Buttoning up the shop continued

I am ' ' that close to finishing the upper siding on the North end of my shop...

 after Dyami gently chided me into putting Tyvek up, I went ahead and picked up a roll... Man that stuff (and I suppose all construction materials) has gone UP in price. When I bought some during the initial phase of building the shop it was about $30 a roll... $50 was quite the shock. Thankfully the one roll will be plenty for the two sections of shop wall I'm working on. 

naturally enough I had to remove all of the boards I put up before my last post. I was dealing with my ladder phobia...(technically a Landing Phobia... as in Landing after a fall...) and working alone putting up the tyvek. An approaching storm put a pause in, and I decided to shoot a quick video... my first youtube share in fact. 

 

I took a day or so of cutting pallets up to mine more wide boards and managed to get things to this point:

I quit for the night when my drill driver died (again, I have one pair of new batteries and several old ones which don't hold a charge well...).
As it turns out, that gap was just a shade over 4' long... for my purposes a 4' pallet board worked just fine to fill in. I have several gaps on the wall, oh well, that's what the tyvek is for.  Aesthetically I'm very pleased with the weathered board look. If I had more time and money, I'd re-side the entire barn in rough board and batten and let it weather. In the meantime the pre-painted sheet goods are just fine.

 

I 'ran out' of loose wide boards at just about the right time point. In my initial try (pre- tyvek) I had stitched in some narrower boards. This time around I used all 'wide' boards for the first six courses. Just about at the hip where the gambrel roof angle is, I switched over to narrow boards. I suppose it meant I had a few more trips up the dreaded ladder, but I survived. (No unanticipated flights or landings so far).

Now, I mentioned I 'ran out' of wide boards... almost. I had one left which was loose, and I decided to use that to fill in the peak section of the siding. The blue tape is how I am attempting to hold it together for the install. I start all of my boards with screws so that when I'm up on the ladder I simply (ha!) have to deal with screwing them in.
 Note to self, pick up another #25 Torx bit before you work on the south end of the shop...

And this is where things stand... I got up to the top of the ladder and was starting to screw in that assembly when another panic attack struck. I somehow managed to control the drill driver,  then I tossed the assembly to the ground. After gathering my wits, I slowly climbed back down. I've figured out that the angle of the ladder has a lot to do with my comfort level. I'll re-adjust later this morning and see if I can't wrap things up. I figure I've got that one assembly, plus backfilling with two or three rows of narrow boards yet to go. I may even trim off that bit of tyvek on the upper left, the boards are flush with the OSB, the tyvek is just extra. 

One Step Forward, One and a half back... Shop update

Hi gang! I''m finally going to post a bit about my shop, or at least about one end of it.  I built my shop back a few years back, and I basically 'ran out of steam' when it came to siding it. I  still have some pre-painted OSB product to hang on the one end of the building, I must admit I've been 'bad' and left the outside of the OSB shell open to the elements. Hasn't hurt it so far, but I've decided to git'r'done and finish the siding.

I'm not all that happy working on a ladder to begin with, so I'm certain that one reason I  haven't hauled the sheet goods up to the top of the shop is that I'm not all that interested in testing out how fast I can fall off said ladder with a 1/2 sheet of OSB.  To that end, I've decided to join the pallet recycling movement. I broke down the skids and wound up with a pile of typical pallet wood. I'm only using the top and bottom pieces, which I used my recip saw to cut from the stringers.

 I managed to get about 1/3 of the space filled in with the wood I harvested. I used the wider boards first, then realized that three of the narrower boards would equal two of the wider boards. I filled in as much as I could before the battery went on my drill/driver, leaving one odd shaped hole...

 I trimmed the board roughly to length... then had to trim just a smidge of of the one tab on the end. 

Here's a shot of the hole filled in. I really like the varied patina. I called a buddy of mine when I ran out of boards, and after a quick bite to eat, I headed out to his family business. They make and refurbish pallets. He said they had a bunch of salvaged wood and that I was welcome to pick through and haul away as many as I cared to take. #bonus!

My youngest son Pat and I loaded into the wife's Escape and headed to East Herkimer.

During the afternoon I tweeted about my accomplishment and Dyami Plotke of the Modern Woodworking Association Podcast chimed in, asking why I hadn't put house wrap up on the wall, and wouldn't the OSB rot when moisture got behind the pallet wood.  Being a true nerd at heart my iPhone does push tweets when I'm mentioned by my @artisanboards tag... so I had about 50 miles to think about the whole tyvek thing.

My first knee jerk reaction was to 'say'... it hasn't hurt it in the last 8 years, (as you can see, the OSB is well faded), but then I realized that I was Being a Jerk.  SO on my way home, I took some Birthday $ and bought one roll of 3' high Tyvek. Sheesh was that expensive, there is house wrap/Tyvek on the lower section of the shop, but I hadn't purchased any recently... $50 later...

so +Dyami Plotke you 'shamed me'  into doing the right thing. Since I'm 'finishing' the shop I might as well do it as well as I am able to within my very limited budget. Tomorrow morning I will climb back Up the ladder, and remove those boards from the shop. Then (presuming I can find the bag of special plastic tabbed nails, (I Think I know where they are, but don't quote me),   I will tyvek the wall, and then reinstall the boards. If I don't have the nails, I will simply staple the tyvek up, as It will be immediately covered with the pallet wood siding.  If I have any energy left after that, I've got another 5 or 6 skids worth of material to sort through and cut apart. I figure that I Might get the North wall (shown) completed with what i brought home tonight.

