Thoughts on Turning, Solar and Kickstarter

I've come to the realization that for the next few weeks, I've got three big projects going on in and about the shop. One feeds my woodworking muse, the second will allow me to woodwork beyond November this year and the third will hopefully allow me to raise funds and get some new tools.

1) Turning

I've finally fallen off the deep end of the spinny slope and am turning as often as I can. I"m still making 'practice' pieces, as evidenced by my last post: First. I've owned my lathe for quite awhile now, it isn't fancy, and it is my First lathe. If I have my 'druthers' it will be handed down to whichever of my sons wants to learn how to turn.  (Boys if you're reading this, don't all speak at once...)

I have a largish pile of wet maple and cherry wood sitting out in the back yard at the moment. I'm going to 'lose' some of it, as I know i can't turn it all in time before it dries out and starts to check. So mote it be, I'm having a ball turning as much of it as I can.  Up until now I've turned perhaps half a dozen pens and precisely One bowl thanks to my friend Don Orr. I Really can't count that one bowl, as he drove, I just held the tools. 

 Here is a photo of the results when I borrowed an electric chainsaw and went to town on several maple logs from our side yard. Our neighbor decided to clearcut his land, and we have lost three lovely maple shade trees. The only Good thing  to come of it is that I have several logs to work on. His clean-up crew were nice enough to cut the logs to rough length for me, and after borrowing Scott & Helen's chainsaw for an afternoon, I wound up with a bunch of shavings and a pile of turning stock

while I 'knew' that turning wet wood was fun from a visit to my friend Bill's shop when he first got his Robust Americna Beauty Lathe. I was fortunate enough to be invited to his robust warming party, and took a few cuts on a truly massive hunk of cherry. 

It was enough to 'hook me'. It took awhile, but I've been turning on my own little midi lathe this week. In addition to my first funnel, I have 4 bowls in various stages of drying out. Eventually I'll re chuck them on the lathe, get them back to round and get them turned to finished thickness.

Cherry

 Same bowl... different view

My first maple bowl roughed out.

Not a bad curve. My buddy Vaughn over on Family Woodworking commented on my funnel that the form was wonky. He pointed out here that most newbie turners make wide flat bowls, as we are thinking more about the tool, less about the form.  I wholeheartedly agreed.

There is the maple bowl on the lathe, as you can see I tried to have a pleasant curve, and the foot/tenon for the chuck is fairly well integrated into the shape. 

2) Solar wall

I hope to get the last couple of boards installed on the north end of the shop this weekend. I'm going to enlist my son Adam's help on this. He's fearless on the ladder and allowed as how he could get that done for me in short order. 

Once that is done, I'm going to be putting tyvek on the entire  south end of the shop as I mentioned a couple of posts back as preparation. Once I have the tyvek up,   I have several sheets of the t-111 handy.  I'll be putting that up on the wall as the 'back' section of the solar wall. I'm going to focus on the lower 10' or so of the face, as that is where I'll be putting up the solar collection.  I've got to see how much the glazing will run me, if I can swing it, I'll order enough for the project this week, and pick it up next paycheck a week from now. 

3) Kickstarter Campaign

I'm in the process of starting a small Kickstarter campaign. I hope to raise enough funds to get a few new tools for my shop. Depending on the success of the campaign I would like to pick up at least a Grizzly 12" Belt Sander,  this will allow me to safely and quickly surface my cutting boards, increasing production in my hobby shop. 

I have a couple of other 'gee that would be nice' tools in mind as well, but at the very least I'm aiming at that sander, possibly adding a Ridgid Oscillating Belt sander and a set of Gripper push blocks. 

If things go truly nuts, I'll be replacing my jointer next, but I'll of course be very happy if I get just the one Belt Sander. I'm fortunate enough to live within an easy drive of one of Grizzly's showrooms, I'd just have to steal Lori's SUV for the day.  More on this as things finalize in the coming weeks. My plan is to do a thirty day window, and then ship the rewards to my backers just in time for the holiday season. 

At the same time, I also expect to be opening up an Etsy shop and stocking that for the holidays as well. Going to be a busy fall.

updating my newfangled bench & other tool thoughts.

Hi folks,
 up 'til now I've been writing about what I've done and/or experienced in the past.  My shop is an utter disaster right now, but I thought I'd better actually get out there and DO something today.

 There's my existing Newfangled bench. Up until now it has mostly been a dust and clutter collector. I've decided that needs to change. As designed it has the two main bar clamps that run width wise. I never made the two cross pieces that allow it to clamp items, so one of my tasks is to take the piece of 2x6 on the bench top and cut two slots allowing it to rest on top of the bars. Still working on that, as my bandsaw is clogged with cutting board strips on its table at the moment.

I picked up two vises long ago, I'm guessing off of a craigslist ad. Here's the one that I want to mount on the left end of the bench. That wasn't originally in the design, but hey, it's My bench after all. It is a Morgan model 106A, which has a quick release action. I just cleaned it up with some PB blaster and a bit of WD-40 to keep the rust off of it.



I plan on putting a 12" wide set of wooden jaws to line the face. If I need to I'll put some leather in there as well, but that's down the road.

I'm going to add on to the left end of the bench, putting about 12 to 14" of laminated hardwood (ash, maple?) with dog holes in line with the vise.  There will also be a birds mouth so that I can add a planing board to the lower section where the vertical pipe clamps are, this will allow me to hold larger workpieces on end, for planing or routing tasks. I want to add two dog holes on the moving face of the vise.

I also picked up a belt sander the other day, nothing fancy, but hey, it's a new tool. I used it to smooth down a couple of small cutting boards, and only on one of them did I leave it in one place too long, dishing out the board a bit. I'm going to use it to get boards 95% smooth, then put them through for one light pass through the planer to level things out, at least until I pick up a drum sander.

My 2014 woodworking Bucket List

Hi folks,  been a busy week at the daily grind, several thousand miles under the wheels since I started this blog. That's good for the wallet, not so good for shop time. I have loads of time for thought though, and this week I've been thinking about where I want the shop to 'go' as it were.

I'm Horrible about finishing projects, so this list is more of a wish list than a must-do list. That being said, putting 'pen to paper' (fingers to blogging keyboard?)  helps get me moving in Some direction, so here goes (in no particular order) :

• Solar Heat project for my shop.  see Builditsolar.com
• router insert in my table saw extension wing
• tune up table saw
• set up Wolverine under my grinder
• tune up bench planes
• add front vice to bench (here's a pic when I first built it... back in 2008
  
• rebuild the entrance to my shop (new door & re-fit steps to shop)
• install window on north wall (finally)
• turn 5 bowls (small steps...)
• make and sell 50 cutting boards
• install drop ceiling in shop (to keep the heat in over the winter months)
• finish the upper section of the shop (planning on working on that this weekend)

That ought to keep me busy though christmas. 

Thanks for checking in. Work safe!