I am still working on cutting boards, I have to have a dozen made in the next week or so. As I am moving along, I have had to give some more concentrated thought in regards to the wood pieces I salvaged and how to get the most use of them, and make them as visually pleasing as possible while keeping the project simple. In my last blog, I mentioned that the oak I am using came from a hutch. The boards salvaged has pieces of various thicknesses and shapes to it. I have a few pieces that are over an inch thick and were made up of 2 boards edged glued together. One containing straight grain, while the other has cathedral grain.

Here are a couple of sample pieces -

Now I can approach the use of these boards a few different ways. I could separate the pieces further by ripping the board, or find another matching cathedral grain piece and just edge glue that up. I would be left with a thick board for the purpose and would plane it down further for my needs. Since these are just a decorative bread cutting board, I decided to go a different route and did a resaw down the middle (err…more or less anyway). The resulting pieces gave me what I was looking for, a book matched set.

In this set, the flames will go together, making the knots look like a set of eyes. It will give the appearance of a board with a stripe down the middle.

Once glued, flattened, and rounded, the appearance will be stronger than it appears now.

On another board, the straight grain will frame the cathedral grain, making the cathedral grain board look more like the grain was complete, rather than halved.

These are techniques I never used before and I have to admit that I am having a bit of fun using a larger range of tools on this project and exploring different methods of achieving a look.

Unfortunately, this is the type of thing that probably will go unnoticed except that the board will have a more balanced look without any of the recipients knowing why. When you start having a beer with family members and you start talking about grain orientation, resawing, and book matched pieces, a glaze starts forming over their eyes and you find out that there are discussions about what nursing home to put you in when you get older.

That is why I am so grateful to you folks for the ability to share these things :)

David

I was asked if I could make a dozen small bread cutting boards to be used for sending loaves out, along with jam, as Christmas gifts. As luck would have it, the same person also wanted me to help get rid of an old red oak hutch for her. So I am killing two birds with one stone here.

The hutch was easy to disassemble. Screws and staples were used to hold it together. So I ended up with a pile of profile pieces to break down into actual boards -

Profile pieces you have to be careful of. They need to be balanced and one edge you can safely ride along a fence. If not, I mark a line and use the BS. In this case, all the boards had one flat edge I could use so I cut them on the TS and planed them down a bit-

I trimmed down a few pieces and glued them together. Dimensions are about a foot long and somewhere around 7 inches wide. Enough to hold a homemade loaf of about any size -

So now we have a rectangular board. Serves the purpose but doesn’t look very sexy. And one can’t really brag about turning a hutch into a board, rather than the other way around -

So I added some roundovers and BS the corners off. I have some flaws that are not visible in the pic that I need to work out a little, but I will get there. -

I showed the board to the recipient and she is good with the look, so will work on making the batch of them.

I am not a hardcore environmentalist, neither am I really trying to save money. I just have the tools that make re-use possible and I don’t care for participating in the attitudes of our “throw-away society.” I post a number of blogs on breaking down furniture and milling the boards. I just thought I would share with you all that I actually do make things with what I harvest :)

Thanks for reading,

David

But that is only part of the battle.

I experienced some personal loss this last year that really took the wind out of my sails. I won’t get into all of that here, some already know what I am talking about and we will just suffice with that. I found it difficult to get motivated again but shop cleaning is a good way to clean the cobwebs out of your head as well as out of your shop. The challenge I had to face was how to organize my time with this different schedule. Part of it was coming to some conclusions of what kind of woodworker I was.

I am a hobbyist. I got a great deal of slack one time for trying to outline the difference between the artist/craftsman and the hobbyist. It isn’t about the quality of the work. Both can be equally talented and original. What makes the difference, to me, is the sacrifices that are required in pursuit of this craft. Family and responsibilities, in my case, are never going to be required to take a hit for my work. They already took hits on my education and take hits with my current employment. When push comes to shove, my hobby is the thing that has to take the back burner when events in life happen. Simple as that. At the same time, my hobby helps keep me sane and I really don’t want to go long periods of time without that stress relief. The answer, for me is to grant myself the shop time, but in small increments (except during my days off with time to putter) on a daily basis.

How does this work? And what are the benefits?

