Plane, scraper, sandpaper???

Re: Consulting OT (long)

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>Well, good luck on the change. Maintenance is ugly stuff... I can empathize with you on those sorts of things.

I have never consulted with respect to a contract-oriented nature which is common in today's IT world.

I started out working for a small software company that produced software on a contract basis. The instance I mentioned was a session of upgrading our own software installed at a number of ambulatory care clinics. Though I enjoyed some of my work at that company, the bosses' treated us all like crap. Plus one of them was a real moron, in my not-so-humble opinion. We produced two types of software: inventory control software, and a patient registration, tracking, and charting app.

The inventory control app was good stuff but it had a very small market. The medical software was good for its time but suffered from all the problems that a fat client-server based app does including heavy maintenance and time-consuming upgrade requirements.

After a couple of years of maintaining our apps, a fellow employee/friend and I realized that there had to be a better way. My friend came up with the idea of us hosting the app and running the servers while leasing out our programs and server space to reduce our costs of maintaining things.

My idea had to do with the Internet. In this timeframe, the net was just beginning to take off. Netscape just started offering their browser in boxed form in stores. I started messing with CGI at the time and for kicks, converted a sub-section of our app to run from a web-server via CGI. I was suprised out how easy it was to do the work. I showed my buddy and he thought it was great. We figured that with his hosting/leasing idea and my browser/CGI stuff, we could really cut costs and improve our performance.

We each told our bosses about our seperate ideas. My friend presented his though to the bosses and they told him that it was a waste of time. I still remember my conversation with one boss, Errol to this day. I told him about it, and even showed him some of it. His response is classic to this day: " A web browser is just a toy. What business would ever want to use a toy like this to do anything? The Internet is barely useful for entertainment."

Needless to say neither my friend and I were amused. We both quit not long after that...and went on to do other things. We both worked for consulting companies and I traveled my butt off for a number of years. I logged over 75000 frequent flyer miles one year and spent 5 months straight flying out Monday mornings and flying back on Fridays. I don't miss it at all.

Now I work for a small software company that produces software products. It's fun and interesting and sure beats traveling.

And there is some poetic justice in the world...

That first company I worked for went out of business about a 1.5 years later. Errol went on to bigger and better things as a manager of a health spa. Last I heard he was hunting for a job as a software analyst.

;)

sorry for the long rambling post...

Re: Plane, scraper, sandpaper???

Steve Knight

>the problem with a cut surface is it feels sharp and not smooth. I like on tools I play with for the wood to be soft and smooth. the curves to be smooth. with handtools you usualy get just sharp. but the cut sirface is nicer to look at.

hell I wish I could still plane and file my planes it is sure faster and easier. but people seem to like the sanded surface far better. once you start getting compound curves then sanding is really the only practial way to go.sometimes scraping works but if it is a shaper curve it does not.

Re: Consulting OT (long)

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Interesting. I've never had to travel all that much, which makes it enjoyable; but it's real funny, have had few clients local to me, have somehow been able to manage most of it with written documentation, phone tech support, and the last few years the internet. I did "have" to go to Italy once for a design session with a client, managed to negotiate 5 days off with room and board paid to muck about Rome. Generally I'd make 6 several day trips here and there in North America a year.

As to you and your friend's internet medical system idea, I take it you never built the system?

Pam

Re: Plane, scraper, sandpaper???

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Understood; but the C&W's seem to be quite successful, too; and they're definitely edgy. Maybe it depends more on the wood used.

Pam

Re: Consulting OT (long)

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>No, we didn't and it was probably good that we did not try.

I left out one piece of the application information. Originally Errol was approached by a doctor friend of his who wanted a charting application for hospital ER's. Novel idea but as we all later discovered, selling software to any group in the medical field is a very difficult proposition. Hospitals are the worst. They operate on long decision cycles (often 5+ years), especially for anything dealing with patient information and charting. It's understandable since there are serious liability issues, billing issues with insurance, and privacy issues. Given all the complications, hospital management boards are loathe to move quickly and often will not change from any systems they currently have. Since we were a small company with tight revenue streams, it was hard for us to wait 5+ years for a single sale to a hospital.

