I got sick this weekend…spent 3 days in bed. I hate not accomplishing anything, but I’m not entirely sure why. My family went away today for a prescheduled “annual family leaf trip” and I missed it. Now the weekend is gone, and tomorrow I get to rise and shine to head off to another day at work…after another…after another…

It feels wrong to be dissatisfied at a job when so many are losing theirs. I mean, I’m 38 years old. I was under the impression that all the flighty teenager thoughts of doing something huge with your life would be gone by now. Sometimes I wish they were…

My job provides wonderful things for my 3 sons and my beautiful wife. All of which I feel are tired with all my complaining about work. I don’t play enough with my boys because I’m grouchy all the time. My wife and I have a good relationship and she knows I’m not happy at work. But that just makes her feel a bit guilty about being one of the reasons I stay there.

Woodworking does something to me. I don’t really believe in having a calling…but I can’t argue the results. It’s calming and rewarding. I’d bet my blood pressure in my shop is better than it is on any stupid pill the doctor keeps trying to throw down my throat. But I’ve never ran a business, and now’s not really the time to try and start one, is it? Besides, I’ve hated every job I’ve ever had…why would I want to take the thing I love and make it into a job?!

I read so many wonderful stories about people how made it…were successful in something so amazing as doing what they want with their lives. But I don’t even know what that is. Maybe it’s not woodworking…maybe it doesn’t matter what it is…maybe being happy needs to be seperate from being successful at what you do…

Maybe I think to much, and make my own problems…mountains from mole hills, eh?

But I’ve been under this mole hill for a long time now, and it’s not getting better on it’s own. The peace I search for I can find in my own woodshop. I’m sure many of you know exactly what I mean. But will it still be there if I go looking for it?...if I start relying on it? And what if it doesn’t work? Who am I to jeopardize the well being of my whole family? All the success stories leave out the day-to-day drudgings of the actual work part. And how well their children ate.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, was it? Maybe one of you guys have your life manual…I seem to have misplaced mine.

I called the service department this morning and spoke with Philip. I was prepped and ready for battle! Armed with good details, 30 or so photographs, and first name basis conversations with many of the sales associates I spoke to on Saturday. But Philip on asked one thing…

“What can I do to make this right for you, sir?”

I was dumbstruck! Could it be that easy? Well, I have in hand a return authorization number and a phone number. Upon my call, a truck will come to my home to get the jointer, paid by Grizzly. Today or tomorrow, a truck with a new jointer will be en route to bring my replacement, paid by Grizzly. The jointer may not leave until tomorrow because Philip requested the replacement be pulled from the shelf, opened at the warehouse, and all contents be inspected and signed off prior to rebanding the container and shipping it to me.

Customer service indeed!!!! If you guys could only see the grin on my face right now…

Well we have seen the mighty Grizzly! My mother-in-law, father-in-law, wife and myself all enjoyed a beautiful day in Muncy PA on Saturday. We met some good people at the Grizzly store…hello Jenny, John and Steve! They were all very helpful, both with tool selection and with locating a decent place to eat lunch. The store recently added on a HUGE warehousing division across the street from the main showroom…and I mean HUGE!

After much deliberation with John (who claims to be the proudest grandpa of all time) I decided on the G0490 jointer. It’s an 8” x 76” bed, 3 horsepower 220 motor with parallelogram infeed and outfeed adjustment. I was absolutely thrilled to also discover that this and many other tools offer an instant in-store discount should you decide to pick it up and not take advantage of the free shipping offer Grizzly is currently offering.

Unfortunately, that’s where the thrill ride ended…

Today was setup day. The base cabinet went together fine, but for some tricky bolt locations. A bit of poor design maybe, but not too bad. The fence has an area on the bottom of it that’s intended to ride on the table top as you adjust it forward and back or tilt it. That’s a steel surface about 4” long that drags front to back across your outfeed table…less than desirable. The parallelorgam adjustments didn’t function quite as well as the showroom display model. And the worst? On the nicely ground top is an area that looks to have had a run in at the factory. It has some very deep scratches in it, and appears to have suffered some pitting. The pits look to have been rewelded and the area buffed out with a grinder. Running your hand over the area shows that it’s no longer dead flat there…you can feel the ripples. But apparently this top passed any quality controls Grizzly may have in place, and made its way all the way to my basement.

I’ll be contacting Grizzly tomorrow to see what corrective actions can be taken, but I think I might be stuck at very least with another 10 hour drive and 2 more tanks full of gas out the window! Not to mention the feeling in my stomach. It’s taken me a long time to save enough money for this purchase. I’m sure a lot of you can appreciate that! Then to get a poorly crafted machine?!....breathe Kevin…breathe.

I just hope things work out in the end. I’ve had good luck with other Grizzly tools…but now we’ll have to see how there customer service stacks up.

I’ll keep you posted…

And somewhere in all that loveliness is a jointer with my name on it!

