Shop move temporarily interrupted by playtime

I have a layout now for my basement shop so that I know where the major equipment will be and where I will need electric and dust pickup. I have been making one or two trips a week to the lake house to bring back box loads of smaller items to the new basement shop. It amazes me how much I have accumulated and now have to move from one shop to another.
I bought two new plastic storage shelves and have them now loaded with turning blanks. I incorporated the shelving units I had at the lake along with the two new ones and now have them pretty well full of wood, project materials and hand tools.
I still have to disassemble a work bench and the table saw before the machinery can be moved. I also need to take down an air cleaner and ceiling fixtures to bring back. After all of that I can build the dividing wall to separate the shop from the other half of the basement. The final step will be adding the electricity and dust collection to areas of the shop. That is probably going to take most of the month of January to accomplish.

So I was feeling a little tired of all work and no play in the shop. I had started working on a Christmas ornament project and decided to bring just enough tools up to the new shop to complete the project. I will end up making Christmas ornaments after Christmas. Being able to work on a project, even a late one, trumps packing and toting anytime. The project uses basswood and brass tubing to make older style Christmas lights. I used red, blue, green, orange, and yellow dyes to color the bulbs and spray gloss lacquer to finish them.

Cutting the tubing into 1/2 inch segments was a little more challenging than I thought but the major challenge was trying to reproduce a consistent shape for the bulb body. Even with a template the variations in the shapes was considerable. I will post a picture of the range of colors later. It was fun to take a break.

Why in the world was I saving all this?

The project of relocating my shop has made me realize I am a wood hoarder! Just like those poor folks on TLC "Hoarders" I have been collecting "important and potentially useful" pieces of wood.

While I was deciding what to move and what to dispose of, I realized that I had so many little left overs that I would be better off disposing of all these scraps. Now it seems quite foolish to have saved them.

So, with this realization, I filled up several totes with small scraps and created our first fire of the winter.

This move is proving beneficial on many levels: being able to access my shop more often, cleaning and reorganizing both the old shop area into a useful garage and the basement into a nicer area, and now, enjoying a fire from the hoarded wood.

Quilted maple bowl

A teacher/friend of mine from West Virginia, Joe Smith, gave me a couple pieces of wood when I took a class from him this fall: two pieces of quilted maple. I have been to Cedar Lakes Conference Center in Ripley, WV a number of times to take classes with Joe. He is an excellent turner and teacher.

The first blank turned into a shallow bowl with rim with some of the most vibrant quilting I have ever seen.

It is 12 inches round by 2 3/4 inches high. the rim is 1 inch wide. In the picture the grain in running horizontally while the quilting runs vertically. The photo does not do the bowl justice since the quilting is acutally more evident than the grain.

I put on four coats of urethane oil and then buffed and waxed with the Beall Polishing system.

A lot has happened since last post

Butternut and walnut hollowed vessel

It's obvious that I haven't been blogging for well over a year but I have been in the wood shop. Two years ago I wrote about my new Jet lathe. Woodturning has become my primary activity to the exclusion of almost all my other projects. As my wife says, "you like woodworking, but woodturning is your passion." And I think she is right. So now I want to resume blogging as one of several changes I am making to improve the quality and quantity of my time in wood working.

The big move

I decided over two years ago that it would be a good idea to locate all my wood shop at our lake house, twenty miles away from my residence. It was appealing because we have a four car garage there and I could have most of a very large, flat area for my work. When I bought new tools, table saw and lathes, I had them delivered to the lake house garage.

Then, I started realizing the problems I had created. First and foremost, I was a 45 minute drive away from my wood shop which meant that I had to have a chunk of several hours to make the round trip worthwhile. Secondly, I soon realized that a little air conditioner did not cool the garage in the summer and the two baseboard heaters did not heat the space in the winter. I didn't go at all on certain days because it would be too uncomfortable. Finally, I noticed that some of my equipment was rusting or getting mold, both due to the excess humidity from the lake.

So, the first big change I am making is to bring everything back to my home. A short sentence is describing a long, heavy, dusty undertaking. I am now realizing that I have a very large stash of wood blanks for turning and a much larger array of tools, jigs, accessories, and what-nots. So I am making two or three trips a week loading my Explorer with smaller items and all my hand tools.

Preparation work

The basement workshop needs some work in order to be useful. We are building a wall to separate the  workshop from the rest of the unfinished basement and adding electrical outlets where needed.

When that is finished, I will hire some movers for help since everything (table saw, lathe, band saw, drill press, jointer, planer, work benches and cabinets, etc) will need to go down the basement.

Mid January is goal

I would like to have everything working in my new workshop around mid January.  In the meantime I need to prepare some blanks for a January class at John Campbell and to organize a gazillion items in their new home.