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Christopher Schwarz
May 22, 2024
I made an abrupt decision with Kale’s training today.
“I’m pulling you back into my orbit,” I said. “We’re going to work on the next Hobbit chair together.”
For the last (let me check my notes, but it’s been too long), Kale has been hard at work packing boxes at our warehouse, shooting and editing video and at woodworking. The woodworking part lately has been building a tool chest and a sawbench.
Megan has been advising Kale through the construction process on both projects, but the way Megan is teaching Kale and the way I want to teach Kale are a bit at odds.
Megan might disagree with me here (and she’s editing this thing so she might just edit me into looking like a fool), but this is what I’ve observed. While building the tool chest, Megan stuck with Kale and guided them through the process. Bravo and great work. But with the sawbench, Megan gave Kale the parts to the sawbench, plus the article Megan wrote for Fine Woodworking about building a sawbench. Megan is answering questions, but Megan is letting Kale figure things out.
This has been going slowly. Too slowly. The sawbench should have been done in a couple days. But it’s not done (still) because Kale lacks moment-by-moment guidance.
It’s not a bad way to learn. But it’s slow.
I’ll speak to Megan about this (she had to leave early today), but I think we need to kick it into a higher gear and have Kale working alongside us on live projects for publication and for sale. Real deadlines. Real work on the line. I’ll work on a leg while Kale works on a leg. I keep an eye on them to make sure things don’t go awry while we work together.
Today I showed Kale how to clean and assemble a spray gun. Then we finished a chair in shellac together. At closing time we had a completed chair, and Kale learned a lot about shellac, pure-grain alcohol and spray nozzles.
Is this the best way to do it? I don’t know. But I think it will get Kale up and running faster.
P.S. I talked to Megan shortly after writing this. She was restraining herself from pushing Kale along on the sawbenches. We’re totally on the same page here. I knew we would be.
Kale Vogt
May 24, 2024
“It’s a bug thing. You wouldn’t understand,” Chris said to me when explaining shellac. I have as much basic knowledge about shellac as the next person. Shellac… you mean the stuff that makes my jelly beans shiny?
So it was news to me that it’s actually a secretion from a bug smaller than a deer tick. Mmm decadent.
This was followed by lesson in spray guns and shellac. Chris had just finished a mahogany “hobbit chair” the day prior that was ready for finish. He brought me over to his desk where the spray gun innards lay strewn across.
Each part was spick and span, and he showed me how to piece together the gun in the right order. After attaching the shellac-filled cup, we were off.
Outside I worked to dodge the excess shellac blown with the wind as he strategically sprayed down the chair. Slow, fluid motions. Top to bottom. Side to side. Flip the chair and do it all over again. Nearly hypnotizing.
A second coat later, the finished chair sat on top of his bench. The shellac glistened. Not too shiny or pungent of a smell. The mahogany seemed to thank us.
Not bad for a puny bug.
This week also marked the end for my sawbenches. I sawed my last leg on Friday then immediately put them to work propping up my tool chest.
For a seemingly simple construction, I found myself struggling with this project. The intuitive flow didn’t come easy for me.
I made several mistakes along the way – my most profound having been trying to force my long brace into place then inevitably splitting one end perpendicular to its mortise.
The mortise was just a hair too tight, and I was hair too impatient.
I quickly glued it up and let sit overnight. By morning, it had healed well so I was able to pare out my mortise a little and finish.
“Wood hates you and wants you to die,” Megan reminded me.
Editor’s note: If you want to learn more about spraying, below are a couple links to blog entries that will help. Also, we used to use a relatively inexpensive Earlex 5500 (no longer available; it appears to have been replaced by the 5700). Now, with a lot more spraying going on, we use a professional system…also no longer available, I have a note into Apollo to confirm, but I think the “Falcon-5” is the closest to the discontinued ECO-5 that we have.
The Power Tool That Makes the Money
And finally, the chair shown above will be in Issue 2 of “The Stick Chair Journal,” which will be off to the printer soon!
Same way we do in the summer.
We take the project outside. Spray it. Bring it inside ASAP to cure. We keep the spray gun in the shop to maintain temperature.
I think that's the next T-shirt slogan:
“Wood hates you and wants you to die,” Megan reminded me.
The whole sentence please!
The blog is great.