In my last post, I talked about walking, pickleball, and sign carving. I first learned about sign carving by watching several of Eric’s YouTube videos. Now, if you’ve watched any YouTube videos, you know that when one video finishes, their algorithm suggests a new one they want you to watch. I did and found a “few” others that were intriguing.
Free Wood
One YouTube rabbit trail I followed was using reclaimed pallet wood to make items. There are many YouTubers that make all kinds of things from holiday decorations to actual furniture using wood from old pallets. Of course, I found a couple and started breaking them down – easier said than done! They use ring-shank nails to hold pallets together and those things don’t pull. Most of the time the board splits before the nail turns loose. I finally decided to cut the pallet apart using my Skilsaw. This left me with quite a few short pieces. I made some pumpkins for fall decorations, then a Texas flag. I actually made several of these for friends and family. I still have quite a few pieces left in my woodpile so there may be something else coming. Who knows?
I also found a guy named Rex Krueger who has a series called Woodworking for Humans. Rex focuses on hand-tool woodworking, and his videos demonstrate everything from sharpening tools to restoring old tools and using them in your work. Following his example, I’ve attended numerous estate sales and found some gems. There is something satisfying about taking a rusty old hand plane and restoring it, then using it to smooth a board. It’s also soothing to work with a piece of wood with only the sound of a blade gliding across it while listening to a mockingbird in the background. I built a very useful workbench without using any power tools – it was pretty satisfying
This led me to want to learn joinery using hand tools. I found people who make furniture using only hand tools and connected with a man outside Fort Worth who teaches hand-tool woodworking. When you’re retired, you have plenty of time so I made the trip to Fort Worth and took a one-day class on joinery. Under Wayne’s tutelage, I cut a respectable dovetail, a better mortise & tenon joint, and a pretty good housing dado using only a saw and chisel. So, show us the pictures of the furniture you say. Well… I’m not there yet.
Not furniture exactly, but I decided to make a tool caddy. This doesn’t use any of the fancy joints I learned but uses dowels to hold all the parts together. Notice how the sides are chamfered to match the angle of the end pieces. The original design called for shorter sides that stop where the ends angle in, but I decided to make them a little taller and cut this chamfer using a hand plane I had bought at an estate sale and restored. As I was taking pictures to include in this post I noticed (for the first time) that the previous owner had engraved his name on the side. He and his wife were members of our church and they owned Hardin’s hardware store – small world.
After my tool caddy success, I decided to make a planter box following plans by Matthew Peech. This was not a hand tool project but I learned a few things. First I built a jig to allow straight rip cuts with a skilsaw. This worked out, and then I added a jig to allow me to repeat the cuts and quickly lay out the parts of the planter. Everything was going pretty well until I got ready to put the trim on the top. To do this, you need to cut a 45-degree miter on all four parts of the trim. What do you think of the result? And to think, I stopped before I made that second cut and looked to make sure I had it lined up correctly. Sometimes the #OldManInTheWoods can’t help it – the goober just comes out.
When you mess something up like that you have (at least) two choices. You can give up, sell all your tools, and go back to programming, or you can try again. Or there is that other option – schedule knee surgery. Last summer, after our trip to Michigan, it became obvious that I needed to do something about the knee my doctor told me several years ago was bone-on-bone. I tried to finish the planter before the surgery, but that backward miter just did me in. Had to buy another fence picket, then let it dry enough to work with and I just ran out of time
The good news is that the surgery went well and rehab is going… that’s all I’ll say about that. Don’t get me wrong, the therapy staff is kind and very encouraging – and strong! My surgeon told me early on that therapy is “no pain, no gain”. I’m making some gains…soooo, you get the picture
At least the fence pickets had time to dry, the #OldManInTheWoods probably ought to try to get those miters right and finish the planter box so I can get it off my workbench and get on to something useful, like unpacking the table saw I bought.