***SURVEY: THE IDES OF NOVEMBER*** *LINK*

This year it's...

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond CA

>The 18th century pipe box in the latest FWW rag. Also picture frames in Arts & Craft style (riff and qs oak with ebony pins) and Greene & Greene cloud style (mahog and ebony).

Ellis, a comment

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>I know we West Coasties are thought to be laid back and all that, but I didn't realize we could affect how time flows.

On the home page of Woodworker West magazine, the banner says, "In its 17th Year..."

When you follow the subscription link, it says, "In its 13th Year..."

And how much is that in benchdog years?

Benchdog years

Adam Cherubini, NJ

>That's really funny: benchdog years!

Chopping out a set of dovetails for a drawer should usually take about an hour and a half. Of course that's measured in YOUR time. But in benchdog years that job really takes about 7 times longer, what with the sharpening of the chisels, the restoring of the backsaw, then there's that new marking gauge I'd like to make....

OOOh I like it. Benchdog years.

Adam

I feel Ron's pain

Ellis Walentine

>I know how hard it is to keep up with changes in your magazine (or website, in my case). I will pass your constructive note to Ron Goldman today.

Meanwhile, what're you turning for Xmas?

Ellis

Re: ***SURVEY: THE IDES OF NOVEMBER***

Tom Ryan

>This Christmas???? I'm still working on last Christmas's presents.

Close, but shoulda been "Hey, all y'all!"

David Barnett

>

Napkin Rings & tree ornaments

Greg B�tit, Vergennes, VT

>This year the gifts that are coming from my shop are a Windsor continuous arm chair and a sack back settee for two of my sons. When I don't feel inspired enough to work on the project at hand but want to putter in the shop I generally carve free-form spoons, and I give them to anyone I can foist one on around Christmas. This equates to a dozen or so litle gifts we can count on. Most people we know have more than enough of them by now...

But since you asked about getting together for production runs, I'd like to recall something that my wife and I did with another couple years ago. We got together several evenings and made animal shaped napkin rings. One of us traced and jig sawed out the shapes, one of us drilled the holes, we all helped to sand them smooth, and the ladies painted them in an assembly line fashion (do all of one color on all the napkin rings). We made a whole bunch, which we gave to our families as gifts, and our respective churches for their holiday bazaars, etc. It was really fun to get together with them like this. Unfortunately we moved away from these friends, and have never done anything like that since.

We also did this with tree ornaments with the same couple one year. But they were lambs cut out of lambskin, a bit OT, except you could elect to make wooden ornaments.

Greg

Re: ***SURVEY: THE IDES OF NOVEMBER***

Steve Kubien

>Well, it is turning into a Christmas gift because of how long it is taking me to finish (really limited shop time lately) but I am building a knife rack, of sorts for the martial arts club (dojo) I belong to. It will hold 8 'knives' (tantos) which we use regularly. At present they live on a cruddy shelf and I am making the rack to be a bit more presentable. It's my way of thanking our sensei (teacher) and the other students for welcoming me into the community of martial artists and helping me along.

Maybe I'll finish my guitar stand as well. I kinda missed the contest but oh well.

Steve Kubien

Nativity hut

Paul M. in San Diego

>The Mum-in-law has had a plain old boring nativity decoration for the last few Christmases. The figures are nice, but they are just sitting on a square board. I made a pretty nice hut and added a few carving accents so that these figures have a scene to work with.

This was made out of cherry scraps and it looks pretty good. Not a production number by any means, but all made with hand tools.