2012 Woodcraft Woodworker's Show

The Weekend of October 6th Woodcraft Seattle had a big sale and Woodworking show. They do this because the big national Woodworking Shows quit coming to Seattle.

 



There were lots of woodworking displays and demonstrations. Some are shown below.

 

Say you want to do woodworking but can't get a shop full of wood - just use pre-made wood. Everything in this display is made of Popsicle sticks, tongue depressors, coffee stirrers and things like that. Amazing!

 

 

Michael Dresdner explains the technique used to make that wood pretzel thing in the foreground.

It is not steamed, soaked, or heated. Michael retired as a design engineer for Martin Guitars and lives in Seattle.

 

Things were hopping in the store. Store owners Ron and Michele were running around just as fast and hard as the rest of the staff. They are all great folks there.

 

 It WAS Seattle after all and if there is one thing more prevelant than coffee, it's music. And the Seattle SeaChordsmen provided the melodies for the day.

Seattle Woodcraft is one of the highest selling stores in the country and it's no wonder. They have everything you need, including wuden skwares and sirkulls.

 EVERYTHING!!

 



A lot of people made pens for the first time.

 

 

 Patty from SawStop shows that the safest saw in the world does indeed cut wood very well.

You can't see it happen when you see it happen - so to speak - but Patty demonstrated the SawStop feature with a hot dog as a substitute for her finger. You literally can not cut yourself!

 

 

We all had a great time, sold a few things and met some amazing people from around the world. Thanks to Ron and Michelle Hall for the great time and the good food.

 

Colored Pencil Workshop with Gary Greene

Sunday August 5th we at Grip-All Jaws went with our Orbital Easels to a workshop at the headquarters of art supply manufacturer Daniel Smith in Seattle. The workshop was on Creating Radiant Flowers in Colored Pencil and was presented by Gary Greene, probably the world's preeminent colored pencil artist and instructor and author of several books. Check out Gary's website. We won't even go to the home page but directly to the gallery. Yes, every image is colored pencil.

Gary spoke at some length about the unique virtues of colored pencil as a medium. We were able to explore the translucence of colored pencil and the ability to lay color on color and blend. Way cool!

We got lots of one on one individual instruction and Gary was generous about sharing his philosophy, his expertise, and his skill with each of us.We all learned a great deal and had fun doing it. The young lady at the right, Melissa Davis, was far and away the best of us.

We were all doing the same subject and this is Melissa's example. We learned about pencil types, papers, stroke techniques, colors, blending, burnishing, you name it.

We had taken the Orbital Easels to field test the new desktop base.

The new base is a non-skid table mount that doesn't require clamps. We had a great time but more importantly the new Orbital Easel base is a hit. By the way, that large painting at the back is about 3 feet wide and is colored pencil. Gary said it took more than 300 hours to complete.

More news about the Orbital Easel and the new base coming up.

Tilt-Swivel Base Repair Trick

We were experimenting with one of our Tilt-Swivel bases. We use them in the Orbital Holding System and the Orbital Easel. But we came across a slight problem with one of them. Mind you, we have never heard of a customer having a problem, but at Grip-All Jaws we like to stay ahead of the curve.

The problem is, there is a little pressure disc inside that the clamping screw pushes against to keep the head tight. We found that if you unscrew the clamp too far and bounce the base around a bit, that pressure disc can slip out of place and the clamp won't tighten properly. We fix them here before we ship them out but if you ever notice that your clamping screw doesn't hold tight enough, you may have a "slipped disc". Also, the knob will tend to bind against the housing. At any rate, it's an easy fix you can do yourself. Here's how:

The first thing to do is take the base off the clamp board. Then take the screw knob all the way out.

  

Turn the unit upside down and remove the three screws that hold the retaining ring.

The ball falls right out and that's what we want.

With a 3/8 wrench, take off either of the acorn nuts that hold the ball together.

Separate the ball and there is the little offender - the pressure disc. If it hasn't fallen out all ready, take it out of the split clamp.

       

With the pressure disc removed, put a dollop of non-hardening adhesive in the corner of the split clamp. You don't need much. We use Liquid Nails Silicone Adhesive but you could use common rubber cement. But stay away from hardening glues like wood glues are Elmers.

You can't really see it that well, but the pressure disc is curved and you have to reinstall it with the curve up.

The last point is when you reinstall the retaining ring, make sure that the ridge around the edge is down and against the housing. This one is upside down to show the difference, this side goes down.

Then reassemble the whole thing and off you go. Happy carving!

Calligraphy at Hogwarts West

The Portland Society for Calligraphy was the sponsoring group for the 31st Gathering of Lettering Artists that was The International Calligraphy Conference on Tuesday June 26. It was held at Reed College in Portland, Oregon under the auspices of Calligraphy Northwest. This is a big deal. Reed College is a century-old temple of learning nestled in the trees of the Woodstock District of Portland -one of the oldest parts of the city.

