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This Totally Sucks

Har har.

This weekend I finished reorganizing the shop and got the new dust collector installed.  Three gated drops all kept at 4″ pipe.  Table saw, radial arm saw and a 3″ diameter vacuum flex hose at the end at the main workbench. One switch turns on the DC and then gives power to the table saw.  The top outlet gives power to the switch and bottom outlet. At first I was going to just leave the outlet in the dust collector room. But, although having a cord plug in and go into the wall looks sort of odd, I’m already glad I left another outlet available.  A hinged door makes emptying the DC bag easy.

I enclosed the table saw as much as I could.  This way the vacuum works optimally. The board on the side with the motor is easy to remove with wing nuts if I’m tilting the blade. It has enough flex to it to move the table saw to accommodate larger boards.  I’ve already added an extension cord to keep the cord out of the way a bit more.

Previously when I had the dust collector hooked up to the radial arm saw, the flew hose had to get down to 2″ in diameter to fit the dust chute. This severely limited the air movement of the dust collector.  I made sure this time to keep the diameter 4″ the whole way.

At $5.00 a piece new, I was glad the dust collector I bought came with 5 gates. Unfortunately they were all caulked and taped to other bits of flex hose and pipe that didn’t fit into what I was doing.   I was able to quickly sand off the old caulk on the gates to get a better seal.

Fun times!

Shop Reorganization

So far the project I’ve put the most time into is how the shop is set up. And the last few days have been no exception. Probably because it’s a relatively small space, and also because I keep buying or acquiring tools with a large enough footprint that I can’t just throw them in a drawer.  This reminds me, my new years resolution is to not buy any more tools until I make some seriously cool stuff with the tools I have.  (This also includes the making of tools, check out Matthias Wandel’s Pantorouter and the videos on that site. This guy is an engineer genius.)

Anyway, my dad came up last weekend to help me finish a small addition to the shop – a room for my dust collector.   It’s in the far left of this picture.   It was a bit of a chore since the entire building is not square or level or anything, and all of that sort of  folds in on itself in this weird corner.  I needed a new layout because of the dust collector, and because of a new cabinet with tons of drawers  that came from my grandpa.  My mom had the idea to switch the radial arm saw and the woodshelves.  This gave me an opportunity to paint the wall, and it means the pipes for the DC won’t have to running across the ceiling to the far end of the garage for the RAS  (you like how I say ‘opportunity to paint’ – Amber is very gracious to deal with this craziness.)  It may take a village to raise a child, but clearly it takes a family to raise a woodworker.

The planer cart is currently on hold. Not just because I still have to set up the ducts for the DC, but also because it fits nicely where there old vac used to go under the radial arm saw.  I’m sure at some point I’ll get very tiring of having to pick up this heavy planer and a cart will be born.  Maybe not one that goes under the table saw wing though.  I’ve found some good designs on converting that space into a router table.  Hmm..   New years resolutions are dumb.

Video Zine Review

The first of, hopefully, many – here is the first video zine review.  I already have the second one all thought through.  It won’t be nearly as long. And, frankly, it’ll be much more entertaining.

I get to do this at work.  That’s pretty rad.

Feb 4th and 5th

Feb 4th in Deland.  Email me for the address.

Feb 5th in Jacksonville

Plan ahead.

 

Me and My Boss’s, Boss’s, Boss’s Boss.

The Mayor.

The Big Picture Catch-Up

I don’t think I’ve had a few spare hours to sit down and really add much of consequence to this blog.  I’m taking that as a good sign – it’s means I’ve been busy with too many cool things to have downtime at a computer.  Especially having time to load up tons of pictures.  But alas, I had some time today.

Pictures from San Francisco are all up.

Day one
Day two
Day three
Days four to six

I didn’t do a whole ton of record shopping.  It’s neat to go looking at places, but I’m not sure what I need is to come home with more stuff to find places for. Besides, I used to be more on top of it with being into new bands, etc.  I still am to a degree, but nearly as much as when I did the distro / store.

Amoeba was neat in terms of having so much stuff. The prices were not so neat.  In fact, they weren’t so neat in any of the record stores I went too, except for Rasputin Record’s used LPs.   I think part of me thinking it’s overpriced is being spoiled from doing the distro / store and getting whatever for wholesale.  Oh well, still fun to look.  Aquarius Records was cool, although smaller than a thought it would be and I definitely suffered from being unfamiliar with a good deal of what they had. Thrillhouse Records was closed both times I walked there, once in the rain. Lame.

San Francisco certainly has a ton of neat things to do in such a small area.  I had a great time.

Academy of Sciences and Japanese Tea gardens was day one.   I bet the gardens are neat at any point, but the fall leaves were kicking in and that was nice.  Academy of Sciences had some  interesting exhibits.  I like the living roof.

I mentioned earlier in a post the Sutro Baths and Lands End.   That was the AM of my second day – the first day I had to myself while Amber was in her conference.  Fifty easy minutes by bus from where we were staying.   From that, bussed to King of Thai for a late lunch.  Then I bussed to the foot of the Golden Gate bridge.  The next few hours were spent walking that and relaxing on the far side.  A neat view- but very noisy, especially considering my morning was spent alone in the woods and on the beach.  Then I bussed over to Haight to walk to strip and apparently have people offer me drugs every other block or so.  That was sort of amusing.  I also discovered a new type of store that is full of taxidermy and skulls and associated shadow box displays for sale. Complete with lots of signs saying you can’t take pictures of anything.  They did, however, have a gallery in the back with lot of pictures of birds in suits like this.

