Well now that the major projects for the holiday season are out of the way.  It’s time for a little Shop reflection.  Doing a lot of projects for the holiday season really lets you know what does and doesn’t work in your shop.  Especially, if you have a small shop.  Everything in a small shop needs to be carefully thought out to serve a purpose and use as little space as possible.  Plus, there are the things that have been bothering me for a long time.  It’s a good time to look at all of the issues I have with my shop, and figure out what can be addressed now and what needs to wait.

One thing that is in immediate need is my lumber storage.  My lumber storage consists of two shelf brackets attached to the wall.  Now, this worked well for the first

Well, this year’s holiday season was a productive one in my shop.  I made lots of presents, baby blocks for my twin 1 and 1/2 year old nephews, a bunch of cutting boards, and a couple of other projects that I won’t mention because they’re not done yet.  Yep, that’s right it’s well into January and I am still not done making Christmas gifts.  I tried blaming it on the elves but that didn't work.  So I tried doing something unusual I told them the truth. 

I tried to get them all done on time, but I started to rush and like most people when I rush I make mistakes. Not only in the project, but also in safety.  I get rushing around and don’t put on my respirator, because it is all the way on the other side of the shop.  The floor of the shop looks like a sawdust and scrap wood monster exploded, and tools become strewn all about the shop.  I kept pushing and pushing to make that Dec 25th deadline.  It was the week before Christmas and I started to realize that some of the projects were not going to get done.  And for the first time in that hectic month I looked around at the mess.  The sawdust covering every thing, the scrap wood tripping hazards all over the floor, and the tools left out all over everything.  It was time to step back and take an unsawdust filled breath.  I decided to finish the one project that was almost done. As well as put the finish on the ones that were done.  I told all that were supposed to get presents that they would be late.  They really didn’t mind. I guess no one likes getting presents handed to them from a bloody stump!

Remember when Christmas was fun?  Every year I would get ready for Santa with my Christmas list clenched in my fist.  Mommy, mommy can we send the list.  My mom would always send that list off to Santa for me.  Right there is where my Christmas workload ended.  The only other thing I had to do all season long was to eat Christmas cookies and wait for Santa to arrive.  As I got older and holiday responsibilities increased, Christmas became less magical and more and more a hassle, almost to the point of hatred.   Long lines in that dreaded place called the mall left me with a bad taste in my mouth, and all the Christmas cookies I ate couldn’t wash the taste out of my mouth.   Last year Christmas around my house was hard.  With my mother’s failing health and my hours cut at work I needed a way to get gifts for my nieces and nephews, as well as something to focus my mind on to help relieve the depression from dealing with my mom’s situation.  So, I turned to the shop to help me with both.  I made a couple of projects mainly for my nieces and nephew.  One of my favorite toys as a kid was this block of wood that was turned into a tic tac toe game it had to holes drilled into the side to keep the marbles in.  I made a bunch of those and the kids loved them.  Unfortunately, this Christmas season is no better then last, with the passing of my mother this past summer.  I know this year is going to be hard. So this year once again I turn to my shop for comfort, making hand made gifts for family and friends.  Making gifts instead of buying them seems to have done a couple of things, one it keeps me out of the mall, which is always a good thing, second it has seemed to have restored my faith in Christmas.  And that is the best gift of all.

These last couple of months have been so hectic I have had hardly any shop time what so ever.  I start to long for my shop the way you long for home when you are away for a long time.   Am I alone in this or is it something that happens to every woodworking hobbyist?   I found myself putsing in the shop the other day.  I knew I only had about 20 min so I didn’t want to start anything, I put away a couple of things and then started to plane the edge of a pine scrap board for no reason.  Just decided to make a bunch of shavings with my block plane.  If woodworking is my drug, then going into the shop and planing a board for no reason must be my methadone.  I am curious though; I wonder what others do to get their woodworking fix.  Other then TV and Internet stuff, I think we all do that one let me know.

