The Beach

It's been a long time since my last chainsaw therapy session with Dan. It felt good to be back in the saddle. Dan set up a couple small but tasty Cherry logs to chew on.

More Flattening

Here's a 9' section of a very long 31.5" X 5" reclaimed Glulam that my friend Karl at Vancouver Timber had resawn/sliced in half for me (just under 2.5" each). understandably, they cupped when sawn, & were in need of some flattening.

Probably the biggest slab I've had on the router flattening jig yet & it coped pretty well with a nice flat result. Final slab thickness 2.125". I figured out a way to quickly set the jig up in the outdoor work area instead of on my workbench; some rough sawhorses with t-nuts/bolts/angle iron for leveling the jig. Definately an outdoor pursuit, it's messy business. The objective: countertops for my kitchen food prep tables.

Beach Time

There's nothing like a day at the beach to forget about your never-ending shop construction project. Great day out with Dan, his big rig & more Elm than we knew what to do with.

Harvesting & Housekeeping

Nothing makes you feel like more of a man than cutting logs with Dan's new monster rig. The inaugural firing-up of Dan's 6' bar went well, and we were pleased, and we felt like real men. Sliced up a nice wide crotch piece of Manitoba Maple (Box elder) and a Birch. 12 slabs, a good days takings.

I decided to do some housekeeping before xmas, in between working on the panels for my doors, so the shop roof has been insulated, and a drying shed has been built in the backyard compound.

Here's a cool clip about a man whose in the zone after 30 years of dedication to his craft. I like that he's found the zone, and his multi-medium, japanese influence combination, nice work.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/item/19284/pro-portfolio-michael-hurwitz-planks-into-poetry

Raw Materials

I like the romance of giving found objects a new life. I always think about the amount of energy that went into making a piece of steel that is now considered garbage. Likewise, there's no better way to work wood than from start to finish, where it's been harvested from a fallen city tree, carefully dried, then milled & used in a piece of furniture or architectural millwork. Here's some gorgeous slabs of Elm I harvested with my buddy Dan last winter, using his Husqvarna 2100/36" bar alaskan mill. Reclaimed timbers are equally romantic to work with and present their own unique design possibilities. Often these possibilities exclude fine woodworking (reclaimed timbers are often softwood or perhaps because the wood is traumatised, or has old bolt holes drilled through it) and it takes me in a different direction. Here's a big load on the bandsaw, a 12X6 reclaimed yellow cedar that I used in a mantle piece.