# 52 Weeks



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 1=What I am planning and how I am doing so far*

Well I have decided to challenge myself this year in order to work at my woodworking more and get my shop in order.. yeah, yeah I know I was suppose to be doing that as part of ShopQuest 2010. But, really I am going to do this this year, and to keep me on track I have decided to post a blog each week in order keep motivated. Some of the blogs may be posted as projects but more then likely not all of them. I have a few shop ideas I am planning to work on including a parts storage cabinet and a drill bit holder (which I am still trying to decide the best solution for that one) the big goal is to get my lathe up and running. Smaller projects will include toys, games and boxes, all of which I have recently grown quite fond of. I also need to finish a few more pieces of my office furniture so I can get that room under control. 
This is my plan, but you know what they say about those. But as a start here is what I have done this week. These are by no means fine woodworking, but I would call 2 of them awesome woodworking as I got to spend time in the shop with my daughter. 
After making a simple school bus for my nephew my daughter decided she wanted one as well. She painted it and helped me with the putting on the wheels. 
 
 
She likes it a lot. As we were working on it she saw a scrap material truck concept I built and told me she wanted one as well. We decided on making it a pick up truck style. I cut the scraps out and she helped with every step of the way. Even helped to saw the bed rails to length. 


The last project was a quick and dirty chisel rack I put together and happen to have some paint still sitting around from the wheels of the bus so I added a bit. I am just happy to finally get my chisels out of the cubby hole they have been in for the past 2 years. Still have not decided as to how to mount it or if it is just going to sit. 


So there you have it my plans for the next 51 weeks and my start to the year. Let me know if any of you are planning to do something similiar I would love to follow along. Hope everyone has a prosperous and good new year.

CtL


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## twokidsnosleep (Apr 5, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 1=What I am planning and how I am doing so far*
> 
> Well I have decided to challenge myself this year in order to work at my woodworking more and get my shop in order.. yeah, yeah I know I was suppose to be doing that as part of ShopQuest 2010. But, really I am going to do this this year, and to keep me on track I have decided to post a blog each week in order keep motivated. Some of the blogs may be posted as projects but more then likely not all of them. I have a few shop ideas I am planning to work on including a parts storage cabinet and a drill bit holder (which I am still trying to decide the best solution for that one) the big goal is to get my lathe up and running. Smaller projects will include toys, games and boxes, all of which I have recently grown quite fond of. I also need to finish a few more pieces of my office furniture so I can get that room under control.
> This is my plan, but you know what they say about those. But as a start here is what I have done this week. These are by no means fine woodworking, but I would call 2 of them awesome woodworking as I got to spend time in the shop with my daughter.
> ...


I like the idea of a weekly challenge to yourself and posting it as motivation
There are some weeks and weekends I am busy with work and kids and never get near the garage
Also times like you posted where the kids needs/ attention are way more important than my projects
Good for you, I will follow along


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## CoolDavion (Dec 6, 2007)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 1=What I am planning and how I am doing so far*
> 
> Well I have decided to challenge myself this year in order to work at my woodworking more and get my shop in order.. yeah, yeah I know I was suppose to be doing that as part of ShopQuest 2010. But, really I am going to do this this year, and to keep me on track I have decided to post a blog each week in order keep motivated. Some of the blogs may be posted as projects but more then likely not all of them. I have a few shop ideas I am planning to work on including a parts storage cabinet and a drill bit holder (which I am still trying to decide the best solution for that one) the big goal is to get my lathe up and running. Smaller projects will include toys, games and boxes, all of which I have recently grown quite fond of. I also need to finish a few more pieces of my office furniture so I can get that room under control.
> This is my plan, but you know what they say about those. But as a start here is what I have done this week. These are by no means fine woodworking, but I would call 2 of them awesome woodworking as I got to spend time in the shop with my daughter.
> ...


I want to spend more time woodworking also, best of luck to you.


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 2- Some Utilitarian Items and Preperations for next week*

Well It is Sunday night again and my 2nd week has come to an end. This week my completed projects were actually done at work. I am working on organizing the office and cleaning up some clutter. I decided to remove some old tables from a small area next to our staff table (for lack of a better term) and install a small laptop desk so it can be closer to me and the filing cabinet. Here is what I came up with..



The desktop is mdf and the support system is 2×3 lumber. I of course used my Kreg jig to put most of it together. I eased the edge of the desktop with a router and a roundover bit.

The second completed project was done at home for in the shop. Needed a place to keep some pencils and markers near the workbench. So I used some beech I got from work a while back and went at with the bandsaw. Pretty quick and simple, but does exactly what I needed it to do.



The other desk top box is one I made for myself to use at the office. I made this one a couple of weeks ago though, just never got any pictures of it. Both have semigloss coating of Deft spray.

Those are the completed projects for this week so I am pretty happy with that. I then spent a large portion of today prepping for next week. My daughter is off from school and her other class (she is taking a woodworking class  and loves it) so we are are going to spend some time in the shop building some trucks for her, her cousin and a couple of friends. I spent some time this weekend prepping wood and getting things cut out.



I have enough parts cut out and prepped to make 6 of the large trucks. I got this idea from the book "101 Quality Wooden Toys You can Make" Hugh Ryan & Judith Ryan. They explain how to use the basic truck to make several other types of vehicles. We already made one pick up as noted in week 1, looking forward to seeing what else we come up with. (highly recomend the book if you like to make simple toys with your kids or grandkids.

Well that is it for week 2. Have fun in the shop everyone.

CtL


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 2- Some Utilitarian Items and Preperations for next week*
> 
> Well It is Sunday night again and my 2nd week has come to an end. This week my completed projects were actually done at work. I am working on organizing the office and cleaning up some clutter. I decided to remove some old tables from a small area next to our staff table (for lack of a better term) and install a small laptop desk so it can be closer to me and the filing cabinet. Here is what I came up with..
> 
> ...


See you have been busy. Nice job.


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## MYSHOP (Oct 28, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 2- Some Utilitarian Items and Preperations for next week*
> 
> Well It is Sunday night again and my 2nd week has come to an end. This week my completed projects were actually done at work. I am working on organizing the office and cleaning up some clutter. I decided to remove some old tables from a small area next to our staff table (for lack of a better term) and install a small laptop desk so it can be closer to me and the filing cabinet. Here is what I came up with..
> 
> ...


very nice work ;; thanks for sharing/


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 3- Well I got something built. *

Greeting All, 
Well Week 3 did not go entirely as planned. My daughter and I only got one of the 6 trucks completely finished. We did glue up the basics to all six and also got almost done with a moving van which will be going to someone hopefully get it finished this week as next week is a majorly hectic. 
As you can see from the pics we got the firetruck completely finished, this was a request from my nephew so he will be getting it for his birthday in a few weeks.



Sophia helped with just about every step. She did a lot of the painting as well. I have used poster paints on most of these because of the safety of them and her painting them though I am sersiouly thinking of switching to Folk Arts paints for a better looking finish. In the middle pic is a picture of the logos we put on the bottom. I have used, my logo since highschool when I had to design it for shop class, oddly when I met my wife Ifound out she had been doing pottery since college and had made a very similiar type of logo in order to sign her pottery. The "S" logo is one we have come up with for Sophia, hopefully she will be able to draw it herself with a little bit of practice. The cool thing about each of our logos is they incorporate all three of our intials.

I did actually get one other thing put together, this is just a small car that my daughter asked for. I cut 3 of the and got this one put together as a gift to be sent out. we'll put my daughters together later this week, she did apply some paint to hers and I am not really sure where it went after that ??



Sophia also got a chance to practice some hammering this week since her woodworking class was not meeting due to the holiday. She is doing well just needs to work on hitting the nail hard enough to actually get it into the wood.

Well, since we had some major issues at work today I am not sure how much time I am going to get to take off as planned this week. I will have more to post next week though, just not sure how much more.

As always thanks for looking.

CtL


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## woody57 (Jan 6, 2009)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 3- Well I got something built. *
> 
> Greeting All,
> Well Week 3 did not go entirely as planned. My daughter and I only got one of the 6 trucks completely finished. We did glue up the basics to all six and also got almost done with a moving van which will be going to someone hopefully get it finished this week as next week is a majorly hectic.
> ...


that's great!
she will cherish the memory of working with dad


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 3- Well I got something built. *
> 
> Greeting All,
> Well Week 3 did not go entirely as planned. My daughter and I only got one of the 6 trucks completely finished. We did glue up the basics to all six and also got almost done with a moving van which will be going to someone hopefully get it finished this week as next week is a majorly hectic.
> ...


Great projects.


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## MYSHOP (Oct 28, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 3- Well I got something built. *
> 
> Greeting All,
> Well Week 3 did not go entirely as planned. My daughter and I only got one of the 6 trucks completely finished. We did glue up the basics to all six and also got almost done with a moving van which will be going to someone hopefully get it finished this week as next week is a majorly hectic.
> ...


Chris,
Really very nice project for father/daughter;; I remember those times as well when my daughter and son helped me . Such a long time ago.. keep it up as you will never regret it;\


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*What a long Week....*

Greeting to anyone that is reading. It has been a long week. Due to a major incident at work I got very little time in the shop this week. I did however manage to demo an entire room at work so maybe that will count as some extra time. I did get enough time to complete what I was working on on Sunday when I got the call from work. 
A coworker had this little Chrstmas type tree that she liked to display, unfortunatly she had bumped into it and knocked it over knocking it off of the base. The original base is shown here, I truy can not believe it actually held this thing up. It is only 3" round with barely a 1/4" hole in the center for the tree stem, the tree however is 12" at its base and almost 2' tall.



As you can see I made a very simple base but added some bulk to it. The new base is made from unfinished cherry and is 6" at the bottom and 4" on top with a nice deep hole that the stem was stuck into then filled with glue. I believe this should help it stand much better. Nothin really special about the work but I did in the process discover that my router table was in dire need of a cleaning and hence I disassembled it and cleaned it well in order to finish this project.

On a slightly similiar but different note, my family and I happen to be in the vicinity of a large swedish furniture store the other day. Now I don't mind wondering around there and looking for some ideas and small items. Yes I used buy their furniture to. But not any more, however I did come up with this deal.



These are all pine, not overly fond of the color but figured I can fix that since they only wanted 59 cents for each piece. Decided on the spot that they would offer an inexpensive solution to a linen closet problem we currently have. So look for that one inthe next few weeks, hopefully. The other deal I found tere was for the cutting boards in order to cut them up for jigs the 2 pack was only $3. The ideas and the paper tape measures are always free. So if you ever fnd ourself in the vicinity f one it might be worth wondering around. most of their furniture s pretty easy to figure out and would work great out of real wood.

Well this week I am pretty busy with some training and other items at work but I will plan to post something next week . Until then, have fun all.

CtL


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## MYSHOP (Oct 28, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *What a long Week....*
> 
> Greeting to anyone that is reading. It has been a long week. Due to a major incident at work I got very little time in the shop this week. I did however manage to demo an entire room at work so maybe that will count as some extra time. I did get enough time to complete what I was working on on Sunday when I got the call from work.
> A coworker had this little Chrstmas type tree that she liked to display, unfortunatly she had bumped into it and knocked it over knocking it off of the base. The original base is shown here, I truy can not believe it actually held this thing up. It is only 3" round with barely a 1/4" hole in the center for the tree stem, the tree however is 12" at its base and almost 2' tall.
> ...


Hey Chris,
Keep up the great job…


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 5- Not much time*

Well, it has been quite a long week and having been away from home at a training course for the past week has made it hard to spend anytime in the shop. I got home at 2 AM Friday morning after leaving at 11 AM Sunday, I then slept a few hours and took my daughter up to my parents house to give my wife a well deserved break. So having only been home a few hours total this week has severely cut down on my shop time. But I did want to get in some project time.. I took some parts with me to work on my very first "useful" whittling project. I worked in the evenings and during some free time in the hotel room to whittle what was to become a letter opener. I have to admit though I got to a point where I packed it all up to bring home and finish on the sander. 
Here is what I started with ( I decided to sharpen up my old pocket knife and even sharpened a couple of the various tools to use as well) and where I finally wound up. Still have to put some finish on it, but I tested it and it opens an envelope quite well.


