New Workshop !

On New Years Day 2011 I moved into my new workshop in the basement of our house. I did have a shop in our garden shed in the backyard but it was very small and cold for half of the year.

 I pulled up the old carpet that was in the basement room and put down Dri Core sub floor. I sealed the sub floor with polyurethane. 

I am currently repairing a rocking chair that we got as a hand me down. The lighting in the room is not great but it will suffice for now. It feels great to have a heated workshop and some space to move around in.

Kid's sled

This sled is a project that I started just before Helen was born. I originally wanted to use bent wood for the hand rails but I chose a simpler style instead. Helen is old enough now to sit up in the sled and we will try it out this winter.

End grain cutting board

This is my first stab at a cutting board - an end grain one at that. My inspiration for the project came from The Wood Whisperer - Marc S. He had a video on his website that highlighted the steps for making an end grain cutting board.

With the exception of the purple heart, the rest of the pieces were scraps of wood I had in my shop already. I did not have the pieces I did what I could with the table saw.

60 grit sand paper on my orbital sander did a good job of doing a final cleaning over the end grain.

This project was fun to do. The end product (after finishing with a food safe oil) was very rewarding.

The cutting board was a gift for my mother in law for her birthday.

Eye of the Tiger

This toy took the form of a tiger. I wanted to highlight the stripes on the tiger , so I used different types of wood for the colours. I picked yellowheart and walnut to glue up the tiger.

I was surprised at how soft yellowheart is. It is comparable to pine in grain and density.

The tiger is going to our friends overseas, they just had their second son a few weeks ago.

I used an old Marples 12 " bow saw to cut the profile of the animal. The saw performed nicely

with the original 8ish tpi blade. The saw was a bargain on ebay. I paid around $70 shipping included for the saw. Nearly identical saws can fetch $160 before shipping.