Black Walnut Studio

Black Walnut Studio Fine Woodworking, Fine Furniture, Lessons, Tools... One of a kind custom made fine furniture. Fine Woodworking. Custom Tools. Fine Furniture.

08/28/2026

Gentlemen prefer blondes…shellac! I never had any luck with store bought shellac. I mix my own and make it thin. Not sure what “pound-cut” it is but I make it look like slightly weak apple juice…from concentrate. I start it off thicker and then it’s easy as the flakes melt to add more dissolving juice. If it goes on too thick the pad will drag on the surface. If it’s too thin then it’ll seam like nothing is on. You just have to hit the sweet spot. It’s really not that hard. I start making this patent pending secret formula about a day before I need to use it. I just give it a swirl a bunch of times through the day.

08/25/2026

Slicing and diceing veneer isn’t hard. You just need a SHARP knife and a ruler with sandpaper. That’s it. That’s all…

08/22/2026

I have a couple projects and articles coming up where I need to make some curves. Why stay on the straight and narrow when you can bend? You can buy one but didn’t feel like the drive to pick one up. Just some 3/16” straight grained poplar, some twine and a duplicate of the tensioner from my tent. (Actually, I have an rv but it doesn’t have that tensioning “thingamabob” so I had to say tent)

07/31/2026

If that was you calling…well…I’m unavailable at the moment. First real run of my version of Neil Erasmus vacuum planer jig. And it works so well. In use I found skewing the veneer slightly works well as I don’t have a helical blade setup. On the popular piece I even cut the leading edge on a slight angle. You can still get tear out if you have funky grain. One piece of walnut I ran after shooting this did tear up as the grain sloped inwards around the middle. But the fact I can get that thin on my planer is huge. The initial passes were done at 1/32” intervals. The last five or six passes I went at 1/64”. The thinnest I achieved was 1.47mm or 0.0595”. Pretty sweet. Thanks Neil.

07/30/2026

This jig was created by Neil Erasmus and he wrote an article about it in Australian Wood Review I made some small changes, including using slightly thicker MDF and doubling up where the vacuum hose connects to the jig. I also had the vacuum port towards the back of the jig, just because it was more convenient for my set up as well as being a shorter run to the end compared to the infeed side. Not sure it helps, but I also added some caulking to seal the flow chambers a bit more. Finally I sealed the acetate top with some PL premium, and some 6 x 1“ flathead screws…more to come…

07/29/2026

Sometimes when a project is getting close you just want to see how it looks or if it really works. It works…

07/27/2026

I don’t have the room for a drum sander let alone the good ones costing almost as much as several board feet of 6/4 Macassar ebony at 9% moisture content so I found this article by Neil Erasmus in The Australian Wood Review. Going to make some thin pieces…maybe even take down the 6/4 ebony. More to come…

07/18/2026

I should have taken more pictures but sometimes it’s more than enough to be there in the moment instead of recording it. After five days of steady work everyone went home with their own memory box. Each made a little different and just right for themselves. A great group. Some new. Some “returners” but all good people. I’m tired, but it’s a good tired. We accomplished a lot.

07/18/2026

Just finished teaching at Fleming College in Haliburton. Just want to show editor I was using an improvised glue pot.

Under pressure! Can you ever have enough…clamps? This is a lid for the Memory Box Course next week at Fleming College ...
07/10/2026

Under pressure! Can you ever have enough…clamps? This is a lid for the Memory Box Course next week at Fleming College in beautiful Haliburton. Tineo veneer from .inc with some ebony edging.

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