The Woodworking Show

The nice thing about moving back east is there are the Woodworking Shows back here.  They stopped doing them on the west coast several years ago.  I have to say, it is an expensive not worth it show.  They advertised Kreg, Erlex and other vendors there. I was hoping to go to get some deals on some tools I needed for upcoming projects.  Well it was mostly resellers, so the deals were not there.  The entire show was something that I walked in an hour.  I had a nice chat with the Grex vendor about sprayers.  Purchased a couple of tools from Lee Valley and Wood Peckers. Probably will not go again. 

That being said I am interested in going to some of the larger shows, but that will require a little more planning and travel.  

New Dust Collection

Last year I bought a shop vac and dust deputy from Home Depot.  I was pleased how they worked but did not like the amount of room it took up.  I came across a video on YouTube that had this design for it.  The link can be found here. This is not my design, but I did make some changes to the original design.  One thing was that I had a different vacuum.  When I went to shop for the parts, I found that the 2 ½” PVC coupling was not snug in the foot attachment holder.  I did not think this was going to be a big problem at the time.  As I was putting it together, the legs were too loose to pull around the shop to various tools.

The fix to this was to make a table out of 2 ½” PVC.  It is amazing how sturdy this is.  It is also difficult to remove pieces that were not cut to the correct dimension.  Overall, it came together in a few hours and works well. 

On the subject of using this as a vacuum, I find the system lacking.  I lose too much suction in the system to use effectively.  It does great pulling the sawdust from the machines because it is a closed system.  When I attach the floor attachment it does not seem to pull enough with the separator attachment.  Maybe I need a vacuum that pulls more CFM, but that is something I am not going to worry about.  I like how it works now.

Here is an update to the last paragraph.  Since I filled up a bucket, I swapped out to a new bucket.  The new bucket was purchased last year for the wood working class.  That bucket worked so much better.  Apparently a used beat up bucket does not work as well as a new one.

Goals this Year

This year is going to be an interesting experience.  I have moved so I need to set up my shop again.  The good thing is that most of my tools are on wheels, so I need to find locations for everything.  My area is a little bit bigger, but I lost all the overhead space.  I am also going to need to watch the items that we will need to store in the garage as we get snow and the kids start getting larger outdoor toys.  This process will take some time, but I am currently able to manage. 

I have found another guild to participate in.  It is a marketing ploy because the people who run the guild also push their product (they sell tools and lumber at the location).  The group seems strong and active in the community.  There is no toy drive, so I am going to have to find my own charities to donate to.  I hope to be able to get a little more involved and participate in the guild.  I am a little out of my element and there is a lot of members, so it will be easy to get lost in the group.

I am working on more magazine articles.  I just got requests for three more.  Two are pretty simple and the other one is going to take more time.  With the move and the cold weather, it is going to be a struggle to get these complete, but I like the challenge. 

I am also looking at getting back into the plan sales through retailers.  Now that I have been published, I am hoping I have a little more leverage.  I need to reach out to them again and see if they are interested.  Etsy sales are doing well and hope to continue that platform.

The major projects this year’s is going to be a couple of nightstands.  I am going to take it a little lighter this year because of the move and adjusting to a new workshop.  I am hoping these will turn out nice with nice hardwood lumber and finish.  I plan to do some traditional joinery.  Design wise, I am going to be looking at the house.  I need to design some closet systems to make the closets a little more functional.  Not sure what the toy front will look like this year.  I think that I need to take a break this year.

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.