Shop as it stands today

This is how the shop looks today.  Starting working on a black walnut trestle table that will be a part of a walnut banquette I'm building to replace the first piece of furniture I ever bought.

With Maggie out of the garage, center of shop is for assembly

Chop saw station + all other tools than can be used in the same plane

The new Hammer jointer planer combo and new location for bandsaw

Hand tools and bench with new project.  Oneida 3HP cyclone in back.

After using the powered jointer and planer on the walnut boards, I dressed the whole entire table top with No 7, no 5, no 4 and no. 3 planes.

More shop space

Nearly killed ourselves getting the greenhouse up. Almost there, next woodworking project is close. Just freed up some space, replacing lunchbox planer and standalone jointer with the hammer A331 Jointer/planer combo. Arrived this week got to fire it up. Induction motors are so much quieter than the screaming universal motor planers! More to come, I'm excited to do projects! (not climbing projects)

Year Zero

Thought it would be interesting documenting my years woodworking.

2005/6 - move back to Portland, Oregon and we built a green house.  I really enjoy building and start buying tools.  Got a dewalt chopsaw that I still use today.  Used the Ryobi BT3100 to build a workbench of my own design that was heavy, but really missed some key points.  I remember now how afraid I was of that thing of the saw, see the blade and freaking out!  It loved to kick back.  Also remember I bought a router and was absolutely scared of it.

2007.  Finally get a planer and jointer after noticing that buying surfaced wood was costing me a fortune.  What a joke it was chip collecting with a shop vac!  Bought a real dust collector, what a difference.  Can you imagine how much saw dust was being created with my table saw!!  I remember gagging alot!  Bought a lot of cheap tools, but I learned on them and I mostly still have them.

2008.  Move to the new house, with a oversize 3 car garage.  2 of the bays are mine.  First things first, I remove all the really nice cabinets.  They were floor to ceiling and took up the whole entire garage.  Build new ones, but smaler leaving room for my workbench and tools.  Buy a few fixer hand planes on Ebay, start getting into hand tools.  Decide to build my shop around the a Sawstop industrial 3HP saw.  I'm very glad I decided to fork the extra money for this saw.  It was a better use of money than any of my Festool or LN purchases.  Outfeed table, riving knife and heavy duty fence change safety in my shop by an order of magnitude.  To hook up the saw, have to redo all the electrical in the garage.  Install a bunch of circuits and a subpanel.

2009.  Build my Holtzapffel workbench with a 24" veritas twin screw vise + super heavy end vice I got on sale from rockler.  Changed the way I woodwork dramatically, more so than the cabinet saw.  Declare war on saw dust; get a cyclone, LN addiction takes off and make some Festool purchases as well (all the big ones were used off Craigslist).  Built a lot of projects, too much to name.

2010.  Lie-Nielsen affair really takes off.  No more messing around buying cheap tools.  Sell the ebay ones that I got as they are a lost cause.  Build a proper hand tool cabinet.  So many projects that I don't have time for anything else, including going to the gym.

2011.  Ducting installed and now really finalizing my shop.  Along with all sorts of projects, plan on going after noise.  I really want a planer with a induction motor.  My Ridgid lunchbox planer has served me real well.  I've probably run 1000 bdft through the thing, but it's time to upgrade.  I'm still deciding on what.

Back in the shop

This week I started the storage bench project.  I bought a little too much cherry, but I'll find a use for the leftovers.  I have enough to build two.  This is the first project since the dust collection upgrade to metal pipe.  Previously, the cyclone was in the middle of the shop.  It's real nice to have that space back.  It's also real nice to just open the blast gate and be good to go.  Much easier.  Also the first time that I had a real dust collection solution for the miter saw.  I use it a lot to break down stock and it was a very big dust creater.  The new setup works decent.  I can't tell there is dust in the air.

