Douglas Bordner's Workshop

Nice! It’s about time you posted some of your shop! Nice setup!

-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)

Thanks Mot. See what Deb thought, :-C
http://lumberjocks.com/topics/578

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

It’s a great shop. Deb is too picky….lol

-- We must guard our enthusiasm as we would our life - James Krenov

lol just doin’ my job, Wayne… just doin’ my job :D

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

I like it! Lots of hand tools to borrow using the CTS.

LOL…at least you have a 5 lb sack….mine’s a 1 lb sack.

-- Bob, Carver Massachusetts, Sawdust Maker http://www.capecodbaychallenge.org

Sack – schmack. If you know where everything is, it’s ok. As a right-brain person, I can say it’s easier sometimes to not have a system. I like to organize but I guarantee when I’m in the middle of something, there is no system. Nothing ever gets set in the same place twice… Debbie just got lucky when she visited my place. You should see it now. Ha!

Nice shoulder plane you’ve got there. How do you like it? Also, what are your thoughts on the Titebond hide glue? I thought about buying some the other day but decided against it for some reason.

-- Jeff, St. Paul, MN

Caliper,

Thanks for the nice comments. You have summed up the entirety of my married life. My wife is a list maker, folder user, etc (as well as being very artistic, so therefore both right and left brained — scary!). I am a pile maker. And so it goes (a tip of the hat to Linda Ellerbee).

As for the Hide glue, I use it almost exclusively as a wood filler maker. If the doves or box joints are less then stellar, I put a drop or two of Hide glue down over the defect, dump some sawdust out of the RO sander collection bag (assuming I saved some from the current project, instead of hooking up to dust extraction). Stir, and then sand it with a used up sanding disk until level. The hide glue sets from the heat of friction, and fills the gap-tearout-blemish. Hide glue, unlike Titebond II or III takes stain, so it is great for this type of repair. I use Gorilla Glue (even though panned recently in FWW) or Titebond III almost exclusively for joinery, depending on the complexity of the glue up.

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

You do have a great assortment of tools and the shop looks good.

-- Jesus is Lord!

Very usefull shop Douglas. A man after my own heart. I think I’ve got about 800 bd ft of cutt-offs, but I have no idea what it is, So it doesn’t get used. I’m thinking of hauling it to the toy club so that they can use it for making toys. After I pick out the premo pieces.

-- What happens in the workshop stays in the workshop. No wait that doesn't sound right. Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †

Ahhh. Very good to know the joint filler/defect trick. I have heard of that with epoxy but not hide glue. Thanks for the scoop!

-- Jeff, St. Paul, MN

Karson,

The telling point in your comment is ”After I pick out the premo pieces.” That’s what gets us in the soup in the first place! Now I at least have made it a rule that if it doesn’t have at least two inches of long grain it goes straight in the waste bin.

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Douglas – thanks for the idea with the hide glue, I will have to see if I can find some. Probably need to go to the web, local stores don’t have this. When we are repairing old furniture we get from auctions i have used this technique but have run into the trouble with the stain to match. I had heard of using the sawdust but nobody said what kind of glue works best. Whenever I had one that didn’t look the best, i just figured i didn’t get enough sawdust in the glue to take a stain.

-- Joel Tille

Sounds like a good idea Doug, but maybe it needs to be a little longer. Most of the pens take around 5 inches of wood. Of course you could make wood jewelry or something with the smaller pieces.

-- Bill, Turlock California, http://www.brookswoodworks.com

Bill, I use the shorties for knobs, plugs, quicky round inlays (matching forsner holes with taped plug cutters) or end panels for the pen boxes. That’s probably why I’m awash in offcuts.

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Douglas – do you have a minimum size offcut that you keep? Half joking – half serious! Or do I mean maximum?

-- Dorje (pronounced "door-jay"), Seattle, WA

WARNING Crazy jumbled Doug ramble ahead. Beware of TMI (too much information).

If it’s red oak, I just toss it. If it’s not an exotic probably the 2 inch long grain rule applies.
If it is an exotic, no size limit applys. I have some endgrain trimmings from a bookmatched glue up of castello (great wood, of the olive family, smells wonderful while being cut).

I still have them thinking it would be a great inlay. Next time I’m in the shop, I’ll bring it in a take a snap.

Me, my nose and wood in my profile, I mentioned the evocative nature of the smell of wood heated at the saw. DebbieP posted a tidbit about her daughter Jenn, always checking things out by nose. It’s a great treat of the shop for me to smell the different woods as they are tooled.

I have threatened to blog at length about the physiology of scent and it’s incredible tie-in with memory. One day I will, but suffice it to say that the home of the sense of smell is the Olfactory bulb at the center of the brain above the brainstem, in an area of the brain called the limbic system. There are areas there that are responsible for emotional response to memory, so that there seems to be a sound physiologic association between scent and memory. Honeysuckle will always spawn a memory of bubblebathes at my Grandmother’s house as a wee one. And so on.

Still have tiny offcuts from: QS Morado, Bois de Rose (both Rosewoods, ah, nice to cut) also Macassar and Gaboon ebony (not great smellers, like bad socks, it’s good that they look so nice), Cardinalwood (which oddly enough has the scent of a liquor store in Topeka, Kansas I used to frequent before I used up all my life’s supply of drink chits). Lacewood, Fishtail oak (no scent data).

