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#1 ·
Week 1=What I am planning and how I am doing so far

Well I have decided to challenge myself this year in order to work at my woodworking more and get my shop in order.. yeah, yeah I know I was suppose to be doing that as part of ShopQuest 2010. But, really I am going to do this this year, and to keep me on track I have decided to post a blog each week in order keep motivated. Some of the blogs may be posted as projects but more then likely not all of them. I have a few shop ideas I am planning to work on including a parts storage cabinet and a drill bit holder (which I am still trying to decide the best solution for that one) the big goal is to get my lathe up and running. Smaller projects will include toys, games and boxes, all of which I have recently grown quite fond of. I also need to finish a few more pieces of my office furniture so I can get that room under control.
This is my plan, but you know what they say about those. But as a start here is what I have done this week. These are by no means fine woodworking, but I would call 2 of them awesome woodworking as I got to spend time in the shop with my daughter. :)
After making a simple school bus for my nephew my daughter decided she wanted one as well. She painted it and helped me with the putting on the wheels.
IMG_0843
IMG_0844
She likes it a lot. As we were working on it she saw a scrap material truck concept I built and told me she wanted one as well. We decided on making it a pick up truck style. I cut the scraps out and she helped with every step of the way. Even helped to saw the bed rails to length.
phiatruck1

The last project was a quick and dirty chisel rack I put together and happen to have some paint still sitting around from the wheels of the bus so I added a bit. I am just happy to finally get my chisels out of the cubby hole they have been in for the past 2 years. Still have not decided as to how to mount it or if it is just going to sit.
IMG_0867

So there you have it my plans for the next 51 weeks and my start to the year. Let me know if any of you are planning to do something similiar I would love to follow along. Hope everyone has a prosperous and good new year.

CtL
 
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#2 ·
I like the idea of a weekly challenge to yourself and posting it as motivation
There are some weeks and weekends I am busy with work and kids and never get near the garage
Also times like you posted where the kids needs/ attention are way more important than my projects
Good for you, I will follow along
 
#4 ·
Week 2- Some Utilitarian Items and Preperations for next week

Well It is Sunday night again and my 2nd week has come to an end. This week my completed projects were actually done at work. I am working on organizing the office and cleaning up some clutter. I decided to remove some old tables from a small area next to our staff table (for lack of a better term) and install a small laptop desk so it can be closer to me and the filing cabinet. Here is what I came up with..

20110113110457

The desktop is mdf and the support system is 2×3 lumber. I of course used my Kreg jig to put most of it together. I eased the edge of the desktop with a router and a roundover bit.

The second completed project was done at home for in the shop. Needed a place to keep some pencils and markers near the workbench. So I used some beech I got from work a while back and went at with the bandsaw. Pretty quick and simple, but does exactly what I needed it to do.

office pencils

The other desk top box is one I made for myself to use at the office. I made this one a couple of weeks ago though, just never got any pictures of it. Both have semigloss coating of Deft spray.

Those are the completed projects for this week so I am pretty happy with that. I then spent a large portion of today prepping for next week. My daughter is off from school and her other class (she is taking a woodworking class :) and loves it) so we are are going to spend some time in the shop building some trucks for her, her cousin and a couple of friends. I spent some time this weekend prepping wood and getting things cut out.

IMG_0875

I have enough parts cut out and prepped to make 6 of the large trucks. I got this idea from the book "101 Quality Wooden Toys You can Make" Hugh Ryan & Judith Ryan. They explain how to use the basic truck to make several other types of vehicles. We already made one pick up as noted in week 1, looking forward to seeing what else we come up with. (highly recomend the book if you like to make simple toys with your kids or grandkids.

Well that is it for week 2. Have fun in the shop everyone.

CtL
 
#7 ·
Week 3- Well I got something built.