In the past, i would look forward to my long excursions in the shop. The problem was that I would try to finish my projects as fast as I could because I didn’t know when I would get another chance to finish what I started. So the mindset started becoming “project” instead of “process.” I wasn’t thinking clearly about each step. Each time I sat down to do a task, I was thinking about the next task and not the process at hand. Obviously this leads to stupid mistakes, crappy finishes, and a less than stellar project. I would always hate that feeling of having something unfinished and it was making my work suffer. Now, I approach the shop with the mindset of completing a step in the project but not the project itself.

I will give you an example. I am working on a quilt box from a plan that is in a Woodsmith magazine I received a couple years ago. Basically, you complete a box shell, cut slots for the lid, bottom, and substrate, assemble the base, cut off the lid, and glue up a pattern of squares and diamonds to make patterns on the substrate for the lid. It makes a quilted pattern, hence the name. It has a number of steps. Rather than trying to complete a number of them in one visit to the shop, I just concentrate on one. The first day, I milled and cut to size a cherry board for the base. The second day I cut the required slots. The third day, I rounded over the board, and the fourth day I cut the miters. I only spent about an hour each day. Some tasks should only take about 15 minutes. I used that extra time to make sure that the 15 minute task was done right. Extra measuring, more anal tool setup, etc. As a result, the steps are more satisfying and I leave the shop with the feeling of completing something rather than leaving an item unfinished. And, at the end of the week, I made progress on a project where I would have normally did nothing in the shop except look at a piece of Cherry and dream of the day when I can use it.

Progress so far on current project (box is upside down) -

So that is the current mindest and should lead to more successful completions to come.

Thank you all for reading,

David

But it has caused me to have to reassess how I spend time on my hobby. Kiids, relationships, work, house maintenances, etc. all have their place and importance, but a hobby helps inject a little energy back into your life and helps take your mind off some of the daily troubles and worries that we all go through. To be honest, I can be a real jerk if I don’t have a little “me” time now and again.

I looked at my schedule, and I pretty much have 3-4 days a month I can call my own. Even on those days, much of that time is to take care of things that slip by the other 26+ days. I needed a different routine, something that allows me a little escape but does not let me get too carried away where responsibilities suffer. In order to have this time, though, it was going to have to be productive. My shop situation at the time involved almost 30-40 minutes of scooting things around in order for me to perform a task, followed by 30-40 minutes of the same to do something else.

My shop is in my basement. When I purchased the house, the basement was already filled with a variety of goodies and left overs. When I first started the hobby, I could set up shop in about a quarter of it. That moved to 50 percent and, with tool purchases over the last year, it was going to have to move to around 75%. If I can only work for an hour in a day, 2/3s of that time can’t involve setup.

So… It was time to get rid of the dishes, old furniture, used cans of paint, mangled boards, and a very strange plywood camel used by someone in the past as a Christmas decoration. Family does mean well. They see a guy living alone in a large house and they want to “help.” Add to that, the reputation of being a “woodworker” and you will get some of the strangest assortments of “useful” items imaginable. I was able to give about half of that away and the other half went to the garbage. After about a month of heavy loads, I bought a significant amount of shop space. I have work flow again and most of my benchtop and stationary tools are setup without the need to shuffle.

I have no before pics, but took a few while in the process. It looks chaotic, but in reality I have enough space to even setup a finishing station on the other side. I couldn’t do that before.

So now I can move from TS to bandsaw to scrollsaw to lathe to planer to router to two workbenches without much fuss. I know where everything is at and I don’t have to trip over things in order to get to them.

Clutter in the environment was only half the problem. The other half is clutter in the brain. I will go over that in my next blog.

David

I’ve been tripping over the pieces of both of them for a good while and since I just built my bench, thought it time for a test drive. The table was somewhat rounded, consisting of a middle piece and two end pieces that would lift or fold down, depending on your needs at the time. On the way through a tight spot, a part of the end piece busted off and I needed to put an edge on it for the TS.

Two Bessey 24” clamps and I was in business. I was able to clamp it to the face of the bench. This should illustrate the difference between a HF clamp and the more expensive models. The top was probably around 30 pounds, the jointer plane around 7. Add to it the downward force of planing and that adds up to a decent amount of weight. The table didn’t budge and I was able to get a decent edge on it after using the scrub and the jointer plane -

I set up the low profile bench dogs I got from Rockler and scrubbed off the finish. The top coat was rather thick, too tedious for a card scraper, so I set the scrub for a lighter cut and went to work. Didn’t take too long and my planer blades were not going to suffer the extra wear.

