Second Annual Blog Report

Google Analytics map overlay showing the countries where visitors have been located, keyed in shades of green. This is pretty similar to last year, but fills in a few more countries in South America, Asia, and Africa.

This past Tuesday was my 51st birthday and 28th wedding anniversary. At some point on that auspicious day, the Total Pageviews counter on the right of the page crossed the 250,000 mark. A quarter-million pageviews! Thank you for that, it made a wonderful present! And purely by chance, this happens to be my 100th post.

Before I break down the numbers, some cautionary notes. There were two events this year that took the blog offline. The first occurred in May. This was Google's fault, when an update to Blogger took a number of blogs offline. They had to revert to backups, and lost some posts. I was able to restore my one missing post from my browser window that was still open. Lesson learned: always backup the blog after posting to it. The Blogger software makes it easy to export a copy. When did you last backup your site?

The second event occurred this past weekend. This was my fault, when I let my domain name registration (i.e. my custom website name) expire. I hadn't noticed the emails notifying me of automatic re-registration; it failed because my credit card had changed. I didn't find out until Freddy Roman sent me an email saying he got an error message when he tried to go to the site.

Google Apps does have a grace period where you can renew an expired domain, but of course I didn't find out until one day after it ended. After that it falls out of their system completely and has to be handled through the domain registration provider, in this case GoDaddy.com.

I called GoDaddy customer support and went through their redemption process for an $80 fee. While I was not happy about the situation, their customer support was excellent, helpful and responsive. I spoke to a human on the phone who was able to quickly connect me to another human who was able to quickly send me instructions. By the next afternoon the transaction was complete and my domain managment was fully transitioned from Google Apps to GoDaddy. Lesson learned: set multiple reminders (where I will notice them) to renew annually. When does your domain name expire?

To some extent, Google has over-automated the domain registration process. They've made it so easy that you don't think about it. But if something goes wrong, it's a a mess to clean up. I'm still not 100% sure everything is all set on the Google side. Note that if the blog becomes inaccessible via the CloseGrain.com domain name, it can always be reached via the name http://closegrain.blogspot.com, since it is a Blogger site.

The broader lesson here is that just as the pen is mightier than the sword, the printing press is mightier than the web server. Gutenberg triumphs again. Hard-copy publications cannot simply wink out of existence the way online publications can. There will always be a place for physical copies. Keep that in mind before you commit all the fruits of you labor to the cloud. The same old disaster recovery precautions still hold: keep multiple independent backup copies of your data.

On to the numbers. Woodworking continues to span countries, languages, and cultures. The number of visits and pageviews for the year grew significantly, more than doubling last year's numbers (even considering that I didn't have statistics enabled for the first few months).


Visits for the period Dec 15, 2010 to Nov 17, 2011. The Average Pageviews and Time on Site are almost identical to last year.

I'm averaging over 200 visits per day, with over 500 pageviews per day. That's over 15,000 pageviews per month.

Traffic sources.

Searches that hit the blog continue to be dominated by workbench topics, but bowsaws and planes are very popular, as well as all kinds of variations of the blog name, and a wide variety of specific skills. Similarly for the actual pages viewed. That tells me the blog is serving as an effective resource for people, and I've received a number of very kind emails to that effect.

The number of sites linking here has grown as well. Several are foreign-language woodworking forums. I've been able to register with some of them via Google Translate; I keep the postings very simple, since Google Translate can come up with odd renderings when I translate back to English. I had visits through over 50 different Google country and translator portals. There were also a number of hits from email servers, indicating people were emailing links to their friends. A few links were due to comments I've left on other sites that people followed back to here.

