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10,000 Hours

18K views 58 replies 24 participants last post by  UncleBuck 
#1 ·
The Beggining

This is my first post of many in my quest to accomplish 10,000 hours of woodworking. I don't know if anyone will bother reading this but it will be more of a log of my hours maybe things that I have learned and some pictures of my projects along the way. I will include reading and research apart of the 10,000 hours. I did buy The Essential Woodworker so however long it takes me to read/take notes will count towards my hours. Furthermore, I will track the time that I spend in my shop completing projects or practicing skills. I hope if your reading this you can help give me pointers along the way or motivate me because I am sure in tracking 10,000 hours worth of work is going to become monotonous at times.
 
#4 ·
I get asked all the time about how long did this or that project take and I can never give an accurate estimate. Do I count the time I spend goofing off with my kids while the glue dries? Honestly, I don't care. Time in the shop is a good thing. As soon as I start tracking hours, it starts to feel like work and less like a hobby. The only time I track is how late can I keep the saws running before my neighbors start to complain.

Good luck in your quest. I guess you will put to the test the theory that mastery requires 10,000 hours.
 
#6 ·
Good Luck Lucas :) May I make a suggestion? Since you are new to woodworking and blogging, maybe do a smaller goal first? maybe 100 or at most 1000? With 10000 that is 416 days if do woodworking 24/7…

I am new too and from what everyone has been telling me, start small and work your way up :) If you hit a smaller goal faster than you though, make another blog series and increase it a bit. Just don't want you to get discouraged.

Have fun!
 
#7 ·
i hear you. I am more doing this as a study as well that states that it takes an estimated 10,000 hours of dedicated practice to become a "Master" at a skill. So I am interested to see if I will end up being like Chris Schwarz after 10,000 hours lol.
 
#11 ·
I don't think even Chris Schwarz accumulated 10,000 hours in the shop in his first years woodworking. I am not too worried that this goal will take 5+ years or more. I will be posting my first project hopefully soon. I just moved to Colorado Springs so my garage workshop is yet to be setup lol.
 
#12 ·
Hey Lucas,

That's an extremely admirable goal. Along the way, I'm sure you will make many great projects for/with your son, thus passing along the skills and work ethic necessary to be a successful woodworker. Keep in mind, it's the journey, not the destination, although each finished project in and of itself is a milestone. Did you pick 10,000 hours because you want to become a woodworking outlier? I'm looking forward to following along. I did 1% of this with my boat build blog in 100 hours.
 
#13 ·
I picked 10,000 hours just because that is supposedly the # of hours to master something. I am looking forward to the journey very much so. My daughter and my son will enjoy many pieces and hopefully learn as well when they get older.
 
#15 ·
A lofty goal indeed !!

Let's see - need to do some math…

If I could spend 1 hour a day in the shop (which is unlikely), that's 365 hours a year. It would take 27.4 years for me to reach the 10,000 hour mark. I am aged 59, so this means I would be 86 before I could become a 'Master' woodworker. Of course this doesn't factor in the 10+ years I've been tinkering with wood up until now, so maybe I could look forward to mastering something by age 80…boggles the mind.

Anyway, it's good to have you in the woodworking and LJs community.

Hey, I just noticed you are from Colorado Springs. I'm just up the road a piece from you in Castle Rock!

Howdy neighbor!
 
#17 ·
Workbench Planing

So today was a learning experience for sure. I spent 3 hours planning my workbench top. Furthermore, my bench was slopped together literally 2 weeks before I moved across the country. I hope when I get more skills and more understanding the wifey will allot me some money to make a better bench in a year or so.

Wood Gas Shelf Machine Hardwood


The Mistake

So I thought I knew how to flatten my workbench top and boy was I wrong. I began by planning lengthwise on my bench (which has a major cup running through the entire length). I tried to plane the edges of the cup down which was working. At least I thought it was. After planning one of the corners I get out my winding stick, which is a 48" long piece of steel (yes it is square), and what do I find out? I planned one corner WAY too far down.. so now the opposite corner is high the middle still has a cup and the edge I just planned is now lower than the cup! So, I thought to myself I have to be doing this wrong. Went to the web looked up some videos and found that I indeed was going about it the wrong way. Flash forward to the end of my 3 hours I have gone width wise across my top until I was getting consistent shavings and now the rest of the top has kind of come down to the level of my low corner. I took out my winding stick and I still have a cup! on one end it isn't much of a cup maybe 1/8" (due to me working only one end of the bench earlier). The other end of the bench has I would say a little over 1/4". I am using a Stanley No. 5 Jack plane. I am not sure why I still have a cup I suspect it is because my jack plane is just riding the cup because it is taking shavings out of the middle and the sides. For anyone who is reading this my bench top is 30"W X 60"L it is made out of construction grade 2×4 Whitewood.

