What's Good for Your Soul?

I was busy the last days with a lot of things. Not much of this was woodworking. But I would like to share some thoughts.

Sunny Early Fall

Last weekend was a great early fall weekend. The sun was shining nearly the whole days and the temperatures were near to 20°. Additionally on Saturday were bank holidays. So we spent the Saturday afternoon on a traditional kermis. I wasn't there for all the attractions, but some delicious food was offered and of course a pint. The other interesting thing on this fair is, that there are a lot of booths with traditional handwork of all trades. So there were a rope maker, some roofers, a blacksmith, a vessel maker (he was doing vessels out of brass and copper), a clog maker and a few more.

I have watched some of them, how they were doing their work. What I noticed was that most of them (apart from the roofers) were pretty old men. So I asked myself what will happen if some of these guys can't do their work any longer for whatever reason. Will their skills be lost? Or is there someone who is interested in this kind of work. Yes of course, they had an interested audience on this fair. But nobody asked the clog maker for example how exactly the clogs were made, which tools are needed, if it will be difficult to learn and so on. Maybe clog making is not the most attractive hobby in the world. But man, he had got some interesting tools and techniques.

I guess you got the point. What I would like to say is, let us share the skills of our preferred trade furthermore.

Which leads me to another point.

To Blog Or Not To Blog

I read a book these days which was full of Shakespeare quotes, so I couldn't resist. ;-)

The real issue I will treat today is the following. Should you write a post in your blog if you haven't got any news about your projects? 

I find yes. There is somethings else which stops you from doing your projects.

And now we are at the point. Why are you writing this blog? Is it just your web-log (which is the origin of all blogs - writing a regular diary about a specific topic on a regular base)? Or is your blog a marketing instrument, so that you have to provide value with every post?

In my case it is just a web-log. I don't want to earn money with it. My goal is not to get famous. I can't provide value to my readers with every post - I'm just a hobby woodworker.

If you find my blog interesting to read, then I'm pretty thankful about it.

But one thing I'm aiming for my Blog is that I'll contribute once a week - every week.

Hence it is that I write about things like about flea market or fair visits, the days when everything goes wrong, vacations, etc.

The truth is that I can't do woodwork the whole day (even if I want to). I've got a family, a day job, friends, other interests. And all this has to be reconciled.

My blog is helping me to sort my thoughts, to motivate, to get things out of my head, to distract, to deal with topics which are new or unknown, to overcome bad times.

To write about sad times is not easy but pretty honest. I admire the courage to write about it. Even it will not fit in your regular content.
So write about everything which is good for your soul and makes you feel better.

This one is for Bob who always encourages me to go on. Even if we just know each other over the internet.

From The Shop

As I wrote above. I spent not much time in the shop.

I'm laminating the table top for my table build. Not pretty spectacular. Details will follow in my next build report.

Portion 1

Portion 2

Just out of the clamps

There is some progress with the workbench. 

All grooves for the back panels are done. Oh, have I mentioned that I've done them with my plough plane - into plywood. Yes, I'm a bad guy and have treated plywood with one of my planes. :-)

Grooves for the back panel

Furthermore I've made some jigs for drilling and distance purposes.

The first one is for drilling the holes into the sides. There are two distances so I can use this template from the top and from the bottom.

The second jig are just some spacers. You can hang and clamp it on the top edge and you will have automatically the right distance for the inset top board.

Drilling template for top and bottom

Spacer for top boards (useable as square)

Beside these jigs I've glued in the support blocks for the bottom.

Support blocks for the bottom boards

Glued to the side panels

Got an idea what they are good for

Because I take your comments serious I've thought a bit about stiffness of the bench. It bothered me and so it came that I made further inquiries.

I found an article in an older issue of Woodsmith magazine, where they were doing a bench like I have got in mind.

They have built in some stiffeners at critical points into the cabinet. That looks like the solution I need.

I will take into consideration how I can do this?

What else?

Man, I'm building a table and a workbench. I'm planning my workshop makeover. I have to do sports two times a week. What else can I do?

Believe it or not. but I found some time to investigate into sign painting. That's interesting stuff too. Ideal for long winter evenings which I can't spent in the workshop. There's more about it to come.

Stay tuned!

Stefan