Silent woodworking is alive and growing.

The folks at Popular Woodworking magazine have conceived and orchestrated a woodworking event like no other. Woodworking in America promises to be an extraordinary gathering of hand tool enthusiasts and tool makers in Berea, Kentucky.

Today I spoke with Megan Fitzpatrick at Popular Woodworking and she offered the following;

“Our goal is to provide an unparalleled gathering of some of the biggest names in handtool woodworking, from tool makers to master woodworkers, and in a variety of traditions (western and Japanese). “Marquee” names include…well, just about all the speakers. The most well-known are Roy Underhill, Frank Klausz, Mike Dunbar, and Mike Wenzloff.

In addition to the 40 sessions, the “marketplace” is more than just a venue for makers to sell their wares — it’s more of a “show and tell” atmosphere, where attendees can stop by the various booths and ask questions, use the cool tools, and get personal instruction from the actual makers.

We’re very excited, gratified (and very pleasantly surprised) about the immediate and widespread interest, and hope we’ll be able to offer many more of these types of gatherings in the future.”

Michael and I are excited to exhibit our tools and I am honored to join the other speakers to help make this a very memorable weekend for all. There are 37 unique workshops (and 3 repeats) and as of today, approximately 400 woodworkers have signed on! The list of exhibitors is impressive–and there is not a router in the bunch!

As part of the awareness for this event, The Woodworkers Resource is hosting a series of interviews with the guest speakers. As of this writing there are two posted, one with Michael Dunbar and the other with that guy from Bridge City Tool Works talking about their tools and the Jointmaker Pro… click the link to listen.

All the hotlinks above are a wealth of information and registration is still open. I think this will be the most talked about woodworking gathering of the year and if at all possible please consider joining us–this is going to be fun!

–John

Yesterday I spent the afternoon playing with our Jointmaker Pro prototype. Here’s a short video of a couple of ideas I pursued–as you can see, the accuracy of this tool is incredible. We are all marveling that I can work in our office doing these things without disturbing anybody. It was one of the best days I have had in a long time!

Here’s a direct link to the YouTube video; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTVKQgOqZSo&fmt=18

Also, the Bridge City forum is now open. This is a moderated forum where you can ask woodworking questions or share information regarding our products. The location for entering the forum is at the bottom of our home page. Click on “Community Forum”.

Years ago there used to be an amazing lumber store in Los Angeles called Penberthy Lumber. Steve Penberthy, rather than stay in Los Angeles to work in the family business, moved to Portland and started Woodcrafters Lumber Sales–which to this day is the largest woodworking store in the Pacific Northwest. They carry just about everything a woodworker could ever want or need, including a few select Bridge City items. They are our favorite resource for wood used in photoshoots and assorted projects.

Steve Penberthy has been a business friend for over 30 years–even though he is the reason I had to quit my furniture making career (he sold me the exotic wood that made me hyper allergic to wood dust). It would be more honest to say this was a result of me not wearing a dust mask, but this is America where somebody else must take the blame… Regardless, it was one of those life changing moments that was meant to be, for which I take full credit.

This morning I hopped over to Woodcrafters to buy some scrap wood for our next Jointmaker Pro video and spotted Steve at the checkout counter.

“I have something for you” he said, and retrieved a pile of Polaroid images.

Sifting, he spotted what he was looking for and handed me an image of John Economaki (that would be me) attending Bridge City’s very first woodworking trade show. The venue was the Cow Palace in San Francisco in early 1984.

I only had two tools to show, the TS-2 Try Square and the SA-2 Scratch Awl. There was no fancy booth, just a table, a 70′s mustache and a story to tell about two tools.

The image has deteriorated but it is the oldest known image of me actually doing something, although that is not obvious either.

-John

Bridge City Tool Works officially began with an ad in the 1983 Nov/Dec issue of Fine Woodworking magazine. As weird as this sounds, that does not seem so long ago to me but this image proves that I must be delusional. Our first full year of operations was 1984. Here it is 25 years later–hmmm, I smell some special events around the corner……

Over the past eleven months we have been working on what may be the most important new tool in our 25 year history. The Jointmaker Pro is a new and safe way of working wood that yields terrific results (unbelievable in some cases), without power or dust collection and is as quiet as sanding by hand.

