Matt's Basement Workshop Video Feed

Regardless of how many times I've been to Woodworking in America the one place that gets all my attention, and apparently that of the vast majority of show visiters, is the Marketplace. Where else will you find some of the most unique tool makers in the woodworking world all under one roof?

Not only can you get your hands on these tools, but more importantly you have an unique opportunity to talk with the tool makers themselves. Ever wonder about having customized tools made? Have questions about the design or function of a tool? Or just want to play with some really cool tools? The Woodworking in America marketplace is the perfect place to do all of that and more. It's truly the woodworker's candy store.

But if you've visited this year or in previous years you also know there's more to the marketplace than tools and supplies. There's great freebie demonstrations from the likes of Roy Underhill and Adam Cherubini to name a few. Along with drawings for amazing door-prizes, opportunities to meet with television personalities like Scott Philips and Tommy McDonald. And for the really daring, there's the Hand Tool Olympics. Compete against yourself or a friend or two to see who can have the best results with a basic set of hand tools to create basic joinery and complete typical workshop tasks.

Thanks to the many tool manufacturers and vendors for your time and answering all of my questions. It's much appreciated!

Vendors in today's episode include the following:

Hock Tools

Two Cherries

Bow Clamps

Catharine Kennedy

Tools for working wood - Gramercy tools

Elkhead Tools

Microjig

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This week starts the first of two episodes featuring selected clips from some of the classes I attended at Woodworking in America 2011. There are a lot of great classes to choose from and the lecturers are equally fantastic.

While Woodworking in America is usually billed as a hand tool event, over the years several new topics have been added to round out the experience of attendees. From design and Sketchup to power tools and even Japanese hand tools. Woodworking in America lecturers are covering a wide variety of topics.

In today's episode I've included clips from Graham Blackburn's "Hand planes for joinery", Chuck Bender's "Secret drawers & hidden compartments" & Charles Brock's "The Sculpted Rocker - A study of form and function".

To learn more about each of these lecturers, books, DVDs or possible upcoming classes visit the following link for each:

Chuck Bender - www.acanthus.com

Charles Brock - www.charlesbrockchairmaker.

As promised, today's episode is the second of two episodes featuring selected clips from some of the classes I attended at Woodworking in America 2011. There were a lot of great classes to choose from and the lecturers were equally fantastic.

In today's episode I've included clips from Megan Fitzpatrick's "Your first dovetails", Charles Brock's "Sculpting by hand & power", Chris Schwarz's "12 rules for toolboxes" and Steve Shannesy's "Veneers in contemporary furniture".

To learn more about each of these lecturers, books, DVDs or possible upcoming classes visit the following link for each:

Chris Schwarz - www.lostartpress.com

Charles Brock - www.charlesbrockchairmaker.

I'm late to the game as usual, but in this case, being late is better than never showing up at all. What am I talking about? The Woodworkers Fighting Cancer Charity Build.

If you're not familiar with Woodworkers Fighting Cancer it's a charity started by our good friend Marc Spagnuolo - The Wood Whisperer to help raise funds and awareness about research to fight a disease that has probably touched each and everyone of us at some time in our lives.

The most recent fund raiser involves individuals building a Rocking Horse from free downloadable plans available through WOOD Magazine. The project was one that could be accomplished with a minimal number of tools and wasn't so much a challenge that even brand new woodworkers would feel comfortable tackling it.

The build was a lot of fun and I learned a few things along the way...especially an important lesson about spray adhesives and my disdain for jigsaws. But you'll hear and see more about that in the video.

For more information on Woodworkers Fighting Cancer, including how you can donate directly, visit www.thewoodwhisperer.com/wfc/.

I mentioned on a recent episode of Wood Talk Online Radio I was building some small boxes for my wife Samantha's photography business -Shuttersam.com.

The boxes are best described as being nothing more than a "Super simple box". No extravagant ornamentation, no exotic species and no complicated joinery. The idea was a plain box that would be given to her clients with a DVD of their images inside, along with maybe a few proofs.

I have no delusions that these boxes will be passed down from generation to generation, but in fact expect them to be set aside on a shelf somewhere or maybe even re-purposed for some other task. So the design for the box was that it wouldn't take long to build, be inexpensive and just be functional.

The first few took me a little while to get the building process tweaked. But after having built about a dozen or more so far, it now only takes a couple of hours to batch out up to 6 at a time. In fact the bottleneck now is waiting for the glue to dry.

I'm planning to experiment with more box making in the future. So plan to see some various designs and construction processes in the future. But for now, enjoy this super simple box.

Today's show is the first of several episodes covering the construction of a shelving and drawer set. A good friend of the family approached me about building two tall shelving units and two short units with drawers.

All four pieces would stand on top of solid maple bases and the drawer fronts would be solid maple also. These would be left natural with a clear finish while the shelving units and drawer bodies will be painted a glossy white.

The entire project, except the base and drawers themselves, will be made from MDO - medium density overlay. This is my first experience with MDO and as we'll talk about in the final wrap-up episode, it won't be my last.

In today's second episode of the "Shelves and drawers" build we move on to the drawer construction. Just as we saw with the first episode, large projects can appear complicated but when you take the correct approach they can be completed quickly, easily and more importantly accurately.

By ganging similar cuts for each component, you can take advantage of a single setup on your tool to eliminate unnecessary steps. Not to mention it also eliminates the possibility of making miscuts too.

http://youtu.be/bk8Vj8ZLR6I

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In part three of the "Shelves and drawers" build we tackle the construction of the solid maple bases. All four pieces stand on the same style of base, so except for the lengths of the support beams between the tall shelving units and the short drawer units, we can once again gang up and make similar cuts and actions all at once.

And even though the bases will, for the most part be hidden out of sight, that's no reason to not take a few minutes to design something that looks nice. You never know when someone will take a look!

It's a new year, but we have a little work to finish up from the previous year. As promised, today's episode is the wrap up to our "Shelves and drawers" series.

In part four we complete the "Shelves and drawers" by building the drawer fronts from solid maple, attaching the bases to each of the units and then adding all the final touches from painting to hardware.

A lot of you had questions about using MDO; its workability, paintability, cost and more. Rather than addressing each of your questions as they come in, I tried to include all of them in the video. Hopefully I answer yours, but if not, don't hesitate to contact me.

Today's episode is the first of a series answering many of the questions and topic suggestions you the audience have sent me over the last 6 years. I frequently get questions regarding choosing tools, stock, projects and great feedback on things we've already covered.

Unfortunately I haven't had a chance, all that often, to take these questions and turn them into the great content they'd make. So while I'm currently finishing up a couple of project builds, I thought we'd do start tackling the list of audience inspired episodes.

In today's show, a listener asked about choosing a shoulder plane. He asked specifically about two models, the Stanley No.92 and the Ron Hock Shoulder plane kit. While I prefer not to make specific recommendations on which tool to purchase, I do have an opinion on the features that make a good one and things to consider when thinking of purchasing.

I'd love your feedback on today's episode and your suggestion for this listener and also the many others who have asked very similar questions about shoulder planes also. Leave a comment in today's shownotes or drop us a line [email protected].

And if anyone noticed the video seems a little off, I've been experimenting with using my iPhone as a video camera...it still needs a little tweaking, but not too bad.