Monday, January 16, 2012

Current Project

I am currently building a chest of drawers and I have spent the weekend fitting the dtawers. Shown below is the case and base. The case is made of red oak plywood and the base is  mase of 3/4 in red oak. The face frame is red red oak.


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In the photo below the drawers have been built and the drawer supports are fitted. and the four boards of red oak has been edge glued to form the top.


Currently I am fitting the drawer guides and installing the drawers in the cabinet.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

My Woodworking Journey to Date

In 1974 my wife anf I purchased a home that was built in 1894. This home needed extensive work and we were able to purchase on an as is basis at a very low price. This old home had large amounts of Oak trim and other ornamental lumber. We knew we had large amount of remodeling work to get completed and many upgrades to the home to make.

I began to aquire tools as we went through the remodeling journey. We first rebuilt the electrical and plumbing and painted and spruced up the outside. By this time it was 1977 and we began work on the inside. The first thing we wanted to complete was the ktchen and it needed cabinets. I decided I could build cheaper than buy. I purchased a Craftsman Radial Arm saw, 12 In Bandsaw, and a drill press..

I was reading anything I could read about making cabinets and along the way I butchered a little plywood in the learning process. I decided I needed a table saw and purchased a Craftsman 10 in Flex Drive. I was able to build simple cabinets and install them and have a functional kitchen. We did the usual things such as painting the walls and refinishing the Oak trim that somehow did not get painted in the 50's during the white paint craze.

Upon completion of the remodel I had all these tools that I was not using so I started thinking about woodworking and thought it could be a great hobby. I decided to give it a try and built a night stand out of Birch and became addicted to making saw dust. I will share some photos of these items in future posts.

In fall of 1981 my wife informed I was going to be a father and I decided to build a cradle and made it out of redwood.. After my son was born  my carreer in Industrial Electronic Controls began to take off. My carreer and responsibilities of  fanily left little time for any hobbies, Life sometimes gets in the way of fun. In 1985 we were blessed with a daugher,

So, Woodworking was on hold. Fast forward to 2009. Our son and daughter were now both married and I was ready to do something with my spare time and knowing that I would reitire in the next 10 years and I knew that I did not want to sit and do nothing I decided to get back to hobby woodworking. I decided to turn my garage into a wood workshop, I started by subscribing to Wood Magazine and Fine Woodworking and then arragning the garage and created Bills Garage Workshop.I will soon be posting pictural shop tour on the blog.

I created this blog to share information about woodworking with other woodworkers that have the same passion for sharing and learning new woodworking skills as I do . I hope to find others that will want to continue on this journey with me.

Thank you taking the time to read. my blog
Bill