Workshop Upgrades

I have added a set of cubby-holes to store my screws, nuts, bolts, earplugs, etc. And I added some dowels to hold small clamps and a strip along the bottom to hold spring clamps.

This, along with the shelves under the new assembly table, clears up vast amounts of space for storage. I've been cramped into this building for close to two years, but I always knew I could make more room by building the new table. Ironic, really, since the assembly table is the largest single item in my shop.

As shown before, the arm that holds the vacuum hose for my drill press has been moved. And I upgraded it with two new handles to make adjusting it easier. I thought about putting on the side of the press opposite the work light, but when I had it that way before I had obstacles on both sides of my work piece. This way I can simply place the flexible tube around the light so I can see clearly, and the right side of my work piece is open. Problem solved! And the arm can lift out of the way if needed.

Assembly Table: Mostly Finished

I still don't have the drawers built, and lots of tools still need to be reorganized, but here you can see the table with much of the clutter removed.

The chamfered edge has been sanded, and I'll apply a coat or two of polyurethane in the very near future. The poly will protect the surface and make everything just a bit slippery so it will be easy to move projects around as need. I could easily wax the surface if I wanted to make it slicker still, but I don't.

I have also moved the drill press arm from it's old, temporary location to this new spot, mounted high above the drill press itself. A higher mounting point means more stability as the arm will be used in a more vertical manner than before. This is how I designed it in the first place, knowing it would eventually live in this new location. the thing is mostly made of 1/2 inch plywood so it can flex a bit if needed. It works best when it doesn't have to support much of it's own weight at the same time.

Here you can see the arm from the side. It has a shoulder, elbow, wrist and hand to hold the vacuum hose in place. I used it about an hour after this photo was taken and it worked great with no adjustments during the operation. I always had to fiddle with it during use in the old location.

Now I must clean up a bit more, then start building the big star for Trevor's school group. After that I have a couple of things I need to do for my online marketing team, Design Style Guide. I'll be participating in the Easter Give-A-Way, and I think I'm going to build something specifically for that event.

When I'm done with those things I'll start building my router table. It will replace the right extension wing on my table saw. I've been itching to start this for the last few months.

Getting Wood

I have this friend in Alvarado, another woodworker named Tim Marko. When I met him he handed me a card for the sawyer from whom he buys all his hardwood. The sawyer's name is Fritz Hannaman, and he lives about 10 miles away from me, on a little road outside of Mansfield, Texas.

Tim showed me several projects he's built with wood purchased from Fritz, and the wood was, in every case, as beautiful as Tim's craftsmanship. That's no small feat, either, as Tim is very good at what he does.

I figured I should head on over and see what I could find of interest in Fritz's shop. It turns out I found pretty much everything there to be of interest.

I picked up all the wood you see in the back of my truck last week, paid Fritz $43.00 for the whole pile. He even threw in some black walnut off-cuts he was going to use for kindling, charged me nothing for them.

I got lots of black walnut and some spalted pecan. I can't wait to use the pecan!!! I've already milled up some black walnut legs for a few candle holder blanks I had sitting on my bench. The stock he gifted to me was superior to the black walnut I had used previously, so I made the legs a bit taller to show off the wood.

I'll buy more wood from Fritz, and in the near future. He actually sells a lot of the wood from his small mill to the Rockler store I have been buying from. Going to Fritz directly will save me tons of money. I'll still shop at Rockler for tools and hardware, but Fritz is now my go-to guy for all things hardwood.

This new-found source of wood presents me with a new problem: Soon, and for the first time since I joined Design Style Guide I will have more products for sale online than I have spaces available to display them at our team website. What to do, what to do...

First Monday Trade Days, Weatherford, Texas, May 30, 2009

Saturday, May 30, 2009. The birthday of Tony Bartolowits and Jamie Ezell, two people you've probably never heard of. It was also the date for the June, 2009 edition of First Monday Trade Days in Weatherford, Texas.

Rachel Bates was there, in her usual location (K44) with her TileSmile wares, brightening up the scenery with her beautiful smile.

She had lots of foot traffic at her corner of the pavilion, though lots of that traffic was male. It seems that men stop and look at her tiles all the time, but they never buy them. When women stop there is a good chance they will make a purchase. I'm not sure why that is, but it could be because the men want a closer look at Rachel. That's only a guess, mind you.

