Rob Cosman's Scraping Wood

During the latest visit back to the Wild and Wonderful West Virginia I was fortunate to have the pleasure to hang out with family and old friends. One of those friends was not in West Virginia though. Rob Cosman hails from New Brunswick, Canada and I paid him a visit through his new DVD Scraping Wood. This 9o minute DVD shot in High Def was Rob's latest addition to the instructional line of DVD's that have helped me hone my woodworking skills. To be honest I was a little skeptical of this DVD only because I had previously purchased and watched Christopher Schwarz's excellent Handscraper: Understanding, Preparing and Using the Ultimate Finishing Tool. Chris's DVD really set the bar high with excellent information and easy to use techniques. Scraping Wood was very much a review of how to prepare a card scraper although Rob's techniques differ from those of Chris's. Scraping Wood goes on to review the #80 cabinet scraper and three scraping planes, the #85, 212, & 112. Rob really emphasizes the importance of the burnisher and its level of polish. He also advocates the use of a flat burnisher over a round burnisher to spread out the pressure. I am eager to try this in the future to see if I can tell a difference. Overall, Scraping wood is some of the best video quality that I have ever seen in any woodworking video. It is very well organized and full of excellent advice. I am glad I own the DVD and can’t wait to watch it again.

P.S. And congratulations to Cody, Wyoming for hiring one of the best Paramedics in the lower 48...As a faithful Cor Woodworks Blog Reader you can borrow Scraping Wood any time!

A Tale of Two Tops

The latest project at COR woodworks was a Pipe Box for Zach Lysdahl. This was the last project for the 2008 season in Grand Teton National Park. The shop is all packed away and ready to rest in Denver for the winter while Aimee and I explore south of the equator. The wood that I constructed the box with was Black Cherry and Curly Maple. The carcass was assembled with mitered through dovetails and the lid is a sliding lid allowing the contents to be easily accessed. I originally used curly maple as the top with a finder pull bored out and holly inlay set into the bottom of the pull. When fitting the top the resulting fit was disappointing. Needless to say I created a second top, this time out of cherry. I also decided to change up the look and design of the second lid. I accented the cherry with a strip of holly and ebony inlay and used a maple dovetail key as the finger pull. The fit on the second lid was spot on and I was very pleased with its piston fit. The over all dimensions of the box are 6X9X3. I would have to say that the color contrast of maple and cherry with a coat of Danish oil is one of my favorite wood combos.

COR Woodworks

“The highest reward for a man’s toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it.” -John Ruskin
In 2006 I started COR Woodworking to use my passion, woodworking, to better peoples lives. My hope is to bless people that I have come in contact with. Through certain pieces I desire to meet a need and use my work to sharpen a fellow individual.
The symbol of the Hand Plane is a metaphor of Proverbs 27:19 “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another”. Iron will only take a sharp, long lasting edge if it has been properly tempered. This tempering process is fulfilled by supporting each other, allowing the iron to be prepared to receive an edge thus enabling the plane to do its job successfully. The word cor is Latin for more at heart. The word courage was derived from the Latin cor. I try in every piece I construct to present not just a piece of furniture but an element of encouragement. -Cheers

You Know This!

Living the transient lifestyle has its perks, but it also comes with its challenges. Loving to woodwork but never having a "Shop" can be one of those challenges. I can be seen in the picture above working last week in a random snow squall in the Beaver Creek Housing area. Fervently trying to finish a box for a friend here before we move everything we own and become homeless for the next six months. (Note the sheet used to block the winds!) Am I crazy? As Mark Lobsinger would say "You know this". I enjoy woodworking because it is a constant challenge, a test of skill. There is always a new way to accomplish a task and a new skill set to be learned. I am fascinated with working by means of my hands and building something I can be proud of. Woodworking is a life long education. I hope I can only afford the tuition. "The woodworker is slow, but the wood is patient." –Chinese Proverb

The Pencil is Mightier than the Sword

During a snowy day last week I decided to turn to my list of backlogged projects to fine something to build. I decided to create a modified pencil gauge that David Charlesworth describes in his book Furniture Making Techniques- A Guide to Hand Tools and Methods. David describes the modification of a pin marking gauge by pulling out the pin and drilling an angled hole to place a pencil in. This pleasant angle of the pencil allows you to see the pencil and where it is marking at all times. This is hard to see if the pencil tip is directly under the gauge bar. The other important feature of this design is the channel in the face of the gauge. This allows the body of the pencil to be recessed into the head, allowing a line to be drawn very close to the face. After using this gauge for a week I wonder how I ever worked without it!

Chopping Dovetails or Carrots?

In 2005, while in Grand Teton National Park, I took my woodworking to the next level and built a portable workbench. I designed and built this bench blindly, without ever seeing one of its kind. Needless to say over the past three years the bench has seen many a project slide over its top. As I used the bench more and more I learned of its shortfalls and begain to design an updated version of the portable workbench. The new workbench is close to completion and I will write about that in a later blog. That being said I decided to recycle the 8/4 hard maple from the old bench and create a butcher block for a friend. In its reencarnated state I hope it will carry on the spirit of creativeness that it bestowed on me over the years.

Desktop Organizer 2008

Desktop Organizer 2008
I just finished up and prepared the latest project for shipment to the coastal area of Washington. This desktop organizer was built for Ryan Finnerty, who in May completed a Masters of Fine Art program from the University of Washington. This piece was commissioned by Maureen Finnerty, Ryan's older sister.

This is a copy of the description that was sent to Ryan:
This Desktop Organizer was commissioned by Maureen Finnerty. The entire piece is constructed of solid wood and is designed to endure lifetimes of use. The structure or carcass is constructed with Black Cherry (red in color). The drawer fronts are Curly Maple (light tan in color). The bottoms of the drawers are Yellow Poplar with Black Cherry for the rest of the drawer components. These species of timber are domestic hardwoods grown in North America; no exotic timber was used. The carcass was constructed with through dovetails at the corners. The drawers were constructed in traditional fashion using solid wood and time-honored joinery practices. Room was allotted in the drawer openings to allow for expansion of the wood as it acclimates from the dry Wyoming air to the humid Coastal climate. The back will appear proud of sides and the drawers might stiffen up as the wood acclimates. The piece is finished with a Watco Danish Oil (Natural Color) with a topcoat of paste wax. If scratched this finish can be easily repaired by adding more Danish Oil to the damaged area and re-waxing with any furniture grade paste wax. I hope this piece brings as much joy as it brought me in the process of constructing it.

The timber milled up and ready to be hand-planed.

The sides with dovetails cut out.

Assembly of a drawer.

Finished Shots!

Disaster did strike once. A large chunk of a drawer front blew out while chopping the half-blind dovetails. That is why we always mill up an extra piece.