“Whenever I see something interesting, if I like it I’ll take a photograph. Then I might come back to it a few months later,” sometimes subconsciously, Gary said. His interesting elements might be the appearance of wood as it drops during cutting in the shop, or how items appear as he’s rearranging them on his workbench. Or, in one case, “I was driving and the car in front of me had an interesting shape of the red brake lights. I saw it and thought, ‘Oh, that’s cool,’ and it turned into a table” – or at least the starting point for his Ailish coffee table.

“It’s a jumping-off point for a shape or a form,” Gary said. It also plays into his long-term interest in photography. “When you’re learning how to photograph, it’s a different way of looking at stuff. You become more aware, and it fed into my work as a designer,” Gary said.

He did spend eight months in design school in England, while also learning woodworking by hiring himself out to a couple of furniture makers’ shops. “I’d been doing something else for a long time that I didn’t really like anymore – I was a printer for about 20 years – then I tried to find a position with a furniture maker back in England. I said I’d work for free, for a little while, or really cheaply.”

The appeal of woodworking, Gary said, came in part because “I’ve always liked to make stuff, was always kind of curious,” plus, “I wanted to design stuff I couldn’t find.”

One of his first assignments at design school was to create a storage unit of some kind from plywood of a certain size. Gary designed a “U2Me Magazine Rack,” the ends of which look like two people supporting the items in between. “I like that kind of criteria,” Gary said.

Some of the other pieces he enjoys are the “Stretch a Sketch” storage unit he created for his son, and his line of “OGEL Toy Boxes.”

His work, Gary said, in a way has two distinct sides to it: the sort of whimsical pieces that appeal to children and adults alike, and then more “adult-oriented” furniture, as he put it. “I’m really obsessed with angles and repetition and things like that,” Gary said.

For instance, one series of pieces “started with a dining table, really, that had an extreme angle with the leg. I wanted to make something that looked like it shouldn’t work,” Gary said.

That then fed into a family of chairs, including items like a lounge chair and a dining chair, that Gary says are very indicative of the type of work he does.

Eventually, in fact, he’d like to specialize in chairs – “but I need to acquire a lot of skills before I start making chairs [exclusively],” Gary said. In fact, with his Gibson dining chair, he originally started the project a few years ago, then “it got put on the back burner because I didn’t really have the know-how. Then we moved to the States, I got a workshop … it was about five years from the sketching to the state when I thought it was done. In the beginning, I didn’t know how I would do it, but by the time I came back to it, I just looked at it and found I knew what to do.”

With inspiration like that, the memory jogs from his photos and notes, and the design inspiration Gary finds nearly everywhere, Gary said of his projects, “You just never know where it’s going.”

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– Chris Wong
Port Moody, B.C.

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JessEm offers a “next generation” solution to featherboards here, with its new CLEAR-CUT TS Stock Guides. Made of anodized aluminum and cold-rolled steel, the guides mount to a T-slotted track that’s fixed to the top of the rip fence. Knurled knobs allow the guide arms to be positioned anywhere along the track and rotated up or down to suit different stock thicknesses. An acetol resin roller wheel on each guide arm pitches inward at a 5-degree angle to help steer workpieces against the fence during ripping. Each roller is mounted on a one-way needle bearing to prevent kickback, and the guide arms are spring-loaded to put downward pressure on stock being cut.

When mounted to the rip fence, CLEAR-CUT Stock Guides provide up to 3-1/8-in. of vertical travel and can accommodate a maximum stock thickness 13/16-in. above the mounting surface when mounted on the included aluminum T-track. Then, when not needed, the guide arms can be slid in and over the rip fence, so they’re out of the way for other sawing operations. That means you’ll never need to remove this safety feature from your saw.

JessEm provides everything you need to mount this system to most commercially available rip fence styles. The kit comes with two stock guides, a 30-in. T-slot mounting track, a drill bit for drilling pilot holes for the installation screws, all the necessary mounting hardware and a T-25 Torx screwdriver. Made in Canada, JessEm’s new CLEAR-CUT TS Stock Guides sell for $279.99.

