Bob Easton

Chocolate powered woodworking

Sign Your Work!

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As Edward Tufte walked around the seminar room holding up an original printing of Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, he repeatedly said, “Sign Your Work!”  He showed us Newton’s handwritten signature on the flyleaf of that book.  Then, he turned to the back flyleaf and showed the signature of the man who set the type and printed the books.

Image of Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica - Wikipedia

That was from one of Tufte’s seminars that I attended several decades ago.  At the root, Tufte is a statistician, data/information analyst, and artist.  His gift to our world is how to visually organize data in useful, instantly understood ways. Perhaps he was the father of what we now call “info graphics.” 

Today, if you are interested, that seminar is still relevant and is an online course.

At the time I attended his seminar, he was publishing 3 books, the bottom 3 on this stack.  He was such a stickler for detail that he created his own publishing company, Graphics Press, and did all of the finicky typesetting and illustration placement for these books.  

Books and Essays

Those books were invaluable to me as I progressed through 40 years of work at IBM, ending up in what was then their prestigious Research Division.  My son. also a data driven geek in the earliest stages of the AI/SI industry now owns those books and I sometimes remind him “Sign Your Work.” Be proud of what you do and let others know who you are.

New Frame Saw / Scroll Saw

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It’s smoother, more accurate, quieter, and doesn’t scare the children.

photo of the scroll saw from the front

My previous scroll saw was an attachment for my treadle powered lathe. It was built from a postage stamp sized drawing by Roy Underhill. While it served well for years, it is a clanky, rickety, wobbly, insanely noisy collection of loose parts pretending to almost work as a saw. Accuracy is subjective. Yet, I cut many wood carving projects with it and was satisfied until arriving at a new project that wants several parts thicker than the saw could handle; basswood parts that are 3 inches thick.

This new saw, also treadle operated, is a simple frame saw that has the frame moving in a vertical plane, riding very smoothly on drawer slides.

photo of treadle operated frame saw

The support frame is simply an unfinished flat assembly of construction grade 2 x 4 lumber, joined by half-laps. It clamps to the front face of my workbench. Drop a rope from the bottom of the moving frame, loop it around a hinged treadle, and we have the motive power that pulls against the spring at the top of the support frame. That spring is only a couple of strips of quarter inch thick lattice, and more rope. Functional, not pretty.  It has the added benefit of storing away in minimal space.

For the table that supports the workpiece, I use my woodcarving bench-on-bench sitting behind the frame. Clamped to the bench is a piece of cabinet shelving with a hole drilled for the blade. Simple, and as with the other parts, easily stored in minimal space.

The saw frame itself is poplar, using bridle joinery. Most important are the blade holding pins and blade. These are parts from the Tools For Working Wood 12″ bow saw. I’ve used them before for a wonderful turning saw and for that earlier scroll saw. I cannot say enough good about them. The bottom pin has its flange trapped by a wood block screwed to the bottom of the frame. The top pin is adjustable thanks to being pinned inside a lamp pipe which can move inside that upper block. Tensioning is via a slightly bent cross bar. A variety of blades from TFWW offer a good range of cutting options.

photo of top blade holder
top blade holder
photo of top blade holder parts
top holder details
photo of bottom blade holder
bottom blade holder
photo of cut pieces for a Gibbons-like woodcarving

So, how well does it work? Two answers. The next photo shows the parts of a new carving project, all but one cut with this saw. They are 2 and 3 inches thick, with the longest being 21 inches long. The video shows a comparison between the old saw and the new.

What I haven’t shown you are the smiles that come along with using the new one.

Inspiration

The first inspiration appeared in the middle of a video made by Esteban Jiménez at his woodcarving shop in Barcelona. His treadle operated frame saw is gigantic in comparison to what I wanted. Impressive! Watch Esteban describe it and then demonstrate its operation:

Another inspiration is one of many examples I found of treadle operated fret saws used by marquetry artists. Here we see Christina Moreno using her frame saw:

Lamppost Sign

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photo of home with a lamppost in front

Until now, there was only one hand painted lamppost sign in a group of 500 homes.  Now there are two.

Every home around here has a lamppost in front of the house, and each lamppost has a bar for hanging a sign.  Typical signs show the first names of people who live there, their house number and some other ornament such as the logo of their favorite collegiate sports team. The signs also show an uncanny sameness, not surprising when one knows that the documentation package for a new home sale includes a coupon for the sign maker.

Here was a chance for me to paint something different, a sign derived from the folk art known in Buenos Aires as “Fileteado Porteño.” The artform has a long history that includes a rise in popularity during the middle of the last century, a tailing off due to many of the original artists passing away, a period when a totalitarian government tried to ban it, and a recent resurrection that has made is popular once again.

I’ve been enchanted by the style for years and what better chance to imitate it than to make our own sign. Full of acanthus leaves, scrolls, flowers, birds, and dragons, these signs are vibrant with bold multi-layered colors.

close up photo of the lamppost sign. It has 2 large acanthus scrolls with dragons emerging, several other flowers and birds, and the words "Bob & Eva" with the house number 931.

In his book “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell expresses the idea that it takes about 10,000 hours to achieve mastery.  For sign painting, I still have something like 9,411 hours to go. This was a very enjoyable project and I’ve started picking up a new skill.

Minor details: the sign is 13″ by 18″ painted on aluminum material intended for traffic signs. The base coat is sprayed enamel. All of the other elements are hand painted with “1-Shot” sign painter’s enamel. It’s topped with a sprayed clearcoat.