A new guy

[Greg Wieskamp]

Hello to the Sawmill Creek forum community. I wasn’t sure where to post this thread, but I thought here was as good a place as any. If a moderator disagrees, please move it.

My name is Greg, from NW IL. I am 67 yo, married to my wonderful wife Judy for 45 years. I drink, I cuss, and I smoke. Just a normal guy. We have a boy and a girl, both married, and we have 9 grand kids. I spent most of my working life in the bowling industry. Everything from trash pick up to mechanic, to manager, to owner operator for 15 years. The last 6 years I worked was in construction. I retired 5 years ago, parked my butt on the couch, watched TV, and promptly ate my way up to 220#. One day my wifes mower quit working. I went looking for a new one. She informed me she did not want a new one, she wanted this one fixed. NOW! I surprised myself and actually fixed it. This started a hobby of buying up dilapidated Lawn Boy mowers and refurbishing them. I did this for a couple of years. I am now down to about a dozen Lawn Boy mowers. If you need a good refurbished Lawn Boy, I’m your guy. The mower hobby eventually led to garden tractors. I had a Massey Furgeson that I inherited from father in law. I rebuilt it. That led to another Massey, then a John Deere, which led to another Massey, another John Deere, 6 Wheel Horse tractors and so on and so on. I have a total of 13 tractors, all rebuilt, but they are not for sale. I soon ran out of room for tractors, which forced me into another route, and got back into wood working after a 30 year hiatus. The hobby I enjoy the most. A friend and I used to have a shop together. He owned some of the equipment, and I owned some. His son owned the building. Don passed away about 15 years ago. The equipment sat virtually unused for almost 20 years. I brought home my equipment, and was able to buy Dons Delta Unisaw from his widow, and purchased a couple of new things. My equipment is far from being the best, but it will do for now. I am on the look out for a good used drum sander if anyone has one for sale. My shop is my 24 X 26 garage. Everything is on wheels. It all goes out to the driveway in the mornings, back in at night. I never considered myself a great wood worker, but I hope to improve on that by asking a lot of questions, and generally making a pest of myself. When I can, I will post some pics, (if I can figure out how) of projects from 30 years ago, and recently. There are some memories coming back about wood working. Like how good any oak project can look with a little walnut inlay. How bad walnut tastes. I don’t remember walnut costing $7.50 bd. ft. You would think wood this expensive would taste better.
BTW I am now down to 120#. Who has time to eat?

[Jim Becker]

Welcome, Greg! It sounds like you have the bug to get back in the woodworking game and this truly is a great place to hang out. If you like what you see after reading for a bit, become a Contributor (only $6) which will provide access to photos, private messages and the Classifieds. The photo thing is a real benefit.

[Lee Schierer]

Welcome to the creek, we look forward to seeing your projects. Fancy tools are nice, but the craftsman is the tool that make the project.

[Frederick Skelly]

Welcome to the Creek Greg! Glad to have you join us!
What kind of things do you like to build - furniture, decorative boxes, turning?

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Welcome Greg. If the woodworking shoe takes a moment or two to break back in look for Case garden tractor. They are a worthy distraction from the couch, Woodworking is equally rewarding.

[Greg Wieskamp]

Welcome Greg. If the woodworking shoe takes a moment or two to break back in look for Case garden tractor. They are a worthy distraction from the couch, Woodworking is equally rewarding.
I did try to buy a couple of Case 446's from my son in laws mother when his dad passed, unfortunately, that didn't work out. But I do like my Masseys.

[Keith Outten]

Welcome to SawMill Creek Greg, the Massey looks fantastic.

[Greg Wieskamp]

These are some of the things that got me back into woodworking. As you might imagine, restoring 20 – 30 Lawn Boys, and 15 or so garden tractors, a person can aquire a lot of small parts. The trouble was finding the part you want when you need it. I had them in baggies, stuffed in drawers, stacked in boxes, and thrown in buckets. It could take an hour to find a part. That had to change. I bought a lot of little plastic bottles, and made several little shelves to hold them all in alphabetical order. The shelves are fastened to the inside of cabinet doors, as wall space in my garage is very limited. 483823 I have 125 little bottles of parts I now can find in a matter of seconds.

