Creeker's Past Week's Accomplishments

[Dennis Peacock]

4 Nov 2019

Greetings,
It's been a busy oncall week and weekend and I'll be a free man once again in just over 12 hours.

I've been busy in the shop this week when work allowed. I also pulled the trigger on a Shapeoko 3 XXL cnc router kit. I believe that it should arrive this week.
I've been making cutting boards and they aren't selling as well as I thought. My sandwich/cheese boards are selling like crazy. I made a few just to see and thinking that they'd never sell. I can't seem to make them fast enough!
Also made a few hand-mirrors for those special ladies in the lives of the gents that I hope will buy them. I've sold one already and here is what it looked like:

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This is Black Walnut and the mirror part is 6" diameter. The handles I form on these are oriented for left-hand and right-hand users based on how the handle is oriented to the mirror. Wood is about 1/2" thick.

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

Best of weeks to you all.

[Rod Sheridan]

Those look very nice Dennis.

I worked at WMS for 3 days then spent Sunday cleaning up the shop...........Rod.

Oh, and drove through the first snow of the year.

[Lisa Starr]

Nice looking mirror Dennis. I hope they sell well for you.

I built a new stand to mount my band saw on last week and then this weekend I applied all the finish. Last evening, mounted the band saw. In between coasts of finish, I worked on cleaning up a very old Craftsman lathe I was given. 2 gallons of EvapoRust later, it is looking good. It is missing one of the clamps the hold either the banjo or the tailstock to the bed, so I'll get busy on the mill this week a make a replacement. Beyond that, I need to design and build some type of bench to hold it. That's it for me.

[Charles Taylor]

Got a few steps closer to the finish line with the rustic-looking bed frame I'm building for my daughter for Christmas. I applied stain and a couple coats of SealCoat to the material that will face the headboard and footboard, and then I got the face of the headboard glued up.

[Jim Becker]

Outstanding craftsmanship, Dennis! Adding the CNC will definitely kick things up a notch for you, too.

I had a good week. I worked on a few prototypes for a CNC client and put in some time on my auxiliary bench project that will largely be dedicated to guitar building. I should have that done by mid-week, just in time for me to do a little drive and pick up the (lightly) used SuperMax 19-38 drum sander I'm purchasing from a 'Creeker near the center of the state. I will also be cutting a few more of the corbels for the architectural restoration I did previous work for...I guess they underestimated the number they actually needed or decided to do all new once they tore into the job. The material should be dropped of for that tomorrow and it's about an hour or so to cut four of them. This past week I also started a little more shop reorganization, finally getting the miter saw moved upstairs where the lumber storage is, getting rid of a little more trash from up there, getting ready to donate a bunch of left-over home improvement and related stuff to ReStore to clear more space and hopefully move my "shorts" storage upstairs to make room for the sander. I hope to get a little time in on my current guitar build this week, too.

I need to figure out the exact place this is going to live so I can deal with dust control, even though it will get minimal use, but that requires more cleanup.
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[Paul F Franklin]

Beautiful mirror Dennis. Perfect example of choosing grain that complements the piece! Hope they sell well for you. Jim, following along on your guitar bench/workstation project, looking good. I like the black finish.

I finished up my wide miter/bevel shooting board. Then I honed the blades on my jointer and planer ahead of doing all the milling for mantel project. I have some new blades but thought I'd save them for final milling. Got started on the milling but all I've done so far is straight line rip most of the stock with the track saw. I put a 14 tooth freud rip blade on it and it really does a nice job of ripping the thick cherry without taking forever or burning the stock. Barely cuts deep enough to make it through the 8/4 stock though, probably because the stock is closer to 9/4. 12-14' boards are about the longest I can manage in my basement shop. I'm getting tired of moving them around and restacking/stickering them. Some of them will get cut down soon, but I will have to leave a bunch of them full length so I need to get better at managing them. When you need that much clearance in front and behind all your major machines and the bench it is a challenge.

LOML was in Phoenix for a few days, so I took some time to replace the shower valve in our bathroom. The old one had a crack in the valve body that dripped slowly only when the shower was in use, so it was past time to replace it. And of course, more leaves to deal with. We did have a good rain and high winds recently, so pretty much all of the leaves are down now, so one more pass with the leaf sucker should do it for the year. Finally, I made a couple of runs to goodwill and the habitat restore to clear out some usable but no long needed items.

No snow here yet, although I did see a car in the Restore lot with a couple of inches on it, so someplace nearby got hit.