Greeting All,
Well Week 3 did not go entirely as planned. My daughter and I only got one of the 6 trucks completely finished. We did glue up the basics to all six and also got almost done with a moving van which will be going to someone hopefully get it finished this week as next week is a majorly hectic.
As you can see from the pics we got the firetruck completely finished, this was a request from my nephew so he will be getting it for his birthday in a few weeks.

week 3_2

Sophia helped with just about every step. She did a lot of the painting as well. I have used poster paints on most of these because of the safety of them and her painting them though I am sersiouly thinking of switching to Folk Arts paints for a better looking finish. In the middle pic is a picture of the logos we put on the bottom. I have used, my logo since highschool when I had to design it for shop class, oddly when I met my wife Ifound out she had been doing pottery since college and had made a very similiar type of logo in order to sign her pottery. The "S" logo is one we have come up with for Sophia, hopefully she will be able to draw it herself with a little bit of practice. The cool thing about each of our logos is they incorporate all three of our intials.

I did actually get one other thing put together, this is just a small car that my daughter asked for. I cut 3 of the and got this one put together as a gift to be sent out. we'll put my daughters together later this week, she did apply some paint to hers and I am not really sure where it went after that ??

week 3_1

Sophia also got a chance to practice some hammering this week since her woodworking class was not meeting due to the holiday. She is doing well just needs to work on hitting the nail hard enough to actually get it into the wood.

Well, since we had some major issues at work today I am not sure how much time I am going to get to take off as planned this week. I will have more to post next week though, just not sure how much more.

As always thanks for looking.

CtL
 
#11 ·
What a long Week....

Greeting to anyone that is reading. It has been a long week. Due to a major incident at work I got very little time in the shop this week. I did however manage to demo an entire room at work so maybe that will count as some extra time. I did get enough time to complete what I was working on on Sunday when I got the call from work.
A coworker had this little Chrstmas type tree that she liked to display, unfortunatly she had bumped into it and knocked it over knocking it off of the base. The original base is shown here, I truy can not believe it actually held this thing up. It is only 3" round with barely a 1/4" hole in the center for the tree stem, the tree however is 12" at its base and almost 2' tall.

tree

As you can see I made a very simple base but added some bulk to it. The new base is made from unfinished cherry and is 6" at the bottom and 4" on top with a nice deep hole that the stem was stuck into then filled with glue. I believe this should help it stand much better. Nothin really special about the work but I did in the process discover that my router table was in dire need of a cleaning and hence I disassembled it and cleaned it well in order to finish this project.

On a slightly similiar but different note, my family and I happen to be in the vicinity of a large swedish furniture store the other day. Now I don't mind wondering around there and looking for some ideas and small items. Yes I used buy their furniture to. But not any more, however I did come up with this deal.

Ikea Purchase

These are all pine, not overly fond of the color but figured I can fix that since they only wanted 59 cents for each piece. Decided on the spot that they would offer an inexpensive solution to a linen closet problem we currently have. So look for that one inthe next few weeks, hopefully. The other deal I found tere was for the cutting boards in order to cut them up for jigs the 2 pack was only $3. The ideas and the paper tape measures are always free. So if you ever fnd ourself in the vicinity f one it might be worth wondering around. most of their furniture s pretty easy to figure out and would work great out of real wood.

Well this week I am pretty busy with some training and other items at work but I will plan to post something next week . Until then, have fun all.

CtL
 
#13 ·
Week 5- Not much time

Well, it has been quite a long week and having been away from home at a training course for the past week has made it hard to spend anytime in the shop. I got home at 2 AM Friday morning after leaving at 11 AM Sunday, I then slept a few hours and took my daughter up to my parents house to give my wife a well deserved break. So having only been home a few hours total this week has severely cut down on my shop time. But I did want to get in some project time.. I took some parts with me to work on my very first "useful" whittling project. I worked in the evenings and during some free time in the hotel room to whittle what was to become a letter opener. I have to admit though I got to a point where I packed it all up to bring home and finish on the sander.
Here is what I started with ( I decided to sharpen up my old pocket knife and even sharpened a couple of the various tools to use as well) and where I finally wound up. Still have to put some finish on it, but I tested it and it opens an envelope quite well.

letter
I kind of liked the idea of doing the whittling but I am not sure that I am going to attempt anything else anytime soon, my hat is off to you guys and girls that can carve.