*I kind of liked the idea of doing the whittling but I am not sure that I am going to attempt anything else anytime soon, my hat is off to you guys and girls that can carve. *

When I got home this afternoon though my wife informed me she had seen a cooking show and really liked the oven rack puller that they had used. She told me she needed one. Now having not been in the shop much this week it sure sounded like a quick project to me. So I ventured off to the basement, I found some rulers I had bought for 25 cents each and decided they would be perfect. After letting the glue dry for a bit I made some quick cuts and sanded a bit… Yay!! A simple and quick project and it seems to do the job quite well.



So there it is my post for the week. My daughter however actually go to spend a little more time in the shop this week at her class, but I am going to post that as a separate blog.

As always thanks for looking. Have fun in the shop!

CtL


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## HerbC (Jul 28, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 5- Not much time*
> 
> Well, it has been quite a long week and having been away from home at a training course for the past week has made it hard to spend anytime in the shop. I got home at 2 AM Friday morning after leaving at 11 AM Sunday, I then slept a few hours and took my daughter up to my parents house to give my wife a well deserved break. So having only been home a few hours total this week has severely cut down on my shop time. But I did want to get in some project time.. I took some parts with me to work on my very first "useful" whittling project. I worked in the evenings and during some free time in the hotel room to whittle what was to become a letter opener. I have to admit though I got to a point where I packed it all up to bring home and finish on the sander.
> Here is what I started with ( I decided to sharpen up my old pocket knife and even sharpened a couple of the various tools to use as well) and where I finally wound up. Still have to put some finish on it, but I tested it and it opens an envelope quite well.
> ...


Chris,

Nice use of "found" materials. I would have never thought to use the rulers a raw material for a new project.

Keep up the good work and remember…

Be Careful!

Herb


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 6 - Now how does that work?*

Greetings All, Here it is week 6 of 2011 and I gotta tell you I did not really think I was going to have much to post about this week. I did not get a lot of shop time at all. But after sitting and watching some of Steve Ramsey's older videos on YouTube Friday night I came across one I just had to try. So I ventured into the shop yesterday evening and started preparations on this.



Once I had this going I realized I really wanted to finish off my table that has been sitting around; in order to get my new printer a more stable base. So I knocked out a drawer for the table and went back in today in order to cut out the top and shelf and start the stain process. So it is now sitting in my shop with 2 coats of stain on it and drying for its coats of poly tomorrow.



Hopefully I will be able to post it as a completed project no later then Tuesday. I am also going to possibly start the larger version of it this week which is really where the printer will reside. It is actually my biggest challenge to date, as I really want it to have a few drawers and doors. These are two items I have been hesitant to attempt but I know I need to work on them so I figure my office furniture is the best place to start. We'll see.

I have some time coming up so hopefully I will get to use it in the shop the next few weeks.

Thanks for reading and have fun all.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 7- Not a bad week, more to do though. *

Well, it has not been too bad a week. I managed to get a lot done even with everything happening at work. As I noted on Tuesday my daughter finished up her woodworking class Monday morning and had a real blast. These are the things she made in the 5 week class.





I managed to finish one more piece of my Dimensional Furniture Office Suite



I have also started n a few other projects as part of this years effort to clean up and organize the shop, I should post something about them soon. Working on some drawers and a storage cabinet all made with plywood scrap from some old cabinets that we got a while back. I am using them as practice and a learning opportunity before moving on to my printer stand.

So since there is some stuff I want to get done in the shop this evening I think I am going to call this the post for the week. Looking forward to the shop time this week…

Have fun all.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 8- Of Plywood, Practice and Cleaning up. *

I have to say I have had a real good week in the shop and I am quite happy with the outcome. As noted earlier on in this series I have been wanting to get things a bit more organized and also get my lathe cleaned off and able to be used. So I spent a good portion of time this week working on a new cabinet (still needs doors but I will make them this time I promise) and some drawers for my powertool bench, all of which gave me some good practice. The best part is that I did not need to buy any new materials, some of you may have seen this blog about the cabinets we got from my wife's friend. Well pieces of it have been sitting around here for over a year now. So not only did I clean up the basement shop some I also got a chance to get some stuff out of the garage.

Here is what I was trying to deal with as far as my Lathe bench was concerned.



The little wood rack was a solution I built a little while ago to handle stuff I brought home from work or found. I added the cabinet to the top to handle some parts storage mainly.



I am now happy to say that I can actually work at my lathe and am looking forward to putting some of that wood on the rack to good use, I am looking at ideas for a small lumber mill, so hopefully that will be coming soon. Oh the picture at the bottom is the first thing that I have ever actually turned on my own lathe. Nothing special, but I wanted to just fire it up and try it out. So I now have a small club made out of a 2×4. More much better looking work to come.

I also added some much needed drawer space to my powertool bench. The larger one as you can see helped a bit with my drill bit storage issue. I am still devising a way to actually store all the bits in holders. Which will really help this drawer out, I made it so it could open from both sides if I wanted to.



So there you have it a productive week in the shop. I am really looking forward to other things coming now that I have my lathe. I have of course been looking all over the web and some books as to get better acquainted.

Thanks for looking and hope you all have some good shop time coming up as well.

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 8- Of Plywood, Practice and Cleaning up. *
> 
> I have to say I have had a real good week in the shop and I am quite happy with the outcome. As noted earlier on in this series I have been wanting to get things a bit more organized and also get my lathe cleaned off and able to be used. So I spent a good portion of time this week working on a new cabinet (still needs doors but I will make them this time I promise) and some drawers for my powertool bench, all of which gave me some good practice. The best part is that I did not need to buy any new materials, some of you may have seen this blog about the cabinets we got from my wife's friend. Well pieces of it have been sitting around here for over a year now. So not only did I clean up the basement shop some I also got a chance to get some stuff out of the garage.
> 
> ...


Good job man. It looks much better and I bet it is becoming a place of peace for you.


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## MYSHOP (Oct 28, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 8- Of Plywood, Practice and Cleaning up. *
> 
> I have to say I have had a real good week in the shop and I am quite happy with the outcome. As noted earlier on in this series I have been wanting to get things a bit more organized and also get my lathe cleaned off and able to be used. So I spent a good portion of time this week working on a new cabinet (still needs doors but I will make them this time I promise) and some drawers for my powertool bench, all of which gave me some good practice. The best part is that I did not need to buy any new materials, some of you may have seen this blog about the cabinets we got from my wife's friend. Well pieces of it have been sitting around here for over a year now. So not only did I clean up the basement shop some I also got a chance to get some stuff out of the garage.
> 
> ...


Way to go Chris.. 
Looking good


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 9- Practice, Mazes and finally a Lathe Project*

Wow I am only 9 weeks into this series and yet it seems to have been going for much longer. I did not get nearly as much shop time this week as I did last. But I managed to make some time to continue to practice with the lathe and I very happily finally posted my first official Lathe Project . To go along with my lathe I have been searching LumberJocks and various other places on the web for ideas for a sharpening jig and a band saw log mill. I have decided on the basic design of the sharpening jig and started today to cut stuff down and things together.



Here is a pic showing a very dry fit of the stand. Also pictured is my tea light candle holder I made a very quick drying board. I have been meaning to make one of these for quite a while now and seeing the 10 Cent Labyrinth video that Steve posted recently it kind of reminded me of it. I also liked the video so much that I built one of the Labyrinths.



This was lot of fun to build and play with. I was happy to use my bandsaw and found that I really need a better coping saw. I have wood cut to be able to make one more that is a few more layers think as well. Once I get that one done I may post it as project. I did the plans for this on PowerPoint; which is generally where I do most of my planning, Quite by accident the internal maze actually cam out looking like my initials. I am making the next one a little more complicated.. I hope.

As always have some fun in the shop this week.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 10- A weekend at the Woodworking Show*

Well I can pretty much say I did not complete anything in the shop this week. I did get my stand for the grinder assembled but still need to make the jig system, plan to work on that this week. I did however spend the entire weekend at the Woodworking show in Chantilly. I actually went all three days and enjoyed it for different reasons on all three. Friday I went by myself and took in some of the various seminars. If you have never seen Alex Snodgrass cut a reindeer in a few seconds its pretty cool. I thought very hard about tuning up my band saw after that presentation but I was focused on another tool this weekend.
I did catch up to Chuck Bender there and also got to meet DigitalDistinction at the end of the day. Really great to meet other local LumberJocks.

On Saturday my wife and daughter joined me and they each took a turn making their own pens. Thanks so much to Jim for helping my daughter, she was excited but as the crowd of kids pressed in on her she was kind of overwhelmed. Thanks to Jim's help she made a great pen.



We did not stay to long around there as my daughter was getting antsy but did catch up to Greg3G Also spent a good amount on purchasing some stuff for my wife to be able to try her hand at some acrylic pens.



I picked up the other items in this pic today when I was there so I can work on wood pens. My friend Phil joined me and after listening to Jim Healy discuss routers for over an hour we turned our own pens and met Greg and his wife for lunch. Willards is always a good excuse to be in that area. We picked up a few additional items and then headed on home.



As you can see in this pic I grabbed a number of different clamps over the 3 days as well as some parts for upcoming jigs. A fun filled woodworking weekend that I was happy to share with multiple people.

Looking forward to getting into the shop this week and onto some jig making. Enjoy your week everyone.

CtL


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 10- A weekend at the Woodworking Show*
> 
> Well I can pretty much say I did not complete anything in the shop this week. I did get my stand for the grinder assembled but still need to make the jig system, plan to work on that this week. I did however spend the entire weekend at the Woodworking show in Chantilly. I actually went all three days and enjoyed it for different reasons on all three. Friday I went by myself and took in some of the various seminars. If you have never seen Alex Snodgrass cut a reindeer in a few seconds its pretty cool. I thought very hard about tuning up my band saw after that presentation but I was focused on another tool this weekend.
> I did catch up to Chuck Bender there and also got to meet DigitalDistinction at the end of the day. Really great to meet other local LumberJocks.
> ...


Glad that you were able to go. I had made plans to do that earlier but they fell through at the last moment. Sorry that we couldn't get together.


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## RandyMorter (Jan 13, 2011)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 10- A weekend at the Woodworking Show*
> 
> Well I can pretty much say I did not complete anything in the shop this week. I did get my stand for the grinder assembled but still need to make the jig system, plan to work on that this week. I did however spend the entire weekend at the Woodworking show in Chantilly. I actually went all three days and enjoyed it for different reasons on all three. Friday I went by myself and took in some of the various seminars. If you have never seen Alex Snodgrass cut a reindeer in a few seconds its pretty cool. I thought very hard about tuning up my band saw after that presentation but I was focused on another tool this weekend.
> I did catch up to Chuck Bender there and also got to meet DigitalDistinction at the end of the day. Really great to meet other local LumberJocks.
> ...


It looks like you got some nice, and fun, stuff!


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 10- A weekend at the Woodworking Show*
> 
> Well I can pretty much say I did not complete anything in the shop this week. I did get my stand for the grinder assembled but still need to make the jig system, plan to work on that this week. I did however spend the entire weekend at the Woodworking show in Chantilly. I actually went all three days and enjoyed it for different reasons on all three. Friday I went by myself and took in some of the various seminars. If you have never seen Alex Snodgrass cut a reindeer in a few seconds its pretty cool. I thought very hard about tuning up my band saw after that presentation but I was focused on another tool this weekend.
> I did catch up to Chuck Bender there and also got to meet DigitalDistinction at the end of the day. Really great to meet other local LumberJocks.
> ...


Karson Sorry you could not make it. Hope all is well.

Thanks Randy, I am looking forward to having some fun in the shop soon.

CtL


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## Timbo (Aug 21, 2008)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 10- A weekend at the Woodworking Show*
> 
> Well I can pretty much say I did not complete anything in the shop this week. I did get my stand for the grinder assembled but still need to make the jig system, plan to work on that this week. I did however spend the entire weekend at the Woodworking show in Chantilly. I actually went all three days and enjoyed it for different reasons on all three. Friday I went by myself and took in some of the various seminars. If you have never seen Alex Snodgrass cut a reindeer in a few seconds its pretty cool. I thought very hard about tuning up my band saw after that presentation but I was focused on another tool this weekend.
> I did catch up to Chuck Bender there and also got to meet DigitalDistinction at the end of the day. Really great to meet other local LumberJocks.
> ...


I missed it this year, after getting home from Florida on Friday I just couldn't bring myself to drive again on Sat.

Your pen turning supplies are well stocked now!


