Woodworking joinery programmes

[carlb40]

My local builders merchant sells there sawn timber in imperial sizes but metric lengths = 4''x2'' x 4.8m.I am happy to work in either but when working in imperial i tend not too bother too much with 1/32 its shy or full.Metric usually all mm dont do cm.Problems only happen when working on site with other tradesmen ,it seems that people do their own thing and it can take a bit of time to get in sink.

Cheers Bern.

Agree. I was working with an apprentice last year and year before. I often questioned him when he gave me a measurement as he was using cm. #-o

 

[Preston]

Eastern Europeans use Centre meters, I found that was another problem altogether and I couldn’t get them to change because they don’t speak English, but they are cheap.

 

[markblue777]

This old house is not too bad quite a back catalogue on youtube as well.

 

[tool-me-up]

if someone says 5/8" i have no clue what it is, i know its somewhere between 12.5mm and 25.4mm and thats it!
If someone says 2mm 16mm I quickly have a good mental image of this size.
I do mix imperial and metric if its closer on the tape, like 21 and 1/4 or sometimes i remember it as 3 divisions after 36" because I do not know the proper fraction!

Ill have a dig through the suggestions, Ive got a fair bit of new yankee workshop to get through - it may be I just wasnt in the mood or picked a particularly slow episode to watch lol

Thanks for all the input!

 

[beech1948]

I was brought up with Imperial measures. I really like them and prefer Imperial to metric. Why......

1) Imperial is more human scaled.
2) I know what a 1/64th is, and 1/32 or 1/8
3) If I need a measure less than 1mm there is no option but to use Imperial
4) Metric can be very accurate upto a limit of 1mm
5) Metric use is spoiled by the centimetre......it should never be used in woodwork only mm and m. More cockups caused by metric misunderstandings than Imperial....someone says 26.4 and means cm but it is interpreted as mm..ouch.
6) Imperial requires some mental agility in adding together say 11 3/8 + 9 and 3/32...that mental agility is a valuable commodity. For me its fairly instantaneous...for my metric colleagues its torture because they were never taught how to manipulate numbers properly.
7) Visualisation of numbers to a small fraction is easier in Imperial because its not just an arbitrary measure its human sized.
8) I converted my company workshop to all metric in 1995....yes the guys still talk about both eg the 6x2" x 2.4m...but all drawings, rulers, verniers etc are metric. It took 6 months to evolve a system to check that errors were not being made and we still have to use it.

Alan

Alan
User of both but preferring Imperial.

 

[mailee]

I am surprised that no one has mentioned 'The Wood Whisperer' I find Mark's work very interesting and informative. Might be worth a look on his site as there are a lot of videos on there. :wink:

 

[AndyT]

Dragging back towards woodworking TV programmes - I must put in a plug for Roy Underhill - he's been making TV programmes about trad hand tool woodworking for 33 years!

And he still comes up with fresh angles and info. There are 110 half hour episodes to watch here

http://video.unctv.org/program/woodwrights-shop/

 

[carlb40]

I am surprised that no one has mentioned 'The Wood Whisperer' I find Mark's work very interesting and informative. Might be worth a look on his site as there are a lot of videos on there. :wink:

I did in my first comment, plus i linked to his youtube channel. :-"

 

[mailee]

I am surprised that no one has mentioned 'The Wood Whisperer' I find Mark's work very interesting and informative. Might be worth a look on his site as there are a lot of videos on there. :wink:

I did in my first comment, plus i linked to his youtube channel. :-"

I do apologise, I missed that........must be my age.

 

[jimmyhenson]

As mentioned above Jimmy DiResta and this old house are very good and if you have sky on demand you can get episodes on that (Jimmy DiRestas program is "dirty money".
every now and then pbs america show roughcut with Tommy MacDonald but you can see some of his shows on
http://www.thomasjmacdonald.com/rough-c ... h_Episodes

JUST BE AWARE OF YOUR DOWNLOAD LIMITS WITH YOUR INTERNET PROVOIDER

I also dont enjoy watching norm, i'm surprised he hasn't got a jig for dressing himself.
On the topic of imperial or metric, i got an all metric tape from Dieter Schmid yesterday. I tolerate imperial but much prefer metric.

 

[fattyfatty]

I'm a great fan of Norm Abram (sorry, but I enjoy listening to his running commentary... maybe I'm just lonely!). I've learned a great deal from his shows. If you want something other than the same old, same old that appears on the UK channels - they buy one season then show it on a loop for an eternity - then check out the New Yankee Workshop web site where they show a different episode every week. They are at newyankee_dot_com

Norm stopped doing new episodes a few years ago but continues working on the This Old House TV show. If you like the US way of doing things these programs are a really good watch. Each season follows the renovation of a single house by a team of craftsmen. They have a YouTube channel with several complete previous seasons available (HD too if you've got fast broadband). Their YouTube channel is called "thisoldhouse".

If you want to see some really top woodworkers in action take a look at The Highland Woodworker. They upload an interesting magazine style program about once a month featuring interviews with woodworkers, reviews of tools, visits to shows etc. Their YouTube channel is called "thehighlandww".

P.S. Sorry about the links, but being a newbie here I can't post URLs in the usual way.

 

[scrimper]

Not having access to cable TV or Sky and living in the sticks on a slow broadband line I have not had access to New Yankee workshop until recently when they started to show it on Freeview (Quest).

