My mother was a successful embroiderer in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). It just so happened that John Lezon, the father of our sponsor family, was a sewing machine repairman that serviced several local dry cleaners. Those connections enabled my mother to establish a small business as a tailor for many of these dry cleaners using an old Singer sewing machine that the Lezons gave her.

Since my mother was single and working to support my sisters and me, the Lezon family cared for us for the majority of my adolescence. I would often watch John repair old cast-iron industrial sewing machines and give them a new life. Through the years, my mother always labored away at her craft, making clothing repairs at her sewing bench. These two things greatly influenced my career choices and ultimately my passion for woodworking.

Engineer by Day, Woodworker by Night

I went off to college to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering. I then attended graduate school in Huntsville, Alabama, and received my master’s degree in aerospace engineering. I found a job locally doing infrared analysis on rocket engines. But while I greatly enjoy my job as an engineer, it lacks the “hands-on” experience that I was used to seeing throughout my childhood. So I started collecting old sewing machines and learning how to repair them as a hobby. I sold some machines, kept some of them and then started to learn how to make patterns and sew some of my own garments.

In 2013, I married my wife. We bought a foreclosed fixer-upper home. With a “can-do” attitude, my new hobby quickly became creating a modern functional home for my wife and I. In doing so, I acquired some basic used carpentry tools such as a circular saw, jigsaw, handheld router, table saw, drill and impact driver. I also started watching The New Yankee Workshop and became fascinated and obsessed with building furniture.

Instagram Chronicler

At this time, Instagram (IG) was becoming a popular social media platform for woodworkers to share their work. I jumped on the platform as a way to share my experience in building a fully-functional garage woodshop. Rather than just showing the finished “beauty shot” of the project I was working on, I attempted to chronicle my builds and explain my processes and methodology to my followers.

I figured only the most detail-oriented people would enjoy what I was producing. However, I was stunned by how captivated my audience was by the content I was producing. My audience also included potential clients that wanted me to produce commissioned furniture pieces.

Most of my builds these days are furniture, such as the Modern Farmhouse Dining Table. I’m currently fascinated with building chairs. The majority of my work continues to be for my family and friends with the occasional commissioned build. I try to keep the content I produce for my IG channel entertaining for my audience, but ultimately my goal is to continue to entertain my own passion for woodworking.

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These days, woodworkers and builders are posting memes offering to trade 2x4s for late-model Corvettes or, as Clint Miller, a sales representative for Automated Building Components in Chetek, Wisconsin, said, “I could take my wife out for a steak dinner with four 2x4s, 8 feet long … that’s 50 bucks. A year ago, they would have been $10 or $15.”

So, what’s up? Well, you may recall a worldwide pandemic that began in 2020. Lockdowns that spring meant people stayed home, and businesses — including those in the building and lumber industry — shut down for a while. Then, while many people sheltered at home, they decided to remodel. That’s the demand.

What about supply? The short answer is: there hasn’t been enough of it. Lumber mill shutdowns due to COVID-19 were a factor, according to the NAHB. Plus, there isn’t enough domestic supply. The National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association’s (NLBMDA) 2021 National Policy Agenda states that “as much as one-third of the framing lumber used in the U.S. comes from Canada each year.” And the U.S. charges tariffs on Canadian lumber.

Organizations such as NAHB and NLBMDA have been lobbying for reductions in tariffs. They’d also like to expand the domestic lumber supply through such methods as increasing logging from U.S. federal forests — through responsible management and in an environmentally sustainable manner, they’re careful to note in their advocacy documents.

Some other factors:

• Domestic producers are selling their lumber abroad.

• The 2008 economic downturn closed many sawmills.

• Remaining mills have limited kiln capacity and face labor shortages.

When Will This End?

What’s the solution? It seems we’ll have to wait it out. Until when? That answer is tougher to predict.

Clint Miller, whose company works with roof and floor trusses as well as other engineered wood products, thinks that we’re facing a “rubber band economy,” which will contract, then spring back with elasticity before leveling out at a certain point. For now, though, “Everything is such a mess that it’s going to take a while to get there,” Miller said.

For an expanded version of this article including helpful links to learn more about the lumber shortage, click here to download the PDF.

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I’m a hobbyist woodworker and woodturner with an active social media presence and a YouTube channel (all under the name “ToolMetrix”), and I felt that something positive could surely be done for veterans through my platform.

When I reached out to the woodturning and veteran communities for guidance, I met several veterans who credit woodturning as a crucial part of readjusting to civilian life. For instance, Burle Christopherson, a retired Army Ranger, explained to me that “turning is the only activity I’ve found that can consistently get my mind to a peaceful place. I literally cannot stay stressed and turn wood at the same time.”