Referring Site	Visits
popularwoodworking.com	6469
unpluggedshop.com	4876
sawmillcreek.org	3924
blog.woodworking-magazine.com	1820
sapfm.org	1378
pfollansbee.wordpress.com	981
blogger.com	919
galoototron.com	862
forums.woodnet.net	810
owdman.co.uk	709
logancabinetshoppe.com	673
norsewoodsmith.com	669
villagecarpenterlinks.blogspot.com	623
ukworkshop.co.uk	540
theparttimewoodworker.blogspot.com	536
pedder-altedamenauskiel.blogspot.com	422
fullchisel.com	406
planeshavings.blogspot.com	373
lumberjocks.com	367
carlswoodworking.wordpress.com	352
handtoolwoodworking.wordpress.com	291
bob-easton.com	253
rpwoodwork.com	252
holzprojekte.blogspot.com	186
forum.index.hu	178
finewoodworking.com	168
gnhw.org	165
taylorgarage.com	132
toolemerablog.typepad.com	132
woodworkforums.com	113
renaissancewoodworker.com	103
frugalwoodworking.com	87
byggahus.se	85
theloveofwood.blogspot.com	85
timberframe-tools.com	85
maestronet.com	83
charter.net	80
toolsforworkingwood.com	78
lesfousdubois.org	75
insidetheworkshop.blogspot.com	72
shopsmith.net	71
gmoser.net	69
joecrafted.wordpress.com	69
thejoinersapprentice.blogspot.com	62
delicious.com	53
thewoodwayze.blogspot.com	52
facebook.com	49
logancabinetshoppe.weebly.com	40
taylorbenchworks.blogspot.com	39
youtube.com	37
woodbyhand.blogspot.com	36
blendedwoodworking.com	28
beernlathing.blogspot.com	25
amphenol-tcs.com	21
netvibes.com	22
my.yahoo.com	20
gibsonwoodworking.com	19
trafficfaker.com	19
millcrek.wordpress.com	18
twitter.com	17
woodworkuk.co.uk	17
camberedblade.blogspot.com	15
marmadera.foroactivo.com	15
messimerwoodworking.wordpress.com	15
freehomefind.com	14
villagecarpenter.blogspot.com	14
dogpile.com	12
linkedin.com	12
swingleydev.com	12
themedievalwoodworkerlinks.blogspot.com	11
thewoodwhisperer.com	11
cafe.naver.com	10
handtoolschool.renaissancewoodworker.com	10
larrysworkshop.wordpress.com	10
search.mywebsearch.com	10
luv2sharpen.blogspot.com	9
thelightheartedwoodworker.com	7
lostartpress.wordpress.com	6
accidentalwoodworker.blogspot.com	5
blekko.com	4
bridgecitytools.com	4
legnofilia.it	4
reddirtwoodshop.blogspot.com	4
woodlooking.blogspot.com	4
acessa.me	7
evenfallstudios.com	3
hmsenterprises.com	3
shizutanischool.org	3
blogs.popularwoodworking.com	2
chineblog.com	2
kickstarter.com	2
nicolawood.typepad.co.uk	2
novicewoodramblings.blogspot.com	2
onpoint.wbur.org	2
woodnewsonline.com	2
woodworkforums.com.au	2
woodworking.mattters.com	2
www.thebesthosting.org	2
arianna.libero.it	1
astronomy.mitrasites.com	1
blowery.org	1
forum.woodtools.ru	1
hyperkitten.com	1
milwaukeemonastery.blogspot.com	1
sheworkswood.blogspot.com	1
shizutanischool.com	1
theunpluggedwoodshop.com	1
torzsasztal.hu	1
web.bobbasement.com	1
woodworkingtalk.com	1
wp.popularwoodworking.com	1

As before, to try to reasonably gauge which countries actually have interested readers, for countries with fewer than 10 visits and 10 pages per visit, I throw out any where the average time on site is less than 30 seconds. That still leaves 105 countries!

Country	Visits	Pages/Visit	Avg. Time on Site (sec)
United States	42864	2.84	255
Canada	4762	2.65	225
United Kingdom	2832	2.65	253
Australia	1822	2.47	230
Germany	1219	3.24	273
Sweden	841	1.86	129
Mexico	739	2.04	116
Finland	688	3.54	231
France	669	4.28	310
Italy	507	3.44	239
Russia	501	3.04	254
Netherlands	452	3.98	385
Belgium	451	2.96	247
New Zealand	397	2.7	208
Hungary	391	2.86	207
Brazil	319	4.28	406
Romania	308	2.11	161
Spain	266	4.47	342
Poland	223	5.17	320
Czech Republic	223	5.07	281
Croatia	209	2.36	126
Argentina	203	5.13	358
Chile	142	4.92	307
Greece	140	1.96	126
Austria	128	2.58	206
Ireland	119	2.68	190
Colombia	118	2.29	161
Estonia	108	4.58	596
South Africa	108	2.56	313
Switzerland	107	3.52	235
Portugal	104	2.49	130
India	100	1.86	84
Philippines	100	3.63	327
Ukraine	99	3.59	318
Denmark	92	3.54	316
Norway	89	6.64	469
Japan	85	1.85	85
Israel	70	2.66	228
Serbia	60	2.92	204
Malaysia	58	2.41	178
Luxembourg	56	2.91	176
South Korea	50	5.58	508
Thailand	49	4.47	425
Réunion	43	2	158
Guernsey	39	1.59	111
Taiwan	36	8.78	454
Hong Kong	32	2.91	149
Lithuania	30	2.13	63
Indonesia	29	1.55	66
Turkey	27	3	267
Jamaica	27	1.26	56
China	26	2.58	232
Singapore	23	1.91	146
Egypt	21	2.62	210
United Arab Emirates	20	1.6	108
Latvia	19	1.95	108
Barbados	19	9.58	851
Bulgaria	18	8.22	688
Uruguay	18	6	813
Qatar	18	3.11	391
Vietnam	17	3.76	359
Trinidad and Tobago	16	4.13	382
Cyprus	16	5.31	1196
Peru	16	3.38	113
Slovakia	14	1.79	36
Pakistan	14	6.93	427
Brunei	13	1.92	212
Iran	12	1.67	79
Costa Rica	12	3.92	254
Belarus	11	5.18	407
Antigua and Barbuda	11	4.55	740
Iraq	11	1.82	113
Venezuela	10	13.8	808
Puerto Rico	10	2.3	92
Mauritius	10	5.1	244
Ecuador	9	2.44	239
Iceland	9	2	46
Kuwait	9	2.78	122
Bahrain	8	5.5	391
El Salvador	7	5.43	182
Nigeria	7	4	337
Slovenia	6	1.5	51
Lebanon	5	3.2	548
Malta	5	1.2	36
Georgia	5	3.6	68
Montenegro	5	2.4	73
Saudi Arabia	5	1.6	40
Kenya	4	2.25	247
Kazakhstan	4	4.25	652
Dominican Republic	4	2.25	511
Moldova	3	3	102
Sri Lanka	3	1.33	49
Bermuda	3	2	118
Libya	2	2	207
Haiti	2	2.5	254
Dominica	2	1.5	80
Botswana	2	32.5	871
Ethiopia	2	1.5	93
Armenia	1	2	202
Mozambique	1	3	322
Albania	1	4	158
Morocco	1	3	73
Fiji	1	2	1194
Guatemala	1	6	445
Laos	1	3	672