I will be doing some more researching on this and how to correct that dang cup! Hopefully someone will grace my Blog and give me some pointers!

00,003/10,000 Hours
 

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#18 ·
Workbench Planing

So today was a learning experience for sure. I spent 3 hours planning my workbench top. Furthermore, my bench was slopped together literally 2 weeks before I moved across the country. I hope when I get more skills and more understanding the wifey will allot me some money to make a better bench in a year or so.

Wood Gas Shelf Machine Hardwood


The Mistake

So I thought I knew how to flatten my workbench top and boy was I wrong. I began by planning lengthwise on my bench (which has a major cup running through the entire length). I tried to plane the edges of the cup down which was working. At least I thought it was. After planning one of the corners I get out my winding stick, which is a 48" long piece of steel (yes it is square), and what do I find out? I planned one corner WAY too far down.. so now the opposite corner is high the middle still has a cup and the edge I just planned is now lower than the cup! So, I thought to myself I have to be doing this wrong. Went to the web looked up some videos and found that I indeed was going about it the wrong way. Flash forward to the end of my 3 hours I have gone width wise across my top until I was getting consistent shavings and now the rest of the top has kind of come down to the level of my low corner. I took out my winding stick and I still have a cup! on one end it isn't much of a cup maybe 1/8" (due to me working only one end of the bench earlier). The other end of the bench has I would say a little over 1/4". I am using a Stanley No. 5 Jack plane. I am not sure why I still have a cup I suspect it is because my jack plane is just riding the cup because it is taking shavings out of the middle and the sides. For anyone who is reading this my bench top is 30"W X 60"L it is made out of construction grade 2×4 Whitewood.

I will be doing some more researching on this and how to correct that dang cup! Hopefully someone will grace my Blog and give me some pointers!

00,003/10,000 Hours
It looks good so far. That'll be a sturdy bench when you're done. I've found it really helps to use a pencil and outline then hash mark the high spots. Hand planing lets you focus on specific areas and unless you're using a very long plane you really need to be targeting the high spots specifically. A 30" jointer will do a lot of the guess work for you, but a 15" jack requires you to steer it.

Kudos to you for sticking to it though. You'll learn lots about hand planing doing it. And beef up your arm muscles. You have a good pile of shavings to show for it too. Fun times.
 

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#21 ·
More Work Needs to be Done

00,003.50 / 10,000

So I spent a half hour planning the top of my workbench which had the cupping problems. I marked the high spots with my straight edge and focused on those until everything was pretty much flat. Some spots in the middle may have had a bit more than 1/16th of an inch. So now that I got it flat-ish I started planning across the entire width of my table. after going one pass I took the straight edge out again and it seems like one spot seemed to get an even worse of a cup? My bench is 30" wide and I cannot plane the entire width in one pass… so I have to go about half way across the table on one side then switch sides and do the same thing. Do you think that Is why I ended up making my cup a little bit worse in some areas? I don't know… I have a #7 Stanley Jointer coming on Wednesday of this week. Maybe I will just wait to finish the bench until I have something with a longer sole.
 
#22 ·
Length is your friend when it comes to flattening long/wide surfaces. There's quite a difference between a Jack plane and a Jointer plane when put up against a 30" wide surface. Too late I'm sure, but I would have gone for the #8. You don't need a Jointer often, but when you do every inch is helpful.

But I'm sure that cup will disappear with the #7
 
#25 ·
My First "Real" Project...

So I think I have settles on my first project… well more my wife settled on it for me. I am going to build a sofa table. I am still thinking of designs in my head and types of joints I am going to use. I think this "should" be a easier build and should not take too long. I am thinking of using finger joints to hold the top to the 2 legs then using a mortise and tennon joint as a bracer that will also be used as a shelf if we ever move it out from behind the sofa and use it in a hallway. The type of wood I am using is Poplar my wife liked the knots and "rustic" look of one of the pieces. So I picked that up along with another peace that is FAS.

