Perusing videos about the use of Radial Arm Saw's, I found this wonderful video on cutting miters on the RAS, crown molding. The thought process involved in cutting the miters for crown is highly simplified using the Flying Wing Jig.

Hope you enjoy the video as much as I did.

Also, this gent in this video, is the son of Mr Sawdust! Pretty cool.

 

Mr. Sawdust

MRSAWDUST.COM

---

Home of Master The Radial Arm Saw — by Mr. Sawdust, Wallace Kunkel — Master Furniture-Maker, Teacher & Founder of the Mr. Sawdust...

 

 

Here is a wonderfully fascinating read. 

 

Chapter One — The Great Do-It-Yourself Era — Mr. Sawdust

MRSAWDUST.COM

 

I have that book, and found the history of the Dewalt saws was really interesting. I think the guy in the video is Carl Kunkel. The book had a great deal of info on building a cabinet like the one below using just the RAS. I built this one but I used a router table to cut all the molding. Over at the Dewalt forum that book is considered a must have. While I like the book a lot, it's is relatively expensive and using the RAS is a smaller part of the book, the hostory and the cabinet take up a lion's share of the pages. Here's that cabinet that Wally built with just an RAS (my version):

 

PS, I should mention...the Dewalt forum has some of the most knowledgeable folks you will ever meet regarding the RAS. But that platform was written before Al Gore invented the internet. It's so frustrating to use I quit visiting the forum, and the owner refuses to change to an updated alternative.

 

Edited April 23, 20241 yr by Fred W. Hargis Jr

1 hour ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

I built this one

 

That's beautiful Fred!

On 4/23/2024 at 2:39 AM, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

I think the guy in the video is Carl Kunkel.

 

I believe his name is Wally, Fred.

 

Mr.Sawdust-WM Kunkel and son Wally Kunkel--future owner/operator of the Mr.Sawdust School of Professional Woodworking that will be located in Hackettstown, NJ

 Goes by the name of David Walsh on another website.

Mentioned he was Mr. Sawdust in one of his posts there.

That can't be him Larry, he passed away in 1997.

44 minutes ago, John Morris said:

I believe his name is Wally, Fred.

Mr.Sawdust-WM Kunkel and son Wally Kunkel--future owner/operator of the Mr.Sawdust School of Professional Woodworking that will be located in Hackettstown, NJ

You may be correct, he had several boys that all became experts with the RAS in one form or another.

24 minutes ago, Larry Buskirk said:

 Goes by the name of David Walsh on another website.

Mentioned he was Mr. Sawdust in one of his posts there.

Larry, David Walsh is a younger gent I believe, he's one of the management team currently, he's using the OG man himself as an avatar.

 

That being said, you should poke around their website Larry, they have a ton of wonderful fascinating history and images, and get a load of all their Delta T shirts!

 

2 hours ago, John Morris said:

Larry, David Walsh is a younger gent I believe, he's one of the management team currently, he's using the OG man himself as an avatar.

 

That being said, you should poke around their website Larry, they have a ton of wonderful fascinating history and images, and get a load of all their Delta T shirts!

 

 $30.00 for my avatar on a T shirt in my choice of 13 colors! 

1 hour ago, Larry Buskirk said:

 

 

 $30.00 for my avatar on a T shirt in my choice of 13 colors! 

That's about the going rate these days Larry for a quality tshirt and graphic. 

And they put a lot of time into creating their tshirt shop and getting their graphics created, sized and ready for market. 

I guess we could go out and buy a 20 dollar T-shirt, and watch it shrink two sizes at first wash and dry.😄 

Hey guys, David here.

 

Always cool to see Wally's Flying Wing jig shared – he's a real master of making purpose-built tools for all sorts of specific, meticulous operations. If anyone wants to build one, you should absolutely go here and buy the plans, it's digital so you get it as a PDF — Mr. Sawdust "Flying Wing" Fixture Plans - Digital Download

 

The measured drawings themselves are beautiful — it's a shame there's not a preview image of them on that page. They're drawn by Bruce Kunkel, Wally's brother, his style is unmistakable and even his "build plans" for something like this jig are worthy of framing. Here's another of his drawings, which is similar in style.

 

 

On the topic of the jig, here's a few early-days mentions of it — found in Wallace's Bench Talk newsletters from back in the late-1970's/early-80's. Don't recall which issue(s) at the moment — but I've scanned and archived all of these (fantastic) newsletters, here's a link to them for anyone's curious...

