Ralph Kolva

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  1. Did you call the local lumber supplier? Most of the lumber suppliers I deal with will do some surfacing and cutting for additional fees (often unadvertised), perhaps your local source does as well?
  2. Honduran Mahogany is pretty pricey that's why a lot of people substitute African which in the Denver area is much less expensive. Jatoba or Brazilian Cherry may be a close match and relatively cheap although hard as heck and not as easy to work as Mahogany, also may have to clean glue surfaces with some Acetone prior to glue up. http://www.wood-database.com/
  3. My experience with them has been mostly positive but I think most of my purchases were prior to the Woodcraft buyout. The only japanese chisel I've had problems with was one of their house brand chisels. I figured that for an 1/8 chisel I would be fine not getting a higher quality brand. Cleaning out a small mortise for a panel gauge and the spine of the chisel broke at the top of the blade, so much for saving a few bucks. I prefer Hida tool, their Fujihiro and Mashashigi (sp?) chisels are a little better than my Matsamura chisels, for around the same price I'll continue to get my chisels from Hida until I can afford some Tosai or similar chisels.
  4. I agree with wdwerker, go with thicker stock for a dining table. Can't tell from the image if there is a stretcher across the top of the legs or not. If not I would be included to use a bridle joint for the leg to bottom stretcher, a bit stronger than loose/slip tenon. Otherwise double up on the dominoes to increase the glue area.
  5. You can also use a glue of a color closer to your veneer or use hide glue. Check out Veneer Supplies, they have several different shades of glue. As another poster said above, either light sand or card scrape most of the glue off the surface.
  6. A couple of months ago we had the owners of Collector's Specialty Woods come to Red Rocks Community College and do a presentation about their business for our faculty and students. One of the stories relayed was how the worst thing they ever did was build a solar kiln, between the temperature fluctuations, lack of moisture and dry air in the San Luis Valley of Colorado that the kiln just ruined their wood (checks, honeycomb, and warpage). I suppose your mileage in Illinois could very well be different but from what they said of experience I would be careful putting expensive wood into a solar kiln without some extensive experimentation. http://www.cswoods.com/ The greenhouse sounds like a good idea though!
  7. Cumaru maybe? Using a card scraper on it do you get some nice redish/orange shaving that turn brown in about 30 minutes? http://www.wood-database.com/lumber-identification/hardwoods/cumaru/
  8. A little late in getting this in but I've been using SpecTape double sided for the last couple of years and really like, it also seems to be a little less expensive than a lot of the other double sided tapes I've searched for. Think I ordered a couple of rolls from Hartville Tool and like others have said, a little goes a long way! At first glance it doesn't appear to stick all that well but apply a little pressure and it will be difficult to get your template off the work piece. http://www.amazon.com/Spectape-ST501-Double-Adhesive-Length/dp/B003ASGL02 http://www.hartvilletool.com/product/1275/woodworking-jig-hardware
  9. Really neat piece! I've walked through a few architectural salvage places in Santa Fe and admired the range of things they have, what a great source of inspiration for pieces like this desk. Truly envious of your carving ability, it's something I would like to try one of these days.
  10. We used to have 4 PM2000 (3 phase 5HP), and 2 Unisaws (1PH 3HP) and the Powermatics are very nice saws. Two years ago we took out the Unisaws, kept 1 PM2000 but replaced all the other saws with SS Industrial (3Phase 5 HP). There are several students who are very happy that when they made a mistake that we had SS. Just 2 weeks ago we had a student making a relief cut for re-sawing when the board fell over during the cut and dropped his index finger right into the spinning blade. His finger had a slight superficial scratch on the skin, his shorts were ruined though. On that basis alone I would get the SawStop and I've been woodworking 30 years without an accident on any piece of machinery. As I said the PM2000 is a very nice saw but the SS is still a nicer machine, I know I'll catch some poop for saying that but if you get a chance to use both machines I think you will see the difference. When I get the extra cash I will add a SS to my shop, plan on keeping the Unisaw for wet wood and dado cuts.
  11. Cumaru? http://www.wood-database.com/lumber-identification/hardwoods/cumaru/
  12. Think I may have some of this, or at least very similar, wood in my shop. Bought it from Colonial Hardwoods in Va. many years ago and while I forget what they called it it was a South American tropical. The grain doesn't quite match Jatoba but the working characteristics are very similar; dense (more so than any mahogany I've come across), hard, fine grained (sanding the stuff without gloves is slightly painful) and dulls steel quickly. The quartersawn grain is somewhat flecked like QS Sycamore and occasionally there is some interlocked grain. https://flic.kr/p/noeMBF https://flic.kr/p/noh5ey My initial guess was Jatoba but the grain doesn't quite match.
  13. I got 2 of the LED magnetic lights from Lee Valley when they had em on the Intro/New product sale. Work really well, only down side it they will drain the batteries if you forget to turn the lamp off. http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=71189&cat=1,70596,43349,71189
  14. We've had a couple of students in the last year that have been playing around with frames and handle bars using bent laminations and veneer lams. One student made a drop down handlebar by resawing and laminating around a couple of forms and joining the parts with bridle joints. The bars came out well in the prototype but didn't inspire confidence, a beefier version and maybe a single complex bend would have been much better. Another student used the CNC to generate forms for frame components and then used veneers and a vacuum bag to make the frame parts. His idea was to join the frame components with solid wood in the areas of the head tube and seat tube, don't recall what his plan was for the drop-out. He hasn't finished the bike yet but the frame did come out very well, light weight and very stiff/strong.
  15. As Mel pointed vertical panels tend to draw the eye towards to the top of a piece and generally give an impression of a piece accentuating the vertical while horizontal panels will give an impression of being wider and sometimes more grounded. I'm very fond of raised panels (more of the Krenov style panels) as the extra shadow lines create more visual interest. Then again, it depends on the particular piece, not sure raised panels would work on Danish Modern (I might try it though ;-)) Pic of the back panel of a G&G hall table: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecrankymonkey/12015609275/ Side panel on the same table: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thecrankymonkey/12015891123/ Sorry about the links, guess I need to review forum policy on how to insert the images