I have sketchup on my computer but does anyone else use a different program?
 
#26 ·
Hey Lucas,

Even though technically poplar is a hard wood (because it has leaves), it's actually extremely soft. While it certainly has an attractive price point at the big box stores and comes nicely dimensioned for you. Keep in mind that the effort to make something out of oak vs. poplar is the same, but the oak will last a lifetime. You may not get that kind of longevity out of poplar. If your intent is to just build furniture to get the experience, that's one thing. But if the intent is to build a quality piece of furniture, keep the softness factor in mind. For example, I made a router template out of poplar and the router bearing wore a groove into the wood, which changed the profile over time. If the Mrs. likes that rustic knotty look, there are pine species that would definitely scratch that itch (and are probably harder), give a more country style rustic look and might take to the stain better than poplar, depending on the finished color.
 
#31 ·
30 more minutes of playing

00,004 / 10,000

Spent a half hour playing with my #7 stanley!! Man did that thing solve my cupping issues quickly. My only semi problem is getting high enough to plane across my 30" bench top. My top is pretty tall I haven't got around to cutting the legs shorter yet. I would say my bench top is 38" tall (I jsut measured) I didnt think it was that tall everyone haha. I may cut those legs shorter much sooner… I think 35" is perfect for me I am 5 11" so that is right at my hip. Well tomorrow is another day!

Thanks for reading.
 
#32 ·
It's been awhile

00,007 / 10,000

With work, college, and the kids running a much it has taken me awhile to have the time to post another blog entry. I put in 3 hours of work on my workbench over the past week or so. I finally go that sucker very flat with my #7. I am having problems with the crappy knotty whitewood from Lowes with my smoothing plane set to the finest setting. It stick chops and skips no matter which way I am planning. I may end up just getting a ROS with my tool money. But with a smooth top or not it is done! I cut both my ends "square" with my crosscut saw. I have some work to do still with trueing up my ends and the faces of the 2×4 top to make sure everything is nice and square. Hopefully I will finish that worth over the next few days and I will get to work installing my Jorgensen vice 10" Jaw size with 12" opening capacity and it has a built in dog. Once I get that heavy beast installed it is on to my dog holes. I will add some pictures of the bench when I get home. I have added some tools along the way over the past couple of weeks and I think I am pretty well setup to be able to do most of the minor woodworking projects I want to complete like the sofa table (still in the planning stages). Hopefully I will have a finished bench by the end of this weekend! (then again it is the kickoff of march madness so…. maybe not)

Table Wood Rectangle Outdoor furniture Outdoor table
 

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#33 ·
It's been awhile

00,007 / 10,000

With work, college, and the kids running a much it has taken me awhile to have the time to post another blog entry. I put in 3 hours of work on my workbench over the past week or so. I finally go that sucker very flat with my #7. I am having problems with the crappy knotty whitewood from Lowes with my smoothing plane set to the finest setting. It stick chops and skips no matter which way I am planning. I may end up just getting a ROS with my tool money. But with a smooth top or not it is done! I cut both my ends "square" with my crosscut saw. I have some work to do still with trueing up my ends and the faces of the 2×4 top to make sure everything is nice and square. Hopefully I will finish that worth over the next few days and I will get to work installing my Jorgensen vice 10" Jaw size with 12" opening capacity and it has a built in dog. Once I get that heavy beast installed it is on to my dog holes. I will add some pictures of the bench when I get home. I have added some tools along the way over the past couple of weeks and I think I am pretty well setup to be able to do most of the minor woodworking projects I want to complete like the sofa table (still in the planning stages). Hopefully I will have a finished bench by the end of this weekend! (then again it is the kickoff of march madness so…. maybe not)

Table Wood Rectangle Outdoor furniture Outdoor table
finally got a picture up.
 

