Hey guys!

As usual, the summer season is the busiest for my remodeling work and it takes me away from my passion of sharing with the woodworking community. But I will take what I can get so the good news is that I am still at it.

The latest issue of WOOD Magazine has just hit the bookstores and mailboxes and I was lucky enough to get a full page of coverage! The article gives tips from 4 small pro shops and mine was one of the shops covered.

While there is a lot more wisdom and experience we could each share, they picked a few tips from each shop to give a good cross section of helpful advice for the wide variety of woodworkers out there.

To see the tips from my shop, check out page 48!

Photography Credits go to my friend's daughter Yasmine Morup. She is a junior in high school and has an interest in photography. I gave her a call so she could get in on the action and get published. She and her family are pretty excited to see her work published and distributed internationally. Thanks for a great job Yaz!

(WOOD Magazine gave me their full blessing to use any images of their magazine.)

A Visit to WOOD Magazine Headquarters

I just returned from doing some work in Ohio for my mom, she has had some health issues so we are turning her house into single floor living. My normal route between Montana and Ohio takes me through Des Moines, Iowa.

This happens to be where Meredith Publishing is located, and this is the headquarters for WOOD Magazine. So I had to stop in for a visit to meet the editors.

I had a great visit with everyone and got a tour of the facilities. They gave me a peak into the shop where the projects are developed for each issue of WOOD Magazine and of the studio shop where the step-by-step woodworking projects are photographed for the articles.

Since this is the headquarters for several Meredith publications, there is an area that is like a storage warehouse for movie sets, except that it is all for setting up scenes for the various magazines. This services all of the magazines with the backdrop sets that they might need.

The Woodworker's Dream Job?

One thing that had never occurred to me, are the opportunities that a woodworker or carpenter might have with a company like Meredith. Somebody has to build, modify, and disassemble sets constantly. They have a couple guys that do this everyday for the various magazines under the Meredith roof. They have a dedicated shop just for these guys located between the warehoused set pieces and the stage area where the scenes are constructed for the photo shoots.

A real dream job could be designing and building the projects for WOOD Magazine. There are a couple of furniture makers that focus solely on creating the projects for each issue. How cool would that be?

Some Sweet Projects!

One other great thing, was getting to visit the WOOD Magazine gallery. It is an area that they keep most of the projects that are designed for the magazine. I recognized many of the projects from past issues. And just like with my work, the photos do not give justice compared to seeing the projects in person.

I will say that my favorite projects are the 2 most recent ones. They are the pub table and chairs on the cover of this issue, and the Asian inspired media end table that will be featured in the next issue. The pub table is found on page 50 and the media end table is inside the back cover on page 84 giving a peak at what's in the next issue. I felt these were projects that would have come right out of my shop.

They Genuinely Love Woodworking

One thing that impressed me was that the guys all have a genuine interest in woodworking. The consensus among the editors was that they would like to write less about woodworking and spend more time in their shops, and they ALL have shops at home.

They even pointed out that, although it is not a requirement for an employee of WOOD Magazine to be a woodworker, even the secretaries and assistant staff members have woodworking shops at home.

That is all for now. I have more big news to share but this is enough for one sitting, I have a lot to do in the shop.

Until next time - be safe in your own shop!

Todd A. Clippinger

Share the Love~Share the Knowledge

As you look at the advertising, Oneida seems to make a pretty outrageous claim concerning the efficiency of it's Dust Deputy, they claim it captures 99% of the dust. In case you don't know, the Dust Deputy is a mini cyclone that fits on a 5 gallon bucket lid which acts as a particle separator for your shopvac.

I have been interested in this claim, and cautious, because I am interested in good dust collection for my shop. I collect as much dust at the source as possible, this is one of the secrets to my shop being so clean even though it gets daily use.

What this leads to, is constantly emptying out the shopvac and cleaning the filter to maintain a high suction level. If I have to listen to the noise of the shopvac, it better be pulling the dust off of my sanders because I do a LOT of sanding.

I have long known about the Dust Deputy and had read good reviews about it from other woodworkers so I decided to buy one. I received it a week ago and have been using it with amazing results ever since.

Sanding cabinet panels.

The day I got it, I put it into service. I made sure to clean out the shopvac tub and filter as good as possible. Last night I took a look at the filter and was once again amazed. The shopvac only has a light coat of dust inside and on the filter after a solid week of use. Compare this to the four times that I have emptied the 5 gallon bucket which was half full each time.

Shopvac empty after using it for a week with the Dust Deputy.Filter is clean after using with the Dust Deputy for a week.

I purchased the cyclone by itself for $60 plus shipping from Rockler. I have extra hoses and shopvac attachments in the shop so I did not need the full kit. If you do not have extra hoses and connections laying around I would recommend the full kit at $100. You will end up spending close to that buying all of the parts separate anyway plus add your time and gas running around.

Dust Deputy in it's current setup.

I attached the cyclone to the bucket lid and cut a piece of 1/2" plywood as a backer to the inside of the lid as reinforcement. The bucket wants to fall over easily but I had a quick solution already sitting under the table next to the shopvac. I had a 5 gallon bucket about 1/3 full of 16 penny framing nails. I simply dropped the Dust Deputy bucket inside the bucket of nails for a solid anchor. This works quite well for now because I do not move this shopvac around, but I am sure that I will be building a cart to contain the two in the future.

Anti-tipping solution, a partial bucket of framing nails.

I highly recommend the Dust Deputy. The price is a bit on the high side and I have no doubt that they are selling it for what the market will bear because of what it does. But as a business I am already spending less time cleaning out my shopvac filter and that saves me money. It literally will pay for itself in my shop.

The Dust Deputy lives up to it's advertised claims and there is barely a drop in suction power with the extra length of hose. When I build a permanent home for the Dust Deputy and shopvac, I will most likely cut the hose between the two as short as possible to maintain maximum suction.

The Dust Deputy falls into my category of "things that really work" and I highly recommend it for any shop.

Your friend in the shop - Todd A. Clippinger

Share the Love~Share the Knowledge