Shop Improvements

I swung by Borders today with 25% off discount coupon and I picked up Shop Improvements from Taunton. ( The link is to Amazon, which is selling the book for slightly less than I paid, maybe $1 less. ) The book is a collection of articles from Fine Woodworking, some are detailed and some just provide ideas.

For those following the new shop, trusses are supposed to be delivered on Monday. Whether they are on the roof or not depends on if they can set the pads down to stabilize the truck. My driveway may not be quite wide enough, they want 14ft and I got 12ft. I'm hoping for on the roof. They did say they weigh about the same as a 2x12.

Enjoy, and be mindful of the splinters.

Another Bottle Stopper

Not much to report on. My wife is giggling about the last Myrtal wood bottle stopper, say it looks like a penis. Anything that looks like a mushroom, or has a round top, looks like a penis. I'll go back to pens and bowls, which she doesn't find offensive. I had already drilled and mounted an oak dowel in this last stopper, so it only took about 1/2 hour to finish, and then I epoxied the rubber piece to the shaft.

A different shape, pleasing to me at least.

Enjoy, and be careful with the splinters.

More Bottle Stoppers

While we are waiting for trusses for the shop roof, I turned a few bottle stoppers. One is from Oregon Myrtal wood, but I don't know what the other wood is. To help turn these, I often use a collet type chuck that will hold small diameter items. Since the chuck is a morse taper type holder, I took a long bolt, ran it thru the mandrel hole to connect to the mandrel and added a handle to the end that fits snug against the left end of the lathe hole. This worked great to keep the mandrel in place while I was turning. Maybe I'll take a picture, it would be easier to understand. Anyway, here are the wine bottle stoppers.

Enjoy, but be careful of the splinters.

Sidings on, Almost

While the picture here shows the siding on, there are a lot of nails that still need to be put in there. We got the initial stuff up, and I'll be nailing for a week. It looks different. We started putting up the siding a little after 1 pm, and I took this picture about 5 pm. Only one blister that I know of, one knuckle with no skin. Everything else is intact. Still cold out, but the wind wasn't blowing quit as hard today.

Before we started on the siding, I put the nuts on the bolts that hold the frame down and added the cross members for the brace panels. Two short walls are supposed to use HD5A clips to hold them down, which I got from a local lumber yard, but from my understanding in reading the product spec they should include a set of springs which I am missing. I'll need to revisit that on Monday.

Enjoy, and be careful of the blisters.

Frames Up

It's 35 degrees as I write this, with gusty winds. Warm compared to other parts of the country. A friend, Brian, helped on the shop yesterday. He did much of the work and I felt like an apprentice, which is how it should be. I trimmed pieces and chased down lumber and equipment. When that was done I also nailed, with Brian showing me tricks and techniques that I would not have thought of. He knows so much more about this type of work that I'd have to ponder over, taking days to get the job done. I will never be able to express the appreciation I have for his help.

Here are the next 2 pictures.

Enjoy, and watch for splinters.

After the holidays

The holidays went well here. We had almost 2 feet of snow, not quite as much as 1968, but close. Got me an extra week off from work. The annual gathering was only 7 couples instead of 40 couples. Still a great time.

I did get some turning in. From a kit that Rockler sells, I made 3 wood handled screwdrivers, pictured here. Each one was progressively smaller, as I was trying to make one to fit the kid's hand. Third try got it. I used Oregon Myrtal Wood for the handles and you can see some of the unique coloring I got. The finish was BLO (boiled linseed oil).

Went to the coast on the Saturday prior to returning to work and sending the kid home, where I took this picture (large) at Taft, not wood but still neat.

Enjoy, but be careful of the splinters.