Program Goal, Benefits Through conversations with other veterans who felt the same way, I was inspired to start the “VetsTurn” program two years ago. The goal of VetsTurn is to promote woodturning as a way to help combat veterans reduce the negative effects of PTSD.

This veteran-focused non-profit Project 147 helps identify combat veteran recipients. Each selected veteran receives a full woodturning setup that includes a new midi lathe, an assortment of tools, wood, other supplies and training materials.

The woodturning community has also stepped up to support VetsTurn in meaningful ways. I’ve been thrilled to receive sponsorships from several well-known companies, including Easy Wood Tools, Teknatool (NOVA) and Rockler Woodworking and Hardware. Through social media exposure, several other vendors and individuals provide support as well. They have offered mentorship, supplies and money to help enhance the program.

When I launched VetsTurn in 2019, three veterans received woodturning awards. Feedback from them was overwhelmingly positive. “Woodturning has proven to be a great art form to help me relax and clear my thoughts,” says Omar Gonzalez, a 2019 VetsTurn recipient. “When I’m peeling beautiful ribbons of wood, I feel a deep sense of peace, calmness and satisfaction.”

Now a Shared Platform

Through increased community support, VetsTurn welcomed five new recipients last year. As I had hoped, VetsTurn is shifting from being “my” program to a shared platform that allows interested members of the woodturning community — whether that be a vendor or individual — to extend support to veterans in whatever form they choose. I continue to serve as VetsTurn coordinator, promoter and instructor, while members of the community are supporting the program in other ways:

• The owner of a Chicago-based retail store coordinated a significant fundraising event to sponsor a VetsTurn recipient in 2021. It will allow the program to serve one more veteran.
• A woodworking company sponsored the cost of an additional recipient last year.
• Several suppliers have donated some beautiful turning stock and project kits.
• Nationally, some woodturning clubs have offered free memberships and in-person support to recipients.
• A professional woodturner drove five hours round-trip and donated two days of private instruction to a 2019 recipient. The personal outreach was meaningful, and the results of this training were outstanding.

Training and Support

Training and ongoing support are key to helping the recipients quickly and safely gain the skills needed for a variety of projects. Well-known influencer/woodturners George Vondriska and Ashley Harwood have donated a set of in-depth training videos. Last year, to provide personalized training in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we began to offer free online training sessions to cover basic skills.

During these sessions, group members could also bring items that they’d turned for “show and tell,” and plenty of time was allotted for questions and answers. The recipients have expressed a strong interest in continuing these online sessions, and I believe it will be an important element of the program going forward.

Getting Involved

When I hear the positive stories that result from VetsTurn and see the beautiful pieces our turners are creating, I’m humbled and inspired. I hope to continue to grow VetsTurn to serve even more vets in the future. To follow the progress of VetsTurn and see the work produced by our program’s recipients so far, subscribe/follow ToolMetrix on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. If you are interested in helping with this program or providing a donation, feel free to reach out to me at VetsTurn@Toolmetrix.com.

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Fifteen years ago, my wife Jean and I read an article about education becoming free in Africa. Schools became overcrowded, often with more than 100 students in a class. We contacted Michael Kremer, a Harvard economics professor and subsequently a Nobel Prize recipient, about how we could help. He said that donating money to sponsor a teacher would be beneficial, which, as teachers, we were very happy to do.

Our Kenyan contact person, Helen Mukanda, told us of the many needs of the Nambale community in Busia County. In 2010 we decided to start a 501(c) (3) nonprofit called Grow Against Poverty and to raise money through the sale of my woodcrafts. Since then we’ve raised over $71,000 selling salad bowls, cutting boards, toys, tea boxes, candleholders and other works in wood.

Ideas for the programs and projects come from community residents, school staff, Helen and other volunteers, who see education as an important way out of poverty. Using Grow Against Poverty proceeds, we’ve implemented school projects and programs. Classrooms have been built, and we’ve outfitted a 12-station computer room. We started a meal program, which is now community-funded, and we’ve planted school organic gardens as well as tree seedling nurseries. These will soon become self-sustaining.

Pedal Power Program

A particularly effective program that was started two years ago is a school bicycle transportation program called “Pedal Power for Kenyan Education.” Many students walk over 5 miles each way to and from high school, often needing to wake up at 4 a.m. to make their morning classes. Grow Against Poverty has provided St. Mary’s School with 50 bicycles, helmets, safety vests and tool kits to loan to students, most from subsistence farming families living on less than a dollar a day.

With a reduced commuting time, students have more time for studying, caring for siblings and working on family farms. Attendance, promptness and academic performance have all improved through this bicycle program. Seven recent graduates have gone on to university, compared to four the previous year. This success has brought requests from five other schools for similar programs. We are starting to raise money to furnish each school with 50 bicycles and accessories.

