Intarsia patterns going to hell

8/03/2009

As those that read my other blogs know, my father died on May 30th. I went down to southern Ca, where he lived and the same house I grew up in for his funeral. There are 3 other people in my family that by Dad's account were his children. Since my Mom died in 1990 there was no one left so I am sure you know the drill. House of 49 years to be cleaned out and the contents shared. Then there is the selling of the house, etc.


With that almost done I have started to TRY to think about getting back in the wood working mode. Specifically intarsia, my true love!

But

Something seems to have happened.

All the patterns from magazines, internet etc, where I look for patterns for intarsia has really changed.

With all due respect what I have seen lately have been AWFUL!.

For instance, I have been noticing that bird patterns, (something I LOVE doing) have changed. Instead of a bird, (like my Red Tailed Hawk that is on this blog)that has individual feathers to cut out and shape and glue back together, the patterns are more like scroll work. The feathers have simple cuts that do not go all the way through for a group of feathers.

I found a BEAUTIFUL horse intarsia pattern a couple days ago, but instead of the pieces defining the shoulders and the hind quarter, the pattern called for just the side of the horse to simply be cut through in 3 separate places. No defining piece.

Has the business of selling patterns now outweigh the looks of the patterns? More money is made in pattern making? Some of those I have looked at recently look like someone drew a picture of an animal or whatever and then a few lines drawn to separate the pieces.

Does anyone understand what I am trying to say? Has anyone noticed this?

Titebonds response to shelf life

5/16/2009

A man that goes by the name Don2Laughs from Lumberjocks sent this letter to Titebond in reference about wood glue and it's shelf life.

How can I determine the age of this product? There is a faint 7
digits stamped on the upper portion of the (16 oz) bottle but it must
be code of some kind. What is your reason for not posting the date
clearly on the label?
Thanks,
Don2Laughs

He sent their respose to me. I asked him if he cared if I share this with my readers and he was more than willing to let me.
So first of all, Thank you to Don2Laughs for this great info.

Allison, I recently contacted TiteBond and here is there respons … very interesting. I asked why they didn’t post the manufacture date and … read their response:
The first digit of the lot number is a number. It is the last digit of
the year of manufacture. The second digit is a letter. It indicates the
month. We use the letters A through M, excluding the letter I. The third
digit is a number. It represents the manufacturing division the product
was made for. The next four numbers represent the internal lot or batch
number. That is followed by a decimal point and two numbers which
represent the day of manufacture.
Example:
6L12455.23 – This material was manufactured on November 23rd of 2006.
OR
The first digit of the lot number is a number. It is the last digit of
the year of manufacture. The second digit is a letter. It indicates the
month. We use the letters A through M, excluding the letter I. The
remaining number and/or letter combinations are an internal lot number.
Example:
9L12455 – This material was manufacturer in November of 1999.
OR
The first digit represents A for America (made in), the second digit is
the last digit of the year of manufacture, the third and fourth digits
represent the month, the fifth and sixth digits represent the day of the
month and the last four digits represent the lot number.
Example:
A904270023 – This material was manufactured on April 24, 2009

When we place the actual date or an expiration date on the material, the
retailers have complained and enough sent them back that we no longer
could do so.
We warrant the product for one year, because we have no control over how
the Titebond III is stored. When stored well, the product has a usable
shelf life of 4 years.

Please retweet this or stumble it. I think it's good information!
Thanks, Allison of Wood Alley

Wood Glue's shelf life

5/13/2009

 I can't say I ever thought about this before. Wood Glue's shelf life. I am reading the 2009 issue of workbench magazine and inside on page 15 without an authors name is an article about wood glue and shelf life.

Did you know wood glue's shelf life is generally 1 to 2 years? even if it's NEVER been opened? I did not. I am also guilty of this, buying wood glue when it's on sale and buying more than I normally would. Trying to save that buck, just to find out now I have wasted that buck. Just something to think about. There has got to be other's out there besides me that never really gave a second thought to this!

So do not buy glue that you don't plan on using in the next year or two.

You really do learn something new everyday!

Sanding spindles and sleeves

5/07/2009

Like I wrote in my last post I have such a small shop every little bit of area is sooo important. What you see here is an old totally trashed night table someone was throwing away. I am sure you can see I never tried to clean it up.

What I have done with it however was simply take a piece of plywood and place a bunch of dowels on it to hold up my spindle sanders sleeves. On the other side I also took a piece of plywood and drilled some holes. This is where I keep the spindle's themselves.

 The little single drawer you can't see is filled with extra's of all, along with my drill bits. I have this placed right next to my floor model drill press. This comes in really handy in this small area I work in as the nightstand is small. It sits behind the drill press up against the wall where nothing else could really go. I saw a tip like this once in a magazine and just threw it together. And ya know I think I will keep it just like it is.
 Sure I would like it to LOOK better, but by God it does and works exactly like I wanted and needed it too.