Teardrop thoughts & Tiny House musings

Hi folks... I've only got a few minutes, but wanted to share a couple of thoughts on two of my growing Bucket List projects that I want to tackle:

First on the list is building a teardrop camper.  Back in the early 90's with the help of my parents I was fortunate enough to buy and live out of a 27' 5th wheel RV. At the time I was a portrait photographer and I was on the road 8 months out of the year. The Shadow Cruiser wasn't fancy, but as a young 26 yr old It was a great alternative to hotels.

Fast forward to today, I discovered the teardrops and tiny travel trailers forum : www.tnttt.com awhile back, I joined right in and am preparing to build my own trailer this coming winter/spring. My dear wife Lori is concerned that it will be too claustrophobic for her to enjoy it. My plan is a teardrop that expands so that is feels more spacious while remaining lightweight.  A teardrop is basically a bedroom with some storage for food and cooking gear in the back.  It isn't a resort camper, the whole idea is to get out and Camp without sleeping on the ground in a tent, Been There, Done (with) That. You'll be seeing more of this as a project later this fall/winter. It should be fun, building a camper in the winter in NY.... in a 200 square foot shop. #wishmeluck



Somewhere along the way via tntt.com I stumbled upon the Tiny House movement. Tiny Houses are typically built on some sort of utility flatbed trailer, are about 8' wide and pack a Lot of living in a small space. I admire the people who build and live in them, many of whom are self taught DIY'ers who simply roll up their sleeves and Build the house they can afford.  One of my son's girlfriend asked me the other day, Do you really plan on living in one of those? I'm pretty sure that I could, but that Lori wouldn't like it as much. I assured Mikayla that I could as a vacation house, but that we'd have a 'real house' too.
 There are several Tiny House builders out there, who build well crafted homes for other folks. I could see that as an outlet for my creative juices somewhere down the road.

Be sure and check out Tiny House Swoon to see some fine examples of the craft.

OK off to work, see you on the web, work safe folks!

Gearing up for a production run

This past weekend, Lori and I stopped at a craft show and a flea market. The former was depressingly empty, the latter relatively busy and vibrant. As a result, we've decided to pony up and put a booth in the Top of the Hill flea market near Sylvan Beach NY. Looking at what boards we have on hand, we can put in a minimal set of work, however I know full well that I need to step up and crank out at Least another dozen or three boards. Once we get into the new location, we'll have two sites to 'support' with work, not to mention the craft show circuit for the holiday shopping season.

Given that we're going to be 'taking things seriously' as my mentor used to say, I've invested in a couple of new tools, with plans to get a couple more in the near future as well.

I know I mentioned this sander recently, but it is 'relevant' to my future plans as well. I picked it up as a not to the safety brigade. I used to use my planer to level off my end grain cutting boards. I've done that for years, knowing full well that I was pushing my luck with regard to kickback in the planer.  I've decided that,  after listening to All  (yes, all 192) of the Woodtalk Online shows to date, that safety is now my priority. To that end, I'm no longer going to plane the end grain boards. In the long run I'll save up for a drum sander, in the short run the belt sander will have to do. As part of the safety upgrade per Marc Matt & Shannon's advice I picked up some new PPE: 

 here I am (sorry about your monitor)... modeling my new gear. There are the organic filters which will help with my finish sensitivity. 

And there I am with the simple particulate filters on. 

Nothing earthshaking to most of you, but I've been lax for many years. I love my family, and want to be around for them for a long time.  The sensitivity was the trigger, but the dust prevention will help me breathe better as well. 

OK, back to the production run. I've been using stock I had on the lumber racks for my stock build up. I realized today however that I need to invest in some more stock. I'll have to see what the budget allows, but plan on dropping a chunk of change on some lumber tomorrow at my favorite hardwood dealer: Lakeshorehardwoods.com  I will be visiting their downtown Syracuse locale, not quite as much fun as going to their original site up in Pulaski, but hey, lumber is lumber.  I have one order for a large board, so at the very least I'll pick up some lumber for that, plus some more for the build up.  

OK time to wrap this up and get some dinner. I have to work tonight so I suppose I'll post more after I make my lumber run.  Thanks for checking in!

Jumping deeper into the Vortex

Well folks, It's been awhile... life happens. I've been running nearly 7 days a week for my day job, and then we had a bit of an internet hiccup. Regrouping has occurred and I'm back online.

Those are two shots of my new sharpening set up. I had that little 6" grinder in the shop for several years, and I finally got around to installing my Wolverine sharpening jig.  I proceeded to tune up my gouges, and then turn a little the other night, but had to go to work. I'm still very much a novice turner, however I have learned that it is easier to turn with sharp tools than otherwise. 

Ultimately that is a stepping stone set up, I want an 8" slow speed grinder (Woodcraft has them on sale right now...) In case I can't afford it while the current sale is on, I've got this to use. It is just clamped down to my utility tool stand at the moment, I suspect that is how I'll use it going forward. I need to rework my turning area of the shop if I'm going to continue further into the vortex.