Roger Robitaillle
Member

About Roger Robitaillle

Biography:

I just started woodworking a few years ago and the bug bit pretty hard as it does with all of us. Now, having moved to a new house with a empty garage I've filled it up with tons of tools I have no business owning. Please take a look at my Workshop as I have outlined my woodworking journey so far.

It all started when I was selected for Chief in 2008. Part of the initiation process (at least that’s what it was called back then) is building a vessel to store important items and a display box for your new combination cover. One of the guys in the Mess invited us over to his home, and his shop, to build our vessels. He had a huge Delta tablesaw with the router table built in, jointers, planers, lathes and everything you could think of…and it appeared that the had saved no expense on the tools.

Fast forward a few years and I converted what started as a 12’x16’ motorcycle shop into small a woodshop. My tablesaw was a crappy little Ryobi jobsite saw and my tool collection started building and I had more hand held power tools than I knew what to do with. Right about this time my son started gaining interest in what is Dad was up to and began to be my Number 2 in the shop….unless my amazing wife wanted to help, then he was Number 2.5. Needed some adjustable room so we built this crazy foldable table that made some of the big projects doable. After that came jigs and storage for everything you can think of.

As time went on I wanted and was prompted to build bigger and better things. Enter a DeWalt DW735 planer, and Porter Cable benchtop jointer, a kreg router table with a Triton set into it, and some new blades for the Ryobi, better hand tools. Next came a Rikon 10-326 Bandsaw and from there forward I refused…after some intelligent prompting from my lovely wife…to buy the “now” tools in exchange for the “right” tools. Lots of small projects were built here, including book cases, entryway benches, a skateboard or two, and some cutting boards…starting with end grain cause you don’t start anything with the easy stuff…do you?

At this point it’s time to move the family so we could get into a better school district and one of the items on the MUST HAVE list is at least a two car garage, or a separate workshop. This obviously means more room for tools. Since I had the little man helping a bunch, and his older sisters now gaining a little interest safety was a priority for me and that came in the form of a SawStop PCS 3HP Tablesaw. Now the shop is growing and new fixtures are getting built to make storage easier….combined with some rearranged old kitchen cabinets that were haphazardly placed in the garage when we moved in. Since that needs 220, and the garage couldn’t support anything bigger than 15A 120 circuits the whole garage got an electrical facelift till I had more 220 and 120 outlets than I can fill up.

Many projects and many good memories are waiting for me in the future.

Please drop me a line if you want to talk about the service, any of my posts, or projects...or just want to say HI and BS!

Location:

Chesapeake, VA - Hickory Area

Occupation:

Active Duty US Navy for 21+ years (as of spring 2018). I am on track for retirement in a few years....but never soon enough. And never soon enough to spend more time with my family.