Last month we released a short video that showed a sampling of this tool’s capabilities. That video has been seen the world around and is the subject of more internet discussions than any woodworking tool that I can remember.

We don’t participate in woodworking forums, so we never respond to criticism or praise. That changed last month when Michael Berg (one of our designers) informed me of a civil woodworking forum that was also intelligent and fun. Simultaneously, I received an email from Matthew Schenker, (who is responsible for this forum) inviting me to participate in a lively discussion regarding the Jointmaker Pro and to answer the many questions already posed by participants.

The Festools Owners Group (FOG) is an avid and highly passionate collection of woodworkers who simply believe in quality tools. They too are vilified by the Woodworking Taliban, so I decided to briefly join their forum to invite one of their members to Portland for an unfettered couple of days with one of our Jointmaker Pro prototypes.

And that is how we met Roger Savatteri.

Roger is a full time woodworker/sculptor whose work is stunning. Unlike many woodworkers, he designs first and figures out how to make his designs later–this is how it always should be.

You can read Roger’s detailed review of the Jointmaker Pro here. In order to see his detailed photographs you must join the FOG forum–I think it is a decision you will not regret, and it is free.

(I particularly enjoyed the section on how to trash a blade..)

There are also a couple of interesting shots of our ball-bearing model of the Jointmaker Pro (since rejected because of price) that you will see only in his review. Most importantly, if you think the Jointmaker Pro has a future in your shop, this is likely the most in-depth review available.

We are planning on taking orders on our site within the next 10 days. If you would like to be informed of the introductory promotion, go here and fill out the info at the bottom of the page–we will then be able to email you when the introductory period begins.

Below are a couple of pics from Roger’s visit in early June.

-John

Roger setting the Jointmaker Pro fence to 90 degrees.

Here Roger cuts his first single pass dovetails.

Our moment for posterity–John, Roger and Michael forcing smiles for the camera.

Light-tight dovetail joints are a hallmark of craftsmanship. The video below illustrates how we make through dovetails using the Jointmaker Pro. In the interest of saving a few megabytes of bandwidth, a little background information is in order…

“Traditional methods” are important, perhaps pertinent, but often times I feel the urge to try ideas that are not 300 years old. That said, the only aspect of dovetailing in this video that is “traditional” (it is such a regressive word) is waste removal by chisel. The rest should be an enlightening combination of speed and accuracy–and easily replicable.

When setting the blade (or the fence) of the Jointmaker Pro to a particular angle, we make practice cuts on wide stock until the stock nests perfectly to a reference (t-bevel or square). All of the prep work for this video was done off camera.

Regarding pins vs tails first, I embrace “whatever works for you”. However, with the Jointmaker Pro we are definitely pro tail (socket) first. The reason is simple, we did not need to layout the tails. You will see us using a stop block for joint symmetry. We also made all of the tail cuts by cutting from both faces of the stock with the blade set at the same angle–this ensures the single pass cuts are also dead symmetrical–this is much faster incredibly accurate…more on this at the end.

By making a zero clearance throat plate, we can make single pass cuts to either side of a line with ease–and so can you. We used 1/8″ aircraft plywood for the false tables and the throat plate. (You only make these once, they can be used over as often as needed.) The video shows minimal layout to mate the pins to the tails–that is all that is required and pencil tic marks worked fine. Of course, you can use whatever method you prefer–we only care about a light-tight joint.

I think you will agree, the saw cuts cannot be improved–by any method. And if you had a complete project (as opposed to our single sample joint) we believe there is not a faster way to hand cut dovetails. Of course layout can be expanded for more complex joints but you don’t need much–the saw does the work perfectly without the need for a thorough visual reference. The saw (assuming a sharp blade) cannot cut crooked unless your set-up was crooked.  In short, the Jointmaker Pro reliably cuts your intent, cut after cut without you worrying about accuracy.

It is incredible to think that EVERY cut is exactly the same depth and perfectly angled. Lastly, this was a first take video and we spent no effort on the proportions of the half and full pins. We just made cuts and chiseled away and you will never guess what happened. I could fit the tails onto the pins from either direction, and that has NEVER happened to me before.

What fun!

–John

PS: I am working on a way to cut half-blind dovetails. I will let you know if I succeed…

If you have a woodworking friend who would like to see this video and not wade through my ramblings, here is the YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_eyFENlSQ0&fmt=18