When I got home this afternoon though my wife informed me she had seen a cooking show and really liked the oven rack puller that they had used. She told me she needed one. Now having not been in the shop much this week it sure sounded like a quick project to me. So I ventured off to the basement, I found some rulers I had bought for 25 cents each and decided they would be perfect. After letting the glue dry for a bit I made some quick cuts and sanded a bit… Yay!! A simple and quick project and it seems to do the job quite well.

rackpuller

So there it is my post for the week. My daughter however actually go to spend a little more time in the shop this week at her class, but I am going to post that as a separate blog.

As always thanks for looking. Have fun in the shop!

CtL
 
#14 ·
Chris,

Nice use of "found" materials. I would have never thought to use the rulers a raw material for a new project.

Keep up the good work and remember…

Be Careful!

Herb
 
#15 ·
Week 6 - Now how does that work?

Greetings All, Here it is week 6 of 2011 and I gotta tell you I did not really think I was going to have much to post about this week. I did not get a lot of shop time at all. But after sitting and watching some of Steve Ramsey's older videos on YouTube Friday night I came across one I just had to try. So I ventured into the shop yesterday evening and started preparations on this.

Hmm

Once I had this going I realized I really wanted to finish off my table that has been sitting around; in order to get my new printer a more stable base. So I knocked out a drawer for the table and went back in today in order to cut out the top and shelf and start the stain process. So it is now sitting in my shop with 2 coats of stain on it and drying for its coats of poly tomorrow.

tableinprogress

Hopefully I will be able to post it as a completed project no later then Tuesday. I am also going to possibly start the larger version of it this week which is really where the printer will reside. It is actually my biggest challenge to date, as I really want it to have a few drawers and doors. These are two items I have been hesitant to attempt but I know I need to work on them so I figure my office furniture is the best place to start. We'll see.

I have some time coming up so hopefully I will get to use it in the shop the next few weeks.

Thanks for reading and have fun all.

CtL
 
#16 ·
Week 7- Not a bad week, more to do though.

Well, it has not been too bad a week. I managed to get a lot done even with everything happening at work. As I noted on Tuesday my daughter finished up her woodworking class Monday morning and had a real blast. These are the things she made in the 5 week class.





I managed to finish one more piece of my Dimensional Furniture Office Suite



I have also started n a few other projects as part of this years effort to clean up and organize the shop, I should post something about them soon. Working on some drawers and a storage cabinet all made with plywood scrap from some old cabinets that we got a while back. I am using them as practice and a learning opportunity before moving on to my printer stand.

So since there is some stuff I want to get done in the shop this evening I think I am going to call this the post for the week. Looking forward to the shop time this week…

Have fun all.

CtL
 
#17 ·
Week 8- Of Plywood, Practice and Cleaning up.

I have to say I have had a real good week in the shop and I am quite happy with the outcome. As noted earlier on in this series I have been wanting to get things a bit more organized and also get my lathe cleaned off and able to be used. So I spent a good portion of time this week working on a new cabinet (still needs doors but I will make them this time I promise) and some drawers for my powertool bench, all of which gave me some good practice. The best part is that I did not need to buy any new materials, some of you may have seen this blog about the cabinets we got from my wife's friend. Well pieces of it have been sitting around here for over a year now. So not only did I clean up the basement shop some I also got a chance to get some stuff out of the garage.

Here is what I was trying to deal with as far as my Lathe bench was concerned.

week8_1

The little wood rack was a solution I built a little while ago to handle stuff I brought home from work or found. I added the cabinet to the top to handle some parts storage mainly.

week8_2

I am now happy to say that I can actually work at my lathe and am looking forward to putting some of that wood on the rack to good use, I am looking at ideas for a small lumber mill, so hopefully that will be coming soon. Oh the picture at the bottom is the first thing that I have ever actually turned on my own lathe. Nothing special, but I wanted to just fire it up and try it out. So I now have a small club made out of a 2×4. More much better looking work to come.

I also added some much needed drawer space to my powertool bench. The larger one as you can see helped a bit with my drill bit storage issue. I am still devising a way to actually store all the bits in holders. Which will really help this drawer out, I made it so it could open from both sides if I wanted to.

week8_3

So there you have it a productive week in the shop. I am really looking forward to other things coming now that I have my lathe. I have of course been looking all over the web and some books as to get better acquainted.