I was also located in my usual spot, that being #K3, under the pavilion. I had company, this time in the form of Ellen Kreager instead of my wife, Debra. Debra was home, resting after a hectic week of school, and Ellen wanted to test the waters in Weatherford, selling her leather pillows, which are also available online under the name of Thunder Moon Designs. She has some absolutely beautiful pillows for sale, most of which I had not seen before.

Once again, I used my tie dyed t-shirt display as a flag pole, if you will, to call attention to our shop. It can be seen for a long distance, which is perfect in a crowded place like this. I have a hole already drilled into the top so I can add an actual flag to the display later. This will be a tie dyed flag, naturally.

I've decided I need a different display so my candle holders get more attention. I have a couple of tables set up at every event, and I built a small display to show off some of my products and separate them from the mass of wood and wax on the rest of the table. What I need, though, is to get the candle holders up in the air, in multiple layers, instead of all on the same plane, sitting on a flat table top. The way I have displayed my wares at every event I've ever attended, no one can really see them clearly at a medium distance, much less from across a crowded parking lot like we have in Weatherford.

I need to catch the attention of passers-by at a reasonable distance, and to do that I need to build a new display fixture. And I have drawn inspiration from the "step-ladder" fixture Ellen set up to show off her pillows. It spreads out wide, so it's fairly stable. Her version holds three shelves, so it can display lots of merchandise. And the ladder folds up for easy transport and storage. I figure I can have a slightly wider version ready to go for the next show in Weatherford, which will be on July 4. I'm looking forward to getting in the shop and building this thing.

Last time we were in Weatherford we had, for all intents and purposes, a yard sale next door. It was unpleasant. This time we were graced with Sheree Gailey and her cousin, Sarah Gailey, and later with her daughter, who's name I do not remember (sorry). They were selling purses, designer sunglasses, wallets and keychains. And they were fun to be around, easy on the eyes, and good company when we weren't talking to customers. I honestly hope they show up again, and I wish them much success. They had more sales than just about anyone in our area, and all of those sales were to female customers, obviously.

I had four sales Saturday, three of which occurred after I had packed almost everything away to drive back home at the end of the day. I sold two shirts and two candle holders, and I took a picture of the lady who bought the first shirt of the day. I don't know her name, but she was in her 60s, was really cool, and she had bright red hair with hot pink highlights! Unfortunately the pink barely shows in this photo.

So, next time in Weatherford I should have the new display built and ready to put to use. And I would love to have Ellen with me again, and to have the lovely ladies selling purses and accessories next door.

Rachel will be in Tennessee on the Fourth of July, so her space will be empty. But I will be in attendance, candle holders and t-shirts at the ready, to help bring a bit more beauty and joy to the world as we know it.

•••••

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DSG North Texas

On Saturday, April 18, 2009, three of the charter members of the DSG North Texas group met for the first time at La Madeleine on South Cooper in Arlington, Texas. And there was much rejoicing.

Present at this meeting were Ellen Kreager of Thunder Moon Designs, Liz Ballard of Lizardo Art, me, Liz's boyfriend, Ben, and my wife, Debra. Soup and sandwiches were eaten, tea consumed, and we talked for 90 minutes or so about DSG, Texas, our North Texas group, how to go about promoting each other's work, craft shows, interior designers, etc.

La Madeleine was a surprisingly good place to meet, even if they didn't have a private room. When I was still a member of Etsy Texas Crafters we met at a different La Madeleine, in Fort Worth, and we had a room to ourselves. That works better, but this was fine. On a Saturday afternoon there are lots of people stopping in from the Parks Mall, but they don't stay very long, and nobody bothered us while we were talking.

What will come out of this meeting and a couple of discussions in our online networking group is a plan of attack, a flexible idea of how to sell our own work while promoting the work of the other members of DSG North Texas. And one of the most likely ideas to come out of this will be attending en masses the various craft shows in the area. This will require reserving booth space next to -- or at least near -- each other, talking to customers about how something from another member shop will go well with whatever they are looking at in our own shops, and having fun with the customers while taking the whole concept seriously. I know this works because I've seen it very successfully demonstrated at comic book conventions and science fiction conventions.

