Last Saturday night, we went to see Kris Delmhorst’s CD release concert at the Somerville Theatre. She put on a great show, along with guest Peter Mulvey. If you get a chance to see either one of them, do it!

My coffee table is finally set up to be stained (it’s just waiting for me in the garage, already set up on newspaper and ready to go), so I’m hoping to be done with that in the next week or so. After learning tons about woodworking in my class, I’m a little embarassed by all the “mistakes” I made on the coffee table. It’s certainly still a nice piece, though, and I’ll know better next time.

Speaking of the woodworking class, it’s really gotten good lately as we’ve been using the tools we so meticulously sharpened before. We’ve been planing boards flat, and also carving with our chisels. It’s mighty fun, and also makes you appreciate the work it takes to sharpen the tools. The difference between working with a sharp chisel and a dull one is truly amazing.

I’m amassing quite a collection of tools in my shop these days, and am planning on building some storage (the form of which has yet to be determined) with the help of this book. I better get cracking soon, since the flea markets have started calling my name, begging me to come look for more tools.

Woodworking class is going well, and we’ve finally moved on from the “sharpening everything in sight” portion of the class to the part where we actually get to interact with wood. Don’t get me wrong – sharpening everything in sight is clearly a necessary thing, but maybe we could’ve broken it up into “sharpening long skinny things” and “sharpening shorter, flat things” and snuck some wood interaction in between.

Tonight’s class: flattening a board.

I posted pics and info about the cutting gauge I made this weekend in the projects section. Check it out here.

The first woodworking class last night was fun, though there was plenty of administravia to attend to, so we didn’t do nearly as much chisel sharpening as I would’ve liked. I got all but one of the tools I need for the class – the outstanding tool is a marking/cutting gage, and I’m thinking of just making my own. We’ll see how it goes.

While browsing the ‘net reading about marking gages, I came upon this gem of a description of a marking gage patent:

There are good ideas, there are not-so-good ideas, there are really bad ideas, and then there’s this thing.

It is pretty funny looking.