Following a short 6 hour drive from Cincinnati to St. Charles, IL (Northwest of Chicago), set-up was quickly underway for the conference center. By mid-Thursday afternoon we had all of the Gorilla Glue products, demos and signs ready to go for Friday's opening day. With a good three uninterrupted hours of time in front of me, I began cutting dovetails in my cherry shelves in earnest. I approached these like every other set: Pins first, cut with a Dozuki Japanese back saw (one of the cheaper ones for about $45) and my 13 year old set of Buck Brothers Chisels I picked up for about $50.
Looks of Dismay from my Peers!
After only one set complete out of a good 12 total for the project, I noticed a few of my friends Ron Breese (Breese Plane) and the crew from Lie-Nielsen Toolworks chuckling at my good old standby saw. The traditional Japanese saw has been in my toolbox since i started, with a few replacement blades along the way. What I didn't know was that the more traditional Push saws have come a very long way in the quality of manufacturing. Daneb from Lie-Nielsen introduced me to one of their dovetail saws, a 15 PPI rip saw, perfect for cutting dovetails. After a bunch of trial and error starts along my test piece, I started to get the hang of things with the cutting action on the push, versus the pull. So even prior to the event starting up, I was learning some new skills, being made aware of some great new products, and well, off to adding another tool to my collection. I purchased one of the saws and used it for the rest of the show. I usually just cut the pins with my saw, and then go to the bandsaw to cut the tails after marking their locations with the pins. The results I got with the new saw were better than what I get on pins and tails the older way.
One Good Turn Deserves Another
At this point, I felt obligated to give my peers a few tips regarding Gorilla Glue's PVA, Type 2 wood glue. A great deal of woodworkers first experience with Gorilla Glue was with the traditional Polyurethane based product. For a number of applications like outdoor uses, waterproof adhesion and oily woods, this long open time glue is perfect. But the foaming has always been something that woodworkers don't like to contend with. This can be virtually eliminated with just using a smaller amount, versus traditional wood glues. For the PVA wood glue, this is what more traditional woodworkers are looking for when gluing domestic and tropical (non-oily) hardwoods. What all woodworkers throughout the weekend learned (including some of my peer exhibitors at the show) was that the Gorilla PVA is non-foaming, and they can expect exceptional results for both working time (5-10 minutes) and a 20 minute clamp time. I was happy to share this information with folks over the last few days, and see them off with a few samples, and perhaps a hat and t-shirt while they were at it.
Hiting mySpending Limit the First Day
Needless to say, for the amount of hand-but dovetails I do, my current set just wasn't holding an edge. They were heavy to wield with a steel impact surface over a polyurethane handle, so I headed back over to the Lie-Nielsen booth, and picked up a set of six bench chisels ranging from 1/8" through 1" wide. Daneb again helped hone them to an amazing edge, although even out of the box, they were sharper than my current set. The great thing about this forum of fellow woodworkers was that even after purchase, I was able to learn more about sharpening techniques and improved my skills at cutting dovetails as well.
"That one special thing, that bonds us together as woodworkers" - Thos. Moser
Although ideally for a blog on a glue site, I'd like to think that the special thing bonding us together is glue, but realistically, as woodworkers it is something very unique for each of us. On the final night, I had the privilege to meet Thomas Moser, and hear him speak of his 38 year personal journey of woodworking. I'll save most of those details for my next entry, but I did want to share one thought. Mr. Moser looked around the room of 300+ attendees and spoke of a special connection each of us has to woodworking. In many cases, it is a unique experience as a child (like Brian Boggs' time spent in trees as a child), or something that drives us to take up the craft along side our everyday professions. He described this connection we hold personally as the bond that connects all of us together with the passion we have for woodworking. Nothing drove that point home more than spending three days at the Woodworking In America conference with people of various ages, skills, backgrounds and interests,. The one connecting bond we all share is to create something truly special with our ownhands, and the satisfaction and pride we derive from our craft. and our desire to share that with others. This is what I learned over the weekend.
Demos, Seminars, Old and New Friends
My next post will cover more around the demos, a few of the seminars I attended while at the event. and some old and new friends I met along the way.