Tom Iovino of Tom’s Workbench with some rockin’ dogs. – Photo by Dyami Plotke

At the Pasadena event, we debuted the newest addition to our product line – Engraved Card Scrapers.  We currently have introductory pricing in effect of $39.95 which is a great price for a beautiful, personalized tool that’s useful in every woodworking shop.  Did we mention that the engraving is done by hand?

Custom-Engraved Scraper

We also had our signature Wooden Bench Dogs which are the friendliest dogs on the market.  This year, we made a few cosmetic refinements to the design.  The new dogs look cleaner and slicker (kinda like me!).  They, too, would make an awesome stocking stuffer.

Wooden Bench Dogs

We received a lot of positive feedback on our products at the show both from existing and new customers.  Here are some pictures from the show.

Adam Cherubini, in a Mike Meyers voice, called our planes “dead sexy”. - Photo by Nik Brown

Our 3/4″ rabbet and pair each of #6 and #8 hollow and rounds. - Photo by Wilbur Pan

Chris Wong demonstrating the use of a rabbet plane. - Photo by Nik Brown

After carefully laying out your initials, Suzanne begins the engraving.  With the aid of a microscope, she uses a hand-held, pneumatic, rotary tool to stipple the letters into the surface of the scraper.

The result is a stunning tool with a wonderful tactile surface that will surely make it one of your favourites.

More details to follow…

This year, we’ll be sharing a booth with our good friends of Modern Woodworkers Association (MWA).  I (Chris Wong) will be at the WIA West Coast in Pasadena, California October 12-13 hanging out with Chris Atkins and Nick Roulleau of MWA at their booth in the Marketplace.  Once again, we will have freebies to give away.

One of the highlights of WIA 2011 was the Hand Tool Olympics, a friendly competition that offered participants to test and improve their hand-tool skills.  This year, we are trying to organize enough volunteers to make it happen in Pasadena.  From the MWA blog:

MWA has been working with Popular Woodworking on possibly helping out with a Hand Tool Olympics event at Woodworking in America in Pasadena next month.  The final question on if we can pull this off is staffing.  If you will be attending WIA in Pasadena this year or live in the area and would like to help out send me an e-mail highrockwoodworking@gmail.com.  I know that everyone attending will be wanting to get the most out of the show but if you think you can spare an hour or two each day (or more), then please let me know.

If you can help us with the Hand Tool Olympics in Pasadena, please e-mail Chris Atkins.  You don’t need to be an expert hand tool user – just someone willing to help.  I hope to see you there!

(Two thousand miles away, Tom Iovino and Dyami Plotke will be representing MWA at WIA Midwest in Cincinnati, Ohio November 2-3 and they will also have free goodies from us at Time Warp Tool Works and Modern Woodworkers Association.)

Yellow birch (not to be confused with paper birch) is similar in many ways to sugar maple (Acer saccharum).  Birch is an ideal wood for toolmaking – it is stable, hard, and evenly dense (it has been used for North American-made hand planes for ages –  the first documented American planemaker, Deacon Francis Nicholson, used yellow birch for his planes).  Quartersawn birch is quite pretty too, especially when it’s figured!  Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to get your planes in figured birch (we cannot guarantee all the quartersawn birch will look this way).

Figured Quartersawn Birch

We are pleased to have found a local supplier with a good supply that has been felled, milled, air-dried and well-seasoned locally by an independent sawyer with over 35 years of experience.  Yes, we are very excited about having yellow birch!

For our first two production runs of moulding planes, we used 8/4 quartersawn, kiln-dried cherry from the Eastern coast of the U.S.  If you already have cherry planes, we will continue to make new sizes of planes in cherry by request.

Learn more about our:

1. Top Escapement Moulding Planes; and
2. Conical Escapement Rabbet Planes.

Click Here to Reserve Your Planes in Quartersawn Birch!

First prize is a Customized Maker’s Stamp for branding wooden tools and projects.  It goes to Dave B. for submitting pictures of the mouldings he made for his Tea Caddy.

For commenting on the Travellers’ Gallery, two lucky woodworkers each receive a set of our awesome Time Warp Wooden Bench Dogs in either 3″ or 5″ lengths.  Their names are Bob Rankin and Derek.

Congratulations to the winners!

Do you have or are you building yourself a workbench with a thick top and 3/4″ round dog holes (can you say, “Roubo”)?  We have great news for you!  We have filled all the pre-orders for our 5″-Long Wooden Bench Dogs and they are now in stock and ready to be shipped.

These are the same popular ash dogs that we had at Woodworking in America 2011, only 5″-long instead of 3″.

Want a set of long bench dogs that will secure your work but won’t harm your tools?  Click Here to Buy Your Set of (4) 5″-Long Bench Dogs.

Are 5″-long dogs more than you need?  Click here to Buy Your Set of (4) 3″-Long Bench Dogs.

If you would like to order more than one set, please contact us.  If you are ordering from Canada, please contact us for Canadian pricing.

Click here to read more about our Bench Dogs.

Also, be sure to check out our two new products, Maker’s Stamps and Wooden Bench Dogs.

And don’t forget to check out and comment on our Travellers’ Gallery for your chance to win a Maker’s Stamp or set of Wooden Bench Dogs.  Read the details HERE.

Prize #1:  Customized Maker’s Stamp

The first prize is an Customized Maker’s Stamp, with which you can mark your work and tools (moulding planes, for example). To enter, simply take a picture (or more) showing what you have done with our tools and e-mail the photo(s) to: travellersgallery@timewarptoolworks.com.  It can be as simple as a single moulding or fully completed project.  You can also include some comments or notes if you like.  (If you have any questions about setting up your planes, drop me an e-mail:  chris@timewarptoolworks.com.)

Prize #2:  Sets of 4 Bench Dogs

The second prize is a Set of Four Time Warp Wooden Bench Dogs for two lucky winners.  If you were at Woodworking in America in 2011, you know what these are about.  Yes, these nice dogs are friendly to your tools in ways that steel or brass can never be.  Just ask Shannon Rogers. For the chance to win, simply leave a comment on someone’s Travellers’ Gallery page.  Each page you leave a comment on earns you an entry, so have a look at each page and check back to see new work as it is added.  Please say something more than just, “nice work”, or “good job”. We will pick one winner at random for each prize.  You may enter for both prizes.  The contest closes March 31, 2012.

Check out the Travellers’ Gallery!

To celebrate and share our craft, our common bond, we have added a new page to our website.  Travellers’ Gallery is dedicated to photos showing your work (in-progress or complete) in which our tools have helped.  Each Traveller who chooses to participate will receive a page which will display his/her photographs and notes.

To begin, we would like to see photographs of everyone’s first mouldings – there is something special about that first moulding you stick, regardless of how it turns out.  It’s a symbol of another step towards being a woodworker capable of anything.  Let’s record it here.  Email your photographs (800×600 pixels is preferable) and any notes (comments) you may have to:

TravellersGallery@TimeWarpToolWorks.com

For an idea of how your gallery will look, have a look at these samples:
Chris W. – British Columbia, Canada
Shannon R. – Maryland, US