Some pics from our trip to Las Vegas then driving back
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Some pictures of Maggie
First projects on the new roubo
Lots of dovetailing and hand planing - so new bench was perfect. Much better than the old bench. Still around, still use it for all sorts of stuff, but the new bench sits in my main bench area.
Ready for some undies. Turned all the drawer pulls from Cocobolo. Used nearly all the tiger maple stock that I had including a really really nice board that I picked up. (drawer fronts, and case top). Used a general finishes gel varnish which worked out great, but interior ended up having too much Alaskan yellow cedar smell so had to shellac the interior. Still haven't found a good way to apply shellac without it looking like crap.
2nd workbench - this time a roubo with benchcrafted gear
Was always a little frustrated with my Holtzapfel bench. I was frustrated with:
Live edge slabs circular sawed down and picking the best material for the top and the show faces.
No knock down hardware - mortise and tenon, glued and pinned.
Tenon for the wagon vise chop. Laminating this and jointing on the AD-741 was *easy*. Must easier than when I had the ridgid 6" jointer for the Holtzapfel. The slab would literally tip the jointer.
No split top meant different tenons then the benchcrafted design
Mostly finished bench including leftover sapele from the front door project as the leg vise chop. Laminated cutoffs for bottom tray. Flatting it was *easy*, the soft maple planes beautifully.
Condor tails really difficult to saw by hand especially when it came to marking the pins.
- End vise didn't really work - not enough room
- Split top - was always losing stuff through it
- The doug fir slab for the bench couldn't be planed flat really - just tore out like crazy
- Dog holes were drilled at a slant that made things difficult to clamp for planing
- Metal dogs - hated even having to think of them
Built a soft maple roubo that took nearly all 200bdft of the soft maple that I bought. Used all benchcrafted gear and the heck out of my Festool OF2200. Gotta love the heft out of the machine, really upset that I dropped it off my work table...
Squaring up the end wasn't as easy as you would think. Had to bust out the chisels after using the tracksaw.
Custom round hickory dowel dogs. Really nice. Used Wood Owl bit to drill the holes using a jig. Holes came out *really* clean with absolutely no tear out. What a great tool. Dowels a little big, had to chuck them up in the lathe and sand the day lights of them to get them to fit.
Left over cutoffs of maple went into making a sawbench
Finished sawbench. Litterly just a little bit of BDFT leftover and turned into stickers and firewood
September shop project
Decided on a shop project to match the "work" project as a reward. Lots of "reward" as a result of running around the attic to do electrical and can lights + the closet and attic finishing.
While the jointer/planer combo was broken
Decided to start building the rock climbing training wall room. This used to mostly all be covered in insulation. This was the project I worked on while the jointer/planer was broken and I couldn't work on the closet. Did this in the middle of july, was hot, but bearable surprisingly.
Crash pads onward was all insulation. Plywood down and ready for a systems wall. Carpet reclaimed from master closet.
Shelving for random stuff. Wood reclaimed from master closet.
A very long closet project
Machine breakdown, lots of resawing and some vacations mean that this project that was supposed to take 1 month, finishing late spring ended up getting finished at the end of the summer.
Demo and flooring happened in a weekend.
Paneling up and with some coats of finish on a week later (kind of - hand some "lights" projects that popped up which required me to go through the attic quite a bit). Used the Fuji HVLP Semi-Pro 2 which made it finishing much faster!
Many of the panels resawed and glued up for the shelving. But then the Hammer jointer/planer combo failed, bad motor, twice. Handles for the drawer made of wood, shaped by hand and with lots of machine jigs. 20 hours for 15 handles!
With the new jointer/planer finished closet came pretty quickly. Epic, used every scratch of 200bdft of doug fir and burned through an entire summer's worth of weekends.
April blooms (and one from July)
Finally on a tripod. Missed huge Coelogyne bloom, but got some others. Many of these I don't recognize the species.
Never had a Stanhopea bloom. The second smaller plant lots it's spike after I moved it to a more prominent location, bad idea! Smelled wonderful for a week in the green house
Biggest lumber purchase I've ever made
In the span of a month, (mar-apr) bought tons of lumber. Supply nearly gone and this was the year for lots of work Surprisingly, lots of wood was nibbled away already
- 200 bdft quartered doug fir
- 200 bdft cherry + 20" wide, 10ft tall, 8/4 cherry board
- 100 bdft french white oak
- 200 sqft pre-finish jatoba flooring
- 400 sqft doug fir paneling
- Green walnut flitch, 12/4, 6 slabs, roughly 30 inch wide, 13ft long
- 200 bdft soft maple
Fir paneling for master closet
200bdft cherry - doesn't look like much
200bdft adds quick when true 2x6x10
Above the garage door pipe racks store 200bdft! This is the french white oak.
Walnut tree on the move underneath the deck
Ready for storage for the next 5 years to dry. Tow straps now shown.
Lathe project
Laminating some walnut shorts to build a tray for the lathe stand to hold more weight. Lathe for christmas of 2012
Walnut shorts/scraps that would normally be firewood
Laminated including endgrain joined
Stained on on the stand to hold sand bags
Sarah turning a bowl from the cherry/plum tree half that fell over.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Our trip to Vietnam
Photos from our trip to Vietnam early this year.
Our first day in Saigon after some really long plane rides. First day we were just in complete shock at how crowded it was.
Our first day in Saigon after some really long plane rides. First day we were just in complete shock at how crowded it was.
2nd day heading to the beach - traffic at some random corner 5:30 or so in the morning.
Some really good seafood at the beach
3rd day flew to Hanoi, then a really long car ride from the airport, then onto a night train with 2 other people. We were a little surpised at how close were were together.
4th day in Vietnam, 1st in Sapa - usually people come here to hike in the mountains and see the tiered rice fields. We had foggy weather and were constantly badgered by people selling us souveneirs.
Still - parts of Sapa were very beautiful - muddy while were were there, but beautiful
2nd Day in Sapa - hike to the top of a large hill where there's a national park. We were surrounded by limestone boulders (and a orchid park)
Last day in Sapa - we had enough of the fog and the constant badgering to buy stuff. Mom joins us for the rest of the tour.
First day in Halong Bay on the 2 night cruise "junk". This is surprise cave in a large Karst.
A better view of the 2000 or so Karsts in Halong Bay
2nd Day in Halong bay and we're climbing on limestone - got *great* weather.
3rd day we head out on of Halong Bay taking the scenic route.
Hanoi at night - a beautiful lake and beatiful trees. Much more green than Saigon
2nd day in Hanoi - touring a lot of museams
Day in Hue visiting lots of temples
More orchids in random trees
1st day in Hoi An - one of the temples where insense spirals burn for a month.
Hoi An - view from Hotel
Hoi An - beach across the street from the hotel
Back in Saigon the final day - lights for Tet getting put up
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)