That’s what originally led her to try whittling – which, in turn, enabled her to find her niche with pyrography. “Everything I whittled would come out looking like little Amish people,” she said. Then, she tried using a woodburning tool to create a face on one of her carvings, “and that’s kind of when I went, ‘Hmm. I like that,’” she said.

Her early attempts at woodburning included some efforts at trees and landscapes, none of which came out well, but “Once I tried to do a portrait of a human and it actually turned out really well. That’s kind of how I got going.”

One of those early portraits happened to be of former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Jo lives in Abilene, Kansas, Eisenhower’s hometown and the location of his Presidential Library. With that woodburning effort, she said, “People actually recognized who it was.”

From that start, she has branched out into creating many different subjects in pyrography. “Every single thing you burn, once you finish it, you say, ‘OK, now I wonder how you burn a turtle.’ So then you burn a turtle. So you go, ‘Now I wonder how you burn a fish.’ So you burn a fish.” The learning builds on itself: “If you try a buffalo, you learn something when you’re doing buffalo hair that you say, ‘OK, now I can do a bear.’ Everything kind of ties together.”

Much of her own learning came through trial and error, but Jo wanted to help others interested in pyrography bypass some of those steps. To that end, she has written a book, Woodburning Realistic People [ISBN 978-1565238800; Fox Chapel Publishing], that on how to create portraits, including tips on creating realistic skin tones and facial features. “In the book, it says how to burn inside the nostrils,” Jo explained. “The same way you do that is [what you use for] inside the ear. You start using it everywhere.”

Part of her secret to creating realistic portraits is that she works from photos. “I truly burn what I see, not what I think I should see. And that’s very helpful when it comes to burning eyes or something like that, because people go, ‘Oh, I need to have an arc like this and put in some eyelashes.’ Well, that may not be what’s actually in the picture. One example she gave is a piece she burned from a photograph she took of a man standing in a doorway portraying the mayor of old Abilene. When he posed for the picure, wearing an old-fashioned wool coat, the actual temperature was 110 degrees Fahrenheit, so Jo had to snap the photo quickly. In the resulting image, however, his face was blurred. “So if you look at that burn, you can’t see his features, really.”

When starting a piece, Jo will place a piece of graphite paper between the photo she’s working from and her wood, then trace an outline from the photo onto the wood. (The number of lines in her outlines has been reduced over the years “because I don’t like erasing it all the time.”) As she does the actual burning, she turns the work – and the photo. “I’ll be upside down and sideways, and I’ll take the picture and turn it upside down and sideways as I work.

As for tools, Jo is still using the same tools she started out with, a Versa-Tool (find an updated version here) and a Razertip pen. Each, she says, has its own way of burning. She also rigged up a heat control method for her Versa-Tool by using a dimmer switch, as she prefers a lower heat and a longer working time.

“A lot of the people like to crank it up and have it red-hot on the tip and burn, and I need to come at it from a different angle of being a softer burn. I do it in many layers, but no erasing: once you burn a line across something, each time you burn over it, you darken the line. I do the same motion over and over: touch down, slide to the left, and lift, and that’s how I get such a smooth look to my things. I am never gouging like woodcarvers: they’re used to digging in there and gouging something out, whereas mine looks 3D, but it’s not.”

When using the Razertip, which Jo described as like a delicate pen, she doesn’t feel the need for as much protection against the repetitive motions, but when she’s using the Versa-Tool, she said, “I have an old candy box from Russell Stover’s, it’s about an inch and a half thick, that I set under my wrist and that makes my hand be at the proper angle. I’m not making giant hand motions. All I’m ever doing is just an inch, inch and a half, maybe. And I do turn the wood, not my hand, so that helps, too.”

Additional safety precautions include always angling her work, either against the table or an easel, to allow the heat to rise toward the ceiling – and not her hand. She does, however, put mitts on her hands, both for protection against heat and blisters and to keep the natural skin oils off the wood. “I often cut off the little finger of my leather gloves and I use it on my index finger, twist tied it on there with a bread tie – something to protect me from the heat, because my index finger has been thoroughly cooked over the years.”

Most of the wood Jo uses in her pieces is basswood, “because it’s light and it’s soft and so it burns easily. Oak has a terrible grain for trying to burn: you do a lot of bouncing, bouncing, bouncing through the wood. Pine can be sappy – you can still use it, but it’s just not ideal.”

While noting the often cited quote from artists that the wood will tell you what it wants, Jo acknowledges that’s sometimes true for her, but “sometimes I tell it what I want.” She sources wood both in precut sizes ranging from 4×4 inches to 12 x 12 inches from Heinecke Wood Products, and from local dumpster diving. “The local cabinetmaking shop here in town knows that I do it,” she said. “When they throw out their scraps, I go out there and dig through their piles of rejects and say, ‘I’ll take it!’”

Some pieces of wood call out for specific designs. A piece with zebras on it, for example, was light-colored wood that Jo felt needed the zebra stripe; she didn’t want to “waste it on something where you’re burning a lot of dark.” On another piece, she didn’t notice until she had finished a piece that a part of the wood grain wrapped around the calf of a ballerina’s leg. “That’s when you get excited because, look, that wanted to be on there.”