 

Mr. Sawdust — Bench Talk Newsletter Archive

It's a real time capsule full of interesting notes and images from the days of the original school.

 

Here's the first mention of it from back then...

... and another mention, where they hosted a seminar on it:

 

15 hours ago, Larry Buskirk said:

 Goes by the name of David Walsh on another website.

Mentioned he was Mr. Sawdust in one of his posts there.

 

14 hours ago, John Morris said:

Larry, David Walsh is a younger gent I believe, he's one of the management team currently, he's using the OG man himself as an avatar.

 

I'll clear up who's-who real quick, since it's certainly a bit confusing.

• Wallace Kunkel (Sr.) is the man who originally came to be known as Mr. Sawdust, a name he was "given" sometime in the late 1950s. More on that below.
• Wallace Kunkel (Jr.) – who goes by Wally – is one of Wallace's 5 sons (of his 6 children, the other being his daughter Mary).
  Wally worked alongside his father from the earliest days, and is a master craftsman in more ways than I can even mention.
• Mary (Walsh) is my mother, her brother Wally is my uncle, and Wallace Sr. was my grandfather.

 

That's the simplest clarification I know how to give, hope it helps. Another obsession my grandfather enjoyed, in his later years, was genealogy – so thanks to his work there, I could elaborate to trace a direct line from myself back to William Bradford, and — as Wallace explained once, from the Mayflower all the way back to Adam & Eve by way of the Roman empire and the entirety of Biblical genealogy. That man seriously knew how to "go all-in" on the research to satisfy his curiosity.

 

Mr. Sawdust has become a "brand" we all do quite a few things under. Wally has continued it as the name for his own school in New Jersey, which in many ways, exceeds the original in all he's doing there – he's really made it a world unto itself, I'm in awe of how much he's done over the past few years.

 

We also have published Wallace's radial arm saw book under the Mr. Sawdust brand, and have been selling this book for something like 25 years. Mary has been the one behind keeping this all alive for most of all those years.

 

I'd been involved with the book and website over those same years, in smaller ways, and only really got involved deeper over the past 5 years or so. The entirety of what you'll find on mrsawdust.com is one part of that. If you'd looked at the site a few years back, you wouldn't have found much to explore aside from a way to buy the book.

 

Most recently, I've also been building up the clothing collection and some other ideas, which started as just wanting this stuff for myself and expanding as I go. Glad to say plenty of people seem to want to wear these old brands too, so it's been worthwhile and I love to know these designs are making their way back out into the world.

 

I mentioned I'd get back to where the name "Mr. Sawdust" started. Here's a video I'd made for fun a while back, based on how Wallace tells the story in his book. There's a blog post that goes along with it: How Mr. Sawdust Got His Name (An Imagined Moment Back in Time)

 

 

12 hours ago, Larry Buskirk said:

 $30.00 for my avatar on a T shirt in my choice of 13 colors! 

 

You can definitely go the DIY approach and make your own – screenprinting, vinyl transfer, print transfer, etc. Doing that is absolutely how I ended up with the whole collection of disappointing shirts I made for myself before finding the way I'm making them now. 

 

19 hours ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

PS, I should mention...the Dewalt forum has some of the most knowledgeable folks you will ever meet regarding the RAS. But that platform was written before Al Gore invented the internet. It's so frustrating to use I quit visiting the forum, and the owner refuses to change to an updated alternative.

 

You're 100% right on both those points. Hands-down, the depth of knowledge and know-how shared on that forum is second-to-none. There's threads dating back to like 1999 on there – that river runs so deep.

 

As for the forum/platform itself (called Delphi) — it's incredibly obnoxious, believe me, I've hated it from the first time I used it. It was adopted by the forum's original owner (Paul Reiche) who passed away back in August of 2023. Sometime before that, he asked if I'd want to take it over – which I have, to the extent that I just pay the Delphi subscription (extortion) bill and keep an eye on things if anyone needs anything – but otherwise, it's basically self-managed by all the good guys who use it more than I do.