Then came my tools. I have a lot of hand tools, but there are always the ones a person seems to rely on the most, and use the most. For an old man, getting up off the floor 100 times a day to fetch a tool, was getting a bit tiresome. I needed something portable, to hold my main tools, wherever I happened to be working. So this came about. 483819It is on wheels, and can be moved around easily. With the doors closed, it measures 24” X 53”. It lays back a bit when in use, but stands straight up for storage against the wall. It doesn’t hold all my tools of course, but it holds enough.483820

While making the little shelves, and the tool cabinet, and a couple of other things to make life easier, it became apparent I needed a way to store boxes and boxes of wood screws. The trouble is, woods screws come in all different size and shaped boxes, which makes them hard to organize. So I bought a bunch of plastic boxes. Now I needed a way to store them. So I made more shelves from some scrap I had laying around for years. They are different sizes, and different woods, depending on the piece of wood I had in hand. These are also mounted to the inside of my cabinet doors. One thing about the inside of cabinet doors is, they don’t do anything but hold up the outside of cabinet doors. There are different size boxes for different size screws of course. Each box has a flat washer affixed to the bottom of it. There are magnets embedded into the shelves. The shelves fold up flat against the doors, and all the boxes stay in place. If I take a box out, and come back 2 days later, it’s space is still open. All screws are sorted by length. I can decide what type of screw, and how big, once I know the length I want. 483817483818483821483822 There are 92 little boxes of screws sorted by length.

These things and a couple of other small projects rekindled my wood working bug, and I am enjoying it immensely.

[Rick Potter]

Welcome aboard Skinny, looks like your next project is gonna be an add on to that garage. Have fun with your new/old hobby.

[Greg Wieskamp]

Welcome aboard Skinny, looks like your next project is gonna be an add on to that garage. Have fun with your new/old hobby.

That's not quite as simple as it sounds. I checked into that. I got a quote for a new garage. 24 X 26. Typical 2x4 construction. Vinyl siding and roof to match my existing garage. 9 X 7 overhead door. 1 walk in door. Insulated, sheated, hanging heater, plumbing for a bathroom ( my wife insisted ) Electrical, lights and outlets. 150 amp service. My lot is on a slope. My house and present garage both have a walk out basement, this garage would not, but would require 8' foundation, footings, and a lot of fill. No driveway. Are you sitting down? 92K will take you all the way.
https://forums.woodnet.net/images/graemlins/crazy.gif I don't think there is a new garage in my immediate future.

[Jim Becker]

Greg, that's exactly why my new shop building going in in about two months is post frame. Substantially less expensive than stick built and goes up a lot faster. I'm going 24x36x10 with one 8x8 overhead door for material/tool in/out, a man door and several windows, color matched to our house and I will likely come in at the end between $35 and 40k. The building itself is "only" 23K before the floating concrete floor. (no foundation needed)

[Greg Wieskamp]

These are some more recent projects. All made in the last few months. My wife thought it would be nice if I made some small keepsake boxes for the grand kids as Christmas presents. 9 grand kids, 9 boxes. Then she pointed out that the neighbors have 3 boys and a girl, 4 more boxes. There is the Christmas exchange with her side of the family, 2 more boxes. Of course there is the neighbor lady who raises chickens and gives us eggs. Another box, and so on and so on. To date, I have made about 30 of these little boxes. These are not just plain little boxes. They have a locking mechanism inside, and it takes a key to open them. I won't go into great detail, but there is a magnet embedded in each key. I put down on paper what it cost to make a box. A walnut box, one of the more expensive woods, is ~ $47. An oak box, $35. 30 boxes ads up ! I think she is done with boxes. Some of the boxes are pretty plain, but most have inlay or are themed. Her family lives in Iowa, and are big Iowa Hawkeye fans.
483866483867483868483870

She then thought a bigger box would be appropriate for our own kids and their families. 2 kids, 4 boxes. It was a bad math day. Again, some are plain, some have inlay. They have raised panel sides and top. I have never done this before, but thought I would give it a try.
483874483871483872483873
Seems I am only allowed 8 pics per post. More to come.

[Greg Wieskamp]

A few more things.

30 years ago, I always thought a barristers book case would be a fun project. I don't know why, I don't think I own enough books to fill one up, but I wanted to build one anyway. I made a miniature. It measures 9 high, 22 wide, and 11 deep. The walnut grid work snaps in and out for easy cleaning of the glass. I know that some are not a fan of using 2 different woods in a project, but I like the contrast.483876483875
After completing this trial size, I decided to build the real thing. It measures 38 wide, 15 deep, 51 high, and consists of a base, 3 cases and a top. It has leaded glass doors. Not so easy cleaning. It turns out, you don't have to put books in them.
483880483877483878

30 years ago, AGAIN! I made several of these gliders and side tables. I gave them all away. My son has one. My daughter has one. Some friend have one. One was donated to a charity auction. But I didn't have one. I recently decided to fix that. It is made of red oak. Not the best out door wood I know, but it's what I had. White oak is a little scarce in my neck of the woods. Some of you may recognize this as coming from WOOD magazine.483881 It's 5:45 am. A little dark outside for taking pics.

[Ronald Blue]

Looks like you are already better than average Greg. West central Illinois here. Welcome to the creek. Lot's of very knowledgeable and skilled people in here. That Massey looks better than the day it was new. Look forward to seeing more of your work.