The night before the show we went to the famous Powell's Books in downton PDX and they had a show of local calligraphers' works.

It was in a corner of the ground floor near the Orange Room. And you have to agree with Rosanne Rosanadanna, it is always somethin'.

Powell's is the largest new and used bookstore in the world. If you have never experienced Powell's City of Books, it's four floors, at least, in what used to be a car dealership building. It's an entire block on Burnside and people like Chris, above, are not only helpful but can be essential. That info booth is just inside the door and you can get a map to the place (you'll need it). Great coffee shop in house BTW!

The conference drew 500 attendees and dozens of instructors and teachers from all over the world. We were in the student union building with about 20 other one-day vendors. Check out the cool sculptures hanging from the rafters. They're made of balloons! Chihuly on the cheap!

Grip-All Jaws was specifically invited to this event by the organizers and they had us right next to the main entrance! We, of course were showcasing the Orbital Easel. Between classes and during lunch and dinner, people came in and tried out this new thing they had not seen before.

We did pretty well and had a great repsonse. One of the attendees said that this new tilting and swiveling easel was what everybody was talking about in the classes. As one student put it, "This thing is all the buzz." Cool!

One of the vendors there was truely amazing! Tim Leigh is a master calligrapher and one of the nicest people in the world. He was there selling his folded nib pens. Check out his web site for the whole story. Calligraphy is a right-handed persuit but Tim is left-handed. He realized one day that, lefty or not, a 45 degree slant is the same right-side up or upside down. So he taught himself to write upside down - and backwards! Check out the video of him doing it.

We have to say that we had not had such a good time as we had here in Portland. The organizers and tireless volunteers with Calligraphy Northwest were just the best. Check out the Facebook Page. This conference was efficient, well organized, and the people were more helpful than we could have imagined. And to the lovely and talented Angelina who ferried us to and from the parking lot in the funky, steam-powered golf cart, a special thank you. To all the great folks with Calligraphy Northwest, a campus-sized thank you from all of us here at Grip-All Jaws.

Yaahr! Yo ho, me hearties, yo ho!

Grip-All Jaws went to Rusty Scupper Pirate Daze in Westport, Wa June 22, 23, and 24. Saleswise, it proved - well - a complete failure. But in truth, the only people who sold anything were the food vendors. It also rained and the wind blew pretty much the whole time. But on Sunday the sun came out for a while and every Roger was feeling more jolly.

Our very own Lady Hilary aka "Crescent Wench" talking Orbital Easel with a couple o' scalliwags that were there Sunday. Maid Marla and Lickety Split.

These guys threw together a pirate song group and went up and down the street singing them. When they got to our end, there was a bit of a disagreement over what the words were. Swords were drawn but in a most un-pirate way they reached agreement and no blood was spilled.

T'weren't all pirates, to be sure. What's a pirate festival without saucy wenches? These girls were doing belly dancing all weekend - even in the rain.

The guy on the right had some ropes on sticks and a bucket of bubble stuff. This lash up made hundreds of bubbles and everybody liked them.

Like the song says, "...the wind was bad and the rain was strong..." But people made a good time out of it anyway.

We were off to Portland the next day...

Chemical Tests on the easel

We were wondering one day. We got to talking and it occurred to us that artists use all sorts of cleaners and thinners and stuff like that there. So we decided to test a sample of the Orbital Easel material to see how well it stood up to some of that stuff.

First of all water is pretty safe, obviously. However, watercolors will eventually stain the surface - as they do with anything else. So here is the result of exposure to several, and some rather nasty, chemicals that artists might use. Needless to say nothing we tried had any effect. Below is the list.

From top to bottom:

Denatured Alcohol - right out of the can.

Paint Thinner - The regular stuff you get at the hardware store.

Toluene - A standard thinner for oil-based paints.

MEK Methyl Ethyl Keytone - Pretty nasty stuff used to thin and remove resins used for fiberglass.

Naptha - A common cleaner and spot remover derived from natual gas.

Acetone - Another particularly nasty chemical, fingernail polish remover.

Lacquer Thinner - used to dilute oil-based lacquers and paints.

The Orbital Easel Tripod Base

We now have a tripod base available for the easel. It's similar to the regular base but small and has the treaded insert for a standard tripod.

As you can see, it's ideal for any sort of uneven ground when you are painting on location. You set the easel where it's most stable and your adjustment is in the Orbital Easel's tilt swivel base.

We suggest that you use a heavy-duty tripod and not a lightweight, $24 model from the camera depatment at Wal-Mart. After all, this is a 17 x 23 inch flat surface at an angle.

The tripod shown below is a Bogen "pro-sumer" type. But, honestly it was windy that day and there were NO stablilty problems whatsoever, none! Even we were surprised! There were several people flying kites that day. This unit is more stable than a standard easel.

It will be in store very soon!