When the wood was auctioned needless to say I did not win any of it. The guy that bought most of it never put his card down and so the wood went for more than I was willing to pay for it since the auction got quite animated at times. But after the rough lumber was auctioned off there was a pile of split logs that was left to be auctioned. I ended up being the sole bidder and won the stack for $5.00 for the wood that had been stored for over 20 years in a barn (according to the auctioneer).

Here are the slabs of cherry and oak that I got home with:

And a picture of “The Boss” included for the sake of perspective:

In doing some rough calculations I figure there is around 30 to 40 bf of cherry and 5 bf of white oak in the slabs.

But when I removed the bark on one of the oak slabs here is what I found:

and a closer look:

This is obviously powder post beetle damage and needless to say will end up in my neighbors firewood pile. It does not look like any of the other logs are infected but I will know more when I mill the slabs up with my bandsaw sled.

Thanks for looking and, as always, thanks for letting me share this with you.

Most of us tend to be somewhat solitary woodworkers and work alone in our shop. This has always been my situation as well. However last week this is what was going on in my shop:

This is my son Jonathan using a jointer for the first time.

Jon and his wife “commissioned” me to build them a vanity a short time ago. And, of course, being thrilled to be able to build something for them I gave an unqualifed yes to the project. But he added one caveat- he wanted to build the cabinet himself- which was a total surprise to me. Jon’s background in woodworking, to this point, has been almost non-existant. He did take shop in high school and managed to produce a toy car and a bubble gum dispenser but really did not have any exposure to power tools or building any type of cabinetry.

Here is the cabinet that they decided to add to their bathroom:

They selected white oak as the wood and wanted it dyed a deep mission brown since my daughter-in-law favors dark furniture. And, despite being married only 1 year, Jon has learned to simply say, “Yes, dear” and let his wife make these type of decisions.

On the first day Jon was taught to operate a miter saw, table saw, jointer and planer while learning to select and prepare rough lumber. At the end of the day here is what he produced with very little help from me:

Next on the list was learning to use the router table since the right side of the cabinet is a raised panel. This is Jon raising the panel on the router table:

After some quick lessons in using trans tint dyes and wipe on polyurethane this is the stage that he is now at:

I had to learn most of what I know on my own so there was (and still do at times) a lot of head scratching and pondering as I learned to operate tools on my own and teach myself various joinery techniques.
I will say that it is extremely gratifying ( and fun I might add) , not only to have another set of hands in the shop, but also to be able to pass along what knowledge that I have to someone else. And to quote Todd Clippinger it is wonderful to “share the love and share the knowledge”. With that thought in mind I decided to blog the construction of this cabinet.

Thanks for looking and, as always, thanks for letting me share this with you.

This is a Korean lilac and it sits 5 feet outside my shop and is about 10’ in diameter. I just wish there were some way to add scentorama to this post since the smell of it is just wonderful. You can literally smell the lilac from 50’ away so this close to my shop it simply fills my shop with its aroma when I open the doors.

It only lasts for about a week but there is always next year to look forward to!

Here is the information that appeared in Wood Magazine’s e-mail:

WOOD’s looking for a few good shops

The second edition of America’s Best Home Workshops is nearly complete and will hit newsstands in late May. Now we’re looking for candidates for the third edition. That’s where you come in. Do you (or someone you know) have a shop that other woodworkers love to check out? Is it especially well-organized, or full of great jigs, storage ideas, or other interesting shop features? If so, the editors at WOOD magazine would like to hear from you. We’re looking for hard-working shops of all sizes and descriptions: big or small, elaborate or down-to-earth. You can also nominate individual shop organizers or jigs for the project gallery section. Following is the web site:

http://www.woodmagazine.com/wood/story.jsp?sssdmh=dm17.298017&storyid=/templatedata/wood/story/data/1129152374140.xml&esrc=nwwood32

Maybe I am somewhat biased but I have seen some shops here that are deserving of being entered in this contest.