However on the plus side I like the bloke who seems decent and explains things without the need of some celeb presenter (often the case) interrupting all the time and I like the basic way it is filmed without all the gimmicks we often see on modern TV stuff such as flashing from one scene to another accompanied by a loud swish or crack or micro second shots that one never gets to see what is happening!

On the down side I wish he would do a few more simple projects that those of us who don't have unlimited equipment or large amounts of cash at hand, plus he very rarely uses hand tools everything is done on sometimes sophisticated machinery.

But it's better than nowt.

FWIW Being a scrimper I loved the salvager programmes, I wish there were more.

 

[scrimper]

he talks in old english me being the younger side of 30 have no idea what 1/8" is without a ruler or tape.

I am sort of the opposite, I can visualise immediately what 3/8" or 24" is but when I see 10mm or 610mm I have to spend time thinking about it! Bizarrely I use both metric and imperial, and even more odd sometimes I use both in the same measurement, for example I might use say 16inches plus 1mm in some rare cases.

Even though I am more comfortable with imperial I do find sometimes things are easier to workout using metric, for example dividing a board 7 1/4" wide into equal parts is much easier when it's measured at 185mm. I also find metric easier when doing scale drawings.

 

[carlb40]

Not having access to cable TV or Sky and living in the sticks on a slow broadband line I have not had access to New Yankee workshop until recently when they started to show it on Freeview (Quest).

However on the plus side I like the bloke who seems decent and explains things without the need of some celeb presenter (often the case) interrupting all the time and I like the basic way it is filmed without all the gimmicks we often see on modern TV stuff such as flashing from one scene to another accompanied by a loud swish or crack or micro second shots that one never gets to see what is happening!

On the down side I wish he would do a few more simple projects that those of us who don't have unlimited equipment or large amounts of cash at hand, plus he very rarely uses hand tools everything is done on sometimes sophisticated machinery.

But it's better than nowt.

FWIW Being a scrimper I loved the salvager programmes, I wish there were more.

As to Norm it depends on what series they started with? If you go right back to the start ( before being sponsored by porter cable/ Delta) you will see a vast difference in his shop and items made. Look at his workshop now and picture it virtually empty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxor72gwslc

One from the earlier episodes

 

[Tony Spear]

You lot think it's difficult!

Just imagine being on the UK end of a project to refurbish 1960/70s water treatment plants in Nigeria. The (generally young) Engineers out there have never worked in anything other than metric.

So, I used to get faxes saying things like "we need a new valve for the washwater inlet - the flange is 150mm. and has 4 holes".
Which raises the question is it 150mm, or 6 inch (remember, this plant would have been built in the 60's/70s). So, is it BS10 Table D or E? Of course it could be Din 4504! Or it could be to ASME standards!

When I received that particular request, I got out all the references I could find and eventually established that it could be any one of 9 different flanges!

No wonder the Client paid for me to go out there and teach their Engineers how to do a mechanical survey!

 

[tool-me-up]

OK OK ive watched a few of the episodes now and im starting to like it. I dont always like what hes building but its good to see how its done.

Now I need to clear some space in my garage ( mainly by getting and old reliant chassis and engine sold ) and I can nock my self together a wood working bench of some description and start having a play around.

All my current workspace is metal related so theres not a lot of room to move big chunks of wood around etc

 

[fattyfatty]

...I wish he would do a few more simple projects that those of us who don't have unlimited equipment or large amounts of cash at hand, plus he very rarely uses hand tools everything is done on sometimes sophisticated machinery.

Agreed... I wish I had half the stuff Norm has in his workshop. In fact I wish I had a workshop rather than a corner of the garage after I've moved out two motorcycles and various items of garden furniture, and my workbench is the top of a chest freezer if I can't fit the piece on my Workmate.

I watch as much stuff as I can get my hands on and I just like the way Norm explains what he's doing. I've seen his programs from the start and he has become much more adventurous over the years, and tackles jobs I would never have dreamed of attempting if I hadn't seen him do it first. As for power tools, I love 'em. Having been away from serious woodworking for 25 years or so, it's like being a kid in a sweetshop. I love my router(s!) - the last time I cut a moulding it was with a Stanley Router Plane. I've just taken delivery of a brand new DeWalt jigsaw and a set of Irwin chisels - my belated Christmas present to myself! Thanks to Norm and the rest of those blokes who put their work on video I've got a fair idea of how to use them.

Favourite quote from Norm Abram: "If the Shakers had access to power tools they would have used them."

 

[tool-me-up]

after I've moved out two motorcycles and various items of garden furniture, and my workbench is the top of a chest freezer if I can't fit the piece on my Workmate.

:shock: :shock: :shock: The motorbikes go nowhere! I plan on working round mine - should nbe easier once I get a bike ramp to lift em up out the way lol

 

[Benchwayze]

Dont mind challenge tommy walsh or the ultimate workshop series he did.

:shock:

I wouldn't want him on any of my jobs having seen some of the dung he's churned out on Ground Force, etc.

+1

But some of the ideas were okay!

 

[disco_monkey79]

I only caught one episode, and I can't remember the name, so apologies if it's already been covered...

It was on one of the further downn freeview channels (like Challenge, etc). A big bald biker-type (he had a trike in the episode I saw) built a french farmhouse-style wardrobe out of reclaimed '30s panel doors. Some may regard the joinery as a bit rough and ready, but the end result looked exactly how it was supposed.

Again, I only saw one episode, but he seemed to show every stage as he went, and I quite enjoyed it (but I love reclaiming stuff like that, 'cos I'm tight)