Hey everyone!  I have not died, quit podcasting, or quit woodworking!  I am coming back real soon.  I just hit a season of life that crushed the free time I had to podcast.  It is nothing serious.  I have experienced a series of first world problems that have impacted my time to get behind the microphone.  
You will hear from me real soon. Thanks for all the positive comments and encouragement these past few months!

The post I Am Coming Back appeared first on Avid Woodworker.

The post AW #021 – Interview with Bandsaw Wizard Alex Snodgrass appeared first on Avid Woodworker.

This podcast is the last part of the interview with professional woodworker, Shane Rodarte.  He shares his perspective of woodworking for a living.

The post AW #020 – Professional Woodworking with Shane Rodarte (Part 2) appeared first on Avid Woodworker.

I will post show notes upon my return from Woodworking in America 2014

The post AW #019 – Interview with Pro-Woodworker Shane Rodarte appeared first on Avid Woodworker.

Woodworking for a Living

The post AW #018 – Woodworking for a Living? appeared first on Avid Woodworker.

In this podcast, I interview Chris, who can be found here, and talk about his journey that made him Avid about woodworking.  Hope you enjoy!

The post AW #017 – Woodworking by Hand with Chop With Chris appeared first on Avid Woodworker.

What is the Simplest Way to Woodwork Fast?

Well, before I answer that question, I need to give some background.  Today’s topic was born out of my own two recent mistakes. If you have not noticed, I have not been able to podcast for a few weeks now.  I recently had some free time and I had to make a choice between podcasting and woodworking.  Sorry everyone, but I choose woodworking.  I needed some therapy time.

The sad thing is that if I had applied the advice I am about to give, I would have had enough time to woodwork and podcast a couple weeks ago. So, over the course of the next several minutes, I am going to tell you about  two things happened to me recently that really pissed me off.  At the end of that, I will give you my answer, but I bet you will have already figured it out by listening to my own foolishness.  Of course, once I realized my mistake, I was able to fix it.  The problem is, I did not learn from the first time I made the mistake.  I had to make it a second time for it to start to sink in.  Then I realized, perhaps I need to write it down, admit to it everyone, and talk about it to make it sink it so I do not make the same mistake.

First time I messed up.

Recently, my oldest son got for his birthday a lego robot.  You know, those kinds that are entered into competitions and you program things for the robot to do on a playing field and it has to perform those tasks based upon your programing.  Anyhow, it is really cool, but the problem was that he did not have a desk in his room.  He had been doing his homework on the kitchen table for all these years.  Since I did not want lego parts strewn all across the table that we would have to constantly move, I realized it was time for him to have a desk.  Well, of course, I am a woodworker, so we are not going to freaking go buy a desk.  I am going to make one.

My wife and son made it clear, it does not have to be fancy.  He just wanted something quickly so he could start building a robot.  I was on it!  I ran down to the shop excited.  I put all my other projects on hold because I was going to build this quickly.  I went to my bookshelf of magazines and started pulling out all the issues about desks.  Of course, I have been thinking about building a bridge over the dry riverbed in the back yard, so when I saw a couple issues about building bridges, I had to check those out and set them aside for later (think I might have ADHD?).  Next thing you know, my workout room is filled with magazines piled all over the floor.

Then I determined (after spending a couple hours dreaming about other projects I might build from the magazines), that the projects in the magazines were more than what my son needed right now.  So I decided that I was going to take a slab of ambrosia maple, rip it, re-saw it on the bandsaw to book matched pieces, and then use what was left over to make the legs.  I got to work on it, forgetting how difficult it is to work with slabs that are 8 feet long and nearly 3 inches thick.  I rushed through the ripping with my 10 ¼ inch circular saw so I could rip it again on the bandsaw.  I rushed through re-sawing it on the bandsaw, forgetting that when you work with 8 foot long pieces, the slightest movement at one end can twist your blade and make it not cut straight.

Then I looked at my watch, hours had past.  While I had some pretty pieces of wood that were bookmatched, they were were not the same thickness and the cuts on two of the boards were . . .  well . . .  they sucked.  Arggh!  This was going to take a while to fix, and I told my family I could knock it out in a day.

I will tell you what I did in a couple minutes.

So the second time I messed up.

