Popular Woodworking 2005-02 № 146, страница 36

Great Woodshops

and would rather keep carts loaded with material in the middle of the room than a rarely used saw. Another Yates American band saw (this one 30") immediately grabs your attention. Boggs equates this one to a souped-up race car. Incredibly accurate, this machine can cut stock with less than .002" variance in thickness. Boggs says this is possible thanks to a quality re saw blade and wheels that are very carefully dressed for nearly no runout. Also important are careful setup, a good feather-board, even feed rate, a tall, sturdy and accurate fence, proper body position, and steady breathing, Boggs says.

Also notable in this room is the system Boggs invented for cutting tenons (shown right), which uses a QuickTenon j ig. Wood can be clamped at countless angles and orientations for a variety of joints, including double tenons. Thanks to registered stops, there's no initial setup time. The routers use a bushing system to make the cuts. A shimming system allows quick router changes.

Boggs also invented a system for cutting mortises using his Powermatic overarm pin router, which also is in the machine room. The indexing is so precise that Boggs claims he can cut 12 mortises for a rocking chair all within .001" tolerance of each other.

Boggs says that he can guarantee the same degree of comfort in all his chairs because of his many templates and jigs. He gave up using wood to build jigs years ago. Today, everything is made from aluminum and steel, and

This is Boggs's tenon-cutting system, which functions as a two-dimensional router table with X/Y axes.

is milled to strict specifications, making his shop look a bit like it was built from a grownup erector set.

Everything in his machine room has been tuned-up, souped-up or made better thanks to Boggs's constant tinkering. He made a new toolrest marked for production runs for his Oliver lathe. He also designed and built his router table, which features room for a dust collector and a drawer. The aluminum extrusion makes it easy for Boggs to add an extension table when slotting rocking chairs with his router.

Next to the machine room, separated by a thick insulated wall, is the assembly room. Here is where the "quiet work" is done - the

Almost-finished chairs hang from the wall in the assembly room as Beale assembles a chair and Rust works on the shaving horse.

work that requires a shaving horse and hand tools. Here is where Boggs and his two employees, Aaron Rust and Aaron Beale, listen to music and talk as they work. Here is where the chairs are assembled.

Boggs's shop also features a gallery with hardwood floors, big windows, a vaulted ceiling and an open pass-through to the assembly room. The gallery showcases his work - three-slat ladderback side and arm chairs, six-slat ladderback arm rockers and a footstool.

There are separate rooms for finishing and office work. Lumber is stored upstairs.

Creating New Tools and Joints

Boggs's inventions aren't limited to templates and jigs. His ingenuity has overlapped into the world of tools and joints as well. Lie-Nielsen Toolworks sells one of Boggs's inventions -The Boggs Spokeshave. The tool, which has received favorable reviews, features a heavy 12-ounce bronze body, an ¹8"-thick A2 blade and hickory handles. Lie-Nielsen plans to offer two more of Boggs's shave styles (one concave) this spring and the company is reviewing Boggs's fourth spokeshave design now.

Boggs's joint design, which he calls the universal joint (shown on page 36), features double offset tenons and housed shoulders. The joint, which Boggs says resists torque and rack, has more than 10 square inches of glue surface, including four parallel glue planes that stabilize the joint. The joint requires custom-made jigs (which Boggs designed) continued on page 36

34

Popular Woodworking February 2005