Welcome to my Shop

To the unaccustomed eye, this room looks like the terminal phase of a highly destructive addiction. Somewhere in the background, Gollum-like, I should be crouched over a new tool, or a particularly beautiful piece of wood muttering “I likes it, my precious, oh yes I likes it.” But no, I assure you I am a normal human being and this is a normal woodshop.

But so much stuff! So much clutter! Woodworking looks like an overwhelming hobby!

This is the trouble with woodworking—to make furniture from soup to nuts, you need a lot of tools and a lot of space to put them.  You’ll hear many woodworkers assure beginners that you don’t need much space to make furniture, nor do you need many tools. This is perfectly true--at first. The trouble begins when you fall in love with making things. That’s when you need more tools, more space, more wood, then better tools, better space and better wood. And after a lifetime of untreated addiction, the above is what your shop will look like.

Currently, I’m working on a kitchen cabinet in white oak.  This one has a cookie sheet slot on the left, a shallow drawer on the top and a slide out trash bin. Maybe in another post I’ll pull it apart and show you the details, or perhaps build a companion, as plywood carcase construction is a core woodworking skill.

 

Another project I’ve been pecking at is a cutting board with my high school’s motto incised around the edge. It’s for a fundraiser.

Incised letters are great fun to create, but I find them a whole lot harder to cut now than I did twenty years ago. I think my eyesight is the issue. I’ve tried spot lighting, but somehow I always need to see where there’s a shadow. I think I might look into one of those laser printers, or larger breadboards with bigger letters.

 

About a week ago, a friend asked me to fix a chair for him. I insisted no, but he insisted back and eventually won. So it sits in my shop. If I could make an honest business fixing chairs, I’d be a millionaire by now. Everyone has a squeaky chair they’d like to fix permanently. The trouble is, once a chair begins to squeak, there’s not too much you can do that’s simple, easy and cheap. Cheap fixes work just fine until someone sits in the chair. All the miracle cures for loose chair joints remain subject to doubt until the Pope beatifies the inventor. Better fixes exist, but putting ten hours of shop time into a $70 chair just doesn’t make sense unless it’s a family treasure. But I digress into one of those rants of frustration. I’ll clean up the finish and hopefully make him happy.

 

Then there’s this pile of spalted maple, behind the firewood.  I began to make something with it a few years back, but got sidetracked. I’m not even sure what I was making any more. It’s lovely wood and I should deal with it soon. In every woodworker’s shop are half-completed projects. They give one purpose in life. You have to get out of bed in the morning, if just to tie up those loose ends.

 

Next week, I’ll begin making a bookcase for my basement. I really need one (the clutter around the house needs a place to go), and there are few project as simple and useful as bookshelves. Next post, I’ll show you a simple sketch of the case and some thoughts on how I’ll make it and why.

Then next post after that I’ll take you on a tour of a local lumber yard or two where I’ll show you how to buy wood. First, I may have to discuss matters with the manager, to make sure it’s all right to take pictures. But if there’s a blackout at one lumberyard, we’ll go somewhere else.

Eventually, I hope to move to a mix of still pics and video, depending on what works best for each topic.

And as always, please visit my professional website at www.strotherpurdy.com

Comments

[Christopher Braunholz]

I must admit first of all, when I saw your post on facebook, I had no clue however a report on woodworking could be interesting at all nowadays and that's the reason why I tried reading.
I actually like the way you put your work and all the more like the way you express yourself. Keep on.

Best regards from a rude German student.

[Strother]

Hello Christopher (or dear old rude student, though I know you're not rude at all),

Good to hear from you and glad you find something of interest in my woodworking blog--why don't you take up the hobby? The world needs more woodworkers of grace and intelligence. I promise not to surprise you with any grades of any kind.
All the best,
Strother

[Christopher Braunholz]

There are too many things this world offers and too little time I got each day. Sports in many varieties is one including fixing my bikes, uni is another part eating too much time. Apart from that daily life also claims hundreds of hours a year.
So first of all I keep on observing which also is not graded as far as I am informed.
Thanks anyway for your advice.

Kind regards, Christopher

[JD Eveland]

I have also just discovered your blog here, during the course of a search for the term "Mondaugen" (the reason for which being much more complicated than warrants explanation -- suffice it to say that I am trying to extend Mondaugen's Law under the proposition that while the future is immutable, it is eminently possible to change the past, since it has no real existence.) At any rate, I am currently engaged in recaning a rocking chair much like that in your picture -- a family piece last recaned by my father and me somewhere in the mid-70's.) I am an aspirant woodworker, lacking only talent, dedication, judgment, and hand-eye coordination; on the other hand, I do have a number of tools (well, actually, far too many -- I am, among other things, a formulator of theories on technology.) At any rate, I do appreciate your dedication to the material, as well as to Mondaugen. May the Great Fabricator bless your constructions and entropic reversals!

Thanks!

JD