Creeker's Past Week's Accomplishments

[Dennis Peacock]

02 Dec 2018

Greetings,
I finish up oncall duty at 08:00 hours tomorrow morning. I will be taking vacation this coming week so my true hope is to spend some significant time in the shop getting some stuff done. I hope. Seems like every time I turn around, I'm having to do something else besides work in the shop. Fix something on the house, take someone to the doctor, work on documentation for the day job (oh fun stuff that is) and other stuff that keeps me out of the shop. I got my hearing aids last Tuesday and that's been a totally new challenge for me as I have "some" hearing loss but can hear "generally well". I'm just not used to the world be so "loud" as it seems with these hearing aids of mine. I guess we'll see how this goes for another week before I go visit my audiologist again.

One of my major challenges that I've been working through is trying to train people that want to be a musician for our little church. I'm not professionally trained but I can play guitar, bass guitar, and some keyboard skills. I'm best at bass guitar but decent at guitar. Teaching people about music, intervals, chord structure, and just basic skills has been challenging to say the least. I sure do need better ways of explaining what I know in ways that helps others understand and learn about music and their instruments without me feeling like I'm deciphering a scientific thesis topic to a non-scientific audience.

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

Best of weeks to you all!

[Rod Sheridan]

Well, my daughter Michelle was in a scheduled surgery for 6 hours last week, and my wife Diann fell down the stairs breaking her ankle so I had 2 hospitals to visit.

To make matters worse, I'm in Virginia this week wrapping up a project.

Fortunately my daughter Margaret came home from Ottawa for a week to look after everyone........Rod.

[Charles Taylor]

Finished up the sanding of the walnut desktop for a buddy's son. Found a college football game to watch on Saturday. Along with my wife, got more of the Christmas decorations in place both Saturday and Sunday afternoon/evening.

[Jim Becker]

'Glad you're coming off on-call, Dennis and hope you get that shop time!

Most of my woodworking activity in the last week was working on more CNC produced boxes and ornaments including some new variations. I've also started on converting an existing rolling cabinet "back" to a sanding station with my combo sander on top and my OSS on a lift out/up appliance lift since a lot of these small objects I'm now producing benefit from contour sanding to clean them up. Ironically, although I've been lately using this cabinet for just storage under the right side of my slider, it was originally built to hold a Performax 22-44 drum sander years ago...so now it goes back to supporting sanding! Another project on the list for this week is a more formal saw blade storage unit which I plan on cutting on the CNC.

Other than that...I had to endure my "annual" head cold this weekend...which is finally mitigating. I. Hate. Head. Colds!

[Jay Larson]

I got to spend quite a bit of time out in the shop this last weekend as my fiancee wasn't feeling well. And 'told' me to get out of the house. So I got bonus points instead of being questioned...

Anyway, I was able to put a finish on my tantalus. I tried a new 'formula' for a Mission style finish. Used a yellow/orange dye, then a walnut stain, a coat of amber shellac, dark brown paste wax to highlight the grain, and lastly a coat of blonde shellac. I like it, but might try a lighter brown wax was next time.
I am making two more tantaluses (tantali?), and got a bit more work on #2. Still waiting for the oak for #3 to settle down. Bought some QS oak, let it acclimate for a couple weeks. Flattened one side, and it stayed straight, but as soon as I resawed it to 1/2" the two pieces bowed apart. Argh. Anyway, it still has a bit to go to be flat.

I also got to blow out the snow yesterday. Today I have to find a new pin for one of the augers as I sheared a pin in the heavy, slushy snow.

I also got packed for our vacation tomorrow. My fiancée and I are headed to Maui for a long week of snorkeling and hopefully see some whales.