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August 31, 2009 By

WIA St Charles: Arts & Crafts style: The unadorned truth

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Duration: 20 min., 34 sec.

Arts & Crafts, Mission, and Craftsman.

Do you know the differences? I did not. But after this session, I am now able to tell apart them apart on my own – somewhat, as many of the nuances escape me. Bob Lang did a terrific job covering the period – he is a walking encyclopedia about this movement, popular with many woodworkers. He “…got into this…” in the 1970s, has written books about it, and talks about it authoritatively; and he researched all 16 years of The Craftsman magazine, while working on his Interiors book.

What was striking: I learned that the style is almost unrecognizable today, from its origins in 19th century England. Although many of the names associated with the movement were familiar to me, I learned about the top designers or the time, starting with Gustav Stickley and his brothers. Bob did a terrific job illustrating the differences between Arts & Crafts, Mission, and Craftsman pieces – I hope I remember all the information, for I would like to design and make some pieces in one of these styles at some time in the (near?) future.

My hope is that this edited version of Bob Lang’s session will give you a sense of his depth of knowledge about the Arts & Crafts style. And that my editing reflects the true spirit of his presentation – all shortcomings in the video are my own.

If you get a chance, plan to attend one of the Woodworking in America conferences.

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Filed Under: Blog, Conference, St Charles, Video, Woodworking in America Tagged With: , , , , ,
August 27, 2009 By

WIA St Charles: What SketchUp can do for you

Bob Lang at work during the session

Bob Lang at work during the session; photo by Al Navas

Background:

I tried it, and gave up. Then I tried it again, and gave up once more. But this session with Bob Lang opened my eyes to the true power of SketchUp. As a result, I will try it again; and I will apply myself in a more determined way. Why would I want to do this, if I use the eCabinet Systems software? For a simple reason: SketchUp has much more flexibility to design furniture; the main focus of eCabinets is cabinets made with plywood, although it is possible to design using solids – but that is a lot more work!

I now have SketchUp 7 installed on my laptop. When a proper time window is available, I will focus on learning the program. Who knows? I may be able to suggest to Bob a trick or two next time we meet. In the meantime, the best I can do is entice you to use the program with my write-up about the session. If my write-up contains errors, it is my fault; I took notes during the session, which I used as reference for this entry. Please, do not blame Bob, as he did a superb job convincing me to use the program.

My notes cover only the basics. However, Bob used a laptop and a projection system to demonstrate how to use all the basics to design a nice little table, as I show in the photo above. That was the best part, as I was able to see the power of SketchUp on-screen. It was a real eye-opener, and an eye popper to see the true power of the program!

Some important stuff to know:

  • What to practice, and
  • How to practice the stuff learned

Some things can be problematic. As a result, it is best to:

  • Learn all the tools in the program
  • Learn how to navigate, and how to model

Navigating:

  • Use the scroll wheel on the mouse; this is the best way to do it!
  • Set the crosshairs: From the Menu, pull down Window | Preferences | Drawing, and check Display Crosshairs
  • Turn on the Instructor: Window | Instructor
  • Learn to NOT draw anything; i.e., use the rectangle tool, or use Push/Pull to quickly draw a box
  • Learn to replicate
  • Import models from 3D Warehouse, and play with them
  • Draw joinery, to fully understand it
  • Make Groups, and also Components, to allow joining without disturbing edges/faces
  • Critical: Learn to Move items, and in particular how to pick up items
  • Use the Measurement window, and enter dimension(s) to get a line to proper length, for example
  • Select by dragging; note the different behavior when dragging left-to-right vs. right-to-left

Components:

  • Drag them from the Component window into the work area
  • Make copies of a component; these are unique, and can be modified, edited, and used as a new component

Applying the learned “stuff”:

  • Make “8th Grade” projects, to apply learned techniques
  • Learn the keyboard shortcuts
  • Turn on X-Ray vision to see, for example, tenons inside mortises
  • Use tenons to create the mortises in the legs; Bob showed how to do this (terrific!)
  • Re-size, to get and entirely new table. This creates a totally new cut list!

That’s it! I did not create video of this session. But now you and I can get busy, and start using SketchUp. And don’t give up – I promise I won’t this time. To help along the way, and keeping a promise he made during this session, Bob posted an entry on the Popular Woodworking blog, titled Woodworking in America — Arts & Crafts and SketchUp. In this entry Bob included links to SketchUp resources; I invite you to read the article, and to make use of those resources.

You really should plan to attend the next conference, in Valley Forge, PA.

lang-session

Filed Under: Blog, Conference, SketchUp, St Charles, Woodworking in America Tagged With: , ,
August 26, 2009 By

WIA St Charles: Furniture formulas – Measure twice, measure not at all

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Duration: 15 min., 23 sec.

Freedom. Free to design something as “simple” as a footstool, or as complicated as a desk, without a computer program, a tape measure, or even a rule. That is what Jim Tolpin’s presentation was all about.

Jim’s presentation took the audience from the workmanship of certainty using machines, to workmanship of risk using hand tools. He showed how, in working the wood by hand, the approach to the work also changes. To minimize the risk takes “care, dexterity, and judgment”. In the process, mastery is achieved. This typically takes at least 10 years and 10,000 hours, and is the norm in the trades. For all woodworkers, the artisan approach encourages innovation and experimentation in the design process; and, if a mock-up can be made, the piece very likely can be built!

Using his hands and one his shoes, Jim showed how to design a nice step stool for a client. The design turned out pretty nice!

I am not quite ready to throw away my tape measure, rules, squares, and the FMT, D4 dovetail jig, the table saw or the jointer, band saw, etc. But in the future, and for some of the “special” pieces, I will try to apply some of what I learned in Jim Tolpin’s approach to using hand tools. Who knows, maybe I will become an artist in wood; he mentioned during this presentation that wood artists make the most money in the woodworking world. That is food for thought.

Acknowledgment: I received Camtasia Studio version 6, by TechSmith. I produced the final video of Jim Tolpin’s presentation using this program, for it allows terrific control of zooming (SmartFocus) in and out on the presentation slides. However, I noticed voice sync problems. Troubleshooting revealed the problem developed when I edited the video using an ancient video editor; it was not a problem related to the new Camtasia. If time permits, I will work on fixing the audio sync issue.

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