# Question Of The Week... ( 2019 week 34)



## ripjack13 (Aug 14, 2019)

*We all know that there's a plethora of hobbies to do and challenge us, but, Why did you choose this hobby?




*

**Rules**
There is no minimum post requirement,
primates, woodticks, wood spinners, and leprechauns are welcome to post an answer.
And of course the  and the guy with the messy shop too....


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## ripjack13 (Aug 18, 2019)

Bump up.


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## Rocking RP (Aug 18, 2019)

Started out as a necessity. I've always liked working with wood. Mostly restoring pieces I'd find at garage sales, etc. Bought a large butcher block at an estate sale in San Angelo. The legs were short and had large cracks in several of them. Decided I would try turning replacement legs. Several months later bought a Shopsmith that had lathe tools with it. Gentleman that sold me the butcher block also told me about a woodturning club here in Midland. I attended the turn in the park to get some idea of the how to and with encouragement and help from the members got the courage to do it. Found large slab of maple at Acacia Hardwoods in Lubbock, had them cut me four 4X4 blanks, and turned them into legs. The feeling and excitement of taking a stick and turning into something useful is a great feeling. And that is how I got HOOKED ON TURNING

Reactions: Like 3 | Way Cool 7


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## ripjack13 (Aug 18, 2019)

Nice legs.....

Reactions: Funny 4


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## woodman6415 (Aug 18, 2019)

Hobby chose me

Reactions: Like 2


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## Mike1950 (Aug 18, 2019)

worked in the woods with gramps as a kid. enjoyed the smells and working with wood. Worked on and built house, but played in the mud as a career - made sand and powders into stone. Got sick in 2000 -Kathie had a 30x40 shop built in Backyard to keep me occupied. Bought a Jet 10" TS for $999 as a floor model of Tool store that was going out of biz. Looked funny in center of 30x40 floor. rest is history. Why? cause cars were greasy....

Reactions: Like 5 | Great Post 1


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## Bob Ireland (Aug 18, 2019)

My father had a big influence on starting me with this hobby. Not that he did a lot of woodworking but just enough for me to catch the bug.

Reactions: Like 2


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## Nubsnstubs (Aug 18, 2019)

For me it's just real easy to do. The hardest part is acquiring the tools and space that makes it's much easier to do. ............ Jerry (in Tucson)

Reactions: Like 1


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## T. Ben (Aug 18, 2019)

Had other hobbies but they had got way to expensive and time consuming to continue. I got tired of watching people make stuff on YouTube and decided this was something I wanted to try.

Reactions: Like 3


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## woodtickgreg (Aug 18, 2019)

It all started with 7th grade wood shop class. I took woodshop every year after that and all through high school. I became a teachers aid in shop class, often times I tought the class and I was just a kid, just love to work with wood. I took metal shop too, just didnt have the same love for it even though I enjoyed it. Took graphic arts class but it wasn't really my thing either. I had a building trades class that I really liked, we built a house, that was cool. I took a stagecraft class, we built all the sets for the plays, ran the light board too. Stagecraft also built all the wood lockers in the school, bookshelves for the library, and steps and skirts for the portable classrooms. This was all in California. But wood working has always been my main go to hobby of the many hobbies I have. Milling my own lumber and finding free wood makes it even sweeter. I'll always have sawdust in my veins. Mixed with a little diesel fuel and some grease............

Reactions: Like 3 | Great Post 2


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## Echoashtoreth (Aug 18, 2019)

I have always loved knives, got my first at 3 on the farm - a tiny pen-knife to cut hay bales etc.... dad was a prof carpenter (old school German apprentice cabinet t.ype) and i grew up as his helper doing whatever needed doing - wood, roofing, fence etc... took Vo-Ag in school where i got my first dose of metal working then a Marine Engineers Lic in the Army... came home and went to work in the petro-chem industry.... i have always been one to make what i needed and many years ago a coworker dropped the TX Knifemakers Sply catalog on my desk and said "you should give this a try lil sis, I think you might be good at it".... started w a Harbor freight 30" grinder and began learning... Bigbro was right - my perfectionist tendencies serve me well in the final product....

