Fall Startup

Things were even slower than usual over the summer and early fall here at the Slow Woodworker. I am thinking of changing the name of my blog to The Almost Ground to A Halt Woodworker!

A summer of family activities, including some travel and working with my son on rebuilding a 1971 Austin Mini took priority over the woodworking.

One small woodworking activity I did manage to accomplish over the summer was levelling an elm slab that was too big for my planer by using a router jig. I have no idea what I will use the slab for, but at least it is flat and level now!

I still have the yellow cedar Japanese style lamp and the oak slab small table that I want to complete. I also would like to make a couple of simple boxes to give out as Christmas presents.

The chainsawing season has started up at the local log dump area. There are quite a few nice logs down there that I hope to get to over the course of the winter. Unfortunately it started up a month later than it normally does, then just before it opened I broke a finger. I still have four more weeks in a splint, but it is feeling good and I am hopeful that chainsawing will not be too hard on it!

One thing I did manage to do was get a couple loads of wood through the kiln. These were all slabs that I milled up at least two years ago. I think two years ago was when a lot of cherry stated appearing at the log dump, so most of these slabs were cherry. Also a bit of Monterey cypress and some elm. Probably have enough slabs for two more kiln loads over the next couple of months. However, since my woodworking output is so fantastically mismatched with the amount of wood slabs I am sawing and drying, a huge surplus of slabs has once again built up. So rather than resolve the problem, I have elected to create more storage space by sellilng off some of my old woodworking machinery that I purchased with the intention of restoring and then using.

Here is a picture of my woodpile on the side of the house, in the middle of me pulling out slabs to put in the kiln. Everything I mill up goes in this pile for two years to dry out to about 12%, before I put it in the kiln, which takes it down to about 8%.