A Necessary Evil

I guess evil is a strong word, but it gets my point across. What I'm referring to is tool sharpening. In reading as much woodworker stuff as I can get my hands on, one central tenet of all the masters is the same: you must work with sharp tools. Basically, if you try to do handwork with dull tools, you're going to get frustrated and tired. Frustrated when the pieces look awful or don't fit and tired by having to wail on a chisel to get it to cut.

I got a reminder of both this weekend when working on J's jewelry box. I'm hand-cutting through dovetails for the box joinery, which requires a fair amount of chisel work to get the pins & tails square and fitting nicely. Let's just say I didn't get off a great start. I stopped after being horrified by the amount of tear-out I was getting from my dull chisels. I must at least give myself a little credit for stopping before I would be forced to use the 4 pieces of mahogany as firewood.

Yesterday's activity was getting the chisels back to form. I've been using the Scary-Sharp method, which uses ordinary sandpaper to hone chisel & plane irons. I buy 400 - 2000 grit automotive paper and work my way up the grits until the metal looks almost like a mirror. The hardest part is flattening the backs of the chisels first so you can actually generate a nice edge. Unfortunately, chisel backs are anything but flat when you first buy them. Here's a nice step-by-step description of the process I generally use (sans waterstones for now). Once the backs are flat, honing the bevel is easy. After about 5 minutes or so, they're sharp enough to shave the hairs off my arm. Not their primary purpose, mind you, but it is a good test of sharpness. :-)

The sad part about yesterday is that I had to quit working in the shop before I had a chance to put them to work. Hopefully, I'll get out there tonight after work since it's a balmy 53 F today. Happy Monday, everyone.

I Finally Got My Shop Back

Hey all. Has it been over 2 months since I last blogged? Of course it has because this is me and I'm quite possibly the worst blogger ever (well, not in content, but definitely in frequency).


I got a bug to write again because I got a nice e-mail from a few windsor chairmakers out in Missouri who found this blog through my instructors' website. Turns out they studied together at the same place and are also professional chairmakers. It was nice to hear from them.


The good news is that the workshop has been busy again lately. I've made it a point to reclaim the shop from the storage area it had become during the bathroom remodel, so over the last 3 weeks I've been doing just that. I basically cleaned it all out (found out that several local mice had been feeding on a bag of birdseed - yuck), moved some stuff around, made a few upgrades, and got it back in working order. The upgrades are a few small cabinets for extra storage that I'v ebeen thinking about forever. They're nothing fancy, but they do manage to keep some tools and supplies from getting dusty, which is key in a shop with little or no winter ventilation. Here's what the weekend oasis looks like now. It looks more crowded than it actually is. There's alot of multi-tasking going on with the benches and equipment.





In fact, I have several projects in progress as we speak. I'm building a jewelry box for a soon to be 13-year old niece (shhh, don't tell her), and have been experimenting more with my lathe. I really want to do more turning, starting with spindles and working my way up to bowls. The first project will be legs and stretchers for a few windsor stools. These have been in the offing ever since I finished my sackback chair over a year ago. I'll let you know how they turn out.


I'm off to Pittsburgh tomorrow for a business trip, so wish me luck that I don't get stuck somewhere due to snow, wind, or both... Have a good week.

Furnace Replacement - Day 1

Today was truly one of those best of times, worst of times kind of days. This morning, I had the misfortune of experiencing the death of a pet. Beth published a wonderful eulogy for our boy Milo on her blog. He was a good boy and will be missed.

Given the grief of this morning, it was a welcome diversion to have our HVAC guys start on the new heating system today as well. I delayed the install a week due to some business travel, which meant the house has been COLD for an extra week. To drive home the impact of that decision even more, we got out fist real snow & ice last night. yippee... The saving grace for us has been the pellet stove we installed in the kitchen/breakfast room and the space heaters we bought when the knittas came to town. With these things running 24-7, there's just enough heat to keep us from becoming popsicles in these beginnings of a frigid NY winter.

The new system is a complete overhaul, with a boiler and hydro-coil air handlers replacing the normal gas furnace. We decided to go this route so we could place a second air handler in the attic to handle the 2nd floor independently. The guys focused on the basement today, removing all of the old equipment and installing the first air handler (photo below) and new duct work. What may not translate in this simple photo is the joy that comes with the fact that this unit will NEVER come in contact with any water that could reside on the floor of our basement. That fact alone is huge in this old house...

They'll be back tomorrow to begin the install work in the attic. We're on track to have real heat again by the end of the week. Hallelujah...

Look What I Got!

Yep. That's what they call in these parts 'One Kick-Ass Snowblower'. I was the major recipient of some good will last week when our Friend Todd let Beth know that he was getting a new one and wanted to give his "old" one away. Well, this isn't what I was expecting. For being 'old', this thing is awesome...8 HP, electric start, hand controls, you get the picture. For a guy who's never had one of these, I am feeling like a kid on Christmas morning. Many thanks to our Upstate Mom & Pop for this fine gift as we later found out that this belonged to them. THANK YOU!! I'm actually looking forward to our first major snowfall just so I can run this big bad boy around the driveway!!