After cutting on the tablesaw and running through the planer, ended up with a fairly decent stack of red oak boards.

Overall, pretty happy with the bench. Height is perfect for me with hand planing. Was rather nice to not have to stand on a bench to keep it from moving across the floor. I can pretty much clamp from any directon on the surface and the width allows me to make good use of clamps that are 2 feet long. Look for project posts in the near future.

David

I finished flattening the top of the bench and added dog holes for the hold fasts and the bench dogs. The top has been especially challenging due to the space in my shop. I don’t like working in tight spaces. I have about a 20×15 space to work, much of it occupied by stationaries and lumber. Hard to believe that five years ago all I had was a miter saw and a drill.

I like moments when I feel like I am half way intelligent when it comes to a process. The dog holes I was concerned about. The bench top is slightly over three inches thick and I didn’t want the holes to come out quicker. When I first started woodworking, I had the illusion that I could drill a straight hole by “dead reckoning.” What I learned shortly thereafter is that my dead reckoner came disassembled and apparently has to be built up by years of experience. Getting there. Plan B was to take a strip of 2×4 and drill three 3/4 inch holes in it. I think took a forstner bit and put it in a handdrill and used the 2×4 as a guide. This bought me another inch and a half. With about 2 and a half inches to guide me, I took a longer auger bit and finished it up. The result was a series of holes straight enough to use for the dogs and the fasts.

I didn’t want a bench made out of swiss cheese. So the holes were limited to 9 on each side of the bench with a series of 6 on the left and right side. Spaced out by the holes I made in the 2×4. I may have to add more, maybe not, going to see how this works for me. All I have to do now is just add the holes to the legs and mount the wood vise, The vise will cover up a couple of the holes from underneath but the low profile dogs I have will sit fully in the holes without obstruction. I will drill the leg dogs by following the same process as the top, so that I can mount a board on its side to hand plane the edge. No aprons surrounding the top as I want to be able to clamp around all areas of the bench without obstruction. I have come to the conclusion that my best option for utilizing my rough lumber is to hand plane the edge and the face and finish off with a thickness planer. My shop just can’t afford the space of a full fledged jointer.

So, there you are, bench as is. Crude but effective, kind of like me :)

Question for fellow jocks – When flattening, I could not help but get tear out since I varied the grain direction of the top. I had to do a fair amount of sanding while attempting to not lose the consistency of the surface. My guess is that many flatten with planes and then use a high quality belt sander that has a true level surface to finish the job. Am I correct on this? Or do some of you have a planing tip to help eliminate that tear out?

David

I met Mike through LJ’s and the man was my mentor and brother. I know that many of you he counts as dear friends and he has been a major supporter of this site. I can’t write much more right now. I will keep all of you posted on any developments.

Rest in Peace Mike, you are one of the dearest friends I ever had.

David

I needed a bench with a thick, flat surface, some heft and rigidity for planing. I have a basement shop so the dimensions are going to be 5 feet long with a depth of 20 inches. Design is from a variety of sources including a weekend workbench design by Shop Notes and some articles by Chris Schwartz. No drawers will be added as I need a bench not a cabinet. Aprons and drawers will only get in the way of clamping so I will work on some cabinetry for storage in the future and will make a foldaway assembly table for finishing and assembly work. This will strictly be used for working the lumber into parts. This will not be designed as robust as other workbenches I have seen on here, but should fit the bill to end much frustration I have experienced in the past.

Legs are not mortised but half lapped with the side stretchers. The legs and stretchers are 4×4 generously donated by a friend -

For the top, I picked up some SYP from a local lumber company. They only stocked 2×8s so had to rip to size the boards. I ran the faces through a planer not to flatten but to give a decent face to face glue-up. Due to the amount of sap in the wood, I gave each board a wipe down of acetone. This was advised in an article by Schwartz as it cleans the surface but also evaporates quickly. Sappy pine can resist glue absorption so a thorough wipe down removes any substances that causes the pores to resist soaking up the glue. I utilized about every clamp I had in the shop (and probably came up a little short) and was able to get a decent face to face glue-up. After that, I used a scrub plane, jack plane, and jointer plane to flatten the surface. Scrub planes can be aggressive in stock removal. I have a planer for thicknessing so I actually set my scrub plane with a more gentle sweep so that I can flatten in a hurry, but not at the cost of losing too much thickness. After flattening and smoothing, I mixed some glue and fine saw dust to make a paste to fill in any slight gaps. Gaps were surface only (I didn’t have perfectly flat stock) and did not run deeper than probably 1/8th of an inch. It just makes for a more pleasant appearance.