The clinic version of our stuff came as an afterthought. We were lucky enough to run into the right people at the right time and get a contract to make some software to reduce adminstrative overhead for a clinic chain called Avanti Health Care. They were a chain owned by Sanus/New York Life (at the time) that had over 55 clinics in New York, Houston, Dallas, Chicago and D.C. It was a decent system that worked good for them... We later hooked it up into the billing company and were able to transmit billing information at the end of each day. (This was a big deal back in 94 - 95). We had some interest from IBM who wanted to resell our system but Errol thought it was a bad idea to have IBM resell our stuff. (What a moron)

Anyway, even with Avanti it was hard to sell apps to them or to any medical company. A big company with a large revenue stream could handle it, but we were always tight.

As such it was probably for the best that my friend and I did not try to go out and write our own stuff since we would have had a very hard time selling it, especially something that bleeding edge, to medical companies.

My current company is running into all the same hurdles as they attempt to rightfully take advantage of oppourtunities in the health-care industry. However, in this case we have two advantages: we are a partner with IBM, and fortunately, our revenue is from other vertical industries.

As a side note, my wife is a Business Analyst/Requirements Writer/Project Manager for Medtronic/Sofamor-Danek. She is having to deal with all the new HIPPA requirements with respect to patient data and privacy while she works on a website they are creating. Complicated to say the least. They have monthly review sessions with the lawyers to go over compliance.

Re: Consulting OT

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I agree with you completely about the medical software market and the advantage of having a company like IBM involved. We're still IBM partners, but since they seem to want us all to become salesmen (On Demand, what a load), we are very inactive, started out as San Francisco early adopters/developers.

I'm sure we're boring the pants off most everyone else here, so it's probably time to stop. :)

Pam

Re: Consulting OT

Dennis

>Pam its not boring at all, in fact, far too many people open a business and go broke real quick. The interesting part is,it doesn't matter what type of business,computer or woodworking, so many things that it takes to start up and run a business are all the same.

You have a big advantage from being ,and still are as i read it, in knowing what it takes.

In the three years since i closed my shop and retired i have worked with several young talented woodworker's that were going out on their own. Once they got to look at the "cost of doing business" all but one are now saving money to try it in couple year's. The one that didn't,lasted 3 months and is deep in debt.

So the way i see it,this is good related information and i hope opens some eye's

Dennis

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Re: Consulting OT

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>That's a very good point, Dennis, business is business; but I have a reductionist attitude, always approached a new business software system with the attitude that it had to be about 95% just like every other business system, then attempted to learn everything about the remaining 5% possible. Of course, being a generalist is not a successful approach to the current software market, which seems to demand people who've worked in one little application area for 20 years.

The main thing I've learned is that I don't enjoy the business and administration parts; and the older I get the harder it is to make myself do something I don't enjoy. So my goal now is to find an agent (I don't mind secondary sales at all, am quite good at it) and a part time business manager, as soon as possible, I've already got a PR person. Now on to that 5%. :)

Pam

Re: Consulting OT

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>Of course, being a generalist is not a successful approach to the current software market, which seems to demand people who've worked in one little application area for 20 years.

Pam,

that's the opposite experience from what I have had. Though I don't know your circumstances that led you to reach that opinion, I have almost been forced to be a jack-off-all-trades, with a focus in one or two areas for me to even have a job. Quite frankly that's the only reason I got a promotion about 8 months ago for my current company and the reason that even now they are talking about pushing me up higher. Now I strongly suspect that my experience only applies to small companies. This would make sense given that small companies have fewer people, and as such, must put more of the labor burden on fewer people.

When I was consulting, I really excelled because I knew enough to be helpful in a number of areas and often went far beyond what even the customer expected. There was one instance where a DBA got fired because he told the customer he would not fix a problem since they caused it. I volunteered, telling the customer that I was not a DBA, and tried to resolve the problem and was partially successful. Two of that customer's managers personally thanked me for trying.

Now I have seen what you are saying at larger companies. One customer we had was a large manufacturing firm with over 70 plants spread through the world. Their IT department was large and each person was limited to one little area. One guy I worked with was responsible for one app on one of their mainframes. That's all he worked on. I had to wait two weeks on another guy to process a file so I could get some test data. Very irritating to say the least.

