Creekers Weekend Accomplishments....

[Dennis Peacock]

Good Morning!!
14 Jan 2008

I'm sorry to say that I didn't do any woodworking this weekend due to some extremely long work hours for the day job. I just don't do well on 20 hour work day any more. Seems like the older I get the less tolerant I am of very long working hours in the IT industry. But, it still pays the bills, and helps support my woodworking hobby.

Spent some lengthy time talking with the LOML about family stuff and we also made some plans for both our families (my parents and her parents) as they both will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversaries this year AND my FIL celebrates his 75th birthday. I admire my FIL a great deal because he has gradually been loosing his eyesite over the last 3 years. Just recently has he been declared legally blind and now can only read the large headline print of the local newspaper. He's a very good man with a huge heart and I love him. I just wish I could make his eyesite better for him.

If there's anything that I would ask of my fellow Creekers? It would be to always remember and make it a priority to spend time with your families.

Before I sign off, I'll leave you with this:
"There's no success in life that can compensate for failure at home".

So what did YOU do this weekend?

Best of weeks to you all.

[Matt Meiser]

Put in about a full day working on raised panels for the cabinets for my parents. Got the panels glued up, trimmed to size, and raised as well as making all the rail and stile stock, getting it cut to size, put the dado in it and cut the stub tenons on the ends of all the rails. Hopefull one of them is going to bring me over a sample piece of the pre-finished wainscoating we are going to be using so that I can match up the stain and get the panels stained so I can do the assembly tonight and tomorrow since I won't have time after that to work on them for about a weeek.

[Gary Ratajczak]

No direct shop time, but attend Woodworks show In Springfield MA.

Local shows in UpState NY have really taken a down turn in the last few years. This weekends show, to me, seemed to be the start of a turn around.

There was very good attendance on Sat. Not much in "big iron," but I think those days are over. There were some great walk up demos, and some nice turnings on exhibit.

I bought some jigs from the Tormek (Advanced Machinery) guy. At 10:00 on Sat he had 7 machines stacked up - by 2:00 there were only 2.

I have also heard that the competing show is in an upswing, as the new owners have had a chance to get settled in. I'll be attending that one in NJ in Feb.


GR

[Brad Peterson]

Built me a panel breakdown table (built sawhorses, 2x4 stringers, 1/2" OSB, rigid insulation panel) and trimmed my new guides for my TS55 and "put together" my new CT22. Not a whole lot got done after that, but I spent an hour with my 5 y.o. son in the shop, which was time well spent. Hope to spend the next few weeks building out my shop cabinetry as I move my tools/stuff from the third car garage to the new shop.

Brad

[Mike Goetzke]

Almost completed hood/canopy for my son's 55-gal aquarium. I tried only using my Eurekazone PBB:

Pictures here -
http://picasaweb.google.com/mike.goetzke/AquariumHood2008_01_11

http://picasaweb.google.com/mike.goetzke/2008_01_12AquariumCanopy


Manufacturers section post link with comments here -

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=73582




Mike

[Nathan Conner]

I spent a good 3 or 4 hours on a design idea I had for a display/jewelry box. Found a REALLY nice piece of 6', 10" 5/4 black walnut sitting way up high on the shelf. Really dense, nice feel, nice grain...almost waxy. Resawed it, planed, sanded, got the angles and curves cut and the legs tapered. Everything laid out for glue-up on Saturday.

Good day's work on Friday. Got up Saturday morning and I couldn't see. My eyes were swollen shut, my hands and arms and face were burning. CRAP!

That wasn't walnut. That was that piece of Cocobolo I bought for pens 5 years ago, and then stopped using when I realized I was really, really allergic.

So, with the respirator on, gloves on, and fully covered, I went back down to the shop, spent several hours vacuuming, dusting, leaf-blowing, wiping down surfaces, bagging all the dust and then wiping out the vacuum.

I think I have the majority of the dust out, and the cocobolo is double-bagged, in the garage. I won't forget next time. (He says...again) But hey, I can see a little by now.

[Thomas Knighton]

Mostly, I just blew money. Won a #45 combinatin plane on the Bay. Paid for a few saws I won earlier in the week. Ordered a set of water stones from Rockler. Got a couple of books from Amazon, including Chris Schwarz's book.

So, I'm far, far broker than I was Friday morning...but that's OK ;)

Tom

[JayStPeter]

I forgot to report last weekend that I hauled some Cherry logs to a sawmill. This weekend I hauled the resulting 146BF to a guy to kiln dry it. Overall cost for the wood will come out to $0.40/bf.

[Dennis Lindhorst]

Dennis- sorry to hear of your FIL's eyesight. I have a client that has very limited vision and it is amazing the aids available to help. Make sure your FIL is taking advantage of these- magnifiers, talking books and even a talking computer. Ain't technology wonderful!