My wife and I have a couple that are friends of ours and they sell certain craft projects on the weekend for fun and for fun money.  The husband actually makes very good money and they do not need to do this.  It is just something they enjoy.  Well they recently asked me if they could sell my pens there too.  It would benefit them because we could share their ‘booth’ fee at the craft shows and they would also have more in their booth to sell, thereby attracting more customers.  I said that I was interested, but I needed to see how many pens I could turn over the course of a couple of weekends to make sure they had plenty to display before their next big craft show.

So this past weekend was Memorial Day weekend.  Saturday was taken up in large part by an event at the Georgia National Cemetery with the Scouts.

Check out the Video here.

Monday I went out to the boat to see about getting it started for the summer season and getting it into the shop to replace the water pump in the motor (it was that time).  Well, I could not get it started and became frustrated with the boat.  An hour later, I gave up and my dad and I decided on the way home that it is time to sell that boat.

I only give that background so you understand when I got home, I was in a bad mood.  I felt like I had wasted the morning and valuable shop time with a boat that we now have to get rid of.  I got to turning my pens.  When I was pulling out the pens and blanks, I found a pen that I had already set up the blanks to be turned.  I just needed to turn it and assemble the pen.  Now, this pen was not on my list of pens to work on.  It was something that I did not have on my plan, but I thought I could rush through it and turn it quickly and get it finished to include with the other pens I had already planned on turning.

Well this particular pen involved cutting a tenon free hand for a particular piece of pen. The freehand was not a problem.  The problem was the measurement of the freehand.  I rushed it and cut the tenon too long.  By this point I was becoming really frustrated.  Woodworking is supposed to calm me down, not piss me off.  Well, I thought I could fix that problem in the assembly.  I again rushed to a solution, only to find that I had again, made an error in judgment and totally screwed the pen up.  I was so mad I threw the pen that I had just turned into the trash.  I had tried to disassemble it, but that only resulted in the copper tubing in the inside of the tube breaking loose of the shaft.  AARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!  More time wasted and I am mad to boot.

Ok, so what is the common denominator in these two screw ups?  Yes, I was, but my woodworking ineptitude is not the issue.  The issue is I was trying to woodwork fast.  I was rushing everything and screwing it up.  So, how did I resolve these two problems?

I realized that the simplest way to woodwork fast is to SLOW DOWN!  Ok, so I know that sounds counter intuitive.  But it is so true.  When you rush, you make mistakes.  When you make mistakes, you have to start over or fix the mistakes, which, in the long run, takes more time.

So, I can illustrate this by applying this principle to my exact situations.

In the desk situation, I stopped working.  I left the shop.  I was so mad at myself that I had almost wasted the entire day.  It was now 5 o’clock and I did not have a finished desk.  I slowed down. I asked myself what does Baldwin really need at this stage?  Something simple.  I pulled out a sheet of paper and just started making notes.  I went to his room with a tape measure and looked at what space I had to work with, and a simple solution just hit me.

About 10 years ago, somebody had given me four long oak spindles for a big stair case.  They had been just sitting in the basement doing nothing.  Why I even took them, I have no idea.  I pulled them out and knew they would be my legs once I had cut them to the correct length.  I then pulled a long piece of pine from my ceiling storage.  I had drawn out my measurements on my piece of paper with my notes.  In less than an hour, I had cut the base for the desk.  LESS THAN AN HOUR!  I knew that I wanted to still do the maple top, but did not have the time for it.  The original desk plan called for an ebony stained base (his bed is black) with the maple top just covered in Waterlox.  So, I just took some scrap MDF, cut it to size and attached it with some pocket hole screws, knowing that I could simply unscrew them later after I had finished the maple top.  I painted the MDF black and then slapped some lacquer on the entire project.

Of course, the staining and the lacquer took another day, and I left the desk in the basement for a week next to a window with a fan in it to pull the smell of the lacquer out of the desk, but the construction of the desk was actually completed in a total of an hour.  The following week my son had a cool looking (according to him) desk that he could use and I not have the time to finish the top on my schedule to do it properly.

If I had not rushed into the basement originally, I would have thought this through, conceived of the desk and built it in the morning and then podcasted in the afternoon.  Of course, then I would not have this story to tell I guess.

