Consumerism

You may have guessed that I loath consumerism. As a person that "does" things for himself, from homemade butter, bread, veggies, building most of my furniture, I usually abhor marketers and peddlers attempting to sucker people in.


However when a certain beloved tool manufacturer puts up a free shipping deal around tax return season (coincidence? methinks not), who could look upon their shopping cart and not buy the plane one has been wanting-for since it's release? Certainly not this guy. I caved and set myself up.

I plan to give customer service a call to thank them, and inquire about acquiring a second fence, so that I can swap fences rather than applied wooden fences. That seems potentially easier, though maybe wood fences with threaded inserts and machine screws would work as well.
On happy accidents... I found that with a heavier cut one can produce spills with the Veritas Skew Rabbet (Veritas Moving Fillister). I don't think they are as tight as a dedicated spill plane, but I'll be able to get a feel for them before I build one.

Bench On Bench

After brushing on the last coat of shellac, and getting ready to wax and assemble the blanket chest I started a very important thing, thinking about the next project of course.

After working on a real bench for a whole week, getting used to the bench on benches at PFW I really felt I needed to invest in some serious benching to progress further. While I'm still stuck with my landlord's "benches" I can at least tackle dovetailing and other workholding with this...


Okay, it's not as sexy as the bench on bench at the bottom of THIS page, I want. But it will do the job admirably. I've also started thinking of new projects, and ordered the piece of antique glass I want for the Key Cabinet, so after today I feel great. I'm also in touch with Mike Wenzloff about trouble-shooting my assembly of the backsaw kits I bought a while back. I really need a this fine dovetail saw and cross cut backsaw for some of the work I have planned.

New Lathe!

As luck would have it I had some disposable income waiting for something good to come along (read: didn't get a chance to put a LV order in) I saw that woodcraft was having a sale, on lathes and chucks. Lathes are one of my favorite tools and one of the only powered tools I really enjoy using. Luck also drove my girlfriend and I to Allentown to meet a mutual friend, 8 minutes from a woodcraft store. This is called fate. Picked up the Rikon mini-lathe and the Nova chuck spent time with the friend, then drove home. This morning I rearranged my shop a bit and set up the lathe. I'm in the process of sawing out a bowl blank to try on the chuck, I haven't used a chuck or WoodWorm yet so I'm very excited.

Below is a shot of my current workspace, boxes are smothering part of the shop in front of the metal lathe but I'll sort it out soonly.

Welcome to my shop

Hello and welcome. I'm Trevor Walsh, a senior about to graduate from the Industrial Design program of Philadelphia University; then it's on to get my graduate degree in Technical Education where I plan on inspiring young people like me in the shop. 

I bit the woodworking bug after my first pine wood derby in Boy Scouts. As I was sitting on the front steps "filing" away at my chunk of wood with the abrasive concrete my dad came home with a coping saw, my first ever tool. We still have it. I moved on to metal and build robots on a high school team involved with F.I.R.S.T. (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) founded by Dean Kamen (that guy who invented the Segway). School became about product design and after four years of it the corporate world is where I decided to never to go; I think I can do good teaching, and tinkering in my shop. 

This blog is going to be about several things, metalworking, woodworking, and a place where they meet that I'll call toolmaking. I may also have some product design in there if I decide to run with the big boys and market my tools. 

So stay tuned, I'm going to be adding my plane making adventures and other projects as my busy final semester schedule allows.