The immediate focus of Grow Against Poverty is the predicted famine that could affect this region because of the current COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve sent funds to purchase hoes called jembes and other tools and supplies for 100 farm families so that students who are home from school can provide extra help with food production.

Charitable donations of wood and other supplies for my woodcrafts make our fundraising for these Kenyan projects possible. Local businesses have given me woods such as oak, cherry, walnut, mahogany, teak and Brazilian ebony for this endeavor. A local hardware store has supplied glue and finishes. Online businesses have donated finishes, veneer and inlays, too. I supply whatever else is needed as well as pleasurable time in the shop with a hobby that has the extra benefit of helping others.

– John Roccanova

To find out more about Grow Against Poverty’s programs, visit: www.globalgiving.org/projects/pedal-power-for-kenyan-education and www.growagainstpoverty.wixsite.com/kenya.

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I’ve never been much of a bystander, so I quickly set to work on prototypes for personal protective equipment (PPE) that I hoped to produce in sufficient quantities to at least cover the needs of my closest friends and family. And since “crazy” seems to know my exact location at all times, it took less than 48 hours for a major national news network to find me and place an order for 8,500 face masks for the purpose of protecting their reporters and staff who would be so critical in covering news of the crisis.

To make this essential, yet (then) extremely scarce piece of gear a reality, we ramped up from a single parttime employee to a team of 10 to seamstresses working from home. Calavera purchased many thousands of the most expensive vacuum bags known to our woodworking and construction industries and scrounged for every inch of elastic we could get our hands on. By the time of this writing, we have shipped well over 20,000 high quality, well-fitting masks, including a couple thousand donated outright to veterans hospitals, food banks and many other good causes around the community. (And yes, I made sure Mom and Dad had plenty from the start to stay safe.)

We must take responsibility for one another, regardless of politics, beliefs or any of the other factors that make individuals out of each of us. I have been extremely grateful for the opportunity to put whatever skills I have to use for the greater good, in whatever small manner that may be. And well, if I’m being honest, I do enjoy a good challenge and a little bit of chaos now and then. Stay safe, good people, in these challenging times.

Michael Williams is the founder of Calavera Tool Works

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I’ve been a woodworker and a fly fisherman for years, so it was probably inevitable that sooner or later I would build a bamboo fly rod.

Inevitable, perhaps, but not necessarily a walk in the park. It cost me a fishing season. I broke rods long before they left the shop. I made rods that worked better as tomato stakes. I fried one rod to a crisp. I suffered epoxy failures and polyurethane busts. In short, I enjoyed every minute of it, and three rods after I started, I have a rod that I’m not ashamed to show to the world. It would have gone better if I had learned to follow directions at some point in my life, but it’s too late for that. I will never be a legendary rodmaker, but I hope I can save you from some beginner’s mistakes – perhaps all of them – in this article.

But let’s start at the beginning. A bamboo fly rod is made of six strips of bamboo glued together to form hexagon (photo below). The strips are triangular in cross-section, and since the rod tapers from handle to tip, the triangular strips taper, too — the triangle is bigger at one end of the strip than the other.

All of this is done in three stages: First you rough out a rod blank, splitting the bamboo stem to stern, kiln drying it, and then planing it into long triangular strips — a set of six strips for each section of the rod. In the second stage, you taper the triangular strips with a block plane and a special metal form. Then you glue the pieces together, clamping the pieces together by wrapping them with thread. On a good day, it’s a piece of cake. On a bad day, it’s worse than getting skunked on the stream. Far worse. The final stage is applying the finish and attaching the hardware. I like to think of the stages as lumberjack, cabinetmaker and finisher.

Stage One: Lumberjack

This stage begins with a piece of Tonkin cane, the only cane used in rod making, because its long, dense, fibers make for a powerful rod. In the entire world, Tonkin cane grows in a single 30-square mile patch of China. When trade with China was banned during the Cold War, the only dealer who still had any cane left was Charles Demerest, in Bloomingdale, New Jersey. From 1950 to 1971, his pre-embargo bamboo was the rodmaker’s only supply. Demerest is still one of the few suppliers in the country, and I buy my cane from him because he kept a tradition alive. His bamboo, like all Tonkin cane, is sold in 10-foot lengths, which are usually cut in half for shipping.

Technically, bamboo is a grass, and a stick is called a culm. The easiest and fastest way to get the strips you need is to split the culm the way Windsor chair makers rive a chair back from a log, and for the same reason. Splitting bamboo gives you a piece with long parallel strands of grain. Rodmakers often make their own splitters out of knives or screwdrivers that they drive into the end of the culm. Mine are chisels with edges that are ground to a rounded point. As the pieces get smaller, I hold the end of the chisel on the bench with one hand, and feed the bamboo into it with the other. Your goal: six strips plus whatever else you can get from the bottom five feet of the culm. This will be the butt section. The tip comes from the upper five feet of the culm, and because rods traditionally have an extra tip, you’ll want to split it into 12 pieces.

