What did you do in your shop today?

I agree - any time spent in the shop is good. Had a great night down there last night, and used the time while the little guy was sleeping to clean up and put tools, etc away, so that was good too. There have also been plenty of times when I've had to run down to the basement for something, and I'll stop in my shop area for a few minutes just to think or plan my next steps on a project. Even those few minutes are relaxing.

On the one hand, I really like having my shop in the basement - I never have to worry about a cold shop, never have to go outside to get to the shop, and there's a bathroom down there too. However, as I've added tools this year and have been gradually doing more and more, Katy is starting to feel that it would be better for me to have a garage shop whenever that's possible, especially for the noise and dust factors. I agree. Our one car garage isn't shop worthy and would take far too much to make it capable of being a shop - including replacing the upheaved and heavily damaged concrete floor, which is something I'm not going to spend the money or time on for a house we do not own. Someday I'll have a nice garage shop that I'll insulate and heat. But, for now I'm very happy to have the shop I have!
 
I can tell I am about done with christmas projects- My shop needs a miracle to get to the point you could think about cleaning it....................:wonky: I would not let any of the clean shop guys near my shop right now- I would not want to be responsible for causing them any major health problems- Like the Black guy with the junk store that was always clutchin his chest cause he was havin the Big one- for the life of me I cannot think of his name!!!!!:old:
 
Mike1950 said:
I can tell I am about done with christmas projects- My shop needs a miracle to get to the point you could think about cleaning it....................:wonky: I would not let any of the clean shop guys near my shop right now- I would not want to be responsible for causing them any major health problems- Like the Black guy with the junk store that was always clutchin his chest cause he was havin the Big one- for the life of me I cannot think of his name!!!!!:old:
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Fred Sanford aka Red Fox, R.I.P.
 
Gee Mike, I didn't think your shop was that bad at all! You have So Much Room to spread the mess around, as long as there is a walkway between piles, you're good to go!
Yesterday I got two hours in the shop when it finally rose to 31º. We'd had overnight lows of single digit cold for two weeks, I think, and the concrete floor never warmed up, in spite of an electric heater going for three hours before I went in there (I have open air circulation under the eaves; it's not a closed up shop.) So I managed to bandsaw some blanks I need for final Christmas presents. This weekend we're expecting 34º-36º sometime during the days, and being above freezing seems like a worthy goal! Saturday and Sunday are my last two openings to work out there until the temps change, and I intend to make the best of them.
 
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Barb, Thanks but you were here when it was civilized- it has gone downhill since then, You are right though- only need enough room to move. I do have a lot of space- which is nice until you have to clean it. :banghead::banghead::scare3:
 
I havent been in my shop for quite some time... except to dream about when I might get to work in it again. I havent even been on here in a long time. I am sooo out of touch. My schedule changed some and has seriously affected my shop time, computer time and every other fun time, except for boring work time!!

Hopefully I will get to do some stuff soon.

I also found at that a new member of our church is just as sick as we are. They are looking for a house in our neighborhood.

An idea of his illness: She said they found an 1800 sf house with like 3 or 4 garages. 1 was climate controlled and tiled, which would make an awesome shop. He reeeally wanted it. She said "your gonna stuff us and 5 kids in an 1800 sf house?" His reply "yes".

Well they are still lookin.

I hope to start contributing again soon.

Thanks
Robert
 
Thanks Mike. I have really missed all of yall as well. I will try to get in here at least once a week...more if possible.

Robert
 
A plague of electro/hydraulic/diesel problems
Black walnut/ cherry cutting board
Ice scrapers
And my special hand tool only project.
 
Spent a little time today with some green spalted river birch... Big ribbons and a light spray of moisture! I cored a set of three out of this blank and turned the big one into a nice round bottom rocker that I've stashed away to finish later. If the big one survives the drying, the two smaller cores await a similar fate!

Lots of cutoffs to process and another log section await me once the chainsaw gets back from the shop!
image.webp
 
Spent about 2 hours in the shop tonight. Felt good to be down there!

Got my lathe all put together tonight! Mounted a piece of hard maple cutoff and made a few shavings! Gotta get my tools sharpened before I can do any more. They definitely are NOT sharp from the factory. Did have to try out Greg's rougher, even though I haven't made a handle for it yet. (Making a handle for it will happen after I get a chance to sharpen my tools, and build the jigs to do so.) Oh, my, was it awesome! So glad I got one!

