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Any Woodworkers out there?

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by tbragsda 2 views

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Anyone else amature woodworkers? I have been putzing around for a number of years now, getting better.

I feel it works to my OCD that serves me well in network work, but allows me to excape to a more natural enviroment. I love the wood, the feeling of makeing something of my own.

If any stressed tech are looking for a hobby away from the glow of the monitor, try makeing sawdust.

TBR

26 replies

by oz_media

I find I am always taking at least two full days to clean up my wood projects in order to get at my metal projects or uncover a car buried under pieces of wood and sawdust.

I recently finished building a new kitchen and island for a friend in Delta, and have a list of projects people have asked for all lined up for when I feel like working with wood.

The hard part is trying to justify what to buy next, I buy a router table and then have to buy a mlling machine to balance it out or the metal shop gets jealous.

SO when I bought a new metal lathe a few years ago, I ended up buying a wood lathe and buscuit joiner for the wood half of my shop.

Gets pretty expensive actually! Especially the metalworking tools, when compared to wood working tools. After I graduated from BCIT I was in debt just over $60,000.00 for metal tools, I had a SnapOn fetish and a SnapOn dealer at school who would just let you keep building up that tab!

My best friend is a finish carpenter for a major panel manufacturing company in Vancouver, between the two of us, we have kept Lee Valley Toold in business for all the wood gadgets though. He has me beat in wood shop equipment I have him trumped in metal. So between the two of us, we can make or fix just about anything, haven't been stumped YET anyway.

It's a great way to escape everything for a day though, I just got my hands on a 14" radial arm saw with laser guide for $450.00 because I helped someone out a while back, which I then built into an 8' workbench, so THAT's been keeping me pretty busy on weekends.

I made up a really cool ventilation/exhaust system last fall with some extra sheet metal I picked up form a job, and now it's warm enough to work with the garage doors open anyway. Oh well, maybe next winter.

by tbragsda

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Shes a artist. Wants to learn welding. I think it would be fun, but personaly I love the wood. It can take over my busy mind for the entire day.

The tools one can buy. Thats part of the fun. Truth be told, as I progress, Im spending much more on hand tools than powered tools. A realy good sholder plane can run you upwards of 1000$, not that I personaly have one. The joy of a new tool is about as good as a new finished project.

My next big acquisition will be a cabnet saw. Im working with a table saw that I HATE. I cheeped out when buying it, and have vowed to never do that again on any tool I buy.

Nice to know others share this passion.

P.S.
Wifeie uses the sawdust from whatever Im cutting to make paper (art, not like 8.5x11), the small amount of scrap gets burned in the fireplace, and the end result is something that will last for untold years. Virtually nothing goes to waste. Its a reneable resource. Treated with respect (I have never meet a woodworker that lacked it) woodworking gives back more than it takes. Lasting peaces of furniture rather than crap that is in the landfill within five years.

by cuteelf

I was in High School years ago :) and my freshman year I enrolled in Woodshop and Metalshop.

I was the only chick in the classroom..but I had lots of fun.

I made a pencil holder from 4 4"X4" 3/4" squares, glued it and put it on the lathe.
Mom still has it on her desk and wont give it back to me.

I also made a corner stand out of 3 triangles and 3 dowels.
Why didnt the @#$%#@$% fairy make drill bits the same size as dowels??? HMMMMMM??
I sat for a week, hand sanding these dowels to fit in the hole for them. Arms were sore, and the guys got a good chuckle out of a chick hand-sanding a shaft. :P

by oz_media

Th eharbour where I live has a lot of really heavy machinery (forestry and fishing) shipped in by barge. It is always crated in mahogany or other nice woods.

So a friend of mine who works there saves the crates for me.

I just picked up a stack of mahogany planks 24 X 50. Worth several hundred dollars and destined for the dump.

By the time I pass it through the planer a few times and buscuit join them together, it makes absolutely gorgeous furniture as well as just about anuthing else you can think up.

I have a friend on the mainland who brings me a truck load every time he's up here. It keeps you busy for a few days just cleaning, planing and joining the wood but what a stunning finished product you get. Not to mention how good the shop smells after planing 40 boards or so!

(Sorry metal, I love you too!) :)

I think my lathe is getting jealous again, hard to divide my time between them and show them both how they are loved equally. Mind you welding is my BIG stress reliever, the first key to welding is to completely relax and make yourself as comfortable as possible.

by andrewf.payne

After staring at computers and undoing the damage total idiots do to the machines I have repaired, it's hard for me to even watch tv because it looks too much like a computer. Woodwork saves my sanity. I build something or repair something in my wood shop, I'm pretty certain no one is going to take it home and install something stupid on it. Thank God for wood.

by tbragsda

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I know Im addicted. Anything to get away from the crap that wastes our time and energy.