At this point, you make a couple of minor adjustments. A stick of bamboo is divided into shorter sections by a series of bumps, called nodes. You need to get rid of the bumps and deal with the bends that typically occur around them. Fortunately, bamboo bends when heated. Holding the node directly over a heat gun (photo below) until the wood is almost too hot to handle makes the heated section bend like warm plastic. Once you’ve heated it, you can flatten the node completely (or almost so) by clamping it in the vise with the outside face against a jaw. Count to 10, and then clamp the edges between the jaws to straighten out the bends. If any of the nodal bump remains, you sand it out by hand with 240-grit paper and a hard rubber sanding block.

Before we shape each piece into a triangle, there are two steps. The first is to get each piece down to a manageable width. Traditionally, this is done with a hand plane — it may be a grass, but bamboo works like wood. Tradition has its place, but this isn’t really the time for it. I rip the strips to width on the table saw (use lots of featherboards) and then I plane them into triangles on jig in the planer (photo below). The planer jig is a simple oak auxiliary table with 60-degree grooves routed into it. Battens on the bottom fit snugly against the front and back of the planer bed to hold the jig in place. Each groove is slightly shallower than its neighbor — the largest is about 3/8 inches deep and the smallest is about 1/16-inch deep. I feed all the strips into the first groove, flip them edge for edge, and then feed them into the next shallower groove. I work my way down the table until I’ve planed the strips to the size required by the rod.

Like any piece of lumber, your strips of bamboo need to be kiln dried. This not only drives out water that might haunt you down the road, it tempers the bamboo, turning what would otherwise be a soft rod into one with backbone. It doesn’t take long — about 10 minutes at 350 degrees for the butts, and slightly less for the tips. The problem, of course, is finding an oven that will hold a strip of bamboo that is still somewhere between four and five feet long. Some people make friends with the folks at their local pizza shop. The current rage is a shop-built oven with a thermostat and electric heating elements mounted inside metal heating duct. (It was on a crude variation of this that I baked a rod into charcoal.) I now use a heat gun, combined with a couple of heat ducts — one inside the other — with lots of insulation around the outer pipe (photo and diagram below). The heat gun shoots heat down the outside duct; it rises into the inner duct at an even temperature. I use two meat thermometers, one at the top and one at the bottom of the ducts to monitor the temperature. I’m lucky: the unit automatically tops out at about 350 degrees, but if necessary, I can regulate the temperature by adjusting the air intake on my heat gun.

Stage Two: Cabinetmaker

Here, tradition rules, I am fine with it. You are working with a finely tuned plane, a razor-sharp blade and a tapering jig that adjusts to the thousandths of an inch. I enjoy it the way I enjoy fly casting—nothing matters but what you’re doing, and what you’re doing is about as good as it gets.

The fact is, that while there is no perfect taper for a rod, there are thousands of bad ones. I chose a time-tested taper developed by Everett Garrison. Garrison made some 700 rods from 1927 until his death in 1975, and they are considered some of the finest ever made. I copied the seven-foot rod he used on the last day he went fishing. The dimensions are listed in the chart (see below) 7’0″ Garrison Fly Rod Taper.  Some of his other tapers, as well as his directions for building can be found in his book A Master’s Guide to Building a Bamboo Fly Rod, co-authored with Hoagy Carmichael.

Understanding how rodmaking works means understanding how the tapering jig works. The tapering jig, also called a planing form, is made of two bars of steel five feet long. The edges that face each other are chamfered and form a V-groove when the bars are put together. At one end of the jig the chamfers form a deep valley; at the other end they form a shallow valley. In between, the chamfer forms a valley that slopes evenly between the two ends. The bamboo sits proud of the jig, and you plane it until the plane is riding on the jig. When it is, the bamboo is the same shape as the valley—wide at one end, narrow at the other. Because of the hundreds of different rod tapers, you can adjust the depth of the valley every five inches using a pair of bolts. One bolt pushes the metal bars further apart, the other pulls them together.

Setting the Planing Forms

Setting the forms to the proper taper requires two tools from the machinist’s trade — the dial caliper and a depth indicator with a pointed tip (above). Initially, you set the forms with a depth gauge, and after planing a test strip, you check the setting’s accuracy with the dial caliper.

On the face of it, setting the planning forms to get the taper you want is a matter of tightening and loosening a series of bolts. The problem comes in knowing how much to tighten or loosen them. For this, you rely on a machinist’s tool, called a depth gauge, which reads out the depth of a hole in thousandths. Because you’re measuring a V-groove, you put a 60-degree tip on the end of the gauge.