Personally I could never deal with a situation like that for long. It would drive me bonkers.

;)

Re: Consulting OT

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>Just my take on reading the job ads. Of course, many of them are geared to keeping foreign workers in the US, so the company must "prove" that no US worker could do the job; but still, some of them are real ads. Now maybe a big consulting firm would be more interested; but even they have a hard time selling their clients, have to respond to the stated needs.

It probably also depends on whether you've moved into higher management or not. My problem was/is that I did that with my own company (prior to which I had done line management for others), that alone makes me unemployable. Criiminy, I can't even get a job as a woodworking apprentice/helper. You'd think somebody somewhere would want a self starter, but nooooooo... :)

Pam

Re: Consulting OT

Dennis

>Look at this way Pam, how many computer company's would or will hire a self starter right now. Just a fact of life today, most small company's can not afford to train,teach and the big outfits will only hire people they can make money with right from the start.

And then we get into the money issue, "ok you can start tomorrow but it pays min wage", glad i'm not looking for a job now days.

Dennis

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Re: Plane, scraper, sandpaper???

Paul M. (San Diego, CA)

>"The primary wood is colloquially referred to as Red Gum (either Eucalyptus camaldulensis or Eucalyptus tereticornis, they're fairly similar). This stuff is HARDDDD. I haven't used Hard Maple (acer sacharrum) but the guides say that that Red Gum is way harder. How much depends on which test you believe."

I bought one board of Red Gum a while back to make a jewelry box out of. I loved the deep color and thought I would give it a try. First of all, the board was so heavy that I realized I would need to resaw this quite thin if I wanted a box that didn't weigh a ton. This was a rough-sawn board, so I took a smoother to it to clear up a patch to see what was in there. Then I picked up a different smoother and tried that. Then I tried a scraper. Then I put the board aside, where it is still sitting.

I've built things out of hard maple, and I've never had a sharp iron just drift over the surface like this Red Gum. The board clearly won. It's like trying to shave granite. Good luck on your tables!

-- Paul M.

Redgum

Andrew F in Australia

>Hi Paul,

Yes, it's horrible stuff to work at times, but the end result can be worth it.

I use HSS plane blades to work eucalypt, as I try to avoid perpetual sharpening. Stanley blades last about two-three strokes for me between sharpening.

Redgum in particular is a bear to work - prone to highly interlocked, figured grain and tearout, which can be avoided by using scrapers and sharp, finely set blades. If you can't get a plane blade to work, try putting a 10-15 degree back bevel on the blade, essentially turning the pitch of your plane to middle pitch or higher.

Cheers,

Andrew

Fascinating thread

Paul M. (San Diego, CA)

>I've followed this thread closely as it is fascinating. Most comments about planing versus sanding in this thread involve the look of the finished piece. There is another aspect to a finished piece and that is the feel of the finish. The best feel is from an oil finish as you feel the warmth of the wood instead of a film. And the only oil finishes that have given me a sensory rush while touching them have been sanded.

I've been primarily using a finishing technique that was taught to me by an instructor at my college (Russ Filbeck) who has won the "best finish" award at the San Diego Fine Woodworking while using this. He's a chair builder, and his chairs just beg you to touch them as the finish is completely sensual. And it does involve sanding.

Here's the finishing process if you are interested. Use a drying oil. If the oil doesn't dry to the touch within a few hours, then add a varnish so it will. The Liberon brand finishing oil is perfect for this out of the can.

First coat: Apply the oil somewhat liberally to a small spot, sanding in in circular motion with 220-grit wet-dry paper. You really scrub in this circular motion with the paper, not just a light swipe. Stick in a small area until you bring up a slurry of sanding dust, and it starts getting sticky. Then move on to another area. This takes me about a minute per 3" square area to scrub in the oil so it is not a fast process. As the oil starts to dry out (gets really tacky), use a clean cloth to remove the slurry. This is usually about 15-20 minutes after the finish was sanded in. This coat fills in the pores, and leaves a rough satin finish. Go back periodically over the next few hours and wipe away any bleed-back as the oil seeps from the deeper pores.