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#36 ·
Sharpening

00,007.5 / 10,000

So I have a hard copy of a sharpening book then I also checked out a book on my kindle called Hand Tool Essentials: Refine your power tool projects with hand tool techniques written by the editors of Fine Woodworking. Now I own all of 3 power tools (Scroll saw, Circ. Saw, Jig Saw) but this book has a lot of great information about hand tools that applies perfectly for me as a beginner. I read through different parts last night and a little bit today. Some things that stood out to me was you had to flatten the entire face of the chisel not just near the cutting edge. I can't remember if I have heard this about plane irons or chisels about only needing to flatten the inch or two near the cutting edge. Anyways, I learned something. There is a lot of information that I learned in this book so far but the other takeaway is that Christopher Schwarz does not use a medium grit stone? He says in the book that a British craftsmen by the name of David Charlesworth sharpened about 100 edges without the medium grit stone and observed the edges with a 30X jewelers loupe and then put them to work. Christopher Schwarz was convinced that the fine grit waterstone cuts fast enough to polish your edge and remove the scratches left by the course grit stone. This is interesting to me I will have to do some more digging around on this and it will most likely save me a decent amount of $$.

Another thing that I need to look into is sandpaper sharpening. I do not have the $$ in my tool budget yet to buy waterstones so I am thinking of getting some sandpaper and either a flat piece of 12" by 12" tile or a small piece of granite. When I went to the store the highest grit I saw at Lowes was 400. I am not sure on if this is fine enough to sharpen my chisels just fine enough to get by until I can purchase those water stones.

If anyone does or has used the sandpaper method please post your setup here.

That is it for today. When I get off work I am going to be flattening the underside of my bench so I can attach my bench vice so wish me luck!
 
#37 ·
In the past I used the "scary sharp" method using 1/4" plate glass & sandpaper attached to the glass by"spritzing" water on it. After using this method for a few years I recently switched to Shapton ceramic stones.

I have a small basement workshop and have a fulltime job & 2 kids-so shop time & space is at a premium. It seems that it just became a little time consuming to get the glass out & go through multiple grits to sharpen one of my plane blades. But this system does work. I also went through quite a bit of sandpaper - but I have also refurbished several old planes/blades. If you are looking for finer grit paper to get the shiny finish try your local auto parts store & the have wet/dry sandpaper into the thousands of grit.

Using the ceramic stones is quicker & takes up less space-but I understand your $ limitations. I was really guided to this system by Rob Cosman & The Wood Whisperer-they have videos on-line you can watch. The methods they show will have a nice edge on a tool & back to work in a matter of minutes.

Let me know if you have any more questions.
 
#45 ·
Bench vice Installation, Finally!!

00,009 / 10,000

So I spent about an hour and a half flattening the bottom of my bench where my vice attaches and also removing material so my vice will sit flush with the top.

Table Wood Rectangle Wood stain Floor


below is the final product. The vice does not sit flush with the bench though it is about a fat 1/16. Is this going to be a problem? Also, the vice barely is not sitting square with the side of the bench. It is a slim 1/16 gap along the enitire length. The bottom inch or so is sitting flush with the side of the bench. Is this enough to take issue?

Tire Wheel Wood Tread Flooring


Wood Floor Wood stain Flooring Hardwood


Table Wood Wood stain Plank Gas
 

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#46 ·
Bench vice Installation, Finally!!

00,009 / 10,000

So I spent about an hour and a half flattening the bottom of my bench where my vice attaches and also removing material so my vice will sit flush with the top.

Table Wood Rectangle Wood stain Floor


below is the final product. The vice does not sit flush with the bench though it is about a fat 1/16. Is this going to be a problem? Also, the vice barely is not sitting square with the side of the bench. It is a slim 1/16 gap along the enitire length. The bottom inch or so is sitting flush with the side of the bench. Is this enough to take issue?

Tire Wheel Wood Tread Flooring


Wood Floor Wood stain Flooring Hardwood


Table Wood Wood stain Plank Gas
LucasWoods,
I don't know for sure, as I have never attached a vise to a bench top (though I am in the middle of flattening the top and bottom of my laminated workbench top/workbench slab - so far only one pass across the top with hand power planer). But, having said that, I think you would want to make sure everything fits up against the wood square and without gaps. 1/16" seems like a big gap (to me anyway). Do you know why it isn't square or fitting closer? If it's merely a matter of more planing or chopping out of the wood, you might want to consider going ahead and taking the time and effort to make the vise fit to a closer tolerance. Please forgive me if I am missing something glaring that you have already explained, and I hope you don't mind too much comments from and old dude with only a little woodworking experience under the belt. Hopefully some more experienced persons will have some better/experienced advice for you as well.
 

