sutton083

I read from Chris Schwarz years ago that in woodworking book publishing, bird houses books are among the top sellers, since...forever it seems. Obviously a popular subject, let's take a hint... Its been a long, long time since I made  a birdhouse, but I saw a picture of a whimsical one that I like. so this is what we would do next as a project. Google birdhouse with faces A bit more involved than cutting shape with the scroll saw but why not. So first lesson for them, how to square a board on four sides given only a piece of firewood and a dull hand plane...Kidding :-) So I suppose, I should built one first and see how I am going to approached it with them. I don't have a plan of course, just a picture of something that catch my eye, because it is screaming Grampa !!!! :-) A quick doodle, a few key measurements and notes A quick check of my left over side piece of  my 1st plane till Should give me a few pieces, but need more Brought a plank and my scrap pieces to the wood shop...

I found some small pieces of 1/8 thick plywood, cut them up for the kids to draw on it to then cut the shape out on the little saw at the bench They both wanted to draw their own shapes so sharpen pencil and out you go. Then they quickly decided that it should also be colored. Finally the oldest was able to cut out her shape on the saw She needed some help with the action. mostly how to hold the piece down and feed it. But she got the hang of it The youngest one has the attention span of a squirrel presently, so it is a bit more of a challenge :-) Besides she has yet to finished her masterpiece And by the time she was ready to cut, Jean mentioned maybe we should go to the beach. The kids quickly turned that into lets go swimming, so the other masterpiece has not been cut, she decided to leave it as is and go swimming now. So packed a lunch and off they went. I stayed behind with Rudy to get some yard work done. So this is what we ended up with today. Its going to be a long way before w...

The first thing I wanted to set up was my small Delta scroll saw, the American boy .  Yeah, I know, there are Canadian girls but I'm sure they will like it too :-) To do that I wanted to make some sort of portable base to fasten the saw on the bench or table. Were we last left off , I had roughly saw a board made up of laminated maple boards. My plan was to finished it by hand, but them Jean said she was coming home with them one day earlier. For me to finished that and still made progress in the yard, I figured better bring out the big toys. So a quick trip to the wood shop on base, run my board thru the drum sander, rip the other edge on the table saw, then cross cut both ends on the Radial Arm Saw and done. Took me longer to signed the keys in/out and clean up than doing the deed :-) There is something that this bench have not seen in a long time... A board ready for planning. Back home, I gave the board a chamfer on the top side, knocked off all  the sharp edges with a li...

Well, with all that heat wave is bringing, my yard works is really slowing down.  Time to retreat to the shop downstairs and setting it up for the grand kids. I just need to clear the floor, tidy up and set up a few human powered machines and voila! There you go, floor is cleared, and the beam went to..?? Another good reason to get into hand or foot operated woodworking machinery, is that it is a lot easier and safer for the kids :-) First up to bat was that 6X6 beam lying on the floor Took some quick measurements and cross cut both ends.  Hopefully I cut enough to get rid of some of the worse twist. My first idea was to cross cut it using my circular saw, but I negated that because it would make quite a mess in my shop. I do not need bigger messes right now, thank you. So I figured, lets go old school, using a Disston D7 cross cut saw Tracking pretty good And done. According to my phone time stamps,  that took about 1 and a half minutes. Not bad Cutting the other end Nic...