That evening Stevie Wonder was playing at the conference Amber was attending.  Free drinks / food and Stevie Wonder, duh.  And Keytar solos.

The following day was just me at the DeYoung Museum, and then exploring the mission district.

Where I ran into another weird store.  This one had almost nothing in it, and was definitely more interested in (I’m assuming) like, the aesthetics of items and the look of the store.  I guess a lot of store are like that in some way.  I just didn’t understand it’s existence or use of space. Take for example a giant red tub with a fur in it soon as you walk in.  Or how they sold records, but only one.  I mean they had like 14 copies of it, but it was the same record.  I guess it’s a store for people who love browsing while shopping, but for totally unrelated objects,  aside from (again, assuming), the tangential relationship each item has to the fact that the owner likes them.

The next day I did the downtown thing and made generous use of the fact that my friend had me added to the guest list at the Museum of Modern Art.  I arrived two hours before they opened though, so I got to walk around and look at busy downtown people and things at the bay like saber-tooth tiger skulls and fog.

MOMA was really neat. They had a exhibit of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photography, which was weird since the book I brought to read for the trip was about the most influential 100 photographs of the century, and it had more than  few of his in it. They also had a neat display on photography and voyeurism. Again, stuff from my book.   After looking back through the pictures I took,  I noticed a real penchant I have for taking my own picture in front of modern art paintings.

Or in the case of the second one, not a painting, just modern art. I guess.

The next day Amber I went to Alcatraz.  I didn’t realize how big the island was.  We took a neat tour of the history of the gardens on the island, and then did the Alcatraz audio tour.   The PM was spent checking out the Fisherman’s Wharf area, the big highlight there was this group of acrobatic street performers.

The last day we all went to Sausalito!  It was a neat little town and oddly reminded me of a small waterfront own in Italy.   A street performer was doing these sculptures on the water front.

Not at all a bad way to spend a week!

I still have lots of pictures from Christmas and my grandmother’s funeral and repast to put up.

New woodshop developments / Craigslist success

So about a week ago I saw a Delta dust collector on Craigslist.

Despite having a relatively small shop space, I felt like getting one was a (literally) healthy move on my part, plus it’s something I can grow into with new tool purchases, etc.  And, ideally, it would lead to less time sweeping, and therefore more time for projects.

So I went to go check it out. It was originally $175, and over the phone we agreed to $150.

Anyway, I went to this guys house, got talking, and we settled on $150 for the dust collector with assorted ducts, gates etc. I mentioned I only have a few tools, but eventually I’m sure I’ll have a greater need for the dust collector.  It seems he was definitely wrapping up doing stuff in his woodshop, and had moved on to some laser etching thing – which was very cool.  Anyway, next thing I know he’s talking about some other tools he never uses and just hasn’t put on Craigslist yet.

And low and behold he had a 12″ Grizzly planer and let’s it go for an additional $50. A  FAAAAARRR cry from the lower end $400 Dewalt I was eyeing at Lowes.

After the initial ”oooos” and “ahhs” I had to figure out where exactly I’d be keeping these new tools, the dust collector was a little larger than I thought it would be.  After some measuring, and moving other large heavy things (although these without wheels) I got the dust collector all sorted out.  Ideally, next week I’m going to start working on some sort of  rolling planer storage that can be put away under a wing of my table saw.

This already has me looking into something like this video for a flip top one. And here are some pictures of another one I found.

Of course,  I also need to put the finish on these door and get them up over the 2nd window on the music side of the garage.

The bit of time I was in the shop this weekend was mostly me holding 4″ diameter pipe over my head and trying to secure it to the ceiling for the dust collector.

Good times.

Graphic Novel Workshop for parents and kids at the Main Library – Jan 15th at 3pm

On January 15th you and your child have the opportunity to learn why reading graphic novels are “really” reading! Katie Monnin, one of the most enthusiastic speakers I’ve ever heard, is coming to the Main Library.  She’s published two successful books about the literary merits of graphic novels, how to use them in the classroom, and why they rock!   As a parent, you get to come learn the who-what-when-why of you and your children reading graphic novels together, and your kids get to come and participate in a graphic novel creation activity.

It’s case it isn’t clear why this is awesome. 

1. The library is promoting graphic novels as quality reading for children to parents.  This ain’t yr grandma’s library program.

2. Having a program with an academic presenter on this topic is sort of a big deal.  We like to act like we know what we’re talking about, but those academic people really do!

3. Katie Monnin is awesome.  She’s was the speaker at our Children’s and Teen Department staff retreat last year and fully killed it.  This will most certainly be great, and educational, times had by all.

San Francisco Planning

So I’m planning how I’ll spend my time in San Francisco.

Muir Woods, check.  Alcatraz, check.  Aquarius and Ameoba records, check. Golden Gate park, Japanese Tea garden, Haight-Ashbury, King of Thai, Green Apple Books, check check check.  All exciting, all going to be awesome. 

And then I started reading about the Sutro Baths and Cliff House.  File under ‘Something I never knew existed and seems pretty neat.’ 

Wikipedia does well what it does here. And the Cliff House website has many historical pictures from the operational baths.

A good deal of the old footage in this video was taken in 1902 by Thomas Edison, Inc.