Working With Wood

I am a trained woodworker. I can build cabinets, window sashes, some furniture, and of course guitars. I can use drills, saws, routers, planes, sanders and chisels.

Although I am also by training an East Coast intellectual (f@#$ George Bush both young and old), I think I actually enjoy working with my hands just a bit more.

I’ll let this golden joke opportunity pass.

I think it comes from my maternal grandfather. He was a machine operator at Fafnir Ball Bearing in New Britain, Connecticut for several decades.

While he would be inordinately proud of his grandson being a PhD, he would no doubt at one point said “Okay, sure, but what do youdo ?”

So whenever I make or repair something, I feel like I am doing something.

I’ve been doing and making a lot lately.

I’m moving to Fo Tan. I will have a workshop space as well as a conference room whose major piece of furniture looks a lot like a bed.

But it’s illegal to live in industrial spaces, so I will deny accusations of making this space my home.

Most importantly for me, I will have a workshop like I have wanted for many years.

This past week, I began to prepare the space for moving in.

It was painted, and after that I began assembling tools and materials to make some things that I would need.

Willie, a friend of mine, was leaving for the US and sold a lot of his appliances.

Cheap .

I bought a 48″ Panasonic TV and a top-of-the-line water filter system from him.

Cheap .

My friend/chiropractor/gym fuhrer Rick got his dryer and a safe. I’m storing them in Fo Tan for the moment.

I have room.

1,300 square feet of it.

But the impor tant thing for me was to build the benches in the workshop. That way I could WORK on them doing things for the rest of the place.

A pedestal sander, a desk, a dryer, a basket, and a rack of guitars.

And wood.

A drill press. The biggest one I could find.

Size matters for drill presses. It weighs a lot. But not as much as me.

Ohhhh, boxes of Ryobi stuff! And a Bosch case!

I wanted to test out the wall hangers for my guitars.

I didn’t expect it to work, but this guitar has been hanging for a few days with no sign of problems.

Watch me find it in pieces on the floor tomorrow.

WOOD!!! This is Phillipine Mahogany, also calle Lauan. You can make guitars out of it.

Ryobi miter saw. Ryobi shop vacuum (wet or dry). Bosch jigsaw. Painter’s floor covering that’s not going to stay.

This is the first sawdust I made with the saw. We’ll see why shortly.

Ooooh, pieces of wood cut to specific lengths. And screwed together.

I wish I was wood.

This is the table for the conference room.

Based on a Japanese design, the table top would be at approximately the same height as many mattresses on beds.

But this is an industrial space and so there’s no beds here.

Note built-in old-school message board on the right.

I used my mattress for measurements, but just because I’m so painfully celibate.

For the last time, this isnot a bed.

I put together this quick version of a bench frame so I could put the 3/4″ plywood on top as a work space.

This is a desk that Anton Wong and Patty gave me. The legs were broken in shipping.

But its solid oak and a really nice desk. It just needed new legs.

Which is what you see in front of the desk.

36″ legs are hot.

Especially when there’s four of them!

I made the desk higher than usual because I am.

That’s not a cough syrup reference.

This is the other bench, and it is finished.

It has 2 shelves of 1/2 melamine (tastes great in China baby formula) for tool and wood storage, and the top is 3/4″ thick for extra strength.

I made a stand for the drill press so that it would be easier to work with.

Since the press is easily 100+ pounds, I needed the stand to be STRONG.

This makes me excited.

Almost all cleaned up.

So in t wo days I built a bed-like conference table, a workbench, a drill press stand, and repaired a desk.

Today between 11-1 (or during the worst of the rain, probably), all this stuff in boxes in Tai Wai will get moved into the space in Fo Tan.

So I need to box up this computer!

As I get all my stuff in, I will of course upd ate.

I may be rather incommunicado for a few days but rest assured I will be back.