More wonderful Woodworking by Earth Carers.

I recently had the pleasure of running another 4 day woodworking program for graduates of the Earth Carer's Course, funded by the Mindarie Regional Council. The MRC is one of the Waste Management Authorities responsible for waste management across 7 of the local government areas in the Perth Metropolitan area. The Earth Carer's Course produces people who are wised up about recycling and waste, and passionate about reducing our consumption and waste of resources. More info about the course here: http://www.mrc.wa.gov.au/Community/Earth-Carers.aspx

Held at Earthwise in Subiaco again, we offered a range of workshops - basic woodworking for those who had not done any before, and (for the first time) workshops at an "intermediate" level, for those who were hungry to learn more skills. Once again, the focus was on recycling wood which had been previously destined for land fill, and in equipping people to do that recycling by learning basic woodworking hand skills and techniques.

This was the program: 

Thursday evening: 6:00 – 8:30pm. Introductory: Make a kitchen chopping board. Learn the basics of using a hand plane and hand saw while you create a beautiful wooden chopping board from salvaged timber.

Friday evening: 6:00 – 8:30pm. Introductory: Carve a wooden spoon. Learn to work in harmony with a piece of salvaged wood in order to create a wonderful and functional wooden spoon from it. Along the way you will enjoy learning to use a range of traditional hand tools. A great way to learn to “read” a piece of wood and work with the grain rather than against it.

Saturday all day: 8:00am – 4:00pm. Intermediate: Make a handy pair of saw stools. An essential companion to the hand saw, saw stools also make handy household aids for painting, for extra seating at BBQs, portable workbenches, and so much more. While making this traditional and sturdy pair of stools, you will learn the important skills of marking out, cutting and fitting housing joints, using a chisel, using glue and screws, and so much more. A great way to expand your woodworking experience.

Saturday evening: 6:00 – 8:30pm. Intermediate: Make a pair of book ends. Here is a great opportunity to discover that woodworking classic - the dove tail joint. It will be hard to wipe the smile from your face when you have created this traditional joint by hand. It’s all about careful marking out, careful sawing, and good chisel work. Despite the mystique we give this joint these days, it used to be a basic and common jointing method. Discover this joint and add it to your repertoire!

Sunday all day: 8:00am – 4:00pm. Intermediate: Make a small garden bench seat. Using salvaged timber we will use some basic jointing techniques and fasteners to create a simple bench seat for your garden. Another great opportunity to apply your sawing skills, you will also learn those important marking and measuring skills to cut the joints, use a chisel, and use bolts and other fasteners.

As is too often the case, I was so busy teaching that I hardly took any photos of the workshops in action. However, here a few pics some of the workshops in action:


By creating a full scale drawing of the bench seat ends on a set out board, the dimensions and angles can be taken off with a rule and a sliding bevel and transfered onto the pieces of timber for the legs. 



For some it was the first time they had used a drill and used nuts and bolts. Making an end for the bench seats. Nice cross-halving housing joint!



Fixing the legs and braces to a sawstool. Cut and fit the housings, then glue and screw. A whole new experience for some. Photo by Rebecca.



Plenty of marking out and doing the saw cuts for making the cross-halving housing joints.

 

Chopping the housing joints. A good chance to learn some chisel skills.



Both the sawstool and bench seat projects provided great opportunities to develop sawing skills with a tenon saw.



Applying Orange Oil to a completed.Silky Oak kitchen chopping board. Timber once part of a discarded bookcase.



Special thanks to the legendary John Isherwood for his assistance through the workshops.  Shown here in action.



Some of the participants with the garden bench seats they have made. Also on display one of the pairs of saw stools. The seat tops were pieces of wandoo floorboards. The participants first had to remove the tongues and grooves with a jack plane. 

Certainly it was a very successful program once again. It was great to offer a wide range of new skills to people in the "intermediate" groups. Thanks to the Mindarie Regional Council for having the foresight to offer these workshops to Earth Carers - and the the Earth Carers for their passion and enthusiasm.