Thanks for looking and hope you all have some good shop time coming up as well.

CtL
 
#20 ·
Week 9- Practice, Mazes and finally a Lathe Project

Wow I am only 9 weeks into this series and yet it seems to have been going for much longer. I did not get nearly as much shop time this week as I did last. But I managed to make some time to continue to practice with the lathe and I very happily finally posted my first official Lathe Project . To go along with my lathe I have been searching LumberJocks and various other places on the web for ideas for a sharpening jig and a band saw log mill. I have decided on the basic design of the sharpening jig and started today to cut stuff down and things together.

week9a

Here is a pic showing a very dry fit of the stand. Also pictured is my tea light candle holder I made a very quick drying board. I have been meaning to make one of these for quite a while now and seeing the 10 Cent Labyrinth video that Steve posted recently it kind of reminded me of it. I also liked the video so much that I built one of the Labyrinths.

week9b

This was lot of fun to build and play with. I was happy to use my bandsaw and found that I really need a better coping saw. I have wood cut to be able to make one more that is a few more layers think as well. Once I get that one done I may post it as project. I did the plans for this on PowerPoint; which is generally where I do most of my planning, Quite by accident the internal maze actually cam out looking like my initials. I am making the next one a little more complicated.. I hope.

As always have some fun in the shop this week.

CtL
 
#21 ·
Week 10- A weekend at the Woodworking Show

Well I can pretty much say I did not complete anything in the shop this week. I did get my stand for the grinder assembled but still need to make the jig system, plan to work on that this week. I did however spend the entire weekend at the Woodworking show in Chantilly. I actually went all three days and enjoyed it for different reasons on all three. Friday I went by myself and took in some of the various seminars. If you have never seen Alex Snodgrass cut a reindeer in a few seconds its pretty cool. I thought very hard about tuning up my band saw after that presentation but I was focused on another tool this weekend.
I did catch up to Chuck Bender there and also got to meet DigitalDistinction at the end of the day. Really great to meet other local LumberJocks.

On Saturday my wife and daughter joined me and they each took a turn making their own pens. Thanks so much to Jim for helping my daughter, she was excited but as the crowd of kids pressed in on her she was kind of overwhelmed. Thanks to Jim's help she made a great pen.

week10a

We did not stay to long around there as my daughter was getting antsy but did catch up to Greg3G Also spent a good amount on purchasing some stuff for my wife to be able to try her hand at some acrylic pens.

Week10b

I picked up the other items in this pic today when I was there so I can work on wood pens. My friend Phil joined me and after listening to Jim Healy discuss routers for over an hour we turned our own pens and met Greg and his wife for lunch. Willards is always a good excuse to be in that area. We picked up a few additional items and then headed on home.

week10c

As you can see in this pic I grabbed a number of different clamps over the 3 days as well as some parts for upcoming jigs. A fun filled woodworking weekend that I was happy to share with multiple people.

Looking forward to getting into the shop this week and onto some jig making. Enjoy your week everyone.

CtL
 
#22 ·
Glad that you were able to go. I had made plans to do that earlier but they fell through at the last moment. Sorry that we couldn't get together.
 
#26 ·
Week 11- Looking forward to sharpening my lathe skills

Well I am still working on improving my lathe skills. In an effort to get better and use sharper tools I have been going over the LumberJocks and the rest of the web searching plans for a grinding jig. I finally settled on using some plans from Around the Woods a few modifications for my smaller grinder. I do still need to buy a new wheel for my grinder so I am keeping the current one away from my good tools that I bought and practicing mainly with the older ones that came with the lathe. I still need to build some holding blocks for my gouges and will work on that this week more then likely along with finishing a drill press jig for holding my pen blanks.

week11a

week11b

I am pretty happy how this project turned out. It is made completely of scrap. I had all the parts on hand with the exception of a bolt I used in place of a dowel to keep the arm straight when it extends. I practiced a skill I have seen several times but as yet had not attempted which was to make the slot in the arm using the router table. I am need of one additional arm in the near future for my other set of tools which are a bit longer.