All the knots are on the bottom of the bench (that is what is currently shown) so that imperfections are not on the work surface. It will also make planning out the layout of dog holes easier because I will drill from the bottom and I can work around all knotted surfaces. I will add the front stretches to the legs, mount the bench top, and surface the top next. I have a wood vise I found at a garage sale for 5 bucks. It is a HF model but will suit my purposes just fine. I have a couple days off next week, so hopefully I will have some pics of a finished bench then.

Thanks to all for looking and keep the saw dust flying,

David

Woodworking is my hobby and not my bread and butter. I am good with the slow pace of hand planning. I have a couple jointers and a jack plane and all I really have to do is flatten the board and put on an edge. The boards don’t have to be perfectly clean, just flat, before cutting them down to size and running them through the planer.

What I like most about hand planing is the slow reveal -

The moment when you realizze that what you have in front of you is something special. This was all cut from one tree, it has spalting and some flair and what is this? A little bit of Bird’s eye I see?

The stuff looks pretty plain when you buy it, didn’t really know what we had when we picked it up. Just knew there was some spalting in it, but look at that luminence -

And a nice little stack out of two slabs with about a dozen more to go -

I have some knots I have to work around and I separate the really wild grain pieces for potential panels and small table tops, but this is really going to be fun. I hope to have some eye catching pieces to share with my LJ friends soon.

Happy Woodworking!

David

I have a habit of collecting old wood junk i find. Old broken tables, chairs, etc. Anything that contains a snippet of real wood quickly becomes part of my hoard. In this case, I have a small collection of table legs. They are Oak, the square portions not good for much since they have been deeply drilled to hold the dowels, but the middle section looked like it could make a decent handle -

After the square blocks, were removed, I now have a turning blank and chisel steel -

Mounted on the lathe, I start hogging off the material -

Once at a uniform width, I start working on the taper that will house the chisel. The deepest recesses of the chisel are too narrow for my turning calipers and my regular calipers bottom out too shallow of the socket. So what I decided to do was perform a partial mount of the chisel blade and adjust my rest so that the proper taper would be acheived by setting the skew at 90 degrees on the rest. In this pic I am not quite there yet -

But I got it figured out and came to a very tight match -

All that remained was to shape out the handle. From pictures I have seen and the couple socket chisels I owned, the handles for these are rather short. One hand holds the blade steady, the other provides the pressure. The goal is not power but control. I shaped the handle accordingly -

A few mallet strokes to set the handle and a couple coats of shellac and Voila -

Not perfect, but definitely passable. Could use a ferrule on the end to prevent splitting, but if it breaks, I will just make another one. This wouldn’t be used for deep mortising anyway. Just shallow ones involving hinges and whatnot so I should be good for awhile. Nice project to learn some control and make shavings to accomodate set dimensions.

Thank you all for viewing and keep the sawdust flying :)

David

To all lumberjocks here and abroad. Thank you all for your kindness and support for the last and upcoming year.

David

Last August I was gifted with the funds to purchase the aforementioned saw by my brother who wanted to give a thank you gift for sharing residency for the last couple of years. I ordered the saw, riser blocks, and two highland woodworking blades (woodslicer and one designed for resawing timber). I held off on installing the riser blocks until the blades came in and I was more comfortable with how the band saw works. My buddy Mike (jockmike2) gave me a hand with the riser installation but I ran into one big snag… The new blades appeared to be too small for the saw. I rechecked installation instructions a few times and verified the “105 was correct for the saw in a half dozen sources. I had loosened the tension all the way (or so I thought) and the bolt was so low on the assembly, it was actually butt up against the saw.

