Lots of projects this week!

October 13, 2017

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Fred

It's been a very busy week. I won't get too into it, but here's a quick overview of the projects I've been working on in the shop.

First off, my apprentices are fixing all kinds of things around the house. Here you see them fixing the door to the basement.

No surprise here. I'm working on a flag for an old friend from college. This is now finished and just awaiting assembly.

The same friend also ordered a helmet stand for his father that is already done. This is the one that I put the walnut racing stripe in. There's yet another helmet display stand on deck for my college roommate.

My boys' school's (the above apprentices) big annual fundraiser is coming up and each class puts together a big gift package to be auctioned off. The kindergarten class' theme is family game night. I built a giant "Falling Tower" game with a crate. The kids are going to decorate the blocks and I'm going to make a little cart to put this thing on. It's HEAVY!

I found some time today to work on a shop project (a project for the actual shop, that is). My awesome miter saw seemed a little bit off, so I spent some time with shims and and straight edges getting it all aligned today. The extended fence that I've had on there for the past eight or nine months was made of a jointed and planed 2x4. It was kinda straight, but 2x4s tend to move a lot with changes in humidity. Today I also replaced the fence with a maple one. This is another piece from the "crazy twisted or marred" stack at the lumber yard. The defect of this piece was that it was taken from the side of the tree and there was a large chunk of bark along one edge. It was actually the perfect size and shape for this and I think the "live edge" at the end works well.