Website Changes

Curved-Front Cabinet-on-Stand

by Bob Mckee

Read the Grain 

by Rob Carver

Woodworking for most of us is a singular enterprise. Our workshops are sized mostly for tools, not other humans.  Using woodworking as a metaphor for social relationships, Rob informs us to think about the bigger picture.  As we toil among our joinery, almost invisible reliefs, and grain direction, we also toil in our communities, small and large, to improve our interaction, to understand the direction of our grain and others.  Rob brings this article at a time of new year, which often is a time of reflection and introspection.  Here's to a Happy New Year and Happy Woodworking in 2022.  And here's to a Healthy New Year physically, mentally, and socially.

For a must read, click Rob's Read the Grain.

Is Your Project a By-Product?

by Andrew Davis

One thing leads to another and in this issue most woodworking projects lead to sawdust.  Big surprise!  But Andrew thinks about this kind of stuff.  And that leads to using the sawdust or any other seemingly useless by-product into something that can be monetized above the level of trashing it.

I collect hand plane shavings for kindling for my outdoor wood-fueled pizza oven.  The company I bought the pizza oven actually sells hardwood wood shavings and small blocks for just that purpose.  I admit I've actually thought of mechanizing a cutter to produce shavings of my hardwood scrap.  Now there's a by-product that could be worth something.

Have you considered a project or business turning trash into gold?  In his January 2022 article Is Your Project a By-Product?, Andrew amusingly goes through the mental process of what to consider to evaluate a price for a by-product.  Andrew lays out a compelling list of accounting variables that will have you feeling that sawdust, wood shavings, wood blocks, or other woodworking by-products might be best left for the trash.  See for yourself.

Dual Top Oak Cherry Table

by Dick Belanger

Presentation made to the Guild on December 11, 2021https://youtu.be/FR4xG1C4hhE by Shannon Rogers on the lumber industry. 

Under the About Us tab, click Projects.  Pictures from 2017 and 2018 are scrollable in separate windows.

Your Life on a USB Stick

by Andrew Davis

Do you count yourself in the group of current or former subscribers of at least one woodworking magazine?  Even if you have never been a subscriber, chances are that you have been solicited to be a subscriber, especially now during the holiday season.  You are told they make good presents.

So it didn't take long for Andrew to use this advertising magazine campaign to ponder how to deal with the piles of issues that amass over the years.  The USB stick, sometimes referred to as a thumb drive, is one publishing delivery option but it has downsides as Andrew cites.  Still, that little device with cheap, local, searchable computer memory has become ubiquitous beyond just managing the storage of magazine issues.  Widening that concept to a broader view of technology in woodworking can lead to more pondering by Andrew.

So take a look at Andrew's article and dial back to the catalyst - handling magazine issues - of this progression in December's Your Life on a USB Stick.

To send your comments, click Andrew Davis.

December's MTCO article reveals a little history behind the phrase "tried and true".  This column could become a quiz show by asking the question about various well-known phrases, where does it originate - in woodworking or outside woodworking?  Find the "tried and true" answer in this month's article.  Rob said he really had fun learning about it.

You can reach Rob for comments and additional information, click Rob Carver.