Winged Bowl

Hello my loyal reader (s?)... I've had a busy couple of weeks at work and out in the shop.  Not a whole lot to talk about regarding work, but lots to discuss with the shop.

Natural Edge Winged Crotch Bowl

I turned my first Winged bowl last week. It is about 6-7" across, cherry. I'm letting it dry awhile and will finish sand it and put some finish on in a couple of months (or so).

Bottom of the bowl

that gap to the left was fun to deal with.

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.

OK time for a shop tour

I've been writing nearly two months about my time in my shop, but for the most part I've avoided posting photos of the inside, mostly because I'm embarrassed by the clutter. I'm horrible about keeping things neat and tidy in my shop. However I did a bit of a brush up yesterday, so here goes.

A reminder, my shop is only 12'x20' so this will be quick:

This is from the far end, looking back at the south end of my shop. On the left you can see my newfangled clutter collector. workbench. on the right there in the corner is an old tambour door mag tape storage cabinet. I have shelving in there and some of my clutter is festering there.
Just in front of the cabinet is my Harbor Freight 14" bandsaw with riser kit, and just in front of that is my Shopsmith DC3300 dust collector.

 And here is the view to the north end of the shop (where the siding is going up). Sharp eyed viewers will notice a window on the inside, but none on the outside. I was given a window, and it is framed in, but not sealed, so I haven't cut through and finished the install. oh well.

In the distance is my Delta Midi lathe, left corner has my shorts/turning blank storage tower, just before that is my other clutter collection, er Bench with my Delta benchtop drill press. Yeah, as you can see, I'm running off of extension cords still... one tool and a light at a time.  Lumber storage is on the east wall, my jointer lives under that and my rolling Ultimate Tool Stand is currently in front of that.  Just overhead above the UTS is a lumber and stuff rack which both hangs from the Loft rafters and the east wall of the shop. It only looks low, I can easily walk underneath it and it is 2' of vertical storage. for those concerned about it failing, it's held up for 6 years so far, I don't see it going anywhere soon.

 Looking up, you can see the home made trussses and the loft section of the shop. Lord only knows what's up there anymore, I haven't been up there in years. (remember that whole ladder thing...)
 The top sill of my side walls is 10' up, and the floor of the loft is a 2x8 above that. The loft joists primarily keep the walls from bowing out, at least until I build the ships ladder I've been planning.

 The green insulation is going to be my drop ceiling this winter. I'm going to close off the loft area, bringing the ceiling height down to a mere 10' or so.

There's my favorite power tool as I have mentioned before Circa 2001 or 2002 (whenever the Borg sold off all of their Emerson built Ridgid saws) It still works great, and has been through a lot.










No, I'm not going to focus on the clutter, until I get rid of more of it.

There's the back of last years attempt at a solar collection system. I'm about to rip that out and make a new entry to the shop. Look for that in the next month or so. Fall is fast approaching and I have big plans for Solar Heat in my shop this year.

In the meantime, I have a quickee clamp rack, and a couple of table saw jigs up on the wall.

 There's the 'tool wall' to the right of where my table saw lives. The dovetail jig is one I picked up from someone on LumberJocks (where I rarely go since they went so over the top ad intensive but that's another post). I think I overpaid when I gave him $25 for it. Rockler or whichever. I've never used it, and probably won't.
Below that is my small crosscut sled, on the right is my other clamp rack.
The 'first tool' I ever put in the shop is just below the dovetail jig, an el cheapo pencil sharpener.

 this is one of two pieces of shop art

that's a close up of the other piece, made of cutting board blank 'ends'. I was batching them out earlier this year, and came across several pieces of cherry marked with the name of the piece:

20" Cherry

That ought to be enough for now. I've got several plans for the shop in the coming weeks and months. And The holidays are fast approaching, I"ll be making loads of cutting boards, and several shop additions/upgrades before the snow flies. 

 Thanks for looking. Please leave a comment below!