What is your approach to woodworking?

[diggerop]

From the photo's I've seen of your work, yours is really serious woodworking Leon. Something for myself and others to aspire too. I can imagine it gives you enormous satisfaction.

diggerop

[DGDevin]

Yup, if someone wants one to put in their front hall then they aren't just

*saying* it looks nice.

[Swingman]

Just this afternoon, after all these years, I finally came to the conclusion that I probably like building "jigs and fixtures", more than anything else ... go figure! :)

Needed to work on the crown molding on that hutch you helped me move the other day, was dragging my feet on getting it done, dreading going into the shop, and finally decided what I really needed to do was to make a "jig"!

After all, the crown, while simple, was custom stock and scarce, and there was not much left to screw up on.

Screw the hutch and crown! ... rummaged through the scrap pile and spent an absolute glorious, and thoroughly enjoyable afternoon in the shop, screwing and gluing and "jigging up" for the job!

... when something that simple is more enjoyable than the end result, you may be well approaching things the wrong way?

[Larry Jaques]

On Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:17:12 +0800, the infamous "diggerop" scrawled the following:

Have you ever told your missus that her taste is all in her mouth? No, I didn't think so. Butcha thought it, right? ;)

Right. Real men don't use plans. I sketch things up and build them something like it as I go.

But we wouldn't like to.

Pineywood Pukey Ducks do it for ya, do they? OK.

For the future jarrah furniture I plan on building, I'll likely use a story stick.

-- You know, in about 40 years, we'll have literally thousands of OLD LADIES running around with TATTOOS, and Rap Music will be the Golden Oldies. Now that's SCARY! --Maxine

[Greg G]

I feel about the same. Much of the stuff I did in the beginning was making jigs and such to do "future projects" that required accuracy or positioning beyond that which was available from the machines out of the box. Tweaking the alignment of machines, sharpening blades, polishing beds and building jigs are:

Feel good projects whose ends are attainable in an hour to few days. Good warm-ups that put you in the mood for more challenging projects. Don't require complicated 3D plans and can be sketched on a napkin. Don't require expensive woods and mistakes aren't heart wrenching. NO SANDING or FINISHING short of a quick spritz of lacquer or shellac. Fun to use as you test and prove how much time and material they save. The possibility that you will dream up that "better mousetrap" that will earn a fortune and allow one to retire to the Caribbean Islands. (Maybe this one's far fetched... or is it. Think pocket screw jig?)

Now I have to go dream up a new jig to build. That chop saw fence looks good - now how to make it adjustable...

Not to stick my nose in, but I'd remove those two triangular towers of wood at the cut so that they don't shift and jam the blade. OK - I'm paranoid. ;-)

Greg G.

[Bill]

Just curious, Do you folks look at your yard's and think about ways to make it "better"? I'm not talking about the guy that wants to move him and his dog to the trailer park... ; ) More like trellices (sp), decorative fences, and stuff like that. The same imagination at work, no? This year in my new-to-me house I was content to learn how to grow a few hundred square feet of grass. Seems to be doing okay too! : )

Bill

[Lew Hodgett]

Contact me off list.

Lew

[Jim Hall]

I grew up in my father's shop.. He worked in the construction trade but built and worked on boats on his off-time. I had the chore of cleaning up the shop and bringing tools to him and so on until I was teenager. It was my responsibility as his son, but I enjoyed it for the most part. Then we moved closer to the beach and the shop was gone. He still had at least one boat though and almost every weekend he would take me down to the dock in his old truck and we would work on whatever wooden boat he had at the time, or we took it fishing. After finishing high school, I moved out on my own. I was drafted into the Army for 2 years at 19.. After that, college on the GI bill and off to a career completely unrelated to woodworking for 32 years. Before retiring, I began collecting up serious woodworking tools. I'd always had a radial arm saw, band saw and hand tools to do work around the house, build fences, sheds so on, but never the tools for fine woodworking. Since retirement, I've done as much as I can to learn all I can about wood working. I've taken almost all of the cabinetmaking and woodworking classes at our local Junior college, joined the local woodworking society, read many books on fine woodworking, watched many DVDs and gained experience. Woodworking is a passion with me. Although its not my only retirement past-time, it is the one I spend at least a few hours everyday pursuing. I am a fine woodworker. I love building furniture. I love working with hardwood. I measure distances with calipers, if I can. I use AutoCAD. I love using hand tools and planes and with practice my skills are improving. As for my father, now 85, well he always has some small thing he wants me to build for him out of wood, which I enjoy doing, or he brings over something that we repair together. He trained me well. Life is good..

"diggerop" wrote in message news:g_CdnZ2H3bJ2hWHXnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]...

[Bill]

Lew,

When I try to send you messages (today and a while back), they are returned to me indicating that your mailbox is "temporarily disabled". Please advise.

Bill

[sam]

Sure sounds it. Good post.

s

[diggerop]

That's the province of the missus in this house. I just provide manual labour for the heavy stuff. Her gardens continually evolve - informal cottage garden style - and both front and back yards are completely covered in flowers, shrubs, (exotic and native) and fruit trees plus a large pond with fish and frogs. She's even got two banana trees growing, which the experts say will not grow this far south. She didn't know that, so grew them anyway. One has banana's on it now. The place is now a haven for birds and frogs and quolls (a small marsupial about twicw the size of a very large rat.) Oh and no grass. We spent the first year after we bought the place digging out every single blade of grass. Which means I have no grass to mow. Shame about that. ; )

diggerop

[diggerop]

Nah. Pukey Ducks are for you Seppo's. Emu's mate, emu's.

We even used to use them in place of plaster ducks on the wall in the 60's, although they're a bit hard to nail to the wall because the buggers struggle so much.

diggerop

[Lew Hodgett]

Something more people need to think about in the southwestern US, especially here in SoCal, which is by and large a paved desert.

Water rationing is in vogue these days.

Lew

[diggerop]

We've been on garden usage rationing for some time now, plus lawn sprinkler bans in summertime, yet most people here still try and maintain extensive lawns. Beats me.

diggerop

[Lew Hodgett]

Must be a remnant from the UK

Lew

[Leon]

ABSOLUTELY! You have grain pattern and book matching slips on plywood if you are not buying rotary cut veneers, solid wood is not that much more of a problem. Given knots and grain, I simply cull the boards that I want to use in specific spots. I may do as many as 3 or 4 separate optimizations on a large project. There is no rule that you have to optimize all at one time.

[Leon]

Well thank you for the totally unexpected compliment. It has pretty much taken me 30 years to get there. ;~)

Woodworking in general still gives me great satisfaction.

[Leon]

.

What fun would that be?? LOL

Maybe just slide the jig down an inch or so and make a new cut.

[Leon]

I try to make my yard as maintainance free as possible. Now if I could get the Live Oak to drop its leaves in the Fall instead of the Spring.

[Leon]

----- Original Message ----- From: "Swingman" Newsgroups: rec.woodworking Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2009 6:32 PM Subject: Re: What is your approach to woodworking?

snip

Were you getting "Jiggy with It"? LOL

No, as I mentioned to diggerop, woodworking in general still gives me great satiafaction. You are simply multitasking, completing projects on the way. It does not matter what I am building as long as I am building.