But because of the fine calibration involved, machinist tools have to be “zeroed out. ” On a dial caliper, your bring the jaws together, loosen the lock on the dial, and then turn it so the needle is pointing exactly at zero. For a lot of reasons, this is tricky with a V-point tip, and unless your setting is accurate, you can’t very well adjust the forms.

Here’s the solution. Zero out your dial caliper and then set the opening between the jaws to .100. Put the dial indicator between the jaws, and turn the dial until it reads .866. Lock the dial in place, and you’ve calibrated the depth gage. You’ll note the wooden base on my depth gauge. The 60-degree tip is a bit wide, and catches on the metal base that came with the indicator. A lot of rodmakers use wooden bases, and until I get around to buying a new tip, I will, too.

But depth gauges are like fishermen. They aren’t always truthful. Set the forms .003 inch wider than called for, and plane a spare strip of bamboo. Check the size with your calipers, and adjust the forms until your sample and your calipers tell you you’ve got it right.

As you plane, always keep the outer face of the bamboo, called the rind, against a chamfer, so that you don’t cut through the fibers there, which are the strongest. Alternate planing between the remaining two sides with every pass, so you don’t plane more off one side than the other and end up with asymmetrical strip. Measure with your dial calipers as you go, and if the sides differ, plane the short side until they are equal. Once you’ve planed the butt sections, reset the jig for the tips, and plane away.

A Custom Built Rodmaker’s Plane

At some point early in your rod building, the edge of your plane will dig into the planing forms you’ve just spent a small fortune to buy. Everyone does it, and no one likes it. But special rodmakers’ planes give you the control you need to avoid gouging. They have a groove milled down the middle, creating two outside “rails” that glide along the form. The groove travels over the bamboo, and the blade extends just far enough to do its work without cutting into the planing form. I don’t always use the plane, but when I do, it is virtually impossible to gouge the planing form.

The only rodmaker’s plane on the market is a beautiful piece of work, but you’ll pay for it. Instead, I made my own by routing a groove through a favorite block plane. I used a 5/8-inch straight bit in the router table, and set the distance between the bit and rail to 1/2 inch– the width of a rail. Raise the router bit to make a cut about .001 deep and make a trial run on a piece of wood to check your setting. When everything is right, take the blade out of the plane and run the plane across the spinning bit, holding it tight against the fence. Turn it around, and make a pass with the other side of the plane against the fence. Repeat until the groove is .003 deep.

I tried this on a junky old plane, and when it worked (to my amazement) I tried it for real. Plane, router, and bit are all doing well.

Gluing the Rod Together

When the strips have been planed to final dimension, it is time to glue them together. Initially, I used polyurethane glue. It is widely available, affordable, and waterproof. It fills gaps, has a working time of 20 to 30 minutes, and dries the same color as bamboo. Unfortunately, 20 to 30 minutes isn’t a lot of time when you’re trying to clamp up six pieces of bamboo only slightly thicker than the butt end of a leader. The pieces slipped, slid and twisted as I worked, and to make a long story short, the polyurethane rods were the ones that became tomato stakes. I use industrial epoxy now, which is surprisingly friendly– it dries slowly, so if I have a problem I literally have hours to solve it.

The strips that make up a fly rod aren’t going to clamp together with even the best clamps, so rodmakers clamp them with a shop-made jig (photos below, designed by Everett Garrison) that binds the pieces together in taut, spiraling wraps of upholstery thread. You apply the glue first, of course, using a toothbrush to spread it over all six strips, which are lined up side-by-side on top of a piece of masking tape. You roll the pieces together, and then run them through the binder. A drive belt made of kite line turns the rod and moves it forward as upholstery thread, fed from above, wraps tightly around the rod.

Making a Garrison Binder

It is hard not to look at Garrison binder and think of Rube Goldberg, but at heart, it’s actually a simple machine. The drive belt — a length of kite string with the ends tied together — travels up from a weight and pulley to the rod. The belt wraps twice around the rod, and goes down to the drive wheel. From there, the belt travels back to the weight and pulley, back up to the rod, and so on. Turning the crank on the drive wheel turns the rod and moves it from left to right. The rest of the wheels — made from old pulleys — are simply there to guide the string. The two immediately left of the drive wheel pinch the string against it so the belt won’t slip. The other two wheels guide the string on its trip from the weights, and keep it from twisting.

The purpose of all this is to wrap upholstery thread around the rod and bind the pieces together. The thread feeds from above, is tucked under the drive string at the rod, and spirals around the rod as it moves.

The base of my binder is made of HDPE, an epoxy resistant plastic that works like wood. You can also make the jig out of wood or metal. None of the dimensions are particularly critical. The wheels can go almost anywhere, though the jig does seem to work better if the drive belt runs at an angle as it approaches and leaves the rod. For better traction, put a rubber band around the drive wheel.