I have really good feelings about this group. A few more members will help us spread the marketing message out to enough customers for the idea to take hold, and I have some candidates in mind, but this can work even with the three members who attended this meeting. We're all intelligent, we all want to increase our sales, we all produce high quality consumables, we all have hair on the tops of our heads...

Okay, not really sure where I was going with that, but I do know we can succeed, that this will work for us. I left this meeting with a big smile on my face. I can't wait to tell Kristina Law, our Design Style Guide Big Cheese in Charge, all about it!

First Monday Trade Days, Weatherford, Texas, April 4, 2009

This time out we had great weather in Weatherford! Now if we can only figure out how to keep Debra from frying in the sun...

This recounting of events will be short, due to my tight schedule this week and next. I'm building a set of shelves for a client in Irving, some drawer fronts and a cabinet door for a friend in Fort Worth, a pair of closet organizers for my son (haven't started that one yet), and I have to do some work for my mother today, Wednesday.

We made a few sales, had a lot of interest. Oddly we sold no woodworking at all, though lots of people were looking. The big display I built for the tie dyes caught everyone's attention, drew people in to our booth, but I have to tweak the setup a bit next time so the shirts don't obscure the candle holders. I think many people completely missed the rest of our wares, seeing only the T-shirts.

Rachele Bates of TileSmile fame (also a fellow member of Design Style Guide) was present, along with her friend, Beth. They had a better setup than we did, and they had more sales. From a distance you could see everything in their booth. Okay, maybe you couldn't see every tile they had for sale, but you could see that they were selling tiles, and you could see it clearly. That's very nice.

I'm considering placing the T-shirt display farther out in front of our booth. It will eventually have a tie dyed flag on top. By placing it way out in front it will still draw people toward our booth, but they will be able to see the woodworking as well.

Next month's space is already paid for, and we're expecting sales figures to climb again. And we'll be adding more shows in other cities as the year progresses. Maybe we'll be in your town sometime during the next few months. Look for us!

Featured

I have written a piece for the Design Style Guide blog this week in which I talked about four Etsy shops and the beautiful art they produce and sell. And now I've been mentioned by one of those artists, in her blog. Thanks, Liz, of Lizardo Art fame, for the recognition. I appreciate it.

You, Too, Can Be Self-Employed, version 2009

Every year my beautiful wife, Debra, takes me to school to present a talk to her reading classes at Alvarado Junior High. This talk began, in 2004, with me telling the kids all about being a graphic artist and how important reading is in that job. Since I began doing this I have stopped being a graphic artist and started being a woodworker. So, last year, I changed the talk, splitting the time between one job and the other.

Since last year my business started taking off, so this year I limited the graphic artist portion of the talk to about 10 or 12 minutes, spending the rest of the time talking about making sawdust. And I even included a video slideshow I made for Design Style Guide, the team I'm on which serves to promote over 900 artists and designers worldwide to interior designers looking for something unique with which to decorate a project. I think it went well.

I conducted this little talk by introducing the kids to the world of the graphic artist. I told them about designing logos, dealing with clients, typesetting documents, brochures and magazines. I showed them several slides detailing some of my actual jobs. And after about 15 minutes or so I was ready to move on to the next chapter in my life as a self-employed man-about-town.

The kids were interested in both jobs, but I think I grabbed them with the woodworking more than graphic arts. Of course, this probably happened because I like it better, too.

I showed them my shop, my power tools, the bench I designed and built myself. I showed them several examples of the candle holders and bookends, bookcases and wine rests that I have built in the past couple of years. I showed them the pair of cabinets I built for Clay Roberts, the art teacher at the Junior High School. And I saw their eyes light up as they became more and more interested, sometimes in spite of themselves.

After we went through all the slides I played the video slide show I produced for Design Style Guide a couple of months ago. That really caught their attention. They saw how different people doing completely different jobs could work together to reach a common goal. And the boys got to whistle at Martine Petra, a photographer in DSG who is frequently the model in her own photographs.

And after the video they got to pass around some samples of my work. I let them handle several candle holders made of different kinds of wood, along with some samples of wood that were unfinished so they could see the difference which, in many cases, is dramatic. They saw cherry, pine, red heart, and cedar in the finished state, and cherry and curly maple unfinished.

