Creeker's Past Week's Accomplishments

[Dennis Peacock]

1 Jun 2020

Greetings,
I got some shop time in this week but it wasn't doing fine woodworking....it was to make stuff to reorganize our 2 car garage. It was past time to take all the piles of "stuff" and do something about it.....so The LOML and I did just that.
My #2 son returned from England today and it's super nice having him home.
I start oncall duty again this week and I'm begging for a nice quiet week of oncall duty. Please??!!

I'm working on getting things done around the house and getting projects done that I need to get done for customers. I guess we'll see how much I get done this week.

That's it for me, so what did YOU do this past week?

Best of weeks to you all.

[Lisa Starr]

Dennis - here's hoping you get the quiet on call week you're wishing for.

I got a bit of shop time Saturday, but it was building a couple of little organizational things for the shop. I desperately needed to store my clamps differently and made a rack for them. Also modified my storage for the cordless drills/impact drivers, as I purchased a pir of Milwaukees at Christmas that didn't fit the existing layout. That's it for me.

[Myles Moran]

I bought some hickory to get started on dining chairs (and after those a table). Something around 40 bf of 8/4 and 20 bf of 4/4. Holy cow that stuff was heavy. It was hard enough to get the 8/4 up on the rack on my truck, and then once it was up there, I could definitely feel it while driving. But I got it home safely and the wood is acclimating. The pieces I picked out for the bent laminations that make up the back sure seemed to have some very interesting figure, and I cannot wait to get them milled up to see what those are going to look like.

Hickory for the chairs also means I'll have plenty of small, weird shaped scraps to be cut into chunks for the smoker. It'll be a nice change from having the weird shaped bandsaw offcuts that I can't do anything worthwhile with.

[Brian Tymchak]

Didn't get anything accomplished in the shop this week, due to UPS/USPS sending a delivery into the shipping black hole. Waiting on flanged threaded inserts to mount my new drill press table.

So, in lieu of doing anything fun, I resorted to house maintenance, with plenty of mowing, trimming, and started a project to replace the worthless plastic pad under our air compressor with a real base. The earth had settled under the compressor and it had about a 5* tilt. Was interesting raising the compressor off the pad while not putting any stress on the fluid couplings. Today I get to excavate about 4" of soil from under there, add paver base. level, and somehow slide 4 24" square pavers into position. Fun times... :rolleyes:

[Dave Mount]

Not a lot of shop time this week. Tilled the gardens and reshoveled the perimeter trenches. Split a bunch of firewood. Did some overdue cleaning of the maple evaporator. Mowed way too much grass. Cut the last of the two curly maple logs I found in the firewood pile into blanks and moved them into the shop. There were probably 20 of them, and I'm down to just 6 remaining to be turned. The stragglers might be returned to the firewood pile, I'm getting a little tired of them and they're nice, but not *that* nice. . .

When I started woodworking some 30 years ago, I started, as many do, making small boxes. For a few years there was a tradition that SWMBO would get a box on her birthday, with a different design each year. That tradition fell apart at some point and has been dormant for a lot of years. This year I revived it making the "ribbon handle" box shown below. I'd always used original designs, but I copped out here and borrowed an idea that Woodsmith put out there, or at least that's where I saw it. Can't see it in the picture but the sides were resawn so the grain tracks around the box. The picture actually doesn't do justice to the chatoyance of the maple. Apologies for the fish-eye distortion and generally poor smartphone photography.

Hoping for some rain this week, we need it. Going to be a small hay crop if we don't get it soon.

Best,

Dave
434187

[Bob Jones 5443]

I flattened, honed, and polished my new 1/8” Stanley 750 chisel that arrived, and set to work teasing out the waste between tails on a ridiculously small box I’ve sentenced myself to make from 1/8” cherry. Then I cut one of the four pin sets. The box is 3/4” high and for some reason I’m of the opinion I’m going to add in a bottom to be held in with a groove in the sides. Something tells me this was the right project for my first dovetailed piece. I suppose if I can make this, I’ll learn enough to make a case of human scale. I have a wall cabinet for the bathroom in mind.

I also received my set of router plane blades and made a holder for the plane and blades for the French cleat wall. One more tool off the bench that’s been floating around there for a year and a half. In the end I’m glad I waited until I got the blades, so the full kit is stored in one place.

[Jim Becker]

Dennis, wishing you a quiet week of "on call" for sure!

This past week I finished up my "fabulous fake door" project and am very pleased with the results. I also did some guitar work, setting up on build and getting more clear coats on another. This week I'm doing odds and ends. I have a new powder room door planned and will execute it once I have material and that will be the last sub-standard door to replace inside the house since we moved in 21 years ago this November. I'm waiting on a price quote for replacement windows for the 250 year old portion of the house because the existing windows are no longer salvageable, even with reglazing. There's just too much weather damage from many, many decades of exposure and moisture. They don't open, are 6 over 6 with individual panes that leak air and heat/cooling terribly. 'Just cannot let this go any longer. I'm also planning some real drawers to replace baskets in the wardrobe columns in our master closet. "Business" is quiet...nature of the time.

[mark mcfarlane]

434206

Finished the 3rd coat of Cetol marine varnish on the slats for a park bench. Wow that stuff is a bear to work with (thick) and seems to take forever to dry and harden. After one week the last coat is still too soft to put into service.

Also built a small outdoor shelf unit out of the crate wood that my sliding table saw came in. Flat sawn pine with an Espresso stain (very dark with a hint of brown) came out looking really cool. I would have spent more time sanding had I known how well it would satin. It was meant to be a one-day utility project but ended up taking a couple days.

Topcoat is GF 450 exterior water-based poly. I like working with this stuff, you can easily put on 5 coats in a day. Dries in under an hour in my shop.

[Brad Shipton]

I continued working on a cabinet project. Finished sizing the furniture ends, and drawers. Realized I ordered the wrong hinge plates so it will be another day before door sizing starts. Can't wait to move them into the finish booth.

434216434217

[Paul F Franklin]

Brad, those are some nice looking cabinets! Love the detail on the stiles/legs.

I did not get a ton of shop time this week, the weather was nice and outside chores kept me busy. I did get all the shelf pin holes drilled in the cabinet carcasses and got a start on sanding. Burned most of today making the trip to pick up 200 BF of prime 4/4 cherry, and then sorting through it, stacking and stickering it. Way more than I need for the cabinet doors and drawers, but the rest will get used for the desks and files in the next phase. I'll let it acclimate to the shop while I finish up the carcass work. Weather toward the end of the week looks favorable for outdoor spray finishing, so hope to be ready for spraying by then.