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Tim Inman:  These kinds of questions are actually common and always give me pause for concern. I don’t want my answers to sound harsh or unhelpful. But, gosh, shouldn’t this question have been asked first, before the work was done? That said, “chalk paint” or casein paint or buttermilk paint — they’re all pretty much in the same genre — your initial choice for paint was probably not the best choice given the goals you’ve set out. These paints are nostalgic and generally make a project look “old” or worn. They’re used when something is intentionally not wanted to look new. These paints are not durable, nor are they protective for use on dining furniture or bar tops where repeated cleaning is easily anticipated. Wax is Mother Nature’s anti-oxidizing material to protect other surfaces. Momma Nature puts wax on apples, plums and all kinds of fruits and vegetables. It doesn’t last long, and it isn’t expected to. Wax is a sacrificial coating. Putting wax on your furniture is the same idea. The wax protects the real finish from contact with other bad things, and it is expected to be sacrificed and replaced from time to time. It looks great and has a nice feel. Other than that, it just doesn’t do much heavy-duty protecting. So, we’re in two strikes “against” on this project so far.

You say you now want to sand and reapply. This won’t make anything heal up and get better. You’ll just be putting more work and effort on top of an already proven poor surface. If you really want a protective finish on your breakfast table, you need to take all of this stuff off and rebuild from the ground up. I would suggest that if you want a colored or “painted” effect, then a polyurethane enamel would be the first place to go for durability and protection. You can clear coat over that if you want a deeper, clearer effect. Spraying is the ultimate in smooth finish application. A very good brush and some technique can produce a nearly equal surface. Foam brushes are just that: foam! Don’t use them on this job.

Finally, to protect against another round of “Oh my gosh! That isn’t what I wanted!” I can’t urge strongly enough how important it is to practice and prove out your new finish on a sample board FIRST before you go on to your project.

Chris Marshall: Aside from interior wood flooring, I can’t think of another project that deserves a tough finish more than a kitchen table. So, I’m with Tim: when you strip and start over on your breakfast table, go with polyurethane as a topcoat. You just can’t beat it for durability. Wax is the antithesis of durable, but some people use it because it’s easy to apply. Or, it seems like the “right” way to finish something made out of wood. But, wax doesn’t form an impervious film on the surface of the wood, and a film is what offers real protection here.

If you’re really “sold” on the color of the chalk paint you’ve already used, there might be an easy way you can stick with it again. General Finishes offers this new Flat Out Flat cross-linking acrylic topcoat that’s formulated to go over chalk or milk paint while keeping the sheen flat. It could be just the answer you need. To learn more about it, click here.

We live and learn in all aspects of woodworking, and this chalk paint/wax approach is one of those tough finishing lessons. But the upside: you won’t try that again! Lesson learned.

The post My Chalk Paint and Wax Finish Didn’t Work. Now What? appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

– Moh Clark
Marble Falls, TX

See the Gallery Below:

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“Decades ago, I found myself at a crossroads: should I keep my day job — which I was good at but didn’t much like — or should I quit my J-O-B and go full-time into woodworking — at which I needed improvement but loved? I actually prayed to whatever wood gods there might be, ‘What should I do? Please send me a sign!’ When the answer came, it was hard to deny. A local attorney wanted me to make a sign for his new partnership; not a little door plaque, mind you, but a 4X6 foot thing, carved and painted, to erect by the street. I was elated! At last something exciting and lucrative! My prayers were answered, and as I assembled the materials and tools for the job, I mentally composed a resignation letter for my soon-to-be-former job. In the end, it was a disaster; I way underestimated the costs and labor, spent more on tools than I ever made off it, and worried and sweated every step. When it was finished I was a wreck, and although my attorney client was pleased, I was disappointed in the final product and cringed every time I passed it on the street. I decided then to keep woodworking as a nonprofit labor of love and to stick with my day job.” – Phil Gilstrap

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