Lastly, just replaced my plane stop.  I previously tried to use the dog holes to secure it.  Too difficult to line up, nearly impossible to pound in and get out.  Stupid drill guide caused me to drill the holes at an angle (the wrong way).  The new ones works great.  Tried the LN #4 on the rails and stiles and what a breeze!  Hopefully, I can do the majority of the cleanup with the handplanes and not sand as much anymore.

Update to the Lie-Nielsen Shrine

Temporarily mounted the hand tool cabinet to the sawbench that I built.  This while I wait for the wall mounting bracket for the cyclone, which I then can build a cabinet around and mount the hand tool cabinet to that.

Can you see what the difference is?  I don't expect you to know.  I got a spokeshave.  Now, how best to store them so that they aren't simply sitting in a cubby?

Stick with it

 My comeback to climbing is going well.  Rebuilding the shop after tearing it apart is going well.  Stick with it!  And don't give up on the video either, it gets better and better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJCWziYxRVs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Dust collection pipe almost in!

After a weekend and some evenings, the 6" spiral pipe is finally in.  After I install some blast gates, I'm ready to woodwork.  I don't have to trip over the hose to my 3hp oneida cyclone anymore.  I also have a huge spot in the middle of my shop that has been opened up as the dust collector was moved to the corner of the shop - invading a little bit into Sarah's spot but she loves me and doesn't mind.

What went well:

1. The performance of the spiral 6" pipe is significantly better than the really short 4" plastic pipe I had.

2. Glad I went with metal, no worries with static shocks.  How do you ground an insulator anyway?

3. Getting nice clean runs despite the obstructions that I had.

4. Cutting the pipe with a jigsaw and metal blade

What didn't go well:

1. Getting the material home, especially since the HVAC shop had bankers hours and was far away

2. Cost.  It was 2X what I originally thought, but worth the $600 including blast gates, etc.

Last week's news on the shop

Last week furnace was about to die only after 15 years, some of it having to do with my woodworking dust.  Took the oppurtunity to get a more efficient furnace and upgrade water heater.  Now I have more room for my Oneida V3000 Dust collector!  Photo:

Also did the electrical to my half wall that has the miter saw, mortiser and drill press:

On a sour note, I had to took down my tool rack whose design came from woodworking magazine and move my holtzapfel workbench.  I threw my back out moving the beast, got better then re-injured it bouldering. :-(

This is how it's going to be?

Forgot to talk about the my one experience being part of a blog years ago.

We had the GBCT blog, it was a climbing blog for us to plan trips and share photos, but don't ask what GBCT stands for.  Somebody hacked it and posted vile things even we didn't know about and had to look up.  Even Robert blushed.

Blog post about my blog experiences so far

Over the last couple years I started doing things that I purposely didn't do previously because I didn't want to be that guy.  Woodworking - who would have thunk that I wanted to be like the guys with the crazy nose hairs.  I connected our TV to the computer via the playstation.  I actually started surfing the web.  Up until a few years ago, I spent no more then 5 minutes on the web per day.  I got an iPhone.

With that iPhone it's so easy to surf that I started following blogs on a daily basis.  Here are my favorites:

Christopher Schwarz has taught me a lot about woodworking and much of my shop decisions have followed his advice
http://blog.woodworking-magazine.com/blog and http://blog.lostartpress.com/

Unfortunately, lately I've been reading stuff here.  Some useful information as I'm continuing to make decisions on how my shop looks, but man can there be some drama queens!  Last post I read got into US unions, Chinese manufacturing, government telling you what to do, "that's not what I said you're putting words in my mouth," etc.   I really wanted to post: "Oh my god, what the F* is the matter with you guys?"
http://www.lumberjocks.com/

And lastly, and again unfortunately, I went to Michigan and follow football.  RR RIP.  I'm also a MN Vikings fan, but we won't talk about that until the pain stops.
http://www.mgoblog.com/

Hey I'm testing

John's first blog - hopefully this won't be the last.

Let's talk house projects, woodworking projects, growing stuff, breaking stuff and climbing.