We must significantly reduce the amount of wood which ends up in landfill. Recognising the value and potential of this important resource is part of the solution. People learning the practical skills of how to recycle and re-use this wonderful resource is another key part of the solution. I reckon we did well on both fronts...

Wonderful West Australian Blackbutt.

One of my favourite timbers to work with would have to be Blackbutt. Western Australian Blackbutt, to be precise - Eucalyptus patens. A very hard, dense and light coloured timber, the tree grows naturally in the wetter areas of the jarrah forest in the south west of Western Australia. Around the edges of swamps and watercourses, and in low lying areas. A tiny proportion of the original forest now remains. With most of these remnant trees now locked up in National Parks and stream reserves, it is not as readily available as it used to be. Fortunately, my mate Terry at Heritage Sawmillers http://www.wahardwoods.com.au/ can still get hold of a few logs every now and then. That is where I obtain most of my Blackbutt timber.

For those who like the technical stuff, Blackbutt is a hard wood. The Air Dried Density (at 12% moisture content) for WA Blackbutt is 930kg/m3, compared with 530kg/m3 for Douglas Fir, and 700kg/m3 for European Oak. (Source:  Wood in Australia, Keith Bootle, 1983, published by McGraw Hill.)
Yep, it's hard and dense!

A blackbutt kitchen.
I don't make kitchen cabinets any more as a rule, but I did build one recently over a period of months for Tim and Bec. You know, it's family. Long ago, I did a lot of kitchens for customers, but my construction methods have always been different to the modern cabinetmaking industry norm. While the insides (shelves, backs and dividers) might be the normal white melamine faced MDF board, my kitchen cabinets are different in that I

A shot of the cabinets under construction, showing the internal framing.

always use solid timber framing.

It is a method I learned from Harry Kornoff when I worked for him back in the early 1980's. Thanks, Harry! These are kitchens built to last, with not just timber framing but solid timber doors and panelling too. While I have done plenty of solid timber benchtops on these kitchens, Tim and Bec were having one of those black granite-look tops.   

A few pics of Tim and Bec's kitchen:

 

The black granite tops and the Blackbutt doors and panelling go together very nicely.

The jarrah floors also look good with the Blackbutt cabinets.



That's an appliance cupboard in the corner on the benchtop.

Nice looking kitchen, eh?

One of the things I love about WA Blackbutt is the variation in the colours in what is normally a pretty pale yellowish brown timber - but the timber itself has other interesting properties which I appreciate. The extractives in it (the naturallly occurring chemical compounds which give any timber's heartwood it's colours and other characteristics) mean that it has a natural waxy-ness about it. I know from experience that Blackbutt shavings on a concrete floor make for a dangerously slippery surface. Stacks of freshly machined Blackbutt pieces are prone to sliding off each other. However this natural waxy-ness combines with the high density of the timber to make WA Blackbutt absolutely wonderful to carve. It is one of my favourite timbers to use for carving wooden spoons. That waxy-ness also makes for great drawer sides and drawer slides. I have also used it for making extension table mechanisms. While some people claim the natural waxy-ness prevents good glue adhesion in joints, this has not been my experience over many years of playing with this wonderful wood.

A few more pics featuring WA Blackbutt:

WA Blackbutt spoons I made some years ago for a customer. Sorry about the grainy picture. 



WA Blackbutt Table, titled "Four Foot Long". (Circa 1990).



WA Blackbutt panel (with carved detail shown) in the front of a Font I made for the Leeuwin Barracks Chapel, 2009. The Altar and Lecturn are also made from Jarrah with the feature Blackbutt front panel.

WA Blackbutt drawer sides in this Hall Table (2007) contrast nicely with the jarrah, highlighting the dovetails.

... By the way, did I mention how much I love working with WA Blackbutt?

Recycling packaging timber into kitchen utensils.