Second coat: After waiting 48 hours for the first coat to cure hard, do the same again with 320-grit wet-dry paper. Use lots less oil this time as the wood isn't as porous as it was with the first coat. You are filling in the small 220 grit scratches with the slurry from the 320 grit paper. It takes a little less time per small area as you are using less oil and it tacks up quicker. Follow the same buffing process, but expect less bleed-back.

Third coat: After 24 hours of curing, apply a third coat using the same process with 400-grit wet-dry paper. Takes just as long as the 2nd coat.

Waxing: After another 24 hours, just apply a paste wax and buff it out. The end result is a great satin sheen that just begs you to touch it. And touch it. And touch it some more.

This is a great finish for chairs, small boxes and items that won't see a lot of heavy abuse. It would not make a good tabletop. I've tried applying an oil finish without using this sanding process, and it just doesn't feel as warm and inviting.

Re: Consulting OT

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>True, I've never seen anything like it in 35 years of working, well, 40 if you count college and high school jobs. However, I really don't need training in the area of business/gov't applications, went back to school for the 1st year and a half of this recession to bone up on object oriented technologies, am really ready to go out of the box. I just couldn't believe all the companies looking for 5 years of Java experience two years after Java was invented.

I think it speaks to the quality of management in general, most just don't know enough to be able to evaluate skills properly (this isn't intended for you, Chris); and human resource departments are especially hopeless. It was the rarest of people who could look at Jack's and my resumes and company's experience and understand that we could step in and do anything, be productive immediately, only happened three times in 20 years that I recall.

Pam

Re: Fascinating thread *LINK*

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>OK, I've got a couple of boxes to do, will give it a try and report back in a week or so.

Thanks,

Pam


Liberon finishing oil

Re: Consulting OT

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>hehehe...

Considering I'm primarily still a developer, I take little offense at any manager comments. Even my boss (VP of Development) is a developer about 40% of his time. I really don't manage people so much as manage our major product from its development through new features to testing and internal processes.

As to management quality and hiring, I have found that most management I run into is hopeless in some form or another.

(just kidding...sort of)

:)

The hiring thing is interesting..

Mine has been a mixed bag. I have to say that for the current company, it was handled very well. The HR person did more general interviews but ultimately deferred to the team of 2-3 engineers that interviewed prospects. We were pretty strict and I have to say that we ended with an intelligent, resourceful, and capable group of mostly senior developers. The prior company I was with did just as well. But I have been at one other where they were not quite as strict and picked up some lemons.

Out of curiosity, when do you think java was invented? I started learning it in late 96 so technically I have about 7 years experience now.

(Kind of hard to believe it's been that long... just like I find it hard to believe I have been running Linux for over 7 years now too. The days fly faster and faster...)

I have seen that bit too about the experience thing... it's kind of funny really.

Re: Consulting OT

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>I don't know exactly when Java was invented, I started hearing rumblings in the '95 time frame, by '98 we had a Java project under way for an agribusiness, a viable package hadn't been shipping all that long, maybe a couple or three years earlier. I started trying to sell OOP skills in '97 (not as such, just projects utilitzing OOP), when I came across the "5 years Java experience" ads. It was spooky thinking about Gosling's application for those jobs (not), wondering about how connected the person writing the ad was, and how many people were replying to the ad saying they had 10 years experience using Java.

Pam

Re: Fascinating thread

Frank Mutchler, in Colorado Springs, CO

>Paul, this is the identical process used by gunsmiths to apply an oil finish to a gunstock. I've used it on quite a few, myself. The only change is that once the pores are filled the succeeding coats are hand rubbed. The only fault with this finish is that it takes so long to do properly.

Re: Stop it!

William R. Duffield, on the Cohansey

>You must stop the amateur bashing, especially the self-deprecating form of amateur bashing. Being an amateur woodworker does not make your opinions and experience worth any less than a pro's opinions, even a published pro's.

