Around The Shop

The last farmer’s market of the year has come and gone. Overall, the year was fairly productive and this Christmas market was one of my best sellers for the year. All the remaining product has been inventoried and put away in storage (though its available in case I get a holiday order). Finishing up the […]

Sorry the blogging has been a little light. My regular work as an engineer has gotten “crazy busy” with a lot of business travel, pulling me away from the shop. I need to retire from that so I can spend more time in the shop! I did get the opportunity to visit the Wood and

Been busy doing a home kitchen remodel, so the shop has been used as a staging area and partial work/assembly area. Needless to say, work on other projects has stopped cold. It actually looks a lot better than it was, as the kitchen is almost entirely done. Hope to be able to get back to

The last couple of Farmer’s Markets have been very successful, but my inventory has dropped. So I’ve spent the last month building some stock back up (cutting boards, phone & tablet holders, etc.) as well as producing some new products (Wood BlueTooth speakers, small dovetailed boxes). Just about done with assembly and cleanup, then its

I’ve got a lot of projects going at the same time, which in a small shop can run into each other. In this case, I’ve got some phone stands that I made (I was out of inventory) and now they need to be finished. So its a coat of 50/50 Shellac to “raise the grain”

Well, finally got back to the joinery bench, after working on some other projects. The idea for this is to create a taller bench for doing detailed work (dovetailing, carving, etc.). It will also be somewhat “portable” so I could take it to craft shows/farmer’s markets to demo on. Here its shown upside down, with

One of the challenges of working in a small shop is the need to apply finish to a project in an area that is covered with dust. Every time you walk, you stir it up, and it ends up on your finish. Large shops typically have a s completely separate room for finishing, and often

Once a month, usually the first weekend of the month, I try to do a “shop project” or shop improvement. It might be a jig, it might be a new type of storage, or just general preventive maintenance on tools. The idea is to continually improve the function and flow of the shop. In this

Often when you are working in the shop, you need to create some sort of apparatus or “jig” to control the item while you are cutting, routing, drilling or generally working on the item. It helps to make the work more accurate and/or safer. Oftentimes a woodworker will have a host of jigs in their

With the Craft Show season over, and heading into the winter, its time to clean up and reorganize the shop to get it ready for winter projects. Provided your shop has heat, the winter is an excellent time to build items and prepare for the new year. Typically, after I get done with a major