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 11- Looking forward to sharpening my lathe skills*

Well I am still working on improving my lathe skills. In an effort to get better and use sharper tools I have been going over the LumberJocks and the rest of the web searching plans for a grinding jig. I finally settled on using some plans from Around the Woods a few modifications for my smaller grinder. I do still need to buy a new wheel for my grinder so I am keeping the current one away from my good tools that I bought and practicing mainly with the older ones that came with the lathe. I still need to build some holding blocks for my gouges and will work on that this week more then likely along with finishing a drill press jig for holding my pen blanks.





I am pretty happy how this project turned out. It is made completely of scrap. I had all the parts on hand with the exception of a bolt I used in place of a dowel to keep the arm straight when it extends. I practiced a skill I have seen several times but as yet had not attempted which was to make the slot in the arm using the router table. I am need of one additional arm in the near future for my other set of tools which are a bit longer.

In addition to this I have been watching videos and reading articles all over the web on turning. Once I get myself in gear though I am really thinking about following the " Course in Woodturning" written by Milton & Wohlers in 1919. It was suggested to me here on LumberJocks by EEngineer. I love older writing and have printed out a copy that is now sitting next to my lathe. I may need to get a hold of a chuck first but we will see.

Well until next week. Have fun in the shop all.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Vises and Crocodiles*

Well all it has been a rather long week; I have spent a large portion of it away from home due to some family issues. I was though able to finish up my Drill Press Pen Vise before leaving. I again looked at several different ideas on LumberJocks and other websites. I found Rod's (from Appleton, WA) design on the International Pen Turners website and made a few adaptations to it. (My apologizes to Rod as I can not find the link right now to the website.)



The main change I made was that Rod's attached to his drill press via a clamp. Since I already had my drill press table and a fence, I decided to use some rare earth magnets to attach the jig in place. I am hoping this will come in handy for future jigs as well. The entire jig is made from scrap pieces from those cabinets again. (truly get my worth ouf of those)I picked up the clamp at the WoodWorking Show a couple of weeks ago.

The other thing I did this week was put together an automaton. There was a hobby shop near my in-laws that I took my daughter to, after buying her a new toy I found they had a few TimberKits on sale. I have a few of these sitting in my workshop and have yet to really take the time to work on them. Since this was a small one and I could work on it at the dining room in the evenings I decided to get it. I had a lot of fun with it, and it went together very easy. I will say after working on one with prefab parts I have even more respect for those of you that do these from scratch, not that I am still not looking toward designing one in the future.



You'll notice my homemade clamp, for some reason one of the dowels that came with the kit was splitting down the middle. Not having any of my tools with me and thinking the 2 clamps my father-in-law was giving me a bit large for the task I improvised. It worked out quite well. Here is the finished product…



Looking forward to several nights at home this week and some good shop time, hope you all get the same and have fun.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Best laid plans of... *

Well even though I had grand plans for the week in the shop they never really came to fruition. I spent very little time in there at all in fact. I did at least do some work on the table saw at work though and made a few shelves for our office coffee/kitchen cart.

The time I did get to spend working at home did not even take place until today, my wife has been asking me to do some work on the raised garden beds I built a few years ago for her. She has bought some netting in order to make a trellis and needed a frame attached to the back of the largest box. So after a quick trip to the "orange place" I was able to make her a nice sturdy frame for her trellis. As well as help fasten in the eye hooks to define the garden space. She has taken up "Square Foot" gardening hence the measured out plots.



Perhaps I should post this as a project over at Garden Tenders. Well maybe I will.

Anywho, not a whole lot more to say this evening. Looking forward to some tree work at work this week so I should be adding to my wood pile a bit, perhaps work on some green turnings.

Until next time, have fun in the shop all.

CtL


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## FatherHooligan (Mar 27, 2008)

clieb91 said:


> *Best laid plans of... *
> 
> Well even though I had grand plans for the week in the shop they never really came to fruition. I spent very little time in there at all in fact. I did at least do some work on the table saw at work though and made a few shelves for our office coffee/kitchen cart.
> 
> ...


I've read about this square foot gardening, have you been trying it long?


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 14- No time this week. *

Evening All
Due to the the passing of my mother-in-law last week I did not spend anytime in the shop. It has been a long week and an emotional one.

R.I.P Mom S.

See you all next week.

CtL


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## Robsshop (Apr 3, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 14- No time this week. *
> 
> Evening All
> Due to the the passing of my mother-in-law last week I did not spend anytime in the shop. It has been a long week and an emotional one.
> ...


Sorry for Your loss, and hope You and Your family are getting through these tough times. ROB


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 15- Balancing Wine, Knobs and Beds*

Well although my week seemed a little slow to start I am happy to report that I was able to get a good amount of time in the shop. As of my writing I completed 3 different things. I have been looking at wine balancers a lot lately. Not entirely sure why as I do not drink at all but they seem really cool and I thought it would give me something to do with all of those bottle of wine that people have given us and just sit in our dining room buffet. My other thought on these is to make a number of them from woods found and sell them. That's whole 'nother blog though. 
Here is the first one that I have made.



This piece of scrap has been in my bin a little while and every time I looked at it I knew there hade to be some use for it. This one will be going to work for a bottle of Pelligrino Water in our conference room. I have left it completely natural, I am sure I will have to replace it at some point but wanted to get the idea made and go from there.

Once I was in the shop I decided to stay there yesterday and try to tune up my new scroll saw. As you can see it is a bit battered, but seems to work just fine.



The top knob was missing; and according to the guy I bought it from has been since he got it. The knob for the table tilt was broken and I had to use pliers to remove it. So decided to make some new knobs as I have seen a few LJs make them and wanted to try my hand. Mine are pretty simple and work just fine. The screws are held in with super glue and then used the edge of the belt sander to make the indentations. A little bit of compressed air, oil and some dish washing (for the guard) and it looks pretty good.



My last project of the week took me outside again. The DW wanted to add a 4th raised bed to the collection. This one is hopefully going to help tame some of the squash and pumpkins that ran amuck in our yard last year. So a trip to the Big Orange for the wood and a quick trip to get a 4th clamp to make my life easier. Some cuts, some Kreg Joints and it is done.



The painted box was built 2 years ago and produces a huge amount of strawberries and a few blueberries. Looking forward to both of those crops coming in.

All in all the weekend has been quite a productive one. Hope yours was too.

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 15- Balancing Wine, Knobs and Beds*
> 
> Well although my week seemed a little slow to start I am happy to report that I was able to get a good amount of time in the shop. As of my writing I completed 3 different things. I have been looking at wine balancers a lot lately. Not entirely sure why as I do not drink at all but they seem really cool and I thought it would give me something to do with all of those bottle of wine that people have given us and just sit in our dining room buffet. My other thought on these is to make a number of them from woods found and sell them. That's whole 'nother blog though.
> Here is the first one that I have made.
> ...


Man! That live edge balancer is a beaut. Well done.


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## Woodfix (May 14, 2009)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 15- Balancing Wine, Knobs and Beds*
> 
> Well although my week seemed a little slow to start I am happy to report that I was able to get a good amount of time in the shop. As of my writing I completed 3 different things. I have been looking at wine balancers a lot lately. Not entirely sure why as I do not drink at all but they seem really cool and I thought it would give me something to do with all of those bottle of wine that people have given us and just sit in our dining room buffet. My other thought on these is to make a number of them from woods found and sell them. That's whole 'nother blog though.
> Here is the first one that I have made.
> ...


All is great work. Well done, your woodworking week has been much more productive than mine. I made a beautiful handle for a tool box I dont like. I am going to ditch the box and make one that suits the handle (I haven't put it all together). The box is just not salvagable (expensive fire wood (at least in time anyway)).

On another topic, anything happening in your neck of the woods around mid September. I am taking the extended family on a holiday. We are going to NY & DC. With some touring between the two. Open to any suggestions.

Take it easy.

Doug


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 16- No catchy title tonight*

Evening all, can not really think of a catchy title for tonight. I posted my Happy Easter Project last evening and my daughter just loved them this morning when she found them after we got home from sunrise service and breakfast. The other thing that I have from this week was actually done at work, I had to go in today, but was not quite as busy as planned. So I decided to complete a quick project I have been meaning to make. A Mini Saw Buck, the plans came from ericsprojects.com and it came out great. The pics are still on my phone so I will try to post them soon. I built it in the 18" size as noted by the plans but I am thinking I may shorten it to 12" long in order to cut up pieces to resaw on my bandsaw. 
Sorry no pics or much else tonight, but as I mentioned I got up for sunrise service (which was great, held outside of the church around a nice campfire) then worked and went to see family. Going to call it a night real soon. Hope everyone had a nice weekend and good Easter.

Catch up to you soon and have fun.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 17- It's a process…*

One that I am hoping to get a good grasp of in the next few weeks. The process to which I am referring to is resawing my own wood for projects. I have made a few projects out of reclaimed wood such as my bandsaw boxes and the parting gifts for some coworkers that have left. Now what I am hoping to do is go one step further and make some different projects from these woods that I am able to collect. I mentioned last week that I had built a saw buck well I finally put it to some use and got some pics as well.



It worked quite nicely for cutting the log to a good manageable size. I made mone a little differently then Eric did and used some carriage bolts as the pivot points. This seems to work just fine. One the log is a decent size I seal the ends with latex. I have been doing this to some wood for a while now and have a few pieces that may be ready for me to use soon.



Now I need to of course check the moisture and I do have a meter for that. I am planning to put a new blade on my bandsaw this week and get everything set up. I have not yet decided on a bandsaw sled or just using my jointer to flatten out a log first, which I have done for some of my other projects. Hopefully next week, I will have some boards and maybe even a project to show off.

Talk to you all soon and have fun in the shop.

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 17- It's a process…*
> 
> One that I am hoping to get a good grasp of in the next few weeks. The process to which I am referring to is resawing my own wood for projects. I have made a few projects out of reclaimed wood such as my bandsaw boxes and the parting gifts for some coworkers that have left. Now what I am hoping to do is go one step further and make some different projects from these woods that I am able to collect. I mentioned last week that I had built a saw buck well I finally put it to some use and got some pics as well.
> 
> ...


Neat stuff. I am thinking of making one of those log holders for my father in law. What is the point of the latex sealer?


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## rance (Sep 30, 2009)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 17- It's a process…*
> 
> One that I am hoping to get a good grasp of in the next few weeks. The process to which I am referring to is resawing my own wood for projects. I have made a few projects out of reclaimed wood such as my bandsaw boxes and the parting gifts for some coworkers that have left. Now what I am hoping to do is go one step further and make some different projects from these woods that I am able to collect. I mentioned last week that I had built a saw buck well I finally put it to some use and got some pics as well.
> 
> ...


I see you are getting some checking with your American Holly. I've had some of the same problems even though I use end grain sealer, latex paint, or even dip them in wax. A. Holly seems to be the worst. Do you just write the ends off as firewood?


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 17- It's a process…*
> 
> One that I am hoping to get a good grasp of in the next few weeks. The process to which I am referring to is resawing my own wood for projects. I have made a few projects out of reclaimed wood such as my bandsaw boxes and the parting gifts for some coworkers that have left. Now what I am hoping to do is go one step further and make some different projects from these woods that I am able to collect. I mentioned last week that I had built a saw buck well I finally put it to some use and got some pics as well.
> 
> ...


RAnce, that is basically what I have been doing as of late. Anything that is checked just gets cut off. It seems a bit wasteful but I figure since Ihave a good source, I am still saving plenty.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 18- Resawing*

Usable Logs…

Well I was actually able to take the time this week and accomplish the goal I set for myself in last week's blog. I wanted to cut down some of my own logs and make some usable wood from them. I am happy to say that it worked. I of course need to tweak the system a bit and experiment a bit more with some other thicknesses and woods but I am pretty happy with how things turned out. Rather then a jig I decided on once again using my jointer to give me some flat sides. Thru work I can have a pretty good supply of wood so I am not overly worried about the amount of waste using this practice, though I may change in the future to save my cutters a bit of stress. 
The first log I decided to attack was honeysuckle piece that I brought home a while ago. The sealing and labeling seemed to have worked out quite well



As I normally do I wanted to actually make something so I decided upon some pen blanks. After cutting the log in slices I then cut it into strips and then just cut them on my chop saw.



Hopefully pens will be coming soon.

Since everything was going well I decided to attack a mystery log. This was one that was left to dry in the woods and I just picked it up one day and brought it home. It was plenty dry. With the very rustic look of the wood. I decided to go for some coasters.



A little bit of spray lacquer and they turned out pretty good.