The weights are fishing weights, connected to a pulley by a carabiner. I filed a small groove in the face of the pulley so that I could feed the drive belt through it.

Download construction drawings of the Garrison-Rod-Binder

Flatten the Rod

The fishing weights hanging from the drive belt determine the pressure with which the string is applied. On a tip as tiny as this one, as I discovered, the weight of anything more than the pulley is enough to snap the rod until you get a good 10 inches from the tip. At that point I add a 12-ounce weight. I use a 16-ounce weight on the butt section. Once the rod is wrapped, you straighten out any twists, and then roll it under a board, a roller, or both, to straighten it (photo below). I set it under weights on the planing form to keep it straight while the glue cures. There will still be some minor twists and bends when the glue dries, but you can straighten them out with gentle heat from the heat gun.

Stage Three: Finishing

All that remains is putting the ferrules, handle, reel seat and line guides on. Ferrules first: The i.d. of the ferrule is less than the o.d. of the rod, so you file down the ends as the blank turns on the lathe. You’ll need a three- or four- jawed chuck and a support to keep the far end the blank from whipping around. I made my support by bolting a piece of plywood to a table saw outfeed stand. Drill a hole in the plywood, line it with something soft (like a cork with a hole drilled in it) and then feed the rod through the hole to steady it.

The handle and reel seat get glued on next – get ready-made ones for your first couple of rods. You can learn to make your own later.

Finishing, as a friend observed, is half science and half snake oil. Garrison hit upon the method most rodmakers use today. He dipped the rod, narrow end down, into an upright pipe filled with varnish, and pulled it out with a motor running at 1 rpm.

This requires a pretty tall ceiling. I don’t have one, so I began to think about the last days of each semester in my college woodworking courses, when the shop smelled of Waterlox and Watco. It was the dustiest place on the planet, and yet because we were using oil-based finishes that we wiped off, we could still get a blemish-free finishes. So far, I’ve finished my rods with Birchwood Casey® TRU-OIL® Gun Stock Finish — a pure tung oil that is also traditional rod finish. I apply it with a rag, and rub it for about five minutes and set it aside to dry. If there are any imperfections once the coat dries, I sand them gently out with 1,000-grit paper. After three or four coats, the finish rivals varnish.

When the finish is dry, you can put on the guides. The loop at the tip of the rod is epoxied in place. The other guides are held in place by silk thread wrapped around the rod. I’ve found my fly tying bobbin is the easiest way to start the wrap. Once I’ve started the wrap, I run the thread through the middle of a book to create some drag, and turn the rod to wrap the guide.

If you started in the fall, and you have made no tomato stakes and started no fires, it will probably be early January by the time you apply the several coats of varnish that hold the silk thread in place. Around here, it will be a couple of more weeks before the blue-winged olive hatch. See you on the stream.

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I opened the crate and stickered the live-edge slabs in my woodshed, where they languished until April of this year. Then, Ken and I set aside a solid week to build an 8′ live-edge table and two live-edge benches. We spent Monday morning moving the stickered slabs from the shed to the shop for inspection. At 2-3/8″, they were too thick for our Festool TS 55 Track saw, which has a maximum depth of cut of 1-15/16″, so I called my friends at Doll Lumber to see if they would plane them down to 1-7/8″. After running a metal detector over the slabs, we schlepped the wood to Doll’s yard — one of the smartest things we did all week. Suddenly, the wood came alive, showing us grain and character. As we sorted the wood back at the shop, Ken and I instantly agreed which slabs belonged in the table and the slab that would become the two benches. The wood spoke to us, and we were listening!

Scale Model for Testing

On Tuesday, we worked on the benches. We decided on a turned leg reminiscent of the designs of George Nakashima, who brought live-edge furniture to its zenith in the 1950s. We wanted a simple taper with a 1″ wedged through tenon in the slab, with the legs splayed at a 15° angle outward to where imaginary corners of the bench would be.

We tested the idea with a 1:50 scale model that we glued together with butt joints and super glue. This allowed us to ascertain the looks and the tip-over resistance of the design before fabricating a simple jig to drill the leg mortises through the slabs.

Wednesday morning, we picked slabs for cutting the trestle leg parts. With careful layout, we were able to get all the pieces for the trestles, plus a live-edge stretcher between, from two slabs.

Each support consisted of two uprights and two trestle crossmembers. In our design, it doesn’t matter which part of the supports is the “top” or the “bottom”: they can be rearranged so that the stretcher is either at floor level or abuts the underside of the table. The stretcher attaches to the uprights with heavy-duty knockdown hardware, allowing the table to be transported in pieces and easily assembled or disassembled.

