The Morning Woodworker

Wood, Beer and Food!

Before anyone starts sending hate mail, let me explain. I am not talking about woodworking with beer. I am talking about the perfect ending to weekend. (My weekend ends on Monday, IF I get two days off, which in this case I did, woohoo!) I’m talking of cooking with wood… and beer.

While I was perusing the local Lowes Home Impovement store I went through the grill section as I usually do. What caught my eye wasn’t the usual assortment of grills that they had to offer. (Although I was tempted by the shininess of stainless steel.) What caught my attention was a couple of pallets of charcoal that I had not seen before. It was the “Cowboy” brand “Lump” charcoal. In case anybody is not aware, lump charcoal is wood chunks that have been charred into coal. I had been wanting to try this lump style of charcoal for quite some time. While I enjoy grilling as much as any American Male in the South, I never felt that I had a “One Up” on anybody, I had only the Bricket style of charcoal available to me. At least I don’t use gas. Those guys are “posers”. (O.k. send hate mail now). I had heard of this Lump Charcoal on “The Food Network”, I have just never seen it in the stores.

Well since I had bought my two big bags on Saturday, I have grilled tree times this weekend. What a difference! It burns hotter, doesn’t have any chemical taste or smell and just plain cooks better. So if you have never tried this type of charcoal before, you owe yourself a favor to try it. Take that shiny gas grill to the curb and get yourself a charcoal burning grill with cast iron grates and cook yourself up a mess of grub. You will never go back to bricket’s or gas again. I promise.

Oh I almost forgot to tell you that there is much less ash left behind when using this stuff. Like I said, I have grilled tree times and I still don’t have to empty the grill. Awesome!

If you can’t find this charcoal in the store, just do a Google search for “Lump Charcoal”. There are many places that will ship to you.

Posted in General | 4 Comments »

New World or Old School Dovetails?

While I have been busy trying to transform my garage into a workshop, I haven’t been able to do any woodworking whatsoever. Occasionally I will be so desperate to get my “fix”, I will be temped to do some hand cut dovetails. My lack of an appropriate bench usually prevents this from happening. What I mean by appropriate is a bench that does not wobble when you clamp a piece of lumber to it and try sawing or chiseling on it. My “workbench” has been doubling as a scaffold while I refinished the ceiling and unfortunately seen to much stress from me walking all over it.

This got me to thinking. With all of the new fixtures and jigs available on the market from places like Rockler, Woodcraft and even department stores like Sears, who actually takes the time to hand cut dovetails anymore?

Not to long ago I thought the dovetail jigs, especially the adjustable ones did an awesome job of cutting dovetails. I thought why would anyone bother to take the time and frustration to do this by hand when these jigs did the job so fast?

One day I tried practicing these dovetails by hand, just to see how hard it was. It was pretty bad. I posted it online. Check it out. Marc, The Wood Whisperer suggested a DVD by Rob Cosman that showed, in detail, how to cut these little jems with ease and precision. Of coarse this comes with practice.

So my question to you is: Do you find it worth the effort to hand cut your dovetails or do you just grab a jig and let the machines do the work?

Posted in Learning, Tools | 4 Comments »

Storage Solutions

While my shop has been in a total chaos state during the upgrade process I have been trying to decide on a storage system. My initial plan was to make a set of cabinets myself. The reason for this is: to get some experience making cabinets before making the kitchen cabinets and to hopefully save some money making them myself instead of pre-made cabinets.

But… I have been rethinking this logic lately. I am so ready to get my stuff organized that I don’t think I have the patience to make them myself. Also, as far as saving money goes, I’m not sure that I would save that much as I always go overboard with trying to buy the best hardware and accessories for anything that I build. So I have been looking at a couple of options. One of them is a modular system sold at Lowes, made by Coleman. Check it out. Does anyone have an opinion of these? They basically look like the same quality as office furniture that you put together from a box but with heftier hardware. What I do like is that they would be easy to keep clean and they are lockable.

So what do you think? Any suggestions or alternatives?

Posted in Shop | 3 Comments »

Creature Comforts Part Deux

Today the temp outside reached 93 deg. Normally the garage would be a couple of degrees higher due to being closed up all day. When I got home from work today, I was pleasantly surprised to find the temp of the garage to be only 77 deg. This is without the newly installed air conditioner on at all. So now the garage/shop/man cave has officially become the most comfortable room in the house.