Then there’s the duck she burned on a specific piece of basswood. “I happened to have a piece of wood that I said, ‘Look, this is a beautiful water-looking grain, so I need to find a duck to put on there.” The duck’s reflection appears in the water on the piece. An image she sent in of that particular piece of woodburning is what got Jo started on the path to writing regularly for Pyrography magazine.

These days, she’s sharing her woodburning knowledge through her book and lessons – and even when she went to Antarctica as a shuttle driver for National Science Foundation scientists and support staff at the McMurdo Station on the Ross Ice Shelf. “When you go down, you are there for four to five months, so you have to take your own entertainment. If you have a talent, they ask you to share it with everyone else.”

Jo shipped wood down and, despite not bringing along enough woodburning tools themselves – “only two or three people could burn at a time” out of the several hundred at McMurdo – she ran out and had to ask her husband to ship her some more, since there is no wood available on the icy continent.

Now back in Kansas, Jo offers classes in her Abilene location. “At this point in life, the most fun I’m having is sharing my techniques,” she said.

The post Jo Schwartz: Woodburning Realistic Portraits appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

The post VIDEO: How to Cut Tenons with a Table Saw appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

RIKON’s 6-in. Jointer has a four-row cutterhead with 28 carbide inserts. A 1HP (110-volt) totally enclosed, fan-cooled (TEFC) motor spins it at 5,500 RPM. The machine’s cast-iron infeed and outfeed tables provide an overall workpiece support length of 46-1/2 in., and a quick depth-setting mechanism on the infeed table adjusts it for up to 1/8-in.-deep cuts. Its all-steel cabinet sets the tables 32-1/2 in. from the floor. The jointer weighs 256 lbs.

The four-row cutterhead on RIKON’s larger 8″ Jointer has 12 more inserts than its sibling (40 overall), and their four edges are easy to change when they dull or get nicked by loosening a Torx screw. This 434-lb. jointer has a 2HP (220-volt) TEFC motor that spins the cutterhead at 5,500 RPM, and its cast-iron table platform offers 73-1/2 in. of workpiece support with the same quick depth-setting mechanism as the smaller jointer. Its steel cabinet elevates the tables to a working height of 31-5/8 in.

The cast-iron fences on both models are 4-7/8 in. tall and 35 in. long; they move across the tables on a rack-and-pinion gear and can be tilted from 90 to 45 degrees for beveling work. A 4-in.-dia. dust port connects the jointers to dust collection. Spring-loaded guards and a raised, easy-to-reach control box with a paddle-style kill switch make these machines safer to use, and two push blocks are also included.

Available now through RIKON dealers, the 6-in. Helical Jointer (Model 20-106H) sells for $1,299.99, and the 8-in. Helical Jointer (Model 20-108H) is priced at $1,999.99. RIKON covers these machines with a 5-year warranty. A wheeled mobility kit is available for both jointers as an accessory.

The post RIKON Helical-cutterhead Jointers appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

I talked to the folks at the local Sherwin Williams who think that seasonal expansion and contraction could be the problem: the varnish has cracked, allowing moisture to reach the wood. I would like to refinish the affected surfaces. I know a cover will help, too. Do you have suggestions or a solution to prevent this from happening again? –  Bob Claerhout

Chris Marshall: I think the folks at Sherwin Williams are correct. Expansion and contraction from wood movement and temperature extremes are going to eventually deteriorate any finish. So will sunlight and standing water. Mother Nature is not a friend to finished wood. My advice would be to keep that grilling table covered up and dry when not in use. The less exposure the wood has to the elements and UV light, the longer the next coat of film-forming finish (which is what any varnish is) will last.

I’ve taken a different tack on outdoor furniture lately. Instead of coating the wood and trying to hermetically seal it under a film, I just let it breathe. I apply a tinted deck preservative with UV inhibitors to the bare wood and skip the film finish altogether. Why? Because when the stain color fades, I won’t have to strip the old finish off or sand excessively. I can just scrub the project with soap and water to remove the oxidation and grime, and brush on another coat of deck preservative. I’ve decided not to fight Mother Nature — just hold her at bay for a while.

Tim Inman: Boat owners know the drill: Sand and re-varnish every spring. Your table will need the same regimen if you want it to look like a piece of clear finished furniture while treating it like an “outdoor” dog. Sunlight, heat and cold: these are the things that destroy finishes best. As the weather factors take their toll, the finish becomes less elastic — more brittle. As the wood shrinks and swells due to moisture and heat changes, the finish develops micro cracks that let in air and water. The air and especially the water react with the tannins in your oak, and — Whamo! — you get that grey stain you don’t like. It is inevitable unless something changes in the life and care of that wood. So, “How to prevent this happening again?” Bring it inside when not in use or at least put a protective cover over it to keep it dry, dark and cool.

The post Refinishing a Grill Table? appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.

– Scott White
Monticello, Iowa

See the Gallery Below:

The post Red Oak Railing System appeared first on Woodworking | Blog | Videos | Plans | How To.