Yesterday I put in my notice at work and soon I will no longer be a consultant. For the last 15 years I have lived by the billable hour but now I am entering the world of Big Tech thanks to an offer I could not refuse.
It will be interesting to see how the year shakes out in a new industry (they have an employee wood-shop).
Life is full of change.
While I had the drill press out on the bench I went ahead and drilled the spindle holes in the crest rail. I’ve got some more shaping to do and then the best 4 will be used on the chairs.
My second had POS drill press needed some help in order to drill spindle holes in the seats. I built a quick platform and used holdfasts to lock the drill-press in place. I wish i could justify a decent one but i just so rarely need a drill press.
This afternoon i was touring the new office space of one of my clients (tech startup) when my host pointed out their new tables. Inlaid brass butterflies work pretty well in the “industrial chic” of their new office.
Then I happened to notice the oddly consistent need for split control and became suspicious.
Is it just me or do those look like saw marks in that split?
So my wife and I did something crazy. Like, I still wake up in the middle of the night wondering if this was a terrible idea. We bought a “ranch” in northern Wyoming…
The property has been neglected for decades and I just spent a few days exploring and figuring out what needs work (short answer is everything) and the scale of this project is a bit overwhelming. There is no house at the moment (it burned down) but there is a garage/workshop that needs a new roof. I’m sure the seller will being clearing some of it out but I might end up with some functional tools.
A while back I saw a clamp storage station on Reddit and saved the image to my phone. I found that image this weekend and cranked out a version for my garage. I didn’t realize how many clamps I had.
Between the pocket holes and the band saw this was a pretty quick build and has already made a difference in the garage.
I was telling a friend of mine that the plus side of being a woodworker is you can build cool stuff but the downside is we tend to overbuild it. Case in point, i went to hone depot to get lumber for a sandbox and they had 2/12 rough sawn redwood board that were almost the same price as pressure treated.
My fore plane removed the fuzz and my spoke shave smoothed the chipped edges. Then I used percussion right angles and a half dozen clamps with 10 outdoor grade pocket screws and gorilla glue in each corner.
Square sandbox unfortunately showed that the yard edging was not.
Side note, my oldest asked if a Gorilla handed me the glue like on TV.