This is good and this is bad…

This is good for obvious reasons. This is bad because it means that the rest of the house is inadequately insulated. This makes perfect sense seeing how my electric bill is typically $350 to $400 dollars a month during the hot summer months. The central air conditioner seems to never stop.

So… I guess I will be diverting some of my shop upgrade budget to adding more insulation to the house. Otherwise I will just be pissing away money every month. Money I could be using to purchase tools and, oh yea, WOOD!

Posted in Shop | 3 Comments »

WordPress Update?

Many of you out there have your own blogs. My blog is on WordPress. Every time I log on it tells me to upgrade my blog to the new version. As a matter of fact it is staring me in the face as I write this post. Well, my website, blog, site host, ftp experience is very little and the “five minute installation” of WordPress in the beginning took me 6 hours and to be honest, I have no idea what I did. All I know is that it works now, but I have been told that I will eventually have to upgrade or I will not be able to use the program until I do.

I have the “WordPress for Dummies” book but it doesn’t really seem to help me that much. I guess that makes me a real idiot. Anyway, I need something that tells me more. I tried to upload a plugin that is supposed to automate this process but it doesn’t show up in my plugin manager. ?

I’m scared.

I don’t want to lose all my stuff.

Can somebody point me the right direction or recommend a book to help me?

Please.

HELP ME!

Posted in Learning | 4 Comments »

Creature Comforts

Today a very important milestone was achieved in the many shop upgrades that are in the works. Earlier in the week I installed an air conditioner. I bought the biggest window unit that I could find, a 25k btu unit. I have never had an air conditioned garage/shop before so I was pretty exited about it, especially since the summer months are rapidly approaching. The heat and humidity are pretty tough here in the South.

Even though I had this air conditioner installed, I could not feel the maximum effects due to the attic not being insulated yet. The temp would only go down to 77. This was better than nothing but I wanted more.

We had a cold front come through this weekend so I decided to take advantage of the weather and install that insulation that I desperately needed. So, I headed down to the home improvement center and asked about getting 40 bags of insulation delivered. Turns out that the waiting list for deliveries are pretty long. Crap, I only have one off day I and need it now. Fortunately there is a U-Haul place across the street. So with the trailer attached to the truck, I get my insulation and insulation blower that came for free if you buy 20 bags or more.

I waited until the next morning to start installation. I wake up pretty earlier so I started prepping the attic while my wife slept a little longer. (She is my assistant for the day) My wife wakes up and is eager and willing to help. She knows how important it is for me to get this done. I go through the procedures of how to load the machine while I crawl up in the attic and blow this stuff around. So I set her up with some gloves, dust mask, goggles and a razor knife to open the bags with.

After a couple of issues getting started my wife and I finally get into the groove and insulation is flowing pretty smoothly. Then all of a sudden, the motor pitch of the blower gets higher and the insulation stops flowing. So I crawl down and see what’s up with the machine. “It’s not turning anymore” wife says. “You’re putting too much in at one time, let it feed itself”. We remove some of the insulation and get the paddles in the machine turning again. I crawl up there again and we return to the blowing. It wasn’t five minutes and the machine jams up again. “What the hell!,” I yell down to my wife. “It stopped again,”she says. No shit…

Down I go again. This time we totally empty the machine and try to see what is causing this thing to jam up. It will not turn, even when empty. To hell with this, it will take all day at this rate. I talk to all of the store managers in the area to get this resolved but all of the other machines have been rented out and they can’t tell me when they are due back. So I go to the “other” home improvement center and rent one of their machines. I get it home and go to disconnect the hose off of the faulty machine and a broken razor blade drops out of the machine. “Baby, where is your razor knife?” “I don’t know, I stopped using it and started ripping open the bags with my hands.” …

After throwing a mild fit, I tipped the machine over and shook it until the pieces of the METAL razor knife came out. Five pieces in all. I fitted the pieces together to make sure that I had them all.

The rest of the insulation went smoothly and now I have a very comfortable feeling shop. All I have to do now is insulate the garage door and I will be set.

I little tip when it come time to getting the insulation at a constant thickness throughout the attic. Instead of using the rulers that you can buy to place all over the attic, use a lazer level and fill the insulation up until you see the line from the level. Works really good.

