Jim Bress

I know you harvest wood. Do you grow trees or garden? Let these forgotten soldiers be reborn by using their ashes in compost or fertilizer. They will become part of a new tree, or maybe lunch. -Jim

I’m sure the romance will be rekindled during setup. You probably shouldn’t have replied to my post in kind. All my usual music and tool related ads have been replaced with ads featuring expectant mothers.

That’s the book I bought when I decided to head down this path. A good book for learning a critical basic skill.

Luthier’s mulch

Nice baby bump!

I am required to finish it before the cello if I don’t want the couch to be my new bed.

Thanks. That's the base and top of a jewelry box armoire for SWMBO. Wood is cherry. Still need to put the carcass together and make the drawers.

This is my other bench. It’s a good height for planing, but other wise too short for me and my back.

@Christopher Jacoby.....Damn! I use an L shaped bench mentioned earlier. I spend most of my time at the end of the “peninsula”.

Thanks guys!

From two different bow makers, a couple of years apart, while discussing density they each grabbed sister sticks (same billet with heads facing opposite directions) that haven't been carved yet. By multiple methods (balance point, hanflex, hanging weight, heat capacity) they were shown to vary in there stiffness/density along the length of the billet. On my next build I plan on taking a billet length cut off and measuring how the cut-off varies in density along the length of the cut off. If the variance is pronounce I may be able to use this information when choosing arch height or thicknessing. I wouldn't submerge a plate I'm caving, but you could use sand instead of water to measure volume. Balance point and and SG on either side of balance point can tease out if the density is higher or lower in the upper or lower bout. There's probably billet length scraps laying around to see if this is even occurring in spruce and maple as it apparently does in pernambuco. This be part of your home math and physics class.

Math puzzle. Calculate billet density. Do the density vary between upper bout, lower bout and center bout area? Is the difference meaningful? Things to spark a conversation.

I'm pretty sure I did. It was fun sitting down with you and Jeff. As I travel for work, I always try to have a couple of shops/makers lined up in advance that I can go visit. I don't like to have an agenda of questions when I visit folks. That seems a little intrusive to me. So far, the conversations have flowed naturally with everyone I've met, and I've learned important things each time. For me the main goal is to build relationships with people. Down the road, those relationships make it easier for folks to give me honest feedback on my work because their more comfortable with who I am (I think). In a perfect world there will be a give and take with knowledge sharing, fiddle related or otherwise. I'm not sure if there's actually a protocol for this, but I always try to buy lunch or a beer when I visit folks. I think it's the least I can do for spending their time. I was suppose to be in Chicago for a week in May and was making plans to start asking some folks if I could stop by...then things went sideways.

It’s also good to buy them lunch.

How long do you have to use the solution before the 03 concentration drops too low for affective sanitation?