In addition to this I have been watching videos and reading articles all over the web on turning. Once I get myself in gear though I am really thinking about following the " Course in Woodturning" written by Milton & Wohlers in 1919. It was suggested to me here on LumberJocks by EEngineer. I love older writing and have printed out a copy that is now sitting next to my lathe. I may need to get a hold of a chuck first but we will see.

Well until next week. Have fun in the shop all.

CtL
 
#27 ·
Vises and Crocodiles

Well all it has been a rather long week; I have spent a large portion of it away from home due to some family issues. I was though able to finish up my Drill Press Pen Vise before leaving. I again looked at several different ideas on LumberJocks and other websites. I found Rod's (from Appleton, WA) design on the International Pen Turners website and made a few adaptations to it. (My apologizes to Rod as I can not find the link right now to the website.)

week12a

The main change I made was that Rod's attached to his drill press via a clamp. Since I already had my drill press table and a fence, I decided to use some rare earth magnets to attach the jig in place. I am hoping this will come in handy for future jigs as well. The entire jig is made from scrap pieces from those cabinets again. (truly get my worth ouf of those)I picked up the clamp at the WoodWorking Show a couple of weeks ago.

The other thing I did this week was put together an automaton. There was a hobby shop near my in-laws that I took my daughter to, after buying her a new toy I found they had a few TimberKits on sale. I have a few of these sitting in my workshop and have yet to really take the time to work on them. Since this was a small one and I could work on it at the dining room in the evenings I decided to get it. I had a lot of fun with it, and it went together very easy. I will say after working on one with prefab parts I have even more respect for those of you that do these from scratch, not that I am still not looking toward designing one in the future.

week12b

You'll notice my homemade clamp, for some reason one of the dowels that came with the kit was splitting down the middle. Not having any of my tools with me and thinking the 2 clamps my father-in-law was giving me a bit large for the task I improvised. It worked out quite well. Here is the finished product…

week12c

Looking forward to several nights at home this week and some good shop time, hope you all get the same and have fun.

CtL
 
#28 ·
Best laid plans of...

Well even though I had grand plans for the week in the shop they never really came to fruition. I spent very little time in there at all in fact. I did at least do some work on the table saw at work though and made a few shelves for our office coffee/kitchen cart.

The time I did get to spend working at home did not even take place until today, my wife has been asking me to do some work on the raised garden beds I built a few years ago for her. She has bought some netting in order to make a trellis and needed a frame attached to the back of the largest box. So after a quick trip to the "orange place" I was able to make her a nice sturdy frame for her trellis. As well as help fasten in the eye hooks to define the garden space. She has taken up "Square Foot" gardening hence the measured out plots.

IMG_1184

Perhaps I should post this as a project over at Garden Tenders. Well maybe I will.

Anywho, not a whole lot more to say this evening. Looking forward to some tree work at work this week so I should be adding to my wood pile a bit, perhaps work on some green turnings.

Until next time, have fun in the shop all.

CtL
 
#30 ·
Week 14- No time this week.

Evening All
Due to the the passing of my mother-in-law last week I did not spend anytime in the shop. It has been a long week and an emotional one.

R.I.P Mom S.

See you all next week.

CtL
 
#32 ·
Week 15- Balancing Wine, Knobs and Beds

Well although my week seemed a little slow to start I am happy to report that I was able to get a good amount of time in the shop. As of my writing I completed 3 different things. I have been looking at wine balancers a lot lately. Not entirely sure why as I do not drink at all but they seem really cool and I thought it would give me something to do with all of those bottle of wine that people have given us and just sit in our dining room buffet. My other thought on these is to make a number of them from woods found and sell them. That's whole 'nother blog though.
Here is the first one that I have made.

Week15A

This piece of scrap has been in my bin a little while and every time I looked at it I knew there hade to be some use for it. This one will be going to work for a bottle of Pelligrino Water in our conference room. I have left it completely natural, I am sure I will have to replace it at some point but wanted to get the idea made and go from there.