In years past I know I have inspired a couple of kids to pursue art as a career. One in particular is planning to go to art school after graduation and then go to work for his uncle, who is also a very talented graphic artist working in Dallas. I'd love to find out one or two of these kids decided to make sawdust for a living after college.

Some of these kids might be inspired to become woodworkers later in life. Many of them can take wood shop as an elective when they get to Alvarado High School. Mr. Ransom is a wonderful teacher, as my son has learned over the last two years. He is also able to inspire kids to do more than they thought they could do.

Next year I will cut the graphic art portion of the talk back a bit more because I will have so much more to tell them about woodworking. The classes are 45 - 50 minutes long, so there's very little wiggle room. When the kids start asking questions I frequently get rushed toward the end. I'll fix that problem by talking more about this job I love so much. And next year will be even more successful.

•••••

If you make Handmade Home Decor Items, come and join our team by clicking on the image below.

Not only will you be able to network with us, but also you will have the ability to post your listing on our team website.

Inauguration

This is one of the proudest moments in this country's history.  Republican or Democrat, no matter the skin color or faith, we can all be proud that we have finally lived up to the promise of this country.

The future is bright.  The future is here.  Embrace it.

And now I must get back to work.  My table saw awaits.

"There's a lectern up in the sky."

The first time I built a lectern I thought it would take longer than it did. This time it's going even faster. I started yesterday by laminating two sheets of 3/4" birch plywood. Today I got my wood, ripped it into eight 1 1/2" strips and two 2" strips, cut the strips to length and got three-quarters through the glue-up process. Tomorrow I'll have the base finished and I can start working on the top.

I'm substitute teaching this Friday, October 17, 2008. I plan to have the lectern finished and delivered by then.

In the meantime I'll be starting the cabinets for my artist friend, Clay, who sincerely wishes to remain totally anonymous. He'll be quite happy to hear this.

The cool part about this is I get to perfect my building process and get paid at the same time. So when someone buys a lectern at my Etsy site I'll have the whole thing down to a fairly speedy procedure. That will help make it more profitable without charging anything extra. And I'll be able to work on a lectern whilst building other projects for other clients, which means I can accept more jobs at the same time. Everybody wins!

Update, October 13, 2008:

The entire column is glued up and clamped up. When the glue finishes cooking I can start sanding it.

The legs have to be drilled for the brass threaded inserts so I can attach the levelers at the very end of the process, after the lectern has been finished. But I need rubber feet for this one instead of sliders because this classroom has tile instead of carpet, and I want to make sure the rubber levelers have the same size bolt screws first because, if the bolt is smaller, I'll need smaller threaded inserts. And there's just no practical way to make a hole smaller after it's been drilled.

So, I'm going to Rockler Woodworking this evening to see what sorts of levelers they have in stock. I love going there! I'm like a kid in a candy store!

Update, October 15, 2008:

I finished the assembly of the lectern today and began the finishing process by applying one coat of clear satin polyurethane.  One more coat on the column and two more on the top and it'll be ready for delivery, probably tomorrow evening or Friday, depending upon the humidity, which can affect the drying time.

Update, October 18, 2008:

The lectern has been delivered, the client is happy. There was even talk from another teacher about commissioning another one!  This is greatness!  I want to get a photo of the lectern in her room with kids there, but I don't know when that will happen.

The Drawers of the World... or at least the garage... Phase one, in which Doris gets her oats...

A good friend of mine named Clay, who wishes to remain anonymous, brought me over to his house recently and showed me a collection of eight drawers and an old door. He asked if I could build two cabinets to house the drawers and use those same cabinets to support the door, on it's side, so he would have a sort of work bench in his garage.

Now, Clay is an artist. In the classic sense. He paints pictures. He doesn't need the sort of work bench I have in my wood shop. So this idea of his was certainly sound.

And I can, indeed, build just what he's asking for. Thursday afternoon I'll be purchasing a ton of 3/4" birch plywood with which to begin the previously mentioned cabinets. Along with the sheet goods I'll get eight casters, four of which will have brakes on them. I'll worry about the drawer slides after I pick up the drawers from Clay this Saturday.

This will be fun. Once again I'll be building something I've never built before. I know I can build it, but it's still something new for me. That's exciting! When I was a graphic designer I took on jobs all the time without knowing exactly how I would complete them. I never missed a deadline in 13 years and my clients were happy folks and loved the results. When I see some possible obstacle in my path a solution always presents itself. And I like working on the fly.

