Thursday Evening in the shop

This Thursday has been a fairly quiet day, I spent some time wandering about the neighbourhood and made a trip to the library.That was really the high adventure of the day.  The balance of the day was spend reading, enjoying the fantastic summer like afternoon and puttering around in my shop.  

This afternoon I spent some time breaking down some more of the found wood.   

            
           



I cut the drawers up and sawed some more of the tree branches to length and sealed their ends.

At supper time decided to have a beer with my meat and cheese, and so....no more machines in the shop.(other than vacuum cleaners that is)  There was enough saw dust and bark about that it was high time I got going on a serious clean up. Do you turn up the tunes when you are cleaning in your shop?  I certainly do. This evening it was the Eastman Wind Ensemble conducted by Fred Fennell. In the 1980's took a course in band conducting from Fred Fennell at the University of Calgary.  It is inspiring to learn from a world class individual. As a small bragging point he thought I had good control when conducting Morton Gould's Ballade for Band; for a young conductor in the presence of a musical legend control does not come easily, panic is your natural state of mind.

As I worked away in my shop I listened to band music, thought of the great teachers with whom I studied and thought of how different my life's direction had gone. 

My shop is great, I have tonnes of tools and enough wood to keep going for years. As long as I take it easy on my back and work safely I should be wood working for a long time to come.

  I did do a bit of wood working before turning to cleaning up. It was painting and gluing type tasks, not sharp tool and whirring blade tasks.

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Recently I was playing with my lathe and made this "egg".  It made for a good 'handie' (like shelfie, in your hand) and then sat around with no purpose.  As a wood junkie, I did not throw it away and today it found a purpose.

Believe it or not I found this umbrella beside the road while riding my bike around the neighbourhood.  It turned out that the canopy was fine but the handle had broken off.  So,because I hate to see things thrown away that can be fixed I brought this lame umbrella home intending to put a handle on it.(been there done that)

Drilling a hole in the centre of the egg/handle is easy when you have the tools.  I used my drill press and a wood hand screw clamp to get a straight square hole.

                                        I hold the piece between the screws to get a solid, none slip grip on it and sometimes then clamp the carpenter's hand screw to the table of the drill press.

Once I got the handle drilled I needed to glue the umbrella into the handle and that is where two part epoxy is the only tool for the job. Two part epoxy has good gap filling characteristics and is water proof once dry.

  I also painted a little toy for Clara. Not a bad day's fiddling in the work shop.

Don't ignore those little wooden kits from the $ Store, some of them are just plain fun. ( I of course kept a pattern)

cheers ianw

Umbrella Stand

   Often projects arise from a need, or perceived need.  For nearly three years our umbrella etc. have been sitting in a plastic bucket by the back door,  only a little bit in the way and slightly ugly to behold.  Finally two days ago an umbrella leaned out and tried to trip me once again  as I walked past with my hands full. That was it, my patience for the game was exhausted, I knew that one day the evil umbrella beasts would succeed and ruin my day.  I gave up the fight and decided to give the umbrellas and sticks a nice place to live in the hope that they would give up their plans for garage domination.

  Sitting on my rolling work station are the parts for my latest project, an umbrella/walking stick stand.  I don't usually think to take photos part way through the process but this time I remembered.  You can see the piece taking shape and the major tool for the job, a drill and a KREG jig.  When I was designing the stand I seriously thought about mortise and tenon joints.  Then.....I thought seriously about how long that would take, pocket holes won out hands down.

The nature of the project meant that pocket holes were perfect.  The dark stain on the elm looks good and unless you really go looking you don't notice the pocket holes at all.


The stain is a story in its self.  I bought a tin of stain in sort of paste wax form for a dollar at a yard sale years ago.  Why? 'cause it was a dollar and almost full to the top.  The stain is much like shoe polish, it stains and can be buffed to a semi gloss finish.  The tin had no label so I have no idea where it is from or what it is called and soon it will be gone.  For the time being it gives a nice deep colour to elm quickly and easily.

 This is the finished stand posing for a photo on our work table.  The result is sturdy, and fairly classic in design.  I suspect that the stand will hang out in the porch or garage for a long while before being reused as fire wood.

Here it is all loaded up with umbrellas and sticks.  It now sits beside the door in from the garage, snugly in a corner. It seems that the umbrellas and sticks are much happier since there has been no attempt on Eva's or my life since they moved to their more upscale and hand crafted home.

Opa Fix?!

If you are a regular reader you will recognize that headline.  That is Kieran's question/statement anytime anything is broken or not working.  He believes that Opa can fix anything, little does he know.
Anyway, Opa likes fixing things.  I suspect that repairing and problem solving lured many of us into woodworking in the first place.

broken umbrella handle from my step daughter, Kieran's Mom

the replaced handle on the umbrella. hand turned oak, waxed and sealed.

     I like to use my wood lathe, but don't get much chance lately so turning the handle was great fun.  I turned the handle and finished it and then drilled it on my drill press.  The hole that was needed was a large enough hole that I had to use a Forstner bit, it was a bit stressful but it turned out OK.  Another time I would drill the hole for the handle when the wood block was still in the square and the plug the hole to mount the piece on the lathe.  After I had completed the piece it would be much easier to drill out a softwood plug than drill the necessary hole.