Comments on: 58- Gadget Station (Pt. 2)

By: thewoodwhisperer

thewoodwhisperer — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:03:28 +0000

lol, since I doubt we’ll ever run across absolute pure H20 in nature, I think its a pretty safe generalization to say that water conducts electricity, at least for the purposes of this conversation.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:47:17 +0000

I know I’m always about a year behind, but on to my comment:
Water itself is not conductor at all, it is the particles in the water that are the conductors.

By: thewoodwhisperer

thewoodwhisperer — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:31:18 +0000

Hey John. Let me explain a little more. First, when I took the original reading, I had it in my head that the rough lumber was jatoba. Bubinga and jatoba are very difficult to tell apart in the rough state. And for some reason I had jatoba on the brain. So the reference piece was jatoba and it should have been bubinga. Now aside from that, none of my wood here in the shop registers on the meter regardless of the species, just because its so dry. I knew that going into the video but I wanted to show how if you take a board of the same species, you can get a relative idea of where your new wood is and how far it has to go to catch up to the wood that’s been in your shop for a while. So I apologize for the lack of clarity there. Hopefully that makes sense now.

By: John Leko

John Leko — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 18:21:34 +0000

Marc,

I’d be interested in hearing/seeing more about your method of checking moisture content. I use a pinless meter, and am constantly adjusting for different wood species. It puzzles me how you can get a “relative” moisture reading if the wood species are different. Even Delmhorst meters have species adjustments.

Thanks.

By: thewoodwhisperer

thewoodwhisperer — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:34:20 +0000

Huggy Bear eh? lol.

One some boards, wetting the grain might help. But on these bubinga boards the grain was definitely obvious, although it may not have seemed that obvious in the video. Definitely obvious in person with the naked eye.

By: Germain

Germain — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 01:08:13 +0000

Word up, Huggy Bear! Er, I mean, hey, Marc.

Looks like you’ve uncorked yet another effective and highly informative video. When you were noting the grain patterns on your first board, were they that obvious? Would it have helped to “wet” the board to see the grain patterns? Or, is that necessary only on some pieces with less obvious grain.

Keep on truckin’.

By: thewoodwhisperer

thewoodwhisperer — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:10:02 +0000

Hey Brian. If you don’t have access to the typical power tools that we use for milling (jointer/planer/drum sander), there are a number of hand tools that can help you get the job done. And it really depends on how much work the board needs. If its already relatively flat, you might be able to get away with a few passes from a smoothing plane. But if the piece needs a lot of work you might want to step back to a plane that will allow you to hog out more material per pass. Also, for light smoothing work, you could always try a card scraper or a cabinet scraper.

On the power tool side, a belt sand could certainly get the job done. Although its a beast to control sometimes.

Good luck.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:46:28 +0000

Hi Marc,

I love your podcast. I don’t use nearly as many powertools as you do as my shop is only about 100 sq. feet. And I have to share that space with my wife’s storage.

Anyway, I loved the fact that you didn’t run that piece of figured maple through the planer, but through your sander. For those of us without one of those gadgets, how do you recomend milling a highly figured and fragile piece of wood?

Thanks

By: The OTHER MikeD

The OTHER MikeD — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:02:08 +0000

Boy, I glanced at the comments on this page and suddenly thought I’d said something offensive, but no…that wasn’t me. Someone else liberated my display name (I’m the MikeD who commented on the post about who’s making the gadget station…search for “mind the warts” and that’s me). Good, now I feel justified. On to my comment…

I personally got hooked on your site the day you were pimping the Domino. Having never seen (or even heard of) one, it was extremely helpful for you to demo the system and, being a beginning woodworker, I look forward to learning about gadgets and brandnames that are new to me.

More specific to this post, I wouldn’t mind some recommendations from Marc and others on additional sources for mail-order wood. I see you have Bell listed on your Links page…any others?

By: thewoodwhisperer

thewoodwhisperer — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:50:38 +0000

Hey Wilbur. No particular reason. Those marks are from the lumber dealer. I often find lumber comes with some random marks on it with no clear rhyme or reason. There are no flaws in or around that area so I honestly have no idea why they are there. But its not the first time I have seen such a thing.