Like the saying about not lieing on your death bed saying you would have wanted to spend more time at work, who will say, I really wish I had seen the last season of Sopranos.

by tbragsda

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Come on back and try it again. You dont have to buy Craftsman tools.

This time around you can get bits to match the dowels. They come in every size in 1/64" incriments (or .397mm for OZ).

by tbragsda

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Can you believe what people will trash? Its shameful. I think it stems from the consulable/trashable enviroment we live. Ikea is trash when you buy it, it will be trash while it sits in your house, and it will be trash when it collapses in a heap on the floor.

If you know of any good books or web resources for my wife to get a primer on welding, let me know. I think she should do a class, as I know its much more difficult than it looks, and Im not going to be any help. I don't even know the difference between all the different types. Just clueless.

PS
Send some mahogany down my way.

by oz_media

I don't know of any books really. I learned arc welding at a very young age, probably 8 or 9 (my dad was a machinist, mechanic, boilermaker, civil and marine engineer [actually certified in most]).

When in high school I took advanced machining (3-hours/day coupled with 3-hours blocks of automotive :) ) Then I went to BCIT for Automotive for another 4+2 years, including Tig/Mig and OxyAcetylene course.

So while I HAVE aquired a good set of trades texts, I don't know of any 'books' you can get really.

Welding is a hands on 'art'. It isn't anywhere NEAR as easy as it looks (not to suggest she would have any troubles learning, but I've got friends who THINK they can weld because they have equipment). But to learn from a book and place it in practice are two different things.

Welding takes hours and hours of running beads and joining differet metals so you can get a flow. Much like air brush art does. It takes practice, that's all.

Do her a favour, stick her in a trades class in her spare time, buy it as an 'odd' anniversary present or something, BETTER STILL, buy BOTH of you a training course. Then it turns into one of those cool 'things you do together' gifts.

Get her a set of those little table-top oxy/propane kits, which are EXCELLENT for small projects, wrought art and stuff.

But by all means take a course, get some professional instruction.

I'd start with Oxy Acetylene as it teaches you pacing and penetration. (or was that sex ed?)

Once you get a 'feel' for the comfortable pace and flow needed to weld, you can then learn tig welding to work on aluminum.

It sure is a fun thing to learn though, VERY relaxing and very personal, not to mention HANDY AS HELL!

by oz_media

Well I HATE to be a bearer of obvious news, but in the limitied real of school woodshop;
you could always place the dowel in a drill and clamp it in a vise. Then it would just be a matter of wrapping sandaper around one end while the drill spins it. But I am sure fellow MALE students would have been pissed if YU had the quicker solution.

We had some multi classes for grade 8 too. It included a tastes of everything. Home Ec, Wood, Metal, drafting.

Some guys actually took 'the sampler' as opposed to full shop classes, which doesn't seem so bad nowadays. Now think of teenage boys trying to fit in grade 8 in the 80's and actually taking Home Economics? It just didn't slide too well for them. But they were great for getting reports done and good to have on class team projects.

I wonder what happened to them? I suppose they are all in IT now, for the most part. :D

by cuteelf

Oz, the grain was long way.. so I had to sand it the hard way.

The geek in me was looking for a more efficient way to finish it. I promise.
but i had fun, teasing the guys :P
Look! I can do this great! I'm not gripping too hard :P

by oz_media

Probablay not a good choice of words, but you could have placed the sand paper between your teeth and had some fun.

As for dowel, the grain ALWAYS runs lengthwise, whatever is buried in a hole gets sanded anyway it needs to be done. I know I know, those old fart shop teachers have you do EVERYTHING th ehard way. That's why I hate first year classes, everything is done the hard way, no matter what solutions you have!

by dafe2

Nothing like building or refinishing furniture.

The further away from and eight hour (or longer) day talking about or working on infrastructure the better!

by dafe2

A West Coast thing................here they use Plywood & steel LOL

Today, you rarely see Mahogany used as it's so bloody expensive. (Might just as well try buying Teak)

In the first part of the century.........they used Mahogany for ballast, so early tradesman used it as building material.

Saint John has some of the nicest Victorian homes in Canada..............and some of the Finest Mahogany furniture and woodwork!

by tbragsda

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Among my most favorite, and just so expensive. Little tough to work sometimes, but very nice results.

by oz_media

I never did put the glass top in it so it has a wooden center but it's been at my mum's ever since. Still beautiful and sturdy furniture all these years later though (it was a school project after I got ahold of some neat wood!).

by dafe2

Paint on cherry wood....WTF

LOL ----> My pet peave.