What did I do when I tried to rush my pen turning?  Well, after I threw my pen into the trash, I remembered what happened with the desk.  I went upstairs and left the shop.  I grabbed a hard apple cider, popped the top and just enjoyed a cold one.  I realized and calmed down.  I remembered to just slow down.  Woodworking is to make me calm.  Let me pause here.  I am not saying that alcohol is the solution to ones problems.  I rarely drink.  Just this day, I felt like having a cold one and did.  And no, I am not trying to advocate drunken woodworking, but I do weigh 270 and a hard apple cider is not going to impact my judgment.  I am just telling the story as it happened.  My wife asked me what happened and she listened to me while I vented.  She reinforced what I was thinking and just turn what I had intended to turn.  These pens are supposed to be for fun and some side money to fund the woodworking.  Focus on what you wanted to accomplish and knock it out.  If you don’t that is ok too.

After relaxing for about 30 minutes, I headed back to the shop, put away all the pens that I originally had no intention on turning, and only left out the ones I had planned on turning.  I placed them in the order I wanted to turn them to maximize my time (meaning I put the wooden ones together and the acrylic ones together, along with the type of pen, so I did not have to change the bearings but once.  The result, I turned 12 pens, each in about 15 minutes, just under 20 if you include the finishing and assembly.  If I had just done this to begin with, I would not have wasted an hour and a half on that other stupid pen I had to throw away.

The moral of these stories, if you want to woodwork fast, SLOW DOWN.  This gives you time to think through your project, measure twice and cut once, and get your project done in a reasonable time period with minimal frustration and maximum satisfaction.

You know the sad thing here.  I apply this principle at the office.  Why did not I not apply it sooner on my woodworking I will have to explore at some other time.

Quick Tip

The quick tip was inspired by Mark, who recently built an amazing canoe.  It is absolutely stunning.

Create a project log – log all the time you spent on your project.  You can learn from the log:  where you went wrong; what you did right;  where did you waste your time; how to improve for next time.

Check Out Alan’s Desk he built for his wife on his Lumber Jocks page.

The post AW #016 – The Simplest Way To Woodwork Fast appeared first on Avid Woodworker.

In Episode number 15, I talk about when to build vs when to buy that next woodworking shop project.  If you are like me, you sometimes struggle with that dilemma.  I see a router station, drill press table, new storage system, or cool system or parts to build cabinets quickly at the store or on line and say, “That is nice!”  But then you say, but I can build that . . why should I spend money on that?

Then I get into my shop and suddenly have the following types of conversations with myself  . . . “ok well my wife really wants me to finish this table, but if I make this new workbench I would probably work a lot faster;” or . . . “gosh, if I could rebuild my router table to collect dust better, and allow me to adjust the router bit level faster I might use it more” . . .  or “if I would only build a drilling station to hold all my cordless batteries and drills, then I would always have a place to put drills and drill bits when I finish working with them.  But, I told my wife I would finish my dining room table before Thanksgiving.  Maybe I should go ahead and buy that new station so it will help me finish that project.”    

As the circular cycle of ‘I can build it vs. do I have the time to build it’ continues, I sometimes start to research the prices online to see if you can find what I am interested in cheaper somewhere else.   The next thing I hear is my wife coming in the shop and saying, “I Thought you were coming in here to woodwork. What have you been doing for the past two hours?”  WHAT?  I JUST LOST TWO HOURS OF WOODWORKING TIME?  ARRRGGGHHHH”

Well maybe that has only happened to me . . . a couple of times.  So, I finally got sick of losing precious woodworking time trying to make these decisions.  Last year when I simplified my shop, I also decided that I was going to put my shop on a budget like the rest of my life.  I decided that I prefer room to move in my shop over lots of stuff in it and got rid of a ton of tools that I simply never touched.  If I had duplicates, I got rid of them, unless I used them for cub scouts.  I did not want to continually get sidetracked with debates about shop projects.  So, I decided to ask myself three simple questions when it comes to building shop projects vs purchasing them.

I am going to share with you the three things I consider when trying to work through my purchasing dilemma.

1)            I first ask myself “Does the shop project that I am considering purchasing fully or nearly fully satisfy my needs.”  In other words, I don’t want to spend $100 on something that I have to then spend hours modifying to meet my needs.  If I need something for a specific task that I am going to use repeatedly, I want to make sure that it is set up in a way where I love using it.  If the answer is no, I will most likely custom build that project, but I still consider the following two questions.