Once I was in the shop I decided to stay there yesterday and try to tune up my new scroll saw. As you can see it is a bit battered, but seems to work just fine.

week15b

The top knob was missing; and according to the guy I bought it from has been since he got it. The knob for the table tilt was broken and I had to use pliers to remove it. So decided to make some new knobs as I have seen a few LJs make them and wanted to try my hand. Mine are pretty simple and work just fine. The screws are held in with super glue and then used the edge of the belt sander to make the indentations. A little bit of compressed air, oil and some dish washing (for the guard) and it looks pretty good.

week15c

My last project of the week took me outside again. The DW wanted to add a 4th raised bed to the collection. This one is hopefully going to help tame some of the squash and pumpkins that ran amuck in our yard last year. So a trip to the Big Orange for the wood and a quick trip to get a 4th clamp to make my life easier. Some cuts, some Kreg Joints and it is done.

week15d

The painted box was built 2 years ago and produces a huge amount of strawberries and a few blueberries. Looking forward to both of those crops coming in.

All in all the weekend has been quite a productive one. Hope yours was too.

CtL
 
#35 ·
Week 16- No catchy title tonight

Evening all, can not really think of a catchy title for tonight. I posted my Happy Easter Project last evening and my daughter just loved them this morning when she found them after we got home from sunrise service and breakfast. The other thing that I have from this week was actually done at work, I had to go in today, but was not quite as busy as planned. So I decided to complete a quick project I have been meaning to make. A Mini Saw Buck, the plans came from ericsprojects.com and it came out great. The pics are still on my phone so I will try to post them soon. I built it in the 18" size as noted by the plans but I am thinking I may shorten it to 12" long in order to cut up pieces to resaw on my bandsaw.
Sorry no pics or much else tonight, but as I mentioned I got up for sunrise service (which was great, held outside of the church around a nice campfire) then worked and went to see family. Going to call it a night real soon. Hope everyone had a nice weekend and good Easter.

Catch up to you soon and have fun.

CtL
 
#36 ·
Week 17- It's a process…

One that I am hoping to get a good grasp of in the next few weeks. The process to which I am referring to is resawing my own wood for projects. I have made a few projects out of reclaimed wood such as my bandsaw boxes and the parting gifts for some coworkers that have left. Now what I am hoping to do is go one step further and make some different projects from these woods that I am able to collect. I mentioned last week that I had built a saw buck well I finally put it to some use and got some pics as well.

week17a

It worked quite nicely for cutting the log to a good manageable size. I made mone a little differently then Eric did and used some carriage bolts as the pivot points. This seems to work just fine. One the log is a decent size I seal the ends with latex. I have been doing this to some wood for a while now and have a few pieces that may be ready for me to use soon.

week17b

Now I need to of course check the moisture and I do have a meter for that. I am planning to put a new blade on my bandsaw this week and get everything set up. I have not yet decided on a bandsaw sled or just using my jointer to flatten out a log first, which I have done for some of my other projects. Hopefully next week, I will have some boards and maybe even a project to show off.

Talk to you all soon and have fun in the shop.

CtL
 
#40 ·
Week 18- Resawing

Usable Logs…

Well I was actually able to take the time this week and accomplish the goal I set for myself in last week's blog. I wanted to cut down some of my own logs and make some usable wood from them. I am happy to say that it worked. I of course need to tweak the system a bit and experiment a bit more with some other thicknesses and woods but I am pretty happy with how things turned out. Rather then a jig I decided on once again using my jointer to give me some flat sides. Thru work I can have a pretty good supply of wood so I am not overly worried about the amount of waste using this practice, though I may change in the future to save my cutters a bit of stress.
The first log I decided to attack was honeysuckle piece that I brought home a while ago. The sealing and labeling seemed to have worked out quite well

week18a

As I normally do I wanted to actually make something so I decided upon some pen blanks. After cutting the log in slices I then cut it into strips and then just cut them on my chop saw.

week18b

Hopefully pens will be coming soon.

Since everything was going well I decided to attack a mystery log. This was one that was left to dry in the woods and I just picked it up one day and brought it home. It was plenty dry. With the very rustic look of the wood. I decided to go for some coasters.

week18c

A little bit of spray lacquer and they turned out pretty good.

week18d

The last piece here is a wine balancer I made out of the last piece of honeysuckle. It actually wound up a little to thick so I think that one may just be tossed or else I will play with it a bit to get it thinned downed.

