Shopsmith Forums

It's been a pretty slow week, except for the wind that roared through. The downside to those nice wood outdoor decorations is the large flat surfaces that seem to attract the wind. Every year I end up picking them up even though I weight them down with bags of sand or stone. This year they lasted until the day before I planned to take them down and store them.

As to woodworking, until today, the most exciting thing to occur was the receipt of the lastest copy of Candian Home Workshop. That means that Wood Magazine and Woodsmith should be following soon.

Today I hooked up the speakers on the computer and started to catch up on Sawdust Sessions. The first I looked at was the one on using the strip sander for sharpening as a sharpening jig is one of the things I would like to get sometime this year. The second was the segment on wiping finishes. I use these frequently and have been tempted to make my own using what Nick described as the traditional recipe, but his seems to be interesting as well. Maybe when my current supply runs out I will try it. But then I wouldn't have an excuse to drive down to Plattsburg, N.Y. to pick it up cheaper, and have lunch at Applebees.

I also tried to change my avatar to show a dump truck I had made several years ago but even after resizing the picture, it would not take. I guess the rocking horse does not want to be replaced.

I hope most of you have had a more productive week in the shop than I have.

It seems the forum is still very active. When I first joined just over a year ago, the numbers on-line at any one time were pretty low but now there always seems to be a good number of members, as well as more guests, even discounting those "slurps". That is also good as there is a lot more good information going back and forth. I hope the trend continues.

Have a good and safe week!

John

Whew! The holidays are finally over. I've really been missing this forum and my time in the shop, but the holidays were especially crazy this year at the bakery. It's a great problem to have and we are grateful to be so blessed, but 15-18 hour days, 6 & 7 days a week, for 2 months really puts a damper on your hobbies! (especially if you sneak in a deer hunt or two:eek: )

I am looking forward to getting caught up on the posts and sawdust sessions. Also, after making the rocking horse for my first g.child, I've been threatened with bodily harm if I don't make one for the other 2, so I guess I'll have no problem deciding on my next project:D

Interesting sidenote: When I tried to go to the sawdust session site to see what I had been missing, I was denied access to that page by my filtered ISP. The reason given was that it had been categorized as 'criminal skills'. So Nick, what you been teaching while I was away?:)

I've contacted them and should have no problem getting the block lifted, but I was curious what the filterring algorithm picked up on to cause such a classification.

Hi folks! This'll be short:rolleyes: as I've already done enough blabbing this past week. Good news is - days are getting longer and warmer!!

Sorry about your new avatar John! Hopefully this will help - When using my camera for photos for the Forum, I have to set it to the lowest quality picture. If I set it to more pixels, the pics are too large to be accepted by the Forum.

Not hardly any shop work this week. I served on jury duty all week. It was the funniest jury duty I ever did. Stayed at home and had to check in every day to see if I had to report. Didn't have to, but the anticipation was there.

As posted last week, my wife bought a new embroidery machine. It was delivered on Friday, by Fed EX Freight. The box even has cardboard spaces on the bottom for a forklift. Never saw that before. The good part is the machine fit on the newly revised shelf (un-crated of course).

Exciting to me - the 5/4 maple for my daughter's play school blocks are in the supplier's shop. The wood will be up here on Wednesday. My son has treated me to the SS Traveling Academy beginning lathe class in Las Vegas with Rick Davis. Since he has to drive by the wood supper, he will bring up the wood. Along with the maple he will bring some 8/4 red oak for legs of my daughter's end tables. All this means an exciting week, followed by making more sawdust.

Did get out to the shop on Friday to use the OPR and made MDF templates for the blocks. Taped the sample blocks to a base and used my pin router for the first time ever, to make the templates.

Other than that, just layed around and waited for stuff to happen.

Hi Folks,

I too have been on the slow side in my woodworking. And I've had some parts on order for my bicycle-overhaul that got lost in transit over the busy holidays.

This weekend I knocked off a fast project to clear the mental const#pation. This is a sort of dresser-top "valet" which I assembled out of scrap woods and leathers. I used a ~45-degree cut across the table saw to put the Cove in the central maple piece. I attached that piece -- the way you see it -- after some experimenting told me that was the easiest way to grab my pocket change.

Everyone have a great week,

Chris:

That's an interesting design for a dresser valet. I like it! If I could add any comment on improving it, it would be to inlay the leather pieces. Of course I can say that but haven't a clue how I would do it especially since I am not that proficient with a router.

Chuck:

Most of my earlier pictures were taken with a higher resolution but I have been successful in resizing some for adding pictures in a post, but it didn't work for the avatar.

Some week of laying around! When I do that, nothing seems to happen. The turning lessons are a great gift.

Have fun.

John

Chris - I love your flat wallet! It matches up with the other furniture nicely. Nifty place to put coins. Sorry there's only pennies there!:rolleyes: