Woodworking

Millers Milling

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A little while ago we drove up to a small milling operation near Sacramento. Scott Miller is the one-man-band who reclaims felled trees, logs and cuts them up into fine planks of lumber. He was very very kind and open to share his passion of wood and we had a blast selecting pieces to take home with us. If you're in the area and want to pick up some raw wood to work with, he's definitely someone I recommend you call. He shared various tips and fascinating facts about wood and we're going back once we use this lumber up. Go like the facebook page or check out the website here.

Drying lumber

The wood is now neatly stacked and drying on little slats to allow air to circulate across the surface of the wood. When a tree is cut down, it is considered wet and may need 2-6 months to dry. 

Black Walnut burl (Which smells absolutely fantastic)

Slab of Pecan Hickory

One Cedar long sitting on redwood logs.

Cedar (left)and redwood (right) logs.

Cedar (left)and redwood (right) logs.

Tools from Japan

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Sorry for the break in blog posts. Woodworking tools just arrived at the post office and we're excited to put them to work! We ordered some fundamental tools to begin crafting our visions out of wood. We ordered them from toolsfromjapan.com and recommend the site to anyone patient and looking for affordable japanese handcrafted tools. Stuart Tierney (the man behind the website) warns that it takes two weeks to process orders and longer to special order certain brands from the makers themselves, but the wait is worth it.

Counter clockwise from the upper left: 270mm cross/rip cut kataba (saw), #280/1500 two sided ceramic stone, three  red oak 'Hyakkumanriki' Oire-nomi ('reform grade' standard chisels: 3mm, 15mm, 30mm), 36mm white oak mallet, 58mm Koyama basic large kanna (plane), Ryuma large wedge lock marking/cutting gauge and a free 'eclipse' style side clamp honing guide.

We selected the cheapest and most humble tools available to start with and we are still impressed with the quality. These are 'reform grade' chisels. Meant for abuse and renovation but respectable quality to satisfy the craftsperson. Without the money to afford a complete set of quality chisels I figured 3mm, 15mm and 30mm chisels cover a basic range of widths to get chiseling. 

“A soft steel blade body laminated with a flat piece of high carbon steel means they are not up to the standard of a better Japanese chisel, but they can and will take and hold a good edge for a reasonable time.”
— Stuart Tierney

The steel quality is very good and looks beautiful. How could it not be high quality if the discipline of samurai sword smithing runs through the DNA of this blade? It needs adjustment before use out of the box. The wood moves and shifts depending on the environment, so it would need re-adjusting anyway after coming across the Pacific here, to California. We need to select some wood to play with today, and we'll be back with our impressions of the tools in use.