Fortunately for me, there were a few bread crumbs on the web and on the LJ site hinting that the screw assembly could, in fact, be loosened more. So, after giving myself sufficient time to cool down (and not over react by doing something insanely stupid) I worked on loosening the tension and kept at it, even though it looked like I was getting nowhere.

After a few more minutes of loosening, the bottom of the nut on the assembly started to appear.

I was able to grab ahold of it and the bolt rose again and gave me a few more inches of leeway. I was able to slide on the new blade without issue. Once I tightened back the arm though, I realized I needed the strength of hercules in order to set the tension back. On this last pic, you will notice two spacers on each side of the tension bar. The small one on the bottom can be loosened with a hex key and lowered about another inch. This greatly relaxes the tension bar without having to manually loosen the tension on the turn handle. The release does provide as much give as blades before the riser block installation but it can provide enough to relax the blade without leaving memory indentations on it.

I hope this is helpful to others who need the hint. Happy holidays to you all.

David

I have lived in this house for 8 years now and had to undo a good amount of damage of one of the DIYers that lived here previously. I had replaced nearly all the light switches and electric sockets over time and noted that there was always a ground wire in the wiring. However, when the electrician replaced the box, he noticed that every single ground was disconnected at the breaker box. The pevious installer never bothered to tie any of them in. So for the last 8 years, none of my surge protectors were really working and I was at risk using all these relatively high amp machines with cast iron tables…Yikes!

For woodworkers who are establishing their shop in an older home where the history is not so well known, you might want to have an electriciian inspect the wiring. It really isn’t all that expensive (I paid about 700 for a complete box and breaker upgrade and a 220 installation) and can not only save your tools but potentially your life. Now I am firmly grounded, a little safer in the workshop, and have some sufficient space in the box to expand my future electrical needs.

David

David

The first step in the process involves doing a quick pricing comparison in order to determine whether it is worth the investment of time and money to begin such an adventurous project. An online search reveals that the average cost of a mid-level sofa is in the neighborhood of $600.00. My plans for a sofa show that 55 board feet of lumber will be required in order to complete the project. I will be using Ash which costs $2.50 at the lumber yard. Performing simple math, the wood will cost $137.50 and estimated hardware costs are at $50.00. At $187.50, this is a substantial savings :)

Of course I do need that jointer and planer to mill the roughsawn lumber to make the sofa wonderul. A $1000.00 investment, but we all know that we will be doing many projects using these tools over time, so the price will definitely be spread out.

The tablesaw I currently am using is getting a little bogged down with the really thick boards. I think it is time to upgrade to that powermatic I have been admiring. At about $3000.00 in the Rockler catalog, but those boards will come out very nice….

I have some curved parts and I need a good bandsaw to handle them curves…Grizzly has some very nice models for just under $1000.00.

Um, my wife is upset about sitting on the floor while I plan out my project. With the savings in wood cost, I can buy her a used couch that we can use until the project gets under way…

I made a few errors in planning, I need to get another 15 board feet of Ash, but we definitely would not want the couch to look put together by an amateur… the cost is more than justified.

I had to take my wife out to a very fancy restaurant to calm her down because we are still sitting on that lime green sofa. It takes time to do things right. I am sure she will understand. It has been 3 years but I am getting closer :)

I received a letter today informing me that my wife is filing for divorce. It appears that she is asking for my tools in the settlement. I hired a lawyer at $80.00 an hour to make sure I have the tools to finish the job. That sofa is going to be beautiful, she will be very very sorry.

My wife won the settlement. From, what I understand, she used the money from my tools to purchase a very nice sofa/sleeper from Italy. My lawyer told me this. He is living with my ex-wife now. He is not sleeping on the couch so he can’t verify whether the sleeper is comfortable. I have made a very nice sitting place out of some crates in my cardboard house though.

So there you have it, a short breakdown in the costs should reveal that making your own furniture is not always cheaper but the guarantee that such a project will be a life altering experience makes it all worthwhile.

Anyone know where I can get some tools cheap?

David

It has been almost 6 months since I posted anything on here. It has been a rocky spring and summer. The Spring here in Michigan was a very wet one and I spent more time keeping my shop from becoming excessively flooded than actually working in it. I was able to keep the water at bay and no damage to the tools and wood, just a little more flotsam and jetsam then I am particularly used to. My company was sold to an Asian company in Februrary and the overseas support that was supposed to “augment” our staffing has now shifted to replacing it. My brother who has lived with me since his diagnosis of MS over two years ago was becoming quite antsy in regards to his disability hearing and had a cancellation occur the day before his hearing. The atmosphere was a little on the tense side and definitely did not lead to inspiration in the more artistic realm.