Looking forwardto havinga little bit of time to myself in the shop this week due to a really busy week at work. Until next week, have fun in your shop.

CtL
 
#42 ·
Week 19-Workshop Solution and a practice in progress

Not a ton to write about this evening, it has been quite a long week at work and I will show why later on in the week. Since I also worked on Saturday I only got a little bit of shop time last night and today. Having received my blade holders and a manual (many kudos to Dremel customer service) for my scroll saw this week, I decided I should take some time to sit down and do some more practice. First though I had to come up with a way attach the saw to my workbench.

week19a

Here is what I came up with, the saw has been mounted to a piece of scrap plywood (those dang cabinets are still coming in handy) then I drilled a hole through the back of my work bench for one of my large face clamps. The front is even with the front of my bench and held down by one C-clamp. It seems to do the job nicely. I have been using the saw for a few hours and nothing seems to move.

I decided to give myself some practice by making letters for a few signs, hope to have them on display later this week. The fun part is my daughter is helping with one for her bedroom door, looking forward to her time in the shop with me.

That's about it for this evening, hope everyone had a good weekend. Have fun this week.

CtL
 
#46 ·
The hands of Masters

First off let me just say I am happily still working on my sign project, as is my daughter but since I really should have thought harder about my daughter's sign we have changed direction and now I have a few more letters to cut out. Oh well.

In the meantime, I would like to relate a slightly different tale. It has been my pleasure of the past year to watch a number of true craftsmen at work. The dedication of the Korean Bell Garden Pavilion at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens was last weekend. It has been truly something to watch this being built.

Slide1

The logs you see being delivered arrived in a few different loads. Humorously, we got a call one day saying they would be delivering some wood for use on this project. We wound up with a delivery of several trees. However, a few months went by and carpenters arrived from Korea. These 4 men had a little bit of powered help by means of a band saw mill, chainsaws and a few drills and power planers; but did a ton of work with just hand tools. They worked through the summer and into September, when they left 2 other gentleman flew in to work on the slate roof. All of the slate was brought in. Work has been continuing on various parts over the past year. The bell itself arrived last month from Korea where it was cast and was installed. Leaving us with this…

Slide2

This entire structure only has maybe about 2 dozen bolts in it. Everything interlocks together. This was the awesome thing to watch. These guys built several dozen of the same pieces in order to have everything fit together with a small amount of hammering on occasion. As soon as I receive permission from another friend I will post pictures of some of the work in progress as I know folks here will want to see some of the up close stuff.

Slide4

In order to celebrate the dedication of the bell installation an artist came from Korea to carve some traditional totem poles (jangseung). I was not able to watch him but it is my understanding these were all carved by hand with axes, froes, and chisels. Some of the detailing was actually burned into them with a torch.

Slide3

As a LumberJock it has been a true pleasure to be able to watch as this structure has been assembled over the past year. I will look to get some of the in progress pictures up soon. If you happen to be in the Northern Virginia area I would encourage you to check this place out, and let me know.

Hope everyone has a good week in the shop and out.

CtL
 
#50 ·
A day late…

and not a lot to show for it.
I have been spending the past couple of weeks practicing with my scroll saw, since I hate to do nothing I decided to work on a few signs and cut the letters out with the saw. This has given me a great opportunity to experiment with different blades and also prompted me to work on a dust collection concept for my saw. I finished the first sign this morning.

IMG_1445

I have had this saying hanging in my shop for a bit on a piece of paper; thought it would make a good practice piece. I have decided the next time I need to work on gang cutting some of the letters.
The other sign next to it is an older project that I did while I was practicing with my router. Guess I liek making signs for practice :)

Translation: "I can make it with my own hands"

We are still working on my daughter's sign but hope to have it done and up on the wall by the end of the week.

I have become inspired by numerous Lumberjocks to try my hand at a few small cutting boards. So today I dug out a piece of Maple I have had laying in the shop and ran it through the band saw.

IMG_1452

Not a lot to work with but I have some ideas; been playing with PowerPoint to figure out some patterns. I have more maple but need to split it before I can get it through my saw. So look for some projects coming soon.

Until later, hope you all have fun in the shop.