As you may expect, it's been rather quiet on the master bath front. I've been traveling quite a bit lately and we've also decided to take the plunge on the furnace replacement. I did manage to make a little progress this morning while Beth was making Mac & Cheese for Thanksgiving dinner...

These are the new mirrors and flyover lights. They have the same finish as the vanity and storage cabinet that will eventually grace this room, in case you're wondering how this whole experiment may look when it's done. Hopefully within my lifetime it will be.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you all have a fun-filled day with your families and get plenty to eat in the process.

A Weekend of 'Plan B's'

For all of you that have been reading cigars and other 'yarny' blogs, you've likely got a belly full of the sheep & wool weekend by now. But alas, there was even more that went on that weekend. How can that be, you may ask? Well, the boys got a bit bored with sheep & wool so we went off and did some fun stuff on our own.

Saturday afternoon, Paul & I wandered our way back from Rhinebeck and hit a few of my favorite places (beer store, the Newburgh waterfront, and a beer bar)! We bought a few choice selections at Half-Time and had fun kicking back with a few pints with Brian and the gang over at the Rail. In between was spent taking some photos of the Hudson River and surrounding mountains. The first shot of the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge is below (more on that in a bit).

Plan B #1 came when trying to find dinner on Saturday. We both wanted barbecue, but the only place in Newburgh had a 30-minute wait. This wasn't going to work, so we ended up getting a pizza and going back to the house to watch Game 6 of the ALCS, which the Red Sox won 12-2. All was well...

Sunday, we decided to hang back locally and do some hiking and picture-taking. It was an absolutely beautiful day and we both wanted to do something a bit more active than the eating & drinking routine we had basically perfectly the rest of the weekend. We tried to hike at Mohonk, but were denied at the gate by an ornery parking attendant and a sign that unceremoniously said "No Day Hiking Today." It would've been nice if they posted this on their website, but NOOOOOOO...please drive 30 minutes out of your way before we totally ruin your plans for the day. bastards... However, not all was lost as 'Plan B' #2 was hatched.

I have been wanting to hike up Breakneck Ridge again for a long time and today served as a perfect opportunity to do it. I remembered that it was a tough hike, but Paul was game so we decided to give it a whirl. Here's Paul at the trailhead.

Breakneck is a rocky scramble up about 1200' of vertical terrain in about a half-mile. It did not disappoint. I found a pretty good summary of it written by someone else here. We tagged along with a few groups who helped us navigate the various trails without getting lost. It was an excellent way to spend 3.5 hours on a beautiful fall day.

This is the view from the first lookout point. Storm King Mountain is in the background. They've recently added the US and POW flags. I don't remember them from the last time I was up here, circa 2000 or so.

That's the same Newburgh-Beacon Bridge in the distance. The only detriment to the whole day was that it was a bit hazy, but otherwise a perfect day. The boys part of the weekend ended by grilling up a chicken & shrimp feast for the knitta's that turned out to be a perfect way to wrap up the weekend.

Pics (as promised)...

Hello again. Here's a few updated shots of the bathroom. All of the wainscoting is installed and we're using the shower. Can I get a hallelujah? All that's to do on this side of the room is paint the lower portion of the walls and install a few more fixtures.

Now that door I was telling you about. Here's a shot to go with the description in my previous post. As they say, a picture is worth 1,000 words...

I just couldn't bring myself to changing this doorway. I went with what the house was giving me and am glad I did. It's strange little quirks like this one that make our house unique and interesting. Eventually, the door and trim will be painted the same color as the wainscoting, but that's pretty low on the priority list right now. Must get vanity, countertop, and sinks installed first.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Bathroom Chronicles, Vol. 5

Hello all. Sorry for the delay since the last post, but I spent last week on the road for work and this week has been a mad dash to get the house ready for Snarktoberfest 2007 :-) However, with all the hub-bub going on around us, we basically met our goal of having a 'functional' master bath before the kinttas arrive. We did have to make some sacrifices in the name of 'functional,' like no sinks and an unfinished floor (more on that later), but the new shower is pretty darned cool. In fact, Beth and I have been taking our morning showers in it all week :)

The latest finished tasks are completed wainscoting and re-hanging the door. We're keeping all of the the original doors that were left in the house when we bought it. They're in great shape and just need some scraping and re-painting to make them look perfect again. The master bath door is quite funny since at some point in the past, the house settled about 2 inches near this doorway (as shown by the sloping floor and slanted door framing! So, what did they do? They trimmed the top of the door to be shorter on one side! It looks rather odd on its own , but inside the door frame, it fits perfectly. I had to trim it down a bit more on all sides to accommodate the new casings, but it's good to go now.

I had the best intentions of re-finishing the floor too, but we just ran out of time. What it boiled down to was I didn't want to run the risk of having tacky polyurethane on the floor when a house full of people needed to take showers. It can wait until the October rush is past and it's just me, Beth , and the kitties again. No pictures to post right now but I'll get a few up soon.