Wille Sundqvist carves a spoon at Country Workshops - 1982

Platform project

A few years ago I built a play structure for the girls, which they dubbed the "pirate platform:" zipline onto the platform, slackline, hammock, etc... 

Lovely place to take your morning coffee.

Recently, my youngest daughter Mae asked that I build another, maybe with the possibility of adding a treehouse at some point.  We will see...

Main beams hoisted and bolted into position.  I was super thankful for my brother's help on this part of the job.  Each beam was super heavy, made of two 2 x 12 x 14' pressure treated (and wet!) boards.  Did not have a block and tackle, so it definitely took two people to get them into place.  Thanks bro!

 Joists now span the gap between the beams.  One challenge I had was after the end caps went on, how to adjust the position of the platform on the beams.  I laid boards out where I thought they should go, but on second look the whole platform hanging over one side more than I liked.  How to slide everything over?

Answer? Counterweight.  That board dangling just off the ground is tied to lines that run up through pulleys and then down to the joists.  This relieved just enough weight for me to push the platform around on the beams and center it.

 How to add the endcaps when I am the only one on the job?  Answer: use joist hangers upside down, which now guide the cap onto the joists, ensure the joists are equally spaced, and keeps the cap from falling to the ground.  Made sense to me at least...

 Not easy to screw those caps into place.  Climbing gear made the job easier, and fun.

 The client came by for a peak at the progress.  She seemed quite happy.  Love the overalls!

 Joists, end caps and blocking is done.  Feels pretty firm.  Time to start decking.

Final result.  Enough room to hold a party, though I gotta get railings and a staircase up before we do that.  But it has a nice view of "Blueberry Hill" across the way.

This was another big project, building a gravel patio on top of this hill.  Four yards of 3/4" gravel up there.  Had to rent a small tractor for that job...

Finished just in time for "Jug Band" Camp.  Here a few of us are sitting out on top of Blueberry Hill, on the new gravel patio, making noise.  You can see a six-person tent on the platform in the distance.

New shop

Settling into a new shop space, and it makes me happy. 

For the past thirteen years we have lived "on campus" at the school where I work. I am very thankful for that time in our lives, especially as it let us save money for a getaway in New Hampshire.  My first shop was set up there, which meant most of my woodworking happened during vacations.  But this spring we finally moved off campus and into our own home (just a few miles down the road from my job.) 

It is a great little house for a lot of reasons, but I was especially excited about the possibilities for a basement workshop. 

You can see it has a fireplace, which took a bit of cleaning before it would function.  The chimney sweep said it had not been cleaned for years... 

But once I got things sorted, it is now feeling homey, especially when I have the fire going.

I am still sorting out the lighting situation, and I need to paint and get tool racks up.  But this is a good start.  Makes me happy.

Mbiras/Kalimbas

Winter affords the carver a range of pleasures: the joy of carving by the fire on a long winter night, giving away craft during the holidays, and scoring that new tool.  But it also comes with challenges.  In the northeastern U.S., winter means substantially drier air in the workshop.  Drying times suddenly shorten, and what once took days or even weeks to settle into its final shape now snaps to form in a matter of hours.  For the bowl turner this means treating all but the thinnest work very carefully, wrapping it up in cloth or paper bags, burying it in shavings, etc...   Add to this the fact that some of us lucky souls have a wood stove or fireplace in our workshop.  I moved into a new home recently, and my new shop has a working fireplace.  I can not tell you how awesome this is.  Just sweep the shavings into the fireplace, toss a match, and viola--a clean and warm shop.  But this wonderful feature is not so wonderful when you find a batch of bowls ruined by overly hot and dry air.

If this has happened to you, and you don't know what to do with the bowls with the checked rims, you might try building a "mbira."

These African instruments are pretty easy to make.  Flatten the rim of the bowl (which lets you carve out the cracked lip where the rings were tight).  Plane a thin top (I used pine here, but I am told that the material used for the top of an instrument has a big impact on the sound quality.  Koa? Spruce? Mahogany?)  Glue a block of wood to the underside of the top and put t nuts into the block, into which you can anchor the screws that hold the aluminum rod above.  Glue the top onto the bowl, trim to shape, and bore a sound hole.  The silver bar is aluminum (easy to machine), smaller bar is brass (looks nice and matches the brass screws), and the tines are made from a sewer rod (a new one!)  You tune the instrument by pushing the tines in and out to get the right tones.  Lots of different tunings--I tuned mine to the C-scale, diatonic--good for jingle bells.