The Workshop

3:32 PM

Hi @drs. Congratulations on getting this site launched!

7

@NiallC. Thanks! It seemed like it would never happen for a while there!

I am so unbelievably excited about this site :)

@PeterGrace My sentiments exactly. Though I'm also nervous about getting enough activity to survive this phase

Joe

Given the activity so far, it seems like it will be okay :0

It's easy when you have year to let committers slowly trickle in. Now we have to make sure we get enough high-quality content and active users to make it a sustainable site

3:44 PM

@drs I'm on a few facebook groups that I mentioned the site was soon to be released and they were quite excited. One of the groups has 12,000 members.

@PeterGrace :) Ok, that makes me feel a bit better

The problem, I think, is going to be similar to other new sites: you have to know how to phrase your questions so that they're answerable concisely and canonically, and that's a hard skill to just understand without being taught.

When the site goes into public beta, I will certainly post on reddit's r/woodworking and the facebook groups to let 'em know to check it out

Unihedro

How much wood would a woodworker work if a woodworker could work wood?

I just joined to make that joke. Bye for now, then.

@Unihedro all of it.

He would work all of it.

6

Oh no! Don't cut me down and work me!

4:01 PM

@J.Musser It's almost time for me to start getting back to gardening.se, but I'm having just too much fun asking and answering questions on woodworking.

@PeterGrace Yay! Haven't seen you there for a bit!

I have a shipment of 50 strawberry plants due in the next week or two, I just got done building a strawberry pyramid

@PeterGrace mail order? Who'd you buy from?

Gurneys. I have had good experiences with them in the past.

@PeterGrace Same here. So expensive, but good plants.

How did you remember where I'm from?

4:06 PM

@J.Musser your bio mentioned you're a mod on gardening :)

@PeterGrace nope; mod on Lifehacks :P

oh, right. Doh.

but I do have 25k rep on GL

That's impressive! I hope G&L can keep up the good work

gardening and woodworking are my two favorite hobbies

@PeterGrace Hope to see you more often!

4:11 PM

My gardening woes are much harder to answer than my woodworking woes, sadly. My back yard is currently one large swampy pool. I dug down into the pool and found a clay shelf about a foot down. I have a suspicion I'll need to head out there with a roto-tiller and amend with some sphagnum and maybe if I'm feeling fancy, some vermiculite or something.

@PeterGrace Compost would be best.

If it doesn't drain, perhaps use wetland plants rather than trying to alter the ground?

unfortunately this area in question is lawn space for the kids to play in so doing landscaping there would reduce that play space.

@PeterGrace in-ground swimming pool? xD

My ground is soft too:

@J.Musser Hey, PA! Whereabouts are you? I live in Pottstown which is outside philadelphia.

I, too, am a fan of Dodge Rams as well.

@PeterGrace Lancaster.

kewl.

4:20 PM

Nice! We're neighbors.

@PeterGrace Hey cool. you didn't ask me but I'm in Philadelphia myself.

Yeah, someone once stopped and asked if my truck was stuck. Put her in 4 low and pulled right out with no spinning.

Rename this room, "woodworkers from PA" (jk) xD

hah, right?

@drs nifty! Do you go to any of the makerspaces in the philly area? I know there are a couple woodshops that you can get a membership to.

Back when I committed to this site, I didn't know I was going to become a mod on LH, so I won't have much time for it :(.

But I can vote.

:D

@PeterGrace Yeah, I'm a member at Philadelphia Woodworks in Manayunk

4:23 PM

nice!

I'd be willing to help moderate if people are looking for pro-tem suggestions

I live in a condo so all my woodworking is done at the PW

I'm not sure whether the community team would be against an employee as a pro-tem

@PeterGrace I won't, partially from time constraints, partly because I'm no expert on the subject :D

@PeterGrace Oh, you're an employee? Cool!

Ah, yeah, I wouldn't consider myself an expert either, I just happen to take great interest in the topic and love puttering in my wood shop.

@J.Musser Yep, I'm the director of IT -- I oversee the team that ensures the people who work for SE are able to do their job with a minimum of fuss.