The last piece here is a wine balancer I made out of the last piece of honeysuckle. It actually wound up a little to thick so I think that one may just be tossed or else I will play with it a bit to get it thinned downed.

Looking forwardto havinga little bit of time to myself in the shop this week due to a really busy week at work. Until next week, have fun in your shop.

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 18- Resawing*
> 
> Usable Logs…
> 
> ...


Wow! How many passes on the jointer does that take?


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 19-Workshop Solution and a practice in progress*

Not a ton to write about this evening, it has been quite a long week at work and I will show why later on in the week. Since I also worked on Saturday I only got a little bit of shop time last night and today. Having received my blade holders and a manual (many kudos to Dremel customer service) for my scroll saw this week, I decided I should take some time to sit down and do some more practice. First though I had to come up with a way attach the saw to my workbench.



Here is what I came up with, the saw has been mounted to a piece of scrap plywood (those dang cabinets are still coming in handy) then I drilled a hole through the back of my work bench for one of my large face clamps. The front is even with the front of my bench and held down by one C-clamp. It seems to do the job nicely. I have been using the saw for a few hours and nothing seems to move.

I decided to give myself some practice by making letters for a few signs, hope to have them on display later this week. The fun part is my daughter is helping with one for her bedroom door, looking forward to her time in the shop with me.

That's about it for this evening, hope everyone had a good weekend. Have fun this week.

CtL


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## John_G (Jan 12, 2011)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 19-Workshop Solution and a practice in progress*
> 
> Not a ton to write about this evening, it has been quite a long week at work and I will show why later on in the week. Since I also worked on Saturday I only got a little bit of shop time last night and today. Having received my blade holders and a manual (many kudos to Dremel customer service) for my scroll saw this week, I decided I should take some time to sit down and do some more practice. First though I had to come up with a way attach the saw to my workbench.
> 
> ...


i have the exact same scroll saw and like it quite a bit. Blade changing is a PITA with non-pinned blades butoh well. If u check my project the "cross" was made jsut recently with that saw….. enjoy it….


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 19-Workshop Solution and a practice in progress*
> 
> Not a ton to write about this evening, it has been quite a long week at work and I will show why later on in the week. Since I also worked on Saturday I only got a little bit of shop time last night and today. Having received my blade holders and a manual (many kudos to Dremel customer service) for my scroll saw this week, I decided I should take some time to sit down and do some more practice. First though I had to come up with a way attach the saw to my workbench.
> 
> ...


John, thanks for the feedback. I too like the saw except for the blade issue. Looking forward to putting it to good use.

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 19-Workshop Solution and a practice in progress*
> 
> Not a ton to write about this evening, it has been quite a long week at work and I will show why later on in the week. Since I also worked on Saturday I only got a little bit of shop time last night and today. Having received my blade holders and a manual (many kudos to Dremel customer service) for my scroll saw this week, I decided I should take some time to sit down and do some more practice. First though I had to come up with a way attach the saw to my workbench.
> 
> ...


That is some C clamp


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*The hands of Masters*

First off let me just say I am happily still working on my sign project, as is my daughter but since I really should have thought harder about my daughter's sign we have changed direction and now I have a few more letters to cut out. Oh well.

In the meantime, I would like to relate a slightly different tale. It has been my pleasure of the past year to watch a number of true craftsmen at work. The dedication of the Korean Bell Garden Pavilion at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens was last weekend. It has been truly something to watch this being built.



The logs you see being delivered arrived in a few different loads. Humorously, we got a call one day saying they would be delivering some wood for use on this project. We wound up with a delivery of several trees. However, a few months went by and carpenters arrived from Korea. These 4 men had a little bit of powered help by means of a band saw mill, chainsaws and a few drills and power planers; but did a ton of work with just hand tools. They worked through the summer and into September, when they left 2 other gentleman flew in to work on the slate roof. All of the slate was brought in. Work has been continuing on various parts over the past year. The bell itself arrived last month from Korea where it was cast and was installed. Leaving us with this…



This entire structure only has maybe about 2 dozen bolts in it. Everything interlocks together. This was the awesome thing to watch. These guys built several dozen of the same pieces in order to have everything fit together with a small amount of hammering on occasion. As soon as I receive permission from another friend I will post pictures of some of the work in progress as I know folks here will want to see some of the up close stuff.



In order to celebrate the dedication of the bell installation an artist came from Korea to carve some traditional totem poles (jangseung). I was not able to watch him but it is my understanding these were all carved by hand with axes, froes, and chisels. Some of the detailing was actually burned into them with a torch.



As a LumberJock it has been a true pleasure to be able to watch as this structure has been assembled over the past year. I will look to get some of the in progress pictures up soon. If you happen to be in the Northern Virginia area I would encourage you to check this place out, and let me know.

Hope everyone has a good week in the shop and out.

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *The hands of Masters*
> 
> First off let me just say I am happily still working on my sign project, as is my daughter but since I really should have thought harder about my daughter's sign we have changed direction and now I have a few more letters to cut out. Oh well.
> 
> ...


That is so cool. Thanks for sharing

Do you work there?


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## Woodfix (May 14, 2009)

clieb91 said:


> *The hands of Masters*
> 
> First off let me just say I am happily still working on my sign project, as is my daughter but since I really should have thought harder about my daughter's sign we have changed direction and now I have a few more letters to cut out. Oh well.
> 
> ...


Great story. Thanks for sharing.

Doug


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## mtkate (Apr 18, 2009)

clieb91 said:


> *The hands of Masters*
> 
> First off let me just say I am happily still working on my sign project, as is my daughter but since I really should have thought harder about my daughter's sign we have changed direction and now I have a few more letters to cut out. Oh well.
> 
> ...


oh wow… stupendous!


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*A day late…*

and not a lot to show for it. 
I have been spending the past couple of weeks practicing with my scroll saw, since I hate to do nothing I decided to work on a few signs and cut the letters out with the saw. This has given me a great opportunity to experiment with different blades and also prompted me to work on a dust collection concept for my saw. I finished the first sign this morning.



I have had this saying hanging in my shop for a bit on a piece of paper; thought it would make a good practice piece. I have decided the next time I need to work on gang cutting some of the letters. 
The other sign next to it is an older project that I did while I was practicing with my router. Guess I liek making signs for practice 

Translation: "I can make it with my own hands"

We are still working on my daughter's sign but hope to have it done and up on the wall by the end of the week.

I have become inspired by numerous Lumberjocks to try my hand at a few small cutting boards. So today I dug out a piece of Maple I have had laying in the shop and ran it through the band saw.



Not a lot to work with but I have some ideas; been playing with PowerPoint to figure out some patterns. I have more maple but need to split it before I can get it through my saw. So look for some projects coming soon.

Until later, hope you all have fun in the shop.

CtL


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## rance (Sep 30, 2009)

clieb91 said:


> *A day late…*
> 
> and not a lot to show for it.
> I have been spending the past couple of weeks practicing with my scroll saw, since I hate to do nothing I decided to work on a few signs and cut the letters out with the saw. This has given me a great opportunity to experiment with different blades and also prompted me to work on a dust collection concept for my saw. I finished the first sign this morning.
> ...


That's funny that you use power point. My mother used to use a spreadsheet to write letters. Have you tried SketchUp. That might work for you as well. I look forward to seeing this Maple in a board.


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Working on my first cutting board. *

So one of the things I like about this hobby is there is always something new to try and for a person that has a hard time with doing the same thing constantly that is a good thing. The problem with that is there is always something new and I have not yet found one thing to focus one, I am not sure if that is a good thing or not. But until I figure it out I am pretty happy trying as much as I can.

That being said I have decided to tackle a cutting board. My first one is to be for a gift and will only be a small one for cheese and such. I am hoping to make a wine bottle balancer to go with it. I started earlier this week in putting stuff together and got a fair amount of time to work on it this weekend, need to do a lot more sanding and of course finishing before the middle of the week.

I laid the idea out in PowerPoint as always and decided to use Maple and Cherry.



The maple is actually a resaw that I worked on and the cherry I had picked up at the last woodworking show. I am pretty excited about using wood that I cut myself and trying to make sure things turn out good. I had some extra leftover so I decided to make the smaller board, if nothing else it will allow me to experiment with the finshing process some more. The balancer is started but has plenty of work to be done as I am going to make it out of the same two woods.

I do want to thank all of those here at LumberJocks that have given a lot of inspiration for doing not only this cutting board but a lot of my projects. You all truly help me see different ideas and things that are possible. Hope everyone has a great week in the shop.

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Working on my first cutting board. *
> 
> So one of the things I like about this hobby is there is always something new to try and for a person that has a hard time with doing the same thing constantly that is a good thing. The problem with that is there is always something new and I have not yet found one thing to focus one, I am not sure if that is a good thing or not. But until I figure it out I am pretty happy trying as much as I can.
> 
> ...


I love the spalting on the maple. Really cool stuff.


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Cutting Board Complete, Sign Glued up*

Evening All, 
I just finished posting my very first Cutting Board project. I really enjoyed working on it.



One of the things that was great about working on this is that the Maple I used was milled by me. This is one of the reasons I went with a smaller cheese board type. The other to be honest is that I was not sure I could do a larger one. I had the cherry on hand. I really like the way they combined and after doing some research and recalling what people here have said I decided on a Mineral Oil finish. I am glad I did.



The wine tilt was done as an added bonus from some of thescraps. Both the tilt and the larger of the boards you see went to a good friend for her birthday. She loves to spend time in the kitchen and I hope she will put the board to good use. She was quite excited when I gave it to her and appearently never seena wine tilt so we had to try it out.

The other half of this post is the fact that I finally got to sit down for a little bit with my daughter so we could glue her sign together.



I made the lettering for this sign right around the time I made the one for mine additional practice. She took all the letters and painted them herself. After getting a scrap piece of Plywood cut to the correct size (always remember to measure how big the sign will be before cutting the base :% ) we were able to sit down for a little bit and do some glueing. I found it was easier to put a glove on and hold the letters for her as she painted the glue on the backs. She did great and only got a small amount of glue on Daddy. Looking forawrd to taking the weight off of the sign tomorrow and having her help me put it up. Oh and she took the picture of the layout of the sign.

Thanks all for looking and hope you have fun in the shop this week. I am going to be working on some birthday requests and presents.

CtL


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## jaxonquad (Apr 20, 2011)

clieb91 said:


> *Cutting Board Complete, Sign Glued up*
> 
> Evening All,
> I just finished posting my very first Cutting Board project. I really enjoyed working on it.
> ...


She'll remember these moments forever. Good to see!
thanks for sharing.

ohh and beautiful cutting board/tilt also


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Daddy, how does a teeter totter work?*

This was the question that my daughter asked me on the way to dinner last night. I tried to explain the central pivot point and she kind of got it, but since most teeter totters or see-saws today are nice and kid friendly (unlike those ones some of us grew up with) and use a large spring in the middle instead. We decided we would make one in order for her to use it for her doll house. This by no means is fine woodworking, but it was a great time having her help me in the shop today.



With a few small scraps and some dabs of glue we made a nice small teeter totter. While the glue was drying she decided she wanted to work on her nail banging skills.



She did a good job and was even happier when she was allowed to use a few clamps to hold everything in place. I could not resist recording her practice.

http://www.flickr.com/apps/video/stewart.swf?v=71377

A great Father's Day  Oh and I was also able to complete another project this morning but since it is a birthday gift for July it will have to remain a secret project for a little bit longer. I already have materials laid out for another gift that needs to be started this week and picked up supplies for at least one more. July is shaping up to be a very busy month. Oh well should be fun.

Hope all you dads had a good Father's Day and to everyone have some fun in the shop this week.

CtL


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

clieb91 said:


> *Daddy, how does a teeter totter work?*
> 
> This was the question that my daughter asked me on the way to dinner last night. I tried to explain the central pivot point and she kind of got it, but since most teeter totters or see-saws today are nice and kid friendly (unlike those ones some of us grew up with) and use a large spring in the middle instead. We decided we would make one in order for her to use it for her doll house. This by no means is fine woodworking, but it was a great time having her help me in the shop today.
> 
> ...


Happy Fathers day to you sir. I had a great time with 4 of my children able to visit for the day. The other two are a little far away.


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Daddy, how does a teeter totter work?*
> 
> This was the question that my daughter asked me on the way to dinner last night. I tried to explain the central pivot point and she kind of got it, but since most teeter totters or see-saws today are nice and kid friendly (unlike those ones some of us grew up with) and use a large spring in the middle instead. We decided we would make one in order for her to use it for her doll house. This by no means is fine woodworking, but it was a great time having her help me in the shop today.
> 
> ...


