Bob Easton

Chocolate powered woodworking

Bob Easton

New Greenland Paddle – part 1

by Leave a Comment

Evan has asked about another Greenland paddle, this time longer and with slightly different dimensions. So, a trip over to Condon Lumber brought home a couple of pieces of lumber. Condon keeps a large stack of cedar at one end of their yard, fully exposed to our wonderful 4 season weather. A yard worker there opened the stack with a fork lift, helping me find a suitable flitch, 8/4s thick, about 8 inches wide, 12 feet long.

  • photo of two boards leaning on my ruck
  • photo of long board and frame saw
  • photo of frame saw in middle of a cut

Atlantic White Cedar and some sort of very heavy, dense, dark wood (Mora?). Rough cuts defined by red chalk lines, the magic 12 foot long straight edge. Quick rip with my favorite 4 TPI frame saw.

Update: July 14

  • photo after cutting 2 boards
  • photo of 2 boards cut to rough length
  • photo of gap under bowed board

Two solid 2x4s (real 2″, real 4″), then cut to approximate length. It’s always interesting to see how wood moves. After cutting, one piece developed a slight bow: 1/8 ” over a 7 foot length. The other piece did not. We’ll see what they look like tomorrow. 3-4 days in the shop after years sitting outside in a stack.

Update: July 15

  • photo realignment for grain orientation
  • photo - using drawknife

The ideal grain orientation for almost any project is “vertical.” None of the lumber available provided a way to get there directly. (i.e. no pieces 3+ inches thick, none from the absolute center of the tree) So, let’s tilt our object within the board to get closer.

The desired finished dimensions are ~ near / within ~ 1.5 inches by 3.25 inches. Layout some more guide lines and start reducing. The drawknife makes for quick waste removal.

…and that 12 foot long workbench makes the work easier.

P.S. that little bow noted earlier isn’t going to make a difference. Just a curious observation.

end view of refined board

Update: July 17

After grain reorientation, I have a board that is 1.5 inches by 3.5 inches, ready for final layout. The angled edges won’t matter, as they were always going to be cut away.

Update: July 21

Moving slowly … cautious of wood movement as bulk of waste is removed. Best news: no twist!

  • photo of a greenland paddle - roughed out
  • photo of a greenland paddle tip - roughed out

Zoom – Just say “No!”

by 6 Comments

While I’ve confined most of this blog to woodworking topics of some sort, my “day job” was nearly 50 years in the technology business, most recently software engineering and developing accessibility techniques for making the Internet an easier place for people with disabilities.

So, I’ll break away from Splinterville for a few moments to talk tech.

Main point: Don’t use Zoom. What!?! Doesn’t everybody use zoom? Unfortunately, too many.

I’ll be blunt. While Zoom is bright and shiny and easier to use than some other products, it is a Chinese product with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP has absolutely ZERO respect for personal freedom, independence or personal privacy. Zoom is a security sieve, so full of holes that any of your personal information can be easily mined by the Chinese Communist Party and other malcontents.

Do you want your conversations with your doctor, your financial advisors, your insurers etc., known by others? Think very seriously about what information you exchange in Zoom meetings, or what information your reveal in your Zoom profile, and whether you want any of it known beyond the people you trust in those meetings. Zoom has a long history of security weaknesses; everything from the absence of encryption in some “free” meetings, to very weak encryption when used, to Chinese servers controlling those weak encryption keys, to weaknesses that lets others into your meetings, that lets others take over your webcams, to a backdoor that lets the CCP listen in anytime they please, and similar weaknesses that cybercriminals are now exploiting to steal your digital identity.

Amazingly, one of my healthcare providers chose Zoom for “tele-medicine” meetings. Their reason was because Skype wasn’t HIPAA compliant and Zoom was. I can’t imagine how Zoom is HIPAA compliant while being riddled with security and privacy holes. DOH!

Personally, I blame Microsoft. They’ve been very complacent in not upgrading SKYPE to meet modern commerce demands. Think: old cow whose milk is still bringin’ cash.

A collection of articles about Zoom’s security flaws:

Bowl #4

by 4 Comments

  • photo - completed bowl
  • photo - completed bowl
  • photo - completed bowl
  • photo - completed bowl - bottom

Ambrosia Maple. Length: about 13″ – Width: about 8 & 1/2″ – Height: about 4″ – Finish: food safe flaxseed oil

This log came from tree maintenance along a wooded road to the South of Lake Welch in Harriman State Part, NY. It was one of the logs I asked about a few months ago. From that query, I learned about the Ambrosia beetle and its habit of burrowing into a tree to establish nesting space. The beetles who inhabited this tree are long gone, but they left their large marks and a few tiny bore holes.

photo - rough shaping

The log rested in a plastic bag for a couple of months before I started on it. By the time I started, it had dried a bit and was as hard as one expects of Maple. I did a lot of the rough shaping using my newly built bowl horse. [ Bowl horse design from David Fisher. ]

I always find it interesting to see how many chips result from carving. Two pics show the bowl. The first is after roughing, with all the chips from that process, and the second is after final carving with those chips. The chips become garden mulch.

  • photo of bowl #4 - work in progress
  • photo - bowl and chips - 2

FWIW. This bowl is, at the time of this posting, currently lost in the mail. I posted it for a destination in Europe while in the midst of lockdown mania. The post office wasn’t aware at that time that mail to Europe was being held at various points along the way. Some European countries were rejecting entry of all mail and have only recently opened their gates. We have yet to discover whether the package actually arrived in Europe, or is being held at a big airport on the U.S. east coast, or … ??? — UPDATE: arrived at its destination after elebenty-seven days in transit.