I saw the plant stand I built for my wife's classroom, and it is a reminder that when you build a item for a specific spot it might not always be in that spot.  Originally, the plant stand was meant to go in-between the back of her desk and the window.  The plant stand was one of my earlier projects, and like many of you I’m sure you pick apart every mistake made on a piece.   What I told my self at the time was don't worry about it no one would ever see it.  The stand will be behind the desk.  Well the wife likes it somewhere else, and that’s ok it's her stand.  Now the plant stand doesn’t have any plants on it, and is prominently displayed in the classroom.  I just have to remember things change.  Just because I built something for a specific place or purpose, doesn’t mean that years down the road it will be doing either of those things.  I need to keep my standards up because some day, the front may be the back.   And if I want to build things that last, I need to build things that change too.

Like so many of us in this struggling to recover economy.  It was difficult to do a lot of holiday shopping this past Christmas season.  The money just wasn’t there.  So what I wound up giving my wife was a lot of promises, promises I am finding difficult to keep.   There were three projects that my wife wanted me to do.  A bookcase for our basement / office area, she is a teacher and could use some more storage (it looks like a library threw up down here, don't tell her that I said that).   A corner kitchen hutch, that she saw while I was watching The New Yankee Workshop, and last but not least two closet organizers for the master bedroom.  We are now in June and I haven’t started working on any of them.   The financial situation is not any better then it was in December.   So what is a loving really good-looking husband to do?   Well I think I have a couple options.  Option 1 is to run away to a cabin in northern Canada where she will be unable to find me.  Option 2 Convince her that I never told her that I would make these projects for her.   Option 3 (the only one that doesn’t result in castration) Scale back the projects.   The corner hutch is a painted project that is made out of butch ply and poplar so that wouldn’t be too bad cost wise.   For the bookcase, I was going to make a solid wood case with glass frame and panel doors in the arts and craft theme.  I think I will be able to scale back on this project.  If I scrap the doors and make the carcass out of oak ply, I will be able to cut down the cost considerably.  And the project that will cost the most the closet organizer.  I could only do her closet, but I think it would be better to do them at the same time so that the wood will match.  This is the one that worries me, so I might have to let this one go.  Well two out of three is not too bad right?  I guess I could always reconsider option 1 and 2, oh wait castration that’s right never mind.

I was fortunate to have participated in the Sawdust Chronicles fall 2009 build challenge.  I built a media center for my wife’s classroom.  It’s a table where kids can sit and listen to music and stories and other activities like that.  They need it moved out of the way, so my wife will be bringing it home for a couple of weeks.  This will give me an opportunity to see how it is faring and fix some things that have been bothering me since the critique for the contest. Neil Lamens Of  http://furnitology.blogspot.com  brought up some design issues with the upper shelf, and I agree.  So, now I will hopefully get a chance to fix them.  I’m not sure what I will do with the upper half to make it more fitting with the lower half.  It will have to be somewhat simple because I don’t have a lot of time and money, we will see.  I am looking forward to it, how often do we get to go back and fix past projects?  I am planning on turning the fixing of the media center into a podcast so look for that in a month or so.

I bought some goodies yesterday from Rockler.  I used the Rockler Gift Card I won from doing the 2009 Fall Build Challenge.  the sawdustcronicals.com  I bought a combo water stone 1000/6000 ( was reading around and people are saying that this is a good grit to start with, if you can only afford one),  and a jig to hold the blades while I give honing a try.  I also got a nice Shop Dust Collection Expandable hose and a good system for hooking it up to my machines.  Lets face it, looks really neat. it expands from a couple of feet to clear across my tiny shop.  Now if I just could afford a dust collector.

Well let's see, I am a man of few words so a blog is perfect thing for me to do.  I am more of an video and audio kind of guy.  So I plan to do a bunch of video posts, and some day audio.  I prefer audio posts because I can listen to them on my 2 hour round trip drive to work.  My day job is more technical then woodworking.  I work for a government access T.V. station where I do a little bit of everything from camera and editing to video and audio engineering.  So, it is nice to come home and play with hand planes and chisels.   I wanted to do this podcast / blog to give back.  I take so much from the internet, that I thought it would be interesting to follow me on my journey.   They say that Apprenticeships are far and few between, I beg to differ.  I just think that the nature of them changed.  I think that the mentors have shifted from the corner shop to the internet.   This is excellent for those of us just learning.  We can take information from many different mentors from all over the world.