The despicable art of compromise. No new benches for now.

So, I did some soul searching about the proposed new bench projects. The short version is, I'm putting them off until I feel more secure in the idea that it's reasonable to build two new benches. That day won't come for a while.

Ready to bring home

The home bench project... I spent weeks poring over all of my workbench books, and sketching out versions of modified, shortened shaker style benches.  I really wanted a bench with a lot of storage, to hold all of the household tools and project "stuff." But the point of having a bench at home is to get my hand skills back up to snuff, and try a few new things that have intrigued me for a while now. I'm more interested in getting right to work than I am in detouring further into new-bench fantasies. So I decided that the best solution was to simply chop down the bench I had at the shop. The work is done, and the most noteworthy part of the exercise was using Chris' huge old Oliver sliding table saw. It's a terrifying machine that gives me the willies. But it's incredibly capable, and it's impossible for me not to be impressed. Cross-cutting a 2.5" thick, 24" wide maple top is not a small thing, I don't think. This machine thinks otherwise.

Shape of things to come

And the shop bench... well, when the shop is more profitable, the shop will be able to afford a new bench. I have many ideas. In the meantime, while my regular bench has been chopped and taken home, I do still have an 8' Sjoberg Elite that I can use. I thought it was nice when I bought it. It has since been moved to my shop equipment shit list. I have a list of issues with this bench, not the least of which is that it's been pretty unstable. At this point, it's moved back to something more closely resembling flat, so I feel reasonably comfortable in resurfacing it. But 2 years ago it was warped enough that re-flattening would have taken out something around 1/4" to 1/2" of the overall thickness. Had I done so, and then allowed it all to stabilize again, I'd have lost another 1/4" in flattening it now. I've thought about touching it up and selling it, but the truth is that I have better ways to spend my time. So I'll make it work, until I feel good about building something better.

I could bash this bench all day, but it's possible that I'm just being an overly fussy prick about something that will still do the job. It's big, it's heavy, and it's thick enough to support the massive Emmert, I think... It's long enough to be useful, and it does have some pretty hefty bench dogs. And now that it's a few years old, the wood may have seasoned enough that it will be pretty stable. I can hope, anyway. For now, I'm planning the Emmert install... and working on more profitable things in the meantime.

General update... bench projects on the way.

As I've mentioned in the last two posts, my hand skills are in need of a serious dusting off. So, one of the solutions is to start doing a little bit of work at home. Once I'm done with the current project, and make more progress on the chess table refinishing, I'm going to be making a small bench for use at home.

It should be an interesting project to write about, for several reasons. First and most obvious, I'm a woodworking geek, and there's just something about building a workbench that just gets me going. I'm going to have to flex my creative muscles, because I want to make the bench out of material I already have on hand, rather than splurging on new lumber or hardware. That may sound a little misleading, since I have a fair amount of nice lumber on hand. This isn't going to be a budget bench, or built out of scraps, and the vise will come from one of my benches at the shop. But the other reason that the project will be possibly interesting to home-bound hobbyists is that the at home context adds a few complications.

This is going to be a short bench: it's not going to be longer than 4.5 feet, if it's that long. For most work, that should still be enough space, but it's still smaller than I'm used to taking up. I've been taking my time with the design to make sure it's as useful as possible, with minimal wasted space. Since space is at a premium, I'm going to include built-in tool storage. It's not clear yet whether or not that element will be completed in the shop, or at home. I'm guessing home,  since building drawers is a good skills building exercise, but we'll see.

Because this will be at home, I want the bench to look pretty nice. No, I'm not planning on serving dinner on it or anything, but it'll be located in the entryway just inside my front door. If I have clients come by to visit, I want them to be immediately impressed. The top will be laminated out of maple that I have on hand. The frame will be built with some cherry that I've had around for a while. I'm planning to use some wedged tusk tenons to tighten up the stretchers, as a decorative element; no exposed nuts and bolts. (Not that it's hard to hide nuts and bolts, but this seemed like a more elegant solution to holding the frame together.)

In other bench building news, I'll also be reworking my bench in the shop. The short of it is that I've decided I want a longer and thicker bench surface that will accommodate the Emmert vise I've been sitting on for over a year now. This winter's chair-building exercises have sold me on its virtues, and it's time to put it to good use.

For the serious geeks who check in periodically and want to know, the influences on the home bench will be taken from Chris Schwartz' book, mixed with some Shaker sensibilities and a few other ideas. The new bench at the shop will probably have some serious French influences.

...and a few more...

I had a few hours to kill, so I headed up to the shop again today to cut some more dovetails. The project is at a standstill until I get the 2 drawers cut, but because it's been so long, I really want to make sure I can still cut good drawers by hand. The most recent sets were very promising. Not super-perfect, but nice and tight, no blowouts, no real issues... but there were still some (very small) gaps. I only had time to cut 2 full joints before the real world called me away, but I'm reassured that my hand skills have not completely dissipated over the past year.

