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Every fall for the last 15 years or so, the Woodsmith Store has ended the month of September with two events — the annual Fall Fair and the start of the woodworking seminar season. This year is no exception with one small difference. This will be the first year that several of the presenters at the seminars will also be cast members on America’s newest woodworking TV show — The Woodsmith Shop on public television.

As many of you know by now, the first episode of The Woodsmith Shop will air on Iowa Public Television at 6:30pm on Friday, October 5th. And hopefully, by the end of the year when the feed will be available to the rest of the country, the show will be picked up by stations around the U.S. (For more information, go to WoodsmithShop.com. Randy Maxey will also post more about the show soon.)

The same tradition is being carried on every week during the woodworking seminars at the Woodsmith Store in Clive, Ia. They’re held each Thursday evening (from September through April) in a 200-seat auditorium with a fully-equipped shop. Seminar topics for this fall range from “Top 5 Shop-Built Router Jigs” to “Tips for Working with Plywood.” Season and single tickets are on sale now at the store. Plus, this year the one-hour seminars will be supplemented by two 4-hour hands-on workshops held in December. Space is limited to six for these sessions though, so sign up soon.

We talk a lot around here about the Woodsmith Store. For a little over fifteen years, it was a small, out-of-the-way haven for woodworkers tucked into the Beaverdale neighborhood of Des Moines. Then in 2003 everything changed.

That was when the old Payless Cashways building in Clive was remodeled and Des Moines became home to one of the largest independently-owned woodworking stores in the country. It is truly a regional destination store for woodworkers from all over the Midwest. The store, now over 20,000 square feet in size, is filled with woodworking supplies, tools, machinery and hardwoods. Think Cabella’s, Bass Pro Shops, or L.L. Bean.

This coming weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday (September 21st, 22nd and 23rd), the Woodsmith Store will celebrate its 20th Anniversary with a Fall Fair event. There will be a lot going on, not only in the woodworking departments, but in the painting and gardening departments as well. I just thought it deserved a shameless plug here. Hope you can stop by.

The Des Moines Woodworkers Association makes it clear that their mission is to dedicate their time and effort (and a considerable amount of expertise) “…to education, community service, and sharing of knowledge for those of all ages and skill levels…” who are interested in woodworking.

For example, a few months after 9/11, I became involved with a project sponsored by the club and Woodworkers United for America to build Memorial Flag Boxes for the families of victims of the terrorist attacks. It was a gratifying experience and I ended up building a few extras for my family members.

Then, just the other day I heard a member of the club on a local public radio station talking about their latest community project — building special caskets for preemie babies. The Infant Casket Program is an off-shoot of the Precious Angels Organization. Their goal is to help families who have lost children and may not be able for whatever reason to afford a quality casket or other services. You can find out more about this organization here.

Des Moines Woodworkers club members can build caskets from plans provided on their website. The club also provides wood to any member who requests it to build caskets. They announced the plans to help out at their last meeting and the hope is that members will bring their projects to the September meeting where they’ll be presented to Vicki Dischner, the young lady who runs the program for SpecialAngelsIA.org. The Des Moines Woodworkers have also contacted clubs in Omaha, NE., and Ames, Cedar Falls, and Cedar Rapids in Iowa to become involved in this worthy project.

Contact Russ Wilson, the community service director for the club, if you’d like to be involved.

While I was vacationing near my hometown in Ohio in August, I received a phone call from a long-time family friend, Dave Corwin, from Delaware, Ohio. He and my dad are friends with a history spanning several decades. When I married, our first home was across the street from Dave’s, so we became friends as well as neighbors. The best part was, he was a fellow woodworker. There were three of us woodworkers on the block, so we could often be found in each other’s shop on any given day sipping a cup of coffee and telling a story or two.

Dave called to tell me that he made a Shop-Built Mallet we featured in ShopNotes 95. He said he really enjoyed the article and was especially tickled and surprised when I told him I wrote it. He said he had a little trouble planing the resawn stock to thickness. Here’s what Dave said about the project:

“The mallet was fun to make and was a challenging project. One problem that I encountered was that the double faced tape did not work out very well because it continually got saw dust in it. So, what I did was put a ¾” board on the planer table and ran the thin pieces through on top of this board. That seemed to work out well.”

