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“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.”
— Edward de Bono
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Drivel Starved Nation! Here is an opportunity to win a valuable FREE PRIZE–got your attention yet?

It’s summer–we are all supposed to be having fun! So take a break from swatting mosquitoes and consider this totally awesome new contest that I wish I had thought up. Hey, I did think this up! Never mind.

Got plenty more things to think up too. So do you.

While teaching at Marc Adams School of Woodworking earlier this year, one of my intrepid students planted this calk gun on my bench. (Note to Self: Curriculum needs to be harder.)

While pretending to be amused, I snapped a pic on my cell phone which I figured would not turn out since I don’t know how to use the camera on my cell phone. Imagine my surprise when I found it this morning.

Now imagine your surprise when you win a valuable FREE PRIZE out of the millions of entries that are sure to pour in chasing this valuable FREE PRIZE!

Here is all you have to do: 1) Find your calk gun. 2) Insert a cartridge. 3) Create your very own label. Or two. Or Three. 4) Snap a pic. 5) Email pic(s) to: john@bridgecitytools.com by August 29, 2011 6) Wait until August 30 when the winner will be announced.

The valuable FREE PRIZE will be awarded to the most fun, original, out-of-the-box idea. Extra points for plausibility–maybe. There are no other restrictions other than those you place upon yourself–and if you do place restrictions on yourself, shame on you.

The idea is to have fun–as in LAUGH OUT LOUD fun.

–John

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“Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.” — John Updike
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After a lengthy delay, we are pleased to announce that the wait for the CT-17 Dual Angle Block Plane will soon be over. The first wave leaves our warehouse early next week and it will take about 2-3 weeks to ship them all. If you have one on order, a tracking number will be coming to your inbox soon.

Since there has never been a block plane like this, we thought it might be fun to show how they are assembled–particularly for those of you who take things apart…

GOING, GOING…GONE DEPT.
The limited edition Crowning Plane that we announced a couple of weeks ago (we are only making 50) will soon be sold out. We will announce this to our entire database later this week–there are 7 remaining. If you have been sitting on the fence regarding this offer, time is short. Call for details. 1-800-253-3332

Lastly, a couple of weeks ago I attended the “Dwell on Design” conference in LA and while there, Roger Savatteri hosted a meet & greet for those interested in the Jointmaker Pro. I will add my take on both events AFTER we get all of these planes delivered!

–John

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“Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.” — Albert Einstein
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Chairs are like music to me–there are endless opportunities to express oneself. Here are a two that I thought were fun.

The “Inception Chair” is a wonderful surprise and a fun piece in my opinion–and rather complex from both a design and maker perspective if you stop to think about it…

And finally, it all comes apart to reveal that it is actually comprised of 10 chairs…

Intrigued? Please meet Vivian Chiu.

The chair below is not an illusion.

And yes, you can stand (or sit) on it…

“The Cut Chair” is from the creative mind of Peter Bristol. I also loved the whimsy in his “Training Dresser” pictured below.

GREAT DEAL DEPARTMENT:
All of my work is done using CAD and the software of choice here is called Shark by Punch! Software. Normally this package sells for $1,795. For those that may be interested, you can use the coupon code below and get version 7 for $495. Works on both PC and Mac platforms. FYI.

Shark FX v7, $495, limited time
code= PAFF495

Disclaimer, we have no affiliation with this offer–we are just users who paid more than $495… Like any software, there is a learning curve, but the results can be incredible and ultimately will save you much time. It is not free like Sketch Up, but it is way more robust.

Here are a couple of Shark v7 screen shots of the CT-17 which are now in final assembly…

–John

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“All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.” — Albert Camus
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Pleased to share that the DJ-1 Universal Jaws are at our warehouse and are being shipped this week. They came out great and we are excited to hear your feedback. We have a couple of extras so if you missed the order window, give us a call: 1-800-253-3332.

ALL of the CT-17′s are back from the grinders and are going through fit & finish in our prototype shop. Here are a couple of pics of the grinding machines;

The surface grinder is a big one…

There are two set-ups in this image, planes are getting their soles ground on the right, and one side square to the sole on the left…

Here is a closer view of the sides after grinding…

From here, each body is hand de-burred, the mouths are filed by hand, and the mechanism assembled. All told, there are approximately 2 hours of work per plane left at this point. So close!

Next week I will be traveling down to L.A. to visit Roger Savatteri’s new shop and meet with a gaggle of folks interested in the Jointmaker Pro. I am really excited to present the new accessory fence (still in CAD form) for feedback and comments. We will be gathering on Saturday and if you would like to attend, RSVP Roger: savatteridesigns@earthlink.net.

Last week I announced our 2011 Special Edition tool, the Fox Tail Crowning Plane. As mentioned we are only making 50 and as of about 10 minutes ago, half are spoken for. Here’s another peek:

Lastly, we should be seeing first article of the new HP6v2 profiles we introduced earlier in the year…

Lot’s of stuff going on here–all thanks to folks like you!