Reactions: Like 5


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## Nature Man (Aug 18, 2019)

Took a woodshop class in junior high and really enjoyed it. Always spent time in the woods, just liked being among trees. Cut up literally tons of firewood in a later stage of my life, undoubtedly burned up some darn good hardwoods. A friend had a woodshop that I first visited about 13 years ago. He sold me an old lathe with tools. Got the bug big time, and now I collect wood, tools, and knowledge. Also make things along the way, although life certainly gets in the way of this hobby. Chuck

Reactions: Like 2


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## Tony (Aug 18, 2019)

I grew up in a family of people who did everything around the house. If the roof needed to be replaced, we did it. My dad was a mechanic, my uncle a contractor, everyone was pretty handy and had tools around. I played with hammers and nails as a kid, putting scraps of wood together to make toys. We didn't have much money so I entertained myself playing with tools. There wasn't Shop class in my school, I wish there had been, I'd be much better than I am at this. It just fulfills me in a way nothing else does. Tony

Reactions: Like 4 | Way Cool 1


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## Eric Rorabaugh (Aug 18, 2019)

I started going to the jobsite at about 7 when my dad was building houses. Was a gopher until a few years later when I could run a saw. After that if I wasn't in school or the hayfield, I was building houses. Just love working with wood. Love the warmth and character it can have. Cut A LOT of firewood to give away to family and sold some. I remember seeing spalted wood and thinking it's junk. Now I'd love to have a lot of the wood I put in the stove. It amazes me still that you can't tell a lot about the tree until you open it up and turn it down.

Reactions: Like 6


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## DKMD (Aug 18, 2019)

My wife was shopping for cribs when pregnant with our oldest child. I hated the thought of paying that much for disposable furniture, so I bought some tools and made the crib myself. Bought a small lathe a few years later, and I’ve been wasting wood ever since.

Reactions: Like 6


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## David Hill (Aug 18, 2019)

Always liked the opportunity to build things when I was growing up, except my Dad wasn’t the patient type. When I grew up, my wife and I liked going to auctions, which fed my preceding hobby of refinishing abused furniture that morphed into wanting to build furniture we could use. Had most all the machines I’d need (still do), until I happened to watch TV/videos of using the Shopsmith in “lathe mode”. Falling into the vortex didn’t hurt— that is— anything but my wallet.
I like taking a plain piece of wood and making something nice.

Reactions: Like 6


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## CWS (Aug 18, 2019)

When I was growing up dad was always during something that involved wood. Building fence, cutting timber from our 160 acre farm to sell, building repairing farm buildings among other things. My grandfather did a lot of remodeling work for people and I helped him in the summer. Always amazed me how could figure how cut a curved stairway or cut angles on rafter so a roof so fit on a porch roof. Then life got in the way. In 2007 I bought a lathe and it has been a good hobby. Enjoy giving people things I make.

Reactions: Like 4 | Way Cool 1


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## rocky1 (Aug 18, 2019)

Grew up in the wood shop building bee hives. Dad had done a few years in the cabinet shop, he had learned from my great grandfather who owned a cabinet shop, and was an accomplished cabinet maker. While all of that didn't go into bee hives, he always knew a great deal about setting up jigs for the saws, and a good deal about woods. Guess that interest was passed down. After building bee hives for years, took a job as a carpenters helper in high school and expanded my knowledge. Worked carpentering several years in North Dakota for my father-in-law as well. 

Through it all never really took it much as a hobby, it was about building bee hives or houses basically. Built a bookshelf, entertainment center, gun cabinet to fit a house we'd remodeled when I got out of the Air Force, later in life the brother-in-law and I built 30 gallon aquariums out of wood and plate glass we'd taken out of a job on a local gas station. Pet store owner told us it would never work, but they both stood for decades. An end cracked in mine after a year or two, but it was obvious it chipped when cut, setting up the failure. Built a few other smaller projects along and along. 