I would show a picture of the razor knife but my wife already threw away the evidence.

I was going to start priming the walls today, after the insulation but I am beat and it is time to drink some beer and play some Mario Kart Wii.

Hell Yeah!

My Mario Kart “friend code” is 4210-4382-1940 if anyone wants to send me a challenge or whatever. You can send your code to me at esdinges at hotmail dot com. I spelled it out so I don’t get any of that “bot” spam but you know what to do.

Later

Posted in Shop | 1 Comment »

Drywall is up!

Things are really taking shape now! I was getting depressed about the whole garage upgrade thing. Mostly because my shop has been a total mess. Anytime I try to do anything  I have to spend about an hour rearranging stuff before I can get started. Also, I have never done any of this stuff before and I was getting worried that it was going to come out real crappy. Halfway through the drywall hanging and while I was/am taping and mudding the drywall, I was wishing that I had hired someone to do it. It is taking me SOOOO long to get this stuff done.  I have a couple more coats of mud to put on then I will be done with that stuff.

On a positive note, I did get some shop time today while I was trimming out one of the windows. May not be much woodworking but I did get to use my tablesaw, thickness planer along with my new Jet dust collector. That thing is awesome! In the past, I would use the dust collector hood that you fit over a garbage can and it would always come off and sent wood chips flying all over the place. I don’t think one piece ever hit the floor with the Jet.

I also got to use a Jack Plane and a Block Plane to trim the case of the window flush with the crazy wavy wall. After I get the window done I will be installing a 25,ooo btu air conditioner that is sitting on the floor just begging to be used. I know that I should just concentrate on the walls and get them finished but…
It’s startin’ to get hot man,  sometimes the South sucks.

Posted in Projects, Shop | No Comments »

Garage Upgrade Update

I have installed insulation in the garage (in the walls anyway) and now I am waiting for some help from my family to install the drywall. I was trying to think of some ways to hang this stuff myself by making some supports out of 2×4’s but I haven’t come up with anything good yet. I guess I will have to wait until this weekend to get the drywall up. Hopefully the busy schedules will allow it. I am really anxious to get this done so I can get my shop back in running order. I am having “withdrawals” and need to make something, anything, even if it’s total crap.

As you can see in the background I have added a dust collector to the arsenal of tools. Hopefully this, along with the ceiling mounted air cleaner will help keep things clean, in the shop and in my lungs.

Someone please help me…

Posted in Shop | No Comments »

Motorcycle Race Weekend

I know this post has nothing to do with woodworking but along with woodworking, I have a passion for all things motorcycle.

This past weekend a group of us, 9 people total, took our bikes and headed up North to Leeds, Al. (about 6 miles East of Birmingham) to catch round #2 of the AMA Motorcycle Race series. This round is known as “The Honda Superbike Classic” and takes place at Barber Motorsports Park. Barber is also home to Barber Motorcycle Museum. Check it out.

The ride up there was absolutely amazing. Of coarse we took the back roads and stayed off of the interstate as much as possible. The weather was perfect. Scattered clouds and mid 70’s to low 80’s. The real prize if the weekend was riding the local roads in the mountains. Two lanes of tree lined, twisty, turny, up/down hill climbing wind in your face, motorcycle riding goodness. Of coarse there were many bikers there to see the race as well which just added to the whole experience.

Race weekend was an experience as well. If you have never attended a race, be it motorcycle or auto, I recommend that you do so and get access to the pit area if you can. That is where the real excitement is. You can always watch the race on television and see more of the race.

I could go on and on about the race but seeing how this is a woodworking crowd I will stop here and just post some picture for you to enjoy.

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Electrical upgrade…DONE!

I know in my last post I said that it was going to be a few days before I could finish up on the wiring but, it was driving me crazy not having it finished. So, I took an unscheduled day off from work (sorry Dom, I know you missed me) so I could finish up before going on my road trip.

It took me 14 hours and 3 sweat baths to finish it up today. I now have 4 220v outlets (actually the meter showed 250v, will have to check that out. Anyone?), several more 110v outlets and my hot water heater wiring rerouted. I can now sleep at night knowing that this is done. Trust me, I slept like a rock last night.

Next up, insulation.

Time to go see some motorcycle race action. Have a great weekend!

Posted in Shop | No Comments »