Real cool, glad you got to spend Father's day with the kids.


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## Woodfix (May 14, 2009)

clieb91 said:


> *Daddy, how does a teeter totter work?*
> 
> This was the question that my daughter asked me on the way to dinner last night. I tried to explain the central pivot point and she kind of got it, but since most teeter totters or see-saws today are nice and kid friendly (unlike those ones some of us grew up with) and use a large spring in the middle instead. We decided we would make one in order for her to use it for her doll house. This by no means is fine woodworking, but it was a great time having her help me in the shop today.
> 
> ...


Its okay for you lot but Father's day in Australia is not till September. Hope I have as much fun as you and your girl did. Well done.

And to top it off, what you call a Teeter Totter, we call a See Saw. Don't you love the English Language.

Doug


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## MsDebbieP (Jan 4, 2007)

clieb91 said:


> *Daddy, how does a teeter totter work?*
> 
> This was the question that my daughter asked me on the way to dinner last night. I tried to explain the central pivot point and she kind of got it, but since most teeter totters or see-saws today are nice and kid friendly (unlike those ones some of us grew up with) and use a large spring in the middle instead. We decided we would make one in order for her to use it for her doll house. This by no means is fine woodworking, but it was a great time having her help me in the shop today.
> 
> ...


and of course there is a song to help the hammering job


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*My First Pen.. *

on my lathe, with no assistance. Well I finally got back to my lathe this week and decided to try my hand at a pen on my own. This one turned out pretty good.



The pen is a standard 7mm slimline done in American Holly. I was able to turn another nice looking one out of Honeysuckle but when I went to put it together i shoved the mechanism in too far. Was not really happy with myself but, look forward to working with it again and doing plenty more.

My two former projects for lathe work worked pretty well. 
Pen Vise
Sharpening Stand
I do have to make some modifications to the pen vise.

That is about all I have for tonight on this blog I am going to post one additional regarding cheap tricks. HAve fun in the shop this week everyone.

CtL


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## Sawdust2 (Mar 18, 2007)

clieb91 said:


> *My First Pen.. *
> 
> on my lathe, with no assistance. Well I finally got back to my lathe this week and decided to try my hand at a pen on my own. This one turned out pretty good.
> 
> ...


So punch the nib off then reset the tranny or take the tranny out if you must, set the nib and more carefully insert the tranny.
Learning how to disassemble a pen is just as important as assembling.
Just my $.03.

Nice pen. I love holly.

Lee


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *My First Pen.. *
> 
> on my lathe, with no assistance. Well I finally got back to my lathe this week and decided to try my hand at a pen on my own. This one turned out pretty good.
> 
> ...


Did you say slimeline? Ewww.


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *My First Pen.. *
> 
> on my lathe, with no assistance. Well I finally got back to my lathe this week and decided to try my hand at a pen on my own. This one turned out pretty good.
> 
> ...


Nice pen.


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Half way there and annoying the family*

Its hard to believe that this is my 26th weekly post and that it is therefore half way through the entire year of 2011. I am enjoying these posts and they do help to encourage me to get into the shop each week in order to do a little bit of something. I look forward trying more new things with each project.

As to what I did this week, we went to spend a few days with my wife's family and they all seem to like a good puzzle. So after I got done packing on Friday I took a little time in the shop to make a very simple puzzle. No where close to fine woodworking mind you. But I did employ a technique I recently saw and have only played with.



As you can see I embossed the lettering on the blocks. I did this by using a laser printed image of the directions and ironed them on. The trick of course is printing the image in mirror. Which I finally did in PowerPoint using WordArt. But I know I have done before just by selecting it as print option. For the life of me I can not remember how I did that. I'll play with it some more but if anyone knows let me know.

I took two of the four of these with me this weekend and let my brother-in-laws and the nieces and nephews play with them. I was nice enough to solve one before anyone got up this morning and left it on the table. Was quite fun watching them try to figure it out. For those of you not familiar with this it is very easy to find on the the web, just look for 9 nail balance. I made the stand by drilling a slightly larger hole for the 8 nails.

To all of those celebrating have a safe and happy 4th of July and hope everyone gets to have some fun in the shop.

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Half way there and annoying the family*
> 
> Its hard to believe that this is my 26th weekly post and that it is therefore half way through the entire year of 2011. I am enjoying these posts and they do help to encourage me to get into the shop each week in order to do a little bit of something. I look forward trying more new things with each project.
> 
> ...


I'll have to look up that nail balancer…does the trick involve a hammer?


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

clieb91 said:


> *Half way there and annoying the family*
> 
> Its hard to believe that this is my 26th weekly post and that it is therefore half way through the entire year of 2011. I am enjoying these posts and they do help to encourage me to get into the shop each week in order to do a little bit of something. I look forward trying more new things with each project.
> 
> ...


Nice job.

Get your page to print.
Then do <ctrl>p and select preferences
On the preferences page select mirror print.


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*What I like to make*

What is your favorite thing to make in the shop and give to someone?

After quickly making up the puzzles(see last week's blog) for last weekend and playing with making a few more puzzles this week I have come to the conclusion that is what I really enjoy making. They are generally simple to make and with some more practice with the scrollsaw I can make a number of them at once by gang cutting. It was great fun watching my in-laws, nieces and nephews all playing with the game I brought up and trying to solve the puzzle. Simple toys are another one that I really like. My daughter took her truck she and I made to show-n-share last week at school along with some pics of her making it. It was a huge hit. I have been thinking about packaging the pieces to simple little toys and selling them so kids can decorate and assemble them by themselves.

Now of course this does not mean I am not going to continue to work on other projects. I really enjoy pens, and bandsaw boxes and of course the occasional piece of office furniture. But I have the odd feeling that there will be a number of toys, games, and puzzles being made in the next few months as gifts .

That is about it for this week sorry no pics or anything just some thoughts. Hope you all have a good week and get some shop time.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*A day late.. But two new Pens*

Ok, So since I am trying to conserve some Flickr space I am just going to refer you to my project for pics. So that being said, the two pens I worked on last night and today were made out of a ficus tree that used to stand in a building at work. The trees were replaced last year some time and I made sure to keep a few logs. As I mentioned in my blog , I liked that the one piece had a knot it and was quite happy to see that it turned out pretty good and left a cool little mark in the pen.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had made a pen out of Honeysuckle but broke it during assembly. Try as I did I could not salvage it. How does one easily disassemble a pen? I do have some additional Honey Suckle and hope to make a few more pens out of it soon. Also planning to try to microwave dry some blanks to try some of the more recent stuff that has been cut down. Any tips anyone has would be great.

Well that is it, even though it is a day late. Everyone have a good week.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*In the shop and working on it.. *

Well another week with no pictures. However the reason for that is that I am currently in the middle of working on an actual project. We saw a wall organizer at Target that a friend would like to have. I did not though like the construction of it and the particle board that it was made out of. So, you guessed it… I have set out to make my own. I spent time this weekend cutting out all the pieces and running them through the router.

The one we saw had a very simple set of drawers on it. My plan is to use a laminated block of some of the leftover wood to make a bandsaw box that will be part of the piece. I am posting a bit early as I hope to be in the shop after my daughter goes down to work on that box.

This project is a great learning experience and I am hoping it turns out well. So far so good. I am actually making two of them so that we might use one here at home. Look for the project and possibly a mid-week blog to go up by the end of the week.

Enjoy the shop this week and for those of you in my neck of the woods Stay Cool, not looking forward to another high heat week.

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *In the shop and working on it.. *
> 
> Well another week with no pictures. However the reason for that is that I am currently in the middle of working on an actual project. We saw a wall organizer at Target that a friend would like to have. I did not though like the construction of it and the particle board that it was made out of. So, you guessed it… I have set out to make my own. I spent time this weekend cutting out all the pieces and running them through the router.
> 
> ...


Hey, that sounds great. Keep us updated.


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Blanks and time with my daughter*

Greetings all, Well I did not yet complete the project I was talking about last week because I got myself a little sidetracked. I was able to spend time in the shop most of Friday and the weekend. On Friday I began preparing to make some more pens. Ordered a good number of pen kits online and can't wait for them to arrive. I am planning to provide most of my own blanks from wood I have collected. So with a little help from my Jointer and bandsaw I got a small batch of pieces to start with…



Some of this will be different to turn, I have also added a few items since I took the print since I had some left over of some scraps, I currently have: 
Red Tip Photinia 
Honeysuckle 
Maple
Cherry
Red Cedar
Paduak

If any one has turned any of these and has some tips I would love to hear them. I am in the process of making a small bandsaw sled in order to cut them to the length needed and will more then likely batch process them at the bandsaw and drill press.

The other fun project I got to do was for my daughter's bedroom bookshelf. She helped me pick some wood from my stock and from the local store to create new bookends. As you can see she did a lot of the gluing by herself. Once the long boards were glued, they were cut into smaller blocks and glued again ( I love those lead weight clamps). A little work with the bandsaw and sander, a few coats of Shellac and she was very happy. Not sure how much they are going to help the bookcase, but it will be a start 



The woods are Paduak, Purple Heart, and Cherry. Something I will certainly plan to do more of in the future. I also started one other project in the form of a small book rack. I will more then likely complete that this week and then resume my wall organizer.

Have a great week in the shop.

CtL


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

clieb91 said:


> *Blanks and time with my daughter*
> 
> Greetings all, Well I did not yet complete the project I was talking about last week because I got myself a little sidetracked. I was able to spend time in the shop most of Friday and the weekend. On Friday I began preparing to make some more pens. Ordered a good number of pen kits online and can't wait for them to arrive. I am planning to provide most of my own blanks from wood I have collected. So with a little help from my Jointer and bandsaw I got a small batch of pieces to start with…
> 
> ...


Great shop time.

Very nice.


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## NormG (Mar 5, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Blanks and time with my daughter*
> 
> Greetings all, Well I did not yet complete the project I was talking about last week because I got myself a little sidetracked. I was able to spend time in the shop most of Friday and the weekend. On Friday I began preparing to make some more pens. Ordered a good number of pen kits online and can't wait for them to arrive. I am planning to provide most of my own blanks from wood I have collected. So with a little help from my Jointer and bandsaw I got a small batch of pieces to start with…
> 
> ...


They look wonderful and I bet she was more than happy to assist


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*One Project done, 2 still working... *

and a lathe that is waiting for it's new belts. I just posted my completed Photo Album Book Rack a few minutes ago. As I mentioned there in the post I had a lot of fun with this project and did some things I have been wanting to do. This is really my first official glue up of a panel I suppose.



As you can see I also put my Stanley #80 scraper handle to good use. I prepared the entire board before cutting it down in to the sections. This made it very easy for me to use my sander with 4 different grits of paper, now I know that sounds normal but this is one of the first projects I really took the time to sand up properly. I also put my woodburning stamp set to use, which worked pretty well.

Besides this project I also got another of the frames assembled for the wall organizers I have been working on, I am planning to try to finish them relatively soon. Have a few more parts to get together.

As I mentioned earlier in the week my lathe had an incident with a belt. New V-Link Belts are on the way and I should have that back together hopefully by the end of the week. Then it is on to pen making. I made myself a jig to cut blanks to the correct size, you know that quote "measure twice…" well I did and I still goofed. I will be making another one tomorrow. DUH!! 

Well that will do it for today and this week.

Hope everyone got some shop time and gets more during the week.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Some work around the office and what a bargain.*

One of the things that I like about my job is that I get to do a little bit of everything; it lets me be the "jack of all trades" that I so like to be. Recently the bathroom sink in our employee area fell off of the wall after being stuck to it for almost 30 years. It was decided to do a little bit of a redesign, since most people were not overly thrilled with the small sink we had anyway. I had some help in assembly from one of my new employees who is getting more interested in the wood working stuff.



The building of the sink base of course was the easy part. Getting it installed with all of the plumbing connected took a bit of work. I have now installed all new plumbing on the sink. For those of you that have done plumbing or plan to do it. Please do not sweat connections to pipes inside of a cinder block wall with very little play. Just saying.. The sink base is made entirely of pressure treated wood as the way this bathroom is normally cleaned is with a hose. Several people asked me why we could not just buy a vanity; I kind of did not want to rebuild this again. Joinery was with pocket-hole screws. The bottom picture shows a quick jig I came up with to round over the legs; it was made out of an old plastic sign and a piece of 2×4. It worked quite well and I put it in out tool cabinet for future use.

