Very Happy to be a Hobby Woodworker

NOTE:  Sorry for all the writing.  It's something I wanted to document (so hopefully some day my daughter can read it).  There are pictures of my little slice of heaven below if you want to skip to that.

In my early 40s, I have a watershed moment.  My daughter was about 9 months old an in daycare.  As most parents with young children can attest to, my daughter and my wife and I caught all kinds of colds for the first year or so while she was in day care.  There was one cold that after two or three weeks was handing on and on separate weeks I had taken some sick days to rest.  This was very unusual.  Typically if I take a sick day and rest up over the following weekend the cold subsides. This one wasn't, as such I called my doctor. I had been using the same doctor for 15 years and really liked her.  I considered to be my age when in actuality she was 15 years older.

When I called to make an appointment, I was informed that she had died from breast cancer.  I was stunned and without words.  Here was someone my age who had passed away.  We all know this happens but this one hit home.  There had been many things I had been putting off doing.  I was living in a condo and wanted to be in a house.  By having a house, I could woodwork.  Yes, I know it's possible in a small space but at the time I wasn't thinking of hand tools.  Also, my doctor dying made me think of the other things I had wanted to explore.  I was thinking that in my last 10 or 15 years of a working career I might want to be a woodworker or teach college chemistry.

Again, the impact of the death stuck with me to the pint that within six months we had sold the condo, I was teaching one night a week at a local college.  After a year or two in the home I had remodeled the garage and bought my woodworking tools to start my woodworking journey.

I learned a few things: 

 I still liked my career but I had to move to a small start up to appreciate that.  I had loved the big company I was at and am very grateful for my experience there.  In order to feel revitalized, I needed to be at a small startup when I could leverage all that I knew how to do to help a small band of folks push the frontiers of medicine.

I liked teach college chem a lot -the one night a week I teach at my almamater is very fun and I have great faith in the upcoming generation.  I didn't want to jump into it full time.  When I "retire" my dream is to teach two (possibly three) days a week.  It's so much fun. Plus since I don't depend on the money, I don't worry about getting laid off or if I don't dot the i's and cross all the t's.  I really do focus on trying to do the best job at teaching the students.  I don't care about all of the other stuff.

And for woodworking, I gave serious thought to doing it full time.  I have decided I will keep it as a hobby.  I enjoy working my hands and the pride in making things.  I have decided that I don't want it to do it for a living.  What I like about doing it as a hobby is that I really do get to pick and chose to do what I want.  I can take as long as I want and not have to worry about pay.  If I screw up and have made a piece of hardwood firewood, I don't worry about it eating into my profits.  I typically do a morning session, long lunch, then an afternoon session.  Three to five hours in the shop on one or both weekend days makes me a happy camper.

If you have been patient enough to read all of this, below are some recent pics (Jun 2020) of my workshop.  It is really just a wall or two inside the garage.  I can work with the cars being in  but I like to pull them out.  In a future post I will talk more about what I like and would do differently (ac, off a cement slab).

Life is good.  I still think about my poor doctor.  I feel sad she died young but I have taken that event to make changes in my life that I think she would be please with.  Now if I can just loose the weight she would be even happier as she looks down on me.

Figure 1.  The main workbench.

Figure 2 To my right side some tools I use less frequently.

Figure 3 The junk bench.  At some point I need to clean up this area and build a proper bench for the space.

Figure 4.  Two and half shelves I have to store my wood.

won't need to buy new wood for a while

I'm currently building the Paul Seller's style clock that he has posted on YouTube.  I've enjoyed the build and have maybe one or two afternoons of work left. 

One of the things I'm trying really hard to do is not get too far ahead of myself in projects or buying things.  I don't  like having lots of unfinished or unstarted projects laying around.  It stresses me out.  That I'm sure has origins from my upbringing.  My father is a wonderful man; however, he is the king of unfinished projects and that used to bother me.

The list has grow long enough where I won't need to buy wood for a while.  Below is a list of known projects that I have everything I need to get it done.

1.  Make another clock.  I miscalculated when I bought the board for the first clock and I have enough wood to make a second one.  I'm excited about this.  I wanted to make at least two if not three of these clocks (first one just gives me the experience and let me knows what the challenges were for me, the second let's me focus more on the challenges, the third is fun as I have a much higher degree of confidence I can build it up to the level of my newbie abilities).

2. Make some more dogs for my bench.  I have enough scrap laying about that I can cut a few more square dogs for the bench rather than buying them at $25 each.  Only part I don't quite have figured out is how to get a bit of wood springy on the side so the dog stay us.  Good problem to solve.