Thursday was spent sanding all the pieces, including the table top and bottom. We beveled the trestles before assembly with a sharp 45° beveling bit to create absolutely uniform chamfers for a pleasing look.

For one large check in the wood, we chose to glue in a filler piece. First, we taped a piece of paper over the crack and rubbed the area with a soft pencil. We then glued this tracing to a suitable piece of walnut and band sawed the filler piece with the table set to 2°. This put taper into the walls, allowing the piece to be tapped into the void with lots of glue for lubrication. Once the glue was dry, we hand planed the patch level and it became nearly invisible.

Holding Up to the Sit Test

Friday was spent in all the details that are part of any project. We cut elongated holes in the trestle for attachment to the table and screwed metal inserts into the underside of the top so that it could be attached with machine screws and was free to expand or contract independent of the trestle. Once assembled as conceived, the table was rock-solid. Ken and I could both sit on it, and no gyration would budge it.

We disassembled the table and loaded it in my truck for the trip to Ken’s garage, where he spent the next 10 days applying an oil-based Waterlox finish that really brought out the color of the wood. The table now graces a Chicago apartment and will become a Zahka family heirloom. All in all, it was an action-packed week but very, very satisfying.

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“I was struggling to find a reliable wood source until my wife suggested sending emails to all the tree-felling/ trimming companies in Phoenix,” explained David. “I sent 23 emails and received only one response. Since then, I’ve had a great working relationship with that particular tree trimmer.

“Once or twice a year, I give his wife a large bowl from the green wood he’s given me. I use other sources including fellow turners, craigslist.org (which has provided me with some great wood), friends, neighbors, and one or two company wood yards I’m able to access. The downed trees from the summer monsoons in July and August also provide a good resource as well as long as you can get to the wood before it is buried, burned, chipped for mulch or simply left to rot where it fell.”

David’s Process

David has a step-by-step process for harvesting and blanking his found wood. His first step is to try to be onsite when the crew is felling a tree so he can tell them how to cut the logs, depending on the relationship of length to diameter. For example, if the logs are 15-plus inches in diameter, he asks them to rip the sections in half. “I usually pay them (in cash) to do this and then load them in the back of my SUV. There’s nothing heavier than a two foot long, 15″-diameter piece of wet mesquite. I always wear a back wrap when I load and unload the wood.”

Once the wood is unloaded into David’s yard, he immediately covers the pieces with wood shavings and wets the pile with a garden hose. “I can keep wood for a week or two in a wet pile before it begins to crack. If I am going to turn a piece immediately, I move it into my woodshop.”

When he’s ready to turn a piece of stored wood, David selects the log he wants and marks the log’s pith on both ends to determine where to rip the log for the best result.

David’s cutting platform consists of two logs side by side. He centers his cut through the pith to split the log section into two halves.

After scribing the top of each halfsection with a compass, David highlights the pencil line with a dark marker.

He chainsaws the log into a rough circle, making taper cuts to what will be the bottom of a bowl.

After moving the trimmed blank into the workshop, he attaches a faceplate ring to the flat surface. This will be the top of the bowl. The faceplate ring is secured to the chuck, with the tailstock moved into position to support the opposite end.

David typically starts his turnings at a speed of about 250 to 300 rpm, making sure the lathe doesn’t vibrate or shake excessively as he turns the blank round. He always wears a full-face shield and a leather glove on his left hand — getting a large blank round is tough on the hands, wrists, arms and shoulders.

As the wood comes into round, he increases the speed. First he completes the outside shape, then he flattens the bottom in preparation for cutting the spigot/tenon for a four-jaw chuck. The spigot must be cut carefully to fit snugly into the chuck and be seated properly.

After reversing the blank on the lathe, David removes the screws from the faceplate ring. He trues the face of the blank and cuts a small dimple in its center to seat a 12″-long drill bit — using one of his granddaughter’s hairbands for a visual guide. He pushes the handheld drill bit into the blank to the desired depth of the inside of the rough turned bowl.

As he turns the inside of the bowl, wall thickness will vary dependent upon wood species, but David usually turns his pieces down to about 1-1/2″.

He uses Anchorseal® to seal the inside and outside of the bowl, dates it with a marker, and places it on a shelf to dry. Depending on the wood species, David checks the bowl daily or weekly for checks or cracks, using cyanoacrylate (CA) glue to fill them. When the blank measures 6 to 8% moisture content, he will finish turn it.

Since his move to Arizona a few years ago, David Crawford has kept track of the species of wood he’s found and used in his new home.

To read more about David’s assessment of his favorite (and least favorite) Arizona woods, Click Here.