The other wood based project that we finally got a chance to get to this past week before my college help left is the first portion of a new fence that is to hide our work area from the public.



My new guy took the lead on this one in getting the posts in the ground and we all worked on getting the framing up. To make things a little cleaner and faster we again used pocket-hole screws to attach the boards to the posts. The fence itself is bamboo. We will keep an eye on it over this winter to see how it does and have plans to add more in the future. The picture in the top corner shows another good use for my sawbuck.

Besides this work last week I spent the weekend around the Pittsburgh area and attended the annual church festival and white elephant sale at my father-in-law's church. I grabbed a bunch of miscellaneous wood pieces and a few small parts. The best find though was a microwave for $3, watch for more information about drying my own pen blanks in the microwave.

Talk to you all soon. Have a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

clieb91 said:


> *Some work around the office and what a bargain.*
> 
> One of the things that I like about my job is that I get to do a little bit of everything; it lets me be the "jack of all trades" that I so like to be. Recently the bathroom sink in our employee area fell off of the wall after being stuck to it for almost 30 years. It was decided to do a little bit of a redesign, since most people were not overly thrilled with the small sink we had anyway. I had some help in assembly from one of my new employees who is getting more interested in the wood working stuff.
> 
> ...


Nice job.


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Earth, Wind, .. *

Fortunately there has been no fire as of late. But what a week started it off with an earthquake and ended it with a hurricane. No damage to report at home and very minimal damage at work. Might wind up with a few extra chunks of wood to work at least. 
I have not really gotten a lot done in the shop this week. but did manage to work with a piece of that walnut I was experimenting with in the microwave.



As you can see from one of the pictures the glue dried faster then I could work on it. So half of the blank was not going to work very well. I decided to still turn it using a left over blank of ficus that I had for the top. I like the way it came out. Not much more to say, it is going to be a busy week with cleanup at work and my daughter starting school tomorrow morning. I have no idea where all the time has gone. For those of you out there in the same boat, hope all goes well and hope everyone is safe after the storms.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Woodworking and Disney??*

Not a lot of shop time for me this weekend as we took a trip to celebrate my daughter's and grandfather's birthdays. My daughter turned 5 last Thursday and she shares this birthday with my grandfather, she was quite surprised to find out that when we picked her up from school we were boarding an airplane. She was treated royally be the staff in Disney World. We surprised my grandfather as well on Friday in his home town and spent the day with him before leaving Saturday morning to spend a few days at Disney World.

Now you may ask what does this have to do with woodworking… well for starters it is my grandfather (that I have mentioned here before) that is an inspiration to me and my woodworking. He lives in a two bedroom rancher, and the spare room for him is his own private workshop. He celebrated his 90th birthday on Thursday and is still going strong building yet another dollhouse from scratch.

Secondly, I am a big fan of the technology and creation of Disney parks. There are some good examples of woodworking in various places around the parks, the strongest of which is in Epcot's World Showcase. Have you ever stopped to look at the Norwegian Stave Church? I just found out there is an exhibit inside of it on Vikings (never noticed before so not sure if it is new or not) Also in Mexico there is a large collection of carvings.

But for me the item I have been looking for was in Japan.










This is an image of the puzzle box I bought. I have wanted to purchase one for quite awhile. I also found the website for the makers. The Karakuri Creation Group. There are some really cool puzzles here. I did see a few of them in the store in Japan. Some of them quite pricey. However I plan in the future to pick up a few more of the type I bought to make a set.If you look under the Karakuri Small Box tab on this site you can see the whole set.

So that is how this past week went, the next one is open and should be interesting as there is a lot to do at work and my daughter just started kindergarten.

Hope you all had a good holiday weekend if you are over here and hope everyone has a great week in and out of the shop.

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Woodworking and Disney??*
> 
> Not a lot of shop time for me this weekend as we took a trip to celebrate my daughter's and grandfather's birthdays. My daughter turned 5 last Thursday and she shares this birthday with my grandfather, she was quite surprised to find out that when we picked her up from school we were boarding an airplane. She was treated royally be the staff in Disney World. We surprised my grandfather as well on Friday in his home town and spent the day with him before leaving Saturday morning to spend a few days at Disney World.
> 
> ...


Good luck to you and your daughter. That is a really cool puzzle box…did you say you are planning to make one yourself?


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

clieb91 said:


> *Woodworking and Disney??*
> 
> Not a lot of shop time for me this weekend as we took a trip to celebrate my daughter's and grandfather's birthdays. My daughter turned 5 last Thursday and she shares this birthday with my grandfather, she was quite surprised to find out that when we picked her up from school we were boarding an airplane. She was treated royally be the staff in Disney World. We surprised my grandfather as well on Friday in his home town and spent the day with him before leaving Saturday morning to spend a few days at Disney World.
> 
> ...


Hey Spunwood, thanks. The box is really neat and I am not sure at this point as to whether or not I will attampt to make one like it. I may though attempt something in the future.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Getting Ready for Various Holidays*

Due to work and several other things I did not a get a lot of shop time last week. I would have posted last night but I got sidetracked by the TV (9/11 broadcast) 
I have managed to start preparing for several holiday events. The first is the 2nd annual haunted garden tour at my work. One of the staff has traced out several things that need to be cut out and I got the first of three witches cut out and half of a second one. Here is the first.



They will all be painted black to be used as silhouettes. I have to admit I had a lot of fun with this one and look forward to the other two, not sure yet about the smaller cats. I will post all of them once they are finished. Since I like doing this last one I am pushing around making a Christmas type one for my house.. we'll see.

I also started to work on some games which I look forward to trying my hand at selling in November at the first craft fair I am going to try. It's ran by our HOA and free to enter so I do not have a lot to lose. I'll be posting some of the finished projects as we get closer. My wife and I are basically going for a game type theme, so I am making some Tic-tac-toes, some of those Ox-Yoke Puzzles, solitaire games and some other small challenges. Let me know if any of you have tried to sell any games and what may have been a good seller.

Talk to you all next week, have a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Getting Ready for Various Holidays*
> 
> Due to work and several other things I did not a get a lot of shop time last week. I would have posted last night but I got sidetracked by the TV (9/11 broadcast)
> I have managed to start preparing for several holiday events. The first is the 2nd annual haunted garden tour at my work. One of the staff has traced out several things that need to be cut out and I got the first of three witches cut out and half of a second one. Here is the first.
> ...


That's one mean looking witch. By the way…how do you pronounce your name? Kleeb? Clibe?


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Well the good news is I did not finish a lot of projects… *

This is good because what I did accomplish in the last few days was getting a number of items prepped to be finished for the craft fair and other things. I went to work on my tic-tac-toe games and got them one step away from final assembly, all are already coated in lacquer and just need to put the pin in for the lid. You can get an idea of the process form the pics below.



The best part of doing them in batch is the single set up. I only had blocks for 6 so that is what I am going with. The last pic you see there is a pile of the ox yoke puzzles that I am debating putting a finish on. The wood is meant to be handled and I think not really need a finish. If anything maybe some mineral oil/Beeswax which I have been wanting to try.

My daughter worked with me one night in the shop and practiced her sawing and nailing. We picked up the toolbox kit at a rummage sale a few weeks ago, have to get her back in the shop to help finish it.



Since I was in the process of batch cutting items I decided to continue with prepping to make a large batch of pens. Once I got it properly aligned; my new slimline cutting jig worked great (Ikea has somethings that are useful, like those cheap cutting boards).



The woods I worked on tonight are a bit different then normal; Ficus, Red Tip Photinia, Honeysuckle, Thunder Plum, and Maple. Looking very forward to working with all of these. All this pen prep made me hungry to actually make something, So I made a new pen.



I actually have no idea what the wood is as I had made the blanks a few weeks ago and they were just sitting by my lathe. The good news is my new live center I bought works great. Much better then the old worn out dead one.

Well that is enough rambling on for the evening. Hope you all have a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

clieb91 said:


> *Well the good news is I did not finish a lot of projects… *
> 
> This is good because what I did accomplish in the last few days was getting a number of items prepped to be finished for the craft fair and other things. I went to work on my tic-tac-toe games and got them one step away from final assembly, all are already coated in lacquer and just need to put the pin in for the lid. You can get an idea of the process form the pics below.
> 
> ...


Nice work.


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Well the good news is I did not finish a lot of projects… *
> 
> This is good because what I did accomplish in the last few days was getting a number of items prepped to be finished for the craft fair and other things. I went to work on my tic-tac-toe games and got them one step away from final assembly, all are already coated in lacquer and just need to put the pin in for the lid. You can get an idea of the process form the pics below.
> 
> ...


lookin' good. When's the craft fair?


----------



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

clieb91 said:


> *Well the good news is I did not finish a lot of projects… *
> 
> This is good because what I did accomplish in the last few days was getting a number of items prepped to be finished for the craft fair and other things. I went to work on my tic-tac-toe games and got them one step away from final assembly, all are already coated in lacquer and just need to put the pin in for the lid. You can get an idea of the process form the pics below.
> 
> ...


Thanks guys. Craft fair is the first week of November, so not a lot of time. I have a few more ideas for some other games and my wife and mother are making stuff to sell at the booth as well, so it will be wood, fabric and yarn. Hopefully all will go well.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Another slow but productive week... *

in the shop. I am of course continuing onward with my preparations for the craft fair. I got all of my tic-tac-toe boards hinge pins installed and just need to sand them down. I bought some Soy based stain to possibly use on the ox-yoke puzzles, have a sample drying right now. Has anyone ever used this stuff? Any thoughts?

I managed after changing out the paper on my disc sander to get all of my blanks ready. I have a pen mill but really don't like how hard it is to judge the end of the tube with it. So at this point I think i am going to stick with the disc sander. Also made this guy for help organizing the blanks throughout the process.



I saw something like this in "The Pen Turner's Workbook" by Barry Gross I decided on the stepped approach since I had made them for something else and I like that it holds a good number that are easily seen.

So hopefully get to some turning this week, as well as finishing up a number of the games and puzzles.

Short and sweet tonight, actually I think I will head into the shop for a bit and work on some puzzle prep. You all have a good night and some good shop time this week.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Two Games finished. *

So this week I was able to put some finishing touches on two of the items I will be offering up at the craft fair. My tic-tac-toe games, and some sets of Bewitching Cubes.



For those not familiar with the Bewitching Cubes; I found the them in E.M. Wyatt's "Puzzles In Wood", the object is to orient each of the cubes so that each face shows the numbers 1-6.These three sets are made out of various woods which I forget right now and burned using Walnut Hollow Number Stamps. I made my father set a few months ago and he is still working on them, so I thought they may be a fun thing to try to sell. Made up a direction/solution sheet to go with them. If anyone is interested in making then let me know as I came up with a few tricks that seemed to work well for numbering multiple sets.

The tic-tac-toe boards am going to let folks choose then types of stones they want to go with them. I have about 6 different colors.

Did a little scrap test with that soy based stain I bought and I am going to apply it this week to my Ox-Yoke Puzzles and get those finished. I have about 4 more weeks and have to come up with I think 1 or 2 more puzzles and also some pens in that time. Then after that I need to make like 2 dozen pens. Busy times are coming just have to get motivated in the evenings after work.

Have a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL


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## Tomcat1066 (Jan 3, 2008)

clieb91 said:


> *Two Games finished. *
> 
> So this week I was able to put some finishing touches on two of the items I will be offering up at the craft fair. My tic-tac-toe games, and some sets of Bewitching Cubes.
> 
> ...


Pretty cool stuff. I'm going to have to look into those bewitching cubes


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*A three day weekend… *

and unfortunately not a lot to show for it as I was away for a good portion of it. Spent most of the weekend at my parents, so I did not get much shop time this week. I did however manage to come up with a new display technique for my pens. I happen to stumble over gbrown4's version of a pen tilt and decided I needed to try one as well.



This is the one I came up with for starters. It is some ¾" red oak cut at 4" long. I need to do a little more experimenting but a pretty happy with this and will plan to make some additional ones to go with some pens. It has also given me a good idea for an actual pen display that I will need to make soon. Curious has anyone had luck in making tilts with wood less then ¾" ?

My games are still coming together and I think I just might post them as one large project in a few weeks when I have them all together.

That's about it for tonight. Hope you all have a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Birthday Weekend*

So this past Friday was my birthday and my wife and daughter presented me with some nice small gifts.