–John

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“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” — Mary Lou Cook
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For the past two years we have produced a limited edition tool unlike all our other offerings. Each edition is limited to 50. They are not for everybody but they are fun for us to do.

Here is this years edition, a Special Edition Fox Tail Crowning Plane (2″ Dia). If you purchased one, or both of the previous Fox Tail Special editions, an email will be arriving soon.

This is a bevel-up profile plane which flies smack in the face of conventional profile plane design. We also happen to know it works fantastic. This tool will never be made again, but it will allow us to proceed with some really interesting ideas down the road.

The body is solid 303 stainless and the fence is anodized aluminum for weight considerations.

–John

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“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” — Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.
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Roger Savatteri, is christening his new shop by hosting a Meet and Greet for Jointmaker Pro owners, (present, future and prospective) on Saturday, June 25th.

Roger is a professional designer/craftsman/artist who uses two Jointmaker Pro’s and one Jointmaker Single Wing for aspects of his work. It is an honor to be able to spend time in his new shop to talk shop. I am also looking forward to meeting fellow owner/makers. Besides, what part about beer and pizza is not to like?

I will be discussing the new fence/clamp/index system I have been working on (Prototypes will not be done unfortunately) and will be bringing samples of the JMP mega-project I am working on for Woodworking in America. Be forewarned: all who peek must be sworn to silence!

Here is a pic of Roger cutting dovetails on the Jointmaker Pro;

Please RSVP directly to Roger:

savatteridesigns@earthlink.net

AND…put “JMP Get Together” in the subject bar. Roger assures me he will check his email and send time and driving directions.

This should be really fun and a great opportunity to meet fellow woodworkers and see this tool work in a real shop.

Maybe we will play some Beatles songs too.

–John

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“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”— Joseph Chilton Pierce
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JOHN GOES TO THE WOODSHED…AGAIN.

A couple of days prior to departing for my annual teaching gig, I received a rather scathing email from a customer who was incredibly frustrated with his inability to track his tools in progress. Our nightmare run of the CT-17 the exception, every word of his complaint was not only brutally direct, but dead-on accurate as well. We responded, the air has been cleared, but this has been bugging me for a couple of weeks now.

Time to make some lemonade from lemons…

After an internal brainstorming session (lots of cranial hail too) we are going to create something that could be not only informative, but fun as well. The following updates (and more) are going to be made to our website as soon as humanly possible;

• The wording is going to be changed on items we no longer stock from “Out of Stock” to “Non-Stock Item”. This may seem trivial, but it is a big deal in helping those who are new to the site understand our “Make To Order” process, the production frequency,  and the manufacturing schedule.

• Items currently in production will be tagged “Currently in Production, Pre-Order Window Closed–Call for Availability”.  We do a small percentage overrun in excess of orders to accommodate potential rejects. We keep a wait-list for those who missed the pre-order window.

• We are going to do a much better job of indicating when an item may go into production. FYI, we need to make runs of approx. 500 units to keep to the posted price on our site. As an example, we would need a list of approximately 700 makers who have selected the ‘Notify Me” option for a particular tool to be produced again.

• We are going to create a space on our site where you can ascertain where your tool is on a manufacturing timeline. We will update this once a week every Thursday.  For example, when the Jointmaker Pro components are sent to be anodized,  this is 2-3 week process. Right now, the CT-17′s have had the soles ground, and currently the sides are being ground square to the soles–next stop is final assembly and fit and finish work.  We think it would be really cool to keep everybody updated on all these steps, both from an anticipatory perspective and an educational view.  We are even tossing around the idea of included pics or video of work in progress.  Regardless, you will be able to track your tools on a weekly basis.

It is not fun to get screamed at, but in the end everybody benefits and I can sleep at night. OK, that is not happening.  If you would like to see further changes PLEASE let us know–the way our website is constructed, all of these changes involve de-compiling and re-compiling so it is not an inexpensive, nor fast process.

TOOL MAKING 101

Both of my classes were a blast from my perspective. The Tool Making class was really cool as most students had no prior experience working with dissimilar materials. (hint: it is primarily an abrasive process).  The class size was ideal (12) and the work was astonishing. Each student was able to make a try square, miter square and a marking gage. For most, it was their first time on a milling machine. And what a piece of junk that was!  Please, if you are going to add a milling machine to your shop, find an old machinist, find out what kind of wine he likes, and ask him to tag along while you review old Bridgeports.  The cheap, imported garbage of a milling machine that Marc bought new barely worked for us. There. I feel better.

The tools and class are going to be the cover article of an upcoming Popular Woodworking issue. Megan Fitzpatrick and Ajax Alexandre came down and shot stills and video and then we munched on some pasta and talked tool making.

Everybody did B+ work or better, and a couple of nascent tool makers got to see an old tool maker pull out some tricks on how to turn a disaster into a flawless fix. That was fun!