Got into collecting coyote calls, got more interested in the woods, eventually decided I had to try my hand at it. Bought a lathe, found my way here, and stepped off into the vortex with both feet.

Reactions: Like 6 | Great Post 1


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## kweinert (Aug 19, 2019)

Unlike most of you I really didn't have any exposure when I was growing up. Dad was a self-employed truck driver but he thought I should be 'better' than that and he actively discouraged me from helping him with the mechanical stuff. I don't agree that what I do is better than what he did but that's just life.

At any rate I had only one wood shop class in high school. The most memorable thing about that was when the teacher wanted to show what kickback could do and managed to throw a short piece of 2x4 part way through a chicken wire reinforced window.

For most of my life I had a table saw out in the garage and did some stuff around the house. Finished a basement, installed the wood floors, that sort of stuff. Was never really able to get out and do anything more involved. After the divorce I was living in an apartment that had a back porch. I was looking for something else to do and talked the landlady in to letting me close in that porch to use as a workshop. Bought a HF bench, put it on wheels, bought a small lathe and proceeded to make sawdust. When I moved out I did restore the porch (amusingly enough when I rebuilt the railing I took an old piece of it in to do a color match for the paint so when I repainted the new paint matched the old faded color of the rest of the building.)

Now I have 2 stalls of a 3 car garage full time and during the summer I usually have the 3rd stall as well (my wife does like to park inside in the winter :) I still do some electronic stuff with Raspberry Pi and Arduino boards but it's really nice to be able to get out to the shop and make things. I've not been overly successful in craft shows but I still enjoy making stuff for family and friends and do manage to make a little money from time to time. But best of all is making smiles when folks find something that resonates with them.

Reactions: Like 2 | Great Post 3


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## Herb G. (Aug 20, 2019)

Well, it depends on what you mean by "this hobby."
I have a few that require different tools, different materials, and a very different skill set.

Off the top of my head, my leathercraft hobby is a bit more expensive to start with, but it's somewhat cheaper in the long run. It's mostly hand tools that are required for doing leatherwork.
Woodworking is a different mother altogether. It requires a lot of expensive power tools, unless you're a caveman. It also takes up a lot of space, and it pretty taxing physically.
Leatherwork, not so much. It is extremely detail oriented though.

I came across leatherwork mostly thru my Dad, who fancied himself a leatherworker, but all he made were kits of pre-made parts. I took it to an entirely different level, because I use whole hides and my own patterns.

Woodworking has it rewards, and so does leatherworking. Of the two, I can't pick a favorite, but I lean towards the leather side of things.

Reactions: Like 3 | Way Cool 1


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## ripjack13 (Aug 20, 2019)

Herb G. said:


> Well, it depends on what you mean by "this hobby."


Well...we are on a "woodworking" forum...

Reactions: Agree 1 | Funny 4


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## Blueglass (Aug 20, 2019)

It allows me to make things I enjoy and wood is sure prettier than about any other material I can think of.

Reactions: Like 3


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## Pharmacyguy-Jim (Aug 21, 2019)

My pops got into this later in life, his COPD and Parkinson's had slowed him down. He was a geology teacher and the retirement community he lived in in the winter had a lapidary so he was cutting and polishing stones and decided he needed to do something with them. Somehow he stumbled upon bottle stoppers bought a mini lathe and some other tools. In the summer he would turn bottle stoppers, in the winter cut and polish stones to top his bottle stoppers. I bought blanks for him one Christmas and became intrigued with all the different species. I was also surprised about how spinning, sanding, and polishing could turn that hunk of wood into something really cool looking. After he passed his equipment just sat in the garage at my mother's. A friend who is a turner, was helping me clean out mom's garage and pointed out everything I needed to start turning was just sitting there for the taking. I balked at first but he gently chided me into taking it all home and giving it a try. (Give thanks for good friends) I turn pens on my dad's lathe, sell a few, let my daughter give them as gifts. I gift them to friends who retire or get a promotion, big job means you need a big pen. Some day I'll get a bigger lathe and try my hand at larger items but for now this will do.

Reactions: Like 1 | Great Post 2


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