Finally, I did manage to earn a little more Google Ad revenue, most of which went to pay the redemption fee to GoDaddy.

Thanks for another great year! I always enjoy getting comments and emails (and so do other bloggers, so let them know if you like what they do; sometimes people aren't sure if anyone is listening).

Taking Al Breed's Shell Carving Class

Al Breed showing how to handle the grain when carving the various angled lobes of the shell. Some cuts you have to push the gouge, some you have to pull it. He said 99% of carving is following the grain and knowing how the tools respond to it.

This weekend, Al Breed offered a shell carving class for the Guild of New Hampshire Woodworkers members participating in the Townsend document chest project. He had a full house of 12 students. Lunches were provided, excellent wraps and cookies from the Black Bean Cafe.

The chest has three shell carvings, two convex and one concave. The convex shells are carved out of blanks, then glued to the chest doors. That gives you a chance to try again if you make a mistake. The concave shell is carved in the solid out of a door panel, so a mistake can be more costly.

The pattern Al used for the class is a classic Newport shell. The shells on the chest are an earlier, smaller version. Al gave everyone a mahogany blank glued to a backer, a copy of the pattern, a sheet of carbon paper, and a reprint of his Master Class article from Fine Woodworking. He also set out castings of the pattern to follow (he sells the castings on his website; in addition to being a 3-D model, they show the step-by-step sequence of cuts, so they're like a self-contained class). The carbon paper is used to transfer the pattern to the blank.


Al demonstrates the initial rounding of the shell's top edge in a mahogany blank. It's glued to a backing board with hide glue and brown paper. The backing board provides a solid support that's secured to the bench. The paper makes it easy to release the carving once it's finished.


My blank after rounding, setting out of the lobes with a V-tool, and initial shaping of some of the concave lobes. The lobes are alternately convex and concave.


The class hard at work.


John Short working on his portable bench raiser. Oh yeah, I built a bench-on-bench for this kind of work...and didn't bring it!


Continued progress shaping the concave lobes to establish the fillet angles on the their sides. From here I scooped the lobes out.

By the end of the day, we all had creaking backs from concentrated stooping over the work. For the second day, I brought my bench-on-bench so I could work at a more comfortable height.

I also brought my Queen Anne foot stool to ask Al about some fine shaping details (getting the most out of my time with a museum-quality expert). The transitions from the curved tops of the knees to the straight sides of the post blocks weren't as fine as I'd like. He recommended using the square edges of metal-working files to get a crisp inside corner and smooth surface, as well as using them on the straight grain in the rabbet at the top of the post blocks. He also said I should bevel back the undersides of the knee blocks. That maximizes the visibility of their curves.


My workpiece secured to the bench-on-bench. I've completed rounding over the convex lobes.


Al demonstrates a pull stroke with a broad gouge to excavate the ellipse at the center of the shell.


Outlining the petals with a V-tool.


Scooping out the petals.


Emulating Al's technique on my ellipse.


My final piece. The lighting and stray guide lines make it a little hard to see. I did have to "erase" the ellipse and petals with a broad gouge and re-do them. Al said you can use custom scrapers and square-edge and round files to smooth everything down once the piece has been removed from the backer.

Al ended the class with a demonstration of carving a concave shell. The ellipse and petals are the same, but all the lobes are reversed, and the rounded field is sunken in.


Al roughly excavating the field.


Carving out the reversed lobes.


The other unique detail on this shell is a fine scrolling outline that follows the lobe ends. Controlling this requires a specific technique: steering with the handle, the thumb is rolled against the small back-bent gouge to advance it through the cut. This allows tracing out any curve in a continuous line.

I'll practice this a few times before it's time to make the shells for the chest. In some ways it's surprisingly easy, though it does take a lot of patience and concentration. It's also good to be bold. That gives the work a dynamic flow. Timid work looks flat. With over 30 years of practice, Al was able to do in minutes what took the rest of us all morning.