I'll document this adventure here, with photos, just as I did with the lectern. Speaking of which, I'll be building another lectern at the same time as I start the cabinets. A teacher from the intermediate school has already paid for it.

The Lectern Reality

Well, it has happened. Debra sent photos of her new lectern and the two in-boxes I made for her to several other teachers in the district, and some of them want lecterns and/or in-boxes of their very own. Now the fun begins as I get to build these items and collect the money. This is why I do this job. It's fun, people like what I do and they're willing to pay me money to do it!

Right now I have orders for two lecterns and one in-box, but there are some others who have yet to get back to me with their decisions. This is a good week!

All this activity has prompted me to go ahead and post photos of my lectern and inboxes at my Etsy shop and list them for sale, with the stipulation that there will be a lag between ordering the item and receiving it because I'll have to build it.

If you happen to be one of the people interested in obtaining one of my lecterns or in-boxes, please go to my Etsy site starting Monday, October 6, 2008 (for the lectern), and Wednesday, October 8, 2008 (for the in-boxes) and check out what I have to offer. You'll like it, and I'm sure you can find uses for at least one of these items. And if you don't there's a ton of candle holders and wine rest for sale there, so look around for a while. And go to my "Favorites" pages to see some great stuff from other Etsy artists.

And you can read LOTS more about all of this stuff right here in my blog. Just check out the archives for September, 2008. It's all there and I think it's a lot of fun to read... you can tell me what YOU think of it if you like.

The Lectern Initiative, part the last

I am done with the building process on Debra's lectern! I worked on it for nearly 5 hours today, and boy are my arms tired!

First thing this morning I routed a chamfer profile on the legs and upper supports. A chamfer is just a 45º angle cut 

along the edges. This softens the edge a bit and breaks up the squareness of the piece, adding visual appeal.

I followed up the legs and upper supports with a matching chamfer on all for edges of the column. This created huge clouds of coarse dust which could still be trying to settle some seven hours after I left my shop. Routers and plywood don't play well together as far as my lungs and eyes are concerned. I'm not sure that was grammatically correct, but you get the idea.

Anyway, I then drilled a hole on the bottom of each end of the legs, screwed a treaded brass insert into each hole, and screwed the height adjustable legs into place. I installed the upper supports with glue and lag screws and did the same with the legs. This gave me a rock solid platform on which to mount the work surface... which I had yet to build. And I was running out of birch plywood.

Rather than delay the building process I decided to use some other plywood I had lying around to finish the project. It's rock hard, easy to work and very durable. It's just like the birch plywood I used on the rest of this unit, but without the actual birch. I'm not exactly sure what it's made of. I know it looks like pine in some places but not in others. Regardless, it's perfectly good material for anything intended for use in a junior high school.

I cut the lower shelf, the one that's parallel with the floor. It's a bit smaller than 20" square. I attached the double thick back wall to it after taking a 12º angled wedge off the top. Then I measured from the front edge of the lower shelf to the back edge of the angled wall, cut another piece to that length and the same width as the lower shelf.

I drilled three holes in the upper end of the top. These holes are big enough to hold a pen or pencil each. I figured I should make this thing as useful as possible and that seems like a very useful addition. A storage shelf in the right side also seems useful, and is just a good use of otherwise wasted space. Karl Champly would be so proud.

Finally I just lined up my pencil marks, drilled a few pilot holes, spread some glue and screwed the top to to the base, then mounted top, supported by a long, pie shaped piece on one side and a very tiny one on the other, leaving a space in front of the tiny one for paper/folder storage, utilizing the afore mentioned otherwise wasted space. With the addition of a piece on the bottom end to keep books and/or pencils from rolling off, the building process was completed. 

Now the lectern is drying after being sanded up to 220 grit, then receiving a coat of satin polyurethane. Two more coats should do it. I'll move it to Debra's classroom tomorrow evening so I can use it Wednesday and Thursday when she's at an ESL conference and I'm subbing for her. And she can use it thereafter.

Update, September 30, 2008: Here's the lectern drying in the sun after a light sanding and a final coat of polyurethane.

And here it is in it's new home, room 506 of the Alvarado Junior High School.