Greetings to all.
I guess I should introduce myself before jumping too far into the pool. I live in Durham (that's North Carolina, not England), and I'm married with one son, who's 3 1/2. Some here may or may not recognize my screen name from the Old Tools list. Yes, I'm a Galoot and will even admit it in public. It's not that I have any religious tendencies around it, just that I don't have a great deal of money to spend on woodworking, I like to keep all the parts of my body attached as long as possible, and my workshop is in a spare bedroom of our house, which precludes powered machinery but lets me work much more comfortably than a garage. Trade-offs everywhere.
I have ambitions for building furniture. I've built a few pieces and been pretty proud of how they came out, considering, but I'm starting to know enough to know how little I know, if you know what I mean.
When I first moved down to North Carolina from Michigan, my wife was still up North for about 6 months. I lived in a two-bedroom apartment and took the opportunity and brought what little workshop I had down to my apartment. I built my first real piece of furniture at that time, a tv table. Not knowing better, my first project using only handtools I bult out of rock maple. Lovely experience, which makes just about any other domestic hardwood project easy by comparison. You can see some photos here.
My current, and hopefully not-too-much-longer project is a Ruobo-style bench designed after the one in Chris Schwarz's book. Pictures, including a few shots of my workshop, can be seen here. As of this writing I've only finished the base and figured out how I'm going to build the wagon vise. (a project in and of itself) Considering I get only two-hours-a-week in my shop, when I'm lucky, that's doing pretty well.
What I like about woodworking is the process as much as the finished product. My paying job is one involving technology, organizational change and a whole lot of meetings so it's not always easy to get a sense of "job well done" when what you produce is so intangible. Woodworking gives me a chance to do something physical (can't wait to plane flat the hard maple top to my bench), something that I can point to and say, "I made that." It also takes me away from the normal stresses and cares of the corporate world.
What I like to do when I'm not woodworking? Well, I like to cook (actually I like eating a whole lot better and since I'm the best cook, I like to cook). I'm one of those annoying low-carb people and will try to keep that part of my "religion" to a minimum, but I do love me a piece of meat. :eusa_danc I also love to travel, and my wife and I got quite a few chances before our son came along. We haven't done much for the last few years, but once he gets old enough we'll be back on the road.
One of my biggest regrets ever, looking back, was some years ago, I had just started looking into this thing called woodworking, we had traveled to Austria. We were driving through the countryside and saw a sign for an Antique Barn (in German, obviously). We followed the signs and arrived at the old farmhouse and the owner opened up the barn for us to take a look around. I now know that the huge pile of curious old iron in the back of the bard was probably 200-300 old goosewing carpenter axes, some looking positively medieval. I didn't get anything. It would have been worth lugging one of those beauties around, but, alas, I knew not what I saw. The price of ignorance is high, my friends.
Anyway. As you can tell, I have a tendency to talk too much, not drink enough and generally I'm pretty harmless. I'm an old dad (45 with a 3-year-old, what were we thinking?!?) with an older hobby who is glad to be here. Thanks for the welcome.
AAAndrew
I guess I should introduce myself before jumping too far into the pool. I live in Durham (that's North Carolina, not England), and I'm married with one son, who's 3 1/2. Some here may or may not recognize my screen name from the Old Tools list. Yes, I'm a Galoot and will even admit it in public. It's not that I have any religious tendencies around it, just that I don't have a great deal of money to spend on woodworking, I like to keep all the parts of my body attached as long as possible, and my workshop is in a spare bedroom of our house, which precludes powered machinery but lets me work much more comfortably than a garage. Trade-offs everywhere.
I have ambitions for building furniture. I've built a few pieces and been pretty proud of how they came out, considering, but I'm starting to know enough to know how little I know, if you know what I mean.
When I first moved down to North Carolina from Michigan, my wife was still up North for about 6 months. I lived in a two-bedroom apartment and took the opportunity and brought what little workshop I had down to my apartment. I built my first real piece of furniture at that time, a tv table. Not knowing better, my first project using only handtools I bult out of rock maple. Lovely experience, which makes just about any other domestic hardwood project easy by comparison. You can see some photos here.
My current, and hopefully not-too-much-longer project is a Ruobo-style bench designed after the one in Chris Schwarz's book. Pictures, including a few shots of my workshop, can be seen here. As of this writing I've only finished the base and figured out how I'm going to build the wagon vise. (a project in and of itself) Considering I get only two-hours-a-week in my shop, when I'm lucky, that's doing pretty well.
What I like about woodworking is the process as much as the finished product. My paying job is one involving technology, organizational change and a whole lot of meetings so it's not always easy to get a sense of "job well done" when what you produce is so intangible. Woodworking gives me a chance to do something physical (can't wait to plane flat the hard maple top to my bench), something that I can point to and say, "I made that." It also takes me away from the normal stresses and cares of the corporate world.
What I like to do when I'm not woodworking? Well, I like to cook (actually I like eating a whole lot better and since I'm the best cook, I like to cook). I'm one of those annoying low-carb people and will try to keep that part of my "religion" to a minimum, but I do love me a piece of meat. :eusa_danc I also love to travel, and my wife and I got quite a few chances before our son came along. We haven't done much for the last few years, but once he gets old enough we'll be back on the road.
One of my biggest regrets ever, looking back, was some years ago, I had just started looking into this thing called woodworking, we had traveled to Austria. We were driving through the countryside and saw a sign for an Antique Barn (in German, obviously). We followed the signs and arrived at the old farmhouse and the owner opened up the barn for us to take a look around. I now know that the huge pile of curious old iron in the back of the bard was probably 200-300 old goosewing carpenter axes, some looking positively medieval. I didn't get anything. It would have been worth lugging one of those beauties around, but, alas, I knew not what I saw. The price of ignorance is high, my friends.
Anyway. As you can tell, I have a tendency to talk too much, not drink enough and generally I'm pretty harmless. I'm an old dad (45 with a 3-year-old, what were we thinking?!?) with an older hobby who is glad to be here. Thanks for the welcome.
AAAndrew