Yep, I’m finally replacing the Delta Benchtop 6” jointer (I know…I cry a little just saying it…) with a larger one. The current candidates are a G0586 8” 2HP jointer, a G0593 8” spiral cutterhead, and every other jointer Grizzly makes thats in my budget. That really narrows things down, huh?

Anyway, I’ll keep everyone informed as things unfold. If anyone is in the Girard, PA area on Sunday, I’ll need some help getting the thing off the truck! :)

And if you’re in the Muncy, PA area on Saturday, stop in and tour the store with me. I’ll be the one with the drool hanging from my bottom lip!

The Starbucks table has been delivered and set up. I thought I’d post the pics of everything in place.
Also, it looks like I’ve got the job of designing and building a matching coffee table…turns out my customer purchased a set of four different style Starbucks tops from Ebay! So, coming soon…”The Starbuck’s Coffee Coffee Table”

Enjoy!

And here’s the throw rug that inspired the whole design…

The piece features adjustable shelves, a false panel back to hide all wiring, and that funny looking little stand on top.

The stand is for a center channel speaker for the surround sound system. I needed a way to cover the hole that was in the original top so I designed this stand to allow the center speaker to rotate left to right and adjust up or down to aim the sound as required.

Hope you guys and girls like it!

Well, it’s taken forever it seems but I’m finally in high gear on this project! We’ve had a lot going on recently, but it’s nice to be back in the sawdust.

I’ve drawn up a full scale template of the Starbuck’s table and started by rough dimensioning all my lumber. I decided to use mortise and loose tenon joinery for most of the case construction. For the center stiles at each end, I used integral stub tenons to fit into the dado required for the maple panels. Here’s some of the first pieces.

Here’s a layout of all the end pieces.

I also tried my hand at veneering a walnut skin to an MDF form for the first of two curved pieces required for this piece. I wasn’t sure how well the veneer would bond to the MDF, but it seems to have worked beautifully. I was nearly to the second knuckle chewing on my fingertips waiting for the glue to dry on this one!!

And the end results so far!

I’ve got a long way to go still, but things should be moving along faster now. I’ll keep everyone up to date with the progress. Thanks!!

Well, it looks like I’ve got some work to do! I’ve had a customer bring me a table top that was saved from a closing Starbuck’s Coffee Shop. At first, he wanted a coffe table made from it, but then changed his mind and wanted to use it to top a small entertainment center. The unit will sit directly below a wall-mounted flat screen tv, and needs to house some stereo components and dvd’s.

Neat top, huh!? Materials are some beautiful 8/4 black walnut I’ve got my hands on and some maple panels. I wanted the cabinet below to accent the curves of the top. And at a finish height of only 21”, I wanted a stout base that would add a heavy look to the whole piece. The back will have a removable panel for access to all the cables, connections, and a power center. I’ll use adjustable shelving on the left side of the cabinet, and fixed shelves spaced for cd’s and dvd’s on the right.

As things progress I will, of course, keep updating the blog. Oh, and don’t worry about the hole in the top. I’m working on a design for a walnut swiveling speaker mount for the center channel surround sound speaker.

Then I went there….

It was amazing! The entire house seems to have grown from the rock all on it’s own. I returned from the trip and wrote my final paper on Fallingwater. Since then I’ve returned several times, and hope to go again very soon.

My goal was a table design that would include many of the grand design features of Fallingwater on a smaller scale, and still be a functional and attractive piece. Here’s what I came up with:

The table measures 76” long, 44” wide, and 30” tall. The panels and curves of the top are reflected in the porch roof at Fallingwater. The full radius I used on the table top edge is also found in many places.

In the main room at Fallingwater is a large fireplace. The hearth of the fireplace is actually the top of the boulder used in the foundation of the house rising from the floor. Just as that hearth serves as the centerpiece for the house, I chose stone as the centerpiece for my table. Also, the framework of the table top curves around the centerpiece in much the same way that the concrete beams in the picture below curve around a tree found at Fallingwater.

The table top frame is made of Cherry, and the stone sits on a Bloodwood base. I thought the Bloodwood did a nice job representing the red metalwork found at Fallingwater.

And the panels on the table top….Waterfall Bubinga of course!

The table apron is made up of an upper and lower apron. The lower apron, made of Cherry, features extended double through tenons in the joinery. This picture of one of the terrace supports at Fallingwater inspired the tenons.

The upper apron, made of Bloodwood, is meant to tie in the long, red runs of window frames at Fallingwater. These long sets of contrasting frames, along with the terraces, serve to give Fallingwater the impression of being very wide and low to the ground….even though the main house is 3 stories!

The legs of the table are made of Cherry, tapering to the floor while angling out to provide a more stable base for the table top. The top itself extends past the base assembly quite a bit…cantilevers are the heart of Fallingwater!

The leg supports are intended to resemble the supports found below Fallingwater in shape, and in that they are wider at the top and taper towards the bottom.

I hope you all like it!