Over the past couple of months I’ve been dealing with pain in my right elbow. I went to the doctor and found out I have Lateral Epicondylitis (Tennis Elbow). I haven’t played tennis in decades! So I’m renaming it Woodworker’s Elbow. This was brought on by a weekend marathon of hand sanding, on my Greene & Greene chair project. Lesson learned, listen to your body! I knew at the end of the first day, I was going to hurt the next day, but I bit the bullet and pushed through. The doctor says I have to stop or greatly cut back on woodworking for awhile. So there’s the challenge! It’s like trying to get a crack addict to stop smoking crack!

It is getting into the Winter and Holiday months. Weekends do tend to be busy and cold (in an unheated garage shop). So maybe the timing is good, if I really have to cut back. There are some small projects I think I can do, that won’t irritate the arm. So I don’t think I have to go cold turkey on this! I have my first Psychical Therapy appointment tomorrow, I’ll know more after that. Stay tuned, I plan to keep something going on the blog in the mean time.

I did a little more tweaking last weekend, and added a few small shelves for my block and shoulder planes. They are very convenient to grab now. I still have two vertical areas left, for a couple more bench planes. I have a Stanley #4 (not shown) that I’m restoring, which will take one of the slots. I’ll have to fill the remaining slot soon! I’ll also post the restoration process of the #4 and #8, which I hope to do over our company’s winter shutdown break.

When I first started to think about my tool storage, I wanted something that could evolve over time. So the base is just ¾” plywood, which I can attach fixtures to. Nothing is permanently attached. This allows me to reorganize how tools are stored, when the time comes.

My hand plane connection has started to grow, and I didn’t have places to store a couple of the new planes, especially a big Stanley #8. It was time to rethink my plane storage.

Before, I just used shelves to store my planes. They were easy to make at the time, but I knew after not too long I would have to do something else.

Going vertical with the plane storage, allows me to get 8 or more planes in the same space, where I had maybe 4.

I started by removing some of the shelves, then I cut some vertical “ribs” for the new storage solution.

I figured out the most I wanted the storage to stick out from the wall, and how high it needed to be to store the largest plane I had (Stanley #8). From there I was able to figure out the angle I needed, and for me I think that came out to be 82 degrees. It’s pretty vertical, because it couldn’t stick out that far from the wall. I would have liked to have gone a bit shallower, but my bench is in front of the storage and I didn’t want it sticking out over my bench by too much.

As I said before, I don’t permanently attach fixtures to the wall, so I used pocket screws to attach the ribs to the wall. This worked really well.

I then covered the ribs with some ½” plywood.

It’s pretty much done, at this stage. I just needed to add some ¼” spacers to divide up the space.

I decided to add some soft shelf padding under the planes. I don’t think this is really needed or required. I had some lying around, so I thought I would through some on. We will see if it stays or not.

Because I went pretty vertical with the storage, the planes weren’t as stable as I would like. I added a simple catch at the top, to keep the planes from tipping out. The catch simply rotates out of the way when I need use a plane.

There will be some “wasted” space above the shorter planes. I’m thinking I will make some small shelves, to go above those shorter planes. This should allow me to stack other smaller planes above them. Like my Block Planes, or even hang a Spokeshave.

So I took almost a year off from posting on my blog.  It wasn’t because I wasn’t doing any woodworking, because I have done quite a bit this last year.  Part of me was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my blog.  Well after almost year, still really haven’t figured anything out.  I will start to post the projects I’m working on, but I’m hoping I can start to work in other content.  For those of you who have followed my blog, you might notice some changes.  I am working on a redesign.  You might see more changes over the next couple of weeks.

If you want to see what I’ve been working on, I’ve been posting over on The Wood Whisperer site.

I’ve never been big on making New Year’s Resolutions, but this year I decided to make a couple personal and woodworking resolutions. Resolutions are like goals, they need to be realistic and you have to have a plan in place, on how you are going to achieve your goal. I’m making two woodworking resolutions this year.

Respect Dust
Everyone knows that dust is some really nasty stuff. Don’t lie to yourself, you know it’s true. It can cause any number of diseases and cancers. I think most of us, who are non-professional woodworkers, think we aren’t exposed to enough dust to worry about it. I’d think anyone really knows for sure how much is “safe”. I have had this attitude from the beginning, even though in the back of my mind I knew I was just trying to justify not dealing with the issue.