4:25 PM

Oh, duh, just saw your MSE account ...

@PeterGrace Sounds fun...

"I do computery stuff"

I don't.

That's pretty much what I tell people who ask what I do for a living.

I do plant health care for a living

Which is fun.

@J.Musser arborist or landscape?

4:30 PM

@PeterGrace Both.

And lawn.

The hard part is keeping up all the certifications, etc

fun. We had a couple trees cut down in our back yard because someone said they were diseased. It is a lot hotter in our back yard now.

61 F. here

xD

@PeterGrace plant more?

I'd like to, but my wife is less inclined to do that. I did convince her to let me buy two grafted apple trees and a peach tree though

the apples won't get too tall but the peach is semi-dwarf and should get to about 15 feet. Gonna plant that in the front and hope it takes hold.

@PeterGrace Get anything off those yet?

Or are they new?

brand new, also from gurneys, arriving later this month.

4:33 PM

@PeterGrace You know, you can keep a standard peack at 8' and still be healthy, if you want to.

gurneys.com/product/flat_wonderfulpeach_tree_/peach-trees

that is the peach tree

man, they charge a lot for it

I also got a fuji and pixiecrunch apple so that they'll cross-pollinate in the proper season

That's like twice market value (imo) :P

It was an expensive order even with the 50% off coupon I had :)

well that answers that

4:35 PM

Oh, so 1/2 off ... hahaha

So I got 'em for approximately market value!

IT WAS A STEAL (of overpriced goods)

the strawberries were pretty cheap though

I think it was $12.99 for 25 plants

which is way cheaper than going to home depot and buying transplants

But it is worth it (imo) because of the lifetime guarantee on the nursery stock.

@PeterGrace There's a local nursery here that sells em cheaper... Let's see if I can find it...

@J.Musser Does your company come all the way up to Pottstown? :)

Lunch time, back in a bit. Good work so far on the site, @drs -- I'm already at rep cap for the day :)

@PeterGrace Not really, like to stay within 20 mins. when possible

5:14 PM

White Oak Nursery:
Strawberries (mix or match), in 25's:
25 or 50: $7.95
75-150: $6.00
175-300: $5.00
325-475: $4.70
500-800: $4.40
825 or more: $4.15

Full case, one variety (1,000 plants): $131.00

So cheaper than what you got.

but not a huge selection.

It's where I used to get them for production beds, the plants were high quality.

Nice.

@PeterGrace I just got my 7th Gurneys catalog already this year.

They are quite free with those.

Because I used to always buy from them

Now I'm not doing as many veggies.

5:49 PM

I'm up to my fourth Burpee Catalog

6:03 PM

@BrownRedHawk lol, I only got three of those yet :P

Anyone here cut dovetails by hand? I just got my dovetail jig from Veritas in the mail

veritastools.com/Products/Page.aspx?p=171

I'm very excited to give it a whirl. I've only really done big projects, on big equipment. I'm excited to do a few things by hand.

@BrownRedHawk That's interesting. I actually have yet to do a dovetail myself.

This was a guide/marking jig all in the same unit. It was a little pricey, but ultimately it is a very well made tool. I'm going to start out small and make a small box first to hone my skills. Ultimately, I'd like to build some smaller furniture.

6:29 PM

That's the first time I meet a site without downvoters (even private beta)

nicael, who got the downvote? this might make your famous (or infamous) lol

Nobody yet, as you see :D

Oh, I misunderstood. I thought you had earned it.

No,I am not an expert in this topic :)

I'm a little slow today. 1 cup of coffee is far below my necessary intake.

Q: Should we get rid of "wood" in our tags?

6:46 PM

0

I just stumbled into tags which start with "wood" (by searching for [wood-*]). It's obviously that all the questions on this site have and will have to do with wood. Do our tags need contain "wood"?

The tags thus far shouldn't. I'm racking my brain for tags that would.

I would agree that wood-turning should be turning

Glad to see the discussions have finally migrated out of the backyard and into the shop...

plywood and green-wood should keep "wood"

i'm not sure what "wood-movement" is

I'll second that the word 'wood' is not required in the tags, except where it's integral to a single word like @drs mentioned

6:58 PM

@drs Same.

