Wood arrives in Roberts Creek

The shipment that I purchased for Robert from A&M Lumber  arrived at the school. Everyone was pretty excited to see it.

Here's one of the five planks of 8/4 curly sycamore. The planks are over 20" wide and 10' long and are curly over their full width and length.

Two planks of 8/4 sapele, 37" wide and 10' long:

 

Boxwood, padauk, curly maple and curly sycamore:

  

Another shot of the sapele:

  

Black walnut and an amazing plank of olive:

  

Here's a closeup shot of the curly sycamore. The curls are at about 90 degrees to the grain over much of the boards which is nice.

 

New Workshop

Well, this summer was pretty hectic. The closest I got to doing any woodworking was to build a new workshop up at our cottage. I converted the second floor above our garage into a shop. Previously we had been using it as a bunkie for the kids to hang out and sleep in, and it hadn't been used too much in the past few years, so we decided we'd get a lot more use out of it as a shop. It was a lot of work to convert it. First we had to more or less demolish the interior, ripping out all the interior walls and the plumbing. The floor had been covered in carpeting, and the subfloor underneath was only 5/8" plywood. That wasn't strong enough to support all the heavy woodworking equipment, so we put in a new floor on top of the plywood. I was able to get some hardwood flooring pretty cheap from a local supplier, so I put 3/4" thick maple hardwood down. It made the floor really rigid, plus it looks nice and is really easy to sweep up and keep clean. The lighting was also pretty awful, so I installed new fluorescent lights using T-8 bulbs and electronic ballasts. The advantage of those is that they're more energy efficient that the old T-12 bulbs, and the electronic ballasts are totally quiet, you don't get the annoying hum that the old style lights emit. It's super bright in the shop now. I just moved all my machines and tools into the shop a couple of weeks ago, and I've been busy since then unpacking and setting up things. Unfortunately I've run out of time, school starts next week so things here in the new shop will have to wait till I'm back at the cottage next summer.

This is what the second floor of the garage looked like before I demolished the interior and changed it into a shop:

During demolition, there was quite a mess up there:

Walnut Hall Table

This is the fourth project I made while attending the Inside Passage School of Fine Woodworking in 2008/2009. This is a work in progress as I ran out of time at the end of the school year to complete this piece, so I'm planning on finishing it when I get back to the school for my second year.

The table is constructed from black walnut and curly maple. It is about 26" wide, 37" high and 15" deep. There are 8 drawers in total (5 were completed when I took these pictures). I have 3 drawers left to make, and then I need to install all of the drawer pulls. The drawers have curved fronts, and each drawer is a different size. Once the table is complete, I intend to make a matching mirror to hang on the wall above it.

I really like this piece, so I will probably end up keeping it and not putting it up for sale.

Bubinga Coffee Table

This is the third project I made while attending the Inside Passage School of Fine Woodworking in 2008/2009. It is constructed from bubinga and is 40" in diameter and 17" high.

Ash Coffee Table

This is the second project I made while attending the Inside Passage School of Fine Woodworking in 2008/2009. The table is made from white ash using bent lamination's to form the curved stretchers and legs. The table is 40" in diameter and 17" high.

Donna's Cabinet

This is the first project I made while attending the Inside Passage School of Fine Woodworking in 2008/2009. This cabinet was intended as a gift for a friend of mine. It is made from black walnut, with apple door panels. The drawer fronts are made from spaulted elm (a gift from Robert at Inside Passage), and the back panel is constructed from arbutus. The cabinet is approximately 20" wide by 20" high by 7" deep.