3.  I need to make a wood base to go onto my hand powered non-electrical router.  I like the one I have but I find the metal base leaves scratches on the wood.  I'm sure it's a technique fault on my end but I have a scrap piece of cherry that just fits.

4.  Install LED lights under the cabinets under the bench.  The garage is well lit but I'd still like more light at the bench.  One job I worked at moved us into new offices but I found it dim in my cubicle.  So, I purchased some $50 worth of under cabinet LED lighting.  When I left the job, I took the lights with me as they were mine.  They would go well above the bench and under the cabinets there. 

5.  Reorganize the cabinets a bit.  I initially remodeled the garage with power tools in mind.  As such, I put in a lot of cabinets that were tall.  Since I decided to go the hand tool route, there isn't much in them and they are poorly organized.  If I spend some time on this, I can have some hand tool items that don't go on the peg board really handy.  Also, there is a secondary card table in the garage for house hold type tools and items that can reside in the cabinets which will free up space in the garage.  I like a neat and tidy garage and doing this goes a long way towards piece of mind for me.

6.  Reorganize the hand tools in front of the work bench.  Now that I have been working with them for six months, I have a better idea of what I grab often and that which I don't and where along the span of the 8' bench I work.  I don't think I need I will be buying too many more tools so it's a good time to do this.  Again, peace of mind.  When I come home in the evening, even if I can't do any woodworking, just seeing it organize and ready for my use brings great peace of mind.  I don't know why this is so.  Maybe it has to do with the whirlwind of life and there is much I can't control and this one little place is my fortress of solitude for the rest of the world.

7.  Pull nails and sort the wood left from the old fence.  It's just laying in a heap in the back yard.  Also, the workers were (un)kind enough to leave the pressure treated wood.  I want that gone.  Being a chemist, having wood that contains chromium and arsenic soaked into revolts me.  I don't care what the studies say about it mostly staying put.  Nope, it must go and I will be happy when the wood I want to keep is tidy and the pressure treated wood is gone.

Why I decided to buy rather than build a bench

I was thinking of making my own bench.  In fact, I bought Chris Schwartz’s book on the topic and spent a fair bit of time reading it.  Ultimately I ended up buying one.  Mostly this came down to the fact that I am an absolute beginner (couldn’t even cut a straight line) and just didn’t feel confident enough to be able to do it.  Now, six months or so into woodworking, I have that confidence and could do it.  The good news is that I have used my bench and hands tools I purchased a lot.  I did have some concern that I was going to buy this initial stuff and it would sit around unused gather dust.  Who hasn’t at some point bought something on the pricy side with the best intentions and watch it gather dust (like the treadmill we got recently so we could walk while watching tv)?  Oh, the good and bad/sad news.  I know someone close to me who had a huge tree topple over in a big storm and completely demolish their garage and workbench.  Looks like I may have an opportunity yet to build a workbench.

 

In terms of what I bought, it was the Lie Nielsen one.  Why that one?  Well, it met Chris Schwartz's criteria for a bench in terms of sturdiness, etc.  I did get to see one in person and try it out at one of their travel tool shows.  Yes, it was expensive.  However, it's done and I have it and in theory I never need to worry about this topic again.  It works well and I have been happy with it.  I debate now 6 months into it whether a tool well would be handy or a quick release vice.  Both of these are good problems to have and in all likelihood I will leave it as is and spend my energy on wood working projects.

 

 

My first steps ...

For the past 14 years I had wanted to get serious about woodworking.  I grew up with my father and grandfather doing some sort of wood working (either by necessity or as a hobby).  In 2001 during a bout of unemployment, a friend of mine helped me (more like me helping him) build a desk.  Ever since I wanted to get more into woodworking.  Due to several job relocations and establishing my career, I put it off. 

In late 2012, things settled down and my wife and I bought a home with a three car garage (a non-negotiable criteria of mine).  In 2013, I remodeled the garage so that I could finally do my wood working.  I had anticipated using power tools and the remodel reflected that (lots of plugs and power in the garage).  Around that time, I started to do some serious internet searching (planning for the power tools). I bumped into Chris Schwartz blogging and wood working with hand tools just clicked.  I bought his Anarchist Tool book and spent a year reading it plus plenty of other hand tool things including Paul Sellers.  Finally in late 2015 I was ready to start making some purchases and sold a car to fund my initial tool purchases.

That catches you up to the present where I have been toiling away as time allows for the last 6 months.

The purpose of this blog is for me to document my journey in woodworking for someone of absolutely no experience to see where it takes me.  Follow along if you would like.  As in all your interactions with others, please be kind.  I am sure there will be many setbacks and foibles along the way.  I hope to share the good and the bad.