Sandal Woods - Fine Woodworking & Cabinetry

I have received several questions over the last four weeks (via e-mail), asking: “How do you capture the computer screen, to generate the videos you make to illustrate the designs/modifications, using your 3-D modeling program?”

My answer: I use Camtasia Studio 5, a product from TechSmith. I let TechSmith tell the story of what this nifty program is, as follows (from their web site):

So, what IS Camtasia Studio?

The smart, friendly screen recorder and more.

Imagine being able to show exactly what’s on your screen to anyone, anywhere. Imagine that it’s easy. Now you’ve imagined Camtasia Studio.

With the smartest screen recording tools on the planet, Camtasia Studio makes everything from training videos to PowerPoint presentations to lectures look better, reach more people, and pack more punch. Which makes you look even smarter, too.

I especially like the last sentence above…

I purchased this screen recorder to develop some tutorials in Corrosion Engineering, my specialty, from 25+ years in this field. I am glad I got this tool, as I can now produce videos that document, inform, and teach woodworking techniques and procedures. Woodworking has been my passion for many years, and now I get to enjoy it more than I ever have at any time in the past.

As many of you have seen, I use this product to document procedures and techniques, and modifications in the design of my woodworking pieces. I have called the 3-D program my “visualization tool”; Camtasia allows me to share the results with you. I use it this way, the simplest way to get results; but it can also create fully interactive tutorial sessions, with quiz sections, Q&A, etc.

If you are interested in pursuing it further, please contact TechSmith. I am not associated with the company - I am simply a happy customer!

Edit to add: I learned just a few minutes ago that the TechSmith people will be in San Francisco at MacWorld, January 14-18. It looks at if some of you will have a chance to meet the Camtasia people in person.

I have truly enjoyed the journey, friends. Many of you have told me that you HAVE enjoyed learning how to get from the makings of a plain dovetail, to an inlaid dovetail. In this episode I show the process of cutting the pin sockets in the walnut (accent) board, to make room for thinner pins boards that will provide the contrast in the joint.I have made these joints many times, but I still managed to blow out the walnut in one end of each dovetail board. I decided to include these failures in the film, to show that things can go wrong at times. As I explain in the video, the failure resulted due to insufficient glue/contact during the clamping time. I did not anticipate these failures this time, as I got cocky and just “knew” I had done a really good job <grin> during on-camera glue-up, in Part 2.Although I did not show all the steps to make the repairs to the ends of the boards where the walnut failed, it is a CAN-DO thing: Simply do the following, to keep you from milling new boards - especially if you are using expensive, exotic woods:

1. Carefully, sand away the walnut that remains on the face of the dovetail board(s) - voilà, clean board(s), ready to re-apply new inlay board(s)! If you find a better way of doing this, let me know
2. Re-install the dovetail bit on the router
3. Adjust the bit depth to the original depth - that is, the thickness of the walnut board; HOW??? Simple: Insert the now-cleaned board end in the jig, place the router on the finger assembly, and adjust the bit depth using the now-clean pin sockets as your depth template.
4. Re-open the guide fingers using the shims, as outlined in the procedure
5. Re-cut the pin sockets, to remove the walnut
6. Now cut the pins on the dark (walnut) board(s)
7. Glue the walnut to the light (sycamore) board(s)
8. Close the guide fingers in the proper sequence, using shims as needed
9. Re-cut the pin sockets in the dark (walnut), leaving the inlay on the dovetail board(s) ===>>> Repaired board(s)

If you want to make inlaid dovetails, I suggest you download the Leigh procedure procedure; it is posted at the Leigh Support Page. While the procedure is specific to the D4 24-inch jig, some of you have already told me via e-mail you may be able to adapt some or most of the steps to your non-Leigh jig. Please post your comments via the link at the bottom of this write-up, to share with others your successes. Some of you also have made up your minds, and have already decided to get a new Leigh jig to make these joints - let me know if you do!

A critical part of the entire procedure involves milling, very precisely, the shims used to spread the jig’s guides. I recommend you keep it simple: If you will use an 8° dovetail router bit, you will need shims that are 1.15 times thicker than the inlay thickness you wish to have. This is “to compensate for the geometry of the angled cut and changing cutter depth”, according to the Leigh step-by-step write-up.In its simplest form, I use shims that are 116 mils thick ( 0.116″ ). This is because my target is always 100 mils ( 0.100″ ) inlay thickness.

NOTE: As I mentioned in Part 1, two disk drives crashed and delayed my video-making adventure. Although I am able to produce video at this time, I have some glitches that result in out-of-sync audio and video, especially toward the end of this episode. I am still trying to figure out what may have happened to cause this. I apologize for this glitch in the video, folks!

Acknowledgment: I thank Marc Spagnuolo, TheWoodWhisperer, for all his help as I muddled through this entire video posting process, and various minutiae related to blogging in general. Thanks, buddy!

——– Al

October 28, 2007

Keywords: inlaid dovetails D4 jig woodworking contrasting wood jointIn Part 2, I actually cut dovetails and pins on the sycamore (primary wood) and on the walnut (which I am using as accent wood in the inlays). Suggestion: Watch Part 1 first, and THEN this one will make a LOT more sense!

Click To Play

Two hard disk drives later, I was finally able to continue editing this video. What a week this has been with the laptop! The original, 5-year old, 250-GB external disk drive crashed, the replacement I bought lasted exactly 22 hours, but the store replaced it on the spot. I am back up and running, although the video editor has been a little cranky.

Now, the fun stuff:

This is Part 1 of making inlaid dovetails - it covers The Basics. I take you to the point where I just start cutting the dovetails on the tails boards. But it IS important basics, as it shows in detail HOW to open the fingers on the jig, to allow for the thickness of the inlay. Total length: 14 minutes, 22 seconds.

I winged it through the entire shoot with no script, no nothing, and it shows! If it looks a little rough, well…. It IS rough. But I did get through it, and hopefully this tutorial will help someone at some point.

Part 2 is uploading to Blip.tv as I post this, so it should be available later tonight. In Part 2 I will actually cut tails and pins, following all the introductory stuff in Part 1. And Part 3 (later this week???) will show me cutting the pin sockets in the walnut inlays, and assembling the box shell.

You can download the Leigh procedure to create inlaid dovetails at the Leigh Support Page. It is the second Technical Bulletin.

Let me know what you think, and especially leave me feedback so that I can take this blog in the direction that is of interest to many of you. Thanks for watching!

—— Al

My write-up about the little box with inlaid dovetails resulted in several people being interested in a tutorial on HOW to make these. Therefore, I am planning to tackle this as a video tutorial; I will get busy with it as soon as I finish my current project. In my spare time I have been learning the basics of video on the web; so, be prepared for a real adventure!

Please let me know what you think about such a tutorial, using the Comment form for this post. Simply click on the Add a Comment link immediately below this post.

I use the Leigh D4 dovetail jig. Therefore, I plan to use the D4, and the Leigh procedures, to illustrate the steps. Although this might not be applicable to other jigs, I hope that the video will demystify the procedures involved in creating inlaid dovetails.

I look forward to your feedback!

Al