IWF International Woodworking Fair

One of the perks of working with a cabinet manufacturer is being able to go to a couple of woodworking shows.  This year I was able to go to IWF in Atlanta, Georgia.  This is the largest wood working fair in the world and hosts exhibitors from the person selling an idea to the established large scale machine manufacturers. In addition to hardware, wood mills, tools, lumber and anything else pertaining to the woodworking industry.

Before I get into the show I am going to rant on airlines for a second.  Now it is not their fault that the person in front of me constantly hits his head against the back of the seat like he is fluffing up his pillow.  No matter how hard you try there really is not a comfortable way to sit in coach.  So, please, stop smacking your seat so hard that you are hit me in the head while I am trying to read a book on the tray.  To the guy behind me, no matter how much and hard you dig your knees into the back of the seat I cannot move forward or I will be knocked out by the guy pulverizing his headrest.

Airlines, you have a gauge that measures carry-on luggage, please use it and enforce it.  Two carry on pieces should not fill up an overhead bin.  If the piece of luggage, no matter how it is turned, makes it so the door does not close it is too big.  I carry on a back pack that is it.  To be asked to put it under my seat so that some one else can put their over sized carry on and their "personal" item up there is a little annoying.

I know that I have some experience in process flow.  I don't know whose brilliant idea was the number loading groups but they missed one key part: Fill the window seats first then move to the aisles.  It makes no sense to fill the aisles first so that everyone has to climb over them.  Yes this is who the loading groups work: aisle first then window.

Now onto the the fair.  It was a lot of fun and there were several companies I work with there.  It was nice to be able to put a face to the name.  The other interesting part was how well known, for good and evil, the company I was representing was.  About 80% of the booths I visited knew some one in the company and had worked with them.  We had some interesting conversations and talked about different ways we could accomplish tasks.

The other fun part of the show was meeting with vendors before and after the show.  It was nice to get to know them outside of the work setting.  Some of them are a lot different outside of work. 

Then of course there are the freebies.  I brought my kids home several souvenirs.  I had a lot of fun the three days I was there.  I hope to go next year to the one in Vegas.

Finally, since no one knows anyone who would like a bucket of blocks I will donate to a children's group.

Spooky Old Tree

If you are wondering where this title came from, it is the title of one of the short stories of the Berenstain Bears.  My oldest has the story almost memorized or he can read.  So this puzzle was cut.  It is another pattern, but I can honestly say my scroll saw work has become a lot better.  It is out of walnut.  I cut the pieces out of a number 2 blade which is the smallest blade that I own.  There is no binding in the pieces and I am happy with it.

The next puzzle was something that I wanted to make out of poplar.  It was easy and shows the thickness of 5/4 material.  It goes in my board library at work.

I have another bucket of blocks to give away.  So this is how it is going to work.  I am taking nominations on who to give them to.  You cannot nominate yourself or a member of your immediate family.  You can email me or put the name in the comments a long with why they should receive the blocks.  In two weeks I will create a poll on this blog and viewers will be able to vote on the nominees for one week. The person who nominated the winner is responsible for shipping.

Please remember these blocks are from scrap lumber.  They have a coat of mineral oil.  If they are thrown they can do some serious damage.

Work on it until you like it

I am working on some trucks.  I have the cabs rough cut out and followed the directions and pattern.  The next step is to sand and file the cabs until they look good to me.  What is that suppose to to mean?  I am good at following a pattern and design but be artsy, that is not me.  So yesterday I took out the vice and files and went to town.  I think I am going to be making more sawdust then product.  I am not the person to say something looks artistically correct or balanced.  So here is my first pass.  I have the rough out block and the good enough version next to it.  What do you think?

I also completed another puzzle.  This one is an Elephant.  I am getting better at the scroll saw.

More puzzles

 I have completed some more puzzles.  The first has been done fora while but needed to be sanded. This is is the dinosaur one. It is very similar to the barn and safari puzzles done earlier.  This is also a Wood Magazine plan.

This is the complete set.

The brontosaurus and the two trees

This is the Triceratops and one with the fin like back

 Then the background

These are from the puzzle book I received this year.  I am having a lot of fun with them and I can do these at my house because the tooling is there.

Yes it does say "MOOSE"  It was not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Big dinosaur and little dinosaur

An elephant. not particularly interesting but it is made out of aspen

This next one is the alphabet snake.  The hardest part of making this was finding a piece of wood that was wide enough.  It was an easy cut out. The instructions said to paint the pieces several colors.  I was told not to by my significant other.  I had a problem getting enough ink on the stamps for the first part of the upper case letters.  Other than that it turned out nice.

The reason I decided  to do stamps was because they were clean and I can use them again.  The book suggested stencils but I have not had good results using them.

The nice thing that these puzzles are teaching me is:

• I can not rush them.  Too  much pressure or faster blade speed tend to break blades and burn wood
• There are major differences in the size of blades.  A lower number blade in the puzzle makes for tighter fitting pieces but it takes longer.  While the outside of the puzzle can be done with a higher number blade with out sacrificing the detail
• I have to push the wood straight into the blade.  When doing curves and tight radii it is very easy to push from an angle.  This causes the blade to bend just slightly.  Even though it is slight it causes the pieces to come apart in only one direction.  I have to be more aware of how I am pushing the piece into the blade. 