CtL
 
#51 ·
That's funny that you use power point. My mother used to use a spreadsheet to write letters. Have you tried SketchUp. That might work for you as well. I look forward to seeing this Maple in a board.
 
#52 ·
Working on my first cutting board.

So one of the things I like about this hobby is there is always something new to try and for a person that has a hard time with doing the same thing constantly that is a good thing. The problem with that is there is always something new and I have not yet found one thing to focus one, I am not sure if that is a good thing or not. But until I figure it out I am pretty happy trying as much as I can.

That being said I have decided to tackle a cutting board. My first one is to be for a gift and will only be a small one for cheese and such. I am hoping to make a wine bottle balancer to go with it. I started earlier this week in putting stuff together and got a fair amount of time to work on it this weekend, need to do a lot more sanding and of course finishing before the middle of the week.

I laid the idea out in PowerPoint as always and decided to use Maple and Cherry.

week20

The maple is actually a resaw that I worked on and the cherry I had picked up at the last woodworking show. I am pretty excited about using wood that I cut myself and trying to make sure things turn out good. I had some extra leftover so I decided to make the smaller board, if nothing else it will allow me to experiment with the finshing process some more. The balancer is started but has plenty of work to be done as I am going to make it out of the same two woods.

I do want to thank all of those here at LumberJocks that have given a lot of inspiration for doing not only this cutting board but a lot of my projects. You all truly help me see different ideas and things that are possible. Hope everyone has a great week in the shop.

CtL
 
#54 ·
Cutting Board Complete, Sign Glued up

Evening All,
I just finished posting my very first Cutting Board project. I really enjoyed working on it.

week23b

One of the things that was great about working on this is that the Maple I used was milled by me. This is one of the reasons I went with a smaller cheese board type. The other to be honest is that I was not sure I could do a larger one. I had the cherry on hand. I really like the way they combined and after doing some research and recalling what people here have said I decided on a Mineral Oil finish. I am glad I did.

week23c

The wine tilt was done as an added bonus from some of thescraps. Both the tilt and the larger of the boards you see went to a good friend for her birthday. She loves to spend time in the kitchen and I hope she will put the board to good use. She was quite excited when I gave it to her and appearently never seena wine tilt so we had to try it out.

The other half of this post is the fact that I finally got to sit down for a little bit with my daughter so we could glue her sign together.

week23a

I made the lettering for this sign right around the time I made the one for mine additional practice. She took all the letters and painted them herself. After getting a scrap piece of Plywood cut to the correct size (always remember to measure how big the sign will be before cutting the base :% ) we were able to sit down for a little bit and do some glueing. I found it was easier to put a glove on and hold the letters for her as she painted the glue on the backs. She did great and only got a small amount of glue on Daddy. Looking forawrd to taking the weight off of the sign tomorrow and having her help me put it up. Oh and she took the picture of the layout of the sign.

Thanks all for looking and hope you have fun in the shop this week. I am going to be working on some birthday requests and presents.

CtL
 
#56 ·
Daddy, how does a teeter totter work?

This was the question that my daughter asked me on the way to dinner last night. I tried to explain the central pivot point and she kind of got it, but since most teeter totters or see-saws today are nice and kid friendly (unlike those ones some of us grew up with) and use a large spring in the middle instead. We decided we would make one in order for her to use it for her doll house. This by no means is fine woodworking, but it was a great time having her help me in the shop today.

week24

With a few small scraps and some dabs of glue we made a nice small teeter totter. While the glue was drying she decided she wanted to work on her nail banging skills.

IMG_1531

She did a good job and was even happier when she was allowed to use a few clamps to hold everything in place. I could not resist recording her practice.

http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377

A great Father's Day :) Oh and I was also able to complete another project this morning but since it is a birthday gift for July it will have to remain a secret project for a little bit longer. I already have materials laid out for another gift that needs to be started this week and picked up supplies for at least one more. July is shaping up to be a very busy month. Oh well should be fun.

Hope all you dads had a good Father's Day and to everyone have some fun in the shop this week.

CtL
 
#57 ·
Happy Fathers day to you sir. I had a great time with 4 of my children able to visit for the day. The other two are a little far away.
 
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