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The story of the Eustis Mansion began on November 7, 1876, when Edith Hemenway married W. E. C. Eustis. Peter says, “The Hemenway and Eustis family properties in Milton bordered each other. Edith’s mother, Mary Hemenway, gave the couple approximately 181 acres on the adjoining properties to build their new home.” Historic New England describes the Queen Anne style mansion as “a marvel of the Aesthetic Movement.” Locally prominent architect William Ralph Emerson designed the home. Peter says, “Unfortunately, not many of William Ralph Emerson’s papers survived. There isn’t one great repository of his work and that is regrettable because he was pretty prolific. Today, Emerson isn’t very well-known and just recently two of his fantastic houses in the area have been demolished. We are hoping the Eustis Estate will shed new light on Emerson’s body of work.” (Emerson was the fourth cousin of author Ralph Waldo Emerson.) Regarding the decor, Peter says, “We don’t know if the emphasis on wood was determined by the young couple, Emerson, interior designers or Edith’s mother, Mary Hemenway.”

Detective work has tracked down many of the craftsmen who worked on the mansion. Unfortunately, the woodworker remains a mystery. Evidence points to a Boston carver, possibly a German, named Caspar W. Roeth. Peter says, “There aren’t any maker’s marks visible on the wood, but Roeth was working with Emerson at the time the Eustis mansion was being built.” Roeth’s obituary in the Boston Journal on November 21, 1891, described him as a “well known manufacturer of artistic furniture and a decorator of buildings.”

Peter notes, “The family’s heavily carved wooden furniture was likely purchased on the couple’s Italian honeymoon in 1876. We found the word ‘Firenze’ underneath one of the pieces, so we feel confident that it came from Florence. Some carved panels in the mansion might have been done by Luigi Frullini. He was working on the Chateausur-Mer mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, at the same time the Eustis Mansion was being built. The fireplaces do not have any identification, but there isn’t any evidence they were imported. This is still a new property for us. We have only been in the house for two years, and we hope to learn much more.”

Michaela adds, “The mansion has all types of wood, and the carvings have subtle differences throughout the building. Every time I looked at a section of wood, I found something different. In the dining room, there are birds and grapevines. Some paneling has starbursts, swirls; upstairs, there are faces and cartouches. The carving is very playful. The wood is not constrained by one pattern throughout the house. Many houses often have the same types of wood and motif throughout, but not here. The elaborately carved fireplaces all have different style variations; some of them are subtle.” She suspects “the fireplace in the dining room might be by someone not part of the larger woodwork project. It looks like a different hand.”

Overall, Michaela said, “The wood is in extremely good condition. The family took very good care of it, and it shows. I can imagine them telling the children to be careful playing in the house.”

Liz Peirce, a Mellon Fellow in art conservation who worked on the Eustis restoration, detailed the cleaning process: “We used a mild citrate solution on the woodwork, cleaning with a combination of soft rags, swabs and brushes. We use a 2% citrate solution that has been buffered to approximately pH 8. We use a chemical grade citric acid powder, which is then dissolved in water before adding a base to adjust the pH. In some cases, if the dirt was particularly grimy, a very small amount of benzyl alcohol was added (0.05%) to help cut through grease. When dry, the woodwork was then waxed with either clear paste wax for flat surfaces or a tinted paste wax for highly carved decoration. The clear paste wax dries white, and is difficult to buff out from crevices. Toned waxes are less glaring, should any be left in nooks and crannies. The wax was then buffed with a soft cloth. For heavily handled places, like the stairway railing, the clear paste wax was applied twice to build up a protective layer.”

Peter said, “As we were making the final preparations for opening the museum, we gave our office staff a chance to get involved and had volunteer days. People who work at Historic New England love old houses. They welcomed the opportunity to work on the beautiful wood.” Peter also emphasized that “Any restoration work has to be reversible. Anything added may have to be removed at a later date. The restoration in the house doesn’t look ‘perfect.’ We wanted the house to show age and the wood’s patina.”

The Eustis family sold the museum several rooms of original family furniture. However, the sheer size of the mansion led to a revolutionary idea. Peter said, “We wanted to have a furnished look. Period furniture was obtained through dealers and auction houses specifically for use by visitors doing self-guided tours. Information for each room can be found on tethered computer tablets. The only custom-made furniture is a set of Mission-style side tables that accommodate the tablets; the power cords run inside one of the legs.” This is a museum where people can sit on the chairs!

Historic New England, originally known as the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, was founded in 1910 by William Sumner Appleton. Anyone interested in traditional architecture, carpentry and historic furniture would enjoy visiting their 37 properties. The oldest is the 1664 Jackson House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and the newest, the 1938 Gropius House in Lincoln, Massachusetts. The Eustis Estate is particularly worth a visit by anyone who loves Victorian woodworking.

For more information, visit the websites www.eustis.estate or www.historicnewengland.org or call the Eustis Estate at 617-994-6600 or Historic New England at 617-227-3956.

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