Just as a goof, I used two different saws this time... a Japanese style saw for one of the joints, and a euro-style saw that was made for me by Adam Cherubini. The question I was asking myself when I decided to do this, had to do with the fact that I used Japanese saws pretty exclusively through school, and on most of my projects since then. But somewhere along the line, I picked up a couple of smaller dovetail saws, just to expand my skill range. So, the thought I had was that maybe the sloppiness the other day was due to the fact that I wasn't using the (more familiar) Japanese style. Short answer: nope. Just out of practice.

I have enough of my practice wood to cut a few more practice rounds before I make these drawers, and deliver the final product, after which I'll talk more about it. It's intended to be a surprise, which is why I haven't given much in the way of details.

Been a while

It's been a hard year. Survivable, and I know I'm not alone, but still hard.

Survivable is the key word in that last sentence, as evidenced by the fact that I'm slowly getting more shop time in. And just the other night, I was able to get in and chop some dovetails.

I have 2 drawers to cut for the current project, but it's been over a year since I've cut any. That's a little bit disheartening to think about, but it's true. So, I feel thankful that I had the presence of mind to cut some practice ones first. And based on the results, I think I'll be cutting a few more before touching the real ones.

The issues may not be readily apparent in a small picture, but they're there, and I need to sharpen my skills some more.

MMMMMM... wormy

So, I was up in the shop the other day, trimming the ends off of a laminated maple top for a project I'm working on. It's solid maple, and plenty thick, so I made the rough cuts to length at my bench with a worm drive circ saw. Buried the blade to full depth in the maple block, and it just kept chugging.

I really love worm drive saws. Not a whole lot of use for them on a daily basis, but man do they have power.

Boucing back

So, one of the reasons I haven't been blogging is that my computer, until yesterday, had been out of commission. Like so many other stories of loss, it went to sleep one afternoon, and just wouldn't wake up. Thankfully, that's been fixed. I can't say how long it's been out of commission, but it's been a while, certainly over a month.

It was a bit of a shock to sign into the blog for the first time and see where I was a month and a half ago. I'm in a much better space than I was.

The bartending thing hasn't taken off yet, I'm sorry to say. But it hasn't taken off, because I've been working as a supervisor for the US Census Bureau. I won't bore you with too many details, but it's been good, solid work, that pays good, solid money. And it's been a constantly shifting situation, which has been refreshing, in a bizarre way. I like things that are always changing, and this is one of those jobs. Thanks to my time in the military, and my recent forays into running a business, I feel like I was very well prepared. And I was lucky enough to wind up with a supervisor who appreciates the work that I do, and my ability to react in a productive way to a constantly changing landscape.

The shop is slowly spinning back up again. Obligations in my time off have taken up more time than normal, with a couple of short night classes thrown into the mix, reducing my ability to go to the shop at night. But I have been up, and I'm getting back into a few projects, one of which is a pair of chairs, and another is a small bench for doing hand work at home. The bench project is in the planning stages, but it should be fun. It's also going to coincide with a redux of one of the existing benches that I have in the shop right now, so I can get my Emmert vise mounted and usable.

There's more, but I wanted to check in and let the world know that things have rebounded, and the world is looking better from here.

Hitting bottom.

Obviously, I haven't written in a while. I haven't been in the shop, either.

In a word, I've been unemployed. And I needed to bottom out. It sounds a little weird, but it makes sense to me. I feel the need to clear the air, and iterate where I am now.

In short, I haven't brought anything I'm happy with to completion in almost a year. Since then, I've been either working temp jobs or looking for temp jobs. And I think I really needed that time away to think about things, and re-assess. It's not a new phenomenon... after the first few months of dating my fiancee, we broke up, and I had to take the summer to make the necessary adjustments, and come back with a better idea of what I wanted. Four years after we started dating, we're happily engaged, and getting married in the fall.

In the past three years I've set up shop three times. And when I wasn't doing that, I was panicking about how I was going to make it pay. And in the end, working militantly alone, I couldn't make it pay.

Looking back, I think that if I'd either focused on marketing myself as a builder, or focused on building and outsourced the marketing, I'd have been fine. But in the end, I can't do everything well, and I needed to learn that the hard way. Thankfully, two good friends have come forward to remind me that they are well enough connected that they think they can represent my interests to the right people. I'm in the process now of cleaning up my final piece from school, to test this theory. From now on, I'll rely on them to help me with the sales end of things.

For now, I'm still working temp jobs. The current one is predicted to run for 8-10 weeks, and has a pretty flexible schedule. I've also just completed bartending school. My plan, such as it is, is to continue to work flexible jobs to pay the bills. Money was my greatest source of stress. And my stress level kept me from doing good or efficient work. So, the side jobs will serve to help alleviate that stress. When I'm not working my temp job or tending bar, I'll be in the shop, focusing on two things: I want to build the best and most impressive pieces of furniture that I'm capable of building. And I want to continue to stretch my capabilities.

I committed myself to fine woodworking to pursue that kind of work, and that level of skill. It's taken me three years, and many bumps and bruises to remember that.