All too often, all too many pros are interested only in perpetuating those practices that improve their bottom line. All too often, they are too busy making a buck and meeting a deadline to try something new and innovative, or to spend any time on fora like WC, either learning better techniques or passing on what they have learned.

The passionate amateurs are often responsible for the real advancements in the hand tool and hand woodworking arts and crafts. They are much more likely to go try new things, to analyze subtle differences in processes and results, and much less likely to dismiss a new or possibly conflicting idea with a "NIH!" or "that ain't what I was taught! or ""I already know the right way to..."

Of course, these insular attitudes are not common to all professionals, as evidenced by the participation in this forum of pros like Sam Simpson, Michael Dredsner, and many respected professsional hand tool makers, just to mention a few.

If you were looking for my opinion on planing vs. sanding vs. scraping, all I have to say is "it depends..." and "I do not like using belt sanders."

Re: Consulting OT

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>ahh... I remember those ads now. They WERE weird...

I remember talking to a couple of friends about them. We all wondered how anyone could fit them. We speculated that, similar to your point about HR deparments, it was just a bolier-plate job ad that someone posted without realizing the what the requirements meant.

I dug up one of my old Java books and it said something about Java existing internally at Sun as early as 1993 as a project code-named "Oak." I remember that first beta JDK's (version 0.9 IIRC) came out late 94/early 95. I got one of the beta's and then 1.0 came out a few months later.

Two side notes:

1) When I worked for that consulting company, we got one of the Java stations on loan from Sun. Neat little device but it seemed like it lacked a purpose for existing.

2) In my last long travel stint(5 months+) as a consultant, I was working in Austin. Our office was right off of Mopac near the 2222 intersection. I can't count the number of hours I spent at Dave and Buster's or how many times I ate at Carrabas.

Re: Consulting OT

Pam Niedermayer - Austin, TX

>IIRC, I don't think there was a viable JVM (for production rather than development) until '96/'97, '98 for the Mac, which most of our clients used. And even then it was a little risky trying to get a client on such a system, had to state a lot of caveats in the development plan. We only had one client who was such a leading edger, he was the one we were developing for in '98.

I've never spent much time around 2222 and Mopac (our office was next door to UT at 28th and Nueces), only pass through on the way somewhere else; so I don't know the restaurants around there at all.

Anyhow, I've seen such ads for about 8 years now, SAP development work if you've got 10 years SAP experience on Oracle, similar ads for all the ERP's. It's all just too ridiculous, so it will be good to do something a little more physical.

Pam

Re: Stop it!

Alice Frampton, UK

>William,

Well said; you took the words I had failed to come up with right out of my mouth. If I'd been able to find them... ;~)

Cheers, Alf

Re: Plane, scraper, sandpaper???

Sgian Dubh

>Pete, see what a thread you started. I've been watching it develop with interest, and there's never any satisfactory resolution to your question. The amateurs have a completely different attitude to furniture making than working furniture makers like me-- although nowadays I must admit I'm not a working furniture maker, but a teacher of the subject.

In my case training was all about speed, production, and getting the stuff oot the door sharpish, so to speak. Whilst we were taught that the 'ideal' finish was to polish straight off the plane, the realities of making a living called for the use of planes, scrapers----- and sandpaper. The old thickness sanders, and panel (or stroke sanders,) bobbin sanders, and large fixed belt sanders are a huge boon in getting the job done timeously and profitably.

If I'm ever in the position with the time to work painstakingly with only handplanes to get the perfect surface ready for polish, I'll probably give it a go again just for the fun of it--- I've done it in the past a few times, but for any job with a tight price tag, as almost every job has, I'll revert straight back to what I know works, plane, scrape-- sandpaper, and not necessarily in that order, nor using all those tools.

Its amazing the number of jobs that a plane doesn't necessarily go anywhere near during the polish preparation phase, e.g., table tops, cabinet sides, cabinet tops, drawers, counter tops, etc.. The list is almost endless, ha, ha. Slainte.

Re: I think all of you are wrong, and I...

Mark Harrison -- in Sydney, Australia

>I finally got in the shop today. The mouth is a tiny .028 of a millimetre.

I will keep looking at this and may open it up a tad (.02 of a millimetre). I'll keep you posted.