There is a method to my madness. I hope by teaching this class a couple of new tool makers are born–there has never been an easier time to start a business than today. I would love to teach this class again, and a next level class with more advance projects.

Here is a pic of the tools made by student Mark Sterner;

They came out fantastic yes/no?

–John

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“And the trouble is, if you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.” — Erica Jong.
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Before I share the video of our 3 new Japanese Folding Saws, I want to give you a glimpse of the type of students who took my tool making class last week…

OK, this was from the advanced class.

Let it be known that “Calder the Tool Eater” is now one year old. (He belongs to Michael…thankfully.) Here is another shot of Calder after all the tools were eaten;

I don’t know about Michael’s parenting skills–where are the safety glasses?

Available for Pre-Order Later Today…

Remember, you read it here first several weeks ago–we now are going into production on the three most popular Japanese saws, the Dozuki, Kataba and Ryoba and best yet, they fold. If you ever wanted to carry a saw with razor sharp teeth in your pants, now is your time.

Offer coming to your inbox later today-here’s a sneak at the video and how the mechanism works. The buns of steel in the video belong to…

–John

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“Never forget that only dead fish swim with the stream.” — Malcolm Muggeridge
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Having spent two weeks in Indianapolis doing my penance at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking, I am anxious to dispense a dose of drivel…

I felt both of the classes I taught went well. I will post more on the Tool Making class later. The “Thinking Creative” workshop was really fun. I won’t share all that we did, but each day we spent 20 minutes warming-up by creating “Frankenstein” headlines from the daily newspaper. Here are a couple of my favorites;

Never taught a class with such weird names… Bessie Ballstinker. Kendall Outhouse-Injector. Ernie Noodlehoser. Tobias Dogdoer. Bartholomew Stoolswiper. It was a wild week. And I for one am glad to get home to inform all that the CT-17 soles are all ground, and today, they started on squaring the sides to the soles…oh so close!

–John

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“When we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our work takes on the quality of play and it is play that stimulates creativity.” — Linda Naiman
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The next two weeks I will be in Indianapolis teaching two classes; Creative Thinking/Design and Toolmaking 101. I am really excited about both of these classes and always enjoy my time at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking. I am also bringing a couple of my helicopters because there are plenty of places to crash on the school property.

I really like the quote above–most days I can’t believe I have earned my living for almost 30 years by playing here at Bridge City. Speaking of which, I have three major R&D projects going, all of which I am really excited about. One however is keeping me up at night: an accessory fence system for the Jointmaker Pro family of saws.

I want to do so many things with this tool that set-ups need to be easy, fast and off the charts accurate. The new fence system will allow you to move a stop in 0.001″ increments and get the heck out of the way in a hurry if need be. More important, I want to be able to cut gears, and this system will be the foundation for that attachment next year. We have also found away to add the clamping system to the fence (way cool) and I should be able to share images when I get back at the end of the month. We are also anticipating doing something really rare–and that is for those who purchase this system, we want to buy back your original fence (The metal components, knobs and lock bolts). We will strip and re-anodize the aluminum for the base fence system of future JMPs. I hope to have a working prototype to demonstrate at Woodworking in America at the end of September.

My personal shop is now in a back bedroom of my house. Space is limited, and these three new saws are going to be very welcomed in my cramped working space. (I would have more room if I did not have to share this space with a female shoe collection that would make Imelda Marcos proud…fortunately, Louie dog has, and will continue to whittle the collection–he just needs more help with his stealth techniques). Here’s the skinny…

The most popular of all the Japanese saws are the Dozuki, Kataba and Ryoba. Because of their traditional length, they have always been tough to store. No longer, as these fold and the handle becomes a blade guard.

The locking mechanism is fast, rigid and intuitive. Why even a caveman…

The 28 TPI Dozuki blade is .012″ thick, (.33mm) and leaves a kerf of approx. .020″. It is faster than our JS-1 and I really like that I can fold it and put it in my back pocket. OAL is approximately 24″.

The 20 TPI Kataba (below) is a deep cheek cutting saw–and is perfectly suited for tenons and furniture making. The added mass of the handles makes controlling these saws a breeze–they fall under their own weight during cutting. (It is easy to spot the induction hardened teeth.)

Below is an image of the Ryoba–the utility saw for crosscutting and ripping. The fast cutting crosscut (16 TPI) is the saw of choice when you need to cut a large board in half across its width. The 12 TPI rip is used for…you know…ripping! (There is an included guard for the exposed teeth of this saw when folded.)

Here they are together;

The handle is common, and the blades are replaceable so one option is to purchase the kit version of the saws…

We are still working on pricing (and the value of the dollar is not helping) but check this out; Handle plus three blades will be around $140. Add one set of spare blades and the total will be under $200.00.

It will take three months to make them, and we will stock spare blades but not complete saws or handles. Offer coming to your inbox next week!

–John