It's woodworking season again!

The weather outside is cold, dreary, rainy, dark...  just plain yucky.

So what have I been doing all summer? Well, stuff... Some outdoorsy stuff, some indoorsy stuff. I did keep a few woodworking projects moving over the summer but not too much.

I bought a Harbor Freight 4'x8' folding trailer this summer. What's the big deal with that you ask? Well, since I traded my Silverado in for a Forrester I've not had a good way to get plywood home from the lumberyard. The Harbor Freight trailer was such a good deal. It's normally a $400 trailer but I got it on a better than normal sale. Great price, I just had to put it together.

I may have picked a poor day to start putting it together. I started bolting it together in my garage and part way through I started not feeling well so I laid down on the concrete to try and cool off some. I figured it was just a matter of having a typical software engineer physique. Turns out it was a 93 degree Fahrenheit day in Upstate NY in October. Set a new record high. <sigh>

Anyway, over a couple of weeks I got it put together, learned how to grease trailer wheel hub bearings and how to wire a trailer. All of these things are easier than you might think if you haven't ever one it before.

This last weekend I bought a sheet of 3/4" PT plywood to deck it with. Adding the plywood decking was quite annoying. The first step was to use a spade bit to make recesses for the bolt heads sticking up through the frame. That went pretty well except for needing a few tries to get everything lined up right.

The directions called for using 3/8" cross head bolts to fasten the decking to the trailer except I couldn't find them in my Home Depot. I substituted carriage bolts and they seemed to work out well enough. The most annoying part was trying to get the bolt holes in the decking in the right place. What I found worked for me was getting a couple of bolts in place then folding the trailer so I could work on each half vertically. I drilled a hole in about the right spot then when I figured out where the hole was I'd angle the drill bit to get it through the hole in the frame and then straighten the drill. So some of my holes are slightly elongated but I don't think it'll matter in the long run.

What else did I do over the summer? Well, I flew to Chicago to pick up my dad then drove to Carbondale, Il to see the eclipse. How was it? Well, I laughed, I cried, it was better than cats.

We experienced about two and a half minutes of totality; however, unfortunately a cloud occluded the sun for about two minutes of it.

Very sad but at least I had the presence of mind to take a picture of what I could see of the 360 degree sunset. In the panorama below, there's about 20 minutes between the two photos, the lower showing a chunk of the 360 degree sunset during totality.

Regardless  I got to spend a long weekend with my father and 100 or so new friends from Astronomy Cast's fans as well as Fraser Cain and Pamela Gay.

And now! Back to woodworking season!

It's Springtime in Upstate New York

Spring has finally arrived in upstate New York.

Flowers are starting to bloom, grass is starting to grow... heck the snow is melting. Okay, maybe that last might be a bit of hyperbole. We haven't seen snow for at least a few weeks now. The biggest signs that it is spring are that I have yard work I have to do, the local Brusters has reopened and it is warm enough I can drive my Miata without gloves and ear muffs.

However this spells the end of my primary woodworking season. It's really tough to spend time in my basement workshop when it's 80 and sunny outside.

I'll be updating my blog periodically until this coming winter when it is woodworking season again. My plans for the summer are principally to continue working on my workshop makeover. The last few weeks I've been working on building a closet for my dust collector. I should be able to get that finished by the end of the summer baring any crises. More about that soon.

It's Late Fall/Winter!

It's winter in upstate NY... Okay, technically it is still fall; however, we had over a foot of snow last week and I had to clear the driveway. That makes it winter in my book. Regardless, whether the season is fall or winter, it is definitely woodworking season again.

I've cleaned up the detritus of summer projects which involves putting tools away that were just set down rather than stored, throwing out scraps and cleaning up piles of sawdust. I've also done a couple of quick projects to get back into the swing of things.

Cat Scratching Post:
Our cat post had seen better days so I decided to strip the frayed carpet off and recover it with sisal rope. One thing I realized is that it is easier to have two people doing it so I enlisted my wife's help. The issue was that as I twisted the rope around the post it was torquing the rope and making the brain tighter until it kinked. This was solved by having my wife rotate the post while I kept the rope tight. I fastened the two ends of the rope to the post with staples intended for holding romex down.

I left the square of carpet on top because I didn't have a good idea how to wrap the sisal around the top and that carpet was still in good shape.

Also, the kittens are almost full sized but still super cute.

Wooden Wallet

A friend of mine asked me to make him a wooden wallet. I'm skeptical as to the utility in a wooden wallet; however, I figured I could throw one together. He asked for Padauk and Wenge. I happened to have to some small pieces lying around so I got it started this weekend.

