Planing Lumber

I filled three 39 gallon trash bags full of sawdust doing this.

Here’s a math problem I don’t want to do: what percentage of wood that I purchase actually ends up in the thing I’m making vs. the percentage that ends up as sawdust / firewood / scrap / trash / sits on my wood rack for decades doing nothing.

Let’s catch up

Hi.  Been a while, and I’ve been busy.  The house itself is (mostly)* done (sort of) and so my attention has been turning to outside.  Lots of gardening and landscaping, and a fun project or two thrown in for good measure.  Let’s take a look.

Sword making and restoration is not easy, but it’s fun.  I made all new fittings for an old katana.  Used curly maple for the handle and saya.

Came out great.  The restored sword is light, quick, and very sharp.  Good grip.   Good balance.  Very much ready for the zombie apocalypse.

We have frogs in our garden.

And birds.

And cats.

And bees.

And plants.

And more plants.

The pergola has kind of turned into a little shrine for relaxation and watching the world go by.  I should spend more time there, I know.  I put a wisteria in that planter bed behind the chairs, it should grow into the pergola nicely.

Made an outdoor table.

It’s such a nice place to sit and stare at the water.

Front planting beds are doing great.

Up the hill is where the shed is, and it’s like the Final Frontier.  The last untouched remnant of the old house is up there, because except for the green paint that shed is just about how we found it.  I made those stairs going up the rocks, and soon I’ll be putting a new deck up there and making the shed look nice.

The shop is looking great.  Cabinets are all finished.  I did the math:  it’s 102 cubic feet of cabinet space that I added to the shop.

I added a TV to the shop.  It’s great during hockey season.  It also swings around so you can watch it while on the elliptical.

And I found some cool cabinet knobs.

Inky likes the beach.  It has the biggest scratching posts.

 

Shop Renovation – Tables and More Cabinets

My shop needed some organization.  I didn’t realize until now how hastily put together everything was.  I didn’t have any time to spend on the shop because I needed to get the house put together.  Now that the house is habitable and, dare I say, finished, it’s time to make some storage and organization out there.  I have so many homeless, orphan tools in boxes and I don’t even know where they are.  Several times I’ve bought a duplicate tool because I forgot I had it.  Well, now, maybe some places to put things so that they’re accessible, it’ll help.

As part of all this, I’m raising the heights of my side tables a bit, and to do that I’ll build some drawers to go on top of them.  I’ll get more storage space, and I’ll be able to use all the tables to support large pieces of wood when I’m cutting them.

It’s easy to install the drawer hardware if you do it before everything’s assembled.

Not sure if lasers make anything any easier, but it is more fun.

The drawers are pretty solid, and I made some partitions in front to help sort things out.  It’s a pain to do, but worth it in the end.

Now I’ve got a little Festool work station going on.  And when I put a piece of wood on that saw, it’s the same height as the tables over to the right, so I can cut large pieces and they’re fully supported.

A little paint along this wall made a big difference.

Every once in a while, I open an old cardboard box and find some torn up cardboard and a small pile of cat food.  A mouse was nesting in this box.  I think he was gathering cat food to have enough to survive a zombie apocalypse.

More cabinets went up over the router table.

Even more cabinets.  And no, I’m not done.  I still have about 22 square feet of wall space I can cover with more cabinets.

Yeah, I know, I get more excited about shop cabinets than most people do, or should.