Chisel Cabinet part 2 Finished! Oh! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I just finished the cabinet, and no it's not going to win any prizes for design or beauty. The doors close, and if I had used better lumber, taken the time to square things up, etc. It may have turned out fancier, but it still functions and I'm happy with that. Besides, at a later date, I can always rebuild it with better materials now that I have the design down. Case in point of the "oh crap!" moments was when I assembled the doors upside down. I decided that, other than the cosmetic imperfection, it should function well enough and I didn't need to take it apart. Aside from that, I now have a nice safe and out of the way place to store my chisels where they are easy to get at. Tomorrow will be spent rearranging my shop stuff that was displaced. Oh! And as of the writing of this post, the new year is officially been new for 3 full hours! ( eastern time) Happy new YEAR! May 2010 bring you all the best! By the way, A Cat update...Rashi seems to be doing better though she is not out of the woods yet. At least she can sleep without looking like she is going to die. Hopefully the antibiotics that she frequently spits out at us are making it inside and doing their job. We'll keep you updated!

Chisel Cabinet.. part one!

Well, life sometimes throws you a curve. I was going to make this a one day project, but our cat has come down with a serious cold and we went to the Vet today. So I got a late start on the cabinet, and I under estimated the materials a bit so there was a good chance I was not going to finish it anyway. So I basically worked on the back part and hammered out any design flaws. I would like to thank Cheryl for showing me this awesome piece of foam rubber we had lying around. It works AWESOME now! I can fit small chisels next to the larger ones and even my paint scraper. Cheryl's suggestion saved me from making a bunch of little slots for each individual chisel, but it did require me to use the wood that was meant for the doors. So the doors will be built later but for now...things are looking pretty good! Oh! and about the cat, the vet sounded positive. She has a chest cold and can't cough up the crap. ( I've been fighting a the same thing for several days now) Se we have been giving her antibiotics and keeping her in the bathroom with the vaporizer on full blast. It seems to be working. In case you are wondering. Sasha is the cat in the middle.

Sharpening the fun

Tonight was spent sharpening my chisels, including the new ones I just got for Christmas. As previously posted, I just LOVE sharpening.....( sarcasm hint here) I have been putting it off since the tree carving was complete, and several of my favorite chisels had some serious damage that had to be reground and resharpened. After finally finishing that, I came to the conclusion that I need to make a better storage area for them if I want to keep them sharp and stop having them roll around in a cloth carry case. So tomorrow, I plan on starting my next project to make a wall case that will hold all my chisels safely and out of harms way. I can't wait to get started... Oh and to top it off. Westminster with the Way you Look Tonight. Enjoy!

Bandsawing a log! What fun!

Well, kinda anyways....So we took a trip to my brother-in-law's ( Andy) workshop because he has a 12 inch band saw and I had some maple logs I wanted to experiment on. The Goal was to cut them all into nice 3/4 inch boards. The previously posted YouTube videos made it look like it should take more more than a few minutes per log. Then.... reality struck! Well, on the positive side, I was able to see first hand how it was done, and we cut up one log with no major incidents. The down side was it took about an hour to do one log! I decided to spare Andy the trouble of cutting up all the logs I brought and just charted this one up as a "hands on" learning experience. It was kinda fun though and I now have a better idea of the type of band saw I want and the type of band saw blade we will probably need for a job like this. I'd like to thank Andy for his patients and the use of his shop. I doubt he would ever have attempted something like that on his own without my persistent nagging. My new goal is to get a band saw! I simply must have one and the only limit at this time is the price for the "right" one. We'll see how it goes!

Cheryls Shop...finished?

Well I hope so for the moment anyway. I completed the last two tables for her tonight and had to get creative with the last one. It was made for the corner. I think they look OK by themselves, but when you marry them up to each other, the small 1/16th of an inch difference comes out. BAAA! Well at least a couple of them are close. and they are all dead level so really there shouldn't be any complaints. Cheryl for the most part, is happy and I'm actually pretty relieved to be done with them. Now I have to figure out what to do with all that mismatched furniture she had before ( because, of coarse! they are now all in my area) Also I feel pretty confident to take on my own table in the near future. Tomorrow is another Grand Rapids trip with, hopefully, some band saw work to be done! I'll try to capture some pics!

Day After Christmas...

Just a quick post about what I was up to and how my Christmas went. Well, Pretty good! I got a couple of chisels and a new tool. You may remember the "frustration" I had when I tried to take change my oil ( having never done it by myself before, might I add..) Because I did not have a tool that would remove the old oil filter. Well, my brother-in-law ( the family mechanic) made sure that was not going to happen again. They went all out for the expensive one! As previously posted, I got my chisels from Woodcraft. A V-tool and a #5 gouge. I can't wait to use them. As for the rest of the night, I have been working on cleaning the house after the holidays, and building another two tables for Cheryl. I didn't get as far as I had hoped tonight, but tomorrow should go faster. Oh! And Monday I'm planning on turning a couple of Maple branches that fell during the October wind storm into some usable lumber! So Andy! If you are reading this....Here is my plan...

Christmas Eve!

Merry Christmas everyone! Just thought I would post a quick blog to show off a finished work and show off the cats. The two card holders I stained up with a dark ebony stain then gave them a light coat of satin finish. I then finished them off with some minwax brushed to a dull shine. I was not impressed with the satin finish, but then again, the poly was rather old. As for the Cats...well, here they are unwrapping their presents! Rashi is the one in the background that does not like her picture taken. Hiro has been fighting a cold for the last couple of days, basically he sneezes all the time. Hope you are all haveing a great Christmas!

Making butter toffee

Getting ready for the holidays? They are almost upon us! Our little salute to the season is to make something totally sugary and fattening then give it away to friends and family! It's our way to thanking them for fattening us up for Thanksgiving. Anyway, this year we decided to make butter toffee. Its pretty easy actually, just melt butter, add brown sugar, boil, then add goodies. However, our first experiment ended in disaster 50 % of the time! Looking back, I think we relied on the candy thermometer too much instead of just our"experience" This time was way better. No burned sugar, no bad smell no ruined candies. We might be getting the hang of it! Might as well throw in a barbershop song for the holidays! Enjoy WestMinster Chorus! Great Day!

Cheryl's second cutting table.

I just finished another table for Cheryl's shop. I thought this one would take less time, However, there were a couple of challenges that made it take some time. One was it had to match the first one perfectly. Yeah right! I'm impressed that it was as close as it was. There is a bout a 1/4 inch variation . which I blame on the first one because the second one is dead level. Well we May just have to match it up when I make the other two. as for now, this will have to do. I took a few more pics this time to show the steps of making the legs. Pretty straight forward and this time they seemed to turn out a little better. My goal is to finish the remaining two before Christmas. but I don't know..this next week will be busy. Enjoy!