Doug, Son-in-Law Elijah Manor tells me he works with you. He'd shown me some of your work a few weeks ago. Have read a few of the comments. I agree with the gentleman who spent his career in cinematography, your videos are the stuff of high professionalism, as are your projects--always just a little something extra which makes them stand alone in attention to detail. One of our grandsons seems to be the family master of MONOPOLY. . . so the banker's station is a must project for me. . . . Been to Waco, met some of their hand picked exhibitors from Greenville, SC. He showed me how to make serving and cutting boards. Interestingly, his methods include water bath to raise the grain and the bee's wax/food grade mineral oil. When my Dad closed down his wood shop before he passed away, he gave me several pieces of 5/4 Cherry. Inspired by yours and other work, I finished my first today. However, an image won't join this high level of professionals. Eager to see more and follow along for the ride. Thanks.

John Hall I'm thrilled that you have enjoyed my videos! Its one thing for folks to watch it, but another when its friends and family and they enjoy it! Elijah is so much fun to work with, and is so encouraging. I really appreciate your kind words about the details in the videos. I enjoy that part as much as the woodworking itself, haha.

Thats great that you made a cutting board with that cherry. I think cherry is a beautiful wood, and is one of my favorites. I'd love to see a picture of your projects, so feel free to post them!

I continued working on my next video today – it is a two toned desk paper tray! I'm using a scrap of specialty wood I got from the offcuts bin at Woodcraft for the dark wood. Need to identify it, but its some sort of curly wood – the grain is really neat.

Thanks again for taking time to comment and share your thoughts!

Doug,

What a surprise to get to have a FACETIME visit with you at Elijah and Andrea's home. The two YouTube web sites to which I had pointed you to but must not have sent are:

1. Ron Paulk (http://www.paulkhomes.com/o.... He has a couple hundred videos on YouTube.

2. The other--related both to your wood working and your career is FASTCAP (http://www.fastcap.com). Paul Akers was a cabinet maker in the mid to late 90's. He found a faster way to cover the holes left from screws he wanted to hide. That grew into a multimillion dollar a year business for wood workers. I've bought some of his stuff. Here's a video link to a tour of his company. (http://www.fastcap.com/#!pr.... Paul Akers is absolutely RABID about Lean manfacturing. In fact, he takes entrepreneurs to Japan a couple of times a year. . . . Here is a linke to the CO> place in Jackson, TN my home town, where the maker space is located. (https://www.attheco.com/abo...

Again, great to get to visit this evening.

John

Oh, forgot to say, they also have screen printing. I'm eager to learn turning. There are two lathes at THE CO>. One is an industrial strength machinists' lathe turned into a wood turning unit.

Hi Doug, My name is Danielle, I am posting this for my husband Steve. He made a wooden butter knife and then
he saw your you tube video on making them. He wanted to know if he could get your thoughts on the one he made. It is a combination of mahogany and cedar...the blade is the mahogany and the handle scales are cedar. And he hand rubbed paraffin wax into it for the finish. He would like to send you a picture of it to get your thoughts.

Hi Danielle and Steve! I'd love to see the knife, it sounds really beautiful! You can zip me an email at doug@dougneiner.com with the photo. Thanks for taking the time to reach out!

Doug - I have watched all four of your videos on using Fusion 360 to design a pencil box. The videos are great. Thank you. I have one question. How would you make the pencil box thumb grip?
Thanks in advance,
Rudy

Doug
Your fluency in Fusion360 is amazing. I would like to achieve that level of usage. Do you have any suggestions for learning the program? I have been working with tutorials and the fusion mastery course. It has been a slow learning process. Your woodworker approach is my angle. Beyond that I also have CNC capabilities. How did you learn Fusion360 so well and do you have any suggestions? Thanks in advance,,,,

Thank you so much for the kind words! I do have a suggestion for sure. When I was first trying to learn the program, it took several (many!) attempts before I started to get the hang of it. I took a complex, but small, woodworking project (The Monopoly Banker's station) and kept modeling it Fusion. My end goal was a fully parameterized model I could change different dimensions and it would scale appropriately without visually breaking. I want to say it took 3 or 4 attempts (Starting from scratch each time). I think in each case I ended with a model that worked at the original dimension, but the real test of "Am I using this right?" is being able to change values later and everything updates. So maybe you can find something like that for you that you can try a few times. I also watched some tutorials and read through certain parts of the Fusion 360 documentation page by page on their website (They have little videos for some of the tools if I recall correctly)

Also, totally cool about the CNC. That looks like a very fun tool to use. Have a great day!