A new Era Begins
It has been over a year since my last post, with the final push in 2017 for my last year of real work, there was not much time for writing about woodworking. Since January we have been doing quite a bit of travelling to some very cool places, so shop time and blogging took second place.
Now that the warm weather is here, its time for me to settle into a retirement routine and find ways to stay productive. Lots of time for recreation and yard work, as well as plenty of shop time with some very interesting projects. During this past year I had completed a few small projects to keep myself engaged, some of which are below...
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A small commode to hold mittens and keys,
with a special spalted Elm top. |
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A Cherry desk with Ash legs and matching
bowback Windsor side chair |
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A Curly Cherry block makes a great
base for these Edison LED lamps. |
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This Asian style tea box with Curly Maple sides
and interior tops from one piece of Cherry |
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My cycling partner just happens to be a guy some of you may know,
I made a White Oak pen holder for his desk in the House of Commons. |
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| Of course I did quite a bit of turning! |
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Made a few Damascus knives from blade kits. Top two are
Thuya Burl and Brazilian RW for the paring knife. |
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We renovated one of our bathrooms this past fall, why buy a vanity
if you can make exactly what you want? |
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| A new set of cabinets for the Laundry Room at my Son's. |
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| Same Son, under the deck shed for yard implements. |
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A large size Cherry coffee table with opposing drawers and
storage cubbies. (Same Son!) |
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Atlantic Canadian themed Christmas
ornaments shaped like lobster buoys |
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| A variety of shaker-style boxes and trays. |
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| A couple of large mallets from a piece of Lignum Vitae I was given. |
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| A few gift boxes for an important upcoming event. |
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I bought this hammer head last year in UK at a show.
Made a hefty handle from Cocobolo. |
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| A few copper-roofed Cedar birdhouses for variety. |
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| A small shaker side table, with Cherry base and Elm top |
I guess I did get a few things completed after all!!
Keeping the brain occupied is important too...
And now to rekindle an old interest for me - writing. I have always done quite a bit of technical writing for my vocation, including a number of newspaper articles, newspaper columns, a computer science textbook, as well as a number of original articles when I was doing landscape and wildlife photography. Many years teaching computer science at a local university have kept these skills honed for me in the mean time.
I have taken a few stabs at writing in the woodworking realm, including
Woodturning Online, which still hosts a number of my build articles. In the past few years, I had written the editors of a few of the North American WW mags, without so much as a reply to my emails, which was kind of disappointing.
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My first major woodworking article hits the presses. A collaboration with
the awesome Kieran Binnie from the UK - on newsstands now! |
Fast forward to 2018 and with lots of time on my hands to write, I took a more direct approach to getting this started. I got in touch with
Kieran Binnie of OverTheWireless fame who has emerged as a clear and articulate young voice in the woodworking community; and we discussed a collaboration. The current issue of Furniture & Cabinetmaking, one of the premier woodworking magazines globally, published in the UK, has the fruits of our labours. The article’s topic focuses on rasps which have been of great interest to me since my time building guitars; during that time I had done some blogging as well as a few YouTube videos on how to use this versatile tool. Now woodworkers can learn how Kieran & I use these tools for themselves.
In addition, I am working on a couple more pieces for this same magazine, including my own project build piece scheduled for the fall. I hope to approach some other magazines abroad to gauge interest in my work in the coming months. Stay tuned for new developments in this domain.
Back to the shop...
