Alive and well... Bangles & Solar Project, Several Shout-outs

Hi folks,
 Just in case you wondered where I've been. Work and life have reared their ugly heads and eaten a lot of my free time. Sparing the gory details, suffice to say I have been out in the shop, just not taking time to blog about much.

BangleBowl2014

One fun thing I threw my hat in was the 2014 Banglebowl contest started by Zac Higgins and Kyle Toth . Zac and Kyle threw the idea together and Marc Spagnuolo was kind enough to host the contest on the Woodwhisperer site.  They had over 50 people submit photos and/or videos of their bangles, which can be viewed and voted on here: http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/bangle-bowl-voting/ …

My entry is a Paduak bangle, about 2 3/4 " in diameter and 1 1/2 " wide. It is just a smidge over 1/8" thick.

I've been getting involved with the woodworking corner of the twitterverse. Both Zac & Kyle are part of that community. Thanks guys for spearheading this contest, and for sharing your expertise and how to videos!

I had a blast learning to turn this bangle, and I'll be doing many more segmented pieces over the winter.

Solar Project: 

I finally got some work done on my solar wall project today. I ran out of daylight, but thanks to my son Patrick, I got several important tasks accomplished. First we removed the old shop door which I had simply screwed to the face of the shop when I first started the solar project last fall.
No pics of the process, but we removed the door, and the hardware for it. Then we put some tyvek up, and cut the t-111 to fit the wall. The large arch will be 12' across the top 20" high, and then with 3' legs on either side of the original shop doorway, as I mentioned in my earlier post.

Here's the general plan. Today we wound up with the right and left green vertical sections applied to the wall. I have the 2x4's cut to box that in, which I'll apply tomorrow if it doesn't rain. I'm going to focus on getting the outer (green) section up and functional by the weekend. The yellow section is eventually going to be redone. I'll wait to do that on the next warm day so that opening the shop wide open won't be a problem. In a pinch however, I may simply enclose it as another panel, gaining about 8 sf of gain out of it.

Check back later, I'll add photos of what I accomplished today. In the meantime, I'm going to go back out and find my kreg jig. I need to get all of the 2x4's drilled so I can attach them tomorrow.

Online Content Shout-Out

I thought I would give an additional shout-out to several online Content Creators I have learned a lot from of late. Please take a moment to check them out! (in no particular order)

Mike Waldt's YouTube woodturning channel Mike is a talented turner, who puts a lot of good teaching in every one of his videos.

Matt Vanderlist -Matt's Basement Workshop

How can I mention Matt without leading into:

Marc Spagnuolo's theWoodWhisperer.com 

Marc and Steve Ramsey have again teamed up for a Woodworker's Fighting Cancer build. 

Marc's version is here: http://www.thewoodwhisperer.com/videos/multi-function-toy-chest/

Steve's version is here: woodworking for Mere Mortals 2014 Toy Box build

Build either version, send Marc a photo of it and you'll a) have a cool toy chest for your kid/grandkid or to donate or give away, PLUS  Marc will donate $5 and corporate sponsors will match that donation. This year's organization is  the Cancer Research Institute. 

I'm not sure if I'll have time to build one, looks like a quick project though!

Matt Cremona is a hobbyist woodworker who has a very cool youtube channel. Check him out, you'll learn a lot!

Frank Howarth is a stay at home dad with an incredible talent for woodworking and making videos. Subscribe to his youtube feed, you will Not be disappointed. Be sure and check out his playlist of stop-action videos here.

I mentioned Matt & Marc, and  no list would be complete without mentioning Shannon Rogers. His http://www.renaissancewoodworker.com is always an inspiration.

One excellent teacher who needs your support right now is Cap'n Eddie Castelin. His videos pack a lot of knowledge in them with a dose of humor and a bit of self promotion. Cap'n Eddie's facing some serious health problems at the moment, so keep him in your thoughts and prayers.
His youtube channel is here, and his website is http://eddiecastelin.com

I'll save more for later...  Those should keep you busy for awhile. 

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.

South wall solar project musings

Warts and all, here is the south face of my shop. 

 I've let it weather 'naturally' for far too long, and since my ladder phobia kicked in, I've never put the siding on it that it deserves.

My neighbors to the south of me have recently taken down 4 maple trees, so I'm now going to get a ton more sun on the shop year round. I don't mind it in the fall and winter, but summers are going to be annoying.

I'm ultimately going to make the  best of things, and I'm finally going to make the solar wall on this face.

First off, Dyami, I have lots of Tyvek left, and I'll be adding that across the entire face.
Next, I'm going to face my fears, and put up more of the tan T-111 on the top 4' of the building. I"d like to do the pallet siding, but the T-111 is already on hand. I have a window opening framed out on the upper section.

Looking at that photo, the doorway is 6' wide and 8' tall. I'm planning on making a solar wall that will be from the 10' line all the way across and framing the doorway opening.

I'm not sure about the doorway yet. I've been sketching some ideas, currently I want to make a Dutch Door and a side light. I'm thinking a full 4' wide with the side light on the right side. (pardon the crude photoshop doodle).

My newfangled bench is currently on that wall, but I'm thinking of re-arranging the shop a bit, and moving the lathe up to the front of the shop instead. To paraphrase Alton Brown, "but that's another post" #GoodEats

That will give me 60 sf of solar collection. I could go all the way up to the eaves, however I'd lose the heat from the upper section, as it would be above the drop ceiling.






Another option altogether is to simply make the entire south wall into a solar collector, and move the entrance over to the West wall. I have a doorway framed in already roughly where the red frame is here:

I wouldn't eliminate the door on that wall, simply turn each half of the door into a smaller collector, adding to the overall gain. I would still make a larger collector where the green squiggles are, and just build new doors which would in effect be solar panels in and of themselves. 

What say ye faithful readers? 

edit:

Dyami asked about my solar plans, well I'm going simple with a design based on info found on http://www.builditsolar.com

I've been planning on a wall similar to what this link shows. I'm considering adding an additional seasonal lean-to similar to this.  I have a Bunch of 4" black flex hose, I'm thinking of punching several 4" holes through in the 'doorway' space for this year, with a solar powered duct fan pulling the heated air into the shop. I figure I can put a 4x8 sheet of OSB and/or foil backed insulation on the bottom, (raised off of the ground) build a simple lean to from roughly the right edge of the window over to the right edge of the building. I'll tack some roofing felt on the side of the building for the winter, that, plus the black hose, and some plastic sheeting and I should get some additional 'free' heat. You can see the box items just below the window, that was a small scale attempt from last fall, which brought a Little heat in, but not enough to warrant putting it back together again.

The solar wall on the south face, Plus the tent/lean to heater will hopefully allow me to woodwork deeper into the winter months if not all the way through the winter, unless we have another bout with arctic conditions for weeks on end like we had this past year.

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!

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.

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.