As for weekend doin's- working on a step stool for LOML- not that she's short or anything- more like vertically challenged. Didn't get as much time as I wanted in the shop- the son's hockey games got in the way. That's ok- he won't be around much longer, and the wood will wait. His last year to play high school sports.:mad:

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Saturday......Moved stuff in the shop for preparation for putting the 2nd finish coat on 1/2 the walls.

Sunday.....baby sat the great-granddaughter as the the granddaughter and spouse had the flue and were cleaning up after each other. Did manage to get the 2nd coat of paint on the last half of the walls! The painting is done! Now on with installing the DC.

[Todd Franks]

Not much shop time this weekend. I finished the electrical on my CV1800 install. I put in my ear plugs and hit the start button. It is still wide open, no filters, and a nothing connected to the bottom. I hope it quiets down some with filters.

I also spent some time in my favorite room of the house, the attic.:rolleyes: My master bath exhaust fan vent was installed with uninsulated flex duct. So I spent a few hours in the attic replacing it with smooth wall metal duct and insulating the crap out of it. I hope this stops the condensation and dripping problem.

[Andrew Mason]

I took off work on Friday, started putting my '53 Unisaw back together. Got the internals in Friday, Saturday was the motor and table top, and yesterday built an extension table and mounted the fence. The table was made from a counter top that I was ripping out of my parents house at the time, long enough and only an inch too narrow... fixed that with some 1/2 ply. Not a long term solution, but it'll get me through a few projects that will make my wife happy.

Few details, its a 53, 1 HP RI motor. The fence is a 50 inch Beise from a PM66, hence the color.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2186/2190977640_6f1f591b03_o.jpg

I would have taken a better picture, but it was getting late and I was under orders to get home sooner rather than later. Going to get it all aligned tonight and start in on some built in shelves and free standing shelves for the laundry room.

oh yeah, I guess you could count the prep work for my parents granite counter tops an accomplishment. Just some demo and framing to reinforce the cabinets, should be installed this afternoon.

[Nancy Laird]

Ran errands on Friday (you know: bank, post office, grocery, etc.) while LOML finished up the kitchen job - and got paid!! He came home wanting to reconfigure the shop, so we worked well into the evening on moving stuff around - fortunately, all the peripherals (save one) were on mobile bases so it was pretty easy to move things. Saturday was his company's annual management meeting, so he was gone all day while I ran MORE errands and bought a mobile base for the last big machine. All day yesterday we worked in the shop finishing up the reconfiguring, putting together the mobile base and putting the edge sander on it, building some roll-out drawers/shelves for cabinets to make things more accessible, and just cleaning up and tossing some old junk. The entire shop looks 100% better and we gained some floor space as well.

And on Saturday night was the company's annual dinner/dance for the employees, and he got his 10-year award, and we had a nice dinner - sat with the boss!! It was a good, but cold, weekend.

Hope everyone has a good week.

Nancy

[Jim Becker]

Saturday, I had the YMCA karate and swimming run and then I demolished the other barn wood cabinets in the great room and started to fix the drywall that was behind them. We watched Oceans 11 as our family movie that evening. (Unfortunately, there were a couple of F-bombs in that one that were not in the second movie which we watched first. Fortunately, the girlie-girls didn't really notice them)

Sunday, I was back in the shop after a run to the 'depot for a few things I needed as well as the bookstore. Before getting back on the nightstands, I milled some spline material for my GC to use with the wide-pine flooring they are putting down in the addition. (for reversing direction) Then it was some final fitting and sanding of the drawers, prep of the drawer fronts and tops and a nice coat of BLO to bring out the wonderful figure in the maple. I should be able to get them done in the next shop session with the shellac on the purpleheart and the USL on the maple.

I then proceeded to get sick...must be a 24 hour bug. Oh, well....

[Thom Sturgill]

Finished fabricating the last piece for my daughter's PC cabinet. Just have to fit the door then sand, stain, and poly. Pictures when finished. This will be the first major piece (non-shop related) since I got my shop set up.

Also worked on a wooden hand-plane I'm building, as my Hock blade came in Friday.