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#50 ·
My bench is finally complete (pic's included)

00,011 / 10,000

It has been awhile since my last blog post I have had some long days and work and finals for my two college courses I am taking. Anyways my bench ins finally complete! Over the past two weeks I slowly worked towards getting my bench vice installed, the wood faces for the vice. Just last night I drilled my dog holes. I still need to chamfer the edges on them but I am ready to put my bench to work! I put in about two hours of work on my bench since my last post which brings me up to 11 hours towards my 10,000 hour goal. I will begin my first furniture project sometime this upcoming week. My finals are over after today so I will have a lot more free time. I have some scraps to practice joinery on and learn some techniques etc. before I start my project. More to come on that later and maybe my next post will include a sketchup drawing so you all can comment on how crappy my design is and how I should improve it :).

All suggestions and critiques are welcome throughout my journey to 10,000 hours of woodworking.

Thank you all for reading! Check out my other blog posts too!

Wood Automotive tire Floor Flooring Composite material


Wood Wood stain Wall Door Hardwood
 

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#51 ·
My bench is finally complete (pic's included)

00,011 / 10,000

It has been awhile since my last blog post I have had some long days and work and finals for my two college courses I am taking. Anyways my bench ins finally complete! Over the past two weeks I slowly worked towards getting my bench vice installed, the wood faces for the vice. Just last night I drilled my dog holes. I still need to chamfer the edges on them but I am ready to put my bench to work! I put in about two hours of work on my bench since my last post which brings me up to 11 hours towards my 10,000 hour goal. I will begin my first furniture project sometime this upcoming week. My finals are over after today so I will have a lot more free time. I have some scraps to practice joinery on and learn some techniques etc. before I start my project. More to come on that later and maybe my next post will include a sketchup drawing so you all can comment on how crappy my design is and how I should improve it :).

All suggestions and critiques are welcome throughout my journey to 10,000 hours of woodworking.

Thank you all for reading! Check out my other blog posts too!

Wood Automotive tire Floor Flooring Composite material


Wood Wood stain Wall Door Hardwood
W00T!

Very nice! Just another 20,000 hours of work to go!
 

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#54 ·
Life is tough...

00,011 / 10,000

So it has been a very long time since I have really done anything in my workshop. It has been tough to get the time or even the motivation at this point. My family and I have been trying to figure out what is going on with our daughter Chloe who is turning 3 soon. It has been a long journey… We started off with her breaking her ankle at roughly 10 months old (I was deployed at the time as well). She was in a full leg cast that went all the way up to her hip. So once it came off we needed to get her into Physical Therapy due to the cast messing up the way she learned how to walk and her hip placement. Her Physical Therapist was amazing and we would discuss some other issues we had been having with Chloe as far as her developmental delays. I am so thankful to God for helping us find the right therapist who helped us along in getting Chloe more help. We go in to talk to her doctor and she is delayed in speech and she has some behavioral problems/anxiety as well. So at 2 years of age Chloe was in Occupational Therapy and Speech. She improved a lot in her speech though she is still very far behind the children of her age. OT helped with some of the other issues we were having. In February the Air Force moved me to Colorado so we had to stop her Therapies and get her started here. This is when we started looking for more answers to why she is the way she is. This led us to a Developmental Psychologist and another doctor (not military). She has begun Speech and OT again… but we still felt that there was something else going on. About two weeks ago we finally got an answer and as a father I was relieved to finally know what was "wrong" for lack of a better term and absolutely terrified. Our Daughter has been diagnosed with Autism. It has been a hard 2 years to finally get an answer and finally start our daughter on therapies that will be geared more towards her Autism… we have only told family so far but I felt like this blog that I started would be a good way as well to talk about it. Thank you all for listening…
 
#55 ·
Our daughter will be 5 in August. She was diagnosed with autism last Jan after an extensive series of tests.
In a lot of ways the news was a relief because we had known for about 2 yrs that she wasn't developing at the same
rate as a normal child. Thankfully she is not severe but verbal & cognitive skills are only about half of what they would usually be expected to be.
Laura started in the autism unit of our local school about 3 mts ago. There are 5 other pupils in her class. She has a qualified teacher & 2 assistants in the room with her and really looks forward to "big" school every morning.
 
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