Timber is being used to freight goods all over the world every day. As packing cases, crates, dunnage, and other forms of packaging. Viewed as low value timber, some if it is just that - but some of it is absolutely beautiful stuff just waiting to be utilsed and given a higher value life. When I am teaching woodworking hand skills, one of the first projects we do is to make kitchen chopping boards, often from this material. I do a lot of work with recycled and salvaged timber. Part of what I also hope to do is to help people understand our incredible wastage as we dump so much timber into landfill. Nice wide pieces of packing crates offer wonderful opportunities to use sawing and planingskill to create beautiful and functional items. Why not?



Check out the pic of this treasure trove of timber at a Waste Management Facility. A wood dump, predoninantly comprising of packaging and dunnage. For a person who is keen on recycling timber, this pile contains exciting possibilities and great potential. I pulled some aweom wood out of this pile which I recycled, wood which had come from all over the planet. Some of it was known to me, and much of it is of species unknown to me.Someone once asked how we know that the packaging timber has not been treated with nasty chemicals, as we are using it for food purposes in it's new life. It is a perfectly valid question. So for your interest I thought I would explain how I usually tackle this matter in relation to the safe recycling of packing materials. There are international agreements pertaining to the prevention of the spread of nasty stuff around the planet. So I usually look for the appropriate symbol which is often found somewhere on the exterior of the packaging. 

This symbol is the ISPM 15 mark. Some of this information below I obtained from the Australian Government's Quarantine and Inspection Service.

ISPM 15 is the 'International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures Publication No. 15 (2009): Regulation of Wood Packaging Material in International Trade'.

ISPM 15 was developed to address the global spread of timber pests by regulating the movement of timber packaging and dunnage in international trade. ISPM 15 describes phytosanitary measures to reduce the risk of introduction and/or spread of quarantine pests associated with solid timber packaging material (includes dunnage).

The United Nations Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) addresses plant quarantine through the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC). The IPPC is an international treaty administered by the FAO and implemented through the cooperation of member governments. Australia is a member or 'contracting party' to the treaty.

Timber packaging and dunnage bearing the ISPM 15 mark is certified as having been subjected to an ISPM 15 approved treatment.

An ISPM 15 compliant mark looks like this:

What the IPPC certification symbol means:

• XX: represents the two letter ISO country code (e.g. AU for Australia, US for United States, NZ for New Zealand, GB for United Kingdom).
• 000: represents the unique certification number issued by AQIS to the treatment provider or wood packaging manufacturer. Inclusion of this certification number ensures that the wood packaging material can be traced back to the treatment provider and/or manufacturer.
• YY: is the treatment abbreviation where:
• - HT is the code for heat treatment to a minimum of 56o C for a minimum of 30 minutes
• - MB is the code for methyl bromide fumigation.

The letters 'DB' represent debarking. DB may be added to the abbreviation of the ISPM 15 approved treatment. For example, 'HT DB' represents heat treatment and debarking and 'MB DB' represents methyl bromide fumigation and debarking.

More of this info can be obtained from the following website:
http://www.daff.gov.au/aqis/import/timber/ispm-15-faq#What

Methyl Bromide is worrying stuff. Methyl bromide is a broad spectrum fumigant toxic to fungi and other micro-organisms. I am told that all garlic imported into Australia is required by the Australian Department of Agriculture to be fumigated with Methyl Bromide! Meanwhile, effective 18th March 2010, the European Union have banned the use of Methyl Bromide as a container fumigant. So Australian Quarantine (AQIS) will apparently no longer recognise certificates of fumigation from the EU where Methyl Bromide treatment has been used.
Methyl bromide is the most potent ozone depleting substance still in use today. In 1991 it was identified internationally as a chemical which contributes to the depletion of the ozone layer. Accordingly, the Australian manufacture and importation of methyl bromide was to have been phased out completely by 1 January 2005. However, the uses of methyl bromide in quarantine pre-shipment (QPS) and as a chemical feedstock are currently exempt from the phase-out. Hence it continues to be used in many places around the world as a fumigation method for timber packaging and dunnage, and is an approved treatement under ISPM 15. (except in the EU now?)