2)            I consider my time and how much is it worth vs. how much the project costs itself.  This answer is highly dependent on your current circumstances.  If you woodwork for a living, you should be able to answer this question easily.  If not, you may be struggling financially as a woodworker.  But, I am not going to get into that here.  If you woodwork as a hobby, you may find this more difficult to answer.  For example, as a lawyer, I bill out at $400 per hour (and no, I do not bring this money home.  I am part of a firm, so it goes to pay the firm expenses – and sometimes I, as the business owner, have to skip a paycheck).  In the shop, I cannot say that my time is worth $400 per hour.  I am on a strict budget at home in the shop.  But, when I started selling the pens I turn a few years ago, I decided that I wanted to make sure I made at least $15 per hour on my pens.  That number has gone up recently only because I have gotten faster at making them.  Now I am at $30 per hour.  But, you get the idea.  If you think your time in the shop is worth $20 per hour, and you think a shop project will take you realistically 20 hours to build, then it might be worth purchasing that shop project if it costs you $400 or less (because you have to consider your material costs true).  If building shop projects is more about the experience and you are not too concerned about spending time on a shop project, then this question may not be as important to you as it is to me.

3)            What is my time deadline on a certain woodworking project.  In some cases, you may have promised a family member, a close friend, or even a client a certain project within a certain time period.  If you are running out of time to complete your project, and you know that a specific shop project will help you with completing your task, then you purchasing that project might be worth it to avoid damaging that relationship or that person’s confidence in your ability to complete projects as promised. The next your spouse considers your plea to build that piece of furniture, she/he may just go out to the store and buy it because they did not want to wait months.

So, I applied these questions to one of my most recent purchases, a drill press table that I attached to my drill press, and I am so happy I did.

Drill Press Before

Drill Press Table Package

The post AW #015 – When to Buy vs Build Your Next Woodworking Shop Project appeared first on Avid Woodworker.

In Episode 14 of the Avid Woodworker Podcast, I wanted to discuss woodworking balance.  I don’t know about you, but my order of priority in life is faith, family, work, woodworking, health, and podcasting.  There are sometimes that I wish I could either move woodworking above my work in priority or actually make woodworking my work.  But without the work part, I don’t have the money for woodworking.

There are times where I have put woodworking above everything, only to hear about it later from the family.  You heard in an earlier blog that I have been putting woodworking above my health, which contributed to me getting to sick last year.  I am working on that, but for now, woodworking has still been ahead of my health.  I need to find a better balance here.  Or, perhaps combine woodworking and health by using only hand tools.  

To set the stage for this topic and what was the inspiration for this subject, I have to give some background.   For the past two months I have not been able to get to the woodworking like I wanted to for the following reasons.

1)     The cub scouts’  ‘crossover’ bridge has been in my shop for past two months.  So, while I have been working with wood, it has not been doing what I want to do.  In case you do not know what a crossover bridge is, it is the ceremonial bridge that the cub scouts cross over to become boy scouts.  We had been repairing it and refreshing it as part of the Webelos II project they had to do to cross over to boy scouts.  Part of the refreshing the bridge involved paint, so I had to put away my other projects because I did not want scouts to get paint all over my ambrosia maple or my slabs of walnut.

2)     The cub scouts have also used by shop to work on their arrow of light and plaque that will hold their arrow of light.

3)     We had snow here in Georgia not once, but twice.  These two weeks of snow put us seriously behind at work.  At one point we were so far behind in revenue, I was going to have to lay off half the law firm.  I even had to skip a paycheck.  Fortunately that is behind us and things are ok now and we made up for the lost weeks of work.  Needless to say, for past 2 weeks we have been killing it at work, leaving no free time for woodworking.

4)     I have been spending some serious time into trying to set things up at the office so I don’t have to work like a madman anymore, which would give me more time for family and woodworking.

So, now you know, I have not been able to woodwork.  I have been itching to make something, build something, and create a useful work of art!  So, last weekend, my shop was still a mess with items from crossover bridge.  My podcasting set up was a mess.  Months prior, I had thrown it together with scrap MDF to hold the mixer, computer, monitor, microphones Limiter gate, etc.  It worked ok, but it was not finished and wires were laying everywhere.

