Hello Galoots,
I have been lurking for only a short time, but I have a couple questions
on issures I would like to bring up and figured it was about time I
started participating.
I joined the Army in 1997 after having spent a bit of time as a band
director in the public schools. I enlisted as a trombone player and was
sent to Germany. (This all seems a bit off-subject, but stay with me, it
gets relevant. OK, maybe not, but if I can't ramble here, where can I?)
The post I worked at had a woodshop available to Soldiers to work at and
there was a retired Sergeant Major who worked there by the name of Don
Mann (sadly, now deceased).
Don was a character, but a good teacher. I wanted to build some
furniture for my barracks room, and didn't know fine furniture from
knock down junk, but he educated me on using good designs and good
joints. I would go to him with an idea of what I wanted to do and
somehow he would get me to change my mind to make something that wasn't
junk, but instead quality furniture. All the pieces I built there I
still have.
This was definitely NOT a galoot woodshop. But, after a small pine
bookshelf and a really nice oak coffee table, I decided I wanted to
build a blanket chest. My idea was a design with panels, stiles and
rails, and somehow he talked me into doing an heirloom piece from black
walnut with handcut dovetailed joints.
He showed me what tools to buy (handtools in a shop like this were
dificult, if not impossible to keep tuned well), and had me spend
about a month practicing on scrap before I was good enough to start on
this project.
This project was going great, and was almost finished when disaster
struck! I met the love of my life. Somehow that chest has been in a
state of almost done ever since.
Somehow after that time I had been back to that shop to do a couple
little projects, but always wanted to get that chest finished.
In the beginning of 2004 I got married, my wife (who is German) bought
an apartment in Munich, and I was deployed to Iraq.
My wife and I had fairly comparable (in pay and benefits) government
jobs, and being sent to Iraq made it easy to decide which one of us
would give up our job to stay with the other. Working for the German
Patent Office, she wouldn't ever get deployed to a war zone.
While in Iraq, I was lucky and got to play my trombone a lot. Not
everyone in my band did. But still, there was a LOT of down time. During
this time I started thinking about my upcoming life as a civilian after
Iraq, in Germany, and in our new home. And most importantly, how I was
going to set up my shop!
In Germany, it is common to buy an appartment, something I am not used
to having grown up in Montana. Anyway, Germans are very polite and
conscientious neigbors. Very rarely do you hear noise from the other
owners. If you have to make noise, such as drilling holes to hang
pictures, you can only do it from 8 AM to noon, and 3 to 6PM Monday
through Saturday.
You get my drift here. If I wanted a table saw, I wasn't going to be
able to use it much, especially when I got a day job. Not to mention the
space. The only space I have for woodworking is in the storage area we
have in the basement. Our cubicle is only 9 by 10 feet, and SWMBO does
not want to dedicate that space to woodworking, I have to share it with
our storage.
So, I spent a year in Iraq thinking about how I was going to have my own
shop at home. Really, the only way is the Galoot way. Power tools are
pretty much out in my shop. The only tailed thing I have is a little $40
drill press I couldn't pass up.
The problem is, I don't really know much about hand tools. I read a lot
of books on the subject in Iraq. The next step was I bought a lot of
tools from all kinds of places. I got a nice set of planes from Steve
Knight, who I never got around to sending a picture of me with his
planes in Iraq, like I promised him. Sorry, Steve. I got some more
chisels from Woodcraft, and a whole bunch of old junk from *Bay. My plan
was to perfect my technique there and start building stuff here.
Basically, I only got to improve my sharpening skills, and I started
learning to use the tools when I got back.
The look on the face of some of my collegues was priceless when they
asked me what I was making, and I replied "sawdust."
Anyway, this last weekend I finally got my shop set up more or less the
way I want it. The back wall is mine. I have my old junky storebought
bench in the corner as a stand for my drill press and a sharpening
station, on the back wall is the new bench I made (most of it I did at
my old Army woodshop, but some I did at home with handtools), and I
have storage for my tools and supplies, I have more light and power
fixtures I installed, and I laid down a PVC floor donated from my
mother in law over the cement floor that was creating a lot of dust.
What more could I want?
Here is a link to my newly remodelled shop:
http://community.webshots.com/album/551458230fCYcZU The object in the
middle of the floor taking up most of my free space is that old walnut
blanket chest. The plan is for that to be the next thing I finish!
Actually, this brings me to my first question for the porch -- How do I
get SWMBO to agree to find somewhere else for all of the other cr*p in
my workspace?
Anyway, for those of you brave enough to read this whole post, I am
sorry, I can not give you back the 10 minutes of your life you wasted
reading this. But to make it up, when you are in Germany, I will buy you
a mass of beer at the biergarten across the street from my house.
Tchuss,
Brian Eve
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