If the timber from packaging has been heat treated, then I generally reckon it is OK for recycling as kitchen chopping boards, cooking spatulas, chop sticks, bowls, and wooden spoons.. If it has been treated with methyl bromide, then I will not use it for food purposes. However I will use it for furniture and other wooden items. Incidentally, man-made wood derived materials, like plywoods, particle boards, MDF etc (which were bonded together using heat, pressure and glues) are not required to bear an ISPM 15 mark. The manufacturing process kills off any fungicides, insects or other nasties which may have been harboured in the raw materials prior to manufacture.

So next time you are pulling apart a pallet or crate to utilise that wonderful resource of timber or sheet material, keep an eye out for the ISPM mark. Now you will know what it means, and know a bit more of it's story. I hope that this info has been helpful to those who wonder about recycled wood.


Most of the chopping boards made by this group were made from packaging.

Sometimes a real gem turns up in the packaging pile. I am no expert on North American timbers, but I believe the stick in the picture below is American White Oak. The ISBM 15 Compliance Mark stamped on it tells me me it's from the USA and it was Heat Treated. Delicious.



What a score! A piece of American White Oak, 8"x1" x 6' long. (200 x 38 x 1850mm)

So next time you see a pallet or crate in the skip bin or on the rubbish tip, have a close look at it. There is a chance you may need to liberate it into it's next life as a kitchen utensil... If it is an exotic piece of timber, look for the ISPM 15 Compliance Mark. If you can find one, it offers both useful information and intrigue!

 

Serving up a 40th birthday celebration.

On a recent Sunday I had a very enjoyable gig to do. Sonia, a customer, had turned 40 recently. To celebrate this milestone, she organised a venue, the Victoria Park Arts Centre, and 11 of her very good friends to spend the day with her. My task was to facilitate a woodworking activity for the day. We designed and carved wooden spoons. It was a great day!

Prior to the participants arriving, I had set up my portable benches and gear. We used only traditional hand tools: carving gouges, carving mallets, curved scrapers, bowsaws and coping saws, spokeshaves and rasps. Many had never done stuff like this before. There were nine different timbers on hand for people to chose from. During the course of the day (either sides of a beautiful meal together), each person designed and made a beautiful and functional wooden spoon. After the tool work, it was just a final light sand and a coat of Orange Oil to finish them off. Twelve people each with a very different spoon with which they were justifiably proud.

Many participants expressed how therapeutic it was to be creative and physical, not things found very often in their busy lives these days. Some had done things they would never have thought possible.  Others just enjoyed using their hands.
Such an interesting variety of spoons were created. So much fun and happy chatter through the day...

I love the process... everyone is on a journey together but each at the same time is on their own journey as they interact with the tools and their chosen piece of wood. Design ideas often change along the way through a number of factors, but ultimately each spoon reflects something of the personality of its maker. Fascinating stuff goes on in the creation of such a simple implement!

The spoon making workshop is my favourite activity of all the different stuff that I do with people.
Happy 40th birthday, Sonia. You and your delightful group of friends each have warm memories and a unique momento of the occaision to remember you by.

Oh, yes, I love these gigs!

Recycled timber seats at the Crossroads Community Garden.

I recently spent two days working with bods from a NOW Green program, building seating at the Crossroads Community Garden being developed in Gwelup, Western Australia. 

This community garden is a joint project of the Scarborough Church of Christ, City of Stirling, the Department of Health's North Metropolitan Area Health Service, and NOW Green. The Crossroads Community Garden had received grant funding to enable significant expansion.

The project will see an additional 50 garden beds, community meeting area, pizza oven, fruit trees, artwork and more. This would also include some seating in the centre of the circular garden layout. That's where I come in.