As a side note I am working on a wood library for work.  They do not realize it but I feel it is going to be useful as we start talking about substitute wood species for oak and maple.  I am doing this through puzzles.

Completing a few long time projects

This past week I was able to complete a couple of projects and a puzzle.  Remember the Alien Nativity?  Here is the stable that goes with it.

 The pieces were cut a forever ago and then put together last year and finally finished and hinges added this week.  It was not hard but it was a lot of parts that are just glued together.  Then to add to the problems, the parts are only 3/8" thick.  The screws are for 1/2" material.  Yes, they went through.  I backed them off so they don't show as much.  It will be interesting where we put it up this year for the holidays.  (It will probably left up year round.) It is a decent size Nativity.

Here is another installment of the the construction set through Wood Magazine.  Now I am only two trucks and a skip loader behind. The other parts can be found under the trucks label.  I did finally finish the bulldozer.  It was complete just needed to be finished in the last post on it.

This is not my favorite in the series.  I really like the movable parts on this series but I do need to get some Loctite Red to weld the nuts on the threaded rod.  Kids have pulled off a couple of them.  The blade rotates and moves up and down.  If I make another one I will probably make the back wheels bigger.  I think that is my problem with this grader.

Last of all is the shark puzzle. It came out of my last scrap of yellow heart.  Thank goodness.  I hate the stuff.  It is too hard for me to work with.  I burned three scroll saw blades with it and it still came out with all the inside edges burned.  The puzzle also does not work well because the blade curved inside the wood while cutting.  It is done.  I wanted to use the yellow heart for something and now it is gone.

Motivation

Motivation has been on my mind for some time.  I have needed to find out for some time what motivates me.  Recently my company held a weight loss challenge.  It was a biggest loser style competition and this was the second that they held.  I did not participate in the first one due to project load, stress and a general lack of interest.  So what convinced me to participate in this one?  The simple answer money. There was a $100 gift card to the winner.  The last winner lost about 12% of his body weight.  I figured I would have to lose around 25lbs match the percentage. I figured $100 dollars was worth the effort.  So I signed up and was ready to go.  My first weigh in was a 201 lbs.  I never wanted to be over 200 lbs but there I was.  So the competition started.  My wife and I planned the meals a little better, cut out snacks and I started running again.  It also helped that the mud run was in the middle of all this.  It was a good motivating factor to start running again.
Long story short, I won.  I am the biggest loser at work.  Yes there are a lot of things you can comment on in that sentence. I choose a $100 gift card to Wal-mart.  I think they allow you to buy other gift cards with them.  I was going to purchase Visa and by wood.  They gave me a Target gift card and Target does not allow you to do that type of thing.  So we bought things we needed for the house and clothes for the boys.   But I did get this nice little plaque:

So now what?  I ended up losing about 28 lbs.  My pants don't fit and I have the need to continue being healthy.  I have found out a few things about me that I have forgotten.  I have more energy and I feel lighter.  After completing something like this I find the question is "Now what?"  Does it end?  Many times it does.  What is the motivation to keep going?  With the weight loss I like how I feel and that I can now run two laps around our table chasing our sons before getting tired.  I can fit in some clothes that I have had for a couple of years hoping that I would fit in them again.
What motivates me to to continue at work, continue at woodworking, self improvement, religion, being a friend.  These are just a couple of things that I have been thinking about.  The motivation is different in the different areas however there has to be something driving one to do things.  I have also thought about is there better types of motivation.  I would have to think yes.  I could have lost weight to be healthier but my initial drive was the money.  It has been interesting to reflect on the motivations in my life.

Yes that was a little to abstract, not about woodworking but I needed to get it out.  I have been working a lot with some puzzles.  Here is my latest one.  It is a unicorn on hard maple.  It turned out nice.  I am getting better at the scroll saw.  My wife said it looks mean, so it is at work.

 On a side note, I just purchased a mattress for the bed and found out it is the same size as the other one.  The internet lies, but the bed still looks great.  My son loves it.

My view on Toys

Now that my boys are being boys, the toys I have made are getting a little more abused and showing wear.  It is a lot of fun to watch them play with the toys.  Unfortunately there are times where the play is a little too rough and the toy breaks.  Here are some of the casualties of being a toy:

There have been others.  I knew that toys would be broken.  The nice thing is that most of these can be repaired.  I do not have any yet that have to be thrown out.  My pride and joy is not, nor will it ever be, the completion of a perfect toy that looks too good to play with.  My joy comes from seeing kids play with and enjoy the toys. 
Here is a warning to all those how have received or will receive a toy from me either through purchase or gift.  If I see it on a shelf for display not for play you will never receive another wooden project from me again.  This would be an insult to me and I would take it personally because the toys are meant to be played with.
I do not nor will I ever make a model for display.  It does  pain me to see these toys broken however it warms my heart to see kids happy and smiling because of them.
 My furniture is purely functional.  When it has lost its function it needs to be replaced.  As in the post with the desk, I do not have a problem throwing stuff away that has outlived its usefulness.  Now I did keep the hardware.
I like what I do and I love the smiles I receive.