Bottom line I am cognizant of the way I can safely tool small pieces. if it’s length to height ratio is too small to be longer then the length of the exposed blade on the TS, then it’s not to be ripped. If it’s too small to be held safely at the router or bandsaw then it’s a no go. I can however glue it to a wooden face plate or spindle-tapped fixture on the lathe, or hold it in wooden jaw clamps at the drill press for plug cutting. So no offcut is theoretically too small, all require a judgement and the thought that someday I’ll likely move and it will have to be given away or tossed.

Pam, my dear wife (or DW as my LJ buddy Zuki shorthands his wife) occupies a part of my internal clutter sensor.
Is it worth keeping versus the look of disapproval that is spawned by too much clutter and mess. Or will it keep me in dutch with MsDebbieP’s at the remediation Shop Inspection

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Way to tie it back to the shop inspections! Not sure just how you did that, but I went along for the ride!

I have that nose for freshly cut endgrain (or burnt); exhale to warm and moisten the fibers and then slowly inhale the scent of the species at hand. Now, my palate is nowhere near as developed as yours, but I do share that same sense.

I’ve always loved pointing out that the olfactory bulb is the only part of your brain that’s exposed to the outside world. I love the fact that scents actually “touch” your brain!

I was on my hands and knees today cleaning shop (hadn’t done it -the floor- for too long), and had a really hard time with the smallest offcuts. So hard to trash, when I could at least burn em, but also was hit with the realization that I have more bins of offcuts than I have burned in the last year or two. They just seem to be compiling. So, I tried to be a bit more liberal with tossing things into the “trash,” which will actually get thrown in the “yard waste recycle.”

Never ending I suppose. I would like to see the castello trimmings you mentioned. I’m thinking the above pic is of the web or something? Could be wrong. Known to happen.

-- Dorje (pronounced "door-jay"), Seattle, WA

Yeah, I snagged a screen shot of someone’s nice posting of Castello, then put it in my Flickr account. Probably some egregious copyright violation. Oh well, probably only Disney, Viacom, Sony and a few others have enough lawyers to chase little stuff like that this far. Living dangerously! Yee-haw!

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

re: the nose
my daughter can smell an article and tell you at what store you bought it. It’s quite interesting how “precise” her smeller is.

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Doug,
Nice shop, my favorites …of course the router table with the incra fence….an indispensable tool. Would love to have that Performax sander….someday. and of course that custom sound system complete with “cheezy” speaker boxes.

-- DocK, WV

Hey, Doug, I finally found out where the workshops are hiding! I think your organization is just CREATIVE. Always remember; the difference between being crazy and eccentric is found in your ability and the size of your check book. Looks like a fun place.

-- Thos. Angle

Tom. I better work on my abilities, as I don’t believe my checkbook is gonna be of much help!

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Hi Doug,

I am just now getting around to looking at your shop post. You have a nice shop and a good tool set to work with. I love the off cut stash that you have. It is hard to throw these away because as sure as you do then a need for it will arise. But finding the right piece in this “stash” becomes all the more difficult when it keeps growing larger.

thanks for the tour.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

quite a tool collection you have goin’ on there !

-- work from your heart and your spirit will live forever

Thanks for the visit, fellas. Yup, it’s a big ole tool disaster, but you never know when you going to need a gramil, or a split screwdriver or some other widget. It is to a degree the tool tale of four Bordners; three departed Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway men, my Grandfather, Uncle (an electrician), my Dad (a toolmaker and tester) and myself.

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

the tools I don’t mind.. but extension cords.. yikes

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Doug…I just cleaned up half of my shop….it was getting WAY out control. I still could bring my self to throw out my “scrap/cut off/ gee, I could probably find something to use that for.” collection. It does occationaly pay off to have the small scraps at hand. I end up using them as glue blocks and other small items.

I totally understand the problems with an under powered shop. I still have to add some additional circuits to mine. Be safe.

-- Greg - Charles Town, WV

Now, that is a shop that shows that a lot of time is spent in it. I would rethink the comment about getting a woodstove, unless you have a source of wood that is not good for anything but heat, like, did you say ‘Red Oak”.

-- Ron in Osseo, Minnesota

Nice boutique

-- jeanmarc manosque france

Wow, looking at your shop I feel as though mine’s worse looking. With a hundred board feet of hard maple, a couple of hundred linear feet of casing and base, a half dozen sheets of 1” A-A maple ply, a few extension cords, about 30 pounds of sawdust covering everyting and too many hand tools strewn about, you have reminded me that I NEED TO CLEAN UP. By the way, I love the sweet smell of freshly mown grass. It’s almost as good smelling as roasted garlic.

PS Obviousl, my shop is in no shape for Ms Debbie to inspect!

-- I love the smell of sawdust in the morning....

great tool collection… lots of toys

-- work from your heart and your spirit will live forever

Thats a nice looking shop.

-- CJIII Future cabinetmaker

As long as it gets the job done! Great play ground you have there.

-- Adventure? Heh! Excitement? Heh! A Woodworker craves not these things!