The new garden bed walls are in, ready for the seating.

My role was to work with the mob from NOW Green to lead the building of the central seating using predominantly recycled timber. Due to concerns about termites, CCA treated pine was used for the 16 posts. All the seats and supports were made from salvaged hardwood timber, mostly jarrah, from demolished buildings.

NOW Green is operated  under the National Green Jobs Corps program, a Federal Government initiative, by Peedac Pty Ltd. This link will give you some more info about the program:  http://www.peedac.com.au/now-green/  

The project helps provide job seekers with a range of new skills, gaining confidence and self esteem and the benefits of social inclusion. The ultimate aim is for the participants to gain employment and increase their involvement in society.

Docking the seat timbers to length.

The method of construction involved pairs of seat supports which are housed into checks at the top of each post. These jarrah supports (ex 4" x 2") were bolted to the top of each post with 2 galvanised M10 bolts. The participants cut the housings on the top of each post by hand. Like most woodwork tasks, this involved accurate marking out and good sawing technique. They did a pretty good job at it too. Fixed to the seat supports were pairs of seat timbers (ex 5" x2"), as in the picture. A string line was used from the central point to do the setting out and to ensure that the joints all radiated towards the centre. 

Block planes were used to chamfer the edges of the timber components.  



Those portable benches are so handy!

The seat timbers had been machined by me prior to the program, to clean them up, flatten them and give them all a consistent thickness. They were machined to 43mm thick, and the edges left as they were, nail holes and all. Machining these salvaged timbers is a dirty and time-consuming task. Each stick is scrubbed down with a wire brush, scanned with a metal detector, and any found nails and screws removed. One face is flattened over the buzzer and then put through the thicknesser to the required dimension (43mm thick). The process reveals wonderful grain figure and colour in the timber. Delicious! 

A moment of contemplation. Nice job, guys!

The second curve of seating making good progress.

The finish height of the seating will be between 18" and 20" (450 - 500mm). We had to plan for this in the construction, as another layer of sand will be put down before the brick paving is laid. We used a laser level to ensure the tops of the posts were level. This gave us nice level seating.

A hive of activity.

Fixing down the seats with the impact driver.



That's me with some of the gang from NOW Green. Job done.

 The particpants can rightfully be proud of the job they have done. It looks very good and provided an opportunity to gain a few skills and learn a few tricks. There are a total of 28 "seat panels" - 14 on each arc. These will all be finished with an oil-based product to help preserve them, after the next part of the seating project is complete.
As a community activity on Harmony Day, people from the local community had the opportunity to carve their family name in a seat panel. My task was to facilitate that process as well.

A view of the completed seating in the central area.

One half of the completed seating.

  

Members of the public had the opportunity on Harmony Day to select one of the 28 seat panels to carve their family name on. Two methods were available: Dremel type electric engraving tools, or carving chisels. Participants could choose. People selected their seat panel, unscrewed it and cramped it to a bench. I gave basic instructions, they got to practice on a piece of scrap, draw their designs on their piece of timber, and they commenced carving.   

Using a Dremel to engrave their panel.

   

Using carving chisels. A job for the whole family!

It was a great day. A wide variety of styles and fonts emerged, with people of all ages having a go.

  

Father and son, working together.

 

Nice work!

Screwing back down a completed seat panel.

A few of the completed panels, now waiting for an oil finish.



There are still a few blank seat panels, so I wouldn't be surprised if another opportunity is created for the public to add their names to the seating in the middle of the community garden.

It will be great to watch progress on the garden's development. I count it a priveledge to have played a small part by facilitating the building and embellishing of the seating. A job well done by all involved!     

A good day for a bargain.

I admit it. I love going to my local markets. Is it the delightful collage of people and languages buying and selling all manner of household bric-a-brac? Is it the thrill of the hunt? Is if the ever present chance of scoring a bargain? Yes, yes, and especially YES!