On Saturday, I decided to strip down my podcast station with the idea of fixing it, hiding wires, build the electronics into the table itself, and finishing the station.  I only had a few hours to work on it on Saturday, and had plans to finish it on Sunday.

Sunday came around, and my oldest son said, “I want to do something with you outside and turn off the TV and Video games.”  Wow!  How often does that happen?  But, I reeeaaaaalllllyyyyy wanted to finish my podcasting set up.   So I said, “You must be bored of your video games.  Let me buy you a new one so you can play all day and I can keep working in the shop on my podcasting station. “

I am totally kidding.  I, of course, set my project to the side, and we went outside.   How often does a 11 year old choose to go outside with his old man rather than play video games.  You have got to jump on that, no matter where you are in your woodworking.

What was even more amazing than my son coming to me to do something with me, was the confirmation I later received that I had made the right decision.

All the rain, snow and ice the past 12 months have destroyed my back yard.  I convinced my son to work with me on cleaning up the back yard by telling him we can build a huge bond fire in the fire pit with all the branches and leaves we pick up.  Bingo.  Boys love building fires.  I actually experienced several other learning lessons that day, and I know that this is a woodworking, not a parenting podcast, so I won’t go into those here.  It turned out to be an awesome day and we made a huge dent in cleaning up the back yard.

Here is where it comes full circle back to the woodworking. We had gotten the fire going really good.  So good, we just decided to cook dinner right over the fire.  So while cooking, my son said, “Today was awesome!  We need to do this more often.  I just wish it weren’t so muddy out here.  Why don’t we make a wooden platform out here so we don’t have to worry about the mud when it rains. “  Wahoo!  Back to woodworking, but with the son now.   Now I can combine two of my priorities together, woodworking and family.

All set up because I set my woodworking aside for an afternoon to spend time with my sons in the back yard.  We turned what would normally be a chore into something fun and now I have a spring woodworking project.

The Episode Quick Tip – Don’t miss opportunities to practice your finishing techniques

Ok, so I am going to try and add something new to the podcast. For lack of a better term, I will just call it the Episode Quick Tip.  It follows the same balancing theme, but inside the shop . . . balancing woodworking projects with woodworking skills and shop projects.

Recently, I have been struggling between devoting my entire time to making one heck of a workshop and getting back to certain furniture projects that I started or promised to build.  But, I cannot devote my entire time to shop improvement because, frankly, that would not be fair to my Wife.  She has made it clear in a loving way (and I do not disagree with her), that if I am going to spend time in the shop away from the family, it should be to benefit the family with a useful work of art the family can use.  The reasoning is, after all, what partially drew me deeper into woodworking in the first place.

In the past when I worked on shop improvement projects, I rushed through them so I could get back to my furniture projects.  This past weekend, however, I realized how this can really be short changing me as a woodworker.  The following paragraphs explain what I am talking about.

As I indicated above, I decided last weekend to work on my podcasting station and improve it.  I was unfinished, had electronics stacked on top of each other, and wires were everywhere.  I originally started with idea that I would just re-organize the station and move some of the electronics to under the table, where I would also store most of the wires.  But then I decided that I could paint the MDF and seal it up.  It was already getting stains and marks on it.  I decided to use paint because I have way too many cans of paint my basement and I need to get rid of them by using up the paint.

So, after I had painted it, I decided that I wanted the top to feel silky smooth.  I grabbed an old can of poly and began to wipe it on top of the paint.  But, between the cold basement and the age of the polyurethane, the finish did not sit well and there were all kinds of brush strokes on the top.  It looked terrible.  I started to say, oh well, nobody will see it anyways (which is what I said the first time I put the station together).  It was then that it hit me.  This is an opportunity to practice . . . an opportunity to try new ways to finish a project without worrying about screwing up because nobody is going to see the station but the family.  Yea, I am going to spend more time on each individual shop project, but I can practice certain techniques and ideas so I do not try them for the first time a project that really matters.

In summary, use your shop projects as an opportunity to practice your finishing techniques.  For me, finishing is my biggest weakness.  It is obvious to me now why.  I never practice.  I practice woodworking techniques when I make my shop improvement projects, but I never finish them.  I am going to start now.

Until next time, I hope everyone can get into their shop and build useful works of art.

The post AW #014 – Finding Wood-Life Balance – In and Out of the Shop appeared first on Avid Woodworker.

