Molly Bagby

Follow Friday: Denis Hermecz

May 172013
 
Denis Hermecz

Denis Hermecz

On today’s Follow Friday we have the work of Denis Hermecz, a woodworker from Silverhill, AL, who we featured in our Show Us Your Woodcarving column in the May 2013 Issue of Wood News. Throughout his woodworking years, Denis has created a variety of pieces including cabinets, nightstands, and bookshelves, and lately he has been focusing on woodcarving.

In an interview he did with Woodworking Network, Denis discussed how he started his career in woodworking. In order to earn money for school, he worked as an apprentice boat builder, where he was able to find a passion for the craft. In college, he majored in English and like a lot of people do when they graduate, he focused in getting a career where he could use his major whether it be as a Writer or English Teacher.  He didn’t realize it right away, but once he figured out he could make woodworking into his career, he was set on his path.

Carved Mirror Frame

Carved Mirror Frame

My favorite piece that Denis shared with us is the mirror frame that he custom made for a client who had already installed the mirror that she wanted the frame to fit. The process that Denis used to carve this piece is also very interesting:

“I drew the vines directly on the assembled rectangular frame. I cut out the shapes with a Bosch sabre saw and I carved most of the shapes with a Bosch 12000 rpm side grinder–an extremely versatile tool. There is some carving done with hand held chisels out of my mixed bag of old chisels, but I try to design a big piece like this one so that hand carving is minimized. I sand a lot of the pieces like this one with Festool random orbit sanders and some with a Fein multitool sander.”

The frame takes up an entire wall at 54″x103″, and a lot of the vine work that Denis put into this piece was freestyle form, which is what I think makes this piece stand out to me.

Below are a few more pieces that Denis has made. If you would like to see more of his work, you can visit his website HERE.

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Fridays on the Highland Woodworking Blog are dedicated to #Follow Friday, where we use this space to further highlight a woodworker or turner who we have featured in our monthly e-publications Wood News or The Highland Woodturner. Would you like for your shop to appear in our publications? We invite you to SEND US PHOTOS of your woodworking shop along with captions and a brief history and description of your woodworking. (Email photos at 800×600 resolution.) Receive a $50 store credit redeemable towards merchandise if we show your shop in a future issue.

Follow Friday: WinterHawk

May 102013
 

We’ve made it to Friday! Today’s #FollowFriday is WinterHawk, who was featured in our May 2013 Wood News Show Us Your Shop column. WinterHawk lives and has his shop in the country woods of Templeton, PA, about 40 miles north of Pittsburgh.

WinterHawk’s woodsy shop exterior

WinterHawk specializes in creating Native American Style Flutes. He became inspired to start making the flutes after spending many years of teaching Lakota drumming and holding Native American Gatherings, where the flutes and drums would often be played, along with rattles and shells.

Flute Montage

Flute Montage

To find out more about WinterHawk’s woodworking methods and to view more pictures of his work, please visit his website HERE.

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Fridays on the Highland Woodworking Blog are dedicated to #Follow Friday, where we use this space to further highlight a woodworker or turner who we have featured in our monthly e-publications Wood News or The Highland Woodturner. Would you like for your shop to appear in our publications? We invite you to SEND US PHOTOS of your woodworking shop along with captions and a brief history and description of your woodworking. (Email photos at 800×600 resolution.) Receive a $50 store credit redeemable towards merchandise if we show your shop in a future issue.

Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush!

May 072013
 

We try to keep up with a lot of woodworking blogs here at Highland, and one of our favorites is Chris Schwartz’s blog over on the Popular Woodworking website, where he recently discussed the use of toothbrushes in Canadian woodworking and how they are used a bit differently than in the US. To sum it up, you want to be sure that you know where your toothbrush has been before using it for its normal purpose of keeping your teeth clean.

This technique was demonstrated at one of Chris’s classes at Rosewood Studio in Ontario, Canada, where Chris recently taught his Anarchist’s Toolchest class this past April. Check out the looks of concentration that Hans, one of the students, demonstrates while completing the glue-up of his carcass.

Follow Friday: Chris Adkins of High Rock Woodworking and Modern Woodworkers Association

May 032013
 

Chris Adkins

Today’s Follow Friday is Chris Adkins, someone you may already be familiar with, who has recently become a large presence in today’s woodworking community. Along with Dyami Plotke and Tom Iovino, Chris has helped bring a new following to woodworking as a founder of the Modern Woodworkers Association, an online community founded in 2010. The MWA was started “as a way to organize woodworkers participating in online communities, help spread the word about the network of woodworkers and the knowledge they share, help connect people, who share a love of the craft both online and off, and build a framework for growing the craft for the future.”-MWA Website.