But like all things, both good and bad, those times are here only for a season.

I took a trip to Chicago in July and spent some time in a few museums, looked at the city from the top of the Willis Tower. They have large open views from the sky deck and sometimes looking at things from that vantage point gives you a little perspective. You can see a million dots, from above, each representing a person, a lifetime of stories of successes and failures that are not your own, and it makes your own trials seem less uniqute or daunting. The museums were a pleasant outing. I was able to see wood craft from many different cultures spanning several millenia. I was also able to look at the whole evolution of technology and history in many different fields. To summarize, within a 48 hour period of time I was in an Egyptian tomb, a Nazi U-Boat, stood in the tallest building, touched a module that had went into space, viewed a Van Gogh, looked at a Mayan sun wheel, witnessed woodworking since the dawn of man, watched fireworks while laying on my back in a boat in the middle of Lake Michigan, and spent time talking to a Beluga whale. Not a bad way to spend a few days :)

Recharged I came back and things started to change. My brother won his settlement without a challenge from the occupational expert. He moved out a couple weeks ago and has a nice apartment about two miles from me. I recieved an offer of employment with another company last Thursday. I will be making close to my current salary as an hourly worker. I have been on salary for the last 7 years with no idea on what my schedule would be. The hiring manager was a guy that I worked with a few years ago. I left an impression on him and he really greased the wheels to make the process as quick and painless as he could. Just goes to show that as tempting as it is to act out on frustration or to wage war against your employer, you never know who might be watching or taking notice of your work. I am glad I learned to not burn any bridges if I can help it. My brother gave me the funds, as a parting gift, to purchase the 14” Grizzly Ultimate Bandsaw. I have it on a mobile base and was able to purchase the riser blocks as well.

So now I have a new job, house to myself, and most of the concerns I have for my immediate family alleviated. I visited Mike (jockmike2) last week and he is looking good. All rev’d up to give me a hand building furniture for my empty nest. My life has been given back to me and I have the tools to do something with that time.

What more can an aspiring woodworker ask for?

David

Mike and I do a bit of turning with the heartwood intact, so the thinner logs will make good cups and vases. The wider ones I can split for a few natural edged bowls. Nothing gigantic, but enough to make some decent pieces. No extreme weather changes here for a few days. I slabbed on some latex paint to coat the ends and will wrap them up with plastic and tarp them tomorrow. I know wax sealants and anchorseal are the preferred methods, but this should slow down any checking for now. I will give the gift giver first dibs on a piece or two for his house, give away some, and try to sell a few at a consignment shop. This gives me the wood to try and give that a go.

I like arrangements where two people feel the other did them a favor. I helped Ron (childhood friend) by cleaning up his yard and taking care of the wood he didn’t know what to do with, and I benefited greatly from the gift of free natural wood at a time when I would like to work more with natural edges.

Keep making sawdust all,

David

“Before one considers whether the glass is half empty or half full, you should ask yourself ‘Do I want to even drink the beverage?’” – Me

I have been giving much thought,lately, to the definitions of success as I enter (what I hope to be) my middle years. My company has been recently sold to an offshore company and I am starting to see the usual panic that naturally occurs when this happens. I will not publicly comment on any aspect of the decision. I only bring it up because I was asked “What are your career goals?” Not an easy question for me to answer because I don’t think in terms of career. I have always looked at earning a living as the thing that provides the necessities and items that may add some enjoyment in life but not anything that I personally live for. My response, wise or unwise as it may be, is that I do not have career goals but life goals.

Fortunately, my lifestyle is rather simple. I do not watch much tv and I do not have any credit cards. If I want something bad enough, I save up for it or make decisions in order to purchase the item outright. My only debts, at present, is my mortgage and the support I provide for my boys. My house is a fixer upper, but it works and the payments are less than many I know pay for rent. I was teased a little about the purchase but, after the housing crisis, those that teased seem to be going with a house at all, so time has tested my philosophy there. So, while I contemplate the future, I think I will write down what I consider to be some of my life goals. Most should note that none of them are really dependent on what I choose for a career.