My DW looked at my Lee Valley wish list and got me a couple of things. Looking forward to using them all, including the Gimlets. Even though I love my drill press I do like the quiet of the simple hand tools once in awhile. The wood came from the local wood store and I am pretty sure it is a piece of Padauk. Perhaps I will work on something to give her for Christmas from it 

In other news, I am happy to say that I completed 6 of the Ox Yoke Puzzles for the upcoming craft fair. Man it is coming fast now, only 2 weekends left and I am working on of them. My goal is to have everything completed no later then the 1st though the fair is that following weekend. I spent the day making up soem earring parts for DW to make for the fair as well then cleaned up the shop a little bit in order to set up my scroll saw to make cut up puzzles. I have about 4 different ones to make and am going to attempt to double stack cut them in order to make 2 puzzles at a time. Then a few more simple peg puzzles I think.

Oh and next week I will post some of other large cut outs I have done at work for the Halloween Program.

Hope you all have a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL


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## jaxonquad (Apr 20, 2011)

clieb91 said:


> *Birthday Weekend*
> 
> So this past Friday was my birthday and my wife and daughter presented me with some nice small gifts.
> 
> ...


Well happy birthday! 
nice haul!


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Birthday Weekend*
> 
> So this past Friday was my birthday and my wife and daughter presented me with some nice small gifts.
> 
> ...


Happy birthday and nice presents!


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## Dennisgrosen (Nov 14, 2009)

clieb91 said:


> *Birthday Weekend*
> 
> So this past Friday was my birthday and my wife and daughter presented me with some nice small gifts.
> 
> ...


happy birthday 
now thats gifts we can understand …. congrats 

take care
Dennis


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## lew (Feb 13, 2008)

clieb91 said:


> *Birthday Weekend*
> 
> So this past Friday was my birthday and my wife and daughter presented me with some nice small gifts.
> 
> ...


Nice score!!

I'm available for adoption ;^)


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Craft Fair coming quickly!!*

Evening All, Just a brief bit tonight since I am working on more pieces for the craft fair. I did post a project earlier today. 
Was able to complete several cut up letter puzzles in the shop this afternoon and take a trip to my local wood store for some help in finishing. I picked up some scroll saw sanding belts. They worked perfect for getting into the tight angles on some of my puzzle pieces. I am still looking for a few additional puzzles to make and may hae come up with an idea for one on my own based on an old puzzle I just found in a recently purchased book. If you like puzzles take a look at "Slocum and Botermans New Book of Puzzles" I just got it yesterday and skimmed it this evening found several cool older puzzles and some neat ideas.

Well I am off to figure out a new puzzle, have a good time in and out of the shop this week. I will be setting up at work for Halloween so those cut outs will be posted next week.

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Craft Fair coming quickly!!*
> 
> Evening All, Just a brief bit tonight since I am working on more pieces for the craft fair. I did post a project earlier today.
> Was able to complete several cut up letter puzzles in the shop this afternoon and take a trip to my local wood store for some help in finishing. I picked up some scroll saw sanding belts. They worked perfect for getting into the tight angles on some of my puzzle pieces. I am still looking for a few additional puzzles to make and may hae come up with an idea for one on my own based on an old puzzle I just found in a recently purchased book. If you like puzzles take a look at "Slocum and Botermans New Book of Puzzles" I just got it yesterday and skimmed it this evening found several cool older puzzles and some neat ideas.
> ...


There's a craft fair on Nov. 5th which I am going to and still have a bunch to do… good luck man.


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

clieb91 said:


> *Craft Fair coming quickly!!*
> 
> Evening All, Just a brief bit tonight since I am working on more pieces for the craft fair. I did post a project earlier today.
> Was able to complete several cut up letter puzzles in the shop this afternoon and take a trip to my local wood store for some help in finishing. I picked up some scroll saw sanding belts. They worked perfect for getting into the tight angles on some of my puzzle pieces. I am still looking for a few additional puzzles to make and may hae come up with an idea for one on my own based on an old puzzle I just found in a recently purchased book. If you like puzzles take a look at "Slocum and Botermans New Book of Puzzles" I just got it yesterday and skimmed it this evening found several cool older puzzles and some neat ideas.
> ...


Spunwood, that is the same day as the one I am doing with my wife and mother. I have a few more things to do then I need to work on display ideas for all the stuff.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Merry Halloween! Huh?*

To those of you on the east coast. I can not believe it snowed 2 days before Halloween. But anywho, hope everyone is doing ok, sounds like Connecticut got hit pretty bad.

This weekend was the big Halloween Program at my work so I finally got to display the cut outs I have been doing. I did a lot of the cutting out, the tracing was done by another person and my staff helped with a few of the smaller ones. It came out looking pretty neat, even though I had to put the witches back up a few times due to wind.



I really did have a lot of fun cutting these out. We have plans for a few more next year and I may also tackle something for home. Just one more thing on my to do list. They are all cut from 3/4" plywood and held up using rebar, pipes, and some pipe hanger tape.

At home I am down to the wire on the craft fair. It is next Saturday, I have some stuff finished but am needing to make a few more duplicates of stuff so I have multiples. Here are a few more of the things I have decided to make.



I have the Cut Up "T", Cut Up "H" (and no that is not the proper solution  ), Ox Yoke Puzzle, and three different peg games (Solitaire, 8 Men on a Raft, and Pull the Peg) Pull the peg is an idea based on Shut the Box. I decided to do it in a head to head version and it will come with 2 sets of dice. So with the multiples of these to make it gives me about eight different games or puzzles. This is a free craft fair put on by our HOA and the first time my wife and I are trying this. So we will see how it all goes, my wife has made Tailgating checker boards that roll up as well as some crayon rolls.

I hope everyone has a productive and safe week in and out of the shop.

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Merry Halloween! Huh?*
> 
> To those of you on the east coast. I can not believe it snowed 2 days before Halloween. But anywho, hope everyone is doing ok, sounds like Connecticut got hit pretty bad.
> 
> ...


Some of my favorite stuff of yours so far. The halloween cut outs are really cool and I like the puzzles and games…we'll have to check in after the weekend and see how things went. I have a bunch of projects to do also for this weekend.

brandon


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## KOVA (Nov 21, 2011)

clieb91 said:


> *Merry Halloween! Huh?*
> 
> To those of you on the east coast. I can not believe it snowed 2 days before Halloween. But anywho, hope everyone is doing ok, sounds like Connecticut got hit pretty bad.
> 
> ...


*MUY PRODUCTIVO CHRIS Y LOS DISEÑOS ESTÁN ESPECTACULARES 
ESPERO QUE VENDAS MUCHAS COSAS EN LA FERIA Y LAS FIGURAS ME DIERON MIEDO ;-)*


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*First Craft Fair Down*

As my wife put it, "It is an odd feeling knowing that people we don't know are now using stuff that we made."

Yesterday we sold at our first craft fair. It was a rather nice day and the venue was small, the local HOA puts it on each year at the community center. Our focus was primarily Puzzles and Games. We have shopped a number of the local shows the past few years and noticed it was a bit lacking in this area so we figured it would be a good area to focus on. DW did a number of sewn games and also toy holders, the matchbox holders were a huge hit. While I focused in on the wooden games and puzzles, most of which you have seen in my past blogs over the past few weeks. It was a slow start but business picked up and we walked away pretty happy and are putting serious consideration into doing this show and maybe a few other local ones next fall. We want to make sure that we take our time to build inventory over the upcoming months so we are not rushing around like we did on this one. We only made about 6 or so of each item, which turned out to be a good number for this show, but would like to have a number in reserve just in case.

Our table space was shared with my mother who also brought sewn and crocheted items. Some of which sold ok. We will be working on ideas for table set up in the future and trying some ideas out.



This is the table we had, one of our key things is that everything is portable as far as the items are concerned. The idea to let folks choose their own markers for the Tic-Tac-Toes was a pretty good one. We certainly did not have a lot of competition as there were only two other woodworkers there both offering lathe turned items; some very nice stuff. No one was offering the games and toys. I know a few of you also had craft fairs and shows this weekend hope they all went well.

I am looking forward to cleaning up my shop this week and getting some things in order before I tackle a larger project. My office suite is still lacking credenza, so I am looking forward to working on that and finally finishing up my office. I mean it has only been like 2 1/2 years.

Hope everyone has a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

clieb91 said:


> *First Craft Fair Down*
> 
> As my wife put it, "It is an odd feeling knowing that people we don't know are now using stuff that we made."
> 
> ...


Glad you had a great time and sold well.


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## Betsy (Sep 25, 2007)

clieb91 said:


> *First Craft Fair Down*
> 
> As my wife put it, "It is an odd feeling knowing that people we don't know are now using stuff that we made."
> 
> ...


Sounds like you had a good start to things. I used to do shows when I did needle work crafts and I always enjoyed meeting people and you are right it is a little weird to think that someone you don't know is going to be using something you made. But it's a good weird feeling that you'll get used to.

Congrats on a good start.


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## Popsnsons (Mar 28, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *First Craft Fair Down*
> 
> As my wife put it, "It is an odd feeling knowing that people we don't know are now using stuff that we made."
> 
> ...


I know what you mean about trying to get it all done on time. The nice thing after doing a few of them is that there are always some left overs to take to the next one. So you only have to make a few more things each time. Good luck!


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## Eagle1 (Jan 4, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *First Craft Fair Down*
> 
> As my wife put it, "It is an odd feeling knowing that people we don't know are now using stuff that we made."
> 
> ...


I'm glad yo0u had good show. I'm going to do a show this saturday on the 12th. Never done this show before. If it turns out like your show did, I will probably get 2 booth next year.


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Prebuilt furniture and Miscellaneous fun in the shop*

Well after the past few hectic weeks of trying to get stuff finished up for the craft fair I took the time to I had this week to just have some fun and play with a few things in my shop. My weekend started with a bit of furniture assembly and disassembly, though not pieces made by me. The wife and I went furniture shopping last weekend to look for a new recliner for her and just to see what else we could find. Well we wound up buying 3 items. A recliner, a desk chair for me that was on clearance and a wardrobe cabinet that was very nicely priced since one of our favorite furniture stores is moving. I have been wantinga chair to match my office suite but was not planning to build one. You can see the chair in this picture. I got some great help putting it together. Nothing special to speak of but it is comfortable and good quality.



The wardrobe arrived on Friday with 2 delivery guys, the good news is they got it upstairs. The bad news is they could not get it into the guest room no matter which way they tried. They were at it for a good 20 minutes turning it every direction possible. The other good news is this is a much better piece of furniture, made by Simply Amish Furniture out of Illinois. I told the guys to leave it where it was in the hallway and I would figure something out. Upon inspection I found the top was held on by 6 square drive screws. After removing them and the top I was able to use the sliders I had purchased to simply push it into the room. Top went on no problem, Go fig… We now haver a very nice wardrobe for my parents and father in law whenever they visit or if they want to leave stuff.

The other time this weekend was spent playing with all kinds of things in my shop.



I made another cut up card this time for my uncle from a card that he drew himself, that is already in an envelope and will go in the mail tomorrow. My daughter told me a few days ago she wanted to make a train. So she is now working on the paint job before final assembly. The lacer is for her to work on her shoe tying abilities, went nice and quick with culled piece of 2×4 and some screw eye hooks even made it the size of one of her own shoes. The whistles are compliments of Steve Good's website. They all make noise, one is much better then the others and I am planning to take that one to work to use. Lastly I made the prototype penguin ring box. Found the design online as a puzzle and shrunk it down to fit a 2×4, used a forstner bit and chisels for the inside, 3/16" dowel for the pivot and Sharpie markers to do the details. Will certainly be making other ones and perfecting them.

And to top it all off, I started about 2 or 3 other projects for the shop itself and waiting on the glue to dry before I proceed. So, all in all a very productive and fun weekend in the shop.

I wish you all a safe and productive week in and out of the shop.

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Prebuilt furniture and Miscellaneous fun in the shop*
> 
> Well after the past few hectic weeks of trying to get stuff finished up for the craft fair I took the time to I had this week to just have some fun and play with a few things in my shop. My weekend started with a bit of furniture assembly and disassembly, though not pieces made by me. The wife and I went furniture shopping last weekend to look for a new recliner for her and just to see what else we could find. Well we wound up buying 3 items. A recliner, a desk chair for me that was on clearance and a wardrobe cabinet that was very nicely priced since one of our favorite furniture stores is moving. I have been wantinga chair to match my office suite but was not planning to build one. You can see the chair in this picture. I got some great help putting it together. Nothing special to speak of but it is comfortable and good quality.
> 
> ...


