Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 177 i Australian Woodsmith

Driving north from Sydney to Maleny for the Sunshine Coast WOOTHA Prize ceremony had me enjoying the pockets of ancient Gondwana Rainforests that are now protected as national parks. A thought that came to mind was that wood is solid sunshine and that some of the ancient trees in these spectacular rainforests have fossilised the sunshine that shone on them a thousand years ago! It seemed appropriate that The Sunshine Coast was the main sponsor for the richest woodworking prize in Australia. On pages 16-21 you can read about the Maleny Wood Expo and the prize winners in the four categories. The Sunshine Coast WOOTHA Prize was won by Derek Calderwood with his amazing Queensland maple sideboard. Derek is a chemical engineer whose introduction to woodworking was to buy a…

Big panels can be a pain. Keeping all the pieces of a tabletop flush during a glueup can take almost every clamp in the workshop. And if that surface doesn’t end up entirely smooth, a planer won’t solve the problem. The only option then is to break out the hand planes and get ready for a workout. There’s a simple solution I’ve found for these big panels: a reversible glue joint bit. The joint it leaves ensures the panels lock in place and remain flush. There are a couple of types of glue joint bits, but the one we’re looking at here is a reversible glue joint bit. The name comes from how the joints go together: simply flip a piece and the edge fits right into its mating joint.…

Tables invite gathering. A large dining table draws family and friends to celebrate holidays and special events. A coffee table on the other hand, tones down the rituals for laid back gatherings whether coffee-based or another beverage of your choosing. I’ve noticed a recent trend that super sizes the coffee table into continent-sized altars of display. This table instead relishes small spaces and everyday gatherings. The splayed legs and aprons visible from the front add visual and woodworking interest. Down below, there’s a drawer to hold entertaining essentials, remotes or just a place to clear the deck when company arrives. We finished the base with a two-tone distressed paint job. Think of it as a subtle permission slip to skip the coasters or put your feet up. Painting the base…

When developing the design of a bowl you need to take into account the proportions along with several options available for the overall bowl aesthetic. These include the foot, which can be turned within the existing seasoned blank, or as a second option, a foot turned from a separate piece of wood, saving waste when producing a pedestal bowl. In this article I am expanding this further to look at how the internal form of the bowl may affect its initial design for an out-curve rim, or when there is a need for an undercut rim, and how to produce this with a bowl gouge and other tools, such as a scraping option if you are not confident to date with the gouge. Often simple external texture is all that…

REVERSIBLE GLUE LINE BITS Timbecon stocks the popular Freud Glue Line Profile Router Bit. Carbatec stocks two styles of glue line bits, a bargain basement Arden bit that will do the job and a premium CMT bit that will last for ages. The trick with using glue line bits is to clamp your boards firmly against the router table and fence so that any bow in the boards is ironed out as the edge runs past the cutter. This will mean the bow in the board will be completely removed when it is locked tight against its neighbour. Obviously, all edges need to be planed flush and true. It is only a bow that can be ironed out. INSTALLING A PRE-HUNG DOOR The clever Winbag inflatable wedge was purchased from…

After the winners of the Tiny Treasures, Furniture and Sculpture prizes were announced the overall winner of the WOOTHA prize was made known. A very humbled and surprised Derek Calderwood made his way through the crowd in the Main Pavilion and accepted his certificate. LAUTISSIMUM As you can see above "Lautissimum" is a sideboard crafted from Queensland maple with more than just a nod to mid century design influences. The Artist's Statement on the piece read: Cabinet carcass is made from a single, re-sawn and bookmatched board of quarter-sawn stock. The cabinet interlocks the base which is a wedged mortice and tenon construction for strength and visual effect. Finished externally with Danish oil and all internal surfaces are waxed for protection. The following day I caught up with Derek and…

The Stanley tool company built both the No 51 chute plane and the No 52 chute board from 1909 until 1943. That makes any Stanley No 51 or 52 at least 80 years old. The plane itself has No 51 cast into its body. The plane is designed to fit into a chute so that its offset blade can slice away end grain and produce perfect mitres or any angle between 90° and 5°. Cabinetmakers often made their own chute boards and hence only required to outlay the cash to buy the No 51 plane. However, Stanley also offered a kit that included the No 51 chute plane and a board (with No 52 cast into the chute). In the dust-free days before disc sanders a chute (or more often…

Garan Hale won this year’s WOOTHA Furniture award with his magnificent Stella stool. The stool is gorgeous and really should be bought by the National Gallery and put on permanent exhibition. Other countries around the world exhibit furniture (The Hermitage in St Petersburg has a George Nakashima chair on display). One thing that caught my eye when I was admiring the stool was the thought that Garan had put into "heading" his wedges. The wedges cut across the grain in the leg and then sit perpendicular to the grain of the carved seat. This means that the legs and the seat won’t split as the wedges are driven home. Screws are usually "headed" when they are driven home to hold a hinge. This can be seen in the piano hinge…

TPI (teeth per inch) is one of three main considerations when choosing a bandsaw blade (along with blade width and tooth configuration). Fortunately, determining the best TPI for a given blade isn’t really all that complicated. But there are a couple of points to be aware of. The first rule of thumb is that the number of teeth per inch will be dictated somewhat by the thickness of the stock you’re cutting. Let me explain. MINIMUM NUMBER. In order to avoid damaging the teeth of a bandsaw blade, there should always be a minimum of three teeth in the stock. So for example, when cutting 19mm-thick stock, you want a blade with at least 4 TPI. For thinner stock, you’ll need a blade with more teeth per inch. The drawings…

WORK SHARP BENCHSTONE SHARPENER Work Sharp manufactures a wide range of sharpening systems for both knives and axes. This little benchtop model is designed for the kitchen and not the workshop (however you can hone chisels on it with ease). The pre-set yellow angle guides at each end can be reversed so that the honing angle can be either 20° or 25°. You rest the knife on the guide and then draw it across the plate. The Benchstone plate has three sides and gives you the choice of a coarse 320 grit diamond plate to remove chips and to set a new honing angle, followed by a 600-grit plate that further refines the edge. You finish the sharpening by honing on the white ceramic plate. No water or oil is…

TINY TREASURES PRIZE The genius behind the Tiny Treasure competition is that it opens up the WOOTHA prize to creative makers across this wide brown land and challenges them to distil their creativity into a standard Australia Post-box and post it to Maleny. No need to make the pilgrimage and hire a trailer to deliver the project, just a description of the idea, an acknowledgment that it fits the criteria and the Maleny crew will post you a post-it pack! The standard size in 2019 was 130 x 130 x 110. That standard has since changed, however the folk at the Wood Expo have purchased years worth of Post-It packs and will stay with the size limit for the next couple of years. The entries to the competition were many…

The router bit I use the most: a chamfer bit is the one I think about the least. On one hand that’s good because it means the bit does its job well. However, a little contemplation about your options can lead to better results in our projects. 45° IS A GIVEN. The chamfer bit you likely have cuts 45° profiles. The result is a balanced, light-catching facet. That’s the reason I reach for a chamfer bit. That crisp glint transitions from one surface of a project to another. The drawings on the top of the next page show the range of functions that a chamfer fills. THINK ABOUT SIZE. There’s more going on behind that facet. As you can see in the photo at left, chamfer bits come in several…