I took a small strip of Wenge and cut two lengths that were 3/16" x 1/2" x 7". The pieces are effectively quartersawn. If I were to make another I think I'd make a point of using the plainsawn face for the edges. I cut a top and a side piece out of each and mitered the corners. I reused a jig from another project to hold the pieces a 90 degrees to each other while I glued them.

To glue the two halves together I used a scrap piece of Wenge and some tape to hold them together. I kind of wished I'd used a little more tape. When I checked on it a few hours later one of the pieces of tape had come loose. Still, it lasted long enough to get the pieces glued.

After the glue was set I cut the top piece from the bottom as I wont be able to after the faces are glued on. I used my small parts jig shown in this picture for cutting all these little pieces.

I also trimmed the faces and glued the top faces to the sides but failed to get any pictures of that. I'll put them into my next update.

Weekend Summary

It's kind of a slow start but it is a start. Workshop cleanup, a couple of small projects finished and started and I also trimmed my boards for the top to my dresser. I'm planning on focusing on my dresser in order to get it completed this year.

It's Spring!

It's spring here in upstate New York. We actually had a pretty mild winter this year but it is still much nicer out than it has been for the last six months. We've got clear skies. There's this giant yellow orb in the sky that is kind of bright that disappears for months at a time.

Anyhow, I've not had a lot of time for woodworking this last month. I did get a couple of drawer fronts mounted on my dresser but I'm going to hold off until they are all on before updating that project. But otherwise it has been being busy at work and yard work that has been keeping me busy.

Also, we got these Wednesday last:

We adopted these two cuties along with their mom. That's Heimdall on top, Idris her sister is on the bottom.

Last fall we lost our puppy Linnea Destroyer of Worlds. She was ten years old but still my puppy. This spring we lost Ginger our cat who was twenty. We'd had Linny since she was ten weeks old and Ginger since she was around four.

It's taken a few months but we were missing having some animal companions in the house. The new kittens have settled in and are having a romping good time. Their mom Luther, has been having a bit harder time adjusting but she's calming down.

So... play with kittens or go do woodworking...  it's a tough choice.

Where have you been?

Why haven't I been doing woodworking?

My primary woodworking season is late fall through early spring. In my part of the country that's about five months out of the year. Spring, summer and fall I'm kept busy with yard work and other outdoor activities. Unfortunately a succession of new jobs has kept me busy during my prime woodworking season for about the last five years Don't get me wrong, I'm happy I've been employed and I've parted amicably with all of my employers.

Why start blogging now?

About ten years ago I helped a friend build a nice gaming table top. I helped with the design ideas and tools but pretty much all the work was his. My friend (let's call him Mike to preserve his anonymity) finished the top but didn't have a clear concept of what kind of legs he wanted. Since the top was pretty solid we figured we could make do with temporary legs.

We quickly realized the temporary legs were just that. The legs wobbled and generally did a disservice to the beautiful top he'd made. I talked Mike into using beefy trestle table legs so people could sit at the corners of the table without banging their knees and to hopefully get rid of a lot of the wobble. Mike indicated he'd had enough woodworking and would be just as happy if I just made the legs for him. I promised I'd get right on that.

Well, here we are ten years later, I'm settled in my current job and have the mental energy to spend on woodworking. I wanted something relatively simple I could do in the shop and realizing Mike's table legs would really only be about eight pieces I figured I could bang them out over a couple of weekends.

It actually took me about two months to make the new legs but they came out spectacular. I finished them just in time for his New Years part extravaganza and I know many games were played on that table over the weekend. Everyone remarked at how much nicer it was to play games at a table that felt solid and didn't wobble.

Making those table legs has inspired me to get back into my woodworking hobby and spend some serious time in the workshop over the next few months. I also got my friend Mathieu Lesperance to make me a logo for my website a year ago so I figured I should restart my blog too if only to get his beautiful work in print (so to speak).

What next?

I've got a Mission-Style Quarter Sawn White Oak Dresser I started on about five years ago. The carcass has been sitting in my workshop with the rough cut wood for the drawers sitting on top of it. The panels for the sides have been sitting in my finishing room ready to be put into frame and panel sides. My goal is to finish the dresser this winter and be able to start some other projects that can then sit unfinished in my basement for a few years. For the near future my posts will be about my progress on the dresser - and any side projects I let myself get distracted with. I may fill in with my ramblings on other woodworking subjects from time to time as well.