 

I've intensely wanted to shift it over to another platform — I've spent most of my earlier life as a UI/UX designer & web developer, so I know a garbage interface/platform when I see one, and Delphi is certainly that. Trouble is, I've not yet found a solid way to properly migrate-out and transition to a new platform. Simply getting 20+ years of threads/content out of it in a way I can then migrate it onto a new (better) platform – is non-trivial. Alternately, I could obviously just establish a fresh platform, but that leaves the entirety of the valuable conversation still silo'd on the old forum, and all sorts of annoying friction for everyone who uses it day-to-day — everyone's sort of found a way to work with interface and it serves its purpose for right now. I'm sort of in the "better to do nothing until I know the right way to change it" mode.

 

That said, THIS forum (Invision platform) is an immediate pleasure to use. I know that immediately, just from composing this reply right now. The "multi-quote" feature is a gem, the editor is ideal, adding images is seamless. I love it. I prefer this interface over owwm.org (which runs on vBulletin, I believe).

 

19 hours ago, Fred W. Hargis Jr said:

 

God this is stunning. Truly. I'd like to try my hand at making one of these at some point, I've grown to love it and it feels like a rite-of-passage. I've made a 1:4-scale model of it, as a gift for my mother, a while back – that gave me a very good sense of all that goes into it.

 

 

 

Here's a favorite photo, of Wallace Sr. in the shop with one of his... (I colorized this from a black & white, so ignore any quirks in the coloring)

 

 

 

On 4/22/2024 at 11:54 PM, John Morris said:

Here is a wonderfully fascinating read. 

 

Chapter One — The Great Do-It-Yourself Era — Mr. Sawdust

MRSAWDUST.COM

 

 

Agreed. Here's another chapter from the book I put online, it's one of my favorite pieces of his writing: Mr. Sawdust — After All is Said & Done

 

Alright, that's all for now – my "I'll just post a quick reply" has gotten out of control. Thanks for letting me know about your forum here, @John Morris

 

David

Edited April 24, 20241 yr by David Walsh

5 hours ago, David Walsh said:

Hey guys, David here.

 

David, thank you for coming on board and sharing with us today. 

@David Walsh thanks for coming aboard and sharing the above! I just saw this now and I am headed out the door to work. I'll dig in and read your "quick reply" in its entirety after work

But seriously, thanks for coming aboard and showing off what's going on in your neck of the woods, appreciate you, and I am looking forward to my new book I ordered!

Thanks David

6 hours ago, David Walsh said:

Hey guys, David here.

Welcome to the Patriot Woodworker David.  

Thanks for clearing up the in-law/out-law situation. 

I'm kind of an out-law on that other site you mentioned. 

18 hours ago, Larry Buskirk said:

 

 

 $30.00 for my avatar on a T shirt in my choice of 13 colors! 

 

6 hours ago, David Walsh said:

You can definitely go the DIY approach and make your own – screenprinting, vinyl transfer, print transfer, etc.

 Just can't make up my mind which color I'd prefer. 

 

 

 

 

 

32 minutes ago, Larry Buskirk said:

Welcome to the Patriot Woodworker David.  

Thanks for clearing up the in-law/out-law situation. 

I'm kind of an out-law on that other site you mentioned. 

 

 Just can't make up my mind which color I'd prefer. 

 

 

 

 

 

I'd go with purple to match your Panama hat band and those tan shoes with pink shoe laces .

Think The Chordettes in 1959.

Edited April 24, 20241 yr by Gene Howe

In case the younger folks missed the reference:

 

 

1 hour ago, Gene Howe said:

I'd go with purple to match your Panama hat band and those tan shoes with pink shoe laces .

Even I'm not that, ...

1 hour ago, Gene Howe said:

Think The Chordettes in 1959.

I would have only been one year old then. 

4 hours ago, Larry Buskirk said:

 Just can't make up my mind which color I'd prefer. 

 

HAH, I know that feeling well. I've got myself quite an array of the shirts/colors and definitely prefer a few specific ones, both the fit and the color. Dark Olive, Asphalt, Navy, Vintage Black & Natural. Certain colors actually have a heavier vs. lighter "feel" (likely something in to the production process per color). Purely on the feel of the shirt, I prefer the solid colors (vs. the heathers).

 

Also worth mentioning they tend to run slightly small vs. other brands, so if you're on the edge with a size, I'd suggest going with the larger.

8 hours ago, David Walsh said:

Also worth mentioning they tend to run slightly small vs. other brands, so if you're on the edge with a size, I'd suggest going with the larger.

Thanks for that David, good information as I am ordering.  So darker colors have a heavier feel? I'll keep that in mind too, I like heavy cotton tshirts.