A Woodworker’s idea of a Valentine’s day card

Ok, I don’t know about you, but while I love to get nice things for my wife, I hate paying $6 to $10 for a flipping valentines day card. I still do it from time to time,but when I can, I like to make my own card. I got married nearly 14 years ago. Our first valentines day as a married man, I decided to make my own Valentine’s Day card . . . out of wood. This was around 2001, so I was just beginning to get more and more into woodworking.

I did not have many tools, but I did have a pile of scrap wood at the time. So, I took two scrap pieces, free handed the shape of a cool heart, and cut out two hearts using a cheap jigsaw (I still own it and it is time for an upgrade). I then used my router I had gotten as a wedding present to round over the edges (how is that for a wedding present). I painted the hearts red, attached a small hinge, and then, using a black sharpie, wrote my own passage to my Wife. In case you were interested, here is what it said:

“To the most beautiful wife a husband could ever ask for:
From the moment I met you, I knew you were something special. When you made me a card for your 1st Valentine’s Day, I knew I could not let you go. So, for our 1st Valentines day together as husband and wife, I wanted to get you something from my heart and soul and mind rather from a store, Love Leh”

Use Woodworking to let her know you care

Ok, I hope that I did not get too mushy for you. But, even if you are not normally a very mushy kind of woodworker, that is ok, because I had one heck of a Valentine’s Day (if you know what I mean). My Wife still has that card. She has put it in her cabinet called Aunt Molly. Aunt Molly is a cabinet built entirely by hand about 175 years ago and has been in her family that long. It has personal items in it from various family members, including items from a great, great, great grandfather who fought in the Spanish-American war. So, it meant a great deal to her.

Have you ever made a Valentine’s Day card out of wood? If not, try it. You can do it in a weekend, and it it may be the best card she ever got.

You can make it however you want – paint it, stain it, you can use MDF if you are painting it. It does not have to be fancy, but you can make it that way if you have the time. Listen to the podcast for other things you can do.

My “card” was about 8 inches across, but make yours however you want. There is no ‘cut’ list for this one.

Shout Outs

Thanks to Aaronlee who posted a Five Star review on iTunes: “Thumbs Up! Leh, Just happened upon this podcast and finished listening to your first episode. As a practicing engineer working 50-60hrs a week myself, I can relate to the issues a work schedule coupled with spending time with the significant other can have on finding shop time…much less project time! I look forward to listening to them all and hope that you will have more to come in 2014!”

Sean Rubino – commented on the website
Hi Leh,
I was wondering if you have heard of GA Sawmill Services? I believe they are in Fayetteville. I was on the phone with a friend last night and he told me the bought nearly 10 BF of spalted figured maple for $20! That was a single 8/4×7″x96″ board. Here in CA that would run well over $100. Just wanted to let you in on that source.
Keep up the good work with your cast.

He has his own blog at http://spunjinworks.wordpress.com/ and he recent participated in a community build started by Chris Wong of Flair Woodworks called the “Shop Stool Build-Off.”

The post AW #013 – A Wooden Valentine’s Day Card appeared first on Avid Woodworker.

Oh my!  It has been forever since I was able to podcast!  Between loosing several weekends to illness / busting it at the office / and certain life events, I have not had a spare second.  Even though I am still sick, I wanted to publish a podcast to get back into the flow of things.  So, I am apologizing up front.  This is not my best episode, but I am releasing it anyways to get back into the flow of things.

Today’s subject really has a simple answer.   When life keeps you out of the shop and interrupts that big project, change your focus to little things, at least until you have the time to devote to that big project again.  What did I do?  I turned some pens and bottle stoppers on my lathe and started making wooden boxes out of scrap wood to protect certain electrical plugs around the yard.  My Christmas light obsession was being crushed by record levels of rain.  I was not about to spend 60 hours putting up Christmas lights and they not work due to the GFI tripping in the rain.   So, the problem areas were protected by small wooden boxes that I painted black.  I got 75% of my lights to work, despite the second highest amount of rain in Georgia recorded history.

I am looking forward to 2014 and making it the best year ever!  Until next time, I hope everyone can get into their shop and build useful works of art.

The post AW Episode # 012 – When Life Interrupts Your Woodworking appeared first on Avid Woodworker.