Working wood for a living

[Bob Parker]

Hi, I'm not sure if this is against the rules, if it is I'm sorry... I work for an antique store making furniture out of reclaimed lumber and I started a blog about it, posting pictures of what I do at work everyday. It might be useful to see pictures of a woodworker doing everyday woodworking things. Anyways, if you want to see it, its here (http://www.woodworkerblog.com).

[Brian Effinger]

You've got some nice projects there.

[Steve Southwood]

Nice work you have there. Great way to reuse old material.

[Kelly Craig]

I get a lot of wood from door stores and such. To them, it's trash, to me, it's gold. They have a bin out front they throw their scraps in. Most people grab it for fire wood, but this Flicker photo account is a collection of what I've done with a lot of it: Flickr: Imagination Unincorporated's Photostream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/functional_art)

[Bob Parker]

Wow Kelly! That is awesome! Is all that made from old fir? I've found the wood from those old doors is really great wood. We just recently got a pallet load of these 2x5ish "staves" that used to make up some kind of water tower. They are about 12 feet long and there is a slight bow to each board but its so thick i just joint/plane it out. It is amazing fir.

[Kelly Craig]

Much of the wood I use is left from door factories fabrication work. I get clear vertical grain fir, cherry, African Mahogany, teak and things we never knew existed. I have a 20x30 hut full of it. Most of it is only good for banding the edges of plywood, but I sometimes get 3"x14"x30" and similar pieces.

I'm a garage sale fan too and will grab things I can incorporate into a project, such as an old broach, which suggests a bit of class, or a brass and porcelain coat hook. I bought a set of old scales from a guy, built a case to mount it on, ran brass rails around it and made new tables for the things being weighed (out of oak) and the guy who sold it to me bought it back at a street sale. It's great when you can sell someone their own trash back (grin).

If you want to play with granite, it's often free for the taking. I cut the top for the plant stand on my Flicker site using a variable speed grinder and a Harbor Freight blade.

[Bob Parker]

Do you run your own shop Kelly? if you don't mind me asking

[Dewey Torres]

Love the pic and comment on the back yard Royobi. I fell out of my seat on that one.

[Bob Parker]

pretty pitiful I know, my wife makes fun of me for that. I just updated the gallery with some furniture I made for "work".

[Dewey Torres]

Welcome to the Creek Bob!

[Kelly Craig]

Bob:
Since all I do is woodwork, painting and things related, and it pays the bills, it probably looks like a business on paper, but it's really a laundry front for excuses to buy and upgrade toys (a former partner used to go insane when I called our rather expensive tools "toys," but twenty years later, I'm still "playing" and he's off doing other things).

Necessities, mothers, inventions and all that stuff got me started doing in whatever you would call what I do. I couldn't afford to buy it, so I built. My first projects were a lot more pathetic than you indicate yours to be (sometimes it went downhill from there). However, there are people out there with questionable taste and they bought what I built.

I started with a disposable B&D drill and saber saw (pieces of garbage as far a quality went, but they wouldn't die) The drill was my "router" (they made special bits back then). Next thing I knew, people more ignorant than I thought "if you can build a picture frame, you can build a cabinet." Then they thought, "if you can build a cabinet, you can build a ........." So it starts. It appears it's already too late for you too.

[Bob Parker]

it is past the point of no return...woodworking that is