Time to Rename the Blog??

I am seriously thinking of renaming my blog "Woodworking on the Event Horizon". Those of you who enjoy a good black hole joke may get a chuckle.

I figure that while I am working feverishly on things, it appears to the casual observer that my shop is at a standstill!

Bringing the Ship Around to the Next Cabinet

Well I got one of the two motors finished. My local motor shop has been more than generous to me, in addition to throwing in the spray can of special paint for the windings last time, this time they pulled the motor's bearings and supplied new ones to me, all at no charge! They are definitely on my Christmas card list this year. This motor I blinged up with gold paint to lend it a touch-o-class. It'll look great on the bandsaw I want to restore, someday . . .

CGE 1 HP Motor Before

 After

Also went out and did another day of chainsaw milling at the beach. It was a beautiful late fall day with snowcapped mountains, crisp air, freighters from around the world in the harbour, and downtown Vancouver all in the background. I had a terrible day of milling however, the saws were naughty and I spent way more time fooling around with setups than with actual cutting. I wound up with 5 short slabs of very nice elm for my 3 1/2-ish hours of work. There's one more elm left there, then I hope I don't get any more elm for a long while!

I have been sidetracked from my woody activities in a major fashion, my dad gave me 2000+ old slides of his from the 50's to the 70's and asked me to scan them into my computer. I have started, it takes a huge amount of time, but it is kind of fun to see all the old family photos, many of them before my time.

In other news, I have made some planning progress on the cabinet. I did up some sketches, reviewed some other curved front cabinets, refreshed myself on laminating for the curved door, etc etc. Regretfully, I will not be able to use the oak I had previously selected. The pieces are just too narrow and will not yield the width I want. This was definitely a disappointment, as the air dried oak was a real joy to work with the plane.

However, I do have some mildly spalted maple with some nice suble colouration in it. I just ran it through the kiln a month or so ago. Because of the colours in it, it will be a tougher to use than the somewhat bland riftsawn oak though. But it will give me eight inches of width, more than I need.  Soon the oak will be a distant memory.

Shop In Order

The Hammond Glider and the General 14" planer are both dialed in now, (other than dust collection), and I am really hoping to get to some woodworking now!

I do have two 14" bandsaws and two 6" jointers that I would like to restore. Also the Morrison Printer's saw. However, I think they will have to wait for now.

I am still working on the rebuild of the other two motors though. They are apart on my bench, but I am inching forward with them. A broken bolt has delayed things.

Decisions were made on the yellow cedar lined display case. I want it to be made of 100% wood that I harvested myself. I finally selected on one of my oak slabs that was nicely rift sawn to use on the exterior, and managed to cut some nice clear sections out of it. It was one of the ones in this photo, I milled it in 2008 I think.

 I also trimmed a piece of yellow cedar to use on the interior. It is a bit narrower than I would have liked, I will have to slip match the veneers that I cut from it. Browsing through my library(?) of yellow cedar pieces, I noticed quite a variation in colour and in grain pattern. I had always thought that the old growth yellow cedar was pretty similar - wrong! This one the grain lines are so tight I can't even see them (yes, even with my glasses on!)

I think I will use lumber core construction for the carcass. It'll be the first time for me. I selected a piece of linden that came from a tree about two blocks from where I live.  Linden is pretty soft, it's popular for carving. I think it is stable and should do well as the core.

Here are all the pieces, trimmed up and seasoning in my shop.

I also had a chance to spend a day at the beach slabbing up a couple big elm logs with one of my friends. Using the 60" bar with the mill on it on a crotch piece was an awful lot of work, and it took the both of us to push the mill. There just seemed to be a lot of fooling around with set up, trimming, saw adjustment, etc, so ultimately we did not get a lot of slabs, only six in total.

The load is still drying away gently in the kiln, a month now. It's taking longer than in the past as I am better able to control the rate of drying and I don't want to rush it.