Year in Review

It was a crazy year for woodworking.  It was also a very successful year.  The biggest project was all the donations this year.  It will be a while before I do that many again.  I was looking to reduce my lumber supply with all the donations and I am glad I did.  The donations included a lot of the small trucks, cars, boats and planes.  There were also cradles, rocking chairs, and high chairs that were also donated.  I think I was a little more invested this year because I chose the charities.  I may have disappointed some of the people that receive donations from the club.  This year I also tried to include more people in the process.  I had people help paint and build which was fun. 
In terms of projects this year it would probably be the build and grow cars.  I just like how all of them turned out.  They were fun designs and solidly built.  My least favorite was probably be the battle axes.  I really do not like making weapons especially one that has the ability to do a lot of real damage.  It was fun to work with my brother on a project. 
Tools I picked up this year.  The list is small, thank goodness. The branding iron was needed for marketing.  It works well and I am glad I have it.  The other was a long time coming and I have not had much of a chance to use it.  That would be the new shop vac with the dust collection.  It seems to work well for the few times that I have used it.  That is it for tools.
I was able publish two plans this year and I was able to install several cabinets for a friend.  These were the two big sources of income this year.  My etsy shop also did really well.  I think there was a fair amount of traffic that was because I was published in a magazine.
I accomplished the main goals that I was working towards.I ended the year with moving to the other side of the country.  It will be interesting to setup a new work area and a new group.  I am going to have to find a new lumber yard also.

My Last Project in California

Phone Stands

 My last project in the current shop was a couple of cell phone holders.  I have done one in the past but this time I cut out a butterfly on the top of it.  The other was an easel that proved to be more complicated that I had hoped.  The size of the easel made the angles very shallow and I did not want to feel like it was going to fall over.  The other thing that I did not realize was the dimensions of the stock.  I originally went with 5/8” thick stock but that looked too thick, but ½” was too narrow to hold the phone.  I actually needed to be creative to make the ledge look thinner than it actually was.  That is what angles are for. 

The tricky part was the drilling the holes.  I drilled one and then used tape and super glue to hold it all together to make sure all the holes lined up.  It actually worked really well.  This was a lot of compound angles.  For the most part I sanded to a line.  The project made me think a lot about the angles and order of operations.

Craft Fair Season

Craft Fair Season

This was a short craft fair season.  We only did one show which was Village Venture in Claremont.  It was a lot larger venue than we have done in the past.  There was an estimated 16,000 people in attendance.  It was well organized and went really well.  There was not a lot of downtime.  Overall the sales were good and I would participate in this venue again.

Toy Cars

This is the last of the toys planned for this year.  I was honestly scared that I would not get them completed in time for the upcoming craft fair. I only had about 6 weeks to get everything cut and finished.  It is amazing how productive I was when under a hard deadline.  That was probably one of the bigger take away lessons from this project.  Planning what was needed to be done on Saturday and what I could do in the evening during the week.  Here is the basic run down of each of the four cars.

Race Car

This was a layered car and pretty straight forward when it comes to the design.  The first challenge that I was faced with drilling the wheels and making sure that they all lined up.  One important rule of toy making is that all wheels have to roll.  They don’t have to be centered, but they need to roll.  What I did was drill holes on only one of the side pieces.  When body was glued together and the bottom sanded flat, I used the drilled holes as a guide and drilled through the entire body of the car.  The other design change that I did was remove the small front piece.  There was a little piece in the front for a front air foil.  It was too small and I chose to remove it entirely.

I did make one huge mistake.  I installed all the small pieces between the wheels upside down.  It works but I realized it on the last four that I was assembling.  I added the radius to help hide the error.  I like the radius but the error still is obvious for me.

I like how it turned out and the simplicity of the design.  It looks really nice when adding two difference colors of wood

Jeep

Jeep owners love jeeps.  I am not a jeep owner but I cannot argue with the rugged appearance it has and it is an iconic vehicle that kids can relate to.  So I made one.  The design is pretty straight forward but not easy to assemble.  The engine and back need to be all assembled together, but the engine has an angle that is cut into it that is easier to cut and sand before assembly.  I had to make some fixtures so that all the pieces lined up.  That was the hardest part of the build, besides sanding.  Sanding all the cars was a chore.

Flat Bed Truck

The last two were a little more complicated when it came to making multiples.  The concern was matching up the roof dowel holes with the holes in the sides. I needed to drill the holes before I cut out any of the details in the sides.  I ended up taping the sides and back together.  I also numbered the top and the sides so I knew which parts went together.  Then taping the top to the sides and back.  After marking out the holes, I drilled them.  I thought I was being clever and putting the numbers on the inside surface.  That backfired when I drilled through all the numbers I marked.

After doing the dry fit, the wheels just did not look right.  They were the 1¼” diameter and looked small.  I was able to adjust them and increase the wheel diameter to 1½”.  It looks much better now and I have updated my drawings.

Model T

I did the holes in the roof the same way as the flatbed truck.  This time I numbered them on the side rather than where I drill the holes.  It was much easier to identify the parts to each car.  I will have to say the treaded wheels look a little odd on the Model T.  They do sell a spoke wheel that would probably look better, but I did not want to introduce a new wheel into my inventory.

Overall I enjoyed the projects.  I really like how the different wood species bring out different colors.  I am thinking about scaling them up to be a larger size in thicker wood.  Not sure how they would look, but I am thinking next year.