Have to say love all your projects, they do in deed look fun. I like the furniture too.


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*A Pen Type of Weekend*

Yep put together and made a number of pens this weekend starting on Friday after work. But before I get into that I mentioned last week that I had some glue ups drying in the shop for some shop items.



I know nothing spectacular, just some 2×4s with holes drilled with a forstner bit. But oh so handy; the small one is attached via pocket holes to my mobile workstation by the drill press. My hope is not to lose the toothbrush and pencils as often. The larger one is a bit more advanced and uses rare earth magnets to stick to the side of my bandsaw and also to hold the miter gauge. I am willing to bet I will be making more of these from scraps and I promise not to bore you all with the others. Keep them in mind though they are quite useful.

Anywho, about those pens; I had a few that had already been turned just not assembled so I worked on getting those together and then wound up turning 3 more. Here is what they came out looking like.



The Ficus one is colored using Sharpie markers and the sealed with Mylands and wax. The Maple I have to say was quite a surprise but love the way it turned out. The 4 in the right box are all made from Honeysuckle, a nice wood but a little plain so I may play with dressing it up some in the future.

I also tried something new this weekend… Acrylics!



and I've got to say I like wood. However; my wife would like to make some pens for gifts this year and she likes the look of the acrylic, so I figured I should work on at least one to see how it worked. I made the mini-pen and you can see the first pen my wife turned by herself, there will be more coming. Now don't get me wrong I like the way some of these acrylic blanks look and how nice they turn out in the end but I think I really like to work with the wood better besides wood only smells if you are burnin' it (and that generally is not a bad smell) these things smell no matter what you are doing to them. Anyone have a good way to get that acrylic smell out of the shop. I did find that they tend to turn a little better if you round over the corners of the blank first with the router.

Well that's about it for this night, I need to drill and prep some more blanks for the wife this week and my daughter has informed me she wants to make a pen. So I guess I will have a few things to post next week.

Hope everyone has a good week in and out of the shop, and to all of those here in the U.S. Happy Thanksgiving!! (can't believe it is here already)

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *A Pen Type of Weekend*
> 
> Yep put together and made a number of pens this weekend starting on Friday after work. But before I get into that I mentioned last week that I had some glue ups drying in the shop for some shop items.
> 
> ...


looks like another fine week of work…isn't it great to have such a great hobby!


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Just a bit late*

Ok, I know I am late again on this one. Due to the really nice weather around here this weekend the major focus was decorating. Had some new lights this year and actually got on the roof. Usually they only make it as far as the front porch posts. But it looks nice, still plan to add a woodworking project for next year though.

But I did manage to get some time in the shop (even though my dw is still working on her pens) and finish off a few more pens during the week.



All made from Ficus with the exception of the bottom of the left one which is Black Walnut.

Also made my first official non-standard slimline.



Made from a European 7mm kit and Black Walnut. I like and have some work to do to get these ones looking really good. I am sure some one that turns can tell me the two problems I ran into in making this pen. One more project to get finished up and delivered this week. I'll post the finished pics here on my blog and perhaps as a project.

Hope you all have a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Compensating for last week's delay*

Well it has been a busy and exciting week in the shop which is good because this weekend I am way busy with other things so that is why I am posting now instead of on Sunday.

The pens that I have been making lately will be going on sale. They are all made out of wood that was salvaged from work and are now going to be sold in the gift shop at work. I made a very simple display stand that will hold the pens and some information cards about them and how the wood they are made out of came from the property.



My dear wife has finished her first batch of pens.



She did a great job on them and I am sure the recipients will be very excited with them. Now to just get that smell of burning plastic out of my shop.

My parents will be seeing my grandfather around the holidays and I wanted to make sure to send him something I made. So I decided to keep on the lathe and make him an Ornament from some kits that I purchased a while ago. So here it is the first 7mm ornaments I have tried.



Kind of fun and I have two more kits when I get a chance. So I am sure those will be made this year. I believe this one is Jobilo.

I hope you all have a great week in and out of the shop.

CtL


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## ichbinpete (Jan 12, 2011)

clieb91 said:


> *Compensating for last week's delay*
> 
> Well it has been a busy and exciting week in the shop which is good because this weekend I am way busy with other things so that is why I am posting now instead of on Sunday.
> 
> ...


awesome job. that pen on the left is my favorite, looks great


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Woodworking and Disney.. *

Yes I know I have used that title before. The reason though is simple my family and I spent all of last week there. We took the Amtrak Autotrain down last Friday and came back on it this morning. If you live in the Virginia area and want a scenic way to get to Florida it is worth the trip, just don't expect to get a good nights sleep. Lots of cool wood along those tracks, always forget how much swamp land Virginia actually has.

But I digress. This past week we saw a lot of Disney and it was a hectic but good trip, Make sure to keep your eyes peeled on the Hollywood Studios Backlot Tour and you can see one of the number of woodworking shops on the property. I was no able to pull my camera out fast enough though to get any decent shots. We also took a the Behind the Seeds Tour on Epcot, I wish there was a way to get some of the branches from some of the 9 pound lemon trees, they might make some interesting pens.

Being away from my shop and recovering from the train ride today did not leave me any time to work on a project. Instead I bought a few..



These are 2 more Japanese Puzzle boxes that I purchased in the Japanese store in Epcot. They only had one of the set that I bought the last time so I picked that one and this other one which is decorated with Yosegi Handicraft, the box itself is refered to as Himitsu-Bako ( Personal Secret Box). They are bot very cool little boxes and they will look nice sitting with my other wood stuff around the office. The store has a number of boxes priced from $20 up to $500 I have seen a few of the more expensive ones in books and such.

On our last day I happen to glance at the Christmas tree in Downtown and noticed these cool decorations…



They are all just half finished on the facing side and looked to be made very simply out of dimensional wood. The simple look of them is what caught my eye.

Well I have prattled on enough, I promise to have an actual project or at least be working on one for Next week.

Have a good week in and out of the shop all.

CtL


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## gfixler (Feb 21, 2009)

clieb91 said:


> *Woodworking and Disney.. *
> 
> Yes I know I have used that title before. The reason though is simple my family and I spent all of last week there. We took the Amtrak Autotrain down last Friday and came back on it this morning. If you live in the Virginia area and want a scenic way to get to Florida it is worth the trip, just don't expect to get a good nights sleep. Lots of cool wood along those tracks, always forget how much swamp land Virginia actually has.
> 
> ...


I thought you were talking about me for a minute there, as Disney is my job, and woodworking is my hobby  Neat to see some of Disney's decorations, and those are some fancy boxes!


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Tis the Season..Turn, Turn, Turn*

Well as I promised last week I certainly have projects to post this week. I have been busy at milling some wood and putting it to use at the lathe. I actually posted 3 projects in a row earlier.

My daughter joined me in the shop yesterday to work on pens for her Kindergarten teachers.



I spent a few days going through my wood that I have had drying for a bit now and was able to cut pieces down for numerous ornaments for my coworkers



and some pens for others



I had great fun with all of these projects and really just played with all of them to work on my techniques. I am looking forward to putting them to good use on future projects. I also built a small sawbuck similar to the one that I built for work in order to help me process some of my larger stored wood. Of course after I built it my hand me down chainsaw decided it did not want to work anymore. So the larger logs will sit for a bit longer and give my DW a reason to pick on me about my wood habit. 

Hope everyone has a great week in and out of the shop. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*To: The Sewing Room From: The Workshop*

The title is exactly what one of the Christmas gifts to my wife was addressed and for good reason. I spent a couple of days working out the details of this:



My wife has been wanting a thread holder for quite a while now, I have looked at a number of types and put this one together loosely based on one I have seen at a fabric store and could not bring myself to buy due to the poor construction. There were a number of them falling apart on the shelf and when I mentioned it to the manager she nodded and said "Yes, I am constantly putting the one I have back together" I am hoping this one will hold up much better. The DW likes it and I will be rigging it to hang on the wall for her.

This project did actually puzzle me for a bit, so I learned a few good lessons in it and that is what I love to do at the end of a project. I did want the edges to be nice and smooth as to not catch on the threads, so I dug out a recent gift.



The Lee Valley Cornering Tool, I have two of these guys in two different sizes. This one worked perfect it is a lot faster and quieter then starting up my router for a small project like this. I will look forward to using them more in the future.

Other then that I hope everyone that celebrates had a good Christmas. To those that don't Happy Holidays. Santa was good to me with anew pack of clamps and a hole saw kit. I will look forward to putting it to good use.

Have a great week in and out of the shop.

CtL


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

clieb91 said:


> *To: The Sewing Room From: The Workshop*
> 
> The title is exactly what one of the Christmas gifts to my wife was addressed and for good reason. I spent a couple of days working out the details of this:
> 
> ...


Now you need to go back to the fabric store and fix theirs.

Cool project.


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

clieb91 said:


> *To: The Sewing Room From: The Workshop*
> 
> The title is exactly what one of the Christmas gifts to my wife was addressed and for good reason. I spent a couple of days working out the details of this:
> 
> ...


Thanks, Karson. I could not believe how bad a shape the ones at the store were. They have a bunch of different sizes and they were all falling apart. From what I could tell they were just being held together by small tacks. 
Oh Well.

CtL


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Week 51- One week left*

So I posted the first part of this blog 356 days ago which means after this one there is just one more. This week I will have to say I spent some quality time int he shop with my daughter and working on the few small projects. You can see those projects here. Today I decided to do a little cleaning up so as to make the shop look better for the new year. I am also pushing around two of my next projects, both of which have to do with contests currently going on.

So for tonight that is about all I have, next week's blog should give an idea as to what I am looking forward to the rest of this new year and wrap up last year.

Thanks for looking and have fun in and out of the shop.

CtL


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## spunwood (Aug 20, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Week 51- One week left*
> 
> So I posted the first part of this blog 356 days ago which means after this one there is just one more. This week I will have to say I spent some quality time int he shop with my daughter and working on the few small projects. You can see those projects here. Today I decided to do a little cleaning up so as to make the shop look better for the new year. I am also pushing around two of my next projects, both of which have to do with contests currently going on.
> 
> ...


I can't believe its been a year in Clieb's shop. Well done. I have enjoyed your blog and really enjoyed seeing you make humble but significant progress in so many areas of woodworking and family life (turnings, organization, family time, craft shows).

Happy New Year.


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## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*52 Weeks… The End*

Well for those of you that have been following along I want to thank you it has been a really cool year that I just want to take a minute or two and recap. By challenging myself with doing this blog it has truly made me get into my shop at least once a week even on those weeks when I had very little time.

I learned a number of new things over this past year, I like building puzzles and games the small stuff the best.





Though there were few larger things, still have a few pieces of my office suite to get to but at least I got a few of them done.



Man am I glad I got my lathe cleaned off and fired up.





I have really enjoyed using it and would certainly say I am close to a pen addiction. The best part though is using wood I get and making my own blanks for stuff. I have also sold my first large batch of pens and will be making an even larger batch. Plus with our first Craft Show under our belts my wife and I are looking for more of them to do next fall.

With all of this though my most rewarding time in the shop is the time I get to spend with others encouraging them to try new things and make things. A few of my guys at work have made some nice stuff for themselves, I am very proud of them for taking it on no matter what the size. But most of all my daughter is working at different stuff every time she is in the shop. I am sure you have seen the numerous posts about her projects. I am working with her and trying to keep a 5 year old focused for any length of time is a task but I enjoy the time spent greatly.





I am not planning to post a new blog every week this year but at least once a month or more. Contemplating blogging about kids in the shop, but not sure yet. Will also do a little bit on Craft Show preparations when I start building for them in the next couple of months.

Once again to those of you that have been following along, Thank You.

Hope everyone has a great week, month and year in and out of the shop.

CtL

btw.. I did not forget to be in the shop this week. Have been working on my 2×4 project for StumpyNubs Workshop and planning out my Winter Contest project for LumberJocks. My goal for this month is to get them both completed in time.


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## crossgrainww (Feb 19, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *52 Weeks… The End*
> 
> Well for those of you that have been following along I want to thank you it has been a really cool year that I just want to take a minute or two and recap. By challenging myself with doing this blog it has truly made me get into my shop at least once a week even on those weeks when I had very little time.
> 
> ...


Excellent challenge, Chris. I've enjoyed following along. Keep up the good work. I look forward to your future posts.


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