Dave also commented that he really thought the simple resaw pivot block for the band saw was a great idea. He built one and used it for this project.

Thanks for sharing, Dave.

Have you ever designed a project from scratch and tried to decide what molding profile to use on the edge of the top? Why is it some moldings make a project appear “heavy” and some make a project seem light, like it defies gravity? Here’s a web site I ran across that’s got a great article and graphics on architectural moldings. It’s written by Donald M. Rattner, Director of the Institute for the Study of Classical Architecture at the Real Estate Institute of New York University. The article is a bit technical, but I found it interesting to see the different styles of moldings and how they affect the overall look of a project. The article is focused on architectual design elements, but the basic principles apply to your projects around the house, too.

I recently traveled back to my hometown in central Ohio to see family and our new granddaughter. While I was there, my wife discovered the Big Bugs exhibit by David Rogers at Inniswood Metro Gardens in Westerville, Ohio.  As you can see in the photo at left, a beetle is about to amputate my son’s leg. The most impressive bug we saw was the praying mantis, shown on the right.

As noted on his web site, David sculpted these creatures using various combinations of whole trees found standing or fallen dead, cut green saplings selectively harvested from the willow family, dry branches, and other forest materials. The different shapes, colors and textures of these materials provide these sculptures with character, definition, and a sense of motion.

If you get a chance to see this exhibit in your area, it’s worth taking the whole family. Just keep your kids away from the jaws of the beetle.

You’ve probably heard of Google’s SketchUp. It’s a 3-D design and drawing program that’s easy to learn but very powerful. (I wrote about SketchUp in Woodsmith 167.) And there’s a free version you can download here (the Pro version costs $495 — still a bargain compared to other design software).  I use it to draw up rough sketches of projects I’m designing or to work out some tricky dimensions.

I grew up in the AutoCAD world (since version 2.52 for those of you keeping notes). So I’m familiar with high-priced CAD packages. And I’ve gotta’ say that SketchUp can’t be beat for the price. AutoCAD started back in the 1980’s as a two-dimensional drawing program and as such, has never quite been able to shake off that legacy. It’s become a powerful drawing program, but it doesn’t hold a candle to some of the newer 3-D packages. While SketchUp isn’t meant for creating detailed CAD drawings, it’s ideal for conceptual 3-D design.

A lot of woodworkers have discovered the ease of use in designing projects using SketchUp. And the challenge has been made over on WoodNet to show off your SketchUp models. Some folks have even placed their models up on Google’s 3D Warehouse so you can download them into SketchUp and modify them.

SketchUp’s online help and resources are second to none and worth checking out if you want to get the most out of SketchUp. And there’s an independent online community you can join at www.Sketchucation.com.

So don’t be shy! Head on over to WoodNet and post your best SketchUp models.

‘Twas only a kit of carpenter’s tools
We were chancing off that night.

The man who owned the tools was there
A carpenter whose hair was white.
To draw the stubs until the winning share
Would place the tools within another’s care.

Aye! Only a kit of tools you say
Objects of metal hard and bright.
No! We chanced off something else that day
Something that didn’t seem just right.

All the labor of yesteryear.
Homes that they built for those in the past
Of service come to an end at last.
Leaving his heart, his head, his hand

In a chest of tools, this white-haired man.
To end his days in a home for them
Whose years of service were at an end.
The sad look on that aged face

As each number shortened the space.
Of time when he must bid farewell for good
To old friends of his, of metal and wood.
He had used them for years, they were always there.

‘Twas awfully sad, the whole affair.
Like playing pitch with an old man’s soul.
Pushing him on to the final goal.

Into the sidelines and out of the race
While a younger man takes up his place.

The tools of his trade, the hammer and saw
It struck me with wonder and something of awe.
As we laughingly shout and loudly cry
To see who the winning share did buy.

How stupid of us, we were such fools
To think we were chancing off
Only CARPENTER’S TOOLS

      —Julius Frerich

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Originally appeared in Carpenter Magazine many years ago. It’s a monthly publication published by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America. It contains articles on labor issues, lessons on how to build things, and “human interest items” submitted by the local union secretaries.

Bob Smalser kindly posted this over on WoodNet and I thought it was good enough to share.