[Tyler Howell]

Good advice Dennis,
I'll take it to heart.
Could a PC help your FIL?
I know they have software for the blind that will reproduce print in a large font.
Good Luck

I did spend time in the new shop.
Unloading toyls and working on the tractor. Had to change out the FEL for the plow blade.
About 12 " of fresh snow to move.
It's still a lot of fun. A lot to learn about moving and piling that stuff economically.
TJH

[Justin McCurdy]

I had a little bit of shop time this weekend that was well overdue. In watching two of Rob Cosman's videos, I was inspired to construct a waterstone holder jig which works decent. I see now that I should have spent a little extra money on the wider Norton stones that I felt were too expensive before. I also tried cutting out a few patterns with a new/old scroll saw. I seemed to get better as the day progressed, but I am still horrible. I finally sharpened the blade for a Groz bench plane which I have had for quite awhile. Man, what a POS (either me or the plane, I still haven't figured out which one yet). I also came up with a rigging for the Hegner scroll saw which allows you to use the existing hold down mount casting to revert the dust blower so that it blows the dust away from the user, and not at the user. I would post pics, but it is UGLY, yet somehow works beautifully. The biggest problem was figuring out how to keep the blower out of the way of my hands, which I finally did after about 10 minutes of head scratching. I did manage not to spend any money over the weekend, which was necessary after the damage I did to my credit cards last week on various woodworking accessories. Now, if I can just stay away from buying LN hand planes I will be alright.

[Eric DeSilva]

Slightly frustrating w/e... I was experimenting w/frameless wall cabinets and my Festool LR32 system, and figured I'd build a test set for the garage w/Borg 3/4" maple ply. When I built the sides, I had ordered some FastEdge, which went on nicely, until I stained--turns out I got sent birch, not maple. So, ordered some maple. Well, this w/e I went down and cut a bunch of shelves for the cabinets, pulled out the maple, slapped it on even though it felt a little strange, and started finishing... Lo and behold my astonishment as the grain on the maple disappeared with a swipe of 0000 steel wool. Turns out this time I got maple PVC, not real wood. I guess this is why we build test cabinets before building things that matter. Even with all the strange edgebanding, the cabinets look fine--they are garage cabinets, after all.

Anyway, I did at least get 'em on the wall, along with some Storewall, unpacked the automotive tools and garage stuff into them, freeing more space in the garage. I also managed to get one fitting away from completing the DC system in my basement, and managed quite a bit of organization--consolidating the six boxes/bags of electrical romex/outlets/wire nuts/etc materials, the five bags/boxes of random plumbing materials, and the 4 bags/boxes of painting supplies. As soon as I finish that, of course, I find another box of random electrical outlets, plugs, copper joints, flux, and other oddities in the garage. *sigh*

[Eric Haycraft]

More of a home improvement weekend than anything. I had severe air infultration problems in my house's lower level because of a previous owner's creative home improvement skills. Long story short, I had to gut the entire basement. This weekend was time to insulate. I did spray foam to get rid of the air leaks. Lots of nooks and crannies and fiberglass + plastic seemed like a nightmare to get tight. Tyvek jumpsuits, respirators, goggles..It looked like I was in a bad virus outbreak movie. I ran out of chemicals minutes after finishing, so I didn't waste a drop. It is a bit early to tell as the concrete floor needs to warm up a bit, but this morning it was 68 degrees down there which is much warmer than I have ever seen it :)

I also started converting an old short+wide dresser into a mobile workbench by adding a commercial wood door as a top and some wheels to the base. Still need to modify the height of the top and attach a vice, but it should be a good nearly free workbench. This was the first real test of the TS55; it powered through the door like a champ. I am quite happy with the festool guide...it worked great and I didn't need to clamp.

[Robert foster]

Well, I decided if I'm going to get started in working wood I should learn something. I decided to try some small frame and panel doors. I made some mistakes on the first one and did better on the second one. After I had two doors I thought I would build a small tool cupboard for my bits, chisels etc to hang on the wall over my bench. More mistakes but also more learning as well.
Sunday I taught my Bible study at church and stayed for worship. The new pastor (from Korea) announced that I would be the Associate pastor now. I don't have to "work" but about 10 hrs a week so I'll have plenty of time in the shop.
After church I worked more on my tool cupboard- mostly fixing mistakes but I also drilled about 150 5/16ths holes 1" apart for the bits etc. This morning I went to town and bought some hinges, knobs and catches. I did some more fixing, installed the hinges and mounted it to my poured concrete basement wall.
All in all it was a good weekend. I have a lot to learn but that's what I retired for.
Bob

[Scott Schwake]

Finished storage units for the toyroom.

[Rod Sheridan]

Amazingly I had some shop time, for the shop.

I made 6 drawer fronts and one door for the BB cabinet I made a while ago.

The drawer front/door is BB ply, with 6mm walnut edging, looks very nice now that it's had 4 coats of semi gloss polyurethane.

I even made pulls by sandwiching a piece of 6mm birch between two scraps of 6mm walnut left over from the banding exercise. I carved a slight rounded groove in the top and bottom grip area of the pulls with a gouge, they have a very nice feel when gripped.

Unfortunately the shop cabinets are beginning to look nicer than the kitchen cabinets, hope Diann doesn't notice!

regards, Rod.