Also cut a few boards and started doing some glue-up work on a pot rack to hang our pots and pans from that my wife would like done ASAP. She bought some cast iron pans, and now we're short on pot and pan storage, so I got commissioned to build a solution, and that solution is a hanging pot rack.
 
Got a couple hours of time in the shop tonight, felt good. I was working with the old south bend metal lathe tonight, it sure is a fun machine to run. I love the smell of cutting oil. No pics, blah blah blah, you've all seen it before..........but I'm doing it again, LOL. I have some ideas in my head for turning chisels that I just have to work on.
 
So Sprung said he wanted to see what I did in my shop yesterday, blah blah blah, you've all seen what I have been doing. So here's a different take on it. This is kinda how long it takes to turn a 3/8" square shank round for making a lathe chisel. This is the first step of the process. I am working on some new stuff too but ya'll will have to wait till I get all the details worked out. So this is my favorite machine that I own, and the one that I am the most intimate with. She's is a jow to use after a full restore. I have a lot to learn about doing videos, the camera works great and is the same one I take my still pics with. I just need to learn how to do things better, this was my first video day.
 
That's real cool! Thanks for sharing!

(And thanks for allowing me to live vicariously through you - shop time has been real sparse lately, but hopefully I'll get a good two or three days in with some days off coming up in the next couple weeks.)
 
Spent some time in my shop today, running the mill instead of the lathe, lathe work is done. I think I prepped up about 50 blanks for various chisels to be made. Started milling them today. Here's some pics, kinda what I have done over a few days.
This is a pic of all the blanks turned round on the ends for easy insertion into a handle. There's 1/2" full size and 3/8" mid size. They have all had layout blue applied to them.
chisels-2-001.webp

So here they are ready to be layed out for milling. No cnc work here, just lay em out and turn the handles and cut to the lines.
chisels-2-002.webp

Here you can see that I have made some design changes to the chisels. I think the will be better suited to the mid size lathe folks and still work on the full size lathes. If I think of something that will improve the tools I implement that idea. I just shortened them a couple of inches overall and shortened the round shank about a 1/2" so folks won't have to drill such a deep hole in there handles when they are making them.
chisels-2-003.webp

Gonna make another batch of detailers since they sold out so quickly. chisels-2-004.webp

First step for me is to plow out the middle, this defines the center for me. chisels-2-005.webp

This is the most nerve racking part of these, milling out the pocket for the cutter. It's a slow go as the cutter is very small, broke one today, LOL. That's part of machining I think, if you aint breaking cutters then you aren't doing anything.
chisels-2-006.webp
It's a good start and was a productive couple of days in the shop. My plan is to get a batch of each style of chisel I make done to build up an inventory. Then I can move on to making some different styles of tool rest, I have a bunch of ideas on that.
 
I don't remember the last time I got to spend so much time in the shop in one whole day, let alone one whole week! I spent a little over 4 hours in the shop today, and it was awesome! (Katy took our son and went to Fargo to do some shopping, so I was home by myself!)

Today I:
  • Managed to send a small plate I was making on the lathe flying about 8' across the shop when it came lose from the cole jaws when I had a catch. Was going slow and taking light passes too... Was wearing my face shield and was standing off to one side. It never hit me, but it sure did scare me. Was going to be about 6" finished size. With the pieces that broke off the edge, it'll eventually be about 4" to 4 1/2" whenever I feel up to putting it back on the lathe and having another go at it. It'll consider it a "design change."
  • Finished the (very simple, quickly put together) pots and pans rack my wife requested and hung it up in the kitchen.
  • Did some sanding on a couple projects and moved them on to start staining & putting finish on, whenever I have the chance.
  • Did some cleaning up and organizing. I really really need more storage space... One day I'm actually going to remedy that somehow...
  • Finished a simple candle holder of curly maple and purpleheart that Katy asked me to make as a gift for her mother. Had it completely finished - applied multiple coats of spray lacquer and it was done - and I was putting on some stick on feet when I dropped it and banged up the corners and edges... Going to have to cut the purpleheart off and put new purpleheart strips on it and refinish it - basically I have to just about start over.

Despite the few problems, it was, overall, a great day in the shop! Felt really good to spend that much time down there working on stuff! (Of course, I'm still behind, but at the rate I'm going, I doubt I'll ever get caught up...)
 
Forgot to also list two glue-ups I did today: hard maple and cherry for a rolling pin my wife wants to give as a wedding shower gift to a friend of hers and some wood for a mallet swap I'm participating in on another forum.
 
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