brianspence

A song that Nathan Davis helped me get on tape. It’s been in my head for at least 3 years. I wrote in on a couch.

I have been camping too much lately and haven’t been woodworking. So today I thought I would help a tree become a shaving horse. The first step is splitting it in two, so that is what I did.

Cutting my own logs might be cheaper but it still comes with the price of physical labor. Still, it’s cheaper. The tools I used were two metal wedges, a 3 pound hammer and some pry bars. I am working on the cheap.

This is phase one, I just finished splitting it and came inside for some Red Diamond tea. I am now going to plan out the next step, which is kind of odd for me, I usually just wing it. That is not the correct way I guess, I still need to work on my patience.

 

Those are some well fit drawers.

architizer:

The table that talked back.

(via wood-yeah)

I decided that I needed a large mallet for splitting wood with a steel wedge. Something about hitting a steel wedge with a steel hammer scares the shit out of me. It could be the story my stepdad told me when I was young. 

He said he was splitting firewood with a steel wedge and a sledgehammer. One unlucky blow caused a small piece of metal to fly off either the sledge or the wedge, I don’t remember which. Regardless, it had enough power behind it that when it hit the inside of his knee it took him down. He said it literally took his leg out from under him. He had to take a ride to the hospital and have a chunk ‘o metal surgically removed. 

Ok, that is not the main reason I built my own wooden mallet but it sure does keep replaying in my head when I am splitting wood.

I built it mainly because I enjoy building my own tools. I have built a couple hand planes, a jointer and a smoothing plane. I am in the process of building my own bow saw. Hardware decisions are the only thing holding that project up. I have built a smaller mallet for chisel work as well. I have plans to make a wooden square as well as a few other tools that I don’t want to buy.

I find the amount of gadgets in the woodworking catalogs to be a little overwhelming, there is so much stuff in there that seems useless. For instance, I don’t think a micrometer belongs in my workshop. The day I find myself measuring plane shavings is the day I need to reevaluate what I am trying to do. 

But beyond the micrometer, there are other things in those catalogs that are easy to build at home. Why buy it if you can build it? Granted, my sledgehammer looks like ass, but it’s not a precision tool either. It’s for hitting shit. That is it’s only task. 

Anyway, these pictures sort of show how I did it. 

I was browsing the /r/woodworking section of reddit this morning and the subject of “required reading” came up. I hate to use that term because we all have different goals in our art. But these two books changed the way I look at woodworking, both as an art and as a profession. 

In other words, I stopped looking at woodworking as a profession and started looking at it as an art.

The way that Krenov describes choosing wood for a project was a real eye opener. I no longer grab wood haphazardly from the wood rack, saw it to dimension, and assemble it without thought of how the grain pattern will affect the piece. I have to slow down, take some time, and choose the wood. Wow, what a concept. It’s simple. But in the world in which I was trained, in a cabinet shop, it was all about production, deadlines, and speed. It was instilled in my brain to do things quickly. As a result, I now have to be aware that it’s not a race anymore. I need to slow down and really search for what the wood says. I hope that doesn’t sound hokey. But I find it to be true.

The photos above are from The Fine Art Of Cabinetmaking and show a door with different rails in place. It’s amazing how the grain changes the mood of the cabinet. Warning: The kitchen cabinets in peoples houses will drive you nuts after seeing this.

So here is my dilemma, well it shouldn’t be too much of a dilemma considering a few things. But as always, my brain tries to tell me I can get away with things that I know I can’t.

In this case it’s using the trees pictured above for legs on my workbench. My brain says “Dude, you have the tools to make this work. You have a nice felling axe, a broad axe and an adze, make those trees your bitch and turn them into legs!” My experience tells me that I have to wait for the moisture content to get to an acceptable level or the legs will go haywire and cause everything to slowly fall apart over time.

Time. That is what I have a problem with here. I want what I want and I want it now. But I have to wait. I started with a plan to use this crummy white pine lumber from a home center and I need to stick with that plan regardless of what my brain tries to talk me into.

If I could find some seasoned Walnut then I could use that. But cost is a factor here, I have all the wood I need to complete the bench sans fuck up. But I really want to make some beams with my new toys….. 

Maybe I’ll just fell a few more trees this weekend and work out a pulley system for getting them up the hill from the holler and into the back yard. Quietly, so the wife doesn’t freak out when the backyard becomes a makeshift lumberyard.

Another bit of progress on the Roubo, I have finished truing the first side of the top. Now onto the other side. I want to have two really flat surfaces when I start to cut the mortises. But that’s a way down the road, first i need to glue up some legs and cut tenons, which comes after I flatten the other side of the top and mount the tail vise and wooden chop. 

Patience.

Eight year old sings her first hardcore song. This makes me happy.