good joinery. router table The weight of an old tool keeps vibration to 20" bandsaw a minimum.” 2hp shaper with 4-speed stock 12" feeder Radial-arm saw lathe

Sharpening 10" tilting arbor station Outfeed table saw “Rubber mats here and table 6" rotary plane there provide some Grinder/buffer comfort, but it’s the wood floor that makes the real 8" joiner difference.” Overarm- router/shaper

Lumber 14" bandsaw storage 13" planer 26"-wide belt variable speed “It has worked sander okay for me, Hollow but I don't recommend mortiser 26" Scrollsaw a shop on the Metal/wood second floor.” bandsaw Carving bench 6' workbench small parts cabinets

w w w . W oo d c r a f t M a g a z i n e . c om woodcraft magazine 43 america’s top shops Smart Ideas for the Taking 5 1

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����� ����� ����� Simple saw rack: This 10- slot saw rack allows Glen to store �������� handsaws in a convenient location Fig. 1 �� �� � yet still protect the blades. A hole ����� ������������� ���������� is drilled at a 22° angle into each � � ��� �������� ��� section of block so it intersects the adjacent slot. Then a small rubber

� ball is inserted into the hole. When a � ��� ����� ����� saw is placed in the slot, its weight ����� pulls the ball down and wedges the �������� saw into the slot. �� ��

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Outrigger roller: Because a drill-press table is not very large, a long piece of wood can shift or get out of level. To solve the problem Glen secured a small-diameter roller to a piece of scrap, and then Fig. 2 clamped the scrap in a nearby to provide outfeed support.

44 woodcraft magazine O c t /N o v 2 0 0 8 Hands-free kill switch: Most of the time, a woodworker needs both hands when operating a table saw. Releasing one hand to find a kill switch can be inconvenient and risky. Glen fashioned this H-shaped device so that the kill switch can be activated with nothing more than a glancing blow from a or hand. He attached a rubber bumper to the back of the vertical piece so it lines up with the standard OFF switch. “All I have to do is hit that board anywhere and it shuts the saw off, a real safety feature,” Glen says.

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��� Pattern reproduction : With this jig, Glen ����� can make exact duplicates of a pattern for a candlestick table. When cutting away small pieces, they sometimes wedge between the saw and fence causing a rough edge or worse—a bent blade. This design allows Glen to simply flick the piece out of the way before any damage can occur. The fence is made of poplar, and it’s covered with an orange shellac to keep it from warping. 4

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w w w . W oo d c r a f t M a g a z i n e . c om woodcraft magazine 45

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����������������������������� ��������� ��� At home with craftsman Glen Jewell

aised on a hardscrabble hillside farm in West Virginia, RGlen learned early on what it was going to take to make it in the world—industry, ingenuity, and determination. After fin- ishing high school, Glen packed up those traits and took them to college, got a degree in business management, and began a 32-year-career with Bell Atlantic Telephone Company super- vising various organizations. Glen employs those same traits as a woodworker. His passion for woodworking started 30 years ago when he and his wife, Carol, bought their 1840/1910 log home and immediately set about restoring it. Because one exterior wall of the original log cabin became an interior wall after the 1910 log home was built over it, the first tool he used when embarking on a second-floor remodeling project was a . From there, Glen refined his skills and began making style-appropriate furniture for the home. Today, Glen and Carol are avid antique collectors, and he is active in the Valley Woodworkers of West Virgina, Inc., and the Society of American Period Furniture Makers.

The original part of Glen’s home was built in 1840, so many of the pieces he makes are designed to be period specific. Here he shows off a Queen Anne spice box. To Glen’s left is a William and Mary spice box. Both are made of walnut. In the background is a Federal style corner table.

This WALNUT candlestick table is fashioned in the Dunlap style. (We’ll show how Glen built it in an upcoming issue of the magazine.) Glen’s interpretation includes a border of holly inlay and 120° fans in each of the six corners.

Glen built this Chester County, Pennsylvania, bible box from the dimensions on a postcard he received from a friend. The line-and-berry decorative motif was widely used early in that area’s history. The top includes intricate work, reflecting the area’s Germanic influence.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR SHOP: Jim Harrold - Editor-in-Chief, Woodcraft Magazine Got a top woodworking shop filled with ideas for smarter 4420 Emerson Avenue, Suite A woodworking? You could be featured in Woodcraft Magazine P.O. Box 7020 and earn a $200 Woodcraft gift card. Send a short Parkersburg, WV 26102-7020 writeup, photos and/or sketches, and rough floor plan to: [email protected]

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