My steps to address this issue are really simple and basic. An obvious first step, where possible improve dust collection at the source. This last year I already took some steps towards this, when I bought a new dust collector for my larger pieces of equipment. Some of this equipment has some pretty subpar dust collection, like my band saw and planer. I need to find a way to improve the dust collection on these devices. Next, as money permits replace hand power tools (sander, router, etc) with tools that have dust collection (that works). Until some of these issues can be addressed and improved, I will use an effective dust mask. I will also strive to keep that dust mask on, even after I turn the tool off. There is still dust floating around after a power tool is turned off. Also, as money permits, I need to add ambient air cleaning to my shop. Every new tool purchase will be made with dust collection in mind. I will not buy a new tool unless I have a way to collect its dust. You might know, I love my hand tools (most 100% dust free), but I’m not ready to give up some of my power tools. Although, I can find ways to use more hand tools, that don’t cause as much dust as the same power tool operation.

Improve time management and quality
Being a “part-time” woodworker, I don’t usually have long stretches of time where I can work in the shop. I generally head to the shop with the intention to complete as much as I can, in the shortest amount of time. For me speed greatly decreases my quality. I know this and yet I still rush myself. My plan to improve this process is to literally plan my project builds. Before I even step foot into the shop I will have decided the steps I will need to perform to complete the project. I’ve done enough projects, I can give a pretty good guess on how long a given step might take, without rushing the process. I’m hoping that choosing the steps I can complete in the given time, will give me motivation to slow down. I certainly won’t walk out of the shop if I complete an estimated 8-hour day, in 6-hours. I think having daily goals can help improve my sense of needing to complete entire project quickly. The ultimate goal is to complete the project, but setting smaller goals and achieving them with greater quality and satisfaction will be even more rewarding.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted something. I’ve been out of commission for awhile, with a back problem. Thanks to modern medicine, I had my first full night’s sleep last night. I feel like a new person! I think I should have some time to be in the shop this weekend, so look for some upcoming posts.

Well it’s been awhile since I posted anything.  Between a failed hard drive on my computer and just other obligations, updating the blog took a backseat for a while.

SawStop Update

I’ve had a chance to give the new SawStop a good workout.  I couldn’t be more happier with it.  It has the power I need.  I’ve cut through some 3” think Hard Maple, without any real slow down.  The consistent accuracy I was looking for, is there.  Then there is the dust collection.  What can I say, amazing.

This weekend I was finally able to rig something up, so that I could hook the duct collection up to the blade guard.

This first mock-up is with ¾” PVC pipe and 1.5” hose.  To tell you the truth, it worked really well.  I just wish Loew’s had black ¾” pipe.  I’ll have to keep looking around for that.

Here’s a before shot of the saw, cleaned off before the cut.

Here are some shots after the cut.  I cut a long piece of ½” MDF, that I had lying around.

There is the slightest bit of dust on the top.  SawStop recommends a duct collector with 300 CFM capacity.  I do plan to get a lager system soon, but what did I use for this test?

I’m sure a larger system will pick up that small amount that sneaked by in this test.  With the ShopVac on, I tested the suction at the blade guard.  It was pretty weak, but enough to pull the dust out.  As soon as I can make room for a larger system, I’ll add it to the shop.

Miter Sled

I’ve been waiting to build a Miter Sled, because I knew I was going to be getting a new saw soon.  Miter Sleds don’t move between saws very well, so I’ve been waiting.  Not too long ago, I bought a new Miter Gauge from Incra and I have been very happy with.  Incra also sells these Build Kits, for making jigs and the like.  You can use these kits to make a Miter Sled.  I was happy with their Miter Gauge, so I thought I would see what their Build Kits were like.  Overall I’m really happy with their kits.

I think I put this sled together in about an hour or so.  That really is the big advantage to these kits.  I’m sure there are many of you who will say, it can be made a lot cheaper.  That may be true, but I’m really happy with what I ended up with.  The ease of making it was big time saver.  I plan to add guard to the back of the sled, where the blade comes through.  You need to protect those thumbs, even if you have a SawStop.