I am usually chasing tools at the markets. Sure, I have lots of woodworking hand tools. Some might reckon I'm a tool junkie. Teaching woodworking handskills to groups of up to 20 people, I need a lot of tools. Good quality old fashioned tools - not the cheap modern imported crap from the big hardware stores. Hence I have in my head a list of priority tools I am always seeking, and a list of tools I will be opportunitistic about given the right chance. Other than that I am always open to being surprised...


My grandaughter Paree with a bargain $5 wheelbarrow


Run by the local Rotary Club as a fundraiser each Sunday morning, anyone from the public can sell whatever goodies they have (except food) by paying a few dollars for a car bay or two in the local shopping centre car park to set up their wares. It is a cross between a giant garage sale and a car boot sale. I try to go early each Sunday morning, usually early enough that many stallholders are still setting up. This way I aim to beat the crowds and more importantly, beat the tool collectors. Tool collectors are a problem for me, as they help to inflate the prices of good second hand tools. Theirs will live in a box or a display cabinet, but I am seeking tools that will be used for the purpose they were intended. I can't afford to have 20 of everything at tool collector prices. So yes, I try to beat the tool collectors to the bargains.

Bargains. Some days there are none, but other days there are plenty. Ya just never know... that's the thrill of the hunt, eh?

Last Sunday I was there early as usual, at the crack of dawn. It takes me about an hour to cruize the hundreds of stalls, so off I went. I have been doing it for a few years so I have a good visual scanning system operating. I know what I'm looking for.
Sure enough, across several stalls I was to snap up a few good bargains:

A nice couple of 10 point panel saws. Not oldies, but good users just needing some cleaning up. A Disston and a Sandvik. At $2 each, they are a bargain just to cut them up to make cabinet scrapers! However they are worth sharpenning and putting in the pool for my group activities. They can be sharpenned until there is no blade left, unlike the saws with low grade steel and sharp but unsharpenable hard point teeth found in the hardware shops. Do the planet a favour and don't buy "disposable" hand saws!

A carpenter's mallet. In good condition, and ready for more action. A steal at $3...

A beautiful 12inch x6 inch RICHA speed cramp, also known as an F-cramp. One of the best you can get - like any tools with "Made in West Germany" stamped on them. I have a heap of cramps, but no cheap and nasty ones. I bought 20 Richa cramps new in the early 80's. Little did I know what a good move that was! This one is a nice big one - and an absolute bargain at the $8 it cost me. Thankyou, Mr. Stallholder!

These old 6 inch vises are on my high priority list, as I use them on the kids benches I make. Nobody seems to make them anymore, so I continue to scour garage sales and markets looking for these. The 12 vices I have found over the last year are a mixed bag of brands, quality and condition. What makes this particular vise so desireable is it's a DAWN. This used to be the best quality brand available in Australia, from the days long gone when Australia had a booming manufacturing industry. This vice is in brilliant condition, so I could hardly contain my face-splitting smile when I shelled out a mere $10 for this incredible bargain!

A Stanley No.110 block plane - not with original handle! Someone had put a nylon bush on the front, but it is otherwise in excellent condition. Lucky I have a spare handle. But hey, I can always turn up  a new handle. This is going to be used heaps in my group activities, remember. It won't sit on a shelf. Block planes are also on my priority list. While these are a pig to adjust for beginners, I confess I have a soft spot for them. My father gave me my first plane, a Record No.110, when I was nine years old. I still use that plane every day. Can you believe the price for this nylon handled tool pictured? I paid $5!! This, folks, was the bargain of the day.  

This week there were no really interesting finds, like very old and desireable planes. Unless a tool collector got there before me and cleaned them out. However the "users" I scored this week had me leaping with joy.

OK, I'll stop bragging now. True, some days I come home with no bargains. Then there are those other days when I hit the motherlode.

...Is it nearly Sunday morning yet?