In our April Wood News, we featured Chris in our popular Show Us Your Wood Carving column. Chris is a third generation woodworker based in Atlanta, GA, whose “day job” is a general contractor. Although he doesn’t call himself a wood carver, his beautiful Tree Box (seen below) begs to differ. This project started out as just a 1 day box project that he was making to practice his dovetail cutting, and then he decided to add the tree carving at the very end. The tree design was cutout with a scroll saw and then carved through a combination of hand carving and a Dremel Tool with a carving bit attachment.

Tree Box

Paul Sellers, lifestyle woodworker and Founder of the New Legacy School of Woodworking, mentioned Chris and the MWA in one of his blog posts about a recent visit he made to Atlanta. Click HERE to read the blog and more about Paul Sellers. While he was in town, Paul even participated in one of the popular Modern Woodworkers Association’s Podcasts, where he and Chris discussed his work, his background, and how to get younger people involved in woodworking.

To find out more information about Chris Adkins, you can visit his High Rock Woodworking website HERE. His website features lots of great links to articles, videos, and projects on all things woodworking.

Follow Chris’s individual Twitter HERE, and the Modern Woodworkers Association HERE.

ABC Cube made of Maple, Oak, and Chestnut, that also acts as a rattle.

A Lesson from the Woodwright himself, Roy Underhill

Apr 302013
 
Standing Desk with Roy Underhill

Standing Desk with Roy Underhill

In addition to doing demonstrations for the Highland Woodworking 35th Anniversary One-Day Sale this past Saturday, Roy Underhill stuck around on Sunday to teach a day-long demonstration workshop on building a standing desk (pictured left). While the actual process of creating this desk from start to finish would take much longer than the allotted time for the class, Roy demonstrated the different techniques needed to create the different parts of the desk, as well as the joints needed to piece them together. Although we didn’t take a finished product home with us, we all got to learn the skills needed to build our own and have Roy help us with our techniques.

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Using his Marking Gauge to mark out his cuts

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More marking with acute precision

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Sawing dovetails with his one-of-a-kind Lie-Nielsen Saw created just for him

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Maybe the Lie-Nielsen was a bit too big for these cuts

I have taken a few classes from Roy before this one, most notably during Woodworking In America a few years ago. Not only is Roy a great teacher, but he is also very entertaining and definitely knows how to keep his audience. From using audience participation to create a “human workbench”, to the cool and smooth maneuvers of “Spoffer”, Roy had plenty of one-liners and musings to keep this demo class on its toes.

Never a dull moment with Roy

Never a dull moment with Roy



Roy’s custom One-Stroke Dovetail Saw in action

35th Anniversary Celebration Wrap-Up

Apr 292013
 
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Roy working with his chisels.

Highland Woodworking had a wonderful turnout for our 35th Anniversary Celebration and One-Day Sale this weekend. We were excited to have our special guest, Roy Underhill, in the store on Saturday doing demonstrations of a variety of hand-tools, both old and new.

In addition, we had representatives from Carter Products and Festool doing demonstrations throughout the day, while visitors were able to stop by and checkout their latest products.

Be sure to checkout our Facebook page in the coming week for more photos and videos of the celebration and Roy’s visit!

Alex from Carter Products

Alex from Carter Products

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Just did some smooth planingRoy entertaining the crowdRoy entertaining the crowd

Later in the day, Roy moved outside to demonstrate sharpening to passersby

Later in the day, Roy moved outside to demonstrate sharpening to passersby

Roy Underhill: Moment With A Master

Apr 262013
 

I’m not sure how many readers were in attendance at Woodworking In America 2010, but whenever Roy Underhill is mentioned in any sort of conversation these days, I always think back to this picture of one of his classes that weekend and how entertaining he was in his demonstrations.

Roy doing a demo during one of his classes at WIA 2010

Roy has been well-known in the woodworking community for several decades now, and his influence is still going strong. Roy is still producing new episodes of his popular PBS show, The Woodwright’s Shop, every year, and that combined with Roy’s opening of the Woodwright’s School in 2009 allow him to have quite an impact in all facets of the woodworking world.

During his visit captured in the above video, Charles Brock got to explore Roy’s beautiful North Carolina mill property, in addition to checking out The Woodright’s School located in Pittsboro, NC. As someone who enjoys both woodworking and the outdoors, I am quite envious of Charles’ visit and one day hope to have my own opportunity to make it out there.

In the meantime, I am excited to see Roy this weekend when he comes down to Atlanta for the Highland Woodworking 35th Anniversary Celebration and One-Day Sale. In addition to his vast knowledge of woodworking, I’m excited to experience his humorous antics and jokes firsthand. Though I’m not sure if anything can ever beat the combination of Roy and Christopher Schwartz together in the same room for Roy’s keynote speech at the 2010 WIA Dinner. The speech ended up becoming more of a roast between Roy and Chris, and I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house after it was over. I wasn’t the only one who laughed until they cried!