Man, I could take you through my home -> Most of the pieces I've collected that get the most comments have been refinished & rescued from the freaky painters. Don't I hate seing well made furniture painted or "antiqued" by some idiot who just watched them do some new technique on HGTV.

I got a legal bookcase awhile back that was painted blue. I looked at the back and get this.........It was a Gibbard!!

Needless to say I spent a very nice month bringing back the original cherry finish and it sits behind my desk at home.

by oz_media

Actually even though I live within spitting distance of a logging company, the heavy equipment they use all gets shipped from the US, being Weyerhaeuser a US based firm.

They use it because standard pine pacjing crates are WAY too weak.
I was walking around town,exploring and meeting people, shortly after moving here and saw a HUGE dumpster piled with it. I ended up BS'ing with worker, now conveniently a friend and he told me they get one every month or so. Ever since, he's been filling up my shed.

BUT ANYWAY!!!!

Here we all are, talking about how creative are inour free time and we are sitting here yaking about it on the Internet, just a tad hypocritical!

Have a good one,
OM

by oz_media

or amarinth, I think it's called. Brazillian hardwood, I've seen it used for guitar constrcution, where it is inlaid as the top fretboard layer.

Okay for small stuff but really ugly for large projects, I just don't like too much purple. You are right in that it is generally quite a bit darker purple, but beware it does change shades of purple over time and in sunlight. Good for trims, accents etc. but not much good for a table, cabinets or dresser.

by tony hopkinson

LOL
Don't do as much as I used to, as the missus get's uspet with splinters and wood shavings in the carpets, but it's a very rewarding passtime. A decent piece of timber is very expensive in the UK, especially a hardwood.
Fancy a go at turning and carving next when I get the time.

by oz_media

No rosewood, but my parents were in singapore during the Korean war, my dad was an aircraft mechanic, and they collected th emost beautiful rosewood furniture.

When we left ENgland for the last time, the sold it all off DIRT cheap, well all the BIG stuff anyway. Beureau (sp?), full length armoir etc.
It's just OLD USED furniture in England, not priceless antiques as they would be here.

My mum still has some small peieces of rosewood furniture, with brass inlaid trimmings, very nice stuff.

I do get ahold of cherry wood every now and then, the same way I get mahogany.

It's funny how much you can actually find once you get an eye for finding unfinished and'ugly' pieces. Such as a packing crate, waiting to become high quality furniture.

I always have my eyes peeled, when I'm out and about, especially old house demos, man they have some real great pieces in old homes. Often with 6 coats of paint covering a nice piece or walnut or something! How do people bring themselves to paint REAL wood?

by oz_media

In Surrey B.C, they have an annual junk collection where you can throw out lal those old appliances, matresses and general JUNK and the garbage service picks it all up.

It is done with a few neighbourhoods per week being advertised for their 'pick-up' day. SO locals spend mornings EARLY mornings, driving around and picking up old stuff. Much like a free yard sale or something. My brother-in-law is a TV repairman, so we'd head out on 'dumping'days and pick up old TV's for rebuilds and spare parts. Somes were till in VERY good shape with excellent pictures, perhaps just taking up too much space in someone's house.

One day we ran across a SONY TV in a console, we geberally ignored console TV's but it looked out of place so we took a closer look. It was a 32 inch SONY, PERFECT working condition that had been placed inside a homemade console. I loved the look of the knots in the wppd, nothing better than a big black knot for character, upon getting it home and cleaning it up, I realized the WHOLE cabinet was WALNUT!! I was giddy as a schoolboy, you know how much THAT's worth?!?

So he got a nice working TV, tune it up and resell it, I got nearly 40 board feet of walnut. SO I made my mum a nice TV/VCR stand for her bedroom, which STIL looks absolutely stunning today. :)

Don't see too much walnut around anymore these days actually.

by cballinger

Yes. Have even extended my network out to my shop in the hopes of add CNC to a router, etc. Tried the Sears Carving unit, but after sending two of them back I decided to wait until the product is a little more mature. Wife says I have to many hobbies and they are all $$$$, but the only difference between men and boys is the price of our toys.....

by haruss

It's the only way to get something tangable out of doing what we do..

There are more Network Engineers that woodwork than you would think. Half of the people in Woodcraft store's selling are either retired Network Engineers or are still in it..

Woodworking is the only way to keep sane.

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