Should circularsaw be circular-saw to match the other [*-saw] tags?

@FreeMan ...can that be the name of this room? "The Shop". Or "The Wood Shop".

@NiallC. I'd say yes.

I think things like circularsaw should be circular-saw

And I'd argue that technique is a meta tag: blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/08/the-death-of-meta-tags

@El'endiaStarman I'm cool with that, though there's a Meta question about naming the chat room.

7:00 PM

Do we think that thinks like stain, staining, oiling, finish, finishing etc. need to be consolidated as well?

I would think that the discussion should take place there to make it easier to track back to why we went with what we did.

@BrownRedHawk Yes, if it a tag is more than one word, it should be separated with a hyphen, not combined

(programmer by trade - I like to track the decision making process...)

@FreeMan That popped up since I last looked at Meta.WW.

Hah! It won't let me crate [circular-saw] because the other tag already exists. Meta.WW here I come...

7:19 PM

Reading @Joe 's tag formatting guidlines, I'm wondering if we need special consideration for the saw tag.

Should saw include only saws that are hand tools or also power tools, like table-saw, band-saw, etc.

My inclination is that it should only be used for hand tools, but I can't decide exatly

@drs Other SE sites have a concept of ambiguous tags where if you try to use one, it will pop up a warning and suggest others that you should use instead. I have to run but I'll try to find more information about it later. Might work well here

@NiallC. I know it's possible to blacklist a tag so you can't use it at all. That might be the way to go for "saw". Or something like "wood".

@drs wood-movement would be stuff related to the growth and shrinkage of wood as humidity and other conditions change.

It's a big problem for non-engineered building materials, you have to compensate with some alternative building practices to minimize its effect.

Aww, I am rep-capped today, boo!

@PeterGrace Yeah that was my guess, but I thought "wood movement" was awkward phrasing

and is it more commonly about warping than growing/shrinking?

7:34 PM

@drs Most commonly we're talking about expansion along the grain with a sprinkling of twisting/warping

usually once you've jointed and prepped a board that has been properly dried the twist/warping is not as prevalent as expansion/contraction

if you're using wet wood, god help ya.

Joe

@drs For saw specifically, that tag is probably not all that useful. sawing may be more useful (for general 'sawing' technique, or for methods involving sawing not specific to a particular kind).

@Joe That makes sense to me

Joe

In theory you could even just make it a synonym of sawing, as it would then not be usable by itself.

Q: How to harden a steel chisel/blade?

urgh, begrudgingly toss my first vote-to-close

1

I wonder of some sharpening technique can reduce chisel efficiency, so maybe after giving the chisel a nice cut it worth re-hardening it so it will last a longer in time. I know I can heat it and then put it in water/oil but I wonder if water must be cool, shall I re-heat a bit the blade after ?...

sharpening chisel blade

@PeterGrace Once this is up and running, we can start blacksmithing SE.

7:50 PM

@saltface haha, I wish I was a blacksmith. Although I did smelt a bucket of lead yesterday (I cast my own bullets)

Woodworking is a gateway drug to smithing. Once you realize you can make furniture to your exacting specifications, making your own tools and hardware to make that furniture isn't far behind.

@PeterGrace Is that for black powder or are you making your own bullets for reloading?

8:14 PM

@saltface I make my bullets for reloading. I shoot .45 Long Colt usually, which is a lead projectile traditionally

Gotcha. I do wonder how they make jacketed ammo...

how do we encourage people to come back and accept answers ? as of this writing, we have 40 questions and only 4 accepted answers.

I find that SE is much more useful when I can see that there is an accepted answer - it's much more likely to work for me.

8:40 PM

I see five unaccepted answers.

@FreeMan For me, I usually wait a day or two before accepting an answer, if the answer is testable I'll test it and do it immediately

but some questions I don't know for certain if it is the right answer.

I think that the community team at one point said that one shouldn't feel obligated to accept an answer if they're not sure it's an acceptable answer.