Welcome aboard, Kerry - hopefully you will enjoy being part of the MA's as much as I have!  For me, joining really opened some doors and created some new opportunities.  It's great to have you with us! 

Great to hear all the stories, guys!  Our son Justin has been out in the shop with me since he could stand up - not really helping much at first, but he has always loved it.  His eyes used to get so big when he was about 9-10 mos old and my wife would bring him out to see what I was doing.  Now, at 3 he likes to do some things on his own - even help me feed boards into the planer.  But, you're all right - I keep a close eye on him, and unplug all tools when I leave just for the chance that he might wander out on  his own (which carries serious consequences when found out - never has happened).  I say get kids started early and let it be part of their life from right away - all with the proper guidance of course.

  One of my greatest joys is having my son out in the garage with me - and I'm really looking forward to bigger projects when he gets older.  Actually - I'm toying with the idea of buying a flipper house when Justin is in High School, work on it with him over the summer, then put most of the proceeds in a college fund for him.   

  I was also a Boy Scout, though my troop was dissolved before I got to Eagle Scout.  I learned lots of good things while there - things that a lot of my college friends missed out on.

I've used Leopardwood before, but not true Lacewood.  I have seen Leopardwood sold as Lacewood in the Seattle area as well - and I get lots of argument when I try to explain it to a wood store owner... 

What I find interesting is that the grain patterns for the Lacewood and Leopardwood - and now Silky Oak are all similar to the quartersawn white oak that was so popular for the arts & crafts furniture.  But the odd thing is that earlier I found the "wormy" look of quartersawn white oak a bit ugly (now I like it though) - but I immediately loved the look of Leopardwood.

Here is a photo of a Pennyhedron I made from Leopardwood...back when I began making puzzles.

Thanks for the thread on this amazing wood!

Thanks guys - the hard part is seeing all the cool puzzles being talked about and seeing photos, but can't do anything of my own!

Seriously - thanks for the photos of the shops and the puzzles!  It's great to see so many things going.  I will get back to it, but it might be a while with the glacial pace of the housing market lately.  Once the house in Seattle sells, we should be home free (easier to buy, hard to sell).  But, in the meantime, I will just need to catch up on reading - oh, yeah, and learn a new job and keep my wife sane in a 2 BR apt with 2 little kids.  It'll be a learning experience, right?!?   

I have been delaying on posting my shop picts - because my shop is all packed up!  When we get settled, I will post more then.  But, for now my shop resides in 2 Door-to-Door containers, stored in the warehouse in Kent, WA   

Here are the sad photos...

Johan - your puzzle looks fantastic!  Like a true engineer, symmetry abounds!  I also thought you did a great job in the finish too - don't sell yourself short!

Bernhard - thanks for the photos of your shop - nothing to be embarrassed about there!  I think we should have a contest to see who can squeeze the most out of the least amount of space! Looks like you're in the lead!

Eric - nice idea on the sandpaper cleaner mounted to the back of the drum.  I did find that cleaner and sharper (newer) sandpaper didn't burn nearly as much.  A light touch when chamfering the edges also helped.  With taking off such small bits off of the edges, I think continuous cleaning of the sandpaper might not be necessary - but a little cleaning periodically does help.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, John!

I hope you had a good one.  About the lathe - that is a problem everyone of us likes to have.  More tools than we can find room for...  You'll find a way!

Whew - all that in a single message!  I better go to bed, I'm tired now!   

Actually, if you're making many chamfered cubes, it might be the fastest to combine either the router or saw method with the sanding jig I use.  Take the square sticks and run them through the saw or router to chamfer the 4 side grain edges.

The only catch is that now, you can't remove tearout from the end grain bevels, since the side grain edges were chamfered first.  The drum sander method works well, but make sure the direction the drum is turning corresponds to a "down grain" sanding of the corner.  If you sand "upgrain" you'll get a hairy edge on the bevel (everyone just leave that one alone, I know it asks for a joke ).

One more problem with the drum sander - it can burn Purpleheart and Jotoba a bit if you use an old sanding sleeve or let the heat build up too much.  I find that another quick pass after the first usually is light enough to take off the slight burn from the first pass.

I made the drum sander jig to use the miter slot on my Shopsmith table.  This allows the jig to be rotated closer or further from the drum to change the size of the chamfer.  I suppose this could be done by just using 2 clamps on the table of an oscillating drum sander.

In terms of production rate - I think I could handle about 250 cubes in about an hour with this one (maybe 1.5 hours if all 12 edges were done on the sander).  My gripe with this jig is it makes my thumb sore after a good run of cubes!

Here is a photo of the jig:

I have ripped square sticks with and without stabilizers and have noticed a difference.  Actually, I noticed a difference between using 1 and 2 stabilizers as well.

When I was doing the test cuts, I could see the difference when making square sticks out of African Blackwood, since that is a highly shiny wood if cut really smooth - and all the blade marks show up pretty clearly on this wood.  However, I could feel the difference on a piece of maple - between using one or two stabilizers.

I like my Freud Ultimate Cutoff blade because the plate thickness is the full kerf width.  This makes a stiffer blade to begin with, then when adding the stabilizers, even less vibration (runout) should be achieved.  I rip square sticks with a Forrest Woodworker II which has a plate thinner than the kerf - and the stiffeners help a lot there too.  Really, all the stiffeners/stabilizers are doing is making the blade act stiffer, meaning less amplitude during vibration. 

One other possible benefit is the stiffeners and blade will vibrate at a higher natural frequency than the blade alone.  It's hard to tell unless you can somehow measure the vibration frequency coming from the saw motor, but this shift in frequency for the blade might help to avoid resonance with the forcing frequency coming from the saw.  But, then again, the stiffeners could line it up the natural frequency of the blade assembly with the frequency coming form the saw, and create resonance...  Hard to know for sure unless the frequency of the motor was measured. 

Who is Celene Dion?   

I'm not positively sure how blades were straightened by hand...but I suspect the DIY effort would have something to do with hammering the plate on a machined flat surface - probably a little on one side, then a little on the other.  Again, I haven't seen this done and further wouldn't try it myself.  I have heard about some blades being tensioned by hand still though.  That sounds like quite an art to me.

With a more modern approach, it looks like a big machine is used with straightening rollers...

http://www.google.com/patents?id=N7UlAAAAEBAJ&dq=blade+straightening

I made lots of my early Pennyhedron puzzles from flooring.  You do lose some thickness due to planing off the grooves from the undersice, but I still think flooring scraps would be great for making boxes for packing puzzles.  Also, if you can find quartersawn flooring, that would be a bit more stable than flatsawn.  Most of the wood expansion takes place in the direction tangential to the growth rings - or in the thickness direction for quartersawn lumber.  This seemed to work pretty well for the Pennyhedrons I used to make.

I also heard that the finishes put on flooring these days might be hard on the planer blades...

Very nice job on the puzzle, Peter!  Glad to hear it was a fun process for you, and I can't wait to see what you come up with next.

Actually - Loonies and Toonies are perfectly great as far as I am concerned.  It makes the puzzle a little more exotic for US puzzlers - it's always fun to see other currencies.

However, if you did make a US coin version, you could call it "Bonnie & Clyde."   

Number of cattle, horses under the hood - what's the difference?

I doubt those cows run on ethanol...  That's the old fashioned engine that runs on the whole grain type of fuel!

Congrats, Eric!  You box was really well done.  I will certainly sign up to try it out after we get settled - I'm really itching to see it.

Congrats to you also Peter - your Bank Heist turned out really well!