Ready for Spring

This weekend I prepared the shop for spring, I didn’t do anything major, just blow out the dust, and rearrange some tools on the wall. It only took 2 hours to do it, but it still felt really good to open the garage door, turn up Pandora, and doe something completely mindless.In other words, another season of woodworking has begun.

My first hand tool experience

While researching chisels earlier in the week,I came across an image that took me back to my childhood. My dad didn’t do much woodworking when I was little, but he had enough tools to take care of odd jobs around the house. Among his assortment of tools was a 4 piece set of Craftsman chisels. I use the term chisels loosely, because the handles were way to big, and they had horrible balance to boot.  When I happened across the photo below it brought a smile to my face, as I  flashed back to a time when I could barely get my hands around the handles, and would routinely pound them into a random 2×4 with a framing hammer. Before anyone asks; Yes I routinely got into trouble for misusing and misplacing my dads tools.

Picture frames 101

It’s been 3 weeks, and as you might have expected, Wrigley has been keeping me really busy. I’ve been chasing him around the house, making sure he doesn’t make a mess on the carpet. Thankfully housebreaking is coming along nicely, and hopefully in another month I will be able to start venturing back into the shop.

While I haven’t been in the shop, I have had time to do a lot of woodworking related reading.  I have a bunch of posters I Want to make frames for, and since I have never made a frame before, I did what I always do when I need to learn how to do something; I bought a book. How to Make Picture Frames is an excellent book, It shows you how to make several picture frames using your table-saw and Router. On top of frame construction, it also covers sizing the matting, to keep the poster visually balanced.  At $12 it’s an excellent purchase, check it out, you won’t be disappointed.

One last Box

This will be the last box I’m making for a while and It hardly deserves a post of it’s own, But I feel compelled to share a shot of it, because it’s my favorite by far. The Hickory Sides, Black Walnut Keys, and Figured Honduran Mahogany top perfectly compliment each other, at least in my eyes.

Purpleheart Doorstops

Every now and then I get a request for a really simple item, and they are always A joy to make, because they require no planning. On Friday a friend asked if I could make a doorstop for her office, and I said sure no problem. I think this little project, took all of 30 minutes, and 20 of those where spent trying to determine what angle to cut the stop at. I settled on 10 degrees after making a couple test stops from SYP. Hopefully these stops will last a decade or two.