1. I always want to make my boys feel that they are the best things that have ever happened in my life. That they are loved, appreciated, and that they bring out the best that I am or ever could be.

2. Someday I want to be the crazy old guy that sits on his porch with a guitar singing songs nobody remembers or probably ever heard of. The neighbors think I am crazy but the grandkids love to visit him and wonder how their dads could have ever been bored in that house.

3. I want to always find simple pleasures the ultimate that life can bring. Seeing birds in the feeders and houses I build, rafting down a shallow river that is close to my home as delightful as some find yachting in the Florida Keys. To always be able to look at the skies in wonder and find sharing a few beers by a firepit the ultimate in night club entertainment.

4. When I need a piece of furniture or something around the house, the first inclination is to consult the lumber yard and go to my shop, rather than a big chain store.

5. To always remember that one cannot legislate morality, change, or a better way of life through any governmental system. One changes the world by the decisions they make in their own home.

Regardless of the future, how I make my living, what “great” things I do for a corporation, I will never consider myself a success if I forget where true success lies.

Not woodworking per se. Just consider it a woodworkers philosophy.

David

I have a vast collection of scraps, parts of branches of trees, broken furniture, basically anything that has wood in it. The pile gets larger all the time, but for some curious reason, it never whittles down. I suspect it might have something to do with the fact I rarely make anything out of the mess. I found a piece of spalted birch that I cut from a tree I helped an uncle of mine take down a few years ago. Pretty much just a partial branch I thought might be useful. I tried awhile back to make a little owl out of another piece and thought I might just give it another go. Just for fun…

I have three rotary tools in my shop. One of these being a cordless version that you has a nice little T shaped grip that gives you a fair amount of control. Not bad for small work and I haven’t had much practice with it. I don’t have an extensive quantity of bits and I have been pretty ignorant over what most of them could do. I pulled out one of my steel cutters, a small diamond bit, and the smallest stone bit I had.

I didn’t have a good roughing burr, so I stuck with the steel cutter. They are not bad little bits on the small scale. Heavy handed, they can rough out a good deal of wood in a hurry. Lighten up on the cut, and it can leave a fairly smooth surface. The cutters are angled so they work much like a helical planer blade. It didn’t take long to rough out a shape of a horned owl. No patterns, just a picture I was looking at.

I hollowed out the area for the eyes and some of the area for the beak. Took a shop pencil and just laid out the position of the wing, where the feather textures will go and the area for the beak. No real detail in the markings, just scribbles where things will go

I took the small diamond bit and carved out some of the feathering and hollowed out the beak area. Worked on the eyes some and undercut the wing. I took the stoning bit and just roughed up some texture. No real formula, just looked at the pic and tried to make the texture look like feathers, as adverse to something hacked out by Freddy Krueger. I have a collwood wood burner that I have never used. I put a bent tip on the handle and burnt the areas that were textured to give it some color. I had some old pine stain and worked it over the piece and topped it with a clear matte coat. Not good by any means, but I kind of liked the little guy -

I got to hold on to the piece for approximately 15 minutes before it was scooped up. Not sure I understand my family. I have bowls that I spent hours on that I can’t give away to save my life. I make one simple little owl and I couldn’t keep it even long enough for the finish to dry ;)

So here it is, a project with no pretensions, concerns, or harsh judgments with the critical eye. Just something to teach me about a tool and give a go at some free hand power carving. Something to do just for fun. My thanks to Mike (littlecope) for his lesson on approaching a project without apprehensions, expectations, or worries.

David

and here

I did a little more work on the side to remove the somewhat boat like appearance and give it more curve. I cut the bowl off the lathe and began running through the grits of sanding. I have more trouble spots to touch up on that will require hand sanding as the process would be too dangerous on the lathe. This is where the bowl is at now and I probably will not give another update until I post as a project.

Overall, I am pleased with how the first outing with this type of project is going. The live edge is a variable and the area is outside of control. Better bark retention and a thinner design would require greener wood than I had handy. I do like the way the bark formed with the side edges of the piece and I like the completed shape. I should have the finish applied by the end of the weekend. So far, this year has been quite productive for me. I hope the pace continues.

Thanks for viewing,

David